Ascend Retrospective · 9:09am Feb 23rd, 2013
There. Now then, why don't I begin? When I first started Ascend back in mid-October, I never imagined it would get anywhere near as popular as it is. It had been three weeks since I wrote the anvililcious Stereotypical and I wanted to keep up my goal of writing a oneshot a month (August had Statistics and September had the aforementioned Stereotypical). I had written 300 words of an Innocent Innuendo fic called Misunderstanding when my drive to write it faltered.
That's when I remembered this little scene I had thought up a few days previous about Twilight panicking in her bedroom in a cliché “Twilight becomes an alicorn” scenario. I decided to put Misunderstanding on the backburner and focus on writing that scene. I didn't have any idea other than that one scene. I didn't even have a name for the story. After a few hours, the chapter was complete and clocked in at 1,200 words. That original scene I had in my head was those first few lines of chapter one. The books and their related scenes were all thought up while I was writing it.
I had no plans and no ideas. After editing it and spending a few minutes trying to think up a chapter title, I had to find a cover image. I wanted something “light”, as this wouldn't be a serious story like Not My Destiny. I remembered this picture on Know Your Meme that was just what I was looking for. Even better, I couldn't recall any fanfics using it so it would be unique. I uploaded the story to Fimfiction and stared at the “Submit” button. Did I really want to do this? It's a multichapter. What if it ends up like your Lion King fanfic series and you lose interest? It doesn't matter, it's one of hundreds of Twilicorn fanfics. Hardly anyone will pay attention.
The next day, at 11:50 pm, the story got posted. By one, it was featured. Cool. By the time I went to bed, it was in second place. Wow, I never thought it would beat Statistics (which only got to 4th place). The next day, upon returning from school, I stared at 600 notifications and a first place slot on the featured list and popular stories list and went “uh-oh”. I had no plot. No plan. No nothing. I scrambled and quickly wrote chapter two, still having no idea what I was going to do.
I started planning. People loved the comedy and relaxed nature so I knew that it would have to remain light. One thing that erked me about the other Twilicorn fanfics was how slow they were. I've been waiting for nine months for Twilight's secret to be revealed in Expectations and I didn't want things to go like that in Ascend. After a few more days of planning while going to college classes, I finally knew how the story would go:
Chapter One: Denial
Chapter Two: Illusions
Chapter Three: Errands
Chapter Four: Travel
Chapter Five: Family
Chapter Six: Testimony
Chapter Seven: News
Chapter Eight: Royalty
Chapter Nine: Trials
Chapter Ten: Tribulations
Chapter Eleven: Ascension
When Chapter Three was finished, I said as much (>>1467159). It would be a nice short romp that poked fun at some of the Twilicorn cliches and fics (particularly Expectations). Things definitely don't look the same now. All of the Mane Five's reactions didn't even exist. “Tribulations” was split in half and renamed “Reunion” and (the nightmare that is) “Decisions”. The “Family” chapter (which was going to have Twilight having dinner with her parents the night before her testimony) was cut after many began to grow weary of panicky!Twilight.
As the days ticked by, though, I got a great idea. What if Dash taught her how to fly? Then an even better idea. What if she broke a wing (partiality fulfilling another cliché) and had to be treated by Fluttershy (itself, a reference to Expectations)? Then I thought, why don't I do a chapter for each of the Mane Five? It'll allow me to practice writing them and make the story longer at the same time! I dismissed it at first, Pinkie and Rarity would be a nightmare to write, but decided to keep Dash and Fluttershy.
As Dash's chapter took shape, I finally relented and elected to do them all—problems be damned. Things continued on a leisurely pace until I got to Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity's chapters. Those were a pain to write and I lost some of the “umph” while working on Rarity's chapter, causing an almost month long wait.
With those chapters done, things were kicked into high gear as I wrote the part of the story I had been waiting to write since the plot was finalized—Twilight's secret being revealed. Things were going great—until I wrote “Trials”.
The original chapter plan had Celestia with Twilight throughout the Court scenes and really did involve an earth pony test at the end (either using a treadmill or growing a plant as the actual test). Several problems arose. First, Celestia disappeared. She was still in the chapter, but she didn't do anything and kind of fell into the background. Second, the magic test was boring as hell and I knew that earth pony test wouldn't be all that interesting either (c'mon, growing a plant? You can't do anything with that). That's when I decided to do the “crossbow scene”.
