Highlights from BronyCon 2018: FLUTTERBOMB! · 10:46pm Aug 19th, 2018
Previous Highlight (Chronological Order): "That Game that Nobody Ever Wins"
Previous Highlight (Publication Order): Where Art Thou, Firebrand?
In which autographs are collected, gifts are given, and references fly over people’s heads.
Author’s Note:
I’m skipping ahead a bit. There are two Highlights that took place between “Where art thou, Firebrand?” and this one. However, since the Highlights that I’ve published so far had the running sub-theme of “SOH176 tries to find Firebrand” (and since I want to just get to this one already), I’ve decided to close the Firebrand arc and post this Highlight first. Enjoy!
Friday, July 27, 2018: Day 1 of BronyCon
After cleaning up from our game of Pandemic, I rushed over from Stabletop Games to the Hall of the Sun to see that night’s panel, “Brony Analysis Live!”, featuring Firebrand, Lightning Bliss, Dr. Wolf, Silver Quill, Keyframe, KP, and Mad Munchkin. Finnthepony was also in the room, though sitting in the audience.
The panel itself was pretty great, and many laughs were had—or groans, in the case of Firebrand having to endure a flurry of puns. (However, there was a time during the panel that Firebrand actually asked KP to come up with a pun—and she couldn’t!)
During the panel, I managed to get Finn to autograph the Chasing Imontillo print
and I also got Aramau’s signature as well.
Eventually the panel finished, and the time had come. After all this time, I was finally going to get Firebrand’s autograph!
Of course, everyone seemed to have the same idea as me, and when everyone got out into the adjoining hallway, there was a crowd of people around Firebrand. Someone managed to convince everyone to line up, and eventually, I finally made it to Firebrand.
By this point in time, I had quite a bit of merch for him to sign, but thankfully he took it all in stride.
First was the Imontillo picture. Of course, Firebrand had to make his signature the biggest in the entire picture. Under it, he wrote “Twas Brilig,” and outright stated, “You won’t get the reference.”
And, of course, the reference did go over my head, even with him serenading me with the first few notes of the song.
Naturally large handwriting, or Firebrand being a large ham? You decide!
(Of course, once I got to the hotel that night, I looked it up. So now I do get the reference, Firebrand: and the mome raths outgrabe! A better reference could not have been chosen.)
Second was the Brony D&D profile. I showed Josh the ones that I had made before, and he seemed awestruck, I guess at the fact that I would put in the effort to make them.
When I got to Lunacorva’s character, Ravvas Arkanen, Josh asked me if he could take a picture of it; he wanted to show Lunacorva. Of course, I let him.
Please be at BronyCon 2019!
Then, the coup de grâce: the one that I made for Firebrand. This one was special, as I didn’t just put in a profile for his character, Queen Jeminya, but for the Dungeon Master himself. He wanted to take a picture, but I said, “Not so fast. It’s incomplete.” I pulled the profile out of its sleeve and asked for his autograph. Autograph in place, I then let him take the picture.
Eeeeeeeeeee!
But I wasn’t done yet. I had one more thing for Firebrand to sign: a book for DarkWind. As I mentioned in the intro, DarkWind and I are brothers in all but blood. One day, he shared with me some negative feelings that he had been struggling with (I won’t go into details), and not too long afterwards, I decided that I would buy this book for him and give it to him at BronyCon. I had told DarkWind that I would give him a book at BronyCon, but I never revealed which book. Later on, I decided that it would be an even greater gift if I could get Firebrand to sign it, given that all three of us are Christian and that it was a Christian book that I bought. That detail I kept from DarkWind altogether.
Firebrand having signed everything else, I showed Firebrand the book and asked him to write something encouraging. He did. I won't quote anything he said aside from “You rock!”, because the second I do, you can easily guess at DarkWind’s real name.
Autographs given, I stepped off the line. DarkWind happened to be a few people behind me, so I waited for him to get Firebrand’s signature before stopping him a few steps away. I gave DarkWind the book, and told him that this was the book that I had promised him all that time ago. I then asked him to turn to where Firebrand signed it.
Firebrand’s reference went right over his head.
After a quick explanation, DarkWind stated that he appreciated it, and said that he wasn’t much of a hugger. To which I replied, “‘Not much’ doesn’t mean ‘not at all.’” So he relented.
But the night’s hijinks weren’t over yet.
I spent some time talking with Dr. Wolf, then I remembered that I had a question to ask Firebrand. So back to the line I went.
When the guy right in front of me got to Firebrand, he asked him to put out his arms. Out of nowhere, the guy thrusts a Fluttershy plushie into Firebrand’s hands, yells “FLUTTERBOMB!”, and books it stage left.
Struck by the sheer, utter ridiculousness of it all, Firebrand broke down laughing. After the laughter died down a bit, he said, “Oh, I needed that.” Clearly, the reference didn’t go over his head.
After the Flutterbomber returned and spoke a bit more, I also talked with Firebrand a bit, mainly about Brony D&D.
However, after some time, everyone started to disperse. I headed towards the stairs, and Dr. Wolf and Teric were headed down those same stairs. I forget how exactly our conversation started, but it eventually turned to the topic of my autograph collection. I mentioned that the next day, I wanted to try to get an autograph from “Jalerom Tamalamalamalama.”
Teric went, “Huh?”
I said, “Don’t you get the reference?”
“No,” Teric replied. The reference had gone right over his head.
I explained, “In Episode 69 of Brony D&D, after Josh had to go to the bathroom, Sweetie Bloom said to Voice, ‘Whenever I say your full name, it’s like “Jalerom Tamalamalamalama”.’” (I misspoke: the actual reference is Episode 61.)
“So you want to get Sweetie’s autograph?” Dr. Wolf queried. “You know she’s not here, right?”
“I know she’s not here,” I replied. “I’m talking about Jalerom’s voice actor: Voice.”
“He’s not here, either.” Dr. Wolf said.
“What?” I replied. He wasn’t in that morning's list of people who weren't there!
Doc explained that Voice wasn’t here either; he wasn’t able to make it from New York. That made little sense to me—I’m from New York as well—but it couldn’t be helped. If he wasn’t here, he wasn’t here.
At the very least, that meant that I had gathered all the autographs that I could this BronyCon. Doc, Finn, Blissy, and Firebrand. A nice haul. And with two more days to go, there was still more fun to be had.
Chasing Imontillo, with all the autographs I collected that day.
Author's Note (7/18/2019): With DarkWind's permission, here is a picture of Josh's autograph. For the reason mentioned in the post, the name and message are redacted.
Previous Highlight (Chronological Order):"That Game that Nobody Ever Wins"
Previous Highlight (Publication Order): Where Art Thou, Firebrand?
Next Highlight: An Army of Bronies
So THIS was the pic you wanted me to see. I LIKE it!
Also, my race is Super God, my class is Magnificent Troll my age is 25, my hometown is Kangarilla South Australia, my deity is my own enormous ego and my alignment is Neutral Good.
4973591
Yes, that is the pic that we wanted you to see. I'm glad that you liked it.
If I may (
), what made you think of looking here?