BronyCon, a week and a half later (and also other stuff) · 4:49am Aug 24th, 2017
Are y'all tired of reading BronyCon retrospectives yet?
Well, if you're not, I've got a nice fresh one right here for you. Read on for a summary of my BronyCon experience, a retrospective on my last fic, and a preview of my next story. I'll try to keep it short and sweet.
(note: sorry that this didn't come out sooner. I just moved into a new house, and didn't have internet for the first four days—I felt like I was living in the goddamn 90s. 
)
Just after noon on Friday, I left Boston (I was on vacation there at the time) and headed off to Baltimore. The flight was quick, the cab ride to the Convention Center was even quicker, and as soon as I arrived I searched out the best SciTwi cosplayer I could find and took a picture with her.
...Okay, maybe I didn't search for her. Maybe she was just at a panel I went to. But still, her costume was awesome! She was part of a whole gang of EqG cosplayers that I saw roving around the building all weekend. Their cosplays were spot on, it was crazy!
Anyway, as I mentioned in a previous blog, I spoke on two panels while I was there:
"Editing is Magic" with me, Majin Syeekoh, Pascoite, Maskedferret, Sunchaser, Corejo, and ABagOfVicodin
The biggest thing I'll remember about this panel was just how absolutely fun it was. The seven of us were basically improvising the entire panel with Ferret as our conductor, which meant that we all got a chance to say what we wanted and really connect with the audience.
The bits of advice I remember best were mine, of course. I talked about:
- The importance of making friends in the fandom (you can guilt them into prereading your work!)
- The utility of FiMFiction's new text-to-speech system (it can help point out hidden typos)
- How young authors are awesome, and why they should keep writing
- Why writing out accents (Ah ain't dun talkin' to y'all yet!), character-specific tics (Oh, darling! We must talk more, darling!) and stutters (P-please talk t-to me.) is tacky as hell.
Also, I made the whole room give a round of applause for Majin Syeekoh's mom. She's awesome.
And everyone shamed me because I say the name of this site as "Eff Eye Em Fiction" instead of "Fim Fiction." They literally yelled "SHAME" at me. But it's okay, I forgive them. They merely hate me because I speak the truth.
Then, later in the day, we had "Seeing Through Your Characters’ Eyes: The Finer Points of Perspective" with me, Pascoite, GaPJaxie, and Ether Echoes.
The biggest thing I'll take away from this one is the shock at how many people showed up. Aside from the fact that our topic was a rather technical/boring one, we were placed in the Hall of the Planets (way off to the side of the convention hall) in the middle of the hour—in other words, a recipe for low attendance. And yet, by the time we were halfway through, the room was packed! Like, standing room only! Applejinx later told us that the hall reached 70% capacity, a super high number for a writing panel.
To anyone who attended, I'm sorry you had to listen to my voice for twenty minutes straight. I hope you enjoyed the panel!
And I only messed up the PowerPoint once! That's gotta be counted as a victory.
I went to about as many panels this year as I did last year. That said, compared to last year, the panels this year just... weren't good. Especially the improv comedy ones. Hooves Line Is It Anyway was more miss than hit, Family Feud was one of two cursed panels, and Ponies' Court—one of the most unexpectedly great shows last year—was just a mess this year. Actors breaking character, the audience not participating, people talking over one another... it made my head hurt.
I mentioned cursed panels—I don't want to get into to much here, since I don't want to make it seem like I'm trashing anyone or their work, but I have to say that there were two panels that just gave off some major dark energy. I don't think Pascoite nor myself will ever be able to forget the Squeaking Man who sat behind us.
Speaking of, I'd like to take a moment right here to note, just like I did last year, how awesome Pascoite is. Aside from the fact that he let me crash at his house again, Pasc was the one who invited me to be on his panel, as well as wrote up all the content that I spoke about. Pasc was basically my sidekick for the entire Con, accompanying me to most every panel I went to. Sorry most of them turned out to be duds, Pasc—I hope you know how much I appreciated the time we hung out together, and how awesome it's been working with you for the past year. Thanks for hosting me again, and I hope I can see you again next year.
On that note, there were a whole load of people I met for the first time this year. My memory is absolute trash, so I couldn't possibly try to list them all. But I'd like to give special shoutouts to:
- Super Trampoline, Guinness World Record holder for Longest Titles on FiMFiction, and an absolutely awesome guy
- Bloons3, one of the highlights of the Writeoff chat, who I immediately kicked it off with as soon as we met
- Shadowed Song, who is super friendly and the best Quills and Sofas mod ever
- NikitaKitten, fellow member of Corejo's Square, super cool and easy to talk to
- Novel Idea, one of my longtime collaborators and aquaintances, way younger and more energetic than I thought he'd be
- Augie Dog, my fellow pre-reader, hearing him talk on the Original Fiction panel was great
FanOfMostEverything, my favorite reader, so happy to finally put a face to the name (go read The Nightmare I Need!!)
You guys are some of my favorite people in the fandom, and meeting you for the first time is something I'll cherish for a long time.
