We've Come a Long Way...

Ponies, I just read an amazing article on EQD. It reflects on the progress we've made as a community, and hopes for an even better future.

At this time, I'd like to reflect a moment.

I got into ponies shortly after shortly after the Sisterhooves Special episode aired. My first exposure to My a little Pony: Friendship is Magic was actually back in March 2011: I was flipping though the channels and happened upon the episode "Green Isn't Your Color." No, I didn't know the title at the time, and I certainly didn't watch it for very long. I had no clue that not even a year after that fateful day that I would be deeply entrenched in Ponies. It took the courage of a new friend to ask me about My Little Pony, and I am in his debt for taking that brave step and introducing me to the pony world.

When I moved to AZ, I kept the fire glowing, and it soon became a bonfire. I loved the show, and connected with a few Pegasisters. I even got my sis into it.

What was it that attracted me to the show? Curiosity, at first. Humor, second. But what sealed the deal were the good lessons and morals the show portrayed as normal in the world of ponies. No slapstick, no crude language, no poorly-written action. It was clean, wholesome fun. Forgive the use of the meme, but some faith in humanity was restored through that show. I had lost hope that television could ever produce a good, clean, fun show. And yet, here it is. It defies the fallen state of the world.

After falling in love with the show, I discovered the Brony community. Equestria Daily was one of the first Brony sites I learned about. Then everything else flooded onto my computer... The ponies were everywhere!

On a note the appears to be unrelated, I am a Trekkie. When STO went F2P, I hopped on the bandwagon, and joined the first fleet I found. A rather non-descript(yet very large) Trek-based fleet. I hid as Gari for awhile, afraid to display my loe for ponies. Then I unlocked the Excel Retro. She was a beauty. And a beauty needs a good name. I decided it was time to finally show the STO world my love for ponies, and named her the USS Fluttershy. Well, Bronies are funny, because not even a week after the decision, I bumped into another USS Fluttershy. I joined the small fleet, but felt no real connection. In fact, that fleet nearly shattered my hope in the Brony community.

So I moved on, creating the Caitain character Thale, and found yet another brony fleet. This one was even smaller, and I only ever saw the leader and myself on. Until an oddly named ship showed up....

...the USS Trollestia, captained by the then named Molestia. He convinced me to leave that fleet and join some Brony friends of his to create a new fleet. I met Luna, Shy, Vats, Indiana Hooves, Bernard, and others. I was nervous. What if they weren't any better than the last two fleets? What if this fleet flopped, and never went anywhere like the other two had?

Well, the rest, as they say, is history. I'm now a part of the largest Brony fleet in STO, with more Brony friends than I ever thought I would make. Yeah, we've had our rough times, and our disagreements. Yes, we don't all agree on everything.

But the magic of pony friendship seems to win out in the end, every time. For as many quirks and oddities as we have, we still pull together. We learn from each other, and we back each other up in the rough times.

Ponies, I am honored to be apart of this community. I am honored that I can have such good relationships with so many of you. The Elements of Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, Loyalty, and Magic have kept us together. I thank you all for trying so hard to speak kindly in the official chat channels. I thank you all for being there for each other, and laughing when the times get rough. I thank you all for the support you have shown me as I struggle to be a good leader.

Thank you, ponies, thank you so very much.

Light Shine

P.S. Here's the link I was mentioned in the beginning: EQD Editorial: Our Little Empire

(Please feel free to share your thoughts on your journey through ponies.)

The journey that led me to here Today is not a long one

I discovered MLP out of pure curiosity, For some time i had seen pictures of Mlp all around somtimes even on the school randomly on the others whit a pc in my class room, none of them are bronys they youst looked at stuff on the internet and somtimes Mlp got up thats first time i saw Mlp.

Then it started to pop around on internet sites i looked on, pictures of ponys and in the end i had seen it so many place's that it had goten my interset as it was so many places it would be logical that it was a bit popular and wort a look so i tryed to search on youtube for it.

