Pony Fanfiction Thread

Gonna write some more about the OC coming up in my stories, Strife, the Spirit Of Evil. Retread older comments, bringing up new ideas and I wanna ask anyone for any ideas of your own.

OG Strife is a Grade-A jerk, developing a For the Evulz personality as a result of her ability to see the wickedness in everyone. Discord notes that she had a choice however, she could have done some real good as the Spirit Of Evil, being an avenger, an adversary, a conscious. She is credited with influencing Discord towards being a sadistic jerk, and he influenced her towards an inclination for anarchy. "Discord sought chaos through suffering, Strife sought suffering through chaos. Chaos is fast-paced and quick, evil is just easy. In each other they found the quick and easy path."
Would you feel this alleviates too much responsibility from Discord, that he had a "bad influence"? Give an OC villain too much credit?

She was weaker than Discord but far more foul. Discord treated mortals like toys, playing his games with them and then leaving when he was bored. It was the act, not the result, that mattered to him and if the toy managed to carry on afterwards it wasn't any skin off his back. If his "toys" actually managed to beat his game, even after all his cheating, he'd clap his hands, congratulate them and leave. Or, as it was in two cases, stand there and let them blast him with the magical artifact he'd knew would seal him away.
This would be a retcon on my part, that Discord has enough of an obsession with games to play along with them and his defeats were prizes that he willingly gave out. It also may fly in the face of some interpretations that he truly enjoyed the suffering he caused. Thoughts?

Strife got in close and personal, manipulating mortals to perform heinous acts. Where Discord turned a person's personality upside down, Strife preferred to enhance aspects until they blew up in the recipient's face. She never let her victim win if she could help it and any victory they won would be cruelly snatched from their jaws. Sometimes, she'd let them win, just to snuff the hope from their eyes. If she'd had been faced with the Elements, her first instinct would have been to, say, grab Pinkie with her tail and fling her far away, and then grab Fluttershy and go the other way.
The point with the Elements is rather moot given their removal, so... um... what was the point here?

Strife claims to be responsible for every great villain, to be the Man Behind the Man to Nightmare Moon, Sombra and Tirek. Discord points out that her wildly claiming to be the true villain all along is well within character for her. The greater truth is she may or may not have had any influence, and if that to varying degrees, leading to an interesting question of, "If the Devil maybe made me do it, where do we go from there?"
This is more of a case of a villain shilling herself and immediately getting shot down. The question of "Devil made me do it?", how might that be approached?

She also claims to be the creator of The Elements, at least in part. That has more evidence behind it, although the exact extent of her influence is undetermined. This is also in character for her, as she is her own worst enemy, gleefully creating the very things that would destroy her.
More shilling? Bad?

A long while ago, pre-Equestria, she was shattered into a hundred pieces, each one going off to do her own thing. Each has some variable portion of Strife's original power, but 100% of her cunning. Some of the fragment have developed differently from the original but most have not. One embraced the role of the adversary, forcing people to face bad things with the intent of making them stronger. Another is stumbling through the role of avenger. Two of them are lawyers, always ending up on different sides if they ever work the same case.
This would allow me to explore the different idea presented of what Strife could do, but it also serves a second purpose. Strife can be defeated, done in as hard as Sombra or redeemed like Discord, but there will just be another one like her, just around the corner.

Any good human in Equestria stories y'all can recommend?

@Tobias: Stuff like that is why my Twijack fic ended up being longer than Moby-Dick.

This isn't a full causality chain. How does being able to see the wickedness in everyone cause her to be For the Evulz? Expand on this. Maybe her ability to see the wickedness in others means she regards it as the true state of the world, so she has decided to embrace wickedness as much as possible in a "if you can beat em, join em" sense or because she believes that goodness is denying what we truly are.

It's something you have to be careful about, but I believe that explaining a villain's evil with a past is fine and gives them depth. I did something similar with Discord in my own fanverse with his family and Morning Star.

It's completely against my interpretation and what I see as evidence from the show, but you are hardly unique in that interpretation. (I still say that what he did with Fluttershy points away from that interpretation, for example).

An example of how she deals with challenges?

Shilling herself and immediately getting shot down is great for avoiding Sueness. "The Devil made me do it" is something that depends on what you're trying to achieve. There are too many possibilities.

It does come across as shilling and is inconsistent with things you've already established. It can be made to work though. The easiest way I see is: She's so arrogant, she claims to be behind everything, including the elements themselves. In this, she may have a point though as her arrogance and desire to snatch hope and victory from victims in the last minute means she often challenges others and even uses her powers to bring them closer to victory in an attempt to make their final defeat more crushing. She sometimes makes mistakes and the results of her aid are more successful than she anticipated, thus creating her greatest enemies.

It's an idea that can work. Just be careful not to have it overwhelm the setting, especially to the point where it means that its existence means that us not having encountered it yet in show is ridiculous. Some fanfics have made that mistake.

An example of a good one is The Immortal Game and its spellblades, which are completely awesome, but so incredibly important, that there is no way they wouldn't have appeared in-show if they existed in the context they are claimed to have.

I want to see someone write a fic where the Zen'Os comes to Equestria and learns the Magic of Friendship. Hilarity Ensues.

edited 20th Apr '17 5:10:10 AM by UdtheImp

Even funnier: They go to a world ruled by Discord to a microscopic degree and respond accordingly.

@Spirit: I can actually recommend quite a few, since HiE is my primary choice of fanfic. Mostly I like the scifi ones that have first contact scenarios. What kind of HiE are you specifically looking for? Human magically transported to Equestria? Spacefaring humans discover Equestria? Crossover fic where human celebrity/historical figure/fictional character ends up in Equestria?

edited 20th Apr '17 7:14:52 AM by danime91

Does it count as HIE if they're physically turned into a pony? Starscribe has some good ones (only the My Little Apprentice series and Message in a Bottle are really Equestria-centric, though).

