Canterlot Gardens 1

As I stepped from the complementary shuttle from my hotel to the Holiday Inn in Strongsville, Ohio, I was baffled by what I saw.

This was my first time to a convention, and there were at least thirty people standing around the front door area alone. There was a beautiful girl dressed from head to toe in pink, and next to her stood a shorter girl in yellow, wings of the same color attached to her back and a light pink wig falling over her eyes.

A few feet away from the two ladies there was a man with a military hair cut, much like mine, who was clearly in the service.

Another few feet away from him was a short and stocky guy with a black shirt, a decorative CG on the front left breast, and on the back of the shirt was the word "STAFF" written in bold white letters.

And so on and so forth.

People from all different walks of life.

White and black.

Tall and short.

Male and female.

Skinny and fat.

Muscular and stringy.

I stepped into the lobby and was greeted with even more people, all of them happily discussing amongst themselves.

I approached the desk and the staff member looked up at me, "Pre-pass?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Just need to see your ID."

I pulled out my military benefits card.

In retrospect I should have given the guy my driver's licence.

He just laughed, "State?"

"Washington," I said, completely forgetting the fact that I had signed up for the convention within the state of North Dakota. I realized my mistake and let out a nervous laugh, "Uh... I just got out of the military."

He gave a nod and handed me my three day pass, and my journey into one of the most awesome, and weird, weekends in my life began.

Over the next few days I attended my favorite panels, stood in line until my feet ached to get an autograph, met really nice people, met really WEIRD people, and overall had an excellent time. This will be further showcased in my videos, which I will end up linking back to my blog on FiMFiction.

These videos will cover the overwhelmingly positive parts of the convention.

However, I come here to discuss two subjects.

One of these subjects was made after my promise to come back to /mlp/ with whatever leftover spaghetti I had from the convention.

The other subject is the behind-the-scenes things that happened with the convention staff and Purple Tinker.

I'm not here to start drama. All I am writing this article for is to share my opinion. If it makes you angry go take a walk and cool your head, then come back and do something that cheers you up.

Let's start with the fun stuff, the spaghetti. If you don't know what I mean by spaghetti then google it. I'm not here to explain it.

Now, as I said before, the convention was an overwhelmingly positive experience.

However, as with all conventions, there are a few people that are... different in attendance.

Granted, it's a convention, it's going to attract nerds.

That's not what I'm talking about though, as these days nerds and geeks have become the mainstream thing. What was once made fun of is cool, at least outside of the K-12 grades.

As for what I'm talking about...

It's safer to do these one at a time.

First of all, there was a guy in an electric wheelchair that was at the front of pretty much every panel I attended. He was mentally challenged, so obviously this wasn't that big of a deal. He was there to pony with the rest of us as far as I was concerned.

I began to notice a trend, though. He constantly interrupted the panels by screaming questions at the panelists, even though they hadn't opened it up yet. Not only this, but once they HAD opened it up, he interrupted other people who were asking questions constantly. Not only this, but he kept trying to jump in while the panelists were in the middle of answering something.

On Saturday, which I affectionately refer to as "Autograph Panic Day", I noticed him trying to cut in line several times for the autograph room.

Now, you might be saying, "But Kyonko, he doesn't know any better. He's mentally challenged so you should give him a break."

No, screw you.

First of all, he may be a bit slow, but he was quick enough to ask some pretty decent questions.

Just because you're in a wheelchair it doesn't give you the right to trample over other people like that. The panelists didn't say anything, they just grinned and bore it, but I wish they had.

I love you guys, I really do, but you can be TOO nice sometimes.

I know a guy with a mental handicap, and I know for a [i]fact[/i] he would love nothing more than to tear this guy apart. My friend has struggled with his condition his whole life, but he never uses it as an excuse to get what he wants, because that's bullshit. If you use a condition to (excuse the pun) roll over everyone else in a mad dash then you need to back up and examine your values.

Mentally handicapped =/= a right to be rude to everyone.

The second thing was a bit smaller than the former. The second day the hotel was overcrowded. It wasn't as bad as Bronycon from what I heard, but it was still a bit crazy, and I had trouble getting Tara Strong's and Andrea Libman's autographs.

Let me interrupt this and say that the con staff were undermanned by three or four, and they [i]still[/i] did an excellent job herding people in the right direction and taking fire preventative measures. No one was turned away from the autograph room permanently and I can say that most of us, probably all of us, got what we wanted. In fact, Tara, the doll that she is, signed for an HOUR more than she should have both times she was in the autograph room that day. It was just the first Saturday signing that was pretty bad.

Moving on:

Due to the crowd, the artist alley was being heavily managed that day. They would close the line for a few minutes, let people in, then close the line for a few more minutes, etc. etc.

The first time I approached the hallway leading to Artist Alley that day there was a gloriously overweight woman who, for a given amount, seemed to be cosplaying Pinkie Pie. She was not a part of the staff and she was standing at the entrance to the hallway, and as I approached she gave me an angry look and waved her flabby arms at me, "Go away, get out of here, lines closed!"

Me being a Men's Rights Activist, I'm not one to take shit from someone just because they're a woman.

I returned the glare, "You don't need to be so rude about it."

She gave a nervous laugh, and instead of apologizing like she should have, said, "There's just so many of you..."

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Am I supposed to take people treating me like some sort of herd animal just because you're stressed out?

I say again, she did not appear to be part of the staff, probably offered to help out.

I will add the following:

The entire weekend the CG staff were clearly under heavy stress, and not once, not [i]once[/i] were any of them rude to the con-goers.

If you offer to help out at a con you behave professionally, not like a harpy.

Other than this, nothing terrible happened. I wasn't drowning in spaghetti, but I heard there was a lot at the VA panel, which I never got to attend.

I saw some goofy looking people, I saw some fat people. However, as I said at the start of the article there were all kinds of people there, so that's not really of note.

Part of me is disappointed I don't have more to bitch about.

Make no mistake, I'm very happy it went so well, but I enjoy calling people out on their bullshit, because it seems so few are willing to do that these days.

If you have a problem with that, that's perfectly fine. I'm not going to tell you to not be pissed off at me, because it's your right, just as it's my right to type stuff like this.

Expect part 2 of this article soon.