Integration is proving hard to write. · 5:53pm Mar 8th, 2020
I wanted to get this off my chest before I post the next chapter of Integration. It's been a hard one to write for two reasons.
The first is that it's the chapter that the humans finally go to Equestria. I am really bad at first meetings. It's made harder by the fact that I already wrote a chapter where the human Twilight family and Flash all come to Equestria, and I don't want to rehash.
But the real problem is bringing Neighsay into the story opened a can of worms that made it a bit hard to write.
For starters, it occurred to me that bigotry would be different in the Equestria Girls-verse. Skin color clearly doesn't work the same way in that world as it does in ours. For a brief moment, I considered having the humans be baffled by the concept of bigotry by race (I imagine bigotry by nationality, sex, gender, sexuality, and disability would still be a thing). But then I considered two things.
The first is that Zecora is human in that 'verse (there's a doll of her even if she never showed up in the show proper and only dragons are shown to have their counterparts be non-human) and her being striped instead of a solid color probably get some kind of negative response. In Equestria, it was cited that Zecora having stripes was one of the things everypony thought was weird.
The second was an episode of The Fairly OddParents! where Dr. Bender and his son mocked Timmy for his buck teeth. This caused Timmy to wish that everyone in the world looked the same, turning everyone into an identical grey blob. When Timmy runs into Bender and Wendell in this world, they still insist they look better than any of the other blobs in the world. While the lesson here was "Some people are just jerks," I read somewhere an article comparing it to racism. Even with nothing logical to go on, people still find ways to insist they're naturally better than others. There's truth to that, so I figured even in the Equestria Girls universe there would still be bigotry, even if it wasn't as wide spread as it was in Equestria.
I didn't intend for the story to gets this "real", it just kind of grew out of world building, and the thought that Neighsay was probably the canon reason that Spike never went to school. Plus, even though I'm not setting out to preach, my own viewpoints tend to bleed into my writing.
Hopefully, this will be the last major hurdle in this story and I can write the rest easier. But I'm not counting on it.
Integration and Direction both have chapters almost finished. Don't know what I'll write next, but outside Integration, the older the fic, the more attention it will get.
Oof. Sorry about the trouble with the chapter. Although it does present an interesting (if difficult) challenge to deal with.
...Man it's been a long time since I thought about that episode of Fairly Oddparents. And that article does present a good point.
I can understand your reasons for why this is a difficult chapter to write, but don’t stress over it too much. We all understand how much effort you put in and I am confident whatever you do will be great.
Well, does Neighsay need to be included? Is he set to play a major role, or is he just a background character here?
If you perhaps keep Neighsay and his actions as passing events that Twilight alone is dealing with by herself, then the main plot can focus solely on the what the story is supposed to be about (something I feel has been lost in the recent chapters thanks to all this PC stuff getting in the way).
To summarise; push Neighsay and all PC stuff into the background and only mention it in passing, and keep the focus solely on the Main 6/Humane 7 and Cinch.
5216217
Disagree completely. Darth Link 22 has been has been grappling with some legitimately heavy stuff, and I'm interested to see how he (?) deals with it. And also confident that thoughtfulness is generally better than the alternative, both in terms of writing and life. Given his (?) record, I'm confident that Darth Link 22's process will have led him (?) to a richer, more entertaining, and more challenging work. And certainly production time is no object. We're not running a content factory here.
5216243
I've blocked you, how are able to respond to me?
EDIT: And me to you?
5216284
Beats the heck outta me.
Wow that sucks but try not to stress to much over it. Your a good writer and am sure thing swill work out fine. Sometimes you need to take a step back for things to set into place.
5216428
Okay, thanks for clearing that up.
In Equestria Girls, discrimination based on skin color was so ridiculously complex given all the colors that fizzled out as too impractical to keep up. That they stopped more out of pragmatism than morality is something they are ashamed of, hence them never bringing the issue up.
In Equestria, discrimination based on skin color never happened as there was a much more obvious target for bigotry, different species. The pony tribes were only racist to each other over culture. Ponies were racist less over appearances than actions real or perceived (would they have been concerned about Zecora's stripes if not for what they thought suspicious behavior?) which they were quick enough to forgive once seeing otherwise.
I just realized 2 problems: 1. Animosity amongst the pony tribes fueled the Windigos, but their animosity toward other races didn't because...? 2. How would the Changelings be redeemed, a key part of the anti-bigotry theme, happen in this timeline given Starlight's experience as an ex-villain played a crucial role?
The Fairly OddParents! example was a gag because the issue it brought up wasn't supposed to stand up to scrutiny. Bigotry based in Equestria and EG would have the same issue that would make it impossible to work as a serious issue which is what you want.
5216430
Thirded. Save the bigotry issue for a separate story. There are already enough plot threads, too many almost. (What happened to Cinch as the ending of Aftermath of the Games suggested she would be important?) The Changelings redemption would need a whole new story here anyway.
And the only way bigotry could work is not due skin color or appearance, but culture or past history.