Pony Fanfiction Thread

It's because of a comment by a mod that spun out of control

I get that, I just don't see the appeal of jumping on the bandwagon.

It's just another dumb fad. I imagine being stupid/random and pandering are part of the point

Instead of stealing the dragon god-kings from Dungeons And Dragons with Bahamut and Tiamat, how about steal from Exalted. Oramnus, The Dragon Beyond The World, who defines reality and physical boundaries by existing outside of them and Ebon, The Dragon's Shadow, who defines morals and ethical boundaries by existing outside of them. For obvious, the former can't get much ruling done since he, by definition, technically doesn't exist and no one will listen to what the later has to say since he is, by definition, pure evil.

edited 19th Dec '13 2:31:41 PM by God_of_Awesome

The true story of Sombra's reign of terror revealed!

You know. I'm realizing why I read so little fics anymore. I spend more time typing then reading. making posts and comments that are almost as long as the chapter. I just, feel odd not giving feedback, and, there' usually so much stuff, it would be hard to just say a few small bits. Between first the FOE liveblog, the current CEQ one, helping to edit and preread Sereg's fics. I've just gotten so used to really analyzing it as I read and commenting on almost every part...... Now to find out how to stop so I could actually just sit down and make my read later list go away.

Well, this premise seems rather familiar

try printing things out to read them. Lot less tempting to make notes when you don't have a keyboard right there (at least for me )

Made a couple more quick edits to chapter 2. Should I delete that scene or not? Planning to post tomorrow.

I'll try to look at it, but I make no promises.

Understood

Chapter 13 is ready for feedback.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!

So I wrote a thing. A very stupid thing. Granted it's basically a request from one of my friends and the stupidity is entirely intentional, but still. This is probably the only time you'll ever see me write a present tense, second-person story.

@Sereg: Left some comments. Pretty much boils down to "More description, less beige prose". I know you really dislike Purple Prose, but you go so far in the other direction that there's almost no detail. I mean, you don't want to spend a whole page describing a tree, but you do have to describe it a bit beyond "There was a tree".

edited 20th Dec '13 6:10:34 PM by JapaneseTeeth

Daily plot bunny/story concept; Everything Must Go—Sci-fi/Adventure/Dark?—it is 20 Minutes into the Future (mebbe more). Many years ago, a combination of new technology and advanced magic led to the creation of a new medical procedure; the Cutie Mark Transfusion^note Princess Twilight's University for New Research maintains a healthy budget to this day, thanks to its involvement in the discovery. It allows ponies to remove their cutie marks, and the skills they represent, and store them separate from their body. It also allows other cutie marks to be inserted in their place, granting the user a different set of abilities.

The discovery radically altered the culture of Equestria. While they were no stranger to the idea of free market economics, every citizen suddenly possessing such a desirable commodity threw many old traditions and values out the window.

"Trading down" a mark is seen as a legitimate way to raise capital. Going without one is a legitimate, if risky designer loan. "Blank Flank" is an objective term, though its negative connotations linger. The access to easy money made the underclass smaller, and the ability to extract cutie marks before death made wills more important.

Equine trafficking has diminished thanks to years of stricter and stricter standards and police ingenuity, but the threat remains. Victims often turn up unharmed after being harvested or "stripped", but the time when children walked home from school alone is long gone.

The DEA's main concern is a designer drug ^note known variously as Shuffle, Double Down/DD, Flush, and Misfire, among other wacky slang that can temporarily replace a pony's mark with a different one, though it is completely at random. The rush of having cheap access to a huge variety of abilities has made it Equestria's premier illegal substance. Thankfully the drug is too unstable to survive a CMT procedure, but the cocktail of magic and stimulants has made paper ID more important than ever. And despite its non-lethal nature, the side effects are not pretty. Users are easily recognized by faded or frayed marks. The popular rumor is that an overdose removes one's mark entirely, with even a CMT unable to replace it.

Racial tensions, already rare, are a thing of the past. While zebra already had a cutie mark analogue, now griffons and minotaurs and diamond dogs have integrated into all parts of Equestria. Dragons are still rare, but the way cutie marks restrict their growth has allowed them to integrate easily into pony society.

