• Member Since 8th Mar, 2012
  • offline last seen Saturday

V-Pony


More Blog Posts127

  • 103 weeks
    Top Gun: Maverick

    Volare: this is SO COOL! :rainbowdetermined2:

    Anyone else hyped to see this movie?

    4 comments · 322 views
  • 104 weeks
    10 Years

    10 Long Years...
    A whole decade

    What a long time to write and center around something (and too long to get back around to it)

    1 Plague

    10 years
    2 degrees
    Many, many vacations and road trips
    Groomsman in 4 weddings

    33 years old

    And now engaged and getting married myself

    I've grown up into a near-middle aged man with ya'll

    And it's time to stop keeping ya'll waiting

    Read More

    25 comments · 831 views
  • 193 weeks
    *Sneaks Stealthily In*

    Fimfiction and the Blue Angel Story:

    Haha, pretty much.
    Sooo.....guess who's still alive?

    Read More

    48 comments · 1,053 views
  • 296 weeks
    Still Bad at Keeping Promises, But...

    I did a thing
    A long-overdue thing
    Please go check out this thing

    :heart:

    Seriously though, for everyone that's stuck it out for and with me, I think ya'll from the bottom of my heart.

    Read More

    36 comments · 1,424 views
  • 371 weeks
    I'm Terrible At Keeping Promises...Also, An Ugly Truth About Me

    Ugh...I really suck at this whole keeping promises thing. But I'm going to try to shed some light on why and how things went so awry the past few years. What's changed since I stopped cranking out over 50k words a month from 2012-14ish:

    For one, I graduated in May 2013, diving head-first into the realm business-first small, and now corporate level.

    Read More

    44 comments · 1,742 views
Jul
11th
2020

*Sneaks Stealthily In* · 6:16pm Jul 11th, 2020

Fimfiction and the Blue Angel Story:

Haha, pretty much.
Sooo.....guess who's still alive?

Ok, goofy humor aside, I'm here to report on my ups and downs of the past two years since I last made a peep on this site, as well as made promises that I obviously couldn't/didn't keep.

Some life events since I was last here:
Summer 2018, shortly after my last blog post: road-tripped to the penultimate Bronycon and personally witnessed live the announcement of the final Bronycon the following summer due to falling attendance numbers (and some behind the scenes financial shenanigans with the City of Baltimore and their Convention Center, including demolition and expansion that has yet to occur and in fact was voted down this year).
I DID however finally get to meet my long-time bro, reader, and editor, the legendary Biker Dash! :rainbowdetermined2: As well as others from throughout the fandom, including Commander Pensword for the second time (met him the first time on a trip thru Colorado in 2016).

Fall 2018: I got FAR too involved with local and state politics in my home state of Texas, specifically where the 2nd Amendment was concerned (one of the candidates running for state representation has since come out as staunchly anti-2A so thankfully he was defeated, albeit narrowly). I'm staunchly PRO-2A and have been for a long time (and I'm more than willing to have productive debates and discussions about it ) :pinkiehappy:
I also climbed the tallest mountain in Texas (yes there ARE mountains in Texas :rainbowwild:) with my youngest brother, one of the people who got me into the brony fandom in the first place. Green Apple whiskey at the top of Texas was EXCELLENT.
I also met and got involved with a lightsaber sparring group called Kyber Combat, where I rekindled my love for swordplay (as well as eventually becoming one of the top-rated saber fighters in Texas since then).

Winter 2018: I fell further behind on MLP: FiM, focusing more and more on other media as well as a relationship and job that was eating a large amount of my free time.

Spring 2019: Took part in the first Harmonycon Dallas brony convention in Addison, Texas which unfortunately became infamous for being "swatted." The Incident
I had left the con literally minutes before the evacuation order and wasn't allowed back on the premises by the police.
Although it luckily turned out to be a prank (still haven't gotten the exact details on it-a college baseball team was also at the same venue and there was speculation that someone was really swatting THEM), the spirit of the bronies couldn't be broken, as Eurobeat Brony/Odyssey Eurobeat himself held a parking lot rave in the cold to keep everyone's spirits up. Seriously, that guy is such a gem in this community.

