Story Notes: Four In The Morning · 11:28pm Mar 16th, 2021
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/1183046
There's really not much to say about this one. Either you know this feeling, or you don't. It's a story about a story that won't leave your head until the words have been put to paper (or typed up).
The biggest challenge was that last line: editing this down to 1,000 words even. This is the first time I've done so (and probably the last too).
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/2347347
The title comes from a Night Ranger song. I don't always name fics after songs, but I'd say 2/3 or even 3/4 of my stories have suffered that fate. There's a reason for that, of course. Before Fimfiction, I published stories on a site that had MIDI music playing on each page. These days, such a thing would probably drive people nuts, but back in the early days of the internet... it also probably drove people nuts. 
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/2008551
The font on the title image is called Bookworm. It just seemed appropriate. I have more than a thousand fonts at my disposal, and more are just an internet search away. 
But I like to have the font be as appropriate for the story as possible.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/2004681
Who is our mystery pony author? That's for you to decide. Originally, it was to be Toola Roola, but that didn't work because she can draw the images she sees in her mind. Then I focused on Moondancer, but she's not a writer (to our knowledge), she's a reader. I can say without a doubt, our mare is not A. K. Yearling/Daring Do or Twilight Velvet.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/2936
And another cute pony pic... because I can:
That is an utterly adorable Applebloom pic.
Huh, I didn’t know that song (or band). Weirdly, the song that comes to my mind with your title is this one:
Golden Earing—Twilight Zone
On the one hand, I would hate that when I read, but on the other hand I do have at least one story that’s written to a specific piece of music, and in my life at least there are certain songs that always bring about a memory. Like R.E.M.’s Drive, brings me back to blasting my Dad’s 86 Camaro down wet dirt roads (he made me wash it after, it was totally worth it).
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Oddly enough, the second song to jump to my mind would be Elton John's Someone Saved My Life Tonight: It's four o'clock in the morning, d
mn it, listen to me good.
Are you trying to kill me by sheer overload of adorably cute images that have no rights to make me d'aww as hard as I am right now? This is too flipping adorable. I. Want. MOAR!
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Sorry!
It's hard to find pony images where they're not cute.
One more for the road:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2021/3/14/2571146.png
https://derpibooru.org/images/2571146
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I'm low on time at the moment, but thank you for writing. :)
(By the way, though, a few days ago I actually did get some (topically, somewhat ill-timed) inspiration to actually type up one of those Cozy Glow ideas I think I mentioned to you a bit ago, that you seemed interested in. Once I find the time to finish editing, I expect I'll post it. :))
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You're welcome, and awesome! I look forward to reading it!
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Thanks. :)
And as it happens, here you go. :)
I hope it works...
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Thank you!
I really like the dynamic that you have between Luna and Cozy Glow. It seems far more in character for Luna than the actual series finale. Which is to be expected - you've got depth between them that you don't normally find in children's cartoons. Adult Cozy has mostly overcome her anger management issues and learned to play the long game. But Luna's been playing the game a lot longer than the pegasus upstart, and Cozy's still got tells when playing, while Luna's as unreadable as a blank slate.
Also, kudos for your worldbuilding. I like the background details.
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Ah, thanks for the compliments! :D
...I'm slightly puzzled why you're leaving the comment here, though, rather than on the chapter itself. I didn't accidentally disable comments or something, did I?
And yeah, this is, as I expect was obvious, very much an alternate universe from show canon, and while I don't know exactly what this Cozy Glow's whole backstory was, I suspect part of her making the progress she has was the lack of any target as tempting as the School of Friendship in her youth (also, no... whatever it was that led to show-her being pen pals with Tirek, who I'm not sure existed in this world anyway). She couldn't have played for stakes that high if she wanted to, so she dealt with smaller temptations and was tempered by them instead of overreaching, failing, and having a fast, hard, and bumpy trip down. And since this is also an Equestria with a position in government second only to the Princesses themselves, that's attained by winning a popular election, she had a visible if somewhat distant point to work towards -- and once she made it there, well, maybe that'd be good enough, but if something were to happen to one or both of the Princesses, guess who'd be the natural person to step up and take charge in the crisis?
And in the show we see that Cozy Glow even as a filly is extremely competent and charismatic, and quite capable of doing things to benefit others on the way to her own benefit. Give her time to sharpen that further and gain more experience, instead of dangling the big prize maybe-just-in-her-reach when she's that young, and she can grow into quite an impressive figure indeed, I think.
But, of course, as you say: she is remarkably skilled at this for someone even ten times her age... but Luna has an order of magnitude more still.
I'm glad the characterization worked to show that sort of thing! :D Though I'm honestly not sure how much I was keeping that in mind consciously vs. running more black-box models during writing.
