Everfree 2024: The Wrap-Up · 8:15am Aug 27th, 2024
I just flew back from a convention in Seattle, and boy, are my arms tired. [1]
In the declining days of the fandom, it's still an awesome thing to get together with other bronies and celebrate. And I certainly had things to celebrate! I wanted to get a snapshot of the convention experience down while it's still fresh in my mind, though, so rather than derail into that, let's do the day-by-day.
(Warning: Despite this being a celebration, there's briefly some very sobering stuff at the end. Apologies in advance.)
[1] It's actually true, though. I did some significant hauling — my luggage was heavy with books.
Thursday
Already short on sleep from last-minute work on the panel I was presenting, I managed to clock out of work around 2 pm and start frantically packing. (I wasn't able to get all of Thursday off, or get Monday off. This meant I had to plan around a compressed weekend.) Somehow, within the span of an hour, not only did I assemble everything I needed to take, but I also managed a clever luggage trick: I packed inside of a small suitcase, then put the small suitcase inside the big one so I could fly out with one checked bag and back with two. That way I would have enough room for ALL THE BOOKS.
The trip to the convention was uneventful, though I arrived both late and hungry. Chatter on some author Discord servers led to meeting folks across the street at Irish pub Paddy Coyne's, which was PACKED. Morning Sun, Caliaponia, Aquaman, GaPJaxie, Skywriter, Ether Echoes and I managed to commandeer an awkwardly placed table and sat down to inaugurate the weekend properly with food, drinks and conversation. The conversation was against the headwinds of a near-standing-room-only bar. But on the bright side, when we went to pay, some other table apparently picked up our check by accident? The waitstaff told us our tab was already paid, even after double checking. I suspect that was a consequence of the place's barely controlled chaos rather than a deliberate moment of convention magic, but either way, it set the tone of a weekend going chaotically well for me, and chaotically-to-catastrophically weird for people around me.
Friday
I did my best to catch up on sleep and then headed downstairs to the dealer's den. Twilight's Book Nook had returned for the second year in a row, and I had committed to several volunteer shifts.
RBDash47, meanwhile, had tested positive for COVID the night before, and had done some frantic scrambling to shift responsibilities around to let him keep his distance. Fortunately, a robust volunteer schedule was already in place, so the big adjustment was a last-minute change in cashiers (while I finally got to meet evelili face to face and thank her for the amazing cover art for Even Changelings Get The Blues). The dealer's hall opened, and myself, evelili and Flashgen quickly settled into a routine of helping shoppers, cleaning up spills from the frequent bookshelfquakes, and shifting overflow books into gaps on the shelves as they became available. Six different titles out of the 77 sold out within the first two hours of the convention.
(Over the course of the weekend, the small stock of Songs of the Sisters would sell out, and the much larger stock of The Other Me would get close. It was heartening to see a strong launch for the new book, and even more awesome to be standing right there as people bought them, to get roped into autographs.)
I managed just enough lunchtime downtime to go get sushi with Skywriter and catch up over raw fish and hot sake. Then back to the grind, teaming up with Commander Applejack to keep things running smoothly and cross more titles off of the ever-dwindling list of books for sale. Then a much-needed nap and back to the Book Nook for the first of my two formal autograph sessions. That took me straight through to evening, where I had set aside the time for dinner with a local non-pony friend ... which promptly fell apart in a mess of mis-scheduling on their part.
On the bright side, this meant I got to go have dinner with Rune Soldier Dan and his traveling companion. We went back to Paddy Coyne's, and I braced for it being even more of a madhouse given we were going at dinnertime Friday night ... but the place was eerily deserted. It made for a much cozier meal, and I got to savor getting to know a relative convention newcomer, but it did mean we had to pay for our food this time.
I promptly crawled back into my hotel room for another nap, but managed to drag myself out for prime time on the convention party floor. Chocopony's Mormon party took the prize for most on-point theming — I wasn't even allowed into the room until I secured a beard exemption to their dress code. (This took the form of a small paper tag to be taped somewhere to my person. The dress code was vague as to where, so I spent the night with a Beard Exemption on my forehead, like the world's most mutated unicorn.) I also found an amazing shitty-knockoff-Celestia flag — clearly a custom, because it had four stripes which were the exact pastel colors of her mane, but they were in a catastrophically incorrect order relative to canon. LET'S FLY TO THE CASTLE Pride!
