Author's Commentary: Reaction Chapter 4 · 8:19pm Oct 19th, 2017
You know, to be honest, I'm not really all that motivated to keep doing this right now. Ideally, I would keep at this and complete this Author's Commentary for Reaction and then Critical Mass, while I write other stories and plan for the next story in this series. Of course, ideally, I wouldn't feel overwhelmed and I'd be able to concentrate on writing. And ideal doesn't describe how I feel right now.
These commentaries do take up quite a bit of time. I enjoy it, but it can get a bit tedious. I'm tempted to put this Author's Commentary on hiatus so that I can focus on other important things. But, I also know that if I do that, I might never come back to it. To make things worse, I kind of feel like this is a prerequisite to continuing the series after Critical Mass.
On that topic, I might be making progress on the story's plot. I'm not sure, and I'm not convinced... It's basically what I already know I'm going to be doing. I need to start going to bed earlier. Oh, and I've been roleplaying on the EQD (equestriadaily) Nightly Discussions. You should be able to find me easily.
Well. I'm starting to turn this into an update, which isn't my intention. So, without further ado...
Typical warnings about potential spoilers and repeated information goes here. You have been warned.
The chapter starts out with Twilight waking up. This is kind of typical in this series. It's a great way to start things, right? Also, Twilight, I'm pretty sure most of us here wish Rainbow Dash was with us when we woke up. You're not alone there...
Raise your hand if you've had a dream with ponies in it! I have had several. The first dream I had with ponies was a long time ago. It was very strange. It had swimming in it, penguins, icebergs, and pegasi colonies. I don't watch documentaries, so I have no idea what exactly caused that.
Twilight, if you cannot tell, is overwhelmed.
I really want to write this series out and have it span a lifetime. I really, really do. And, to be honest, that is a part of my plan, or at least something I really want to do. To write this series out, to show Twilight and Rainbow tackling life, all the ups and downs. One of the ideas I had mulled over was for the last story in this series to take place over one hundred and fifty years, with each chapter being a small story of its own. An example is the chapters taking place in a year, then two years, then five years, then ten years, fifteen years, twenty-five years, and so on. You'd see them change and grow, you'd see how everything else changes and grows. The two Chekov's guns could be addressed quite well in this style of story. As much as I like that idea, I want more than just that. So that's part of my current struggle. How do I rectify what I need with what I want... I'm not just going to skip Twilight's wing and horn growing back, but I don't know what the story should be around that. And just focusing on that wouldn't work. I'm working on it, though.
She pushed herself up and walked over to the mirror and looked at the mare staring back at her. Her mane was painfully short and a ragged mess, despite having grown out a little since the surgery. Her tail looked better than her mane, but only just. It was still a mess, she could see strands that were tangled together that would be nearly impossible to get out without her magic, to say nothing of the overall state of her tail's disarray. Her pink and purple highlights were mixed in with the rest of her indigo tail, and she couldn't easily identify either, save for at the base of her tail. She sighed, knowing she definitely needed to brush it, but not knowing how. With her wings folded, it was harder to tell just how bad of a shape they were in and hid a lot of the disorder, but she could still tell. The white bandage that replaced her horn was wrong, it made the mare staring back at her nearly unrecognizable. She swallowed and instinctively tried to remove the bandage with her magic. She stood there for a few seconds before lifting her hoof and pulling the bandage off and looking at her forehead.
Does this paint a picture of the state Twilight is in? When I go back and read it, I think I did a good job and that I've shown Twilight in bad shape. That said, as I have said before, I don't experience it the same way you guys do.
Preening. I kind of want to see this happen in the show. Maybe just in the background. Or, perhaps have somepony walk in on Twilight while she's preening. That could be fun and funny.
Well, Twilight kind of knows how to preen without magic, but it isn't very effective. You know, I'm not sure if I've actually planned for Twilight to learn to preen her own wings or not. She can preen Rainbow's wings decently, if I remember, but she can't preen herself. Rainbow does preen Twilight's wings. I might just leave it like that- them preening each other. It could be cute, and it adds a little something to the story, since they'd be taking care of each other.
Once again, Twilight kind of has anger issues. That's something I've noticed in this story. It's not very boldly displayed, but they're short. I think it makes sense, but the possible implications of it could be terrifying. She might be bottling it up, and she could explode. I think I've said it before, but I had almost included Twilight spiting the changelings in the end of Critical Mass as a result of her anger issues. Anger really isn't her main struggle, of course. It's also worth noting that this issue, at least from what I can remember, is only displayed when she's alone. She's not lashed out at her friends, for which I give her bonus points.
