BronyCon, Day Three: The Day Late Edition · 9:39pm Jul 11th, 2016
I'm sitting at home now, and quite happy to be doing so. Travel really takes it out of me. Some people love to get out there and see the world. I am not one of those people. I love being at home. This is where all of my cool stuff is. What does get me out generally is people, and that's why I attend things like BronyCon. It's because I want to meet people. The panels are fun and all, but I'd probably just skip it if I didn't want to put a face to all of these names I interact with.
So I journeyed, and you diligent blog readers have journeyed with me, I hope. That journey for me started kinda late on Sunday. I slept a lot longer that I wanted to on Sunday because I didn't go to sleep until about 4:00 am. I hate sleeping in hotel rooms. I hate trying to go to sleep in the first place. I'm not a very good sleeper, and any little thing wakes me up because my mind likes to be awake for some reason. I'd love to say that this is a great superpower. It is not. I can stay away for a long, long time, but I'm dopey and grouchy on hour thirty of being conscious. It's not all that fun.
As I was saying, I finally went to sleep at around 4:00 and slept in until about 9:30. Since the first panel was at 10:00, I figured that I was just going to miss that one, but they started late. That was to my advantage. It was some of the VAs and some of the internet famous people reading the comics in a variety of silly voices. It was funny, but I was thinking it was going to be the VAs reading the comics as the characters, so it was a bit of a letdown for me. After that was pony madlibs with M.A. Larson, G.M. Berrow, Some Dude Who Does Comics, and Dave Polsky. This was also entertaining, but not wildly so. Too much downtime as the authors thought about what they wanted to say.
That's all I really did panel-wise on Sunday. I had to leave the Con at around 2:30 to get back to the airport, so it was just a little more Quills & Sofas for me. But I promised Themaskedferret that I'd write more, and so that's what I did with my spare time. Behold, the masterpiece:
That was written on a cantankerous old Underwood typewriter that someone had furnished the room with. It look me WAY too long to write just that short amount. I'm really respecting the skill of those people who wrote sixty words a minute or more with one of those things. I eventually just resorted to using one finger and hitting the key really, really hard. It had a tendency not to advance the register if you didn't. You ending up pressing a key, but when you pressed the next one, it would overwrite the first letter because it didn't advance. You had to hit the keys with a surprising amount of power to avoid that.
Also, sorry that I sliced off the edge of page one. You're only missing a letter in most cases, so the context makes it easy to figure out.
Apparently the authors took a picture with G.M. Berrow after I left. Dammit.
So all in all, it was a good time. I would like to have some more focus on the panels, though. Seems like quite a few of them were at least just semi-winging the whole thing. That's why I liked M.A. Larson's thing the best. He really had his whole presentation down. I've never been on a panel, so I don't know what it entails exactly, but I think the leader needs to have an agenda that everyone has collaborated on and agreed with. It doesn't need to be militantly enforced or anything, but I want to feel like I'm being taught something, not like I'm hanging out listening to some people just shoot the shit.
For the most part, people at the con were very nice and creative. Lots of good costumes, including a VERY good Aria Blaze that I neglected to get a picture of. It didn't occur to me until after she'd left. She looked perfect, though. Her whole costume looked accurate. Well, her hair wasn't as big as cartoon Aria, but she'd probably be tipping over with that kind of volume.
The unfortunate side of this fandom, or a lot of nerd fandoms, really, is the amount of... well, autistic? What word is best here? Mentally challenged? Nothing I can come up with sounds good, and I'm trying not to be a dick. But our fandom has a lot of people out there who come off as a level of socially awkward that's way beyond just the normal fluctuations in personality. I really feel for these people. They really want to be there and to be included, but because they have trouble interacting on a normal level, people don't want to hang with them. In normal, everyday life, a lot of these guys and girls just don't have many friends, but put them in with bronies, or Star Wars nuts, or Harry Potter-ites, or what have you, and they finally have a place. Sort of. People are more accepting, but you can still see them moving from group to group as the people they were talking to originally finally have enough and move along. I never know how to feel about it. I get annoyed with these people very easily, but it's not really their fault. It's not my fault, either. It's no one's fault, but it sets one of us up for a bad time. I wish there was a good solution, but after fifteen minutes of listening to this guy tell me each and every blind bag mini he has in his room, I've had enough.
