BronyCon, Day 4

Day 4:
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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Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Last day of the con! Finally getting this entry written. I'll try to do it in one installment, because this is the last and shortest day.

But given the enormous significance of it, both personal and for the fandom, I already have the feeling it's not going to be so simple. Forgive me if there's spillover to one more after this.

The day started much as every other of the con did - wake up, shower (as bad of an example as I may have been in other ways, I've never, ever skipped a con shower - yay little victories!), shave, all the morning stuff. Walk over to the convention center. Commence day.

Once again, I started out with a vending machine lime seltzer water.

After getting rehydrated with that, I thought about panels. I wanted to go to the 11:15 "The Official Equestria Daily Panel," but ended up not getting in due to a ridiculously early line-capping, IIRC. Ditto the 12:30 "Bonnie Zacherle: Stories and Experiences" panel.

So with those plans canceled, I mostly hung out in Quills and Sofas either sitting at a typewriter or talking to my fellow authors, per the now-standard way of passing otherwise unoccupied blocks of time.

At some point, Hexfloog texted me to see if I wanted to hang out again, and I did want to - except that she was unfortunately stuck in a long autograph line for Nicole Oliver. I wouldn't have been averse to getting Nicole's autograph with her, but it's one I've already gotten, and several more hours of physically trying linecon, even with a friend as cool as Hex, wasn't how I wanted to spend what could possibly end up being most of the last day. So I had to make the executive decision to forego that.

Thanks to that decision, I did make it into the 1:45 "Them's Writin' Words: How to Improve Your Fanfic Writing" panel.

"But Winston," I hear you asking, "that sounds like a panel for beginners. Aren't you, like, not a beginner at this point?"

Honestly? I don't know. What's the line that delineates "beginner" from "everyone else," exactly? We're all beginners in some ways, in the sense that no one is a jack of all possible writing and writing-adjacent trades. No one out there has really done it all, and if they have, well, good for them, but spreading oneself so widely probably means that they haven't had the time to become too deeply proficient at any particular thing.

What I do know is that there's still a lot I don't know, and a lot I have left to learn. And that's a good thing. Every day you're alive is a day you should learn something new.

Anyway, no matter how much experience you have, it's important to remember the basics, and sometimes be reminded of them afresh. So this was a good panel for anyone, really. Also, I stood in line for it with Trick Question and FanOfMostEverything, so just waiting to get in was fun in itself.

For some reason, the exact material this panel covered is escaping me, other than I know there were parts about planning, and how to open a story. There was more, of course, and I remember it all being good stuff, though without clearly recalling what specific kind of good it was. I guess this is another one I'll have to find the YouTube video of, if possible. Sorry.

Once this panel was over, it was back to Quills and Sofas for an hour or so.

Speaking of Quills and Sofas, and the machines therein, I think I forgot to mention it before, but at some point in the weekend, Admiral Biscuit turned himself into a typewriter:

Ahhh, Quills and Sofas was so much fun that whole weekend.

But by now, we're close to 4pm on Sunday, and the end was drawing near.

This became clear when we were finally shooed out of Quills and Sofas by the convention staff, so that they could begin the long process of BronyCon's final shutdown.

There was only one thing left to do at that point.

No, literally, there was only one event remaining. Closing ceremonies. So it was down to the main lobby to wait around for that. I passed a lot of the time sitting by the lobby's big water feature, near Corejo and Monochromatic. I'm just glad I found some place to sit, even if it was on hard stone; the lobby was, as it had been all weekend, an absolute zoo, but now with everything closed and everyone funneled there, even moreso.

They didn't start on the dot at 4pm as scheduled, but that's hardly a surprise; I think anyone could be forgiven for taking a bit longer than anticipated to figure out how to make an event work while accommodating for 11,000 people.

I think they did very well.
The streams to the projectors in Exhibit Hall A worked perfectly, so there was enough capacity for everyone at the con to see, which is good, because even if you're the kind of person who doesn't go to most convention opening and closing ceremonies (I know a lot of people skip them), I think this was one that everyone should have gone to, and it would have really cheated people to not be able to get in to at least see the stream.

It was long, but felt short. It was emotional. It was jubilant. It was funny at points. M.A. Larson got the feels and everything. I don't think I can do justice to this closing with a description. You really gotta just watch the video:

It's hard for me to even watch that without getting teary-eyed, even now, more than two weeks later.

And that was it.

That was the the big closer, the end of BronyCon. The end of all of BronyCon, forever.

This is the part where I'd dive into what this piece of the convention experience means. But in this case, there's a lot to that - a whole lot. I also can't do that and keep it limited to just this closing ceremony, or even to just this BronyCon, or... well, honestly, any scope less grand than the fandom as a whole, its past and future, and what it has done and is still doing in my life.

That is a lot to deal with. It's heavy. It's expansive. It's roaming and rambling, and it's a whole long blogpost in itself.

So I think that's where we need to draw a line, for right now, because this post is about the last day of BronyCon as I lived it. We've covered that. What comes next is the aftermath, when all of that deeper stuff starts to hit you. That accordingly needs to be the next post.

I said I'd try to finish this all up in one shot, I know, but now that I'm here, that's just not the right move; there needs to be an epilogue, because unlike fiction, where you can neatly tie off the threads of a story at just the right moment and find a clear point at which to declare "The End", real life always has an epilogue.

And this story's epilogue is next time.

See you then.

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But surprise, we're not quite done with this one just yet! Here we are, the last typewriter story (that I will post here):

"Fluttershy, we need to talk," Twilight said.

Fluttershy looked back and forth in an arc at her friends, who stood in a semi-circle in front of her. "Oh? About what?"

"How often does Angel Bunny hit you?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Fluttershy looked taken aback. "Well, mostly just when he's upset," she said. "But he can't help it, you know. That's just his personality, the poor little thing. Everybunny's different."

"And now you're making rationalizations for him," Rarity pointed out.

"What are you getting at?" Fluttershy asked, tilting her head slightly and looking a little confused.

"It's a classic physical abuser and enabler situation," Pinkie Pie burst in. "That's what she's getting at."

Rarity gave Pinkie a momentary scowl. "I was trying to be more tactful." She turned back to Fluttershy. "But she's not wrong, I'm afraid."

"Oh my!" Fluttershy gasped. " What should I do?"

Yes, what should Fluttershy do now? Wow, this got kinda dark, didn't it?

Got a little meta again at the end there, I guess. I also type-wrote one other short piece of a story, but that particular bit is actually supposed to be content for a longer story I want to write in the future, so I'll be holding on to that one.

Many people other than me wrote stories a lot better (I think) than I did on those typewriters, so I'm still hopeful that someone saved all the weekend's typings and that they might get posted someplace at some point. Quick, everyone go bug Admiral Biscuit until he does that! I assume Biscuit is the one to bug, since they were his typewriters.

Sorry, Admiral. But the people need these BronyCon stories! You know, for history and stuff.

Comments

[Reese]

Thanks for writing and posting these. :)