Highlights From BronyCon 2018: That’s Not Firebrand! · 10:40pm Aug 5th, 2018
To go back to the introduction, click here.
In which son_of_heaven176 meets Dr. Wolf and becomes the seventh person to mistake someone for Firebrand.
Thursday, July 26, 2018: The Day Before BronyCon
The trip from NYC to Baltimore can make up a story in itself, but to cut things short: despite a plane mishap that made me end up arriving in Baltimore after NR, (the plan was for me to arrive _before_ NR, if not around the same time), I managed to make it to Baltimore. After NR and Pinkie Guy picked me up from BWI airport and I dropped my stuff off in my hotel room, we walked over to the Baltimore Convention Center to pick up our badges. The Sheraton and the Convention Center are connected by a bridge, so we entered the convention center at the second floor. As we went down the escalator to the first floor lobby, whom did I spot but the illustrious Dr. Wolf himself?
Starstruck, I went to greet him. “Dr. Wolf?”
“Yes?” he confirmed.
“Doc!" I shook his hand. "I’m so glad to meet you in person! When did you get here?”
“A few hours ago.”
“Well, it’s good to meet you!”
I forget what was said afterwards, but we soon parted ways, and NR, Pinkie, and I went to get our badges. After we got our badges, I mentioned to NR and Pinkie that I had made profiles of the characters from Brony D&D for everyone to sign, but I had left them in the hotel room! I couldn’t believe it: Dr. Wolf was right there, and the thing I had for him to sign was not in my hands!
Doc was still in the lobby, so NR suggested that I go and get my binder, since it shouldn’t take that long to get to the Sheraton and back. So I did, and when I returned, praise be to God, Doc was still there.
I asked Doc if he could give me his autograph, and I opened my binder to the Oin Lightbringer profile.
“Oh! Oin Lightbringer!” Doc said.
“Yes! I want to get the autographs of everyone in the party.” At this point, I flipped the pages in my binder to show him the other profiles that I put together.
“You do know that not all of them are here, right?” Doc asked.
“Yeah. You told me before.” Unbeknownst to him, he had told me before: I had asked him on Tumblr if everyone would be at BronyCon, and he said that not everyone would be there. Of course, there was no way for Doc to connect me with my username; I had put my real first name on the badge, not my username.
“Yeah. Sweetie won’t be here, and neither will Eliyora,” Doc said.
“And of course Lunacorva isn’t here either,” I added.
“That’s right,” Doc replied.
So I went back to Oin’s profile, and Doc asked if he should just write “Dr. Wolf” on it.
“Can I get your real autograph, please?” I asked.
“My handwriting would be unreadable,” he replied. And so he scribbled “DRWolf”.
Thus I got my first autograph of BronyCon.
About that time, someone who had dark-colored hair and who was just about the right height to be Firebrand passed by. So I called out, “Josh?”
The guy turned around, and unfortunately, it became obvious very quickly that it was not Josh. “You’re like the seventh person to do that,” he said.
“Seventh person?” I replied.
“You’re like the seventh or eighth person to confuse me with Josh,” he said. “I don’t get it. I don’t have blonde hair, and I don’t have a beard.”
At that, Doc piped in, “But you are about the same height as Josh.”
At that, Doc, NR, Pinkie, and I all burst out laughing. I highly doubt that Not-Firebrand is going to live that down anytime soon.
As my roommates and I were about to leave the convention center, one of them spotted someone in a finnthepony cap and pointed him out to me. Binder at the ready, I tentatively approached. However, it turned out that this wasn’t going to be a repeat of Not-Firebrand: it was indeed Finn the Pony! He was playing some card game.
I asked him for his autograph, and he, too started scribbling his username. Two letters in, I interrupted: “Sorry, but may I please have your real autograph?”
“My real autograph? Sure!” He signed. “And sign it with a smile!” He put a smiley face at the end.
Two autographs down, and BronyCon hadn't even started yet! A good start, to say the least.
Next Highlight: Where Art Thou, Firebrand?
