Five Years A Brony. · 8:48pm Mar 1st, 2017
I'm having trouble believing it's been half of a decade since pastel ponies first bounced across my retinas, but the calendar on the wall is quite clear. It's 2017. Holy smokes.
That's five years of not keeping up with mainstream music, because I'm too obsessed with pouring epic ponybeats into my ears. That's 7.54 Gigs in my FimTunes file, or 1,138 files. There's another 1.25 Gigs of music just sitting in my downloads folder, still waiting for me to sort it. I just need more space on my phone, which already has over 700 songs downloaded to it. Five years of trying to keep up with all the amazing art. 4,050 files at 2.45 Gigs, and that's just the stuff that touched my soul, or moved me in some way. There's also 102 digital comics so far on my poor phone. Yeah, I've still got it bad.
Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't burned out by now. I would have figured that the rush of endorphins provided by this fandom would have subsided, and I do find myself straying occasionally. Over The Garden Wall was awesome. Gravity Falls was superb, and Steven Universe tells an incredible story once you get into it. Destiny has consumed a lot of my time, as has Undertale. I got the soundtrack to Hamilton, and I'm trying to learn a couple of the songs by heart. I got married last year, changed jobs this year, and I've been learning 15th-century German longsword. Seriously. So yeah, there's lots more to my life than ponies. But I keep coming back. I keep coming back, and the joy is the same. The love is the same. It's like the initial flare-up of crazy love for MLP has settled into a slow, gentle burn of love that isn't going away.
I'm spending the hiatus rewatching the episodes during meals, starting with S1 (The animation has come a long way, especially the backgrounds and settings, but damn did S1 have some crazy-cute vectors! 
). I've been spending the last few years volunteering for EFNW, using sheer enthusiasm to mask my crippling lack of literary education. I try to keep up with the flood of news and music, while finding time to read the occasional fic. Ponies may not be my entire life, but they've got their own spot carved into my days, and they've made themselves comfortable there. And I'm happy.
One thing I haven't been doing is writing. Billy Crystal once explained to me that: "A writer writes." It's perhaps the most tautological and strangely useful thing I've ever picked up from a movie. In this sense, I haven't been a writer for a long time. I'll be honest, part of my hesitation is based in my inability to settle on anything short-form. My brain only latches onto epic, world-spanning mega-ideas and refuses to get pumped up over anything less. The other side of the equation is my abject certainty/fear that I'm nowhere near a good enough writer to pull off the sequel that's been stewing in my brain. So, I've managed to distract myself with games and music and editing and prereading, putting off until tomorrow anyhthing that might require creativity from me today.
But now, on my five-year pastel Nerdaversary, I'm recommitting to the art. Even if it sucks super big-time, the words must be horsed. A writer writes, even if they don't yet have a cogent plan or any sort of direction, or even the basic skill needed to pull it off. A writer writes, even if they have to sneak in fifteen minutes of hastily-scrawled writing in a journal in a Walgreen's breakroom somewhere in the haze of rain that is the Pacific Northwest.
A writer writes, even if they're terrified. Because somewhere in my worn heart I still love this stuff. I still love all of you. 
He said, implying the ride ever ends.
You got any ideas you need a brick wall to bounce off of? I make a fantastic brick wall, my girlfriend says so.
Aw
Glad to know you are still here and enjoy the ride 
And I will be here as well, hoping to see more stuff from you.
And just to let you know, after all those years, "Darkened Shores" is still one of my favourite stories on FF.
Still NEEEED a Darkened Shores sequel.
Totally with you there on the music end of things, I have 15GB of music in the sorted Pony folder, and probably another 10GB in an unsorted folder I need to get around to organizing.
I've Likewise been impressed with the staying power of Pony, although for me I definitely have to say that it is the community that keeps the love going for me, both the creative ponies and convention volunteering. 
At the end of last year I re-watched S1 and a bit of S2 and was really impressed with how well the writing of those episodes holds up. I wasn't sure how much my memory of them was with rose-tinted glasses, but the characterization that drew me in is definitely there. Glad to hear you're looking to pick up the quill again, and I wish you a favorable muse to inspire your output 
4440933 I might take you up on that, thanks!
I think watching this show came with a 25 to life sentence, no chance of parole.
4442426 You are beating me in the pony music department!
By a LOT?! Is... is this nerd jealousy I feel?!?
And I agree about the early episodes. They really did so much to explore the characters, both the writing and the animation really did them justice. Guess that's why we're here! And I also agree with the bit about community, of course. I don't think I'll ever run out of content to fuel this geek train.
4440946
4441070 That's what I'm working on, a sequel to Darkened Shores. I've got to wrap up a couple of those loose ends. I've got three different starts so far, so I'm sure I can thread something together this month. Maybe. Hopefully.
4442770
That's wonderful news