May the muffins be forever in your favour.New story is released: "Unsung Hero" · 7:23am Oct 23rd, 2020
It's time for another story release! The idea for "Unsung Hero" is in my head since last November and it's another story inspired by the Season 9 Finale. It originally should have been written and released in February or March, but due to writing delays the coronavirus caused me, this timeframe couldn't be met.
I was also trying to finish the story for the 10th Anniversary of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, for which it would have been a perfect release, then when this didn't work, I tried to finish it for October 12th, on which it was exactly a year ago that the Season 9 Finale and the Finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic aired. The time was too narrow, though, so I could not finish it before either of these dates.
"Unsung Hero" bears some similarity with my first story for the Season 9 Finale, "Hero", as both of them are about a pony who became a hero during the attack by Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis.
Sparkler, however, is different than Hyper Sonic and can only dream of getting as much fame and recognition as her. Sparkler is a true, unsung hero, who always helps, but also gets always overlooked despite what she does for other ponies and how much she helps everypony all the time.
Part of the reason why I wrote this story is also because I realized that I have neglected Sparkler a lot myself in the past few years. This is a shame, considering how Sparkler is one of the first background ponies I noticed and paid attention to. She has been pushed to the edges of my mind in the last few years regardless and after I realized this at the end of last year, I decided to write this story to make up for this and to get more connected with Sparkler again. So this story is also a way for me to repent for my lack of attention towards Sparkler.
I am proud of the result. It's been a very long time since a story inspired me as much as this one and after finishing it, I can say that this is my best story of 2020. My inspiration reflects in the quality of the writing, so you should find plenty to enjoy in this story. For the first time in years, a story of mine feels as good as the stories I wrote during my first golden age as a pony author in 2016 and early 2017. This year has brought my writing back into form and if you were already my follower in 2016, you will notice what I mean once you read my newest story here.
And now, let us not make Sparkler wait any longer, because she has a serious craving for attention, I can tell you that. And you should all go and give her this attention and read "Unsung Hero", because Sparkler is a mare who truly deserves being recognized for the things she does every day:
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Stay easy as a filly!
~ Fluttercheer
Darn, I've had this kind of idea for Sparkler/Amethyst Star for years, but always kept putting it off, saying "I'll do it once I've got some fics under my belt and feel ready for it". Man, do I feel slow.
That said, I sympathize, both with the release date problems (my word, the pain when a perfect deadline goes whooshing by...), and with the interest in Sparkler/Amethyst Star.
I don't think she was one of the earliest background characters I noticed, but she was one of the earliest for whom I developed a definite fan interpretation, and she ended up being a sort of gateway character to others further down the road. Yet even now, after so many changes in my thinking elsewhere over time, she still remains a character very clearly defined in my mind - has been for years - with one of her characterization notes being how frustrated she feels at being overlooked in favour of more dramatically noticeable ponies like Twilight. So I still hold out hope of getting her writing projects off the ground someday.
Congratulations on getting your prize fic up and running, and I wish it all success.
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It's great that you share this idea. Though, the credit for noticing Sparkler as the always helpful, but constantly overlooked, hero goes to somepony else than me. I haven't discovered this myself yet, that Sparkler is so overlooked, it was DinkyUniverse who told me about this when we talked about the Season 9 Finale and about Sparkler standing at the front of the ponies who came to fight Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis and about how brave and heroic she was there, last year in November. DinkyUniverse pointed out that Sparkler stood at the front in the hope to be noticed and told me that no one notices or appreciates her help, so that she was trying really hard to be noticed there by making sure she stands at the top of the ponies who came to help.
That made me painfully realize that I have barely thought about Sparkler in the last few years, which I told DinkyUniverse, and then I suddenly had the inspiration for this story because of what she told me. And I decided to write it, to do something for Sparkler again.
The concrete ideas that you can see in the story come from me, but the discovery about Sparkler that inspired this story comes completely from DinkyUniverse, so she takes credit for this story just as much as I do.
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Exactly. It's twisting my stomach when that happens. Especially because that has happened way too often to me since a couple years now and it doesn't seem to stop. I love symbolism, doing things at a symbolic moment, that's important to me. So when some new problems for my writing delayed "Unsung Hero" anyway, I thought to release it on the Great Anniversary on October 10th. It was the perfect date to release a story that's been partially inspired by the Season 9 Finale and the Finale of the show and that reminds on it that everypony is important. Then I aimed for the anniversary of the Finale of MLP: FiM on October 12th, at least. Less perfect and less symbolic, but at least still somewhat symbolic.
Both failed and I hate the feeling. And it wasn't because I didn't try my hardest, I returned home very tired and very exhausted on Friday, October 9th, but I sat down and started writing. Determined me thought I could get it finished before the anniversary, but of course that wasn't realistic with 4 - 5 hours left to write it..... I just had to try.
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You should start writing her story then. Like, right now. Years have passed since you got this idea for her, so waiting for the right moment to write it is clearly not the correct strategy to get that story off the ground. The right moment didn't come in the last few years, so it won't come now all of a sudden. Actually, the right moment is now. After years of wating for the right moment and it never coming, the right moment can only be now. So you should start writing your own story for Sparkler now.
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Thanks.
Its success looks rather good right now. And I still have to submit it to groups. That wasn't possible in the last four days as I unexpectedly had to go and archive a lot of pony content that was suddenly threatened by deletion, which took that long to do. Which is also why I only check the reactions "Unsung Hero" got and answer your comment now and I am glad I can finally take a closer look at how well the story performs.
I'll still submit it to groups and that will hopefully carry in even more readers. I am only disappointed about the lack of comments. With how many things I picked up in this story, interesting things from the background of the show that I think are rather well-known and noticed, I thought people would have more to say about it. But the numbers look good.
