Sugarfree - AMA · 3:01am Oct 17th, 2019
Uh hi all!
Sorry I disappeared for 4 straight years! Life has really accelerated for me since I got my last job, and I haven't had the kind of free time I need to write fics. I am doing very well, however!
I appreciate those who've checked in - this community has always been warm and wonderful. I started writing Sugarfree when I was in the middle of a long recovery after a major surgery, and this project did a lot to help rebuild my confidence and get me back out there.
Sugarfree will almost certainly stay unfinished, barring a huge amount of free time coming down on me in the near future, which I don't see happening. I got a PM from Zolgo recently asking how I was doing, and they also asked a few questions about the story I thought I'd answer here.
If anyone else has any other questions about where the story was headed, or any plot threads they wondered about, by all means, ask away - I'll answer them in the comments.
Questions:
Q: Why did Oni seem so childish now, when on the moon they seemed so old and wise?
A: So this one is real complicated. I probably over-complicated it, but, that's fanfic writin' for ya.
First off, every world has its own unique magical force. It all flows from the same central place. On Equestria, magic flows from Equestria. On the moon, it flowed from the moon.
Equestria's moon, the same one Luna got banished to, is in reality, unbeknownst to everyone (but some O.G. dragons), the now-dead homeworld of the dragons. We got a bit of this in that dream sequence thing where Gilda and Pinkie saw the dragon, Thorin, using the crystal microscope.
Back in the old days, Thorin's people, being naturally just kind of ambitious and warlike, steadily one-upped each other in the use of their magic, creating more and more powerful and destructive spells. He in particular was in direct competition with another powerful dragon, Discord. The two would battle often, and in their struggles, they developed the idea of the "counter spell." This was just a spell that undid another spell. The two of them used it a lot, causing the other's elaborate, complex spells to fizzle.
The magical force of the dragon homeworld - usually just a passive force that follows the will of the caster - found itself essentially "frustrated" by counter-spells. All it cared to do was follow the flow of nature or the narrative of a spell. Now it found land constantly razed and complex spells dissolved into nothing. It's like trying to read when every book you pick up melts.
Eventually, this led to the planet trying to stop this frustration, which led directly to magic becoming self-aware, so that it could "solve" the frustration and return to the drift of normalcy. For the dragons, this was unbelievably apocalyptic, as suddenly the very force that existed inside everything on the planet was "alive" and antagonistic. It became "the one within all", or "Oni" for short.
The reason Oni was so child-like was that its singular concern is to follow narratives and enjoy the energy of action. It wanted to "play" all the time. When it embodied Pinkie, it found a language for that need.
Oni would never become smarter unless it became frustrated again, and thus, was required to "solve" the obstetrical. This would've happened in Sugarfree, with Joe, Sunny, Pinkie, and Gilda trying to stop it.
Q: What became of Discord? What were your plans for him?
A: That's a pretty complicated one actually!
So back on the dragon planet, there were two main heavy-hitters by the time Oni became self-aware. There was Thorin, and there was the dragon that would become Discord. Oni embodied Discord like it later would do to Pinkie, making it into a nightmare. On the moon, this led to the complete evacuation of the dragons to Equestria (which Luna saw in her visions), and Discord burning the surface of everything it could find. For Oni, this felt like it solved the problem that forced it into self-awareness in the first place, and yet, it had no more life to "entertain" it, no more magic-users, just dust.
Discord managed to break free at some point, once Oni's attention waned, and he tore himself away to escape to Equestria. The fact that he went from being embodied by the magical soul of a planet to... not that, messed him up a bit. He landed on Equestria as a mess of draconian magic, and this mixed with Equestrian magic, to create the bizarre mix that is Discord. He would soon go on to create his own "nightmare army" as Luna described it, full of chimeras and combined creatures. One of these races was, well, the griffins, who were half lion, half eagle. That's what Sunny was going on about in the coffee shop, when she was healing Gilda - griffin bodies are such a magical mess because they were concocted by Discord, using two competing magic forms.
Gilda would later discover at a party that Discord was the ancient god her people worshipped and, of course, she'd be pissed to discover her entire society was crafted by an aloof jackass.
The messy fusion magic also is the cause of the griffin people's infertility epidemic, since their bodies are "running out" of the draconian magic they need to work correctly - it's being steadily pushed out by Equestrian magic as the generations go on. This also is the cause of Gilda having to be wife number 6 of Godric, and further, the cause of her having to be a diplomat. So yeah, naturally, she gets in a drunken fight with Discord at a party in a later chapter.
By the end of the story, the resolution would've included a harmony between the two worlds and two forms of magic that would've "fixed" the decay problem the griffins faced. Discord would've also come clean to the griffin people about him being their god and all that jazz, and how they really shouldn't hold him up as an example.
Anyways, I think a chapter or two further into the story from where I stopped, you would've seen Discord as a depowered snake, being carried in Maud's mane as she brings him to Thorin to try to solve the problem of Nightmare Pinkie. Thorin, Maud, and Discord would be sorta secondary characters to Joe, Sunny, and Gilda for the remainder of the story.
Holy guacamole! You're alive! Sad to see that the story is over but happy to see you're doing good.
Goodness, that's quite some time to be checking in after
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It's a shame that the story likely won't be finished--especially since the tidbits you've given us here show that it would have been real kick to read--but at least we know it's not because you got abducted by aliens or anything like that
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It’s good to hear you’re alright!
Woah. I was just thinking about this fic the other day.
Goodness sakes, what world-building! I love it, it's even grander in scope than I realized. I hole you do find time and motivation to finish Sugarfree, against all odds, because the story in your sounds epic.
NO worries life happens to us all I'm still working on my stories too.
Nice world building I hope you get to use it.
Aside from questions from how the romances ended, I suppose my last question would be how Celestia was gonna get her powers back? Was Oni going to yield its power and become friendly? Was Oni going to be restrained for a bit? Was there gonna be some bit where our trio run to the other side of the planet, only for Celestia to reveal herself? I want a spoiler light scoop on this