Return To The Ballpit: A Dashcon 2 Podcast

Dashcon-Eve

With just over 12 hours before the doors open on Dashcon 2, hear from some more of the folks that make this convention special, whether through making it more inclusive and informative, creating interactive theatre, sharing your experience with vampirism through campy animation, or being the "Prime Tumblrina" and "Strawman From My Arguments". This episode features a set of panelists, the accessibility coordinator, and the subjects of The Duel, Strange Aeons (real name Teya) and The Muppet Joker (who could be any number of people, really). Good GOD I had to work fast to churn this one out in 5 days. But it was worth it! See you all at Dashcon 2 tomorrow!

The Trials

So, it's 9:30am, February 22nd 2025, and all your blood is running to your fingers as you refresh Simpli Events for the 3 millionth time. Error page. Error page. Error page. Then, you see the dreaded words: Sold Out. What would you do for a second chance at a Dashcon ticket? Okay, now what would you do if you accidentally ordered two tickets and yoinked someone else's chance? If your answer was: "Well, I'd start a grassroots campaign to recruit a collection of hopefuls to compete in a series of online competitions, with the three finalists facing off in Fandom Jeopardy to obtain my extra ticket and absolve myself of that good old Catholic Guilt", then you would get along famously with Doc, creator of the Dashcon Trials. In this episode, I talk to Ferret (Champion of Mind), Foggy (Champion of Body), and Dotty (Champion of Spirit and the Final Victor) as well as the whole team of Trial Lords who organized and executed this wacky competition. Thank you to my new crew members who have helped me with some of the editing of this episode, Ayanna and Azriel! (yes. that is his given name. he did not name himself after undertale.)

The Ringmasters

Most of us know at this point that the original Dashcon was held together with chewing gum and the indomitable spirit of 15 year olds. But who is in charge now? Meet the co-directors Simone and Avis, and art director Martin, beings of “incredible amounts of hubris” who have somehow managed to turn this idea from a twinkle in their eye to a real-life convention with a real-life date (that’s already had to be rescheduled once, oops). Interest in Dashcon 2 is already bubbling to a boiling point, crashing the ticketing website and spawning multi-week competitions to secure an extra ticket. In this episode, you’ll learn a bit about Toronto (the diabetic raccoon capital of the world!) and some of the people who have already secured their spot in Tumblr history.