I'm going to write this out really quick, and then I'm going back to my Xmas preparations · 4:10am Dec 25th, 2015
Ahem.
Some comments on the most recent update have indicated some... surprise, and dare I say, dissatisfaction with the latest chapter of this story. Some have implied that this was some sudden change in the nature of the story, or something along those lines. That the story has, in fact, been derailed.
What you guys fail to grasp is that this is something that I've been hinting at since the beginning of the story. The story has not been derailed, it is on the same rails that it was from the beginning. The very rails that I'd had planned from literally the day I posted the One-Shot.
On the one hand, people say that they were drawn to the story because of the idea of an earth pony who dreamed of being a wizard. On the other, I am hearing complaints about the fact that Glory, having a parent who is a unicorn, and one who was one of Celestia's students, makes her some kind of automatic magical uber-prodigy and they seem to somehow expect her to instantly start shooting thunderbolts and lightning or some dumb stuff like that within the next two chapters.
Don't put words in my mouth, or on my page before I've written them. Let's set some facts straight.
Here's what abilities Glory has actually demonstrated:
* The ability to see things that are not normally able to be seen.
*A set of instincts that, perhaps in addition to other things, let her read others better than a child her should be able to, but due to a lack of experience and wisdom, she lacks the ability to correlate that information into perfect understanding.
* A level of intelligence, wisdom, and perhaps a bit of cynicism, that is well beyond her age, but at the price of not having had any friends her age while growing up.
* Being cute as f***.
Separate from that, a protective spell was placed on her, presumably by her mother. The limitations of that spell are unknown, but given that it reacts to anyone even trying to scan it, it could be called an 'Overprotective' spell. But since it is a spell five years old, there's not a guarantee how long it will work. Rule of drama says that it'll probably wear off at the most dramatic moment possible, but that's just rule of drama. It's a jerk like that.
And that is all she has demonstrated thus far. And I will bend my 'no-spoiler' rule and say that is all that she has. Period. Whatever else she does, whatever else she accomplishes in this story, will be via the sweat of her own brow, and through the help of her friends and loved ones. Her natural abilities may give her a small leg up on the average earth pony, but even if she becomes the wizard she seeks to become, it'll be because of her own efforts, not because of her bloodline.
I mean, seriously, guys: If Glory's mom was the world's greatest baker, and Glory herself sought to become a baker, would you automatically assume that she was 'destined' to be a baker, just because of her bloodline? No, you wouldn't, because that would be silly. Being the daughter of a great wizard won't make Glory a great wizard. Her own hard work and determination will do that.
I mean, I had a section about how 'Bloodlines' were a load of baloney earlier in the story:
.
'Anyone can be a wizard.'
'These were words spoken by Starswirl the Bearded himself, long, long ago. Many fail to actually understand their meaning. He did not mean that everyone can be a wizard. No, sadly, not everyone who embarks on the path of magical mastery will be able to reach their destination: Not everyone has the drive, the focus, or the talent for becoming a wizard. What Starswirl meant was that you can find wizards in the most unlikely of places.'
'Starswirl himself was, in fact, living proof of that: Historians often forget to mention his first nickname, one that many of his peers would use as an insult: The Potter's Son. Starswirl was the son of a peasant earth pony potter and a unicorn seamstress, in an age where such pairings were extremely rare, and those that did occur were often looked upon with distaste by others. Starswirl is often called the father of the amniomorphic spell, but few remember that this spell was something he developed as a colt, to help his father in his work, and make cups, bowls, and sundry other household items faster. However, it was when he began combining this spell with other spells, including ones that allowed for the rapid creation of ceramic materials, that the young colt began to become famous.'
'In those days, it was rare for anypony outside of the aristocracy to become a wizard, and there were many who tried to hinder Starswirl's advancement to that lofty rank. However, when Starswirl presented to the magical community as a whole a combination of spells that could allow a complete fortress to be created in under an hour, and one made of ceramic materials so sturdy that even catapults and cannonfire were hard-pressed to damage it, nopony could deny that he was, even at only sixteen years old, as much a wizard, if not more so, than the most nobly born of the peerage of the age. Dozens of variations to that spell have since been developed, for everything from simple fortifications to building housing quickly in an emergency. Ponies may sometimes boast about their ancestors, about their wealth and status, and that this makes them a superior wizard. They often forget that the greatest wizard in Equestrian history was the son of a peasant, without any sign of real magical power anywhere in his ancestry, and spent much of his early years without two bits to rub together.'
