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The end of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Posted 6 years agoI just finished watching the series finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
After the crummy episodes in Season 8, and how Game of Thrones completely botched the best-written fantasy show I've ever seen in its terrible final season, I was very wary about how My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic would end. I joked that so long as Twilight Sparkle didn't ride Spike and burn Canterlot to the ground and then get stabbed by Flash Sentry I would at least be less disappointed by the MLP season finale than the GOT one.
I needn't have worried.
The final three episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic were the most satisfying conclusion to a TV show I've ever watched in my entire life, even beating out my perennial favorite finale, Countdown to Destruction, the surprisingly solid and satisfying finale of Power Rangers in Space. For this finale, I had to keep a box of tissues on hand to dab at my eyes. This TV show has meant so much to me over the years, and affected my life more than any other TV show. The history of my life, especially 2014 and 2015, would have turned out much differently if the show didn't exist. But what really sets this one show apart more than every other show I've watched is the fandom and the community. With nearly every other show, once an episode is over, everyone just goes their separate ways and does something else. You're lucky if you maybe get a little fan art every now and then. But for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a community of dedicated fans created art and stories that sometime succeeded the show in quality. Anthropology, Dangerous Business, Besides the Will of Evil, Eternal, Contraptionology and other stories have joined the lists of my favorite stories of all time, and it gives me heartache when I think how so few people in the world will experience the joys that I experienced when I listened to or read those stores.
And then there's the music, which is in a class all of its own. What started as a few fan covers and original songs has ballooned into thousands of songs of all sorts of genres. I think I have more Brony songs than non-Brony songs on my hard drive. It has been an extreme joy over the years to find and discover new, great Brony songs, and I think that a decade or more from now, I'll still be able to sing along to songs like Dragonheart by Aviators, and feel the raw emotion that went into its creation.
A final thought for now: When I was watching the finale, I had the thought of "This is how Andromeda should have ended." Andromeda was also a TV show that, after a fashion, was about one lonely individual learning about the magic of friendship. However, poor writing squandered its potential in season 4, culminating to a season finale that squandered everything the previous seasons were working towards, where that individual takes on his enemy alone, and in the process sees everything he was working towards destroyed, and all his friends die. It was then followed by a completely superfluous 5th season with even worse writing, that culminated in an anti-climactic series finale. I guess my only point is that a lot of TV shows seem to have real difficulty bringing things to a close, making a satisfying conclusion all the more important in its rarity.
And with that, it's over. It feels like I'm living after the ending credits of my life. There's a hole in my life much larger than the previous holes made when previous franchises have ended. Fan creation of content will continue for a time, to be sure, but I'm sure it will slow to a crawl now, and finding good content will be more like raiding a tomb looking for riches than being excited to see fresh, new content come out. Now I'm left with the task of how to divvy up my time, and what sorts of things I should focus on in the next stage of my life.
After the crummy episodes in Season 8, and how Game of Thrones completely botched the best-written fantasy show I've ever seen in its terrible final season, I was very wary about how My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic would end. I joked that so long as Twilight Sparkle didn't ride Spike and burn Canterlot to the ground and then get stabbed by Flash Sentry I would at least be less disappointed by the MLP season finale than the GOT one.
I needn't have worried.
The final three episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic were the most satisfying conclusion to a TV show I've ever watched in my entire life, even beating out my perennial favorite finale, Countdown to Destruction, the surprisingly solid and satisfying finale of Power Rangers in Space. For this finale, I had to keep a box of tissues on hand to dab at my eyes. This TV show has meant so much to me over the years, and affected my life more than any other TV show. The history of my life, especially 2014 and 2015, would have turned out much differently if the show didn't exist. But what really sets this one show apart more than every other show I've watched is the fandom and the community. With nearly every other show, once an episode is over, everyone just goes their separate ways and does something else. You're lucky if you maybe get a little fan art every now and then. But for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a community of dedicated fans created art and stories that sometime succeeded the show in quality. Anthropology, Dangerous Business, Besides the Will of Evil, Eternal, Contraptionology and other stories have joined the lists of my favorite stories of all time, and it gives me heartache when I think how so few people in the world will experience the joys that I experienced when I listened to or read those stores.
And then there's the music, which is in a class all of its own. What started as a few fan covers and original songs has ballooned into thousands of songs of all sorts of genres. I think I have more Brony songs than non-Brony songs on my hard drive. It has been an extreme joy over the years to find and discover new, great Brony songs, and I think that a decade or more from now, I'll still be able to sing along to songs like Dragonheart by Aviators, and feel the raw emotion that went into its creation.
A final thought for now: When I was watching the finale, I had the thought of "This is how Andromeda should have ended." Andromeda was also a TV show that, after a fashion, was about one lonely individual learning about the magic of friendship. However, poor writing squandered its potential in season 4, culminating to a season finale that squandered everything the previous seasons were working towards, where that individual takes on his enemy alone, and in the process sees everything he was working towards destroyed, and all his friends die. It was then followed by a completely superfluous 5th season with even worse writing, that culminated in an anti-climactic series finale. I guess my only point is that a lot of TV shows seem to have real difficulty bringing things to a close, making a satisfying conclusion all the more important in its rarity.
And with that, it's over. It feels like I'm living after the ending credits of my life. There's a hole in my life much larger than the previous holes made when previous franchises have ended. Fan creation of content will continue for a time, to be sure, but I'm sure it will slow to a crawl now, and finding good content will be more like raiding a tomb looking for riches than being excited to see fresh, new content come out. Now I'm left with the task of how to divvy up my time, and what sorts of things I should focus on in the next stage of my life.
The My Little Pony train is leaving without me
Posted 7 years agoWhile trying to get to sleep with too much chocolate in my stomach on the morning of February 2nd, my mind turned towards a question that is perhaps far too weighty for such early morning thoughts, but I wasn't getting to sleep anyway, so I decided to pursue it:
Will My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ever be good again?
To ask that is to assume it's now bad, and then to wonder if so, when it started getting bad. After all, I read a post where someone complained that the show hasn't been good since Season 2, a comment that galled me as my favorite episodes come well after Season 2, and reminded me very much of my first visit to Anthrocon, where it seemed every furry I asked had seen a few episodes of the show, but stopped right before it started getting really good.
For me, the obvious answer was the introduction of Starlight Glimmer. But no, not the introduction. That's not fair. Most episodes introduce some new character, and most of the time they're forgotten right after the episode, or might show up a small handful of times as the seasons go on. Realistically, I started losing interest when the show started becoming My Little Starlight Glimmer. There's a tongue in cheek graph I can't seem to find again that shows how many Starlight Glimmer appearances there have been per season, and jokes that at this rate, by season 8 every single episode will be about her and only her.
There have been many posts written about the problems with Starlight Glimmer, but as it relates to my own personal, subjective problem with the direction of the series, it boils down to one concept: relatable characters.
The transgressiveness of the fandom gave it a little bit of allure when I was first getting into it, but one of the reasons I stayed and got into the community in a big way is that I really felt something when watching the episodes. The personalities of the characters and the questions raised by each episode were things I could relate to on a personal level, which fed into my enjoyment with watching each episode.
As for the mane six, Twilight Sparkle was most relatable, though not necessarily in a good way. A bookish pony with a long attention span who spent most of her time and effort learning about the world, who didn't start focusing on people and friendships until she was a young adult was a little too on-the-nose for me, and I sort of winced every time she completely ignored the obvious feelings and concerns of those around her. Instead, I focused more on Fluttershy, partially as somepony I could relate to (though I've pretty much always found myself more introverted than shy, and there is a difference) but also as somepony to strive towards. Some of my most shameful memories are times when I was actually mean to people or lost control. Fluttershy is the paragon of kindness, I think I've become a kinder person in the last few years in part by following her example. In a similar vein, I've recently found Princess Celestia easier to relate with in recent years. Growing up more, and taking on adult responsibilities, I have found I admire how she stays constantly cool and levelheaded, never becoming angry or hysterical when things don't go her way, and I've found myself many times asking myself "What would Princess Celestia do?" And the funny thing is, when I answer that question truthfully, and actually do it, good and responsible actions invariably follow.
The other four are interesting characters and there are none that I really dislike, though Pinkie Pie was a bit annoying in early seasons, only to mellow out a bit in later ones. I like Applejack's honesty, and can respect that as an honest person, but otherwise I don't relate to her. I'm not sporty in the least and don't particularly want to be, so while I like Rainbow Dash I can't relate to her. And Rarity is the paragon of femininity, and as a male who enjoys being male, my feelings toward her have always been hot and cold.
Before I move on to Starlight, two side characters to mention. First, Lyra Heartstrings has always had a very special place in my heart because Anthropology introduced me to a world of fan content that I've never seen in any other fandom in my life. To actually have a sizable number of people not just writing stories but reading them out loud, to be conveniently heard during long car trips, is something that sets the fandom apart from every other fandom I'm familiar with. And it's what audiobooks like Anthropology, Eternal, March to the Scaffold, Past Sins, and Dangerous Business have to say about philosophy, life, and humanity in general that elevates the fan fiction from something merely entertaining into something...I can't even find the right word, though the words uplifting, didactic, and even divine come close. Second, Discord as a reoccurring character seems to really pluck at my soul each time he arrives for an episode. It's an odd idiosyncrasy of Discord's character that when he's written into episodes, those episodes become ones I don't merely relate to on a general sense, but in a very specific, heartfelt way, and in particular the episodes What About Discord?, Make New Friends but Keep Discord, and Discordant Harmony touch me in a very personal, visceral way like few other episodes do.
And then we have Starlight Glimmer.
I just re-watched The Cutie Map last week, and that episode bugs me on so many levels, and The Cutie Re-Mark annoys and angers me in many of the very same ways. Even for a kid's show, they're nonsense episodes, with basic logical problems far in excess of most other episodes. But this isn't the time for that. Spike at Your Service was a nonsense episode, but the next episode is Keep Calm and Flutter On and Spike has had several good episodes since then, and every season has a few duds. Spike at Your Service wasn't a harbinger of doom.
Instead, The Cutie Re-Mark touched off having Starlight Glimmer as a main character, and looking at the episodes she's in, in Season 6 they ended up being some of my least favorite. A Hearth's Warming Tail was a low point of the season for me, and No Second Prances a crummy episode too. Every Little Thing She Does showed off exactly why the previous episodes with her grated on me. She's not a character I can relate with. I didn't lose one friend, and then turn my hand towards underhanded manipulation and control. I didn't do something domineering, criminal, and downright evil in my past that I have to try to live down. And while Twilight Sparkle was ignorant of friends' issues in early seasons, Every Little Thing She Does shows that Starlight Glimmer isn't merely unskilled in social graces or ignorant of nonverbal cues, but has a black heart that never changed, and seriously thinks that forcing people to do what she wants is acceptable behavior. So, I can't even see her as something to look up to, and see her with nothing but derision.
The graph of Starlight Glimmer's appearances would have been a funny joke had it not started seriously coming true. Her page on http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Starlight.....er#Appearances shows that in numbers of episodes with her in it, she had four in Season 5, eight in season six, and eleven in season 7. Thankfully, she didn't end up ruining every episode she appeared in, and Triple Threat certainly wasn't the worst episode ever, but in my opinion, Rock Solid Friendship was. If there are two characters I dislike besides Starlight Glimmer, they're Maud Pie and Trixie. I'm a person who is introverted and honest, so what do I have in common with a loud, lying, boastful pony? I'm a person with varied interests who historically has had difficulty keeping calm and keeping my emotions under control, so what do I have in common with a dull, emotionless pony who could be mistaken for being autistic or an automaton? So, get an episode with multiples of my least favorite ponies together, and you've got a script headed for disaster. Rock Solid Friendship was painful to watch, and at no time in the entire episode did I smile, laugh, or even relate to the conflict in the episode, and as a worst episode, it blew Spike at Your Service far out of the water. I could at least have a few good things to say about The Cart Before the Ponies and No Second Prances, but if Rock Solid Friendship is the kind of episode I can expect from the series, you can stop the train, because I'm getting off.
With it coming up on 5:00 AM and the chocolate finally digesting, it's time to wrap this up, and bring this around to my biggest fear for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: That it will go the way of The Simpsons. I stopped watching The Simpsons at Season 13, and any time I try to watch a newer episode, I'm reminded why I stopped. The video The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened by Super Eyepatch Wolf explains it far more completely and eloquently than I ever could, but suffice to say that new seasons of The Simpsons are written with a laziness and lack of subtly, heart, and counterculture that would make the writers of Season 4 blush to know that the series they helped establish fell so far.
And yet, The Simpsons still chugs on, episode after episode, year after year, raking in profits from masses of people who still, apparently, enjoy the new swill and have no better way to spend their time than watching it.
So this is what it feels to be left behind at a way station and watching the train chug off in the distance without you. And for those Bronies and furries that got off, in my opinion, way too soon, perhaps after the Canterlot Wedding, or when Twilight got her wings, or after her treehouse blew up, to quote Dr. Manhattan, “Without condoning... or condemning. I understand.” And to paraphrase another Dr. Manhattan quote, “Why would I watch a television show I no longer have any stake in?”
Maybe I'm as wrong as those that said Twilight Sparkle becoming a princess was the beginning of the end. Maybe things will turn around, and the next few seasons will end up being full of some of the most enjoyable and relatable episodes I've ever seen. But now that I've taken over an hour to write about it, I'm less inclined to be hopeful. This isn't just a spate of a few bad episodes, or even a worry that the ratio of good to bad episodes is sliding precariously towards the side of bad episodes. This is a trend toward personal disassociation, one which no doubt a subset of the fandom will enjoy if they find themselves personally associating with the very personality traits in the new characters that I find alienating. At this point, it would take a hard shift in the direction the series is going in to re-engage me on a personal level, and ensure that episodes like Rock Solid Friendship don't happen in seasons 8 and 9.
It's 5:00 AM. The chocolate has digested, but I fear I have swallowed something else far more difficult to digest.
Will My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ever be good again?
To ask that is to assume it's now bad, and then to wonder if so, when it started getting bad. After all, I read a post where someone complained that the show hasn't been good since Season 2, a comment that galled me as my favorite episodes come well after Season 2, and reminded me very much of my first visit to Anthrocon, where it seemed every furry I asked had seen a few episodes of the show, but stopped right before it started getting really good.
For me, the obvious answer was the introduction of Starlight Glimmer. But no, not the introduction. That's not fair. Most episodes introduce some new character, and most of the time they're forgotten right after the episode, or might show up a small handful of times as the seasons go on. Realistically, I started losing interest when the show started becoming My Little Starlight Glimmer. There's a tongue in cheek graph I can't seem to find again that shows how many Starlight Glimmer appearances there have been per season, and jokes that at this rate, by season 8 every single episode will be about her and only her.
There have been many posts written about the problems with Starlight Glimmer, but as it relates to my own personal, subjective problem with the direction of the series, it boils down to one concept: relatable characters.
The transgressiveness of the fandom gave it a little bit of allure when I was first getting into it, but one of the reasons I stayed and got into the community in a big way is that I really felt something when watching the episodes. The personalities of the characters and the questions raised by each episode were things I could relate to on a personal level, which fed into my enjoyment with watching each episode.
As for the mane six, Twilight Sparkle was most relatable, though not necessarily in a good way. A bookish pony with a long attention span who spent most of her time and effort learning about the world, who didn't start focusing on people and friendships until she was a young adult was a little too on-the-nose for me, and I sort of winced every time she completely ignored the obvious feelings and concerns of those around her. Instead, I focused more on Fluttershy, partially as somepony I could relate to (though I've pretty much always found myself more introverted than shy, and there is a difference) but also as somepony to strive towards. Some of my most shameful memories are times when I was actually mean to people or lost control. Fluttershy is the paragon of kindness, I think I've become a kinder person in the last few years in part by following her example. In a similar vein, I've recently found Princess Celestia easier to relate with in recent years. Growing up more, and taking on adult responsibilities, I have found I admire how she stays constantly cool and levelheaded, never becoming angry or hysterical when things don't go her way, and I've found myself many times asking myself "What would Princess Celestia do?" And the funny thing is, when I answer that question truthfully, and actually do it, good and responsible actions invariably follow.
The other four are interesting characters and there are none that I really dislike, though Pinkie Pie was a bit annoying in early seasons, only to mellow out a bit in later ones. I like Applejack's honesty, and can respect that as an honest person, but otherwise I don't relate to her. I'm not sporty in the least and don't particularly want to be, so while I like Rainbow Dash I can't relate to her. And Rarity is the paragon of femininity, and as a male who enjoys being male, my feelings toward her have always been hot and cold.
Before I move on to Starlight, two side characters to mention. First, Lyra Heartstrings has always had a very special place in my heart because Anthropology introduced me to a world of fan content that I've never seen in any other fandom in my life. To actually have a sizable number of people not just writing stories but reading them out loud, to be conveniently heard during long car trips, is something that sets the fandom apart from every other fandom I'm familiar with. And it's what audiobooks like Anthropology, Eternal, March to the Scaffold, Past Sins, and Dangerous Business have to say about philosophy, life, and humanity in general that elevates the fan fiction from something merely entertaining into something...I can't even find the right word, though the words uplifting, didactic, and even divine come close. Second, Discord as a reoccurring character seems to really pluck at my soul each time he arrives for an episode. It's an odd idiosyncrasy of Discord's character that when he's written into episodes, those episodes become ones I don't merely relate to on a general sense, but in a very specific, heartfelt way, and in particular the episodes What About Discord?, Make New Friends but Keep Discord, and Discordant Harmony touch me in a very personal, visceral way like few other episodes do.
And then we have Starlight Glimmer.
I just re-watched The Cutie Map last week, and that episode bugs me on so many levels, and The Cutie Re-Mark annoys and angers me in many of the very same ways. Even for a kid's show, they're nonsense episodes, with basic logical problems far in excess of most other episodes. But this isn't the time for that. Spike at Your Service was a nonsense episode, but the next episode is Keep Calm and Flutter On and Spike has had several good episodes since then, and every season has a few duds. Spike at Your Service wasn't a harbinger of doom.
Instead, The Cutie Re-Mark touched off having Starlight Glimmer as a main character, and looking at the episodes she's in, in Season 6 they ended up being some of my least favorite. A Hearth's Warming Tail was a low point of the season for me, and No Second Prances a crummy episode too. Every Little Thing She Does showed off exactly why the previous episodes with her grated on me. She's not a character I can relate with. I didn't lose one friend, and then turn my hand towards underhanded manipulation and control. I didn't do something domineering, criminal, and downright evil in my past that I have to try to live down. And while Twilight Sparkle was ignorant of friends' issues in early seasons, Every Little Thing She Does shows that Starlight Glimmer isn't merely unskilled in social graces or ignorant of nonverbal cues, but has a black heart that never changed, and seriously thinks that forcing people to do what she wants is acceptable behavior. So, I can't even see her as something to look up to, and see her with nothing but derision.
The graph of Starlight Glimmer's appearances would have been a funny joke had it not started seriously coming true. Her page on http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Starlight.....er#Appearances shows that in numbers of episodes with her in it, she had four in Season 5, eight in season six, and eleven in season 7. Thankfully, she didn't end up ruining every episode she appeared in, and Triple Threat certainly wasn't the worst episode ever, but in my opinion, Rock Solid Friendship was. If there are two characters I dislike besides Starlight Glimmer, they're Maud Pie and Trixie. I'm a person who is introverted and honest, so what do I have in common with a loud, lying, boastful pony? I'm a person with varied interests who historically has had difficulty keeping calm and keeping my emotions under control, so what do I have in common with a dull, emotionless pony who could be mistaken for being autistic or an automaton? So, get an episode with multiples of my least favorite ponies together, and you've got a script headed for disaster. Rock Solid Friendship was painful to watch, and at no time in the entire episode did I smile, laugh, or even relate to the conflict in the episode, and as a worst episode, it blew Spike at Your Service far out of the water. I could at least have a few good things to say about The Cart Before the Ponies and No Second Prances, but if Rock Solid Friendship is the kind of episode I can expect from the series, you can stop the train, because I'm getting off.
With it coming up on 5:00 AM and the chocolate finally digesting, it's time to wrap this up, and bring this around to my biggest fear for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: That it will go the way of The Simpsons. I stopped watching The Simpsons at Season 13, and any time I try to watch a newer episode, I'm reminded why I stopped. The video The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened by Super Eyepatch Wolf explains it far more completely and eloquently than I ever could, but suffice to say that new seasons of The Simpsons are written with a laziness and lack of subtly, heart, and counterculture that would make the writers of Season 4 blush to know that the series they helped establish fell so far.
And yet, The Simpsons still chugs on, episode after episode, year after year, raking in profits from masses of people who still, apparently, enjoy the new swill and have no better way to spend their time than watching it.
So this is what it feels to be left behind at a way station and watching the train chug off in the distance without you. And for those Bronies and furries that got off, in my opinion, way too soon, perhaps after the Canterlot Wedding, or when Twilight got her wings, or after her treehouse blew up, to quote Dr. Manhattan, “Without condoning... or condemning. I understand.” And to paraphrase another Dr. Manhattan quote, “Why would I watch a television show I no longer have any stake in?”
Maybe I'm as wrong as those that said Twilight Sparkle becoming a princess was the beginning of the end. Maybe things will turn around, and the next few seasons will end up being full of some of the most enjoyable and relatable episodes I've ever seen. But now that I've taken over an hour to write about it, I'm less inclined to be hopeful. This isn't just a spate of a few bad episodes, or even a worry that the ratio of good to bad episodes is sliding precariously towards the side of bad episodes. This is a trend toward personal disassociation, one which no doubt a subset of the fandom will enjoy if they find themselves personally associating with the very personality traits in the new characters that I find alienating. At this point, it would take a hard shift in the direction the series is going in to re-engage me on a personal level, and ensure that episodes like Rock Solid Friendship don't happen in seasons 8 and 9.
It's 5:00 AM. The chocolate has digested, but I fear I have swallowed something else far more difficult to digest.
Current conception of Brony and furry
Posted 8 years agoHow The Furry Fandom Saved My Life. - https://youtu.be/8jvxO_mwGK8
Odin Wolf recently posted a video about what the Furry Fandom meant to him. These days, YouTube doesn't have a character limit that I know of, so my response to it turned into something of an essay.
Then I figured "well, I've sort of meant to do a little follow up to my 'Going through a pony phase' journal for a long time now. As it is now, this comment sort of fits the bill."
So, reposted here, is a rather brief summary of my history with the Brony and furry fandoms, and how I currently conceive my relationship with them.
---
The furry fandom isn't as big a deal to me as you, but I can relate at least insofar as the Brony fandom has been extremely important to me.
To elaborate, the my interactions and relationships with the furry fandom are important for my formative high school years. I got my first real serious cyberbullying from furries, and then years later finally started getting a few online friends in furries. The fandom is also tied inextricably from my sexual awakening.
However, these days the furry fandom is largely just a fun little interest to me. It's the Brony fandom that's important to me on a personal, interpersonal, and self-conception level. Right around when the Brony fandom started taking off, around 2014 or so, I was just coming to a part of my life where I started to really experience longing. I've always been introverted, and largely happily so. And yet, realizing how few people I had that would actually share the interests I had, and seeing others with friendships while I was headed to blissful solitude, I began to see something missing from my life. It really came to a head with the audio drama Anthropology. Listening to it in my car to and from work, I found it surprisingly good, and enjoyed every minute of it.
And then I came to realize that there wasn't one person I could think of in the entire world I knew that could understand and appreciate Anthropology. None of my relatives would have any chance of sharing the interest, and I didn't have a best friend to speak of. So, I made an effort to not just watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but to truly take it to heart, and think long and hard on the lessons and parables of each episode. I also started seeking out fellow Bronies on Second Life, found love for the first time in my life, took my first solo vacation to meet him, and then soon afterward experienced my first heartbreak.
BronyCon 2015 was the first major, large convention I attended that I actually wanted to go to. There, I met my second boyfriend, also a Brony, and had a pretty good year with him, though things started really cooling down, and after BronyCon 2016 I broke up with him. We remained good friends for about a year.
Long story short, the Brony fandom is where I learned how to treat other people, how to be a friend, and internalized the values of the TV show. It's where I found my first best friends in an age, where I found my first love and first heartbreak, where I've found local friends for the first time in close to 20 years who I can do things with that I never did when I was young. All of my friends since 2014 have been Bronies in one way or another (most recent one was converted to one after I met him), and I often ask myself in situations what Princess Celestia would do.
Minor disadvantage of that, however, is that for me, furry conventions are these lighthearted, fun events full of happiness, hugs, pictures, friendship, and wonder, while Brony conventions are that, but added with extra baggage of history. Brony conventions are where huge matters of love and relationships go down for me, while furry ones are just entertaining, which is why Anthrocon consistently rates higher than BronyCon for me when it comes to favored conventions.
Odin Wolf recently posted a video about what the Furry Fandom meant to him. These days, YouTube doesn't have a character limit that I know of, so my response to it turned into something of an essay.
Then I figured "well, I've sort of meant to do a little follow up to my 'Going through a pony phase' journal for a long time now. As it is now, this comment sort of fits the bill."
So, reposted here, is a rather brief summary of my history with the Brony and furry fandoms, and how I currently conceive my relationship with them.
---
The furry fandom isn't as big a deal to me as you, but I can relate at least insofar as the Brony fandom has been extremely important to me.
To elaborate, the my interactions and relationships with the furry fandom are important for my formative high school years. I got my first real serious cyberbullying from furries, and then years later finally started getting a few online friends in furries. The fandom is also tied inextricably from my sexual awakening.
However, these days the furry fandom is largely just a fun little interest to me. It's the Brony fandom that's important to me on a personal, interpersonal, and self-conception level. Right around when the Brony fandom started taking off, around 2014 or so, I was just coming to a part of my life where I started to really experience longing. I've always been introverted, and largely happily so. And yet, realizing how few people I had that would actually share the interests I had, and seeing others with friendships while I was headed to blissful solitude, I began to see something missing from my life. It really came to a head with the audio drama Anthropology. Listening to it in my car to and from work, I found it surprisingly good, and enjoyed every minute of it.
And then I came to realize that there wasn't one person I could think of in the entire world I knew that could understand and appreciate Anthropology. None of my relatives would have any chance of sharing the interest, and I didn't have a best friend to speak of. So, I made an effort to not just watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but to truly take it to heart, and think long and hard on the lessons and parables of each episode. I also started seeking out fellow Bronies on Second Life, found love for the first time in my life, took my first solo vacation to meet him, and then soon afterward experienced my first heartbreak.
BronyCon 2015 was the first major, large convention I attended that I actually wanted to go to. There, I met my second boyfriend, also a Brony, and had a pretty good year with him, though things started really cooling down, and after BronyCon 2016 I broke up with him. We remained good friends for about a year.
Long story short, the Brony fandom is where I learned how to treat other people, how to be a friend, and internalized the values of the TV show. It's where I found my first best friends in an age, where I found my first love and first heartbreak, where I've found local friends for the first time in close to 20 years who I can do things with that I never did when I was young. All of my friends since 2014 have been Bronies in one way or another (most recent one was converted to one after I met him), and I often ask myself in situations what Princess Celestia would do.
Minor disadvantage of that, however, is that for me, furry conventions are these lighthearted, fun events full of happiness, hugs, pictures, friendship, and wonder, while Brony conventions are that, but added with extra baggage of history. Brony conventions are where huge matters of love and relationships go down for me, while furry ones are just entertaining, which is why Anthrocon consistently rates higher than BronyCon for me when it comes to favored conventions.
Waterways vs Anthropology and the Selfish Protagonist
Posted 8 years agoCross-posted from Facebook. When I was done with the entry, I figured it would be more appropriate for Fur Affinity anyway, and was considering just posting it here, but I was reminded that I update so rarely that few people watch my Fur Affinity page, and that anyone I would consider a friend on Facebook would either be fine with my entry or ignore it, so I could just do a friends-only post on Facebook.
--
I just finished listening to Waterways by Kyell Gold, narrated by Robert M. Clark and felt like writing about it for a bit. This will be a long entry, so if you have something better to do, I'd recommend reading later.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Wa.....ook/B00UIBVYPG
First, a little background. Ever Dad got me a SanDisk MP3 player for Christmas a few years ago (still one of my favorite gifts) I've gotten into listening to audiobooks on my commute and on long journeys. I mostly listened to LibriVox stories at first, before switching to Brony stories after listening to Anthropology by JasonTheHuman and discovering that it wasn't just one isolated story, and the Brony fandom is particularly good at putting out high quality fan fiction and audiobooks.
So, with AnthrOhio coming up, I dithered on what particularly to listen to. Another Brony story seemed appropriate, but I had nothing in particular in mind. Since I was going to a furry convention, and I found that the works of Kyell Gold, the most celebrated writer in the furry fandom (Waterways won the 2008 Ursa Major Award for Best Novel), are now available on Audible, and since I'd unsubscribed from Audible long enough that restarting my subscription entitled me to a free book, I decided to try the earliest book available, and added Waterways to Audible.
As ever, there were some minor technical trouble with listening to a story on my smartphone. First of all, the audio always crackled badly with smartphones while my SanDisk played clearly, and I thought that was just a product of my after-market CD player, which requires a CD to be going to take audio from the audio jack. So, previously I would sometimes sneak a listen on the smartphone with headphones, but there is a little-enforced law on the books in New York State that driving while having headphones on both ears is illegal, and while I knew the chances of that being enforced on its own were slim, I still felt "bad" to do it, particularly when I was driving somewhere with actual heavy traffic. So, I was surprised when my friend Andrew plugged his smartphone into my car and the audio came out clearly, and found that the feedback and crackling is only an issue when the smartphone is both plugged in to the audio jack and the charger at the same time. Things on the smartphone play fine so long as the smartphone isn't charging. Last, having something playing on the same device I was navigating with was problematic, but on the drive large stretches of it were just staying on the expressway, so that wasn't much of an issue except around Columbus. With the 10 hours and 52 minute length of Waterways, I got 80% of the book done on the trip, and finished the rest of on the way to and from work.
As for the book itself, in one word it could be described as "great." It has a well-deserved 4.80 rating on Audible, and is a top-quality work of literature, and has a gentle, easy-listening style of narration by Robert M. Clark, who made sure to change tone and inflection between characters. It was also the very first furry audiobook I've ever listened to, and the first piece of furry literature of any significant length I've read in close to 15 years. The settings was particularly noteworthy. Kyell Gold set it in a parallel universe extremely similar to Earth, where even many of the names are the same. They live in the United States of America, drink Starbucks coffee, and even have some of the same celebrities, as I believe Michael Bay is mentioned by name. There are just little touches that set it a bit off from reality and give it just a sprinkle of the strangeness of Zootopia and My Little Pony. Everyone is some variety of mammal of course, and the effect of this on their world is that their houses are somewhat more customized, with Kory's (otter) house having a central pool, and Samaki's (fox) apartment being quite cramped and compact by comparison, like the modern version of a fox den. Sizes are homogenized though, and everyone is somewhere in the range of human sizes. Abilities are largely homogenized too, with everyone having about the same intelligence and senses, but with foxes having more sensitive noses than others, skunks smelling a little worse, and otters swimming a little better. The overall effect was a somewhat jarring (for me, at least) mix up between the purely constructed world of something like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the more grounded, realistic world of something like War in the Air by H. G. Wells, where everyone is human and it takes place on Earth, and only the technology is fantastic.
Waterways is a coming of age story. Listening to a coming of age story when I'm 27 gave me a lot to think about, but also made me feel mature and old to read it, and made my think of the quote from George Bernard Shaw that "Youth is wasted on the young". Which brings me to the main point I wanted to get to: Kory's mother.
*Major spoilers beyond this point*
In the story, Kory is the kind of teenager that habitually keeps things from his doting, worrying mother, which isn't the sort of thing that causes too much trouble up to the point of the start of the story. But as he begins to have something serious and important that he wants to keep from his Mom, in this case his budding sexual identity, he starts with a little lie, which his Mom nips in the bud, and then forms a house of cards of lies, with one central lie as the cornerstone of them all, that Samaki is just a friend. He confides in his younger brother immediately, but goes almost an entire year with more elaborate lies building up between him and his mother, while his mother, hopeful that Kory isn't keeping anything too important from him, continues oblivious but vaguely uneasy and worried.
The climax of the center of the story is Kory coming out to his Mom in the absolutely most explosive, violent, hurtful way imaginable, and while the story is from his point of view, it was hard for me to not see him as the villain of that part of the story.
What follows after that is a Brony's nightmare. After exploding at his Mom and calling her every hurtful thing in the dictionary, she tells him to leave, he does, and then rather than cooling off and talking to his Mom, he spends the night at his friend's house. But not just the night. He surreptitiously removes his important belongings from home, never having one kind thought or any desire to reconcile with his Mom, and moves in with his friend before he has even graduated high school. Then, in short order he gets into a fight with his friend Sal, another otter, and without having one single thought at reconciliation, leaves there too and spends some time in a homeless shelter. To top it all off, then he starts lashing out at his boyfriend too, and his relationship starts going on the rocks. He moves into his own apartment with someone else from the homeless shelter, using his Mother's money. Twice his Mom makes some kind of effort to reach out to him, and he spurns her attempts at reconciliation, once even calling on her cellphone just to yell at her, after which she hangs up on him. Since I already gave a spoiler warning, I might as well go all the way and mention that in the climax of the story itself, his Mom wants to go to his graduation and get her picture taken with him, both to reconcile and at least keep some shred of her dignity. He gets into a fight, makes a scene and drags his boyfriend on stage, and afterwards she leaves in disgrace and utter social humiliation, angrier at Kory than ever, and will likely never talk to him again.
Now, let me be absolutely clear, the problem with all of this isn't a matter of realism. I've seen enough People's Court to know that realistically, there are plenty of times that among friends and family, an argument comes up, and with both people unwilling to reconcile, it can lead to a permanent break. Instead, what’s at stake here is the tone of the story, and the villainous edge of the protagonist made it difficult for me to identify with him.
Compare his situation to that of Lyra in Anthropology. Lyra also had a secret she was trying desperately to keep from her parents for the bulk of her life. Just like Kory, Lyra found she had an interest that her parents and some of those closest to her didn't approve of, and had to face ostracism and keep that part of herself hidden to fit in. And both Kory and Lyra's parents just wanted their children to be safe and happy, and were trying their best to do what's right for the children they loved. The difference is what happened when their respective Big Secrets finally came out. When Kory's parents found out, it was this huge shouting match filled with cruelty almost entirely coming from Kory, while he meanwhile took offense to things his Mom said that he had no right to not expect his mother to say. When Lyra's parents found out, there was no shouting, just fear. Lyra's father Dewey Decimal remains my absolute favorite character of Anthropology after Lyra herself because he had a calm, easy demeanor and respected the rights and autonomy of the daughter he so obviously loved. When it came time for Lyra to make her decision for what she wanted to do with her life, he knew that one decision would be extremely dangerous and he might have to say goodbye to his daughter forever, and yet he respected her enough to just make his opinion known, let her think on it, and then make her own decision.
The Brony stories I enjoy all keep that spirit of idealism in them, and set their stories in a world where the fundamental rules are that friendship is important, that fights can be temporary, and that while some people lash out in anger, frustration, fear, or selfish desire, everyone has a kind heart underneath it all (or more accurately, in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a kind heart typically underlies every pony, while most Griffins are fundamentally jerks, Lord Tirek is pure evil, and Starlight Glimmer and Maud Pie actually don't seem to have that fundamental spark of friendship in them. Trixie might, but that's a conversation for another time). That's why the really dark, corruptive stories that Bronies write, the ones where, to quote Pepper Coyote, "somewhere there's a whisper of anger of cruelty plotting its cold victory" feels like a corruption of what I love about the Brony stories in general. And though Waterways is a good story, and in real life there certainly are some 17 year olds who never have a single thought of reconciling with their enemies, I personally find it far more enjoyable to read a story that does have the friendship ideal in it, and at least for me, the inclusion of the selfish, villainous actions by Kory makes me identify with him far less.
And as a final thought, reading about Kory's fight with his Mom makes me grateful how lucky I am to have my Mom. We've gotten into a lot of fights over the years, but through them all was an undercurrent of love on both sides that let us make up afterwards. And now that I’m getting older, the general tide of fights between us have died down as I’ve come to appreciate what such values as honesty, generosity, and kindness actually mean in practice. After listening to Waterways, all I really want to do is go to my Mom, give her a big hug, and just be grateful that never in our lives have we had an argument so violent and disruptive that we cut ties forever.
--
I just finished listening to Waterways by Kyell Gold, narrated by Robert M. Clark and felt like writing about it for a bit. This will be a long entry, so if you have something better to do, I'd recommend reading later.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Wa.....ook/B00UIBVYPG
First, a little background. Ever Dad got me a SanDisk MP3 player for Christmas a few years ago (still one of my favorite gifts) I've gotten into listening to audiobooks on my commute and on long journeys. I mostly listened to LibriVox stories at first, before switching to Brony stories after listening to Anthropology by JasonTheHuman and discovering that it wasn't just one isolated story, and the Brony fandom is particularly good at putting out high quality fan fiction and audiobooks.
So, with AnthrOhio coming up, I dithered on what particularly to listen to. Another Brony story seemed appropriate, but I had nothing in particular in mind. Since I was going to a furry convention, and I found that the works of Kyell Gold, the most celebrated writer in the furry fandom (Waterways won the 2008 Ursa Major Award for Best Novel), are now available on Audible, and since I'd unsubscribed from Audible long enough that restarting my subscription entitled me to a free book, I decided to try the earliest book available, and added Waterways to Audible.
As ever, there were some minor technical trouble with listening to a story on my smartphone. First of all, the audio always crackled badly with smartphones while my SanDisk played clearly, and I thought that was just a product of my after-market CD player, which requires a CD to be going to take audio from the audio jack. So, previously I would sometimes sneak a listen on the smartphone with headphones, but there is a little-enforced law on the books in New York State that driving while having headphones on both ears is illegal, and while I knew the chances of that being enforced on its own were slim, I still felt "bad" to do it, particularly when I was driving somewhere with actual heavy traffic. So, I was surprised when my friend Andrew plugged his smartphone into my car and the audio came out clearly, and found that the feedback and crackling is only an issue when the smartphone is both plugged in to the audio jack and the charger at the same time. Things on the smartphone play fine so long as the smartphone isn't charging. Last, having something playing on the same device I was navigating with was problematic, but on the drive large stretches of it were just staying on the expressway, so that wasn't much of an issue except around Columbus. With the 10 hours and 52 minute length of Waterways, I got 80% of the book done on the trip, and finished the rest of on the way to and from work.
As for the book itself, in one word it could be described as "great." It has a well-deserved 4.80 rating on Audible, and is a top-quality work of literature, and has a gentle, easy-listening style of narration by Robert M. Clark, who made sure to change tone and inflection between characters. It was also the very first furry audiobook I've ever listened to, and the first piece of furry literature of any significant length I've read in close to 15 years. The settings was particularly noteworthy. Kyell Gold set it in a parallel universe extremely similar to Earth, where even many of the names are the same. They live in the United States of America, drink Starbucks coffee, and even have some of the same celebrities, as I believe Michael Bay is mentioned by name. There are just little touches that set it a bit off from reality and give it just a sprinkle of the strangeness of Zootopia and My Little Pony. Everyone is some variety of mammal of course, and the effect of this on their world is that their houses are somewhat more customized, with Kory's (otter) house having a central pool, and Samaki's (fox) apartment being quite cramped and compact by comparison, like the modern version of a fox den. Sizes are homogenized though, and everyone is somewhere in the range of human sizes. Abilities are largely homogenized too, with everyone having about the same intelligence and senses, but with foxes having more sensitive noses than others, skunks smelling a little worse, and otters swimming a little better. The overall effect was a somewhat jarring (for me, at least) mix up between the purely constructed world of something like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the more grounded, realistic world of something like War in the Air by H. G. Wells, where everyone is human and it takes place on Earth, and only the technology is fantastic.
