Interview with Amanda Bond

I’m here with Amanda Bond, GM of ‘The Elemental’, one of our Firefly sims and also player in a number of other sims on our site.

So, Amanda, tell me a little about yourself.

I started writing this in paragraph form and it sounded too much like I needed to end it with "And I like long walks on the beach" so without further ado, here are ten Fun Facts About me you didn't know:
-I grew up on a cattle ranch in Washington State
-I majored in theater and broadcasting and have worked in each of those on and off since graduating from Gonzaga University back in 2001. Currently I am working for an exhibit house coordinating booths for industry trade shows.
-I have been married for coming up on six years this July 2
-I have a Pembroke Welsh Corgi named River.
-I live in Las Vegas, Nevada with my father and my paternal grandmother, who my husband is the main care giver for.
-I've studied ballet since I was five and currently take ballet, cabaret (think like burlesque mixed with a bit of jazz dance), and yes pole dancing and strip tease (it's Vegas!)
-I turned 31 this past December.
-I used to be part of  demo team for White Wolf Games who published Vampire: The Masquerade.
-I am really awful with FPS and MMOs because with both I have a lack of focus and concentration needed for them. I end up wandering off in the middle of raids and things. Set me down with Dragon Age though and I am all set for the next twenty-four hours.
-I am a weekend Steam Punk person and have a variety of costumes for many occasions.

So, how did you get into Firefly?

The series or RP?  I saw previews for the movie in the theater and I said 'we should go to that' to my husband but when the movie came out for some reason we missed it. My husband was working at Best Buy when the movie came out on DVD so he bought the movie and brought it home. We watched it with a friend who started raving about the TV series. We bought the TV series on DVD and have since bought it for presents and loaned my set around the office.

A friend of mine started a Firefly table top game over AIM but as his law school took off he had to stop running it. I did a search for Firefly games online and that was how it all began.

Who is your favourite Firefly character?

I really had a hard time with this question, but I think my favorite character is Captain Malcolm Reynolds. He really honestly wants life to be simple, but he keeps making it more complicated because of his heroic and misguided impulses. I always enjoy rogues with hearts of gold and I definitely think Mal fits that description.

So, how did The Elemental come about?

The really neat thing about the Elemental was that the crew came together in game on the planet (Akers Bluff) in a really organic, natural way. The crew formed IC, then OOC we talked about a ship. The back story of the Elemental as a ship itself was one of those things that really came about as a team effort. The design of the ship led to this story of this old salvage ship that was once used by pirates but has been drifting in space. Naturally that led to a ghost story on board the ship. If I remember correctly Ash Plom was the driving force behind the schematics of the ship, we had a player who's no longer with us do some mock ups of this cool ship with claws, and then they let me go crazy with a back story based loosely on The Pardoner's Tale and a little bit of steam punk inspired tech.

The Pardoner’s Tale? That’s Chaucer, isn’t it?

 

Yes, that's one of Chaucer's more famous tales from the Canterbury Tales. As a note, it's been used before for inspiration - Exalted a game from White Wolf used the Pardoner's Tale as basis for their fiction for one of their cannon heroes called Swan and more famously JK Rowling used it as a basis for the Deathly Hallows.  My father was an Old English Major in school so I was reading Canterbury Tales by the time I was ten or twelve? I know I read it around the time I read the Count of Monte Cristo and that's when I was reading that.  He did not believe in Children's Literature per se. It is amazing how that sort of background sticks with you throughout life.

So, what are you reading at the moment?

Well this is a busy season for trade shows so I am reading a lot of manuals on the rules at various conventions and convention centers. I just finished setting up for E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) and am in the process of setting up for Infocomm. The most I get to read during this time of year is the occasional Dr Who  forum as fans go nuts with speculation and of course http://jotpuk.blogspot.com/ which is the official blog of the Journey of the Phoenix. 

The last book I read was Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential earlier this year. 

Very interesting. Finally, what are your RPing plans for the immediate future?

The Elemental is going to land on Santo and have an adventure worthy of being the lovechild of the movie The Hangover and Hearts of Gold Episode of Firefly.  I love playing the Naboo Ambassador Merisee aboard the West Star. After running through the Harry Potter experience at Universal Studios in Orlando I am debating another sim - have to see though if I have time for it. 

We hope to see these soon. Thank you for your time!