Well I\u2019m back from BABScon, and it went great! Though it may have been the last BABS, it certainly didn\u2019t go down without kicking and screaming. The hotel was packed, the panels were full, the vendors were selling out of merchandise, and I personally didn\u2019t hear any complaints from any of the guests or the members of my entourage. If anything, my only complaint was that I was so busy that it got hard to find time to eat or sleep, which is a mixed blessing at this kind of event if anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flight out wasn\u2019t all that<\/em> eventful, except that we got delayed by a half hour and my connecting flight wound up making its last boarding call just as I got to the gate. It was close, but I made it thanks to a brisk jog and the power of those floor escalators they have in the Salk Lake airport. One of my fellow passengers was trying to make the same connecting flight and chose to run the entire way there \u2013 which turned out to be a bad idea for him because he threw up in the jet bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once I landed at SFO, I went to the shuttles to wait for a ride to the Hyatt regency, but then I saw a sign that said, \u201cFor the Grand Hyatt, take the airtram\u201d. I thought to myself, the airtram almost certainly does not go where I\u2019m going, but on the other hand the Hyatt Regency is pretty close to the airport so maybe it does. So I left the shuttle area, rode the airtram to the Grand Hyatt, discovered it\u2019s a completely different hotel built adjacent to the airport so that you could be periodically woken by jets throughout the night, and then went back to the shuttle zone to get to the Hyatt Regency. Upon reflection, I feel like the Hyatt shouldn\u2019t have named both hotels things like \u201cgrand\u201d and \u201cregent\u201d because the connotations of the terms are too similar and a man might get confused. The one closer to the airport should really be called the \u201cNoisy-Ass Layover Hyatt\u201d so that you know exactly what it is, and then the other one can be the \u201cregency\u201d or whatever they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Proper <\/em>Hyatt, I met up with Jack of Scootertrix and a bunch of the gang from our Discord server, who had apparently been playing Everdell for the last seven hours<\/em>. Jack had gone through all the trouble to make pony versions of all the cards, not just for the base game, but also for several expansions. I can\u2019t even begin to imagine how four people could stretch one game of Everdell for that long, but someone must have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the perfect strategy to get Pinkie Pie to leave their village. I had hoped to get a game in myself, but sadly due to how narrow everybody\u2019s hours got, it didn\u2019t come to pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d landed late, so we got our keys and settled in for the night. This year, we split one room four ways between myself, Petirep, Artisan, and Twobit. Artisan and Twobit are both not just Discord friends, but personal friends who have joined me for family vacations in the past, and they both decided to make multi-day driving trips to the con, which was fortunate because we usually needed two cars to get some of our group coming and going from the hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See, since it was the last BABS and a bunch of our Discord members wanted to go anyway, they decided to make this be \u201cGregcon 11\u201d. For context, \u201cGregcon\u201d is an event that occurs periodically when a bunch of server members decide to get together for a meet-up. Usually, they meet in the woods in the dead of winter at some place nefariously far-isolated from cellphone and internet coverage. Usually I don\u2019t attend. There\u2019s also a bunch of rules for the numbering system, so this is actually the seventh Gregcon in spite of the name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Artisan printed out T-shirts for everyone and handed them out, so if you saw anyone in a \u201cGregcon\u201d T-shirt, now you know what that\u2019s about, and as an additional point of important information: if any of those people did anything wrong, I am not the leader of Gregcon. I\u2019m allowed to attend Gregcon, but if a crime happened, those people did that stuff of their own accord and I was not consulted. If I was consulted, I would have told them not to, and they did it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, in the first morning of the con we paid $20 for oatmeal and coffee and then got ourselves to opening ceremonies so we could go up on stage when they called us. Elley-Ray Hennessy had been invited back to BABS this year in spite of everything, and I remember her pretty vividly from BABS 2024. As a stranger in a room party was explaining to me that my mustache looked stupid, she ran into the room and sprayed everyone with silly string. This year she got it out of the way early and sprayed the crowd with silly string in the opening ceremonies, which I do have to admit was pretty economical in terms of silly string per victim. I can\u2019t help but think it\u2019s a shame Elley-Ray missed out on the heyday of Horse News parties, because back then they used to hire strippers and got so rowdy that the hotel would shut them down. I think she might have liked that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that it was to the vending halls with us. If you saw us, we were the most spartan table in the room. We don\u2019t believe in displays, fancy stands, or even visible pricing. Instead, we just sat there being bombarded by an endless stream of constant visitors. The line to get into the vending hall on the first day stretched down the hall, and