Why is MLP so appealing to write about? · 8:41pm Mar 31st, 2016
Simple question, why write about MLP? What does MLP offer compared to basically ever over franchise ever created? This is mostly my opinion on things since I obviously don't speak for everyone and it's just something I've always contemplated about.
Cartoons, movies, books, whatever your source is for a fanfic all have there own mythos, characters, and a whole world built around them for you to play in. Harry Potter has Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, Frodo has Middle Earth, MLP has the Mane 6 and Equestria, pretty self-explanatory. So then I asked myself the question why I don't just go and write Lord of the Rings stories? Or Walking Dead stories? Or any kind of story that has absolutely nothing to do with the main themes of the show we all so love and adore, but have themes that I want to explore?
To me, it's because the world of MLP is just so expansive and unlimited that you can have anything you want and it can still make sense.
You can have a story where Rarity is a serial killer, another where Luna is causing diplomatic shenanigans where hilarity ensues, or a crossover with The Doctor traveling the universe with Derpy. The sheer beauty of MLP though is that literally any premise, however insane or unfathomable it sounds can be made to make sense and can make for a great story. It can follow the show as if it was an episode of it or it can be set a century in the future after a nuclear war, it can still seem plausible. I can buy any story premise if it's in MLP but I wouldn't be able to do the same if it was a story in any other franchise.
I don't know if anyone shares this opinion, but I do, it just makes sense to me.
Anything can happen in the world of MLP, and I think it's because of this world that's been created, both in the show and externally by the fans. Within the first few seconds of the first episode we already had a world that's over a thousand years old, common problems everyone has or faces are tackled regularly, and irregular ones like grand adventures and villains are there too. We have a rich cast too big to count and most of them are blank slates in personality yet due to fandom interpretations they become a full character in their own right and the stars of their own stories. Derpy's either a hilarious ditz or a tragic outcast, and both can work for any story because Equestria is so much larger than the little town of Ponyville we see so regularly. Dark and Light can co-exist because it's established that Equestria is a happy place, yet there's evil lurking about it. Sad or horrible things can happen along with the most happy thing to ever be conceived because stuff like that has happened in the show.
Stories can just happen because I can believe that in the world of Equestria any of these concepts are possible. The rules of MLP gives it an advantage that other universes don't have, making them, to me at least, just not as interesting to work in by comparison.
If you got your own views feel free to share, I'm actually quite interested.
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You're so right on that.
I think you've managed to sum it up quite eloquently.
Pretty much. The main point to take away is the cast and setting. All that's missing is a premise and then you can go from there.
MLP:FiM is almost like an open-world game in a way. You can follow a main narrative but are given freedom to go off the path and do your own thing. Who knows? Maybe the road less taken will have story even more interesting than what we thought possible.