Horseshoes, Crabs, Part 2 · 12:54am Jul 30th, 2018
Just got back home from Bronycon. Sorry to say that I didn't get many pics beyond some neat cosplays. I did, however, take copious notes, the better to offer as comprehensive a retrospective as I can.
Aside from Princess Deadpool arriving to thunderous applause, the most notable thing I did on Thursday was hang out with ClockworkMage, who regaled me with tales of his work on the Fallout: Equestria tabletop RPG, his incidental breaking into ponyfic and immediate physical publishing thereof with the diegetic story therein (a development he treated with shame,) and all manner of other fascinating topics that blended into one another so seamlessly that I had to remind him at one point that we were currently eating, and that he had managed one bite of his burger over the past ten or so minutes. We also determined that he is human Lyra. It makes sense in context.
On Friday, though I wasn't able to participate in the first part of Linecon, the line into the opening ceremonies had such wonders as a Princess Big Mac with a beard any lumberjack would be proud to call his own, a man with an airship that had Rarity as a counterweight (presumably so she could fall to her doom on command,) and a Captain Kirk cosplayer who proudly told anyone who asked that he was dressed as Applejack's grandfather.
At the ceremonies themselves, I ended up sitting between a Trixie cosplayer and a fellow who asked me to be the straight man in a video he plans on posting to YouTube. If anyone's interested in the details, I keep an eye on that as it develops. Also, Ingrid Nilson's introduction inspired another "con prompt" which led to eight typewritten stories I'll be transcribing into an anthology. Unconventional Paneling is coming soon. (Oh yeah, and while ROBCakeran wasn't at the con this year, the con itself provided typewriters for that authentic Quills & Sofas experience. Scratch that; Rob arranged for his typewriters to be there in his absence. Thanks for the clarification, PresentPerfect.)
Once I could make it to Quills & Sofas, I was able to start meeting and greeting, some faces familiar, others new. At times over the weekend, I was reminded how, in this little corner of the fandom, I am kind-of sort-of horsefamous, to the extent that I was on the latter end of the "Hi, I love your work!"/"Hi, I'm not sure who you are, but thanks!" exchange a few times. My apologies to everyone who got a brief blank stare as I tried to dredge you up from my memory. Much in the same way that it's weird when you're not looking at Derpy in Twilight cosplay, I know you mostly by your avatars. 
Also, Aragón is tiny in person. I do regret not interacting with him more.
The first panel I attended consisted of Amy Keating Rogers, Nick Confalone, and M. A. Larson each telling the process of an episode they wrote as it made the journey from pitch to final script. Confalone even had a PowerPoint presentation set up, though it was still really neat to see the emails and other production documents that went into creating the show. Some notes:
• "Party Pooped" was heavily reworked, multiple times over. The original celebration was for the Mane Six's markiversary, and Pinkie was going to have a terrible case of party planner's block that she'd try to alleviate with a grand party vision quest, including fleeing from a tribe of angry lemurs who'd pursue her right up to their idol... which happened to perfectly resemble Pinkie. Naturally, the execs shot down anything overtly religious, though I invite you to make use of Pinkie-theistic lemurs.
• Once the yaks were settled on, the vision quest idea was still bounced around for a while, though the sheer number of roadblocks, work-arounds, and explanations meant that it was simpler to scrap the whole concept. Cheese Sandwich was set to show up again at one juncture, though since they couldn't get Weird Al back, Cheese would've taken a vow of silence to better commune with partying. Meanwhile, the great party guru Shindig would've ditched his monastery the moment Pinkie showed up, declaring it'd be her turn to be the wise pony on the mountain. Later, suckers! ... Come to think of it, I'm not sure if Confalone ever said how that would've resolved itself.
• One cut scene would've explained why Yakyakistan was reaching out to Equestria: The yaks were tired of long years of social and cultural isolations. All of their diplomatic efforts thus far had gone less than swimmingly. Twilight would assure Rutherford that that could be for any number of reasons aside from smashing everything that displeased them.
• "The Mane Attraction" had a working title of "Going Gaga." Coloratura's initial name was Daisy Pimsicle—or something like that, I only heard it the once—with a stage name of Duchess Frivolity. She'd have had an entire entourage keeping her on the overly Auto-Tuned dark side, not just her manager, who was originally named Pony Baloney (very much a placeholder.) The original choice for his voice actor? Neil Patrick Harris.
• The charity concert itself was going to be Ponechella, featuring such acts as Talking Herds, the Red Hot Filly Peppers, and Brittany Spurs. There was even going to be a brief "Who's on First?" exchange between Applejack and Apple Bloom in the pre-theme segment with the Whooves. On that note, only Applejack would've not heard of any of the bands performing. Even Granny Smith would've been a big Filly Peppers fan, to say nothing of her knowing all the latest dance moves.
• Amy Keating Rogers was the original writer for the hundredth episode, which went through any number of possible names, from "22 Short Films About Ponyville" to "The Princess of Stress" to "The Hundredth Episode Premise." (She was beginning to get exhausted at that point.) One possible framing device was Twilight giving a tour of the town for foreign dignitaries, from which the camera would drift away until it could bookend the ensuing antics. Rogers traded the episode with Larson in exchange for what would become "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone."
• The Hub was much more heavily involved in "Slice of Life" than usual, since they wanted a lot of big names voice acting for this one. They actually wanted David Tennant for Time Turner, Jeff Bridges for Letrotski, and so forth. Needless to say, that fell through.
