EverFree Northwest retrospective · 4:08am May 21st, 2019

As I typed this, I was several thousand feet above the ground. Please excuse ay missed typos.

First, let me make one thing abundantly clear: I hate traveling. It’s inconvenient, full of all sorts of things that I don’t particularly care for, and horribly expensive.

That said, This past weekend I was at Everfree Northwest, one of the largest conventions in the MLP fandom. For those of you that saw me there, you probably don’t have to read half of this. We met and talked and you likely were one of the faces staring at me in the panels.

More on that in a minute.

My girlfriend -- BlackWater for those of you not in the know -- and I flew into Seattle on Thursday morning. We dragged our tired butts out of bed at four to make a six AM flight. The first flight wasn’t too bad, little over an hour, and the layover in Philly was just enough to make it to the gate for our connection.

The flight to Seattle I HATED with a passion. Six hours stuck in a plane with little sleep, cramped seats, and running low on Writing Excuses Podcasts (I had exhausted unheard episodes of GM Word of the Week before takeoff) and if you haven’t flown long distances, it’s a pain.

Once we landed, I discovered an amazing coincidence: Adge happened to be on the very same flight! We kind of milled about baggage claim for a few minutes and talked before BW and I headed off to the Light Rail to go to the AirBnB we had reserved (saved us nearly $200 IIRC) and that was an experience.

The Light Rail is part of the Seattle mass transit system and runs pretty much anywhere we wanted to go. We decided against getting a transit card and just got tickets as needed. And that is a rather humorous part of the trip; Not once did we have to present or turn in the tickets for the rail. If we weren’t careful we could have just hopped on for free (which I’m sure some fellow riders did in some stops) but I don’t trust my luck that far.

Our rental was a nice little flat with a warm bed, a nice little kitchen, and comfortable seating that isn’t the bed or a desk chair. I’m fairly certain I could have made like a cat and napped on the couch easily if I had the time. We closed out Thursday watching Dragon Prince and Godzilla.

Day One: Friday

We crawled out of bed and went just in time for opening ceremonies where the special guests were introduced. I’ll spare most of you the list since it’s easily looked up. I attended Nicole DuBoc panel on scriptwriting in the business, got some very good notes on the process and had a chance to talk to her about possibly sending in one of my IP for consideration.

Maybe. Probably won’t.

Friday was a busy, busy day. There were a lot of things I wanted to see and people to run into.

Sometimes literally.

I was one of the Twi Talk speakers on Friday, wedged between Xepher and Somber. That was an experience. I normally don’t do well in front of people, at least large groups. With a panel, I can bounce off other panelists and then shrink back into the relative shadows.

Not here. I was on my own with twenty minutes to fill about writing influences when you need inspiration. It was about fifteen minutes worth of me rambling and pulling stuff out of my horn. The only planned bit I remember clearly was bringing up Garak from DS9.

It was over blessedly quickly.

The rest of the day was mostly milling about and seeing the more interesting writing panels and finding people who I knew. I saw Gara-the-Author, Tsitra, Heartshine, and RoMS fairly early on and eventually ran into Firimil/Nova Quill (no relation) before the panels had started. Bookish Delight and Justice3442 were also involved in random meetings.

I was accused by Novel-Idea of hiding, but we all know I was in plain sight if he had taken a moment to look under chairs. Not my fault I blend into dark spaces. cleans whiskers

We did eventually run into each other and were properly introduced: immediately before my Twi Talk.

Which, by the way, I want to know where those of you that turned out for it came from. In the time it took to walk to the front of the room, one whole quadrant went from sparsely populated to packed with people. You don’t do that to an easily spooked kitty! It’s dangerous for my health.

The vendor hall was packed with some very tempting things, but I was on a tight budget and zeroed in on a few things first; business cards.

What? I liked a lot of what I saw and I had a budget. Besides, I can budget properly and get one or two bits of art in time.

My immediate purchase was a pin of Lyra’s Cutie Mark because my cousin Karou asked me to keep an eye out for anything Lyra-related. The pin was the only thing I saw that was in budget and not a plush. BW makes plushes anyway, so we can just work it into our schedule.

Side note: BW is currently booked solid for a bit. We have some plushes waiting for completion at home and commissions that are still in the design/build phases. I can link her Etsy site for those interested.

By the end of the day, my lanyard held buttons with Sunset, Fluttershy, Front Page, and Rarity along with one of the convention special badges: Ocellus as the element of Kindness.

I like her. She’s just cute as a bug!

