What Did You Do Before Ponies? #1: The PCA · 12:05am Feb 9th, 2015
Along with all the fic-related stuff I've been doing lately, I also started up a project I've been meaning to do for a while: downloading the eight or so years' worth of images I've favorited on FurAffinity. (Only 150 pages to go! D:) I of course started getting nostalgic for "the good old days", bad as some of them were, not to mention I also recently found out that someone who participates in the writeoffs is someone I used to know when I was heavily into the local DDR scene. So I'm gonna start a series of journals that I hope will be interesting (I mean, it's just me talking about myself, how interesting can that be?) and that I hope others will pick up on, not just because I'm interested to see what other people were doing in the past, but also because ponies, in my experience, have a strange way of bringing together people who haven't seen each other in a long time, and I want more of it.
So, what's WDYDBP? all about?
Basically, I'm just going to talk about fandoms and stuff I was in before March 2011, when I joined this fandom. :B I'm gonna keep it to writing-related activities, because that will tell something of a narrative (albeit backwards), and also because otherwise there's just BWAAA TOO MUCH TO TELL. (Also, I'm not gonna talk about the SCP Foundation, because I'm still vaguely active there, but I think it predated ponies for me by maybe two months?) Today's subject is the Pokemon Combat Academy, a shared universe of writers and artists operating on FA for a couple of years. Note that this post will be image-heavy, though I'll put the saucier images behind links instead of inlining them. So read on to find out what human-shaped Pokemon have to do with learning to write better characters!
The Pokemon Combat Academy was, like I said, a shared universe, based in what might have been a post-apocalyptic Pokemon world, where something happened and the world was now populated and run by anthropomorphic Pokemon, or Pokemorphs. (It's furry shit, you gotta roll with it.) The actual stories revolved around the titular academy, where the sons, daughters and non-gendered offspring of the Pokeworld's elite were trained by the best fighters to become the next generation of best fighters, Pokemon combat still being a huge sport and important part of Pokemorph society. Participants made student, teacher and parent characters, designed teams, sometimes collaboratively, and acted out scenarios nightly on AIM, which should tell you how long ago this was.
I don't recall much of how it came about, though I know it was a creation of Ebonyleopard (and maybe someone else? It's been a while.) I also don't remember how I got into the PCA, but it was likely thanks to watching artists like Ebonyleopard and Kaemantis (the latter I still watch; she's doing an awesome MLP future AU scenario these days). Like a lot of other collaborative universes I've participated in, MLP fandom included, I was amazed by the ability of many of these people to write really damn good stories, or at least what I considered to be such at the time. The PCA had a lot of really tantalizing aspects to it, as well, not just exploration of the various areas the games were set in (Black and White came out while I was still actively participating, leading to a lot of really interesting stuff to bring Unova into the mix). Gender was a big driver for many characters, given that there was a large population of Pokemorphs without any (the Magnemite family, Baltoy and Claydol, many legendaries, the list goes on). Plus, when you start thinking about it, you get questions like "How do you run a clothing boutique in a world where your customers might have spikes coming out of their back (Abomasnow), front (Gardevoir), or both and more (Lucario)?"
Of course, we mostly ignored that in favor of roleplayed combats, slice of life school drama, and of course, lots of fucking. :B And on that note, let me introduce you to some of my characters, because obviously you care. :D I started off with two major teams. The first was:
Nelson Northrop
The one with the nose.
was your classic spoiled rich kid, with an ego bigger than his schnoz. He wanted to create a team of pretty 'morphs, so he wrangled Suna Fitzroan
Kaynen Abelson (he doesn't look like much, but he had Cute Charm, so all the girls loved him)
If you thought horse puns were bad, you've never seen PCA names.
and Ute Äbsolaa (more on him later) to join him as Team Winsome. (He looked up the word in the dictionary and liked the pun, which is about the smartest thing he ever did.)
They were enormous losers. Nelson was a huge idiot, along with being a bad team leader.
