Pony Fanfiction Thread

I have that issue with certain elements of their society. A big one is chairs. I have to remind myself that, with the exception of some rare occasions, they don't really use chairs. Like, the story I'm writing features the Hay Burger prominently, and we've seen the inside of the Hay Burger. No chairs.

edited 28th Apr '17 5:12:40 AM by TobiasDrake

Where did they get the name "Burger" from anyway?

I'd presume a place not unlike where we did. The name "Hamburger" has no particular meaning. In the 9th century, a Roman castle was ordered to be erected called "Hammaburg". The word "burg" meaning a castle or a fort, and the word "Hamma" having no clear origin. We're not actually sure why it's called that.

Over the centuries, this became the city of Hamburg, Germany. A "Hamburger" is what you call a resident of Hamburg, and the name of the food item is likely derived from its speculated origin point there.

Due to its name indicating a place instead of a thing, it's entirely possible for the Hay Burger to have had a similar journey, descending through the ages from some -burg somewhere.

One of the things I like about reading and written pony fics is that it gets me to really dive into the etymology of common words, whose meanings we take for granted. For example, a human might consider it strange that ponies have literal names that are mismashes of nouns and verbs, but almost all human names are also derived from regular words, just in ancient languages that we don't know.

Ponies also have a tendency to have names that are eerily prophetic of their personalities and talents, and thus far I haven't been able to find a fanon explanation for this that didn't raise more questions than it answered.

edited 28th Apr '17 6:44:50 PM by Zennistrad

I find Most Meaningful Names to be like this. Some more subtle than others, but always broadcasting the character's role in the story, their personality or another aspect that is relevant to the name. I find there is no Watsonian reason for this, that it is always a storytellers plot device that would seldom make sense in reality.

MLP is the most blatant with this because their naming conventions have no known resemblance to most human naming conventions used for Humans. (At least with tarnsformers they kind of thing makes sense, as they are robots and thus likely to be somehow manufactured with a purpose. GI Joe on the other hand explicitly uses code-names while sticking to human naming conventions)

edited 28th Apr '17 6:50:42 PM by MorningStar1337

It's a coincidence, that's probably the best way. You shouldn't worry about it too much.

edited 14th Nov '17 4:03:07 PM by fredhot16

I often ran with pony parents having mildly prophetic powers.

Let me ask you this: are they named for what their talent will one day be, or does their name encourage them from an early age to take in interest in something that eventually becomes their talent?

We have seen ponies break the mold. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle have names that have nothing to do with being guidance counselors. So their names aren't always prophetic.

Say you're born named Music Heart. You've always been Music Heart. The name has been drummed into your ears since you were a foal. Do you think you might take an interest in music?

How much of a cutie mark is nature versus nurture?

edited 28th Apr '17 6:57:36 PM by TobiasDrake

What about Flurry Heart, will she start taking an interest in Ice Cream?

edited 28th Apr '17 7:02:47 PM by MorningStar1337

I've named one of my characters Night Star and his cutie mark is a bright white Queen chess mark.

It signifies his talent with chess because he's an avid chess player...and he loves to play with ponies as though they're chess pieces.

My preferred policy with meaningful names like Rainbow Dash is "it's a coincidence".

edited 14th Nov '17 4:03:46 PM by fredhot16

Mildly prophetic. Doesn't mean always right.

Honestly, in the show itself most official names—at least those that weren't first inspired by fanon—aren't that prophetic in and of themselves. At least, not so far as we know. They're typically nature names, or somehow appropriate to their appearance or, occasionally, character, but even those are justifiable in that some character traits show pretty early on in infancy.

@Connely

A few days late but the story died before we find out anything about the tiberium. It's a decent enough fic but it meanders too much without any significant conflict for the ISDI.

I've been thinking about including expire of characters from My Little Unicorn in a Conversion Bureau fic, Peace in Our Time. It's set in 1937. Basically, I would play their attitudes completely straight, and have them be pro-ponifiction villains. Except for Limerick, the expy of Rhymey. He's just batshit insane.

Oh my gosh, Seattle's Angels featured one of my fics. And their writeup is really funny.

They picked a good one, too.

Congrats, Meta Four! Between this and Equestria Daily, it looks like that one's becoming quite popular. ^.^

@Meta: Congrats!

I made this fanfic. It's just a start for now.....

[1]

Chapter 6 of Afternoon At The Summit, rough draft

Already posted this on self-promotion, but this couldn't hurt.

Title: Knights of the Realm

Fandom: My Little Pony: Fi M

Summary: Princess Celestia has trained her three apprentices, Sunset, Trixie and Twilight, to become the newest generation of the Knights of the Realm, protectors of Equestria. Their abilities and morals are unquestionable, and they're also perfectly willing to become the heroes Equestria needs. However, something had to give, and in the process of turning them into the future Legendary Heroes, those three ended up becoming particularly eccentric in their methods and quirks. This is the start of a very silly era of heroes.

Notes: A not entirely serious action/adventure story, also very AU.

@Tobias: I see you read my latest chapter. Any thoughts?

Oh hey, that's your story? I've seen that featured a couple times, good job man.

Don't care for it m'self, mostly the premise doesn't gel with me, but eh, right?

edited 7th May '17 11:21:55 AM by God_of_Awesome

The main focus seems to be on everypony meeting up with everypony which is neat. I know you were intentionally trying to make it hard to tell who was saying what to give it a sort of "voices in a crowd" feeling. I can tell you with confidence that you were very successful in that; it was difficult in places to follow. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Also, I am amused at the discussion of Celestia's popular image being this virginal spirit of chaste purity because it's true, it is really easy to think of her like that. And yet, we've seen in the show that she's a fun-loving trickster when she can find opportunity to be. I've always felt that Celestia isn't half as regal as she's presumed to be; that she fills her role because somepony has to, yet chafes at the responsibility and searches for opportunities to let her mane down and goof off.

So while I can't speak for others, that conversation closing out the chapter was pretty much perfect from my own impression of her.

Well, I'm glad I nailed Celestia with someone if nothing else.

As for "voices in the crowd", I was hoping to make it clear with context clues without outright having to say "[Pony] said]". Any place in particular it's unclear?

Near the note I just added on something I noticed while trying to find the spot, I think it's supposed to be Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich talking, but it's honestly hard to tell who's saying what.