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Ehh. Country really isn't my thing. Sorry. https://cathedralring.bandcamp.com/track/infinite-absence Video not available on youtube.

If These Trees Could Talk - After The Smoke Clears This song gives me that vibe of standing up with a newfound sense of purpose after having been beaten down and left to rot.

I'd travel 100 years into the future, and read about the 21st century. Finger crossed that this won't be what I walk into.

When it comes to what my own death would mean for me, I really don't care. The real problem is what would that mean to those who've grown attached to me. I'm far concerned for what it would mean for them. I'm doubtful I would bother keeping myself alive otherwise.

I'll add another to the list now: Morning Solitude Morning Solitude (Sully) Age: 19 Gender: Male, He Race: Earth pony CM: None (hence the robe) Orientation: He's unsure himself -- possibly pansexual Since his name's kind of a mouthful, most ponies just call him Sully. He's the youngest of three siblings under well-off parents in the city of Tall Tale. His two older siblings Metro Shade (M) and Meadow Howl (F) are already out of the house, leaving him alone with his parents. He tried going to college and majoring in psychology but he dropped out after the first year because it's hard to focus when you have enough important questions about your life that remain unanswered before the curriculum even comes to mind. His father tries to encourage him to figure things out while his mother really puts pressure on him to make something of himself. What he does understand is that he can learn things very quickly and that remains as true now as it did when he was a younger colt but he never seems to excel at anything. Whenever he tries something new, he would figure things out quickly but never really excel at anything. Just when he thinks he's found his true calling, another pony always one-ups him, often leading to that other pony getting their cutie mark if they haven't already or it gets that pony recognized and lucrative opportunities showing themselves. No matter how hard he tries, the fruits always seem to go to somepony else. He has won trophies when he was a colt but they're all silver and bronze. He's always been one of the best in his classes but never the best. It's just hard for him to stay confident or even courageous after this happens for so long and he can get very depressed about it. Without any confidence in himself or any true understanding about who he is and what his destiny is, he has become very averse to being self-conscious, so he lays low as much as he can and hides his blank flank. (This part is optional. Use it if you think it'd be better suited for your story) Sully has been visiting Snow Perch from time to time after he caught Sully sulking alone in the dead of night on one of the bridges in the forest. Snow Perch has been listening to his troubles and he thinks Sully could benefit from shifting his perspective. Since that's easier said than done, Snow Perch offered him to come visit regularly so Sully could talk about his thoughts and Snow Perch would let him know about any insight he might have. Sully would also help Snow Perch with common tasks and they would partake in activities (like meditation) meant to ease Sully's mind and spirit in hopes he might see something he hasn't before. It's a process that is still ongoing. He's come to see Snow Perch as a mentor. Personality: He tends to be timid and doesn't like drawing attention to himself out of fear that ponies might ask who he is and what he's all about. Because he knows he'd feel deeply ashamed if he tells the truth about himself being a 19-year-old blank flank who doesn't know what the point is in him being alive anymore, he'd actively try to steer a conversation away from his being and focus on other topics such as the pony conversing with him, the weather or anything else that goes on. Sure, he'd tell ponies his name if asked. If anyone asks about why he's wearing that robe, the very last answer he wants to give is the fact that he's wearing it to hide his blank flank so he'll come up with all sorts of excuses. If all else fails, he will fall back on this: "Look, there's a lot that I _don't_ want to talk about. A lot, so why not just drop it?" He has trouble being assertive but this is one of those few instances he will be assertive. On that note, he tends to be a very complacent one and how could he not be if he's so lost and confused about his own identity? That said, it's much easier to take on subordinate roles but he knows better than to expect anything worthwhile to come out of it. Even if he does something really good, he'll shy away from really taking any compliments from it since he just thinks that any pride will inevitably send him tumbling back down -- though he will acknowledge compliments if just for the sake of being polite. And, of course, he does tend to be insecure and also sensitive. If he feels he's being judged negatively, he'll curl in a bit, try not to look too hurt and hope with all his heart he'll endure it without breaking down and look too pathetic.

