• Member Since 6th Sep, 2012
  • offline last seen 8 hours ago

The 24th Pegasus


Author of the Commander Hurricane series (A Song of Storms), co-founder of the Price of Loyalty universe, and overall world building fanatic. Join my discord!

More Blog Posts228

  • 11 weeks
    2024 Sucks

    Rest in Peace Kirby
    02 April 2006 - 07 January 2024

    10 comments · 222 views
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    What it says on the tin. Simple enough, right?

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  • 86 weeks
    Equestria at War: Shores of Zebrica

    Hey hey people, been a while hasn't it? Yeah, it's ya boy with another one of those "drop off the face of the earth and then post a blog post out of the blue" moments. At least they only last a couple of months (usually) right?

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    2 comments · 515 views
Aug
13th
2018

Surviving Sand Island and General AMA · 5:10am Aug 13th, 2018

Hey all, I guess I've been quiet for a little while now. But I've merely been enjoying a lot of extended time at the beach and making the most out of all this new free time I've found myself with since finishing Surviving Sand Island. I'm not sure if it's ironic or what, but I'm not going to complain about the opportunity to laze in the sun and embrace my Italian heritage. I mean, if you can't conquer the known world, conquering the beach and the waves for a day is certainly fun.

But I know that's not what you all are interested in. You came here for what I've put in the title, so I'll cut right to it. Now that SSI has been over for about a month, I figured I would open myself up to an Ask Me Anything. I get the feeling that there are plenty of you out there that have some questions about the story, so here's a place to voice them and get them answered. Anything is fine; they can be as broad as what inspired me to write the story in the first place or as narrow as why exactly I listed everypony's favorite foods in Chapter 103 (Girl Talk). You can even ask me about stuff unrelated to SSI if you want. I'll happily answer anything... or at least, most anything. I figure I should cover that right now, just in case.

And to answer the question that I know I'll be asked repeatedly: No, there is not a sequel to the story on the radar any time soon. I have several other stories I want to write and work on first before I start thinking about that. Will there ultimately be a sequel? I think it's likely at some point in the future. Maybe 2020. But it definitely will not be a daily again. I've done that once, and while it was a satisfying challenge, I have no desire to dedicate that much time and effort to a single story again. The rest of my writing suffered as a result, and so I'm never going to write a daily again, as fulfilling as it was.

So with that out of the way, post your questions below. I'll answer them all throughout the week, whether I get two or two hundred. So if there's something you've always wanted to know about me or my work... ask away!

But before I go, I've got some funky fresh fanart to drop for you all to enjoy:

Ask away and have fun!
24

Report The 24th Pegasus · 568 views · Story: Surviving Sand Island · #AMA
Comments ( 12 )

Any answers as to what, exactly, is up with Chirp? He kinda just did the whole magic thing, then... was left open 'n stuff. Really the only question I got about this.

4919229
Yep. Also, are you going to start a new story or continue working on past uncompleted ones? :twilightsheepish:

4919229
Fourthed. And what about the old Avatar body? That sort of went nowhere. There's seems to be a lot of things that sort of don't have any real resolution...

If you were to continue the story in 2020, would you start off with something like "2 years later...." or would you pick up right where it left off?

What is purple smarts progress in searching around for them? Rainbow held out hope that she would search further afield.

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The idea I had with Chirp was that he was some sort of avatar or manifestation of the Sun God's powers. After all, if the Moon God was a real thing, then why wouldn't his brother? Unfortunately, that was one of those things that I never really got a chance to expand on when I decided to end the story where I did. But really, to even get to more of that would have taken an exorbitant amount of time, so it was ultimately dropped. But, like most things, if I do end up doing a sequel story, it would be expanded on then.

Fun fact: the minotaur words for Chirp were "saksi flaga" which means "sacred bird" in their tongue.

4919267
I've got a few stories I'm currently working on. The priority right now is the sequel to Two Thousand Miles, and the first draft of that story is almost complete. On top of that, I have a lot of ideas for other stories bouncing around in my head. The two most promising ones I want to write are a Pony on Earth story with an interesting historical twist to it and a spaghetti western inspired by this. I might touch on some of the incomplete stories on my page, but those stories in particular I only really write when I feel in the mood.

4919291
The corpse is probably sitting on the ocean floor somewhere. That was going to originally be used in the ritual at the end to give the god his own body, it just hadn't arrived at the island yet. Ultimately, the way those chapters shaped up didn't give me a satisfactory way to really touch upon it, so it got dropped like many things in the end.

4919309
There would definitely be a time skip. The story ended with the survivors unwilling to sacrifice one of their own to complete the ritual to lower the barrier and instead look for an alternative way to deal with it. Unfortunately, finding a work around without any real knowledge of the barrier is a very time consuming process...

4919317
That's a good question. Unfortunately, the survivors have no way of knowing what she's been doing, but this is Twilight after all. It's not like she would stop looking for her friends, right?

Of course, an even better question is how long she's willing to hold out hope that they're still alive...

Can Cubcakes be made on sand island?

Will there a short Story with what happend on the otherside? Like what are Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinky Pie and AppleJack doing? Are they searching for her friends?

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The story ended with the survivors unwilling to sacrifice one of their own to complete the ritual to lower the barrier and instead look for an alternative way to deal with it. Unfortunately, finding a work around without any real knowledge of the barrier is a very time consuming process...

So there is another way! Or did I get it wrong? Are they bound to just mess around until they give up or one of the pegasi gets old, sick or injured enough to volunteer for the sacrifice, not to let his/her remaining moments go to waste? (I don't see Jolly suddenly stabbing himself out of guilt or anything like that.)

Also, can Rarity change herself back into a unicorn, or into something resembling a pony? (I dunno. A seapony? A weird pony-siren hybrid? An almost normal pony with a soul gem and siren magic instead of or in addition to her horn?) Maybe she could at least shrink herself to Rainbow's size? Please note that I'm not asking if she will, only if it's possible. Maybe also how hard figuring it out and actually doing it could be.

4919367
Why did the siren 'pod' never try going outside the norm and talking to ponies about their trapped member?

4919390
I don't know about cubcakes, but maybe they can make cupcakes with some of the supplies they have left over from the airship crash that the other survivors had scavenged.

As for a short story on the other side, no. What would there even be to tell? It would just be however many words of the other girls worrying about their friends being gone, making some attempts to put something together to find them, and being sad all the time. Not really much of a story there. All the interesting stuff has been happening on the islands.

4919504
Just because they're searching for another way doesn't necessarily mean there is another way. That's something they'd have to find out themselves. Right now, they can only hope that they'll find something that doesn't require a sacrifice. And right now, all of the pegasi are healthy, so unless that changes, a heroic self-sacrifice isn't on the table.

And, well, Rarity's a siren, and sirens have powerful magic. Who knows what she can do once she learns how to control it and develop new songs?

4919810
It was made fairly clear in Melody's and Rarity's interactions that ponies and sirens don't trust each other. Ponies are fearful of sirens, thinking that they are horrid monsters that lure sailors to their deaths and eat them (which some do) while the sirens are afraid of ponies because they are often hunted and killed by them on the open seas in retaliation for something they didn't do and not given a chance to explain or defend themselves. In the choir's opinion, going to ponies for help would be far, far too risky, and it could just end up getting more of them killed in their efforts to save one young siren.

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