Introduction

Hello! My name is RQK. I’ve been an amateur writer for many many years. I’ve yet to make a professional debut, but I am slowly working on that. Hopefully, it will happen in my foreseeable lifetime.

I’ve been a part of various authoring groups over the years. Most of them were roleplay groups. The Equestria Daily Roleplay (which was hosted in the site’s pony chats), was one of what I consider my three major groups. And of course, during my time in these groups, I’ve had a lot of room to practice. I’ve developed several ideas (most of which I have yet to use but have plans for) and have improved my technique.

I also have an original novel in the works. It has gone through multiple unfinished drafts since the end of 2009. It’s currently on haitus while I work on my MLP stories and improve my craft (which, I can readily tell, having written a novel-length fan work has helped immensely).

I’ve also done some studying on proper technique on my own and have even taken a university-level class here and there (on the side, although I major in physics). I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’ve been able to write a million words in my lifetime, but nonetheless~

I’m a slow writer, so I very much doubt that I will produce too many long-form works, which does provide some interesting restrictions in that long-form works are the only works that I like to develop. I currently have a couple of completed shorter stories to the tune of 13,000 words and 22,000 words (originally a 5,500 word one-shot), but I’m not here to talk about those. I find this okay, as well, as there are non-mlp projects (like the aforementioned novel) that I could invest my time in.

As far as pony fiction goes, I’ve tried to make a habit of having show-style coverart for my fics. This presents its own set of challenges in that I know next to nothing about graphics manipulation aside from cropping vectors, using a paintbrush to touch up spots, and what have you. I doubt I could ever make my own vectors.

I’ve currently managed to get one fic on Equestria Daily, which turns out really nice since, somehow, I think it might be my opus too. But, as I think about it, that may change. Nonetheless, it has granted me some very decent exposure which has, in turn, led me to continue writing fics. I now work on the sequel which, if it writes the way I want it too, may surpass the original.

That’s enough about me! I’m going to talk about my fic(s) below. There are minor spoilers ahead.

TFeedback

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Drama
• Mystery

Twilight Sparkle gives her life to save Equestria. Complications in time and space conspire to correct that, but can a long-dead mare be saved?

• Twilight
• Spike
• Main 6
• Sunset Shimmer

RQK · 84k words  ·  440  12 · 7.1k views

Feedback, ultimately, traces itself back quite a ways. I’m a decent fan of the Half-Life series and have been playing Black Mesa since its release as a mod in 2012. The Inbound Suite, which plays during the games opening tram ride, really rocked me to my core and still does to this day. The feeling that arose from that “You’re about to do something awful,” was something I morphed into for use in one of the authoring groups I mentioned in my bio as “You, an integral part of the safety of the world, plan to sacrifice yourself.”

Later on, I tried to apply such a story idea to My Little Pony, and Feedback was born. I applied it to Twilight Sparkle in the last days of 2014 and started writing soon after. And since I was still somewhat crazy about Rainbow Rocks at the time, I decided to put Sunset Shimmer into a main character spot and see what would happen.

I can’t remember how exactly I got the crystal ball from, which ended up being the centerpiece of the story due to its ability to see a few days into the past, but I knew I needed a way for them to watch Twilight journey toward her sacrifice without being able to intervene in any way. This was the story in its most infant form: they find a crystal ball, find out Twilight has to sacrifice herself, try to spend a few days fruitlessly searching around for answers, and then coming to terms with the fact that their friend is really and truly gone. I can’t quite imagine how exactly it would have run, but by itself, this is a very simple story.

Feedback was not simple. At all.

And somehow, I prefer it that way. In order to weave the complex plot that Feedback ended up with together, I had to make timetables. I distinctly remember having to list when every event takes place within some 15 day timespan (which was more or less what I accounted for), which is not so simple since I had to map two days at the same time (due to the crystal ball and it’s staggering of days).

