Weeknotes 2023-03-10

You know, that "State of the author" never did sit right with me. It sounds so grandiose. I think "Weeknotes" is a better fit in terms of formality. The nice thing about having your own blog is that you can ramble on about whatever shit you want. I can sit here hammering away at the keyboard and make it your problem too. I've been enjoying writing these posts, it's a nice way to while away an evening. This time around, I'm going to hop right into my reading list.

Séance

This hit the feature box a couple of days before I wrote this. It's a short, sad piece about Twilight mourning the death of her home. This story would have done well back in the time after Season 4. I'm still a little upset about the Golden Oaks getting blown up, it was a lovely location with a cozy charm and character the castle just doesn't have. Indeed, despite being in the show for more than half its run—longer than the Golden Oaks—And yet it is a much fainter image of Twilight Sparkle's home. It Is more difficult to envision friends gathering there on some summer afternoon to hang out with each other. It was a place where life happened.

To Look at the Sun

A cute story about Celestia's fear of sunflowers. The reason for this is a charmingly magical concept. Even so, I did not finish it. It just didn't quite vibe with me.

A Woman Worth Saving

I am pretty convinced at this point that RariTwi can do anything. In this case a noir detective story. Rarity is the cynical private eye, Twilight is the one upright cop in a corrupt city,
Do I even need to say more? This story makes good use of the fact that it is fanfiction. There are questions set up whose answers are obvious to us but mysteries to the characters, dramatic irony at its finest.

I do have a nitpick for these stories where the characters wonder and agonize over the question if anyone is even worth saving. They don't realize how jaded they've become from their lifestyles that have them seeking out the worst that the world has to offer. They forget that that's what they see and not the world at its average. Has the cashier who sold you the milk and eggs
in your fridge sinned so greatly that you doubt if saving them is possible?

Do You Want to Hear a Scary Story?

A short horror piece featuring Scootaloo and her very bad,no good day at school. The introduction runs a little too long with one to be honest. But the way it plays on Scootaloo's
specific vulnerabilities is well done. It's actually a path I do not believe I've seen explored much: Scootaloo without her friends to support her, this little pegasus who can't fly. I suppose the orphan headcanon that used to be so popular made people feel too bad to do that to her. But now that she does have parents there's all kinds of new and exciting ways to make her life misery! 

And that's all I read this week. "A Woman Worth Saving" was on the long side compared to most of the fics I've been reading lately, so that took more time. 

I keep telling myself that today's the day I'm going to sit down and bang out the finishing touches to that in progress story. I haven't been doing nothing, but it seems like there's always some other thing that needs attention that leaves that thing by the wayside. Next week, next week… It’s getting to the point that I want to finish it just to not have to mention it in these blog posts anymore.

In non writing related news, I was recently introduced to the genre of Dungeon Synth music. It's nice ambient stuff that I think is going to be the soundtrack to a lot of my writing sessions now.

I think that about does it for this week. Though here's an interesting thing: these posts have been remarkably consistent in length despite being mostly unplanned. Yet they have all come out to around two and a half double spaced pages. Oh what I wouldn't have given to be able to write tat much so casually when I was in school. Of course it helps when the writing doesn't have to be about anything in particular and isn't being graded, well tata!