On TSC and such... · 2:53pm Apr 14th, 2017
Hello everyone! Still editing the new chapter of TSC, don't worry, it will be up soonish. In the meantime, as I had mentioned in a previous blog, I sometimes like discussing stories while I work on them... fair warning: I get rambly.
So I've gotten into a couple of discussions through the years on what makes (or not) The Sweetie Chronicles unique...
Here's my take on it: I've never seen anything like it done before or after in all my years online and writing/reading.
TSC is of course a crossover, which is not unusual, however it mixes it up with stories from other authors, not other series. Again, this is not something that is absolutely unique... I haven't really read any, but I am aware of authors crossing over their stories from time to time.
I think what makes TSC truly unique is that it's not just 1 crossover or 2, or even simply multiple crossovers or a mass collaboration of writers... it's an ongoing online novel that uses other worlds for its metaplot to continue to its resolution and does it by working together with the authors of those specific worlds to further delve into their works, add, expose or explore things they couldn't really do in their original story for whatever reason and help my main character, Sweetie, grow and move forward. Whether TSC becomes canonical to their story is up to the original author of that world, but all worlds are canonical to TSC.
In this sense, it sort of stands apart from other collaborations: It's not a general round robin or anthology with an author-per-chapter, or something like the MLP Time Loops which have a uniting theme, but really no direction other than what the individual authors of each section wants to take it.
TSC has me working on every chapter with every author (for the most part), moving the story where it needs to go with the added benefit of their flair and skills... and I'll be honest, I've learned a lot from all of the authors I've worked with. I don't apply it all the time, but I learned it.
This is why each chapter/mini-arc is so important to get with the author, understand their work and select it carefully: from it's birth, the story has relied on what different perspectives, events, characters and challenges Sweetie faces from the minds of different individuals. This might be especially obvious in chapters to come.
Readers might look back on the stories selected and wonder: why? Why this one and not that one? Everything is about Sweetie's growth toward facing the big bad at the end, resolving her quest and spoiler after that. Each world I chose tries to build on the blocks of the previous and teach her lessons that will help her face what's coming:
Mares and Magic grows her skills a little and provides her with tools that will help her in the future, most notably her Notebook and the shield spell, but it also pushes the bit that not all things will be the same.
Nightmares Don't Last Forever further drives the differences home: She's not going to be the same age, she's not always going to know familiar faces, she's won't know who is a friend and who is an enemy right off the bat... and she learns some darkness spells.
The Light Never Goes Out is her first encounter with ponies moving forward after a loss, and also the first real direction she gets on what she needs to do to move forward.
On A Cross and Arrow, besides being a fun rump with gender-bent issues, provides her with some useful wardrobe and a Chekhov's Gun. It builds a little on her self-esteem as well.
Pink Eyes is Sweetie's wake-up call, the first time that she realizes stuff is not going to be easy. It's also the first time she finds herself in a grown-up body... something that I loved because of the contrast it created there with her mentality, vs later chapters when she's matured and grown and is still in a filly's body.
The Best Night Ever is, to put it simply, Sweetie's education. She learns languages, to think more carefully... she's manipulated, she's bullied, she bullies, she learns hard lessons about herself, the ponies she looks up to and how even friends can be driven hard by their situation into madness. She finds her emotional release—with Octavia's tutelage. She's trained unknowingly in skills that will save her later; her BBBFF gets her classes to learn to duel and defend herself... and then I drop her into:
The Immortal Game... not my best chapter, but the lessons and growth and challenges there were as intended. Things are (further) not just black and white. Two opposing groups at war have good ponies in the middle. Ponies you love can make you suffer.
A Heart Of Change is oddly a very appropriate name for what's going on with Sweetie's inner turmoil: she needed a Crusader moment, not only a reminder that each world is different, but the reminder of that camaraderie, love, respect and support... but it couldn't be their younger selves... she had been away too long and was more mature than any of the Crusaders so far, especially back at home. She needed a more mature, if still adventurous and foolhardy group of friends and that's what she got.
Now, Backwards Through the Mirror was Sweetie's first big change. Literally. Not only was she forced to become basically a different species and faced something very emotionally draining on any level, but she lost control, remembered the suppressed memories from her training with Chrysalis and had to deal with that, gained maddening extra powers that she doesn't understand, on top of what had happened in the Immortal Game, and a very real change that reached deep within her, scarring her soul and mind... she hasn't gotten over it, and I don't know if she ever will or should.
