I'm Fucking Everywhere These Days -- A Commentary On Three Stories · 11:10pm Jun 10th, 2016
Man, I'm fucking everywhere these days, aren’t I?
As in, I show up in a multitude of places. That’s what I meant. Sadly, you can’t read that opening as me stating how I have sex all over the place as of lately. Your girlfriend is still sore from last time, y’see.
Anyway, hilarious-sex-with-your-loved-ones aside (that's a subject for a completely different blog[1])—BUSINESS FIRST AND THEN WE GO TO THE POINT OF THE BLOG, YO. Y'see, I've been cordially invited to the Seattle's Angels podcast that will happen this Saturday at 7pm-9:30 EST. Which means that it’ll be 1 am for me. So I’ll be tired and bubbly. JOY!
[1] This is not a joke, by the way. I've already started to write said blog. A friend of mine wants to know just how many followers I lose.
So yeah. If you wanna hear my extremely masculine voice[2] pop up over there whenever it happens. I'll blog the link or something so you can access to the podcast. Of course, you can watch it live or you can watch it later, whatever you prefer—my angel-like whisper will be there no matter what, farting around for an hour.
[2] My own family mistakes me for a girl whenever we talk over the phone. When MrNumbers and I chatted for the first time, his first two statements about me were:
A) “You have the gayest voice”, and
B) You are not nearly as ugly as I thought you would be.
Apparently, clowns do dumb shit because they’re overcompensating. Not me, though. I do dumb shit because I’m a dumb shit. I’m straightforward that way.
Will you see my face over the podcast? ‘Unno. I don’t think so, because lately I spend around eight hours a day studying for my final exams, and trust me when I say that I am not properly groomed. I can make an exception if you guys ask me pretty please or whatever, but chances are that I’ll just use an avatar and call it a fucking day.
Anyway! With business out of the bag, let’s go talk pleasure. For me. You see, I tend to blog about my stories whenever they leave the Featured Box, to give some meta info about them, maybe share some fun facts, and wrap them up completely. Lately I haven’t been doing that, though, so this blog is aiming to fix that.
So I’ll be talking a little bit on how I write, and also why I write, and small tidbits about the stories and storytelling in general. Do you give a shit? Read on! You don’t give a shit? Read on anyways! There’s no need to have read these stories first anyway. Maybe you will feel like reading them after the blog. OR MAYBE NOT.
YOU DON’T KNOW.
ONLY ONE WAY TO TELL.
Flip a Coin and She Smiles
So. Flip a Coin and She Smiles. This was one of my serious stories, those rare ducks that appear now and then whenever I hit my dick with a hammer and forget to be funny or whatever.
I won’t say a lot about the concept of the story, or its meaning, because I sort of don’t want to. Serious stories (and this one in particular) are better explored when you have no fucking idea what’s going on. To explain the process that got me to write this would sort of spoil the entire thing, right?
I can explain how I wrote it, though.
In case you haven’t read it, here’s some super bare-bones explanation: the story is about Octavia and Vinyl, and how they met and their life together. The narrative voice is not a normal one, in the sense that it’s a story that is completely told. You know the old “show, don’t tell” thing? This story is me trying to do the opposite. It’s a “tell” overdose. Give it a super quick look right now before continuing, look at the first paragraph (or the first two sentences, I guess) and you’ll see what I mean.
Cool? With me so far? Neato peato mamapapa. So, there’s a reason why I used such a narration to tell the story. See, I came up with the plot the same way one eats an onion: layer by layer, and also crying and wishing I had a fucking apple with me instead. I’m bad at writing. I’m. I’m so bad at writing. Holy shit.
Anyway! Layers. Layers[3]. We’re talking layers.
[3] And a Shrek reference. Because if I’m not the one lampshading it, you motherfuckers won’t let me hear the end of it. Two people are gonna comment, and both will post just a fucking screenshot of that movie. WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH. WHY.
IS IT BECAUSE I FUCKED YOUR GIRLFRIEND.
IT’S BECAUSE OF THAT, ISN’T IT.
CHRIST.
Y’see, I came up with the main concept of the story, and its moral, at the same time. It was sort of the same idea. From there on, the story could only go one way – although I was pretty close to changing the ending completely at one point, because I thought of a huge what-if… But then I noticed it didn’t make any fucking sense, and so I continued with what the story told me to do.
