What inspired you to become a MLP fan?

[Conbon 97]

This was something I was curious about and this thought has been in head for awhile and I thought it would be interesting to see what everypony thoughts on how they became a MLP fan in the first place. Now the two questions I curious about are the following: 

• What inspired you to become a mlp fan in the first place?
• If you were a brony/pegasister from the very beginning what made you stayed for this long or if you just come back what was the reason to come back to become a brony/pegasister again? 

This was something stupid that I thought of and thought it will be nice to see how we all come to be in love with these funny/cute cartoon ponies. Like for me I become a fan when I was starting out in high school and one of my friends was talking about mlp and me being a curious little bean I started to look into this show and literally got hooked during the early seasons and has I slowly got older I stop watching the show and pretty much lost interest in the show. But years later nostalgia started for me and I started to love these ponies again. 

So what was your reason to like these ponies and if you come back years later then what was your reason to come back into the fandom. If this topic does get any interest by any pony then I will be happy to read all the  response if there is any lol but if not its okay.

But anyways I hope everypony is having a great day/night. 

[Rafa Stary 685]

In 2012 I believe that what caught my attention to become a "fan" was basically the boom of ponies that happened at the time, but I never watched the actual show for some reason that I can't remember (I only watched a few clips at best), I only watched related content on the internet and YouTube, and also played a bit of the gameloft game, around 2014 I simply stopped seeing content related to ponies for some reason that I can't remember exactly either (shit memory), so for nearly 10 years I completely forgot about the existence of the series, during these years, every time I saw a reference to MLP in something I somehow simply didn't pay attention (surprisingly even watching Transformers 4, which has a Rainbow Dash plush right in your face).

Around June 2023, I was slowly starting to lose interest in the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise due to a few factors, it used to be my favorite franchise along with Dragon Ball, at that time, I had a friend on Facebook who was a Sonic fan too, but also a fan of the Love Live! series, the comparisons he made between the two series really caught my attention even though they had nothing to do with each other, so as I was a fan of Sonic and Dragon Ball, two "cool" series for boys, I also wanted to have my "girlish" series to be a fan of, but I didn't know which one to choose, that's when I coincidentally started to notice that on my Facebook some posts started to appear for a short period of time, they weren't about MLP, but they had the characters in them, that's when I remembered that MLP was a thing and that a decade ago I was a fan of these horses, so I decided to start watching FiM, I admit that at first I was scared and that the chance of me not enjoying it and dropping it after 7 or 10 episodes was big, mainly because it was a show for very young children.

I started watching and I just didn't stop, the show captivated me more and more with each episode in a way that I simply didn't expect at all, I really liked it a lot but still not to the point of considering myself a fan, on June 13, the Second Season of Sonic Prime was released, so I took a break from MLP to watch all 8 episodes of Sonic in a single day, I already didn't liked very much Sonic Prime's Season 1, but I willingly tried my best to like Season 2, unfortunately I couldn't and that show really irritated me and was almost making me want to stop being a Sonic fan (something that happened a few days later), I wanted it to end as fast as possible so I could go back to MLP, I said that to myself and I almost didn't believe it but I also felt a great satisfaction at the same time, when I finally finished Sonic I went back to MLP the same day with a big smile. When I got to the Season 2 episode "Sisterhooves Social" I literally cried or almost did and it was on that day that I admitted to myself that I was loving the show and that I became a fan of it, so I kept watching it, finished FiM, continued into G5, I was afraid I wouldn't like it but luckily I liked it and here I am today.

I'm happy that I rediscovered the series and that it's with me now along with DB, I'm following the news, making drawings and I joined the forum, of course my hype was much stronger when I watched all of FiM for the first time, but that doesn't take away the importance of the series for me in the slightest, I don't think I'll lose interest in it after a few years and I hope I don't, and I hope the series hits the charts again at some point in the future just like it did a few years ago, even that I believe the chances of that happening are very small, if it doesn't happen, I'll continue to love it the same way 

[North Star 4,540]

I never get tired of this question

I was aware of the MLP memes in 2011, but it was only in 2012 that they connected. I remember that it was the idea of 'new sincerity' that had a lot of traction with me back then. And I also came across the remixes  I had to check out the fandom that made such interesting stuff!