I did not know the name fully but the memorys about the pictures was pushing trough and i tryed. my little pony episode 1 as i was weary sure it was a somthing from the tv and after that i keept watching.

Later i looked on the steam game list of a brony freind of my that i met and saw that he had played star trek online once, and as i would rely like a game whit big space ships whit both ground and space battling i tryed it out.

After a while playing star trek online when i was about level 30 20 or 15 weary unsure what, i got a bit bored and had to wait for somthing to get done before going on, so as i would not like to waste minutes of my life wating i looked up after fleets and in the middle of it i tough i should look for a Mlp related one.

i tryed Mlp and my little ponys but did not get anyting out of that so i tryed Equestria and this fleet comes up, so i go to the website and register and did a little chating waiting for a admin to log on so i could ask to join the fleet because none that could make me a member was one at that time and next day i found a admin and joined the fleet and now im here typing on the fleet fourm days later

Thats all of my history of me joining the Brony community and STO, i got here by pure curiosity and luck XD

Long Story Short, i got courius looked it up, got a new freind on steam, looked in his game list, and found STO got bored and found the Fleet.

Im happy i found the fleet, there is about none thats a Brony exept me in my town and this may be because the show started about a month or two ago in my contry and not many have the channel its shown on xD for all i know i may be the only one in my contry thats a boy thats 16 and a brony

Radsjet wrote:The journey that led me to here Today is not a long one

I discovered MLP out of pure curiosity, For some time i had seen pictures of Mlp all around somtimes even on the school randomly on the others whit a pc in my class room, none of them are bronys they youst looked at stuff on the internet and somtimes Mlp got up thats first time i saw Mlp.

Then it started to pop around on internet sites i looked on, pictures of ponys and in the end i had seen it so many place's that it had goten my interset as it was so many places it would be logical that it was a bit popular and wort a look so i tryed to search on youtube for it.

I did not know the name fully but the memorys about the pictures was pushing trough and i tryed. my little pony episode 1 as i was weary sure it was a somthing from the tv and after that i keept watching.

Later i looked on the steam game list of a brony freind of my that i met and saw that he had played star trek online once, and as i would rely like a game whit big space ships whit both ground and space battling i tryed it out.

After a while playing star trek online when i was about level 30 20 or 15 weary unsure what, i got a bit bored and had to wait for somthing to get done before going on, so as i would not like to waste minutes of my life wating i looked up after fleets and in the middle of it i tough i should look for a Mlp related one.

i tryed Mlp and my little ponys but did not get anyting out of that so i tryed Equestria and this fleet comes up, so i go to the website and register and did a little chating waiting for a admin to log on so i could ask to join the fleet because none that could make me a member was one at that time and next day i found a admin and joined the fleet and now im here typing on the fleet fourm days later :D

Thats all of my history of me joining the Brony community and STO, i got here by pure curiosity and luck XD

Long Story Short, i got courius looked it up, got a new freind on steam, looked in his game list, and found STO got bored and found the Fleet.

Im happy i found the fleet, there is about none thats a Brony exept me in my town and this may be because the show started about a month or two ago in my contry and not many have the channel its shown on xD for all i know i may be the only one in my contry thats a boy thats 16 and a brony :P

Correction. i am a 100% brony.

I too read the article earlier today and immediately saved it to read again in the future, and possibly show to others along the way.

I wholeheartedly agree with Light Shine's sentiments. I found the show back in June 2011 after having just moved to Japan. A fellow officer was allowing me to stay at his place while I went through the gauntlet of classes and forms needed to search for my own house. It was during this early stage in my deportation, as I came to call it, that I ran across some meme images and YouTube videos. Having nothing better to do, and finding myself strangely curious as to why this show made for little girls was so popular, I watched the first episode on an iPhone while laying on a bare mattress on the floor in a foreign. Perhaps culture shock and homesickness made me more receptive, but after the first two episodes i was hooked. Why? The quality production value? Sure. The humor and fun stories? Yes. The cleaning feeling of morals and principles that are too rare these days, bundled inside a message of cooperation that spans religions, genders, ages, and races? Absolutely. Then I found the community through Ponychan and EQD. At that moment, I too found a group of people on whom I could pin my hopes that there were still ordinary people with the ability, and most importantly the desire, the better the world around them.

