Degrees of Exhaustion · 8:20am Jan 29th, 2017
That image does not even begin to describe my mental state right now.
From Monday to Thursday, I did a full day of work, got home around 6ish, watched a Babylon 5 with my wife during dinner and then went to work on Gardens of Equestria. This week, I did more things than I want to admit. But I’ll mention a few of them…
-Redesigned a script system for GoE to prevent companions from the Fallout: New Vegas main game from entering GoE areas, to make sure the story remained consistent and to prevent balance issues with game mechanics. That sounds easy. It’s not. It took me four hours of straight non-stop work after untold hours before to finally put that one to bed.
-Spent 12 hours working on game balance, trying to figure out ways that any character, be they Level 1 or Level 50, can walk into GoE areas and start playing the game.
-Redesigned the method in which the boss appears so players can enjoy the full glory of his presence (and run screaming).
-Created brand new LOD data for the entire Wasteland of New Vegas. Including new billboards, train tracks, buildings, lights, roads and a thousand other things.
-Created a new book for players to use for medicinal purposes, including specialized logos and icons for use in-game.
-Integrated [REDACTED] into the game instead of stimpaks.
But wait! There’s more!
I started to realize that this little side story of mine Sunlit Field Ops is actually going to be a lot bigger than I anticipated. I’ve also been paying attention to the stories that tend to be the most popular here on FimFiction and decided maybe I should write what the people and ponies want.
So, I’ve started to experiment with short stories. The first one I did, just shy of my 3,000 word limit, isn’t all that great. However, my second one that I’m about halfway through? That I’m very happy with so far.
I’m not sure if the first will ever see the light of day, but the second you’ll definitely see. Both are set during the Origins Arc of the Wavelengths Timeline. One happens about two years after Grading on a Bell Curve, while the other one happens right in between How Not To Use Your Royal Prerogative and The Application of Unified Harmony Magics.
But the best part is it doesn’t matter at all. These stories, while set in the Wavelengths Timeline, are completely independant of the story. Yes, they involve Sunset, but they involve her in ways that are completely accessible.
So get excited.
Oh yeah. Speaking of stories…
Bards of the Badlands will have two chapters this week. One on Monday at 10AM and the second on Tuesday at 10AM. I’m moving to a twice-a-week release schedule. I may have already said this. I don’t remember. Probably. Yeah, I’m that out of it.
(By the way, the picture above was what I originally wanted to use for my cover of Bards of the Badlands, but sadly, the artist never replied, so instead I got an epic Hydra instead!)
Let’s see… oh yeah!
Sunlight Sliders just had an incredibly kickass entry by none other but the legendary Oroboro! I am so freaking psyched over his chapter. Seriously, I’m still geeking out about it. It was amazing. It still is amazing. He actually made Twilight Sparkle an allomancer! A FREAKING ALLOMANCER!
Yes, I may be an enormous Brandon Sanderson fan.
The squee could have been heard on the freaking moon! Oh, it was simply magnificent. Seriously, this guy knows how to write. If you haven’t been reading this, you’ve been missing out.
Um… yeah… what was I saying?
I have no idea.
I’m going to do one game of Overwatch and collapse into bed.
Cheers and I’ll see you on Monday for Bards!
-NI
Wat. I need to catch up on that, very badly.
Now there's an epic crossover. Imagine Sunset with a Shardblade. It would... like, cut Cutie Marks or something. Or maybe that would fit Starlight better? I'm totally doing this some time.
Also duaaahh that picture of Twilight carrying Sunset is the most adorable thing ever. Thank you so much for that~
Wait do you play Overwatch on PC?
Which season of B5 by the way? And yay for faster release schedule!.
I love those picture dumps. Adorable Sunlight
I am also a Brandon Sanderson fan, and the references were small, but delightful in that section.
A Mistborn/MLP crossover would be a neat read, although the universes don't quite merge smoothly. Discord as Ruin isn't really compatible, as Ruin is more destruction/decay and Discord is more randomness/chaos, but the Tree and/or the Elements as Preservation does work out.
Celestia would probably be the Lord Ruler, and maybe something about a thousand year prophecy, Nightmare Moon will return. Except, once the power of the Elements was used to purify Luna, Discord escapes because the power was not used to rebind him in his prison.
