The End of MLP:FiM and the Future of The Dusk Guard Saga · 10:09pm Feb 23rd, 2019
Well, by now you've doubtless heard the news. Season 9 of MLP:FiM is the final season.
You know, I'd really hoped they were going to go for the almighty ten seasons.
Still, we kind of knew this was coming. All stories have, after all, an ending. Sooner or later, it arrives. That said, I look forward to seeing the final season, and really hope the team on the project has been given all the resources they want to really make it glow.
And maybe we'll get one or two more double-length specials? I'd really like to see a full-length Road to ... homage with Trixie and Starlight. The brief reference in Season 8 was more than enough to make that episode one of my favorites.
Nine seasons though ... wow. For the record, I first started watching MLP right before the season 2 finale. I had a lot of people telling me what a great show it was, and so a roommate found some ... "archives" and we started watching. We blew through every episode in just three days. And since then, it's been a favorite of mine, right up there with Gravity Falls.
It's a great show. I mean, obviously, or we all wouldn't be here, on an MLP fanfiction site, talking about it. We're familiar with MLP:FiM and what a great show it is. It'll be a moment of sadness when it finally ends, but ... All stories have an ending, and there's not much more they can tell with the mane six, if we're honest. Those dreams they had in season one? They got them, and a season or two ago. Arcs resolved, too the joy of characters and fans alike.
Maybe Gen 5 will be a Frasier style spin-off following the Student Six (for the record, I'd be okay with that and totally watch it). Maybe not. If it's a complete reboot ... well, we'll see.
But, this leads us to an important question: the fate of The Dusk Guard Saga.
Look, those familiar with fandoms are more than familiar with series that die on the vine or just ... fade away. Especially when the series it's based on ends or vanishes. And with the announcement that MLP:FiM is ending, there's been a number of posts concerned about the future of the fanfiction.
And yes, it's true that some will wander off and never return. Once it's not "the big thing" anymore, some fans always move to the next green pasture. That's just how it goes.
In line with that, I'll admit that I've been under some pressure to do that myself. The amount of writing I've posted here on Fimfic that I've worked on is easily worth 4 additional books I could have published, and those 4 books would have put me in a much better financial position. I've had a number of people critique the amount of time spent writing The Dusk Guard Saga as a sink of time and money.
Okay, they're not 100% right, though they're not fully wrong either. TDGS is in part where a number of my book fans have come from. But as my books have continued to sell, moving the amount of money I'm making off of them into four digit figures (HUZZAH!), there have been some folks that have pointed out that fanfiction writing, on my already limited writing time, is probably hurting me a little. I could have spent the time I spent writing Hunter/Hunted writing Starforge or another Jacob Rocke story, for example.
And now with MLP:FiM coming to an end, I know there are some of you that are worried that this is going to happen (I've already seen reactions to this elsewhere) . That Hunter/Hunted will be the last of TDGS.
So allow me to answer: No.
Look, I made a promise. I started a long, epic series, and I mean to finish it. Sure, it may take another eight or nine years (though it'll happen faster if my book sales go up and I can finally write full time without a second part-time atop it), but I'm going to finish TDGS. That's all there is too it.
I want to finish it. I love the characters, the big overarching plot and setting I've put together. Sheerwater is still my favorite fantasy city of all time. So I'm going to finish it. Plus, I get to experiment with new things and test out new ideas and concepts.
Like I said, it may take another decade. I still need to eat and release new books that make me the $$$. So Dusk Guard works have to be slotted into that release schedule.
But that is a release schedule. You guys will get the full story, even if it takes another six, seven, or eight years.
In the meantime, Hunter/Hunted, book three of The Dusk Guard Saga is almost ready for its completed Alpha Reading. I'm still going through and making changes and fixes from the first draft. Look for an Alpha call next week.
And with that, I've got more writing work to do, so I'm going to sign off here.
Have a great weekend!
The ending of FiM is... bittersweet. On one hand, we lose all the emotions we've put into these characters, but on the other it stops it becoming another Simpsons, where all the personality and emotion has been drained for the ratings.
And yay on the Dusk Guard! I look forward to when you complete the saga (even if it takes that long
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HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!! For more updates.
There are already plenty of people on this site who don't even watch the show anymore. I don't think the end of the series is going to have as big an impact here as the Chicken-Littles say.
After all, I'm not going anywhere. I've got too many stories to write!
5019026
The last episode I watched was in season 5. If anything I'm looking forward to the end of the show because it might return interest to the earlier episodes before everything went to shit, although at this point I doubt that will happen.
Hmm... Perhaps I should have mentioned something like this in my last blog. The fact is that I have a lot of existing fanfiction series on this site, and I too have people (mostly family) telling me I’m wasting my time writing them. I’ve already started the slow transition to focusing more on original fiction, though I emphasize the “slow” part. I’m still 2/3 - 3/4 fanfiction right now. My goal is to eventually flip that around.
