Con Report - ConFABulous
Oct. 21st, 2018 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse I'm staying home from con this morning because I'm wiped out. Two nights in a row, I stayed out way past my bedtime. And, I mean: until 2 AM.
On Friday night, I showed up at con (which was at Crowne Plaza near the airport) around 10 pm (for those of you who know me, this is already past my bedtime, but I had napped earlier in the evening because we were all tired from having gone to the KAYSC parent orientation/dinner, which I'll write about in a moment.) I brought my laptop becausejiawen and her friend BC wanted to join a Star Trek: Discovery RPG game that John T. was running at the con. Initially, I thought I'd mostly sit out the game and only act as technical services. But, of course that's no fun.
I had an amazing time. John ran a good campaign--very doable in a short period and the pre-made characters all had really well-developed backstories that were easy to find a theme/personality to play. Our players were all into it, too. I probably could have played all night.
In fact, it made me miss role-playing. I told Shawn that I'd really like to get a local group together again.
Saturday morning, I broughtjiawen back for a panel she wanted to see on game design, which was possibly the only dud of the con. To the presenter's credit, it is VERY HARD to hold forth on a panel when you're the only panelist. Without a moderator to guide the conversation, it can be easy to ramble. I know, because I feared this for my Queer Eye for the Yaoi Guy panel and it was only mitigated by the fact that I talked Don K in to staying at the panel table and acting as an impromptu moderator. So, I mean, possibly the panel just needed more panelists. Rachel and I hung out (she was Google hangout-ing in from Taiwan) chatting before and after, which was lovely. She had maybe wanted to see another panel, but I begged off because I really felt like I needed a nap before coming back for the 5:30 pm panel I needed to moderate and, of course, the dreaded slash "midnight" reading at 10 pm.
The yaoi panel went... okay. People always tell me that I make a good panelist and normally I agree with them because who doesn't want to believe they did well? But, I really felt scattered and all over the place, despite having actually organized my thoughts in a blog on Mangakast. So, if you're curious about the topic, you can feel free to read my far more cogent thoughts there.
One person in the audience gave me a mission. I'm going to see if I can find any yaoi with actual "coming out" stories as part of any plot/romance.
Then, I hung around the con chatting with John T. and I ended up following him to his panel about sex in RPG gaming and even though there was only one other person there (Rae) we had a really interesting discussion about all sorts of interpersonal issues in RPG table top gaming. I invited Rae to dinner with John and I and we were joined by Jason S. and Joe A. and, then later, by Kate J.
Thank all the gods for Kate because she made the slash reading into a HUGE success.
As many of you know, I have a lot of trouble reading the sexy bits OUT LOUD. I have, in the past, employed audience participation and, like in this case, a stunt reader who takes over for me when things get rough. I would love to do this again at the next Gaylaxicon or ConFABulous, but NOT ALONE. I'm pretty sure the audience is getting super tired of *my* porn.
But, then I ended up chatting with Kate until 2 AM again. Not that I think I made much sense after 1 AM, but Kate is such an interesting person that I could probably have talked to her all night, too.
Now I am brain dead.
The KAYSC dinner was great, though entirely less informative than I'd hoped. Shawn and I had hoped to get a behind the scenes tour of the Science Museum out of it, but the dinner was actually at a community center. But, the food was good, catered by Boca Chica. The presentation as good, though slightly less informative than we wanted. Our take away was that, in a lot of ways, the actual projects that the kids do are kind of actually secondary to the learning to do them. Which is fine? I mean, seriously? Getting paid for what amounts to research training? Yeah, that's possibly the best job, ever.
It's been an amazing weekend.
Now I go sleep.
On Friday night, I showed up at con (which was at Crowne Plaza near the airport) around 10 pm (for those of you who know me, this is already past my bedtime, but I had napped earlier in the evening because we were all tired from having gone to the KAYSC parent orientation/dinner, which I'll write about in a moment.) I brought my laptop because
jiawen and her friend BC wanted to join a Star Trek: Discovery RPG game that John T. was running at the con. Initially, I thought I'd mostly sit out the game and only act as technical services. But, of course that's no fun. I had an amazing time. John ran a good campaign--very doable in a short period and the pre-made characters all had really well-developed backstories that were easy to find a theme/personality to play. Our players were all into it, too. I probably could have played all night.
In fact, it made me miss role-playing. I told Shawn that I'd really like to get a local group together again.
Saturday morning, I brought
jiawen back for a panel she wanted to see on game design, which was possibly the only dud of the con. To the presenter's credit, it is VERY HARD to hold forth on a panel when you're the only panelist. Without a moderator to guide the conversation, it can be easy to ramble. I know, because I feared this for my Queer Eye for the Yaoi Guy panel and it was only mitigated by the fact that I talked Don K in to staying at the panel table and acting as an impromptu moderator. So, I mean, possibly the panel just needed more panelists. Rachel and I hung out (she was Google hangout-ing in from Taiwan) chatting before and after, which was lovely. She had maybe wanted to see another panel, but I begged off because I really felt like I needed a nap before coming back for the 5:30 pm panel I needed to moderate and, of course, the dreaded slash "midnight" reading at 10 pm.The yaoi panel went... okay. People always tell me that I make a good panelist and normally I agree with them because who doesn't want to believe they did well? But, I really felt scattered and all over the place, despite having actually organized my thoughts in a blog on Mangakast. So, if you're curious about the topic, you can feel free to read my far more cogent thoughts there.
One person in the audience gave me a mission. I'm going to see if I can find any yaoi with actual "coming out" stories as part of any plot/romance.
Then, I hung around the con chatting with John T. and I ended up following him to his panel about sex in RPG gaming and even though there was only one other person there (Rae) we had a really interesting discussion about all sorts of interpersonal issues in RPG table top gaming. I invited Rae to dinner with John and I and we were joined by Jason S. and Joe A. and, then later, by Kate J.
Thank all the gods for Kate because she made the slash reading into a HUGE success.
As many of you know, I have a lot of trouble reading the sexy bits OUT LOUD. I have, in the past, employed audience participation and, like in this case, a stunt reader who takes over for me when things get rough. I would love to do this again at the next Gaylaxicon or ConFABulous, but NOT ALONE. I'm pretty sure the audience is getting super tired of *my* porn.
But, then I ended up chatting with Kate until 2 AM again. Not that I think I made much sense after 1 AM, but Kate is such an interesting person that I could probably have talked to her all night, too.
Now I am brain dead.
The KAYSC dinner was great, though entirely less informative than I'd hoped. Shawn and I had hoped to get a behind the scenes tour of the Science Museum out of it, but the dinner was actually at a community center. But, the food was good, catered by Boca Chica. The presentation as good, though slightly less informative than we wanted. Our take away was that, in a lot of ways, the actual projects that the kids do are kind of actually secondary to the learning to do them. Which is fine? I mean, seriously? Getting paid for what amounts to research training? Yeah, that's possibly the best job, ever.
It's been an amazing weekend.
Now I go sleep.