"Rainbow Of Fate" Trivia

Random Trivia about the making of "Rainbow Of Fate" for anyone who cares. Think of it like a developer’s diary if you like because this is designed to give fun facts and explain why weird things about the story exist without needing Author's Notes. Cripplingly large spoilers beware although they are covered up so be aware of that as well.

1. It started as the simple idea "Shining Armour becomes immortal like Twilight and Cadance" as more or less a better, fleshed out version of “A Fateful Decision” from “And With The Dawn of True Peace.” I felt that chapter was rushed and I still consider it very short and dated so I wanted to make a whole thing out of it. It developed from there by wondering "how would that happen?" and wanted to make a proper story out of it and not just a one-shot. Then the idea became immortality through Nightmare Moon but then other ideas I've had for stories came together and this was the end result. Pretty different than the original concept I think one would agree although Shining Armour being changed was always a part of the plan from the earliest concept.
2. Why didn’t the idea of longer lived Shining Armour come up later? I originally just forgot and then just scrapped the idea altogether. There’s enough crap happening in the story as is without getting into immortality blues as well.
3. As you may have just inferred, this was just supposed to be a side project to “And With The Dawn of True Peace” to get me through a period of strong writer’s block. I expected to get a handful of views on this and then move back to my main. When this got more interest and feedback, I pivoted; especially since my motivation to continue writing it later died entirely. Tried to write more for that in December 2022 but I later regained motivation for writing this so AWTPOTP was cancelled so will not likely be continued.
4. Neither of my stories were supposed to be published at all as I was just using Fimfiction’s tools to write. I eventually decided to publish this just to get any vague interest whatsoever and then reluctantly published AWTDOTP four days later because I said “I published one so what’s the harm in publishing the other?” This is why the publication date say that story was created on October 14th but the individual chapter dates for the earlier story occur weeks before. This story was always my second but, because of a variety of factors, it got more attention so became my priority.
5. The short description originally read “Instead of Rarity, Nightmare Moon takes Rainbow Dash and Equestria must deal with the consequences. But is she as evil as Nightmare Moon was or are her intentions far more noble? Equestria's about to find out.” The changing story ideas (see below) led me to change that in the early hours of May 25th, 2023.
6. Similarly, the log description originally just read “In this universe, instead of kidnapping Rarity, the Nightmare Forces kidnap and corrupt Rainbow Dash into Night-time Flare. Unlike Rarity's very public kidnapping, Rainbow Dash's is whilst she is alone so the other Elements and Princesses are woefully unprepared for what is about to hit them and Equestria. What are Flare's goals and what is everypony going to do about it?”
7. You'll have noticed I didn't use specific character names in titles and that's just because a new viewer may have things spoiled should they decide to display the hidden titles.
8. This was supposed to just be four or five chapters at one point. It would have ended only two to three chapters after “The Truth” if things had gone to plan because, again, this was just a side-project that blew up way beyond what I thought it would.
9. Weird theme this story developed was confronting the consequences of one’s own failures and actions. Believe me, that was not intentional. This was pretty much a popcornfic as I first wrote it.
10. At one point, the story was basically gonna be a crappy reworking of "The Benevolent Reign of Queen Rarity" with everypony just accepting the corruption and the Princesses not deciding to stop it. You can even feel this energy in some of the earlier chapters and the "Nightmare Princess" bit from Chapter 2 was more or less a variation on a bit from that story. “Ponyvile Falls” is more or less an extended version of what most of “Benevolent Reign” consisted of. When the entire idea rightfully began to receive strong criticism though, mostly due to our of character ideas and a number of other factors, I pivoted into something else. I'm not entirely proud of the story as it is but that initial idea was abysmal.
11. The choice to have it be Rainbow Dash as the central character (the story doesn’t really have a main protagonist after-all given the ping ponging perspective) was made simply because of her sisterly dynamic with Scootaloo. As I said, it was going to be a longer and worse knock-off of the dynamic between Rarity and Sweetie Belle in the original story. It didn’t occur to me that her impulsiveness and inability to think things fully through made her a perfect choice until it was actually pointed out to me.
12. For the first three months of its existence, the story was called “Rainbows of Fate” but was changed to singular because there’s only one rainbow.
13. In reality, the title has kinda lost all meaning. The original idea, as I said, was pretty much “enhance every-pony with dark magic so they aren’t completely screwed if the likes of the Changelings returned and/or the Princesses and Mane Six failed” so the title was somewhat of a way of saying “Rainbow Dash uses black magic to change the way of life for the greater good.”
14. The story was originally going to be set between "Twilight's Kingdom" and "The Cutie Re-Mark" but this didn't happen because I'm not very consistent in my explanations. Originally, it was to explain why such an experienced magic user as Twilight couldn't defeat Nightmare Moon which is where the whole "only light and the Elements can hurt me" thing came from. I then later decided it was also due to clashing sources of energy (Twilight's only source is her own magic reserves whereas Nightmare Moon has her own as an Alicorn, the inherent power of all three pony tribes which Alicorns embody and the power of shadow). By that point however, a lot of the early story was already written out so a significant amount would have to be changed thus I left it is it was.
15. Similarly, it was then said to occur between "Sleepless in Ponyvile" and "Magical Mystery Cure" until I remembered that "Keep Calm and Flutter On" aired after that episode. Discord is a minor character, largely to prevent Deus ex-machinas and because of many other issues that he'd present, but he does appear in the story nonetheless.
16. Rainbow Dash is far more... shall we say wordy than in the show largely because being connected to a centuries old being would naturally expand one's vocabulary. There’s no real way to organically incorporate this into the story so it’s here instead.
17. The decision to give certain characters such distinctly different text styles and colours was done for two reasons. 1. Character differentiation and it's more interesting to look at and 2. because they sound different than many others. Luna as Nightmare Moon had a very distorted voice, Shadowfright is implied in the comic to have a demonic one and the Changelings speak for themselves. In the flashback sequences, it’s just used to indicate whose speaking without having to break things up with descriptors.
