Something I Never Told You (Until Now)

You know, there's something that I'd like to talk about to all of those that would like to know a little something about me that they might not know already.

I know I'm only 19, but when I was way younger than I am now, I'd still be living at my gran's house with her and grandad. To be completely honest with you, I hardly ever left. I didn't do anything, I didn't talk to friends or my family, I didn't partake in any activities others were doing when they came around, and I simply didn't leave my room. I basically just isolated myself so that I can be with my own thoughts.

I'd be doing one of two things - either watching TV or playing on my Xbox 360. Sounds like a sad existence to you? It was. Oh, believe me, it was. I'd be sat up there, and this may sound weird to you, but I'd watch films and cartoons over and over, watching them even before I fell asleep. I'd be laying in bed as I watched films and I'd pass out during some point in the film without noticing.

This was back when I knew nothing and I had no particular things that interested me. This is my pre-writing days. Not saying I haven't tried to write by this point, but I truly didn't know how. I could spell, but it was always the complex words that got to me. As a result, I'd actually have the subtitles on during the film or something else that I can read so that I can get a look at the punctuation, spelling, structure of the sentences and phrases/words spoken.

I did this for so long that it eventually all stuck with me, and lo and behold, I began writing a story for Fallout New Vegas's Lonesome Road DLC that I scrapped because I thought it was terrible. Well, it was, but when I think about it, I regret deleting it forever. It would have been fun to show you what novice me writes like.

Anywho, this was when I wasn't a serious writer nor a somebody, so I really had nothing to do, and it upset me greatly. I would sit and train myself to do things that I wanted to learn and possibly do when I got older. I'd be jealous of others and I'd hate seeing others being successful in their careers or hobbies. Why? It's simple - here they were, people of the same or close age to myself at the time, being famous, acting, singing, performing and entertaining, and here I was, sat in a quiet and dark room feeling like I'd gotten my guts trampled on.

If there was a time I felt truly worthless and rotten as a person, this was it. It wasn't until some time later that I had found a change of scenery and a new place I never knew existed.

On Steam, I remember meeting this one person, although I won't mention their actual name or username for obvious reasons, and he got me into MLP. By this point, I was still a bitter and cocky bastard that had more of an ego problem than an understanding attitude like I do now. As such, you can guarantee that I didn't like MLP or the fanbase. I wouldn't and couldn't watch any episodes of the early days of the show without cringing or thinking that it was a load of crap.

I still remember the first episode I watched - It was the one where Pinkie follows Rainbow Dash so that they can hang out, and there is a point in the episode where Dash finds out that Pinkie, like her, has a thing for pranks. When I was first introduced to the episode, it was a small clip of when Pinkie keeps telling Dash how to position a storm cloud so that they can scare Spike and give him the hiccups.

I hated the show then, but then I got to really know the characters as the show progressed, and then I started to like it. Then, before I knew it, I loved to watch it all the time. I'd watch and re-watch episodes. I even kinda had a bit of a crush on Rainbow Dash, something that's still with me to this day, and I have a soft spot for Fluttershy, Applejack, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. I even like Pinkie because she reminds me of something I used to know - happiness and laughter. (You might also notice that these characters are the ones I write for the most in my stories.)

I don't really know what happened or what started me off, but when I was in secondary, I became really depressed when I got lost in my own thoughts. I used to be the one that laughed with everyone else because I was just a joking, walking talking jukebox of hilarity. It was then that one of my brother's older friends told me that ''You know that they aren't laughing with you, they're laughing at you.'' Let me tell you, that one line stuck in my head and it brought me to question myself.

I was in the sports hall when I was thinking about it. My thoughts were telling me that people didn't really like me for who I was or how funny I was, they just cared about getting a laugh out of me when I'm being taken advantage of. As you can imagine, I stopped joking around and being me. I still deal with getting this humour back, and it's getting there, but I'm really struggling with that one.

So, when I was shown MLP by this friend on Steam, I continued watching, and then I found FimFiction. However, I'm not sure exactly how I found it. I've been here not that long since it was founded by Knighty. This was when I truly found some inspiration. I can still remember that the very first thing I ever read on this site was Cupcakes by Sergeant Sprinkles, way before it became what it is now. Following it was Dontwaketheneighbour's series that was a sequel to Cupcakes called Rocket to Insanity. When I read them, I fell in love with it.

Cupcakes and Rocket to Insanity are what inspired me to write Bars and Rainbows Forever. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea at the time, but I guess that maybe I felt that the series that got its gruesome start by Sergeant Sprinkles just didn't satisfy me enough that I was happy where it ended.

