Thinking about attending Bronycon 2019 / Update on Infinite Potential and other stories / Stuff going on in my life · 1:43am Feb 1st, 2019
Let me be clear that I am only thinking about it, and that it probably won't happen.
I've always wanted to attend Bronycon or any of the other bigger Brony conventions. I've only been to two that had taken place in my hometown (which weren't very big), and while I enjoyed both of them, Bronycon would be something totally different.
To meet so many other fans of the show, see and hear all of the talking about the show that means so much to me and all of us (and in english; unlike most of other Polish Bronies, I cannot stand Polish dub), it would be something amazing^^ And I would be lying that it would be nice to finally meet somebody in real life who is actually a fan of my stories (yeah, that has yet to happen. Even those of my family who understand english hadn't checked any of them out, much less become fans of my stories) and I'd imagine in such a large crowd there would be at least one person
But even without that, I think I would still enjoy it, and heck, could make friends for a change, even if for short time. And I could maybe meet some Bronies I admire, too.
And this will be the last Bronycon. With the threat of MLP FiM coming to an end (at least, I think it's still just a threat, not sure if they've made it official yet) and this being the last Bronycon... it feels like an end of an era. And era during which I created something. I'll be honest, my stories here are about my proudest accomplishment (not that I've made a lot of those), and it's all because of that show. So, if this is an end of the era, I would like to say goodbye to it properly, by attending the last Bronycon.
That being said... I most likely won't attend. Why? Because I'm in the freaking Europe, could be Eastern Europe for all purposes (it's actually more of Central Europe but whatever). Going to Bronycon would require a lot of preparations and money. And while I can afford a flight to America, it is a cost that I wouldn't make lightly. And there are other issues: that I would have to find place to stay, that the flight would be with a transfer (which unnerves me), the fact that I don't like to travel in general, let alone into places I've never been before and via means I've never traveled before, that I don't like to travel by planes (I don't have any phobia, I think, if I have to I will travel by plane without complain, but I will be thinking the worst while on the plane itself), and the icing on the cake, that I would make this journey alone.
I hadn't tried asking on Polish Bronies's groups and sites yet, but I am pretty sure that nobody is planning to make the journey to Bronycon (on the grounds of how much the plane tickets cost alone). And even if they don't, high chances are that I don't know them, so would still be travelling with strangers. I am sure as hell nobody from family would tag along, too. And while I did travel to Wales mere two years ago alone, as you might remember that episode of my life I had been expecting that I wouldn't be alone there, and that made that journey easier.
But what pretty much killed the idea for me was stumbling upon a few videos on youtube. You see, while playing on PS4, I like to have something playing in the background, as most of the time in games I would be walking from one place to the other and nothing would be happening. So, for whatever reason, I stumbled into this video:
(warning, the following videos, or rather stories presented in them, can be rather... awful and scary, so you might want to opt against watching them. Or at least, not watch them by evening or during the night, I may had trouble sleeping because of them)
And then later autoplay changed unto playlist of a channel called "Bedtime Stories". Here are some pearls from that which had actually made me scared of a prospect of traveling:
So, you know, I know that chances of such things happening are pretty weak, but with my luck? I would get lost within a city jungle and be found dead on the rooftop of a murder hotel. (By no means am I trying to make fun of those poor girls or the victims of that crazy doctor, I am just trying to make evident to you my own lack of skills and luck).
(By the way, despite slightly thraumatizing me, "Bedtime Stories" is a great channel with great videos, and I encourage those with stronger nerves to check out their stuff^^)
But still, I am thinking about it. It would be awesome to attend, and I would have an opportunity to stick it to my brother (he called the idea stupid, and Bronies stupid - and later this made me recall how about a year ago he called Bronies pedophiles; so gonna remember this next time he tries to borrow cash from me... - ), maybe if I would show some pictures or videos from the time I would spend there he reflect on his prejudices (seriously, next time I am gonna ask him if a pony bit him or something, the stuff he says is ridiculous). So I might still decide to go (though I'm gonna bet that by then the tickets will be sold out or something). I dunno, will continue to give this matter some thought, just thought I would let you guys know (and apparently mentally scar you with those videos, I think I might have a problem...)