Most of my party time was spent in the Babscon party room with the San Francisco crew — and chatting with wandering authors such as GaryOak and Undome Tinwe — and I discovered that kiwi strawberry juice, grenadine, and apple brandy makes a downright amazing blended cocktail. I also managed to catch the tail end of the last concert set once the parties wound down.
Saturday
Saturday was my one """free""" day at the convention. I didn't have anything specifically scheduled ... and so of course it became my busiest day of the weekend.
In the morning, after getting what sleep I could, I finally managed to make it upstairs to the Twilitorium — technically Novella's Writing Room, the panel space which was set aside specifically for writing-track panels. Almost 60 people showed up for the Iron Author writing competition — a convention-hosted speedwriting event in which participants were given three prompts and had two hours to come up with a complete story. (I was helping judge the event. I've sometimes used that time to write a story of my own in the past, but this time around, I was frantically finishing up edits for my Sunday presentation.) While Xepher frantically resurrected the crashed website running the competition and Rescue Sunstreak wrangled the crowd, I mostly-finished my panel prep and braced for the flood.
Fifty-five stories submitted. I don't have an exact number for last year, but that blew past our previous record by a double-digit margin. After a frantic and unsuccessful call to recruit additional judges, the six of us (Xepher, Rescue, Somber, Grand Moff Pony, Winston and myself) had to figure out how to determine results in time for Sunday morning's awards panel. We reduced the assignments from three judges per story to two judges per story, and we still barely managed to sort out our winners by midnight.
At least I got some time out of the hotel room we sequestered ourself in to work. I had a lovely ramen lunch with Xepher in the nearby shopping mall (and came back with a box of donuts I contributed to the evening's comestibles), and managed to sneak away to briefly meet my Friday friend. The judging did mean that I missed Wanderer D's annual Fogo De Chao author dinner, though, and I regret that I could not join in the pilgrimage to the meat spigot.
In the afternoon, I also was able to set aside the judging for long enough to return to the dealer's room and take a pass through for souvenirs. Dash was looking better, and the bookstore shelves had continued to thin. I got autographs of newly purchased books from Commander Applejack, Winston, Rescue Sunstreak, Flashgen, Monochromatic, axxuy, and probably some others I'm forgetting. That was also when Monochromatic started what would become a weekend-long in-joke, of pointing out "famous horse author Horizon" every time I got within line of sight. (But as part of the bit, she enthused that famous horse author Horizon was her favorite My Little Pony author, so I am now OFFICIALLY ALLOWED to say that I am the FAVORITE AUTHOR of the fandom's top author. SORRY MONO, NO TAKEBACKS.)
FanOfMostEverything wasn't on my autograph list, because I had already picked up a signed copy of The Oversaturated World the year before. But we got to hang out and chat a bit. I got to hear about his frustrating experiences with acquiring a negative autograph from Rebecca Shoichet (more details in his own Everfree blog). He also gave me my biggest ego-boo of the weekend: he picked up a copy of The Other Me and, while still at the con, devoured and enjoyed all of the bookified-but-not-online chapters of Even Changelings Get The Blues. If I've written a novel which inspires that kind of craving, I feel like I've gotten something right. 
(Plus, I was able to hit him with a brick joke in Chapter 24 which had been lurking in plain sight for the entire story. Mwa ha.)
Out of my weekend purchases, the highlight was definitely running across SPark's booth and seeing a premade dragon tail hanging on display. You don't even understand, folks; I have searched multiple furry conventions in search of a wearable dragon tail, and everyone that makes tails just does 'em for mammals. I've tried to talk to artists about customs but had a few attempts fall through. And suddenly I go to Seattle for a My Little Pony convention to hang out with author buddies and there's one just right there, even mostly matching the green of my dragon self. It was a sale before I could even grab my wallet out of my bag, and I ended up spending the rest of the day wearing it. I'll be following up with SPark about getting a custom made, an exact color match that I can wear along with my partial fursuit at future furry conventions.
