Author's Intuition ~ About the Author

Description

Hello there, everybody. Man. It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these. Sorry about that. Been busy with about… five hundred papers. XD Life of a creative writer, I guess. Can’t complain though. College is still a lot of fun. But I digress.

So this won’t be a normal blog today. Today I’m finally going to commit to this. (Plus this is long overdue so I thought it’d be nice of you guys to finally get to know a little more about me). So today I am going to talk to you about… well, me. As in all those other blog posts that a few other writers do. Since I can’t really find blog posts related to this topic anymore, I thought I’d just fire up my own kind of questions. (As in, trying to guess what you guys would like to ask me). Now without any further delay, I’ll start off post haste.

Question Time

1. Which Episode?

Besides the confusing beginning, what this is particulating in is when did I become a brony. So. When did I become a Brony? My first episodes were, oddly, the finale to My Little Pony’s season 2. Now you can imagine how odd it was. Why start at season 2? Well. I had no idea that the Brony Fandom even existed at that time. I thought I was one out of a few people who were even watching this. Seeing the girls for the first time was odd. And even seeing Queen Chrysalis, my first MLP villain, was quite an odd yet thrilling experience. So the drug caught on and I wanted more.

I caught up with season 1 and then season 2. It’s safe to say, that I have watched all six seasons so far. Every episode has either impressed, was alright, a little meh, boring, or bad. It wasn’t until I found FIMFiction did I realize that there were other bronies. And after reading a couple of stories, plus stumbling upon Pen Stroke’s Past Sins, (my first major story that I read back then), was when I finally tried my hand at writing in near late of December 2016. And here I am, having been writing horse words for nearly four years now.

2. Alright. So Which Episode Then?

Well. If I was to decide… I’d have to go for “Lesson Zero”. It was such a great episode. Really sunk in the whole, “This show does not have odd or bland characters” feeling. I’m actually quite thankful that it was this episode that I saw. It was in fact the one that sealed the deal for me. A great plot. Great focus character. Every character acted accordingly as they should’ve. And real great end morale.

3. Worst Episode?

Ooof. XD Had to come down to this one, huh? I just recently got done with a blog on this (one that I'll publish at a much later time), so all I’ll say is the title of said episode. It was a doozy though… that being an equally infamous episode known as “The Cart Before the Ponies”.

4. Favorite Pony?

It might have been obvious at some point in time already to some of you by now. But out of all the characters on this show? She’s a dork. She’s nerdy. And she’s easily irritable. Too obvious, of course it’s Twilight Sparkle! XD I mean, she was the first character I saw. But that is not what signified it. One other reason I loved Lesson Zero, is because of the depth we got in Twilight. So many insecurities throughout it were shown. Yet through this series we have seen her strengths, too.

Would I say that her becoming an Alicorn only hurt her character? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. She hasn’t changed all that much since it. It’s not like she’s become more prissy or anything, right? In fact, I truly do believe that she earned it. The episode itself was… poorly executed. But I believe that it was an honest achievement.

5. Worst Pony?

This question is a rather… tough one. Not because I don’t want to make somebody else mad. But… I don’t know if any of the girls are really… deserving of such a title. Can I say who I dislike the most? Certainly. In fact, if I were to choose. The one mare I was never a huge fan of in the Mane Six is… honestly, I have to go with Rainbow Dash on this one.

Now before you come at me with your pitchforks and torches, let me explain why. One. While she’s grown and of course has become more and more loyal to her friends, I’d say that the way the writers portray her sometimes is… really odd. One moment she goes from being loyal to not being loyal. Example? “Trade Ya!”. (Off hand note, I’m agree with Voice of Reason here because Rainbow Falls somehow makes everypony stupid every time they go there).

After all that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy did to get that limited edition of Daring Do’s first book, Rainbow is willing to trade Fluttershy as the last item. Okay… so why would she do that to one of her best friends right off the bat? I mean she quickly realizes her mistake but still. She shouldn’t make a judgement call like that and suddenly realize that “Hey, maybe it’s not a good idea to leave Fluttershy with some random stranger and an Orthros”?