18. In the show, by the time of early Season 3, Luna is moving away from Elizabethan English and towards more modern vernacular. As a kinda transition, I decided to retain the plural "we" but use otherwise modern English to illustrate the slowly shifting speech pattern.
19. The story was originally tagged "Cutie Mark Crusaders" until I realised that changing ideas about the story led to Celestia getting more of a focus than most of them. In my “original” idea, she was pretty much just a major secondary character and would have been the source of much of the story’s conflict.
20. At one point, romance was going to play a major role in the story. Since it didn't fit, and would have probably become a rather large deus ex-machina, the entire idea was scrapped aside from Cadance and Shining Armour because duh.
21. ”The Re-Emergence” was originally called “Night-time Flare Arises” but was changed to better reflect the opening paragraph which wasn’t originally there and because the original title was kind of bland compared to the rest.
22. For the latter reason, and because it didn’t very well reflect the actual plot of the chapter, Chapter 2’s title was changed from “Plot and Counter Plot” to “Cat and Mouse.”
23. The whole “in the center of a distant star” opener wasn’t added until April 24th, 2023 because it came from my altered plans for the story. It was very, very vaguely inspired by the opening sentences of Secret Wars.
24. The story didn't have the "peaceful and beautiful night in Ponyvile" preamble. It just abruptly started with "Twilight calmly puts a book away only to hear Spike coming downstairs."
25. In Chapter 2, I originally had it so the plan was to split immediately after leaving the Boutique. Because of it being a cliché for stupid characters in a horror movie, I changed it to be only a last resort.
26. The lengthy bit about Pinkie being the unofficial godmother of the Cake twins was only added on June 9th 2023 which was due to the line “like godmother, like godchildren” apparently. Why did I add that detail? Because it just sounded better than “like auntie, like niece and nephews” and because she more or less canonically fulfils the role of a godmother anyway.
27. In "Losing Hope," there was originally an entire paragraph of thoughts from Luna after it describes Celestia "visibly holding back tears." Since it amounted to "she's lost a lot and now she's lost six of the closest ponies to her", and I enjoy some level of subtlety to exist in my stories, this was eventually axed in January 2023. No-one ever had a problem with it but the later parts of the story dives quite heavily into her past, whereas this was originally barely going to be a footnote. I considered it to on the nose and painfully telling not showing.
28. "Losing Hope" originally featured the line "Luna becomes fearful as she sees the look of grief turn into a look of grim determination and a tone as cold as the Storm King's heart. " I removed it when someone pointed out that they didn't actually meet the Storm King until the movie but later found a way to reincorporate a mention anyway.
29. Despite being a major plot-point, the idea of Scootaloo being horribly injured was made up on a whim. My original plan was for the Crusaders to get to Lofty and Holiday's house with everything culminating there but then I remembered that, until "The Last Crusade", they lived outside of Ponyvile.
30. In all honesty, I've come to regret making that decision because it can feel like fridging and unnecessarily edgy. Edgy on the same level as “Look at me, I’m so cool. I’m willing to maim a main character just because I feel like it!” If I could go back and change it, I'd have had her escape and flee into the Everfree or to the Apple Family homestead in a version of "The End of a Journey." Unfortunately, the idea is already so integral to several major plot-points in the story that I can't change it without a massive overhaul. One I'm not sure everybody would agree with.
31. I originally considered writing Cheerilee into "Downfall" as pay-off to a throwaway line in "Shock, Grief and Revelations" but originally scrapped it due to it making what Dash did eve more irredeemable. The part you see now was added in March 2023 when I decided to do it anyway/
32. "The End of a Journey" was originally called "Tying up Loose Ends" but that was changed when I realised the very negative connotations of such a title. “Downfall” also has negative connotations but the former title implies goddamn child murder.
33. Act 2 originally started with “Past Toes” as “Downfall” was part of an enormous Act 1. To give each length a more consistent Act length, I decided to switch things around.
34. “Downfall” was originally called “Ponyvile Falls.” The thing is that the Act structure came very long after I first started writing and I like these titles to describe the ct as well as chapter. Since Act 2 encompasses the corruption of Ponyvile, Flare’s motives and her eventual sealing away,, I changed the title.
35. The entire scene with Granny Smith and Big Mac was essentially a tweaked and accented version of the planned scene with Lofty and Holiday that never saw the light of day.
36. Originally, it was going to be much more overt that Granny and Bug Mac were corrupted before the Crusaders even arrived in “Ponyvile Falls” by actually having them appear changed when the Crusaders arrived and them just kinda giving up running at that point. That original idea was why they react so weirdly to the invasion and news of Scootaloo’s kidnapping. This didn’t happen because I wanted a nice moment to break up the constant riding action and I think it was a decision for the better anyway.
37. The line “Shining Armour walks over with a hopeful smile on his face” was originally Cadance. It remained until I started writing “Brokem Ties” and I realised that I’ve kinda been writing Cadance as a complete idiot. She’s supposed to be understandably ignorant, Celestia and Luna rarely having talked of thier pasts beyond what’s relevant, but I was writing her basically as a character to just unload exposition into.
38. The part in “Ponyvile Falls” about Diamond Tiara was originally placed between the Mayor Mare and Nurse Redheart bird as the Hard Flank and Trixie bits came in a later revision. It was changed because it still had the whole “walking when suddenly the Shadows attacked” part even though it was the penultimate segment and made more sense at the very start.
39. Chrysalis is only referred to as "The Queen" in “The Truth” because her name wasn't given in ACW. Would be kinda weird for Rainbow Dash to know the name when she hadn't learnt it yet.
40. The part of "The Truth" where Luna meets Rainbow Dash in the Dreamscape was not originally part of the chapter. I had originally planned for her to meet with both Princesses at some point during that flashback but that idea was simply never realised due to it taking several days to write that chapter and me forgetting. I added it after a commentor asked "why didn't she go to the Princesses about this first?"
