This show, the joy it has brought, the lessons learned, and the friendships made will last through all time. Though the era of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has ended, a new era of new friendships to make and lessons to learn await us.
I came into this fandom nearly 9 years ago, and though I wasn't the first, I will not be the last.
Thank you all for everything; for friendships, for kind words, and for sharing this fandom with me. You have been the guiding light that has kept me coming back. I love you all, and would not trade the friendships I've made for anything, even if it was a chance to go to the pony world. You all are the enduring spirit of this fandom.
Share your fond memories of the fandom, friends, and lessons learned along the way. We'll be here. Friends 'till the end.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:51 pm
by RudeCyrus
Ditto
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:59 pm
by Wayoshi
what's the board of htis board anymore?
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 10:01 pm
by DaikatunaRevengeance
i met some cool people and that's what matter
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 10:16 pm
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
this is the only pony-adjacent place that doesn't want to fuck a nazi horse so it's by default the best
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 10:20 pm
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
who cares if they're all bigger major league ponies, they don't have me
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 10:22 pm
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
it's also the only palce i can type litke a total shitpost about cirtical gender theroy and it fits the vibe of this place perfectly goddamn i am glad i have been major league ponying from its earliest days feb 2011 represetn
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 10:31 pm
by @Zebra_ebooks
I've known some of you nerds for a long time now, dang
To everyone who reads this, thank you. It's through initially bonding over a common interest in cartoon horses that I was eventually able to make the first true friends I'd ever had, through the fandom that I could have a role in bringing joy to thousands and thousands of people, that I finally feel just a little bit like I can face whatever life has in store for me. I hope this past decade has touched your heart, too, and I hope we can stay together for the next.
To everyone who reads this, thank you. It's through initially bonding over a common interest in cartoon horses that I was eventually able to make the first true friends I'd ever had, through the fandom that I could have a role in bringing joy to thousands and thousands of people, that I finally feel just a little bit like I can face whatever life has in store for me. I hope this past decade has touched your heart, too, and I hope we can stay together for the next.
You're a damn good friend, Fizzbuzz. I still keep that picture you did of Snow on that notecard under my tarot deck. It gives it good energy.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:19 pm
by Madeline
I am legit sad over the pony show ending.
This place means a lot to me. maybe sometime I’ll have the will and the ability to write up something a bit more formal about that.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:47 am
by RIP Syndrome
The fandom is over, long live the fandom
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:31 am
by Skipper
I love you all, and I'm glad weird candy-colored pony show brought us all together and gave me the oportunity to meet some of you IRL.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:50 am
by Adiwan
The fandom is over. Burn everything to the ground until nothing exists anymore so it can rise again from the ashes!
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:52 am
by CorvusCaw
Love of ponies brought us together.
Hating Ben Shapiro will keep us together.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:09 pm
by Blarghalt
to be totally honest i never actually liked the show. my undying hate of twist is the only thing that's kept me going
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:10 pm
by Jill
lost interest in the show halfway through but i like this community it's pretty alright
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:28 pm
by Quanta
Horse show was fun, forums are good, something something something
it's also the only palce i can type litke a total shitpost about cirtical gender theroy and it fits the vibe of this place perfectly goddamn i am glad i have been major league ponying from its earliest days feb 2011 represetn
lost interest in the show halfway through but i like this community it's pretty alright
to stop understating everything, i'm going to go over a bit of personal history here.
