Change in the release schedule, and how this story move forward. · 7:20am Aug 7th, 2023
I will be honest with you, most of the chapters you had been reading these past 3 weeks were chapters from my buffer, my backlogs of unreleased chapters that I had written more than a month ago...
And I haven't been able to write a proper full chapter these past 3 weeks.
I mean, I did have an idea where I want it to go next, but I didn't know how to implement it properly.
My backlog of unreleased chapters would last me for a while, but the way I am right now? It's possible I would go on more than a month without finishing a chapter, and I don't want this story to idle without a new chapter for too long. Consistency is the key, as they said.
The positive(maybe) is that I was dissatisfied with how most of my unreleased chapters turned out, so I came back and change things around, mostly adding more content. most of them are now 2k word counts now, from the original 1.4-1.6k words.
That's why, I will change my release schedule to mix between bi-weekly and weekly for now. Until I could pick up my speed again.
Another thing is the plot of this story... I think this story's tone longer fitted the original plot.
Originally, this story would have a lighter tone with more gore and dark comedy.
It's mainly a mix of the J-fantasy genre of 'Ancient supreme overlord goes to otherworld/future and trampled over weaklings that stood in the way' and 'Hero who defeated demon kings got betrayed, so he will redo his life and slaughtered those who betrayed him' but switch from 'hero's party member' to 'equestrian villains and that's it.
For example, this is the original plot of what happened to Rainbow Dash.
Twilight had a little bit of a sociopath tendency. She would feel bad about hurting a random pony, but It would be no different than hurting a lab animal to her. Her shock came from the fact that it was an unexpected situation, her weakness, and she also subconsciously understood the consequence of what she had done.
In the end, she would prioritize her hide first, and run away to Canterlot. with Nightmare Moon in tows.
Nightmare Moon will have the threstals on her side in this version. A hidden society of worshippers. took every one of her words as commands against her will. And even finished the job for her sometimes. At least one villain would get maimed by them from in the background as they 'followed the wills of the empress', which Nightmare Moon was a little shocked and disgusted about, but it's something that already happened and out of her sight, she should ignore it like she ignore news about wars and murders when she was human.
Nightmare Moon then would go on an adventure, unintentionally gaining resistance against violence more and more. She would be so focused on 'going back home' so much that outright ignored all the deaths in her path.
She then would confront Rainbow Dash's parents and scare them off. The Threstals would finish the job for her. Knowing Nightmare Moon didn't like the loose end(downfalls of many villains), they would go after the crippled mare, Rainbow herself too.
Nightmare Moon would be disgusted as usual, but the fact that the Elements of Harmony can no longer choose mane6 as wielders make her heart a little bit lighter. So she gave them a pass.
This story was expected to be no longer than 50k words, the main driven thing is the adventure plot, and had very little mellow drama, which is not true anymore.
I will also remove the Changelinge tag, as they are no longer the main focus of this story.
In the much shorter, original draft, Nightmare Moon would order the destruction of the hive, and nymph and worker drones would be burned alive in the hive by her grand magic, she then provided S.M.I.L.E. a way to systemically hunted down all surviving changelings to extinction preemptively because they badly hurt one of her friends. She will try to convince herself to not care about them and succeed at doing so.
This didn't fit the current direction the story is going anymore.
I didn't know how/when/why I made a switch to a drama story. Maybe it was when I gave up on making the Nightmare Moon in Canterlot and trying to make Ponyville work. Maybe when I was trying to make Return of Armstone more than a fan service and actually had meaning and developed Nightmare Moon’s character further.
But no matter, I am an avid reader myself, I know that I didn’t like it when a slow, dramatic story suddenly switched gear to an action-focused ‘saving equestria’ story. Very few stories did this right, and I didn’t trust myself to be able to pull it off.
Nightmare Moon will still have her adventures, and dealing with villians will still happen, but there will be less focus on the main adventure plot and more on minor details and character development.
For example, if she were to go to crystal empire and research how to defeat Sombra, having Twilight gushing about the history and academic implications of Empire return and Nightmare Moon dealing with random ponies on the street as she tried to relax would take as much, if not more screen times than researching and battle with Sombra.
I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but this is how the story will be now.
And again, sorry about the change in the release schedule. This is second story I had ever wrote in my entire life, and the first long story. It’s what it is.
I know what you mean. I’ve been pencilling something for a while now, and there’re times when I just get stuck on a scene. I start thinking ahead about big cool things I want to do with it and struggle with the little details to get there. Sometimes the easiest way is a straight line, and sometimes a fresh angle helps. Sometime, though, I just have to smack myself and do it for my own sake.
Wish you luck!