it turns out if you had the instinct to get in there on Friday, you were right, because vendors were selling out of their good stuff on that first day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our strategy has always been to strike up conversation with anyone unfortunate (or fortunate, if you know who we are and like our stuff) to make eye contact with us, and then we tell people the prices if they don\u2019t run off. We didn\u2019t have to trap anyone with eye contact this year, though \u2013 we had plenty of people go directly to us. A lot of times I like to tell people what panels I\u2019m going to be participating in, but it felt a bit redundant since in most cases everyone who came to the table already knew and planned to be there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might think that staying in the vending hall for a lot of the con might not be that fun, but you do so much socializing that honestly it\u2019s a great time even though you\u2019re not moving around. Not to mention, a surprising number of people will wander the vending hall with knick-knacks, stickers, and other fun things that they hand out to the vendors, so even though I didn\u2019t do much shopping on my own time, I still came home with a bunch of \u201cswag\u201d. Especially notable was a bunch of gold, pony-themed funny money. They caught a lot of eyes, and people kept asking us if we\u2019d be willing to sell them, so big props to the person who got those made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, behind me, Artisan and Twobit worked at a steady pace to finish cutting out all the board games pieces we\u2019d need for \u201cA Song of Love and Tolerance.\u201d See, I\u2019d asked the con staff it it\u2019d be feasible to run a pony-themed war game, and they immediately said, \u201cYeah, we\u2019ll put you down for it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had kind of been sounding the idea out at the time and wasn\u2019t sure if it was logistically possible, but after I\u2019d accidentally signed myself up for it, only then did I realize exactly how much work I\u2019d need to do. It took maybe a month and a half to rush through creating 150 cards, plus unit trays, tokens, and other assets. Originally I\u2019d wanted to make armies to represent Pegasi, Earth Ponies, Unicorns, Changelings, Griffons, and the Lunar Republic. Lunar Republic won by a voting landslide as a \u201cmust include\u201d, so like a genius I decided to put them off until last in the assumption that I\u2019d have my system figured out once I got to them, giving the most popular army all the love and quality I could give it. Instead they got cut from the game entirely because I ran out of time, which is a shame because one of their units was going to be Steven Magnet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d ordered the cards, and Artisan volunteered to take care of the trays and tokens. However, the crunch got bad enough that he was still trying to get the game together by the time the con had started. Cutting hundreds of pieces of cork board while a river of people flowed around him, running on a mere zero hours of sleep after a sixteen hour drive. It could be described as nothing less than a heroic effort on Artisan\u2019s part for something that we both agreed was really cool, but really stupid to suggest that we could do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 4:30 PM, I had been invited to the \u201cWorld\u2019s Largest Pillow Fight\u201d, so I made a showing. They gave us a choice to join the side of an evil queen, or work for some lady in her pajamas, so the choice was obvious. In my opinion, the evil queen\u2019s team was not just better motivated due to knowing who we were fighting for, but they were also a lot more serious about it. Evil Queen Team quickly formed up a pillow shield wall and got really into the spirit of it, chanting and jeering at the enemy team. However, as soon as the starting whistle got blown, we kind of broke ranks. A pillow sailed overhead and landed on top of me, so I got knocked out pretty early, but I left behind a few Dawn Somewhere server members to pick up the slack and they did a pretty good job in the wake of my untimely death. In fact one of our guys got his picture in the closing ceremonies for his valiant efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Losing quickly turned out to be a blessing because it freed up just enough time to get some dinner before our scheduled war games. I\u2019d talked with Space Maniac about setting the tables up early so that we\u2019d be ready to play and we could hit the ground running, but we didn\u2019t get back from dinner fast enough. As a result, we pulled into the game space with only a bit spare. Through sheer grit and plenty of valuable help from Twobit, everything had been cut out and was ready for play, but us ourselves wound up frantically spending more time than I would have liked just getting all the supplies in place so people could play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had eight players there to go when we arrived, and more trickled in to watch as we went along. I am so insanely glad to say, that for all the work that went into making that game just for BABS, someone had actually printed off their own copy of the rules and the unit trays. I\u2019d posted the entire PDF of all the resources on Patreon since I wasn\u2019t really sure if we\u2019d ever do anything with any of it beyond the con, and seeing someone with those resources, eager to play, really just made my night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With only a little time to spare after cleaning up, we\u2019d been invited to a \u201chorse wedding\u201d for Ike and MidPrem, two of BABS\u2019s con heads. It really is thanks to Ike