Twilight's Alternate Universe · 10:14pm Jun 26th, 2014
Here's my problem. The Twilight's Dawn saga relies on the Elements of Harmony being pieces of jewelry, not the fashion-challenged Rainbow Powers. Therefore the series is now AU. I tried really hard to keep the first story canon, and to tell you the truth, I don't really want to write an AU story. If I'm going to do that, I may as well write pure original fiction... that's why I wrote Pretzels and then Sunrise when I started writing again, because my inspiration for Twilight's Dawn was sort of shot.
Do I really want to commit to writing 100k words in an AU? At least with Turning Back the Winter, it's in the past and they can't go back and change the past... wait, they sort of did with the Book of the Two Sisters... but THAT IS PROPAGANDA PUT OUT BY THE SUPPORTERS OF CELESTIA TO... well, let's just say that Hasbro published a highly sanitized version of the truth.
But what is canon here? Do we adhere to the show only, or are official books part of canon? Are there levels of canon? And don't tell me "oh just write whatever you want" because I know I can do that. I just want to hear what other people want to read. There's not much point in writing what I want if nobody else wants to look at it, is there?
There is no reason why the ponies will not eventually get the elements back. I mean Discord freely admitted to planting the plunder seeds, and now he is in the dog house for selling out the ponies to Tirek.
I could certainly see them asking Discord to remove the taint from the Everfree Forest so they can have the elements in case disaster strikes, or doing the same WHEN disaster strikes next.
As for Canon, there are all sorts of Season 1 canon stories, Season 2 canon stories, and now even through some point in Season 4 canon stories. Canon always shoots through established writings. It is inevitable.
Personally I think the AU tag is far too strong for a story that tries to fit the story at a specific period but failed to include something revealed later and refused to retcon the whole thing. The alternative is to end up having to write to episodes as they are released if your story is contemperaneous with the series.
It is also as I said very possible with a story that is 5 years after the series ends to say "At some point that has not been shown yet, or afterward, some element of the story goes back to as it was." I mean Twilight could even end up back as a unicorn sometime in the future for all we know. I sincerely doubt it but it could happen. Getting the elements back I rate as about 50-50. And the rainbow power could be a one time thing. Twilight could find the new tree way too gaudy and get tired of it and magically regrow a new library tree. Or it could end up knocked down by some future enemy and the magic to make another one is gone, so Twi makes a new library tree with help from Apple Bloom who is an expert potion maker at the time.
Oh, and write what you want to write. If you have truly lost the fire for your epic, write some one-shots, or a short serial. There is nothing wrong with one-shots.
Bro, everything is AU. Think about it and let it blow your mind.
2236828 Thanks. I guess there really is no way to write a long, detailed story that will remain true to the series until the series itself ends... which of course will never happen.
And I do have a taste for the epic, but I suppose I could write epics that are in the past... like the one I'm doing now. There's no reason we can't go back and do a prehistoric pony epic like Quest for Flyer or Clan of the Cave Pony... oh God... look what you made me do! Now I have to write another epic!
2236908 mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw1954-Z04aP.gif
Are there darker facts from the official books or are they just different canon for marketing purposes?
2237645 I googled The Book of the Two Sisters and apparently it discusses the transition from the time of the Windegos to the rule of Celestia and Luna. Something about how raising the sun was draining unicorns of their power so the Alicorns had to take it over. My current story treats that as whitewashing propaganda put out by the current administration to cover up the rather more messy and political history of the events. :-)