Progress Report 31 December 2016 - Failure left and right · 3:18am Jan 1st, 2017
First, I must get this out of the way. Put simply, I screwed up.
It’s become apparent that the ending to the latest chapter was not received well. Now, as a writer, you sometimes have to ignore complaints, even though it hurts. After all, writers know the long term goals of their stories, and readers don’t.
However, this is not one of those times. Rest assured I do read every comment on my story, even if I don’t always respond due to laziness or anxiety. I have taken things to heart, and I recognize that I made some mistakes.
Hopefully I didn’t lose too many of you. Looking back, I agree with some of the points you have all made. I'm currently working on making additions to the next chapter that I hope will at least partially alleviate the issues and concerns raised from the last chapter.
For those still here, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and thank you for giving me another chance.
Now that I’ve addressed that issue, I have another I must mention.
Ahem!
2016 sucked. It was the biggest dumpster fire of a year in decades.
And I’m not just talking about my own failures, like my lack of writing or getting a book out or the most recent chapter. I’m not even talking about politics.
No, I’m talking about all the great people we’ve lost, and those 2016 has nearly taken from us.
My good friend and editor Biker_Dash recently suffered a major heart attack. He survived and is recovering, but that was a close call. Go send him some love.
But another one of my friends isn’t quite so lucky. My best friend’s wife, an early reader and fan of my story, is in a medically induced coma. She was admitted with acute liver disease, and her liver and kidneys are failing. She’s since suffered seizures from excessive ammonia in her system, and the liver disease has been labelled “end stage.”
To survive, the doctors have to somehow remove the excess fluid from her kidneys, remove the ammonia, get the kidneys stable, and get her a full liver transplant. A partial transplant is not an option. She’s facing long odds.
This couple has had every piece of bad luck come their way over the years, and they’ve still managed to continue on, never once wavering from their commitment to each other.
And now this.
Seriously, 2016 was just a year of tragedy, through and through. I’m glad it’s almost over.
If anyone wants to talk and celebrate the demise of 2016, I’m in the Rites chat rooms. Lord knows I could use some folks to commiserate with.
Thanks again for sticking with me, everyone.
Sincerely,
Cv
I shall be praying for a miracle to occur, that God may will it that the doctors may successfully save the life of your friend's wife. I shall ask my friends to pray for her as well.
And don't forget, we also lost some memorable human beings this year.
And that Trump thing...
Best wishes to all those in need.
Ah, dealing with it by making changes to the next chapter, rather than going back and editing this one? Interesting! I look forward to seeing what you do.
Oh, I'm sorry about Biker_Dash; I'm glad they got through.
Oh. And very sorry about your wife's friend. Good luck to them...
"Thanks again for sticking with me, everyone."
You're welcome. :)
2016 was an utter shitfest. I don't normally swear, but I felt that it was appropriate.
Glad to hear Biker_Dash is recovering, though I'm sorry about your friend's wife. Hope she'll be okay too.
And to be honest, I thought that the ending to the last chapter was pretty cool, even if it did show cold-blooded torture.
Ok.. had to read the comments to see what you were talking about. Honestly i loved the chapter, the way you described Tarterous, and his punishment. A bit unproportional?? Well it's not my call it's Luna's and lets face it. Immortal pony semi deities are going to have a different moral compass then human mortals with vastly different right/wrong responses and frankly i think you did an amazing job of playing that out.
Of course as the author it is ultimately your call and your story but i disagree. This is my take on what I've read. Your Luna is a powerful being currently being cock/clam blocked by bureaucracy who's impulse and ability to just kill those who oppose her is being curved buy the love for her her sister and a desire to never go down the road of Nightmare Moon again. She best remembers a more brutal time in pony history where punishment WAS punishment and not a slap on the wrist as she might consider modern punishment.
I found it in character and strangely appropriate punishment to be admitted for the crimes being punished and the being choosing the punishment. If people could remove there sense of self from the story and live threw your characters i think they would see it the same.
Again all in all i found it a wonderful chapter and will be here reading this till the end.
I'm glad to hear your editor is OK, and I'm sorry to hear about your friend's wife.
Anyway, I'm still reading the story bit I don't really comment much (especially as I've been super busy). This story is one of my favorites so I'm sorry to hear that the last chapter didn't go over well.