Waterways is a coming of age story. Listening to a coming of age story when I'm 27 gave me a lot to think about, but also made me feel mature and old to read it, and made my think of the quote from George Bernard Shaw that "Youth is wasted on the young". Which brings me to the main point I wanted to get to: Kory's mother.
*Major spoilers beyond this point*
In the story, Kory is the kind of teenager that habitually keeps things from his doting, worrying mother, which isn't the sort of thing that causes too much trouble up to the point of the start of the story. But as he begins to have something serious and important that he wants to keep from his Mom, in this case his budding sexual identity, he starts with a little lie, which his Mom nips in the bud, and then forms a house of cards of lies, with one central lie as the cornerstone of them all, that Samaki is just a friend. He confides in his younger brother immediately, but goes almost an entire year with more elaborate lies building up between him and his mother, while his mother, hopeful that Kory isn't keeping anything too important from him, continues oblivious but vaguely uneasy and worried.
The climax of the center of the story is Kory coming out to his Mom in the absolutely most explosive, violent, hurtful way imaginable, and while the story is from his point of view, it was hard for me to not see him as the villain of that part of the story.
What follows after that is a Brony's nightmare. After exploding at his Mom and calling her every hurtful thing in the dictionary, she tells him to leave, he does, and then rather than cooling off and talking to his Mom, he spends the night at his friend's house. But not just the night. He surreptitiously removes his important belongings from home, never having one kind thought or any desire to reconcile with his Mom, and moves in with his friend before he has even graduated high school. Then, in short order he gets into a fight with his friend Sal, another otter, and without having one single thought at reconciliation, leaves there too and spends some time in a homeless shelter. To top it all off, then he starts lashing out at his boyfriend too, and his relationship starts going on the rocks. He moves into his own apartment with someone else from the homeless shelter, using his Mother's money. Twice his Mom makes some kind of effort to reach out to him, and he spurns her attempts at reconciliation, once even calling on her cellphone just to yell at her, after which she hangs up on him. Since I already gave a spoiler warning, I might as well go all the way and mention that in the climax of the story itself, his Mom wants to go to his graduation and get her picture taken with him, both to reconcile and at least keep some shred of her dignity. He gets into a fight, makes a scene and drags his boyfriend on stage, and afterwards she leaves in disgrace and utter social humiliation, angrier at Kory than ever, and will likely never talk to him again.
Now, let me be absolutely clear, the problem with all of this isn't a matter of realism. I've seen enough People's Court to know that realistically, there are plenty of times that among friends and family, an argument comes up, and with both people unwilling to reconcile, it can lead to a permanent break. Instead, what’s at stake here is the tone of the story, and the villainous edge of the protagonist made it difficult for me to identify with him.
Compare his situation to that of Lyra in Anthropology. Lyra also had a secret she was trying desperately to keep from her parents for the bulk of her life. Just like Kory, Lyra found she had an interest that her parents and some of those closest to her didn't approve of, and had to face ostracism and keep that part of herself hidden to fit in. And both Kory and Lyra's parents just wanted their children to be safe and happy, and were trying their best to do what's right for the children they loved. The difference is what happened when their respective Big Secrets finally came out. When Kory's parents found out, it was this huge shouting match filled with cruelty almost entirely coming from Kory, while he meanwhile took offense to things his Mom said that he had no right to not expect his mother to say. When Lyra's parents found out, there was no shouting, just fear. Lyra's father Dewey Decimal remains my absolute favorite character of Anthropology after Lyra herself because he had a calm, easy demeanor and respected the rights and autonomy of the daughter he so obviously loved. When it came time for Lyra to make her decision for what she wanted to do with her life, he knew that one decision would be extremely dangerous and he might have to say goodbye to his daughter forever, and yet he respected her enough to just make his opinion known, let her think on it, and then make her own decision.
The Brony stories I enjoy all keep that spirit of idealism in them, and set their stories in a world where the fundamental rules are that friendship is important, that fights can be temporary, and that while some people lash out in anger, frustration, fear, or selfish desire, everyone has a kind heart underneath it all (or more accurately, in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a kind heart typically underlies every pony, while most Griffins are fundamentally jerks, Lord Tirek is pure evil, and Starlight Glimmer and Maud Pie actually don't seem to have that fundamental spark of friendship in them. Trixie might, but that's a conversation for another time). That's why the really dark, corruptive stories that Bronies write, the ones where, to quote Pepper Coyote, "somewhere there's a whisper of anger of cruelty plotting its cold victory" feels like a corruption of what I love about the Brony stories in general. And though Waterways is a good story, and in real life there certainly are some 17 year olds who never have a single thought of reconciling with their enemies, I personally find it far more enjoyable to read a story that does have the friendship ideal in it, and at least for me, the inclusion of the selfish, villainous actions by Kory makes me identify with him far less.
And as a final thought, reading about Kory's fight with his Mom makes me grateful how lucky I am to have my Mom. We've gotten into a lot of fights over the years, but through them all was an undercurrent of love on both sides that let us make up afterwards. And now that I’m getting older, the general tide of fights between us have died down as I’ve come to appreciate what such values as honesty, generosity, and kindness actually mean in practice. After listening to Waterways, all I really want to do is go to my Mom, give her a big hug, and just be grateful that never in our lives have we had an argument so violent and disruptive that we cut ties forever.
Thoughts on games and Buckball Season
Posted 9 years agoThis was originally a YouTube comment, but I noticed it going really long, so I decided to post it here for posterity.
My little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 18 - Buckball Season
This was an episode that resonated for me personally. I'm a PC gamer, and played a lot of games against the computer when I was little. I still do, but in the last 5 years have at least done some multiplayer, and this episode reminds me of the difference between playing against a computer versus playing against a player.
When playing against a computer, the computer doesn't care. You can play as well or as lousy as you want, and the computer won't get angry at you, or be happy for you when you win. It's just you and the game, and the only feelings you have to consider are your own.
When playing against another player, there is another separate game on top of the game itself, with the constant question being asked, "Is the other person enjoying themselves?" I no longer matters so much about the game itself, but what matters is the other person's reaction. Win too handily and the other person will get discouraged and not want to play. Lose too badly, and the other person stops having fun and doesn't want to play with you. Whereas the computer version just has you, adjusting your difficulty to whatever you want to get into a state of flow, a two player one needs to be a careful balance between the challenge and skill of the two people to maintain that flow state.
Oddly, that's actually really easy to do on a global scale, because when you match with some random person in the world, they necessarily care about the game, and almost necessarily don't care about you. That means they might try something unsportsmanlike, but it also means you don't have to worry about hurting their feelings. Face to face matchmaking is much harder, because friends might not like what you like, and you then have to worry about this second layer of game on top of the game itself.
Games are most fun when you can let go and just allow yourself to have FUN. I've found that they are the least fun when either you feel that you've been forced into playing something you would rather not, or when you are playing against someone with feelings so fragile that trying to play the metagame takes away from enjoyment of the game itself. It's like how I convinced my Brony friend Justin to play Worms Reloaded. It's fun enough just to have someone physically there to play a PC game, but he has two problems. First, he will not play any games on his own time aside from city simulations, so there is no chance in the world he would get better at a two player game that we could both enjoy aside from the time we actually spend playing that game. Second, he gets very angry when he loses badly. So, playing the game requires carefully dialing back my skill level such that he's not beaten so much that he will never play again. However, that in itself isn't that fun, so I don't even ask to play that very often, and instead we mostly stick to passive entertainment like movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos.
My little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 18 - Buckball Season
This was an episode that resonated for me personally. I'm a PC gamer, and played a lot of games against the computer when I was little. I still do, but in the last 5 years have at least done some multiplayer, and this episode reminds me of the difference between playing against a computer versus playing against a player.
When playing against a computer, the computer doesn't care. You can play as well or as lousy as you want, and the computer won't get angry at you, or be happy for you when you win. It's just you and the game, and the only feelings you have to consider are your own.
When playing against another player, there is another separate game on top of the game itself, with the constant question being asked, "Is the other person enjoying themselves?" I no longer matters so much about the game itself, but what matters is the other person's reaction. Win too handily and the other person will get discouraged and not want to play. Lose too badly, and the other person stops having fun and doesn't want to play with you. Whereas the computer version just has you, adjusting your difficulty to whatever you want to get into a state of flow, a two player one needs to be a careful balance between the challenge and skill of the two people to maintain that flow state.
Oddly, that's actually really easy to do on a global scale, because when you match with some random person in the world, they necessarily care about the game, and almost necessarily don't care about you. That means they might try something unsportsmanlike, but it also means you don't have to worry about hurting their feelings. Face to face matchmaking is much harder, because friends might not like what you like, and you then have to worry about this second layer of game on top of the game itself.
Games are most fun when you can let go and just allow yourself to have FUN. I've found that they are the least fun when either you feel that you've been forced into playing something you would rather not, or when you are playing against someone with feelings so fragile that trying to play the metagame takes away from enjoyment of the game itself. It's like how I convinced my Brony friend Justin to play Worms Reloaded. It's fun enough just to have someone physically there to play a PC game, but he has two problems. First, he will not play any games on his own time aside from city simulations, so there is no chance in the world he would get better at a two player game that we could both enjoy aside from the time we actually spend playing that game. Second, he gets very angry when he loses badly. So, playing the game requires carefully dialing back my skill level such that he's not beaten so much that he will never play again. However, that in itself isn't that fun, so I don't even ask to play that very often, and instead we mostly stick to passive entertainment like movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos.
Anthrocon 2016 meme
Posted 9 years agoWhere are you staying?
A Comfort Inn about 6 miles from the convention center. It is about $60 cheaper per night.
What day are you getting there?
Around dinnertime Thursday
What day are you leaving?
Monday morning
How are you traveling?
This con is a solo con. BronyCon 2016 is the one I'm going to with my boyfriend (that's the next week).
Who will you be rooming with?
Room all to myself
Where will you be most of the time during the convention?
Panels, mostly.
Who will you be with?
My roommates, and whoever else I find. There are a lot of people I want to say hi to at AC.
How is the best way to find you?
Nah, not really.
Are there any panels you might be attending?
Any of the panels on fursuit construction, the feline hangout (and maybe the bunny one. I'm not a bunny, per se, but I love bunnies), the masquerade, and the fursuit parade.
Will you be suiting?
Nope. The most I might wear would be ears and a tail.
What is your gender?
Male
How old are you?
27
How tall are you?
5'6''
Are you taken? Are you looking for a 'mate'?
Yes. Not looking for a mate.
Can I touch you?
Absolutely. I'm looking forward to taking lots of pictures and sharing lots of hugs this convention, and I promise I'll ask politely before doing either.
Can I talk to you?
Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to being at a convention where interest in furries is considered normal, and not something that needs to be danced around, or something a person would call you weird for liking.
Can I buy you lots of drinks?
I am a teetotaler, and still rarely drink caffeine. I do love me some soda and chocolate milk though.
Can I give you lots of money?
Nah, I'm good. Get yourself something nice.
Can I hug or snuggle with you?
Heck yes to hugs! Snuggles are iffy, but might be fine.
Are you nice?
I specifically plan to be on my best behavior for this convention. I have been a Brony for years, and have taken My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic genuinely to heart. It is my personal promise that I will not say anything mean to anyone at Anthrocon, and be kind, polite, and attentive to everyone I meet.
Will you be going to parties?
Probably only in my dreams. I don't have a network of friends in the furry fandom, so an invitation to a party is extremely unlikely.
Do you do drugs/drink/smoke?
No, no, and no.
What/where will you be eating?
I've taken the time to read the Anthrocon dining guide top to bottom, and will likely be trying out the local restaurants, unless there is actually good con food there.
Can I come with you for food/fun/etc.
Maybe! If I want you to go, I'll probably ask you.
Can I take your picture?
Oh, I'm not sure why you'd want to take a picture of me. Sure, I guess, if you want. Though there will be far more interesting things and people to take pictures of at the convention.
A Comfort Inn about 6 miles from the convention center. It is about $60 cheaper per night.
What day are you getting there?
Around dinnertime Thursday
What day are you leaving?
Monday morning
How are you traveling?
This con is a solo con. BronyCon 2016 is the one I'm going to with my boyfriend (that's the next week).
Who will you be rooming with?
Room all to myself
Where will you be most of the time during the convention?
Panels, mostly.
Who will you be with?
My roommates, and whoever else I find. There are a lot of people I want to say hi to at AC.
How is the best way to find you?
Nah, not really.
Are there any panels you might be attending?
Any of the panels on fursuit construction, the feline hangout (and maybe the bunny one. I'm not a bunny, per se, but I love bunnies), the masquerade, and the fursuit parade.
Will you be suiting?
Nope. The most I might wear would be ears and a tail.
What is your gender?
Male
How old are you?
27
How tall are you?
5'6''
Are you taken? Are you looking for a 'mate'?
Yes. Not looking for a mate.
Can I touch you?
Absolutely. I'm looking forward to taking lots of pictures and sharing lots of hugs this convention, and I promise I'll ask politely before doing either.
Can I talk to you?
Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to being at a convention where interest in furries is considered normal, and not something that needs to be danced around, or something a person would call you weird for liking.
Can I buy you lots of drinks?
I am a teetotaler, and still rarely drink caffeine. I do love me some soda and chocolate milk though.
Can I give you lots of money?
Nah, I'm good. Get yourself something nice.
Can I hug or snuggle with you?
Heck yes to hugs! Snuggles are iffy, but might be fine.
Are you nice?
I specifically plan to be on my best behavior for this convention. I have been a Brony for years, and have taken My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic genuinely to heart. It is my personal promise that I will not say anything mean to anyone at Anthrocon, and be kind, polite, and attentive to everyone I meet.
Will you be going to parties?
Probably only in my dreams. I don't have a network of friends in the furry fandom, so an invitation to a party is extremely unlikely.
Do you do drugs/drink/smoke?
No, no, and no.
What/where will you be eating?
I've taken the time to read the Anthrocon dining guide top to bottom, and will likely be trying out the local restaurants, unless there is actually good con food there.
Can I come with you for food/fun/etc.
Maybe! If I want you to go, I'll probably ask you.
Can I take your picture?
Oh, I'm not sure why you'd want to take a picture of me. Sure, I guess, if you want. Though there will be far more interesting things and people to take pictures of at the convention.
The Birth and Death of Friendship
Posted 9 years agoThis was originally written for my own purposes on 5/12/2016. A year has passed, and I think I’m ready to post it publically as a follow up to the journal entry “Three Elements of Harmony”. So, I will first keep the original mostly the same except for minor editing, and add new notes on afterward.
The Birth and Death of Friendship
Stage 1: 30 days of joy
I met Mike on November 4th, 2014, but didn't talk to him again for a full week. I had such a good talk with him on November 11th that I no longer wanted to wait an entire week to talk to him again. So, on November 12th, I had the first of what I termed on my calendar as an LNPC - a Late Night Pony Chat, where we would be in pony avatars, and I would get on late at night after work and talk to Mike. From November 12th until December 16th, I talked to Mike every day. It was a magical time, and a time I tried many times afterwards to recapture. Every day, I would grow excited as my work came to a close, and every night the excitement was fully justified as I came home and talked to Mike. I slowly uncovered more and more personal information about him, while having conversations that made Mike laugh until he coughed, and times that made me smile so broadly that my face hurt. I was also starting to get a crush on Mike, and started feeling this warm feeling in my chest at night after I had talked to him. I was also extremely sexually attracted to Mike, and fantasized about him.
Stage 2: Missing Mike
When Mike went back to his Mom's house for a month in December and January, my contact with him became more sporadic. I remember quite distinctly a day or two after December 16th I went to bed early and watched an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on my computer before bed. It just wasn't the same as before I met Mike. I missed Mike. I wanted to talk to him. And I realized that all the solo entertainment in the world - all the books, all the games, all the YouTube videos, all the music, no matter how fun, just couldn't compare to the pleasure of spending time talking to Mike. This was also when I first got the idea in my head that maybe I would like to eventually meet Mike in person, and began wondering what steps I would have to take to make that fantasy a reality.
Stage 3: Allowed to love
It was January 3rd, 2015 when I told Mike I loved him. He had a boyfriend on Second Life, and I knew that around the first week I met Mike. I met Munius, but had and still have very little contact with the guy. I remember distinctly that I formed the resolve to tell Mike what I felt about him, and when I talked to him that night he was typing to Munius. I told him I had something to tell him, and it absolutely required his undivided attention. I got that attention, and first sent him a link to the song “I'd Rather Be in Love” by Michelle Branch. I then told him I loved him. He said that he couldn't tell me that he loved me back on account that he was already taken. However, it also meant that I no longer had to pretend that Mike was just a friend, albeit a best friend to me, and pretend that the warm feeling in my chest at night was just the pleasure of talking to a friend. So, though I didn't get the "I love you too" I hoped against hope to hear, I felt after that day that I was allowed to love him, and that I could be candid with my feeling with the one person in the world that was my complete confidant, who knew all of my secrets, even things I hadn't told a single person, and who I could rely on to talk to.
Stage 4: Buildup to meeting
After Mike returned from his Mom's house he was available to talk to more often, though we never in all the time since regained as much of a streak as when I was able to talk to him for over 30 nights in a row. Since I was allowed to love Mike, and since I came to know everything about Mike I would care to know, and did have paid time off from work that needed to be used up before June 30th or else it would expire, the possibility of meeting Mike became more and more definite. On February 1st at 6:40 PM I came out to my parents as bisexual, and they were more or less fine with it, eliminating the major hurdle I had with planning a vacation to seeing Mike. Though I had the time, money, and means to take a trip to see him, I was sorely lacking in experience in long road trips, and needed advice and assistance in the endeavor. I set the dates early, and in mid-February decided on March 21st through March 29th as the dates for the vacation. From that point on, I was nervous and excited as I began preparations - having my car's oil changed, getting a working Android smartphone from my brother for GPS, booking hotels for the first time in my life, and buying sexual accessories from K-Mart. When the time came I began packing for the long trip. Then I set out from home for an 800 mile drive to meet the first best friend and lover in my life.
Stage 5: Being inside joy
I have another document where I describe exactly what happened on vacation. But in a word, to quote Guinan, it was like being inside joy. It was like joy was something tangible and I could wrap myself up inside it. It was the best vacation of my life, and the greatest joy I can ever remember experiencing. I smiled nearly constantly the whole vacation, with only a few exceptions.
Stage 6: Heartbreak
March 27th, 2015 was the start of the tears. As I made to leave Mike's apartment house, I started crying. I composed myself enough to drive away, but once I was on the expressway, and didn't have to concentrate enough on driving, I began sobbing, missing Mike dearly. However, that was a bittersweet sadness, a sadness of knowing that a time of great happiness is ending, but strangely mixed with the happiness of being grateful that I had such a time of happiness to begin with. Really, though March 27th was the beginning of the tears, March 29th was the beginning of the end. I had the entire day off, and didn't get any contact from Mike whatsoever. Not a word on Skype or Second Life, not an e-mail, not a note. I wondered many times all that month how things would have been different in that crucial week after I returned back home, when the smell of his clothes and the touch of his skin was so vivid in my mind. That was the time went back to his Mom's house again, and I also wonder how different things would have been had such a trip been delayed a week or two, or had he not used it as an excuse to not talk to me, and instead made time for me. But things didn't work out that way.
Monday, March 30th, the first day back to work, where I had to fight back lonely tears for the sake of composure, Mike again never contacted me at night. Tuesday, where I had the whole day off, Mike just contacted me briefly to say he was feeling sick, and said no more. I also talked with Adam on Tuesday, my brother, but he gave me so little of his attention and cared so little about what I was saying it left me feeling more isolated and alone than ever. Wednesday, no Mike. Thursday April 2nd, Mike was busy with a roleplay, and I had an extremely short LNPC. Friday, I had a long call, came home late, and there was no Mike. Saturday, I had off from work, and in the entire day, not once, not one goddamn minute in the entire day on Saturday did I speak for one second to Mike, nor did he have the consideration of me to send me a single word. It had been nearly a week, and not once in the entire week had I had good quality time with Mike. Not once had he made me smile until my face hurt. And worst of all, not once in the whole week had he made me feel like I was wanted, like he was thinking of me, like he missed me, like he cared what I was going through.
Sunday, April 5th was a night of false hope. For the first time since I saw Mike in person, I got to spend some quality time talking to him after work. It was fun, and gave me hope that the week of declining friendship was just a fluke, and that things would pick up. That hope was a waking dream, which I awoke from the next two days. On Monday, I got home from work early. He was in one of his roleplays, and had no interest in stopping it to talk to me. A mutual friend messaged him and suggested he come over and talk to me, since he hadn't spent much time with me. He did come, but came in the most ticked-off, peeved state I've ever seen him in. And he had no interest in me, saying he wanted to continue his roleplay, and since he couldn't do that, he'd just go to bed.
On Tuesday, April 7th, 2015 I had a day off from work. I went to a dentist appointment, and afterwards went to the library near the dentist's office, read for a while, then ate lunch at Bruegger's Bagels. I got a tasty sandwich, and sat down at a table for two and started eating. On the overhead music, the song “Shattered” by OAR started playing. I thought of Jesse first, the friend I had whose friendship had petered out. But my mind soon turned to Mike, and I looked across the table at the empty seat. I thought about how Mike wasn't there, and will never be there. He'll never visit me, and I'll never be able to take him to the movies, or show him my house, or go to my local mall or go out to eat with him. He doesn't have a car, doesn't have a job, and doesn't even know how to send packages and letters through the mail to me. I once sent him a letter, more so he could have something physical from me than anything else, and he said he couldn't reciprocate, unless he found a postcard or something. And at the time, remembering the night before and his course treatment of me, I got the feeling that even if he did have the means, Mike would never have the motivation to visit me in person. I felt sadness welling up in me, and fought back tears as I finished my delicious sandwich, and went to my car. For the second time, I had a drive of tears, though this time I neglected to bring any napkins or tissues. I let the tears and snot flow anyway, and by the time I got home, my eyes were bloodshot, my face red, and snot flowed from my nostrils freely. I took a picture of myself at that time to remember that moment by. And then, on that day, that fateful day when I was missing Mike the most I'd ever missed him (and rather than the bittersweet tears of March 27th, the tears of April 7th were full of only sadness), Mike did the worst possible thing he could have done: nothing. Not one damn thing. Again, I was available the entire day, and Mike wasn't available for one minute, hell, 10 seconds of it to send me a message. If he had just sent me a message on that day, anything really, it would have meant he was at least considering me and thinking of me. He did nothing of the sort, and I spent the evening playing the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth, checking almost constantly while the game was created for some sign, some message from Mike which never came.
On Wednesday the 8th, Mike was sick, and at least had the consideration on that day to leave me a message.
On Thursday the 9th I had a very brief chat with him before going to work. I got home from work early that day, and found Mike available on Second Life. Knowing that this was the first time in a long time that we were available at the same times, hope turned to guarded optimism as I found he was interested in doing a roleplay. I hoped that maybe if I give his roleplays a chance, and they were fun, that might rekindle our dying friendship. Further, this was a Western-style “Appleloosa” roleplay instead of the ultraviolent, depressing “Fallout Equestria” roleplays he was so into that I hated so much.
It was awful.
First of all, Mike is dyslexic, and I always knew that about him. That wasn’t a problem with being his friend, and in some ways was a benefit, because I learned the first day I talked to him with a microphone that Mike has the strange quality of sounding like a toddler when he types, and being absolutely charming when he talks. For the roleplay, since he was doing it with other people, I couldn’t private talk and listen to Mike the charmer, but had to endure the typing of Mike the toddler. Second, his response times were so long it was like…well…it was like talking to a ghost, and simultaneously being with and not being with Mike. I roleplayed my pony asking what his pony’s name was. I would have responded to such a post in 10 seconds. Slower role players may have taken a minute or two. He took 8 minutes before I saw his post. It was 8 minutes I couldn’t focus on anything else entirely, and 8 minutes that could have been spent having a pleasant conversation with him, which I instead got barely one line of text. It was like seeing a bottle of lemonade, and drinking it, finding it only contained pure lemon juice. I endured it for maybe a half hour, before I gave up in exasperation and had a roleplay conversation with another Second Life user, who wasn’t writing Shakespeare but would at least respond to what I said in a more timely manner. So, I suggested to Mike that by way of compromise, that at 11:30 we go someplace private and have a private talk. He said he wanted to talk to Red, another friend of his, before going to bed, and could go to his sim. A little disappointed, but feeling like something was better than nothing, I agreed, and wrapped up my own conversation a little before 11:30 PM and went to the other sim to wait. He didn’t come. I went back to the sim Mike was in, and he said he was still roleplaying. I waited for him, and as time went on, I grew more impatient and angry. Finally, midnight came along, which I had told him was when I planned to go off and go to bed, and he still had no interest in talking to me. With the entire evening wasted with very few words exchanged between us, I sent him a message and said “I’m pissed off.” He said “Well, then play some video games before you go to bed.” I said “Mike, I’m pissed off at you.”
He then came on voice chat, finally, and I learned that he was having a conversation with someone else at 11:30 about goddamn salt in My Little Pony, and considered that more important than talking to me. He then gave me all kinds of bullshit about not wanting to be rude and not leaving in the middle of roleplays, when he was only interacting with one other player and there wasn’t anything close to a serious, in-depth roleplay going on, and he didn’t have enough consideration for me to wrap it up and go somewhere else at the time I thought we had agreed on. I went to bed unhappy and peeved.
On Friday Mike was busy talking to Munius, which I understood and didn’t begrudge him not giving me attention. On Saturday, Mike had a Second Life wedding to Munius, and I found that strangely, I liked Munius better than I liked Mike. Munius was a perfect gentleman, and was helpful, and agreed with me on a lot of ideas, and was just generally pleasant to be around. Mike was all sick and tired and whiney, and no help at all. Also, Munius’s wedding vows were written out in beautiful lines of prose (I should add Munius is dyslexic too, but in my time he has shown no obvious signs of it) while Mike’s were spoken and given as a jumbled, mumbled, incoherent mess. After the wedding, I had almost no interaction with Mike. On Sunday I dreamed about Mike, but waking, never spoke to him all day.
I knew our friendship was in trouble. The memories I had of being with him physically were only causing tears, and by now even those tears had dried up. It had been two weeks since I saw him by this time, and in that time, there had been only one day when I had a pleasant conversation with him. Again and again I was hoping to talk to him, and again and again I was disappointed, and either had no contact with him at all, or the kind of shitty contact I had on April 2nd or April 9th that just highlighted how far and how fast our friendship was plummeting. I racked my brain for something I had done wrong that made him treat me like he had been treating me, and could think of nothing. That pleased me in that I had nothing to apologize for, but also depressed me because that meant that the friendship was dying because Mike was fast becoming someone I couldn’t rely on at all, and there was nothing I could do about it. In desperation, I tried one last thing. Mike, for whatever reason, was always against committing a date and time for something, and meeting him was always happenstance. Early in our relationship it was like two kids going to school together, and there was such regularity that setting a date to do something was unnecessary anyway. In April it felt more like two people shopping at the same store, and if we just happened to be there at the same time, great, otherwise there was little chance of us meeting together. So, in a last desperate play to shine a little more light on the dying tree of our friendship, on the morning of Monday, April 13th I told Mike I wanted to talk to him and requested he be on at 11:00 PM that night. I was there. He was not, and hadn’t left a single message or any indication why.
Mike stood me up. After all the time we had been together, all the fun we had had, all the laughter and smiles we had caused in each other, and all the good times we had in Fredericton, when it came to actually setting a date and time to meet, he not only missed it, but didn’t even take 10 seconds to leave me a message.
I hoped, I wanted to believe there was some technical reason for that. Maybe his computer died? Maybe his Internet wasn’t working? On Tuesday, I left him messages, and kept checking for him all day, from early in the morning until the afternoon. No sign of Mike, and it looked like yet another day off would pass without any communication at all from him. Finally, I played my last card, and left a message with his landlady to have Mike call me. I finally talked to him on Second Life later that day. He said he was sick, and that he didn’t leave a message on Second Life because he thought I’d talk to someone and they’d tell me he was off. I asked him why in the world he would leave that to someone else, and not take even a moment to leave me a message. I forgot what his response was. He was peeved that I called, and said I could leave a message on Skype if he really needed to talk to me. I told him I had left four throughout the day, and he said he never got the messages. I then told him it felt like our friendship was ending. He said that he didn’t consider friendships as ending just because people don’t talk for a while. I told him that by way of example, if a man is married to a woman and the man goes away for two weeks, their love isn’t lost for two reasons. First, they know that the separation is temporary, and have a date to look forward to when they can be together. Second, they typically make some indication that they miss each other. Maybe the man will call the woman and talk to her. Maybe the woman will send a letter to the man to let him know she’s thinking of him. That’s what was missing for our relationship. Mike returned from his Mom’s house on April 12th, so that eliminated the primary excuse he had for not talking to me. But more than that, I could think of no time in the past two weeks where Mike had gave any indication he missed me or looked forward to talking to me. Quite the opposite – on the 2nd, the 9th, and especially the 6th my arrival was met with annoyance and hostility. So, I learned on the 14th that there was no technical reason he stood me up. He was just being downright inconsiderate.
There was a whole lot of tears, and a whole lot of crying going on all around this time. I thought bitterly about how asymmetrical our relationship was. How I was the one that told him I loved him, how I had sent him a letter, and taken initiative to learn everything important about him, and how I had taken the time, effort, and expense to visit him in person. But most of all, especially after the 14th, I thought about how everything that happened in the more than two weeks since I’d seen him had been painful for me, and not painful for him. The words of The Script kept ringing in my ears: “While I’m wide awake he has no trouble sleeping. ‘Cause when a heart break, no it don’t break even. What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And what am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re okay. I’m falling to pieces!”
I realized what was happening was an equalization of our relationship in the worst possible way. Since our relationship was already so lopsided, equalization of our relationship would mean a loss of the love I felt by him. I remember thinking bitterly while on a break at work that if Mike was a villain masterminding such an equalization, he couldn’t have done it better, because I was starting to hate him.
Then it hit me. I really was starting to hate Mike. That feeling in my chest I felt after a good conversation was a distant memory. The vacation I took to see him was a taunting memory of joy I would never have again. The lack of contact, and the lack of feeling wanted when I did have any contact with him, was all leading to the same conclusion: I was experiencing my first heartbreak. Thoughts of Mike started filling me with pain, not love. On the night of April 15th, where Mike again gave no trace of himself, I went to bed bitterly knowing that I don’t love Mike anymore. On Thursday, I did talk to him, and told him as such. His reaction was infuriating. He said “Well, it was just an infatuation.” I told him “No, I loved you, well and truly. I stopped loving you because you hurt me.”
Stage 7: Confusion
On April 17th, I had the first true LNPC with Mike in 12 days, since April 5th. This was the start of a very confusing part of our relationship. After close to three weeks of absence, of being ignored, of heartbreak and frustration and anger, I finally saw some hope that perhaps that was just a rough patch, and things could go back to how they were before. I had some kind of contact with him every day for the next 5 days, and a LNPC with Mike on the 22nd, but on the 23rd he was a no-show. Friday I had a long call and had to stay late at work, though I did talk to him briefly on Skype before bed, and Saturday I played Mutiny with him using join.me. But then on the 26th, on the day when I talked to the rudest customer I’ve ever talked to and when I could most use a best friend, he wasn’t available, nor was he on Monday. Then I had a 2 hour Skype call with Mike on Tuesday, and he was available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then busy on Saturday, then available Sunday and Monday, then busy on Tuesday, available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then went home to Fredericton Saturday and Sunday so I wasn’t expecting him, then not on at all Monday, and I went to bed disappointed.
I list his availability with such detail to make a point. Since April 17th, what was the longest streak of time I went with the ability to talk to him every night? Six days. Since April 17th, any time I started getting my hopes up that he could at least be someone I could rely on, he was suddenly not on again and my hopes were dashed. I remember when I first met him, that first month, I began really looking forward to him and expecting to talk to him, and when he was there my heart soared and our relationship grew. With our relationship in its current state, when I let my expectations grow too far, the fall is ever the harder. When I knew there was a good chance of him being available, and when he wasn’t there, my hopes sank.
That, more than any other one factor, is the primary reason that our friendship isn’t being repaired. I once wrote that for a friendship to flourish, three things are necessary: open and easy communication, shared interests, and shared experiences. There is a fourth thing I am finding is sorely required: commitment. Without a stable commitment of resources, time especially, the relationship can’t grow. I saw that with another furry I met, who in the times when I communicate with him on Skype, will just stop talking to me in the middle of a conversation, and he rarely changes his Skype states so I never know if he’s really available to talk or not. That relationship seemed to have a lot of potential, but has since gone almost nowhere because he won’t commit time to me, and in fairness, the open and easy communication requirement is failed as well, since he refuses to talk on microphone and his text responses are monosyllabic snippets that make conversations with him severely one-sided. Mike won’t commit to me. He won’t say “Hey Kevin, how about playing a game tomorrow at 3?” or “Hey Kevin, how about watching a YouTube video next Sunday at 11 PM?” or even “Hey Kevin, I’ll be available to talk tomorrow after 8:00 PM” He also rarely puts time and energy into our relationship in general either. He has never done some sort of side project for me, like I did in writing a story. He rarely watches any videos I suggest anymore, nor does he read or listen to stories I suggest, which used to be part of the shared experiences requirement that was so important in strengthening our relationship. I’m just a pastime for him. This afternoon, he spoke to me for an hour before Munius came on, and soon after he came on went to a one-on-one conversation with Munius and hasn’t spoken to me since, whereas Munius at least talked to me after they were done.
If our friendship is a tree, and time is light, that tree was close to dying in mid-April, and since then hasn’t gotten a steady supply of light, such that every time it tries to revive, that light is shut off and it starts wilting again. So now, the big question is, where does our relationship go from here? First, do I WANT to fall in love with Mike again? On the one hand, the feeling was such a good one the question is almost ludicrous, like asking whether I want some milk and cookies. But on the other hand, there is a good reason for me to say no: once bitten and twice shy. He hurt me, and if I fall in love with Mike again, given what I now know of his personality, he’s likely, maybe even inevitably so, to break my heart again. Also, he has someone else that takes first place in his heart, which wasn’t the slightest detriment to me loving him in the past, but now, knowing how important reciprocation is to a lasting, symmetrical relationship, that fact and the fact that he has been so shy with committing to me even as a friend means that there is no chance he’ll commit to me as a lover, and lately only the smallest chance that he can again commit to me as a friend with the regularity that made me into his best friend in the first place. Second, COULD I fall in love with him again? Now what I’ve seen this darker side of Mike, the side that isn’t malicious but simply uncaring about the feelings and desires of others, could I love someone like that? Even if he were to be online every night for, say, two weeks, and I was able to start expecting him and looking forward to seeing him, would that just restart the friendship, or would that be the first steps towards him supergluing my heart back together? Or would it all just be a sham, and am I destined to never get over the dark emotions he brewed in me during his weeks of mistreatment, and will I never again feel that warm feeling in my chest when I talk to Mike, and never again smile until my face hurts while talking to him?
One thing is certain above all else in this confusing time: my second return to Fredericton will be a shadow of the first time. My first time there, I had no past where he hurt me, no persistence of memory melting over and smothering me like it threatens to do the second time. The first time, I at least loved him, even if he said he didn’t love me. Since I loved him, I was able to show him affection, and though he didn’t return in kind, he did show a friendly affection that made me feel loved and wanted and made it the best vacation ever. Heartbreak will be a definite cloud over the second trip. Also, this second trip will have a more definite finality. When this second trip is over, it doesn’t mean not seeing Mike for three months. It means not seeing Mike for a very long time – perhaps 8 months, perhaps a year, perhaps never again. I can’t shake the feeling that after the second trip, our relationship will collapse again, and this time, with no likelihood of physical contact to motivate trying to glue it together, if it collapses again it will collapse forever.
Editor’s note: Thus ends the original entry from May 12th, 2015. I have been meaning to go over it for some time, but today seemed especially appropriate. Today, June 2, 2016 I again went to get my teeth cleaned, went to the library and to Bruegger’s Bagels and ate alone, and was reminded of that fateful day on April 18, 2015 when I realized our relationship was going nowhere.
This is already at 5,500 words, and a proper continuation of this story would have to include my entries about both trips to Fredericton, but for now I think I would like to give a brief description and skip ahead to the conclusion. Basically, I did prepare for the trip for Fredericton again, though this time without any of the sort of excitement or adventure I felt for going on a long quest to find my one true love. Instead, I was going through the motions, and planning for the trip because I had vacation time to expend and I had made the trip back when I still cared about Mike, and despite everything didn’t want to cancel it. The trip itself was mixed. I don’t like Anime in general, so Animaritime was a mixed bag for me. I have detailed journal entries from that trip, but in a word, highlights were a few interesting panels and meeting the first fursuits I’ve ever seen in my life, while the unquestioned low point was an audience participation quiz game, which was obviously for hardcore anime fans and I was completely lost. However, Mike was also almost completely lost, and it was horrible. After the convention was over, I dropped Mike off at his house, and before leaving Fredericton forever, I said to Mike “Last time I left here, you broke my heart.” I didn’t shed any tears on the way back. Again, after I got home on June 30th 2015, I messaged him, but he didn’t message me back. I was prepared for it that time, and since my heart was already broke, my response was basically “Well, that figures.” He barely talked to me at all for weeks.
The end of our relationship came on July 17th, 2016. I saved a copy of the last chat I ever had with him, including what was going through my head:
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): hello
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: hello
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): how are you
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: Been better, been worse. Where are you?
[20:18] Spirit (renpas): in a rp sorta think its dieing thow
[20:26] Renpas: i have been good bissy with rl stuf
[20:28] Kevin Thesium: Mike, tell me something. What were you doing on July 1st?
[20:29] Renpas: hrrmmm....
[20:29] Renpas: i think i was with my rl famly
[20:30] Kevin Thesium: Did you have computer troubles on that day as well?
[20:30] Renpas: not shure i dont think i was on much
[20:31] Kevin Thesium: Mike, do you want to be my friend?
[20:32] Renpas: yes why do you ask
[20:32] Kevin Thesium: Then what has prevented you from going so long without even trying to contact me?
[20:34] Renpas: i conttacted you the other night and i have been rather bissy in rl this is the longest i have been on
This is what I want to tell you but I cannot.
Fuck you Mike. Fuck you and your inconsiderateness. Fuck you who would abandon me twice, and give me so little consideration. Fuck you who would wither my heart to a cold ball of unfeeling ice, going day to day without any joy, or really any sorrow. You gave me the best days of my life, and the worst days in my life, and now you're leaving me, and again make out like it's no big fucking deal. Like it means nothing that you have gone weeks without talking to me. Like "I've just been busy" is your excuse, and that it's not just a cover for the truth: we're not friends anymore. I don't know and like you anymore. I want to punch you in the face and spit on your body and leave you to rot. I want to abandon you, like you abandoned me. I don't feel alone in your twilight zone, but it's time you LEFT my haunted heart. I feel your specter haunting me. Keeping me down with misery. So take your ghost and move along. I missed your soul, but I know you're gone.
Super mean:
Fuck you Mike. Go die in a car crash, and haunt me no more.
Super nice:
Oh well that's alright sweetie. Everyone needs a break from Second Life now and then, and I hope you're having fun.
Middle: Mike, you abandoned me, a second time. Only this time I'm not surprised. I expected you to abandon me, and you didn't disappoint at being a disappointment. Now I'm trying to move on from you, and you being here is doing nothing but haunting me. I don't want a friend who would abandon me for weeks like it's nothing. I want a friend who will share my interests, share experiences with me, and who I can talk to. And right now, there are about four people who actually meet those definitions, and about seven billion people who could potentially meet those requirements. But I won't say this to you either. I don't know whether I want to burn my bridges or not, and come to think of it, the "I wish you the best" part of Specters is about a peaceful break, not the violent break with you that I'm halfway craving right now.
[20:47] Renpas: nozes
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: I have spent the last 13 minutes writing, and I still don't really know what to say to that.
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: Is your RP done?
[20:48] Renpas: no im starting to hind a out thow
[20:48] Kevin Thesium: What?
