DatZigga’s Most Personal Post About The Procurement Of Pink Pony Plushies (Alternate Title: How I Learned To Reject Modernity and Accept Ponies Into My Heart)

I just wanted to make this post because I have no one to really talk to about this and I really wanted to share something happy for once:

In my arms right now is a Pinkie Pie plushie. You have no idea how liberating and happy I am to type that. I ordered it in secret as a birthday gift for myself (turning 20 on the 20th of the 10th month of 2020. A string of coincidences so long, I’m wrapped up in it.) under the nose of my family, who I have been sharing a small apartment with since the quarantine started. Granted, it’s not like it’s a secret that I am a brony to them, but it had been for years that I kept my attachment to the show and only THIS YEAR did I eventually muster the courage to out myself. Regardless, even still, I didn’t want to have to explain the purpose of ordering a plushie that costed quite a bit of money. I was lucky that no one was in the house when it arrived. I celebrated my gift by singing my favorite song, arguably of any genre (this coming from a hip-hop head), The Smile Song by Daniel flipping Ingram.

You see, my relationship with My Little Pony is...complex. My stories can attest to that. At the time the show aired, a couple days ago being the anniversary, I had a lot going on. I lived in a despondent household, where my parents struggled with a failing marriage that arguably should’ve never been after giving birth to two boys that never should’ve been born. At school, my only friend had moved away and my entire class picked on me for my many eccentricities. Even the teachers and counselors were of no help in any of my problems. All I had going for was that I was really smart and very obedient.

I never did watch the show initially. My first exposure was through joshscorcher because I was really bid on the countdown trend that was happening on YouTube at the time and it was around then he started making a couple references to Mlp:FiM. Since then, I’ve watched tons of pony content creators and works and fell in love with the brony fandom. I didn’t have The Hib back then, so I watched episodes vicariously through Josh’s reviews and the Friendship is Witchcraft abridged series. All throughout middle school, ponies were a regular part of my life, an escape from the madness and horror that is our modern reality.

Then, High school came around. The golden years of Bronydom were winding down and I was beginning to take AP classes. For one reason or another, I’m not sure, I fell off of the fandom bandwagon. Life was not easy after that. I’ve contemplated decisions, and even made a few of them, that I’ve come to regret. It’s important to emphasize that for a majority of my life, I had no real, long-lasting friendships. That stayed true in high school, the “best/worst years of your life”, as they were. So, I took it rough.

It was about Junior, going on Senior year that a peculiar thing happened. Ponies the Anthology 7 was in my recommended video. I remembered the show from my younger days and looked, wanting to know what had happened in the in between time.

When I saw Trixie “Motherfuckin’” Lulamoon, my OG best pony from the old days, standing beside some pink unicorn, teleporting the friendship table to the tune of Shooting Stars, I made it my mission to return to the show.

I started at Season 5, since I knew enough about happened from season 1-4, right up to the legendary Tirek fight. As I went from Season 5 to 6 to 7 to 8, then binged the comics, I fell for the show. Hard. Like, really hard. Like, so hard that if you were to hit someone with the love I felt for the show when I got back in, it’d be considered a war crime. THAT’S how hard I fell.

It was like a family reunion, where I got to meet back up with my old, crazy aunts that I had a shameful crush on that made me feel self-loathing every time I think about it! Honest to god, I was a born-again brony. I went back and watched the first four seasons for the first time and realized just how many of the small jokes I missed and all the little lessons I didn’t learn. Special shoutouts to DWK, who perfectly captures my feelings about the show and was another factor that made me love it even more (If by chance he sees this, all I can say is thanks. You changed my life, if that’s worth anything.)

I remember when Season 9 was announced. Senior year, I was taking college classes instead of high school classes thanks to the program I was in. I sat at the bust stop when YouTube broke the news on the main channel. The Final Season, Sombra’s back, and I felt a combination of both unimaginable hype and profound sadness. It wasn’t like I didn’t want the show to end. Nothing that comes latter can take away what FiM was and closure is better than “what if’s” and “what could have been’s”. Besides, if the ending did suck, I believe in Death of the Author, so I was gonna retcon that shit anyway.

What made me feel profound sadness was that I JUST got back in. I JUST reconnected with them. While you all were complaining about the drop in quality over the years, I saw no such drop in my marathoning. When the fandom ragged on season 8, especially with the introduction of the Student Six, that felt more like a change of pace that was negligible at best. At the end of the day, I could proclaim that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is, was, and will always be, the best piece of modern fiction. Period. Now, could I prove that? Shit, give me a couple months, a video essay, and a patreon and I’ll die on that hill gladly. I was on such a pony high and now it was going away.

