Obligatory (Belated—Sorry) Bronycon 2015 Blog! · 4:32am Aug 16th, 2015
I'm back, and I've been back for a while. This was my fourth year in a row going to the con, so it was ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. As usual, I had a great time, so check out the long report after the break!
Day -1 – Wednesday
So begins my fourth journey to Bronycon. I'm pretty used to these by now, so no big deal. Horse Voice was unable to give me a lift to the ferry terminal, so I had to leave my condo at about 4 PM in order to make my 5:20 boat. Fortunately, despite arriving so early, they had a random extra sailing, so I got across the water much quicker than I otherwise would have, so that's a plus.
Thanks to the extra ferry, I made it to YVR airport in Vancouver well in advance of my flight. On top of this, I met up with a couple of friends in the airport, so we had a great time chatting until our flights. Mine was at 11 PM, so it was a red eye flight as per usual. I made sure to get a window seat so I could use my pillow (bring one for these flights, seriously). I didn't really sleep properly, but I was semi-napping for the whole flight to Chicago, so that was good.
Day 0 – Thursday
I landed in ORD airport at about 4:45 AM Central. I also got through customs pretty quickly, so I was done that part of the trip just after 5 in the morning. So far, I've had pretty good luck on this trip.
That was about to change dramatically.
I was in a TSA line from hell. It was incredibly long and moved at the speed of smell, despite it being before 6 in the morning. I stood in a really long line, and just as I reached where they checked boarding passes and sent you off to the security gate, I found out the line went through about 10 large loops. My flight was scheduled to leave at 6:20. To top off the insanely long line, I was “randomly” selected for a bag check. What's funny about this is they went through my duffel bag and not my backpack. All of my potentially interesting items are in my backpack, and my duffel bag almost exclusively consisted of clothes and toiletries. These two delays combined with the long tunnel between the security checkpoint and my gate meant I only made it to the gate 3 minutes before the departure. They didn't let me on as they'd already closed it.
I stood in another super long line to get some customer service. I found out the next flight from ORD to BWI wasn't until after 2 PM. Yes, eight hours. As you'd imagine, I was beyond livid at that point. They were able to get me on an 8 AM flight to DC, but thanks to my travel agent's incompetence of scheduling my flights so close together and the TSA line, I had to spend $72 US for a shuttle from Reagan airport to my hotel. The tram from BWI to the convention centre only costs $1.70. Thanks, Obama.
Luckily, I was able to check in, take a rest, then pick up my badge pretty fast, then have a little nap and a shower. I met up with LoyalLiar, his girlfriend, Ruirik, Skeeter, 24th Pegasus, TheBigStallowski, and Sojourner at the hotel. We went to dinner after everyone else got their passes. This was all accomplished in the time difference I'd have been waiting at ORD to get to BWI. I did make the right decision despite the cost. My travel agent will certainly be hearing from me very soon.
We also hit up the liquor store. I purchased a 6 pack, bottle of wine, two 500mL cans of beer, and a mickey of Fireball. After dinner, we had a fun time watching stupid videos in the hotel room, and I drank the wine. It was pretty delicious, and I was pretty drunk by the end of the night.
Day 1 – Friday
The fun begins! A few of the group had to get up extra early in order to pick up passes (Skeeter and LoyalLiar's girlfriend) as they didn't preregister. That left only a few of us to go get whatever breakfast we could find. In my case, I bought a bunch of stuff from a coffee shop in the hotel, as I knew I'd be skipping lunch. The food was pretty dry and awful and overpriced. No surprise there.
What astounded me when I got to the actual con was how awful the line speed was. Normally at Bronycon, the reg line moves quite fast. They also had to change the con layout for the worse this year because another con had part of the venue as well, or something. Instead of going to the 9:30 opening ceremonies, I lined up to get Charlotte Fullerton's autograph, the only paid signature I needed this time around. The line to get the voucher, despite being not that long, took nearly a whole hour, which is insane. To make matters worse, she didn't show for her signing session because she got sick. Thankfully, she recovered within a few hours. I'm glad she's okay. The problem this brought was the security working autographs wasn't informed of this until just before the signing session was supposed to end, so I was standing there doing nothing for nearly an hour. Two hours standing on concrete is not fun.
From there, I met up with Tailsfox88. We decided to do some vendor hall runs after catching the last 40 minutes of John de Lancie's panel. We went there just after noon, and I had no panels I cared about until around 2:15. We went to every single booth and checked them all out. I must've gotten 50 custom Secret Shipfic Folder cards from the other vendors. In addition to that, I got Agnes's (IDW comic artist) autograph at the comic booth, a surprise for Horse Voice (ask him for a picture of it), some buttons for my laptop bag, and even copies of Super Mario Land and Pokemon Blue for the original Gameboy. I couldn't get my hand on the new TSSSF cards until near the end of the day due to the insane size of that booth's line.
As you'd imagine, I was quite sore from all that standing and walking on concrete (I think nearly five hours' worth) and lugging my backpack around. We ended up going to the main voice actor panel, which is always a fantastic time. We followed that up by catching the last half of Advanced Writing before going to the show writers' panel at 4.
Fortunately for me, Charlotte had another autograph signing from 5-6, so I waltzed in, as I'd already purchased my voucher, and got it done in a few minutes before I headed off to the last half or so of Match Game Bronycon, which was sort of like Family Feud with random audience members as contestants and VIPs writing answers. Obviously it was hilarious, and Tony Fleecs in particular gave some pretty wacky answers.
At around 7, almost two dozen of us writers went from Quills and Sofas to dinner. The establishment's name escapes me, but they served some pretty delicious chicken basted in hot sauce. I had a bit of time to relax after dinner in my hotel room and at the con space. Normally, this is around the time I'd gear up for party mode, but because I was a panelist this year, I had other responsibilities. Just before 10, I headed for one of the panel rooms to prepare for the Short, Long, and Epic fanfiction panel. As I've written multiple stories from 2,000 to 151,000 words and many word counts in between, I felt pretty comfortable on this one.
In addition to me, the panel had Pen Stroke (the host), Wanderer D, Vicodin, and CyborgSamurai. You can catch the VOD of this and pretty much every other panel on Youtube at some point. Despite it being so late (10:30-11:30!), the panel was a ton of fun. I got a huge laugh from the crowd when I told my 6-word story of “For Sale: Lyra plushie, never used.” When we were discussing stories that we felt should've been a different length, I evoked a pretty interesting reaction from the crowd when I said “Past Sins.” Don't worry—I discussed that point and how I would present it with Pen Stroke before the panel. When it was all over, Wanderer D said I did a great job paneling, which is quite high praise considering he's on the Advanced Writing panel. I didn't end up staying too long in the venue after that because I'd been ready to collapse since about 5, and it was approaching midnight.
With it as late as it was and no apparent parties (I missed the memo on a writers' party a good distance from the con), I went back to my room, had a few drinks with my roommates, then went to bed. I was too tired and my muscles were definitely too shot to do Bronypalooza that evening.
Day 2 – Saturday
For me, Saturday was a great deal more relaxed. There were a ton of panels I wanted to go to, but thanks to the main hall's huge capacity, I always went to those a few minutes after they began and never had to line up as a result. I also usually got a pretty good seat.
The panel I went to in question was voice actor Madlibs at 10. They ended up using dialogue from the scene where Twilight meets Future Twilight. This was especially funny because M.A. Larson was on the panel, and he wrote that episode. I'd say his answers were the funniest of the group. Another hilarious aspect was the answers the audience was yelling out. There was a point where we were yelling Donald Trump for everything. At one point on the show writers' panel, M.A. Larson made a joke about Larsoncon being held in his garage, so for one of the Mad Libs that required a place to be written down, I yelled, “M.A. Larson's garage,” which got a good laugh. I can't really do this panel justice here, so I'll leave it for the VOD if you're interested. It's definitely worth the watch.
From there, it was between going to a John de Lancie panel in an off-hall, but that had a ludicrous line, or a VIP blind readings panel. Needless to say, I chose the blind readings, and I'm glad I made that decision. A bunch of the voice actors read from older literature, from poems to a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream to part of War of the Worlds. I can now say I have heard the opening of War of the Worlds read by Nappa. Due to contract reasons, the panel was not recorded at all, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Just imagine a poem about a Scottish bridge tragedy full of death and collapsing bridges and destroyed trains read by Spike, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer, Rarity (sort of; Kazumi Evans was there), and Bulk Biceps.
