Bronycon Festivities Farewell · 1:18am Aug 11th, 2019
Blogging about conventions is a lot harder than a lot of people make it look.
The short version that it was a pretty amazing weekend. I met lots and lots of fantastic people, gawked at a perpetually-dabbing Mare Do Well fursuit-wearer, had a drink with one of my internet besties—I didn’t like the drink, but it wasn’t about liking the drink—and overall had a fantastic time.
Here's the long version.
After getting into Baltimore at a garishly late hour Wednesday, I left for the con fairly early in the morning on Thursday. Got there not too far past 9 am, so… several hours before any actual con things were set to happen.
But on the way there, I met up with forbloodysummer, who is one of my best friends. We’ve been talking online for close to three years now, and nearly every story either of us post is a collaborative effort.
(Special thanks to him for proofreading and fact-checking this very blog, too)
And he was one of the only two people at the con I’d spoken to much beforehand, so I spent quite a lot of time with him. It was such a pleasure to finally meet him in person.
After standing in line for badges—it wasn’t too long, maybe only twenty minutes or so—we found a circle of four chairs in a quiet corner somewhere, and of course took two for ourselves. I think we had a vague idea that Quills and Sofas was a thing at the time, but we wouldn’t get around to looking for it until quite a bit later. So we just hung out chatting for a couple hours.
Some time after we sat down, a strange man in some sort of ninja outfit walked up without a word, picked up one of the four chairs, and carried it away.
Not ten seconds later, a second man came up, gestured to the fourth chair, and asked, “Would you mind if I took this?”
I laughed at the juxtaposition more than I probably should have.
Anyway, after a few hours of chatting, Summer and I meandered about for a bit and ended up in line for bookplayer, Epic Yarn and BlazzingInferno’s panel on writing children and families. The topic doesn’t hold too much interest for me, but Summer really loved Bookplayer’s story Lost Time, which I have not read but I gather it’s about family stuff or something, and it’s not a topic you see many people talking about, so I grudgingly let myself be dragged along.
It was a nice panel! We bumped into bookplayer in Quills and Sofas a while later and she was one of many approachable, delightful authors.
This is where the timeline starts to get pretty fuzzy for me, because I have a vague idea of what else happened that day, but the exact details are somewhat lost.
At various points, Summer and I had lunch at the Chipotle down the street and wandered our way into Quills & Sofas. We’d go on to spend quite a bit of time there… when we weren’t being kicked out, because the same room was also being used for lots of painting events and sometimes the staff had to go throw all the writers out so that they could set up tables and stuff.
But there were still tables with typewriters and lots and lots of writey people, so it was a pretty functional Quills and Sofas. Most of the people I met, I met in that room.
That first day, two I remember are Csquared and PresentPerfect. With the former, we talked about lots of Sunset stories and how Sci-Twi is an abomination—Csquared is apparently pretty cool and I agree with him a lot. Sadly, I did not get to talk to PresentPerfect for long, that day or any other time throughout the con, but I did get to hear him say out loud how much he hated Dog Nonce, so I was satisfied.
I think it was also that first day that I met Undome Tinwe, who came up to me and Summer asking “Hey, are you the one who wrote the fourth-place winner of last year’s Sunset Shipping contest?”
Which gave me a nice little flutter of Officially Horse Famous delight.
Undome also remarked he had trouble keeping track of which stories are mine and which were Summer’s, which gave me a nice little flutter of Peak Author Friendship Status delight.
Although I hope that doesn’t mean there’s someone out there who thinks I wrote a story about Sunset whacking off a dog. If I’m going to have that reputation, it’d better be a sure thing.
Undome’s pretty cool.
I also think it was also the first day where Summer and I met Lise Eclaire, who started writing a super-cool Aria/Chrysalis story that he needs to update one of these days.
I cannot say for the life of me what else happened that evening. I know we did get over to the vendor hall at one point, because I was afraid the books were going to sell out hella fast—which they did. Fortunately, I was able to get the book I wanted, which contained one of my favorite stories on the site.
The only other Thursday evening thing I remember was Pen Stroke, Wanderer D, and El Oso giving an absolutely amazing panel. It could have been twice the length it was and I probably wouldn’t have gotten sick of it.
And, actually, I did kinda wish the writing panels were longer, if only because a lot of them were covering really big, abstract topics and the general trend, I felt, was that they struggled to get super in-depth. Still made some good points, though!
Over the course of the con, I got to speak briefly to Pen Stroke—in Quills and Sofas, I think Saturday but possibly Sunday—and Wanderer D—just before the Writer’s Dinner Saturday evening—and they were both just as cool face-to-face as they were giving a panel.
