So, as some of you know I do some art myself, but I also like requesting it of others to see what they do. This is the latest one I received, some of you may know these foals and enjoy it a little more, others may just see it for what it is. Either way, enjoy.

So, anyone else notice how certain members of the site (apparently including myself) are now "gold members"? Different color plate, little gold bar next to it? I have some theories as to why this is, but while I am performing some data analysis on my theories, if any of you actually know the reason and would care to save me some time and guesswork, feel free to comment. Feel free to comment if you don't know either, just wanted to see what everyone knew about this.

So, thanks to Blue Breeze and his various connections, I've been browsing the deviant art scene and making some requests for a bit now. Thought some of you might like to see the results.

Links for those who can't see some of them.

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/047/5/8/rhino_by_cooler94961-d5v7afv.png

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/047/6/7/rhino_and_fluttershy_by_cooler94961-d5v7a4i.png

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/049/6/8/vortex_by_1110soulite-d5vgtx4.png

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/061/d/9/request__first_date_by_sherbet_boo-d5wolqq.png

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/058/4/8/fluttershy_and_rhino___requested_by_xkittyblue-d5wgdlm.png

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/067/7/7/applejack_and_hydro___requested_by_xkittyblue-d5xek34.png

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/063/0/f/twilight_and_volt_by_xkittyblue-d5x0gbj.png

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/047/1/5/request__rhino__hydro_and_volt_by_emurri-d5v7ksd.png

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/076/6/1/request___rhino600_by_lunwere-d5y9dkc.png

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/085/a/8/when_the_fireflies_shine_the_brightest_by_ifreakenlovedrawing-d5zawm8.jpg

Just thought I might share this with you guys. A little call back to something I did a while back was resurrected by a request. I think this little beauty came out well.

To those of you thinking this blog was going to be about some random piece or art I decided to do or something to do with my story:

Well, those of you in the second category are partially and indirectly correct but you will only see how if certain theories I have are otherwise confirmed because of this blog.

But onto the actual question eh?

My question to all those who follow me is this: What is tumblr?

Before you answer allow me to clarify. I do in fact, know sort of what tumblr is and do frequent some blogs that interest me. However, I have also seen ask blogs. Some pertaining to canon characters with some quirk or hook that makes them interesting, and some ask blogs for OCs. However, I have also noticed a tendency of most if not all the blogs I have seen to either constantly be re-posting art from other blogs, which I understand seeing as it gives them more attention, or posting art that they themselves have created when answering questions. Is it always necessary to do a comic, whether it be one or more panels, to answer questions? I have yet to see a blog that is mostly text answers to questions, whether they be in character or not, without having art.

I'm curious about all this because it seems to me, personally anyway, that a tumblr ask blog is sort of like an ongoing Q and A... Which is actually kind of a cool concept to me. Anyway, I just wanted to see what you guys thought about all this since I had a random crazy idea earlier to make an ask blog for the character Rhino or maybe just for me as the author, and I wanted to get an approximate reading on how crazy the idea actually is.

So let me know what all of you think on this question and it reasons, alright?

Pretty much what it says up there. I have now finished the new cover art for "The First Steps of the Rest of Your Life" and I think it's a great improvement. Tell me what you guys think!

Ok so, this is more of an fyi kind of blog to keep you guys in the loop.

For those of you who enjoy the story, and hopefully tell others so they can enjoy it as well, I'm letting you know ahead of time that it is likely there will not be a new chapter over the next two weeks. It could possibly happen, but do to it being finals time, like I said, not likely.

On a slightly related note though, I am taking what bit of time I have and going back through the beginning chapters of the story in order to revamp them. Nothing too major has been changed so far, mostly adding little things, correcting mistakes I made before I got a prereader, things of that nature.

Chapter 2... bleh, so much needed to be done with that one.

Oh, I'm also removing stuff like pony creator pictures due to the fact that they seem to be frowned upon by the general populace of the fandom when included in the finalized products of something. In their places are now some descriptive paragraphs.

Also, my next new art project, since the OC class pictures went so very well, is to go ahead and create a new cover art for my story. Some of you may not know this but the one I have now was actually just something I threw together in five minutes that would be different enough to maybe catch a few eyes. Appropriately enough it was also way back when I was just getting into the pony art stuff and my skills were trivial. Now that my skills have improved, I'm going to devote them to an even better cover art, which leads me to my next point.

If you are thinking I'm doing all this cleaning house for it's own sake, you are only partially correct. Another big reason is that now that I officially reached 100k words *Confetti party* I'm finally getting this all cleaned up to enact something I have been considering for a long time now but finally have the confidence to try:

Submitting The First Steps of the Rest of Your Life to Equestria Daily.

Now before any of you get paranoid, if I am rejected, I'm not going to get all depressed and stop writing. Most likely they'll point out a few things and the story will improve as a whole when I implement them. Now, I'm not certain on the odds, but I am optimistic about my chances at least. I read over their guidelines many times and I contradict with none of them, so I do have that going for me. To quote Mythbusters though: Failure is always an option. Doesn't mean you can't fallback, improve, then try again.

So, this is just my way of letting you guys know some of what I have planned.

Feel free to comment with your thoughts or suggestions.

So... I'm doing some art this morning and Volt Skypes me a particular link he found.

Neither of us know when this happened, but wow... it's... huh... I like it.

Pretty good at describing the story for the most part as well.

It's a TV Tropes page

What do you guys think?

Personally, I love it!

Oh my gosh I never thought it would happen...

I got featured!!!

Halo 4 and featured... this day is going to kick ass!

Final tally from brief time featured... 7 new favs and 2 likes. Love it.

Hey there guys, sorry about not having written anything lately, but after life's latest little delay tactic in the form of hurricane Isaac I figured you guys deserved an update with some news.

So despite me not actually writing, to help me get out of the funk due to the previous blog post, one of the two people I like to discuss various aspects of the story with and I had some great ideas about certain aspects of the story as well as pointing out some others that might be improved upon. We ran dozens of ideas around picking out all possible flaws and quite a few made it to the final cut and will be implemented, some as specific scenes and others as more subtle overtones that will be helping from the background. Actually once my other friend and excellent idea discussion person joined myself and the initial friend we even came up with something I think came out of the blue but works so well! Suffice to say I've gotten a lot to work with and less concern keeping me from writing what I plan to now that I had some good long talks about it. Hell, maybe what I needed was small reassurances that what I was planning were good ideas. All I know is that I finally feel I'm getting back to myself and I have these two to thank for it.

I look towards future chapters now and for the first time in a long time, I see not the challenge of getting to the next big point, but the potential of what I can do with every moment.

And just to prove to you all that I'm serious about some of these probably crazy sounding but seemingly legit once implemented ideas, here's a little hint at something I think will really help out in certain parts of the story once I put it in, let's see if you guys can figure it out eh?