Author's Notes for Crystal Empire · 8:36am Jan 20th, 2018
IN WHICH I CELEBRATE MYSELF
Today is January 20th. Most of y'all who follow me know what that means -- It's time for a new Mayor Mare story! If you're looking at this on your feed rather than through the in-story link, follow me past the jump for tidbits that I at least find interesting!
I've had this problem of almost no one reading my stories lately. I expect this one won't get many views either *sigh*. I'm fully aware many of you are waiting with bated breath for me to put up those Sunset Shimmer stories I've been teasing for months. Or possibly the last couple of Burritoverse stories I have listed in THE GUIDE. I assure you progress is being made. But this story had to come first.
I've had an account on this site since May 2014 (and had been lurking for over a year before then), but I didn't actually have the guts to put up any of my own work until January 20th 2015, when I decided just for the hell of it to post a 10,000-word story wherein Mayor Mare tries to get fired from her job and ultimately fails. While written as a single narrative, I divided it into seven chapters at the last minute, and I'm still second-guessing if I should have uploaded it all at once like I did or spaced it out. Regardless, Ponyville Holds An Election was reasonably well-received, especially given I was a total unknown (I still am, but that's beside the point). Regrettably for the Mayor, I wrote a story just one month later -- Sunset Shimmer Buys A Burrito -- that irrevocably changed my relationship with this site, the readers, and the characters. But, I still make it a point to upload a Mayor Mare story every year on the anniversary of when I started dumping my word-barf onto this site, and I intend to keep doing so for as long as I hang around here.
FUN FACTS:
1. The Mayor's full name in my world, "Mayor Meyer Mare", is a reference to the novel Catch-22 where one of the main characters is named Major Major Major (he also holds the rank of Major). "Meyer" seemed like it would have less confusion over pronunciation than "Mayer".
2. The Mayor's secretary, who IIRC first appeared in "Luna Eclipsed", was given the name Raven. I'm not the one who named her -- chances are someone on Derpibooru did and others just ran with it. I usually like to mention she works at a writing desk, as a (hopefully obvious) reference to the Alice In Wonderland books.
3. This story officially ties together my MLP and EQG continuities. CoffeeMinion will realize while he's looking over my crap work, and the rest of you later, but I reference a few of my other stories in this, including the as-yet unpublished finale of the Recovery Arc. It and the Burritoverse were already linked by Rarity Pays For Burritos, which straddled both storylines. I dropped a reference to PHAE and the now-dispublished Antonovka because Raven talking about Granny Smith dragged the story in a boring direction.
4. The "gibberish" Mayor Mare says is an infamous lyric from the BabyMetal song "Megitsune" (lit. "Vixen"), using my homebrew Romanization style. It translates to, "Women should not be underestimated." Suzuka, the singer, pulls out a hidden knife in the original music video; in live shows, she does a ridiculously high kick.
5. YES, I threw in another Donald Trump reference with Orangeglow. NO, I'm still not sorry. I was tempted to use his actual word -- shithole -- but decided not to since there was no other cursing, and my unwritten "Style Guide" for MLP:FiM stories says that only Manehattanites (which in this universe Orangeglow is not) use English cursing. Or perhaps Cadance censored herself; she is the type, as she also refused to say, "Grab her by the pussy".
6. You may be wondering how Apple Bloom was able to grind Dragon's Rock into a fine powder when it's so volatile. Simple -- she was careful and used something inert like steel. You can chip flint without it sparking if you're not using flint. Also, I imagine Dragon's Rock is not particularly high on the Mohs Scale. Cadance's cut-short sentence wondered how Apple Bloom was able to find the basement, since (as shown in TCE.2), it's usually hidden by magic. Well, Apple Bloom must have taken some lessons from Pinkie Pie in addition to Zecora's herbalist training.
7. Yes, Raven has a little bit of a crush on the mayor. I hinted at this in one of the last Mayor's Break Time chapters and wanted to explore it more here, but the pace of the story didn't give me as much of a chance as I had hoped. I still threw in as much as I could. As with the three girls in my EQG verse who have crushes on Sunset, the target is completely oblivious. My worlds are ones of unrequited love and rejection. Kind of like my real life. The difference is Raven knows this and is fine with it. As long as she can keep the mayor out of too much trouble (and not be bored), she's cool with it.
Out of curiosity, I decided to go back and read my last two Mayor stories -- Orangeglow and the final chapter of MBT from this past July -- and was surprised at how well they read, particularly Orangeglow. It didn't have nearly as much PoliSci theorizing as I thought it did. On the other hand, some of the things I wrote a week before the real thing took office have come true. How was I supposed to know Sarah Huckabee (being from Arkansas, I can say that whole family deserves a special place in Tartarus) would relish lying when her boss's own words are literally quoted at her, just like Orangeglow did in my story?
The past three years have been quite the roller coaster in terms of both writing and my own life. Creating stories for you has helped me grow my confidence as a writer, and I like to think I've made some friends while I was at it. Thank you so much for everything. With luck, this fourth year will be even better! For the time being, I'm not going anywhere.
Peace out!
