Housecleaning · 8:39am Jun 20th, 2015
Over the years I've written lots of stories, as well as pieces of lots of stories. Some of these have been published, mountains more have not. It's no secret that I've let some things languish for far too long, and it's high time I made with peace with letting some of these concepts go and putting others into temporary storage.
Thus, below is the state of all stories marked "Incomplete"... that is, until I changed their status tags yesterday. Reasons and endings are given as well where applicable!
Climax Pegasus!
Cancelled
My first MLP crossover attempt, and one of my stories from when I originally started writing ponies. It's one I've always thought about in the back of my head, but it's just too obsolete now and I've lost interest in completing it. Crossovers, you see, take a lot of work to make work, and crossovers with MLP triply so, which is why everyone just writes Displaced/League stuff now instead. But Viewtiful Joe, despite its human protagonists, always just felt right crossing over with the series. Perhaps it's because said humans are more or less the size with said ponies. Ah well. Maybe one day.
For the two of you out there who still followed this thing and are at all interested in what would have happened... well, it would have been more fighting. Plans called for an Element-infused Six x Six Majin mecha battle, and all of the Mane Six getting VFX powers in a massive melee battle at the end, complete with a sentai-style rollcall beforehand. And now you see the story's biggest problem: while the stylish action would have been great, there was absolutely zero in the way of character development via seeing how one world's characters affect the other. If you're writing a crossover, that's important.
Mighty Rescue Mares!
Cancelled
The second crossover project, and it's a lot better than Climax, but that's not saying much. I touch on this more regarding another story further down, but comedy just isn't my strong suit. Even the stuff I think is hilarious while I'm writing it always comes out sounding forced as all get out.
This is a lot better in terms of the character development though. There's some gems in here I'm still proud of, namely the talk between Patty and Twilight at the end of Chapter 2.
The main reason this is getting the axe, though, is lack of motivation. This was the first time in a long time I'd put everything I could into a crossover, and no one came to look at the bloody thing. No, seriously, no one. I don't know how Brony_Fife puts up with this. Crossovers take more work for me than normal stories because I believe in doing them right. I make charts for these things sometimes. And while I ultimately believe one should write for writing... doing triple the work for an eighth of the audience just doesn't work out. Not with my limited schedule.
So yeah. Still love (most of) the story, but just can't get jazzed. I'm not even jazzed enough to reveal how it ends. It was boring anyway. Okay, no it wasn't. just disjointed. Fights, forgiveness, goodbyes, cut and print. Man, I hate feeling ashamed for having dumb, stupid fun while writing.
(Can't believe I wasted a Shax art request on this. I only get those once every leap year. 
)
Fireball!
Cancelled
I will never be able to come back to this. And it hurts.
Fireball! was devised when I was going through my fifteen minutes of fame in 2011 and the majority of the fandom audience was in tune with my brand of heartwarming enough to forgive my lack of skill. These days, though, my brand of writing is a niche, I'm pretty sure I have a soft-ban from EQD and when something of mine finds fandom critical acclaim it's usually by accident.
What I'm trying to say is that I had a much bigger smile on my face four years ago and boy howdy did it show here in ways it never will again. The concept of a speculative futurescape for MLP was a novel concept in 2011 and I naturally love what I came up with , but if I tried to revisit the concept now? Well, things have obviously gotten very complicated canonically and it'd be near-impossible for me to try. Le sigh. Maybe I could rebirth it as an AU.
Also, this was also my first real stab at comedy, which I've increasingly realized over the years is my biggest weakness. The reason for this is that I can't be funny on command. The closest thing I come to comedy is spouting sarcastic, sardonic one-liners regarding whatever situation is at hand, which inevitably offends someone and gets me in trouble and I have to quickly do damage control and you'd think I'd have learned better after decades of this but I can't get the hi-
Ahem. Yes. Feel free to view what might have been. I had a lot planned out for this; Diamond/Silver shipping, Scoots and Dash forced to team up and stop a runaway train, a touching flashback between the CMC at the point where Dash "betrayed" Scoots, Twilight and Trixie running up the top of Manehattan skyscrapers while flinging spells at each other, the return of Gilda... and oh yeah, some forgettable thing about two energetic pegasi who misunderstood each other resolving their differences and making up on a secluded cloud.
