ilsa-of-drentha

[ilsa-of-drentha]

It’s hurricane season again so here is @renniequeer and me doing Words About Storms

When hurricane season hits its peak and the storms are damn near constant, sure, I’ll pour out my offerings to Thor.

But we name those storms. We personify and anthropomorphize them. We hail them as beings with their own energy and presence. Even people who claim no belief in any higher power will do this.

“Remember Andrew? He was a bastard.”

“Irma’s angry; she’s going to hit us hard.”

The strongest? We never call another storm by that name, and in the areas heaviest hit, you see a sharp, sharp decline in children bearing that moniker. Around here we know–you don’t give a kid that name, it has too much power and rage behind it. It’s ill luck.

So I offer to the storms, too. To tell them, hey–I see your power, your might, your rage. I see your majesty. Please, slow down. Please, be calm. Transform your rage into gentle showers and winds that are just strong enough for us to know it’s you. 

Be kind to us, great storms; show us your power in a way that causes the least amount of harm.

[ilsa-of-drentha]

Drentha South (aka, me, Alric, and Violet) spent Saturday painting shields, polishing knives, and mocking the hilaribad show “Robin of Sherwood.” I love hanging out with my crew, even if it’s just on the floor of my living room. <3

[ilsa-of-drentha]

I lost my shit at this for a solid five minutes. This is the best Brady Bunch reboot.

amazing

[ilsa-of-drentha]

Please do! The survey actually asks when you left the game, so your input would be really useful. Thanks for asking!

In light of recent conversations in the LARPosphere about player safety, my unit is trying to gather some data on assault and harassment in Dagorhir, my home game. Please take this survey and share it. Thank you!

[ilsa-of-drentha]

@legendaryskipps, @jmblackmon115, Valk, Andrew and went to a fabric store so beautiful that half of us nearly wept. #sewing #fabric #dagorhir #garb (at Gail K Fabrics Inc)

[ilsa-of-drentha]

Paging @weareladyknight

Dame Shaniqua Ogletree - Knight!  August 18, 2017

[ilsa-of-drentha]

Aaaargh, Dragon Age II keeps crashing

Anyone know how to work around the bug where clicking “back to camp” after meeting Flemmeth on Sundermount crashes the game? I’ve tried to get around it a million ways, but no dice. :C I’m playing the EA version on Mac, for what it’s worth.

[ilsa-of-drentha]

I want to write a character purely based on these facial expressions

Colin Firth as Armand Duval in Camille (1984)

[ilsa-of-drentha]

No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but @teddefordbear is pretty close. Was so good to see this good boy and @legendaryskipps at #SummerSlaughter. ❤️ #dagorhir #larp #rainbow

[ilsa-of-drentha]

I found this rock with a hole in it the other day and was using it to check for #fae glamours, and now I'm having dreams about the #faeries trying to break into my house. Yeaaaah, maybe I need to fill my pockets with cold iron this week. #peskypixies #faegoaway #irejectyourrealityandsubstitutemyown

[ilsa-of-drentha]

So I finally cleaned out my purse after #ragnarokxxxii, and I found trinkets from Dom, Brennos, Theowyn, and Wren. Cleaning is its own reward! #whatsinyourpouches #kender #dagorhir #larp #baubles

[ilsa-of-drentha]

I think every foamsmith who's also a cat owner knows this power struggle. #foamsmith #larp #dagorhir #badkitty

[ilsa-of-drentha]

This is adorable. Beware the invasive mint!

Alex Ward and Monster Mint, Battle One

The mint took over Alex’s garden overnight with a disturbing aggression. Sunday evening she had received the box from Aunt Rose, a small note stuck to the cardboard with only the words put outside written on it. For an empty cardboard box it had looked unsuspicious, so she had followed the instructions. Monday morning arrived with the surprise of a new herb next to the basil. Alex inspected it thoroughly, and, when no signs of evilness were found (they were yet to appear unnoticed after the afternoon tea), she left it there. Aunt Rose knew what she was doing. Most of the time. Alex possessed a similar demeanor when it came to her own magic, so she didn’t judge. Aunt Rose was nice company and gave good advice.

