What Blogs Are Made Of · 9:28pm Jan 11th, 2019
Got you all a nice little gift: a story about a baby hugging a corpse, ripped off from Dark Souls 3.
Happy 2019, I guess? 
This little minific took off in a very surprising way; it lived in the featured box for a while, and racked up enough of a positive like/dislike ratio to be my #4 story. That's very gratifying; minifics from me tend to be slow-burns, rather than catching on quickly. It's also nice, in part, because it's one of only two new stories that I've posted within the last nine months. I'm glad I can still make that kind of a splash.
Me, ninety percent of the time
This took the gold in a recent Writeoff, among some stiff competition (also a rare occurrence for me). I'm pleasantly surprised that it held its own so well against its competitors; it was an especially good round. If you liked my interpretation of the prompt, I'd strongly suggest that you check out some of the other entries as they go up on FiMfic.
As far as background about the story goes... the prompt was written in such a way that a bundred immortality blues fics were kind of inevitable. I decided that, if I wanted to indulge in that ponyfic cliche, I should at least try to do something creative with it. Using Flurry, over the more obvious Twilight or Celestia, was what I eventually hit upon after some brainstorming, but another early idea was to tie it in with DannyJ's story canon, the Borderworld, which includes a Dark Souls crossover that parallels the themes and imagery of the video game series.
I think the idea to base the wasteland off the Ringed City came first, and the idea to tie it in with the Borderworld came second. I ran it past Danny; we talked about it, and agreed that it didn't really fit his setting or its lore. I guess you can think of it as a thematic shout-out, however.
I don't remember how I decided upon using Luna; I think drugs were involved somehow. I do want to take a second to thank everyone who's praised me on Luna's characterization. I like writing her as aloof and arrogant, in her own way. She's still a mare out of time, and I headcanon her as struggling to relate to others and isolating herself as a result. Of course, when she lets her guard down and opens up, she's playful and impish, but by default, she puts up a lot of walls between herself and her potential friends and relations.
I also kinda headcanon her as being jealous of Cadance, and never fully embracing her as family, hence her insistence on calling her "my sister's niece." She likes her just fine, and she's grown up enough to not let that jealousy consume her, but she wishes that she had the same love from her subjects (not to mention the same willingness to put herself out there) that Miss Social Butterfly princess does. This relationship is one that kinda simmers in the background of this story (and others), and it's one that I wouldn't mind developing and exploring in other stories.
By contrast, Blueblood is known to Luna as "That Motherfucker."
As I recall, I wanted to submit a couple of stories to this writeoff round that all communicated some kind of common theme: the Princesses being isolated in some way. One would have been about Celestia and a young Cadance discussing filly!Twilight's future, using her inevitable journey to Ponyville and her role in whatever cosmic order Equestria has as a metaphor for motherhood, growing up, and (ultimately) immortality. Here, the idea would have been mothers being alone in an empty nest.
The other was supposed to be a scene between Twilight and Starlight, in the aftermath of a battle that saw Queen Chrysalis brainwashing Twilight's friends, Twilight having to harm her friends, and ultimately killing Chrysalis. The idea was that Twilight had to bear the burden of taking a life alone (a theme I've also written about elsewhere). In the end, I only had the time and energy to write one of those stories, but I seemed to make the right decision.
(I think there may have been a fourth...? I can't recall)
My personal goal here was to challenge my own writing cliche of having two characters (usually Spike and Twilight) bantering with one another, which is what most of my minifics tend toward. I wanted to write something that leaned less heavily upon dialogue, and in that, I think I succeeded. In the future, I'd like to write something more kinetic, something that relies upon action to drive the story, rather than introspection and environmental detail, as this one did. But, for now, I think the experiment was successful.
I don't think I have any other notes right now... although I'll undoubtedly think of something sooner or later.
Flurry is just so adorable⁽*⁾ in that story.
(*) In an Addams Family kind of way.
I always loved the way you wrote Luna in that one Horspionage story. Glad to see you haven’t lost your touch there. Flurry story was quite good. A concept like that usually leaves me wanting more, but it was executed well enough this time that it works as is.
As a random side note, seeing a new blog post from you for the first time in ages made me realize: we still never got that promised follow up blog post about your Cheeriset sequel. I really liked that one and was curious to know your thoughts writing it. I also know that you’re super busy tho (I at least hope teaching has been going well for you)!
The reason that it didn't fit with Borderworld canon is because of Posh wrote Flurry Heart wrong. She should be like this:
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This one was deffo some good stuff. Speaking of, I hope to see you (and 4995473) on the other side of the
dance floorWriteoffs again this year; my participation went to pants toward the end of 2018 due to my dang novel, but like an unholy fusion of Schwarzenegger and Willis, I’ll be back hard with a vengeance.