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MRS. HAWKING SPILLS THE TEA! A collection of behind-the-scenes looks at the making of the Mrs. Hawking shows, in the lead up to our live and filmed performances at Arisia 2024.

Previous episodes:
1. Intro
2. Costumes



Mrs. Hawking Spills the Tea - Episode 3 - GRWM with Arthur Swann

What does it take to be one of London's finest peelers (or police, for those not up on their Victorian slang)? Actor Matt Kamm takes us behind the scenes as he gets into costume to play Arthur Swann in the Mrs. Hawking shows!

#MrsHawkingSpillsTheTea #MrsHawking #setlife #backstage #actor #makingof #film #actorlife #GRWM #theater #theatercostumes #costumes #arisia #victorian #victoriancostume #costuming #costumedesign #technicaltheater #superhero #femalesuperhero #newplay #arisia2024 #behindthescenes

Video by Cari Keebaugh. Featuring Matthew Kamm.

Mrs. Hawking Part 6: FALLEN WOMEN will be performed at Arisia 2024 at 5pm on Saturday, January 13th at the Boston Westin Seaport. Register for the con to see our show: Arisia.org.
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October Review Challenge, #20 - "What’s a writing skill in which you've grown?"

Without a doubt, for me this is subtext. I've always been fond of storytelling that made its point a little more subtly, carrying meaning below the surface rather than stating everything in so many words. Unfortunately, until relatively recently in my writing career, I wasn't very good at pulling it off myself. It was something pointed out to me by one of my writing mentors in grad school, Kate Snodgrass, who challenged me to dig into it and improve.

I mentioned a little while back that I thought a recent landmark in my development of this was in Mrs. Hawking part IV: Gilded Cages. Reginald Hawking falling for young Victoria had to happen behind their interactions, since an important part of things was that she didn't realize it was happening. I feel like I did a good job making that believable and affecting.

Photo by Steve Karpf


I also got a very nice compliment on it recently. I've been developing the script for Justin Hawking's spinoff adventure, Gentlemen Never Tell, and a goal of mine was to give it a bit of weight without detracting from the fun and the comedy. So as Justin goes through his madcap little jaunt, he has to confront and learn a few things— such as how not everybody is lucky enough to have his freedom to flout convention, how many people perceive him to be a user who doesn't value relationships. But I wanted to take it with a light touch, have Justin come through it experientially, without it seeming like the world was lecturing him. Upon showing it to some people, Matt Kamm very kindly commented that it was funny to remember that I'd struggled with subtext, given how well the subtleties worked in this new play. That meant a lot to me to hear.
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So this weekend, [livejournal.com profile] natbudin, [livejournal.com profile] laura47, and Peter wanted to do their own personal little version of Iron GM, where you write a 2-hour, 12-person larp in 24 hours based off of a genre, a theme, and an element that is given to you at the very start of the writing period. [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer and I brainstormed these for them and came up with ghost story, hunger, and nursery rhymes, which I think is a pretty interesting combination.

I joked how if Matt hadn't talked me out of it, I would have given them German expressionism, insecure masculinity, and lithopedions. But it inspired me with all these terrible possibilities for awful, awful secret ingredients for Iron GM. So, instead of sleeping or doing anything else particularly productive, I spent two and a half hours on Twitter last night brainstorming combinations of genres, themes, and elements that Nat, Laura, and Peter should be very grateful I did not give them.

55 #RejectedIronGM secret ingredients! )

Actually a few of those could be fun. I'd actually like to play what comes out of "Comedy of manners, sexually transmitted diseases, ornamental pastry." And I'll admit "Dating sim, gentlemen prefer skinny brunettes, Chris Evans" is me just having a bit of fun.

Maybe I should organize an Absurd Iron GM. A... Phlebotinum GM, perhaps. Where the teams sign on knowing the ingredients will be ridiculous, and they must make the best (humorous or otherwise) game possible out of them. That might be fun...
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New post on Mrshawking.com!



"Tuxedos, fine ladies, and ruffians – more costuming for Mrs. Hawking"

Jennifer Giorno, our amazing costumer, put together such a gorgeous collection of looks for our production at Arisia 2015. Historical Victorian dress, particularly for men, was very strictly regimented, but we still wanted to balance that with creating a visually engaging stylization that spoke of our characters' personalities as well as provide texture to the world they live in. In addition to our leads, Jenn assembled a beautiful collection of looks to round out our supporting cast. Many pieces came from our personal collections, while others were very generous loans from our friends Lise Fracalossi and Nicholas Magruder.