With that, my trips to the main stage for Saturday were over. After grabbing some lunch at Jimmy John's, I went to part of the Legend of Donut Steel panel. I didn't really learn anything new, but the presentation was fantastic and well put together. Then I went to the Do's and Don'ts of Fanfiction followed immediately by The Fic Goes Ever, Ever On. I managed to troll Alextrasza on D&Ds by bringing up how to write a Nicolas Cage story. That panel was pretty beginner-oriented and felt quite all over the place, but I think some newer writers learned something. Applejinx solo-ran the latter panel, which was a great and thoroughly prepared lecture as always from him.
When those panels were over, I decided to skip the Shipping panel, opting to watch it on Youtube later, so I could chill in Quills and Sofas for a bit before resting in my hotel room. At various points from the start of the con until now, I met so many writers. Some for the first time (The Abyss, Distorted Flare, Parasprite, Badgerpony) and a great deal of others again. Lots of us had great conversations when we could find time. I honestly have no idea how people remember absolutely every detail of these encounters in their blogs; there is no way I could list everyone and do them justice, so suffice it to say, Quills and Sofas throughout the course of the weekend contained a pretty comprehensive “who's who” of this website, and I at least had the opportunity to say a passing hi to nearly everybody. They should seriously add an extra day just for us writers to have a proper mixer. Even then, there would have still been quite a few people I wanted to have a proper conversation with.
Of all the reactions from meeting people (several people knew my name, and some even read my work—this always astounds me), I think the one I got from ROBCakeran was the best. For the five people on Fimfiction who do not know, he wrote My Little Dashie, the most-known story in the fandom. When he saw my badge, he recoiled so much he nearly fell out of his chair because he knew me. I thought that was supposed to happen the other way around. Rob is a seriously awesome guy. I was really happy to have ran into him in Quills and Sofas.
Once that was over, I went down to the big writers' dinner with Bradel. Meeting him was awesome, and I'm glad our paths crossed. If you run into Bradel at a con, consider yourself lucky! Also, his reaction when we met was pretty funny. “Hey, you're harsher than I am!” [Regarding prereading.] On the way, we met Pen Stroke, who had to skip the dinner on account of food poisoning. Poor guy. To his credit, he didn't show any signs of it at all during the D&D panel, so he really toughed through it. That's admirable, as I've had food poisoning once, and I felt like dying for a whole day. I can't imagine going through it at a convention.
The dinner was at Tir Na Nog again, and it was, as usual, amazing. After some difficulty finding seats partly because Wanderer D needed to take over our original table to get his Crossovers panel together (it was happening after dinner, so I cannot blame him) and the dinner being vastly overcrowded by non-RSVPs, some of whom Sunchaser had to deport, Bradel, Ferret, and I landed a pretty epic table with us plus Bad Horse and Ed. Ed knows how to tell a great story. I ended up missing part of one because I got summoned by D to talk shop with him and Capn' Chrysallid (and Vicodin, I think) until my food arrived.
I had the Nog Burger for the second year in a row, but I also had some delicious crab cakes. Jedi Master Ed is quite knowledgeable when it comes to liquor, so I had a few drinks based off his recommendations. He did not steer me wrong. After that, I was supposed to go to another writers' party. It was at a house that was a 5 minute tram ride away. After getting lost a few times due to not having google maps, I found the place, but it was empty. It turns out they'd moved it to a hotel, and I didn't get the memo. That was a huge waste of a valuable hour. I was so sweaty from lugging around a shitload of beer in the middle of a super-humid Baltimore, I just wanted to down two beers when nobody was looking. But I restrained myself, as risking getting caught publicly drinking was a bad, bad idea.
Fortunately, my hotel room hadn't gone to sleep, so we had a drunk fanfic reading and a lot of fun until 1 AM. I was a good four or five beers in plus the three drinks I had at dinner. I decided to catch the last hour of Bronypalooza with a flask full of Fireball. I know well and good Fireball sets off an alcoholic chain reaction in my system if I have it in addition to beer, and I wasn't disappointed. After the concert, which included Living Tombstone playing his remix of Spooky Scary Skeletons, I went back to my room, which was now asleep, and crashed really hard.
Night salvaged.
Day 3 – Sunday
I'd planned for this day—which I had to—for I had to host my comedy panel at 10 AM, arguably the worst time for a panel at this convention. Nobody likes the 10 AM panels because sleep is good, and if you're going to be hungover on any day, it will likely be Sunday. I was lucky enough to avoid a hangover all con somehow, so I dodged that bullet. I also had room service bring me breakfast at 9 AM and my hotel room's alarm clock set to 8:30, so I ate my breakfast comfortably and made it to my panel in good time.
