Legendary Times · 4:43am May 23rd, 2017
Guess what, folks? The next chapter of To Serve In Hell is... well, let's be honest, floundering a bit. 
But it's drafted, and I'm bringing in reinforcements to help whip it into shape for June 1st. One challenge is that it's very much a "middle" chapter, so it sets up stuff that doesn't really pay off yet. I fear I may have another couple of those coming as the story works its way through Canterlot. But to some extent I don't see a way around that... the story's kind of at a point where some cool stuff toward the beginning has happened, and things need to be set up in order for the big payoffs to happen later.
So in other words, right now is probably a terrible time for me to try to take on some big other thing. But I've had a few inklings of an idea. Kinda wanted to put it out there and gauge interest.
Have you guys watched DC's Legends of Tomorrow TV show?
Awwwww yeeeaaaahhh
My wife and I recently started watching the new Flash series on Netflix, and we got pretty into it. Then of course we ran out of episodes. Then we heard about LoT, and figured why not give it a try?
Holy fudgesickles Batman, it's even better than Flash. It's about a ragtag band of B- to C-list heroes (and villains!) who are pulled together by a card-carrying Doctor Who expy (played by an actual ex-Doctor Who cast member) to solve problems and fight even bigger villains across time. As far as its milieu goes, it takes the best aspects of the Flash show and mixes them with Star Trek and Doctor Who and does it in all the right ways. It's got to be the most entertaining show I've come across since... well, frankly, MLP itself.
And the last time I saw a show that good, it made me want to write fanfic about it. 
So let me ease into the idea like this: what if all my stories were connected?
...No, seriously. I've probably been influenced by people I see pulling off bigger multi-story arcs (looking at you, Sou), and I certainly don't expect everyone to have read all of my stories... but there are threads running through a few of them that kinda already connect them. Notably Doctor Whooves.
I love writing The Doctor, even if nothing I've written with him has ever been much of a barn-burner. Heck, I just added a new Flashfic featuring him to mein shorts collection. I'd love to set up a rollicking cross-time adventure where he starts calling in favors with the various ponies whose lives he's touched to help him stop a suitable enemy.
And let's say it starred Adagio as its main viewpoint character. Because I can see her as a decent stand-in for Sarah Lance from Legends, and because I started working on a story with her sometime early last year that recently turned up when I was going back through some old stuff seeking candidates for the ol' shorts collection. And for whatever reason, the combination of that old story and this big-arc Legends of Tomorrow thing suddenly clicked. No, but seriously, Adagio's involvement has its roots in my story Conscience from late 2015, which was also never a big barn-burner but which I was trying to use to get across some ideas about justice and vengeance and mercy that aren't any less relevant to my thinking, almost two years later.
Again though, right now is probably a terrible time for me to try to take on something like that. But if there's interest, I might start thinking about it a little more seriously.
Also, this post is brought to you in part by The L-Train's "Moonrise," which is phenomenal if you're into metal. I've been looking back over the last couple of months, with the process of getting Heavy Rock done and out there, and the health scare that kept us away from Whinny City, and the whole thing with my parents visiting, and some stuff with work, and re-working To Serve In Hell's outline & starting to pull it through the Canterlot section (which I always knew would be the hard part for me)... and I'm tired, man. Sometimes rest is the best remedy; but if rest is hard to come by, sometimes kickass heavy metal will do. And hey, it's kickass pony heavy metal. Dig it. 
Personally, I say, 'Holy tactics, Batman!'.
That reminds me, I really need to read more of To Serve In Hell.
What can I say? Sometimes these things just happen and then snowball. Did I ever expect when I started this that I'd have TWO multi-story sagas -- now connected, thanks to you -- on my hands? Not really. But I have a headcanon and, thanks to the kindness and support of so many here, I'm going to keep running with it.
If you want to interconnect your stories, I certainly won't stop you, but I will tell you that you have to be much more conscientious of character development and continuity if you go that route. Maybe readers won't care, but you will. Or at least I do.
The Doctor is one of my favourite ponies, to the point he's my avatar on Derpibooru, but I still haven't got a handle on writing him. He's only shown up in one of my stories so far, and it's the super-long unpublished one (you know the one I'm talking about). One of these days I really need to put him in another work.