Celestia's School For Gifted Scientists (renamed in 1521 AD) has been the subject of countless speculation after a massive surge in funds from donors, both public and private. The details are unclear, but there are rumors that Aura Gleam—a descendant of Starswirl himself—has been experimenting with the Cutie Pox, trying to invent or cultivate or mutate a benign strain. The implications of multiple cutie marks have not been lost on anyone in the current economic climate.

Depending how many (if any) people are interested, I was strongly considering making this a collaborative story; I have never done one before, and this story fits the notion perfectly—it is beyond the scope of a single author, it has many different tones and situations available to write in, and it has potential for an overarching plot that can handle input from multiple sources.

Bonus trivia; this concept was actually looted from a pair of my original fiction ideas (though obviously adjusted to include ponies, and much more detached from the original ideas as a result)

It certainly is an interesting concept, although as far as my personal interest goes it kinda falls under the "too far removed from the source for my preferences". It's definitely a cool idea, but honestly, I think it might work better as an original work that doesn't have the limitations of trying to fit it into an existing framework.

That said, I think you definitely could find a way to incorporate it, it would just be difficult. Personally, I'd want to focus more on the fact that cutie marks are an intensely personal thing; they're literally a reflection of what makes a pony unique and special, so I'd really want to explore the psychological effect that removing or changing it might have on someone.

What I'd probably do is make the story set during the period where the technology is just being discovered. It would focus on the pony chosen as the guinea pig for the procedure, and seeing how the removal and/or replacement of their cutie mark affects their personality and relationships. I honestly find that aspect of the idea far more interesting than its effect on the Equestrian economy or whatever. I mean, having your CM removed is literally removing a part of what makes you you.

edited 20th Dec '13 7:52:59 PM by JapaneseTeeth

that's a bit more than just a plot bunny :p

A plot warren?

To quote a fanfic I don't remember the name of, "Cutie marks inform your destiny, but they don't define it." We know from the show that cutie marks aren't considered the be-all end-all (Rarity), that ponies can have multiple skills (Twilight), and that the talents cutie marks represent aren't unique (Twilight again).

Reconciling your new skills with your old life is definitely a worthy thing to explore^note and it is a plot point in the original version of the idea . Given the fact that ponies' cutie marks are so detached from their careers/destinies/etc., however, I don't think the technology would encounter much of a barrier there. Especially since the procedure is voluntary. Having two cutie marks, however, would definitely cause some psychological pressures.

, All plot bunnies are equal until they get written. If they weren't, I would have a lot less. But thanks.

edited 20th Dec '13 8:52:29 PM by CleverPun

True, but I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that you'd be removing something that is naturally a part of yourself and replacing it with something that isn't. Even if physically and magically the CM is indistinguishable from a real one, you'd still no that it isn't the one that you got. It's somebody else's and you're just borrowing the skill. The skill itself isn't unique (i.e. there might be other fashion ponies), but what it means to the pony who got the CM is going to differ.

Although I think it really depends on how you view them. For instance, the way I see them is that they're a reflection of the pony who gets them, not just in the sense of "this is my skill", but in that it's basically a visible manifestation of your personality. For example, Rarity's cutie mark certainly reflects her affinity for gems, but in a more general sense it reflects her desire to create beautiful fashions; the gems themselves are symbolic to her of that moment when she had that self-realization. If you took the mark from Rarity and gave it to, say, Twilight, Twilight would get the skill, certainly, but she wouldn't have any of the emotional attachment and meaning that comes from having that life-defining realization about who you are and what you want to accomplish.

And I think that's true of all the cast members.

• RD's mark isn't just "flying", but "I want to excel and be the best at everything I do". *Pinkie's mark isn't just "parties" but "I want to make other people happy"
• Twilight's mark isn't just "magic spells", it's "I want to understand everything"
• Fluttershy's mark isn't just "animals" but "I want to show kindness to others"
• Applejack's mark isn't just "apples" but "I want to be with and support my family and hometown"
• Rarity's mark isn't just "gems" but "I want to create works of art and share them with others"

The cutie mark isn't just the skill, they represent the pony's motivation and what drives them to apply their ability.

We don't get much exposition on cutie marks, but I think it's interesting that when Cheerilee talks about hers, it isn't just "my mark represents teaching", but more a case of "I want to see my students flourish".

