‘Trials of The Force’ Will RETURN For New Chapters In January! · 12:16am Dec 18th, 2023
Bet you guys didn’t expect this curveball of an announcement, huh? Well, it’s true. To those of you wanting one of my oldest stories to make a triumphant comeback, your wish has been officially granted by me, your handsome King Magnifico of Rosas-wait a minute. Sorry, I just love Wish way too much. But yeah. I am proud to announce that Star Wars: The Trials of the Force (Part One) will be making a return in 2024 and it is my mission to finish it once and for all. It’s been a long hiatus, but my love for the story has been renewed and I want to give it the justice it deserves with the benefit of my more extensive knowledge of story and character writing. It will allow me to officially step back into the world of G4 in order to prepare for the Lunar Literary Universe’s launch. Before I explain why I decided to renew it or what officially convinced me to give it a second chance, let me go over its initial cancellation because I bet a lot of you haven’t even heard of the story.
So Trials initially started as a passion project of mine. I had this epic Shakespearean-esque tale involving MLP and Star Wars for about a couple years, and after a while of refining it, I finally decided to launch it as my second story after Guardians of Harmony was put on hiatus due to writer’s block. And unfortunately for me…the story wasn’t quite received well. There were basic questions from readers like “Why did the Force choose Silverstream over Twilight Sparkle?” that I attempted to answer, but it obviously wasn’t satisfying. Even though I put my heart and soul into it, the story was getting downvoted with no explanation and so were my comments. I was a lot more insecure about my writing craft back then than I am now, and I didn’t know how to take it. As a result of the lack of readers, my passion for it began to dwindle, and my update rate became less and less frequent to the point where I just…stopped.
I stopped updating it, mainly because I had no desire to revisit it. There are genuine flaws that I see in it now, as the setup for Silverstream entering the Star Wars galaxy was incredibly flimsy (a prototype EQG mirror that causes Canterlot to fall apart? What?), and there are certain other aspects that may have not sat well with readers, such as Petro’s abrupt turn to the dark side. But all in all, I was learning back then, and I recognize now that the story was never perfect. I knew I should’ve pressed on regardless and just upped the quality as I went along, but I didn’t know how to proceed. And the lack of any sort of engagement or enthusiasm for it effectively killed any chances of it coming back. I moved on to writing G5 fics once the movie came around and never looked back. There were times where I considered reviving it in the form of a full-on rewrite, but to redo 16 chapters worth of continuity was too much work in my opinion. And the fact that nobody seemed to like it made the effort of doing a rewrite fic not worth the time. I was content to leave it as an unfinished story and just move on with my life.
At this point, you may be wondering…what changed? What made me have a change of heart and decide to give this story another shot at life? Well, there’s several factors, but I’ll simplify it to three main reasons. The first reason is, well, the ideas would not leave me. For months and months, my brain kept pushing me to continue by giving me thoughts on how to continue the next chapters. I already knew how I wanted the story to end, and that ending would not go away. My heart wanted it back and I could not deny it. Even as I was well into the Misty Saga, the deep-seated desire to continue it continued to gnaw at me. But even that wasn’t enough at first to convince me to return back to the old grind. So what did? Well, it was the fact that someone actually liked it. A user named spiders123 started actually engaging with the story and talking to me about Star Wars, and that made me realize…”Hey, if someone actually enjoys it, then what’s stopping me from doing it for them?” I already had a sort of renewed interest, but the more we talked, the more the ideas kept flowing until I realized that I actually WANTED to continue it. Like, just getting any sort of engagement was enough to make me realize that I loved the story and that I should see it to the end.
