The Prime Time of Your Life · 9:12pm May 26th, 2022
This is the story of how Reviewfilly and I had dinner with Imalou, AnonTheAnon, and Wolvan (and a few others).
That part comes later though. Let's start at the beginning. And if it wasn't clear, this is my EponaFest recap blog. While we're at it, here is an extensive gallery of photos someone else took of the whole con. Also also, look out on the EponaFest social accounts, at some point they'll repost all the panels they recorded on YouTube (and you can find them on Twitch right now).
Anyway. Friday morning. I get to Milan by train, check in at the BnB, then head back to the station to meet up with Reviewfilly. We get together, eat, head back to the BnB so he can set down his stuff. He gifts me an anonfilly plushie, she's taken permanent residence in my bed now but she'll also be relevant later. I went around the con with her poking her head out of my bag. Then we go get our tickets early. First person we see once at the hotel is a guy with a fedora getting his as well. Turns out, that was actually AnonTheAnon, but it was still a funny thing to see. We get our tickets, head back to the room, and I take this picture (don't question the programming socks):
Next thing was the pre-con pizza dinner. The main highlight of that was honestly the sheer amount of plushies on the tables, I sincerely hope none of them got dirty. The pizza was nice as well. Not the best I've had, but good considering the sheer amount of people that were being served. While still on the topic of things that happened pre-con, I'll give a shoutout to DrNachtschatten (who I'll refer to as Vinyl going forward). You will never brony as hard as this brony. He came to the con in a Vinyl Scratch cosplay with a car with Octavia cutie mark stickers and a custom pony-themed license plate, loaded up with plushies and an actual bass cannon. I have nothing but sheer admiration for this guy.
Anyway, onto day 1. I wore my Rainbow Factory T-shirt. I'll be looking at the schedule to keep track of things and remember what happened when. First thing was of course the opening ceremony. During which we first met Wolvan (thanks to the power of filly plushies), and also during which Imalou sat behind us for a little bit. So, you know, a little excitement there. We also got to meet Etyco Filly, who was an absolute joy to be around (and who knows how to mosh damn well from what we'd later see at the concert). Nothing too out of the ordinary during the ceremony, a presentation of the guests and video messages from the ones who couldn't be there, and other general introductions. But I will say, it ended with a "Hi new friends" and hoofness am I so into the fact that that's a thing now.
First proper panel was the Ashes of Equestria one, which Etyco tagged along for as well. I'll admit I have not read FO:E yet, nor had I previously followed the game, but it was still interesting to see it. It's certainly an ambitious project and I can encourage anyone interested to go have a look at it. And they asked people to shill it so I guess if you're a programmer or writer or 3D artist/animator and you have 8 free hours a week where you'd like to work on irradiated mares you should go check out the game. They'll apparently be putting out a new demo soon.
After that was the first proper trip to the vendor hall. I said hi to Noxi there, all around pretty great person who's responsible for the Sombra hoodie I own (but couldn't bring, way too hot there for it) and for some great plushies. Seriously she had a Sombra one at her table in the style of those dissectable statuettes and it looked amazing, if I had the kind of money for it I'd have gotten it. I'm pretty sure Dustykatt bought that. She also had some squeaky keychains that got a lot of use during the rest of the con. What I did get were a couple of G5 pins, a wooden one by Light's Artworks of the G5 unity crystal (they'll be selling those at Galacon too, and online at some point as well) and an Izzy button one by Shooting Star. Both are now attached to my backpack. I also got a few of the postcards Imalou was selling. Also, someone put a box of tennis ball chewing gums(? Candy?) there, it got moved around the con through the days. I don't know who it was but I loved it. By the second day Imalou had a bunch of them lying over her stand.
We had lunch after that. Then came the plushie bowtie workshop. Unfortunately, it ended up being too crowded for the person in charge of it to keep up with everyone there, so he asked some people to sit it out and just watch. I ended up being one of those people. But, it was still interesting enough to watch, and I suppose I'll just catch up with the musicians Q&A when the recording goes up and I have time.
What I wasn't bothered by missing, despite how big it was, was the Q&A with Twilight's Italian VA. I'll certainly look that up as well when I have time, but the panel we went to instead was well worth it. If you're at a con and AnonTheAnon has a panel there, go to it. He'll tell you it was a bad idea, but ignore him. Of course, you're not going to get a full animation course in just a couple hours, that's not reasonable (even if you will learn some useful things, and I specifically also did considering I also mainly work in Krita whenever I do pictures). But the fun of seeing the chemistry between him and Wolvan combined with just getting to watch Anon draw (damn he's good at it) makes the experience more than worth your time. And then Imalou crashed the panel halfway through and she ended up drawing a little Among Us pony animation. You know, good times.
