(To those that aren't gamers, THIEF is a reference to Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. If you steal an item from the shopkeeper, your name is changed from what you selected to THIEF for the rest of the game.)

Sooooooo, before I get to a journal about the goooood part of Oklacon, I'm going to take some time to address an issue that happened as I was leaving. Several people were told about this immediately following as I destressed, and so to help provide clarity to those that might hear parts of the story, I am going to post this publicly.

Let's start off with an imaginary story about a teacher and a student. The teacher comes up to the awkward but timid student and says:

"You've been stealing stuff from my desk! I just know you have! I had you grade papers that one time and you took some of my things!"

The student looks at the teacher and, confused, offers to show the teacher their belongings. The student hasn't taken anything, and wants to prove that. After showing a few items, the teacher aggressively takes the bag and begins to pull items out of it claiming them as theirs.

"What about this? This is mine, isn't it? So is this. And this! Where did you get this??"

The student begins to explain that it was purchased by them and they've had the items for years. But then one item confuses the student because of awkwardness and suddenly the teacher 'just knows' the student is lying.

"I know you took this now, because you didn't immediately know every detail about it! Now it's mine. If you don't let me have it, you're getting an F in class."

Thankfully this student insisted the teacher had lost their mind and managed to keep all of their belongings.


Right so, that's a bit of an exaggeration but at the same time, it's really not. I was accused of stealing "Predator vs Prey" items by a convention organizer at Oklacon. I have had the same items for the last three years and the only ANYTHING I've asked of Oklacon has been duct tape and printouts. I even went and bought new pencils for this year because I had run out. The kit cost me almost $100 to build, but I made sure that I could be self sustaining. Mainly for this sort of reason. I wanted my PredPrey kit to have NO reliance on the convention.

I never have asked for any supplies from the con. I have never WANTED any supplies from the con. I bust my ass at the convention to be a self sustained event with next-to-no reliance on the convention.

The saddest part is that this drama and this threat of not being allowed to run PredPrey next year is over about $5 of shower curtain hooks and beads. Which were mine to begin with. I am an honest person, I don't take people's things. I also know what items are mine and what aren't, because I'm a REALLY picky person. I didn't recognize how I packed my kit this year because I was lazy compared to the last two. I put beads in one bag and hooks in another rather than reassembling them. When a bag of hooks was pulled out, I didn't understand what they were. I was being attacked so hard by this person that I doubted they were actually mine until the loose beads were pulled out. Then I remembered. My remark I'd like to add is: "Look, I'm fucking brain fried at this point!!"

They had zero reason to suspect me of taking -anything-. If they were accusing me of something I had actually done like taking a gallon of milk (another organizer said yes when I asked him after the first organizer disappeared, another piece of drama to add to the list since Werewolf had NO refreshments and I had to supply people with my OWN soda and water due to this) or grabbing and drinking two gatorades and skittles (which someone doing concessions said was okay because the registers were closed) then I would have told them exactly that.

I work hard to be an honest, trustworthy person and I do NOT want to have rumors of me being a goddamn thief running around. My name is Tobias, not THIEF. I expect to hear a public apology over this incident because it came out of nowhere and was completely uncalled for. They even found this year's 'backup supplies we bought since we didn't know you were coming or not' and then switched the accusation to having stolen stuff from LAST year instead of THIS year.

If there were ANY complaints about how I run PredPrey, tell them to my face guys. X_X; I use my own money and my own time and effort to make that event succeed and none of the convention organizers have ever taken the time to sit down and talk to me about it, ask questions for these random medals they want to give out, or in the case of my absence at closing ceremonies, put me on the same page as ANYONE else. (They wanted me to hand out said medals but no one told me this, they only asked for info. :/)

So, yeah, drama. There it is. I'm no thief. And I can't believe after all the effort I've put in to running things that they'd even accuse me of something like that. Not. Fucking. Cool.