March-April 2024 Update: Afterthoughts, Meta-Updates, and Being Relational · 2:52am May 6th
It's been a while. A very long while. At the very least, there was a fic before the end of April, though not the one I originally intended.
I am not going to say cleanly what I've read and that is because a) there hasn't been much that I've read, and b) I realize I could benefit more from a kind of journal/diary system where I write what I've written or at least what stood out to me that day per day. I did watch a video or two about the benefits of journaling, but I haven't really looked into reflective journaling, which I think has led to a decayed sense of time (where it feels more like doing things per day productivity-wise instead of verbalizing/crystallizing what actually happened that day and why I did X or Y).
I can say I've read Warpony72's Equestria at War-set Front to Front. A lot. Go Cyril.
As for writing, I've now been working on the Trixie-Tirek timeline story code-named [MANTUA] much more seriously now. I've gotten down a rhythm where it's ~150-word bursts but scattered all over the story. If you know the anecdote of Valve, the video game company, having desks on wheels, that's the style I'm going for in doing my first draft here: 150 words per short session but those words go pretty much anywhere in the story timeline I have words for. As for the space in between scenes/parts already written? They're marked with asterisks, so once I have inspiration for how to fill in those blanks, I go there and whittle away at the missing scenes.
But that's less concrete than Should the World by Me Fold, afterthoughts of which follow after the break.
It's strange right now to have afterthoughts on a story (code-named [PINK HAWK] during writing) that I took just two weeks to write. Still, when the writing contest was announced, along with the theme of possessiveness, I wanted to... not take the obvious rote of having someone being possessive over someone else (though it did end up exactly like that, just with more people/ponies).
Parts of the setting/worldbuilding (or the bits of it that does exist here) is based on a little thing that I've code-named [VEDDER], which isn't exactly a story but a worldbuilding project for Magical Curiosity's Equestria Girls Earth. While it's certainly dulled/filtered a lot in the story, it was a plan of mine to make it some kind of semi-regular blog post series (a la Carabas's Palaververse worldbuilding posts... thanks to FanOfMostEverything for pointing me in this person's direction). There are hints in Spotless's preachings about the Daybreaker cult (supposedly) being an offshoot of the major religion of Amareica which I'm tentatively calling Harmonism.
Though, of course, an obstacle in worldbuilding such a world is that its history as we know it effectively ends after the events of Magical Curiosity, but I digress.
When I wrote in the description that the story marked a return to pre-Magical Curiosity form, it's very sincere. It did take me back to the 2018-and-before days where every chapter was written on the fly, and where I was super fast with not much care of what lay before or ahead of me narrative-wise. Except it was just the one chapter, and I've employed a scattergun approach to writing: write wherever I am inspired to write in the story's timeline, moving across scenes back and forth like, again, Valve's famous wheeled desks.
I think it's because, with how short the contest was (two weeks), I had the fastest route from idea to finished story in a long time. I can say I've worked a lot behind the scenes, but without constant communication, it can feel like I've simply fallen off the face of the Earth were it not for the "last online [x] hours ago" part of my status on this website. For Should the World, I've started the path on eliminating that: sort of talking about the idea in the EaW Discord server, and then teasing about it in the contest server itself. There ought to be a sense of wariness, I think, about sharing so many story ideas that aren't yet actual stories, but again, the making of this fic was me having to warm up to just... immersing myself in the community not in Equestria at War stuff or in general brony-ness but back here on Fimfiction.
Maybe there is a similarity between Spotless's yearning to be back with his ponies across the mirror and me wanting to reconnect once more with everyone here (though I acknowledge the dubiousness of comparing myself to a cult leader).
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Speaking of, fun fact: I wrote a considerable chunk of the first draft while at a church retreat/conference in a place that's much closer to nature. I can't say I haven't subconsciously thought about it while making the fic.
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I personally continue the trend of taking cues from shows I haven't watched. The idea of people becoming something otherworldly after taking a drink from something comes from Midnight Mass and the priest using the communion sacrament/ordinance for something that it really shouldn't be used for.
I've taken a "misinspiration" as well... the beginning of the fic was, in my head, a flash forward after
I've taken a "misinspiration" as well... the beginning of the fic was, in my head, a flash forward taken after A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but it's more of a "How We Got Here."
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Given the whole Magical Curiosity mention, it is also somewhat fitting that there's transformation in this fic, though of course, it's of the more instant kind same as in Curiosity. I could try to say that that's from ASGeek2012's Pandemic, but truth be told, I haven't read the story. I know the gist that there were people turning into ponies for a religious thing, and that was enough to have it as an endgame item for Spotless.
This blog post does feel rather existential, personally speaking, because... well, communication is the one big thing I lack on the site (like, once again, Valve about Half-Life some of the time). Being on The Barcast for a bit during the mega-final interview stream was an eye-opener because it poses the question: how will I maintain my friendships here in this community moving forward? The answer might be obvious (juts spend time with people, talk to others), but on this site, I've been slack on that as of late, publcly speaking.
I've broken a number of promises regarding a more regular blog post schedule already, but I also don't want to wallow on the negative. Over the next few weeks, I'll be getting back to Fimfiction-writing... not writing stories but just being with others here more. I've had older friends from this site, but I haven't really made myself a welcome face beyond that small cicle. That needs to change: commenting on others' stories (again), and the occasional reply to a forum post.
Not an afterhought but more of a "beforethought": [MANTUA]'s victorious-Tirek timeline did bring up a worldbuilding proposal: a post-apocalyptic Equestria. Not in the style of Fallout: Equestria but, from the very little I know about Fallout (and maybe I'll take a bit from Wasteland 3, which I know even less of), there is that template of post-apoc-ness: bandits, wandering populations, barrenness...
While it's not within the scope of the story, other kingdoms and countries might be on the outside looking into this failed state. I wonder... in the future, if things don't improve, could they do some kind of intervention? Would there a pony refugee crisis? Though, that would all depend on whether I can decide on how the sun and moon move (if at all) if Tirek defeated Celestia and maybe Luna (it doesn't have to mean that they're killed or banished to their respective cosmic objects, but a defeat is a defeat).
That would be all for now. May you have a God-blessed day ahead, then!
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