Post-Con Blog 4/6 · 3:30am Aug 23rd, 2023
Day 4, Saturday the 12th
Sometime in the am Flashgen got back to hotel, apparently he'd been hanging out with his Quills and Sofas' buddies, which is pretty neat, but even though it was a late arrival, we were all up the next morning for our ritual of Coffee & Hilda!
I also got Flashgen to sign his book for me that day!
We managed to finish the first season and get started on season 2 by the time I ran out to check on the Book Nook. Everything seemed to be in order, and by that I mean that some books had run out of backups and we only had what was at hand. We reorganized a little to give some books more visibility.
So I said No way in hell! Of course I'd do so! Gladly!
At 11 I had hoped to get Sarah-Nicole Roble's autograph and a recording of Luz Noceda telling my kid to learn Spanish or the Emperor would invade the Isles again, but alas she was only visiting on Friday.
Ugh. I guess next year.
Still, I was able to snag an autograph from Tabitha St. Germain, and since I needed a new wake up sound… I guess Princess Luna has issues with me staying asleep and not going to work… Forever!
Now it was time for Iron Author. So the thing is… I had planned to enter this year all along, so I had been talking shit to others. "Well, you won't have to worry about winning since I'm participating."
I don't remember how many times I teased Pen Stroke about that. I think I said so to Admiral Biscuit and Mono. You know. Just in case they needed incentives to make an effort or something.
This was also my very first Iron Author. Now, I'm no stranger to writing short stories, or even competitions. But I admit I was nervous. 2 hours? If you're in the zone that's more than enough, if you're not, well remember Twilight's late homework?
Anyway, after talking shit like I had, I needed to achieve something even if I knew, realistically, my chances of winning the thing were low. It's not that I doubt my abilities, but rather that the fandom has a LOT of talented authors. And others.
Anyway. I was happy to sit down next to Pen Stroke and snarkily give him a fist bump. I set up the laptop, and hid my anxiety with confident smiles all around the room.
Since I was a new author, I signed up and waited for the prompts to appear and the competition to start. Eventually Xepher, alongside Rescue Sunstreak announced the start of the event, with the words/concepts: Vexing Volcanism, Verdant Vegetable, Vibrant Vestigal.
Ha! Easy.
Now, my brain immediately went to the most natural place to start something like this: Fluttershy's Hut.
Now, I was semi-in-the-zone. I knew immediately what I wanted to do. Vexing Volcanism? Verdant Vegetable? Vibrant Vestigal? Promising perintent paradigms persistently potentially provided priceless points of progress!
And, well, that takes time and a lot of focus on the dialogue, so, I rushed in and managed to finished the story in time. Not my best, but I was pretty proud of it. Now I only needed to beat Pen Stroke.
So when the competition finished, we hung around for the next event (Meet the Authors of the Book Nook), and low-key talked about our stories. Turns out that he had ALSO used Fluttershy and Discord! OMG Same waveleeeengh!
Anyway, the "Meet the Authors" event started and Xepher asked us to make the pitch for who we are and what we do. I was the first, and I did my usual, "I'm Wanderer D, and I'm a writer." Shakes posed as he introduced himself, Pen Stroke was his usual nice self, Shaslan was adorably polite, Scampy and Gadot had a lot of energy… I could go on and on, and everyone did a fantastic job.
But, the one that had the best pitch of all, in my humble opinion, was none other than Dubs Rewatcher. THAT is how you make a pitch. Shit. If it was the Shark Tank they'd be asking to fund his project.
After that, it was time for food. Gathering the most pleasant company of Scampy, Gadot, Dubs, Gamma, Pen Stroke and Dustysculptures, we headed over to 13 Coins for food and conversation.
The food was great. I ordered the Prime Rib since I only had one day to practice. In any case, we ate, we laughed, we made merry and I…shit! I'm late for FOME's panel!
I arrived just like, 12 mins late, and I sat down ready to catch up with the presentation which had just finished and was going into Q&A.
…
The hell? Did I get lost on the way? But no, it was indeed time for the Q&A, so rather I settled back to listen to the back and forths between FOME and his guests. My favorite was a question that was asked to FOME, and just as he was about to answer, another person in the room just went ahead and answered for him.
After FOME's panel, I apologized for being late. (Again. But this time on the right day.) Then I headed over to the hotel to drop of my stuff when I remembered something…
FLASHBACK
While setting up the bookstore:
A voice: "Hey D, this is Albi!"
Me: "Oh, hey! Sorry, busy atm, I'll chat later!"
END FLASHBACK
Shit. I forgot Albi! The author of Firebird Dahlia! I felt like a total dick, so I—and Petrichord is my witness—I immediately headed out to search for him at the con.
I don't remember who I asked, but I was kind of panicky. I had completely forgotten about catching up, and I really didn't want Albi to think I was avoiding him. Fortunately someone had spotted him in the lobby with a group of friends and I managed to catch up and apologize profusely for giving him the impression that I was not interested in talking. We didn't have much time, since they were going to go get Dumplings. I was invited, and I really, really wanted to go, but I had already made plans with one of my old high school friends to have dinner that night.
After seeing them off—and surviving a rather intense encounter with an Alastor (from Hazbin) cosplayer and her cohort who went full blast Helluva Boss references on me because of my Luna T-shirt—I headed back to my hotel and saw Aquaman walking in the same hallway as mine! So I greeted him, real quick… he looked exhausted (and I remembered he was one of the judges for the Iron Author) so I bid him farewell, and went downstairs to meet my buddy.
My friend Raph and I have known each other since the 90s, and now that I was visiting Seattle more often, we'd made it a point to get together for drinks and food. To celebrate the occasion I brought him a bottle of Traverse City whiskey.
Last year we hit his place and drank a LOT of Scotch, but this time around we took it easy and headed over to a local place he had spotted recently:
Place was nice, although we saw a couple of those super unaggressive West Coast yellow jackets that we shooed away. (DO NOT TRY THAT IN THE EAST COAST. YOU WILL BE MURDERED.)
We ordered a good amount of food: Birria Nachos, beer (I got the Smooth Like Butta- Rye Cream Ale), mac and cheese (Raph), and Cedar Plank Salmon (me).
It was short, but it was a nice dinner and time to catch up and talk about life for a while. Raph then drove me back to the hotel, and since everyone else had plans, Petrichord and I started watching more Tanya.
After a few episodes of that, we were ready to pass out… so we did.
One more day of EFNW left...
*gasp!* I missed Albi? He's my ...second(!) fave Sunset Shimmer author! That would've been genuinely nice to meet him. Maybe pick his brain a lil about his fics.
In my defense, that was twenty minutes into the presentation. I may have motormouthed my way through the prepared material, but I didn't go quite that quickly.
Also, I really need to put up those slides.
Yeah, that was... that was great...
5743470
Albi is indeed great to experience in person.
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Heh. My mind had already gone to the next person? Anyway, typo fixed! Sorry!
Glad you had fun n_n
Conventions where you get to catch up both with con friends and IRL friends are definitely the best.
My fear response is so bad from this that I would have reflexively jumped up from my chair, abandoned the food, and started running and crying and screaming like a baby back to my truck on catching sight of anything with yellow and black stripes, even if it was a fat bumblebee. Bees make me lose my fucking mind these days.