24 Frames Per Second

"She'll become a crazy cat lady!"
"She only has one cat."
"Give her time..."
- Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Jayson Thiessen and James Wootton, 2010-present; Lauren Faust gets a notable mention of course)

Surprise surprise, I'm a pegasister. I know it wouldn't have been expected last time I made a journal entry, but hehe, everybody has their own quirks, don't they?

When was the last time I made a journal entry? Or, more precisely, made a journal entry that wasn't RP-related? I have been meaning to make more entries in the last, oh, year or so - or at least some sort of form of self-expression, vidding or filming or whatever - but I will admit that RP-ing is the culprit for most of my artistic breaks. (Where I have been RP-ing, and as whom, is of no surprise to anyone who saw my most recent post.) Oh and I'm sure our new labrador puppy is to blame, too; this is my first time ever taking most of the responsibility for such a thing and I seriously feel like a part-time mother.

However, this is three weeks following one of the most amazing weekends of my life as a film-loving, Disney-fangirling, overall geeky individual... and that weekend was spent at ConBravo! in Burlington, Ontario - a geek convention that has since last year become famous for being "the only Canadian con Channel Awesome visits". Don't know what Channel Awesome is? Well if you're someone like me who loves critique, especially in the world of films, television, music, and other various artistic mediums, then I highly recommend you go crazy on their website. And since he has been apart from the Channel for just over a month now, I will also direct you to the ever-funny Spoony Experiment. But I will warn you that from here on out, you might have trouble following what I say unless you are knowledged/a fellow fan of the members of these two sites (or other forms of geekery that were at the con... but since you are reading this journal, I'm presuming you already fall under this category). Anyway, the coinage of "the only Canadian con Channel Awesome visits" isn't going to stay I'm sure, but this label is 98% of the reason why Ry and I went last year, and 99% of the reason why this year. Much like last year, only much more dramatically, the con far exceeded my expectations. Last year we only went on the Sunday due to scheduling issues (and, being noobs in the con world, shying away from staying all three days), but this year we stayed the whole weekend at a hotel outside of the con site but still in Burlington. I have written a log of our experiences on paper since I've come and to give you an idea of how long this will be, the papers were 16 full pages long... and I'm adding as I type on here. So if you can't handle my intense levels of detail in this, I sincerely apologise, and I advise you take a few breaks in between if you have trouble with tl;dr posts. Then again, this is a post of mine so it shouldn't be too shocking. This here is exactly what happened during our stay at the small-but-ever-growing-in-popularity ConBravo!


Friday - Driving, Cosplaying and Bronies

Like most road trips, something, little or big, is usually bound to go wrong at some point. Our moment began before we had even left the house. We were meant to leave at 10am, and from about 9:45 I was sitting in Ry's bedroom waiting for her to come and give me something to help me finish my packing. After fifteen minutes I came down to find that she had been spending the last half-hour or so dealing with a freezer which had its door left open for twenty-four hours and thus refused to shut again. Only three things from it had thawed out, thankfully, and Ry's dad managed to take over for us while we got our packing together - we took some of the thawed food over to my house while I got some extra things, so it wasn't until an hour after our original planned time - a.k.a. 11am - that we finally headed out to Torontario. The 401 showed no mercy on the way there. The city itself was fine, but prior to that there were at least four or five times somebody had cut in front or behind someone (including us) so closely that we seriously thought we were going to witness or be part of an accident. Basically people were being stupid and wanting to get somewhere if it killed them. Literally. And not even thinking about which lane they should be in. At least that was the worst part of the driving and when we finally got to Ontario's capital, we met resident Atlas and had a friendly reunion. He introduced us to a place where they serve breakfast all day (since Ry and I hadn't eaten yet), and the two of us indulged in a nice meal of French toast with strawberries and whipped cream. Oh, and we caught up on friend-related things but that's not important for anybody reading this.

It was then we headed to Burlington. It was 3pm, so we were driving during rush hour, but at least we didn't feel like someone was going to pummel us this time. We got to the hotel with little hassle and the room was excellent. The only thing was that they gave us a king-sized bed even though we paid for a queen-sized one, but that's probably the best mistake one can make for a reservation. Even better was that said bed was comfy as hell. The three of us chilled on it while Atlas introduced us to SNAFU comics - due to not knowing enough about the sources, I can't say what I thought of it.

And then right after that came the big moment - registering for the con! Of course, whenever you enter a convention there is usually the one reminder that comes into your head: No matter how geeky you are, ther eis always someone geekier. And possibly a little strange. There were of course hundreds of cosplayers but I don't recall recognising too many at this time. Atlas recognised way more than Ry and I did and I can't remember what those were. It shows how my geekiness lies in other places. For instance, we all undoubtedly recognised all of the fellow bronies and their cosplayers - out of the three of us we managed to spot two Applejacks, two Pinkie Pies, one or two Twilight Sparkles, one Rainbow Dash, one Fluttershy, one or two DJ Pon3's, and one Discord, all in that one Friday evening. [We saw several more in the next two days too.] And speaking of cosplayers...

