Some Thoughts

Hello everyone. I don't know if anyone checks this Pastebin regularly or anything. I know there's a guy from the Technology isn't Magic threads who usually was on the lookout for me.

So, here's the deal. Fortunately, I'm not dead from any sort of virus or killer insects or anything. Unfortunately, I can't see myself writing any more stuff for /mlp/ in the near future. Which I feel pretty terrible about, but I can at least explain.

I came up with the concept for Mad Science over 7 years ago. It's been through a revision and a full re-write, and throughout that process you can clearly see my interest in the story dropping off. Furthermore, since it's taken so long to write, I personally have changed and grown as a writer and a person. Since I started re-writing it, I've learnt a whole bunch more about how physics, science, and academia in general work, wrote my undergraduate thesis, graduated college, moved to a new apartment, started an internship, lost said internship, became a physics tutor and wasn't making enough money, became a research assistant and was just barely making enough money, finished my term as a research assistant, and started my new job, and moved apartments again. It's safe to say that through most of the time from maybe 2016-2019 I was pretty depressed for a lot of different reasons since my life was basically spiraling out of control, and this probably had a major effect on my productive output. I can joke about being the George R. R. Martin of /mlp/ greentext, but I now truly suspect that Winds of Winter will actually be released before Mad Science is ever finished.

I also want to address another elephant in the room. I'm not the same IceMan who wrote Friendship is Optimal or whatever it's called. The fact that someone wrote a similarly cerebral story to what I'm writing does amuse me.

So, yeah, I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that, for the time being, Mad Science is on hold, more than it was already. I won't say I'm never going to finish it, because maybe the inspiration fairy will come down and give me the ideas I need. But, as I said, the concept in and of itself just really no longer inspires me. I do have the conclusion planned, but I don't think we're there yet. I have more developments in mind, but I don't really have an idea on how to string them together into a coherent narrative.

But, here's the thing: I'm not even really that into MLP anymore. Again, it's been over 7 years since I started this thing. Other pieces of media have caught my attention, and most of them are much better than MLP ever was (and arguably ever could be). I've only watched one or two episodes of the later seasons past... season 6? Don't get me wrong, Twilight Sparkle (particularly her human universe counterpart) is still my waifu, and she is very huggable, and the butchering of her character will forever rustle my jimmies. But I no longer am really interested in writing in the setting of Equestria.

And here's the proof of that. I recently started writing something else, an amalgamation of a variety of ideas that I had sitting in my head. It was basically an experiment in "well, what if I just created a setting that had everything I wanted in it." Of course, that makes these stories fucking weird. I'm a unique human being with unique interests, some of which really don't appeal to other people. But I've slammed out 14000 words within this setting over the course of 3 weeks. It's been incredibly satisfying and fun to write. A few other writers I enjoy have taken notice of what I'm doing already (granted because I gave them a poke that I was doing things, but still). This has probably been the most productive and successful I've ever been at writing since I started writing for AiE back in 2012.

So yeah, this has been a bit of a vomiting diatribe of nonsense and self-reflection. I can't remember the specific phrase for when you just write whatever comes to mind, and I just spent two minutes trying to find it so fuck it. If you forced me to give an up or down answer on whether I'll be returning to Mad Science, the answer would unfortunately be no. But what is dead may never die, part of the thread, part of the green, etc. Choose your reference of choice.

I'm still going to be writing science-y things, so if you enjoy those, you can follow me here:

https://twitter.com/IcarianOnager
https://www.deviantart.com/icarianonager

Granted these stories will be a bit weird and fetishy at some points, but, as I said, these are for me and no one else. Those who know me will know what that means. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you have questions, you can ping me on Discord @IceMan#4373.

Thanks for all your love and support through these years, but at some point, you've just gotta move on.

Cheers,
IceMan

Also, stream of consciousness, that was the phrase I was looking for.