I always joke that I only go to Anime Expo for Hoyo merch, and last year was such an unbelievable glut of Hoyo interactives, panels, and artist alley merch that I suppose there's no real way this year could have lived up to the excitement of Amphoreus's peak marketing.
But yikes, this year was honestly a total letdown??
My first go-to is always the Hoyoverse booth freebies, and unfortunately I felt like Genshin really hit the "Go girl, give us nothing!" meme this year. Compared to last year's character cards, stickers, Skirk acrylic, and Skirk bag, I was surprised that there was really nothing super special or unexpected to market Sandrone or Snezhnaya's launch.
For completing their usual "market us for free on social media" post and the cosplay character interaction, the giveaway this year was a Sandrone tote, 80 primos, and a Sandrone character card. In order to get other "freebies," you needed to spend frankly exorbitant amounts on the official merch. I spent nearly $100 and could only acquire a Flins character card and a (randomly chosen) Nefer holographic ticket. You needed to spend over $100 just to get a basic can-badge character button, good lord. 😂
As a sidequest, I was able to do the Genshin x Crunchyroll collab mini-giveaway, giving me an extra pin and Sandrone button:
I didn't get pictures of all the cosplayers, but I liked the selection of characters they brought. Watching Flins have a tea party with Sandrone and Nicole was funny lol.
RIP to this random person who ended up in my Nicole photo.
On the Star Rail side, the basic freebies were also less than last year, when the rewards were a Phainon tote, Saber and Archer holographic tickets, 80 jades, and two Chrysos Heirs and chimera sticker sheets. This time, no sticker sheets. In their place was a gacha chance for a UGREEN prize, although I think 99% of the options in the prize box were just solo Yao Guang stickers lol.
The "get free when you buy merch" offerings were definitely better on the Star Rail side, with a fairly big character magnet, pop grip, and finally an MBlade luggage tag (although you had to buy $170 worth of merch to get that, so your mileage may vary on "is this remotely worth it" lol.)
The only thing this stuff cost me was my dignity because I went back and begged for that Ashveil lol.
The cosplayers on the Star Rail side also killed it; I was super impressed by the Asat-Pramad cosplayer!!
And the Ashveil cosplayer's mannerisms were so endearing, with super cute interactions with the fans.
Another disappointing situation was AX deciding to return autographs to a free-for-all--and then not bothering to separate the line for the autographs and the premieres that were being played in the diamond and platinum rooms at the Marriott, leading to total chaos. Despite showing up about four hours early for the autograph session I was hoping to attend, there was zero chance, as they capped the lines due to confusion over people attending premieres versus autographs. What a mess...
Was also sad at the total lack of official panels for Genshin or Star Rail. I'm genuinely shocked the Genshin team didn't try to get some kind of panel to preview new stuff and build hype for Snezhnaya. They're sooo quiet about this patch cycle, I'm a little concerned... The only official miHoYo panel this time around was for Zenless Zone Zero, which I don't play, but I'm glad I went anyway, because we ended up with seats in the third row, so I was able to get nice close up pictures of some voice actors who star in Genshin and Star Rail too:
Kristen McGuire (Kachina) and Amber Lee Connors (Furina), as well as:
Stephen Fu (Anaxa) and Molly Zhang (Seele).
After this panel, I bumped into Stephen Fu and Amber Lee Connors at the Zenless Zone Zero booth and was able to take selfies with them, but I'm not posting pics of myself so those photos will live and die on my photo roll lol.
Unfortunately, just about everything else about Anime Expo this year was an extreme annoyance. Shrinking Artist Alley meant there was a lot fewer fanartists to browse through and a massive, massive overcrowding problem in Kentia Hall, to the extent that I basically gave up until about Day 4. This was probably the biggest letdown, since Artist Alley is normally my very favorite part of the con. 😭😭
Of course, I did still manage to power through and tough out the claustrophobia enough to buy (my typical) excessive amounts of fan merch.
God bless the five people who brought Ashveil stuff, and the one I found at the extra not-at-all-affiliated-with-SPJA Little Tokyo Artist Alley too lol.
You can feel the contempt people have for Planarcadia... It's so painful to be an Ashveil main...
And also shout out to the like ten-ish people who brought Pantalone and/or Dottore:
Which, speaking of--I was able to pull the babbies!
It only took me two Capitanos and a Columbina...
And of course I bought truly copious amounts of Sandbina lol.
This is only a fraction of the number of Sandrone and Columbina charms and prints I ended up walking away with; y'all would stage an intervention if you saw how much I ended up actually buying lol.