As a few have surmised, it was inspired by the scene in Pony Psychology Series where the Guard kill Twilight to prove she's immortal.. I knew the scene would be controversial and boy was it. A few people threatened to drop the story because of it (and the earlier scenes). Eventually, I proposed a retcon solution. I didn't want to rewrite the chapter, but if it made people happy then I could. Fortunately for me, the consensus was to leave well enough alone and so it shall. It's kind of strange, Spacebattles is where I'd expect to get the criticism and yet the chapter went over just fine there (they were probably too busy arguing about a Conversion Bureau or Somali pirates fic to notice).
I knew right from the start that the ending would be the hardest and I was correct. Several problems—ranging from personal, to a cold, to school—delayed work on the last two chapters. Finally, when those issues were resolved, work was slow and agonizing as I chipped away at it. Finally, with Midterms rapidly approaching, I was able to finish the story and here we are.
Criticism
As many of you probably know, I've always been very self critical. The psychologist might argue that this is a self esteem problem that comes from the severe shyness I have, while the cynic would say this is merely an attempt to stop others from criticizing me. In truth, I'm a victim of reading many fanfics. I can see every flawed scene, bad line of dialouge, or rushed scene. The readers only see it once, I go over it multiple times. That's primarily why I criticize myself. Still, there are people who didn't like Ascend.
That many to be precise. I'm happy so many upvoted it, but it does make me frown every time someone downvotes. There's a reason. Of those thirty-six downvotes (no doubt, that number will go up by at least a dozen now that the story's done), I can only account for one. One single person scathingly criticized Ascend (go so far as to call it a “creatively bankrupt waste of bandwidth” due to my references to TV Tropes) and I'm almost certain he downvoted it.
But that's just one of thirty-six. Even worse, it wasn't particularly helpful either. He didn't hate the story because of poor structure, OOCness, or grammar/spelling issues. He hated it because I made a few references to a website. Ascend has had many references, and I'm not going to stop because somebody doesn't like them.
That leaves thirty-five others who have disliked Ascend. I'd like to know why. Was it the weird formatting style? Rushed scenes? Do they hold Twilicorn stories in the same regard as I do HiE's? I don't know, because they never commented. The one piece of useful critisim I received wasn't even from someone who downvoted Ascend (he thought it was “meh”, not good enough to upvote, but not bad enough to downvote). The primary complaint was Ascend had too many things going on (dreams, Twilight panic, government panic, Mane Five reactions, etc) and so was cluttered. I was happy. Granted, there wasn't much I could do on Ascend, but it's already helped for the sequel. (You can thank him for Flight Deck's revelation in the stinger. Originally, I was going to leave the antagonist ambiguous until a ways in, but the sequel’s already going to do some stuff, so I don't think I need to.)
I can't really blame those thirty-five people for not voicing their criticism, though. As a reader, I know how they feel. You read a fanfic and something just pisses you off, but you don't comment because of how popular the story is for fear of getting into a comment war with others. I know that's the case because that happened to me. I read a story that introduced an alicorn OC and voiced my concerns when the OC started pulling “Cliche Mary Sue Fanfic Plots” (bizarre wing design, actually an Element of Harmony, being superior to the canon characters, having a creepy obsession with Twilight). One protracted comment war later and I dropped the story. I'm glad I did, the sequel had the Elements going evil and Putting on the Reich in a synopsis I spent five minutes laughing at.
It's a shame that people are afraid to criticize—especially with comments now being voted on, because how am I suppose to improve my writing if no one ever says what I'm doing wrong? At least I know I have weaknesses that need improvement (I am utter horseapples at being descriptive and writing group scenes).
Popularity
I'll simply restate my amazement at how popular Ascend became. I always figured Statistics would forever be my most popular story, but you all decided to prove me wrong. It was so popular that every time it updated, it was on the featured list. I'm even more amazed by how it's grown on it's own. If you look at the statistics page, you'll note that Spacebattles is the only real site that it gets traffic from. Unlike many of the heavy hitters that have EQD or TV Tropes to help get more views, Ascend has none of that and yet has been able to become extremely popular regardless.
The only way it's getting on EQD is if they PM me and say “hey, we want your story”. That's about as likely as canon alicorn Twilight canon humans a canon war story arc. I could always put it on TV Tropes (if I could remember my password) but something just seems...wrong about me putting it up, it's like writing your own Wikipedia page. Even though it won't ever get the thousands of pageviews from other sites, it still has had plenty, and that's still impressive.