And after that was Dusty's panel on creativity, completely improv. I don't fully align with everything he had to say, but I suppose that's the point, different people will have different ideas and all that. But it was still quite an enjoyable panel, the guy knows how to talk and he's got a whole lot of stuff to talk about from his experiences. In some ways, some of it is a time capsule of some key moments of the early brony fandom. In general, just listening to him talk about things is pretty interesting. And inspiring, in some ways.
After that and after dinner came the concert. It was an absolute blast. We didn't stick around for the whole thing, mostly because we were tired, but what we were there for was absolutely great. I've said it elsewhere and I'll repeat it, nothing had ever reinvigorated my love and sense of belonging for this fandom like Crusader's set did, and Prince Whateverer after that was amazing too (and like I said, Etyco Filly knows how to party, I mostly sat aside while people jumped around in the middle). Unfortunately we were tired, as I said, we dropped out partway through Blackened's set, listened to some people singing pony songs on karaoke while we relaxed (I swear I heard the Smile Song at least 4 times during the course of the con), and bailed out after checking a little of Tw3lv3's set. Somehow we still didn't get enough sleep after leaving early, so it was probably the right choice. But I will listen to the sets in full if they're put up too.
Onwards to day 2. We got there a little late, caught some of the cosplay contest (shout-out to the guy with the Sunny cosplay, that was great), listened to the last bits of the panel about Eponafest in general. Some of the stuff said there I can definitely more than agree with as someone who also grew up here in Italy, and I'm really extremely glad we finally got a proper con here. Also if someone ever has a room for me to crash at at a con that's not here in Italy hit me up please.
After that, there was the interview with Imalou. If you have the time to watch something off this con, I encourage you to watch this. I'm sure she'll probably have similar things to say elsewhere and I know for a fact she's getting invited to a bunch of other cons, but I hadn't really had a chance to hear her talk about things and it was a really insightful experience. Plus, she's a really great person, and I don't say that just because she said Ponk is the best horse. But seriously, go have a watch. The amount of behind the scenes info we got is extremely fascinating, from how influential Imalou herself was to G5 to bits about the previous projects before the movie we got to earth pony Twilight's unofficial theme song being Hardware Store. There's too much for me to bring it all up here, so seriously, go have a watch whenever that's up properly.
One last look around the vendor hall (people put together a bunch of plushies on one of the tables, that was nice), then we sat around relaxing and listening to people sing at Wolvan's panel from through the door. We were both kinda tired at that point, and both lacking sleep, so it was probably for the best. We had some food after that.
The next thing was the presentation about Oasi di S. Alessio, essentially this big park dedicated to animal preservation that the charity auction would be raising money for. They have a number of endangered species there, and all around it felt like a good cause, and one fitting of pony convention. Though the highlight was definitely the guy giving the presentation going off on Fluttershy about how reptiles don't actually hibernate and Rainbow was right in TFTM. And him talking about how Gummy is actually a caiman.
Right after that (and by that I mean some minutes later because things had to be set up) came the charity auction itself, hosted by Dusty. It was honestly another highlight of the con. From one of the items being a sheet of paper that had been in the vendor hall and people had doodled on to an absolute madlad paying €600 for the EponaFest banner. It was a blast, and I think it ended up raising over €2000 in total.
Despite starting a little late, the auction still ended with a couple hours to spare. While people enjoyed the last free time they had at the con (it's my understanding that it's during this period that Anon, Wolvan, Vinyl and who else was with them had their Can Turismo), me and filly had a walk around Milano. We got to see the Duomo from outside (and the crowd gathering there, in hindsight a sign of things to come), and some more of the city around. Then we got back for the closing ceremony.
If you've seen pictures online of the con you've probably seen what happened on stage right before that. Dusty among others tweeted about it. The filly on the far right is mine, the one next to it is Review's, the one on the far left with the pin is Imalou's, one of the ones in the middle is Wolvan's, and eventually another one got added. We don't know who put the mayo there. The closing ceremony itself was, well, a closing ceremony. Tons of clapping, guests coming on stage again, all that stuff. Staff promising they'll try to get the con to happen next year too and they will do their part, "hoof to heart". Yes I am delighted that another ANG reference made it into the closing ceremony. And yes, I really wish there will be another EponaFest next year.
And then the con ended. People walked out. Stickers were left around the hotel. The blog isn't ending here though, you'll notice we still haven't gotten to what I mentioned at the start.
First off, there was the proper filly plush meetup. Right outside the hotel. Pictures were taken. Fun was had. Particularly with a tiny AJ plushie with magnets on her hooves and snout that someone (Vinyl I'm pretty sure) hung up on the metal beams of the walk-in structure.
