My whole life, I've wanted alternatively coloured hair. I naturally have really, really dark hair - almost black, but I've been dying it reddish or ginger for the past five or six years. I know they say your natural colour is meant to suit you best of all, but I'm so pale that my real hair colour just makes me look like a washed out Wendy Adams.

A while back I took the plunge and finally lightened my hair enough to go alternative, and went a pretty aqua blue/turquoise ombré. It was a fun move but honestly it never felt very me. There's only one colour I've ever wanted to go, and that colour was pink!

So... after a few months blue, I've finally done it! Now I very nearly have the hair colour I've always wanted, and honestly I can't get over how much I love it! Ideally I'd like to fade it out to be a little more pastel and less vibrant - the first photo is pretty much exactly how I'd love it, but it came out a little blotchy so I had to colour it again! Right now, it's a gorgeous bright pink that makes me feel like I'm in permanent Pinkie Pie cosplay, hah!

For those wondering, this is a mix of Directions Carnation Pink, Flamingo Pink and Pastel Pink! And lots and lots of conditioner!

Recently, The Gamer Wife started an amazing linkup where we get to come clean. The geeky community is large and varied, so it's interesting to find people we have lots in common with, which is why the geeky blogging community is so much fun! However, I wasn't expecting to find a bunch of people shared my same confessions, also! For example, my first secret is the same as Mariko's last confession...

I know right? How can I call myself a gamer? I have nothing against Zelda games at all, and my buddy Fecker actually gifted me The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Wii Shop a few years ago, but I just haven't gotten around to playing it yet! I grew up with Nintendo consoles, but Mario had my heart and somehow the whole Zelda thing just passed me right by. Which is crazy considering I used to like the old cartoon a lot. The closest I've gotten to a Zelda game is playing Link in Smash Bros. and I spectacularly suck at playing him. So.

I can already feel people shunning me! First Zelda, and now this? Again, though, it's not because I don't want to. I just haven't really found a reason to, so I never really got around to it. And this confession is actually a little untrue because I did go and see the midnight matinee of Revenge of the Sith in Bath with my friends, but I fell asleep (only for a moment!) in the middle and the projector actually broke half way through, so I don't know if it counts. :P I actually have the DVDs and VHS of the original trilogy sitting here in my room but, like Zelda, I just haven't gotten around to sitting down and watching them.

Every time a new Pokémon game comes out, I completely buy into the hype. A few of my friends (and my boyfriend) are super into the franchise so whenever a new game comes out, they complete it right away. Every time, I buy the new game, and get super into it... for about a month. I used to watch the cartoon as a kid, and everything about the game should appeal to me - cute animals, oldschool RPG, quirky gameplay. And it's not that I don't like the games. I just find my attention span always seems a little waning when it comes to grinding through tall grasses. I can't even name the original Pokémon... Moose used to have a poster on his wall with them all on and I could name maybe twenty at a push. Horribly embarrassing!

My guilty not-so-secret. I absolutely love Ten/Rose. I love Rose as a companion, I love Tennant as the Doctor, and watching their relationship grow into something a little other than friends was one of the most magical things about Doctor Who, for me. I know this makes me an awful Whovian. I know oldschool fans hate the Doctor having feelings for a human companion, and I know that having this ship really puts me in a category that won't be taken seriously by 'true' Doctor Who fans. And y'know what? I don't care. Rose was normal and human and she wasn't absolutely perfect at everything, she wasn't full of snappy, sharp one-liners, and she didn't claim she wrote the book on How To Be A Companion. She was realistic in so many ways. And the Doctor? He'd just been through the most traumatic experience in the entire universe. Sure, the Doctor of old may not have fallen for a human girl, but the guy who survived the Time War needed a little humanity, a little normal. He grabbed Rose's hand and told her to 'run!' and made a connection that really struck a chord. Back when I was super involved in the Who fandom, I wrote fanfiction and drew a whole lot of art based on the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler, and it was all depressing and sappy and shippy as heck. I'm not ashamed!