41. I decided that Nightmare Moon was going to kinda be a separate entity than Luna largely both to explain how she can exist separately but also because I'm never personally a fan of any story that takes responsibility out of the hooves of Luna and has her corrupted by an evil external force. The way I wrote it here, Luna was the one to break all those millennia ago but Nightmare Moon was the one faced during the Summer Sun Celebration so they both bear a kinda equal responsibility. It also makes her tearful apology in the opener even more appropriate. It's not just "I regret what I did" but also "I created a monster and nearly watched them destroy everything."
42. The decision to make Nightmare Moon the living embodiment of every destructive emotion was because the show itself seems to support the idea. We'd later see Daybreaker in the show and I can't think of any reason for Celestia to go full on demonic without a severe emotional source. Clearly, thier emotions are stronger and more destructive than the ordinary creature.
43. Basically every single plot-point after "The Truth" was never supposed to be in the story as I was saving many ideas to be used in other stories. The Changeling plot wasn't even supposed to be here at all with Chrysalis just being a flashback character. Even as I progressed, I was reluctant to use any other ideas until I said "sod it" with "When is an unfinished television series like a little puppy?" Why? Because I have a burning feeling this will be the only story anyone cares about so why not go all out?
44. "The Long Awaited Confrontation" was originally "An Overdue Confrontation" and was extremely different. It was so horrendously bad that I scrapped the entire chapter and rewrote it to be more in line with how the story was heading. If anyone cares, it had the same basic story-beats (and even much of the same dialogue) as the new version up until Scootaloo reveals why everything's happening at which point it differs severely. More or less, the titular confrontation occurred in that room, was terribly written, and had the Princesses giving minor concessions that they never would. It was so bad that I had them splitting up: Luna staying with Flare to try and help Scootaloo whilst Cadance and Celestia followed Nightmare Moon to the Boutique. Why the hell would they do that? Are you starting to see what I mean when I say it was horrendous?
45. “An Overdue Confrontation” was so bad that it was the main reason for me taking a four month hiatus. I didn't know where to go from there and considered completely rewriting the entire story. The first version of the chapter was originally published on November 7th, 2022 but was utterly deleted which is why there seems to be a four month gap between chapters.
46. “An Overdue Confrontation” was so bad that it gave the story its second dislike. If you’re wondering, the first came from “The Truth.”
47. At one point, for just over a week, this story was entirely deleted from the site. I didn't know how to continue and was so absolutely disgusted with "An Overdue Confrontation" that I hated the idea of people seeing it. It was a complete personal embarrassment. Eventually, I decided to keep it up for prosperity's sake and had an admin restore it on October 27th 2022 although I switched the Progress Tag to Cancelled. In January 2023, I got a fresh wind and decided to continue it with a new direction.
48. It was because of "An Overdue Confrontation" that I abandoned my original plan for the story. I couldn't find a way to make the original idea I had work without making the Princesses horrendously out of character.
49. Because of that one chapter, I considered completely erasing everything I've done here and rewriting it to be a heavily redone version of my now (sort of) scrapped story "The Three Pillars of Salvation." More or less, it would have had a very similar structure but the Mane Six would have become pure evil slaves to Rainbow Dash/Midnight Blaze with only the Crusaders escaping to save the day. That story has been scrapped due to being far too similar to this one (my ideas have been done to death but I do like to give some spin on tired plots) but why wasn't this revamped? Because I'm someone who believes in keeping up your work no matter how crap you think it is and this would remove a major part of my writing progression.
50. During the part where Celestia snd Luna find Scootaloo in the Library, there was supposed to be a line specifically referring to her recognising the filly from the wedding from hell. Never made it in because it’s very obvious where she’d recognise Scootaloo thus the statement would be redundant.
51. I legit came up with the idea of how the story would end whilst watching the 44th episode of Toukmei Sentai Go-Busters. I find Sentai music helps me think.
52. The inclusion of Legionary Phalanx was completely unplanned and something I just spit-balled for "The Long Awaited Confrontation." All earlier references you can see to him in the story were added in months later.
53. Why did I create him? As some context for Celestia's actions make even more sense as a result. The original idea was that Nightmare Moon would have killed him out of spite long ago so it's a "never again" kind of situation. The part about him turning evil came later.
54. There was originally going to be an extensive backstory written into "The Long Awaited Confrontation" for Legionary Phalanx delivered thanks to a gigantic wall of exposition from Luna. Since it was a lot of "tell don't show", as well as a massive pace breaker (the plot pretty much completely stopped to tell a long and not very relevant story), I reduced it to a small handful of lines. I intend to write the backstory into a later dedicated chapter.
55. As one can probably gleam, I like to touch on the Princesses' pasts pre-Nightmare Moon. More or less, it's because FiM presents thier past as a series of bullet points (Starswirl, Sombra, Nightmare Moon etc) but leaves a lot of the rest either vague or completely unmentioned. Why not explore it?
56. "Ideals, Reunions and New Problems" was originally called "The Much Needed Conversation" but I decided that was too similar to the previous chapter's name.
57. “Surprises, Reunions and New Problems” was originally going to be called “The Long-Awaited Conversation.” Since the focus was more on the outcome than the conversation itself, and because it was too much like the previous chapter title, I changed it. It was then also called “Ideals, Reunions and New Problems” but that name was never published since it’s not really a clash of ideals either.
58. “Surprises, Reunions and New Problems” was at one point going to outright state that the corruption grants a greater lifespan of several centuries because of dark magic.
59. The decision to give Cadance the Elements of Loyalty and Honesty was done because both are crucial elements of a healthy relationship.
60. “When is an unfinished television series like a little puppy?” was named such because I had just started playing the Arkham games.
