TrotCon Online Day 1.0: The Bronies Broke Discord! · 3:36am Jul 18th, 2020
Well, this is new. A virtual convention!
In the year 2020, a great plague had settled upon the land. So, to protect the herd, the wild Bronies have taken shelter, socially distancing from one another. Yet through the magic of friendship they stay connected with one another, and now find refuge in the place that it all began: the Internet!
And so I found myself today watching DarklyCute’s shaky cell phone footage of the familiar Columbus hotel from the comfort of my living room couch, stroking my cat Eli (it’s his very first TrotCon!) whilst hand stitching more bias tape trim on to cuffs the slightly oversized Civil War shirt I’ve been spending lockdown slowly making over as an overshirt to wear on those 90 degree July days like we are currently having in Ohio. It was certainly a very different sort of opening ceremonies!
The stream had no sound for the first few minutes but eventually it kicked in, only for all of Discord to break. Yes, not just our server, but all of it. Immediately it was a joke that we’d been to blame! In spite of the nibbles of various bytechillas (Megabytechillas?), the program went forward and everyone introduced themselves. Key guests this year include returning talent Vociferous Peter New, the ebullient Ellie-Ray, and best yak Katrina Salisbury. New faces include Cole Howard, Ian Hamlin, Brian Doe, and Devyn Dalton, an impressive lineup of VAs. The virtual nature of the con has allowed far more guest that would normally be possible and that is an real silver lining to the con so far. Much of the usual community guests have been able to make it as well, including one of my favorites Flora The Tank Girl. Awesomely, although the whole event is free this year, the community has come together to help once again and bought out all the sponsors boxes.
The usual meet the VA’s panel went extremely well. It is interesting to see how human behavior and interaction changes, or perhaps has changed, in the virtual realm. The VAs, being Actors, usually feed of the crowds at cons, which usually means energy is running pretty high. That’s great, it’s awesome to be in a room with people who are super excited! But, I actually kinda enjoyed having a slightly more... mellow kind of atmosphere that the Zoom meeting brought to affairs. Another up shot seemed to be a bit less talking over top of one another. Oddly, though, the length of people’s answers to questions seemed to increase in the slightly less formal atmosphere. I managed to get the traditional Shakespeare question in, and got some interesting responses this time around. Ellie-Ray has recently been asked to play Prospero, would like to be the fairy queen in Midsummers Nights Dream (she isn’t already!?), and likened the depth of MLP and Shakespeare cannon to one another. And also suggested that Much Ado About Nothing would be an excellent episode of MLP, to which I agree. Peter New picked Rozencrantz. Devyn Dalton chose, if I recall correctly, Hermia also of Midsummers’s night. I unfortunately don’t quite recall the gentleman’s answers to the question, I believe Ian chose “understudy” for the rather modest Sunburst and one of the remaining gentlemen picked Oberon thought I don’t recall which one, I shall have to see if any of this is being recorded at some point so I can get corrections. There were plenty of other excellent anecdotes shared in response to viewer questions. Ellie-Ray shared a wonderful anecdote about a teacher who got a tattoo of Mistmane to stop a young Brony from being bullied, and Devyn also relayed a story about a brony who she bonded with over the show and the loss of a sibling. Peter New shared an anecdote about beating Andrea Libman at Jenga. Also, we introduced Ellie-Ray to Jenga. What hath god wrought?
My overall impression once again is that this community is such a positivity boost. It makes me so absurdly happy and comfortable and really do enjoy every little bit of it! Even a silly glorified Zoom call with all the lovely people who have been involved with the show and the fandom can lift spirits and heavens knows they need lifting in this time of need.
Anyhow, before I sign off for the day some quick writing updates. Yes, I am finally finally done with Just Us Girls Night, the second short story in my EQG anthology Weekend Wondercolts. It’s at the editors now, and it might need another pass or two but I think it will be out soon. I am probably going to move to writing my next story soon, but I have a couple different ones I can work on and haven’t quite decided yet on which will be next. In the meantime: these blogs! See you all for Day 2.0!
Poor Peter, who shall be the Guildenstern to your Rosencrantz?
"and bought out all the spons"
Did that get cut off?
Glad you're having a good time! :D
5312672
Evidently ha ha! It's meant to say sponsors boxes, I fixed it.
5312379
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/864798/trotcon-day-2-yona-is-best-diabetic
Bill Newton, evidently! Dang, we gotta make that happen now...
5312922
Ah, thanks. :)
...Though, er. What's a sponsors box? :D
5313436
Loot boxes, swag box, box of many things, insert box synonym here...
5314013
Sorry, I'm still not sure what you mean. It sounds like you're describing some known thing, though, that just happens to have not become known to me, at least well enough for me to tell from your descriptions so far?
TrotCon, and many other cons, offer boxes of exclusive merchandise as incentives to buy their higher priced tickets. Said tickets usually also come with other perks, like autograph vouchers ect. . It's the primary mechanism for funding cons. But of course, because this whole thing was virtual it cost waaaay less than usual and registration and attendance was totally free. It was therefore laudable that in spite of not having to buy boxes of stuff and the higher price tickets along with them in order to enjoy and fund the con, people did so anyways.