Bronycon 2013: A very tired report · 11:00am Aug 10th, 2013
So, I came back from America just a few hours ago, typed up a whole report, got tired, accidentally deleted the whole thing without saving. Whoops. You can tell I spent about 12 hours straight traveling! This post might be somewhat incoherent and vague. Actually, scrap the 'might', I'm pretty sure it'll be incoherent and vague.
Anyway, the journey went pretty well. I left on the 31st of July, having a pretty straightforward flight to Detroit and then to Baltimore, where me and my brother checked into the Hilton. We had a not-yet view of the baseball stadium and it was pretty cool.
First day there, we had a day of walking around with a friend of my brother's and their mom. Nothing too special, we went to the National Aquarium, which is actually pretty special because it's huge, and we had a good time. I was told I shouldn't be surprised if I was approached by women who thought I was cute. I want my money back, because this never happened :|
Anyway, first day of the con, we started out with... Standing in line for three hours! Bronies to the rescue, though, as standing in line wasn't that bad. Funnily enough, one of the people handling the badges had the exact same Crackle plushie I have. We proceeded to miss a whole bunch of early stuff at that point, but we did make it to the EQD prereaders panel!
Which was a pretty funny and sort of weird panel. It's never been a huge deal to me, aside from it just feeling awesome when your fic is approved, but I'm actually kind of surprised as to how heavy it is. During the panel, it was said that getting your fic sent back with minor points of improvement was already amazing, and mainly writing about an OC took a lot of extra skill. Seeing as I was approved in one go while writing mainly about a single OC, I guess that makes me sort of good, I guess? I still feel like I can only manage 'meh' on a good day, at best.
I proceeded to go to the Quills & Sofas lounge, where I went to the first-timers thingamajig. I talked for a bit, which is amazing, considering how shy I can get, and even got one of those Enterplay cards from the guy who runs the Googly Pony tumblr, who is really cool and whose name I forgot. Whoops again. He gave me a Madame Le Flour card, since Party of One is my favourite episode. Sweeeet!
After that, I met a few nice people and talked to them. Just in between: you people are liars! You look nothing like your avatars! Noble Cause does not look like two cute ponies, and CSquared08 does not look like a weird shark-thing. But he does have the christmas hat. Anyway, while talking with Benman (one of the EQD prereaders), I had this weird idea: I should step out of my comfort zone. Write something entirely different from Slice-of-Life, write something I personally don't usually enjoy. Like a romance fic. I know, I feel dirty, but I'm going to try it anyway. Broadening my horizons, as it were.
In the evening, I took a look at the Adventure Stories panel, which was pretty weird as well. Weird, because I realized I already knew a lot of stuff that was handled there. Stuff I already knew, but on a subconcious level. Whenever I write, it just sorta happens, so it's actually pretty strange to realize this. The panel still provided me with some handy info, though. Taking a step back and looking at what info you already have is incredibly useful. The panel also made me realize that I had a lot more information worth sharing than I initially thought.
That was pretty much it for the first day. On the second day, I went to the Writers' panel, which was a lot of fun. Apparently, Steven Magnet was going to get a song in Magical Mystery Cure! He also likes football, beer and pizza. It's true because M. A. Larson said it. True facts. No jokes. It was really cool to see the writers live, probably something I'll never experience again.
After that, I spent some time wandering around the vendor hall, trying to meet up with someone. The vendor hall was really, really crowded, which makes me very nervous, so this was kinda difficult. When we found each other, though, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and talking to people. It's strange, being introduced as 'that writer I told you about', and being treated with genuine respect for something I've done that wasn't deeply rooted in politeness. Like, actual respect. Weird.
We then proceeded to grab some more people and head to the second VA panel. Again, a long line, but leave it up to bronies to make waiting fun. Speaking of which, anytime someone mentioned the word 'fun', a re-enaction of Too Many Pinkie Pies followed. With even more Pinkie Pies. 'Fun' is an understatement!
