EPonies Protecting Ponies
MLP: FiM
Adventure
Comedy
The PPP is a secret oganization tasked with keeping Equestria safe. No pony knows who they are; their agents blend into the background just like any other pony. With their expertise, keeping the unicorn Twilight Sparkle safe should be no problem.
Alt. Universe
Derpy
Lyra
Bon-Bon
Doctor Whooves
Sparkler
Venates · 34k words · 174 21 · 3.9k views

Not Dead · 10:07pm Oct 29th, 2020

Long time, no blog. It's only been... Three years?

Hoo boy. Where to even begin.

I guess in some ways I never completely left. I still checked the site for notifications most days. Wondered how the health of the fandom and this site have been fairing since the end of the show. Stuff like that. So it was always on my mind, even I wasn't actively participating in anything.

I kind of fell off the fandom. Things stopped being enjoyable for me. Even today, trying to catch up on episodes I missed, it just doesn't have the draw it used to. Not to say there isn't things that catch my interest: Twilight opening a school is an idea I explored myself, Spike with wings sounds weird, what's up with this little kid that's a bad guy? I guess? But I just... don't enjoy watching. I can go back and still enjoy older episodes. I dunno. I've met people before who burned out after the first few seasons, and I guess that caught up to me in its own way. Maybe what it really came down to is that the world just got too big. I think a lot of the initial fun of this show was this world they crafted that was unique and fun to explore. And whatever loose ends they left, artists and writers picked them up and fleshed things out themselves. We gave personalities to characters who had none, told stories the show could never approach, explored places mentioned but never shown. And that magic kind of... went away. For me, at least. Characters we adopted and gave head-canon to were taken back. Casual mentions were explored in earnest, losing their mystery. And the characters we loved to follow for their relatability eventually just got too big. I mean, good for them though, you know? The characters went on a journey and evolved all the while, and those working on the show took what fans clearly enjoyed and showcased it in a form of acknowledgment. Or pandering, depending on who you ask.

I digress. You may agree or disagree, and that's fine. I guess I'm just rambling a bit.

Quarantine has been... interesting for me. I've been working from home since March, and in doing so I've also been able to carve out more time for myself. And with that I've come to find just how much of me has been missing. Little by little the last few years, I've been letting go of things that really matter to me, and as I sit here, day in and day out, I realize how much I miss being me. This came full force in this context with a piece of fanmail (Shoutout to GreyPon3!) and, later on, a very positive review of one of my stories.

Some wheels starting turning for me again. I dug out the outline for the third full Ponies Protecting Ponies story, shelved but never abandoned, and starting doing a little more to flesh it out. Just a little. Notes, here and there. I started re-reading The Return of Chaos to remind myself of all the characters, from their little idiosyncrasies to what they've experienced and how that might impact their future. And what I realized is that I was good. I mean, I dhate tooting my own horn, but I was really digging how I wrote that story. I caught myself laughing at my own writing, painting my own pictures, finding answers to questions right as I thought them. I was hearing from an old friend again. And I thought... Shit. How am I ever going to get into a groove like that again.

Then I re-read the original story. The difference between the two almost hurt a little, and really showcased just how far I developed as a writer, and how potentially rusty I've become. It also helped me realize how difficult it was for some to enjoy the original story, and how disappointed that I now am that those turned off from the original may not see what I was able to accomplish with the sequel.

After that, I wanted more. I was back to loving these characters I was working with again. I re-read School again and started laughing again at my own writing (probably my least recognized story, but damn if I didn't enjoy writing that one). It was fun, but it wasn't scratching the PPP itch. So there was only one thing left to do. Re-read they story that was never finished.

So PPP was originally meant to be an ever-ongoing story, with each chapter representing one episode. By the time I was done writing the series premiere, of course, it felt like a complete story, and the idea of an ever-incomplete story where I'd have to do extensive research on each and every episode to maintain a plausible continuity just sounded daunting and exhausting. That didn't stop me from making an attempt, of course. It was the first (and thus far, only) story I ever started writing without a thorough outline already drawn up. The idea was to simply start from where the original story ended and see where it would take me. Amethyst and Lyra needed homes to stay in, and I would explore the dynamic of that as well as more day-to-day stuff, like what these secret agents do with their lives when they're not on duty. I stopped writing that one not long after starting, because I realized that the story beat I was about to write didn't make sense for the characters anymore. Lyra and Bon Bon were going to have a real heart-to-heart about the difficulties of being a leader, and... it didn't make sense at all for either of them to be that vulnerable with one another. The characters had evolved beyond the path I set them on. When Bon Bon was supposed to open up, she instead went to bed in a huff. And I stopped writing it there because without an outline, I no longer had direction.

That's not to say nothing from that ever saw the light of day. Half of it wound up in Early in the Horn as Amethyst's perspective from the story, minus a few bits that weren't necessary for that one to feel like a solid one-off. And now, I can proudly say that Lyra's part of the story has been told as well. I give you the first of three (mostly) new stories: Living with Yourself. And, I have to say, it feels so good to have all that writing out there where it can finally be read. Half of the story is as I wrote it almost six years ago now. The other half is me finishing it. That is, after a small writing exercise. That's right, this guy is publishing two Lyra stories back-to-back. I also give you The Bombed Audition, my first attempt at getting back into the writing mindset. It's also my first prequel PPP story. I hope both stories are enjoyable for anyone out there who remembers my work and has been hoping for something new.

So where to from here? As I said earlier, the third PPP installment has an ever-evolving outline that is still getting worked on, piece by piece. It's still not in a state where I feel confident I can begin work on it, but it has some new components that definitely excite me. I've been planning on things being a trilogy just about since the start, and there are a few story threads I've been dying to get out there. More than once I thought about making a blog that would just say "Hey, here's the big spoilers about what I was going to do, too bad I'll never write it" but I never gave up on the hope that I would still make it happen. And I still intend to. Hopefully when that day comes there are still a few people left on this site willing to give it a shot. In the meantime, I've been debating trying a few more short stories to get the juices flowing. Maybe it's too much for me to expect any sort of response from a series with a somewhat controversial start. Maybe no one will really pay much attention to small snippets of story that have little to know impact on the main stories. Maybe none of that matters and I should only write for me. I guess we shall see, hm? If I do write something more, perhaps I should favor Lyra a little less; she's got two one-shots under her belt now, probably served the most prominent role in The Return of Chaos, and I have a lot of fun things planned for her as a bridesmaid in a certain wedding. I feel the other characters get neglected a bit, Carrot Top in particular. I guess we'll see.

If that's still not enough to satisfy, I have third (?) short story to introduce. This one, however, is not a pony story. I had to make a Wattpad for it. It's called Left on Read, and I hope you're willing to give it a shot. Fair warning though: it is not a happy story. But it's a pretty fast read at least! I don't really know what to do with this one, or how to advertise it. It's very different from fimfic; I can't simply tag a character and get people to wander in. So far now, it's just for you guys. Hope you enjoy!

Otherwise I still have a few things keeping me busy. I'm never on one project for very long, always bouncing around. For those who have been following my Lux Aequestria animation, you'll be happy to know that the final scene has been storyboarded. Now, it's a doozy, and won't be done for some time, but I never thought I would actually make it this far, so this is really exciting for me! I'm also dabbling in making my own video game, starring a character who has been a part of me my whole life. That project is still in extreme early stages, so I won't bore with too many details for now. Maybe someday if it keeps chugging along I'll keep a dev diary or something, but that's for another time.

In the meantime, I hope this post finds you well, and that I have served up a few treats for you, my genuinely appreciated followers :)

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