'What makes a pony a wizard is not a noble lineage, nor wealth, nor anything one is born with, but instead the will, the drive to work hard and dedicate one's efforts to the mystic arts. Anyone can be a wizard... including you.'
Here's what the latest chapter has established:
Glory's mother is Galaxy. Most of you guessed that, all I did was confirm it.
Galaxy has a past above and beyond just being a magical researcher: Given that Twilight Sparkle has saved Equestria multiple times, and Sunset Shimmer seems to have been no stranger to danger herself, I think we can all agree that the idea of Celestia's students leading exciting lives is a given.
Glory's father is MIA, after an operation at Tambelon. Goldie's mother, currently only known by Agent Rose, went MIA in the same op.
The goal of that op was to steal a magical artifact. Said artifact would have allowed the ruler of Tambelon to escape whatever confinement holds him, and Tambelon, but its absence only delays the inevitable by seven years, five of which are up. Grogar's return is expected in two years, barring some form of outside interference.
Grogar and Tambelon are a thing that exist in this story, and Grogar is not afraid of hurting his enemies by attacking those that they love. For this reason, Galaxy hid Glory in Cloudsdale, where she'd be well away from her mother and any attempts that Grogar might make to hurt Galaxy. Galaxy certainly never planned on her daughter returning to Canterlot, seeking to become a wizard. She just wanted her daughter to stay well away from anything involving magic and monsters.
The reason why Goldie's such an advanced student of magic is because Galaxy has been prepping her for the return of Tambelon, two years from now. The idea is that, if anyone other than Grogar tries to abduct Goldie, then she'll be strong enough to fend off said would-be abductor.
Superheroes are a thing in Manehattan. There was an embarrassing incident five years ago where a monster took them down with a teacup. There will be more on that later.
The capture of the Bugbear was directly responsible for the super-monster-hunting team being disbanded. Since the canon is that the bear's capture immediately preceded that disbanding, it makes sense that something was wrong about that capture, since you don't disband a group able to do something like that unless they'd done something they shouldn't have.
In conclusion, all this chapter has done is establish several elements to the story that I had already planned at the beginning. Glory is not some super-chosen hero who is going to start vaporizing villains just be wishing very hard in the next chapter. She will never have that kind of ability. What she does have is a long, road ahead, and achieving her dream of being a wizard may not be the end of her story.
The story's title is 'What's Your Story, Morning Glory?'. If I'd intended the end-goal to be just Glory learning magic, then the story would be shorter than I'd planned. I intend this story to be grand in scale, and if it seems like I'm adding a lot of unusual stuff, it is only because I plan on having a lot of interesting plot threads join together in exciting and unexpected ways. I hope you'll all have the patience to stay with me to see just where I plan on going with all of this. We've only gotten started, after all.
All I've done is given you an idea of what some of the challenges on that road will be, and what kind of mountains may be in the way. She has at least one very tall mountain to pass, by the name of Grogar. He will most likely be the last one, but there will be others.
Anyhow, I need to go: I need to help in preparing for a big Xmas party tomorrow.
I shall leave you now with the most metal Xmas song ever performed. Enjoy.
Some people are just never happy.
I don't know about others' opinions, but I for one was overall glad for this twist.
This plot line is soo much better than: Glory wants to learn magic, Princess Luna adopts her, and she teaches Glory magic. I mean really, that's just boorring.
I always like extravagant plots; the simple ones are (for the most part) boring, predictable, and unsatisfactory.
I want to know what happened to Pandinus and the Crystal Empire?
3641371
I'll do some updates on that one after the end of this stretch of holidays. Be a good way to kick off 2016.
You know I'd be speaking up if I thought something was wrong with the latest chapter, and I didn't see anything that bugged me.
I think the main concern was that, up to that point it had been mostly slice of life, with a dash of adventure for spice. Then there was an info dump chapter that seemed to change it straight to adventure. While it's fine that it happened, it was a bit abrupt. And I think that just threw people for a bit of a loop and they started jumping to conclusions.
Stick to yer guns!
hmmmn, being an Earth Pony, i can assume that Morning Glory will take lessons in at least basic Sorcery, Ritual Wizardry, and Runic Casting, all three have interesting applications...
3641372 I feel your pain dude, people just can't wait for these things.
but anyways, if morning can see fairy creatures, then can she see a Clurichaun? I'm sure there's one living in the wine cellar of the castle.
I have no problem with the 'behind the scenes' nature of that chapter, as long as you can promise me one thing:
A good portion of the story for the foreseeable future will be the slice of life events focusing on Glory, Luna, and possibly Goldie as Glory's friend.
