Electro Swing Progress Report 8: Full Editing Pass Completed! · 1:05pm March 12th
Now, without a doubt, I can say that I've done the best that I can to tell this story.
Vinyl Scratch by PaperBagPony
Chapters Revisited: 61/61, Major Changes: Mostly Rewordings. A few last-minute continuity errors.
Minor Changes: Numerous and a bunch of uncapitalized Mamans.
I'm gonna keep this blog post short and sweet since it will quickly be replaced by the post-fic blog post. Thanks again to TheAncientPolitzanian, Jymbroni (who is writing again!), and Alchemik as I must do as well as anyone who is reading the story right now and sending me little things I missed. Looking at you BirdsBooksBrownies!
Expect a rather exhaustive, spoiler-laden, tell-all, post-mortem blog post with a bonus couples questionnaire within the next few days to call Electro Swing a wrap for the online version. I'm going to give this time to stew as well as for some of the folks reading now to wrap up to see if they find any errors in my editing before I go into trying to figure out physical copy stuff. Got Scribus installed and ready to learn how to use and then translate this story into something printable. Whatever errors are still in Electro Swing at that point, I'll just have to ask for forgiveness. I spent the last three months going through the entire fic again, and there's only so much I can do by myself.
I am looking forward to the near future though. I can finally get back to Unchanging Truths! I do have to check on the quality of that story's current published chapters though. I kinda lost a bit too much of the AJ-colored narration after the first chapter and I need to country-fry the descriptions a bit where its appropriate. Chrysalis kinda is hard to keep AJ's lighthearted country-isms going while maintaining a serious tone when necessary. A fun challenge indeed.
As per the usual, keep an eye out for stuff coming down the line. I'm very pumped that Electro Swing is done/done so anyone that might stumble across it now will have a similar quality story from beginning to end. Anyway, that's enough for now.
See you in the next blog!
- Rego
.done
Haven’t read the fic (and likely won’t, these character in this type of story just doesn’t do it for me), but I’ve been following the progress on it’s final hurdle and then this revision closely. Well done and congrats on it, mate! Very chuffed that you’re finally wrapping on a years-long project!
5772070
Despite our Spiky differences, I thank you for the support. Hopefully, my continuing project will interest you unless romance itself just isn't you're thing. All the best regardless.
5772072
…I had actually totally forgotten that you didn’t care for Best Dragon. Yet apparently you not only hadn’t forgotten that I’m very fond of him, it was the first thing that leapt to your mind when I commented.
Hm. There are several ways that could be interpreted. I’ll choose to believe it’s not that your mental signifier of me is “oh yeah, that guy who actually likes Spike for some mad reason”.
In all seriousness, I’ve built up enough of a resilience to Spike-indifference/dislike that I don’t linger on it. Am I upset and maddened that many circles I’m in seem to have that view while, to pick one such example, think Sunset is the GOAT (I think she’s, like, fine, but hugely overrated and a severe case of reader projection of personal headcanon blinding folks)? For sure. But rather than complain pointlessly, I just go about my business. Nothing else to be done – if a single paragraph won’t change anyone’s mind or even get them to see the validity of my thinking, even the best character analysis essay wouldn’t either. And that’s okay.
As for romance fics, they really don’t do it for me for the most part. At the very least, such a fic has to not only be top quality, but also only work when it’s a romance as opposed to just friendship (and nine times out of ten, it wouldn’t change if it were just friendship). Given that, with my limited time for longfics, it’s very rare I’ll pick a romance one unless it’s got a fair share of endorsements.
5772074
Smolder?
Ah. Well, it's okay to be wrong.
5772085
While I've built up enough resilience now that even hearing this from my peers doesn't phase me (as opposed to from the masses or those I don't much respect, which never did at all), I should tell you, bud, that it is exactly those kind of comments that, even if intended as just light mockery, come across as pitying and imply you think less of one and their artistic integrity for their opinion. And said comments have caused me (and many others, I'm sure) a good deal of personal grief in the past.
I totally get that if I said such things about, say, Sunset (I presume she's a top fav of yours, going by your multiverse bar longfic), that they would bounce off you, due to life experience and greater self-confidence (inb4 you say "also because I'm right and you're wrong"
), but don't presume that's so for all. 
In essence, I won't judge anyone for thinking mid characters are the GOAT, if they don't do the same back.
Judging, that is: no one has any control over the other’s opinions.
5772090
Lol point taken, point taken.
