The Ending of the Story · 9:37pm Feb 26th, 2016
I first want to say thank you for reading the story. I'm happy that you gave it a try and you've spent some of your time invested in the story. I also know that it can be frustrating to have a story end when it feels like it gets going, I really do.
But, and this is a huge but.
This story is one of many that I craft, and given that I have my attention divided among many stories, I cannot spend all my time on it and neglect the others. My goal was to be able to 'finish' stories without having to drag them out for a year or so.
Here's what I propose. Since many of you were disappointed with how I left it, I've decided to continue with it and end it in another arc. However, because of the tonal change (of which I was quite aware of), I will add and change some tags and it will take some time to plan out and flesh out the next arc. So have some tea, read some books, get back to this fic when it's done cooking.
That said... you can read about my full thought process about the story, of the ending and... delightful comments.
Begin rant/wall of text.
About the ending and Twilight:
The ending is open ended. We don't know if the crystal housing the microverse has been destroyed. Also future-Twilight being a jerk is non-disputable. She is, and was always, supposed to be an unlikable character. She's pretty much Discord in the way she interacts with her inhabitants. She's corrupted by her views on time, her own God complex and the way she always seems to have everything in her grasp. I wanted her 'reformation' as it were to be left undecided, I thought that leaving the ending there would actually make people draw parallels between the two. Had she gone far? What were the distinct moral implications of how future-Twilight's actions differed from Discord? How does that all map out? I wanted the story to leave you reeling and wanting more, but also to step back and think about why this Twilight was so different. What hints I left in the story to suggest why she was now walking down this path, and if she did, what happened to the other Princesses such that they no longer are able to guide her back. People screaming she OOC don't understand the concept of a character. A character can still have the same physical template, but can be changed mentally by circumstantial differences. That's not OOC.
On comments that pointed out that it was a cop-out:
Please note that it is hurtful to the story and myself to say that I ended it there because I was lazy, or because I lost interest, or because the characters in it were 'not the way I want them to be'. These are not valid reasons for me to continue a story, even if they, especially for the first two, were true. Look, I don't want to come across as arrogant, but boy if you've seen me and my writing I am anything but lazy. I'm one of the most active writers on the site and my publishing throughput is not insignificant. It takes up a lot of my time and effort. I write on the bus, I write on the train, I write standing up, sitting down, during breaks and when I get home. Seriously, that's the only time I have, everything else is consumed by work to keep a roof over my head and studies which I have to attend to, not to mention volunteering and charity work for the community. I try really hard to craft an engaging and active story. I do this because I want us both to enjoy the product. To say it has faults is understandable, to say I'm lazy actually hurts.
On building towards a resolution:
That said, I'm not above my flaws, or making amendments, but please, please, consider that authors are real people too, and have their own reasons for making their decisions. We're not these aloof beings that play God in our stories and on the site, don't expect us not to be hurt by a raging comment you leave as you smash the dislike button in disgust. I've explained my reasoning for this. It was always planned to have less than ten chapters. In fact it would have actually ended quite a bit earlier, back in the 'absurdist' stage of the fic. Beyond that is (and was) unchartered waters. To begin a course through them, I'd have to map it out, meet and create new characters, build another universe and resolve it. The reason why I thought I might leave it as an open ending was not because I couldn't be bothered and said 'here you do it', it was because I was worried that it would take too much lag time between the chapters in a fic I promised would be updated regularly until it was finished. I can't do that, not without a true cop out in quality.
End rant/wall of text.
Somewhat ironically, I think that would have been a much better place to put the ending. The problem with what you did with this one is that, unintentionally so or not, you were building the story up towards having this final confrontation between Twilight and... well, Twilight. At this point, it would have been the natural climax and resolution to the story, except it ended up never having it. You could have left open what happens to the pocket universe after that, but without having that story climax, it just feels unfinished. That's really the one misstep about this. So long as that is resolved, there's really not much left to say.
Anyone saying you're lazy is quite obviously wrong.
I didn't see the parallel with discord , but now you've pointed it out it's fun to see. If anything thinking about it just makes me think you should have had just one extra chapter where future twilight comes to the same conclusion discord did through twilight and her friends. Would have given it this nice circular thing going on.
She has practically infinite time and power to shape the world how she wants , and her "friends" show her a better way. nice ending everyone learns something , discord is right from the half way point without even possibly realizing it.
Ah, but do you write while on the toilet. That is the true test.
Also, with a fox,
in a box>
Would you?
Could you?
With a mouse?
In a house?
I for my part just want to thank you for this wonderful and interesting story. I'm looking forward for next chapters but if you need time to plan and write, just take it. Don't rush and stress yourself. I really would hate to see loosing the fun writing this story or stories in general.
Which story is this, exactly? I skipped over the content of the blogpost, for fear of spoilers. It sounds interesting enough, so I'd like to add it the trusty ol' Read Later list.
There will always be butthurt people.
While I am happy that you'll actually add another arc to the story, it makes me feel sad how many people don't understand that not all stories have a neatly explained decisive ending.
Oh well.
I get what you are saying about wanting to write short stories.
If that is your goal then you need to plan the plot line out accordingly.
The way you wrote this story makes it feel like a much larger story just getting started.
