Magisight: Final Chapter - OUT (warning lots of author rambling!) · 12:39am Jun 27th, 2020
(WARNING: LONG cuz I dunno when to shut up)
Well, it is finally done. After a little over two years, Magisight: Thaumaturgical Ocularity draws to a close. This has been a crazy ride and I'm not even really sure where to begin. I can't thank each and every one of you enough for the support you have shown me. The discussions in the comment section, the praise, the criticism, the anticipation of what comes next, I thank each and every one of you. Even if you didn't comment or anything, or even if you bounced after one chapter, I thank you. It means a lot that I was able to touch so many people with my story, and share my own visions of Equestria with you all.
I suppose I can start by talking about my overall experiences and feelings regarding the story, and then get into details about how I felt about the last two chapters. Magisight was born out of a yearning for more. Midway through S7, I had reconnected with the fandom and begun interacting with others. One of my favorite things to do was discuss lore, theories, and headcanons with other users. My friends Azure and Logarithmicon were my usual go-tos for this! This, combined with the lore-heavy finale of S7, and a splash of high from watching Star VS The Forces of Evil, I got curious about fanfiction. I figured this was the best way to scratch that "more" itch that I had. I wanted more lore, more adventures, more fun with the ponies I had grown to cherish.
For years and years, I had loathed fanfiction. I had some incredibly negative experiences with some woefully bleak and violent fanfics in middle school, so that kind of set the foundation for me on how I approach the medium. But, time tends to erode hatred and fear, so after a lot of searching and asking around (the last thing I wanted was to be bamboozled by Twilight suddenly turning evil and murdering everyone in the third act), I eventually settled on iisaw's The Celestia Code.
That fic was a game-changer for me, and it quickly opened my eyes to the medium. I've never been one for drawing, but I (like to think, at least) have a fairly decent grasp on English (having written many high-quality papers in school), I just lacked refinement and experience. So, I wrote The Crepuscularity of an Alicorn, largely as a subversion or protest against the "standard" alicorn/immortality angst. The itch wasn't fully scratched, however, and less than two weeks later I already started setting the framework for Magisight.
I wrote a bunch of hand-written notes, and I used the basic progression of an RPG as inspiration for the flow of the story. If you boil the story down, it basically summarizes as "Twilight goes to location A, event 1 happens. Twilight goes to location B, event 2 happens, etc." This basic framework really helped me in structuring the story, and I quickly filled in the details from there. I took a lot of heavy inspiration from sources outside MLP, including Star Wars, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy XIV. Bits of The Celestia Code still lingered in my head, and that was part of the core backbone in terms of the tone I wanted to convey. Ultimately, I wanted to show Twilight's growth as a magic user, and vis-a-vis the Princess of Friendship. To do this, I decided early on to focus on a lot of detailed magic descriptions.
The funny thing is, when I started writing the first chapter, I hadn't yet conceived of the whole "magisight" concept. I had gotten to the scene with Luna in chapter 1, and was kind of stumped. I could spend an entire paragraph detailing her magic, but from whose perspective? Obviously Twilight's, but I wanted to also show deep, intimate details that only Luna (or other spellcaters) would be privy to. Some of the feedback I had received about Crepuscularity criticized how my perspective seemed to shift from Twilight's thoughts and then suddenly to Celestia's; an easy mistake for a novice writer like me to make.
So, I cheated.
"WhAt if TwiLIght cOuLd sEE the MagiC???" I said to myself, and I came up with a new power for her to see magic on a fundamental level. Beyond just flashes of light and laser beams and the end result of an explosion or somepony being changed into a house plant. It was literally a way for me to "cheat" Twilight into Luna's perspective.
Moving on a bit, I had drafted a huge chunk of the story by autumn 2018, and during Thanksgiving break, I churned out roughly 20,000 additional words, with a combined total of 40,000ish words in November (I can't remember the exact numbers, but that sounds right). Unfortunately, the roughness of those drafts shows, and by the time I got to the pegasus arc, stuff was very, very rough. At the same time, my editor, Ember, offered his services and helped edit and polish the story. I had finished the first full draft of the story in early 2019, even though the third act was in pretty bad shape.
