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So. I don't even remember now how I found myself there, but I found myself looking at a tumblr blog entitled Are You Serious, Brony? I do not provide a link because it is rather unsafe for work, due to the work it showcases and rips apart: the dark underside of our fandom.
I laughed, I'll admit. Not at the blog author, but with him. I know another guy like him from a different fandom, on a different site, who has Standards and isn't afraid to be known for them, but who caustically cuts apart this kind of material instead of turning upon his fellow fandom members. I loved his sardonic sarcasm at some of the worst that our fandom has to offer.
And then I started thinking about why I'm in a fandom that tolerates this kind of stuff. That produces it in such droves. For every piece of beautiful art on Ponibooru, I guess that there's a piece of pornographic waste - as I don't browse Pb with a login, it's all hidden away. But I know it's there, and it spreads, and for every adult fan who's completely fine with it, there's a kid with an internet connection who doesn't know what the Pinkamina Diane Pie tumblr is like or comes across Naughty Naughty Luna!(tm) fanarts. And that concerns me, because I have the power to change that one bit at a time - I can't force artists to take back what they've drawn, but I can act upon my fellow fans in tiny, almost imperceptible ways. Or, perhaps, in larger ways. I am a writer, after all.
Then I read an essay that the blog author linked, written by a mother who was creeped out by the 'bronie' phenomenon. The replies started out promising, and then descended into the vicious defense that any negative Pony article gets, to the point where the original author locked the comment section because of all the insults that were being hurled her way, proving her view that bronies were borderline molesters.
And I thought some more. At first I thought, surely, surely I can say I'm clean, surely I can say I'm free of any blame, I'm not like them, the kind of bronies who sexualize this kind of thing to an abhorrent degree. And then I thought some more. Oh, wait, who was the brony who made the Haremizer Cannon in RP and had roleplayed out an attraction to an OC pony? Hint: that was me. Who was the brony that accidentally kickstarted the whole bondage craze and is currently writing a story that incorporates it in its themes, even if it is being deconstructed to an extent in said story? Hint: even more me. Who once wrote a naughty Lix/Trixie ship that he now regrets ever trying, as his first and only foray into anything even tangential to clopfic? Oh, wait, that was ME.
Do you think that any unbiased observer would believe that I don't find bondage or harems sexual, after how often they've come up in the forum RP, with me in the midst of it? (Dark secret: I like the stereotypical harem outfit, not the actual concept of a harem. And I mean like as in "I am intrigued by its aesthetics".) It's not bleeding likely. Stars and stones, do you think that any mother who stumbled across the GiantITP pony fandom, just out of the blue, would believe that the brony subculture isn't sexualized? I'm starting to have doubts.
You know how, a few pages back, we were talking about characters and how successful RP characters often come from seeds of your personality? Well, Shallow and Thoughtless Human as a title sums up part of my personality pretty well. I'll do something, and then never think about the consequences. I'll say something, and never imagine that I might regret it later. I don't see. I don't consider. If I could go back and tell myself, hey, Raz, don't write that fic for Trix'n'Lix, you'll regret it and feel as if you've failed yourself soon enough, I would, but I didn't even think about it. And I'm sure that, right this moment, there's something that I'm missing, something that will make me miss a step and tumble down the stairs painfully. It's already happened to me enough for a year in the past month or so, and I'm looking down at more stairs. It's stairs, all the way down. And the step I'm taking right now is going to make me scrape open my knee a few steps down the line, I just know it. Shallow and Thoughtless Human. Sums me up pretty well, don't you think?
But, then again, I also believe that a man has power enough to choose. He may, no, he will need help. He'll struggle. He'll fall on the way and be helped back up to his feet. But a man can change who he is, if he looks in the mirror and doesn't like what he sees staring back at him. He can comb his metaphorical hair. He can brush the yellow off his teeth. And perhaps he can't scrub that stain out of his white shirt, but he can remember, next time, that he shouldn't go for the ketchup with that metaphorical burger. And he can rally his thoughts, and give them marching orders, and focus - though it's boring, though it's hard - enough to change their course. He doesn't just have to go with the flow and take the easy course. Taking the easy course is always harder in the end. The hard course takes you straight through the briars and the brambles, but the easy course drops you down into them with no machete to cut your way out.
I'm not going to tell you all that you should stop looking at Molestia fanart or feel guilty for shipping. I'm not going to say that bronydom has been ruined for me forever. But I think it's time that the Pure and Honest Fox Raz can actually call himself that honestly, don't you think?
I think so.
And that's one step away from being the Shallow and Thoughtless Human. And if I speechify about it at length, that's even better, because speaking, well, writing, I think of this as being sort of like speaking, I take a conversational tone as if I was standing in front of you all gut-afraid but still speaking anyway, and now we're off-topic- anyway, if I write about it, I can rally up the troops, all those impulses and unconscious thoughts, and say to them, boyos, there's going to be a bit of a change around here. We're clearing house, doing autumn wrap-up and burning the rubbish, and then we can actually say about ourselves, we're pure and honest, because I'm tired as anything of being a liar about myself, to myself, to anyone who asks me, "So, Raz, are you pure and honest?" I'll smile, and say of course, and I want to be able to mean it, consarn it.
And when people ask me, "So, these Bronies, are they all sexually attracted to ponies and creepy?" I want to be able to say, with fervor and dignity, "No. No, they're not. They - well, the fans I know, at least, on my little corner of the Internet - are all amazing blokes. And I'm the most amazing one of all!" Okay, maybe not that last bit. But I probably will say it, anyway, even though I don't really mean it, because the Mountebank is a part of me, too, and he learned from Wile E. Coyote and the Doctor how to brag like a jester.
So the wheels aren't churning, anymore. They're turning, and they are groaning with the effort of making the engines run, but there's a bit of peace to me. Or, rather, all that energy, all that momentum as Thanqol says, is focused on something now. And, funnily enough, the momentum is moving me in a direction that I was already going, I've just stopped digging my heels in and resisting the motion now. I'm running. And I'll probably, in a half-mile, slow down and start panting like a dog in the Sahara, and hold my ribs and groan at the effort. But I've got friends here - real, actual friends - who I know will slap me on the back hard enough to leave five red fingers there, and tell me, "Hey, Raz, do you remember that you're running? Because you are. And it's easier to go from 60 to 80 than it is to go from 0 to 60. Keep that momentum up."
And maybe I've got your wheels churning. If you've got the time, and no siblings or children around your computer, and you're definitely not at work, take a look at that tumblr and tell me what you think. Because I think we Playgrounders are more influential on the fandom than we might think, and giving people a place to point to when they need to explain how bronies are just honest folks without any weird sexualizations is a good thing.
Gosh, I just can't end, can I? I feel like I've been sitting here for an hour, though truthfully it's just been half of one, but half is still a bit much for me right now. And I'm still rambling on, just cut it short, Raz-