Whoops.

I, uh, may have "accidentally" submitted To Be Young and Stupid to the Equestria Daily pre-readers.

No no, I "slipped" on the keyboard, and "it" just filled in the fanfic submission form - in great detail - all by "itself"! Honest!

Welp, no turning back now. :) Wish me luck!

Just wondering if anyone here plays Minecraft or Terraria on Xbox (yes, yes, I know PC's the master console, but for some reason playing games on it turns my laptop into a frying pan, so it's out of the question for now). If you own either of these games let me know (via PM if you don't want your gamertag on show), and I'm not keen on handing mine out to the public since someone hacked into hit and started downloading a ton of Call of Duty DLCs with my MSPoints. *Shudder!*

But yeah, anyone for Minecraft or Terraria, we can game and chat and junk.

I MEAN YES I'M DOING THOSE FICS RIGHT NOW THAT'S TOTALLY WHAT I AM DOING WITH MY TIME ALL THE TIME YES.

All two thousand of you.

Hello once again! The Apple Bloom fic’s been up for about a week now, and I’m pleased at the great reception it’s had so far! Honestly, I was worried that it would be too much of a departure from my usual fics, but you guys have shown me once again that there’s nothing to fear! A big thanks to every one of you!

Without further ado, it’s time for me to release a few secrets and back-scene developments that went into (and what was taken out of) making To Be Young and Stupid. There’s spoilers below, so if you haven’t read it yet, hop to it! :P

- Precisely zero readers managed to guess the first chapter based on the image when I made a contest out of it a few weeks back. I’m glad I can keep you guys guessing!

- The prologue wasn’t due to be in the fic at all, rather just explained away by Apple Bloom and the other crusaders. It felt rushed for such an important scene in the Apple family’s lives, so just hand-waving explanations didn’t do it justice. Thus, the scene was made.

- Many of the images in this fic have been heavily altered by me in Paint.NET. Once such image is the playground scene, which had been print-screened directly  from the Foal Free Press episode and edited to include ponies playing on the swing set (which wasn’t easy to make). It also contains a couple of cute ships that went unnoticed, like Truffle and Twist, or Pipsqueak and Dinky…

- The main character, the young colt, is the first and only “you” character that has a definite descriptive feature that isn’t vague; his “two-gears” cutie mark. Although it’s never mentioned in the fic, more-so hinted, he is an Earth Pony.

- Cheerilee’s image at the beginning of Part 2 has several secrets… her blackboard contains riddles regarding future fics, while her white-canvas contains hints toward my favourite type of pony art! Can anyone decipher the riddles..?

- Snips and Snails were planned to be your best friends in this fic, hoping that your intelligence would rub off on them. It didn’t really work out, though, because who the heck wants to be friends with Snips and Snails!? Lol j/k, it just didn’t make sense for you to be friends with them at the time of writing. Puppy D was going to be your unwanted nickname either way.

- The essay the students were supposed to write was originally going to be “an important moment in your life”. And when Snips copies Diamond Tiara’s work, he successfully changes all the “he”s to “she”s and everything, but tragically finishes the essay with the words “But finally, thank Celestia, I had my period.” Seemed way too out there for a safe fic, so it was redacted. Plus, I don’t think Tiara’s had her first period yet…

- The Cutie Mark Crusaders originally end up in detention when they ask you too many questions about your deceased father. It felt too sad to have them get punished for something you didn’t even intend, so they’re instead let off the hook, allowing you to speak to them during lunch break,

- We cross over with another fic of mine, More Then Buddies, during the lunch-break scene with Dinky Hooves. You all knew I was going to make a crossing-point, as I always do… ;)

- The scene where you fall and hurt yourself, only to be cuddled better by Apple Bloom was a spur-of-the moment thing; we were 5 chapters (including prologue) into the fic, and they hadn’t even hugged yet! We need our share of HNNG, man! Plus, the whole chapter and the interaction between you and AB served to remind you that they’re all still kids, and will behave accordingly, running around and yelling stuff and bumping into things.

- The jokes about Scootaloo’s constant crashing is a reference to the old game Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. Good memories there…

- Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were due to have much bigger roles in the fic, where they bully Apple Bloom and her friends. However, it felt way too reminiscent of More Than Buddies, so I decided to leave it out. In the end the whole part just distracted from the fic as a whole.

- Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were due for bigger roles too; Scootaloo was going to have a scene at her home with her mother (yes, she has a home and a mom in this, geez!) where her mom is constantly coddling her over protectively, and Scootaloo’s dangerous scooting is revealed to be her own little way of rebelling against her safety-freak mom. Sweetie Belle was going to have a scene where she talks about a crush on young colt called Button (a reference to JanAnimation’s version of Sweetie Belle, who has a boyfriend of the same name). Both instances distracted from you and Apple Bloom way too much - it’s a fic about you and her, after all - so they were removed to save going off-track in the fic. A shame, really...

- The blueprints you make at the start of Part 6 were originally hoof-painted for child-referential humour, but I wanted your sketchbook, that’s featured in a later section of the fic, to be mentioned and established as part of your character.