Read the rest of the entry and see the rest of the looks on Mrshawking.com!
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I give you the cast of Mrs. Hawking at Arisia '15!

Mrs. Victoria Hawking: Frances Kimpel
Miss Mary Stone: Samantha LeVangie
Mr. Nathaniel Hawking: Jonathan Plesser
Mrs. Celeste Fairmont: Arielle Kaplan
Lord Cedric Brockton: Francis Hauert
Sir Walter Grainger: Matthew Kamm
Mr. John Colchester: Robert Imperato
Miss Grace Monroe: Jennifer Giorno
Ensemble: Joye Thaller, Andrew Prentice

I am really excited to work with each and every one of these people!

Read more on Mrshawking.com!
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I am pleased to announce that we have a cast for the staged reading of Vivat Regina at Bare Bones with Theatre@First!


image



As I mentioned, the three talented people playing Mrs. Hawking, Mary, and Nathaniel in last year's Bare Bones reading of the original play were kind enough to agree to return. I am delighted to have Elizabeth Hunter, Gabrielle Geller, and Ryan Kacani reading again. But that meant I still had three other people to choose!

This audition process was even tougher than it was last year; I was very fortunate to have a nice selection of talented people, but sadly that meant there were more people I enjoyed than I could possibly use. It's always sad when you don't have enough space for someone who gives a good reading and whom you'd be happy to work. I feel very grateful so many people were willing to share their talent with me to put on this piece. Thank you so much to everyone who auditioned; I really wished I had more roles.

The cast I finally settled on is a follows:

Mrs. Victoria Hawking - Elizabeth Hunter
Miss Mary Stone - Gabrielle Geller
Mr. Nathaniel Hawking - Ryan Kacani
Mrs. Johanna Braun / Frau Kirsten Gerhard / Narrator #3 - Joye Thaller
Mrs. Clara Hawking / Narrator #2 - Samantha LeVangie
Mr. Arthur Swann / Narrator #1 - Matthew Kamm

I am very excited to work with every one of them.

I hope you'll all come out to see this very talented cast read Vivat Regina on Thursday, October 2nd at 8PM at Unity Somerville at 6 William Street, Somerville, MA.
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My first game of the weekend was Saturday morning, Midsummer Mischief run by [livejournal.com profile] captainecchi and [livejournal.com profile] electric_monk.

I had a lot of fun in this game. I played Constance Keeble, the horrible sister of Lord Emsworth, and it was a perfect cast. I am by nature a mean, nasty person, and I was carrying a lot of rage and frustration from the previous week, so the opportunity to be the bad guy who was awful to everyone was very welcome. I wore a slightly outdated costume that was more of a look for the teens rather than the twenties, with a big hat and a horrible mink stole I found in a thrift store.

I had goals and things—mostly about controlling my unruly, embarrassing family so that they wouldn’t marry poor people — but I was much more interested in simply being this character. So I stomped around ranting at people, criticizing their behavior, and loudly bemoaning the distinct vein of idiocy that ran inexorably through the Threepwoods. I’ve been reading the Blandings books quite a bit lately, so I knew the tone, and was particularly pleased to see people nailing the portrayals of their characters. Favorite people to interact with included were [livejournal.com profile] oakenguy as my dear brother Clarence Threewood, ninth earl of Emsworth, who got his Lordship’s pleasant vagueness exactly; [livejournal.com profile] witticaster’s hilarious nailing of the Honorable Freddie’s unique speaking cadence; Hyde’s perfect and slightly creepy Efficient Baxter; [livejournal.com profile] zapf’s mix of loyal devotion and acid bitterness in Beach; [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer’s getting Galahad Threepwood’s accent and biting wit dead-on. Favorite moments: detailing the fate that awaited Beefy Bingham if he married my niece; to wit, that he would forever commingle his bloodline with the Threepwood font of idiocy. Telling Gally that his monocle gave his face the nastiest expression, to hear in return that he preferred it to my hat with the aspect of a runaway fruit stand. Backhanded sniping with my sisters played by [livejournal.com profile] in_water_writ and [livejournal.com profile] ninja_report. Forgetting the names of the nobodies my blasted nieces and nephews were marrying, and so referring to them as Shiftless Peasant and Backalley Slattern. I also enjoyed instructing Huxley, the horrible little boy hilariously played by Nick, to find the air gun and shoot one of my irritating relatives, I didn’t care which.