Maybe the best buy of this year was another gorgeous lenticular print by Grapedraws; this time Columbina. It switches from light to dark as you change angle~
Beyond the crowding and issues with poor line management, another disappointment for me this year was the lack of stamp rallies I wanted to participate in. Normally I'm a stamp rally fanatic, but this year there were no Star Rail stamp rallies that I could find at all. :( I ended up doing a Pokemon rally and the Witch Hat rally with the brushbuddy tin instead:
On the Genshin side, I did manage to participate in the "Nod-Krai Lookbook" stamp rally for a set of very cute sticker sheets:
And I finished the "Genshin Fae" stamp rally, but unfortunately the prizes were delayed and unavailable for the con. The consolation riser prints will still look nice in the artbook though, I think:
Overall, I seem to have ended up with about ten times as many stickers as normal. So, so, so many stickers...
But I also saved plenty of space in my shopping bags for my actual favorite thing to purchase: derpy looking keychains.
Truly, in all of that... the realest thing I was got was this sticker one artist threw in as a free gift:
Because it really was an "I survived" level experience this year. I hope that the SPJA will actually bother to reflect on themselves for five whole minutes this year and cap the attendance lower next year for the duration of the construction at the LACC...
And never, never treat the artists like this again...
update to the site! @j2wiki generously provided an export of transcripts, interviews and con reports from their archive which have now been incorporated into the site for searching. now you'll see things tagged with source: youtube or source: j2wiki, which can also be used for the filters.
so, for example, now we've got some stuff from AHBL which didn't have any recordings to pull transcripts from before.
as always, lemme know if you have any questions/comments/concerns/requests/whatever here or comment box on the site (dm, anon ask, etc is open).
I'm just back from EasterCon, and I had an awesome time!
At the opening ceremony, Phil Dyson made the point that EasterCon (and fandom) is about community, and welcoming diversity, and keeping hope alive in a world that is getting worse all the time - and the convention certainly delivered that.
I met lovely people. I volunteered at the registration desk, so got to meet some quite famous people as I gave them their badges, and some old friends from previous cons. I also got to be the lady with the clipboard in the art show who sticks red dots on the works of art that have sold - and there was such a lot of fantastic art! And not only paintings - there was pottery, and models of alien planets, and jewellery and fridge magnets, and I treated myself to a silky scarf with dragons on it.
There were fascinating panel discussions. I didn't get to everything I wanted to see, because of volunteering, or timetable clashes, but the wonderful thing now is that a lot of those panels were streamed and are available on replay, so I'll be able to see everything I missed in person. The Tech Team are amazing.
There was a panel on SFF in the West Midlands - I now know where in Birmingham the Two Towers are, and the Eye of Sauron, and was delighted that Phil Rickman was mentioned for his Merrily Watkins series set in Herefordshire.
The panel on SF and Trans history was fascinating (so many fascinating panels!), and I enjoyed Digging the Future (with a real archaeologist on the panel).
There was a lot about revolution and resistance - a panel about the TV series Andor, and Why Writing and Tactile Art is Revolutionary (and AI is evil), and Folklore as Resistance, and Fanfic as Resistance, and lots more. One panelist had done her PhD in Religion in Fantasy Fiction - and her thesis is available online (Meg McDonald), so I'm going to look that up.
Scott Edelman was on several panels - he does a very good podcast called Eating the Fantastic, where he chats to someone over dinner, and he said he recorded four episodes over the course of the Con, and had his very first Birmingham balti.
I was vaguely aware that Juliet McKenna had written a couple of books featuring the Green Man, so I finally got round to going to Wizard's Tower Press in the dealers' room to get them - only to find that she's now written eight! So that'll keep me occupied for a while.
I joined the Filk Circle every night. On the first night there were several people who had come along for the first time, and by the third night we were firm friends and singing along to each other's songs. Loved the Canadian comedy songs, and the Eagle of the Ninth song that Valerie Housden sang.
I ate my way down the menu of the Souvlaki food truck - I love Greek food. There were three food trucks outside the hotel for meals. I also had a couple of very nice crepes from the crepe truck, and walked around the lake a couple of times to the World Bar for food.
Oh, and my favourite 'overheard at the Con' comment - I think it was from the Tactile Art is Revolutionary panel? "Be so weird AI could never!"
The Anime Nostalgia Podcast - Ep 139: Anime Frontier 2024 Report & Interview with Damien Haas
This episode is sponsored in part by Tokyo Treat! To get $5 off your first box of delicious snacks & treats delivered direct from Japan straight to your door, AND to help support my little podcast, use code "NOSTALGIA" at my link here!
Last month was Anime Frontier 2024, one of my favorite cons to attend in recent years--so why not share my experience with all of you?! That's right, this month, I'm reporting in on everything I did at Anime Frontier: from visiting the Gundam Base, to checking out Dark Horse's Manga Panel, and even getting to interview the new English dub voice actor of Ryoga Hibiki for Mappa's new Ranma 1/2 anime on Netflix: Damien Haas! I not only get to ask what he thinks of the Eternal Lost Boy, but what he thinks one of his most popular other roles might think of a certain little cursed pig.....You'll have to listen in to learn yourself!