Suna didn't give a damn about anything because she was a terrible character had a tragic backstory. (In my defense, they were very popular.) Kaynen was basically Nelson's only friend, but he was at the Academy on a poetry scholarship (the PCA is one of the most prestigious schools in the world, and not just for fighting), and along with being an insufferable hipster, had maybe one actual attack in his moveset? He sucked at fighting, is what I'm saying, even compared to Nelson. Ute ended up leaving the team after one loss too many, because he was a senior in the first place and had been suckered onto the team because he was foreign. He was replaced by Butter, the fat Pikachu up there, for reasons that escape me beyond "it was funny". Poor little Butter (I forget his real name) was one of those uber-nerds who mostly just cared about playing whatever Pokemorphs called D&D, and got a nosebleed from being in the same room as a girl.
These kids were great. I forget most of what happened with them, save that Suna had a very active roleplaying life, eventually falling for a Jynx with an even tragicker backstory.
(Also, she had a hot older half-sister.)
That's Team Winsome, they were all weak to Fighting types and existed entirely for comic relief. My serious team, the important one, was called Team Second Chances. Unfortunately, no image exists of the whole team... save as Substitutes, on the bottom row of this:
Overnia N. Thousand, Wally Wiggleson, Abigail Bon Snovi (PCA names were the best, you shut up), Rolf James and Piper Sykunsky were modeled after my Diamond Elite Four team, minus the Garchomp because PCA teams preferred four members and an alternate. Piper I couldn't tell you much about save that he wanted to be a chef (because fat lol). Rolf, the Alakazam, was literally just the Angry Video Game Nerd (aka James Rolf wasn't I clever) as a Pokemorph. They didn't get nearly as much time as Abi, who was...
Imagine if Fluttershy was already a tree, and had massive body image issues because of it.
I spent a lot of time playing her in side things, and she slowly came out of her shell. But most important to me were the team's leader and her best friend since elementary school, Overnia (my Infernape's name was "OVER9000!!") and Wally:
Overnia was great. Her mom was a trainer. Her grandmother was a fighting champion. These things hung over her head constantly, which made her great to play. But she didn't hold a candle to Wally.
You'd be forgiven for thinking he's a walking gay joke.
Wally was so important to me, and is the character I think of when I think of the effect the PCA had on my writing. Yes, his original idea was "I'm not just gay, I'm very gay, and also a Floatzel", and I'm sorry for that, but from that very flippant character description there came a wellspring of characterization.
He supported Overnia through her troubles because he was a really fucking excellent friend. He hooked up with a dude who was a Dragonair, I think. He was the face of the team and made friends everywhere they went. He even had a "questioning my sexuality" thing for a bit where he was trying to get with Overnia, who was all, "Hell no, you are my best goddamn friend, don't screw this up" and got to be a good friend right back at him. Damn, I liked them. And if you're wondering why I'm making such a big fuss about this guy, well, you can draw a line straight from Wally to Whisk, so you're welcome.
I had a few other characters, too, though going through the images I saved of them, I quite honestly do not recall many. Let's start with that guy I said you'd hear more about later.
He's the one on the right, in case you're confused.
(Because I once had a hardon for Absols and Finland.)
(And now you likely do, too.)
Ute and his twin sister Yu-Shin (wait for it) were foreign exchange students from, uh, Pokemon Finland, I don't know. Yes, I designed Yu-Shin entirely for eye candy. (She fucked so many guys, I'm so sorry.) Ute meanwhile... Sigh. He had a huge crush on his sister. Forgive me, I was young. :( But they were both fun to play, her because she couldn't speak English very well, and him because he could speak very well and did not have a sense of humor.
Then there's these guys:
"High Fructose Syrup"?
All I know about them is that the initials stood for something in Mandarin (I was learning it at the time) and they were all named after teas. That's Lapsong Suchong in the front (she was a major bitch because they were an "evil" team), with her bondage slave girlfriend to the right. I think her name was Johnnie? The tall Drapion in back is Demetria Darjeeling. She was a decent character: lost her arm when she was younger and is determined to be a top fighter despite the disability. As for the last one, I honestly don't remember that character at all. I can't even tell if she's a Primeape or a Piloswine.
