BronyCon, Day 3 (part 2)

Day 3, part 2:
Hi there! This is part of my blog series on the adventure that was the last BronyCon! If you're just joining us, you should probably start here:
Day 0
Part 1 of Day 1
Part 2 of Day 1
Part 1 of Day 2
Part 2 of Day 2
Part 1 of Day 3
Part 2 of Day 3
Day 4
Epilogue

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Sorry for not having this entry out yesterday. It was a long day of preparing and GMing a pony RPG for my gaming group. There are a lot of interesting stories from our ongoing campaign, and maybe someday those stories will get written in a novelized form. But those are stories for other days...

So, where were we?

Ah, right, the next thing I did after the Voice Actor Script Reading.

It was something I've been wanting more and more, recently.

I bought a plushie!

Yes, I know, I said I'm not usually a big merch accumulator. This was the second of a grand total of two pieces I bought during the whole con, and it's one that falls under the category of one of those meaningful pieces that's really important to me. That's because of who the plushie in question is:
Twilight Sparkle.

Why am I only just getting one now, in 2019? Well, I didn't have much interest in plushies until recently. Don't get me wrong, I've always had respect for them: I admired the effort and the skill they take to create, but in sort of a detached, behind-the-glass way that most people oggle that fancy big-ticket only-one-in-the-shop item that never seems to move - the one you always notice, but don't buy unless you're in the specific circumstance of having some really good, durable, non-whimsical, serious reasons for taking on the expense and commitment of that particular thing because it's important to you. Which plushies never really were, for me.

Until now.

I guess I'm discovering that I do have a reason for wanting plushies, or at least a specific few. I guess, to make it simple, it's just about having something as a physical touchstone - something representative that makes these characters more real, and something more tangible than just an image in my mind. I've realized I want three of them, to be exact, because they're the three characters I feel the most connected to:

• Twilight Sparkle
• Sunset Shimmer
• Starlight Glimmer

These, to me, will always be the Three Unicorns of FiM.

And it occurred to me, on Saturday, after the VA script reading, that I really should try to start by getting one of them at BronyCon, if possible, because that seemed circularly poetic, the closing of one loop and the start of another: it's the last BronyCon, but it can also be the beginning of something new.

Sunset Shimmer was (and still is) the one I really wanted most of all, but I knew her and Starlight would likely to be the harder and possibly more expensive ones to find, and I really didn't think there would be any chance for any plushies of them still being there on Saturday, after the Thursday feeding frenzy and all day Friday for people to pick over what was left. I didn't hold out much hope, and that proved realistic; there weren't any Shimmers left, nor any Glimmers.

But I was reasonably confident there'd still be some Sparkles around, and wouldn't you know it, I was right again (yay me). So Twilight became the first of the three that I've acquired. This proved to be fortunate, too, because the plush of her that I settled on just happened to be the absolute perfect size to fit into my backpack just so for traveling home with.

I have my sights set on Sunset Shimmer next. Maybe I'll try to snipe one quick in the vendor hall at the next EFNW if I can get in at doors-open, or maybe I'll just do the custom thing and commission one from a good plushie artist. If anyone has any referrals to offer, that'd be great. I'm pretty new to this.

And that's what I did between the Script Reading and the 3pm "What We Do" panel.

The "What We Do" panel was an interesting one, focused on interdisciplinary projects between writers, artists, musicians, and narrators / fic readers / voice actors. I haven't really done any interdisciplinary fandom work, myself, to be perfectly upfront here. I've gotten the odd couple of fic readings, which are are always very flattering (someone really wants to read MY story? Out loud? Into a microphone? For YouTube? Neat!), but so far I haven't actually been involved with the not-writing parts of such projects, so I don't have my own chunks of sage advice to throw into the stew of such a discussion. What the panelists went over seemed to break down into a few general principles that can be summarized without too much trouble:
- If you're trying to hire someone to work for/with you on a project, don't be the oblivious douche who offers to pay in "exposure" instead of, you know, something meaningful. Like money. Money is a pretty universally acceptable thing to be paid in.
- Conversely, if you're putting yourself out there to be available for commissions, don't let yourself get cheated or underpaid by the above people. Charge what your time is worth.
- If you want to collaborate effectively with people, you need to communicate effectively with them.
Pretty much the basics of how to work on an interdisciplinary team, here.

After this, it was back to Quills and Sofas, where I typed another really quick story or two, which I had some very meta fun with this time (see the end of this post), and hung out with all you cool writery people, including specifically during this block Somber, who was there holding court (by which I mean autographing things and meeting a steady stream of Project Horizons fans) from 4 to 5:30pm.

Then, amazingly, I remembered to eat at a reasonable time this time! Mostly because I was reminded, but still. Take your victories where you can get them. Basically what happened was that I heard talk of dinner time, and thus somehow got joined up and pulled along with a small bloc of some other Quills and Sofas hanger-abouters who were breaking off to go eat. This bloc consisted of BlazzingInferno, Epic Yarn, Georg, Mitch H., myself, and one other person to whom I'm very sorry but for the life of me I'm drawing a blank on your name.

