Author's Commentary: Meltdown · 7:50pm Sep 20th, 2017
For a while now I’ve been mulling over the idea of doing an “Author’s Commentary” series, focused primarily on Meltdown/Reaction/Critical Mass, where I go through the series, rereading it and then making blog posts with commentary on it.
I had planned to start on this last week, but things came up, and I’m just now getting started on it. I’m not really sure how this is going to go, but the basic format will be one post per chapter, so an example will be “Author’s Commentary: Reaction Chapter x” once I get there.
Now, before I begin, a few more comments to add here. 1. There will probably be spoilers. I’m not sure if I will hide spoilers- some which will be spoilers for future stories, I may hide, especially if I haven’t written them yet, others, I may not. 2. There may be a lot of things in this commentary series which is repeated from the Author’s Notes sections. 3. I’m not going to put the story here, I’m just going to go through it and read it and offer commentary as I read and think of it. It might not all be in order. 4. I’m going to go into quite a bit of detail behind things, assuming that the detail to my process and what I was thinking is there (and I remember it). I have had an overarching plan behind this series, but much less so with Meltdown.
I have no idea how this is going to go, so bear with me. This commentary probably won’t be very good- since this is the first one, and Meltdown didn’t have a real in-depth plan to it.
Now, I think that about covers it. Shall we begin..?
I’ll start by saying that Meltdown was originally a one-shot. I had no plans for a sequel or anything. It’s part of the reason it was originally tagged as “tragedy” because it was implied that Twilight died from the radiation exposure.
Meltdown opens up with something of an unassuming scene- Twilight obsessing over how she looks, wanting to be perfect. Ever the perfectionist… Spike, of course, is right there to tell her that she’s worrying too much.
And just like that, we start out with Twilight worrying- a theme that continues to dominate this series. She’s a worrier, and it hurts her. To those of you who have read Critical Mass to the end, then you know what I mean by saying that Twilight’s worry and fear hurts her.
Spike pinning after Rarity. I read this and ask myself why I did this. I don’t really remember, it was likely a heat of the moment sort of thing where I wanted to add some humor. I don’t like that now.
And I also feel like I broke the show not tell rule with one sentence in this part, “She glanced at the clock and realized why he had been trying to convince her she looked perfect.”
Yes, I’m criticizing my own work here. I would be lying if I said I never looked down on my own work. I’m a bit embarrassed by Meltdown and a couple other stories of mine, to be honest. I feel like Reaction is probably one of, if not the best story I have written.
It feels like the opening of this story is fast-paced. It’s so different from what I’ve grown used to writing since I’ve written Reaction and Critical Mass. I’ve become used to writing more drawn out scenes… and I think that adds something to those two stories.
I don’t remember my reasoning behind Twilight not asking Rainbow beforehand. It might have been a heat of the moment thing too. After all, I didn’t have a grand plan when I wrote Meltdown. It was only in Reaction where I developed that grand plan for this series…
As Twilight flies out of the castle and flies around the town, she both casts a shadow on the ground and foreshadows what’s gonna happen. I want to bury my head in a pillow as I read this.
I really don’t want to do the commentary on Meltdown…
Alright, so Rainbow slept in. Compared with the rest of the series, this feels a bit out of place. Rainbow is generally up early in this series, and this is about the only time when she sleeps in so late. She’s even gone for extended periods with only a few hours of sleep in the early chapters of Reaction, and she’s been fine and not really suffered from sleep deprevation.
Well, I did get a smile out of reading “You’re paying right?” so I guess this story isn’t a complete loss. Oh Rainbow, sure, make the princess pay for everything. That’s tax bits well spent! I wonder how taxes work in Equestria…
And I think it’s somewhere around in here where we start to get to the point with Twilight being uncomfortable with “imposing” on Rainbow. Even at the end of Critical Mass, which is more or less where that comes to a head, after almost 300,000 words of buildup, she’s uncomfortable with the idea that she could possibly be taking advantage of Rainbow. She doesn’t want to deny Rainbow her own life, even as much as she wants to be with her, and her own mind is her own worst enemy, constantly telling her that she’s taking advantage of Rainbow.