I struggled to come up with a reason for Twilight to even sacrifice herself, or how she’d do it, or what manner she’d do it in. To the first, I found an elegant solution; it would be something so unspeakably evil and bad for the world that the text couldn’t even speak of it. It had a huge benefit, it allowed me to leave it vague and thus up to reader interpretation whilst allowing me to solve other obstacles. It’s also nice since (which one of the people that reviewed my story mentioned) the villain isn’t important, since the story is really about the character’s interactions and them trying to save Twilight.

Solving some of the more intricate concepts required me to expand my horizons. During the story, the characters try to put together a really long and complex spell, one that I knew would require more than one reality. I had to consider infinitely many realities. That by itself is difficult, but I also had to do it such that the sequence of events in each reality had no appreciable differences yet there would be a way for information to accumulate from one reality to the next and then, finally, for the completed information set to turn around and travel back to them.

I had a lot of fun writing the intellectual parts of the story. Where characters talk about contradictions, have revelations.
In short, writing Feedback stretched my mental capacities to their limits. But I never gave up on it. Even when I suffered a permanent yet minor injury, I still kept at the story, and I’m really proud of how it turned out. It’s definitely a cerebral story.

But I also had a lot of fun writing the more emotional parts to the story. I knew going in that the story would be a sad story and there were a plethora of scenes to choose from. From them attending Twilight’s funeral, to them finding Twilight and hearing that Twilight intends to sacrifice herself, to Sunset losing her marbles in front of Spike, to Sunset reuniting with Celestia, to all of them despairing at the fact that they couldn’t save Twilight even after everything they tried to do.

There were plenty of other things in between that I won’t mention here, but they all definitely came together. There isn’t much behind the scenes commentary that I can give on them as most of those were straight shot scenes. Sure, I had plenty of time between conceptualizing these scenes and writing them down (which I used almost liberally), but I’m that sort of writer anyhow.

To this day, Feedback remains the only novel-length story that I’ve actually completed. However, with a bit of luck, it may not be along for long. Even now, I am working on the sequel. But that’s a discussion for another time~

Wow, you sound like a interesting writer and I do hope for you to become a professional writer someday! (I hope to become a professional at something else, but not writing. My name should give you a clue as to what I want to become a professonial at.)

TSubstitute

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Drama
• Tragedy

Everything has a price. The smallest of actions, both good and bad, can place many into the grave. The roots run deep, after all, in any and all Equestrias.

• Alt. Universe
• Twilight
• OC
• Main 6
• Sunset Shimmer
• Starlight Glimmer

RQK · 115k words  ·  184  7 · 3.3k views

So, yeah. Substitute is the sequel to Feedback. Most of the following is fairly copy-paste from a post-script that I did for the story in a blog, but it's still good behind the scenes stuff nonetheless.

When I wrote Feedback, I knew that my source of inspiration was Black Mesa’s Inbound chapter, but specifically the music. Back then, that sort of plot was something that I had been cooking for some time and had intended to use in a small author’s group on Facebook that never ended up happening.

For Substitute? Believe it or not, it was Pokemon battle music. Vs Zinnia, from the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes. Neither of which I have actually played. It was the vibe that I got from the music and what little scenes I saw with it. Over time, as I listened to it more, I envisioned a battle where neither side actually wanted to win but knew they had to.

I also had a specific sequence in mind that I really wanted to do with the crystal ball. What later turned into chapter three with Sunset and Starlight on the train was originally Rarity and Sassy Saddles vs some changelings (as I had this idea right after Canterlot Boutique aired). I wanted to do a bit where Future Twilight would warn them that some tracks were not switched, Rarity would communicate with a past Pinkie Pie to switch the tracks, and then they would be switched.

Speaking of changelings, I had at one point considered giving Chrysalis an integral role in the plot. I felt that she could serve as an ally of sorts to Adamanthine (her name before I realized it wasn’t spelled with an h), since I figured they would be in similar situations. Of course, such an approach would have required a somewhat not-in-character portrayal of Chrysalis and, furthermore, would have undermined the story since it would no longer be Adamantine making the decision on her own; it would have been under Chrysalis’ influence. I do, and always have, considered Substitute to be the tragedy of Adamantine.

