Stories of Bronycon 2017 - This is Kismet

As per the tradition that only became a tradition when I made post, I have typed up a variety of stories of my time at Bronycon this year. Some of them are funny, some are sad, but all of them had meaning to me in one way or another. I hope you all enjoy them and, if you haven’t been, are intrigued enough to come next year.

I meant to post these sooner, and I meant to post my list of the people of Bronycon first, but I've found myself swamped and tired of delays. I will get that other post up, but I wanted to get this material out there. I had what I can only describe as an emotional rollercoaster in Baltimore, and I want to share with all of you the things that happened. So please, read them if you can, and thank you.

Nyronus and the Bad Bad Terrible Awful Trip

It wouldn’t be an Nyronus Bronycon retrospective without a dumpster fire of a trip in, now would it?

Now, I won’t regale you with a play by play of the 37 hour odyssey I made across the nation courtesy of the Greyhound bus service, largely because I would have trouble remembering most of it, and truth be told, most of it was pretty okay. Have spent somewhere in the ballpark of 120 hours on various buses and bus stations this month, I actually kind of like traveling Greyhound when, you know, nothing is going horribly wrong. You get to sit in a relatively comfy chair, read books, listen to music, and watch the countryside go by. There’s also a certain sense of community veteran Greyhounders have. A sense of shared long suffering at Greyhound’s, uh, “quirks.” Aside from a couple creepily high strung bus drivers (one of whom was named “Gentle”) things went pretty okay. Atlanta wasn’t even as bad as it humanly could have been.

Well, aside from the fact that I learned that newer buses are in fact less comfortable than older buses the hard way. I also learned that some seats on the newer buses just don’t have any leg room. I learned both of these things at the same time, which was also roughly when I was trying to sleep.

I digress though. The real problem came in at Richmond. Namely when Brasta Septim had his ticket checked and stepped toward the bus - just as the driver unceremoniously slammed the door in my face and walked off.

You see, they had overbooked the bus. I and everyone behind me had been shuffled onto the overflow bus. Which took a full half hour extra to leave. We then stop in Washington to find that they’ve overbooked the overflow bus. A family of six french tourists refuse to vacate the bus or split up and have some members wait for the next bus.

We are held up a further hour until they’re extracted.

I then got to enjoy the beautiful New England forests as we move from DC to Baltimore. I get to enjoy them in excruciating detail because we had hit a traffic jam.

I am tired, thirsty, hungry, stressed, and starting to randomly black out. Only to, you know, wake up in twenty minutes when my tailbone starts to ache unbearably.

At about the point where I begin to actively wonder if I died on that bus and God has chosen to punish my Angry McAtheist™  phase by trapping me on an eternal almost completed trip to Bronycon, we finally get to Baltimore.

Four hours late I march to a cab in the parking lot and ask for a trip to the Days Inn.

I get there, I shower, dress, and start making plans. I’m so excited to be there a day early. I can get my badge, meet up with my friends, have dinner, hang out. I’m pumped to see everyone again. I have two immediate problems though: not everyone is in town yet, and I have a serious toothache. So, I make a convenience store run for my precious energy drinks, snacks, and acetaminophen. I take my medicine and begin catching up on YouTube, but the pain isn’t abating at all. I decide to lay down for a moment to let the pain killers have an easier time taking effect.

Then I wake back up at midnight.

I missed the whole evening.

A whole extra evening.

Unfortunately there was not much else to do since I now had to be at the con early to get my badge. So I changed into my jammies and go back to bed.

Nyronus and the Random Sights and Events of Bronycon

So, the following are a few things I saw or did that I feel are either brief enough to present without much context - or that I think would be funnier that way.