I've a few friends that I'm sure will lynch me for admitting this, but it's true! I own The Hobbit, I think, but I've never read it, and I've never really been all that interested in reading the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. I actually don't read nearly as much as I'd like in general - I made a resolution this year to read more and I think so far I've probably finished about five books. All year. I'm awful. But I'll be honest and say I probably won't ever read Lord Of The Rings. There are so many other books from brand new IPs and franchises I'm not familiar with at all that I'd rather read first. I don't mean to be one of those people who says 'I've seen the film so I won't bother reading the books' - it's not really about that. The Tolkien world is so well known and popular that I feel I know enough about it without reading any of the books, whereas brand new ideas and IPs like The Hunger Games, Noughts & Crosses, Divergent etc. are completely new and exciting to me. I'm sure this makes me uncultured swine in the fantasy, sci fi and geeky world but, heyo. Them's the breaks.


Phew! That last confession was actually a bit nerve wracking to admit, I'll be honest! I have a couple of very dedicated Tolkien fans as friends who probably won't speak to me after this, haha! Thank you so much to Mariko for the linkup! I'm horribly late, still trying to catch up on blogs and get myself into a regular routine, but this was super fun!

I've learned that the Weebly comment system here on my blog is awful, so if you'd like to get in touch or comment and don't want to faff around with Weebly, please do tweet me @reaperfox and say hello!

xoxo

Guys. I have a confession to make.

I like My Little Pony.

A few years ago, that statement would have been met with a mildly confused raised eyebrow. Years before that, it was met with playground teasing - My Little Pony, skinny and boney, indeed. Nowadays, I'm one of many, many people who enjoy the colourful toys. The 'Friendship is Magic' revival brought cult status to the brand, with a fantastic new cartoon that captured the hearts of children and nerdy adults alike, and with that came a whole slew of new fans, from all corners of the globe. It's not really unusual at all to like My Little Pony anymore.

But it sure used to be.

My 'herd' never started as a 'collection', of course. When I was a little girl, My Little Pony was par for the course, the iconic toy of the 1980s (yes, I'm that old.) I'm reliably informed by my parents that my first pony was Sunshine, with rainbow hair and a glittery symbol. I'm also reliably informed that I wasn't at all interested in her, and into the cupboard she went.

I've never been one for dolls (my rant about Megan, the human companion Hasbro introduced to MLP, or the latest 'Equestria Girls' reboot, are blog-posts for another time!), so I grew up with animal toys and boy was the 1980s full of them. Carebears, Gummi Bears, Wuzzles, Popples, Sylvanian Families, Glow Worms, we had tremendous variety for pretty much anything your heart desired, and through my childhood I had a bunch of 'em. But one day, I went into my cupboard, and found Sunshine. The other toys just didn't cut it. I realised quite certainly that Sunshine 'needed a friend'

And that's where the madness started. Her one friend (Posey) became two friends, and soon became twenty friends, and then two hundred friends...

The funny thing is, during my childhood I remember very clearly wanting 'a collection'. I collected thimbles for a while (did I mention I was the coolest kid in school?), but it never occurred to me that the growing mass of plastic horses devouring my shelves and cupboards was a collection in and of itself. I was bought ponies, given ponies, and bought pony things myself. Long forgotten were the Wuzzles and Popples and Carebears. It was all about the ponies. I had MLP wallpaper, MLP bedding, a MLP lampshade. I owned MLP roller-skates, walkie-talkies, headphones, clothing. I had every video released and watched them over and over, learning every lyric to every song. I had hundreds of ponies as a child and knew every one of them by name. I was a member of the MLP Fanclub.

My Little Pony was such a huge, fundamental part of my childhood. I used to write letters to the pony queen, Majesty, asking if I could visit Ponyland. I remember very clearly how my dad tried teaching me how to dive in our local swimming pool, telling me he'd write to Majesty if I did it, and how she'd be so impressed that she's bound to let me visit Ponyland. Hah! I remember mum telling me to go outside and wish upon a star (wishing on the first star at night remains my only superstition, and one that so far has never let me down). I wished for a Big Brother Pony, and sure enough, one appeared at the door. Magic! Or a little parental persuasion, perhaps.