Reaction really needs the slice of life tag, doesn't it? But the thing is, I'm not sure. I think it does because of what seems to be a lot of slice of life in it, but... I really can't tell.
The scene with Twilight bathing makes me immediately think of the scene towards the end of Critical Mass when Rainbow is helping Twilight shower. And I feel a calm peace about this for some reason.
For a while, I felt really awkward about writing these scenes. An example was that when Rainbow was showering before, I wanted to include her moaning, but I couldn't bring myself to do that because I was afraid of potential reactions and things. For this scene, the implication which goes unsaid is Twilight pulling her tail up in between her legs to lay it on her body so she can clean her tail more easily. I really didn't want to include that for a couple of reasons.
Maybe I need to keep working on this series and just focus it down until Twilight fully recovers. I struggle with depression, so, maybe writing Twilight getting out of depression would help me. Plus, since it would be getting happier, it should affect me and make my life feel better. Right? Well, I'd like to do that. But I have so much else to do right now. I'm trying to write some one-shots. It's... very slow going.
Ah, reading this... There are so many possibilities for the future. So many variables, so much potential in this series...
I'm finding it hard to focus right now. Several distractions are affecting me. The biggest one is trying to figure out the next story in this series.
You know, I find myself thinking about the fact that Starlight is more or less trying to give Twilight dating advice. And so I'm left just... not sure about it. And the advice, from a logical standpoint, seems decent. I don't have experience with this sort of thing... It's just a bit shocking (the subtle sort of shock) that Starlight would be both the one giving the advice, and giving what might be okay advice, considering her past.
Speaking of that subject, for whatever reason, I wonder if I'll ever have Luna and Celestia get together with anypony in this series. And now I'm thinking of the series which partially sort of inspired Reaction. My train of thought right now has no tracks.
I'm going from thinking about Starlight giving dating advice, to Luna's incapability of helping Twilight with matters of the heart, to thinking about Tempest Shadow x Princess Luna, to thinking about that story where Twilight's son hooked up with Princess Luna, and they had a colt together.
I'm getting very off topic. That said, this is an Author's Commentary. I really don't know what I'm doing. Am I even doing this right? According to the definition of commentary, I'm kind of doing it right. I probably am not doing as good as I should be, though... Maybe one of these days I'll be able to do a thorough Q and A session about this series when it's all said and done and just spend the day talking about it. I'd like that.
I kind of played Spike for laughs in the next scene. I don't know how to use Spike, I'm afraid. It's why I generally don't include him as a major part of any of my stories. The next scene also goes to show that Twilight's not okay. She has physical challenges, but her main issue is mental/emotional challenges from what's happened.
I don't really like Fluttershy's monologue now that I go back and read it. Monologuing is something that seems unnatural in stories. I suppose you could make the case that she's saying it to Angel, and she might be. I don't remember. I also just want to point out that Angel doesn't really like Twilight in this story, although it mellows out later.
The different crystals of varying shades of blue and green combined to make the room remind her of the Crystal Empire, but the colors were wrong, they were too dark for the Crystal Empire.
This is a bit of a reference to... Castle Sweet Castle (I think that's the episode title) and possible someone's review of it (who I cannot remember). The castle's colors look more akin to something a villain would have than Twilight. There might be more to this here than I remember though. I find my mind thinking about whether Twilight and Rainbow are going to live at the castle or where they will live if not there. That might be a spoiler, now that I stop and think about it. Although I'm not sure how much of a spoiler since they're kind of sort of pretty much living together by the middle of Reaction. This is another thing I suppose I might need to address.
Ah, now we get to the mention of Discord. Now, let's face it. I had to make Discord be unable to heal Twilight. That just would have been such an Author Ex Machina, and it would have completely destroyed this series, ending it with a sort of "Oh, derp, why didn't we just do that in the first place instead of waiting around?" Plus it would have made them look back for not considering it in the first place. Now, Discord would help Twilight if he could, but he can't.