Mendacity is a natural progression from there. When all she has is a horrifying experience with her new nature, she is now in a place and time to learn from someone that is very similar. The strangeness and threatening danger of the fae world in BTtM is different here... there is a definite, sublime beauty to it, even if there is still danger. It's ephemeral; inviting and enveloping. While the scars remain, she starts learning that her nature is not defining her as a monster... but she still needs a bit of a push.
This Platinum Crown was just what she needed. BBBFF was there to see her in her new form (unintentionally) and to poke fun at her with puns about the whole thing, all the while reminding her that who she's growing into is what defines her, not what she looks like or what weird powers she now has. Of course this is put to the test with the Bitaly chapters, where nature vs appearance vs morals vs survival all come into play...
And now we're here with Mente Materia. What do you guys think she's going to learn here? Hint: It's not shooting guns. And where will she go next? What are your thoughts on this? And have you noticed these things while reading?
How to break Line Of Sight?
That Meld is always a trap?
That a 95% chance to hit is not a 100% chance to hit?
If she doesn't at least learn how to break LOS then she's taking the wrong lessons away from her time with XCOM.
Spoiler: It's actually how to deal with Post-Traumatic Sweetie Disorder
did you just… did you just positively review your own story
wanderer pls
That half cover is no cover? That RNGESUS is a fickle and cruel god? :P
4496093 Possibly. Wasn't trying to, but hey, someone had to. No one ever reviews TSC.
Yeah, I noticed some of those things while reading, but I'm sure I've forgotten more than half with the slow pace of updates. I'm not complaining, just stating a fact since you asked. Still planning on rereading everything to refresh my memory.
As for my thoughts on the format, I think the unique qualities of this story are a reflection and result of the size of the FIM:Fiction community, the above average quality of writing that can be found here, and the greater occurrence of friendly and cooperative personalities due to the message of the show it's all based on. With all the challenges inherent in this type of story, I don't think most writers would even consider trying. The fact that you've gotten so far in writing this is a testament to the spirit that drew me into this fandom in the first place.
I don't really notice stuff like this. I need it shoved in my face to actually see it and I thank you for doing so. It also refreshed my memories of the entire story as I was reading through it, which was a treat in itself.
My thought is that what she will learn here is that no matter were you go you will almost always see someone that is going through similar things as you. It may not seem like at first, but theirs always someone who you can talk to and share your thoughts with. She also gets a translation crystal just in case another world has a different language from English/Equestion. This is all coming from someone who's read the XCOM/MLP fic like 2 weeks ago. You forced me to read it!
I thank you for giving me another story to stop me from doing my school work!
Y'know, I would be really honored if I got into a crossover with you, but I have no idea when I will ever get around to working on my own fanfiction. Something that she could learn from The Pale Alicorn universe is that some virtues must be sacrificed for other ones, or that even the worst villains can have a righteous motivation.
This probably isn't the place to say it, but where does Young Amazons fit in your schedule?
4496448 It really isn't, and I honestly appreciate your love for the story but come on, man.
4496482 Sorry!
You know I'm working on something similar to this, guy going through multiple universes and what not. Difference being, his risk/reward is much much higher and everything he's ever cared for is on the line. He may or may not run into TSC Sweetie Belle, I don't know yet, and even if I want him to meet her, I need your permission.
And a lot of people's permission.
Oh geez.
Sorry, what about shooting guns was she going to learn? Is it shooting big guns, or small guns? Perhaps guns mounted on ships? Perhaps guns mounted on guns?
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I definitely noticed that each world delivered a new stage in the growth of sweetie. No world seemed to ever just be there because you liked a story or a friend begged for a cross over. The level of planning that was required to locate a proper fic that could facilitate the next needed part of sweetie's story and then to collaborate with that author to write it is a task i think few people have the time, insight or dedication to accomplish. As a result TSC is unique in all works I've ever read.