Stream the episode or [Direct Download]
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➡️ FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD HERE
➡️ DAMIEN HAAS INTERVIEW ONLY TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD HERE
Relevant links:
Visit Anime Frontier's official website!
Check out the photos I took on my tour of Gundam Base here!
Check out where Gundam Base will visit in the future on their official website!
Find an official Bandai Gashapon location in the US or Canada near you!
Follow Damien Haas on Twitter, Bluesky, and Twitch!
My theme song music was done by Kerobit! You can find more about them on their website!
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As always, feel free to leave me your thoughts on this episode or ideas for future episodes here—or email me directly at [email protected].
Leave it Star Trek to remind me how much we're worth fighting for
Note: This is a going to be a long, nerdy post. You have been warned.
So a couple of weeks ago, I purchased tix to attend the Star Trek: New Jersey fan convention scheduled to take place during the 2nd week in November. The idea at the time was that I would not only get to see some of my favorite people from my favorite fandom, but the entire event would likely have some amazing energy following the week of the US election.
But then, we had the election that we had, and ... well.
Here we are.
Thankfully, everyone was determined to make the best of the event, and the nerds in attendance were all still fairly respectful, patient and excited to be there.
Now gone are the days when I would try to do as much as possible at cons because I'm an old Trekker. For me, simply being in the space and enjoying the Q&A panels is enough. What can I say? I'm a cheap date.
However, I told myself that if I saw a souvenir that I simply had to have, I gave myself permission to buy it. But otherwise, I wanted to try to keep my spending under control.
Plus, I've already seen many of these beautiful performers at conventions past, so the pull of the autograph or photo op isn't as strong as it used to be. For example, the only members of the TNG cast I've never seen at a con (Michael Dorn and Gates McFadden) sadly weren't doing a Q&A until Sunday and I only attended on Saturday, but it was great to see them at their tables signing and talking to fans nonetheless.
OK. Enough preamble. Let's dive in while the memories are still fresh.
_______
Warning: Most of photos here are awful. But they stand as proof that I was there, so I'll take it.
If you're not a fan of a particular Trek series, feel free to skip that section. I added the names of each series the guests were associated with before their respective parts.
Deep Space 9 🌠
As I mentioned, I didn't buy any photo ops or autographs, but I sat in on a lot of panels. I really enjoyed seeing some of the ST: DS9 cast members together (Casey Biggs, Terry Farrell, Max Grodenchik, Vaughn Armstrong, and Jeffrey Combs). Max, Jeffrey and Casey talked the most, and fun was had by all.
Max and Casey seemed to have the bulk of the stories to share. Some of the stories were funny; some were just good-natured mocking of each other.
One question I remember someone asked to Terry was about shooting the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" and the technical work involved with trying to get everything to match with the green screen and the original series plate. Farrell said they had a lot of fun shooting that episode even though everything had to be very precise.
Another fan asked about why they (the cast) thinks the character development on DS9 is so good [compared to other Trek series]. A question I loved because that's one of of the reasons DS9 is my favorite of all the Treks. The series objectively did a much better job of giving their characters realistic growth and development.
I believe Casey Biggs fielded the answer to this one though. He said that essentially because DS9 was sandwiched between TNG's ending, TNG films, and Voyager's first seasons, the studio (Paramount) didn't really pay that much attention to DS9 and forgot about them while constantly fiddling with the other two. He said one of the advantages to being the "red-headed stepchild" of the Trek universe was that it allowed the writers to tell the stories they wanted to tell without the studio constantly giving them notes on what to change. This gave executive producer Ira Steven Behr the space to develop the characters the way he wanted and tell the stories the way he planned them for each season.
Most of the remaining fan questions -- along with the detailed stories in response -- just reminded me of how I need to do a complete rewatch of DS9.
With that said, the sound in the venue was unfortunately not great, and the echo around the space was annoying. You really had to pay attention and listen with every cilia in order to focus on the responses. But overall, it was still a fun experience.
If they do this again in this area of NJ, I would recommend holding the con in a ballroom with a carpeted floor and non-metallic fixtures all over the space.
Strange New Worlds 🛸
That lovely panel was followed by our ST: SNW duo Q&A with Anson Mount and Ethan Peck, which had the single best question asked in any of the panels that took place on Saturday. A young fan who caught onto Ethan's subtle allusion to the IDIC vision of Star Trek in a previous answer, stepped up to the mic and asked Anson and Ethan the following:
[Note: I'm paraphrasing]
"If Starfleet believes in the concept of IDIC -- Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations -- and the Vulcans are one of the founding members of Starfleet, why do all the Vulcans have the same boring haircut?"
