About myself.: See below. How did you hear about Canterlot.com?: I was on another RP forum and some people were talking about MLP, and they started saying that Canterlot was awesome. I Googled it and the rest is recent history. My one favourite main cast pony?: AppleJack Well, it took long enough, but I finally find myself here. It was a slow, steady descent into bronidom, but perhaps it was innevitable. Still, don't tell my flatmates I was here, they'd never understand the magic. My name is Astalakio, or Asta for short. I'm from Britland, 18 years old, male, and currently attending uni, studying joint Film & English. I've always wanted to be a writer, but recently I've been neglecting this pastime to partake in my other passion - I am an amateur cartoonist. There are few things I like more than a good cartoon, which makes it strange that it took so long for me to admit I was a brony. Still, I'm here now, and hope to have a pleasant time and meet lots of people too! Other interests include music of almost all genres (I tend to say, when queried, that music is like a book, and if you only open your ears to one genre, you'll only ever read a single page. However, it is alright to have a favourite page, and my favourite page is big band and swing music from the 50s). I spend most of my time drawing (I don't know if it's appropriate to plug my deviantART page here or not...) or RPing, something I have been doing for several years and am fairly good at by now. As you are about to discover, I also have a tendency to write too much. When two of my friends chanted that 'friendship is magic' in perfect unison, I began to suspect that there was some sort of joke that I wasn't quite a part of. They soon took delight in explaining about this show they'd been watching, and I realised it was the source of all this weird pony fanart I'd been seeing on deviantART lately. They seemed quite excited about the adventures of those cartoon creatures, and quickly recalled to me the adventures of Pinkie Pie (whom everyone seems to remember, funnily enough) and Appledash ("Applejack", I corrected, and they looked at me strangely. I hadn't even seen the show at this point, but names of characters are simple to remember). I was immediately sceptical. I was baffled by the idea that such a strange audience would be so strongly fond of a show like that. It was this curiosity that led me to a sort of research. Well, I said it was research, hiding my personal interest behind a guise of bewilderment. I'd start looking at pony fanart 'to survey the demographic', when really I was just charmed by what I saw. Even so, it was somehow difficult for me to actually sit down and watch the first episodes. I was sat with my laptop, quite late at night, nobody around. I typed 'My' into Youtube, but couldn't bring myself to go further. I just felt rather ridiculous, for some reason. I expect it was that I couldn't get it out of my head that I was going to watch a show meant for girls (it certainly wasn't that I was going to watch a show for children, since I watch lots of cartoons shamelessly). There is probably some freudian explanation for it, but I just found it really difficult. Later, after I couldn't stand it any more, I went ahead and watched the first three episodes ("You have to watch the first two to really get into it" my friend had told me - the exact same adivce I myself had given not a month previously when I introduced him to the anime 'Death Note', which he came to love). I watched it with a critical eye (in retrospect, I think I desired NOT to like it) and when I'd finished, I moved away from it and took little interest for some time afterward. However, my fascination with the brony culture led me, eventually, back to the show. I became determined to figure out exactly what it was that made all these people so dedicated to the show. I lurked around these very forums for some time, observing with perhaps a more open mind than before. I started watching the episodes again (I'm still only on the early ones), and suddenly everything went very dark. I quickly realised I had become a closet brony myself, trapped by my own prior assumptions and confusion. Continuing to look around at both this forum and the show itself, however, I saw that the attitudes the show created were anything but judgemental, and that the tone of this place was so friendly that there could be no harm, surely, in joining up. I haven't quite told anyone I know about my new fondness for the show (I attempted to subtly drop it into conversation with my friend who introduced me by offering a 'brohoof', but I don't think he got the reference, suggesting that I'm already a bigger fan than he). Other people seemed to watch the show and fall instantly in love with it, and for me it was a long struggle, but there it is, the single fact of my existence. My name is Astalakio, and I am a brony.