Vicodin was late, but I had Capn' Chrysallid as a backup panelist. Vicodin did end up making it five or so minutes after we started, so we had six panelists instead of five, which led to some complications time-wise. Despite this, we managed to roll through the panel without any problems, even getting a full 15 minute Q&A session. I wasn't sure how good the panel was, but many people, including Wanderer D, said it went very well. You be the judge once it's on Youtube.
Sunday this year was quite the lazy day for me. Aside from the IDW comic panel at 11:45, there were no main events I wanted to go to. I went there, had a great time, and spent the rest of the day in Quills and Sofas until it shut down just before the closing ceremonies.
One great random writing-related reaction was when I was walking to dinner on Friday with a small group of writers, I was chatting with a thin gentleman with light-coloured hair and glasses. I asked what his Fimfic ID was, and he said it was Cold in Gardez. Masked Ferret burst out laughing at my reaction.
For dinner, I ended up going with Skywriter, SR Foxley, Bradel, Yamgoth, Skeeter, one of the VIP relations guys, and others to a Brazilian BBQ place. The best way to describe this place is “meat.” I'm not kidding. It's meat heaven. You go to a salad bar—which was the best one I've ever seen—have whatever you want, sit down, and look at a card that resembles a coaster. It's red. You flip it over to a green side, and an unending meat fusillade begins. Waiters zoom about with gigantic cuts of meat on skewers and sharp knives, come up to everyone with green cards, and offer cuts of meat. You name it, they've got it. I must've had a dozen different things, from rack of lamb to roast beef to filet mignon to sirloin to chicken. I had several of these normal and several wrapped in bacon. On top of this, I had this amazing fruit cocktail. Think rainbow fruit punch except with actual berries, grapes, and other goodies in it with some alcohol for good measure. I finished with an amazing slice of Turtle cheesecake. Needless to say, I could barely walk, and I'm surprised I didn't die of a heart attack after that. What a way to die. It's like snoo-snoo, except it's perfectly cooked meat. The worst part was being forced to turn my card over to red permanently for fear of exploding.
The rest of the night was just watching stupid videos with Ruirik in my hotel room until we passed out.
Day 4 – Monday
Yay, the travel day. We woke up at 8:30 again, went to the expensive hotel buffet. My stomach was acting up all morning and part of the previous night, but I managed to eat a large breakfast before taking the tram to BWI. I got to talk to a few fellow bronies until I boarded my flight, which I spent mostly writing this blog.
From here, I am writing everything right now (15 August). Aside from a few touch ups, the blog remained the same from when I first jotted things down. I will try to spare the rest of the details, as they are quite boring, but I had another horrible time in ORD in Chicago. This time, weather decided to throw air traffic control to all fuck, and my flight was delayed nearly five hours. I was supposed to arrive in Vancouver in the early evening, but instead, I arrived at 11 PM.
Thanks to my friend who also went to Bronycon, but came home on a different flight, I had a place to crash that night. Good on him for staying up until 1 AM, which was when public transit brought me close to his house in Greater Vancouver. After that, I bought him breakfast at IHOP and went home in the mid-afternoon.
Then I went to dinner with two friends, including Horse Voice. Good times all around.
All in all, this trip had way more bumps than the last three years, but I still had a great time after all was said and done. I could say so, so much more about a great many people, but I need to save my novel writing for the actual novel I really need to revise but only have a few weeks left before I have to show it to my professor for a directed study ohshitIgottago
It was fun man, I look forward to hanging out next year as well! And drinking with you, Ed, El and Bad Horse.
3322915
It was incredible amounts of fun. And that idea sounds like a plan!
senpai noticed me
And GaryOak wins the 2015 award for "best metaphor drop in a BronyCon blog post".
3322932
TIL I am senpai.
3322942
Haha! Metaphor? I was being literal.
3322983
..................
Okay, then either you've adopted the new, alternative definition of literal; or things proceeded very differently on your end of the table from how they did on our end.
3322996
Heheheh. One might say I'm innovating...
It was fun meeting and chilling with you for a bit. And thanks for keeping me company (no I don't want your popsicle) when I wasn't really up to going into a crowded convention center just yet. I realize I didn't say that was my reasoning in so many words (I get anxious about my anxiety), but I appreciated it all the same.
