Romance Fic Ideas: Exes and Crushes. · 3:20am Jul 21st, 2015
So, in honor of the shipping and romance writing panel at BronyCon (Saturday at 5:30pm... the same time as the EqD panel. I think the EqD folks planned that so they have to deal with fewer shippers. 
) I'm going to try to get some blogs out, especially about shipping. After that I hope to return to my Monday blog posting about various writing and pony related things.
In this case, this blog kind of goes hand in had with one I did a while ago: The One Pony She Would Talk To... in that they both toss out some ideas for fics that are relatively uncommon compared to "Pony A is afraid to ask out Pony B." They're primarily for writers, to give them new directions to consider, or to give non-shipping writers a possible spark to write a ship fic.
One of the things that I find interesting about shipping fics is the way that most stories seem to take place in a vacuum where neither pony in the relationship has ever dated or considered dating any other character, or even had a crush, and if they have this has zero effect on their current love affair.
I’ll start out by saying that this isn’t totally off base; there are different arguments to be made for any of the mane six being romantically innocent. And not every relationship situation will reflect back on romantic history, and I have known couples where one or both of them were so insecure that they didn’t like the other even commenting that a celebrity was attractive.
On the other hand, most adults have exes, or ex-crushes, even if just from their teenage years. And most adults have celebrity or fictional or historical crushes while being in committed relationships. There are a lot of conflicts and relationship building moments that can come from these things, and they’re pretty under explored in ship fics.
For anything involving Rarity or Applejack especially, since they’ve lived in Ponyville their whole lives, they probably have some kind of romantic history in Ponyville. There’s probably some mare or stallion right in town that they used to date, or had a crush on in school. They might be embarrassed about this or still have fond feelings for them; the ex might hate them or still want another shot. Even if both parties are totally over it, if AJ or Rarity is dating a pony who’s insecure they might see problems where there aren’t any.
For the rest of the mane six, it could seem like an even bigger deal because exes or ex-crushes would be visiting and a romantic partner (or potential romantic partner) would have no clue of how their history played out.
When it comes to current crushes in an ongoing relationship, characters can have all sorts of interesting reactions to finding out their partner’s crush; jealousy, of course, but also amusement at their partners weird choice, confusion about what they find attractive about their crush, inadequacy if that crush seems far superior to them, they might even share the crush.
And all of that is just directly. Indirectly, well, who they’ve been with before, how that relationship worked out, or who they imagined themselves being with will all affect future relationships, especially right at the beginning. Overcompensating for previous mistakes, being worried when they see behaviors that caused the end of previous relationships, being confused when a new partner does something differently then they were use to or thought their crush would do, or even just comparing their new squeeze to their ex or crush (favorably or unfavorably.) They could have oneitis, and have a hard time even getting into a new relationship with someone who's obviously crazy about them.
I tend to focus on the mane six, but this is equally true of any ship. What’s more, the nature of the mane six in Ponyville could blur some interesting lines. Cup Cake probably wouldn’t think twice if Carrot thought Sapphire Shores or Princess Luna was attractive, but what about Rarity or Twilight? Is it still a celebrity crush if the celebrity in question lives next door?
I find these to be interesting parts of a romance. A lot of shippers shy away from them, seeming to feel that any hint of romance outside of their OTP is an opening for dissent. Other shippers seem uncomfortable with the concept that sometimes unhappy or unfulfilled relationships exist (which often leads to unrealistic poly relationships in fics, or pairing every character who might ever express an interest in romance.) Maybe it’s just because of my life experiences, but I think that’s kind of silly. Most couples you meet who are madly in love with each other had previous experiences that led them to that. And most of them are secure enough to allow each other to acknowledge that other people are attractive. There’s nothing unromantic about acknowledging and using a common aspect of relationships for your story, especially in a genre where novel ideas are are sometimes hard to come by.
