I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me I would become a brony prior to the beginning of the year 2012. All I got of the new series was a promo on one of the kid’s channels I was watching on TV.
I don’t really remember much from the promo, only a clip from Season 1 Episode 2 where the ponies are hopping across the back of Steven Magnus the sea serpent to cross a river.
Out of context, that looks super girly…just, whenever the ponies have a river to cross, there just so happens to be a friendly sea serpent there to use as a bridge.
Then at the start of 2012, I started coming across video clips and memes on the internet…the Sonic Rainbooms piqued my curiosity, so I checked it out…and by, of all days, Valentine’s Day 2012, I was hooked.
And in context, that sea serpent scene is…not as girly as it seemed out of context, at least.
I mean…Rarity chopped off her own tail…since when do girly shows have tail decapitation?!?
Then one fateful day in May 2012 I got to hang out with pretty much my only real life friend, Luna, and during our conversations, I revealed my being a fan of the show and she was like "OMG do you have a ponysona?" and I was like "no" and she was like "zomgiwannadesignoneforyou!" and so we went to my house and we discussed what he would look like...of course he HAD to be a Pegasus...and it was my idea to give him a tornado cutie mark to represent his special talent for controlling the wind.
The cutie mark is half-copied from a tornado clipart icon we found on the internet...it was just the kinda thing I wanted.
The finished product of Luna's work was an all-medium-blue pony with a light grey mane and tail and blue eyes. I decided "it's my ponysona so I get to tweak the colouring of it to match my fursona more."
And thus Typhoon was born.
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So…Typhoon’s special talent.
It’s time to get real, here, people.
See, the thing is, Pegasi can generate wind anyway. So how can generating wind be a special talent for a Pegasus?
That’s where the significance of my ponysona’s name should hit you.
Typhoon.
Typhoons are a real thing in real life.
Most people think “typhoon” is just another name for a hurricane.
Uh-uh. No way. Nope.
See, Typhoons…oh, they’re much worse…a hurricane may blow off a few roofs, but a typhoon…your whole house is upside-down and inside-out many miles away from where the typhoon picked it up, among the countless other houses it also picked up.
Raindrops fall sideways and pierce your skin…and I’m not just talking that they FEEL like they piece your skin…they can ACTUALLY pierce your skin, causing cuts, cracks and bleeding.
Basically, Typhoons are much bigger, much stronger and last much longer than any hurricane.
Normally a single Pegasus can only generate nothing more than a small brisk gale at most, and it takes several Pegasi to generate anything like a hurricane or even a typhoon…and they require special reason to do so, such as clearing the snow during winter wrap-up.
My ponysona Typhoon? Well…let me tell you the story of his special talent…
He first discovered it during Pegasus school in Cloudsdale…his class was learning how to generate a nice, cool, summer’s breeze.
First, the teacher showed the class how it’s done, the correct pace of wingbeats, how strong you should flap each beat, and so on.
The students then took turns copying the teacher…all of them copying her to varying degrees of success…the most successful actually generating the intended breeze.
Then it came to Typhoon’s turn.
He beat his wings just like the teacher did, and for the first couple of seconds or so, he was indeed creating a cool summer breeze…then all of a sudden, a hurricane-force wind roared forth from just in front of him…it threatened to blow away half of Cloudsdale…and it would have, too, if Typhoon didn’t immediately stop out of sheer shock and surprise at what he was creating.
The teacher and the other students just stood there, jaws practically on the floor in shock.
That’s when the tornado appeared on Typhoon’s flank.
Word quickly spread about this one Pegasus generating a wind that would normally take several Pegasi to create…and with it, fear, of how Typhoon could potentially destroy everything with the power in his wings.
Eventually word even reached Princess Celestia herself. And she knew she had to do something to allay the fear in her subjects’ hearts. So she summoned Typhoon to her castle in Canterlot.
The ponies wondered what she was going to do…was Typhoon to be banished like Nightmare Moon? Sealed away like Discord?
Typhoon went willingly to her throne room, he was ready to accept whatever judgement Celestia deemed appropriate.
But Celestia was wise, she knew Typhoon had no prior knowledge he had such strong wind powers, and she was confident he had no intention of misusing this power.
However, she also knew Typhoon's power was still dangerous, and Typhoon needed to learn to control it so as not to destroy anything accidentally, and she knew just the pony to teach him, an old Pegasus guru named Beaufort. (As in beaufort scale to measure wind strength...thank you, Google!)
