10 Years of My Little Pony Blog Pt 2. · 10:11pm Mar 17th, 2022

Blog Post Pt 2

Continuation of first blog:

My interest in MLP was a miniscule thing to begin with because I didn’t really think that the fandom was huge. That is to say, bronies were a thing but not huge when I began watching. Then over time as I watched the show, it became… more than just a cartoon and without a doubt, it has become something I look forward to watching on my screen.

Come 2012, it was a year of struggle for me. I hated my college(Devry Uni was a shit for college), my courses were small but painfully boring and I didn’t have friends. That was until… I met someone who became a friend of mine… and is still a friend of mine to this day.
He had a small interest in the show too, due to the fact he had a beanie that had Vinyl Scratch on it. At first, I thought it was going to be one of those people who wear a shirt because it looks cool and knows nothing about it. You know how like most kids today wear a stupid nirvana shirt but have never heard or listen to them at all? I thought it was going to be that, but now he and I watched the show, but he was less dedicated than I.

However, it was a small start and from then on, I continued with the show. As you know, my first story was Nightmare Year. This story was supposed to be a huge, 20 something chapter series where each chapter took about one month of time to accumulate as well as be my biggest thing yet.
Before I go on, I will state that before I leave Fimfiction, I do plan on going back to my original work and posting HOW IT SHOULD HAVE FINISHED chapters. Its basically all the drafts, ideas and timelines I was going to tackle with them and how they were supposed to end. One final chapter for unfinished or canceled work, but back to the topic.

The only reason I couldn’t do Nightmare year anymore was because during this time, I was more focused on dragons than anything. Even then, my stories were going slow for those. After college, summer 2014, I just focused on looking for jobs.

The problem with Devry as well as a few universities, was they were terrible in general. If you want to, read their history elsewhere, because… I really don’t want to bring up much on them. But long story short, I graduated from there with an AA in Web Design.

…I should have dropped out as soon as I could. Why? I purposely failed my finals so I could get kicked out. But… they didn’t care, why? Because it was more money in their greedy palms to hand me a piece of paper saying that I did everything, than for me to drop out and only pay a portion of my tuition. I learned next to nothing, failed my courses and graduated with about 250 people with the same attitude as me about the school.
(Again, read their history and legal issues to get a better understanding)

My depression sank to a low point, as I just worked, came home, did nothing, slept and ate. That was it. The uni couldn’t help anyone get a job, despite being accredited and ONCE considered a great university. So, nothing on a job with my degree for, despite supposedly having the knowledge to be able to do something.

    2014-2016 were the worst years of my life because I didn’t have any friends. I lost contact with just about everyone there. So I was alone and my depression was crippling to the point that I became a disappointment to my family. Worse, jobs were horrible and I got let go, do to my depression(saying something was ill advised). I didn’t really watch the show, only highlights.

    Because of this, I tried to commit suicide multple times after being let go. I won’t go into details but, if my mother hadn’t stopped me… well you know that I wouldn’t be here.

She stopped me from doing it there and then, but I decided that I still wanted to end it, so I drove from home to hopefully find a cliff or something. However, I decided to watch one final movie and then end it after. What movie?

Zootopia. Now, I had already watched the movie, but that was just because I worked at the movie theater at the time and it was free. But this time, I watched it again and realized… how much of an impact a cartoon and animation could change a person. How it could really define a view of not just a person’s mind but also their reality. The 2 messages of the movie that kept me going was… ‘Don’t be afraid, Try Everything’ and ‘Don’t let them see that they got through to you.’

After that, I went home, banged my head against the wall calling myself an idiot over and over again. Then, I went and applied for more jobs. I also got therapy and took anti-depressants. Now… I had taken them when I was younger because of the faze I went through(whole emo/goth thing, humanity must die too) but they ended up making me pass out which nearly killed me.
Now… Antidepressants are not 100%, most of the time they fail. The fact that it took me only six months, amazed everyone including myself. I no longer felt depressed and it was such a strange chapter that I forgot completely what my depression looked like and my family would not bring up the memories of it.

Because of my change in that, my stories also suffered. If you had noticed that during the first four years, my stories were a bit more frequent and updated, as well as other sites too, but during 2016 it kind of dipped?

My depression made me have a wild and pure imagination because I wanted to experience happiness in some small capacity. After I lost my depression, I lost my imagination a bit, but I also gained a bit more clairty.

Now, what does this other half have to do with MLP? Well, not much other than MLP was my happiness that I sought in a world of fictitious talking horses that helped me from the worst years of my life. I hated that… while it was a good coping mechanism to my struggling life, it also was the only thing I could focus on. The reason to slowly get home, write and tell a tale from my heart.

But while I am not broken anymore, there are still fractured pieces that will never mend but, I know that this show had a lot to do with. No, not just the show, the community, the fandom and hearing all these positive and wonderful comments and chats with people across the internet. My first convention(Furry convention in California where I live and the first and only pony convention in California.) where the biggest highlights that went in with fandom. Lastly, dragons where a refocus and inspiration.

My family saw the changes and while they were a bit more positive, I have to say that my inner darkness also keeps me going a bit. I still feed on it because it helps me cope with a lot of the harsher aspects in life. I also use heavy metal to write my stories(which work so well!) But that is some other discussion for later.

So many have been with me from the start and know that I appreciate each and everyone of those who have stuck by with me for ten years. In my last blog, I said why I hated MLP and I still do but I want to remind you and say, that it was and still is the best part of my life. It was one of the few lights that kept me from being left in the dark, left with no love from others. It kept me going when I felt like there was not much else to go on. I appreciate this more than I can even write on here.

So to bring this to a close, ten years of MLP have kept me going and although I wish to leave the fandom someday, I will never forget the wonderful and beautiful memories that many of you bring to me. The hopes, the laughs, the cries and even the few friends Ive met because of this fandom. I will continue to reach my end goal here so that you can enjoy the fandom as much as I did for the time I could.

Thank you MLP staff for creating a wonderful show. Thank you brony fandom for giving me hope that friendship can be magic. Thank you, my wonderful readers, for sticking with my work for hopefully many years to come.

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