IWPFT: Regarding The Recent News · 2:29am Feb 4th, 2013
Alt Title: In Which The Author Gets His srs bsns On.
Okay guys, first of all I wanted to say that I'm sorry I'm so late. I know saying sorry over and over again is a poor substitute for simply getting things done, but there truly has been a lot getting in my way and another blog update is the best I can do right now. Be that as it may, this post isn't really about whole situation. Continued progress on IWPFT Chapter Three is severely limited (for reasons I don't want to get into right now) but still moving forward, so let's move on and just get right down to the elephant in the room.
One more quick side note though: I had meant to post this blog on Friday, but for the same reasons that I haven't yet finished Chapter Three, this has been my first opportunity to access Fimfiction. At this point, I think everyone has heard of what I'm about to talk about, so there won't be any spoiler censors below.
"Good Evening, Commander. I'll fill you in on what's been happening: The fleet has lost all contact with Equestria Daily. The imageboorus are full of Doom Paul gifs, with no sign of letting up. /MLP/ is in an even deeper state of anarchy than usual, and we didn't even know that was possible. So many fanfics are burning, their author's screams can be heard all the way from low orbit.
Pro and Anti-Twilicorn forces continue to battle across the Internet. Recieving incoming transmission:
So... Alicorn Twilight. It's coming, and there's no possible way of denying it now. In less than three weeks, our show's heroine (for better or worse) will be getting wings.
Now first of all, I'm not going to waste any time talking about my personal opinion on the matter of canonical Alicorn Twilight. What little Internet time I've had over the last several days has been spent talking about this in other locations, and I'm just about tired of the endless reciprocal discussions and arguments. I won't start any here, there are plenty of other places to do so.
Anyways, this post is about Twilicorn and what it means for I Wasn't Prepared For This. It hasn't come into play quite yet, but my story (by necessity) needs to involve a bit of headcanon about the natures of Alicorns and how that subspecies plays into the wider world of Equestria. All of it was pretty congruent with what has been seen and implied in the show, but the implications of Twilight becoming and Alicorn throws some unexpected twists into that canon.
The question is, do I adapt my story in any way to account for these huge new developments, or march on with what I already had planned and basically just give up any attempt to reconcile things? In my personal opinion, I'd really like to just keep going in the direction I was going, but if you guys have a better solution I want to hear it.
One of the unique advantages of my specific Twilicorn story is that it is Alternate Universe, and as such I have an escape option. If you guys wanted, I could simply say that BOTH universes in this story are definitely not the canonical ones from the show, that in these realities the students are not going to ascend to Alicorn status. This would fix most of the problems, I think, and I don't think it'd be too difficult to integrate it into the story. Hell, I could even say that the whole Alicorn Twilight thing would have happened, but the crossover of these two universes has created a divergent reality where things play out different. I don't know, I'll have to give this more though later, but it's not too important as far as Chapter Three goes so it can wait.
So yeah, just tell me what you guys think. Unfortunately, I've got to go soon and can't stick around to respond. I'll get back to you guys late tonight or tomorrow. This whole situation has definitely left me very frustrated, but I will absolutely still finish the story. It just feels weird and wrong to be writing a Twilicorn fic so close to the event actually happening in the show, but I told myself I'd finish this and damnit I'm going to.
I just hope you guys will still want to read it.
Of course, I can't really know what this will mean for my fanfic (and all future fics I had intended to write) until we actually see the episode. Who knows? It may not even make a big difference, everything might go back to normal. Until then though, Twilicorn watches silently.
Faust have mercy on me.
Heh, I would just go on the path you are going on.
Best advice and only advice you need atm:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I would just go on with the path you've already thought out. Say that this is an alternate reality from what would happen. Now, to give my thoughts on it. Twi becoming an alicorn is like Hot Rod becoming Rodimus Prime in the 1980's. At first people didn't like it, but eventually, grew to accept it. I hope that is what happens here. Twi is like the Rodimus of the series. Besides, from the beginning, some of us knew she was going to become the next Prime... er, I mean, Alicorn.
Dude, I don't think you use "reciprocal" like that.
