~ Epilogue ~

It Ends as It Started and Starts as It Ended

Princess Celestia, and no longer just Celestia, woke up the next day, finding night instead of morning, and that, somewhat, she'd been given another day off for recovery. She rose with a groan as everything was sore.

Still.

This was no excuse not to get out of bed.

She managed to stroll out of the bedroom to find none in the hallways. Guards no doubt tired from yesterday, with Luna too lazy to pay a fake to get revenge for yesterday. Her sister must have taken over for today. Maybe the fun of yesterday had removed the need for such a thing.

Celestia rested against the wall into the hall's shaft toward the balcony. There was the hope to find her sister there, waiting, to either talk or enjoy the silence together. Part of her was saddened, in breaching the cool air to find none there.

Her hooves clopped onto marble as she took to the railing to look out to the night sky. Over the vistas of lands to the tree-covered-mountains that ascended in her vision. However the sky touched the ground sooner than it should have. More dense, full, a 3-D effect not used to.

And then there was a parting in that sky, and everything made sense.

"I knew there was something wrong when a section of the sky was more purple than the rest." Celestia rubbed her snout as booming laughter rocked the distant landscape. Out from the horizon came the giantess's muzzle, in a curve that hovered over the side of her barrel. "Definitely more concentration on your rump. I'll give you that."

Luna grinned with a wink. "Glad you think so, sis."

She then wiggled her hips on the mountain, creating tremors throughout the landscape, a portion of the forest collapsing from the force. Luna's wing pulled out from the cleft of her rump, as the warmness sealed. "Took care of all of your duties today as you slept in. Figured you deserved all the time off with all you do."

Celestia snickered in speaking to the moon itself. "And figured you deserved the same?"

"Big sisters are supposed to clean up after little sisters." Luna started to rise from the mountain, showing off her imposing size. "You acquired a few things on your day off that you normally couldn't have gotten otherwise. It's about time I got to be a bit more cheeky."

Celestia cocked her head. "Is that the reason for being bigger than Cadance?"

"Figures the girl needs to spend some time between my legs as her husband does the same between hers." Luna then nodded off. "Speaking of which. I better track her down while I still can. The night is yours. I took care of most of your troubles... but you still have a lot left."

Celestia laughed. "Here's to another thousand years."

Luna smirked before crossing over the horizon. "At least you won't be alone for the first while!" Luna dipped over the edge of the world, the might of her hips, and the swells of her flanks, shaking with purpose. Celestia watched them almost with jealousy. She also didn't watch them alone.

"Y'know... I thought it was the whole 'size thang' that made me love yers so much." Celestia's eyes burned brighter as pink did the same in the whiteness of her cheeks. She glanced over at the stallion, his forelegs crossed on the railing and, even at this size, only half of her. "But even in watchin' that massive thing walk away... yers still wipes the world with it."

In a lousy suit, Castaway glanced over, with gloss in his golden mane and an awkward smile to boot. Celestia couldn't help but sweep him into her arms at once, smothering him in all of her fluff—nuzzling the top of his head.

"I'm glad you came."

"Be a fool not to!" Castaway chuckled. "Luna pulled me out here while you were asleep. Also got a few other guests wantin' to see ya. Some kid callin' you a friendly monster?" Celestial giggled at this but did not stop her nuzzling. "Also got an early issue of yer magazine. Think you'll need the walls in your castle to do them illustrations justice though."

Celestia only laughed in finally letting the stallion go. He left her only for a second, going to a table to bring back a cap, a sailor's one, with a patch in its middle. He gestured for the tall mare to lower, and she did so, as the cap on her—and fitted it right.

"Luna went and got this back for you," Castaway said before digging himself under one of Celestia's foreleg, giving her support, which allowed her to stand. "Wanted to talk whit you like y'all used too—but figured it could wait till the world settled down' gain."

A little laugh from her. "Something to look toward."

"Gotta say, though, could have fit a whole lot more stallions here if ya wished it."

Celestia's response was to swing her hips into him, knocking him to the side, with the two coming into a laugh. They joined back together, walking through the hall, set to reach the court to reap the previous days' efforts.

Be it good or bad.

The change was welcomed all the same.