Since this is a Monday blog post, which I hope to do on more Mondays now that Trixie has a bedtime, here's a thank you to my recent Patreon subscribers: bats, nemopemba, diremane, First_Down, sopchoppy, Bradel, stormgnome, jlm123hi, Ultiville, Singularity Dream, JetstreamGW, Lambent Dream, horizon, Sharp Spark, Applejinx, and Mermerus. Seriously, you guys, I don't know what I'd do without you, and I owe you all anything I have to offer. Never be shy to hit me up for something.
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Actually, I'm with you on that one, though I hadn't thought of using the "ex lives right next door" bit. I considered giving Twilight an old crush back in Canterlot, but ended up scrapping the idea simply because it would've bogged down the story with an unnecessary side angle that would've taken away from the overall plot.
However, I could see AJ or Rarity having a couple exes or the like in Ponyville. Dash too, if you take her as the type to have a little fling here and there in a flight of passion or something. Depends how you characterize her in that regard.
Sweet. Steal all of the EqD panel attendees!
This is very true, and carries lovely story potential. It's a shame most stories never take the time to factor in things like celebrity crushes or old exes.
Well, we all know everyone is contractually required to tease Twilight about having a crush on Celestia, whether or not that is true.
And whenever Spike ends up with anyone, when they find out about his crush on Rarity as a kid, hoo boy.
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Personally, I think her crush on Starswirl is probably deeper and more likely to have resulted in embarrassing historical fiction.
I hate that. There's a lot of potential to be had with exes, but people want their waifus to be so pure they've never even seen a penis.
Granted, since I have my waifu lesbian like 24/7, I should really change the above to vagina.
But I agree, if you're wanting a more realistic romance, and you consider the ponies to be late teens, early twenties, with maybe a few exceptions that would probably seem abnormal to others, they're going to have things BW (before waifu age)
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To be fair, these days, 70% of high school students were virgins circa 2010, and the number had been climbing rapidly (+14% since 2000, and another +8% since... some time before that) so it is probably even more common now.
I suspect added to that is the general innocence of the characters and the show, as well as their generally fairly juvenile behavior and view of such things and the lack of any serious romantic relationships from any of the characters on the show, it isn't actually all that strange.
EDIT: Plus a lot of the writers/audience probably being virgins themselves.
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Clearly she took Celestia's remark about him being "a bit old for her" the wrong way and went for the totally younger thousand plus year old alicorn instead :V
Next she'll have a crush on Luna - she's younger than Celestia, much closer to Twilight's age!
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To be equally fair, access to pornography has been getting more common and varied over that same time period in the real world.
3256484 I want to read the story about Twilight coming to terms with learning what Starswirl was really like based on her experiences in the Reflections Arc of the comics. What is she to do with the fact that her great idol, Starswirl, was more like Pinkie Pie than anypony else?
While I think it's ok to indulge the fantasy that the first love is the only love, it's really a bad idea for an author to make that such a closed system that it's growing anaerobic bacteria. One of Twilight's major flaws (and its NC-17 love baby, Fifty Shades) is that it hits this button way too hard. Not only has the heroine never dated anyone else, she's never flirted with or had a crush on anyone else, or even held anyone else's hand. In the case of the male half of the pair, not only has he never been in love with anyone else before, he considers all other women basically to be trash. This isn't plausible, and it isn't attractive. For heaven's sake, even in Jane Austen novels, there are characters who have their hearts broken or unfulfilled crushes, and who get over them and fall in love with someone new! And if there truly is nopony else and never could be and everything is inevitable, why am I still reading this?
Rarity very likely has some exes, although she seems to have celebrity crushes. It's possible that nopony in Ponyville has been classy enough for her--yet. As for Applejack, I could see her having had a relationship or two and simply never mentioning it because they parted as friends and it's not a big deal. Or maybe the reverse--she's a slow boiler who takes a long time to trust again.
As for threatening OTPs--I think authors should trust themselves and their readers a little bit more. Leave some airspace for the readers. Heck, indulge yourself with imagining other relationship outcomes. I have a lot of fun with this, and I think it helps, too.
Is there a mature fanfic panel this year?
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She would, inevitably, progressed to crushing on Cadencey, but Shining Armor (in true military fashion) outflanked and stole the march on her.
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No, I believe that experiment was considered a non-success.
