AppleDash contest time! · 10:26am May 28th, 2013
What's wrong, Dash?
I'm jealous!
Jealous? O' what?
All those other contests! Like those twidash ones.
Yer in them, sugarcube.
Y'just want more screen time, don'tcha? 
Yeah!
Wait...
Hey! No!
Uh huh.
Seriously! They're nice but they don't have you in it.
Aw, that's sweet of ya.
Oh! Idea! Let's get a contest of our own going!
Didn't we already have one? That was months ago! This is different!
Really? How?
Well, I always seem to be chasing your (awesome) flank. This time, you'll be chasing mine!
Wait, what?
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Noticing a trend was one reason for the first AppleDash contest - the overuse of certain tropes like broken wings, fillyfooling being frowned upon, and so on in fics with our beloved pairing. And a trend is also the reason for this contest:
In most AppleDash fics, Dash seems to be the one to chase after AJ - to make the first step, or the confession, or the first to develop feelings for our farmer gal. Very rarely do we ever see the other way around - AJ as the "chaser" in the relationship.
That, my friends, will be the topic of the contest. Write a fic, of 5k words at least, with AJ being the one after Dash, for once.
The rest of the rules are found in the thread on the AppleDash forums.
I think that I'm going to have to try this one.
That was an awesome image skit! I loved it.
Huh. I always liked filly-fooling as frowned upon in stories, tough I don't like the term. Why doesn't anypony ever use 'lesbianism'? It has no human aspects in the word whatsoever, and filly-fooling sounds like pedophillia. In any case I always thought the fear of being socially ostracized over homosexuality was realistic in a story because homophobia (actually, it's more like homo-hatred) rampant in real life, at least from what I've seen. It's always bothered me when stories act like it's so widely accepted as normal in Equestria that no one even goes 'wait, what?' about it.
Not even just talking about homophobia (...again, rather use the term 'homohatred'. Bigots don't seem 'afraid' to me, they just seem stupid and cruel and bullyish), but just learning anything about somepony else that they didn't know before (like for instance, maybe Rainbow Dash like's...CLASSICAL MUSIC!!!!), would make someone pause for a moment rather than not even skipping a beat. But it's your contest.
But as annoying as it could be that some things are jut used over, and over, and over, I think something like homosexuality not being treated as if everypony is automatically bisexual in Equestria anyway, is just something to be expected rather than something that could be considered a cliche.
Dash having broken wings...I don't understand why that's bashed so much. Sure, it's bad if an entire plot premise is based around 'omg Rainbow Dash's wings are broken....and that's the whole story!' since it's done a lot. And it's terrible if it's used as a means of guilt-tripping Applejack into dating her. But if someone's doing an action/adventure, or a thriller, injuries happen and wings aren't invulnerable. If these were human fics instead of ponies, and one of the character's often ended up with broken hands, arms, and legs...would we really bat an eye?
Good luck to all the people that enter submissions to the contest. I look forward to reading a crap load of Appledash :P
1109712
"Why doesn't anypony ever use 'lesbianism'?"
Because having a famous homosexual erotic poetess hailing from the island of Lesbos would be too much of a stretch? That is where the term came from, as far as I know. Plus, we seem to prefer cutesy-sounding terms when dealing with ponies. I can't imagine why. *cough* cutie mark *cough*
1109712
When you take in the obvious difference in gender population in equestria (like 80% mares, it looks like), it's more understandable if the population doesn't bat an eye, really. But for fics, it's just a well-overused theme/concept. Been done to death, so seeing something new is welcome. Same thing with dash-broken-wing. Her breaking it, not being able to fly anymore, being depressed, etc etc, is an overused trope as well.
If, as you say, the fics don't REVOLVE around that, and it's just an event that happened, then of course that works. It's just too often used as the focus.
As I said, I'll read them despite those tropes but it would take something special to really stand out.
I never really thought of the population of Equestria as mostly female. I mean, I know that's almost about all you see in the show, but that's always come across as a plot focus thing rather than being actually representative of Equestria. If there were really as few males as the show depicts, then Ponies would be extinct after about eighty years to a hundred years. It wouldn't survive the lifespan of the youngest pony.
Well, unless, ...unicorns. And I'm going to erase the thoughts that unvokes out of my mind as quickly as possible. Anypony got some brain bleach?
Or maybe ponies are actually genderless! Seriously, Rainbow Dash acts like my little brother. I sometimes (not often, but sometimes) catch myself forgetting that she's female.
(hide most of her mane, the eyelashes and have the eyes a bit too open for that eyeshadow to show up, and she can very well be a light blue boy with rainbow hair)
Well I get ya on 'story shouldn't revolve around it' thing. Not that I particularly WANT to see a psycho brutally take a hammer to pretty much every bone in Rainbow Dash's wings.
I'd rather see Applejack ....something....to Rainbowdash...quite vigorously. Like...brush her teeth!
I'm kidding.
I follow you just for little skits like that
1109790
They're so much fun to do!
:3 How 'bout dis one?
1109916
That is part of the reason why I wanted this contest - and if you notice, me and steel resolve gave the idea to jondor in the first place ;)
1109919
1109783
Hey, brushing her teeth is no joke.
On a slightly more serious note, I find the inclusion of rampant homophobia in pony fanfiction to be rather strange. When you're writing stories about magic talking ponies, no matter how close you stick to canon, you're going to have to introduce elements (like lesbianism) that aren't demonstrated in the show. The key, in my opinion, to properly handling the new elements is to maintain internal consistency.
My point here is that if you are hewing close to the canon and spirit of the show itself, you have to build off that world; basing character reactions on real world examples should be secondary to this. As noted by Jake Roberts in his blog post and CrowMagnon in "Granny Disapproves", the standard sources of real world homophobia don't translate well into an Equestrian setting.
To demonstrate, take Celestia. In canon, she has demonstrated noth9ing but patience, understanding, and good humor. Now, we don't get too deep of a look at her character, but working with what we have I find it highly unlikely that she's homophobic. If, as I find likely, the immortal ruler and goddess of the country is opposed to bigotry, any sort of systematic oppression of gays becomes unlikely. It's certainly hard from any religious perspective to find a reason to oppose homosexuality if the deity can hop on over at a moment's notice to correct you.
Now, what would it mean to lack a cohesive homophobic effort? Homosexuality is demonstrably natural. The deity/ruler is (based on reasonable assumptions) supportive of it. The only things left to cause opposition to homosexuality are pragmatism (offspring are helpful for continuing family lines; they're also cheap labor), scarcity (if it isn't as common as heterosexuality, ponies might not like what isn't as common (this is of course based on the assumption that most of Equestria has a logical male/female ratio and that Ponyville isn't demonstrative of the whole)), and whatever miscellaneous reasons individuals have. With all that, I find widespread homophobia unlikely. Random assholes? Sure. Maybe some ponies would be surprised if a friend of theirs came out, but hateful? Tolerance and love in Equestria are serious business. Friendship is literally magic and all that jazz.
These are, of course, my opinions, but I feel like they are based in the most reasonable interpretation of the world as seen in the the show.
This is... a really great idea for a fic. Shoot, now I'm gonna have to write more AppleDash.
Darn you.
1109991
Everything is going according to plan...
I've been looking for an excuse to write an appledash fic. Okay I'm definitely interested now.
1110541 Excellent!
1110541 First you write FlutterPie, now you're writing RariLight, and then you want to write AppleDash? Stop being awesome
except don't cause it's more fun for me that way.1110623
Thanks