Highlights from BronyCon 2018: Rain, Rain, Go Away

Previous Highlight (Chronological Order): Where art thou, Firebrand?

Previous Highlight (Production Order): Three-Way Magic

In which Pink Flash and DarkWind are caught unawares by the rain, books are given away, and the weather makes a fool of son_of_heaven176.

Author’s Note: This is the first of the two Highlights that take place between “Where art thou, Firebrand?” and “FLUTTERBOMB!"

Friday, July 27, 2018: Day 1 of BronyCon

After I spent some time in the Vendor Hall, I had two back-to-back panels on my schedule. The first was “Quillin’ It with the MLP Writers”. I actually showed up a few minutes late, as I had stopped by the hotel first to drop off the duffel bag. However, I didn’t miss much. M.A. Larson and two other writers were there, talking about the process of getting an episode from concept to the final script, and the trials and tribulations that come along the way. The highlight of that panel was when Larson talked about his experience with the script for “Slice of Life.” At first, Hasbro had no idea why they received a script that was loads longer than the usual, and they were more than ready to chop down a lot of the material. However, Larson explained that this was a tribute to the brony fandom and that it was meant to be a fast-paced episode with a lot of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sight gags, hence the unusual length of the script. After they received the explanation, Hasbro was on board, length and all.

But no, I didn’t try to get Larson to sign anything. I had no time! After that panel, I headed straight to Quills and Sofas for the panel “Them's Writing Words: How to Improve Your Fan Fiction Writing”. Given that I am a fanfiction writer as well, I thought that this panel might help, even though I don’t write ponyfic. (Shameless plug: if any of you are fans of Pokémon and/or Bakugan Battle Brawlers, please check out my fic The Vexos Chronicles: Lost Luster. And if you see any errors, please feel free to point them out, and don’t blame the panel. The chapters that are already up were written long before BronyCon.) The panel was quite informative, and I made sure to take a few pictures and videos, since I didn’t have a book on me.

DarkWind also happened to be at the panel. He had said to me long ago on Discord that he was working on a fic of his own, but that thought was nowhere near the forefront at the time, so I was surprised to see him there. Unfortunately, DarkWind couldn’t stay for the whole thing, so he ducked out early. I stayed until the end.

The next panel I went to was “MLP Movie Postmortem: The Good, the Bad, and the Pony”. However, my eyes got heavy, and the room was so cold! Translation: impromptu nap time.

A funny fact about me: whenever I’m asleep in a classroom or forum or something else of that like, it is almost a granted that I’ll wake back up before the end. This proved no less true here, as I was awake for the last few comments.

Now during the Opening Ceremonies, it was mentioned that Pizzeria Uno was doing some kind of promotion related to BronyCon that day, so I had wanted to go there. DarkWind, Pink Flash, and I met up after the MLP Movie panel was over, and I suggested that we go there for dinner. Everyone eventually agreed, but Dark had a Papa John’s pizza box on him and he wanted to drop it off at his hotel room first. Dark and Flash mentioned that their hotel room was walking distance away. After checking my schedule, I decided that I could just stop by the hotel, then go to Pizzeria Uno, then return to Stabletop Games in time for the official Prance tournament that would be held that night at 7:30.

So we left…and the weather decided to take THAT opportunity not to cooperate.

A few days before I left for BronyCon, I had already seen that the forecast had called for rain on BronyCon Friday. And during Opening Ceremonies, they had also shown the forecast, which said that there was a chance of rain. It was pretty sunny most of the day, but I knew that morning sun was no guarantee that it would stay sunny all day.

So good news: I had an umbrella in my backpack.
Bad news: my umbrella was meant for one, and we were now a group of three.

The skies decided to open when we were halfway to the hotel. It was a light rain, though, so we weren’t too bad off when we showed up. Dark and Flash showed me to their hotel room, and Dark dropped off his pizza box. As for myself, I had three books in my backpack to give away. Two were for Pink Flash. So, I decided to give them to him then and there.

DarkWind knew that I had two books for Flash and one for him, so when he saw me giving Flash his books, he asked me about the book I had for him. I said that I wasn’t ready to give him his book yet, which was the truth. As you may remember, I said during the last Highlight that I had three things for Firebrand to sign, even though I had only mentioned two by this point (Josh’s Brony D&D profile and Lightning Bliss’s Chasing Imontillo print). This book was the third. Dark had no idea that I wanted to get Firebrand’s autograph on it, and I wanted to keep it that way; I wanted it to be a surprise.

After Dark and Flash got everything settled, we headed back to the front door…only to find that the light rain had devolved into a horrible rainstorm. It was so horrible that GPS was not working; that was how bad it was. So here were the three of us, stumped as to what to do. I tried calling NR, but that was a no-can-do. He had recently bought a massive Rainbow Dash plushie, and it was currently in his car. There was no room in the car for three.

We then tried checking out the restaurant attached to the hotel. Needless to say, our wallets wouldn’t have agreed.

After a few minutes of wondering what to do, it seemed that the rain was lessening. I said, “Why not go out now, stop by the Convention Center, then head to the Uno afterwards? If the rain is lessening, then it has to stop soon, right?”

Pink Flash advocated that we wait for the rain to actually die down; he said that depending on how the clouds were moving, the rain could intensify again.

Me, I doubted it. I’d never seen such a phenomenon: rain starting, intensifying, and decreasing in intensity only to intensify again? As far as I knew, if the rain was decreasing, then it was going to end soon. That’s how it always seemed to work.

Ultimately, the decision was left to DarkWind, and after some hemming and hawing (and some verbal prodding from yours truly), he broke the tie in my favor. So we left.

And regretted it almost instantly.

As Flash had warned, the rain indeed intensified again! Dark and I huddled under my tiny umbrella, but Flash was without a care in the world. All that was missing was some singing.

Now mind you: at this point in time, I had running sneakers on. And if you know anything about running sneakers, it’s that they are as porous as all get-out. They were constructed to be able to breathe—and that means that water can get in easily as well. Add to that the fact that some puddles had formed on street corners, and you can imagine that my feet were soaked by the time we got to the Convention Center.

When we finally arrived at the Convention Center, I asked the other two if they were OK, and I apologized for insisting that we brave the weather. They accepted my apologies, and we decided to forego going to Pizzeria Uno that day.

As my feet were soaked, I headed back to my hotel to change out of my wet clothes (feeling slightly guilty that I had that convenience while they did not). Given that I have had athlete’s foot twice in my life before—including earlier this very year—I had no intention of leaving my feet soaked for any longer than necessary.

But then came the last tragedy of the night.

When I take off my shoes, I usually push them off with my feet. But due to my laces being too tight, the rain weakening the glue between my soles and the rest of my shoe, or some combination of the two, the second I tried to take off the first sneaker,

RRRIIIIIIP!

the sole started to detach, with the rest of the shoe still on my foot. I stopped before the sole could go off completely, but damage was still done. That shoe wasn't going anywhere for the rest of the weekend except my suitcase.

Fortunately for me, I had brought two pairs of shoes with me to BronyCon, so it wasn’t a total tragedy. But a tragedy it still was; I liked those shoes!

After changing out of my wet clothes and putting on some dry ones, it was back to the Convention Center. Off to the official Prance Tournament. (And maybe I might run into Aramau in the process? One could dream!)

Previous Highlight (Chronological Order): Where art thou, Firebrand?
Next Highlight (Chronological Order): "That Game that Nobody Ever Wins”

Previous Highlight (Production Order): Three-Way Magic
Next Highlight (Production Order): The Grand Galloping Gala