We went more or less across the street from the convention center and over to, uh, well, I forget now what it was called. It was sort of a restaurant-not-quite-accuractly-calling-itself-a-pub-and-justifying-it-by-serving-a-wide-variety-of-alcohols type thing, I think. At any rate, it was pretty good. I got one of the burgers they had on their menu, because I still kinda wanted one as a hold-over from not being able to get the Steakhouse Burger at the Marriott's bar on Thursday night (no, I'm not the type to hold grudges, why do you ask?). I also got a cider, which I thought was just about the right kind of drink for a pony convention. I mean, I also think cider is just about right for enjoyment at home while not at a pony convention, but I just really like cider. Anyway, this cider was special; it was not just an apple cider, but also steeped with raspberries and fermented with lactobacillus for extra sourness. It was very good. I might try home-brewing something like it sometime soon. Of course, it was also a 6% cider, and the last one I made was like 12%, so it was a lot more like a beer, while the ones I usually make are more equivalent to drinking wine. We'll see if that translates well or not, I guess.

I really didn't do a whole lot after dinner, for maybe the next... I don't know, four to five hours. I spent all that time in Quills and Sofas, just hanging out, having enough fun talking to the people in there that I was not particularly interested in anything else that was going on until the 11:30pm "It's in Our Hooves Now: The Importance of Fanfiction After the Series Ends" panel.

Yes, it is in our hooves now.

I have things to say about that - they're not short things, either, and they bleed over without clean borders into a lot of more general thoughts I want to get into about BronyCon, ponies at large, what all of this means to me, and the end (and beginning) of an era that is upon us right now.

But I need a good long while to gather up those thoughts, first, so I am going to save all of that for somewhere closer to the end of this retrospective.

For now, regarding that panel, I just have one confession to make: I think - I'm still not actually sure, but I think - I maaaaaaybe might have sorta kinda accidentally snuck in by cutting into the line where I wasn't supposed to. It was near the end of a long day, and I was getting tired, so I wasn't paying as much attention as I probably should have been. I'm still kinda confused about what exactly happened; I saw a line of people moving in the hallway to enter the panel, so I unthinkingly joined the end of it - only to realize, as I was walking in the doors, that another line had been formed in the main hallway along a wall, and that this other line of people who'd been waiting a lot longer than me was being directed to attach itself to the end of the line I'd jumped on.

At least, I think that's what was happening. The convention's line management / security staff didn't say anything to me, so at the time I assumed I was fine, I guess? But maybe I was doing it wrong, and they just didn't see? I still don't know, and probably never will. I'll level with you, I was kind of out of it by 11:30 at night, and the intricacies of proper linecon procedure and its mechanics were not exactly charming me into giving them my undivided attention at this point in the convention as it was, so I'm not totally sure.

But the more I think about it, the more I'm sorta-sure I line-jumped, yeah.

This is not something I'd ever do intentionally. I feel pretty bad about it, and I hope I didn't inadvertently prevent anyone who was legit in the right line they should have been in from being able to get to the panel. If I did, I'm really sorry. Not sure what else to say, other than this is pretty embarrassing.

Ugh.
Well, the con's over. I guess I can't do anything now.
So I should probably just stop Twilighting about it, right?

Well, other than that, it was a great panel! Again, thoughts are in the thinking on it; we'll delve into them in due time.

And after that, it was 12:30 at night, so time for wandering back on over to the hotel room, reading the first two chapters of The Enchanted Library in my quiet hotel room as a wind-down from the day, and then off to bed. I wanted to start again well-rested, because something was telling me that tomorrow, although it would be short, stood a pretty good chance of being a taxing day simply by the sheer force of how emotional it might be.

It's bittersweet to be right about predictions like that.

And we'll get started on that last day, the grand finale to it all, next time. See you then.

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Until then, it's typewriter story time! I was starting to get a little a lot meta about the whole typewriters thing by this point... what can I say? They were a fun novelty. Gotta make the most of these things, right?

Dear Princess Celestia,

While I greatly appreciate this review sample of the new 'typewriter' devices you have had the artificers of Canterlot design and construct, I feel as if I may not be the ideal pony to provide appropriate feedback. Certainly there is a novelty to writing out words by pushing my hooves against the keys, but in my particular circumstances of having both unicorn magic and ready access to my own pegasus feathers with which I can always make a quill, I'm afraid the usefulness of such a machine is rather niche and limited for me. It seems as if it might be much more useful for somepony with no other means of handling objects but with their hooves.

Therefore, I will be passing this typewriter on to my good friend Applejack for her to test out. As an earth pony, I believe she will find this very useful, and that her experiences with it will be more helpful than mine in discovering possible improvements. When it comes to using a hoof-operated mechanical contraption such as this one, she is in a much better position to provide the most valuable feedback on the advantages and shortcomings of the current design iteration this model represents.

Your student,
Twilight Sparkle

Please expect to receive notes from Applejack shortly.

---

Heya Princess,

This thingamajig Twilight gave me is neat and all, but why exactly is it better than just holding a pencil in my mouth?

You're, uh, loyal farmpony or something,
Applejack

Comments

[Reese]

Heh. :)

[BlazzingInferno]

I believe the last member of our dinner group was totallynotabrony, but I could be mistaken