Okay, part 2, update on Infinite Potential. It's coming along, got 7k words so far, I expect I will finish it within a week or two. Will definetly be longer than the previous chapter, although not by much; the scary thing is that originally both were supposed to be the same chapter. Sorry it's coming along so slowly, I... have been slacking off. I can't even use the work excuse, I worked 26 hours in January (winter is bad time for archaeologists). I've been extremely lazy and I divided my free time pretty much between PS4 and PC. Everytime I would try to sit down and write, I would end up actually wasting my time instead.
But I finally shook it off. I had resumed my "500 words per day" rule from two years ago. Yeah, the "1000 words per day" rule I tried last year? Didn't work. I dunno if, when I resume work 8 hours a day by Spring, will I manage to keep up this schedule, but I will try. I cannot do 1000 words though, everytime I tried to I would end up stalling before writing, and would waste a whole day. 500 words? If I focus, I can get it done in half an hour, and then I get the rest of the day to be disgustingly lazy. Apparently, that train of thoughts allows my brain to work, go figure.
So yeah, Infinite Potential chapter 13 is coming along, of course the worst part will be deciding on the title as usual, but as usual I will eventually figure it out. Next up will be Rebirth of the Damned (sorry to the fans of that story, I know I promised that you would get to see a special somepony in January, but I did mention "probably"; fortunately, I should at least make it within February), and the Stars. Yeah, still continuing this story, although this one would be the easiest one for me to wrap up, and then I would be only writing two stories at the same time. I just have too much fun with Kilala's characters^^ After that I will most likely focus on Rebirth again, maybe write two chapters back to back, then... who knows? Probably Infinite Potential.
Part 3, stuff going in my life? Well... signed up for driving course, again, after 9 years. Gonna try again to get the stupid license, lets see how this time around it goes. Will be toughter to get through theory, they changed it in the meantime, so this will be fun... and of course this whole thing costs quite a lot, which created another problems for the whole "over Atlantic" idea.
Hadn't been working much, like I said, only 26 hours. Not many building investments happening in Winter, so not many jobs for archaeologists.
On gaming front? Finished Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, it was awesome. Wrapped up Heavy Rain, too, and Shadows of War DLCs, now playing Tomb Rider Definitive Edition. Next... hm, might return to Fallout 76. I want to finish that questline, and there were two more things I wanted to do, namely find the Enclave (a bit lorebreaking, but okay) and visit West Tek facility, I am pretty sure that techincally we hadn't been to one of those since Fallout 1. After that I got myself Detroid Becoming Human and Dishonored 2 DLC (and Dishonored 2 as Emily, too, played through it only as Corvo). On PC, I played some Star Wars the Old Republic, Fallout 3, Bioshock and... Crusader Kings 2 a Game of Thrones mod.
Ugh, that game and that mod are so time sucking! I played as Aegon VI (the one from the books, son of Rheagar who died in Sacking of Kings Landing, in the books it is revealed - but probably lied - that he had been switched out for some peasant baby), conquered Westeros, married Daenerys... and seduced every female character from the show that was still alive. So, you know, Sansa, Cersei, Marcella, Maergary, Shireen, Lyanna Mormont. After a while I deleted that save and started again, cause that became too problematic. Anyway, I restored Targaryans to power and replenished the House with new members, lived a few generations, breed more dragons for family, created New Valyria empire, and decided that ruling over everything was boring. One of my sons had carved a small little kingdom in Summer Isles, so I decided to play as him instead of my heir. I gave out my valyrian swords to my sons (Blackfyre to heir, Glory to the Summer Isles one, and Oathkeeper to son who joined Kingsguard), and changed. Of course, I conquered whole of Summer Isles, created Empire of Summer Sea, conquered pirates and started to recolonize that Soth-something named land, and then my kin in Seven Kingdoms and New Valyria started to have problems, and somehow both titles passed to me. So, not wanting to rule even more, I passed them two my two younger sons. Of course, one ended up losing the empire, more drama, but it all worked out. I somehow outlived all of my sons (and most of grandsons and great-grandsons) but the one rulling the Seven Kingdoms, so now I got the same problems of risking all titles passing to the same character, and... the game starts to crush while saving.
