Bronycon 2019, Tangents, NPR, Design, Lines, Shenanigans, but mostly rambling · 5:09am Aug 6th, 2019
Against all odds, I actually went to Bronycon this year.
Though it's a little strange. Being able to attend Bronycon feels like an absurd luxury I didn't expect to ever afford. I guess I'm just so used to being the one that says: Well I'm glad those other people had such a nice time that it feels incredibly strange to get to participate. And it feels wrong for me to go to something that so many others can't go at all.
But, well, the fact that this is literally THE last one also lit a fire in me to actually go. And my wife came too! She had such a good time at Everfree that she demanded to go to Bronycon too.
Well anyway, enough of me feeling guilty to have enough money to go to Bronycon for the first time in my life.
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My wife and I left early and hung out with our old D&D DM and friend, Brokenimage321 the whole week. And luckily, he lived reasonably nearby and was gracious enough to host us for a week and drive us around everywhere.
NEW YORK
Wednesday was a big New York trip day and we saw the Nintendo World store. (Which was smaller than something a world store should be)
For Pokemon alone I'd envisioned in my head a warehouse of Pokemon where kiosk #1 is Bulbasaur plushies in various sizes, Keychains, stickers, shirts. And then the entire warehouse follows that format of one kiosk of stuff for each Pokemon up to 900+.
Now THAT would be a world store.
Also. I'm convinced there are no bathrooms in all of New York City. No wonder the whole place smells like urine.
For backstory, I've been listening to the Geeknights podcast for the last 10 years. Which is two white guys living in New York talking about nerdy things. Those guys LOVE NYC. But... uhh... I did not see the appeal of a dirty, hot, expensive city at all. Probably a great place to set a story but why the heck would anyone live there!?
Still, I got the selfie of myself at times Square and ate New York pizza. Which is only marginally better than a Costco pizza. But the Costco pizza doesn't cause me physical pain to pay the money for it, unlike New York pizza. So Costco pizza wins on all counts.
But nevermind all that. The actual convention itself was pretty good.
BRONYCON
Brokenimage321 seemed to really care quite a bit about the gaming room. Which by Saturday he was finally able to nab a spot on the Shadowrun one-shot he really wanted to go to.
My wife spent the entire time in the craft room doing art. Which... she was happy as a lark about but... isn't that something we could have done at home? Oh well, if she enjoyed herself I can't complain too much.
Also, she did the cool watercolor sketch that was part of the larger sketch piece in the charity auction. If anyone knows how much that sold for or have a link to a video of the auction let me know.
I guess there are all kinds of ways to experience a con. Some just do games, some just art, some just shop. I personally like to do a giant mixed bag of everything. But as long as you had fun, there's no wrong way to enjoy a convention.
I spent the first two panels on Thursday with my laptop out plotting the rest of the convention. In which I double booked myself and had a backup plan for practically every hour of the con in case a panel looked like it was going to be a dud.
Times are off by two hours because of Time Zone differences.
This was the schedule I made that was mostly thrown out due to all manner of shenanigans.
Sidenote: A "dud" is defined by how quickly the panel decides to take audience questions. An absolutely nightmarish endeavor that should be avoided by whatever means necessary.
The voice acting panel by Jesse Nowak had an absolutely star studded cast until within 20 seconds after they had introduced themselves they had taken audience questions and they completely lost control of their own panel.
DESIGN TANGENT
The Bronycon website had some utterly fantastic ui and graphic design put into it. Indeed, I was extremely sorry to miss the graphic design panel they had. Because this is great stuff!
I do have one big complaint though. The Bronycon website scheduler did NOT have a list of who was on which panel. That ended up causing me all kinds of grief in deciding which events to go to. I would have loved to be able to sort the schedule by panels my favorite fimfiction people were on.
The schedule also had an irrationally high amount of screen real estate to gaming content. So much of it were the names of tabletop systems someone was running. While that's great, a single one-shot for 7 people shouldn't take up as much space on the schedule as Bronypalooza.
Which—for goodness sakes— let us know who is playing when. There was not enough detail to properly decide when to go. I was often checking the stream just to see what was going on and who was playing. Which— good on them for streaming it. I was grateful for that. However, where the eff are the videos on the twitch channel? Please tell me someone recorded that.
So yes, some fantastic design work, but still could use some improvements. And I know nothing matters and it's the last year.
