EFNW 2023 Report: "The New FimFic Royalty" · 7:15am Aug 15th, 2023

Well, damn. This is a long one.

So it turns out I made it to Everfree Northwest 2023 after all -- well, most of it. I did have to miss a big chunk of Saturday, unfortunately, and some of Friday evening. But I got to see almost all the panels I was most excited for, got to do the big activities that I was itching to do, and got to meet (or reunite) with so many members of our lovely fanfic community!

For one thing, this time I actually managed to make it to opening ceremonies, despite the fact that they were held an hour earlier than before this time. It required some, uh, fast-tracking of breakfast (read: scarfing it down in the parking garage), but it was worth it to see the excitement and energy in the room as things got started, particularly when the Mystery Guests (Nicole Oliver and Tabitha St. Germain, doing lots of voices as they entered) were revealed. From there, I spent Friday mostly bouncing between the Writing Room and the Mane Stage, sneaking in a last-minute first glance at the Vendor's Hall just before it closed that day.

Friday's highlights, chronological:

I first attended Scampy, Gay for Gadot, and Wanderer D's panel on collaborative writing. Definitely an exciting panel, with some good advice, as well as unfortunately relatable moments (see my user page's comments section) where D talked about an overly obsessive fan of Sunset's Isekai that was very passionate about their unrequested input. Plus, Scampy brought cookies, while D offered embroidered Sunset's Isekai patches. (I've never read it, but should probably find a place to start soon.) This was also where I first caught up IRL with FanOfMostEverything, who's far and away one of the most interesting and fun people to chat with about fanfic in general. High point was when FOME, as fellow avid SciSet shipper, referred to the panel (jokingly) as "enemy territory", given the Queen of SunFlower herself was among the hosts.
I hopped over to the live comic reading, which featured all the attending G5 cast (Jenna Warren, Ana Sani, Bahia Watson, Athena Karkanis, Amanda Martinez, and Joshua Graham -- aka Sunny, Izzy, Misty, Opaline, Haven, and Sprout), plus Bill Newton (Stygian) and comic author/artists Jeremy Whitley and Tony Fleecs. The group read three recent MLP comics, two of the 40th anniversary specials and one of the recent Tell Your Tale comics. Some very funny moments throughout, particularly given the round-robin style of reading gave everyone plenty of opportunities for mischief -- such as Karkanis sarcastically reading some sugar-sweet, heartwarming dialogue in Opaline's utterly-drenched-with-disgust voice, or Newton reading Izzy with a Nixon impression. The group was also asked to use certain affects/accents at certain points (e.g. "read your lines like William Shatner), which went badly for poor Jenna Warren when one request ("Scottish accent") had her too doubled over with laughter to read her line.

Left to right: Karkanis, Warren, Sani, Watson, Newton, Whitley, Fleecs, Graham, Martinez
After lunch, went back to the Mane Stage for the Owl House panel, featuring Sarah-Nicole Robles (Luz), Avi Roque (Raine), and Elizabeth Grullon (Camila). The Owl House has been a highlight of the last few years of TV (both children's TV and TV in general) and it was wonderful to see these three cast members show up here and talk a little about the experience. And it was fun to watch them then draw glyphs onstage, first from memory and then from a reference, which were later donated at the charity auction.
Returned to the writing room for Fanfic open reading, where I joined a group with authors Admiral Biscuit, Aquaman, R5h, and a few others whose names I wish I'd written down. Got to hear some very interesting works-in-progress, and in turn, I previewed part of the next chapter of Together from Canterlot to Canterlot, since the intro of the chapter isn't especially plot-heavy. It went over well!
After attending a few more panels, I got my first look at Twilight's Book Nook in the Vendor Hall during its last few minutes being open for the day. I've got to tell you, nothing motivates you to keep going with fanfic like seeing it all in printed form like that. Just... damn. Even if I don't have Together far enough along for something like that next year, I really want to get a shorts collection together or something. Anyway, I made sure to grab three books from authors I knew were at the con:

Saturday, as noted, wound up being my shortest day at the con for reasons that feel rather sitcom-y. But it was by no means a disappointment, because some incredible, incredible things happened that day. Highlights:

