"Three Nights" goes Multiplatform · 6:38am Sep 6th, 2019
Some surprising things have happened recently relative to "Three Nights"—and while I'm horrible about posting updates about anything these days, I think it's important that I let y'all know about these.
First up, the Ministry of Image folks behind Tales of the Sun and Tales of the Moon—two very cool hardbound collections of stories about Celestia and Luna respectively, that I have sitting on my bookshelf next to a small set of Ponyfeather Publishing volumes—dropped me a line to let me know they've started working on a new pair of volumes collecting stories about Cadance and Twilight. You saw the title of this blog, so you can probably guess that they've asked for permission to include "Three Nights" in that project. (One assumes they want to include it in the Cadance volume, though this wasn't explicitly stated. Looking at what was explicitly stated, I also see that they requested some extra information from me that, like a louse, I failed to notice and provide. Good job, me. Rectifying that shortly.)
So, yeah, that's cool.
But as cool or cooler, in my mind, is this:
Yes, that's right, Scribbler has decided to do a full-cast reading on "Three Nights" as her Christmas Special this year.
To say I am excited by these events would be a gross mischaracterization. More properly, I will say that my feelings lack proper semantic structure and are well-approximated by images of colorful cartoon ponies pronking in circles. Despite its flaws, "Three Nights" has always been my favorite pony story that I've written, and seeing it get this sort of attention is really exciting, especially with a Christmas context.
I wrote "Three Nights" because I felt lonely and disconnected at Christmas, stuck out in SoCal with no hint of winter, and I wanted to channel that into a story about finding joy in winter holidays even when things go wrong and you feel like crap about them. I'm really excited that more people will get to experience the story this year, and I'm hopeful that maybe it'll get to someone who's having crappy holiday experiences and help them find something to be joyful about—which was always my goal with this thing.
Thank you, all y'all, for giving this story an audience and caring about it. I love you all.
You're always welcome to swing by my music studio in Santa Ana if you're feeling lonely, especially on Christmas Eve, and believe it or not, while much smaller than it once was, the SoCal Bronies still are kicking.
It's a very deserving piece. Congrats.
I remember this story fondly, for the reasons you named. I know how loneliness on Hearth's Warming Eve feels. I'll probably feel that this year again, for reasons that, ironically, happened exactly at last Hearth's Warming. I will need this reading.