Everything You Doo, Daughters · 4:19pm Jan 9th, 2015
This is not my story. It is Ponky's story.
Don't believe me?
Exactly how do you get a fanfic idea manifested from across the Atlantic Ocean and while doing the Jesus triathlon? Why, send a dozen pages of detailed handwritten notes to your lemur friend in Florida, that's how.
I believe it was in an early 2013 snail mail where Ky humbly asked me if I would be crazy enough to try taking on his Sisters Doo side-fic idea and write it right before his return in 2015. Needless to say, I was honored, and being the egotistical bastard that I am I felt it'd be a smexy challenge to attempt drafting poniwords in his Ponk!verse. Whelp, everypony's favorite Donny Osmond sent me the legit notes/outline for the appropriately titled Daughter Doo: Honorary Cutie Mark Crusader back in early 2014. So, why, you ask, have I waited until just now to start producing said shiet?
I suppose part of it is laziness. An even larger part of it is the undeniable fear that I simply don't have what it takes to produce something worthy of Ponky's vision and style. And now that I've written about five chapters of the fic ... ... ... I can see that my fears were kinda sorta correct.
This has been anything but an easy task. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm super jazzed about it, and I'm honored to have my hands on the steering wheel to this narrative, but my attempting to write a Ponky story is sort of like the thematic opposite of the movie A.I. I mean... imagine if Steven Spielberg had died from a landshark and it was up to a living and wide-eyed Stanley Kubrick to finish the man's lifelong cinematic ambition. If I didn't keep my kaizo ego in check, I'd suddenly be introducing Appledash and pile drivers and exploding princess space catapults to the Daring Do/Ditzy Doo soap opera, rather than taking my time to write a felicitous character-driven story that's ripe with mirth and adoracute.
I can't say that I haven't been dedicated. Step one was printing out a hard copy of the entire dayum Sisters Doo and taking copious amounts of notes:
Step two consisted of long afternoons of walking around local parks, cramming bubbly!happy brony music into my ears, and trying to get in the mindset of personifying four elementary school fillies on an impossible mission to save a pair of cartoon infants and earn their pastel butt tattoos.
Step three, around early December, I finally sat my hairy lemur-tail down and began plonking away at the keyboard. In swift order, I produced two chapters, and I thought I was going somewhere. Little did I know that there was going to be a Step Four. Why? Because for the first time since Background Pony in 2012, I decided to seriously utilize the gracious help of editors in order to make this story come out right. And who were up for such a masochistic task? Why, two of my best friends in the history of the digiverse: Pilate and Propmaster. Here we have two highly-intelligent, highly-friendly, highly-thoughtful creatures of class and culture. Their knowledge of literature and poniwords knows no bounds. They both sat down, took a long look at my first drafts, and very gently yodeled to me: "You're Doing It Wrong."
Alas, for the first time in veritable years, this oneshot-addicted lemur found himself having to bite the bullet and actually rewrite things. In all seriousness, though, the very first drafts of these Dinky Doo chapters were atrocious. I'm talking complete lack of personality and motivation and drive to each of the pre-pony-pubescent characters. Imagine if Die Hard was shot through pantyhose and starred diabetic ostriches in drag. That's the degree of two-dimensional abominable putrid feces that I'm talking about here. I cannot stress how much I owe these two seraphim saviors of the written word for keeping this story from utterly tanking and becoming something terrible for the Ponk to sad!face at upon his return.
Picture this, but bonier... and with Rod Stewart hair
So, I rewrote the first few chapters... and then I rewrote them again... and then I edited them yet again. I've encountered several pot holes along this journey, but the bumpiest truth of all is that--all things considered--I really should have started work on this ages ago. I mean, it's not like I was busy being the best man as my IRL friend's wedding or dealing with insane holiday retail or writing two chapters of two completely different (and shitty) fanfics every day or... er... hmm.
But still! It's no excuse, and the worst part of all is that I'm no longer capable of keeping the promise that I made ages ago to Ponky: that this story would somehow be finished completely before his return. On top of that, he requested that the story not exceed the word length of Through the Looking-glass and What Pinkie Found There, which--for marsupials too lazy to click my quasi-cryptic hyperlinks--is a paltry 30k words. And, at the current forecast, I see The Daughter Doo easily being 130k, minimal.
