Completed Remastering · 6:59am Apr 7th, 2020
At the time of this blogpost, I will have just uploaded the final chapter of "Rainbooms and Royalty (Remastered)." For the sake of completion, I will also have uploaded the chapters of the Remastered version at the end of the original "Rainbooms and Royalty" in omnibus format--one additional chapter for the entire version. The Remastered version is also found on Fanfiction.Net under the name MLP-Trinary (I lost the information for my old fanfiction account). Links are below for the original and remastered versions.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/30097/rainbooms-and-royalty
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/415554/rainbooms-and-royalty-remastered
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8179465/1/Rainbooms-and-Royalty
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13339441/1/Rainbooms-and-Royalty-Remastered
This represents something of the end of an era for me.
The original "Rainbooms and Royalty" was uploaded to this site from August to October 2012 (I think, the FimFiction dating information is a little weird on that point). It was not my first fanfic, for MLP or in general, but it was written without the benefit of editors or pre-readers and it showed. As I wrote more stories set in this universe, I realized I had hobbled myself out of the gate with certain creative choices I made in the original story due to not thinking ahead. I continuously tried to go back and change and fix things in response to feedback I received, which probably confused people more than it helped. There are likely comments quoting lines that are no longer in the story itself. I realized there were systemic problems that could not be fixed by swapping out one section after another, nor confusing followers by introducing retcons in later stories about what transpired in the past, but instead required a full rewrite, which is what I set out to do. The Remastered story was uploaded from July 2018 through April 2020, having been an ongoing labor for several years before the first chapter was even added.
This was done with no small amount of trepidation, as this was my most popular and recognizable story. I didn't want to erase my old story, but I thought that, armed with years of improvement and aided by able pre-readers and editors, I could do a better job of telling it. I can only hope that I succeeded. I know it has only a fraction of the followers my original did and I can speculate from dawn to dusk as to the reasons why (the end of the show, fans moving on from MLP in general and my stories in particular, fears that I was pulling a George Lucas and preferred the original, etc.). Still, the responses from the few followers I do have seem generally positive and I can only hope this means that I've grown as a writer, which is more important than the amount of likes or follows I receive.
Having completed this Herculean task, the show long-over by this point, the question can be asked: what is the fate of Dashverse? I have written other stories, but nothing in this universe for some time. I had promised an adaptation of "Return of Harmony" years ago but never delivered. I started other stories set in Dashverse, but struggled to complete them. Is it all over, like so many other fan projects that have closed their doors lately?
No.
I admit, while this project probably consumed more of my time and attention than it should've, potentially at the expense of other stories, it also helped reinvigorate my interest in continuing the stories of Rainbow Dash as Celestia's student. If I did struggle with writing new stories, it's more likely because of certain ambivalent feelings I was developing towards the show and certain episodes in particular as they came out (you can likely guess which ones). One doesn't always necessarily need to agree with the direction a show goes in order to enjoy the ride, but there were several episodes that were positively demoralizing for me and that impacted my creative abilities (such as they are).
But I weathered through them and stuck with the show, and the fandom, and have continued to do so. I still go to conventions, chat every day with fellow fans about the show and try to think of new stories to tell. I have indeed been working on the long-overdue Dashverse Discord story and plan to move ahead with it now that this is finally done. As to whether or not I'll ever go back and "remaster" the other Dashverse stories, I'm undecided. Probably at some point, but if so not for a long while. Especially since I want to move ahead right now rather than backtrack more.
I want to close out by thanking the people who made this story possible.
Krack-Fic Kai - Assisted with the editing on a number of chapters and made innumerable suggestions that improved the story.
ShadwSonic - Helped a lot with Zecora's dialogue, including the truly remarkable skill of making virtually all her lines posses a rhythm and meter.
Jake the Ginger - Who helped make Pinkie Pie come alive in her scenes, bolstering me when it came to writing a character I struggled to fully capture.
Illustrious Q - Who wasn't afraid to rib me at conventions about some of my more blatant missteps as a writer (i.e. World of Cardboard Speech) but still encouraged me to write and create.
Aldea Donder - An early inspiration and a fan going way back. As I speak Aldea's undertaken the ambitious task of reading and (hopefully) reviewing each chapter of the Remastered version at length, charting out the differences between the two versions and whether or not these constituted improvements and why. All this while stuck abroad thanks to the COVID-19 situation. That's impressive!
RainbowDoubleDash - Another early inspiration with his Lunaverse series and more lately has been a sounding board and collaborator on a number of potential projects.
Finally, my core team of pre-readers and editors. I met them through FimFiction and they've become my closest collaborators. We chat almost every single day, bounce ideas and stories off one another, go to conventions together and plan our own meet-ups despite living all across the United States. They're the closest friends I've ever had: Chengar Qordath, Comma-Kazie and Ponibius. Thank you guys so much. You're the greatest.
And of course, you, my readers and reviewers. Thank you all so much for everything.
-Trinary
I do hope you eventually at least remaster Hot Heads, Cold Hearts, and Nerves of Steel.
I might have said this before, but the one thing that's been keeping me from fully diving into the Dashverse as a reader has been the Truth or Dare scene in that fic.
I know it's not a super major or important scene in the grand scheme of things, but something about what I know about the way she was treated there just kind of makes me wary of reading that (and I'm not the type of person to skip fics in a series), since Dash is my favorite member of the mane 6 (and was, for a while, my favorite character overall)
I salute you for being one of the very, very few who embarks on a remaster (rewrite) and completes it.
Thank you for writing. :)
Have you reverted the changes you made to the original? I had to pull it from my recommendations list because I couldn't trust the changes after the quality of your writing went to shit, but if it's back to what it was in 2012 when you could still write I can restore it with a warning about the later material in the review.
Thanks for the shout out! When I finally invent a collapse-time device I swear I will, among a great many things, find the time to catch up on all your stories.
I greatly appreciate this blog post. I wish it was a basic site function that when one tracks a story, a change from "incomplete" to "complete" (and other such status changes) would create a notification. It's not always obvious from chapter upload notifications whether or not it's time to start reading.
I recall the original being enjoyable. Now I look forward to reading your remastery.