that I made it out. He\u2019d invited me to dinner in 2024 and talked me into going to BABS for its last two years. The wedding was all unofficial and played for fun \u2013 just a simple thing that required another staff leader to act as a horse priest, but the groomsmen got some snazzy custom pajamas made of the world\u2019s cheapest material, I\u2019m told. The bride\u2019s maids wore dresses fashioned quite loosely out of blankets. It was a very sweet event, and I got some pictures for my wife since she loves that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, we hit the room parties, and I was so thrilled to see the Klingons that it was the first place I went. They argue with people when you order drinks, they\u2019re rude, they\u2019re in costume, they\u2019ve got these lines that they\u2019ve rehearsed \u2013 man I\u2019m so glad they made it out again. The last time I saw them was years ago, when they came to a BABS where John de Lancie was a guest. They were one of my favorite rooms back then, and they were my favorite room this year. At the time we arrived, it was packed, and we were shoulder to shoulder with other guests. Their drinks are good and those guys are a hoot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not that the other rooms were bad, of course. I will point out that it\u2019s hard not to be suspicious of a room party called \u201cA bear\u2019s room party\u201d featuring a fursona that has definitely been naked at least once as its mascot, and they\u2019re serving meatballs. We still ate the meatballs and everything, we just did it with a great deal of worry for our future health. Nothing bad happened. This time<\/em>. But that bear is going to do something evil eventually, I just know it. Or it has, and I don\u2019t know it yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Jack and TiaraWhy had panels in the wee hours, and I\u2019d wanted to see them, but by 11:30 PM the day was starting to catch up to me. I\u2019m not as young as I used to be, I very rarely drink these days, and my home in the Midwest is two hours ahead so my body was calling it 1:30 AM. I ran out of steam and decided not to push my luck \u2013 I still had to do my panel in the next morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7 AM in California is also \u201csleeping in\u201d for me, so I got up pretty early. Petirep and I went in for another round of $20 oatmeal, spent a little more time in the vending hall, then made our way to the main hall for our panel. Last year there was some trouble with AV, but this year everything got sorted before the doors opened. The grand hall filled up, or close enough, and we premiered \u201cApplesauce\u201d, our new pony-themed, animated short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We got plenty of laughs from the audience, which was good, and then we went into a Q&A session to fill out the rest of the time. About fifteen minutes before the panel ended, it seemed like almost half the room got up all at once and left. I was worried that maybe I\u2019d said something that put everyone off all of the sudden, but once we got outside it turned out that a \u201cTamers Watch Party\u201d was right on our heels and anyone who hadn\u2019t gotten there early had not gotten in. It\u2019s another animated comedy series, so it was easy to imagine a lot of audience overlap. I also think we might have run a little over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By now it was roughly 2 PM and I still hadn\u2019t had lunch, but I\u2019d agreed to participate in the Mario Party charity event. I got there ahead of time, talked to the staff to let them know I was around and available if they wanted me to be anywhere or do anything during prep, and then hung out while Artisan kindly went to go fetch me an apple. By this point I was starting to get cranky, so that apple was a life-saving oasis. Like you know those busy days where a snack is a turning point for your mood and outlook on life? That was it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While I was enjoying the heck out of the source of God\u2019s anger at man, Silver Quill leaned down next to me and said something so stupid that I\u2019m not sure when I\u2019m going to stop thinking about it. He said to me something like, \u201cIsn\u2019t it weird how Wario and Waluigi are from Wario Land, but that place doesn\u2019t exist?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the way he said it, he was so sure, and it was so weirdly close-ended. I\u2019m paraphrasing here, and the thing he actually said was somehow dumber than I\u2019m telling it. It was a conspiratorial observation that he seemed to think was very clever. He tried to elaborate just a little, that although these two characters are allegedly from there, you cannot find it on a map in their fictional universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And goddamn. Goddamn<\/em>. Look, Yoshi\u2019s Island 1 and Yoshi\u2019s Island 2 are supposedly set on the same island, and yet geographically they have nothing in common. In Legend of the Seven Stars, Bowser\u2019s Kingdom is geographically to the East, but in Superstar Saga I think the Beanbean Kingdom was there instead. In Super Mario 3, it\u2019s implied the Mushroom Kingdom is actually composed of a collection of seven disparate kingdoms with their own kings all reigning beneath Princess Toadstool, and those kings are humans, but in later games everyone\u2019s just Toads. In the Super Mario movie, Mario was played by Chris Pratt and he was an Italian American. Let\u2019s not even talk about the Super Mario cartoon featuring Lou Albano. What did Silver Quill expect me to say?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The reply I wanted to give was that although I can\u2019t point to exactly where Nepal is on a map if it isn\u2019t labelled, I wouldn\u2019t go around accusing that of being suspicious on Nepal\u2019s<\/em> part. I wouldn\u2019t nudge and wink at someone while saying, \u201cIt sure is weird that people are from Nepal, but I\u2019ve never seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I also knew he wasn\u2019t ready for that conversation, so I think I weakly told him something like, \u201cLet\u2019s not be advertising our ignorance of Wario Land culture, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Man, I had not been eating enough to deal with that kind of mental attack. And it wasn\u2019t even Silver Quill\u2019s first sortie on my brain. Earlier in the vendor hall, we\u2019d asked why he was selling buttons of Rainbow Dash with the word \u201cAmazon\u201d on them. The day prior I\u2019d joked that maybe it was because in one of his videos he\u2019d asserted that Dash would be a good Amazon delivery pony. Instead, he explained that female characters have archetypes, and that Dash\u2019s archetype is \u201camazon\u201d, and I had no idea how to reply to that either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be honest, those kinds of interactions with Silver Quill were something I was mildly dreading about the event. I have a very improvisational, yarn-spinning style, and the kinds of observations Silver Quill will make are just these weird roads blocks. He puts them there, and I\u2019d really want to pull them apart, kick them over, and ask the probing questions, such as, what in the name of Captain Lou are you even talking about<\/em>, but I also know his fans are there and they aren\u2019t there to watch their guy get roasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately the concern became moot. The event had just one microphone, and when they told us that, I was sitting in front of it. I told the staff that in this case, Andrea Libman has to be there nearer to the microphone, so I got up and moved to an outside chair. Eventually, Andrea Libman showed up, but she had Ashleigh Ball with her. I got up to let Andrea Libman through, and then both women sat down, meaning there was nowhere for me to sit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A staff member said, \u201cWait, are you both playing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of them said, \u201cYeah, aren\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I made eye contact with the staffer, I shrugged, and I left without a word about it. I was a little disappointed because it sounded like a neat thing, but on the other hand Silver Quill was now their problem and I\u2019d be able to get something to eat besides an apple. I was the first one there and the first one to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can\u2019t tell you for sure if it was better or worse for the charity, and it may have been better for me in the long run. In my house, when we play competitive games like Mario Party, I like to threaten to kill three generations of my opponent\u2019s family. You know, as in the ancient Chinese custom when a high official has offended the emperor. We do clever-brain jokes like that at my house and my son thinks it\u2019s normal, and I guess we\u2019ll see how that affects him developmentally. I almost certainly would have made that same joke at Andrea Libman and I don\u2019t know how she would have taken it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, and I kid you not, Silver Quill had a book of dad jokes for the event. Like I say, it became their problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from grabbing a little more food, it gave us a good opportunity to set up Saturday\u2019s pony war games. Once again, we wound up with eight players. On both days, because the tabletop room was so active, we had to set up 2v2 games with the tables we had. I bounced back and forth between the two game groups for a bit until our friend, Space Maniac, showed up to help us out. I want to give a huge shout-out to him \u2013 he made our events way easier to manage and ensured that an experienced teacher for the rules was present at both tables throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At dinner we went out to a Japanese place where they made us take our shoes off and sit in a hole. That was neat. I ordered some quail eggs wrapped in bacon, and I\u2019d recommend it. A musician friend joined us, and during dinner one of the conversation topics was the \u201cStand with Pinkaboo\u201d stuff. They weren\u2019t the only musician to talk to me about it, though all the musicians were saying broadly the things you may have already seen on Twitter if you were following it there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you weren\u2019t following it, Pinkaboo was let go as concert lead at quite nearly the last minute, and when she went, she took every single musician with her. If you hear her perspective, she\u2019s naturally the hero of the story, and she was let go for no reason, or for poor reasons, or in the worst case because the con staff was evil and bad. I didn\u2019t really get many of the objective specifics I\u2019d expect to hear, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is, if you viewed the whole thing as being a strike, and you expected there was some kind of goal, then there\u2019d be some really clear grievances. Actionable grievances, that is. But what had happened was that after Pinkaboo was let go, everyone crossed to the other shore and kind of just burned the boats. Some of the musicians were still vending at BABS or still staying at the Proper Hyatt, so there wasn\u2019t a 100% cutting of all involvement, but it didn\u2019t seem like there was any way back from where it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some