• On the bus ride up I binged fics. Among the lot I read a couple of Wanderer D’s Three Sisters stories, Horizon’s Administrative Angel, and FanofMostEverything’s Sugarcatharasis and Silicon Tiara. In Order; Okay, Okay, Great, Good Start But Needed to Be Longer, and Eh.
• Among the cosplay I saw, a full cold climate gear Imperial Storm Trooper, Princess Deadpool, and a man wearing a cardboard cutout M.A. Larson mask holding a sign that said FREE WINGS. I took a picture of the Storm Trooper for my Star Wars nut brother, Princess Deadpool for my friends, and just got free wings from Larson.
• I got meet Daniel Ingram and shake his hand. Also, seeing him and Black Gryphon geek out over the classic Ducktails theme and drag the new one was pretty great.
• I accidentally crippled Skeeter the Lurker with my welcome hug. I saw him walk into a panel, shouted his name with great, bellowing joy, and swept him up into what could only be described as a bear hug and let him go only to watch him limp away. This would not be the only person I would injure with enthusiastic hugging this con. This may end up being a meme.
• I punched Horizon in the face. Everyone agreed he deserved it, Horizon included, although he pointed out to me that, tactically speaking, I should have gone for his legs because hitting him in the head may impair his ability to publish the fic I was punching him for not publishing.
• I also spent the con randomly reminding Horizon that his fic Administrative Angel was awesome. I finally got to sit him down and explained why I found it so amusing. Speaking of which, read Administrative Angel. It’s good.
• I also spent the con shilling for Nadnerb, which is now customary. It hopefully makes up for the fact that I spend tons of money on pony merch but never buy anything from him.
• I got to see an ordained Anglican priest get totally sloshed at a party. I’m not going to name names - but Brasta Septim knows what he did. I was told by said priest that just like the Catholics, Anglican priests have a long, proud tradition of drunkenness; they just don’t use whisky.
• Speaking of parties, at another I was treated to some Clown Shoes Imperial Stout. I don’t know which one, but I think it was Ohio Unidragon. It was good and I enjoyed it.
• Also speaking of parties I had to leave one because it was becoming increasingly ambiguous whether people were going to merely drink from a certain replicated piece of horse anatomy, or use it for other means which I cannot describe without breaching site-wide rules about blog content.
• ROBCakeran53 screams in agony if you tell him you’ve read My Little Dashie. This may be because he is secretly either a superhero or a super villain and this is his plot critical weakness. This should be kept in mind if he ever tries to take over the world.
• I participated in I believe six separate conga lines at Bronypalooza
• DustyKat sells hand-made fully functional three string electric guitars made out of My Little Pony lunchboxes. This is easily the coolest thing ever, which makes sense, DustyKat made it after all. I almost spent money I didn’t have on one despite having no means or interest of playing an electric guitar of any kind or make. It’s just that cool.
• I learned all sorts of fun facts, like you can make good money as an Anglican priest, or at least better money, if you are willing to tap into the booming gay marriage market. Also, the leadership of the Byzantine Empire had crippling allergies to eyes, competence, and basic human decency.
• I finally explained to someone what I meant when I tell them I wear kevlar lined leather gloves because “you never know when you’ll need to wrangle a squirrel.” It involved a true story and a squirrel nearly biting clean through one of my fingers.
• Corejo was not aware that the greatest gift he gave last Bronycon was a black eye.
• Bad Horse learned that it is not true that anything I touch dies instantly. What he has yet to confirm is whether or not I can choose to kill anything I touch, and merely chose to spare his life.
• When in doubt about which necklace to buy - buy both!
• I have what is apparently an extraordinary ability to fit things in tight places.
• That last point was not innuendo.
• Plushies are still far too expensive but I want them anyway, damnit.
• Skeeter has a problem. Skeeter asked me to help him with his problem. Skeeter then snuck off on Sunday without telling me to indulge in more of his bad habits. Bad Skeeter, bad!

Nyronus and the Making of Equestria

Last year, coming home was meeting Skeeter at Quills and Sofas. This year it was going to the That’s How Equestria Was Made panel.

All my writer friends were there to see Bad Horse and co’s new storytelling game. The premise is pretty simple. One player plays Celestia who asks the other six, who are all playing the Mane 6, why some crazy whacky incident has happened. The other players take turn adding onto the story, coming up with more and more outlandish details to explain why the castle is filled with custard, or why everyone has beards now, while trying to make things seem not as bad as they actually are.

It’s a great premise for a game. Unfortunately I saw a lot of people flounder to keep in the spirit of the game and try and weave outlandish but still logically connected stories on top of each other. There was also some struggle to keep everyone involved in the game. Still, we got some golden moments, like the time travel round, or just GaPJaxie playing Twilight Sparkle in general. He truly was fabulous.

I only went on twice and only had one really good showing. This time Celestia wanted to know why everyone in Ponyville looked like Twilight Sparkle. Everyone ran around shifting blame until I, as Pinkie Pie, stepped in and explained that, seeing as everyone in Ponyville was feeling down, I wanted to cheer them up, and, do you know what? Turns out that Twilight is the most popular princess and all around best pony, so who wouldn’t feel better being her? Of course, I didn’t know how, so I asked Twilight, who outlined a variety of possibilities, and seeing a good one, I snagged it and went ahead with it despite Twilight telling me silly things like it being “dangerous” and “highly unethical.” All that was needed was the Castle of Friendship and a magical light catalyst to start it off, which I got with the help of my good friend - Rainbow Dash!

FanofMostEverything, playing Twilight this round, roleplayed wanting to strangle me to death very well.

Nyronus and the Meeting of Fans

A surprising number of my ponyfic bucket list items have kind of been checked off, looking back on it.

Cool People™ have read, liked, and supported my work, both my fiction and my more theoretical writing. I’ve become friends with a surprising number of Fimfic Famous people over the years. I haven’t really achieved my goal of being able to support those writers whose art I love but who get overlooked, and it is a surprisingly common occurrence for me to go to Bronycon, have someone look at my name tag, confess they don’t know who I am, only to look me up and realize they’ve favorited half of what I’ve written and follow me which is… a little odd to experience. Especially repeatedly.

One fantasy I’ve had though is to have someone catch me as they went by, approach me, and then proceed to geek out about something I’ve written that they’ve loved, completely unprompted.

So color me tickled when Axis of Rotation taps me on the shoulder to confirm my identity and gush about how awesome my blogpost on writing design and criticism was.

