//------------------------------// // Outro (Author's Notes) // Story: New Discoveries // by Phantom Shadow //------------------------------// Introduction If you are reading this, then you must have already read [and hopefully enjoyed] my story, “New Discoveries”. However, I felt that something about this story is left a little incomplete, even several months after the story’s completion. So, I have decided to create this little outro to put to rest some things about this story, give a few fun facts about it and give most of you a little surprise in the end. So, here we go! Inspiration for Writing [In general] When I became a brony, back in July 2011, I told myself that I wasn’t going to get actively involved with the fandom like I did with other series that I am involved with. Much like Rainbow Dash and her Cutie Mark, it wasn’t until my first fan-fiction reading in this fandom that I decided that I wanted to create a story that was revolutionary, but believable. And thus, my writing excursion for MLP: FiM began! Inspiration for Writing [The Story itself] The inspiration for “New Discoveries” comes from three different sources: 1) Season 2, Episode 5: “Sisterhooves Social”. This episode, being the first that didn’t have Twilight in the episode, is where the ideas began. Having watched this episode, it sparked the idea to do a story that involved Rarity and Sweetie Belle. However, I decided the main focus of the story was going to be on the latter of the two, just to make it interesting. 2) Story: “The Sweetest Gem” by The Rarispy. With deciding Sweetie Belle as the main character, the question remained: what am I going to do with her? I began looking on FanFiction for any story involving her, just so I can get an idea in my head. It was there that I found the original draft of the story, “The Sweetest Gem”. It was unique because it was a story was about Sweetie Belle and Spike forming a relationship without being very cliché but believable. Not wanting to follow the same path, I decided that I was going to do a shipping story involving Sweetie Belle, but not with Spike. However, the question was: with whom? 3) Season 1, Episode 23: “The Cutie Mark Chronicles”. Although this episode is one of my least favorite episodes, I must admit that it was this episode that helped with the final piece of the puzzle. Having watched the episode to try and study my source material, I came across the ending of the episode where Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom go “Awwww!” and Scootaloo goes “Ewwwww!”. It was then that I decided that the pony that I was going to ship was Scootaloo because, just based on this episode, it showed that the orange filly wasn’t going to be so quick to jump into a relationship of any kind! So, to involve her in this story would be both romantic and hysterical! Of course, if Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were going to be in it, then Apple Bloom would have to be in it as well [more hilarity ensues when the three of them are together, after all!] Problems One of the major problems I faced when deciding to do a Sweetie Belle x Scootaloo story [respectably called “Scootabelle”] was the fear that no one was going to read it and/or enjoy it. I did some research on DeviantArt and saw that the shipping was not as popular as the shipping with the Mane 6. This discouraged me and nearly talked me out of doing this story. However, much like the first fanfic I read, I was aiming for writing something that would be revolutionary and one that the fandom would remember forever [I don’t think I succeeded, but here’s hoping!] So, I decided to upload it, regardless if no one was going to read it! The second problem I faced when writing this was writing a story that involved a “yuri” shipping [or two females in a relationship]. Although I was familiar with writing romance stories, I was treading new grounds when doing a romance story involving two females [who are very young, might I add]. I was worried that I was going to be looked at as being some sort of freak for doing this. What convinced me to go along with it anyway was that the story was going to be believable. They might be young, but love knows no boundaries, so long as it isn’t involving “clop” of any kind! “Cupcakes”, anyone? As you’ve already seen, I made a constant reference to the grimdark story, “Cupcakes” throughout the entirety of this story. If you’re wondering why I chose to reference such a story, well it’s simple: “Cupcakes” was the first fan-fiction that I ever read in this fandom! I heard about it via a youtube comment and was curious as to what it was. So, I looked it up, found it and read it! Was it the best story in the world? No, of course not! Was it the worse story in the world? Again, no, it wasn’t! If there was a word to label this story it’s this: revolutionary! This story opened the door to many other stories of a similar nature. Just the mere mention of this story and everyone knows what you’re talking about! That was the goal with this story [which, again, probably didn’t succeed], to create a story that, just the mention of the name, would catch the memory of everyone! As a head nod to the story, for being the motivation to write a story in the first place, I made the references in the story that suggested that this story might have taken place in the same universe. Believe it or not, only three of the references were planned out ahead of time [Chapters 2, 6, and 13]. All the rest were thought up of on the spot and worked into the story on a whim of playing around! An original epilogue of the story was going to be another play on the story in which it showed Rainbow Dash in the basement of Sugar Cube Corner, but I decided against it because it would have lessened the credibility of the story and totally side-tracked the readers from what the main point of the story was about [if I want to do a “Cupcakes” spin-off, I’ll do one, but not in this story]. Other Fun Facts In Chapter 21, Rarity begins to have the feeling of failure overcome her for not being able to protect her sister from heart break. The original plot of this section was going to have Rarity going on a rage-driven spree of insanity, trying her best to find “Scott” and bring him to justice for Sweetie Belle. However, this was removed because, for Rarity to do something like that [which was labeled “turning Equestria upside-down for just one pony”] seemed a little out-of-character and unnecessary; she needed to be there for her sister, not abandoning her to look for a nonexistent pony! Fluttershy was originally going to be in the story! She was going to have a small cameo after the storm, in Twilight’s library with Twilight and Applejack [Chapter 23]. Originally, SHE was going to make the “Cupcakes” reference in that scene, but gets scared when Rarity, still angry and hell-bent on finding “Scott” scares her out of the library. Because of the alterations made, Fluttershy was removed from the story, save for mentioning her. [Sorry, Fluttershy! Next time!] This story was originally going to be only 20 chapters long, ending when Sweetie Belle ran out of the clubhouse after first kissing Scootaloo. However, because there was already a story out there that did the same thing, I chose to extend the story by 9 chapters, later by 2 and a half more! The original ending of the story was Chapter 29 [formally called “New Discoveries”] for many reasons. For starters, it was meant to have the readers make inferences about the ending, where or not everypony accepted the two of them as being together. Secondly, the focus of the story was on the two of them coming together, not really about anything else. However, I decided to extend the story by two and a half chapters to tie those loose ends up; everyone seemed to want a different ending and who was I to deny them? Furthermore, it was that sudden stop that was killing the story, according to many reviewers. Sequels The official sequel can be found here: "New Revelations" Special Thanks I would like to thank everyone and anyone who has read this story and decides to read it again in the near [or far] future. If it wasn’t for your motivation and interest in this story, I probably wouldn’t have continued the story! Thanks again for everything! Overall In the end, although I had my doubts about this story, it turned out to be one of my greatest stories yet [at least for now!] I am really glad that I went against myself and did this story! Honestly, I don’t know what would have been if not for my inspirations, but it probably wouldn't have been this! Thanks for reading!