How to begin

Aside from a single post on a single story, and my page header, this will be the first thing that I write, for FIMFiction. So where to begin...

For starters, I've been lurking around FIMFiction, for a while. My MLP fanfiction journey began in the first half of 2012, while I was with my first major employer, as a cart attendant, after graduating from college in 2010. Despite being a college graduate, and having read plenty of material to earn the degree, I was disappointed by my reading habits. I read a handful of novels every so often in high school, which included "The Da Vinci Code," which was overrated, in hindsight, but the habit didn't carry into college. That might have been because of my obsession with the message boards of GameFAQs, which I had developed in my first semester of college. I was too busy with writing 20 or so posts a day, and even creating a "sticky" topic, whilst reading a handful of online articles from places like cracked.com, to bother with the printed word, outside of college reading material. Not to mention the fact that I constantly relied on literature courses, to cover my general education requirements. There's nothing quite like reading "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English.

Flash forward to 2012, and the most that I had read after college graduation was the Library of America collection of stories from HP Lovecraft, and "Moby-Dick." Alongside this, my interest in the forums of GameFAQs had died down, meaning that I was heading towards the moniker of "non reader." I felt a need to extend my personal education beyond college, and I failed take the general GRE, which put grad school and a Ph.D. beyond my reach. Informal education through my reading habits seemed to be the best idea. I needed a method to encourage active reading habits. Enter MLP fanfiction.

I had become a brony in early 2012, by watching episodes of "Friendship is Magic" that had been uploaded onto YouTube, mostly as a personal experiment. I wanted to see if I could develop a taste for the series, in the same way that I had developed a taste for other forms of high quality children's entertainment. This coincided with my desire to galvanize my reading habits. In order to galvanize these habits, I decided to read MLP fanfiction. Once my reading habits had become more active, I'd transfer over to more traditional literature, with the works of Neal Stephenson being my first target. In the end, I succeeded with this goal. I relied on a combination of FIMFiction and Google Docs linked in Equestria Daily, to find the MLP fanfiction. Before my interest in MLP fanfiction was replaced by traditional literature, I read "Fallout: Equestria," since it seemed to be the most "legendary" of MLP fanfiction. Everything was going smoothly until I lost my first major job, after the holiday season of 2012.

At first, 2013 was an active year. I joined a Toastmasters club, while attempting to read one book per week, I had a new laptop, an HP Pavilion, I immediately played the original “Bioshock” on this laptop, I held onto a temporary job for six months, and I found my second major employer in the November of 2013. I was a deli worker in a supermarket. This employer was the source of the trouble. I’m a rather reserved individual, that prefers to be absorbed in his thoughts, so I tend to be fairly quiet and stoic. Unfortunately, as many an individual with some form of diagnosed Autism, or any individual with suspected Autism, may know, this general disposition can be uncharitably misinterpreted by the unwashed masses. Despite being a college graduate, with a demonstrably solid level of casual literacy, my intelligence was semi-regularly insulted by my “fellow” coworkers. Even more unfortunately, the supervisor for the deli was a source of the insults. It reached the point of legitimate character defamation, which is a form of employee harassment, which is illegal. One coworker constantly called me “stupid and crazy.”

Ironically enough, my degree is in psychology, and I had graduated Magna Cum Laude, while being disappointed in my failure to reach Summa Cum Laude. On top of that, I scored in the 99^th percentile, for the subject specific GRE. My first college advisor was the psychology department’s expert in language development, and I had taken all of her courses. I have a far more thorough knowledge of developmental disorders than my former coworkers will ever possess. Plus, I was a bit of an oddity, as a psychology major, in that I’ve been naturally good at mathematics. I casually aced the required coursework on statistics, meaning that I can casually comprehend the bell-shaped curve and how it relates to intelligence testing far more than these coworkers ever will.

Despite the irony, I was plunged into a state of depression. It was severe enough to disrupt my ability to read, so I gradually dropped my attempt to read one book per week each year. Eventually, I pulled myself out this pit of depression, partially by relying on MLP fanfiction. While I was unable to focus on reading, I turned to audible readings on YouTube. Most of these readings were of creepypasta, since I had developed a liking for creepypasta in my college years. Some of these readings were of MLP fanfiction. By 2015, I had found some books that I was able to focus on, while reading. I constantly re-read them, throughout the year. By the last quarter of 2015, I recalled how I had used MLP fanfiction to galvanize me towards reading one book per year. I decided to repeat the effort. It began with “Fallout: Equestria – Pink Eyes,” since the story was a fairly short one. After reading it, I went back to the original “Fallout: Equestria.” After re-reading that, I decided to tackle “Fallout: Equestria – Project Horizons.” Once that was completed, I moved on to traditional forms of literature. I believe that I may have started with the “Hellenic Traders” series by Harry S. Turtledove, or the first few books in the “Saga of Recluce” by L.E. Modesitt Jr.

While I was regaining my old self-confidence, I overheard a conversation between my former supervisor and a member of the management team. I learned that they had both read “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George RR Martin, which is the source material for the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” The member of the management team revealed that he had read the (incomplete) series on three separate occasions. I had been planning on reading the series myself, after I had begun watching the show in 2013. Unfortunately, the aforementioned pit of depression prevented this, and my former supervisor was one source of this pit. Mildly enraged, I decided to finally read “A Song of Ice and Fire” for myself, partially out of spite. Not only that, but I decided to read it three separate times in the year 2016. I wanted to outdo my tormentor, and I succeeded, although my third attempt at reading it felt a bit lazy.

