Sombracessions

Art by the incomparable Evehly

Hey all. I took a little unexpected hiatus from writing to clear my head of the emotional turmoil this last month's AKS Tumblr finale put me through. It threatened to overwhelm my own Sombraverse as well as my real life and needed to be reigned in before I could get back to writing.

Now that the story is at an end, I have enough braincells back to resume a return to normalcy, even though I am ending two job assignments and picking up a new client Monday (hoorah!).

So, before I get back to concentrating on story updates, I had an email from another Sombra writer that was rather interesting. I got permission to share it with my other Sombra peeps here so you all could weigh in on the discussion. I'll be quoting bits of it and answering, but please, feel free to comment with your own answers and observations.

First off they made me laugh by saying:

Since you seem to be the user whom I can safely award the 'Most Sombra Obsessed' Badge…

Can't argue that too much, except to say, “No...there is ANOTHER…”

I imagine you'll go nuts for any story with Sombra that is legible considering he doesn't have that much written about him when compared with other characters.

Yeah, I used to read just anything with King Sombra, but quickly realized I didn’t want to waste my time on low-quality stories when there are a TON of better Sombra and non-Sombra stories here. Yes, believe it or not, I have been known to read a non-Sombra story or two And I haven’t bottomed out of the Sombra well yet - not with 377 Sombra-related stories in my reading queue. Also, some amazing stories & writers have surfaced as of late in the past two months, which is great as my all-time favorite Sombra clop writer can’t even seem to put out a chapter every six months without being violently prodded by her fanbase *sigh!*

I'm sure you'll know that after frequently delving through the horse words here you'll notice he doesn't get many variations in character so it makes it hard to find unique versions and even decent depictions.

If you’re running across that, sometimes that’s due to writers not thinking through a plausible backstory that actually makes sense. It’s fun to write villains, but they are flat and unrelatable if he’s being evil, well, just to be evil. With few exceptions, no one is truly BORN evil. Humans need to be pushed in that direction to the point where they SNAP and the things that make people snap also make ponies snap, hence we can understand and empathize with them on a subconscious level. One of the most promising new King Sombra writers of late, Broomstick Mick, summed it all up like poetry in his Sombra origin story, "Darkness Rising" with this quote:

"Evil is not simply born into this world: It is beaten with the hammer of cruelty, forged upon the anvil of hatred, tempered in the flames of fear, and cooled in the stagnant waters of suffering. And so, evil becomes a blade, which seeks to thrust itself into our hearts." If you are a fan of Sombra and haven't read his works yet (he has one other SombraShy story), then do yourself a favor and READ THEM. He and other writers like him are worth weeding out the lesser writers to enjoy and learn from greats such as he.

Seriously, you're the single most Sombra-crazy user I've seen on here.

Heh, thanks??? I have always loved the bad guy of books, t.v. series and movies. Their powerful motivations teach us so much more about ourselves than sometimes even heroes!

There is more to their letter, a few questions I'd love to share and hear your thoughts on, but considering a new episode of MLP came out today that everyone (even me) will be SQUEEING! about, I'm going to wrap up an already too long blog post right here and continue it at another time. Whether you agree or not with any of what we've talked about here, please let us know in the comments. Continue the discussion!

Yours as always and remember to

Hail King Sombra!