Sharing the Night: Chapter 12 Author's Notes · 9:45pm Aug 23rd, 2014
Sharing the Night: Chapter 12 Author's Notes
It's finally done! Now I can get back to writing Twilight and Luna and the fallout of this chapter. With the reactions of my prereaders, I'm pretty confident in how this one turned out, so please, give it a chance.
Speaking of prereaders, thanks to PoweredByTea, Nharctic, Ymom2, Snowy, Reese, Obsidian, q97randomguy and anyone else that showed up. There were a few anonymous comments, so if I missed anyone let me know. I appreciate all the help.
Sharing the Night: Chapter 12 Spoilers beyond this point
A small warning
The following Author's Notes refer to the chapter in a positive nature. If you didn't like the chapter, you might do well to just skip them. There's a TL;DR at the bottom.
Writing alicorns
Okay, so, I lied. There are only three alicorn OCs in this chapter... I mean, assuming you don't count Gemini—which I don't—and that more because she's not a character here than not an alicorn (though she's not that either).
I'll tell you, though, I was inordinately happy when I finally got far enough into the flashback to nail down their personalities. As I said in blog posts along the way, I went into this completely blind, with only the vaguest of plans. For that to turn into something that I consider decent in its own right is a huge relief—I just hope that some of you agree.
It's kind of ironic, really. As scenes ended up basically writing themselves, here, I actually wanted very much to be able to go back and make Fati a proper Black (and red?) alicorn (of death!), just because I was so excited and certain that it was working out. That certainty... quickly turned to paranoia after a few days, especialy as the word count stretched on and on.
At first, my plan was to have the flashback be the middle third of the chapter, basically burying it intentionally so that it would not seem like such a "big deal." I even have several thousand words more that I didn't include here, and the point that I had originally planned to finish the chapter at is even further off still.
Somehow, though, I convinced myself to cut it off here. For better or worse, it gives the ending of the flashback more impact, and as a result the flashback's effect on Twilight gets most of the focus. That, I think, is the most important thing, because in the end it is her that is important.
Besides, my pre-readers might have mutinied if I'd sent them 20-25k words.
Alicorns as written
The difficulties of actually writing this chapter aside, I am really curious how people feel about the OCs presented here. The story is a tragedy, and they're all deeply flawed individuals, but I hope they were at least somewhat likable. It's easy enough to see Fati as the noble protagonist and Solaria as the selfish villain, but in the end, Solaria really does care, and even Fati has a certain callousness. They feel very real to me, but then, I am the author.
I admit it, I really like Fati. I've said many times that I believe anything can be written well, and Sharing the Night itself is an example of that. Back when I began writing Sharing the Night, stories with Twilight as an alicorn were... bandwagon at best, and depicting her as a goddess is to this day rather indulgent. I love being able to take something like that and make it my own.
That said, do I even have to explain why the idea of an altruistic god of death who actively tries to keep ponies out of the underworld by giving them (sometimes prophetic) nightmares makes me grin from ear to ear? It's not original, no, but it's also not the trite and typical icon of death that so few have any success in escaping or desire to do so.
Somni and Solaria mostly grew out of their interactions with Fati. Just about the only thing I knew about them before Fati was, of course, that I was going to have the two alicorns of the day become one, and that there would be conflict between the alicorns of the night.
Alicorns not written
I've emphasized several times already—perhaps too many times—how little I had decided on before going into this. It could have all turned out very differently.
I think the earliest notion I had of what was going to happen was simply that Fati would be upset over Solaria's genesis, she would go to Somni for support, they would argue and she would fall into depression. Eventually Fati would have cracked and Somni would have to stop her from crashing her moon into Equestria.
That paragraph probably sounds very strange to you.
As it happens, though, I continued on not knowing which of the two would be instigator of the ending for quite some time... almost up to the first incarnation of the very last few scenes. Fati doing it out of depression went out the window very quickly, of course—the alternate plan was, if I recall, to have her blinded by rage over what Solaria was doing to Somni, but that too no longer makes sense.
