Bronies NYC

Bronies NYC

In which son_of_heaven176 watches the MLP series finale, meets friends, and introduces more people to Danmaku.

Saturday, October 12, 2019: Two Months and Change after the Final BronyCon

When I saw a long while ago that the Bronies-NYC Meetup group was having a screening of the MLP finale, I knew from the get-go that I was going to go, no ifs, ands, or buts. And indeed, as the day finally arrived, I was looking forward to making that trip to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Now this Meetup was scheduled to run from 1:00 PM to 11:00 PM. However, I had no intention of being there for all that time, and other commitments made sure that I couldn’t anyway.

And given the parking rates in the neighborhood, I was correct in coming when I did. I arrived in the area around 5:00 PM. Now if you’re familiar with New York City, curbside parking rates can vary wildly depending on the part of the city you’re in. This part of the Upper West Side? Ended up costing me almost $11.00 for two hours! If it wasn’t for the fact that parking meters only operate until 7:00 PM (parking after that is free), I would’ve been bleeding money!

But one cannot really fault the organizers for that. The city does what the city does.

Anyway, the Meetup itself was…underwhelming at first. In the main room, they were having a community reading of the Nightmare Knights comics. However, I had spent good money on a physical copy of Danmaku, and the Meetup site promised gaming, darn it! I wanted to make some friends, play some games, and hook someone into Danmaku, darn it!

But nobody was interested in gaming at the time, so I resigned myself to watching the comic reading—which was good, by the way—and then, it was time.

The hour: 6:00 PM.

The place: a church in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The event: a screening of the final three episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Over the past few months, I’ve done my part to avoid spoilers, and I’m glad about it. I heard that there was a twist that some people didn’t see coming, and when I saw that Grogar was actually Discord, I knew that that had to be the twist. And yes, I can see how some people might be disappointed. I expected Grogar to be the Big Bad, and I was loking forward to how he would undo the machinations of the Legion of Doom and how Equestria would survive against this greatest of foes. But nope, the ones whom we thought were just the B-team were actually the Big Bads.
The first two episodes themselves were very good. I liked the battles (Starlight Glimmer FTW), the references (“The same thing we do every time, Pinkie. Try to save Equestria!”), and especially the end, as the friendship of the creatures of all Equestria and beyond banished the windigoes and defeated the Legion of Doom.

And the last episode. Oh, the last episode! The final song was quite heart-tugging, as we saw the faces of our beloved characters from throughout the years one final time. Now note, I wanted the finale to get me crying. However, even though I knew that the final song was tugging at the heartstrings, not a tear came to my eyes. Perhaps it’s my Haitian upbringing, but it takes quite a bit for a piece of media to get me close to crying. To my memory, the thing that got me closest to crying was the Scrubs episode “My Last Words”, especially the song at the end of that. Nonetheless, the last episode was beautiful, as we saw Twilight as a Princess in her own right, the Mane Six still friends despite going their own separate ways, and the iconic book that started the series shutting its back cover.

We had witnessed the end of an era. The last episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic had finished.

After the screening, we took a group picture.

Which one is SOH176? That’s for me to know and for you not to find out.

After the three-parter, I tried once again to get a game of Danmaku going. However, Danmaku requires at least four players. My Discord buddy SirBobTheMarvelous—who actually goes to college in NYC—had come to the Meetup, and he had brought his friend Sabrina along as well. But that only makes three. Eventually giving up on playing Danmaku, SirBob and I decided to at least tell Sabrina the rules so that she had an idea of how fun it could be.

But then SirBob managed to rope in another Asian, named Alan, into trying out Danmaku. And as I was explaining the rules, another person, John, noticed the Touhou characters. John happened to like Touhou, so since we were playing a game based on Touhou, I managed to rope him in as well. Yay! I had gone from giving up to now having a five-player game!

Sabrina was the Heroine. The turn order was Sabrina, SirBob, Alan, John, then me.
My notes aren’t clear as to which Incident came up first, as all I wrote afterwards was “Early incident was everyone loses a life.” That leads to either Great Fairy Wars or Saigyou Ayakashi Blooming.
Later in the game, someone pulled the Incident card Crisis of Faith, which changes the Heroine. Alan ended up becoming the new Heroine, and Sabrina got whatever role card Alan previously had.
Later on, an Incident arrived that long-time Danmaku players learn to loathe on sight. It was the one, the only, the dreaded Lily White. You see, in Danmaku, every card has a season, indicated by the icon on the top-left-hand corner. When Lily White appears, the player who pulled her has to reveal the top card of the deck. If it is Summer, the Incident is resolved. If it is Fall or Winter, nothing happens, and at the beginning of the next player’s turn, the next player reveals the top card of the deck to see what happens.
Woe betide the one who reveals a Spring card! That player loses three life points.
And in a game where you start with four life (or five, if you’re the Heroine) and where other players are trying to shoot you down, a loss of three life can end your game right there! I do not recall if anyone lost any life to that fae forerunner of the flowering season, but nobody outright lost because of her.
Eventually, SirBob managed to shoot me down, depriving the Heroine of her Partner.
After my loss, I mentioned that the person with the Extra Boss role could reveal themselves as the Extra Boss. Recall that in Danmaku, everyone except the Heroine starts off with their role cards hidden. However, the Extra Boss can reveal himself or herself at any time after one person is defeated. When they do, they gain one life and extra powers. In the case of that night’s game, the Extra Boss would gain the role card True Phantom Boss, and one of the TPB’s abilities is that she may resolve the current incident at the start of her turn. With Lily White still on the field ready to give a fatal barrage to anyone unlucky enough to reveal a Spring card, the TPB’s ability would come in very handy!
The Extra Boss didn’t decide to show yet, but as it was still SirBob’s turn, he used the card Master Plan to shoo Lily White off the field and set up the next three incidents.
Later in the game, someone pulled the Incident Spring Snow, which prevented players from activating their Spell Cards (their characters’ ultimate abilities). Of course, that slowed things down.
John somehow had it in his mind that Sabrina was the Extra Boss. From that conclusion, there was quite a bit of banter and mind games aplenty, with SirBob chipping in here and there.
Eventually, though, the game ended with John accomplishing his role’s objective. John was a Stage Boss: his only goal was to shoot down the Heroine. John shot Alan twice, bringing down the Heroine and ending the game. So we all revealed our roles.
Sabrina was not the Extra Boss; she was only a Stage Boss. SirBob was the Extra Boss.

Afterwards, there was a lot of talking, as me and some others discussed the MLP finale, what we thought about the episodes and the Grogar-is-Discord twist, the future of the fandom, and various other topics.

They then started screening Rainbow Roadtrip. It was almost 9 PM at the time, and since the Meetup was scheduled to finish at 11, I decided that it wouldn’t be worth it to stick around: I had already seen Rainbow Roadtrip, and there wouldn’t be much time for gaming after the show was over. So I said goodbye to the people I’ve talked to, got myself some dinner at a nearby restaurant, and returned to my car to head back to my sister’s house, where I was staying for the weekend.

All in all, the Meetup wasn’t too bad. It was a good chance to see the MLP finale with other bronies, I got two more people hooked on Danmaku, and I had a good time, despite the lackluster start. If I decide to make the time, I’d certainly be up for another brony Meetup.