Okay, some more serious things... well, none, since I don't really have real life. A part of me is still recovering from the ordeal from two years ago, even though I had wonderful help from my (internet) friend / newest editor TimePrincess. Partially my family is blamed for that, as whenever I do something a bit too guillable or I am seen writing too much to people, like TimePrincess, I get reminded of that. Apparently, my mother doesn't realize how much this affected me; even my asshole of a brother realizes that I don't want to hear it, the only time we mentioned that was when we were joking about it because he had met somebody through the internet and she had cancelled their first real life meeting.
Read some new books, a biography about Amundsen. It was very interesting. As I had brought up recently, I had developed fascination with polar exploration, and you can talking polar exploration without mentioning Amundsen. So I know general things about him, but that biography was really well done^^ Another book I had read would be "Fire and Blood" by George Martin, about Targaryen dynasty from Game of Thrones world. And... I was pissed off because of it. Not because of Martin or the context of the books, but by polish publisher. You see, when I bought the book, I saw that it had "part I" under the title. Which wasn't surprising to me, as I knew Martin was gonna write this in two tomes, it was impossible to fit whole 300 years into one book. But then when I read through it, it turned out that the book didn't end on aftermath of Dance of the Dragons as it should have. No, that polish published had moved... to another book. Which came out 2 months later -_- I was f***ing livid when I realized that. If I knew from the get go, I would have just bought the book in english. The same thing happened to me when the last part of "Inheritence" series (Eragon) came out, polish published had done the same thing, I never expected to experience bullshit twice. Learned my lesson, from now on I am buying books only in English (which considering I pretty much do already, only book series I've been following were Warriors, will be easy). Learned that some new books from Tolkien came out in last couple of years, Beren and Luthien and Fall of Gondolin, need to get those.
Not starting any new show, got enough to wrap up as it is. Been thinking about this one:
buuut want to finish at least one first. Having fun with Supernatural in the meantime, though I fear that, like MLP, it's coming to an end.
A bit worried about it. As I had mentioned, my stories are pretty much my proudest accomplishment. I... I worry if MLP FiM ends, that there eventually won't be any people visiting this site. And mind you, I am planning to finish those stories, even though at this rate it will take me 20 years. It just will be harder to motivate myself if no-one reads them. And yeah, I know that I am probably overreacting, that there alway be somebody over here reading all those stories, but still, one can worry right?
Lastly, something sorta amusing: as I mentioned, I've been recently interested in polar exploration. So about a month ago I read that Polish Antartic station (yeah, I don't know why or how we have one of those either) sent out a call that they are looking for new workers. Of course, none of the qualifications they talked about was "archeologist", that's only useful in Lovecraft stories, but I had been tempted to send them my CV, because who knows, they could need somebody for more physical labor or something. But of course, I didn't do it. Why? Well, the last time somebody with no necessery qualifications went there, he ended up losing most of his teeth, most of his sight, suffered health decline, nearly froze to death two times, developed PTSD and Survivor's Guilt, was blamed for death of expedition leader and two others (one of which was his friends, and he and the other had survived nearly freezing to death together previous year), and upon returning home learned that the theory his deceased friend had worked on was being debunked, meaning them nearly freezing to death was for nothing, and after all that he wrote a book called "The worst journey in the world". So... I don't wanna write a sequel to that :p Though if had sent my CV and went to a meeting with those people, that would be my opening joke, that I'd like to write a sequel to that book. In seriousness, I would be an interesting experience, but I don't think I am physically fit for something like that, and probably not mentally fit either.
Okay, that's about all from me, hope you all had great January, and if you feel like voicing your opinion on some stuff I wrote here I will do my best to reply to everyone. See ya^^
The Inheritance Cycle is amazing.
