Eternal · 10:18pm Feb 23rd, 2014
A friend of mine sent me links to a couple of stories here on FiMfic. He said he'd enjoyed them, and when I read them, I did too. But one of them turned out to be a story about another story after a fashion! It was about Eternal, the novel-length epic by device heretic. In Heretical Fictions by Skywriter, Celestia and Twilight discuss Eternal as if it were simply a novel in a Canterlot library, which is rather clever. But that meant if I wanted to read on, I would have to risk spoilers, or read Eternal first!
Well, I did both. I started reading Eternal, realized how very good but very long it is, and then went ahead and went the story about it anyway. It did include "spoilers", but rather than spoiling my experience of reading Eternal, they served as appetizers instead! I loved Eternal thoroughly, aside from the fact that there's just so much of it and I wasn't quite patient enough to go through it chapter by chapter. After about five chapters, I skipped ahead, skimmed some, and read the ending in pieces until I'd read it all. Eternal is one of the most famous ponyfics, and for good reason. It's amazingly moving. It's the most moving pony story I've ever read, and it may be the most moving, period. It's hard for me to imagine how one would go about writing a more moving story. It haunts me.
Heretical Fictions turned out to be a kind of balm for the strength of its emotion. It's a way of--not so much diminishing the effect of Eternal as coming to grips with it. Putting it in a manageable context. For that I say, well done, Skywriter. The sequel to Heretical Fictions, Beloved, is heartgripping, too.
I was even inspired to write some of a scene of my own in the same vein as Heretical Fictions, because it fits with a concept I already had--a story about a royal therapist. That would be my own way of coming to grips. with the issues in Eternal and in the story of the princesses in general. I may eventually pull all the bits together and write that story. It'll aim to be about equal parts funny and thought-provoking, I think. At some point, in any case, I'm resolved to write a story about the princesses, because the closest I've come so far is the second movement of Canterlot Cantata, and that just gave hints of the way they operate in my mind.
I thought Eternal was dull as heck. :/ I even wrote a huge journal about it, because I know it's so well-known. I don't get it, myself, but then I also don't like Twilestia.
Eternal isn't a short story by any means, but if you thought that was long, you obviously haven't seen stories like End of Ponies, This Platinum Crown, or Project
goddamnHorizons.I'm incredibly happy to see that you're still writing. I've enjoyed all your stories to date, and I look forward to whatever you throw our way in the future.
1867922 True, I haven't! I know tremendous 200,000+ word pony epics exist out there, but I'm afraid of them. A friend of mine is writing My Little Metro, and I still haven't caught up on that, let alone thought about the likes of Fallout: Equestria.
Glad you feel that way, Lightning Bearer! I've just published the first chapter of a new story--it'll be a series of chapters around three or four thousand words each. It's pretty different from the others--I hope you enjoy it too.
1867904 I can understand finding it dull as heck. I even snapped midway through reading it and gave it a thumbs-down out of anger for it taking so long to get to the resolution... but I was in a weird mental state then and amended it to a thumbs up in time! It's all about painstakingly exploring relationships and character depths, and if you aren't into that sort of thing, then yeah--Eternal's not the story for you.
Eternal is a hell of a story. And you're right, Heretical Fictions makes it easier to handle and approach, without detracting from the original story's power.