A Simple Discussion follow-up · 5:24am Feb 22nd, 2018
It's been quite a while since I last posted a new story, hasn't it? Hopefully that won't be a continuing trend.
As is tradition here, it's time to slap up a blog post about the writing of said story, my thoughts on it, and anything else that comes to mind.
Much like The Legacy of Sunset Shimmer, the story came out of following the news of an upcoming Equestria Girls entry and recognizing a pattern. In this case, it was that seemingly everything that was deathly dangerous the girls seemed to either come from Equestria or be warped by Equestrian magic in some way. Not that this is a new point by any means - it's been discussed, dissected, and distributed across the entire fandom by this point. The second point of inspiration came when I remembered this bit from the first Halloween episode of The Simpsons (and is what I stole the chapter title from):
This led to the thought of a very steamed Principal Celestia, fed up with dealing with this crap, pulling Sunset Shimmer aside and trying to figure out what the actual deal is. From there, it was just a matter of adding the other characters, and after "Shadow Play" brought Star Swirl the Bearded, the hairy horse canonically responsible for at least one of these banishings, back into the modern-day Equestria, it was too delicious an opportunity to pass up.
The story went through three top-to-down rewrites. The original idea was that Principal Celestia was the one to initiate the idea of official talks between Canterlot High and Equestria, and that this meeting was the very first attempt to hammer out an agreement. She was also dead-set on getting reimbursements and an admission of guilt from Star Swirl once she found out who he was. Sunset and Twilight were more terrified in this version as well, since they had no idea how she was going to react to the amount of dangers the repeated banishings and Sunset's introduction of magic to a magic-free world had created. When I thought it over again, however, I realized it made Celestia too much of an ass and really, really wasn't amusing or enjoyable in any way. The second version was more of the same, but had established that this meeting was the most recent of a series of events, while also pulling some of the more extreme actions and reactions back to help ground the cast.
The bigger issue for me, however, was that the original drafts focused far too much of the insanity of the situation, and didn't give these particular characters anything beyond being stock figures in a farce. (Which they may have ended up being, anyway. I'm pretty much crap at judging my own work at this point.) And thus came the third rewrite, where I pretty much dumped everything and rewrote the story to make things at least a little more ambiguous. The idea was that everyone in the meeting was both right and wrong, and were (mostly) acting with both good and selfish intentions.
Princess Twilight genuinely wants to make up for the damage Equestria has caused and to establish a friendship between worlds, but her solution is to basically buy that friendship, and in trying to come up with a sum to cover all the damage, she ends up obfuscating Principal Celestia's actual goal. She also still has the problem of not having much of a backbone against her idol, and her attempts at peacemaker just end with her getting knocked down. Another diplomatic victory for the princess who nearly caused a war. (And no, she will probably never live that down.)
Star Swirl the Bearded is an asshole. I don't care if he "learned about friendship," he's still an asshole. That said, I wasn't trying to make him the villain of the piece, but rather someone looking out for what he assumes to be Equestria's interests in a cold way. He has a point that moving the issues to another dimension saved lives, and the only established canon dumping was the Sirens, who were powerful enough to make entire villages attack each other. He's also right that this only became a problem when Sunset Shimmer stole the Element of Magic and introduced Equestrian magic. However, he also has no tact, is incredibly smug, and is so desperate to defend Equestria that he nearly derails the entire discussion to throw Sunset under the bus.