 

[Silly Druid 6,143]

This is the video that started it all for me:

 

[Nightlight1313 141]

I was within the target demographic for FiM when it first came out, so that was a pretty easy decision, especially considering how much I loved G3 before. I didn't have cable so I watched a lot of Youtube, and of course I wanted to watch Youtube videos of the pretty ponies I liked, which led me to a lot of the old fandom content. That's where I learned the term "brony", which I naturally applied to myself.

I find the community a very nice and comforting place to be in. I feel like I can be myself. No matter how much time passes since FiM's end, I will always be a brony if just to be around people who I feel comfortable with. And I may be a little nostalgic XP

[jacibobsthebrony 114]

I wish I could be more specific, but I can't really recall when my pony obsession began. I know I started to see pony videos crop up on Youtube in 2011 and I probably watched them with some bemusement at the time. As an edgy 13 year old the grimdark stuff fascinated me, but I was still reluctant to call myself a brony. Rainbow Dash was already my favourite by then. By early 2012 I had fully joined the herd. I had a pony desktop, pony merch and listened to nothing but brony music on my MP3 player. I was also pretty obnoxious both online and in real life when it came to sharing my interest. I just wish I lived in America at the time cause the fandom was not quite as big in the UK, especially in my small Northern town. I lost interest in 2014 and felt a little ashamed of my brony phase in my mid to late teens (I even sold my precious Rainbow Dash hat), but I feel very differently these days. I'm not quite sure what sparked my interest again, but listening to music and watching PMVs from 2012-2013 hit me hard after not watching anything pony-related in 10 years. Now I'm trying to find my old Samsung phone where I stored a bunch of pony stuff.

I'd give anything to go back.

[Wizard 747]

I was studying my A-levels in 2011/2012 and I was friends with a girl in my class, one day I noticed she was wearing MLP merch and I asked her about it, she showed me some fanart and told me to watch the show, before I knew it the internet exploded with fan animations, PMV's, loads of fanart and merch. I loved the art as soon as my friend showed me it, so I doodled ponies in my spare time. I actually never watched the show properly, I've seen an episode every now and then, usually when something crazy happened like when everyone was saying Fluttershy broke a bear's neck, or during the insane dragon ball fight with Tirek.

I wish I was more involved, by the time I made my OC and wanted to really get involved, the fandom was "dying", I had blinked and all of a sudden G4 was over, pony servers on TF2 all vanished, my friends had all left the fandom, and I was left doodling ponies on my own.

That is until I found this forum lol Now I feel like it's rekindled what I had lost, all I want to do is draw ponies hahaha

[Iforgotmybrain 3,517]

The sheer pony madness that was going on in 2011 was what lead to me watching the show and becoming a fan. Even as a non-fan it was really, really hard to not come across pony content back then. It really was everywhere. Being kind of in the target age group for the show (12), I eventually caved and watched the first episode of season 1 which was all it took to hook me. I came across this forum at some point in... early 2012? I think it was? Stayed for a few months but I kind of gradually became less and less interactive with the fandom, although I was still watching the show. I would mostly just lurk Derpibooru, Twitter, and Reddit for art posts and such. But by the time season 9 released I was pretty much "out" of the fandom.

I had a sort of second resurgence of pony fever early last year and got really into the fandom and shows again after finding out about Vylet Pony's music from a friend. Ended up watching all of the G5 stuff that had been released up to that point and started rewatching FiM here and there. And then I found out about the Equestria at War mod for HOI4 which drove me even further into the MLP rabbit hole lol. And got me back into fanfiction.

In July of last year I came back to the forums because I have issues with the Reddit MLP community, and the Twitter MLP community is a lot more art focused. And Ponygram is... Ponygram. Which basically brings us to present day, present time.

