Nov 13 2023

Biggest Little Fur Con

I did something I’ve never done before, I went to a furry convention. Specifically the Biggest Little Fur Con (BLFC) in Reno, Nevada. Why would a LARPer, who doesn’t identify as a furry, go to one of the biggest furry conventions in North America? A wedding of course!

My high school friend Vincent (know as Hawk in the furry community) has been trying to get me to go to BLFC for years, but it’s been difficult to make the trip; he’s been helping run it for years now.. Then he he decided to get married to his partner Pony and they decided to hold the wedding at the convention. I couldn’t not go.

I think it was a big ploy to finally get me to attend the con, it had nothing to do with marrying the love of his life. No, he knew I wouldn’t want to miss one of my best friend’s wedding so he doubled up events so I had to finally see this convention he’s been helping to run for years.

Before helping run furry events Vincent was a big help in running LARP events with me, specifically feasts. For over a decade he was my right hand man. I don’t plan on going into it, but if you’re interested in learning more about Vincent’s time in LARP I did have an interview with him. You can find the video HERE on my YouTube channel.

I went to the con for the full time, Monday to Thursday, and had a pretty fun time. I had driven down with two friends, Dale and Riley. Dale didn’t spend as much time at the con as Riley and I, as he had to spend most of each day working from the Airbnb.

Despite being there every day we only attended one of the panels, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” a Star Trek panel that focused on one episode and how it was a metaphor for US-USSR relations at the end of the Cold War. I was surprised to see a Star Trek panel at a furry, con but considering Riley and I run a Star Trek podcast, we had to go to that panel. (check out our podcast at www.hightrekpodcast.com). It was a pretty interesting panel but I wasn’t 100 percent sold on the interpretation, but the presenter did a good job presenting his argument.

We spent most of our time just vibing, especially on Wednesday. That’s the day we stayed the latest, not going back to our place till 1am. Riley and I hit up the pool party and got our drink on. They went swimming while I vibed to the music and sipped on my drink. I was enjoying the music and the crowed. The dance floor was popping, although I don’t have a picture of it.

After Riley was done swimming in the pool and chilling in the hot tub we hit up the main dance party before heading back to our rental. The party was banging and the energy was infectious. I’ve been to several cons (running them usually) and this audio and visual set up was by far the best I’ve seen and heard.

The whole experience was very enjoyably and I was happy to have been there to support Vincent at his wedding. I even got a little watery eyed during the ceremony. Before the con I already had some idea of furry culture from talking with Vincent, but experiencing it first hand helped me understand it better. I came away with a new understanding of furry events and a rather interesting observation about the culture. There are a lot of similarities between LARP communities and the furry community, which might be the subject of it’s own blog.

Will I go back? I would most certainly consider it! Does that make me a furry? Na, but Dale Riley and I did spend some time talking about what our fursona would be. I’m not sure what people in the furry community would say about what I decided my fursona would be, but I did make a decision. I would be a werebear gnome.

If I were to get a fur suit it would be a bear suit and I’ d wear LARP garb and of course a gnome hat. When I took off the fur suit, I would still be wearing garb and again, of course a gnome hat. No matter what form I was in, I’d be gnomish!

Pictures

I also wanted to share the pictures I took at the convention. There aren’t to many, but I did enjoy taking the ones I did take. Most of them are from Wednesday, a few from the pool party and a few from the dance party.

Oct 16 2023

My Own Trials in the Pacific

Table Of Contents
  1. The Last Two Months
  2. Trial of the Content Creation Grind
  3. Trials of the Pacific Mane
  4. Where Is The Content?

I’m not able to release my normal Monday YouTube video for the second week, but I wanted release something today, so I went with a blog. I’ve written about what I’ve been up to the past two months, with a particular focus on the Trials of the Pacific Mane event.

The Last Two Months

The last two months have been wild. In six weeks I went to three deferent LARP campouts. Two Amtgard events, Pacific War, and Northern Light’s Fall Coronation Campout and the third was a Belegarth Event, Trials of the Pacific Mane. While I had a lot of fun at these three events, it’s also been something of a trail of endurance for me.

Then on to of that, this last weekend I made another trip up to Washington to visit with Riley. While we had a lot of fun, much like the LARP event, the weekend was also about work. We recorded two episodes of our podcast High Trek, as well as two of our mid week shows, High Tea Time. It’s always fun, but very exhausting, especially when we record back to back like that.

Trial of the Content Creation Grind

All this extra events and travel has made keeping up with my content creation goals difficult. There is such a thing as post-event blues and I’m susceptible to that too, just like anyone else. Plus I’m still dealing with what I hope is the tail end of an increased depression spike (read about that HERE) adding to the difficulty.