Artificial suspense provided by eclipses (…) in the narration. I need to go back and edit this out. I also have gone overboard in this series in using eclipses… I did it again. But, it’s to serve a point. It’s meant to show them being uneasy and or uncomfortable and hesitant.
Also, I’m going to go ahead and say right here that I’ve never been on a date before. I’m an introvert and I’ve not been active in social life. I don’t have any experience with going on dates or how those go, but I do have experience with being nervous. That said, I think I didn’t handle Twilight being nervous about asking Rainbow as well as I could have. But, then again, it might have been something I did subconsciously because it can add to the feeling of the whole series. I’m not exactly sure what I’m getting at here, but it feels important.
Oh Pinkie, you made me smile again because you agitated Twilight. Never change…
And again, the random joke about Twilight being rich. “Twilight’s buying.” It’s strange and funny… also I kind of have a joke about that in a chapter in Reaction. Or at least I remember writing one- I may not have included it. Basically, it involved Rarity commenting that Twilight had all of them beat in terms of wealth.
I wonder if Rainbow has problems with knowing that Twilight’s the one with the wealth who brings home the hay?
I’m starting to enjoy this.
Oh right, I forgot about the little gag with Derpy. That’s another little random unplanned thing about this story, although to be honest, this entire story was unplanned. I went into it with no plan, no weapons, nowhere to go, and nothing to lose (except my nonexistent reputation). Well, I did have an idea of what I wanted it to have. On that note, generally, I don’t start on a story until I have a story name and the idea for the story. The example I can come up with is I have a few stories I’ve not gotten around to writing which are one-shots, but I haven’t started because I cannot come up with names for them.
I went into this story with an idea for Twidash. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to make it like this. It’s… strange. How exactly did I manage to get from “Alright, let’s go ahead and try to write some Twidash,” to “Hey, why don’t I throw in a nuclear reactor that’s about to meltdown unless Twilight stops it and irradiates herself in the process?”
That’s like something you would dream. Just, Twidash, and then suddenly a nuclear reactor melting down. I have no idea why I decided to do this.
Pancakes. You can find pancakes in every story in this series. Or at least if I remember correctly. I’m a very picky eater, alright? I have no idea what breakfast foods there are! Eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, muffins, cereal… I’m not that creative.
Later on, I’ll have something to say about Twilight and her regalia.
I don’t think I ever actually decided on the exact timing of when Twilight started to have feelings for Rainbow. I think somewhere it was said to be months, but I also think that somewhere it says a while or implies from the beginning…
Speaking of the beginning, when I went back and rewatched the first two episodes of MLP a while back, I could not help but think “Twidash” in my mind everytime Twilight and Rainbow interacted…
And thus Rainbow makes a choice which changes everything… You know, she never actually said “no” here, so Twilight’s never been right when she said Rainbow told her “no.”
Also of comment here, rereading this, I wonder what Rainbow was supposed to be thinking. In the sequels, Rainbow more or less acknowledges that she didn’t think or only thought about how it would affect her negatively from the standpoint of being a Wonderbolt. That comes to a head at the end of Critical Mass.
Twilight moping for hours. That’s kind of a prelude to the future stories where she’s so distraught. It’s also displayed here that she worries way too much, and even up to the end of Critical Mass, she’s a worrier, and that’s her major problem.