Some other changes included Sunset and Twilight butting heads over the issue of Adamantine, where Sunset would have defected and tried to help Adamantine out. This would have led to them actually fighting over it, with Twilight emerging victorious but unwittingly setting herself up to battle Adamantine. However, this fight would have been me indulging a scene that I’m actually curious to see play out. I realized pretty early on in the writing process that there was no way in heck that this could actually happen in the story, which is probably for the best. Another change involved Starlight watching the final battle turn to a draw and she would have to physically choose the victor (which, in effect, would have meant choosing between the missing Equestrians and the unponies). I was interested in the psychological effects it would have on her and what the consequences of her decision. I also realized that this could not work due to requiring some contrivances.

And, lastly, I have envisioned Sunset finding a way to world hop, thus able to visit other layers. However, she would only have been able to do this via projecting herself through the crystal ball (thus her spirit could travel, but not her body). Her projection could project some number of times but would become more unstable with each layer she traveled. My plan was, after traveling enough layers back in time, she would run into Adamantine and actually, inadvertently, set the whole catastrophe in motion (which would have played into her conviction in saving the unponies and thus why she would be willing to butt heads with Twilight).

Nonetheless, all of this was from a time when Starlight was still creeping around. I hadn’t even written a single word down yet. As such, I could maybe see 10% of the story at the most, and I had no possible clue on how to connect any of it. But I should clarify what I mean by that: I had a way to connect it but it wasn’t any good, which is the same thing as having nothing. Even when I fell into the throes of NaNoWriMo for an original work, I had little progress on figuring anything out with which to tie Substitute together, and I did not plan to write a single word either unless something actually happened. The above was where I stood.

Well, The Cutie Remark happened.

It took a while for me to realize it, but that episode gave me everything. It gave me a way to tie everything together. From the actual events within the plot to a lot of the themes spread throughout. Most importantly, however, the alternate timelines gave me something intellectually stimulating, which in my humble opinion is a key component. After all, what made Feedback what it is was that mixture of character interactions and those things that made you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting to think about.” And I knew from the get-go that I did not want to write Substitute without having both of those things.

And so, it was early December of 2015 when I started writing the story. Even then, I had a feeling that it would be longer than Feedback by ten, maybe twenty thousand words (115% to 130%), and I figured I would be done by the end of August. Heck, I even scheduled things to drop that first chapter in March and complete by July. So, wow, this took a lot longer than I thought it would. And a lot longer than it should have.

I think that a lot of it was that there were so many scenes that were grab bags. Aside from a few things within those sections where they solve the alternate timelines, a lot of that was off the cuff. As such, there were a few times where I’d say to myself, “Yeah, okay, what happens next?” There were also a lot of scenes that were difficult to write because I knew what I wanted to happen in them but wasn’t entirely sure how to tie them all together. Sequencing can be a tricky thing, after all. There were also quite a few real-life causes that probably prolonged the writing process.

I also harbored this fear while writing the later sections that the plot would get stupid and farfetched. I can only hope that I actually managed to solve it!

I come out of this story having a few curiosities of my own. I won't detail them here, but they do exist!

TDetective Rease and the Adventure of the Double Identity

• MLP: FiM
• Mystery

Strange behaviors and inconsistencies are afoot! Journalist Parchment Pusher shadows Rease, consulting detective, and the two delve into a rabbit hole of suspicious actions, mysterious amulets, and a Canis Minor.

• OC

RQK · 13k words  ·  17  0 · 414 views

Woo boy, this story has a bit of history behind it.

So, way back in the day around the turn of the decade, I became an avid roleplayer. Around 2011 when the show was in its prime, I joined Equestria Daily's roleplay, which was a thing hosted in the ponychats (it's still around but it doesn't see as much activity as it used to, if at all). As I had, at the time, recently watched the 2009 Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes film, I decided that I would make a Holmes-like character for the roleplay. And thus Rease was born.