I had a lovely, light, silly, frothy time, and it helped raise my mood from the exhaustion and frustration brought on by all the work to get Brockhurst ready to go for its first run. Thanks to Lise and Matt for being so good as to run it for us!

breakinglight11: (Cool Fool)
triskaidekafestival

Reposting this from our lovely Festival con chair [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer:

"Hey everyone! I know it's still months away (and on the other side of Intercon, to boot) but as your friendly Con Chair I would like to get a final Festival of the LARPs schedule up in the somewhat-near future. We've had a bunch of great games bid that I'm really looking forward to, but it's not yet a full schedule. So, if you love Brandeis' annual free LARP convention, consider bidding a game. There are lots of great games by local authors that we'd be thrilled to have, and if we don't have a full schedule, the con just doesn't happen. There are games available to be run by people who don't want to write their own, too - easy, fun games that make a great introduction to GMing or easier con prep for experienced GM's.

Bidding a game is SUPER EASY, you guys. Just go to the Festival website and click the link to fill out the bid form. It will probably take you five minutes or less."

I am running Break a Leg, and could possibly be conned into running something else. Especially if you've got something you'd like help running, talk to me and I might be willing to GM with you.
breakinglight11: (Cool Fool)
We ran Resonance first in the day. It was a decent run, though I think we had the slight problem of characters not knowing entirely what to do with themselves. The scenes seemed to go well and to engage everyone, but returning to the present situation I'm not sure everyone saw a clear direction for themselves. Because of that I have somewhat mixed feelings about how well it went. I hope the players enjoyed themselves, or at least found it an interesting experience.

One player was running late, and that was the first time we got to test the modularity of the game. In theory the game was supposed to be able to handle less than a full complement of players, but we'd never actually had that happen before. My first instinct was to go through and cut out one character from each round of scenes, which when I looked through them I was fairly certain could be done smoothly. But Jared was smarter than me and said, why doesn't a GM just NPC the extra character? That worked just fine, especially since we had a large number of GMs anyway, and allowed us to run the casting mechanic for that player until he showed. It was a shame he missed that part of it, and didn't actually get to select his character for himself, but it kept the game on track. 

I also decided, after watching Bernie work to throw one together during runtime, to see if I could put together an automated casting document to speed up the process. Basically we needed something that can assemble letters that each represent a casting marker into a two separate three-letter codes, then spit out which characters correspond with those codes. It took a lot of screwing around and learning new things about Excel, but after learning how to use the Concatenate and Lookup formulas, I put together something that I think works. It's a bit kludgey, like everything technological I do, but as long as you don't examine how it's put together it seems slick enough, and, more to the point, serves the purpose.

After running Resonance I played in Stars Over Atlantis. I really enjoyed this game, and found it to be as well-written as I hoped it to be. Let me say to everyone who was confused by the blurb (like I was) and slightly weirded out hearing about the BDSM club setting and the aggressive non-normativity (like I was), the story is really deep and fascinating and not hung up on the weird stuff. I absolutely loved the inner conceit of the plot, so unraveling it in all its complexity was a blast. One of my favorite things to do in a larp in figure out what went on with the story, and where it will go from here. 

One of the things that amused me most was how radically different my portrayal of my character became as compared to what I planned. I was playing a fantasy author meddling in things she was insatiably curious about but didn't really understand, and I had thought to behave as a smug but superificially pleasant jerk who thought she knew everything and of course could handle whatever she might dig up. Instead I found myself acting as a loud, self-absorbed wag nosing into everyone's business and mockingly shooting my mouth off. It worked, I think, but wow, was that a role that got away from me.

