This past weekend I attended LongCon, a one day free event hosted by the Longview Public Library. I have a soft spot for libraries since I used to volunteer all through high school at my local library, and helped host many events held. It’s always a blast to bring the community together to enjoy events and make them feel welcomed (and to have a safe place). This is the main reason I jumped at the chance to be a part of this event.
I was asked to attend as a guest speaker, and be on a panel called “Problematic Favorite Characters”. As I have stated many times before, I love the villain most of the time in any series and so I was not hurting on characters to talk about at all for this panel. I ended up talking about Bakugou from My Hero Academia, as well as Ben Solo (also known as Kylo Ren) from Star Wars. I was losing my mind talking about Ben because I love him so freaking much, and he has reasons for being the way he is. Along with not needing to be redeemed for anything he has done, only wanting to and succeeding in finishing what his grandfather started. Saving the woman he loves from death. I would also like to point out many on the panel and attending said panel agreed with me. The last character I talked about was one of the OG bad boys in anime, Sasuke Uchia from the Naruto series. He’s a character I have always had a love/hate relationship with most of my life, and it’s honestly so fun to talk about his complex character.
Enough about the panel though (it was just super fun to do, and I hope I get to do more panels in the future!), let’s talk about the event some more. As the day progressed, I saw more and more people pouring into the library with big smiles on their faces. Even the local patrons who were just there to check out some library books, looked to be enjoying themselves and partaking in the event too. I stopped to talk to many little old ladies asking me about the event and them telling me how they loved seeing everyone dressed up having fun. They also seemed to enjoy checking out the booths selling their wares, which were located all through the library.
You could really see how well the event was planned out, the scheduling went off without a hitch, the panel, cosplay showcase/runway, author event, and then the lip sync battle. I have got to say the lip sync battle was a joy to watch, everyone was just giving it their all with their performances! I love it when you can tell how much fun the person is having and how much work they put into their routine.
I would also love to shout out to Jamie Zdybek (also known as Shouganeko online) for planning this whole event. He did an amazing job, and I think everyone had a great time because of his hard work. Another shoutout is needed for Ken Imagery (also known as Ken_Imagery online), he ran around all day recording all the events, grabbing photos, and running his own photo booth. These two did a really great job on Saturday at LongCon and made the day even better with their energetic personalities.
In the end, I think the Longview Library hosted an amazing event for their community and I hope to see LongCon come back next year!
Were you at LongCon? What did you think about the event? Feel free to leave a comment below or chat with us on Twitter/X at @TheConCollectve, Threads at @theconventioncollective, or Bluesky at @theconcollective.bsky.social
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