In the end, I suppose that's how I got my start as a writer on this site. It wasn't much, it sucked, I was a complete and utter novice, and I knew it, but I knew that I had to do something with my time, otherwise, I'd never amount to anything with my writing. Of course, then I wrote The Doll, which was also as terrible as Bars and Rainbows Forever, but then when my fifth story rolled around after writing Soldiers Remnants of Us, that's when I got most of the recognition out of my time on the site.

I mean, I didn't expect A Pony in the Wasteland to become anywhere near as popular as it is right now. The views bar says 2.5K views since its publication, but when I look at the actual statistics page, the count comes to just over 34k views! The story itself was published back in 2014, and the chapter count is 47, 46 being the actual story and the last being authors notes and some explanations on the story from my side and stuff I was going to include and why I didn't put it in.

I'm still baffled by how many people liked it and how many ratings it had gotten within only days of its release, and for that, I am thankful for it. That goes especially for when you take into account that it was riddled with errors, I didn't even edit any of the chapters, my writing was sloppy and my character development was terrible in every way you can think of. I find it embarrassingly hilarious.

It was a great journey for me to be able to spend some considerable time of my life writing to get it done as much as possible, especially considering that I just made it up as I went along and I didn't follow any plotlines or a plan, or anything like that. It was just an improvised story from start to finish.

But I have to say, when it came to writing the Rainbow Strike Series, starting with All Rainbow and No Colour, which was the catalyst for The Long Lost Rainbow, that's when I first started to work with some other people that offered to help me with my writing by proofreading my work and giving me criticism so that I can improve. Granted, my writing was sloppy even then, but it was still better than the last couple stories on my list.

I kept at it, and I'd write as often as I could to get where I am now. I've met people along the way, I've made friends, I've bonded with others enough to help them if they need it, and I'm honestly never going to forget anyone I've met here, that much I can guarantee.

In my experience as a writer on this site, as an all-in-all conclusion of what stories of mine I think are the best, I'll probably have to go with this -

• 1) More Than Friendship?
• 2) You Are Not Alone
• 3) All Rainbow and No Colour (Rainbow Strike Series)
• 4) A Pony in the Wasteland
• 5) I'm Still Here
• 6) The Lady, The Guitar and a Very Confused Pinkie Pie
• 7) ''Applejack, are you gay?''
• 8) Defiled Loyalty
• 9) Dead Loyalty (I don't own this anymore, and that's some knowledge that still royally pisses me off to a great extent.)

Just the fact that I'd sit down and admit that I have some good stories says something because I'm apparently modest with admitting to myself or to others that I take pride in my work, because, in all the truth I can manage, I don't really think I'm a good author. True, I'm self-taught and I can spell, but that's about it. The only thing that I can say is that I understand characters so well in a way that they come of realistically because they are all things I have experienced.

In short, the characters I've shown thus far are representatives of things I've experienced, felt and seen. I even made the characters Cerulean Blaze and the brother-sister duo of Halo and Archer for when I was writing Childhood Sweethearts because I wanted to add something unique and original.

Halo, if you've read the story, is immature, crazy and energetic. She's an optimistic pony, she can't sit still (like myself, it's a real problem!) and she has a weird sense of humour (also like myself). She is even given intentionally funny lines that I put in there to make you smile. Why? Because one of the themes in the story, despite it being for younger audiences, is death and loss. It can get somewhat depressing, so some humour and joy is needed every once in a while to keep things lively, so in enters Halo!

Archer, Halo's older brother, is meant to be the more mature sibling that keeps her in line. Archer is Rumble's best friend and they are so close they can be considered brothers. Archer doesn't have a lot of lines in the story, but he's more or less what I'd call a guardian or a supervisor for Halo. He's simply representative of a caring and loving sibling. Like me, if any of you are fortunate enough to have siblings, you'll understand. True, Archer may be driven crazy by the antics of his younger sister, but he couldn't stay mad at her if he tried. Just like us in the real world, we say we might hate our siblings at one point or another, but we can't live without them.

Cerulean Blaze, the protagonist of the story, is meant to represent a part of myself. He's something that I want to be, yet I never really quite got there. In the story, I made him come across as a well-educated colt with a soft spot for Scootaloo. The reason? It's simple - I, when I was in school, had a soft spot for a girl that I really cared about. Didn't end well. Lesson learned, I suppose.

