Changes necessary · 6:38am Mar 12th, 2020
I penned the first chapter of A Matter of Interest when I was temporarily living in a vacation rental at the corner of Olive Place and Melrose in Seattle, in the late spring of 2013 during the middle of a confusing break-up that began in February of the same year and did not actually finalize fully until February of the following year. It was the genesis of an idea of the words "surfing changeling", a throwaway something I'd written on the corner of a scrap of notebook paper. I wrote a total of 5 chapters between April and July, and then stopped to move on to other projects, primarily A Chronicle from a Time of Darkness and several entries in the Skitchverse (God rest your soul, GreyGuardPony). I didn't know what I wanted to write, not really, and at that time, we knew nothing about changelings. I think this is part of what drew me to them.
A month or so later, I wrote the first entry in Matters of Lesser Interest.
Almost two years later, I wrote The Unicorn and the Stranger, and almost immediately started work on a sequel. Several months later, another chapter for Matters of Lesser Interest. The following year, I wrote Hunches, a sidestory set in what was then the Mattersverse and would become the Strangerverse. The following year, I finished The Stranger Among Friends, and again, almost immediately started work on another sequel.
Almost three years later, and The Strangers in Ponyville is finally almost finished, and I have a clearer idea than ever of what the Strangerverse (now a full AU) is, and that's actually the problem; what I've written across the last 5 years has had the result of effectively retconning A Matter of Interest. Maybe not all of it, but enough of it. I don't know if it will ever be updated, because the story I was telling there is less interesting to me than the story of Princess Twilight Sparkle is.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is thanks to everyone who was there at the start, and thanks especially to my best friend, but what I've done has unfortunately been undone.
Eh, you know how I feel about A Matter of Interest. Loved the idea, setting, and the mystery it had been setting up. Tis a shame to know it’ll never receive a proper ending, but such is life sometimes.
Am looking forward to seeing what The Strangers in Ponyville finally holds.