Fic rec: Six Months in July · 2:52pm May 5th, 2013
As I make my way through the low word-count pieces filling my backlog on this site, I'm becoming acquainted with the works of Fiddlebottoms, who I can't really say anything about yet, as I've only read a few of his stories (though this one is pretty fucking hysterical).
But the one I just read, Six Months in July, is one of those that's likely going to stick with me for a while. It's short, brilliant, disturbing, and utterly absorbing. In around two thousand words, he explores life in a small town and the close relationship of two sisters.
I guess before I go any further, I should mention some warnings. This story contains: murder, discussion of estrus cycles, possible incest, and ponies smoking and generally not behaving like ponies. Though that last one has never bothered me personally. Also Inkie Pie not being Octavia.
Concepts introduced include things like "Trottingham Twins" (I can't get over how brilliant that phrase is; and no, you'll have to read to find out what it means), rituals based around said estrus cycles, some kind of ill-defined religion, and pretty much what life on a rock farm is like. There's some Pinkie Pie in it too, but she exists mostly as a shadow, a reminder of the past and a suggestion that there might be life outside rock farming.
I dunno if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here. I might be; I do that. But I just feel like I've been affected, deeply, by a simple power, and I haven't quite finished reeling from it. This is a grittier story than I tend to read, or even tend to recommend, but if you don't mind things getting dark and realistic, and want to read something that could very well have literary merit, you could do far worse than to gander at this old and overlooked story.
I think FO:E broke your brain, PP.
Nope. That's a pretty generic badfic that is.
Some songs transition well to ponyfic.
Some bastardize the setting and characters.
Those terms are not always complimentary of one another. In a canon set in a magical world of happy, sunlit days, they are in fact largely incompatible.
I've never accepted that making things worse for characters instantly makes it more "realistic" or "mature", but that's just me.
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1057567
Honestly it's probably quite a good story.
Just not as pony fanfic.
Then again, characterization corruption, rape, and ponies having heat are the 3 things that tick me off the most. And 2 out of 3 is not helping my opinion.
1057671
Now see, I would agree with that completely. :B But I also don't have a big problem with fics needing to be pony, even though that's how they should be.
1057856
I am very confused as to the meaning of your 2nd sentence.
1057671
One point I feel the need to defend myself on,
Estrus.
The ponies are mammals, which means (unless you have some sort of headcanon about Celestia wearing a stork outfit or Gremlins-style budding) they have an ovulation cycle.
I do not agree with using estrus as an excuse to have anon's waifu crawling up to him desperate for attention, but I also don't agree with the usual Hungry, Hungry Whores premise of porno (unless, of course, I'm just looking to whack it, but that is what hormones do, they make you different).
From what I understand, an actual mare in heat is more likely to kick the shit out of you if you come up from behind than if she were not ovulating. It isn't about her mind being overridden with lust, but rather the effect of chemicals on consciousness that everything from humans to rats undergo in their time.
I'm not going to say I did it right, but I think the influence of hormones and pheromones on life isn't something you can just sweep under the rug, unless you're talking about pre-adolescent or post-menopausal characters.
For an experiment, over the next 24 hours look out for a reference to periods (whether it is a commercial for maxi pads, a joke about someone being on the rag, or whatever). If you honestly don't see one thing, then you live a much different life than I.
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I did not say estrous. I said heat.
Equines have estrous cycles and primates have menstrual cycles. The difference is that in estrous cycles the females are only sexually receptive when they can conceive, while in menstrual cycles the females are receptive at all times. Species with menstrual cycles also have the estrous phase (heat), a time when their minds and bodies become more geared up for sex shortly before and during ovulation.
The difference is that humans' estrous phase is barely noticeable either from the female or outward observation, while a chimpanzee's is very obvious.
It stands to reason that a little pony's estrous phase would be nowhere near as noticeable as a Terran equine's.
This is because we no longer need the mating drive to ensure species survival. We control our environment and are sapient to a degree that the drive has become essentially vestigial.
Ponies are in the same boat. Even more so with magic at their disposal.
tl;dr: Yes ponies have estrous, as do humans. But just like a human's is not something that should be in any way significant, noticeable, or relevant. Assuming that FiM ponies "go into heat" like Terran horses do is like assuming that humans "go into heat" like other primates do.
1057856
See, that's where I disagree. You're reading pony fanfiction, on a pony fanfiction site, for fan fiction about a show about ponies. Have I belabored it enough yet? 'Not Being Pony' is essentially the definition of failure here.
1058066
There are two ways to put this.
Let's go with the kind one.
You didn't have sisters, did you?
Trust me, I knew when my sisters hit their first periods. Even though no one told me, I could tell. They'd just run headfirst into something.
And as a male, well, yeah. No one told me about that either, but when I hit puberty I knew the game had changed. Oddly enough, all of this happens at around the same time as confirmation, so ...
... hormones and ritual.
Honestly, I find your image of reproduction ridiculously old-fashioned. A throw back to when humans still believed they were "superior" to animals by God's grace. Truth is, we're just animals. We are slaves to our hormones and urges same as anything else, the difference is that we lack the perspective to see it and we don't want to see it either.