To which, both Anson and Ethan said was the absolute best question they've ever been asked at a con. Ethan then kind of dropped a wee bit of spoiler about an upcoming episode of SNW where Capt. Pike will go undercover as a Vulcan, and he interestingly will not have the standard Vulcan haircut we all know and love.
Again, sorry for the awful photos. I was in the General Admission section and the camera on my phone isn't that great from afar.
There were a few good questions in this panel, but I think the biggest takeaway for us nerds is that Anson Mount is a new pottery enthusiast and he has taken up making pottery for his fellow castmates as gifts. He originally bought the potter's wheel for his wife, but after she only used it once, he decided to give it a try and he loves it.
So now we know that the "Man of 1000 Exasperations" both likes beekeeping and throwing pots. He used to teach acting and theater classes in NYC. And his secret to great onscreen hair is to not wash it too often. (I learned that from a Hell on Wheels interview from a few years back.)
Personally, I wish I could've thought of the question that came to me after the con ended a little bit sooner, then maybe I would've had a chance to walk to the mic and ask it. Although with all the pre-fan question chatter that the MC/host engaged in, maybe not.
My question was going to be about Anson's experience working on the Dr. Strange 2: Multiverse of Madness with Sir Patrick and Cumberbatch. I know it's not ST related, but I was very happy to see him pop up in a Marvel movie (even if his demise is gruesome and awful) and it was great to see 2 Star Trek captains play superheroes on the big screen.
ST Merch Tables 💸
Moving on, after the SNW panel, I took a break to go walk around some of the merch tables before settling on the floor in the lobby area to charge my phone, share some pics with some friends & family, and people-watch all the folks in awesome cosplay.
I did stumble across a lovely souvenir to take home with me at one of the merch tables. I rationalized that it was ok because it was both geeky and practical. I bought this cute flash drive that looks like a cork to a wine bottle with Picard's vineyard logo on it. Although, to be fair, for $20 I feel like it should be more than 64 GB. But oh well. It's still cute.
After that, I headed back into the main Q&A room to watch the Costume Contest, followed by arguably biggest headliner of that day's panels (no shade at Ms. Ryan or her fanbase -- which was robust). The 3:45pm panel featured two not-so-young whippersnappers by the name of Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner.
But first the Costume Contest.
Costume Contest 🖖🏽
There were a lot of participants into the Costume Contest, but not so many that there weren't some clear standouts. Plus, I love the fact there were a lot of fans dressed in ST uniforms from all the different eras and styles who didn't even entire the contest. I saw everything from TOS uniforms to DSC uniforms. Plus, a number of cool nonhumans.
Not to be outdone, there were a number of Andorians at the event, and I think all of the entered the contest. And there was not a bad one in the bunch. I think my favorite was the Andorian woman with the bottle of ale hanging from her belt.
There were also a lot of creative one-offs. One couple costume entry was dressed as Shaxs and Dr. T'Ana from ST: Lower Decks. That got a big fan reaction. And there was also a family dressed as the creatures from Farpoint Station at the end of the ST: TNG premiere. It was 2 parents and their little kid, and they all were very cute.
My favorites in the contest were the woman who dressed as Jaylah from Star Trek Beyond. Her makeup and outfit were very well done. If it were up to me, she would've come in 3rd place. (Unfortunately, I didn't get a good photo of her.)
Instead, the actual 3rd place winner would've been my 2nd place choice. It was a woman dressed as the oil slick creature, Armus, from the "Skin of Evil" episode of TNG. She even had a little Riker figurine sitting on her shoulder, like he was sinking into the slime.
And 1st place went to the fan who seemed to be everyone's favorite: a mechanically accurate Borg. To be fair, not everything in his suit moved, but there was a lot detail, and clearly, a lot of work that went into that costume. And with each elimination round, he kept staying near the top, so it felt fair that he won overall.
There was also a really great Borg Queen costume as well. If it were up to me, I would've had her as my Honorable Mention. So to recap, my picks were:
Realistic Borg
Armus
Jaylah
Borg Queen
Another great costume that didn't make it into the final round, but did get an enthusiastic response from the other fans was a woman in a wheelchair who was pushed by her friend around the convention & merch hall. She carried a sign that said, "The doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney!" It was so freaking adorable and made a lot of folks laugh. Eve Smith, the actress who played the roll in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, was such a delight whenever she showed up in TV and films in the 80s and 90s. I think she would've gotten a kick out of people remembering her small, but delightful performance so many years later.
Overall, it was pretty decent costume contest. Again, the sound in the space was not the best, but it seems like most people enjoyed it.
The Next Generation 🚀
Now on to the biggest -- in terms of personality -- panel of the day! Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner came out to huge applause, as expected. And even though the hall was pretty full already, even more people made their way inside the curtained off area as the duo were getting settled in.
