Dragons make everything better: part 39650 in an ongoing series · 6:57pm Apr 26th, 2020
Looking for something to do now that PonyFest 2 is done? Let's steal from this thread on Twitter, and add some dragons to our ponies!
Let's try this. Give me the opening line of a book, but add "and then the dragons arrived."
It can have such effects as turning a time-travel romance into a warfic:
"Clover was approaching Queen Platinum's throne to deliver his usual Sunday morning report when an ear-shattering boom split the air, and five tons of iron door shot past his shoulder. The thick stone wall just to the left of the throne exploded as the door hurtled through it. And then the dragons arrived."
Or reframing a changeling psychological drama into Game of Thrones:
Starlight Glimmer — sprawled casually two seats away — glanced toward Chrysalis and slowly raised an eyebrow. "You're going to kill your prisoners." Another disbelieving murmur swept through the audience. And then the dragons arrived.
For present-tense MLP fanfics, knock off the terminal d:
"Principal Celestia always has wings in her dreams. And then the dragons arrive."
I know we've got much better dragon-infested openings out there. Let's find 'em!
I just mentally inserted that after the first few lines in a couple of my stories. It seems that it just makes mine incredibly confusing more often than not.
Well, let's see...
Promising.
Pleasantly surreal.
I suppose that one's a bit redundant. Or just the tale of the world's least helpful seer.
Here, the dragons seem to herald a bold new marketing strategy.
The troubles just keep piling on, don't they?
There's always a bigger fish.
Now we're just getting weird.
Let's start with the classics:
Or how about:
Or maybe:
Hmm.
Doesn't change too much, except that instead of a pirate story it's now probably an high fantasy adventure story. Can still work as just being all just being part of the foals' pick-up LARP game.
Amusingly the story still sets up this turn perfectly.
Soldier isn't going to be making it to Equestria in this version.
And I feel an immense, irresistible urge to do this (and for the record I do actually like this story a lot so this isn't meant to be anything other than done in the spirit of this post)
One presumes that the dragons in this case is Spike wondering why he wasn't invited to Thanksgiving, and showing up with his girlfriend Smolder and her brother Garble. Or something. Which actually that might answer why he wasn't invited.
A few more, a bit more obscure:
A old school favorite:
Even older:
This one is a bit... redundant:
And finally, a great story by my good friend. But because both the story and the author, I think we need to change it up a bit:
Oooh... So tempting.
Most of this is on the spot, I'll admit, but I've got stories brewing for the latter two and they're a hoot.
Dammit I'm going to be doing this all day.
Looks like Luna will have to wait on her revenge scheme.
Well she has a lot more legitimate stuff to be mad about now.
Garble heard what Smolder and Ocellus got up to last night and he's PISSED.
This might get in the way of Chrysalis' arc in this story.
hrm, that checks out.
need a new 5 syllable line, though.
So... like this?
--Sweetie Belle
The Running of Lyra (w. added dragons)
Trouble Sleeping w. Dragons
(This one is practically cheating)
You’re right, dragons do make everything better
This is just Chandler's Law except fantasy
Okay, this sounds fun! Most of my works are so irregularly structured that it just doesn't work, but here is a handful that do...
Launching a calm moment of peace into high-octane action or a killer party.
This one was almost made for it.
The letter was a warning, perhaps?
Given that it was an adventure anyway, this was programmed to receive.
A summoning, natch.
Just another day at the office.
Don't shoot the messenger!
Literally!
Like fog, clarion bells, or the post, but all scaly.
And, finally, with slight modification the the stock phrase, we have all the necessary backstory for the war in the Dark Times.
The thing I'm currently working on would be...considerably confused by dragons, I feel. (It's heavily Lovecraftian in inspiration.)
Looking at a few of my other fics, many have openings it's nigh impossible to insert dragons in. Honey Pie works perfectly, though.
Looks like it works with nonfiction, too...