Anyway, it was also good to hang out with vendors who are fellow authors or author-adjacents (such as SPark, Ruirik, Rocket Lawn Chair, and Ivan of My Little Ties, who wrote one of the fan timelines for Hard Reset 2 once upon a time). But quickly enough, I had to get back to Iron Author judging, and that ate up the rest of the night.
Around about midnight, the white smoke finally went up the pony papal chimney, and I immediately went down to the party floor to get drunk. Super Trampoline was playing Elton John songs in the hallway, so the alcohol had definitely been flowing for a while.
This time, once lubricated, I got cornered and asked for my infamous drunken pony Tarot readings, and spent several hours telling people about their futures, mostly with the "extra spicy" readings (using a Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder deck in place of Tarot). Drunken Tarot is typically a participatory experience, and there was one moment in particular that stands out: I was trying to distinguish between two different cards, one of which was meant to represent taking trade classes in woodworking and one of which was meant to represent doing something besides college. The two cards were Princess Cadance and some other minor character that wasn't a princess, so I identified the non-princess pone as the trade class route, and was about to move along when someone in the peanut gallery interjected: actually, Princess Cadance represented the woodworking route.
Why? I asked.
"Because she gives you wood."
Cue epic facepalm.
And the thing was, because I was using the spicy deck about terrible equine shipping, that was not only funny but exactly on point for the reading. I immediately conceded the point and went with the crowdsourced wisdom. Well played, peanut gallery. Well played.
Sunday
Dawn of the final day. In my case, literally: I wasn't able to get Monday off work, and so not only would it be the last day of the convention, it would also be my final day in Seattle. And the chaos wasted no time in setting in.
I was rooming with Morning Sun, who was by that point having a Very Bad Con. For one, she was getting sick. For two, there had been some drama which isn't really my place to discuss. I did my best to provide emotional support, and masked up for the duration of my stay in the hotel room.
Meanwhile, outside the hotel, my other local friend — who I was going to meet for Sunday lunch — had a car breakdown and was unable to make it to Bellevue to meet me. And SeaTac airport got hit by a huge cyberattack that took down virtually their entire computer network.
All I could do, though, was hurry downstairs to the Iron Author results panel, both to help present the winners and to put the final polish on my panel slideshow while the winning stories were being read. It was announced that a new Iron Author group had been created on Fimfic; a few stories from this year's competition have already been posted, and there were many strong entrants I hope to see also make the leap.
The medalists were:
1 - Shaslan's "Spines and Storms"
2 - FanOfMostEverything's "Politics as Unusual"
3- Starscribe's "Maiden Voyage"
There were a number of honorable mentions, too; I didn't manage to write down the whole list, but the one I talked up was Admiral Biscuit's historical take on the prompts as Commander Hurricane dealt with internal Pegasopolian intrigue, and Undome Tinwe also got a nod for writing a time loop story.
Speaking of which, my aforementioned panel was next. I was giving a presentation on writing time loop stories. It went smoothly, and I ended up timing it almost perfectly. (Almost as if I had had multiple chances to get it right... 
) I made my slides public and gave attendees a QR code to look it up for later reference. So if any of the rest of you are curious about the advice I gave over the course of a wide-ranging hour, or the dozens of great time loop stories I cited as references, here you go!
(If you want the list of time loop story and media recommendations, skip forward to the last few pages.)
Finally, the most exciting thing I said at the panel: I committed to picking Hard Reset 2 back up again after its ten-year hiatus. Now that Even Changelings Get The Blues is in print, I don't have any other stories competing with it for attention, and I firmly feel like I want to resurrect and complete it before I'm done with pony fandom. (That doesn't mean I leave when it's finished, just that it is unfinished business.)
The panel complete, I rushed downstairs for my final autograph session -- and then found myself finished with everything planned for the weekend. My trip to the airport loomed, so I wasn't able to get to any other events, but at least I was able to make the rounds and say my goodbyes.
