Long Story Short, Things Went Down! (and its sequels) Fun facts and no mimes · 10:06am Mar 1st, 2014
470 followers! Wooohooo! That means that, statistically speaking, at least five different guys are going to read this. That's a lot, especially when you realize that this blog is not about my adventures dealng with those crazy, imaginary mimes.
Yeah I'm not making a long intro this time. We're talking stories, everybody! Long Story Short, Things Went Down is one, if not the pet project of mine. The two semi-sequels were also insanely fun to write, but nobody really gave a fuck about them. I guess that's a shame?
Also yeah I'm saying "fuck" in this blog. I mean, I'm talking about the story that has more cuss words than adjectives, people. Cut me some slack.
Anyway, what to say about Long Story Short? For starters, that some people call it that, and some prefer using Things Went Down to refer to it, and then there's the people that say LSSTWD. I personally call it SYDL for a bunch of reasons that I'll explain later. This story is not the most popular of mine, but Chris liked it and Griffin is in love with it (really). Of course, this is not the general opinion -- John Perry didn't feel crazy about it, but John Perry is fucking awesome as an author and as a reviewer and his comments are pretty much spot-on, so that was pretty reasonable. I do use frat humor and douchy characters in that story, and it is certainly repetitive.
So yeah, mixed bag. Because, do you know why I call that story SYDL? If you've read at least two of my blogs/stories in your life, you would have noticed I mention this guy a lot. This story was born and written just to piss off that guy. SYDL stands for "shit you don't like." Coincidentally, he calls it SIDL because "shit I don't like," and so on. Lucky Roll thinks everything John Perry mentioned about that story, and then something more -- it's unclassy, to say the least. He doesn't like unclassy things. When I mentioned the idea of writing a story in which the main characters were all assholes, he got a little interested. When I explained how half of the script contained dick jokes, he lost all interest and told me not to write it.
So, of course, I wrote it and forced him to proofread it. Because I’m fun like that.
Now, origins aside, SYDL was a very fun story to write… and also a very complicated one. I wrote 30k words of it before realizing that the scene I was stuck in didn’t work, so I backtracked and rewrote the entire thing. You know Lyra and Bon Bon? The most interesting and hated characters in the story? In the first draft, they were more or less exactly like any other Lyra or Bon you’ve ever read. So was Time Turner. And Vinyl. And Octavia.
Yeah, at first the characters weren’t assholes. Well, maybe a little, as they bickered to each other, but it was clearly in a fun way. But when I got stuck in the scene where (in the actual draft) Lyra and Bon start breaking havoc with a giant, pony-fucking dolphin statue, I realized it was boring. Because, of course, there was no havoc there. Lyra and Bon just got stoned and did some stupid crap.
That’s where I had the realization – everybody writes the background characters the same way. What if I changed it? MLP:FiM is a show about friendship, right? Let’s show them dysfunctional friendship! Let’s take the worst characters I can imagine, let’s parody and subvert every single moral the show stands for, let’s link them with a sense of loyalty and friendship that can’t be easily seen because they’re too busy trying to kill each other, and let’s see what happens.
That 30.000 words rewrite was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. The plot changed completely, the characters were all completely different and… well, it was not the same story, that’s what I mean.
Octavia is almost always (lately I’ve seen a lot of subversions, so I’m not that original) portrayed as a high-class mare, a polite, educated pony, if only a little bit uptight now and then. So of course I wrote an egomaniac, queen-of-the-prom, pretty pony that has a lot of fun and can’t think about herself without adding the word “sexy.” The idea was not creating a sexy character – the idea was creating a character that is not only sexy, but knows she’s sexy, and is also an asshole because even pretty people can be assholes. She’s also the leader of the team, from a purely storytelling point of view. The fact that at no point does this show up in the actual story because she’s too busy dealing with her own problems and ignoring her friends is, I believe, another proof of just how fucked up in the head these assholes are.
Vinyl… Vinyl is pretty much the Vinyl everybody writes, but a little more douchy. Also she’s possessive, naïve, childish, prone to anger and an ass. But yeah, she’s probably the most normal of them all. I just deleted the “playful” part from the “playfully annoying” way you usually see her in fanfics.
Turner is usually the Doctor, so I made him a doctor (with a Phd.) and then I created another egomaniac pervert, this time with mommy issues and zero charisma. This one was easy.
Derpy is the pet of the bronies, so I wrote her as a liar, and the rest… Well, “characterization marches on”, as TVTropes says. I believe Depry is one of the only two characters that should go to a psychologist to talk about their issues. She’s fucking crazy. It doesn’t really show up in the story, though, and that’s a very good thing.