The story went through several iterations, but in the end, I like the one that I ended up with.
Gemini
If you know anything about Castor and Pollux (or take the time to read the Wikipedia article), you should immediately see a number of parallels with the story of this chapter—they're associated with horses, they 'carried off' Phoebe and Hilaeira, who themselves individually represent the full and new moon (according to a footnote) and, of course, one gives up his immortality for the other, whereupon they are immortalized as one in the stars as Gemini.
I am extremely pleased with how all of this worked out, because absolutely none of it is intentional.
Not a single word of it.
I probably should not have just admitted that.
TL;DR
It is my sincere hope that everyone likes this little aside, but that's probably wishful thinking. At the very least, I hope that most are able to get through it—it's not THAT long and it does have some very relevant information in it. If you absolutely could not read another sentence about these alicorn OC's, though, I'll recap the facts here:
* The alicorns of Light and Fire were lovers and became one, resulting in a single significantly larger alicorn, who was the sun
* The alicorns of Dream and Fate were not lovers, much to Dream's unending disappointment. They were each separate moons, one light, one dark.
* Drama happened, ultimately resulting in the collision of the two moons, the creation of the stars and one very sad alicorn of the sun who eventually just gives up on life because she is a bad pony.
* Unicorns, Pegasi and Earth Ponies did not exist until this point, which probably means that all pony magic comes from the stars they have inside themselves. Probably.
* ...some other stuff? I dunno, look, just read it. Moon croquet—it's not boring!
Next Chapter
They'll... leave the hole, I guess? Oh, right, Gemini. We'll see where that goes.
Oh shoot… After supper, I'll try to rush through this before the Dr. Who live stream.
*panicked noises*
2394733
"Rush through." Right
*looks at the 16k word count*
Good luck
I'm probably a bad person for not feeling sympathy for any of the alicorns and considering them all selfish and good riddance.
I didn't want to leave that in the comments of the story because I don't feel like being made out for all the filth of the world for having an unpopular opinion. This seems a safe place to leave my thoughts on the matter.
That being said, though I do not like any of the OC alicorns and am happy they're all gone, I do like the story itself. It's probably one of, if not the most, original creation stories I've seen here on the site. It was interesting and well done, reminding me a lot of the good fantasy mythos that exists out there in the world of literature. That's a compliment, really. I wish we had more creative mythos like yours on the site, or that my own was as creative as yours.
Well done.
2394822
I can appreciate that. In fact, I didn't touch on this in the author's notes, but... would you believe that was actually in some ways my goal in writing it?
The story is a tragedy and it's purpose is largely to reveal information about the past and divest Twilight of her naiveté in wanting "her" memories back, or thinking of herself at all as the same pony as either Somni or Fati. To that end, none of them are really, truly 'protagonist' material. Even Fati fails to cry for her sister in the moments before sacrificing herself.
So yes, I don't begrudge you that opinion at all. If you were engaged by the story (read: trainwreck) in spite of not really liking them, then I couldn't be happier.
If I've not said in a past comment, I'll say it here; what truly makes your story so amazing is the incredibly metaphysical journey Twilight is going through, plumbing space-time itself for answers to who she is and why she is. I try to visualize the things I read but with your story I can't because it boggles my mind the things Twilight experience, and that fascinates because it gives your story such a powerful sense of mysticism and wonder and keeps me reading to try and gain more understanding of such things.
In short;
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120228224010/mlp/images/e/ec/FANMADE_Twilight_Clapping.gif
I have one question after reading chapter 12 and the above notes.
Is Celestia a reborn Solaria, ala phoenix style rebirth?
2394751
Ha! Done!
2395287
And updated. Man, and I thought I had done well with the commas this time...
2395285
You could say that, in a way, Solaria burned herself out, yes. It's actually debatable how much of a different pony Celestia actually is, but then, they aren't entirely the same, metaphysically...