Although, it's fair to say that they didn't really settle at all. Has Frakes ever settled in at any convention?
I'm not one to diagnose from the stands, but man, did Jonathan seem a wee bit "caffeinated" on stage. And I mean that in the best sense. He was funny as usual. Engaging. Silly. He came with the behind-the-scenes anecdotes and playful shots at his castmates and friends. But getting him to focus for more than 3 minutes was like watching someone try to wrangle a kindergartener on the playground after lunch.
Jonny kept asking Brent to do his Patrick Stewart impression, which he was more than happy to do throughout the Q&A, and then Jonathan became fascinated by a marquee advertisement that had all the faces of the actors who are a part of the convention tour on it, and he kept walking over to it to "complain" about the order of the faces on the marquee.
Of course, all of this was in good fun! But the man definitely did not feel like sitting still for very long, and as a result, the 2 of them only answered like 4 or 5 fan questions tops.
It didn't help that we had not 1, but 2 groups of special guests interrupt join the boys on stage during their mere 45 min-panel. First, came the always dynamic and fearless Marina Sirtis, who was quickly joined by Michael Dorn. Marina plugged a new series that she's working on, and Michael came on to just chill and make fun of Marina. (Don't read into that too much! They had a Q&A scheduled together for Sunday.)
So after Marina and Michael joked around a bit with Brent and Jonny, there were a couple more questions from fans and other shenanigans. Then, the lovely Tawny Newsome and Eugene Cordero from ST: Lower Decks came out bearing gifts of water for our power duo like lowly interns working in a megacorporation.
Their plan was to steal a little air time from the headliners, but they ended up getting invited to stay and shoot the breeze with Jonny and Brent for a large part of the Q&A. And at one point, Dawnn Lewis came out as well to join them.
I honestly don't remember any of the questions from this panel. I do remember there was a bit of singing from Jonny, Dawnn, and Tawny. And Jonny swore a lot. But if you've ever heard him on a podcast, you know he cusses like a sailor. In the end, a good time was had by all. Except maybe the poor fans who lined up to ask questions at the microphones.
Lower Decks 🌌
After our Baby Boomer duo left the stage, the "babies" of the Trek extended universe came back out to do their Q&A panel for ST: Lower Decks with Tawny, Dawnn, Eugene, and Gabrielle Ruiz. The MC/moderator came back out to guide us on our journey, and this time, even though I still thought he was a wee bit too chatty and took too long to get to the fan questions, most of what he contributed was still pretty good.
To be honest, I don't remember many of the questions during their Q&A, but I do remember that the general vibe of their panel was "silly coworkers letting us watch them be silly."
The moderator/MC had them each go down the line and answer some oddball getting-to-know-you type question before launching into anything Trek-related. Each cast member answered it in stride while also making fun of how dumb it was.
Then, they launched into different stories about shooting different episodes, and what they'll miss about the show now that the final season has began airing. Tawny and Eugene plugged an improv show in Brooklyn for later that evening, inviting anyone who didn't already have plans.
Like I said, most of the questions weren't too memorable. The only one I kind of recall was one that ticked me off a little bit. The question itself wasn't a bad one, but the guy who asked it had to get in a little dig at the Kelvin universe cast -- and I did not care for that.
Anyway, his question was: "Now that Lower Decks is coming to an end as a series, would the cast like to see a Lower Decks movie? And if so, would they want it to be live action or animated?" Every cast member pretty much loved the idea of doing a Lower Decks movie, but they're not sure in what direction it would go given what happens in the series finale that hasn't aired yet. So their answers were both positive and a wee bit cryptic.
Admittedly, it was a pretty good question, but he had to throw in some shade claiming that Trek fans would rather see a Lower Decks movie than another Kelvin universe movie. To which I say: I would love to see both! I enjoy both of these Trek iterations equally, but for very different reasons. And although it will never be the same without Anton Yelchin as Chekov, I am looking forward to seeing Karl, Chris, Simon, and John suit up one more time.
And on that note, I think I'll end this absurdly long convention report that I started over a week ago, but kept coming back to add more and more detail.
I'll also add this one last photo from the convention room floor where all the autographs were being signed. Since I wasn't getting autographs, I decided to just steal quick shots of the actors signing for other people. Again, it serves as proof that I was there, and it feeds the general fun of being a nerd in my favorite fandom of all time.
gencon 2024 after action report, part 1: pregame (wednesday) & day 1 (thursday)
under the cut for anyone who doesn't care about all the cool indie rpgs i played over the weekend lmao.
the players!
me!
mommy! ( @vi-the-deer )
grammy! (my & mommy's partner)
cj! (grammy's husband, our metamour)
grammy & cj go to gencon nearly every year, and as grammy had accompanied us to magiccon chicago she figured she'd return the favor by having us along for this year's gencon!
mommy & i flew to st. louis tuesday night to meet up with grammy & cj. our hotel that night was pretty nice in a weird way, it kind of reminded me of a really upscale college dorm with a very modern/ikea aesthetic? it's one of those hotels that's trying really hard not to look like a hotel. but yeah, it was nice! not weirdly, shockingly bad. ([hbomberguy voice] foreshadowing is a literary device--). we belatedly celebrated mommy's birthday with some cake and got some rest to get ready for an awesome roadtrip followed by an awesome convention.
on wednesday we originally wanted to go to the st. louis science center, which i had been to & loved decades ago when i went to college in springfield illinois, but sadly it is not open on wednesdays! so instead we went to the st. louis zoo, which is apparently the biggest free zoo in the country? and i gotta say, it offers an experience that's pretty comparable to most non-free zoos i've been to. (also, yeah, i'm a bit ethically dubious about zoos, but my going to them or not going to them isn't really going to affect whether they exist or not, and from what i could tell this one was very well-run by people who genuinely care about the animals there.)
we saw a number of awesome animals, but i think my favorite part was probably the bird house as birds are among my favorite animals. we spent a few hours having a very pleasant (other than it being extremely hot outside) walk through the zoo, but eventually it was time to get on the road.
i'm not necessarily going to talk about everywhere we stopped for food, but i would be remiss if i didn't mention that our day 1 dinner stop was the burger king. no not a burger king, THE burger king, a tiny restaurant in a tiny town in illinois that won a lawsuit to keep its name because it existed before the larger chain that shares its name. (well, minus the "the.")
i will admit that while i lived in illinois for fully more than half of my life, and even having spent my college years in central illinois rather than the comparatively more progressive chicago area, i was somewhat unprepared to be back in a small town in the middle of nowhere where 90% of the population is white and it feels like you're being stared at when 3 of the 4 of you are very visibly trans. it kind of felt like being back home in a not entirely pleasant way, but no one was outright hostile. and to be honest if you like extremely unhealthy cheeseburgers you can do MUCH worse than the original burger king. the food was kind of incredible.
anyway, we got back on the road, and crashed at a hotel most of the way to indiana. this was another totally normal hotel that wasn't weirdly bad with a staff that was weirdly preemptive about it being weirdly bad. (foreshadowing is a literary dev--)
we got up super early thursday morning, and headed for the con. i've actually been to indianapolis for multiple conventions because when i used to live in chicago the two furry cons (yes i used to go to furry cons & it's not inconceivable that i will do so again at some point) it was the easiest for me to get to were midwest furfest (which was in chicago and huge) and indyfurcon (which was in indianapolis and not nearly as huge, especially considering i went to the first few iterations of it, no idea what it's like these days if it's still a thing). this is the first gencon i've ever been to, and it's markedly larger than any other con i've ever been to. i'm used to a con taking up a fairly large conference hotel or (at most) part of a city's convention center. gencon took up an entire convention center plus multiple nearby hotels plus a literal nfl stadium??? (see the pic above the cut lmao.)
that also wasn't even the only way in which it was larger than any other con i've been to before? it's also the first con i've been to that had a full slate of thursday events as well as the more typical all-day friday/all-day saturday/half-day sunday. heck, most furry cons i've been to don't even have all-day fridays since the first thing that happens is usually an opening ceremony in the early afternoon.
mommy & i booked a couple mtg events on saturday because of course we did, but i was really looking forward to playing a bunch of indie rpgs considering that we have a rather embarrassing pile of them at home considering we've never actually sat down and played one. (tbf i am working on a solo run of the almanac of sanguine paths, but i think that's the first rpg i've played that isn't d&d apart from playing like one session of shadowrun that ended up not going anywhere.)
the first thing mommy & grammy & i did on thursday was play a session of yazeba's bed & breakfast. already we were starting with a game that's drastically different than any i've played before. it's sort of a cozy, queer, story-heavy roleplay experience with predetermined characters & scenarios. you keep track of character progress by making physical changes to the book & character sheets with stickers and such, and you can "unlock" different characters & scenarios & features of the hotel as you play through various chapters.
the vibe of the game is very much that you're taking on roles of already-existing characters and playing through their choices in a storybook, and i have to admit that prior to playing this game i had never really understood the appeal of these sorts of games as creating a very specific character to express myself has always been a big part of the appeal for me with rpgs. this reminded me more of the kind of enjoyment i got from one of my favorite pc games, beacon pines. it's less of a big world where you have adventures and more of an already-written story that you get to participante in and shape with your choices.