We are not telling you how to write your stories.
We are letting you know how it feels and why.
As far as future Twilight being OOC...She is at the end.
Don't miss understand.
I am not saying future Twilight was OOC in the story in general. I completely understood the playful almost Discord like thing you were going for as well as why she was accidentally stepping over the line during the pranking.
I am talking about at the end when Twilight decides to murder an entire universe because she had a bad day.
That is OOC to how you have thus far written future Twilight.
Now may be in your head canon you have future Twilight a bit more unstable than was written so far, and possibly much more morally ambiguous.
The problem is that we do not see any of that throughout the story. Instead we see an older Twilight trying to have fun with her younger self, and doing a bad job of it. However she still trys to show she cares by giving personalized gifts as an apology for her actions.
If you wanted to show a more morally ambiguous Twilight then it should have been shown at least few chapters before the final chapter.
As it stands Twilight's decision seems to come out of nowhere, and leaves the reader wondering if they read the wrong chapter.
Again, we are not trying to attack you or tell you how to write your story.
We are simply giving you feed back on your story.
I hope I did not offend you.
My concern was only that microverse Twi & co were seemingly dumped in the main verse just be left there. In my opinion, a proper open ending could have been Twilight going to freeze the microverse, but meeting 6 mares and 1 baby dragon on the way.
After, it's up to you as author to decide how it goes and ends.
Note: Rant, Opinion and or backseat driving commencing
Okay so...
Im actually "okay" with your ending not my preference, because no one can please everyone.
I can agree that the story needs to end, because it was just a simple visit from "drunk" Princess Twilight. If you want to broaden your AU of future Twilight make another fic for some people who want more of the background and history of Princess Twilight.
However i do felt wanting more of the story, not because of i was waiting for some grand world you had.
Because i thought you were building up to something, like a confrontation/conversation between the Twilights. You could be just making them argue then Princess twilight sending them back into the microverse then freezing them or obliterating them, i dont care much (now because its with a dark tag) it still felt finished.
Also people saying you're being lazy or copping out (is that a word?) is because the last chapter was separated with the second last chapter, making the short amount of text felt you just said "fuck it". Some people "expected" you to have the same amount of text on those chapter, even if it was titled epilogue it didnt felt like an epilogue, because in my understanding she terminated the microverse the same time as Twilight trying to cast the spell, its more like different Princess Twilight point of view not an epilogue.
An epilogue to me should be either Twilight apparently stuck in between rift still hoping her spell would work, or the same as your epilogue but it has been a couple of hundred years and she wanted to feel "young" or whatever reason she want to go back again, dont say if you killed the universe or not, just say maybe she want to try it again meaning did she destroy it and can make more, restarted it, or met twilight and their universe still going on (if the latter you still need a conversation though). HOWEVER what would i know im just one of the lurkers who apparently had time to waste and wanted my voice to be heard. Anyway favoriting your story now cause i hate seeing that red bar getting larger and you're story deserves.
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Okay, thanks for your feedback and for giving your opinion. There are problems with my writing, how I envisioned it and a sort of rift between what I wanted to do with the story and how I execute it. It's true that I was building towards a climax and it should have been resolved. After a huge debate with myself, I've decided to do it kind of two ways.
1. I will write a proper resolution for the first arc, such that in doing so it will wrap things up neatly in a resolutive bow.
2. I will outline a plan for another arc, but I won't act on it unless there's interest for it to continue. I'll be honest, the whole thing is less appealing when I saw it drown in changed votes. Being a writer doesn't mean I'm not human and seeing that was a little painful.
I think my one issue with the ending as-is is : The microverse is painted as containing life. Like, Twilight doesn't say 'Hey, these are just fake ponies' in any way.
And then she's going and wiping it out. I mean, she's killing everyone there. It's...y'know, way worse than anything Discord did, committing mass genocide and all that.
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Most of the time, I'd agree and it's usually me telling people that, but while there are ways to do this well, this one kind of came at the worst possible of times. It's like ending Lord of the Rings with a "now imagine the rest" cue card just as Frodo is walking up the slope of Mount Doom. A story needs to have some things about its core plotline resolved, otherwise it's just not a complete story.
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Personally, I don't really think it needs a second arc. Except for this, everything important has really been said and I don't really know where else you could take the story with this - what's really left to do except to either make them have adventures in Realworldia(TM) or to go back and do what they always do, just with the added knowledge of "well, I guess this is a pocket universe created by Godlike Sparkle?" tacked onto it? The thought is appreciated, though.
I've been thinking a bit about your story, and I think the backlash you got (well, duh) came from a building of expectations and about how this things work generally on FimFiction. As far as I remember this kind of endings happened before in other literary genres and people always raged about them.
As for my personal take on this, I'm a bit unsatisfied and would probably have preferred a few more hints about how you thought it would go. Probably a couple of sentences more than what you have published. But if you became bored or uninterested in the story, well, that was a quite good reason to stop. And endings are bloody hard.
So, nice story, interesting concept, fun reading and weak ending. Thank you for having written it anyway, I appreciated it a lot despite my complaining
I'm just a little confused.
I'm not mad, it's just you pulled the rug while I was looking for a conclusion.
Still, don't stress yourself.