I think I'm only including them in the list because I have a picture of them. :B Given how little I remember about Team HFS, it goes to show that I don't have much else to add about this period of my life. I mean, there's always Regiguygirl...
Before I left, I created one last character, my first shot at a teacher. His name was Dr. Klaxton Tinabula.
He was a Bronzong, which means "he" actually had no gender. Which was hilarious because he was the sex ed teacher.
I ended up giving ownership of his character to an artist named Marshtomp, which was a good idea because Marshtomp was funny (UH NEWSFLASH HE ALSO APPARENTLY CREATED MOLESTIA), and Dr. Tinabula enjoyed some popularity after my departure from the group.
Which brings us to the sad conclusion of this tale. After a good two years or so in the PCA, things got majorly fucked up and I ragequit. Understand, this came on the end of some major shakeups. There were issues with the "leadership" of the group, and whether we needed leadership at all. Cliques and factions had formed (I was inexplicably in the one with all the cool kids and higher-ups). There were plot shenanigans at hand: some people wanted time to progress, to have the students go through classes and graduate, which was unfortunate for anyone with senior characters, and eventually resolved with a "well, only if you want to" compromise that just made things weird. Also, a MAJOR plot point involved the principal being disbarred by the school board and replaced with a Darkrai who, horror of horrors, made the students wear uniforms and march in metaphorical lockstep. I hated it because I saw it as stifling creativity; I was also in the "static time" camp.
I don't remember what the straw was, though, just that one night, a conversation took a bad turn and I realized that none of these people were really my friends. That's a harsh reality to face. I cut a lot of ties, only some of which I regret. I don't think the PCA lasted much longer. I certainly don't see any art coming out of the people who used to draw it (funnily, a LOT of them are doing pony stuff now, c.f. Kaemantis above). And this was right on the heels of me having read a journal written by a guy named Eevee (who I don't think was a part of the group; why do I remember this?) about what real friends were and were not. It would take the magic of ponies for me to start recovering from this blow to my self-esteem, and even now I still have to force myself to interact with people online. Yes, even all the cool people I know here. I just have to remind myself that you guys aren't that bad, that it's the spirit of friendship that brought us together, and hope to hell that never goes away or I might just become a recluse in both spheres of my life. ._.
Still, I don't regret my time spent with the PCA. From it, I learned how to use roleplaying to build up a character (Wally). Of course, I also learned that I'm a shitty roleplayer, turn-based fighting sucks in real time, and roleplaying can be a major waste of time if you don't focus it. And that's why I don't roleplay these days. >.>
So there you go. The first installment of stuff I did before ponies. I've got, uh, five more planned, unless I remember any others. Hopefully you found this interesting and not just self-aggrandizing. :B And on that note, I'm going to do something terrible and leave you with a sample of my PCA writing, because this was supposed to be a writing-related journal, after all, and...
God, this really hurts. I hate looking at my old writing. D: And I only wrote like four things for the PCA anyway. Ugh, here's the introduction for Team Second Chances. It's rambly and telly and full of talking heads, and the opening scene is very indicative of what most PCA stories were like, which is to say transcribed chatlogs about characters fighting. I hope you're happy. :V
A lot of those image links aren't working for me.
I refuse to believe there was anything before ponies.
I may have founded a local furry convention which is now in its 12th year. I've done a lot of stage writing for it.
I also used to listen to music that wasn't fan-created music by bronies and homestucks, which is kind of terrifying in retrospect.
I think at some point I was even a boy?
I dunno, pony. Between technology and fandoms, it's getting harder every day to remember yesterday.
Holy shit. This looks like it was a lot of work. I can feel my brain recoiling from the drama that must have surrounded every little thing in a shared online universe thing like that.
Be nice to hang out with the Finnish Poke-whatever-she-was, though...
What did I do? Well, I had a girlfriend . . .