My identity among Internet cultures remained fairly steady throughout high school and college. I hung out with the fantasy RP crowd and dove deeply into the draconic community for the first 4 or 5 years of my career. But I found many people in those groups too divisive and exclusive. Besides, what I needed were people who fueled the positive traits in man and encouraged a creed of open-mindedness, companionship, and, if not acceptance, then at least tolerance of individual views and beliefs. I can honestly say that I am not the same person that left the States, and I think my family will be pleasantly surprised by how I've changed. And I have ponies and the community to thank for making me realize what it was that I've been missing in order to become I better person. I have wealth, I have health, I have faith, and I have dreams, but I never really had happiness. What I've been missing was so simple, I'm almost embarrassed to say it. People. I needed people in my life; good people and a community that I could rely upon to keep me honest and true.

We have grown. As a community, as individuals, as a near unexplainable phenomenon that has only continued to gain strength and momentum across more avenues than I'm sure the early fans ever imagined possible. Regardless of those that find us repulsive, in spite of the misconceptions about who we are, and in defiance of those who continue to say that one idea, one group of people, can not have a significant impact on any facet of society anymore, we have grown. during active seasons, our numbers increase. During the off-season, that is our time to solidify the connections and friendships we have made. that is the time to build up the foundations and pillars that make us a positive force. It may be ego or delusions of grandeur to say that we are actively causing change. It might be simply projecting the desire to be a positive force of change onto what are ultimately miniscule acts. Have you seen the size difference between a mustard seed and the plant it grows into? Have you seen the sums donated freely to strangers in their time of need? Have you heard the stories of frightened individuals who might never have felt the warmth of friendship or that peace of mind that comes from the knowledge that someone out there cares about you, not because they must, but because they want to? You don't have to change the whole world to make a meaningful impact upon the world. You just have to change one life through what might be a single act of kindness, and you've just changed that person's whole world.

Up until I joined all of you, I had regular communications with my family, the people I work with, and one fellow brony working in Tokyo. That's it. I had played STO almost from the launch day by myself. One of the first things said to me as soon as I was accepted was: "I bet this game just got 20% cooler for you." That has proved to be an understatement. For me, I'm finally playing a game less for the game itself and more because of the people who I can interact with. All of you should be proud for being of that caliber: to make a typically antisocial hermit crave social interaction both here and out in my everyday world, and to push me to learn new things and try new ideas. And for one person in particular for taking time to remind me that no one is ever really alone in those trials and battles we all face everyday. You have my eternal thanks.

- Stormy Seas

Correction. i am a 100% brony.

um okay but what was you correcting it would be nice to know what you was correcting of all i wrote

Edit: i wrote wote instead of wrote XD

Radsjet wrote:

Correction. i am a 100% brony.

um okay but what was you correcting it would be nice to know what you was correcting of all i wote :P

oh.

It's funny that we talk about things that got us into ponies. I got into ponies by attempting to troll the lot of you. Seriously, that was my goal. I hated you nutters for cluttering up /co/, I hated that you were having fun and I wasn't, I hated the concept of a stupid show about stupid talking magical horses. I was extremely angry at that time in my life. I messed about on the net, found a few parodies from a chap named GeneralIvan (they were, and still are, hilarious), and set about halfway studying what was going on. I had planned to write a story that made Cupcakes seem a campfire tale for children. But in order to do so I required knowledge.

So I looked up information on the characters. And watched the generalivan videos over and over until I just had to see an episode for myself. First episode I ever watched was Bridle Gossip. And that was it. I was in love with the show. That desire to write the ultimate hate fic? That faded the more I watched. I kept telling myself "well I'll get started after one more episode, I really want to be able to capture the essence of the characters". And it turned into "not only do I not want to do this, there's no way I could, and even if I did people would just laugh it off." I gave up on my hate then. I liked ponies.

