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Mar. 20th, 2016 08:55 pm
The road not traveled by
I'm trying to do what I can to make sure this doesn't go down in my memory as the Weekend I Missed C2E2. (Rather counterproductive, I suppose, committing that to writing here.) Last year, I cared not a jot, but ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu's relations were in town late in the summer exhibiting at Wizard World and that was a lark, so when they said they'd be back again, I made plans to stop by. But then we heard nothing from them until late Friday evening I got a message from his niece offering me passes.
But it'd been a long week and I'd already made plans to sleep in. I still felt like going, just...not then. But Sunday was set aside for gaming. As the hours crept by on Saturday, it became apparent that I'd made my choice and it was in direct opposition to my recent resolution to Do The Thing instead of sitting at home questioning whether I should've Done The Thing.
Still, I'd made my peace with this. Then Sunday came around, I walked to JB's...and found that as I was ordering my torta de pescado at the place on the corner, the only other player slated to be there had cancelled. At that moment, I considered cancelling, too, and making a desperate effort to see if I could still line up pass and make the long trek to McCormick. But JB was saying, "We'll find a game to play, don't you worry!" and it was too easy to avoid saying "no".
Ironically, the game he chose was a "two-player LARP" called 183, which is based on a short story about two clairvoyants falling in love. One can see several possible futures; the other only one--and it's one in which the couple separates 183 days after their first date. It makes for an intense two hours. There's a warm-up phase in which you discuss your past loves, and then you collaborate on a series of five scenes which together sketch the arch of the relationship from beginning to end.
Was it a better way to spend the afternoon than in a noisy hall surrounded by cosplayers and hawkers? I'd have to be the character who can see many futures to answer that, but I played the other. Honestly, the chief difference between the two possibilities is that with more stimulation around me I would've been less distracted by the notion of what the other choice would've been like. Maybe I'd be less melancholy-tired now and more plumb exhausted. Who's to say?
monshu's relations were in town late in the summer exhibiting at Wizard World and that was a lark, so when they said they'd be back again, I made plans to stop by. But then we heard nothing from them until late Friday evening I got a message from his niece offering me passes.But it'd been a long week and I'd already made plans to sleep in. I still felt like going, just...not then. But Sunday was set aside for gaming. As the hours crept by on Saturday, it became apparent that I'd made my choice and it was in direct opposition to my recent resolution to Do The Thing instead of sitting at home questioning whether I should've Done The Thing.
Still, I'd made my peace with this. Then Sunday came around, I walked to JB's...and found that as I was ordering my torta de pescado at the place on the corner, the only other player slated to be there had cancelled. At that moment, I considered cancelling, too, and making a desperate effort to see if I could still line up pass and make the long trek to McCormick. But JB was saying, "We'll find a game to play, don't you worry!" and it was too easy to avoid saying "no".
Ironically, the game he chose was a "two-player LARP" called 183, which is based on a short story about two clairvoyants falling in love. One can see several possible futures; the other only one--and it's one in which the couple separates 183 days after their first date. It makes for an intense two hours. There's a warm-up phase in which you discuss your past loves, and then you collaborate on a series of five scenes which together sketch the arch of the relationship from beginning to end.
Was it a better way to spend the afternoon than in a noisy hall surrounded by cosplayers and hawkers? I'd have to be the character who can see many futures to answer that, but I played the other. Honestly, the chief difference between the two possibilities is that with more stimulation around me I would've been less distracted by the notion of what the other choice would've been like. Maybe I'd be less melancholy-tired now and more plumb exhausted. Who's to say?
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