I've always wondered why it's as popular as it is when there's so many better Twilicorn fanfics (Rites of Ascension, Expectations, or On Wings of Change) Many have said they like it because of the comedy, lack of shipping, and no war. I guess Ascend is just somewhat unique in the genre. Well, not any more...
Canon
I don't know what I've been more shocked by: Ascend's popularity, or canon!Twilicorn. I had one other multichapter story idea when I first started Ascend (dealing with a UN-expy launching an invasion due to eternal night), but disregarded it because the Crystal Empire was going to kill my plans for Cadance. Alright, so I'll do Twilicorn. If there's one genre canon'll never touch, it's that! I even said so (>>1443617). Oh how I was wrong.
When that Twilicorn poster was first discovered I felt like many—it was a simple error by the artist. I played it up, but I figured it was just a funny coincidence. Then the plushies showed up. It was then when I realized this might actually happen. Why would they make multiple plushies of Twilight with wings if she would never get them? As season three got underway, a feeling of unease grew as foreshadowing and merch showed up.
I was at college, during an hour break in between my math and Speech (blegh!) classes, when I got a PM. I figured it wasn't anything I had to look at right away and continued to read several news articles. Finally, as I had to get ready to go to Speech, I looked at the PM. It consided of a title that read “Have you seen this” and a link to a Twilicorn picture. I looked at the picture and went “That's a neat piece of fanart”. Then I thought, “Why is somebody sending me random fanart?”, then I noticed the Hub logo and #ponyprincess hashtag and went “Oh. Oh dear.” One trip to EQD later with a “RFRFHHGREJ” title and I knew that Ascend's end had come.
I love canon!Twilight, despite it crippling my story. I guess my next non-Ascend related one one will just have to take place in an Au to avoid canon jossing it. While Discord sent Ascend to an AU, it was Twilicorn that really kicked it and sealed the protal shut with titanium welds.
It's really funny. To the best of my knowledge, Ascend was the first Twilicorn fanfic to have Dash teaching Twilight how to fly (I'm sure there probably were a few earlier but I've never read one). Now, that (and Who Wants to Live Forever) are taking over the Twilicorn genre. It remains to be seen if any thermals will be involved.
Conclusion
Despite the stress and late nights, I had a ton of fun writing Ascend. I hope you all have had fun reading it. The whole experience has taught me a lot about writing and—more importantly—interacting with fans of my writing. I was able to practice writing OC's, learning where my strengths and weaknesses are, and trying to write the Mane Cast and make sure that they stay in character. There were good parts (Royalty) and bad (I still hate Celebrations), but you've stuck through it all.
Here's to Ascend. One of the few Twilicorn fanfics that was able to break the curse and actually get finished. See you in the sequel.
10/10 would read sequel.
Sequel!//dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_rainbowkiss_flip.png
Hm. Pity about the unexplained downvotes. I always make sure to leave a detailed comment when I do so(and that is pretty rare. I don't let myself read crap often).
W00! Shout outs!
A completed Twilicorn fanfic that is not a oneshot.
My life is complete now.
You know, I wish more authors would write about their own experiences while writing a fanfic. While I'm not an author myself, those texts always end up being incredibly interesting to me. Don't know why exactly, but I always love seeing them. It's probably a big help for new authors, too.
I think this song fits the mood.
i know i'm going to get flak for this but i'm one of those downvoters and since you want to know i'll let you know. i downvoted the story after i read the massive conjecture over celestia's defeat being only because she held back. i'm very defensive of that scene not only because i like chrysalis but because i understand what that scene was meant to be. that scene really accentuates the fact that friendship is magic and by making a lame excuse that celestia held back simply kills that message and turns it into some lame backup plan and it makes celestia a mary sue.
Um, I think I've read at least one other Twicorn fic that finished sorta....this was better.
I'll be looking forward to Regent.
Whooo, sequel! I am enthused. Enthusiasm. Yes.
While I imagine there are a lot of people who don't post criticism just because it's much easier to simply hit the "dislike" button and move on, there's also the concern that it's so easy for other people to do the same in return. If you're an author and you post criticism on someone else's story, it's trivially easy for them to head to your page and downvote your stories in revenge.