So when it comes to swapping the marks around, most of the potential I see is in plots like "what if somepony got RD's talent for flying, but none of her desire to be the best at what she does?" or "What if somepony got Rarity's fashion sense, but didn't really care about sharing it with others?" It's not so much a question "oh their destiny is different" but more exploring what happens when you remove a skill that was very important to a pony's development and personality, and replace it with another skill that isn't related to that development at all.

Like if somebody came along, removed your ability to write and replaced it with the ability to sing or play music. You'd still have the skill, but I think that something would be different because it's not a skill that you developed over the course of your life and you have no real emotional attachment to it. I'd love a story that explored that kind of disconnect.

edited 20th Dec '13 9:40:18 PM by JapaneseTeeth

If you're going by "Magical Mystery Cure" then that is a perfectly valid interpretation. I don't consider that a good indicator of how cutie marks work, however, since it is clearly extenuating circumstance and the victims didn't get any of the skills related to their marks.

Most of the ponies in the show knew what they wanted to do well before their marks appeared; Rarity is training to be a seamstress, Twilight is enrolling in a prestigious school, Rainbow already enjoys being an athlete, etc. Their marks appearing have almost nothing to do with their purpose in life, because they already knew it. All their marks appear when they display a specific skill. If Pinkie had sung a song to make her family happy, her cutie mark might have been different, but her purpose in life would be the life. If Rarity had found a pile of balloons or a pretty natural formation, she might have altered her dresses in a different way, but she would still be a fashion designer. Cutie marks represent skills, not personality or destiny.

This may be another one of those things we have to agree to disagree on (pretty long list at this point XD). Though I suspect you may be right that it should stay an original fiction idea, if only because basing stories around complicated headcanon is not something I have success with.

edited 20th Dec '13 11:06:41 PM by CleverPun

Sounds kind of interesting. I actually already started a fanfic with a doctor wanted to create benign cutie pox, but it's smaller in scope and of a different tone.

@JT: Thanks. Edited again. That was a big help. Still wondering about that scene. You suggested expanding the start, so I did, but if deleting it is better, I'll do that. Still planning to post soon.

I still think it could be cut, and them finding out she had anemia just be referenced later when they find out about more Vampire stuff going on. The scene isn't telling the reader anything we don't already know, and really seems to have to point.

@Clever: I actually wasn't thinking about MMC at all; even without that episode I think it would be the same. The thing is that I'm not even sure that the CM represents the skill so much as it symbolizes the moment when the skill and motivation combine. A lot of the ponies actually already have their skills before they get their cutie marks. RD is evidently a skillful flyer before performing the rainboom, and Rarity is obviously a pretty good seamstress before her magic kicked in. For those that didn't, it's less that they didn't have the skill and more that they just didn't have the opportunity to use them; Pinkie was probably always good at parties, but just had never been motivated to throw one. Fluttershy probably would have always been good with animals if she had ever met some before.

Even in the present of the show I think it's pretty clear that the skills can predate the ability; Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom don't lack C Ms because they don't have special skills, they lack them because they haven't had that epiphany of "I have this skill that makes me unique". It's not the skill that makes the mark appear, it's the realization that that ability is what makes them special. E.g. Scootaloo doesn't lack a mark because she doesn't have a skill (She clearly does), but she just hasn't caught on that her crazy scooter tricks are what set her apart.

I'm going to second this. Carrot Top doesn't contribute anything to the chapter, so having an aside about her doesn't really seem important other than reassuring the reader that she's okay, which could easily be done with dialogue during AJ and Big Mac's scene. "How's Carrot Top doing?" "The doctor said she had anemia; she'll be fine." Unless she plays a greater role later in the story, there isn't much reason to give her a long scene.

edited 21st Dec '13 9:09:21 AM by JapaneseTeeth

AJ finding her and getting her to the Doctor, that bit is fine and follows up well on what happened. I like that. It's just the actual doctor's visit that is rather needed.

so, I've somehow started writing a short clopfic.

well, I don't really want to call it a clopfic, because the sex really isn't the main draw of the story. at least, I don't think it is. reader reaction may differ, I suppose. but there is certainly a sex scene in it.

and I am finding that my writing style is really not conducive to writing a sex scene.

edited 21st Dec '13 3:38:12 PM by Blissey1