Cynewulf Went West: An Afterword · 3:37pm Jan 12th, 2016
It was a journey, wasn’t it? A longish one, both in time and space--two years and over 500,000 words. That’s quite a few pages. And now?
Now it’s over. I have mixed feelings.
First, the dedication. And a warning: This blog will probably spoil at least one thing for you if you are not DONE.
SOLI DEO GLORIA.
Dedicated to
Nothing is Constant, who never faltered
RazedRainbow, who presided over its birth
randomguy, she who sharpened iron with iron
Dedicated to Kkat, who baptized me in fire
Dedicated to the Lightbringer, may she reach the End
Dedicated to you. Here I am, I can do no other. I have loved you as you loved me. For I knew you in part, and you knew me in part, but both as through a glass darkly; for we knew in part, but more and more we shall know each other and be known. This is myself, bled for you. This does not mean that this is a well-made story. Only that it is a very earnest one.Thank you all. I had the time of my life.
None of those feelings I mentioned earlier are exuberance. I feel satisfied. I feel accomplished. I feel very small and very lost. Confused. Also, though not for the same reasons, cold and a little hungry. But mostly? Mostly I feel very empty. What sort of emptiness?
I feel like a man who rolls over to find that his wife has vanished like mist and left only a light impression in the bed. I feel an absence. A great loss. The numbness. Where is the story? Where is the next google doc? I do not know what to do with myself. I am adrift.
A lot of my life these last two years, a lot of my mental energy, was wrapped up in Twilight’s journey west and the things she would find there. What started as jokes and half-serious challenges became a duty and then a hobby and then an emotional touchstone for my life as it changed into something more difficult and much more lonely. And now, in a very real way, it is gone.
But do not lose heart. Not all is sad. It’s a joyous occasion--I started and finished an epic tale. This started as a half-joke between Razed and I, as Absolution did. “You should write a longform story!” “Something badass with Cadance, lel” and etc became a google doc where I began to plot the first act of The Night is Passing. At first, I always doubted that it would finish. But then I just… stopped. It would continue. If I never faced the truth (you can’t finish anything longer than a oneshot, not really) I would have never gotten past Vanhoover. Blind restless energy conquers the world, man.
The story changed a lot. The first act and the third act are radically different in tone and scope. Some of that was intentional--the West was always going to be different from Equestria. Some of it has to do with the approach (I’ll talk about that in a bit). A lot had to do with me changing as a writer in general.
The first five chapters are very restrained compared both to the second and third act and to the rest of my gallery. The prose is tighter without being too dry, but it frankly… wasn’t me. It was a mistake of nerves, bringing in way too many people to edit and nitpick. (Though I was thankful for all of their work!). I was so nervous about the beginning that I stopped writing the way I wrote and started writing the way I expected people to expect of a longform fantasy tale. And the result is a slightly mediocre start after a decent first chapter. The beginning is rather out of synch with the end. Not as much as I had feared, after a reread, but noticeably. And I’m okay with that. Because I was a different person then, and that person doesn’t deserve to be repudiated.
There are other things that pull at me. Errors, ambiguities. Threads that vanish too quickly and were not picked up as they should have. There are lots of things I added, but only a few that I cut.
Abdiel was originally a very different character. The Abdiel you meet in Valon was more of what he was meant to be the whole way, when the actual journey across the Veldt was longer and more detailed. Abdiel, the NPC from the pony tabletop game I ran, was meant to be a swaggering swashbuckler who would flirt with literally everyone at least once, serving as a test for Twilight as well as illuminating her own motivations, while eventually he would settle on Main Sail. The Captain, if you say. His betrayal was never planned until Jannah was underway. He was always trying to find his wife again.
Midway/Maldon was going to be three times as long. Twilight was going to go up the mountain to a small temple, following Celestia’s path, and find some small lost memento of her. On the way, she and Luna would grow closer. I think this arc could have been great, but at the time I was so exhausted that I feared it would derail me.
I regret Maldon and am ambivalent about Abdiel, but… the one thing I edited out before it happened that I am VERY GRATEFUL FOR was…. Cadance. There was a short time where Cadance was heavy with child (like she apparently is now in the show!) while also trying to keep the shield up. I realized with horror that the only choices would be letting the child live, which would stretch the boundaries of believability with INSANE MAGICAL POWAH coursing through her, or… well. Cadance miscarrying. The former was dumb and the latter was too much. I’m glad Razed pointed out to me what would be my choice, and that I bailed before I got caught in that vice. Because I can do a lot and handle a lot in a story, but I would never have recovered from that. I would have lost all my taste for Twilight’s further adventures.
