For those who have read Unconventional Magic (Oct 19)

EDIT - Oct 19
For now I'll stop considering the reboot idea. I'm confident enough that with the recent changes in the story, things can really pick up now and I can get it seriously back on track to what it was supposed to be in the first place. I'm going to attempt to do more character development and such too, so the Apple Family feels a lot closer to Anon, as do his other friends, etc. Setting up potential feels is never bad right?
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I'm posting my thoughts on the story; i.e. what my original plans were, what happened, and where I fucked up. Basically I want to clear a few things up, and maybe get some feedback on an idea I have about this that I'll mention in a bit.

Also spoilers if you haven't read up through chapter 11 yet.

I understand the story has taken a change in direction more than once, especially with chapter 11. And I apologize if it's turning any of you off of the story. My original plans were to keep this as a comedy, where Anon would want to have sex with all the mares he could and see what kind of powers or unique abilities he could get. It was to be [hopefully] funny, just kind of a slice-of-life comedy, where I didn't plan a whole lot, didn't take things very seriously, and rarely put a serious tone on anything.

Very early on however, I went into a relationship with Anon and Rainbow Dash. This was the biggest mistake. In a way, it's a good story element, because then he has to juggle keeping a relationship while at the same time still rutting other mares in secret. Obviously that didn't really work out. At all.

When I posted the first chapter in the thread, people loved it. It holds the highest hit count out of everything on my pastebin. So obviously people enjoyed the premise of the story. I had requests from the beginning for (and this is an actual quote) "power hungry discord rape." Now, I couldn't help but laugh, but I'm not a fan of male-on-male, so I thought about Eris, who is the r63 version of Discord. I knew somebody else, Aether, was using her as Discord's daughter, and that worked well enough for me. I wanted to eventually give Anon that power. But there was another mistake; I brought them in way too early in the story.

Here it is, only eleven chapters in, and Anon's power already surpasses pretty much everything, maybe even the princesses. The only thing between him and god-tier are the princesses now. He's pretty much become an OP Mary Sue, and, granted the premise of the story, it was bound to happen, but still. The breakup with Rainbow is really his only big loss so far, but it's really not even that big of a loss considering how Twilight is. By this point he doesn't know it, but he could handle a relationship with her much better, and still go back to rutting other mares.

This recent change should be the last, depending on how I want to end the story. Chapter 12 will bring the comedy and fun life back to Anon and the story in general, and I intend to keep it that way. All I ask is that you don't let the recent events turn you off, and just give it another chance.


Now, regardless of all that, I would still like to reboot the story from the beginning, so we can forget about the changes and things I fucked up on. I would use the same premise, and actually use the same first chapter as well. In fact, I've already re-written the first chapter, adding some things and changing other key elements to the story. For one, the clop scene with Lyra was written. I know some of you would like this to be cloppier, and even though I still fail at writing it most of the time, I will try to make it a little more prominent. The only big thing that really changes at the beginning is that I will not be rushing Anon into a relationship with Dash. I'm not saying it won't still happen eventually, but I honestly don't know myself where I'm going to take that. I might make it a Twilight story, and use the same, or similar premise to where I'm taking the current story right now. I'll figure it out when I finish what I have now.

I still plan on finishing up the current story, but I'd like to know what you all think about the idea of a reboot? I'm personally okay with it because I want to write what I originally wanted to write without fucking up, but on the other hand, I turned the current story back enough to where I think I could still accomplish it there. I don't know, I guess I just want to remove the elements that ruined it for me, and do something proper, so I'd have a solid story I could be happy with.

If any of you have comments on any of this, either tell me in the thread, or post them in the forum here:
http://theanonsofequestria.freeforums.org/unconventional-magic-t194.html


I guess that's all for Unconventional Magic. I'm considering chapter 11/12 and forward of the current story to be a new Act, and I'm jotting down ideas for what to do in it. So far I'm really enjoying it, the comedy and fun life for Anon should be back. So hopefully anybody that enjoyed the beginning of the story (also maybe chapter 8) should enjoy this.

