Tribute to Fan Videos · 8:23am Sep 20th, 2015
There's really no excuse for that video to have taken this long to appear in my blog. Give it up for the amazing work of Herostrain!
There are many amazing Fallout: Equestria videos. Far too many to spotlight the all in my blog. And there are orders of magnitude more amazing PMVs and other My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan videos. Accolades to all the amazing brony video artists out there!
Sometimes, all it takes to spark interest in something is one really appealing fan-made video. For those of us who were introduced to things we have grown to love -- be it My Little Pony or another fandom favorite -- by fan videos, we have a lot to thank these dedicated and creative fellow fans for.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine shared the following video with me for an animated series that I had heard of, and even watched a early episodes of, but hadn't been drawn into like she was. This very nicely done AMV rekindled my interest in the show, and I've been enjoying watching the episodes with her and some other friends through streaming video.
The way this video reignited my interest in Steven Universe, and is responsible for getting me to give the show another look, has gotten me thinking about the role PMVs had in my initial introduction to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
As most of you are already aware, my introduction to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was pretty much as I have stated in past interviews:
I hate to admit it, but I was teasing a friend of mine for loving My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. He rightly pointed out that if I hadn’t seen the show, I had no grounds to judge it. So he challenged me to watch five episodes, just a couple hours worth… and then, if I still wanted to mock him, he would willingly take it.
I have a lot to thank him for. Not only for introducing me to such a wonderful show, and by extension this community, but for hammering home a crucial life lesson about judging something without having taken the time to experience it. (I feel like I should be writing Celestia a letter about that.)
Even more than that, he later became one of my editors for Fallout: Equestria.
What I haven't mentioned in responses like that is the step in-between. My friend started by sharing with me some of the early brony-made PMVs. What opened my mind enough to sit down and give the show an honest try -- to believe there might be something more to the show than I had imagined -- was a pair of PMV trailers:
Aren't those a blast from the past? 
So now I'd like to hear from you. Have you ever been drawn into a show, story or series by a fan-made video? What fan-made videos have had a major positive impact on your interest in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or similar passions?
And again, to all the great AMV and PMV and SFM creators out there: thank you!
I was drawn to MLP by Death Battle of all things. In Starscream Vs. Rainbow Dash, when they're going over Dash's Sonic Rainboom, there's a split second shot of filly Pinkie being hit by the Rainboom and her hair goes curly. That's what made me a brony.
In a similar vein, PONIES The Anthology V got me into Gravity Falls, because of all the skits of it.
well that takes me back. Now a days people draw it themselves, adding their OC's to the mix. We have come a long way.
This is what got me into Fallout: Equestria
A kinetic typography for Double Rainboom (the song? Is it called that? Can't remember) that was embedded on Cheezburger or something. This was, like, four years ago now.
the mlp and ace attorney series, turnabout storm, is what got me in.
something with that much effort put in to it had to be good so I gave the show a watch.
I was drawn to the fandom through fan fiction i had been a fan fiction reader for nearly 2 years when the fandoms i was in ran out of good stories. so i started looking for good stories in things i might know about when i saw that Mlp had a ridiculous amount of stories compared to the others. so i checked it out and i started reading it more and more. i have no clue what my first mlp story i read was but i can name my first HIE and that was one my favourite on the site.
But i never truly realised how far down the rabbit hole i had gone until when i was looking for Mlp fan music. This is the first Mlp video i had seen.
The very first song that is played is called 'join the herd' and it was that song that got me to realise i had joined the herd without even knowing it. from there it was only a matter of time before i watched the show itself.
This was the first fan fiction site i used. https://www.fanfiction.net
I will never stop loving valve for putting a tool like source film maker out there for free to whoever wants to use it.
Unfortunately, the thing that made me really want to watch Steven Universe - that convinced me to give it another go, after watching the first ten episodes - was an enormous spoiler (the season 1 finale, with the lead up to/the fight/song in the spaceship). Alas, it spoils one of the best set-up plot points in the show.
This made me want to watch Princess Tutu:
There have been several animes which AMVs have made me want to watch.
Uh... I'm probably the odd one out, here. I was on FurAffinity, a lot of people I watched started making MLP porn, I didn't understand the characters so I tried watching the show, and still didn't get it. Then like three months later season two came out, and the mind control started taking hold, so ponyponypony.
I think... Gosh. I think the first pony video I watched may have been the original "Everypony's Gay for Braeburn", but the timing feels kind of wrong for that...
(Sorry for smutting up your blog, Kkat! I'll delete this if you like.)