Summer 2019: Journeyed to the final Bronycon and I'll tell you what: if you weren't there you MISSED OUT. Anyone that was anyone in the fandom was there (final attendance was up 200% from the previous year!) and all of the Inner Harbor in Baltimore was bronied out for one last pony party. EVERYTHING was auctioned off as well, including the Bronycon flag that had flown over the harbor for the last 6 years. Heck, my friends and I very nearly commandeered a cherry picker crane to snatch the Bronycon banners hung from the streetlamps around the convention center on Pratt Street. I also got more drunk than I ever have in my entire life on Biker Dash's Malibu Rum and Moxy Soda, haha :twilightsheepish: But it was all in good fun.
Very nearly had to sleep in the airport terminal though as our travel group missed baggage check for the flight back to Texas. I had to stay behind with the bags while my friends went on. But luckily I managed to get seated on the last flight back to Dallas. It wasn't all bad though, as I got to meet a few other members on the site here who were waiting to board with me, including MidnightNote. You're still welcome for the food, my friend :pinkiehappy:. Despite the near-disaster, I wouldn't have traded that experience for the world.

Fall 2019: Re-climbed Guadelupe Peak once more, this time staging a lightsaber battle at the top of Texas with the SaxGuy (if you've been to any brony conventions in the last few years, especially in Texas, you know exactly who I'm talking about :raritywink:
Unfortunately, I was still behind on MLP:FiM and missed the finale of the show, as well as numerous other media such as the Equestria Girls specials, Best Gift Ever, and Rainbow Roadtrip. I guess I was sort of in denial of the show being over, and if I avoided it long enough, I could keep it alive. But not forever...

Winter 2019 passed with little incident, pony or otherwise. I began to plan my next years' travels and convention trips. But you know what they say about the best to make God laugh is to tell Him your plans...

Spring 2020: Attended Harmonycon 2020, which was an EXCELLENT con. Only...one problem...I got COVID shortly afterwards, and before anyone REALLY knew what it was (end of February-beginning of March). Gonna tell you what: that's 3 weeks of my life I'm never getting back. You feel like a big fat guy is sitting on your chest for weeks keeping you from taking a full breath. I credit my cardio workouts from saber fighting and training to climb Pike's Peak in Colorado this summer in helping me to keep from going to the hospital for oxygen. By the time that I'd recovered, the nation was in lockdown mode and I was firmly stuck at home for a good while. With nothing to do, I began to focus more on myself, including brushing back on my writing skills. Having developing arthritis in my hands isn't helping, haha. :twilightsheepish:

Summer 2020: While on a trip down to Austin for a wedding, I finally motored through the final episodes of Season 9, the EqG movies, and specials, and then finally the S9 finale, epilogue, and clip shows. To be honest, it's kinda funny: I entered this fandom a year late, right before Season 2 began. I find it only fitting that I finish the show a year late as well, culminating a 9 year journey through a show that has helped shaped who I am more-so that anything else I've experienced in the last decade (except for Maybe Game of Thrones :rainbowwild:)
Now that my journey thru it is over, I've taken a little bit of time to reflect. There will be minor spoilerish things for Blue Angel here:

1. I've determined that virtually NOTHING after Season 3-outside of a few scattered events-align with ANYTHING I had planned for Blue Angel's future. Post Season 9 though....hehe, well :raritywink:

2. I know that should have little to no bearing on my writings since this story has been around since before the end of S2, but it still bugged me that certain things might pop up that might either clash with my own ideas or influence me into virtually copying the ideas of the DHX writers. It would just bug me in a way. Thankfully, very little of that is the case :pinkiehappy:

3. The show got SUBSTANTIALLY darker and more mature as the years went on (not to the level that Blue Angel already has of course), and it made me happy to see the show age with its audience as it tackled more difficult topics such as the 5 stages of grief (Tank's "death"), and telling a white lie for the sake of your loved ones' happiness being more dangerous than telling the painful truth (Leap of Faith). That said, I don't intend to tone down or substantially ratchet up the darkness in my writing, so I hope you're ready for more!

4. Speaking of more...my writings ain't dead yet! :rainbowwild:
I intend to finish up The CMC Fly Delta Airlines as well as expand further on Simply Happy. Flutterphobia may get picked back up but I'm still not sure. May wrap it up as a crackfic haha. And of course the big fish Blue Angel...of it's faaaaaar from done. During this lockdown, I've done my fair share of rereads and further edits or errors and mistakes (fixing dead links too). I would like to finish my reread thru by the end of July and get back to writing once more in August. It may be two years later than I would have liked (and ya'll would have preferred), but...

Seriously though, for those that haven't given up on me and continue to offer me support over Facebook, the messenger here, and Discord: thank you all so much. :heart:

Comments ( 48 )

Damn, dude, glad to hear you survived it. Do you think you might have any of the lung damage people are talking about?

Hell yea! Can't wait to for updates!

Bro, when I finally relocate down there, we'y'all getting more shitfaced than Dashie locked in the cider cellar.
Also, I coulda nabbed that damn crane... alas, lost chances to be on the 6 O'clock news... :twilightoops:

(You DID have bail bits, yes?)