Let’s see here… An earlier one like “The Mysterious Mare Do Well”, really gave off a bad impression of how cocky and, excuse my language, kind of an asshat that Rainbow Dash was. “Oh look at me! I’m the hero of Ponyville because I’ve saved so and so ponies. Praise me, praise me!”

“Newbie Dash” also comes to mind. Universally liked and disliked. I can see why the episode worked. Rainbow Dash of course would feel under pressure now that she’s a full time Wonderbolt. The whole military weed out procedure is a necessary thing too. I may have not been in the military but I’ve seen enough documentaries on the subject to know that this is a common thing that happens. But to let stuff like that get to her with such ease? It was rather odd, but to me, it both worked and yet not so much at the same time. The whole imitation of her friends was rather… unnecessary. Not because of the cringe (which God was that awful), but it definitely was a sore thumb in the episode.

“The Cart Before the Ponies”. ...Somehow is deaf to Scootaloo’s every word. (Scootaloo also trying to make it look like a Chicken was another really odd direction the writers went with). And acts like her not being loyal wasn't a problem at all. Like she was by justified her actions. Need I say anymore?

Now that’s not to say that she didn’t have any good episodes. Off the top of my head a universally loved Rainbow Dash episode is “Tanks for the Memories”. Now that is an episode where Rainbow Dash shined. Her desperation to keep Tank awake for the upcoming Winter was good. Her “tough girl” act also helped flesh her out a bit more, as so we could see that even a strong willed mare like her too is susceptible to emotions. (Which was obvious beforehand, but really done well in this episode. I will never say I hate a character. Dislike? Yes. But even than, Rainbow Dash is still a character that I see working well within the right story and right plotline.

6. Favorite Princess?

Now you must be thinking the obvious. It’s Twilight Sparkle, right? XD That is far from the truth. My favorite princess on the show is the one and only, Princess Luna.

It also happens that I was intrigued by her during her first major appearance, “Luna Eclipsed”. To feel so distant from your own subjects after being alone for a thousand years is… unimaginable. The stress. The loneliness. One can only imagine and yet never experience it (that’s all due to our own human mortality). That really was an unfortunate experience to Luna.

Especially since she even gave into her own jealousy and let the forces known as Nightmare Moon take her over. (Which also happens to be apart of her own mentality as well). After that episode and her three adventures with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, I definitely grew to liking her more and more. I will say that one episode did damage that love, or, more or less, the whole message behind it. “Do Princesses Dream of Sheep”. The message that, “You can get over your depression by having others tell you to stop it”, is really helpful.

While dream episodes are fun and all… dream sequences, no matter what, in both writing and t.v./movie sequences are very hard to pull off correctly. Inception comes to mind about one way to do it well. Dream sequences let you have fun but… the whole thing didn’t fit. “The Girls will help you solve your depression”. So why not let Celestia help in this case? Or hey, I don’t know, maybe you could have had an episode centered around those two for once? A huge missed opportunity. And a bad message about depression as well. Not that it damaged the love I have for Luna’s character, I just thought that this episode was… rather unnecessary. Or at the very least, could have been executed in a different direction.

7. Favorite Ship?

To be honest I imagine some of you saw this coming. To be frank with everyone here, while I don’t dabble too much in this field of “Who secretly loves whom”, I do admit that I have one favorite character to ship. Twilight Sparkle of course. XD Who do I ship her with? Depends really. I don’t have a personal ship. She pairs well with a few other characters (if done right, of course). If I have to say which ship I like the most? I’ll jump on the train and say, Twilight X Rarity. (You can thank Monochromatic for that). I even wrote an original story focusing around those two on a shared user’s page here on FIMFiction.

So why? Because Rarity herself is another great and complex character. The two share a couple things in common, both wanting to understand another pony’s perspective and even help said pony. And of course, that the two are both hard workers. Hard workers, as in, dedicated to a specific cause and are willing to see it to the very end. It’s also one that is a little hard to describe myself, due to the fact that the chemistry between them works so well.

