Ponies After People: One Year Later

Hey everybody!

It’s May 23, 2016. This date might not seem all that special or even interesting to many of you, and indeed it really isn’t. Still, the date’s interesting to me, so I’d thought I’d ramble a little about the last year and everything that’s happened. This post doesn’t have too much that’s directly story-related, so anyone who would only be interested in that can go ahead and stop reading I suppose.

It’s been one year exactly since the first chapter of Last Pony on Earth was published. One year since a little story I thought would be useful for killing time would grow into the most popular thing I’d ever tried here on fimfiction. I’d like to start out by thanking all of you– anyone who read and enjoyed the story, anyone who’s contributed to the little community as its grown here on fimfiction. It’s been so wonderful to get to know so many of you, to make new friends and enjoy your contributions to this little idea I had.

That community, however small, has done some pretty neat things in all this time. There are nearly 500 members in our little Fimfiction group, and 51 stories posted in the group. These account for well over a million words of fiction, far more than I ever could’ve written on my own.

For those of you who didn’t continue on after the first story, I’d suggest taking a look at Founders of Alexandria, the long-finished sequel to the original. Eternal Lonely Day follows from that story, and is also complete, with Earth Without Us still ongoing.

The community has done some fantastic work, and if none of my sequels to LPoE are your style, you might appreciate some of those. Here’s where you can find the complete ones, but there’s some great ongoing work as well. . I would list every story here if I thought it would help, but that’s what group story listings are for, so I’ll not belabor the point. Still, This oneshot came out recently, and I think if you enjoyed LPoE you might enjoy giving School Tour a look.

I love how much of the future remains unexplored, and look forward to seeing where still future authors will take things. I’m aware it’s taking time for me to explain what I imagine about the future, so don’t hesitate to send questions my way if you’re an author with plans.

Aside from all the awesome writing, the group now has a Discord Server (free, web-based text chat client), which is still active and doing things. I’m on most of the time, so feel free to join up and chat with us anytime! We’ve got roleplaying, an ongoing semi-in-character minecraft server… lots of fun stuff!

What’s next for PaP? Well, I’ve got the first of several updates to Earth Without Us nearly ready to post, so expect those down the pipeline soon. I will continue an irregular update schedule for this story, but I do expect to see it finished before this time next year. This will be MY last PaP story when it’s done, though I look forward to seeing all the neat things other people do with the world.

As we move into the second year of PaP, I’d like to reiterate how grateful I am to all of you for contributing, for reading, and for the time you’ve spent with us. PAP and its community were a fantastic and important part of my 2015, and I look forward to seeing where things go in another great year.

Regards,

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