I also must commend [livejournal.com profile] morethings5 and [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer for being particularly  awesome in the game. Matt was crosscast in a fairly plot-significant and  emotionally weighty role, and I was really impressed with how he carried it off. Kindness was in a role that had a lot to do with my  part, and he is always a joy to interact with; he is one of the few  people I will put down on my casting questionnaires as somebody with  whom I'm comfortable having just about any kind of interaction, no  matter how intense. Props also to [livejournal.com profile] pezzonovante for just being great to  larp with as well; we had some good conversations and he was wonderful  to bounce ideas off of. And of course, thanks to [livejournal.com profile] wired_lizard and  [livejournal.com profile] mllelaurel, the authors of this fabulous game. The concept is really  cool and the writing is spectacular. I'm glad a got a chance to play,  especially when it probably wasn't the sort of game I'd seek out in  other circumstances.
breakinglight11: (Bowing Fool)
The Burn Notice game went well last night. I felt especially good going into this one, partially because I was so excited to get back to this game, and partially because I was feeling very well-prepared. Jared and I had hammered out a particularly well-thought-out storyline this time around. While normally I do try to be very thorough, I usually have some gaps in what I've settled on that need to be filled in on the fly, but for this plot things were about as fleshed out as they possibly could be. I have Jared's help to thank for that.

Probably the thing I love best about this game is how the players play off of each other. The original three, Bernie, Matt, and Kindness, have established these awesome relationships between their characters that they roleplay so well together. And even better, before long Michael was clicking into it too, and I had an entire table to fun, funny, dynamic players who did interesting things, had fabulous interactions, and interspersed so much humor between the more serious plot moments of the game. Seeing as getting that going was my whole purpose in starting up the game, I am ridiculously pleased.

I still sometimes think I'm the world's lamest GM, given that I forget stuff like action dice and sometimes have to say, "Okay, GM break time," then go hide in the bathroom and rock back and forth muttering "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" But of course, there is no scenario you can entirely plan out, because players always always do things you don't necessarily expect. Still, I think I did a good job of expanding the concepts I already had to give responses to the actions they took. The one thing I'm a little disappointed with myself over is how I handled the investigation of the red herring in the plot. They were supposed to look into it and figure out that it wasn't actually the solution to the mystery, but unfortunately I couldn't find a way to tie in any actually useful clue into that investigation. I guess that's not unrealistic, but I didn't want the players to feel as if they'd wasted all that time. Not sure they did, but I think I could have handled it a little more skillfully.

What I want to do from here is activate more of the personal and meta-plots for the characters. I planted a couple of seeds for future things here and there, but they need to start factoring in. That will require a lot more planning on my part, but it will make the story and world so much richer.

Grateful

Jan. 12th, 2011 06:24 pm
breakinglight11: (Cordelia)

It is incredibly hard for me to ask for help, from anyone, with anything. I feel like if I have a problem, especially if it's my own fault I have that problem, it's my responsibility to fix it. I hate to be irresponsible, or weak, or incapable, and I hate to impose on or take anything from anyone else. I get ashamed when there are witnesses to my screwup, or worse, my inability to handle it myself. And even when seeking help is otherwise reasonable or acceptable in all other ways, there's always part of me that can't help but think, "Why would anyone want to help me?" 

Bernie, Matt, and Jonathan dug my car out for me. It was an incredibly kind and loving thing to do, and it means more to me than I can say that they were willing to do it. I am inexpressibly grateful.

Thank you.


breakinglight11: (Easy Fool)

 

Saturday was a lovely trip to King Richard's Faire with Bernie and [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer. I haven't been to a Renaissance Fair in years, so I was very excited to do this. I'm really glad we ended up doing it when we did, as the rest of my weekends are booked up until my death. ;-)

First of all, I like the atmosphere. I'm always so impressed to see the fairgrounds for these things. I love that they actually built permanent structures with neat pseudo-medieval appearences to house the works of the vendors and artisans. It makes it so much more immersive, and I'm pretty shocked that somebody was actually willing to front the cost for it! ANd we saw lots of people in garb of varying degrees of awesomeness. Favorites included a terryfingly badass looking pirate, an extremely complex gypsy outfit, and the man covered in green body paint apparently dressed as a troll. Least favorites as always include the sneakers worn with elaborate dresses, and the women who cram themselves into corsets such that their breasts resemble freshly risen pizza dough that is pinched in awkward ways. Is that supposed to be sexy? Meh.