- I basically flipped a coin on whether I wanted “the human“ from Her Whole Darn Heart to be referenced. On one hand, Apple Bloom lives with him, so it’d make sense for him to be discussed, while on the other, it isn’t his fic, and he seemed almost shoehorned in, as if to say “Hey guys, remember me from that other fic?” Finally, I just opted for a mention.

- Throughout the fic, your character was going to “invent” a few devices for helping the Apple family around the farm. Not only did this seem unlikely - a ten-year-old inventing flawless farming vehicles to help an age-old practice he knows absolutely nothing about - but it would have been hard to explain the inclusion (or absence of) the human in those scenes.

- That “Sketch” of Apple Bloom is the hardest image I’ve ever had to make for my fics…

- Your character originally sets the Clubhouse on fire with oil, but that didn’t make sense as the trains his father had were steam-powered, and he learned his special talent from his father’s legacy.

- The fire scene was originally going to have just you and Scootaloo trapped while a burst gasoline engine fills the place with smoke and gas, threatening to choke you both. Sweetie Belle runs off to get help, and Apple Bloom kicks the door down in a single “buck” by imitating her sister when she sees your life in peril. Instead, having you and AB work together gave the fic far more emotional substance then it would have otherwise.

- Apple Bloom was originally meant to get her Cutie Mark in the fic. It felt way to convenient and forced, plus I didn’t want to use that big occasion for the cheap sake of dramatic effect. She’ll get it one day, don’t worry girl!

I think that’s it. At least, that’s all I remember about the fic’s development. Thanks for reading to the end, if you did!

My next fic, which is already under construction, will feature you as an elderly pegasus, trying to make amends for a mistake he made many years ago. It will contain flashbacks of a love long since passed… but will Annabelle “Annie” Smith ever forgive you for what you did..?

Contains flashbacks and sad feels.

My Apple Bloom safe-for-work cute-fic is nearing completion! I just have to throw some more images together and I'll be well on my way to posting it once and for all. It's the first Safe fic I've released since Even Kindness Needs Kindness, so wish me luck there...

I really, really, REALLY hope it's up before Friday. If not, it'll have to wait until the next week - schedule-related things and such.

A bit nervous in the prospect of releasing this fic. On one hoof, release a safe fic should get me more viewers who have Mature disabled, however I wouldn't want to alienate those who followed me for clop, since there's absolutely nothing of the sort in this fic. Then again, I wonder how many viewers see "Apple Bloom" and "Crowley" in the same place and think "Eew, he's not made what I think he's made, has he..?"

No! I ramble! This rambling malarky and distraction business is why it's taken so long to make in the first place! And certainly not Skyrim and Sonic the Hedgehog. Nope, none of those two have delayed my writings in the slightest.

But before I go, I think I'll leave you with a little taste with the first image in the fic.

Let the wild speculation begin!

By the way, whoever can accurately guess what happens in this chapter gets a PM from me with the password and link to view the fic pre-release. One guess per person. Please don't spread the password/link/story spoilers around willy-nilly if you get it...

I've thought long and hard about where to put my fics in the show's canon, in relation to my own. This blog post is pretty much 100% nailing down where the official MLP storyline ends and where mine begins, pinpointing why the main characters have relationships and why Twilight is not an alicorn...

So, how do I incorporate a fanfic-world where romantic relationships with the main cast is not only allowed, but Twilight is also still a unicorn with everything she has learned thus far in the series under her belt?

One answer would be to set my entire series of fics before Magical Mystery Cure. Of course, that draws the question of why each Mane character winds up in a relationship in that fic, yet the romance is unheard-of during the episodes (and by extension, comics) themselves. It also implies that they aren’t in relationships by the time they reach that episode, which doesn’t bode well for the poor male leads of said fics! D:

And that’s when I had this idea. Everyone remember this scene in the finale?

This vital moment. After Twilight restores her friends back to normal, she undergoes an epiphany.

In the show’s canon, her epiphany is that she can use the power of friendship to complete the Starswirl’s spell. In this instance, which we shall call the “Official” timeline, Twilight goes off to complete the spell successfully and become an Alicorn princess just as her very destiny dictated.

However, we can all agree that the fics you enjoy from me aren’t exactly what you’d consider canon, right? So back to that epiphany she has… while we know what happens to her in the “Official” timeline, the one my fics are in, known as Crowley’s “Shippingverse” to some, has a completely different epiphany that enters her head at that exact moment.

Her realisation this time is that Starswirl’s spell is too dangerous. That she only just saved her friends because she cared so much for them, and that, at some point, Starswirl may have ruined a bunch of pony’s lives years and years ago back when he cast the spell himself. As such, instead of using the Elements of Harmony with the spell like she did in the episode, she instead puts the book under intense care, locking it away in her library where nopony can get hurt by its cutie-mark switching effects.

While it wasn’t what the princesses, Celestia and Luna, had in mind, they still commend Twilight for her efforts and continue to watch over her as she continues her studies - she was to reverse a spell by Starswirl himself, after all!

