cks you designed to be ~exotic~ or whatever, and those rabid jerks at Disney can only grit their teeth now!2015 — The Ideas That Just Wouldn't Pan Out · 4:37pm Jan 1st, 2016
So I'll stand by that on the whole 2015 was a good year, but I had a lot of story ideas last year that simply pattered out.
As to have something interesting as the first blog of the year, I thought I'd share them with you.
Well, except one or two I'm still poking away at I want to keep under wraps, but you know how it is. 
Centaur slash dragon story — Slice of Life
So, starting with an easy one. There was a forum post in... HiE, I think? Anyway, that pointed out that there were no humans becoming centaurs stories out there.
And, well, the only actual twist I could think up on that was romance story with a dragon, and it simply wasn't enough to get a story going on.
Changeling HiE. — Romance.
As you can tell from the simply riveting working title, this one also pattered out rather quickly.
Think it had a decent Blueblood romance in it, but again, I couldn't think up an actual conflict that would make it interesting.
Manual Not Included. — Adventure.
A human ends up an alicorn. (Commerce/Wealth since it's such an unponylike virtue.)
The twist? In the Saddle Arabian heart-lands, where nobody has ever even heard about ponies except on the level of: 'Like us, but tiny, with wings and horns. Bit annoyingly happy-go-lucky isolationist, but on the whole decent if quiet neighbors.' Thus causing about as much stir as a person with a big nose walking down the street.
Twenty odd years later of fighting tooth and nail to make a name for herself and very frustrated with there being a de facto invisible wall around Equestria since 'everypony lives there,' her trading company arrives with a caravan in Manehattan/Canterlot. (Hadn't decided.)
Being very, very confused and annoyed that the country of dwarfs she's arrived in seems to turn into stuttering messes 'just' because she's tall, her day just gets better once she receives a message that one of her men has apparently already screwed up enough for the rulers themselves to want to see her...
The 'rest' of the story being a mix of frustrated and baffled ponies not prepared in the slightest for a pony raised on non-Equestrian values having actually ascended, while our heroine is getting less and less amused with the masters of the arcane she's heard legends about really being cutesy, friendship obsessed irritants that wants her to drop everything she's ever earned for a 'worthless' title.
Think if the Daily Lama was reborn as some kid from Bronx, and wasn't found until his thirties. Bit of a culture clash, yeah.
Might actually go back to this one day. Main reason it got dropped was that Dark Horse was being very demanding right when I got the idea, and I wasn't feeling like a side-project with tons of world-building and culture clash.
Tim, Barbarian Queen of the Breezies. — Adventure.
Another human alicorn but with a twist to make it fresh and interesting again type story.
What if one of those black & red half-dragon, half-demon, half-changeling, half-kitchen sink ex-humans had one of those 'halves' end up the one biggest 'joke' of a species in the series?
To give you a sense of scale I planned for her signature weapon of awesome™ to be a straight-razor so 'massive' even Tim need both hooves to swing it, and the beast of grand evil the cliche storm heroine has to prove themselves against in the first act be a feral house-cat.
Think Conan meets The Borrowers played straight. Following Tim from a bumbling idiot annoyed with now being a horse-bug-smurf, to the forger of an empire nopony (if you know what I mean 
) saw coming.
Again, one I think I might go back to, but wasn't comfortable making more then a few notes on right now due to Dark Horse.
The Four Horse-Mares of the Neigh-pocalypse™ — A Romantic Comedy — Romantic comedy, (
) Anthro.
God made the perfect creatures in her image.
Couple of million years later and one too many slaps on the divine snooze button later, Twilight Sparkle is rather annoyed with how Earth and ponies actually turned out while she over-slept.
Anointing five champions of worth (read, five guys sharing a flat that seemed good enough) with the title of the Horse-Mares of the Neight-pocalypse™ she leans back to watch the fire-works of a good rebooting.