Heard about the show earlier on. Didn't pay it much mind. Read a surprisingly decent crossover fic with Dead Space (which I was a big fan of at the time(until I played the third game..... ugh)), and seeing that I was in Israel for a total of nine months and needed to find something to do with my free time, I decided to check it out. And then I got hooked.
That's my story. Just want to leave on the note that I'm glad that I'm not the only one awake at 3 AM.
Also, here's some Fallout 4 hype: A website (link below) was made by some fans that allows you to spec and build your character. They've even tried figuring out what some of the perks do. Now, it is all speculation, so I try not to put much stock into it, however, I highly recommend reading the Wasteland Warrior perk and especially the Blast Radius perk, it promises some very fun new features.
Here's the link to the site: Vault111.com
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To follow on from this, Turnabout Storm was also the reason I started watching ponies. Late 2012, early 2013, I replayed all the Phoenix Wright games on DS. After that, I went around looking for fan-made cases to play though, using the PyWright engine. I exhausted all the good ones but I wanted more, so I looked to Youtube to feed my PW addiction. Turnabout Storm was the first thing I found in that vain. I thought "Wow this is really well written, and has voice actors to boot. Maybe I'll check out the other source material." And the rest is history.
I was drawn to MLP by a cover of This Day Aria... And then I just fell in love <3
I was made a brony by bronies more than by the show. I had seen a few episodes, but they didn't catch me. Then, some time later, I watched the I'll Make A Man Out Of You PMV and saw the many cool scenes mixed into the song. Decided to give the show another chance and watched the first 11 episodes in a row. Then I heard "winter Wrap Up" and realised that I was a brony.
I was honestly a pretty big b/tard. I poked fun at all the ponypony, but eventually decided I had to know mine enemy. I watched the first two episodes.
Then I watched the next fifteen in one go and haven't looked back since.
If I had to say one thing that really let me know how bad I had it, watching this and breaking down into a sobbing mess was a strong indication.
3406077 I'll do you one better, I started watching it to understand characters I was trying to play in (sometimes adult-themed) RPs with a friend of mine who was super into the show. This was after the show was brought to my attention by the waves of porn on FA and I had initially decided to steer clear of it because I figured it was just another porn fad on FA (those happen regardless of the quality of the source material, so I felt confident MLP was still as bad as it always was.)
TL;DR: ERP made me watch ponies and discover how good a show it really is.
Needs more Hired Gun!
For me, it was "I am Octavia" and the "PONIES: The Anthology" series.
I had heard of mlpfim a bit on youtube when it first appeared but I wasn't interested until I discover the fan episode of Doctor Whooves. than it got me interested in learning more about the show itself, and boy I was amazed for what I saw. It was the weekend of he Canterlot Weeding. But I didn't got into the fandom before I fond Tales of a Junk Town Pony Peddler on Squeak Anon chanal, then I finally discover Crazy Rambling Fallout Equestria dramatic reading.
I actually began watching the show for several reasons. The year before, I had a councillor at my summer camp who was a huge gamer, but also liked MLP. Several campers had minor interests in the show, thus the topic came up regularly. I will admit, I laughed at them. I also had a friend who watched it at my school. On top of that, ponies made an occasional appearance in Rooster Teeth content, which I was and am a massive fan of. But the push over the edge came when a friend and I found the fluttershy "yay" video. After that, I decided to give it a try and haven't looked back.
My intro to the fandom was very different. I had finished watching every released episode and was looking on the interwebs for more pony stuff when the word "Fallout" appeared. In my mind, "Fallout" was that super lame computer game who's intro music my dad loved. I kept digging and found a PDF called "Fallout: Equestria" on pony fiction vault and started reading. One week later, I finished what may be my favorite piece of literature ever.
What got me into the new series i may have been into the older. But what got me into the new. I was playing Star trek online and then i saw a fleet called the Equestrian fleet. Their main ship was called The uss Luna's Moon and I asked them what is this from and they told me about the new series and I got into it through that.
Shortly after Skyrim released, I wrote a small piece about the Fluttershy dragon mod that came out almost immediately. While reading up on it, I noticed the creator linked to the clip where he got the "yay" sound effect (I think we all know which episode by now) that replaced the dragon's roar. I'd been hearing about the show via internet osmosis for some time, so decided to see what the fuss was about.
I watched the clip. It got the first proper smile out of me in a long time.
It would be a few months, sometime around March/April of 2012 (around the time Season 2 was wrapping up and a few months after FO:E was finished), before I started watching the show on YouTube. Been hooked ever since. I don't think any PMV has really influenced me to keep watching the show, but then again, I haven't watched very many.