(Random manual I had a PDF of laying around after part of our heating system needed fixed back around the beginning of winter... With a "equivalent" part that replaced a whole list of different older models, because the old part was long discontinued. Seems sort of par for the course with anything on our old Homart Automatic 600 really. Reminds me, sometime after heating season is over I need to either clean out or replace the automatic bleeders in the lines, they're all crudded up from the water we get around here and they're not doing their job at all anymore...)
5250835
When trying it on my own stories, I generally find it works best with a couple of paragraphs, rather than just the first line.
5250633 5250642 5250647 5250842
Don't forget to link the source, or at least name the story you're draconizing!
5250677
Sure is! It doesn't make it any less fun.
5250835
5250783
Dang it, I want to read this version of Airing Thoughts now. It reads like some sort of discourse on fascinating local mythology.
5250631
I will reluctantly admit that winged Hussars might be as metal as dragons.
5250629
"Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally)" sounds like it's setting up an Embralis crackship and I am here for it.
5250622
I know that it's literally the very first one to get posted in comments, but that is perfect and I think Monochromatic preemptively wins the thread.
5250834
For some reason, it seems to work well with romances in general!
5250861
Pfffft-! Especially given the more common Thorax/Ember pairing. Now I'm imagining a bizarre love triangle.
Ember: "I love Thorax, but I love Chrysalis too!"
Thorax: "I love Ember, but I love Chrysalis too!"
Chrysalis: "I HATE BOTH OF YOU!"
5250858
Well... it was one of your stories...
--Sweetie Belle
5250864
Heeee. Yes!
My dragon-obsessed teenage self is very pleased at all this, btw.
Hell, maybe one of these days I'll actually write book two of the grandiose dragon trilogy I started literally when I was twelve. Book one a little weird, but has been edited since and isn't half bad...
5250835 5250842
I'd argue it's more fun with nonfiction.
tbf, we still don't know the context for the opening, so it's possible that this is how that scene actually plays out.
Sounds like something out of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which, now that I think about it, would be lovely to see done in Cynewulf's style.
This is a story about dragons staring at Rarity's hips. All good stories are.
You're not wrong.
5250892
I had no idea how much I needed this today, thank you.
From four semi-random selections, one from each shelf in one of my many bookshelves... The fourth shelf took a few tries, because it is mostly war history (don't worry, it's just overflow from another bookshelf entirely) and I am inclined against making light of that kind of stuff. What these choices/samples say about me, I leave to the reader to conclude.
I am particularly tickled by the second one, because of just how truthful it actually became.
This one actually fits.
That's no way to refer to a young lady.
Okay, that sounds like a pretty bad time to me.
A slight inversion of the story.
5251102
I’m imagining Smaug as a wyrmling dragon sleeping away on his piles of gold when all of a sudden a clan of Dwarves arrived and kicked him out while keeping all his stuff. Smaug spent years as an exile from his own cave as a result while the Dwarves built it into a fortress. Finally, one day, Smaug was approached by the Necromancer, who offered to help with spirits in his employ and also by recruiting some friendly Wargs and Goblins that he knew.
But he also said that they’ll need a Burglar to sneak in to the dwarvish clan and scout ahead and also just generally make way for him. A Goblin or Warg would stand out too much, and Dwarves have a keen eye for spirits. But Hobbits have a talent for going unnoticed...
Heck this actually just broadly sounds like an interesting idea for a story to begin with. The standard fantasy adventure bit told from the perspective of monsters.
5251102
Just gonna leave this here...
And this...
5251126
(off topic)
I'm currently enjoying a fantasy series that does the monsters' perspective really well: Orconomics and its sequel Son of a Liche. It tackles head on the human-centric prejudice inherent in a lot of the fantasy genre (if you can get past the puns). Both available on Audible.
5250950
I'm more amused by the third, mostly because of a Damaged mind. (This is a family blog, so I'm not going to talk about all the layers to that particular joke)
Is it gauche to cover one's own "greatest hits?"