Showed up, regrettably late, to Oroboro and Albi's panel on writing Sunset Shimmer and Equestria Girls. It is great to see love for EqG at the con, and this was an awesome panel to see. Oro was attending over Zoom, dressed in very Sunset-y garb, and was talking about how writing Sunset over the course of her fimfic career marked a time of very literal transition for her, and all the panelists discussed the ways Sunset's changes over the course of the show affected their writing. The panel itself was a very nice experience, but I also got to ask Oro a question at the Q&A about For Your Consideration, her Spring Fling contest entry, and she shared some neat behind-the-scenes info on how she brought the idea for that fic together.
Speaking of the Q&A for that panel, the person who asked a question before me was none other than Dubs Rewatcher, another EqG veteran and the author of some of my favorite SciSet stories period. I forget exactly what he asked -- something along the lines of current/changing trends in EqG writing (a response mentioning the decline in Anon-A-Miss fics got well-deserved applause) -- but while asking it, he very specifically named myself and my amazing friend Avery Day as -- paraphrasing as best as I can remember given the utter ecstatic high I got from hearing this from him -- "the new faces of SciSet". Hearing that from him was just... wow.
By the way, he did not know I was in the room until I asked my question right afterwards, and upon hearing me say my name, he jumped up and pointed excitedly at me. That was the moment that absolutely made the con for me. Holy forking shirtballs.
That was probably just the confidence booster I needed heading into the next event right afterwards, which was Iron Author. I sadly missed out on it last year, and even knowing sticking around for the rest of Saturday probably wouldn't work out, I had to do this at all costs. I'd gone in with a hope of writing a certain set of characters, and luckily for me, it worked out with the prompt we were given. Or should I say "prompts", because there were three of them, and we had to find a way to incorporate them all. "Vexing Volcanism", "Verdant Vegetable", and "Vibrant Vestigial". Keep in mind that I have never, ever speedwritten off of a prompt before. I quickly came up with an idea and then vomited it out into my keyboard, which took about 110 of the allotted 120 minutes. The remaining 10 minutes were spent panicked as I realized the submission formatting had removed all the line breaks and italics from the Google Doc version and I had to manually stick them all back in. When time ran out, I knew what I had was rough, but I had some confidence I at least had something I could be comfortable publishing once revised.
Once the contest was over, I walked over to where Dubs and FOME were sitting and chatted with them a bit about how things felt afterwards, and then started talking to Dubs specifically. I definitely thanked him for the comment, and talked a bit about our writing in general. After that, I got his signature for his story collection, as well as FOME's for Oversaturation and Admiral Biscuit's for Destination Unknown. And they are some awesome signatures.

To Eileen Says Hi - Admiral Biscuit

To Eileen, Here's hoping your Sunset's trip to Equestria involves less carbonization -- FOME

To the new FimFic Royalty, Eileen! -- Dubs
I also got to meet a few other people in person around this time, including AFanaticRabbit and Incandesca. Always a joy to get to put a face to a name, even if that means said people now know my face.
I returned late in the evening for a few more events, including "Pony Definition", a hangman/Wheel of Fortune-type word guessing game, and a live "Brony Debates", which I'd never heard of before so was caught a bit off-guard when it turned out to be a YouTuber. After that, I then attended another panel for a YouTube channel I had no real experience with -- Ponies: The Anthology, which shared the first five minutes of their upcoming eighth installment before screening the entire 81 minutes of their seventh.
As someone who had never seen these videos (aside from the Argodaemon segments included), I can assure you that seeing these well-crafted bizarro pony memes in an auditorium with a roaring crowd that knew the whole thing back-to-front -- all the way past midnight -- feels like the objectively correct way to be first exposed to them.

Sunday I got to attend for the entire day, and I was very glad. I did have a bit of a disappointment, however, in that I sadly was unable to sign up for any autographs with the VIP guests. I thankfully hadn't gotten a membership tier that already included any autographs (as I had in 2022), so nothing was wasted, but it'd have been nice to get something from St. Germain, Robles, Watson, Karkanis, or Sani in particular. Ah well, I do have something about that later. But as for Sunday's highlights:

