Sibling rivalry - aka Dafuq is Shining Armor? · 10:32pm Jun 30th, 2012
When you read through my works (I know I start blog posts with that kind of sentence way too often), you may have noticed that there is no mention of Shining Armor or anything that happened at the Canterlot Wedding altogether. And there is a simple reason to that. Well, first a little bit from something not so completely different.
When I designed Aus' and To Jack a Rainbow's story, I had one fundamental problem. I had only a very basic idea of how marriages run. That's technically solved by the Wedding, except that it's about 3 months late for that task. Thanks a lot, Faust!
So. The simple reason for why Shining Armor does not exist is that: I couldn't fit him in. For that he's supposed to be Twilight's BBBFF, he's never mentioned before the s2 finale, so how should I have known about him before that? It would have been pretty handy if I had, as Twilight would probably want to visit him if she's staying in Canterlot and all that. I could edit in some kind of excuse like 'Honeymoon', but that'd be tricky too, because it'd be a pretty long one. Semi-related note: I've counted. AJ+RD's honeymoon lasts 11 days, with them being back already on the 11th. I can't help but feel that that's a bit short. OH WELL!
There are certain events in the future of SatN where I couldn't avoid having to add in Shining Armor and those are so far in the future that I can't possibly whip out said excuse or something like it. No spoilers here though. And since there'd be literally no way around short of killing him off (and Pinkamena refuses to), if he's there then and then, the reader would ask where the hell he's been before that. Well, maybe he's been to busy doing Cadence... whatever.
So, facing an impossible to solve problem of fitting in Shining Armor, I wouldn't be myself if I hadn't found a very pragmatic solution to that. I just don't do it. In my Equestria, Shining Armor does not exist unless the opposite is explicitly stated. And, though Twilight mentions Cadence in the friendship report (I wrote that several months after being done with Aus itself), she could be anywhere for all I care.
Now go and do conspiracy theories about what could possibly happen to Twilight that'd require Shining Armor to know. Okay, one hint. She'd be faster to tell him about it. But we're talking about chapter numbers at least close to, if not above, 40 here.