Then people started walking away. We didn't really have anywhere to go or anything to do, so we stuck around. Anon, Wolvan and Imalou talk about having ice-cream together. We stick around. By some miracle, it appears they are actually okay with us tagging along. So we did. And so we got to walk with them, 8 people in total. Took the metro, a walk around Milano, and we had ice-cream with them. It was good ice-cream. Then because it was getting late, we found a place nearby and we had dinner together. It was a good dinner even with how cursed some of the prices were, that's eating in Milano centre for you. Fillies were on the table as we ate. I got to witness an Austrian telling a French about horsepussy in German at an Italian restaurant. I had dinner with Imalou and AnonTheAnon (and Wolvan (and some other guys (I'm sorry they're not as horse(in)famous))) and dammit I'm going to brag about this.
Then we came out of the trattoria and... I should mention, Milan, the football team, was playing that day. I should mention, while we were walking around we saw four full vans of police getting off and heading towards the Duomo. I'm not sure if it would have been worse or better if Milan had lost, but it was an experience walking back to the metro. And we had to walk, because the Duomo station was closed. People were shooting fireworks there. People were climbing up over bus stops. It was loud and the crowd was thick and, well, at least it made for a good story.
We, eventually, get back to the hotel. Sit down at a table outside to chill, and talk about some things that will largely stay at that table. I will say that Imalou is absolutely a great person to be around, and so is Anon. So was everyone else, really. At some point she had to go back to her room. Me and filly stuck around with Anon and the rest, and we got to watch Airplane together. Half there on a Steam Deck, half in their room once it started to rain. Filly got kinda tipsy.
Once we were done with the movie, we headed back to Imalou's room to say goodbye. You might have seen pictures of that room if you're on Twitter. Dusty was there. People were drawing art there. Deus, who among other things played the bass during P. Whateverer's set, tried to open a bottle with a coat hanger, you can find pictures of that. I was in that room. I know at the end of the day horsefamous people are just people, and if you run into them please treat them as such, but it's still a lot to me that I ended up there with so many others who've had so much of an impact on this community.
We had to leave eventually. We were tired, we had to leave the day after, and it was late. And I do mean late, over 2 in the morning if memory serves. We missed out on playing Pony Uno, I'm hoping one day I'll get another chance to do that with Imalou. We walked back to our room, and while filly collapsed on the bed I took a little longer and began to pack up.
Next day rolled around. We packed our things. Filly took a picture of himself dabbing with elbow length gloves to honour a promise, you can find that if you know where to look. We got to the station (where we spotted more people wearing pony stuff) and that was our goodbye, and I went back home.
And that was it, really. And it was great. I'm really hoping there'll be an EponaFest 2023 for me to go to, or that I'll finally sort myself out properly and manage to go to some other con. It was good. It felt like being at home. Hopefully the blog itself was enjoyable for those of you who weren't there, if you care about my experience there or somesuch. And, uh... Till next time, I guess. Have a good day and such. Hopefully I didn't forget anything.
So long, and thanks for all the mares.
Haha, I'm surprised I apparently know how to party. I'll be honest... I just flail about and hope it's in rhythm
Shame you didn't see all of Blackened's set, 'cause him singing Danger Danger was one of the highlights of the con for me. There's just something magical about shouting "We're an angry mob!" during the a set. Oh, and him pulling out an actual corn on the cob had me in stitches.
The con itself was an absolute blast, but almost everything outside the con was a disaster (at least for us). The public transport strike, the absolutely unreasonable heat, etc.
You mentioned the football team; well that pretty much ruined our afterparty plans entirely, so we ended up going back and getting some uber eats food… only to get the completely wrong order (one that was hardly edible).
Meanwhile, on Saturday we got locked out by our one roommate who went back to the BnB early and we needed an entire hour to wake him up.
Still, at least all that makes for some fun stories in the future.
5660072
If I had known he was going to play that I'd have definitely stuck around for it.
Things outside of the con itself weren't perfect for us either. I missed my train the first morning, the strike forced us to walk all the way around when getting to the restaurant for pizza, and the people who were at our BnB room before us clogged the sink. But yeah, it all makes for good story material.
Hopefully I'll get to see you again sometime at some other con. Take care.
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We ended up riding around on electric scooters. Was fun.
Also, I'll be going to galacon (as I do every year), so you'll be sure to find me there if you go ^^
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I'd really like to be there honestly, but I probably won't make it. It's not even a money issue, I just hadn't really made plans for it in advance and now it would be hard to fit it into my schedule and figure that all out on such relatively short notice. I could look into it but it's very unlikely. Next year though, I'll definitely try to if I'm not busy around that time. In the meantime I hope you'll have a good time there.