Typhoon and Beaufort trained together in a remote mountain basin valley far away from civilisation, so Typhoon was free to test the limits of his power without worry of hurting anypony, Beaufort needed only stay back away from wherever Typhoon was aiming.
But they quickly discovered that even taking off and flying, the very basics of Pegasus ability, was dangerous, because every wingbeat Typhoon did created something akin to a shockwave of wind in all directions outwards from him, especially when trying to take off, as that requires extra thrust.
Under Beaufort’s tutelage, they soon discovered Typhoon was able to create weaker, less dangerous winds with the slightest of wingbeats.
Beaufort then taught him about wind currents and how to redirect wind already created in mid-air.
Eventually, Typhoon could make a column of wind slink around like a snake in any direction he wanted simply by adjusting his wings slightly. He could generate air currents anywhere around him, not just from his wings. He could even lift up solid objects with an updraft from underneath and keep them floating in mid-air.
It was just like unicorn levitation magic, only with wind instead of a magic aura.
With this knowledge, Beaufort and Typhoon practically reinvented flying together…first Typhoon learned to take off by using an updraft column underneath himself, then during flight Typhoon could part the wind in front of him, moving it around himself, and then make it push him forward, or in whatever direction he liked, essentially creating his own portable wind tunnel to glide inside of.
Air resistance was now non-existent, and Typhoon could fly much faster than the average Pegasus just by gliding on his own air currents.
Rumour has it he was even able to pull off his own version of a Sonic Rainboom in that valley just by increasing the power of this wind tunnel technique a bit, though nopony knows where these rumours came from, and whenever anypony asks Typhoon, he neither confirms nor denies it by saying stuff like “maybe” or “I might have”.
Thanks to Beaufort’s tutelage, Typhoon is so in tune with the wind and air around him that he’s able to sense disturbances in air flow in his vicinity, which can alert him to the presence of any pony he doesn’t see with his eyes, and even alert him to any unseen dangers like rocks falling towards him or other stuff hurtling towards him from outside of his field of view.
Now with absolute control of his power, Typhoon was free to return home to Manechester, and so as not to let his power go to waste, he joined Manechester’s weather control team, who soon took notice of his incredible skill with managing wind currents, and thus created a special wind management division, which Typhoon was naturally made the leader of.
...
Five of the six Elements of Harmony are positive traits that a pony can have; Generosity, Honesty, Laughter, Kindness and Loyalty, and I figured it’d be cool to include an Elements of Harmony chart to show off how much of each trait Typhoon has to kind of help you gauge the kind of pony he is, though really it’s based off of the kind of person I feel I am.
On this chart, the sixth element, Magic, is specifically referring to how powerful Typhoon is…so, considering everything I told you about his special talent…yeah, his power level is over 9000 completely off the charts.
I put the generosity bar as the lowest because I don’t feel I’m a particularly generous person…I never really give gifts to anybody…well, I did give a gift to my friend Luna once…something I thought she wanted and needed…but it turned out to be a pretty bad idea…and I suppose I have been very generously helping my real life girlfriend over a long period of time (long story)…other than that, nothing really.
I put honesty as the highest because I feel I am a VERY honest person. Way more honest than a lot of other people. It’s definitely my best trait, and one you don’t see very much of in this world.
I actually genuinely hate lying…and not only that, I’m not very good at it…like, at all.
You’d see through me better than you would a window.
Laughter is a close second, definitely. I love laughing and making others laugh, which I often do just by being silly. I love being silly, and it seems I’m very good at it, being silly is fuuuuun, and I lllooooooovvvveeeee fun! I even make myself laugh sometimes with my own antics!
Next would be kindness…yes, I’m very kind. I love helping those in need if and when I can. I love nature and animals. I quite happily leave out seeds and fat balls for birds. If there were any wild animal shelters near me, I woulda loved to go help with feeding and rehabilitation, but there aren't any that I know of, so I can't.
Finally, there’s loyalty…and I don’t think I’m any more or less loyal than anyone else, to be honest.
I’m fiercely loyal to any friend who truly cares about me, but I won’t chase after you if I lose contact for whatever reason, and I certainly won’t hesitate to cut you off if you rub me up the wrong way.
So yeah…I think that pretty much covers everything.