Between then and the next set of panels I hung out with Firimil and her husband. It was a nice calm port if you don't count entertaining a seven-year-old suddenly and unprepared. She had an Eevee and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

Ponystock was the closing event, and I enjoyed the music despite some disgust in the way the sound was being handled early on. The vocals felt too soft and the drums too loud. I had to leave a few times to give my hearing a break. My degree is Music Education with a minor in theatre and creative writing, so I spent semesters in ear training and audio engineering classes learning how to properly balance stages acoustically.

BW, on the other paw, was out on the dance floor dancing her butt off. According to her, she was still feeling it last night when we went to bed. I don’t dance. I flail wildly and generally am a danger to others on the dance floor.

We rounded our night out with LOTS OF SLEEP.

Day Two: Saturday

We made it into the main stage in time to catch the episodes they were playing first thing. They played two episodes as I recall; The one where the Student Six tried to remember the Tree of Harmony and “She’s All Yak”. Two solid episodes I think. A few of the guests (Daniel Ingram, Nicole Duboc, and Mark Acheson) giving commentary during points MST3K style at times. We also got some insight into recording tricks.

They all say friends at the end of the song.

After that was the cosplay contest, which had some REALLY great contestants. I think the overall winner was an epic Human Tempest Shadow.

This was when the Script Fest winner (Aquaman) had their script read by the VA guests.No recording was allowed, sadly, for legal reasons. It was a great sounding episode and I hope Aquaman loads the script somewhere. It’s worth sharing.

Had a second run through the vendor hall collecting cards and then fled to find food. Ran into Corejo and his girlfriend and joined them on a trip to Taco Bell.

Yes, I eat extravagantly.

During lunch, I had the pleasure to meet Hap, Cursori, Sun Sage, and Sylvain. I also Sat through a few friend’s panels before meeting up for the LGBT authors panel. On that it was me, Gara, Heart, Vivid Syntax, Fiaura the Tank Girl, Cynewulf, and Lovely Laughter. It was a lovely discussion where I’m sure we were completely on task and professional the entire time.

After that, there was some general milling and then BW and I bailed. She had been running on three hours of sleep and needed food. Baked potatoes are love!

Day Three: Sunday

There wasn’t a whole lot that interested me schedule-wise. I hit a few panels for friends and then just kind of hung out. We got a picture of the Nook Members we could round up and had actual talk time with Monochromatic. There was also a strange state of serendipity where BW and Novel had the same shirt, just different colors. After a quick swing by the con shop to complete my element buttons and obtain a picture of my favorite princess (Luna) and sticker of one of the Mascots, BW and I made our departure from the con.

But not from Seattle. We went to the Space Needle and -- with no pride or shame -- I wimped out about halfway up the elevator.

I don’t mind flying. And I don’t mind tall buildings much.

Being in a tall building several hundred feet up where your girlfriend wants you to come with her to the edge of the observation deck for photos…. I kind of noped hard I’m sorry to say.

The Glass Floor wasn’t much better. I’m a rather hefty girl despite having lost weight in recent months. But between a moving glass floor -- which didn’t help my height issues -- and the fact that one building below had a pair of REALLY GORRRAM REALISTIC giant spiders painted on the roof, it was not a good day for Kitty.

But the view….oh goddesses, the view.

After the Space Needle, we returned to our room, had some dinner and watched Dragon Prince until we had figured on bedtime.

Which Brings Us Back to Today

Our flight was originally scheduled to leave at 07.30 Seattle local time. We got up at five to find out it had been delayed to nine.

Whoo. Hoo.

So we had a leisurely breakfast and made a few sweeps to make sure we had everything. That is when the trip started souring.

On our way to the light rail station, we met a few dogs. Most just barking and full of bravado. Then there was a Rottweiler that wasn’t. She decided that she didn’t like the way I was carrying my purse and proceeded to yank it off. Got a few nice tooth marks in the leather and the shoulder strap was snapped by the force(was carrying it cross-body at the time). Satisfied, the Rotti walked off.

Now, I don’t want any Anti-Rottweiler comments. That does not spark joy and will shut you down HARD. I have grown up around Rotties, Dobies, and other dogs and they are some of the sweetest things I remember about the clusterfuck that was childhood. This is an isolated incident and no harm was done that can’t be fixed with an hour or two of work.

Then TSA.

Both times, TSA caused us some grief. The first time was in our origin city where BW and I BOTH had to get patted down because those Scanners they use decided we were carrying weapons in our pelvic regions or something. I saw the scan and for all they know it could have just been a zipper that was unusually heavy or something.

That was fun.

The second time, we had to let our bags be searched while we’re trying to get to a gate halfway across the terminal and short on time.

That is why I hate traveling, really.

But, on to the pictures! Enjoy your moment of Zen.