On Forged Anew, or: Crystal ponies are cute, sturdy creatures fond of drink and industry · 12:37pm Jan 25th, 2015
Well then. I've started uploading what is not only my first MLP fanfiction, but in fact my first fanfiction ever. For those who are interested, here's some information about Forged Anew.
On the story: I love medieval fantasy. I know the genre has been done to death, but I still have a soft spot for it, and I though the Crystal Empire was a great setting for something like that in the FIM universe. The world of Friendship is Magic is not a perfect utopia, but it's a world where society tends to be a bit more benevolent overall, and concepts like kindness and loyalty have a bigger foothold. It's also a world filled with danger and magic.
Overall, I think it is a perfect setting for tales of chivalry and heroism, and that's what I was trying to do with Forged Anew. At the same time, I didn't want to tell this story with a character who's a very perfect gentle knight right from the get-go, so character growth is going to be a major theme.
On uploading: While I'm writing this, I have ten chapters (including the ones already uploaded) and a word count of about 80k ready to go, and I'm probably around three-quarters finished overall. The reason I wrote so much before I started uploading was that I wanted to see if this story was actually going anywhere. As to why I'm not uploading it all at once, if this story actually attracts a few readers, someone might spot a mistake or point something out that makes it necessary to do some more work on future chapters. But as long as I have chapters 'in reserve,' I'm probably going to upload one or two per week.
On the time line: The story starts with the Equestria Games only a couple of months away, so sometime around season 4. The question is, how much time has passed since the Crystal Empire returned?
Trying to map out an exact time line for a cartoon is always a bit of a headache. Seeing how much time it takes to prepare for the Olympics, I figured that at least three or four years had to pass between Games Ponies Play and Equestria Games. Except that the CMCs would be teenagers in season 4 if that were the case. But you know what? Lisa Simpson has been eight years old for almost thirty years. Cartoon aging makes no sense, so I'm saying the Crystal Empire has been back for about four and a half years overall. But I still left it somewhat vague in the story.
On crystal ponies: I don't know if you noticed, but I more or less turned crystal ponies into the pony version of dwarves, except for the 'living underground' part. Normally, I'm not the kind of guy who gets overly attached to his headcanon, but I really like the idea of crystal ponies being incredibly skilled craftsmen with a strong affinity for rocks and metal. That would also mean that the Pie family probably has crystal pony ancestry, which is another nice little idea. Maybe I'll do something with that down the road.
When I started writing this, I also assumed that crystal unicorns and pegasi were simply not a thing. Then Three is a Crown happened, and BOOM! Crystal pegasi (and some other dude, who, for some reason that I cannot fathom, seemed to be more interesting to some people). So I went ahead and changed that (but they are still very rare). I even turned one of the major characters into a crystal unicorn. I guess I was feeling ambitious.
That's it for my first blog post. I've been throwing this together rather hastily, so if you have any more questions, feel free to just contact me.
Cheers 
