Please read it! The Princess's Captain! · 9:58pm Jan 16th, 2018
Once upon a time, I had a request. It's been three months since the MLP movie, and I've finally turned that request into a reality.
Holy fucking shit, I can't believe that worked.
Look, half the time when I get a new idea, the first thing I do is sit on it for years unless it's something stupid I can dash off in a hurry. Even if I really want to write something longer, it's going to take months on end for me to get through the planning stage, not to mention finish whatever I'm currently supposed to be working on, or at least give up on it in shame. I don't get shit done fast, is my point.
But here we are, in a land where my slow-burn Twempest shipfic just dropped its first installment and damn, I can hardly believe it. @_@ I hope people like it. I hope they understand what I'm trying to do, i.e., that it's going to be a series of complete, sometimes chaptered, stories but I'm not marking the whole complete until it's done.
They always say you should know how your story ends. Well, I do. I sure as fuck know exactly how it ends, and I can even tell if you don't mind spoilers. But the point isn't the end, it's the journey, and though I have a good 6k words of story ideas already, I don't know exactly where this is going to go. That should be the fun of writing it. :D
I'm really hopeful people enjoy this because it's a very important fic for me. For starters, I'm writing romance the way I want to see it written. You're going to have a solid seven or eight adventure stories, minimum, before there's any smooching. (Well, at least between Twilight and Tempest. There will be lots of side ships.) Because that's how you do romance, you set it up right from the beginning. And by golly, I am setting it way the hell up, for all that I've already snuck hints of attraction in there. I'm reforming Tempest, I'm going to explore a lot of my ideas about what romance and love are, I'm going to pull together a lot of threads from the movie and see if I can't make something decent out of them.
But more importantly, this is me really trying to challenge myself as a writer. It's not something I do, frequently. But I feel like I need to give my skills a serious workout, so I'm not writing this with the help of any editors. It's all my effort. Of course, that's not entirely true; the A/N at the end of the first story tells of folks who've helped me already, some at the conceptual level, a couple with ideas, and one (the artist) with actual feedback because I don't want someone putting their name on something they're not gonna like. :B But no one's seen the final draft save me, and in the future, I'm going to have even less help, and we'll see what I can do on my own.
So please, read The Princess's Captain. Even if you don't like shipping. No, especially if you don't like shipping, because you're sick of ponies just falling for each other for no reason. I'm gonna give you a reason. The first entry in my story notes is Chris's argument against shipfics:
...stories which are centrally about shipping two characters together tend to do things that don't work for me as a reader. Things like have someone become completely, utterly infatuated with someone they've never even met, and have the story imply that this is not infatuation, but genuine, unreserved love. Things like having two characters who've met only hours ago proclaim their undying love for one another with complete sincerity. Things like suggesting that family, friends, and life ambitions become irrelevant at best, and unwelcome distractions at worst, as soon as one's True Love has been discovered.
I ain't gonna do that. And if I can't give you at least a half-dozen fun and exciting adventure and slice of life fics before the shipping starts, and you're convinced it's worth having, then godspeed, you never need to read another romance, certainly not on my say-so.
Next up, Tempest vs. the CMCs! :) Who knows when that will happen...
YAAAAS
Interesting... is it actually complete?
my only complaint right now is that i don't like tempest with her hair down. it just doesn't look right- maybe because it makes her look too similar to pinkamena? i dunno.
Sweet! Can't wait until it's all done so I will read it all in one sitting.
4775076
The story The Princess's Captain is complete. The series The Princess's Captain is not. Hopefully it'll be more obvious if/when I post the next story. I just didn't want to start flooding my gallery with hundreds of stories that turn out to be the 100th sequel of something you've never read. :B
4775077
Well, it hasn't happened yet!
4775082
I do not recommend doing that. :B Treat it as multiple stories, like a collection. Cuz you gonna be waiting a loooong time probably.
4775133
So, the first arc is done, okay. Incomplete tags scare me.
This sounds:
Like just the thing. I'm definitely signing up!
Mike
Well, I probably won't wait until it's marked finished, but I'm gonna wait until that bit up there is true. I doubt you managed to pack that many adventure stories in the first arc. Basically I want the smooching and a good amount of build-up done before diving in. Though I might get tempted to check out the first bit that is already up just because I wanna read some Tempest shipping.
4775137
It was a risk! :B
4775144
I'll let ya know when the smooching happens.
Are you holding specifically for Tempest smooching? Because there'll probably be some other kinds first. :V
Cool! DLed to kindle; will read it next!
4775162
Nah, mostly just want to read all the build-up to Tempest smooching.
4775212
Acceptable!
4775232
i.ytimg.com/vi/W8QRExBfQhs/hqdefault.jpg
Hey, congrats on doing a thing! I'll have to give it a read at ... some nebulous point in the future.
Though as for other ships to tide folks over, I can only assume the story will be filled with blatant Rarijack and maybe hints of CarrotSentry. (Or maybe more the former than the latter but still!)
Glad someone did get you that picture.
I'll definitely have to check this out... once I actually get back to reading fanfics. Haven't been so great about that lately
So, a shipping story whose main selling point is it's going to spend as long as possible pretending it isn't shipping, inevitably attracting a bunch of questing readers who will almost immediately drop it because their definition of a slow burn is for the first kiss to not happen until three chapters in, which may result in a dearth of unearned downvotes because they feel your tags are being dishonest, coupled with the upload schedule that was slowly bringing us whatever that story about the Main Six but with beards was?
Honestly, count me in. If nothing else, you're a solid writer and I can't ever remember seeing you so passionate about anything that wasn't a poorly-thought-out rant.
4775258
Right on the first count, but that's all I'll admit to! :V
Well, and the one ship that isn't really a ship...
4775509
This is maybe the best compliment. ;_;
I haven't seen the movie, what do I need to know about Tempest Shadow?
4778088
Her background especially, but also the role she plays in the movie. She's kind of the main character, next to Twilight, and not easy to just sum up. :B A little bit from the comics, maybe, but nothing that couldn't be inferred as reasonable from seeing it at work.