Principal Celestia is a pretty flat character in most of EqG, basically just being Celestia-lite. Most of the changes I made in the rewrites were just lessening her overt aggravation and trying to move her even closer to how I see her equine counterpart: a generally wise and capable leader with a lot of patience and self-control, but still having a frustration point that gets stomped on from dealing with this crap day after day. The PTA was always going to be a key motivator, both because Celestia genuinely cares for her students and wants to keep them safe (much like Alicorn!Celestia with her subjects), but also because it's her butt on the line if anyone is fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
And then there's Sunset. She...really had nothing to do in the original other than try to beat Star Swirl's wrinkly ass. She really had no stake in the original draft, seeing as she was pretty comfortable where she was. So the second draft would have involved Star Swirl also wanting to have her taken back to Equestria, since there still was a warrant out for her arrest. (One that no one was really keen on enforcing, but still.) This not only felt stupid, but flew in the face of Star Swirl's lesson from "Shadow Play." Thankfully, the special helped me think of something she would care about: the lives of her friends. Again, she was trying to protect those she cared about, but went about it by manipulating the situation, which is what helped bring Star Swirl into the mess and sent things into chaos.
The ending...gruh. The intent was to leave it open to interpretation what Sunset's idea was, but...yeah, she's going to mess with the list. Is she going to destroy them all? Cover up the most damning items with ice cream? I have an idea, but mostly it was just me trying to find an "iris out" note to end the story on. If it makes Sunset seem selfish and horrible...then that's fine, because again, I was trying to avoid making anyone (except perhaps Principal Celestia) out to be the clear good guy or bad guy.
For that matter, there's also something I wanted to discuss about my works. This really doesn't matter since they're so few and released so infrequently, but as far as I'm concerned, just about every story I've written (mostly excusing the Lunaverse stuff) is in the same universe. So the Sunset we saw in A Simple Discussion has also enjoyed the taste of meat, been turned into a child, and ultimate dies after living a long and fulfilling life. And since the child thing is canon, so is My Little Alicorn,, Bringing Up Blueblood, and Waning Moon.
Not that any of it's important until it actually becomes important. And this would technically require an Alternate Universe tag, especially since the MLA trilogy is ridiculously incompatible with the current canon, but they're connection with the present set of stories so far consists of Twilight using a particular forbidden tome for reference and her having experience with Age spells, so nothing too earth-shattering.
And finally, I want to thank everyone who has read A Simple Discussion. I know it may not seem like much, but the story represents over a month of work, constant rewrites, and my honest attempt not just to make something, but to make something worthwhile. To everyone who enjoyed the story, I'm glad I was able to help bring a little bit of joy your way. To everyone who didn't care for it, I'm glad that you were willing to give it a chance. I feel elated in a way I haven't felt since...well, since I was publishing Bringing Up Blueblood years ago.
As for the future, I'm obviously going to continue updating Little Sunny. That story's been going on forever, but darn it, I just can't give up on it, especially considering where it's going. I want to do something with Wallflower Blush from the latest EqG special, although it'll probably be something weird, deranged, and having fifteen hundred more words dedicated to it than necessary. But for now, I'll leave you with this:
Thank you. Each and everyone one of you. Thank you.
(...Also, if I vanish again, blame Final Fantasy XIV. Those tomestones ain't gonna grind themselves, ya know.)
What's funny is that Forgotten Friendship moves in a direction to lend credence to this story by introducing the second canonical dumping of stuff from Equestria, this time by one of Starswirl's own students, Clover the Clever, who shares his mentor's assholeishness by not only dumping a dangerous artifact in the CHS world, but leaving it complete with an instruction manual...
To be absolutely honest, I'm way behind on actual canon Pony because I've had a lot of other things to occupy my life. At this point, what I'm (slowly) writing is so far removed from the canon that I just don't care anymore. I've always thought this fandom focused far too much on stuff like that anyway. I really should try and catch up on everything I've missed...
I'm just glad to see you're still around.
And I totally understand the frustration and multiple rewrites if a story isn't cooperating. I've had to do that a couple of times, but more often I'm a serial tweaker, moving a paragraph or even a single sentence at a time.
4802873
My question is, how was Wallflower able to read Old Ponish?
4803222
Given that most written language in the show, on both sides of the mirror, is displayed as squiggles or otherwise unintelligible to us, how do we know that crossing dimensions didn't translate the writing the way ponies and other Equestrians get changed into other forms in the CHS world?