Holy shit I thought you were dead. Glad to see you're still among the living. 2019 Bcon was definitely one of the most fun and bittersweet times of my life. Many tears were shed. I definitely look forward to future entries, and I wish you the best of luck.

Welcome back. I look forward to pulling a few dead fics out of the shelf and continue reading them again. :)

D48

It's great to hear from you again, and while I'll happily read anything you put out, I'm fine either way at this point. Life moves on for all of us, and I've been gradually drifting away from MLP for years. It sounds like you're largely moving on with your life as well, just like most of us early fans. Still, I'm always happy to chat so feel free to hit me up whenever you want.

P.S. For a while it was looking like I'd be moving down your way, but that job prospect got shot down by stupid HR people who can't read a resume and decided that 15 years of CAD experience wasn't enough.

damn im so glad to hear back from you, i have reread the story probabli at least 10 times just hoping for the end of it

great to see you are ok and back

Hey, that's a surprise to see in the feed, happy to see you around. And with such a rollercoaster blog as well. The cons sound like a great time, especially the last BronyCon. It sounds like people went all-in on that one, and rightfully so. And as far as Covid goes, glad you recovered, and seem to be in good spirits overall. Keep it up :twilightsmile:

Was it back in 2014? 2013? I don't remember, when I posted on Blue Angel, asking if the story is nearing completion, since I was (quite bluntly) vary of reading something so long and not finished. Well, it was 500k words then and supposedly half way done, so, chop chop, git to it!
Nah, just kidding. Man, went back to find that original comment. It was late 2012. Time has flown indeed, and I have also slightly drifted away from MLP lately. Still sticking around here, but, you know, not with the same intensity.

Regardless, it's great to see you checking in, story or not. I might keep an eye out if there happens to be any story to go around, though. :raritywink:

Stay safe, these are still crazy times.

5306246
Didn't move on per se. Just took care of a lot of other little things that had piled up a bunch haha. But I'm back now. :rainbowdetermined2:
And crap that sucks
Oh wellz, there's always the message chat :twilightsheepish:

Well, I was going to ask what mausoleum you crawled up out of, but then you went and explained precisely that :rainbowlaugh:.

D48

5306318
Yeah, that's life. Fortunately the internet makes it easy to chat remotely, and even if this job didn't work out there's always another.

Do you think you got COVID from the convention? Do you know if anyone else who attended HarmonyCon also got sick?

5306411
Possibly. A fair number of attendees there came down with some crud. We were calling it Plague Con :rainbowlaugh:

V-Pony LIVES!

5306145
I don't think so, no. I've been doing a fair amount of saber sparring and running since then and haven't found myself short of breath. I think we caught it early enough with a breathing treatment :twilightsmile:

5306151
Same here, my friend :pinkiehappy:

5306177
Yessir! :rainbowdetermined2:
And lo, why didn't ya tell me? :pinkiecrazy:

5306186
Nah, just dead inside for a while, hehe:pinkiecrazy:
And I'm looking forward to them as well, thank you! :pinkiehappy:

5306189
Thank you! :raritystarry:

5306270
Oh wow, thank you so much for your dedication and patience! :heart:

5306276
As well as I can be :pinkiecrazy:
Thank you!

5306294
Haha yessir, it's been quite a while and you've stuck with me for all of it. A hearty thank you is in order! :heart:

5306378
At least there were no zombies....yet :pinkiecrazy:

5306381
Indeed :twilightsmile:

5306484

You went through winter 2020 before going through spring? Tell me, did the COVID madness end by then?

Great to hear from ya. And don't worry about the delay. Your health is important. I never give up on any story, no matter how long it's been, until they officially slap a cancel sticker on it. Even then I sometimes hope they will change their mind later.

I wish I knew you visited Bronycon in the last two times. I only got to visit the last Con and the 2nd to last and it was amazing.

5306693
lol oops :twilightoops::twilightsheepish:

5306826
Thank you. And it ain't dead! :rainbowdetermined2:

5307075
Agh, I'm sorry I didn't run into you at them!
I'll keep going to cons once this COVID junk ends tho :pinkiehappy:

5307169
Eh, it's not like I asked. Plus I don't think you know me, really. :rainbowlaugh:

5307447
No worries. We're all on this wild ride together :pinkiehappy:

5307494
I hope a lot of us stay. The site has been feeling awfully bare. I'm worried. :fluttershbad:

5307504
Has it really? I haven't been here seriously in a bit. I still haven't utilized the bookshelf system yet, haha :twilightsheepish:
It looks like it's still hopping, according to the Feature Box :twilightsmile:

5307506
Look closer at the box. Now, don't get me wrong, I think compared to other fandoms we will do just fine. I mean I'm also part of a Wreck-It Ralph fandom and despite a lot of people dropping off, we're still kicking. I even run a small Discord server for us! :heart:

But the top thing in the box today has 1.9k views. Yesterday? The top thing had maybe 800 views. For me, I guess that puts things into perspective and I kept wondering why my latest story had so few views, but it has nearly the same amount as the 800 view feature box story. I guess that's the new norm, but you and I both know that it used to be way in the thousands to reach the box.

