Obligatory Convention Blog Post Goooooooooo · 6:54pm Aug 19th, 2021
A bit late for this post! To be honest, I've had to spend a couple of days mentally and physically recharging. It's been a while, and that many people - and that many things to do - took a surprising amount out of me. Still, this is something that I wanted to make - and I've got other blog posts that I wanted to make after this one, so stay tuned.
I don't particularly have a nice way to phrase all this, not a lot of twists and turns to make it fun. There are folks out there who are more articulate than I, or have a better time organizing things in a way to make reading them enjoyable. This might be a bit scattershot, in other words. Still, hopefully you can bear with me on all this, and heck - maybe you'll even have fun reading along.
Thursday:
- Discovered that there is no limit to the amount of times security will pull you over during baggage check, rummage through all of your stuff (turning a neat packing job into a massive mess) and coming up with precisely nothing, simply because the scanners were suspicious of some of the actually legal gifts that you brought for friends. Subsequently got grilled on that. The same thing happened on monday, but worse (but I'm not going to talk about everything that happened on monday; even without all the hassles I experienced that day, it was depressing and horrifying and not something I'd like to talk about in a public blog. Still, no monday post.)
- Met Flashgen. For folks unaware, he's got a teddy bear personality and a love of tabletop games. Oh, and he's the best horror writer on the site, known for writing the critically acclaimed A Fleeting Light In The Darkness pneuma. He'd also like to gently remind people that he's written more than one story, and I'd like to less gently remind folks to read his stuff. He lives up to the hype. For real.
- Found out that Alaska Airlines who have leather seats put leather coverings over the top of their seats and backrests, thus making them feel actually comfortable for extended periods of time. This alone pushed Alaska into the "best airline I've ever been on" territory. I recommend them if you get the chance, though due to their limited range of operations you might not get said chance.
- Talked to an uber driver that i'm pretty sure was a patent troll trying to dress himself up as something more noble. Didn't really come to appreciate that until I dissected it in my head a little. Pretty sure he used the salesman's charm on me. Felt mildly embarrassed about that fact.
Friday:
- Discovered that when a place charges $2.50 for a doughnut, sometimes that doughnut might actually be worth that price. Not that it was necessarily haute cuisine, but it was very, very good.
- Got lost, and then un-lost, remarkably quickly. Bless the lad who helped me find my way, he was a good bean. It really says something about brony culture when folks go out of their way to help save you oodles of time. I love this fandom (mostly.)
- Discovered that sometimes, the best sort of costume you can make is one that evokes the theme of a certain character without necessarily doing a 1:1 copy of what they look like. To that incredibly dapper man in a Thorax cosplay: I salute you. (Same goes for you, Rockhoof cosplayer, though I didn't get to see you until Sunday. Still, excellent design for a less-than-commonly-used character.)
- Checked out the Vendor's hall. Much, much better organized than the one at most conventions I've been to, so good job on the staffers for getting all that sorted out. I did that thing where I decided "Yo, I'm not going to spend all my money on that, I should space things out a little better" and then promptly bought a bunch of merch, including a tote bag, several pins, a con lanyard and the most valuable poster I've seen in a while: Gallus in a cheerleader's outfit. Because, let's face it, everyone's gay for aged-up-enough-to-avoid-consent-discussions Gallus.
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E v e r y o n e
About the only atypical thing I saw there, comparatively speaking, was that there was a lot of Blackjack (the Project: Horizons character) merchandise. Like, more than Littlepip merchandise, as in the protagonist of the story that Project: Horizons was based off of. The vendor selling scarves was even selling scarves of her, for pete's sake! It caught me off guard a little.
- Panels. Panels panels panels panels panels. I went to a bunch over the con, especially on Friday. There wasn't any sort of dearth of panels whatsoever, particularly writing panels. You better believe I went to those. Genuinely useful advice, there, even if I wasn't able to copy stuff down verbatim because I left my laptop behind this year (a decision I sorely came to regret, even if getting it would have entailed meeting up with my parents again, an activity I've become more and more loath to do. My dad's political opinions have become increasingly toxic over the years, something I finally forced myself to come to terms with last year and have been watching with mounting horror as they've degenerated even further over the course of the last year. I'll leave it at that.)
