What? What?! How can that possibly be?! Do they not remember? Could they be too young to know? How could that show have possibly not had even a slight impact on their lives? It was huge to me!

This may come as a shock, but I had a hard time learning how to read and write. By second grade my reading and writing was still kindergarten level. I could recognize the letters, but little else.

And it was frustrating! I hated it! I hated being sat down in a group, constantly struggling as the other students got better and were moved to other groups with similar skill levels! It got so bad they eventually started moving me to a special ed classroom during reading and writing because they could not provide me with the individualized attention I needed.

But I wanted to read. Not because I was supposed to. It was resources like Reading Rainbow that made want to read; that showed me the stories I couldn’t read on my own. Then I could look at the book they showed and at least understood what was happening. I’d become invested. And that’s the most important part of learning something. Being interested in your work gives you drive.

And there was no click. I didn’t just get it. I was always a year or two behind. I struggled on through junior high, high school, college- I still can’t read advanced terminology out-loud. I learned through memorization. Stuff like medical journals? You could give me a solid minute and I’d still never figure out how to pronounce that stuff. But I can deconstruct the word and approximate the meaning. If I see it again, I’ll can separate it from similar words.

I can read. And write? From tenth on through college I got straight As in Composition, even as I struggled in other classes. I didn’t get corrections from teachers on my papers, I got notes in the margins. “I love this part!” “This is a great line!” But it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have something to get me started. Reading Rainbow was that something. And I’m not special. If it was that something to me, it was the same to others- can be the same to many more!

1) I wait six hours for tumblr to come back for this?

2)

3) Because we try not to force our way onto others. We’d rather they willingly conform.

4) Either defend yourself with what’s available or run and let somepony authorized to use more advanced forms of force deal with it.

5) Not really the kind of places you’d hang around as a poor mare.

6) Or it might put ideas into pony’s heads and cause events to repeat, at least in part. The more violence penetrates popular media, the more ponies get used to it; maybe even decide it’s something they want to be a part of, if they’re unstable.

7) I can’t do this anymore. For several days now I’ve answered three sets of questions instead of two; around twenty questions a day! And I’ve steadily hung around 50 messages in my ask box! Yesterday, I woke up from an hour long nap- an hour long! And I had 17 new questions! I can’t answer everything anymore. This is becoming exhausting and overwhelming and I just can’t do it anymore.

So if my ask box starts to get too full, I’m going to start deleting messages of zero consequence like this one, effective immediately. Sorry.

Okay. I spent most of the day looking up all kinds of things with regards to this.

Here’s the short version. There are ways to sell musical covers, but being that I’m in Equestria, it’s complicated. I’d have to send a letter cross dimension and wait 30 days before selling, play royalties, and I still wouldn’t be able to use Bandcamp. So this is what I’ve come up with.

There’s a donate button on my page now. The more money I get, the more running this page becomes a sustainable entity, the more I update the page with things like music and drawings. That is to say, at a greater frequency than I do now. I’m not going to just stop if I don’t get anything.

I’ve updated the music page. You can now find a second download link that will have the second half of the songs not found on the first link. That will include Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.

My financial situation is far from stable, but I’m not asking for money. As a household, Bon-Bon and I aren’t desperate. If we ever become desperate, I’ll be sure to beg on my knees.