4363644 your thoughts on Luna very closely match my own thoughts. Bravo, good Sir. For speaking up for the Goddess of the Night.
Personally, I liked the ending of the chapter. Shows your Luna's style. I might be biased due to too many villains getting away with things in recent chapters of most of the fics I read.
If it helps, I fell waaay behind on reading this so I haven't got anywhere near the controversial chapter yet. So there'll be plenty of time to get ahead of it with whatever fixes/clarification/fallout you like before I get there. :)
Well, I'm still here.
Though I hope you won't feel upset if the trope pages are updated to reflect this divisiveness.
I liked it and I think the comalines and been brainwashed into too much PC to get it.
This guy killed Clousdale and murdered how many ponies all for greedy ends and with no remorse.
I'd be surprised if you actually lost any readers over that one part of that single chapter, lol. I wrote my own piece opposing it, but I wasn't necessarily claiming that the story shouldn't have gone that direction at all; just that I thought that what Luna did was a very wrong thing for her to do. You can write good characters doing what others perceive to be bad things, that's not really screwing up and I don't think you should feel bad about writing that. My main beef wasn't even really that it happened, but rather that it seemed like the audience was expected to nod and agree. I reacted probably a bit too knee-jerky to it, but I just want you to know that I don't think any less of you (of course) or the story, and I think it'd be pretty silly for anyone to forget dozens and dozens of awesome chapters and stop reading just because one character did a single thing they strongly disagree with, at the ass-end of a chapter. Characters aren't supposed to always make good decisions, that'd be boring.
A lot of terrible shit's happened this year, and I'm sorry to hear so much is happening in your sphere of influence. :( Glad to see Biker Dash is well enough to be on fimfic, and I hope your friend's wife pulls through.
I'm glad, that was ... not your best writing and I'm glad to hear that the story won't be heading in that direction. I wish your friend the best of luck in her treatment.
With how long ive been reading this you'd have to do something really horrible like killing spike to actually make me stop reading this.
Lose some of us? You cant get rid of some of us
I didn't see any issues personally, but I can see where others are sitting on the matter, but they all forget that there are things that were MUCH worse. Like Fallout 3's The Pitt DLC, that had no good choices no matter how you sliced it with no recourse to back out.
As for long-term suffering, I could think of better things to portray such.
Personally, I kinda liked the ending of the last chapter. A bit out of the ordinary, but not as bad as some people make it out to be, I'm convinced. Always consider the story first, readers second. If you try to please everybody, you'll end up with a story with no rhyme or reason to it. So you should write the story the way you think it should be
4363631
And I hope stuff's okay with you, too
On the story itself, not only was Cedric Bale's comment on the chapter better than what I attempted to write, but this comment 4363926 is pretty close to what I wanted to say too. I'll only add that it can be pretty uncomfortable when it seems like a story is trying to cause a strong emotion in the reader, but instead you find yourself feeling the opposite. I really should have focused on that instead of saying anything you could've taken personally. Sorry.
I'm glad 2016 is over, hopefully 2017 is a much better year for us all.
4363926 What she did is in character as she is sick of all this crap. And disagree on it being a bad desicion. Esteem had just destroyed Cloudsdale with his actions, promoted racism to the point where non pegasi would be thrown from Cloudsdale, And commited treason.
And in Contrast to Luna as Nightmare moon for her rebellion all that was a Treason as she fought her sister for rule. Note no racism, no terror bombings it was a civil War, a brustal one but one none they less. So she did go as far down as Essteem and she regrets her actiosn back then. This guy did not, he do it all over again as many times as he wanted to get his goal.
Haven't read the story at all yet, so I don't have an opinion about the chapter. I will say, however, that we are our own worst critics. So it might not be as bad as you feel. Also, it sounds just reading posts that Luna did something out of spite to someone who destroyed a whole city. I should point out that although many might like to portray the alicorn rulers as so far above common emotions that they simply cannot do something out of anger or spite, that would be bad writing, IMHO. The alicorns are still ponies at the end of the day, and have all the same vices and virtues as their subjects. Even more, if they spend all their time trying to live up to the unreasonably divine expectations of their subjects, when they do finally snap, it will be epic. As Nightmare Moon proved.
