Just Like Stories of Old · 1:52am Aug 1st, 2021
Hey.
So you might know that Just Like Magic of Old kinda stopped being updated about five and a half months ago.
I think I've just discovered the reason for that, while rereading the first chapter, which hooked in so many and was so amazing, despite (originally) being written in first-person.
It's simple: Short Flight suddenly went from an eight-year-old skillset to an eighteen-year-old skillset, right about in the middle of.... Oh, what was it? Chapter two? Three? I haven't even finished rereading One yet, and I can't remember when she returned home from that initial journey. In any case, the struggling little filly behind the Royal facade kinda disappeared, and so I kinda lost track of exactly what was going on in that story... which lead to its gradual halt. Yes, the last chapter was posted 5 1/2 months ago, but the one before that was the last in a stream of regular, weekly posts- and went live fully 11 months ago, even though the story still retains its reserved weekly publication slot of Monday.
The fix?
A rewrite.
Yes, I know what you're thinking. It's probably something along the lines of "It's 'The Gate' becoming 'On the Implications of Parallel Worlds' becoming 'The Accidental Invasion' all over again!"
At least, if you've been reading those three stories- which are rewrites of each other, in order from oldest to newest.
And I can promise you, it's not. The changes required won't be large enough to clear the requirement for a new story submission- nor for me to feel like it actually needs to be separated. And all the same events will still happen, in general- but Princess Short Flight will no longer be Miracle Pilot Short Flight. She'll have trouble, she'll have blunders, and most of all, she'll actually rely on her ship's computer support. Which, all together, will be a great setup for future events that haven't happened yet in published material, but that I planned for... and that stagnated the story by having no logical setup!
The fun part will be keeping her behind the help after she gets her Thestral crew, and redesigning her bridge so the just-behind-the-windshield console in Chap. 1 through the pirate encounter doesn't just magically become a warship bridge with the Captain at the back. Oh yes, and so that the multiple bays on her ship don't just vanish into nothingness but are actually workable. I might have to add more decks to her ship, too, because it's cited as having too many bays for a mere five-deck ship of the intended form factor... I mean, it wasn't made by Starfleet, so it shouldn't be a pancake ship.
Thoughts?
I like this idea.
Yea, Short Flight did seem to go from child to full adult like there was a missing timeskip.