Spike always died. Celestia was never going to return as she was. Do you know what it was like, writing, knowing what would happen? I put off Spike’s death for probably 60,000 words because it almost physically hurt me. When the time came, I tried to drink to make it not feel so… sordid, I guess. Like I was doing something wrong, even though I had set it up and it was the best possible path with what I had written already from a narrative point of view. Or, god help me, when I came at last to the Garden. I had 400,000+ words weighing on me and they were heavy. Every step, I thought I felt them. You have to do it. You have to do it. You have to do it. To understand my initial emotional reaction, try reading Horse Voice’s Biblical Monsters, feel the horror and nausea of the end, and think about it for a week. Do you see now why I was so fast after I got home?
I’m worried I’ve painted a grim picture. I think to do that would be not only categorically false but extremely unjust.
This story revived me. When I was sick and sick at heart, it kept me up and moving. When I was bored, it delighted me. When I was happy, it was a dance. When I mourned, it sustained. I poured out a lot of my grief and pain into this story for two years. I worked out a lot of my own heart through Twilight’s long suffering journey. In fact, I began to mirror my life and my thoughts in the narration, for better or ill. (If for the pretentious if nothing else). Or did my life and my thoughts begin to mirror Twilight’s epic search for the teacher who went west? Maybe both.
There were nights where my imagination was so sharp that I could see her on the Veldt or hear the crinkle of paper as Twilight unfolded and read Celestia’s letters. I felt as if I, too, was in Imperial Center, painting the medicammen. There were times when I thought for a heartbeat that I would feel the miles on my own feet.
I want to write again.
Not just in general but in specific. I want to write about things that will make me feel that way again, and I want to keep doing it until I die. If I die with a little apartment filled to the brim with unorganized, moldy manuscripts, still typing, then I shall have died better than any hero, I think. I want to put words on pages for the rest of my life, and The Night is Passing made me more sure of that than anything else could have. I set out to capture the feeling that Fallout Equestria stirred in my heart as I read it and found that for me it had transcended it. The fire I felt from FOE was tripled and no longer bound to the Wasteland.
So, I want to write again.
Are you nervous? Do you think that this is it, this is where he signs off and says--original fiction, bye suckers, tell god and gan thankya but you’ll get along fine?
You should be. Not because of that. Personally, I think that anxiety is a perfectly valid response to existence.
I’m not going anywhere. I want to write again, remember? I have no idea what I’ll write now. I have ideas. Lots! I have a story I’m working at slowly from some scrawlings I did in New Zealand while loopy from the muscle relaxers and the trail. I have a story about Shining and Cadance and Twilight establishing the Crystal Empire to the tune of Pauline Epistle-framing and a lot of cleverness. (Think in terms of letters). Amaranth in a “Night Sequel” which is kind of just Salem’s Lot in a brave new world. Raridash fluff (honest to gog actual fluff).
Hell, at one point while I was half-delirious in a trail bunkhouse and trying to tire myself out for sleep, I plotted out a conclusion/sequel to the Songverse (remember that?) and it had time travel and other worlds and betrayal and marriage and humans and Lovecraftian Horrors and kissy faces.
I may still have things to say. I don’t know yet. I never imagined what I would do when Night was done. I didn’t think about finishing it at all until I was about to. I just kept going. I would not think about progress at all.
Mostly I told myself that Great Heart Will Not Be Denied.
Maybe I should write some Twilestia where one of them doesn’t die.
I don’t know.
I wanted to thank you all, again, for coming along. Hello to my new followers, and I hope you enjoy anything else you read. I’ll be here still. Working. I don’t know how long my refractory period will be. Maybe only another day. In fact, probably not long at all. When my heart is full again--for a gunslinger kills with his heart; he who kills with his hands has forgotten his father's face.
See you down the road.
Its always great to see a long and awesome story done. Why, because i have been waiting to finish it since its conception, I had been here for a while and wanted to see it end.
Also...
for me...
This means i know what is going to happen soon.
Thiiiiss!!!
You have an extra word in that sentence.
And no, that doesn't mean both of them die, or one of them doesn't die but the other does, or one of them enters un-life which technically isn't all-the-way-dying!
So many questions...