the chapters in the book are intentionally given fairly arbitrary chapter numbers and arranged in the book in a pretty random order, which resulted in our gm saying the highly enjoyable words "we'll go ahead and start with the first chapter in the book, which is chapter 3."
each chapter starts with a pretty detailed prompt that reads like the opening few pages of a chapter in a book, ending with a jumping off point for the people playing to take over deciding what their character is doing. there doesn't seem to be any kind of initiative or turn order, but everyone at our table was pretty polite about making sure everyone was getting roughly equal chances to make their choices. the game is also diceless, with chapters having some kind of fixed way of resolving their various actions including taking & giving tokens, flipping coins, picking playing cards, etc.
after you've played through the chapter, there's a passage for the gm to read depending on how successful you were at whatever mechanic the chapter is based on, and you might unlock some boons for your characters, the hotel, or unlock new characters & chapters altogether.
the game also seems to actively encourage you trying out different characters. each chapter seems to have one or two mandatory characters and then allows you to pick any characters you've unlocked, though our gm was super nice and offered to let me use a character who wasn't technically unlocked yet because they had come up in my brief research of the game and i liked the sound of them, but i was too shy to take them up on that in our first chapter.
for the first chapter i played gertrude, and while she wasn't as natural of a fit for me, me playing a moody, anxious teenager also certainly wasn't the biggest stretch anyone's ever asked someone to make while roleplaying.
the character i really enjoyed playing, though, was the moon prince.
i know a big part of the game is probably "trying on" different characters, and i do genuinely want to give more of them a try, but i feel like if i get a chance to play this game a lot more i'll likely end up "maining" the moon prince in a similar way to how i mostly played mercy when i played overwatch but side-mained d.va or lucio at various points in my "career." (yeah, cannot imagine anyone else is out there comparing this rpg to overwatch, but it's the point of comparison i have for this specific aspect, leave me alone.)
i really do enjoy the vibes of this game so i do hope i get to play more of it! mommy did buy the book so there's a decent chance we'll be playing more of it. fingers crossed!
after this, which was our first scheduled game, we kind of flailed around looking for stuff to do. we did end up spending a good amount of time in the exhibition hall but that was hella overwhelming so i was only able to tolerate it for so long. we did get to see wyrmspan being demoed and i get what people are saying when they say it's more crunchy than wingspan. while "wingspan but draogns" is still a phenomenal concept for a game, i will admit that as i saw it being demoed no matter how cool the new mechanics seemed, i kind of found myself missing the cozy vibes & lightly educational aspects of wingspan? i especially wish they had replaced all the bird facts with fake dragon facts rather than just using the whole card for gameplay stuff, but ah well. i'm sure i'll enjoy it if i get around to playing it.
eventually we ended up checking out the "games on-demand" room, and ended up playing a game i've seen a bunch of times at work but never actually played, untitled ghost game.
this game is normally gm-less, but at the convention with players who had never played it before, we had a really awesome gm facilitating it for us. and honestly i think that was a big part of why the game went as well for us as it did, because mommy & i were matched up with an extremely normie couple one of whom unironically said "just don't call me late to dinner" when asked for pronouns which is basically the 20s equivalent of the 90s "i just don't see color" for those who are fortunate enough not to know.
that being said, we managed to tell a really great story together thanks largely to the guidance of our gm but also just... not to get too hippy-dippy (that's for a later game! you'll see.), but this really reminded me of the way games can often bring wildly different people together. everyone is just here to have a good time, and... i don't know, there's something really encouraging about that.
so yeah, basically you all take turns describing different aspects of the setting and then us as a ghost and then the person or place being haunted, you decide if you want to intensify the feelings that the person or place is having or if you want to help them overcome them, and then you flip a coin to see how you do. and in the case of our game we very quickly established an identity as a ghost who, while somewhat mischievous, really did want to help, and it ended up being incredibly wholesome.
i don't know that this is necessarily a game i'll come back to unless i end up thinking someone else will really vibe with it, but i really am glad i had the experience i had playing it. it was genuinely lovely.
once we finished that, grammy had finished her gm shift and it was time to meet up for dinner and chill until the first game all four of us were playing together, weird heroes of public access.
whpa is a 2d6 game in which the players take on the role of a host of a local public access tv host in a town that's about to experience some supernatural fuckery. your can host something like a cooking show, a variety show, a talkshow, etc. i named my character kenny kaiju and gave him a monster movie review show called kaiju kino.
our scenario saw the town being taken over by some kind of demon who was using the station to hypnotize its denizens into slaves. i had very normal feelings about this!
our gm (sorry, "station manager") was pretty cool and i had a lot of fun with this game. it wasn't my favorite of the weekend or anything, but i think it solidly delivered on its premise and i wouldn't mind playing it again sometime.