In the process, I discovered the aforementioned SeaTac chaos. r5h, who had a flight at nearly the same time I did, teamed up with me for an impromptu Uber ride in an effort to get to the airport in time to navigate the additional drama and delays. We checked in and got through security, then at least got to share a final meal of surprisingly tasty airport food. (Except for the sushi, which was aggressively mid, but I wanted sushi, so...) Then it was time to part ways and head to our gates.
With all the screens throughout the airport off, it was as near to a travel meltdown as I've seen short of high holiday season. Alaska Airlines had warned people in advance to anticipate lost luggage and clearly mark names and phone numbers on any checked bags. Security was bogged down and doing things by hand. (I ended up literally getting a public groin patdown from a TSA agent who got very handsy, and seemed even more uncomfortable about it than I was.) The only way of getting information out was the audio announcements through the gate loudspeakers, and because everyone was talking, all the announcements overlapped. There was no way to confirm we were even at the correct gate other than finding one of the few beleaguered employees. Every flight seemed to be delayed an hour or more. They literally marked us off on a paper checklist when we finally boarded our flights out. But, mercifully, once off the ground things went smoothly once again, and I did manage to get home shortly before 1 am.
My downstairs neighbor was on the porch, as was his habit. I was dead tired, and told him as much, but we did have a few minutes' conversation as I was unloading from the car. He noted that he had visited his ex-wife the last time he was going up through SeaTac. She worked at a Denny's in FedEx.
"Fed-Ex?" I said, confused.
"Yeah," he said. "The city the airport is in. She works at the Denny's by the airport."
"I think I know the one you're talking about," I said, still uncertain what the "Fed Ex" thing was about, but at least having some context with the mention of the Denny's. "I've been to other conventions in the hotel directly across from the airport. I've eaten at that Denny's before."
He launched into a story about his ex-wife. I cut him off, and said I was dead on my feet and needed to get to sleep for work, but I would love to hear about it next time we talked.
It would take me until I was inside moving bags into my room to figure out that by "Fed Ex" he probably meant the city of Federal Way, which is just south of the airport. I went back downstairs to grab my last bag and ask if that was what he was referring to. In that short few minutes, he had gone inside off the porch, switched off his light, and gone to bed.
Monday
Those were the last words I would ever exchange with him.
Today, I got a call from my landlord while I was at work, asking about the police cars in front of our building. Apparently, something happened while I was napping at lunchtime. My neighbors heard a loud impact from downstairs (I vaguely remember it, but I was half-asleep). Either he slipped, or had a heart attack, or there were other factors involved, and he fell. By the time help arrived, it was too late. The paramedics went in for CPR, and came out alone.
I, personally, am okay. We only ever really talked in passing; this is 99% shock and 1% grief. But it was still a sobering end to the experience, you know? Straight from a celebration of community to an anticlimactic and sudden loss.
I'm sorry for tacking this on to the convention post, honestly; I waffled for a while on it. But it was definitely part of my convention experience (I haven't even opened my bags to unpack all my new books yet). And it's a reminder to not take for granted what we do have. I short-circuited our last conversation out of a (defensible and reasonable) desire for sleep, and yet, having gotten that sleep, I wish I had pushed those extra few minutes and listened to his story about his ex-wife, because now I'll never get that chance.
Similarly, we've got a beautiful community here of awesome people, producing gorgeous and moving stories and interacting with each other long past the end of the G4 media most of us joined together to celebrate. People drop out of fandom all the time, from disinterest or death or a hundred different reasons. It's possible that one of the conversations I had at Everfree was the last I'll ever have with that person.
If so, at least I'll have no regrets. It was an exhausting weekend, and in some ways I was barely there, but I launched my book and I helped the bookstore succeed and I judged a fantastic competition, and most importantly, I made dozens of connections and reconnections. If you were there, whether I mentioned your name in this blog or not, please know it was a joy to see you there and I'm grateful for it.
Thank you, truly, for being part of that experience.
Hey thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping out with the judging. I know I said it up in room before I went to bed but it bares saying again.
