Arisia happened again! This time in 2016!
Yay, Arisia! Sho much fun. Although there's always a feeling of not having done all-the-things I could have, I think I still did OK :-)
Con-prep had a few wrenches thrown at it. First, I hosted game over the weekend, so I didn't have the energy/space to dig out and pack costumes. Then I was tired and distractable for every weeknight following, leading to late bedtmes and not that much packing or preemptive housekeeping. I emailed my VST about stuff for the con game on ... Tuesday or Wednesday, but then got an email from another member of his staff late Thursday night that none of the new stuff on my sheet would work, and they were totally unaware that I'd be gaming in Boston on Friday rather than in NYC on Saturday. So even less sleep Thursday night before the commute, yaaay.
Ran a bit late for the train with my friend, due to my wrenches, but at least we made the train and had an otherwise uneventful trip north. Am getting better at Amtrak-theory. Also, having a tablet with internet made the trip up feel way shorter than usual. The wifi on trains isn't awesome, but if I can get used to reading articles for class on my tablet then at least I'll have less stuff to lug.
Upon getting settled into the hotel, the badge line wasn't so bad for us b/c we printed our new Arisia-registration-form thingies at home. For those who didn't, crazy long badge line. At scale, about as bad as the first year of DCon's new system, but for different reasons? But not so bad.
My character sheet for the MES game was re-approved about a half hour before game started, so yay? I asked the VST who was on staff now, so I could email everybody if I was planning a trip, but got no reply. *shrugs* It was Cam/Anarch in-chron, but I was the only Independent Alliance PC in play, so she just kinda hopped around being a helpful little Giovanni. "Hi, I'm Angelica Dunsirn, would you like a chocolate? :D" And the responses were varied and very fun, lol. When the game cited 'independant' political interests, that really meant kindred unaligned with Sabbat, Anarchs, or Cam, so my PC didn't really have a dog in the race. She watched the Anarchs with amusement until she realized the local Cammies were being a bunch of wimps about standing up and claiming territory, so she did her best to prod them and eventually it helped? *shrugs* She's going for Emissary. She gave chocolate to Prince Biltmore, was fun :-) No new-but-experienced players came in to troll and burn the game, or play 'lets gak the lone Giovanni' so instead it was a lot of rp with n00bs, and it was super fun. Boston ran a really good recruitment game this year, and they're super friendly to new players. Really recharged my larp batteries.
While having game the first night wasn't as helpful for recruitment, at least it was convenient for me to get it out of the way early and then run amok. Well, speedwalk amok, running is a bit much for me. And the rest of con after that was a bit of a blur. Friday night I went to bed not too long after game b/c travel-tired. Saturday I wore the pleather-knit skirt that I made over the summer and never wore (or hemmed, yay for coated knits), and that worked out pretty well. With my patches-bolero that usually gets more attention than the costumes I spend weeks making.
There were ... panels, I'm sure of it. Oh, and shopping. On the train ride I used my tablet to note what I was and was not allowed to buy in the dealer's room. I got a pendant with Papa Legba's Veve on it, sew-on patches from a favorite vendor, chocolate, tea + honey sticks from my buddies at Tea & Absinthe. I only went over budget, and not by that much based on my standards, b/c I kept going back for more chocolate and honey sticks. I also missed part of a panel b/c I was having an in-depth conversation about Jungian mysticism with the proprietor of Hibernacula, so that was an ok trade-off :-)
Trying to remember the panels, but they're not really happening in my head in order. Before the larp there was a fun "Con Buddy Connection" thingie, which was like speed dating without the date. More like "here, just meet new ppl and talk to them for three mins, next!" Yay extrovert party! There was the fan guest-of-honor's panel that I missed half of, there was 'Arisia Fixes Hollywood' where a sometimes-MES-member on the panel largely insulted sewing as being un-badass, causing the lady next to me to start breathing fire at the panelist and I was like "Yep." And then another panel called "Everybody vs Everyone" which pitted all manner of fictional characters against each other in battles of might and wit. Another fun one about the Underworld, where I got annoyed at ppl making comments instead of asking questions. I reframed my comment into a question, you can do that, and then the moderator had to poke the panelists into answering it b/c they were so used to not getting questions from the audience at that point.