[20:49] Renpas: looking for a exit
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: Well, I have to get to bed. I have work tomorrow.
[20:50] Renpas: ok nini
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: bye
[20:50] Renpas: sleep well
I internally didn’t want to burn my bridges, but that is exactly what I did. I removed his name from Skype and Steam. I unfriended him on Facebook. And as for Second Life, I still have the viewer on my computer for some reason, but the core files say they were created September 15th, 2015, and none of the files have been modified since October 10th, 2015, so I have never logged back into Second Life in the year 2016. Mike was my main reason for going on. The words of Dr. Manhattan come to mind: “When you left me, I left Earth.” I left Second Life, and not only didn’t return because my main reason for going there was to talk to Mike. I avoided it completely because I was afraid that if I went on at all, even though he’s not my Second Life friend, that going to some of my favorite landmarks would mean possibly seeing him again.
Almost a year after my last contact with Mike, my memory of him is split in two.
One half is the Mike I fell in love with. That’s the Mike that liked me, that cared about me, that spared a thought for me and considered me and who I could look forward to having not only a good time with, but the best time in my life. That Mike represented a glorious dawn, filled with hope and promise and wonder, and the possibility that my entire life up to that point, that the introverted Kevin who enjoyed spending time alone doing things I enjoy without being bothered was gone, and was going to be replaced with the everlasting bliss of friendship.
The other half is the Mike I dealt with after physically meeting him. That is the cold Mike. The one who didn’t want to talk to me, who avoided me, who in times when I needed him the most wasn’t there for me and didn’t care about me. That is the pathetic Mike. The one who is unemployed, severely dyslexic, inactive, unhealthy, unclean, mentally damaged, unmotivated Mike. The Mike who spends all his days in one room of a two story apartment shared by elderly people, including one who never cleans her cat’s litter box and makes the entire building smell like cat pee and poop. The Mike who lays down all day in the bed in his one room, connecting to Second Life on a shitty HP laptop that is always in danger of breaking, who went to college for culinary art but never cooks for himself, who has spent years since he has had any job and gets money exclusively from him Mom, who doesn’t know his own age but was either 29 or 30 when I last spoke to him, and when I asked him where he sees himself in 5 years, said “Dead,” and I truly believe that was a correct assumption now. But more than anything, the Mike where any of that matters. I fell in love with Mike knowing full well what flaws he had. I didn’t care. He didn’t trick me into coming to Fredericton, and I what was so great about our relationship was how open and genuine it was. But when I tried talking to Mike, and couldn’t talk to him, and he showed how inconsiderate he was and how one-sided our relationship was or became (whether “was” or “became” is more accurate is up for debate), suddenly those personal flaws mattered.
I considered making a clean break from Mike: deleting all my files, recycling all my trip information, and throwing out all physical mementos from him. I decided against it. Catherine Aird is famously quoted as saying “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.” My experience with Mike was nothing if not a learning experience, and 2015 was a year for growing up, for better or for worse. The mementos I have of Mike elicit such bittersweet memories in me, but I’m also coming to find, now in this season more than in the past, that what I learned from my experience with Mike, the good and the bad, is important to my future. There is an entire other story to tell, though I’m not sure if I am ready to tell it publically, even if it is anonymous, about what happened in the last year, but I’ll end this entry here because it concludes the story arc of what happened to with Mike, as he was out of my life after that last contact. For now, I will say only this: after I broke contact with Mike, I thought I found what I was looking for, but that dream of the everlasting bliss of friendship has not been realized by me as of the time of writing this.
The Birth and Death of Friendship
Stage 1: 30 days of joy
I met Mike on November 4th, 2014, but didn't talk to him again for a full week. I had such a good talk with him on November 11th that I no longer wanted to wait an entire week to talk to him again. So, on November 12th, I had the first of what I termed on my calendar as an LNPC - a Late Night Pony Chat, where we would be in pony avatars, and I would get on late at night after work and talk to Mike. From November 12th until December 16th, I talked to Mike every day. It was a magical time, and a time I tried many times afterwards to recapture. Every day, I would grow excited as my work came to a close, and every night the excitement was fully justified as I came home and talked to Mike. I slowly uncovered more and more personal information about him, while having conversations that made Mike laugh until he coughed, and times that made me smile so broadly that my face hurt. I was also starting to get a crush on Mike, and started feeling this warm feeling in my chest at night after I had talked to him. I was also extremely sexually attracted to Mike, and fantasized about him.
Stage 2: Missing Mike
When Mike went back to his Mom's house for a month in December and January, my contact with him became more sporadic. I remember quite distinctly a day or two after December 16th I went to bed early and watched an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on my computer before bed. It just wasn't the same as before I met Mike. I missed Mike. I wanted to talk to him. And I realized that all the solo entertainment in the world - all the books, all the games, all the YouTube videos, all the music, no matter how fun, just couldn't compare to the pleasure of spending time talking to Mike. This was also when I first got the idea in my head that maybe I would like to eventually meet Mike in person, and began wondering what steps I would have to take to make that fantasy a reality.
Stage 3: Allowed to love
It was January 3rd, 2015 when I told Mike I loved him. He had a boyfriend on Second Life, and I knew that around the first week I met Mike. I met Munius, but had and still have very little contact with the guy. I remember distinctly that I formed the resolve to tell Mike what I felt about him, and when I talked to him that night he was typing to Munius. I told him I had something to tell him, and it absolutely required his undivided attention. I got that attention, and first sent him a link to the song “I'd Rather Be in Love” by Michelle Branch. I then told him I loved him. He said that he couldn't tell me that he loved me back on account that he was already taken. However, it also meant that I no longer had to pretend that Mike was just a friend, albeit a best friend to me, and pretend that the warm feeling in my chest at night was just the pleasure of talking to a friend. So, though I didn't get the "I love you too" I hoped against hope to hear, I felt after that day that I was allowed to love him, and that I could be candid with my feeling with the one person in the world that was my complete confidant, who knew all of my secrets, even things I hadn't told a single person, and who I could rely on to talk to.
Stage 4: Buildup to meeting
After Mike returned from his Mom's house he was available to talk to more often, though we never in all the time since regained as much of a streak as when I was able to talk to him for over 30 nights in a row. Since I was allowed to love Mike, and since I came to know everything about Mike I would care to know, and did have paid time off from work that needed to be used up before June 30th or else it would expire, the possibility of meeting Mike became more and more definite. On February 1st at 6:40 PM I came out to my parents as bisexual, and they were more or less fine with it, eliminating the major hurdle I had with planning a vacation to seeing Mike. Though I had the time, money, and means to take a trip to see him, I was sorely lacking in experience in long road trips, and needed advice and assistance in the endeavor. I set the dates early, and in mid-February decided on March 21st through March 29th as the dates for the vacation. From that point on, I was nervous and excited as I began preparations - having my car's oil changed, getting a working Android smartphone from my brother for GPS, booking hotels for the first time in my life, and buying sexual accessories from K-Mart. When the time came I began packing for the long trip. Then I set out from home for an 800 mile drive to meet the first best friend and lover in my life.
Stage 5: Being inside joy
I have another document where I describe exactly what happened on vacation. But in a word, to quote Guinan, it was like being inside joy. It was like joy was something tangible and I could wrap myself up inside it. It was the best vacation of my life, and the greatest joy I can ever remember experiencing. I smiled nearly constantly the whole vacation, with only a few exceptions.
Stage 6: Heartbreak
March 27th, 2015 was the start of the tears. As I made to leave Mike's apartment house, I started crying. I composed myself enough to drive away, but once I was on the expressway, and didn't have to concentrate enough on driving, I began sobbing, missing Mike dearly. However, that was a bittersweet sadness, a sadness of knowing that a time of great happiness is ending, but strangely mixed with the happiness of being grateful that I had such a time of happiness to begin with. Really, though March 27th was the beginning of the tears, March 29th was the beginning of the end. I had the entire day off, and didn't get any contact from Mike whatsoever. Not a word on Skype or Second Life, not an e-mail, not a note. I wondered many times all that month how things would have been different in that crucial week after I returned back home, when the smell of his clothes and the touch of his skin was so vivid in my mind. That was the time went back to his Mom's house again, and I also wonder how different things would have been had such a trip been delayed a week or two, or had he not used it as an excuse to not talk to me, and instead made time for me. But things didn't work out that way.
Monday, March 30th, the first day back to work, where I had to fight back lonely tears for the sake of composure, Mike again never contacted me at night. Tuesday, where I had the whole day off, Mike just contacted me briefly to say he was feeling sick, and said no more. I also talked with Adam on Tuesday, my brother, but he gave me so little of his attention and cared so little about what I was saying it left me feeling more isolated and alone than ever. Wednesday, no Mike. Thursday April 2nd, Mike was busy with a roleplay, and I had an extremely short LNPC. Friday, I had a long call, came home late, and there was no Mike. Saturday, I had off from work, and in the entire day, not once, not one goddamn minute in the entire day on Saturday did I speak for one second to Mike, nor did he have the consideration of me to send me a single word. It had been nearly a week, and not once in the entire week had I had good quality time with Mike. Not once had he made me smile until my face hurt. And worst of all, not once in the whole week had he made me feel like I was wanted, like he was thinking of me, like he missed me, like he cared what I was going through.
Sunday, April 5th was a night of false hope. For the first time since I saw Mike in person, I got to spend some quality time talking to him after work. It was fun, and gave me hope that the week of declining friendship was just a fluke, and that things would pick up. That hope was a waking dream, which I awoke from the next two days. On Monday, I got home from work early. He was in one of his roleplays, and had no interest in stopping it to talk to me. A mutual friend messaged him and suggested he come over and talk to me, since he hadn't spent much time with me. He did come, but came in the most ticked-off, peeved state I've ever seen him in. And he had no interest in me, saying he wanted to continue his roleplay, and since he couldn't do that, he'd just go to bed.
On Tuesday, April 7th, 2015 I had a day off from work. I went to a dentist appointment, and afterwards went to the library near the dentist's office, read for a while, then ate lunch at Bruegger's Bagels. I got a tasty sandwich, and sat down at a table for two and started eating. On the overhead music, the song “Shattered” by OAR started playing. I thought of Jesse first, the friend I had whose friendship had petered out. But my mind soon turned to Mike, and I looked across the table at the empty seat. I thought about how Mike wasn't there, and will never be there. He'll never visit me, and I'll never be able to take him to the movies, or show him my house, or go to my local mall or go out to eat with him. He doesn't have a car, doesn't have a job, and doesn't even know how to send packages and letters through the mail to me. I once sent him a letter, more so he could have something physical from me than anything else, and he said he couldn't reciprocate, unless he found a postcard or something. And at the time, remembering the night before and his course treatment of me, I got the feeling that even if he did have the means, Mike would never have the motivation to visit me in person. I felt sadness welling up in me, and fought back tears as I finished my delicious sandwich, and went to my car. For the second time, I had a drive of tears, though this time I neglected to bring any napkins or tissues. I let the tears and snot flow anyway, and by the time I got home, my eyes were bloodshot, my face red, and snot flowed from my nostrils freely. I took a picture of myself at that time to remember that moment by. And then, on that day, that fateful day when I was missing Mike the most I'd ever missed him (and rather than the bittersweet tears of March 27th, the tears of April 7th were full of only sadness), Mike did the worst possible thing he could have done: nothing. Not one damn thing. Again, I was available the entire day, and Mike wasn't available for one minute, hell, 10 seconds of it to send me a message. If he had just sent me a message on that day, anything really, it would have meant he was at least considering me and thinking of me. He did nothing of the sort, and I spent the evening playing the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth, checking almost constantly while the game was created for some sign, some message from Mike which never came.
On Wednesday the 8th, Mike was sick, and at least had the consideration on that day to leave me a message.
On Thursday the 9th I had a very brief chat with him before going to work. I got home from work early that day, and found Mike available on Second Life. Knowing that this was the first time in a long time that we were available at the same times, hope turned to guarded optimism as I found he was interested in doing a roleplay. I hoped that maybe if I give his roleplays a chance, and they were fun, that might rekindle our dying friendship. Further, this was a Western-style “Appleloosa” roleplay instead of the ultraviolent, depressing “Fallout Equestria” roleplays he was so into that I hated so much.
It was awful.
First of all, Mike is dyslexic, and I always knew that about him. That wasn’t a problem with being his friend, and in some ways was a benefit, because I learned the first day I talked to him with a microphone that Mike has the strange quality of sounding like a toddler when he types, and being absolutely charming when he talks. For the roleplay, since he was doing it with other people, I couldn’t private talk and listen to Mike the charmer, but had to endure the typing of Mike the toddler. Second, his response times were so long it was like…well…it was like talking to a ghost, and simultaneously being with and not being with Mike. I roleplayed my pony asking what his pony’s name was. I would have responded to such a post in 10 seconds. Slower role players may have taken a minute or two. He took 8 minutes before I saw his post. It was 8 minutes I couldn’t focus on anything else entirely, and 8 minutes that could have been spent having a pleasant conversation with him, which I instead got barely one line of text. It was like seeing a bottle of lemonade, and drinking it, finding it only contained pure lemon juice. I endured it for maybe a half hour, before I gave up in exasperation and had a roleplay conversation with another Second Life user, who wasn’t writing Shakespeare but would at least respond to what I said in a more timely manner. So, I suggested to Mike that by way of compromise, that at 11:30 we go someplace private and have a private talk. He said he wanted to talk to Red, another friend of his, before going to bed, and could go to his sim. A little disappointed, but feeling like something was better than nothing, I agreed, and wrapped up my own conversation a little before 11:30 PM and went to the other sim to wait. He didn’t come. I went back to the sim Mike was in, and he said he was still roleplaying. I waited for him, and as time went on, I grew more impatient and angry. Finally, midnight came along, which I had told him was when I planned to go off and go to bed, and he still had no interest in talking to me. With the entire evening wasted with very few words exchanged between us, I sent him a message and said “I’m pissed off.” He said “Well, then play some video games before you go to bed.” I said “Mike, I’m pissed off at you.”
He then came on voice chat, finally, and I learned that he was having a conversation with someone else at 11:30 about goddamn salt in My Little Pony, and considered that more important than talking to me. He then gave me all kinds of bullshit about not wanting to be rude and not leaving in the middle of roleplays, when he was only interacting with one other player and there wasn’t anything close to a serious, in-depth roleplay going on, and he didn’t have enough consideration for me to wrap it up and go somewhere else at the time I thought we had agreed on. I went to bed unhappy and peeved.
On Friday Mike was busy talking to Munius, which I understood and didn’t begrudge him not giving me attention. On Saturday, Mike had a Second Life wedding to Munius, and I found that strangely, I liked Munius better than I liked Mike. Munius was a perfect gentleman, and was helpful, and agreed with me on a lot of ideas, and was just generally pleasant to be around. Mike was all sick and tired and whiney, and no help at all. Also, Munius’s wedding vows were written out in beautiful lines of prose (I should add Munius is dyslexic too, but in my time he has shown no obvious signs of it) while Mike’s were spoken and given as a jumbled, mumbled, incoherent mess. After the wedding, I had almost no interaction with Mike. On Sunday I dreamed about Mike, but waking, never spoke to him all day.
I knew our friendship was in trouble. The memories I had of being with him physically were only causing tears, and by now even those tears had dried up. It had been two weeks since I saw him by this time, and in that time, there had been only one day when I had a pleasant conversation with him. Again and again I was hoping to talk to him, and again and again I was disappointed, and either had no contact with him at all, or the kind of shitty contact I had on April 2nd or April 9th that just highlighted how far and how fast our friendship was plummeting. I racked my brain for something I had done wrong that made him treat me like he had been treating me, and could think of nothing. That pleased me in that I had nothing to apologize for, but also depressed me because that meant that the friendship was dying because Mike was fast becoming someone I couldn’t rely on at all, and there was nothing I could do about it. In desperation, I tried one last thing. Mike, for whatever reason, was always against committing a date and time for something, and meeting him was always happenstance. Early in our relationship it was like two kids going to school together, and there was such regularity that setting a date to do something was unnecessary anyway. In April it felt more like two people shopping at the same store, and if we just happened to be there at the same time, great, otherwise there was little chance of us meeting together. So, in a last desperate play to shine a little more light on the dying tree of our friendship, on the morning of Monday, April 13th I told Mike I wanted to talk to him and requested he be on at 11:00 PM that night. I was there. He was not, and hadn’t left a single message or any indication why.
Mike stood me up. After all the time we had been together, all the fun we had had, all the laughter and smiles we had caused in each other, and all the good times we had in Fredericton, when it came to actually setting a date and time to meet, he not only missed it, but didn’t even take 10 seconds to leave me a message.
I hoped, I wanted to believe there was some technical reason for that. Maybe his computer died? Maybe his Internet wasn’t working? On Tuesday, I left him messages, and kept checking for him all day, from early in the morning until the afternoon. No sign of Mike, and it looked like yet another day off would pass without any communication at all from him. Finally, I played my last card, and left a message with his landlady to have Mike call me. I finally talked to him on Second Life later that day. He said he was sick, and that he didn’t leave a message on Second Life because he thought I’d talk to someone and they’d tell me he was off. I asked him why in the world he would leave that to someone else, and not take even a moment to leave me a message. I forgot what his response was. He was peeved that I called, and said I could leave a message on Skype if he really needed to talk to me. I told him I had left four throughout the day, and he said he never got the messages. I then told him it felt like our friendship was ending. He said that he didn’t consider friendships as ending just because people don’t talk for a while. I told him that by way of example, if a man is married to a woman and the man goes away for two weeks, their love isn’t lost for two reasons. First, they know that the separation is temporary, and have a date to look forward to when they can be together. Second, they typically make some indication that they miss each other. Maybe the man will call the woman and talk to her. Maybe the woman will send a letter to the man to let him know she’s thinking of him. That’s what was missing for our relationship. Mike returned from his Mom’s house on April 12th, so that eliminated the primary excuse he had for not talking to me. But more than that, I could think of no time in the past two weeks where Mike had gave any indication he missed me or looked forward to talking to me. Quite the opposite – on the 2nd, the 9th, and especially the 6th my arrival was met with annoyance and hostility. So, I learned on the 14th that there was no technical reason he stood me up. He was just being downright inconsiderate.
There was a whole lot of tears, and a whole lot of crying going on all around this time. I thought bitterly about how asymmetrical our relationship was. How I was the one that told him I loved him, how I had sent him a letter, and taken initiative to learn everything important about him, and how I had taken the time, effort, and expense to visit him in person. But most of all, especially after the 14th, I thought about how everything that happened in the more than two weeks since I’d seen him had been painful for me, and not painful for him. The words of The Script kept ringing in my ears: “While I’m wide awake he has no trouble sleeping. ‘Cause when a heart break, no it don’t break even. What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And what am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re okay. I’m falling to pieces!”
I realized what was happening was an equalization of our relationship in the worst possible way. Since our relationship was already so lopsided, equalization of our relationship would mean a loss of the love I felt by him. I remember thinking bitterly while on a break at work that if Mike was a villain masterminding such an equalization, he couldn’t have done it better, because I was starting to hate him.
Then it hit me. I really was starting to hate Mike. That feeling in my chest I felt after a good conversation was a distant memory. The vacation I took to see him was a taunting memory of joy I would never have again. The lack of contact, and the lack of feeling wanted when I did have any contact with him, was all leading to the same conclusion: I was experiencing my first heartbreak. Thoughts of Mike started filling me with pain, not love. On the night of April 15th, where Mike again gave no trace of himself, I went to bed bitterly knowing that I don’t love Mike anymore. On Thursday, I did talk to him, and told him as such. His reaction was infuriating. He said “Well, it was just an infatuation.” I told him “No, I loved you, well and truly. I stopped loving you because you hurt me.”
Stage 7: Confusion
On April 17th, I had the first true LNPC with Mike in 12 days, since April 5th. This was the start of a very confusing part of our relationship. After close to three weeks of absence, of being ignored, of heartbreak and frustration and anger, I finally saw some hope that perhaps that was just a rough patch, and things could go back to how they were before. I had some kind of contact with him every day for the next 5 days, and a LNPC with Mike on the 22nd, but on the 23rd he was a no-show. Friday I had a long call and had to stay late at work, though I did talk to him briefly on Skype before bed, and Saturday I played Mutiny with him using join.me. But then on the 26th, on the day when I talked to the rudest customer I’ve ever talked to and when I could most use a best friend, he wasn’t available, nor was he on Monday. Then I had a 2 hour Skype call with Mike on Tuesday, and he was available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then busy on Saturday, then available Sunday and Monday, then busy on Tuesday, available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then went home to Fredericton Saturday and Sunday so I wasn’t expecting him, then not on at all Monday, and I went to bed disappointed.
I list his availability with such detail to make a point. Since April 17th, what was the longest streak of time I went with the ability to talk to him every night? Six days. Since April 17th, any time I started getting my hopes up that he could at least be someone I could rely on, he was suddenly not on again and my hopes were dashed. I remember when I first met him, that first month, I began really looking forward to him and expecting to talk to him, and when he was there my heart soared and our relationship grew. With our relationship in its current state, when I let my expectations grow too far, the fall is ever the harder. When I knew there was a good chance of him being available, and when he wasn’t there, my hopes sank.
That, more than any other one factor, is the primary reason that our friendship isn’t being repaired. I once wrote that for a friendship to flourish, three things are necessary: open and easy communication, shared interests, and shared experiences. There is a fourth thing I am finding is sorely required: commitment. Without a stable commitment of resources, time especially, the relationship can’t grow. I saw that with another furry I met, who in the times when I communicate with him on Skype, will just stop talking to me in the middle of a conversation, and he rarely changes his Skype states so I never know if he’s really available to talk or not. That relationship seemed to have a lot of potential, but has since gone almost nowhere because he won’t commit time to me, and in fairness, the open and easy communication requirement is failed as well, since he refuses to talk on microphone and his text responses are monosyllabic snippets that make conversations with him severely one-sided. Mike won’t commit to me. He won’t say “Hey Kevin, how about playing a game tomorrow at 3?” or “Hey Kevin, how about watching a YouTube video next Sunday at 11 PM?” or even “Hey Kevin, I’ll be available to talk tomorrow after 8:00 PM” He also rarely puts time and energy into our relationship in general either. He has never done some sort of side project for me, like I did in writing a story. He rarely watches any videos I suggest anymore, nor does he read or listen to stories I suggest, which used to be part of the shared experiences requirement that was so important in strengthening our relationship. I’m just a pastime for him. This afternoon, he spoke to me for an hour before Munius came on, and soon after he came on went to a one-on-one conversation with Munius and hasn’t spoken to me since, whereas Munius at least talked to me after they were done.
If our friendship is a tree, and time is light, that tree was close to dying in mid-April, and since then hasn’t gotten a steady supply of light, such that every time it tries to revive, that light is shut off and it starts wilting again. So now, the big question is, where does our relationship go from here? First, do I WANT to fall in love with Mike again? On the one hand, the feeling was such a good one the question is almost ludicrous, like asking whether I want some milk and cookies. But on the other hand, there is a good reason for me to say no: once bitten and twice shy. He hurt me, and if I fall in love with Mike again, given what I now know of his personality, he’s likely, maybe even inevitably so, to break my heart again. Also, he has someone else that takes first place in his heart, which wasn’t the slightest detriment to me loving him in the past, but now, knowing how important reciprocation is to a lasting, symmetrical relationship, that fact and the fact that he has been so shy with committing to me even as a friend means that there is no chance he’ll commit to me as a lover, and lately only the smallest chance that he can again commit to me as a friend with the regularity that made me into his best friend in the first place. Second, COULD I fall in love with him again? Now what I’ve seen this darker side of Mike, the side that isn’t malicious but simply uncaring about the feelings and desires of others, could I love someone like that? Even if he were to be online every night for, say, two weeks, and I was able to start expecting him and looking forward to seeing him, would that just restart the friendship, or would that be the first steps towards him supergluing my heart back together? Or would it all just be a sham, and am I destined to never get over the dark emotions he brewed in me during his weeks of mistreatment, and will I never again feel that warm feeling in my chest when I talk to Mike, and never again smile until my face hurts while talking to him?
One thing is certain above all else in this confusing time: my second return to Fredericton will be a shadow of the first time. My first time there, I had no past where he hurt me, no persistence of memory melting over and smothering me like it threatens to do the second time. The first time, I at least loved him, even if he said he didn’t love me. Since I loved him, I was able to show him affection, and though he didn’t return in kind, he did show a friendly affection that made me feel loved and wanted and made it the best vacation ever. Heartbreak will be a definite cloud over the second trip. Also, this second trip will have a more definite finality. When this second trip is over, it doesn’t mean not seeing Mike for three months. It means not seeing Mike for a very long time – perhaps 8 months, perhaps a year, perhaps never again. I can’t shake the feeling that after the second trip, our relationship will collapse again, and this time, with no likelihood of physical contact to motivate trying to glue it together, if it collapses again it will collapse forever.
Editor’s note: Thus ends the original entry from May 12th, 2015. I have been meaning to go over it for some time, but today seemed especially appropriate. Today, June 2, 2016 I again went to get my teeth cleaned, went to the library and to Bruegger’s Bagels and ate alone, and was reminded of that fateful day on April 18, 2015 when I realized our relationship was going nowhere.
This is already at 5,500 words, and a proper continuation of this story would have to include my entries about both trips to Fredericton, but for now I think I would like to give a brief description and skip ahead to the conclusion. Basically, I did prepare for the trip for Fredericton again, though this time without any of the sort of excitement or adventure I felt for going on a long quest to find my one true love. Instead, I was going through the motions, and planning for the trip because I had vacation time to expend and I had made the trip back when I still cared about Mike, and despite everything didn’t want to cancel it. The trip itself was mixed. I don’t like Anime in general, so Animaritime was a mixed bag for me. I have detailed journal entries from that trip, but in a word, highlights were a few interesting panels and meeting the first fursuits I’ve ever seen in my life, while the unquestioned low point was an audience participation quiz game, which was obviously for hardcore anime fans and I was completely lost. However, Mike was also almost completely lost, and it was horrible. After the convention was over, I dropped Mike off at his house, and before leaving Fredericton forever, I said to Mike “Last time I left here, you broke my heart.” I didn’t shed any tears on the way back. Again, after I got home on June 30th 2015, I messaged him, but he didn’t message me back. I was prepared for it that time, and since my heart was already broke, my response was basically “Well, that figures.” He barely talked to me at all for weeks.
The end of our relationship came on July 17th, 2016. I saved a copy of the last chat I ever had with him, including what was going through my head:
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): hello
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: hello
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): how are you
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: Been better, been worse. Where are you?
[20:18] Spirit (renpas): in a rp sorta think its dieing thow
[20:26] Renpas: i have been good bissy with rl stuf
[20:28] Kevin Thesium: Mike, tell me something. What were you doing on July 1st?
[20:29] Renpas: hrrmmm....
[20:29] Renpas: i think i was with my rl famly
[20:30] Kevin Thesium: Did you have computer troubles on that day as well?
[20:30] Renpas: not shure i dont think i was on much
[20:31] Kevin Thesium: Mike, do you want to be my friend?
[20:32] Renpas: yes why do you ask
[20:32] Kevin Thesium: Then what has prevented you from going so long without even trying to contact me?
[20:34] Renpas: i conttacted you the other night and i have been rather bissy in rl this is the longest i have been on
This is what I want to tell you but I cannot.
Fuck you Mike. Fuck you and your inconsiderateness. Fuck you who would abandon me twice, and give me so little consideration. Fuck you who would wither my heart to a cold ball of unfeeling ice, going day to day without any joy, or really any sorrow. You gave me the best days of my life, and the worst days in my life, and now you're leaving me, and again make out like it's no big fucking deal. Like it means nothing that you have gone weeks without talking to me. Like "I've just been busy" is your excuse, and that it's not just a cover for the truth: we're not friends anymore. I don't know and like you anymore. I want to punch you in the face and spit on your body and leave you to rot. I want to abandon you, like you abandoned me. I don't feel alone in your twilight zone, but it's time you LEFT my haunted heart. I feel your specter haunting me. Keeping me down with misery. So take your ghost and move along. I missed your soul, but I know you're gone.
Super mean:
Fuck you Mike. Go die in a car crash, and haunt me no more.
Super nice:
Oh well that's alright sweetie. Everyone needs a break from Second Life now and then, and I hope you're having fun.
Middle: Mike, you abandoned me, a second time. Only this time I'm not surprised. I expected you to abandon me, and you didn't disappoint at being a disappointment. Now I'm trying to move on from you, and you being here is doing nothing but haunting me. I don't want a friend who would abandon me for weeks like it's nothing. I want a friend who will share my interests, share experiences with me, and who I can talk to. And right now, there are about four people who actually meet those definitions, and about seven billion people who could potentially meet those requirements. But I won't say this to you either. I don't know whether I want to burn my bridges or not, and come to think of it, the "I wish you the best" part of Specters is about a peaceful break, not the violent break with you that I'm halfway craving right now.
[20:47] Renpas: nozes
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: I have spent the last 13 minutes writing, and I still don't really know what to say to that.
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: Is your RP done?
[20:48] Renpas: no im starting to hind a out thow
[20:48] Kevin Thesium: What?
[20:49] Renpas: looking for a exit
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: Well, I have to get to bed. I have work tomorrow.
[20:50] Renpas: ok nini
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: bye
[20:50] Renpas: sleep well
I internally didn’t want to burn my bridges, but that is exactly what I did. I removed his name from Skype and Steam. I unfriended him on Facebook. And as for Second Life, I still have the viewer on my computer for some reason, but the core files say they were created September 15th, 2015, and none of the files have been modified since October 10th, 2015, so I have never logged back into Second Life in the year 2016. Mike was my main reason for going on. The words of Dr. Manhattan come to mind: “When you left me, I left Earth.” I left Second Life, and not only didn’t return because my main reason for going there was to talk to Mike. I avoided it completely because I was afraid that if I went on at all, even though he’s not my Second Life friend, that going to some of my favorite landmarks would mean possibly seeing him again.
Almost a year after my last contact with Mike, my memory of him is split in two.
One half is the Mike I fell in love with. That’s the Mike that liked me, that cared about me, that spared a thought for me and considered me and who I could look forward to having not only a good time with, but the best time in my life. That Mike represented a glorious dawn, filled with hope and promise and wonder, and the possibility that my entire life up to that point, that the introverted Kevin who enjoyed spending time alone doing things I enjoy without being bothered was gone, and was going to be replaced with the everlasting bliss of friendship.
The other half is the Mike I dealt with after physically meeting him. That is the cold Mike. The one who didn’t want to talk to me, who avoided me, who in times when I needed him the most wasn’t there for me and didn’t care about me. That is the pathetic Mike. The one who is unemployed, severely dyslexic, inactive, unhealthy, unclean, mentally damaged, unmotivated Mike. The Mike who spends all his days in one room of a two story apartment shared by elderly people, including one who never cleans her cat’s litter box and makes the entire building smell like cat pee and poop. The Mike who lays down all day in the bed in his one room, connecting to Second Life on a shitty HP laptop that is always in danger of breaking, who went to college for culinary art but never cooks for himself, who has spent years since he has had any job and gets money exclusively from him Mom, who doesn’t know his own age but was either 29 or 30 when I last spoke to him, and when I asked him where he sees himself in 5 years, said “Dead,” and I truly believe that was a correct assumption now. But more than anything, the Mike where any of that matters. I fell in love with Mike knowing full well what flaws he had. I didn’t care. He didn’t trick me into coming to Fredericton, and I what was so great about our relationship was how open and genuine it was. But when I tried talking to Mike, and couldn’t talk to him, and he showed how inconsiderate he was and how one-sided our relationship was or became (whether “was” or “became” is more accurate is up for debate), suddenly those personal flaws mattered.
I considered making a clean break from Mike: deleting all my files, recycling all my trip information, and throwing out all physical mementos from him. I decided against it. Catherine Aird is famously quoted as saying “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.” My experience with Mike was nothing if not a learning experience, and 2015 was a year for growing up, for better or for worse. The mementos I have of Mike elicit such bittersweet memories in me, but I’m also coming to find, now in this season more than in the past, that what I learned from my experience with Mike, the good and the bad, is important to my future. There is an entire other story to tell, though I’m not sure if I am ready to tell it publically, even if it is anonymous, about what happened in the last year, but I’ll end this entry here because it concludes the story arc of what happened to with Mike, as he was out of my life after that last contact. For now, I will say only this: after I broke contact with Mike, I thought I found what I was looking for, but that dream of the everlasting bliss of friendship has not been realized by me as of the time of writing this.
Etiquette of Participating in Non-Interactive Entertainment
Posted 11 years agoOn Saturday after an hour of chit-chat with my best friend Mike on Second Life, I suggested going somewhere else and watching YouTube videos. Back on November 24th he installed the Adobe Flash Player 15 Plugin so he could watch videos in Second Life as well as just sharing the links. It didn't go well. I selected two videos that Mike disliked enough to stop the videos, he selected a video that was region-locked and if it wasn't I wouldn't want to watch anyway, and then we both talked while music videos were playing.
I went to bed dissatisfied, uncomfortably reminded that though I'm 25 years old, there are still plenty of things about etiquette and friendship I don't know or understand. I had trouble sleeping, and realized that I had never really given much thought to the etiquette of people participating in shared, non-interactive entertainment, and that was part of the problem I had last night. And so, I came up with two conclusions: First, that no one likes to be tricked into partaking in entertainment, and second, that group enjoyment of non-interactive entertainment almost always follows the same general pattern: shut, share, and swap.
Tricked into entertainment
I remember years ago, when I was probably twelve years old or so and part of the youth group of a non-denomination Protestant church, there was an event called "Destination Unknown." The whole idea of the event was that you and the rest of the youth group would get into a van, and it would be kept a secret where you were going, but it was supposed to be something good. So I went, a bit nervous on the ride but hoping it would turn out to be something like a movie, or paintball or airsoft, or roller skating or something. Instead, I watched in horror as we pulled into a hockey stadium. If I didn't like hockey before, I certainly hated it after that night. I spent that night forced to sit in a hockey stadium watching an Amerks games, not taking the slightest bit of enjoyment from the experience, and wishing the entire time that I could leave and hating that my ride was with the youth group and I couldn't go home. At the time, I took that metaphorically. In the context of "Destination Unknown" being a metaphor for heaven, after that day my sentiments roughly mirrored Huckleberry Finn on the subject, in that if there is a heaven, it's not necessarily a good place to go since people have different conceptions of what a good time is. But in the context of last night, there was another lesson I should have taken to heart from that experience: people hate being tricked into entertainment.
Now, if instead of Destination Unknown, the event had been "youth group going to a hockey game", I would have just said "Well, I hate hockey" and not gone, and been spared a horrible night and feeling of rancor towards whoever put together that event. Instead, by being tricked into entertainment, I ended up going to something that whoever put the event together would define as a good time, but was absolutely horrible for me. Something similar happened last night. I didn't ASK Mike "Hey, would you like to watch Rainbow Dash Presents: My Little Dashie? It's a half-hour parody on YouTube of the fan fiction My Little Dashie with a bunch of silly, random humor, all the humans are monkeys, and there's a karaoke song in the center." Instead, I put the video up on the screen and started it playing, and he obviously wasn't feeling the same emotions I was when I first watched it, since he stopped it a few minutes in. If I had said that, he could just say "Well, I don't think I would like that kind of parody" and not played it.
People like tricking other people into entertainment. If you go on YouTube and search for reaction videos, quite a lot of them are based upon that very concept. What people are afraid of is that if entertainment is offered, people might say "no". The hope is that when people are tricked into entertainment, they'll put away their stubborn feelings, and might enjoy something new, maybe even something that isn't of a type or genre that they usually like. After all, you could imagine how disappoint it is if someone is really into some TV show or movie or something, and one of their friends usually doesn't like the genre, but if they were to actually watch that specific instance they would like it as much as their friend did and have something to share and talk about? However, I now see that trickery is the exact wrong way to go about that. It puts stress on the person tricking since they have to bite their nails that the person tricked won't go away in disgust, hating the entertainment and hating them, and puts the person tricked under added stress because they feel forced down to partake in the entertainment, rather than coming to it of their own accord. Instead, as a mature young man what I should be doing is offering entertainment, like I do when I watch movies with my Dad. I don't say to him "Let's go watch a movie, but I won't tell you what it is until we get there." I say "Would you like to watch [insert movie here] [at the firehouse/on the computer/in theaters] tonight?" and he responds yes or no, and if no then there are no hard feelings.
Shut, share, and swap.
Of my family members, my Dad is certainly my best friend. He unequivocally meets the three elements of friendship that I mentioned in the last journal. We have shared interest. We talk often. And among family members, he is the one I share entertainment with the most. Now, with Dad the entertainment I share with him is almost exclusively non-interactive. He's not a fan of games in general, but we like the same movies, and have roughly similar tastes in TV shows, music, and art. I not only love him as a father but like him as a friend because he's good at sharing those kinds of entertainment, and thinking on it last night, I realized that the reason I like sharing non-interactive entertainment with him is because he follows an enjoyable pattern of shut, share and swap.
Shut - Now, a person could be the best conversationalist in the world. They could be the kind of person that makes you smile with a word, the kind of person you love to talk to, and the kind of person you share everything with. But, when non-interactive entertainment is playing, the first and most important step is for everyone watching it to shut their mouths. This is reason number one why I enjoy watching movies more with Dad than with Mom. Dad will quietly watch the movie with me, and not talk or interrupt me while I'm watching it with him. Mom is the opposite. A few months ago I had the movie Wreck It Ralph playing on the TV at home, one of the rare times I ever watch a movie on our home TV, under the hope Mom would watch it and like it. She wandered and talked. Those two things are the worst transgressions of etiquette I can think of when it comes to watching a movie. The problem of wandering gets into the next section, so I'll skip that for now, and simply say that about 2/3rds through the movie, she talked and asked about a plot point she didn't get because she wandered. My blood just boiled at that. I'm here, watching this movie, getting into it, and she wants to take me out of the movie, still playing, and talk about it? On a similar vein, when I shared an episode of MLP with my nieces, sister, and Mom, it wasn't very fun, for the same reason. In the middle of the show, Mom and Sheila are talking about it and commenting on it, while my nieces, like the precocious little squirts they are, seemed in retrospect to understand the concept of shared entertainment better than all three of us, and quietly watched the show. The joy of non-interactive entertainment is getting into it. A person follows plots and threads in the entertainment, and feels emotions based on that entertainment. To talk during it, to open one's mouth and ask questions or judge in the middle of partaking in that entertainment is to destroy the entertainment. It means taking a person out of that entertainment and back to self-consciousness, disrupting enthrallment in the plot if applicable, and certainly causing whatever emotions would have been felt to be replaced with no emotion, annoyance, or self-consciousness at the prospect of possibly being ridiculed. And so, the simple act of silence is the first and most necessary part of two people becoming jointly enthralled in non-interactive entertainment.
Share - The next step is to share in the emotions and feelings that come from partaking in non-interactive entertainment. This gets into what people often mean by the concept of "genre". When a person says they do or do not like a particular "genre" of something, it means they generally feel a specific kind of emotion or feeling when partaking in an instance of that genre. It doesn't necessarily mean that they love or hate every instance of a genre, as my previous posts on horror movies points out (I loved Dawn of the Dead after all), but it means that they have a general feeling about that genre that tends to pervade all instances of that genre. Take action movies for example. Recently, I watched The 6th Day with Dad on Blu-ray, and it was obvious that we both enjoyed it. The reason why we both enjoyed it was firstly because the movie was part of a genre of movies that we both enjoy, and that secondly that specific movie met our definitions of "good movie." So, I can reasonably assume that while watching it, Dad and I were feeling roughly the same emotions, and it was an instance of successful shared non-interactive entertainment. Now, as a counter example, let me get back to Mom's wanderings. By wandering, she had the impression that "This is not important to me. It's more important that I go and do dishes than that I watch this movie with you, and I don't care about the plot to the point that I will willingly not watch it for 10 minutes." That completely destroyed any impression that we were feeling the same emotions while watching the movie. I thought it was of a genre she would enjoy, since she hates violence in general, but somehow it just wasn't clicking for her, and I got the impression that it was more of a personality flaw than a dislike of that particular movie, but when I talked to my Dad about that yesterday before editing this entry, they might be incorrect. He pointed out that Mom in general doesn’t like action movies, even cartoon action movies, and is more the sort of person to enjoy a movie like Sleepless in Seattle. I mentioned before that I rarely watch movies on my home TV. The reason for that is that Mom's behavior while watching Wreck It Ralph was typical of watching any movie at home. I can barely think of two examples when she actually sat down and shared in a full movie, which makes me want to never watch a full movie with her. And yet, take as a counter-example us watching Psych together, which she has on DVD. When we watch that, she doesn't get up, or wander around. She sits there and enjoys the TV show with me, and keeps comments on it to the end generally.