Second, you are not technically writing a Twilicorn fic. You are writing an alternate universe body swap fic. Twilight is still a unicorn and Eos is not the Twilight from FiM. Just like your Twilight is not the Twilight from FiM either. She's the Twilight from IWPFT. Canon is about portraying the characters and the world they live in accurately in the spirit of the show, not about specific events or timelines. That's continuity, not canon. Your fic is still set within the canon of the show, just not the continuity.
Goal one is to keep going your way - we want to see your story, after all. We like reading your words, and see where you are headed.
Now, you shouldn't be afraid to use something from the "new" canon if you want to, or if its just a very minor issue that you think you can integrate easily. But that should be secondary to your artistic intentions. Define Alicorns as you need them for your story. Some details can be changed, and some can't.
However, no matter how much you change or keep the same, you should be sure that we'll be happy to read it. Don't let concerns over canon sink your wonderful story.
We have to remember, the show's creators had no say in this. This was forced upon them by hasbro so they could sell more toys.
Just keep going on the path you're going. A few things have happened since I started writing a story of mine and I just plough through, or incorporate what fits.
I have the lulz. just keep going this is your story and as you said before this story is based on alternate reality
791528, 791556. 791579, 792755, 793303
Alright then, I was hoping you guys would say that. I'll continue on the course I intended, Alicorn Twilight be damned.
791583
Yeah, I think the word I was looking for was 'cyclical' or something, blame math class.
I wrote this blog really fast, hehe.
As for what you said about continuity versus canon, yeah. Makes sense.
791800
Thank you, Daemon. That compliment means a lot to me.
I really can't wait until I can finally get this accursed chapter done with, and move on. It's probably my least favorite chapter to write so far, for reasons even I don't understand. Maybe it's just because I've been stuck on it for so long, I really want to move on.
Perhaps it's because I can't wait for what happens afterwords. I honestly think the fic gets a lot better after Chapter Four, things start to pick up. My plan after Chapter Three is posted is to keep up the inertia and try to finish Chapter Four before the S3 Finale. If Chapter Four ends where I currently intend it to, then Chapter Five will be very, very interesting.
I can't wait!
Adjutant, please respond with the following message:
I recommend maintaining your current course. You're messing with alternate universes which gives you a blank check in terms of working around cannon. Maintain current course.
Adjutant, end transmission.
Glad you will finish it.. and of course i will go on reading <3
793614
My pleasure. Besides, like others have pointed out, you can always change things due to this being a different reality/universe if it bothers you too much. But we're here to see what you want to tell us. Canon is all well and good, but I'd take good story telling over being absolutely canonical any day of the week. Your story is interesting and exciting - I want to read more of your work.
As to the painful chapter bit... Well, I've been there. One of my chapters from Asylum was just dragging on. I had to rewrite almost all of it and one point, so I just said "screw it" and put something in to get past it. I was excited to write the next chapter, but I had to finish that one first to get to the next one and move the plot along.
Sometimes it just takes gritting your teeth and forcing your way through it to keep going. S, here's looking forward to what you have to tell us next!
Also, have I congratulated you on having one of the highest rated stories yet? Goes to prove my point about us wanting to read what you have to say, dontcha think?
Glad to hear that you plan to stay the course.
794139
Thank you very much, and that thing about the ratings reminds me... does anyone know how the Top Rated list on this site actually works? I've tried to figure it out before, but the fics up there seem absolutely random.
Some are actually high-rated, yes, but others don't have that many upvotes as other fics I've seen which aren't anywhere on that list.
As a random example, the fic "The Longest Night" is on page two, yet The Immortal Game" has more votes in every category (views, ratings, comments, favorites) while not being anywhere on the first five pages.
How is this list actually set up? I can't for the life of me figure it out.
If it were up to me, you'd be able to aggregate fics by different ratings values, like on KnowYourMeme's image gallery. You could choose to view fics ordered by highest number of upvotes, or largest number of favorites, or comments, and so on and so forth. Then, you could choose whether you're viewing the fics with most ratings of all time, or within that month/week.
There could be other options as well, such as further filtering by genre or completed/uncompleted, similar to how the current search filter works. Would be very nice for searching.
idk.
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I think it also has something to do with the ratio of likes to dislikes.
A story with 10,000 likes and 9,000 dislikes would likely be below a story with 500 likes and 5 dislikes.
But otherwise, the entire system is but a mystery to us mere mortals.