Author's Note

I would open this afterword with a common introduction of 'it's funny how' only to realize that what I have to say is not at all funny. Maybe a touch to the mind in the tiniest stroke of irony. 'It's interesting how' would be more accurate—but one tends to close their eyes, silently groan, doomed to a few minutes of listening to a knobhead speech.

Maybe that's because anyone who uses one of the typical introductions, even if they aren't a knobhead, will start to sound like one in their use. That is why one comes to find their own introduction. Something personalized, unique, touched in wit to whatever tone it leads toward.

But it is indeed funny how one's goals in a given craft start to change.

Oh fuck.

The knobhead is at it again.

When I had decided to take writing a touch more seriously—as serious as you can on a fanfiction website—I knew that becoming popular was half of the goal. The other half, of course, was writing well. But ideally. You'd like that wellness to, well, read.

So AiDs and I worked out the system. What you would need to write to get featured. You'd have a few hits and a few misses, and, in each, the successes and the failures informed your sense of what the audience wanted.

Soon you would dream up ideas with the audience subconsciously in mind. You'd know what sells and what doesn't. You could be given a premise and give out the scope of how well such a piece would do.

Once one develops a sense of what will sell, the ideas they use, the covers and the description for that story, are all informed by that sense. Sometimes it even affects the style in which you write. Although there is a middle ground. You can write what the public wants—but do it your way, if you like, to decent success.

Best of both worlds, if you will.

But before I bore the socks off you fucks and cause you to click off—I'll leap to the point on this. When you're a decent writer with a decent sense coming into the game, wanting to do well, and being seen by well enough people, you write the stories that will get you the views, comments and, as it was more important back in the day.

Followers.

You'd write out 'test' stories to see how well the market bit. Poor reception earned a story cancellation, but a decent crowd: the show must go on. You mostly judged a story by how well it did. This is all in the lens of knowing how to sell, mind you.

And that's how it was for a lot of us back when. The stuff you came up with as just so you could get featured and followed and whatever the fuck. Your measure of success and failure were based on those metrics. But eventually. This site started to die out. And those chasing after that carrot began to look up at the stick.

What did it mean to be writing subpar stories, at breakneck speeds, enjoyable to read but hardly are remembered? What good are views and followers in your daily life? If most of the people who follow you are those you'd want nothing to do with—then why the fixation on having a large assortment of them?

A lot of people became discouraged when the craze of having a high-follower account on this website ended. When you realized it was not good for anything except itself, and the sugar boost from the attention waned, a fair few stopped writing. The working out of sell-able fiction did nothing more than write hollow shit for shallow people.

And since they did not have any other reason to write, and could no longer believe in the previous reason for it, most quit writing. They tried to come back but, at the first troubles, realized what it was for and left again. Getting famous on this site no longer amounted to anything.

What is the worth of being popular at a graveyard?

I was such a person when it came to 2018 where, every two days, I wrote a story that would get featured. I had one that got 18K views as well as owning five places in the feature box. I even changed the titles so those who looked at the box were able to read, from top to down, "YOU CAN DO IT !"

The influx and the rush were great but, after that period, in writing less, I found that anything I had, the messages, comments, and people, were gone the second I stopped writing. Then a tough time struck. I had the support when I didn't need it and none of the support when I needed it most.

The moral shone clear.

"You're only as important as you are prolific and previous works don't stand for much."

That put a hamper on things, and I decided to quit for a long while. I quit writing a lot and for various reasons. Yet it pulls me back. It's a compulsion. No higher, moral bullshit, I assure you. It's not that it gives me a kick all the time, or it's some sacred pulling.

Rather I am compelled to write. It's a sense that feels right. Even when I don't want to do it. When the works are trash and the result is obscurity—I still come back. Even after leaving to play GTFO for months, I couldn't sustain the distance, the doing of nothing and, out of all the things I could have done: it was writing.

I'm sure I would have decent fun learning to take a bike apart or learning a guitar and perhaps, one day, those very things will be good for me. It's writing, though, that takes me. Every time. Even if it amounts to nothing greater than itself. It compels me. There's the sense that I am doing right if I am doing it.

I am sure this is the only reason why I return to writing. I can cite various reasons that bring me back, but they feel like a cover more. Just something to better justify the compulsion. I hope to fuck this doesn't sound like me standing on a soapbox. It's not my goal to do that.

