One Year Already · 7:34pm Sep 5th, 2023
This time last year, I was in a rough spot. I'd gone through some nasty emotional shit, I was in self-imposed isolation from all my friends and loved ones, I barely had any sense of identity, and I needed an outlet.
I was already a little obsessed with mlp during this time—that started in April of 2021—but I fell much deeper into my obsession. It was an escape; something I could immerse myself in, something that made me feel good when it felt like everything was out to make me feel worse. I ended up watching the whole series for the second time in the span of a few weeks.
The first time I watched mlp, I watched all the EqG movies after the series and thought they were incredibly mid (and I still think the first movie is a dumpster fire [affectionate]), but at least it was kind of cute. I wrote it off, and when I began my second watch through, I wasn't going to give EqG another chance because I thought my opinion on it had settled. But when I finished watching the series again, I wasn't satisfied, so I decided to give it all another watch—this time watching all the other content I didn't watch last time like the specials and the shorts.
Almost immediately I fell in love with Sunset as a character. She really resonated with me in a way no other character really has before or since. It feels embarrassing as hell to admit this, but she's both someone I relate to and aspire to be. She's a bad bitch who plays guitar—the kind of perception I want others to have of me—but there's a lot more to her than that.
She was a furious, misguided wreck on a self-imposed exile to a world that's alien to her, mostly because the authority figures in her life failed to give her the time and understanding she deserved. It isn't until she gets Fucking Owned for being a horrendous little bitch that she realizes that's not who she is. In ways that would take way too long to explain, this mirrors many aspects of my own life.
From there, she becomes so much more understanding and empathetic to those around her, continuing to try to make things right with those she's wronged, even while they look down on her with contempt. And even in her pursuit to better herself, she never loses her edge. She still gets angry, she still snaps and overreacts, she feels things with such intensity and doesn't realize she's flown off the handle until she's airborne, and she struggles to trust herself and move past her regrets as a result of that and more. I genuinely believe she has the most depth out of any character in the entire series—including the main series.
Maybe almost definitely, actually that's extremely super very a little projection-y, but I saw so much of myself in her, and it was during a time in my life when I was emotionally raw and more vulnerable than I'd ever been before, so regardless of whether or not it's That Deep, it was that perfect storm of circumstances that made me fixate on her like I do to this day.
My opinion of EqG has changed significantly since then. It is a series that, to me, has almost nothing but upward trajectory. Aside from Friendship Games, the later specials are my favorite part of the series. You can tell there wasn't as much corporate meddling, and you can tell the staff got pretty gay with it, and I loved that about it. Particularly, Spring Breakdown has a very special place in my heart, and it took that place the first time I saw one specific scene that, if you've seen it before, you probably already know which one it is.
(The palpitations this sent through my gay little heart had such a profound effect on me that I'm still experiencing the consequences of them to this day)
Before I got into this whole fic writing business, I was someone who thought fanfic was pure dreck. If it wasn't young, inexperienced writers looking for an easy way to cut their teeth on writing, it was obsessive weirdos who took shipping way too seriously. That's a very reductionist way of looking at it, I know, but what can I say? I'm really good at being wrong.
But when the EqG well ran dry, I still wasn't sated. Worse yet, my two favorite characters had that moment (and a few others) and they Didn't. Even. Kiss. Hasbro should be giving me financial compensation for what they've denied me.
So, when you're out of source material, and the source material doesn't give you what you want at the end (which I was never naive enough to believe it would but regardless), where do you turn? The answer is obvious: fanfic.
So I put away my previously held biases in favor of chasing that dragon. I needed a good story where those two fell in love and lived happily ever after. And, of course, once I found one story, I didn't stop there. I read one-off after one-off, and each time I did it filled me with such profound joy, the likes of which were embarrassing to acknowledge, but I couldn't deny how much I loved the way it made me feel.
Throughout my life, I've been terrified of embarrassment. My fear of shame has been a barrier to many things, and has kept me from engaging with things I know I'd love in favor of keeping up appearances with those I thought were, for lack of a better term, "cool." I was irony poisoned—so far detached from the things I loved because I never wanted someone to see those things as extensions of myself just to judge me for them, and so far removed from emotional engagement with the things I already enjoyed for the same reason.
And the more I read, the more I felt, the more I thoroughly enjoyed the passionate writings of others who shared my fixation, the more that aspect of myself began to collapse. The foundation of it was already rotting, but the moment I started reading fics, that was when the roof caved in, and the walls I'd built around myself slowly began to crumble soon after. That was when I really started to unlock more parts of myself.
Then I got to a very specific fic.
Spoilers ahead: This fic is mean but I adore it. It made me inconsolably upset. It built me up and knocked me down. Twilight and Sunset look like they're inching closer to admitting their feelings, but in the end, Sunset reveals that she'll soon have to leave this world behind. The portal is growing more unstable by the day, and she's metaphorically staring down a barrel either way: lose her friends, or lose where she's from. And in the end, she chooses the former. This and it's sequel fic Leaving Something Behind are (to my understanding) an extended metaphor for suicide, and the emotional punch it packs left a mark.
