Party Canon · 5:06am Jan 11th, 2014
A confession: as a teenager, I adored The Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels. Do not be surprised if this means nothing to you. You are young and these are stories from another age. The Invisibility Affair! If you had an invisibility cloak, of course you would drape it on a zeppelin! That's just what supervillains do!
James Blish, an author I had admired for his Cities in Flight novels, wrote the earliest Star Trek adaptations which, to be honest, were little more than transcriptions of episodes. Later writers of Star Trek, in this forbidden zone between the original series and its sequels, were happy to flesh out the odd corners of the universe. (How Much For Just the Planet?)
Alan Dean Foster wrote Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first Star Wars novel. I'm still a little uncertain about the relationship between Foster and Lucas. There are elements of Splinter that only bore fruit in Revenge of the Sith, years and years later.
All of these guys had it easy. They were writers for series that were complete or, in Foster's case, in the gap between the first film and its sequel.
And, here I am, writing My Little Pony fanfiction, an ongoing series, and contemplating an upcoming episode title: It Ain't Easy Being Breezies.
I have written one story that featured the Breezies, in G3 Equestria. In a couple of incomplete fanfics, not posted here, I've hinted that the Breezies and Derpy are good friends.
I had this idea, in Shadow Day, that Derpy at last saves the day by convincing her tiny, Breezy friends to turn their monstrous storm castles away from Ponyville. I never imagined that the Breezies, or anything like them, would appear in Season Four. I'm not sure where to go with my story now.
This is our fate, I guess, as fanfic writers. We have to roll with the punches. Hey! Once, I was writing this great story about a shape-changing creature entering Ponyville. The plight of the shape-changer was moving me to tears. And then, of course, we learned about the Changelings, an entire race of shape-changers. Sigh. My story was tossed into the bit-bucket, never to be seen again.
Sorry. This is basically a rant. I need to resolve Shadow Day without the Breezies. I've got this idea about Diamond Tiara and methane. I hope it works out.
UPDATE: Nuts to it. I'm going with the Breezies. "Ready, Whoopsie Daisy?" "After you, Trough Aloft." "Ha ha ha! No, after you, Sky Blink." They nod. "Then, it's settled. Together, it is!"
Alternate solution: write faster. Or, I suppose, only when the show is between seasons, but that one is less fun for your readers.
I hear you on ongoing charaterization/plot/etc. being the constant foe of fanfic authors. My philosophy insofar as I have ever needed one is to incorporate canon if it lines up and avoid anything redundant (Bats more-or-less scooped the idea I had for "Let's do something where Fluttershy and Applejack are at odds"--it would have been a very different story but the basic conflict over farm pests is too similar to be worth revisiting), but to otherwise just be comfortable accepting that you may be retroactively made redundant/non-canon. Note that this has resulted in basically all of my fics/ideas becoming suspended in the gap between Season 2 and the S3 finale since that's when I initially fleshed out the ideas, so maybe not a good solution long-term.
But I don't know, all writing is a relic of who you are at the time you write it and, to one extent or other, what the world was like as well. So I'm not sure if "time capsule" stories are necessarily a bad idea either, although maybe finishing them after the moment when they have become outdated would color the attempt. It's certainly saddening to hear that anyone throws something away half-finished, but I suppose everyone makes something they decide they don't want to share at some point.
You certainly have a better response to this sort of thing than my usual one, which is to whine for several hours at people and feel disappointed in myself for failing to beat whatever-it-was to the punch.
"Seeking the bubble Reputation
Even in the canon's mouth."
Thanks to my father's old MAD magazines, I actually know of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Didn't know there were novels, though.
In any case, I have always held that canon that comes to light after the genesis of a story can be disregarded. Furthermore, as long as you add the Alternate Universe tag, you can cherry pick canon to whatever degree you want. Never let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story, I say.
O Cloud Wander:
Please enlighten this groveling knave: What is a Breezie? I mean, as far as what they do.
Not sure why I'm imitating AugieDog, it just felt right.
1705321
Hehe.
1705856
I'm assuming, for the moment, that It Ain't Easy Being Breezies isn't about Mister Breezy and his many fans. I'm guessing (and I'm sure that Hasbro's marketing arm would agree), that the Breezies in the title are a callback to The Princess Promenade, the Generation 3 My Little Pony film (which, incidentally, Lauren Faust cited as her inspiration for the MLP:FIM series we all enjoy).
The Breezies, in that film, are the pixies of the forest, tiny, winged ponies that sport antenna. In Princess Promenade, the Breezy Zipzee (voiced by Andrea Libman!), assumes the role of parade manager. Zipzee actually has the best line in the film:
PINKIE PIE and MINTY, eagerly displaying their garish pink and green float: "Do you think we captured it?"
ZIPZEE: "Yes, but I think you should let it go."
In my imagining, I thought that the MLP:FIM Breezies would be slyphs, air elementals that the pegasus ponies work with to control the weather. (See A Little Snow Fairy Sugar. Inject insulin now.)
Where MLP:FIM will run with this, I have no idea. But it will break my heart, in a good way, if a band of tiny ponies flies into Sugar Cube Corner and demands, "Waffos!"
Canon =/= continuity. It is okay to write stuff that contradicts the show as long as it is in the spirit, setting, and values the characterizations of canon.
1706269
All I know is I looked at an image of G3 Breezies and then mothponies were canon. :|