I wish songs like these played at our local radio.

Forgot about that. Yes, he is eligible for all those things. If anything, I'd like to know beforehand if anything terrible happens to him.

I have a few who were made for a story I never finished so I guess you could use them. Unfortunately the files I had for them had been corrupted so I lost all information I had on them so I'm forced to rely on memory alone. It's harder still when I haven't touched these characters in quite a while. For now, though, I'll start with Snow Perch. Snow Perch Age: 32 Gender: Male, He Race: Unicorn CM: water rippling as two fish are swimming in circles around the point of ripple Orientation: Pansexual Snow Perch lives in his log cabin the woods surrounding the city of Tall Tale. His day job is serving as a tour guide of the forest, as well as selling souvenirs he's made himself. The area where his magic skills excel is in mobility in marine environments. These spells include allowing him to walk over the water surface, create air bubbles within water to allow breathing, expand the bubble to encompass his whole body to allow free movement on the bottom of the given water body, create magic fins around his hooves to facilitate swimming. His skills in other forms of magic are basic. Other than magic, he's also skilled when it comes to mobility since not getting tumbled around like a rag doll when standing on rough surface water takes quite a bit of practice. Since he lives in the woods, he knows how to navigate around them, as well as having some knowledge about natural remedies should he need it. He makes sure to visit his widowed mother once a week. His father was a fisherman who died of hypothermia when he fell overboard during a very fierce storm. He's a very laid-back pony who doesn't fret about much. He's actually quite competent with being sociable and holding a conversation but he does have a hard time keeping it up for very long. His presence can feel like a fresh breeze in warm morning light: low energy but soothing -- a bit zen, even. If attention is squarely placed on him, he can hold his own well enough but once he's in a larger group where attention tends to be more scattered, he tends to lay low unless he's charged with leading the group like when he does his tour guide. It's something he's experienced in, considering that was his job at the city aquarium when he was younger.

There comes a point in your life where changes need to be made and for me, that time is now. To say that I'm dissatisfied with how my life is right now would be putting it lightly and this has to change. One of the changes that needs to be made is getting rid of distractions and not replace them with something else. That said, I'm going to be leaving the MLP fanbase behind. Since I'm friends with a few bronies, I'll keep up with the show for their sake since cutting ties with them would be pushing it. Of course, if they move on from the show, that'll be it for me as well. This does mean goodbye. It is my hope that I will come back one day from a better place in life. It's been quite the roller coaster ride.

No. We're not ponies, after all. There's more to food than just calories. Essential nutrients like Vitamin C are essential because our bodies can't make the stuff on their own. In horses, however, Vitamin C is a non-essential nutrient because their bodies can make the stuff from sugar. Really. Would've been great if the same were true of humans.

I'm confused. Do you mean being with people over the internet or physically? It's been sounding like the former.

Mirror Magic is the latest one I saw. Love Glim Glam's look.

Changeling here. Though when I entered the fanbase back in mid 2011, I decided to have a donkey OC named Sunburn. The reason I chose that is that we do have wild donkeys roaming around in certain areas here so that seemed natural to me. This was before Cranky showed up in the show. The concept and the (admittedly odd) color scheme was decided upfront but the form was finalized after Cranky and Matilda showed up in the show.

I'm actually happy to contribute to the system. And in a democracy, it's the votes that settle that dispute. Not sure if you've heard of such a concept. Only in fringe cases that are too quantitatively significant to be of much if any concern. Anyone here who wants plastic surgery has to pay up and nobody here is raising a tizzy about it. Just because it could be justified on paper doesn't mean that in practice people will bother pushing politically for something so frivolous -- and we don't. If there's any point you're proving, it's that you "logic" translates very poorly into practice. Sorry I didn't just spell it out for you. I really should have done that. What's so strange about doctors doing job for pay? There just isn't anything magical about this. Another thing you're forgetting is that a more (nuance!) universal healthcare system still exist within a larger system: capitalism -- as is the case in modernized nations. People both foreign and domestic go where the money is. If there's an imbalance in supply and demand, that gets corrected unless we're dealing with a centrally planned economy like in Cuba or Venezuela. Seriously, why are you ignoring economics? If we don't have any doctors that can give a specific medical treatment that is important, we send our patients abroad. In our case, that's usually Colombia for cardio-vascular procedures among others. There are times when we get foreign patients sent our way. It's called Medical Tourism. Apparently you live in a dictatorship instead of a democracy. Sucks to be you. You're not even considering "how much of B happens." Is your thinking that binary? It's like with the cosmetic procedures example: in practice, not enough people care about cosmetic procedures for it to get justified in parliament. Sure, some might complain about it but what politician is going to raise a platform about universal cosmetic surgery? They'd get more laughs than votes! Oh, wait, I forgot that democracy is outside of the scope of this nonsense exercise. My mistake.

