Balticon 2015 con report
May. 27th, 2015 01:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressBalticon is my Home Convention. Like, there's many cons that feel like home to me, but Balticon was the first con I ever went to as a Real Person (and not a kid-in-tow), and it's close enough to the homestead that I always see a lot of my lonnnnnng-term Maryland friends.
Plus, it's the con where I've got the most friends who I made at a con. Arisia, I generally spend a lot of time hanging out with friends from outside the convention scene, who I already know through dance or burns or parties or whatever. Balticon has the werewolf group, and the Balticon Kink Collective, and the Giggle1, and a TechnoFandom subset that feels warm and vibrant and welcoming, and a handful of costumer acquaintances, and it's just such a wonderful reunion, every year!
This year? No exception. This year was _incredible_, not just one of the best Balticons I've ever had, but probably one of the best *cons* I've ever gotten to enjoy. It was my tenth year, and I am so incredibly glad I made it.
Now onto the report! First part has a TW for rape culture
Ugly
*uggghhh, I'm so annoyed about this. So, there's five or six of us sitting in the hall outside the con suite, just chatting and snuggling (and I am grading). Somehow, the conversation leads to rape culture and this dude I've known casually in the werewolf scene says "Yeah, well, a lot more men get falsely accused than women get raped".
I JUST ABOUT SET HIS FUCKING HEAD ON FIRE.
Luckily, the dude I was most interested in talking to (new friend!) pretty much immediately did a "That's really not true" and I turned around and basically hissed "We are not fucking talking about this." and new-friend-dude immediately changed the subject to start talking about something else.
So yeah, I'm never going to play a game of werewolf with that asshole again, and I'm gonna put some active fucking effort to never be in the same place as his terrifying ass. Because ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Even if you (wrongly) believe that false-rape accusations are a Serious Problem, I don't think I've _ever_ heard anyone actually say that they occur more often than _fucking rapes_ do.
End Triggery section
Someday I'm gonna have a con report that doesn't have an Ugly section and it's gonna be awesome. :/
Bad
*No Aaron (sometimes referred in this journal as "Kitty") which was a damn bummer. I need to drop him a text or email or something and be all "what's up, miss you".
*My entire con was compressed into two and a half days --seriously, I arrived about 10:30PM on Friday, and left at 2:00PM on Monday. 63.5 hours total. Given that I've had Balticons where I arrived noon on Thursday and left at 6:00PM Monday (102 hours)...yeah, it was an absurdly short con this year. Which meant I was stressed about getting work hours and even more reluctant to sleep than usual and I had an amazing time, don't get me wrong, just...wow, I never want to spend so little time home again.
Meh
*I...didn't actually make it to the Dealer's Hall! I mean, I spent a nice heap of money on the crafty vendors in the hall near the ballrooms, so I totally felt I got a satisfying Con Shopping Experience, but whoops.
*No mom. This is a bummer because I love my mom above most others, and like getting chances to see her, but there've been Balticons without her, and I can survive perfectly well here alone --I did my first year, after all. Hell, with that in mind, it'd almost be weirder not to see Larry at Balticon...
Good
*FUCKING EVERYTHING! No really, I feel so overwhelmingly positive about this con!
*I bought a bunch of [metaphorically]shiny things, and later realized that pretty much all of them were deep sea themed jewelry. No seriously. I bought squid and cuttlefish earrings from my long-time werewolf!friend Matt2, I bought three pairs of tentacle earrings (in different colours!) from a random hallway vendor, and I bought a glows-in-the-freaking-dark3 octopus cameo from Robert Quill.
*Speaking of whom, it is always lovely to see him. He is a person who has elevated flirtation to a higher plane, by which I mean he's a giant perv with enough sense of boundaries to not be completely awful to interact with.
*New friend interactions in general were really great. I made a couple new Philly friends, which is always one of those "wait, but I have _no reason_ to ever go to Philly, stop being a reason damnit!" things, and strengthened my relations with the aforementioned Giggle, and otherwise had a really splendid time with people I didn't know well yet.
*Also old friend interactions! Shout-outs to the movie night crew and the techno fandom friends and everrrrryone! I am so happy with the amount of positive hugs and affection I got this weekend.
*Teaching Hanabi to Kawa (long-time girl scout wifey!) and Zach (her legitimate husband) and our mutual friend Ari. We scored twenty points, which is *not bad* for a game with three first-timers. Also, I mean, like all the time I got to interact with those two was time well spent, because they are *splendid*
*Tech! Tech was great! At strike, I fell into my usual pattern of gathering newbies and directing them in disassembling trees and pipe and the like (including this year a pair of tiny six year old girls, which was *fantastic* because any situation in which I can help small girls use wrenches and carry heavy things and coo over how strong they are is a Good Situation!).