But I can’t not finish what I started. Can I? The Trixie vs. Equestria and No Heroes series both have definite endings planned, but it’ll take years to get there even without me transitioning to original fiction. I have to face the fact that I may have started five series too many. And I may have to accept that my babies can’t reach their full potential and pull the plug. I have no intention of doing that now, but it would be irresponsible of me to ignore that future possibility.
But there is one thing I am absolutely determined to see through. Two, actually. First, should I ever decide to stop writing horsewords, I will do so without leaving a single incomplete story on this site. That means finishing Order of Shadows and The Silence at bare minimum. Second, the Bulletproof Heart trilogy will be completed. It means way too much to me for it to disappear.
I’ve long been thinking about how to handle these goals. For the last year or two I’ve been writing three stories at any given time, not counting any shorts that might pop into my head. I’ve considered reducing it to just one; with my writing speed, that means I could finish a story at a rate of two a year easy, provided they aren’t too long. But I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet, especially with all signs pointing to my next BPH entry being gargantuan, not to mention how big I’ve planned The Silence to be (that may require some tweaking). I could drop to two, but then I’m fairly confident story #2 would always be an original fiction and then my fanfiction writing really would slow to a crawl.
None of this is new. I’ve been debating with myself on my future presence here for quite some time. I’ve already put steps in place to conclude my review blog should I feel the need to do so (though those steps are, again, extremely slow and will likely take a year or two to be fully implemented). I just need to make some tough decisions on how to proceed. Perhaps things will change for me in the near future.
But in the meantime, I’m glad to hear that your plans haven’t been detrimentally affected by the ending of the series. I’ll be looking forward to whatever comes next in the Dusk Guard saga, of that you can be assured.
5019029
Have you considered doing book reviews? Like straight up running a book review site? You've shown that you can go far in-depth and do great reviews, so much so that my current "newest book" card for Shadow of an Empire has a quote from your review on the backside. I know you're talking about shifting away from reviews of fanfic, but you could probably do pretty well as a book review blog, even at half or less of your current reading pace (which is staggering sometimes).
5019075
As a matter of fact, that ‘escape plan’ I’m devising for myself as far as reviews go is specifically so that I can start doing that. My overarching goal with the plan is in two parts: first, to make it so that when I decide to quit fanfiction reviews I can do so within a couple months with a clean RiL (i.e. no ‘promised’ reviews never happening); and second, to let me cut my fanfiction reviews down to, say, half and start doing a book review blog at the same time. This gives me the added option that I could just quit reviewing fanfiction entirely and stick to book reviews.
But it’s going to take a long time. The plan involved heavily limiting how many stories go into my RiL every week. I’m basically reducing my RiL at a rate of 8 stories a week through this scheme, not counting Break Weeks where I don’t actually review anything but still add to my RiL. The catch is that I’ve got over 600 stories in the thing. But I’m nothing if not patient. Once I’ve narrowed down the list to ~50 stories, the book review thing will definitely be a go.
Even with the show coming to an end, I’m not leaving anytime soon. While the show got me hooked, it’s the fandom that I truly fell in love with. I’ll continue reading your stuff as long as you keep putting it out.
I very much want a spinoff that focuses on the Student Six. At the minimum, I'd like to see them survive the jump to G5 and stick around in the new series. I don't know what I'd do without more Silverstream and Gallus in my life.
And for that matter, I don't know what I'd do without more Dusk Guard in my life, so I'm stoked that you're sticking around!
Yay to Dusk Guard continuing!
And yes, eating is a *very good* thing, having been in a few tight financial spots myself before can say that first hand. 
If it means waiting a few years for them no worries here. I plan on still being around, and it's not like IRL isn't there to keep me busy enough. 
Yeah, it’s been pretty rough just having authors vanish over the years, fics marked canceled only if we’re lucky. But ya know, we still got some heavy hitters that have stuck around, and a lot of the people that are left are the die hards of whatever mlp sub genre they happen to be a part of, even if they aren’t as vocal in the community (guilty). And as for gen 5? Well I figure that goes one of two ways. 1:comes out, is trash, people get together to talk about how it’s trash, then they decided to go back and reminisce about gen four. 2: it’s good, and people get together to talk about how it’s good, and then fanfics happen.
Either way there will at least be stories, old ones and new ones. And if the stat tracker for fimfic is to be believed, there will be readers to read those stories for a while yet.
Everything i write is heavily AU already.
I've got years worth of fimfics on my read later list, all way better than anything the show has to offer nowadays. We'll be fine for a while ;)
5019027
Season 6 was one of the best seasons, and season 9 is looking to be up there too.