Edited March 19 by Iforgotmybrain
changed a word for clarity

[Conbon 97]

18 hours ago, Rafa Stary said:

In 2012 I believe that what caught my attention to become a "fan" was basically the boom of ponies that happened at the time, but I never watched the actual show for some reason that I can't remember (I only watched a few clips at best), I only watched related content on the internet and YouTube, and also played a bit of the gameloft game, around 2014 I simply stopped seeing content related to ponies for some reason that I can't remember exactly either (shit memory), so for nearly 10 years I completely forgot about the existence of the series, during these years, every time I saw a reference to MLP in something I somehow simply didn't pay attention (surprisingly even watching Transformers 4, which has a Rainbow Dash plush right in your face).

Around June 2023, I was slowly starting to lose interest in the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise due to a few factors, it used to be my favorite franchise along with Dragon Ball, at that time, I had a friend on Facebook who was a Sonic fan too, but also a fan of the Love Live! series, the comparisons he made between the two series really caught my attention even though they had nothing to do with each other, so as I was a fan of Sonic and Dragon Ball, two "cool" series for boys, I also wanted to have my "girlish" series to be a fan of, but I didn't know which one to choose, that's when I coincidentally started to notice that on my Facebook some posts started to appear for a short period of time, they weren't about MLP, but they had the characters in them, that's when I remembered that MLP was a thing and that a decade ago I was a fan of these horses, so I decided to start watching FiM, I admit that at first I was scared and that the chance of me not enjoying it and dropping it after 7 or 10 episodes was big, mainly because it was a show for very young children.

I started watching and I just didn't stop, the show captivated me more and more with each episode in a way that I simply didn't expect at all, I really liked it a lot but still not to the point of considering myself a fan, on June 13, the Second Season of Sonic Prime was released, so I took a break from MLP to watch all 8 episodes of Sonic in a single day, I already didn't liked very much Sonic Prime's Season 1, but I willingly tried my best to like Season 2, unfortunately I couldn't and that show really irritated me and was almost making me want to stop being a Sonic fan (something that happened a few days later), I wanted it to end as fast as possible so I could go back to MLP, I said that to myself and I almost didn't believe it but I also felt a great satisfaction at the same time, when I finally finished Sonic I went back to MLP the same day with a big smile. When I got to the Season 2 episode "Sisterhooves Social" I literally cried or almost did and it was on that day that I admitted to myself that I was loving the show and that I became a fan of it, so I kept watching it, finished FiM, continued into G5, I was afraid I wouldn't like it but luckily I liked it and here I am today.

I'm happy that I rediscovered the series and that it's with me now along with DB, I'm following the news, making drawings and I joined the forum, of course my hype was much stronger when I watched all of FiM for the first time, but that doesn't take away the importance of the series for me in the slightest, I don't think I'll lose interest in it after a few years and I hope I don't, and I hope the series hits the charts again at some point in the future just like it did a few years ago, even that I believe the chances of that happening are very small, if it doesn't happen, I'll continue to love it the same way 

This was very interesting to read and I'm very happy for you that you started to like FIM again and how you rediscovered the series and full on love it. It does suck how you didn't like Sonic Prime and literally almost didn't want to be a sonic fan anymore but its amazing how this show means to you and lets hope you don't lose interest with FIM in the near future and who knows maybe this show will rise that charts like it did before but if it doesn't that's totally fine because we will all be here no matter what happens. 

9 hours ago, North Star said:

I never get tired of this question

I was aware of the MLP memes in 2011, but it was only in 2012 that they connected. I remember that it was the idea of 'new sincerity' that had a lot of traction with me back then. And I also came across the remixes  I had to check out the fandom that made such interesting stuff!

 

 

Honestly yeah I do remember all those beautiful memes that were created when gen 4 started but truly was amazing how much content was producing out of MLP. So many wonderful thing that were created out of this fandom in insane and boy I do love all the remixes that came out like this one for sure. 