I swear all of these things were connected. Time travel might have been involved at one point. I don't know anymore. It was supposed to be my proof of concept of an "anime" treatment of FiM. THIS IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA FOR ANYTHING, REGARDLESS OF SERIES, AND YOU SHOULD NEVER DO IT. 
Polaris
Cancelled
I have a confession to make: As much as I think this story holds up, I really, really dislike it. Much like Generosity Travels, it was written while going through a bad time, but unlike Generosity Travels, I hadn't learned the value of vision and focus yet. So yes, Filly Twilight was on the verge of committing suicide and everyone talks about worthlessness and using sadness and anger as power and it's all sorts of nuts.
The worst part about this? If this story were written by anyone else, I would absolutely love it. It's not bad or anything, and contains the only time I've ever been able to put genuine care into writing Princess Luna. Once the show had canonized the dreamwalking gimmick I'd thought up for her here, I didn't really have anything else for her. But there's a lot of behind the scenes stupidity surrounding this story, and a lot of anger, and a lot of embarrassment, and I just can't look at it anymore with an objective eye. It's old anyway and nowhere nearly as well-written as my later stuff. So yeah, it's gone.
The over-half-written ending arc (consisting of three chapters entitled "Colors", "Generations", and "Unleashed") to this one was pretty ambitious--Twilight goes back through all the dreams she's had up to this point in the story, Devil May Cry 4-style, and makes peace with each one. The kicker is that she does so alongside the past and future versions of herself as presented in the fic (no princesses here--the future Twilight is an uber-high-level unicorn professor/mad magician, because... well, this was written a year before MMC and quite honestly I still vastly prefer my take to what we got anyway). With this trio in play, I managed some pretty heartwarming scenes! Shame they were impossible to catalog properly. What I'm trying to say is that pronouns killed Polaris, along with a lack of focus. However, in the end, the Twilights learn that sometimes things just happen and it's bad to beat yourself up about it. And then Twilight, no longer scared of herself, raises the sun. The end.
I could probably turn this into a way leaner, meaner fic if I wanted to. I don't want to.
P3 Unofficial: The Pony Playtime Project
Cancelled
This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever written on this site and I'm glad to see it die. 
Unison: Spectacles and Shades
On Hiatus
Hah! I bet you thought this fic was cancelled. So did I. I bet you were scared I was going to kill this after Episode 100. So was I! But no, Unison lives, albeit with a caveat.
I really want to finish this in one fell swoop--have for a year now! I really believe in this story and love it absolutely to bits. But I've done a LOT of growing as a writer since this started, and even since its latest chapter. What I want to do is go ahead and overhaul the whole thing and then finish it off. It'd be fun and awesome.
It would also be a lot of work, which I am just not ready to take on yet. I'm not in the best place in terms of time or motivation at all. I have to motivate myself just to do blog posts sometimes. It's that bad. 
When my life improves, then I will take on this task with gusto. Till then, however, I'm limited to easier projects.
Tiara Turnabout
Still Alive
A couple years ago, I took someone's criticism of this story way too hard and tried to bloat it in response, when what I really should have been doing was cutting even more. :D This story's still going to happen--it's a vital part of Project Northstar after all! I just need to reassemble the important pieces of it back into the story I want it to be. Which comes down that motivation thing again, as well as being able to write at a steady clip and non-awkwardly. Chromebook, I'm counting on you.
That about covers everything! And with my plate now clear, we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming. As usual, you can check out the third bar down on the right side of my profile page to see who and what I'm working on at the moment. 
Till next!
~B
Grarr, crossovers....
They can be challenging, for sure, although in part, I think it depends on the crossover in question.
For example, a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog crossovers suck because the author fixates on the idea that Sonic is fast and so is Rainbow Dash, completely disregarding the much more critical underlying concepts of friendship, teamwork, responsibility and duty (and light comedy) that are present throughout the series (I tried to capture this, but I have doubts as to my success since once again, everyone reading it seemed to hyperfocus on the superficial similarities between characters, and Shadow, for reasons I can't comprehend since as I have it written, Shadow is both not present in the story and also dead). This has the side-effect of causing people to think that StH and FiM are just bad ideas to crossover, when the reality is that they tend to just be written badly: Instead of Sonic Unleashed crossed with Friendship is Magic, we get Sonic '06 crossed with My Little Pony Tales. Feel free to hold onto that little nightmare as long as you like.
