McPoodle vs. the PonyEarthverse · 1:14am Jul 18th, 2013
A scant week ago, I posted a blog entry where I speculated what would happen if a psychiatrist character were allowed to run amok in the PonyEarthverse setting. I thought it was an interesting idea, but I didn't think it would actually work in practice.
It turns out that I was wrong. Several authors from the group approached me to write a full-blown story wherein my character would interact with theirs. As a result of our discussion, the character I am actually writing is somewhat different than the one I described earlier. This version is antagonistic to the ponies instead of trying to help him. He's also somewhat...Voltaire-ish. And he gets into interesting conversations with Discord, so...
(Disclaimer: McPoodle does not in any way shape or form imply that just because he's emulating his most-popular character and character vs. god encounter style, that this will automatically result in a story to rival "The Best of All Possible Worlds". After all, if he was capable of catching that brand of lightning in a bottle, then he would have long ago launched himself into the fast-paced and lucrative world of paperback publication.)
So, for those willing to wade into the deep end of this particular pool of pony-on-Earth fiction, may I present..."Breakdown".
Now let us review. I am writing a story that:
1. Is written for a group where every story is bombed with automatic down-votes from haters the moment it appears,
2. Features a main character who is diametrically opposed to the main characters of every other story in the group, and
3. The occupation of this main character is one that a vocal minority of the fandom know far better than I do.
So in conclusion, if you are going to read this, be prepared to wade through industrial warehouses full of "fun" on every page of the comments.
I rarely read comments on stories that aren't mine, and frankly, this is the only story in the PonyEarthverse that I can get into.
Of course, I'm probably in a firm minority in at least one of those respects.
And we've already planned for Pinkie to meet up with this character. If you read the story, you know how crazy that will be!
1217549
My character pondered what meeting up with Pinkie Pie could lead to at the end of Chapter 2 of the story. The end of the world may have been brought up as a possible outcome.
1217560
Oh, Pinkie Pie would NEVER end the world! Ability and motive don't correlate, ya know.
1217568
Oh, she wouldn't do it. She's just got the metaphorical big red button to end all big red buttons, and Dr. Franklin is an inveterate emotional button presser.
That can't end well.
1217573
You forget, however, that Pinkie not only is Pinkie here, she's also Reid: a diagnosed aspie that's dabbled in theatre, writing, psychology, sociology, and philosophy. That big red button is well protected.
...seriously though, what's the big red button we're talking about here? I'm lost.
Oh HEEEEELLLL YES. This is exactly the type of thing that I wanted to get into when I put my bid up for Spike, and frankly, hostile characters are exactly what this universe needs, not just the deranged villains Discord summons and extremist bigots, but legitimate opponents who have rational reasons for being in the side of the opposition.
I'll be reading this as soon as I have a few minutes free to do so, but I can already tell that we are going to HAVE to arrange some sort of clash between Glasny (playing spike) and Dr. Franklin.
1217583
If I were to hazard a guess, I'd be looking at how unstable Pinkie is without her friends. Particularly with Party of One and Cranky Doodle Dandy, I found her riding a very VERY fine edge between the absolutely unselfish and laudable desire to take joy in seeing her friends happy, and the frankly pitiable tendency to place her entire self worth on the opinions and feedback of her friends.
And we already saw in that Iron Will episode that Pinkie Pie CAN be torn into emotionally. If this Dr. Franklin guy has any brains (which judging by Best of All Possible Worlds, he will) then he will be watching the episodes of FiM in order to have advance knowledge of the ponies that he's analyzing.
(I haven't even read the story yet, but I'm getting the sense that our lovely Dr. has a tendency to tear things apart to figure out what makes them tick)
1217583
Eh, forget it.
It's just that the last Pinkie I wrote was a disguised goddess with emotional issues, who was quite capable of splitting the planet in half in a pique of rage if someone were to provoke her sufficiently, say by turning every pony in Equestria into a cannibalistic killing machine. Obviously, your Pinkie is not going there.
Probably a good thing, all things considered. My "Pinkie Shows Them, Pinkie Shows Them All!" story died a horrible horrible death under the cause of "Seriously? You're seriously going to write that?"