I loved it, but I was so deeply upset by the ending in the best way possible. The things it made me feel sat with me for days, and that very rarely happens. The more I thought about it, the harder it became to accept.
Technically, the Real first draft of CYSWIS was a sequel to Leaving Something Behind—the sequel to Something About Sunset. One day, I woke up and wrote 13 pages of material in my notebook. It was never meant to be seen by anyone else, hence why it was kept in a notebook I keep hidden, but I never finished it. The reason I stopped is because eventually I hit a point where I realized I was putting so much labor into fixing an ending to a story that wasn't mine, and why would I do that when I could just make my own fic with my own good ending? (Plus it felt kind of weird writing a 'fix' for something that seems like it was written from such a personal place, even if I never intended to show it off to anyone)
So I flipped to the next empty page in my notebook, and that night, I wrote several drafts that look something like this.
(Yes, I'm aware my handwriting is dogshit)
All of this leads to September 5th, 2022. I got out of bed that morning and sat at my computer like I usually do. After fully waking up, I decided I'd had enough stagnation. I was done sitting around and waiting for things to get better on their own. I was going to do something for myself, and I was going to put it out there for strangers to see—not my friends, not my partners, just strangers. I went on a walk around my neighborhood for a couple hours to brainstorm, and when I got back, I transcribed the most complete draft I wrote the night before and finished it, and that evening, what I thought was the whole (but was really only the first chapter) of Can You See What I See? was published.
As much as I wanted to write a whole fic to its end, I was managing my expectations. To this day, I sit atop a mountain of unfinished creative projects, and this was something I wanted out of me as fast as possible so I couldn't let it linger like I'd done with so many other ideas I had. The idea was: if I can write something that gives me reason to believe something cute and gay will happen later, I can let my imagination take it from there.
After that, I was going to log out and leave it here. And I figured in a couple weeks, I'd come back and see if there were any comments or feedback—expecting there to be either none or, if there was any, for it to all be negative. Except I never really got to that step in the plan because immediately, both of my expectations were defied. Three comments in the same day, and all of them positive.
I was undoubtedly being incredibly pessimistic, but you have to understand I had no confidence in my writing ability. Almost a decade ago, I was trying to write a script for something, and I gave it to my friend who is a phenomenal writer. They didn't mean to do this, but they really tore into it in a way that made me feel like shit, and after that, I only ever wrote a few things here and there, but never anything anyone saw. And any time I would entertain the idea of writing, I would never tell anyone. I spent a lot of time licking that wound, even after it had scarred over.
So when I threw CYSWIS into the void, I was fully expecting that same reaction my friend had all those years ago, only from people I didn't know. Even if my plan was to fuck off at my earliest convenience, I was still terrified of seeing that reaction again. So when I saw that I was not only wrong, but that my guess was the polar opposite of what really happened, it kinda blew my mind. Not only that, it lit something inside me.
The next day, I did the exact same thing: woke up, took a walk, and wrote another chapter. This time, I spent way more time poring over and editing/proofreading it because I wasn't writing off of an existing draft. And this was the pattern for nearly every day going forward. No outline, no previous drafts to reference; just sitting down, hammering out a chapter off the top of the dome, and shoving it out there before I had a chance to overthink it.
As I've mentioned before, this worked great at first, but I soon became terrified of my inability to not finish things. So toward the end, the pace increases dramatically, and the ending is an absolute explosion of emotion because I was trying to tie up so many things before the burnout I feared was on the horizon set in. In retrospect, this was silly. I had a lot more in me than I realized and I still haven't come close to burning out since then. I've wavered in intensity, sure, but that's just so I can burn for longer.
Regardless of how I feel about the ending now, I'm very glad I saw it through until the end. If I hadn't written that fic, I wouldn't have met my good friend and one of my personal favorite authors Krickis and joined her server. In doing that, I met a lot of cool new people, and found a group that I actually felt like I belonged in.
If I hadn't written that fic, I would have never met another good friend EileenSaysHi, the first person who told me they liked my writing without me knowing them first, who also graciously offered to edit my work for me for free and still does, and who has introduced me to quite a few other good friends, as well as myriad other things I could list.
If I hadn't written that fic, I don't know that I'd be sitting here typing this while my girlfriend is in the room with me irl. We'd been dating for a long time already, but we were very casual for a long time. But, in showing her my writing, we realized we had a shared interest in it, and through that we've bonded over so much more and are closer than we ever were before. We probably still would have met eventually, but I think the fact that it worked out the way it did made our meeting even better than it would have been.
I mentioned it all over the place when I wrote it, but that story was written from a very personal place—the depths of which even I was unaware of until months after I'd finished it, and had time to connect the dots between events in the story and events/aspects of my life/myself. Putting my mind behind the eyes of another character was (and I realize how absurd this may sound) one of the most cathartic things I've ever done, so much so that I still don't want to stop doing it.
