My thoughts about AGDQ 2020

AGDQ 2020 was one of the most amazing weeks I have ever experienced in my life. My Pokémon X run was in my eyes a very successful run at the event and the feedback I got from it was very positive. Thank you to everyone who watched my run. I'm very open to any positive or negative criticism, if you have any!

I have met a lot of people I had always wanted to meet.
In no particular order, I would like to mention a few people who made this trip this memorable:
- Gator. This guy is absolutely fuckin awesome. We had a shit ton of fun with him. I didn't know you before this event much, but you definitely made a huge part of this trip - and not only for me, but also for all of the people I did hang out with.
- Fran. I hate this guy. But I also kinda think he's not too bad. I even managed to make him watch an entire Pokémon X/Y speedrun, which is my biggest achievement of 2020 so far.
- Keizaron. This guy is amazingly supportive. Would've loved to hang around more with you, but whenever we did, I had a blast. I've always wanted to meet you and I was not disappointed at all. Given how close I got to you over the years, I was sad when we said goodbye to each other. Geuninely nice, always funny, and Happy Birthday!
- eddaket. Finally met the guy that makes my life as a speedrunner hard. Really loved having you around, especially had lots of fun with you on the couch for my run. Hope we'll meet again soon!
- Travis. Since day 1, giving us unexperienced EU people insight into American culture. Made us discover some good places. Very passionate about his TAS and I loved hearing about it and getting to see the Blue TAS before everyone else :)
- emray. I can only thank you for committing to your promise to join me for my run. I've always wanted to meet you and hope we will meet again whenever you get a run into a speedrun marathon?
- Juanly. Chicken.
- Gymfreak. Gymfreak's personality has really grown on me. I have rarely encountered someone so willing to go out of his way for others. Had a ton of fun with you at Universal!
- Shen. Really enjoyed your presence. You have been very welcoming and supportive, even if we hadn't really interacted before much. Always fun to talk to!
- Josh and Elliot. These guys basically just came to GDQ for me and my run. I was surprised by this and I am really thankful you guys did this. Had some nice talks with both of you and I am really grateful for the support you showed me. Hope that AGDQ will not have been the last time we meet.
- Pulse. Lowkey disappointed you couldn't stay for long, but whenever you were around we had a ton of fun. Thanks so much for your presence during my run and all the support I get from you, just like Josh and Elliot.
- Gminus. I didn't know much about you before AGDQ. That said, your constant good mood was contagious!
- My EU boys Araya, Dolany, Flutz, and weed. We've known each other for a while now, but thanks a lot for your support. Needless to say much more, luv y'all.

Also met a set of other people that I briefly talked to, but the list would be too long for this pastebin.
The event as a whole was epic, I'm glad we beat the 3 million mark! I will absolutely try to join another GDQ event in the future!

Sadly, some aspects of this trip were mildly disappointing:
- Despite my run being overall successful, I felt like my gameplay wasn't up to par. I did a bunch of mistakes that could have easily been avoided by focusing more on the actual run. Having had bad luck is not an excuse for not doing the plays around this bad luck. It made my run look messy and after rewatching it, I was very upset at myself for it.
- Gunner's and pokeguy's attitude toward me (and mostly toward mostly anyone from the list above) was unexpectedly cold and unsupportive. Besides gymfreak, not only did none of the members of their group bother spectating my run live, but none of them bothered even watching parts of it or asking for a summary of my run. Specifically pokeguy was acting very dismissively and exchanged basically no words with me. His constant sarcasm and toxic attitude (which so far I assumed was only an act in Discord) makes me wonder why he has even been added to the PSR admin crew, especially considering how visibly unseriosuly he takes this task anyway. As a result, I will also completely ignore these people from now on, since I was really disappointed by their behaviour.
- Lastly, I didn't get to hang around as much as I wanted with some people that I met and only briefly got to greet. I hope that we will catch up at some point!

That said, I hope that I will meet lots of my new and old friends again in the future, hopefully also on European soil at other events than GDQ :eyes:

Thanks for reading this far!

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Update:
I would like to address some questions and messages I got about some of what I mentioned in this pastebin:
- Do not worry, the negatives did by far not outweigh the positives for me. I had a blast at GDQ and whatever wasn't too great of an experience was actually nothing that impacted me too terribly. Especially about my run, my gameplay wasn't amazing, but people mostly enjoyed it and I did not get much negative feedback.

- Yes, some people I mentioned directly or indirectly reacted to what I posted here.
1) The most notable reaction came from pokeguy, who came forward and not mentioning that would be unfair toward him. To summarise, he understands my disappointment and would not react the same way anymore. I really appreciate his honesty and courage to talk to me about this. In hindsight, my anaylsis about his attitude was probably somewhat harsh and I'm sure that our future interactions will be much friendlier :)

2) This was mentioned as well, so I'm addressing this too: I'd like to clarify that I am neither disappointed nor upset about people's attitude that I did not really know and that did not really know about me either. People only tangentially (if even) involved in PSR not being interested in watching my run is understandable and I certainly don't expect them to go out of their way to do that. They were there to be with Gunner, they only watched his run, that's perfectly fine by me. I could have expressed that better. That said, you guys still missed out :)

3) Gunner.
His only reaction to my pastebin was to permanently ban me from his Twitch chat.
When I noticed this a couple of days ago, I had a good laugh.
I got banned, because I said that I was disappointed that he did not care - and in fact did not even act like he cared - about my run at AGDQ.
Gunner knew that I looked up to him, I had even told him that I was beyond happy about getting into GDQ at the same time as him, since he was the first ever speedrunner I watched and who basically got me into Pokémon speedrunning. I was subscribed to him for close to 3 years, donated to his stream several times. I was one of the only people who didn't pick sides whenever there was beef between Keizaron and Gunner. I even took some time to check some details about unplanned Kyogres for his run.
He knew all this. I expected nothing in return.
How Gunner does not understand that I can be disappointed by him not being present or watching my run is beyond me.
Him banning me for just saying I was disappointed is just hilarious. But I do actually feel sorry for him, because he probably does not even realise that he proved my point.

4) Everyone else
I'm really grateful for the amount of support I got from so many people.

5) Why I don't play X/Y on stream.
I realise some people who disovered me thanks to GDQ join my stream are surprised I am not doing X/Y runs. Sadly, X/Y is not a fun game to grind once your PB is not bad anymore. Also, playing X/Y for the weeks preceeding GDQ severely damaged the viewership on my stream, because newer games are just more popular. So for now, I will focus on Sword/Shield runs.