Important Announcement · 8:06pm Feb 6th, 2020
Hi everyone! I have a very special announcement: there’s been a new addition to the brokenimage family! Specifically, a bouncing baby girl named Someone Still Loves You!
In 2015, when I returned to writing MLP fanfic, I was having a hard time locating a good beta reader. During my search, I found another poor soul wandering the night who, likewise, needed a good reader. I decided to sign on to help out--with no idea how big an impact that little decision would have on both our lives.
The user was Jowijo, and his story, Someone Still Loves You, quickly caught my attention. It remains one of my all-time favorite AU premises, and I’ve continued to steal bits and pieces of it for my later work.
In very brief: Scootaloo, who lives with an aging foster mother she dearly adores, but has never met her real mother. Across town, Rainbow Dash has never met her daughter, who was taken away to be adopted before she regained consciousness after an especially difficult birth. After a series of awful decisions on her part, Rainbow comes to realize that Scootaloo is her own biological daughter--but, because of said awful decisions, Scootaloo wants nothing to do with her. The two of them need to work together to make peace with their shared history of loss, define their relationship going forward, and navigate the increasingly-turbulent seas of their respective romantic relationships.
Due to some creative differences, not to mention a number of sudden demands on my time, I eventually left the project. However, Jowijo recently announced that he has chosen to stop writing ponyfic, and I couldn’t stand to see Someone Still Loves You left out in the cold. For this reason, I offered to adopt the story, and hope to give it the conclusion it deserves!
What’s the plan regarding Someone Still Loves You?
To be honest, I’ve gotten out of the writing groove recently, and am struggling to get back into it. I have a couple small projects I want to polish off, then I think I’ll turn my attention to this story.
First things first: I’m going to go back through and read the story again, taking notes the entire time. I’ll use those notes to compile a summary of the story, which I’ll post as its own “The Story So Far” chapter. This will help me to refresh my memory of what’s happened and figure out where the story should go next, not to mention refresh all the readers, new and old, about WTF has happened so far.
With Jowijo’s help, I’m then going to write several chapters to try and wrap this up. Current plan is that, when I start posting, I’ll post one a week. I don’t have an ETA on when posting will start, though--I tend to be pretty meticulous in my writing, hence it may take me a little while.
Either way, Jowijo will be involved start-to-finish. He’s left writing duties to me, but I’ll give every chapter to him for approval before it posts.
Now, I must admit: Jowijo and I have different writing styles. My impression is that Jowijo enjoys the process of getting to know his characters, and thus prefers to write without a firm plan for where the story will end up. After all, half the fun of reading a story is discovering what happens, both for readers and writers! I, on the other hand, love the big explosive endings that make you rethink everything you’ve just read, with lots of foreshadowing and plot twists (though, I will admit, I don’t think this is the type of story that will support my normal M. Night Shyamalan shenanigans ;P)
Given our difference in writing styles, my current plan is to push towards an ending for SSLY in the relatively short term--without having taken inventory of what needs to happen yet, I’m thinking something like 3-5 chapters. However, I want to make sure that everyone involved is satisfied, including you, the readers: for this reason, I’m thinking of posting a poll with some plot points I have in mind, just to make sure we’re all okay with the direction that the story ends up taking.
How will this impact my other work?
Frankly, I have no idea. As I said, I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately, and I need to get back into writing. I have a Celestia XVII side-story in the works, and I hope to polish that off and publish it before too much longer. That said, I hope that SSLY won’t turn out to be too distracting, because I want to get back to Celestia XVII in the near future.
I think that’s all I have to say at the moment. I’m very excited for this opportunity, and I hope that I can write something that we all can enjoy--both fans of Jowijo’s, and fans of mine!
Talk to you soon!
~brokenimage
well i will wait for your turn
take your time and hopefully this wonderful world will find his “complete” tag someday
That sounds like I fun. I'll check it out later.
It'll be interesting to see how you decide to wrap this up. I've been on Jo's case to finish this for ages now, so I'm glad he's finally found a step-parent to take the reins, as it were.
I was tracking this and planning to give it a read when it was still under the original author’s profile.
Sounds interesting, shame I’m never going to have the time to read it.
A great way to revive an abandoned story.
How did I only just now find out about this?
I'm sure you'll do wonderful! Heck, you have the original authors full confidence, and if that's not a sign that you understand the world he created I don't know what is.