That's my story of getting into the show, anyway. Not via PMV, but in fact, through a game mod. Go figure.
This video is amazing. How I didn't find it earlier, I don't even...
I had been seeing speedpaints and music from the show for a while (I believe the first clip I ever saw of FiM was Fluttershy singing to the CMC in "Stare Master") but none of it really got my interest too much. After a while I saw this, which introduced me to the idea of Nightmare Moon:
That started everything out, and convinced me to give it a try. After watching a couple episodes I admitted the show was good, but I was still pretty unsure about it. Then I found an audio reading of Fallout: Equestria, and I was hooked forever.
When it comes to ponies, it was all about the Derpygaye controversy, the Where's Derpy? Flash game and Lavender Harmony's remix of Ken Ashcorp's 20% Cooler that got me into ponies. Afterwards, I watched The Last Roundup to see what all the fuss was about and the first two episodes because I enjoyed The Last Roundup and before I knew it I had binge-watched the whole show and was waiting for the Season Two finale.
I'm pretty sure it was just chance I became a brony. There was a brony sitting behind me in a class, took the same seat every day, that was always on his phone. One day he decided to show me what he was playing and it was a My Little Pony game. He then went on to tell me about it and suggested I watch it. I was a bit skeptical at first, but figured I'd give it a shot since I had the HUB free for the rest of that weekend. (That was late 2012). After the channel was no longer available I stopped watching ponies.
During 2013 I found another place to watch the show during the day and did so when I had free time. I caught myself up just in time for season four then found Dr. Wolf.
After that I found an ongoing comic by Mauroz that fed my interest even more.
Then I watched this review for a not-so-little story called Fallout Equestria.
It took me four months to read it ( and at this point if I wasn't already a brony, I became one after this) then began writing my own story. 
I pretty much just started noticing pony cropping up everywhere on the internet. It got to the point where my curiosity got the better of me and I went searching for episodes to find out what was going on. I started with Episode 1 and before I knew it I was on episode eight and not stopping.
While this video didn't have any impact on my enjoyment of the show itself (I've been a fan since Season 1), it's still my favorite of any PMV, even years later:
One of the people I subscribe to on youtube kept posting little short things with ponies in them. Eventually I got curious enough to inquire about the show and then binge watched the whole first season.
As for how I got into Fallout Equestria? Well I heard about it through reputation and how amazing it was, so I decided to take a peek. And that story dominated my free time for what felt like weeks.
Those two videos were among the second and third Pony videos I watched. The very first, and my favorite of the three?
From the moment I watched those videos, it was probably inevitable that I'd watch some Pony just to see how they managed to find that many cool, actiony, even occasionally 'epic' scenes. And that first video just got better once I'd actually seen the show (Rarity does a good Prince Valerian!).
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Oh, man. That video is still one of my favorites. Heck, if I had to pick one as my absolute favorite, it would probably be that one. It's just so perfect!
The bronies section on Memebase got me interested enough to start S1 because I was bored one night and they appeared to have some pretty funny pictures, and I began wondering where they were getting those good pictures from. 18 episodes in and I realized that I'd spent my entire night watching ponies and enjoyed it. Haven't looked back since. Never poked fun at the show or had even really heard about it until just about the night I watched it. Fun times.
Okay, I've got a bit of a long story (and since I'm lazy, I'm going to copy-paste it from an old thing and edit it a bit).
It all started with Transformice, a game where you're a mouse and you have to collect cheese to buy stuff. I bought myself Fluttershy's hair (there are all the Mane 6 hairs and the CMC hairs), although I didn't know it was hers then. I was looking up some Minecraft mods on the Minecraft Forums when I saw a picture. It was a profile picture, a gif actually, that showed the Mane 6 (minus Rarity) and Spike from "A Dog and a Pony Show" when they were dragged into the hole, with a caption below saying: "Everypony down the ponyhole!" I recognized Fluttershy's mane, which I was wearing (and still am) in Transformice. I was curious so I looked around the internet a bit and found out that the gif image was from the show "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". I found the "Re-enacted by Ponies" videos, the first pony things I watched and what really got me interested. So I thought to watch a little of the show to see what it was about. At the time, I liked to watch the first and last episode of a show, so I watched "Magical Mystery Cure", which was the final episode at the time. Then I watched the first and second episodes. I was very curious of what would happen next, so I watched the third episode. Then I watched the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and so on. I think I became a brony somewhere before the second half of season 1, when I told my best friend that I was watching My Little Pony. She, unlike me, watched the show when she was little, so we watched it together.
