Fun Facts of Changing Views 1

The following is just a bit of...fun facts, I guess one could say, as well as ideas I either gave up on or modified while writing the latest chapter and/or the story along with me simply explaining a few decisions:

(by the time of this blog post, the first interlude is the latest chapter posted)

1: Chrysalis and her changelings not knowing much about Cadence is a sort-of reference to the fact the show just...made her "appear" out of the blue when the episode first came out.

2: When I had first published this story, I only had the prologue up, and the fic was declined because of how vague I had made the characters, to the point that the publishing was failed due to the story "not being related to MLP". This actually discouraged me for a good while, as you can see from how long it took me to post the 'first' chapter compared to the date of the prologue. Nonetheless, I am glad it was rejected, as it made me rethink a lot of the plotline and ideas I had.

3: The main character (Artemis) initially had a militaristic past as a human, and I was going to expand on that as the story went on. Stuff like Griffins invading Equestria and Artemis playing a major role in the defense or offense of the ponies and the like. I scrapped that idea once I realized I was...not that great at thinking up combat scenes and the sort. (Rather, PROPER combat scenes.)

4: In regards to #3, I made a reference to that idea in the 'first' chapter. (not talking about prologue.)

5: I finished writing the first interlude and began writing this at 5 in the morning. SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK!

6: (Seriously though, lack of sleep is bad. Don't take that joke seriously.)

7: Also with #3 in mind, with how I was planning on going with the story BEFORE I published the prologue and got the story rejected, I had eventually realized (after the rejection) that it would've turned out to be a boring story with the way it was going. No humor, no jokes, nothing to actually keep the reader 'going'. Just a straight-up wall of text/information. You can still read the seriousness and lack of humor in the prologue. Then again, my intention with that chapter was to start laying out 'a cryptic teaser' about the character's past, establish the fact he was ignorant to his ACTUAL situation, his step-by-step analysis of his current situation, and, over the chapters, learn what it means to be a changeling. Regardless, I am still thinking of re-writing the prologue..... let me know what you think of that. It's kind of funny: I read about authors saying their first chapters sucked compared to their most recent ones, how they weren't satisfied with how they were written when I (just a reader, back then) found the chapters in question to not have any problems. Now I'm kind of experiencing it myself.

8: The moment I thought of and introduced 'Yoreel', I had decided to try and make the story funnier when possible. Mostly through references at the time.

9: Also on the moment I thought of Yoreel, I realized that, if changelings could just instantly communicate with each other, no problem, regardless of the distance between each other, well.... that would be kind of overpowered and unfair in my opinion. Realistically, (I AM trying to make the story as believable as possible within a fictional world, after all) if it was like that, there's no way anything could stand in your way. To have perfect coordination at all times, instant knowledge of whatever happens in view of any changeling... That, and if I did it like so, it would end up giving me less opportunities to give the spotlight to changelings interacting with each other. Thus, the 'relay changelings' were born, along with the limitations to the "hive link". The addition of a 'new' type of changeling also gave me the opportunity to add even more types. Though THAT is still in the workings as I write this blog... got a couple of ideas so far at least.

10: Feather Wind making an 'anonymous note', as well as the entire shenanigans with the changelings at the castle was my attempt at keeping the story somewhat cannon for the moment. They never revealed in the episode how they knew about that threat to Canterlot, and I like to believe that Chrysalis wasn't foolish enough to purposely let that kind of thing slip by. Thus, I thought of changelings 'slipping' in their duties, which ended up with Yoreel being born into the story.

11: Notice how all the changelings have 1-word names? I intend on making that a changeling thing, much like ponies tend to (for the most part) have two names related to their special talents and/or looks. I also intended to explain why some changelings had names while others still just used numbers, but I'm....having trouble finding a place to fit that in now. If all else fails, I'll just explain that in a future blog post.

12: As I type this, I'm thinking of making this sort of post every 3 chapters. Hmmmm....

13: As I started typing about Edge and giving him a bit more time in the 'first' chapter (for the sake of the rest of all my blog posts related to Changing Views, the chapter AFTER the prologue will be called the first chapter), I had realized how robotic the conversations were so far, and decided to 'spice it up', as it were, and give the characters more refined personalities. You can notice the difference from the prologue onwards to about 1/3rd of the first chapter with Edge.

14: So far I'm really enjoying using Pinkie Pie in the story. Trying to make each of her appearances something memorable or funny.

15: The part: "The town was so peaceful, I couldn't imagine anything of importance happening in it for the following decades " when Edge was telling the real manticore story was a quick reference to how crazy Ponyville kind of became, and how changelings weren't perfect, all-seeing/knowing beings. His earlier comment about Spike being a 'pet slave iguana' despite others telling him otherwise also was meant to give extra personalities to changelings in general. If they all just accepted a fact without question, it would make them less...... unique, in a way. "Oh, that's a fact? Ok, I won't contest it at all. It's surely 100% true. None of us will double-check." Yeaaaaaaahhhh....no.

16: On the topic of Edge's real manticore story, I was thinking of ways for changelings to ESSENTIALLY say "Oh, shit." or "Oh dear Lord.". Ponies tend to say "Oh Celestia / Oh sweet Celestia/Faust", etc. while changelings really only had "Oh sweet mother" used so far. Though I came up with Edge mentally shouting "OH SWEET NON-EXISTENT FATHER" as a joke, the reality of that is still up for debate. I could easily find a way to make it so that there actually needs to be a father for the queen to make eggs, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Artemis is still in her egg at the time of writing this, and she has a long way to go considering this is a "slice of life" story.

17: I wanted to avoid using Chrysalis's name as much as possible whenever changelings talked about her in order to further expand just how much they loved their mom and respected her. (They DO know her name, in case you were wondering.) Which is why her name is only used in narration on the interlude only. So far, at least.

18: Am considering writing a post sometime which will include and explain all the references I used so far.

19: The 'love-struck noble unicorn stallion' at the interlude, whom unknowingly had gifted his drinks to Chrysalis, was initially going to be the train conductor or something along those lines entering the train car simply to announce that Canterlot was approaching and that they'd be there in five or ten minutes or something. I saw the opportunity for more fluff and took it. That, and the conductor idea was kind of too boringly simple.

20: Finally, well, it's now 7:15 AM here. Heh, a little more than two hours spent skimming through my current chapters, spell-checking twice more, making little edits here and there and finishing this post from #5. Quite a bit of that time was spent just thinking about the future of the story, though. Doing all that made me realize how important it is to do, however. If you are an aspiring author, then I seriously recommend you re-read any chapters you've made, especially before posting them. You might spot a mistake here, make a little change there, but most importantly, you might get ideas while reading your own story that may altogether completely alter the course of it.

That's all for now, will continue working on the story on and off as time permits. I am an avid gamer, after all.