• Member Since 3rd Sep, 2011
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PresentPerfect


Fanfiction masochist. :B She/they https://ko-fi.com/presentperfect

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  • Saturday
    Twilight the 没用

    Yesterday, a fellow named SoothingBell asked if they could translate Twilight the Useless to Chinese, and no way was I gonna say no. :D

    And they turned it around in 24 hours, amazing!

    https://fimtale.com/t/64723

    4 comments · 132 views
  • 1 week
    Idle musing

    so-called because that's what led me to the realization

    What is so compelling about the idea of "warrior woman runs afoul of a wizard and is flung centuries into the future" that I made it happen twice?

    ...And with slightly more musing, I also realize, in a roundabout way, it was with the same wizard. >_> Huh.

    Read More

    7 comments · 167 views
  • 1 week
    Fic recs, March 20th!

    Posting a day earlier than usual because the next reading is a long one!

    H: 1 R: 2 C: 1 V: 1 N: 3

    Read More

    6 comments · 194 views
  • 2 weeks
    Fic recs, March 14th!

    Lotus Moon has done a reading of Fleety's What's Philomena's Name?!

    Hey, help out Regidar, he's looking for experimental fics! Self-promotion allowed!

    Read More

    5 comments · 236 views
  • 2 weeks
    Fic recs, March 8th: Top Ten of 2023!

    Whaaaaat, two review blogs in a row?

    Well hell yes, because I have done much better with the top ten this year and I am inordinately pleased with myself! :3 here's the explanation of the setup, for all that it has never adequately explained what's going on to like, literally anyone:

    Read More

    19 comments · 274 views
Jul
21st
2015

Trotcon! · 1:32am Jul 21st, 2015

Yeah, I guess I should probably talk about it now! :B Page break cuz it's long. The short version "I enjoyed it and am glad I went".

For once, there were no stories to tell from the road. The worst that happened was some rain on the way back, which caused stoppages because Ohioans forget how to drive when it rains.

My buddy Max and I got in at 3 PM Friday, an hour ahead of the first fanfiction panel. There was all of one person in reg line ahead of us, which was great. As we're standing there waiting, someone comes up to said guy and mentions he's going to be on a writing panel. I seize on the opportunity and go, "Oh, you too?" I did not find out until slightly later that this was BaryonBrony, author of Machinations in the Dark, which was in the featured box for rather a while earlier this year. Baryon was fun to hang around with; he's animated, charismatic, and passionate about writing and helping others write better. He did most of the talking on both panels. :V

The first panel was... distinctly not well organized. XD It featured me, Baryon, my local buddy M. D. Quill, and, fashionably late, the Trotcon writing track mascot himself, ROBCakeran! We just sort of talked about shit and then answered a few questions.

God, and my memory already starts breaking down. I know that over the weekend, I saw Trick Question, who I've run into at literally every brony con I've been to; Zyrian, who I really got to know at last year's Bronycon; Bad Horse; Protopony; some jerk; ProfessorOats, who may qualify as my sidekick now; and Morning Sun, who earlier this year I discovered was someone I knew when I was into DDR, and so this was the first time we'd seen each other in a couple years. (Also Argembarger, but I'll get to him in a minute.) I also hung out with Animated James a bit, and he was cool.

Let's talk hotel for a sec. For the first time in my entire life, I got a hotel room on the first floor. This was amazing for numerous reasons, though least was the amount of noise of people going past at all hours. :B The room itself was... well, there was a king-sized bed instead of two doubles or whatever, but that was okay, since Max brought his air mattress. He took it the first night and I took it the second. The bathroom was huge, because accessible. Best of all, there was a sliding glass door heading out into a grassy area behind the hotel. I explored it Saturday, finding: an asphalt path around an artificial pond; a second, less well-kept path that went along the highway behind a business park; a rotting park area on this path; and a whole ton of goose crap on the pond path near the US Geological Survey. Also lots of geese. But in all, very cool accommodations.

But the best part? WI-FI. EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME. NO LOGIN. I mean, the last one I don't even care about, but holy shit it's time hotels got the message that this is extremely necessary. No more getting screwed because your carefully-planned online presentation is unreachable! The hotel overall was considerably better than I had expected, and this was a major reason why.

As for the conspace itself, the hallway where the panel rooms were was awfully narrow, but otherwise there seemed to be a lot more space, even if there wasn't much to it. The vendors room was in this wacky pavilion thing outside the hotel, connected by a super-hot cloth tunnel but otherwise cool. There was space to move around in! The panel rooms were most adequate, and there was even a lounge I stopped in at one point.