Swap - The last stage of non-interactive entertainment is the swap stage. In broadcast TV this can often take place during commercials, and for movies this most often happens immediately after they are done. When the non-interactive entertainment is over, that is the correct time to swap judgments on it, and do things like remember funny or cool parts about it, break down the plot if there is one, discuss if there were any interesting parts or plot holes, and make a general judgment about the piece of entertainment. It's important for that to be at the end because when the entertainment ends, there is no longer any entertainment for a person to ruin by interrupting, and no chance that a person will have to continue the entertainment with feelings of katagelophobia. Also, my Dad does this particularly well for three reasons. First, he often has interesting insights into entertainment. Second, he's very rarely says many negative things about entertainment, and will usually accentuate the positive except in the case of plot holes, which I usually agree with him on when he brings them up. And third, the sharing doesn't stop five minutes after the entertainment. To this day, my Dad and I will often make shared references to movies like Airplane and Super Troopers, and share references to Firesign Theater. And while shutting your mouth is the most important part of immediate enjoyment of non-interactive entertainment, swapping information, judgments, and references to shared entertainment long after that entertainment is finished is an essential part of turning separate instances of shared entertainment into long-term friendships.
And so, though I'm 25, maybe it's high time I write my own letter to Princess Celestia:
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that when sharing entertainment with friends, entertainment should be offered. People in general hate it when entertainment is thrust upon them, even in cases where they would enjoy the entertainment if they had sought it out of their own accord.
Also, I learned that when you're sharing entertainment with a good friend, it's important to shut your mouth, share in the entertainment, and then only when the entertainment is done swap judgments, feelings, and information about the shared experience.
Your faithful student,
Thesium
I went to bed dissatisfied, uncomfortably reminded that though I'm 25 years old, there are still plenty of things about etiquette and friendship I don't know or understand. I had trouble sleeping, and realized that I had never really given much thought to the etiquette of people participating in shared, non-interactive entertainment, and that was part of the problem I had last night. And so, I came up with two conclusions: First, that no one likes to be tricked into partaking in entertainment, and second, that group enjoyment of non-interactive entertainment almost always follows the same general pattern: shut, share, and swap.
Tricked into entertainment
I remember years ago, when I was probably twelve years old or so and part of the youth group of a non-denomination Protestant church, there was an event called "Destination Unknown." The whole idea of the event was that you and the rest of the youth group would get into a van, and it would be kept a secret where you were going, but it was supposed to be something good. So I went, a bit nervous on the ride but hoping it would turn out to be something like a movie, or paintball or airsoft, or roller skating or something. Instead, I watched in horror as we pulled into a hockey stadium. If I didn't like hockey before, I certainly hated it after that night. I spent that night forced to sit in a hockey stadium watching an Amerks games, not taking the slightest bit of enjoyment from the experience, and wishing the entire time that I could leave and hating that my ride was with the youth group and I couldn't go home. At the time, I took that metaphorically. In the context of "Destination Unknown" being a metaphor for heaven, after that day my sentiments roughly mirrored Huckleberry Finn on the subject, in that if there is a heaven, it's not necessarily a good place to go since people have different conceptions of what a good time is. But in the context of last night, there was another lesson I should have taken to heart from that experience: people hate being tricked into entertainment.
Now, if instead of Destination Unknown, the event had been "youth group going to a hockey game", I would have just said "Well, I hate hockey" and not gone, and been spared a horrible night and feeling of rancor towards whoever put together that event. Instead, by being tricked into entertainment, I ended up going to something that whoever put the event together would define as a good time, but was absolutely horrible for me. Something similar happened last night. I didn't ASK Mike "Hey, would you like to watch Rainbow Dash Presents: My Little Dashie? It's a half-hour parody on YouTube of the fan fiction My Little Dashie with a bunch of silly, random humor, all the humans are monkeys, and there's a karaoke song in the center." Instead, I put the video up on the screen and started it playing, and he obviously wasn't feeling the same emotions I was when I first watched it, since he stopped it a few minutes in. If I had said that, he could just say "Well, I don't think I would like that kind of parody" and not played it.
People like tricking other people into entertainment. If you go on YouTube and search for reaction videos, quite a lot of them are based upon that very concept. What people are afraid of is that if entertainment is offered, people might say "no". The hope is that when people are tricked into entertainment, they'll put away their stubborn feelings, and might enjoy something new, maybe even something that isn't of a type or genre that they usually like. After all, you could imagine how disappoint it is if someone is really into some TV show or movie or something, and one of their friends usually doesn't like the genre, but if they were to actually watch that specific instance they would like it as much as their friend did and have something to share and talk about? However, I now see that trickery is the exact wrong way to go about that. It puts stress on the person tricking since they have to bite their nails that the person tricked won't go away in disgust, hating the entertainment and hating them, and puts the person tricked under added stress because they feel forced down to partake in the entertainment, rather than coming to it of their own accord. Instead, as a mature young man what I should be doing is offering entertainment, like I do when I watch movies with my Dad. I don't say to him "Let's go watch a movie, but I won't tell you what it is until we get there." I say "Would you like to watch [insert movie here] [at the firehouse/on the computer/in theaters] tonight?" and he responds yes or no, and if no then there are no hard feelings.
Shut, share, and swap.
Of my family members, my Dad is certainly my best friend. He unequivocally meets the three elements of friendship that I mentioned in the last journal. We have shared interest. We talk often. And among family members, he is the one I share entertainment with the most. Now, with Dad the entertainment I share with him is almost exclusively non-interactive. He's not a fan of games in general, but we like the same movies, and have roughly similar tastes in TV shows, music, and art. I not only love him as a father but like him as a friend because he's good at sharing those kinds of entertainment, and thinking on it last night, I realized that the reason I like sharing non-interactive entertainment with him is because he follows an enjoyable pattern of shut, share and swap.
Shut - Now, a person could be the best conversationalist in the world. They could be the kind of person that makes you smile with a word, the kind of person you love to talk to, and the kind of person you share everything with. But, when non-interactive entertainment is playing, the first and most important step is for everyone watching it to shut their mouths. This is reason number one why I enjoy watching movies more with Dad than with Mom. Dad will quietly watch the movie with me, and not talk or interrupt me while I'm watching it with him. Mom is the opposite. A few months ago I had the movie Wreck It Ralph playing on the TV at home, one of the rare times I ever watch a movie on our home TV, under the hope Mom would watch it and like it. She wandered and talked. Those two things are the worst transgressions of etiquette I can think of when it comes to watching a movie. The problem of wandering gets into the next section, so I'll skip that for now, and simply say that about 2/3rds through the movie, she talked and asked about a plot point she didn't get because she wandered. My blood just boiled at that. I'm here, watching this movie, getting into it, and she wants to take me out of the movie, still playing, and talk about it? On a similar vein, when I shared an episode of MLP with my nieces, sister, and Mom, it wasn't very fun, for the same reason. In the middle of the show, Mom and Sheila are talking about it and commenting on it, while my nieces, like the precocious little squirts they are, seemed in retrospect to understand the concept of shared entertainment better than all three of us, and quietly watched the show. The joy of non-interactive entertainment is getting into it. A person follows plots and threads in the entertainment, and feels emotions based on that entertainment. To talk during it, to open one's mouth and ask questions or judge in the middle of partaking in that entertainment is to destroy the entertainment. It means taking a person out of that entertainment and back to self-consciousness, disrupting enthrallment in the plot if applicable, and certainly causing whatever emotions would have been felt to be replaced with no emotion, annoyance, or self-consciousness at the prospect of possibly being ridiculed. And so, the simple act of silence is the first and most necessary part of two people becoming jointly enthralled in non-interactive entertainment.
Share - The next step is to share in the emotions and feelings that come from partaking in non-interactive entertainment. This gets into what people often mean by the concept of "genre". When a person says they do or do not like a particular "genre" of something, it means they generally feel a specific kind of emotion or feeling when partaking in an instance of that genre. It doesn't necessarily mean that they love or hate every instance of a genre, as my previous posts on horror movies points out (I loved Dawn of the Dead after all), but it means that they have a general feeling about that genre that tends to pervade all instances of that genre. Take action movies for example. Recently, I watched The 6th Day with Dad on Blu-ray, and it was obvious that we both enjoyed it. The reason why we both enjoyed it was firstly because the movie was part of a genre of movies that we both enjoy, and that secondly that specific movie met our definitions of "good movie." So, I can reasonably assume that while watching it, Dad and I were feeling roughly the same emotions, and it was an instance of successful shared non-interactive entertainment. Now, as a counter example, let me get back to Mom's wanderings. By wandering, she had the impression that "This is not important to me. It's more important that I go and do dishes than that I watch this movie with you, and I don't care about the plot to the point that I will willingly not watch it for 10 minutes." That completely destroyed any impression that we were feeling the same emotions while watching the movie. I thought it was of a genre she would enjoy, since she hates violence in general, but somehow it just wasn't clicking for her, and I got the impression that it was more of a personality flaw than a dislike of that particular movie, but when I talked to my Dad about that yesterday before editing this entry, they might be incorrect. He pointed out that Mom in general doesn’t like action movies, even cartoon action movies, and is more the sort of person to enjoy a movie like Sleepless in Seattle. I mentioned before that I rarely watch movies on my home TV. The reason for that is that Mom's behavior while watching Wreck It Ralph was typical of watching any movie at home. I can barely think of two examples when she actually sat down and shared in a full movie, which makes me want to never watch a full movie with her. And yet, take as a counter-example us watching Psych together, which she has on DVD. When we watch that, she doesn't get up, or wander around. She sits there and enjoys the TV show with me, and keeps comments on it to the end generally.
Swap - The last stage of non-interactive entertainment is the swap stage. In broadcast TV this can often take place during commercials, and for movies this most often happens immediately after they are done. When the non-interactive entertainment is over, that is the correct time to swap judgments on it, and do things like remember funny or cool parts about it, break down the plot if there is one, discuss if there were any interesting parts or plot holes, and make a general judgment about the piece of entertainment. It's important for that to be at the end because when the entertainment ends, there is no longer any entertainment for a person to ruin by interrupting, and no chance that a person will have to continue the entertainment with feelings of katagelophobia. Also, my Dad does this particularly well for three reasons. First, he often has interesting insights into entertainment. Second, he's very rarely says many negative things about entertainment, and will usually accentuate the positive except in the case of plot holes, which I usually agree with him on when he brings them up. And third, the sharing doesn't stop five minutes after the entertainment. To this day, my Dad and I will often make shared references to movies like Airplane and Super Troopers, and share references to Firesign Theater. And while shutting your mouth is the most important part of immediate enjoyment of non-interactive entertainment, swapping information, judgments, and references to shared entertainment long after that entertainment is finished is an essential part of turning separate instances of shared entertainment into long-term friendships.
And so, though I'm 25, maybe it's high time I write my own letter to Princess Celestia:
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that when sharing entertainment with friends, entertainment should be offered. People in general hate it when entertainment is thrust upon them, even in cases where they would enjoy the entertainment if they had sought it out of their own accord.
Also, I learned that when you're sharing entertainment with a good friend, it's important to shut your mouth, share in the entertainment, and then only when the entertainment is done swap judgments, feelings, and information about the shared experience.
Your faithful student,
Thesium
Three Elements of Harmony
Posted 11 years agoOn the night of November 20th when I got on Second Life my friend Mike was busy, which suited me because I wanted to watch some videos and go to bed early anyway. After I did, and turned out the lights, I was laying in bed thinking about the concept of friendship, and a follow-up to my previous journal entry.
When thinking about friendship, I often like to imagine me talking to myself at age 13. Around when I was 13, I got invited to the birthday party of a popular kid at school, and had a good time. I met a lot of people there, and had a taste of popularity. Trouble is, that popularity really just seemed to manifest itself as saying 'hi' to people in the hallways, and thus was just an annoyance to me. I considered attempting to turn those first sparks of acquaintance into full friendships, but consciously decided against it. I was aware that I was a naturally reclusive person who wasn't good at holding long-term friendships, and more importantly in retrospect, I really couldn't see a good reason for trying to do that at the time besides the feeling that it was expected of a person that having a lot of friends was a sign of success and lack of such was a sign of being a loser. So, I didn't want to form friendships for their own sakes, and consciously decided that I would rather let the opportunity pass and resign to joyful solitude.
But when I asked my younger self "Why did you come to that decision? Why would you find the concept of friendship back then to be merely annoying, when now, recently, you are finally for the first time in your life in the middle of a long-term fulfilling friendship?" My younger self replied "Go back further."
Thinking on it, in my whole life there have only really been three friendships that I've had that are outside of the family and could be considered long-term. I won't give any full powerwords, but they have been Kevin L., Jesse B. and Mike. Kevin was the first of these, and my experiences with his friendship were formative of my current outlook on the concept.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
That phrase has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks. I remember when I was young and it was referenced on The Magic School Bus I didn't get the metaphor, and it was only later I realized it meant that you can offer opportunities to people, but can't make them accept those opportunities. Kevin was a classmate of mine when I was about 6 or so, and also happened to just live about half a mile down the street from where I live. My Mom matched us up for sleepovers, which I now see was in the hope that I would take the opportunity she was providing and make the friendship self-sustaining myself. That never happened. As a brief side-note, right now the very same thing is happening with me and her in reverse. I installed several games I thought she might like on the computer in hopes she would get into them and enjoy them. Instead, she will only play any of the games with a lot of prodding from me, and she will never play them when I'm not around. The exact same thing in reverse happened for Kevin. Mom was our matchmaker, and she would call Kevin's Mom and set up sleepovers, but I never took the initiative to, say, call Kevin myself, or offer to come to his house and do something, or even really talk to him outside of our sleepovers. And thinking on why that was, I came to a realization:
When Kevin was over, what I really wanted, more than anything, was for him to leave.
Now, why would I say such a thing? To be clear, it wasn't for any of the reasons a person would usually think that. Kevin was a good friend, in that he was good at friendship. He was kind, and polite, and open to suggestions. I can see why my Mom paired us, and she was probably hoping I would learn more about friendship from him and use that knowledge for form my own friendships. Instead, though our sleepovers were at best pleasant and at worst boring, to the best of my fading memory for that far back what I really wanted was for him to be gone, not because he was a bad person or anything. I wanted him gone because he was a disruption. Even by the age of 6 or so, I had already become the kind of kid that tended to find great pleasure in solitary entertainment. For the reasons for that, I would have to go back further to investigate my interactions with my family, and that is an entirely different topic, so for the time being I'll just say that's so and leave it at that. Point being that by the time Kevin entered my life, after school I enjoyed watching TV, reading books, and playing PC games. You might notice that those three things are things that can be done alone. And so, when Kevin came over, I had to stop doing what I really wanted to do, and try my best to do something more cooperative and less fun, like board games or building forts or something. That lead to several memorable instances of "What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?" and really, I'm sure what I was thinking was "Well, what I really want to do is for you to leave so I can go to my computer and play Alpha Centauri, which would be a whole lot more fun than this."
So then, thinking in bed, I thought the obvious question: "Did I never consider the possibility of taking turns?"
And to the best of my memory, I either didn't consider that at all, or considered it and thought it would be a bad idea. So, let's imagine I could stick a plug in my neck like in Andromeda, enter a virtual reality simulation, and simulate reliving those first formative encounters I had with friendship with me knowing what I know now when I was younger. Now, I'm still not "good" at friendship, which I'll get to later, but I would say that I at least know more about it now than I did at the time.
So, say that Mom has invited Kevin over for a sleepover. He comes over, and gets his stuff all carried in, and we have the entire evening to do stuff. Now, in reality what that would probably entail was either us playing Star Wars Monopoly, watching Star Wars together (which actually was fun, I will say) or scratching our heads bored. If I could relive that, what I would try would be to bring him into my interests. I would show him my computer, which then as now was the primary seat of my entertainment and joy, and first show him whatever game I was interested in. But knowing what I know now, watching someone play is generally boring for the person watching, and makes the person playing feel catagelophobic. Since then as now I have only a tiny selection of multiplayer games that can be played on one computer, and only had one computer back then, I imagine what would happen if, for example, I first played a mission of Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and then either mid-mission or after it, switched places with Kevin and let him play it for a while and for me to watch. If that actually worked out, it would do a lot to assuage the feeling of disruption I felt when he came over. Then, the next logical thing for me to change was for me to actually do a tit-for-tat exchange, and give him the benefit of the doubt for whatever he was interested in. Since Mom was matchmaking, it worked out that he came over about a dozen times, and I only went to his house a few times, and when I did it, it was a similar situation, only this time I still wanted to go home. I was naturally less open to new things than he was, and more apt to balk at suggestions for trying things he liked, which probably did more to kill the friendship than anything else. I wish I could have told my younger self that sharing in what someone is interested in, even if you end up not liking it, can be something that helps form friendships anyway, and that even if you don't end up liking what another person suggests, the fact that you even took the time to try what they suggested is flattering to them, and creates something you both can talk about.
So, I wonder, looking back at that first formative friendship that if I could go back and do it again, if I could take what I've learned and turn it into a self-sustaining long-term friendship, or if it would still be doomed to failure because of my personality and the interests we didn't share. As a side note, Mom gave up trying to set up sleepovers after a few years, and Kevin and I drifted away, with him getting interested in soccer in a single-minded way that approaches my interest in PC gaming. He's still a 'friend' of mine on Facebook, but we have hardly spoken a word to each other in 15 years or so, and his Facebook page is a rarely-updated collection of comments on soccer, ice bucket challenge stuff, and booze pictures. So, he's pretty much dead to me.
Don’t Match Up Exactly
For all of high school I had acquaintances, but no long-term fulfilling friendships. When I went to college, I met Jesse. Jesse’s friendship wasn’t quite fulfilling, but it had the virtue of being long-term at least.
Since my friendship with Jesse started in 2008, I can at least remember more details about it than my friendship with Kevin, and what I can't remember I can probably find recorded or written down somewhere. I still remember my first meeting with him pretty well. Based on my e-mail records it was around March 2008, and after some sort of event or meeting with my college's game club, I went to the commuter lounge to use their computers for a while. There, I met a teenager a few years younger than me with short hair, crooked teeth, a high-pitched voice and an androgynous name. Quite frankly, I wasn't even totally sure of his gender until I talked with him more. I found that he was at college because though he was actually in high school he was taking some courses in college, and also had a big interest in PC games. In particular, he was nearly obsessed with Valve games, Portal and Half Life 2 in specific, and also had an interest in game development, which I shared at the time. After the meeting we exchanged e-mail addresses and became pen pals for a few months. I ended up meeting him more often and more regularly, and for my part I played Portal and Half Life 1, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift. However, while Portal gave us common ground, Jesse really had no interest in the earlier Half Life games, and for reasons I can't remember I never played any of the more recent Half Life games then or ever. Also, when it came to game development, we learned we had quite different conceptions of what specifically that meant. I was more interested in developing complete, simple games or mods for existing games, and Jesse was really more interested in 3D modeling. One day, he showed me how to use Source Development Kit, but I just didn't take to it for some reason. I remember that what I really wanted to do with it was to make a flying saucer, but he was more interested in working with scripts on it, which I wasn't very interested in. Also, he in general didn't like the kind of games I was interested in, and would only play any with a lot of prodding. So, even when I was in college it was a very mixed friendship. On the one hand, I really did enjoy seeing him around, and liked meeting with him and talking with him, and he even had two sleepovers at my dorm. On the other hand, it was obvious our interests didn't match up exactly, and neither of us was generally flexible enough to not only try what the other person liked, but actually take to it and enjoy it. Eventually, Jesse did play some games I liked with me, like Worms Armageddon and Age of Mythology, but never played them without me, very much like how these days Mom will play Mutiny and Jeopardy with me, but will never actually seek them out and play them herself, or actually ask me if I want to play them with her.
After graduating from college, we drifted away even more. Without face to face communication, practically speaking the only way to get in touch with Jesse is through Steam chat. And on Steam chat, he's a slow typer who gives short responses and I often get the feeling I'm getting a tiny fraction of his attention when typing to him. So, I went nearly a full year without talking with him at all. I had a change of heart in early 2014, and decided to attempt to rekindle the friendship. I went through and re-read all the e-mails, Facebook chats, and Steam chats, and compiled them into a document encompassing everything I know about Jesse. It was bitter-sweet, since I was able to read those first pleasant e-mails that reminded me what I liked Jesse in the first place, but also read later conversations that recorded instances of frustration and difficulties in the friendship. I then attempted to reconnect with Jesse on Steam, but it was no good. I was knee deep in Call of Duty and StarCraft II, both of which he seemed to recoil from in horror, while he was into JRPGs, puzzle games, and MOBA games, and was also starting to shy away from PC gaming to console gaming. Also, for game development he had pretty much lost all interest in that in general, and was instead focusing purely on Daz3D, which I tried but found I had no interest in. So, though PC gaming and development had united us in the first place, there was really no hope that it would reunite us. Also, when it came to just general talking, it felt like I was digging a mine and only getting iron. To explain, imagine that a person is a mine, and that time you put into interacting with them is like mining that mine. Now, say that if after you spend time with them you go away thinking it was a valuable use of your time, you have come out of the mine with gold, and if you end up feeling like it was time wasted, you come out with rubble. Reconnecting with Jesse was like going into that mine and coming out with iron, in that the time I spent wasn't quite wasted, and I was coming out with something of some value at least, but still it was something boring and common. I never really felt like I was connecting with Jesse as a person and spending the time really enjoyably.
In frustration, I wrote a song parody based on You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift called Don’t Match Up Exactly, which was inappropriate for my parody section on Lyrics Wiki, but on consideration, actually would be appropriate to post on Fur Affinity. For all my fiddling with it, I just can’t seem to get the syllables of the parody to match up exactly with the original song, which I suppose is appropriate considering the topic of the parody.
You're on Steam, playing some puzzle game I bet
I'm going off to play something different
You don't play the same games
As I do
I'm on my PC; it's a typical Sunday night
He's on the kind of game I only sort of like
So I just go
Through a fourth
Play through
'Cause he likes SpaceChem, Torchlight, and Remember Me
I like FPS like Black Ops II Zombies
Dreamin' 'bout the day, when we stop drifting away
And see interests emerge, interests that really converge
I enjoy trying to understand you
Been friends for so long, so why can't you see
Our interests don't match up exactly
Our interests don't match up
I sat next to you, thinking that maybe today
I'd get interested and learn to use SDK
Laughin' on a the computer, thinkin' to myself
Hey isn't this, easy
And you've got art that could light up this whole town
If I tried the same it would be a huge letdown
Do I have skills better than that?
I never won any contest
He likes inflation, I'm a full-blown furry
He renders art and I write stories
Dreamin' 'bout the day, when we stop drifting away
It would really be so sweet, to find tastes that truly meet
I enjoy trying to understand you
Been friends for so long, so why can't you
See
Our interests don't match up exactly
Searching websites, reading your updates
It's all so close, but I just can't relate
Jesse, all I see
Don't match up exactly
Oh I remember you, writing me e-mails, late into the night
You're the one that's outgoing, and I'm the one that's shy
I know your favorite songs, and you tell me 'bout your dreams
Though our interests do match up, they don't match up exact...ly
It's been long enough that I think I understand you
I loved Portal, so why can't you
Please
At least try Call of Duty?
All the time online I see vicious bite
Playing on Steam, but the game just isn't right
Jesse
Our interests don't match up exactly
Do you belong with me? Have you ever thought just maybe
Our interests don't match up exactly, they don't match exactly
Eventually it got to the point I said to myself “You know, this friendship is smoldering, and it's getting to the point that I'm close to wanting it to be put out."
So, I went on Steam and told Jesse "Let's play a PC game together. You choose. Anything you want."
He said "League of Legends."
I said "Would Aeon of Storms be an acceptable replacement?"
He said "No."
So, I downloaded League of Legends on my computer, and felt, really felt, the expression "you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink." I watched the download bar fill up, knowing that I was downloading a PC game, and that I was familiar with the concept of MOBA games from Aeon of Storms. However, I had also learned that I in general didn't like MOBA games, and that in this case I wasn't downloading it because I wanted to play the game, but because I wanted a last chance at rekindling a friendship with Jesse. So I installed it, played a few rounds on one day, and another round the week after, and never played another round of the game again. I didn't want to play it unless I was under duress to play it, so I never started it when Jesse wasn't around, and when my computer had a problem and I reinstalled my OS a few weeks ago, I was actually a little relieved that it uninstalled the game along with all other programs on the computer, relieving me from having to go to it, uninstall it myself, and for all intents and purposes shut the door on ever really considering Jesse a good friend again.
Now these days, Jesse is still on Steam. Our friendship still smolders, and a little part of me wishes we'd have some kind of fight or falling out that would just completely end the friendship. Instead, we're back to going weeks without talking with each other. My friendship with Jesse was important because it was a friendship that first of all, wasn't the result of anyone trying to matchmake us, and second, endured a long time in one state or another. But it also bears to mind the saying “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning,” which I looked up and is apparently a quote by Catherine Aird. What I mean is that my friendship with Jesse wasn't a good example of friendship, but was a warning about what happens when elements of a good friendship are lacking, and it was a learning experience for me if nothing else.
Pony Waifu
The last of the three major long-term friendships is Mike. As I wrote in a previous entry, I recently returned to Second Life after years of absence, and this time have spent a lot of time in the sims based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Now, I met Mike very early in my visits to there, but at those times he was playing as a foal, and using text chat exclusively and poorly. Whatever he said was often short, misspelled, and at worst nonsensical. Then one day, in early November I think (I have the exact date written down but that's on my other computer) I was in the Ponyvale sandbox trying out a saddle bag from the Nightmare Night scavenger hunt, and he was around. He either offered help or I asked for it, I forget which, and after a few text exchanges, he asked if I had a microphone, and I said I did. I then saw a Second Life voice call was coming through and answered it. Suddenly, Mike changed into a completely different person. Instead of nonsense jumbles of letters, I heard on my headset a nerdy, friendly young adult from New Brunswick talking to me. He gave me a resizer that worked perfectly, and with the saddle bag issue fixed, we trotted off to a Ponyvale bar, plopped our avatars down, and started chatting. It still boggles my mind that in our first conversation, we bonded over juice of all things. It turns out he's a teetotaler like I am and we started talking about our favorite drinks. I remember thinking to myself at the time the same thought I thought when I first started reading Red Storm Rising: "Other people might find this boring, but I find this enthralling." I found that when Mike turned his microphone on, he really could be best described as "charming". I was surprised at how many of our general and specific interests matched up, and enjoyed getting to know him. I had "met" him before in that I had seen his avatar and exchanged a few words with him before, but I really consider that day the first time I ever really "met" him, and that night I went to bed smiling.
Now, don't get me wrong when I say I've only had three long-term friendships in my life. I have met a lot of people, and would even go so far as to say that I'm good at meeting people. As well I should be, considering that my job for the last three years has basically consisted of meeting people for the first time and then never talking to them again for 8 hours a day. So, it was a week later when I talked to Mike again, and had another good conversation. My current days off from work are Monday and Tuesday, and on November 10th and November 11th I had a lot of fun talking with him and doing things on Second Life, to the point that I didn't want to have to wait a whole week before talking to him again. I currently work 1:30 PM to 10:00 PM, and he's not on in the mornings, so when I got home, rather than going to bed on November 12th I went on Second Life to talk to him, and had a pleasant late-night pony chat, and then another the day after, and then on Friday we explored a Pyramid obstacle course together, just the two of us, and I again went to bed smiling. Now, on November 15th I had tried to listen to Fallout Equestria and found it was horrible, and instead spent that day writing my previous entry, and on the 16th had a sort of crummy chat with him, but then had fun on the 17th and 18th, had an excellent meeting with him and a friend on the 19th, he was busy on the 20th so I went to bed early but stayed up late thinking about this journal entry topic, and then last night had a great talk with him where he professed to me his dreams.
Now, there are a few things to note about my friendship with Mike.
First of all, if Don't Match Up Exactly is the theme song for my relationship with Jesse, Tubby Wubby Pony Waifu (http://youtu.be/1DgbB_uN4Ww) is our theme song. I'd say almost all the lyrics match up, except for
Profess to me your foolhardy dreams
The things you find you're fond of
Tell me your every wish
I think that I'm in love
I have put a lot of thought into it, and wondering if that warm fuzzy feeling I often go to bed feeling after talking with Mike is love, and come to the conclusion it isn't. It's friendship, warm and pure. I know what it feels like to have a crush on someone, and might have felt what it's like to be in love before, but I'm really not sure how true the ladder statement is. So, I know that this feeling I have for him isn't a crush, and it's friendship, but it's of a nature and intensity that I'm unfamiliar with.
Second, if you compare the descriptions of my three friends carefully, you'll notice that there are three "elements of harmony" that Mike has that my other friends were missing:
1. Shared interests. This is the most important thing of all, and that's the major warning I take from my experience with Jesse. For there to be friendship among people, there has to be affinity, and for there to be affinity, there needs to be shared interests. It wasn't just that Jesse and I disagreed on a few things that we liked. Mike and I don't have interests that match up 100% on some things, as the Fallout Equestria instance shows. But Jesse and I were really missing any interests at all that matched up exactly. When it came to anything you can think of - movies, games, music, religion, TV shows, et cetera, Jesse and I had views and interests that were close, but really not a single instance of note of actually matching interests. On the 19th when we were chatting, Mike said he had the DVD for "Brother Bear" and I said "I really loved that movie." I told him I had the DVD for Watchmen and had watched the movie about 6 times in one form or another, and he said he loved that movie too. It's a minor example, but a good example of the fact that Mike and I really do have specific interests that exactly match up, such that I'm actually confident to try or at least learn about the things that he's fond of. As for Kevin, time has erased most of my memory of what things he was really interested in aside from Sponge Bob and Soccer, and those two things only stick out because they were interests of his that I balked at.
2. The Grease of Friendship – voice. Now this is an interesting one, since obviously my entire interaction with Kevin was face to face and using our voices. But for Jesse and Mike, voice communication was an essential grease to friendship. Now, the reason why I call it the Grease of Friendship is that it's possible to get to know someone with just text, and there are some people on Furries Xtreme that I talked to multiple times and got to know them well enough for them to be short-term friends. But I must note that those people typically gave me full attention, and typed responses quickly and legibly. Jesse's and Mike's text messages don't meet those definitions. It's to the point that shared interests or not, I think the major reason I felt like I was digging iron when talking with Jesse was because there was so much friction in communicating, and that when I have to wait 5 minutes for the response to a question that would have taken 20 seconds to respond to on voice, perhaps it was destined that I wouldn't have a good time talking with him. We did voice chat on Steam once, but it wasn't pleasant because he just has his crummy laptop microphone, which meant it had a total lack of privacy and meant he wouldn't be able to play a game and talk like I do when I play Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and we ended up just talking about how our interests don't match up exactly so we never did a Steam voice call again. Also, I was thinking about it, and if Mike's headset were to break and he didn't replace it, that would kill our friendship faster than almost anything else and eliminate any chance of getting that warm fuzzy feeling that I feel after an enjoyable conversation with him ever again.
3. Doing stuff together. Now this one is a common thread through all the three long-term friendships. Perhaps there are some old ladies that get together just to gab, but I've found that in general, just talking to someone gets real old real fast and often feels like a waste of time. There are probably a dozen furries on Furries Xtreme that I have talked to precisely once, learned a little about them, and never wanted to talk to them again. I've already gone on in detail about the problems I had doing things together with Kevin, and I would say that this, more than anything else, was the primary reason that friendship never took off, and it doesn't bear repeating how much this also was the primary factor in my relationship with Jesse not taking off. Since my interaction with Mike is through Second Life, that offers a unique kind of opportunity for interaction. Now, to be clear, as a "game" Second Life really sucks. I learned long ago that if you try to use Second Life as a First Person Shooter or a Racing Game, that with the way it is set up and how the environment loads, those genres of games in Second Life are actually shittier than comparable games from the early 2000s. Instead, the opportunity of Second Life is to do SOMETHING, which can at least be a catalyst for conversation. The Pyramid exploration was an excellent example of that. I'm sure that if we were both just talking to each other on the phone we probably would have been bored of each other in 5 minutes. Instead on November 14th when Mike and I explored a Pyramid, we stopped to look at and comment on the art and sculptures decorating the tunnels as well as the various traps in the sim, and use those as starters for conversation. It also created a general goal we could both work towards, in this case getting to the end of the obstacle course. Now, keep in mind that this whole obstacle course would have been a very crummy game were it being played on its own, but going through it on Second Life really counted as "doing stuff together", and I ended that night smiling, and thinking of the funny things Mike had said and the interesting things we talked about.
"Do you think we both have a chance? Can we even get by? I know the odds are against. We'll make it if we try!"
Even on times where I've gone to bed smiling, when the morning comes, that's when my worries and fears about the friendship start to enter my mind. Here's the part where I air my personal fears publically but anonymously. In short, I'm afraid that I'm going to blow this friendship. History certainly isn't on my side. I'm historically a reclusive person that enjoys doing things alone, who fears criticism, and worse, as this journal entry has pointed out, has failed in my other two long-term friendships. I fear that I won't be good at this friendship either, and that one way or another, this friendship will end in tears, or more likely, end in slowly fading away like Jesse's friendship.
The odds certainly are against it. There are plenty of things that would kill the friendship. The most obvious and final thing that would kill it wouldn't be an argument or something, but for one of us to go incommunicado. If Mike or I were to leave Second Life and not come back, or like I mentioned if voice chat were to suddenly stop, that would completely halt the friendship dead, and there's practically no chance that exchanging messages on some other web site would rekindle the kind of friendship we have. Thus, one of my primary concerns is striking a sustainable balance in interacting with him. I fear that if I try to talk to him too much, it will be like burning my candle at both ends, and I'll burn out, lose interest, and stop wanting to interact with him. But I also fear that if I interact with him too little, the current friendship will die into the smoldering heap of a friendship I have with Jesse. And at that, it bears mentioning that I have a lot more trust in Mike than I have in myself at sustaining this friendship. He was a real wallflower in high school too, but these days on Second Life he has a little network of friends that he seems very adept at sustaining, and has already sustained friendships with some people much longer than I am. I'm the one without history on my side when it comes to long term friendships, whereas at least recent history has been kind to him. Also, as I mentioned he really is charming in his own way. For me...I really don't know. I wouldn't think I'm charming myself, but then he does seem just as happy to see me in Second Life as I am to see him, so I must not be failing on that point for now. Just the same, that's the other major thing that I worry about in the mornings: How did I do with the conversation? I wonder to myself if I said anything that he might find insulting or a put down, or something that might make him not like me, or even if I might have just rambled on at some point and bored him. I'm glad to think that our friendship has built up some inertia so that it will survive some kind of bump in the road like that, but I am also acutely aware that too many bumps will slow anything down. So, I feel that to actually sustain this friendship, I need to take together all things I've learned about friendships and relations in my life (and maybe take to heart a few lessons from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to boot) and apply them to the task of sustaining a pleasant friendship for a long period of time. It feels like a Herculean task, but I also remind myself that when my twin nieces were three years old they had already mastered the basics of friendship, even before they had fully mastered language, so it must not be too hard.
Now the only questions that remain are what my goals are for the friendship. I put a lot of thought into that, and I would say my immediate goal is to still know and like Mike come January, and most importantly, still keep this desire I have to keep interacting with him. I was about to say that I didn't pick January for any specific reason, but then thought more on it, and that might not be true. Mike has another friend on Second Life that he is very fond of, and currently knows him for about three months. Now obviously if they're still friends in late January they'll have been friends for 6 months, but I wonder if I picked January because that would mean that come sometime in January, I will have known Mike for the same amount of time that he knew his friend when I first met Mike. I know I am certainly self-conscious about how short I have known Mike so far, and I'm not sure my train of thought went on that path when I decided January, but it's certainly possible I might have been thinking that. But anyway, point being is that my general goal is to keep the friendship going for several months.
As for more specific goals, I've thought about that a lot, and concluded that my main specific goals could be summed up as "total knowledge" and "total trust."
"I think that you're rather unique. Perhaps you're something new. And if you'd like to oblige, I'd like to get to know you."
Mike is the most open and honest person I've ever met. While on Second Life there are a lot of people who, when asked a question, will either give some half-truth or even sometimes an in-character response when an out-of-character question was asked (example: "How old are you?" "I am thousands of years old." "What? No, I was asking how old are YOU, as a person!") as far as I can tell, Mike has told the whole truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth to every question I've ever asked him (and I'm happy to say that I think I also have never lied or bent the truth when talking to him). So, he's an open book to me, and the question then becomes what parts of him I want to read. I have already learned many, many things about him as a person. He has answered my questions in great detail when I've asked about his background, and he's professed to me his foolhardy dreams and the things he's fond of. In fact, many times when I've talked to him he has so completely satiated my curiosity that I have trouble thinking of other things to ask him and talk about. So, I suppose what I mean when I say "total knowledge" is that I want to eventually come to a point where I know everything that I would care to know about him and not be able to think of anything left that I'm curious about, which given what I just said, it seems I might already be close to that goal.
"Your hair's soft as feathery down. Large eyes to look into. Such trust and vigor for life. You are my pony waifu."
Total trust is a different subject, and something I've put a lot of thought into. There are still some things about him that I want to know but haven't asked yet, namely: his powerword, his address, and what he looks like. Each of those, I have some knowledge of already - his first name, what city he lives in, and his general height and weight, but I know that one day soon I will ask for his full name, his full address, and for a picture of him. Now, what's strange about this topsy-turvy world of the Internet is that you might notice that full name and what a person looks like are the first things a person typically learns in face-to-face communication, but on the Internet, to quote Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan, "But over here, it's a big, a big mystery." Instead, on the Internet, Mike has told me his deepest fears and desires, and I've told him some secrets I haven't even told my Dad, but neither of us has ever shared pictures of each other. It's not that I think he'd say "no" if I asked. I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige, but I wonder if I'D be happy to oblige. I have often looked at myself in the mirror these past weeks and wondered what would happen if Mike saw my face, and how he'd react if I told him my full name and my full address. He's certainly the sort of trustworthy person that I could trust not to spread that information around, and I know if he did the same for me I would never tell a single other person in the world. But I suppose I'm just nervous about when the right time for such a request is. As I mentioned before, I'm self-conscious about how short this friendship has been, and despite how deep and long the friendship feels already, I haven't even reached the one-month anniversary of our first conversation, and I wonder if I would be being too forward to make such requests for such personal information so soon.
As for other things that I want him to trust me with besides those three things in specific, the only other specific thing I can think of is that one day, probably in the long future, I would like to share a Join.Me session with him. In some ways, it's even more intimate to share a person's computer than it is to share in their personal information, or even share in their deepest specific desires. For my work, I spend all day connecting to the computers of strangers, who must have enough trust in me and my company to let me onto it and check it out. However, when I get on those computers, it's for very specific purposes, and I specifically can't "poke around" in their computers unless there is a very legitimate business reason for doing so. Thus, there is a difference between me connecting to his computer for one specific purpose, such as just to play Bowman or Mutiny or to do some pro bono tech support, and me connecting to his computer and being allowed free reign to poke around. And if he were to connect to my computer? That would be perhaps the most nerve-racking and exciting thing I can think of. Could you imagine it? Someone far away, in a different country, connecting to your computer and given free rein to do whatever they want on it. I would still be able to break the connection at any time, but just the feeling of it, the sheer trust of saying "There's nothing I have on this computer that I forbid you from seeing, and I trust you completely not to mess anything up" is like...well...I won't even say where my mind went just a moment there. Point being is that it's a very intimate experience, and despite our open and honest relationship I don't think we are quite to that point yet, but such a conception of total trust is a goal to look forward to in the far future.
