Laziness and Stubbornness · 4:13am Jul 13th, 2018
Hello again. It's been a while, hasn't it? How are the kids? Is the missus doing well? Good, good.
Welp, no need to beat around the bush. It's been a bit since I've last been heard from here. Going on almost four years, even. I'm not here to make excuses. I could talk about my college experiences, family situations I've had, the fact that I'm engaged now, so on and so forth. But those would all just be excuses. I've had more than enough time to write over the years no matter what I had going on. If I was lucky I was spending that time playing video games or spending time with people. But nah, most of the time I was laying on my ass, browsing the web over nothing. The real reason there hasn't been a chapter in four years? The first of the two traits in the title. I'm lazy. I'm really fucking lazy. I struggle finding the motivation for anything and I have the attention span of a walnut. That's been the case for years, but sometime around the Sophomore year of college it utterly consumed me. I don't know why I'm like this. This has applied to me with everything in life lately, not just writing. It isn't for a lack of enjoying what I do. I genuinely love writing. I had a blast writing parts of the newest TCBH chapter, especially stuff like Morgan trying to cuss. I know I'm not the strongest writer out there, but I find it fun and I like to tell stories. But for whatever reason, I've been too lazy to get up and actually DO SOMETHING for years.
Ya know, I was going through some of my old blog posts and it's a pretty amusing ride in retrospect. There 2013 Shed was, talking about how he was upset over taking a few months to get an update out. If only he knew that I was gonna make that shit look like amateur hour hiatuses. Back then I was worried about losing readers due to the time I was taking, but now here I am uploading a chapter four years later. So why come back? Why not just fart out a blog and go "Stories are canceled guys, here's what was going to happen, bye!" Well, that's where the second trait in the title comes in. I'm a lazy SOB, but I'm also a stubborn SOB. I can't stand starting something and not finishing it. While it obviously wasn't always at the top of mind, all these six years of when TCBH has been in progress, it's never left my mind. I never forgot about it, I just... wasn't doing anything with it. Half of me keeps urging to finish my stories while the other half wants me to just lay around. Laziness and stubbornness. It is not a fun combination to have.
So yeah, if I've lost readers over these years I understand completely. Shit I probably would have lost interest too. But if any of you have been here since the last chapters, you poor souls, I'm genuinely sorry. All I can offer is that I want to finish what I've started and give closure to my stories. Will they be worth a half a decade wait? Probably not, but I'll do it anyway. And if I pick up any new readers along the way, hey that's pretty cool. If you're curious what's had me getting an update now of all times, starting last month I've been trying to commit to a sort of writing challenge where you try to reach a word goal by the end of three months. I've tried similar things before and accomplished fuck all, but for some reason I'm doing alright this time? I don't know what it is, maybe it's having my life a bit more on track this year, maybe it's the knowledge that I'll be married soon and I probably won't be doing much writing at all once that happens. Whatever it is, I finished one story over on FFN earlier this year, and have gotten out a few other chapters last month. So this month my focus is on finishing TCBH.
The chapter uploaded today was the penultimate chapter. Originally I had planned for there to be at least two more chapters after it, but I decided to cut any filler and just combine everything I had left planned into a single chapter. Hopefully the knowledge that the thing is one chapter away from completion helps keep me focused on finishing the damn thing. I won't make promises because I know how I am, but since I've actually been getting some results during this writing challenge, I'll try my best. Now for anyone who has also read it, this raises the question of what about Don't Go To Sleep, but I'll tackle that when I come to it. Focusing on the one pony story for now.
Alright, that's enough serious bullshit. Let's talk about some notes and stuff from the chapter, shall we? So I crammed a few references into the chapter, because why not amirite? Some were just jokes, like the offhand mention of Twilight possibly making a good teacher, alluding to the most recent season, or the joke about Morgan feeling like he'd been in Equestria for six years. But there were two rather major things during the library scene. I incorporated the Canterlot Library's restricted section only just recently found out about in an Equestria Girls short, and in general made reference to Equestria Girls with the nod about there being a direct portal to a "human world" in canon. It might have come across as forced, I don't know, but I felt like including it.