It's my goal, in this writing, to figure writing out to me.

I see it in my friends. Those who have written. Ones wanting to write again—but can't. I give them my reasons, and they like those reasons, but the reasons aren't enough to keep them in the game... or get them through the troublesome period of being terrible for a while.

And I think I have either been blessed or cursed or a mixture of both with that compulsion. I will always be called back to writing. If I did not have that, then I might not have returned. Even when I seek books or motivation in quotes to help me write—it's that compulsion, that desire, that sends me to them in the first place.

Big Celly's Day Off is a story, supposed to be no longer than 6K, that became 60K instead. It did not break a thousand views and is nearly split in its likes to dislikes. It has a few comments that amount to a couple of words. There is close to no reason why such a story should have been finished if it did not matter except to a silent few.

The story was written for NC MARES in wanting to nail his desire for macro.

I would like to write about them now.

And offer my apologies for making them read the damn thing.

Sometimes you forget how much the wisdom you live by actually came from someone else. Or how another's opinions or words subconsciously affected your overall sense. Long after I had failed to write Roll for Her due to being unable to write well for an ideal, I kept in touch with NC, asking about, well, anything I could.

One comes to writing fanfiction with no real idol or mentor or whatnot to take stuff with. This place tends to attract the worst of us and, in of itself, is seen in a negative light. No matter how great the story you may write is—it is still fanfiction.

Even if that terrific story would still be a best seller if you took all the horses out.

NC was the first artist I talked to that was 'legit'. I don't mean that in a mean way to anybody else that may draw or whatnot. Just that the quality in their work reflected that 'it' factor. We can rant out about advice and whatnot to each other but, when that advice leads you to still being in the same stage, the same spot... you can't help but raise an eyebrow.

I'd go around asking people for advice and help and what it means to be a writer and an artist or whatever... but you found that they were the same person to the same quality for the longest while. That they still had not 'ascended' to being legitimate.

I understand how hogwash all this sounds as I was more adolescent at the time and still am now. It's like being in a well with a bunch of other rats in the dark. They're all squeaking about what is right and what to do. But you can't help but look up at the one who got out and is in the light. Silent.

But maybe willing to open up if you asked.

I asked a lot of people a lot of questions but never got back the answers I needed. When I finally got into contact with NC, unfortunately for him, I asked as many questions as an eight-year-old does during a movie.

I figured someone with a following and the ability to produce his kind of art would thus be enabled to be arrogant about it. Arrogance has to be earned. Once you have it, though, it's free range to be as you please. I don't know why this was so much my thought at the time.

Maybe I watched too much House.

But NC told me several things. For one, he told me the greatest thing of all, that he struggles and sometimes doesn't like his art. That feeling doesn't go away. It diminishes for a while but can just as strongly come back.

He told me he didn't care too much for being popular and did the work for the sake of itself—even to a compulsion if you will. Maybe all of this stuff seems bare and basic in hindsight but, to me, it meant a lot.

He also said a whole lot more about what being an artist was to him. I struggle to quote anything here, and I don't wish to share anything preferred to be private. But what I think I got to talking and trying to understand NC was the kind of path that I wanted to walk down as well.

Or someone to be a touch like.

Of course that didn't work out as I am too wordy and too much of a prick to not run my mouth about something. But talking to NC informed me how I thought and felt about art and being an artist as well as to those also doing it.

His words enabled me to be myself as a writer or, at the very least, be more secure in that fact, I could have an issue and take it to him and, with a concise response, he would nail the problem on the head. It was as though he dealt with it before, knew how to phrase it exactly, and then provided the needed remedy—be it advice or encouragement or both.

In going through those things, I started to get a base sense of being a writer and that I was one. Not someone that wrote and was just faking their way into the scene—but a writer like all the rest. Maybe I had more of an imposter syndrome, which was lessened by the unknown help of a friend.

I tried so hard before to prove myself as something while, at the same time, acting like it wasn't really that thing. I'd never felt secure. Hence the need to try so hard as well as fish for validation. I don't need much of that nowadays. But back in the day I would try so hard for it. Always needing it.

Sometimes we forget personal periods too easily.