 

[Conbon 97]

9 hours ago, Silly Druid said:

This is the video that started it all for me:

 

 

Honestly yeah. I remember watching Vannamelon content in the pass when she did her Fluttershy voice impressions. Hell there was one of them of her old videos when she did omegle videos and I was actually in one of them funny enough. 

6 hours ago, Nightlight1313 said:

I was within the target demographic for FiM when it first came out, so that was a pretty easy decision, especially considering how much I loved G3 before. I didn't have cable so I watched a lot of Youtube, and of course I wanted to watch Youtube videos of the pretty ponies I liked, which led me to a lot of the old fandom content. That's where I learned the term "brony", which I naturally applied to myself.

I find the community a very nice and comforting place to be in. I feel like I can be myself. No matter how much time passes since FiM's end, I will always be a brony if just to be around people who I feel comfortable with. And I may be a little nostalgic XP

I really am glad that you are in a community that is very nice and comforting for you. It always nice to be in a place where you can be yourself and of course it always feels good to be nostalgic no matter if its happy nostalgia or sad nostalgia. What matters that you found a place where everypony can accept you no matter what or who you are and that what matters. 

[Conbon 97]

6 hours ago, jacibobsthebrony said:

I wish I could be more specific, but I can't really recall when my pony obsession began. I know I started to see pony videos crop up on Youtube in 2011 and I probably watched them with some bemusement at the time. As an edgy 13 year old the grimdark stuff fascinated me, but I was still reluctant to call myself a brony. Rainbow Dash was already my favourite by then. By early 2012 I had fully joined the herd. I had a pony desktop, pony merch and listened to nothing but brony music on my MP3 player. I was also pretty obnoxious both online and in real life when it came to sharing my interest. I just wish I lived in America at the time cause the fandom was not quite as big in the UK, especially in my small Northern town. I lost interest in 2014 and felt a little ashamed of my brony phase in my mid to late teens (I even sold my precious Rainbow Dash hat), but I feel very differently these days. I'm not quite sure what sparked my interest again, but listening to music and watching PMVs from 2012-2013 hit me hard after not watching anything pony-related in 10 years. Now I'm trying to find my old Samsung phone where I stored a bunch of pony stuff.

I'd give anything to go back.

 

Me too. Because reliving in those moments where Gen 4 was getting popular and you have so much content that people where making like animations, pmv, music videos, grimdarks (that are still popular today), and so much more. Its funny how I was just like you where I have my little old MP3 player and just full with brony songs and how I really did like Rainbow Dash back then. Of course I change to liking Applejack to be my favorite now but Rainbow Dash still holds a place in my heart. But yeah watching all these all MLP videos form 2012-2013 and watching the one you linked really did hit me hard and now of course now I'm back into the fandom and I'm really glad to be here with people who are just like me who like these ponies. Also I do hope that you can find your old Samsung phone and hopefully recover all the pony stuff that you have on there. 

[Conbon 97]

3 hours ago, Wizard said:

I was studying my A-levels in 2011/2012 and I was friends with a girl in my class, one day I noticed she was wearing MLP merch and I asked her about it, she showed me some fanart and told me to watch the show, before I knew it the internet exploded with fan animations, PMV's, loads of fanart and merch. I loved the art as soon as my friend showed me it, so I doodled ponies in my spare time. I actually never watched the show properly, I've seen an episode every now and then, usually when something crazy happened like when everyone was saying Fluttershy broke a bear's neck, or during the insane dragon ball fight with Tirek.

I wish I was more involved, by the time I made my OC and wanted to really get involved, the fandom was "dying", I had blinked and all of a sudden G4 was over, pony servers on TF2 all vanished, my friends had all left the fandom, and I was left doodling ponies on my own.

