OCs? What pointless nonsense.

Never tell a braindead teenager Valley Girl (she's actually a model and everything, almost six feet tall too) that you are writing a pony fanfic, or that you are a brony at all.

You will never hear the end of it.

Seriously, she won't shut up about it. She makes the lamest jokes, and doesn't even notice how lame they are. Today I came back from the swimming pool and she asked me if anyone there had a towel with ponies in it.

I'm beginning to think that she has some sort of childish crush on me, yet can't express it properly and does the equivalent of the boy dipping the girl's hair in the inkwell. Except that's elementary school antics, for chrissakes!

The original version of this post was highly innapropriate

edited 20th Aug '12 2:23:30 PM by SuperGex

I thought of this guy when we were theorizing about a Nightmare monster as a villian for season 3 (back when Ginger was still here ). This would be the pony who would help the mane 6 discover what was terrorizing the foals in town, and give them suggestions on how to combat it. I refer to them as a He for convenience sake but they could be a mare or a stallion if anyone wants to use them in a story.

Name- Shut Eye
Race- Unicorn
Coat - Smoky Gray
Mane - Ice blue (really light blue) with silver streaks
Cutie Mark - A wavy row of Z's (ZzZzZz) in white
Occupation - Psychologist specializing in dream interpretation

Shut eye specializes in magic that allows him to interpret dreams, especially nightmares, and help ponies understand why they are having them. Insomniac ponies who cant sleep due to bad dreams come to him seeking answers, and through therapy and the occasional magic brew he helps them get a good night's rest.

edited 20th Aug '12 2:33:15 PM by Turtlebutter

Well, you guys may already have some familiarity with my crew from my ATG submissions, but here they are again.◊

• The University of Manehattan Department of Mythozoology
• Top left: Professor Stachensturtz has spent his entire life in academia. He's never even had a job that wasn't for the school, and when he was finally made head of the Mythozoology department after Professor Buckbeaker retired last year he went just a little mad with power. Most of the department left after that. His cutie mark is a graduation cap, signifying his dedication to academia and his focus on the end result. His coat is pale yellow and his mane is pale blue.
• Top right: Most ponies are shocked to learn that Wild Shot's first job was as a foal fashion model. Wild comes from a well-to-do family of Canterlot unicorns with connections to the fashion industry who expected him to grow up into the business. Instead, Wild became fascinated with the cameras and grew up to be a professional wildlife photographer with an adrenaline-seeking streak. He met his Heterosexual Life Partner, Brownstone, in a class on animal behavioral studies at UM while working on his photography degree and the two clicked instantly. His cutie mark is a rocket-propelled camera. His coat is brown, his mane is orange, and he often wears a red vest with lots of pockets for spare camera equipment.
• Bottom left: Songbreeze is a chemical biologist with a tendency to skip straight from first thought to experimentation without waiting for her brain to analyze, let alone get her colleagues' opinions (not that it would matter in most cases; Wild thinks she's a genius and the Professor just says she's got moxie). Songbreeze got into chemical biology thanks to a childhood belief that butterflies were made from rainbows. Her cutie mark is a microscope. Her coat is sky blue with dappled black on her rump, and her mane is two-toned beige and pink.
• Bottom right: Brownstone is a grad student, Professor Stachensturtz's chief research assistant, and commonly regarded by the other departments as the Only Sane Pony in Mythozoology. He is also commonly the bait when the team needs to study predator behavior, thanks a childhood spent in the foal scouts and having gone through his first few years of school on a track scholarship. Though prone to anxiety, Brownstone is more-or-less the reason the team actually gets anything done on a daily basis. His cutie mark is a magnifying glass with crosshairs, signifying his hunt for knowledge. His coat is two-toned light and dark grey, his mane is dark brown, and he almost always wears a pair of orange sunglasses.

... It sounded like bragging, didn't it?

Look, I'm 23. I'm not interested in barely legal girls. No matter how magnificent a body they may or may not have. I mean, she's studying Political Sciences and she doesn't even know who Machiavelli is? In fact, she explicitly expressed disdain for any topics philosophical, scientific or historic. What are we even supposed to talk about?

And then she keeps bugging me to show her drawfriend stuff on Equestria Daily, then points it out loudly to everyone in the room "THIS GUY WATCHES PONIES, BWAHAHA". And then she insists, at my ಠ_ಠ stare "Not that I have anything against you, or ponies".

She keeps paying attention to my every move. Like, there isn't a moment where she doesn't ask me where I've been or what I've done. And then loudly ask something about ponies or about my fic. "How is it going? Can you read me some bit?" Then when I actually do it can't be done because she loses patience, or bursts out laughing. It's like talking with someone with the worst traits of Rainbow Dash and Rarity, combined.

She brings the damn fic out in public with people who don't know about it. I take the Terry Goodkind approach and say "It's a psychological coming of age story about a kid who is self-repressed to the point of unhealthiness, but keeps it up because everyone else thinks it's cool. Then a funny foreign girl comes in and turns his life upside down. But actually she's just a selfish monster who wants to use him for her own purposes. His friends are understandably concerned, especially the smartest girl in class, who is his best friend and has kind of a crush on him".

She jumps in and says, with an eager face and an eager voice "But you forgot to say that the kid is a flying horse and the girl is a pink panther in an Iron Man suit!". I reply, completely unfazed "That's cosmetic".

Do you understand now why I'm merely exasperated, rather than angry, or worried?

I'm just pretty sure now that I shouldn't ever talk about being a brony in public.

