The 2018 Bronycon Days... The Panel · 5:31am Aug 3rd, 2018
Have you ever had a friend who wanted to educate you in martial arts? I do. Apparently, Kenjutsu and some Kempo is not enough for Nyronus, who wanted to pummel me for an hour Saturday night at Bronycon, and also do so with the full endorsement of the convention organizers.
Presumably, this process would teach me something additional to be able to defend myself besides my motto of "end the fight quickly". Granted, half of my warrior-like education requires a sharp blade of a size that would be illegal to carry, and the other half… anyway, Nyronus hangs out with people that tend to end the fight before it even starts, preferably with explosives...
So, I had no doubt that it would have at least been fun. So I said yes. But, just like the continued discussion with Aragon about My Hero Academia and the finer points of Shonen, it was not to be. Apparently, BC staff did not like the idea of free MMA happening on the premises.
I mean, in retrospect, and putting it like that... it does sound dubious. But, really, who's ever done anything fun in life that's not dubious in some way or another. It's a rhetorical question.
Speaking of dubious entertainment, like a phoenix resurrecting from the bonfires of Bronycon's Quills and Sofas, Shakespearicles has finally started: STARLIGHT GLIMMER FIXES EVERYTHING!
Which you should check out if you want some random fun writing.
Anyway.
I have a history of doing panels at Bronycon. Generally... a lot of them. As in, run out of one and into the other. But this year, I was only doing the one panel with Bad Horse and GaPJaxie.
No reason to be nervous. After all Jaxie has superb presentation skills and Bad Horse researches the everliving crap out of everything and presents it in a very detailed, calm and engaging manner.
That's the thing with Bad Horse. He has that voice that… he's presenting something, and he sounds so reasonable about it, that it could be something as dull as say… (this is the moment when I realize I have no idea what qualifies as dull)... uh… scrubbing… your… carpet?
Yes. Let's go with that. So, he'll inform you in that voice on how, statistically, clinically and objectively it is good to do so in a specific way or another. And compare them. And show you charts. And explain the charts.
And, by the gods, he will enthrall you with the extreme depth of knowledge he has acquired on the subject. And worse, it's interesting. So yeah, we're covered on that front.
GAPJaxie knows his craft.
And he likes to involve the audience.
And he has a glint in his eye when he describes his plans. It's like seeing Space Ghost smile on camera. If you don't look away in time, the glint might blind you.
His presentations are usually images, that he uses to sneak Starlight Glimmer all over the place alongside his knowledge of the subject to present the idea and accentuate what he's going for. It has a good balance of energy, engagement, content and humor.
So hey, we're covered on that front.
And then there's me.
Crap.
Now, I will say in my defense that Tacos are a legitimate source of inspiration and nutrition that are surprisingly healthier than some other foods. And I'm talking real tacos people, not the cheddar-covered disgrace that you shove into a hard shell. Ugh. I can't even grasp how some people would even pay for that stuff. They should pay people to eat it, not the other way around. #TacoBellisnotMexican.
Regardless, I endeavored to make a point of expressing the Taco approach as succinctly as possible.
Once I felt confident that would provide enough information, I realized that, like tacos, I could prepare this in a way that would not only be nutritious, but also clickbaity and actually relevant. I had content to add!
When the time for the panel came, I was ready.
I had slides.
I had notes.
I had a frame for the whole thing, which Bad Horse actually made even better by suggesting we split my section into three parts!
Although he still looked slightly baffled when I actually put the Taco slide in between Jaxie's and his.
So, this time, I have to start the whole thing. Whoo boy. Deep breath, just talking about how Romance is not a plot. I did research, I thought about this, put the presentation together and… Bookplayer is sitting on the first row and I feel inadequate.
I start talking about Romance, explaining how when writing a story, you can't have something like, "Wanderer D and Sonata are a couple" be your story, because that's not a story. It's a statement; a component of your planning for the story, and certainly relevant to the characters, but it's not the story itself.
However, using that element to create a story around it is legit, say, "Wanderer D and Sonata have a lover's spat over tacos."
Every so often I'm glancing at Bookplayer, expecting that momentary frown to appear if I said something stupid. To my surprised, she actually nodded in agreement at a couple of things. I mean, granted, I wasn't challenging any generally accepted notions of plot development but still, it was nice.
Then it was Jaxie's turn. He talked about the five levels of Why and in the process got the audience to create an Equestrian-Dragon Tax system that will forever taint my headcanon.