We do not control our environment, we do not control ourselves. We are carried on a wash of chemical interaction the same as any other beast. One might possibly claim we've developed the ability to lie to ourselves better than other animals, but who knows what goes through a mares head when she's in heat. They might think all kinds of crazy thoughts about love or whatever.
This better refer to boobs.
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I respectfully disagree. I mean, as long as a story's got ponies and Equestria enough to justify its presence on Fimfic (which, since it's featuring system is a community-based voting system, Fimfic's standards are justifiably open), it's "pony enough."
Now, if by "pony enough," you mean that it has a tone that fits in with the show? That's probably a better, more objective thing to say (I mean, literary analysis of tone is easier for two people to agree upon than determining if something is "pony enough."), but I'd still disagree that writing something outside the show's tone is akin "failure."
The whole point of fanfiction is that it extends the show's universe beyond what exists within the show. By definition, that's going to include going beyond the 6-8 year old girl audience. Now, I'm not writing this whole argument "In the Defense Therin of Porn," but rather, to mention that there's a ton of decently written stuff out there that doesn't necessarily mesh with the tone of the show.
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How does puberty and the intensity of an estrus cycle have any bearing on each other?
Coronation? What?
Why the hell are you bringing these issues up? I am not willing to speak to philosophical or religious perspectives on this. And nothing I said has anything to do with this.
Yes, it's called "how the human body and brain work", I know this. I am not discussing this general topic, I am discussing whether or not Equestrian ponies should be depicted as having estrus of similar intensity as terrestrial ponies, despite being sapient beings in a human like civilization.
We do not control nature, we do control out immediate environment. Not absolutely, but enough so that we can adapt our environment to changing conditions, instead of having to adapt ourselves, for the most part.
No but we can consciously choose to change, go against instinct, find alternatives, affect our own biochemistry with drugs and surgery, and acknowledge the reasons we are the way we are.
Except we are one of only a handful of sapient species on the planet, and the most intelligent by leaps and bounds.
Assuming you mean a mundane Terran mare, not much. They are sentient so they can think and interpret stimuli, but only in terms of instincts and drives. As sapients, we (and FiM Ponies) have the ability for abstract thought. Horses do not.
Look. I am not trying to get into a philosophical argument.
I base my logic on my understanding of biology, genetics, and the way these are affected by the environment we live in.
Minor adjustments in living environment can have drastic effects on genetics.
Humans are hitting puberty an average of 5 years earlier than 100 years ago due to abundance of nutrition.
Identical twins, one raised on a farm and one in the city, will develop major differences in size, height, bone structure, and physical attributes.
Humans, living in the type of civilization we do, has had drastic effects on our biochemistry, biology, and physiology.
Please keep in mind that I am commenting on the implied presence of estrus of intensity greater than human estrous in FiM ponies. Not on the specific content or depiction in your fic which I have not read.
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I don't mind a tone that is not in line with the show and I don't mind a story and characters that have nothing to do with the cast.
But.
I would say that if the setting is Equestria only in name and the characters are little ponies only in form, then "cool story, bro," but I'm here for Friendship is Magic fanfiction.
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I don't understand. Are you speaking against flat characters? Because I agree; I'd rather take a robust OC over a flat Fluttershy. But is there another metric you're using? Is it possible to have a well-written story that is "Equestria in name only?"
._.
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Sadly, no. It's a play on 'Irish Twins', ie kids that are as close together in age as gestation period possibly allows. Yay for fantastic racism!
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Of course it is, it would just be a bad fanfic. Good writing and good fanfiction are not necessarily one in the same. A good fanfic is well written, but not all well written fiction is good fanfiction.
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Entirely in agreement with everything you said. Humans, which includes these characters in every way that matters, have choice and can make rational decisions, absent of animal drives. The fandom uses "heat" as an excuse to be awful to these characters, nothing more. I know I shouldn't speak in absolute terms, but I have yet to encounter a fic that uses it as anything positive or as character growth.
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Not showin' ya any disrespect, Present, just displaying my point of view. Sorry if it came across that way.
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Those would be "enormous boobaloos."
1058256
I have seen you make this same statement many times before, and this is the first time you have ever qualified beyond, "I don't like it when ponies have hormones."
You are still putting the cart before the horse (ha! puns!) our biochemistry has effected our civilization. Our biochemistry is the author of everything. One can no more fight their biology than they can ride a sled uphill, it is the biology that initiates all action in the first place.
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I have no problems with hormones any more than I have a problem with air.
I only have issues with the assumption that a race with millenia of civilization would retain the same intensity of biological drives as a farm animal.
Also there is the fact that most stories that work it into the plot somehow, and that are not clopfics, never think the ramifications through well enough to not leave gaping plot holes.
Stupid pony literary innuendo...
Yes it defines us, but what defines it? Our biochemistry and even genetic code can be altered by environmental factors, and experiences.
Not to mention our own biochemical brains give us the insight to alter it/ourselves.
PS. Enjoying this debate.
FUCK EVERYONE
IN YOUR FACES