Current and future progress · 8:32pm Apr 3rd, 2014
Well now, finally got my new chapter of Boast Backers up. Phew.
My muse is a cruel mistress when it comes to this sort of thing it seems. How I can just rattle off eighteen chapters of Flipside a week or two apart and then take three weeks to compose one page is a mystery to me. Maybe I'm thinking on/worrying about it too much.
Anyway, I just felt like making a blog about some other stories that my "art brain" has been kicking out while it should have been working on my last chapter.
Hey, don't worry. We're not done with Boast Backers yet. I'd estimate a little over half-way. I always meant for it to be a shorter story than Flipside, but my writing has taken quite a turn for the purple recently so--
Ahem. But I digress.
I'm just gonna toss up a couple ideas for stories I've had right here, just to open some discussion about possible future projects. Apologies in advance for using anypony that reads this as a sounding board. There's nothing set in stone about if/when I might do this, aside from they'll definitely be AFTER I'm done with Boast Backers. That being said:
In Wolf's Clothing
This one is a Flipverse story. Most of this list is going to be, admittedly. I actually had this idea back around Halloween, but it's a fine any-time story. The basic premise would actually be a horror story of a sorts, one centered around Big Macintosh.
It seems to be a given that the Element of Loyalty is sort of the protector in their group. Dash and Mac certainly both act like it, being among the first to jump in and save the others when the chips are down. So that got me wondering "What if the Element of Loyalty themselves were the threat?" What with it being Halloween, the idea got pretty well set. Big Macintosh starts suffering from odd blackouts and waking up in strange places, and at the same time some huge creature is seen wrecking stuff around Ponyville at night. Now Mac has to figure out if he's the one responsible and what to do about it if it is him.
Thunder and Circumstance ((Working Title))
Another Flipverse story, this one focused on Thunderlane. Though he's only a background pony, the show has portrayed a bit more about him. He's highly athletic (see Rainbow Falls and Wonderbolt Academy)), and seems rather proud of his abilities. Of course, his first appearance wasn't until Hurricaine Fluttershy in Season 2. Meaning that, since I'm still in "Season 1" as it were, I can have fun writing my own stories getting him to that point.
Case in point, I never originally pictured Thunderlane going the same "aspiring athlete" route as Rainbow Dash. This story would be a chance to get him started as it'd basically be Flipverse's replacement for Sonic Rainboom. Thunderlane finds himself signed up for the Best Young Fliers competition somehow, and next thing he knows ponies are backing him up, bets are starting, etc. He doesn't want to disappoint anypony by just bowing out, but for some reason Rainbow Dash seems to take his participating as a personal attack. On the one hand, he's gotta figure out how to make a routine that'll look good. On the other, he's wondering if it's even a good idea with Rainbow Dash acting so strange about it.
Fluffside
Ha ha, no this has nothing to do with Fluffle Puff. It'd be a little side project of questionable "canonicity" to the Flipverse. Basically a collection of short stories and scenes of cute stuff involving the Flipped Six and other significant characters from Flipverse. Just all sorts of warm and fuzzy moments that I'd love to work into my stories but know I probably won't/shouldn't. Miiiight start this one anyway just so I have a place to dump all this fluff, but don't count on any of it pertaining to any sort of plot.
Shards of Hope Redux ((Working Title))
Hmmmm
Alright, I doubt many of you know about this one. Back when I first started posting here I started with an OC-centric fic that I'd been thinking about for ages.
It was poorly executed.
With all the changes that the two seasons since I tried writing it have brought, as well as the lessons learned from writing Flipside and such, I'd like to go back to it sometime. The original premise for the story was a "bad future" story for Equestria. A chaotic force arose, ripping control of nature away from the ponies. Twilight and her friends tried to use the Elements of Harmony to stop it, but failed. In a last bid to save Equestria, Twilight scattered the other five to the far corners of the country in order to save them. The story proper started a few hundred years after that, with the discovery of some pony that might be able to find the Elements.
Huh, looking at that it sounds like I'm setting up a Mary Sue. Still, I've seen stories like Fallout Equestria and Antipodes get tons of praise. I'd like to think I could write a post-apocalyptic story of my own that's at least as popular as Flipside was.
Anywho, feel free to leave some comments on any of these ideas. Or if you wanna suggest some of your own that's fine to. Just rest assured, I do plan to finish Boast Backers first. Sometimes I just gotta get this stuff out in the aether before it drives me crazy bouncing around in my head.
Those ideas sound really interesting! I'm not usually one for OC-stories, since the few I have read have really soured the whole genre for me, but the idea you've come up with seems to be unique, and not as completely 'grimdark' as some other post-apocalyptic future AUs have been. There's only so much dark a reader can take, you know?
I like the Element of Loyalty = protector idea, and Mac blacking out and having some evil alter-ego sounds like it could be a really cool and spooky character study.
I'd go with either the Thunderlane story, or the fluff.