bombs got lobbed towards MidPrem, and I cut in to point out that the person we were discussing at the moment was \u201cPizza Tony\u201d. That is, MidPrem had joined our group for a roleplaying game once (as a character named Pizza Tony), and I\u2019ve met Ike \u2013 in fact my own wife has met them both \u2013 so we had faces to these people and a context of interacting with them outside the sphere of the convention and the drama going on presently. So basically, I listened to what was being said, but knew I\u2019d probably get a chance to ask MidPrem and Ike about it later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing I can say for sure is when you\u2019re in good with the musicians, those guys have a way of making you feel cool and included in the group. In some ways, they\u2019re like that riddle where you have a shark, a fern, and a goat on the side of a river, and you have to figure out how to get to the other side without paying a postal service or blindfolding the shark. However, you can see where they\u2019re really tight knit when you see some of it from the inside, and it\u2019s not a huge surprise to me that where they go, they go together. The musicians are a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the premiere of our new animated short, I\u2019d mentioned that I\u2019d never seen the G4 movie because when it came out, none of my friends had really wanted to see it. I hadn\u2019t wanted to watch it alone, so I just never saw it. Naturally, that had to be rectified at the con, so after dinner the whole of Gregcon got together in one room and we all watched it. I gave it a 6\/10, which Jack later remarked was \u201cquite generous\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can see why it didn\u2019t do all that well. The premise is this: the ponies are attacked and they\u2019re told to seek out the hippos (this is a misunderstanding, Celestia meant to say \u201chippogriff\u201d but characteristically was defeated before she could do even the most minor thing). The ponies then go to a shanty town, which does not matter, they convince a group of sailors to return to crime, the ponies call the police on the sailors, the ponies find the hippogriffs \u2013 who do not agree to help \u2013 and then they return to Equestria to beat a villain who had fifteen minutes of screen time at best. For some reason the villain was written to lack all gravitas, so it didn\u2019t seem like a big deal, and the ponies didn\u2019t really learn anything or gain any skills during the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the generous rating of 6\/10 is partly owed to being in a room full of people who were joking about the movie as it was happening, which made the whole thing fun and social. We did come up with some ideas to make the film better, though! One of which was that instead of the shanty town the ponies should have found the hippo kingdom, only to realize their mistake after befriending the hippos. Still, the hippos would offer to take the ponies to the hippogriffs by carrying them in their mouths, and then Rarity could sing a song named \u201cI\u2019d Do Anything for My Friends but I Won\u2019t Go in a Hippo\u2019s Mouth\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time we got to bed that night, we were a little delirious and called it after working out a scenario where the local squirrels become liches, who make their phylacteries be acorns, which grow into phylactery trees, and somehow it\u2019s Fluttershy\u2019s fault. It was really funny<\/em> in the midst of all that sleep deprivation, but I\u2019m still trying to figure out how to make the idea work in practicality now. There\u2019s something there, I just don\u2019t know what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday we took a break from $20 oatmeal and decided to get $20 eggs from a local diner. During that time, Petirep talked LOUDLY and EMPHATICALLY about his political views, which made me extremely nervous. See, Petirep is from a city and majored in political science, so apparently this was the most natural thing in the world to him. I\u2019m from the Midwest where a common form of goodbye is to just say, \u201cWhelp,\u201d and then you turn around and leave without really saying goodbye. Sometimes my wife and I will talk politics while we\u2019re out, and she\u2019ll hush me if I say any politician\u2019s name too loud. Sunday\u2019s breakfast was an exercise of sheer terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest of the day was more or less open, so we used it to get in one final pony war game, this time with the intent to get all the way through it and not end it early due to time constraints. I\u2019m happy to report that we were successful, and that Thorax will no longer plague the innocent and loyal members of the Changeling Hive. We got him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Neighem concert started at 5 PM, and Petirep had agreed to do some vending there, so he left for that early. Artisan and I tried to get up there in time to catch Koa\u2019s set, but we just barely missed it because we didn\u2019t find parking until it was too late. There was a garage with plenty of spaces near the venue, but we didn\u2019t find it until after we drove around the place for a bit. In the process, we spotted a couple of guys in \u201canti-brony\u201d shirts and couldn\u2019t know for sure if we were seeing ironic bronies, or guys who are unironically still anti-bronies to this day and age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not clear on exactly how many guests did arrive for Nieghem. It was hundreds, for sure, but at one point they announced registrations<\/em>, which is how many people went online to get free tickets (but not necessarily people who would show up). Announcing