From 49 we have "Twilight kissed Luna again and willed the reflection of her teacher to jump into the soul of her lover." But in the Epilogue we have:
Does Twilight still have that piece of Celestia within her, or is she just remembering and imagining, or thinking metaphorically? Did the Celestial Shard restore Luna's agelessness, or did it merely repair her body, leaving her healthy but mortal? How diminished are the other alicorns - will Kyrie and Iridia and Cadance recover, or was their loan of power to Celestia a permanent reduction (which would lend more urgency and weight to Twilight's instituting a Princess-free Republic)?
Archon Twilight's favorite game (coincidentally, I always beat this game using just the unicorns):
vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/archon/archon_start_large.gif
Or maybe her second favorite:
playthepast.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Civ-2-Government.png
3681523 It's complicated.
I wanted someone to ask this question actually. Is it sentiment, or literal indwelling? The answer is... yes. Celestia's words and example and her memory, but also the fusing of the Well-Shard with Twilight's literal soul. It no longer is really... her. You'll recall that the Shard possessed an intelligence before and could hold conversation. It cannot do that any longer. It's at most a whisper, or like a really, really strong memory or a dream that never quite goes away.
The Shard helped, but it stayed with Twilight. Power went out of her/it, but not presence, you could say. Luna stays mortal. Reborn, second chance, still very killable. She's less powerful... but she and Twilight will probably live to be over 100 because of the Song's touch, I think. Luna's diminished. The others are not so permenantly damaged--Twilight didn't know this, but Rarity would have recgonized the weakness of Cadance keeping up the shield in her weakness in the Garden. Cadance and Iridia will recover. I think Kyrie threw away her immortality because she was so weak and atrophied that she couldn't give much else.
how'd you like that Cadance-dream bubble?
Diminishing ranks of immortals, hmm?
Also, in the past half-million words I've forgotten - remind me, how much divine intervention (if any) does moving the sun and moon require in this universe?
Lip-bitingly delicious. I don't think I've ever seen it done better.
3681625
It's been vague mostly because Celestia and Luna had... Rather deeply personal experiences regarding it that they don't ever want to talk about. Luna decides to tell Twilight but I think it has more of looking at death thing. Tho she would still tell Twi about Sulva. I assume whilst snuggling occurs.
In general, it's best to think in a "mythological" mode with Night's world (how else do you make sense of the Far Shore?). But literally... The closest I can get is breathing. Breathing is not hard. But slight changes to the equation, like composition of the air or altitude, and suddenly everything changes. The sun and moon are apart of them and raise more or less by their subconcious will. They often raise and lower these bodies consciously much like we often breathe consciously even tho we don't actually have to really remember. So in a lot of ways, they are passive and active.
But often active. It's damn good fun.
There's really only one immortal Alicorn left after Kyrie: Iridia. (It is possible one or two live in seclusion but Celestia doesn't think so.) Iridia is as close to incorruptible as someone can be without being a robot. She's also massively uncomfortable with mortals and the least likely ever to abuse the situation.
If tyhere was any issue is DID have with your story was all dat shipping. It felt like a crutch to be honest. Though part of it might be because if always felt twilight's relationship with celestia was maternal. Celestia was like another mother, and twilight celestia's daughter.
Still it was an epic tale and its good parts greatly overshadowed its flaws, as any epic tale should.
Will wait to see what other tales you stir up.
How about a Twilestia where Twilight dies or nearly dies? Not many of those. Whatever you choose to write, if it's anything like this one was, I will enjoy it.
3682635 heh, yeah, I could...
I could give it a name from Hamlet... like "What Dreams May Come?" or something or...
dammit.
Bring on the Twilestia. Make it rain. Make it pour.
That sweet awkward romance.
Shovel it into my open mouth.
3682836 what if there are many Twilight's
Like one a generation
And they get more powerful and more nerdy each time
And Celestia has patiently awaited The One True Twilight, she who nerded hardest and Alicorn'd the most?
3682656
Twilight spends a great deal of time trying to woo Celestia, then right when the princess decides to reciprocate, twilight dies. What a bummer.
3682899 It would fit my MO
3682901
I would love to see how you'd play that angle, with a romantic tint instead of the more common platonic shade. Especially if Celestia doesn't just fall for Twilight, but plummet at terminal velocity. Feathers everywhere.
3682838
If this is an actual story idea, it gets my seal of approval.
