Production Blog 5/11 · 9:43am May 11th, 2014
Hey, folks! Another season of the show has come to an end, and I gotta say, that was a hell of a season. I've not really been the sort to go into individual episode reviews, and I'm not going to start now, so this blog is spoiler-free, at least for the finale. Overall, though, I was frequently charmed with season four, only occasionally annoyed, and mostly reminded why I like the show. It wasn't perfect or anything (get me one on one and I'm fairly critical of the show overall and tend to have lower expectations than a lot of other folks I've talked to), but it was mostly an enjoyable piece of entertainment. I was most impressed by the overarching story they played through the season (probably not the one you're thinking of; the one with the "bad" guy, though the one you're thinking of was certainly tied into the one that impressed me). I was also pleasantly surprised to have my opinion of Magical Mystery Cure improved. I still think it's suffering from a plethora of pacing issues, but I think what made it suffer the most was the fact that it was a season finale that just wasn't very satisfying. Having a season to follow it up casts it in a much better light, I think, and it plays less like a capping stone on a short and rather flawed season and more as a final act before the intermission on one long season. Honestly, thinking of all of season 3 as part of season 4 casts it in a better light; certain storylines start in one and resolve in another, and the overarching plot formed between them both is overall more satisfying than either separately.
...Okay, I said no spoilers, but gotta mention this, so I'll tag this part. Looking at Magical Mystery Cure as Twilight's real Rainbow Power Key episode resonates way better than Twilight's Kingdom for me. In the finale the lesson feels redundant for her (though emotionally resonant and really powerful with Discord), but it's fresh and biting in MMC and linking that emotional arc with the other Key episodes elevates the whole product in my eyes.
Anyway, good season for a good show, and as much as I'm bummed I have to wait along with everyone else for more, good god I am so relieved I can stop being a neurotic mess about my stories!
As the finale approached, my writing slowed down more and more, until I was basically arrested, waiting for it to end and see what it was I'd have to tear apart and redo on unfinished projects. While I wouldn't scrap anything just because canon interfered with it, I'd prefer things to fit rather than just tagging something AU or tossing a "ignores such a such an episode" line in the description. Some of the fears were really stupid, believe me, but I am a neurotic, OCD control-freak, and if I'm gonna be worried about stupid things, I'm gonna go whole hog panic-attack about it, dammit.
Well, that's over now, and I can write whatever the hell I want and not worry about next week proving it wrong. It's a lot easier for me to place a story in the context of months or even years in the past as far as how off-canon it is than it is for me to do the same with something that's proven wrong a week later, or even a week before it's published (seriously; I had mini-panic over Twilight's Hearth's Warming Carol because I finished it well before I was going to be able to get it online and was worried the premiere, which was going to beat me to air before I could get it online, would trash something in it. Yes, I'm silly, I know).
Which brings us to new writing:
6,543 words drafted (MSWord word count) out of 10,000 (estimated finished length).
So I technically could have put up a production blog last week, but I really didn't have much to show for it. It's worth noting that I wrote more this evening after decompressing/chores/time-wasting than I did in the two weeks leading up to the finale. I can't guarantee I'll fly through the last ~3500 words in the next few days, but it certainly feels like I could do that. I'm gonna try. And then it's on to more and bigger projects.
Here's to a productive off-season.
TTFN.
May your fingers speed across the keys and the words flow easy and clean.
That other plot your talking about is the equestria games one yeah? Because otherwise I have no idea what you're talking about.
2103854
I was talking about Discord's overarching character growth throughout the season, starting in his sort of reformation in Keep Calm, through to the finale.
2103861 Ah looking back yeah, that didnt even occur to me since it was so spaced out it never even considered it a thing but yeah.