About the Authors

.Sober + Wing

Many years ago, while browsing fimfiction.net, I ran across a writer who caught my eye. He went out of his way to recognize his editing team, and every chapter post came with some acknowledgement of the team's contributions. I had spent some time helping out on other projects that didn't exactly afford me the same recognition, so Sober's dedication served as a breath of fresh air. Soon enough, we were talking about our main stories: A Pony Displaced and A State of Darkness. Within a few weeks, we were teasing crossovers. Within a few months, I had guest-authored an APD chapter, and Magic Barrier (Sober's Main OC) became an instrumental part of the lore in ASoD. Somehow, someway, a reserved man from the middle of Indiana managed to forge a friendship with a particle physicist—and Sober, to this day, often comments about how perplexing it is that he managed to meet me.

From my perspective, it was all fairly straightforward. Sober treated his squad with kindness. We got along incredibly well, and the more we spoke, the closer friends we became. We went to cons together after I drove down to his house to kidnap him for a couple weeks, and I'm sure our bonds would have flourished all the same. However, something changed our dynamic for the better: along came Tail. First drawn by Agamnentzar as an R63 joke at my expense, Tail appeared and forever shifted my approach to writing. For years, well over a decade, I would dive into RP environments to hone scenes and develop characters. Those who know me well are familiar with what the WingBox is, but for now, suffice it to say that characters I resonate well with tend to get a lot of brainpower from this scientist. Tail provided a curiosity. Was she really just R63'd Wing, or was she something else?

Of course, in the cringiest of fashions, the instant I tossed her into an RP server, little memelords emerged to "flirt" with the newest pegasus on the block. Her response immediately stabbed my brain. "Sweety, I don't waste my ammo." And in one sentence, it was clear. This ball of sass was decidedly her own thing. Inevitably, Sober learned of Tail's creation, and in the midst of one of our normal writing rambles, worldlines collided. Barrier hurled a quip at Tail. The mare countered, and the rest put over a quarter-million words on the page. For several months, Sober and I explored the magic of the Barrier+Tail interaction. At times, at least to me, it felt as though the two didn't need us at all. Their friendship had spice—yet was wholesome af—and their relationship fostered a warmth that made me genuinely question the nature of love.

We RP'd one of the most important scenes between the pair over Thanksgiving 2016. I anchored myself in my uncle's living room and stayed there long into the night to see that moment to completion. The characters gave each other vows of reciprocated respect that read like pure euphoria. My dad actually died days after this scene was written, and it was one of the few bright pieces in my life that helped me keep it together. That's when I knew there was something there worth telling to those outside our DMs. Tail and Barrier had chemistry. Sober and I built an incredible friendship. We loved writing, and I had a knack for taking his 200-300-word ideas and converting them into full-blown chapters. We knew we had to do it. Tail had a mission. Barrier had finally found home, and that's how No Longer Displaced was born.

Not too shabby for a decade of FiM adventures, multiple road trips, several joint vacations, and a whole bunch of written materials!