I ended up hanging out with Axis a bit on and off a few times during the con and he was pretty cool to chat with. Pretty sharp and focused. I am totally not buttering him up because he fulfilled my fantasy of being liked by passing strangers shut up.

After two years of randomly chatting up every Cool Author™ I met about my favorite stories of theirs, it felt nice to have the shoe finally be on the other foot. It’s honestly just nice to feel recognized and appreciated.

Nyronus and the Day the Wub Nation Attacked

So, one of the Bronypalooza sets I decide to check out was VyletPony’s, because, hey, I like, like, three of their songs. Of course, on my way there, I consider that Vylet’s style might make for poor concert music since they have a weird, melodic, plinking, notey techno style, as exemplified in pieces like this, or this. Which, hey, may not be the best rave music, but would probably sound pretty nice on a huge ass sound system.

So, I get down to the dance floor and Vylet comes on, and starts out their set with this pretty, synthy chord progression.

And then the bass drops.

And it does not stop dropping

For about forty-five minutes.

Which, for reference, was the length of their set.

They even played Little Dreams as part of the finale of their set, except it was now basically 50% Wubs.

So, yeah, that was a bit of a surprise.

Nyronus and the Compassion of the Community

I have a problem.

A problem being that I have a limited amount of wall space and money and there were way too many good artists at Bronycon.

So I’m wandering about the marketplace desperately trying to avoid buying more Assassin Monkey art when I come across a booth with a wide variety of artists on display along with a set of printing equipment. They actually take orders out of a catalogue, and make prints on demand. I get greeted by one of the staff at the table and what I end up being told is quite the interesting story.

The group calls themselves Bronyhouse, and they do so for a very specific reason. You see, they started out not as an collective retailer for a variety of Brony artists, but instead as a halfway home for Bronies in need of support, escaping bad homes or abusive relationships.

This meant a lot to me to hear. I don’t like talking about it much in public but I’ve had some serious drama in my life from 2012 to 2014, and still have it crop up over and over again due to things I’ve yet to fix about my life. At one point, things got so bad I had to throw myself on the mercy of my friends and the job market and run away from my home because the stress of living there had become unbearable. So hearing that this person had made a dedicated effort to help people that had been in my position had meant a lot for me to hear. Unfortunately, right now they can’t do that anymore. Financial misfortune had made it so the founder could no longer run a shelter out of pocket and caused him to lose his home.

They are working back to reopening the shelter and in the meantime they offer a good service to fandom artists, that puts their artists first. I wish I could help out more but for the time being it seems there isn’t much for me to do. I do recommend checking them out though: they currently run a Patreon that allows you to build up credits to either have prints sent to you or to have them pre-printed to pick up at a con. A lot of good artists have stuff up. The director also directed me to a Google+ group called “Help A Brony Out” where you can offer advice and support to other Bronies.

I was really glad I stumbled across them. I remember how much that situation sucked for me and to learn people out there fought so hard to help alleviate some of that chaos and misery in other peoples’ live was good to hear. It also reminded me that we are a fandom of charity, a theme I saw over and over again at the con which warmed my heart as it was something I had seen less and less of over the years.

They also had a pair of paintings up for printing that I had really liked in the past.

Which I bought.

Despite telling myself I was only going to buy one print this Bronycon and focus on other kinds of merch.

Because I have no self control and you people are too awesome for my own good.

And then I bought the holographic 3D Pixelkitties Glimtrix poster from the Enterplay booth when it went on sale the next day.

[weeps]

Nyronus and the Great Flood of Bronycon ‘17

After wrapping up an excellent panel with Wanderer D, Hoirzon, GaPJaxie, and Pen Stroke on getting into roleplaying games, I made my way over into the Hilton to go to another room party being hosted by Bad Horse. Things went well there and JediMasterEd introduced me to some wonderful alcoholic samplings as the man is wont to do, and I got to talk to Axis of Awesome and Admiral Biscuit about Norse politics and shamanism and the strange, colorful history of homosexuality in Christendom. While there though, discussion of the Writer’s Dinner came up. For those not in the know, the Writers’ Dinner is when a group of the FimFiction Cool Kids™ all descend upon an Irish Pub on the Baltimore waterfront for food, revelry, and discussion. I had been interested in it last year, but was never sure how it worked aside from it being invitation based. So I asked around and I was directed to make an inquiry towards Masked Ferret. I managed to pull her aside in Quills and Sofas after the party dispersed and asked her. She told me to hold on and call over Sunchaser, who managed the list.

“Hey, this is Nyronus. He’s the one I asked you to add to the list a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Well, can he come?”

“Have we hit critical mass yet?”

“No.”

“Okay, whatever.”

And that’s how I got invited to the Writers’ Dinner.

So, everyone going in Quills and Sofas begin making their way to the end of the convention hall to meet up for the dinner. I managed to catch GaPJaxie and start talking his ear off about the one fanfic of his I really liked that no one read despite it being amazing. Things are going well until we get to the exit when we see a slight obstacle.

Namely an opaque, solid wall of water pouring down from the heavens.

I would later joke that of course God would voice his objection to me being invited.

So everyone gathers around and starts debating how to handle it. I vanish from the group and then reappear sporting a fashionable black waterproof trench coat I did not have before. When questioned I inform them I had black raincoats stashed all over Baltimore in case of raincoat emergencies. And by “stashed” I meant “stashed” and by “all over Baltimore” I meant “in my laptop case” and by “in case of raincoat emergencies” I meant “because I checked the weather app and saw it would rain basically every day of the con and wanted to be prepared if I had to travel during those periods.”

Soon everyone else is bolting down the sidewalk or uselessly huddling under tiny umbrellas while I am literally skipping through the streets, cackling with every step. Because I am a good friend and do not in any way rub my good fortune and forward thinking in the faces of those I love for comedic effect.

One person shouted from somewhere behind me “Fuck you, raincoat dude!”

I felt pretty good.

Of course, joke’s on me; my outfit had a fatal design flaw in the form of my glorious silky smooth raven black mane. My hair got soaked and channeled water down my collar and onto my back, meaning by the time I got to the pub, despite being water proof only my front chest had remained dry while everything else got soaked through completely.

Nyronus and the Dour Hour

A few hours later though, things would not be so chipper.

The writer’s dinner was alright. I didn’t get to spend any time with the people I already knew or wanted to really meet, partially because I felt shy of sitting down next to anybody for fear of overriding pre-existing social dynamics. Pen Stroke sat with me, but we honestly didn’t talk much, although we got a laugh out of my futile struggle with the water tankard the table had been given. I did speak with the other writers at the table, and we ended up discussing unpublished passion projects that we spent too much time on and would never see the light of day, and I got to tell people of the hauntingly beautiful story project I will never finish, so that was kind of cool. The food was good, but based around the samples I got from other people’s plate I had somehow managed to fill up on the most aggressively boring food on the menu. I also wanted to catch Black Gryphon’s set at BronyPalooza which was in the middle of the time reserved for the dinner, and so I felt a fairly constant pressure to watch the clock.

I left late, got lost, got there late, and was too exhausted to really get into the concert in a physical sense. Truth be told… it also wasn’t as good as last year. Don’t get me wrong: Black Gryphon does not throw bad concerts, but the energy wasn’t as there and they spent a huge amount of time performing goof off songs or songs that he wasn’t even involved with at all. Creber spent more time on stage than him.

Then, tired, stressed, and a little disappointed, I wandered back up to Quills and Sofas to wait for YourEnigma’s set to start. There I find myself at a table with almost no one that I know, talking about things I… just didn’t really care about.

I start to feel alone in the room and a lot of stuff starts catching up with me at once. I began remembering all the good panels I missed due to scheduling conflicts, how I’ve struggled to get time to talk with the people who I wanted to become better friends with. The stress surrounding the dinner. How much of a letdown the concert compared to last year. How little I felt I got done out of what I wanted to get done. All the plans and hopes from last year unfulfilled due to how chaotic and miserable my life outside the fandom can be. Then I check my phone to see what my friends back home are up to and I see that according to them, discourse in America has essentially broken down to “lol, talk shit, get hit” vs “This is why the Republicans have and always will deserve to be killed in the streets like the dogs that they are.”

I just… didn’t feel good.

I hit Solobrony up to chat about how I’m feeling as I make my way down. He talks to me a bit about despite his frustration with how people are acting he hasn’t lost hope yet, and I tell him despite how down I feel, I think seeing YourEnigma will cheer me up.

I ended up being right. I had a good time cutting loose to YourEnigma’s admittedly more wubby-than-normal set. I join in the big dance circle and while I couldn’t really give 100% I still had a good time. I then stayed on to see Garnika because it was his last year, and while I didn’t care that much for his music, Garnika is a great showman and performer. Now, I did get an extra surprise when one of the people who’d seriously cut a rug during Enigma’s set gets behind the turntable and announces himself as Garnika. He even managed to put on a good show despite his equipment dying for minutes as a time.

I’m also excited because Alex S was the final performer. Now, I had recently discovered Alex S was a bit of a bro. A lot of Brony musicians would try to “go professional” by making their Brony fans second class citizens with how they organize their channels and then throw fits when that annoys people, and I’m not naming names, but Makkon and D.notive know what they did. Alex S though, despite leaving, they eventually came back, restored their music, and even starting producing new stuff I really liked.

Then Alex S comes on stage and starts playing, and as I listen I realized something.

Alex S is not the artist I was thinking about at all. Archie. Archie was the bro artist I had respect for for unfucking their fandom exit. Archie was the artist I liked. I had gotten excited to see Alex S purely because I had gotten them confused with Archie.

I also remembered I didn’t like much of anything Alex S ever produced except for Melting Pot of Alcohol.

So, I shrugged, left, and shook Garnika’s hand on my way out the door to go rest and catch up on the new episode.

So, things had gotten better, and some things hadn’t worked out, but the con wasn’t over yet. Even if things had gone wrong or disappointed now, there was still more chances to make good memories.