5772074
Close, you're actually slotted in my brain as: "Oh crap, he's a Spike fan and I said I disliked Spike in his review blog post of The Guard of a Different Stripe! I need to downplay this mistake the first chance I get." Think less "animosity" and more "I probably offended him" with the following:
I had no idea you were a Spike fan when I said that.
More to the point, I actually was a little surprised for the well-wish. I didn't think you followed my blog posts. I lurk yours when you update to see what you read, didn't think it was the other way around since it's focused on material you said that you weren't interested in previously. I genuinely appreciate it.
Fanon Sunset is what I'm here for. I even have a plushie of the pony version. As for canon Sunset... that should be left unsaid with the rest of my stronger opinions of Equestria Girls, aka bootleg Monster High.
5772085
Exactly. you can be wrong too because Steven Magnet is superior dragon.
Edit: Wow, I didn't realize I'd posted the response on accident and rewrote the comment in its entirety. Gotta love how there's a yellow bar there forever now.
5772117
And it took you a year-and-a-half to do so?
Quite a cross to bear for that time. Good thing I had written that interplay well out of my mind; had I remembered it as much as you had, we might have had a situation on her hands. 
Going back and reading that, there was no way you could have – you were just responding to me saying Octavia and Vinyl are tough (but not impossible) characters for me, and picked a character as an example for yourself. It was just chance it was Spike: you could have picked any other character you dislike equally, or one you dislike more.
I will say, then and now, I won't deny the wording of that phrase does sadden me a little, as it seems to be more than the usual reasons I see, from people who don't like more passive, subservient characters, or find him shallower then the Mane 6. But, like then, I won't dwell on why you feel this way
There's a few reasons at play, actually. One was I liked the way you replied when I covered two of your fics before, and the way I saw you reply to others elsewhere. There was a nice friendliness and sincerity there that didn't seem to feel the reflexive need to undercut things with jokes or witty asides all the time, and I've come to be quite appreciative of that. So something about the rhythm of your blog posts/comments.
Second, even if a lot of an author's choices in characters/tone/setting/etc. in fics aren't to my personal, subjective liking, if I have really liked their fics which I have read, and they seem to have that consistent spark of consistent quality to their writing, I'll follow them, to keep an eye out for those that do.
Third, if an author is blogging about a story of theirs I'm not going to read, I have no qualms reading their blogs about it (and since I've decided I'm not rereading the story in my mind, what details I do pick up don't tend to stick in my brain, so it's not really spoiling it in case I ever do). It means I can still get a bead on how they're doing with the writing process, something I always find fascinating, and other life details – what you have said abut life in Japan for you, I've found that interesting too.
So, a mixture of all those, though they mostly come back to "I genuinely like this person".
I must say, while I have seem a fair share of fans able to use their brain cells and properly separate canon Sunset from Fanon Sunset, they typically only go so far as acknowledging she's a blank slate, but that's what they love about her the potential she offers, and then they carry on the same. And they certainly unironically adore the knock-off TV-Y high school anime spinoff. I don't know if I'v ever met somehow who, it seems, dislikes EqG and everything associated with it even more than myself, yet adores Fanon Sunset.
Which I don't mean as a takedown – if anything, it's a compliment, that you're able to readily separate them like that. Many fans could learn a lot from you.
Me personally, I can't see myself ever being able to put a character as they are in canon out of mind enough to adore someone in fanfic I despite in the main material. But I do get it. And Sunset is one of those characters that I will totally get sucked in to a great fic with her, though it has a much better fighting chance if its before she went through the mirror, so EqG-material cannot be involved at all.
To be honest, the principle above applies to a lot of characters I don't like reading. It's often less that I dislike the character(s), and more how they're often used in fanfic. Vinyl and Octavia, together or on their own, are a good example of that. But writing them once did get me to see "you know, shift out all that undesirable material, and I can vibe with this". A similar thing happened when I did a 180 with Berry Punch far away from being a drunk (happy or sad), or a snarky commentator type. It takes all kinds.
Also, length is a really big factor with fics: I just don't have the time for more than a handful of novel-length fics at a time, and anything longer than 100K is competing for very rare spots. So if I choosing fics that long, they're naturally going to go towards the ones I know for sure I'm going to like. Hopefully that makes sense. Glancing over your stories list, I do still spy a few one-shots I could see myself reading at some point (that number depending partially on whether the one-shots Electro Swing is tagged as a sequel to are properly connected in story, or more just in some overlapping lore/worldbuilding). At the bare minimum, I have read Troubles Over Hot Chocolate before, and anything on my Re-Evaluate bookshelf will be got to eventually (or, rarely, dismissed). Look forward to that!