Journal entries from Mattology.
Everfree Northwest is coming up fast, and after spending some time going through this year’s schedule, I finally have a rough plan for the weekend. Friday starts with Opening Ceremonies followed by Down the Rabbit Hole, a Q&A featuring Lauren Faust and several of the convention’s other VIP guests. I’m also setting aside part of…
The My Little Pony panel at San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone, and we finally have a clearer idea of what comes next. The new series is called My Little Pony: Forever Friendship. I was very anxious watching the live stream on Twitter. Given how much Friendship is Magic means to me, and how…
There is a version of success that seems to require constant expansion. More money. More recognition. More followers. A larger home, a busier schedule and an ever-growing list of accomplishments to prove that life is moving in the right direction. I understand the appeal of some of those things. I want to become a successful…
I’m very excited to say that I’ll be attending Everfree Northwest this year, August 21-23. My buddy James and I are flying out from Texas for the week, and I’m really looking forward to spending a few days surrounded by ponies, fandom chaos, art, music, panels and probably far too much convention food. We’re also…
Names are strange things.
I went to see the new Masters of the Universe yesterday and wow, for once Jared Leto didn t ruin something he was in.
Over the past week, I moved my WordPress site from Hostinger’s shared hosting to Dokploy running on DigitalOcean. I rebuilt it around Roots Bedrock inside a Docker container, with the SQLite database carried along with the site itself. The end result is that I can deploy the whole thing in one place, without rebuilding my…
There are few fictional settings that lend themselves to logocosmology as naturally as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the broader The Elder Scrolls universe. Most fantasy worlds feel authored. Tamriel often feels discovered. Many fictional settings operate like stage plays. The world exists only where the narrative points its camera. Cities wait in suspended…
There is a point where a personal website stops feeling like a container and starts feeling like a place. At first, it seems simple. A blog holds posts. A library holds books, films, games and music. A bookmarks page holds links. A timeline holds events. A moodboard holds images. A guestbook holds messages. Each section…
There is a quiet assumption that runs beneath most discussions of fiction, theology, and imagination. It says that what is real is what exists here, within reach, measurable and present within the rules of our universe. Everything else is treated as a kind of shadow. Stories are inventions. Imagined places are empty scaffolds. Even when…
This is a post I ve been sitting with for a while. I haven t been entirely sure how to say it, but here it is.
There s a word that s been floating around the internet lately, one that I think perfectly describes what s gone wrong with the WordPress ecosystem: slop. Low-effort, mass-produced, quantity-over-quality output that floods the market and drowns out anything actually worth using. And if you spend enough time in WordPress land, you know exactly what I m talking about.…
I ll be upfront: I didn t care about drag racing before last week. I like cars. I respect speed. But drag racing? It wasn t my thing. Then I watched a short video explaining what actually goes into a single Top Fuel run, and now I can t stop thinking about it. And not in a good way.…
I want to be upfront about something: Skyrim is not a perfect game. Not even close. It is buggy. It is full of plot holes. The mechanics are shallow compared to the RPGs that came before it, and the writing ranges from serviceable to downright inconsistent. There are entire questlines that feel abandoned halfway through,…
Last night I watched Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. I can say it was a fun movie, even if it gets a little ridiculous at times, yet it left me with a lingering sense of dread that I cannot quite shake.
Left 4 Dead 2 is one of those games that never really leaves your rotation. It just sits there, patient, waiting for the moment you get that itch. The specific, undeniable need to shoot a lot of zombies with friends. Or, in my case, without them.
Everyone has their favorites in a fandom, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is no exception. The show has a surprisingly deep roster of characters, and over the years the fandom has taken many of them in directions the show itself never explored. That s a big part of what I love about this fandom.
I need to talk about something that s been bothering me for a while. It s probably going to be controversial, though I don t think it should be. But here we are. The word brony has been poisoned. The Spectrum Everyone in the fandom exists somewhere on a spectrum. Let me describe the endpoints, because I think…
I ve already written about my predictions for Generation 6 in an earlier post. To add onto that perspective: I think G6 is probably going to lean heavily into slice-of-life storytelling rather than the serialized narrative many fans hope for. As much as I wish it would take a more serialized direction, and despite my understanding…
I m thirty years old now. I didn t do very much with my twenties, and I m hoping to do better with my next decade. So where do I see myself at forty? Let s talk about it.