This has been a lot of traveling and work for me! Between the four weekends I’ve traveled at least 1,200. Then, each weekend I spent time working on recording content. Granted I also had a lot of fun, but it takes a deferent kind of energy to add work on top of the fun, which in and of itself causes exhaustion.

Even at the Northern Lights event, where I ended up not working as much as I expected, I put in work each day. Sadly there was an equipment issue and the vlog of the event I planned on doing didn’t have enough clean audio. You can read more about that weekend HERE. There will be at least one or two knighting videos though. I’ll publish those even if they have some audio issues.

Trials of the Pacific Mane

I want to take a little extra time to talk about one of the events in a little more detail, Trails of the Pacific Mane I was really exited to check out the Belegarth event. It deserves it’s own blog and it will get it, I recorded enough content I’ll be able to put together a vlog for the YouTube Channel! Still, I wanted to say a few words here about it as well.

My only other experience with a Belegarth event is Western Wars. (Check out the blog of my last visit to the event HERE.) I’ve gone there several times throughout the years, but until this year there hasn’t really been another Belegarth camping event within my driving distance.

I enjoyed seeing the differences between the two events. Unlike Western Wars, Trials had more planned events. There were several tournaments, battlegames and arts and science classes, plus planned night activities. There was even a quest board!

Western Wars is a more relaxed event and from my experience. The primary planned activities at the event were line fighting and night activities. Fun, very fun, but not the most diverse experience when it comes to events.

Unlike most events, where I sleep on site, I had an AIrbnb. I shared it with Gustav, who drove up with me and Devry. This limited my time I could spend hanging out socializing at night, but I had fun watching the fighting, I even fought a little with Gustav. I also attended a class on Belegarth war braids, it was fairly interesting. There will be more about that in the vlog.

The event runner Dwarf made a point to say hello and check in on me to see how I was doing several times through the event. He made me feel very welcome and not only that, he asked about feedback on the event. I was happy to provide some. He was very receptive and appreciated my advice and observations, which I appreciated. I like talking shop.

On top of the vlog I also recorded at least one of tournaments as well as the Real Battle (For those in Amtgard, Realms is the Belegarth version of Holdings). The tournaments were ran differently that I have experienced. In Amtgard It’s usually a bearpit or a bracketed tournament. At the event people just randomly got into a line, fought who was next to them, then the winners got back into winners only line and it was repeated, until there was one winner. It was an interesting way to organize a tournament.

The Realm Battle was pretty cool, it was two big teams and a smaller team duking it out. They did three rounds, and I think the video turned out really well. People were hyped for the battle, there was a lot pre-game battle chanting. I got some of it on video and I’m sure going to try and incorporate it into something!

Where Is The Content?

I have videos from every event attended, so when is it going to come out? I’ve already started to release it! The videos will generally come out in order of recording. I have already released one PacWar video and one NLCC video.

The rest of the videos will probably come out in order, starting with the rest of the tournament videos at PacWar, I will then the release the knighting videos from NLLC followed by the fighting videos at The Trials of the Pacific Mane and ending with the vlog from the event. This will take several weeks, but they are coming! I also recorded some ditching at my local park of Silvermoon, so that might be thrown into the mix some where.

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Sep 27 2023

Taking it Easy at NLCC

Table Of Contents
  1. Buzz Buzz Goes The Wire
  2. The Day to Beat
  3. Northwest Community Building
  4. Back Porch Court
  5. A Little Wrap-up
  6. General Updates

It’s time to take off that depression blog off the front page and put up a something a little more upbeat. That is, my trip to Northern Light’s Coronation Campout, Fall 2023. NLCC is an Amtgard camping event put on by the Kingdom of Northern Lights.

This is one of the few times I’ve attended their fall coronation. Normally I only attend the spring coronation, but this year my friends D’gar and Gen were getting knighted and I wanted to make it a point to do everything I could to make it there and make it there I did.

I was going to go with Gustav, but he got sick, so I ended up driving up alone. I got to listen to my music loud and enjoy the new subwoofer. I had a reasonably enjoyable drive up, it gave me time to think and ponder, while going boom boom along the highway.

Buzz Buzz Goes The Wire

When I arrived, I set up my bed and decided I was going to do a vlog this event. I spent time recording an intro, and it turns out there is a buzzing noise. This also happened when I recorded the knightings the next day. However it did not seem to happen when I recorded my fighting videos. Best guess is a cord is going out, I have since ordered a new one.

