• Member Since 20th Oct, 2011
  • offline last seen January 28th

Tchernobog


Complete AppleDash fanatic!

More Blog Posts207

Aug
20th
2015

Friend's story idea to give away! · 12:28pm Aug 20th, 2015

Howdy!

Been a while, I know. Still in a very 'meh' stage about writing. I have most of ch9 of JACOP outlined, I poked at the first scene (700 words woo?), but not much other progress has been made. I definitely want to finish the story and start another I have in mind, but once I sit down and write... meh.

I should read bats' blog about procrastination. That's probably half the trouble right there.

Onto the main subject of this blog post, though. One of my friends and editors has come up with a setting for an AU MLP fic, and I found it quite intriguing. He's stated he has no time to develop it further, though, so he wants to put it up for a good home (and since I have... probably about 1600 more followers than he does, it would work better here.)

It's not fully developed, and it doesn't quite have a 'goal' just yet, but it's crafted a setting/world that could be quite intriguing. Here's what he has:


Nightmare Moon returns to Equestria, appearing in the midst of the Summer Sun ceremony in Canterlot (that being where she detects Celestia) - and finds a crowd of ponies who immediately bow to her. "Your Highness. I am Guardspony Applejack. Your sister awaits you at the castle. Come quickly, please; there isn't much time."

She is taken to Celestia's quarters and invited in by a young purple unicorn - where she finds her sister looking ancient and clearly dying. Celestia greets her with relief and explains:

Some 60 years earlier, Discord broke free of his stone prison. With no Elements or Bearers, Celestia was forced to fight him at full power - which, incidentally, is where the other half of Canterlot Mountain went - and, once he was down, she had only one way of disposing of him: she sent him to the sun. Not being mystically connected to it, he was utterly destroyed. But his death released the chaotic energies that made him up, and they didn't exactly /corrupt/, but rather /disrupted/ the energies of the sun. Those same energies which powered Celestia's goddesshood.

After the battle, she was healthy enough, though she never recovered the power she expended in it, but since then she has not been immune to the ravages of time and disease. She now looks as old as Granny Apple, but frail and decrepit rather than spry. And now, with Nightmare/Luna's return cutting her off from the trickle of power she had managed to steal from the Moon, she is fading fast.

[Assorted touching stuff happens: Celestia says goodbye to Twilight and instructs her to help and obey her sister. Celestia raises the sun one last time, aided by Twi - who then passes out, bleeding from the base of the horn, having channelled far more magic than any /unicorn/ should. Celestia tells Nightmare/Luna that all has been prepared for her to take the reins, and begs her to take care of her little ponies - after all, no need for eternal night when the day belongs to her too, right? Celestia hands over control of the sun, then dies. Nightmare/Luna boggles as she realizes she just won and got exactly what she wanted and she has no idea what to do with it and is finding it doesn't feel nearly as good as she'd thought.]

* Twi is Celestia's protege and de-facto heir presumptive. At a young age, she was identified as a potential magical prodigy and put in an intensive training program intended to produce unicorns who could help the fading princess do her duty, or, in the worst case, take over entirely. She excelled, got put in successively more advanced programs, and eventually became Celestia's aide. She got her cutie mark when, in the middle of raising the sun one day, Celestia found she couldn't gather enough magic, and Twi stepped up to make up the lack; the mark is the same star of magic, but in the background are a small sun and moon instead of stars. As a result, Spike doesn't exist, since the events leading to his hatching never happened.

* Applejack and Rainbow Dash are both in the guards. RD is a messenger and scout, while AJ is assigned to the palace - for too long Equestria's defence policy has been 'We have an alicorn and you don't', so with Celestia's failing health most of the pegasi and unicorn guards have been deployed to the borders to keep them from getting Ideas.

* Rarity and Fluttershy are in Ponyville, largely unchanged

* No idea about Pinkie Pie.

* Cadence does exist and is an alicorn, but she can't help with the sun or moon. While, as an alicorn, she has more raw magical power than Twi, she doesn't have Twi's genius talent with it, nor the thousands of years of experience that let Celestia and Luna take over for each other.


I quite like the idea, and I'd love to see someone with good writing chops to write it up.

(also, he does ship AppleDash, so there's probably some fraternization amongst the Guard ranks there ;D)

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Comments ( 17 )

I do like the idea too, but I am afraid I would butcher it, like I did with my last fiction.

If someone takes it, please make a journal, I'd like to read it.

Pinkie Pie is aware that she's in a non-canonical alternate universe, but she's totally going with it, because "It's really interesting in a kinda sad, bittersweet way, and I wanna see where it all ends up; don't you?" :pinkiehappy:

I should read bats' blog about procrastination. That's probably half the trouble right there.

