Pony Fanfiction Thread

I'm calling it Manificent Seven.

I need to brush up my Akira Kurosawa. And then figure out how he translates into prose.

Carrying the atmosphere of the show will require some mild Character Derailment. For instance, a lot of scenes in Samurai Jack owe their tension or their beauty to the people involved being quiet and focused. Try to imagine the Mane Six remaining quiet for even one minute.

Especially Pinkie.

I thought of maybe splitting them up, but can Pinkie remain quiet even alone?

Can Pinkie function alone without deflating?

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

Pinkie can be a very tricky character to work with when attempting serious storytelling. Loads of fun during casual scenes, though.

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When the main six were climbing the mountain to the dragon and passed through the avalanche zone, Pinkie had no trouble staying quiet. Fluttershy was the one who made noise and triggered the avalanche.

And Pinkie trekked all the way to Yakyakistan, and spent a decent portion of the trip completely alone.

I do not like shipping stories, ya know, and yet I do.

I like seeing two people and ponies I enjoy the personality of bounce their personalities off each other in a fluffy, romantic situation with a hint of sexual tension.

But I don't like actually specifically pairing up two ponies together. It seems to close everypone else out, not just in a shipping sense but focus too.

My first step was to give all the six at least incompatible sexualities and preferences, none of them quite work together.

I've hit upon a second vector, Pinkie Pie. I wrote that heart and loins are a roulette wheel, spinning and respinning at random intervals, pointing her to crush at some other pony, usually one of her friends. My idea is that her friends go ahead and encourage her to be more open with her feelings and she takes them up on that offer, hard.

Cue to each and everyone of them spending indeterminate intervals of time being woo'd and romanced by all the energy Pinkie Pie has to offer during whatever short span she currently has a thing for them.

edited 15th Feb '17 5:45:57 PM by God_of_Awesome

I get where you're coming from on that, actually. Part of the reason I wanted to start writing was because I've read a lot of Twijack fics, but I've noticed a lot of them focus exclusively on the central pairing to the exclusion of the other characters around them. There's only so much central-couple fluff one can read before it just sorta blurs together.

I wanted to see more emphasis on how the relationship affects the characters' relationships not just with each other but with the other members of the cast. What I'm working on right now is basically the equivalent of a plot-driven two-parter with shippy flavor, but since I've started writing, I've actually had more ideas for stories around the central ship than stories actually about it.

I do have my ship and, of course, it is objectively better than all other ships and anyone who says otherwise will be immediately bathed in dragonfire, but I wanted to write more than just the ship.

edited 15th Feb '17 6:13:46 PM by TobiasDrake

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A wrote a story where two ponies kissed, but it was a doomed relationship from the start and it didn't even last two days. Yet at least one of my readers says she legit ships those two characters now specifically because of my story.

edited 15th Feb '17 8:21:35 PM by MetaFour

I once wrote a shipping story about two unnamed background ponies who had had about 1.5 lines of dialogue between them, and it got anti shippers. It was relatively popular, though I don't think it got anyone behind the ship.

Though I'd say arguably my 'main' shipping story, at least in terms of bulk, is noticeable in that it's primarily focused on character growth for one half of the ship (Silver Spoon) as a result of the relationship. Though I think the story ultimately suffers for turning the romance into a prize rather than allowing it to flow naturally as a cause/effect of the character growth. We live and learn.

Billy wrote a 'shipping' story about a guy silently pining after a lesbian, ultimately deciding not to tell her that her girlfriend had cheated on her, and then skipping town without saying anything.

The world of shipping is a wide and interesting one.

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

It took me only slightly over a month to get my latest update out. I'm getting better at this!

edited 15th Feb '17 7:14:05 PM by Zennistrad

@Tobias: Hey, I at least tried too give the rest of the cast some screen time. If I had focused on them too much the story would've ended up being even longer.

Also, I can second Pinkie being hard to write. If you're writing a pure comedy fic it's not too bad, but anything remotely serious and it can be really hard to strike the right balance. I remember having similar issues with Fluttershy as well, trying to find a good balance between maintaining a degree of quietness and shyness while still having her be an important part of the scene without the other characters steamrolling her.

edited 15th Feb '17 8:45:16 PM by JapaneseTeeth

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JT, yours is one of the few I read where I felt like the rest of the cast did get an appropriate amount of screentime. At least among the Mane Six.

Expanding on that, it's something I've noticed with a lot of Twijack fics, though I don't know if the same is true of other Applejack ships: Applejack tends to get treated like an island unto herself.

The thing about her that really stuck out to me, though, is that she's not. Any other character in the Mane Six could reasonably be treated like that. With Rarity, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, or even Twilight herself, there's not a whole lot of people baggage that really comes with them. They're each pretty independent.

