New Year's Begun, Old Story's Done · 10:47pm January 12th
I've been aware of this for over a month now, but I wanted to bring the series finale rewrite to completion before I drew extra attention to it, because I was waiting for it to represent the story in it's finished form. As I mentioned in passing in the epilogue's Author's Notes, somebody out there created a TV Tropes page for The End of an Era to freely edit! I am humbled to see this exists. While it's not the only fan rewrite of The Ending of the End to get a page on there, the fact that mine was enjoyed so much by somebody that they considered it worthy of one, it's neat. It makes me feel like, somewhere along the road, I did something right. Really right, and I don't know exactly what, since I have such a tiny presence on the Internet. To those who put that page together, you're pretty cool!
This month and the past December have been times of finality for me when it comes to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. For one, near the end of last year, I finished my series rewatch of the show that I started in early 2022, including the main episodes, the specials, the Equestria Girls material, and The Movie. 235 cartoons watched again, not counting shorts, the Friendship is Forever clip shows, the shorts anthology special, Holidays Unwrapped, or miscellaneous things. I had a lot of fun seeing it all again and giving comments on each piece of animation. Well, except for one part, of course. After rewatching The Ending of the End for the first time since it was new, is it as bad as I had been recalling and saying, or did I misremember some things and come to appreciate elements I overlooked all along? The answer? Yes, it is that bad, and nothing about my sour views on it have changed. So, that sure strengthened my resolve to finish the rewrite story. The Last Problem is still good, though.
And of course, said rewrite story, The End of an Era, has definitively concluded and is no longer in development. 18 chapters (a prologue, 16 main chapters across 4 parts, and an epilogue) typed and published from mid-2021 to early-2024. I reiterate: 2+ YEARS! Friendship is Magic's series finale will turn 5 years old this year; when I started this rewrite, the finale wasn't even 2 yet, and we were still waiting for the release of A New Generation's trailer! That's how long it's been - my project began before G5 properly did. Once again, I thank everybody who gave it a read after how much of my life I put into it. Thank you to the commenters who provided soundtracks to the story's events, gave some constructive feedback, or just expressed interest in what was going to go down in later chapters. It made the adventure all worthwhile.
Now, while I can confidently say I've realized all of my intentions for The End of an Era, and I enjoyed typing it down from beginning to end, I'd be remiss to not acknowledge some things I could've done differently, looking back, as well as take note of the direction I went.
1: I can easily see that if what I wrote was a real script I proposed to the creators of Friendship is Magic, it'd likely be required for it to be toned down in a number of places, if not flat-out rejected for being too dark and edgy.
2: I'll concede that many of the story's chapters probably didn't really need to be as long as they wound up being. I swear I established a character limit at first, but then what I aimed to fit into each of them blew up and I rolled with the punches from there. Back to the hypothetical scenario, if the four parts were real episode scripts, and were to be four 22-minute, real-life episodes, a ton of dialogue would definitely need to be chopped off for the sake of brevity, along with some other cuts to help the pacing.
3: Perhaps this is redundant to say, since this is a fan fic, I will say that my version of the story does get especially fan fic-ish in various areas, particularly in regards to the character arc I gave Cozy Glow, the effects of Twilight's disfigurement (an idea from an FiM fan fic I scrapped), the phoenix core powers, and Grogar's darn-near invincibility. Not that I would've thrown the ideas away outright, I'm just saying they, when looking at them really hard, give off those intense anime fan comic/animation vibes.
4: Lastly, there were still a few characters I wish I had fit into the rewrite's plot progression, but ultimately couldn't; Zecora, for instance. I would've loved to figure out what to do with her. I also lament my inability to establish a bigger role for the kirin, especially Autumn Blaze.
Gosh, this took more time to type out than I wanted to. Anyway, despite the several parts where I scratch my head at... myself, I'm happy with what I did. Before saying good-bye to this blog post, I have one more addendum. If you like or even love The Ending of the End in it's original 2-part glory, that's good to hear. I wish I could too. Then again, I never would've brought The End of an Era into existence if I did, but that's besides the point. Enjoy the episode as long as you live, and don't let a weirdo like me, whom it left dissatisfied, take this good thing away from you. Entertainment is meant for exactly what it says on the label, and should never, ever be a tall order. With that, I bid you a Happy New Year! Here's to wonderful events and accomplishments in 2024, plus a happy 5th anniversary to Friendship is Magic's grand swan song this October!
Here be Stache Hand the Clutcher, out and about!
You’re not giving up on MLP after announcing a remake of G5, are you?
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Of course not! It'll just be a long time before I begin development on Re-Make Your Mark, because I have a backlog to clear up, like some video games and some other unfinished business to tend to, like this fan game idea project (unrelated to MLP) I need to put the last touches on. Don't you worry.
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Okay. Actually, now that I think about it, I have two questions that pertains to MLP:
1. Since Tirek is imprisoned in stone, does that mean the centaur species in Equestria is now completely extinct?
2. For Re-Make Your Mark, will you also add in the Tell Your Tale episodes as well for continuity cohesiveness?
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1. Practically, yes.
2. Sure, a few of their ideas will be sprinkled in.