- Met the The Barcast crew face-to-face. Lots of them were busy, I can't begrudge that. All of them wanted to go shopping in the vendor's hall, won't begrudge them that either. They're fun to hang out, with, for srs. Speaking of...
- That includes Flupi. Oh my god he is adorable. He is absolutely one of the most huggable people I've met in my entire freaking life. He's also been renovating a house by himself, owning the hell out of the music scene in his region to the point of touring, getting fit as h e c c and generally adulting the h*ck up on his own volition. The guy's, like, built of "I'm going to start winning at life and never stop," and yet he's still just the epitome of squee. I defy anyone to stand in his presence for fifteen seconds without cracking a smile. Go ahead.
You can't do it, can you? Thought so. Tl;dr got bless his h*cking heart
- In general holy h*ck there were a bunch of super brilliant writers there. And when they weren't running panels, they were audience participants, several times active ones. I'd namedrop, like, three dozen of the ones I'm familiar with, except there were more than three dozen, and if I went over every single one I'd feel like one of those rappers who makes a song and the song's lyrics are all just callouts or shoutouts to other people in the business. Special note goes to Olden Bronie, though, because I feel like he undersells how wonderful and interesting he is to talk to, and for the record: It's absolutely a pleasure to talk with you, I wish I had more of a chance to do it this year, and I hope I get more of a chance to do it next year.
- Discovered that sometimes, lunch being coffee is the best thing there is. Especially when it's Seattle-area coffee. I needed the caffeine, and it delivered in spades.
- Also discovered Wandy. I'll have to talk more about him later; he and Flashgen were my roommates this year, so I saw plenty of them and thus have plenty to talk about. But I feel like it needs to be mentioned that the guy is smoking hot. Folks with compatible sexual orientations, beware: you might experience hot flashes at the sight of him, and I wouldn't blame you if that happened. I chalk roughly half of it up to his Kennedy-quality hair and half of it up to his roguish grin, though your mileage may vary.
- I think this was the first time I met Mono, though definitely not the last. For the record, Mono is also absurdly adorable, which goes without saying. I mean, Mono's writing skill also goes without saying. Roughly around this point in time was the first time I read Love You Just The Same, which is a heck of a whammer of a story and I really can't recommend it highly enough. Get your paws on a copy if you can. If not, steal it from someone who did. I know I'm not supposed to advocate theft, but in the case of acquiring Monofic I feel it's probably justifiable.
- At some point in time, I went to a bar and got drunk. Like, I had four drinks, which is three more than I can normally handle in one sitting. They were all good, like, really good. I could tell because the music in the place sounded amazing at the time, and I had the sanctity of mind enough to get the names of the songs down on a phone app called Shazam, listened to them after the convention and discovered they weren't nearly as amazing while sober. This definitely isn't the first time I've been let down by the quality of materials that seem so much better when under the influence, but that's a story for a different blog post. But yeah, drinks are always good. The fact that I can't remember much of what happened also that evening may have been a sign that alcohol buggered my brain a little, or it may have been a sign that my memory - as per usual - is pretty crud. One or the other. I'm pretty sure it was fun, though.
- Oh, also caught a Ponies: the Anthology greatest hits collection. It's also probably a good thing that I'm not in charge of said collection: not that the material they grabbed wasn't great (it was,) but I'm such a massive Argodaemon simp that it probably would have been their videos and nothing but. Still, they did grab one of my favorites, bless their heart:
Argo has singlehandedly made Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel memorable with their Scitwi shorts. Bless 'em.