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Wait, you mean this DinkyUniverse? The name sounded familiar. Huh, small world after all.
For me, it's also because I like to think of myself as punctual and efficient, which just adds to the sting. On top of missing the right date for the right fic at the right time. Speaking of which:
I believe you're right. This year, I've managed to create a fic for Derpy and a fic for Dinky. It only seems fitting I complete the trifecta by creating a fic for Sparkler/Amethyst Star too.
The good news is that I have just the project. I will see if I can get this out, if not before the end of the year (though I intend to try), then at least before the end of next year. The opportunity to carry on an encouraging trend is too good to pass up.
Thanks, Fluttercheer. Waiting is all very well, but there's definitely something to be said for seizing the day. Seizing today, more to the point.
Oh dear. Not another person about to leave? It's a shame when that happens.
A lack I know all too well, sadly enough.
Oh, I usually do that as soon as it's published. My thinking is: if you can get more people to see it off the bat, then that'll raise its profile more broadly (e.g. by getting it closer to the Featured Box), which in turn will attract more people. It's one punch, so make it count.
At least, that's the theory. I've no idea if it actually works out, since it's so hard to disentangle numbers to figure it out.
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Yes, that's DinkyUniverse! The world is small, but the DinkyUniverse is huge.^^ Precisely, all of them are, because Dinky has several, whole universes in her head.^^ She also has started a new project a little more than a week ago that will probably interest you:
https://www.deviantart.com/dinkyuniverse/art/Fantastical-Friendships-P1-858716840
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Same here. But in that case, it was more the symbolism.
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Go for it! Three is always the best number and good things happen when there are three. And if I can do almost nothing but write for the entire month (I still want to get two stories out until Saturday, let's see how that works), then you can pick up a years old story idea and finally bring it to life.
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Thankfully not. This time, it was official content that was threatened. A site that offered everything MLP: FiM as high-quality streams and downloads; all episodes, the Movie, the specials, "Friendship is Forever", even "Pony Life" (if someone needs that), a good amount of the songs from the show as videos, the accompanying MP3s and the officially released soundtracks, has been discovered by Hasbro a few days ago and was forced to shut down. I learned about this on October 22nd, when I went there to screenshot the cover picture for "Unsung Hero" shortly before I released the story. So I was busy archiving, downloading everything I can (I shamefully have to admit that I never used the chance to do this when I had it), bookmarking their uploads on MEGA and checking what of the site can be found on the WaybackMachine, from October 23rd - October 26th. The site shut down on the evening of October 25th. I'm still busy downloading, which is thankfully automated for the most part, but the bookmarking process took very long.
I supported the official releases as well, but there is something to it when you have all of the show in high-quality on your hard drive or on an easily accessible stream site. Then there are creators like PMV makers who also rely on high-quality downloads of the episodes to make good content, so even though it was not fanwork, the shutdown of this site is still a great loss.
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I usually do the same, for purely practical reasons, cause I don't know if it makes a difference to do it immediately, either. But this one time, the archiving effort I had to make got in the way of that, so it happened later.
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Well, well, well, I thought the art style looked familiar somehow. I think I've stumbled across their work before, but bless me if I can remember where and when. This wants looking into.
And aye: three is one of those numbers with an odd fascination. It seems "just right" somehow. Interesting to speculate on what properties make it popular in stories, for instance (the Rule of Three is a very familiar rule on TVTropes, for instance, and pops up a lot).
Well, I'm trying to gently coax my writing habit out of hiding, so we'll just have to wait and see. "Years" is a long time to see a project kept in limbo. Too long, if you ask me. Time to do something about that.
(Which does mean I might not spend as much time on this site as usual, or might lurk more, but time and attention are limited resources, after all, to be shared out and managed carefully).
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I hope you will give it a look. I know that attention for this project means a lot to her. She has created all the pony assets herself from scratch, too, and gave them her unique spin and she worked very hard on the backgrounds, almost since the beginning of this year.
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Indeed. It couldn't be wrong, since it comes from the best fillies in the world.
I didn't know there is an actual rule for it, I will look into this once I have time for that.
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I know that more than well. There is never enough time. We would have to double or triple the day in length for me to find time for everything I want to do. And even then I would probably miss some things. I hope Equus is a bigger planet than Earth. I really wouldn't mind a 48 or maybe 60 hours day.
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No. I preserved a whole site.
You get used to it. Last year, I archived the entirety of MythrilMoth's account after he died and that was the entire Foal Mountain of work. Archiving the site I talked about was much easier than that. I was lucky that I was able to do that, too, I only could do it because I happen to have excess space on an external backup hard drive that I bought in a size that was too big for my needs two years ago, as they had no smaller one. If that hadn't happened, I could not save this content offline now. But it's still in limbo there, as I currently cannot afford a backup of these downloads, so I can only hope for the best until that changes.
Today, I am used to archiving. I have archived several big things this year, among them my entire Derpibooru account (in case the site goes poof because of "certain issues", that happened in the middle of this year and that I don't want to talk about anymore, for the sake of my mental wellbeing, which is why I paraphrase them) and the entirety of Vannamelon's YouTube channel (videos, descriptions and video thumbnails) when her channel got hacked this year.
It is a lot of work, but becomes easier with time. Each archival project hardens you more and once you have a good rhythm going during a specific project, your movements become routine, everything turns into a blur and you are done faster than you notice. Or, at least it feels fast. Of course it takes long, but the perception of time changes quite a bit if you are that strongly focused on something.
I can't link the WaybackMachine archive of the site I preserved here, the site rules make doing so a bit of a grey area (the stream embeds of episodes and such are defunct in the WaybackMachine, but the MEGA links with all the uploads are accessible from there), but if you are interested, I can let you know in private.
Anyway, I gotta stop talking now. I have work to do, lots of work.