Inactive01

This fandom has changed my entire life. A little more than two years ago, when I first joined the forums, I thought the fandom was just a group of people who had similar likes and were able to make good art. They were like all the other fandoms like Phineas and Ferb, and other TV shows in that regard. There were lots of fans, but they for me weren't people I'd talk with much. When I joined the forums, I thought that I was going to just make a few posts about ponies and life in general and eventually leave the forums someday without having made much of an impact at all and vice versa. I was fresh off being addicted to an F2P MMORPG, so I knew I didn't want to be too attached to a forum at the time. But boy was I wrong. I encountered people of all kinds on the forums, people who were open to talking about themselves and people who trusted each other and build each other together. Even though I didn't experience that until the 2nd year I was on the forums, it was certainly one of those moments where it's better to be late than never. I went through so much transformation even since I underwent a renaissance after coming back from a forum hiatus. There were three things in particular that the fandom taught me: organization and openess, writing skills, and love. First, there was the World Cup that took place two months ago. The fandom taught me organization skills as I prepared a tournament for the entire forums to enjoy. I had to organize the event with countless other people to make sure the World Cup ran smoothly and efficiently for everyone else to enjoy. There was artwork of all kinds, music of all kinds, and voters of all kinds who came together to vote for their favourite pony. During the event, I witnessed people who loved so many ponies and just how many fans there were on the forum. It encouraged me to be more open towards people who were different from me, and it taught me to appreciate the unity we had on the forums despite how diverse we were as a community. Then there was roleplaying in general. If it weren't for the fandom, I would never have been introduced to roleplaying. I would have missed out on a world where I could use my imagination and express my ideas through writing. It's been very useful for me since effective communication nowadays requires typing/writing your messages, and that is much harder than saying your ideas. It also let me create characters who I could play with and have control over, a wonderful feeling to have when you need a break over the things you can't control. Doesn't mean you can abuse your OCs though! Now this last point ties in really well with my second point since it involves love and friendships. In actuality, my closest friends were the people I roleplayed with. I actually have two people in particular who are very close to my heart (You know who you are if you're reading this! ), and for both of them, our friendships grew through roleplaying. We collaborated on ideas and played them out, and we laughed and cried over all the moments they experienced. Those feelings eventually transferred to our lives, and I managed to learn a lot of lessons about love from the people I've asked advice for. When I was in a rut about my failed attempts to get a girlfriend earlier this year, the fandom was there to cheer me up with the rest of my friends. In fact, I can argue that it's my forum friends who have picked me up a lot more than the friends I've met face to face. I just wanted to add as well that I met my closest online friend here, and that I'm excited about keeping in touch for the long haul! So in short, The fandom's completely transformed my life for the better. I will certainly miss the place once I come here less often when graduate school starts in two weeks. Nevertheless, it's not like I'm leaing anytime soon, so that's not an issue is it?

Can I count myself as famous too? I've become my university's poster boy, so to speak (well, I used to attend there before I graduated )