Saturday:
- Got breakfast with Flashgen: Panera Bread breakfast wrap that was surprisingly tasty. Held a conversation about horrorfic and Flash's legacy along the way. Brought up a few films we were hype about, as well as a few directors we were hype about, along the way. Discovered that he's seen Aronofsky's Pi, an absolutely underrated and underappreciated film that I encourage many, many more people to see. It's not my favorite - that would be The Fountain, which is also flat-out my favorite movie of all time - but it's hard to sell The Fountain to people on account of how much of a brain bender it is, and I feel like Pi is a lot more approachable. Particularly if you like dark Drum and Bass music, which really helps set the tone for the movie; a pretty wide variety of artists contributed to the soundtrack, including Aphex Twin and Clint Mansell. Yes, that Clint Mansell. Yes, he did make dark Drum and Bass tracks for the movie. Three of them.
I'm not sure if that's a selling point for any of you guys, but, uh, there you go. It's a selling point for me, at any rate. Seriously go watch Pi it's fantastic
- Showed up Flashgen unintentionally. There was a panel for eating hot peppers (jalapenos for those treading water, habaneros for the bold) and discussing a MLP episode of your choice for five minutes - both a summary of the episode and commentary on the episode overall, should the speaker feel up for the latter. Flash was hype for the idea; I dragged my feet on the concept, before eventually warming up to "okay, I'll watch, and I guess I'll submit my name, too."
They were running short on time, so only a half dozen or so people - out of the three dozen or so in the crowd - actually got to participate. Guess who was in that list? Guess who wasn't? Life is kind of a doo doo sandwich sometimes, not gonna lie. Flash deserved better, and I deserved less.
And the contestants up there were pretty varied. Had a legitimate reviewer with their own youtube channel up there, who did a killer breakdown of "2, 4, 6, Greaaat" - an episode I find kind of underappreciated, and which I'm glad someone did a breakdown on. There were folks who had clearly no ability to manage heat, struggling throughout their five minutes bravely despite the obvious difficulty. There was one guy who dipped his habanero in turbo hot sauce, just because he could. There was the guy who said he had no tolerance for spice but "a high tolerance for pain," and good lord he demonstrated that fact quite well. Kudos to everyone who participated.
Also, I eventually got up on that stage to discuss "A Royal Problem," and did my best to both summarize the episode and break down one of the reasons why the episode is great: because it highlights the fundamental contrasts and points of conflict between extroverts and introverts, even those who really do want to get along with each other, and how both camps unintentionally underappreciating the efforts that the other camp offers them presents a genuine issue that can only be resolved with a little bit of introspection and a willingness to actually talk about what's on their mind, be open about their issues and problems and make an earnest effort to understand each other and each other's efforts and appreciate them for who they are, what they do and what they like, regardless of whether or not they're able to get inside each other's skin (though swapping cutie marks certainly helped in that regard.) Y'know, part of what friendship is all about.
Did I mention the episode is arguably my favorite in the entire show's run? It's in a dead heat with "The Perfect Pear," but I feel like it edges it out on the slimmest of margins, and I consider them both of them undeniably fantastic in any regard.
Footage:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SwmWvEWZody9sdn7upY-XW7rOP2j3jL1/view
Apologies in advance for the fact that I'm fat and ugly; you'll have to bear with me on that one. Also for using the phrase "difficulty tweak" and trying to ASMR it up on the mic a little bit. Anyways, apparently it was popular. Lefty - the reviewer I linked above - asked me for the name of my youtube channel, was surprised when I said I didn't have one and told me I should start a reviewing series. Which was pretty danged flattering, as you might imagine.
- Also, I think this was the day I saw Milk, the barcast member who wasn't in the initial group I met on friday. That, or I saw him on Sunday. One or the other.
- Went to more writing panels, including some scene-setting stuff which entailed writing things down by hand - not something I'm amazing at. Got totally shown up by Flashgen and Admiral Biscuit, who are really, really good at this sort of thing. I was too embarrassed to share; I'm thankful that they weren't, and were understanding of my plight. And thankful that they're good at writing, for the record. "Eff that Bea" indeed.
- Supertrampoline was there, and wanted to work on a collab. I really should get in touch with him about that. He also spent a fair amount of time jamming on instruments in the hallway, looking for all the world like someone straight out of the counterculture movements of the '60s. I'm not sure that was intentional or not, but I'm not complaining.