So yeah, this was one of those stories that once you start you pretty much have only one way to go. That’s what I mean by “layers”. You get the core of it, and then you start to unravel the rest. If this happens, then the next thing that happens is this. Which means this. Thematically, it implies this. That’s right. You know it’s right because it’s in italics.[4]
[4] You ever noticed that I tend to use too many italics? I think I use too many italics. I should cut down on the italics. They’re bad for your liver, I’ve heard. Oh God this has nothing to do with the footnote but fucking LORD it’s so hot in here. We’re at, what, 30 fucking degrees? At midnight? Sometimes I hate Spain so much. My butt is sweating. My butt is sweating. THAT is how hot it is in here. GAGH.
The symbolism was easy, too. I believe being unsubtle about those things works better depending on the story, and in this case it sure did.
In fact, it was so fucking unsubtle one wonders if there’s any symbolism at all in there. Is there? Well, that’s the fun of it: the story could really work both ways. There are some highly symbolic elements, and a particular part of the story can be seen as a metaphor if you’re feeling #deep. Or it can be read as a completely straightforward story.
I wrote it so it would make sense no matter what. It helps that the part that is symbolic is not the very main plot – to the ones who haven’t read it: Octavia is not a fucking metaphor for cancer or anything weird like that; the core story remains the exact fucking same no matter how you want to see it, we’re talking details – so it was really easy.
Y’see, I’m a fan of one certain Richard Bach, who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull (although, as I read him in Spanish, to me that book is Juan Salvador Gaviota). It’s a book I’ve always loved, ever since I read it with my mother at the tender age of I-can’t-fucking-remember-around-seven-I-suppose. Back then, I saw it as a really cool fairytale, with a clear character arc and a kickass (and heartbreaking!) ending.
Then, time passed. Way older, at around I-still-can’t-fucking-remember-let’s-say-seventeen I read it again. And I sort of got the symbolism. And the metaphors. The deeper meaning, you see.
Was the #deep[5] story better than the one I understood as a kid? Nah. It was #deeper, sure. It worked on a couple more levels. But it wasn’t better.
[5] Yes, the jokey hashtag is mandatory, shut up. If I can’t be tongue-in-cheek about my own stuff, then what the fuck is the point anymore.
It’s also a Bo Burnham reference? I’m not sure. Maybe? SHUT UP.
Another book that does this – and is also way more famous, so maybe I should have started with this one – is Le Petit Prince, written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Another all-time favorite, it can be read as a normal story or as a metaphor. And both work!
To Kid-Me (and to Adult-Me, too) this was insanely cool. This was the coolest. So I did the same with Flip a Coin and She Smiles. Is the most fairytaleish part of it a metaphor? Eh. Maybe? You can read it that way if you’re into it. It’s not a better option, but it sure as hell works, so ultimately, it’s your choice.
Pretty fucking fitting – I mean, the entire point of the story is that the reader has to make a choice. So, that was really the only way to write it, if I wanted to be consistent.
I know, I’m really far up my own ass here, but what the shit, I like to be artsy now and then. The project was actually named “Artsy Octascratch” for a really long time, in fact.
Related to this: the story as you see it on Fimfic never changed in my mind – aside from that ending hiccup I mentioned, that lasted like ten minutes – but the format sure as diddly-fuck did.
Y’see, the moral and message are so particular (and the plot, too) that it wouldn’t work with normal narrative. I needed something to support the story. Not a gimmick—a gimmick is defined as something that adds nothing to the fic itself. This was mandatory to even understand what the fuck was going on.
Eventually, I went with the tell-overload style (a dramatic monologue, has been called by people smarter than me—I don’t know, I just wrote it) but first I had a different idea.
And it was really fucking artsy: it was a second-person story. And “you”, the reader, were the wind.
Eh?
Eh?
Yeah it made more sense in my head[6].
[6] No, it didn’t. I just wanted to see if my Writing Dick is big enough to make that bearable. Surprise, surprise, it was not. That idea was the literary equivalent of a dog waking itself up with its own fart.
I mean, there was a narrative reason for this, but I eventually dropped it because it sort of clashed with the story itself. I still wrote a lot in that style, though. I think I have around 4,500 words of that mess saved somewhere on my Google Drive.
‘Course, after a while I noticed that the style was both lacking and a fucking drag to write. Then, while riding a bus, I came up with the idea of a dramatic monologue. No idea where it came from, but the first few sentences were clear in my head, and so was the tone.
I said, okay. This one goes.
And that one went! I wrote it in one go after coming up with the tone. Not a single rewrite, no siree.
