Pony Fanfiction Thread

Maybe because it's different enough from the standard stuff to be appealing?

I just thought it'd be funny to have Twilight completely shitfaced, and added the bit with Spike and the book to give it a bit extra.

People actually seem to be attracted to drunk ponies, especially if it involves someone normally reasonable, like Twi or Applejack, going around doing really stupid stuff because of it.

Got a new draft together. It's a little less rough than the last few and also managed to get a bit heavy toward the end there. >.>

edited 31st Jul '15 4:11:11 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

I'll try to get to that this week. I have some catching up to do before I get to it, though.

I'd say it's because it's more of the same, not because it's something different.

Comedy, Slice of life, Random, vague description, that image of messy haired Twilight... sounds like the standard formula for a feature to me

x2 All right, thanks. I'll probably be posting it a day early, too (late Wednesday afternoon, or early evening), since I'll be on a plane half of Thursday, then trying to get checked in and acquire my badge during the other half.

edited 31st Jul '15 4:19:56 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

Well, it was lighter than my usual fare.

Apropos of nothing, I'm loving The Flight of the Alicorn so far. Things just keep getting more complicated every chapter.

Then there's what I've thought of as the other half of the "Rarity and conspiracies duology", This Platinum Crown. Intriguing machinations and fascinating backstory and magical theory- and yet I keep choking on it, just because of how shortsighted and selfish (though sympathetic) Rarity is. It says a lot that her portrayal in All-American Girl is easier for me to buy.

edited 31st Jul '15 9:09:22 PM by YamiVizziniX

I'm a bit late here, but there was a discussion about anthro fics earlier and I just really wanted to bring up a particular story: How to Tell Your Friends You're Dating a Changeling

specifically, I was really liking this fic at first.

but then the changeling in question wen back to his hive... where it was ruled over by a changeling king who was inexplicably anthro (because that's apparently just how it is. changelings queens are pony, changeling kinds are anthro). And the next few chapters involve the king using the hive mind to go through the changeling's memories as a way to give us backstory with him playing the peanut gallery the whole time.

the anthro thing was really distracting and completely pointless, and combined with him taking over the story for a few chapters, made me and more than a few others stop reading it. also interesting to note is that the story went on hiatus shortly after that...

my end opinion is, the only good reason to ever do anthro is if you're doing clop.

edited 1st Aug '15 4:38:31 AM by Blissey1

I've made top spot!

Belated congrats.

...Where do you all think the line falls between realism and contrived conflict? The one thing I really don't enjoy reading is the Mane 6 falling out of friendship/harmony, even (or especially) if it has understandable reasons. I know a lot of that is just emotion and denial on my part, and yet... what are the odds that they would all splinter like that, especially if (in and out of universe) it looks like things are fine one moment and then they're arguing at the drop of a hat?

Yeah, I just read chapter 2 of All-American Girl. Not pretty. On to Eljunbyro and Vengeance of Dawn, I suppose.

(For context, if you don't want to hunt through 40K words, they try to fight a returned Nightmare Moon, who suddenly drops the bombs that (1)Pinkie's upset that her friends don't take her and her abilities seriously even though she's apparently a hugely successful businessmare (2)Applejack's sick of her vaguely-defined government work (3)Rarity apparently resents that they're trying to save Fillydelphia instead of focusing on protecting her family (granted she's still a little bitter about them being divided over her daughter's custody years before) (4)Twilight is apparently bitter at having to devote her life to service instead of finding love and had either flirted or more with the majority of her friends' (including Fluttershy who's insecure about not being able to bear foals) significant others (most of those apparently either a lie or blown out of proportion/context but nopony seems in a mood to listen). Elements fizzle, everypony starts shouting & NM blasts their plots.)

Yeah, I hate stories that make the mane six splinter. It never works.

But enough hating, The Sweetie Chronicles just updated!

Considering how the season 5 opener made a big deal of the fact that the mane six are able to argue and stay friends... no, I don't see how you can split them up and still keep them in-character. Either they're OOC by overreacting to something that shouldn't really come between them, or one (or more) of them acts OOC in order to do something genuinely bad enough to realistically come between them.