There was a panel about writing for performance that didn't give me much new info or ideas, tho the panelists were nice. After I mentioned I wanted to do audio-drama podcasting without the old-timey pastiche that American productions are annoying about, another audience member tried to 'help' me in the ways of old-timey pastiche as he'd only listened to half of the words I'd said in the first place. *shakes head*
Sunday I wore my Grey Council Steampunk costume, which many ppl admired as being pretty even if they didn't *get* it, and two ppl actually recognized me as Minbari without the spiel, so that was pretty nice. I skipped the Muppets in Purgatory larp b/c it would conflict with the Pride & Prejudice + Zombies dance, b/c that's the main reason I was wearing my Regency costume in the first place. There were some fun line dances, my partner was a not-creepy older gentleman but he had a hard time paying attention to the counting parts. And wow, quite a workout. As I didn't want to be late for another panel after, I sat out of the last dance, which turned out to be a line dance to Thriller which included iconic modern dance moves, and worked out so well! Yay! I'm a little sad I wasn't in it, but then again I wouldn't have been able to watch it all come together if I was dancing, lol.
The "Bible as Fantasy Literature" panel was actually really cool, and not judgmental or preachy at all. Apparently there will be a Christian themed book of SF short stories coming out soon. That was Sunday morning, as I remarked on the irony. The Curmudgeon panel was hillarious too, just like last year :-). 'Cross Cultural Costuming' was kinda meh. It seemed like the panelists addressed the elephant in the room by never doing cross cultural costumes to begin with, but remember to research. I already knew that, so I left after about 30 mins. 'The Doom Gloom and Despondancy Competition' was also pretty lackluster, especially after last year, but the lady who won did put on a good show. I didn't have to leave the room even once, tho, so little funny. I went to a panel about photography at cons which my friend was on, but when I got into the room late and there were only the panelists gabbing with two audience members, realized the folly of scheduling a photo-panel at the exact same time as the masquerade. Whups. The 'Paganism and pop culture' panel after that was pretty fun for me, tho. Gave me a lot of ideas about my podcast plans. Now if I could just write the darn scripts >_<
Overall, I think I was late to almost every panel I went to. I'm sure everyone asked for longer panels, but that only gave us 15 minutes of travel time between them, and there are ppl to talk to in the hallways, so I was always late. Whups. I didn't really do any other dances, and I totally forgot about the bouncy castle once I got to con. Whups again. Probably b/c it was in the ballroom furthest away from the lobby.
Also, only got the Whimsy ribbon this year. I really want to step up my ribbon game, but I don't know how. Hmm.
Food wise I did not get glutened, yay! Tho I do need to plan a wider food budget next time. Our first night at the pub, the waitress confirmed that it was the sauce on the steak tips last year that did me in, and she made sure it didn't happen again, yay for superwaitress! Bless the Westins! Still waiting to see if I caught any con-ick, but working in an university makes that hard to pin down :-P I did keep up with meds and vitamins all weekend, so I'm as hopped up on Zinc + C as usual.
Didn't end up at any room parties, but there were not many posted at any given time, very odd. Unless they were just more private this year. Tho for me parties are just about hanging around and geeking out w new & old friends anyway, and I got plenty of that in just hanging out in the lobby bar and the hallways between panels :-) Yay people! Behold the rare and awkward Geek Extrovert!
Arisia seems to put me into more of an introspective "Where do I want to be coming from *next* year?" mode than new years. Especially I am thinking about my costume plans (for DCon first), and my podcast/audiodrama idears. Wouldn't it be nice to have something like bizness cards for my podcast to pass around Arisia? They'd definitely be my target demographic. In general, 'calling cards' are something I really want to start carrying around at con, b/c useful. All the info on my Facebook and Etsy (and maybe more) stuff on one little card so I can talk to ppl more via social media.
If my CtD game continues apace, I might make a module of it to run at next Arisia? Not sure how that works, but I know who to ask about it. Working on my own piece for the Doom & Gloom Competition is daunting tho, b/c its been so long since I sang in front of ppl on the regular, and I was never a soloist.
Maaaaaybe I'll tap more ppl who already go to Arisia for Steampunk Babylon5 collusion. Plenty seem interested, and I can't get my NYC friends to go. On the other hand, when there's a GoT cosplay meetup, there's like ten of each character. I don't mind overlap, especially with such an amorphous concept.
But as for costuming... how does one get ppl to take photos of a big weird costume? Just wander back and forth in the lobby for a couple of hours? Get into the Masquerade (I have no idea how those work)? Also, nobody pays attention to Steampunk costumes unless they're wired to light up, so Ima have to figure out how to put that in too. *ponders* But I've got until DCon to figure it out.
Now I just need more spoons. I'm pretty sure I'd have the time if I didn't spend so much of it spacing out. *sigh*
<3 Chrysilla
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, http://chrysilla.dreamwidth.org/
Con-prep had a few wrenches thrown at it. First, I hosted game over the weekend, so I didn't have the energy/space to dig out and pack costumes. Then I was tired and distractable for every weeknight following, leading to late bedtmes and not that much packing or preemptive housekeeping. I emailed my VST about stuff for the con game on ... Tuesday or Wednesday, but then got an email from another member of his staff late Thursday night that none of the new stuff on my sheet would work, and they were totally unaware that I'd be gaming in Boston on Friday rather than in NYC on Saturday. So even less sleep Thursday night before the commute, yaaay.
Ran a bit late for the train with my friend, due to my wrenches, but at least we made the train and had an otherwise uneventful trip north. Am getting better at Amtrak-theory. Also, having a tablet with internet made the trip up feel way shorter than usual. The wifi on trains isn't awesome, but if I can get used to reading articles for class on my tablet then at least I'll have less stuff to lug.
Upon getting settled into the hotel, the badge line wasn't so bad for us b/c we printed our new Arisia-registration-form thingies at home. For those who didn't, crazy long badge line. At scale, about as bad as the first year of DCon's new system, but for different reasons? But not so bad.
My character sheet for the MES game was re-approved about a half hour before game started, so yay? I asked the VST who was on staff now, so I could email everybody if I was planning a trip, but got no reply. *shrugs* It was Cam/Anarch in-chron, but I was the only Independent Alliance PC in play, so she just kinda hopped around being a helpful little Giovanni. "Hi, I'm Angelica Dunsirn, would you like a chocolate? :D" And the responses were varied and very fun, lol. When the game cited 'independant' political interests, that really meant kindred unaligned with Sabbat, Anarchs, or Cam, so my PC didn't really have a dog in the race. She watched the Anarchs with amusement until she realized the local Cammies were being a bunch of wimps about standing up and claiming territory, so she did her best to prod them and eventually it helped? *shrugs* She's going for Emissary. She gave chocolate to Prince Biltmore, was fun :-) No new-but-experienced players came in to troll and burn the game, or play 'lets gak the lone Giovanni' so instead it was a lot of rp with n00bs, and it was super fun. Boston ran a really good recruitment game this year, and they're super friendly to new players. Really recharged my larp batteries.
While having game the first night wasn't as helpful for recruitment, at least it was convenient for me to get it out of the way early and then run amok. Well, speedwalk amok, running is a bit much for me. And the rest of con after that was a bit of a blur. Friday night I went to bed not too long after game b/c travel-tired. Saturday I wore the pleather-knit skirt that I made over the summer and never wore (or hemmed, yay for coated knits), and that worked out pretty well. With my patches-bolero that usually gets more attention than the costumes I spend weeks making.
There were ... panels, I'm sure of it. Oh, and shopping. On the train ride I used my tablet to note what I was and was not allowed to buy in the dealer's room. I got a pendant with Papa Legba's Veve on it, sew-on patches from a favorite vendor, chocolate, tea + honey sticks from my buddies at Tea & Absinthe. I only went over budget, and not by that much based on my standards, b/c I kept going back for more chocolate and honey sticks. I also missed part of a panel b/c I was having an in-depth conversation about Jungian mysticism with the proprietor of Hibernacula, so that was an ok trade-off :-)
Trying to remember the panels, but they're not really happening in my head in order. Before the larp there was a fun "Con Buddy Connection" thingie, which was like speed dating without the date. More like "here, just meet new ppl and talk to them for three mins, next!" Yay extrovert party! There was the fan guest-of-honor's panel that I missed half of, there was 'Arisia Fixes Hollywood' where a sometimes-MES-member on the panel largely insulted sewing as being un-badass, causing the lady next to me to start breathing fire at the panelist and I was like "Yep." And then another panel called "Everybody vs Everyone" which pitted all manner of fictional characters against each other in battles of might and wit. Another fun one about the Underworld, where I got annoyed at ppl making comments instead of asking questions. I reframed my comment into a question, you can do that, and then the moderator had to poke the panelists into answering it b/c they were so used to not getting questions from the audience at that point.