I then remember that for my entire senior year of high school (the 2011-2012 year), I actually dedicated myself to reading the entire Sherlock Holmes canon. That means all 52 short stories and 4 novels. And I did, in fact, do it. I initially undertook it because it would help me better understand Rease's character but it also, unsurprisingly, gave me some good material to read (and even without the former, I am glad that I read them). While in the Equestria Daily RP, I came up with an entire plotline for Rease that I meant to carry out as a character arc for him. However, to give better context of who he was, for the benefit of the other players, I also conspired to write a mystery of my own.

Thus, I wrote Detective Rease and the Adventure of the Double Identity (just Double Identity for short) in order to do this. I drew on A Case of Mistaken Identity as the startings of my story but then I took it in a completely different direction. The result was a story that I think is fairly original and has no analogue within the Holmes canon. In fact, it would be difficult--if not impossible--to take the story out of Equestria and into a human setting, so that is a big plus. Over time, I have tried to make it even more related to pony.

And before this point, the story had only existed in google docs (this was back in the days before fimfiction existed), but this last summer I finally brought the story to the site.

TReflections

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Adventure

Crystal Faire, a Flurry Heart from an alternate reality, attempts to stop the collapse of all existence. ...With a little help, perhaps.

• Alt. Universe
• Twilight
• Chrysalis
• Sunset Shimmer
• Starlight Glimmer
• Flurry Heart

RQK · 143k words  ·  238  9 · 5.3k views

Goodness, I have a lot to say about this story. I already did say everything that I wanted to do say about it in the post-script that I did from the story so I'm going to pretty much just copy-paste what I said there into this. I would however add that this is my favorite story to date and is probably my magnum opus (even moreso than the previous two stories). I also had a lot more to say about it this time around. So here we go:

Literally the very first thing that I wrote down for it were the words “My name is Crystal Faire but your reality knows me as Flurry Heart. You may call me that if you wish.” This was back in October of 2016 or so when I was still working on Substitute. I think it was a random thought that popped into my head and I wrote it down.

I then walked away from it for a couple of months while I finished work on Substitute. When I finished that story in early January, I had to decide what I wanted to do next. I had a couple of other stories that I could have done but I eventually settled on this one.

When I first started writing it out, I didn’t have nearly as much planned for it as the final story ended up being. In fact, I had originally planned to end the story around chapter eight or so (with the first six chapters being almost as presented and then the next two chapters wrapping up the story). But, I think, I was mid-way through chapter three when I realized that I couldn’t end it there; you can’t collapse a reality without eventually addressing it. I had to come up with a reason for the collapse. And that was when I truly found my plot.

And it was at that point that I knew I had to fully discover the multiverse for myself. I had to come up with a whole slew of rules for how it behaved. This was a lot easier said than done, because there were a few things that I had to accomplish with the ruleset: I had to make it so that the amount of some character was a constant; I had to make sure that contradictions time-wise were not possible; I had to make it so that what Crystal did in timelines made an actual difference.

I’m a physicist, so I started with what I know. A predominant theory says that, given some instance of time, there are infinitely-many ways in which reality may be in another state in the next moment; it follows that there is a separate universe spawned for each possibility. These are differentiation events, actually.

There were many ways in which I could have actually represented this. A lot of my thoughts actually made it into chapters eight and nine with Twilight sitting down and trying to work everything out and then Crystal filling in the blanks.

The threading concept however was what let me make the magic happen because it practically solved every other problem that I might have still had in that it not only allowed me to keep the amount of Crystals constant but (with a small corollary) it allowed me to keep the amount of Twilight’s constant (and other characters too).

Around this point, I knew I had to decide on a cast for the rest of the story. Crystal and Twilight were already givens; Starlight seemed like a surefire choice given she's performed time travel in the show; I wanted, neigh, needed Sunset in the story too (and, especially after what I did with her in Feedback and Substitute, my previous stories, I knew where I wanted to go with her too).