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw2079_small.jpg
But then she cheated on me with a former friend. Cheerful happy ponies made me smile, but once I'd watched all the episodes and was in the post-season 2 doldrums, I decided to give reading fanfiction a try. After about four or five months of that, I decided that I could write better than a lot of the users, so I started getting back in the saddle (so to speak), and once I'd spent a month or so dusting off my writing skills, I made an account and started publishing.
Wow. Now I'm feeling nostalgic for my Tumblr blog, even though that site very nearly consumed my life whole. Being an affably evil Jin-Gitaxias was fun...
Also, didn't Friendship is Magic premiere in October 2010?
2780311
Ditto, though that might be for the best.
Also, the furry fandom is so terribly incestuous; I suppose when you're on the internet, it is easy to be only a step or two away from people. I'd heard the name Kaemantis before, but I'd never met them; still, I'm sure someone must have mentioned them to me at some point, because the name is eeriely familiar.
2780311
The links, or the inline images? It's entirely possible that you can't do offsite with FA... <.<
2780402
Did you go to Mephit Furmeet in 2000? Because if so, then you've gone to every convention I have (although I'm sure you've done far more).
2780424
I swear it was drama-free for the first year, but then I never pick up on things like that. :/
2780442
I have been in that boat, friend. :B
2780569
Yes, but I didn't get into it until March of '11.
2780761
You can find her work on derpibooru under mustlovefrogs. Her style is very recognizable.
2780789
Neither work consistently. Some of the images and some of the links are broken. This one, for instance, doesn't work at all, just gives me an error message.
d.facdn.net/art/pcaduck/1250312714/1250312714.pcaduck_pca-take.jpg
2780836
Made that and the "hot older sister" link to the pages instead of the images, since neither is marked Mature! :B
While I've been a fan of other things before ponies, this is actually the first fandom where I've really interacted with others. If I'm interpreting the gist of this blog correctly, then I guess I'd have to say I really didn't do anything until ponies.
2780902
Everyone's gotta start somewhere! :D
2780789
Hmm! I went there in 98, 99, 01, and 04 for sure. I think I may have missed 2000? Talk about paths crossed!
You mean every furry convention, right? Didn't I at least bump into you briefly at last year's BroNYCon...?
Because if I'm way off on that, I need to find some way to bump into you someday! 
TrotCon up here is a very nice con. I'm lucky to live in a city with two nice local cons (one I started, granted, but lucky it still has juice).
Yeah, ditto here. Nearly all the pictures aren't showing up =(
I used to have a little depression issue before I went to high school, so ponies were my outlet for happiness and they definitely succeeded in that goal. So, that's my story thank goodness for our friendly equines.
I find it kinda sad that most of my pre-ponies online presence is restricted to forums that don't exist anymore, and a bunch of characters in game servers that got taken down. At least I have a handful of the videos I used to edit for my guild.
I've actually already run into a few folks here who recognized me from before pony. Probably my biggest claim to #internetfame is having written, a long time ago, the Draconity FAQ, so I have some very minor visibility in furry circles and frequently get name-dropped when the topic of Otherkin comes up.
Most of the rest of my connections are via my old SMOF credentials, folks who got sucked into S.F. Bay Area pony conventioneering via existing convention connections. The conventions out here are super incestuous (which is a good thing -- it's part of how Babscon was able to put together such a professional operation their first year; they had a lot of existing talent to draw from).
Present, I'm kind of amazed how prolific you were. I can think of a few people who had extensive fandom bibliographies from before, but not many.
Since people are weighing in on what they did before pony... Appropriately, Horse Voice appears mysteriously, having been a lurker most of the time before, and having changed monikers over the years, from the few small places where he did participate. I have no background in furry or anime fandom, as a lot of pony fans over the age of 25 seem to. But I am one of those guys who was already familiar with the works of 2781507, Chatoyance, and a few others (who, if they read this, already know who they are).
These ponies are indeed something special, if they can bring a dedicated lurker out of the shadows and acquaint him with people he had for years been content to only read about. Perhaps years down the road, I'll run across an old fan of my stories, who never bothered to leave comments, and I'll feel like, well, a lot of you guys here.
