Pony Fanfiction Thread

@Yami: The tags and description on that made me NOPE so hard that I injured myself.

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Sounds like your standard Rainbow-dash-loses-her-wings-causing-Pinkie-Pie-to-die-and-Twilight-to-go-back-in-time-to-fix-it-and-winds-up-not-being-a-princesxs-anymore story.

Also Rarity is a serial rapist.

Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.

Aren't we all?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Can I nope hard enough to shattered that story?

edited 20th Oct '14 8:04:06 PM by Seraphem

@Handle: I'm in the last week of my classes, so I'm a bit distracted by a final project. Plus I'm trying to outline a non-pony story and keep getting distracted by Titanfall. I am flattered that you value my advice, but I probably won't be able to give it a close look until I've got said academic stuff done.

Also, unless there have been some significant changes, I'm not sure that my advice will be terribly different from the first drafts.

@Seraphem: But the question was how we would do it, not to speculate on what it'll actually be like

"The only way to truly waste an idea is to shove it where it doesn't belong."

Again that would all depends on just what it is.

Epic Grand Finale? Or just some huge epic, movie worthy adventure, but ultimately just one more step in their journey that keeps on going with more seasons?

...Pick one, I suppose?

I'm leaning toward it being a grand finale movie—or, at least, a movie that can act as a grand finale even if the show is forced to continue until it's a withering husk of what it once was.

Part of that might depend on how much money it makes.

Why must these stories libel Best Pony?

edited 20th Oct '14 8:27:41 PM by Pannic

Fanfiction I hate.

Rampant, thinly veiled jealousy, obv

"The only way to truly waste an idea is to shove it where it doesn't belong."

As much as I would love the former, I have a bad feeling the latter is more likely.

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

@ Handle: I haven't read enough of your stuff to really get a sense of whether you'd do it well or not, but florid is definitely what it needs. I think you should go for it.

Now for my own question. I'm revisiting an old story idea and am trying to come up with good elemental themed, but not overly obvious names for three women; earth, water, and air, as well as a male name for fire, and I'm coming up blank. The frustrating part is I know that I knew the names I wanted to use before, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were. I'm hoping you guys can jog my memory. Any ideas?

I did the exact opposite, I had three males, exact same elements as your girls, one female, fire. Huh, fancy that.

Tellus, Aequor, Caelum and Flamma, by the way, is what I called them.

I must admit that Rarity had to really work hard for me to like her due to the fact that I'm prejudiced against rich people and attractive people and clothes. But she's helped me with that.

aIfphasbropactuallyphaduthelgutsptooendntheyseriesiinsteadsofblettingeitsgrowtirrelevantpandnbadyI would gain so much respect for them.

edited 21st Oct '14 12:32:41 AM by jimmmyman10

Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.

@Clever: I made some pretty drastic changes. The prose is toned down, Rarity's visit is mentioned right off the bat to build up to it, and I build up a theme of Twilight manipulating herself through time by making decisions for herself when she's in a state to do so. This theme is going to be the core of the fic; Twilight knows herself very well, and plans forward so that she doesn't put herself in situations where she is sure to do something stupid, or she makes provisions so that stupidity is not an option.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

A defiance of an Idiot Plot? Sounds good! (And, again, I can relate.)

EDIT: Re: Shattered, I understand it's not going to be up everyone's alley. It alarmed me a bit too, but I find that when I have that reaction, especially with a vague description, I feel obliged to check it out- hence all the war fics. I don't want to just let myself just go "Please, Dash can't get hurt that badly/Vinyl can't escape a dream trap that nopony else can/suddenly finding out they're infertile wouldn't make the Mane Six turn on each other/a Vasto Lorde can't beat the Mane Six and Celestia/ponies aren't that racist/Twilight would not be a bad mother/nothing can pose a real military threat to Equestria when Celestia's in charge/nothing can kill Celestia/Twilight wouldn't fall into He Who Fights Monsters/Equestria knows better than to get into a Cold War or a civil war! Boo! Zero stars!" After that- well, while explaining more probably won't help my case, all I can say is that I personally found it engaging. And the author has a good grasp of the English language.

