#gplv

GP Vegas-ra, the EVER-ah LIVING-ah!

We’ll pretend this is the post for the last day.  We arrived a bit before scheduled, to a line already serpentined well beyond the stanchions, coiling around the artist area.  I named it Jormungander Junior, the Vegas Snake.  And it was too big.  We filled up the artwork sign-up to 10:30pm, just shy of when they’d remove the last of us with bulldozers.  But the line was still long.  Unfortunately, we just couldn’t accomodate everyone left.  But we did have a consolation prize for them.

GP Vegas, the Ladies!

One of the things I love most about Magic: the Gathering, is how they are progressing women’s role in fantasy and science fiction.  From the iconic walkers and characters of the planescape, to active campaigns to make girl gamers welcome in our quirky, lovable world. 

Channel Fireball hosted some of the cosplaying, and we were lucky enough to be right next to Christine Sprankle’s booth.  We’ve known Christine for a few years now, yet her shapeshifting powers never cease to amaze me.  Somewhere in her lineage, I suspect there is a chromatic dragon or chameleon-god.  At very least, like a great-aunt that was a polymorphing fae or somesuch.  I bet she cooked Alice in Wonderland cookies.

I don’t think it’s shameless promotion if you’re doing it for someone else, is it?  Anyway, Christine just started a Patreon for folks interested in supporting her amazing cosplaying endeavors.  https://www.patreon.com/cspranklerun?ty=h  

GP Vegas, Day Actually 1!

Hotel rooms typically have an enchantement of time-numbing absolute darkness placed on them.  I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, enveloped in an inky black shroud of sensory-deprivation is good for combating the sleeplessness of an unfamiliar bed, and the anxiety of the four days of mayhem to come.  On the other, my internal clock is already something out of Salvador Dali’s fever-nightmares, so removing the last vestige of time-queues from that delicate system is like removing the bottom Jenga block with a sledge hammer.

Thank Odin’s solitary nipple for caffiene!  And the mighty rivers of it that flowed to my table, thanks to my industrious and vigilant Beloved Minions.  Not for one minute did my tongue want for soaking in cold Mt Dew or Mochachinafrappochinalattewhateveritscaffieneandsugarsoiloveit.

GP Las Vegas 2015!

I know.  I’m a little behind.  Just pretend this is a week and a half ago, and the hype is in full swing.

Also, pretend I’m riding a flying motorcycle being pulled by dragons and unicorns.  It will make me seem much more interesting than I actually am.

So: GP Vegas, Day 1!  Or more accurately, t-minus 1 day!

I arrived to the valet parking on my awesome flying motorcycle-chariot-thing, pulling-in behind a steam-powered viking longship, between the Batmobile and a somewhat bewildered Flying-Bison.  There was an argument between one of the valets and an extremely commanding man in an eyepatch about a misplaced heli-carrier.

Having tipped my valet with a fistful of ones, barely recognizable as such after contact with my paint slathered fingers, Kat and I dragged our cluster of scuffed red luggages-of-holding into the Westgate Hotel and Casino.

The scent of decades worth of trying to mask tobacco-soaked-everything met our nostrils with a greeting like an old friend we intensely avoid.  The sparkling gamblescape stretched out before us, a harbinger of the pyres of disposable(ish) income about to be set ablaze by a weekend of excess.  We all knew we were forging legend.  And if you’re going to crash the stage of history, why hold anything back?

We found a group of our fellow artists divining their future in the bubbles of some dark lagers.  Speculation was abound on whether we would be crushed in the tsunami of players, or surf to glory on a wave of cards.