Pony Fanfiction Thread

Just to nitpick, Celestia and Luna are a different kind of upper class from the "nobility". Celestia and Luna's roles in the show have always been more of the Reasonable Authority Figure than anything else. The ponies Clever is referring to are the ones that are the "upper crust", so to speak. Ones whose roles in society are defined purely by their wealth rather than their authority.

Except he brought up "The nobility" Specifically. And you can't really do that and not count the ones at the very top of the hierarchy.

Except... Celestia and Luna aren't, really. The only time they're shown interacting with the upper class is when Celestia goes to the Grand Galloping Gala, and she pretty explicitly dislikes it. Other than that she acts nothing like them.

But she is still the ruler, and by definition part of the nobility.

Tonight's premier entertainment is this thread's bi-weekly reenactment of the Battle of the Somme.

Awww, can't we re-enact the Battle of Cannae instead?

Dibs on Hannibal!

I'm fortunate that most of my exposure to Iron Man comes from the movies, so I think of him as neither boring nor a douchebag.

Reminder that the only explicit, literal nobility in the show are the Princesses and Blueblood. All those other rich snots are most likely nouveau riche.

Also have the Duke and Duchess of Maretonia. He seemed, at least not a total douche in his one line.

Oh and Shining Armor now too.

So out of eight nobles we've seen. Only one has been an outright douchbag.

edited 12th Feb '15 7:42:51 PM by Seraphem

I dunno if Shining Armor counts given that he basically married into royalty.

Oh, yeah, there's also the three heads of the pre-unification pony states in the Hearths Warming Eve play. Although it's deliberately ambiguous just how accurate the play is.

And remember, whether you're in a monarchy, a democracy, or a military-controlled state, the pony running the country is a short-sighted jerk, and their second-in-command really ought to be in charge.

My previous posts specifically used the terms "wealthy" and "upper class" in order to avoid that distinction.

Doublepost because I finished the next segment of Inexcusable. New material begins at "Irrational" and ends at all the strikethroughed (strikethrough-ed?) text. Ignore everything after that. Unless you want an insight into how messy my writing process is, I suppose. I had to type this across multiple computers, so didn't put my notes in a separate document like usual.

The story is still quite rough—particularly lacking the sentence-level finery—but I think I'm finally starting to get a sense of how such a situation would play out. The thread originally posited that Celestia would be angry, and I think that's a part of it. I think of Luna and Celestia as The Constant for each other. Celestia would feel betrayed and angry, but the fact that her constant had been replaced without her knowing would also be quite unsettling.

I may have written her as "bitchy" in the first chapter, but now this chapter starts to show why she reacted that way. Then the next will have her confront Luna again and reveal that Luna feels the same way.

I'm thinking this story is going to be tagged Sad instead of Dark, unlike its prequel.

edited 12th Feb '15 10:47:49 PM by CleverPun

Tony Stark. Richie Rich. Bruce Wayne. Largo Winch. Jonathan and Joseph Joestar. The entire cast of Ouran High School Host Club. Most Disney Princes and Princesses. At least three of the protagonists of Big Hero Six. The casts of big Soap Opera like Dallas or The Brave And The Bold, a good chunk of the cast of Ugly Betty, the protagonists of the Twilight saga and Fifty Shades Of Grey. Citizen Kane. Gone With The Wind (even though that fluctuates wildly). Hyper-rich males are also typical of Romance Novel pieces. The list goes on...

I say, isn't Tamaki just adorable?

Why is that? With money comes agency. It's the next best thing after superpowers, in terms of getting things done and allowing the character to live their life the way they want and express themselves fully. Very seldom do we see upper-classers as the sort of intellectually-impaired, hyper-conformist, gregarious folks we see in Canterlot. Even then, they're strongly subjected to Do Not Do This Cool Thing; their approval is desired, its attainment is a triumph, and their frown is a blow. Their world is shiny, beautiful, varied, captivating. Sure, farming is presented as healthier and more morally upright, but it isn't nearly as glamourous (and attempts to glamourize it are presented as misguided).

Furthermore, entertainment things like fashion shows or classic music concerts don't nearly interest the very rich as much as they used to; it's a bit of a Dead Horse Trope, kept up by (upper-)middle-class folk who aspire to the coolness of the rich protagonists of the fiction of previous centuries. Only the greatest fashion designers and musicians are counted among the upper class, and it's usually by the skin of their teeth; it's more like they're allowed to mingle because they're entertaining.

These shows seldom talk about the lifestyles of the real upper class. By which I mean bankers, great industrialists, great landowners. Not politicians, entertainers, or civil servants.