Nyronus and the Purchase of Destiny

So I am roving through the market place yet again Sunday morning, demoaning the terrible ratio of Things I Want to Buy vs Things it is Actually Reasonable For Me to Get, when I pass by NCMares booth for the umpteenth time. I had consider buying a print from them, but always begged off because they never had one I exactly wanted. I decide though instead of gawking I’d walk up and say hi. So I do so, tell them their work has a certain charm, and mention that I had a friend, namely Solobrony, who was a big fan. They were pleased to hear and I chatted with them a bit when I caught something small hanging on their display from the corner of my eye.

It was a photo sized print of Sunset Shimmer as Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell games.

Solobrony likes Sunset Shimmer.

Solobrony likes Splinter Cell.

Solobrony likes NCMares.

And it’s cheap.

It was then that I knew this purchase had to be made.

I then notice a piece I thought his style complemented well and asked for a purchase in the size he had that wasn’t terribly expensive. He only had it in really expensive. So Sunset went back home alone, but Solo got his gift and I felt like fate had been fufilled.

Nyronus and the Chance Meeting

I was making my third and final pass through the merchant hall on Sunday, picking up a few last things and looking around to see if anything else that wouldn’t break the bank caught my eye. I swung by Nadnerb’s (again) and saw a big Celestia plush. I asked if it was his and he said no, it belonged to Jykinturah.

This caught me off guard because Jykinturah and I had used to be friends.

I have a confession to make. For over a year, from the end of 2012 to the start of 2014, I was close personal friends with device heretic. Yes, that device heretic. He was easily one of my closest friends at the time, and I have many fond memories of him. He was also a whirling cesspool of human misery, constantly lashing out and abusing his friends in an awful game he was playing with his own soul while we were all just pieces on the board sometimes, I and fought tooth and nail to keep him alive as he struggled with his own ugly inner demons.

Then, in February 2014, he did something really awful to me.

The details of that are a story for another time and I’m not sure I’ll ever tell it here. Regardless, after the man I had put my sanity on the line to try and save betrayed me, I was not a happy. I had also already been circling the drain of suicide, with one memorable night where I went grocery shopping with some of my best friends and I found myself staring listlessly at a pile of lemons considering how inconvenient having such good friends were because they might start to notice if I tried to just let myself starve to death.

So, empty and looking for anything to hang onto, I began to turn to my and DH’s mutual friends for comfort. In particular Jyki had proven somewhat receptive to also listening to my political frustrations at the time as well as my frustrations with DH and some of his circle after the incident. Over a month or so I messaged him regularly and just talked and talked for hours sometimes and things were okay.

Then, one night, he came onto the chat drunk and began behaving in an odd fashion.

Then, three days later, I messaged him and we started talking and I brought up some of his behavior from a few nights before and he… well, from what I remember what he told me roughly was thus; that I was a clingy, emotionally weak person, that he found my alleged immaturity and weakness disgusting, that he was tired of sacrificing his time and energy into the emotional black hole that was my despair, that he was cutting contact with me, and if I wanted to fix this friendship the burden was entirely on me.

And that, I guessed, was the end of that.

After that I contacted him once to twice regarding some things I wanted to ask him about years later and he was straightforward, as was I, but there was little else to it. We weren’t feuding or fighting but we were now strangers, basically.

Now, flash forward to the con. It’s closing time and we’re being kicked out of Quills and Sofas. I’m chatting with someone when a person I hadn’t seen before wanders in and the person I was speaking with greets them with a happy “Hey, Jyki.”

I am not sure what to do. I hadn’t actually imagined he was at the con. I had assumed he’d mailed Nadnerb the plush, or something. So I ask the person if he was Jykinturah, and he affirms, looks at my badge, and recognizes me. He’s actually happy to see me. We chat a bit and he’s amiable if a little disoriented due to con fatigue. As well as things are going though, the fight still sits in the back of my mind, and I decide to just tackle the elephant in the room head on. I remind him of our fight three years ago, and he’s taken aback.

I discuss it with him and he reveals he had forgotten what had happened and I joked, half serious that now I bungled it by reminding him of it when we could have just moved on. He tells me that’s not true, and then tells he was glad I had brought it up.

He explained to me that he had had a problem for a long time. That his anger flares and he can end up taking it out on others before cooling down a few days later and going back to normal. He told me he he was taking active steps to curb that, now pulling out of situations before he blew now. That he was sorry he’d hurt me and ruined our friendship. For my part, I confessed that I did have a problem then with constantly seeking comfort and emotional validation from my friends, and that I knew now that it wasn’t always healthy for me, and that it really can be annoying to deal with it. Just like him I was taking active steps to help curb this habit of mine because… truthful, I want to be a source of joy for my friends, not suffering.

It’s hard to describe what that meant to me. To have a burden I didn’t even know I still had lifted.

Thank you Jyki. Thank you for being willing to open up to me and apologizing. Thank you.

It was good to meet you again, old friend.