That, admittedly, is what got me into this story. As long as that aspect isn't going to be tossed aside - or overshadowed any time soon - I'm happy to keep reading more and more, with relish.
...and perhaps a dash of mustard.
Basically all I'm getting from this blog is that Glory is Twilight 2.0(or Twlight clone #5.)
3641472
Let's not compare Glory to Princess 'Easy-Mode'. I love her dearly, but let's be honest, Twilight came from a good family, caught the eye of the leader of a nation at an early age, and has spent most of her time in a castle, up until the series starts. She never had a hard time in her life, up until NMM appeared, and her life got crazier. All she had to do to become Celestia's student was wake up, go to the castle, take a test, almost fail it, and then suddenly start glowing and accidentally doing crazy stuff. Glory had to spend a week hiking to reach her destination, and had to suffer through a lot of unintentional/borderline intentional racism. No one ever treated Twilight like she wasn't good enough, just because she was born the way she was. No one ever laughed at her dreams.
So no, Glory is not like Princess Twilight 'Easy Mode' Sparkle. Honestly, she probably has more in common with the Friendship Games Twilight than the Equestrian one.
tea cup? = Ridick???
Well, it's not like Grogar will be a threat, since Tirek--with a human in his head--will rock him into submission before he escapes.
Morning Glory OP pls nerf
Also, Merry Christmas.
3641528
Looks like a struck a nerve. No offense, but from what I've read and what I can expect to happen, I see no difference between the two. The only thing different with Glory is that she's an orphan and has to deal with racism. Besides that, it looks like your story is going through the same as the series itself, the only difference is we're starting this series a few years earlier.
As a Canadian wanting to watch a video from the Canadian band Sum 41, let me share this quote from the YouTube player:
This sort of nonsense is why so many Canadians have VPN subscriptions. (As I remember, the head of Rogers Cable was throwing a tantrum a few months ago over how many Canadians use VPNs to subscribe to U.S. NetFlix for its far superior catalogue.)
3641584 By your logic, any character that has a wise and powerful mentor and seeks to learn about some hidden art is the exact same. This show is popular for one reason, really. It's incredibly generic in everything it does. You could take all the details and personalities of one of the main characters, and find it fits perfectly as a starting structure to 5 other characters off the top of your head. So really, tell me what is it about Morning Glory that makes her so similar to Twilight? Is it that she aspires to learn? Is it that she's more analytic than the average character? That she has a wise and powerful mentor? That she's going to face unexpected dangers and win the day?
I feel like I've been here before:
Bucking starts a story that everyone thinks looks super awesome.
Bucking posts a chapter that seems to fundamentally different from the others.
Some people in the comments say they don't like the direction of the story.
Bucking says, "trust me guys. This'll be epic"
Bucking posts chapters that ramp up the tension.
Bucking posts a chapter where something ridiculous happens.
Two thirds of the people in the comments call it out.
Repeat.
All the people who disliked the chapter are reading your story because we wanted to read about Morning Glory, the fledgling wizard apprentice of Princess Luna; not Morning Glory, the protector of the realm. And we feel cheated. At best, we are cautiously optimistic that this one weird chapter was a fluke and that the story will get back on track. And that never happens. Those of us who disliked the chapter, we don't want this to be an Epic.
There are also those that read your stories because they want the epic, over the top, adventure that your stories always become. I assume that they'd prefer it if you started your epics after the actual epic-ness had begun. Something like, "Only two years into her training with the lunar princess, Morning Glory's world is thrown into chaos as Grogar the Terrible makes his return. Can she, and her (2-4) friends, defeat him and save the world?" That is now the story that they are looking forward to. Hell, I'd be looking forward to it too if it weren't disguising itself as this fun little, student-teacher slice-of-life.
You are trying to tell two separate stories and they both are suffering for it. Chose one to tell, and make it amazing. I know your writing can be really good. Have a great Christmas!
3641372
Well, with my nonexistant writing skills i can't tell you how to write your stories. I'll just express my hope that you put emphasis on Glorys superpower of "being cute as f***". Have some nice hollidays.
As I said in the story comments, I was kind of expecting this to turn into some over-the-top adventure epic full of wayward plotlines crashing into eachother and a story made of their fiery, exploding shrapnel that might form a coherent plotline if you squinted really hard. That's kind of your thing. And as I said in the story comments, I hope that doesn't really happen, and that this story will actually make sense and not just be carried along by a river of ridiculous twists until it burns itself out.