Not much else to add. The cover art was chosen by me, but Selbi (a German friend of mine) changed the colors a lil’ bit to make them pop up more. Description and title were also by me (which is weird, as I usually don’t do that – I have smarter friends to take care of that shit) and that’s pretty much it.
Also, among all the versions this story had, there was one thing that always remained. Octavia was always described with the words “she smiles when she dances.” Vinyl always “smelled like violets and gunpowder”. I dig those descriptions a lot[7].
[7] So much, in fact, that the “she smiles when she dances” line almost made it to a couple more stories of mine. It was ultimately deleted, though, because the proofreaders asked me if I was having an aneurism again.
‘kay. Next!
A Million Little Lights
Oh, come on. There was an interview about this one. Nothing much to add, aside from the fact that the plot changed a lot over the rewrites – have in mind I wrote this story seven times, changing small details every rewrite. At one point I thought about a complete overhaul and wrote about Shining fighting a dragon.
Then I noticed that was pretty fucking stupid.
Then yaddah yaddah this story has had its info explained a thousand times. It’s also got a really annoying comment section. Next!
NO NO NO NO WE HATE HIM WE ALL HATE HIM GOSH DARNIT NO JUST DON’T
Ah, hah, hah. This shit was written on a dare.
And God dammit do I love it.
The dare was, of course, by no other than Selbi (the aforementioned German friend, who also helped me with the cover art in this story). It was his birthday, see. And, like the GREAT FRIEND I am, I thought about giving him a present.
This guy has some particular tastes when it comes to ponies. There are some characters he loves, and some he hates. He’s very vocal about them, and I find his taste a little bit weird.
So when his birthday arrived, I said that okay, I know what to do. I’ll write a story about what you love the most and what you hate the most. About Discord making out with Octavia.
The guy hates Discord, with a fucking passion. As such, after the chuckle that said statement inspired, he went on to say that there was no way, no fucking way, I could make him laugh with such a premise. It just couldn’t be done.
It took me two seconds and seven words.
“I love you, Discord!” Octavia said, octavialy.
To which he replied “god dammit.”
Funnily enough, those seven words never made it to the story proper. Because of course I wrote a story proper – the prompt was too great to let it pass.
Thing is, I’ve written a lot of Octavia – shit, I just talked about another Octavia story, like, thirty seconds ago – but this was not my usual Octavia. It wasn’t Flip a Coin’s Octavia either, of course. This one was an idiot, because she is Selbi’s favorite character, and so I had the moral obligation to make her as stupid as possible.
To make sure I avoided people linking her with the Octavia in one of my fic continuities, I named her Octavia Pizzicato. Because I fucking hate the name “Octavia Melody”, mostly, but also because I tend to call her “Philharmonica”. The name change made it clear it’s not the same character.
Also, the name comes from MrNumbers. It’s a reference to an old shame of his. Go read it, he’ll be mortified.
The story follows four musicians – Octavia, and her troupe from The Best Night Ever. I immediately realized that their canon names are fucking horrible, and so I called them by their instruments – or rather, by the instrument they don’t play anymore. That way, Frederick Horseshoepin is named Piano, Parish Nadermane is called Harp, and Beauty Brass is Sousa.
Much more readable, if you ask me. Together, they’re called the Two-Oh-Sixers, ‘cause they practice in Room Two-Oh-Six—that’s a bit of an injoke, as I lived in apartment C206 for three years. I like the number, what can I say.
It’s noticeable that the story is in-character, sort of. It’s not nearly as stupid or trollfic-ish as the title and cover art lead you to believe—I only made them that way because it was a birthday present, and because I crave that clickbait like your girlfriend craves my Splendid Spanish Spenis©. And the premise is so fucking dumb that going for a lolrandum approach would kill it.
So I said, fuck it. And so, Twilight is in-character. Discord is in-character. The rest of characters have no canon personality, so I did whatever. Piano talks exclusively in highly quotable, swear-ridden sentences. Sousa is the voice of reason, sort of. Harp is fucking adorable.
They gave me a headache, those three. It took me a while to nail them down, because I kept coming up with weird personalities that didn’t work. Piano absolutely stole the spotlight once he was done, though – he’s everybody’s favorite. Octavia was neat tho, I think. Thing is, they needed to really bounce on each other, and that's what took me so long: I couldn't find any chemistry between them. Eventually, I went for a simple three-way dynamic that would let me play them off against each other, and I'm thankful to say I managed to find it.
This was one story that really needed to be written twice, by the way. The initial draft was much different from the end result – half the plot wasn’t there! – but once I wrote it again, it all came together.
