BronyCon Initial Wrap-Up · 2:46pm Aug 14th, 2017
It's time for the post-con casualty report!
Scoots no! Fanning it with your wings is not helping!
Scootaloo plush's tail fell off her butt. Like, literally. I need somepony who can sew this thing back on. I'll probably ask Floppybelly but failing that, anypony know which plush maker signs the bottom of a pony's foot with a script "Ef"?
Somepony may have roofied guests either at my party, or the afterparty in another hotel room. This is a thing I do not want to believe, of course. I want to believe that there was a strange biological thing happening and people are mistaken, but (reportedly) the few women who attended (except me and possibly Naomi) felt extremely inebriated beyond what they drank—and one of them was drinking only water. (Also it wasn't merely 
punch because there was no punch to .)
This should go without saying, but don't Cosby people without their consent, guys. Girls are super nervous about this because it really does happen to us, and it's a big violation of trust that can hurt psychologically. Not everypony is as comfortable with being arbitrarily groped as I am. If you think it is okay to do this sort of thing, then do not attend the events I host.
I don't really care that much about the furniture being damaged (it was very minor and I don't think it will be an issue) but please don't do that in the future either.
My eye is a temporary casualty. It looks worse now than before, but these things happen. Still, if you think it looks bad, you should see the other guy. The other guy is a door.
I'll be updating my website online (finally) and put pics on and then post them here eventually. Also, I have a nanofic I wrote which I will be posting here with pics of my costume after I get home. It's been wonderful seeing all of you, and I had a great time and hardly any emotional withdrawal stuff except at the very end but it was still a blast! 
We'll have to do this again next year.
Holy crap, a guy hit Trixie and she turned him into a door! D: Truly she is a powerful wizard!
(Sorry to hear people were being distinctly not-good at your party. :C)
Ugh. I can't believe someone pulled that crap. Both because I'd hoped the people there were better than that and because I'm amazed someone managed to find enough privacy to slip something in without five other people seeing it.
Glad to hear your eye will make a swift recovery. And that was an amazing Moondancer cosplay. Almost as amazing as the nanofic.
I think "one person thought she felt too inebriated, and this made some other people think that they, too, were more inebriated than they expected" is a more-likely explanation than "someone slipped drugs into the drinks of women." My reasons are:
- People are very suggestible.
- It is difficult to slip something into someone's drink at a crowded party without anyone noticing, let alone to target several different people. So I hear. The right way to do that would be to add something to the alcohol source, getting everyone in the room (supposing a sufficient supply of drugs), as getting everybody slightly drunk would be just as good and probably better.
- It would take a lot of luck to dose each person just enough to have some effect without making anyone pass out, as every individual's response to a drug is different and everyone drank a different amount of alcohol.
- The level of inebriation achieved does not seem by your report to have been sufficient to accomplish any nefarious deed.
- I wasn't there.
Also note that the maximum proof most stores can sell most liquor in in Ohio, where you're from, is 42 proof (I think they can go higher for distilled spirits, but not over 100), whereas in Maryland it's 189 proof. (Fun fact: Everclear manufactures a special Maryland 189-proof variety, because Maryland passed a law banning 190-proof Everclear.)
I really hope bad horse is right because roofieing people is incredibly exceedingly uncool and the antithesis to the brony ethos. Fuck that noise.
Anyway other than that thanks for hosting great parties!
There is of course the power of suggestion as someone said. That doesn't mean it didn't happen sadly though I hope it was more suggestion than something that really happened. I do agree the idea that someone might of done something that isn't cool to say the least
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I agree, although the woman getting drunk on water was when the mares decided something was amiss. I don't want to invalidate the reports, but my sharing of your doubts is why I hedged my language in the original post. I naturally hope it was some other fluke. Nonetheless, ponies deserve warning just in case.
I also wasn't there when it happened (people were still fine when they left my room as far as we know).
I seriously fucking hope that's not what happened.
I don't want to sound like I'm condoning the behavior, but usually roofies are used to rape someone. That means that the person needs to pass out and also be in somewhere that they can actually get the person out of the party. That usually is achieved by crushing several of them and putting them in a drink, but even half of one would probably put someone to sleep. When someone takes roofies, they don't walk around for several hours and complain they feel drunk. They pass out within 15 minutes usually, 30 minutes max. They also wouldn't be able to function correctly. They would get really spacey and not be able to think well enough to realize they had been roofied. If the girls were still walking around and were able to think "Damn, I feel like I drank more than I actually did" they weren't roofied.
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It supposedly happened quickly at the after party, then the mares there kicked everypony out before they conked out. But yeah I hear you, and I hope it didn't happen.
4634240 You can go to state stores and get much stronger alcohol. Rather than carry it with you to a convention it would be easier in a number of situations to buy it once you arrived
4634539 If they were roofied sounds like it was extremely slow acting or weak. Water is rather unusual to be spiked unless it was served to them rather than from a tap or bottle
Well I'm sorry about the people maybe being drugged, and for your door encounter.
But apart from those things it sounds like it was a good time!
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Honestly my biggest upset is Scootatail, but we'll go on a Scootaquest for a Scootaseamstress.
It was certainly a pleasure to meet you, TQ. Damn shame about the unpleasantness. I also hope that Bad Horse is right.
I regret that I missed the first party, but I got tied up in a big game of the Maid RPG at Stable Top. I have all the books for that because I think the game is a fantastic concept, but to date I've never been able to get a game of it. It was, of course, appropriately ponified, and the hilarity ensued to such a level that there ended up being two more sessions over the next two days. I'm the type that most certainly requires dragging out of my Fluttershell, at least where folks I've never met before in person are concerned. Thus perhaps I didn't say too much, but I was happy to eventually integrate. Such a shame that I was just really hitting my social stride when everything had to end!
Having being a con-goer since the late 90s I'm not stranger to the post-con emotional drag, but back in the anime days I always stuck to a small clique of people. A broader group makes the drag greater because you miss more people...but that's really not such a bad problem to have. Ah well, I have my Flutterplush to hug, she gets it
Thanks again for the crash space, Trixie!
Yeah, well, I bet you fucked that door up!
Trick - I loved the hotel party and I hope we can do this again next year
I was at the second party, and still have a pretty good recollection of who was there. Most of them I knew, and a few other ones I met up with the following day to get an idea about their general character. They seemed pretty decent.
The meat of the party was a Nordic drinking ritual, the Oath, the Toast, and the Boast, in which all participants (sans two who didn't drink alcohol) passed around a drink while each person took a minute to speak their mind. Between each speech, everyone would have a drink from their own glass - or the communal glass if it had been their turn.
Given the number of people in the room, everybody was basically camped out in a rough circle. So if there was fuckery afoot, someone would have had to be very creatively stealthy at slipping something into someone's drink - and simultaneously stupid enough to think they're going to get lucky by drugging someone in the middle of a solid group of friends.
Our hostess began to feel a bit woozy - and her friend on the other side of the room abruptly had to vomit. We got everyone out of there in a matter of minutes, and let them lock the door behind us. All in all, it was a great time while it lasted, and I legitimately hope that they were feeling sick from something they ingested themselves, because it sickens me to think that someone would try to take advantage of another person like that.
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No, you would not have. I wish you'd been there!
I would've liked to be there, but I think it would've made me really sad.
I guess maybe I've been to more very wicked parties than you, Horse, but it seems all too plausible. ALL the poni-applause for you folks who got a sense something was amiss and handled it. Don't second-guess yourselves, so long as you act in a civilized and responsible way. Halting a party and moving folks on is always OK if hosts/mares aren't feeling well. Singling out someone and accusing them… is what you didn't do, probably tough to work out anyway before a certain point. The important thing is, point not achieved.
Horse: I used to do drugs in a pretty serious way before I cut it out. Dosage is a tricky thing, especially if you're sneaking it into somebody who isn't willing. Maybe ponies prefer to roofie gently or something. Anyways, the problem was handled, and thank goodness for that.
As one very lively writer posting in another lively writer's blogpost: FFS, ponies, keep the wild grimdark noncon stuff in FICTION!
Yea like on the roofie thing : The reason they know what it was is one of them has had it happen to her before, felt it coming on, and alerted the others. It wasn't at your party but the one afterwards and it was every single female guest at that one but not the guys.
Like is it possible they all got it wrong, yes, but I mean, it kind of is a thing that does happen and unless you have a bunch of inexperienced drinkers altogether, 'Hey we're all suddenly feeling extremely way too intoxicated' in a domino effect isn't really a thing.
Party had one person I know get too intoxicated because I was the one making people walk them back. I get not wanting to think anyone would do such a thing, but people kind of do - and if someone was only drinking water and suddenly got overwhelmed that's kind of a big sign it's legit.
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It's not really strange when you consider the mindset of someone whose willing to do such a thing. Like, rohypnol dropped in a glass dissolves rather quickly. If it's a darker alcohol like whiskey then the window to spot it is even smaller because the fluid will obscure the presence of the roofie before it's gone.
Is it weird? Yes. Is it creepy? Yes.
But people do it. And tons of my female friends in the pony fandom each have individual stories about creepy or abusive individuals who have targeted them, and the ones I'm thinking of off the top of my head have 0 connection to one another and I know them all independently, so I have much less trouble believing this happened.
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I have no trouble believing it at all. I guess I've just run with worse people, in my life.
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TBH I've seen this kind of scenario happen before: somebody wants to have a happy ending, but they're retarded and inexperienced so they go around putting small amounts of KO pills in everybody's drinks instead of targeting one specific person. I know it probably sounds extremely callous the way I put it, but like you I've been around drugs for a long time and I learned pretty fast to never put down an open drink in a room full of people.
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I sincerely hope she and everybody else involved learns from this. This also probably sounds callous, but like I said--don't put your drink down at a party and you have a much smaller chance of waking up in an unfamiliar place with no memory of the night before. But I also hope nobody lets this ruin their lives. Just because one fat, sweaty asshole turned out to be a piece of garbage is no reason to give up on the world.
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I remember someone told me the day after this what the effects they felt from it were. I've been using benzodiazepines on and off for years and they were pretty much describing what's happened any time I've combined them with alcohol. So, although I wasn't there, I can corroborate her description as being accurate in regards to benzodiazepine drugging.
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My pharma-sense says this person wasn't using actual classic roofies, but rather one of the many grey web benzo variants out there. These are legal for purchase without prescription, technically, and can work just as well or better as substitutes.
In ye olden days, when everything was beyond the statute of limitations and you can't prove otherwise, I would often sell people "Xanax" that was really one of these legal clones pressed into pills and rebranded at a higher street price. So, I was basically the go-to praa for benzos. Sometimes, I would get creepy people who wanted small amounts of very powerful, very specific benzos. They were often the same people.
Some of them were obviously addicts, testing the waters of other seas--but there was this one guy who only came around once in a while and he had this look about him like he was way too good for this scene. Didn't quite fit in. That bothered me a lot because it wasn't logically hard to guess what he was going to do with it. Eventually, after a couple of deals with this guy, I started telling them my supplier ran out even though we both knew this was a lie. Not really much else I could do without putting myself at risk since I didn't know his name. I never saw him again. I hope he's in jail now.
Again, this was back when in the good old days and all, so it was quite a while ago.
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Not at all. It's very easy to get powdered or liquid form benzodiazepines these days. Keep in mind that pretty much everyone at this party is drunk and not paying attention to their drinks. It's not hard to KO somebody in that kind of situation.
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Horse, I hate to break it to you, but there are some people in the world who do bad things to each other.
I'd say "somebody spiked the drinks to have le moar fun" but I feel like the fact that it was only women that it happened to makes it seem a bit more sinister. Hysteria is also out because we have multiple methods of confirmation: that someone who was not drinking alcohol was affected, and that one of the affected had previously had a similar experience and recognized it as unique in comparison to regular drinking.
So, basically, it's very unlikely that this was hysteria (unless the person who'd previously been drugged was also the one drinking the water, in which case it casts some doubt but doesn't disprove the assertion).
I'm inclined to go with it being true based on the available evidence.
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I was going to come to your party. I'm sad now that I didn't. Free downers and I missed it! =(
Oh well.
You should send me that list of the people who were there. I have friends.