A Long Goodbye to the Dustlands · 7:00pm Nov 6th, 2022
As of today, Ruin is officially complete.
And what a journey it's been to get it to that point.
Hey! Why The Heck Did It Take You So Long to Finish this Stupid Story?
It took me so long because my brain hates me and enjoys taking the things I love away from me. Wild that we're all forced to dance to the rhythm of an electrically-charged conglomeration of meat and blood that can just decide one day that, hey, that thing you liked doing? You don't get to do it anymore. Great stuff. Really appreciate it.
People who've been around for a long time may recall (but probably don't) that this wasn't the first time I've tried to write Ruin. What no one but me knew until now is that what you've read is actually version three. And I've had the idea for Ruin since around late 2015/mid 2016, so really I've been working on Ruin, at least conceptually, for seven years. How's that for punctuality?
What the Heck is Up With That Twist!?
I'm expecting people not to like the twist. I knew going in it was going to dissatisfy a lot of people. I'm sorry. I had my reasons. They have to do with what the story is about.
Version one of this blog explained exactly what those reasons were. Version two cut them. This is version three, and I've decided to re-include them, but spoilered. I don't want to tell anyone how they are supposed to interpret my work; I feel that is something that is an overextension of my role as author. So please: come to your own conclusions about the story, and then take a peek at what's behind the black curtain. It's not exactly a subtle piece of work, I'm sure you'll be fine.
Done?
Alright, here we go:
The central theme of Ruin is, get this: learning how to deal with grief.
Bet you never saw that coming. Truly revolutionary. I'm a genius, I know.
What I'm afraid will happen is that people will come to the conclusion that I included the anti-twist because I was too stupid or too uncreative or too lazy to come up with an actual reason for the anti-magic to exist and have consumed Equestria, or that somehow I did it as an intentional F-you to the readers. None of these are the case, although I am stupid, uncreative and lazy. I don't hate my readers, though. I love you guys.
The reason I wrote it that way was because the destruction of Equestria is supposed to represent the general concept of a tragedy, and tragedy doesn't always have a reason behind it. Sometimes bad things just happen, and we'll never know why, and we have to learn to be okay with that. As such, I felt that giving a direct explanation for the anti-magic would have been disingenuous, would have taken away from the story's thematic backbone. And so I couldn't write it in a way people would have found more satisfying (or, at least, I wasn't clever enough to come up with a way to do both). That's why I left it an open question. It'll never be satisfying—and that's the point.
If you disagree with me, that's fine. If you think I'm a hack fraud, then hey, you'd be right. But that's why I did what I did. Now we all have to live with the consequences of that decision.
Regardless, I feel I have exploited the tenuous trust between reader and author to achieve this effect, and for that, I am sorry. I hope you can still find it in you to give me the benefit of the doubt in future endeavors.
How Do You Feel About Ruin, Now That it's Done?
I don't think it's my best work, honestly. Part of me thinks I should have waited until I was more skilled before I attempted it, but the rest of me has enough sense to know that I'll never get better at writing if I don't step out of my comfort zone a little.
I have this theory that you can divide writers into four (maybe more) categories based on where they start from and what they focus on the most when creating a story. The categories I've observed over the years are 'character-first', 'plot-first', 'world-first', and 'theme-first'.
Character-first authors create interesting characters and character arcs and interactions and then construct their story around them. Plot-first authors like to come up with interesting story structures and twists and gimmicks and let that dictate the other aspects of their works. World-first writers first build interesting worlds to set their stories and characters in. And, finally, theme-first authors come up with the themes of their work, and then craft stories that explore those ideas to their limits.
I wish I could say I was a character-first or theme-first writer. I feel they have it the best, can create the most meaningful and interesting stories. I am in neither of these categories; I am a plot-first writer. It's the reason almost all of my stories are, on some level, mysteries. But I'm still jealous of character and theme-first writers, which is why I tried to focus on characterization and theming when writing Ruin. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at either of those. Still, I learned a bit, and that's what's important.
I'm also a bit worried about my style of prose. I try to write things in a very clear, very direct manner, but lately I've been a bit jealous—I'm a very jealous man—of authors with more poetic styles of writing. I also noticed that I was relying a lot on writing crutches—stock phrases, clichés, adverbs, and the like—in Ruin's final chapters. That's something I need to kick the habit of.
Let me know what you think of the way I write; I'm genuinely interested. Heck, any and all observations or criticisms are welcome and appreciated, on any subject. I can take it, I promise.
So, What's Next?
Well, first on the block is a new horror fic. Yes, I know it's already November, shut up. I was feeling really un-spooky this year until literally Halloween night, when I was recommended The Head. I cannot link the story here (it's M-rated) but it's insanely good, honestly one of the best works of fiction I've read in years, and I highly recommend you go read it if you haven't already. It single-handedly made me want to write horror again, and now I'm two and a half thousand words into the first draft of something which will also need to be rated mature. It's also one of the most research-heavy stories I've done (I have seen a plethora of pictures of cadavers over the last few days, and the NSA agent who keeps track of my google searches is getting very concerned). So, uh, yeah. Look forward (or don't) to that.
The other story that's tickling my fancy at the moment is a big one, much longer than Ruin. It's a classical adventure story about a pony with no memories and a rainbow mane trying to find out who they are. I was initially reluctant to launch into another longer story right after finishing this one, but my resistance has been worn down, so I've started work on it. I'm not confident in my ability to bring it to fruition, however, so we'll have to wait and see how that turns out. Stay tuned.
Wrapping Up
Thank you for reading. An additional thank you if you commented. You guys really made my Sundays.
I recently set up a Ko-Fi, so if you liked Ruin and have some spare change in your pocket, I guess you can give it to me. If you want to. No pressure.
