Whinny City Pony Con 2016 (Beware of many pictures) · 7:14pm Apr 4th, 2016

Friday:
Woke up to a call from Mom, talked to her for a bit... She was mostly making sure that we were all okay and what had we gotten for dinner the night before... And then that shower happened. XD Because, despite my stated intentions as the end of my last blog, I did not, in fact, shower Thursday night... My motivation ran out... But I did take that very long shower Friday morning before donning my outfit for the day.

Mercifully, my inability to contact any other member of the Wonderverse Crew at the con was negated quickly, as coming down from the room, we ran into almost ALL of them in the lobby! It was really great seeing Calm, and it turned out he had a room just down the hall from Zol, Jinxy and I! :D YAY!!!

Went to the vendor hall, where I proceeded to immediately start lamenting how little cash I had on hand... XD

Friday purchases:

Pins of Sunset Shimmer's cutie mark and the Wonderbolts' logo!
Fun fact, I showed these to Calm, and he immediately asked where they'd come from - And I was able to take him straight to the vendor, where he picked up his own Wonderbolts' logo pin, as well as the matched set of Lead and Wing Pony pins!

Towels embroidered with Sunset Shimmer's and Rainbow Dash's cutie marks!!!

I saw this at the Brony House table, and I couldn't NOT get it... Because as anyone in the EW can attest... I am, in fact, obsessively organized...

Jinxy purchased these for me, technically... They're gorgeous and I was giggling over them... But the reason Jinxy bought them instead of me? Because he wants to Troll my fiance...
Why would purchasing these gorgeous flute glasses troll my fiance, you might ask? It would troll my darling husband-to-be because he is not a fan of MLP. Admittedly, he does put up with it because his niece (my most adorable and bestest Goddaughter) loves MLP, and because I enjoy it just as much... But he still kinda rolls his eyes at me whenever I mention that something funny happened in a story or one of my EW Trolls said something hilarious.
The obvious intention is that Jinxy wants us to use these at our wedding next year... and we probably will, if we can't find something we like more...

These were purchased with an assist from Zoljen. I was down to my last few dollars, and ogling the whole set of them (in both necklace and keychain form), and I could only afford one of them on my own... But I couldn't choose JUST ONE!!! So Zol handing me a couple more $$$, and i wound up getting Fluttershy and Dash's Harmony Keys on keychains. I still want the rest of them though!!!!!!!!

Zoljen purchased this for me because this was the stop after the keychains... I thought it was perfect for us EW members, but at that point Zol only purchased two (one for himself, and the other for me).

After spending absurd amounts of money in the Vendor Hall, we all retired to the room to eat dinner and for me to get dressed for the Grand Galloping Gala!

I elected to not wear the full Fluttershy cosplay for the gala... Just didn't feel like putting my hair up...

Zol elected to not go to the Gala, but Jinxy and I still went. It was a good time hanging out with Calm and Nighty and Kestrel. Even met a few new people! Kestrel and I bonded over editor problems, and writer's block. This was great! I also got to explain to Nighty why I don't ship FleetWind like everyone else in Wonderverse... That's another story entirely though!

Afterwards, Calm, Kestrel, Nighty and I all hung out with Nighty's mom in the lobby. Nighty's mom greatly admired the necklace I was wearing, which lead to a long discourse on whether or not I made it, what I do make, etc. She was very impressed by it. There was a picture taken by NightMom of the group, but I don't have it yet... Look for it in Calm's blog!

And then it was PTFO tiem... Merciless teasing of Sylvian happened... but definitely time to hide in the room and wind down for day 2!

Saturday:
Woke up when I'd planned to, only to discover that the "Make a Sketchbook" activity had been the day before!!! NO!!!!!!!!!!! So I just wandered around with Calm and Zol for a bit, before we discovered that Nighty and NightMom were stuck at their home about 5 minutes from the hotel. Well, Zol, Calm and I all had cars we could take to go pick them up, but Calm knew the address. I offered to come along... Zol wound up not coming along for that ride, but it was a good little side trip, even if it was windy and cold and trying (sometimes successfully) to snow.

Oh yeah... And this is what I was wearing!

Taken immediately after we returned to the hotel, Calm was holding Nighty's plushy of his OC... Thus, CALM-CEPTION!!!

Nighty is a bit camera-shy apparently... This was nothing compared to the fuss she made over the picture her mom took the night before!

We hung out in the lobby, watching Nighty continue to color the poster she'd drawn for us Wonderverse peeps in attendance, until it was time to watch the new episode of MLP!

We really should've gotten to the Mane Events hall earlier, but we managed to snag some decent seats.

After the episode, the rest of the group went to get lunch... and eventually, so did we, but we missed the group... Ah well... Had Chipotle instead. I swung through the vendors hall again to see if Brony House had printed off the badges I'd wanted and they HAD!!! YAY!!!

For the record, I only kept the Wonderbolts one... I gave the Spitfire one to Calm... Because reasons.

Then Kestrel, Calm, Nighty, Zol and I all met up for the Ponyville Shake-Ups concert...

All told, they weren't bad... I liked some of their songs well enough... but, I took issue with some of the mixing levels in the live show... I'm glad to report that further investigation revealed that it was simply the sound tech faffing shit up. When they switched to having their female lead the vocals, the sound tech didn't turn down the male lead's mic... or didn't turn UP the female's... One of the two... Long story made short: CDs have a much better mixing.