Tuesday morning was less fun, and more stress. Her garden was no longer basil, lavender, cilantro, and hollowing honeyplum. Those were gone, devoured by the vicious mint that had covered all fifteen square meters of it. Alex did not know what her reaction should be when she saw the mint leaves swallow the last hollowing honeyplum blossom. They stuck to the petals, and the flower was dragged to the bottom of the green sea. When it was done, the monster mint had the audacity to burp, the gurgling sound as disturbing as the fact that the plant had a consciousness of its own.

Aunt Rose had left on a business trip to the Underworld, so she didn’t pick up her phone. Alex was alone in her freshly smelling time of crisis. This was the only bright side to it, unlike that one time two years ago when a whole family of gnomes with poor personal hygiene had sneaked into her basement and spent there a whole week, during summer. That smell had not been as pleasant.

Keep reading

[ilsa-of-drentha]

I just wanna lay in my tent with the flaps rolled up and look at this view forever. Even the rain sounds better on a canvas roof. #takemeback #ragrecovery #dagorhir #ragnarokxxxii #larp #posteventdepression

[ilsa-of-drentha]

I’m back from Ragnarok, and really need to listen to my own advice this year! Debrief with your friends, take your meds, and try to get back into your routines. It’s normal to feel this way. It will get better.

After the Battle: how a depressed person recovers from events

@anrisaryn asked, back in July, if I had any tips for dealing with depression after Ragnarok, Dagorhir’s big week-long event.  Since I am a depressed person (hello, hello, nice to meet you, my brain is a jerk), I have a hard time separating “post-event depression” from “being a depressed person who has returned from an event.” That’s what I want to talk about, today.

My brain chemicals are pretty whack. I sometimes joke that I refuse to take on such-and-such absurd project, since I need to ration my sanity… buuut it’s not really funny, because it’s not really a joke. Having depression is exhausting. Having anxiety is exhausting. Having to constantly tinker with my routines and brainhacks so I can function as a person is exhausting.

I’m acutely aware that I only have so much energy and attention to “spend,” and preparing for, attending, and recovering from Dagorhir events takes a lot, so I’ve developed some tactics that help me ease back into Mundania (aka, “real life”) with a minimum of emotional anguish. There was a time when I actually started to hestiate to attend events, because they were so exhausting that they didn’t seem worth the fun. Now that I’ve developed some tactics for dealing with my jerk-brain, I’m doing better. Not everything will work for everyone (shoot, not everything works for me– I still have bad days), but are some of the things that I do to stave off– or deal with– post-event depression.

It helps my mental health if I try to:

…spend 20 minutes cleaning the house BEFORE we leave for the event. 

This is so little, but it’s so important. A chaotic physical environment really feeds into my brain problems, and I’ll have no energy to tidy once we return and start unpacking. This means I also try to…

…store my gear separately from my everyday possessions, so I don’t have to trash the entire house when I’m packing for an event. 

Continuing the theme of minimizing chaos, I put together a “go bag” that contains most of what I need for a one-day battle (garb, knee pads, some nonperishable snacks, ibuprofen, deodorant, hair ties, a change of mundane clothes) so I don’t have to destroy the house as I try to figure out where I left my boots. Our Rag stuff lives in a Dagorhir-only closet, so we don’t have to move the Christmas tree to get at our tent. Coming home is way more pleasant if you don’t return to utter madness.

…be kind to my body. 

This includes everything from “trying to not arrive home at 2 AM” to “making sure there is food to eat in my real house” to “leaving myself a jar of iced coffee in the fridge, because I know I’ll be too tired to make the coffee I so desperately need.”

…remember my emotional patterns. 

There was this period of years where I’d be a weepy mess on the drive home from an event. Everything in my life, obviously, was Terrible and Out of Control. All was flat, stale, and unprofitable. Everyone— even people I loved— were horrible jerks.

I could only repeat this pattern so long before I cottoned onto the fact that maaaaaybe my brain wasn’t showing me objective reality. I slowly realized that most of these feelings were actually my way of decompressing from an intense emotional experience. I still feel overwhelmed at the end of many events, but these days, I take those feelings with a grain of salt. If they persist, I can process them once I’ve rested. That’s why I try to…

…clear my post-event schedule.

