Kept you waiting, huh? · 10:28pm Jan 11th, 2016
Greetings fellow tiny horse marathoners! King of Beggars here with the breathless and sweaty news!
I’ve been gone a few months, but I haven’t been idle… well I mostly haven’t been idle. I’ve been a little bit idle… Anyway! The final FOUR chapters of TwiGuard are now out and ready for disappointment! This batch release clocks in at around 45k words and completes the second arc of the story! Hooray!
Now I’d like to say a few things about the development of the story as well as announcing my next project. If you haven’t read the new chapters yet, go do that now, and if you want to, go ahead and mosey on back here when you’re done for whatever rambling nonsense I’m about to spew out.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay. How about that ending, huh? It was inspired by my friend Magello, the guy who does most of my cover art. He said his only regret for the story so far was that Celestia wasn’t the one that spoiled the engagement surprise. Halfway through writing the epilogue, I decided that this would be a fun way to spring Cadance’s surprise on Twilight.
Now, just to get something out there. Originally I had planned for Rising to take me approximately 3 months. I envisioned it as a series of short vignettes – basically, Rising was going to be a bunch of side stories – with even heavier time skips than I ended up having. I just wanted to several key events that would lead up to arc 3, which I imagined would take about 7-8 months to complete. In fact, I’d been shooting for a December finale to wrapup the whole story. When I started planning things out in my head, everything I wanted to do would take place in arc 3, and arc 2 was going to mostly be the slice of life stuff getting us there. I didn’t even have a plot worked out aside from “I want Chrysalis dead.”
Hell, even the ending of this arc, where they go to the Empire, was going to be the OPENING of arc 3. That’s why I called it “The Rising”. Because it was leading up to the event and the end of these side stories would be published simultaneously with arc 3 “Twilight Sparkle of the Crystal Empire.” At chapter 3, though, when I sat down to actually kill Chrysalis, the story ballooned into three damn chapters. At that point it was a lost cause, this idea of this being a side story arc.
Now, I seriously hope you did go read first, because now I want to talk about Ammit, so no joke, stop reading this very second if you didn’t finish the story.
Ammit was the character that orchestrated the sealing of Anubis, so of course he’s an important character. Because of this, I really, really grappled with whether or not I wanted to kill him at the end of this arc. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to have it go down until Twi, Spitfire, and Ammit were already mixing it up. I’ve even been thinking of several different scenarios for how arc 3 might go, depending on how things turned out. I even thought of a scenario in which Twilight was forced to reluctantly team up with Ammit, to Spitfire’s unhappy protests.
But, things happened as they happened.
Those of you wondering what happened to Laughing Bison, don’t worry, I haven’t forgot about him. He originally was going to have a scene at the finale that would foreshadow arc 3, but after the cake joke. I felt that it would spoil the ending to add anything else. Instead, Laughing Bison will be getting his own full chapter at the beginning of arc 3, which will probably be chapter 2 or something. Honestly, I do so much of my writing by the seat of my pants, who knows how he’ll end up back in the story? It’ll happen though, full Laughing Bison chapter with lots of fun side characters, so don’t worry about it.
I’d gotten some complaints that Shining Armor was kind of a weenie, but honestly I never saw it that way. The few times where his adventures have crossed with Twilight’s to this point were parts where he wasn’t at his best for one reason or another. The guy is a complicated character in this timeline, and he’ll naturally navigate some situations better than others. It’s just how the dice fell for him as far as the story went. I hope that his appearance in the Empire fight showed a better side of him.
For character development stuff.
Spitfire wasn’t originally going to be in the story, but I thought it might be fun to add her as Sky Chaser’s long-estranged daughter. I certainly didn’t expect her to become such a huge part of the story. She was just a ton of fun to write and because of her personality she kind of muscled her way into the main cast.
Basenji was also a lot of fun to write this arc, especially for a character that wasn’t going to rejoin the main storyline until arc 3 in my original plotline. The two chapters set in Zebrica really let me explore the backstory I had thought up for him back in arc 1, and even let me add some interesting side characters. In fact, speaking of that, let’s talk about Laughing Bison.