Even though I was pulling myself back together, one coworker was becoming even more unpleasant than she had previously been. She had recently been diagnosed with a form of brain cancer, and she was taking advantage of her remaining time at work to torment others. At one point in time, she directly called me a “retard,” despite that I had already completed my first reading of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which is a feat that she could likely not have replicated. That was the tipping point. I decided to seek another employer. One that would allow me to take advantage of my unused degree.

Before my first major employer, I held onto the goal of either taking the general GRE and going to grad school, or finding some other method of using my degree. I just needed be employed by someone for the sake of an income. The plan was that, once I was financially situated, I could go on to accomplish my primary goals. It’s easier to accomplish a variety of things once one has an income, even if the income isn’t much, and if the source of the income isn’t spectacular. I lost track of these goals, with my second employer, due to the aforementioned pit of depression. Luckily, I avoided completely falling into this pit through the aforementioned Toastmasters membership. I held onto my active club membership for the entirety of my second major job, which helped me to make a few connections. One of those connections offered me my third job.

This Toastmasters connection was an HR manager for a non-profit organization that is devoted to educating and elevating individuals with severe disabilities so that they may reach their full potentials. Considering the forms of harassment that I faced with my second employer, I was rather ironically going to be in charge of individuals that have diagnosed conditions that prevent them from functioning independently. I met my first client for this organization at a Toastmasters meeting. It turns out that my particular club contained several members for the organization’s board of directors. These members were representatives that worked for other companies. The organization’s representative for Old National bank was a loan officer for the bank, and he invited a client to deliver a speech as a guest speaker. The client had William’s Syndrome, which a disorder that I had written two papers on, while at college.

By the middle of 2016, I was working for my third major employer, as a team member for a division of the organization that was devoted to production work. Basically, the organization worked with various companies to set up “enclaves” in which the organization was in charge of a specific work area. The clients of the organization that were capable of basic production work were assigned work tasks, in these enclaves. The purpose of the staff members was to perform various work tasks that the clients could not handle, and to track their work progress. Within my first six months of employment, I was promoted to the highest position that a team member in an enclave could hold, without being a team lead or supervisor.

Despite my solid work performance, which was good enough to warrant my first work promotion ever, one client gave me a hard time. If he were legally competent, he would have been as guilty of character defamation as a few of my coworkers from my second job. He constantly said that I was “stupid” to others, which included his own neurotypical brother, who volunteered to work at the enclave for a day. Whenever I questioned his judgment, and brought out various pieces of evidence to contradict him, he would usually respond with “at least I’m not retarded.” Ironically, he actually had a diagnosed intellectual disability. He was high functioning, so he was rather socially and verbally active, with his fellow clients. I suppose that my reserved nature made me an easy target, although I am naturally a bit intense and intimidating. He always seemed a bit afraid of me, as did the coworkers that harassed me at my second job.

While dealing with this client, and the social atmosphere that he was manufacturing, I yet again turned to MLP fanfiction. This time, I was also reading traditional literature. I did not fail to reach my reading goal of one book per week, this time. Ever since then, I’ve held onto the habit of occasionally reading MLP fanfiction. I even took up sword collecting, since the hobby requires tangible knowledge. I grew tired of being insulted, and I wanted some form of tangible knowledgeablility, to counteract the insults. As a result, I watched several videos from Shadiversity and Skallagrim, and I bought an Albion sword. A “Crecy Medieval War Sword,” to be precise. Eventually, with my third employer, I was put in charge of operating the machine that was at the heart of one of the enclaves. Unfortunately, this did not work out smoothly. I quit working for the organization, and I decided to directly work for the company that contained the enclave. As of right now, I’m in charge of operating machinery. While seeking this employer, my fourth employer, I decided to add to the tangible knowledgeability by becoming more tech savvy. Currently, I own an old MSI GL63 8SC-059, a Minisforum Deskmini, a Chuwi Larkbox, a GPD Win Max, a LattePanda Alpha, and a handful of Raspberry Pis.

Unfortunately, I still face some of the same issues, in terms of the social atmosphere, that I faced with the second and third employers, to a much lesser extent. Ironically, these coworkers have seen me read several books, including the entirety of “The Witcher” series. That, combined with Covid-19, and my fourth employer’s general response to it, which mostly involved buckling down on production, and a large amount of mandatory overtime in an open work schedule in which there were no fixed work hours, for six day work weeks, in my previous department, has engendered a desire within me. That desire is to finally take the general GRE and to head to grad school. Sadly, I’ll have to retake the subject specific GRE, since GRE scores only last for five years. Even if that doesn’t work out, I still have a solid resume for production work, which is on LinkedIn and Indeed. I also have my hobbies to keep me sane. The hobbies of reading, gaming, sword collecting, interest in HEMA (historical European martial arts), computers, and MLP fanfiction, among other things.

Luckily, this is an open-minded and accepting fandom, meaning that I should have an easy entry into it. Technically, I’ve already had that entry. It’s been an interesting journey, to say the least.