Of Pinkie Promises and Eighth-Notes · 5:23am Feb 28th, 2015
Wow, the final chapter.
Before rambling on, I’d like to thank everyone who’s liked/fav’d the story, left comments, and even just read it. Sonapie is a pairing that I’m almost convinced didn’t exist outside of my post-Rainbow Rocks reveries and giddy back-and-forth tweeting with a good friend (the fic’s cover artist!), so to have seen this fic be enjoyed and even featured multiple times left me more than a little flabbergasted.
Pinkie Pie Swear is special to me for a number of reasons. Other than my being really emotionally invested in this pairing and generally everything regarding Rainbow Rocks, it was the first piece of writing, fanfic or otherwise, that I’d finished in a long time (a couple very short one-shots notwithstanding). I’d been writing on and off before coming across a prompt that the story eventually spiralled out of, but very few things in the past year or so have felt as satisfying and refined as PPS.
Read on if you’d like to hear more about the fic from the author’s perspective, including some origin story! (Spoilers for the finished fic abound, obviously!)
For Tumblr users, have you ever seen those story prompts that float around now and then, usually prefaced with “imagine your OTP…”? There’s one with college AU scenarios that shows up on my dash every once in a while, and a single prompt made me laugh one November night as I took the time to actually read through the list:
“I know I keep coming to the cookie shop and for some reason it’s always your shift but don’t you dare judge me I need these for my sanity.”
It made me laugh because man, imagine if Sonata kept stopping in on Sugarcube Corner while Pinkie was working! And at first it would be because she can’t get enough of the cookies, then she starts falling for Pinkie herself, and goodness, wouldn’t that be fun to write!
The catalyst for my shipping was due to another (much more alternate universe, not set anywhere near the EQG continuity) high school AU — which may or may not ever see the light of day — where I’d written them accidentally becoming friends and realised, wow, I really love this pairing as a couple, too – so the story for the cookies prompt just naturally fell into place, and I could base it more closely around the movie.
While a lot of things about the plot grew way past what I envisioned in my initial daydreaming, I’ve had a draft of the ending written from the start. I always knew Sonata would return, and I always knew I wanted it to mirror their first meeting. The epilogue came later, because I wanted there to be some assurance that everyone else got closure, too, and that all the Dazzlings would be okay.
Because it breaks my heart to think of the state they’re left in at the end of the movie.
I also wanted to include, at some point, a scene with Pinkie throwing cookies at Sonata’s window, based on a Twitter doodle Cynthia (the story’s cover artist and aforementioned good friend) drew around the time of the fic’s inception, but it unfortunately didn’t make the cut. (I imagine it could easily happen sometime after their reconciliation, though: “Sonata! Wake up! I have cookies! Oh, hey, you’re awake!” “Couldn’t you have, like, called me?” “Oooohhh yeaaaah. Oh, well! Catch!”)
Another fun fact about the story: when getting it ready to post to FIMFiction, the chapters were initially named after songs I’d listened to while writing (it seemed clever at the time because, music themes!). It didn’t work too well, though, and the only one that made the final cut was the epilogue, with this sweet song by pony fanmusician TripleBlueShell.
(There is a Pinkie Pie Swear by one SoGreatandPowerful which I maaaay have been listening to when saving some version of the story along the way, and Swim, Not Sink was taken directly from Apples to the Core because oh my God imagine Pinkie singing her verse to Sonata—! Ahem.
The rest of the songs were not pony-related, for the record.)
I feel like I could go on and on about little details here and there and the process of writing and all my sources of inspiration and et cetera, et cetera, but I’ll stop myself here! Again, thank you to everyone who’s supported the story! It’s meant more to me than I can properly articulate. I hope to publish again soon it might have something to do with Sonapie again, but I swear I have stories that aren’t about them, too and eventually take on an even bigger project than this in the future!
Although, there was a lot that happened between the events of chapter 12 and the epilogue…
What about sexy Adagio seduces Twilight?
Do more! Of whatever comes to mind!
This whole work was solid, and I loved it. It's not just that you did something I hadn't seen before, but that you did it well. You've got a follow from me, and I imagine that whatever you give us next will be just as good, if not better. Keep publishing, because I like it when writers I like write more.
I really don't have words for the warm fuzzies reading this blog here and the last two chapters of the fic, but I want you to know that, while I haven't commented on every chapter, I really enjoyed this. And your thoughts of not leaving out Adagio and Aria in the resolution mean a lot as well. You have quite a beautiful paint-pictures-with-words sort of style here. Keep it up. =)
2837347
Well, I'd be lying if I said I don't ship it!
2839307
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I do hope to deliver on that!
2843781
Oh goodness, thank you! It's especially flattering coming from you, as I have seen your artwork around before and admired it. Consider the warm fuzzies fully reciprocated!
Your story turned out well and I liked the way you went the extra mile to show all the Dazzlings recovering. I think I caught a glimpse of Aria/Sunset at the end and if that was what you thought you'd foreshadowed, you didn't foreshadow it well.
One thing you did do well, though was show a relationship between the Dazzlings that made it much more believable that they'd stick together for centuries than the way they're often portrayed.
Sonata is my favorite siren and I can definitely see how it would be fun to have her interact with other characters in low-stakes situations. Of the three of them, I see her adapting to friendship the easiest. She is the least evil of them - she doesn't really have it in her. I'd say she isn't really bright enough to be evil, except that's probably doing her a disservice. Still, she is quirky and fun and I can definitely see her and Pinkie Pie clicking, though I can't imagine Sonata turning down friendship from anyone who offers it to her.
It would have been nice to see a different outcome to the story, whether it's just for Sonata or all three of the sirens. I loved everything up to the bit where Sonata ran away after letting Pinkie wear her gem. To have things go back on the rails of canon after that, with a long timeskip to boot, was dissatisfying.
The story as-is was still amazing, though. Keep up the good work!