And, of course, I also met up with loads of people who I already knew, including Axis of Rotation, ROBCakeran, Horizon... and Haze, one of my best friends in the fandom, who drew me this:
Aren't I adorable?
Finally: whenever I go to these sort of conventions, I always promise myself that I'm not going to spend any money that I don't have to. Aside from the fact that I'm a total Scrooge, I've never really seen the point of collecting figurines or plushies... I'm the sort of person who looks at those sort of things and just thinks, "What am I supposed to do with this?" So when I went into the vendor's hall on Sunday, just planning to browse, I didn't think I had anything to worry about.
Then I passed by a certain stall. And I couldn't walk away.
Seriously, how was I supposed to resist these two? THEY'RE ADORABLE!
At the end of the day, I ended up spending $32 at the Vendor's Hall... $26 for the figures, $5 donating to the Brony Thank You Fund, and $1 on a small button with Sunset's cutie mark on it.
Some other random photos:
My attempts at writing a fanfic on one of the typewriters ROBCakeran brought. As you can see, my H and K keys kept getting stuck, so I gave up early. Eventually Haze just started feeding me topics to write about.
Writeoff Association represent! A group photo with most everyone at BC who has ever competed in the Writeoff.
And finally, the massive writer's picture! Pretty much every writer who attended BronyCon made it into this photo.
See if you can name them all! We're white as sin!Hope to see you all next year! That means you, Quill Scratch.
So, uh... did I just release a fic or something? Oh, right!
Thanks to everyone who read and liked/faved/commented on Sunset Sleeps With the Fishes. It was just a silly side project to both give me a break from working on more serious stuff, and to (hopefully) give you all a little something to giggle over.
We'll return to your regularly scheduled programming soon.
Finally, as I mentioned in the last blog, we're currently in the middle of the writing phase for Oroboro's Changing Seasons Sunset Shipping Contest!
The reason I mention this here is both to remind you to submit (seven days left!), and to mention that I'm writing my own sort of entry for it! Despite the fact that I'm a judge and thus cannot win the contest, the Changing Seasons prompt inspired me to pull up an old story idea of mine and start working on it again.
It's a long one (probably 15k-20k when it's all done), so chances are it won't be coming out in time for the contest deadline, but hopefully I can get it finished in time for Sunset Shimmer day in late September.
To hold you over while you wait, here are two short snippets from what's been written so far. Hope you enjoy:
“So, Miss Shimmer,” Celestia said, “with graduation coming up, it’s getting hard to think that I won’t have the chance to see your bright and smiling face anymore! You and your friends certainly brought some much-needed excitement to this little school of ours. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good, I think.” Sunset rubbed the back of her head. “But also a bit nervous.”
“I understand. I was terrified going into college—Luna can tell you stories of how often I called home, begging for my parents to take me back. But in the end, I came to love it, and I’m sure you will too.” Chuckling, Celestia touched Sunset’s shoulder again, making the girl stiffen up. “Just don’t forget about us here at CHS, alright? Once a Wondercolt, always a Wondercolt!”
Sunset glanced down at Celestia’s hand, then the amber gem hanging from her neck.
She could do it. She could read Celestia’s mind, find out once and for all if Celestia loved her. Hell, she could make Celestia love her. It’d be easy.
“You’re right, I have been distracted.” Twilight got into her Decathlon pose—sitting up straight, hands folded neat in front of her—and put on a smile. “But I’m fine now. Quiz away!”
Twist looked Twilight in the eyes, then sighed and closed her textbook. “You’re not fine. Your right upper eyelid is twitching.”
Twilight’s smile died. “What?” she asked, taking off her glasses and throwing a hand to her right eye. “What about it?”
“That only happens when you’re upset, or you’re thinking about how lonely you are,” Twist said. She shrugged. “Either or.”
“How—how did you know that?”
Twist gave a sheepish smile. “Well, we have been the only two members of the Academic Decathlon team for, like, the whole year. Your eyelid twitches a lot.”
Groaning, Twilight let her head fall to the table once more. “Twist, you are way too smart to be a freshman.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Twist said, hand over her heart.
The new semester starts for me on Monday, so wish me luck. I'll see you all soon.
Almost everyone. (sniff) There was so much going on I wished I was twins. And I *still* don't have my after-action report done, so you're good.
There was one improv panel that was amazing: Bad Horse's And That's How Equestria Was Made.
Also, I'll get to reading that story posthaste.
But were you...
Running in the 90's? :V
Bunch o' nerds
It was great meeting you ^^ You're an extremely nice and approachable guy.
4646404
It was a blast to hang out with you again and thanks so much for being on the panel. You really helped make it shine. Also, totally free to look over your shipfic, jus saying.
AAA I was at your panel :0
...I'm not sure how I feel about this.
(And yes, the freakin' Minis are adorable. I may have ordered SciTwi from Amazon just so I could get it by the time I got home from BC. Now I have the Twiangle!)
So that's why "Written out stutters are for losers"