At any rate, thanks for reading, and thanks to the few of you that have given me feedback down the line. It helps tremendously.
(EDIT: Responses from the thread are posted at the bottom, for people that see this paste later, and more-so for myself to look back on)

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Now, for anybody interested in any of the other stories I've written:

The Syndicate is dead. Some people seemed to have liked the idea, but it immediately went a direction I didn't like. It was my first attempt at writing AiE though, so I didn't expect much. I wouldn't mind rebooting it, with the same characters and a similar story, but changing the intro completely, making things a little more dramatic. I have some plans down, so I'll probably get to it eventually, but not until the current 'UM' storyline is done.

As for FutureAnon, I never even posted that in the thread. One person asked me not long ago if I will ever continue it. I would like to, but I'm not sure if it's really a story I want to write. I set it up for something potentially lengthy, where almost anything can happen, and I still like it, but... I just don't know right now. If somebody were to come in and ask if they could take it over and continue where I left off, I'd probably be okay with it.

More Dungeon Master in Equestria one-shots will be done in time, I just have difficulties coming up with entertaining situations to put them in.

Not sure if I'll write any more to that long Aftermath one-shot, somebody else can take if they want, just let me know.

Then there's Vault Hunter in Equestria, a Borderlands crossover with a vault hunter Anon. There's been one nigger comment on it, but otherwise the response has been fairly positive. However I'm quickly beginning to think it's going to be much more difficult to write than I first thought. I'll try to keep going but I'm not completely convinced in my ability at the moment.

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Couple of thread comments on the whole thing:

---NoLo---
Alright, here's my two cents on this thing
I think that this story Has diverged a bit from what you originally intended, however, I think we can chalk that up to a natural progression, and evolution of said story, the one true flaw being that you may have attempted most of it a bit too early, excluding interesting ideas like giving Anon a tooth fetish after rutting Colgate and the like. That being said, despite its shortcomings in those areas, I believe that it's now in a prime position to explore the silly path, now that the Big bad has been defeated, and as Chronicler once said, this isn't High School, we are above just hitting the reset button and calling it quits whenever we get into a tight situation. We must be able to learn to go with the story, and work it to our advantage, otherwise, we'd never improve. If you still feel like doing a re-boot, and forming the ideallic story, you may still do so, but make it am Alternate Universe deal with other things happening, leaving your current story to stand alone

---My Response---
No worries about the rambling. I do it all the time, and I'm doing it again now. I can't ever expect responses like that but I definitely welcome them.

>the one true flaw being that you may have attempted most of it a bit too early
This right here was my biggest problem. I mentioned it was a couple specific events, but more than that it was how fast they happened. I guess the events themselves weren't too bad.

>tooth fetish after rutting Colgate
Oh god
I have ideas for a few specific mares (yes I'm stealing ideas from people for these and I regret nothing) but I think they fit the story too well to pass up.

I will keep the story going, even if I do decide to do a reboot I won't rush this to an ending considering where it is right now. Like we both said, it's in a good spot to get back to the fun and get things moving in the proper direction again.

Thanks.

---Anon---
Rather than a re-boot, jut have it so Anon's death and regeneration completely and permanently drained him of all the powers he gained. You could also have him unable to regain any powers from the ponies he already fucked, so he can't just get to Twilight levels of power but again, that's up to you.

---My Response---
I thought about doing something like that; at least where something happens that leaves him without powers, but the ability to take power is still there. I was thinking more along the lines of Anon going through the knowledge he took from Twilight and discovering the time travel spell and fucking it up.

Honestly though I'm not sure. I'll just stop thinking about it for now and see how the current story picks back up. Chances are I'll end up tossing the reboot idea out the window, because I'm liking where things are about to go.

---Shukaku---
Either way you do it, I'd read both and they would/are be both enjoyable