Except... War (
) is a pacifist. Death (
) is more interested in how she now looks in a cocktail dress and what War's tonsils taste like. Famine (
) is more interested in her bakery. Pestilence (
) would rather keep gardening without blighting the land. And Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll (
) is a very confused teetotaler kindergarten teacher.
Will they master their new, (sorta) terrible powers?! Will they give in, and destroy the world?! Will they make the rent on time?!
Find out this and more, if I ever actually figure out what to do with such a high-concept idea beyond that initial set-up and a few gags!
The Stars Will Aid In Her... Wait, What? — Random, Comedy.
What if Twilight Sparkle felt so left out by Celestia seemingly brushing her off, that her rather star-themed family just had to follow her to Ponyville to cheer her up?
Shining would have cast one city-grade shield over Nightmare. Night Light a long chat convincing Nightmare that, yes, astronomy is actually a thing now. And a few hours later, a very confused Celestia would have found her sister getting actual therapy from Twilight Velvet.
Again, fun concept, but I simply couldn't make it interesting enough even in short story format to actually keep even my own interest for long enough to write it out. The idea has potential, but frankly I don't think I'll be revisiting it.
That, and it would have the bug-bear of: 'so, what happened when the other horrors tried to wreck Equestria?' hanging over it, and I think that shadow of pre-destination would have tainted most of the comedy.
Ponies After People: What Ascends In Vegas — Adventure.
Taking the concept of people coming back 'wrong' compared to what their pony selves should have been like due to faults in the rushed spell and my own fascination with alicorns in combo, some of you might even remember me posting in the Ponies After People group if this concept would be kosher enough to be counted as canon.
Basically, two (or three hadn't quite decided) tourists awake in Vegas after a one-night stand. Fused together into a two (or three) headed unicorn creature with wings. Without a clue what's happened, how to use their strange, new powers, or barely even walk, they have to decide on a home to flee to, and get out of what's slowly becoming a bone-dry oven instead of a tourist town.
So basically a mix of a survival tale, and 'with great power comes great responsibility' type fare.
I have been flirting with going back to this one, but quite a few of the mysteries of the PAP setting later getting revealed and not exactly being to my liking left me a bit lukewarm to the whole setting. Killing the drive I had to write this one.
Still, I am still deeply flattered that Starscribe actually gave me a personal thumbs-up to at least try the idea despite the group otherwise having a ban on alicorn stories, and I am still reading even onto the sequel's sequel despite some internal grumblings, so we'll see if any new revelations in the current story relights my muse on this one. 
I've Turned Into A Pony, Can I Be Excused? — Random, Comedy.
One day, a young man turns into Applejack and nobody seems to notice.
Bit of a parody on both the Invisible Man and the Best Background Pony meme I find a bit annoying.
Even wrote a whole test chapter for this one, but it just wouldn't jell into a good whole. The concept near needs to be played for laughs as to not come off as incredibly disturbing, and I simply kept making the draft to drama instead of comedy focused.
I think I will actually give this another go quite soon since I know what I did wrong with the first draft, but we'll see.
And to finish up, the three concepts I made for the Transformation groups 3000 members contest. All which sadly fizzled out, except for the last that simply wasn't ready in time
Nanomachines, son! — No, not Metal gear.
Most boring first:
Two girls buy a 'hung like a horse' potion online, and drink it on a dare.
Meant it as a safe-for-work comedy, belive it or not, but even the concept alone ended up so dry and boring with a T rating I abandoned it very quickly.
You Mean Cleveland? — Comedy, Road 'movie' style.
A man from Europe dies, and find out that the hell is A, America, B, yes, real world America and C, and mind-boggily pony obsessed.
Guided around the mythical, twisted realm of The US of A by Celestia The Light Bringer, our freshly darned soul most retain his sanity in the face of such abominable horrors as decaff, fried Twinkies, turning into a black & red alicorn, and being heckled by William Shakespeare.