- It was about this time that fatigue started to kick my butt; I devoted a lot of time to sleeping that day, because my body couldn't really handle all the wakey-wakeyness needed to function properly. Still, I managed to grab lunch with Banana, who took my difficulty-to-track-downiness in stride. It was nice to get a coffee with him and just had a plain honest-to-goodness talk, though I worry that I might have monopolized the conversation a little. My bad. ^^;
- Iron Author happened that day, though I didn't participate; again, I lacked a laptop, and my handwriting speed is absurdly glacial - I basically need a keyboard to be able to communicate in a nonverbal fashion with any degree of speed. Lacking that, writing was going to be impossible. Pity; I saw a lot of really big names out there in the audience, and all of them were able to demonstrate just how good they were at this whole writing business. Mega Kudos to them.
- Some time between Saturday and Friday - I know I did stuff on Saturday, and I think I did stuff on Friday, too - I hit up the Tabletop and Electronic games room. Ended up playing Dominion, A.K.A the first really big deck building card game in the states, with both Banana and Flash on different days; both seemed to like it. I also wound up playing Commander M:TG with Flash (borrowing one of his preconstructed decks; he still kicked my butt, but I had a lot of fun) and Yomi, a card game designed to simulate fighting games, which Flash seemed pretty taken with (and which he managed to also best me at; he's better at this whole games business than I am.)
- Sleeeeeeeeeeeep
Sunday:
- Actually got breakfast today. As in, a substantial breakfast. As in holy-crap-did-I-just-eat-two-massive-platefuls-of-stuff breakfast. It was good. I'd recommend both the crab cakes and the tiramisu pancakes - my orders, respectively - though the latter is deceptively filling and I think that had more bang-for-your-buck value in the end. Got it with Flash, Wanderer D and Somber, though I didn't do a whole lot of talking because I was kind of a nervous nellie at the time. Ain't that something? I'm nearly 30 and I still get the shivers and shakies around folks I feel inadequate about being around. Then again, this has happened with a lot of authors I've gotten to meet - the aforementioned rapper principle above replies, but it included plenty of Fimfiction folks who showed up at the Con. If we've talked face-to-face, you've got at least an 80% chance of being on that list, no lie. I get nervous easily.
- Speaking of which, Somber actually signed my stuff when I ran into him later at the vendor's hall. Went down there to pick up something for Wanderer D, since he was being a sensible adult and didn't want to spend money he couldn't really afford on a scarf, so I - being the less-than-sensible adult that I am - bought it for him, because flash and I both had scarves and being #scarfgang sounded hecka legit to me.
I'd like to believe it's to my credit that I didn't faint or barf out of nerves, but I'm pretty sure I was shaking like a leaf and trembling to actually get words out. Again, not the first time this has happened. Pretty sure I looked like an idiot the whole time. C'est la vie.
- Ohh, right, the whole reason I say "went down there" was because I made the mistake of mentioning to Wanderer D that I hadn't seen the Disney series Amphibia yet, but it was something I was curious about and heard good things about. It was a mistake insofar as I loved it so much that I spent a fat chunk of Sunday watching the entire first season of it with him and Flash. It's really good, and I absolutely recommend it to folks who liked Gravity Falls, which it has pretty similar energy to. I dunno how many hours I spent watching Amphibia over the course of Sunday, but I think it was enough that I can't remember much of whatall else happened that day.
- Gifts! I remember gifts. Of course I was going to bring stuff up from Wisconsin to my homies at the con, particularly Flash and Wanderer D (for putting up with me being roommates). Since airplanes in the night sky like shooting stars are notoriously strict and have a basically zero tolerance policy for bringing liquids on board, i had to do away with bringing local microbrewery alcohol, and instead I complimented the cheese I brought with coffee from an area pretty close to me. The cheese had to stay in the fridge, or at least I was too chicken about trying to sneak it into the con, so Wanderer D and Flash got it; fortunately, though, I got to share a bag of coffee with Flutterpriest, since I made a point of giving him some recompense after finding out he loved coffee but was used to drinking the big bargain tub-o'grits brands you can find at most grocery stores that compensates for the price by tasting like absolute ass. Hopefully some actual good coffee should tide him over for a bit longer. (Thankfully I managed to catch him at the very last seconds before he started to leave the con. Talk about lucky breaks.) As per usual, the upwardly-mobile, ambitious multitalent was absolutely adorable about it. Bless your h*cking heart, dude.