Great wall of text! o_o I'm just going to confine this to health care for now. How is health care defined? Let's look it up. Efforts made to maintain or restore physical, mental, or emotional well-being especially by trained and licensed professionals —usually hyphenated when used attributively. Must minor injuries be treated, or only major conditions? That's needlessly black-and-white, don't you think? The clearest line is drawn to exclude cosmetic procedures that don't have anything to do with one's actual health. After that what you want to do is prioritize based on need or urgency (whichever word you prefer) and that's a very tricky thing to do. You obviously want the person with a life-threatening electrical burn to receive quick treatment over someone with a bump on their head. Think of it as a hierarchy of urgency. What happens if there is one person who is a doctor? If every person is entitled to health care, then this doctor must provide that care. This doctor might be busy 24 hours a day. This might seem like a far-fetched situation, but logic must apply in every case. Well, you partially answered your own question later on... Perhaps we encourage people to become doctors by paying them more. This means higher taxes. But following logic, what happens if we still don’t have enough doctors? What happens if a doctor has been over worked and he decides he wants to take a day off? You got the part of higher wages right but you completely missed the mark assuming that doctors can't be imported. Immigration of skilled labor is a welcome thing. We actually have that problem here as well and what ends up happening is that we see an increasing share of our doctors turning out to be immigrants. That said... In order to satisfy our assumption, it would be logically valid to force the doctor, at gun point if need be, to help someone. Explain to me how this would not be permissible? Logic demands that it be so. Seriously, this is just comical I'll repeat myself for good measure. What ends up happening in practice is that when you have a shortage of doctors, more happens than just salaries going up. Doctors from abroad would see a lucrative opportunity and immigrate, getting that piece of the pie and filling the void. Sure, it's no step-function but it happens quickly enough for people to endure the shortage as correction is taking place. Immigration of skilled labor is a welcome thing. What's more, as the local population is seeing how lucrative a job doctors have, people are going to want those jobs. Sure, most adults might not be able to get educated into becoming a doctor but you can bet parents are going to want their children to consider such a lucrative career! If your base principle says that you are entitled to X, then there must be a way for X to be provided. You cannot simply say, “A tax will go to pay the medical bills.” This assumes 1) that enough taxes will be available, and 2) enough doctors will exist. What happens if 1 or 2 are false? Seeings as I already addressed 2), I'll just confine my answer to 1). Remember what I mentioned earlier about prioritizing based on need and urgency? When funds are coming short, that's usually where the policy gets affected if tax revenues can't keep up and assuming that reallocation of tax funds is off the table. Funding for less urgent care such as pain killers get their funding slashed (that happened here), generic pharmaceuticals are given preference and "big name" pharmaceutical brands lose coverage (also happened here) and the elderly might also get their healthcare coverage removed from them (also happened here). Seriously, there are more options available for solving such problems without turning to the Gulag. Sheesh.

Every day at around 6 PM, I go look at the electric meter and snap a photo of the stand (sure is better than writing the numbers down by hand). Then I put the numbers in on an excel sheet to visualize the house's electricity consumption. Obviously, the summer has led to an increase in electricity usage. Higher temperatures make the air conditioners work harder than in the cooler "winter" months (living near the equator means slightly cooler temperatures and better wind but no snow).