Also, having read Long Live the Emperor, your denunciations of her being a "chosen one hero" kind of fall flat considering what she will eventually become, coupled with the way the story has been set up so far. Morning Glory is the daughter of one of Celestia's greatest warriors, the student of Princess Luna, gifted with abnormal traits such as seeing the fey, destined to become the Element of Magic and grew up in an orphanage after being hidden away from her true parents to protect her from Grogar. With a set up like that, you could have called her Luke Skywalker and she couldn't radiate any more chosen-one-ness. It's guaranteed that she'll become a wizard and defeat Grogar by the end of this story. Perhaps this is the extent of it, and perhaps you never envisioned her as a chosen one protagonist, but the setup is there and it's painfully obvious. But the worst part is that this was almost entirely done in one chapter.
Those people are unhappy because you drew them in with the premise of Morning Glory, the cute earth pony filly from Cloudsdale becoming Luna's student, and in a single chapter threw them into an over-the-top epic and all this chosen one subtext was dragged in with it. It's like hearing the ding of the elevator as it reaches the top floor, before it promptly blasts out the side of the building and into an entirely different one. It was sudden, it was remarkably painful and it wasn't really the building any of us wanted to be in. But on top of that, the structural integrity of the building was considerably damaged by the elevator and it appears to be full of asbestos. Maybe you should have built a skyway and made the new building a little nicer to be in.
I'll keep reading nonetheless, because I like Morning Glory's character, but I can't say I like the way the story is going.
3641734
Thank you for posting such a concise and well-thought out response. You've stolen the words from my mouth, and I only want to say that I agree entirely. I was expecting fluff, to be honest, with drama that comes from a five year old earth pony and a millennia old alicorn interacting, not an epic story, not a mysterious group of secret agents, not a dramatic reveal that Glory's mother is alive...
That's the other thing. I don't think Galaxy being Glory's mother is a problem because it says she might have inherent magic, I think it's a problem because it weakens a character who was an orphan, who single-hoofedly traveled from Cloudsdale to Canterlot, and who completed Luna's test with intelligence and panache. Now that we know she isn't an orphan, any scene we have of Glory thinking on her lack of parents or gaining new family will be lessened by our knowledge of Galaxy and so the focus changes from Glory growing to whenever Galaxy reveals that she is Glory's mother.
Actually, if you were to set up Morning Glory as a baker the same way you've set her up as a wizard, then the astute reader *would* assume that. Because that's how heroic epic stories work.
And your point is? Come on, now, *of course* she'll have to work for it. The epic hero always has to.
Mind you, I'm not objecting to the direction the story is going. I'm perfectly happy with that. But I'm getting the distinct impression that you don't actually understand what you're writing.
Oh, I think I posted one of those comments you're concerned about. I wasn't upset that you switched gears; I was just confused. Like everyone has been saying, I was just expecting something very different than what I got. I like superhero stories, or secret agent stories, or whatever, I just hadn't expected this fic to be one of those. That's what spinoff sequels are for.
But in all seriousness, keep writing what you want to write. If it keeps drifting, I'll unsubscribe, but that's on me, not you. (Also, seconding the comment that you need to bring back the fairy kid. He was cool!)
And it'd be a better story.
In one word, no. I wanted this story to be about interactiones between Morning Glory and Luna in the former's path to learn magic, because that's what you sold me with your "sequel" of The Moon, The Flower, And The Door. Now that you said you won't be delivering that, and insteead of that you're making an epic and whatnot I don't have any interest of keep reading it.
3643047
Agreed. This change means the story fails the same base rule which "start right into the action" also derives from: A good story gives a first impression (ie. first chapter or two) representative of the story as a whole.
If you're going to make some kind of transition at the 20,000-30,000 word mark, it's going from Act 1 to Act 2. The reader's expectations have already solidified too much to switch perceived genres.
(I underline "perceived" because this is an "actions speak louder than words" situation. If you write a first act that screams "non-epic coming-of-age story", the action of writing that will overrule, in the reader's expectations, any amount of time spent on saying "this will be an epic" in your synopsis and author's notes.)
(If it's an epic, the first act must feel like the first act of an epic. Otherwise, you'll just disappoint and frustrate readers when you betray the expectations you spent ~20,000 words building and the readers who do want an epic are more likely to be driven away, either by the "this is not an epic" first impression or by the boredom of reading a first act that feels like, if this is an epic with coherent writing, it's unfolding so slowly that it'll probably be in the 300,000+ word range with the first hints of the epic plotline not even poking their head out until 60,000+ words in.)