And that’s when the “Shippingverse” timeline steps in; Rainbow Dash starts to notice a “rookie” in her weather team, a human “walks” into Equestria and becomes a farm hand on Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie Pie sees a heartbroken unicorn threatening to jump off Town Hall to his death, Twilight tries to freeze Ponyville lake, only to fall in and nearly drown before being saved by a certain Lake Warden… you get the idea.

And so it is up until that exact moment, that “spark” in Twilight’s eye, that prompts the split-off point between the “Official” timeline and my “Shippingverse” one. Yes, that means Discord is a good guy now, that Shining Armour and Cadance are ruling the Crystal Empire, that Trixie, while still bitter over her losses, doesn’t highly begrudge Twilight. Basically the complete series as we know it so far, only I don’t have to rewrite Twilight as a princess in my fics! :D Hah hah!

So yeah, this post was just to clarify where in-canon I’m setting the fictions. Not alternate-universe - none of them will need the AU tag, because that’s mostly used in extreme measures like Luna sending Celestia to the sun instead of vice-versa, or Pinkie Pie being a narwhal instead of a pony. Crazy stuff like that. This, however, is just Alternate-Timeline, which is the same universe, but going down a different  road.

I hope this ramble has make sense. If not, don’t be afraid to ask me things. I don’t have anything against Alicorn-Twilight, before you ask; I just feel this ideal makes the most sense both retroactively with my fics and logically.

So I've been asked what I thought about the finale once or twice, so I'm just gonna lay it bare here without foolin' around.

Good points:

+ Nicely written, we truly believed in M.A. Larson (but then again, since most of it was song, Daniel Ingram probably wrote more of the episode than Larson!)

+ Handled well, considering it was a 2-part episode condensed into one.

+ Twilight in "space/heaven" scene was cool, complete with callbacks to the series that gave me feels. Celestia singing was nice.

+ A few smart callbacks, e.g. Spike recommending Zecora’s cure (I like that the zebra’s acknowledged,,,), Luna’s appearance, etc.

+ A warm welcome back to you-know-who.

Bad points:

– Have a Song! Have a Song! Have a Song! Have a Song! Have a Song! Have a Song! Have a Song! The End!

– Not an awful lot of interaction going on. Then again, things HAD to be hurried along...

– Didn’t answer an awful lot of questions (So, does she live in Canterlot now, or does she go back to her Ponyville library..? What’s she the princess of, exactly? Now that she’s a princess, her destiny, that the whole series has built up to, she’s going to… do what? etc.)

- They missed a golden opportunity to actually show Starswirl the bearded in the "space/heaven" scene.

– See, it would have been way better if that didn’t show us all those spoiler clips pre-episode…

And everything else:

> In conclusion, I suppose I liked it. Twilight never asked to become an Alicorn, but she accepted it with grace. And it wasn't as girly-girl as I feared (yeah, MLP, I know). Shame about Luna's dress though. Ugh.

> No, I don't believe Twi's "immortal" like Celestia and Luna. Cadance has been shown to age with her wings, Twi should be just the same I reckon.

> I will keep Twilight as "wingless" in my fics, present and future (unless stated otherwise), but I don't think they'll need an Alternate Universe tag. Heck, imagine all the fics on this site that would now!

Let me know what you guys thought.

You guys said it wouldn't when I posted about it late January. But now I see it's all true.

The humans are here.

Personally, I think it's beautiful in its own way. Hasbro, the humans in suits who have no understanding of what we've gone through these past, what, three years being their loyal fans? And now humans have wrecked it.. Fitting, really.

For those who don't know (all two of them, probably), Fighting is Magic has been discontinued because of Hasbro changing its mind after it already gave the team permission to make it. And it wasted like 2 years of their time as a result.

I know it's unlikely, but if anyone cares even a little, they should give this petition a shot.

And before you slap me with the moist fish of pessimism, I know it's unlikely. But if you just put your name down, at least you can say you tried. Heck, in the time to took me to link this to you guys, it just passed the 4,000 mark, which I really, REALLY wasn't expecting. And before someone sarcastically groans "Oh, petition, that tooootally works..." I humbly request those pessimists sit on a shark's face beforehand. So the shark may bite your bottom and your bottom will bleed.

To those who care enough about preserving something non-profit that we all care about, I will give you a silent, humble nod of approval for your efforts.

Thanks in advance guys.

-with something more uplifting. Sorry about before. I was in a funk back there, I suppose that's only natural from time to time. But I believe we must be the change we wish to see, and I want to see higher spirits up in this site. So disregard previous angst, obtain happiness post. No point in me rubbing my irkings and bad juju upon other people, especially when the only reason they watched me in the first place was to find happiness in my writings. That'd just be improper and not right at all!

I really don't wanna be the one to bog my friends down with depressio-posts, so let's cheer up, put some chill music on, and let's all wait it out as a group, shall we? Talk about our favourite ponies, that favourite bit in that episode that was awesome, and all that stuff. Whatever's gonna happen will happen either way, might as well not fret about it.

Trickster Mode Engage.