the life story and rant you don't have time to read · 1:03am Aug 21st, 2015
I didn't get very good sleep last night, as I'm sure like at most 15 of you guys knew. I'm very tired, but not just cause I didn't sleep well. I'm tired of myself. I'm tired of reliving the same cycle every single day. Idk how long this rant will be, but if you don't have time to read what I have to say then don't bother clicking to read more. Move on or whatever, because I believe I'm about to sum up the past 3 years of what I've been doing.
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So wow you really want to listen to my rant? Well guess I better impress you all, but I doubt it. This is probably going to be a story you all heard before, one of a guy who realized he's wasting time.
So... three years ago, when I was just a sophomore in high school, I was looking for an escape. I didn't want to have anything to do with school and wanted to forget all the monotony it brought to me, thus the reason why I spend most of my time online. I was unproductive as fuck. I didn't know what I wanted to do with all the free time I had, so I wasted it all on internet surfing and watching Youtube videos. I didn't have an outlet I could feed into, but then the gods of Youtube showed me something in the related video section. The first ever MLP episode I've watched: Sonic Rainboom. I didn't know what to expect, maybe a science video about sonic booms being rainbow colored. The thumbnail only showed a picture of an oval with rainbow colors all over it on a blue background, so intrigued I clicked on it to see what's up.
That's when I got on the ride. The ride of ponies.
Ponies. Back then I wasn't sure if I was able to comprehend what was happening. It was the first time I've ever seen an episode of My Little Pony at all, but I suppose my 16-year old self imagined it was nothing but girly, but damn did that episode prove me wrong. I mean yeah the Sonic Rainboom episode wasn't the epiphany of manliness, but I didn't expect myself to be so invested in a rainbow-haired pony character. I felt legitimately caring about whether Rainbow Dash would fail or succeed, and then I witnessed her perform an undoubtedly selfless, heroic act. To me the moments building up to that amazing climatic performance set off like fireworks. It was an amazing episode, unlike any other cartoon I've watched in the past. I cried out of joy when Rainbow Dash rescued Rarity and the Wonderbolts. It was a happy moment.
And thus I wanted to learn more about the show. Right after that I straight up searched for the show's first episode and got right to binge-watching the entirety of Season 1. I was overall satisfied with the quality of the show and during the time I was watching the episodes, I happened to learn about the existence of bronies in the YT comments. There were a lot of mentions of how a lot of men around my age or older were into the show, and it didn't occur to me how weird that might be. A man enjoying My Little Pony, an IP originally created to market to young girls. I guess being a high school sophomore that wanted to stand out, that enjoyed embracing the weird, watching a My Little Pony show seemed natural to me. Oh and surprise surprise, learning about bronies was the first time I learned about fandoms. I had no idea people formed internet communities around their favorite fictional medias until that moment, and upon learning that, I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to experience what it was like to be in a fandom.
It started off small, with me creating a Deviant Art account and looking at MLP fan art. Some were okay, but others were seriously high quality. Like many others, I was immediately hooked on Gamer Luna because she was one of the few fan-created characters of MLP that revolved around video games, and I loved me some video games. Also blue was my favorite color so the blue alicorn became a favorite of mine. But when I first saw her, I was confused cause you see this was Season 2 Luna. I only saw Season 1 Luna (a fucking cutiepie), and so I was curious about why this S2 Luna existed. Afterwards I learned about Season 2's existence and got onto watching that. It wasn't a binge watch like I did with Season 1, but over the course of a week or two I caught up in terms of episodes. Around this time, there was huge talk about some sort of Royal Wedding on Equestria Daily and I was both confused and excited at the same time. There was so much hype around it, I wanted to do something meaningful. The show gave me so much and I wanted to give back, so I made a choice. I decided I wanted to become a fanfic writer.