However, with Cerulean, I wanted a caring figure, much like Archer, and I wanted him to be someone who liked to get along with others and build everlasting friendships with them. Yes, I wrote him as losing his father, because if you haven't figured it out from previous blogs, I actually lost my own mother quite a while back. Not 'lost' as in 'deceased', but rather the opposite. He represents something I've lost and he also represents friendship to a certain extent. He even has a thing for pranks and the occasional joke going on when the time calls for it, which comes from me in real life.

It's similar to Halo's attitude, but Cerulean is more in the way of a 'mature' prankster/jokester, if that makes any sense. I wanted someone I could write to relate to myself, so I found both him and Halo fairly easy to write for because it seems natural. Face it, chances are that if you're in the same house or room as me, you are not safe in any meaning of the word.

You'll be subject to my jokes, gimmicks, random and somewhat dirty humour, and just the oddness of my existence. Just a few days ago when I was at my grandmother's, I rode my bike through the kitchen and into the living room when she called for me, and the first thing I asked was ''What?'' before she started laughing. Somehow, I guess she knew I was going to do that. I asked her, ''Well, what did you think I was going to do? You should know by now that I'd do something like this. You've known me long enough to know what to expect if you're in the same house as me.''

Needless to say, we both died of laughter. Well, I didn't. The bike seat went up my arse after I fell off it when I was going up the step. I fell off of the front seat and I pulled the bike forward, effectively probing myself with the end of the seat. When it happened, I said the funniest thing I've probably ever said in my entire life.

When I fell, I said this - ''OW! My vagina!''

As you can imagine, from this one line, me and my grandma couldn't stop laughing, and I could stop holding my crotch from where I landed. To add in with the seat probing me, when I fell off on an odd angle, I landed on the bar between the seat and handlebar, which was a thick piece of metal. Needless to say, if I did have a vagina, I bet it would be as wide and deep as the Marianas Trench by now.

Sorry, did I give you a disturbing mental image? Welp, sorry to not be sorry.

Man, I'm disappointed that I said that when it was only me and gran to laugh about it. The funniest thing I've probably ever said or will ever say, and there were no other people to hear it. There's disappointment, then there's that.

Anywho, those characters were a part of my personality divided up and shared somewhat between each other. Oh, and I forgot to mention Silverline until right this minute, so here's what I added him in for.

Silverline was added into the story during the final stages because I wanted to have someone in the race with Scootaloo to compete with her because I changed my mind from having either Cerulean or another colt being in the place of Silverline. I also made it so that he was the cousin of Diamond Tiara, which will give the immediate impression to the reader that he was trouble. He may not have many speaking lines, but you can guarantee that he will be used as a troublemaker in the story just after the first meeting of him before the race began.

When I added in Silverline, with the fact that I wanted him to compete with Scootaloo in the race, I made him come across as aggressively competitive to the point where he was willing to intentionally knock or push over Scootaloo so that she might get injured and be forced to forfeit the race. This was how I was going to do it, but rather than Scootaloo, I figured it would be nice to let the bad one get thrown over the railing and into the ditch.

However, be it as it may that I made him come across as bad, I tied him in with myself for a future sequal to Childhood Sweethearts where he is (or may, I haven't quite decided yet) be used as a main character of the story. What I mean by that is that I'm seen kinda as a bad person in real life to some people, and they don't really want to associate with me. It upsets me greatly because I don't know what I might have done to make them despise me, but with Silverline, I wanted it to come across that he actually wasn't a bad pony. He only did what he did because he was following orders from Diamond Tiara, whom manipulates him at every turn she gets.

Silverline never really wanted to be a saboteur or a hellbent pony that wanted nothing more than to destroy friendships between the CMC and the other ponies of the playground. Instead, he wants to just make friends and find happiness. The reason he doesn't have friends is because, well, he's Diamond's cousin. That one is pretty self-explanatory.

Anyway, that's what I've had on my mind for quite some time now, and I've spent way too long on it than I really should have, so I'm going to end this here.

And yes, because of you people out there that found the time to help me, and I in return, I'm forever grateful that I met you (you all know who you are) and I wouldn't have any of what I have now if it wasn't for all of you people out there that take the time to read my content and enjoy what I love to do. Thanks to you, I can be a happy writer to put stuff out there for multiple audiences to enjoy, and I'm grateful for that.

My name, FireRain, wouldn't have much meaning if people like you didn't read my work and give me criticisms on my work to help me improve and get to where I am right now. So, it goes without saying that I absolutely love all of you people out there!

===============================

With love, from England,

- FireRain