Nine Worlds

[squirmelia]

I had a wonderful time at Nine Worlds! I went on holiday to Hammersmith, stayed in a hotel there and listened to talks on classical monsters in popular culture (classical monster Barbies exist, such as Medusa Barbie, Athena Barbie, and Hitchcock's The Birds Barbie!), Mars: the journey of a lifetime (a Mars One candidate talked about their experiences), learning about sex in teen magazines (nostalgia for Just 17, learning about what people thought could prevent pregnancy, such as crisp packets, and the Yellow Pages!) , Security for beginners, Questing Time (an RPG that was played on stage), Dr Magnethands (another storytelling game, which featured a Smurf making excellent dolphin sounds!), Technology for Writers (included a discussion on buying brains in bulk from Ocado in different colours, like post-it notes; bible translated into Lolspeak, the Emoji Moby Dick, writing to defeat monsters, and chat about if things came to life in VR immediately as you wrote them, wouldn't everyone just write porn?), It's research! (Or why it's totally okay to play Dragon Age for 100+ hours when you should be writing), The future of Nine Worlds, Game design principles to reduce player toxicity (such as making cross team chat opt-in in League of Legends increased positivity), Shitting on social norms in tech: organizing events no-one else will (such as Non Binary in Tech conference, and Sex Tech Hack), Freaky fabulous – gender, disability and queer representation in Monster High, Panel Panel. I also went to a copper and bronze clay jewellery making workshop and made pendants in the shape of leaves, alien faces, Tetris blocks, etc, out of copper clay; enjoyed dancing at the disco while wearing glowing shoes; liked seeing everyone's great costumes and outfits; saw lots of people dressed as Lemmings. Thank you organisers! Also, friends who were there and reading this – It was excellent to spend time with you all! And excellent to see panels you were on/ sessions you were running / talks you were giving / etc! Apologies to those who I passed at least a few times in the corridors but didn't find time enough to chat with! Hope to see you all again soon! Let's not wait until next year. :)