The following panel was just... amazing. I don't know if there's a video of it online yet, but if there is, you should really check it out. It was fun, it was special, it was touching, there almost aren't any words for it. Almost.
Lee Tockar was incredibly funny. He's really quick on the jokes, answering such questions as 'Why did you take the job?' with 'Mortgage.' Best part was when the VAs were asked what their hobbies were. He said interpretive dance. He was promptly challenged to perform live on stage. Which was actually pretty good! Michelle Creber then decided to join in and make it an interpretive dance-off, and I can't believe I just seriously typed that. It is a thing that happened. It was amazing.
Michelle Creber and Maddie Peters were both amazing. I'm often surprised to see young people become that famous, and having such a fun and vibrant attitude about it. Certainly something I could never reproduce. If I was ever on that stage, I'd clam up! Both of them, on the other hand, were very funny and kind.
Cathy Weseluck really had a lot of fun doing Spike's voice here. She'd answer numerous questions with it here, even with some quotes from the show. She, too, is funny, vibrant and kind. She also mentioned that a ping pong table at the next con would be cool. Which she would totally kick my ass at, probably. I'm bad at ping pong. Or sports in general.
Brenda Crichlow was kind of a new thing here (for me, at least). She's as fun and kind as the rest, and even though she didn't answer many questions, she had this weird, vibrant radiation. Made you smile just looking anywhere near her! No Zecora voices, though. But she did mention she tried Talk Like Zecora day, which is an enormous challenge in and of itself. If I were to try it, I'd probably say nothing the entire day. Nothing like sneaky shortcuts.
And, last but not least, Nicole Oliver. By far, she was the most amazing during this panel. At the start, there was a question from a little girl named Rachel, who was absolutely adorable and very shy. So what did Nicole do? Why, sing to her in Celestia's voice, of course. It was absolutely heart-warming and simply amazing. Really, it's a seeing-is-believing sort of thing.
I then proceeded to say bye to my new buddy (Follower? Fan? Blegh, using those words to refer to people sounds dirty), and then crashed in my room, tired from the amount of social interaction and stretching of my shy limits. And also apologized profusely for being a boring slob and not being as chatty as I might seem on the internet. I love anonimity sometimes.
The last day of Bronycon was simultaneously great and also very taxing. First off, I went to the vendor hall and got myself a WeLoveFine t-shirt. One with Chrysalis, and, lucky me, it was the last small they had! And it came with a free bag, too. Cool, because those huge WLF bags are kind of hard to get over here. I also bought something else there, but it hasn't arrived yet. I'll post what it is when it's actually here! I promise it'll be awesome. Fo' realz.
That afternoon, I got autographs from none other than G. M. Berrow, author of the MLP books, and M. A. Larson, who is duh, you should know this. I wanted to thank both of them for being awesome and for being part of the reason I take so much joy in writing, and for being part of the reason I actually got into writing at all. Wanted to, because I only managed to get out a few very nervous, short sentences in answer to their questions. Which sucks. Those autographs mean a lot to me, and I wanted to convey to the two of them just how much, but it failed miserably.
I mean, writing is perhaps the most important part of the show. Sure, the art and music may attract people, but it's the writing that makes them stay. It's the writing that gave us the wonderful characters, world, lessons, everything, and it was what got me here, from some dude with a computer to one of the most popular authors on the site! 1200 followers, by the way. Holy moly that's a lot of people. I tried giving M. A. Larson a decent message via Twitter, but 140 characters isn't nearly enough to properly convey my thoughts.
After that, I went to the Do's and Don'ts of Fanfiction panel. Also very funny! Obselesence destroyed the TF2 hat economy. Also very weird! If I were to take their advice, I'd have to throw around the whole way I write. Which is kind of weird, because my current methods work just fine. But my methods are so oddly contrarian, there shouldn't be any reason I'm this succesful. So either I'm so good I'm kind of an ass, or I'm so bad people get blinded by awfulness and accidentally start clicking like and follow buttons and leave nice comments.
