fandom The feeling of coming home.

[Steel Accord 6,660]

This is just me putting down some baggage but I do hope I'm not the only one who feels this way. When season 7 debuted, I wasn't exactly hurrying along to catch up to it. No, I did not "leave the fandom" or any such dramatics. (Sidenote: that statement alternatively annoys me and breaks my heart.) Just, between life and competing interests, keeping up with the show didn't seem as urgent and I feel that's healthy. If being a brony meant I was obligated to consume, digest, and discuss ponies on a schedule that was mandated for me rather than by me, I wouldn't still be as enthused as I am about it. Really though, that's the thing. For awhile I thought I really had "moved on" or lost interest and that alone worried me as I feared I would become what I just said annoyed me or brought me despair. That when it came right down to it, MLP: FiM was really, just another thing I liked. No different than Pokemon, Disney, Power Rangers, or other touchstones of my life that I keep coming back to but are ultimately inconsequential or of less effect on who I am as a person than I might have thought.

When I started to watch it again though, and listen to new and old brony fan music, even read an officially licensed tabletop game of the property this very day, I felt something stir within me. Something that, for as more important to the greater culture as my passions for Disney or the Marvel Cinematic Universe are, neither of them fill me with the same feeling of warmth of love and optimism that the Mane 6 and their adventures do. The aforementioned properties carry a strong sense of childhood nostalgia, they are or are adaptations of things I absorbed when I was young. MLP is different. That came into my life when I was stepping into adulthood and I was as conscious at the time as I am now how it affected me. I've said it before, it really did change my life in a way that mattered and I love it for that in a way I simply don't love Pokemon or even Star Wars.

So in the end, I get to have it both ways. MLP will cycle itself through my interest peaks and valleys the same way Fallout is currently my focus even though I probably couldn't even remember it a month ago. But when MLP does step up to bat, it will always be met with a reminder of what that initial rush of the show and community brought me. Never to be recaptured in the same way you can never "first see" the Grand Canyon a second time, but enough of that glow still remains that I can always re-discover the magic all over again.

Brony for life.

What are your guys thoughts on interest peaks and valleys for the show and fandom?

Edited July 11, 2017 by Steel Accord

[cmarston1 5,959]

I have been watching FIM for quite a while now, I started watching the show on Youtube during the break between A Friend in Deed and Putting Your Hoof Down, so my interest in the show has come and gone a lot during this past 5 years.

Season 4 still remains my favorite season and it had to be hands down when my interest in the show was at its peak.  I doubt anything can recapture the magic I felt seeing Twilight's Kingdom for the very first time or the sheer amount of fun I had being lucky enough to see Rainbow Rocks in theaters.

Early season 5 was when the passion started to waver due to the really long season hiatus between 4 and 5.  In fact when I made to Bloom and Gloom I was considering stopping watching the show.  Luckily for me I didn't and I was able to find some really great episodes like Crusaders of the Lost Mark, Amending Fences, and The Mane Attraction later that season that help keep me invested in the show.

Than season 6 came and went and I thought it was alright, I did enjoy the finale, A Hearth's Warming Tale, The Times They Are a Changeling, Gauntlet of Fire, No Second Prances, and Flutter Brutter, but for the most part I didn't think too much of that season.

And now we are at season 7 which I am liking a lot more than season 6, and has some of my new favorite episodes of the series with Parental Glideance and A Royal Problem.

I am also quite looking forward to the movie in October which seems like it is going to be a lot of fun as well.

So given how long the show has lasted, and how long I have been watching it, there has been some peaks and valleys during the experience, but nothing too bad for me I suppose.

Except for the controversy surrounding Magical Mystery Cure and the first Equestria Girls movie, those are some times that I do not ever want to repeat.

[Steve Piranha 29,428]

2 hours ago, cmarston1 said:

 

Except for the controversy surrounding Magical Mystery Cure and the first Equestria Girls movie, those are some times that I do not ever want to repeat.

What about Flashy  ? I do really want to see more waifu thief rants again  

Well, I can't say I relate to the feeling, as I hardly watch tv shows. Hell, since I've moved to Orlando, I'm paying for Netflix instead for a cable service since I've hardly used it in Clearwater. So I got no tv shows that compete with ponies for my attention