My Little Pony: Conventions are Magic! (and so are games!)

Posted on August 21, 2013
by Beth Lynn

There is one thing I can definitely say about the My Little Pony community – they are INCREDIBLY friendly people.

Like Rainbow Factory Dash, who started to laugh every time we ran into each other.

I’ve never noticed this so much as I did at GenCon this year. Now, as I’m sure most of you who know me know, or those of you who’ve been reading the blog for any length of time know, I deal with anxiety and a heck of a lot of social awkwardness. And because of that, it’s hard for me to just strike up a conversation with people, especially random people I’ve never met that I’m chasing down to take their picture. (More often than not, by the time I worked up the nerve to ask someone for their picture, they’d wandered too far away – thank goodness for Mister Crafty Nerd hunting them down for me and snagging them for pictures!) Or random people I meet in panels. I mean, if there’s a My Little Pony community here in Bloomington, I sure haven’t found it – and even if I did, I’d be a little nervous to just jump right in, hollering “OMG PONIES!” But the My Little Pony fans (or bronies, as I’ll call them for short – I know not everyone identifies as a brony, but it’s just quicker than saying My Little Pony fans every time I want to refer to the group as a whole, heh) at GenCon were just so welcoming and friendly and easy to talk to. I found this out in both of the Enterplay My Little Pony: Collectible Card Game panels I went to, as well as in my wanderings around the con. (One of those Enterplay panels was supposed to be My Little Pony: This Panel is MAGIC, but it got rescheduled…) People commented on how awesome my costume was, and there were a few people who I recognized from when they took my picture earlier in the day. And a magical thing happened – I actually started to talk to people. People I didn’t know. It was amazing.

Immediately surrounding me at the first MLP:CCG panel I went to were a bunch of older guys, and a couple of younger girls and their moms who seemed to enjoy the show as much as their kids did. And we all talked. We discussed our favorite episodes, I showed off pictures of my ridiculous collection of My Little Pony plush, we talked about who our favorite ponies were, and wondered what the collectible card game would be like. It was like we were all old friends – and the fact that it was My Little Pony that brought us all together made it even more awesome.

Continue reading →

GenCon 2013 Photos: Days 3 and 4

Posted on August 19, 2013
by Beth Lynn

This is the other post you’ve all been waiting for – the second chunk of photos from GenCon 2013! Again, a few of these shots were taken by Mr. Crafty Nerd, and many of the Doctor Who photoshoot images were taken by my wonderful friend Michael. Due to the fact that there are so many pictures, shots from Day 1 and 2 are in a separate post so that way things don’t run as slow as molasses! Enjoy! 😀

Continue reading →

GenCon 2013 Photos: Day 1 and 2

Posted on August 18, 2013
by Beth Lynn

This is the post you’ve all been waiting for (or one of them, anyway) – part one of my massive photo dump of shots from GenCon 2013! There are plenty of pictures that I took, with a little assistance from Mr. Crafty Nerd – hope everyone enjoys them! Due to the fact that there are so many pictures, shots from Day 3 and 4 are in a separate post so that way things don’t slow to a crawl here! Enjoy! 😀

Continue reading →

GenCon, Day 2 (Or, The Crafty Nerd battles her social anxiety)

Posted on August 16, 2013
by Beth Lynn

Today has been… a day, we’ll put it at that. There were good parts, there were bad parts, and there were absolutely exhausting parts.

It’s no secret to those who know me well, but for those who don’t know me, I deal with some bad social anxiety and can get seriously awkward as a result. For the most part, it doesn’t bother me, unless I’m in situations where there are lots of people/lots of noises or I’m an unfamiliar place. And, well, GenCon hits all three. I don’t know my way around too well, there are way too many people everywhere, and more often than not I have to REALLY work up the nerve to ask a favorite author or webcomic artist to sign something for me because I feel bad bothering them. I know, I know, they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want their fans to talk to them or flail about in their general presence, but still. Social anxiety is irrational. And it was incredibly irrational today, that is for sure. I ended up retreating back to the hotel room mid-day to hide and recharge my batteries, so to speak.

My day was fun, though, I won’t deny it. I ended up at another instance of the Enterplay My Little Pony trading card game, and ended up with more swag – I have only bought one pony related thing so far this trip, haha. I got a trading card folio and this card:

Yes, this is one of the more rare Rainbow Dash cards for the trading card series – rumor has it that one went for $700 on eBay recently. (It’s going for around $180 at the time of this writing, which isn’t $700, but still!) I’m ridiculously lucky to have gotten this – the guys at Enterplay are amazing. I’ve said it before, and I’ll likely say it again, hah.

After the pony panel, I wandered around the exhibition hall before having a slight meltdown/freakout because I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask Jeph Jacques (of Questionable Content fame) to draw me a picture of Marigold, so I ended up going back to the room and just sat there for a while, overwhelmed and overtired. (I didn’t sleep much last night, which probably contributed to it.) Bryan, wonderful husband that he is, ended up going back and getting me the sketch. I am very thankful that he is so patient with me. Thankfully, sleep and quiet did the trick, and I braved the exhibition hall for one last round of goodies before getting dinner and camping out in front of the room where An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss was scheduled to happen.

I am ridiculously glad I got there early. Apparently the event was sold out – and since I got in line early enough, I got to sit right up front. It was amazing. Patrick is just so… I don’t know how to explain it, except it feels like he’s just one of the gang, an awesome person the likes of which I’d love to just hang out with. And it felt like we were hanging out, him and around 200 other people, myself included. He talked candidly. He cussed a lot. He talked about feminism and sexism in fantasy novels, and he read stuff to us from when he wrote a humorous advice column back in college, he told us about his writing processes, he talked about tons of other stuff which I cannot remember, and then we all sang “You Are My Sunshine” together.