And I'm very glad to hear that the background details and worldbuilding worked; thank you! I was worried I'd ended up in a bad spot on the spectrum between "There appear to be some scraps of story here, in between the massive exposition blocks of the author's worldbuilding." and "What? What's going on? What does that word mean there? Why is none of this explained?", but at the same time I didn't want to just try and gloss over all the details, for multiple reasons.
(The original spark of inspiration for this family of universes, by the way, came from a Victoria II pony mod. I've expanded things quite a bit in my head (and to a lesser extent in my own fork of the mod) since first finding that years ago, though.
For instance, the original mod put Equestria where our Earth has California. And as I recall it was just kind of there, the location important for interactions with various other countries from our timeline (the USA, especially; Manifest Destiny finding a magic horse kingdom blocking its way to the Pacific drives a number of events) but not really having much examination of how that would have particular affected the country's history. And then one day I realized, hang on: These ponies are actually Native Americans. Technically, at least, but also they've been there the whole time; there was no mention of the mod of Equestria suddenly appearing there one day, certainly not in recent times. And Equestria is at least a thousand years old by the time the game starts (In my expansions, in fact, though I don't recall how much is in my mod fork vs. just my head, it's actually quite a bit older than that; as an example, Canterlot was built high on a mountain because the ponies got a bit spooked by rising sea levels at the end of the ice age, and it's been continuously inhabited since.). So Equestria may have been hidden from Europeans until about twenty years before the game starts... but what about all those other humans through the centuries before a single European ever cited the Americas? And I grew a lot of ideas out from just that realization. :))
[looks up]
...Erm. Sorry for the wall of text. :D
Probably lucky I'm a bit short on time right now, or I might have gone on longer, too... :)
But yes, thank you very much for the compliments, and I'm glad the chapter worked apparently so well! :)
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Whoops, I replied to the comment instead of on the chapter. I had this window open so I could write my thoughts as I read through. My apologies!
Oh golly, I don't know how this poison got in your tea, princess. Again.
I agree 100%. She's not a completely lost cause.
There's always a higher mountain, a faster gunslinger, etc. In this case, Luna's the better chess player.
I may not be the best person to judge, since that pretty much describes my writing style too.
I'd never heard of Victoria II so I just looked it up. Looks like an interesting game! Especially if you add ponies.
You're welcome! I requested to hear your thoughts, and your writing style appeals to my reading style. Worldbuilding and character interactions are more important to me than flowery prose and details like the color of the carpet in Luna's room (unless said carpet color is somehow important to the story later on).
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Ahh, I see. Well, apologies accepted; mistakes happen. :)
Do you mind if I paste/quote this conversation over there, though?
(Personally I generally just use a text file off to the side for thoughts while going through things, but to each their own and whatnot.)
Riiiight. :)
Aye. Well, I mean, depends on the particular Cozy Glow in question, given all the different character interpretations filling in what the show didn't cover in detail, but certainly it seems to be true of many of them. :)
Indeed. Perhaps not in every way -- and this Cozy is even managing to, apparently, deceive her Celestia -- but in, among others, the ways that are important here. And since one of the most important ones is the sheer depth of her experience, well, not really anything Cozy can do to take away or steal that advantage.
...I was going to say I hadn't noticed a problem with that in your writing, but, um. Yeah, so maybe on this point, we're possibly not the best test audiences for each other? :)
Ah, yes! I've not played it or worked on my mod in a while, but I had quite a lot of fun with it -- and, of course, thoughts spiralling out from things in the game itself continue, as this story illustrates. :)
(I played a game of Railroad Tycoon II a while ago, and I've gotten so much enjoyment, and some education, out of considering details of the operation of the Grand Canadian Railway far, far beyond the scope of the game. Perhaps not a way to enjoy it anticipated by the designers, but hey, fun, brain exercise, and learning!)
But yes, Victoria II can be quite a fun game; if you ever decide to give it a try, feel free to let me know if you'd like me to share a copy of the latest version of my fork of the pony mod. It was a much earlier version of the pony mod for the game that first got me into it back in undergrad... though come to think of it, I don't remember exactly how.
(I've played Hearts of Iron IV more recently, but despite the pony mod, Equestria at War, being again the thing that got me to buy a Paradox grand strategy game, I haven't gotten around to playing the mod yet. I keep waiting for updates, and of course I'm busy with other things... So far I've just played in Old World Blues and Kaiserreich.)
Oh, thanks. :)
Sorry I don't have more up for you to read, then.
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I normally do the same. But in this case I was replying with the thank you, and just used the window since it was convenient. I posted my first response on the chapter, and if you copy your reply to me, I'll copy my other response too. Then you can continue with your second reply and I'll reply to that with my thoughts instead of adding them here. Sorry for that.
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Ah, thank you! That's better than I was expecting, but I didn't want to push. :)
And apology quite accepted, again. :)
Thanks!
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And I've put the first reply over there. Thanks again! :)