• Member Since 24th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen Sunday

scoots2


I'm a writer of fluff, kibitzer, and especially interested in canon AU: Equestria Girls, the comics, etc. They are fun to play with.

More Blog Posts181

  • 240 weeks
    Follow-up on that stalker thing

    He seems to have gone quiet for now. I'm assuming the admins managed to smack down all of those alts. I haven't seen any new material on Tumblr or DeviantArt, either.

    Speaking of DeviantArt, here's the reply I got from them:

    Thanks for getting in touch!

    A member of the DeviantArt staff has reviewed this situation, and we have taken appropriate steps to resolve the problem.

    Read More

    5 comments · 444 views
  • 242 weeks
    Just so you know...

    There's a person on here who has been creating alts and harassing me. I keep getting posts like "why have you stopped talking to me? Tell me what I did. I need closure." I'm also getting PMs along the order of "yo, why are you ignoring X? I thought you were friends."

    Read More

    13 comments · 506 views
  • 248 weeks
    I lurk

    I know some people have asked why I won’t say anything, etc., but the truth is that I lurk. I sign in to see something, usually to re-read Rage Reviews. There are some things I can’t see unless I’m a bonafide member over a certain age. And then I just don’t ever log out, but I’m not “here” and ignoring anyone on purpose.

    Read More

    6 comments · 406 views
  • 327 weeks
    Some people make themselves very, very unhappy

    Haven't been around much, but then, you knew that. Busyness, health issues, and frankly a whole lot of depression. Even ponies weren't interesting me very much anymore. I had a ticket to go to EQLA and a party that same weekend, and I did not go to either.

    Read More

    26 comments · 783 views
  • 381 weeks
    Hey guys guys guys

    So, hi, you haven't probably seen much from me, and that is primarily because I have been sucked in again by my primary fandom, Harry Potter. Which isn't surprising, considering that I help run a convention and teach a course on it and am the school's club's faculty advisor and have given talks on it for, oh, over a decade.

    So for me, for the last few months, it has been mostly about:

    Read More

    12 comments · 713 views
Sep
11th
2015

EQLA: the not-so-great part (and pictures!) · 7:32am Sep 11th, 2015

My previous post mentioned some of the epic parts of EQLA. And there really were some. Bonnie Zacherle and Lauren Faust will never meet again for the very first time. That's a historic moment in the fandom, right there. However, since my colleague Mr. Melnipony has mentioned it, and since I was going to write about it anyway, I might as well bring up the not-so-great bits. I'm going to cannibalize a bit of what I said in his blog, which I hope is ok.

Top of the list: the costume showcase.

Now, the funny thing about this is that it said in the program something like "have you worked for a long time on your cosplay? Now's your chance to show it off!"

Well, yes. Yes, I have, and I very much wanted to show it off. Here it is:



The dress is made of silk taffeta. The underside of the skirt is red. I had to get the bodice re-fitted by a tailor, but otherwise, the work is all mine. I chose Cherry Jubilee partly because I wrote a story about her, but also because she is one of the few slightly older characters who isn't someone's mom or Granny Smith, and I didn't want a repeat of the incident at BABScon when someone called me the Ancient And Most Withered Trixie.

The convention program had the costume showcase scheduled for something like 3:45. I carefully packed a suitcase with the costume in it and drove down to Anaheim. I'd been wondering if there were a sign-in or a check in or something, so I asked, and was told, "Oh, that's over. We did it at 10:15."

Wait, what?

Evidently, early in the morning, at the last minute, someone had decided to switch the scheduling of the costume showcase and a performance by a BNF named Solrac. I asked when this was announced and I was told "oh, we announced it on Twitter. We send everything out on Twitter." Well, I'm not on Twitter that much, so I almost blamed myself, and then I went and looked and they announced this schedule change at 10 AM, fifteen minutes before the new time! Honest to gosh, it was like some of the manufactured drama on Heroes of Cosplay.

If you've ever done any cosplay at all, or known someone who did, you know that you cannot get ready in fifteen minutes, even assuming that you were in the hotel and on Twitter. My costume is relatively simple, but it does require boots, hose, a dress, accessories, a wig cap and a wig, a headpiece, and lots of makeup (plus contact lenses.) Heaven knows what someone wearing something structural like armor would have done. Basically, you'd have to have been already dressed and in the hallway or the vendor area to be part of it. It's a good thing that the only "prize" was the admiration of your fellow fans, because if real prizes had been involved, there would have been a riot. It's also good that the kids' competition was separate, because if that had been screwed up, there would have been blood.