So after that first panel, I think my goal was "find as many people as possible", and I did so. (My goal for the entire con, by the way, was "find an outlet and get writing done"; I did not do this, and it is entirely thanks to the lovely writers who were always finding me to do stuff with. :) I should go to a con with no real plans more often!) The second panel wasn't until 7, and ended up being a Q&A with... I think the same people as the first? Oh, and JasonTheHuman.

(I had to reflect on how different things were from the very first Trotcon, when the panel was ROBCakeran, Pen Stroke, Argembarger, Cupcakes and "who are you again?" aka me. People recognized me! At least one person even said they enjoyed my stories, which made my day! :D)

That night was the first room party, hosted by Trick Question. It was mostly just "sit around and talk" as more and more people came in, which was cool, because it gave me time to internet and charge my laptop. The highlight of my con happened at this party: I was seated in the corner by the A/C unit, with Argembarger next to me, and I noticed the conversation had shifted to bad fanfics, specifically The Spiderses. Well, I started doing the Sims arrow thing at Arg until people noticed, at which point it was revealed that no one had noticed him come in, which was just the best thing. :D (I mean, no one there knew what he looked like to begin with, I'm sure, but it was still great.)

Oh, I said I'd talk about him, so here's the dish: he contacted me on Skype I think? Or maybe I wished him a happy birthday, and we got to talking, and somehow Trotcon came up, at which point he revealed he was coming. This blew my mind, because he kind of fell out of the fandom around the end of season 2. He had even said he barely remembered EQG, let alone season 3, and had some catching up to do. Unfortunately, I didn't catch him at all for the rest of the con, though I did at least get to introduce him to Protopony's work (sadly, not the man himself). I heard he dropped some acid Saturday night and was seeing ponies, so I texted him on Sunday to make sure he wasn't dead. :V

Anyway, I buggered out of the party early because I am old and sleep, and sleep I did, though I found out that using the hard cylinder pillow was NOT a good idea as it was a little too high to be comfortable. My neck still hurts.

On Saturday -- or maybe it was Friday night, I don't recall -- a funny thing happened. I had been telling people there were only two fanfic panels all con (partially my fault, since I hadn't planned on coming, hadn't known I was until it was too late to start a panel, and unfairly tried to foist the speedfics off onto Oats), but noticed something: "Fanfic Related Panel" on Saturday! And there was no information about it in the conbook! Surely it must be a mistake, an intended panel that never got added and remained a generic descriptor.

Saturday morning was abuzz with anticipation as we wondered "just what the heck is this panel, anyway?" No one knew what it was for. No one knew who was running it. So the room was jam-packed by the time 1 PM rolled around.

It turned out to be hosted by Dragonsbld (aka Mr. Con Chair), Drew Flashy (an Ohio Bronies personality), and some dude from security whose name I never got. The theme? "Tell us about your fanfic and convince us to read it." It wasn't easy. I got a 2/3 for my recommendation of In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep (and I felt like such a boss for the way I described it; sometimes I think I might not be a fraud!) I would have done My Full-Sized Goddess Horse, but Trick Question started the panel out with the "read terrible quotes from other people" angle and I didn't want to copy. :B Also, that jerk suggested his jerk fanfic and all three jerks panelists claimed to have already read it. I sense conspiracy. :V

But it was a surprisingly good time and reinforced the idea that going to random panels at cons is bound to lead to fun. Afterward, Max and I did our yearly run to Big Fun Columbus, the second-hand toy store. It was quite a bit of a drive, 15 minutes down I-71, and it was fucking hot, but we did it because we're dumb. :B I stood around awkwardly for an hour while he gleefully purchased over $200 worth of Transformers. And one Animorph. Then we got back to the car (at least we could park closer than last year!) and found 103 on the dashboard thermostat. Geez. We decided not to see Ant-Man (we did that earlier today instead) and just headed back.

(Oh, on that note, my spending budget for extra stuff was $10. It went up a bit because I gave Protopony a couple things he wanted, and I was able to buy a pin for my friend, a house pin [Solaris, even though my badge was Umbra], one of those awesome fake-stained glass pins [you'll know what I'm talking about if you were there], and a calendar from the Brony Thank You Fund. And a slice of pizza. Also, the hotel had pizza and burgers and stuff on a buffet line in the middle of the con, which was fucking amazing because the closest restaurant that wasn't expensive-because-in-the-hotel was not accessible by foot. All my trepidations about the location evaporated once I actually got there, it was amazing!)

With no more panels worth seeing (I'd have gone to the one about previous gens if it hadn't been at 11 PM on Friday), I decided to hang out in the lounge, where I found Protopony and introduced him to the wonders of Sentinels of the Multiverse. :V (I just left my desktop on all weekend so I could access it with Team Viewer, wahaha!) This became my new goal, though I was only able to show Biscuit and Rob on Sunday.

Saturday evening, Rob took a bunch of us out to the Old Bag of Nails pub in Worthington, an Irish pub with fantastic food, none of which was not fried. Well, except the burgers. I had a basket of fried pickles, because I had eaten not long ago, and it turned out to be 1.5 cucumbers' worth of spears, not chips like I'm used to. God, that was good. And then we talked about cars for two hours, or at least everyone did but me and Oats. :B I mean, I don't even have a driver's license, what do I know about cars. I had a lot of fun talking with Bad Horse because he gave me lots of insider info about stuff. :V Also, listening to fanfic readings in a car is surreal and awesome.

Oh yeah, and Max's buddy Drax and his friend (girlfriend?) showed up in their Vinyl Scratch and Rainbow Dash fursuits, so I hung around with them for an hour or so. Unfortunately, they ended up leaving early, despite having a room and everything, because a couple other suiters couldn't make it. That made Max sad. :(

That night was ROBCakeran's room party, which included Uno, Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder (I finally got to play! I found it amusing, but slightly frustrating, as more often than not, a turn involved just playing one's entire hand to no effect.), and the fire alarm getting pulled. :V Yup. It's not a con without that happening. (From what I heard later, someone was likely toking up or even vaping in their room and set it off that way.) Thankfully, we only had to stand outside in the dark for like five minutes. Also, I did apologize later for running LineMonkey off the sidewalk. D: I of course ducked out early, though not as early as the previous night! (Morning Sun won TSSSF, for the record.)

Sunday involved an early morning trip to Tim Horton's, which was a bit down the street, but which Max and I always go to when we're in C-bus. Between breakfast (I ate a bag of the cereal I brought with me) and the ride home (when I finished my beef jerky; I brought lots of food so I wouldn't have to spend any money on it), I ate nothing but Timmy's all day Sunday. :B The spicy chorizo wrap, fyi? Spicy. Also messy as fuck, which is why I ended up changing shirts. Which was a good thing, because everybody loved my "sad serial killer" shirt. I got so many comments, it's not even funny. I'm never wearing a brony shirt to a brony meetup again. :V (I had made no effort to bring any.)

Sunday's business included a script reading panel (MD Quill and a couple others had run a writing thing the night before), where MD, Deimos Foxx and a couple other funny dudes read short pieces about Pipsqueak going trick or treating the night before Nightmare Night, using funny voices. (The tandem readings were a hoot!) The day's inside joke was bacon-wrapped cats. :D (Well, actually, it was cat-wrapped bacon.)

There was also a "So You're a Human in Equestria" panel that I decided to go to because like everyone was going there (except Rob, who said he was gonna and then got swallowed by the earth or something, I dunno). Unfortunately, and somewhat unsurprisingly, no one showed up to run it, so JasonTheHuman and Arcane Flame took over. No offense meant to them, I ducked out (though happily, I found a pin back, which was good because Max had lost one of his earlier in the weekend) and went to play Sentinels like a nerd somewhere.

That afternoon was mostly spent in con ops because I found Max in there and never had a reason to leave. (For anyone who was wondering why the con chair was in a wheelchair, I'm led to believe it was due to an intense session of DDR. So, she'll be okay.) I chatted with some dudes about 3DS stuff. (God, I tagged so many people. I tagged Heather Breckel like four times! Apparently she had a sign at her booth urging people to play Smash Bros. with her! Also, at one point, I noticed the name of one Mii was "Von Snoot" and I was like "No way!" And then I checked and found this journal and that's how I met Von Snootingham, who I know from the writeoffs. :D)

The really fun part was, at point, this red-headed woman flounced out of ops for a bit, and I asked someone, "Who was that? She looks familiar." I heard "June Barrel" and, taking that as an unfamiliar pony name, thought no more of it, assuming she was on staff. No, as it turns out, that was G. M. Berrow. I didn't actually say anything to her, but pretty much all the VIPs came in at one point or another. I think Bryan Drummond and his daughter? And someone else, and Steffan Andrews. Also, I thanked M. A. Larson at one point and he said goodbye to me. You may pay to touch me. :V

After that, it was all goodbyes and standing around, talking to people to avoid having to say goodbye. And then, in a flash, we were on the road and back home. Even today, Max was like, "It doesn't seem like the weekend happened."

But, for not having wanted to go, and for having freaked out about the damn thing up until I got there, Trotcon was really fun this year. I have no idea if I'll go next year, but even if this is my last con ever (as I told everyone, I can't make Bronycon), it was a good'n. :)

Report PresentPerfect · 761 views · #trotcon
Comments ( 28 )
Wanderer D
Moderator

Seems like you had an awesome time bro! Glad you went there and enjoyed yourself!

Cons are fun but they are exhausting. I think I had my fill at BronyCon two years ago since I haven't had the urge to go to another one, not even one nearby. Maybe someday down the line.

Glad you had fun!

Sentinels was AWESOME! I'll be getting it soon.

Also you never gave me that honey.

Maaaaan. I really need to get my tail down to another con, that sounds amazing. More than one fic panel? What kind of crazy paradise is this?

The theme? "Tell us about your fanfic and convince us to read it."

...I am now struck with an immense need to know what everyone else said.

Happy to hear you had fun!

The con was hella fun, all except for ... that jerk.

This is even better than getting a NR in a review blog.

And we learned who sinks all the ships. I feel there is some valuable moral to that, or something.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3256263
One of the recs was The Last Human, actually! It was either Rob or Jason who suggested it.

It was a great panel if only because I put a couple of things onto my RIL in the middle of it. :V

Always happy to hear someone having a good time at a con.

Sidekick? Does that mean I get a pair of tights? :pinkiehappy:

I thought the hotel was pretty mixed. Some good, some bad. Those showers sucked. That cylindrical pillow was kinda nice for a few seconds. They probably would've gotten more of my money if the food wasn't such a rip-off. I mean, if you're gonna charge $14 for breakfast, at least heat the damn oatmeal!

... and unfairly tried to foist the speedfics off onto Oats...

Wait, you were actually trying to do that? I thought all the bucktoothed smiles meant you were joking!

I thought fried pickles always came in spears. Kinda wanna try the chips now

I don't have a license either, and have zero interest in cars (yet I make them for a living. Go figure). Only strong opinion I have on 'em is that gull-wing doors are fucking awesome

Oh shit, you guys bought an Animorphs toy? I've seen those; they look like shit! I mean, doing the Transformer thing is the only thing that would make sense, but I find it so jarring when they aren't machines, especially when you see Jake or Rachel or whoever with parts from the animal form sticking out because they couldn't figured out how to make them fit in.

Glad you had fun, though. I'm crossing my fingers that I can get a ride to Bronycon in a couple of weeks.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3257563
No, it meant I knew I was doing a bad thing and fully expected you not to go for it. :B It's k.

3257783
It was like "Vinner Three" or something. Transforms from a Jabberwock into an alien centaur. Pretty hideous, yeah.

On Sunday I found a warning from Google that somebody had logged into one of my gmail accounts from NYC, from an IP address linked to spam emails, shortly after I logged onto it over the hotel wifi.

3256263 I said, "You shouldn't read 'The Last Human' because the topic sounds interesting; you should read it because it's by Patchwork Poltergeist."

...not that I've read it. But at least I know that I should. :derpytongue2:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3258906
That was a really cool thing, I thought. :)

Twas a blast to see ya again, PP! And I'm shocked you really enjoyed the script reading panel. I felt that thing was just another disorganized disaster. haha
Glad we got BaryonBrony on the first fic panel, though. Since we had no time to plan it could have been a disaster, but he kept that thing pretty well alive.

3258730

*adjusts glasses*

Uh, it's "Visser Three", and he morphs into an andalite. I assume the "Jabberwock" you're referring to is the so-called "Inferno Creature", though a second toy added a Hork-Bajir form, which would've been more in line with the literature had it actually matched Applegate's descriptions. Frakkin' pleb...

Man, sounds like a lot of fun. Good crowd!

In the mythical future where I have money and time, I'll have to swing by one of these here non-west-coast cons and actually meet you (and all the others).

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3259396
Yeah, the Inferno thing is totally a Jabberwock.

3259616
I don't foresee any more conventions in my future, sadly. :(

3259884

I don't foresee any more conventions in my future, sadly. :(

One of us (and I'm not saying it'll be me [but I'm not saying it won't, either]) may just wind up kidnapping you to a convention in the future.

I thanked M. A. Larson at one point and he said goodbye to me.

He didn't even sign you? What sort of con is this?

Glad you got there and enjoyed yourself, though! The enormous scale of North American pony cons never ceases to cause amazement/envy/terror over here.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3260281
It's just not gonna happen unless things change in a good way, and they never do. :(

3258730
That... might work better? I mean, Andalites look weird already so the toy can't make it that much worse.

3262460
Yeah, it's not bad. Andalites are supposed to be blue, but there's not a whole lot you can do about that.

3256400

Seriously, Bad Horse. 3258906 THE SHIPWRECKER.

That jerk stopped me from winning multiple turns inna row :raritydespair:

3261277
Do cons as staff, and get way cheaper rooming/food/etc!

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3278466
And have no time for hanging with people cuz you gotta do stuff. D:

3279167
I did plenty of hanging :duck:

3278462 I feel that breaking up all the ships on the board was a personal victory. I'm just sad I missed a beautiful chance to make ROBCakeran53 cry. I'd have won the Internet for that.

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