To next year!
3323366
We must go deeper!
3323132 Better in than out!
I mean, as far as what you do with your meat…
I'll let myself out
3323526 You know normally I would take that and run with it but given that it's you, I won't
I'll behave
Loved hanging out with you typical you would take me to a panel reading about my home town. Anyway I look forward to doing it again sometime.
He was lying! Everyone knows Cold in Gardez is seven feet tall, and shoots fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse!
Gary, it was an honor to meet you, as well as everyone else. Glad that we got to chat for a bit, and again sorry that you didn't get the message about the party being moved. Next year, man. Next year.
I wonder if you ever saw me wandering around... I have to focus completely on what I'm doing at any particular moment in time so I don't get confused or sidetracked, but... I was the one luggin' around a pair of mannequin legs.
3325711
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SERIOUS?
I stopped you as you were walking back towards the convention hall in the walkway between the hilton hotel and the convention center. You explained to me and my two friends how everyone will remember the guy carrying the mannequin legs. Remember me? I was most likely wearing a white baseball cap and I had two other guys with me.
3326636 There were a lot of people stopping me at random points to ask about the mannequin legs; I wish I could've remembered you better. Heh... Bronycon: The place where I was desperately looking around trying to see if I recognized people from their badges... only to realize that I'm too polite not to look them in the eyes when I encounter them.
It aggravates me, that I met you without knowing what you'd look like. But oh, the stories I could tell you of Bronycon... especially me embarrassing myself in front of TheLivingTombstone by holding up a picture of him (which looked nothing like him), pointing at a guy at a table in the Meet & Greet lounge, and saying "You're familiar with these people, right? Do you think that's LivingTombstone? He kind've looks like the guy in the photo..."
We had a good trade-off after I saw his Guest badge, and still discussed with him if the guy in the photo was a random guy sitting at a table a few feet away from us. And yes, I brought the legs with me to the Meet & Greet.
For the record, it's been recently established (aka "my father's demanding it of me") that I'll be coming to Bronycon 2016... And yes, oh yes, I'm bringing the lovely, lovely legs back with me!
3323366
I quite enjoyed that, and I was only too happy to stick around and chill out (heaven knows a brief respite from all the excitement was welcome) as you recombobulated. To next year!
3323537
Don't ever change.
3323648
You, too. That was an amazing coincidence, as I had absolutely no idea what they would be reading from. Good thing we saw it, too, as recording was banned.
3323828
Oh, after that, he proceeded to levitate and floated the rest of the way to dinner.
3325465
It was an honour to meet you, too. I still had fun despite missing getting trashed with you. I guess I'll just have to drink double next year.
3325711
And we never got to say hi to each other? Baaaah. Just look for the dorky old fat guy with Pokemon TCG League badges next year.
3326636
It was nice getting to say hi to you this year, if only for a few moments. If we're both going partying with Rob next year, we can shoot the shit while shooting shots. Or something. Yeah.
3327233 For sure, dude. We gotta get like a ton of hoers writers together to just get messed up one night haha.
3327241
Only one night? Next year, I want to see if we can organize parties for all the nights, including the barcrawl on Thursday. Also, my roommates and I discovered my clopfics are practically built for drunk readings.
3327247 I'm gonna just go ahead and make my best big puppy-dog eyes in hopes of getting an invite here
3327247 Lol if you want to be hungover as fuck for the entire con, be my guest! I'll be the guy laughing at all of you guys throwing up the next morning.
For real though, we'll have to organize something. Did you come to Dempsey's that one night? We had like thirty people!
3327241 Somehow, I misread the start of your sentence as "We got a ton of whores together."
... I clearly need sleep... and to stop being so envious.
3327281
Nope. Didn't know about it. On Friday, I had no idea where any parties were, so I crashed shortly after midnight. I've been drinking lemon water recently (a lemon per day) for a few months, and I think that's helping me not get hangovers. That, and I'm getting better about drinking water more.
3327271
Ask whoever is organizing it. I'm sure you won't need to use much in the way of puppy eyes.
3327322
Oh... oh my...
3327281 hahahah that was amazing. Dempsey's was awesome, I'm going there again next year.
Sorry to have missed everything! Brazilian indeed sounds amazing. I've had the chance to eat at a restaurant like that exactly once. Fond memories.
It's cool to see so many people I've met at previous cons all meeting each other for the first time. My friendship graph is getting filled in!