A quick (?) and not-too-spoilery Vestival rundown...
The really short version? This was an awesome weekend of LARPing. I had no game experience that was even mediocre; everything was good to excellent. I also just realized that everything I played in was written and run by people I know personally, which is kind of nifty.
Friday night: played in The Free Animal's Republic Of MacDonald (F.A.R.M.) Presents The Trial Of The Big Bad Wolf, To Be Immediately Followed By His Execution, In Honor Of Our First Anniversary.
I was the titular Big Bad Wolf, and I had an awesome time and did not, in fact, die. w00t! I was v. v. fond of the character, had great fun costuming and doing makeup (even helping others with makeup), and got to wander about in shackles all evening snarking at people. From my point of view, the game ended pretty well, though not magnificently, and I'm not just talking about the whole not dying thing. And the other players were fantabulous as well.
This was a game that I'd seen go by at various cons a few years back and not signed up for, because from the blurb, I had taken it to be one of those sort of Random Silliness LARPs which I'm not actually that good at. But it is less random silliness and more black satire, and I was well cast as one of the relatively few characters who I would have actually enjoyed, and man, it was awesome. What tipped me over into playing was that mllelaurel had played and raved about it, and then natbudin said I should play the Wolf, and between those two things, I figured I'd give it a try.
It was running opposite another game which I'd wanted to play in but hadn't had a chance to for a while. That was a hard choice. League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students had better run again! :P
Also, I was cross-cast for the first time in a while. I like playing guys. w00t! again.
Saturday morning: played in Oz.
I was Tip Etarius, a teenaged wannabe hyperspace navigator with a lot of enthusiasm and promise and underlying family angst. I spent most of the game charging around being either very friendly or rather panicked, getting emotionally mindfucked about certain spoilery things, and helping save the universe. It was awesome! The game was really well engineered and emotionally satisfying and generally a lot of fun. And I got yet another out-of-character mindfuck in wrap when I learned that two of the characters I'd worked most closely with and trusted a lot were responsible for shit going down in my past. If Tip ever finds out (in that nebulous future LARP characters have as they go about their lives after game), she will not be a happy Tip. But it would be an awesome plot twist. :D
Oz, like FARM, was another game I didn't initially want to play. I'd had a bad experience in the first game that the writer wrote (a combination of a miscast, me being a new and inexperienced LARPer, the game itself being not my favorite sort of game (in retrospect, now knowing more about LARP styles), and it being the first run of somebody's first game, with the expected bugs), and was leery because of that. But then, again, mllelaurel played and RAVED. I couldn't play at Intercon due to scheduling conflicts. And at Festival, I was going to be GMing that morning with bleemoo, but when I saw that Oz was running again, I spoke with mllelaurel and traded places as GM so I could play. So it was the first time that a game I helped write ran without me, which made me a little flaily, but from what I heard, it went well. :D
I had an awesome time assembling a costume for this game, but I left the costume bag at home, to my infuriated dismay. I spent a fair bit of the pre-game time kicking myself about it. Over my black jeans and purple tank top (purple being her homeworld's thematic color), I would have been wearing a spiffy white jacket, studded half-gloves, goggles, and a necklace and ear cuff that I made for the character. (Those are in the most recent daily making post.) So I had costume woes. But once I got into character, I didn't care much.
Saturday afternoon and evening: played in School For Young Women Specializing In The Arts Of Grace And Maidenly Submission.
I was Ophelia, and I was even crazier than you might expect from that. And OH MY GOD THIS GAME IT IS SPECTACULAR. My character was rich and fascinating and intriguing and had a series of explosive spoilery revelations about herself and her past (I LOVE that sort of thing, by the way), and I had so much fun playing her on all sorts of levels. Within five minutes of game, I found myself in a room full of about ten or fifteen leering pirates and nobody else in sight, me in my long white gown with flowers all over, and I just smiled and said a few things and creeped them all the fuck out. I spent a lot of the game getting very close to long-lost family, flirting with Jack Sparrow, and marrying a demented version of the Phantom of the Opera. (There was an end-of-game marriage rush which I was part of. And the biggest marriage rush I have ever seen in a game including Clarence, where there is a character whose primary goal is to get as many people married as humanly possible.) And. And. Yeah.
This game was written by a batch of guys who do enormous intensely plotted games, with every single character hooked into four or five or six wildly different, wacky, emotionally resonant, fabulously creative plot threads. There was so much going on. So many fascinating and well-developed characters. So many absurd twistings of various stories. (This is a multi-fandom mash-up game that WORKS.) So many love plots--and not just your stock romances, but real and multi-layered and emotionally fascinating, with more than one person saying it was the best LARP love plot they've ever had. And. I just had to rave for a bit, because the scope and scale of these games is overwhelming, and I don't know how they do it.
One of the GMs said to me after game that he considers Ophelia to be the most difficult character in the game. So I am fucking flattered that I got cast as her, and apparently did a good job. Whee! My head shall inflate further.
Sunday morning: played in Post Future Pop Diva Fashion Show And Silent Auction.
I was Kaydence Cantu, super-ahhhhtistic and pretentious movie director. I was, in many ways, an incredibly simplistic and what-you-see-is-what-you-get character, but the game was so freaking fun, and I had such good connections with other players, that I didn't mind one bit. I was there with the sole goal of working on an upcoming project of mine, my Great Work, my Life's Dream, a movie with a young AI as the protagonist. I wanted to research it (there was an AI pop diva in game), cast it, publicize it, what-have-you. I basically went charging around throwing out all sorts of creative collaborative ideas at people and seeing how well they reacted. And I wound up with the Brilliant Idea of casting a human actress (a burnt-out stage-mothered teenager who wanted to retire from music and do something with depth and soul) as the AI and the AI pop diva as her human best friend. The two races fumbling towards an understanding in two directions at once! Or something like that.
Occasionally I would have to go drop out of character for a moment or two to switch off, because this character was highly extroverted and socially aggressive and intensely draining to play, but that was all I needed. And this movie is going to be awesome.
Costuming was fun. One of the central focuses of this game was Crazy Fashion, and I was to come in hip-hop/urban-primitive fusion. (The phrase "nothing but a du-rag and a loincloth" was in my costuming hint. :D) So du-rag, sunglasses, brown embroidered tank-top, copious strings of jewelry, a brown suedy loincloth, sneakers, and sharpie tattoos. One of the GMs congratulated me on my butt-flap. :D
Also, I spent the rest of the day with Lady Gaga stuck in my head--due to the general theme style of this game, I went and watched a few videos, and jesus-fuck-on-a-bicycle-is-bad-romance-an-earworm. Anywho.
Okay, that was not quick. Fuck it. :P
Friday night: played in The Free Animal's Republic Of MacDonald (F.A.R.M.) Presents The Trial Of The Big Bad Wolf, To Be Immediately Followed By His Execution, In Honor Of Our First Anniversary.
I was the titular Big Bad Wolf, and I had an awesome time and did not, in fact, die. w00t! I was v. v. fond of the character, had great fun costuming and doing makeup (even helping others with makeup), and got to wander about in shackles all evening snarking at people. From my point of view, the game ended pretty well, though not magnificently, and I'm not just talking about the whole not dying thing. And the other players were fantabulous as well.
This was a game that I'd seen go by at various cons a few years back and not signed up for, because from the blurb, I had taken it to be one of those sort of Random Silliness LARPs which I'm not actually that good at. But it is less random silliness and more black satire, and I was well cast as one of the relatively few characters who I would have actually enjoyed, and man, it was awesome. What tipped me over into playing was that mllelaurel had played and raved about it, and then natbudin said I should play the Wolf, and between those two things, I figured I'd give it a try.
It was running opposite another game which I'd wanted to play in but hadn't had a chance to for a while. That was a hard choice. League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students had better run again! :P
Also, I was cross-cast for the first time in a while. I like playing guys. w00t! again.
Saturday morning: played in Oz.
I was Tip Etarius, a teenaged wannabe hyperspace navigator with a lot of enthusiasm and promise and underlying family angst. I spent most of the game charging around being either very friendly or rather panicked, getting emotionally mindfucked about certain spoilery things, and helping save the universe. It was awesome! The game was really well engineered and emotionally satisfying and generally a lot of fun. And I got yet another out-of-character mindfuck in wrap when I learned that two of the characters I'd worked most closely with and trusted a lot were responsible for shit going down in my past. If Tip ever finds out (in that nebulous future LARP characters have as they go about their lives after game), she will not be a happy Tip. But it would be an awesome plot twist. :D
Oz, like FARM, was another game I didn't initially want to play. I'd had a bad experience in the first game that the writer wrote (a combination of a miscast, me being a new and inexperienced LARPer, the game itself being not my favorite sort of game (in retrospect, now knowing more about LARP styles), and it being the first run of somebody's first game, with the expected bugs), and was leery because of that. But then, again, mllelaurel played and RAVED. I couldn't play at Intercon due to scheduling conflicts. And at Festival, I was going to be GMing that morning with bleemoo, but when I saw that Oz was running again, I spoke with mllelaurel and traded places as GM so I could play. So it was the first time that a game I helped write ran without me, which made me a little flaily, but from what I heard, it went well. :D
I had an awesome time assembling a costume for this game, but I left the costume bag at home, to my infuriated dismay. I spent a fair bit of the pre-game time kicking myself about it. Over my black jeans and purple tank top (purple being her homeworld's thematic color), I would have been wearing a spiffy white jacket, studded half-gloves, goggles, and a necklace and ear cuff that I made for the character. (Those are in the most recent daily making post.) So I had costume woes. But once I got into character, I didn't care much.
Saturday afternoon and evening: played in School For Young Women Specializing In The Arts Of Grace And Maidenly Submission.
I was Ophelia, and I was even crazier than you might expect from that. And OH MY GOD THIS GAME IT IS SPECTACULAR. My character was rich and fascinating and intriguing and had a series of explosive spoilery revelations about herself and her past (I LOVE that sort of thing, by the way), and I had so much fun playing her on all sorts of levels. Within five minutes of game, I found myself in a room full of about ten or fifteen leering pirates and nobody else in sight, me in my long white gown with flowers all over, and I just smiled and said a few things and creeped them all the fuck out. I spent a lot of the game getting very close to long-lost family, flirting with Jack Sparrow, and marrying a demented version of the Phantom of the Opera. (There was an end-of-game marriage rush which I was part of. And the biggest marriage rush I have ever seen in a game including Clarence, where there is a character whose primary goal is to get as many people married as humanly possible.) And. And. Yeah.
This game was written by a batch of guys who do enormous intensely plotted games, with every single character hooked into four or five or six wildly different, wacky, emotionally resonant, fabulously creative plot threads. There was so much going on. So many fascinating and well-developed characters. So many absurd twistings of various stories. (This is a multi-fandom mash-up game that WORKS.) So many love plots--and not just your stock romances, but real and multi-layered and emotionally fascinating, with more than one person saying it was the best LARP love plot they've ever had. And. I just had to rave for a bit, because the scope and scale of these games is overwhelming, and I don't know how they do it.
One of the GMs said to me after game that he considers Ophelia to be the most difficult character in the game. So I am fucking flattered that I got cast as her, and apparently did a good job. Whee! My head shall inflate further.
Sunday morning: played in Post Future Pop Diva Fashion Show And Silent Auction.
I was Kaydence Cantu, super-ahhhhtistic and pretentious movie director. I was, in many ways, an incredibly simplistic and what-you-see-is-what-you-get character, but the game was so freaking fun, and I had such good connections with other players, that I didn't mind one bit. I was there with the sole goal of working on an upcoming project of mine, my Great Work, my Life's Dream, a movie with a young AI as the protagonist. I wanted to research it (there was an AI pop diva in game), cast it, publicize it, what-have-you. I basically went charging around throwing out all sorts of creative collaborative ideas at people and seeing how well they reacted. And I wound up with the Brilliant Idea of casting a human actress (a burnt-out stage-mothered teenager who wanted to retire from music and do something with depth and soul) as the AI and the AI pop diva as her human best friend. The two races fumbling towards an understanding in two directions at once! Or something like that.
Occasionally I would have to go drop out of character for a moment or two to switch off, because this character was highly extroverted and socially aggressive and intensely draining to play, but that was all I needed. And this movie is going to be awesome.
Costuming was fun. One of the central focuses of this game was Crazy Fashion, and I was to come in hip-hop/urban-primitive fusion. (The phrase "nothing but a du-rag and a loincloth" was in my costuming hint. :D) So du-rag, sunglasses, brown embroidered tank-top, copious strings of jewelry, a brown suedy loincloth, sneakers, and sharpie tattoos. One of the GMs congratulated me on my butt-flap. :D
Also, I spent the rest of the day with Lady Gaga stuck in my head--due to the general theme style of this game, I went and watched a few videos, and jesus-fuck-on-a-bicycle-is-bad-romance-an-earworm. Anywho.
Okay, that was not quick. Fuck it. :P