61. Between the Princesses and Guards leaving, and Flare being confronted, there was originally a scene of Scootaloo waking up to meet Aurum and then watching the confrontation by magic window. This was excised since it wouldn’t allow the next two chapters to happen for lack reasons. This is why the story seems to go from just leaving Canterlot to over Balrimare in one sentence despite it being a very long way away.
62. The Gildran Line is a version of the real life Kármán Line AKA where Earth meets space. Where'd the altered name come from? The Kármán Line is named for Theodore Kármán, a Hungarian American, and a Gildran is a type of Hungarian horse.
63. Why did I have the Changelings return from apparently nowhere? Pretty much as a way of proving that Flare wasn't talking out her rear end about the power boost. Originally, Celestia was basically just gonna take thier word for it. That and I like stories with the Changelings. Like 99% of everything in the story only came about because I went "oh, I like that idea and it kinda fits so I'll include it."
64. The whole aspect between Chrysalis and Celestia came about because I needed some justifiable reason for her to hate Celestia. "Justifiable" in big quotes of course.
65. The story was originally not supposed to be so heavily Celestia focused. She was just supposed to be a major secondary character and pretty much the "main antagonist" if that's the right term. Not evil but the "biggest problem the heroes face" kinda issue in that they'd have to convince her they aren't corrupted beyond salvation. This changed with the backstory for Chrysalis I created.
66. The designs of the Princesses in the past described in the story won't entirely line up with the show designs (which are pretty much slightly tweaked versions of thier modern forms). More or less, it's because (as is especially evident with Twilight in "The Last Problem" and arguably with Luna during the brief part where she is shown in the opening two-parter), Alicorns grow and change substantially given enough time. Sure, they have designs in flashback scenes where they are virtually identical to how they are in the present such as in the Season 4 opener but I view this less as absolute cannon and more copied designs for the sake of animation expediency.
67. For similar reasons, they speak in a variant on Elizabethan English instead of modern Equestrian for consistency's sake. Luna spoke in archaic English in "Luna Eclipsed" so it stands to reason everypony did and they don't anymore because language evolves but Luna wasn't around to experience the gradual shift.
68. At one point, Chrysalis was only going to be a mentioned character in "The Truth" but she's a character I like and shifting story ideas led to her getting a much more direct role in the story.
69. The choice to have Chrysalis and the Princesses share a history was made for two reasons. 1. As referenced earlier, Twilight somehow just knew her name a few episodes later despite it never being given in “A Canterlot Wedding” and 2. the line “You may have made it impossible for Shining Armour to perform his spell, but now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self, I can protect my subjects from you!” Maybe it’s just me, and it admittedly probably is just perspective bias, but it sounds a lot like a “not you again!” instead of just a threat. Hard to tell honestly since it’s such an awkwardly worded sentence. Chrysalis being so very visibly pissed off at Celestia right after that line also suggests past bad blood and not just a “you dare speak like that to me?! ME?!!!” Celestia has good reason to be that angry, not Chrysalis unless she has some longstanding grudge. Also, anyone else find it funny that Chrysalis took so much pleasure in turning Twilight’s friends against her? Yeah, she’s a sadist but it makes more sense if she was doing this as a kinda gotcha to Celestia. The supposedly infallible Princess is tricked into tormenting her student before being revealed to have been lied to right before being defeated and cocooned. Plus, with the exception of Starlight and Cozy, every other villain in this show is either an old enemy of Celestia or a evil from Equus’ past so it’d check out.
70. I only introduced Chrysalis to tell a backstory I invented without any idea of how to utilise her which came about a month after publishing “Past Ties.” I didn’t know how to end “When is an Unifnished television series like a little puppy?” so I just had her pop up. The one-off mention of her name in “Ideals, Reunions and New Problems” was just to explain the oddity where they knew her name.
71. Originally, most of “Past Ties” “was still about one thousand years before Sombra.” I apparently can’t count seeing as this is set 1700 years in the past and I just inadvertently said that they sealed away Sombra AFTER Nightmare Moon had already happened. Premise aside, this story is supposed to somewhat follow the show’s continuity.
72. During an early concept, there was a scene of Celestia, Luna, Chrysalis and the Griffon King fighting Griffonian pirates during a peace dinner. It existed to show that, even back then, Chrysalis could be just as sadistically cruel back then but just hid it more. This was scrapped because I would more or less be bludgeoning you over the head with this fact, because it serves no real purpose behind this fact and feels like a worthless detour and because the dialogue got really stupid even by this story’s standards. I already have a nasty habit of chronically over-explaining everything in dialogue (seriously, almost every exchange is less an exchange and more like a goddamn soliloquy) and using “as,” "before," “when” and “even as” far more than I should but this would pretty much be treating Cadance like a child with no inference skills.
73. I toyed with the idea of merging “Past Ties” and “Broken Alliances” into one chapter for pacing and flow reasons as I felt splitting them would lessen the immersion. Ultimately, the idea was abandoned and they remained split apart because we’d end up with over 12,000 words in one chapter and that’s too damn long. Some stories can get away with such chapter lengths like “Unseen, Unheard”, “Past Sins” or “The Powers of Harmony” but my writing just isn’t interesting enough to justify that. People need a damn moment to breathe and my story isn't good enough to justify the lack of break.
74. Similarly, the “ponies would be disgusted by the past” exchange was originally regular dialogue instead of the inter-spliced coloured text. This was changed because this involved completely coming out of the flashback and back to the present before continuing into the flashback for “Broken Alliances.”
75. ADC = Anno Domini Celestia. Just one more reason for Luna to have become jealous and resentful.
76. “Past Ties” once contained the line “She isn’t indestructible; if she was shot straight through the heart or beheaded, she’d die and there’d be no coming back from it.” It existed to say that Chrysalis isn’t some unkillable Mary Sue. It was cut because how the hell would Luna know that?