During the con though, almost everything I did was something new to me! I got to do some video stuff, which was actually kinda satisfying and cool and I may go ahead and do it more (allegations that I am trying to impress a boy are only sorta unfounded).
And then! For masque! They were offering up the positions, and emphasizing that almost every position had the option of a shadow, to follow the lead around and learn the ropes. I was all set to be one of the backstage managers, helping steer the costumers around without falling and dying (I have helped mom enough that I ought to be able to do a fine job by now) but then our TD said "and well, we could use a shadow for Larry, who's calling the whole thing".
Um, sign me the fuck up! I like managing people, and I think I could be not awful at it, and if I'm not in a place to get groomed to be TD, then I'll sure as hell start letting myself get groomed to call masques. It was _super cool_ and at rehearsal, it was basically a chance to actively encourage people to be more dramatic and better follow Rule of Cool! I kept offering narrative suggestions that people liked and used and ee!
*There was a Sassafrass concert I worked, which was lovely, and then they ended with that heart-stopping song about space that they sang as an encore last time they were at con. o/~ and I am willing to sacrifice something I don't have for something I won't have so somebody will someday.o/~. Whimper-wince. I started sobbing immediately, of course.
*Balticon hosted its first contra dance this year, called by my friend Kristen. There was some difficulties in the first half, but conveniently, I was an hour late and so found it a completely splendid and exciting dance. I was SUPER ENTHUSIASTIC the whole time, and at the end, got one of those compliments that is A) perfect and amazing and B) contains bits which mean I can't actually put it into my testimonials without heavy editing.
*Why was I late? Because I was walking past a random person in the hall and overheard "well it's very post-apocalyptic..." and then spent like twenty minutes squeeing with a handful of people about how completely great Mad Max: Fury Road is. It is SO GREAT folks!
*Related: I threw together a badass Fury Road inspired outfit for Friday night, and looked amazing. I will be doing more of this, oh yesss.
Awesome
*There's a girl and she's incredible and thinks I'm incredible and both of us are adorably shy and blushy about it and also forward and enthusiastic and I have no idea where it's gonna go from here, but I'm so happy it exists!
*This was a fantastic year for allyship, and really hits home how reassuring it can be to have good allies. I already mentioned new-friend being on my side in the ugly section, but that wasn't even the best I experienced. See, Galia, Lanthir, and I were standing around in the con suite late on Friday night, just chatting. The person working the counter asks "can I get you ladies anything?" and Galia immediately speaks up to say "Actually, I'm the only lady here."
Like...my heart skipped a beat, because she was making it so that Lanthir and I, who both use "they/them" pronouns did not have to grit our teeth and be called ladies *or* get into a stupid and draining argument to be called by the gender signifiers that feel right to us.
And then, I got a message today from a werewolf-friend concerning a village I had been playing in. Somehow, we'd had people reciting pi, as quickly and much as possible, which was simultaneously cool and annoying. My friend found themself getting panicked by it, and safeworded out (Seriously, they said "red...RED!", and enough people did enough jabs in the ribs to make it stop.) Someone said something about how it wasn't actually a big deal and they shouldn't use a safeword for it, at which point I stepped in and said something along the lines of "Actually, it's really not up to you to decide what other people use safewords for" (the "...dumbass" was heavily implied.)
I pretty much forgot about this immediately, but the message from the friend was pretty much "yeah, I would've had to leave the village and not play any more werewolf that night which would've sucked, because I wouldn't have felt safe/respected, and you made me feel like it was a safe space" and I feel SO GOOD about this! They weren't in a place to say anything, and I was, and so I helped them feel protected and seriously, SO SO GOOD! Warm and fuzzy and safe and family and YES. This is why I go to cons, this is why I call it home, because we are out here and will protect each other, and we're getting better and better at finding our world.
Transcendent
*HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I WANT TO OWN A PLANE AND KNOW HOW TO FLY IT?! IT'S A FUCKING LOT, OKAY.
Seriously, I'm gonna make a separate post sometime just to dump photos all over the journal and make flailing squeeing noises about how fucking beautiful Pennsylvania is and how big the sky and getting to see the Appalachians from above and ffffff! Flying in a tiny plane is *hugely* superior to flying in a jet liner. It's slower, but that's more than made up for by the utter _beauty_ of the landscape below you, and the windows of a Cessna are actually such that you can _see_ out them. Magnificent!
Okay!
This is already a pretty long con report, and I keep finding new bits and remembering other lovely pieces and I LOVED THIS YEARS CON SO MUCH.
Hopefully pictures will forthcome. For now though, sleep!
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I only learned this year that there's a name for 'em, and also just how vast the conspiracy goes. H'apparently, there were five girls born to fannish parents in a span of about 54 weeks back in 95ish. I've been friends with Nikki and Maura for ages, and got to know Victoria a lot better this year, which was great.
2: I may have met Matt at my first Balticon, I have known him _forever_.