Also thank you for buying a copy of my book. I'm still emotional about how many sold. I went into con expecting none to sell.
I finished Even Changelings Get the Blues, anthology afterword included, as I waited for my flight to board. To those reading it, you have a lot to look forward to... and a few moments that will make you want to slap the author.
It was great seeing you again! I'm happy to say that my efforts on Sunday yielded positive results. And my sincerest condolences on your neighbor.
Great recap, and great news that HR2 will continue! Thanks for putting up the slides; it was a great read-through.
I’m sorry about your neighbor. I’m glad you managed to have a good con, though! I should try to hit Everfree next year. It’s been since BronyCon that I’ve been able to really drink in the writing community.
This may be out of left field, but when I saw your "Buh dum tsss" picture at the top I was wondering why you didn't use Pinkie's version from "Baby Cakes".
Reading the various:
Write-ups around the site makes me look back to whatever year it was--2017, maybe?--that I hauled my quivering, shivering carcass across the country to Bronycon and we roomed together. I can scarcely imagine doing anything similar now, and Seattle's even in the same time zone as me! Just goes once again to shoq, I guess, that Fluttershy displayed more character growth in the 10 years the show was on than I have in the 60 years I've been on...
It's always great to read about it, though!
Mike
What a wild turn at the end. I'm sorry for your neighbor and that you had to experience that.
Grats on surviving the trip and my condolences at your loss.
Thanks for the drunk tarot readings. One of the highlights of my convention experience. Hope to see you next year!
One day, I pray you will grace me with a drunken Tarot reading, especially if you use TSSSF. It’s been a goal of mine at EFNW for years!
Hell, I think you talking about it was one of the first nudges in getting me interested in tarot!
Also, I agree with the assessment of Cadance. Especially depending on which version of the card it was!
5800634
Appreciate your hard work keeping things running! Looking forward to reading.
5800788
You definitely should swing by Everfree next year! With Bronycon gone, the scene has fragmented into more regional efforts; Everfree is relatively small (about 2k people) but has actually been growing year over year, and more importantly, has a full-weekend writing track with a separate room set aside for it, which means that it's disproportionately drawing authors in relative to its size.
5800806
Short answer: it didn't occur to me. It certainly would have been more thematic for the post!
5800929
One of the nice things about the post-Bronycon era is that all the conventions are an order of magnitude smaller. If that makes any difference, anyhow! Bronycon was definitely an overwhelming size. We had the con-within-a-con of the writing hangout room, but the same is true for Everfree as well, and the rest is a lot less crowded, fitting snugly within a single hotel.
5801062
My pleasure! Was good to meet you.
5801130
Please don't be shy about tracking me down on the room party floor on Friday/Saturday nights! Or even grabbing me during the day and reserving your place in line, though I can't always predict when I'll be down in public and lubricated for the event. I didn't get as much socialization time as I'd have liked during the con, but I'll definitely be back next year!
(Also, congratulations on the transition and the subsequent happiness!)
I am sorry about your neighbor. I have a timeloop-short for you from the Dust (SciFi-Channel on YouTube specializing in letting people upload stories to it for allowing people to find the videos).:
5805328
I'm always a sucker for time loop stories. Thanks for sharing!
5805466
Dust has lots of TimeLoopStories. This TimeLoopStory is a bit different:
Rather than Burn the state of his future brain into his past brain, this physicist physically travels into the past. If he succeeds, 2 of him would be in the fixed timeline.* He has looped back to the same day 390 times (he goes back to a timeline where he did not previously go for avoiding temporal clones; just the original self and the 1 from the future); so that he should be over an year older.
* When the Donners made Superman Ⅰ, they forgot that 2 things:
As to the 1st problem, with Command Z, no stakes exist; DC fixed this with allowing fixing problems be changing the past, but only with extreme consequences like in "FlashPoint". 2 Supermen is an obvious problem; logically, the sequels should have had 2 Supermen. DC fixed these problems in the squeals by never mentioning the timetravel and pretending that it never happened.
RobotChicken covered the problem of temporal clones in Superman Ⅰ: