10 Years · 3:14pm Feb 8th, 2022
As of today, I've been on FIMFiction for 10 years.
It was spring or summer 2011 when I first learned of FIM from discussion online. Everyone seemed to be talking about it, and some episodes of the first and only season were being uploaded on youtube, so I downloaded a few. I usually watched them on my 4th gen iPod touch, with no headphones, to give you an idea of my technical situation. And... there was something there. It was so surprising and refreshing that it became a fast obsession, though there wasn't much to do for the moment except browse memes and get into arguments online.
Fast forward to fall 2011: I'm starting my junior year of high school, the second season is starting to come out, and one lunch period I hear someone at my table reference a joke from the show. That's when I realized it wasn't just me - I was fairly acquainted with almost a dozen fans. Our discussions about the new episodes of the show and the fandom in general is where I first found out about fanfiction. And oh boy, was that a discovery.
Over Christmas break that year, I worried my parents by staying mostly in bed for days at a time reading whatever I could find on FF and FIMFiction. Good stories, bad stories, memorable stories, stories that poisoned the mind - it didn't really matter, I just consumed it for weeks - all on the screen of my iPod, of course.
All the while I was thinking, none of these are *exactly* what I'm looking for. They're all fanfics by other people, with the tastes of other people. Why can't I find anything suited to my tastes specifically?
At some point it must have occurred to me that I could write one myself. So in January 2012, I started writing something I called "Unheard Of", which would later be titled "Entropy", published here in November 2012.
It's totally awful. Nobody should read it. But it was important. From that point on, I was serious about writing, and somewhat prolific in early drafts and notes. But my judgement has been beyond my capacity for most of the intervening time, so I haven't published much else. Perhaps that will change in the near future.
Between 2012 and 2022, I've graduated high school, got my first jobs, wasted 5 years of college on a degree I didn't care about, got a better job, spent 4 more years of college for compsci, got my diploma, and got an even better job, where I am now. Before and along with all that, I made memes, 3D videos, fictional maps - I engaged in costuming, woodworking, programming, D&D, nature photography - I grew a beard, grew a ponytail, started exercising, gained weight, lost weight, and stopped showering (Ew!) - and other properties became important parts of my life, like Dwarf Fortress and Worm, while MLP faded into memory.
But for all that time, for all those hobbies and occasions and jobs and studies and fandoms and personal changes, I stayed on FIMFiction. And I kept working on my fics.
I can't promise to be here in 2032, but I know I'll still be writing. And I'll always remember where it started.
It was a long journey... It is nice to know you for more that a half of this time period. ^^