GaymerX3!

So I went to GaymerX 3 this past Saturday. It was pretty fun! At first I had some anxiety about it. Earl was off doing his own thing, the kids were at Dickens' faire... I COULD BE AN IRRESPONSIBLE ADULT ALL BY MYSELF WHAT WHAT.

LAM had been poking at me to go for uh 6 months. Because Jennifer Hale was a BoH (Boss of Honor) for the con and COME ON JENNIFER HALE. Then I found out Brianna Wu was also coming and so FINE FINE FINE I bought a ticket.

So I got there around 10:30. Holy cow, I am so not used to things being that damn quiet in the mornings at a game con. There was freakin NOBODY there. I'm used to cons where by 11 am everyone is out and playing and doing a billion things.

So I hit the 'Unheard voices' panel, because I was there and the room opened. It turned out to be a pretty interesting panel with 5 different podcasters who talked about different aspects of gaming and gaming culture and why they podcast. I'd have to look up everyone's names.. AH! http://gx3.sched.org/event/4IOq/unheard-voices?iframe=yes&w=&sidebar=yes...

I don't listen to podcasts; I don't really have the opportunity to. I can't work while I listen, and ..anyway. It was still really interesting.
I hung out in the room because I wanted to see the Diversity in Games panel (http://gx3.sched.org/event/4N1E/diversity-in-games-whats-next?iframe=yes...) and because David Gaider from Bioware was part of it. WOOHOO. I got to meet him briefly afterwards and that was nice.

I also went to the "Trans in Gaming" panel, because that was Brianna's panel and I got to meet her YAY. And she even recognized me! =)

Sadly, by the time we got out of her panel, the line for the voice acting panel was HYOOOGE and we didn't get into it. So we went and hung out (after a couple of mishaps) and then got into line and got to meet Jennifer Hale. EEEEEE. EEEEEE. EEEEEeeEEEeeEEe. She was also super nice. EE Ee eeeeEEEEEe. She signed my hoodie and my copy of ME3.

As for the con itself, it was fun. It was definitely not my normal crowd; which put me a little out of my comfort zone. I rolled with it as much as I could. I butchered one person's preferred prounouns (you got a ribbon at registration he/him, she/her, they/them, or blank that you could write whatever), and apologized profusely. Especially embarassing because I HAD READ HIS RIBBON AND STILL SCREWED IT UP. He was very gracious about it, thankfully.

It was definitely a little more flamboyant than other gaming cons I'm used to - no surprise there, but it kept making me pause. I haven't been to GenCon in nearly 10 years, and KublaCon is not a cosplay or video game type con. There was a lot of nifty art clearly aimed at Audiences that Weren't Me, which was cool. I saw some nice stuff that I could enjoy and be aware that it wasn't my thing, but it was good for other people. I was happy to pass on that and enjoy some of the stuff the same artists carried that was my style. One booth had a lot of (mostly male) superheroes eroticized, which some people really like, but I'm meh on it - it hits me in the same place fanfic usually does, but the same guy had a REALLY nice drawing of Jessica Jones that I seriously considered buying. I wasn't alone - when I swung by to take one last look at it, she was gone :D

There were a ton of Mass Effect and Dragon Age fans there. One really nice Grey Warden mage, and a Red Templar, and of course Josephine :D

it was fun. If it's local to here again next year, I'll probably go =)