I'm gonna take a breather · 6:22am May 24th, 2015
^As if the last five months wasn't a big enough break.
Lost treasure of Griffonstone spoilers ahead
You can watch it here if you want to see it before reading ahead.
Anyhow, I came home from work and watched the episode I had been hyped to see for the first time in a while.
Well? I loved it for what it established. We finally get a homeland for the gryphons... er, griffons. Okay, there's no way in hell I'm spelling it like that. If I ever mention Griffonstone, I'll spell it as is, but a dank species gets a dank way of having their name spelled, and that only resides in my heart as 'gryphon'. Anyways, they get a homeland. They get a history too, which I thought was awesome because it follows the creatures' actual lore. They in fact are rather grabby creatures and will make all attempts to guard their possessions and treasures. It's a little disappointing that this makes them sort of assholes at heart without that artifact, but it's something interesting. I can kind of see there being an episode where it's either mentioned that they recovered the thing or they spend an episode looking for it some more to restore the society to its former glory. At the very least, a couple of fanfics delving into such a premise may come of it.~
Of course, what struck most important to me was bringing Gilda back. She's back! Oh, yes, she's back and she's... still kind of a jerk ._.
I'm glad they gave her a bit more character development and was truly happy they went down the redemption route, but she's still brash and quick to get up in someone's face over somewhat small offenses. I mean, yes, they demonstrated that she gradually moved out of such a mindset and pretty much within the same episode became a spectacular person that would likely bring the kingdom to something amazing again. I'm happy they made it work out in the end.
I guess I'm not happy because of what this means for the fic.
It's not that she doesn't live in Manehattan. It's not that she isn't part of a police force. It's that my story revolves around the premise that in 'Griffon the Brush Off', Gilda was merely having a shitty streak of luck the week she decided to visit Dash in Ponyville. It depicts her as an incredibly selfless person and due to an unfortunate turn of events that fucked with her mood quite heavily. She acted like a bully, as opposed to the show kind of pointing out she just is a bully... and I get it, there are tons of people saying that Pinkie was being intrusive or annoying during her visit, but still. Stealing, fucking with the elderly, and [apparently this awards you a death sentence according to the fandom] yelling at Fluttershy for simply bumping into her, is unacceptable. I can see what people are saying with Pinkie trying to hog the spotlight from Rainbow's attention and this caused Gilda to react the way she did to Pinkie. But it doesn't excuse her behavior beyond that in the episode... except in some instances with the party since Pinkie is involved once more.
Anyways: this means that the Gilda in my fic is out of character. Terribly so, in fact. Ironically, trying to make some back story basically absolving her of all her actions due to her mood, I've effectively made her incompatible with the true-to-show's version of her. Even though I put it in the description; this isn't really something where I can just go 'story isn't cannon with anything past season three', because it's not compatible with her character to begin with.
Now it just feels weird. I do like the way I've written her so far, don't get me wrong... the show just kind of confirmed that this isn't what she's like though. So I'm a little lost in how I should continue with the story. Turning her into a somewhat likeable bitch isn't an option since the story's premise is that she isn't usually like that. And continuing to portray her as some valiant person begging for forgiveness doesn't go along with her true character. I guess the most logical course of action is to just keep writing her the way I have already, especially since I'm not planning on flat out canning the fic due to this episode.
Would this be something that warrants an alternate universe tag then?
It seems like I would have to add it in even though I have everything else until the third season stay the same [The only reason I say the third is because of Twilight's kingdom not being mentioned in the fic and... I didn't really watch any of the fourth season, lol]. The only thing that warrants the tag is just the way Gilda acts to be honest. It isn't Gilda. It's an interpretation of her based off of the one episode she aired in instead of both.
I feel like I'm over thinking this, but it's really been messing with my head for the past few hours. I'm pretty sure the AU tag is only for major events in the show's timeline changing altogether as opposed to just one character's personality. It's a real head scratcher, to be honest. Maybe this is just how people are supposed to feel when their head-cannons are shattered, lol... part of me wants to just not care and go on, but another part wants to be accurate with the show. At the very least, I want to let people in on what kind of Gilda they're getting when seeing my story for the first time, so I guess the 'only compatible up until season three' thing is staying.
I'm gonna take a few days before getting started on the seventh chapter to try and collect my thoughts. The rest of the story's planned out all the way and I'm not planning on changing any major events due to the episode's release, this just kind of jolted me out of the story's vibe.
I really did like the episode though. Some reviewers were saying that the premise felt a bit rushed, which is understandable since they took it upon themselves to cram in an entire species' history, their society, and a redemption arc with Gilda all in one twenty-two minute block. On the plus side: they made an established species' history, their society, and a redemption arc with Gilda all in one twenty-two minute block. See how that works xD? I hope that this isn't the last we'll see of Griffonstone or Gilda any time soon and I'm very happy they didn't just decide to go the route of making them just unbearably horrible people which seems to be a rather popular notion around this site. Okay, they kind of were depicted as terrible and selfish creatures, but, aha! They have an excuse, AND promise of becoming not so mean in the future if that warm ending was anything to go by~
Other than that: What I'll probably do over this little break is take the time to watch every episode up until the newest one to get a better understanding of what's going on currently in the show. Like I mentioned before, I actually skipped most of the fourth season and only caught like half of the third, and virtually none of the fifth besides this episode.
