Considering Continuing "The Sun Eater" · 7:28am Jul 16th, 2013
I've been thinking this over, and at this point, my own grotesque little continuity is so far off-course from the actual show that there is very little I can see that should impede me from continuing it. It is after all, in many ways utterly unrelated to the show, by now. Not surprising, given that Hasbro-approved ponies do not generally do drugs, have obvious cases of post-traumatic-stress disorder, etc.
My goal in doing this would be to write another novella that showed my non-canonical ponies some years down the line, and to demonstrate how the events of the previous book ultimately played out in their world and lives.
My reason for considering this project is that my own book, written in my own world, has reached something of a standstill, and I am beginning to wonder whether or not it needs to be reigned in and rebooted. I simply do not have the personal impetus to attempt such a thing at this time, and it seems that writing another pony fic might break the tension, and put me in the mood to do it.
All that stops me is this:
"The Sun Eater" is too dark. Everything written in this continuity basically spits in the face of everything FiM is meant to be by just how far it reaches into the realms of typical human flaws, depravity, and despair. I really do love this show, and sometimes, I worry that I went too far. Something that started as just another happy adventure fic went into places way more deranged and dark than I had ever imagined when I typed those first few pages. I reread it -- I even edit it, still, from time to time -- and I wonder if Lauren Faust and the rest of the crew that gives us this beautiful, uplifting piece of art would think of me as an affront to what they meant for this world and these characters to represent.
All the same, it is a story not without its merits, and it is unfinished.
The truth is that I, myself, won't really know what happened to that child born out of the heart of a dead god and the spirit of a cosmic horror, unless I write it down. I wonder what his fate might be. I wonder what happens to them; my sterile, drug-addict Rarity, my anxious, chain-smoking Twilight, my broken, fearful Fluttershy, my traumatized, insecure Rainbow Dash, my angry, drunken Applejack, and my... well, my Pinkie really wasn't all that different, now was she?
I want to know. I want to see them ten or twenty years after the fact, and to know if they're okay. Did they get married? Did they have children? Are they happy? Did their dreams die under the weight of this cruel version of Equestria I invented, or did they overcome it all?
I want to know, but I wonder if it's right for me to want that, at all.
I wonder if I was ever right, and I must confess that, at times, I am ashamed I created such a thing.
If I do decide to pursue this course, it will be done in light of the events of "The Sun Eater" having taken place between Seasons 2 and 3, and with all canonical events subsequent to that (yes, even "Equestria Girls") having happened, but having done so framed in the darkness that "The Sun Eater" establishes.
It will be ugly, and though I cannot know until I start writing, I am afraid that ponies will die. That was the one and only thing that gave me solace in the last volume: Nopony died. Things got really, really nasty, but in the end, everyone was more or less okay. I can't guarantee that, this time.
I don't know how many of you will read this, but I suppose what I'm asking is, "Do you want it?"
Do you want to look once again into this ugly, ugly little world I made purely by warping something that was born of pure whimsy and hope, or is it best that I let it die?
Few people ever read "The Sun Eater," and I have doubts that many more ever will. Part of me thinks that is for the best. My best friend, the one who introduced me to this show, is one of you few who has read it, and he has told me he would never recommend that anyone else do so. He found it woefully depressing. The phrase "literally the most depressing thing I have ever read" came up in a conversation between us.
For all who read it, however, I am still thankful. I have been tempted, at times, to delete it and every story encompassed within its bounds, and to act as if it all never existed.
The problem is that, as I have already stated, I do reread and edit my own work; not to change the content, but to eliminate errors, and to improve what already exists. In the course of doing so, I find myself confronted with this passage:
“You know,” Luna continued. “I'd love to have you cast into Tartaros where I would never see you again, but that would just be a lie. Everypony would just forget you, like before.” Luna paused. “And I would just pretend to have forgotten you, but the truth is I never could. Never in a million years. Or a billion. Never for my entire life. You'd always be there with me, no matter how much I wanted to be rid of you. That's just a part of my burden, I suppose, and I would be a liar and a fool to believe I could dismiss it.”
So, there it is: my own damnation, typed by my own, very human fingers, and first seen by my own eyes on this old, cathode ray tube monitor that I still use for no other reason than the fact that it still works. Succinctly, "The Sun Eater" is a fucked-up pony fic because I am a fucked-up brony who happens to be a writer, and eliminating it from this database would not change the fact that I wrote it.
So tell me, however many of you bother to read this:
Do you want it?
Do it.
Who cares if there are some depressing parts? Life isn't candy and rainbows all the time.
Call me deranged, but I love The Sun Eater and how it was written. It sheds a new, different light on Equestria, one that few people would ever dare cast on it's green hills, it's tall mountains, it's charming residents, and that is something that you should be proud of: breaking the norm. So what if that light happens to have a few rust spots on it? If people don't like the way the light shines, then they should buy another dozen pairs of rose-tinted glasses and shut the fuck up. I, for one, would love to see you continue this, see what happens and where it goes from here. It shouldn't matter too much what the naysayers have to... well.... say... but rather what you want to do, and what you want to say and see and write. I mean, The Sun Eater is your brain-child, and a brilliant one at that. I guess what I'm really trying to say is:
Do it. Do it, and if you regret it down the line, at least you can say, "The 'what if's' won't bother me about it. I have peace of mind, even if I don't quite have peace of stomach".
Do it.
What is the worst that could happen? There's stories that go even more against the grain than yours, at least you kept the characters remain believable rather than turning them all into cannibal whatevers.
I say go for it! It would make an interesting read.