Coming Up On Channel Bookish! · 12:56am Nov 24th, 2014
"The bus?" Rarity gasped. "For goodness sakes, darling! After all the work we just put in, please make sure nothing untoward happens to your hair!"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Yeesh." She gestured to Twilight, then the fitting room. "Come on, Twi. You should get dressed so we can get out of here."
Twilight giggled and gave a mock salute. "Sure thing, Soccer Queen."
She moved towards the room, then felt Rainbow Dash grab her hand in mid-stride.
"Hey. Twilight?"
Twilight looked back. "Huh?"
Rainbow cast her eyes towards the other girls, making sure they were preoccupied. Then she turned towards Twilight.
"There... there's more to me than soccer. I promise."
Nuts to this. It's been seven months. You all deserve some kind of update.
A year ago, I wrote some story in three nights on a caffeine binge. You know, the way most of the filler on this site shows up. Not much sleep was had, and not much editing was done, because I was far too wired, and averse to editors at the time because Reasons. I clipped a couple of screenshots together, threw it up, and people managed to like it amidst the hurricane of Equestria Girls hate that was going on back then (it's calmed down to a mild tropical storm these days, I believe).
I liked it too, naturally, though looking back it admittedly only scratched the surface of the subjects I wanted to explore through it.
In that year that followed, quite a bit happened! Namely my getting an editor, learning a lot of writing lessons, Rainbow Rocks being released, and a lot of hard thinking about what draws me to Rainbow Dash despite her embodying the sorts of character archetypes in fiction that I usually can't stand.
Yet despite all of that soul-searching I still have no clue. This would be so much easier if she just tasted like apples, y'know?
Now, armed with the knowledge afforded from all of these things, we're coming back to give this concept, with the express aim to overwhelm Twilight Sparkle's heart with the force of double awesome give it the polish it truly deserves! Blending alternate universe fiction, romance, and (most of all) working with two distinct Rainbow Dashes is the toughest project I've ever done, but at last, it's just about complete! We'll be going into the final editing passes this week.
A few quick facts:
- This will be posted as new story. Double-checked with the mods to be sure I could. This is no mere edit job. It was going to be, then it, uh, ran away with me for ~20K words. 
You might want to bring a popcorn bucket once we drop this.
- This story is written with the Bookish-Jones Emotion Engine: the same writing process that brought you Lulamoon's Castle!
- Once the new story's posted, I'll be taking down Otherworldly Advice as, well, this makes it redundant and then some. I won't be deleting it, just unpublishing it, so the link to the story should still work. Unpublishing of Otherworldly Advice is under review due to possible site quirks. Might just not do it. Still if you want to save it, go ahead. (*shrug*)
- And yes, as shown above, we're getting an actual cover this time to celebrate the occasion.
We'll be releasing in a couple of weeks, give or take. I'll give another heads-up closer to the date. Until then, please look forward to it!
Twilight studied Rainbow's face. Coy and challenging... but also earnest. She'd seen it before, on her Rainbow, more than once. She never quite understood why whenever it happened.
However, she knew from experience that it was always best to respond in kind.
"I know," she said, gazing into Rainbow's eyes with a smile. "And I can't wait to find out what."
Rainbow's response was to slide her hand along Twilight's, fingers against fingers, with a slow, practiced grace, until they were finally apart.
Their eyes, however, never parted for a second.
"I was hoping you'd say that," Rainbow said softly. "Go ahead and change. I'll be waiting."
~B
Frequently Asked Questions!
Q1) So does this mean you're part of the TwiDash Army/Legion/Empire/Bowling League?
Q1A) I'm a shipping mad scientist, unaffiliated with no one. I write whatever catches my fancy at the moment, and usually not expressly for the ship's sake.
In other words, working with Twidash was really fun, but it wasn't the express reason I set out to write this. The express reason was SCIENCE!
Q2) BOOKISH BOOKISH WHY HAVEN'T YOU WRITTEN ABOUT THE DAZZLINGS OR SUNSET OR THE HUMAN TWILIGHT YET BOOKIIIIISH-
Q2A) Duh. Because right now, everyone is.
Twilight: "R-Rainbow-senpai!"
Oho, what's this? A (kinda) new TwiDash by Bookish Delight? Romance-y fun times with Twilight and Rainbow coming to a fimfic near me?
This makes a crummy Sunday in November so much better.
I always wondered. Do you draw Bookish?
2612806
The Newness Quotient(tm) of this story has been clocked at 80%!
We've got bunches of surprises in store for Otherworldly veterans.
That's stupid. Don't. You can edit the description to say "Go read this story instead, it's much better" if you want, but there's a big difference between a 6000 word story and a 20,000 word story; they're not equivalent at all. Unpublishing one story to make room for another feels very artificial and is completely unnecessary.
2612813
Not... really?
Yeah I'm a stone-cold novice. Dipped my toes into the art waters last year and have been meaning to start on the years-long road to being able to scribble things that don't destroy peoples' eyes on contact, but I've been procrastinatin'.
Really my biggest accomplishment last year was finding out I could if I ever put my mind to it -- spent decades convincing myself otherwise!