Actually, I think that's what usually happens with crossovers; the author hyperfocuses on superficial crap about both FiM and whatever the other source is, rather than on the actual underlying principles, and the end result is just a bunch of light and noise instead of an interesting story exploring either the complementing or antagonizing or even the juxtaposition of the themes in both sources.
Or you get an author that wants to get it right, and they get overwhelmed because it does require a strong understanding of both sources, specifically in how those sources complement or conflict with one another. This is why most Dragon Ball crossovers aren't very good, because they focus superficially on sweating, grunting men with monkey tails and three eyes yelling a lot, food, and Kamehameha, instead of focusing on the critical, underlying themes of friendship, duty, self-discovery, food, and Kamehameha. If you don't intend to actually incorporate those themes, then you're best of just going the Displaced route using your custom Xenoverse character in a chronicle detailing their arrival in Equestria, clash with the Princesses and sound defeat, culminating with their rise to power in Tartarus to eventually become the ruler of their own demon clan: Admittedly, that would probably be a much more interesting story that what we would ever actually get.
tl;dr Crossover pics are not actually that they; they are just usually written incompetently because the author only cares about showing how much better their chosen fandom is than FiM, or are written competently but never finished because the author overwhelms themselves trying to do a good job, also known as the "Too Much Love Will Kill You Effect."
*Looks at the list* Whelp! I have some groups to post...excuse me
I like unison so a overhaul of it sounds fun.
You mean... foot-in-mouth disease doesn't get better with age?
Though the reasons are good, it's a pity to see these put out to pasture. As I mentioned at Everfree, your mashups are of a type rarely seen in pony fiction, and they inspired me to try something along the same lines. (Remember that SunFlash story I promised? Well, imagine a hamster trying to learn to bark, wag its tail, and chase cars. That's Horse Voice, trying to mimic Bookish's style.
)
On the other hand, this is good because it means more time for Project Northstar stuff. We'll all look forward to it.
Ah, crossovers. I love crossovers. Or at least I love the concept of crossovers. I have a whole bunch of them lying around - MLP/Fourze, MLP/Ultima 4, MLP/Makai Kingdom, and some even sillier. Started, ideas sketched out, and then left to gather digital dust. Maybe maybe maybe continued if I can ever find the inspiration. But you need a solid red thread to make it a story, not just daydreaming about how cool it'd be to see Pinkie perform a rocket drill kick or picking Super Cool No 1 for Rainbow Dash's theme.
Housecleaning can be good, though. Get rid of the baggage so you can focus on something new. I'd say that the prospect of getting a new story from you, one that you're actually invested in and want to make something of, is worth losing those potentially good stories that you'd only feel driven to complete out of obligation. No regrets.
You scared me when you began with the "cancel" thing, and Unison had been tagged... So yeah, you tricked me xP Happy it's only on Hiatus.
Well, I'll admit, some of these...some of these hit pretty hard, even as I've been kind of expecting to hear this very news for some time now on just about all of them, given their relative inactivity. But, as I have always and always will say, these are your stories, so regardless of my own feelings, I'm ultimately glad you made the choice you felt was best for each one.
That said, my own thoughts on these stories, In Memoriam:
Climax Pegasus
Honestly? I never did manage to get that in to this one. Like, I read it, I enjoyed it, I love both FiM and Viewtiful Joe, and you wrote it with your usual exuberance and skill, but somehow...I dunno, it never quite grabbed me. For all that, I am kind of sad to see it definitively go, if only because it's such a perfect reminder of those Pioneer Days of FiM Fandom and fanfiction, when anything really felt possible. Which, I suppose, is also kind of the reason you're cancelling it. XD
Mighty Rescue Mares
And this one I just plain feel guilty about. I kept trying, over and over again, to give it is due, but every time something came up that either prevented me, or else forcibly pushed it back on my list of priorities, and now I have to wonder, if I had successfully gotten to it when I had the chance, if it might not have gotten the chance to finish it deserved (and yes, I know it deserves that even without having read it yet; it's a passion project of yours, that's kind of an automatic Seal of Quality in my eyes). For whatever it's worth, though, it did tip me off to “Switch Force”’s existence, and while I haven’t played those games yet (time and money being resources I struggle to budget out properly l3), I am a happier person for knowing they’re out there.