The latter also told me either that night or the following morning he wanted me to sign something, and I was more than a bit flattered. Over the course of the con, I ended up getting two things signed—a book and a tarot card—but signed three things—all of them books—which is a seriously screwy thought and I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it.
It also makes me wish I’d practiced a signature. Apologies go out to those people who asked for one, especially Wanderer D since that’s the one I’ve seen a picture of since—I hope they’re at least vaguely recognizable!
Friday was a much busier day.
It started out much the same way—meet Summer at 9, thus establishing a tradition that lasted throughout the con. We’d have breakfast in one of the Starbucks (I think we both spent more money at Starbucks over that weekend than the past year). He told me at one point that the only thing more deplorable than cold tea is tea with a straw, so I always ordered iced tea with a straw.
After breakfast, we’d head over to the convention center and basically laze about in Quills and Sofas until something interesting happened.
We did go to some more panels too, though!
First up was the Lauren Faust one, where she and a few other creators of the show talked about their experiences in making the thing happen. I don’t remember too much of what they said, but I enjoyed listening to them, and there was one piece of advice they gave that stuck out to me: if you’re pitching someone something, you have to be absolutely confident on the outside even if you don’t really feel it.
Later that day, I dragged Summer—who has not ever tried digital painting and has no plans to change that—to a digital painting panel by imDRUNKonTEA. It was a fun panel! One of the most relaxed, since it was just the one person presenting, but it fascinating to see him work.
That very artist would later be the source of the only impulse purchase I made at the vendor hall, because he does super-cool artwork, ran a good panel, and was really easy to chat to since there was no line at his booth when we got there and I cannot resist a vendor of such diverse quality. So I got prints!
De-glammed Pony Gaga
Moon Princess
and Better Sunset
Also in the vendor hall that day—I think it was that day, anyway—Summer and I swung by the bookstore again and this time PaulAsaran was behind the counter! We’d apparently picked the one time of day on Thursday after the rest of the bookstore staff had demanded he take at least one break.
So I pleaded and begged and after much groveling, he signed my copy of Foundations.
I mentioned earlier that that book contains one of my favorite stories on the site. It’s the last one in the book, and it’s called Drops of Jupiter. It is the first fanfiction I have read in a printed book, and I liked it even more the second time I read it.
After we were done with the bookstore, it was back to Quills and Sofas.
Now, here’s the thing. I hadn’t been to a convention, pony or otherwise, recently enough to remember it, so I had pretty much no idea what to expect and therefore pretty much no plan whatsoever for Bronycon.
The closest thing I did have was a vague list of people I thought it’d be pretty cool to meet.
(And it turns out that having a list was pretty silly, because pretty much everyone there was a pleasure to talk to)
One of the people I had most wanted to meet at least once, though was Aragón, and Friday was the day I met Aragón. Not for long, but it did happen. And he was… about as Aragón-ish as you’d expect an Aragón of his renown and experience to be. He never stopped talking, he did a quirky dance whenever he said the words Shake Shack out loud, and he was an absolute riot.
There were some pretty cool people with him, too! Again, I didn’t get to meet them for very long, but this was where I met the infamous Majin Syeekoh, along with Pearple Prose, who read one of my favorites of the stories I’ve written and left my absolute favorite comment ever on it.
That’s about all I can remember from Friday. I ended up going back to my hotel room early that day, which I later felt pretty awful about, but it was nice to get a break after having been active and talking to people most of two days in a row by then.
Saturday morning saw the continuation of the fine Baltimore tradition—wake up, Summer, Starbucks, convention center. This time, I had plans to hang out with PaulAsaran at some point, since he was leaving today and we wanted to chat for more than the twenty seconds it took him to sign a book.
But he didn’t get to the con until a little later that day, so Summer and I killed time in Quills and Sofas—again—and good stuff happened!
Firstly, we participated in Shakespearicles’ Discord Fixes Everything event, where we were randomly assigned episodes and told to write about how Discord would solve the episode’s conflict in thirty seconds or less. The plan, I believe, is for him to transcribe all the entries and post them to Fimfiction, so if you’ve got the same stupid sense of humor I do, look for the sections for Three’s a Crowd and Twilight’s Kingdom when that comes out.
I think it was also this day that we met Skeeter the Lurker, who had been going around basically asking anyone and everyone from Fimfiction to sign his copy of one of Pen Stroke’s books. We didn’t talk to him for long that day, but I think we did bump into him again Sunday and he was an absolute delight.