Applejack, though, is part of a tight-knit Southern family. She's a package deal. It's the kind of family where you don't get to just court one of its members; you're courting everyone. Your relationship will rise and fall based on what her brother thinks of you, what her grandma thinks of you, what her second cousin from Louisville thinks of you....

I've tried to include a lot of Big Macintosh, Apple Bloom, and Granny Smith in my story for that reason. Regardless of which character is doing the courting and/or being courted, pursuing a romantic relationship with Applejack means finding a place in the Apple family where that character can slot in and be welcomed as a contributing member.

There's a scene in my latest chapter that's Twilight helping Apple Bloom with her homework, which was actually one of the first scenes I ever conceptualized for my story.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Yeah, later on I realized I needed to try to incorporate the rest of her family a bit more. I wish I would've had more of them in there the whole way through. Though it's partly because I started the story way back during season 2, back when the Apple Family hadn't gotten quite as much attention as they did later on. If I had started it later, I probably would've had more to do with them.

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Conflict writing is also very tricky with this franchise. It's much different than anything I've ever written before due to the very different nature of the series.

I've had to spend a lot of time really thinking about how I want to resolve my story due to the shift in focus. In the late stages of concepting, I actually wound up scrapping my original ending on account of being too heavily action-oriented. Brutal fight scenes are what I'm used to; I actually used to have something of a signature style in that I spent a lot of time analyzing the anatomy of each hit to communicate the damage.

But that's not really pony-appropriate, and having to shift gears like that has been a lot of work. The two-parters have their share of action, certainly, but the heart of the show is emotional. It's meant to punch characters in the feels, not the face. So I've gone back and forth updating various scenes with that question of, "What am I supposed to be feeling right now? How does this contribute to the lessons?"

It's a lot to get used to.

edited 16th Feb '17 8:50:05 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

This fanfic made me sad...

It's also a pretty cool "Starlight gets Laser-Guided Karma" story. Not sure which aspect I like more...

Just finished reading The Rise and Fall of Dark Lord Sassaflash. For some silly reasons, I was expecting it not to be very good, but it surprised me. It mashes the Cthulhu Mythos into Equestria in a way that feels completely organic—and the crazy thing is, it's all 100% compatible with what we actually see in the show. (Even though there's one part where it looks for all the world like canon—and possibly reality—has broken, it all gets reconciled in the end.)

Of course, it's by the same guy who wrote Mendacity, which pulled the same trick by working The Fair Folk into Equestria. Oh, and Rise and Fall is actually in the same continuity as Mendacity.

Penultimate Chapter for Single Point of Failure is drafted. This was a really hard one, particularly for one scene that will probably be immediately apparent. Definitely open to any suggestions for making that run smoother.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

On reflection, the beginning of Raising Spike kind of reminds me of the end of Chappie, or vice versa- childlike character loses his mother figure to the machinations of a Smug Snake and lays a horrific No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the villain.

There is no beginning. There is no end. There is only... Hooty.

Anywho, that's decided, my next story after this Summit one, "Pinkie Pie Seduces All Her Friends".

Take ideas from the lot of you too, like Pinkie asking Granny Smith for permission to woo Jack.

Pinkie Pie serenading Rarity. Pinkie isn't her type but how many opportunities does she have to be serenaded?

Last is Fluttershy, holed up in her cottage, dreading what Pinkie must have in store for her. The Pink Ponk shows and informs Flutts that "You're real pretty and I like you a lot. Bye bye, I love you!" The Ponk is gone and Flutts faints.

I'm writing a goofy AU fic and...

I swear I wasn't trying to create the perfect setup for a Yakov Smirnoff joke. It just sort of happened.

In Soviet Russia, Pinkie pies you?

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

It requires enough setup that it would probably be easier for me to just link the entire fic so far, and I'm not ready to post it for feedback yet.

Well, be sure to link it when it's ready. After everything you've done for my story, it'd only be fair to return the favor.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

@Yami: Hey, you read the latest chapter of Tobias' fic. Do you think that argument between the mane six would be enough to make Pinkie's mane go flat? I think not, but I want a second opinion so it's not just me forcing my headcanon down his throat.

It was kind of traumatic for me to read, so I could see it happening. But I'm not inclined to give more weight to my literary opinions than to yours.

There is no beginning. There is no end. There is only... Hooty.

I was basing the flatness off the way she deflated in Party of One when she thought all her friends had abandoned her. But drooping also works.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Chapter Five of Single Point of Failure is now live, and I plan to have the finale drafted by the end of the weekend. I'm about 40% through it right now.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.