Also, I'm not sure how to canonically explain why he can't heal Twilight. Which kind of sucks, because, well, canonically, he's supposed to be able to bend reality to his will and create matter out of his magic. I think I had thought about going the path of it being a bad idea since it would be based on Chaos magic, but I also think that there was another path I had thought about with him being unable to do it because it wouldn't have been "real" or her actual horn. It would have been a mimicky, and it could be destroyed more easily, such as by the Elements of Harmony. I did, however, consider him suggesting to use the Elements of Harmony to heal Twilight. That's an idea I like, and one that would make sense, since Twilight is sort of a friend of the Tree of Harmony, and is the (former..?) bearer of the Element of Magic. I also believe that the Tree/Elements would be able to heal her completely, or pretty much fix anything. The canon explanation of why they don't do that is that it would feel (at least to Twilight) like an abuse of the Elements just to heal herself. It wouldn't feel right.
Perhaps the main reason Fluttershy seems to be such a major minor character of the Mane Six in this series is that she's my third favorite, just behind Rainbow Dash, who is behind Twilight. Although Fluttershy has a different appeal than Rainbow. The more I think about this, the more I want to go and rewatch the earlier seasons. I miss them, and the ponies have changed so much...
Have I ever explained the deal behind all of Twilight's friends being so busy? I am not sure. How should I start? Well... Canonically, Twilight is probably about 20 years old in Reaction, with Rainbow being 23. They used to be younger and not have as much responsibility, so they had time to spend together, but now they're growing up and have less time. So Twilight feels cut off, maybe abandoned, and definitely alone. It's something she's struggling with, and her own immortality isn't helping her deal with that. It's stressful and hard on her. It's partially in relation to how much the show has changed since the earlier seasons, and it's also something I'm dealing with personally. And I'm struggling with that.
I don't seem to have a lot to say about the next scene. That said, I like tomato soup. Be honest, who here has eaten soup by simply drinking it from the bowl. I can't be alone here.
Turning the pages of a book with fingers is hard enough. With hooves? I imagine that's the worst possible thing ever. Feathers... might be on par with fingers...
Don't you just hate it with new books how the pages don't want to submit, and they just keep slowly popping up, then the air moves around and the pages go flying?
It may just be me, but it feels like in this series there's a great attention to the minor details that other stories would skip over. (In reference to Twilight getting thirsty and struggling to get a glass of water.)
And now we finally get to one of the best parts of this story, and probably one of my favorite scenes, even to write! I don't remember the reason why I started the scene out the way I did- it might be a reference to the whole "throwing rocks at windows to wake people up to talk to them" thing. I'm not sure.
I still wonder how the ponies hold things with their hooves and use doorknobs. Hence why there was a latch. That makes more sense, right? Just press down on the latch and pull or push, and it opens.
I'm struggling to provide commentary to this scene because I like it enough that I'm enjoying reading it. I'm not sure if it was intentional or unintentional that right here, we basically have the start of Rainbow telling Twilight to stop apologizing and all that. There's more to it than just that, but I cannot remember what else is included in it right now.
I just want to say that I picture the scene with Rainbow hugging Twilight and then pulling both of them over and making them fall down as Rainbow being playful. I just do. It's a scene I like, it's cute.
How does this first main cuddle scene compare with the first main cuddle scenes of other stories? I've been told I write cuddle scenes well. I'm also biased, so I think I did quite well here for what is arguably my first attempt at something like this. Of course, the downside to that is the fact that I acknowledged it and know it, which could go to my head... I don't want that.
Am I the only one who thinks that Rainbow's laughs sound more like "heh heh" than "hehe" or "hehehe?"
Also, I will now do the obligatory joke about "Who wouldn't sleep better cuddling a pony?"
Well. Finished. I'm, like normal, tired.
This is, perhaps quite obviously, very late. I had planned to do this much sooner. Stuff came up and I lost interest in doing it. I don't know if I'm doing a good job at this.
I really thought I would have more to say. I really thought I'd be able to offer more insights than I did with this chapter, but, apparently not.
And what's worse is I haven't really been getting to read or write anything else while I'm doing this. I blame college. It really drains the life right out of you...
There were some other things I wanted to add right here too.
And as with before, comment below if you want! Feel free to ask specific questions or to make suggestions! I'll try to give you answers, assuming I can answer your question.
Now I haven't actually read the commentary bit because I haven't read the actual story. However, I did read that you need to be going to bed earlier. I hope you're not staying up so late just to do the roleplay
just ignore that I stay up late reading the roleplayif you are then we should probably skip some days or hell even only doing it on Fridays and weekends, so a proper nights sleep can be achieved.4702756
I've never slept well anyway, so it's fine. I do need to start getting to bed earlier. It's on my to-do list. It'll probably still be a while before I get around to doing that.