Sunset was an especially interesting choice because she allowed me to bring in a character that we know very well but they obviously have a story to tell that some people might not be familiar with. It goes to further show that, in the grand scheme of timelines, not everything is as we expect and much is fair game.

And that leads to the fifth. I knew that I wanted someone a bit more villainous to round out the cast. I was initially undecided between Chrysalis and Discord; I was considering the latter because he would bring a good amount of power to the ensemble as well as provide a little bit of comedy. I ultimately decided against it because I didn’t think that he’d have much a story to tell in this case and that Chrysalis would ultimately make things a little more interesting.

Briefly returning to Crystal, her context changed as the story went on. The travel power and her ability to see the timelines were there from the get-go (I knew that they had to exist on her character in order for her to actually be an effective defender of the multiverse), but the origins were not so set in stone.

From the outset, I knew I wanted there to be some sort of disaster that made Crystal’s timeline go kaboom. I knew I wanted that to be the start of the destruction of the multiverse. I even knew that I wanted it to involve the Crystal Empire and that Crystal herself would have a hand in it. But the exact circumstances escaped me up until it was time to write about it in chapter twenty (History).

I also don’t remember when it was that I decided that Crystal had the ability to see the timelines from birth, but I do know at one point that I had an idea to have the ability be a result of the catastrophe. But I knew that, by the time I wrote chapter twenty, I would have to decide on something. That something is what’s present in the final version.

And it was at that point that I could see through to the end of the rest of the story.

I now bring the following bit of trivia that I knew from the start that, perhaps, the story loosely implies but gives no explanation on; anything exposed to the interverse gains the ability to travel between timelines. This means that Twilight, Sunset, Starlight, Chrysalis, etc. all have this ability now. As a matter of fact, the latter three more or less used this ability albeit unintentionally.

The only ability that is genuinely Crystal’s is the ability to see the timelines. But, given that the travel power requires being able to see where you’re going, none of the others can actually make use of it. You know the loser horn from The Price is Right? That’s the sound that’s now playing in your head.

As to why the multiverse operates around Crystal in the way it does, I’ve always thought of it as there’s some small part of her that’s intrinsically connected with the rest of the interverse. As such, she runs on interversal time because that little part of her is in the interverse to begin with. The text implies that this is the result of some anomaly that likely happened at the event of her birth (even being at a specific place at a specific time). We could extend this to what eventually destroyed Crystal’s timeline; she essentially was hit by her own magic (as it went into the heart, then into the castle, and then got shot back into her). We might especially consider the case where the magic is in a feedback loop in the space of that part of her which is interversal, then perhaps the fate of the timeline immediately follows.

(I also want to make clear that those things that I just claimed aren’t necessarily canon. I’m a believer in the Death of the Author and I think that the text should speak for itself. I don’t think I could have explored the above in the story and so the most I can do is offer a possible explanation; your guess is as good as mine!)

The development with Celestia was not so much planned. Actually, what inspired me to do it were a couple of comments that the story was getting a little too slow. So I said to myself “Hey I think I’ll shake things up, I guess”. And thus Celestia appeared.

And I have to say that it ended up working really well because it let me do a lot of things that I wanted to do with the story. It played really well with everything that I had and was going to have. So I’m glad that I did it.

It might have even set the stage for the developments which later occurred with Miasmus returning. I think it was mid-way through act two (chapters 6 – 12) when I had the idea for Miasmus to be a villain in later parts of the story (because I realized that the way he worked would allow him to exist across timelines). But, before the development with Celestia, it was going to be a random Miasmus. I remember smiling like mad when I realized I could make it the exact same Miasmus that had appeared in act one.

I think, at this point, I’ve hit on the most general stuff and the meat of what I wanted to say during this retrospective. Here now I’ll hit the remaining stuff chronologically.

Act one consists of chapters 1 – 6 and is the first half of Twilight’s arc. I wanted to establish the nature of Crystal and who she was in this part. I wanted to show Crystal in what constitutes her normal everyday life (we should remember that, to her, this was just another timeline to save). Obviously, the events in these chapters mean a lot to Twilight as well because this entire act deals with her home timeline and that which was characteristic about it.

