Mistyversary, Story Updates, Contest Results, and More! · 8:00am Oct 10th, 2023
Hey! It's been a little while since I did a blog, hasn't it?
Wow, yeah, not since EFNW. Well, let's fix that, shall we?
First, as indicated in the title, today -- well, yesterday, by the time I finish typing all this up, but anyway -- is the one-year anniversary of my biggest story to date, Misty Needs a Hug! This is a story that was a nice treat to write coming on the heels of Make Your Mark chapter 2, back when Misty was still a fresh new character with a lot of story potential and hefty emotional drama just waiting to be exploited. And the show has done... some stuff on that front. (It doesn't help that Tell Your Tale and Make Your Mark have wildly different interpretations of Misty and Opaline's relationship.) But Chapter 4 did end up validating a decent amount of how I portrayed things playing out in the fic, particularly Zipp's involvement. So huzzah!
And as of now, this little story is at a stunning 2900+ views and will probably soon be my first 3000-view fic, and it's also just now become my first 200-upvote story! It seems everyone wanted to give Misty a hug back in those early days, and a lot of people still do. (I had a few reviews that mentioned it was the first MYM story they took a gamble on, and I'm happy that it seemed to make a good impression with them.) Anyway, I've made sure to capitalize on this story's success by... not really doing much else with G5 since then. (Besides Project Unicorn, which flopped. And some shorts.)
Ah well. The final chapter of Make Your Mark is on its way, so perhaps that will provide some fresh inspiration. Even with the new Tell Your Tale videos hell-bent on spoiling the whole thing in advance. Regardless, if you haven't checked out Misty Needs a Hug by now, I hope you do so here.
More recently, I co-judged the SciSet Contest with Bicyclette, and the results for that are now posted! The three fics awarded are all really good reads and I recommend you take a look at them when you get the chance. I once again thank Bike for giving me the opportunity to co-judge with her, and I was happy to help with writing up much of the results post as well.
There's an abundance of contests going on right now, currently, and I have no idea if I'll be able to squeeze in an entry for any of them, especially with my current focus being on Together from Canterlot to Canterlot and related stories (see below). As for contests whose results came out since my last blog, I did snag second place for the Sunset x Villains Sci-Fi Shipping Contest with Unstoppable Forces, and my most recent Flashfic150 entry won the September 2023 contest!
And while neither Unstoppable Forces nor Maud-nagerie placed in the A Thousand Words Contest II results (how could they, with that level of competition?), I can take it in stride knowing the former placed in a separate contest while the latter got a stunning two readings, courtesy of StraightToThePoint Studio and Rainbow Infinity Readings. Check them out below!
You may also have noticed that I've been posting new stories! Just this past week, I had a flash of inspiration courtesy of this artwork from AmazingPuffhair:
They're so soft ugh my heart
And also by a conversation I had about said artwork with my friends Avery Day and The Sleepless Beholder. Anyway, if you're looking for some pure, shameless SciSet cuddlefluff in a bite-size 1600 words or less, Light Afternoon Reading is just the story for you.
I was absolutely thrilled with the reception for this one, which did some of my best numbers of the entire year and spent several days in the Featured box. Thank you so so much to all my loyal (and casual) readers. If you haven't given this story a look, I hope you can do so now:
And speaking of contests earlier, I also published my Iron Author story, Dietary Needs! This was my first story ever to feature the sirens, which is odd when these characters are so much fun to work with and the story came surprisingly naturally during the allotted two hours. As mentioned in the EFNW blog, this story got an Honorable Mention from the judges, which is incredible considering the caliber of competition I had, and this version is only slightly expanded from what I wrote while under the wire. If you haven't given this one a peek, I highly encourage you to do that.
Also, let's take a moment to appreciate the awesome original cover art I got from The Sleepless Beholder:
Nom.
Also, I'm still doing a lot of editing work for other authors, and I'm happy to report a project that's been in the works for some time is now starting to see the light of day! daOtterGuy, a.k.a. the author who kicked all the ass in the A Thousand Words Contest II results, is currently publishing a set of stories centered around the Pillars of Equestria -- but spooky! And with Greek mythology! An odd combination on the surface that 1000% works in practice. The first three stories, linked below, are now published, and the full series will be complete by the end of October. I've read all of them as part of the editing process, and you're in for some great stuff ahead. Don't miss out on these chilling tales!
In other news, let's talk about Together from Canterlot to Canterlot! Yes, my would-be SciSet magnum opus has blown past my past length records both for overall story and individual chapters -- in fact, the most recent chapter is the longer single chapter I've ever written of anything, breaking the record previously set by the prologue. And that's all for a story whose narrative progression so far, excepting the prologue, hasn't really gone past a single afternoon/night. That'll change soon, particularly now that we're about to reach this AU's take on the events of the "Dance Magic" special. (There won't be too heavy an emphasis on the stuff we've already seen in animation, but it'll be noticeable in the background.) But speaking of "soon"...
Okay, so the reality is this fic is on a slight bit of a pause. These chapters are heavy, intense, and take a lot out of me. And furthermore, the characters have a habit of trying to rewrite the narrative for me whenever they speak! And they speak a lot! But now that I've gotten through these early chapters and now have a better understanding of who this version of Sunset and Sci-Twi are, what their histories are, and what their relationship is like in these early days, I do need to take a moment to step back and reevaluate my plot outline for the overall story. A lot of stuff will stay the same, but others may shift, and overall it needs more time to be fleshed out. Thankfully, we're at a nice pause point at the moment, and I've also assigned my crack team of pre-readers to prod me relentlessly if I let the schedule slip too long. Which is why I'm refusing to switch it to the hiatus label. Even if I fall behind in my work on the overall narrative, there will be more material published by year-end.
At any rate, if you haven't read this story, now's a great catch-up point!
Together also ties into another thing I want to talk about, which is story continuities. I have a few of those, and I'm adjusting my focus a bit when it comes to them. Namely, I have no plans to do any more stories linked to my original continuity, the "Conversations-verse" established by Late-Night Conversations. I still like the stories I wrote for it, but I also can't escape the fact that they were some of my teething stories as an author and if I wrote stories with their subject matter today, I'd do things differently. So that one (five stories and a short in total) can be marked as "done."
My "Siblings" continuity, the setting in which a newly-humanized Sunset has been adopted by Rarity's family (as seen in What My Destiny is Telling Me and Empty Rooms and Empty Feelings) is definitely still going to continue. Eventually. I promise. Don't get me wrong, I love both those stories and the reception they've gotten; I didn't commission Harwick cover art for the original story just to ditch them. When the next bit of inspiration strikes, you'll see another one.
But with Together becoming my primary focus at the moment, I do want to start setting more of my stories more definitively in its setting, to the extent that they work inside of it. I retroactively linked my stories The Final Conversation and Milkshakes, Marionettes, and Midnight to Together, and I've kept the connection in mind as I work on new chapters. But I also recently had an idea strike for a new short story, set around the events of Friendship Games, that, while readable as a standalone, will also have some quiet links to Together that can help enhance some of the character arcs in both fics. So you may start seeing a bit more in the Together-verse going forward. Hopefully that fic idea will be a published story before the end of the month.
So that's the Eileen update for the past few months and a bit of a look ahead. As noted, there's more of Otter's corrupt Pillars anthology in the next month, and likely a new Eileenfic as well. There might or might not be a contest fic from me on the horizon, but regardless, there will definitely be more Together chapters. So stay tuned, and once again, thank you all so much for reading and supporting.