It's a little strange to write these long entries that take multiple days to draft, because though the original subjects of the entry were conceived on November 20th, I'm now just finishing this long entry on November 24th. So, in those four days some developments happened related to this topic with Mike, since I currently do have an active relationship with him, though the states of the Kevin and Jesse relationships have of course remained static in the last four days. Last night, he was telling me about how he was doing something a friend had asked him to do not because he really wanted to do it but because he valued the friendship of the friend enough that he wanted to do it to make him happy. I thought about that a lot last night, and was thinking how that exactly fit with the topic I was writing about. After all, a big part of why my friendships with Jesse and Kevin are smoldering or dead are because one or both of us were unwilling to give whatever the other person was interested in a chance, and I can't help thinking that if I took Mike's point of view in a few instances, my friendships with Jesse and Kevin could have gotten stronger and lasted longer, even if perhaps they were destined to die sooner or later for one reason or another. Also, it was a heartening notion, since it meant that at least Mike was willing to give what his friends want a try himself, which removes one of the main barriers that my previous friendships had. Now, the only question left is whether I can return the sentiment, and try what he likes. I also wonder whether in the cases where I really can't try what he likes for any number of reasons, such as lack of access (like not having a PlayStation 3 and not wanting to get one, so I won't share any console-exclusive game he likes), lack of time (also, for video games in general, the time commitment to actually play one tends to be at best significant even in the case of a short game like Gone Home, and at worst astronomical in the case of a game like StarCraft II) or feelings of revulsion or disgust (like while trying to listen to Fallout Equestria) if I can at least learn more about whatever he's interested in so that I can share conversation in it. After all, even if I, for example, will never play a Disgaea game myself, at least if I know about the game I can discuss it and know what he's talking about when he brings it up if I take the time to at the very least learn about the game. I only wonder if that will be enough, and wonder if our shared interests, our shared experiences, and our pleasant conversation will keep the friendship going for a long time, or if something will happen that will end my friendship with Mike like my friendships with Jesse and Kevin ended.
When thinking about friendship, I often like to imagine me talking to myself at age 13. Around when I was 13, I got invited to the birthday party of a popular kid at school, and had a good time. I met a lot of people there, and had a taste of popularity. Trouble is, that popularity really just seemed to manifest itself as saying 'hi' to people in the hallways, and thus was just an annoyance to me. I considered attempting to turn those first sparks of acquaintance into full friendships, but consciously decided against it. I was aware that I was a naturally reclusive person who wasn't good at holding long-term friendships, and more importantly in retrospect, I really couldn't see a good reason for trying to do that at the time besides the feeling that it was expected of a person that having a lot of friends was a sign of success and lack of such was a sign of being a loser. So, I didn't want to form friendships for their own sakes, and consciously decided that I would rather let the opportunity pass and resign to joyful solitude.
But when I asked my younger self "Why did you come to that decision? Why would you find the concept of friendship back then to be merely annoying, when now, recently, you are finally for the first time in your life in the middle of a long-term fulfilling friendship?" My younger self replied "Go back further."
Thinking on it, in my whole life there have only really been three friendships that I've had that are outside of the family and could be considered long-term. I won't give any full powerwords, but they have been Kevin L., Jesse B. and Mike. Kevin was the first of these, and my experiences with his friendship were formative of my current outlook on the concept.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
That phrase has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks. I remember when I was young and it was referenced on The Magic School Bus I didn't get the metaphor, and it was only later I realized it meant that you can offer opportunities to people, but can't make them accept those opportunities. Kevin was a classmate of mine when I was about 6 or so, and also happened to just live about half a mile down the street from where I live. My Mom matched us up for sleepovers, which I now see was in the hope that I would take the opportunity she was providing and make the friendship self-sustaining myself. That never happened. As a brief side-note, right now the very same thing is happening with me and her in reverse. I installed several games I thought she might like on the computer in hopes she would get into them and enjoy them. Instead, she will only play any of the games with a lot of prodding from me, and she will never play them when I'm not around. The exact same thing in reverse happened for Kevin. Mom was our matchmaker, and she would call Kevin's Mom and set up sleepovers, but I never took the initiative to, say, call Kevin myself, or offer to come to his house and do something, or even really talk to him outside of our sleepovers. And thinking on why that was, I came to a realization:
When Kevin was over, what I really wanted, more than anything, was for him to leave.
Now, why would I say such a thing? To be clear, it wasn't for any of the reasons a person would usually think that. Kevin was a good friend, in that he was good at friendship. He was kind, and polite, and open to suggestions. I can see why my Mom paired us, and she was probably hoping I would learn more about friendship from him and use that knowledge for form my own friendships. Instead, though our sleepovers were at best pleasant and at worst boring, to the best of my fading memory for that far back what I really wanted was for him to be gone, not because he was a bad person or anything. I wanted him gone because he was a disruption. Even by the age of 6 or so, I had already become the kind of kid that tended to find great pleasure in solitary entertainment. For the reasons for that, I would have to go back further to investigate my interactions with my family, and that is an entirely different topic, so for the time being I'll just say that's so and leave it at that. Point being that by the time Kevin entered my life, after school I enjoyed watching TV, reading books, and playing PC games. You might notice that those three things are things that can be done alone. And so, when Kevin came over, I had to stop doing what I really wanted to do, and try my best to do something more cooperative and less fun, like board games or building forts or something. That lead to several memorable instances of "What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?" and really, I'm sure what I was thinking was "Well, what I really want to do is for you to leave so I can go to my computer and play Alpha Centauri, which would be a whole lot more fun than this."
So then, thinking in bed, I thought the obvious question: "Did I never consider the possibility of taking turns?"
And to the best of my memory, I either didn't consider that at all, or considered it and thought it would be a bad idea. So, let's imagine I could stick a plug in my neck like in Andromeda, enter a virtual reality simulation, and simulate reliving those first formative encounters I had with friendship with me knowing what I know now when I was younger. Now, I'm still not "good" at friendship, which I'll get to later, but I would say that I at least know more about it now than I did at the time.
So, say that Mom has invited Kevin over for a sleepover. He comes over, and gets his stuff all carried in, and we have the entire evening to do stuff. Now, in reality what that would probably entail was either us playing Star Wars Monopoly, watching Star Wars together (which actually was fun, I will say) or scratching our heads bored. If I could relive that, what I would try would be to bring him into my interests. I would show him my computer, which then as now was the primary seat of my entertainment and joy, and first show him whatever game I was interested in. But knowing what I know now, watching someone play is generally boring for the person watching, and makes the person playing feel catagelophobic. Since then as now I have only a tiny selection of multiplayer games that can be played on one computer, and only had one computer back then, I imagine what would happen if, for example, I first played a mission of Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and then either mid-mission or after it, switched places with Kevin and let him play it for a while and for me to watch. If that actually worked out, it would do a lot to assuage the feeling of disruption I felt when he came over. Then, the next logical thing for me to change was for me to actually do a tit-for-tat exchange, and give him the benefit of the doubt for whatever he was interested in. Since Mom was matchmaking, it worked out that he came over about a dozen times, and I only went to his house a few times, and when I did it, it was a similar situation, only this time I still wanted to go home. I was naturally less open to new things than he was, and more apt to balk at suggestions for trying things he liked, which probably did more to kill the friendship than anything else. I wish I could have told my younger self that sharing in what someone is interested in, even if you end up not liking it, can be something that helps form friendships anyway, and that even if you don't end up liking what another person suggests, the fact that you even took the time to try what they suggested is flattering to them, and creates something you both can talk about.
So, I wonder, looking back at that first formative friendship that if I could go back and do it again, if I could take what I've learned and turn it into a self-sustaining long-term friendship, or if it would still be doomed to failure because of my personality and the interests we didn't share. As a side note, Mom gave up trying to set up sleepovers after a few years, and Kevin and I drifted away, with him getting interested in soccer in a single-minded way that approaches my interest in PC gaming. He's still a 'friend' of mine on Facebook, but we have hardly spoken a word to each other in 15 years or so, and his Facebook page is a rarely-updated collection of comments on soccer, ice bucket challenge stuff, and booze pictures. So, he's pretty much dead to me.
Don’t Match Up Exactly
For all of high school I had acquaintances, but no long-term fulfilling friendships. When I went to college, I met Jesse. Jesse’s friendship wasn’t quite fulfilling, but it had the virtue of being long-term at least.
Since my friendship with Jesse started in 2008, I can at least remember more details about it than my friendship with Kevin, and what I can't remember I can probably find recorded or written down somewhere. I still remember my first meeting with him pretty well. Based on my e-mail records it was around March 2008, and after some sort of event or meeting with my college's game club, I went to the commuter lounge to use their computers for a while. There, I met a teenager a few years younger than me with short hair, crooked teeth, a high-pitched voice and an androgynous name. Quite frankly, I wasn't even totally sure of his gender until I talked with him more. I found that he was at college because though he was actually in high school he was taking some courses in college, and also had a big interest in PC games. In particular, he was nearly obsessed with Valve games, Portal and Half Life 2 in specific, and also had an interest in game development, which I shared at the time. After the meeting we exchanged e-mail addresses and became pen pals for a few months. I ended up meeting him more often and more regularly, and for my part I played Portal and Half Life 1, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift. However, while Portal gave us common ground, Jesse really had no interest in the earlier Half Life games, and for reasons I can't remember I never played any of the more recent Half Life games then or ever. Also, when it came to game development, we learned we had quite different conceptions of what specifically that meant. I was more interested in developing complete, simple games or mods for existing games, and Jesse was really more interested in 3D modeling. One day, he showed me how to use Source Development Kit, but I just didn't take to it for some reason. I remember that what I really wanted to do with it was to make a flying saucer, but he was more interested in working with scripts on it, which I wasn't very interested in. Also, he in general didn't like the kind of games I was interested in, and would only play any with a lot of prodding. So, even when I was in college it was a very mixed friendship. On the one hand, I really did enjoy seeing him around, and liked meeting with him and talking with him, and he even had two sleepovers at my dorm. On the other hand, it was obvious our interests didn't match up exactly, and neither of us was generally flexible enough to not only try what the other person liked, but actually take to it and enjoy it. Eventually, Jesse did play some games I liked with me, like Worms Armageddon and Age of Mythology, but never played them without me, very much like how these days Mom will play Mutiny and Jeopardy with me, but will never actually seek them out and play them herself, or actually ask me if I want to play them with her.
After graduating from college, we drifted away even more. Without face to face communication, practically speaking the only way to get in touch with Jesse is through Steam chat. And on Steam chat, he's a slow typer who gives short responses and I often get the feeling I'm getting a tiny fraction of his attention when typing to him. So, I went nearly a full year without talking with him at all. I had a change of heart in early 2014, and decided to attempt to rekindle the friendship. I went through and re-read all the e-mails, Facebook chats, and Steam chats, and compiled them into a document encompassing everything I know about Jesse. It was bitter-sweet, since I was able to read those first pleasant e-mails that reminded me what I liked Jesse in the first place, but also read later conversations that recorded instances of frustration and difficulties in the friendship. I then attempted to reconnect with Jesse on Steam, but it was no good. I was knee deep in Call of Duty and StarCraft II, both of which he seemed to recoil from in horror, while he was into JRPGs, puzzle games, and MOBA games, and was also starting to shy away from PC gaming to console gaming. Also, for game development he had pretty much lost all interest in that in general, and was instead focusing purely on Daz3D, which I tried but found I had no interest in. So, though PC gaming and development had united us in the first place, there was really no hope that it would reunite us. Also, when it came to just general talking, it felt like I was digging a mine and only getting iron. To explain, imagine that a person is a mine, and that time you put into interacting with them is like mining that mine. Now, say that if after you spend time with them you go away thinking it was a valuable use of your time, you have come out of the mine with gold, and if you end up feeling like it was time wasted, you come out with rubble. Reconnecting with Jesse was like going into that mine and coming out with iron, in that the time I spent wasn't quite wasted, and I was coming out with something of some value at least, but still it was something boring and common. I never really felt like I was connecting with Jesse as a person and spending the time really enjoyably.
In frustration, I wrote a song parody based on You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift called Don’t Match Up Exactly, which was inappropriate for my parody section on Lyrics Wiki, but on consideration, actually would be appropriate to post on Fur Affinity. For all my fiddling with it, I just can’t seem to get the syllables of the parody to match up exactly with the original song, which I suppose is appropriate considering the topic of the parody.
You're on Steam, playing some puzzle game I bet
I'm going off to play something different
You don't play the same games
As I do
I'm on my PC; it's a typical Sunday night
He's on the kind of game I only sort of like
So I just go
Through a fourth
Play through
'Cause he likes SpaceChem, Torchlight, and Remember Me
I like FPS like Black Ops II Zombies
Dreamin' 'bout the day, when we stop drifting away
And see interests emerge, interests that really converge
I enjoy trying to understand you
Been friends for so long, so why can't you see
Our interests don't match up exactly
Our interests don't match up
I sat next to you, thinking that maybe today
I'd get interested and learn to use SDK
Laughin' on a the computer, thinkin' to myself
Hey isn't this, easy
And you've got art that could light up this whole town
If I tried the same it would be a huge letdown
Do I have skills better than that?
I never won any contest
He likes inflation, I'm a full-blown furry
He renders art and I write stories
Dreamin' 'bout the day, when we stop drifting away
It would really be so sweet, to find tastes that truly meet
I enjoy trying to understand you
Been friends for so long, so why can't you
See
Our interests don't match up exactly
Searching websites, reading your updates
It's all so close, but I just can't relate
Jesse, all I see
Don't match up exactly
Oh I remember you, writing me e-mails, late into the night
You're the one that's outgoing, and I'm the one that's shy
I know your favorite songs, and you tell me 'bout your dreams
Though our interests do match up, they don't match up exact...ly
It's been long enough that I think I understand you
I loved Portal, so why can't you
Please
At least try Call of Duty?
All the time online I see vicious bite
Playing on Steam, but the game just isn't right
Jesse
Our interests don't match up exactly
Do you belong with me? Have you ever thought just maybe
Our interests don't match up exactly, they don't match exactly
Eventually it got to the point I said to myself “You know, this friendship is smoldering, and it's getting to the point that I'm close to wanting it to be put out."
So, I went on Steam and told Jesse "Let's play a PC game together. You choose. Anything you want."
He said "League of Legends."
I said "Would Aeon of Storms be an acceptable replacement?"
He said "No."
So, I downloaded League of Legends on my computer, and felt, really felt, the expression "you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink." I watched the download bar fill up, knowing that I was downloading a PC game, and that I was familiar with the concept of MOBA games from Aeon of Storms. However, I had also learned that I in general didn't like MOBA games, and that in this case I wasn't downloading it because I wanted to play the game, but because I wanted a last chance at rekindling a friendship with Jesse. So I installed it, played a few rounds on one day, and another round the week after, and never played another round of the game again. I didn't want to play it unless I was under duress to play it, so I never started it when Jesse wasn't around, and when my computer had a problem and I reinstalled my OS a few weeks ago, I was actually a little relieved that it uninstalled the game along with all other programs on the computer, relieving me from having to go to it, uninstall it myself, and for all intents and purposes shut the door on ever really considering Jesse a good friend again.
Now these days, Jesse is still on Steam. Our friendship still smolders, and a little part of me wishes we'd have some kind of fight or falling out that would just completely end the friendship. Instead, we're back to going weeks without talking with each other. My friendship with Jesse was important because it was a friendship that first of all, wasn't the result of anyone trying to matchmake us, and second, endured a long time in one state or another. But it also bears to mind the saying “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning,” which I looked up and is apparently a quote by Catherine Aird. What I mean is that my friendship with Jesse wasn't a good example of friendship, but was a warning about what happens when elements of a good friendship are lacking, and it was a learning experience for me if nothing else.
Pony Waifu
The last of the three major long-term friendships is Mike. As I wrote in a previous entry, I recently returned to Second Life after years of absence, and this time have spent a lot of time in the sims based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Now, I met Mike very early in my visits to there, but at those times he was playing as a foal, and using text chat exclusively and poorly. Whatever he said was often short, misspelled, and at worst nonsensical. Then one day, in early November I think (I have the exact date written down but that's on my other computer) I was in the Ponyvale sandbox trying out a saddle bag from the Nightmare Night scavenger hunt, and he was around. He either offered help or I asked for it, I forget which, and after a few text exchanges, he asked if I had a microphone, and I said I did. I then saw a Second Life voice call was coming through and answered it. Suddenly, Mike changed into a completely different person. Instead of nonsense jumbles of letters, I heard on my headset a nerdy, friendly young adult from New Brunswick talking to me. He gave me a resizer that worked perfectly, and with the saddle bag issue fixed, we trotted off to a Ponyvale bar, plopped our avatars down, and started chatting. It still boggles my mind that in our first conversation, we bonded over juice of all things. It turns out he's a teetotaler like I am and we started talking about our favorite drinks. I remember thinking to myself at the time the same thought I thought when I first started reading Red Storm Rising: "Other people might find this boring, but I find this enthralling." I found that when Mike turned his microphone on, he really could be best described as "charming". I was surprised at how many of our general and specific interests matched up, and enjoyed getting to know him. I had "met" him before in that I had seen his avatar and exchanged a few words with him before, but I really consider that day the first time I ever really "met" him, and that night I went to bed smiling.
Now, don't get me wrong when I say I've only had three long-term friendships in my life. I have met a lot of people, and would even go so far as to say that I'm good at meeting people. As well I should be, considering that my job for the last three years has basically consisted of meeting people for the first time and then never talking to them again for 8 hours a day. So, it was a week later when I talked to Mike again, and had another good conversation. My current days off from work are Monday and Tuesday, and on November 10th and November 11th I had a lot of fun talking with him and doing things on Second Life, to the point that I didn't want to have to wait a whole week before talking to him again. I currently work 1:30 PM to 10:00 PM, and he's not on in the mornings, so when I got home, rather than going to bed on November 12th I went on Second Life to talk to him, and had a pleasant late-night pony chat, and then another the day after, and then on Friday we explored a Pyramid obstacle course together, just the two of us, and I again went to bed smiling. Now, on November 15th I had tried to listen to Fallout Equestria and found it was horrible, and instead spent that day writing my previous entry, and on the 16th had a sort of crummy chat with him, but then had fun on the 17th and 18th, had an excellent meeting with him and a friend on the 19th, he was busy on the 20th so I went to bed early but stayed up late thinking about this journal entry topic, and then last night had a great talk with him where he professed to me his dreams.
Now, there are a few things to note about my friendship with Mike.
First of all, if Don't Match Up Exactly is the theme song for my relationship with Jesse, Tubby Wubby Pony Waifu (http://youtu.be/1DgbB_uN4Ww) is our theme song. I'd say almost all the lyrics match up, except for
Profess to me your foolhardy dreams
The things you find you're fond of
Tell me your every wish
I think that I'm in love
I have put a lot of thought into it, and wondering if that warm fuzzy feeling I often go to bed feeling after talking with Mike is love, and come to the conclusion it isn't. It's friendship, warm and pure. I know what it feels like to have a crush on someone, and might have felt what it's like to be in love before, but I'm really not sure how true the ladder statement is. So, I know that this feeling I have for him isn't a crush, and it's friendship, but it's of a nature and intensity that I'm unfamiliar with.
Second, if you compare the descriptions of my three friends carefully, you'll notice that there are three "elements of harmony" that Mike has that my other friends were missing:
1. Shared interests. This is the most important thing of all, and that's the major warning I take from my experience with Jesse. For there to be friendship among people, there has to be affinity, and for there to be affinity, there needs to be shared interests. It wasn't just that Jesse and I disagreed on a few things that we liked. Mike and I don't have interests that match up 100% on some things, as the Fallout Equestria instance shows. But Jesse and I were really missing any interests at all that matched up exactly. When it came to anything you can think of - movies, games, music, religion, TV shows, et cetera, Jesse and I had views and interests that were close, but really not a single instance of note of actually matching interests. On the 19th when we were chatting, Mike said he had the DVD for "Brother Bear" and I said "I really loved that movie." I told him I had the DVD for Watchmen and had watched the movie about 6 times in one form or another, and he said he loved that movie too. It's a minor example, but a good example of the fact that Mike and I really do have specific interests that exactly match up, such that I'm actually confident to try or at least learn about the things that he's fond of. As for Kevin, time has erased most of my memory of what things he was really interested in aside from Sponge Bob and Soccer, and those two things only stick out because they were interests of his that I balked at.
2. The Grease of Friendship – voice. Now this is an interesting one, since obviously my entire interaction with Kevin was face to face and using our voices. But for Jesse and Mike, voice communication was an essential grease to friendship. Now, the reason why I call it the Grease of Friendship is that it's possible to get to know someone with just text, and there are some people on Furries Xtreme that I talked to multiple times and got to know them well enough for them to be short-term friends. But I must note that those people typically gave me full attention, and typed responses quickly and legibly. Jesse's and Mike's text messages don't meet those definitions. It's to the point that shared interests or not, I think the major reason I felt like I was digging iron when talking with Jesse was because there was so much friction in communicating, and that when I have to wait 5 minutes for the response to a question that would have taken 20 seconds to respond to on voice, perhaps it was destined that I wouldn't have a good time talking with him. We did voice chat on Steam once, but it wasn't pleasant because he just has his crummy laptop microphone, which meant it had a total lack of privacy and meant he wouldn't be able to play a game and talk like I do when I play Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and we ended up just talking about how our interests don't match up exactly so we never did a Steam voice call again. Also, I was thinking about it, and if Mike's headset were to break and he didn't replace it, that would kill our friendship faster than almost anything else and eliminate any chance of getting that warm fuzzy feeling that I feel after an enjoyable conversation with him ever again.
3. Doing stuff together. Now this one is a common thread through all the three long-term friendships. Perhaps there are some old ladies that get together just to gab, but I've found that in general, just talking to someone gets real old real fast and often feels like a waste of time. There are probably a dozen furries on Furries Xtreme that I have talked to precisely once, learned a little about them, and never wanted to talk to them again. I've already gone on in detail about the problems I had doing things together with Kevin, and I would say that this, more than anything else, was the primary reason that friendship never took off, and it doesn't bear repeating how much this also was the primary factor in my relationship with Jesse not taking off. Since my interaction with Mike is through Second Life, that offers a unique kind of opportunity for interaction. Now, to be clear, as a "game" Second Life really sucks. I learned long ago that if you try to use Second Life as a First Person Shooter or a Racing Game, that with the way it is set up and how the environment loads, those genres of games in Second Life are actually shittier than comparable games from the early 2000s. Instead, the opportunity of Second Life is to do SOMETHING, which can at least be a catalyst for conversation. The Pyramid exploration was an excellent example of that. I'm sure that if we were both just talking to each other on the phone we probably would have been bored of each other in 5 minutes. Instead on November 14th when Mike and I explored a Pyramid, we stopped to look at and comment on the art and sculptures decorating the tunnels as well as the various traps in the sim, and use those as starters for conversation. It also created a general goal we could both work towards, in this case getting to the end of the obstacle course. Now, keep in mind that this whole obstacle course would have been a very crummy game were it being played on its own, but going through it on Second Life really counted as "doing stuff together", and I ended that night smiling, and thinking of the funny things Mike had said and the interesting things we talked about.
"Do you think we both have a chance? Can we even get by? I know the odds are against. We'll make it if we try!"
Even on times where I've gone to bed smiling, when the morning comes, that's when my worries and fears about the friendship start to enter my mind. Here's the part where I air my personal fears publically but anonymously. In short, I'm afraid that I'm going to blow this friendship. History certainly isn't on my side. I'm historically a reclusive person that enjoys doing things alone, who fears criticism, and worse, as this journal entry has pointed out, has failed in my other two long-term friendships. I fear that I won't be good at this friendship either, and that one way or another, this friendship will end in tears, or more likely, end in slowly fading away like Jesse's friendship.
The odds certainly are against it. There are plenty of things that would kill the friendship. The most obvious and final thing that would kill it wouldn't be an argument or something, but for one of us to go incommunicado. If Mike or I were to leave Second Life and not come back, or like I mentioned if voice chat were to suddenly stop, that would completely halt the friendship dead, and there's practically no chance that exchanging messages on some other web site would rekindle the kind of friendship we have. Thus, one of my primary concerns is striking a sustainable balance in interacting with him. I fear that if I try to talk to him too much, it will be like burning my candle at both ends, and I'll burn out, lose interest, and stop wanting to interact with him. But I also fear that if I interact with him too little, the current friendship will die into the smoldering heap of a friendship I have with Jesse. And at that, it bears mentioning that I have a lot more trust in Mike than I have in myself at sustaining this friendship. He was a real wallflower in high school too, but these days on Second Life he has a little network of friends that he seems very adept at sustaining, and has already sustained friendships with some people much longer than I am. I'm the one without history on my side when it comes to long term friendships, whereas at least recent history has been kind to him. Also, as I mentioned he really is charming in his own way. For me...I really don't know. I wouldn't think I'm charming myself, but then he does seem just as happy to see me in Second Life as I am to see him, so I must not be failing on that point for now. Just the same, that's the other major thing that I worry about in the mornings: How did I do with the conversation? I wonder to myself if I said anything that he might find insulting or a put down, or something that might make him not like me, or even if I might have just rambled on at some point and bored him. I'm glad to think that our friendship has built up some inertia so that it will survive some kind of bump in the road like that, but I am also acutely aware that too many bumps will slow anything down. So, I feel that to actually sustain this friendship, I need to take together all things I've learned about friendships and relations in my life (and maybe take to heart a few lessons from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to boot) and apply them to the task of sustaining a pleasant friendship for a long period of time. It feels like a Herculean task, but I also remind myself that when my twin nieces were three years old they had already mastered the basics of friendship, even before they had fully mastered language, so it must not be too hard.
Now the only questions that remain are what my goals are for the friendship. I put a lot of thought into that, and I would say my immediate goal is to still know and like Mike come January, and most importantly, still keep this desire I have to keep interacting with him. I was about to say that I didn't pick January for any specific reason, but then thought more on it, and that might not be true. Mike has another friend on Second Life that he is very fond of, and currently knows him for about three months. Now obviously if they're still friends in late January they'll have been friends for 6 months, but I wonder if I picked January because that would mean that come sometime in January, I will have known Mike for the same amount of time that he knew his friend when I first met Mike. I know I am certainly self-conscious about how short I have known Mike so far, and I'm not sure my train of thought went on that path when I decided January, but it's certainly possible I might have been thinking that. But anyway, point being is that my general goal is to keep the friendship going for several months.
As for more specific goals, I've thought about that a lot, and concluded that my main specific goals could be summed up as "total knowledge" and "total trust."
"I think that you're rather unique. Perhaps you're something new. And if you'd like to oblige, I'd like to get to know you."
Mike is the most open and honest person I've ever met. While on Second Life there are a lot of people who, when asked a question, will either give some half-truth or even sometimes an in-character response when an out-of-character question was asked (example: "How old are you?" "I am thousands of years old." "What? No, I was asking how old are YOU, as a person!") as far as I can tell, Mike has told the whole truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth to every question I've ever asked him (and I'm happy to say that I think I also have never lied or bent the truth when talking to him). So, he's an open book to me, and the question then becomes what parts of him I want to read. I have already learned many, many things about him as a person. He has answered my questions in great detail when I've asked about his background, and he's professed to me his foolhardy dreams and the things he's fond of. In fact, many times when I've talked to him he has so completely satiated my curiosity that I have trouble thinking of other things to ask him and talk about. So, I suppose what I mean when I say "total knowledge" is that I want to eventually come to a point where I know everything that I would care to know about him and not be able to think of anything left that I'm curious about, which given what I just said, it seems I might already be close to that goal.
"Your hair's soft as feathery down. Large eyes to look into. Such trust and vigor for life. You are my pony waifu."
Total trust is a different subject, and something I've put a lot of thought into. There are still some things about him that I want to know but haven't asked yet, namely: his powerword, his address, and what he looks like. Each of those, I have some knowledge of already - his first name, what city he lives in, and his general height and weight, but I know that one day soon I will ask for his full name, his full address, and for a picture of him. Now, what's strange about this topsy-turvy world of the Internet is that you might notice that full name and what a person looks like are the first things a person typically learns in face-to-face communication, but on the Internet, to quote Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan, "But over here, it's a big, a big mystery." Instead, on the Internet, Mike has told me his deepest fears and desires, and I've told him some secrets I haven't even told my Dad, but neither of us has ever shared pictures of each other. It's not that I think he'd say "no" if I asked. I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige, but I wonder if I'D be happy to oblige. I have often looked at myself in the mirror these past weeks and wondered what would happen if Mike saw my face, and how he'd react if I told him my full name and my full address. He's certainly the sort of trustworthy person that I could trust not to spread that information around, and I know if he did the same for me I would never tell a single other person in the world. But I suppose I'm just nervous about when the right time for such a request is. As I mentioned before, I'm self-conscious about how short this friendship has been, and despite how deep and long the friendship feels already, I haven't even reached the one-month anniversary of our first conversation, and I wonder if I would be being too forward to make such requests for such personal information so soon.
As for other things that I want him to trust me with besides those three things in specific, the only other specific thing I can think of is that one day, probably in the long future, I would like to share a Join.Me session with him. In some ways, it's even more intimate to share a person's computer than it is to share in their personal information, or even share in their deepest specific desires. For my work, I spend all day connecting to the computers of strangers, who must have enough trust in me and my company to let me onto it and check it out. However, when I get on those computers, it's for very specific purposes, and I specifically can't "poke around" in their computers unless there is a very legitimate business reason for doing so. Thus, there is a difference between me connecting to his computer for one specific purpose, such as just to play Bowman or Mutiny or to do some pro bono tech support, and me connecting to his computer and being allowed free reign to poke around. And if he were to connect to my computer? That would be perhaps the most nerve-racking and exciting thing I can think of. Could you imagine it? Someone far away, in a different country, connecting to your computer and given free rein to do whatever they want on it. I would still be able to break the connection at any time, but just the feeling of it, the sheer trust of saying "There's nothing I have on this computer that I forbid you from seeing, and I trust you completely not to mess anything up" is like...well...I won't even say where my mind went just a moment there. Point being is that it's a very intimate experience, and despite our open and honest relationship I don't think we are quite to that point yet, but such a conception of total trust is a goal to look forward to in the far future.
It's a little strange to write these long entries that take multiple days to draft, because though the original subjects of the entry were conceived on November 20th, I'm now just finishing this long entry on November 24th. So, in those four days some developments happened related to this topic with Mike, since I currently do have an active relationship with him, though the states of the Kevin and Jesse relationships have of course remained static in the last four days. Last night, he was telling me about how he was doing something a friend had asked him to do not because he really wanted to do it but because he valued the friendship of the friend enough that he wanted to do it to make him happy. I thought about that a lot last night, and was thinking how that exactly fit with the topic I was writing about. After all, a big part of why my friendships with Jesse and Kevin are smoldering or dead are because one or both of us were unwilling to give whatever the other person was interested in a chance, and I can't help thinking that if I took Mike's point of view in a few instances, my friendships with Jesse and Kevin could have gotten stronger and lasted longer, even if perhaps they were destined to die sooner or later for one reason or another. Also, it was a heartening notion, since it meant that at least Mike was willing to give what his friends want a try himself, which removes one of the main barriers that my previous friendships had. Now, the only question left is whether I can return the sentiment, and try what he likes. I also wonder whether in the cases where I really can't try what he likes for any number of reasons, such as lack of access (like not having a PlayStation 3 and not wanting to get one, so I won't share any console-exclusive game he likes), lack of time (also, for video games in general, the time commitment to actually play one tends to be at best significant even in the case of a short game like Gone Home, and at worst astronomical in the case of a game like StarCraft II) or feelings of revulsion or disgust (like while trying to listen to Fallout Equestria) if I can at least learn more about whatever he's interested in so that I can share conversation in it. After all, even if I, for example, will never play a Disgaea game myself, at least if I know about the game I can discuss it and know what he's talking about when he brings it up if I take the time to at the very least learn about the game. I only wonder if that will be enough, and wonder if our shared interests, our shared experiences, and our pleasant conversation will keep the friendship going for a long time, or if something will happen that will end my friendship with Mike like my friendships with Jesse and Kevin ended.
Fallout Equestria and having an unpopular opinion
Posted 11 years agoAlright, first to vent:
FALLOUT EQUESTRIA IS A STUPID, ULTRAVIOLENT, PERVERTED, DISJOINTED, HORRIBLE PIECE OF CRAP!
Phew. Now that I've got that out, time for a calmer explanation.
Given that my last entry was specifically about how I have a limit on violence and do not like things that transgress that limit, the logical first question is why I decided to start listening to Fallout Equestria in the first place. Well, there are a few reasons. First, I recently watched [SFM Ponies] Fallout: Equestria - The Radio Play (Season 1, Episode 1 Part 1) at http://youtu.be/N4zolq9fF8c and Leaving the Stable - Fallout Equestria [SFM] at http://youtu.be/uMra1iv7QEQ and enjoyed them, so I got interested in that particular fan fiction despite never having played a Fallout game in my life. Second, not one but two friends in Second Life are really into Fallout Equestria. One of them I really only met once but he showed me the Second Life a Fallout Equestria sim, which was really interesting and well done. The second was a person who I'm growing quite fond of, and while he doesn't have the nearly single-minded focus on Fallout Equestria that the first friend did, what he likes and what he thinks of me means a lot to me, and sharing something he found entertaining could have fostered a special kind of closeness, especially considering that my last good friend and I never really got close and drifted even further away after college because though our interests were close, they never matched up exactly.
So, I decided to give it a shot. I went to http://mlpaudiobooks.net/story/92/F.....stria-complete and found that, conveniently, two users had created single-file downloads of the massive work, so I wouldn't have to download each chapter individually like I did for Anthropology. I downloaded first a straight combination into a zip file by someone named jewbrony, but then I noticed right underneath it something by a person named Sonic_Radboom that was supposed to be a re-mastered version that didn't have lots of puffs of air the recording was apparently known for. So, I downloaded the 're-mastered' version and started reading it on my way to and from work.
As expected, the first chapter was interesting, if a bit depressing, and since I had already seen the videos, they were basically re-treads but with only one person speaking. Then already at chapter 2 I ran into the first roadblock. Apparently, that Sonic_Radboom fellow had neglected to order the re-mastered clips correctly, making chapter 10 the same name as chapter 1, so Out of the Stable immediately transitioned into chapter 10, wasting the last fifth of my trip to work until I could check the chapter lists and find the trouble. So, I skipped the misplaced chapter and listened to Chapter 2: Equestrian Wasteland, and found that Fallout Equestria transitions right from non-violent setup to action-movie violence. I didn't enjoy chapter 2, but decided to continue to Chapter 3 because I didn't want to stop, and found that went from brutal action movie violence to sickening horror, with text descriptions of the worst violence, brutalization, and degradation that was ever put to words. I again didn't enjoy it, and when chapter 4 started, I thought that maybe Sonic_Radboom had messed up again, and put chapters out of order, since Perspective was so disjointed with the previous chapter, and stopped listening entirely. I checked, and no, it's not Sonic_Radboom's fault. The author really did make chapter 4 that disjointed from Chapter 3, and it really did involve basically jumping from sleeping into a cellar into a full-on firefight with robots.
So, that was the last straw. I will not be finishing Fallout Equestria, not now, and perhaps not ever.
But I remember my great vacillation on the topic earlier today, before the matter was really settled by me, and when I came to the decision to continue chapter 3 and finish it.
Now, as I've mentioned in the previous entry, it's not generally violence itself that I find unpleasant, and two of my favorite movies are Watchmen and Rambo. But I limit my enjoyment to violence that is restrained and justified. Chapter 2 of Fallout Equestria skirted those definitions but didn't cross them. There was violence, and it was pretty descriptive, but it was at least justified by the situation. What justification did the author have in chapter 3 for including descriptions of dead hanging cats, flayed pony bodies, slaves lying in their own filth, and fillies raped and brutalized? Perhaps the better question is what justification do I as a person have for listening to such things? When I'm listening to something in a car trip, what I'm looking for is something that is entertaining and/or educational. I found great joy in such very entertaining stories as Skylark of Space, Armageddon 2419, The World Set Free, and Anthropology, and such entertaining radio shows as Firesign Theater and Knotcast. Now, I reminded myself that I'm not above listening to something in the car that isn't entertaining, as I have listened to Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the car, as well as The Descent of Man, all of which one way or another had parts that were not entertaining at all (and in the case of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, pretty much the whole story fit that definition for me aside from the very first chapter). Yet in those cases, I listened to them anyway, because if they weren't entertaining, at least they were educational, and would allow me the pride at the end of reading them to know that I have read them. But what reason would I have for listening to a story that is neither? Fallout Equestria wasn't entertaining for me, and it certainly wasn't educational.
So, at the time, I reminded myself of a few things. First, sharing in entertainment, even crappy entertainment, has its own sort of reward. The two examples that come to mind are Star Wars: Episode 1 and Equestria Girls. First, for Star Wars: Episode 1, I agree with people that it's not a good Star Wars movie, but having seen it, it means I can talk about it with other Star Wars fans, and understand parodies based on it. Second, for Equestria Girls, I was in a group discussion with a bunch of MLP fans in Second Life, and the conversation turned to Equestria Girls, and I felt lost and left out. Equestria Girls looks like a very crappy movie which I highly doubt I would enjoy watching, but much like Star Wars: Episode 1, if I had watched it, I could have stayed in that discussion, and even commiserated with others that didn't like it. The other considerations I had were platitudes, namely two: "Even the darkest of days deserve to be saved" and "Bad men do what good men dream." The first quote is a quote from the game Darkest of Days, and its precise meaning is quite frankly confusing. In the context of the game, it meant that for some reason the time travelers didn't want any alteration of history, even if it could lead to massive reductions in loss of life in some of the world's bloodiest wars. The reasons for that statement were confusing even in the game, but what I was thinking related to this topic was that the descriptions of violence and cruelty in Fallout Equestria are analogous to things that have happened and are still happening in the world. But then, so what? If nothing else, it’s obvious Fallout Equestria isn't meant to be a political statement, because if it was, it wouldn't have been set in a magical land of ponies but in Somalia or Iraq. There, perhaps, there might be something analogous to the horrors described in the book, and some sort of implicit or explicit call to action. No, those descriptions were in there because the author wanted to put them in there, and was amused and entertained by doing so, and hoped others would be as well, which judging by the large positive reaction to the story, was right on the mark. So, those darkest of days don't deserve to be saved when they happened in fantasy, not reality, and the causes and effects of them are isolated to the story. Second, the platitude that "bad men do what good men dream" has been playing over and over when I have visited Second Life recently. I have visited places in Second Life with bloody displays and pictures of the weirdest porn, and apparatus for fulfilling the most perverted fantasies. But then, it's Second Life, and these are the dreams and fantasies of people. People have the right to fantasize, even if those fantasies are things that are immoral and illegal in real life. With that in mind, liking Fallout Equestria doesn't make a person a bad person, and more generally liking the kind of ultra-violence I referred to in my previous post doesn't make a person bad unless that enjoyment in fantasy transitioned into real-life action. But then again, such fantasizes as even good men have are not always shared with other men, and for the men that don’t share those fantasies, who has right to find fault in a man that avoids pain with no resulting pleasure?
And so, I will stop this story I so recently started, and feel a little bad about it. I'm completionist to a fault, and very much value completing things, especially in entertainment. That is the primary reason why I don't play a large variety of video games, and instead, especially these days, seem to wear a PC game into the ground before I switch to another one. I'm also reminded of years back when I used to read a little YiffStar. One of the reason I stopped was because some of the stories were terrible, but I felt guilty about not finishing them and would keep reading them even if they had bad beginnings, which meant that I wouldn't do what I really should have done - perused the stories, found ones with good beginning and continued reading them, and left the crummy ones unread. I'd say that completionist impulse in me is the primary reason why I even read Chapter 3 and part of Chapter 4 of Fallout Equestria, when I found so little joy in reading Chapter 1 and 2. Also, now that I've tried Fallout Equestria and found I dislike it, I can't help but feeling like this is Homeworld all over again.
