Why Centaur Conspiracy is on hiatus + other facts and trivia · 5:22am Nov 16th, 2022
Contains spoilers to Cozy Chronicles, and My Filly From Tartarus.
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It's been about 3 years since Friendship is Magic ended, and I started writing Cozy Chronicles, and 2 years since I finished that story. We'll start by cutting to the chase and explaining why updates on its sequel have been slow to non-existent.
In short, Cozy Chronicles had such a perfect ending, that frankly messing with it felt unnecessary. At some point though, I thought that the idea I came up with for the sequel was interesting enough to pursue, but looking at it now, it feels more "direct to video" sort of plot, than it does a meaningful sequel. CC's ending was just so tightly knit, that this new story is kind of just extraneous.
Cozy Chronicles was by every means the exact story I wanted to tell staring Cozy Glow. It's everything pretty much I wanted to see, and the exact kind of journey I would've wanted her to take in a post The Last Problem Equestria. I went with the happy version of the ending, (you could argue an unhappy ending would've worked, but I think the impression of making it seem like an unhappy ending, but being happy in the very end was a good middle ground), her story is essentially done. There's nowhere left for me to take this version of Cozy Glow. Even though the sequel does feature elements I do like, and would look forward to expanding if I were to continue, such as Amber's role in the legion, and seeing her growth. But besides that, everyone else has already plateaued and is in the perfect place they could've wanted already. The only characters left to develop are Amber, an OC, and Tirek, who isn't quite the most beloved MLP character on his own merit if I'm being honest. Cozy Glow's story is done. Chrysalis's story is done. Even the other OC, Magnolia, her role is effectively done, plus she got a prequel story. Grogar's fall to petty villain isn't as interesting as I was initially hoping for sadly. The new villain was promising, but for the most part I feel still not having the legs to stand to be a truly compelling villain, up until the end where the full extent of their motive would be revealed. The new villain's identity might be a bit obvious, it is hinted at in the story, and there's even a hint in Another Side of the Story. But getting there is a journey that I found myself not willing to take sadly. I'm almost tempted to write off the sequel, and just imagine the gang continuing off where Cozy Chronicles left off, and just let them enjoy life, and let Amber's character develop more naturally. Not that I'd make a story of that, but that's what I prefer to think of happening after Cozy Chronicle. So does that mean Centaur Conspiracy is cancelled and a failed experiment? No, and no. I don't believe in ever saying never, it could be finished one day, but it's by no means my priority. My passion for writing new stories has been waning for a while. Even my current story has been a bit of a slog to write if I'm being honest, mostly because of how complex the story is, and my limited capacity to imagine, and execute such a story.
Sorry if this comes as a disappointment to anyone, but times and taste change. For instance, I now prefer Scootaloo and Cozy Glow over Diamond Tiara and Cozy Glow, and going back and reading My Filly From Tartarus feels a bit awkward if I'm being honest.
With the sad reality out of the way, time I guess to commemorate the 6 year anniversary of my account, I can talk about some quick fun facts and trivia about my stories.
Backstory:
I began writing this story on fanfiction.net immediately after I watched the finale episode early. I wasn't too mad at first, but after not seeing any sign of them in The Last Problem, something felt off... then after checking out derpibooru and seeing the absolute discourse, it became very clear to me that people were very unhappy with the ending. And that's when I realized that I was unhappy too. So I began almost immediately with the premise that the legion of doom escape from stone around the time the Last Problem takes place(which I'll go ahead and throw out a guess, as far as CC is concerned, it's about 20-25 years). I went to fanfiction.net first, because I was initially put off by FiMFiction's community when I saw how FiM reacted to Oh Spike, versus how FanFiction reacted. The reception was much more positive and popular on FanFiction, so that kind of became my stomping grounds. But after publishing several chapters with hardly a blip, I went back to FiMFiction where clearly Cozy Chronicles gained way more traction. I did end up
There was a point where FanFiction.Net was one chapter ahead of FiMFiction. New chapters were uploaded to FF first, so that I could refine the version on FiM. Those in the know could read a chapter usually a week in advance. But after the main chapters wrapped up, I started uploading chapters simultaneously to both.
Every story I write has to have a purpose. Cozy Chronicles is obviously a response to my discontent with the ending, and imagining Cozy in The Last Problem.
The contest entries are based on their respective prompts. Filly From Tartarus obviously expands on Year 1's entries.
Cozy Mark Crusadin' is at it's core just a Cozy + CMC story. NeverEnding Ending is a Cozy in G5 story at its most basic form of description.
Trivia:
The story mainly started off as mostly focused on the trio managing their new establishment. That's where a lot of my early planning laid. Chrysalis cocooning the local wildlife to sustain their followers is technically present in the story, but it isn't focused on, and easy to miss.