If you decide to come to Bronycon, I can guarantee you'll meet at least one fan of your work, cause I'll be there!
Hope ya make it.
"and I'd imagine in such a large crowd there would be at least one person"
Well, I'm planning to be there!
"that I would have to find place to stay"
Bronycon's website has a number of hotels in the area listed, and several of them are actually connected to the convention center by elevated walkways.
(The hotel room I've booked also has two beds, as that's what they had, and I've been considering trying to find someone else to split the room, and bill, with, particularly since that could potentially let me spend a few extra days in Baltimore. Haven't started really looking/asking around yet, but I'll perhaps try to keep you in mind as one of the people to check with, if you like.
(The room's in the Hilton, which is connected to the convention center by an enclosed and elevated walkway and is right by a light rail stop with routes to the train station and, I'm pretty sure, the airport.))
Ah, sorry about your brother.
"though I'm gonna bet that by then the tickets will be sold out or something"
I'm pretty sure that the basic level doesn't sell out. At least for the convention itself, if that's what you mean; at least, I don't recall hearing of that happening. If you mean tickets on transportation to Baltimore, well, that I don't know, but it seems unlikely.
Thanks for the update on Infinite Potential!
I hope you don't mind me asking, but why do you want a driver's license? It sounds like you're doing pretty well without one.
I am rather amused by what sounds like your continuing failure to not conquer the world there. :)
Well, sorry about what the publishers are doing there, but at least it's continuing to keep your fire of multilingualism fed with practice?
Well, I have no intention of leaving FIMFiction just because G4 is ending. :)
5005938
Yep it is. It has some flaws, many people hate on it because of how much was copied (or even supposedly stolen when it comes to magic, I think I actually have the book from the series where it was supposedly stolen from somewhere lying around) from other sources, but I still found it very entertaining. Pity the movie was shit.
5005961
Awesome^^ Regardless if I make it or not, hope you will have a great time^^
5005981
Same as above, awesome^^ And I hope you'll have a great time^^
Thanks for the offer, but I think it will be better if you check on the people you know will be attending, as I am still unsure whether I will or not. Besides, because of my past experiances, my mother would throw a fit if I even mentioned such an offer from somebody I barely know and only through texts on the internet (even though I would obviously talk this over with you in more details via Skype or something if I were to come into agreement with you; btw, hope you're not offended by those possible insinuations, I just had a really shitty experiance with internet contacts
). And I was more or less aware of the hotel list on Bronycon website, though not about how well they are connected to the convention center and how excessible they are, thanks for the info^^
Eh, I got used to it. Besides, I am planning to insist in my will that he won't get anything after me (assuming I die first) unless he first watches every episode of MLP FiM and reads all my stories 😈 (either that or he has to return all the money he owes me - pretty sure it would be enough to cover flight tickets, for example, so no small number - and considering that it would come to him leaving them in a coffin to be burried in the ground, I think he would chose the more practical option)
I assumed that they don't sold out (though it's nice to get a confirmation^^), I was mostly trying to emphasize my bad luck
No problem^^
Well, several reasons, the first being that it would be one less thing my mother and rest of the family can bother me about. The other is that it would be useful for my job, our company has several contracts, a lot of them out of town. The assigment I had earlier was for the 100km long pipeline construction site, so without a car it would be rather difficult to work on stuff like that. If I'd have a driving license, I would get a company's car to do my job, so this would be a lot easier. Before getting this job though I really didn't need it, as I could get everywhere with public transport, which is why it took me 9 years to try again. That and I think I developed a little fear of getting/causing an accident... oh well. Ah, and also, there is only so many varations of the same joke I can use. Like yesterday and day before, I had to walk through the city center with a bag full of human bones. All the way I was thinking that police would notice that those are bones, and would stop me to ask questions. I would say: "I'm an archaeologist without a driving license, which part of that don't you understand? If I had a driving license, I would be keeping human bones in the trunk."
So yeah, as funny as it is, I would prefer to not have something like this happen to me, just to be safe.