TSC was one of the first stories i ran across when i joined fimfiction and it has introduced me to so many wonderful worlds. But i always wait patently for the next time i see an update for poor sweetie. Because i am certain that while she had suffered to grow from the nieve student she began at she is still not through the worst. And she then needs to come back to herself after the worst. It will be heart wrenching. It will be over many other great world. It will be one of the best works I've ever read.
4496134 Given that it's Long War XCOM in Stardust, then "Why yes, your pointblank hit DID do a single point of damage. DR is a bitch and RNGesus hates you. By the way, you're still pointblank on that alien. It's their move"
TSC is one of my fafourite stories in this site I have red it MANY times and I can't get enought. Contignue the good work.
My only complaint is that there isn't more of it.
I have noticed these things and that's exactly why this story STILL manages to cling to the 2nd place on my Top Favourites list despite the rock-hard competition, beating out epic sagas such as Fallout: Equestria Project Horizons, The Immortal Game and the Project: Sunflower series. It well an truly deserves that place on my list.
I'd love to see some "Through the Well of Pirene" next. The theme of change on that story would be a perfect fit.
I'm kind of hoping this is where she gets it reinforced to her that it's wrong that her violence is becoming normal, but that it might be necessary. She needs to realize that this is a Bad Thing, but also understand that it's probably necessary, and I think those are both realisations that she's missing right now. I don't think she's properly grasped the changes happening to her, and this is one that even complete strangers(like the doctor) can notice all on their own, and it'll give her something to think about and it'll give her some much needed moral growth, because while she's grown intellectually, the last time we saw her grow from a moral standpoint was with the bullying, and, in my mind, TSC is fundamentally about self-improvement and change.
I'm thinking of re-reading this now. I'm just sad Backwards Through The Mirror died, I was really enjoying it. That's one of the downsides of TSC- there's a couple places where the stories are just dead, and re-reading it reminds you of that, and that makes you sad.
Actually, this post got me thinking these last weeks and I realized something curious. All these stories sweetie travels to force her to grow, or provide a reprieve from her suffering and journey. But while we see that growth and change we saw almost nothing of her origin, her starting world.
Twilight took her as a student.
Her parents were dead.
Rarity is searching for her using zebra magic.
That's about it. While rarity may come up more later what this realization really drove home was how much TSC is about the journey. We don't see the start or end, only the path taken.
Doing that when you can't build sweetie's path from whole cloth is what makes TSC so different as a project from my view. While you certainly craft a story that explores deeper into other stories with the original author, and that shapes sweetie, it is done so wonderfully imperfectly. These are not the lessons she would have learned in her world (or a story made from scratch), nor how those lessons would have been learned should they have arisen in her home story (instead of in other's).
These worlds were not built for her story and yet they are where her story must unfold. Like stacking pregenerated campaigns from different settings the character would seem out of place normally. Yet what TSC does is to smooth the edges and make all those disparate creations merge seamlessly. You take what to most writers would result in a clunky mess and turn it into a fluid tale of growth and triumph of will.
By lacking that start world it helps in accepting that sweetie's real world is the meta world created across all these authors ' stories. We aren't tied to any notions of what should be for her and so can more readily accept all the events that occur in her journey as being the correct events and not out of place.
The Minecraft Story Mode game made by Tell-Tale Games is about as close to TSC as anything. The Order of the Stone simply has slightly more control over their travels.
4518047 I don't see how they are related, given that TSC is about writing in "new" worlds alongside the creators of said worlds. Not just about jumping...
4518063 As I said, "about as close as anything."
Besides, two of the worlds they jump into were based on popular Minecraft Adventure maps, or certain ideas that people had used in Minecraft itself. For example, the computer-controlled world. There was a map at one point where the "entire world" was controlled by a command-block computer, and you actually had to play a game of Spleef against some zombies in order to beat it. Also, there's the Murder Mysteries RP server, which does in fact include a mansion full of traps and secret passages that can be randomly rearranged, though it doesn't look like the White Pumpkin's mansion aesthetically.
All in all, yes, TSC is definitely an original in the fact that it's a recursive curve-ball fanfic, and the only thing that even plays in the same ballpark is a game made specifically to pay homage to Minecraft fans and all the contraptions they've designed over the years.
If they ever come out with more Minecraft Story Mode, I'd want them to have a CTM map, like one of Hypixel's or something. It'd be fun using a Battlesign, mwahahaha