That is until I found this forum lol Now I feel like it's rekindled what I had lost, all I want to do is draw ponies hahaha

 

Yeah hearing all the times where something crazy was going on in a episode was definitely crazy including the whole dragon ball fight one was definitely one of them. But yeah I was in the same boat like you when all of the sudden Gen4 was "dying" and how all the TF2 pony servers were gone (man I miss those times when playing on those servers) and how I didn't have people to go and talk about MLP. But it is really nice that you found this forum and you can rekindled for all that time that you lost and how you can create new memorizes and share all of your wonderful pony drawings with everypony on here. 

[Conbon 97]

2 hours ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

The sheer pony madness that was going on in 2011 was what lead to me watching the show and becoming a fan. Even as a non-fan it was really, really hard to not come across pony content back then. It really was everywhere. Being kind of in the target age group for the show (12), I eventually caved and watched the first episode of season 1 which was all it took to hook me. I came across this forum at some point in... early 2012? I think it was? Stayed for a few months but I kind of gradually became less and less interactive with the fandom, although I was still watching the show. I would mostly just lurk Derpibooru, Twitter, and Reddit for art posts and such. But by the time season 9 released I was pretty much "out" of the fandom.

I had a sort of second resurgence of pony fever early last year and got really into the fandom and shows again after finding out about Vylet Pony's music from a friend. Ended up watching all of the G5 stuff that had been released up to that point and started rewatching FiM here and there. And then I found out about the Equestria at War mod for HOI4 which drove me even further into the MLP rabbit hole lol. And got me back into fanfiction.

In July of last year I came back to the forums because I have issues with the Reddit MLP community, and the Twitter MLP community is a lot more art focused. And Ponygram is... Ponygram. Which basically brings us to present day, present time.

 

Honestly yeah the MLP rabbit hole really does that to you. Like for me it was like first hearing about these new grimdarks that are still getting popular on tiktok and then fanfics, and then games and it just keeps going on and on lol. But it is really nice that you came back to this forum and hopefully you can stay and keep having a great time here in the near future.

[Axiom Crash 82]

The dates are pretty fuzzy to me, but I was on 4chan when pony content erupted on /b/. At first they were ridiculing it up to the release, and then very quickly the attitude shifted to "wait, hold on guys, this is actually really good" and suddenly the whole site was filled with lore discussions all over the place. There was a lot of talk about running campaigns in the setting, which got me super excited ... and unfortunately, I just never pursued. I started watching with my bf as soon as we could get around to it, and it hit me way, way harder than I ever expected.

It was only recently that I connected this to the fact that when I was very young, I did that thing where I'd take the name of a fictional character, and for a long time it was Tails from Sonic, but then it was Woof the dog from Where's Waldo (and I know this because that's how I signed my schoolwork) and then something else I don't remember, and then I Land Before Time and it was Littlefoot, right up until I "grew out of it", which really just means I got self-conscious enough to fear what people thought about me. And then that laid dormant until this random guy I met playing Enemy Territory messaged me out of the blue after two years of silence with something like, "Hey, do you think might be a furry?" Some of the things we'd talked about back then had made him think I might be, and after some back and forth he just said, if you could have a pet, what would it be, and I said a little dragon, and he said if tomorrow you woke up and you were a little dragon, how would you feel. And I said "I think I'd be the happiest little dragon ever."

And we're still together, almost twenty years later.

Given that, when I watched a society of quadrupeds animated with such accuracy and care, and then on top of that, it was good, and wholesome, and the lore was fantastic, I could immediately see the dark implications that were never said out loud (or at least, left room for interpretation) ... if I had been able to cry back then, I would have cried tears of joy. (Seriously, I was that stuck in survival mode, I haven't been able to cry at all until literally two days ago) It meant so much to me to see what it would look like for me to live in a world where I belonged, where I felt welcome and safe.

