The Retrospectives of "Grief" · 6:13pm Aug 27th, 2021
So I've been thinking about "Grief is the Price We Pay" lately.
It's not really so unusual for me--I often look back on old fics from time and retrospectively consider how they went and what, if anything, I might do differently if I were to write it today instead of back then. In the case of "Grief," I'd probably shorten and condense the overall plot, make a few logistical tweaks for better clarity and universe-building purposes, but otherwise I remain resolute in that I would still write the overall plot in the same manner as before.
Yes, including that one part. You all know what I'm talking about it.
(Unless you haven't read it yet and are for some reason reading this blog anyway. In which case...got plenty of links to said fic associated with this blog post if you're interested) 
Anyway, I know the story didn't end in the manner expected for many of you, and as a result, it has long remained a controversial one, but I maintain that was part of the point. It's supposed to make you confront some of the crueler realities of the world most would rather ignore, and attempt to teach a hard but important lesson in the process. To give any sort of "out" for those realities would also only give both the cast of characters as well as readers an "out" so to bypass those lessons too...and that would sort of defeat the whole point.
And despite the controversy and a few points here and there I could've structured a bit better, I'm still walking away from the fic feeling satisfied at what I had produced, as I accomplished precisely all of the goals I had set out to do with "Grief": I had explored the friendship of Spike and Thorax in a far greater depth than I knew the show was going to, I had proven just how risky Spike standing up for Thorax could've been for him and just what sort of consequences could have followed had the worst happened, and above all, I had ended it with all characters involved learning from the experience and ultimately setting themselves on paths to help them become better creatures overall, even if through an unfortunate tragedy few had wanted.
And as such, after three years of off-and-on consideration, I have finally come to a decision.
I will NOT be writing any sort of sequel or follow up to "Grief is the Price We Pay."
That news will no doubt come as a disappointment to some. Heck, I had one user indicate they were following me mostly in the hopes I would one day make good on a sequel to "Grief," and knowing this, it's a choice I didn't take lightly...hence the literal years I took to conclusively decide it.
But the fact of the matter is that I don't really have anything more to say about "Grief," to continue that story in any meaningful manner. Sure, I had plenty of ideas that I could've written anyway, but it occurred to me they were all less sequels and more just...separate stories set in the same universe. Which I'm sure plenty of readers wouldn't have objected to, but I felt like if I was going to commit to it, it needed to be furthering the core story points of "Grief" in some fashion...and none really did, because I found I didn't have more to add.
And a large part of that is because "Grief" wasn't really about characters like Trixie, Starlight, Fly Leaf, Chrysalis, Julius, most of the Mane 6, or even really Thorax. It was always much more about Twilight and, far more significantly, Spike. And in all of those possible sequels I considered, both characters weren't the characters of focus. Twilight barely even appeared in most of them, if at all. Spike obviously would have more notable roles, but almost always as a secondary character, never a core leading character.
All I had really had left that I could say about those two characters is that, yes, they eventually make amends with each other and for whatever wrongs they may or may not have achieved, and eventually both go on to help make the world a better place in their own respective ways.
And the fact of the matter is...I really don't need a whole other fic so to say that. "Grief," really, already said it, it's just more subtle, left implied so to let the reader work out the particulars themselves.
And I think...in the end...I'd rather leave it that way.
I apologize to those who had high hopes for a sequel. A part of me wishes I could deliver on that still. But better for me to move on from "Grief," much like most of its cast of characters, and look ahead to new horizons instead. I hope you all can understand that. 
That was such a great story. I would dare to say it was much better than the show canon.
Yeah, the 100,000 words amounting to 24 hours on an airship talking was kind of a groaner.
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I never thought Grief needed a sequel. What the heck would it even talk about?
I loved Grief right until the very end as I felt that Twilight was given no real path to redemption for her transgressions. It left me with the impression that her life was slowly falling apart and irreparable. Nothing about herself or her life was changing for the better and was mostly being left alone to wallow in her own self-loathing.
I dont know, maybe I'm misremembering due to not having read Grief in years, but that's what I remember thinking when it ended.
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If anything, the best I can think of is a spin-off of sorts about Twilight with her friends, in a everyday life without Spike.