This rather upset me. It only didn't ruin my day because I am a world-class Pollyanna with gonads of steel. In fact, I admit that I sat down on the floor and cried.

I'd already been wondering how on earth they planned to get through the whole thing in an hour, which was all the time they allotted. The only way to do that is to have a quick n' dirty lineup with the audience voting by means of applause, and then top honors usually goes to the youngest kid or the person with the largest and heaviest costume. And y'know, I'm actually ok with that.

Anything else requires time, even if it's casual. Usually the participants have to sign up in advance or appear at a check in. At Misti-Con, you clear your cosplay with the organizers and send them a note with what you want them to say. At BABSCon, you had to go to a check-in, where they asked what your costume was, examined it carefully, and asked how much of it you made yourself. Then there is usually a rehearsal. Depending on the size of the group, this could take an hour or more. A lineup order has to be put together. The participants have to practice how they'll walk across the stage or whatever. And THEN there is the actual show. If you plan to do a cosplay and appear in the show, you can count on it killing your whole afternoon (which is why I didn't do it at BronyCon.)

I've been in these and been told, "How did that not WIN?" Well, sometimes it's because it legit is not the best, which is frequent. You would not believe how awesome some cosplays are. Sometimes it's because there is a kid competing, and honestly, the kid can HAVE first prize: it means a lot more to them than it does to me. And sometimes it's just . . . . ? And that doesn't matter. I don't need to win. At all.

So why does it matter? It's the only way your costume gets seen. I was talking to a young woman who had been dressed as Chancellor Puddinghead the previous day. I bet it was great, but I never saw it, because I didn't happen to be in the hallway or the vendor hall when she was there. That's all the opportunity anyone had. And when you put in that much effort, you do want to be seen.

Besides, there are many BNFs I would have minded less bumping the spot. I can think of a lot, actually. If that were the only time that Rainbow Dash Presents could have done something, or Silver Quill, or any number of people, I would still have been sad and annoyed, but I would have thought, "well, they're pretty good, so I guess it's worth it." Solrac is not one of them. My only exposure to his work has been through some of the Bronies React videos, and I always flinch when he is on screen, because his schtick is wearing orange and screaming, and it reminds me of Lockup.

Anyway, I was very, very bummed out and cried, and then I got up and decided to be cheerful. Because that's what Pink Horse would have wanted.

But this is not always easy.

I did enjoy a few things on Saturday. There was a panel with Mitch Larson and Lauren Faust. Video is here.

I got my picture taken with Bonnie Zacherle:

And I got my copy of The Journal of The Two Sisters signed by Amy Keating Rogers. I always think of her as "Pinkie's Mom," because she has so much to do with forming the character, and it was neat to hear that Lauren Faust felt the same way. While I was getting the book signed, I had a chance to chat with her about the contents, and I'll save that for another post, but put together with Lauren Faust's interview, it was mighty interesting.

When I went in to get my picture with Bonnie Zacherle and to have her sign a print (ten dollars? Seriously? The Queen Mother of Pony rates ten dollars?) I zoomed right past the line, because everyone wanted Lauren Faust's signature, so if you wanted to get anyone else's signature, the line was really short. There was a guy taking vouchers, and right next to him, M.A. Larson was sitting, but I hadn't planned on asking for his signature. I said I felt kind of guilty about that, because M. A. Larson signs everything in sight, mostly just for kicks, I think. When I came back, I apologized again. "I feel bad for going past you twice. I know you sign everything. I feel as though I should go back and get another voucher because not asking you to sign something feels so rude." He paused for a moment, and said. "Hmm. Who is your favorite pony?"

"Pinkie Pie."

"Good choice." He pulled out a print, wrote "And that's how Equestria was made!", signed it, and slid it over. "If you'd said Fluttershy, I wouldn't have said anything." And that's how I got M. A. Larson's signature and how Equestria was made. It's hard to feel totally terrible about that. Still, I was a little bummed out.

I was brooding at 5:30in the morning the next day, trying to decide if I should even bother to dress up.

What was I thinking? Of course I would!

Now, you may have gathered that I'd offered a crash pad to Mr. Melnipony, thus enabling him to attend EQLA, and you may have also gathered that he can be sort of cantankerous, but when I announced "YO, GET UP, I AM PUTTING ON MY CHERRY JUBILEE COSPLAY AND I NEED ALL THE LIGHTS ON AND THE CAR DEPARTS THE GARAGE AT 8:30," he said something like "snerg?", and just rolled with it. So he is not cranky all the time.

