• Member Since 24th Feb, 2013
  • offline last seen February 19th

Xepher


I don't write, so much as I perform acts of high-wire fiction without a net. Come watch me fall! I believe in narrative coincidence, the transcendent power of hopeful creativity, and the Oxford Comma.

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Nov
1st
2013

Upcoming Story: The Ministry of A.S.S. (Prereader request) · 8:39am Nov 1st, 2013

Don't worry, Three Wishes is still on schedule. The next update is Saturday, as usual. I'll hopefully have more news on the sequel, The Hole In The Sun, as well by then. For now though, side project!

I'm having an absolute blast writing Three Wishes and its sequel, but I want an outlet for smaller, less serious ideas. I was reading Skywriter's The First Time You See Her and in it, there's a throwaway phrase about an "Alicorn Snit Squad" that cleans up after the princesses' indiscretions. My brain leaped into action, picturing a clandestine agency that was part The Middleman, part Chuck, part M.I.B., and part Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Basically, I want an action comedy but with some occasional poignant or epic moments.

So far, this is the "pitch" (aka, story description) I've got.

The Ministry of Aristocratic Solecism Suppression, a.k.a. The Alicorn Snit Squad. Because sometimes, even Princesses lose their temper.

Sometimes, it's easy: bribing the staff to ignore the hole blasted in a wall, surreptitiously replacing the film in a reporter's camera after a palace food fight, or even retrieving a teleported business mogul from the North Pole after he pushed Celestia just a little too far.

Sometimes, it's not. Sometimes politics go really wrong. Sometimes the mistakes get really messy. Sometimes ponies can't be bribed. Sometimes, they can't be discredited. Sometimes, they see things they can't forget. Sometimes you have to make them.

That's where I come in.

My name is Clean Slate, and I was never here.

The ministries' scope covers more than just outbursts from the princesses in the modern era though. Basically, anything that might lead to a princess getting mad should be stopped preemptively by the modern charter interpretation. That means covering up incidents of all kinds, as well as preventing disasters that the Elements of Harmony don't, etc. Basically, general purpose "just under our noses" sort of secret agency covering everything up.

The idea is that it will be an "episodic" series, with each chapter (or the occasional two-parter) mostly standing on its own, but with overall character growth and development. Basically, similar to a TV show. The agency motto is "Semper non Temper" and the story is told (at least in the early parts) from the perspective of Clean Slate, a white, charming (at least in his own opinion) unicorn whose special talent is altering/erasing memories. His two teammates are: Silent Night, a lithe, dark-grey pegasus mare whose special talent is stealth, and is the team lead; and Brick Wall, a gruff, middle-aged, northern unicorn who's built (and colored) like his namesake, and has recently rejoined the modern era along with the rest of the crystal empire, finding it hard to adapt to modern culture at times.

There will be cussing, as cop-talk just doesn't sound right without it. It'll keep to a teen rating though. As I said, I intend for this to be an outlet for quick ideas, so the stories will play a bit more fast and loose with both canon and continuity too... at least compared to Three Wishes. That said, I've got three episode plots outlined so far. I'm going with episode title styles to match The Middleman, which was the most awesome action comedy show ever.

Episode 1: The Blueblood Certainty
There's an unofficial term ASS agents in Canterlot all know: BASE. It stands for "Blueblood Always Screws Everything" and applies both to females he shouldn't, as well as situations in general. In this episode, he's having an affair with a griffon diplomat's wife, and through a convoluted series of events, nearly starts a war between the Caribou and Griffon empires.

Episode 2: The Derpy Hooves Deception
Alternate title: The Sharknado Solution
While visiting the Ponyville Preservation Project, an ancient seapony artifact is unleashed, and the team must work with Commander Ditzy Doo of the Ponyville branch of ASS to stop the entire town from sinking beneath the waves (despite being nowhere near the ocean.) Derpy (as her cover identity is called) uses her unique talent to find the only solution to the problem... one that others could never have seen in the way she does: Sharknado!

Episode 3: The Sombra Paradox
Everypony knows the crystal empire disappeared while under the influence of the evil King Sombra roughly a thousand years ago, and only reappeared recently. No pony that returned, including ASS's own Brick Wall, seem to remember exactly what happened though. When the agents of ASS find themselves thrown back in time to that fateful day, Brick Wall, along with the rest of the team and his younger self, finally learn the true secrets of Sombra's rise and fall.



Alright, if you're still with me at this point, let me know what you think. I'm especially curious about opinions on the title. On the one hand, the A.S.S. acronym (Ministry of A.S.S. or Agents of A.S.S. ?) was the original inspiration for the story, and I think it's just dumb enough to be funny, as well as perhaps leading readers to click on it out of curiosity. On the other hand, I don't want to piss people off if they're expecting a clop fic or something. Similar questions go for the use of swearing in general. I, myself, don't really like it when canon characters are swearing--it sounds out of place from the nice ponies we know. But I can't write the cop-talk kind of conversations this story needs without the occasional "damn" and such. This is supposed to be slightly grittier though. I don't intend for it to be Deadwood, but I know people tend to have strong opinions on swearing in pony, especially when it's sticking to "teen" and not a mature fic.