3: Did you read this line and immediately know where I got it?
Plus, it's the con where I've got the most friends who I made at a con. Arisia, I generally spend a lot of time hanging out with friends from outside the convention scene, who I already know through dance or burns or parties or whatever. Balticon has the werewolf group, and the Balticon Kink Collective, and the Giggle1, and a TechnoFandom subset that feels warm and vibrant and welcoming, and a handful of costumer acquaintances, and it's just such a wonderful reunion, every year!
This year? No exception. This year was _incredible_, not just one of the best Balticons I've ever had, but probably one of the best *cons* I've ever gotten to enjoy. It was my tenth year, and I am so incredibly glad I made it.
Now onto the report! First part has a TW for rape culture
Ugly
*uggghhh, I'm so annoyed about this. So, there's five or six of us sitting in the hall outside the con suite, just chatting and snuggling (and I am grading). Somehow, the conversation leads to rape culture and this dude I've known casually in the werewolf scene says "Yeah, well, a lot more men get falsely accused than women get raped".
I JUST ABOUT SET HIS FUCKING HEAD ON FIRE.
Luckily, the dude I was most interested in talking to (new friend!) pretty much immediately did a "That's really not true" and I turned around and basically hissed "We are not fucking talking about this." and new-friend-dude immediately changed the subject to start talking about something else.
So yeah, I'm never going to play a game of werewolf with that asshole again, and I'm gonna put some active fucking effort to never be in the same place as his terrifying ass. Because ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Even if you (wrongly) believe that false-rape accusations are a Serious Problem, I don't think I've _ever_ heard anyone actually say that they occur more often than _fucking rapes_ do.
End Triggery section
Someday I'm gonna have a con report that doesn't have an Ugly section and it's gonna be awesome. :/
Bad
*No Aaron (sometimes referred in this journal as "Kitty") which was a damn bummer. I need to drop him a text or email or something and be all "what's up, miss you".
*My entire con was compressed into two and a half days --seriously, I arrived about 10:30PM on Friday, and left at 2:00PM on Monday. 63.5 hours total. Given that I've had Balticons where I arrived noon on Thursday and left at 6:00PM Monday (102 hours)...yeah, it was an absurdly short con this year. Which meant I was stressed about getting work hours and even more reluctant to sleep than usual and I had an amazing time, don't get me wrong, just...wow, I never want to spend so little time home again.
Meh
*I...didn't actually make it to the Dealer's Hall! I mean, I spent a nice heap of money on the crafty vendors in the hall near the ballrooms, so I totally felt I got a satisfying Con Shopping Experience, but whoops.
*No mom. This is a bummer because I love my mom above most others, and like getting chances to see her, but there've been Balticons without her, and I can survive perfectly well here alone --I did my first year, after all. Hell, with that in mind, it'd almost be weirder not to see Larry at Balticon...
Good
*FUCKING EVERYTHING! No really, I feel so overwhelmingly positive about this con!
*I bought a bunch of [metaphorically]shiny things, and later realized that pretty much all of them were deep sea themed jewelry. No seriously. I bought squid and cuttlefish earrings from my long-time werewolf!friend Matt2, I bought three pairs of tentacle earrings (in different colours!) from a random hallway vendor, and I bought a glows-in-the-freaking-dark3 octopus cameo from Robert Quill.
*Speaking of whom, it is always lovely to see him. He is a person who has elevated flirtation to a higher plane, by which I mean he's a giant perv with enough sense of boundaries to not be completely awful to interact with.
*New friend interactions in general were really great. I made a couple new Philly friends, which is always one of those "wait, but I have _no reason_ to ever go to Philly, stop being a reason damnit!" things, and strengthened my relations with the aforementioned Giggle, and otherwise had a really splendid time with people I didn't know well yet.
*Also old friend interactions! Shout-outs to the movie night crew and the techno fandom friends and everrrrryone! I am so happy with the amount of positive hugs and affection I got this weekend.
*Teaching Hanabi to Kawa (long-time girl scout wifey!) and Zach (her legitimate husband) and our mutual friend Ari. We scored twenty points, which is *not bad* for a game with three first-timers. Also, I mean, like all the time I got to interact with those two was time well spent, because they are *splendid*
*Tech! Tech was great! At strike, I fell into my usual pattern of gathering newbies and directing them in disassembling trees and pipe and the like (including this year a pair of tiny six year old girls, which was *fantastic* because any situation in which I can help small girls use wrenches and carry heavy things and coo over how strong they are is a Good Situation!).
During the con though, almost everything I did was something new to me! I got to do some video stuff, which was actually kinda satisfying and cool and I may go ahead and do it more (allegations that I am trying to impress a boy are only sorta unfounded).