Then, there was the RCL panel.
Summer had to go to the restroom, so for a little while I was waiting in line by myself. I saw someone come up and join the line behind me and I thought hey he looks vaguely familiar but thought nothing of it.
Then someone else came and joined the line. I thought nothing of it. Then I caught a glimpse of his nametag.
Cold in Gardez.
Cold in Gardez and GaPJaxie, not two feet away from me.
If ever there was a time to mentally chant Don’t be an idiot, it was then.
Fortunately, something that’s kind of handy about writers is that, as far as people you might never have spoken to before go, they’re usually not so bad to talk to. “Hi, I really liked your story” seemed to go a long way for me over the course of the con.
I’m not going to say it wasn’t slightly terrifying. Again, Cold in Gardez. The Lost Cities person.
So that was pretty cool. Didn’t say much, but I was glad to be able to say I’d met him.
Eventually, though, we got to the actual panel.
This turned out to be one of my favorite panels of the con. I greatly enjoyed all the speakers, and it was just fun to… hear about a bunch of stories I needed to toss into RiLimbo, because I’d only read a handful of the ones battling to the death.
So a fair bit of that did turn into voting for whichever of the stories I’d actually read was up on the ballot. Which was, if I’m remembering correctly, Princess Celestia Hates Tea, Hard Reset, The Writing on the Wall, and uh maybe one or two more?
It was a good panel, though! The presenters were fun, the presentation neat and crisp, and I will never get tired of writers talking about how much they love stories and why.
As mentioned earlier, after the panel we went to meet PaulAsaran in Quills and Sofas.
Now, thing about PaulAsaran. He is one of the most absurdly meticulous people on Fimfiction. He reads fanfiction in droves. He cranks out stories at a blistering pace, and his review blog is an inexorable juggernaut (Except when it takes breaks, but they’re always planned).
All of which, to me, had always painted him in a very serious light. Surely, if anyone out there was clinical and serious when it came to fanfiction about adorable cartoon ponies, it was him.
He was one of the most energetic people I met at the con. It’s difficult to picture him as not smiling and laughing. It was so great talking to him.
(And he seriously needs to get to work on that Aria story, but you didn’t hear that from me)
After a little while of chatting with him, Summer and I swung by the vendor hall, which was when I got the imDRUNKonTEA prints, and then it was back to Quills and Sofas, where we talked with… definitely Syeekoh, and one more person, which Summer and I are fairly sure was Soge.
Saturday evening was the Writer’s Dinner, which… might not have been the highlight of the con for me, but it came pretty dang close. There were far too many people there for me to name them all, but I ended up sharing a table with a pretty fabulous band of authors: the legendary cucumber-ogling Majin Syeekoh himself, the impeccably relevant RBDash, Undome Tinwe and R5h, who I like a lot because they said nice things about my stories and I’m a total narcissist… and Monochromatic, who I hope needs no introduction, because it’s been conclusively determined that she wrote the Best Ponyfiction Ever. Ever. Eeeever.
And it was a pretty awesome dinner. Syeekoh let me try some of his naan bread, which because of Fimfiction I’d always assumed was weird and horrifying, since this is a thing:
[Adult story embed hidden]
But it was actually pretty tasty!
I got to tell Monochromatic in person how much I adored Crimson Lips, and then she asked us all to sign a copy of her book—except Syeekoh, because he’d already signed it twice by that point and he’s not three times as important as the rest of us. I had a moment of dread when I thought I’d ripped the pen Monochromatic was passing around apart, then had a sigh of relief when someone else did the exact same thing.
Monochromatic also passed out tarot cards, and they were neat Enchanted Library-themed ones!
I don’t believe any were out of her hand for half a minute before RBDash had passed one back to her asking her to sign it, and the rest of the table followed suit.
Monochromatic had to leave a little early to make it back to the con in time for a community guest meet and greet thing, but she found the time to give an off-the-cuff, slightly drunk mental health panel during the dinner and it was pretty great.
Then, towards the end of the dinner, Shakespearicles got up and made a speech.
Back to the con.
My table was one of the first to get up and leave the dinner, but not before Octavia Harmony came over and said hi. I didn’t get to talk to him for very long, but he seemed pretty cool and he was the one who recorded Shakespearicles’ speech, so he’s definitely pretty cool.
On the walk back to the convention center from the restaurant, I ended up talking to Pascoite. We talked about the recent Dazzlings music video and he was on two pretty good panels, so over the course of the con he cemented himself as a Pretty Cool Person. He was also one of the handful who said he’d been looking forward to meeting me, which of course was very flattering.
