My two cents as II ends · 3:08pm Apr 15th, 2013
It is such a strange and mixed feeling to finish a major story. Sitting here and thinking of it, I just don't know what to feel. For eight months I've been working on II. It ended up my longest story yet, with 26 chapters and 100k words, which equals more than 300 book-sized pages. That's a real, honest-to-goodness book, which to be honest makes me want to squee a little bit 
In some ways it is my most successful story when it came to sticking to my original plans. In other ways it did not end up at all like I intended when I set out to write it. I feel like I have learned a lot about writing and about stories during these eight months. I may have a lot more to share about all my lessons later, but for now I just want to talk about II, what I wanted it to be and what it ended up being.
Be ye warned of massive spoilers ahead!
Just about everything about the ending is exactly as I planned from the beginning. Rainbow Dash and the Elements were going to get split in two copies. One would end up flying so fast to save Twilight that she went back in time along with the Elements to cause the split in the first place. Twilight was going to send the other set of Elements into the future and use that to blackmail Eden into giving up her claim on them. Meanwhile, the remaining Rainbow, who should have died when her double went back in time, would miraculously survive because she had that one-night stand with Blaze the secretly-a-changeling way back at the beginning and now unknowingly carried a new life within her.
All of that was the plan all along. The two major things that I never saw coming myself was Rainbow's relationship with Doodlebug, and Eden passing on the mantle of Destiny to Twilight.
Rainbow and Doodlebug were never meant to get together, except for that one-night stand which would end up saving her life in the end. That's why their relationship started out so rushed, because at the time I did not expect there would be any other opportunity for them to have sex later on. I kinda figured once she realized he was a changeling she would freak out and leave him and Flix, ending up on her own in the wild or something.
But somehow that relationship just wanted to happen. It begged to happen, and I think I am not alone in thinking that it was the right choice, because it ended up being such a tragically beautiful idea.
Some people didn't like the OC shipping, I guess. Some may have been turned off my story because of it, but you can't please everypony, and I know that others loved it including myself, which is the most important thing.
Eden giving up her role as Destiny to Twilight was the second big surprise for me. It never occurred to me until the last two chapters when I suddenly realized just how much sense it made, and how unbelievable it was that I never thought of it.
In retrospect, as I look back, this is really what the whole story was about and for, and the fact that I only learned it in the last chapter is a powerful lesson for me as a writer. But more on that lesson in another post.
The heart and core of II as a story is about how the Elements and the powers of Destiny belong together and not apart. It was never about whether Eden or Twilight should possess the Elements, either would have been a good outcome since Eden truly is a kind and honest character with the best of intentions, which I hope and feel makes her interesting and unusual as a villain. It certainly is a big departure from my other major villain, Midnight, in Fillystata and Mare in the Mirror.
Many other things about this story ended up very different from what I planned. The ending remained pretty solid, but the path from start to finish was very fluid. I started out really wanting to write a very long, deep and slowly developing romance between Dash and Twilight. While I'm not unhappy with the romance that I did write between those two, it never became as much of a focus as I thought it would, partly because of how Rainbow and Doodle surprised me and took over focus from the other two.
I always wanted to explore the character and background of Frostfell too, and never did. Her accent (and name, did you know that 'fell' is a term related to the Scottish kilt?) was meant to be a hint at what I would eventually detail, but in the end I never got there.
The Shadowbolts in general never got the world-building I would have loved to give them. Such as explaining why there appear to only be two of them in this story. I also could have done much more for Flix and Doodle, not to mention Kin. As always, it's hard to keep a balance and get everything you want. Sometimes you need to know where to cut it.
I regret that I hinted at Luna having a relationship with one of her guard. I had some very serious trouble working out the tangled threads of the whole Chrysalis plot, with the book and coded message Dash found, and I guess Luna became a victim of that. As I mentioned in one of the author's notes on the chapters, I also wish I had known more about Lazuli and the dragons from the start so I could have incorporated them into the story earlier.
If I could go back and change the story, there are many things I would do different, but I am also very happy with a lot of it and it's been a great experience writing it. This is the charm of publishing one chapter at a time; once a chapter is out it will define and guide ever subsequent chapter whether you want it to or not, because you can't go back and change the old chapter to fit the new one. It has to work the other way around. Always moving forward, never back.
And that's what I'm going to do now too. I don't really know where I'm going from here yet. Right now I still have Stitch to write, and I have a gazillion little one-shot stories I might write too. But no major storyline is currently standing out as the next one for me. I do have two ideas, one a Human story with Lyra and Bon Bon, the other one possibly another TwiDash story with Lightning Dust, but they are both kinda vague and I haven't decided yet.
And there are of course plenty of ways I could follow up on II in the future, but we'll see. Maybe one day there's be a III, or who knows, could be a I 
Until then, always aim for the next level. Always forward, never back, unless you're awesome and need to save your friends 
Oh, and Rainbow Dash is Best Pony! 
Twilight agrees 
It was a very interesting and fun read, start to finish.
1011142
Glad to hear it
I finally got around to reading the story and i enjoyed it a fair bit i would how ever like some sort of sequel.
To know what happens after will twilight and this rainbow work out (i sure hope so).
What about the child will it be some sort of changeling / pony hybrid or just a changeling.
And how would they go about raising a changeling after all these events or will it just be a pony?
I still enjoyed the story tho and i will be keeping a close eye on your feature stories.
Keep up the good work
1011783
Glad to hear you liked it, and the possibility of a sequel is definitely there, though I don't have any specific plans right now