The isle of shroud was originally a normal island. When the legion arrived on the isle, they would've seen Hoofbeard the Pirate on the beach. Cozy Glow would've walked onto the beach, weeping, saying there was a giant bug beneath deck. Hoofbeard then went beneath deck, only to be jumped and captured by Chrysalis. But after a certain final installment to a certain popular film franchise around late 2019, the idea of a "birthplace of evil" fascinated me, so the isle of shroud became shrouded. In my head when I picture the Isle of Shroud, I think of Maple Syrup Island from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
The deal with Grogar when the trio first meet him, he's sort of like a residual piece of the Rainbow of Darkness that wanders the island, separated from the main source trapped in the temple. When he dissolves, that's him reuniting with the rest of the darkness.
The scene in New Glow where Cozy is visited by her dead mom might make you think of a certain scene from a certain popular cartoon, but that's actually not what it was based on. It was based on a real dream that my mom had around that time. The thing that seared and stuck out was this idea of being visited by someone who is no longer around, yet miraculously appearing, and saying that they've been watching over you all this time, and that they are the reason that things worked out in the end, and expecting thanks for doing so. Followed by the person being visited denying their claims, and insisting that it's not possible for them to have helped.
Even though Cozy Glow "dies" and comes back, there is in fact ONE character in the story with dialogue, who is deceased by the final chapter. Now that I've said that you probably know who it is.
The island Tirek is settled on is in fact the Isle of Shroud, but now that the Rainbow of Darkness is no more, the clouds have dissipated and light now shines on the island.
Now for the disturbing thought that'll ruin your perception of CC's ending. Did Cozy Glow really come back? Wouldn't the mirror pool have just made a mirror image of her? How legitimate is the mirror pool's creation? It has Cozy's memories and mannerisms and experiences, but is it really her?
Cut ideas/Other stuff I may have changed/and lots of other rambling bits:
The scene where "Twilight Sparkle" breaks in was originally much more violent. Tirek would have lifted Twilight, and caused severe damage to her, and once he did, Discord's voice would've come out of her, revealing it to be him, and Discord would've just snapped his fingers to heal himself. This was toned down.
Long before Amber Glow was thought of to be taken hostage in Chapter 18, it was actually just Cozy's dad, that Cozy used magic to make him appear to be Cozy Glow. The action packed climax was mostly already laid out before a single chapter was posted to FimFiction. From Laser Light Cozy Glow(Radiant Glow?) to banishing herself and the Rainbow of Darkness.
Not sure if this counts because I think I came up with this afterwards and wasn't something but something I thought would be fun would've been scenes where Cozy Glow was training Amber to use the bewitching bell's power and get used to being an alicorn.
On that note, one thing I have thought of is realizing that Amber doesn't really have a reason to trust this crazy alicorn who appears, but she seems to rather quickly. I would've put more effort into emphasizing that. The idea was that learning that Cozy's father almost killed her was enough to create a huge mistrust Amber had with him, but I feel one more step was needed. Maybe a merging of their minds, to discover poor wittle Cozy Glow inside Luster Dawn's mind.
I also like to imagine Magnolia's journey with Gallus and the royal guards leading up to when we were formally introduced to her. From her loyalty to Twilight. I imagined later that Gallus was eager to climb Mt. Everhoof immediately and corner the trio, but Magnolia urging him not to climb after sunset, but assuring him that they themselves would be trapped on the mountain top. Thus Gallus would order every guard to ascend at dawn.
To this day I'm still not sure how I feel about the "I wanted to be reformed" twist in Different Kind of Ending. It's a fine idea, but awkwardly executed in the story. I also regret the part where we see a hint of Cozy's parents. I don't think it added anything meaningful to that story.
The scene where Cozy vanquished the Timberwolves in My Filly From Tartarus was really hard to write.
Originally at the end of My Filly From Tartarus, Cozy would've discovered a book that could communicate with another timeline. She would've received a message encouraging her to accept princess-ship. The identities of these communicators would've been her from another story's timeline. But this seemed too on the nose, so I left it out.
Oh, another change. I probably would've made it so Discord wasn't aware that Cozy soul was inside Luster Dawn. Having him know but seemingly fail to brace for what was to come seems a little jarring. But at the time to be honest considering how great a job he was at being Grogar, I didn't think it was too much of a stretch.
I even thought about having the Isle of Shroud have this magic gas that would've made them all extra aggressive. Which would've culminated with Tirek almost killing Cozy Glow. This idea was dropped though as I felt it wasn't needed.
I guess the last for now because it's a bit of a doozy. I forget if I've explained this somewhere already, but initially Cozy didn't get hit with a poison dart. It was originally something more complicated. In short, Cozy was supposed to get induced with radiation poisoning(don't ask how, it was a long segment). The idea was that her body was so crippled and uninhabitable, this is what led the decision to put Cozy Glow's soul somewhere else. This was simplified because in this instance I think simpler was better. I think the part where Cozy Glow risked her life to please the two and traverse the dangerous room for the Rainbow of Darkness, but ultimately became her downfall was quite poetic, considering the relationship I was building between them.
You're all probably sick of me talking about my stories by this point, so I'll leave it here. Thanks to anybody whom might be reading this, and thanks to everyone across FanFiction.Net and FiMFiction for reading my stories. My stories are a labor of love from my overactive imagination I've always had since I was a little kid, and it's always fun to see people have fun reading the ideas I come up with~