It was at this point on Thursday, I figured a vlog was probably off the table, which honestly, I think it turned out for the best. This was one of the few event in the last two years I wasn’t working at the in some compacity. It was for sure the first Northern Lights campout I wasn’t working at since the pandemic. At this point I decided to take it easy.

I’m still dealing with the depression, I was low energy, so I don’t have any wild stories. I went to bed at 1:30am Thursday night, which it sounded like I missed some good party times on the back porch. Although I was eventually caught up and there was more good times to be had at the back porch that weekend.

The Day to Beat

Unknown to everyone, Friday was the big game day. The weather was nice, maybe a little too hot. I spent several hours at the field that day, most of which was watching jugging. It was a random team generation with non competitive matches. It went smoothly and it seemed everyone had a pretty fun time. There were a good amount of people who had never played the game before. I think it was a good introduction.

I did manage to get some video on Friday. One was a two to three minute video of Unum and Raff going at it with great swords, the heat got to them pretty fast. The other video is of Aera and Skorri dueling with dual short swords. It’s a full ten minutes long. I’m looking forward to editing it.

Despite not much happening, I ended up being the last person up in the common areas Friday night, going to bed sometime around 5. it was a pretty chill night. I had a few beers, ate a few edibles (legal in my state) and kind of just roamed around some groups.

With most of my friends from up north engaged with running the event, I didn’t get to spend as much time with them as I normally would have. This led me to jump around a bit more than I have these past few events. I spent some time on the porch, some time in the hall and time at the amphitheater. At one point Kimjim saw me take a dab and noted that I took it like a champ. It was just a cool random moment.

Northwest Community Building

Saturday turned out to be a very wet day. It didn’t really start to stop till early evening. The downside was I couldn’t get any video, not all my equipment is waterproof, the upside, there was some strong sense of comradery between those people who toughed it out in the rain.

For example, the The First Third Annual “Name Redacted” Tournament (RIP Dogboy) was held in the morning, in the rain. It didn’t stop, not once, it got worse at times. There was one point I sought refuge in my car but I tried to at least tough it out. I was supposed to record Heron and Opi after the tournament!

Alas it was not to be, the rain never let up and I never got that video, but I did get this cool picture of all the people who entered the tournament. Again, like the jugging, everyone seemed to have a blast, sprits were high and I think some new bonds of friendship were born from the joint suffering of the Northwest rain.

Back Porch Court

Did I mention that NLCC had 215 people on sight when gate closed on Thursday night? Well it did, that’s huge for this event. I think the final numbers were around 280. Needless to say court was packed. I didn’t even attempt to stand in the building. I went to the Back Porch like all the other degenerates.

Still, thanks to Devry standing at the door and yelling out what was being given out for use porch goers, I was able to hear of some very deserving awards that went out. One of particular note was Guin’s Paragon Assassin.

Just early that day she was talking about how, out of all the awards she’s been striving for, that’s the one that would mean the most to her. She confided in me she was worried that due to life stuff it might take another few years before she had the chance to earn it again. She had no idea she was going to be getting it later that night. I was so happy for her.

After court I spent most of the rest of the night hanging out in the stage hall with the some of my friends and sister packmates who had been running the event, the Inland Ocean peoples. Then I was off to bed!

A Little Wrap-up

I enjoyed the event and it sounded like many others enjoyed themselves as well. For a rather large dedicated group of fighters who endured and even thrived in the rain on Saturday morning and beyond, it will be a rather memorable event, or so I suspect.

I must also make note of the wonderful feast Saturday, cooked by Cole and their crew. I had a chance to chat with Cole about the feast Thursday and then a little bit about feast after the event. They were enjoyable conversations.

I should note more than two people helped in the kitchen, this was just the pictures I had.

General Updates

Now that my semi-vacation Amtgard event is over, what is next? Well, it’s Belegarth and it’s in a little under two weeks. I’ll be going to Trials of The Pacific Mane up in Washington.

It’s a new Belegarth campout and I’m excited to be able to go to this inaugural camping event. It looks like it’s going to be another well attended event. All the camping spots are already taken! I’ll be staying near by with Gustav and Devry. I’m not sure what I’m in for or what kind of video I’ll be getting.

I’m thinking of doing a reordering of my projects and will make a post concerning my projects going forward. Hopefully before I leave for Trials.

One project I’m really interested in trying to workshop, is a fighting league with rankings and tournaments. Hit me up if you want to hear more about that! More the merrier. Cross Gamers more than welcome but the default ruleset will be Amtgard foam fighting, at least to start.

You can see my Tier 2 (Rock Gnomes) and 3 (Tinker Gnomes) supporters on my Patreon Supporters page as well as find out how to become a Patron yourself.