A Dustbin of Thoughts

Made myself a pony me with GeneralZoi's pony creator.

Man, I really need to get a haircut. His cutie mark is a text cursor, because I guess I'm a programmer and also a writer. It fits, kind of.

I was thinking of making the three main characters in Long Distance as well, and using the results as illustrations. In fact, I actually did that once upon a time, long before the story ever saw the light of day, but I was offline at the time and managed to lose the ponycodes. So maybe I'll try again, eventually. But I'm not sure - I've seen a few too many pony creator ponies used in images around this site, and they're beginning to disgust me just a little bit. PROTIP, guys: at least center your ponies and include an actual background, geez.

So anyway, here's something I've been wanting to expound upon for a little while.

Equestria as a setting

So I've started writing fanfiction, as of very recently. It's been an interesting experience, even though the fanfiction I'm writing is pretty damn close to original fiction, by merit of being an Elsewhere fic (warning: TVTropes link; abandon all hope ye who enter here) about ponies who aren't the mane six having their own adventures far away from canon (for the most part, at least). So then the question is: why am writing this story as pony fanfic, if I'm not even really using the (amazing) characters?

It all comes down to the setting. Equestria's actually a really awesome place, and it's surprisingly similar to the odd settings I've invented for some of my (most unreleased and not so great) original fiction. The thing I like most about Equestria is how it seamlessly blends the contemporary with the fantastic.

I hate swords and sorcery. Cannot stand the setting at all. I hate elves, I hate swords of truth, I hate dwarves, I hate kings and knights and castles and wizards. Give me a setting where I can shoot a gun and be a bad enough dude to save the president over one where I have to drink ale at the tavern and cast magic missile. Even so, I recognize the important benefit the swords and sorcery setting brings to stories: the element of lawlessness and the spirit of adventure.

In a swords and sorcery setting, when you leave the aforementioned tavern's warm glow, you're on your own against nature - and here, nature includes big scary monsters and demons and bandits and all kinds of exciting and dangerous stuff. In a modern setting, you can leave your mega vorpal sword of mass pwnage at home so long as you bring enough money for the toll roads. Awesome technology brings with it civilization, and that comes with rules and regulations, so unless you're in too wide an area to worry about the fuzz (like space) or everything's been destroyed (like in a post-apocalyptic setting), classic adventure is hard to come by.

So I've always tried to figure ways of including modern, or at least semi-modern technologies and sensibilities to settings where there's also high adventure to be had. I've had troubles with doing that and making it believable, so I can really appreciate how My Little Pony has done it really well.

Ancient Goddess-Princesses. DJ-PON3. Hydras and manticores. The fashion industry. Ancient magical weapons (Elements of Harmony). School plays about dancing food. And then they threw in that crazy wild west Apploosa episode (say what you will about Over A Barrel's plot, but you've gotta give the creators credit for going to all that effort making all those unique, stylistically different from the norm backgrounds for use in one episode only). Somehow, it all works.

In Equestria, you can go from discussing haute couture in a stylish boutique to fighting a manticore in the course of a day (ten seconds flat even). And that's why I love it as a setting.

LONG DISTANCE

The next chapter is going to be the Ponyville chapter, so we're finally going to see some non-Alicorn canon characters. I don't promise to include the entire mane cast just for the sake of it, though. Only ponies who have a reason to be in the story are going to be in the story; I don't do pandery fanservice. Anyway, I do hope I can do justice to the canon characters that stumble their way across our intrepid trio.

Here's a sneak peak!
"""

White Noise, Sibwashie and Sky Wave had ambled into Ponyville as the sun was setting over the mountains behind the Everfree Forest the day before. They’d walked there directly from Hoofington, something that had taken them the entire day, with very few breaks along the way. Needless to say, White Noise was dead on his hooves and desperately needed to lie down.

“What a nice little town this is,” Sky Wave said. “The buildings are so colourful and cottagey. It’s such a shame that it’s right on the edge of that creepy forest.”

The travellers were still a fair distance away from the centre of town when they came across the first ponies they would see in Ponyville.

“Oh, look at that,” Sky Wave whispered to her companions, pointing at the two ponies. “Some hard-working folk still working in their garden at this hour – I wonder what they’re plant- oh my!”

“No Ditzy,” came an exasperated voice from the first pony, an orange mare. “You can’t grow carrots faster by burying food with their seeds. Seeds cannot eat.”
"""

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee background ponies. And yes, I'm going with Ditzy Doo. Hooves is a boring last name.

-Ezn