And, as it turns out, it's been good for me. I'm not as angry as I was. There's a number of reasons behind my anger issues that I'll not get into here but suffice it to say I was pretty much ready to lash out at anything, anytime. My knuckles and some patches in the walls can attest to that.

I discovered bronies in TF2 on september a month before 1 year anniversarry. Then at first I thought it was kind of silly. I never did hate any brony though. so I decided to check it out and then stuff happened and i became a brony and got lots and lots of brony friends.

I first came to ponies through some non-brony friends of mine. I'd just pulled a long 12 hour shift at work, signed onto Skype and Starcraft 2, and for some reason, all of my friend's skype pictures and profile pictures on Facebook were ponies. To be silly, they'd all decided to change their profiles to characters from this strange show I'd never heard of. One quick google search later, and I'd selected my pony. She was a yellow pegasus with pink hair. I didn't know why, but I really liked her, and set her as my picture. This little yellow thing was going to be my pony. Well, curiosity got the better of me, and I started doing research on the character I'd picked. I learned that I'd chosen Fluttershy: the element of kindness. I liked her all the more then. My friends thought it was silly of me to try to learn about my pony, but kind of laughed it off.

Well, after a month of silliness, we all changed our pictures back, and ponies fell out of sight for me for a bit. Then I returned to school in Kentucky. About halfway through the semester, I was lonely, frustrated, and probably about 2 days away from a clinical depression diagnosis. I got off skype one evening, and realised that, despite everything, I was not happy. I don't know why, but for some reason, I decided that I needed to know what this pony thing was all about. I wanted to know why this pastel little horses seemed to make me pic up at least a glimmer of a smile every time I saw one. So I watched the first episode. Then the next. Then the next. I think it was about halfway through the 4th episode that my roommate walked in because I'd sort of freaked her out. For the first time in about a month, she heard me laugh.

I think one of the things that constantly amazes me about the show is that, no matter who I talk to, people who watch it seem to become happier. I realised that, for myself, it was making me happy. It gave me something to look forward to during the long, lonely weeks of school. Even though I didn't tell anyone about my new found brony-ness, I came to love and respect what the community stood for. I'm still a bit of a closet brony, mainly because I'm very hesitant to share this with others. The first time I mentioned I'd even watched the show to my non-brony friends, the response was "What they hay, dude? You're 23!" This pretty much stifled any and all efforts to reach out to other bronies. What if I faced that kind of ridicule from the community? I later decided to heck with what others thought. I argued with my non-brony friends about me liking ponies. Even if it's not their thing, why should they try to break down things that clearly bring a bit of beauty and light to the world? I'm sorry to say that the friend who attacked me the most also happened to be the most religious of my group of real life friends. I tried and tried and TRIED to explain to him what kinds of lessons were being taught by the show, but he wouldn't listen. After a few things that happened that I won't go into here, that friendship was damaged.

It was about this time that STO went free to play. I was super stoked about this. I can be a starship captain!? FREAKING SWEET! I really enjoyed running through the game, but I really wished I could play with other people. My friend Dave joined me for a bit, but got bored quickly after getting Mk XII stuff. So I created a new character, Erin (who is no longer with us), and named my ship the USS Rainbow Dash. By random chance, I ran into Katsuro in a Klingon Battlezone and friended him. I liked the idea of the United Equestria Space Fleet, but didn't see anypony else for a while. Then one day, above DS9, I saw the USS Big Macintosh. I brohoofed Big Mac, and the rest, they say, is history.

It was through this fleet that I was finally able to make connections to an awesome group of people who bonded over ponies and Star Trek. It allowed me to get deeper into the brony community, and, most importantly, has allowed me to make friends for the first time in years. This fleet is extremely special to me, and I'm so glad to be part of it and to know everyone.