Starlight and Spike try to be there for Twilight and comfort her. They both care about her. In Reaction and Critical Mass, Spike is pretty heavily overshadowed. Starlight is there, but she’s kind of just in the background, like everypony else. I’m considering using Starlight as a main character in the upcoming story(ies) in this series. Not main in the sense of replacing Twilight or Rainbow, but as a secondary story going on. Which can be problematic since my ideas going forward are already pretty uncoherent…
Judging from Twilight’s reaction, she seems to have some pretty serious issues. Self-doubt being a major one. In Reaction and Critical Mass, you see that she derives a lot of her self-worth from her magic…
It’s also a recurring point that Twilight and her friends have done a lot together. Also relevant to this point is the recurring point that they’re starting to drift apart. To be honest, I kind of feel like that’s happening in the show too. It’s disheartening. I miss the earlier seasons when we could see more physical affection like nuzzles and just the general cuteness. I really miss that so much…
“Twilight had finally cheered up. Not really, but she was doing a better job of hiding it after she ate.” I don’t have anything to say about this, other than just quoting it. I had a day like this on Sunday. Saturday and Sunday were terrible days for me… a lot happened all at once which culminated in me having a severe breakdown which basically completely faded away at 8:45 PM on Sunday. I have mood swings…
“She wasted several hours in the morning making sure she looked her best, ruined a friendship, missed lunch, and then sulked for four hours.” A lot can be said by this sentence if you think about it. Considering that one of her fears is that her time with her friends is very limited because of their mortality, it adds another lens to look at it from.
I don’t really feel like I’m doing this commentary justice, but I am starting to enjoy it.
“She felt lonely, so very alone.” This is another recurring theme throughout this series. Twilight, despite everything, feels alone. There’s something deeper at play here, but what is it? It’s something related to my grand scheme, or at least if I remember properly, it is. Sort of. It’s a thing that adds quite a bit of context to the whole.
If I’m being entirely honest, this series is the series that I want to write so that you, after it’s all said, written, and done, as a reader can look back and think of everything in the context of the journey that has happened. I am trying to make a beautiful masterpiece with this series. It’s partially motivated/inspired by another Twidash series which will go unmentioned- but it was a very long one. I used to love that series, but recently when I tried to reread it, it just didn’t have the same spark to it… I’m a bit disappointed by that.
And now we get to the stranger part of the story. I ask myself why I did this now. Really, the implications of them having nuclear reactors raises so many questions. Especially with the episode where Rainbow dressed up as an astronaut. Do they have rockets? Space ships? What about missiles? Having nuclear reactors kind of implies them being able to build nuclear weapons. Why? Because we built nuclear bombs before we figured out how to make reactors work. That said, they probably haven’t had a reasons to develop bombs, and they might also not realize that there is that potential because they’re still so very innocent…
Also, computers are canon. There are so many minor things about this series which kinda irk me. My decision to have computers in it are one of them. Nuclear stuff is another- even if it is the basis of the whole series. I feel like I could have done better with this if I had made a few different choices, but it would have lost some of its uniqueness.
And yes, we’re to another part that I don’t want to read and I feel embarrassed by looking back at it. What does that say about me? I’m embarrassed by my own work. It’s not that I really think it’s “bad” but it just feels wrong and kind of makes me cringe.
The sequels to this story are so much better.
But there is one thing I do like about this- Twilight basically sacrifices herself to save others.
One of the comments on this story was about not trusting the nuclear scientist with the name Over Load. …Ya kinda have a point there. “A Doctor Over Load escaping a nuclear reactor that’s melting down? That doesn’t seem suspicious in the slightest. Nope. Not a bit.”
Alright, I don’t know everything about nuclear physics. What I know, I know because I enjoy nuclear stuff. It’s kind of funny because I’m studying accounting. My personal joke is “Major in accounting with a minor in nuclear physics.” I’m not actually studying nuclear physics, though. I’m just interested by physics.
“Twilight, what’s going on?” “It’s a Black Friday sale! Why else would they trigger the alarm!?”
Subcritical, critical, supercritical. The three states of nuclear reactions. I still think Critical was the proper state to have said it was in. Subcritical is an unsustained reaction which will eventually die, critical is sustained, and supercritical is gonna go boom.
