Starkid

Right after Mugglenet posted about a fan-made musical parody, I was all over it. I remember cracking up so hard during the first song that I had to keep pausing the clip so I didn't miss anything. And I remember falling in love with Draco right away, even before the floor scene in the Great Hall.

As I neared the end of act one, I knew I had to tell Brae about it. Luckily he was spending a lot of time at my apartment in those days, so he was already planning on coming over after work. I started the musical over again that night so he could watch it with me and we could watch all of act two together. We stayed up pretty much all night devouring the awesomeness that is A Very Potter Musical, before it was censored (so we got to witness the greats like “Ron, can you please take your wand out of your pocket? It's jabbing my back”, “Hermione, why did you bring those pillows with you”, "Hermione, you keep your legs open, and I'll keep my eyes open", and various other hilarious and not so appropriate moments that mysteriously disappeared over the first few days of skyrocketing fame.

We even introduced several of our friends to AVPM at our Potter party later that year. Most of them seemed to enjoy it since hardly anyone was talking and there was a lot of “shushing” whenever someone dared open their mouth which led to a lot of us gathering in another room around the “Cornelius Fudge Brownies”, butterbeer, licorice wands, Bertie Bott's, and various other snacks so as not to disturb the other guests during their first, beautiful, AVPM experience.

As I said, last year at Infinitus, there was an...experience? Incident? That we still joke about. When we were walking back from Night of a Thousand Wizards, a bunch of Starkids were in front of us. Joey Richter's hat fell off, I stepped on it accidentally, and Brae picked it up to give back to him. After a quick “thanks”, we all went about our merry ways. When we got back to our hall, though, we were joking around by trying to pretend to be all fangirl-tastic about the whole thing. I remember squealing “OMG! I stepped on Joey Richter's hat! Do you know what that means? My foot...has touched...his head!” Sadly, some people thought we were serious...which made it even more hilarious to us.

There was also an ill-fated attempt to put together a Scarf of Sexual Preference before the DH1 premiere a while ago. We ran around Wal-Mart in our robes right before going to the theatre to find appropriate felt, but we were unsuccessful. We just found some rainbow felt and cut it like a scarf. No one got it, not even those that were standing around quoting the musical, so I took it off quickly and stowed it in my purse because I was burning up anyway. We might be making a better attempt before LeakyCon, though!

The single best Starkid moment, though was seeing AVPS at Infinitus last year. Not only could I have reached out and ran my hands through Darren Criss's supermegafoxyawesomehot curls before he chopped them off for Glee, there was a spontaneous outbreak of singing during the reprise of "Back to Hogwarts" during the finale. I think I cried a bit when it was over, just because it was such an awesome experience.

Infinitus Part 2

Before we get back into the re-telling of Infinitus, I'd like to let you guys know that I am working on a LeakyCon collab channel which can be found here: AccioLeakyCon

We ran off to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in our Slytherin robes, knowing that Infinitus had worked it out so we could be in costume all day after 2pm when our Night of a Thousand Wizards (the after-hours park event for conference attendees) tickets went into effect.

There was some mild confusion finding the actual Wizarding World since neither of us knew where the heck we were going, but we finally found it after about twenty minutes of aimlessly wandering around, pretending we were able to read the map they'd given us.

When I laid eyes on Hogwarts castle on our way across the bridge to the park, I almost died. We obviously had our picture taken by one of the park workers before sprinting into the park to explore (and eat lunch). We ran into a few people who knew about Infinitus, and, after spotting our badges, came up to chat and ask us how we were enjoying the conference they couldn't afford to go to.

I don't want to go too much into the park experience since I know that there's a lot of people who are still doing their best to avoid spoilers, so we'll just say it was absolutely AMAZING! I think I squealed about every five seconds and cried for a good five minutes.

We ran back to the hotel to freshen up a bit after being out in the Florida heat all day before NoaTW started. The lines for the water taxis were atrocious on the way back, though. So, we decided then that we'd walk back that night after NoaTW was over.

We made it to the stadium event, which we'd heard about earlier that day before we went to the park the first time, on time and listened patiently to the presentation. There was major embarrassment when people started yelling at the Universal people and berating them with questions about the park, especially those that they had no authority to answer. One example was one girl yelling about weight restrictions on the rides, which had been covered extensively online. Every single amusement park has to enforce weight restrictions for safety. It went downhill from there so that it was just a list of complaints like someone complaining that they didn't have any authentic dishes from the books that were healthy. Um...when did JKR list any healthy foods in the books? I missed it. Anyway, a lot of people walked out, some while making loud remarks about how upset they were at being detained before getting into the park when it was obvious, if you thought about it, that they needed to set up the event for us. In the end, most of them missed out on the ride with Chris Rankin and Christian Coulson; there was a sticker or something under the benches of the stadium, and if you found it, you rode Forbidden Journey with them. The fifty of us or so left at the end had to scour the stadium for it. Less competition, I guess. Lol!