After going through the final chapters of the first act, Ember helped me determine that even the second act was pretty rough around the edges. The basics were there, but my inexperience as a writer was showing, and I hadn't fully settled yet on certain magic descriptions, which caused some confusion. It was around chapter 11 or so that I decided to re-write the entire thing from the ground up. We kept steady pace during 2019 for a while, even with the rewrites, but eventually IRL caught up with us both and we had to delay several chapters.
The hardwork paid off, however, and both the second and third arcs became far stronger. Seriously, you should read the first drafts of the pegasus arc sometime. They are bad. Actually no wait, don't. I'll keep them to myself forever! Muahahahaha!
Okay then! I didn't intend for that to be my fanfiction life story, but alas. I typed too much to delete it now! The following will be spoilers for chapter 32 and 33, so proceed with caution.
With the climax of the story having passed, I had to write the cooldown chapters. The falling action. The "what next?" It wasn't quite as easy as I thought it was going to be. Taking all of the themes and ideas that have been peppered all through the story and tying them together in a couple chapters at the very end of things is quite tough. The basic idea of chapter 32 and 33 were always the same, but it was the details that were killing me something fierce. How much about Twilight's adventure do Celestia and Luna really know was one such example, and I swear I floated back and forth on this even during the final edit process. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, you second guess yourself. But then you go back through your notes and re-read old chapters and realize "Ah, I was right all along!"
These last two chapters were meant to be cozy. Nothing particularly heavy. Just Twilight returning to a sense of normalcy, content that her quest for knowledge had paid off, and that she could return home to be with her friends and loved ones. The true essence of my story, and of MLP really, is tucked away in two very short chapters at the end of a huge 130,000 word story. Go figure, huh.
Magisight was an outpouring of emotion for me, of my love for Equestria and for Twilight. I've been in love with this franchise since nearly the beginning, and my biggest regret is only just recently engaging with the fandom in any meaningful way. It means so much to me that you all have looked into my little slice of Equestria. It is my sincereist hope that you were all able to get something out of it for yourselves.
As I've said a number of times before, a sequel is brewing somewhere in the cobwebs upstairs. It will likely be quite some time before I have it ready for publish, so for now, treat this little story as being complete. A sequel will come one day, I just don't know when. Probably not until sometime next year, due to the pandemic. For now, I'm going to take it easy for a few weeks. I just started reading iisaw's The Twilight Enigma and I may or may not be using it for research purposes. It's not like I'm planning to incorporate an airship in my next fanfic or anything.
cough
I've also got a couple smaller fic ideas in mind, so I might visit those first. Who knows! Until such a time arrives though, I highly recommend checking out iisaw's Alicorn Mystery series, starting with The Celestia Code. If you've still got that itch for bad-ass/adventuring Twilight, go there! If anyone ever wants to chat, my inbox is always open, and you can find me on the Manechat discord server as well.
Man that was long-winded. If you read the whole thing, thing you! If not, thank you anyway! Until next time, my friends. Thank you all, for everything. May the stars shine until the end of your journey!
-PK
Woo-hoo! Onto the kindle it goes, and I'll start reading it tonight!
)
(And I'll bookmark this post to read afterwards... spoiler-averse, you know!
Two years and 130,000 words, that's quite an achievement! Congratulations!
It's been quite a ride. You've grown so much as an author in these last two years and I'm honored to have been by your side.
Prequel memes notwithstandingI joined your journey is right in the middle of the makings of this story, and I kinda wish I was here earlier. I'm glad I came when I did though, I got to be astounded by the amazing you and the wonderful story. The ending was done is such a satisfying way, it was just wrapped up so nicely. You inspired me to write my own lore stories, and maybe I'll one day have the courage to post my own. It might sound a bit cheesy, but I'll be sticking to you from now to experience other adventures with you and your clever mastermind, and this time, I'll be there at the beginning.