Well, it's more fun in the world of Game of Thrones when you don't control the world, it's good to have neighbors. Especially if you do what I did here; by few moves I created three superpowers in this world, each ruled by the same family (sadly, in the game you can't really create cadet branches of the Houses, so each family is still the same dynasty despite living in different countries), which would mean that every now and then there would be an entertaining war happening (as otherwise they would get boring, when you have a super big country and everybody else is so small winning war is easy in this game). Also, sadly, it appears that Targaryens suck as rulers if you don't play as them, given how they ended up being overthrown and their vassals turned to me to be the next ruler. However, when I play without this mod, in real world, I do happen to try and conquer the world
As seen below
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(I'm the "Wendish Empire" in the central) I also have some lands of the northern Africa and by India under my control, but couldn't get those on the map.
Yeah, but what I am annoyed is that they did a very poor job of informing the readers that they've done this. If they would, I would just buy the book in English and there wouldn't be an issue, instead I had to wait for the second book to come out so I could learn what happened next, the only other option would be to buy book in english despite having half of it already in Polish. Not that it costed THAT much, but it's the principle that matters.
Yay^^
5006740
The movie had great detail but you're right it was shit. A great book butchered by a crappy directer.
5006740
Thanks. :)
Thanks, and no worries about offending me there; it's a valid concern, and while I know it would be a problem in that particular way and case, you, and even moreso your mother, don't know for sure.
re the hotels: You're welcome, though just in case, not all of the hotels are that connected; some of them are a distance away with no special connection., as I recall. I've stayed at the Hyatt and the Hilton for Bronycon, though, both of which are connected, and I believe that the Sheraton also is.
Hah. Well, I guesses that wouldn't be the most onerous task ever inserted into a will. :D
Ah, sorry. :)
Ah, thanks. :)
Ah, nice. Still haven't played CKII, just Victoria II, myself.
Ah, yeah, sorry about that. :)
:)
Yeah, I expect that good G4 fanworks will keep being made for quite some time. I'm also cautiously optimistic about G5; I don't know if they'll be able to repeat what they did with G4, but I want to give it a chance, at least.
5006876
Yep. Especially since he could have just copied a lot from Star Wars the New Hope and he would have a sceenplay ;p Though who the heck thought it would be a good idea to have Saphira evolve like Pokemon, have feathers and announce her own name like she is some kind of higher being is beyond me, did they let a 5 year old to write those?!
5006892
You're welcome^^
I suppose, though it still feels kinda insulting to me
Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation^^
Yep. I'm probably also add that he has to play through the newest Pokemon game at the time and collect all Pokemon to date ;p
No problem^^
No problem^^
I think I played the first Victoria game way back... was fun, though I was annoyed that it was set solely in the timeframe when my own country didn't exists (actually I'm more annoyed at the stupid idiots who had led to that through the history; Poland had been a real superpower for some time!), so couldn't really play it (there was this one zone, "Republic of Cracow", but it was tiny and surrounded by Austria, Germany and Russia, so playing as it was pointless). I think I played mostly as Greece, sometimes as Prussia for change of pace. But all those industrial things and constitutional monarchies weren't really my thing, I prefer good old medieval murderous politics and conquests.
On that note, started to play CK2 GoT mod again, because I finished reading the second part of Fire and Ice and grew to really despite more than a few characters from that time, so I wanted to kill them in this game
Meh, it's okay, I learned my lesson and will check those out on the internet before buying a book.
I'll also give G5 a chance, though I am really confused why they would start it now, when they've just introduced a whole bunch of new characters that they could shift the focus to if they feel that they are running out of ideas for the mane6, have Twilight and others have their own episodes only every few episodes, and in others maybe have them appear for a minute or two.
5009123
:)
re Poland in Victoria I:
Ah, I don't know about Victoria I, but Poland is formable, at least, in Victoria II: https://vic2.paradoxwikis.com/Poland
re the CK2 mod:
Heh, good luck with that, then.
Glad it was a good learning experience, at least.
Yeah, good point; I'm not sure either.