First panel I went to was a freeform chat with a group of podcasters, featuring Saberspark among others. Was a fun little way to start the day. I got to ask a question with just a few minutes to go, so I kept it brief and just asked what they liked most about Seattle. ("No humidity" was the consensus answer, and I can more than agree there.)
After roaming around and getting some overexpensive coffee from Fonté, it was time for Iron Author results. Each of the three who placed got to read their entries to the crowd, but between the second and first place announcements, the staff also listed an additional seven honorable mentions -- so a total of 10 out of 42 entrants got recognition. (22 entrants, including myself, were first-timers.)
And the winners are...
First Place: Shaslan
Second Place: Undome Tinwe
Third Place: R5h
Honorable Mentions:
Admiral Biscuit
EileenSaysHi
FanOfMostEverything
Jordanis
ManeEffect
MasterThief
Wanderer D
Notice anything?
Yeah, I snagged Honorable Mention. Alongside names like FOME, Biscuit, D... legit legends. With hilariously little experience of my own in this kind of writing. That's astounding. I was riding such a high off that announcement (which included some judge praise) that I probably glazed over some of Shaslan's story, though thankfully all the stories are available for participants to read at our leisure. Regardless, wow. WOW.
Afterwards, I hung around with some of the other authors for a little while afterwards, meeting Scriblits Talo and also chatting with Admiral Biscuit, Scampy, and Gay for Gadot, which was really nice. Admiral Biscuit gave me a free t-shirt!
From there, I watched a bit of the big charity auction, though I left before we got to some of the really cartoonishly large bids. (There was an increasing tendency for a few people to send the numbers way up really early on into bidding, though.) I then went down for a final sweep of the Vendor Hall, where I picked up a few more little things. Trying not to be the biggest spender, but I didn't want to come away with nothing either, so I snagged an adorable print of Sci-Twi, a Tony Fleecs-signed copy of the Canterlot High: March Radness comic, and a copy of Fractured Sunlight.
The final panel I went to was the Fimfic Authors' fireside chat, run by Xepher, Admiral Biscuit, Rescue Sunstreak, Winston, Aquaman, and Somber. Was a nice way to wind down the con, with some good and enlightening discussion overall. Afterwards, I went to closing ceremonies, and then was out the door to make sure my apartment hadn't overheated. (August has got to be Washington's worst month for heat, even if most of the con was lucky enough to get away with upper 70s (Fahrenheit) just before things spike into the 90s.)

So yup yup yup, that was Everfree Northwest 2023. A great experience overall with a lot of great people and just a reminder of what fun this fandom can be.

To go back to what I mentioned about autographs, earlier this summer, I went to a different con, Washington State Summer Con. I'd never even heard of it before I started seeing ads for it, but it had lined up some incredible guests, namely a huge chunk of the Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Picard cast (including John de Lancie), Giancarlo Esposito, Vincent D'Onofrio, and many others, including a great selection of voice actors (which at one point was supposed to include Shannon Chan-Kent, though sadly she dropped out). That con was a pretty fun experience in and of itself, but I absolutely made sure to get one autograph in particular.

Twilie! - Tara Strong

Now I just need to match it with Rebecca Shoichet's someday.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope to have more Together and the Iron Author fic posted soon.

Report EileenSaysHi · 354 views · #everfree northwest #efnw #efnw 2023 #iron author #autographs #con #conventions #pony convention #dubs rewatcher #fome #the owl house

Comments ( 12 )

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Rewan Demontay

Rewan Demontay #1 · Aug 15th, 2023 · 1 · ·

Wish I get go to stuff like this. Someday, mayve.

GRYFFINDOR123456

GRYFFINDOR123456 #2 · Aug 15th, 2023 · · ·

I always wanted to go to these sort of things but I’m not allowed to because I’m still studying and live in a completely different continent!

Maybe someday I’ll get to go.

Loganberry

Loganberry #3 · Aug 15th, 2023 · 2 · ·

I'm on the other side of the Atlantic and for various reasons unlikely ever to make a US con, but I get the same feeling that Ghost Mike mentioned recently: that EFNW is pretty much "the writers' con" -- fair comment? The number of usernames I recognise in this post is ridiculous, probably only matched by reports from peak-era BronyCon. It's an absolute different world from UK cons, where I'm lucky if I meet more than two other ponyfic people the whole weekend! (This isn't a complaint: I'm damn lucky to live in a country with MLP cons at all.) Glad you had such a good time and that you allowed those of us who weren't there to share it vicariously.

5742277
I don't know where you live, but the US isn't the only country with Pony conventions -- maybe there's a con in your country somewhere. For example, I live in the UK and we have them here. So does Germany, for example. They won't have 739 ponyfic authors there like EFNW does, but you never know what you might find!

FanOfMostEverything

FanOfMostEverything #4 · Aug 15th, 2023 · 3 · ·

Ponies: the Anthology is a consistent, surreal delight, yes.

In any case, glad to have met you in person, and that you had such a fantastic time.

Olden Bronie

Olden Bronie #5 · Aug 15th, 2023 · 1 · ·

I’m glad you had a great time at Everfree. I wish I’d had a chance to meet you but maybe next year!

ScisetShimmerEvan

ScisetShimmerEvan #6 · Aug 15th, 2023 · 1 · ·

Missing be been fun, also didn't know you were a TOH fan, as I myself happen to be one.

GRYFFINDOR123456

GRYFFINDOR123456 #7 · Aug 15th, 2023 · · ·

5742285
I’m UK. Really the main reason I’m not allowed to go is because of my studies. I’m revising for entrance exams for university(and my family also don’t have the money to do a lot of things)

Loganberry