The Sun Eater

Let me begin by just thanking Huussii of Deviantart once more for allowing me to use "Celestial Nightmare" for this fanfic's accompanying image.

Now, on to my notes.

This fanfiction was written over the course of about six months, from February to October of 2012. I wrote this piece for two primary reasons:

1) I wanted to practice for later works to be written in a world and with characters of my own creation.
2) I wanted to see what would happen if I wrote MLP:FiM fanfiction while reading the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft.

I consider both of these goals to have been resoundingly accomplished.

It could be that I never write another piece of MLP fanfiction, and if I do not, it's not because I have anything against the community, or because I am dissatisfied with this piece. On the contrary, without this community, I would not have considered the project worthwhile, and since I am, in fact, so pleased with it, that would have been a terrible thing. I simply wish to focus on original writing projects and on my music.

When writing this work, I did not think of the characters as being physically on-model to the show. Shape-wise, they were as they are seen in the cartoon show, but in my mind, they were seen in a much more painterly style, and were far more realistically shaded and detailed. This allowed me to put some distance between what I was writing and the MLP:FiM that I have come to know and love.

Details like Twilight Sparkle being a chain smoker, Rarity's drug use, etc. were added partly for comedy, but also partly as story elements, and as a natural progression of the darkening of the world. In context, I think they enhance and legitimize the characters beyond their sometimes "kiddy" show personae.

Twilight Sparkle, for instance, seemed like a very thin character in my earliest drafts, but as soon as I added the detail of her being bent over books compulsively flicking at a cigarette, she really came alive for me. It was the same with the adult language. The first draft seemed incredibly sterile up until the point where Luna says "Oh Shit." I could think of nothing else for her to say, so I just said "To hell with it, let's have her cuss; it's just a fanfic." As soon as I made that decision, everything opened up, and I began to darken things by shades until I ended up with the product you have here.

Some will ask why I didn't really augur in for the comedy of some of these things, like having Twilight smoke "Equestrian Spirits," or some such. The short version is that I just felt that if I went that route, I'd just be making what was supposed to be a character element into a joke.

"Hardy har har, Twilight Sparkle's a hipster." We've all heard that joke, and it's just not that funny, anymore.

I'm putting all this in my notes simply to reinforce the fact that, even if something seems really extreme, nothing that any character says or does in this fanfic was added merely for "shits and giggles." I legitimately approached each character's dialogue and decision-making processes from as near a mindset to their own as I could find within myself. As a result, there are moments when a character may do something that seems almost anticlimactic. Sometimes, in real life, that's just what happens, and it was my goal here to create a fantasy-horror version of Equestria that was also a bridge to reality.

I hope you enjoy this work of fiction, and I hope that if I ever do get around to writing my original works, you'll come looking for them as well.

Thanks,

Mannulus