If I had any idea how to relate to other people without social anxiety completely destroying me back then, I would have dove in completely, but back then my mother was still pressuring me to go back to college, and ... the burnout was so bad, I had no strength left to fight for what I needed. But I created an account on fimfiction, and according to the bookshelf I put all the stories I've read in, I read around 5,000,000 words on that site over 4 years or so. We watched through season 5, and then ... life happened. I was paying attention passively, but I couldn't even read anymore. I just had to shut everything out, and I couldn't focus enough to read, so I just played video games, essentially. There was more than that, of course. The pandemic is what really crushed my spirits, and then ... the company I worked for crashed and burned in spectacular fashion, and left me feeling jerked around and even more commodified than ever, and I couldn't even work anymore. I'm lucky to be able to live without working for the past 3 years, but things just got steadily worse. Finally I just said enough was enough and just shut out everything except a small few people. I only broke out for a wedding and a family trip to Disney World, and both of those fucked me up even worse. So after that, I shut my mom out entirely, finally, and almost one year to the day after I started concentrating on just myself, I finally dug up and dealt with enough stuff from my past and descended far enough to despair that I realized I couldn't let insecurities stop me anymore, and I saw a pony video on youtube, and I just started clicking through pony videos, hoping I'd find what I didn't know I needed in my life. And I did.

I found Infinite Eclipse. And for nearly a week I played the prequel tracks on loop. The intense themes, worldbuilding and story, and the music that resonated with me just lit a fire inside and I just started writing, not caring anymore about what other people might think. I continued the trend I was already on of trying to construct characters in more pain than I am, and I think I finally tied it with this one. I really want to finish this story, get it into a readable state, but I'm going to need to learn a lot about writing to execute it properly. But after weeks and weeks of that, I've lost count, actually, I just kept sinking deeper and deeper into depression, feeling even more and more lonely than I always had. The people in my life try to be excited when I talk about things, but they really aren't. And I ... I needed to find people as passionate about this setting as I am, I realized. But I still didn't have it in me to reach out.

Because I've been with my partner for a long time, and I don't want to ... I don't know why, but I've been afraid of meeting someone I resonate with more. He's just done so much for me, but after years of holding that thought in, I finally told him two days ago and he said, "don't worry about me. This has always been an open relationship." And I guess, all my autistic brain needed was an pony avatar I felt comfortable with, and my dad of all people helped me figure that out with his knowledge of how to pick colors that work together, and then, next day, I joined up on this forum, finally putting myself out into the world to be seen after so damn long.

I am 38 years old now, and I think that makes me fairly old for a brony, but I know I'm not the only one. I'm finally starting to look for what I want in my life, and I'm so thankful that everyone has been so welcoming here. It's how I know I'm finally making the right choices for myself.

[Wizard 747]

7 hours ago, Conbon said:

 

Yeah hearing all the times where something crazy was going on in a episode was definitely crazy including the whole dragon ball fight one was definitely one of them. But yeah I was in the same boat like you when all of the sudden Gen4 was "dying" and how all the TF2 pony servers were gone (man I miss those times when playing on those servers) and how I didn't have people to go and talk about MLP. But it is really nice that you found this forum and you can rekindled for all that time that you lost and how you can create new memorizes and share all of your wonderful pony drawings with everypony on here. 

That's really sweet, thank you for the kind response. I ended up downloading all of the famous MLP maps for TF2 and using a mod that allows for more realistic bots, I could fill these maps and play offline. It's fun, but of course, there's no witty banter or arguments over "best pony" in the chat.

[Conbon 97]

14 hours ago, Axiom Crash said:

The dates are pretty fuzzy to me, but I was on 4chan when pony content erupted on /b/. At first they were ridiculing it up to the release, and then very quickly the attitude shifted to "wait, hold on guys, this is actually really good" and suddenly the whole site was filled with lore discussions all over the place. There was a lot of talk about running campaigns in the setting, which got me super excited ... and unfortunately, I just never pursued. I started watching with my bf as soon as we could get around to it, and it hit me way, way harder than I ever expected.

It was only recently that I connected this to the fact that when I was very young, I did that thing where I'd take the name of a fictional character, and for a long time it was Tails from Sonic, but then it was Woof the dog from Where's Waldo (and I know this because that's how I signed my schoolwork) and then something else I don't remember, and then I Land Before Time and it was Littlefoot, right up until I "grew out of it", which really just means I got self-conscious enough to fear what people thought about me. And then that laid dormant until this random guy I met playing Enemy Territory messaged me out of the blue after two years of silence with something like, "Hey, do you think might be a furry?" Some of the things we'd talked about back then had made him think I might be, and after some back and forth he just said, if you could have a pet, what would it be, and I said a little dragon, and he said if tomorrow you woke up and you were a little dragon, how would you feel. And I said "I think I'd be the happiest little dragon ever."

And we're still together, almost twenty years later.

Given that, when I watched a society of quadrupeds animated with such accuracy and care, and then on top of that, it was good, and wholesome, and the lore was fantastic, I could immediately see the dark implications that were never said out loud (or at least, left room for interpretation) ... if I had been able to cry back then, I would have cried tears of joy. (Seriously, I was that stuck in survival mode, I haven't been able to cry at all until literally two days ago) It meant so much to me to see what it would look like for me to live in a world where I belonged, where I felt welcome and safe.

If I had any idea how to relate to other people without social anxiety completely destroying me back then, I would have dove in completely, but back then my mother was still pressuring me to go back to college, and ... the burnout was so bad, I had no strength left to fight for what I needed. But I created an account on fimfiction, and according to the bookshelf I put all the stories I've read in, I read around 5,000,000 words on that site over 4 years or so. We watched through season 5, and then ... life happened. I was paying attention passively, but I couldn't even read anymore. I just had to shut everything out, and I couldn't focus enough to read, so I just played video games, essentially. There was more than that, of course. The pandemic is what really crushed my spirits, and then ... the company I worked for crashed and burned in spectacular fashion, and left me feeling jerked around and even more commodified than ever, and I couldn't even work anymore. I'm lucky to be able to live without working for the past 3 years, but things just got steadily worse. Finally I just said enough was enough and just shut out everything except a small few people. I only broke out for a wedding and a family trip to Disney World, and both of those fucked me up even worse. So after that, I shut my mom out entirely, finally, and almost one year to the day after I started concentrating on just myself, I finally dug up and dealt with enough stuff from my past and descended far enough to despair that I realized I couldn't let insecurities stop me anymore, and I saw a pony video on youtube, and I just started clicking through pony videos, hoping I'd find what I didn't know I needed in my life. And I did.

I found Infinite Eclipse. And for nearly a week I played the prequel tracks on loop. The intense themes, worldbuilding and story, and the music that resonated with me just lit a fire inside and I just started writing, not caring anymore about what other people might think. I continued the trend I was already on of trying to construct characters in more pain than I am, and I think I finally tied it with this one. I really want to finish this story, get it into a readable state, but I'm going to need to learn a lot about writing to execute it properly. But after weeks and weeks of that, I've lost count, actually, I just kept sinking deeper and deeper into depression, feeling even more and more lonely than I always had. The people in my life try to be excited when I talk about things, but they really aren't. And I ... I needed to find people as passionate about this setting as I am, I realized. But I still didn't have it in me to reach out.

Because I've been with my partner for a long time, and I don't want to ... I don't know why, but I've been afraid of meeting someone I resonate with more. He's just done so much for me, but after years of holding that thought in, I finally told him two days ago and he said, "don't worry about me. This has always been an open relationship." And I guess, all my autistic brain needed was an pony avatar I felt comfortable with, and my dad of all people helped me figure that out with his knowledge of how to pick colors that work together, and then, next day, I joined up on this forum, finally putting myself out into the world to be seen after so damn long.

I am 38 years old now, and I think that makes me fairly old for a brony, but I know I'm not the only one. I'm finally starting to look for what I want in my life, and I'm so thankful that everyone has been so welcoming here. It's how I know I'm finally making the right choices for myself.