Years ago, I got the game Homeworld. I read the manual, got into it for a few missions which I found confusing and boring, and kept on it hoping that the story and action would improve. But it didn't, and contrary to the impulse in me to complete things I start, when I got to the asteroid level, I felt enough was enough and I stopped playing and uninstalled the game, and later gave it away. Now, ever since then I have been left with an opinion of a video game in direct conflict with the general consensus about it. It seems pretty much everyone liked the game Homeworld, and if it ever comes up (which, thanks to the march of time, it never does anymore) I am a pariah for being the one person it seems that hated that game. I feel like now the same thing has happened with Fallout Equestria, I will see roughly the same effect. Now, rather than being the person who, when someone says "I loved that!" I can say "I loved it too! Let's talk about it!" or even "I've never heard of it, let's change the subject" now I'm the guy who when someone says "I loved that!" will have to respond "Well, I thought it sucked" and they'd be all like "Aw, why? Maybe you did something wrong, or weren't in the right mood, or you just didn't give it enough of a chance and would like it more if you just kept at it!" So says the fan of something who has never heard of the expression "Once bitten, twice shy," and hopes beyond hope that the people that started some form of entertainment and stopped in anger and disgust would not feel that anger and disgust if they simply continued partaking in the entertainment that evoked such horrible feelings in them.
But anyway, I wax philosophic. I suppose my real point in this little rant is that for there to be friendship among people, there has to be affinity, and for there to be affinity, there needs to be shared interests. And I've learned through hard experience that such shared interests must necessarily be specific, and that just the same as a "video game fan" that likes console fighting games might have nothing in common with a "video game fan" that likes real-time strategy PC games, two people that like "movies" or "stories" or "music" need to actually like the same specific movies, stories, or music as each other in order for the friendship to grow. It is only after their friendship has grown enough through their mutual interests that their trust can grow enough that they trust in the suggestions of each other when it comes to branching out from those shared specific interests to specific interests they don't share. And I personally hope that in this particular case, my revulsion for Fallout Equestria is a stone for roots to grow around rather than a bolder that stops growth flat.
FALLOUT EQUESTRIA IS A STUPID, ULTRAVIOLENT, PERVERTED, DISJOINTED, HORRIBLE PIECE OF CRAP!
Phew. Now that I've got that out, time for a calmer explanation.
Given that my last entry was specifically about how I have a limit on violence and do not like things that transgress that limit, the logical first question is why I decided to start listening to Fallout Equestria in the first place. Well, there are a few reasons. First, I recently watched [SFM Ponies] Fallout: Equestria - The Radio Play (Season 1, Episode 1 Part 1) at http://youtu.be/N4zolq9fF8c and Leaving the Stable - Fallout Equestria [SFM] at http://youtu.be/uMra1iv7QEQ and enjoyed them, so I got interested in that particular fan fiction despite never having played a Fallout game in my life. Second, not one but two friends in Second Life are really into Fallout Equestria. One of them I really only met once but he showed me the Second Life a Fallout Equestria sim, which was really interesting and well done. The second was a person who I'm growing quite fond of, and while he doesn't have the nearly single-minded focus on Fallout Equestria that the first friend did, what he likes and what he thinks of me means a lot to me, and sharing something he found entertaining could have fostered a special kind of closeness, especially considering that my last good friend and I never really got close and drifted even further away after college because though our interests were close, they never matched up exactly.
So, I decided to give it a shot. I went to http://mlpaudiobooks.net/story/92/F.....stria-complete and found that, conveniently, two users had created single-file downloads of the massive work, so I wouldn't have to download each chapter individually like I did for Anthropology. I downloaded first a straight combination into a zip file by someone named jewbrony, but then I noticed right underneath it something by a person named Sonic_Radboom that was supposed to be a re-mastered version that didn't have lots of puffs of air the recording was apparently known for. So, I downloaded the 're-mastered' version and started reading it on my way to and from work.
As expected, the first chapter was interesting, if a bit depressing, and since I had already seen the videos, they were basically re-treads but with only one person speaking. Then already at chapter 2 I ran into the first roadblock. Apparently, that Sonic_Radboom fellow had neglected to order the re-mastered clips correctly, making chapter 10 the same name as chapter 1, so Out of the Stable immediately transitioned into chapter 10, wasting the last fifth of my trip to work until I could check the chapter lists and find the trouble. So, I skipped the misplaced chapter and listened to Chapter 2: Equestrian Wasteland, and found that Fallout Equestria transitions right from non-violent setup to action-movie violence. I didn't enjoy chapter 2, but decided to continue to Chapter 3 because I didn't want to stop, and found that went from brutal action movie violence to sickening horror, with text descriptions of the worst violence, brutalization, and degradation that was ever put to words. I again didn't enjoy it, and when chapter 4 started, I thought that maybe Sonic_Radboom had messed up again, and put chapters out of order, since Perspective was so disjointed with the previous chapter, and stopped listening entirely. I checked, and no, it's not Sonic_Radboom's fault. The author really did make chapter 4 that disjointed from Chapter 3, and it really did involve basically jumping from sleeping into a cellar into a full-on firefight with robots.
So, that was the last straw. I will not be finishing Fallout Equestria, not now, and perhaps not ever.
But I remember my great vacillation on the topic earlier today, before the matter was really settled by me, and when I came to the decision to continue chapter 3 and finish it.
Now, as I've mentioned in the previous entry, it's not generally violence itself that I find unpleasant, and two of my favorite movies are Watchmen and Rambo. But I limit my enjoyment to violence that is restrained and justified. Chapter 2 of Fallout Equestria skirted those definitions but didn't cross them. There was violence, and it was pretty descriptive, but it was at least justified by the situation. What justification did the author have in chapter 3 for including descriptions of dead hanging cats, flayed pony bodies, slaves lying in their own filth, and fillies raped and brutalized? Perhaps the better question is what justification do I as a person have for listening to such things? When I'm listening to something in a car trip, what I'm looking for is something that is entertaining and/or educational. I found great joy in such very entertaining stories as Skylark of Space, Armageddon 2419, The World Set Free, and Anthropology, and such entertaining radio shows as Firesign Theater and Knotcast. Now, I reminded myself that I'm not above listening to something in the car that isn't entertaining, as I have listened to Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the car, as well as The Descent of Man, all of which one way or another had parts that were not entertaining at all (and in the case of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, pretty much the whole story fit that definition for me aside from the very first chapter). Yet in those cases, I listened to them anyway, because if they weren't entertaining, at least they were educational, and would allow me the pride at the end of reading them to know that I have read them. But what reason would I have for listening to a story that is neither? Fallout Equestria wasn't entertaining for me, and it certainly wasn't educational.
So, at the time, I reminded myself of a few things. First, sharing in entertainment, even crappy entertainment, has its own sort of reward. The two examples that come to mind are Star Wars: Episode 1 and Equestria Girls. First, for Star Wars: Episode 1, I agree with people that it's not a good Star Wars movie, but having seen it, it means I can talk about it with other Star Wars fans, and understand parodies based on it. Second, for Equestria Girls, I was in a group discussion with a bunch of MLP fans in Second Life, and the conversation turned to Equestria Girls, and I felt lost and left out. Equestria Girls looks like a very crappy movie which I highly doubt I would enjoy watching, but much like Star Wars: Episode 1, if I had watched it, I could have stayed in that discussion, and even commiserated with others that didn't like it. The other considerations I had were platitudes, namely two: "Even the darkest of days deserve to be saved" and "Bad men do what good men dream." The first quote is a quote from the game Darkest of Days, and its precise meaning is quite frankly confusing. In the context of the game, it meant that for some reason the time travelers didn't want any alteration of history, even if it could lead to massive reductions in loss of life in some of the world's bloodiest wars. The reasons for that statement were confusing even in the game, but what I was thinking related to this topic was that the descriptions of violence and cruelty in Fallout Equestria are analogous to things that have happened and are still happening in the world. But then, so what? If nothing else, it’s obvious Fallout Equestria isn't meant to be a political statement, because if it was, it wouldn't have been set in a magical land of ponies but in Somalia or Iraq. There, perhaps, there might be something analogous to the horrors described in the book, and some sort of implicit or explicit call to action. No, those descriptions were in there because the author wanted to put them in there, and was amused and entertained by doing so, and hoped others would be as well, which judging by the large positive reaction to the story, was right on the mark. So, those darkest of days don't deserve to be saved when they happened in fantasy, not reality, and the causes and effects of them are isolated to the story. Second, the platitude that "bad men do what good men dream" has been playing over and over when I have visited Second Life recently. I have visited places in Second Life with bloody displays and pictures of the weirdest porn, and apparatus for fulfilling the most perverted fantasies. But then, it's Second Life, and these are the dreams and fantasies of people. People have the right to fantasize, even if those fantasies are things that are immoral and illegal in real life. With that in mind, liking Fallout Equestria doesn't make a person a bad person, and more generally liking the kind of ultra-violence I referred to in my previous post doesn't make a person bad unless that enjoyment in fantasy transitioned into real-life action. But then again, such fantasizes as even good men have are not always shared with other men, and for the men that don’t share those fantasies, who has right to find fault in a man that avoids pain with no resulting pleasure?
And so, I will stop this story I so recently started, and feel a little bad about it. I'm completionist to a fault, and very much value completing things, especially in entertainment. That is the primary reason why I don't play a large variety of video games, and instead, especially these days, seem to wear a PC game into the ground before I switch to another one. I'm also reminded of years back when I used to read a little YiffStar. One of the reason I stopped was because some of the stories were terrible, but I felt guilty about not finishing them and would keep reading them even if they had bad beginnings, which meant that I wouldn't do what I really should have done - perused the stories, found ones with good beginning and continued reading them, and left the crummy ones unread. I'd say that completionist impulse in me is the primary reason why I even read Chapter 3 and part of Chapter 4 of Fallout Equestria, when I found so little joy in reading Chapter 1 and 2. Also, now that I've tried Fallout Equestria and found I dislike it, I can't help but feeling like this is Homeworld all over again.
Years ago, I got the game Homeworld. I read the manual, got into it for a few missions which I found confusing and boring, and kept on it hoping that the story and action would improve. But it didn't, and contrary to the impulse in me to complete things I start, when I got to the asteroid level, I felt enough was enough and I stopped playing and uninstalled the game, and later gave it away. Now, ever since then I have been left with an opinion of a video game in direct conflict with the general consensus about it. It seems pretty much everyone liked the game Homeworld, and if it ever comes up (which, thanks to the march of time, it never does anymore) I am a pariah for being the one person it seems that hated that game. I feel like now the same thing has happened with Fallout Equestria, I will see roughly the same effect. Now, rather than being the person who, when someone says "I loved that!" I can say "I loved it too! Let's talk about it!" or even "I've never heard of it, let's change the subject" now I'm the guy who when someone says "I loved that!" will have to respond "Well, I thought it sucked" and they'd be all like "Aw, why? Maybe you did something wrong, or weren't in the right mood, or you just didn't give it enough of a chance and would like it more if you just kept at it!" So says the fan of something who has never heard of the expression "Once bitten, twice shy," and hopes beyond hope that the people that started some form of entertainment and stopped in anger and disgust would not feel that anger and disgust if they simply continued partaking in the entertainment that evoked such horrible feelings in them.
But anyway, I wax philosophic. I suppose my real point in this little rant is that for there to be friendship among people, there has to be affinity, and for there to be affinity, there needs to be shared interests. And I've learned through hard experience that such shared interests must necessarily be specific, and that just the same as a "video game fan" that likes console fighting games might have nothing in common with a "video game fan" that likes real-time strategy PC games, two people that like "movies" or "stories" or "music" need to actually like the same specific movies, stories, or music as each other in order for the friendship to grow. It is only after their friendship has grown enough through their mutual interests that their trust can grow enough that they trust in the suggestions of each other when it comes to branching out from those shared specific interests to specific interests they don't share. And I personally hope that in this particular case, my revulsion for Fallout Equestria is a stone for roots to grow around rather than a bolder that stops growth flat.
Why do people take joy in wanton violence in enterainment?
Posted 11 years agoPart 1:
Yesterday, I was watching some videos by the user Edplus777, whose channel is at https://www.youtube.com/user/EDplus777 . He had a series of videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?li.....SA_Qf3chi8Olfa called "One Day with Ponies", which are 14 videos, 12 of which are innocuous enough that you could show them to your Grandmother and give her a smile. However, One Day with Zecora skirts the boundaries of good taste, and One Day with Pinkamena, the last of the videos, is just a video of wanton violence.
First of all, this exactly what I was referring to in my previous post when I referred to people trying to put adult themes into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to remove the elements that make watching the show a transgressive act for an adult male. But more importantly, to step back a moment, someone took a good deal of time and effort to make that video. So the question I'm more interested in, more generally, is why would a person, really anyone in a civilized country in this day and age, make a video entirely of gory, wanton, unjustified violence?
The issue of violence today is a complex issue that can't really be dealt with too briefly. So what I first want to focus on in particular is simply how people do or do not enjoy violence, and the three kinds of categories people typically fall into.
The Kindhearted:
My Mom has two friends, Jan and Marty, who on separate occasions made nearly identical statements: That they do not like any movies with violence or unhappy endings. The astute reader will note that such a description precludes the enjoyment of nearly every movie ever made, except for certain musicals and Christmas stories. More generally, such people are the kinds of people who balk at the very concept of violence in entertainment and try to avoid it at all costs. Notably, most, but not all of such people are female. Some enjoyment, at least to a minor degree, of violence is expected of men, and such prissiness as I just described is almost the very definition of femininity. Such people are common in this day and age, to say nothing of the First World nations and this country in specific. And the state of the world is such that such people can not only exist but thrive. The reason they can exist and thrive is because in day to day life, life in America is peaceful to a degree people often don't give credit. There was a very interesting part in the fan fiction Anthropology where Lyra is surprised that several weeks have passed in the human world without some dangerous event occurring. In My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where ponies balk at the very concept of violence, it is nonetheless a very dangerous world to live in. In the span of a few years, several world-ending threats have appeared, and many minor threats appeared that either threatened to destroy Ponyville or in actuality caused property damage. I live near Rochester, New York, a city with an urban population of over 700,000 people, with a listing of 2,000 violent crimes per year. That's no paradise, to be sure, but that's still extremely low statistically. I personally have not physically hit or been hit by a person since around 2005 or so. Point being, also as Lyra implies in the story, we live in a near-paradise, in a land of low violence and technological wonders. This isn't quite the San Angeles utopia of the movie Demolition Man, where years go by without a single person dying unnaturally, but this is still a society that is extremely safe to a degree perhaps never seen in the history of the world, and it is an environment where those that balk at any mention of violence at all, even in entertainment, can certainly fit in.
Those that enjoy righteous, legitimate violence:
There's no really succinct way I can characterize the kind of group I'm part of. I have not personally engaging in any violence at all in years, excepting playing airsoft, which is a sport where people are specifically given permission to shoot at and cause extremely minor pain to other people, but only in specific times and places. But I enjoy violent entertainment, up to a point. When I was playing the PC game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I found precisely where that point was. In the mission Back on the Grid, there's a part where you have to kill a guard, and can do so by getting close and slitting his throat. That part is at http://youtu.be/8PHuu96h_As?t=5m39s
That is right where my limit on enjoyment of violence is, but why there? I already murdered plenty of people in the game from afar with bullets, and watched Price stab a guy a few minutes before. And the guy that I killed there is no more real than anyone else in the game. However, it's like right then, right there, that little part of the game passed the threshold of what I consider acceptable violence, and enjoyment of the violence briefly transitioned to revulsion. And then, just as quickly as it came, the feeling passes, and I have to think, considering it now, it was no accident that the game designers designed the very next part to be a sniper section, so that the player could again have some distance from the computer-generated blood and again see the enemies as targets rather than the all too real illusion the game just created that I was physically killing a living, breathing person.
And I must admit that it is an arbitrary distinction. I find it strange to think that in the Pinkamena video, her cutting off a piece of a pony filled me with disgust and revulsion, whereas in the move Rambo where John Rambo kills the leader of the Myanmar army group by shoving a machete through his torso and slicing him open, I all but clapped and cheered watching that in the theater. So, it would be logical with that in mind that wanton violence is specifically what I dislike. After all, that would explain why I enjoyed the justified violence in the novel The Bear and the Dragon, and most of the violence in Call of Duty games. But that doesn't quite stand up, for two reasons. First, if that was the case, why did I also enjoy watching A Fistful of Explosions, the YouTube parody at http://youtu.be/EnPIPOaRUFg of the most violent parts of Star Trek: The Next Generation spliced together? That was certainly wanton violence, similar to the All Your Base Star Wars parody at http://youtu.be/JQVC9Bd6X4w which had a similar theme. However, both videos would count as "parody", in that the intent of the violence is in service of a running joke, and also it's important to note that neither videos are particularly bloody. They show plenty of instances of people being hurt or dying, but neither strays into the territory of Back on the Grid in terms of blood and injury. Second, if I draw the line at "justified violence", why do I enjoy playing so many games as the "bad guys"? Examples of this are many - the Soviets in Command and Conquer: Red Alert and Red Alert 2, the Brotherhood of Nod in Command and Conquer: Tiberium Sun and Command and Conquer 3, the Cult of Storms in Age of Mythology, the Empire in Star Wars: Force Command, and the Spartans of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri all come to mind as examples of times in video games where I had more fun playing as the bad guys than their good guy counterparts. And the reason for that could really only boil down to two reasons: Either I ideologically found more in common with those factions, or the ideology was irrelevant, and I enjoyed the freer play styles. To explain, those bad guys I mentioned share one thing in common - the goal of world domination. I must admit that despite being a citizen of a democratic country, the desire for world domination and one world government runs strong in me. More than anything, actually, I long for a world united by one and only one language, where anyone in the world can speak to anyone else in the world without needing translation. Those "bad guys" have other tenets of their ideology that I don't agree with (particularly the Soviets of the Command and Conquer series as I'm resolutely anti-Communist) but I must admit that the "bad guy" tenet of world domination has appeal to me. Alternatively, the ideology might have been irrelevant to me in those situations. What all those examples I referred to also shared was a freer play style. A great example of that are that the Soviets in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 have no qualms about strapping explosives to a conscript and sending him against a group of enemies, whereas the Allies from the same game have nothing that shows such a reckless disregard for human life, and also have nothing quite as useful. The other examples had similar instances where I as a player was given a freer hand to do unconventional things to win missions. However, interestingly, that enjoyment of the "bad guys" did not extend to the GLA of Command and Conquer: Generals, for almost exactly the same reasons that One Day with Pinkamena did not give me enjoyment. There was one mission in which you as a GLA commander have to shoot down airplanes carrying disaster aid, and murder unarmed villagers before they can collect airdrops. That crossed the line to "wanton violence" in my mind, and made the GLA truly a despicable, evil faction to play as, and I ended up getting more enjoyment killing them as the Chinese and Americans. As a side note, it probably also didn't help that their ideology directly conflicted with mine, as I am an atheist, and a Muslim is about as far away from me ideologically as another human being can go.
So, point being, I enjoy violence in entertainment, but I draw a line at such violence, largely at two points: First, the point that violence becomes "too real" and creates an uncomfortable closeness to the violence, and second, violence that I cannot justify at all.
The bloodthirsty:
I thought this part would be more difficult to right about, but after consideration in the previous section, it now makes sense to me why One Day with Pinkamena caused such revulsion in me: it exactly fit the description that I just gave of violence that is unjustifiable and too real. However, I now must move on to the more difficult question: if I do not find enjoyment in realistic, unjustifiable violence, why would anyone in the world gain enjoyment in that?
Well, two things that come to mind first.
First, my mind automatically goes to team sports whenever I think of something that a lot of people find enjoyment in that I have never and perhaps never will find enjoyment in. Hockey, football, baseball, and soccer in particular are things that millions, perhaps even billions of people in the world find great enjoyment in watching and participating in, but which in me only bring up feelings ranging from mild indifference to acrid hate. On the other end of the spectrum, I mentioned in my previous entries the things I take great enjoyment of but which many people will never in their entire lives take any pleasure in. I specifically mentioned Anthropology and Knotcast in my previous post, but here I'm thinking of PC games in general as well. Also of note are the kindhearted people I mentioned in the beginning of this post who wouldn't even enjoy The Lion King of all things because there is too much violence, death, and sadness in the movie. My point is, even in a world populated entirely by humans, the things that do and do not give me enjoyment can be vastly dissimilar those that give enjoyment to other people in the world, to the point that a football game that would cause excited elation in one person would likely cause angry revulsion in me.
Second, I must consider that such enjoyment is extremely common in the world. How else could you explain the popularity of the horror genre? And again, I make a divide there. I very much enjoyed watching Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, for the reasons already stated (particularly how the violence was justified, despite being particularly realistic), whereas the last horror movie to my memory that I saw in a theater was The House of Wax, which when I watched brought up terrible feelings of revulsion, helplessness, and dissatisfaction and reminded me why I hated horror movies in general.
Maybe it is tangential to the question at hand, but I notice that a common hallmark of a horror movie is a sad ending. I don't get it, I really don't. Why is it that horror fans hate happy endings? I was elated when reading the happy endings of Anthropology and The Bear and the Dragon, just as quite frankly some of my fondest childhood memories are the happy endings of video games, movies, and TV shows, particularly the endings of Power Rangers in Space, Army Men II, and the Allied ending of Command and Conquer: Red Alert II. Actually, it's weird to think that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic of all places toys with such disappointing endings in some episodes. "Bats!" ends with Fluttershy still having a sharp bat tooth, and "Castle Mane-ia" ends with a spooky shadow in the distance. What, is it supposed to be sequel bait? That certainly makes no sense in those ones, because with how rarely one episode ties to another in MLP, it's likely those stinger-like endings will be forever tied to just those episodes. With that in mind, I can only explain them as attempts to temper a happy ending of those particular episodes. But why? Why must a horror movie not end with the threat being completely eliminated? After all, Star Wars: Episode 4 ended with a happy ending, and that didn't stop more movies from being made. To a horror movie fan, would A New Hope have been a better movie if it ended with Darth Vader blowing up Like Skywalker's X-Wing and Yavin IV exploding? Maybe it's getting too late at night, or the topic of "happy" and "sad" endings being too tangential to the issue at hand, but I have no answer for that question right now.
So, I'll move on to the last part: the violence itself. Now, offhand I can only guess that the enjoyment people take from the violence of horror movies is just pleasure in justified violence being taken to the extreme and divorced from the justification. After all, there is a certain logic one could see in the assumption that, if John Rambo slicing open an evil Army officer is something to be enjoyed, perhaps Jason stabbing a defenseless teenager, or Pinkamena cutting up another pony, is also something meant to be enjoyed. The logic of that assumption is difficult for me personally to understand, but perhaps if I do not understand the joy people take in team sports, I also cannot understand the joy people take in horror movies. That feels like giving up, but perhaps I should clarify what I mean by "understand." If I mean "understand" as in "the ability to feel the same way as another person", then the attempt is doomed to fail from the start. I wouldn't be able to feel the way another person feels for the thing at hand, or else I wouldn't be attempting to understand it in the first place. But if I mean "understand" as in "comprehend the logic of the feeling, even if I cannot feel that feeling myself," that is more up my alley, and that's more doable. But, it's almost 1:00 AM right now, and though I've used this entry to come to an understanding of why I personally do not enjoy such wanton violence as I see in One Day with Pinkamena and other horror-themed videos, an attempt to comprehend the logic in why a person would feel such pleasure escapes me for the time being.
Part 2:
Alright, it is morning now, and I've had some more time to consider the issue.
First of all, the fear aspect of a horror movie can't be glossed over. When I was thinking about the kinds of emotions a person typically experiences watching a horror movie - anticipation, dread, fear, helplessness, and eventual relief, I realized that those emotions are the same emotions a person typically feels on a roller coaster. The topic of fear as entertainment was examined in the Star Trek Voyager episode "The Thaw". The entire clip is at http://youtu.be/RvsXci5qsZ8?t=5m58s but when Janeway asks why is it that people enjoy entertainment that causes fear, The Doctor responds "Fear can provide pleasure. To seek fear is to seek the boundaries of one’s' sensory experience." Such a sentiment is somewhat foreign to me, but far less foreign than the original topic at hand of love of wanton violence. I personally do not enjoy fear in general, but I did enjoy the original X-COM game, which had a degree of fear in it, somewhat similar to a horror movie. In that game, my commandos would assault an alien landing zone, and I would have to deal with the fear of not knowing where the enemy is and knowing that an enemy could pop out of the edge of my soldiers' perception and kill them. I physically jumped in my seat a few times while playing that. But that fear-based game is very different from the concept of a horror game or horror movie. After all, in such a case my soldiers were well-armed, the aliens were not invincible, and each encounter could end three ways - all aliens dead, all soldiers dead, or surviving soldiers retreating to the landing craft. So, it didn't have quite the same feeling of helpless dread as a roller coaster or horror movie generates. Also, the violence was justified and not excessive. When it comes to movies, I've also enjoyed some near-horror movies - that is, movies with some elements of a horror movie without actually being a horror movie. Eight Legged Freaks and Dawn of the Dead had masses of creatures with no compunction about attacking large groups of people. The monsters in Pacific Rim inspired the same feeling of helpless dread as a horror movie villain. But no one would consider Pacific Rim a horror movie. So, the next thing to do is to define what is precisely meant by a 'horror movie'. To the best of my estimation, a horror movie could be defined as 'a movie in which a powerful entity causes great threat to individual people, resists all attempts at its destruction, and causes pain and death in an especially bloody, violent way.' Such a description would include such diverse movies as Friday the 13th, The Grudge, Final Destination, and House of Wax. But that last part is interesting: Why must the method of destruction be especially bloody?
To answer that, I came up with a thought experiment. Take the movie Friday the 13th, and replace Jason's trademark machete with a phaser set on high. So, instead of having him kill people in a relatively slow, bloody method, whenever he is close to someone he wants to kill, he will just point his phaser at them, and they disappear in a flash of light. Now, thinking on that, I would say that many people would consider that ruining the movie. But why? All the other elements of horror would still be there. Jason would still be a powerful entity that caused great threat to individual people and resists attempts at his destruction. But somehow, the concept that death in horror movies must be bloody, or in the case of mummy movies at the very least include slow and painful death, is so tied to the idea of a horror movie that without it, it wouldn't be a horror movie anymore. And for whatever reason, people enjoy horror movies. So then, the question becomes, do they enjoy horror movies despite their bloody nature, or because of it?
There's certainly an argument to be made on both sides. Perhaps people enjoy horror movies despite their bloody nature, and that ultra-violence is just in service of the increase of the fear that people take pleasure in. After all, what's scarier? A lumbering undead zombie that will slice you up and make you die in slow agony, or an undead zombie with a phaser that will instantly and painlessly annihilate you if he sees you? If such a part of the horror movie is supposed to be unpleasant to people, that would create a strange paradox where it would suit the movie for such scenes to be as long, painful, and unpleasant as possible to maximize the pleasant fear and excitement people find in the movie, while also making such scenes as short and painless as possible to reduce the unpleasantness of the scenes themselves. That s a confusing concept and I'm not sure it's true, but there is a degree of logic in that line of reasoning.
The other line of thinking is a bit more disturbing, that people enjoy the bloody nature of horror movies because of their bloody nature. That could be further split into two other possibilities - that some people either do not feel revulsion at all when watching bloody, painful death, or feel the revulsion but have turned it into something pleasant. The former possibility is confusing. Why would a person not feel revulsion at all when watching such things? To answer that question, I turn back to the scene in Rambo where Rambo slices open the Army officer. Now, what I don't quite understand is whether I felt glee at watching that because the justice of the act overwhelmed the revulsion I felt, or because I didn't feel revulsion at all. Similarly, years back I watched video from a slaughterhouse. I did feel revulsion, to be sure, but tempered that with the knowledge that it was not people, but animals that were being killed, and that the knowledge that such things happen has to be reconciled with my distaste for wanton violence for me to remain an omnivore. This path of reasoning seems to have petered out entirely, and I'm really not sure what reason a person would have for not feeling revulsion at all when watching bloody, painful deaths, so I'll just move on to the other possibility, which I've put a lot of thought into: that people do feel revulsion at such things, but some people temper it to a pleasant feeling.
There is certainly plenty of evidence that the very concepts of pleasure and pain are extremely variable from person to person. I remember reading an article on Yahoo! News about a person who cut sugar out of their diet almost completely, and afterward didn't like sugar. It disturbed me, because first it described a person who did not find pleasure in something I take great pleasure in, and second, it belied a difficulty in describing what it means to be human and alive. One would think it would be impossible for the generalization of "everyone loves sugar" to be incorrect, but there, right on the page, was a description of someone that was an exception to that generalization. Similarly, if you look on Fur Affinity, you will see images made by people who have combined all manner of negative emotions and sensations with sex - fear, pain, disgust, helplessness, restriction, and the like - and turned it into something they find pleasant. Lastly, just as someone people have turned the pleasant sensation of sweetness into something they avoid, it has often boggled my mind why people like bitter things, like black coffee. Cicero once wrote “But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?” If he were alive today and available for comment, I would like to ask him “When the sensation of bitterness is so unpleasant, what reason does anyone in the world have to seek out pain with no resulting pleasure?” And further, when generalizations that would seem to be universal, such as "everyone loves sugar", "no one likes bitter drinks", or "no one likes being kicked repeatedly in the balls" are actually not universal, what hope does the world have for a cosmopolitan understanding and for universal empathy?
So, the only conclusion I can draw at present is that, if the bloody nature of horror movies is integral to their enjoyment, and if that bloody nature actually does cause the emotion of revulsion in the people that watch them, those same people that feel revulsion have somehow turned the negative emotion of revulsion into a positive emotion, in the same way a person can turn the negative sensation of bitterness into something they seek out.
It is not a satisfying conclusion to make, because it begs the question of how in the world, even if those assumptions are true, a person can enjoy negative emotions and sensations, and only leaves more questions instead of a solid answer to the original question of why a person would make a video entirely of gory, wanton, unjustified violence.
Part 3:
After finishing the last section, I went downstairs for lunch, and as luck would have it, my Dad happened to come home for his lunch break at that same time. Now, while my Mom is a kindhearted woman, she shows neither desire nor ability for deep conversation, whereas my Dad excels in discussing complex topics. So, after writing to a standstill, I got some second opinions to revitalize the discussion.
First of all, Dad took exception at my narrow definition of a horror movie. He said that he would define a horror movie simply as any movie that is intended to cause fear in the audience. I took exception to that general definition, as that would include the movie Independence Day, and I think it's silly to have a definition of a horror movie that includes both Independence Day and Friday the 13th. He did have a good point though that the movie Aliens might be considered a horror movie, as there are parts of that movie that are fear-inducing. I argued Aliens doesn't quite fit the definition because of how in that movie, the space marines have guns and the aliens aren't invulnerable, so, that Aliens would fall more into the near-horror that X-COM falls into. Second, Dad asserted that people find fear fun, and don't enjoy revulsion in and of itself generally, but more because they cause the pleasant feeling of fear in horror movies. However, he tempered that with two other statements. First, that part of the reason people do things like drink coffee and watch horror movies is to feel new sensations. Now, I countered that, for example, trying a new flavor of ice cream would also be a new sensation, and that would be a new pleasant sensation, but in retrospect I can see what he meant by that, and that yes, new sensations can in themselves be interesting, even if they are not pleasant new sensations, as evidenced by the part of Star Trek: Generations where Data tries a gross drink for the first time, declares in a loud voice that he hates it, and immediately asks for another simply because the feeling of disgust is so novel he wants to try it again. Second, he asserted that the feeling of revulsion is a feeling that often passes, with a deer hunter as his example. If anyone were to watch a person gutting a deer for the first time, they would feel absolutely revolted, despite that being roughly what butchers do all day. I believe the point he was making was that after initial revulsion is felt, it will often go away if a person continues to do whatever made them feel revolted in the first place.
With fresh blood to revitalize the topic, I think I can now follow it to its logical conclusion. First of all, I now have no qualms about making the universal statement that sensations, specifically, are universal. Just the same as a single-celled organism goes towards food and away from danger, any human will feel the same general sensations - hunger, thirst, fear, disgust, sweetness, bitterness, arousal, pain, and pleasure, to name a few. To be more clear, by that I mean that there is no human that, for example, does not feel the sensation of sweetness when they put sugar on their tongue, excepting those with something physically wrong with them so they cannot feel that sensation. Those people I mentioned earlier, the ones that like coffee, hate sugar, and enjoy being kicked repeatedly in the balls became that way through Behavioralism, pure and simple. One way or another, their reactions to those stimuli became conditioned responses, which explains why, though everyone in the world feels the same sensations, the reactions people have to those sensations are so varied. So, with that in mind, the question becomes why people feel the need to override their natural responses to stimuli, and though the individual reasons are varied, there is one overriding reason that huge numbers of people have, and one reason that directly ties to this topic: overriding the natural responses a person has to stimuli is a sign of great self control and maturity.
Take Fluttershy as an example, the very avatar of the concept of kindness. She is loved by all, but one thing that no one in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic feels is admiration for her. Just watch this video at http://youtu.be/anyK_DzJmgI where Discord points out the general feelings most people have towards the kindhearted: that they're weak and helpless, and full of obvious flaws. Now, take John Rambo as a counter example. I was going to say he is the opposite of Fluttershy, but that's not quite right. John Rambo has a kind and tender streak in him, but he is more the avatar of manly maturity. He ignores pain and fear, and goes out to cause great violence on those that wish to cause harm to the helpless. Edplus777, in making One Day with Pinkamena, is trying to show that he has the same manliness and maturity as John Rambo, and that he can wade through violence and stay cool through it. Because of that, I have to imagine that Edplus777, as a person bloodthirsty for violent entertainment, feels the same way towards someone more into moderate entertainment as I feel towards the kindhearted: that they are pussies. He would probably think that by feeling revulsion from wanton destruction and feeling a negative, visceral reaction to it, that those people lack the coolness and self-control that he does, in the same way that I feel that by Mom's friends Jan and Marty shunning all forms of violence entirely that they lack the coolness and self-control that I do.
So, it all boils down to one logical answer to my original question: Edplus777 made a video entirely of gory, wanton, unjustified violence to shout to the world that he is neither a baby nor a pussy. He wanted to show that though he just made a bunch of kindhearted videos, that he is a mature adult and can stomach huge amounts of violence without being upset about it. And, as someone who cares about what people think of me, but in general refuses to let it sway me, that notion strikes me as...strangely childish, I must say, except also strangely reasonable. By childish, imagine this: Imagine that Edplus777 had stopped his Day in the Life videos before the Zecora and Pinkamena videos. Then, anyone seeing his channel and watching his videos would think Edplus777 as a kindhearted man, and might subject him to the same kind of ridicule that Discord heaped on Fluttershy. But isn't refusal to bend in the face of ridicule its own form of maturity and courage? Perhaps people like Mom's friend Marty have their own form of courage, in that despite some people thinking them weak and immature because they don't like unpleasant things, they don't give in to pressure and start overriding their sensations like other people do. With that view in mind, the Zecora and Pinkamena videos show a kind of surrender on Edplus777's part, and it would have actually showed more courage on his part if he had never made them at all. On the other hand, such a sentiment as Edplus777 had that lead to the video's creation is certainly reasonable to me, and my mind immediately goes to the topic of coffee and alcohol when I think of the unpleasant things that adults do partially to show that they're adults. I hate coffee and alcohol and avoid them completely, and will likely never in my entire life enjoy any coffee or alcoholic beverage. Heck, I can't even stand coffee ice cream. And while I haven't had anyone come right out and call me a baby or a pussy for such a view, I feel it, and can imagine people thinking it. Particularly, one hurtful thing my brother Adam said to me has repeated in my head many times, and while it's not the only reason I don't like him, it's certainly a part of it: he called me a Mormon. I don't remember the physical context, but he was saying that since I don't smoke, don't drink, and do not like alcohol, that I might as well convert to Mormonism. And I hate him for that. I am an atheist, and consider Mormonism to be a cult and to have beliefs directly in conflict to the values I place on truth, science, and lack of delusion. For me of all people to be called a Mormon is one of the most severe insults I can think of, perhaps second only to being called retarded. But related to the topic at hand, the subtext of the joking insult was clear - Adam was calling me prissy, he was calling me a pussy, and he was calling me a baby. Obviously, the great Adam, he who drank beer when he was 12, who moved out of state for his college and got out of the house as soon as possible after he graduated is the very avatar of manliness and self-control, and to him I'm just a prissy little pussy who won't even stomach a near-beer. It's that kind of sentiment that people like me and Edplus777 have to fight against. And similar to how by making One Day with Pinkamena he headed off any possible criticism that he is childish, if I were to share a beer with Adam that would probably also head off at least that line of criticism he could have about me being childish.
And so, I don't agree with Edplus777. I think that making One Day with Pinkamena showed an unhealthy glorification for violence, and he degraded himself by making it rather than sticking to the kindhearted videos that could have caused him great criticism. But I also understand the impulse behind it now, and can imagine that the conflict he felt over how people perceived him is similar to the conflict I feel over how people perceive me, particularly how the bloodthirsty would consider my definition of too much violence to show childishness and arrested development, and how the kindhearted would think that my enjoyment of what I would consider moderate violence to show an unhealthy glorification of violence.
Yesterday, I was watching some videos by the user Edplus777, whose channel is at https://www.youtube.com/user/EDplus777 . He had a series of videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?li.....SA_Qf3chi8Olfa called "One Day with Ponies", which are 14 videos, 12 of which are innocuous enough that you could show them to your Grandmother and give her a smile. However, One Day with Zecora skirts the boundaries of good taste, and One Day with Pinkamena, the last of the videos, is just a video of wanton violence.
First of all, this exactly what I was referring to in my previous post when I referred to people trying to put adult themes into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to remove the elements that make watching the show a transgressive act for an adult male. But more importantly, to step back a moment, someone took a good deal of time and effort to make that video. So the question I'm more interested in, more generally, is why would a person, really anyone in a civilized country in this day and age, make a video entirely of gory, wanton, unjustified violence?
The issue of violence today is a complex issue that can't really be dealt with too briefly. So what I first want to focus on in particular is simply how people do or do not enjoy violence, and the three kinds of categories people typically fall into.
The Kindhearted:
My Mom has two friends, Jan and Marty, who on separate occasions made nearly identical statements: That they do not like any movies with violence or unhappy endings. The astute reader will note that such a description precludes the enjoyment of nearly every movie ever made, except for certain musicals and Christmas stories. More generally, such people are the kinds of people who balk at the very concept of violence in entertainment and try to avoid it at all costs. Notably, most, but not all of such people are female. Some enjoyment, at least to a minor degree, of violence is expected of men, and such prissiness as I just described is almost the very definition of femininity. Such people are common in this day and age, to say nothing of the First World nations and this country in specific. And the state of the world is such that such people can not only exist but thrive. The reason they can exist and thrive is because in day to day life, life in America is peaceful to a degree people often don't give credit. There was a very interesting part in the fan fiction Anthropology where Lyra is surprised that several weeks have passed in the human world without some dangerous event occurring. In My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where ponies balk at the very concept of violence, it is nonetheless a very dangerous world to live in. In the span of a few years, several world-ending threats have appeared, and many minor threats appeared that either threatened to destroy Ponyville or in actuality caused property damage. I live near Rochester, New York, a city with an urban population of over 700,000 people, with a listing of 2,000 violent crimes per year. That's no paradise, to be sure, but that's still extremely low statistically. I personally have not physically hit or been hit by a person since around 2005 or so. Point being, also as Lyra implies in the story, we live in a near-paradise, in a land of low violence and technological wonders. This isn't quite the San Angeles utopia of the movie Demolition Man, where years go by without a single person dying unnaturally, but this is still a society that is extremely safe to a degree perhaps never seen in the history of the world, and it is an environment where those that balk at any mention of violence at all, even in entertainment, can certainly fit in.
