This fandom has brought me closer to anyone online than I ever had been. I've gotten so many good friends, many of them I consider the best I ever had, and the show and fandom overall have taught me about the most important things about friendship and has enhanced my life to an unimaginable degree.
The first great friend I had on here is @@Apple Bloom. We've been talking with each other since around when I joined the fandom in spring 2012. I posted something in a 3DS-related thread, then he later sent me a PM about the topic. We eventually ended up chatting on Skype about Nintendo and video games in general, and that led to us realizing we had many things in common. I soon learned about how the fandom had changed himself; he has been a member of the fandom for about a year longer than me, and has shown much dedication to it. He has quite the amount of pony-related merch, and I feel confident in saying that he is probably one of the most dedicated bronies out there. Ponies fuel his life the way it fuels mine, it's a life-changing experience. Having heard how he enjoyed BronyCon in 2012, and seeing him at BronyCon 2013, I've come to know him as a very vibrant pony fanatic. We also got connected when I took an interest in the old forums' Synchtube page, where I visited often enough to become a staff on what is now called Equestria.TV. Seeing how much effort and soul he put into the project, it makes me happy to help him with it, and I've been very happy to be a part of it.
He's helped me so much on my way, too. We've been through so much, we talked so commonly, and I was very happy to see you promoted as an administrator. I could not be more glad I saw you in person, and am very thankful for how much good friends we've become. I'm so happy for the adventures we've been through, and can't wait for those to come.
@@Artemis is also high up on the friendship scale; in addition to being one of the coolest people I ever met. We started talking to eachother more often as the year of 2012 was waning. As he visited the ETV movie nights more often, we started chatting occasionally to the point where we learned we lived rather close to each other, in the same state even, which made me more happy. As we began to converse on Skype on occasion, I began to really like the guy. He was one of the people I was most ecstatic to see in person at BronyCon this year, and I'm very glad we're now able to partake in activities and outings.
Artemis, AB and I also share many interests, including the latest incarnation of the Littlest Pet Shop television series, among others. It's been really great to have you guys at my side all this time, I could not imagine my life without you two; I hope some time in the future we'll be able to see each other more often.
One of my oldest friends in the fandom is @@~Chaotic Discord~. We've been through a lot as well, and you've introduced so much to me in the world of ponydom (most specially advanced roleplaying), and we both shared our (in my case, then-)favorite pony, Rainbow Dash. I always found his ego and personality just too awesome not to like, and we communicated on Skype quite a lot. It's been amazing having you as one of my friends. It was great to see you at BronyCon this year, I sincerely hope we can see each other in 2014. And we need to talk more on Skype. ;-;
Albeit his recent leave from the forums, @ has been easily one of the best friends I've had ever since I was introduced to the show. We didn't really communicate that much before I became a staff, but through our many interactions, which mostly consisting of satirical joking humor with me as the receiving end and jokingly tormenting Marco himself, which only peaked at this year's BronyCon (the staff dinner is still one of my most memorable moments), I really enjoyed knowing him over the past several months. I'm really proud of how far he's come, and I wish him luck on his journeys currently and in the future. (In addition, I've been lately kinda tempted to get into the Ace Attorney franchise. ) It's been a hell of a time having you as a friend, and I'm glad it'll stay that way 'till the end. Can't wait to see you next year at BC.
Another one of my great friends is @@Chigens and Kay. Over the past several months I got to know her more and more, and have come to really think she's a really awesome person. She's gotten me really, really interested in the concept of snake ponies. Though, like Marco, most of our chats involve satirical tormenting at my expense, I really enjoyed being her friend over the past several months, and it was great seeing her at BronyCon. Hope she can get there next year.
As a more recent example, @@Harmonic Revelations, my girlfriend. Over time she's become one of the most admirable people I knew, and I really wanted to get to know you more ever since the day we met. Our first meeting was kind of rough, but we made up not too long after, and I learned a lot about her. A lot later after that, we conversed every so often, more and more until I personally told me how I truly felt about her. And, well, it went on from there. She's become quite possible the sweetest person I've ever known, and I could not be more happy to be in a relationship with her. We have so much in common, and I await the day we finally meet each other in person. It was a shame I wasn't able to see her at BronyCon, but it'll be worth the wait to see her next year. She's very intelligent and witty, and always has something fun and interesting to say. <3
And of course, the founder of this wonderful community, @@Feld0. We never talked much prior to my promotion to staff, but even before I was intrigued by you and your fabulous website. While I wasn't aware of what was to come, I really wanted to get to know him in general. We occasionally talked about Nintendo then and there, and to this day we've talked a lot about it. Overall, you're a really great guy, and I couldn't be more glad to have gotten to know you. I'm thankful for this experience as a member of Poniverse, and I'm glad to work in part with you on it. It was great to see you at BronyCon, a hell of an experience that would have been less memorable had it not been for you and this community. As I said to you on my leave at the end of the convention, I'll be sure as hell to see you next year.
This...this fandom and the show have given a lot to me. My standpoint is that the show's goal is to teach the world about friendship, uniting humans around the world, forming unbreakable friendships, relationships and bonds, people coming together to celebrate a television show about very compelling characters and a quest to forever change the standards of gender and age demographic. I feel as if it was a miracle, a miracle born by Lauren Faust, molded by the people behind our childhood cartoons, and packed in with morals and spawned a massive amount of creative minds; this show, having an extreme amount of affect on the world than it has now, can change the world itself. I am possibly thinking too deeply, but I love to think this way. It has overall become one of the greatest things to happen to me in my life, and has enhanced it indefinitely. I like to think of it as a story with endless happiness on the other end. May everyone touched by the gloriousness of the show learn the importance of friendships and relationships, and may that affect their lives positively for many, many years to come.
I love everyone I listed above. No, I love every single one of my friends. I love all of you reading this right now. My life has been ever positively boosted thanks to all of you. God bless you, Lauren Faust, for this glorious miracle that has affected me in ways I could have never predicted.