Anyway, longish and interestingish story. I suppose I owe my discovery of MLP, one of the most important things ever to have happened in my life, to the "Re-enacted by Ponies" videos, that one user on the Minecraft Forums, Minecraft, Transformice, my friend who introduced me to Transformice, my best friend without whom I would not have kept playing Transformice, Club Penguin, which brought us together, and another friend of mine who reintroduced us to Club Penguin. Wow, that's a lot of people and things. Anywaaay, late night ramblings.
The first time I ever heard of mlp was in school when someone asked me if I was a brony; I'd apparently been humming something similar to the theme tune at the time. After I'd said 'no' they'd revealed that they'd seen some of the show and suggested I watch it, at the time I'd declined on account of still being a little overwhelmed by high school in general but it'd stuck in my mind from then on.
My second exposure to mlp was actually (similar to these two 3406173 3406077) through the fandom's numerous NSFW images, after a while I got curious as to why someone would put so much effort into this and resolved to find out... and got distracted... by some god-awful fanfiction of all things.
Surprisingly I had a far greater tolerance for bad fanfics back then and found myself reading about some six-year-old Gary-Stu-ish self-insert HiE and actually liking it; the characters and the attempted message buried under all the cliché's and bad writing, that with friends and a bit of effort you can solve all problems, was something that I really liked the idea of at the time. After that I finally decided that if I was going to go around reading fanfics, then it was probably best to have some idea of what the fans base material was all about. From there I found the season 1 premier on youtube and gave it a look-see... then spent all of my spare time for the next few weeks obsessively hunting down every episode from seasons 1&2 that I could find, it was around the time I watched "winter wrap up" that I realised that I was a brony and not some casual observer (This was some time near the middle/end of season two but I was playing catch-up). Since then I've always been more interested in the fanfiction than anything else but the show gives me something to look forward to every week and it brings a smile to my face (almost) every time.
TL;DR- Porn, fanfics, episodes, videos in that order were how I got into MLP.
Really, if my little sister didn't check it out when it first started I wouldn't have given it much thought. I was down and found it to be at least light hearted and not annoying so I kept watching. I didn't know there was a fandom for it until season 3 came out, when I had to start watching the show on the internet. It started with Canned Cream, the analyst, and I just found more from there. Then I got wind of FoE and I'll admit I was a bit skeptical at first. I mean Fallout 3 was my top game and I was pretty invested in MLP by that time, but I thought the two were too different to work together. But, after finally reading my first fanfic 'Rainbow Factory' (which I didn't know what I was getting into at the time) decided FoE might work. And, here I am now enjoying a fandom in a fandom crossed with another fandom, and loving it.
hi hi
I was first introduced to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic when I was randomly browsing through one of the icanhascheeseburger spinoffs, and there was a post about this crazy pony with eyes pointing in different directions, and a link to a short scene where said pony drops a piano on a lavender unicorn. Since there was a link to the full episode on the youtube sidebar, I thought to myself, "why not?" That was all it took. I was shocked and amazed that someone would write something so philosophically deep, so remarkably subversive, and get it into a children's television show. (The controversy surrounding that episode continues to confound me greatly.)
As for what got me interested in the fandom though, The Elder Scrolls VI: Equestria definitely played a big part. That was probably the first fan work that I saw. The already linked Ponycraft 2, Night of Pony, Double Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Trigger followed closely afterward, and were part of what made me decide to start looking for fan made MLP stuff, silly as some of them may be. Super Ponybeat - Evil Enchantress is what got me to take a closer look at pony music.
((I still need to watch Steven Universe, and a whole slew of other shows on my list.))
um... i don't think fan made videos have ever gotten me into a show ever.
a video game can get me interested in a show, but otherwise i judge fan videos on a different level than actual shows.
if anything, it's a show that inspires me to see fan videos.
like, i never watched Frozen, and i don't like the songs that everyone sings from that movie all over the internet but.. i like Lord Of The Rings, so seeing a LOTR parody of Let It Go on youtube is like "okay, i like this, but only because i already like LOTR", but i have no incentive to watch Disney's Frozen despite all the parodies i've seen of that movie.
now pertaining to how i got into MLP, i actually never had any real thought or interest in the show for like ever, and i also wasn't aware there were grown guys watching it until like a year or two ago, and i just thought that was funny, but i didn't care enough to like go around bashing or criticizing anyone for that, cuz i mean, i've watched animes that would have manly guys give me shit for like Fruits Basket, Ouran Highschool Hostclub, Ookami-san & Her Seven Compansions, Honey & Clover, etc...