It was worth it. Lots of people stopped me and took my picture, and of course this is what a cosplayer really wants. Then I ran into Snapdragon, who had run one of my favorite presentations ever at EQLA a couple of years ago: a presentation on customizing ponies. And that made me very happy.

Other stuff that, um, needed work:

1. Schedule. The schedule wasn't done until slightly before a week before the con. The panel descriptions only appeared in the program itself. And the participants weren't in the descriptions at all! I wouldn't have known who was in "Female Voices Of The Fandom" if I hadn't found out by accident. Turns out it was fandom VA artists, including The Lost Narrator. She read Goodbye, Boneless, so I tried to be there (at 9 AM on Sunday), but failed: see below.

2. Someone really needs to screen questions. No, seriously, all the time, at any pony convention. There was a guy who kept asking weird questions and playing some kind of annoying noise into the mike at every panel. There were people asking for favors and people asking weird shipping questions. I think fans forget that to the VAs, especially, this is a job. Some of them haven't even seen every episode. And they don't understand about stuff like shipping and the portmanteau ship names. "Dislestia vs. Fluttercord" does not mean anything to them. And even if it did, what would they say? They couldn't give an answer, because it would be all over Twitter in about thirty seconds, and the consequences would be dire. They didn't start to do this until late in the weekend, and by then I was getting seriously bored.

3. Traffic. Con planners need to know about major traffic snafus. There was a huge marathon at Disneyland, and it cut off access to the convention center for miles in several directions. I was actually directed back onto the 5 freeway! We almost made it to the 9 AM panel with The Lost Narrator, but the detour took at least twenty minutes out and probably more. The County Highway Patrol was officiously waving us towards the on ramp, and by then, I was very annoyed, so I drove right next to the cop and came to a dead stop.

CARS BEHIND SCOOTS: HONK HONK BEEEP

SCOOTS: Hi? We're from out of town? And we're trying to go to an event at the convention center? And we just have no idea how to get there? (Up Speak (™) sometimes comes in handy, along with a sweet and slightly confused expression.)

CARS BEHIND SCOOTS: HONK HONK BEEEEP! BEEEP!

So he glowered at the other cars and gave us directions, and they were very weird and complicated, and I smiled and thanked him and we drove on. Which is the way I vent my wrath. With a SMILE.

4. Separate events need tickets, or an official list, or a tag attached to a badge, not a signed list in a notebook.

A smaller nitpick: a reading of funny and horrible fanfics need to be funny. My LIttle Unicorn: Believing is Magic isn't funny. It's boring.

I understand that the con was brought back from the dead, to the extent that it was virtually a first-year con. I also gather that there was a last minute upheaval in leadership. That's just a hunch, but I think the con chair stepped in at the last second, perhaps to fix things. I'm more than willing to give them a second chance, actually, especially if they give more than a nod to earlier gens of ponies.

They really need to clean up their act on cosplay, though.

Comments ( 13 )

Even without cosplay prep time involved, it boggles me a little that they were shuffling the schedule 15 minutes in advance of go time.

Yeah, my experience with Larson is that he's pretty cool like that. The signature I have from him is also voucher free.

:twilightoops: Yikes. I suppose Murphy demanded his due to compensate for the awesomeness of the two people on Earth who can legitimately have alicorn OCs being in the same room together. Also, that really is a great cosplay.

3384137
At CTCon this past summer they changed Nichelle Nichols' panel from Saturday to Friday without any sort of announcement at all, about twenty minutes before actually having it (i.e., they told everyone who was in the room @1:10 on Friday waiting for a different panel to start that they had to clear out because they needed to reset the stage for Nichelle, and that the panel everyone was waiting for was now on Saturday instead). It sucks, but such is Con-life, :applejackunsure:

Anyway, awesome cosplay scoots! :pinkiehappy: Don't feel too bad about missing out on the showcase; we all know the best part of cosplaying is making some random person's day while out and about, :twilightsmile:

Awesome cosplay! And that Larson story is so cute!

And they don't understand about stuff like shipping and the portmanteau ship names. "Dislestia vs. Fluttercord" does not mean anything to them. And even if it did, what would they say? They couldn't give an answer, because it would be all over Twitter in about thirty seconds, and the consequences would be dire.

Ashleigh Ball said at ComicCon that she ships AppleDash, and she tweeted a AppleDash wedding pic on Gay Pride Day a previously. I think most of the cast and crew is aware of shipping in this day and age, especially if they do cons. It's true they might not recognize all the names, but I felt no shame asking G. M. Berrows if she ships (maybe FlutterCord, but it might just be a friend crush.) People can have opinions on the subject without it being canon, especially on a show with so many creators contributing to the finished project.

3384318 In this case, the girl asked "Fluttercord or Dislestia?" while wearing a Fluttercord costume (quite cute, actually!) But when John DeLancie looked bewildered and said, "Fluttercord . . . Or dyslexia?" He didn't need it spelled, which is what the girl did: "F-L-U . . . " He needed it explained.

I though the AppleDash picture was more about supporting marriage equality than expressing a preference, and incidentally shipped herself with herself. Personally, I think asking shipping questions is a bad idea, because 90% of the time, the shipper is only going to hear something that will make them unhappy. Enjoy your Sparity ship, but don't ask Tabitha St. Germaine if she supports it or Meghan McCarthy if it's going to be canon. The answer will probably break your heart. I'm never going to ask if CheesePie is canon.

3384173 It was pretty awesome, and made up for a lot. And thanks!

3384411

Enjoy your Sparity ship, but don't ask Tabitha St. Germaine if she supports it or Meghan McCarthy if it's going to be canon. The answer will probably break your heart.

See, I have a totally different mindset. I'm picky about my canon, I don't take Word of God and I only even acknowledge the books and comics if I like the idea. From my point of view, barring a leak of information about an upcoming book or episode or comic that that specific writer wrote, no one could tell you if it's gong to be canon. And the voice actors supporting it tells you nothing about canon at all. Ashliegh Ball admitting to shipping AppleDash changes nothing about the show or the validity of the ship.

To me, if any of the cast or crew said they shipped something, all it means is that one can legitimately speculate on ship teasing in their specific work. So, in Castle Mane-ia, when Dash says "Applejack, if you're scared, you can just admit it. You don't need to put your hoof around me." Ashleigh might have been purposely making it sound how it sounded to AppleDash fans. She didn't write it, she didn't animate it, and the people who did write and animate it might hate AppleDash for all we know. Same thing about the RariJack in the comics. Unless all the RariJack was penciled by the same person who likes RariJack, or everyone involved admitted to shipping RariJack, it's all a coincidence. And if everyone did admit to liking RariJack, it's still not canon.

So, to me, "Do you ship?" is just a question to the cast or crew like "who's best pony?" It's just a bit of validation and/or easter egg hunting, or a reason to smile and shake my head about how wrong they are. :ajsmug:

> " … , and I didn't want a repeat of the incident at BABScon when someone called me the Ancient And Most Withered Trixie."

Somepony need a lesson from Love & Tolerate. [Taps bat with nail through it donning the words "Love & Tolerate" written on it.]

¡The rescheduling of the time of the CosPlay is insane!:

Ponies work over an year on their costumes. It takes only 1 to 2 hours to don a costume. ¡EQLA screwed the CosPlayers!

3384137 No kidding! I know it happens, but geez!
3384245 Thanks! Yeah--there just wasn't any good place to hang out being a glutton for attention, though. The halls were small and crowded. I do remember some guy dressed as Flufflepuff with weird glasses, though. He was in that all weekend. In fact, I'm not even positive that there was a human inside that.

3384630 Word of God is handy and interesting, but not dispositive. If someone says "sea ponies aren't canon," I have to ask pointedly what he thinks the Dazzlings are if they're not evil sea ponies agree that sea ponies have never appeared in the show. They've appeared in the comics and in "Under The Sparkling Sea," which has some of the most beautiful official MLP art I've ever seen, and the official line is that "the comics and books are canon unless contradicted by the show." I think of those as resources to be mined by fan artists and fan writers, not yet another set of criteria that must be matched, if that makes sense.

BUT if someone says "oh, Fausticorn would NEVER have permitted sea ponies! Those awful, awful sea ponies!" then I CAN say, "ha, well, she said herself that she was planning to include them down the line, so so much for your purist Faustimentalism." I love the cartoon she created, but people can be so annoying about what Lauren Faust did and did not mean to do. It's moot now anyway, because the show can go wherever it wants, but for some reason, the bronies at BABSCon who said to Meghan McCarthy "THANK YOU for not including sea ponies" stick in my mind. It's like being allergic to Breezies because they're so G3 and "toyetic."

As for shipping . . . let's just say that everyone isn't as sane as you are. I remember that AppleDash moment, and I remember the yelling and keening that all was now ROONED. I also remember saying, "aw, c'mon, let the AppleDash shippers have their fun! Who knows, next week it could be someone else's turn." (Did I expect DaringDash or DaringAhuizotl? No, I did not.) It's the pushing and mining for evidence, and also the way the questions are phrased. If the show staffer or VA looks confused or acts evasive or outright says "no," I think the questioner should quietly back off, instead of arguing or insisting.

As for the AppleDash vs. RariJack in the comics thing . . . well, depending on who is writing them, Rarity is mostly shown as outrageously and embarrassingly straight in the comics, certainly in the ones produced by the Price/Cook combo. I think there's more room for ambiguity in the show. For crying out loud, Rarity compliments the sheriff on his amazing and original hat and it's exactly the same hat Applejack has been wearing all along! Dash acts pretty clueless, which is funny as heck, but there is that frame where she's wearing Applejack's hat . . . .

The overall point is that questions really need to be screened. That takes care of the more outrageous ones and also the guy who kept playing that obnoxious noise into the mike.

Totally forgot I hadn't responded to this, likely partially because I'd seen Elric's blog before this, and he'd mentioned the not so good bits to me prior to that, at least about the disorganization and cosplay problems. It's a shame that your outfit didn't get get a chance to be shown off more, as it is pretty good.

Everything does sound like it was a mess. If it helps at all, the mlp convention that came the closest to where I live was the Las Pegasus Unicon, and I'm sure you've heard how that went. I didn't go, as it happens, but I came very close to going...

Doubt there'll be another mlp convention in Las Vegas any time soon.

--arcum42

3394172 Oh, MY, yes. I heard all about Las Pegasus Unicon. I live about a four hours (unpleasant) drive from Las Vegas. It's fine once you get there, but you have to pass a lot of desert mountains and penitentiaries and things, not to mention all the signs telling you to turn off your air conditioning because if you don't, your car will overheat, but if you don't, you'll DIE. Not something I want to do often, especially not at the last minute on New Year's Eve when everyone gets the brilliant idea "Let's spend New Year's in Las Vegas!" and then winds up celebrating in an unmoving line of traffic somewhere east of San Berdoo.

It's just close enough that I was tempted when I saw all the announcements on Equestria Daily. WOW, I thought, they have everybody! Then I thought, huh. They have everybody. That looks pretty big to me. Something doesn't feel right about this . . . and anyway, I'm busy that weekend.

I guess it felt eerily like "this is ship is unsinkable!" To a student of literature, there was a definite scent of hubris in the air.

Getting to see Bonnie Zachele and Lauren Faust onstage together, though, and watching that--that was electric. I'm so glad I went. And reading between the lines of the con program, I think the con organizer may have been thrust into the position when things weren't going well, or there was a bit of a scramble. Anyway, Snapdragon had some kind words to say about the organizers, and she can be pretty abrasive if someone is a real jerk, so I'm inclined to wait and watch, maybe even give it another try.

Not to help organize it, though. I'm insanely busy as it is.

3394224

I may not actually drive myself, but I've made that trip, so I can sympathize. In fact, when I originally moved to Las Vegas, it was from San Jose, and I took Greyhound from there to Los Angeles, changed buses, and went from Las Vegas there. Something was wrong with the bus where it'd start rattling all around if it went past a certain speed, too, so we were very late arriving. That certainly wasn't a trip I'd like to make again.

I did almost go, because I wouldn't have had to make hotel arrangements, but after a few hassles on their website trying to get tickets, somehow I ended up staying home instead. It's probably for the best that I did. I suppose it was the Titanic of mlp conventions.

Bonnie and Lauren together must have been amazing, though. Seeing the video certainly was. I doubt that'll ever happen again.

If you do go to EQLA again, I'd certainly make sure you've got a good reason to think it won't happen again. I agree, though, organizing's more for people with plenty of spare time...

--arcum42

I didn't want a repeat of the incident at BABScon when someone called me the Ancient And Most Withered Trixie.

Good lord, what an awful thing to say. I think you look great and your costume was wonderful. Sorry to hear that some of the convention was a mess.

Login or register to comment