What it points to is less of us are clearly writing on the site and less are reading. Still enough to keep us going, thankfully, but I guess I can't help but worry. :moustache:

As for the library feature, it's pretty neat. It's basically like having a favorites list that you can organize easier. :ajsmug:

5307515
Ah, I see what you mean. :applejackunsure:
And I'll have to start playing around with it, it seems :twilightsmile:

D48

5307515 5307609
The fandom's been dying for years. Viewership has fallen steadily since the season 4 finale, and fan interaction (as measured in posts per day on 4chan's /mlp board) started falling even earlier with the peak around the season 3 finale. This site held on longer because fanfiction provides a degree of insulation from the failings of canon, but that only lasts for so long, especially since older fans like us are relentlessly attacked by rabid fanboys who refuse to acknowledge the show can do anything wrong and are driven off.

5308212
They'll never get me tho! :pinkiecrazy:

Reminds me to at least go shooting with Biker Dash at least ONCE before he moves

I'm late but better late than never

:yay:

I partly can't believe I've held on to this story for literally years but here I am still waiting in earnest for the day the next chapter releases. Regardless, glad to see you're doing well!

5316221
I greatly appreciate your patience :heart:

Well, color me impressed, the man is still with us!

Glad to have you back and looking forward to you stories, if I remember to check up on FiMFiction more often. ^^

5325577
Yee, the world hasn't figured out to completely kill me just yet! :pinkiecrazy:

O MY GOD!!! I just checked randomly my faves list. I rarely visit fimfiction these days, usually just checking one a month, or even less, for for any updates to stuff I follow... and now I just noticed this post... Blue Angel was one of the first stories on this site I read... I think it was Fifth or so story that I found here... and you have NO IDEA how much this blog post made me feel better, that you have not left, that you at least still WANT to finish your stories, that you have not left us like 70% of authors of old good stories here...

THANKS!

5346421
Haha, ya'll are gonna have to chase me out of here with flaming torches :rainbowwild:
I'm staying! :rainbowdetermined2:

5347501
you wont find me complaining.
:rainbowwild:

>.< AH don't know what to say glad to see you doing good and can't wait for your story to end so that I may read it many time

5367737
It's a ways off from ending, my friend. Just doing my best to get it started back up again haha :twilightblush:

Not gonna lie I was always hopeful this wasn't over one of my more favorite reads on this site not gonna lie though wasn't expecting to go through boot camp combat training my school house and just about two years of my contract to wait for it to keep going but I'm glad it is

5517148
Thank you for keeping the faith. I need all the good juju I can get right now :heart:

5520078
Np man I know how life can get especially right now I got some stuff going on thats take its toll
So just keep on trucking

It is good to see you haven't abandoned us readers with nary a word, like many tend to do. When I saw blue Angel's last updated 2018, I was concerned before reading it, but to see it hasn't been abandoned, definitely going to read it now.

Man... It feels like it's been forever! I was at Bronycon working spec ev security at the underground jam. If you were there, I probably threw a beach ball at your face from behind the gates (I was the really tall guy with a shaved head dancing in front of the stage while throwing balloons and beach balls back to the crowd! Lol) That was arguably the best convention experience I've ever had, Bronycon will damn sure be missed.

Glad you survived the covid, it's definitely no joke. I dealt with it around the same time as you, early February or so 2020. Thank God for martial arts and hiking in the mountains of Colorado, because I would have been in bad shape without the previous cardio training. It's been a rough couple years with all the quarantine restrictions and all.

Hope life is treating you well. Maybe one day we'll get to meet up at a con and talk about how much I enjoyed the ending of Blue Angel!

Much love, V! <3

What the hay dude!?!?! It's almost been 4 years since the last blue angels chapter!!! Cmon man make more of it! I love it so much I READ ALL OF THE CHAPTERS!!! Cmon dude make more!

5602042
Haha you very well might have gotten me at the con :rainbowlaugh:


5622408
I need to do another personal life update soon
A LOT of things have happened to me since I last posted here
And I mean A LOT:raritywink:

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