And that's really what My Little Pony was. It was magical. I had a very special childhood full of love and magic and fantasy and everything a child should believe in, and My Little Pony was so very much a part of that. As I grew older, my love of the toys never really went away. I was given second hand ponies from my classmates who had long moved onto makeup and boybands. I slowed down buying them, absolutely - in the mid 1990s I discovered video gaming and my heart turned to Sonic the Hedgehog and other, expensive, pursuits, but ponies remained a very important part of my life. It hurts to think that I actually stopped buying new ponies often right around the time the UK got a bunch of exclusive ponies unavailable anywhere else in the world, making them rare and, of course, valuable now. Typical, really! But let's not dwell...

And then The Internet happened. Back when the internet was new and scary (and here I further cement the fact that I am a Dinosaur), our school was the first place locally to get access. We had one PC dedicated to the internet, and I'd pretty much spend every lunch break and after school on it. I don't even know why MLP entered my mind, but I remember searching "My Little Pony" and finding 'Dream Valley', one of the first MLP websites that ever existed. I couldn't believe it. There were other people who liked My Little Pony? Grown ups? Adults, mostly American, it seemed, who collected them. And had hundreds of them. I was absolutely flabbergasted. I was suddenly, after years of being 'the weird kid who liked My Little Ponies', thrown into a community that was made entirely for me. It was unreal.

I found The MLPTP - The My Little Pony Trading Post - a guestbook dedicated to trading, selling and discussing all things My Little Pony. Eventually it became a forum, and I made a bunch of friends there. We'd chat nightly in Dream Valley's Chatroom, and eventually even started meeting up IRL (once we realised that British collectors existed, too!) I was even contacted by the BBC to talk about my collection on a show called 'I Love Toys' - here's that clip in all its embarrassing glory:

Eventually UK Ponycon existed, a convention dedicated to My Little Pony! My first Ponycon was in 2006. I actually went on to be a part of the committee for a few years and Ponycon became a really important part of my life, mostly because it introduced me to some of my now very best and absolutely craziest friends (hi guys!)

When the 'Friendship is Magic' revival hit with a brand new cartoon and a new line of toys, it was very strange for us oldschool collectors, because suddenly it wasn't just ours anymore. Suddenly hundreds of new people loved MLP as well, and they were incredibly passionate and dedicated in their love. Fanfic, fanart, animation and songs started pouring out from the fans. Sure, we used to write pony fanfic back in the day, but that community got smaller and smaller as the years went on, the focus turning almost entirely to just collecting the toys. The oddest part I suppose was that guys fell in love with the show, too, calling themselves Bronies, and a whole new line of conventions, events and communities grew.

There's some animosity between Bronies and oldschool collectors, from both sides. I can understand why there is, I suppose, but it annoys me that so much of it is down to sheer ignorance. Some Bronies figure all oldschool collectors to be 'elderly' (actual word used to describe us!) and boring, only interested in the original generation of toys and not given to the new fandom. Some collectors, meanwhile, distrust the Bronies because they're unsure of their motives, because they've made My Little Pony their own and some older fans don't like the direction they've taken the fandom in. I think this is all probably a blog-post for another time, so I won't dwell on it here, but personally I think the Brony movement is the best thing to happen to the MLP world, and I've only good things to say about it.

My Little Pony is more than just a collection or a hobby. It's a community. It's a lifetime spent around colour and magic and friendship and yes, My Little Pony is also awesome silly little toys, daft cartoons and empty pockets. Sure, some of the new fans will dwindle away when the fad and hype wears off, but there will be those who stick around for the long haul.

I don't think my parents ever imagined, when they picked up Sunshine for the very first time, that I'd still own her, and over a thousand like her, decades later. But I do, and there's no sign of this stopping any time soon.

And that's pretty damned awesome, really.

