Alrighty, I told you guys after I came back home I’d tell how my visit at Trotcon went. I may have been there for only about 5 hours but I got a good enough impression for a pretty great con experience I feel.

FIRST THING I DID

The very first thing I did when I was all registered was head straight to the Vendor hall to meet up with the mod of Pirate Dash. It’s actually thanks to him I even went in the first place. As he prompted me months ago, and I realized that this is a rare chance to actually have a convention somewhat nearby (The convention was around 3 ½ hours away from my house). So I thought it proper to not only meet with someone who’s been a good friend of mine for a good while in this community but also say thanks for telling me about it to him.

M.A. LARSON’S PANEL & PHOTOS

After that I just explored a bit of the place just to see the cosplayers and get a feel for places to go while I was there. I think overall I spent the most time in the Vendors room though. As the only real times I was outside of there for a lengthy amount of time was when I went to watch M.A. Larson’s Harry Potter in Ponies panel. Which speaking of that panel, that was entertaining all on it’s own. With Larson cracking jokes and providing funny music for the crowd (The crowd got Rickroll’d for example) and a pretty nice insight in some things Larson did that were subtly (Or even not so subtly) put as a reference to the Harry Potter series. I actually have two photos from the event. One from where my seat was

And one more close-up where people can come up and ask questions (My question was just a simple “Which of Twilight’s friends do you think best represent Ron and Hermione in the Princess Twilight is Harry Potter thing you presented” interestingly he said it as If Princess Twilight is Harry Potter, Pinkie is Ron, and Unicorn Twilight is Hermione. Which was an interesting answer for sure I’d say.

Of course that turned out to not be the only interaction with Larson. Both before and after the show they were short but nonetheless very nice moments. Just before the show started I was actually near Larson towards the back of the stage. I told him he was my favorite writer and he said a nice “Why thank you!” in response. And sometime later which would be about an hour before I left I managed to get there for the autograph line. I didn’t actually get an autograph but I got something I personally find better: A photograph with him!

It was definitely special to see my favorite show writer in person. As while maybe Writers aren’t normally as huge to some fans, it feels somehow different within the Pony fandom. I don’t think there’s as much discussion about the writing I’ve witnessed, then any other  fandom I have been in. Maybe that’s just because the Pony fandom is the most active one I’ve been a part of aside from Mario and Smash Bros. (Wellll for both of them there’s not much to argue about writing about for either of those since it usually comes across to save Peach from Bowser, and massive Nintendo crossover where you invent your own little interactions for the exception of Brawl’s story mode) but nonetheless it feels like I met a pretty important person as this guy has written some of my absolute favorites of the show. Of my favorites of the show he has written Cutie Mark Chronicles, Magic Duel, Magical Mystery Cure, and as of most recent Amending Fences. That’s 4 out of the 10 which is only rivaled by Meghan McCarthy with Lesson Zero, Canterlot Wedding, Princess Twilight Sparkle and Twilight’s Kingdom (In case you don’t know the other 2, it’s Hurricane Fluttershy by Cindy Morrow, and Pinkie Pride by Amy Keating Rodgers). I’ve always praised how Larson was the best with keeping continuity as well as generally writing some really good episodes. The only episodes from Larson I’d say I don’t enjoy as most others is Swarm of the Century (Which was his debut written episode funny enough) and Luna Eclipsed. Not that I think those were bad episodes at all. But I certainly enjoy Larson’s other episodes more then those two. It helps that Larson is a real swell guy from what I saw in-person. I’m glad he came, he’s part of the reason Trotcon was so good for me even for just the short time I was there. Not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it without him as I had plenty fun just being in the Vendor Hall and meeting up with Pirate Dash’s mod. But I feel like I was close to a celebrity of some sort. And that’s a real good feeling no matter what. ^^

MEETING WITH PIRATE DASH & VENDOR HALL

Now to the Vendor hall. There were so much interesting stuff to even look Window-Shopping wise. I had around $300 dollars worth of Souvenir money and used around $200 of it for the stuff I got. (Some of which I still have yet to get, being commissions and/or requests). I’ll show off everything I got shortly but first I want to talk a little more about my time with Pirate Dash. He was very nice to me for my entire time there and even allowed me to behind his booth for a decent amount of time. Even giving me a “Not TJ” sticky note for when he briefly left the booth which will be amongst the stuff when I show the souvenir photo. Nearby fellow artists such as ChocoPony as well as NekoCrispy and the mod of Ask Surprise provided some pretty good humor with him and I laughed with them quite a bit. Here’s actually a pic with me and Teej right here that he had someone take on his tablet with me holding Bookworm and him holding Pirate Dash.

The hat I’m wearing was the very first thing I bought at the con actually. (I think that will be my new regular Fall/Winter hat whenever that comes by) I also got one of PD’s prints (A Twilight one, you can probably figure that on it’s own xD) and also a very nice sketch which I’ll show when I get to showing everything I got.

