Potential multi-author story project: why stop at six Elements? · 10:35pm Apr 5th, 2015
Last time I checked, the periodic table was clocking in at one hundred and eighteen!
The blame for this one goes to OrangishPurple. In a comment on a story which is set to have Yet Another Bloody Seventh Element Of Harmony, he asked why someone hadn't just pushed things to double-digits. Twilight Sparkle And The 10th Element.
I told him not to tempt me. Also that it would wind up being a story about Twilight dealing with neon.
A split-second later, I flashed on a scene of Pinkie coming into the library to ask Twilight about the seventh element and winding up on the receiving end of a ridiculously detailed lecture which teaches the reader more about nitrogen than they'd ever really wanted to know, much less could even stand. Finally, Pinkie gets a word in edgewise and says no, that's not it, some of the locals have been asking whether there's a really and truly seventh Element Of Harmony because apparently there's a bunch of ponies across the continent claiming to be it. Twilight sniffs, calls them con artists, and then eagerly asks if Pinkie wants to know anything about oxygen.
Let's face it: with the right title, that's a trollfic. A backlashing clickbait semi-deconstruction of a trollfic. And I may write it, although it might be the rare story which would need either some real padding or a lot of scientific detail to reach a thousand words in the first place.
But there's a lot of elements. (Although as a group, we probably don't want to do much with the radioactives because Dark tag.) So there's room for so many stories. Applejack vs. iridium. (Well, I still want to have that meteor land on her property.) Rarity faces the horrors of nickel! For the local 'verse, I've already got the foundation for something where Trixie takes on platinum. Apple Bloom flees from having iodine used on some minor injuries. And Lyra obviously must deal with lutetium, just so we can find out what the @#$$ lutetium does.
Prospective collection title:
The Elements Of Elements
Does this sound like it might have possibilities?
I'm in.
I admit, I only skimmed the blog post thus far, but I heard "multiple elements," and read between the lines "making fun of over-used tropes." That's right up my alley.
PS--learn from my mistakes, and write out the rules in a blog post, and make a submission document of some type.
Well, there already is a Princess Platinum in canon...
Further thoughts:
If you go for the actual elements, I pick unununium. No idea what pony I'd associate that with, 'cause I don't know what it is. But it's got a fun name. Unununium. Unununium. Hmm. Probably Sweetie Belle.
If you go for elements like in the show, I pick Lily, the element of Weichei.
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111216000854/mlp/images/archive/4/48/20121219194159!Lily_Fainting_S01E04.png
Celestia could be hoarding Helium, and Luna could be allergic to Selenium.
See, the reason people keep coming up with all these extra elements is that they just fail to grasp that Harmony is actually a complex molecule, HoKnLoGLgM, compounds based on it are generally useless or harmful, for example Dikindnessharmonide is only good to blast holes into the ozone layer and has weird psychotropic effects.
And the big bad wolf got to the house of the eighty-fourth little piggy, who had build his house out of Polonium, and he said "What the heck, guys?!?"
I'm sold.
...so, if any of the Elements absorbs neutrons, do they become radioactive isotopes?
I like chemistry. Sounds fun.
2950104
Hilariously, you actually can spell "harmony" using periodic symbols. HArMoNY.
Now, how on Earth you would ever get Hydrogen, Argon(!), Molybdenum, Nitrogen, and Yttrium in one molecule, well, that's why it's friendship magic, right?
There's an in-progress fanart series that's running with this.
As for stories? Maybe. We may want to get Pineta in on this; he's just about the science writer on the site.
Also, I want to see Discord create stable technetium, just so he can watch Twilight pull her mane out.
"It's only element 43. Why wouldn't it be stable?"
2950123
And now I'm scared.
2950047
Commander Chrome!
Admiral Osmium!
Count Carbon!
Baron Plutonium!
Arch-Senator Unununium!
2950128
...Well, now we know why they keep glowing
2950135
You've got all your atomic masses wrong.
2950149
Well, what did you expect from the Titanium Dragon? All metallics have a healthy appreciation for the elements.
Except for steel dragons, but there's a reason we never invite them to parties.
2950175
That you'd call dibs.
I can't believe this idea became so popular. I may have been joking when I said that, but now that think about it, this has a shit ton of potential. It is always nicewhen another person can look at something a different way and pull inspiration from it. Sir, I salute you. I approve 120%. I hate to think what I may have potentially started.Oh well, no turning back; EVERYPONY GRAB AN ELEMENT, WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO!
Just came up with a prospective title for the nitrogen entry.
Twilight Sparkle And The Totally Obvious Complete Non-Mystery Of The Seventh Element
2950071
I have a dim recollection which says there's some kind of skin rash which has to be treated with a selenium-based cream -- and it's something people generally get when their skin doesn't receive enough exposure to sunlight.
Hmm...
2950150
I'm 90% sure you just wrote a Captain Planet episode.
I'm reminded of the xkcd What If book, which had this:
Q: What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube-shaped bricks, where each brick was made of the corresponding element?
A: You could stack the top two rows without too much trouble. The third row would burn you with fire, the fourth would kill you with toxic smoke. The fifth row would do all that stuff plus give you a dose of radiation, while the sixth would explode in a radioactive, poisonous fire. Do not build the seventh row.
This is the Periodic Table
Noble gas is stable
Halogens and Alkali react agressively
Each period will see new outer shells
While electrons are added moving to the right
I'm debating whether to ask someone to coordinate (because not only am I going to svck at it, but it'll just slow me down on everything else even more than the universe is already doing) or announcing this as an Open Concept and telling everyone to publish their own TEOE stories. The former keeps everything in one place, but requires a ton of work for at least one central person: the latter offers more freedom, but renders the project as a scattershot blast.
Thoughts?
2950273
The real reason Luna went crazy is cause Celestia made fun of her most oft requested divine touch and blessing as Lady of Rashes and Skin Infections.
Ratchette should be Element of Technetium
It's the 43rd element, and is a shiny gray metal, possibly similar to her mane?
And I hope we get some male elements...
Ooh, Thorium, that goes to what's-her-face, Mjolnera or whatever that pony with the lightning hammer cutie mark was called in that one episode I can't remember...Super Cider Squeezy, I think
fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/029/b/4/thor_pony_by_happy_the_mongoose-d4nziuu.jpg
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/elements.png
I so want to see this happen.
The true seventh Element's name is Carbon Copy, and because of her special talent, everybody believes she's just an impersonator. Poor gal!
This sounds like a collective author anthology waiting to happen. Please make it be.