I don’t think It was ever stated exactly who the negotiations Celestia and Luna were attending were with, nor what they were about. I guess it’s kind of implied later that it was the Yaks.
“Besides, I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’ll around the core.” I didn’t realize around was a verb.
And Twilight lies to her friends. It’s a half truth. She is resistant to radiation, but not immune to it. Alicorns are resistant to a lot of things in this series. But, she lies to her friends. That’s the main point here. It’s to protect them, isn’t it?
I kind of miss snarky Twilight too. She had such a different charm in the earlier seasons… Not that I don’t like her now, but I just miss some things…
Twilight’s afraid in the part where she’s in the control room, but it’s a different kind of fear from what she’s experienced in future stories. She has a time limit, and it’s not just her life on the line.
Also, now a heavier topic. “The device produced a clicking sound, and she thought back to what happened earlier in the day.” This sentence is what makes her going into the core room change from being a self-sacrifice to save her friends into a pseudo-attempted suicide. It’s more or less that she doesn’t bother to evaluate other alternatives, instead she goes into the core room knowing it will kill her, and not caring that she’ll die. It makes things darker- and she’s not really even admitted it by the end of Critical Mass, but she has acknowledged she knew she was going to die.
I really could have done a better job with this story, but I’ve improved since I wrote it.
Also, the sentence “Resigned to her fate, she stepped into the room,” adds to the context of it being a pseudo-attempted suicide. She’s very well aware that she is going to die, and doesn’t care. Although she doesn’t have a choice, if she wants to save everypony and Ponyville.
Also, the fact that she walked over to the emergency switch, inside the core (which seems to be a very bad design choice), seems to say it’s made out of a magic resistant material, since she had to be close to it to use it. This implies that some materials are resistant to magic. I don’t know why it’s important but I feel that it’s important to make a note of that.
It’s also heavily implied she received a lethal dose of radiation because of how quickly the side effects set in. And just for a moment, consider that she was in the core for maybe 5 minutes, and that’s stretching it a lot, and she took a lethal dose in that time. Something seems wrong about that from a physics standpoint, but I could be wrong.
Also, it was only in Reaction that I realized how bad of an idea it was for her to wear her tiara and regalia into the core room. Gold does not mix well with radiation… or so I have heard.
I really want to explore Twilight’s relationship with Celestia more in this series. Celestia really cares about Twilight, and so does Luna. In Reaction, it’s kind of implied that Twilight is in a way, Celestia’s daughter because Celestia ascended her- and I think there’s a scene in it where Celestia comments about thinking of Twilight as her own.
I also want to explore Luna’s relationship with Twilight more. And well, Luna in general. And I want to explore Celestia and Luna interacting with Rainbow. I enjoyed that in Critical Mass.
The ponies see Celestia as looking “old” after she walks out of Twilight’s room. I suddenly think my subconscious is planning things out more than I am… it explains quite a bit if I’m right. Possible spoilers, so I won’t go into details. Although I will say it explains a few things about Celestia and how she handles things in the sequels.
I don’t really know how to write Pinkie. I think I’ve said that before, but I’m not sure where. I’m also not really sure what to do with Fluttershy in this series. She’s close to Twilight, and Twilight enjoys her company, as acknowledged in Reaction… but I feel like I’m missing something there. I also have loose plans to have her and Discord get together in one of the upcoming stories. It can also be a supporting point for another story even further into the future…
So many plans…
The dose of radiation, at least as far as I’ve thought about it or considered it to be, but is nowhere stated, is 27 grays.
And then finally the best part of the story! It ends! …only to serve as the beginning for a series.
Well, the ending is also more or less my first delve into writing cuddling. I don’t think I wrote anything like that before that. I could be misremembering though. I’ve been told multiple times that I’m good at writing cuddles. That makes me happy, because I enjoy writing them. They’re great and cute.
Well, that’s that. I’m tired. This blog post is longer than some stories.