2781118
I've seen you at all three Trotcons and both times I went to Bronycon. Also Anthrocon. :D
2781421
I'm expecting to see more of that as I delve further into my past. :B Of course, I can't even remember the names of some of the forums I was on...
2781507
Ooh, snap, link doesn't work. :B Getting some of my own medicine, it looks like.
2781547
That would be cool. :D
All I can say about most of my pre-pony stuff is that it sucks. :B As that story I linked to will show. Assuming it even worked. Goddamn Furaffinity.
2780836
2781219
I was thinking maybe if you didn't have an FA account, they wouldn't work, but I just tested that and still was able to see them while logged out of FA. <.< Maybe see if facdn is blocked by your software?
Aside from furry stuff, my pre-pony fandoms were Homestuck (for a brief period, less than a year) and a forum called Survival of the Fittest. It's based off Battle Royale, off the premise that a terrorist organization abducts hundreds of children, puts them on an island, and forces them to fight to the death. It's actually a very regimented forum with strict time limits and randomly generated and enforced deaths, all in the name of making the story progress to an actual ending (the sixth iteration of the main game will start soon), and it's something that you have to suck up and work with or leave. I no longer write for the site or really read the kudzu of interlocking story threads on the game (The last version I was in turned out badly because I had no fire for it anymore and my interest moved on to ponyfics), but I go to the chat almost every day and have good friends there still.
2782016
Re: broken link: ugh, the redirects broke during a server shift a few months back. The content never disappeared, just the lazy URL I was using didn't go to the right place. Fixed.
I miss the PCA. Alas, I missed most of it but I still had a few decent submissions.
fc04.deviantart.net/fs41/i/2009/040/c/8/PCA_Spring_Romance__Vermillion_by_SalenStormwing.jpg
Ah, good ol' Vermie, my anti-social rattata. Although good, he'll never be as awesome as Otty, the surfer buizel. "Duuuuude."
2782115
Wow. :O I don't think I could ever do something timed like that. XD
2782995
Yeahhh, I always knew your name was familiar for some reason. :)
So many missing pictures ;_;
2783798
All I can say is they all work on my end. :/ Maybe I'll go put links into the snarky comments under them. Lemme know if it's any better now.
2783783
You have to make a post every two weeks once the game starts (any post, even if it's just a paragraph), and if your character has been rolled for death and you don't have special cards to save them, you have to arrange the death in a time limit or else the mods will do it for you. There are cases where the mods have let time limits slide and on rare occasions they have slacked off when the whole community's interest lulled.
Reading a detailed recount of an anthro Poke shared-world roleplay immediately brings to mind xkcd. There's a splinter group focused on loops.
Also:
OMGZ Down With
MolestiaDr. Klaxton! Sex Ed has no business in the classroom! Parents should reserve the right to have The Talk with their children when (or rather, if) they feel like it!2783783 Well, now you remember.
I read some Naruto fanfic because Naruto itself was a great world/setting, but disappointing in its execution up past the chunin exam. I mostly read stories which redid the story up until that point, or the story after that point. I'm not sure if "disliking how the show went so much I tried to find alternate storylines of it" qualifies as being part of the fandom. I interacted with no one. Didn't really do anything aside from read some fics. Most of them were bad.
I downloaded the first season of pony after watching some high school physics presentation which used clips from the show and explained how impossible things were. I liked the first two episodes well enough, but my interest waned until Dragonshy. Once I watched that, from then on out I was hooked.
So for mlp, what initially attracted me to it was the rich fantasy setting. The show didn't have a whole lot of that though, so I again turned to fanfic and read a massive fantasy epic. The fantasy epic had some twidash in it, and then I found fimfiction and read a bunch of shipping. Most of it was bad.
I didn't really interact anything in the fandom until I eventually got fed up with how many bad romance fics there were and wrote one myself. That's pretty much what happened before ponies. That and playing video games.
2783810 Yay! all fixeded. also for the Dr Tinabula comic, That's briliant XD. I looked at the previous coming too, though tbh i think the clean ones funnier.