A word about sequels · 10:37pm Jan 15th, 2014
About an hour ago, I hit the big red button for Hard Reset 2: Reset Harder, which should be live featureboxed* by the time you're reading this. If you're already a fan of Eakin's Hard Reset, clicking my story should be a no-brainer. For the rest of you, let's talk about sequels a moment.
The first thing you should know is that HR2 isn't, at least not in the sense of something that follows (or precedes) the original. It's more like I wrote Final Fantasy X to Eakin's Final Fantasy VII — the name makes a promise about what type of adventure you're in for, and what elements you'll recognize if you've been through the series before, but the story is meant to stand on its own. I did send HR2 to a few prereaders who hadn't seen Hard Reset before to ensure that it still made sense; I'm trying to reuse the elements of the original story in such a way that they're presented naturally to new readers, and the joy of series fans comes from figuring out how it all fits together, teasing out the original plot elements like easter eggs.
Basically, what HR2 is trying to do is answer the question: "How would Twilight's war in 'Hard Reset' against the changelings have gone if she wasn't the only one looping?" This is a formulation that every single one of us fanfic readers should be instantly familiar with, because "It's 'My Little Pony', except X is different!" can be used to describe virtually everything on this site. ("Hard Reset" itself is "My Little Pony, except Twilight's stuck in a one-mare war in a time loop". Mash that together with the question at the start of this paragraph, and you know everything you need to get started on HR2.)
That observation about fanfiction is interesting on another level, because sequels suffer from much of the same stigma that fanfiction does, for the same reasons — their nature as derivative products. I think we're starting to see that change, though. That's come along with the rise of remix culture, and its quiet revolution in the way that people view creative works. That's a positive thing! People want to see their favorite characters and settings and ideas interpreted in new ways — we've always wanted to, all the way back to the classics — and when the idea is widely accepted that new presentations of old ideas are legitimate, then presentation becomes less about hiding your sources and more about the quality you can put into your version.
Anyway, if "a dark adventure story with wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, struggles over morality and memory, and gratuitous changeling fights" sounds like a cool thing, here's my latest. It has ponies. And resets. And numbers, one of which happens to be in the title.
* 
Well that was quick
Congrats!
I know people love crossovers. But I don't know how much of "remix culture" is genuine grass-roots culture, and how much of it is propaganda from Lawrence Lessig, Kevin Kelly, and other people pushing agendas of copyright repeal or postmodern cultural relativity.
And I don't understand why remixing is okay, when creating a new original work in the mode of a past era is not. E.g., throwing a bunch of 80s rock samples into a new song is okay, and making a parody of 80s rock is okay, but writing a new song in the style of 80s rock is not okay. Writing a new symphony in a 19th-century style is not okay, even though there are no well-liked symponies in any other style. Why is the love of remix culture tied closely to McLuhan and "The medium is the message", and yet it endorses only re-use of content, not re-use of the medium itself?
1721972
Wait, those aren't okay? I must have missed that memo.
1722146 It's okay if you do it ironically, or in Russia.
And there's some special rule for retro hipster stuff, like those 1960s glasses that they used to call "birth control glasses" that are hip again now.
So, I guess that makes Twilight Cid, Pinkie Pie a Moogle, and Scootaloo a Chocobo.
...
What do you mean, "simile"?
Instead of every 5 days, how about every 1 or even 2? 5 days is too long if you actually have the story in limbo (I understand it's still being written, but still).
Could you at least post 5 chapters right off the bat?
1721972
Like 1722146, that's not something I'd run across, but we may run in different circles. There's a thriving fanbase for lo-fi in things like video games and chiptunes; half of the indie games on the market look like they were designed in the 1980s to 1990s, partially because there's something about that aesthetic that lends itself to one-man jobs, partially because nostalgia, and partially because style is mercurial and cyclical and it happens to be cool right now.
The 80s is a weird special case because it's right at that intersection of uncool ironic hipster enjoyment and the newer postmodern sincere appreciation that drives things like MLP. A decade or two ago it was the 70s that was similarly at the fashion nadir and I don't even know what the deal is with disco now. I think what's happening is that genres carve out their niches, and it's not so much that "a sincere 80s-style rock song" is un-okay right now as it is that it's not okay for the mainstream. There's a market today for big-hair rock; I've seen bands that exist to try to hit it.
Symphonies, I can't comment on.
I suspect remix culture/Lessig/McLuhan/et.al. are orthogonal to that discussion but it's an interesting point you raise nevertheless. I'll mull it over.
1722396
note to self: give Twilight Sparkle an airship
1723119
I will, at a minimum, post 3 chapters in 3 days, giving people a chance to get settled comfortably in to the story.
I need to be careful about releasing too fast, because I am truly not a fast writer. The scary thing is that a chapter per 7 days will just about allow me to keep up with my buffer drain.
What I'd like to do is allow myself enough time to finish a story arc, and then I can post everything up to the end, pause "between stories," and throw down in a burst again once I restart.
1723160
Well, she already has a balloon. Maybe we can compromise. How about Castle Wulfenbach?
static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080317072349/girlgenius/images/3/36/CastleWulfenbach.png
1723160
fairyenuf
1723175
The cut of your jib. I like it.