Plus, starting your synopsis with the "Anyone Can Be A Wizard..." reference to Ratatouille only strengthens the impression that this is a personal-scope coming-of-age-esque story rather than an epic, leading readers to be more likely to assume the rest of the synopsis is, at most, describing some kind of "desires vs. social expectations" conflict, but still personal- rather than epic-scoped.
I never once said it wold be her bloodline that would help her. I said it was the Meta concepts of there being a big scary monster set two years after she started her magic training to come back looking for explicitely her family and that she, being the main character who would be very closely targeted by the situation, would, by most conventional wisdom, be forced to somehow play a critical role in this situation.
The biggest issue we have with this is that so far you have gifted this child with every saving grace outside of her own personal skill set. She might not be able to do it all by herself, but she has been given the apparent charisma and luck to gather a massive amount friends and family conveintly in a position to do it for her and seem more than willing to pull her out of the situations she might find herself in so that she can remain alive and well at their expense. This has been apparent for a while, but for a while it was also not relevent.
The reason for this is because of the challenges she faced where expected to be different. A great number of us all expected this story to be about her coming of age, growing up and doing some unusual things and figuring out what kinds of things worked where. We wanted to see her deal with life experiences we ourselves have dealt with as children, have her deal with the problem of her not having conventional magic by GOING OUT AND FINDING IT, hence the adventure tag.
I wanted to see things like this adorable little filly meeting the caribou emmisaries for the first time and learning how they approach the subject, see her meet the elements of harmony and learn a few things about how to make friends with people who might not care if she's adorable and maybe a few things about how applejack uses rituals to make her trees bear fruits. I wanted to see her talk to the zebras of zebrica to learn about their vudoo, maybe even take a page from discord himself. I wanted to see her fashion herself after these experiances and become something we all collectively could never have guessed she'd become! The mad witch, the great alchemist, the unexpected mage, the student of harmony, the dawnflower of Equestria... each a title, each a story, each an adventure and a lesson from a time in her life until one day we realize that she's all grown up. Then, as she finds herself back home, praciticing a few tricks she picked up, staying up late to study new things and maybe taking a little time to meet with friends like any normal young mare might, word of her exploits slowly gets around. A writer asks to speak with her in private where he tells her he's heard quite a few interesting things about Luna's personal student, of course many of which have been blown rediculously out of proportion, when she tells him this he finds that even if they were exagerated, it was not all untrue, at which point he asks a simple question, one that most probably wouldn't think much of...
"What's your story Morning Glory?"
Then again, had this latest chapter not happened, perhaps I wouldn't have tried so hard to think about what I desperately wanted this story to turn into or at least what elements I specifically wanted to see, and maybe it doesn't matter what SPECIFICALLY I wanted but whether or not most others wanted something along those lines as well. After all, if an author was truly writing for themselves alone, they wouldn't bother volenteering their stories for others to read and give their own oppinions on.
So who the flip-flop is Grogar that I should be okay with him as an upcoming antagonist? Is he NOT the same being as whoever it was that attacked Manehattan and disabled or killed everypony who tried to stop him, using only a teacup? Is there something from previous stories that isn't being mentioned here, since other readers who are more familiar with your overall ouvre have mentioned recognizing the character from elsewhere? You really don't clarify how much is noodle incident and how much is actually something to pay attention to.
Or you could simply throw it all in the garbage and come up with someone else to be the antagonist.
You story is cool. Just be chill.
3642417
It's like going from Willow to Star Wars and finding out about Darth Father sort of thing? Confusing is the word, yeah. But Nonsense doesn't write checks his writing doesn't cash.
I expect friendship to equate to magic.
I suppose at some level I forgot that the orphan pig-boy is not just sometimes but usually the son of the King (or court wizard, etc). Sorry, Buck.
3645643
I've heard the exact opposite, actually.
...I have no idea how that relates to anything we're talking about.
Well, yeah. But just because all heroes are orphans doesn't mean all orphans are heroes. It's not a 1-to-1 both ways.
3643912 Honestly, what you described here is a story I would be very interested in reading. And it was what I was expecting when I first picked up this story. Now, I've been given a generic 'chosen one' story that I honestly couldn't care less about. Given Bucking Nonsense's penchant for cramming as many plot twists, ridiculous scenarios and unrealistic characters into a story, then standing back and hoping it makes sense (which it usually doesn't), I think perhaps that was a bit too much to hope for.