The 'Stations of Canon' · 12:43am Feb 11th, 2013
Okay, this is gonna be... odd. Well, maybe not odd. Just something I'd like to state for everyone reading my fics, particularly my Hasbroverse fics.
First off, there's a term I've heard a few places called the stations of the canon. For those not wanting to fall down a TV tropes hole and not emerge for a few hours ;), it basically means going over the same plot points from the franchise you're writing about, despite there being little/no logical reason for it to be the same or even similar.
For example, at the forums of theforce.net, there was a Harry Potter/Young Jedi Knights crossover a long time ago that had the Rock Dragon crash near the Weasley's house, with Anakin, Jacen and Jaina aboard. The ship was damaged, but all their tech worked and they could still use the Force... and honestly, aside from some additional scenes/dialog additions it played out almost exactly like the Philosopher's Stone.
Think about that for a second.
So, what does that have to do with my own little cracktastic stories? Well... don't expect changelings at the wedding. Or don't expect them there in the same roles. Or don't expect anything with the wedding. Don't expect the Gala to go down the same way, or Discord. Don't expect alicon!Twilight-still waiting to see how that goes down-or Trixie to get her hooves on the amulet. Or the amulet to even appear, or it to not appear. :p Maybe it WILL appear, but someone else will get it. Or it'll appear in the background. And I've gone cross-eyed.
Although you can expect one thing from me.
Luna: "Hi, just got back from the Crystal Empire. Destroyed Sombra, they're now looking for a Crystal Heart. Twilight, that's your mission. Go get the Heart with your friends."
Yes, I still find Sombra to be a loser. ;)
For example, at the forums of theforce.net, there was a Harry Potter/Young Jedi Knights
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And yet he still managed to enslave an entire nation.
Hey, I'm not exactly going to be entirely following the stations of canon, either.
But the broad strokes would stay for a while. I mean, there's no reason to NOT have the changelings crash the wedding, even if it's not the same bride and groom, or if Celestia's not even presiding because she retired. We can reasonably assume that Chryssie is still going to launch her attack.
Discord no matter what will break free in about a year, that's outside of control. Doesn't necessarily mean that it would TAKE a year, instead of... oh, say appearing before the gala.
And really, why shouldn't Luna take the burden off of Celestia?
Well fucking DUH. Sombra did nothing in that entire thing. Of course he was a loser.
Also, you has PMs.
Hey, I dont want the excact story anyway. If I wanted that, I would watch the actual show instead (I have seen way too many RPs fall to pieces because they want to follow the show events) Yours is an alternate verse and I want to see that. I want to see the variations and how they work, its fanfic, I want something different. So, what will I expect...nothing, and that is the fun of it all.
(Actually what I expect is a scene in the conversion beaur crossover where the elements and the matrix are used as one to blast tyant Celestia...but thats my only expectation.)
Sombra was all instinct; his mind was not together.
The stations, IMO, are made to be broken where necessary.
Hmm...that SW/HP fic sounds essentially like the first book with more voices. Honestly, if you were gonna do that, you may as well do crossovers where all characters from one franchise do is MST3K the other series. At least that would be entertaining and make more sense.
Anyhow, hurray for messing with the timeline!
815390 Fixed, thank you.
815400 And got blasted and turned to shadow and reduced to a villain with less personality with a rock.
No, seriously. They could've turned him into a resurgence of the windigoes and it wouldn't have mattered much. And his design... urgh. 
815403 Precisely! Stuff that happened/were set in motion before the sonic teleboom like Discord's seal weakening, the Gala, the wedding will still happen. The fine details... *Insert evil laugh here*
815427 He growled. And did some things. But it was almost all his traps that presented the danger. And yes, must respond.
815436 Good to hear!
I hope you'll like the alterations I make.
815440 He was also part-loser. ;)
815457 Exactly. [/Raiden]
815778 That's... a pretty good description of it, now that I ponder. I mean you have three semi-trained Jedi with lightsabers, TK, mind stuff and working technology and they're not gonna do something?!
816323
He did things? When?
I have those eps on DVD and he didn't do much of..well, anything. 
816346 Well, Shining's horn, at least.
816360
Enh. I guess. But that was pretty pitiful. He was made out to be an awesome monster...and then he sucked balls.
816366 His design was so overblown, too. Straight out of a badly-written fanfic. [/dead_serious]
This is why, again, he's getting nuked by Luna. And I am dead serious here, too.
816394
Works for me.
And you still has PMs to reply to.
816323 you know, stupid random thought, what if the writers did Sombra the way he is on purpose? to see what the fandom could turn him into?
i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk18/Freelance_Bum/MLP%20misc/applejack_king-sombra_timber-wolf.png
Brother you just go ahead and write whatever the hell you want to, any way you want to.
