Hello! Feedback here, the author of My Little Clony. This concludes the first half of our story! I’ve had a lot of fun writing about Caesar and his merry group of background characters, and I really hope you all have enjoyed reading it just as much!
What originally started as a joke about why there were three copies of Caesar onscreen in the season 1 finale has blossomed into a huge project that doesn’t have a lot of notoriety, but that I’ve loved writing, and that takes up a ton of time and space in my schedule and head, respectively. Time that I love giving, because I learned while writing this whole series that I love writing, to the point I’d love to do it for a living some day! Whether or not that happens though, I’ll keep doing it!
MLC was originally going to be a lighthearted poke at conspiracy writers and the quirks of the fandom in-general, but it became something very personal that I’ve put a lot of my own ideas and beliefs into to make it more than escapism, to give it meaning. …Not to mention a fair amount darker. I’ve really enjoyed both that transformation, and writing it in-general!
It hasn’t been all me though – just like Caesar, I’ve had a lot of help from plenty of good friends, all of whom I wanted to thank after finishing the first story arc.
Before the thank-yous though, let me get this out of the way since people have told me that it’s impossible when I’ve mentioned the sight to them in real-life; yes, you really can see the arms of the milky way in the night sky – or at least one of them – if there’s no light pollution. Google for images of “Grand Canyon night sky”, there are some truly beautiful images of the arms of the galaxy. Right then, time for the thank-yous!
First off, if any of you have been following from when I first published the first act and have dealt with how horrible I’ve been with updating, let me say that both I am incredibly sorry, and incredibly appreciative for your willingness to be patient. A lot of things have unfortunately come up over the past year or two in my life that have, one way or another, put MLC and a lot of other creative projects of mine on the backburner, from college to some family issues I’d rather not go into detail about.
The worst part is that, for the same reasons, I can’t promise when I’ll be able to start the second half, or how regularly I’ll be able to update it. I owe you all for sticking with it though, I won’t put it off for anywhere as long as I’ve done with this half.
The fact that there are people who enjoyed reading it enough to deal with the delays, if there are, means a lot to me – I could have let the entire story just sit in my head and entertain myself if I didn’t think anyone else would enjoy it, giving people something that they enjoy, whether it’s because it makes them laugh, makes them happy, makes them think, or makes them feel anything else, is the entire reason I’m writing My Little Clony in the first place.
Second, a huge shout-out to everyone back on the MLP thread on the forum I first came up with the idea on – you guys know who you are, don’t want to name names to avoid anyone being harassed – for not only encouraging me and giving me a lot of positive feedback whenever I’d beat myself up, but also for putting up with my constant requests for some of you to help me out by proofreading these before I submitted them to EqD, making sure that all typos, weird sentences, and badly written portions never saw the light of day. As much as you’d lift me up when I was down on myself, when it came time to read and make sure I didn’t embarrass myself, you pulled no punches, and I’ve always preferred the truth in those situations, so I appreciate the criticism, both positive and negative.
And of course, I want to thank you guys for being great friends too. I can’t describe adequately over text how much I love all of you, you’re what keeps me working, and what makes my work worth reading at all.
Third, a thank you to Sethisto. He’s the guy who lets this stuff have an outlet in the first place! He also puts up with my delays in content as much as anyone else. I may not always be the nicest to his Trixie, but I’ve tried to give her fair character development, and she’ll be getting more in the second arc! Hope you don’t have any problems with the pairing I have in mind!
Fourth, gigantic thank-you to Dave, aka Davrockist(http://davrockist.deviantart.com/) for drawing the art for MLC. Dave’s a good friend, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate him being willing to help me out with the art. Cute as it is, the original image for the series of a silly-looking Derpy just doesn’t fit the story, even if it has her in it, and I felt silly whenever I’d update the story with that image still showing for it. Dave’s a great artist, and helped me out with a shiny new one. Thanks again!
Fifth, a shout-out to the Tumblr ask blog Ask Coppercog( http://askcoppercog.tumblr.com/), for the source of the pony roboticist that gave Caesar his new foreleg. I knew I wanted Caesar to need some sort of prosthetic after the confrontation with Celestia, but I didn’t know how to get it. I spend way too much time I should be spending writing reading through Pony tumblrs, one of which is Ask Coppercog. Eventually I just figured I’d ask Dr. Javi, the owner of the blog, if I could use his character and save myself some trouble. He said yes, and I can’t say how much I appreciated it. Hopefully it gave some fans of his blog that also read MLC something extra to smile about. Thanks again, Javi!
Sixth, thank you to everyone on here who’s liked, favorited, left comments, and anything else for My Little Clony. It doesn’t seem like much, and it doesn’t take much effort, but believe me, it means a lot when you’re doing all this work, and people tell you one way or another that they’ve been enjoying your effort. Thank you to the heads of the groups I shoved it into, as well. Every story needs a library, and it’s nice to be in a few here.
Seventh, an obvious thank-you to Lauren Faust and everyone else who had a hand in creating My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Without their work, there’s no show, and if there’s no show, there’s no My Little Clony. More importantly, I never meet the people I’ve met in the community. I’ve always considered myself a fairly moderate fan, but I never realized how much happier the show has made my life in a lot of ways. It sounds silly, but when there’s this big a community to go along with the show, you meet people, you see things they do, you get inspired, you make friends, and you create things yourself, things with meaning and value, be it to you or to others, things that make you feel happy or feel fulfilled because you’re creating something. It opens a whole new world to you that you never would’ve even thought about without the show, and we owe it all to the crew that made the show in the first place!
We also owe it to Hasbro, who gets a thank-you of their own for not trying shut the entire fandom down at the first whiff of our use of copyrighted material. It hasn’t always been perfect harmony and cooperation between Bronies and Hasbro, but it’s been good enough for what exists to exist, and that’s a lot more than I’d expect from a lot of companies.
Speaking of the community’s creations, a thank-you to the entire Brony community. From the incredible artists to the talented musicians to the gifted writers, I love the work you all create, and tried to incorporate enough shout-outs and references to make Quentin Tarantino’s head spin! Just as well, I’ve never been much of a fic writer – or reader for that matter – but seeing the stuff you’ve all made is no small part of what inspired me to make My Little Clony into a written story instead of an idea. Thanks for all the incredible work, it’s a big chunk of what drives me to keep writing!
Quick shout-out to the artists who’s music I listened to whenever I was writing, in-particular Hans Zimmer and Sam Hulick. You all set the tone in my mind for the writing, I couldn’t have done it without you, even if “you” are a CD with a bunch of ones and zeroes on it programmed to make sound. As long as I’m thanking the music, big thank-you to Christopher Nolan, Bioware, George Nolfi, and the Wachowskis for making Inception, the Mass Effect trilogy, The Adjustment Bureau, and The Matrix, respectively, all of which had a big impact on the atmosphere and the design of the story for My Little Clony. I’m a huge movie fan, and while I love a good book as much as anyone, films are what set my tenor when I create, and these were a big part of where the tone of MLC came from.
Finally, I want to take another minute to thank all of you who’ve sat down and read the overly-long, drawn-out story – and it’s only halfway there, too! – that I call a fic. Whether you were here for the first chapter, or you’re just starting now, it’s because of you that My Little Clony is more than just an idea floating in my head, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve got a lot of plans for the second arc, I don’t know if they’ll be as good as the ones in the first arc, but I hope that you guys will still enjoy reading them as much as I’m going to enjoy writing them!
Thanks again for reading, looking forward to seeing you in Stalliongrad!
~Feedback