TrotCon Online Day 2.0: Technical Excellence · 4:00am Jul 19th, 2020
My day began looking Eli in the face.
“Me’yah!” he said, “Feed Me!”
And so I shambled out of bed, fed the cat, and got down to watch some more TrotConOnline. I had planned on watching the panel “There and Back Again: A Fanfiction Writer’s Journey Back to
to Original Fiction”, but as that was canceled I was happily able to attend “Unicorns and Other Fable-Equines”, an excellent historical and mythological exploration of Unicorns, Hippocamps, Hippogroffs, Pegasai, and many other fantastically creatures given in dulcet tones by Germany’s Malte279. After that panel, and some discussion in the chat about the lack of extant Native American horse myths, I got up and had my traditional breakfast and cup of tea. Then came the Luna Yoga panel, for my morning exercises, which was really a workout!
Presently, I found myself in voice chat, chatting to Malte279. Turns out, his doctoral thesis was on the American Civil War coverage in German Newspapers. So we had an excellent discussion about the Civil War as a result.
I attended the “Queer Representation in Western Animation” panel, which… was a bit disorganized. The commentary on Star Trek, and the theorizing that Dax was\is a trans person was interesting, as well as asserting that Bashir & Garek were meant to be gay (which makes a lot of sense). Then things got kinda, wandering, because one panel member wasn’t there yet. Had some good conversations in the chat, though. So I hopped over to Ellie-Ray’s panel and she was on our plane of existence! It was kind of refreshing… and I learned two interesting facts about her. Firstly, she was a VA on CareBears, playing Bedtime Bear. Also, rather sadly, she lost a son many years ago. She talked about the impermanence and beauty of life, which was quite deep.
Katrina was awesome as always. I was interested to find out that she quite likes the character of Silverstream, and wouldn’t mind playing it. This year I actually asked her the question, probably 3 years in the making, about what her message for fellow Type 1 Diabetics was. She said that while T1D is hard, it can be managed. I was glad to hear that her 670G pump is working well for her, too.
Ian Hanlin’s panel was excellent, he talked of his inspiration for voice acting being the 90’s Spiderman cartoon. He also said that Sunburst is his go to “put upon” voice, which was hilarious. I must also recommend his latest work, as the new voice of Mr. Magoo!
The VA I had been most anticipating, Devyn Dalton, voice of Ocellus gave an excellent performance. She’s a fascinating person: she was a mo-cap actress for the Planet of the Apes, where she worked with Andy Serkis, one of her great influences. Also, she is a stunt woman! On top all of this she’s a VA, goodness gracious. When she was young, she loved the Disney renaissance movies, especially the characters of Tinkerbelle & Ariel (good taste). She apparentlywould want to play Tinkerbelle in the future, in live action, due to her small stature and ability to do wire work. When she got her role on MLP, she was very excited, and even though she didn’t know how big the role was she tried to work on it to make it a complete person. She was glad to get Ocellus, who she bonded to over the line “Pillows… nice!”. Apparently the both of them are “Pillow Feinds”. She stated that Ocellus’ character is closest to her young girl self, with all her nervousness. She vividly remembers meeting the Young 6 in the kitchen of the studio, it being like the first day at school. She was also greatly honored to record together with the original actresses. Since recording with others gives you a ability to play off each other, she says it’s super fun and it’s like being in a family. According to her Ocellus would turn into Yona & AJ, if the metamorphosis opportunity presented itself.
I finished up enjoying watching the VA’s play some various party games… and there was a amusing Brony\Family Feud game in there somewhere. Some quick thoughts to wrap up for tonight:
VA’s complimenting the usernames of attendees is very wholesome. Panels and panelists are a bit more organized and sober, but sometimes also slower. You can get a lot of hand sewing done at a virtual con. Con Fatigue is a universal constant! Peter New once played a Monkey Thief in D&D, and his Discord voice sounds like Dreamfinder from Disney’s “Imagination!” ride.
And with those final thoughts, a good night to all!
Those are some interesting VA stories. :O
"and the theorizing that Dax was\is a trans person"
...How would that even work? I mean, as I recall, on the one hand, do we actually know much about the genders of the symbiotes, or whether they even have any, and on the other, yes, Dax partnered with both male and female people, but isn't that normal for their species and culture? What would even be the difference between a trans symbiote and a non-trans one?
Or was the discussion about whether the above (or a possibly-more-correctly-remembered version of it) counts as trans?
"as well as asserting that Bashir & Garek were meant to be gay"
...Huh. Yeah, interesting, yeah.
Glad it sounds like you're still enjoying it. :)
Yeah, I initially thought their statements visa vi Dax were maybe a bit of a stretch, but... I think the argument ran more that she's a representation of a trans person, through the Sci Fi lens of Star Trek. Much the same way the Klingons are the Russians, except when they are the Japanese, and the Romulans being the Chinese. Star Trek isn't particularly subtle about it's messaging, but it always tried to make it's commentary of people and society one step away from reality by couching it in a "they are space people\aliens" excuse.