Odds and ends · 5:16am May 28th, 2014
Well, the response from getting featured was more than I expected. Over 30 new favorites and a lot of exposure got me to thinking, I should keep going and start on the next chapter right away. And that's what I'm doing. More Twilight and the gang, minor spoiler there but that's all you're getting. X3
My latest musical purchase is one I'm very pleased with. Sabaton's latest album: Heroes. A great album and I recommend it if you like power metal or metal in general. Resist and Bite and Far from the Fame being two of my favorites so far. =3
A friend of mine will be visiting from Germany this june, so I'll be a little busy entertaining him for 10 days. I wasn't aware how difficult it was to enter the US as a tourist. =c
I've been reading a few stories in my favorites and a plot for a story appeared in my head. Here it is if anyone wants it:
A brony arrives in Equestria, LONG before the show and meets Twilight Velvet before she meets her husband. Much like the plot of Nothing Is Set in Stone, the human has to make the decision to follow his heart and admit he feels something for her and risk negating Twilight Sparkle's existence, or giving up what might be the best relationship he's ever had.
Blog over, now back to writing... *lurches away back to my desk*
That... is a potentially interesting story. I say write it!
Another human/pony shipping... I say no, not write it.
The Tale of Lord Barleycorn made it to the Feature box? Darn, I missed that. Your story certainly deserves the praise and could do with some more exposure.
So the basic idea is similar to Back To The Future. Main character ends up in the past, roughly knows how events must unfold to ensure the future he knows but the universe seems to be working against him. The idea itself is neat, especially because it takes place in a time that is not defined by the show, thus not messing with canon and diverting from the base timeline by nature. Otherwise the human lead could just say "well, things are already screwed up just because I'm here, no sense in trying to fix things."
The problem with your story pitch is that people have certain expectations when they read "brony" and "romance with pony". Said expectations are not all favorable. For me a story that has a brony for a human lead and involves romance with a pony immediately gives off the stank of crude self-insert. I like to be proven wrong and I'm not saying your story has to be that way but it describes what it looks like when you ignore the whole preserving-timeline business and that the romantic interest is a very minor background character.
Consider making the human somebody who knows the show but isn't obsessed with it to brony levels (watched it with his little sister/niece/other young, female relative, was exposed to it because of roommate or friends). Alternatively consider how much romance is actually needed or if the human has to have a romantic interest in ponies to begin with. Even if you go for full romance there ought to be plenty of "warming up to the alien" for both sides before either of them start seeing the other that way. Otherwise it would just feel like staged wish-fulfillment.
Well, those are my two cents. Write the story you want and are happy with.
I don't know how that'd do for a Human fic, but it could be interesting if you made the main character a pony (doesn't have to be Time Turner, but can be an OC or otherwise) from the super technologically advanced future. There'd still be that level of adjustment there, and his having to deal with negating the existence of Twilight Sparkle (who, as one of the Elements of Harmony, is legendary.) For extra drama points, maybe like in Back to the Future he's one of Twilight's very distant descendants.
tl:dr, it's an interesting premise, but might work better having a pony as the protagonist instead a human.
That being said, if you like human fic, go ahead--I'm just not very big into full-on human-on-pony romance fics so I probably will pass it up.
And poor Shining Armor gets ignored completely. Agreeing with disgunbegood and Rayberay; this story has BttF vibes. A big selling point will have to be "What makes the OC Love Interest different from the hundreds of other self-insert average joe-schmoe humans?" While I have no doubt in your ability to write that character, it does bring up the concern on how interesting that character will be. I've dug through plenty of HiE fics, so trying to explain Equestria to a non-native is gonna get boring. The whole 'warming up to the alien' is pretty overdone as well. I say go for it. If it flops, then we will point out what we thought was wrong with it. If it's good, we'll support it. As long as you're enjoying writing it, write it out.
2152131 There's also the inherent flaw of all self-inserts. Trying to pin yourself down and turn it into a character for a story is impossible. You either try to show yourself in the best of light (mary sue) or become a complete bastard.
And when I joined FimFiction I promised myself I would not write any porn. I've written porn for years for a few friends and I'm utterly sick of it. I'm not about baseless fap material.
2152407 Its more of an idea that I'm casting out into the fandom if anyone wants it. But yes, it's similar to BttF. The trick is whoever (or whatever) the protagonist is, he has knowledge of future events, and knows he would severely alter the future by erasing Shining armor and Twilight sparkle from existence. Like I said, Nothing Is Set in Stone did something similar but that was with Candace not meeting shining armor. This is potentially erasing the entire series from the timeline. It has a lot of obstacles that'd have to be over come, but a story is about the journey, not the destination.
2152003 Probably won't, don't worry.
2153120 Agreed, but in addition to the common tropes you mentioned, this is also like several 'what if the rainboom never happened' stories. Sure the protagonist has prior knowledge but that only goes so far. and yeah, explaining equestria to humans has lost its appeal, and I love stories of humans meeting settings of video games, cartoons, ect.
I think Lord Barleycorn's worked well because he's had to trick the information out of ponies and he's learned about it between chapters. But he's not in a part of equestria that's strictly regulated (the weather, the animals...).
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That and he's literaly a normal human being. No superpowers. No magic negtion/absorbtion. And not a teenager. *shudders* It's established what kind of character he wants to be, skipping the whole self-discovery bit in addition to the fish-out-of-water story that usually accompanies a human in Equestria. Nothing inherently wrong with above scenarios, just that it's probably been overdone.
Do it!
2153244 That's what I've wanted to see in other fan fictions. I don't want the hero inexplicably getting powers, I don't want them to be the chosen one, I don't want them somehow instantly 'getting' this new world or getting involved in a love triangle (or in some cases a love polygon). Naruto fiction being the worst at those last two.
A character doesn't need a fancy name, weird hair or eyes, or powers. Its something I became aware of as I poured over Fanfiction. net looking for the HiE equivalent stories of Zelda, SWAT katts, naruto, final fantasy, and Sonic. Very rarely did one meet my expectations, and even more rarely would one be seen to completion.
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Wouldn't know too much about other fanfics, but yeah, I've skipped way too many stories where the main character suddenly the chosen one, or some monstrosity arises that they only can handle, or some antagonist guns for them. Sometimes it's played off very well, like with the Well of Pirene and Misunderstandings, but other times it falls flat. like in The Piano Man.
2153724 I've read piano man. Yeah, it had some serious flaws, although I can see ponies not being the embodiments of sweetness and sunshine, to see Trixie acting that way is so far removed from her character that she might as well have been an OC. And then to blame it on a drug? please.
A Different Viewpoint of Equestria is hit and miss with me. I don't like the little-too-perfect human character, but I like seeing smaller details he brings up about equestria. and the near-trauma a pony would face of having her body changed into a human's. it's not 'oh neat I'm human,' its having nightmares and paranoia about losing who you are to a new form. that's something that's bugged me about ponification too.
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Ever heard of You Do (Not) Belong by 2dextreem? It's very well written Human->Pony in Equestria. Don't agree with some of the decisions by the author, but definitely something I liked reading to a degree. Tad slow for pacing as well. Personally I can't really think of too many normal human in Equestria stories. Closest aside from yours would be the main!TD-verse.