• Larson didn't want to trample on fanon, but the network insisted on a background pony-focused episode. He decided the best approach was to embrace the panda and throw together some ludicrous headcanons of his own. Secret Agent Sweetie Drops, for example, came about because of Bonbon's many voices.
• Cut content from the episode includes: Namby Pamby, former editor of the Foal Free Press, appearing as Featherweight's older sister to berate him for the printing error on the wedding invitations; Vinyl having lines, but the network insisted she not talk; Flash Sentry not being invited to the wedding despite raking Cranky's yard, trimming his hedges, etc., because Cranky just doesn't like him; a debate among foals on who is best princess; Pythonesque impressions of Celestia and Luna performed by the Day and Night Guards waiting outside City Hall (and yes, the Night Guards would've been bat ponies;) two groups of background ponies who are identical save for their colors meeting and saying "Well, this is awkward;" the resolution of an ongoing Lyra-Octavia conflict wherein the former got booted from the latter's band a while back; Carrot Top/Golden Harvest commissioning a dress from Coco as revenge for Rarity insulting her hair in "Boast Busters;" a dream sequence of Octavia vs. Sombra a la "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," complete with hickory stump; and a swarm of changelings descending upon Ponyville in the final pan-out shot.
• The execs wanted to cut most if not all of the rapid-fire jokes, not realizing that they were the intended point of the episode until Larson explained that.
• The original treatment of the episode included copious links to the MLP Wikia for visual references.
So yeah, great panel. Also, during the brief bit of the Q&A I stuck around for, when asked how he'd write an episode wherein Starlight Glimmer became an alicorn, Larson said "I would quit."
Then there was a panel at Quills & Sofas. Again, a panel in the writers' lounge, which is one-sixth the size of the smaller panel rooms. It was terrible. Not for the last time, I went to Stabletop Games and played Magic: the Gathering. It's a good thing I did, because it let me appreciate just what a bad idea it was to put And That's How Equestria Was Made! there. The entire thing was a glorious mess; we could barely hear one another at times. Bad Horse arrived just in time to witness the train wreck. Still, we did have fun, and if one measures the success of a panel by the audience outnumbering the panelists, then it succeeded.
Barely.
The writer's dinner came immediately afterward, timed perfectly for a sudden downpour. I always keep a poncho in my backpack for such occasions, though not everyone was so fortunate. Still, Tir na Nog makes shepherd's pie on a level I would expect from an Irish pub (even one with hummus and risotto on the menu,) and I got to hear Shakespearicles tell of how his past interactions with Tara Strong may have inspired Star Tracker from "Once Upon a Zeppelin."
The flash fiction panel went much better than the improv, being located in an actual panel room and all. There were never more than forty people in the room, but given that it went on during the same time as both another writing panel and BronyPalooza, I'd say we did fairly well. Pascoite gave me some excellent advice on how to handle being on the other end of the microphone. I just wish he'd given it to me before the panel. 
After that and spotting a roughly 75-year old man wearing an "I Can't Adult Today" shirt, I went to the villain panel, which offered some fantastic pointers on developing antagonists and satisfactorily integrating them into the narrative. I may not make much use of big bads in my work (other than insane instances of Twilight) but I may change that given these tools.
And given the sheer length of those first two days, I think I'll make a Part 3 as well. Expect it soon. For now, as much fun as I had, it's good to be home.
It really is impressive how much stories change as they develop them.
"whistles" Sounds like you had a blast :)
And you're about to become a YouTube star! Your celeb-status is sure to skyrocket
Sorry, didn't realize you were nervous at all about being a panelist. I would have given you a pep talk beforehand if I knew you needed it.
Argh it sounds glorious. I’m glad it was a good time. Next year, man.
Also, all the cut stuff from Party Pooped sounds like great fodder for fan exploration. The name Master Shindig has a nice ring to it.
Actually, I'm pretty sure those were Rob's typewriters. :B
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I think Biscuit brought them?
Ah, who am I kidding. There's almost no way it wasn't Biscuit.
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Not at all a problem or your fault. It's not like I actually said or did anything to let you know about my nerves. Also, thanks for the sample of actual pascoite!
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I stand possibly corrected.
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Yeah, no, at Trotcon, Rob set up for someone to take some/all of the typewriters he'd brought there with them to Bronycon. :B
Huh, that vision quest that apparently paints party pony-ness as some sort of religion sounds a lot more interesting than what we got with the yaks. I'd have been happy to meet this Shindig guy over Prince Rutherford.
Heck, I'd take silent Cheese over the world apparently forgetting that he exists; though, a vow of silence to better commune with partying doesn't make sense when part of your job is singing. I'd have gone with him having blown his voice out with a song a little too strong for him, or at least recovering from a nasty cold and he's too quiet to be heard (funny thing, I actually considered Cheese having a "blown his voice out" thing for Brotherly Bonding Time, but the way events unfolded didn't leave room for that, and someone else was hit with the "can't sing" stick instead. Guess who in both cases had to cover for them).
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Biscuit was probably the one. He drove his truck, I'm pretty sure.
Ha. That whole panel sounds great. If there's one writer I wish we could have back on the show, it'd be Larson. Some of these ideas of his sound fascinating.
I always appreciate the write-ups when I'm unable to make a con. It sounds like it was a blast!
So much beautiful headcanon in those show-writers' discarded ideas …
And...?