My current prereaders for Three Wishes have done a great job, but I feel I'm already asking for too much time from them, so don't want to push them for a sidestory as well. In fact, none of them know I'm even writing a side story... until they see this. (Please don't take offense, guys! You're totally welcome to join this one anyway if you want.) But anyway, I'm asking for volunteers. This is a side-project sort of thing, so unlike Three Wishes, it will have no fixed schedule. My only promise will be that I will never leave a cliffhanger longer than a week (e.g. if I do a two-part "episode.") The first three episodes will probably be released fairly soon-ish, as the ideas are already there. Future episodes will be more of an "as they occur or are suggested to me" sort of thing.

If you're interested, what I'm looking for is both input on ideas and general plot, as well help catching the ever-occurring grammatical/spelling errors. I'm really a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy, so I'm not a slave driver. In my view, any help I can get improves things, but it's always my own damn fault if any mistakes are missed. A good grasp of English grammar and spelling is essential though. I don't intend to separate the technical editing from general plot/idea-focused prereading on this one. If you've preread/edited for other stories, that's a bonus. Let me know what you've worked on if that's the case.

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Comments ( 18 )

Pfffttttt.

Oh wow... This is too good...

If I didn't have so much to do now... I'd offer in a heartbeat!

~Skeeter The Lurker

i admit i have no exprience with idea generation, but i would be more than happy to preread for grammatical errors and sentence structuring if thats okay.:twilightsmile:

this sounds like a cool idea, if youll accept my help, just tell me what to do, k?:pinkiehappy:

Well, if I can find the time between helping out with Three Wishes (still laughing my flank off with Gunnar) and the sequel (I'm assuming you're going to keep us on on staff) and the other pieces I'm working on editing, you can count me in.

Three Wishes is pretty much done with the edits, I think. I know nothing of this sequel of which you speak :raritydespair: so I look forward to that. I'm *almost* completely caught up on Fighting Destiny and fully caught up with The Life and Missions of a Winning Agent. Sweet Treats and Royal Delights and Symphony of a Winning Lyrist are still in limbo until JaketheGinger gives us more to work on...

1471082 No worries, I totally understand being too busy. If you'd like, I'd still be happy to let you get an early preview once I get some of this closer to ready.

1471114 I'll give you a shot, on the assumption that you're just being lazy with the lack of capitalization and punctuation in your comment here. :derpytongue2: I'll PM you when I've got something far enough along to start looking at.

1473233 Yeah, was definitely going to ask you and TNAB to stay on for the Three Wishes sequel. I'd be happy to have you on this as well of course, if you have the time. I just don't want anyone getting burned out.

That said, I've got a few thousand words of episode one written so far. It's slow going as I'm having to introduce and develop three OCs, properly build the setting and tone, and then fit a plot in somewhere too. The writing for later episodes should go faster I think. Going forward, I've got to leave plenty of writing time for the Three Wishes sequel as well, and... several IRL friends are pushing me hard to do NaNoWriMo too, which would be a third (non-pony) story to work on this month. It's a good thing I'm taking this year off work. :twilightsheepish:

1473743

I'm more than happy to do that.

~Skeeter The Lurker

1473743 Ouch. I am sorry. I will try to do better with my comments then.:unsuresweetie:

I can assure you, however, that I am extremely thorough. I shant allow even one misspelling or punctuation error to pass through my discerning gaze.

Thanks for giving me a shot. I will do my best. Again, arigato gozaimasu, senpai.

1473824 No worries, didn't mean that to be an insult. Just some definite irony that I couldn't resist pointing out is all. I know comments aren't exactly "formal writing" and don't actually expect them to be at the same standards as published work.

I A.S.S.ume "Mares in Black" was already taken.:trollestia:

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

I would like to help. I think I'm better at story elements than grammar, though I can spot that stuff too. I was there for the making of Atlas, but at this point I have no idea what might still be there... Kriegor has a weird writing process.:pinkiehappy: And now that I checked, I helped with some of the latter chapters of Machine And Might
I write my own stuff too if that helps... :twilightsheepish:

1474024 Well, the phrase that inspired this was "Alicorn Snit Squad" so I didn't even look for better acronyms.

1474193 Okay, let's give it a shot. Thanks!

1474067 I assume you mean as a prereader? If so, cool. That should round this out.

That makes three new prereaders, and Dusk Watch returning. Might be a bit crowded, but I think it's worth a shot to see how this goes. With Orycon coming up, it might be middle of next week before I have enough to be worth editing though. I'll PM links to the GDocs versions once I have first drafts ready.

1477341 Thanks for having me. Getting to see other people's writing process helps my own. Though I don't really know what's expected of me... I usually read it once, check the overall story for logic faults, ooc characters and sentence/paragraph structure iffiness. Then I attempt to give perspective, well to you in this case, maybe pitch a few changes here and there.
I have to apologize in advance, this story has loads of potential, so I might overstep my boundaries somewhere along the line. :facehoof:

1477341 Thank you for letting me help out!

1477466

I don't really know what's expected of me...

I'll let you in on a little secret. :trixieshiftleft::trixieshiftright: I have no idea what I'm expected to be doing either! I just smash the keyboard to make the magic talking horse words show up. For some reason though, people keep wanting more.

1479263 Well then, I'll just have to do my best :twilightsmile:

This will be glorious, and I'm glad somebody took this joke seriously! :rainbowlaugh:

1540060 That's how I feel about my entire writing "career" in pony so far. :pinkiecrazy:

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