And while I'm in design rant mode. Let's talk about lines. Lines were about a quarter of my convention experience. It was a nightmare for people like my group that have bad crowd social anxiety. They needed more volunteers policing the lines and at the very LEAST holding up a sign saying: "Line ends here."
I had to give up on going to the closing ceremonies entirely as the line wrapped around itself like a gosh darn ouroboros.
I wasn't mentally prepared for the sheer amount of lines. It was also exacerbated by how every panel had to be cleared completely between sessions. That meant shoving everyone outside just making the problem worse. It doesn’t seem like the best solution. But then again at the 10,000 person scale perhaps there aren't good solutions :/
This was also the first convention I've been to with serious occupancy problems. Too many panels filled to the brim too quickly which was frustrating for my "go to 15 minutes of most panels" strategy.
HOTEL TANGENT
We couldn't afford (and bought too late) a hotel room near the con. So we went to a hole in the wall hotel a half hour away. Which was thankfully cheap but may not have been "worth" it. With the ability to sleep at the hotel itself, there is a real possibility I could have doubled the amount of time at Bronycon itself and seen more things.
Oh well, it wasn't financially viable to do that.
Everyday I wander further toward wanting that moneyless communist utopia that Bernie Sanders thinks is possible.
I probably shouldn't try to quantify the happiness/dollar ratio of Bronycon but I find it difficult to not to think of the ENTIRETY of life that way. I do that for everything.
Also, I find it frustrating that so many of the expenses involved in my total Bronycon experience don't actually go to fellow bronies. Most everything goes to the plane ticket, then to food, hotel, gas, parking. All the money goes to all these corporations and only a fraction of the costs are going to other people I actually care about like vendors and the con itself.
BALTIMORE TANGENT
Baltimore was absolutely terrifying. From parking to driving, to homeless people everywhere and litter and the bugs. Yikes.
Just look at this sign:
I know those are supposed to be flowers but they look like bullet holes. I can’t think of a more apt description of Baltimore. (New York City was worse)
ACTUALLY BRONYCON
Thursday, I got to meet Neighrator Pony briefly which was one of the highlights of the whole trip. Ironically, we live in the same hometown but I guess I'm just too socially anxious to actually meet new people from the internet and not at a convention.
Friday there was a meet and greet with Scribbler and some other fanfic readers that I was quite excited for. I really just wanted to say hi to Scribbler and say thanks for reviewing my fic and letting me be a part of some collabs she's had in the past.
But then one of the con staff cut the line in front of me and declared that no one from that point would get to say hi.
I was rather put out after that. And kind of spent a half hour sulking and debating leaving to horizons panel which I would have loved to go to as well, but it didn't look like Scribbler was doing any other meet and greets but she's so busy I wouldn't want to intrude.
My wife was ready to jump the line and shout at Scribbler: "Yo! Ya Boi Chinchillax is here!" Which I convinced her not to.
Long story short, I was able to say hi to Scribbler and she was rather hurt that I began the conversation with "You probably don't remember me but" and she gave me a hug when she saw my name on my badge. "What do you mean remember you? I reviewed your story! We've worked together. And I could use your voice on more projects."
That felt very nice! I'm going to have to stick that quote on my wall when I'm feeling down. And also I'm an introverted doofus that doesn't know when I affect other people.
After that, the acoustic concert with Blackgryph0n and all the voice actors was a bit of a wash. They didn’t prepare... Anything. At all for it :(
I expected/wanted a sing along with pony songs with a huge group of people. We mostly just got the voice actors singing their original music. Which is nice... But not what I wanted.
The Cathy Weseluck panel was quite good. Though not the hour long inspirational Ted talk like she gave at Everfree this year. Still, she's my favorite voices actress to listen to on the show.
One of our group got sick and so all my plans got scrapped the rest of Friday so we could rest at the hotel room. I did need the rest though as I slept like a brick at like 7pm, which is unusual to say the least for me.
SATURDAY
Saturday was the frickin' BEST!!! Holy Moly. That was the day I successfully met up with everyone on my checklist of people to say hi to.
I spent a good hour talking to Soge which was FRICKIN’ AMAZING! Soge has edited practically everything I’ve written including the super dark stuff. It was so good to talk to him!
Also, the Royal Canterlot library panel was absolutely excellent. I haven't read the winner, The Enchanted Library, but if it beat out Hard Reset, it's gotta be amazing.