2394861
Thanks—I'm glad that you feel that incomprehensibility is a point in my favor
There was more? There was stuff you cut? Forget Twilight, I want more Fati.
2395348
Ahaha, no
What I "cut off" is now the beginning of the next chapter—Twilight fully returning, Luna's experiences in her absence, etc. not more of the flashback.
I do rather wonder what the world was like before the sun. Did they have skyglow or something?
...I probably ought to have asked this in the prereading comment, but I forgot. Sorry. (I'm not sure I really did enough to be given prereader credit, honestly.)
2395577
I wonder
I specifically left that unsaid in order to leave a little mystery, not just for the reader, but for Twilight. Also, it may be important later and I didn't want to burn any bridges.
That said... Luma was probably a giant rainbow ring around the planet
2395646
Neat. :)
Moon croquet.... i'm going to be spontaneously giggling a lot in the near future, thanks for that.
So since i'm tired and curious, did ponies experience their dreams, or did somni take care of that tedious work so they don't have to? And what happened exactly to the ponies when they don't dream? Or is this all implied alicorn mumbo jumbo that I shouldn't worry myself over?
>There were a few anonymous comments, so if I missed anyone let me know.
Those were me, I think. At least, I know that all of my suggestions/comments were left anonymously. There may have been others.
As far as your alicorn OCs, I started with a strong dislike for them (as ponies, not as characters, based on the representation of Utopia). And with what Solaria did to the ambassador, I...hate is too strong a word, but dislike isn't strong enough. But in the end I ended up feeling mostly pity for them. Especially Solaria. It was a good tragedy.
Hm, I found all of the Alicorn OC's sympathetic. It was actually quite easy to imagine what drove them to the point we saw in the story, and I really did feel for them and the outcome of their story. Well, it was tragic, which is not optimal, but in this case, it served the story and set up another very impressive piece of world building. The intriguing backstory you thought up for this story continues to amaze me.
I was a bit lukewarm about the last chapter, I have to admit, but this one reminded me why I love this story. It would be nice to see some kind of more direct connection between the four alicorns and the current three, like seeing some reincarnated thingy so they can all finally be happy, but that is just my love for dramatic, but ultimately happy romance talking.
A good chapter, we get a lot of lore and I have some sympathy for the old alicorns.
But on the end, you reap the harvest you have sown and they have made some bad decisions.
Ah, I should've read this sooner, lol. Despite how unintentionally confused this chapter left me in regards to a few things, the story about the past alicorns might honestly be one of my favorite parts of this story now. It's shed a lot of light on this world you're building, and what it showed and how it relates to the current-day characters is just so incredibly interesting. I wouldn't have minded reading more about them, if I didn't already know how it all ends for them. Fati was definitely my favorite of them, but that's probably because she was the main focus and most well characterized of the three.
If you do ever get the urge to write more from that time period, perhaps you might show Couscous's perspective, immediately after he leaves Utopia the first (and technically only) time, blind and freezing? It would give a neat look at how the dragons' empire worked, it's politics, how it deals with the weak, what it actually means to have the fire of life replaced with dragon fire (unique form of necromancy...?), etc.
This chapter actually gave me much the same feeling as the one I got from reading the Silmarillion: grand, glorious, awe-inspiring, emotionally impactful, nuanced, exciting, and just so very very sad. Well done, indeed.
That said, I'm probably going to have to mull over it for a day or two, then go back and re-read it once or thrice, then go back and re-read the whole dang thing for the 20-somethingth time, before I really grasp everything that happened.
In a Bizarro-world counterpoint to 2394861, I actually have a much easier time visualizing the endless and varied shenanigans of this universe than other, more mundane tales.
It's almost like you're drawing directly on the canvas of my brain, really...
Did the pun come first or the story? Because at the instant of reading, it felt a lot like the entire preceding work was an epic buildup to it.