registrations instead of actual guests seemed like a faux projection of strength, and I recognize given what was going on there was probably a lot of desire to make the whole thing feel like a success. However, that did occur early on, and I didn\u2019t hear a final tally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At any rate, the Neighem venue was pretty neat. It was an old theater with two stories of floor space so that you could watch the concert from either the main floor or from the balcony. I personally spent my time there in the balcony, because it was less crowded and I\u2019m also short so I can\u2019t normally see above people. In my opinion every venue should have a balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We left Neighem to catch dinner with Moozua. She\u2019s a talented artist who\u2019s worked with us in the past and who does vending professionally today. She told us that Babscon weekend was a great windfall; even to the last through Sunday she was still doing good sales. We talked a little about the concept of this Babs being the \u201ctwo cakes\u201d convention, where although all the drama was clearly a headache for the people involved, as far as guests, vendors, and panelists were concerned, we really got the best of all worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the musicians weren\u2019t using the Hyatt as their venue, the main stage got offered up to more panelists, and given the number of guests, that means that more people got in to see the things they wanted to see. They got Mystery Skulls on Saturday, which was unexpected for the community but a cool treat for sure. Then, on Sunday after the con was winding down, if you still wanted to see the musician lineup that BABS was originally going to host, they were there at Neighem. It wasn\u2019t the ideal way to have things happen, but against all odds things came together to be more ideal for the guests who got to be there for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We dropped Moozua off at Nieghem and hung out there for just a while longer to socialize, then headed back to the Proper Hyatt to make it in time for Ike and Midprem\u2019s horse wedding reception. We had an invitation with a location on it, but I think maybe the reception got moved to a room upstairs and we didn\u2019t hear about it. As a result, we started casually wandering around the now torn-down and cleaned up convention space, just opening doors to see if there was a reception behind any of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not to our surprise, there was<\/em>. However, the people in there were clearly mad. We told them we were looking for Ike\u2019s reception, and instead of the warm welcome we normally got when someone realizes you\u2019re supposed<\/em> to be there, we were told quite firmly to leave and to message Ike instead. In that moment, I had chalked it up to the guy likely being under a lot of stress. It was the end of the con, and that guy would likely feel better once he got some rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turns out, we\u2019d stumbled into the secret, second<\/em> reception that Ike and Midprem didn\u2019t know about! Those guys were mad because we\u2019d, you know, discovered something nobody was supposed to find out about before it was ready. All that became clear once Ike sent us a message inviting us in. All said, though, according to the invitation the reception was originally supposed to be hosted in room Grand C, so hosting the secret reception in Grand A seemed like it was asking to be discovered by idiots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We spent the rest of that evening drinking champaign (or something, I didn\u2019t ask) and talking to the people there. I did<\/em> get a chance to talk to Midprem and Ike about the \u201cStand with Pinkaboo\u201d stuff, and in their case they did talk a lot more objectively about what they had hoped to have happen professionally, and they didn\u2019t speak disparagingly to me of anyone \u2013 not even about Pinkaboo. Just because BABS is coming to an end doesn\u2019t mean that everyone involved with it is quitting everything to do with pony cons everywhere, and it was clear they are still hoping to have working relationships with the musicians in the future. I\u2019m not sure they were even ruling out working with Pinkaboo in the future, though I do imagine they\u2019re weighing their options internally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had one more sleep, and though we had planned to go out and see the sights for a little while in the next morning, none of us could muster the energy to get up in time, so we said our farewells and now I\u2019m home once again, being bossed around by a small child who knows his dad is in charge of breakfast, and that\u2019s a whole lot more important to him than whatever is going on in the pony world. BABS was one of the first pony cons I ever went to, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll be my last, but I was definitely happy to see it in its prime, and I\u2019m glad I got to see it one last time for its final sendoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m going to spend years wondering why Silver Quill thought you should be able to point to Wario Land on a map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well I\u2019m back from BABScon, and it went great! Though it may have been the last BABS, it certainly didn\u2019t go down without kicking and screaming. The hotel was packed, the panels were full, the vendors were selling out of merchandise, and I personally didn\u2019t hear any complaints from any of the guests or the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dawnsomewhere.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}