3256585 Huh. Any word why?
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Well, BronyCon was never nuts about the idea to begin with, the fact that the discussion had to stay PG-13 kind of hampered things some, and a lot of people felt it was kind of awkward anyway.
This is my understanding, at least. Applejinx might have a better picture of exactly what the thoughts were.
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I was there on safari. Everything was basically alluded to in super-vague non-direct terms and long story short, its biggest sin was being unbearably boring. Like, regardless of if you were pro-mature or just there to, well, safari - it was...painfully dull.
3256499 Hm. You know, I never thought about that, and I've written two M6xOC shipfics. (Make that two shipfics that have 'a' M6 character shipped with an OC, you dirty minded people you) Both of my stories were fairly blatant about the romantic histories of the subjects, with Twilight having been traumatized by the advantage-seekers, Pinkie driving away anypony before they could get to know her, Green Grass having been unable to actually connect emotionally to anypony in college and preferring his own company, and the changeling Pops having been fully familiar with the mechanics of a romantic relationship without ever having been *inside* said relationship, and finding out the view is entirely different (and pink).
Yea instinct!
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I have not read those comics, but if you read Hard Reset, by Eakin and more specifically its sequel, A Stitch in Time you might be satisfied. It's a great series regardless.
3256514 Er, wanna cite a source for those numbers, my man? Otherwise, it kinda looks like you pulled those stats out of your hat. No offense, but it's a little pet peeve of mine; stupid research papers.
Are you trying to say omniship is immature is that what you're saying bookplayer
(;D)
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There are multiple sets of numbers. Unfortunately, not all the numbers are measuring the same thing, and some of them are vague about what they are measuring, though all seem to suggest an overall decline:
1992: 46% virgins vs 54% not virgins among high school students, but whether that is all years or just seniors is unclear
2002: 54% virgins vs 46% not virgins among high school students, but whether that is all years or just seniors is unclear
Also 2002: 45.6% of unmarried teenagers had sex by age 19 according to the CDC
2009: Probably not a representative population but 72% of people who went to Harvard arrived virgins (and 27% graduated from Harvard in 2013 as virgins, or at least fessed up to doing so).
2010: According to a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, 69.7 percent of boys and 68.4 percent of girls ages 16-17 have never had intercourse. Among 14-15-year-olds, the percentage is even higher -- 90.1 percent for boys and 87.6 percent for girls.
2011: 42.5% of unmarried teenagers had sex by age 19 according to the CDC
Unfortunately, I can't find recent numbers WRT: how many people get married in teenaged years, and the numbers I've seen aren't terribly close nor recent (6.5% for whites and 13% for hispanics in 1998 according to the NYT amongst 19 year olds, 4.5% in 2000 supposedly according to the US census but it was a dead link) but it appears to be a small minority in any case, and people have been waiting increasingly longer on average to get married so I suspect the rate is even lower now.
3257266 ah, interesting. Thank you
That's why it helps not to have any OTP's! I have an OFP instead--One False Pairing. The wrongest ship ever. I'm looking at you, Dislestia heathen! Sinners!
Anyway, I really found this interesting; I've never thought of exploring any of that. But it's great territory, ripe for good stories. And like you said, very true to life, which, really, is where you need to do your observing first if you wish to understand relationships. I read your personal story blog about a month or two ago, and it struck me. It was fascinating, because my parents never separated, yet they've often fought such a struggle to keep together, and much bitterness exists. But I see their perseverance as a virtue; yet you've had much the opposite experience, where your parents did not "fight" to keep together, but are without bitterness now, and you see their choice as a virtue. It was very thought provoking.
In the end, it is from those closest to me that I learn the most about the pulling and yearning and kissing and snapping people do as they tumble together through the grass and dirt of their relationships.
This also reminds me of an old Home Improvement episode, where Tim Allen's wife becomes smitten with another man who later kisses her. The episode dealt with it in a surprisingly mature fashion, and in the end both Tim and his wife come to accept that, yeah, she likes the guy, but still chooses Tim over him, because she loves him.
3256584 Well, he does have a well-developed flank...