xCrossx Da Brony

I was once like many other bronies before their bronyhood: a pony hater who probably thought that bronies were not like them once. I was anti-brony in the aspect that I hated ponies themselves, not the bronies who loved them. Before I go on, quick backstory of who I am and why I noticed some aspects in the brony community.

I am an Aspie -one with Asperger's syndrome, which results in my mind being built differently- with ADHD symptoms from that, and I'm diagnosed with OCD and, although it's not confirmed, I'm pretty sure I have ADD with the way I easily get off track. I lastly have unnamed stress disorders. All this adds up to a wildly partially incoherent genuis without the medicine I have now, which helps treat the ADHD symptoms and helps me keep my stress levels from rising too high.

Beyond my disorders and abnormalties, I am a writer, constantly thinking up of stories that I then partially write down. I game a lot and aim to program games, both of my own and of others as a company. I have had my hand at programming have been writing as I wish for five years now. I aim to be a freelance writer and/or a writer for video games. Yeah, I aim high.

Now, onto the precursor: just over a year ago, I joined the Minecraft fandom after trying it myself. I had once refused like many do: the looks were horrible, being only sixteen bits/16 bits/16x. I have a real reason for this: older graphics often means older style gameplay, which means I will suck. Period. Eventualy, I tried some texture packs, mods and custom maps, and I found the wonder and amazement that the grand community can and does pull off. It's why I love it. And it's why it's so big. The community fuels it's own growth rather than what it's originally based on, which is growing itself.

It's through Minecraft that I became a brony. I had come to like the MineLittlePony skinmod, which turned you into a pony ingame, through videos such as the Yogscast's Sunshine of Israpony. This led me to not only get the mod but to look up a server for it. I joined MyLittleMinecraft, which happened to be connected to the Trottingham.net forums, which happened to have a Steam group for TF2 called MLP Team Central, which happens to have sic teams named after the Mane Six.

Well, I decided my team by taking a quiz which scaled how much I am like to each Mane Six -which resulted in full Rainbow Dash, mostly Applejack, above half with Twilight Sparkle and FLuttershy, and almost nothing with Pinkie Pie and Rarity, which were also the only two below average- but I still knew nothing about them. So, I asked Unahim, head of both MLPTC and Trottingham, to explain. He linked me to Season 1 Episode 2, late in, when Twilight and Nightmare Moon are in the Everfree Castle throne room alone and Twilight explains the Elements. No, it didn't give me any new knowledge of the Mane Six, but it did catch my curiosity's interest; the bugger can really do me over.

Eventually, it won. I started watching the show. But I was still anti-brony against it (but not ponies in general). It wasn't until mid-Season 1 that I opened up and became a full-fledged brony -I had called myself a brony when I just liked ponies, with that clarification- and joined in on the fun. Since then, I have found the massive community that outputs a great amount of great content that could please show-haters easily. That's why I stand by bronies being male or female fans of ponies themselves. I hate the term pegasister for two reasons: it sounds stupid, and it implies that all girls would be pegasi or all pegasi are girls. I get it; it's like bro + pony = brony, but that's ponies, not earth ponies or unicorns. Why change that for girls?

Anyways, I have been on MyLittleMinecraft, Twitterponies, -both Twitter and Wikia- Trottingham forums, and now FiMfiction. So much variances yet all fantastic. MLM is about having fun as bronies on a Minecraft server. Tp is about having fun living the life of some random background OC pony or whatnot. Trottinghame is a brony forums. And FiMfiction is a site to put your fanfics up on where other fanfics and fans are. The builds, the roleplaying, the talks, and the fanfics. Not to mention the fanmusic and fanart scattered around. I have seen some poor ends, but I have also seen some amazing ends, too. And this is why I love Minecraft and also the brony community. Though, I have a disdain for the R34 bronydom, but only because they step beyond their boundaries. Let them live like they are, but don't let them intrude on the rest of, well, everything.

I am enjoying my bronyhood and it is teaching me a lot, both in detailed context and in abstract context. It is something I won't easily forget, especially the lessons it's all teaching me. But, realistically, I need to step back and make my life now the priority and leavy my bronyhood for the side, when I have the time. This might be goodbye until I am able to devote time properly to writing fanfic. After I finish what I've already started. Or maybe not, knowing me.