Today is a very special day · 1:09pm Sep 15th, 2012
One year to the day ago, something happened to me. It was an event that has shaped my life in ways (as wanky as it sounds) that I never really had dreamed possible. I have met some pretty awesome people, done some pretty cool things, and best of all, I’m just getting started.
One year to the day ago I watched my first episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’s odd, really, that I would put so much emphasis on it, but considering the level it has impacted upon my life, I honestly think it’s not uncalled for.
So I am going to tell you all a story! It has all the elements of a good story. A beginning, middle, end, characters who all learn something, and a valuable moral to boot. It’s a story that makes me look like an idiot, which if you ask all my friends they’ll tell you that it’s the best kind of story.
My story starts a few weeks before September 15th, 2011. My best friend in the whole world is dacaz5, and has been for several years. He was also my entertainment dealer. Frequently he would sidle up to me in a trench coat several sizes too large for him and sneak me usb’s filled with movies and t.v shows for me to consume (events may be exaggerated). One day, however, he came up to me and said something that I never in million years thought I would ever hear, the bulk of which can be adequately summed up with, “Hey man! I watched the first two episodes of My Little Pony last night. They were awesome.”
To which my eloquent response was, “…What?”
After we repeated this exchange a few times, and after I had picked myself up from laughing and dusted myself off, he then began to tell me just how great it was. Of course, like any reasonable 17 year old, I promptly made grossly inappropriate comments about his sexuality.
This continued for a week or so, where I would rip into him mercilessly, laughing my head off every time My Little Pony was mentioned. Despite his frequent attempts to get me to actually watch an episode before judging, I would just laugh until he gave up. He would sigh and roll his eyes, a smug little smile on his lips.
Perhaps it was then I should have been worried.
I’m sure you can all guess at this point that I eventually cracked. It was September 15th, 2011. My Little Pony had been mentioned on the latest Rooster Teeth Podcast, so the subject was fresh in my mind. I was also incredibly bored. The kind of bored where watching cartoons made for small girls seems appealing. I decided that I was going to watch the first two episodes, knowing full well that I was only watching them so I could pay him out with authority. After all, if I watched them then his major retort of “don’t knock it till you try it” was null and void.
It was completely fool-proof!
And so I did. I found the first episode on youtube and I watched it. At first I couldn’t stop laughing. The whole thing seemed so completely silly to me that I just chuckled my way through pretty much all of episode one. While I was watching it I was texting dacaz5, and those texts chronicle my experience.
Messages like, “Oh no! Can Twilight Star stop Shadow Moon in time?!” (I was completely serious with those names, too, haha. They weren’t an intentional parody) and “A sing along?! F*** yes! No kids show is complete without a song!” sum up my reaction pretty well.
But without really realising it at the time, I stopped laughing at it. I stopped laughing, but I kept smiling.
I remember the moment when I flipped well. It was right at the end of episode two, that moment when Twilight realises that the Elements of Harmony aren’t some mystical artifacts but rather her and her friends. That beautiful moment when the ‘camera’ zooms in on her face and there is that spark in her eyes. I stopped, slowly picked up my phone and said, “...Well that was actually kinda awesome.”
Before long the episode ended, and without hesitation, without even thinking about it, I instantly clicked on episode three. All I knew was that I wanted to keep watching.
Then I stopped, realising what I had just done, and why. I pushed my chair back, shook my head and swore.
Then I smiled to myself, hit play, and kept watching.
And I haven’t looked back since.
Now a good chunk of my life revolves around ponies and this community, and frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The universe has a strange sense of humour when it takes people down a peg or two, and in this case, the joke was definitely on me. But it was a joke that carried with it an important lesson, one that I am glad to have learned.
And dacaz5 has been able to gloat his victory over me ever since. Smug bastard.
Anyway, there you go! In other words, it’s been one heck of a journey, one that I can’t wait to continue. I just hope you guys will all come along for the ride with me. I can promise you it’s going to be good fun.
Now, to celebrate this most important of days, there is a new story coming out in a few hours, and one like nothing I have ever done before. It was born from a conversation with dacaz5 that went a little something like, “...Who was living in the Ponyville library before Twilight?”
The end result... well I like to think it speaks for itself, haha.
I hope you enjoy it, guys. It certainly was a lot of fun to write something so absurd. If you ever wanted to know exactly how my sense of humour works, now is your opportunity, haha.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go marathon season one and play Minecraft with my best friend. Because friendship really is magic!
Till next time. 
you all and stay awesome!
- Mystic
Happy poniversary!
This is a pretty awesome story.
My is just me finding references to MLP on the internet, memebase and such. Found it on youtube sometime later, spent the time first moments laughing at the comments but gave the show a try. Few episodes later i was still checking out the comments to laugh at them (they can be funny even if you are a brony by then without knowing it
).
10/10 would read again
Wish my own "conversion" as they call it was that eventful. I just stumbled across a video of Pinkie Pie twitching like a maniac and talking to inanimate objects, thinking "Holy crap, this is My Little Pony?" So yeah, light themes of insanity was all it took to convince me to give it a fair shot
Anyway, looking forward to that story, Mystic. The identity of the library's previous proprietor is a question I've been pondering as well.
Nice. Sounds very similar to my story except for the fact that I was friends with six bronies when I decided to give the show a try. The RT Podcast can be quite inspirational can't it?
Anyway, that was awsome. I've always wondered about your origins. Can't wait to read your next masterpiece.
-JJ2
360084
Happy poniversary, indeed!
Man I wish I knew when I started watching this show. It didn't seem like such a big deal back then but now....It was probably one of the most significant events of my life.
how does a little girl's show spawn something like this?! Luckily I am a very open minded person and I soon (a few days later when I was bored) decided to give the show a fair try. The next thing I knew I was half way through season 1 and when I realised that I said to myself "Does this mean I'm a brony? It does doesn't it.....FFFUUU" and then proceeded to watch the rest of season 1 then season 2, and the rest of the school year was filled with many references to the show at every opportunity, after all we had to make up for about 2 years of lost time! The rest is history.
Because we are telling how we started watching here's mine (this all happened late May early June).
My best friend showed me Apple.mov and I found it hilarious. A few days later he showed me Shed.mov and I was like "holy crap!" Then he told me that they were MLP parodies, I went MLP
360084 360116 Hehe, thank you!
360090 That was the only way I was going to find MLP as well, haha. I was so Internet illiterate before MLP. And then suddenly... poniponiponiponi!
360101 A mystery... Heh. Oh man, this is going to be awesome, haha.
360109 I apologise in advance for the story, hahahaha.
360124 Touché... Mon ennemi!
360125 You started with the .MOV's? Now that would be an interesting way to get introduced to MLP! Hahaha.
360084
Happy poniversary! +1
Mystic.
Wow! You have a really good friend and you had a nice experience!
And you make others love the show deeper by your good fictions!
My first time to contact the information of MLP-FiM is from News (Ok, I have watched G1 ponies when I was very young..).
The news told me that MLP-Fim is very very popular in western countries.
My first thought is.. "WTF.. Isn't that show for silly girls?"
I was going to find the wikipedia and fan websites in my country,
I just wanted to check what the heck it is and prepared to laugh at them. (I'm bored and idioty that time)
And then I find out this story is not silly but very interesting. I love the sad story between Celestia and Luna (From Youtube-Links).
I think that having a friend like Applejack or Rarity is pretty cool! (Both AJ and RR need love....)
Finally, a guy from that website send me the link of Season1 Eposides 1-10 and.... Season 2 Episode 4.
I was sunk and joined the herds.
360084
Happy Poniversary indeed!
360155
Oh, it was this was my first impression.
[youtube=http://m.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=maag5bpm#/watch?v=xxAJqvslV7M]
Despite that (because of that?) I now have a 32 song pony playlist on youtube that I listen to almost every day, I check EQD multiple times a day and I have 6.5 M words read on this site not to mention I have made my brother a brony. All in all
Found it all by myself, if you have On Demand you'll know that they have shown commercials for other shows. They just kept advertising MLP:FIM And that freaking Equestria Girls song was running through my head for days on end and I could not stop hearing it. So I checked out the season 2 episode 1 thing finally, and just... laughed my butt off. But when I discovered this cite... WELL! When I saw those stories like 'My Little Dashie' and your work I fell off the deep end. So thanks for helping me get into a little girls' show even more!
360193 Hahah, you never stood a chance, my friend! None of us did!
360209 I did the math the other day. I have about 3 gig worth of pony music, haha. Getting everything by SIlva Hound, Vinyl Scratch and Archie is probably what did it
360204 Best of days!
360210 Look at that, my writing has done something useful after all! Hahaha.
Also I am here to say: Happy poniversary!
I think that you can call yourself a really lucky person for this. Having a friend to share this magic must be truly awesome. dacaz5 has done a great job this one year ago, indeed. Could you please be so kind and say him a thanks from me for making such awesome fics possible?
Man, i wish I could remember when I became a brony.. I can remember the webside where the first MLP episode was linked one day, but not when. I clicked it and never got away from those little ponies. Also, of all those 1,200 people in my school and of all the people I call my friends, I am the only one who even knows the name 'Twilight Sparkle'. Makes me feel even better for you
That is actually a very similar story to me. The only real difference being, that my friend was over steam, and I didn't hear it in the podcast.
360241 Oh man, I am very lucky to have a friend to do this all with! It certainly makes it a whole lot of fun to be able to talk to someone about it all. For a show about friendship, it's probably not surprising it's best enjoyed with friends!
360439 Definitely a good way to get into the fandom!