Yeah, grief sorta shows what happens, but a full story of Twilight dealing with her inner demons would be a drama I'd love to read.
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Yes, that was totally the section of the story I was referring to, absolutely.
In all seriousness though, that is truly one part of the story I'd probably do very differently if I were to do it over, and those airship chapters are probably my one real regret with "Grief." On their own the chapters were okay, but they just killed the pacing for that part of the plot overall, didn't they?
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Actually, her regrets for what happened leads to her doing everything in her power to make amends, especially with her founding of the School of Friendship (which is hinted she had initial plans for one day pursuing at the end of "Grief"), and in the end, it leads to her becoming an even better mare than she had been before, perhaps even better than in show canon, as now she knows just how badly she can fail and what she can do to try and avoid it happening again (as well as try and coax others from being as foolish as she had been).
Nah, she totally turns it around.
Ultimately, in my mind, she would eventually still become the ruler of Equestria when Celestia and Luna retire, with popular support from the populace to boot (especially the changelings).
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One of the ideas I considered for a possible sequel did actually run semi-similar to that, except instead of Twilight, Trixie was the character of focus, exploring how she tries to adapt in a post-Thorax world. It honestly probably would've been a good story in all, but it was a story that would've only loosely tied in with "Grief," really. Dealt directly with some of the fallout from "Grief," but otherwise, as I said in the blog, been it's own story just set in the same universe.
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Ah, so her professional life was salvage and improved, but what about her personal life? The manner in which all of her personal relationships had degraded and failed to improve over the implied long length of time the epilogue takes place in is what lead me to think what I did.
Ya know I've been tempted for over a year to write a recursive fan fiction of that scene where instead Thorax lives but the magic that would have reformed him instead goes into healing him enough to leave him barely alive and permanently crippled with a permanent limp, unable to shapeshift, fly, or use magic in any meaningful way but to cast a weak light and carry some light things. Sometimes there are fates both better and worse than death.
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She maintains all of her usual friendships, and technically makes a few more out of it too. Even she and Spike would have mostly made amends by what would be season 8 in the "Grief" universe.
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A lot of people threatened to do some sort of fix-fic for "Grief", but as far as I know, nobody actually made good on it, or at least didn't on any of the sites I frequent (which aren't that many, so...).
I didn't really have a problem with it one way or the other, and was admittedly somewhat curious to see what such a fix-fic might be like...but most who conveyed such intent were usually those who didn't seem to understand why I did it the way I did in the first place, and thus were sort of missing part of the point.
At least in your case, you're still keeping in mind some serious and permanent consequences from it and not trying to just dismiss that important aspect entirely (though I still feel like that it overall nerfs it a little--don't think I hadn't considered such an approach when planning "Grief" nor that I didn't have my reasons for opting against it in the end, but I digress).
Honestly, I thought the pacing and filler was perfect. It was important to develop Spike and Thorax's friendship, and seeing them in their everyday life before shit went down really hammered it home.
The airship was great as is as well for similar reasons. It shows both sides of the story coming together and just how much it was affecting everyone. It didn't feel drawn out to me at all. I was tense as hell!
I think my only real criticism was in the Royal Sisters. With Celestia, it was how little her and Twilight interacted in it. I think the reason that Celestia blindly followed Twilight in supporting banishment was that she still felt guilty for blowing Twilight off in the wedding. She was so scared of being wrong again that she accepted Twilight's reports without question. I was waiting for Celestia to bring this up to Twilight, but she never did. Instead, pretty much removed herself from the situation to be a moderator. There was a lot of potential to really develop Twilight and Celestia's friendship that I feel was missed, since I'm sure Celestia was heartbroken and absolutely disgusted with both Twilight for letting her down and herself for letting her emotions run her judgement.
As with Luna, she pretty much refused to allow Spike any grieving time before starting to pressure him to forgive everyone, or at least leave on good terms. The funeral hadn't even happened yet! And the fact that this speech was coming from one of the monarchs that had banished him and his late friend, then spent months trying to arrest and/or kill them should have been a big trigger for Spike. Instead, he pretty much shrugged and went "Yes. Your sister stopping you from destroying the world is exactly the same as my caretaker throwing me out in the snow to freeze to death because I made friends with a changeling. My mistake" Especially since it was clear that all he just wanted to go back to Vanhoover and live his life with his new friends. I think that scenario would have been a lot better if he was talked down from his rage from either Fluttershy or Trixie, since he was on relatively good terms with both and they both had their own demons to fight in the past. Luna playing peacemaker after everything that has happened really rubbed me the wrong way.
