Pony Fanfiction Thread

Mmm... it's hard to find the time. I finished Fahrenheit 451 some weeks back, and I picked up this old Persian epic poem(translated, obviously) called Conference of the Birds a while back, but I haven't gotten around to it just yet.

Maybe-you-should-move-that-candle pagetopper!

EDIT: Oh... huh. Thought this was the main thread. Ah well, whatever.

edited 6th Oct '12 4:16:46 PM by kegisak

There's always time to read. I read on the bus, I read while I walk, I read on my breaks and I read while I eat. This is less reading than you could be potentially doing! In lieu of that, you can forgo food, sex and sleep for reading. I once spent almost a day reading the first four books of ASoIaF. I was pretty dehydrated at the end, and about ready to die, but it was worth it, imo. Thank god there were only four books in the series at the time.

edited 6th Oct '12 4:25:05 PM by Sessalisk

These are some promising stories from my to-read list.

Back in my idiot-teenager years, I figured out how to read during my 45 minute drive to work without killing myself.

I don't do that anymore.

Mostly because I don't have a car, but partly because I'm less stupid now.

edited 6th Oct '12 4:27:52 PM by CDRW

Back in my idiot teenager years I skipped school for two days because I discovered that wikipedia existed. Because my mom is awesome, she was cool with that.

I'm kinda tempted, but between my uber-finickyness when it comes to fanfic and the fact that I already have so much on my plate that I'm neglecting other stuff, I don't know if it's a good idea for me.

Well, if we're going to do that, let's focus on one-shots. If we get into monstrous projects like Griffin the Griffin or Ponies Make War, we'll never see the end of it.

Is Background Pony worth reading? I've managed to make it through the first four chapters but so far it doesn't seem all that great.

So...why is it that every thread related to ponies is incredibly long?

Even if you don't like it, it might still be fun to go into detail about what exactly you're not liking, and it could wind up being educational for everyone else, too.

While I'd never shit on only reading things you like, there's a lot to be said for reading things you don't like. Once you get good at dissecting all the things that make a work bad, or at least not to your tastes, you can learn how to not do those things yourself. It's seldom just as easy as, "I only like historical romance, so I'm only going to read and write historical romance," though.

Back in days when gingerninja would be on the Fallout: Equestria thread, he'd complain constantly about certain characters or plot points (through the lens of being very pro- villain competence), and while few of us shared his tastes in media, he'd also address issues with the general story structure and pacing as well. Dislike and disapproval are always the basis of constructive criticism, and you can often find a nugget of something worthwhile in even the most derisory comment.

S'always good to keep an open mind about everything, I guess.

Mystic said that Background Pony doesn't really hit its stride until after chapter 4. I made it up to chapter 3, but I couldn't force myself to push through, and I'm still not entirely sure why it couldn't have stayed a single chapter. The first one was pretty good.

I can't say anything about the rest, though. It could be orgasmically awesome. I may never know.

And also, the threads are really long because there is a large and very active fanbase.

Yeah, I'd say nothing more than 10 chapters or 30k words, whichever comes first.

edited 6th Oct '12 5:04:34 PM by Sessalisk

I enjoyed the concept and story, but the writing is verbose as hell. I couldn't make it through the sheer amount of waxing poetic.

edited 6th Oct '12 5:03:58 PM by PerpetualLurker

I've only read the first two chapters. Then I fell behind and got daunted by the friggin word count. But it was really fantastic, from what I read.

I suppose I'll read through a few more chapters, see if it starts getting better if not I'll probably drop it. Its just too long to get through otherwise, and I've got a couple other fics to finish.

I feel about the same about it.

I really like Background Pony, but I can see why others don't. I'm immune to the verbosity, but Shortskirtsandexplosions does have a bit of a problem with completely stalling the plot to pile misfortunes on the protagonist's head. (I even read one of his blog posts where he called the story "emotion porn".) But when the plot actually does move forward, it's great stuff, and makes me forgive the author for all the stalling.

And thus, after exactly 6 months, 10.5 chapters, and 36,546 words, Make a Wish is complete. This was my first serious attempt at fanfic, and I'm immensely satisfied with how it went. It's nowhere near perfect, and I'll vehemently deny any claims to the contrary, but it's my story, and I'm proud of it.

edited 6th Oct '12 6:22:41 PM by PerpetualLurker

Nice story.

@Sess: I totally understand the value in reading things that don't really fall within your area of preference, heck I know I've learned quite a few things through all the FE arguments and such. It's mostly a time thing for me at the moment; I have way too much crap going on now, and taking on another project solely so I can talk about it would just give me more to worry about.

Congrats, Lurker!

Very understandable.

Lurker, I see your latest chapter has made the featured box.

Thanks everyone!

It's been making the feature box for a while now, actually. Ever since I got it up on EQD, subsequent chapters have been popular enough to be featured.

Congrats on finishing it. I don't think I've ever finished up anything of that length.

I don't think I've ever finished anything longer than two chapters.

So, for those who have completed fics on EQD, do they send you an "it's in the queue" response, or do they just post it up whenever?

I haven't finished any fanfics.

Gah, the only thing I finished was a one shot about Frank Miller's The Philistine, and 16 chapters? (can't remember) of a Zelda/Metroid/Sliders that I ended flushing down the toilet before it could burn more innocent eyes unfortunate enough to read it.

Anyway, reading this seems like it shouldn't be different from posting updates.

Oh, I know how to send the update in (I already did). I was just wondering if they gave acknowledgement of it going into the queue for posting like they do for the initial acceptance.

Only fics that I've finished are three Redwall fics, a series of Pokemon fics, and one MLP fic.

Wait, are we counting written ones or ones we've read?