I also made a promise to do a little one shot involving Spike and Pinkie to one mister Rdobet, so I'll likely upload that before the next chapter to Gilda's Redemption.
Thank you if you read through this much rambling. Have a great day.
May 24, 2015
Hey yoshi; I was curious if you were gonna continue chapter 7? Stumbled across your Gilda's Redemption story when it was uploaded to a group. Read all six chapters and was disheartened when it stopped before Fluttershy finally gets her hands on that gryphon flank
3692241 Welp, what I feared most is actually happening: people actually care about the story's continuation D:
I answered a similar question in the fic's comment section, but I can reply here directly too.
I'm rewriting the first six chapters and have only gotten through patching up the first unfortunately.After I finished the sixth on that day the Griffonstone episode aired, it made me realize that I had to change the way I portrayed Gilda in the fic... which also made me keenly examine exactly what my fic had been up to that point. At first, the ironic fourth-wall breaking narration was hilarious to me, but looking back at it after a couple of years, it's cringey as all hell. There's tons of stuff that doesn't need to be in the fic that just racks up words o the counter and (I imagine) makes readers want to skim it so they can get to the sexy parts.
To answer you specifically, I do plan on finishing this fic. I mean, I've got to. I can't just say I'm gonna end it all with a multiple routes of Gilda x Shy banging and then not delve into that. The only issue is that I'm not currently working on the next chapter, I'm working on all of the current chapters so I don't mess something up. It's better that I rewrite the bulk of the fic instead of having to rewrite it to conform to one specific point in the story. The changes won't be ludicrous and most of the events will remain the same, especially chapter 5 because, while it had no sex, I feel it's the most well written one. The only major changes are going to be the size of it (chapters will be way less words and there might even be only five chapters if I can trim it down enough), Gilda's dialogue (maybe some of her actions/reactions to things), and a couple of other trivial things.
As for a when: I've got no idea. If you've looked at the release dates of each chapter, you know how slow I can be. And I know it's been a year since the last update, but I'm just... lazy as hell lol ._.
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I honestly didn't mind the wordy bit. I'll admit, there IS a lot of fat that can be trimmed off to make the story leaner. A fair bit of world building and some of the interactions and stuff that, while interesting, don't really seem to move the meat of the story along. But, then again, it's predominantly a story about themes of sex and rekindling relationships, so there isn't THAT much to complain about in regard to pacing. This isn't George R. R. Martin taking 80 pages to do what was 3 minutes of dialogue in the TV adaptation. I also didn't mind the different viewpoint on Gilda than canon. Slap an Alt Universe tag on there and it's fine. Just because it's not canon didn't make her a unsympathetic or uninteresting character. There ARE fics that pull off bitchy Gilda well and still make her relate able, but they are admittedly few and far between.
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Well, I do, so it's gonna change a bit xD In fairness, I'm only going to get rid of the world building stuff that isn't relevant beyond Gilda's point of view. I can explain that she's squaddies with Eos and Mist, but I don't really need to delve any further into Mist's bedroom activities or anything. I haven't figured it all out just yet and I probably won't until I actually get to that point in the fic when its up for rewrites. I do know a couple of sex scenes I'm going either going to replace with different activities or omit altogether.
This thought struck me a bit later in the fic's creation, as I realize it's the right way of thinking. As of the second chapter, I wanted this story to be something it wasn't: describing how this particular version of anthro-equestria works. It can be delved into in other fics I'll make that aren't so heavy handed on the sex. All in all, trivial things like gushing over firearms, in depth descriptions of Manehattan, and the EPOW need to go. Graned, I'm not canning the ideas completely, but it will be toned down heavily. It artificially increased the length of a fic that's just supposed to be about Gilda becoming friends with the gang again. In hindsight, I think I was just too focused on trying to explain what she'd been doing with her time after 'that fateful day'.
I mean, I rewatched the Griffonstone episode a few times and came to the conclusion that she's an alright person at heart. It just takes some reaching to get through to her. In the show's instance, it was reminding her of the better times she had with Dash in flight school and sticking it to the people that fucked with her. In my instance, she just wanted Dash's companionship back since it'd been so long and she gave it some serious thought. I guess the Alternate Universe tag would still apply though since she didn't go back to Griffonstone, she went to Manehattan.
What I plan on doing is just rewriting her dialogue so she's not so quick to cry over stuff. Looking back, for as tough as I made her, making her bawl over it was a stupid way of writing her character. The first couple of texts will probably just be the generic "I gave it some thought dweeb and I... guess I was wrong, you're not that lame and I wanted to see if we could talk". The conversation would continue the way it does already with RD not wanting to give her another chance, and she'll gradually run into a pleading phase.
It's not to say I thought of her character as pathetic when I wrote her originally, I just feel it's better to make her more closely resemble the show's version. Cause in all honesty, why would I use Gilda and not some random gryphon OC I made up if I don't make her act like Gilda :P It sort'a defeats the purpose. Like when people age up the CMC, it's a huge stalemate for their character, as they either have to act like adult versions of themselves (which tends to be nothing like we've seen them), or they have to act like their show's counterpart, which makes them seem like they aren't actually eighteen or older.
All in all, this fic needs to be revised heavily, and I'd much rather rewrite it before moving on, despite it inevitably taking forever. I can't guarantee a release date because I'd always manage to fail to offer it by then, but it's happening.
Also I think if any more people ask me about an update, I'm just gonna make a blog post and tag it in the description lol :/
*Edited due to mass amounts of typos