But on the plus side, there were tons of people there in great costumes, or that were making music, or sitting down to draw amazing pictures. There were people hooking up gaming consoles so that others could play Fighting is Magic or Super Smash Brothers. There were hordes of people with brooms yelling "Sweep!" There were people carrying plushies around that were almost as big as they were. You might think I'm exaggerating. I am not. One dude had a Chrysalis who was at least five feet tall. He carried her around for three days.
But as expected, it was my time with the writers that I enjoyed the most. Seether00 and I spent almost all of the con together, which was amazing. Getting to hang with people like Pascoite, Skeeter The Lurker, Soge, Solobrony, Biker_Dash, and Olden Bronie was just outstanding. I wish I'd gotten to talk with bookplayer a bit more, but she wasn't around a whole lot on Sunday. Her blog details her trials on that day, so I understand. She did pop in when I was writing my masterwork above, but I wanted to finish that up and keep my promise to Ferret. Not sure that time was well-spent, but there you go.
My trip back was largely uneventful, save for one of the types of bronies that I mentioned above that WOULD NOT leave people alone. Luckily, once he got on the plane, he was able to watch Zootopia and give the poor guy next to him a break. That random stranger was a saint, let me tell you. He was very patient with the "I Recognize No Social Boundaries" brony dude.
So here I am, back at home and looking at seven more days off. It's my goal to get at least a Cheerilee chapter out during that time, and maybe more. I'd like to write something new. I'd like to get back on track.
Also, NOT A SINGLE PERSON CALLED ME "EX JUGGERNAUT EX" THE WHOLE TIME! That's some kind of miracle! We've turned a corner!
it sounds like you really had a good time, ex juggernaut ex.
4084927 BronyCon is over! YOU CANNOT TAKE THIS VICTORY FROM ME!
And, ahem... I did have a really good time. Nice to be able to sit down and talk to you for a bit.
It was awesome to meet you in person, chief!
And yeah. That typewriter stole the show in Q&S, didn't it?
I so very hope someone kept the stuff written from it.
~Skeeter The Lurker
4084938 Yeah, we had a nice discussion together.
Oh, xjuggernaughtx... you just get me.
Congratulations on surviving the con, hope the crud doesnt hit you tomorrow.
Those typewriters are something you learn on and grow up with, so that when you cant find one, you can use a 6H pencil and chisel your work into the nearest slab of aluminium or other such soft mateial such as sandstone etc.
I just wish I couldve got that design for a dynamically adaptive compliant joint quadruped even prototyped back in the 90s for Pern dragons, it would work just aas well for Pegasi and Griffons. the biggest challange was the digital to analog variable hydraulic pump. Pretty sure I worked out a compact version.
Oh well, some nice stuff from Boston Dynamics and others.
I feel like I resemble that remark, even though people have said generally nice things to me about the romance panel. To be fair, we did have an outline that I couldn't get printed out because of printer trouble, and which we had to ignore to explain our opinions on RariJack. I was a lot better about those things the first year, and I definetly think I should go back to some of the stuff I used then.
Note to self: In future, meet juggs, do this on purpose.
4084962 It's one of the reasons that people that like to travel confuse me. I have little interest in seeing the sights a lot of the time, and all my awesome stuff is back in the place that I left. I do like events, though. If we are going to go DO something, like rafting or spelunking or something, I'm game. Just walking around and looking? No thanks.
4084990 I have lupus, which generally kills other illnesses. The end result being I get sick pretty rarely. That being said, I was around A LOT of people. Even my immune system has limits.
Never met someone so excited who kept talking about everything that interested him for hours (except for myself
), but that's generally a good thing. Talkative people are a blessing, at least as long as they don't belong to the "Oh no, Twilight became a princess, the show is RUINED!" or the "The portrayal of the yaks is rascist!" or similar (now I'm trying to not be a dick)..... "simple-minded" factions.
The "solution" for those kind of people is that they don't actually need a solution.
Just treat them like everyone else and talk with them like with everyone else. Then you will see that they aren't as weird as you think they are.
Excellent! I knew that would happen!
You don't happen to have filmed some of them?
I believe every word. My Cutie Mark Crusaders plushies are far away from being as big as those, but carrying them around at a con, all three of them at once, can still be taxing, especially if I'm carrying a bag stuffed with pony merch I bought at the same time and try to avoid running into someone who then smears the ketchup of his hamburger all over them or drops his noodles or drink on them.