I guess that's my feeling- though the main point was that (if it wasn't clear) it's been a few decades and life's pressures wear on people (and apparently they've kept it all bottled up). And of course this predated S5, and I don't know that they entirely broke up as such, just that they seemed to fall apart in the moment.

Also, seriously, is the Dear Sweetie Belle page any better now? Because I'm not sure how to get it more detailed short of full recaps. (Or maybe it really is just disjointed.)

I'm basically with Meta. The mane cast have been through so much at this point that it would take something extremely major to cause any sort of lasting split. I think it's possible, but it requires you to A. make the cause of the fight something both important enough to cause that sort of fight while also being a subject that logically wouldn't have already been addressed by the show B. not throw any cast member under the bus to make the conflict work (i.e. it has to be even enough that both sides are sympathetic) and C. make it consistent with what we already know of the characters.

Theoretically possible, but extremely difficult.

cough cough Conflict Ball

There can be verisimilitude in friends drifting apart over time, but most fics don't handle the subject with any sort of tact or naturalism. I suppose it doesn't make for a good conflict in general; it is a very slow, subtle process that lacks the arc that makes for a good story. It's easier to inject melodrama into the idea in order to make the plot move forward.

There are ways it could be made believable and dramatic, but most authors aren't willing to put in the effort to craft such a solution.

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edited 15th Aug '15 11:32:29 AM by Prinzenick

Sounds like it fits. Though once you spend enough time in the fandom you'll see a lot of authors don't seem to care whether or not their plots "make sense" for the setting.

as long as it's made clear up front that it's a comedy and a spoof/homage like you said, then I don't see anything too wrong with it.

That actually sounds like a really fun and clever idea... if it's pulled off well. It could easily turn into another too-dark penny dreadful "Adventure" fic if executed poorly. Especially if one is aiming to ape Don Bluth. I love the man dearly but so much of what he worked on is deeply uncomfortable to observe at times.

I take it from the point about Scootaloo that she's our primary protagonist? That's neat. I don't think you see too much of Scootaloo being front-and-center in fanfic, at least not fanfic like this. I think she was the protagonist of an early-days After the End fic or something, wasn't she?

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edited 15th Aug '15 11:32:47 AM by Prinzenick

On splitting the mane 6. Yeah it is really really hard to do right, and requires very rare execution to get even remotly right. Crisis Equestria had a good idea for it, it being the result of weeks of constant stress, fear, all of them being pushed to the edge and short tempered. But it did still make Dash go far to overboard on the acting like an asshole.

The rewrite was fixing that though... to bad the story looks dead.

If it's built up, that's one thing. Mostly my heart gets a little heavy whenever they try to use the Elements before the end of the story and I know there's going to be a reason why it doesn't work, same as with Celestia.

@Prinzenick: The cuckoo clock part seems a little circuitous; why does he need to do that entire extra set of steps to carry out his plan? Couldn't he steal her horn in the present? How does time travel change anything?

There's also a lot of potential Fridge Logic problems: wouldn't stealing Celestia's horn not remove any of her other alicorn powers? Why does Celestia write off the CMC when there's a bunch of other magic bullshit that attacks on a regular basis? Why is Scootaloo still having self-esteem problems if she already got over that?

Admittedly, some of those could be explained away or Hand Waved via the comedic nature of it, and the last actually fits the show characterization of the crusaders. Still things to consider, though

.

edited 15th Aug '15 11:33:04 AM by Prinzenick

Random fanfic idea based off a comic I saw: Rainbow Dash gets all excited when she sees preparations for a pride parade with rainbow flags everywhere, assuming it must have something to do with awesomeness and/or her. Then much to her surprise she discovers that far from her previous expectations, it was in fact the day of the llama pride parade.

edited 4th Aug '15 7:33:57 PM by SantosLHalper

so, after an extremely long wait, I've finally gotten the next chapter of my human music fic into a state where it's ready for proofreading