8. Worst Ship?

There is going to be one major reason why I’ll say this ship is by far my most disliked. The reason? Because at one point in time there was just so much of it that I thought I was never going to get away from it. Literally. At one point I saw the same ship in three different stories on the featured stories list here on FIMFiction. I thought I was in a nightmare. You wanna know which ship it was? Twilight X Rainbow. So why do I dislike this ship?

The big reason was because of how frequent it was. So many different authors seemingly copying the other just trying to get views for themselves. Over and over they came like a hailstorm, each story getting worse over time. I have read a few. While I don’t recall the names… only a handful ever got my interest. Another reason? Because they were all the goddamned same. Clopfic after clopfic after clopfic. (Really, the same could be said for just about every single Mane Six pairing story), but this particular one was at once so overwritten that it passed the point of just being obnoxious. I can’t remember when the influx of this storm stopped but I was so happy that I could see the sun after a month of seeing the same goddamn story over and over again.

9. Favorite Story Theme?

At first it used to be all about the adventure. That each story had to have some kind of action in it. Now the stories I’m wanting to write in the future focus more around Slice of Life themes. Just the everyday common nature that we humans go through on a daily basis ring so true. So when we see them going through such a thing, the characters become more relatable. I absolutely love just seeing a connection. Plus the messages that can be said in this particular category is endless.

That aside, stories that want to say something usually get my general attention. I want to both see and feel the message resonate through me from a reader’s perspective. It can be any theme or topic that we humans endured once a long time ago or even in today’s modern day issues. So long as the story is well written and has this said theme being a major focus then I’m down for it.

10. Favorite Villain?

Before she was reformed, Starlight Glimmer was my absolute favorite villain in the MLP series.

One who sees conformity as the only way Friendship can exist. A pony, no less. She was the closest when it came to winning against the Mane Six. But she didn’t stop there. Never being caught she planned for months before enacting her revenge on Twilight. The season five finale itself was… decent. I’d say that Starlight’s super powered nature was rather… odd? That she suddenly was as strong as an alicorn?

While not out of the realm of possibility, it was very sudden. The very quick forgiveness was also… odd. “Oh. I forgive you after you not only tried to take away our Cutie Marks, but also tried to literally kill me and reverse time itself”. How were Celestia and Luna not brought into this discussion as well? That finale itself was… written out in an odd fashion. But I think it was an alright call for her character.

11. Worst Villain?

Well… it’s not like all the marks are going to be hit anyway on this show to make a decent villain. But if I were to name one I disliked the most? It’d be Lord Tirek. So you may be wondering. Why not King Sombra? Well to answer you that, he hardly got any time on the show to begin with. If I were to really go in depth I’d at least need quite a few reasons why. Yes Sombra fits that bill because of how little air time he got. So why Lord Tirek?

Don’t get me wrong, the fight with Twilight and Lord Tirek was pretty awesome. Some of the best fight visuals I’ve ever seen on this show. But the potential Lord Tirek had was squandered away to make him… super huge and menacing. I get that was the point. But he reminds me of someone. So familiar. He screams a name quite often, too.

Oh right, Broly from Dragonball Z. All Lord Tirek wanted was to take all of Equestria’s magic power and then lay waste to its land. World domination aside, while the reason is sound, it’s not a very good reason. (Blame the ending of the finale as well for being so… deus ex machina, even though the whole show is filled with ex machinas’).

He had potential for a comeback villain from generation one, but was left to flex his muscles to absolutely no one. Like… can we ask that question and wonder why he’s pretty much Broly just with a little more brains? The similarities are a little too uncanny for my liking. I mean, when you’re going to use all that power for what, destroying the ground, what good is it then? It’s absolutely worthless at this point.