Unfortunately, there's no way to tell what a downvote is for. Is it because the story is legitimately bad? Or is it because it's got a character the reader doesn't like? Too many OCs? Not enough OCs? Didn't follow their headcannon? Dislike the genre? Dislike the author? It's impossible to know why, and that makes it impossible to judge the value of those votes. For example, someone disliked it for having Celestia's defeat by Chrysalis be due to her holding back. While I personally dislike that idea too, I consider it a minor detail in a story that is not at all focused on the event, not enough to put the story into the negative overall (In fact, I really like the story despite that nitpick). It gets even worse if your story has a relatively small number of votes, where a single negative vote (Say, coming suspiciously soon after posting a criticism of someone else's story) can make a large difference in ranking.
I kind of think we might be better off without the down-vote option for stories. If someone is wanting to put a noticeable negative mark on a story, it seems like it should have some minimal effort on it, or at least something to show why it was disliked. Write a comment that actually tells us something useful, both as a writer and as a reader.
As for popularity, I'm not surprised Ascend did so well. It's funny in a genre that's usually so dramatic--often excessively so, and almost always in the exact same way--it's well-written, it's got some real cleverness to it (I love some of the names you picked), and of course, it actually updates.
I still don't understand how everyone got surprised by canon Twilicorn. The only thing that was surprising about it to me was the timing (I had it pegged for the end of the series), but even that makes sense in retrospect (episode was written in November 2011. Season 4 didn't get confirmed until just a few months ago. Therefore, this was the end of the series when it was written). I don't know. Nice job borrowing elements of the episode for the ending, though.
858042
That's a really, really gross misuse of the term 'Mary Sue'. Seriously. The term's been getting a lot of abuse since Twilicorn got confirmed, but it does not mean 'a character I think is too powerful'.
859459
i am using the term correctly, the way we paint Celestia as being this super mega powerful being loved by all is the very definition of mary sue.
859276
celestia holding back against chrysalis wasn't just a small deal. that plot point was more massive then it first appears because it's because of the invasion that twilight goes to cantorlot to begin with. it is the cause of all of twilight's fears in the story and if she didn't have to go to cantorlot twilight would still be in ponyvillie doing other stuff relating to her becoming an alicorn. as far as it defying my headcanon i'm very accepting of new elements so long as it's done well. however the big conference was anything but done well as twilight just speaks about general details of the invasion and when the big question was asked it was backhandedly answered and that was the end of that.
859565
It's funny. I've never subscribed to the "Immortal God Empress" headcanon. There are a few things to keep in mind.
The biggest is that it's Twilight who's saying Celestia held back. Twilight holds quite a bit of bias towards Celestia--not to mention she looks up to her. Did Celestia actually hold back? No. Does Twilight think she held back? Yes.
Regardless of Celestia's performance during the invasion, the Oversight Committee would have still had Twilight testify. Their investigating the invasion, not just Celestia's performance during the invasion.
The scene could have been written better--all scenes can. For one, Twilight and the committee members could have gone over more in depth answers. The big issue is balance. Many don't really want to read the pointless dialogue of a government committee (there have been some criticisms of the Parliament scenes as well because of this very problem).
Thanks for the criticisms. I can now account for around five of the downvotes.
859597
fair enough. i did in fact like a lot of the story but when you made that line i kinda lost it since it had been used so many times that it's written as being common knowledge.
859565
No, it's not. A Mary Sue is the terribly talented new student at Hogwarts with striking violet eyes, who falls immediately into a love triangle with Harry and Draco, and who is secretly a werewolf and a vampire, complete with tear-jerking background story about being on the run from the werewolf clans with Lupin.
A Mary Sue is a self-insertion fantasy.
Positing that the immortal alicorn who has raised the sun and the moon for a thousand years (and the sun for some unknown number of centuries before that) may, in fact, be powerful on the level of some kind of deity does not make a Mary Sue. It just makes headcanon that doesn't agree with yours.
859880
uh no, unicorns moved the sun and moon before celestia and luna plus with the cantorlot wedding their shown to have limits. if you want to talk about inserts it's the fan celestia that we have inserted into stories. this talk was originally about how an element in the story i dislike. with celestia's defeat many writers moved to handwaving it as celestia held back. i've already talked about how bad that ideal is and how it makes celestia a mary sue if it was. canon celestia certainly isn't otherworldly vastly powerful only the self inserting fanon celestia.
860035
You can't even see where the things we can know are true from the episodes end and where your assumptions begin, can you? And you're still misusing the term, even if one accepted your assumptions. Which is the entire point I was making.
860035
>Talks about people not leaving criticism for fear of long comment arguments.