^^ First Contact style stories where there's big emphasis on human/pony relations preferably.

Equestria being a future Earth where humanity is extinct except one or more people because reasons.

A human is some evil magical overlord from 1000 years ago that just now wakes up because reasons.

Stuff like that. Already read stuff like Project Sunflower, Dread Chitin, Tiberium Eclipse and Stardust.

edited 20th Apr '17 4:59:22 PM by Spirit

Have you read Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger? One of the best first contact stories, fanfic or original literature. Voyage's End is really good, and I just like any stories that have ponies discovering the Voyager satellite. I also like The Writing on the Wall.

These stories are all completed, so no having to wait for updates that may never come. If you want in-progress recommendations as well, I can give you some from that list. If you're a fan of ponies discovering human creations, but not humans themselves, like radio, ancient ruins of forgotten civilization, stuff like that, I've got those, too.

edited 21st Apr '17 7:39:20 AM by danime91

Yes on Arrow 18 and its side story.

I'll take your other recs as well.

@Sereg: Thanks for that. A couple things I think I address:

Re: What he did to Fluttershy: He plays games but he cheats, cheats, cheats. Part of this is because, well, partly his playing games is a compulsion, an orderly flaw in his chaotic nature, something he and all his siblings have. I also have him point out that Fluttershy is the only one he had to force the issue on, and why she had his respect from the start, in his own messed up way.

Re: The Elements: Another world-building thing (I tend to ignore the books, comics and movies for this except where I feel like cherry picking*), the Elements Of Harmony are made from the spirit Harmony, Spirit Of Good, who was also shattered ages ago. Her core lies in the moon but much of her descended onto the world, and supposedly Strife used the pieces to make the Elements, simply because she cannot help but make that which would destroy her.
*And I'm going to have to ignore the new season too, sadly :(

~

I've also been playing with the idea of Celestia having married over and over again over the course of her long life. I was going to have her currently dating too, with a long drawn out joke of Twilight being shocked numb by that. In fact, I had planned the character, a Gizmonk, a G1 species, a race of hyper intelligent, engineering inclined monkeys, named Gathaga. The other joke will be how much she reminds people of Twilight.

Along with this, and my love of referencing other fanfics I'm looking for a particular fanfic. The premise is Celestia takes a vacation disguised as a pegasus or a unicorn, but more specifically a mare that was her secret lover from a long time ago. I was going to use that character as part of my list of spouses.

Chapter Three of Surprise Party is now drafted.

Did...did you come up with a title?

I usually make the titles as I upload them to Fimfiction.

Chapter three of "Surprise Party" is live.

Another late draft. This time it was a matter of too many ideas and sorting out what to actually do with them. Weeee.

@Tobias: I had the sudden urge to specifically recommend Earth & Sky to you.

Premise: Alt-Universe, set years after the show but written before Princess Twi happened. Twilight, Rarity and Apple Bloom invent a more stable version of the butterfly-wings that they can mass produce.

Then they get challenged by Flim & Flam, who have a similar invention, for rights to the patent, to participate in an annual cross country race.

The reason I recommend it to you specifically is this bit at the end I feel you'd appreciate. Without being too spoiler-y: It ends on an anti-climax. Flim and Flam commit so many felonies trying to cheat, that they are disqualified. Rar-Twi-Bloom get informed of this before the end of the race and Lampshade what an anti-climax this despite it making complete sense considering the Flim-Flam brothers' actions. However, the Flim-Flam brothers are also off-their-rockers and are still trying to compete in the race with authorities chasing them and the trio of mares decide to beat the pants off them for the hell of it anyway.

edited 26th Apr '17 11:37:20 AM by God_of_Awesome

Hmm...I do like Reality Ensues. Stories taking time to actually look at the logistics of the things happening in them always get my attention.

I'm still disappointed that the best logistical follow-up we got on Twilight becoming an alicorn is in Equestria Girls, of all places. Flopping around in bed trying to figure out how the f*ck she's supposed to sleep with these big honkin' wings sticking out of her sides is my favorite scene in that entire film.

Darn that Merriweather, I'm already developing an unhealthy tolerance for pony butts!

,I'll second that rec, as well as the others in the series. Windfall probably isn't necessary to understand all the setup and relationships, but it's fluffy and Tartara shorter than its sequel. Then Movie Magic pulled an Abyssal Forge and has been dormant for years after posting two chapters, but there isn't as much of an overarching plot so it's all right.

You know, Tobias, I found that, well, your titles in all of your stories follow a formula. Erm, well, more of a strict theme.

SPF has a hurricane metaphor. Well, for 5 out of 6.

TCB is basically "Love's..." something, I haven't come up with a proper way to describe it yet.

SP is all about "answers" and "questions".

Just making an observation.

edited 27th Apr '17 6:57:56 AM by fredhot16

@Spirit Any thoughts on Tiberian Eclipse? I lost the track some time ago when the cheery Nod chaplain appeared with the Nod reinforcements, but until that moment it seemed like the plot had barely moved anywhere or explained anything since discovering the weird tiberium.

edited 26th Apr '17 6:18:44 PM by Connelly

From Dusk to Night is now updated.

x3 I'd think most of us already have that, since the show proper is full of butt shots.

Nearly every character is a naked quadruped. It's basically impossible to not have butt shots everywhere.

Sometimes I have to remind myself they're not human. Call me specieist if you will, but that's how I roll.