Nyronus and the Accidental Cabal of Terribleness

Con is wrapping up and people are making post con hangout plans. There’s talk of a steakhouse dinner party and I want to go because I’d been having such a good time at this point hanging out with my friends buuuut it’s a bit rich for my blood. Like, 55 dollars a meal too rich for my blood. So, I decide to go back to my room, drop my swag off, get dinner my roommate Gypsy, and do some packing while I wait for Ferret to get back to me on post con parties. Me and Gypsy settle on pizza and have some fun hanging out, been goofy, and catching up on videos. At about eight I poke Ferret about anything she’s heard and she tells me to check out what Admiral Biscuit and Super Trampoline have going down. So I do and it’s some kind of crackfic collab and I figure I’ll just go and hang with everybody while the writing happens around me. I ask Gypsy and he decides to come with.

Then we get there and there’s only a few people and AB and Super Tramp are glad to have more writers.

I felt at odds. I don’t read or like many crackfics, and I felt super nervous about posting them to my profile, especially potentially super raunchy hyperderp ones that I didn’t even write.

I am also cripplingly polite and have an intense fear of being a bother and letting people down.

So, I decide to do it. Then I start getting into it. Then I start having a blast. I am writing some of the goofiest, stupidest shit with what little insanity I have to work with and I start loving every god forsaken minute of it. Dark things were wrought in that room and what you all will be presented with will be confusing, probably awful, and most of it isn’t my fault.

Some of it is though, and I’m glad for that.

Also, I got an Admiral Biscuit t-shirt. That’s pretty dope.

Nyronus and the Plausibly Transcendent Experience

So, after I, Admiral Biscuit, Super Trampoline, Gypsy, and a team of others ruin what little artistic dignity we had in the name of glorious silliness we are told Trick Question is having another after-party, so Gypsy and I head to that in hopes of me getting more hang-time with my Bronycon friends. When we get there, we are greeted with a dark room of guffawing laughter. We creep in and find they are watching Anthology VI, which, unlike all the others I’ve seen, is actually funny. We finish that up and Totally Legit Recap plays and that… was actually pretty fucking excellent. All around. I hadn’t watched the series before but the biting dark humor combined with the sincere and often spot on analysis is actually a treat. Seriously, go watch the Season 6 stuff. It’s great.

Most of the people there start packing to go and I me and Gypsy go to leave ourselves and I bump into Horizon coming back into the party.

Now, I had actually wanted to get some hang-time in with Horizon specifically this con for a lot of reasons. One, which despite all the hang-time we got, never quite came up outside of what happened next, was that I wanted to discuss with him the idea of magic.

Another confession, then; I believe in magic. My feelings towards it are complex, as are my reasons for believing in it, but essentially living with a coven of snarky sorcerers and having seen some of their shenanigans first hand I have become a believer. Horizon is also a self confessed mage, and I have a kind of fascination with magic. I crave exposure to it, to see it and experiment with it, because… I want to believe. I want to see this kind of stuff first hand more.

On the flip side though, the magic I have seen is often subtle in the extreme and frustratingly unreliable for the scientist in me because as any proper mage will tell you – magic comes from you, and if you aren’t in the right place spiritually, it won’t come. I also know the placebo effect is real, and the line between spiritual experience and self-inflicted schizophrenia is often a fine one, and one I see many people fail to really perceive. So I am left in the position of believing in magic and not being sure I believe in Horizon’s magic.

Which is… a little awkward, truth be told.

So, imagine my interest when Horizon reveals he and his couturier are here to complete a magic ritual.

Gypsy isn’t terribly interested and heads off, and I decide to stay. They all settle in a circle and I plant myself on the floor to watch. The ritual is explained thus: Each member has a cup of their own, and there is an extra cup passed around. Each time the cup comes to you you give a boast of your past exploits, a toast to the present, or an oath for the future. You then drink from the ceremonial cup while everyone else drinks from their personal cup. You’re statements can be as somber and silly as you want, and in fact, wild mood swings are encouraged as the cup goes around. Once the ritual cup comes back to the first person they have to sum up the theme of all the offerings that round, and make a toast based on it. There are three rounds and across all three each person must make a boast, a toast, and an oath, although in whatever the order they want.

The ceremony was interesting to watch. Each person… they opened up with each other, revealing what they are proud of, what they were happy for, and what they hoped to accomplish, and much of what they cared about in the process. One felt pride when people looked up to him. Another admitted that she craved a sense of risk in her life as it made her efforts meaningful. There was an intimacy to the whole affair that was enthralling to behold. After it was done several people said they felt a sense of spiritual closure – even one participant who had been at the start of the ritual and hadn’t been in the room for the end of it.

So… do, I think it was magic?

Maybe. Maybe it was all psychological. Maybe the intimacy and alcohol heightened their focus and emotional intensity creating a magical seeming mentally altered state. Maybe the latecomer was in a contemplative mood and, eager to believe, attributed his own frame of mind to a more exciting explanation as humans are often wont to do.

Or… maybe the mixture of altered mental state, emotional intensity, and the desire to believe made it magic even if it wasn’t before. Maybe the feeling of openness and the sense of connection created a subtle empathic bond simply because they wanted it to and were open to believing that they could.