I'm sure you'll get around to it eventually. :trollestia:


Anyway, as far as the AU verse goes: this runs more or less smack dab into what I'd call the "idea rather than a story" problem. It is an idea for a verse rather than a story idea, and while that isn't really a bad thing, it is actually generally a lot easier to come up with an idea for a verse than it is to come up with a good idea for a story. The question is, mainly, what is the central, plot-driving conflict here? What is the story you're trying to tell?

I see people come up with ideas like this all the time - heck, I do. But a lot of the time, I've found that the idea is better than the actual story would be. Indeed, focus on the verse can distract from the actual story, and lead to it being underdeveloped.

Is the story about Nightmare Moon trying to fit in? About people not liking/trusting Nightmare Moon and suspecting she assassinated Celestia, and her having to convince them otherwise? About the mane six having to effectively run Equestria because Nightmare Moon is incapable of it?

Been a while, I know. Still in a very 'meh' stage about writing. I have most of ch9 of JACOP outlined, I poked at the first scene (700 words woo?), but not much other progress has been made. I definitely want to finish the story and start another I have in mind, but once I sit down and write... meh.

*whips*

3334503
That's the thing, yeah. He'd gotten the setting down, but no driving story yet, hence why he wanted to give it to someone who could. Heck, both of your ideas for example are great for this. Go ahead and write it! :P


3334646

You shut your mouth! :|

3334689 Write, you whore!

3334693 You write appledash first!

3334695 No, you!

I seriously do need to start that. Maybe this coming week since work seems intent on not giving me many hours :|

This is an interesting premise, which could go in quite a few different directions. I suppose Twilight doesn't know either AJ or Dash (or the others), and the mane 6 are all unaware that they are the element bearers?

3336237 That hasn't been developed - they might or might not be, since the initial thing to unlock the elements was to fight Nightmare Moon - which doesn't happen here. And what with their lives being different, them being the elements might not actually happen. That's a question for whoever feels like writing this to answer! :pinkiehappy:

Hi, I'm Mac, the editor who came up with this idea.

3334503 Yes, that's basically the problem - I've had the idea of 'NMM returns, find Celestia dead/dying, is hailed as a savior instead of a conqueror', but I've never known what to do with it. If I had to write this now, I'd probably make it a short, poignant one-shot, covering basically the event I mentioned above, written from Nightmare's point of view and touching on her confusion and her uncertainty on how she should feel about this. She's won, right? And that's good. But her sister is dying. And not even as an enemy brought deservedly low by her mighty powers - just old age, and sickness. Why does this feel like everything's Gone Horribly Right? So, no great conflict or overarching plot, just a - perspective piece, I think is the term?
Of course, as Tcher said, if someone else can find an actually plot to draw out if this and work it into a full story, that would be awesome. (All I ask is 90% of the profits (gross, of course), plus some commercial considerations that they drop me a message so I can read it.)

3336237 Twi probably has at least seen AJ & Dash around, though she would have no reason to know them personally. Rarity and Fluttershy have a close relationship unrelated to being Bearers, and I have no reason to imagine that's changed, while Pinkie knows everypony in ponyville, so those three still know each other.
They aren't the Bearers, yet, though - and possibly never will be, given the Sonic Rainboom event that gave them all their Marks and connected them mystically was changed.

3334697 Dude, if you want to get him working, you need to break out the whip. Like this:
TCHER! WRITE, YOU HOR! -~~~~!

Couple of points I've thought of since formulating the original idea:
* Rather than having destroyed half of Canterlot Mountain fighting Discord, the sight of Celestia's battle with him was Everfree Crater (formerly Everfree Forest); she was there looking for the Elements to use against him, but either couldn't find them or couldn't get them to work, so instead had to just go all Solar Goddess on him.
* Rather than having been destroyed by the sun because he wasn't an Alicron, perhaps Celestia intended only to imprison Discord there, but he instead destroyed himself in order to deliberately attack her power source as a last, spiteful 'fuck you'?

Woah, there is slot of freaking hate on this pos! I'm a fan of pinkie (um my name?) but I'm still not offended by that. The dude has his own plans and designs! Calm the hell down...

3415609 Ah, there you are, TwiPieCheese!

You should write about tacos.

3415998 Um...what? I'm not TwiPieCheese. Sorry Teheronog.

3416074 I'll believe that when the sun explodes.:ajbemused:

3416075 Oh...ok. I'm sorry that d•ck is harassing you. Ya probably don't deserve that. I'm just one of your followers...So I guess believe what you want, but I am telling the truth.

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