Mega Super-long Pretentious Final Author's Note and Fic Overview Extravangza · 5:32am Jan 24th, 2015
Now here’s the final fic overview! (super late, like 2 months after the fic concluded, but it wouldn't be a blogpost of mine if it wasn't super late, right?) And it’s superrrrr long. Just a last blog of sorts tying up some of the loose ends or just general stuff about the writing process. I thought it'd be nice to share some of my thoughts throughout this silly little story of mine. I know you guys didn't exactly ask for this stuff, and it’s probably far too long, and somewhat pretentious over such a fic like this. Not exactly a masterpiece or anything that requires this long retrospective look. But if you’re at all interested, here it is!
Source: http://rocketmantan.deviantart.com/art/Canterlot-Wallpaper-289495328
I was originally going to use this as the fic's cover image, but I decided on a more traditional pic instead. But check out the artist's other stuff!
First, I thought I should go into a brief history of the fic.
The reason why this fic purposefully only goes up to the end of Season 3 is mostly because (if you can believe it), I was supposed to finish this story before Season 4 began. It was a summer project for me, if you would. I gave myself pretty much 2 weeks to finish it.
I actually got pretty far, getting up to the Crystal War stuff, and I thought I would have enough time to cover everything. But then, after the advice of an editor, I realized the story was a little dry. It seemed to be one of those history-retelling kind of books, just a massive info dump pretty much. Now, when I was in school, I loved reading those history textbooks, which was a driving force to why I decided to write the fic, but upon reflection at that point, none of my classmates really felt the same way. The editor advised that I take the initial revisionist history approach one step beyond, and go a little crazier with my theories. Make them more conspiracy-like, give the story some real bite. And I thought that was a neat idea, so I started exploring the idea.
And then I thought, what if I crank that idea up to eleven? Before, the fic was very academic-essay like, the way I wrote many of my own historical essays in school. But then I thought, what if I write an essay that blatantly ignores what a good essay should be? Leaps in logic, poor reasoning, and terrible referencing. And I thought the idea of making a “bad” essay was so entertaining, that I wanted to go for it. On the conspiracy theory front, I wanted to go one step beyond. Before, I had written the fic under the impression that all of it was true. But what if all of these world-changing conspiracies that were uncovered were not true? What if it was just clear the author was just absolutely insane? This idea was super interesting to me; a narrator that you can’t trust, retelling the history of Equestria. And at this point, I had a concept that I really wanted to go with.
I rewrote most of my stuff from the first draft, and Loose Change's character didn't really come out until late into the summer.
So I started reworking the fic. Once I had that idea in my head, I got to work immediately. Instead of the dry, historical essay I was previously writing, I would give the fic a more comedic edge, to let the reader laugh not only at the insane excuse of this retelling of Equestria’s history, but to laugh at the narrator herself.
I got up to Chapter 2, before I was stuck on the wording of a joke. (I’ll let you try to guess what that joke might’ve been) And it was only like a sentence, but I just couldn’t get the wording right, and it bothered me. It’s kinda embarrassing, I spent so much time trying to get that one joke correct and that one line stressed me out so much that I nearly just closed the book on the fic right then and there. But I’m glad I kept on going. Just a funny thing to note, one sentence almost caused this whole 120,000 word fic to come to a premature end.
And what an adventure it was. Writing this fic really has been an absolute blast, from start to finish.
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For a list of my personal favorite chapters (that stand out in my head at the moment);
I’d say Chapter 7 was one of the first memorable chapters to me when writing it. It felt like the theories were all over the place, and it sort of set the standard for what future chapters would be like when covering mass events.
Chapter 10 is still one of my favorites though. It’s just so different from all the rest of the chapters that came before it, and I loved writing the whole Elements of Harmony thing from the very get-go.
Chapter 15 and 19 were both also pretty great to write, going into supposedly dark territory with the falls of Sombra and Luna respectively, while still keeping that humor intact.
And of course, Chapter 20, 21, and 22, the whole Civil War saga. Among the longest to write, but they were such a different change in pace.
Especially Chapter 21, I felt that whole recollection was just a blast to write and re-read.
Chapter 27 is definitely also in the runnings for favorite chapter to write and read. I feel it’s really similar to Chapter 10, and maybe that’s why I liked it so much. It has a brief, somber moment near its introduction, which revealed a bit into Loose Change’s past and character more, before just devolving into the craziness. I was able to bring up some obscure things from the show, while get some worldbuilding in myself, and have it all stitched up by the fabric of Loose Change’s crazy.