LB, in my original plotting, was going to be the engineer that ran the train that took Cadance and Twilight to the Empire – the two of them alone, mind you, because Spitfire wasn’t part of the cast, and Basenji wasn’t going to return until arc 3. After the story ballooned, I decided it might be fun to have him be a crazy old minotaur inventor that Basenji befriends. His airship would have been what Basenji used to get to Equestria, and Laughing Bison would have gotten mixed up in the whole mess after that. In actual practice, well, you can see how off the rails my planning can get sometimes. Oh, and as for his name. I used to play a lot of Final Fantasy XI, so I looked through the Galka NPC list and found Laughing Bison. Other possible names: Iron Eater, Deadly Spider (for laughs), Red Ghost, Crazy Wolf, and Ghost Talker (this was the front runner).
Okay, I could keep going on, but I’ll just wrap things up now.
TwiGuard 3 will happen in a few months, but for right now I need a break from it considering it’s the only thing I’ve seriously worked on for nearly a full year. I actually have been planning my next project for months, and it’s something I’m really, really excited for. It’s an AU story starring a Sunset Shimmer that fully turned her back on Equestria and delved into the mystical arts available in the human world. I won’t say any more than that, but I think fans of TwiGuard will enjoy what I’ve got cooking.
The project doesn’t have a title yet, but I’ve already got some stuff written, so hopefully the first couple of chapters will get batch-released soon. I really hope you’ll check it out. I’m going to finish that up even if it’s not as successful as TwiGuard ended up being, because it’s a story I’m real excited to tell, but if you’re a fan of TwiGuard checking it out is in your best interest! Why? Because if the story does well, I’ll be more motivated to work on it, which means chapters will be done quicker, which means I’ll finish it faster, and I’ll get back to TwiGuard sooner!
Anyway. I said as much in my notes on the epilogue, but I want to thank you all for reading the story with my most sincere, heartfelt thanks. I really hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll come back for more. Have a great week.
Please be excited!
*Sees a lot of chapter*
f.ptcdn.info/464/038/000/nzlp8r1gxB5bStCpUCJ-o.jpg
I loved the way you portrayed Spitfire in this story, and loved the story as well. The TwiGuard stories you have are my favorite AU stories on the site.
Can't wait to see your next project.
Oh boy, a new update, something to read before bed!
...
...something to read in the morning!
And really, its a nice sold ending.
3680587 It will be a glorious start to in morning.
Amazing work as always, can't wait for the third arc of this wonderful story
. And you bet that genius brain of yours that I'm reading that little sunset simmer project you're cooking once it's released.
I'm really into that Sunset idea, pretty much every fic I've seen makes her end up back in Equestria somehow. I think it is a really cool idea to explore the magics of the more 'mundane' EQG world.
Noooooooooo!
Chrysalis is like waifu number 4 or something.
Hmmmm, I too like Sunset Shimmer so I must keep an eye on things. If I remember that is.
Characters will do what they want to do. You can resist bringing them along, you can even deny them, but when you listen to what they want (especially Spitfire), they can take you to unexpected places that even you didn't know you wanted to go to! I think including Spitfire and Basenji was definitely the right call. A bigger cast (than two) gives both better options and more interactions.
I'm excited for the next installment and I hope it might include a trip into the land of the dead (nudge-nudge (because then, you can totally have Ammit return as a bad guy)). You'll just have to see where the story takes you, and we'll just have to wait excitedly for it!
I loved this story!
I don't want to imagine what this story would be like without Spitfire, she adds a good... Everything to this story.
Also I'm really curious about what was on her mind at the end of the story there... I got the feeling that she did not want to leave...
OH maybe she will offer to help train Twilights new guard and stay! Well I would like that.
I will try to wait for the next part... But I'll check out your new story for now ( when you post it that is)
Hope to read more soon!
Spitfire and Basenji play off of each other really well together comedically, so I'm glad you included them. Looking forward to your next project!
You know, a couple months ago if someone had asked me whether I thought this story or the one it inspired Crystal Heart Solid: Twin Crysis, would finish first, I would have answered Crysis.
Well, I'm off to finish the rest of Twiguard, hopefully I'll get a chance to see the rest of the spin-off series soon, too.
The idea for this other project does sound intriguing. Do you have any estimate for how long it will end up being (word-wise, that is)?
3686544
No clue. It ends when it ends. I'm shooting for about three months. Maybe four.
Took me longer to set aside the reading time for it than I thought but it was definitely worth it.
Weird. He felt a lot more competent and less ineffectual than canon, to me. Nothing against the guy, but we're introduced to him as a mind-controlled puppet and he usually plays support in his later appearances.
That does sound exciting.