Pony dreams, I've had two (that I can remember).
The first one was very short lived, and I actually had it before I became a brony. Basically I was watching TV, I can't remember what, and then my brother comes into the room, grabs the remote, and changes it to MLP. Then I simply shout "NOOOOOO" and wake up. Lasted like 10 seconds.
My second dream was odd. Basically i went with the mane 6 to New York on an airship, and then we stopped at a cafe to eat lunch. Following this someone came up to us and asked rainbow if she could deliver some mail around the galaxy and become an interstellar mailmare.
After two hours (not in real time, my dream just skipped two hours) she didn't come back so we got worried and I decided I'd go find her. So then I get into my spaceship and went looking for her. After a while I find the evil lair of that monkey from the power puff girls ( I don't know the same, I don't whatch the show). I know it's his lair because it's a giant space station shaped like him, and when I say giant imagine a 100 mile long space station floating in the nothingness of the void. I decide to run away back to earth.
I end up in central London where rainbow (or someone else/ something else/maybe nothing, IDK at this point) gets put in a London bus (one of those new style ones) and starts to drive off. I realise that the bus has no number at the back (this is important) and start to chase after it. Then the f
Ing dream gravity kicks in and reduces the gravity from normal to like 10% so every step I take sends me 2m into the air, and I'm basically flailing my legs trying to get back on the ground so I can go a bit faster.
After a little while I lose the bus and start to walk dejectedly, but my luck soon changes. I see a bus stopped at a traffic light. A bus with no number. I then realise that this is the bus. I chase after it with all my might and for one in my life dream gravity helps me as I basically launch myself and practically fly into the back of the bus and climb onboard. I then climb the stairs to were the driver is (even though the driver is on the bottom floor IRL) and beat him up (at least I think I did since I called for an ambulance, I can't remember) so yeah I call an ambulance and when the paramedics arrive they enter the bus and one of the medics has a subway sandwich with him, bit random I know.
The dream then ends. That was probably my second weirdest dream. And this dream was so long I had to split it into paragraphs.
I could tell you my weirdest dream but it's not pony related, still I wouldn't mind writing it down if you ask.
Also with the whole "discord being a chaos god and can fix anything", if I'm being honest the best thing you could have done was probably just leave him out entirely. Many authors I've read do that because he is just so powerful that we're he to use even a tiny fraction of his power he could easily solve most problems. At least those with a physical issue, discord obviously can't just waltz in and solve a romance problem or something. Unless he uses mind magic of course.
Also when your talking about that castle sweet castle review, I think its silver quill. I'm fairly sure he mentioned how ponies like pinkie, and to a lesser degree fluttershy and applejack live in a very brightly coloured homes. While rainbow, rarity and twilight have homes with much cooler colours. And he said how those colours fit their personality.
Finally I think these author commentaries are great, they show us the kind of person you are, something you just don't get when reading someone's stories stories since they have to confine them to their characters.
As a side note do you ever get worried that you'll accidentally say some pony terminology to a non brony. Sometimes I worry I'll say 'somepony' instead of 'someone' in a conversation, hasn't happened yet, and hopefully never will because that would just mean I'd reach new levels of awkward. Then again I speak really fast so mabye they wouldn't notice. Fingers crossed.
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Your dreams are weird, but I've had some strange dreams too... Maybe I should make a blog post dedicated to it to share dreams which are weird. Your dream sounds like something Marvel would make...
I'd be interested in hearing about your weirdest dream ever. If that one wasn't it... I can't begin to imagine what it must have been.
And now I am picturing a comedy where Discord just snaps his fingers and the two characters magically fall in love, and it's super cheesy. I am not writing that.
I was thinking it was Silver Quill, but I wasn't sure...
I'm not really worried about accidentally making a pony comment and or reference. I don't really talk a whole lot.
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My weirdest dream, well here goes.
I call this dream the "lumberjack dream". It starts off with me at my secondary (high) school, I'm waiting outside my English classroom with my friends waiting for my lesson to start when a group of lumberjacks with chainsaws and axes start walking down the corridor. They're wearing those stereotypical red shirts and are basically what everyone thinks when they think 'lumberjack'.