I wanted to find a neat thing to buy while I was there, like a costume item or a neat piece of jewelry, and perhaps something as a present for Jared. But sadly everything that caught my eye was extremely expensive and nothing within my price range appealed to me enough to spend the money. I brought a hundred dollars with me to spend, and after purchasing fifteen dollars worth of food tickets (clever scam they've got going with that there), I ended up putting the rest back into my savings account. I must say, in the long run it's probably more satisfying to see that safely put away than blown on Renaissance memorabilia. Ah, well. Still no corset for me, I suppose.

As a side note, I am developing kind of a sour-grapes dislike of corsets. I want to like them, but I never can find one that looks good on me. My experiences with them tend to consist mostly of my torso being too narrow for the laces, thus in no way benefiting my waist, and my breasts just kind of slipping pathetically behind the bodice part, thus in no way benefiting my bust. I have about a twenty-five-inch waist, and according to the ladies who helped me try one on, I should be shooting for a size twenty-three corset, which they didn't have in stock because "All the tiny sizes sell out really quick." I was a little shocked to hear that, seeing as most people around my size tend to be fairly young, and young people don't tend to have the money to blow on expensive costume pieces like a corset, but maybe they just don't make many to begin with. Ah, well, I suppose it's good I didn't spend the money, as I am both young and not financially free. And to be honest I find  the look rarely works quite the way I like it anyway. Girls with big racks all-too-often end up with the pizza dough problem, and girls with small racks end up looking kind of pitiful and meager all shoved up like that. I even saw some girls built similarly to me in corsets, and frankly the way the corset wasp-waisted them looked weirdly disproportionate, and their boobs were just sort of sad. To make matters worse, the corsets gave even these skinny little slips a hideous overflow of BACK FAT, and I would rather wear a burlap sack than a garment that inflicts that particular atrocity on me. *Sigh* I probably would have to have a custom-made one if ever I am to own one that actually fits and flatters, and that is certainly not in my budget right now.

My favorite part of any Renaissance Fair, though, is always the joust. I love watching the knights thunder around on their horses performing feats of martial skill, and I like the pagentry of the storyline that usually goes around it. This time there was a black knight, masked to conceal his identity, competing who turned out to be Sir Joseph, a knight of the court who was banished for a murder he claimed was actually committed by Sir James, the most psychotic of his jousting opponents. After literally reciting the Old Code from Dragonheart (squee!) they squared off in a duel to the death to restore the victor's honor. The knights were asked if they swore to adhere to the rules of chivalrous conduct. Quoth Sir Joseph: "I do." Quoth Sir James: "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Yes, clearly this man is absolutely incapable of committing murder. Their battle, though, was absolutely badass, with them getting knocked off their horses and going at it hand-to-hand.

Now, I know this stuff is staged, and that somebody has to come up with what goes on in these shows. And apparently somebody was like, "Okay, armed combat is awesome, but you know what your average swordfight is missing? FIRE!" So Sir James attacked Sir Joseph with a flaming sword, and was literally SETTING everything on fire! He set Sir Joseph's clothes on fire! Sir Joseph grabbed a whip, and he set the whip on fire! Every time he cracked the whip, the flame flashed and burst! Let me tell you, nothing takes an awesome thing and makes it even more awesome like throwing some fire into the mix! By the end of this epic fire-soaked battle, Sir James as well as the knights' two seconds lay dead upon the sand. Yes, Sir Joseph, now that I have seen you bring about the deaths of three separate men, I now believe that you are not in fact a murderer. :-)

I wonder if I could get a job as a script writer for the Ren Fair. You don't even have to be historically accurate, just suitably dramatic. That would be awesome. Is there an application I can fill out?

Afterward, Bernie, Matt, and I came back and finished the evening with low-key chatting and playing of video games. It was a lovely day, all and all, and the company was excellent. I'd love to go back, perhaps in an even bigger group, but I think I may not have time before the end of the season. If you're thinking of going, I heartily recommed it. 