Anyway, Dash gets into the Wonderbolts but when her friends gather at her house to celebrate, she shows up late, shell-shocked and (apparently) raped- as tests and testimony indicate, by Soarin'. A lot of stuff happens but the main arc at this point is Soarin's trial, and since pretty much everypony was drunk at the Wonderbolts' party and Dash apparently has some memory gaps, it's not at all clear that he'll be convicted, or even if he deserves to be. A sizable reader faction have called out Twilight (who took it upon herself to prosecute) and/or the author for supposedly acting by "guilty until proven innocent" and/or claimed (as the defense does) that Dash just regrets her drunken encounter and she or Twilight is covering it up by manufacturing this case. Never mind that it's obvious that at the very least Soarin' practically dragged her upstairs when she was too out of it to move or protest.

edited 21st Oct '14 9:04:01 AM by YamiVizzini

...yeah, I'm not at all regretting that I took a pass on that one.

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That description has such a big "victim blaming" red flag on it that you could make a bunch of very elaborate gala dresses with it.

edited 21st Oct '14 7:48:01 AM by Connelly

I can kinda see where they're coming from (rape accusation is a good way to utterly ruin someone's reputation forever), but yeah, if the story makes it even the clear that it's non-consensual on RD's part (and "dragging a drunk person up the stairs" certainly qualifies, and if she's so drunk she had memory loss she's obviously not capable of giving consent) he's obviously responsible. I have no idea what the level of actual ambiguity in the story is, though, and I'm not about to read it to find out.

edited 21st Oct '14 7:57:31 AM by JapaneseTeeth

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I think rape might be where I draw the line for "why are you writing your story as a pony fanfic". Like, I try not to go the route of "you shouldn't be using this universe" but I think that might be where I just say no.

Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.

My thoughts exactly. When I read the description, my first thought is why the heck would I want to read a pony fic where the main plot point is RD getting raped by the Wonderbolts? Like I literally cannot comprehend the thought process that would lead somebody to write that. Not that it's bad that they decided to, but it's so far removed from what I look for in fanfic that I just want to stay away. Granted, that's just my enormous Original Flavor bias showing. If this were an original work, or fanfic of a series where something like this might actually happen, I'd probably find it interesting. But the fact that they took a very bright, optimistic, and upbeat show and went "You know what? This setting needs a story about rape" just makes me freeze and turn right the fuck around. I mean, I'm sure they have their reasons, and that's fine, but I don't get it. It goes totally against all the reasons that the show appeals to me in the first place.

(Not to mention that it's laughably OOC for Soarin', given that everything we've ever seen of him portrays him as a friendly goofball)

edited 21st Oct '14 8:08:50 AM by JapaneseTeeth

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Internet Rule #43: The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt it.

I'm not sure that's quite what's going on here. That would cover stuff like Cupcakes or drawing porn or whatever, but this is a bit different because it's not like they're writing the story for the sake of corrupting the source material. And despite my personal distaste for this sort of thing, I don't know if I'd call it corruption, because at the very least they're making an effort to address the topic seriously rather than using it for shock value.

edited 21st Oct '14 8:36:00 AM by JapaneseTeeth

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Also, I take issue with, "Soarin' couldn't have done it, he's a lovable goofball."

One of those things we had to accept with murder was that sometime good people have a very bad moment. They do a very bad awful thing. In the case of murder, well, you have a body, can't deny that. Some of still claim murder is the ultimate wickedness for which there is no penance, but on the other hand our culture is full of people repenting for having killed.

Rape though? Rape is still that special kind of evil. From the perp side, if convicted, he will be worst than the murderer. He can never seek forgiveness, and forever be a pariah because one time he was very selfish and he hurt someone very badly. For the victim, she has to face her rapist's friends, who could not possibly believe that this person that they love could do this ultimate evil. They'd rather blame the victim. And society will side with them.

This binary quality of getting off scot-free or damned forever is why so many get the former and nobody wants that lovable goofball they all know to get the latter. "He's a good kid, he couldn't have possible done this, he doesn't deserve this." Well, I'm sorry, yes he could have. All it takes is one moment of selfish wickedness to put a black spot on a clean record. He hurt someone very badly and that needs to be addressed, but it doesn't make him the devil. It makes him human.

Er... a pony.

I'm convinced that's what people see with mine when they see the dark tag. This, despite my stuff actually being generally tamer than Sombra (though it might match or exceed at some points) and most certainly tamer than Tirek.

FE: New Mystery Fresh Cart Lunatic 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi