Yesterday, I had an unfortunate accident involving my USB flash drive: it broke. After six years of honorable service in everything, from random files to school documents, it is gone. May it rest in peace with all the other SanDisks in the sky.

The good news is that nothing important to my daily life was on there, so I can simply get a new drive.

This post will outline the bad news, and what it will do to my OCs, roleplays, and lore, for my old flash drive held a lot of that information. Now that it is gone and the files erased, I have a lot of things to set straight regarding almost everything I do that is MLP-related.

Equestria Forward
When I returned to MLP Forums almost a month ago, I indicated that my futuristic, cyperpunk-esque roleplay Equestria Forward (EQF) would continue, with no reboots or risk of cancellation. That was before my flash drive broke and I lost a lot of my EQF-related files, including maps, character information, and information on the world. Because of this, I've decided that EQF will be rebooted.

I'll have more details forthcoming when I'm finished outlining the reboot, but here are a few major points:

• All of the existing information under the "Egghead's Guide" series of posts are still accurate, and will be carried over to the rebooted roleplay. Some of the information will be modified based on whatever I lost.
• Users who have posted at least once in the roleplay thread since April 1 will have their character registrations carried over. All other players, including newcomers and registered players who last posted prior to April 1, will have to re-register in the new OOC thread when it becomes active.
• The reboot will be created in the "Advanced Roleplays" section.
  

New website
I soon plan on constructing a website to hold all of the information surrounding all of my MLP-related works, including OCs and roleplay lore. There will be plenty of information there, including character reference sheets, art, maps, detailed looks at the Equestria Forward world, information on fictional cities, organizations, and countries that I use in MLP works, and (maybe) more! I also plan on using the new site to store all of my pony-related files, as a sort of backup solution.

I'm not promising any ETAs, but I'm shooting for the end of November. In addition, I won't be rebooting any roleplays until then, for what's a good, detailed roleplay without a strong foundation?

Original characters
My old flash drive held all the SVG and image files of all of my previous OCs, so when the drive died, so did my OC-related files. As such, I now have to redraw my OCs from scratch. Let's just say that almost everything in my posts in that "Post your OC" thread is now incorrect and outdated.

The number of OCs I possess have fluctuated since I created my first original character back in 2013. Some days, I had six; other days, I had upwards of ten. Now, I've decided to permanently settle on eight OCs. When I was coming up with the eight OCs that I would maintain, I put into place a racial equality policy, namely to keep in the spirit of certain elements of the show, such as the pre-MMC mane six and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Of the eight OCs, I have two unicorns, two pegasi, two earth ponies, and two alicorns (no, really).

I don't plan on using or roleplaying as any other OC except for the ones listed below:

- Bright Idea: A 41-year old alicorn mare. In my Port Impala-centric works, she is the elected mayor of said city-state. She currently features in my original roleplay Life in the Big City...State.

- Caelum "Cae" Serenos: A 28-year old pegasus mare. She is one of my two OCs raised in rural communities; in Cae's case, a farming community located in northern Equestria. Cae works as a weather pony in the weather patrol (non-skbl17 roleplays)/Meteo Equestria (EQF), but thanks to her rural upbringing, knows just enough about farming to be able to help out if need be. I plan on introducing her in the rebooted Equestria Forward at some point.

- Compass Meridian: My ponysona, a 19-year old unicorn stallion. He is a college student in all of his appearances, and currently appears in Equestria Forward and Life in the Big City...State.

- Crescent Star: A 25-year old alicorn mare. In my Port Impala-centric works, she lives and works in a small rural community about an hour or so south of Port Impala, in the country of Grand Hoofnea. She is also my only OC who doesn't speak Equestrian as a first language. I plan on introducing her in Life in the Big City...State in the future.

- High Voltage: A 29-year old unicorn mare. In my EQF-related works, she works with Sparkwing as a linepony with her region's electric utility, Tropicala Power & Light. Like her coworker, she only appears in Equestria Forward.

- Radio Wave: A 43-year old earth pony mare. In her appearances in skbl17-run roleplays, she is the owner and chief station engineer of a Manehattan-licensed radio station, EMHR (97.1 FM). Currently, I only plan on having Radio Wave appear in the rebooted Equestria Forward.

- Sparkwing: A 33-year old pegasus mare. In EQF-related works, she works with High Voltage as a linepony with Tropicala Power & Light. Like her coworker, she only appears in Equestria Forward.

- Steel Truss: A 40-year old earth pony stallion. He is a civil engineer in all of his (future) appearances. I plan on introducing him in Equestria Forward, with an introduction in Life in the Big City...State being possible for some point in the near future.