And then! For masque! They were offering up the positions, and emphasizing that almost every position had the option of a shadow, to follow the lead around and learn the ropes. I was all set to be one of the backstage managers, helping steer the costumers around without falling and dying (I have helped mom enough that I ought to be able to do a fine job by now) but then our TD said "and well, we could use a shadow for Larry, who's calling the whole thing".
Um, sign me the fuck up! I like managing people, and I think I could be not awful at it, and if I'm not in a place to get groomed to be TD, then I'll sure as hell start letting myself get groomed to call masques. It was _super cool_ and at rehearsal, it was basically a chance to actively encourage people to be more dramatic and better follow Rule of Cool! I kept offering narrative suggestions that people liked and used and ee!
*There was a Sassafrass concert I worked, which was lovely, and then they ended with that heart-stopping song about space that they sang as an encore last time they were at con. o/~ and I am willing to sacrifice something I don't have for something I won't have so somebody will someday.o/~. Whimper-wince. I started sobbing immediately, of course.
*Balticon hosted its first contra dance this year, called by my friend Kristen. There was some difficulties in the first half, but conveniently, I was an hour late and so found it a completely splendid and exciting dance. I was SUPER ENTHUSIASTIC the whole time, and at the end, got one of those compliments that is A) perfect and amazing and B) contains bits which mean I can't actually put it into my testimonials without heavy editing.
*Why was I late? Because I was walking past a random person in the hall and overheard "well it's very post-apocalyptic..." and then spent like twenty minutes squeeing with a handful of people about how completely great Mad Max: Fury Road is. It is SO GREAT folks!
*Related: I threw together a badass Fury Road inspired outfit for Friday night, and looked amazing. I will be doing more of this, oh yesss.
Awesome
*There's a girl and she's incredible and thinks I'm incredible and both of us are adorably shy and blushy about it and also forward and enthusiastic and I have no idea where it's gonna go from here, but I'm so happy it exists!
*This was a fantastic year for allyship, and really hits home how reassuring it can be to have good allies. I already mentioned new-friend being on my side in the ugly section, but that wasn't even the best I experienced. See, Galia, Lanthir, and I were standing around in the con suite late on Friday night, just chatting. The person working the counter asks "can I get you ladies anything?" and Galia immediately speaks up to say "Actually, I'm the only lady here."
Like...my heart skipped a beat, because she was making it so that Lanthir and I, who both use "they/them" pronouns did not have to grit our teeth and be called ladies *or* get into a stupid and draining argument to be called by the gender signifiers that feel right to us.
And then, I got a message today from a werewolf-friend concerning a village I had been playing in. Somehow, we'd had people reciting pi, as quickly and much as possible, which was simultaneously cool and annoying. My friend found themself getting panicked by it, and safeworded out (Seriously, they said "red...RED!", and enough people did enough jabs in the ribs to make it stop.) Someone said something about how it wasn't actually a big deal and they shouldn't use a safeword for it, at which point I stepped in and said something along the lines of "Actually, it's really not up to you to decide what other people use safewords for" (the "...dumbass" was heavily implied.)
I pretty much forgot about this immediately, but the message from the friend was pretty much "yeah, I would've had to leave the village and not play any more werewolf that night which would've sucked, because I wouldn't have felt safe/respected, and you made me feel like it was a safe space" and I feel SO GOOD about this! They weren't in a place to say anything, and I was, and so I helped them feel protected and seriously, SO SO GOOD! Warm and fuzzy and safe and family and YES. This is why I go to cons, this is why I call it home, because we are out here and will protect each other, and we're getting better and better at finding our world.
Transcendent
*HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I WANT TO OWN A PLANE AND KNOW HOW TO FLY IT?! IT'S A FUCKING LOT, OKAY.
Seriously, I'm gonna make a separate post sometime just to dump photos all over the journal and make flailing squeeing noises about how fucking beautiful Pennsylvania is and how big the sky and getting to see the Appalachians from above and ffffff! Flying in a tiny plane is *hugely* superior to flying in a jet liner. It's slower, but that's more than made up for by the utter _beauty_ of the landscape below you, and the windows of a Cessna are actually such that you can _see_ out them. Magnificent!
Okay!
This is already a pretty long con report, and I keep finding new bits and remembering other lovely pieces and I LOVED THIS YEARS CON SO MUCH.
Hopefully pictures will forthcome. For now though, sleep!
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I only learned this year that there's a name for 'em, and also just how vast the conspiracy goes. H'apparently, there were five girls born to fannish parents in a span of about 54 weeks back in 95ish. I've been friends with Nikki and Maura for ages, and got to know Victoria a lot better this year, which was great.
2: I may have met Matt at my first Balticon, I have known him _forever_.
3: Did you read this line and immediately know where I got it?
no subject
on 2015-05-27 09:55 am (UTC)Also -- are Galia and Lanthir the Philly friends? I think I may have met them at a party here, through the miracle of the world being three inches wide.