So, I mostly get a Sour Grapes feeling from this pervasive middle-class-ism.

edited 13th Feb '15 3:30:10 AM by TheHandle

Those examples are a bit different from what we're talking about, though. You missed this: "A character who starts at the top and isn't seen actively putting effort in is very hard to write sympathetically."

In pretty much all the examples you listed, the characters are seen either getting their hands dirty despite their wealth or actively putting in effort to maintain it. Tony Stark, the Joestars, Batman, they're all rich, but in those cases the riches are only a secondary aspect of the characters. You pay less attention to their financial background because most of their screentime is spent beating up bad guys. They might be rich, but they rarely act rich. Their lifestyles have little to do with the story. It's very rare that real rich people actually act like that.

Of course, that hardly equates to "all rich people are jerks", but that was never really my premise. What I was saying is that it's more along the lines of it's harder (but not impossible, obviously) to write them well because there are fewer people who can relate to their situation. It's obviously not impossible and there are lots of good examples out there, but there are even more examples of characters who don't fit that mold.

Or to put it another way, for a lot of people, giving a character lots of money makes them less sympathetic because it's such an advantage for them. For example, take your standard Rich Bitch stereotype: girl acts like a complete jerk to everyone around her. Not a very sympathetic archetype. But if you take someone who acts exactly the same way, but is lower class, a lot of people will view them as more sympathetic because their economic difficulty creates a sense of balance. There's a reason (not necessarily a justification) for why they might act that way. Whether that's even remotely correct or not is beside the point; people will generally be more willing to sympathize with them because they've more likely been in that situation.

edited 13th Feb '15 6:07:33 AM by JapaneseTeeth

Usually if you're already rich you don't need to make any effort to get richer; you pay other people to do that for you. Lawyers, clerks, CEO's, etc. All you need to do is decide where the riches go, what you want to invest in. You are in no danger of losing your wealth, so you can invest in the things you actually care about.

Indeed few people have experience being very elite (it's sort of the point), and you Write What You Know.

I feel tempted to write a Bildungsroman about a rich kid going through a great deal of trouble because their station demands of them that they be hard-working and academically brilliant (in fact, that he be brilliant at everything he does).

Their parents are very well-educated, and so are their social acquaintances, so they've already got an advantage just through osmosis. They have access to all the literature and tutoring and coaching they could possibly need. And they have people to take care of chores and menial tasks, so that all their time and energy is dedicated to self-improvement.

But their lives are actually extremely stressful: they are in tight competition with other rich folk, and need to struggle on all fronts to secure their status and wealth. No need to make it a Deadly Decadent Court; just normal, average, figurative cut-throat competition is enough to make for a melodramatic life full of trials and excitement, from the cradle to the grave.

And then you can start complicating it with plotting, from creative accounting to social engineering to out-and-out con games to the more [[violent stuff.

Of course, there are the rich kids that don't study that hard and just go with the flow and let their money do the work for them. They're the rich guy equivalent of someone living on government benefits. In most modern cultures, they're seen with some scorn by their more competitive peers. These will normally not spend as much effort making nice with them. Who wants to be allies with someone who's stagnating instead of growing? Unless you want to take advantage of their ignorance and laziness to take money and power from them...

edited 13th Feb '15 6:38:55 AM by TheHandle

My point exactly. I'm not saying there's no room for that, I'm saying in most cases people just don't write it that way.

Okay, it's a bit late, and I apologize if it is... but I have finally finished The Elements of Harmony and the Savior of Worlds . The epilogue is here.

edited 13th Feb '15 1:21:59 PM by RK_Striker_JK_5

Maybe we should hold off on the celebrations

This guy gives out 1-stars like candy. Having high standards for characterization is fair enough, but no need to let one reviewer skew your accomplishment curve. (Seriously, he gave "Who We Are" one star because he way overthought one offhand line.)

(Although it was pretty satisfying to see him tear Dash's New Mom a new one, even if it's diluted by how much he blows other flaws out of proportion.)

He gave my story two stars. That was a bummer.

I read that, and responded politely as I could. I... disagree with a lot of his assertions, especially since other reviewers that I trust and know far better said the opposite in many cases, especially characterization and such.

That sucks, and I bet it didn't deserve it.

edited 13th Feb '15 3:42:55 PM by RK_Striker_JK_5

I would let his words get to me and rip out my heart.

I, however, am not a good example to follow.

I've read a few of his reviews, yeah he's not very good, and tends to get WAY to nitpicky about things.