Or, maybe it doesn’t matter, because no matter what, for these people, it meant something. No matter what, it seemed to make things better for them. It also meant something for me. It meant something to witness something so personal. It meant something to sit there and puzzle it out and smile at the answer, or lack thereof. To see others as they are, that is a kind of magic all on it’s own. Maybe metaphysical… maybe not, but still magic.

I am glad you all let me see that, and to the rest of you – if you have the chance and the inclination, it may not be a bad thing to try sometimes.

Here is where I’d end on some cheesy entendere about magic, but, I think we’ve had enough of that word for now.

Nyronus and Jimmy Johnscon 2017

So, in my wise desire to avoid Greyhound layovers in Atlanta I booked as late a trip out of Baltimore as I could afford – meaning I was stuck without a room and possibly alone until 10:10 PM. So naturally in a desperate bid to hold on to as many moments more with my friends as I could I scrambled to find as many late leavers to spend as much time with me as humanly possible before I entered Greyhound purgatory and post-con blues.

Gypsy wasn’t leaving till later, and I managed to snag Horizon and Nadnerb, who in turn snagged Trick Question, Zyrian and guy whose name I can’t remember I am so so sorry you were fun to hang out with please forgive me.

Erm, yeah, the story.

Everyone (except for me) had to clear out at fourish, so we decide a brunch is in line, and Horizon is in the mood for sandwiches, and where do you get sandwiches in the general vicinity of the Baltimore Convention Center?

Jimmy fucking Johns.

So we all pile into Jimmy John's and had a blast.

We talked, we ate, we discussed a variety of things near and dear to our hearts. We also played a fantastic party game for writers which Horizon needs to send me the content for because it is excellent and more people need to play.

Erm. Sorry.

We ended up having a good time, and to me that meant a lot. This was the sort of thing I came to Bronycon for – to catch up with old friends, strengthen the bonds with others, and make whole new ones, and I was glad to have it at least one more before I went.

Nyronus and the Kindness of Strangers

So as Jimmy Johnscon comes to an end we all start going our separate ways. Tricks and her crew split off to drive. So does Nadnerb. Horizon and Gypsy hang on with me a little longer as they have late flights out, but they have to leave soon after. As we’re splitting up, Horizon recommends I ask the front desk if any public transit can get me to the Greyhound station and they recommend the city bus. They print me out an itinerary and give me directions which were… a little confusing. So I step outside and also ask the bell-hop and he points me straight there. I check the time on the itinerary against the clock and within a few minutes a bus rolls up. I hop on toting my incredibly heavy tower of luggage and sit down in the front in one of the elderly and disabled seats, feeling incredibly awkward but not having much else to sit and keep next to my personal Barad-dûr on wheels. I start checking the streets we stop at against the names on the itinerary as we go along. Eventually an older man comes on and starts standing in the front of the bus, so I scoot over and tell him he can sit next to me. I go back to checking constantly against the schedule I was given and after a few minutes he leans over and asks me where I’m going. I tell him and go back to staring at the paper.

“Oh no, you’re on the wrong bus.”

I wasn’t on the right bus. I hadn’t even been at the right bus station. Furthermore, the bus I’m on is going the wrong way, pulling me straight out of Baltimore if I kept on it.

Before I can panic though, the lady sitting next to me, who had been talking on her cell the whole time, stepped in. She told me I could get off soon and transfer to the right bus. She told me how, and then told me not to even worry. That I could get off with her and she would walk me to the stop and wait with me. She then doubled checked to make sure she was right, and having confirmed so, told me we would do that. She waited with me on the corner of a desolate looking neighborhood, just as promised, and saw me on the bus. She even went to the trouble of telling the bus driver where I needed to be, and when the bus swapped drivers halfway to my location the old driver made sure to pass that information on.

If the old man next to me hadn’t noticed my behavior and stepped forward I could have ended up stranded far out of my way without help. If I hadn’t indicated he could sit next to me he may never had the occasion to notice. If the lady next to me hadn’t offered to guide me I would have still been lost and alone in a rough part of town. I was so stressed and scared, and these people were able to spare me the consequences of my trouble with a couple simple acts.

Happy to be helped I eventually made it on my slow, miserable way to the Greyhound station and was pleased for find a few stragglers from the con waiting to ship out. I have a good old time chatting about the con and got to hear some interesting stories from the staff. There is of course some frustration among the group due to delays from Greyhound – as any seasoned Greyhound passenger would tell you to expect from Greyhound. One fellow in particular was a con staff member frustrated as his bus was delayed, and then delayed again. At this point he’s tired, hungry, has no food aside from snacks, and no money to get food. Thankfully the other con staffers with him offer to down the street to a gas station to get him a proper meal when Greyhound doesn’t offer him a meal voucher for the inconvenience.

They go on their merry way and I settle in with the remaining brony at the station and start chatting with them and the lady in the seat next to me, rambling on about various topics such as Fimfic, Fallout Equestria, history, and the use of Lovecraftian pagentry in art, as I am wont to do. Then, a voice comes over the intercom announcing the next bus to begin boarding. The exact same bus that was late, and the fellow out to get food had been waiting for.

