The Bronycon Blog I’ve been promising for days. · 9:19pm Aug 17th, 2017
The Bronycon blogpost you’ve all been waiting for is finally here!
So… what did Syeekoh do at Bronycon? I suppose the best place to start would be from the beginning.
Thursday
So Thursday I was already tired because MidnightDancer and FoughtDragon came to pick me up in New Jersey from the Philadelphia area. We drove down, and in the car I bombarded them with little factoids I had picked up about geography and whatnot. I’m pretty sure they were thoroughly annoyed with me by the time we pulled into our hotel, but at least they learned a few things. So we decompressed for a bit before picking up our badges. After I grabbed my badge, talked a bit with Wuten and Loyal ― the first a fic reader and the second a guy who’s involved with the Semi-Perfect podcast. After that I wandered around for a bit, then touched base with Brasta Septim and a few others we were trying to meet up with for clandestine dinner eating at Chick-fil-a, the most clandestine place to eat dinner.
After that I got a text from Dancer saying she was eating alone, so I had no choice but to eat dinner a second time and pregame for drinking later with her. FoughtDragon and Petrichord joined up with us eventually, and we wandered off to Fell’s Point, where I touched base with MitchH and we had a lovely chat as I ordered, and I quote, “the shittiest tequila you have because I’m not going to taste it”. Unfortunately, it was very shitty, and I did taste it. I had a pleasant conversation with him for a tad, then disengaged to talk with Horse Voice and… the guy who edits for Horse Voice, I believe he was introduced as. Eventually horizon and THE AUTHOR OF MY LITTLE DASHIE showed up, and I slowly worked my way down to bar to say hi to… uh… Zyrian, drax99, GaryOak the bastard… other, people(fill me in if I forgot you), NikitaKitten, and Lord Legion and his sister. Then I went outside to smoke and there was this guy who was motherfucking trashed, so FoughtDragon heroed it up and called an Uber while me and another guy carried him up and down the sidewalk and kind of, rolled him into the car. Before that, though, I had a lovely conversation with a Pepper Pony about physical media such as plushies and MLP themed jewelry.
Then Petri, Dancer, Dragon, and I trekked on home because it was last call for the boat and I might have stabbed someone if we had to walk all the way from Fell’s Point to our hotel. I got 30 minute fits of sleep the entire night except for the last hour, I think. So that was Thursday.
Friday
Friday was the day that the con started properly. I dressed up and made it to the convention. Touched base at Quills and Sofas, where all the writers hang out, and then wandered around the convention because I saw a tweet that Wubcake was around, and she was in the last place I looked. We traded pleasantries about how our small towns paled in comparison to large cities like Baltimore, and snagged a picture with her. I ran into maskedferret and Jake, and I went to Jake’s panel about Dealing with the Media, which was highly entertaining as he ran out of material halfway through and I shouted stuff like “what’s your favorite bagel” and “TELL US ABOUT THE TIME YOU GOT PEPPER SPRAYED”. There was another guy up there, Big Large McHuge who knew what he was talking about as well.
So, panel over, I headed back to Q&S where I ran into Flutterpriest and Anonpencil. I think I ran into Anonpencil, too. They were usually together. I think this was around the time where Flupri threatened to punch me in the face after I jokingly made a lewd comment to pencil, whereupon I informed him that getting punched in the face was my fetish. And then anonpencil drew a lovely picture of me getting punched in the face by Fluttershy while popping a boner captioned “THIS IS MY FETISH”. So fun was had by all. I might be getting my timeline wrong, but whatever.
Then I saw this young woman wearing a Pikachu hat sitting at the table with the typewriters THE AUTHOR OF MY LITTLE DASHIE had brought to the convention, and I’m watching these people just walk up to her and talk to her so I elbow someone and say “who’s that?” and this person says “that’s Monochromatic” and I got a little nervous because I wanted to say hi to her and also I felt stupid because she had mentioned that she was going to be wearing a Pikachu hat. So I wait for the crowd to disperse for a bit and we exchange pleasantries and she asks to see my nametag. So I flip it.
And her face lights up like she had met the most important person at the convention, which caught me off guard just a little bit.