Then Bad Horse whispers to me, "Let's change seats for my part."
"Okay!"
We do so, and Jaxies presentation ends, allowing Bad Horse to begin, so he clicks next and…
"What's this?"
"Just roll with it, it'll be fine."
"But this is not mine."
"Remember that I was splitting this presentation? Don't worry, it's one slide."
Bad Horse looks at me.
click
Tacos! Good for you! Delicious culinary creations that will take you to gastronomic nirvana!
CLICK
He looks at me, baffled—and I feel—with a sense of slight betrayal, but then calmly begins his presentation on chapter length vs opportunity of reader loss per chapter vs statistics but you can trick them with this evil trick to make your readers invest into your story.
The first time he read all of that I was timing him, and I actually lost track of time, because all of what he said I was putting into context with my own stories in my mind… and this time around it was similar.
Finally, he nods at me and we switch places one more time.
So you remember how I started with how Romance is not a plot, and used as examples how "Wanderer D and Sonata are a couple" is not a story, but "Wanderer D and Sonata have a lover's quarrel over tacos" is?
And how my totally legit statistics and graphs showed the intrinsic value of properly preparing your taco in a balanced way that would enhance them would take you to nirvana and not infamy? It's all there in the presentations.
Well… that was all foreshadowing… to the flashback:
That's something I did live, btw. My lines at least. All ad libbed because the one thing I didn't write down was my script. Woo!
All the time, I'm trying not to look at the audience for this one, because they're laughing, and if I look at them, I'm losing it.
Finally, it ends, and I receive a surprising amount of cheers for that one. I go over the main points for using flashbacks effectively (which, if you read my story Ranger, you'll know I have a lot of practice using… and experimenting with… and failing... and succeeding. Sometimes.)
These can be summarized on three main points:
Only Aragon told me he caught on to the Mexican Flag theme there, but I still count that as a success!
Finally, with some time left, Bad Horse took the mic again and did another presentation, this time on how Geography Symbolizes Story.
Now, I'm not going to explain Jaxie's or Bad Horse's presentations here, as it wouldn't be sufficiently awesome to approximate their work, but, if you get the chance to see the notes from either of them, make sure you do! There's much to learn!
TEACH ME TO LOVE TACOS
The Taco Gods approve of this tribute!
Correction good sir; the con staff loved my idea, they just kept asking me to verify it in an oroboric chain of bureaucracy and between that and the general lack of hard interest discouraged me from carrying on. That say, multiple staff members encouraged me to run it as a panel next year, so, you know, fingers crossed.
Also, didn't know you had experience. In that case I would have probably made you my demonstration partner while the more fresh faced did some reflex drills. Now I'm even more curious to see you in action.
You certainly had the most entertaining portion of any panel I went to that weekend.
Oh good. I heard about you turning the panel into a telenovela for a bit. Thanks for capturing the experience so that everyone can enjoy it.
I am quoting the fuck out of this blog in a certain story.
You know the one.
4913201 You already love them, you just don't understand the intensity of the emotion yet.
4913204 Chicomecoatl will hopefully make her pleasure at this development known.
4913205 Well, I guess I could be your piece of dead cow Rocky Equivalent.
4913220 Glad you enjoyed it!
4913238 See, this is why you should go to all my panels next year.
4913252 Any useful taco info is at your disposal.
So we're totally getting a sequel to Amores De Asador next year, right?
Ahhh, guey. So wanted to go to that panel but just entirely forgot! Can't believe I missed it....
I told people they wouldn't be ready for your portion of the presentation. They didn't listen.
Okay, I pitched your show idea to Hasbro. They approved it as part of the Equestria Girls Universe. Let's do this.
Amore's de Asador will live!
Wonderful. Best part was that you performed your bits live along with the video (they were punched in for the youtube, so well that you wouldn't even notice, but at Bronycon D did them live
that said, I didn't know that you didn't leave yourself a script or cheatsheet. Just the 'desperately making excuses in Spanish' 
Bad Horse literally talked about a full multi-line graph about reader retention rate (I'm forever calling it the pirate metric and you can't stop me
) and didn't put people to sleep. That alone was applause-worthy.
As always D, you were entertaining to watch, both on the panel topics as well as arguing with singing fish-horse waifu about the finer points of tacos. Fingers crossed at least one of us gets to do panels again next year!