And horizon’s script was also excellent. It makes me a little sad for the canon conclusion to Sunset Shimmer’s story arc. It’s… over and there wasn’t a proper send off at all :/
Thank you to horizon for the proper ending :)
I saw The Letter J and his wife again! They were in my college Brony group until he graduated a few years back.
Speaking of college Brony groups. I somehow stumbled into my friend James also from that club. And holy crap I forgot he had gotten that NPR (National Public Radio) internship! He’s been working there for years. And he came on his own time on a Saturday to Bronycon—mostly because he's a Brony. Radio-wise, I think he’d been given like 2 minutes of air time for the story. 4 minutes if he's lucky. And 8 minutes if he's absurdly lucky. NPR is a weird beast.
The ultra rare "Press" Badge
It was so good to catch up with James. We do have slightly similar career paths. I talk to people and figure out how to solve their problems with software. He talks to people to find stories. Which is such a cool job.
I did talk on the record a bit. I’m sure I talked just enough for me to sound like a frickin' ignorant doofus in the final version. He kept wanting to figure out why I don't share my My Little Pony watching habits with others.... which.... they don't need to know, so why share?
After that, James kind of hung around me for a bit. And I managed to snag Present Perfect who happened to be walking past to get interviewed by the NPR guy.
And then I had a fantastic long conversation with Ditherer the Fussbudget. (He did a reading for that novel I wrote once). I kept getting distracted by people walking past. It’s not everyday you’re talking to a friend and a fursuit parade just waltzes past.
And Ditherer ended up on NPR as well. James wanted to talk to a musician and I was like: Ditherer composes pony rap!
And then I messaged horizon as well, who came with the vice con-chair to also talk to NPR guy.
So… I managed to get James five interviews for NPR! Which sounds like it went way better than when James was trying to get conversations on his own.
I had no idea I was so well connected to the Brony fandom I have way more connections to Bronies than I do with any professional job relations.
(At this rate, I'm going to someday get a referral for a UX design job because of My Little Pony. Which, if you have gotten a boring adult job because of ponies, let me know in the comments. That sounds fascinating.)
Well anyway. I will post a blog post if/when that NPR story comes out. Regardless of if it's only two minutes long and if I sound like an idiot.
I spent most of Saturday talking with friends, which was so wonderful. But it is weird I missed SO MANY of the panels I planned on going to. I usually go to a ton, but the lines and climbing over people really put a damper on that. (I somehow didn’t see a single M.A. Larson Panel. Darn) I really hope some of those recordings show up on YouTube soon.
I got dinner at a Chinese place and ended up in a food coma after that and didn’t want to move. But then I checked the schedule and frickin’ Blackgryphon was singing and I was like: SHOOT. So I headed down to Bronypalooza 45 minutes after it started and…
IT WAS INCREDIBLE. Not only were there empty chairs to sit in for me to be tired in. But the music was soooo good. Yeah, I’m a BlackGryphon fan. And I wish I could have gone to more of Bronypalooza.
My main complaint: WHY THE HECK ARE ALL THESE GREAT THINGS at 1 o’clock in the morning!? Why would you do that!? How could you? This… this is sleep robbery, people D:
Apparently Odyssey Eurobeat played Discord at 2:30am in the morning. Why do people do this?
I say this because I was completely loopy from like 10pm onwards on Saturday night.
And BrokenImages Shadowrun game ended at like… 1.
Like, there were two good fanfic panels at like… 11:30pm and 12:45am from people I knew (like GaPJaxie) were on them and I was like: How are people functioning!? How are humans capable of this? I don’t understand. I wandered in and out of those panels several times like a frickin’ wraith that’s trying to figure out where to haunt.
I overheard these Japanese bronies talking and I really wanted to join in their conversation because in my head I’m like: I know what you wonderful people are saying. But I’m too tired to start a conversation with any coherence in English let alone Japanese.
I stopped by my wife making some crazy bead thing at 12:30am at night (her online handle is Pirates Play Trumpets, hence the Perler Bead art). There were 4 grandma age latina ladies having a grand old time working on arts and crafts with her. And I have so many questions. What were these ladies doing at Bronycon? Why were they still up at 12:30am? Perler Beads? I guess they were enjoying the con, but I… well… I need to readjust my expectations for con attendees, because it was rather unexpected and I’m so glad they were there.
All you people need sleep D:
I need sleep.
