State of the stories, and author · 4:39pm Aug 16th, 2021
Okay, quick update. You can do this, Cracker, just stick to the points.
My Fey Lady
Of the four major chapters, two are finalised (publish-ready) and the other two are mostly doodled, need work. Song has been added, scrapped, then replaced with a different song. It'll be the one linked below. There is now a Kirin cameo planned in chapter 3. She's the one doing the singing with Discord and Flutters. I also scrapped the idea of loading the story with Team Fortress 2 references, and instead just stuck with the one reference that fit (and actually ties the story together quite nicely, in hindsight.)
No release date planned, it's already been delayed by a month. No cover art, because hardware replacement needed, still. Hopefully late summer, which will then lead into:
Bastion trilogy.
First story is done, ish, ready to publish. Second one almost done, may be a little overworked with all the re-thinking and re-writing. Third one is just one near-continuous fight scene, has been outlined and all the one-liners are ready, but it needs cleaning up and continuity checking.
I'm hoping to release the whole thing this year, still. That'll wrap up my biggest project yet, and up my publishing to five stories this year. Not good, but at least it's some improvement. Here's hoping that's feasible.
There's going to be a little more emphasis on artifact magic in my stories going forward, you might start to notice it. Umm, regardless of what happens: this trilogy is where most of the ideas first crystallised, out of necessity.
Future pony projects.
Don't really know. The concepts of introducing artificer characters to play off of the CMC is appealing, but there's a practical problem in having to invent jargon and then giving it a solid enough base in reality. To wit: I need scenes where little Brass Tack explains how something works, and those rules have to make sense to the reader. Right now I'm contemplating using pc building as a base. No real progress, it's an idea on the bench.
Second idea involves a crossover adventure into Theros. There's a lot of potential for overlap, a few characters who would be interesting to go on said adventure, but I never read any Theros books outside the D&D sourcebook, so I can't do the gods justice, I don't think.
Third idea is titled 'Ocellus wants eggs.' It's a brainfart of an idea about Ocellus blurting out that she wants eggs all the time, and no one can figure out why, or why she's so flustered about it. A talk with Starlight later, and it turns out Ocellus is just suffering some severe emotional feedback from her body. She's getting to the age where she's able to start a family, but she's not mature enough on any level to have a family. And along those lines, Starlight begins to realise that she may need to do some more educating back at the Hive, since families, much like personal property, is a concept not all changelings are as familiar with. This idea's been dancing around my head for a while, but right now it's benched and probably scrapped since, let's be honest, nothing good can come of it. Coming-of-age stories are too risky, I'm not gettin' burned on that.
Non-pony future projects.
I've got a few ideas. Some of them have already been fleshed out, for original fiction to cast into the fiery pit known as the furry fandom. I want to write at least one series, twelve stories in 'episode' style to make a season, see what happens. Pacing and planning is the big problem there, though, starting to wonder if maybe I should let the tarot cards decide again. It's either that or structure the season like a few trilogies spaced out between each other, mixed in with standalone oneshots and the pilot and finale.
Aside from the series, one gimmicky story idea has popped up from time to time. I have a title and a concept, but right now way too big a scale and no idea of the scope, plus only my main character concept really fleshed out. I need a more solid base to work from on that story.
Regardless, I won't be cross-promoting if anything ever gets finished in different fandoms, so you won't have to worry about that. Just be aware that, once all the current projects are published, if I go quiet for a long time and don't update about anything pony-related in the works... it's because something else is. Beyond that, my previous policy of story and account deletion remains in place, nothing's changed on that front since september 2018.
Art-wise, well... when the new hardware gets here, I'll be happy to start experimenting again. In the meantime, written word only.
And now, what song is currently the base for the Fluttercord and Kirin scene?
Enjoy and feel free to speculate on Discord/Fluttershy/Autumn Blaze's lyrics.
Cracker out.
Y'know, I've been wanting more of Whimper as of late. Will that be addressed in the Bastion trilogy? I think that'd be a good place to escape to if you need it, though new stuff is always welcome.