Progress Report #4

Alright, so planning has come to a bit of a standstill. With much upcoming uni work, I'm not sure how much I can dedicate myself to this. Also, I'm having complications about the story, with what I've been planning. Oh, btw, I should have said this earlier but this blog is more of an entry for me to note my thoughts and opinions about this fic I'm [planning on] writing. So, there are several problems about this story:

- It introduces a few new characters (strays the story away from the Mane 6)
- The plot is original - so far, I'm having difficulty trying to link the existing plot to the original characters/places
- It's too serious - the plot is deep, dramatic and possibly violent. I find it difficult to write such a thing about ponies and such
- Changing/Adding lore - So far the story makes sense but already ignores at least 1 very very minor detail about the original FiM world. The one thing I'm most worried about is creating contradictions.
- Ponies -> Humans - This is probably the biggest issue. Maybe I didn't look hard enough but I've not seen a story adaption of FiM converted to humans as well as their settings and environment; I've seen ones where they are living in NY or somewhere but not where they are originally at. This is usually because of the problem with the conflicts in their original world against a real or more realistic one, names like Ponyville and Equestria and Canterlot... and whether they have cutie marks or not (would greatly effect CMC), if they'll be called that and where would it be. I suggested if they'll be called that because the term 'cutie mark' I feel does fit well with the serious, somewhat dark and dramatic story I'm trying to introduce. Think along the likes of a Final Fantasy plot and the words and terms they use for their original character traits. Maybe I could renamed it to Character Mark... it still kinda makes sense, still makes the acronym CMC make sense. But to start renaming things? People would be upset:

Changing too much of these factors would only leave the barebones of FiM and not actually the whole personality of the show. However, I like the thought and challenge of a human adaptation rather than just HiE. But changes would also include the titles of Pegasai, Unicorns and whether they can fly and if they can use magic, respectively, as this has a big impact on the series. With a human adaptation, such things would need to be changed, either using made up names, other fictional, mythical or factual names. For instance, I don't want to change much but I would probably change 'Ponyville' to 'Poniville', just to make it feel 'less pony-like' and more realistic, despite it being pronounced the same, yet such a simple change will have others hating the story. Why don't I just write it in Pony? It goes back to the seriousness issue. Why not just write a original stand-alone story? I'm not sure either. I've already said that I admire the characters the most and it's something I wanted to include but perhaps I'm just better off making a completely new original story? Are people even interested in that sort of thing? I genuinely don't know.

However! I don't believe it's all lost. I mean, the reasons why I've not moved onto a complete 100% original story. For instance:
- The lore does match - So far, the sequence of events fit in hand with that of the FiM story. No more details there :P
- The protagonist's job/society makes sense - His/her job in the story and the company/club/organization/school etc they work for makes sense and is something that would ideally fit into the FiM world.
- Already a fantasy staple - the story I'm writing is a fantasy story, rather than a realistic human conversion. So things like floating cities, magic, spells, dragons, flight, mythological creatures and monsters are things I'd want to include (Those were some keywords back there D: )
- The picture fits! - I've gone ahead already I drafted some artwork of places, things and logos, related to both FiM and the original story and it fits really really well. It's basically something I don't want to abandon at this stage.

So what I'm planning right now is something some will hate and some will love. But I really like the challenge of integrating a deep original story as well as trying to implement some kid of adaptation from ponies to humans whilst maintained environment, setting and everything else. I'm not sure if it's something that has already been attempted. Either way, I should really read some more other fics of the same nature to help judge if this would be something that would work.

And if there's anyone else out there reading this, I've LOVE to know your thoughts and opinions about the issues I described here. Thanks!