How would magic work in this? Only the Metallic Arts, or a hybrid of MLP magic and Allomancy? Perhaps only levitation for unicorns, flight for pegasi, and strength for earth ponies?
Sunset as Kelsier? Groomed to take the power to reseal Discord, but was disillusioned by Celestia's madness and her quest to keep Discord from noticing his power was being taken away?
Speaking of which, what is atium's equivalent in this 'verse? discium? Allows much more powerful chaotic magic for a brief time?
TL;DR My thoughts on a MLP/Mistborn Crossover
Massive spoilers if you haven't read the series, but if you haven't go read it. Seriously it is awesome.
Welp. I was intending to wait until the end to read it all at once... But...
4401077 Hm... I'll admit I've only read the Stormlight Archives once, while I'm on my third or fourth readthrough of the Mistborn series. (Stormlight is freaking huge). Yes, it would fit Starlight better. DO IT.
And yes... yes it is.
4401086 I only play on PC, but I do so only occasionally. Very occasionally. WoW is more my speed, though in truth, I usually play single-player.
4401098 Just finished Rising Star in Season 4 and watched In The Beginning this evening with Painted. I used to try and watch the series once a year, but because of my injury, I can't do long stretches of TV, so it's turned out to be once every two years or so. I learned how to tell stories from this show. I learned the Noble Sacrifice, the Relatable Villian and so many other tricks of the trade.
4401105 Never a bad idea to end a blog on cute ponies.
4401235 Considering how Sanderson is the master of very structured and logical magical systems and the magic of MLP tends to be extremely fluid, getting the two to play nice would be a hard task indeed. I know it would require a great deal of thought to make it work. And depending on your view, atium wouldn't even matter, considering its source. I don't think anything based directly on chaos magic would work simply.
(Honestly, this is such an in-depth brainstorm, I just don't have the bandwidth to process it all right now! So you should do it.
)
4401359
4402226 You know, I thought that too for a while, but after playing with it it turns out pony is actually insanely conducive to Cosmere-style rules-and-tools magic. It's presently at a very nice balance presently of knowing exactly what to expect when you do something (pegasi can walk on clouds, very simple concept) and magic being an unknown that blows up in your face or causes adventure when you mess with it. Teasing out and focusing on the rule-sided aspect isn't too hard, because everything you need is already there.
First off, you definitely need to work with a point-of-divergence AU (like Wavelengths), since pony magic is very much an open canvas and you don't want to lay down rules that the show would stomp on later. I'm using post-S5 myself, because I get to work with Starlight and Sci-Twi, but Starlight's spells in Every Little Thing She Does are really annoying to reinterpret, or even copy the style of.
From there, you merely have to focus on that sense of "I can use X to accomplish Y." For the most part, it's already there- unicorns do telekinesis, pegasi do flight/cloudwalking, and with a few weird exceptions the strengths and limits of that are fairly well defined. There are a lot of individual variations on magic as well, things only one pony seems to be able to do- separate everything into Species magic and Cutie Mark magic, and everything works out surprisingly well. All you have to do then is add more (practical) rules. Magitek is an exceptionally good way to handle this, whether it be manacircuits, rune scrolls, or enchanted amulets, because nobody cares how it works in the first place, just that it does. School or adventure settings work well too, as does introducing lesser-used species.
Of course, you can add a massive underlying cosmology to that if you want to. Pony history isn't ultra-coherent, but it's not contradictory to the point where you can't make something of it, and when it's all legends anyway, liberal reinterpretation is more than on the table. But it doesn't need it. The only thing it needs to work like Cosmere magic is the X does Y feel, and pony is already most of the way there.
...None of that means you can seamlessly slide an actual Cosmere magic system into pony and have it work in all cases, no questions asked. It's just how to make it feel like one.
4402273 ...I reserve the right to steal ideas from this brainstorm. Just sayin'.
4420107 Do it. Pone needs more magic/science-oriented stories!
4420110 Hmmm... considering the potential I saw in Mare Who Once Lives On The Moon, yeah, that sounds like fun. I'd like to take things even further than that story, but if I do it, I'll need to work it into Wavelengths, because Wavelengths must continue!
...though I have taken to doing short stories now.
./ideas