Anyway, that's everything I had to say. I hope to see you again, you pretty little thing you.
Yours in dust and decay,
-RB
Don't try to put yourself down too much. That's more or less an impossible mindset to attain 100% when trying to be an author, but strive to remember that you are, at the very least, not trash and far from being it. I agree with your choice of how to end the story, along with your analysis that the story has some flaws, but I still enjoyed the read in spite of those flaws. Finally, regarding your point about the different types of authors, just remember that some of the best Greek tragedies are primarily plot centric, and know that the style has great heights as well. I wish you the best of luck in your future writing endeavors and I hope you have a nice day.
I found the ending interesting, and while not entirely satisfying, far more creative than I expected. Seriously, I expected a happily ever after as that's what everyone does, something like Sunset figures it out, Midnight sacrifices herself (not Twilight) to stop it, Sunset and Starligh patch things up, and the two of them take over rebuilding and running Equestria. I think I would've felt rather let down if that's how it ended. I don't love the ending, but it was interesting, and I wouldn't be unhappy to see the universe revisited, to see what comes next.
I'll leave my two cents about Ruin here, so I don't have to worry about spoilers.
First thing to note - I don't know if all the chapters were fully written long ago or you've been writing them every week to meet your own deadline. I kinda suspect it's the latter, because the last chapter and epilogue seem a little... Rushed? Some parts look perfectly fine, others have paragraphs of 90% dialogue, and others don't even have paragraphs, just single, simplistic sentences. I don't recall this happening in previous chapters - not enough for me to notice anyway - so I have to assume you were a bit hard-pressed to release these today.
I know it's a self-imposed deadline and everything, but I'd rather an author takes a bit more days to finish polishing their years-long work, you know?
(Or I might be sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, it's just as likely)
And now I get to talk about the actual interesting part: the story.
This is really hard to put into words, but I'll do my best.
I think it's a great idea to leave the null-magic's origin unknown.
But I don't think that you can simply leave that as a general grief symbol and have it be impactful on its own.
As Girlfriend Reviews once said,
"All of us can relate to losing our puppy, but nobody can relate to giant sky beams"
(or something like that)
Equestria's loss of magic is the giant sky beam.
To put it in different words, I as a reader care about characters. I care about Sunset, and I was in goddamn tears when she found Twilight's bones.
I don't care about Equestria's magic itself or the seemingly endless universes that died along with it.
That's fine, it's the characters who are supposed to feel homesick and devastated, but... We never even get to see any pony-siders react to the news. I feel like that's a crucial part that's been completely left out. We jump straight to when everyone's already dealt with it.
We don't see things like... Rarity missing her boutique, trying and failing to do human fashion and missing her old pony job. We don't see Rainbow Dash realise that she's never gonna fly again, and she's never gonna see the other Wonderbolts or her parents ever again.
To be fair, after the last chapter, I have no goddamn clue where you could go next, because there's no more plot to explore. The origin will be left untracked, the question unanswered, so... The only thing really happening anymore would be the pony-siders dealing with grief. It's not like there would be a magical moment where they suddenly heal, either; acceptance is very gradual.
I think what I would have done (or tried anyway) is remove the epilogue and end this fic when the news are given to all the pony-siders. Then, as a sequel fic (or in different one-shots) I'd explore ideas like the ones I said earlier, showing the pony-siders struggling with the loss of their home world. I don't think it can be part of this fic because the pacing and the focus are completely different. Eventually, it'd all reach the "time heals all wounds" kind-of happy ending, after a much larger build-up than this epilogue is giving us.
Speaking of the ending, however...
I think the fact that the pony-siders return to Equestria undermines the point a bit? If the whole theme is dealing with grief and moving on, forcing them to live in a world alien to them whether or not they like it feels a lot more impactful. And as a result, seeing them come to terms with it and build new happy lives would be a lot more satisfying imo.
I've taken a goddamn hour to write this, so I'll stop before I get any more rambly.
I mean some of the most highly rated stories on this site have been comedies, which brought their characters to the brink of believability.
In that regard, this particular work was both better characterized and more thought provoking than fics with upwards of a thousand upvotes.
So even while it may not get the attention it deserves (shallow writing being more popular by far) rest assured that this latest offering is by no means shallow.
As for the matter of the twist while it may not be popular with the lore obsessed communities of the day (and myself as a lore junkie being somewhat conflicted).
I still think it's a perfectly acceptable way to leave a story with a little bit of mystery (not to mention exstesental tragedy).
Hundreds or thousands of worlds dead is nothing to sneeze at.
5696668
You make very good points. Thank you for caring about the story enough to put that much thought into it. I’ll try to take them to heart.
To answer the question, these chapters were written weeks ago. I may not have put enough care into polishing the last few chapters as I did earlier ones. For that, I am sorry. Sometimes if you wrestle with something for long enough you start to hate working on it as much as you loved it when you started.
Glad you completed this story, It did deal with some serious issues. Don't hit yourself so hard about the storyline. You can always add or edit these later on after the creative juices return...
question: does losing magic kill all life? what is going to be left in a Questria after five years of the sun not moving?
5696743
Simple, their gonna have to haul balls to the twilight zone that way they don't freeze or cook depending on what side of the planet their on and make it go at it there or they're just going to die which I suppose would fit with the theme of the story wouldn't it
Hi! Thanks for writing this story ☺️
I love the ending even though is not that satisfying and I'm glad that even after years you could finish it, is even kind of inspiring because I never published or finished anything that I wrote, anyways take care and thank you.
The only thing that struck me as weird is that Sunset didn't tell Spike about Ember. Maybe I missed it, but I feel like it's kinda important to let him know he's not on his own after he decided to stay.
I really liked this story though. I guess they don't exist in this canon, but I can't help but to wonder what would happen if they eventually did find the geodes.