In Search of Greener Akers: A Year-3 Retrospective · 4:42am Dec 12th, 2014
Technically, my 3-year FimFiction anniversary isn't for a few more days, but since I'm always depressed then (my 12/15 anniversary follows the 12/14 anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook), I decided to write this up while I still had the motivation.
First, a few words on the late, great Mortal Kombat: Equestria, which was laid to rest last week:
Yes, it's a niche fic.
Yes, the first few chapters are hard to read without cringing.
Yes, it contains a bunch of references that are more dated than Taylor Swift.
Yes, it made some poor EQD pre-reader's eyes bleed. (My bad!)
But unlike Mark Antony, I'm here to praise MKE, not to bury it. For one thing, it's the only story I have that could be considered popular (2800 views, whoo!). It's one of only two stories I have that made it to the feature box. It's the only story I have that got tweeted. It's the only story I have that's inspired other stories. Heck, it's the only story that's inspired people to send me death threats!
Most importantly, it's the story that inspired me to just keep going. Without MKE, Apple Bloom never finds Greased Lightning, Silver Fox never swindles the good citizens of Ponyville, and the true story of Cassiopeia is never told. Without MKE, the world is never introduced to Beatrice, Zebediah, Shing Tsung, or Lucky the Diamond Dog. Without MKE, I'm just some schlub sitting in a windowless basement listening to Brad Paisley and writing OC-cast Total Drama fanfics.* (I'm still that schlub, of course, but I finally have a window!)
So thank you, MKE. It's been a wild and crazy ride, but I'm glad I was tall enough to get on.
Next, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Grounded, which also took its final bows this year. Unlike MKE (where one day I randomly said "Hey! I'll bet nobody's crossed those two before!"), Grounded arose from the ashes of bitter rejection: After stewing for a few days over EQD's rebuke of MKE, I decided that if they didn't think my story was worthy of their site, then darnit, I was going to write one that was!** While this is usually a recipe for disaster, the story actually turned out all right, especially as a first attempt at a 'kinda-sorta-serious' fic.
Though it's always existed in the shadow of MKE, it has its own legacy, mostly in its influence on Three Days In The Cooler (looking back, Zebediah and Greased Lightning sound awfully similar to me...). As Year 3 of the Akers reign concludes, Greasy, TJ, and the CMCs deserve a celebratory toast of their own.
Finally, this brings us to the third major development from this year: Three Days! Yes, I wrote PonyConned this year too, but Three Days drew some critical praise from PresentPerfect, which was probably the highlight of the entire year decade.
But enough looking back—it's time to look forward! As Year 4 dawns, I find myself without an incomplete story hanging over my head for the first time ever. It's a nice change, but it begs the question: What fills the void?
First, some goals:
-6000 total story views by this time next year!
-At least two—no, three new stories! (I mentioned a few ideas in my previous blog post.)
-Since I'm feeling ambitious today...I shall get another story posted on EQD!
-The hardest one of all: Break free from verbosity, and write a complete story in under 3,000 words!
Will these goals bring me unfettered glory and adulation?‡ Hey, there's only one way to find out. Year 3 of the Akers Experience was pretty good, but Year 4 has the potential to be even better!
Finally, I owe a big thank you to everyone who's ever read, liked, disliked, reviewed, edited, commented on, or thought about my collection of stories (or blog posts, for that matter). It wouldn't be half as much fun to write this stuff if no one was there to read it.
Here's to another year of horsewords!
~GA
*As part of President Obama's recent executive order, this TD fic, along with the longform Pokemon fic that preceded it, are barred from ever seeing the light of day.
**Ironically, I never did get around to submitting Grounded to EQD. I decided that a completed story had a better shot of acceptance, so I sent Cassie instead. I'm still looking for that first official EQD publishing, but both LLOD and Three Days have been posted there as part of special events.
‡I'd settle for fettered glory and adulation, whatever that means.
