I will start of with some of my own commentary to this one before explaining it’s purpose:
 
So in an effort to make-look-better my fan fiction I decided to once again change the cover. This time we have the same rider, slightly altered into a more streamlined, artist-friendly design, not trying to look realistic. The trade-off, however, was that now the horse looks kind of like a damn alpaca - so I hope you sympathise that she was just born that way, or something. But then again, in this MLP:FiM world, equines are considerably less… equine.
 
The Jesus-cross pose was an intentional play on this character as he is an ‘unknown’ Messiah-like entity who will perform martyr-level acts of heroism for no other motivation than it being ‘the only way to live’, often followed by him performing abominable acts of savagery. In one hand he holds the head of a dragon he decapitates in the prologue, in the other he hold up a dead highway dog who tried to rob him. In both cases he was protecting his horse, his most prized possession.
 
The dragon head his held over the ponies to show a dedication to the protection of the equine kind that this creature, a wight, possesses; even from potent threats such as dragons. In the front we see Rarity who appears undisturbed by the wight’s visage. Twilight Sparkle is sceptical, even cynical. Applejack appears unsure or even reluctant to take a stance - these three ponies play the greater parts in this fic.
 
On the other side we have the two main villains, surprisingly not BAMF’s with a stable diet of protein snacks and steroids, but rather two dogs who are scared shitless of the wight. The dog in his hand is Scratch, the brother of the Highway Dog gang’s boss. Below we have Itch, nearest to the viewers, who is the lead of our cowardly villains. He concocts a plan to get back at the Scratch’s killer by… [spoiler]. At the back is Itch’s life-long friend, Tick. Yes, the main villains here in this fic are a trio, the third one not shown, of cowards. Read and see how it came to be that way.
 
I also drew a warped, heavy sun in the background to create a double meaning. The obvious connotation is positive, but I subvert that and instead go for its negative version: burden. Then sun is a fireball that will grill you when it is up and those who do not appreciate it will find no mercy unless they hide in shadows, but that will get you nowhere. The message here is that our wight suffers the life of having to bide and die for no reward other than knowing he lived.
 

 
My fan ficiton is up and running; it is available for reading on FimFiction and goes by the title Pathfinder: [link]
 
With almost 400 views (9th August, 2012) I think I am looking at something half decent here, so I thought I’d update the cover slightly, because the original one was replaced with misleading symbolism (read: made no sense) and I think I have improved slightly since then.
 
The only bothersome element, however, is that I am getting no more likes or dislikes, so I have no idea what I am doing right or wrong because, in addition to that, no one ever comments… and I only have one reader who gives me feedback. And that’s my editor.
 

 
Pathfinder is a dark (but not grimdark) fan fiction of My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic - that starts, chronologically, in the summer after the Royal Wedding, because in my headcanon the wedding takes place during spring.
 
The story kicks off with a bunch of highwaymen (I mean, dogs) trying to rob a pair of strangers with an… elevated level of strangeness to them. In the process one of the dogs are killed and thus triggers a sour chain of events leading into a slippery slope of madness.
 
On the ponies’ side, however, a mysterious threat is astir that tries to kill the wildlife, and even the meddling pegasi investigating it. When Rainbow Dash goes missing the other heroines are lost for words, especially since they have nothing to prove she is dead.
 
So who is the perpetrator? And what does he want?