I don’t know what else to say here. Feel free to comment (please do). I plan on doing more of these, but I don’t have a schedule for it, so they’ll come out whenever I have time to reread my writing.
I think I did “okay” with this, considering it’s my first attempt at something like this. It feels more like a review than a commentary to me, though… But I should improve as I do this more often. One other thing to note is I did enjoy this for the most part, aside from the times when I stopped to make a note about not wanting to do this for Meltdown.
Until next time! I hope you’ve found this enlightening.
"Artificial suspense provided by eclipses (…) in the narration"
I pretty sure it's supposed to be 'ellipses' not 'eclipses'. Unless that's an American thing, I don't know I'm British.
"Having nuclear reactors kind of implies them being able to build nuclear weapons. Why? Because we built nuclear bombs before we figured out how to make reactors work. That said, they probably haven’t had a reasons to develop bombs, and they might also not realize that there is that potential because they’re still so very innocent…"
I'm fairly certain that if they have nuclear reactors they have nuclear bombs but I'm not 100% sure, I don't study nuclear physics either. An atom bomb is basically a run away or "uncontrolled" fission reaction, while a nuclear reactor uses control rods to slow the reaction down (if I remember from my physics classes) and make it more of a "controlled" reaction. Obviously it is easier and simpler to not control something than it is to control it so I'm almost certain they have nukes. Maybe they dismantled most of them or maybe just never built many to begin with. Who knows maybe they have like 50 or 100 for self defence. But they almost certainly have the bomb.
Also
, authors commentary is here and I can't wait for more!!!!
4673882
Yes, I meant ellipses... Apparently, that's what I get for typing it out in Microsoft Word.
From my understanding of nuclear physics, you're correct.
And now, we can question how nukes fare against magic. And Discord.
I actually considered somewhere along the line having a story in this series where somepony actually built a bomb and then threatened to use it unless reasons, and they wanted to talk to Twilight and had a grudge against her for some reason. I more or less discarded that idea when I started on Critical Mass.
Glad you enjoyed! I'm looking forward to Reaction Chapter 1, but I don't know when I'll get around to that. It'll probably be next week, but it might be sooner than that depending on how much time I have.
4673928
"I actually considered somewhere along the line having a story in this series where somepony actually build a bomb and then threatened to use it unless reasons, and they wanted to talk to Twilight and had a grudge against her for some reason. I more or less discarded that idea when I started on Critical Mass."
That's actually not a bad idea. but I think that Reaction suited the series because, in the show I don't think that there were two ponys or more that had a grudge on Twilight. But the Changeling Queen was a good pick on being the villain in the series, since it's already canon in the show.
Maybe you can take your idea and put it in a story by itself, that is if you wanted to.
And if you considered the idea or something, the story could be kinda like Reaction, Meltdown, and/ or Critical Mass, just with a different storyline.
Or it could just be a short/long one shot so you don't have to tire yourself with writing.
But anyway, none of your story were bad or fast paced. Neither is Reaction, if I remember correctly. And the way you wrote everyones personality in the stories were great.
4674388
I suppose making that into a stand-alone story could be fun. Maybe something a bit like the show "24." There's probably better shows to use as an example for what it could be like, but I can't think of one. Something along the lines of somepony building a bomb and then hiding it somewhere and threatening to detonate it in a populated region unless the good guys stop him... Hmm, I guess that could be an interesting story- but it feels a bit out of place from what I've written. It'd be new for me, so I'm not sure I could pull it off properly. I suppose practice makes perfect, though...
I feel a bit like I struggled with writing the rest of the ponies' personalities in Reaction and Critical Mass- it felt so much like copy-pasting because the mood was generally solemn or sad, so I didn't get an opportunity to explore them a whole lot... Hopefully, I'll get an opportunity to explore their personalities more in future stories. I really haven't had much practice with writing characters aside from Twilight, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Rainbow Dash, or at least I don't feel like I've had much practice with them.