2015 - Year of the Ponky · 12:32am Jan 2nd, 2015
Hello to all my FimFiction followers, my true believers. Happy New Year to you all! I'm really excited about this coming year, and there's basically one reason why.
Ponky will be home in three weeks.
For those of you that don't know Ponky, or have heard mention of him, let me break it down for you in as simple a way as I can: Ponky is a person that leapt into my life about two and a half years ago, clinging to my writing mentor and friend shortskirtsandexplosions, and immediately endeared himself to me with his earnest and joyful personality and his incredible talents in writing and music.
I'll be honest. When I first met Ponky, it was a bit strange. He'd just sort of... showed up, out of the blue, with a deep infatuation for Skirts and his story Background Pony. That was all I knew about him, and Skirts prefaced our introduction with "This guy is an interesting lemur" or something to that effect. Our first chat was mostly him being submerged in our group's collective question of "who the hell is this guy", and afterwords I remember walking away thinking "Huh. That was strange. He seemed nice, though." I didn't think much of it, because he just seemed like he was another skirts fan. There was something there, though. He talked about Background Pony a lot, and how it "changed his life" and "affected his music". I didn't really get it, though, mostly because we were all too busy joking about him being a stalker to really get a good read on him. I won't lie, we weren't super nice to Ponky, but we tolerated him and were polite. I didn't expect him to stick around.
Little did I know that it was the start of something much, much bigger.
Skirts and I chat with a fair amount of regularity, and he'd bring up Ponky a lot. I started going into Steam chats with Ponky and Skirts, discussing writing and art and music, and I discovered that Ponky and I shared a lot of interests and similar world views. It was pretty cool, actually, because we were oddly similar. I started reading some of his stuff on FimFiction after Skirts directed me there, and I was blown away by some of the content. I remember the conversation I had with him after I caught up to The Sisters Doo as me sort of exploding with "HOLY CRAP WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE GOOD?!" and us having a good laugh about it.
And then I found his music. I believe it was this song.
It was one of the first things he'd posted to Fimfic, and Skirts sent me a link with the phrase "holy shiet". Skirts hit the perfect phrase on the nose a few weeks later: "Ponky sings like he means it". He was GOOD. Really, spectacularly good. I had another explosive, gushing chat with Ponky going "HOLY CRAP YOU SING LIKE A PRO!", and I realized with no small measure of irony that I'D become the fanboy, now.
After that, Ponky and I bonded pretty spectacularly. It's strange to think, that what started as a fairly dismissive first encounter turned into... well, this. A friendship that became a brotherhood.
And then, nearly two years ago, Ponky left to Italy to undertake his mission for his church. I'm not ashamed to say that I shed some tears when we said our goodbyes, and we promised to write and e-mail as often as we could.
Well, as often as we could turned into once a week, every week, for two years.
Two years and over a hundred e-mails later, and we face the end of Ponky's mission. Two years of shared experiences, of deep conversations, of philosophy and spirituality. Two years of good and bad, failures and successes, life changing events and the mundanity of life, all wrapped into a half-dozen paragraphs a week and sent across the world in back-and-forth exchanges.
Ponky is like family to me, now. We're brothers in all but name, and to say that I'm excited for his return is an understatement. And with his return, so will I.
To say that I've been mostly a ghost on this site would be an understatement, but here's the truth: when Ponky left, I sort of did, too. I put a lot on hold here, because Ponky wouldn't be around to see it or appreciate it. I kept writing and kept a small presence here, but my focus shifted outward. Ponky wasn't the ONLY reason - College and graduation also loomed over me, and I had two years to finish all my work and come out the other end with a degree that would start the next chapter of my life.
Well, here we are, now. That next chapter of my life starts, today, and with three weeks of time and counting down Ponky will be home to join all of us in the fun again as well.
So, here's to 2015!
Here's to homecomings!
Here's to a renewed sense of purpose, both here on this website and in the rest of my life.
And here's to my brother, Ponky, who has changed my life in ways both great and small, and blessed me with his friendship.
See you all, true believers!
And I'll see you soon enough, bro.
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Has it been two years already? I remember being sad when FIMFIC was going to be Ponky-less.
Oh man, it IS only a few weeks now!!!
I feel like I only got to know Ponky in the month or so before he left, but any time we talked he was one of the nicest, coolest guys out there. It's gonna be great to have him back!
oh shit
the ponkening is happening
Holy sit, he can sing.
I arrived in the fandom after Ponky went, so I never had the chance to know him, but his writing is awesome, and I can't wait to see him back.
Damn he's going to have a lot of notifications.
I never read this until now. I'm super touched. Thank you, Props. You're the best friendbro a guy could ever ask for.
3051285 Love you too, bro!