Inner Strength second anniversary =D · 7:26am May 24th, 2017
So I should be working on ‘Looking Glass’ right now, but I’m kinda struggling with the chapter I’m writing (not the next chapter, so update will be on time; I write them a bit in advance). Plus ‘Inner Strength’ turned two like a week ago, so I’ll make a blog post about my thoughts on it, two years after the fact. By which I mean I’ll complain about things that I don’t like about it, two years after the fact. Because I’m a salty rabbit who likes to complain, even about myself 
Okay, so I don’t, like, hate the story or anything. I’m still rather proud of it, in fact. But I do feel like there are some things I could’ve done much better, so I’ll ramble about them for a bit. This will obviously include some spoilers, so followers that have only read ‘Looking Glass’ should avoid for now.
The writing itself:
The first complaint is really hardly a complaint, but I can’t not address it. I’m a better writer than I was back then. And I mean, I should fucking hope so, but still. I find reading this story now to be a bit cringy. Every time I make the characters go from point A to point B in less than a paragraph I want to scream and rewrite the whole god damn fic. I don’t know that I do transitions super well now, but I was hella bad at them when I started out.
I mean, that’s kind of whatever I guess. Comes with the territory of being the first story I attempted to write seriously. I’m mostly just including it here for all the people that jump from the much more competently written ‘Looking Glass’ to ‘Inner Strength’, as a way of saying “Yes, I realize the problem exists.”
Subplots:
There are two major mane six subplots, with Applejack’s homophobia and the love triangle with Rarity. Those who read the story when it was still being updated experienced a different portrayal of Applejack’s growth than everyone else, where I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. It was bad enough that it’s one of the things I went through and fixed immediately after the story was finished. I don’t really have complaints about the way it is now, though.
So then there’s Rarity. It was an early example of me wanting to have relationships that don’t work, and I like that. It was also a play on the way every character is whatever sexual orientation the readers will want them to be in the story (namely that everyone is expected to be gay or bi when it comes to ponies), and I also like that. I don’t like the fact that it’s relevant for a few chapters then it just gets dropped. That sucks. The plan was to have Twilight deal with insecurity over it, but then I time skip in between Acts I and II, and it no longer felt appropriate. I later incorporated that trait into Twilight’s feelings towards Amber Glow, but I still think it would be nice to do more with Rarity. The best solution I can think of is getting rid of the…
Time skip:
I no longer like the time skip in between Acts I and II. I don’t so much think it’s a mistake, but I would do it differently now. At the time, I was acknowledging my weak points and avoiding them, which is why it’s hard to begrudge past me here. Prior to ‘Inner Strength’ I had only written short stories, and I had no idea how to go about a slow moving continuous plot (this is also why the subplots mentioned above suffered). Writing about their relationship starting was fairly easy. Writing about problems faced by an established relationship was harder, but doable. Writing about a relationship that has to continuously grow from chapter to chapter, while also handling how each character feels about the developments? That would have been a challenge.
I could do it now, though. I think about coming back to it from time to time, writing the ‘Inner Strength Act I.5 HD ReMix’. But that’d be a major undertaking. On top of the additional chapters (probably between six and eight) I’d have to retouch the following chapters to play off of any new information. It’s something I’ll possibly do if I really have time, but is otherwise unlikely.
On top of the new relationship and fun awkwardness therein, I could include things from their second date (after which Fluttershy asks Twilight to spend the night so she doesn’t have to be alone with her thoughts), show Applejack struggling a bit more with her conflicting thoughts instead of just telling the readers that she’s been struggling, show the fights that happen between Twilight and Rainbow that are only ever mentioned, and, of course, do something fucking worthwhile with Rarity. That’d be the main focus, I think. Fluttershy’s conflicting feelings on how she still loves Rarity (and at that point, loves her more than she loves her actual marefriend), and Twilight’s romantic insecurities. Ugh. Talking about it makes me want to do it more 
Stormy Skies:
The biggest one. The actual reason I’m writing this blog post at all. I think I did parts of the rape plot well, and other parts awful.
I do think the buildup is good. Very low key foreshadowing happens as early as chapter four, where Rainbow awkwardly tells Twilight that sex is a concern with Fluttershy. It gets more direct when Fluttershy and Rainbow actually talk about him a few chapters later. By the time we get to the actual chapter with Stormy Skies, the reader probably has an idea of what’s up, or at the very least knows something’s up. This is all good, and makes it feel like a genuine part of the story rather than a bit of extra drama added for drama’s sake.
The reveal itself is complicated. I think I did alright. I think it could’ve done better, but I don’t necessarily think I would do it that much better if I did it now. It’s just such a delicate subject and there’s a thin line between going over the top and making the whole thing read like an angst fic, or going to small and making it feel like the characters are emotionally detached from it.
But regardless of how well I did or didn’t do there, the real problem is what happens after the reveal. Which is nothing. I went and revealed this horrible life altering thing, and then barely even touched on how Fluttershy felt afterwards. It’s my least favorite part of the story. We do see how Twilight feels afterwards, with her being terrified of doing something wrong, and I’m glad I went there. But I very much think it would be better if I had written a chapter in between the reveal and the Twilight chapter from Fluttershy’s point of view, where we’d see directly inside her head as she struggles with her self-image and the fact that Twilight now knows this secret she’s kept from almost everyone. A chapter like that is the minimum I should have done, and I didn’t do it. I wound up playing into a rape trope that I hate, that as soon a rape victim comes out about their experiences everything is magically better. I set out to tell a more realistic story about a horrible reality, and I failed there.
Oh well. That’ll be part of the ‘Inner Strength Final Mix+’ 
It's good to reflect on past mistakes, when I look at the prototypes of my stories I often feel as you described in this blog post.
Just like it's also good that you are still happy of the work you made as a whole with them :)
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But yeah, no matter how negative I should here, I do still think I did a pretty good job with it 
Lol yeah, happy with it as long as I don't have to read it