Whoops.
However, all is not lost. I've e-mailed and snail-mailed Ponky quite religiously, outlining my personal plans for where this side-story should go and why I feel like it's gotta be the length I've attributed to it. And unless I've stopped being a fervent reader of the English language, his responses have indicated that he's not only fine with what I'm executing, he's indescribably hyped, and he's given me the green light in just about anything. Which, y'know, is a pretty smexy thing, because there are some huge friggin' Godzillian plot holes in the overall narrative of The Sisters Doo, all of which makes this much-needed-to-be-told tale of Dinky and the CMC rather troublesome to convey succinctly. But, I like to think that I've come up with a fairly decent plan. I have faith in myself because, evidently, Ky does too, and that's certainly enough to make the periwinkle world go round.
Unless you're this fish person; then you just melt into melancholic sea foam and get translated into a feminist's nightmare by the year 1989
And, alas, here we are. 2015, the Year of Ponky, as a certain stormtrooper would say, and what better way to kick it off than with a side story meant to complement his magnum opus? Although I won't be able to get the whole dayum thing finished by January's end/February's beginning (writing a draft and then communing with the editors typically occupies a week's length of time, so expect 7 - 10 day updates akin to Background Pony), I'm confident that this will at least marginally hype things up for Ponky's inevitable return, even if it means that he'll be among the Marsupial alumni (and hopefully, Wonderfolk) who will be reading it. So long as he's on board, then I suspect I'm doing something right.
Now, understand, I know full well that I am not Ponky. I cannot accurately emulate his style. I've tried, and the first few drafts nearly imploded on themselves. At best, I can tackle the themes that he wants me to and make manifest the plot that he originally dreamt of in the first place. But a purveyor of music in the written form, I am not. I simply lack the innate whimsy and joy that he channels into his words. I'm motherfucking SS&E, for crying out loud. I can't describe a pickle jar being opened without meandering into a poetic diatribe on the wars cockroaches fought over the pantry drawer where the can opener is located (complete with excessive amounts of onomatopoeia, Appledash, and the word "smirk" used 5x a page).
Still, I smirk at theal;kdfjakldfjalfGODDAMMIT--I relish the chance I have here to do something which I've never tackled before: a complete adaptation of another fanficcer's epic, long-form idea. It's just been... y'know... skirtified in a lot of places. But don't worry. I've got Pilate and Props keeping me in check, and together we will surely accomplish Ponky's dream, thereby achieving the Trinity of the letter "P." F'naaa. Almost makes me wish my user name also began with the letter "P" ... ... ... ... "Princess Skirts?
Ew... fuck that
As of right now, three complete chapters are fully drafted, edited, and ready for upload. Within a week, I suspect two more will join that list. Then I've got a sixth chapter to re-work into something that fits the current narrative. From then on, it will be much like Background Pony back in the day, with maybe one update every week or every two weeks. Who knows? We'll see how it goes. If nothing else, it should give 1.5k people (the approximate amount of subscribers I've gained since Ponky left) the time to go and read The Sisters Doo and maybe even Through the Looking-glass, since this is relative to both fics.
But, keep in mind, despite whatever ego I may or may not have attached to this project... this is not my story. Even in my head, I don't feel as though it's mine. I'm certainly writing it and executing it into being, but that doesn't make the fic belong to me any more than the water droplets and carbon dioxide I just so happen to breathe out every five seconds. What Ponky has given me is a gift, something he could very easily have done on his own upon returning from Spaghettiville. But, instead, he shoveled it my way, enthused to see what I can make of it. It's my hope that I can make it a gift back to him, and to y'all... as thanks for remaining "y'all" for so long.
In so many ways, I feel as though this is the year when really... really good stuff gets written. Whether it's by my tentacles or Ponky's or somelemur else's, that remains to be seen. But I like to think that this is a smexy way to start.
So let's do this again, shall we?
No, that's not how you unsubscribe, but it's a cute attempt, anyway
-SS&E
Dawww! Let the diabetes inducing cuteness comense!
A Skirts-Ponk teamup writing best filly in a universe where her mother is competent. I could not be more on board if I were the ship itself.
