We're doin' a Sequel! · 10:40pm Jun 16th, 2022
Hey, guys! If you're reading this, you probably favorited Friendship is Optimal: Promise! And judging by the title of the blog post, you can probably guess the contents. That's right: back on popular(?) demand, I decided to make a sequel! Honestly, I wasn't sure if I would, at least initially. I liked the characters and setting, but I didn't really have another story I wanted to tell. Maybe something with Promise's dad, but I decided against it. Obviously, things changed down the line, but for about a year, I was fine to let the story rest.
Actually, when I initially conceived this story, it wasn't going to have Promise in it at all! It was just an unrelated Optimalverse fic. I was thinking about the 'verse, and I hit upon a question: how would Celestia prove her value statement? Instantly, I knew I wanted to write a story about it. I created a character to ask that question, one I really liked. He and Celestia would argue, he'd emigrate in the end, your average optimalverse story. But as I was brainstorming, it hit me that not only would Promise be well-positioned to learn something from this ideology, she would also be in a good position to counter it as well! Suddenly, Promise was the protagonist again, and I had a sequel on my hands. And somewhere along the line, things changed from a short refutation to a genuine novel!
Currently, I have 10 chapters written and mostly edited, averaging 4,500 words long each. You can do the math on how much story that is. I planned on writing the whole thing before releasing it, but I couldn't wait any longer! Fortunately, I have plenty of buffer to finish the story up, even at a bi-weekly release schedule. It should end up around 15 chapters by the end!
So! Time to follow Promise again. It's been 5 years, the world's a very different place. There will be smiles, there will be tears. There will be a shocking number of ethical discussions. Introducing, one and all: Friendship is Optimal: Lies!