what triggered a genuine interest in me in MLP, was in fact a video game, as i said before, video games get me interested into things the most, so what happened was is that i was playing Team Fortress 2 one day, and i was sucking.. so i stopped trying to play normal servers, because i'm a baddie. i kept looking and looking for the medieval map, and i found it, and i realized i don't have a bow or anything cool for that map, so i left it and kept looking for any map, really, anything, i didn't care, i wanted something new!
so there it was.. MLP Boss Fight Arena, based on the Saxton Hale mod, and i thought to myself "wait.. so like.. i get to run around shooting ponies then?", sure, why not!
hehe. after a while of playing, i realized that there was like references going over my head, and as i became more and more aware that i literally had little to no idea what was going on, i started asking questions, and it got to the point where one of the bronies on the server was like "just go watch the show, stop asking us everything".
now i got scared... because i was actually considering watching a show that i couldn't possibly imagine could be good at all
so i did some research, looked up reviews from both the haters and fans, and watched a documentary, and then finally, i just stopped beating around the bush, i had Netflix, it was all there, so i caved in and just started watching it.
and,.. it was not bad... but i wasn't like "OMG THIS SAVED MY LIFE THIS IS BEST SHOW EVER!", but it was better than i expected, and after a few episodes, it felt like it was picking up momentum toward the latter half of the first season, and even Dragonshy i think contends for my top 20 episodes, maybe even more, i have to make a list
but yeah, pretty much the 3D models in a TF2 modded game was my trigger to get into MLP:FiM, and there is so much cool stuff in this fandom that comes with it.
all those videos you shared were cool (though i didn't watch the Mass Effect 2 one, i never liked those games, i'm a hard nitpick when it comes down to scifi anything). and i'm hoping that Stable Tec Studios is getting close to reveal their flash animation adaptation of Fallout:Equestria
The fan videos were definetaly the thing that made me wonder back in 2012 "So many pony videos, there must be something to it". Then I watched a few episodes and got hooked. And well, here I am.
The thing that finally got me to read FoE was the Pony in a Box audioplay "Tales of a Junktown Pony Peddler". It was on autoplay, so I just listened to it - being a sidefic, it doesn't give you a 101 class in the source material, and I remember thinking "What the hell is this Enclave? It sounds so cool! Talk about it more!"
They didn't, so I had to read. How glad I am.
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YES! That PMV gives me chills every time. I feel like that one's really underrated.
I think one of the earliest PMV creators I watched was Malathrom, and well, if you've seen his work, you know why I became an avid brony from there:
Well...my first contact with MLP was in fact a pmv for "Angel of darkness"
Here is the info for finding it...if any one is interest, or maybe the YouTube link thing actually works. That wold be a first.
I was awake, I was browsing, and I had nothing better to do.
I never thought of where it wold lead me.
After the video ended I decided to try the first thing that pricked my interest, and the winner was, and still is, "BBBFF"
I figured just by the name of it I can get some giggles out of it if nothing else...I got the opposite reaction.
I'm a big brother and the oldest of two siblings, the middle child being my only sister...when I watched this video I nearly went hysterical.
I never expected the message in it, it was like a punch to the face.
After that, I saw the MLP series on "net flix" and decided to give it a try, and now I'm a Brony to the core! And I'm loving it!!!!
Thank you for taking the time to reading, and sorry if I spell things wrong.
Then again, Bethesda has no idea how radiation works either!
The end of the video: [LITTLEPIP RIGHT HOOF CRIPPLED]
PMVs weren't a factor in me finding MLP. I was reading the Know Your Meme page and decided to watch the first episode. When Rainbow lampshades Pinkie's singing in the second(?) episode, I gave said singing a chance, and when I realised II actually kind of enjoyed it, that was what set me off.
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Incidentally, it was the other way around for me. I'd heard about the ace attorney games in passing well before I became a brony, so I had written them off. It was Turnabout Storm that made me want to play them on an emulator, and now I own the 1st and 4th games physically, the first three and the fifth game digitally on 3DS, and the Professor Layton crossover game physically(which is probably my favourite DS game, and in my Top 5 Handheld games).
Also incidentally, FO:E was what got me into the Fallout games. I enjoyed FO3, though it felt a little underwhelming compared to the narrative depth of FO:E. I didn't enjoy FO:NV as much, it didn't feel like a nuclear wasteland to me, so I never actually finished it.
You see! You're one man who means so much for so many.
...So how it will be? Sequel next summer when you end Fallout 4 or what?