BronyCon Day 2: At The Gala! · 5:45am Aug 3rd, 2019
Check out PresentPerfect’s review of Midnight Flowers! I promise I’ll fix those darn slashes when I get home, man!
Wow, where do I being with this awesomely awesome day of awesomeness? I guess I’ll start with the first panel I went to.
Did you know Dragons are paid scale? I didn’t till this panel! That would be “Bronx Definitions” a sort of Wheel of Fortune-esqe word guessing game that was a fun opener to the day and full of a lot laughs.
Next, I hustled down to the main panel of the day, featuring M.A. Larson, Jason Theisson, Lauren Faust and Bonnie Zacherly. I’ll give you some highlights... but first you have to wait in line, like I did!
Whilst waiting in line I chatted with an awesome Daring Do & A. K. Yearling couple cosplayers all the way from Hawaii! I’m doing a Daring Do (not as good as theirs!) tomorrow so I talked with them about that. We bonded over a mutual interest in costumes & history... A.K spent some time working with a historical society there.
The lines today, though crazy, seem to be back to “BronyCon Crazy” levels of the past with better queuing and line policing though thinks were still chaotic on ocassion. Props to the con staff, I got the impression they were having to do a lot with not nearly enough people, and held their own.
The panel itself was pretty cool, though I felt kinda bad that Bonnie was rather upstaged by Lauren. The almighty Fausticorn’s magical presence was really something. She spoke about how she loved magic as a child, and that it was really the unicorns and Pegasus ponies that sold her on MLP. She also spoke about the process of creating the show, remarking that Paul Ruddish’s art inspired her tremendously, citing a work he did of Pegasus ponies galloping across the sky and knocking raindrops out of the clouds with their hooves as her inspiration for making the magical world of Equestria run by ponies. She also commented that her leit motif for MLP was meant to be magic, and Hasbro wanted friendship... and thus friendship is magic! Lauren also said she wished she had stayed on the show till at least season three so she could have closed out the story she had written.
M A Larson commented briefly on his roll in getting “Winter is Coming” into the show. He said Hasbro fretted over it being dated, but Lauren praises him saying it was pop culture references done right as even if you don’t get the reference it makes sense in context. He spoke, too, about how coming into the convention circuit helped him overcome some anxiety he had with public speaking which was awesome.
Now I think both Larson & Faust mentioned working in the helicopters Hasbro kept forcing them to have in the show, but I’m not sure as my notes aren’t super clear on that.
Theisson spoke about how when he first read the shows bible, he felt that to do Pony justice it needed a feature film, and thus he is very proud of his work on the movie. He does, however, wish he could have gotten a direct to dvd movie he didn’t get but pitched to Hasbro, where Twilight had to face an Eclipse that merged Lina & Celestia into a two headed villain! He also said that much of what he wrote for the series, the more he watches it, he felt could use a rewrite or three. We all feel that, man! Anyway he also had an pair of awesome quotes about working on Pony. The first, in reference to the lengths they went to in Season One to encourage or gently remind staff not resort to two legs and geko hooves: “They took the whips away from me!”. The second in response to be told later on “That can’t be animated in flash!”: “Watch me!”.
Bonnie didn’t get many canned questions but when she answered it was awesome. She gave a hilarious recounting of the process of pitching an idea to executives, to paraphrase “You pitch them your idea (three times) and you get rejected. Then someone else has the same idea, and suddenly it’s approved.”. She also revealed that she is working on writing some new children’s books, and that she likes to do flower arrangements and thus wood be a curly willow tree if anything. She also said that she regrets not being able to get Hasbro to do a good posable pony toy.
Interestingly, nobody on that panel seemed to have any love for the G1 or G3 cartoon. It seems that the consensus among the writers was that G3 was bad and that Bonnie wasn’t a fan of G1’s cartoon because it came after her involvement with the toys.
The next panel I went to was the “Terrible FanFic Writing” madlibs session that was uproariously funny. My contribution was in a story involving the school news over the PA as read by Discord & Tempest, my part being in the news that Fluttershy had been kicked out of the Rainbooms for saying that Friendship wasn’t Magic, and that auditions to replace her were being held, per my suggestion, in the supply closet. RD must have been judging the tryouts, I guess!
After that, it was off to the Cathy Wesluck panel! That... was actually in the same room and I didn’t realize this until I had already left the room, so more line con for me! That panel was awesome though, Cathy very professional and yet also genuine with what she does and her “You Got This” slideshow of all the neat fan moments she’s had was great. Also, apparently in her CBC days she booked or edited an Issac Asimov interview?
I took a short break after that in Quills & Sofas, and OGM (who spent the day mainly standing in autograph lines) linked up with me. We then raced back to the hotel for food and to get ready for the gala.
At the Gala! Now this is what I was excited for! You see before this year’s BronyCon three things happened. Firstly I went to a Civil War Ball, which I also wrote a blog post on, and learned how to box step dance and also got a boost in my confidence with dancing generally. Secondly, I found a nice tux at a thrift store that fit me perfectly. And thirdly, inspired by a Civil War era cockade I hard stitched my very own Luma cockade. All of this really made the Gala possible for me.
So at the Gala I had a grand old time! I danced with three Lunas! Well, actually three lovely young women. Ladies if you are reading this: thanks for the awesome dances tonight! Whether you were experienced, or this was your first dance, you guys all did a great job out there on the floor and your cosplays were super cute (but hey it’s Luna of course they were)! I danced the night away, and got complimented on my looks and corny 70s dance moves when I was dancing alone. I really enjoyed the skits, especially the ponies as a magical girl anime which was hilarious, cute, and Fluttershy’s doing (Pwease, Discord-Kun?!).
And now, the day is over and night has fallen. I bid you adieu, friends, till tomorrow and Day 3 of BronyCon!
Someone needs to introduce Jaysen to the concept of fanfiction. <.< We can make that dream come true.