Motherfucking Ponies, man

by Autumn T. Fairfield

It's a story about ponies and shit like that. What more do you want from me?

When I was 20 years old, the "Brony" craze began. Adults everywhere became fixated on a children's show filled with colorful ponies that taught lessons about how great love and friendship are.

Being the stubborn, borderline-hipster that I was, I resisted becoming a part of this phenomenon. Sure, I was in the right age group for it, and pretty much all of my friends were hooked, but damn it! It looked girly! Despite being, well, a fucking WOMAN, growing up in a somewhat misogynistic culture caused me to despise femininity. Manly shit is cool; girly shit is retarded. Not to be offensive or anything. I didn't make the damn rules; society did. But I digress.

I was going through some heavy shit at the time. I was poor as dirt, flunking classes, and I didn't really get out of the house as much as I honestly needed to. Depression had taken hold and was slowing sucking the life out of me. Sometimes it took all of the strength I had to will myself out of bed in the morning. It was a fairly dark time for me.

Occasionally my friends would try to inundate me with their pony show. I never really paid much attention to it, but I sort of pretended to in order to humor them. The characters all seemed kind of lame and didn't seem to have much going for them.

The purple one appeared to be the main character. She had stupid looking hair and was kind of impatient, neurotic, and OCD. The show appeared to basically revolve around her being socially retarded. What a lovely protagonist.

There was also a rainbow one that most of my friends really liked. Based on what my friends said and what little I saw of her, she was basically a fan favorite because she had a big ego.

Then there was a bitchy, posh white one that appeared to be really into clothes (which didn't make any sense, because no one wore clothes), a pink one with ADHD, and an orange one with a Southern accent. I want to say that there might've been a yellow one too, but I honestly don't remember.

When I wasn't being inundated with ponies, I spent a lot of time off in my head. I dreamt a lot about other worlds and other realms of existence. I wanted to shed myself of my body and other physical attachments, and be one with the universe.

Okay, you caught me. I'm a dirty-hippy-Pagan. I like nature and existential crap and I practice maaaaaaagic. So sue me.

Of course, when I say 'magic', I'm not talking about waving a wand and saying something silly and POOF YOU'RE A FROG. Magic is more like a force that flows through everything and everyone. If you're aware of it and of the infinite ways in which you're connected to life and nature and all that shit, then you can use it with decent results. You can use it for menial shit like finding lost objects, big shit like getting terrible people out of your life and letting awesome people in, and all sorts of things in-between.

Once again, though, I digress.

During that time in my life, I would occasionally attempt to reach the Astral Plane when I went to bed at night. In order to accomplish this, I had to reach just the right mental state, and then attempt to lift my spiritual body out of my physical one. This, of course, was incredibly difficult and took a crap-ton of practice and focus. I had achieved it on maybe one or two occasions; my spirit roamed in an altered world of brilliant color. It was a nice change from the norm.

So, at the end of one particularly mundane day, I lay down on my futon and started to clear my mind. I relaxed my muscles. I controlled my breathing. This process continued for a good while, maybe an hour.

Suddenly, I started to feel a strange tingle that traveled throughout my entire body; it seemed to wrap around me like a cocoon. It felt sort of like…yes! Sleep paralysis, my old friend (not to mention the best state to be in when trying to astral project).

My body started to experience many strange sensations- so many tingles and convulsions and fuck-knows-what-else. It felt so different from the other times, but I rode right through it anyway.

Before I knew it, my bed was as hard as a rock, and I could hear somewhat familiar voices.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh"

"What the heck did you do, Twilight?"

Wait. Twilight? What the fuck?

"Ohhhhh my gosh. I am so sorry. I am so so so so sorry. That was not supposed to happen. I cannot believe I did that! Oh gosh."

I started to open my eyes. Everything's really colorful. Seems astral enough. What the fu—

OH JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ARE THOSE PONIES

THOSE ARE FUCKING PONIES

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

I was so fucking startled that I went from half-asleep to fully awake and jumping to my feet.

Wait.

Why am I on all fours. And why am I having trouble standing like a normal person.

I looked at where my hands and feet used to be.

HOLY SHITBALLS THOSE ARE HOOVES

OH MY FUCK

OH MY FUCK

I screamed. Really loudly. Passers-by stared at me. So many goddamn ponies. What the fuck is this shit.

The purple one winced. Well, shit, it's the same purple one from the show. She looked at me pleadingly.

"I am so incredibly sorry about this. I know you must be really upset. I'll try to send you back where you were before as soon as I can. Just please be patient with me. I'll remedy this as fast as I can."

I kept screaming. This shit was crazy.

The pink one was there, too. She bounced over to the purple one, and started shouting to her over the sound of my screams.

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT SENDING HER BACK TOO SOON, TWILIGHT! I STILL HAVE TO THROW HER A WELCOME PARTY AND INTRODUCE HER TO EVERYONE IN PONYVILLE!'

"BUT PINKIE, SHE HAS A LIFE SHE NEEDS TO ATTEND TO! SHE PROBABLY HAS A JOB SHE NEEDS TO GET BACK TO, OR A FAMILY THAT'S MISSING HER! I NEED TO PUT HER BACK IMMEDIATEL Y!"

The rainbow one then flew up to the both of them and started shouting even more vehemently.

"DARN IT, YOU TWO. WHAT WE NEED TO FOCUS ON RIGHT NOW IS GETTING HER TO SHUT UP! SHE'S CAUSING A SCENE!"

The purple one, who apparently answered to the name 'Twilight', turned to her, "WELL, WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT THAT? SHE'S SCARED AND UPSET!"

Suddenly the rainbow one was flying in my direction. Oh god, what's going on now.

She turned her back towards me.

Then she started to rear her back legs back.

What the—

Aaannndd she fucking kicked me in my goddamn head. I quickly fell into darkness.

Fucking bitch.