"Cosplayers Shorts" was the first program we intended to go to. We were a little late for it, and didn't really have any idea what it was supposed to be about, but we managed to get in and find out. We were sitting on the floor, but it was carpeted so we didn't really care. It turned out that "Cosplayer Shorts", though we could easily have guessed this, were short films people had produced that either focused on cosplayers or the characters the cosplayers were. The first was an Epic Mealtime parody, which was both amusing and gross of course; the second was a music video basically giving a montage of cosplayers from another con; the third was, if I recall correctly, a Link cosplayer at an office job; the fourth was another montage; and the fifth was sort of a parody/homage to the Occupy movement, where it was called "Occupy Hyrule" with Link as the leader of the movement and being interviewed... so it was also a sort of Legend of Zelda parody. By far the best video out of them in terms of editing and pacing skills was the Epic Mealtime parody, but in content I think I would have to say the last one, since the poke-funs at the Zelda games were pretty amusing. However, it did kind of remind me of how little I do know about various video games and animés/mangas and comics and pretty much most geekery in general. Most of my geekery revolves around old classic films, Studio Ghibli, Channel Awesome (which, ironically, derives from the exact geekery I've just mentioned), MLP, and Disney.

Yes, why isn't there any more Disney-based geekery? Most people go gaga over Nintendo and ponies, yet they all think they're too old for Disney or something. Yet there is so much potential here! We already have a Gaston meme, and some Disney play-offs of memes. We could make t-shirts our of these and make buttons and fanart and panels based around various jokes and discussions. Hell, there are hardly even any Disney cosplayers! Why are there so few Disney geeks? It’s not like there aren’t people my age who love Disney and geek over it, but it still doesn’t seem to be con-worthy. Somehow it doesn’t count in the realm of “con”, even though targeted at a much younger audience, and the video game that is a crossover with Square and Disney are. What the hell? Why can’t we have a Disney con sometime? Am I just unaware and there’s a long lost one somewhere in the United States? And don’t tell me, “We have Disney parks,” that’s not the same thing!

[For the record, we did end up seeing two people cosplaying as Sorcerer Mickey and a human Ariel on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.]

Anyway. Dinner was due, so we went to one of the eating places across the road. It looks like most of the con members went to Boston Pizza, but screw that, we went to Tucker’s Marketplace, which is your typical western buffet. “Grab a plate and go crazy!” says their sign. I hope that doesn’t result in any china-smashing.  There were also these weird-looking birds at the front.

It was good, though, for a buffet – there was some shrimp, some pasta, and a lot of meat and mashed potatoes. Dessert was pretty good, too, typical chocolates and ice cream and so on. It wasn’t the most notable meal of the day.

The highlight overall came after that. We had originally intended to go to the How to Train Your Dragon panel, but it was already halfway done by the time we were finished dinner and we figured we should get ready to line up for the next desired panel, since the lines always started 45 minutes before the program. The panel in question… was the brony panel. Surprise surprise, we are all bronies. Also surprise surprise, the line was already fairly long by the time we got there. We ended up chatting with a few of the bronies next to us in the line, discussing Season 3, giving each other brohoofs over who our favourite ponies were, and so on and so forth. We also talked about the irony of having the panel across from ours be 4chan. And at one point during the wait, that same 4chan panel’s door was visited by somebody. Some people also caught him for autographs. I reacted in much the same way as last year when I realised Noah Antwiler had just walked past us: just standing there, staring, trying not to squeal… and meanwhile, my brain was screaming: Ohmygod, that’s Lewis Lovhaug. Linkara is less than five feet away from me!

I am not quite sure why he was at the door to the 4chan panel, maybe because he had a panel or something in there later. But it was still Lewis freaking Lovhaug.

And then he left and I felt like an idiot for reacting like a fangirl.

Soon after that our panel opened and we all filed into the small-ish room. We got pretty good seats, actually, we were in the fourth row or so… well except for Atlas, who happened to get a chair that was right in front of a post. Who thought that was a good idea? Thankfully, the talking was more important than the seeing so he didn’t suffer too much. And the talking was everything ponies; we discussed our favourite episode moments, confession stories, the rise of the brony community, what such a community may mean for the future, theories of what the previews of Season 3 mean, and trying to be a brony in a life full of non-bronies (of the negative kind). We also played a bunch of remixes and other such similar things. Hosting the panel were three cosplayers: a DJ Pon3, an Applejack, and a Pinkie Pie, and they all had a lot of knowledge on the subject matter and had very interesting stories to tell. Overall it was very insightful, inspiring, and ohmygod the brony community is so friendly! I have seen fellow bronies and have talked with some of them (outside of Atlas and Ry) on Plurk, but this was the first time I had ever gotten together with them in the same room and actually talked with them and heard their thoughts and such. They are much like what I have heard about the LGBT community – generous, open-minded, and accepting and loving of everypony, brony or not. It made me very happy to be a part of it. Friendship is magic, after all!

(By the way, about halfway through the panel we had to move into another room where we had to sit on the floor in a haphazard circle. We all loved the closeness and Atlas never did miss the marvellous view he originally had.)
 

The Brony panel, with our cosplaying hosts.  Plus Discord on the left.

It was midnight by the time it was over and we then had to take Atlas back to his abode. But all along the way we were chatting about ponies, music, ponies, and a potential cosplaying plan we have for next year… and ponies. Hopefully Atlas can stay for all three days next time. We said our loving, magical-friendly goodbyes and then the remainder of us returned to the hotel. For once we didn’t feel that sad about leaving our best friend, probably because the fun was only just beginning. We got a little lost on the way due to the decision of taking a different exit off the Don Valley Pkwy, but we got back safely and conked out by 2am. The con had already hit off excellently… and we hadn’t even reached the Awesome yet.

To be continued...