I also wanted these early parts to start setting up the main plot of Reflections. I wanted it to kinda be lurking in the background for a while where we don’t quite understand the significance of it but it does set up the collapse which is, without a doubt, the initial event that kicks the plot off.

Obviously, Miasmus’ design worked really well in the end and I’m happy with that. I knew from the beginning that I wanted Twilight to face (and fail) against some villain but, in the concept states, Miasmus was just a monster with no name (no, not the Nameless, for those of you familiar with my other works).

Obviously, it’s here we see a crossover into another work. I wanted to ingrain Reflections into the expanded universe and incorporate several elements into it. Obviously, I went right for the throat with the first reference, and I hope it gave some ideas on what things we might expect later on. I doubt there is any reader that got all of the references, and I don’t expect anyone to; someone like Crystal would know all of the references but someone like Twilight would understand none of them. We are simply crossing paths with other stories that we can only take a moment to glimpse at; they allow us to look into that which is bigger than just our story. A facet that I particularly like, however, is that the curious could find these other paths and explore those other facets of the multiverse for themselves (as the stories exist!). However, personally, I make no claim about them; these glimpses can be anything the readers want; the references point to possible suggestions on what these things mean.

Anyhow, act two (as stated above) is chapters 7 – 12 and is the second half of Twilight’s arc. It’s here that Twilight is able to experience the multiverse through Crystal’s lens somewhat. Writing the subtle differences between Twilight’s home reality and this new one was a lot of fun and I had a blast with it.

One thing that really surprised me was the reader response to the existence of the native Twilight. Admittedly, in an early version of the draft, Crystal outright told Twilight what happened to the counterpart as to explain it away. I felt, however, that things would work better if that fact was saved for a reveal at the culmination of her arc and so I pushed the reveal back to chapter 12 (Sincerity). What I had instead was a hint as to what happened to Twilight: Starlight asking “Didn’t you go out to the Everfree today?” I actually expected more people to catch onto this but the question continually came up in the comments. Actually, I consider myself a dense reader, and I wonder if I too would have missed it if I was a reading the story instead of the writing it. I think the payoff was really good though and I really love how it turned out.

Obviously, I had ample opportunity to start building the multiverse here, especially since, given what the two experienced, Twilight and Crystal could be much more candid with each other. I myself am a bit of a mechanics nut (I wrote essays on how dreams worked in Inception, for instance—by the way, I may or may not have had some inspiration from that movie). The experiment was especially nice and I had some fun writing that; obviously everything they determined came up later in the story.

One part in particular that I was really happy to include was the bit where the story visited A Shimmering New Year (which was the part of chapter nine (Mechanics) where they visited CHS). A large part of it had to do with it allowing me to buckle down on how all of the realities fit into the system that I had created (which was a necessary question to answer because, obviously, the world of Gen 4 is comprised of more than just the reality which Equestria sits in). It was, quite literally, the perfect opportunity. And I was especially happy that I was able to do it the way I did it because I have absolutely no idea what human form Crystal would look like (feel free to speculate about this in the comments).

It’s also happened since then that Crystal was integrated into A Shimmering New Year. Her inclusion still tickles me to the bone and I can’t wait to see more stuff like that.

Act three is comprised of chapters 13 – 18 and is the first third of Crystal’s arc. It’s here that the problem of the collapsing multiverse, which has been hinted at before this point in-story comes to a front (but is to no surprise as readers will be well aware that this is the plot). We had, before this point, seen a collapsing timeline, and now we get to see (the aftermath of) a collided timeline. And I think it’s here that Crystal (on Twilight’s suggestion) starts shedding her old self.

The planning scene was one that I especially looked forward to writing. It also ended up being the most edited chapter for two reasons: some criticisms arose on how much of a slog it was originally (in editing it, I cut out around 1,000 words, which should be telling about how much that might have actually been the case), and it contained a scene based on the then-unreleased movie (which, once I saw it, I got some really good ideas about how to change it up to fit better). There is a certain importance with it anyhow as readers should have an idea of how the solution actually works (in other words, it had to happen at some point; not showing the process would have probably been cheap).