If anything, if Luna did have a moment of irrational anger, I'd say it's actually very in-character for her. It suggests that Nightmare Moon was just a combination of her tendency to snap combined with some poor choices at the time, whether it be magic, or the influence of outside parties, as the comics suggest. Keeping that in mind, it might be very believable that Luna has a tipping point, and when someone reaches it, her retaliation is vicious.
If that's true, then Celestia may need to smooth things over later. Hopefully she's learned from the last time she let it get that far, and is going to give Luna time and distance to work out her anger before confronting her about it this time. And if she feels that Luna isn't going to play nice for the foreseeable future, but needs her to, Celestia could always send Twilight to talk Luna down. That would have the double meaning of sending the kinder alicorn to talk sense into Luna, while also reminding Luna that this unassuming purple pony kicked her invincible ponytailed butt the last time Luna lost it, and could probably do it again. It sounds like the typically Celestia thing for her to do.
4364551
I agree that what Esteem did was unforgivable and irredeemable. I agree that they were right to rule to simply remove him, permanently, from the world. There were multiple options to do that. Execution would have done that just fine. So would petrification, as had been proposed during the trial. The only reason to go out of her way to put him in a living hell of eternal, literal torture is to remove him from the world, and also cause him eternal suffering. What does that accomplish? How does that help his victims, how does that help the world recover from what he did? What positive comes from it? The only reason to do that is to be spiteful, and that's not a good reason. It's a believable reason, and I never said it was entirely OOC for Luna to do that. If anything, Luna's one of the few characters in MLP who can be truly, horribly spiteful and it still be somewhat believable to me. I still find it deplorable; it doesn't do anything for anyone, except allow the spiteful to take pleasure in it, and that's not healthy. Unless there's some other, more sensible advantage to it that just isn't occurring to me, I cannot agree with Luna's actions, and I cannot imagine Celestia, one of the least spiteful characters in this franchise, would condone it like she seemed to in the chapter. Emphasis on seemed; it's still possible she misinterpreted what Luna planned to do. Celestia doesn't have the best track record at understanding her sister. We'll have to wait and see.
Again, @CvBrony, it's not necessarily a bad thing for the story to go that way. Please don't see this continued conversation and think "I fucked up". It may not have gone over like you hoped it would, and you might have changed your mind about some things, but the writing itself isn't some terrible thing, and it isn't always a bad thing to cause conflicting emotions in your readership. :)
4364869 It brings closure. Too often in our world a criminal's sentance doesn't equal the crime. While petrafication would be useful it wouldn't strike fear that tartarus would and again. THis guy would do it again and again for power no matter what. Luna at least had a reason to do what she did. It was an act of desperation on how to rule. THis guy, just for powers sake.
4365038
An execution wouldn't have brought closure? Eternal agony is the only thing that grants that? If he's dead, he can't do it again — I'm not saying he should get away with a slap on the wrist, but I wouldn't consider the punishments the council was discussing to be slaps on the wrist. Twilight's proposal was the closest he came to 'getting away with it', and the council didn't seem thrilled with it. There are any number of ways to permanently make him incapable of committing further crimes, execution and petrification are just a couple. And what does it mean for a punishment to equal the crime, anyways? Maybe if Luna planned to pull him out after he experienced an amount of suffering roughly equivalent to that which he caused, and then petrify or execute him or whatever, then sure, I could see that being an equal punishment maybe. It would be completely pointless, since they would just end his life afterwards anyways, but I could see it as being equal I guess, for whatever that's worth.
Making an example of him to deter future would-be criminals from doing similarly would be the only real benefit of sentencing him to such an extreme punishment... if they weren't making it classified. That's exactly what isn't going to happen. Nobody will know what happened to Esteem; not future would-be criminals as deterrence, not the victims for closure, not anyone.
The best I can riddle from this is that you think Luna is desperate to show that she can rule. I get that; she's having a lot of trouble proving to those that she needs to, the nobles on the council, that she's fit to rule. But A: showing them that she can send ponies to a world of eternal pain and agony isn't a particularly convincing argument in favor of her fitness to rule, and B: they might never know, anyways. Again, what she did is going to be classified, and I don't believe that the council members are unanimously entitled to any and all classified information.
