Important Stuff, Please Read! · 4:57pm Sep 27th, 2015
Consider this a very late introduction to the kind of writer I am.
When I started writing The Pink Abyss, I didn't expect it to get as much attention as it has. Counting this one and my SFW account, it's got the most upvotes (but also the most downvotes) of any of my stories. I'm very happy that there are people who have enjoyed the story as it is, because that was my goal from the start; to create an enjoyable story - I put that above the character development, just so you know, and a league or so above the fetish itself, which may well have been its stumbling block. I'm not a fetish writer after all, I'm a character writer.
But as probably everyone has noticed by now, I'm lost. I have no idea how to finish the story. I know there has to be a fight directly after the previous chapter, because that's how Twilight reharmonizes with her Element of Magic - by going apeshit with magical spells. I tried the crazy route where everything went horribly wrong for pretty much everyone in-story, and I'm still feeling the burn from the results. I've now tried an alternate path that instead winds around to the fight, only to realize that that can't work either, no matter how much I enjoyed writing it.
I have a commenter to thank for making me realize what I've been doing wrong from the very beginning:
The premise - anal vore - is hard to do in a way that isn't fetish clop fic, and the worldbuilding that's going into the story (Celestia's involvement, Derpy getting involved, what is possibly a cornerstone of existence breaking down, Pinkie Pie potentially being evil) is only raising more questions than it's answering, and in ways that are off-putting not curiosity-grabbing... which, in turn, leaves neither the fetish-seekers satisfied nor the story-seekers satisfied.
This could be a story-breaker. There's nothing I can do to get around this problem aside from starting over, which is absolutely not going to happen.
This one part especially grabs me: "-raising more questions than it's answering, and in ways that are off-putting, not curiosity-grabbing-"
I write in the Triad Verse, and almost nothing else. Because of this, it ends up being extremely easy to bring up non-canon facts about pony history and pony characters that would completely trip up any casual reader, such as Pinkie Pie's true nature. That's like eight different flavours of nonsense, the fact that she's part-Draconequus being only one of them. The thing is, I love and loathe writing in my own universe, and for that reason I find it very hard to just write a simple story. The moment I come up with a neat idea, it immediately grows an extra pair of wings and flies out of control. A story that I intended to be just a few chapters, for instance, ends up spawning whole sagas with dozens of characters and events.
That's kind of what happened here: I started with the simple premise of Pinkie solving the problem with the Elements by butt-voring all of her friends, and I ended up giving you all that mess of a chapter 4 instead of a neat conclusion. It was pretty dumb of me to go ahead with that violent chapter instead of seeking out other avenues first. Another little problem I have is keeping things stable. At first I wanted to go ahead and do a simple fight between Twilight and Pinkie Pie, leading straight the conclusion, but then my logic gears kicked in and told me "Wouldn't it be more realistic it Twilight actually went completely insane at this point? She literally just watched three of her friends get digested right in front of her. If there's anything that could cause her to break, it's that." And sure, I still think it would be true to Twilight's character to lose all her emotional limits if this kind of thing were to happen, but that doesn't suit the story. It's too dark and sudden.
So, err... I guess what I'm rolling around to saying is: Help. I don't know how to finish this. Do you?
Actually... while Twilight may not be stable, when have things been on the ropes, only for Twilight to lose it?
Twilight is a Hero. Capital H. She doesn't succumb to pressure, she pushes beyond it.
As far as she knows, and as far as The readers know, Pinkie just murdered her friends in cold blood. Twilight, as heartbroken and livid as she was, would snap back to "what do I need to do to fix this."
And given Pinkie has apparently shown herself to be the highest level of monster and sociopath, that would probably involve magic and violence.
Then, of course, you need to somehow explain why Pinkie is murdering her friends and why Celestia thinks this is a good idea. The "good" ending I always thought was going to be "don't worry, they're still fine" after all of this, buyt so far... the story still looks, full tilt like Celestia and Pinkie simply think the bearers are not good enough, have failed, and as a result should die. Pinkie doesn't care that they're dead, and neither does Celestia, and every hint to describe why has been "because you suck and deserve it!"
As far as finishing? It needs answers, and Twilight needs to confront Pinkie for real because that's what the hero would do. I have no idea what you're going for for the emotional/character conclusion, though, so more practical advice is tough.
