Why I write?

Well. So far I have only published two fanfics, clopfics, foalcon clopfics. Many would look at me and think I am a piece of crap because of that. Well, the thing is, I don't care.

When I write I write for myself. I write for the sake of my own enjoyment and personal growth. It is something I do not do for profit, but out of love, love for myself, love (And I could say even obsessive devotion) for the characters I write, and love for creativity. I see myself as a creator, someone who shapes worlds, even alternate universes from those wolrds others have shaped. Ever since I was a child I created stories to amuse myself. Some of those stories will never see public light. They are meant for me and me alone so far. Some of the characters in those stories were in fact featured in the stories I have published here.

We, writers, give life to that which is possible, and that which is impossible. We shape, we create, we see what lies beyond our tangible world, we peer into dreams of things that could be, that have been, or will never be, and so we write them. We reach into a pool of endless possiblities and pull what we found there to be pleasing to us.

Now you might wonder "Why the hell did you publish that then?", Well, I did so because I loved those stories the most. When I began to write The Ballad of Midnight Edge I never intended to release it. It was meant to be a creative effort to please my own mind and improve my writing skills in order to someday be able to publish something far greater, superior in all senses, not a fanfiction, and maybe even profitable.

But at some point mentioning it to people in forums, image boards, and social networks, made me think others could enjoy it as much as I did. And so I began to explore my options on where to publish it. I was actually afraid it would not be accepted in this site due to it containing erotic content featuring an underage character. But I was fortunate enough that the general rules allowed room for that as long as the character was a pony.

Once I published it came the hardest part. For most of the time it was published, its approval rating was below 50%, quite disheartening to many authors in fact. Most authors would simply give up, and even unpublish their work at that point. But not I, not only I decided last year that I would no longer give up, I also decided if people didn't like my work I would keep it there, to make sure they knew that no matter how much they hated it, it would always be there, pestering them, making them feel disgusted, making them hate the author. My work became an act of defiance to those who hated it.

And I knew why the content was hated. It was thought provoking to some extent, yet at the same time an old classic formula in the genres I used. The most common tropes and archetypes were there, yet at the same time they were spiced up by strange, uncommon, and even disruptive features. The hero is not completely heroic, tending to question his own morality yet doing little to change. The heroine combines both traits from a determined, independent, self reliant character, with those of female characters often hated in some circles. Their relationship is a middle finger to modern standards (Even though to renaissance standards probably was a bit bland). There are few villains and have not such a crucial role in the story. It was both an act of subversion (The real one and not the postmodern one) and embrace of the traditional tropes and archetypes.

After discussing with other people, some of them authors, I faced another fact that could make my work hated. All authors imprint a bit of their world views and ideologies into their work. While I tried to avoid addressing politics when it was not required for the story to proceed, I knew the way characters spoke, their morality, and other personality traits, were the result of my own views, ideology, and political alignment. That brought me to realize my work would make adherents to certain ideologies upset about it (You know who they are, the kind of people who coined absurd concept such as "mansplaining", diversity quotas [Which I already mocked] and "cultural appropriation" to mention some.), and that made me feel even more fired up about writing.

Now, that makes it seem as if I wrote only to spite others. But that is not true. As I looked at the approval rating of my first story while pondering on how the sequel would be, one day I found a comment in my story. Someone actually liked it enough to hope for a sequel. I had plans for that already, but that made it official, a sequel had to be made. As long as one man (Genus homo) liked my stories, as long as there was one single soul who found my work pleasant enough to want more, it was worth writing. That single faceless, partly anonymous user somewhere on the other side of a computer screen was worth more than all those who downvoted my work. That dude, whoever it was, made my work not just a story, but a magnum opus within the fandom.

My stories may never reach the popularity of works such as Fallout Equestira or the unworthy of attention, ill reputed, yet for some reason acclaimed Cupcakes, it might never be so popular and widespread for the featured original characters to be adopted into the fandom and fanon, might never contribute to other people's personal canon (Known as headcanon), it might never awaken controversy or acclaim. My stories will never reach the level of those of my friends whose work I admire and cherish. But in the end all that matters is that someone liked them, that I could spite others with it, and that I love them and cherish the characters featured in them.

In the end I write because it made me feel good. Because there is at least someone who loved my work, because I could use it to defy those who hated it, and because I love it. I seek no profit from derivative work, I seek no fame or fortune, I seek no more attention than I deserve, I seek no drama or articles about me on the web. I write for my audience, for me, and against my detractors. In the end I write because I feel.