77. Mi Amore Crystalia is named after the kingdom in Kiramager.
78. The off-handed mention of Canterlot being a weather staging area was made for one simple reason. If it was founded by Unicorns for Unicorns, seeing as it’s majority population during FiM consisted of Unicorns, why would they build it halfway up a mountain? Seems like an unnecessary pain in the flank to get around that way. Only really makes sense if it were originally built by Pegasi that can fly up there no problem.
    
79. The bit where Celestia and Luna tell Chrysalis about thier origins wasn’t originally present in “Past Ties” and was only added on July 15th, 2023 because of a bit that’d later come up in “Confronting Your Past.”
80. The Aurora Realm mentioned in “Past Ties” is indeed supposed to be that weird starry dimension from “Magical Mystery Cure.” That place was never really explained nor did it get a name so I decided “why not?”
81. Until the last minute, the idea for the straw that broke the camel’s back with the Changelings was going to either be cornering a Changeling and forcing them to act defensively or capturing and modifying one to pretty much nuke Everfree City. Both were abandoned, the former because it would be rather convenient for a mere defensive attack to destroy a whole city and the latter because there’s no way Chrysalis wouldn’t have noticed much earlier and acted upon it.
82. As one has probably ascertained, I like to give weird alliterate nicknames to Luna and Celestia (eg Solar Sovereign or Duchess of Dreams). This is just for variety besides calling them Celestia and Luna all the time.
83. A lot of the anger in Chrysalis' speech in the Aurora Realm from "Broken Alliances" was actual, visceral anger from me since I had been having an absolutely horrendously bad day and I needed to vent. In May to June 2023, I had been taking a computer course to try and improve my employment chances and it was just one day after another of stress and aggravation.
84. The overly emphasised “ridiculous, overinflated, blue pixie in a gaudy magician's outfit” bit was a rather unsubtle nod to Chrysalis and Trixie sharing the same actress. Seems to be becoming a running theme in my stories with her in them for some reason.
85. I decided that the Elements only purify if the creature feels legitimate regret to explain a weird inconsistency in the show. Like, Luna is redeemed by the Elements but every other villain they’re used on is either banished or petrified? Sure, they’re arguably more evil than her but Discord ain’t exactly on par with Tirek or the Shadow Pony. It’s clearly not due to evilness seeing as wanting to cause never ending chaos isn’t on par with ecological collapse, the Sombra timeline or sucking all magic out of Equestria. Also clearly isn’t because you just have to love somepony enough because Celestia loves her sister and yet Luna was banished. Adversely, the six ponies, who fought to banish her once again because they thought that she was beyond salvation, could change her back?
86. "Revelations of Gold" was named after the Zeo episode of the same name. The same is true of “A Golden Homecoming.”
87. The part from “Broken Alliances” which is set four days after The Wedding was added on June 16th, 2023 and not originally a part of the chapter. It was added largely because I felt the chapter was missing a kind of aftermath to everything that happened.
88. The working title for "Revelations of Gold" was “Villains, Secrets, Confronting Friends and Research“ but got changed due to being rather blunt and almost unreflective of the contents to an extent. It was then "A Moment's Respite" but that changed as well.
89. Aurum was created because I kept on coming up with worse and worse ideas until the ending stuck. My original plan was for there to be no big fight at all; the chapter was only supposed to be ten chapters. When the story became longer, I wanted things to culminate with Chrysalis and then that be it until I realised one small fight and then a load of chapters for chitchat wouldn't make a very good conclusion.
90. The name Aurum is derived from omne quod splendet non est aurum or “all that glitters is not gold.” It was basically chosen because he thinks of his viewpoint as the golden standard and because he thinks of his views as superior which means, despite his dark means, he truly means well. In his own head at least. He is the titular gold in "Revelations of Gold."
91. If I had to pick a voice actor for Aurum, it would probably be the late Robert Axelfod. Whenever I write his dialogue, I write him with the same kinda voice as Lord Zedd. They’re not the exact same voice obviously given my description of there being a feminine undertone but that’s how I imagine it.
92. The final antagonist was originally either going to be Sombra or an off-shoot of his evil made manifest. This was scrapped and I came up with Aurum because Sombra is the only villain from up to this point in the show that hasn't made an appearance in the story. Besides, Sombra returning is kind of a dead horse (ha) by this point that's been done to death plus, thanks to the actions of Nightmare Moon and my invented backstory for Chrysalis, the story morphed into a kinda showcase of Celestia's failures. Sombra doesn't fit that camp compared to Nightmare Moon both once being Luna and then her actions against the Main Six here as well as both my ideas for Chrysalis and the possible suggestions of a history present in the show. Aurum was the end result when everything had been considered.
93. Aurum’s dialogue was originally going to be highlighted in blood red but that idea was scrapped in favour of pinkish-red in italics because red is how I illustrate the Canterlot Voice. He's not supposed to be perpetually screaming his head off in the story. Plus, Crystalia already speaks in red anyway.
94. For much of the development of the later parts of the story, Aurum kidnapped Scootaloo to use as a host as a kinda counterbalance to Flare. Given the issues that would have been raised because of Scootaloo’s physical state, and how I decided on how Aurum came to be, this was changed. The result is lamer but it makes more sense if you ask me.

95. For a while, I tried to decide how to reveal Aurum's presence to the Princesses.

    • At first, it was going to be just showing up after the Changeling battle with him even being the one to stop Chrysalis' final ditch attack instead of Luna and then having Celestia angrily lash out at him to illustrate the painful past. It was never realised mostly because of how out of character it would be for Celestia and because it would have more or less been a curb-stomping of the Princesses which would get severe, justified backlash. A version of this idea ended up becoming “A Golden Homecoming.”
    • The next idea was then to have Twilight pull out a feather belonging to Aurum that they found in the hospital room sometime after Nightmare Moon left which Luna wouldn't recognise but Celestia would. Didn't happen because I couldn't think of a way to make it seem natural and not an ass-pull and because it would have required an immediate explanation even that wouldn’t become relevant for a few chapters yet because of the Changeling attack anyway.