And that was the end of the con. Everyone packed up, skedaddled, and the next day, 8000 bronies disappeared from Baltimore. Me and my brother then went to Washington D.C., where we walked around the Smithsonian for a few days, which was honestly pretty boring, except the Natural History museum, which was awesome. DINOSAURS YEAH!
So now I'm back, I'm going to take a little while to get used to my normal timezone again, and then I'm going to start on that third Suncloak story. Schedule will be as follows:
First, third Suncloak story, naturally.
After that, or perhaps simultaneously, romance story. With some comedy thrown in. And of course, changelings.
I'm not sure if I want to do this one yet, but I'm thinking of rewriting Thrown Abroad after that. Of course, the original will stay, and the rewritten version will have almost everything intact, but it'll have better grammar, better writing, fixed plot holes, et cetera. I think I can do it better justice now that I've had a little bit more practice.
Oh, and last but not least, I encountered a really cool dude at Bronycon. Witness:
Here you can see a love-sucking, monstrous abomination, and also a changeling.
Yeah, just when you thought it couldn't get any dorkier, there comes a picture of me. The dork to end all dorks. After him, there were no more dork ages, because all dork was dead.
Now, my Day One copy of Tales of Xillia came in, so I'm going to lock myself up for a week or two to do some RPGing. And also wither away in a closet somewhere. And write, of course.
But first video games.
That sounded like a fun and memorable experience, here's to another one next year.
Damn. I live not too far away from Baltimore, and even closer to D.C.
WHY DIDN'T I SEIZE THE DAY??
Still, that all sounds cool. Wish I could've been there.
Yeah, sorry about that... I'll work on cloning myself and getting cuter for the next con!
... seriously though, it was a damn honor to meet and hug you. I think I'll be shooting for Everfree Northwest next year, though. Since I'm born and raised on the US west coast, it'd be 'going home' for me.
Wow, that sounds like it was an awesome time!
Just one question:
Where the hell do people get those costumes!?
I wanted to cosplay as a helicoprion!
You know, while it's fine that it's out of your comfort zone, I really don't think you'd have too much trouble at doing it. Just try applying what methods you already have into the relationship!
You just wrote an entire, fantastic, hundred-thousand-word story about a lonely individual making friends... And near the end of it, you really start to naturally advance that friendship in a way that could easily become romantic.
Not all romances have to be kissu-kissu-mush-mush oneshots, or even need to contain a certain 'spark' from chapter one - and when you originally wrote in #14/Nova, there wasn't anything in the world that would suggest the story would end on the note it did, with both of them on a roof, sharing a blanket and smiling together for the future. And that's okay. Because not all romances have to be massive, dramatic undertakings - they can be, that's for sure, but that sure as heck isn't what happens in real life all the time.
Friendship can naturally grow into something more, as cheesy at that may sound. It may not be much, but use that as a basis, if you're really lost out at sea when writing your story. Build up the relationship and let the characters do what the characters want to do ~ you already have wonderful experience in doing this! You could probably let Suncloak and Nova grow closer easily enough in Suncloak III, and not have it be the main focus, just a side story, and if you're comfortable later on, actively developing it in the plot.
Eh, maybe it's just a personal thing. I've never been in a romantic relationship, myself, but I like to think I write a decent Romance. Just do what feels natural! (And if it fails, you can always say you put in a good effort trying.)
You have to start somewhere, after all
... Also sorry for eating the comments space on your blog X_x
denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2860-HherF.jpg
I am very jelly. I wanna go to Bronycon!
Wait, you were at Bronycon, in QUILLS AND SOFAS...and I didn't see you .
;~;
Rocket Propelled Grenading? Sounds fun.
Boy, I like the way you think.
That changeling outfit is badass. I wish i had one!