What's going on...

Author's Note: Although I have tremendous confidence in both the intellect and discernment of all my readers, I am not ignorant of the dangers that accompany the use of sarcasm on the internet, and since I feel that explicitly stating which parts of the following ramblings are meant to be sarcastic would completely ruin the desired effect, I will simply inform you in advance that much of the first paragraph(excluding this message) is intended to be recognized as sarcasm, but I will leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide which phrases are sarcastic and which aren't.

Hello everyone. It's been quite a while since I've said anything significant here, and for that I apologize. In my defense, it is entirely the fault of my readers , whose inexplicable decisions to favorite, thumbs up, and comment upon my story(-ies) made me feel so guilty about developing writers block that I decided to avoid fimfiction almost entirely for the last year. So you see, dear reader, that if everyone hadn't been so enthusiastic and supportive, I wouldn't have had to worry about disappointing them, and everything would be fine, and therefore it is completely their fault... right? (don't answer that) Anyway, now that I have cleared my conscience by blaming everyone but myself, I am feeling much better and, more importantly, much more like both writing and explaining.

When I look back at The Student and the Sun, as I have attempted to do almost daily since the last update in April 2013, there is one thing that never ceases to amaze me. I was really, really, really, really, REALLY happy back then, and I can't for the life of me remember why or explain it. When this inexplicably happy period inevitably came to an end, I found myself unable to continue the story without seriously altering its tone or abandoning what I'd already written and starting over, and I have basically been vacillating between those two options ever since. Now, I have at no time considered stopping the story, since I am still an ardent believer that Twilestia is Bestia (I think that is the group's name), and Twilight and Celestia are my favorite and second favorite characters respectively, but as the previous/current tone is basically untenable, some things will have to change.

So, having broadly explained why I have been absent, guilt over writers block induced by changing personal circumstances, allow me to explain a bit about where I hope to go from here. I am happy to announce that I have stumbled upon an idea that, for the first time in months, I have been able to write more than 300 words about, doesn't require me to abandon everything that I've already posted, alters the mood of the piece to be less happy-go-lucky than before without being depressing, will allow me to indulge in some world building, and finally, will let me bring the other character about whom I've been wanting to write, Princess Luna, into the story as more of a main character. In the following paragraphs, I will try to explain what I mean to change in a bit more detail and to explain what it is that leads me to seek this change.

The first problem that I had to contend with was that I was coming to dislike how I had portrayed Celestia, in that she was far too whimsical and lighthearted, almost all the time. While this can be, and was, rationalized as being extremely unusual circumstances, her first real holiday in centuries, I hadn't established an in story baseline for her normal behavior to compare it to. The problem this caused me, narratively speaking, was that the shift back to what I consider her 'normal' behavior would necessarily make her seem almost schizophrenic, and this has been one of my biggest stumbling blocks.

The next thing that I hope to do in the, hopefully forthcoming, chapters is to begin world building, which is actually what motivated me to write in the first place. In RL, I love history, politics, philosophy, and I am currently pursuing a bachelors degree in international affairs. This is why I was so interested in Princess Celestia, whose position as virtual deity and immortal absolute monarch would, I had hoped, have allowed me to incorporate those topics that I mentioned above into my story. When I was, literally(in the literal sense), taken by complete surprise by the success of The Student and the Sun, I found myself writing a romance story which, while enjoyable on its own, did not particularly require the use of any of those topics about which I am particularly passionate. I don't deny that this lack led me to feel some antipathy towards the story, and was one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to restart in a way that would allow me to make those elements more prominent, but happily, I think I have found a compromise. Basically, Celestia is going to be called away to handle a dispute between Prance and Germaneigh, which will allow me to write about international relations while explaining some of the politics of the Equestrian Nations and the history of Equestria. However, in order to do this without disappointing myself, I wanted to find some way to tie the geography of Equestria with the real world so that when I mention Prance and Germaneigh, they aren't just arbitrary designations to amorphous blobs of countries. To this end, I went to the map of Equestria.

The thing I finally decided was that Equestria could almost be shoehorned(pun-intended) into being a distorted map of Italy, with the crystal mountains being the Alps, Manehattan is essentially Venice, and the bodies of water on either side are the Mediterranean. This allowed me to feel somewhat justified in saying that there is a Kingdom of Germaneigh or Prance without either deviating from cannon material too drastically, but also without having to create some completely new world for the story to occur in. Prance and Germaneigh are simply separated from the Principality of Equestria by the Crystal Mountains, or the real world Alps, hence their not being included on the map. By the way, in case this isn't abundantly clear already, there are excellent reasons why Twilight is my favorite pony, in addition to being the one I identify with best. In fact, one of the main reasons that I decided to write this post at all is that I was so overjoyed at having come up with this idea that I wanted to share it.

Finally, there is my desire to make Princess Luna a more prominent character for a number of reasons. Luna's tragic history and desperate desire to be 'redeemed' and to gain acceptance interests me greatly, and I think she has tremendous potential for character development and growth. Another aspect of her character that is particularly appealing to me from a narrative standpoint is that she has known Celestia far longer than anyone else in the canon, so if Twilight is going to learn things about Celestia, there are really only two potential sources, and Luna is one of them.

Well then, that's about it for this post, I think. Thanks to everyone who makes it this far, and as I think I used to say, I welcome any feedback.

Comments

[Vandratha]

I'm glad to hear that this is still alive and am interested to read more. Stories are much more entertaining when the author is enjoying themselves, so do with it what you will. I will read it regardless.

[Gastredner]

You might want to address the fact that, according to canon, the Equestrians originally imigrated from what is depicted as "Frozen North" on the map, which might make both countries remnants of their original home country (which would conveniently fit to their Earthly history, as both were part of Francia).

Otherwise, nice idea. I'm looking forward to the continuation.

[TheLastBrunnenG]

Good to hear S&S isn't abandoned. I put off reading it until just last week, because I didn't want to start another great story that I'd never see the end of. Glad I read it now, and looking forward to more!