Chapter 29 and 30 were both great too, in that I was glad I could pull off such crazy theories. And they had a good helping of jokes too, so that’s always good! And for the latter, I was able to close off that pegasi nationalism thing that was built up beforehand, whilst introducing the insane theory of Project CADENCE. And for the former, Elements of Harmony donuts. I bet you’ve never encountered these theories before, huh? But I’m glad that Loose Change was able to present in a way that made at least an inkling of sense, at least in her mind.
And Chapter 34 was fun for this reason too. Giant joints, the most literal approach to getting stoned. And that munchies + the bakers thing. I remember when I was creating that bakers theory, I remembered the thing with Pony Joe, which made me laugh even more. That poor guy just can’t catch a break, huh?
And Chapter 35 and 36 I thought were a good way to conclude the fic.
But of course, all the chapters are special to me in a lot of different ways! There’s a lot of work that goes into all of this, and I always make sure the chapters are the best they can be before going out! And in that sense, I’m proud of each one. It’s just that these ones stand out to me off the top of my head.
There really is a lot of love and care placed into this fic (as expected from a 120,000 word fic, in fact, I’d think every fanfic writer who writes long fics writes it out of love), and I hope that despite all of Loose Change's harsh words, that is able to shine through! Keep in mind I never agree with any point Loose Change makes in the novel. I'm perfectly fine with the Crystal Empire (though I do feel Sombra was an underwhelming villain), and Celestia's, despite all the flack she gets from Loose Change, is one of my favorite, though criminally underused, princesses!
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Anyways, when it came to planning the fic, a lot of the history outline stuff was created already. I seem to be one of those authors who doesn’t write off the seat of their pants, but try to plan things out a bit more. When writing the first, more serious version of the story, before I even started, I spent an entire night writing an outline. And I went all out with that, more than 4000 words. Of course, initially the story was to extend long past Celestia, covering Princess Twilight’s rule and her own successor, and had a lot of other stuff that it covered, but nonetheless. I had a basis for everything I wanted to cover in this fic before even going into it, which is why I was never too concerned about the history side of things. If I wanted to foreshadow something (usually foreshadowing as subtle as hitting you with a truck, with that trademark line “I’ll cover this more next time”), I’d know to go over it in a future chapter. And I think it’s because this history was planned out beforehand that I knew exactly what direction every chapter needed to take, so I’m very satisfied that I was able to cover everything I wanted to cover (and a little bit more, with those tidbits of Season 4 at the end there). I think it even works better just ending at Season 3, as so Loose Change is completely unaware of all the major events coming up. I always knew that Season 3 and covering Twilight's ascension would be the best way to close the fic, so that was always the end goal!
When it came to the jokes, that was more off the seat of my pants. Sometimes, I would think of a joke or an observation Loose Change would make beforehand for a specific section of history (another plus for planning the history out beforehand), and I’d write it down on my ipod to look at later. I remember for Chapter 27 in particular, when it came to some of the HYPER CONSPIRACY EX parts, I was having trouble sleeping one night, and then it all started coming to me. So I crawled out of bed and just started typing out the whole rough structure of it all, even though I was nowhere near writing Chapter 27. So in that sense, I guess some jokes rely heavily on some planning beforehand, but for the most part, it mostly came to me while writing the chapter. You really got to put yourself in that “Loose Change mindset” when writing, something that definitely helped the fic along.
And it’s really fun writing as a character, thinking what they would say, or what little comment they’d make. And it’s especially more fun when the character is an arrogant, illogical, racially-biased conspiracy theorist. But as I said, maybe it’s because I put myself through her mind that I couldn’t resist giving her a (semi-) happy ending at the end.
Of course, it’s not without its problems. As pointed out, sometimes I’d use certain jokes as a crutch one too many times, something I fully agree with. Sometimes when I was writing, I would think, “there hasn’t been a good joke here yet”, and I definitely relied on some of the “Celestia hate” or “clear racism” more times than they should’ve been used. And I fully acknowledge that criticism, and I’d like to think I tried to tone it down somewhat in the following chapters. Gotta let the theories speak for themselves.
