One of Those Days: Ask me Anything! · 11:27am Feb 15th, 2015
Good morning, all!
If you're reading this, you've either favourited "One of Those Days" and probably wish to yell at me for one reason or another; or you've decided to watch me without reading One of Those Days, which is pretty unlikely but hey, takes all kinds. Or you could just be randomly reading blogs from random accounts, in which case, hi! I have a story called One of Those Days! You should read it. It's about an amazingly awkward day that Twilight spends in an alternate universe full of stallions. Link's at the bottom.
So, as those of you who read the comments in fics (or, perhaps, the preceding paragraph) may know, I enjoy talking about things. At length. Rambling, even. I especially like talking about things that I have done, because I am an endless barrel of ego. Ego and rambling.
So with that in mind, if anyone would like to know anything about One of Those Days, the fic, the characters, or the setting - or anything else, because hey why not, I just established that I like talking about things! - here is the place to make that happen. Ask me questions, throw me hypotheticals, or just generally make a nuisance of yourself, and I'll respond appropriately!
But seriously, throughout the history of this fic I've had some amazing commenters who've both provided me with both incredible support and fascinating conversations and I have no interest in letting that die. Thank you all once again for putting up with my pathetic release schedule and inane rambling, and for making this a joy to both write and respond to all of you.
And with that, questions, please!
And to answer one likely question before it inevitably happens: Yes, I have a vague idea for a sequel. It won't be long, it probably won't even be as funny, but it will feature Solaris at the very least.
2798555 HYPE TRAIN IS NOW LEAVING
Also, should have put it as inb4 inevitable question
Also, it gonna be a one shot? Or multichapter.
I honestly thought that Twilight and Dusk would leave a letter for each other, discussing their respective days. What happened, who to give apologies to, that sort of thing. I wonder how they would respond to finding out that the only thing keeping their friends from trying to become something more is a gender-flipped chromosome.
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And on that note, I wonder if there are some of the Mane 6 who don't care if Twilight's a mare or a stallion, and this will just prove to be the inciting incident for them to begin pursuing their affections.
And I am looking forward to the sequel to this. Enjoyed the fic.
Do you have a list for every alternate name?
I wanna hear whatcha got for all the villains!
How did you get so good at writing? And how radically do your editors effect final products?
Does your boss know that spend your time in the office working on your pony fan-fic?
2798579 The original plan was for a little slice-of-lifey one-shot that was going to be just a cute moment between royals. Then I started having ideas. You know how it is. Now's it's multi-chapter. Hype traaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiin!
2798587 To be honest? This would be a really reasonable thing to have happened and the only reason it didn't was that Twilight just wanted to get it DONE and go home. And because it would have totally ruined the punchline.
Although I did consider having each of them just leave a letter reading "I am so, so sorry" to each other, and then getting confused - but that was more a suggestion to zakuiens for his version, where Dusk would have a lot more reason to be sorry regarding all the damn child support Twilight needs to pay.
Of course, then we could have a Red Dwarf moment and it turns out Twilight impregnated all the stallions too. Awkwarrrrrrd...
2799047 While I'm normally quite okay with the whole herds/high degree of homosexuality thing that goes on in fimfic, the mane six in this fic are all straight, basically because the joke wouldn't work otherwise. Although who can really tell with Pinkie? Like, seriously, Twi could wake up satisfied and sticky beside her and still kind of wonder whether this was actually something or just Pinkie being Pinkie...
2799307 I'm afraid not! I used the names from On a Cross and Arrow, which to the best of my knowledge was based in season ONE, so the majority of the villains and a lot of minor characters never happened. There were quite a few characters that I very specifically avoided having to name simply because I don't have a decent name handy (Cheerilee's counterpart, for one.)
However, if you browse the internet (or at least the R63 group here) you can probably find suggested names for just about every character with a bit of luck.
2799377 Oh you.
The answer to the writing one is going to be the one you hear just about every time - practice. I've been writing for nearly fifteen years now, on and off, whether it be actual fiction (the less said about my works of fifteen years ago the better), long and winding emails, school projects, or extensive chatroom RP. Find people who will constructively criticize you, join clubs, and definitely RP, either in real life or online.
My editors are lifesavers, because I frequently write stupid things that make perfect sense in my head and make no sense to anyone else. It's usually just typos, stupid errors, and turns of phrase. Sometimes it's just because I'm Australian and my methods of speaking come across in my writing; other times it's just because I've been writing for three hours and I'm already exhausted and just cannot comprehend that what I have written makes no grammatical sense whatsoever. Sometimes they'll give suggestions to make something better voiced by a character, or just sound better - and one of the things you have to remember is that they are suggestions, and you have every right to say no.
But if you're going to write, find someone to give it a look over before you post. No matter how good you think it is, there will be things you've missed, and I doubt I'd be as successful as I am without their help :)
Speaking of editors...
2799393 My boss resigned two weeks ago, so she doesn't really care. :P PONY PONY PONY PONY
Who's your favorite Rule 63 pony?
2799978 That's actually a really tough one! I'm always bad at picking favourites.
From my experience writing this... if I was to be picking the most interesting, my top pick would probably be Bubble Berry. If only because of the dichotomy involved - despite the pink-on-pink and the giggling, I really actually see him as being not actually feminine at all, which slightly breaks my brain but in the end is just Pinkie being Bubble or something.
Butterscotch and Elusive are always going to have very feminine traits, and AJ and Rainbow somewhat more masculine ones, but BB is just BB, and could basically spend his time bouncing back and forth between being so close to Pinkie Pie that you'd never notice the difference, then doing something that makes it ever so obvious that he's much larger and deeper and stallion-y.
It wasn't until I actually read bits of C&A after finishing BB's chapter that I realised that BB was originally written as being the slightest of the six, described as having a very filly-ish figure; but that's really not how I pictured him at all.
But in the end, I'm not a particular fan of any pony in particular, more of the fun of them getting put into situations and how they deal with them. How they deal with being transformed into/stranded amongst the opposite sex is more interesting than just who they are as ponies, because when push comes to shove, the ones in this fic are essentially just the mare versions with an XY/XX switch, so there's no real difference between picking one of them or picking a favourite pony normally.
Of course, now I'm imagining what would happen to each of the others if THEY had been the ones to be stranded in the other 'verse rather than Twilight...
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It's interesting to see how others think of them genderbent. Berry and Applejack are on the dot generally, but the way I would portray Elusive and Butterscotch is very different. Thanks for such a detailed answer!
If Twilight wound up in the other world by accident how did she know how to get there the second time on command?
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The nature of her connection with Magic basically means that once she's cast the spell once, even accidentally, she can reverse engineer it, and once she's done that it's in her repertoire. It took her time to figure it out - hence why she didn't just cast it straightaway and miss all the fun - but only a few hours.
The Magic is a pretty benevolent force, as Celestia explains near the start, and the nature of the world means it's not likely to have permanent negative effects.
(Or alternatively, because it's narratively convenient ;))