Then it was off to the park once more.

On the way back, we walked behind Joey Richter and a few other Starkids. At one point, Joey dropped his hat, I accidentally stepped on it, and Brae picked it up to give back to him. So, both my foot and Brae's hand have come in contact with Joey Richter. Lol! No, I'm seriously only joking. We had our mock fangirl moment when we got back to the room, and I told a few people who thought I was being serious and made fun of me a bit. It was mildly entertaining. Then, we ordered some room service since we hadn't had time to eat at NoaTW, which consisted of the single best turkey burger I've EVER had in my life, showered, and went to bed.

The next day was the premiere of A Very Potter Sequel, and I've mentioned before that the line had formed about an hour before we got to the conference space. Brae went off to a program, but I can't remember which one. I, mistakenly, went to see “Living the Magical Life: Wizarding Society of Harry Potter as an Emerging Subculture”. I say “mistakenly” because I was expecting something different. I'm not sure what, but I didn't get anything close to what I was expecting. They had us start by lining up according to what sub-sect of the HP community we fell under (i.e. Death Eater, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Dumbledore's Army, Order of the Phoenix, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, etc.) and talked about why we're drawn to those for about five seconds. Then, we moved on to discussing how to become your HP personality, whether it was an actual character from the book like Bellatrix (who was leading the workshop) or a new one. This wasn't cosplay or role play we were talking about here. These people wanted to be their characters. Bella only wanted to be called Bellatrix, bought clothes Bella would wear, ate what Bella would, decorated her house like Bella would, could have only married a pureblood wizard, had to find a job that Bella would work, etc. It was...uncomfortable to say the least and I generally have a high tolerance for unconventional things like that. A lot of people ended up walking out, but since the workshop was led by Death Eaters, they had placed the Slytherin section in the second row, where I was sitting. I didn't think I could leave without being rude and attracting attention to myself. So, I stayed through the entire workshop feeling uncomfortably sane the entire time.

Then, I joined the line for Starkid because it was wrapping the first time around the space when I got out of that program at 11am; I was also unsure how they would work my accommodations for vision for this program and I didn't want to risk not being in line. I made some friends nearby who were re-watching AVPM on their iphone and behind me with a family who turned out to be awesome! Brae joined me when his program got out, and then he disappeared to go back to the room and didn't return for hours. I eventually gave up on waiting for Brae to return and talked to one of the organizers at the door, stating my need for front row seats because of my vision and that I'd need my companion to sit next to me for the things that I still couldn't see. They said they'd come get me when I could go in. By that time, I didn't know what to do but to return to the line and wait where Brae could find me since there weren't any workshops that I could go to that would be over in time for me to make AVPS. They came to get me before Brae returned, so I asked the family to tell them where I'd gone and was escorted to sit with the Merlin's Circle registrants in the second row. Brae returned a few minutes later and joined me. When the event started, I literally could have reached out and touched the cast, and we were dying! At the end of the Sequel, everyone burst out into the reprise of Get Back to Hogwarts, and it was purely magical!

After that, Brae and I ran back to the room to get ready for the ball. By the time we'd returned, it had already started, but not many people had arrived. We got drinks (in an ungodly long line) and found some HP Ohio people in the crowd. There were some amazing costumes (which I posted pictures of in my Show and Tell post), but the most amazing moment of all was the “Don't Stop Believing” sing-along as documented on youtube:

By the end of the ball, Brae and I were so tired, we knew we weren't going to make it through the Midnight Comedy Slam wrock show, though I was disappointed at missing The Parselmouths. We went back to the room to pack to leave the next day and turn in early.

We arrived at the leaving feast after a lot of HP Ohio had gone to see two members renew their vows in a recreation of Fleur and Bill's wedding. The costumes were beautiful (again, there are pictures in my Show and Tell post), and the feast itself was amazing. I was very pleased to see that something had happened with the hotel not allowing The Parselmouths to perform the night before, I think because it was too late, and they performed at the leaving feast in their pajamas. I ran up and got pictures with them before we set off for the airport.

Overall, Infinitus was absolutely amazing! It was an experience I couldn't possibly have imagined and wouldn't change a thing about! Re-telling it has only made me that much more excited for LeakyCon, which I expect to be even more epic!

