List of changes expected to be made in Pony-Me's reboot: [POTENTIAL SPOILERS!]

Alrighty, since this may or may not end up revealing some major plot points for once the reboot is launched, I'm gonna put all of this behind a page break. Click "read more" to read more. :P

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Alrighty, so given how this is a full reboot/rewrite and not just making minor tweaks, I've got a list of changes I plan to make in no particular order to Pony-Me now that I have hindsight on my side. I'll list each change I plan to make, as well as an explanation for why it will be made. Enjoy!

• Conflict in the story will be both internal and external, rather than 100% internalized. This is due to the fact that I plan to expand Lisa's backstory to give the story more complexity in character dynamics.
• A new pseudo-"villain" character (that actually has a reason for why they're doing the things they do. Not gonna roll with a villain just to have a villain.) This villain has a backstory closely tied to Lisa's, and provides an outside perspective on the simulations, and the limits they have on what they're capable of in contrast to what people may think they're capable of.
• The Samantha-Pinkie split will be replaced by a moral grey-area character, and a more clearly separated Pinkie and Samantha. This is to account for the fact that the split and feud between Samantha and Pinkie was included solely for the purpose of artificially creating a side-plot, but I personally think that a character caught between two worlds (in a way) would be a much better way of portraying a similar "two sides" kind of situation, without resorting to any forced or awkward exchanges between characters.
• Samantha's backstory is completely rewritten. Rather than chasing after Pinkie in an attempt to contain a "glitch", she instead controls Pinkie from a distance, but typically tends to let Pinkie act on her own free-will. This will be modified from her character as it exists in the original fiction, which corrects and clarifies multiple aspects of her life such as her age, her experience with the simulations, etc.
• The slow, meandering end to Pony-Me will be pushed forward, instead being a sort of end-all mini-arc to a new "final clash" sort of story arc. This may or may not be a physical battle, but for sure it would finally pit the opposing ideologies within the reboot against each other in a final show of force, and would drastically heighten the stakes and call for Lisa to question her choices once again as the simulations (and Equestria) come under siege.
• The age gap between Lisa and Timothy is drastically altered. This is a major plot hole that I discovered in Pony-Me while cross-referencing for the original fiction spinoff. It would also resolve another plot hole down the line-- Timothy's education level.
• Less emphasis is placed on the inner inner workings of the simulation. This is because much of these scenes were often written as filler material during parts of the story where I didn't have a clear idea of what to write.
• Roger Ascher is de-emphasized in the story, becoming more of a background/supporting character. In the original Pony-Me, I wrote Roger in with the intention of making him a major villain, hence his clashes with Samantha. However, this ultimately fell through, leaving him as a bit of an awkward character to work with. In the reboot, he would likely still lead the company, but Samantha could very well either replace him entirely, or control the majority of the technical side of the simulations while he himself simply minds the business.
• Lisa doesn't wake up in a lone house in the middle of nowhere. She instead wakes in an apartment complex, with others just like her being disconnected all around her. Pony-Me originally was planned to be a very short story, and so special emphasis was placed on Lisa's waking environment. This can be seen clearly in the first "ending" of Pony-Me, where Lisa's trek from the city back to the house is meant to have an emotional impact on the reader.
• Some potentially darker elements may be worked into the story through small details and hints scattered throughout the story. These include additional uses for the simulations, other ways to use certain technologies created to support said simulations, etc. Pony-Me was written as almost a sort of utopian society, and so very few if any flaws with the simulations were ever really pointed out. The act of hinting that there could be more sinister uses for the tech would quickly put an end to that, adding more realism to the story.

There we go, I think that just about covers all of the major differences between Pony-Me and the original fiction, as well as planned changes I'd like to make to said original fiction spinoff in its next draft. If you've got any comments to make on these planned changes, feel free to leave them down below in the comments.

Comments

[Babroniedad]

Sounds awesome!