breakinglight11: (Cool Fool)
Had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. Went to a fantastic party with Bernie, [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer, and [livejournal.com profile] morethings5, who are some of my favorite people to do anything with, let alone going to fun parties. I had a blast at this same party last year, and so was really really looking forward to going to this year's. My excitement grew when shortly before the day, [livejournal.com profile] captainecchi sent out an e-mail saying we could swim in the lake if we brought our swimsuits! I was so happy we did; that was the first time I'd been swimming in over a year, and it was a lot of fun. My poor bikini doesn't get to come out and play often enough! We swam and canoed and explored islands and I didn't get the whole story but I'm pretty sure Kindness beat a bear into submission with his bare fists. ;-) It was cool. Then we came back to the house where [livejournal.com profile] electric_d_monk grilled up some fantastic burgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. I had made my "inaccessible rice," as some are wont to call it, with the golden raisins, pecans, mint, and scallions and brought it along. And because the beef in the burgers was locally grown, [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer actually got to eat one! I was happy for him, since they were damn good burgers, and I am sorry when anyone can't enjoy deliciousness. Then there were board games, fantastic strawberry shortcake, and [livejournal.com profile] morethings5 sweetly offering to learn how to brush out my hair. The party was a blast, the food was excellent, the company was great, and it was also lovely getting to spend time with [livejournal.com profile] captainecchi and [livejournal.com profile] electric_d_monk. Thanks to our gracious hosts for having such a fun gathering!

Marissa moved into Elsinore on the Fourth as well. Unfortunately I was at the party when she got in, and due to feeling sick and gross with the heat the next day I did not so much welcome her as spend the day hiding from all human contact like a small wild animal. I shall have to rectify that soon. I may also have to take steps to rectify the intense heat situation in my bedroom. For some reason, no matter what the weather, my room is always the mostly extremely affected in the house, making it an icebox in winter and a blast furnace in summer. Climate control is expensive, but it's getting to the point of unbearableness.
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Oh, my God, did I love Toy Story 3. I saw it with Matt and Bernie last night and it was wonderful. You need to all go out and see it immediately, because it is at least as good as the first two and maybe even better. (CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD)

Spoilery musing beneath. )

Go out and see this movie. It really does complete the natural arc of the story. And It says something about this movie that a person like me who hates attachment to physical things can sympathize with it all so deeply. :-)
breakinglight11: (Cavalier Fool)

Suddenly remembered I had a silver polishing cloth that I got with that bird brooch, and decided to see if it could do any good to my slightly tarnished silver pieces. I was shocked at how much tarnish came off into the cloth on some of them, like my infinity earrings which didn't even look very dull. I had no idea coming into contact with me could cause such corruption. ;-) The piece that really needs it is my silver-set amber necklace, though as much is coming off into the cloth the metal didn't seem to get much shinier. Maybe it just needs a lot more work than I had time to do before needing to leave this morning. Perhaps I'll give it a shot this afternoon.

In pleasing news, our wonderful bid chair (possibly all of bid comm?) [livejournal.com profile] bleemoo just informed me that Alice and Oz have been accepted and will be running this April at Festival of the Larps. Now I may commence bullying everyone I know who hasn't played into signing up. Though there are certainly more than a few experienced larpers I've yet to wrangle into my worlds, my first thoughts are April, [livejournal.com profile] nennivian, and [livejournal.com profile] blendedchaitea, all of whom have expressed at least mild interest. I know [livejournal.com profile] katiescarlett29 has reservations about trying larping, but she is of course welcome and encouraged as well.

Now that bids are getting approved, I am now intensely curious as to what else is going to be running. We're probably a ways away from a schedule being put together yet, but I'm still very interested at what the list currently looks like. I remember [livejournal.com profile] captainecchi  and [livejournal.com profile] electric_d_monk telling me they were rerunning the awesome League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students (with some additions that sound absolutely fantastic) and [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer was looking in the gamebank for something to bid. If anyone else threw something out there, I'd love to know what it is.


breakinglight11: (Joker Phoebe 2)

I am enormously amused that a little list I started for a lark several years ago was rediscovered and now everybody's making one. :-D Yay, larp resumes!

To emulate the fun addition made by [livejournal.com profile] lightgamer to the larp resume idea, I will include some interesting stats of my own:

Number of games played: 33
Number of games GMed: 13
Number of betrayers played: 8
Percentage of betrayers played: 24% (almost a quarter of all roles!)

I define betrayer as "character who is generally trusted at game start who secretly plans to screw you for their own ends." :-) Apparently I'm good at that. Good thing I started mentioning on my casting questionnaires, "No more betrayers! Nobody's trusting me anymore!" or I'd never play anything else.