 I am, again, wildly introverted, so events are draining. Even if I have an amazing time, I’ll be exhausted. I plan for quiet post-event recovery time. Now is not the week to throw a house party or host visitors. Nope, nope, nope. Guard your mental health. Go to bed early. Say “no, thank you” to invites. If you can call off work the next Monday so you can sleep in and physically recover, all the better.

Once I feel less exhausted, I’ll…

…contact my friends! 

If I met new people, I’ll go friend ‘em on Facebook and tell them how cool they are. I’ll talk to my fighting unit about what we’ll do next year, and I’ll hatch harebrained schemes with my besties and spouse about how to make next year bigger and better. (Now is also a great time to thank people who organized cool aspects of the event. These people never get enough recognition.)

All this is really rewarding, but it can be tricky, because your excitement and closeness will taper as time goes on. You’ll fall out of contact with people— not because anything’s wrong, but just because life does that. That’s why I then…

…make concrete plans for the Next Event. 

It can’t be too far out, or it won’t be real enough to be keep you going. I need to pick something in the next month or so. 

Even if it’s a comparatively small event, it helps to focus on the positive things about the next battle: can you get your friends to attend? Do you need to budget for it, or arrange your work/school schedule around it? Can you have a cool new piece of garb or weaponry ready by then? Speaking of that, now would be a good time to…

…tackle (sensible) new projects! 

Crafting is a major way I keep Dagorhir-ing on the days I don’t get to hit people with padded sticks. It keeps me connected to the community and makes me feel like I’m accomplishing stuff. Making endless Pinterest boards and mooning over the beautiful new things I want to make can go sour on me, though (“this isn’t working! It doesn’t look the way I planned! When will I even get to wear this?!”), so now might be the time for a mindless, hands-on, foolproof task: make pouches. Repair your weapons. Polish your armor. Wax your shoes. Keep your hands moving. As I work through these little tasks, I can attempt to…

…acknowledge and express my feelings. 

My sister, a LARPer out of New Zealand, likes to point out that your brain doesn’t know or care that none of this was “real.” The exhaustion, sadness, joy, love, and nostalgia you experience after a great event are real feelings. Most of my Dagorhir friends live a thousand miles away, and driving away from them is brutal, even though we primarily relate by running around in the woods hitting each other with foam swords. 

Go tell your buddies that you love them, and that you had an amazing time with them. Tell them you’re having a hard time, and ask for their support and understanding. Try to not apologize. As Friendshipping would say, it’s not dumb to feel sad.

This is getting mushy, so I’m going to double down and talk about trying to…

…keep Ragnarok in my heart. 

A great event is a utopia. At Rag, I get to fight and eat and party and wander and scheme with people I adore. At home, I have to sit at traffic lights and answer scary emails and wear pants. Reality is such a let-down.

It can be really hard to integrate these two halves of your life, but if I want to be a healthy Dagorhirirm, I need to try. Compartmentalizing those parts of myself hurts me. Dagorhir is a safe space for me to try out being confident, effective, organized, and brave. In Dagorhir, I can act out those positive things until they feel natural, and then I can carry them into my life in Mundania.

I’ve taken to wearing a tiny acorn— the symbol of the knighthood Ilsa aspires to join— on a necklace, which reminds me that I can be the same person all year round, whether I’m on a battlefield of 500 fighters or standing in line at the post office. I can be brave. I can speak my mind. I can wrap the magic of Ragnarok around me like a cloak, and carry it with me wherever I go. 

That doesn’t fix my brain, but it helps keep me going, and that’s all I need. Keep fighting on, friends. I’ll see you on the field– next year. <3

You might also like So You Feel Cruddy After Fighting All Day: A Guide to Self-Care for Foam Fighters. Or maybe you won’t. That is okay, too!

[ilsa-of-drentha]

Class photo from 2017-- er, I mean, unit pic from #ragnarokxxxii. I love you, free people. #drenthadrentha #dagorhir #rag32 #larp #foamfighting (at Cooper's Lake Campground)

[ilsa-of-drentha]

Class photo from 2017-- er, I mean, unit pic from #ragnarokxxxii. I love you, free people. #drenthadrentha #dagorhir #rag32 #larp #foamfighting (at Cooper's Lake Campground)