Well, I'm certainly intrigued.
I also find myself wondering how blushing works in humans with chromelanin, the magical pigment protein, but that's an entirely different matter.
Definitely looking forward to pan-cosmic adorableness.
Indeed! There's also volleyball, lacrosse, field hockey, and - on alternate Saturdays - jai alai.
2612822
Well maybe give my group a look over. AAU could help if you are interested
And for the main reason why I bugged you i wanted to know if I could draw you your OC in return for some promotion?
2612820
Gosh, I love how you're acting as if I haven't thought about this for three months.
Links actually will be included in the descriptions of both Otherworldly Advice and this new work even though I will be unpublishing OA. Two big reasons I'm keeping OA on the server instead of deleting it entirely is because I know a lot of people liked it (and linked it in various places), and it'd be interesting to newcomers to see where it came from.
Also, I like it.
So no, OA's not going anywhere nor is it being swept under the rug, but at the same time this new story renders it redundant/obsolete in every functional way, and I'm not keeping two works with the same originating core concepts on my page.
Because that's how you waste readers' time.
I don't always ship the main six but when I do it's twidash
or Appledash, or Rarishy
This is most unexpected, but is expectedly welcome. I think I will stick you on watch to see when this happens.
Consider yourself watched.
Ooh, will we be getting more teasing hints about SparkleCo? I've been wondering what the deal is with that for ages.
2612830
I'm not against it (that usually tends to be what happens anyway), but... how do I put this?
I reward generosity with generosity if it's genuine. Mainly because I'd feel pretty cheap just asking for giftart for my OC for free.
Does that make sense?
2612869
Cool beans, thanks!
2612876
Yep, there will be!
Admittedly the thing I've been building around that got stalled, and Rainbow Rocks didn't help matters. So I'm still kind of turning the ship in a slightly compensative direction as far as that's concerned.
2612893
If I offer you the chance to have me draw you something take it. i don't do it often, and when I do i always ask first. I won't draw anything unless I have your Ok.
2612897
Then I appreciate the advance courtesy and yes, it's quite all right.
I just wanted to make sure it was something your heart was into.
2612916
My heart is inside my chest
but yes, I will not draw for someone unless I want to. thats why i offer.
2612918
Then draw away, sir, I await with breath. That is bated.
2612923
make sure you breath in and out regularly. Don't want you to get light headed.
I approve of this action.
2612850 Fair enough.
Authors do this sometimes and it's still nigh-incomprehensible to me. The biggest problem is that unpublishing removes stories from people's libraries, and only a very small percentage of people are active enough that they track the going-ons of the authors behind the stories they read. OA is in ~1000 bookshelves, and for the vast majority of those users unpublishing it is the same as a deletion. When at some point in the future someone feels like rereading "that EQG Twidash fic", they'll never be able to find it. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's a wholly unnecessary and avoidable inconvenience that has no benefit except, I dunno...pride?
I was snappier than I should've been in my original post, sorry, but it's because I've had this same argument at least a dozen times. There's a reason I have a Google Drive account solely dedicated to archiving fics/sites/videos/music I really like, because a lot of content creators have an odd compulsion to delete their old stuff when they have an infinite internet at their disposal and no good reason to.
2612935
No hard feelings.
I actually was completely unaware of this, mainly because I haven't used the (relatively new) bookshelf system in any sort of extensive manner yet. If this is indeed true, that may well be grounds for me to try and keep both stories active/published (if I can) and just not put the old one's name in lights anymore.
Well, I suppose I can tick "Otherworldly Advice" off my list of stories I need to get to, at least.... XD;
Ah well. Like you, I've learned a lot of lessons since that 'fic was published, and I'm hoping I too can put them to work when the time rolls around 'n' we get to see the final version, for both our sakes. And who knows? Depending on how it times out, I too may have a finished version of a long-gestating project of my own ready for prime-time.... ;3
In any case! Super excited t'see the story. ^_^
2612960
Unpublished fics used to appear in peoples' favorites/RL a long time ago, but at one point that was changed (prior to the switch to the bookshelf system).
I just checked with a fic which I know is unpublished and which I did have favorited prior to the switch. Not only is it not in any of my bookshelves (meaning that it was not converted at the time), but when adding it to one of my current bookshelves, it does not appear in the list, nor add to the story count.
2613251
Yeah, we have been doing this crazy writing journey for roughly the same amount of time, huh? I mean, even before ponies. :D
Is dat sum Castle Midnight I smell? (Seriously, now that Tirek's over and done with at least you don't have to worry about him anymore!)
2613335
Mmmmmmmmmm. Yeah, thanks for checking. As usual, one can account for the Internet yet still be railroaded by knighty.
I'll take this under consideration. If I can leave both up, I'll just leave both up.
2613341 It is pretty fascinating for me to consider just how parallel our 'fic-writing timelines really do run with each other, now that you mention it. Kind of encouraging, too. ^_^
And hey, you've got a good nose on ya. 8D ;3
This post...
derpicdn.net/img/2014/10/9/739682/full.jpg
2612795
Best kind of shipper!
I shall prepare my mind for the cute-splosioning.