I did feel bad for Teej though considering he was hoping his prints would sell better then they did. His small $1 ones did well of course but as he explains and as obvious that doesn’t exactly make for a successful vendor time when for the most part anything more then $1 wasn’t going well. Now Teej wasn’t the only one who apparently had trouble getting sales but as a friend of his I had to feel sorry a little bit. As I said in the post on Saturday Night. But I hope aside from that you had at least somewhat of a good time. I was certainly very glad to have met up with you and spend what short time I had there. Both you and Larson were the two people that made my time at Trotcon awesome. I just want to let you know you made me quite happy there. ^^

Anyway, time to share the things I got from Trotcon. I will put a special note for each of them and I’m going from left to right (most will have some close-ups of some kind)

Sketch Commission from Penn

Funny enough, I thought I was getting a sketch commission from the mod of Cheerilee’s Chalkboard. Though a rather easy mistake to make considering the commission notice was kind of on his vendor part. But nonetheless I didn’t want to be rude. I did get this from a nice lady (Artist name is Penn however I can’t easily find a site for her unfortunately) and it’s a very nice sketch. The kitty face look is very cute I’d say

Gift Sketch & Print from Pirate Dash

These are the things I said I got from PD not too long ago. He told me how one good thing about drawing Genie Twilight is that you don’t have to draw legs as the Genie tail is probably one of the easier things an artist can draw. And that’s certainly a good thing to leave less stress sometimes on the artist. Funnily enough considering I use premade sprites, it’s actually vice versa that I have to do a little more effort into making the tail. But on the same time I actually love making the Genie tail. It’s actually one of my favorite things about genies. There’s just something about it that I really like. If it weren’t for the fact that I personally believe Genie Twi would prefer to be 100% her pony self more often then being connected to a bottle I’d have her like that almost all the time. But when I get the chance to do it, I really like giving Genie Twi the tail. And in fact probably I’ll ask for Genie Twi in her tailed form more often in requests and/or commissions then in her pony form.

Princess Twilight & Twilight’s Mom/Twilight Velvet Plushies

These were 2 very good plushies from LunarShine that I was glad to get simply for the fact these ones were actually relatively cheap compared to most of the other plashes. I don’t mean any offense to the other artists who were offering up plashes. But I didn’t want to spend 1/3 of the money I had available to purchase stuff with on just one Plushie no matter how good the Plushie looked. LunarShine’s looked really good too. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he sold the most out of any of the Plushie sellers in the vending hall. Because good quality and the cheaper price tends to win out overall I think. I got a Twilight one for obvious reasons, Twilight’s Mom is kinda of an offball choice given what was there. (I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with Plushies to carry so I thought I’d only get two. I could of gotten a Rainbow Dash one instead since she is currently my 2nd favorite pony. But I don’t know, I felt the Twi’s Mom plush was calling me a little more. Maybe if Twi’s mom wasn’t a choice I might of gotten a Rainbow instead. (Which probably would of made Teej quite happy if I did, sorry ^^’) But even though she doesn’t have a real solid character shown in the show (yet… please have her show up in the show pretty plz DHX? You’ve done so much for background ponies in some of the past few episodes alone. Please give us a episode with Twi’s parents in a good role (And speaking too)) I’ve always liked her from what we have. (I think we can tell even from the flashbacks and their cameos that they’re very supportive and proud parents of Twilight’s. Her design may be a Twilight recolor for the most part, but given what this show has done recently they still manage to have the magic of having the fandom love characters even if design-wise they don’t stray too far from another pony. In other words the show can do what most young OC Creators can’t. I even gave my personal portrayal of Twi’s mom as a Mother’s Day special on I Dream of Twilight Sparkle that I really enjoyed making. It’s also noteworthy to mention that aside from the tiny Blindbag ponies (Which I have a few already of Twilight, Rainbow, Rarity, and Pinkie) I probably wasn’t going to find anything of note of Twilight’s Mom ever. So I think that also had it going for it. But overall, it was quite good to have two plushies for only around $50 (Twilight was $20, Twi’s Mom was $25) when most of the other plashes were worth over $100 for just one. Although he won’t see this, I want to thank LunarShine for offering such cheap and quality plushies.

As a bonus, yesterday I decided to have a little fun with it by putting the hat I got on my Twilight plush. I think it looks quite cute with it too so here’s some photos of it.

Classic Sonic Stained Glass

*GASP* A non-pony item? What madness is this?!

Hehe only kidding. Trotcon may have been a Pony con through and through. But there were certainly oppurtinuties to show and sell stuff aside from Ponies there. And as soon as I saw that, as a Sonic fan myself I couldn’t help but felt it called for me. It may have been my most expensive item. ($50) but I’m certainly glad I picked it up. It’s now hanging up on the wall just outside my downstairs entertainment center as you can see in the photo above

Not TJ Sticky Note & Out of Work Derpy Sticker

As I said before the Not TJ was for when Teej had to go when I was sitting behind his vending. There was a joke or two from his friends that talked to me like I was Teej anyway just to troll him a bit but it was all in good fun. The sticker was from when Teej pointed out that Out of Work Derpy was nearby. I came up to say Hi and he gave me this sticker. Don’t know where I’ll put it quite yet. But it was a nice little thing he gave me.