- Iron Author contest winners were revealed today, along with their stories - the top three of which were read aloud. All of them were incredible, particularly Aquaman and GapJaxie's entries, which took first and second place, respectively. Both of them deserved it, absolutely deserved it.
- This was also about the time where...
Okay, folks who know me also know that I'm...kind of crap when it comes to talking with people. Specifically, I'm bad at talking about my frustrations, bad about letting things go and bad about trying to actually mend bridges. So, you know, nothing that helps me really re-connect with people when I feel slighted about things that are frequently pretty damned petty.
But I need to get over that. I need to stop being an asshole and actually reach out to other folks instead of wallowing in my own negativity forever, because that's the only way I'm going to be able to actually re-establish relationships I genuinely want to see re-established on the inside. I need to admit when I'm wrong, which I frequently am, and try and make things better by actually making an effort to reach out.
I talked to three specific people at the convention. Apologized for things I shouldn't have said and shouldn't have done. Told them that I wanted to get back in touch with them, that it would be cool to start talking again, because that was what I actually wanted. They actually took it genuinely gracefully, which is kind of incredible of them. I'm not sure I deserved another chance, but I'm immensely grateful they were willing to give me one.
It felt good. Really good.
I'm gonna try and reach out more.
Anyways! The last big thing:
- Fogo de Chao with other writers. There were a lot of us, crammed into a place that clearly wasn't designed to handle over a dozen wild and crazy authors gallivanting in and carousing like there was no tomorrow - because, let's face it, there was no con after sunday, so why not party as hard as possible?
Good times. I gorged myself on meat and pineapple. My one regret was that they didn't have grilled pineapple to gorge myself on, but it was still obscenely delicious and well worth the price.
And that, overall...it was a heck of a convention. There was the exact same energy there that I felt at Bronycon '19: truly incredible, excited, enthusiastic stuff. I can't wait to go back there in '22, especially if G5 looks as good as some of the trailers have made it out to be.
If I forgot anything, or if you want to bring up a specific memory, feel free to drop a comment! I'd love to reminisce about all the wonderful things that happened there. And (hopefully) see you there next year!
Wait, they had the pepper panel this year? Wish I'd known; I loved doing that at EFNW '19. Did they still make you sign a waiver first?
In any case, I saw you several times but never actually said hi. Sorry about that, but I'm glad you had such a great time.
Glad I got a chance to talk with you during the beautiful chaos of last weekend.
(Also, hell yes, Pi is AMAZING.)
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It's okay! I know that the con was a busy time for all of us. I saw you as well and regret not saying hello - but, again, hopefully next year!
And yes, they do make you sign a waiver. It's also how they get names to shuffle and pick out of a proverbial hat. I appreciate how unintentionally useful it is.
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I know my top two favorite Aronofsky movies are locked in place, and I'm starting to believe Pi takes the #3 spot with ease, and that the trinity of quality far outstrips the rest of Aronofsky's (quite high quality!) work. The more I think about it, the more of it I watch, the better it gets, and every aspect of the movie is worth studying to some degree. criminy, it's amazing.
Hey, it was a pleasure hanging out with you and Flash that weekend, man! You both are true gentlemen. Worthy of all praise and admiration! Seriously, it was fun! Glad you had as much fun as I did! Also, remind me later to pass you the recipes for the drinks you had, including the ones I promised!
It was nice seeing and talking with you again! I’m humbled that you find conversation with me interesting and I hope we can talk more next year, for certain!
Im so happy we got to hang out as much as we did <3
It was great being able to see and hang out with you, Petri, and I will get that Hot Pepper Review uploaded soon for all to see my pain and suffering. I can't even imagine if I'd tried to find something hotter than a habanero.