Ew, yeah. Personal Headcanon; the bane of all collabs
1217639
Pinkie Pie: Enemy to all headcanon. I make it a principle never to write her the same way in any two stories that are not in the same series.
Pinkie has always struck me as a character on the razor's edge of exuberance and despair. I honestly don't see any other way to interpret her character, and personally, I enjoy watching her antics knowing that if she has a bad day or three, she'd be liable to fall into a hole she can't dig herself out of.
And while I know nothing about this Ponyearth group/continuity, from the group's home page + rules, am I correct in assuming it's nothing but what should be body-horror stories but are instead strange fantasy tales where the character blithely accept the loss of their bodies and minds to foreign beings?
1217645
No, no you are not correct in that assumption.
1217624
....what are we defining as god here?
1217647
Hmm. Anything that has the phrase "wake up in new body" combined with the rule that "things can't get too dark" clearly hasn't watched The Fly.
1217647
A being capable of breaking what are seen by the majority of beings in the cosmos as major laws of reality. Able to reverse time, bring the dead back to life, summon an entire city's worth of matter out of nothingness with no more than a blink of the eye. Able to say "you know what? I don't like ice cream, so now, ice cream never existed" and just by saying it, make it so. The sort of being that makes DM's or authors throw up their hands and declare that they don't want to deal with such an absurd imbalance of power in their campaigns/literary worlds.
You know...the usual.
I think we've wandered a bit far off topic.
1217648
Reducto ad absurdum? Really? REALLY?
I know that sort of body horror, I've WRITTEN that sort of body horror, and let me tell you something, it is not the only sort of body horror in existence. We've mentioned murder and sexual themes. Characters have been shot and seriously injured. And if you're just looking for transformation trauma, we've got that too...
If you want gradual transformation, go over to Five Score Multiplied by Four. Good story, just not this story.
1217655
Ah, kay. So not just the exalt of laughter that can do anything if it's funny. Got it.
1217666
I agree. The way I interpret Pinkie will always be Roger Rabbit.
'You mean you could have gotten out of the cuffs all ALONG?!"
"No! Only if it's funny!"
1217645
Lets face it, most of the people in these situations are bronies who actually think "wouldn't it be awesome to be this character for a day?" It's not weird. I mean, would it be weird to fantasize that you were (insert favorite human actor here)?
But the fact that they already have thought of it a little dulls the "OH GOD! I'M A FREAK!" factor down considerably, though a great chunk of the story is often devoted to "how do I grab things/fly/do magic/shot web without hands?"
Where the real trauma comes in isn't the body horror, it's the MIND horror, and that I think is the biggest and scariest aspect. The good stories usually play this up to some extent, but a lot of the weaker ones dont.
1217666
Whoa man! You got your hasty judgement all over my hasty judgement!
I just get my hackles raised when I see what appears to be arbitrary restrictions on what exploring authors can and can't do, and I exert my displeasure through snide commentary and passive-aggressive comments. Hearing you say say murder and guns does put my mind in a bit of a twist when trying to reconcile that with what i read in the rules.
That said, if you're in this group you accept the rules, so it's not my place to judge in the first place. Carry on carrying on.
1217674
I have little desire to read someone else's wish fulfillment. I do, however, have a great deal of interest in reading someone I can relate through dealing with the immense physiological and mental stresses of being in another thing's body when the other thing is still in there. And I think I mentioned the mental aspect up top; I just lumped it in with the general term Body Horror.
But, just as an aside, I have written my own wish-fulfillment, so I understand those who write them. I suppose I was never confident enough in my own writing, or projected myself onto others too much, to ever publish it.
I don't know if I'll read the story, but I'll definitely read the comments!
1217666 ... I thought the PonyEarthVerse *was* five score divided by four.
While I know nothing about the PonyEarthverse beyond what these blogs and comments have told me, (and the concept kind of creeps me out TBH), I'm actually really interested in seeing your take on it and seeing this psychologist character you've mentioned in action. The whole thing sounds fascinating in a morbid kind of way.
1217560
Do you by any chance happen to play Dwarf Fortress?
1218859
Nope. But I do have a habit of accidentally stumbling onto other people's punchlines without realizing it.