It turns out that she admires my creativity and my ability to publish what I want without fear of audience repercussion. Also apparently she was afraid that I didn’t like her or something because of how I come across on the site? But yeah we had a pleasant chat that was cut off by lunch, which was with… Jake, Arch, Plum… I wanna say Captain Unstoppable, and shellsh0cker at the noodle place at the inner harbor. I ordered the spiciest thing on the menu and slathered it with hot sauce, which was fun, but my stomach regretted it an hour later. I think this is when I touched base with Georg where we had a pleasant discussion about a traditionally unpleasant topic. After that I wandered around a bit where I got my picture with Hunter Chrysalis where we talked about traffic and whatnot and also ran into BriLizy T where we said hi and she talked about getting band-aids for the blisters caused by her shoes.
Also earlier that day I ran into Brittney Ackerman, Watch Pony, and Bonus Round, which was cool. I think it was earlier that day.
Also I think it was at this point Parasprite asked me to accompany her to her hotel, which was fine with me because we took a taxi and I was not in the mood to walk. So, I guess Para got super distracted or something because she went downstairs.
Then burst into the room and said, “Syeekoh Christian Weston Chandler is here.”
And my thought is of course Para would find him here.
“I mean Christine.”
Her.
“She’s here for Bronycon and I think we should be nice to her.”
…uh huh.
And as it was said, so it was done: everyone at Bronycon was nice to her, to the point where she left a heartfelt message to that effect pinned up on the art corkboard, a corkboard where people displayed art they drew at the convention.
I’m going to pretend it was at this point that I had dinner. I ran into Brasta again, along with Leapingriver, some guy who seemed very personable named Buttonwood, Atlas, and Leaping’s sister, where I noticed the Youth Badge.
So I’m like “guys we should eat dinner” because there was a party later that evening and I wanted food in my stomach before drinking, because last year I went to this party and all of a sudden it was Saturday morning and my roommates were mad and me and anyway.
We went to Chipotle, which was very nice. I made fun of Leaping because her younger sister had far better elocution than she did, and somehow the topic of furries came up and her sister asked me what a furry was. So I explained it to her in an intelligent, non-derogatory manner because she seemed far more mature than the rest of us.
After that, I spent some more time with Mono and her friends before I went to Trick Question’s party, where I ran into PyroTemper Tantrum on the way up and asked if I could get a picture of her with her bass cannon the next day. Suffice to say I would have been far *more* nervous if I recognized her from derpibooru for reasons that are not appropriate for a blogpost.
SO
I get to the party and find it because goddamn was it loud. Brasta was already there, and he was wasted. I ended up in a cuddle puddle with Captain Unstoppable, maskedferret, Aquaman, and Jake. At some point Shalrath and I went downstairs to smoke and we chatted up this Navy woman who was in Baltmore for an EDM festival, where she traded stories with Shalrath about the Navy and memories of getting so wasted we forgot where our feet were with me. Stick to your strengths, you know?
Afterwards the party ended and I touched base with shellsh0cker and Horse Voice in the lobby, where Horse Voice was explaining the concept of the “Native Telephone”, which is something along the lines of, um, thinking about something and it happens laterr that week? Horse Voice is free to elaborate and/or correct me on this.
So I walked in the direction of the con center and saw Plum, Novel-Idea, Mono, Corejo, and… I wanna say Drax, so I kind of just sort of integrated myself into the walking group and surprised Plum a bit. They were heading towards someone’s hotel room to see if they could catch a Ducktales stream, which they could not.
OH YEAH.
I met Swan Song earlier. He’s super cool. I went with him and a few people to Johnny Rocket’s to eat before the party. He let me use his portable charger and got me a Lyft to the party on his dime. We talked about the show and stuff. This came up because we ended up going to the same hotel.
Anyway, we couldn’t get the stream, so Corejo and I walked to our hotel in the rain. I was somewhat tipsy from the drinking earlier, so we talked about stuff. I turned in for the night.
Saturday
“Majin, get up.”
“Dancer, no.”
“Majin, get up, you have a panel at ten.”
“…fine.”
So I got up and put on a suit because there’s no reason to not look your best in front of a crowd. I met up with Corejo downstairs who found out about this neat breakfast place, which was unfortunately too far, so we got breakfast at Chick-fil-a.
The coffee is trash at Chick-fil-a.
I ate my breakfast and rushed off to our panel, Editing is Magic, with Pascoite, Corejo, ABagOfVicodin, Sunchaser, maskedferret, Dubs Rewatcher, and… and me, I guess. My mom texted me during the panel, and she got a round of applause. I’d say the panel went great. At least everyone tells me it did. Right after the panel, though, I had to rush to the Quill and Blade meetup to touch base with Crystal Wishes and Anzel. I met several other lovely people as well. I was feeling a little sensitive from the panel because apparently public speaking does that to people?
Crystal had presents for me from my birthday which was two months prior. She got me a wonderful card, a Perler sculpture of Adagio Dazzle, and a Midnight Sparkle sticker. It was such a nice gesture that I damn near cried and illegally hugged Crystal(she had a fractured rib and I hugged a bit too tight; I had already hugged Anzel super tight to make up for not being able to hug Crystal as tight and I still hugged her too tightly anyway). So I had a good time at the QnB meetup that day.
I think I touched base with Flammenwerfer at this point or something. Hi Flam. Well, anyway, I was feeling a little emotionally labile, and I wanted to thank Mono for that really nice thing she said to me in a more private space in case I actually cried. This was at one. She was working on a commission for earthsong at the time, so she said to come back at 2. I came back at 2 and she wasn’t done yet, so I sat down because I thought it was really important to properly thank her.
Fast forward to four-ish. She finishes, i pull her aside while Novel edits it, I thank her, and that launches a conversation that continues all the way to the FedEx printing store because not only was she writing something for earthsong, she was getting professionally bound. We get to the FedEx, and I need to pee.
They don’t have a bathroom at the FedEx, so they refer me down the street.
I stop by a nearby hotel.
They don’t have a public bathroom.
I stop by a nearby Subway.
I need to buy something to use the bathroom, at which point I remember I’m in “all of the heroin” Baltimore and buy a goddamned cookie so I can pee. So I get back to the FedEx place, eat half the cookie and give the other half to Mono, which just seemed polite. She finishes up at the place, and we head back to the con center and go our separate ways. At this point I run into Scribbler. We chat it up a bit, and she waves Xena Ferrer from Twitter over so the three of us can take a saucy picture together.
Then I head back to Quills and Sofas and talk around, grab some Cheerios out of the box that THE AUTHOR OF MY LITTLE DASHIE brought for just such an occasion. I touch down with Archonix and we talk about… stuff, and he tries to look up something I uploaded anonymously that was removed from derpibooru which he could unfortunately not find.
The I see an AugieDog. I sit next to him, thank him for nominating my story to the Royal Canterlot Library, he thanks me for writing an enjoyable story, and then we get into a conversation about fiction.
Then the Writer’s Dinner happened. A huge chunk of us dredged through pouring rain, but I thought to bring a raincoat. Only the bottom half of me got soaked. We sit down, my date was Novel-Idea, we talk about stuff. Interesting stuff. About Sunset and whatnot. And then I have to rush back to the hotel and change out of my wet clothes because they were wet.
Then I attended the collab panel with Crystal and Aznel. Highly informative, but the best part was watching the two of them be in love on stage. After the panel, the crowd bumrushed them and I said something along the lines of “hey guys maybe you should let them get off the stage first” and for some reason they listened.
After this I touched base again with Loyal in the Hall of Chaos, then walked back down to Q&S and I asked Mono why she liked Raritwi.
I was not expecting the answer I got. It was beautiful. She blogged about it.
After this I caught the tail end of the 50 Shades of Neigh panel because I said I was going there, and proceeded to use Admiral Biscuit as a battering ram to navigate the crowd afterwards. After this I turned in for the night
Sunday
Sunday we lazed around for a bit. This was goodbye day. I remember eating a lot of Cheerios that day. I caught the Pony Sims panel about collabing over long distances with Yudhaikeledai, Brittney Ackerman, Pinkie Rose, and Deathscar, a name I recognized from the Writeoff contests. They gave a very good presentation ALSO I FINALLY GOT TO USE MY PANELIST BADGE TO CUT IN LINE, so there’s that. After that I went to get Kelly Sheridan’s signature. I was nearly in tears in the line, but managed to compose myself by the time we got to the picture and photo.
After that, I went to the QnB photoshoot, where all of that walking finally got to me as I needed four people to help me up from a kneeling position. Then I rushed back to Quills and Sofas to catch the Author’s Photo, which we took twice. Once when half of us were missing, once when all of us where there. I’m sure if you put all eight photos from the second time in succession, you can see my face in increasing amounts of pain.