Should we read the other two stories first?
I'm reading this story so hard later.
How many skipped this post past the first few paragraphs? I don't mean offense but I think we received your point about Ponky.
I will read his stories. Good job.
This is a good sign. This is a REALLY GOOD SIGN. Not that the oneshots aren't entertaining or anything, but the heavily edited long-form stories were the ones I fell in love with.
Oh yeah, and it's a sidestory to The Sisters Doo. Consider me VERY excited.
We shall see where you (both, or rather the four of you
) will take us. 
"Ew... fuck that"Drop the "Ew..." part, and...
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
I WAS RIGHT
And now I can't stop smiling. Gosh darnnit Skirts I'm in the middle of school and can't stop grinning!
*deep breath*
Let's do this
and there had better be seaponies
2711353 Indubitably. The first chapter starts out (after a short prologue) right in the thick of a Sisters Doo plotline. At the very least, you'll want to read The Sisters Doo to understand this fic, and Through the Looking Glass to understand that fic, and the later chapters of this one I'm sure.
Very insightful behind-the-scenes stuff. The thought of me trying to emulate my own bestie's authorial style is... terrifying? Daunting. Not my wheelhouse. So the bits of note-taking and mindframe-setting are quite interesting to behold.
Regardless, having not read the fic yet (lousy employment), good on you for doing this. I can say with certainty that he'll be happy with the result, because it's yours. You did it together.
Well, uh... that's a bit of an overshot, there. Dayng.
Skirts, go listen to this. Someone mentioned Brandon Sanderson. This is him and some other awesome authors talking about how to write in other people's universes. i think you'll find it helpful.
Probably not a possibility, but I wish you both could come to Everfree this year. It'd be amazing for you guys to be on a panel together. :P But maybe the conference hall would implode.
So much love for you, Ponks, and this entire silly fandom. On behalf of everylemur here, take this. It used to be mine.
2711517
Welp, it's gonna be a good while before I can get to this, then.
Shame on me for not having read these beforehand?
Not even Jesus can stop good writers from writing.
... Damn. His handwriting is neater than mine. Again. Why is mine so ridiculously messy? Why?!
This is one of the most interesting things I've read in quite a while.
2711390 You make good points, but every time you wrote "Plonky" instead of "Ponky" I started laughing a bit.
tl;dr
2712410
Glad you took the time to write this comment.
Well, huh. I was vainly hoping that the Big Event wouldn't be in continuity with Sisters Doo because I've got all this other stuff to catch up on reading, but collabs are great and sidestories are great and Dinky is great, so at least I have something to look forward to! Eventually.
Dude, the top picture redirects you to the fic when you click to show it. Might want to fix that.
So, a side-story for "The Sisters Doo" it is. Well, wasn't so hard anymore after the last hint, I guess.
Too bad that I still won't be able to read "The Sisters Doo" anytime soon in order to begin with that one.
I just catched up on a lot of fics and there's already one I want to read until the current chapter after it got a feature on EQD and I want to start with "Fallout: Equestria" too and get it done before Season 5 arrives, as well as reading some other (older) jewels this fandom has produced.
I really don't know if I can make that.
Brony fandom, sometimes I think you write too much!*
*This is actually just a joke, continue to write as much as you do!
HAHA! I read these stories!
Seriously, though, this is pretty neat. I remember being slightly disappointed when Ponky omitted the story of the CMC from his work, and looking forward to the promise that it would be written in the future. Now, it's here, and it's shaping up to be a full-length novel as well.
I'm excited, and I wish you the best of luck.
I'll be sure to spread the news to my brother, who first recommended this fic to me, as well.
Hrrrrmmmm.
I'll admit, I've only read a few of your stories, but the appearance of this story on the Feature Box a while back caught my eye. Mostly because of the apparent impossibility of there being an actual official thing associated with the original story in question.
Having read this blog, I now have determined two things.
1) This is really awesome of you to do.
2) I probably should read more of your stories, because if I'm remembering right they reek of the madcap insanity I prefer in my own, though admittedly far more developed.
Would that I could pick your brain about the art of horse words. I have a feeling that conversation would be highly entertaining.
I wonder what Ponky will think when he sees how the fandom's evolved.