They then walk into the classroom next to mine to plug in their chainsaws (yes electric chainsaws). They then come up to my friends, grab them and place them on the ground. After this the use their tools to decapitate them one by one. Obviously dream me was stupid because he just stood there. Although none of my friends reacted much to having their heads chopped off, they kind of just layed there in silence.
After I'm the only one left they go back into the room to disconnect their chainsaws and then take them into my English room, I then finally realise that now they're going to decapitate me and decide to run for it. I run down the corridor, down a set of stairs and hide in an office.
This office however was very odd for two reasons. Firstly it was the office of a character I saw only once in TV. Secondly IRL my school doesn't have an office there, it's just a wall. So anyway I was hiding in the office (with the TV character who owns the office, though he just sat there doing work) when a girl from my form group came in to hide with me. We waited a few tense moments when then we saw a lumberjack walk past the door, through a window in the door, but he didn't see us.
After he left I ran out the door, and started running towards the geography department, as I was nearing the top of the a different flight of stairs I looked down and to my horror saw I lumberjack at the bottom climbing up as well. I ran into one of the rooms were a geography lesson was taking place and decided to hide behind a chair that wasn't being used.
After about 10 seconds the lumberjack walks into the classroom and sees me. I grab hold of the plastic chair hoping it could save me however the lumberjack had other ideas. He took one of his circular saw blades and threw it at me like a shurukin. I held the chair up hoping to defend myself but it slices the legs of the chair clean off, but making the best of a bad situation i whack what's left of the chair into the side of the lumberjacks head which dazeses him, and I use this opportunity to escape.
I ran out the classroom, out the building and out the school. I run down the street and look behind me, about mabye 20m away is the lumberjack chasing me. I run past one of my friends, however he's a friend from my martial arts club, not school, so I have no idea what he's doing her, and I in fact say "what are you doing here?". I then run past another one of my friends, this was one of the people that was decapitated at the start and I say "aren't you supposed to be dead", and she replies with saying something really profound and philosophical, buts it was in French so I have no idea what she actually said.
Don't worry we're nearly done.
I then start running down the main road when guess what happened, the f
img dream gravity kicks in (did I mention how much I hate dream gravity) in fact I think this may be the first dream with dream gravity, though I may be wrong. I start flying through the air trying to go faster. Luckily next to me is a railing which I can grab onto and pull myself forwards, flying over anyone and anything.
I fly over this one guy I really hated from my school, he's the kind of person who always tries to be the "tough guy" and always gets in fights and disrespects teachers and such. We don't talk to each other at all, so that's fine, but being in the same classroom as him really pisses me off. Luckily he isn't the brightest bulb in the box so he's in bottom set for basically all his classes and I'm generally in first or second set, so we didn't share any classes for the last two years of my stay there. (Going on a bit of a tangent ranting but whatever). He actually got expelled about 6 months before his GCSEs which honestly o thought "why couldn't it have happened sooner". Never saw him since, for which I am glad.
Back to my dream, I fly over that bastard and continue for a short while longer. I then look behind me and to my joy I saw that the lumberjack had turned around and given up. I didn't stop running (flying) though, I kept going until I reached a busy junction were I stopped and waited for the traffic to pass. I saw a truck drive in front of me, and as it drove past I looked at it and, for whatever reason, started thinking about English exams (even though I hated English) and woke up.
And that is my weirdest dream, and if your wondering how I remembered such a monstrosity, basically what I did was as soon as I woke up I go over the events of the dream in my head, I find that that really helps you remember what happened.
I have had a couple of other odd dreams, though these are much shorter, and had them when I was much younger. You know is it just me or do you also have less dreams as you get older. I know I had loads of dreams when I was like 5,6,7 years old, but today I haven't had a dream (that I can remember) for ages, well actually I had one like two days ago, but before that it was like a few weeks, mabye even a month till my previous dream. Though they seem to be getting longer, as they get less numerous.
I could tell you a few dreams from my childhood, that were quite odd, and also there was this one recurring dream, though it was more of a nightmare, that when I say now sounds super stupid and hilarious (if you weren't me at the time). But honestly typing for 40 minutes on my phone just after I woke up is tiring me out, should probably go eat breakfast now.
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Wow. I enjoyed reading that. I wasn't expecting that much detail- I struggle to write dreams I remember well down and convey all the details...
Thank you for sharing! That's crazy...
One of these days I should definitely do a blog post about some of my strange dreams and ask others about their dreams. It could be really fun!