Even made a trip with them this year again, for Ponies Around The World:
But I'm carrying them and I carry them with love.
http://cmc--scootaloo.deviantart.com/art/The-Cutie-Mark-Crusaders-at-Fool-s-Tower-Vienna-620858974
And I had to be as careful there as at a con, as nearby was a Europe League viewing and the place was crowded because of that.
But I wouldn't have want to miss out on that trip for anything in the world.
Ah, so it's finally happening. I knew you would continue. Just wasn't sure how long the hiatus will last.
Is the Bloom closet story going to be a thing now?
4085013 The romance panel could have been more organized, but I was interested. I am always generally interested in shipping because I don't understand it very well. It's just not something that naturally flows from me, so listening to people that are passionate about it is always an insight.
I go to a lot of writing panels, and I've come to wonder if one of the problems is that people have a hard time understanding where to start. Do you give the basics for newbies? Do you assume people interested in the topic have studied some and move on to more advanced points? I started wondering if it might be better to analyze a story and have people talk about what does and doesn't work within it, rather than just start out with, say, a romance how-to. I'm not sure what the time investment would be, but being about to look at, say, Twilight's List and say, "This romance worked because of X, Y, and Z, and here are some examples" would be interesting to me. It would just mean everyone on the panel would have to have read it and have opinions ready to go.
4085154 The Bloom Closet is definitely on my short list of things to work on. I was talking to people about it during the con.
4085166
Great! Even though it doesn't exist yet, it's already on top of my (long) list to read.
Nice to have met you, juggernaught. It was great talking with you!
4085149
Pretty much. The exception for me, I think, is museums -- being able to physically inspect artifacts is cool. I really want to visit the National Air and Space Museum, for example. But I don't care about art galleries, because I'd just as soon look at high-res pictures of the art in my own time than deal with an expedition to see it in person (I'm not artisitc enough to care about the brush strokes/3D-ness of paint on canvas).
4086194 If you mean the Smithsonian Air and Space museum, I wouldn't bother. I thought it was the most disappointing of the Smithsonian exhibits. It was very... basic, I guess. Like, they wanted to make sure you could take your six year old there, so there's nothing that's terribly informative. They have a plane and it has a little plaque with the name of the plane. That's basically it. I loved a lot of the Smithsonian wings, but that one was definitely the worst. The good news is that there are a lot of other places to go in D.C., and most of them were extremely cool. So many museums there.
4084956 I think bookplayer said that someone did grab it all. Or maybe Ferret said that. It's supposed to be compiled and scanned into a single document, apparently.
4085050 Maybe I'll change my name just to foil you.
4087543
Zyrian said he'd do it if no one else did.
And I can believe that!
~Skeeter The Lurker
Super glad to have talked with you, however briefly!
4084956 Zyrian collected them to scan and upload, go yell at him.
Aww, it was a pleasure hanging out with you too. You are certainly a swell guy.
4086261
4086194
If you ever find yourselves in New York, take a few hours to go visit the Intrepid Museum. It is set-up in a real aircraft carrier parked on the harbor which you can tour, set-up with a bunch of aircrafts from various eras, as well as a real Space Shuttle. You also get access to a Concord, and a real semi-submerged submarine, which again, you can tour. It is pure awesome.
That will happen.
4087640 Yeah, it was great to see you again, as well. I do wish we had had a little more time together. Next time we need to organize a night out or something, but BronyCon runs long. BABSCon is mostly over by 5:00, so outings are a little easier to come by.
4088284 That sounds perfectly up my alley. I'd love to go tour an aircraft carrier and a space shuttle. That would be awesome!
4088633 A man can dream...
4088828 That will happen.
I'm not the only pone who feels that way, but I've been helping the writer track happen for years. The increased focus from writing panels will happen, and the results will be awesome.
Start planning for it now, and if you have panel ideas worthy of this increased focus, start brainstorming them now and get ready to rehearse 'em and deliver them with a vengeance. Bronycon writing track only gets better. That is how we roll
Good to see you again! I didn't hang out much, because it was my first ever East Coast con and I tried to spend it with new people rather than the ones I see at best-coast cons, but our few moments were chill.
4091205 It's all good. I was doing the same. Still didn't get enough time to properly hang with everyone. BronyCon is structured badly for that kind of thing. BABSCon is basically over each day at 5:00, so people can get together for a large block of time. BronyCon was non-stop until around midnight. Not that I'm complaining about a wealth of panels, but it did fragment the time you'd get with authors.