    • Ultimately, I decided on a prophetic dream to foreshadow Aurum's ultimate plans, because it felt the most realistic and to set up a minor character that will show up near the very end. That character by the way is supposed to kinda be the overarching narrator but what that really means will on,y become apparent near the very end of the story. It isn’t a mystery, it’s just not relevant to the story yet.
96. “Revelations of Gold” originally featured this line from Discord when explaining why he wouldn’t intervene. “If not, I can just save Fluttershy and play with her memories a bit. [Chaosvile] will become her new home.” This was originally to demonstrate the weird half-reformed state he was in before “Twilight’s Kingdom” but do I have to explain why it was cut?
97. I had three main plans for Legionary Phalanx’s fate; one of which was used, two were abandoned. My very first idea was to have him killed whilst fighting Sombra but that idea was scrapped because Celestia and Luna never actually fought Sombra.
98. My other plan was not to have Aurum and Legionary Phalanx be the same pony and instead just have Aurum be another evil identity which Legionary sacrificed himself so Celestia could banish Aurum (who I had not actually decided the name of at that point) at the cost of him being banished as well. These plans were abandoned because it was very similar to Sombra in terms of being a weird dark force (which once again was actually who Aurum was supposed to be) and because the Elements don’t tend to banish those who are good ponies.
99. There was originally going to be a long section of "Revelations of Gold" where it would have shown the Main Six reacting to the injured Scootaloo and takeover of Ponyvile. This was cut just because I couldn't find a way to make it work as well as just being redundant in general. Thier reactions are easily assumable and, although it may have been nice, it wouldn't have added to the story and may even come across as filler by repeating information we already know. At least the flashback in that chapter provides some background information and re-establishes that the other members of the Main Six are still themselves; what I elsewise had planned was pretty much just filler.
100. When Scootaloo sarcastically repute the idea of being Luna’s student, there was originally a line after the “definitely the same thing as what Twilight has been doing for ten years but.” It basically went “Pip would be more like her personal student” because, if we’re going by Aurum’s logic, Pip at least befriended Luna during “Luna Eclipsed” whereas she and Scootaloo had met all of one time onscreen. Why was this cut? Because I couldn’t find a way to make the line sound natural since thr sarcastic rebutted started with “by that logic” which doesn’t really sound like something she’d say.
101. Why did I make Legionary Trottinghamanian? Because I’m English and Trottingham is a ponified play on Nottingham which both the name and Pipsqueak’s accent supports.
102. Between "Revelations Of Gold" and "War and Absolute Chaos", there are originally supposed to be a chapter named "Nice Memories and Compounded Problems" which mainly focused on what Cadance and Shining Armour were doing during Discord's little break-up. This chapter was never finished and ultimately scrapped because I never found a way to integrate it into the overall story without making it feel like filler. At one point, a major flashback was going to be a telling of Cadance's first meeting with Night-light and Velvet and then Twilight as a proof of identity but what the hell has that got to do with the overall story? At least the previous chapter's flashback filled in some deliberately left gaps and was somewhat in character. The final decision came down to the fact that the idea of the heroes being split up makes things more tense.
103. Some aspects from "Nice Memories and Compounded Problems" did carry over into other chapters however. Namely, these were the reveal of Aurum's appearance which ended up in "Confronting Your Past", the entire breakfast scene from "Revelations Of Gold" (although it was originally a lunch scene) and the whole part of Celestia and Luna noticing the immense swarm of Changelings from "Revelations of Gold" was originally from the end of NMACP. However, it was just narration describing them descending upon Ponyvile without the Princesses being present to witness it at all.
104. When conceptualising the chapter that’d eventually become “War And Absolute Chaos”, Celestia and Luna were eventually going to be back at Canterlot Castle to help fight Chrysalis. How this would have worked is something I’ll get to in a minute but it was ultimately changed to create kind of a “heroes divided against a powerful enemy” situation.
105. Originally, the reveal of Aurum was going to come first and then the Changelings would attack whilst they’re plotting how to find him. This is why “When is an unfinished television series like a little puppy?” implies that the Changelings would wait a few days to attack when it ends up being literally the next afternoon. It was changed for pacing reasons mainly because the chapter after the fight chapter is an aftermath/sit down and talk kind of chapter as this thing’s supposed to be a drama and not just mindless action.
106. Why are Thorax and Pharynx the Changeling commanders in chief here? Because they’re one of three major Changelings properly given names and Ocellus would be very young by the time this story is set.
107. Why did I add a Cupcakes reference to "War And Absolute Chaos?" The chapter sums it up and I felt the exchange I wrote to explain it was very Pinkie Pie. It was originally supposed to be the entire Pinkie segment with them wandering into a basement of horrors but I decided that wouldn’t go down well compared to just a quick one-off reference.
108. There was supposed to be a segment with Bonbon and Lyra fighting off the Changelings where Lyra was revealed to be a defector herself as well as segments with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and finally at the Schoolhouse. It all ended up being scrapped largely because adding more would just get redundant and I was running out of ways to convey the same “Changelings get thier flanks kicked in” point.
109. The Changelings getting curb-stomped likely seems contrived and weird but the idea behind it comes down to Ying and Yang. The Changelings are fuelled by love and derive power from it whereas dark magic, which the Shadows imbued everypony in Ponyvile with, is derived from anger and hatred. They’re polar opposites in every way so it’s kinda evenly matched; it’s just that the Ponyvilites got the drop on the Changelings. When you’re expecting to curb-stomp the ponies, I’d imagine you’d be surprised if they could suddenly fight on par with you. As for why Pharynx was defeated when he outright attacked Twilight? She’s a very skilled and powerful magic user already, this was merely a power boost.
