Back to the Drawing Board

Dear Princess Celestia,

If you possess, shall we say, a robust self confidence in your own abilities; then it can be surprisingly easy, if your work is not received as highly as you might like, to begin making excuses for it, ranging from 'It's hard for a noob to get noticed much around here' to 'nobody appreciates what I'm trying to do with my work' all the way to, if you're really unlucky, 'These assholes are conspiring to hate on my fic!'

And, while I wasn't anywhere near there yet thank god, I will confess dear reader that I was on that very train to crazy town...when I got bitten by a plot bunny.

What if Twilight had a predecessor as Celestia's student? What if that student got shown the door upon the revelation of Twilight as the true Element of Magic? What if she sought revenge? (Mild spoilers for Vengeance of Dawn above, though nothing you couldn't gather from reading the prologue and noting that the title includes the word Vengeance) Originally, this character was going to be a minor villain in my ill-recieved fic Empire of the Unconquered Sun, until I realised that a) there was no room in the plot to insert, develop and give a comprehensive arc to this character, especially since Twilight, her rival, would be going place ill-suited to the conduct of such a rivalry. And b), nobody was reading Empire anyway so if I wanted to get my idea noticed I'd have to do it somewhere else.

Me, sore? Surely you jest, sir?

And so I wrote up the prologue for Vengeance of Dawn, uploaded it, submitted it, and was rather astonished to find out that it had gotten more views in three days than Empire had in a month. And seriously, thank you to everyone who upvoted and favourited Vengeance, even fifteen favourites is just amazing for me and you're all awesome, even if you've somehow forgiven Lelouch for geassing sweet Euphie ;).

But it was also a reproof to me; a sign that no, it didn't need more love (and tolerance), it didn't need me to use Vengeance as a bully pulpit for it, people didn't like Empire because it wasn't really very good,. It wasn't hilariously awful maybe, but all that means is that it lacked entertainment value.

And that's why I've revoked the submission on it. Because I still believe the concept is good it was just that the execution was shoddy, and I don't believe in re-writing, certainly not the major re-writing I plan to get around to at some point, in between updates on Vengeance and my original fiction, while the work is in public view.

So, wish me luck next time around.