I feel something that’s important when it comes to writing these sort of “detestable-at-an-extent” characters is that you have to give them some major flaw. But flaw as in, something that’s their own fault. Like nobody would want to read thousands of words of the ramblings of an actual crazy person (possibly like this very blog). But if they’re crazy, or they stick to some broken beliefs out of some flaw of theirs, maybe their sheer arrogance or warped world view, it kinda changes. Like Tomoko from the “It’s Not My Fault I’m Not Popular” manga/anime. Even from the title you can sorta see what her problem is. She is inept in the fact she refuses to change and see things how they truly are. She sticks to her thoughts that people are inferior, and her blinding hatred of other people. And it’s because of that that every mistake she makes, we know why it happens. And it’s this inability to change, or move on, that causes her to be stuck in this pattern. And I tried to do something similar for Loose Change. If she wasn’t so dang arrogant all the time, or listened to the words of others, maybe she could make something better for herself. But her inability to see the need/want to do so is what causes her to stumble all the time. I’d like to think it gives the character some more depth, makes them a little more sympathetic to the reader in a certain way. Like we all see the solution, but she has yet to make a change, and that’s why she falls time and time after again. Hopefully I was able to pull that off to some degree.
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Now I wasn't aware of the Diary of the Royal Sisters release; I usually try very hard to fit even the most supplementary material into the story's in-universe canon. But in this case, in such a revealing book, while I haven't read it yet, I'm sure it contradicts nearly everyone's own headcanons. To fit something like that in would require practically rewriting half of the story, which I'm not exactly seeking to do. But I do admit I try to fit everything in, so if Loose Change were to deal with such a thing in-story, I would expect her to react like this.
"The journal is a blatant fabrication made by Celestia to make herself seem more good and further distort historical truth. This 'journal' of hers is nothing by lies! Lies! LIES!!!"
So just imagine her saying that in the story and off ya go.
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I'm sure some of you noticed, but some of the meta jokes made in this story were not only made for comedy (which I hope they made you laugh), but also to cover my bases so to speak.
Like the Starswirl time travel running gag? It's because nobody knows how exactly Starswirl properly fits into everything, so this way he can be anywhere he needs to be.
The super unstable Griffon regime? Not only was this made as a sort of parallel to unstable countries and their revolving door leadership, but none of us really know what the name of the Griffon country is. So in keeping with Loose Change's apathy in her total hatred and disinterest in the Griffons, as well as the fact that its leadership is constantly changing, its ambiguous to fit in with the show if it ever chooses to cover the Griffon’s homeland.
Of course, these gags weren't made with this "covering my own ass" in mind, comedy does come first in my mind. These ideas were made initially just to parody the whole thing, the whole “what’s the deal with Starswirl” and the “we don’t know shit about the Griffons”. If it happens to act as placeholder for canon, then that’s just a jolly unintended side effect.
Some of the things in the story are also meant to poke fun at certain elements of the fanbase. Most notably, as pointed out, Loose Change's distate for Celestia. Of course, with Loose Change those things are turned up to 11. But nonetheless, it's always fun to parody the different sides of the fandom.
Though I know the story is anything but accurate (especially under the reins of Loose Change), I always do try to keep the "real" history of the story (the one whose tidbits can be seen in between the lines of Loose Change's ramblings) do fit in within canon. Of course, I do know that even this "actual" history could be destroyed at any time by any throwaway line in an episode, but nonetheless, at least up to Season 4, I think it stays pretty compliant.
And I do try to stay within the confines of the show. Some of the more darker/questionable parts of "real history" are toned back in an attempt to keep in line with the show. Of course, it's not all gonna be Y7 stuff, but I try to keep away from excessive violence or gore. Like the Luna's purges/beheadings of the military thing, I wrote it so that there was considerable doubt over whether or not it actually occurred (which it is strongly implied it didn't, especially as that would introduce a spew of things to Luna's character, even if she was supposed to be Nightmare Moon evil at the time. Gotta keep in mind that the show's villains are evil, but not EVILLL.) And with Sombra too, he had the cruel intentions, but he deliberately never got to go through with them, because that would make Equestria's history much darker than what I intended. Sure, some parts of Equestria's history are understandably dark, such as the Crystal War and the Civil War, but I try to toe the line. If you're trying to keep along with the show, you don't want to be go crossing that line whenever you want. (insert gag about horse syphilis here.)
So that's just my note on canon in this story. Of course, Loose Change's version of history is quite obviously not-canon, especially as it even goes to the effort of ignoring a lot of things from the show itself in the support of her theories, but nonetheless, I do try to make her theories at least plausible (given of course, it still is Loose Change after all) in the mind of an insane, conspiracy-theorist background pony. Her views come from her alcohol-addled mind and the fact that, as a background pony, she doesn't exactly know everything we know. So I try to make it so that even with this, you get some sort of understanding on how she operates. Her theories, while the result of many different shades of crazy, are also made because she doesn't have the full story. The information we know (eg. what really went down when the mane six were in the maze with Discord, the events behind Discord's reformation, etc.) wouldn't necessarily be public to all of Equestria, right?