 

Holy shit that was something else. Like after reading all of that, it really made me cry because when reading it you can see how much thought and emotions that you put into it and it really did touched my heart. Honestly this was incredible and give us some much history about you can seeing how much your life really started looking good and sadly seeing it all falling down hill and it just really sucks how much you suffer and I can't believe the amount of moments in your life was so dark. But even though you have been through some much pain I'm glad that you are here right now with us on this forum. For you to finally push yourself to join this forum is truly incredible and I'm glad how you are managing to make the right choices for yourself. I'm very happy that you joined this forum because in a way you finally reach your destination, a point in your life where you can be in a place where people can accept who you are and you can finally relax and enjoy your time here and just having fun talking about ponies. No matter what happens to you in the near future you will always be welcome here and don't think you are alone in this because you have us on this forum who are here to be with you and help you out no matter what and honestly please do find that passion to finish your story and learn how to write your story to a readable state because you are amazing person and knowing that you will have a bright future on these forums.   

[Octavia Heartstrings 28,414]

I thought the character designs were cute, and the fact that there was such a large fandom dedicated to it, inspired me to give MLP a shot. I started watching the first season of FiM in May 2017, and I haven't looked back since.

[Megalobronia 98]

It started when I first discovered this video. I was rather surprised when I found out that the song was originally from a My Little Pony cartoon. I have heard of the franchise's name before then and I initially dismissed it as some childish show targeted to girls, but after watching that and this video numerous times, my curiosity got the best of me and I looked more into the characters on both the show's wiki and TV Tropes. The first episodes I watched were Stare Master, Rarity Investigates, and Read It and Weep and I've pretty much been a fan since.

[FirePuppy 627]

I first came across the series while watching video parodies of other shows on YouTube back in about 2013. I became more and more curious about the characters in the videos, which eventually led me to this series.

[Player the FNFL Boi 82]

Around late may of 2021 i became a fan of the show bc i watched the 10th (i think episode). At the time i hadn't seen the series since the 4th season ended and after the g4 movie so when my dad saw it free he put on the show to rewatch a certain episode and here i am today.

[Axiom Crash 82]

On 2024-03-19 at 6:13 PM, Conbon said:

 

Holy shit that was something else. Like after reading all of that, it really made me cry because when reading it you can see how much thought and emotions that you put into it and it really did touched my heart. Honestly this was incredible and give us some much history about you can seeing how much your life really started looking good and sadly seeing it all falling down hill and it just really sucks how much you suffer and I can't believe the amount of moments in your life was so dark. But even though you have been through some much pain I'm glad that you are here right now with us on this forum. For you to finally push yourself to join this forum is truly incredible and I'm glad how you are managing to make the right choices for yourself. I'm very happy that you joined this forum because in a way you finally reach your destination, a point in your life where you can be in a place where people can accept who you are and you can finally relax and enjoy your time here and just having fun talking about ponies. No matter what happens to you in the near future you will always be welcome here and don't think you are alone in this because you have us on this forum who are here to be with you and help you out no matter what and honestly please do find that passion to finish your story and learn how to write your story to a readable state because you are amazing person and knowing that you will have a bright future on these forums.   

Thank you so much for writing this response! I wasn't sure if anyone would read that wall of text, but it was something I needed to write, anyways, and I want anyone else out there going through something similar to know they're not alone, you know?

It's not like I've even fully convinced myself I'm a quadruped. As soon as I start feeling better, the dysphoria goes away, and I'm like, "wait, maybe it's just unhappiness, maybe I am a human after all." And ... I don't know.

... but what I do know is that I get unreasonably happy whenever somebody calls me cute out of the blue, organically. I literally just want to just curl up into a ball and squee. I get embarrassed and blush really hard irl, and I have no idea what to do or say in response.

I guess ... I just need to get used to what it feels like to be validated and loved in the way I need.

And as I'm learning, it turns out I am in fact a much better writer than I give myself credit for. I guess only seeing my flaws is what marks me as an artist.

Thank you so much again! The little dragon in my heart is bouncing off the walls in joy for me right now. He's been waiting a long time for me to get over myself and start listening to him.

So yes, I will definitely be working on that story. It should be a real trip.