)
I like your stories. And Since I don't write, I can't really bitch about what people do write.
(but I still manage to do so, but only when Trixie or Luna are getting treated like crap.
So many under used ponies and possibilities...Such as Lyra, finally getting hands, and breaking them in by becoming a strangler...but just for fun.
816394
I dunno if his design was too bad. But he certainly didn't do much I can say that.
Also, you has new PM.
If I was adament about not wanting stations of the canon, I would insist that Cadence or Shining Armor not freaking exist. Or that the invasion was successful, and there be a whole arc about the heroes trying to form a resistance movement and how difficult it could be when the enemy looks exactly like who you can trust perfectly.
815400 Sombra is presence. Sombra is fear. One needs not a physical form when he is the very shadow that surrounds you brought to terrible life. Given time and fan-love King Sombra could become an awe-inspiring villain the likes of which Equestria has never seen - he could be Equestria's Sauron with an Empire and Legions of enslaved Crystal Ponies once more - but people tend to focus on the cannon-show, and there, well... Sombra wasn't very good at all. It's a shame...
I'm in full agreement on this 'stations of the canon' business and willingness to toss them out as needed. After all, a fic like that HP/SW thing you cited as an example is just this side of a pointless exercise. Hell, it's one of the same exact reason that changes get made when converting a story from one format to another (say, for instance, the Lord of the Rings movies--yes, I know they also had to make huge cuts just to fit all that story into movies that were already long as hell...but frankly, the changes also made them more action-paced and appeal to a wider audience. Hell, as much as I love reading, I cannot read that trilogy without falling asleep...Tolkien loves to talk about furry-footed people eating.)
I suppose this kind of thing is why I love those crossovers, which allow two or more forms of canon to intertwine and interfere with each other for occasionally fascinating results. It's why my favorite game series is Super Robot Wars, even though I can only actually play the small handful of them that have been fan-translated here; Banpresto seem to have become experts at the art of weaving the stories of a dozen or more assorted series and playing havoc with their canon. Sure, a lot of things resolve down to the same general result in the end, but at the same time, you never know what they will alter, or how the events of one series in the plot will affect the events of another.
816712 This. I admit, the premiere is still the only Season 3 ep I've seen yet and...well, like most of the season premiere/finale episodes, it felt like they took what should have been the plot of an entire season and crammed it into two episode-sized bottles with a big stick. There were a couple nice gags, but the whole thing felt even more forced and rushed than the Discord events. Sombra, on the other hand? There was potential there. I actually kind of liked the lack of dialogue--if handled right, which I am admittedly tempted to in a planned-but-unwritten fic, he could be portrayed as having devolved/evolved into such an incomprehensible Eldritch Abomination that he doesn't even think on the same level, his emotions and desires for power simply broadcast invasively into the minds of all around him.
Wow, that was rambly. Anyway, that's my two cents. ...and a half.
816407 Well, considering what I've seen the fans do with him... you might have something there.
816515 God, that pic is so true...
And thanks. Don't worry about Trixie. She'll be treated well.
816629 That'd be interesting, but probably not gonna be in this one. ;)
816712 Sombra did little more than growl. And yeah, we focus on what he did in the show. That's what we've got with him. Discord and Chrysalis didn't need fan work to be menacing.
817166 It was an incredible waste, yes. That's why I'll be altering things in the Hasbroverse. That's why I'll be using broad, broad strokes.
817314 and is that not why people write fanfics? to show others their views of characters? and, maybe, make them better than before? Sombra is an almost blank slate, waiting for the right writer to bring out his potential.
817314 and another thing, i'll bet that 1000 or so years trapped in ice would not have done wonders to the guys mind.
Sombra: The most useless of characters since Aquaman.
Sombra was a normal unicorn hopped up on dark magic.
Evidently, mortal creatures don't take well to being transformed into a cloud of black gas and sealed away without pony contact for over a thousand years.
Much less well than the already immortal beings at any rate.
I'm sure he was a serious threat at the time he was sealed away(his excellent traps point to him having been well-prepared for most situations at least), but when he got out of the ice, he was so brain damaged he mostly acted on instinct. Prepared Dark Wizard >>>>>>>>>>> Dark Wizard that doesn't know what the hell it's doing.
I hope we still see Shining Armor and Cadence's wedding in some form. It doesn't seem like something Megan and her family would miss. I guess it depends on what this "Corruption" that Megan is prophesied to fight turns out to be and whether it can conceivably be connected with Chrysalis and the Changelings.
I once heard someone suggest that Changelings are supposed to be MLP:FIM's version of Changelings. Maybe they're Flutterponies mutated by Discord like how he mutates some things in "Keep Calm and Flutter On".
I agree with everything here except I thought Sombra was awesome.