Horse Horse Horse Horse Horse 2: The Re-Horse-ening · 9:21pm Jul 12th, 2016
Otherwise known as Bronycon 2016, for those of you who don't speak horse. HAHA I USED THE SAME JOKE AS I DID LAST YEAR HOW CLEVER.
This year's Bronycon came as a pleasant (or maybe not; more on that later) surprise with being a July con instead of an August con. That meant we only had to wait 11 months from the end of Bronycon 2015 to this one this year. And what a con it was! Now, just like last year, it's time for my super-thorough retelling of basically all the (important/interesting) things I did over the last few days!
Day 0: To Baltimare We Go
Money Pissed Away: $112.50
Total Money Pissed Away: $112.50
This year was a bit of a strange Bronycon for me, as I was embarking alone for the first time. In the past, my brother accompanied me for the festivities, but unfortunately, he had to work through this one, and couldn't join me. So at around 8:30 in the morning, I set off for BWI to go grab a few friends whom I'd be rooming with over the course of the convention. Said friends were Ruirik, whom I've hung out with for the past two Bronycons, and SolidFire, whom I had the opportunity to meet for the first time. After jamming my car full of their luggage (which was mostly Ruirik's, as he was vending during this con, and carried much of his product with him in addition to what he shipped to me for delivery earlier), we set off to our hotel, checked in, and deposited our luggage for the time being. With an entire day to kill before the con started, it was time to go sightseeing around Baltimore.
You know somebody's important when they get their own statue. Where's my statue, people?
Our adventures took us to the USS Constellation at Inner Harbor, where Solid took a few pictures, before we went onwards to Federal Hill Park, as we thought Fort McHenry was close enough to walk to on foot. I mean, I could have done it, but Ruirik and Solid are weak northerners who couldn't take a little heat and humidity and were basically dying the entire way. Still, that would have been a lengthy walk, and there were other attractions nearer at hand...
WHY DID YOU DO IT, HUH? WHAT DID STEVE IRWIN EVER DO TO YOU?!
We made our way to the Baltimore National Aquarium, where along the way we met up with Skeeter The Lurker briefly before we parted again; both he and Solid decided that admittance was not worth $40 and abandoned Ruirik and I to explore it ourselves. (WELL GUESS WHAT, WE HAD FUN WITHOUT YOU, YOU BASTARDS.) We took a bunch of pictures, which I won't post all of for the sake of murdering people's data plans or whatnot. Most weren't that good, anyway, but it was pretty fun and neat to explore. I hadn't been to the National Aquarium since I was in elementary school, and that was years ago.
ALL HAIL THE GLORIOUS BIRB, THAT WHICH GIVES MEANING TO OUR EXISTENCE WITH ITS FLOOF
Eventually we ran out of things to do there, so we returned to the convention center to get our badges. While there, I ran across Wanderer D, who I'd met and talked with briefly at cons before this one, and none other than Somber. Yes, the Somber. I didn't even know he'd be attending this year's Bronycon (and apparently it was quite last minute, too) until Skeeter called me over from the other side of the room to meet him. I'm a huge fan of Project Horizons and consider it one of my favorite fanfics I've read on the site, so I had to stop myself from gushing when I met him. Thankfully, I am but a sad introvert, so that wasn't too hard to do, but in all seriousness, it was exciting and great to be able to talk to and meet an author I admire so much. If you haven't read anything Somber has written, please do so. You won't regret it.
Anyway, after that, I helped Ruirik get his vendor table set up, and we all left to get some dinner (apart from Solid, who was having dinner with other friends) and booze. We then conked out in the hotel room with djthomp, whom II met last year at Bronycon, and whom I've become good friends with over the internet in the time since. Unfortunately, we were all pretty tired, so we ended up going to bed pretty early.
On a related note, Skeeter is awful to sleep next to, because he doesn't understand how to share covers and blankets in a platonic, non-threatening manner, Ruirik is a god damn chainsaw when he sleeps, and SolidFire has an unhealthy insistence with trying to keep the thermostat at like subzero temperatures. These conspired to rob me of much sleep the first two nights of the con until I finally dealt with the problems on Saturday and Sunday. God damn it you fuckers why can't you just sleep normally.
But next morning was the con, and that couldn't come soon enough.
Day 1: Vendors and Panels and Restaurants, Oh My!
Money Pissed Away: $318.50
Total Money Pissed Away: $431.00
It was cold in the morning, and I was not happy. It seemed to be a retelling of how I spent most nights last year when I was rooming with LoyalLiar and his then-girlfriend, now-fiancee (which is the reason why he wasn't with us again this year; shame, because we missed him). At the very least, Ruirik, Skeeter, and Solid all left very early in the morning to set up shop for Ruirik's vending table, which meant I had the room to myself and could catch a few more minutes of sleep at a god damn decent temperature (you know, the double-digit ones that start with a 7, if you're using the Fahrenheit system). But soon enough it was time to go to opening ceremonies and all that.
I'll refrain from elaborating on the panels and the sort of things I went to over the course of the day, noting only that the panels with the voice actors were fantastic, and that Tabitha St. Germain is literally god damn insane (but in the endearing sort of way). I also spent a lot of money on the vendor floor; only roughly $80 of the $318.50 I spent today was on food. But hey, man, there was a lot of good things to buy, notably a wallscroll from assassin-monkey (which was the closest thing I could find to any OTP art) and a shirt of the best Mane 7th from her days of leading a cult (on a side note, is anybody really surprised that she's so powerful? I mean, the leaders of the KKK are "grand wizards" and shit like that. Not that Starlight's cult was like the KKK; if anything, they're the exact opposite. I'm going to stop this metaphor now). I also did get an adorable Blank Canvas plush, because seriously, that thing is adorable, and was also only $30. I thank glorious capitalism and mass production for that. As anybody who's ever been to a convention's vendor hall can attest, plushie artists are expensive. And not to disparage the artists or their products, but I would only pay at best half of what they're asking. But, people with too much disposable income and nothing to spend it on keep buying them, so I don't see the prices going down any time soon...
I SHALL RIDE ETERNAL ON THE FRIENDSHIP ROAD, SHINY AND CHROME
We took some time after the vendor hall closed to go check out Bronypalooza. The opening act would be the only bit of it we saw all con, for we were busy doing other things while it was going on, but really, the opening act was all I wanted to see. They were, after all, none other than the Wasteland Wailers, the team behind some absolutely fantastic music for perhaps the most promising fan project video game we're ever going to see out of this fandom for quite some time, the Fallout: Equestria game. They sang their best hits, ending with the much-demanded "Fly Like You" that had the entire crowd screaming and cheering. Brittany Church has an angelic voice. If you've never listened to any of their music, you really, really should. It's all on youtube!
Yes, that is Brittany Church dressed like Piper from Fallout 4. I think she makes an even better Piper than Piper herself did.
After that, the four of us and djthomp went for dinner at PF Changs, which is a fantastic restaurant, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on our fill of glorious chinese food. Well, at least some of us did. Solid is the god damn pickiest eater I've ever met, 100x worse than Skeeter, and basically wouldn't even touch a thing. His loss; the food was fantastic, and the rest of us ate our fill and were happy.
There were a few more things we attended afterwards, like the Anthology panel (which was kind of a disappointment, as it was 90 minutes of previous anthologies for a 10-15 minutes teaser preview of Anthology VI; I thought it was going to be the actual Anthology VI, but I guess that's what I get for not reading the con book). We then promptly passed out in the hotel room, much too tired to really do anything interesting.
Still, a glorious day, but the best was yet to come.
Day 2: Lines and Writers and Larsons, Oh My!
Money Pissed Away: $92.00
Total Money Pissed Away: $523.00
How could anybody not like an adorable little traveler like that?
Saturday was a fantastic day. It started off by attending Larson's panel, and if any of you know anything about Larson (which you should), you can imagine what sort of shenanigans he got up to there. The man's desktop wallpaper was a picture of Brad's Flash Sentry's face, for crying out loud. Even though Mitch was up to his usual silliness, it was a really informative panel in how the writing process for the episodes in season 1 went (specifically, the Cutie Chronicles), and how much they've changed since then. Seriously, Larson sounded really bitter about the micromanagement that's gone into writing the show from the executives at Hasbro. Perhaps that's why he took a break from writing episodes this season.
Later, me and djthomp went to another VA panel, where the VA of the mane 6 (plus ACRacebest, Saberspark, and Michelle Creber, if I recall correctly) read a script for an episode that was written entirely by Tabitha. Again, we were reminded about how that woman is lovably insane. It was actually pretty good, too; I could see it as an episode in the show. Then there was the Q&A for that panel... I'm amazed that they said some of the things that they did. Seriously, the answers from the VAs, especially Tabitha, were riding the innuendo train pretty hard (that's an innuendo itself; see what I did there?). At one point, Ashleigh basically implied that Andrea Libman was Tabitha's hoe. It was amazing. (They were talking about gardening, by the way).
After that, I went down to get Ashleigh's autograph. It wasn't exactly the 3-hour line from hell that John de Lancie's was last year, but it was close. Not because Ashleigh had an absurd amount of people, but she loves to talk to everyone who comes for her autograph, so that slowed the line down considerably. Seriously, her line was worse than that of Tara Strong's. It's why I only bothered to get her autograph instead of Tara's as well like I originally planned. Still, I got a signed poster out of it to hang in my room, which means that Tara is the only Mane 6 VA that I have yet to get an autograph from. Maybe she'll be back next year (and maybe she won't be more expensive than all the other people signing autographs; seriously, what gives?).
Oh, and Ashleigh told me to keep being awesome in her Rainbow Dash voice. So that was pretty spectacular.
Following that, I took a nap, then it was time to go to Tir Na Nog for the annual writer's dinner. I ended up sitting with Skeeter, Somber, and Themaskedferret, who's a pretty cool person. I got to pester Somber with a few questions and comments about Project Horizons over the course of the dinner, and watch Ferret slowly weasel (ferret?) her way into Somber's gdocs and the porn he'd written but wouldn't show to anybody until then. Skeeter was burning with jealousy, because he wanted to read it too, but ferret wouldn't give Somber's phone to him. It was pretty amusing. Also damn it Ferret why won't you read my things I have things that aren't dark or tragedy.
I remember going to the shipping panel afterwards, which basically turned into a rarijack panel because of Titanium Dragon (not intentionally; he told us that he only used rarijack as an example in the notes to try to get the other panelists to contribute to the notes, and in the end he ended up doing 90% of the work because nobody else did). Afterwards, we briefly hung at Quills and Sofas before retiring for the night. I was approached for the only time of the con by somebody who recognized my works, Razed Rainbow, over the story Midnight Oil. Fellow Raridash shippers, unite! Talking with him even got me thinking about a Raridash story I'd had in the works for a while but ultimately dropped due to a lack of time with finals week and all that fun stuff approaching. Now that I've reread all that I wrote in that, I feel a lot more interested in continuing it. If it ever does see the light of day, you know who to thank/blame.
Day 3: Bronycon Blues
Money Pissed Away: $69.00 (ayyyyyyy)
Total Money Pissed Away: $592.00
We all dreaded the final day of the con, but I made the most of it, attending two writing panels: one on dialogue, which was really good, and one on original characters, which I already knew everything they really talked about, but which I thought was interesting anyway (and surprisingly less cringey than I thought it would be). Djthomp and I spent whatever free time we had either in Quills and Sofas or in the vendor hall, where he finally bought something there after staying clean the entire con. I grabbed a few last posters, including a Sunset Shimmer one that is absolutely fucking adorable and pictures of the best horses (Rarity and Starlight). Then it was time for a big group photo of all the writerly types who happened to be hanging around Q&S, and in the middle of it, we got GM Berrow to hop on in. Somebody needs to share that picture with me so I can add it here.
This is where I'd put my Q&S group photo... IF I HAD ONE.
We went to closing ceremonies afterward, which was more of a feel trip than anticipated, as the con heads who had organized the past 3 bronycons announced that this was their final one they were organizing. Additionally, we learned that attendance was down something like 25%; 7607 attendees compared to the 10,000+ we had last year. It would seem that the July experiment didn't work, what with it being right after July 4th and people still traveling on vacations and such. So, next year's Bronycon will be back to August.
From there, I had dinner with my usual crew of five, and then we spent the rest of the night helping Ruirik get caught up on all the episodes of MLP season 6 he'd missed. Ask him about Flutter Brutter sometime, it was his favorite by far.
In the morning, I took Ruirik and Solid to the airport, and drove Skeeter home, as he happened to be half an hour along the journey back home for me anyway, and only added like 5 minutes onto my journey at the most. I was tired when I got home, and a little bit sad. It was an amazing time, and once again, it was over far too soon.
My loot stash, and what a few hundred of that money pissed away got me. The rest was spent on food.
To everyone I met and talked to, it was fantastic meeting you. I can't really go through and list all the names I might have forgotten for the obvious reasoning that I've forgotten, but still, I remember faces better than names. I hope to see you all there next year when we return for another few days and nights together under the summer sun of Baltimore.
But until then,
Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem
24
I cannot help my lizard heritage.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Sounds like good times! That noir Rarity scroll thing to the left in your loot pic is pretty slick.
>Wasteland Wailers in concert
Just one more reason I'm sad I couldn't go. D: Sounds like it was a gay old time, though! :D
It's a good thing I didn't spend nearly anything given that since I got home I've been dealing with a broken air conditioner. Cold air > ponies, as it turns out.
You damn noodle... I'm Minnesotan, so I need things to be arctic. Just use a blanket or snuggle Skeeter. If it gets too warm I'll start walking around butt naked, and that scary fate will be on you. In more ways than one. Also, I'm not a picky eater. I just didn't want to eat all the food that I did like before anyone else could get any. Ask Rui or Cloudy. I eat like a starving person. But yeah, that was a fun con. Surprised you didn't post the picture of the 240 singles I gave you for the room. Until next year!
~SolidFire
He's gonna post it!
As soon as I'm not siiiiiiiicccckkkk