4365227 Considering he caused unending pain to the families that lost love ones. yes it is suitable.
Heck, I LIKED the last chapter, the pile of steam horsesSH*T got what he deserved.
Y'know, I never would've guessed people suggesting capital punishment as the ideal option would find themselves in the bleeding heart/"too PC to get it" camp in an MLP fanfiction comment section.
It's a funny ol' world sometimes.
But vague feelings of surrealism aside, @CVBrony:
Personally, I totally buy Luna's action as something she'd do in this setting - I'd even buy Celestia responding with lukewarm acceptance of her decision. But, I just don't quite see Twilight taking it well (or hidden punishments in general, for that matter). I've got no idea what, if any, reaction you originally intended from her, but I'm glad you're not thinking about replacing the ending - it'd be a shame to scrap a well-written scene and I'd much rather see what kind of drama/consequences result for the characters than have it deleted.
As for losing readers, ehhh, I doubt it. The story didn't even pick up a single downvote from that chapter according to the metrics. Some people clearly had strong reactions to the topic, but everyone seems to be happy just arguing their position reasonably politely; the discussion seemed mostly even-tempered to me, at least. Surely no one made it, what?, half a million words in without sincerely enjoying your writing/storytelling. I imagine we're all still excited to see how the story goes regardless of conflicting opinions on a single scene.
Sorry about your IRL troubles; here's hoping 2017 pans out well for you (and everyone else too).
4365227 I think that AQP was trying to continue his comparison from here (4364551) between Esteem's treason and Luna's: Luna's treason was because she wanted to rule, while Esteem's seemed to stem more form greed and racism.
4365513 pretty much. luna's rebellion stemmed from desperation and feeling the status quo should not last. it was her last option. For Esteem it was his first and always go to. As of now Luna will not attmepted it again unless no otehr choice. Esteem, he would get started right away.
Hmm. Still haven't read it. New year's, y'know? Still, seen from the outside without knowing the story is kind of like being Joe Q. Pony, who only knows that Cloudsdale was destroyed by unknown pony X. Rumours will be everywhere, but short on actual facts. Based on this perception, I'd argue the best outcome should be publicizing what happened. This mobilizes a nation in support of the victims, and turns the punishment into a lesson for the generations.
Also, consider that Tartarus is not Hell. At no time have we seen inhabitants being tortured. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the land of the dead, where everyone who didn't qualify for the Elysian Fields went. It was also used as the ultimate prison for certain irredeemable hard-luck cases, and it seems to be used for that here. In the mythology, the inhabitant would be forced to relive the atrocities they committed before incarceration until Hades or Zeus freed them, if ever. Such a fate would actually be the only nonlethal option I would argue is even remotely fair for something like that.
The ending didn't bother me much, but I suppose that is all in how I chose to view it. For me, it was less that Luna was doing this to the villain and more that she had chosen not to shield him from that kind of damnation. I believe there was mention that Tartarus bars those that deserve to be there from leaving, which suggests a cosmic judgement beyond what Luna gives out. My choice was to believe that Celestia and Luna usually spare their subjects from this harsher cosmic judgement, but the villain in question had gone so far and shown such a lack of remorse and towering contempt that Luna delivered him to his fate rather than shield him from it among her ponies.
All my best to your friends and their families in their struggles... it's been a harsh year for many.
4365285 How can it be unending if they eventually die?
4368618 A family can feel the harm a logn time even after the intial grievers are dead.
4368653 A "long time" though is not unending. They would have to feel it for the rest of eternity and the simple fact is people will eventually forget that individual. I certainly don't know anything about my family from ten generations ago. At all.
4369120 Did you lose anyone in a major event? the Fall of Cloudsdale will be going into history books.
4369221 Good question. My father has been working on our family's genealogy to learn about family members from more than a few generations back and there are bound to be some that died during major events (there have been enough major wars for it I'm sure).
Yet even if that is the case I won't grieve over them for the simple fact that I never knew them and the only impact they had on my life was that they performed the necessary steps required to further the family line.
Nothing aside from the fact that they existed and had descendants has survived the ravages of time and this will hold true for the victims of Esteem as well. After hundreds of years they will be forgotten.
Thus it isn't an "eternity". It is simply a "long time".