Trying to expand my art output a little lately. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE popculture nerd art and won't be quitting that anytime soon, but I want to create more pieces that are a little more universal. Ideally I'd love to sell prints and merchandise at local craft fairs and festivals, so I'm trying to draw a little more diversely.

So, basically foxes. Lots and lots of foxes.

Slurpee Foxie is available on shirts, phone cases, tote bag and pillows over on my Redbubble store!

Yesterday, I was invited along to Bridport Hat Festival by my friend Sarah who went a few years ago and enjoyed it! I had a free day and figured it'd be a fun, different day out, so we dragged Luke along too and made a day of it.

The festival was pretty cute and quintessentially English - full of quirky eccentric people parading all manner of headgear, from store bought Santa hats to fully home-crafted towering pieces of art. There were competitions for best hat, of course, and talks and exhibitions. There was a regular market selling all sorts of vintage and second hand things, and a separate hat market featuring, well, lots of independently crafted hats for sale.

The event was nice and cozy but sadly it ended pretty promptly and earlier than we expected - while the schedule looked really packed full of things to do through 'till night, we actually found ourselves at a loss after lunch and realised most of the crowds had dispersed and the live music was packing up. By 3 pretty much everything was over, so we looked around the town (where I managed to buy four new books in Waterstones!) and headed over to a pub called The Bull, which was hosting a 'Cocktails & "Fascinators' party - basically a cozy pop up tequila bar offering specially 'hat' themed tequila based cocktails! I had a 'Milliner's Mule'.

Oh, and the books I picked up were 'Popular' by Maya Van Wagenen, 'The Maze Runner' by James Dashner, 'Timeriders' by Alex Scarrow and 'Knife Edge' by Malorie Blackman - I'm on a bit of a Young Adult kick, can you tell?

Morning guys! I figured it was about time I did some weekly themes on this here blog! Things like MLP Mondays, Throwback Thursdays and such! I've read a couple of cool news articles lately and such lately so I thought it might be fun to do a sort of weekly roundup of all the things I've found funny or interesting over the past week. Here it is!

Gaming Bits & Bobs

• Team Fortress 2 poster mistaken for US propaganda on Russian state television Team Fortress 2 poster mistaken for US propaganda on Russian state television
  
• An article about lasting memorials in video games dedicated to gamers who passed away - The People Who Live Forever in the Games They Loved
• Meet The Guy Who Spent Seven Months Killing Everyone In Fallout 3
• This list of everything currently missing from The Sims 4. Still kind of want it, though :(
  

TV & Movie Bits & Bobs

• Recently remembered the brilliance that is Blackpool, a television musical starring David Tennant and David Morrissey. Here's an amazing clip of them singing 'These Boots Are Made For Walking' from the show.
• Loving this kickass trailer for the new series "Gothem" - definitely going to be checking this out when it airs!
• And I'm especially excited for Agents of SHIELD season two! Here's a teaser trailer.
  

I was so surprised to see this stationary in Wilco when Mum and I were shopping in Reading the other day! I'm used to seeing the occasional bit of MLP stationary in stores but of course it's usually G4 stuff from the latest series. My heart actually did the little beat-skip of a collector who spots a vintage My Little Pony in a box of toys at the carboot sale, and I dove towards the shelves to see what they had to offer!

The set is lovely, the packaging itself even looks like the vintage packaging of yore. It features Starshine, Snuzzle, Glory, Gusty, Confetti, Cotton Candy, Powder and, bizarrely, a random Birthflower pony. There were a couple of other bits and bobs, but I picked up the things I thought I'd actually use (though I'll take the erasers out of the packaging because I wont use them for fear of making them mucky! And the packaging is just so retro and lovely!)

I've posted these on Tumblr before but I think they're seriously cool so I'm uploading them here as well. I love seeing how other people work, by watching timelapse videos or seeing step by step photos, so I thought I'd share these from some paintings I've created over the years!

It was only a matter of time before I drew the two cutest League of Legends critters together. I can't play Gnar to save my LIFE but he is my absolute favourite champion. I mean, look at this cutie.