Well, comparatively long, anyways. Sitting pretty at just under 10k words, it is indeed the longest chapter yet. I never really intended it to be like that; in fact, to give you some perspective, I originally planned for the title to be "Footnote: The Tragedy of Hieyuma" until I saw how ridiculously long it was. Footnotes, as I'm sure you are aware, are generally not longer than entire chapters of the book they are featured in. Thus, "Additional Research" was born! There will be more chapters like it (with the prefix "Additional Research"), but this is Celestia's story, and I'll be darned if she doesn't get the spotlight.

[pictured: the spotlight]

On the subject of humans: you can all remain calm. I promise you, this didn't just become a Human in Equestria story. I'm certainly not going to add the human tag. They just happened to be there, and I just happened to think it would be a fun little thing to do as an intermission.

On the subject of chapter length: I've been thinking, and I wonder if I should do shorter chapters. I never really decide how many words to write, I just think of the next major event, and make it happen. However! If I were to make an effort to write shorter chapters, it would mean three things: one, updates would come out quicker, maybe even twice a week. Two, they would be easier to read. The style wouldn't change, but they'd be in more bite-sized portions (for example, I absolutely love "Background Pony", but I've got a lot of catching up to do, just 'cause I never have time to read it!). Three, I would get more views, faves, and watches, as a direct result of being featured on EqD and the Fimfic feature box more often. Shallow, I know, but I'd be lying if I said that wouldn't be nice.

On the other hand, I've never tried to force the length of a piece, so I'm not sure how it would turn out.

TL;DR?
Pros: Easier to read, faster updates, more attention!
Cons: Possibility of "forced" writing, at least until I get used to it.
What do you think?

In other news, I have an awesome editor! Seriously, I have very many things to thank this guy for. He's an irl friend who also happens to be a brony. In fact, he was the one to introduce me to the show, and get me hooked on this wonderful fandom.

He's the best editor I could ever ask for, because he does it all. He pre-reads my story for errors, and doesn't just make grammatical fixes, but adds honest-to-goodness input. Not only that, but we regularly collaborate with plot ideas. If the story ends up being anything short of amazing, it's because I pulled it off wrong. Seriously. To give you some context, I have an entire section in my outline devoted to our chatlogs, where I copy-paste raw text to pick over for ideas later (and honestly, it's mostly just him being amazing while I tell him to keep talking). I'm not sure exactly what the word "co-author" implies, but if it means what I think it means, he is exactly that, just short of actually writing words.

His name is Cheesedork, and I'd like to publicly thank him for his awesome service. Thanks, CD.

He also made some arts for me! It's not the Mona Lisa, but it's a great visual aid for seeing what certain characters look like. Right now it, only features Celestia and Lucky, but it'll be updated with more characters as... stuff happens in the story.

He also draws a webcomic, which I help with in the same way he helps me (though I imagine combing 20 pages of writing for errors is much more tedious than helping come up with witty dialogue for a comic). I demand you all go see it!

(And now I wonder if I should police the word count on my journals, too. Oh well!)