The history of our ponyland.

[Taffeta]

Recent discussions in other threads made me stop and think about about the community over the past several years, and I wondered exactly how much internet archaeology we have left behind over the years. We all talk about waybackking the most recent DV site and other recently lost sites, but I don't think we spend a lot of time digging around in the fansites and hot topics of the distant past.

These are just some of the bits and pieces I found from the wayback when...in the years around 2000.

What's interesting to me is that some of the things here are much more archaic in style, but some of the ideas sound very familiar and current to who we are today.

I could not find any trace of Dream Castle, though I tried. I had a link for it, but the wayback didn't have it and couldn't access it.

I did find LM's old site, Moondancer's Dream, and I would love to post the link to that with her permission, as it contains not only a lot of old pony stuff and fanfiction (that seems to be there) but also a guestbook with entries left by people long since gone away. To me those people aren't "lost" but are pieces of our past - pony memories that all contributed something to this place.

Edit to add: Thanks LM. These are the links I found. You will know better than me how much is there
http://www.oocities.org/area51/shadowlands/9518/
http://www.oocities.org/area51/shadowlands/9518/library.htm
And the guestbook
http://www.oocities.org/area51/shadowlands/9518/geobook.html

In the meantime, I do have a few sites, which I did on screencaptures as some of them had some loading issues, and some had some personal information on that I wanted to remove.

I did also find the old page link for the original DV and the original DV Chat, but the chat and images are long since gone, so I didn't screengrab that.

The old black and pink Trading Post is also long since gone. But this early 21st century version still lurks.

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Some of the old fansites I found mention of I found through the relics of the 'Ring of Rainbows', the webring centred from Dream Valley in the days prior to Google and in a world when we used mailing lists, not forums, to communicate for the most part. The Ring of Rainbows to me is probably the original thread linking together our community. You could sign up to join it at Dream Valley, by filling in a form on Kim's site.

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The Ring of Rainbows led me to this ghost of Tabby's site, with tantalising links to a now-nonexistent MLP newsletter:

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A really old version of my site also contained this image, belonging I think to Silverfall (although the direct image link no longer works) advertising International Pony Day, 2001. I think the UK mailing list automatically still sends out reminders for IPD, but I don't know if the community still observes it. It was devised to be the 2nd August because MLP began in America in 1982, and August 2nd in American date order is 8/2. We even had a vote on it.

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There was even a petition in 2000-1, set up by I think, Patchwork, to try and bring back a commemorative line of G1 ponies. Yes, some things do never change. This ideology is still probably as strong now as it was then, although interaction with Hasbro now is far different from what it was in that pre-convention pre-fair time.

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And of course, it wouldn't be the pony community if there weren't people expressing doubts. This is absolutely not anything from the dark days of genuine all out pony warfare, but there were conversations even back in 2000-1 about G2 and their differences to G1. Some snippets of real conversation from back then.

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It's really interesting going back and seeing those pieces of the past that probably a lot of people have forgotten or don't even know about. But one thing is exactly the same as then. That was the pony community. This is the pony community. And in the next seventeen years or so, I wonder what kind of paper trail we'll leave behind for the pony collectors then?

I'm a historian, so this stuff makes me geeky. But I also think that sometimes it doesn't hurt to look at bits of our past....just to know where we came from to be here as we all are now.

[ColdRuru]

Great post!
I personaly thinks it's sad that most of the sites speaking of G1 are missing now... They where pure legacy.

[Leave a Whisper]

This is really interesting Taffeta!

[Taffeta]

Great post!
I personaly thinks it's sad that most of the sites speaking of G1 are missing now... They where pure legacy.

Sadder for me is the fact so many of them are tricky to find or impossible to load on the wayback. That old TP actually loops and doesn't load. You can get a screen grab of it in a split second when you hit refresh, and that's all. I was especially sad Dream Castle wasn't there because it was a big favourite site of the past. And of course the broken links for the newsletters as well.

But at least those fragments kind of show where we came from to what we are today. And though we're totally different today, it's kind of nice to think that we have been around such a long time and that some pieces of that past can still be found into the present day.

There are some folk here who are much better at using the wayback machine and at digging up old stuff than I am, so if anyone feels inclined to look for any other sites to add or any luck with Dream Castle, it would be great to see it.

That last post strongly suggests it was made by a male fan of MLP, as well. I knew a few MLP male fans way back who were major stalwarts of the community for a long time looong before "bronies" happened, but sadly haven't yet managed to dig up stuff from them :/.