Carrot… Well, I haven’t read a lot of Carrot Top fics, so I just made her stupid and stupidly strong and rolled with it.
And then, Lyra and Bon Bon. One is usually crazy about humans? Just write her crazy. The other is sarcastic? Yeah, turn it up to eleven.
And that’s it. Suddenly the fic was funnier (in my opinion, at least) and felt more alive. I wondered how the M6 would deal with such a problem, and then I ignored it and used the characters I had. The results were incredibly fun to write, because most of the time I only had a very faint idea about what was going to happen. That happened mostly with the Lyra and Bon Bon scenes – those two aren’t exactly predictable, so every time I thought I had the path drawn in front of me, I would write a scene in which Lyra just kicks Bon Bon down a hill because she feels like it, and I would stare at the document and think “well, shit. I wasn’t expecting that.”
Truly one of the funniest times I’ve ever had, writing that fic.
So what now? Well, I kind of know what the “true” sequel is going to be about. Another adventure, at least as long as the original, with the same characters in a different situation. Another train wreck, I might add. The two slice-of-life stories I posted didn’t get a lot of attention, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing – after all, that was just a character study I made, and it’s not really important for the sequel (although it foreshadows things). And I might add an extra chapter to the original, because I realized there’s one more thing I want to show but it doesn’t work as a one-shot and it definitely happens JUST after the initial story. So, extra chapter. Dunno when I’ll write it though.
I think I had more to say about this? But this blog is already over 1000 words, and that’s my limit. So, see ya, people!
I am part of statistics! Yay!
Oh yes......the sequels/side stories.......haven't had the time to read both of them.....yet! I really need to fix that.
Another chapter for SYDL? Ah yis
I loved it.
Semi-sequels? I was not aware you HAD those! Now I must locate and read them! LSSTWD (I'm too lazy to use full title) is one of my absolute favourite stories I have read.. I LOVED seeing the
ponies turned into psychotic assholes only kept together in a love-hate relation to each other because nopony else wants to go near them...
Could you please tell me the titles (and order) of the semi-sequels? I MUST READ THEM
(And at some point I will also read all your other stories, but if you have LSSTWD sequels, those are prioritized above all else!)
Great, now you destroyed our secret codename for this story. It's a secret, which usually means you shouldn't tell everyone about it!
Might as well call it SNL now.
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The very words "two semi sequels" in this blog have links to the stories.
The order doesn't matter, tho I recommend reading the long one first.
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Perfect, thanks. I shall read them later tonight.
Expect comments.
(small note - When I DO comment, there is a chance that I give a full review of my opinions and thoughts, or an otherwise lengthy comment, just so you know. Also risk of pointless rambling,
I sometimes have a tendency of doing that. You have been warned.)
From the description it doesn't look like the kind of humor I enjoy.
But then I really loved your Done series, so I guess I will be checking on it when I manage to get my "Read Later" list a bit smaller. It might pleasantly surprise me.
Why am I not following you again?
Problem solved.
kind of happy you made this blog cause oddly enough I couldn't find the sequel
Well I gotta say, I can't wait. My sides hurt from laughing so much at LSSTWD. It reminded me a lot of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia with the situation and how they were all terrible ponies, and it was hilarious
And I didn't even know there were semi-sequels, gotta read those 
.
Can't wait for the next sequel
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Feel free to do that (I would really like it), but nobody has written a really long, rambling comment in a story of mine for a while, so chances are you won't do it because Murphy's Law, fella.
1885590
Nice to see others are familiar with Murphy's Law.. Where I live it's not as well-known,
at least not among my generation and younger..
Anyway, I'm not doing a full-size 1000-word review or anything THAT big, but I WILL leave more than just "Cool story bro, I liked this!"
I will give more than that at least
Furthermore, I'm off to bed soon, So I will read them both during the day (it's 0100 in the morning where I live, And I have to battle my insomnia)
I'm excited for the sequel!!!
In all honesty, I'm usually not a fan of crude humor and repetition. In fact, I almost stopped reading Things Went Down just because you repeated the word idiocy way too many times. However, there's something strangely addicting about the background ponies being total nutcases. You have a lot of little jokes and snarky comments in there that make me physically laugh, and completely destroy every headcannon I've ever had. The SYDL series, as you call it, is incredibly hilarious, no matter the number of dick jokes.
(Plus, you get at least +10,000 for all the awesome puns in Sow the Wind.)