110. I know I have occasionally poked at the idea of her becoming Luna's student but that was more supposed to represent a misinterpretation; something I even lampshade in "Revelations Of Gold." At no point was it ever gonna be a thing in ROF although it isn't an idea I'm opposed to in future use stories perhaps. It's just got no place here and exists only because of a misinterpretation on Aurum's part. "Luna once gave Scootaloo genuinely helpful advice once therefore she must be to Luna what Twilight is to Celestia." It's quite the leap in logic but this guy ain't exactly normal.
111. Largely as a result, I cut an entire paragraph from “Confronting Your Past” that would have been between Celestia pitching in to help with the work and Aegis Shield arriving to reveal Aurum’s arrival. It was cut because it would have presented more evidence to the idea of Scootaloo someday becoming Luna’s student. It would have mentioned them having a similarity where Luna was born a Pegasus and had a hard time flying for her first eleven years of life due to undiscovered wing rot. Thing is, I dunno how my readers would react to it and I don’t plan on making it an actual thing in the story so it’s best left as a twisted misinterpretation from Aurum.
112. Originally, "Confronting Your Past" was supposed to come after Aurum's defeat but I moved it forward so 1. there could be some small downtime and not constant action set-pieces and 2. so it didn't feel like we dealt with one villain and then forgot about her until it was convenient. Spreads it out more instead of cramming Chrysalis' resentment and resolution into one single chapter. The phenomenon already kinda exists as Aurum is first mentioned in "The Re-Emergence" and then disappears until the end of Act 2. This was also before I decided how Aurum would be revealed to the characters.
113. In fact, the line "so you defeated the freak that you once called your friend" was once in reference to Aurum as the majority of dialogue between Chrysalis and Celestia was unchanged from the original plans.
114. Legionary Phalanx was originally supposed to have a golden mane instead of a cobalt blue one but, combined with his white coat, I thought he’d look two much like Blueblood.
115. The reveal of what Aurum looked like was originally supposed to happen in “Nice Memories and Compounded Problems” and involved Scootaloo. Since the scene as I originally wrote it wasn’t very dramatic and the response from Scootaloo amounted to “huh, that’s interesting”, I changed it.
116. The weird bir where Aurum gives a detailed explanation of how my retconned magic works was supposed to come from next chapter and come from Celestia. It was changed because it’s incredibly robotic dialogue for Celestia whereas a kinda soulless dark being like Aurum feels like the guy to speechify.
117. MAJOR SPOILER. Aurum’s goal was inspired by Dimentio from Super Paper Mario. The thing about dark magic is that is twists and deforms your beliefs until you embody your own worst traits. Luna was jealous and wanted her night to be appreciated but her use of dark magic turned that into a twisted desire for forced appreciation and the deaths of any that would spoil her “happiness.” Rainbow Dash wanted to protect everypony in the event of a failure akin to The Wedding but being tied to Nightmare Moon turned it into obsession and immorality.
118. The actual method he used was heavily inspired by Brajira from Goseiger except even harder to stop. Yeah, suffice to say, MLP isn’t my main interest.
119. When Aurum confirmed he had Scootaloo hostage, he was originally gonna be outright attacked by an angry Luna. As you can guess, I decided to not do that because it's wildly out of character. Sure, she's always been more openly emotional than Celestia for lack of a better term but they've met all of once on-screen by this point. No-pony likes foals getting hurt but a full on rage filled assault would be a bit much. I dunno if you can even say they even really know each other.
120. Aurum’s rebuttal to being called insane is paraphrased from the Riddler in I believe Arkham City.
121. I originally planned to have five chapters in Arc 4 plus one aftermath chapter to round things out. However, I struggled to come up with proper substance considering it would consist of "ponies try to stop tornadoes and then somehow find Aurum" so it ended up being condensed to just four very long ones.
122. Act 4 was originally supposed to be seven chapters and an aftermath chapter but was cut back to five and an aftermath chapter when I realised I didn’t have enough ideas to make seven.
123. Originally, the plan for Act 4 was to have everything be our heroes trying to find a way to stop the tornadoes before stumbling upon his hideout. Yeah, needless to say, I ran into an issue of how to make an arc out of that.
124. The working title for “The Power Of Gold” and by extension all of Act 4 was “Delusional, Destructive Ambition” and later “Countdown to Destruction.” The former name wasn’t very created and the latter I decided would be a better title for the showdown chapter.
125. The idea of the Mirror Pool being reintegrated came after re-watching that episode.
126. The reason Scootaloo is the one to begin the path that led to the big fight with Aurum is to address a major problem with the story. Namely, fridging. As I’ve mentioned, I essentially fridged the character because I’m an idiot but it wouldn’t have been much of a problem as the story was supposed to only end about three-four chapters later so it wasn’t major. As you’ve gathered, that didn’t happen so she essentially became a damsel in distress. Since this entire story comes from me liking the character, the treatment never sat right with me; going from injured victim to hostage and damsel in distress. What you see now is more or less me addressing that flaw.
127. “Dream Battle” was released so quickly because, whilst writing “The Power Of Gold,” I had a full two months of writer’s block so I got a lot of other writing done. By the time I published Act 4’s opening chapter, it was around 65% finished and only really the titular fighting still needed adding.
128. “Dream Battle” was originally going to be split into two chapters for the sake of pacing with the second named “Doomsday Rising.” It was combined into one because I couldn’t make the second chapter long enough to justify it. If you’re wondering, where the second chapter would have started begins after Twilight realises where Aurum and Scootaloo were.
129. Why did I have Celestia and Legionary meet at Trottingham's founding? Dunno, it’s an idea I came up with at one point and just rolled with. I think the original reason was because I wanted to have them first meet before he joined the Royal Guard and couldn’t think of a better way than being part of a security detail. 
130. Originally, the idea was to have Chrysalis reluctantly team-up with Equestria against Aurum and redeem herself that way by realising they’re not so bad. I decided against that since 1. They wouldn’t trust her enough to do that and 2. She wouldn’t agreee to do so anyway. She’s way too spiteful. The scrapped idea is however where the whole “the fate of Equus itself lies in the balance of both friends and enemies alike“ part from the story description comes from.