At the end of the day, though, I love 99% of the fic to pieces. I love the way you developed Spike and Thorax's friendship, especially since the show pretty much dropped it immediately and gave Thorax's entire story to Starlight. For God's sake, Thorax and Spike shared a mere 4 sentences for the rest of the show and he never was invited to the hive, unlike Starlight! (All while the writers insist Starlight didn't replace Spike, despite literally NONE of Spikes story being finished at the end of the show.)
In any case, I think it's a great story, and even though I don't agree with how Spikes forgiveness went down, the fantastic way the two of them were written was great! Thorax being a Sci-fi and Airship nerd was adorable! And like I said, all those chapters that were seemingly filler? All just great character building! It just makes the end far more powerful!
So, seriously, Thanks for the great story! The fact that it still crosses my mind with "what if?"s shows how well you did. Have a lovely evening! :-)
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On Celestia, yeah, that's a fair enough point, and in retrospect, I probably could've tried harder to address such points. She was probably never going to get that much "screen time" as it were, since the story was never really about her, but there is at least one very obvious point where I could've talked about some of that then (the "Twilight's Lament" chapter).
What's worse is that I do dimly (it's been awhile after all) recall having tried a few bits of dialogue that ran something along those lines for that chapter...but ultimately cut it because it didn't feel like it was working in context with not just the chapter but the rest of the story on a whole. Started to feel a bit too much "Celestia's story" and not enough "Twilight's and/or Spike's story" as it had a more pressing need to be at that time.
That, and I had already depleted my buffer of completed chapters to post by that time, so I didn't want to delay the story too long wasting time trying to figure out a point I wasn't sure was working at the time.
I probably could've made it work eventually, but such is life.
As for Luna...I mean, I get what you're saying, and it's a fair enough point that Luna's situation isn't that comparable to Spike's...but the point was less that and more how it had been giving in to all the hatred and anger that drove them both to reach such points.
After all, something I think not all readers truly appreciated was the fact that Spike was his own villain all throughout "Grief." True, Twilight and company get it started by banishing Thorax to begin with, but Spike took that so personally he pursued almost no attempts to try and turn it around again--despite receiving actually SEVERAL opportunities to try and do so well before the attempted changeling invasion--until it was already too late. As I believe Thorax states late in the story, for Spike it eventually became less standing up for what was right and more doing anything in Spike's power to refuse Twilight any victories, to pursue any chances to get back at her. He was so angry with her that for most of the story he didn't want her forgiveness, even though that was arguably making him no better than her in the process.
And when Thorax perished, that increased ten-fold.
In short, Spike was on the verge of succumbing completely to his anger and hatred over what had happened, letting it drive him into into lashing back anyway he could if not stopped. And Luna, the one who best knew what it was like to let such powerful anger consume you like that because she had already done that herself and lived to deeply regret it, seemed like the obvious choice in trying to convince Spike to move past that anger and hatred before it was too late, to try and spare him a similar sort of misery she herself had to endure, for she knew from terrible experience that misery was all that waited for Spike on that path.
So I largely have to still stand by how I had written that whole section with Luna. Probably could've done something to better convey what I was trying to say there, sure, but I'd still stick with that concept largely as-is, precisely where it is, in fact (to be honest? For Luna to have put it off until any later may have been too late for Spike, he was that close to the brink
).
You're not the first to defend the airship chapters, and I do appreciate the vote of confidence...but looking back, I have to agree with most everybody else, I could've handled those chapters waaaaay better than I did. But so much for regrets.
I just found Grief recently, and am still reading through it myself (about 40%ish done), so most of this doesn't make sense to me yet :P
I will say tho that I'm enjoying the fic a lot. Its very very good :)
And honestly not everything needs sequels, even the good stuff (sometimes especially so). Eventually the point or the charm wears off and its worth gets lost somewhere down the line, everyone always look back to the "good old stuff", and I honestly feel the show itself could've benefited from a shorter run.