If I've not already illustrated this well enough, writing that fic was one of the single most important things I've done for my personal growth. The fact that so many of y'all read it and loved it still blows my mind. When I think about the fact that I've caused actual real tears to fall from people's eyes because of the things I've imagined and put into words, it astounds me. Every time I get a comment from someone telling me how much they loved the story, what parts resonated with them, what it means to them and so on, it gives me life. Numbers and metrics like views, likes and followers don't matter to me at all—I couldn't give a shit if every thing I published from now on got a single like and five views for the rest of forever—knowing my thoughts and ideas had an emotional impact on others is the most gratifying part of all of this to me. It has done and continues to do so much for me.
I could keep going, but this has already gotten long enough. Instead, I will end this blog in the most pretentious, most masturbatory way I can: quoting a passage from my story.
Since then, so many things have changed that it has distorted my perception of time. Events that happened only a year and half ago feel like they happened over half a decade ago. Three hundred and sixty-four days ago, I was a completely different person, yet it felt so much further away than that.
-Chapter 8: "Why?" Paragraph 3.
Thanks for reading 
Being creative is one of the least expensive self-help therapy sessions you can get your hands on. If I could not find this outlet I probably would have put my hand through a few walls.
As I've told others. Just make it. You will never know if it is good or bad if you can't get it out of your head first so just MAKE IT.
This...is actually more true than false. As someone who has been sifting through various fandoms on fanfic sites since the early days of FF.net at the turn of the millennium, I can without a doubt say that finding good stories is about like panning for gold--you have to sift through a lot of rubbish to find the gold...but it doesn't mean there's no gold. You just have to learn how to find it.
And when you do, you know--leaves you feeling a bit like a wrung out dishrag, doesn't it? ;P
As for the rest....Revel's right about creative activity being a wonderful and therapeutic outlet. It can let you express things that you otherwise could never get out, work through problems or emotions in a way you never could IRL because other people are also disasters... And something I've learned, myself, is that you can't write for other people, or for acclaim and applause. You have to write for YOU. If you try to write for others, or for the ego boost, you'll be disappointed, and get into a cycle of unfinished projects and lost drive because people aren't pumping you up all the time, or they're pushing you beyond your limits. Create for yourself, make something that means something to you, matters to you...that will be more gratifying in the long term... And then if you decide to share it with others, them liking it is just an added bonus.
...also, for what its worth--your writing isn't bad, and don't let critics convince you it is. Even unedited, the story was there. The heart, the emotion, the characters...the most important parts of a story were there, were solid, were GOOD. That's something about writing...about the creative process, really...that's hard to be taught, and its way more important than if you know where to put your commas and semi-colons, or how you construct a sentence, and everything else is just polishing that gold.
I cant remember if I commented on CYSWIS, but I did read it more than once, and enjoyed it every time.
In short...
Thank you for sharing your writing. :}
*leaves cookies and cocoa*
Ah, I see you are an Intuitive Empath, like myself. Do not fret about your creations, just ... Create, it is your Freedom and your Path.
“We may be dark, but let me share a secret with you:
Sometimes darkness ... can show you the light.
—David Draiman, Disturbed
You are a light to others. Never forget that.
derpicdn.net/img/2022/4/30/2855991/medium.jpg
Derpibooru: 2855991Gold (Noah Hyde & Magic Sword remix) – Wake Owl
I relate to a lot of points you said here. Writing is my therapy, and when I found things I n e e d e d from canon that were not that, my compulsive need to fix things flared up and I started writing what I wanted to see (my favorite gay ships). I love Can You See What I See so much. It’s so well written. You should be really proud of it. Everyone starts somewhere, and there’s nowhere to go but up.
You're a wonderfully good writer. I have to admit that reading Chromatic Aberration is actually what got me into the headspace to start writing Analemma this year --- the call of the Sunset is strong.
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This is actually something I've always wanted to ask, but I felt it'd be a snooty, self-absorbed kind of question to ask. Analemma isn't even done, yet it's already one of my favorite fics of all time, and I would not be surprised if by the end it was my absolute favorite; and knowing my work had a hand in the process of making it seriously means so much to me, a lot more than I can properly articulate. Thank you so much
PS: I keep forgetting to mention, but thanks for the shoutout at EFNW
lmao me too, not sure if I ever mentioned that to you, but yeah I used to hate fanfic as something only kids and weirdos write. Well look at me now, past judgmental Krickis!
I still have to read your work, and for that, I am sorry. I have meant to start reading it time and again, and yet, here we are a year later and I haven't read shit. But I am glad to hear that fanfic has done as much for you as it has for me
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As I've said before, take your time getting to it. I'm someone who takes a hundred years to get around to diving into things, even when they're things I really want to get into. Also thank you!