Calm, Zol and I ducked out of the concert about 15 minutes early to head to the Cocktail Hour. OMG was so much fun! I wish I'd gotten a picture of Calm's embarrassment at Zol and I talking him up to Andrea Libman while he explained the premise for Soft Spoken With A Big Heart! Or when M.A. Larson lost his mind over how many words Calm's written just for PtH! Best I got was this:

And while I've not been posting the cosplays I ran into that were AWESOME, there's one I must post here because he was at the Cocktail Hour and was freaking AMAZING!!!

There's no way I could've NOT taken a picture of him! Freaking amazing!

Anyhow... afterwards, I was decidedly drunk and tipsy... Jinxy assisted me back to the room, where I continued to taunt Sylvian about the stuff Zol and I had found for him (as Zol has stated; I pointed stuff out, he purchased). Because I am DECIDEDLY evil, I sent pictures of the haul to Jim and Dest under instruction to not share said pictures with Sylvian, and Sylvian has to record himself when he opens the package.

Saturday Swag!:

All of these posters were purchased through Brony House... There's a funny story about the first of the posters, but that'll probably go in Calm's blog... because I'm a terrible enabler.

The changeling badge ribbons may be familiar to you from Zoljen's blog last night, but I had to get a picture of both of them side-by-side, just for the sheer hilarity of it... He also purchased my alicorn ribbon... Because I am a gorram princess, thank you very much! (Note: I am not an alicorn... I just happen to be a different kind of princess...)

Again, Zoljen got this for me... He got this nifty grab-bag deal, and he gave me one of the cellphone charms he got in it... In this picture, it is plugged into the headphone jack of the 3DS that he gave me as well, because he has another one and the headphone jack on this one is b0rken. I didn't have one, and Jinxy's been threatening to buy me one... So I saved Jinxy some money and got a nifty little gaming system out of the deal!

Anyhow... Calm swung by the room on his way to bed to say g'night and stuff and I was finishing off the burrito I'd not finished earlier to help keep the hangover at bay. I wound up chatting with Syl and Jim for a bit before finally falling over and passing out...

Sunday Shenanigans:
Most of the morning was dedicated to cleaning up the room and repacking everything.

Well known Hazard of Convention Going: Having more shite to take home than you brought with you!!!

Sunday of course, is no exception to the purchase frenzy... The day before, I'd talked with the guy that made the REAF-Wonderbolts patches about the messenger bags he had... Unfortunately, he didn't have any with the Wonderbolts on them, so I asked if it was possible for him to make one and bring it in Sunday. He said that it was possible, just send him an e-mail between 7 & 8 PM... Well... I, being silly (and then silly AND drunk), forgot to email him until after the Cocktail Hour... OOPS! But I sent off the message, hoping against hope that he'd be able to bring it in... Sure enough, he messaged back and YES!!!

However, at noon, Zol and I met up with Nighty and Calm for the GoH panel. Again, I wish I'd been quicker with my phone, because then I could've caught Kazumi Evans singing the first verse of "Becoming Popular", or Andrea Libman singing Fluttershy's lullaby, but oh well! Calm and Nighty went to get lunch afterwards, and I decided to skip on the panel I'd thought about going to...

Didn't win pretty glasses in a raffle from the same people who had the champagne flutes and the towels I got... Oh well there too...

While we were waiting for the Autograph session to start (Jinxy wanted M.A. Larson's autograph really bad), we went outside, and inadvertently had a little Whinny City Pony Con Vape Party!

Zol was taking the pictures.

Anyhow... it got time to go inside for the autographs, but then M.A. Larson wasn't going to be there for half an hour, and Jinxy was super hungry... So I wound up getting Andrea Libman's autograph...

YES!!! She signed my BABW plush of Fluttershy!!! I even got to play the sound chip of me mimicking Fluttershy's "**big gasp**... Yay!" for her!!! She loved it!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
**continue fangirl squee to be heard throughout space and time!!!**

Jinxy, Zol and I went over to the mall again for lunch, tracking down this Samurai Sam's Teriyaki place. It wasn't terrible, but nothing compared to Sarku Japan or Nori Japan in Rosedale and Maplewood malls respectively... Zol headed home after lunch, but Jinxy and I swung back to the hotel for me to say farewell (for the last time, promise!) to Calm and Nighty while Jinxy attended Nature's calling. This is when I discovered that Calm is thinking he'll come out to my area for MLP-MSP!!! YES!!! Which means I'll get to see him before I potentially make it out to Cider Fest in October!!! Also, he's been added to the EW Skype conversation, where we all BS and talk about stories and such.

Jinxy and I departed, running some quick errands before leaving Chicago. We stopped at the Belvidere Oasis for gas, and then it was nothing but freeway home (though with a brief rest stop outside of Madison to stretch and relieve bladders). Jinxy took over driving when we got to the Menominee Rest Area off of I-94... There was talking, but mostly the drive was filled with listening to The Martian on audiobook through Jinxy's kindle.

Got home around 10:30 and proceeded to vegetate until midnight when I crawled into bed...

And that's all for the Whinny City Pony Con report, courtesy of yours truly... An addendum post will likely be made Thursday, when Syl gets his care package of things Zol and I found for him. **evil giggle** We've been taunting him so ALL WEEKEND!!! This is great!!!

Anyhow... I'm off to continue my social hibernation... I've used up so many social spoons that it's not even funny! I'm pretty sure I won't be fit for anything more than internet socialization for at LEAST the rest of the week...