Princess Twilight Shirt

One thing I definitely wanted as a souvenir was a new Twilight shirt. Specifically an Alicorn Twilight one of some kind. If you don’t know me enough already, I actually really love that Twilight’s an Alicorn now. And although there were pretty good Unicorn Twilight stuff available. I was hoping to find some great Winged Twilight stuff for me to get. Which thankfully both the Plushie and this shirt provided. The shirt is from the amazing Tsitra360 and I’m actually wearing it the moment as I type and put this whole thing up. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate Unicorn Twilight anymore as I like nearly all forms of Twilight. But as someone that actually is quite supportive of the direction this show has taken I felt it’d be proper to get some merchandise of the current Twilight design that I feel that the fandom has warmed up to more-and-more (Or at the very least most of those who still are a bit salty over it have shut up about it by now. As if they still rant about it to this day they just look like sad, desperate fans that can’t accept change). Again, I’ll always like Twilight in all sorts of forms. Unicorn, Alicorn, Human, Genie, etc. that won’t change anytime soon. It’s just a combination of wanting something that represents more of the current state of the show that I’m enjoying as well as the shirt on it’s own just looking pretty damn awesome in general

Equestria Princesses 3DS Decal Set

Last but not least is this Decal set. It’s from The Ghostly Muse and it’s a really neat set that I have placed on my 3DS that was before all this just a pretty barren black color since I got it from Launch. But now I have the Princesses of Day and Night adorning the outside, as well as Love and Friendship on the inside. It looks pretty cool. They also had a Mane 6/Element of Harmony set, but personally I felt the Princess one looks better. Also it took a little while and some resticking. And while it probably isn’t 100% I did manage to basically make my 3DS look like as if the 3DS was originally made with the design in mind. It’s really cool looking and I’m glad I got it. I believe this was also the very last thing I bought there too

And that’s about it all for merchandise I got. It’s time to get to some closing thoughts.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

As I’ve stated from when I got back. I had a great time for what short time I had there. There was plenty of fun to even just look at and some details I even left out. Including some of the cosplay that was there. Such as the bronies who had Master Chief Armor based around Princess Twilight and Luna. And some fursuits like ones for Twilight and Gilda. (I even Brohoofed the Twilight one as I passed them in the vending hall) Now I know not everyone’s quite a fan of those kind of costumes, but by now those are a very normal part of fan conventions that I hope no one made too big of a deal while there. I gotta commend them too for a few reasons. My head was sweating from just having that hat on my head for most of the time I was there. I couldn’t imagine how hot it must of been to have a full-body costume like that. That’s another reason I hope they didn’t run into any furry prejudice there because dealing with the heat would be hard enough. But feeling shamed by those who would insult them would make it far worse.

The only really bad thing that happened from this trip was when not too long after I left, I kinda threw up in the backseat of the rental car we took. My dad wasn’t real too happy about it being that if he didn’t clean it well enough the rental car company will charge us for it… (I had Steak n’ Shake prior to the Con as we weren’t sure there would be food at Trotcon. There was food, but we went just in case. Plus I love some good Steak n’ Shake burgers, it’s my favorite burger place. Good thing I didn’t consume anything other then a bottled water I got. Otherwise I probably would of thrown that up too though. I was fine and didn’t feel sick at all through the entire con. But it seems I got a bit overwhelmed when I was starting to leave. Hoping my dad manages to hide the evidence well enough to have us go scot-free but yeah. If there was one negative thing that happened it was that. But even if the worst comes out of it and they do charge us, it wouldn’t ruin Trotcon for me at all.

Back on track though, this will surely be an unforgettable memory for me. And I’ll treasure each and everything I got from this trip. If I ever go to another Con, it probably won’t be for a little while. I probably won’t be at Trotcon 2016 (Which has been confirmed to be happening) unless circumstances change like we suddenly hit the bigtime in money through the lottery or otherwise. But even if this is the only con I ever go to in my entire lifetime. I feel like I can say I had a solid experience at a convention. It was just 5 hours. With probably more time just traveling there then actually being there but nonetheless they were a very enjoyable 5 hours to be sure. I am very glad I went and want to thank everyone I met, and those who hosted Trotcon who made it all possible for me to have perhaps the most wonderful time I’ve had as a Brony in nearly 5 years of being a fan. This will certainly etch this fandom in stone of my most enjoyable parts of my life more then most things that have come before. I’m still quite the happy brony just two days after I went. And now I focus on providing more stuff that I still enjoy making for this fandom and my friends from within. You can definitely say I have been quite bolstered pony-wise from Trotcon. Thank you to anyone bothering to read all of this as well ^^