But I don't have that anymore. Just the usual dose you'd expect from average folk. Writing a story or a blog is a thing I just do. Nothing around or attached to it but the thing itself. It all sounds so bloody simple on paper.

Such a thing used to be so much harder.

NC was the person who, with his skill in his art, caused me to regard him as someone great. In finally speaking with him, his wisdom accrued in becoming great that helped me a lot through my personal strife. A lot of it is gone from my surface, now, but a part of what I am now is thanks to him.

I don't ask him much for advice or help nowadays as the problems that arise, I tend to work through blogs or in reading whatever I can. I find my own answers and use them to keep going on. I'd thought before that, in acquiring greatness, you would use that to lord it over others or some shit like that.

But I found that, in the purist and process of acquiring that greatness, you then become fulfilled by it instead—and don't need anything it could possibly generate around it. I can't claim to be a good writer or, hell, a decent one. But I can claim to be a writer and, writing itself, allows me to feel fulfillment.

NC is the person who allowed me to become the writer that I am now and my sense of kindness regarding art in general. I cannot be as cool as him, but, at the very least, I can be as wordy as I like, like myself.

Because of him, instead of writing a whatever story for 6K people, I could write 60K for only six people. That I liked the work, enjoyed it, despite the troubles and hiccups. I was writing it for myself, and I appreciated what I wrote.

Despite its flaws and spelling mistakes.

I'm less popular at the reward of being secure.

Which I like a lot more than being popular at the cost of being insecure.

I suppose I should write a bit about the story itself, and it all started in wanting to do nice for the broski. I feel bad in forcing someone to read something they don't like—but will do so because it's a gift. My goal was to keep it short in case of that.

And that shit did not work out.

I decided to write a relaxed giantess story about Celly fucking around on her day off in the style of Rarity EQM. I wrote the first few chapters and even had NC draw the Celestia with her booty set on a mountainous horizon. However, the story's flow would come and go, and it was written, on and off, for several months.

I had decided to do something different with this story. In enjoying all of NC's art (maybe I'm praising the fellow a touch too much), I wanted to have all his art pieces, somehow, connected. So I took to a Google Doc and placed all his art in it.

Then I started to readjust the order of the art to the building of a story within. Once I got the ideal order, I began to write, from picture to picture, connecting strands from one to another. Every day I would get up, have my snack and pace about. Thinking of what would happen next moments before I sat down to write it.

And looking at the art for a spark.

I have to admit that a part of me wrote for the sake of seeing what NC would have to say about it. Drumming up a beat with a snap of the fingers going he'd probably enjoy that bit before I dashed off to write it. Soon, though, it was just me enjoying those bits—and writing for that sake.

Reaching the story's ending was a touch emotional for me as all that time and words were behind me. Even if none were to read the thing, through the writing, I had gone on that journey. I had failed to write Roll for Her at first and, in writing a lot, and fighting to get better, I came back to write Roll for Her in order for it to be good for NC.

You see the greatness in his art and, from that, you know that the stories to them have to be as good. But when you simply do not have the skill to produce the kinds of words that feel as they have the same quality as the art—you start having insecurity after nightmare. So I fucked off for a while in the attempt to get better before coming back.

It's ironic, though, that in writing that story, and in coming to this one, how they were mostly attempts to impress the person. But somewhere on that journey, though, I just came to like the work myself. Soon it didn't matter if NC or whoever liked it or not. Thought it was good or Grade A writing.

Rather I enjoyed it, liked it, and that was enough for me.

And there's where I would like to end this blog in how, at the start, I wanted to write a lot of crap to get famous, to now, where I write something for the sake of writing it. It all sounds horribly simple—and maybe it's because it is. But I can't help but feel something deeper in keeping with a story and finishing what I started.

Even if it's only between me and it, that I did the best that I could, sucking my brain dry for ideas for the sake of keeping the writing fun. That is the light or in a shadow, that I'll keep doing the do, not needing the light to be on to keep writing.

That's what it boils down to. Before one would write for the sake of the attention and support it will get. Now I write because writing itself will give me all of the above. Sorry for the snooze of a blog. Hopefully there was a snippet of something useful for your troubles.

Catch you next story and next blog.

~ Yr. Pal, B~

(Here's the photo outline for the story for the curious)