My Rise and Fall: How I succumbed to MAGICAL FRIENDSHIP

[Flarecobra]

How bad off was the stein?

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Flarecobra

How bad off was the stein?

Irredeemable.

Fortunately, I'd much rather have lost the stein than anything else. I can repurchase the exact same stein for another $15 if I really want to (though I probably won't.) Losing the Tara Strong-signed badass Twilight Sparkle-as-Solid-Snake t-shirt would have been a far greater tragedy.

WALLS O' TEXT

The rest of the Con was pretty fun, though.
The second day was better than the first. It wasn't perfect; there were some issues, particularly since it's only their second year. Haphazard planning, technical glitches, poor sound equipment, and a fire broke out! (Though that last part was just foul luck.)

Where Bronycon's really struggling is thematically; I understand the desire to paint a strong narrative to justify the show's popularity and the very existence of the fandom, but it's being taken to unnecessary and frankly self-absorbed extremes. When even I grow a bit tired of the constant self-instilled praise and adulation, you know it's taken a turn beyond melodramatic.

Still, there were a lot of great people at the con, including and especially Lauren Faust, who was adorable, insightful and sincere throughout, and who's quite possibly the only major player whose genuine appreciation I never questioned. It's too bad I missed most of her speeches (only just now watched them online), but I did spend a brief minute chatting with her and I got her autograph. (She complimented the Pinkie you made for me, Bobbie! And signed it!)

...As someone who's never been a fan of any of her prior work -- I barely even knew the Powerpuff Girls existed -- I wasn't even planning on paying for her autograph, but I'm glad I did, it was the highlight of the trip.

...That and spending time with Rob, of course. Rob is still all kinds of aces.

I got Andrea Libman and Tara Strong's autographs, too. I expected meeting Andrea to be the highlight of the trip but made the critical mistake of gunning for her first, which was disastrous as I had no mental script planned out of things to say. I completely blanked out under the pressure and looked extremely nervous. Andrea was polite, though I'm sure she thought I was a tad kooky. She was quiet and appeared bored throughout intermittent spurts of the convention, which actually increased my respect for her in a roundabout way, as that indirect 'honesty' seemed to give her comparatively few qualified positive statements more weight.

...Tara, on the other hand, is a brilliantly skilled actress, even when interacting as 'herself' with the bronies. This made interacting with her quite easy and superficially pleasant, and she was a riot in every panel she participated in. Hard to tell how much of it was real and genuine, though, and how much is just her extroversion working to her advantage in enabling her to pull the right strings.

Rob and I didn't collect autographs or personally 'meet' any of the others present, but I did walk away with some impressions. Celestia and Spike's VAs were both superb, probably the highlights of the VA panels objectively -- more talkative and insightful than Andrea, less PR fluff and shenanigans than Tara. John de Lancie's speech was probably the lowlight of the convention for me; he pushed the "Bronies are special!" bullshit the most of the big names, in a way I personally found less endearing and more obnoxious and exploitative. The writers present were accessible and fun, but the convention charged too much for their autographs, which usually left them sitting alone at vacant tables.


As for the bronies...uugghhh.
Without getting too mired in specific details, I'll just say that the convention really left me with two distinct impressions that tugged in two different directions: It reaffirmed my love for Friendship is Magic as a television show, but lessened my enthusiasm for bronies as a 'distinct community' of fans.
Individual bronies are still awesome; there's some insane levels of creative talent present, and most of the people I met were friendly and likable. But there's a lot of rotten eggs in the batch, and the community's artificial aura of self-importance and 'specialness' really prevents the warts from being adequately addressed.

[shiney]

But there's a lot of rotten eggs in the batch, and the community's artificial aura of self-importance and 'specialness' really prevents the warts from being adequately addressed.

This! Sometimes I just want to say "It's a fantastic show, but it's a show, and you're being really weird and bringing in an element of unsettling strangeness to the whole situations." They are the fat guy in sailor moon outfit.

[Bob The Mercenary]

I agree with his assessment, but you forgot to mention the great Bronycon fire of 2012. One of the overhead lights in the main conference hall apparently ignited and the whole place had to be evacuated for a little while.

Also, with two days and hundreds of pictures to search through, NJ.com decided to use this one. The comments section makes for an entertaining read.

[Bells]

Anybody saw this?

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Bells

Anybody saw this?

Slow start but not bad

Though out of abridged versions I've seen I prefer friendship is witchcraft

[Flarecobra]

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT SEASON 3!


Hinted to air in Mid-September.
Trixie comes back hinted at.
Derps confermed to return.
Fluttershy turns into a dragon. (Seriously. This was mentioned in the Q&A panel.)
Luna rumored to return.

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/0...#idc-container

[Aerozord]

Ok guys I've been working on something for awhile now and thought it was time to share. I decided to try my hand at doing reviews

Introduction (volume is abit high on first few)
Episode 1
Episode 2
Epidode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8

Playlist

Just wanted some comments and opinions on how I might improve

[Flarecobra]

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/0...-time-for.html

Bluh.