anyway, that was a wrap on day 1! i was pretty exhausted thanks to a combination of jetlag and getting up early to drive the rest of the way to indy, and i think all of us were in a similar boat (even though grammy & cj weren't dealing with jetlag, having only crossed one timezone). so we headed to the hotel which was... pretty awful tbh.
like, it's genuinely fine, it's not like we were going to spend much time there doing anything other than sleeping, but the weird preemptive defensiveness of the staff made it much worse. my favorite part was when we were surprised that there wasn't an elevator and the front desk clerk who was nowhere near us yelled that um actually this was built before the americans with disabilities act so it didn't need an elevator. um, ok, cool? really set a tone there. (they also made some really weird choices like actively removing chairs from the breakfast area on sunday like they were actively trying to shoo all the convention attendees out of the hotel faster. like, y'all, DON'T worry. we were NOT planning on lingering.)
again, it was fine, it wasn't wildly unsafe or anything, i don't want to come off like i'm being overly complainy. but i will say that it is NOT very obvious from their website that the hotel is completely inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues. which fortunately isn't really any of the four of us, but like... i've literally seen events be more clear about the accessibility of buildings they do not own than this hotel is about the place you're relying on being able to sleep at? (heck, i've ORGANIZED events at older venues that unfortunately weren't accessible, and we were always VERY clear about that in every form of advertising. as far as i can tell, literally the only way you can tell that about this hotel on their website is that there's a small tab on the features that's greyed out instead of white. i know most people with mobility issues likely check very closely for this kind of thing so hopefully no one has ended up in an unfortunate situation, but like... seriously, do better.)
and like, yeah i get that it would be kinda difficult to install an elevator in a building that wasn't meant to have one, but you know what's not difficult? adding as many power outlets as a modern hotel should have. having walls that don't have holes in them. having mattresses that aren't lumpy & stiff as fuck. bringing new towels a single time? or failing that, when we ask for more towels at the desk giving us towels rather than not being able to find any and just giving us bathmats instead??? having dressers that aren't literally missing all their drawers?????? this was a hotel owned by a large hotel chain. there is no reason it should be this crummy & depressingly poorly maintained.
again, it's fine, but absorbing all this while we were all super sleep deprived and overwhelmed from the con was kind of a... Moment. we did our best to take it in stride, though, and crashed to get ready for another day of gaming!
BistoCon is a slash convention for fans of 1977 British crime drama, the Professionals. Traditionally held every two years in Romulus, Michigan, Virtual BistoCon was created in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Virtual BistoCon uses a mix of common community collaboration platforms to bring Pros fans from all over the world together for two glorious days of panel discussions, vid shows, games, and fun.
Here's a quick con report on what happened this year - August 9 and 10, 2024.
In the days leading up to BistoCon, the schedule, links, and bingo cards began to arrive in my inbox. It's go-time when those bingo cards show up!
The program is scheduled heavy for both days. This accommodates convention-goers in different time zones while offering hour-long chunks throughout the day where you can eat, nap, whatever.
Day 1:
Welcome - Catching up with the early bird arrivals and remembering the people our fandom lost since we last gathered. Welcome sessions repeated later in the day.
Episode Watch/Episode Discussion - 4 sessions.
Watch, squee, critique, repeat!
You can find The Professionals on YouTube, on TubiTV in the US, Region B discs from Amazon, or, if we're moots, hit me up.
Panel topics: Reality in Fic and Nurturing Fandom
Day 2 started hella early for me, but the good thing was that I could attend in my PJs while I brewed my morning coffee!
Episode Watch/Episode Discussion - 4 sessions. On both days, some of the discussions were full on, hour-long, guided sessions while others were shorter blocks of discussion between scheduled events.
Panel topics: The Importance of Setting, Traits of a CI5 Agent,Fic Recs, Secondary Characters
Funtime: Bingo! Pictionary!
Vidshows: Two vidshows this year, featuring classics both old and new from the long vidding tradition of Pros fandom. Plus two brand new premiering vids from kat-byrd and JinkyO!
I usually come out of a con feeling energized and excited about being part of a community. My 2023 was devestating and I did no fan stuff. 2024, it was important for me to hit up the cons that feed my soul - BistoCon does that for me year after year.
Learn more about the next BistoCon at their website, socials, Discord, and mailing list: https://bistocon.org/wp/
There were many unexpected things at the Buffalo NASFIC, but the best unexpected thing was the Trek Wars 2 burlesque show, which featured, in approximate show order:
Doctor Crusher
butch!Han Solo, with blue hair
Uhura, with excellent '60s dance moves
Padme Amidala, covering the whole I-III costume gamut
The green Twi'lek
fem!Spock
Sexy Stormtrooper (same performer as Han Solo)
Ewok (Dr. Crusher's fursona)
Leia
Childish Gambino's Lando Calrissian (same performer as Uhura, they're nonbinary)