12. What About You?

Well, if I was to reveal. I’m a twenty-year old guy living life in the state of Montana. I’m a half breed as well. On one side, I’m a mix of different American Indian tribes, but my strongest side has to be my Salish roots. On the other, another mix of different European traits, with German being the strongest on that side. I did mention this before but I do have Asperger’s Syndrome. While it is not a critical form of it, I will say that it does hinder me in some places. Socially in some situations.

Everything else about me is that I’m shy yet talkative. Kind and compassionate and I have a very open-mind. (That doesn’t stop me from making fun of some things just for the hell of it). Intelligent in many forms but I absolutely despise math. I play or did play the violin. (I’ve been trying to get back into that practice again). I pretty much write about every single day. I can speak some of my native Salish language. (Simple conversations, really. Not complex). And I’ve been learning some Japanese in college as well. おはようございます。 元気ですか。

Even then. My Japanese is still only in the basic of development. So I could hold up a very short conversation but I cannot get into very fine details and specific descriptions. However, I certainly have come far since the beginning of this semester learning Japanese. All in all . That’s about all I’ve been doing so far in my life of college.

13. Why Writing?

So why writing some may be asking. Why? Having lived in two different worlds, one where I actually hated myself sometimes because of it. I’ve picked up on a reason as to why this writing is important to me. One is because of the messages that you can give and show to others. To speak of current day issues that are on the forefront of our minds, or even problems that hide within the deepest pit and only come out when they are prevalent once more.

The one big reason? What both sides of myself have taught me. Because of my half Native American side, I viewed the other part of me as… some ugly truth I wanted to hide from. I was upset by my other half because of what they had done to my native people. It’s 2016 and what is going on today? American Indian rights are being violated.

The Standing Rock Pipeline is proof of this. Protestors being sprayed by high powered hoses. Being fired upon with rubber bullets. Being arrested and getting assigned numbers on their body after being stripped near bare for Christ’s sakes. If those aren’t violations to any human’s rights then I don’t know what is.

(My German roots already have one stain on them. Everyone knows about it since it is one of the most talked about wars of today and is still ongoing. I know my grandmother's parents had no part of this war. But it still hurts so much).

Both sides are to blame for the bloodshed. And that is something I cannot deny. Yet I came out of this with a new view on the world, including my own life. What my Native American culture taught me was that Language is a precious voice. Every culture in the world would not be the same if they did not have their own unique voice. The Japanese, the Germans, Native Americans, Indians, Chinese, Russians, Italians, you name it. Every single language that is spoken today is important to each of their cultures. Even Americans, even our English language is what makes us who we are. Without our own voice in our culture… how can we convey our thoughts? If we had one unified language… there is no distinguished voice. No cultural distinction. We’d all be speaking the same language and have no importance to our own heritage.

That is why Creative Writing is important to me. The language that everyone speaks is their own voice. A voice that we can raise in order to demand attention to any particular subject or topic. And we can unify that voice with the voices of others to speak out against acts that we don’t believe in. Even we English speaking people can use our language to say what we want to say. That is why Creative Writing is important to me. No matter what I have learned this from my own native culture. I cannot express how much I thank both my native and even my German heritage and their languages. To have a language that identifies yourself should mean the world to you. For without that voice… who are we then?

Thanks for everything guys. This certainly is a long blog this time around. But I’m am glad for what I have said. I won’t ever forget what you have done to help me. (I also didn’t mean to go off like that. But a lot is wrong with this year). But there is one positive that came from this election. It has showed us just how separated we truly are. To fix these wounds we must come together as a unified people. Whether we voted for Hillary or Trump should not mean a damn thing now. What matters is what we do now. With our voices we can change the world. It just takes a little bit of faith and optimism to see it all through. Thank you all again and I’ll see you next time.

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed, that’s all who ever have.” ~ Margaret Mead

“For every heart. One prayer. That all men live as one with nature. And that peace remain everywhere.” ~ Native American Prayer

(If there are any other questions you’d like me to answer, feel free to send them via comment on the blog post or a private message. Other then that, I thank you all for reading and hope you all have a good day).