This Can't Be Happening is Finished (Finally)!

Well, it only took me just short of 7 years, but yes I finally finished this damn story. It took me so long to finish the thing that I honestly doubt there's anyone left to read this blog, but damn it all I'm happy to have this thing done and there's a lot I want to say about it even if I'm just talking into the void.

So yeah, this thing is done. Notably, with me being me, it was a long gap between the last chapter and this one. Not as bad as the previous gap, thankfully, but obviously longer than I'd like. I'd like to use my usual excuse of "life happened, and also I'm lazy," and while that's true there's one thing that truly put a brake on this final chapter. I was just really not satisfied with how it was shaping up. Specifically, I wasn't satisfied with the whole conflict involving Flim and Flam. See, originally the Flim and Flam thing was going to last for at least one more chapter so it wouldn't have been so rushed. Also the save by Lyra and Bon Bon could have been more believable and less convenient. But I just wanted to finish the story and knew we'd possibly be in damn near 2020 before finishing if I didn't cut the fat. So I reduced the brothers roles. The idea for why they were there to begin with was that Morgan's friends were watching everything from them departing to Appleloosa to him returning home in the form of an MLP episode. And what makes for a more exciting episode than a bit of conflict? Furthermore, I just wanted Morgan to have one last big thing to do before going home. Flim and Flam were chosen since I like them and wanted to try writing their dialogue, and also because they fit the needed role the best. They already had a getaway vehicle and were the types to have a motive to capitalize on Morgan's situation. Perhaps kidnapping is a bit too much for them, but eh, it was a lighthearted kidnapping I think.

Where was I? Oh yes, I was unsatisfied with how things were shaping up for the chapter. Originally I envisioned some sort of chase scene where Morgan and Lyra hijacked and lost control of the Cider Squeezy, or just something crazy like that, but I eventually ended up having the famsquad going Donkey Kong on the brothers. Kind of fitting as a callback to the arcade chapter, I suppose. I also envisioned showing more of Morgan's friend perspective as they watched Morgan's adventure in episode form, but I wasn't feeling that. Ultimately, I'm still not sure if I'm fully satisfied with the final product, but I am satisfied to at least be finished and I did enjoy writing what I did. Was it worth a 7 year wait? Probably not. But I made it to the end. That's gotta count for something.

Enough of that shit, time to talk about misc facts about the story. Just some things I've wanted to talk about for the story and some cut ideas that I just wanna ramble about for funsies. Since I already mentioned them, I should say something about Morgan and his friends. I've mentioned it before, but this was years ago, so may as well repeat it. Morgan himself is based on a real life friend of mine who to this day still has a dislike for MLP and its fandom. The story itself was written as a bit of a rib towards the guy, and his reaction to it was a resounding "Meh." His friends Brycen and Axel are based on a mutual friend of ours and, well, myself. So those portions of the story from Axel's point of view were leaning on the self insert side of things. Moments talked about between Morgan and his irl friends were usually always based on something that really happened between us, including me having him read Sweet Apple Massacre during a bus trip. Why? I don't know, I was fucking weird and dumb. On the topic of irl people, I could also mention Stratus, the pony Morgan interacted with a few times at the arcade. That was an OC taken from Cupcore, a former irl friend who was president of our school's Brony club for the year and a half it lasted. I don't say former friend in the sense that we had a falling out, I just haven't seen or talked to the guy since High School. Anyway, since I needed a character for the role, I asked him if he had an OC he'd like me to use for the job and he PM'd me Stratus. Considering how the guy hasn't been online here since 2012, his OC technically lasted longer in the fandom than he did. Funny how that works out.

While on the topic of people who contributed to this story, while not a character in the story itself I should once again shout out Brony_Fife, the editor for pretty much all of the story that kept it from being full on trash in the early days. Dude is a talented writer and was a big help on the story and I appreciate the help he gave me both for this story and on Don't Go To Sleep. I didn't bother him for editing advice on the final two chapters since I didn't want to be a burden on the guy when he likely has his own writing endeavors to deal with and he hasn't been online since last year, but if you're reading this Fife lemme just say thanks again for the help. I hope everything goes well in your future writing endeavors.