Hmm, this chapter was really interesting (though I did skim some parts of it, sorry, I do that with flash-back stuff and as an author I know it's bad but sometimes I can't help myself with really long stuff), and seeing the way that things have both changed and stayed the same is really neat! I do look forwards to the eventual Twi/Luna relationship here because let's face it... she probably learned a LOT from some of those memories by accident. I'm also looking forwards to the fallout with Celestia about that... I have the sinking suspicion that Tia dear likes Twilight as a bit more then a student and that you included that bit in her dream to point towards that... all in all great chapter.
I enjoyed this chapter; thanks for writing it!
Regarding the new (old?) alicorns, you definitely succeeded in providing a new take on what the personalities and portfolios of alicorn deities would be. If I'm understanding the cosmology correctly, it isn't really possible to "fix" the problem (Solaria tried, unsuccessfully, and made an even bigger mess), so I'm curious as to where Twilight, Luna, and Celestia will go from here. I'm also curious as to who the fourth new alicorn will end up being, given that you've implied that reality wants to have four alicorn eigenstates (if Gemini isn't it).
Of more immediate concern, though, are the questions "did Twilight and Luna wander into the land of the dead?" and "if so, can they get out again?". I assume these will be touched on in Chapter 13. Either way, I look forward to reading it!
If Piers Anthony ever wrote another Incarnations of Immortality book, I firmly believe it would be about you as the Incarnation of World-Building. I cannot stress how much I love the whole backstory you've given not only twilight and the stars, but the world as a whole, and it actually bothered me a little that you would assume people wouldn't take it well just because of the alicorn ocs. OCs are only a bad thing if misused, and you've done nothing of the sort. I really hope you consider writing more to expand on this universe you've (probably unintentionally) created, because there's so much more you could do with this.
2395734
Ponies experienced the dreams, but it was Somni who did the actual dreaming for them. Ponies not receiving dreams would fail to achieve restful sleep, roughly analogous to not achieving R.E.M. Sleep in real life.
2396405
If my upvote graph is any indicator, you weren't alone. Strange, because there weren't many complaints, but I guess it wasn't too special either, being mostly fluff. Glad you liked this one more.
2397751
That could be interesting, I suppose... Of course, my first instinct would be to do something that includes Luma and Vita, but hooo boy. With how things turned out... it could not be their courtship.
2400045
The story definitely came first. In fact, the pun was originally later on, but I moved it to where it is now so that it would be included in this chapter.
2401601
Things should certainly get interesting
As for whether or not they're in the land of the dead... Well, I guess it depends on your point of view, really. It's not the land of the dead that Fati wanted to keep ponies out of, but inasmuch as it exists, it is sort of a repository for all the sparks of divinity for ponykind—a record of the dead, if you will. It's quite ironic, actually, that when a pony dies it's their divinity that stays behind.
2406032
It's not just the OCs, but the fact that the OCs were a deviation from the actual thread of the story. I'm not fond of flashbacks and dream sequences in general, and making the flashback about OCs only compounded the issue. Still, I'm glad you liked it so much. 
That's flattering, really
Honestly, I expected Solaria to fall apart much sooner than she did. Or am I mistaken in believing that she had both Luma and Vita in her head? Because having what pretty much amounts to three minds in one body cannot be healthy.
Also, you've managed to start a headcanon war in my brain. Congratulations.
2428894
She only had one set of thoughts, if that's what you mean—she just had Luma and Vita's memories
Also, I'll take that as a complement
Right. Still, with that "I'm in love with the two ponies I can never meet" thing, I can't help but wonder if that technically counts as narcissism.
And yes, it probably is a compliment. Currently, the empire of The Immortal Game has fallen to your superior world building, but is taking advantage of the two unknown alicorns for subterfuge. Meanwhile, The Steadfast Sky Confederacy is putting up a good fight, with a backup plan of integration. However, you do have the support of numerous other minor story-states, and, well...
Yeah, I have an overactive imagination.