Self Indulgent Author's Notes: THE REVENGE (plus: get the complete series in epub format!) · 12:10am Jun 8th, 2013
First things first: The always delightful Kirakina has released a complete .epub folder containing the entire Tarnished Silver series. Shove the story right into your unsuspecting phone or tablet! Perfect summer reading! Take it to the beach, then zoom in on the rape scenes and loudly read them to strangers! Do not call me from prison! I'll deny everything.
Anyway, get the whole thing here: http://www.mediafire.com/?cfo95embypc06by
Thanks, Kirakina!
NOW THEN:
Once upon a time, long ago, I somehow had enough free time to not only bring you 10-20 pages of A Silver Sky a week, but also squeeze out some crazy author’s notes for each chapter a few days after publication.
Welp, that didn’t last, so sometime around chapter 19 the notes abruptly ceased! But it would be another 10 chapters before the story concluded.
“Oh crap!” said Hamgravy. “Now what am I going to do for internet attention?”
Hey gang, welcome to the return of Self-Indulgent Author’s Notes!
(Actually, a lot of people asked for more of these. Well, now they're back. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE.)
For those of you who are new to this game, here’s how this works:
1) Ham talks about the stuff he wrote, because for some reason he thinks that's interesting.
2) Ham wanders off topic basically all the time.
3) Maybe you ask some questions in the comments for him to answer, I don’t know.
4) That’s it! Completely pointless!
5) Oh, and it you haven’t read the entire series, TURN BACK NOW or be spoiled for all eternity.
6) Eventually, Hasbro finds out about this practice the humans call "Fan-fictional story tales." Disgusted, they send a squad of Decepitcons (of COURSE they're real) to have us all killed.
Their leader is without mercy.
I’m going to switch the format up a bit, though. Before, I went chapter-by-chapter with these things, but the last story arc feels more connected to me than previous ones, and it’s hard to comment on one chapter without going into others. So I’m not going to! Instead, I’m going to focus on the characters first, then spare bits of the storyline.
But first, I want to say how amazing this whole project has been for me. Over the past year I’ve learned a lot about myself (good and bad, but mostly good) from writing this story, made some terrific friends, and grown my writing skills far more than I thought I possibly could in such a short time. It’s been a hell of a trip, and I wouldn’t have made it to the end without the support of all my readers. So (and I know I say this a lot) thank you. It’s been a joy.
And now, some meaningless trivia:
• The Tarnished Silver series took one year and three days to write.
• It totaled 587 single-spaced pages (if I include Many Loves of Pinkie Pie it just makes it over the 600 page mark.)
• It was originally intended to be one clopfic, of perhaps 10 pages in length.
• Twisted gets its name from the fact that it was originally just going to be a quick clopfic as well, about Sweetie being forced to lure Twist to Rarity’s, where bad stuff happens to them both. Silver Spoon was going to be a minor background player who didn’t even have any lines. Pip wasn't going to appear at all.
• A Silver Sky is more than twice as long as Twisted. I originally estimated (in this very blog) that it would be about the same length, or perhaps a bit shorter.
• No Pegasus pony has a single spoken line in the series until the fourteenth chapter of Twisted, when Peregrine is introduced.
• More evidence of my racism against Pegasi: the only canon Pegasi who speak in the entire series are Derpy Hooves and Scootaloo. They have a combined total of five lines.
• The Many Loves of Pinkie Pie began as a joke greentext post I wrote on /mlp/. I then greatly expanded on it to create the story.
• Pinkie Pie also greatly expanded in that story.
• Canon ponies who played a role in the original outline of Silver Sky: Beauty Brass, Featherweight, Shining Armor, Princess Cadence.
• Rejected names for Aurora: Northern Sky, Constellation, Stargazer.
• Rejected names for Peregrine: Blue Yonder, Wingspan, Daredevil
• Rejected names for Gaze: Vigil, Gust, Stare. (Twenty-Twenty was the first and only name I came up with for his real identity)
• At no point in the entire series is Fancy’s monocle mentioned. What the hell?
HOW CAN I LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE THIS IS TRUE.
So anyway, let’s talk about this horse rape story.
The first 2/3rds of A Silver Sky have a pretty consistent structure: All the main ponies from Twisted (and also Diamond Tiara) have been scattered by circumstance and they’ve all got their own subplots and struggles to deal with. This keeps the main cast separated for most of the story, which means for the first 18(!) chapters we’re jumping back and forth to different parts of Equestria, focusingoin a different character’s struggle each time. I guess this makes the story a bit Game of Thronesy in its structure, for better or worse: We might visit two or three of the main characters each week, but rarely all of them.
Which led to a lot of this: “Is Twist your favorite character? Too bad, because she’s not in this week’s chapter! Tune in next time, maybe. Do you like Sweetie Belle? She’s not in this one either. Is your favorite character Catelyn Stark? Well, I am so, so sorry.”