Edit to add: Looking at the old DV pages, I saw mention there of the Friendship Gardens G2 CDROM game. Does anyone else remember that? Ponies obsessed with animals and an annoying butterfly(?) with a sing-songy voice constantly telling you "you have to move your pony out of the way" whenever you wanted to do something? I remember you got the pony to the end and it disappeared. Which made my sister cry and me sad so we gave up playing it...but I also remember you could print a picture out of the pony you 'created' for the game and also give them a name?

Ah, memories I probably still have the CDROM somewhere but I bet no PC now would run it.

[northstar3184]

Thank you so much for sharing this, Taffeta!

[LadyMoondancer]

I'm only partway through reading your post, Taffeta, but yeah you definitely have permission to post my old site!  I love reminiscing about Ye Olde Days, so thanks for making this post!  *goes back to reading post*

[Cobblestone]

Let's see

I remember frequenting the Golden Autumn all the freaking time. Such a beautiful site. I think it gets a lot of traffic because it's still alive! And it's an angelfire site. That's amazing.

http://www.angelfire.com/80s/babygoldenautumn/index1.html

I remember going on silverfall's site when G3's were relatively new. I think she had one going before she took a break and strawberry reef continued on with a great library of ponies.

I'm trying to think if there are others that haven't been mentioned already.

OH! BabyIceCrystal had (has?) a site for her ponies and customs. SO CUTE. I went there a lot.

I also used to check the awards every year. Can't remember the name. Golden pony awards? It was a community awards site for customs and such.

There was also an RP going on that was sort of a dark story built on what could have happened after G1. Something about the fall of ponyland? I just remember thinking it was super interesting. I feel like it was built around a character called Silver Heart? I want to say she's the daughter of Sundance. Last "light" mlp. I know, I know.

Edit: It was called "My Little Pony: End of the Dream" and the character was Silver Dream.

Aaaaand the mushrump? Any of this sound familiar. I swear I didn't make it up.

[SkyCakes]

People can still go to Tabby's newsletter I stuck on one of the Issues and I love them. Also its nice to see how people felt about the G2 and G3s ect. I felt like I was stepping into the past. http://fakiespaceman.com/dv/monthly.htm

[Taffeta]

Oh, brilliant I didn't know the newsletters were still out there, amazing that they are, thank you for sharing!

Also, the Mushrump does sound vaguely familiar. I did see Tarpan's site on the Ring of Rainbows, too, but couldn't load it. That one sticks in my head as well.

It is way too hot here to sleep right now and I have to turn on the noisy aircon to cool the room for a bit, so I've added the links to LM's Moondancer's Dream to the main post. Thanks for giving permission, LM. The hunt for more history continues.

I wish I had more time to really go into this as it would be amazing to have an archive of bits and pieces to preserve what is left, but for the time being it's just really cool to be able to dig up some stuff and share it.

Both Moondancer's Dream and the image from my own site are so old they even have my old email address on them, and I've had my current email address for a really long time.

One of the other conversations I saw mentioned ICQ. That brought back memories of the funny noises it made and early morning chats. LM, I think you corrupted me to Forever Knight via ICQ. I remember talking to Uni snd Olivia using that, too. Also Wiggles (as he used to call himself, he made some great customs and I have a few that I still treasure. One was a Twinkle Eye sea pony who still lives with my Jem dolls. Oh, snd Melissa...Fridgepixi...I remember talking to her a ton there too.

I think it was ICQ or AOL instant messenger back then...where I know I used to chat with Sel and Steamer. Steamer was such a lovely guy. I know a lot of folk will remember him, surely. I know he went to the Palooza at least once. I talked to him a lot way back when.

[Mermaid]

Ring of rainbows was my favorite!!!

[Cobblestone]

I found the Mushrump! I couldn't remember who made it but it's Colormist's site!
https://sites.google.com/site/colormist/

[Taffeta]

I found the Mushrump! I couldn't remember who made it but it's Colormist's site!
https://sites.google.com/site/colormist/

Ah, Colormist's site! I knew it sounded familiar!

[lovesbabysquirmy]

*wipes tear from eyes* oh it smells like pony smell in this nostalgic place!

[Kisscurl]

Taffeta - I have the G2 game, I'll have to see if I can get it to work on one of our computers

I must say I remember most of those sites, such a long time ago. I think if geocities was still around there would be so many more pony sites that used to be on there, I know mine was.

[Leave a Whisper]

It's so neat hearing about all these different sites