I actually wrote on top of the draft, by the way. I would read a paragraph, delete it, and write it again. It really worked, although as a result the horrible initial draft is lost. WHAT A TRAGEDY.
Structure-wise, though, I think I had the thing nailed from the start. I even took notes as I was planning the story!
Which reminds me, holy shit, I also took notes for A Million Little Lights, even though I never showed them to you. Lately I’m taking a lot of notes as I plan, but it’s just ‘cause I like how OneNote works.
I apparently went back in time to take this screenshot.
Fucking professional, mate. Fucking professional.
Anything else to add? I don’t think there’s much left, no. The cover art deserves mention, probably, as well as the title (both by me! Well, chosen by me. I obviously didn't draw anything. Although Selbi sure as hell helped with the cover art; he did the photoshop job to get it all pretty and COLORFUL). As I said, I crave that clickbait, and unashamedly so – I trust that my stories will keep the reader’s attention, but to do that, said reader has to click on the story first. There’s a huge-ass theory me and my friends/proofreaders have about good titles, and good descriptions, and good cover art.
But that’s for a different blog, I suppose. Bottom-line, just use something that gets people’s attention. Bright colors, funny or weird pictures, a pair of tits… whatever you think is better. THE WORLD IS YOURS TO MASTER.
And that’s pretty much it. Three stories, one blog! And just 3,000 words, which is super short for me.
Also, for once, I’m not ending the blog with a pun, or a joke, or some bombastic bullshit. No siree. This will be a perfectly normal, serious, respectable ending. Nothing strange or cringe-inducing.
I mean, sure, I usually prefer to end things in a big way, to go out with a bang? But this time it’s not possible.
After all, your girlfriend is still sore.
YOU'RE THE ANDREW HUSSIE OF FIMFICTION.
THE TROLL PARTS OF HIM, I MEAN.
WHICH IS ALL OF THEM.
4013666 get your disgusting homefuck out of here
4013666
I mean, that's a new one, I guess.
4013780
That's such a Vriska thing to say. You're totes a Vriska. Aren't you. Aren't you.
Richard Bach also writes stories about sapient ferrets. Because of course I know that and may own a couple of the books.
Intriguing as always, the discotavia fic was hilarious to pre-read for and you need to write more shit for me to edit.
Well, I picked a good weekend to stay in. Definitely looking forward to that podcast.
4013666
Not nearly enough character death or self-reference. The jury is out on whether he has the lips.
4013780
u mean homosuck
Just don't get arrested.
I really need you to stop fucking my girlfriend Aragon. I have exams coming up soon too, and I need my right hand rested to write them.
4013916 i do not mean homosuck thats overused
4013790 i. have been betrayed.
Joke's on you I don't have a girlfriend!
...
...
Wait...
i.ytimg.com/vi/-Bn2kGekkFA/maxresdefault.jpg
Actually I said "You are prettier than you have any right to be".
It's different.
"Thing is, I’ve written a lot of Octavia – shit, I just talked about another Octavia story, like, thirty seconds ago – but this was not my usual Octavia. It wasn’t Flip a Coin’s Octavia either, of course. This one was an idiot, because she is Selbi’s favorite character, and so I had the moral obligation to make her as stupid as possible."
Señor, you are an arsehole. The best kind of arsehole. An arsehole made of sunshine and rainbows, descended from the Celestial Vaults to shit literary ambrosia down our throats.
... That metaphor kind of got away from me there.
Also, as a tangent, I once linked one of your highly insightful romance blogposts on a discussion forum, and had somebody inform me that "I'm no longer clicking anything you link to. That article had good points, but almost completely tasteless presentation." This was the same person who felt the need to censor my writing the word 'shit' while discussing how they would unleash armageddon, so I'm pretty sure this is a case of pissing off the right class of people counting in your favour.
4014917
Mind giving me the link of that thread? I'm curious. I wanna know what exactly were you discussing, to make one of those blogs a reference.
4014941 Sure, here you go. As it happens, it was to do with Best Girl P-zombie.
The armageddon thing might be a bit more opaque to you though. If you want the background on that, feel free to ask me and I'll try to slap together something approximating a cliff notes version.
4014610
33.media.tumblr.com/b03d212e4153fe7e8b0c706038231fb1/tumblr_inline_o5xa3oTBr71ri743n_500.gif
4016649 leave
4016961
how do you expect me to leave
WHEN I'M ALREADY GONE?
4016974 stop
4017031
4016974
LOL!