Then I went to a Brazilian steakhouse with a bunch of people, including horizon, where I negotiated the terms of the taco video with him, and Applejinx, who has very interesting stories, and Wanderer D, who I talked shop with a bit on the way back. They had quail eggs there. I liked the quail eggs.
I got a picture with Brittney and WatchPony somewhere in this time, too. My memory’s getting super fuzzy around here.
Dancer, Dragon, Petri, and I met back in the room, and we all had very emotional weekends for different reasons. Dancer had been giving me shit all weekend for not being classy because I like to pull my cigarettes out before I make it outside, so I said to her “Look, I’m so classy I wear a collared shirt to bed” and she just lost it. That led to two hours of laughter and ducks.
Monday
We woke up and went home, Dancer, Dragon, and I.
All in all, it was a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t trade in for the world.
LET ME KNOW IF I FORGOT TO MENTION YOU AND I’LL SUMMON THE MEMORY FROM MY DATABANKS IN THE COMMENTS
People I didn’t mention in the Bronycon story
Twinkletail - Always a pleasure to talk to you. Your positivity is rather infectious.
The Abyss - There’s always going to be some bro time when you’re around, man.
Skeeter - Always peppy and motivated to have a good time, it seems.
Archsod - I remember spouting my bullshit theory in your general area, which was a bit of fun.
…yeah if I forgot you just bring it up in the comments.
OH YEAH
special shout-out goes to Ether Echoes because I really admire what she does on the site concerning activism and she's emotionally holding me hostage to read her story
Glad you had a good time, sorry I wasn't there to give you support when you were feeling fragile, but I'm so glad to hear others were.
That must've been awkward.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed your time at BronyCon. It sounds like a lot of fun stuff happened.
I'm sorry missed you at the convention.
I can confirm Editing is Magic was quite well done, in no small part thanks to you. I spotted a few times in Quills & Sofas, but I never really broached the subject. Still, good to have seen you again.
4638274
It's okay, we were probably both really busy.
4638289
That's comforting.
And it was a pleasure to run into you again as well.
I only got to see you for a few minutes, but that's fine! you got to meet all the cool people
4638301
Oh shit I'm so sorry.
We did meet, first at the media panel then we acknowledged each other a few times afterwards.
It seems we are within orbit of each other. I'll have to look forward to getting to know you, but I'm glad you had a good con!
4638313
From my perspective, it seems as if you did as well.
Here's to next year.
I wasn't actually mad at you on the way down until we were in Baltimore proper (you can tell, because the streets appear to have been laid out by a city planner on PCP), and that was just minor irritation because I was trying to listen to the GPS while you tried to regale us with stories about How Equestria Was Made and bro, I love you, but don't do that to me if I'm driving in Baltimore
I did promise to get you up for your panel!
4638324
Hey, you seemed like a pretty chill dude to me.
4638349
Yeah I figured as much.
And I know you did, I just don't like waking up.
4638364
I know, snorey mcsnoreyson :3
4638366
I was offended for half a second before I thought about how true this was.
I wish I was able to go this year, you guys sound like a riot! And I don't mean like the kind we got a while back...>.>
I hope you got at least a 5 yard penalty for that illegal hug. :B
Also, you cry more than I would have thought.
4638411
Hey
First of all, I nearly cried, and second of all, it was very emotional.
I'm sure I said this, but here it is again. I expected we would end up disagreeing on something, but was pleasantly surprised when we quickly came to understand each other. I guess friendship really is magic.
As for my friend, until he settles an a consistent pen name, we shall call him "Assistant to Mr. Voice."
That's my regional nickname for weird, inexplicable things that happen more often than most people admit. For example, someone looks at you from behind, and you feel an impulse to turn around and catch them at it. Or, you randomly think of someone you haven't spoken to in ages, and the next minute the phone rings, and it's that person. Most likely, it's some weird quantum physics thing. (Spoilered for slightly off-topic: I even wrote a story about this concept, ponified of course.)
When I saw that, you could've knocked me over with a feather. I didn't think even God could make Chris-Chan a better person. If it sticks, I will never again doubt the power of Pony. That's a promise.
I was not mentioned in this. I am the sads.
4638722
Would it make you feel better if I put THE AUTHOR OF MY LITTLE DASHIE, ROBCAKERAN53?
Saw you around, but didn't get the nerve to tell you in person that your stories always make my a day a little weirder whenever they get reviewed.
4639401
I know that feeling all too well.
Trust me. It still means a lot that you told me in my blog just now.