That's all I really wanted to talk about.*

And, well, also vent my frustration at a sympathetic audience. Really, that the girl is so cute she can make money of it is kind of utterly irrelevant in the face of everything else. I'd have left it out: I only thought it worth mentioning because it makes everything look slightly more absurd. I have this weird expectation that beautiful girls should be smart and well-bred, and there's a strange dissonance whenever this doesn't happen...

Anyone else had bad experiences related to coming out as a brony? Such as, specifically, some people feeling a strange impulse towards sharing it with everyone in the world? And not giving up when noticing that nobody cares? What does it take to make these people move on?

edited 20th Aug '12 2:51:26 PM by TheHandle

http://doggie999.deviantart.com/art/RainbowDashxFluttershy-261117264

@Handle: My only experience with public bronyhood was at a writers' peer review group some time last year when a guy from the local college came in and read the beginning of his fanfic. The rest of the group seemed a little uncertain how to respond, but I gave him a brohoof after he finished. I could totally see the relief on his face.

@Handle Here's how I think that you should handle the issue with the girl. Just insult her out loud whenever she says something that pisses you off. Call her a stupid bitch to her face. I do that to girls who mess with me, and they leave me alone.

As a reward for the instant fuzzies you gave me, here.

It must have been years since I've personally insulted someone to their face... Cold and quiet with idiots, cold and logical with clever idiots, but I haven't needed to call someone an IDIOT since I've left High School, and browsing this site (and Giant In The Playground before it) has completely beaten the habit of personal attacks out of me.

If I got all emotional in public, it might be a show of weakness...

edited 20th Aug '12 3:05:00 PM by TheHandle

Sorry, I thought that I was on the receiving end of a compliment.

edited 20th Aug '12 3:09:31 PM by SuperGex

*coughleaveoutsideissuesatthedoorcough*

But seriously, this is probably material for the Yack Fest pony thread; bring RL complaining in here hasn't exactly ended well on previous occasions, and a lot of people in this thread tend to not care for it much.

Nobody who knows I'm a brony really cares; my parents poke fun at me for it sometimes, but they don't really mean anything by it. Besides I poke fun at their interests all the time.

edited 20th Aug '12 3:15:27 PM by JapaneseTeeth

That's okay, I'm done complaining. I just needed one person to wade through it, and it's done, and so so am I.

...

I do not know if I should punctuate that sentence differently.

Anway. EVERYONE SHOULD BE A BRONY. It brings out the good in people. Also, Spike-Stache is best stache.

Spike does indeed have a great mustache.

http://derpiboo.ru/78692

Both covers put together.

I didnt noticed Celestia there. She look kinda NMM like.

63'd Fancy Pants... I think.

Drunk cosplayer?

I wouldn't say that being a fan of this show does anyone that much good. I see just as many spiteful and poorly thought out comments in the show's defense as I do against it. Not to mention how contested the word "brony" even is. I go to two other places where a few other fans of the show hang out, and they see use the term "brony" as a negative thing, i.e. "Those bronies are making us all look bad." I personally don't like having labels applied to me that I didn't choose, so I can definitely see where they're coming from. I'll gladly tell someone I'm a fan of this show, because I am, but I'd personally never call myself by any group-label.

I think being a part of the fandom can be a good thing for people, but being a part of it doesn't necessarily make someone a better person by default.

Also, that Fancypants cosplay is awesome.

This is on my current top show list, and I do love the show...but a community can really make you hate something...or someone. I have learned to, er, heavily dislike Rainbow Dash because of all the overblown hype around her. She's pretty overrated imo. Same with Trixie, but I really never liked her. She was always a jerk and how overblown she is in the fandom really ticks me off.

I hear people using the fandom to justify disliking the show pretty often, and it just bugs the hell out of me. Every fandom has its obnoxious fringe that isn't representative of the rest, and has no bearing on the quality of the show anyway. That's no excuse to bash on something.

@25 There are a lot of anti-RD groups in the fandom, but I sympathize with your dislike of Trixie. On the topic of ponies we dislike, I don't get how Chrysalis can look like a corpse, act like a rejected Disney villain, and have so much R34.

edited 20th Aug '12 3:43:23 PM by SuperGex

Hype Backlash is one of those things that I really try not to let spoil my own opinions. If my opinions can be independent enough to not be forced to be positive toward something popular, then they're independent enough to not be negatively influenced by something being popular either. For example, I don't think that Vinyl Scratch or Octavia are that big a deal, but I don't dislike them just because they're everywhere and I can still enjoy art and videos and stuff with them in it.

Why would you even bring that up?

edited 20th Aug '12 3:44:39 PM by PerpetualLurker

Creepy Sexy, I guess. That and r34.

And yeah, I never really got the idea of holding the fans against the show. I mean, at worst I could say "okay the fanbase sucks" but still enjoy the show itself. I fully agree there are aggravating idiots out there who push things too hard, but that's true of most fandoms, and I personally haven't run into to many of them.

I can kinda understand Hype Backlash; if somebody builds something up to be the best thing ever and it doesn't deliver, you'll probably think of the work differently than if you just watched it on your own. But yeah, just because a certain character is popular is no reason to dislike them. Although I can see how if you disliked the character to begin with it would be intensely annoying to have them shoved in your face all the time.

edited 20th Aug '12 3:46:15 PM by JapaneseTeeth

So...

I messaged the owner of the local comic shop about ordering and holding one of the Box sets of the new comic that has all 6 covers.

And... he told me that he is getting a custom cover done for the first comic with the Shop's logo on it.

Im getting one of those too!