Weekly Update

Guess this is a thing for at least a little bit since work still takes up about 26% of my week and sleep takes up another third of my time.

So weekend update. Almost 9000 words in so about two thousand words of new story (in layman's terms for comparison that means about every 700 to 1000 words is another scene- don't know why that seems to be the case in this story but the generalized simplification of figures makes it that methodical.)

A lot of sad stuff is going to happen and weirdly enough I am setting up two fronts in this story chapter right now. We have currently what looks like a really weird fight scene going to hopefully be set up by next weekend cause I need to sleep and all that. But yeah sad and slightly edgy Pinkie still here and more of the same idea of my sheer overuse of any sort of descriptor trying to explain the color of blood or blood in general. Lots of red and blood and clotting all over this chapter and it seems a bit much but my mind keeps going like 'well that's what's in here so let's just go whole hog and do it.'

And I keep seeing at least a near the end- or maybe 75 percent of the way scene cause a sense of some sort of denouement is in order where my brain keeps going 'so atomic bomb scene, sure want one of those Los Alamos test site like things' cause for some reason I think the Storm King has magical weapons that outclass the ponies and for some reason my brain keeps imagining a nuclear option idea where the arms race to keep up gets really dark and weird. But it might not cause sometimes my brain slightly relents.

This is partially why I set up the story as mature cause I know how my brain works setting up plots and it tends to want to, at points do horrible things to characters for the sake of some sense of character growth- though I have my limits now. I only try to use violence to highlight a point or provide some tonal shift or do something with it.

And it seems like for the pony cast that I have set up everybody's getting sad and junk. Pretty much if you could parody my writing of this chapter it's like this:

Brain: Let's do horrible and depressing stuff to our characters cause depth and the brutality of war would inevitably cause some sort of sadness to the pastel ponies and that would be highly entertaining to have this bleak ending cause I've been working up to this forever.

Conscience: But that might have readers be horribly jarred from the tonal shift and complete insanity of trying to narrate a battle like a tiny chessboard.

Brain: But you just allowed yourself to write a scene where you explain how in a detached way that Pinkie is going around killing things cause that would be a tonal shift. It's literally a tone shift from how most people write her most of the time. Rule One of Pinkie: Parties. Rule Two: No killing, Addendum 1: Unless it's a grimdark Pinkie and you aren't trying to do that.

Conscience: Shit, you got me there. Uh, let's see, Pinkie doesn't like doing it and comments that she doesn't enjoy killing things and also I set up that she's off kilter and still emotionally unstable from Twilight being on the brink of death and all that so hopefully I don't cause a mutiny when they read that cause that's going to be not good.

Brain: But having the typically cheery pony do that is horribly jarring.

Conscience: I've read through all of my stories. They all can be edgy and jarring so like at least I'm sort of on brand? At least this gives me a ton of ideas on what to do with Pinkie later cause Rarity's compartmentalizing the violence away, Twilight's a neurotic mess always, Fluttershy's probably at least seen death in animals so she's doing the best she can with a war like situation, Dash is so far only in a scene or two and she's traumatized from her ordeal last chapter, and Applejack's holding it together with sarcasm and country wittticisms. None of them are doing well and so I guess my mostly lighthearted story about two ponies swapping bodies turned into a war drama cause why not.

Brain: You are just trying to psyche yourself up for the sheer amount of edge you are going to stuff into this story aren't you?

Conscience: Uh, no. There's going to be cute stuff and all that at points, I set this up to be a drama for a reason so I could at least try and say that I'm trying to do something with the story that might touch on weird and dark topics- cause this sure isn't supposed to be a grand adventure 95 percent of the time. I just got into this arc really, really hard and almost 90000 words later or whatever- it's been a while- I'm almost done with Starlight for the moment.

Brain: She's totally going to try and have a toxic relationship with Sunburst. Cause that's what it seems like to me.

Conscience: Not telling, but let's get to that when you get to that.

Brain: Mmm hmm, and who was the one who got all the weird gender stuff in there as well? Sure wasn't little old brain here.

Conscience: I wanted a way where relationship drama could be made and try and do something with the kids of the Main Six I made, sue me if it got way more descriptive than I wanted in the few chapters the gender spell is mentioned and in.

Brain: Yeah but you know full well what's going to happen when all these now sad and messed up main characters you made go through this traumatic save the day battle will get back.

Conscience: We haven't got there yet and no, it's not going to be that prevalent. And most of the scenes that involve that tend to be more comedic so sue me if the story takes a slight comedic shift from depressing violence and weird cult stuff and war crimes to gag comedy. Been writing this arc for like seven months and the show takes weird detours into gags all the time and jokes while having hints of emotions and weird stuff going on.

Brain: Fine, but don't kill the dog characters we made, I like those and you've been creating a whole lot of death flags all over the place.

Conscience: No promises, but they are good I admit.