3424515 Thanks for your input.
My thoughts on why Twilight would snap simply stems from the fact that we've never seen her be put through so much horror in the show. She's never had anyone die on her, let alone after telling them to "go ahead, it's ok". Not only did Applejack allow herself to be taken thanks to Twilight, but Twilight is then forced to watch as three of the ponies who made her who she is are digested away to nothing. That's a heck of a traumatic experience, one that the show can't mirror.
And those are good suggestions, thanks :) I'll think on Celestia's role in it all and take a look at how I've portrayed her up to this point.
Well Twilight winning the fight would probably help.
But...magic is friendship. It comes from the spark that ignites when she realizes that those five are her friends. How does going apeshit against her friend represent that?
3424695
Argument from ignorance isn't very convincing. Not everyone instantly "snaps" and "goes insane" when they experience trauma — especially not adults with experience making fast decisions in life-or-death situations.
Twilight's been in hopeless situations before. She's been in situations where it seemed as though friends of hers had died — and that's all she's experienced in (the version I read of) this story. She should know not to give up hope. Pinkie's shown all kinds of bizarre space-warping abilities; who says that she can't do something like shift ponies into a pocket dimension?
Wanting to write a story about Twilight snapping is one thing; feeling like it has to happen in a particular story, because it's "realistic", is another. You're already asking the reader to accept a lot with this story; including Twilight (and everyone else) already not being their usual selves. I see no need to add to it.
(Also, not sure exactly what you mean by "emotional limits". I'm hampered in all this by not having actually seen the "chapter 4" in question before it was deleted.)
That we've seen, maybe. We don't know anything about her grandparents; or the pony the funeral in "Hearts and Hooves Day" was for.
Was this in an older version than the current one on Fimfetch?
Regardless, I take it that you've given up on the story, since it seems to be gone from Fimfiction. Too bad; it had me in suspense (even if not entirely in good ways).
5068653
Hey there! So, a lot of this can be simply explained by my own lack of experience as a writer back when I wrote The Pink Abyss. I wasn't able to combine weird fetish stuff with actual emotional payoff, and my planning wasn't up to scratch even for a story only a few chapters long, and it showed in the version of chapter four that was originally posted. I had vague character arcs in mind for Rarity, Twilight and Applejack, but pretty much ended up treating Pinkie like a force-of-nature character instead of giving her her own motivations for taking part.
I'll answer what questions are still relevant...
The way I interpret the Elements of Harmony is in a very practical way. That means the best way of activating the Element of Magic's power is to simply use more magic. It wouldn't matter how or where the magic came from in any given situation, all that would matter in order to bring out its abilities would be that the user uses magic and lots of it, regardless of the target or spell. Likewise, the Element of Honesty would be able to activate if Applejack merely said things that happened to be true "the sky is blue" "this is an apple tree" while opinions specific to her wouldn't do a thing, regardless of whether she was speaking the truth "this apple is tasty". I know this doesn't jive much with canon, but this is just how I like to make use of the elements.
It's been forever since I wrote The Pink Abyss, but I think how it went was that Twilight convinced Applejack to let Pinkie Pie do the thing, and then has to watch as Pinkie digests everyone in her stomach. Twilight blames herself for Applejack, if not the other two as well.
In any case, I'm rebranding this account for alternate timeline stories in general, all set in the Triad Verse, so who knows? A new version of The Pink Abyss might appear at some point down the line, along with a lot of other weird and interesting things.
And a little side note - this is actually the first time I've heard of Fimfetch. It's interesting to know the story was still up on there after I took it down. I'm glad that you enjoyed what you read of it :)
5068951
Definitely sounds like something that should've been spelled out early on. It would seem to simplify the ponies' situation quite a bit; and leave even less justification for an elaborate process of "reharmonization".
(Unless the ponies involved didn't know it, I guess. But Celestia arranging such a bizarre scheme does seem to suggest a high degree of confidence that it'll work (edit: and that it's necessary). Unless it really is just an excuse to feed her pet monster.)
Still is, actually.
Some of the ideas intrigued me, anyway. I'd go into detail, but then I'd have to also explain what I didn't like, and probably end up with a pretty long comment.
5069185
I'm fine with a long comment if you want to make one. Just keep in mind that the story was written years back, so a lot of the writing style, ideas and overall quality are pretty outdated.