I talk a bit about Infinitus a bit more in this video, but I also discuss a program I would have liked to do but didn't have time with my thesis for seminary to put it together:

Infinitus Part 1

With only a little over three weeks until the deadline for our LeakyCon contest, I want to take a moment to remind everyone that there's still time to enter and you needn't answer all the questions to be eligible to win the prize!

And with 54 days to go until LeakyCon, I wanted to use this post as a kind of recap of Infinitus last year from my point of view.

Being that it was our first HP con ever and we'd been planning it for over a year (since we figured out there was no way we could make LeakyCon '09), there was a LOT of buildup of anticipation before the actual event. I don't remember any other time when I got less sleep before an event I was greatly looking forward to. For weeks beforehand, Brae and I went back to discussing nothing at all but HP and doing nothing that wasn't HP-related, whether that was re-reading the books, reading Harry, A History, watching AVPM, or reliving great HP-related times (some of which already have posts devoted to them here, others will be coming in the future).

The plane ride was excruciating, as was the cab ride to the hotel. The moment we got out of the cab and someone screamed, “Merlin's beard, I love your shirt” at me (I was wearing my “I'm tired, can't we just be death eaters” t-shirt), I knew I was home. Then, we checked in, checked our luggage because our room wasn't ready yet, and headed down to registration. I don't remember much between the line for registration and the beginning of the opening feast except finding a few people from HP Ohio in the mass of excited fans and taking a few pictures of and with various people in costume.

The opening feast was excellent, and they introduced the exiled and redeemed game that I couldn't quite follow throughout the con. All I remember of that was that Chris Rankin was apparently exiled for a portion of the con...? And there were a few people running around yelling because of it at one point.

Anyway, after the feast, we ran back to the lobby to get our luggage, throw it in our room (which was ready), and freshen up before hitting the vendor room briefly and heading to our first formal program--”Umbridge's Justice and Hitler's Justice: The Sinister Similarities”. It was amazing! Though a few other programs we went to out-shined it in my memory for various reasons, this was an excellent presentation and very informative.

Fortunately, after this program let out, we just had to run across the hall to see Wrock Classics Night, which Lena was opening. During her set, she announced she wouldn't be playing another concert live. Someone assured us that this isn't an uncommon announcement for wrockers to make before actually returning to tour or play “one more” show at a future con, so we held out hope that this wasn't the case. I think we ducked out after Lena finished because there were a few other bands we'd either already seen or weren't that interested in and headed to the craft fair intending to buy pygmy puffs. They had sold out of most of the colors, though, so we left empty-handed and intended to spend all the gold we'd set aside for the pygmy puffs at the merch tables at the wrock show next door. Then, we watched The Moaning Myrtles and ran off to find some food where we ran into our HP Ohio people again who were scarfing down food before Witherwings went on at Wrock Pub Night. We joined them, wishing Mandala well before her performance as she swept out to set up.

Someone received a text that Witherwings was about to go on, and we all ran back down to the conference space to see Wrock Pub Night. We ended up being pretty close to the front of the crowd, so we were afraid to stray during House of Black and MC Kreacher's performance, even though neither of us were that interested, and it did go on for about an hour. But then, the Swish and Flick cheerleaders came in, and we knew the party was about to begin! Sure, the next day my throat was sore, my feet hurt from people dancing on top of me, my head was slightly bruised from the elbow I received in the mini-mosh pit that started when Ministry of Magic came on, and I was slightly dehydrated and about to have a heat stroke from the amount of people all up in my business, but it was TOTALLY worth it to see Swish and Flick and Ministry of Magic live! I'm especially grateful since it appears Swish and Flick won't be performing at LeakyCon. : (

On Friday, Brae convinced me to sleep in an extra hour so we did miss a program I would have liked to go too, but I was too tired to argue much. But we got up, threw on our Slytherin robes, and ran to catch our different programs. I think he went to one about werewolves or other magical creatures...or something. I was too tired to hear where he was going, but I ran off to “Immaturity or Escape from Reality in Adulthood: The Satisfaction of Reading Young Adult Series as a Twenty-Something/Mother” where we all shared stories about our families not understanding how a “children's” book can appeal to us, how we found HP, how many of us had lied about where we were actually going that weekend, etc. It was hilarious to hear some of the stories that so closely echoed mine (again, there's a post coming on this)!