Will he and his psychopomp reach the celestial fields of Canada? Or does only the cloying madness of Miami—Or even bleakness of Albuquerque!—await?
And yeah, I know about 60-80% or so of you guys hail from America. That's part of the joke. 
Still, realized that a fun concept aside, there would be so much location research I simply wouldn't have it done in time, so I shelved it.
Bat Godess Gone Wild! Or Why You Shouldn't Go For the Lowest Bidder On Minions — Adventure, Comedy.
A man wakes up, tied to an alter, and gets told by a tall wizard in leather that isn't at all an expy of Dresden, that he's in luck because Not-Dresden is planning on flubbing the ritual he's been compelled to perform. All the dude has to do, is lay there and pretend he's actually getting possessed by an ancient bat-godess.
Only problem? Our hero actually is a virgin.
Some quick thinking later, and the ancient idol is 'accidently' broken... but alas, the wizard is still compeled to perform the ritual to call a bat themed being into this world...
Don't want to say much more then that, since I'm still trying to get this one to work.
I left out one or two that was basically a folder with a name on it, but otherwise the above is a fairly comprehensive listing of all the ideas I had last year (plus Dark Horse and Out, Out, Brief Candle! that actually got to a publishing stage) that actually seemed promising enough to put work into.
Dear lord, the above isn't even counting the 118 files in the Dark Horse folder, and the months and months or rewrites I've been doing on that story alone... 
Practice makes perfect, trite but true.
Still, there you go! Hope this was interesting for you guys! Some behind the scenes perspective on how many half-finished 'sketches' pile up backstage between the actually finished works the public gets to see.
That Manual Not Included one actually sounds pretty interesting to me.
Princess of Commerce one seems quite interesting.
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Have to admit its on my own short-list for a try #2 as well.
Economics is so often depicted as either duller then dirt or the devil, that depicting somebody that wields money like a wizard wields fire would be rather interesting all by its lonesome.
Like a force of nature, I mean. That can be just as creative or destructive, depending on its master.
Manual Not Included seems to have a potential to be a great story but right now i would just settle for an update from ironically bad OC story
Manual Not Included - This sounds like an interesting story idea. Not sure how long of a story it could be.... but it sounds interesting.
Tim, Barbarian Queen of the Breezies. - Sounds like a good idea for a comedy.
The Four Horse-Mares of the Neigh-pocalypse - No.
The Stars Will Aid In Her... Wait, What? - Sounds like a good one shot idea. If you wanted more chapters.... maybe have Celestia trying to recover since all the prophecies she has are now null and void and actually has to plan.
I've Turned Into A Pony, Can I Be Excused? - Meh.
Nanomachines, son! - Nope.
You Mean Cleveland? - No.
Bat Godess Gone Wild! Or Why You Shouldn't Go For the Lowest Bidder On Minions - Sounds like it might be a fun comedy...
Manual Not Included sounds... pretty good actually. Though it would almost certainly be a better story if it were just an Alicorn, not a human turned into an Alicorn for some reason. It sounds like we would have plenty of time to grow connected to the character without needing the instant (and cheap,) connection of 'oh yeah they are a human from Earth too.'
As for the rest of those... Yeah I'm pretty glad they petered out (especially the anthro one 'ughh.') You have two stories I'm in love with (Dark Horse and Sufficiently Advanced,) and one story I rather like in spite of itself (Horse Feathers.) I'd much prefer to see those given due attention rather than some new property to sap away your finite writing time.
Edit: Actually the bat goddess one sounds ok too, maybe...
I'd like to comment on a few of these ideas:
Manual Not Included.