SUNDAY
The highlight of Sunday was the Improving Writing panel with a bunch of fanfic readers including Neighrator Pony. He had let me know he was going to mention The Library of Discord as part of his presentation which piqued my interest and made me super nervous as there are so many better stories to talk about, right?
“Yo, I thought I saw Chinchillax in the audience. Is he here? Hey yeah! Stand up Chinchillax and take a bow.” And that is how I got a round of applause over something I wrote. And that feeling was incredible.
Is it strange to feel guilty about this? I get the most fulfillment in life from the small things I’ve done in the Brony fandom. From writing, fanfic readings, to the friends I’ve made. This is what I love doing. I want to do more of it. I love this. And yet 90% of my life seems to be devoted to the inane perpetuation of making money. And to even have that 10% of free time to create content is a luxury few have so I should be grateful for what I can do.
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I went to Bonnie Zacherle’s autobiographical presentation and it was so nice.
She had been pitching an idea for horse toys for YEARS to Hasbro and they finally decided to do it when a few other people also got the idea too. It was a hard sell because the board would say things like: “Most girls aren’t like you! They like to cook and clean and iron.” That got a huge groan out of the audience.
Also, Bonnie should also be known for redesigning the Mr. Potato head doll to be less terrifying. She even added a storage compartment to keep the spare parts in one place. The thing that really grinded my gears was this statement:
“In those days [80’s Hasbro] we didn't test anything. Not until we had already manufactured it.”
What? What!!??
I’m so horrified. Probably because I spend all day researching and designing things. Usertesting is so important. Will something sell? Is it usable? And in the case of toys especially: Is it fun?
So many people are too proud to research questions like that. I think corporations have probably come a long ways in 40 years and things are better researched now, but man that hurt to hear. So much wasted effort all because of a lack of research beforehand. Gah.
In a strange twist of fate, Bonnie got headhunted into Parker Brothers after those first six pony toys launched. She got a huge raise switching companies too. The only bother was that she sold the copyright to My Little Pony for $1, and watched ponies fly off the shelves while she worked at Parker Brothers. So there's no monetary reward for all her influence to everything MLP has become. But she's still grateful to be a part of it all.
Bonnie also mentioned that she at one point had an assistant named “Summer Hays” which could also work as a pony name too. That made me wonder: what other real names could also pass as pony names?
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The last panel I went to was the “Crazy Horse Asians” panel which was a brief history of the Southeast Asian Brony fandom.
There were two fantastic things about this panel. One was in the line to get in, I talked to a Brony from mainland China. He happened to be in town for a physics conference and got to go to just Sunday of Bronycon. Bronies in China watch ponies on a YouTube-like site called YouKu. The commentary on those videos is surprisingly active, but that’s the extent of the Chinese brony fandom. I love hearing international brony stories—and I’m so glad he could come to at least some of Bronycon.
The panel itself started off INCREDIBLY. The organizer had a song composed and then just started singing an incredibly well-rehearsed song which they are using for the Animatic for Seapony con in Manila Philippines. These are such incredible people. I am so sorry I will never have the kind of money to fly across to the Philippines for a Brony convention. Everyone on the panel was from places like Indonesia and Singapore and I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
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And that... was my Bronycon.
I do miss you lovely people
Bronycon 2019 was incredible and I’m so glad I could go and experience it with you all. It truly was unforgettable.
Hopefully G5 will be good. I’ll see some of you at next years Everfree :)
It sounded like you had a ton of fun! I was going to ask you how it went, but it's good I can read it all instead.
I don't believe you! I saw you two or three times but you were always alone! :O
Big mood. :B
In prereg, I was near some guys speaking something Northern European. I was going to ask them if they were from Germany or the Netherlands in either of those languages, but then I realized it could be Swedish and I wouldn't know, so I got cold feet. D:
But damn, there were a ton of bronies from China there! (Oh, which I see you discovered later on!)
I don't know why, but this is making me laugh so hard. XD I imagine this said in the same vein people normally say "All y'all need Jesus."
I'm so glad I got to meet you. :D You're a cool dude, you should give yourself more credit. Ask your wife, I'm sure she'll agree. ;D
It was great seeing you. Let's grab coffee sometime!
Aww thanks. It was great to talk to you as well.
5100596
Yes! It was lovely! And exhausting :)
5100639
She was with me in the morning. But then she found the craft room and never left.
Aww... thanks! It was good to see you too!
5101311
Yes! Let's!