Debts to Those Who've Come Before Me · 9:05pm Jun 28th, 2015
It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door, Besides the Will of Evil, and the universe they explore- the variation on the world of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic- are not, of course, just based on the show. They are also based on my influences as a writer, a storyteller, and a dreamer. The influence of J.R.R. Tolkien is the most obvious one, followed perhaps by Gene Wolfe, then Herman Melville, and most recently, Rudyard Kipling. Like any writer, I draw strength from those writers who have come before me, learning from them and building on what they have done.
However, these stories and their world are also built, in large part, by the MLP fandom, the bronies and all the rest. I've thrown in nods here and there to the fandom from Equestria Daily, /mlp/, MLPchan, and more- things like the Lyra/Bon Bon relationship, Doctor Whooves, Cadence's nickname. I inherited all of these from the fandom, and I have tried to weave them into my larger story.
There are also two particular fanfics that have directly contributed to elements of the story, and I thought I'd name them here. The idea of the 'Summer Lands' as the pony afterlife comes from anonypony's fanfic of the same name. Reading it was one of my first experiences in MLP fan content, and I wanted to grant it a tribute in my story. Of course, my version of the Summer Lands is much more like the Elysian Fields of Greek myth, rather fitting given the heavily Greek-inspired glimpses we've seen of the Pony netherworld. I was actually, long ago, planning to create a place for evildoers called the 'Woods of the Black Deer,' but then the show gave us Tartarus, and so that need was met.
Meanwhile, the dragon homeland being called 'Carcosa' is a tribute to Sir Politic Am-Be's fanfic My Little Pony: Administration is Magic, another one of the very early fanfics I read. That fic, sadly abandoned, deals heavily with dragons, and draws much from H.P. Lovecraft (who of course in turn drew from Ambrose Bierce and his short story collection The King in Yellow) in its depiction of those dragons and their strange relations. It also contains one of my favorite alternate depictions of Celestia. Even as my dragons are more based on Tolkien, I wanted to retain a hint of that fanfic's sense, the notion of dragons as somewhat otherworldly and odd.
There are many more early fanfics I could name- like One Last Quest, like Number 12, like Severing, like so many more- that have left their mark, by my intention or without meaning to, upon my work. After all, from the start, these two stories have been an alternate universe. It looks very much like the show's universe, at least on the surface. However, it has a different feel, I think. The perils are grander, the spirits run faster, the darkness is darker and the light is brighter. It is a product of both the show and what the fandom has made of the show- so in a sense, this universe is your universe, as well.
It is always nice to catch a glimpse behind the curtain.
I appreciate such a post. It's nice to recognize a certain amount of continuity in the fandom.
However, I'm just going to be an annoying bastard for just a second and mention that The King in Yellow and, indeed, Dim Carcosa come from an anthology of short stories by Robert W. Chambers. Ambrose Bierce did, however, come up with Carcosa in his "An Inhabitant of Carcosa." He also came up with 'Hali' except in his story it wasn't a lake, it was a philosopher.
hi hi
I would wager that the universe of the show has gone through a rather dramatic shift in setting itself between season 1 and season 5 also. I recall thinking that some of those earlier fics fit in quite well once upon a time, but not seem like an entirely different world altogether.
Does this mean that Will of Evil is finished? Because if so, I can finally get to catching up on it.
Good blog anyhow. I... don't think I've read any of these old fanfics. Maybe it's time to change that.
As I recall, there used to be a guy who drew on Dangerous Business to make his own world. He's out of the game now but his stuff was quite gripping.