And then I had him sign my iPad. Which I will post pictures of tomorrow, when I am actually near my iPad and my phone. Apparently it was not the first electronic device he had signed. Awesome. He is now, officially, my most favorite author. Not only are his books amazing, but he is frigging awesome. Sorry, Anne Bishop, but Patrick has dethroned you.

And entirely unrelated to anything – there’s a guy sitting not too far away from where I’m parked in the lobby with my laptop who has been playing the Game of Thrones theme on his guitar for, well, about an hour. I am not kidding. I’m pretty sure I never want to hear that song again.

Until tomorrow, everyone! I’ll be dressed as the 4th Doctor, which I am incredibly excited about. I am also excited about the fact that I have enough stuff to post about to fill the site for a week straight. 😀 And we’re only halfway through the con!

GenCon, day 1!

Posted on August 16, 2013
by Beth Lynn

Haha, I am coming to you live from Steak N Shake in downtown Indy, because our hotel charges $15 a day for internet! So, the daily GenCon reports I promised may not exactly be daily – but trust me, I’ll definitely go into crazy amounts of detail once home.

Yesterday was a fun day – I dressed as Pinkie Pie, and lots of people stopped to take pictures, it was awesome. I ended up getting quite a few pictures taken with Rainbow Factory Dash, a ~~steampunk~~ grimdark Rainbow Dash who was pretty awesome about everyone saying “OH GOD PINKIE AND DASH WE NEED YOUR PICTURES”, aheheh. The first thing I did at the convention was take pictures with Rainbow Factory Dash, and then dash (haha) to the Exhibition Hall, where everyone’s money ends up going, hahah. I snagged another set of Impact Miniatures’ pony minis (I need the mane 6!), then wandered around the exhibition hall for a couple of hours and spent stupid amounts of money. Which is fine – I’ve been waiting for GenCon all summer! During my wanders through the hall, I stumbled across the Worldbuilders booth – and Patrick Rothfuss, an author whose books I adore. (I may have torn through both of his books in two weeks, if that says anything)

I promptly stopped and flailed a little bit. Bryan encouraged me to go say hi to him – so I did. And told him I loved his books, and I was excited to meet him, and then after he thanked me and we exchanged other pleasantries, I bought a t-shirt from his booth and then agonized over taking his picture. Bryan then went up and asked Patrick if I could get my picture taken with him, and he said “sure!” And stood up, AND GAVE ME A HUG AND I ALMOST DIED OMG. I think that made my convention, aheheh.

AAAH PATRICK ROTHFUSS HUGGED ME *flails*

The afternoon/evening was spent doing My Little Pony related things – I met some awesome people, and learned quite a bit about the new My Little Pony trading card game that’s coming out. The Enterplay group was awesome – they told us about how they hired fans to work on the game to make sure it’s as show accurate as possible, and seemed to have a lot of fun with the panel in general. There were plenty of goodies handed out (Rainbow Factory Dash got a rare Rainbow Dash foil card handed to him, and I got a Pinkie Pie play mat for the TCG!), lots of good questions asked, and lots of fun was had. The TCG playtest tournament went really well, too – I had a lot of fun and am likely going to write an entire post dedicated to just that. I played against – you guessed it – Rainbow Factory Dash, haha. I thoroughly wiped the floor with him, and we declared it was a good game. 😀

Afterwards, I wandered around a bit, went back to my hotel room to switch into more comfortable clothes, and got some dinner before calling it a day. And what a day it was! Today has had a pretty good start, too – delicious breakfast and free internet at Steak N Shake, and – get this – the waitress recognized me from a shot of people wandering around at the convention on a local news station! 😀 I’ll hunt down the clip when I am connected to better wi-fi.

For now, though, time to finish breakfast and get ready for Day 2!

Headed to GenCon 2013!

Posted on August 14, 2013
by Beth Lynn

You guys, I am so incredibly excited.

You want to know why?

This is my FIRST convention that I’ve attended as an actual, legitimate blogger. Sure, I don’t have press passes or anything, but still. I’ll be taking lots of pictures for a purpose! 😀

Instead of just dashing around to take pictures with all the ponies I can find, like last year.

So, yes, The Crafty Nerd is going to GenCon 2013! This is not my first convention – and definitely not my last. I’m coming super-prepared this year, with three costumes, and I’ve even got a hotel room close to the Indianapolis Convention Center. I’ve signed up for a couple of events, and plan on wandering around and taking LOTS of pictures, like I did last year. And I’ll be posting all those pictures at the end of each day of the con, with as much commentary as I can put together after a long day of convention going.

If you’re attending GenCon this year and see me, don’t be shy! I’ve got pictures of the costumes I’ll be wearing (which will conveniently be posted here the night before I wear them), so feel free to say hi if you spot me! (And if you catch me on Saturday, when I’m dressed as the Fourth Doctor, tell me you read the Crafty Nerd and I’ll give you some actual Jelly Babies!)

Tomorrow, I’ll be rocking my Pinkie Pie costume, with some modifications – instead of the cutie mark t-shirt I’ve got in the picture above, I’ll be wearing a yellow tanktop. I’ll still be carrying around Plushie Pie, and exuding cheer and smiles! 😀 So if you’re in the Indianapolis area tomorrow, and attending GenCon, say hi! 😀 And keep your eyes peeled here for the next four days, for lots of pictures and convention-related fun! Until then, enjoy a handful of photos from last year’s GenCon!