…I wonder how he would react to a burrito? You may have just given me another idea.
Honestly, it wouldn't be that difficult for you to pull off. I mean every Quentin Tarantino movie (written and or directed) is in the same universe. So, yes the stuff that happened in Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, From Dusk Til Dawn, Inglorious Basterds etc. all same universe. An odd one is the fact that the Transformers movies and the Michael Bay produced Friday the 13th are in the same universe as well.
Anyway, it's totally doable.
Long stories are rough. You need to hook the reader in the introductory chapters and then get them to put up with the slow middle.
You've proofread my hiatus story, so you know I know your pain there. I'm glad I put my big one on hiatus though, because it let me make a bunch of smaller fics to build my skills and let me take an actual break from it, something I hadn't realized I needed.
But yours is making nice headway. You just need to get over the crest of the hill and ride that sucker to the finish line!
Yeah, middle chapters can be the hardest of all, you start with an explosion and build up to a climax, as they say, and the middle is the building. Without them the climax is nothing, but oh, keeping the story rolling as it builds...
Keeping everything in your own universe is fine, just don't forget the "Multiverse" theory. And if you have Derpy as the Doctor's assistant, there's lots of chances for adventures down unexpected wormholes, and if Pinky is his assistant, well, she's so random I don't think even Discord could fully contain her. So what would the Doctor do if she went around breaking the 4th wall and generally upending the laws of physics as only Pinky can?
Anyway, yes, delays are a tad annoying, but they're better than rushing something not quite right into production. The story is good so far, please don't be afraid to take the time to keep up the good work.
Hey guys, blast from the friggin' past here...
(lol speaking of time travel)
4543654 I'm also partial to "Holy Priceless Collection of Etruscan Snoods, Batman!"
4543711 Continuity is a bear, is it not? Thing is, I've been thinking about it, and I think there's a sequence that a lot of my stories could fit into without much if any work. And I mean, there are stories that wouldn't need to connect because they deal with things that are utterly peripheral (or straight-up in another universe) to where the time travel is happening... Heavy Rock being a notable example, and To Serve In Hell being another. (Though the Hell-verse may have been created as a side-effect of GlimGlam's time travel shenanigans, which are at the crux of Time Enough For Wub, which is absolutely in the crosshairs for this whole big time-travel arc thing...)
...And because I've gone that far with it, I guess I may as well just lay out what the arc would look like at this point, assuming I was going to try to connect them:
The biggest problem I see is that these have pretty diverse casts and sets of genres--it's not at all like reading a unified set of stories. I know you've mentioned that the Recovery arc has been a challenge in that regard, but to be honest they all feel like they fit together. And yet, as I lay these out, I can see some through-lines that build toward a conclusion that needs to be written. Things like the Doctor alienating those closest to him (notably Derpy and Star Swirl) by virtue of his meddling with time, and Moondancer & Moonlight Raven stumbling into things beyond mortal ken, and Starlight screwing up time prior to becoming a better pony, and occasional contact with the Dazzlings, and Derpy & Berry Punch trying to build a decent life following their brushes with the Doctor... like, I think I could tie that all together and make it mean something when taken as a whole.
I dunno.
4544328 Really? Those were all in the same universe?
I never knew that!
4544329
I've probably mentioned it before, but this right here was my whole raison d'etre on FimFiction in the beginning. I just kept trying to write these grand sweeping novels and I kept finding that I didn't have the skills to pull them off. So I believe that putting things aside and getting more practice through shorter stories is a decent road to walk... but at the same time, those past difficulties are a reason why I need to make Hell good, and actually finish the consarned thing one of these days.
4544673 Thanks man.
And yes, Derpy would definitely be the most significant companion if I go this route, but she wouldn't be the only one. But of course he only has one at a time, so there would be a reason why she wasn't with him anymore.
I know what that reason is, and I've mentioned it to someone at some point, but I have yet to actually put it into a story. Maybe that would fit as a supplementary chapter to an expanded version of Conscience, or maybe the scene where it happens could stand as its own story. Time may tell...
4556684 Holy randomness, Batman!