>Someone leaves criticism.
> Gets into long comment argument.
Oh, the irony.
860142
yea i'm sorry i'm trying to wrap it up.
860126
and where do you believe yours are?
- Celestia and Luna have been around for at least 1000 years (friendship is magic)
- They haven't been around since the beginning of time nor moved the sun and moon since the beginning of equestria (hearths warming eve)
- They can be defeated (A cantorlot wedding)
i've been talking about the common handwaving of the 3rd one that would make celestia unbeatable thereby completing the mary sue requirements since celestia is already well loved. and since celestia lacks undefeatability she can't be the goddess you believe she is.
if you want to continue the discussion pm me i won't continue to fill this page with this discussion.
to xTSGx i'm very sorry again if this dragged on very far.
860173
Oh, it's no problem at all. I was just pointing out the irony of it all. You're more than welcome to continue this conversation in the comments.
I suspect "Ascend" got dubbed as "cluttered" because you went into writing it without a game plan, and as a result, came out cluttered. I speak from personal experience, of course. Last fanfic I wrote without a game plan came out very cluttered, despite coherent and oddly enjoyable nonetheless. Fanfics are funny that way.
Also, on the subject of your 36 downvotes, I suspect at least some of them were given simply because it was popular and people were irked by the fact that it was popular and downvoted it for no good reason other than that. I know that seems utterly stupid, but people all across the web do that. Either way, if they don't actually comment on anything, then they're all that easier to ignore. Clearly, if they couldn't actually speak up about it, then arguably it wasn't worth speaking up about anyway, so that's that.
Personally I think "Ascend" is more than worthy of the praise, though. It hasn't been quite like any other Twi-ascending fanfics I've read (not that I've read many) and the light-hearted spin was indeed an added plus ("Have you partaken in the Cocoa Puffs?" still stands as one of my very favorite lines in fanfic history
) not to mention a aptness for a lot of clever creativity with your portrayal of the universe.
But I digress. What I should really be saying is that I thoroughly enjoyed this fanfic, and am anxiously awaiting the eventual arrival of the planned sequel.
Whatever happened to the telescope maker? Otherwise, pretty good.
Your blog post invites feedback.
I begin by stating that I do not encourage excessive self-criticism. I've seen artists and athletes psych themselves out before, and I have no wish to contribute to something like that. I hope that my criticism offers some perspective, for what it's worth, and a few things to consider as you continue writing.
I did not upvote Ascend because it felt... empty. The main conflict in the story is the knowledge of Twilight's ascension getting out. But even as Spike, Rainbow, and Fluttershy, and then Rarity, and then all of Equestria find out, nowhere does Twilight stop to reconsider the justification for her seemingly constant state of panic. After the princesses find out, we're left with a third of the story wherein conflicts pop up and disappear one after another. I found myself reading increasingly carelessly toward the end of the story. There was no cohesiveness.
Your characters seem shallow the whole way through. Twilight does little but worry, Applejack is mildly suspicious, Pinkie is random, Rarity wants influence, Celestia explains nothing, Luna speaks anachronistically, and government ponies act ridiculous. It seems like everyone's holding a Conflict Ball. I give you props, though, for trying to make Spike useful.
Regarding tropes — Bad Horse made a blog post about the effects of reading TV Tropes on one's writing. The general consensus was that tropes are useful as analytic tools, esp. for deconstruction and terminology. In Ascend, however, I feel that they serve only to highlight the clichéd plot.
I read chapter one a long time ago and decided to move this story back in my reading queue. Twilight spends an inordinate amount of time acting silly, and the chapter ends with a sentence fragment. I think you got off to a bad start; the first chapter doesn't hint at anything beyond the standard Twilicorn panic, and your grammar is acceptable for the rest of the fic.
One scene I did enjoy was Twilight discovering her resilience. The fic stepped out of silly-land for a moment there. Which reminds me — I am probably being unnecessarily critical. This is supposed to be a Comedy/SoL fic, and it accomplishes what it set out to do. I just didn't find it very satisfying. No character development, no surprises, and, oddly enough, no real political drama. It's just a few archaic procedures and a bit of empty posturing.
In sum, I found this story kind of boring. It feels like it was written for a novice FIMfic reader who doesn't like cloudy days or sudden movements. That said, there are plenty of readers like that, and based on the fic's rating, I'd say they enjoyed it.
I hope this review was helpful in some way, and I always welcome discussion.