And then there was the old text that had the writer conducting an interview with a white, yellow haired Pegasus with a personality similar to Pinkie Pie. Plenty of people will probably be able to recognize this as a reference to Surprise, who was considered to be an early version of what ultimately became Pinkie Pie during the planning of FiM. I'd seen Surprise utilized in a "She's like Pinkie Pie but as a Pegasus" sort of role frequently in the fandom, so I thought it would be a nice little gag that fit with what I needed Twilight to find in her library search. But deadass, as I was looking up Surprise to confirm that I was remembering her design correctly, I found out that apparently the white Wonderbolt with yellow hair has since been officially confirmed to be Surprise. The way I was writing her into the reference she was a pony that existed hundreds of years prior, but nope apparently she's just chilling at the Wonderbolts now. While it makes the reference to Surprise as not-Pinkie Pie in that book make a bit less sense, at that point I thought "Fuck it, may as well roll with it." So I added a line from Rainbow Dash acknowledging the Wonderbolt in question and moved on. It's an AU, we can overlook these plot holes, eh? And in case it was confusing during the chapter itself, the fact that Morgan is now unable to curse is due to the fact that he's being watched in episode form by his friends. And after all, FiM is a kid's show. Convoluted? Probably. But I enjoyed the lines of him trying and failing to cuss so I rolled with that too.
There's more I want to touch on, a lot of it about the story as a whole rather than the specific chapter, but as a result I'll be saving those for the blog when I finish the story with the next chapter. It's stuff I do really want to touch on, so I'm hoping it'll be another motivator for me to get the chapter done. So I'll leave it here for now with the story talk. The chapter came out a bit shorter than I would have liked, and it might read a bit awkwardly since the lunch scene at the beginning was written four years ago directly after the last chapter, and the rest this year, but I'm mostly happy with how it turned out.
Hm, what else? I recall having a tendency to talk about random shit after I would talk about my stories in old blog posts. But honestly, I don't want to waste much more time of anyone that may be reading this. I usually talked about video games, but a quick skim through old blogs shows how much of a Nintendo guy I am. You can probably guess a lot of the games that had caught my attention the past few years. Though there were definitely others outside of The Big N, such as Persona 5 and Overwatch. I could mentioned how I've been campaigning for King K Rool and Simon Belmont to be added to Smash to anyone that would listen. I could talk about how I've been and out of meme fandoms like Steven Universe, Undertale, Doki Doki, My Hero Academia, etc to varying degrees. But nah, let's end with something more relevant. Pone.
So the last I mentioned of the show in previous blogs was season 4. A lot has happened since then. The CMC finally got their cutie marks, we had two major fandom reference episodes with Slice of Life and Fame And Misfortune. Maybe a third if you count Stranger Than Fanfiction. The girls run a school now sorta kind, despite it showing up in less episodes this season than you'd think. And we saw the redemption of characters like Trixie, Diamond Tiara, Flim and Flam kinda, the changelings, and...
Well, there's one talking point in particular I wanna talk about. A specific character, if you will. A bit of a polarizing figure from what I've seen.
[Onmywaytotakeyourscreentime dot gif]
Starlight "Glim Glam" Glimmer herself. She seems to be the epitome of a "love em or hate em" kind of character. Those that like her seem to like her a lot. And those that hate her throw around terms like "Poochie 2.0" and "Ms. Jumped the Shark." Be it because they hate how much screentime she gets or how she has similarities with Sunset Shimmer, only for Sunset to be relegated to EqG while Glim Glam gets the main show. I can definitely see why the detractors don't like her. But well, say what you will about my "shit taste" if you must. Consider me on the "love em" side.
Look, I get it. Her redemption was ridiculously rushed. Laughably so, really. And yes, she can be a spotlight hog. And the similarities to Sunset can't be ignored. But damn it if I don't usually find her entertaining. I love her relationships with Maud, Spike, and Trixie (outside of the bizzare first episode with them where Trixie deadass almost committed Sudoku over it). I find her funny. And I'm a sucker for redeemed villain types in general. I mean come on.
How can you dislike that face?
... don't answer that, the answer is probably "Very easily" for some of you. My point is, I definitely see the gripes about her and I can easily see why people who don't like her think as much. But I've quite enjoyed her addition to the cast, even if a lot of things related to her have been handled sloppily.
Welp, that's about enough longwinded typing for the day. See you fellows around, hopefully soon, with the blog that will follow the next and final TCBH chapter.
Yeesh two people back in one month? Lord must be watching out for us fanfiction readers!
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Must be that summertime writing bug buzzing around.