Then, Brae and I met up to hang around for an hour while most people ate lunch. We were planning to eat in the park when our after 2pm ticket was good for Night of a Thousand Wizards. We also had planned to go to see “But I'm the Chosen One: Schools, Hijinks, and Heroics with Buffy Summers and Harry Potter” which was EPIC! I mean, come on! They combined two of the most awesome things in the world...BUFFY AND HP! How could it not be amazing? But the discussion that this comparison created was amazing, though it did hurt me that Xander was obviously compared to Ron (because I love me some Xander and hate me some Ron).

Then it was off to the park!

To be continued...

It's Been a While

I haven't posted here in about a billion years because I've had so many other outlets online through Harry Potter role play (which I have since given up but was quite active in during my time), fan fiction (which I've also given up because I was never really that great at it), my other blogs, and my forthcoming Pagan website. It seemed time, though, to attempt to revive this blog because of one *major* development...

WE ARE GOING TO LEAKYCON!

Last year, my roommate and I went to Infinitus. Though it was one of the most amazing experiences of our lives, there were some problems (the least of which was NOT money; it cost us over a grand each to go and enjoy ourselves but I don't remember the final totals). We also got into some arguments about how each of us was handling the experience. The main stress was not knowing anyone. I'd read extensively from other Potterheads about conventions being full of friendly people who just go out their way to talk to you and all that. This was the case...to an extent. People talked to us while waiting in line, and everyone was very nice. It just seemed, though, that we didn't get included in any circles. We ate alone, weren't invited to any parties, etc. We were included, but not enough to feel like we got the most out of the experience. (Some of this could have been due to the fact that I'm somewhat shy when I first meet people as well.)

I'm not complaining; I'm merely providing background to the resurgence of this blog.

You see, we decided after that experience that another HP con wasn't a good option for us. However, yesterday my roommate came home and announced he'd like to go to LeakyCon this summer after all and that he could swing it financially. So, I agreed after a long talk about what we can do differently. A few months ago when we were talking about going to LeakyCon, I posted about blogging to get to know people before we went. Time is getting shorter with only about 130ish days left before LeakyCon (*squee!*), but I hope this will help a bit.

So, I believe it's time for an introduction:

My name is Kat. I'm 23 (I'll be 24 by the time of the conference), and I've been a die-hard Potterhead since the age of 12 when I fist picked up Sorcerer's Stone. All through middle school I watched my friends become obsessed with HP, and I decided if the crowd was all for it, I had no choice but to be against it. Lol! So, I scoffed at the name of Potter for about a year and a half until my great aunt died and left us her house. There I was, twelve and alone in a house in a state far from home with my mother all summer. I think she got tired of me complaining and bought me the first book which I devoured in a day, forcing her to run out and buy CoS the next morning. The rest is pretty much history. I started a few fansites that I'm sure no one remembers from the now extinct MSN Groups (Hogwarts4u and Harry's Magical World RPG and all it's subsequent sub-groups). Once those bit the dust, I turned to Mugglenet Interactive for a while for my RP needs to continue my group called Pureblood Club which was led by my characters Mehren Blair and Tavis Burke. I discuss a lot of it in these videos: here and here (there are also several HP-related videos on my channel there on youtube). Eventually after the creation of yet another RP site (Out of the Ashes RP), the world of role play lost its appeal for me and I kind of left the fandom until Infinitus. There's oh so much more to share about my experience in this fandom, but I shall save some for future posts!

Now, on to my roommate...

His name is Brae. He's 24 (on March 3), and he's been a fan of the series since he was in high school. He started with PoA and moved backwards to catch up with SS and CoS because he enjoyed it so much (probably due to his intense love of werewolves).

Thats what she thinks...Yeah, so my name is Brae, I'm 24 (on March 3), and I have been a fan of the series since high school, she wasn't lying about all that, however my love of the third book wasn't because of werewolves, well at least not in majority. Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my favorite books in general much less just in HP. It has all that amazing feeling of being on the cusp of a much darker tale, but still all the bright feeling of the character's youth and the realization that they are evolving into the people they are meant to be. My favorite characters are featured in the book with main parts: Remus and Sirius. Their relationship, and the kind of feeling that gives to Harry that he can share with Sirius is another great part of the book. All in all, I just love it!

Let me just say it again: WE ARE GOING TO LEAKYCON!

I mean thats for real yo, the signs are everywhere that we have to go, and there isn't a better time to have the greatest Harry Potter adventure of our lives. Since I first read PoA and then continued back and forward with the others, I've known that this series would be a big part in my life. Waiting for each of the new books to arrive, for each movie to premiere, and now we've come to this. When we come back from this, if you don't hear: "We laughed, we cried, we loved, and we'll never forget..." then either we didn't make it back because we died, or we decided to live in the Wizarding World and forsake all muggleness to never return to this world. Either way, Please Stay Tuned!