Fast forward to me in my dorm room, that I had all to myself (still proud of that), watching the series finale. Now, I’ve cried three times while watching something. The first two times Avenger’s Infinity War and Endgame because like the ponies, I had spent most of my childhood with them. The third was later, when Hamilton was put on Disney+ and I empathized heavily with wanting to leave a legacy. I was sure that MLP might catch a tear from me, but I kept it together surprisingly well during “The Magic of Friendship Grows”.

But when the lemotif from the theme played at the very end of the song, at THAT moment, I cried. Deadass.

Since then, I’ve thought about ponies every waking moment of everyday. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. I’ve MOSTLY thought about ponies. Big difference. When the quarantine struck earlier this year, I developed a hobby of reading fanfics in my boredom. My favorite of the fanfics were the Anon stories. Wasn’t long before my boredom compelled me to write my own fanfiction.

A quick aside, I think HiE/Anon stories get too much shit on this site. They’re funny, irreverent, and, as I’ve found, are a good way of portraying interesting stories of how ponies affect everyone differently.

As a result, I got the idea to write Race Relations. I’m a black guy, if it wasn’t made clear by the username (because I am that n***a, thank you very much). That was one of the biggest reasons I was so scared of this show and the fandom in general. It’s already taboo for a black guy to not be seen as manly, but as a kid, there were few role models for a black Mlp fan. I knew of Rachetness and Jaxblade. That’s it. So, overall, I never made friends in the fandom and felt like an outsider among a group of outsiders. So, Race Relations was me expressing that finally. Hell, all the stories up to I No Longer Walk Alone. Anon/Avon is me and I don’t sugarcoat that fact. It’s a fanfic after all, “a fan’s fiction”.

I’m utterly surprised that despite that, people actually read the damn story. I was even more surprised when my arguably best story, Anon’s Friendship Lessons, made it to feature a couple times. I see that story as my peak. I don’t think I’ll ever write anything that good again and it’s only been less than a year. Still, another round of thank yous to those who read them, I really didn’t think you’d give half-a-damn.

Anyway, all this was a long-winded, roundabout way to finally talk about a show I love so dearly and has helped me through thick and thin.

I chose Pinkie Pie as my one plushie because, out of all the ponies, she is my best pony now. Sorry, Trixie you’re still up there but Pinkie has come to mean a lot more to me. DWK made the joke that in one of his videos that all the self-improvement he does was for the hope of getting Rarity’s validation. It’s the same for me and Pinkie I guess. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Genki Girl, as coined by TV Tropes (I also like the male variant, but we’re talking about waifus damnit). A girl who’s endless enthusiasm drives them to make the world a better place. It extends to Mako (Kill La Kill), Tiny Tina (Borderlands), Gwenpool (Gwenpool), Nico (Devil May Cry), Undyne (Undertale), Frida (El Tigre), Bessie (The Mighty B!), Excel (Saga) and Maya (Phoenix Wright). Hell, even Spinel (Steven Universe) even though I’ve never watched that show, she is my favorite character and I wholeheartedly believe she should’ve been a primary character.

Pinkie outshines all of them though because of her earnestness and, admittedly, my fan canon for her. See, I believe that Pinkie is very much smarter than she lets on, taking her job to make everypony smile seriously. For a good example of my head canon Pinkie, read Pirate Hats and Whatnot and Homemade Kites and Whatnot. To me, Pinkie has an endless ocean of wisdom, hidden underneath the facade of a cake-loving goblin. She just doesn’t express it easily.

TL;DR - To make an absurdly long post short: Got a Pinkie Plushie, ponies arguably raised me, Pinkie Pie is waifu. Thank you and I’m sorry.

Comments

[Shroomman]

I went through similar things in my life as you did, I know how you feel but at least the past is in the past.

Personally I don't know why I'm into MLP and I still cannot figure it out

[Flink]

Thank you for sharing you experience with us! I’m glad you were able to get Pinkie; you deserve it. I can’t believe how long the show has lasted and how many people it had affected. Amazing.

The smile song is the epitome of Pinkie Pie and one of the best ones in the show. Have you ever seen the Massive Smile Project? I think you will be blown away.