We all went back to the convention center, and I met back up with Summer again to tell him how the dinner went and stuff, and then it was getting late and I was tired, so I popped back to my hotel room for a little while.
There was panel that started at 12:45. As in forty-five minutes past midnight.
Fortunately, it was worth it. This one was talking about writing for non-pony settings, which is a topic of vague interest for me even though non-pony stuff is trash ‘cause it doesn’t have ponies in it. So it was a nice topic to be covering—one of the drawbacks to writing fanfiction is that you don’t ever practice introducing characters, ‘cause why would you, so that’s something I feel like I’m pretty bad at and the panel offered some nice advice for establishing characters quickly.
Also there was criticism of Naruto and praise for My Hero Academia, which are not strictly necessary for a panel to be good but rarely hold it back when they’re present.
Sunday, when Sunday was at a civilized hour, was a pretty slow day. Met with Summer for Starbucks and that, and then pretty much hung out at the exact pace you would probably guess we’d hang out.
A few highlights spring to mind—unless I’m getting the days wrong, but screw it, here they are.
Firstly, as mentioned earlier in the blog, we got to meet Pen Stroke! He was really ridiculously tall but also friendly and approachable.
Secondly, Aragón spent two minutes or so lounging contentedly in Majin Syeekoh’s arms, and it was documented. For science and stuff.
I feel like there was probably more, but I’m not recalling many specifics. Another author I did meet, though, was GaryOak, who joined the long, long list of authors at the con who were wonderfully approachable and fun to talk to. He’s done some neat blogs on some methods for productivity in writing, which I badly need to try implementing more consistently. And we talked a bit about an upcoming story of his which sounded cool. Neat guy!
After a while, Summer and I thought we’d walk around Baltimore for a little while before going back to the con for the closing ceremonies, so went through the inner harbor and poked around at a couple shops and had more Starbucks and it was good.
Then we went back to the con and oh my god the line.
The line.
It was a horrifying thing.
So we said nah let’s not do that and went back to Quills and Sofas.
Which closed for closing ceremonies a few minutes later.
So we lazed about for a bit and ran into I think it was FanofMostEverything and Soge again and we walked through the vendor hall for a bit and swung by the bookstore or something and then parted ways. I was pretty tired by that point, so I made plans to meet Summer for dinner one more time that night and then went back to my hotel.
I was later told that the closing ceremonies were plagued by technical issues, so… yeah, not feeling too bad over missing them.
And that was about it for the con. I had dinner and drinks with Summer that night, and we met up again for yet another breakfast Monday morning before he had to leave for the airport, and then that was that.
So, in conclusion…
As I said, I had no idea what to expect from Bronycon. I was a little worried about committing to the full four days, just because I wasn’t sure I could handle the convention environment for that long.
In the end, all four days I left the hotel room close to nine in the morning and usually wasn’t back for long until fairly late in the evening. I was out doing things, even if it was just hanging out with other people, for several hours a day… and I still wish I’d done more.
I wasn’t sure at first whether I wanted to do a pretty extensive blog post on the con like this turned into, but a few days after it ended I was having such a hard time focusing on the positives that I think I’d be in a pretty dismal mood if I didn’t record what happy moments I could remember.
To be blunt, I don’t consider myself a very happy person, these days. Negative thoughts come a lot more easily to me than positive ones do, a lot of the time.
But there have been several times in just the past year or so where I have felt sincerely elated. All the ones that are coming to me off the top of my head had to do with Fimfiction in some way, whether it was on the site itself or with some from the site at Bronycon.
It feels melodramatic to say that any one show can really be life-changing, but I feel like this one is, because it brought me to Fimfiction. It wasn’t the show that made me want to write fanfiction, but it was the one that convinced me I could—and should—write well, and gave me an audience I appreciate and admire and respect. I have friends from this site that I feel much more comfortable with than anyone I’ve met elsewhere.
(If nothing else, it always feels kinda weird to tell someone oh by the way I like writing stories about cartoon horsepeople being really cripplingly sad, so I usually don’t, but once that’s out in the open it’s like okay I can say anything now and it won’t be weirder than that)
Not to say this place is a paradise—some days, I stress out a lot over Fimfiction stuff. But when all is said and done, this place and people here makes me happy in a way that not many things do, and Bronycon reminded me of that.
So if you were there—if you are here—thank you. It’s been a good ride. Let’s keep it up.
So happy I could defy your expectations! It was great getting the chance to talk to you and watch you grovel for an autograph.
