The Great Italic Purge of 2021 · 7:48pm Jan 3rd, 2021
Howdy howdy~
Happy new year so far ya'll! How are things going? Personally... I've been as sick as a dog X_X
During my downtime, I've taken interest in re-reading my old work. In doing so with The Poisoned Barb, I noticed a very weird glitch when it came to formatting that I know wasn't there before. Some words were spaced so weirdly, and in some paragraphs I would see two words out of five taking up the ENTIRETY of the top row! It was so bizarre! Messing around in the settings, it looked like it mostly happened in heavily italics paragraphs; specifically ones where random words were highlighted within the sentence. Deleting these instances proved to fix the issue...
... So I've spend the majority of 2021 so far deleting a MASSIVE amount of italics from the 280K words present in the entire Poisoned Barb Series 
Ultimately I feel that it was worth it. There's still quite a bit of the stuff throughout the two stories, especially in inner thoughts and certain dramatic lines, but now I no longer feel that the tale is oversaturated in them like it was before.
Some interesting facts I discovered while rereading the series to accomplish this are as follows:
1.) I used to write Barb SUPER differently starting out, by god. I mean, just LOOK at what her first words to Dusk were!
“I’ll retire to my basket once my piqued curiosity is satisfied,”
Nneeeeerrrrrrddddddd!
Real glad she eventually mellowed out thanks to the diary writing absorbing her turbulent thoughts, and helping her Spike-tendencies to shine out brighter.
2.) Solaris was wwwwwwaaaaaaaaayyyyyy more terrifying in the first story then I remembered him being. Completely forgot the bit where he almost admitted to a five year old how he had to mercy kill a greed-fueled dragon once...
... Will defiantly keep that in mind though for his next two appearances 
3.) Also completely forgot that he asked Gleaming Shield to go grab Dusk after baby Barb said she'd rather not get adopted. Kinda makes her later interactions at the Shine Household, where she hadn't been reunited with Dusk yet, a bit of a plothole...
...
... *Pulls out black shades and a neuralzer* Dusk declined the invitation due to being engrossed in a book at the time, so Barb was shuffled off to his parent's home by the other guardmare on duty at the time. *FLASH* Nothing to see here.
Well, beyond that house keeping, I'm hoping the rest of this year will be filled with more chapters for ya'll to enjoy ^_^
See you next time, where the final two chapters of the Dragonnaped Saga will be released back to back~
Love,
-Derply
You monster! Those poor italics. They had so much to live for!
5428044
It was self-defenses, damn it! They were comin' right for me!
Even looking back now I barely notice the shifts in tone. I mean I kinda interpeted the Solaris-bit to wisdom and honesty and not something dark and I can't even remember that barb line!
Hope you get better!
Hol’ up pardner~ You can’t mosy by without saying when those two chapters will be released.
Other little important things to remember.
•Dusk has heard Barb say the name Jason out loud.
•Rainbow has an idea of Barb’s harsh training.
•Red Gala does not like Dusk’s lack of respect or knowledge on Barb’s slavery.
•Solaris has no obtained any letters on Starlight, and Barb is upset at him for seemingly ignoring this.
5428085
Oh thee of little faith! THESE are details I have CERTAINLY not forgotten, for they were nowhere near as small!
You can expect to see follow-ups to ALL of these little details in:
•Episode 24
•Episodes 8, 9, 10... and beyond ;)
•Episode 24, again (can't wait for that one)
•And Episode 8
Now, if you excuse me, I have a date with some Nyquill X_X
5428097
Oooo, I can imagine Barb cries to Red Gala about being replaced, but the first one is an interesting twist.
Forgot about the mercy killing almost slip up as well, was that meant to be a threat to barb, and being reminded of the talk with them may still be my favorite part of the series as it creates so much mystery to solaris, and shows his horrible side, ego, disregard or obliviousness to the mental torture he contributed to and sets up for good interactions with the rest of the main six and dusk, of how he just gave her away for what was meant to be 15 years
It's good to occasionally return to your earlier writings (even though it can be painful), especially ones in an ongoing story you're writing. A lot of time can pass in the real world and your writing style or perception of your story can drastically differ by chapter as a result. So even though you should know what story beats you've already hit, you may not remember exactly how you did it. The "you" writing it at the time was different from the "you" writing now. That's alright. Growth/change is natural. But if you want your story to feel consistent, you may want to revisit older chapters you've done to refresh what you intended to do at the time.
Sorry, don't mean to get preachy. I'm just trying to describe why I think it's good to read your own stuff besides just general editing and plot-hole-filling
5429514
Oh yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. It's always good to take a little peek behind you to see how far you've come, and how things have changed.
I hope I can continue to make these little pit stops moving forward, especially when this fic inevitably doubles its already daunting size
5428085
Pst... Pssssstttt
...
...
... The two chapters have morphed into three, and are now scheduled to be released across the 30th and the 31st.
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5433582
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-