There was a panel about writing for performance that didn't give me much new info or ideas, tho the panelists were nice. After I mentioned I wanted to do audio-drama podcasting without the old-timey pastiche that American productions are annoying about, another audience member tried to 'help' me in the ways of old-timey pastiche as he'd only listened to half of the words I'd said in the first place. *shakes head*
Sunday I wore my Grey Council Steampunk costume, which many ppl admired as being pretty even if they didn't *get* it, and two ppl actually recognized me as Minbari without the spiel, so that was pretty nice. I skipped the Muppets in Purgatory larp b/c it would conflict with the Pride & Prejudice + Zombies dance, b/c that's the main reason I was wearing my Regency costume in the first place. There were some fun line dances, my partner was a not-creepy older gentleman but he had a hard time paying attention to the counting parts. And wow, quite a workout. As I didn't want to be late for another panel after, I sat out of the last dance, which turned out to be a line dance to Thriller which included iconic modern dance moves, and worked out so well! Yay! I'm a little sad I wasn't in it, but then again I wouldn't have been able to watch it all come together if I was dancing, lol.
The "Bible as Fantasy Literature" panel was actually really cool, and not judgmental or preachy at all. Apparently there will be a Christian themed book of SF short stories coming out soon. That was Sunday morning, as I remarked on the irony. The Curmudgeon panel was hillarious too, just like last year :-). 'Cross Cultural Costuming' was kinda meh. It seemed like the panelists addressed the elephant in the room by never doing cross cultural costumes to begin with, but remember to research. I already knew that, so I left after about 30 mins. 'The Doom Gloom and Despondancy Competition' was also pretty lackluster, especially after last year, but the lady who won did put on a good show. I didn't have to leave the room even once, tho, so little funny. I went to a panel about photography at cons which my friend was on, but when I got into the room late and there were only the panelists gabbing with two audience members, realized the folly of scheduling a photo-panel at the exact same time as the masquerade. Whups. The 'Paganism and pop culture' panel after that was pretty fun for me, tho. Gave me a lot of ideas about my podcast plans. Now if I could just write the darn scripts >_<
Overall, I think I was late to almost every panel I went to. I'm sure everyone asked for longer panels, but that only gave us 15 minutes of travel time between them, and there are ppl to talk to in the hallways, so I was always late. Whups. I didn't really do any other dances, and I totally forgot about the bouncy castle once I got to con. Whups again. Probably b/c it was in the ballroom furthest away from the lobby.
Also, only got the Whimsy ribbon this year. I really want to step up my ribbon game, but I don't know how. Hmm.
Food wise I did not get glutened, yay! Tho I do need to plan a wider food budget next time. Our first night at the pub, the waitress confirmed that it was the sauce on the steak tips last year that did me in, and she made sure it didn't happen again, yay for superwaitress! Bless the Westins! Still waiting to see if I caught any con-ick, but working in an university makes that hard to pin down :-P I did keep up with meds and vitamins all weekend, so I'm as hopped up on Zinc + C as usual.
Didn't end up at any room parties, but there were not many posted at any given time, very odd. Unless they were just more private this year. Tho for me parties are just about hanging around and geeking out w new & old friends anyway, and I got plenty of that in just hanging out in the lobby bar and the hallways between panels :-) Yay people! Behold the rare and awkward Geek Extrovert!
Arisia seems to put me into more of an introspective "Where do I want to be coming from *next* year?" mode than new years. Especially I am thinking about my costume plans (for DCon first), and my podcast/audiodrama idears. Wouldn't it be nice to have something like bizness cards for my podcast to pass around Arisia? They'd definitely be my target demographic. In general, 'calling cards' are something I really want to start carrying around at con, b/c useful. All the info on my Facebook and Etsy (and maybe more) stuff on one little card so I can talk to ppl more via social media.
If my CtD game continues apace, I might make a module of it to run at next Arisia? Not sure how that works, but I know who to ask about it. Working on my own piece for the Doom & Gloom Competition is daunting tho, b/c its been so long since I sang in front of ppl on the regular, and I was never a soloist.
Maaaaaybe I'll tap more ppl who already go to Arisia for Steampunk Babylon5 collusion. Plenty seem interested, and I can't get my NYC friends to go. On the other hand, when there's a GoT cosplay meetup, there's like ten of each character. I don't mind overlap, especially with such an amorphous concept.
But as for costuming... how does one get ppl to take photos of a big weird costume? Just wander back and forth in the lobby for a couple of hours? Get into the Masquerade (I have no idea how those work)? Also, nobody pays attention to Steampunk costumes unless they're wired to light up, so Ima have to figure out how to put that in too. *ponders* But I've got until DCon to figure it out.
Now I just need more spoons. I'm pretty sure I'd have the time if I didn't spend so much of it spacing out. *sigh*
<3 Chrysilla
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, http://chrysilla.dreamwidth.org/