I am also amused by the number of people who I have somehow drawn or coerced into getting LiveJournals in the last couple of months. Yay, more people to write entries for me to read as I compulsively refresh my friends page!

breakinglight11: (Easy Fool)
Sunday Bernie was supposed to come home and I was going to pick him up at the airport, which I was excited for because I've missed him like crazy. But we got snow on Sunday, so he was forced to reschedule his flight for Monday evening. I was pretty disappointed, not only because I wanted to see him, but also because I was planning on running Burn Notice that night and he wasn't going to be able to be there. But I really wanted to go, so after some ideas from Bernie I decided to throw together an interstitial adventure for just Matt and Kindness's characters and sent Bernie's guy out of town on a family obligation. It activated a subplot for Kindness's character Gwen, which pleased me, and given I only had a day to put it together I think it turned out decently. Bernie videoconferenced in on Matt's computer, which worked well enough to have Donovan reachably only by phone, but unfortunately he couldn't hear us quite well enough to totally follow the action. Ah, well, it was nice to have him around at least. Now we have two threads of the story going at the same time; I'll have to decide what to do about that. Could lead to some interesting conflict. :-) That reminds me, I'll have to talk to Jared about building a particular NPC that will be needed in the near future. Given my shakiness with mechanics, the dear has kindly offered to help me construct a character that could give our PCs a run for their money!

Bernie gets in tonight, so here's going to get him take two. We're going to hang out this evening, and I think we're on for dinner tomorrow night too, since I'll be leaving Wednesday. It'll be nice to have him back, if only for a bit until I get back myself.
breakinglight11: (Cordelia)

Feeling much better today. The lack of sliding on the road on the way to work this morning helped. Last night Jared and I were going to cook, but he also wanted to talk to his fellows involved in Matt's four-color supers game about his character, so we decided we'd have the GM and the other players over for dinner. I was in the mood to make a lot, so I did the Rachael Ray apricot and cippolini braised chicken, my mom's complicated wild rice dish, steamed broccoli, and a yellow cake, graciously frosted by Matt. Other than the cake being a bit dry-- I had one fewer egg than I needed, and I think I left it in the oven a bit long --it came out very nicely. The wild rice is pretty much the only rice dish my family makes (we're not really rice eaters) and I like it's because it's complex and sophisticated, but I'm always afraid that all the different flavors make it tough to gauge whether it will suit someone's tastes or not. There's mint, orange, scallion, toasted pecan, golden raisin-- I think it all goes very well together, giving it a nice fresh taste, but there's no accounting for what people like. Jared, for example, tends to be hot and cold on it, depending on how it goes with what it's being served with. Fortunately it went over pretty well last night, and I will have the leftovers for lunch today.

Talk over dinner ran very hard to GURPS in general and this game in particular, as it was designed to, which meant I didn't have much to add. But actually I was pleased by that; it was pleasant to let the conversation of my guests wash over me while I made myself comfortable and enjoyed my food and let my mind wander. For some reason I didn't have it in me to be terribly engaging or engaged, so just being present without having to be anything in particular was nice. I enjoyed the company, and being able to kind of be alone while in it. I know Jared definately was happy to spend the evening with friends and get to talk out what he was thinking for his character. And I like to think Bernie, after being trapped in his last for two or three days straight, appreciated the dinner and the chance to hang out with friends.

breakinglight11: (Cavalier Fool)

Halloween yesterday was wonderful, surrounded by friends in excellent costumes. Best evening I've had in a long time. Perhaps the most notable part of the evening were the five members of Team Fortress 2 that got together a fantastic group costume that yielded some great pictures. It was actually initially Jared's idea a month or so ago; he's recently gotten very into the game and thought it would be a fun and funny idea for a big group to do together. Several people expressed interest, but I think Jared and Bernie kind of didn't think anybody else would actually do it, so kind of felt like it couldn't happen. It took Matt actually getting together costume pieces to get things going; when I saw he was into it I started getting after Bernie and Jared, who got back into it when they thought there would be a real group. Jared was the Sniper, Bernie was the Engineer, and Matt was the Scout, all of which were remarkably well-cast in my opinion. Ryan and Kindness were pulled in at the last minute as the Spy and the Medic respectively, which worked out pretty well too! We took some fantastic pictures, which will soon be on Facebook. In the meantime, here's a sampling:
 

Team Fortress 2 in my house.  )

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