Hooray, a blog update and teasers! · 12:00am Dec 17th, 2018
So, right to business: with the new story arc coming in with the next chapter(s) I was feeling pretty hype and ordered a new commission of cover art. Behold the Paint doodle I sent to the artist to try and communicate what I had in mind:
Thank you, thank you! Hold your applause, I know I'm just oozing with artistic talent and should quit my day job. Surprisingly this steaming turd from MS Paint proved useful and from the initial line drawings I've been sent by the (actual) artist her work is well beyond my expectations. I believe this new cover will really encapsulate what is happening in the story, and I think the current one would be best served as a post in the story's "final" chapter. I say final because I love this story so much that even after I've concluded it I doubt I'll ever stop developing it, at least in private.
Yes, this does mean the story is still in progress despite all appearances and even if it feels about as active as CubeWorld updates (a game I've recently dipped back into, along with Diablo 3 when I need a break - which also serves as announcement I've finished building my PC) and the writing I've been doing on my phone in the meantime feels like some quality stuff - google docs being very easy to use in whatever time I can find on the go to get some writing in.
Per some requests and critiques, as well as self acknowledgement of mistakes in my early days of writing, in Ch. 17 I've gone back to Titus and his crash in Equestria and have fleshed out a budding friendship that forms between him and Twilight so that her quite literal jump on him after the Timberwolf encounter isn't quite as jarring. I've been entertaining the idea that when the story is fully completed I'll go back and sort the WHOLE thing out so there aren't all these flashbacks occurring to fix oversights and it can be read in proper order; the other thing I'm thinking of is cropping all the clop and making a separate standalone "story" of just the saucy bits from Final Frontiers, maybe call it Final Faptiers or something (idk).
Another thing I've been doing is interacting with a few of you in private messages here on FimFiction and on discord which has kept my motivation up, so thank you for that. One question I got that turned into a long discussion was why I spent so much time with the E.F.C. details, like why I talked about the fighting techniques of the various ponies, when all it came to was a single encounter in the same chapter and even then the knowledgeable character (Lyra) that the events focused on hardly had any chance to display her implied skill? Admittedly I sat back and watched amusedly as I was presented with their theory: why go into all that detail if it wasn't going to come back later, maybe with Geirr as the opponent in the eventual rescue of Titus? Well I will say you're correct in that it wasn't for nothing, and while I can't give away the action-packed scene I have planned I can drop this cropped teaser:
There's Lyra's cell from the new cover art looking like she's in quite a stressful situation, but what sort of crazy stunt did she have to pull to end up there? Hmm... 
Let me know what you think.
Judging by the harness, it looks like Lyra was subjugated to a vehicle control simulation with a modified interface to be easier for Equines to operate with. She might have created a modified variant of Lunas' Human Transmute, only instead of giving her human hands, she opted for something easier on the body and not as taxing: Griffin Talons.
This partially dips into my theory regarding the origins of Pegasi, that at some point tens of thoussnds of years ago, Earth Ponies and Griffins made contact with one-another and led to the two species interbreeding for a bit, the end result being the emergence of two distinct species that aside from cosmetic reasons are one-and-the-same: the more Equine-like Pegasi, and the more Griffin-like Hippogriffs.
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The observation of the harness is definitely going in the right direction, but it has to do with her plan to find and rescue Titus (there's another clue for ya!).