Chrysalis is a very interesting case in that, within the show’s canon, a significant portion of people see her as unredeemable. I’m of the mind that what she went through when we first meet her has a lot to do with why her character development in this story is even possible. (And it probably helps that Crystal picked a timeline where she accepted the treatment.) I think she ended up in a reasonable spot that’s (hopefully!) still fairly in character for her.

I hadn’t originally planned for chapter sixteen to take place (this was the chapter in which Chrysalis time traveled and they discovered an inherent discontinuity in the multiverse). My intention for this was to give a signal that the amount by which the multiverse was messed up extended past its dying state. It was also meant to point toward how Crystal fit into the picture (and give some clues as to what started the destruction in the first place). It also had the nice bonus of elevating Chrysalis to a time-traveler status thus making everypony in the mane five so (in her backstory, Sunset has used the time travel spell). Overall I think it succeeded in what I wanted it to do.

I can’t go without mentioning Adamantine who appears near the tail-end of it. She’s obviously not from the show; rather she is from the story that I wrote before writing this one which is called Substitute. That story is the sequel to Feedback, which was my first story and also one which put me on the map. I’m very happy that I got to include her in this story and I suspect that, for readers of Substitute, they might be happy with seeing her here too (especially considering the events of that story). I intended for her to have a small-ish role in the story but she ended up getting more screentime than I anticipated. But it worked out well, in the end, I think. It also let me tie in Sunset’s backstory a little more (as a matter of fact, I imagine that the Sunset that appears in this story is the exact same one from Substitute as it was written, so in a way that makes Reflections a stealth sequel to it).

Chapter eighteen is known for two reasons, one of which might not be so readily apparent to readers who weren’t here for it. This was a chapter that I accidentally published a good while before it was intended (in fact, it was published before chapter seventeen was). I will admit that I have a habit of uploading chapters well before they are published and subsequently perusing them on my phone when I’m out and about. Chances are that I accidentally pushed that publish button without even realizing it. It was an embarrassment indeed. Especially since the chapter ends with a pretty nice plot twist that sets the stage for the rest of the story and shines new light on everything that’s happened (this, of course, is the other reason why the chapter is known).

Act four is comprised of chapters 19 – 24 and is the second third of Crystal’s arc. Obviously, I’m already talked about the developments with Celestia, and I’ve already talked about how Crystal’s past was up in the air until it came time to actually write it.

Chapter twenty-one (Melancholia) involved Sunset’s computer and them hearing various songs out of it. In the original draft of the chapter, a lot more of the songs were actually apparent (whereas in the final version only Dance Magic is identified). It will interest the reader to know what I had in mind. The first song would have been Fortunate Son by C.C.R. (just picture in your head Chrysalis and Celestia having heard this song now); Starlight would have hummed Smash Mouth’s All Star, likely having heard it played earlier. Mask Off by Future would have been the song that Sunset would have turned off from it being “overplayed”. And the song I intended for Crystal and Twilight to dance to would have been O’ Children by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It might have been for the best that I left the few patches of lyrics out, however.

I actually struggled a lot with how Miasmus was actually going to be a threat to them. I think it took me several months to figure out what his exact circumstances were (I had the thought to have him spread across timelines but I had no idea how to get him there). Some ideas that I had included that he was getting across timelines via timeline collisions (as that’s when any two timelines come together), and I actually leaned toward this for a while. In a way, I have to think the unplanned development with Celestia for offering me a solution to this conundrum as I was able to apply what I did with her to what I did with him (thus making her part set up his part).