But before that, lemme backtrack to the time when I learned about Fimfiction. So being a first time brony, I wanted to learn as much as possible about the community I was in, so the first thing that came to mind was Googling about bronies. One of the first search results lead me to Equestria Daily, which is right now one of the largest horse news sites on the internet. There was so much to see, and among them were posts about fan fictions. First story I clicked on was The Three Whooves because I was also a Doctor Who fanatic (but not a part of its fandom). The story was okay but it was kind of hard for me to follow the plot. It was all jumbled so I kind of dropped that fanfic for another story. Whip and Wing was next, and frankly I enjoyed it qutie a bit. It's an crossover adventure story about Daring Do and Indiana Jones and I was intrigued cause I didn't know much about Indiana Jones but my dad doesn't want to buy the DVDs, so this was the closest I could get to learning about Jones as a character. It's well written and I enjoyed every chapter of it. I highly recommend you check it out later. Lastly there are two other stories that I read next that completely had me sold on making my account on Fimfiction: The Moonstone Cup and Anthropology. The first story is an amazing Adventure story about Twilight competing against other magical users in a powerful tournament, and the second needs no introduction. These two stories are very incredible in their own rights and have convinced me to make an account. I started off as simply a reader on the site, favouriting stories and had no idea there was a Read Later section I could have put stories in. But then I began writing my own stories after being inspired by such stories like Twilight Sparkle: Grand Galloping Gamer. I wanted to write a Gamer Luna story that gamers can relate to and enjoy. The product of that was Luna Plays, but of course being the newbie to writing way back then, I did rookie-expected things like make a self insert and tried to incorporate a romantic-subplot into it. I did the same self-insert thing with Equestrian Earth and sort of made a connection between Luna Plays and Equestrian Earth, implying they're both in the same verse, however after I learned that such things were frowned upon, I tried turning things around and attempted to refine my self-insert into an OC that was different from me, thus I created my first OC-centric story involving four friends traveling around in their home country and Equestria. Quite a mess, but it was pretty fun. I had a lot of people who enjoyed my work and showed it by become followers, and I even made friends in the process. I wouldn't consider myself to be the greatest of friends, but I couldn't be more grateful for your companionship. But then... well that's when things slowed down.
It started around the time when I tried to make changes to Equestrian Earth's chapters, which I'm sure some of you by know would know as The Revisions. You see, I enjoyed the attention I was gathering with my stories and became obsessed with quality because I believed that quality is what will gather more followers. I saw the stories being featured on EQD and thought to myself "I want one of my works on that site". Thus the changes began to happen. Of course because I was obsessed with trying to get my writing perfect, I sacrificed time and soon the gap between my updates grew larger and larger until later I had huge hiatuses. I had at least two periods of hiatuses and it was an awful, silent time. I began making more shitposts (aka blog posts with no relevance to my actual fanfics), making deadline promises that wouldn't be kept, and in time... I stopped writing. I tried making a comeback with some oneshots, but they didn't work. Eventually... writing didn't become fun for me anymore. I believe I hit the wall that I've created from the moment I because EQD obsessed. My writing has gone rusty, and the one to blame for it is me. I let this happened just because I couldn't trust myself to just write. I had the crazy ideas that I just brainstormed and brainstormed forever, keeping these thoughts of writing to myself and trying to polish them in my own mind, but I never had the guts or energy to write them. I tried convincing myself that it was just a writer's block, but really it was more than that. I was never fresh out of ideas, but my obsession with perfect led me to a point where I was afraid to reveal new writing. As the time gaps grew larger, the more I realize I was out of practice. That's why I rarely update nowadays and why I feel like I'm not having fun anymore. I don't write for myself. I write for you guys, and honestly I didn't want to disappoint anyone with shitty writing, but I'm afraid I taken steps back to square one because I was too afraid and waited too long.
But... I'm not willing to give up. I had a realization that if I were to quit now, I'd be wasting everyone's time. Long nights made me think about just how many people took the time to read my words, my stories. Equestrian Earth has just about 1,500 readers following it, and about 1,000 of them read all the current chapters. Even if I were to minimize the average time of reading chapters of Equestrian Earth to just 2 or 3 minutes... well let's see. There are at least 21 chapters in Equestrian Earth. 21 times 2 is 42. 42 times 1,000 is 42,000. Divide 42,000 by 60 (which is the amount of minutes in an hour), and we have 700 hours. From just 1,000 readers, I've stolen, at the VERY LEAST, 700 hours worth of time. That is about 29 days. ALMOST A MONTH. And that's just from one story. Individually yes I've only taken about 42 minutes - give or take - from each reader, but that's still quite a bit of time when you think about it. And if I were to officially quit writing now, I'd be throwing all that time into the garbage. It would be a huge FU to my fans and I don't want to do that. That also made me realize why people are so angry when authors like Akumokagetsu wanted to delete all their stories off that site. To them, that means the very thing they invested their time reading was going to be gone. Naturally this gets people mad... and I don't want to upset you guys either.
So thus the limbo I'm in. I'm between not having fun with writing and not wanting to disappoint you guys either and both are connected to each other if that makes any sort of sense. However I have been getting by thanks to some very good friends who've helped me to try to get back on my feet.
First and foremost, I'd like to thank Rated Ponystar for setting aside some time to help me write. Also thank you for giving me the opportunities to pre-read your chapters before you released them.
I'd also like to thank Marik_Azemus for encouraging me to not let go of the talent I had so then I can look back on the accomplishments instead of regretting not having done anything. Also you're the coolest clop artist friend anyone could ever ask for. I'll commission one from you someday.
I'd also like to thank GrapeParfait for helping me with a side project related to Equestrian Earth.
ugugg93 for being a cool editor and putting up with my shit such as that yellow bastard, and for also showing me lewd loli kissing videos and an anime that has became my favorite in terms of dirty jokes. Fuck you.
I really want to thank Skeeter The Lurker for creating that one contest. It gave me an opportunity, an excuse to actually write one complete story and to also learn a lot from the mistakes I've made, so thank you lots.
I also want to thank a great artist known as Midnight Sonare. She's pure amazing in human incarnate form and has spent so much time creating one of the best cover arts I could ever have. Thank you so much it means a lot to me.
I'd also like to thank a real life friend of mine, Kohl, for talking to me about considering commission options in the future. Yes I am actually thinking about accepting commissions for writing stories, but that probably won't happen until I learn more about the trade and when I'm fully confident I can write well again.
I'd also like to thank Flint Sparks for being a cool LoL buddy and helping me improve to being a better friend.
I'd also like to thank Cozmosus for... actually he didn't do much but he was a cool dude to talk to.
I'd also like to thank Devon for actually showing me Legends of Equestria is a cool game.
I'd like to thank Super Trampoline for the good company he shared with me last night (call me later), but overall for being that one chill friend and knows exactly what to comment to make me crack a smile.
I'd also like to thank Harmony Charmer for being the senpai that never notices me but for also being inspirational when it comes to writing. You show a lot of passion when it comes to it and remind me a lot of myself three years ago, when I was still an excited writer.
And I like to thank the followers who actually took the time to read this to the very end. You guys are the really special ones who cared enough to listen to what I have to say about myself. I'm not the best, and you probably heard this story a million times already, but honestly I'm thankful there are people like you who, well, care enough to know what my brain thinks.
I only have a month left until fall quarter for college starts, but that's still plenty of time. It's not too late for me to change my ways. It's time to break this monotony of surfing the internet. I WILL have something done... idk what it'll be but it'll be something! I swear! Well maybe not, but honestly I'm tired of being afraid of writing. It's time to dust off the Mars dust.
Unexpected thanks is unexpected.
You're welcome, in any case!
~Skeeter The Lurker
I tried to read this, i really did. But i just got back from what for me is a strenuous hike and all i want to do is slieep
3335791 cuddle with me in bed then. my Rejuvenation Buff is 9001 HP per 5 seconds.
3335788 Bro if you had never hosted that contest, I could have never taken my first step outta my slump. It was also an eye opener for me since I haven't done a serious attempt on a complete story since like... maybe a year.
Write a one-shot, it helps a bit. Actually, I'm working on a Luna comedy one-shot atm. So far it's code-named Stacheldraht. I can PM you the details if you're interested in a co-write or something. I'll be starting college soon myself, and I haven't had a lot of time for writing due to work, so I've dialed most of my shiz-nit back. But I'd be psyched to try and write a one-shot with you man.
Though I'm East Coast, so syncing up may be difficult.
Just take it easy bro. One thing at a time, ya know?
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3336089 I don't know what to make of your comment, bruh.
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3336025 Mmmh sure maybe.
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