Those that enjoy righteous, legitimate violence:
There's no really succinct way I can characterize the kind of group I'm part of. I have not personally engaging in any violence at all in years, excepting playing airsoft, which is a sport where people are specifically given permission to shoot at and cause extremely minor pain to other people, but only in specific times and places. But I enjoy violent entertainment, up to a point. When I was playing the PC game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I found precisely where that point was. In the mission Back on the Grid, there's a part where you have to kill a guard, and can do so by getting close and slitting his throat. That part is at http://youtu.be/8PHuu96h_As?t=5m39s
That is right where my limit on enjoyment of violence is, but why there? I already murdered plenty of people in the game from afar with bullets, and watched Price stab a guy a few minutes before. And the guy that I killed there is no more real than anyone else in the game. However, it's like right then, right there, that little part of the game passed the threshold of what I consider acceptable violence, and enjoyment of the violence briefly transitioned to revulsion. And then, just as quickly as it came, the feeling passes, and I have to think, considering it now, it was no accident that the game designers designed the very next part to be a sniper section, so that the player could again have some distance from the computer-generated blood and again see the enemies as targets rather than the all too real illusion the game just created that I was physically killing a living, breathing person.
And I must admit that it is an arbitrary distinction. I find it strange to think that in the Pinkamena video, her cutting off a piece of a pony filled me with disgust and revulsion, whereas in the move Rambo where John Rambo kills the leader of the Myanmar army group by shoving a machete through his torso and slicing him open, I all but clapped and cheered watching that in the theater. So, it would be logical with that in mind that wanton violence is specifically what I dislike. After all, that would explain why I enjoyed the justified violence in the novel The Bear and the Dragon, and most of the violence in Call of Duty games. But that doesn't quite stand up, for two reasons. First, if that was the case, why did I also enjoy watching A Fistful of Explosions, the YouTube parody at http://youtu.be/EnPIPOaRUFg of the most violent parts of Star Trek: The Next Generation spliced together? That was certainly wanton violence, similar to the All Your Base Star Wars parody at http://youtu.be/JQVC9Bd6X4w which had a similar theme. However, both videos would count as "parody", in that the intent of the violence is in service of a running joke, and also it's important to note that neither videos are particularly bloody. They show plenty of instances of people being hurt or dying, but neither strays into the territory of Back on the Grid in terms of blood and injury. Second, if I draw the line at "justified violence", why do I enjoy playing so many games as the "bad guys"? Examples of this are many - the Soviets in Command and Conquer: Red Alert and Red Alert 2, the Brotherhood of Nod in Command and Conquer: Tiberium Sun and Command and Conquer 3, the Cult of Storms in Age of Mythology, the Empire in Star Wars: Force Command, and the Spartans of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri all come to mind as examples of times in video games where I had more fun playing as the bad guys than their good guy counterparts. And the reason for that could really only boil down to two reasons: Either I ideologically found more in common with those factions, or the ideology was irrelevant, and I enjoyed the freer play styles. To explain, those bad guys I mentioned share one thing in common - the goal of world domination. I must admit that despite being a citizen of a democratic country, the desire for world domination and one world government runs strong in me. More than anything, actually, I long for a world united by one and only one language, where anyone in the world can speak to anyone else in the world without needing translation. Those "bad guys" have other tenets of their ideology that I don't agree with (particularly the Soviets of the Command and Conquer series as I'm resolutely anti-Communist) but I must admit that the "bad guy" tenet of world domination has appeal to me. Alternatively, the ideology might have been irrelevant to me in those situations. What all those examples I referred to also shared was a freer play style. A great example of that are that the Soviets in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 have no qualms about strapping explosives to a conscript and sending him against a group of enemies, whereas the Allies from the same game have nothing that shows such a reckless disregard for human life, and also have nothing quite as useful. The other examples had similar instances where I as a player was given a freer hand to do unconventional things to win missions. However, interestingly, that enjoyment of the "bad guys" did not extend to the GLA of Command and Conquer: Generals, for almost exactly the same reasons that One Day with Pinkamena did not give me enjoyment. There was one mission in which you as a GLA commander have to shoot down airplanes carrying disaster aid, and murder unarmed villagers before they can collect airdrops. That crossed the line to "wanton violence" in my mind, and made the GLA truly a despicable, evil faction to play as, and I ended up getting more enjoyment killing them as the Chinese and Americans. As a side note, it probably also didn't help that their ideology directly conflicted with mine, as I am an atheist, and a Muslim is about as far away from me ideologically as another human being can go.
So, point being, I enjoy violence in entertainment, but I draw a line at such violence, largely at two points: First, the point that violence becomes "too real" and creates an uncomfortable closeness to the violence, and second, violence that I cannot justify at all.
The bloodthirsty:
I thought this part would be more difficult to right about, but after consideration in the previous section, it now makes sense to me why One Day with Pinkamena caused such revulsion in me: it exactly fit the description that I just gave of violence that is unjustifiable and too real. However, I now must move on to the more difficult question: if I do not find enjoyment in realistic, unjustifiable violence, why would anyone in the world gain enjoyment in that?
Well, two things that come to mind first.
First, my mind automatically goes to team sports whenever I think of something that a lot of people find enjoyment in that I have never and perhaps never will find enjoyment in. Hockey, football, baseball, and soccer in particular are things that millions, perhaps even billions of people in the world find great enjoyment in watching and participating in, but which in me only bring up feelings ranging from mild indifference to acrid hate. On the other end of the spectrum, I mentioned in my previous entries the things I take great enjoyment of but which many people will never in their entire lives take any pleasure in. I specifically mentioned Anthropology and Knotcast in my previous post, but here I'm thinking of PC games in general as well. Also of note are the kindhearted people I mentioned in the beginning of this post who wouldn't even enjoy The Lion King of all things because there is too much violence, death, and sadness in the movie. My point is, even in a world populated entirely by humans, the things that do and do not give me enjoyment can be vastly dissimilar those that give enjoyment to other people in the world, to the point that a football game that would cause excited elation in one person would likely cause angry revulsion in me.
Second, I must consider that such enjoyment is extremely common in the world. How else could you explain the popularity of the horror genre? And again, I make a divide there. I very much enjoyed watching Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, for the reasons already stated (particularly how the violence was justified, despite being particularly realistic), whereas the last horror movie to my memory that I saw in a theater was The House of Wax, which when I watched brought up terrible feelings of revulsion, helplessness, and dissatisfaction and reminded me why I hated horror movies in general.
Maybe it is tangential to the question at hand, but I notice that a common hallmark of a horror movie is a sad ending. I don't get it, I really don't. Why is it that horror fans hate happy endings? I was elated when reading the happy endings of Anthropology and The Bear and the Dragon, just as quite frankly some of my fondest childhood memories are the happy endings of video games, movies, and TV shows, particularly the endings of Power Rangers in Space, Army Men II, and the Allied ending of Command and Conquer: Red Alert II. Actually, it's weird to think that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic of all places toys with such disappointing endings in some episodes. "Bats!" ends with Fluttershy still having a sharp bat tooth, and "Castle Mane-ia" ends with a spooky shadow in the distance. What, is it supposed to be sequel bait? That certainly makes no sense in those ones, because with how rarely one episode ties to another in MLP, it's likely those stinger-like endings will be forever tied to just those episodes. With that in mind, I can only explain them as attempts to temper a happy ending of those particular episodes. But why? Why must a horror movie not end with the threat being completely eliminated? After all, Star Wars: Episode 4 ended with a happy ending, and that didn't stop more movies from being made. To a horror movie fan, would A New Hope have been a better movie if it ended with Darth Vader blowing up Like Skywalker's X-Wing and Yavin IV exploding? Maybe it's getting too late at night, or the topic of "happy" and "sad" endings being too tangential to the issue at hand, but I have no answer for that question right now.
So, I'll move on to the last part: the violence itself. Now, offhand I can only guess that the enjoyment people take from the violence of horror movies is just pleasure in justified violence being taken to the extreme and divorced from the justification. After all, there is a certain logic one could see in the assumption that, if John Rambo slicing open an evil Army officer is something to be enjoyed, perhaps Jason stabbing a defenseless teenager, or Pinkamena cutting up another pony, is also something meant to be enjoyed. The logic of that assumption is difficult for me personally to understand, but perhaps if I do not understand the joy people take in team sports, I also cannot understand the joy people take in horror movies. That feels like giving up, but perhaps I should clarify what I mean by "understand." If I mean "understand" as in "the ability to feel the same way as another person", then the attempt is doomed to fail from the start. I wouldn't be able to feel the way another person feels for the thing at hand, or else I wouldn't be attempting to understand it in the first place. But if I mean "understand" as in "comprehend the logic of the feeling, even if I cannot feel that feeling myself," that is more up my alley, and that's more doable. But, it's almost 1:00 AM right now, and though I've used this entry to come to an understanding of why I personally do not enjoy such wanton violence as I see in One Day with Pinkamena and other horror-themed videos, an attempt to comprehend the logic in why a person would feel such pleasure escapes me for the time being.
Part 2:
Alright, it is morning now, and I've had some more time to consider the issue.
First of all, the fear aspect of a horror movie can't be glossed over. When I was thinking about the kinds of emotions a person typically experiences watching a horror movie - anticipation, dread, fear, helplessness, and eventual relief, I realized that those emotions are the same emotions a person typically feels on a roller coaster. The topic of fear as entertainment was examined in the Star Trek Voyager episode "The Thaw". The entire clip is at http://youtu.be/RvsXci5qsZ8?t=5m58s but when Janeway asks why is it that people enjoy entertainment that causes fear, The Doctor responds "Fear can provide pleasure. To seek fear is to seek the boundaries of one’s' sensory experience." Such a sentiment is somewhat foreign to me, but far less foreign than the original topic at hand of love of wanton violence. I personally do not enjoy fear in general, but I did enjoy the original X-COM game, which had a degree of fear in it, somewhat similar to a horror movie. In that game, my commandos would assault an alien landing zone, and I would have to deal with the fear of not knowing where the enemy is and knowing that an enemy could pop out of the edge of my soldiers' perception and kill them. I physically jumped in my seat a few times while playing that. But that fear-based game is very different from the concept of a horror game or horror movie. After all, in such a case my soldiers were well-armed, the aliens were not invincible, and each encounter could end three ways - all aliens dead, all soldiers dead, or surviving soldiers retreating to the landing craft. So, it didn't have quite the same feeling of helpless dread as a roller coaster or horror movie generates. Also, the violence was justified and not excessive. When it comes to movies, I've also enjoyed some near-horror movies - that is, movies with some elements of a horror movie without actually being a horror movie. Eight Legged Freaks and Dawn of the Dead had masses of creatures with no compunction about attacking large groups of people. The monsters in Pacific Rim inspired the same feeling of helpless dread as a horror movie villain. But no one would consider Pacific Rim a horror movie. So, the next thing to do is to define what is precisely meant by a 'horror movie'. To the best of my estimation, a horror movie could be defined as 'a movie in which a powerful entity causes great threat to individual people, resists all attempts at its destruction, and causes pain and death in an especially bloody, violent way.' Such a description would include such diverse movies as Friday the 13th, The Grudge, Final Destination, and House of Wax. But that last part is interesting: Why must the method of destruction be especially bloody?
To answer that, I came up with a thought experiment. Take the movie Friday the 13th, and replace Jason's trademark machete with a phaser set on high. So, instead of having him kill people in a relatively slow, bloody method, whenever he is close to someone he wants to kill, he will just point his phaser at them, and they disappear in a flash of light. Now, thinking on that, I would say that many people would consider that ruining the movie. But why? All the other elements of horror would still be there. Jason would still be a powerful entity that caused great threat to individual people and resists attempts at his destruction. But somehow, the concept that death in horror movies must be bloody, or in the case of mummy movies at the very least include slow and painful death, is so tied to the idea of a horror movie that without it, it wouldn't be a horror movie anymore. And for whatever reason, people enjoy horror movies. So then, the question becomes, do they enjoy horror movies despite their bloody nature, or because of it?
There's certainly an argument to be made on both sides. Perhaps people enjoy horror movies despite their bloody nature, and that ultra-violence is just in service of the increase of the fear that people take pleasure in. After all, what's scarier? A lumbering undead zombie that will slice you up and make you die in slow agony, or an undead zombie with a phaser that will instantly and painlessly annihilate you if he sees you? If such a part of the horror movie is supposed to be unpleasant to people, that would create a strange paradox where it would suit the movie for such scenes to be as long, painful, and unpleasant as possible to maximize the pleasant fear and excitement people find in the movie, while also making such scenes as short and painless as possible to reduce the unpleasantness of the scenes themselves. That s a confusing concept and I'm not sure it's true, but there is a degree of logic in that line of reasoning.
The other line of thinking is a bit more disturbing, that people enjoy the bloody nature of horror movies because of their bloody nature. That could be further split into two other possibilities - that some people either do not feel revulsion at all when watching bloody, painful death, or feel the revulsion but have turned it into something pleasant. The former possibility is confusing. Why would a person not feel revulsion at all when watching such things? To answer that question, I turn back to the scene in Rambo where Rambo slices open the Army officer. Now, what I don't quite understand is whether I felt glee at watching that because the justice of the act overwhelmed the revulsion I felt, or because I didn't feel revulsion at all. Similarly, years back I watched video from a slaughterhouse. I did feel revulsion, to be sure, but tempered that with the knowledge that it was not people, but animals that were being killed, and that the knowledge that such things happen has to be reconciled with my distaste for wanton violence for me to remain an omnivore. This path of reasoning seems to have petered out entirely, and I'm really not sure what reason a person would have for not feeling revulsion at all when watching bloody, painful deaths, so I'll just move on to the other possibility, which I've put a lot of thought into: that people do feel revulsion at such things, but some people temper it to a pleasant feeling.
There is certainly plenty of evidence that the very concepts of pleasure and pain are extremely variable from person to person. I remember reading an article on Yahoo! News about a person who cut sugar out of their diet almost completely, and afterward didn't like sugar. It disturbed me, because first it described a person who did not find pleasure in something I take great pleasure in, and second, it belied a difficulty in describing what it means to be human and alive. One would think it would be impossible for the generalization of "everyone loves sugar" to be incorrect, but there, right on the page, was a description of someone that was an exception to that generalization. Similarly, if you look on Fur Affinity, you will see images made by people who have combined all manner of negative emotions and sensations with sex - fear, pain, disgust, helplessness, restriction, and the like - and turned it into something they find pleasant. Lastly, just as someone people have turned the pleasant sensation of sweetness into something they avoid, it has often boggled my mind why people like bitter things, like black coffee. Cicero once wrote “But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?” If he were alive today and available for comment, I would like to ask him “When the sensation of bitterness is so unpleasant, what reason does anyone in the world have to seek out pain with no resulting pleasure?” And further, when generalizations that would seem to be universal, such as "everyone loves sugar", "no one likes bitter drinks", or "no one likes being kicked repeatedly in the balls" are actually not universal, what hope does the world have for a cosmopolitan understanding and for universal empathy?
So, the only conclusion I can draw at present is that, if the bloody nature of horror movies is integral to their enjoyment, and if that bloody nature actually does cause the emotion of revulsion in the people that watch them, those same people that feel revulsion have somehow turned the negative emotion of revulsion into a positive emotion, in the same way a person can turn the negative sensation of bitterness into something they seek out.
It is not a satisfying conclusion to make, because it begs the question of how in the world, even if those assumptions are true, a person can enjoy negative emotions and sensations, and only leaves more questions instead of a solid answer to the original question of why a person would make a video entirely of gory, wanton, unjustified violence.
Part 3:
After finishing the last section, I went downstairs for lunch, and as luck would have it, my Dad happened to come home for his lunch break at that same time. Now, while my Mom is a kindhearted woman, she shows neither desire nor ability for deep conversation, whereas my Dad excels in discussing complex topics. So, after writing to a standstill, I got some second opinions to revitalize the discussion.
First of all, Dad took exception at my narrow definition of a horror movie. He said that he would define a horror movie simply as any movie that is intended to cause fear in the audience. I took exception to that general definition, as that would include the movie Independence Day, and I think it's silly to have a definition of a horror movie that includes both Independence Day and Friday the 13th. He did have a good point though that the movie Aliens might be considered a horror movie, as there are parts of that movie that are fear-inducing. I argued Aliens doesn't quite fit the definition because of how in that movie, the space marines have guns and the aliens aren't invulnerable, so, that Aliens would fall more into the near-horror that X-COM falls into. Second, Dad asserted that people find fear fun, and don't enjoy revulsion in and of itself generally, but more because they cause the pleasant feeling of fear in horror movies. However, he tempered that with two other statements. First, that part of the reason people do things like drink coffee and watch horror movies is to feel new sensations. Now, I countered that, for example, trying a new flavor of ice cream would also be a new sensation, and that would be a new pleasant sensation, but in retrospect I can see what he meant by that, and that yes, new sensations can in themselves be interesting, even if they are not pleasant new sensations, as evidenced by the part of Star Trek: Generations where Data tries a gross drink for the first time, declares in a loud voice that he hates it, and immediately asks for another simply because the feeling of disgust is so novel he wants to try it again. Second, he asserted that the feeling of revulsion is a feeling that often passes, with a deer hunter as his example. If anyone were to watch a person gutting a deer for the first time, they would feel absolutely revolted, despite that being roughly what butchers do all day. I believe the point he was making was that after initial revulsion is felt, it will often go away if a person continues to do whatever made them feel revolted in the first place.
With fresh blood to revitalize the topic, I think I can now follow it to its logical conclusion. First of all, I now have no qualms about making the universal statement that sensations, specifically, are universal. Just the same as a single-celled organism goes towards food and away from danger, any human will feel the same general sensations - hunger, thirst, fear, disgust, sweetness, bitterness, arousal, pain, and pleasure, to name a few. To be more clear, by that I mean that there is no human that, for example, does not feel the sensation of sweetness when they put sugar on their tongue, excepting those with something physically wrong with them so they cannot feel that sensation. Those people I mentioned earlier, the ones that like coffee, hate sugar, and enjoy being kicked repeatedly in the balls became that way through Behavioralism, pure and simple. One way or another, their reactions to those stimuli became conditioned responses, which explains why, though everyone in the world feels the same sensations, the reactions people have to those sensations are so varied. So, with that in mind, the question becomes why people feel the need to override their natural responses to stimuli, and though the individual reasons are varied, there is one overriding reason that huge numbers of people have, and one reason that directly ties to this topic: overriding the natural responses a person has to stimuli is a sign of great self control and maturity.
Take Fluttershy as an example, the very avatar of the concept of kindness. She is loved by all, but one thing that no one in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic feels is admiration for her. Just watch this video at http://youtu.be/anyK_DzJmgI where Discord points out the general feelings most people have towards the kindhearted: that they're weak and helpless, and full of obvious flaws. Now, take John Rambo as a counter example. I was going to say he is the opposite of Fluttershy, but that's not quite right. John Rambo has a kind and tender streak in him, but he is more the avatar of manly maturity. He ignores pain and fear, and goes out to cause great violence on those that wish to cause harm to the helpless. Edplus777, in making One Day with Pinkamena, is trying to show that he has the same manliness and maturity as John Rambo, and that he can wade through violence and stay cool through it. Because of that, I have to imagine that Edplus777, as a person bloodthirsty for violent entertainment, feels the same way towards someone more into moderate entertainment as I feel towards the kindhearted: that they are pussies. He would probably think that by feeling revulsion from wanton destruction and feeling a negative, visceral reaction to it, that those people lack the coolness and self-control that he does, in the same way that I feel that by Mom's friends Jan and Marty shunning all forms of violence entirely that they lack the coolness and self-control that I do.
So, it all boils down to one logical answer to my original question: Edplus777 made a video entirely of gory, wanton, unjustified violence to shout to the world that he is neither a baby nor a pussy. He wanted to show that though he just made a bunch of kindhearted videos, that he is a mature adult and can stomach huge amounts of violence without being upset about it. And, as someone who cares about what people think of me, but in general refuses to let it sway me, that notion strikes me as...strangely childish, I must say, except also strangely reasonable. By childish, imagine this: Imagine that Edplus777 had stopped his Day in the Life videos before the Zecora and Pinkamena videos. Then, anyone seeing his channel and watching his videos would think Edplus777 as a kindhearted man, and might subject him to the same kind of ridicule that Discord heaped on Fluttershy. But isn't refusal to bend in the face of ridicule its own form of maturity and courage? Perhaps people like Mom's friend Marty have their own form of courage, in that despite some people thinking them weak and immature because they don't like unpleasant things, they don't give in to pressure and start overriding their sensations like other people do. With that view in mind, the Zecora and Pinkamena videos show a kind of surrender on Edplus777's part, and it would have actually showed more courage on his part if he had never made them at all. On the other hand, such a sentiment as Edplus777 had that lead to the video's creation is certainly reasonable to me, and my mind immediately goes to the topic of coffee and alcohol when I think of the unpleasant things that adults do partially to show that they're adults. I hate coffee and alcohol and avoid them completely, and will likely never in my entire life enjoy any coffee or alcoholic beverage. Heck, I can't even stand coffee ice cream. And while I haven't had anyone come right out and call me a baby or a pussy for such a view, I feel it, and can imagine people thinking it. Particularly, one hurtful thing my brother Adam said to me has repeated in my head many times, and while it's not the only reason I don't like him, it's certainly a part of it: he called me a Mormon. I don't remember the physical context, but he was saying that since I don't smoke, don't drink, and do not like alcohol, that I might as well convert to Mormonism. And I hate him for that. I am an atheist, and consider Mormonism to be a cult and to have beliefs directly in conflict to the values I place on truth, science, and lack of delusion. For me of all people to be called a Mormon is one of the most severe insults I can think of, perhaps second only to being called retarded. But related to the topic at hand, the subtext of the joking insult was clear - Adam was calling me prissy, he was calling me a pussy, and he was calling me a baby. Obviously, the great Adam, he who drank beer when he was 12, who moved out of state for his college and got out of the house as soon as possible after he graduated is the very avatar of manliness and self-control, and to him I'm just a prissy little pussy who won't even stomach a near-beer. It's that kind of sentiment that people like me and Edplus777 have to fight against. And similar to how by making One Day with Pinkamena he headed off any possible criticism that he is childish, if I were to share a beer with Adam that would probably also head off at least that line of criticism he could have about me being childish.
And so, I don't agree with Edplus777. I think that making One Day with Pinkamena showed an unhealthy glorification for violence, and he degraded himself by making it rather than sticking to the kindhearted videos that could have caused him great criticism. But I also understand the impulse behind it now, and can imagine that the conflict he felt over how people perceived him is similar to the conflict I feel over how people perceive me, particularly how the bloodthirsty would consider my definition of too much violence to show childishness and arrested development, and how the kindhearted would think that my enjoyment of what I would consider moderate violence to show an unhealthy glorification of violence.
Going through a pony phase
Posted 11 years agoI've had a lot on my mind recently, and wondered if perhaps the best way to sort it out would be to write a long public journal entry. However, I realized when thinking about it that without focus, that could quickly turn into rambling, so it would be best to at least try to focus on one specific issue or topic.
So I wonder: How long with my new My Little Pony phase last?
And to answer that, I think it best to focus on a few sub topics first.
Why did I become a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in the first place?
I remember years ago www.lulz.net started going through a pony phase. Similar to the time before when people started posting screen grabs of Chi's Sweet Home in reaction to threads, when people started posting screenshots of MLP in reaction to things in www.lulz.net that's when I first started being aware of the show. Around the same time, some people I was watching on Fur Affinity started drawing characters from the show as well, which was enough to pique my interest. I can't find the first video I watched on YouTube anymore, but basically someone did a parody of the first episode of My Little Pony which I really enjoyed and found really funny. I watched a few other parodies, but found that I was having trouble understanding them without seeing the original shows. And sure enough, they were on YouTube, and they were high-quality, and they were free! For someone without cable TV, and who hated commercials anyway, that was a huge enticement.
The part of Let's Go and Meet the Bronies at http://youtu.be/OV-OF9wZWDs?t=1m20s was exactly what happened to me. With a source of free, popular entertainment, I watched all the normal episodes first, and then religiously watched Friendship is Witchcraft and the Mentally Advanced Series, and while I enjoyed the former more, the latter came out more regularly, and like Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all its own." Also, I can't discredit the fact that liking MLP was vaguely transgressive, which gets into another subject on my mind, which I'll get to later.
Why did my interest eventually peter out?
Ah distinctly I remember that it was around last November that my interest's dying ember cast its ghost upon the floor. Season 4 of MLP was just starting to come out, and I watched episodes 1, 2, and 3. Then, episode 4 of season 4 came out, and wasn't on YouTube. Instead, there was an advertisement to purchase the episode from Hasbro, which was the first time in my life I've ever seen something sold directly through YouTube. Buy the episode? On YOUTUBE of all places? A web site that started nearly ad-free, then has slowly included more and more intrusive advertisements (to the point that recently I was watching Dorkly videos, and every single video, even the 1 minute ones, began with a 30 second un-skippable advertisement for Hulu Plus) but had always been completely free? I balked. The question that I'm asking now is "Why did I balk?" After all, it wasn't just a money thing. They were only asking a few dollars for the episode, and I have a credit card, so if I really wanted to see it I could. And as one guy named Allen who works in the same building as I do and happens to be a Brony too pointed out, if I money was the issue, I could simply have gone to another web site where the new episodes were being pirated. So, that wasn't the problem, exactly. The problem was that the inconvenience was at the time what I considered to be a tipping point. Then as now, I had mixed feeling about my MLP interest, for two reasons. First, to be very honest, there were some episodes of My Little Pony that I did not like, and felt they had a sort of I Love Lucy sitcom kind of feeling, where there was an obvious, easily-solved issue that the characters were facing, but they were not taking the obvious solution as a way for the episode to artificially generate conflict. Babs Seed was a perfect example of that, and I didn't enjoy that episode. More generally, seeing as most Cutie Mark Crusader episodes fit that description, I in general hated every episode in which they appeared, tempering my enjoyment of the normal episodes. The second reason gets into the next topic.
Why do you, Kevin, a man whose primary interests are science fiction, war, parody, violent PC games, and animals, like My Little Pony? Sure, it does coincide with my interests in animals and parody, but My Little Pony as an interest is in direct conflict with some of my other interests. Now I'd say it's the time to bring up a very interesting article I read recently, The Ballad of Derpy Hooves: Transgressive Fandom in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic by Christopher Bell, available at http://humanitiesdirectory.com/inde.....article/view/3 .
The entire article is interesting, but one part has been on my mind specifically recently:
"Bronies do not engage in, appreciate or enjoy MLP:FIM ironically. They consume the property sincerely, which makes them a target of attack from the endangered species of ironist still hanging on to a ‘90s sensibility about popular culture."
I personally made the transition from liking MLP:FIM ironically to sincerely when I switched from watching just the parodies to watching and enjoying the episodes themselves, on their own terms. I remember specifically watching the Nightmare Night episode, smiling while watching it, and realizing that I was smiling. I remembered realizing that I was no longer watching the show just so I could better understand the parodies of it, but enjoying it on its own terms, and enjoying it sincerely. And liking THAT sincerely, a G-rated children's cartoon, can be a problem. Again, Christopher Bell describes it better than I could:
"Bronies, quite simply, do not care that MLP:FIM is not “for” them. While this type of sincere attachment may be viewed as transgressive on several levels – male interest in a “girls’” property, adult interest in a “children’s” property, sincerity in a world of irony…"
Of those three, my primary concern was adult interest in a children's property. And I don't think I'm the only one. How else could you explain many Bronies' fixation with putting the adult concepts BACK INTO My Little Pony? The two parodies I mentioned previously are minor examples of that, but some Bronies take that to their natural conclusions, which are to add excessive violence to My Little Pony, as in the stomach-turning shed.mov video on YouTube and the famous Cupcakes and Rainbow Factory fan fictions; and adding excessive sex to MLP, like party.mov, certain sims on Second Life, and artwork by many people on Fur Affinity collectively known as "cloppers." And the strange thing is, I don't WANT that. I've specifically avoided watching such things, and in fact, when FiMFlamFilosophy released Rainbow Dash Presents: Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla at http://youtu.be/n7HrijDkfHc my heart soared. That was the midway point between mock-worthy childishness and stomach-churning adultness, where the childish world of My Little Pony was gently peppered with adult humor and concepts, not dumped with so many adult themes that my stomach churned, to continue the "adult concepts as spices" metaphor. It was those kinds of videos that kept the pilot light of my interest in MLP on for nearly an entire year while an entire season of My Little Pony passed without me watching a single new episode. Videos, that is, and the music based on them. I have a mixed CD in my car that has songs I like, which includes Pinkie's Brew and three different versions of Gypsy Bard, which I listened to often.
Why did my interest pique again?
Now that one was a hard question for me to answer and remember. On October 15th, 2014, I got out my credit card and purchased "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic: Season 4, Volume 1" (for reasons I do not understand, Season 4 was split into two volumes) from YouTube, the first time I had ever purchased anything directly from YouTube. It's odd to think that that was only a few weeks ago, because now I can't remember exactly what I was thinking. But I remember a few a few things that went into the decision:
Jhaller: The YouTube user Jhaller, channel https://www.youtube.com/user/jhaller2 was something I subscribed to, and which consistently put out "The Top Ten Pony Videos of (Insert month and year here)" videos, and one of those videos was How ponies made the Season 4 [Animation] at http://youtu.be/X3pcuf11f6w which had jokes I didn't get, and spoilers for things I hadn't seen. I realized watching that that by continuing to not watch Season 4, I was missing out on the primary reason I started watching MLP in the first place: to understand the things fans created. That was primarily the reason, but there were a few others.
Allen: The week before I purchased that, I saw Allen for the first time in a long time in the break room recently, the only Brony I know that I've actually talked to, aside from another coworker that moved to another job. Talking to him piqued my interest a bit. Ironically, I only saw him once after that, and he was talking to someone on his phone so I couldn't talk to him. Now I haven't seen him for about two weeks, despite now actually wanting to talk to him more than ever (I have no idea what his last name is) and can only assume either his work and break schedules no longer match up with mine, or he no longer works in the same building I do.
StarCraft II: I recently replayed the Wings of Liberty missions on Normal to get all the Normal achievements. I then tried replaying it on Hard to get the Hard achievements, but in some ways, that turned out to be a mistake. By doing that, I sucked out a whole lot of fun from the game, and got re-acquainted with how much a video game can provide feelings of frustration and failure, and also reminded why there are a lot of people that do not find video games in general to be an enjoyable pastime. The whole idea of the StarCraft II achievements are that you don't just need to win each mission, you have to win it CORRECTLY. That often means completing it in a time limit, or with a metaphorical hand tied behind your back, like the mission where you have to collect scrap faster than another mercenary, and for the Hard achievement you have to do it without making any more SCVs. For the timed missions in particular, that means that if you do something wrong, especially early in the mission, the only way to get the timed achievement is either spamming the save feature, which is a special kind of annoyance, or starting the entire mission over again. And for someone who enjoys exploring in games, playing the same level over and over to try to get it done faster is a special kind of torture. This relates to the topic at hand because right around the time the Jhaller video came out, I was itching to jump ship from my self-imposed challenge of getting 100% completion in SCII, and indeed, in the last two weeks I've barely touched SCII again.
Second Life: I'm not sure if it was a cause or an effect of my renewed interest in MLP, but around the same time as the Jhaller video came out I was itching to try out Second Life again, which I had tried several times before but abandoned in the past due to boredom and lack of any goals or camaraderie. When Esteban Winsmore's Big Brony Adventure at http://youtu.be/2kGoO1fLCU0 came out, I was tempted to go right in and check it out, but at the time I was watching it (I don't remember exactly when I watched it) I didn't have a huge interest in MLP or SL. When my interest was piqued again, I was reminded that SL had MLP sims that I had never seen before, and started going back to SL around the same time I bought the newest Season.
Nieces: Around the same time, I learned that my sister and my two twin nieces, both 3 years old, would be coming up to visit in late October. That was a reminder about how few interests I share in common with my nieces and sister. All three people are very friendly and polite, but also all three people have no interest in war, video games, action movies, international politics, science, airsoft, or practically anything that is of interest to me, to the point that I lamented to myself last time that they visited that I have more in common with Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies than I have in common with my oldest sister, and it was a great stroke of luck that last time she visited I actually did find some computer games we both enjoyed. And my three year old nieces are, well, three year old nieces. What do I have in common with such people? When it comes to children, I share most of my interests with adolescent and teenage boys, not small girls. So, point being that rekindling my interest in MLP meant at least possibly having SOMETHING in common with those people, and in fact, last Saturday I gathered my nieces, sister, and even Mom around the computer and we all watched Pinkie Apple Pie together. That turned out to be simultaneously enjoyable because I finally got to share my interest in MLP with someone close by, and nerve racking, as I largely spent the 22 minutes nervously gauging how the other people around me were reacting to the episode and to me rather than just enjoying the damn episode without fear or reprieve. As a side note that gets into another irony: MLP is an interest I could share with my Mom, but most certainly will not. As her son, my Mom has never been shy about calling me weird when the mood suits her, and thankfully the mood hasn't suited her recently, but I would estimate that there is about a 0% possibility that any comment she would make about me after watching another episode together would be anything positive. So, if I'm going to watch a TV show with my Mom, I'll stick to Jeopardy and Psych, which we both enjoy and which both carry no chance at all of her calling me weird after watching a show together. But I digress.
So I wonder: How long with my new My Little Pony phase last?
Why is it just a phase? I feel it in me that this is an interest that necessarily must burn out one way or another relatively soon, if for no other reason than that as previously stated, sincere enjoyment of the show on its own terms directly conflicts with some of my other interests, in particular my interests in war, violence, and realism. Just recently I finished The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy, an extremely realistic book and the conceptual opposite of My Little Pony, I would say. I also just a few days ago finished MLP Fan Fiction Anthropology, and enjoyed it greatly, whereas before reading that I was listening to Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (Part 1 was interesting, but for part 2, if I have to listen to another darned chapter about gosh darned birds, I swear I'll go back in time and beat Charles Darwin until he either truncates his stupid bird chapters or writes about more interesting or varied topics...and I haven't started part 3 and am not sure if I want to, though it promises to be bird-free from what I've read about it) and before that I was listening to Knotcast, which like MLP is another thing I enjoyed but cannot share with anyone close by, but for completely opposite reasons. When I like things like Knotcast, and Descent of Man, and The Bear and the Dragon, and StarCraft II and Call of Duty: Black Ops II, what hope do I have of having a long and steady enjoyment of My Little Pony? No, my current interest is a flair up, and I've come to realize writing this journal that when that flair up is done, the pilot light of my interest will probably still be burning, but it's very unlikely that my interest will burn long and steadily, like it did with StarCraft II and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
So, it will end in a few ways:
Finishing watching the season: I plan to buy volume 2 of Season 4 tomorrow, and that will mean that within a week or two I will be done with all currently released episodes at the current rate I'm watching. Maybe this will be a natural cutoff of the current flair up, and this will prove to actually just be a short flair up until my interest transitions to other things.
Boredom in Second Life: I returned to Second Life recently and have visited the pony sims, and have had very mixed results so far. On the one hand I've had several experiences of great joy, notably a mass adventure I went on with a group, a fun conversation I had with a Brony, and a very fun Nightmare Night costume contest I attended recently. I've also had some very rotten experiences. I've stood around as the minutes dragged on and players around me just made annoying noises at each other. I've stood around bored, with nothing to do. And I've had slow or aborted conversations with people, one of which recently may have been insane, and spoke in short, choppy, disconnected sentences which read like pieces of a philosophy textbook ripped out at random. Also, I still live with my parents, and my Dad and I both share the basement. I've found that in particular when it comes to the microphone, I'm even more embarrassed to speak freely talking about Brony stuff than I was talking about Zombie stuff in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, so using my microphone, which I've found can be a great way of having a satisfying, interesting conversation on Second Life, is practically limited to certain times of the day.
More generally, there are two things that will kill my interest in MLP dead:
A loss of community: The importance of a community in shared entertainment is something I've felt more acutely in recent years than ever before because a few years ago I became more focused on multiplayer PC games. For most of my life, I've focused on single player PC games, where whether there are other people playing the same game is relatively moot. Call of Duty was a big turn-around for me, and it was interesting to play a game that still has people playing it, sometimes even 10 years after a game has come out, though the bulk of players are always on the newest game. In the last few years, I've learned how ephemeral PC game multiplayer experiences can be. I was never able to play against another player in Tom Clancy's EndWar because I waited too long after it came out to buy and play it. I had a huge interest in Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies right up until Call of Duty Ghosts came out and the number of Zombies players sunk into the low hundreds. And my great passion in StarCraft II, the Doomed Earth mod, saw me leave in a huff when Doomed Earth Revised came out and changed everything the first time, and then leave in a huff again more recently when so-called Doomed Earth 3 came out, after I had gotten Doomed Earth Revised down to a science (and was winning almost every game because of it). Point being, if community videos and content dries up for MLP, I will jump ship. And the MLP fandom isn't like the furry fandom - it is indeed tied to one specific TV show, and if the sun were to set on that show, the fandom would wither and die within the year I'm sure. The furry fandom is in love with a concept, not a thing, and while that might mean that its passion doesn't run as hot (to my knowledge, there are no furry TV shows, personalities, or actors that people can gush over in the same way as Bronies gush over MLP. It's not like there are a lot of people pacing rooms waiting for Blotch comics to come out, or tens of thousands of people watching live streams of Fursuit TV back when that was on) but that also means the furry fandom is more resistant to general decay and death, because so long as there are two people with a general interest in anthropomorphism, and those two people keep in touch, there's a furry fandom.
Loss of quality: Now, what I'm really thinking of when I say “loss of quality” is Large Marge. I would still call myself a fan of The Simpsons, though I have barely watched an episode of The Simpsons since 2002, and when I do, I am reminded why I stopped. Large Marge was the episode of The Simpsons that was the tipping point for me, after which the series was and still is completely dead to me. After what I saw as a decline in quality, but which more objectively could be termed a change in tone, focus, and humor in season 13 of The Simpsons, after watching Large Marge I concluded that The Simpsons that I knew and loved was dead, as the elements of the TV show I liked in the first place were all missing in that episode. I find it quite unlikely that such a thing will happen to MLP, especially if Season 4 is any indication. I have enjoyed every episode of MLP Season 4 that I saw so far, even the one CMC episode. So, for that, all I really have to fear is a sudden change in direction, like what occurred in Andromeda. In Andromeda, a few seasons in focus changed from longer story arcs that followed multiple episodes to episodes that stood alone and had nothing to do with any episodes before or after them. Watching them on DVD, the change was noticeable and frustrating. Point being that one possible end for my interest in My Little Pony is a sudden change in the TV show that ruins some major factor that gives me enjoyment watching it.
When I personally feel it's not what I want in my life: For that, I'm paraphrasing a memorable part from Knotcast, where some listener asks why anyone would ever leave the furry fandom, and someone on Knotcast says something to the effect of that everyone is a furry up to the point that they no longer believe that the furry fandom is a worthwhile part of their life. It's a very general statement, but I'd say it is quite true, and a distinct possibility to think about. I checked the Brony demographics chart that Christopher Bell referred to in his paper. Most Bronies are in their late teens or early 20s. I'm 25, and am already at the lower end of the bell curve of that poll at least. So, say that MLP episode quality remains consistent. Say that the community remains strong, and for the sake of argument, say that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic gives The Simpsons a run for its money, and runs for 20 or more seasons rather than being canceled in a few more seasons like most TV shows, even successful ones, tend to have happen to them. Will I still be interested in MLP then when I'm 30 or 40, and getting visible crow's feet around my eyes? Will I still occasionally listen to Gypsy Bard in my car on drives? Or will I discard my interest in MLP entirely, even as the seasons go on, because I don't think it is a worthwhile part of my life anymore?
