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I LIIIIIIVE?!

I return from the shadows because today is a pretty special day.
Today (10/12/19) wraps up a long 9 year series that changed a lot of people.

Yeah MLP finally airs it's finale. (Officially today. Leaks don't count. Boo if you've seen it already)
And even though I haven't done any MLP stuff for a long while, hearing about the show finally ending still resonated with me and pushed me to make something celebratory.
I felt like I really haven't made an "official" MLP piece after announcing me moving onto my own personal projects and so I remedied that with this.

Like most other people in this fandom, this show also changed me as a person. Aside from the obvious things, heh, the Lauren Faust My Little Pony was something special.
Back in 2011, I never expected a show to just surprise me out of nowhere and make me binge watch it straight through. When I first heard about the show, I was a regular user on forums with my friends and they would have signature images of MLP characters and I saw it as humorous and a joke. I played along for the luls and started hearing my other friends take a chance with this show and it lowered my "macho, hah this BS is for little girls" shield down a bit until they started telling me, "No i recommend it, it's different".


I took a chance, swallowed my "manly" pride and started watching the first 4 episodes back in June 2011.

Holy shit, like a snowball going down a hill and picking up momentum, I found myself down the rabbit hole into pony purgatory. I binge watched that whole fucking season cause it was new, it was different, the show had relatable characters, very good life lessons that applied to even adults. It had references to other films, movies, TV shows and jokes that made me laugh. It was enjoyable and something in me changed.

I wanted MORE of this. This was after the first season ended, but to give you some perspective of where I was back in late 2011, I was lonely, coming off losing a ton of weight and trying to be healthy, out of college feeling lost and having no direction and regrets about not networking and making friends and just sad and struggling with my personal issues with gender.

Around that time, I was trying to get more active in local conventions as a photographer and get myself out there. And failing all the same being anti-social and feeling ugly at the same time.

All it took was one afternoon to completely change everything.

AND THEN THE ART CAME.




AND THEN MORE ART!

AND EVEN MORE ART

AND THEN THE COMICS CAME!



And for the next 6 years, my art life would be consumed by horses. XD

I don't regret it one bit though, because I was so consumed by this show, I wanted to contribute so badly to this ever growing community, I stopped what I was doing normally to pursue being an MLP comic artist. I put my projects on hold because all of this was still fresh and fun and because of it, so many people reached out to me, told me that my Waldo Vs Derpy comics made them smile, told me that my twisted sense of humor for slapstick and wackiness got them out of bad moments when I was just being myself.

THAT sticks with me and encouraged me to continue on for six more years. And I cannot thank ALL of you enough. For those who follow me, and for those who are still here even after I've moved on from it.
My creativity branched out towards my other hobbies, encouraged me to pursue cosplay more seriously, and with my sense of humor, I made sure to go absolutely nuts with my cosplays. My original Flash Sentry cosplay being the mane, heh, example:




And I think the one thing that affected me most from all of this was that it was the push for me, being anti-social and lonely was that after I binge watched season 1, I went out and pursued local meetups after finding out that was a thing. Sure enough I found "So Cal Bronies" and they just started up in my local area and I went to my first meetup and met people who loved this show.

And from then on, I would go to meetups and slowly build connections and friendships with people. I SLOWLY started to get out of my anti-social shell and it's been life changing. It seemed like there was a meetup every weekend and I would go to it.

And through the years I would build friendships, find my core group of friends, that would branch into other projects, podcasts, conventions, networking, etc.

Ultimately, with my new friendships, it would slowly open me up and allow me the comfort knowing I had a true support network around that I would feel open and safe enough to accept myself as transgender and publicly transition. Another important milestone in my life.

October 12th is also my hormone anniversary. As of this day and year, I'm now FIVE years on hormones and into my transition. And I could not be happier. I feel like I've reached my true potential and being someone who is finally comfortable in her own skin and it continues though my art and cosplays. I cosplayed more MLP characters, and dressed up overall and is one of my favorite hobbies now that I feel comfortable with myself.

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Posted previously at: 2019-10-12T21:13:27