I absolutely one-hundred percent knew that the story wouldn’t be complete without us seeing a timeline as it was colliding. And even when I had the first imaginings of the scene many months prior, I knew I wanted it to be a fight scene in the Assassinverse (one would ask why I chose that particular one, and the reason is that I don’t really know but the thought of Twilight showing up to her own funeral and then kicking some flank was just one of those images that I couldn’t get out of my head). I actually had the idea to make the other timeline that collides with it an alternate version of this verse; it would have been a crossover of the most literal sense as I would be jamming the two timelines together. I wasn’t able to fit it in through. Actually writing the collision was a challenge because there are certain things that should happen and I’m of the mind that it probably should not have been as well-behaved as it was in the text (you might be thinking “That wasn’t well-behaved at all!” but by what I thought it should have been, it was comparably so).

And, finally, act five consisted of chapters 25 – 32 and is the final third of Crystal’s arc. The first chapter which involved their hunting Miasmus was actually one which was very fluid; I had a general idea of what had to happen during it but as for the places visited or the actions performed, I wrote that off the cuff. I would reckon that part of it was that I really didn’t plan on chapter twenty-five happening to begin with. My original plan was that both this and the next would have just been them storming Canterlot Castle over the span of two chapters (with Crystal being the only one to take the fight to other timelines). I realized that this wouldn’t have been a great option however because there wouldn’t have been anything to stop them from just appearing right in front of Celestia/Miasmus and ending it in two seconds.

There’s an interesting comparison to be made with what happens when they enter the interverse. The sequence of events concerning Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis was extremely fluid (apart from the fact that Chrysalis would reach the culmination of her arc and thus transform—I’ll talk more about this in a moment) while the sequence of events with Twilight and Crystal was fairly rigid. I would dare say it was these latter parts that consistently played through my head for months on end which is probably why I knew them so well when it came time to write them. I toiled to make sure that their wording did exactly what I wanted from them as those bits are, indeed, the climax for the whole story (and it’s thus extremely important to get them right!).

I wrestled a little bit with what to do regarding Chrysalis’ transformation. From what I’ve seen, the changeling's redesign in the show was quite divisive. With this being a fan-fic, I’m especially interested in having consistency with the source material (yes, shortcomings and all; I’m okay with the redesign but there are others who perceive the shortcoming). I’m glad that Pharynx got a dark color scheme when he transformed because that convinced me that I could go with the transformation that kept most of her original appearance (while generally making her a little more wholesome). She still, thankfully, retains a lot of her personality (which is a big part of what makes her her), and while she might not be willing to go all lovey-dovey and allow friendship into her life, she’ll at least tolerate them. Baby steps, after all.

And then Cadance has, probably, the single most interesting situation in the entire story, both in-universe and out-of-universe. Obviously, after a four-thousand year gap, she is likely to have naturally changed a little, but I think that there are some factors which would have eclipsed that in a way; one being that there could be some bits of insanity from being out there and furthermore that the corruption probably never completely left her. I very much wanted her to still resemble the Cadance that we’re all familiar with and that stemmed from one single aspect: sincerity. I felt like the interactions between Crystal and Cadance would have held the most meaning if Cadance was herself. That isn’t to say that she did perform some villainous actions within the story but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if her reasoning for doing so made sense.

And then there is, of course, the ending. Twilight, Sunset, and Starlight were givens. That left me to figure out what Crystal and Chrysalis were going to do once everything was said and done. I didn’t put too much thought into the latter as I did with the former but I had a few ideas for Chrysalis, one of which included putting Chrysalis in a situation like Twilight (place her in a timeline where she died). I think the final version was a little more sensible (because they can keep an eye on her in the meantime and she’d have ponies to talk to who know full well her position. Whether she succeeds in that is up in the air (actually, me leaving it open might allow other authors to take up her story; I’ve spoken with another author who already plans to do so to a degree, so that might happen later). Crystal was a lot tougher to figure out. I pretty much knew what I wanted from the ending scene (Crystal appears, Twilight reads; incidentally, the last line of dialogue was planned out months in advance), but where she went from there wasn’t so easy. Having Crystal make a home for herself seemed to fit most into the theme of her arc. And I really do think that Crystal got a job at The Krusty Krab City Hall. I might explore that in some vignette someday.