Now that's some food for thought.
So I wonder: How long with my new My Little Pony phase last?
And to answer that, I think it best to focus on a few sub topics first.
Why did I become a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in the first place?
I remember years ago www.lulz.net started going through a pony phase. Similar to the time before when people started posting screen grabs of Chi's Sweet Home in reaction to threads, when people started posting screenshots of MLP in reaction to things in www.lulz.net that's when I first started being aware of the show. Around the same time, some people I was watching on Fur Affinity started drawing characters from the show as well, which was enough to pique my interest. I can't find the first video I watched on YouTube anymore, but basically someone did a parody of the first episode of My Little Pony which I really enjoyed and found really funny. I watched a few other parodies, but found that I was having trouble understanding them without seeing the original shows. And sure enough, they were on YouTube, and they were high-quality, and they were free! For someone without cable TV, and who hated commercials anyway, that was a huge enticement.
The part of Let's Go and Meet the Bronies at http://youtu.be/OV-OF9wZWDs?t=1m20s was exactly what happened to me. With a source of free, popular entertainment, I watched all the normal episodes first, and then religiously watched Friendship is Witchcraft and the Mentally Advanced Series, and while I enjoyed the former more, the latter came out more regularly, and like Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all its own." Also, I can't discredit the fact that liking MLP was vaguely transgressive, which gets into another subject on my mind, which I'll get to later.
Why did my interest eventually peter out?
Ah distinctly I remember that it was around last November that my interest's dying ember cast its ghost upon the floor. Season 4 of MLP was just starting to come out, and I watched episodes 1, 2, and 3. Then, episode 4 of season 4 came out, and wasn't on YouTube. Instead, there was an advertisement to purchase the episode from Hasbro, which was the first time in my life I've ever seen something sold directly through YouTube. Buy the episode? On YOUTUBE of all places? A web site that started nearly ad-free, then has slowly included more and more intrusive advertisements (to the point that recently I was watching Dorkly videos, and every single video, even the 1 minute ones, began with a 30 second un-skippable advertisement for Hulu Plus) but had always been completely free? I balked. The question that I'm asking now is "Why did I balk?" After all, it wasn't just a money thing. They were only asking a few dollars for the episode, and I have a credit card, so if I really wanted to see it I could. And as one guy named Allen who works in the same building as I do and happens to be a Brony too pointed out, if I money was the issue, I could simply have gone to another web site where the new episodes were being pirated. So, that wasn't the problem, exactly. The problem was that the inconvenience was at the time what I considered to be a tipping point. Then as now, I had mixed feeling about my MLP interest, for two reasons. First, to be very honest, there were some episodes of My Little Pony that I did not like, and felt they had a sort of I Love Lucy sitcom kind of feeling, where there was an obvious, easily-solved issue that the characters were facing, but they were not taking the obvious solution as a way for the episode to artificially generate conflict. Babs Seed was a perfect example of that, and I didn't enjoy that episode. More generally, seeing as most Cutie Mark Crusader episodes fit that description, I in general hated every episode in which they appeared, tempering my enjoyment of the normal episodes. The second reason gets into the next topic.
Why do you, Kevin, a man whose primary interests are science fiction, war, parody, violent PC games, and animals, like My Little Pony? Sure, it does coincide with my interests in animals and parody, but My Little Pony as an interest is in direct conflict with some of my other interests. Now I'd say it's the time to bring up a very interesting article I read recently, The Ballad of Derpy Hooves: Transgressive Fandom in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic by Christopher Bell, available at http://humanitiesdirectory.com/inde.....article/view/3 .
The entire article is interesting, but one part has been on my mind specifically recently:
"Bronies do not engage in, appreciate or enjoy MLP:FIM ironically. They consume the property sincerely, which makes them a target of attack from the endangered species of ironist still hanging on to a ‘90s sensibility about popular culture."
I personally made the transition from liking MLP:FIM ironically to sincerely when I switched from watching just the parodies to watching and enjoying the episodes themselves, on their own terms. I remember specifically watching the Nightmare Night episode, smiling while watching it, and realizing that I was smiling. I remembered realizing that I was no longer watching the show just so I could better understand the parodies of it, but enjoying it on its own terms, and enjoying it sincerely. And liking THAT sincerely, a G-rated children's cartoon, can be a problem. Again, Christopher Bell describes it better than I could:
"Bronies, quite simply, do not care that MLP:FIM is not “for” them. While this type of sincere attachment may be viewed as transgressive on several levels – male interest in a “girls’” property, adult interest in a “children’s” property, sincerity in a world of irony…"
Of those three, my primary concern was adult interest in a children's property. And I don't think I'm the only one. How else could you explain many Bronies' fixation with putting the adult concepts BACK INTO My Little Pony? The two parodies I mentioned previously are minor examples of that, but some Bronies take that to their natural conclusions, which are to add excessive violence to My Little Pony, as in the stomach-turning shed.mov video on YouTube and the famous Cupcakes and Rainbow Factory fan fictions; and adding excessive sex to MLP, like party.mov, certain sims on Second Life, and artwork by many people on Fur Affinity collectively known as "cloppers." And the strange thing is, I don't WANT that. I've specifically avoided watching such things, and in fact, when FiMFlamFilosophy released Rainbow Dash Presents: Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla at http://youtu.be/n7HrijDkfHc my heart soared. That was the midway point between mock-worthy childishness and stomach-churning adultness, where the childish world of My Little Pony was gently peppered with adult humor and concepts, not dumped with so many adult themes that my stomach churned, to continue the "adult concepts as spices" metaphor. It was those kinds of videos that kept the pilot light of my interest in MLP on for nearly an entire year while an entire season of My Little Pony passed without me watching a single new episode. Videos, that is, and the music based on them. I have a mixed CD in my car that has songs I like, which includes Pinkie's Brew and three different versions of Gypsy Bard, which I listened to often.
Why did my interest pique again?
Now that one was a hard question for me to answer and remember. On October 15th, 2014, I got out my credit card and purchased "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic: Season 4, Volume 1" (for reasons I do not understand, Season 4 was split into two volumes) from YouTube, the first time I had ever purchased anything directly from YouTube. It's odd to think that that was only a few weeks ago, because now I can't remember exactly what I was thinking. But I remember a few a few things that went into the decision:
Jhaller: The YouTube user Jhaller, channel https://www.youtube.com/user/jhaller2 was something I subscribed to, and which consistently put out "The Top Ten Pony Videos of (Insert month and year here)" videos, and one of those videos was How ponies made the Season 4 [Animation] at http://youtu.be/X3pcuf11f6w which had jokes I didn't get, and spoilers for things I hadn't seen. I realized watching that that by continuing to not watch Season 4, I was missing out on the primary reason I started watching MLP in the first place: to understand the things fans created. That was primarily the reason, but there were a few others.
Allen: The week before I purchased that, I saw Allen for the first time in a long time in the break room recently, the only Brony I know that I've actually talked to, aside from another coworker that moved to another job. Talking to him piqued my interest a bit. Ironically, I only saw him once after that, and he was talking to someone on his phone so I couldn't talk to him. Now I haven't seen him for about two weeks, despite now actually wanting to talk to him more than ever (I have no idea what his last name is) and can only assume either his work and break schedules no longer match up with mine, or he no longer works in the same building I do.
StarCraft II: I recently replayed the Wings of Liberty missions on Normal to get all the Normal achievements. I then tried replaying it on Hard to get the Hard achievements, but in some ways, that turned out to be a mistake. By doing that, I sucked out a whole lot of fun from the game, and got re-acquainted with how much a video game can provide feelings of frustration and failure, and also reminded why there are a lot of people that do not find video games in general to be an enjoyable pastime. The whole idea of the StarCraft II achievements are that you don't just need to win each mission, you have to win it CORRECTLY. That often means completing it in a time limit, or with a metaphorical hand tied behind your back, like the mission where you have to collect scrap faster than another mercenary, and for the Hard achievement you have to do it without making any more SCVs. For the timed missions in particular, that means that if you do something wrong, especially early in the mission, the only way to get the timed achievement is either spamming the save feature, which is a special kind of annoyance, or starting the entire mission over again. And for someone who enjoys exploring in games, playing the same level over and over to try to get it done faster is a special kind of torture. This relates to the topic at hand because right around the time the Jhaller video came out, I was itching to jump ship from my self-imposed challenge of getting 100% completion in SCII, and indeed, in the last two weeks I've barely touched SCII again.
Second Life: I'm not sure if it was a cause or an effect of my renewed interest in MLP, but around the same time as the Jhaller video came out I was itching to try out Second Life again, which I had tried several times before but abandoned in the past due to boredom and lack of any goals or camaraderie. When Esteban Winsmore's Big Brony Adventure at http://youtu.be/2kGoO1fLCU0 came out, I was tempted to go right in and check it out, but at the time I was watching it (I don't remember exactly when I watched it) I didn't have a huge interest in MLP or SL. When my interest was piqued again, I was reminded that SL had MLP sims that I had never seen before, and started going back to SL around the same time I bought the newest Season.
Nieces: Around the same time, I learned that my sister and my two twin nieces, both 3 years old, would be coming up to visit in late October. That was a reminder about how few interests I share in common with my nieces and sister. All three people are very friendly and polite, but also all three people have no interest in war, video games, action movies, international politics, science, airsoft, or practically anything that is of interest to me, to the point that I lamented to myself last time that they visited that I have more in common with Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies than I have in common with my oldest sister, and it was a great stroke of luck that last time she visited I actually did find some computer games we both enjoyed. And my three year old nieces are, well, three year old nieces. What do I have in common with such people? When it comes to children, I share most of my interests with adolescent and teenage boys, not small girls. So, point being that rekindling my interest in MLP meant at least possibly having SOMETHING in common with those people, and in fact, last Saturday I gathered my nieces, sister, and even Mom around the computer and we all watched Pinkie Apple Pie together. That turned out to be simultaneously enjoyable because I finally got to share my interest in MLP with someone close by, and nerve racking, as I largely spent the 22 minutes nervously gauging how the other people around me were reacting to the episode and to me rather than just enjoying the damn episode without fear or reprieve. As a side note that gets into another irony: MLP is an interest I could share with my Mom, but most certainly will not. As her son, my Mom has never been shy about calling me weird when the mood suits her, and thankfully the mood hasn't suited her recently, but I would estimate that there is about a 0% possibility that any comment she would make about me after watching another episode together would be anything positive. So, if I'm going to watch a TV show with my Mom, I'll stick to Jeopardy and Psych, which we both enjoy and which both carry no chance at all of her calling me weird after watching a show together. But I digress.
So I wonder: How long with my new My Little Pony phase last?
Why is it just a phase? I feel it in me that this is an interest that necessarily must burn out one way or another relatively soon, if for no other reason than that as previously stated, sincere enjoyment of the show on its own terms directly conflicts with some of my other interests, in particular my interests in war, violence, and realism. Just recently I finished The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy, an extremely realistic book and the conceptual opposite of My Little Pony, I would say. I also just a few days ago finished MLP Fan Fiction Anthropology, and enjoyed it greatly, whereas before reading that I was listening to Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (Part 1 was interesting, but for part 2, if I have to listen to another darned chapter about gosh darned birds, I swear I'll go back in time and beat Charles Darwin until he either truncates his stupid bird chapters or writes about more interesting or varied topics...and I haven't started part 3 and am not sure if I want to, though it promises to be bird-free from what I've read about it) and before that I was listening to Knotcast, which like MLP is another thing I enjoyed but cannot share with anyone close by, but for completely opposite reasons. When I like things like Knotcast, and Descent of Man, and The Bear and the Dragon, and StarCraft II and Call of Duty: Black Ops II, what hope do I have of having a long and steady enjoyment of My Little Pony? No, my current interest is a flair up, and I've come to realize writing this journal that when that flair up is done, the pilot light of my interest will probably still be burning, but it's very unlikely that my interest will burn long and steadily, like it did with StarCraft II and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
So, it will end in a few ways:
Finishing watching the season: I plan to buy volume 2 of Season 4 tomorrow, and that will mean that within a week or two I will be done with all currently released episodes at the current rate I'm watching. Maybe this will be a natural cutoff of the current flair up, and this will prove to actually just be a short flair up until my interest transitions to other things.
Boredom in Second Life: I returned to Second Life recently and have visited the pony sims, and have had very mixed results so far. On the one hand I've had several experiences of great joy, notably a mass adventure I went on with a group, a fun conversation I had with a Brony, and a very fun Nightmare Night costume contest I attended recently. I've also had some very rotten experiences. I've stood around as the minutes dragged on and players around me just made annoying noises at each other. I've stood around bored, with nothing to do. And I've had slow or aborted conversations with people, one of which recently may have been insane, and spoke in short, choppy, disconnected sentences which read like pieces of a philosophy textbook ripped out at random. Also, I still live with my parents, and my Dad and I both share the basement. I've found that in particular when it comes to the microphone, I'm even more embarrassed to speak freely talking about Brony stuff than I was talking about Zombie stuff in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, so using my microphone, which I've found can be a great way of having a satisfying, interesting conversation on Second Life, is practically limited to certain times of the day.
More generally, there are two things that will kill my interest in MLP dead:
A loss of community: The importance of a community in shared entertainment is something I've felt more acutely in recent years than ever before because a few years ago I became more focused on multiplayer PC games. For most of my life, I've focused on single player PC games, where whether there are other people playing the same game is relatively moot. Call of Duty was a big turn-around for me, and it was interesting to play a game that still has people playing it, sometimes even 10 years after a game has come out, though the bulk of players are always on the newest game. In the last few years, I've learned how ephemeral PC game multiplayer experiences can be. I was never able to play against another player in Tom Clancy's EndWar because I waited too long after it came out to buy and play it. I had a huge interest in Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies right up until Call of Duty Ghosts came out and the number of Zombies players sunk into the low hundreds. And my great passion in StarCraft II, the Doomed Earth mod, saw me leave in a huff when Doomed Earth Revised came out and changed everything the first time, and then leave in a huff again more recently when so-called Doomed Earth 3 came out, after I had gotten Doomed Earth Revised down to a science (and was winning almost every game because of it). Point being, if community videos and content dries up for MLP, I will jump ship. And the MLP fandom isn't like the furry fandom - it is indeed tied to one specific TV show, and if the sun were to set on that show, the fandom would wither and die within the year I'm sure. The furry fandom is in love with a concept, not a thing, and while that might mean that its passion doesn't run as hot (to my knowledge, there are no furry TV shows, personalities, or actors that people can gush over in the same way as Bronies gush over MLP. It's not like there are a lot of people pacing rooms waiting for Blotch comics to come out, or tens of thousands of people watching live streams of Fursuit TV back when that was on) but that also means the furry fandom is more resistant to general decay and death, because so long as there are two people with a general interest in anthropomorphism, and those two people keep in touch, there's a furry fandom.
Loss of quality: Now, what I'm really thinking of when I say “loss of quality” is Large Marge. I would still call myself a fan of The Simpsons, though I have barely watched an episode of The Simpsons since 2002, and when I do, I am reminded why I stopped. Large Marge was the episode of The Simpsons that was the tipping point for me, after which the series was and still is completely dead to me. After what I saw as a decline in quality, but which more objectively could be termed a change in tone, focus, and humor in season 13 of The Simpsons, after watching Large Marge I concluded that The Simpsons that I knew and loved was dead, as the elements of the TV show I liked in the first place were all missing in that episode. I find it quite unlikely that such a thing will happen to MLP, especially if Season 4 is any indication. I have enjoyed every episode of MLP Season 4 that I saw so far, even the one CMC episode. So, for that, all I really have to fear is a sudden change in direction, like what occurred in Andromeda. In Andromeda, a few seasons in focus changed from longer story arcs that followed multiple episodes to episodes that stood alone and had nothing to do with any episodes before or after them. Watching them on DVD, the change was noticeable and frustrating. Point being that one possible end for my interest in My Little Pony is a sudden change in the TV show that ruins some major factor that gives me enjoyment watching it.
When I personally feel it's not what I want in my life: For that, I'm paraphrasing a memorable part from Knotcast, where some listener asks why anyone would ever leave the furry fandom, and someone on Knotcast says something to the effect of that everyone is a furry up to the point that they no longer believe that the furry fandom is a worthwhile part of their life. It's a very general statement, but I'd say it is quite true, and a distinct possibility to think about. I checked the Brony demographics chart that Christopher Bell referred to in his paper. Most Bronies are in their late teens or early 20s. I'm 25, and am already at the lower end of the bell curve of that poll at least. So, say that MLP episode quality remains consistent. Say that the community remains strong, and for the sake of argument, say that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic gives The Simpsons a run for its money, and runs for 20 or more seasons rather than being canceled in a few more seasons like most TV shows, even successful ones, tend to have happen to them. Will I still be interested in MLP then when I'm 30 or 40, and getting visible crow's feet around my eyes? Will I still occasionally listen to Gypsy Bard in my car on drives? Or will I discard my interest in MLP entirely, even as the seasons go on, because I don't think it is a worthwhile part of my life anymore?
Now that's some food for thought.
New Furry Questionnaire - 2014
Posted 11 years agoI originally got this from 
Jpupbob and filled it out in 2011. The old one was out of date so for the new account, I think it's high time I update it with new, accurate information. Now, on my old account several people made references to information that was out of date, so go ahead and read the journal, but keep in mind the date stamp on the top, and remember that while some opinions are lifetime opinions, others change on a week to week basis, and this questionnaire is the product of a specific time, and a snapshot of my feelings and opinions at that time, so don't jump to conclusions, especially if you're reading this in 2025 or something.
*Are you a furry?
I wasn't before, but I am now.
*If you have a Spouse/SO - Is he/she a furry too?
No and no.
*How long have you been in the community?
I played Furcadia when I was around 14.
*How did you find furry?
Furcadia
*What's your reason for furry (what interested you to get into the community)?
Mainly fursuits, though I like some of the art too.
*What's Furry to you?
An outlet for creative expression and a mask of shortcomings. To elaborate a little, first it's very obvious that for a lot of people it's an outlet for some form of creativity, whether art, writing, costuming, photography, or video. I find it can be an outlet for writing for me, and an interesting theme for a story. It's also a mask for shortcomings. I think Gil Grissom explained it best - "Amazing. A tribe of people that prefer to interact as animals rather than human beings." Through online RP, video gaming, or costuming, a person can take on a furry fursona, which only in the rarest cases in online RP and video gaming (and considerably less rare in costuming, as a lot of people can have very crappy costumes) the fursona has features the real person doesn't have. It's often physically attractive, intelligent, and has a different personality than the actual person. And by virtue of being a new character, they necessarily don't have the same baggage as the actual person, and if they do have baggage, it's just to add flavor to the character rather than as a serious flaw.
*If someone found out you're a furry and asked you about it how would you respond?
Furry is just a good hobby. It's something I enjoy, and it's a major interest of mine. I am an honest person, and if they found out I was furry, I would fess up to it, but downplay it and say it's not a big deal.
*What are your favorite aspects of our community?
If you mean Fur Affinity specially, what keeps me coming back to Fur Affinity are the people that are level-headed enough not to be delusional about their work, and able to take a joke and interact with me when I comment. Those are the people I watch and comment on.
*Do you use any furry terms? (i.e. yiff, paws, murr?)
Only when interacting directly with furries. Actually, it becomes force of habit in those cases. I was RPing earlier this month with a furry and in that particular one neither of our characters were furries or costumed humans, and I had to remind myself not to use specific furry terms.
*What do you wish furry was NOT associated with?
Basically, furries whose personalities and/or fetishes revolve around hurting someone or doing something especially degrading and disgusting.
*How strongly do you feel about someone bashing the community as a whole?
Two ways to answer this one. First, I'd say indifferent if you mean the general concept of furry. A person bashing the concept of furry would be as strange and bizarre as a person bashing the concepts of, say, personification, or love, or taste, or any other such general concepts. Second, I value the truth very highly, and I might go so far as to say above all else. A person bashing the furry community would likely not be doing it from a factually sound point of view, so I might personally get into an argument with them to point out the logical fallacies and factual falsehoods of their statements.
*How strongly do you feel about anyone bashing you yourself for your interest based on the media's aspect of what furry is?
It hasn't come up yet as of the time of writing this journal, and I can't even really imagine what that would be like.
*We all know furries have a lot of sexual aspects in this fandom, What's your opinion on it?
That's half of why I'm here. I'm totally serious. Half of my interest lies entirely with the sexual aspects of the fandom, and when I'm horny, I don't always go for furry media of some sort, but I tend to predominantly go for it. The other half is the part of furry that's cute and interesting. The pictures https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12546201/ and https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12626565/ are good examples of those. Such cute and interesting things are just as big a component of why I'm here as something like https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12736821/ is.
Personal
*What is/are your fursona(s)?
A 5'6", 130 pound bipedal anthropomorphic housecat that has greyish-white fur all over his body. Actually, currently I can't fully decide whether I like pure white, greyish-white, or just grey. I like metal grey as a color in general (the color of metal and technology more than the color of depression), but have mixed feelings about it as a fur color. I think I'll go with pure white for now, as that seems to be the color I most like my fur to be.
*Do you have any fetishes that pertain to the fandom?
Fursuit, definately. Also, I've got a little bit of rubberfur, crossdressing (male and female) and pegging fetishes thrown in for good measure.
*If you could magically morph into your fursona would you?
It's actually a rather difficulty question for now, as the answer to my next question explains in more detail. For this question, I'll keep it simple and say "No, no I would not magically morph into my fursona if I had the opportunity."
*Do you believe you have a spirit animal?
Not a bit, and I shun anyone that does. Superstition is one of the greatest threats to the long-term health of society. Society cannot prosper with superstition, and I reject all forms of superstition, spirituality, and religion. I wish that everyone in the world was Atheist, and long for a future where that was true. However, I'm also a college graduate, and took several classes on philosophy and read books on argumentative logic, and have found that the argument from invincible ignorance is a very real and very prevalent fallacy. In order for a person's opinion to be changed, they need to be able to "lose" the argument, and too much personal investment gets in the way of that. Meaning, I could argue with you about tax policy, social policy, or foreign policy, and you or I could conceivably have a logical, reasoned discussion about it because if you or I lose the argument, it won't cause drastic changes in our lives. But what would happen if you "lost" (I use that term in quotation marks, because argument should be a path to truth, not the contest for domination that it actually usually becomes) an argument about religion? Likely you would have to change your entire outlook on life, your habits, your personal associations, and your long term goals and beliefs. So, long story short, I don't believe in spirit animals, or souls, or angels or demons or Thetans or fate or life after death or god or the devil or prayer or magic or all of those metaphysical or pseudoscientific concepts. But I'm also aware that most people in the world believe something on that list, and their beliefs in general can't be changed by argument because they can't afford to have them changed by argument. So break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
*What other fanbases/groups are you a part of?
PC gamer to the max. I'm also very loyal to Microsoft and to Yahoo.
*Anthro/Feral, Therian or Kemonomimi (Not a furry, just a human with animal ears and a tail)?
I'm not reading a question, just a list here. Jpupbob may have filled out this, but I'm really not sure who wrote these questions. So, I'll skip on to questions that are actually questions.
*Are you a fursuiter? If yes, how many do you own? If No, do you ever plan on being a suiter?
Not a fursuiter. But this question hits close to home. At the time of writing this, I just learned recently that FTV, available at http://fursuittv.timduru.org/ was finally canceled after 8 years. I have watched every single episode of it as of writing this except for the very last one, the two hour show. So, once I watched that, there will be no more new shows by Timduru forever. It kind of depresses me, like realizing when I re-watched all the Strong Bad e-mails that there would never be any new ones, though at least Timduru made the cancelation very clear rather than leading people on like the Brothers Chaps did. Anyway, point being I have been watching FTV since the very beginning, and some of the clips on the show were ones I personally sent in. In addition, I have around 1000 sexual fursuit videos downloaded. And I don't own one now, one day I am sure I will. Perhaps I won't go to conventions or anything, but it's strange to think that I've watched 89 hours of FTV episodes and never once worn any costume more elaborate than a Wal Mart Halloween costume myself.
*How many of your friends are furry?
On Fur Affinity and Furries Xtreme, 100%. In real life, I have one friend that had an account on Fur Affinity, but it's completely inactive, and he told me he just made it because he's into inflation and FA had a lot of pictures that met his fetish. So, really 0 irl friends.
*How many pets do you own, if any?
None personally, but my parents own one black cat named Sammy. He's about 10 years old as of writing this if I recall, and super friendly and affectionate. I love him dearly.
*Aside from furry what other interests do you have?
PC games, literature, movies. A whole bunch of things that are all listed on my Facebook, but the three I mentioned are the big ones.
*Are you confident enough in yourself to say that you're a fur, no matter what the media says?
Sure.
Meetups
*Do you attend any cons? If no, would you attend any cons? If yes, which cons have you been to?
No, but I might eventually go to one in the far future.
*Do you go to local meetups(bowling, public outings...etc)?
Nope
*Have you ever attended a furry party? If no, would you attend one?
No, maybe.
Online
*Have you ever met up with a fur you talked to online?
No
*What furry websites do you attend?
FA, Furries Xtreme, and Lulz.net
*What non furry websites do you frequent?
Currently, Wikipedia, YouTube, KnowYourMeme, and Cracked.com.
*Has the fandom done anything for you that you're thankful for? Has it taught you anything or brought you anything you treasure greatly?
Just entertainment really. In one form or another, the furry fandom has provided me with a large amount of entertainment over the years. I don't believe I can say that the furry fandom in particular has taught me anything or brought me anything besides entertainment that I treasure greatly.
Jpupbob and filled it out in 2011. The old one was out of date so for the new account, I think it's high time I update it with new, accurate information. Now, on my old account several people made references to information that was out of date, so go ahead and read the journal, but keep in mind the date stamp on the top, and remember that while some opinions are lifetime opinions, others change on a week to week basis, and this questionnaire is the product of a specific time, and a snapshot of my feelings and opinions at that time, so don't jump to conclusions, especially if you're reading this in 2025 or something.*Are you a furry?
I wasn't before, but I am now.
*If you have a Spouse/SO - Is he/she a furry too?
No and no.
*How long have you been in the community?
I played Furcadia when I was around 14.
*How did you find furry?
Furcadia
*What's your reason for furry (what interested you to get into the community)?
Mainly fursuits, though I like some of the art too.
*What's Furry to you?
An outlet for creative expression and a mask of shortcomings. To elaborate a little, first it's very obvious that for a lot of people it's an outlet for some form of creativity, whether art, writing, costuming, photography, or video. I find it can be an outlet for writing for me, and an interesting theme for a story. It's also a mask for shortcomings. I think Gil Grissom explained it best - "Amazing. A tribe of people that prefer to interact as animals rather than human beings." Through online RP, video gaming, or costuming, a person can take on a furry fursona, which only in the rarest cases in online RP and video gaming (and considerably less rare in costuming, as a lot of people can have very crappy costumes) the fursona has features the real person doesn't have. It's often physically attractive, intelligent, and has a different personality than the actual person. And by virtue of being a new character, they necessarily don't have the same baggage as the actual person, and if they do have baggage, it's just to add flavor to the character rather than as a serious flaw.
*If someone found out you're a furry and asked you about it how would you respond?
Furry is just a good hobby. It's something I enjoy, and it's a major interest of mine. I am an honest person, and if they found out I was furry, I would fess up to it, but downplay it and say it's not a big deal.
*What are your favorite aspects of our community?
If you mean Fur Affinity specially, what keeps me coming back to Fur Affinity are the people that are level-headed enough not to be delusional about their work, and able to take a joke and interact with me when I comment. Those are the people I watch and comment on.
*Do you use any furry terms? (i.e. yiff, paws, murr?)
Only when interacting directly with furries. Actually, it becomes force of habit in those cases. I was RPing earlier this month with a furry and in that particular one neither of our characters were furries or costumed humans, and I had to remind myself not to use specific furry terms.
*What do you wish furry was NOT associated with?
Basically, furries whose personalities and/or fetishes revolve around hurting someone or doing something especially degrading and disgusting.
*How strongly do you feel about someone bashing the community as a whole?
Two ways to answer this one. First, I'd say indifferent if you mean the general concept of furry. A person bashing the concept of furry would be as strange and bizarre as a person bashing the concepts of, say, personification, or love, or taste, or any other such general concepts. Second, I value the truth very highly, and I might go so far as to say above all else. A person bashing the furry community would likely not be doing it from a factually sound point of view, so I might personally get into an argument with them to point out the logical fallacies and factual falsehoods of their statements.
*How strongly do you feel about anyone bashing you yourself for your interest based on the media's aspect of what furry is?
It hasn't come up yet as of the time of writing this journal, and I can't even really imagine what that would be like.
*We all know furries have a lot of sexual aspects in this fandom, What's your opinion on it?
That's half of why I'm here. I'm totally serious. Half of my interest lies entirely with the sexual aspects of the fandom, and when I'm horny, I don't always go for furry media of some sort, but I tend to predominantly go for it. The other half is the part of furry that's cute and interesting. The pictures https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12546201/ and https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12626565/ are good examples of those. Such cute and interesting things are just as big a component of why I'm here as something like https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12736821/ is.
Personal
*What is/are your fursona(s)?
A 5'6", 130 pound bipedal anthropomorphic housecat that has greyish-white fur all over his body. Actually, currently I can't fully decide whether I like pure white, greyish-white, or just grey. I like metal grey as a color in general (the color of metal and technology more than the color of depression), but have mixed feelings about it as a fur color. I think I'll go with pure white for now, as that seems to be the color I most like my fur to be.
*Do you have any fetishes that pertain to the fandom?
Fursuit, definately. Also, I've got a little bit of rubberfur, crossdressing (male and female) and pegging fetishes thrown in for good measure.
*If you could magically morph into your fursona would you?
It's actually a rather difficulty question for now, as the answer to my next question explains in more detail. For this question, I'll keep it simple and say "No, no I would not magically morph into my fursona if I had the opportunity."
*Do you believe you have a spirit animal?
Not a bit, and I shun anyone that does. Superstition is one of the greatest threats to the long-term health of society. Society cannot prosper with superstition, and I reject all forms of superstition, spirituality, and religion. I wish that everyone in the world was Atheist, and long for a future where that was true. However, I'm also a college graduate, and took several classes on philosophy and read books on argumentative logic, and have found that the argument from invincible ignorance is a very real and very prevalent fallacy. In order for a person's opinion to be changed, they need to be able to "lose" the argument, and too much personal investment gets in the way of that. Meaning, I could argue with you about tax policy, social policy, or foreign policy, and you or I could conceivably have a logical, reasoned discussion about it because if you or I lose the argument, it won't cause drastic changes in our lives. But what would happen if you "lost" (I use that term in quotation marks, because argument should be a path to truth, not the contest for domination that it actually usually becomes) an argument about religion? Likely you would have to change your entire outlook on life, your habits, your personal associations, and your long term goals and beliefs. So, long story short, I don't believe in spirit animals, or souls, or angels or demons or Thetans or fate or life after death or god or the devil or prayer or magic or all of those metaphysical or pseudoscientific concepts. But I'm also aware that most people in the world believe something on that list, and their beliefs in general can't be changed by argument because they can't afford to have them changed by argument. So break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
*What other fanbases/groups are you a part of?
PC gamer to the max. I'm also very loyal to Microsoft and to Yahoo.
*Anthro/Feral, Therian or Kemonomimi (Not a furry, just a human with animal ears and a tail)?
I'm not reading a question, just a list here. Jpupbob may have filled out this, but I'm really not sure who wrote these questions. So, I'll skip on to questions that are actually questions.
*Are you a fursuiter? If yes, how many do you own? If No, do you ever plan on being a suiter?
Not a fursuiter. But this question hits close to home. At the time of writing this, I just learned recently that FTV, available at http://fursuittv.timduru.org/ was finally canceled after 8 years. I have watched every single episode of it as of writing this except for the very last one, the two hour show. So, once I watched that, there will be no more new shows by Timduru forever. It kind of depresses me, like realizing when I re-watched all the Strong Bad e-mails that there would never be any new ones, though at least Timduru made the cancelation very clear rather than leading people on like the Brothers Chaps did. Anyway, point being I have been watching FTV since the very beginning, and some of the clips on the show were ones I personally sent in. In addition, I have around 1000 sexual fursuit videos downloaded. And I don't own one now, one day I am sure I will. Perhaps I won't go to conventions or anything, but it's strange to think that I've watched 89 hours of FTV episodes and never once worn any costume more elaborate than a Wal Mart Halloween costume myself.
*How many of your friends are furry?
On Fur Affinity and Furries Xtreme, 100%. In real life, I have one friend that had an account on Fur Affinity, but it's completely inactive, and he told me he just made it because he's into inflation and FA had a lot of pictures that met his fetish. So, really 0 irl friends.
*How many pets do you own, if any?
None personally, but my parents own one black cat named Sammy. He's about 10 years old as of writing this if I recall, and super friendly and affectionate. I love him dearly.
*Aside from furry what other interests do you have?
PC games, literature, movies. A whole bunch of things that are all listed on my Facebook, but the three I mentioned are the big ones.
*Are you confident enough in yourself to say that you're a fur, no matter what the media says?
Sure.
Meetups
*Do you attend any cons? If no, would you attend any cons? If yes, which cons have you been to?
No, but I might eventually go to one in the far future.
*Do you go to local meetups(bowling, public outings...etc)?
Nope
*Have you ever attended a furry party? If no, would you attend one?
No, maybe.
Online
*Have you ever met up with a fur you talked to online?
No
*What furry websites do you attend?
FA, Furries Xtreme, and Lulz.net
*What non furry websites do you frequent?
Currently, Wikipedia, YouTube, KnowYourMeme, and Cracked.com.
*Has the fandom done anything for you that you're thankful for? Has it taught you anything or brought you anything you treasure greatly?
Just entertainment really. In one form or another, the furry fandom has provided me with a large amount of entertainment over the years. I don't believe I can say that the furry fandom in particular has taught me anything or brought me anything besides entertainment that I treasure greatly.
New FA account - why now?
Posted 11 years agoMy old FA username was kodakdisposable, which is at http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kodakdisposable/
I originally signed up for that May 5th, 2007. At the time, I didn't consider myself a furry, but was interested in furry. Making accounts on many furry web sites is a requirement for using them, and if not that, then there are other restrictions placed on them, or it just becomes difficult to track things on those web sites without having an account. So, not just on Fur Affinity but on many different web sites I made accounts with the name Kodak Disposable or some variation of that, with the underlying assumption being that if my interest waned in furry, I would dispose of them and not use them again. It didn't quite work out like that. My interest stayed consistent, so that that name and variations of it soon became my primary way of interacting online regarding furries.
So, as I've been using that name or variations of it for so long, why decide to change now? There are a lot of reasons.
First, a few months ago on Fur Affinity I got into an argument with someone over a comment on a picture. It got so bad that I had to block him, which in the entire seven years I've been on Fur Affinity as of writing this journal, I have never once needed to block a person. One component of the argument was that the person seemed to think my FA account was a disposable troll account. And who could blame him? Disposable was right in the name, it had a picture of a camera, and no fursona information at all. The only indications it WASN'T a troll account was the long period of time it had been online, and that it actually had real submissions (which I'll get into later). After that, I became very self-conscious, and saw my name and picture posting in comments next to people with more typical furry names and pictures, and began feeling like the odd man out. So, while there were other factors leading up to it, the primary cause and the short term trigger was an argument with a component to it where the person misunderstood the current intention of having the FA account, though he may have been correct in his assumption in the original purpose. I never want that to happen again.
Second, my account on Furries Xtreme attests to my transition from a person just using an account to someone that would consider himself as a furry. I've been on Furries Xtreme almost as long as I have for Fur Affinity, and was on even before the server transition. And on cue, I originally had a name that was some variation of Kodak Disposable. But in July 2013 I had my first real furry RP in the chat room of Furries Xtreme, and it lead to more RPing and more varied role plays. I haven't played Second Life in a few years, but decided to switch the name on FX from my previous name to Thesium, which is an altogether more furry-sounding name and suits me well for its science and science fiction undertones. Around the same time I also selected a fursona and filled out an account on f-list.net. I probably would have also done the same on Fur Affinity around the same time, but on Fur Affinity, you can change your display name (which shows up as Full Name) but you can't change which name is actually displayed, or your URL. So, I held onto my Fur Affinity account long after I had changed my name on Furries Xtreme.
Third, I recently found myself transitioning from a lurker to an active participant. I began actually writing, editing, and posting stories, which come to think of it, is completely at odds with the original purpose I had for creating my Fur Affinity account. Regardless of whether the stories are good or bad, no one will want to check out the stories of someone named "kodakdisposable." So, that pushed me in the direction of abandoning the old temporary account and making a new one that reflects my transition to a full participant in the furry fandom, not only a watcher and commenter.
So, go ahead and watch this account. Feel free to write notes and leave shouts, though I of course reserve the right to remove any shouts I don't like.
Lastly, just because I favorited someone on my old account doesn't necessarily mean I'll favorite them on my new account. One side benefit is the new account means cleaning house, and possibly selecting new people to watch.
I originally signed up for that May 5th, 2007. At the time, I didn't consider myself a furry, but was interested in furry. Making accounts on many furry web sites is a requirement for using them, and if not that, then there are other restrictions placed on them, or it just becomes difficult to track things on those web sites without having an account. So, not just on Fur Affinity but on many different web sites I made accounts with the name Kodak Disposable or some variation of that, with the underlying assumption being that if my interest waned in furry, I would dispose of them and not use them again. It didn't quite work out like that. My interest stayed consistent, so that that name and variations of it soon became my primary way of interacting online regarding furries.
So, as I've been using that name or variations of it for so long, why decide to change now? There are a lot of reasons.
First, a few months ago on Fur Affinity I got into an argument with someone over a comment on a picture. It got so bad that I had to block him, which in the entire seven years I've been on Fur Affinity as of writing this journal, I have never once needed to block a person. One component of the argument was that the person seemed to think my FA account was a disposable troll account. And who could blame him? Disposable was right in the name, it had a picture of a camera, and no fursona information at all. The only indications it WASN'T a troll account was the long period of time it had been online, and that it actually had real submissions (which I'll get into later). After that, I became very self-conscious, and saw my name and picture posting in comments next to people with more typical furry names and pictures, and began feeling like the odd man out. So, while there were other factors leading up to it, the primary cause and the short term trigger was an argument with a component to it where the person misunderstood the current intention of having the FA account, though he may have been correct in his assumption in the original purpose. I never want that to happen again.
Second, my account on Furries Xtreme attests to my transition from a person just using an account to someone that would consider himself as a furry. I've been on Furries Xtreme almost as long as I have for Fur Affinity, and was on even before the server transition. And on cue, I originally had a name that was some variation of Kodak Disposable. But in July 2013 I had my first real furry RP in the chat room of Furries Xtreme, and it lead to more RPing and more varied role plays. I haven't played Second Life in a few years, but decided to switch the name on FX from my previous name to Thesium, which is an altogether more furry-sounding name and suits me well for its science and science fiction undertones. Around the same time I also selected a fursona and filled out an account on f-list.net. I probably would have also done the same on Fur Affinity around the same time, but on Fur Affinity, you can change your display name (which shows up as Full Name) but you can't change which name is actually displayed, or your URL. So, I held onto my Fur Affinity account long after I had changed my name on Furries Xtreme.
Third, I recently found myself transitioning from a lurker to an active participant. I began actually writing, editing, and posting stories, which come to think of it, is completely at odds with the original purpose I had for creating my Fur Affinity account. Regardless of whether the stories are good or bad, no one will want to check out the stories of someone named "kodakdisposable." So, that pushed me in the direction of abandoning the old temporary account and making a new one that reflects my transition to a full participant in the furry fandom, not only a watcher and commenter.
So, go ahead and watch this account. Feel free to write notes and leave shouts, though I of course reserve the right to remove any shouts I don't like.
Lastly, just because I favorited someone on my old account doesn't necessarily mean I'll favorite them on my new account. One side benefit is the new account means cleaning house, and possibly selecting new people to watch.