my introduction to ponies was some point in 2011 where i noticed a friend liked the show a lot and decided to binge season 1. this was not long before season 2 started airing. at the time i didn't think much of what i had seen. it was cute af, and of relatively good quality for a children's cartoon, but it hadn't grabbed me at all
i've never been a member or frequent lurker of SA, but at some point the gassed pony thread there was brought to my attention, as well as a mention of where all the ponygoons fled to after the fallout from that. being the obsessively curious person i am, i lurked, and i got to read a lot of takes (mainly from the likes of Headless Horse) that put some retrospective vitality into my appreciation for the show. i had some insight into how the show came together and how it had resonated with mature audiences in the way it spoke to its target audience. it inspired me to not just re-watch season 1 but actively view it through a more critical lens, and the simple radiance of some episodes such as Green Isn't Your Color was now blinding. now it made sense. it was grabbing me, and i probably wouldn't have even taken a second glance had this place not been around
that's hardly it, though. prior to my experiences with this community, i was still a pretty bad person in a pretty bad place. in 2009, i was only just beginning to question if my misogynistic and deeply depressing outlook on things was doing anything for me. i had not directly been a part of any MRA/incel spheres, but i was still more or less on board with them and very susceptible to their reasoning. i had spent the vast majority of my miserable childhood struggling with a combination of Aspergers, toxic standards of masculinity, and the sheer terror of growing up in a black hole of cutthroat capitalism. i loathed myself more than anything and would see sociopathic thought patterns emerge from time to time
flash forward to the appearance of the first gender & sexual minorities thread and the surrounding discourse about feminism, i was being educated for the first time about what a trans person even was. the natural question that followed is: "me too?", and with that simple question the entire foundation of my being just came down on me like a brick shithouse. i could trace every last thread of distrust i had for women down to a simple emotion: jealousy. i had a suffocating need to be something i was sure i couldn't be, which produced reactive ire toward those who were. what's more, i still had no identity of my own, because until FiM came along i was not permitted to like cute and soft and sentimental things. i didn't immediately leap to the conclusion that i was trans, but it only continued making flawless sense until i finally admitted it to myself
somewhere along the way this inevitably got me thinking about the kind of person i truly and actually wanted to be. fictional examples were my starting point, because those were really the only ones i still had any abundance of in my life. the first character that came to mind was Fluttershy. the second was Marona. some others sprang up from time to time, but these two were always of consistent relevance to me. Marona was the first thing on this earth to demonstrate before me that kindness is not a zero sum game, and that the sting of having your kindness betrayed only proves its place in the world. Fluttershy drove home a point that empathy and tolerance form a delicate balance, where one may overpower the other if not checked. there is no sufficient explanation for admiring these two so much, but it's definitely no coincidence that they're female characters. they don't merely display virtues that resonate with me; their affectionate, feminine dispositions are incredibly comforting and validating on their own. or, in a manner of speaking: goals. in the end, i was led to condense the kind of person i wanted to be into one basic instruction: "be a sweetheart until you can't no more". all that really means is "do no harm, take no shit" but the phrasing is adjusted to sound less jaded and more girly
tl;dr: i did a lot of growing up as a result of being around this community, and i'm nothing but grateful to all of you for it. it's kind of embarrassing to admit that so much introspection and self-refinement and newfound purpose stemmed from a children's cartoon and some dumb anime video game, but if there's any shame in it then i am well beyond the point of fucks given
disclaimer: i'm pretty heckin' binary, so when i use words like "feminine" or "girly" i am speaking on behalf of how my perception has been colored by my upbringing and not how things are or should be perceived. fuck gender roles and all that
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:16 pm
by ToastGhost
No shame allowed here, only feels. You're cool, Jill, and I'm sorry for any and all times I've been mean or rude to you in the past. Thanks for being a part of this with us.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:24 pm
by Octavia
The show is over, but that doesn't mean the fandom is. There are still an assload of original Trekkies and that show's final episode was 50 years ago.
Re: The Fandom Is Over
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:32 pm
by ToastGhost
This is why I keep saying "Long Live The Fandom", y'all. So long as there are fans, and so long as I'm around, it'll never truly die.
Maybe if I wanted to be more accurate to the Bronycon experience I could say the "fandom's been capped" instead. Gotta find a new fandom, this one's full.
The fandom is over. Burn everything to the ground until nothing exists anymore so it can rise again from the ashes!
So long as there are fans, and so long as I'm around, it'll never truly die. 
