500 View, 50+ Followers, and almost 2 years now. · 9:58am Apr 23rd, 2017
For other fics, this probably just an early milestone, but at least in FOE, I'm really excited to have been able to reach this point. Every once in a while, I see that there are a few more views and it amazes me every time. Its been 2 years since I started planning out Joker's Wild, and its really coming together. I'm humbled that people have been willing to give it a look, and I really appreciate those of you who have stuck around with the story.
I remember tracking a number of FOE stories that came out around the same time as Joker's Wild. I wanted to have rivals to compare myself to. Some of those stories have cancelled. Some of them haven't updated in months. FOE hasn't exactly been the easiest fanbase to write in. There are so many writers who want to tell a story in the wasteland and not enough time or interest for people to read them all. There are a lot of dead foe stories. It drains people to write really long stories, so not everybody makes it through. Fanfiction demands sacrifices...
Its interesting to see who's around, who isn't, but I just want to celebrate that its still here. Its still chugging along. I've actually surprised myself. Essentially I've had 12 updates over 2 years. I'm not as fast as I'd like to be, and I write a little bit too wordily to travel at the speed of my planning, but I've kept a consistent schedule. That's kinda cool. Anyway, I hope everybody is liking the story. The 5th chapter will be the end of the ponyville arch. I'm looking at having 3 parts to it if I can manage it, depends on how long the banter is, and how complex the showdowns get. These first 5 chapters were supposed to be be a preview of scale. A potpourri of whats to come, beginning, middle, and end, bite-sized and ready for consumption. The chapter is already 20k, and while I'm hoping to keep it below 30k, I'm always wrong on those numbers. I'll be happy if its 35k. There are a lot of fights I've been dying to write. My editors have been really busy and next week I've got my parents visiting Hong Kong, so chances are, expect the new section some time in may.
First off: congrats on the milestone!
Secondly, I quite agree. Fo:E as a subfandom has... dimmed over the last few years. Partly due to canceled stories and over saturation of specific tropes. However, I'm glad you haven't quit! I've had this fic sitting in my 'to read' list for admittedly too long, but I'm really looking forward to getting into it! So keep up the work on it, even if it is slower than you'd like, and you can look forward to me leaving my thoughts for you in the future!
4507045 Thanks!
Take your time. Its a wild ride, and I hope you will like it. One of these days, I'm gonna get around to finishing Merchants of Hope. It will probably happen with the alignment of the stars of 'actually charging my kindle' and 'learning time management'.
I think the pony fandom has dimmed a little bit over the years in general. Its not the golden age of brony invasions and conquest that the year 2012 was. Still, I think there are a bunch of people who are still interested in FOE. People are figuring out how to make things work, and there are little pockets of interest that keep us going.
Good to see you making it man, not many people come this far and not many people keep going! I hope we can see the end of your story someday but for now keep rolling.