I ask the lady next to us to watch my things and peel out, searching for them. I turn the station upside down, and then run outside, reading glasses on and tablet still in hand, trying to see if the trio is in the distance so I can catch them. I come back in, search again, and am kicking myself in the cojones the entire time for not thinking of taking cell phone numbers.

With nothing else to do I go back outside to take a vigil and hope beyond hope I spot a trio coming down the sidewalk towards the station. I start sprinting towards them and when I recognize that it’s them I start shouting. Once informed, the staffer in question takes his meal and speeds off ahead of us to the station and manages to get on his bus in time.

Without the help of those strangers on the city bus I would have gotten hopelessly lost. Without my help he may have been stranded for even longer in Baltimore.

The rest of the group I had been with filtered out on buses one by one, until I was the last to leave. As I sat down in my seat in the back I began thinking about all this – how small favors had spared people that day, about Jyki, about all the strange and wonderful things that had happened to me. I started to feel overwhelmed and began to immediately start writing these stories down. The very first words that came to mind were these:

When it comes down to it, we really live in a miserable time. Everything is bleak, tense, and terrifying. Politics has been insane for two years now. There’s been violence for a year and now we're killing in the streets. Even mundane hurdles like buses can be stressful, scary, and exhausting. Even so, if we are kind – if we are charitable, and offer even the smallest and easiest kinds of aid we can to others – we can make a difference, even if it is a small one.

With the kindness of strangers, we can make this miserable world a little easier to bear.

Thank you for reading this, everyone. I am already missing all of you and wishing with tears on the edges of my eyes that it could be next year so I could see you all again. Thank you, everyone, for making this Bronycon worth remembering.

Comments

[Web of Hope]

I had a huge amount of fun and drama this year too, and it was cool meeting you, even if it took me five minutes to find out what of yours I'd read. (I would like it clarified that I recognized your name on sight, however )

[FanOfMostEverything]

Not sure if you were there for this bit, but I actually bought a print of Time Enough for Love's cover art from Nadnerb at a con in January, then brought to Bronycon so I could have Horizon sign it and further guilt him into publishing the darn thing already.

Though I will say that punching him is an admirably direct approach.

FanofMostEverything, playing Twilight this round, roleplayed wanting to strangle me to death very well.

It's a gift.

... Oh. Wow, this got deeply emotional and personal. Also, I clearly need to stay after the convention; I peeled out of there before the closing ceremonies were even over. Thank you for sharing these experiences, and I'm very happy to hear about the bits that worked out well.

[Themaskedferret]

It was a delight to see you and if you ever feel blue or lonely, please don't hesitate to text me. You're a dear friend and I like knowing you're happy and well. I can't do that or help or even sympathize if you don't tell me though. As for meeting folks, i'm a great icebreaker as I either know everyone and am friendly with them, or have no problem approaching strangers to introduce folks.

I also disagree that we live in a bad time. Think about the amazing research and improvements over quality of life and human rights we experience on a daily basis. The beauty of nature and art and creativity. Just as it's wrong to focus only on the positive, I think it's wrong to focus solely on the negative too.

Either way, this was lovely to read.

[Bad Horse]

I then got to enjoy the beautiful New England forests as we move from DC to Baltimore.

As a former inhabitant of New England, DC, and Baltimore, I request you to please look at a map.

Sorry, I should say something uplifting here, but I'm tired.

4644705
I think that the answer to the question "During what years has the United States been less politically antagonistic and divided than it is now?" would be something like: 1820-1840, 1880-1914, 1920-1930, 1941-1967, 1976-2016, or, "a little more than half".

[Wanderer D]

It was fun talking in person! Let's do it again!

[Nadnerb]

So I have finally gone and read this entire missive, and I'm glad to see you had so many meaningful experiences. I did see quite a lot of you this con, and not nearly as much of the con as you did. As a vendor I pretty much only get to participate in evening activities, and usually that means dinner with people and maybe the occasional actual con event if they put anything interesting on late enough. The only panel I saw was the Sketches from a Hat panel, which is a wonderful concept, but the execution was profoundly disappointing, mostly due to none of the staff on hand apparently being able to set up the projectors in the room.

It's also tricky deciding who to chase at dinner time when there are artist circles and writers circles and little overlap, despite both having plenty of people I'd like to meet. Fortunately, I have learned from experience and scheduled in a full day of post-con time in Baltimore, during which I got to hang out with you and horizon and experience his brilliant game design skills. It seems like it generally tends to be more worthwhile in the end to go with the flow when it comes to group planning, rather than going out of my way to hunt down the One True Dinner. At least, that philosophy seems to have spared me from having a Dinner of Sadness this year.

Stories of mass transit and humanity like yours make me feel like I ought to get more adventurous with my transportation choices, but when it comes down to it, when I only have so much time off to spend, I'd rather ensure that it's as non-stressful as possible. Still, maybe I should see how much luggage I can take on a rail adventure next year.

[Bad Horse]

4645151 Bad Horse, you stupid ingrate, you should thank him for recording those nice memories of your game!

(Super Trampoline will hopefully run it in 2018.)