Fireball
OK, no way around it, this one stings. I still have a tremendous amount of affection and respect for what "Fireball" was trying to do, and how successful it ultimately was at doing so. I mean, you remember how I was back then; I wrote whole essays for each chapter because I was that in love. Part of that, I suppose, is as much about what the story represents as what it actually is; this was, after all, back when we were still more fully discovering the show (and the show was still more fully discovering itself, really), and so, much like with “Climax Pegasus”, there is an air of those days when the world of Equestria felt a bit wilder, a bit more exciting for what we didn’t yet know about it, to the story that is super-fun. But moreover, I just think you do such a wonderful job of making that vision of “Anime FiM” you describe here feel authentic, and compelling. So I’m really sad to see it go, perhaps the most of any of the stories listed here.
Polaris
This one also hurts, honestly, but I feel a bit more OK about it mostly because I knew how painful and difficult it was for you as a writing experience. So as much as I really liked this story, and as much as I admired its ambition and its insight, I feel almost happy that you can finally get that weight off your shoulders. I am going to miss this one, though. The story just had such strength of Character and Insight, and it led to some of what is, to my mind, some of your most daring, most impressive Prose and Dialogue.
P3 Unofficial
On the one hand? I know you hated this one from the start and wrote it more out of frustration than anything else. On the other? If this site is going to be dominated by Clop anyway, I would rather it be your kind of Clop, the kind that’s actually worth a Damn. Still, I’m not too broken up about it.
Unison
Thank. God. When I saw this was the only story tagged in your journal, and when I remembered your comments on “Slice of Life”, I was really scared this one was going to the grave. I’m only too happy to see otherwise.
Tiara Turnabout
And I’m happy to know this one hasn’t been forgotten, either. It’s simply too interesting and intriguing to let go of. <3
And with that, we close the book on some very important chapters in the Land of Bookish. I do have one question, though; my inclination is to still review the stories, even though they’re cancelled…but it actually occurs to me, at this point that might actually do more harm than good. Your opinion would be most appreciated here.
I'm going to fist admit that my netbook is a piece of crap because it kept deleting my post to this blog. This is like the fourth time I've tried replying. So let's hope that this post makes it through! Here goes!
First, I'm glad you're finally doing this. Cancelling a project is a massive undertaking, not to mention a huge blow to an author's ego. But letting go, I think, is an important part of creating something. There have been plenty of ideas that don't make it into my fics, and there are many fics I write that just never get published, and plenty of my projects are pretty much dead completely (F-Zero MLPX, we hardly knew ye). That's just life and we get over it the same way we get over relationships that don't work out.
And in regards to how I put up with my own unpopular crossovers, I just keep asking myself if this is something I wanna do. And I (nearly) always say yes, because I wanna have awesome fight scenes with Soma Cruz and Twilight taking down Balor, and Travis Touchdown learning to love ponies and friendship, and Pinkie Pie thinking she's a piece of bread. It just takes dedication to emphasizing a combination by themes.
...And for the record, I finally got past my writer's block for NoMoPo. You'll get to look at the next Shinobu chapter in a couple days.
3169455
I greatly appreciated this comment. Thank you for not giving up until you were able to submit it.
And cool! You'll know where I'll be. :D
3166624
Yeeeeeeeeeah, I know how you feel. Believe me, letting go of this stuff was hard. But I kept thinking about them for years while in denial and that's energy better spent on things I know I'll actually finish XD I'm really happy and flattered that you were pulling for them though. The concept of having dedicated fans is still kind of new to me. Hit me especially hard at this year's Everfree!
Which is my answer to your query as well! I have no problem with you reviewing the cancelled stuff, but it's going to stay cancelled! Maybe just backburner those and push up the stories that actually made it. (shrug)
3169526
a.) *hug*
b.) So Noted. I will indeed let that be my guiding principle re: Reviews for these stories, thank you. ^_^