And I do make it so that in a crazy world where Loose Change might actually be right, the theories do sorta work out. I think the clone army is definitely a shining example of this. In the "real history" of the story, it obviously isn't true. And in the context of the show's world, it obviously isn't true.
But to us viewers, knowing what we know from the show, you can see where that kinda theory comes from (mainly in that all the guards do look like clones). Same goes for some of the other theories; the Celestia's appearance by-the-window during the pilot, the questionable origins of Cadence, the baking competition/Royal Wedding; all these idiosyncrasies that we as viewers from the show know, but wouldn't normally fit in the fic's "real history", or the show's logic can be instead explained through Loose Change's logic. Things from the fic that work as an explanation for us, but in the context of the fic's real history and the show make absolutely no sense. And that's the sort of twist on things I really love to do in this fic.
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To close off this final overview, I'd just like to express my gratitude to everyone. I am absolutely thankful to the fandom. For introducing me to such a great show, to such great music, such great videos. This fic was made as a big thank you letter to the fanbase, and as a personal labor of love of the show. Are there more darker/questionable sides of the fanbase? Of course, but every fanbase has that too.
I am always gonna be thankful for everything you all helped me out with, and this fic is a representative of that. I know Loose Change's words make it seem like I'm not a fan of the show, but it's completely the opposite. She's an affectionate parody, and with all the work I put into making the theories and the fic itself, it would be hard to say I ever hated the show. I really do love it, and the magnificent fanbase.
There have been some difficult times, of course. When I thought, why am I putting so much work into this fic that probably not that many people will read? Well, the way I thought about it was that if one person was genuinely entertained, if one person had a genuine laugh out of the whole thing, then I accomplished exactly what I set out to do.
In my younger days, I would quit things all the time. Not exactly proud of it, but that's what I would do. But nowadays, I'm trying to pick those things back up. And especially for fanfiction, I'm sure most of you guys know that this is indeed, my very first fanfic. But when I was younger, I would always see fanfics that were left incomplete for the rest of time. I know things get in the way, and I know that things change of course, but I felt sad for the readers. They were invested in a story that'll never get a proper conclusion, and the author will never get to end the story like they wanted to. Both players walk out unsatisfied. That's why when I started this, I told myself, no matter how long it takes or how long it ends up being, I'm gonna finish this. Because even though I probably don't have the biggest fanbase or anything like that, if just one reader really liked my stuff, I, as an author, owe it to them to finish it. Not only that, but as I said, I also owe it to myself.
And to the story. To give it the end it deserves.
Do I wish the story had more views and likes? Sure. Do I wish the story was featured on fimfiction or EQD or something? Sure. But would I trade what I've got for any of that? No. This story may not be the most famous, with the more likes and favorites, or have that many views when it comes down to it, but in the end I really am grateful to everyone who enjoyed my story. All of my readers really are the greatest thing to me, and I wouldn't trade any of the support I got for anything. Do I wish I had more? Of course, who doesn't? But am I satisfied with what I've got? That is an undoubtable yes.
One of my biggest fears when writing this fic was that people wouldn't get it. I always feel the need to clarify that Loose Change's thoughts were different from my own, and that the whole fic is an affectionate parody and Loose Change is anything but legitimate.
But I do feel that most people knew what this fic was going for, and to that, I thank you guys! I feel like if I've learned something from writing this fic, it's to trust your audience more. I'm glad that most people were able to laugh alongside everything! That's really what the fic comes down to at the end of the day.
I'm probably giving myself a little too much credit here (can anyone else say "tooting my own horn" here?), but I am proud of my work. There's been some missteps, of course, because nothing's ever perfect, but I like to think I did the very best I could do for the fic, and gave all you guys a different way of thinking about Equestrian history. Hopefully it was entertaining and funny to boot as well! And most of all, I hope you had fun reading!
A wonderful view behind the scenes of a wonderful story. Thank you for your time!
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Thank you for taking the time to read it!
All I can say is thank you for taking us on the wild ride. It was definitely an experience.
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And thank you for your help! Your comments really helped me make sure the story was going down the right path!
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T'was a pleasure.