This is how that scene would have played out in Equestria.
But the last third of the story is a bit different. My goal all along was to get each character to this point, where they could all reunite and join together in one final climatic sequence where everything finally got resolved. So this arc is a bit weird compared to the rest of the story. Everyone’s together again, a lot of ponies die, and unlike the previous chapters, where days or weeks could pass between scenes, these last ten chapters take place over the course of just four or five hours (ignoring the “eight years later” finale, of course.)
As a result, this last arc all kind of blends together in my head. Each chapter has less of a distinct identity, because they’re all part of one big sequence of events which I’d already mapped out. This made it easier to write in some ways (mainly because the events all flowed from one to another with relative ease) but much harder in others (mainly because I had to manage a major subplot payoff about once per chapter and make sure each one had the emotional punch it deserved.)
So instead of splitting these notes up by chapter, I’m going to split them up by character, because that’s always made more sense to me anyway. I’ll do three or four of them per installment, until I run out of major characters. Then I’ll move on to the completely meaningless characters. I plan a sixteen-part series on the impact Dinky Hooves had on the story for the two sentences she appeared in. That girl’s the key to EVERYTHING.
Behold, the true mastermind behind Celestia.
So without further rambling, let’s start this hot mess with Equestria’s favorite hooflicking enthusiast:
SILVER SPOON
I hadn’t intended to make Silver the protagonist of some huge, epic saga originally. But she pretty much insisted upon it. Despite my intention of focusing Twisted on, well, Twist, Silver Spoon just kept elbowing her way into the narrative. Her perspective was so different from everyone else’s, with her absolute devotion to Rarity, that anytime she wasn’t around for too long I found myself wondering what she thought of the current situation. Before long I had come up with the Gathering idea, and now Silver HAD to be included, and by the fifth chapter it was clear that, regardless of who I had intended to make the protagonist, this was going to be Silver’s story as much as anyone else’s. Her mental issues, her extreme submissiveness, her relationships with the other ponies (especially Sweetie) were just things that needed exploring. Silver was the type of character who refuses to be ignored.
Also, she can be pretty slutty, which is a plus because yay sex scenes.
Of course, by the time we get to the Broken Circle Arc, she’s been through a lot of changes. One of the best decisions I made in the story was when I defined her Cutie Mark as meaning she’s meant to be a high society mare, representing her family. The skills of the social climber -- the ability to read others, plan ahead, talk fast and convey poise and grace – were invaluable in Silver’s development. It’s how she charmed Fancy into falling in love with her, how she managed to convince him she was on his side, and how she came up with the plan to liberate the Gallery. And through all that planning, Silver grew, becoming strong and confident enough so that, when the time came, she could finally realize that she didn’t need Rarity to make her whole anymore.
Liberating the Gallery, defying the Circle, surviving Deadweight Alley, all of it was basically prepwork to give Silver the strength to tell her abuser that she would never again control her life.
Of course, even then, it’s not quite that simple. It takes more than strength to stand up to someone who has such an emotional hold over you. It takes mental clarity and the support of people who care. Which is why it fell to Twist to give Silver that last little push so she could finally recognize that she was her own pony, and didn’t need to be anyone’s broken toy.
By the end of the series, both her former “owners” are the ones who need her. Diamond’s pining for Silver Spoon, going as far as to admit that if they do get together, she’s willing to follow her this time. And Rarity, of course, has no one left in her life except Silver and Sweetie. Rarity still has a great deal of power over Silver’s emotions, but she’s now been reduced to the weaker party, the one who falls helplessly into the other’s embrace.
Silver’s character arc was probably the hardest one for me to write, because she changes more than any of the other foals. I’m pretty proud of how she turned out. But it’s more than that, though:
I’m proud of her.
Deleted scenes: I start a hell of a lot of sentences in these notes with the word “originally.” So much, that I gave it its own section!
Originally, Silver’s Deadweight Alley experience would have been completely different. The prostitutes in the alley would have eventually decided to get rid of her by threatening anyone who tried to give her food, offering her the choice between leaving or starvation. Silver, terrified of missing her chance to see Rarity, stayed put, and is eventually found unconscious and barely alive, by Gaze.
Originally, Gaze’s teleport ability was a bit weaker, so he couldn’t warp all the way from Deadweight Alley to Fancy’s place in one jump. This led to him jumping to a nicer part of town first, where he is questioned by guards (carrying unconscious, half-dead children around is seen as somewhat suspicious behavior in Equestria. Your horse planet is so strange!) and Silver manages to wake up and get away in the confusion, only to collapse again on a nearby street. She’s found by Beauty Brass, who nurses her back to health in her apartment. This led to a whole subplot where Silver learns what it’s like to be treated with complete kindness for the first time, and thus realizes she is worthy of love. It was pretty well developed, with whole chapters outlined, but it really went nowhere, and I still had to find a way to get Silver back to Fancy’s mansion in time for the climax. But the big problem with the subplot was that Silver’s self-confidence was being handed to her by a third party instead of coming about through her own determination. I didn’t want that to be the case. So, the whole thing was cut. Sorry, Brass.
Originally, the confrontation between Rarity and Silver was going to be preceded by another confrontation between Diamond and Silver, where they got trapped in Silver’s room with all the creepy dolls while escaping the mansion. Diamond flies into a rage at learning that Silver had been alive for months and never told her. Diamond smashes Silver’s mirror (while it’s reflecting an image the two of them together) and accidentally cuts herself badly on the broken glass, leading to Silver being forced to seek out the Circle in the hopes that Triage (still alive at the time) can save her friend before she bleeds out. When Diamond realizes that Silver saved her, she forgives her at last.
This sequence didn’t really work with the flow of events, and more importantly, it seemed forced. Diamond is snooby and rude, but she also loves Silver Spoon with all her heart, enough that she would be so happy to see her again that she’d forgive almost any slight. Besides, I already used that “you saved my life, I forgive you for all the awful shit you did under Rarity” device with Sweetie Belle.
Moral: I overplan! Speaking of which, next time I’ll talk about the other three main foals. Feel free to ask any questions (“Why did you think anyone would read this whole thing?”) in comments.
Sweetie Belle couldn’t be here this week because she got spectacularly drunk at the Tarnished Silver wrap party. Next thing she knew she was waking up in a yacht cabin bed with a bunch of used dildos on the floor and her hair in a braid. Diamond Tiara was all snuggling up to her and saying “put the glasses back on.”
Quite the dynamic character.
I still can't totally forgive you for KILLING AURORA! YOU MURDERER!
But seriously it's been a great story. I am really looking forwards to the character analyzes for Sweetie Belle, Diamond Tiara, Pipsqueak, and Twist.
I really like these deleted scenes. I really enjoy seeing the creative process and what was cut for what reasons.
Hope you will continue writing you are really good at it.
Also that being said, it was a crazy wrap party. It going really good until Pipsqueak got really drunk and rowdy and had to be hauled off by the police, while swearing profusely. Seriously, Pip is a MAD DRUNK!
Huzzah, Tarnished Silver goodies and extras.... I just thought of a wicked idea.... If somepony could adapt this fanfic epic to flash and make a movie on it, that would be kickass. It would most likely be borderline porn, but you created such an epic masterpiece, that it could be forgiven.
I always wanted to create a grimdark that causes people to talk about it. Maybe, I can do one about Derpy. That is a story for another time and a completely different place
Huh, was that actually Silver's problem? My view here probably owes a lot to Silver's time with Fancy, which would have been after you abandoned this storyline, but I figured her self esteem issues manifested as a fundamental hatred of being pampered, regardless of the intent behind it. She never felt worthy because she never felt she had earned it. The only pony who ever made her work for anything was Rarity.
This seems like a pretty good way to convince Sweetie Belle to walk away, though.
1133174
The Beauty Brass thing didn't quite address Silver's problem, but I didn't realize that at first. Once I got a better grip on the cause of her unhappiness, it helped cement the decision to get rid of Brass' subplot altogether, since it had really just evolved into a big roadblock. She does hate being pampered, and Brass was just doing that in a nicer way than previous ponies had done.
I looking forwards to seeing authors notes are returning. When they are all done they should be collected into one big word document!
Also take a look at the audio version of Twisted: Four Little Foals Chapter 1 on your author page!
First authors notes, second audiobook! Soon Tarnished Silver will be a toy series, and eventually a movie!
You can sell the Fancy's Mansion, The Gallery, and Dead Weight Alley Playsets! Also you can sell Silver Spoon toys in packs of Three: One Silver Spoon, One ScarFlank, and One Gentle Step!
When you add double spaces to the Tarnished Silver Series, it takes up a whopping 918 pages!
58 pages: Rarity's Garden + Tarnished Silver + Silver Spoon's Cutie Mark
250 pages: Twisted: Four Little Foals
610 pages: A Silver Sky: Four Little Ponies
Then there's also
10 pages: Rarity's Garden in French
30 pages: Many Loves of Pinkie Pie
That's a lot of Foal Rape!
(number of pages counted by Microsoft Word 2007)
I have just been reading over Twisted: Four Little Foals again. This series is the Best Pony Fan Fiction Ever!
Even though there were some parts with Celestia or Styngian where things were comparatively weaker, than the rest of the stories, the story as a whole is phenomenal!
I am looking forwards to the other character analyses.