Next time on TwiGuard! Frieza Defeated! · 6:21pm Mar 15th, 2015
Greetings fellow tiny horse enthusiasts! King of Beggars here with the overly-wordy news!
Final TwiGuard chapter is out! Hooray! It was supposed to be a short epilogue, but things went to hell and it ended up being a full chapter, but either way, this officially ends the first arc of TwiGuard.
Before anything else, I would like to direct you all to this goddamned radical fanart made by the fabulously handsome (or possibly beautiful) Lukeine!
For those of you that only care to read the story, and don't really care about the process I undergo when coming up with new ideas, you can hit the eject button now and jump straight to the story.
For the rest of you, my legend begins in the 12th Century.
Well, not really. What started the idea was a discussion in the Fimfic IRC channel about how badass we could make Twilight if she solved all her problems with evocation magic and explosions. The idea tickled me, so I thought it might be fun to write a story where Twilight joined the military and Shining Armor ended up as an egghead. Of course, I thought it'd be silly to just have Guard Twilight show up on Nightmare Moon's doorstep and blow her up. That'd be a funny oneshot, but not really more than that.
Here's where I need to explain about my process. I write kind of slow, for various reasons, some time-related, others being my attention span and tendency to chew on a single sentence for a very long time (you'd think those would be conflicting traits, but they're not). I also tend to have a lot of ideas. Those of you who've been in the IRC with me know that. Now when I'm trying to decide to write something, I always decide by just writing a lot of small treatments for the various ideas I have. These tend to be quick, unedited 2-4k word scenes or introductions for stories. If it clicks, I keep writing, if it doesn't, I save the file and put it away in a folder full of scrap ideas. This folder is now something like 100K words of just random stuff. They're mostly good ideas, and I could make a story out of about 80% of them, but they were never continued because I just didn't feel the magic.
Now, the TwiGuard idea had a concept, but it need some meat. Luckily I had that folder full of ideas. A pulled a lot of little things here and there from some stuff, but the majority of the cannibalizing came from two ideas.
1: An OC pony is sought out by Princess Celestia to manage the mining of a new gold deposit in the frozen north. The venture is a joint operation to improve pony and diamond dog relations, so the workers are mostly dogs. She is also tasked with helping Prince Blueblood learn a little something about responsibility, as he's also being sent as the crown's official overseer. The pony helps Blueblood learn to man up and stop being such a priss as they find they've unearthed an ancient Spider God named Anansi.
2: Vinyl Scratch is bored and has lost her passion for creating new music. One day, while drunkenly stumbling home from a bar, she meets a diamond dog drummer named Basenji who teaches her about the music of his homeland.
It's easy to see what got pulled from where, huh? The biggest changes were probably the change of Anansi to Anubis, who I thought would be a nice alternate villain because dogs, jackals, you see what I’m doing. Anansi still kind of made it into the final story, because in the Blueblood story he was going to have an army of little Spiderlings that couldn’t exist in the sunlight and hated fire. These spiders ended up making it into TwiGuard as the first manifestation of Anubis’ power.
I wanted TwiGuard to be something a little bit bigger. Like a nice adventure story. Since Twilight was in Shining’s place, that meant that we had a chance to get some Cadance shipping done, and man, I like me some Cadance. Nobody ships her though because she’s got a canon marriage, which is understandable, but what a fool of a shipper I’d be if I let this magnificent opportunity pass me by. It also gave me a chance to set up an explanation for why Shining and Cadance were never around for the Nightmare Moon thing – and I think I came up with a pretty good explanation for it.
Basenji was always going to be from Zebrica, and have his odd accent and tribal drum. And since Anansi was an African Spider God, it felt like the two cannibalized stories were pointing me to Zebrica as the setting for the story. I’ll say right now, everyone’s favorite drummer will be coming back eventually. When and in what capacity? Who knows.
Sky Chaser, the lovable old salt that everyone was mad over, I always intended to kill him. From day one that stallion was doomed, but only because the original idea from the IRC of Twilight blowing things up was influencing my ideas. Frankly speaking, I just wanted to blow up an airship, and it was his airship, so even if he hadn’t died the way he had, he wasn’t going to live to see his boat blow up. Didn’t mean I couldn’t make him a fun character. He may even have some impact in Twilight’s further adventures. Whether this is as a visitor to Twilight’s dreams, or something more indirect, we’ll have to see.
Now, originally when I’d promised to make a blogpost talking about my choices for the story, I’d planned to spend some time talking about why I had the romance between Cadance and Twilight play out. Considering there’s going to be a sequel, I think it best to keep my mouth shut on this for now, so you can see my reasoning in the actual story.
With this final chapter the “mystery” of who got the elements besides Shining Armor is solved. I never intended it to be one of those stories where everything changes wholesale. The ripples of change were meant to be slow, and only Twilight was going to be the one to face destiny and kick it in the jaw. Shining Armor is dealing with his own problems, but for the most part everyone else is filling the roles they were meant to. Remember, this is a world of Order, and future installments might include more on this.
That isn’t to say there won’t be more new challenges for Twilight. I’ve got some plans, and hopefully we’re nice and set up for more ancient magic bullshit to try and screw up – or end – Twilight’s life.