But seriously, it was so nice to finally meet you and Summer. I had no idea that Drops of Jupiter was one of your all-time favorite fanfictions on the site. If I had I might have discussed it in a bit more detail with you at the con.
Also: Mono was passing out TeL tarot cards and I didn't get one? Pardon me, I must go to Mono's profile page and glare at it while pretending I'm actually glaring at her. Had I but known...
It was an honor to meet you, and I'm really glad we got to hang out for a bit here and there. I'm definitely staying on this ride as long as humanly possible, and I hope to see you around in the fandom, whether on the site or whenever the next con happens.
Our conversations were a pretty great time, and I'm glad this is one of the parts that stuck out. She's truly an abomination.
It was truly a pleasant surprise to meet you and Summer—
Alright, hold up. Glim Glam is great—she's second best pone for a reason—but that's just objectively wrong. You're despicable
I am to please. :V It was a pleasure meeting you, though. I'll admit I didn't talk much because I couldn't remember your entire name. ._. So it was very, "Ah! This is Naiadmumbleshumble Whose Work I Have Read and It Is Very Good! :D"
Also I was just confused by summer's outfits the entire time5103630
It was fantastic meeting you too!
Apologies for not mentioning it, then
Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'd have had much to say at the time beyond what I probably said when I commented on it on Fimfiction; while I did enjoy it quite a lot the first time I read it, it resonated with me the second time I read it in a way that I just don't think it could have the first time around, so that second reading elevated my opinion of it by quite a bit. And I read it for the second time after you'd left Baltimore, I think, so there wasn't much time to talk about it in person, which makes me sad now. Would be happy to try and make it up electronically sometime, though!
5103636
It was lovely meeting you too! I'm absolutely planning on sticking around the site for hopefully quite a long time. And with how much fun this one was, I'm definitely of the mind that it'd be nice to get out to another pony convention sometime.
Can I ask which of your stories you're especially fond of? I'm realizing I've hardly read any of yours, despite seeing you around all over the place
5103666
They were a pretty great time! I need to get to reading some of those Sunset stories you mentioned.
But that particular sentiment stuck out to me just because there's so much SciSet on the site and I'm so sick of it (With no offense meant to any SciSet shippers out there, since I know one person in this very comments section has written what I assume is SciSet--please do keep on shipping them, if that's what you fancy) that it was quite a relief to finally find someone new with a similar viewpoint.
Aww, thank you for noticing; I've worked hard to become so
5103668
…yeah, can't fault you for that. It's a doozy, especially out loud. I'm glad the stories stuck better than the name, then
It was great meeting you too, short though it was! I'm really glad you were able to make it out there, especially since that meant almost all the RCL people got to be on that panel (And I was rooting for one of your nominations until The Keepers of Discord lost to Hard Reset)
As far as communities in which to be confused at the sight of a slender man in a skintight suit go, I think you've picked a relatively accepting one?
Meeting you and forbloodysummer was a pretty fun thing.
And yeah, it's fun to be able to put names to faces, isn't it?
~Skeeter The Lurker
5103734
It was such a fun thing! Signing your book was one of the highlights of the con, for me
And yeah, putting faces to names was an... interesting experience, since I hadn't really ever done it before with someone I knew and wasn't sure how, like, big a deal it would be. It's made surprisingly little difference for me, though, apart from clarifying a few genders I wasn't totally sure about.
It was really interesting to see how people's general demeanors shifted when interacting face-to-face as opposed to online, though.
5103731
Actually, I distinctly recall on Saturday you mentioned reading it the night before in the book itself. We just didn't linger on the topic. It came up, it went back down, we moved on. It didn't dawn upon me at the time that you might have mentioned it for a reason.
Ah, well. Maybe later. I'm just glad it meant so much to you.
5103811
Oh well.
... that makes a lot more sense than the way I remembered it, so that’s probably how it went
It was really nice to meet you, for as little as I did :) let's chat more online when we get a chance!
5104161
It was nice meeting you too, and we should definitely talk some more sometime
5103731
The story I'm most proud of would be And The Serpent Said Unto The Princess, which I was inducted into the RCL for. My most popular fic, though, is Closing The Loop, which was a ton of fun to write and is probably closer to my usual fare. I'm also personally fond of Peaceful Repose if you want something darker, and The Lesbian: One Hundred Nights if you don't mind HiEs (the human in question is Sappho of Lesbos, so there's an Ancient Greek flair to the whole thing as well).
lies
WE didn't talk much during the con, but it was a pleasure meeting you!
5112716
It was nice meeting you too! I had no idea you were going to be there until I saw you, so it was a very pleasant surprise