Wow, this story... I have to admit, it sounds by far the most interesting and original story in the list of ideas. It has some real potential for interesting directions, especially if the protagonist is actually struggling to make that business empire out in the world, compared to the kingdoms of rule that the world typically rests on. In addition to the culture shock, there could also be the fact that the protagonist is basically the equivalent of a globe trotting CEO, visiting everywhere to establish ties. No matter what Equestria would want, ultimately she'd be drawn to leave it and continue her trade-tour of the world, because as a stationary Princess her goals and effectiveness would be significantly reduced.
The conflict from that idea alone, let alone the not sympathizing with the other Princesses simply because they are the same race (and the minor fact that Saddle Arabians are probably better romantic companions than a pony is, just from size considerations) and being non-commital to their obsessions and desire to suddenly fold her into Equestria... Well, that strikes me as the equivalent of a country trying to nationalize a business with a global presence. Whose best interest is served there?
As for the economic themes, there is a lot that could be done on that front. Especially regarding the many philosophical positions and studies on business ethics that come from Earth. I'd just like for there to be a give and take here, while there would be conflict, I think education going both ways, especially if one of the Princesses follows the protagonist around as she does her job, would be fascinating to see done right.
There is the minor thing where I can see a lot of business minded ponies praying to her and collecting her ideals in a sort of holy book delicious though, like the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.
Tim, Barbarian Queen of the Breezies.
I'm not sure if this story would be terrible, or hilarious. I guess it all depends on the execution of the idea. With stories like Celestia's Newest Arch-Enemy panning out in the adorable villain direction, I think it actually has a chance to be a good story.
I've Turned Into A Pony, Can I Be Excused?
Sounds like a neat idea, another take on the 'human turns into pony and no one notices (or cares)' premise that I've only seen done for drama in Chatoyance's I.D. - That Indestructible Something. It'd be nice to see other takes on the basic premise, maybe it would make the theme more popular, because I think it has a lot of potential that most people are just pointed to the existing story when they think about it.
Bat Goddess Gone Wild! Or Why You Shouldn't Go For the Lowest Bidder On Minions
I think this has some real comedic potential to it, and be a great Bat Pony TF (I think?) story when there are so few entries in that field. All sorts of things could be done with this story, depending on where you wanted it to go. In fact, being considered for a TF contest, if the focus was high on the transformation and both mental and physical changes to go along with how others see the change as well, especially if it's in contrast to whatever Evil plans are in motion and the awkwardness that would ensue, just... wow. Tickles my funny bone, I'd have loved to see this given a try with a decent writer on board.
Though I'm pretty sure if you had written this and submitted it in the contest, no one would be fooled as to who the author was. Only you do bizarre comedy humor that works, and Not-Dresden would have been a huge hint.
Okay...
Manual Not Included. — Adventure.
This sounds very interesting.
More, please.
In order of interest:
Manual Not Included
Bat Godess Gone Wild! Or Why You Shouldn't Go For the Lowest Bidder On Minions
The Four Horse-Mares of the Neigh-pocalypse™
And 'Manual' has a very good lead there hope to see something about it after Dark horse is done
Well, it seems your viewership is agreed: you have made a mistake. You have revealed a truly intrigiung story idea, and now everyone who reads this blog is going passive-aggressivly presure you to write it until you fold. Seeing this, I too toss my hat in the ring, cause Manual not Included sounds freakin' amazing.
I really like this one, so yeah, you should get back to that eventually.
: /
Really?
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I think it could be interesting, actually.
Play up the mostly pony/normal thing, and you'd basically end up with the MLP version of a story of somebody becoming one of those old-time demons that looks like—I don't know, perfect woman below the neck, a mass of writhing vipers where the head should be?
Think it could be a really interesting twist on a romance, actually. 'Boy, howdy, she's so purdy... Why, oh why, does she need to have that naked monkey thing where her face should be?'
Again, my own try fizzled out, but I think the central idea could be really heartfelt if done right, as well as a fresh twist on a HiE/pony romance.
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It was more on the cackling I did a few months back when I started the Reverse Centaur group.
And then in a mind-numbing haze wrote something even shittier to submit into it.