Filly Fantasy VI Completion Follow-Up Post · 10:04pm Jan 22nd, 2022
About ten years ago, Magical Trevor was inspired by the likes of Pav Feira and Leo Archon for their works on My Little Chrono Triggers Are Magic and Pony Fantasy IV. He decided he wanted to contribute to the growing SquareEnix fusions by tackling one of his favorites of the Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy VI.
Trevor started out strong, banging out just under twenty thousand words in a few months. During that time, I (RTStephens) came on board to help with editing. There were others involved in the project at the time, but dropped out due to leaving the fandom or for lack of interest. I'll be withholding names since I don’t know if any of them want to be identified. Nothing nefarious happened behind the scenes but I like to respect privacy.
Anyway, right around when the story reached Figaro, Trevor said he was losing momentum with the writing and asked people in the group if they were willing to help. I volunteered and began writing half a chapter while Trevor did the other half. My memory is faulty but I believe this lasted a single chapter. After that, I took over main writing duties while Trevor stayed on as proofreader and consultant. Trevor's Note: This is correct to my recollection.
Not much to say after that as things pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the story. I would find other proofreaders and editors to help out, but it wasn't until I asked DrakeyC that I finally had an editor that was as passionate about FFVI as we were. Some of you may recognize Drakey for his own FFVI project, Filly Fantasy VI MOD. Or, you know, all the stories he’s written himself for this site. Drakey was a massive help with certain characters and scenes that I would have fumbled otherwise.
Which now brings us here, the finale. Gotta say that I wondered if I would survive long enough to get this done. I'm a fairly fast typer but a very slow writer. Each year I vowed that this would be the time to finish and each time it stretched on and on. Essentially, it was through sheer stubbornness to see this to the end that I kept pecking away at it.
As for the story itself, there are a few things we are very happy with and some things I wished we fleshed out more. Almost from the start, we created a brand new character in Stardust who would be the other characters' pack mule. Trevor likes chocobos and what better way to justify carrying around so many items? Unfortunately, Stardust was Trevor’s creation and I never really found a voice for him. He started off as mostly a scardy-chick and I slowly morphed him into a put upon sarcastic arse. Spotter was another issue for me as he really just came off as a generic kid without much in the way of personality. The other big thing I wish I had on lockdown from the start was how ponies dealt with a world without magic. Things like "can pegasi control the weather" or "what can unicorns actually do" kept being swept under the rug. I think what muddled the narrative is that we start out with exceptional ponies like Twilight and Rainbow.
Trevor's Note: Something I wanted to do and kept stumbling with was rewriting the start of the story. I had fallen into the early pitfall trap of wanting to stick with story dialogue instead of truly making it more unique, fleshing things out, and so forth. I should have pursued that more, as I had an alternate opening that focused on Rainbow Dash having returned to Neighshe, and then seeing Twilight with the two soldiers and following them after dusting herself with charcoal, and otherwise better showing that she was still a mare of action and impulsive, but with new skills compared to the show. Many lessons have I learned in starting this story and then transitioning to idea board/editor.
But let's talk about the things we are happy with. The mechanics of Cutie Marks is one of them and how we were able to give each character their own magical role. Trevor also had the idea to have Applejack’s group during the scenario part break away from the game's plot. I was dubious, but this led to a few neat things, including exploring the Empire’s continent more thoroughly and having the battle at Narshe go very differently. Ultimately, things got back on track but I felt that the characters got more to do than to be benched like in the game.
The ongoing FiM show was also a blessing for us. While other stories lamented that new episodes rendered their stuff non-canon, we embraced it. We got to flesh out the cast with more than just ponies or original characters. If we were to write it now, a few things probably would have changed, such as the Yaks being the residents of Neighshe instead of just normal ponies. About the only thing that really threw us for a loop was Flurry Heart. We already had a son for Shining and Cadence and now they had a canonical daughter. The way we went to include her went to some really dark paths, but it came out happy in the end, so it evened out.
The last major thing that I was happy about was the inclusion of the Chaos Dragons. During a Spike and Stardust chapter, I decided to plop in the Ice Dragon just so that they had an antagonist to interact with. I hadn’t thought to do much more than that. It wasn't until the party reached Zozo and met the Storm Dragon that I began pondering if this could lead somewhere. Eventually, we reached the Statues and this is where Kaiser was cemented as the final boss. I had to borrow from the FFVI Gameboy Advanced game, but it was worth it. A happy accident that I totally didn't intend was an early dragon named Pearl that would later be the White Dragon. Sometimes things just have a way of working out, ya know?
And that's about it. I'm besides myself with how glad I am for finishing this. It may not be the most tightly plotted story or even written in a compelling way, but it is what it is and I’m content with that. Thank you to those that followed along since the beginning! If you have any questions on some of the finer details, feel free to ask about them in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
Hey some of these ideas for a pretty cool idea in a very interesting direction that you guys were going for although when I was looking at your release dates of your chapters there was like a couple of missed opportunities to bring in some of the creatures like the hippogriff yak Buffalo cat people like capper and the parrot people somewhere around 2017 and 18 and very interesting of some of the characters that was supposed to be good turn out to be evil like Daring Do and the pillars I was surprised of that direction for them and I did say something about in the ending post-credits somewhere in the ending when the two couples are like having a kid I was thinking of putting in Argyle and female pony ( supposed to be the mother with no name or mention ) and sunny those characters from the My Little Pony new generation but hey it worked out pretty well and that must be a really long time to wait until added new characters and I guess it makes sense you didn't want to have too many characters in a team because it will be hard to keep up but hey this was pretty awesome you guys can't wait to see what else you guys are going to do in the future
and to my opinion I feel like Final Fantasy 6 is the best coming in second is Final Fantasy 4
This is a good story, but I'm curious if you will make a story based on any of the other Final Fantasy games.
5630320
Nope.
I'm not willing to put another 8 to 10 years into another project like this. FFVI is my favorite of the series so this was my way of paying tribute to it.
If I ever do write anything else, it'll be short one-shots.
5630323
Fair enough, it didn't hurt to ask. Thanks for the great story that we got anyways.
Totally forgot about the name Magical Trevor. Both the Weebl song and the man who played a big part of this story.
5630323
Hey, that's okay! You've already given us a great gift with this story. Now, if you wrote more stories in the future, whether short or large, that would be even better!