3683050 how would you frame that even
I can see it being framed as comedy. Like surrealistic fuckery
Or, you could go a tragic way: Celestia dealing with the same cycle over and over, eventually trying desperately not to hope that this is the One only to be disappointed again. Over and over, until she is trying to fight her inevitable attraction. Or a darkly bittersweet--no, this is not the One True Twilight but she IS Twilight... And that's enough
Straight up romance. An endless dance of life and love, framed in a more positive life the rebirth of Twilight becomes a long, long courtship. The ultimate time traveling romance
Hm.
3683056
Perhaps Twilight is one of the 'Original Alicorns'. The 3rd sister so to speak. Maybe not biological sisters, unless you want to go that way. I won't mind *wink*. However, something happened long in the past, some magical event or powerful enemy. Something that damaged Twilight in a way that made her immortality malfunction, so to speak. Now she is an incredibly powerful but seemingly mortal unicorn. Except when she dies, she is born again. She remembers nothing. Or maybe fragments?
Now her love from back before all those millennia ago, Celestia, has to watch Twilight live, die and forget her. Maybe Celestia finds a way to reverse it? Or something more tragic?
I'm not sure if my ideas are good or not and if you are serious about making a fic like this. But if you like any part of it, use it.
You know I couldn't bring myself to comment on the ending chapters of your story. To me it felt too much like a good bye, like the end.
I didn't want it to be the end.
3683153 I 100% understand.
I'm didn't want to say goodbye just yet either.
So, what's going to happen with that side-story you started up: Lily's Song?
3684427 I'm going to try and finish it as I can!
3684559
Yay!
enjoy your much deserved rest. 525k words in two years! this is significantly more than some authors, who shall remain nameless (initials of grrm...) can write in five years. as their primary job!
after your rest, (please god dont call it a refractory period again) then obviously you should move onto that story you've had on the back burner.
im of course talking about a dark slashfic between blythe and one of the biscuit twins. britney is brutally murdered, and only blythe and the animals can help solve the crime. of course, blythe comforts whitney and they grow closer together as they hone in on the murderer. do they fall in love? who knows? this fic will practically write itself!
that's what this website is for, right? littlest petshop fanfiction?
3684848 FINALLY SOMONE NOTICED I was sad no one noticed that awful joke
The difference is that Martin is editing. Like 350K is basically unedited. He's also much more of a detailed craftsman where I'm a kamikaze
3684853
says the guy who hasnt read it!
it is true. but he also has decades of experience and all the time in the world.
i know it is his job, but who does this? who creates a tremendous and wonderful thing like asoiaf and then just stops? loses interest?
3684885 maybe he does it just to get at you. You specifically
He's sitting in his dark fortress, steepled fingers, looking over the manuscript he finished years ago
"That'll show FlimFlamMan"
Congratulations, man! This a very cool thing you've accomplished, not many have.
3683196 Well it won't quite be good bye for me, I'm going to go back and reread your wonderful work, then it might just be good bye...
3685022 thanks. It's pretty neat.
I'm eager for when I have enough distance to read it myself as I would another story
This was one heck of a ride. Congrats on seeing it through, and I'll certainly be glad to read more of your work.
Goddess help me. I somehow missed the fact that you've finished your delectable story. And oh, that was almost half a year that I was away from here.
I don't care about my exams. Gonna read ponies in letters of thine.
And - have you read Clark Ashton Smith's "The Hashish-Eater, or, the Apocalypse of Evil"? It's an awe-inspiring poem.
And Lovecraftian horrors are good for your madness.
(Some 30 hours later...)
Such a fine wine you brewed. Even though abrahamical allusions in my opinion are somehow out-of-place from canonical Equestria, your world is your world, and damn, it is interesting. I had tons of questions about it, but they do not matter, I guess. Still, do they batponies love cats in your batpony Ulthar? Sol-Ka-Gan, say thankya.
Last dying whisper of a wretched beast,
Upon whom wrought were horrors yet unknown,
Nefarious and blasphemous concerns
And blunt dull pain of loss, — it goes like this:
“My Moon, Thou guided me in days of sorrow,
On achromatic paths of world diseas'd;
Oh, bless my deathbed with Thy visage's honour,
Nebula-maned goddess of the dreams!”
Night falls down fast on clay-made vale of tears,
Yore life's last sandgrains scatter on the floor;
And with last breath he sees a dreamly figure;
She hugs him off away to Nevermore.
Hold off, my friends: The fate I just described
Awaits us surely in the future's raven night.
I'm somehow disappointed in myself that I've missed the joy of walking through this road together with y'all guys. But still, it was a good journey to take.
Even though one may not leave Carcosa.