And that brings me to my last and final reason. The audience I gained through the Misty Saga, and the realization that I actually had a reader base that would read a story like this. The dark and gritty tone that the Misty Saga had paid off big time and the success of those stories acted as sort of the ultimate redemption for Trials initially not getting the attention it deserved. Now that I know there are those of you that would actually read it, I feel comfortable in returning to it and seeing this journey to the end. I feel like I can rely on you guys to carry the story back to the mainstream, and it makes me so happy to say that. Add to that, I have a much more extensive knowledge of what makes a good story and I know how to write characters now especially. I think that once I do return to the story, you will all be seeing a drastic increase in quality from the old chapters to new ones, and I think I can write it now with all the stuff I learned in mind. I finally feel like I can return to it, and gain readers who can appreciate it. I no longer feel afraid of going back to it, and I’m finally ready to listen to my heart and continue what I set out to do so many months ago.
So…yeah. Trials of the Force is making a comeback in 2024 and I am so excited to start updating it again. The ideas I have for it, both old and new, are overflowing my creative mind and I think it’s time I give this baby a second chance. In the meantime, I would recommend you all read through the story so far as written in order to get caught up on it. Any comments I can get from you guys would be greatly appreciated, and I look forward to seeing you guys there. I would also recommend you watch the Younglings arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Disney+ in order to understand who these characters are (especially Katooni and Petro), and what their relationships are to each other. The Season 5 episodes that constitute this arc are “The Gathering”, “A Test of Strength”, “Bound For Rescue,” and “A Necessary Bond.” Trust me, you might love the younglings as much as I do, and some of the themes in Trials actually served as prototypes for much of my G5 fics.
Thank you all who have liked commented, and favorited I Feel Sorry For You so far and getting it to the top of the Featured page. I had no idea it would become such a success overnight and I intend to milk this epic comeback of mine for all it’s worth. At this rate, it won’t be long before it becomes a smash hit like I’m Not A Princess. We are so back, everypony! Thank tot again so much, and if you haven’t read either story yet, go ahead and do so. I appreciate all the support tremendously.
EDIT: Please keep discussion centered around Trials of the Force and what you think about this announcement. I understand everyone has an opinion on Wish for better or for worse (mostly for worse from what I’ve seen), but I do genuinely want to gage reader interest in this story coming back, so please keep the comments on topic. Thanks.
See you all soon!
Well, good for your story and it's comeback, but... You liked Wish?
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Yeah, I love it, actually. I perfectly understand if you don’t like it though. Everyone’s opinions are subjective, but I personally quite enjoyed myself and it’s actually something I would see again. It’s far from my favorite Disney flick, but I did love it a lot. To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t know that already as I posted three threads a few days ago where I revealed just that.
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Good for you as well.
I wanted to leave the theater 30 minutes in, but is good to know some people enjoyed the movie anyways.
5759453
Thanks. Personally, I’m just glad to find a Disney film I enjoy again as I pretty much checked out for the majority of this year due to feeling burnt out by their constant screwups. But curiosity eventually got the better of me and I eventually saw it earlier this week. And I’m really glad I did as at least to me, it deserves so much better than the reception it’s been given.
That sounds great! I really liked a lot of the elements from Wish too.
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I mean, Chris Pine as Magnífico was great... I just don't understand why he suddenly became bad. It just came out of nowhere to me.
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I personally think sometime when he started granting wishes, he felt this greed he could no longer control.
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And that drove him to keeping all the wishes.
5759459
The fact that he was actually evil was actually setup very early on in the movie in that he’s selfish in regards to granting wishes. He picks and chooses whose to grant based on his own convenience, not the safety of Rosas. The proof is mainly in when he refuses to give the wishes back. You’d think that if you weren’t going to do anything with something you were given, you would give it back to that person right? And his justification is just “Oh, it’s too vague.” Then why didn’t you ask Asha’s grandpa what his wish meant before hoarding it away? Plus, the fact that he says “I decide what everyone deserves!” really shows him off to be a control freak.
There’s also the fact that he feels threatened by the Star’s power on a personal level because he knows that it could lead to his downfall. He cares about his crown first and foremost, and he only turns evil when he begins to obsess over Asha, the only other person who questioned his judgement.
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And since Asha was the only one at the time who knew of his dark intentions, he wanted to get rid of Asha in order to make sure no one else would question his ruling or his wish granting methods.
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So... basically, he's Opaline in human and male form, when you look at it a certain way.
That's cool