Behind the new novel · 2:19am August 1st
Even Changelings Get The Blues launches tomorrow, and I have finally reached the end of a long and winding road.
It's a huge story by horizon standards: heftier than Time Enough For Love and Hard Reset 2 put together. I've sunk a year and a half into this project, including a two-month sprint where it entirely ate my life (and I finished a NaNoWriMo by accident). So it's only natural to ask: Why?
Sure, it's a proof-of-concept that I can transition successfully from short-story sprints into long-form work. And on that level, it's already been a smashing success. But why this story? Why put such extraordinary effort into an Equestria Girls fanfic, already niche, in a fandom past its parent series' resolution?
The first of my answers is: I wasn't going to leave MLP fandom without writing Embrax.
As I discuss in the book afterword — more on that in a bit — the Dragon Lord and the technicolor bugmoose leader are the show's perfect couple. Leaving entirely aside the dragon and changeling angle (how could that possibly bias me?), they come together like chocolate and peanut butter. Hard, raw momentum and gentle empathy. Both struggling with their societal roles (and casually inverting gender roles, not even as a main character trait but as an afterthought), both full of what the other needs, then showing us instant on-screen chemistry in "Triple Threat". I fell in love with their relationship and then somehow never got around to sinking my authorial teeth in. Blues, by showing us the chemistry of their alternate selves as well as keeping Dragon Ember in the spotlight, examines the pair from the inside out and the outside in.
I tried to rein the Chester-Holds romance in, just because there's so much else going on in the novel, but it's still a major side arc, and I'm thrilled to finally give the couple the spotlight they deserve.
The second answer is: Fang and Flame cried out for completion.
Back when I wrote Administrative Angel, the same thing happened: Celestia found acceptance, but not closure. She made peace with the way things were, but the story never dug into why things were the way they were — why a world where one of the fundamental driving forces is Harmony would let someone exist with that kind of mismatch between her outer and inner lives. I had to write an entirely separate story about an entirely different character in order to drag her kicking and screaming to apotheosis. And here's a little secret some of you might have already figured out: Devil May Care, despite Discord being the narrator and the protagonist, despite featuring Celestia in merely one chapter out of its six, is crucially, fundamentally the story of her apotheosis. Until I wrote it, Administrative Angel kept kicking around inside my brain like a literary loose tooth.
Similarly, after writing Fang and Flame, I had a pair of Embers whose lives had been entirely upended by their meeting. They had both dramatically changed through sacrifice and reinvention — and both of them, having relied so heavily on the crutch of bloodstones suddenly removed, were about to face a challenge even more formidable than their battle. Their intertwined destinies were far from resolved.
The bloodstones, too, were gone, but their story hadn't been told. They play a significant role in Chester's tale. One of Blues' arcs explores the stones themselves — and also answers readers' most common question about F&F, namely, what's up with human-world Ember being a girl raised by wolves?
Speaking of which ...
The third answer is: none of these are really, at heart, My Little Pony stories.
They're stories about MLP characters, sure. They transparently use the show's themes and tropes; to an outside observer, they're obviously pony. But Blues and all the prequels mentioned in this post all have a common thread running through them: they are stories about being something other than what people see you as. A principal who's actually an angel. A girl who's actually a wolf (and a dragon who can't dragon). A chaos god who's more understandable than he would ever dare admit. A changeling amid humans, knowing he's different but with no vocabulary for the reality of who he actually is.
It's no coincidence that these are the sorts of stories I can write from the heart.
Outside of My Little Pony, I am best known as the author of the Draconity FAQ, an early-Internet document discussing the phenomenon of being a dragon spirit in a human body. I am, in other words, old-school Otherkin, and what I found in Equestria Girls' mirror portal was a powerful angle from which to approach that idea of your true self being distant and foreign.
So the real answer is: I wanted to write this novel, in particular, because it gives me a chance to make an MLP fanfic dead-tree book about the Otherkin experience.
The Other Me will debut at the Everfree Northwest fanfic bookstore, with Blues as a centerpiece along with Administrative Angel, Devil May Care, and Fang and Flame, an afterword essay tying it all together, and a short introduction to MLP for the benefit of non-pony readers. Featuring a gorgeous cover by Rocket Lawn Chair, this will be the definitive collection for the series — and something I can give to people looking for fiction about not fitting your form.
I'm looking forward to the new story launch, but I'm looking forward to the book even more. 
Well, that's an instant sale for me, but you already had me at "telepathic werewolf mafia."
"Oh hey, I've heard this one before!" I say with a glance at my own long-form Gallus x Silverstream shipfic.
It's incredible how compelling it can be when your brain just requires that two characters kiss, but also that the kiss must be properly earned. It's a force that can make men move mountains (or sit in a dark room hammering away at a keyboard to produce words that may be read by a couple thousand people if the fates are truly on your side)
A labor of love, at the end of the day. As a certified Embrax Enjoyer, I look forward to being one of those few thousand people :)
It is a great pairing dynamic. One of those things the show did way better than any fan author actually. Almost as good as... Tempest and Pharynx...
Thorax is definitely my favorite royalty because he actually went through all the difficulties Twilight should have when she became a "princess".
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(Or, if you're waiting to read it all at once, the book launches Everfree weekend — though if you're not going to be there, I don't know when Dash plans to start online sales, so let me know if you want me to set one aside for you.)
The chapter with that title posts Sunday!
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No offense to ponies, but the show gave us such a gorgeous cornucopia of awesome beings and then barely explored them. I can definitely see the appeal of the hippogryph and gryphon students too, especially with their own on-screen chemistry.
One of the things I love so much about the huge ensemble cast is the sheer variety of characters. There's enough of them that we can all see something of ourselves in the ones we hold closer to our heart. Which ... I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that, but, yes, very much a labor of love.
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Twilight Sparkle has big protagonist energy. One of the things I love about Ember and Thorax is that neither of them do. Ember is definitionally an underdog, and Thorax is such a creampuff he can't help but be. So I definitely agree!
I will do my best to upend that.
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For some reason, I'd really like to read this for the first time in the dead-tree version, but after months of no work, I've got three assignments at once, so I won't be at EFNW. If you could set aside a copy for me, I would be deliriously happy!
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Sure! Paperback or hardcover?
Hit me up by DM 'round the end of convention weekend and we'll talk about getting you your copy :)
(Bonus, if you read it relatively quickly, you'll be able to take in all the conversation as later chapters post!)
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Hardback, please! And if you could sign it? I will PM you that Sunday!