Look for more TwiGuard in the coming weeks. For the moment, I’m going to take a step back from this story and recharge my batteries, so to speak, so I’ll be releasing a couple of oneshots, maybe something romcom-ish. Not sure yet. I gotta doodle some thing out and decide what I’m going to work on. I was toying with the idea of adding an epilogue to the epilogue, since the damned thing turned out so long, but I’m happy with how I ended it, so it’ll stand. I might consider adding a special bonus chapter between now and the sequel, but it’ll be short and just something for fun. Maybe something about Spike or Shining in Ponyville. Or the dinner where Cadance meets Twi’s parents. We’ll see.
Anyway, just want to say one last time I hope you enjoyed TwiGuard. It was a lot of fun to write, and I look forward to doing more with the characters. I hope you’ll all join me next time for more pony nonsense!
Please be excited!
That is an interesting look behind your creative process.
It might not be as much of a change as you are looking for, but as you mentioned getting some screen time for the other side of this swapped universe could allow some funny What Ifs.
I will read as much of this universe as you are willing and able to write.
Is there going to be a sequel for the story? I very much enjoyed it.
Freakin' awesome. You've got a great universe goin' on here. I'll certainly be keepin' watch to see where it goes from here.
Well, of course Sky Chaser had to die. He was the Guardian, after all. The Guardian has to die. It's in the Hero's Journey and everything.
So glad to have ridden along that TwiGuard arc. Absolutely love it, and cannot wait for more. Also, super fascinated by your process. Always interesting, seeing how another writer goes about their works.
This uh this means more TwiGuard right?
i wouldnt mmind a couple of 1 shots in the twiGuard universe like say twi and cadences dinnner with her parents you could make it comedy
''Please be excited!''
You don't need to ask twice.
In fact, it goes without saying.
All the hype.
2881366 Get ye hype!!
You got me to come out of lurking to comment again. This has been one of my favorite stories I've read in a long while. If you keep this up I eagerly anticipate more of your writing. You have a lot of talent.
Can't wait to see more! What you have is already great. One thing I think would be nice is an explanation for why so many artifacts and gods are suddenly turning up, and it seems you might already be planning this with your mysterious mastermind that set loose Anubis. At least he/she/it should be a nice plotline to tie the (hopefully many) sequels together. Good luck, and may your words always flow clearly.
Even if you intended to keep things as close to canon as possible , the story lines formed from this AU are boundless...
A Canterlot Wedding with Twilight and Cadance as the happy couple, but Chrysalis lurking around somewhere...?
Shining Armor having to face his fears at the bottom of Sombra's staircase, while Twilight and Cadance protect their Empire?
Shining Armor and Cadance vs. the Tatzlwurm?
2881621 SO MANY POSSIBILITIES
If you're going to write future story-arcs, I do hope that things don't hew too closely to canon. There's no reason they should and having them do after switching two central characters is the same as saying neither character really matters or is unique. Also, we've got canon for those stories. Fanfic should be for the explanation of new stories. Well, it hasn't been an issue yet, just some friendly advice for the future.
Actually, I was entirely in favor of this. Surprised, but approving.
You know, I think a few oneshots might be a nice thing before the next big installment. Their dinner at Twi's parents sounds like it's going to be hilarious, just like the idea that Twilight actually just appears one day in Ponyville to check out those "friendly mars knocking down his door". Maybe Cadence could help her with that.
Well that answers my little question
2884285 same.
pleas put a final chapter that says what the sequil is and when its up.
but you should of killed the old salt the way grim died in tomb raider.
ie fighting to the death of the edge of a cliff
I just recently read The Jerk ThatTime Forgot. The characterization of Twilight and especially Spike made me want to read more of your work.
I delved into almost all of your stories and loved everyone. Spike is my favorite character in MLP and you put him in a good light.
I just finished Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard and can't wait for another installment. I seriously hope you do a spinoff of what this Spike acts like since he grew up a bit differently and his age gap with Rarity is a moot point.
I would like to read a bonus chapter about Shining in Ponyville and also about how it went with the dinner where Cadance meets Twi’s parents but not really shier i want to read much about Spike maybe if it was mixed with shiny but I don't know anyways I really enjoyed the story and can't wait to read the sequel
I have something of a conundrum here. I've had an idea of a slice of life/ drama fic rattling around in my head over the last few months. It came about as I started to read a lot of different AU fics where Twilight's destiny in particular became slightly unhinged.
Here's the deal; what would all these different Twilight's say if they were to meet? I think it would be funny to watch them compare notes.
Kind of a different take, and I know fics like that have been done before. The only difference in mine is there is no big bad, or it's on the heels of an unmentioned big bad; they're all- the different Twilight's that is -just talking shop.
Now, my quandary is this; I want the Prime Twilight and TwiGuard Twilight to meet as the first two. I'm not sure if I want to do another one first though, as I don't wanna allude to something that may or may not happen in TwiGuard.
See, I've always felt that Alicorn Twilight works from a creative standpoint. In other words, the character was always meant to become an alicorn. There's obvious and not-so-obvious clues that lead into that, and I'd have to write a blog post to outline all of them.
In any case, Twilight's destiny was always to become an alicorn. So if Prime Twilight and TwiGuard Twilight ever meet, both will have wings. Only you're not that far in your fic, and I don't wanna allude to something that may or may not happen. I guess I could start with other AU Twilight's.
The biggest scene that sticks in my mind is how both gripe at how their collective parents made the decision concerning Shining's schooling. Not only do I see something like that happening, I could just see Twilight's reaction.
So, even though the ideas are just begging to come out, I'll wait until I get word from you as to whether I can stick wings on TwiGuard Twilight or not. I'd like at least some heads-up from the original character author, and will be getting that from any other versions I use.