131. Like many other things in this story, Carapace was not supposed to actually appear. She was just supposed to be a backstory element until I realised there had to be some way to even the odds against the Aurum army. She’ll also play a role later with Chrysalis.
132. I originally planned to have Carapace switch between font colours every three words but this was changed to a new colour every full sentence instead. Why? Because doing it the original way is way too tedious, especially since she’ll be doing a lot of talking later.
133. Immediately before the final showdown, there was supposed to be a big hero speech to Aurum that basically amounted to “you’ve caused chaos, suffering, kidnapped Scootaloo and want to destroy everything we’ve built. It ends now!” Kinda inspired by pre-final battle speeches from shows like Kakuranger. However, it was severely cut down 1. because it sounded cringe inducing to me and 2. because this isn’t a show that precedes its major fight scenes with major denunciations of the villain’s ideology. They just kinda get on with it.
134. Similarly, the final melodramatic speech before the final Elemental blast is partially inspired by Hurricaneger; 10 Years After.
135. Originally, I was going to have the first part of the two chapter climactic showdown be Luna confronting Legionary and them having a long drawn out arguechat before finally fighting. My story's dialogue heavy and almost a slog as is; no point in dragging out what's supposed to be the damn climax.
     Be forewarned; the next four points are very spoilerific towards the end of the story.
136. For a very long time, I considered the Elements redeeming Legionary with me always flip-flopping on the decision. I even wrote a very long section during the climax that was more or less a reunion but I ultimately decided not to. It’s a nice idea and all but it comes down to arcs and hard logic. Not every creature can be redeemed and the direction everything was heading wasn’t really towards a redemption. I mean, does literally anything he says come across as “guy corrupted but there’s still some good in him?”
137. An early idea I had in concept was for there to be scenes of Scootaloo talking to Legionary as he switched between Aurum and himself. This was never realised since, as mentioned, Act 4 was originally seven chapters instead of five and an aftermath and because of my decision not to have a redemption arc for Legionary.
138. Legionary’s final words are actually Welsh and “gheibh thu mi anns an t-seann choille faisg air far a bheil na measan air an giùlan.” is Scottish Gaelic.He’s supposed to be English yes but hey, FiM doesn’t really have equivalent locations for either so I thought grouping them together was a good idea.
139. At one point, there was going to be an entire reset of Equestria with a better existence as Aurum desired. That plan never came to be because the story is damn well long enough as it is and creating a sequel would just be kinda insulting. “You’ve just read this long ass story so come read this other story.”
140. The reason why there was such a long gap between chapters near the end was due to mostly the issue of what to do with the Scootaloo plot line. Everything else, I knew what to do and had written out but that stumped me for months. Eventually, I just sayid “sod it” and went with my original plans because it was either an unpopular option or the story would become a dead fic.
141. Speaking of, in January 2024, I strongly considered canning the story altogether and starting s new one. Ultimately, I decided not to for two reasons. 1. It’d look bad having cancelled two stories. “C’mon guys. I know I’ve written and cancelled two stories already but trust me, I’ll actually finish this new one.” And 2. I’m actually pleased with how the Chrysalis stuff turned out. About the only thing I’m proud of with this story which, for all rights, should never have been written. The Chrysalis story wasn’t even supposed to be part of ROF and would have made a much better standalone fic. Least it wouldn’t be bogged down and interrupted by all the other plot points.
142. I was at some point going to make a dedicated chapter showing Legionary and Celestia's relationship as it built and culminated in his corruption but the idea was scrapped. Why? Mostly, a lack of ideas how to convey it. Having it be a flashback dream would seem contrived and she wouldn't mention it to Luna as she'd already know everything up until her banishment. She could sit down and tell the Main Six her past but why would she do that? It’s no longer relevant and they’re not her damn therapists. There’s “being there for a grieving friend” and then there’s “your friend offloading thier issues to you instead of getting help.”
     I could have reworked it but the most important parts are how they met, meeting again, him becoming a captain, Nightmare Moon and his corruption. Anything more would be fluff in a story already incredibly bloated and at times, creatively bankrupt. You can still see remnants though such as when Celestia mentions being too stuck-up to notice Luna's resentment which was supposed to be illustrated in the dream.
143. Between and "Regret," there was supposed to be hospital chapter that I only ended up calling by it's working title "Recovery?" It would be a decaff for everything that's happened before the story began wrapping up. Why was it cut? 1. Because it would just repeat information and the only notable thing in it would have been Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood appearing and 2. Because writing that chapter is why it's been like five months since the next chapter.
144. As part of that chapter, there was going to be a big sit-down between Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash that went something along the lines of "dear Celestia, I bucked up and don't know how to fix it." Why was it excised? Well, the entire Scootaloo injured plotpoint is cringe inducing already so I decided actions speak louder than words. What better way to apologise than by trying to fix everything?
145. If I had to pick a favourite chapter, I’d have to go with “Broken Alliances.” I think I’m reasonably good at telling backstories and telling breakdown in relationships which is what puts it above “Past Ties.” It also lacks many of the severe problems other chapters possess with it’s only significant flaw being my usual writing issues of paragraph long exchanges, almost unnatural levels of explanations and moral questionability. This chapter was my chance to really let loose on the drama I like to write and I think I succeeded.
146. References; Aegis Shield is the main character of “Luna’s Story: Rise of the Lunar Stallions,” the line “couldn’t one of her subjects destroyed the body and disguised themselves as her?” is an allusion to the first chapter of “True Love Never Changes,” the description of Chrysalis' reformed form is partly inspired by "A New Chance of Forgiveness," Pen Stroke comes from “The King is Dead, Long Live The Emperor!" and “weapons of mass affection” is a nod to “Momento Morient.” Every chapter name in Act 4 is a Power Rangers episode name. Belladonna and Simulacris were major characters in “Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen,”