Everyone has those characters, or real people, who just stick with you. The ones who shaped how you see stories, music, or even yourself. I ve been thinking about mine lately, and rather than trying to force them into a numbered list (because honestly, how do you compare a unicorn to a bassist?), I m going with…
I have a collection in Raindrop.io labeled inspiration. It contains hundreds of websites. Maybe thousands. I stopped counting years ago. Every week, sometimes more, I would sit down at my desk and browse. Looking at portfolios, personal sites, agency showcases, design studios. Hunting for something, anything, that would make me feel that spark. When I…
I m putting Generation 6 in quotes for a reason, and I ll get to that. This theory is going to be polarizing and potentially controversial, if it gets any attention at all. Here it is: I believe Hasbro is bringing back Friendship is Magic. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, let me be crystal clear…
I first discovered web development in 2008, when a friend in middle school showed me the website he built using FreeWebs. This was back when all sites there were on a path. They wouldn t add subdomains for another year or so. The moment he left, I made an account and created a website called D&R s…
I m going to be honest. My life hasn t been easy. I ve had my fair share of difficulty and struggle. I won t claim it s been the worst. There are definitely people out there who have it harder than I do, and I ve been blessed to have some of the things I have. But it s not easy…
I recently made one of the biggest behind-the-scenes improvements to my website since it went live. It s not flashy, it doesn t change the design, and visitors will never notice it. But from a long-term maintenance and portability standpoint, it is a massive win. For as long as WordPress has existed, it has depended on MySQL,…
I m excited to share that I ve been working on a new longfic set in what I m officially calling the Meld:Verse: the alternate timeline universe where Earth and Equus merged. Two Different Visions of the Same Concept First, let me be clear: this new story and Under Rolling Stars are not just separate. They re entirely contradictory.…
There s a reason most developers hate Gutenberg, and it s the same reason I love it. In a previous post, Aspirations, I wrote about the paradox of being technically skilled at web development while having no desire to be known as a developer. The technical skills exist to serve my writing and art: they re the scaffolding,…
I use the Jetpack plugin for WordPress, though not for the reason most people probably expect. I am not really interested in tying my self hosted site to WordPress.com. What I care about is the Jetpack app on my phone. It gives me a sort of continuity with my site, a way to stay connected…
I was recently lurking in a rather large furry Discord server. I do this occasionally because I am, for lack of a better term, furry‑curious. I collect a bit of the art, I follow some of the creators, and I find the culture interesting in the same way I once found brony culture interesting before…
I ve seen the argument countless times over the years: Twilight Sparkle is black-coded. Rainbow Dash is lesbian-coded. Applejack is southern-coded (which, to be fair, she s literally from the south of Equestria, so that one at least has some basis). The Brony fandom loves to map human identity categories onto these pastel horses. And I need…
Let me start with a confession: I m not a furry. I m a brony, but that means I know exactly what it s like to be on the receiving end of confused stares and assumptions about what you re really into. I ve written before about the Bluey-Brony Paradox, which explores how society treats adult fans of children s media…
I have been dreaming of van life for many years. While my ideal setup is a VW Vanagon Westfalia, preferably the four-wheel-drive Syncro, I also recognize that this goal may not be realistic. This post is my attempt to lay out all of my options and to be honest with myself about where I may…
I m thirty now. I m not entirely sure how I feel about that. Birthdays have a way of making you take stock, whether you want to or not, and thirty feels like one of those numbers that demands reflection. So here I am, looking back at the last ten years of my life, trying to make…
For years, I was the loudest Apple skeptic in the room. I wasn t a hater for the sake of it because I was a realist. I fully acknowledged that their software was state of the art, slick, intuitive, and cohesive. But the hardware was a disaster. I remember the era of thin and light at…
I can see the shape of the next five years, even if I can t see all the details yet. Everyone in my family is leaving Texas during this period. By the end of it, there will be no reason for me to stay either. This isn t a sudden decision or a dramatic escape plan. It s…
I basically spend all day, almost every day, entirely at home. I work, I write, I occasionally play games. Maybe I ll watch a little YouTube here, listen to some music there. But 95% of my time is spent in my bedroom.
I m excited to share that I ve been working on something new. An original urban fantasy novel set in 1996, following three twenty-somethings and their animal companions on a cross-country journey from New York to Seattle. Without giving too much away, the story explores themes of found family, and identity. Think 90s road trip meets His…
As 2025 winds down, I m looking ahead at what I want to accomplish in 2026. The next year feels particularly significant. It s packed with creative projects I m genuinely excited about, from continuing book series to diving deeper into communities I love. Here s what I m committing to: Publishing & Writing Goals Publish Under Rolling Stars II…
A recent Discord conversation about polyamory took an interesting turn when it circled back to the brony fandom. Specifically, to one of its most persistent and most telling fantasies: the herd. If you ve spent any time in MLP fanfiction circles, you know exactly what I m talking about. The herd concept is simple: multiple mares in…
I recently came across a Reddit post that pointed out something fascinating about Shining Armor s introduction in the Season 2 finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The original poster noted a glaring contradiction in his character. We re told that Shining Armor was Twilight Sparkle s best friend growing up, her closest confidant and companion.…
There s a peculiar irony in being skilled at something you don t want to define you. I m a web developer. I m a graphic designer. I can craft logos and build websites from the ground up. But here s the thing: I don t want to be known for any of that. These aren t my aspirations. They re my tools.…
I am writing this post to talk about a project that has become the center of my creative life, a story titled Through The Lens Of
I am writing this blog post where I am going to be potentially polarizing and perhaps even controversial. I am going to give my honest opinions on the state of music. First and foremost, I know that everyone has their own peak period of music and their own specific point where they feel music started…
There s a question that s been gnawing at me for years, and it s only become more pointed as I watch the rise of adult Bluey fandom: Why is it perfectly acceptable (even celebrated) to be an adult fan of Bluey, while being a Brony remains something people mock, suspect, or outright condemn? I m not asking this…
I want The Elder Scrolls VI to be good. I really do. But if I m being honest with myself, I don t have much confidence in Bethesda anymore. The studio that gave us Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim feels like it s lost its way. Fallout 76 was a disaster at launch. Starfield, while not terrible, felt like…
Friendship is Magic was wildly successful. It has a massive following globally. Just look at China, it s huge over there. It s a shame we can t expect more.
I want to try and go over some of the plans I have for this blog moving forward. I will also be explaining a shift in my relationship with web design.
If you’ve read Under Rolling Stars, you probably remember something I called “The Meld.” I didn’t really explain it in-story because that was never the point. The story’s set in the world, not about the world. You get hints and fragments. It’s there, just not front and center. The world-building takes a backseat. But if you’re curious what actually happened, this post…
If you ve read through this blog, there s probably one thing you will have noticed: This dude is obsessed with HiE. Yes, it s true, I have a fascination with Human in Equestria stories. I mean, check out the fanfiction topic. Every single one of my reviews is HiE. A fair few interestingly enough feature the Anonymous…