A'ight, now I want to talk about some cut ideas from the story. I'll start with something that came especially close since there was even a tag for it on the story before I removed it. A Romance tag. Yes, building off how this story was originally made as a rib towards my irl friend Morgan was based on, the original plan was for Morgan to develop feelings for one of the girls. This was ultimately cut when I realized it would make no sense and be OOC, but it was the plan originally. As for who it would have been? Rainbow Dash originally came the closest with my first draft plans for the flight lessons chapter. Pinkie was also considered, but Dash was sort of the "ship with everyone and everything" character back in the fandom days, eh? But had I continued the idea, I think Lyra would have probably made the most sense. She was the most interested in the guy and he ended up opening up to her during their interview. Plus Ponyville already thought they were a pair anyway. So yeah, had I gone through with it either Dash or Lyra would have had a thing with Morgan, but the idea was scrapped.

Another thing I mentioned in the past that got scrapped was having multiple endings. There wasn't much logic behind this, I just really liked Silent Ponyville when I started reading fan fic and since that had multiple endings I wanted to rip that off. The difference is that Silent Hill has multiple endings, so of course a fan fic based on it also would, while I was doing it for little to no reason. So what other endings were planned? Well, one other major ending, two semi serious endings, and some joke endings. The major ending is probably obvious, one where Morgan stays in Ponyville rather than going home. This would likely of hinged on him retaining feelings for Dash or Lyra, otherwise it probably would have made little sense, but in this he would have been too content with the more friendly lifestyle of Pony life to go home. The two semi serious endings played off the major ones. In the "Morgan stays" ending, Axel and Brycen also go through the portal and stay in Ponyville with him. In the "Morgan goes home," ending, somepony would have gone through the portal with him to the human world. Most likely Lyra, regardless if she was the one to develop feelings with him or not. As for the joke endings, I didn't have these planned out much but what I had involved Morgan going through the portal but not ending up home. In one he was going to end up in some other HUB cartoon, with Dan Vs or Pound Puppies being my first draft plan options. Another ending had Morgan ending up back in MLP, but this time in the "Sweet Apple Massacre" universe to follow up on those couple times it was referenced in the story. I realize an ending where it's implied Morgan likely ends up fuckin slaughtered doesn't SOUND like a joke ending, but trust me on this one.

As for any other cut ideas, I did originally want chapters that focused on Morgan hanging with each mane 6 member. We got Dash with the flight lessons, Rarity with the Spike dating advice chapter, and Pinkie Pie kinda with the cutie mark hunt. An Applejack chapter would have involved Morgan meeting Big Mac and getting over the Sweet Apple Massacre PTSD, a Fluttershy chapter would have had him continuing to clash with Angel like he briefly did in the cutie mark hunt chapter. And a Twilight chapter honestly would have been kind of similar to Lyra's interview, so it's no surprise that was ultimately cut. In general I wish I spread the love a bit more with using the mane 6 in the story, Fluttershy especially got shafted I think (though I think her part in the Spike/Rarity chapter was fun), but this was overall how things fell.

Hmm, let's see, what else? Oh, I know. One thing I really regret with the story, other than the length of time between updates? Writing Lyra chapters in third person. In general I'm just not as used to doing first person as third person, but I felt it was necessary for this story to capture Morgan's inner thoughts. But when it came time for Lyra chapters, I wanted to be able to switch between Lyra and Morgan as desired, thus third party was needed. But the result was a confusing mess making people reading go between totally different POVs between chapters and it was sloppy. This especially affected the flight lessons chapter, which I deadass wrote completely in third person before realizing it should be back to first person. So I then had to go back and edit things to the correct POV and likely did a bad job doing so. I should have just made those chapters first person from Lyra's POV. Switching between first and third person was a dumb idea, but no use crying over spilled milk.

Welp, that's about all I wanted to ramble about. If there's somehow someone that sat and read all of this, I hope it entertained you. Once again thanks to Brony-Fife and thanks to any and all readers for TCBH over the years. I'm sorry it took me so long to finish this damn thing, but it's done and I'm happy about that. I'll use this last paragraph to shout out Animation Crusader and Fangren, two writers I know from over on FFN that I noticed now have profiles here since I last made active blogs. The former I don't think is particularly active on here, but Fangren seems to be, so go check them out. And for something off topic to close, in my previous chapter's blog post I talked about Smash Bros Ultimate and how I was telling everyone that could listen that King K Rool and Simon Belmont should be added to Smash. They were my two most wanted Smash newcomers. Welp, I got them both in the same Direct and I love playing as them both. So here's a gif to close us on.

Comments

[StubobNumbers]

I haven't read the story yet, but the fact you did finally finish it is why I have hope other long-unfinished stories may one day be wrapped up.