What's in the box?! · 5:31pm Jun 4th, 2014
Oh, nothing special really, just 10k words of my horse porn. Or, it was, anyway -- I know it's in fashion to screenshot these things, but a) I'm lazy when it comes to trends like that, and b) it would be a pretty sad life to make up stuff like that, so.
While I was writing stories for the Writer's Training Grounds, I was anxiously awaiting the prompt that would let me just let loose with some unashamedly fluffy shippy fluff, because for all the introspective navel-gazing and world-building I often end up writing, scenarios that involve ponies being adorable by cuddling (or wanting to cuddle) is where it's at. Not, I don't know, the standard template for shipping stories that spans many, many, many different fandoms of character A suddenly thinking character B is kinda cute (and maybe, at the same time, character B is having similar thoughts about character A), there's varying lengths of sexual tension and awkward situations, and then they kiss at the end -- I'm more interested in the little do-nothing moments that don't propel the plot along but give depth and texture to the relationship. There's a problem with really liking the do-nothing moments, though, and that is because of their very nature: they do nothing. They're just... cute fluff. I wrote two (very) short stories built around such moments (one's about Applejack walking home with a tipsy Fluttershy, the other's about a furious Bon Bon and a mellow Lyra), and they're both literally just long enough to meet the minimum wordcount for Fimfic. I grew another story out of wanting to write something where Twilight and Dash hang out in the library (#savetree, never forget), and it has the whole ghost story/mystery aspect that comes with it, but point zero was them talking about comics where the underlying subtext is they like each other and d'aww. So, in order to write lots of these cute little moments, I need to either a) divorce them completely from anything else and just let them stand on their own, which isn't very good, because as much as I like those two very short stories I know they're the literary equivalent of cotton candy, or b) have a whole other story to put them into, which is, like, effort, and stuff.
Or so I thought. We'll get back to this thread, but there's a separate thing I need a paragraph to set up.
Also some time during the WTG I started thinking about three-way relationships for some reason; there might have been a couple of AppleJackLight stories that featured for some contest or something? That was probably it. Anyway, the ones I looked at were neat, but... I dunno, there was a little too much justifying the polyamory for me, like from a real-world perspective. Which is great, and all, that you believe that, and more power to anyone who thinks that's the way to go, but with something that's so emotionally volatile I feel like I'd want to read about it through slightly less rosy glasses; see the bad parts as well as the good, that sort of thing. So I started thinking about slightly less rosy scenarios to put three of our favourite pony characters in -- nothing super-serious and dramatic or anything, but just something a step below "and then the three of them realised they were best OT3 and were totes in love forever", and I got stuck circling around the idea of the couple that brings in the third member for a one-night thing. There's a lot of interesting material there; you get an interesting dynamic to play with when you have an isosceles triangle instead of an equilateral one, all sorts of ideas to play with that you don't get in the "and then the three of them etc." scenario, and I wanted to write about it a little. But it would be a challenge, because the nature of the story demanded I write something I was very unskilled in: clop.
And here's where those two separate threads combine. I found something that, in a way, is wonderfully freeing. That thing that you need to form the framework to put all the little cute moments in? That can be sex. Not just the act itself but all the build-up and scene-setting and maneuvering your characters to the point they're going to jump each other, that can be your structure and it is so easy to insert little couple-y moments because (presumably) your characters are romantically inclined towards each other. You don't need a plot, you don't need a deeper commentary on anything, it can be a whole 10,000 words of cute interactions that just snowball out from one small premise. I've got literally no idea if When the Levee Breaks is any good at being sexy other than if people tell me it is -- seriously, if you ever needed to take the wind out of the sails of some fantasy for some reason, all you need to do is write it down and then edit it -- but all the cute parts, those are super-adorable even after reading them over a few dozen times looking for typos.
And that kinda makes me want to do it again.
Yes you should write more long-form super cute porn how is this even a question.
Doubly so if it's Sparity in any way.
I like cute fluff.
If you want someone to look over your final drafts and whatnot for typos, I can do that. I'm afraid that's as far as my expertise goes in terms of editing, though.
Well, let's see - Sexy, cute, amazing horse porn? Pls continue. I enjoyed reading it a lot. Like, damn. The sex was well-written, and the interactions between the three of them felt incredibly realistic, nuanced, and really carried the story along at quite a clip. The section that really stood out to me was Rarity's realization that she'd be down for experimenting with AJ and Dash - I haven't read a passage that handles that kind of material quite so deftly in a long, long time.
And coincidentally, have you ever read Home is Where the Hearts Are By VioletCLM? It's a much more down-to-earth view of polyamory than anything submitted to the AppleDashLight competition. The big reason for that was that the ADL contest rules meant the story had to end in a happy, equilateral triangle relationship.
Congrats on the feature and all, regardless of how short-lived it was.
I adore this blog post and the sentiments behind and you should absolutely write more wonderful fluffy shipping. That said, there's a minor (central (implicit)) point that I'm not sure I precisely agree with. You mention that, like, a couple of your works are 'literary cotton candy', and then later imply that writing about sex fixed that? I long ago came to the conclusion that Sex is a valid substitute for Conflict in storytelling, so that's fair on one front – if you were just lamenting the lack of anything to cohere a jumble of exchanges and character interaction around, and keep it flowing on for a full... experience(?), then yeah, I can get behind that? But I don't think it particularly averts the entire thing not being cotton candy. It's just longer. Ultimately, I'm still just going to be watching cute ponies be cute at/with/because of each other. ('Cute' is an oversimplication, decidedly non-cute, but sympathetic behavior is also acceptable, among other things, but I think you get my point.)
That's not a bad thing, though. I like that. It makes me happy. I want there to be more of that in the world. And, well, however you want to go about making it, I'll be there to read it.
2175749
Oh man, yes, seconding Home is Where the Hearts Are. (In large part to lead into Spatterdashery, which is possibly my favorite thing.) Everything by V-Climb is great, really.
You need to learn about the Interrobang:
¿Is not that better?
2174689
Sparity's not my drug of choice, but we'll see. I have some half-formed ideas. Y'know, like all writers.
2175555
I will keep this in mind. Damn things are like weeds; just when you think you pulled up the last one... I had someone very nice pre-read the story and a couple of people in the comments caught a couple more and I still managed to find one that escaped. It's an unwinnable war, I swear.
2175749
That would explain something about those ADL stories. I'll be sure to check that out, 'cause, like I said, it sounds fun.
2175833
Perhaps a better food to compare more long-form fluff to would be cheesecake; it still ain't good for you, but it's not completely made of air and doesn't leave you needing something more at the end.
Now I'm hungry.
2175846
Many character sets don't have the interrobang, weird little-known piece of punctuation that it is. "?!" is a valid substitute for the people who can't see it normally, which is most of us.
2176997
A+, flawless rebuttal
2176997 Yeah... Originally I planned on entering the ADL contest, but then I learned that I wouldn't be 'allowed' to write the dynamic between them that I was interested in/ that seemed most realistic to me, so I devoted my time and resources to other things.
I'd be glad if you did: Levee was a very solid story across the board, from the smut to the cutes (and back, and forth), so more in that vein would be great.