Next Up · 6:57pm Apr 7th, 2016
Everybody, listen up! I need a show of hands and hooves and other appendages of your choice. The Magic World will be done in a couple of chapters. Life Ever After will be... well, I'll be wrapping it up in one mega-chapter. Next, I'm giving you, my dear readers, a choice.
There are three stories, all with several chapters written to them, that I'd be willing to post. But I want to do them one at a time, so please, give me some input here:
Xenophilia: Verne Plus - A take on the Xenophilia universe through a female perspective. Verne is going to be pulled, kicking and screaming, into a more full life among the Equestrians. Long, saucy, and full of win.
Scattered - Twilight doesn't know how it happened -the memories simply don't exist- but she has woken in a different Equestria, one where her friends don't exist. But a last-ditch effort from Discord has given her the means to find them, wherever they are. She's racing to gather her friends from strange, far-flung worlds in time to face Nightmare Moon. But if her friends were born again in these other worlds, would they even remember the old one where they were all together? Massive freaking crossover.
Sword Craft Online - Five thousand players are trapped in a game with five thousand artificial intelligences, and neither side can agree which is, in fact, the real one. Sweetie Belle, going by 'Aria' in-game, meets a human player named Tesla. Both are trying to clear the game and get home, getting to know each other only to put off the unsettling realization that at the end of the game, only the real one can wake up from it. A story cast solely with side characters and 'OC's', as an experiment.
Which of these stories would you most want to see started first? Every one of 'em's gonna need sequels, later down the line...
"Scattered" seems to be the most interesting premise to me.
Xenophilia seems like it could be very interesting from that perspective. Followed up by Scattered.
I really like the premises of all three stories, but I'm leaning toward either the Xenophilia or Sword Craft Online stories more.
I'm a sucker for FiE/HiE PoV stories and I liked the original Xenophilia story. I'm also a fan of Sword Art Online, which Sword Craft Online's premise seems rather similar to whilst having it own unique take on it.
I vote more of this one... But if you don't do a sequel the xeno one sounds interesting
I'm interested in the Sword Craft Online game, though all three sound interesting enough to read.
Scattered followed by sword art
Xenophilia: Verne Plus and then Sword Craft Online
Scattered followed by SCO
Xenophilia I believe has the most potential, and would be the most enjoyable to read. Its hard to place my thoughts on the specifics of why it would be good, its just more of a gut feeling. After thinking about it for a bit, I believe that this would have the most potential because it wouldn't be restrained by the concept of the story. While that't not always a bad thing I feel like the structure of the other stories would be really confined.
For example in Scattered it sounds like its Twilight -> enters crossover universe -> re-kindles friendship -> return home -> repeat 5 more times -> conclusion / ending.
In SCO I just think that it shouldn't be tied to the mlp universe, and deserves its own fiction and world setting, but more on that later.
Scattered sounds like a cool idea in theory but I feel like the story would be too Scattered around to form a solid story line other than for something either short or way too long. I feel like depending on the crossovers you choose it will be either overly silly or just fall apart. I mean the idea sounds cool and all, but it just feels so disjointed to go to other universes and have a bunch of different crossovers - wayyyyy too saturated. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll bet you can make a really awesome story, but right now I'm just not feeling it.
Finally my thoughts on Sword Craft Online:
This one is going to be a bit of a longer explanation, but I feel you should consider it. Your going to be creating a story in a completely new setting with only OC's and side characters. Something to keep in mind is not all stories should be fanfiction. This sounds like a fucking fantastic idea - as a standalone and unique universe. If your making your own original story, in an original setting, with barely any influences from mlp other than terminology and the fact they are ponies, maybe you should think if this story would actually benefit from being tied to the canon and universe of mlp.
All that being said, I found The Magic World about a week ago, and I love the crap out of it. It was a really interesting take on the world, and you wrote it extremely well. I also have a love/hate relationship with all the time skips (the time between events and chapters early on at least). I love them because it gives the story very excellent pacing, but at the same time I wish more happened early on - I feel like there is a lot of missed potential, and I wish there was a lot more substance to the story. Even with that I still really love it, you did an excellent job writing it and no matter what you do next I'm sure I'll enjoy it!
P.S. Let me know if my flailing word choice made sense for what I was trying to say about SCO, I can always try to reword this and re explain in a different way
3856062 My most in-depth response yet- thank you for that!
I definitely get what you're saying. The SCO is meant to be a sort of take on the old 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. Two groups want to survive. Escape means one group will cease to exist. Staying means a slower death.
The side-character thing is a challenge to myself, mostly. And you're right. Trying to kludge together an original universe from the idea would be epic, but awkward to accomplish. Sword Art Online is a story I wish I'd written first, concept-wise, but writing fanfiction is my way of bowing out and admitting the other guy got to it first. The best fanfiction, I feel, is the kind which depends on the universe it derives from, otherwise you're just renaming characters.
IE: Every 'high school-verse' fic out there.
Keep in mind, I have bits of these stories already written. This is just determining publishing order. The fic you're most interested in will be out, in time.
I'll tally these all up at week's end, all!
Never been a fan of sword Art, and the xenophillia one sounds okay (it would be my second choice). My first wish would be Scattered, but I urge caution with this one. It can be difficult to keep a massive crossover straight. I've seen many a story that just got too big to keep track of.
It's not just the author that has to keep the details straight either, it has to be sensible to the readers. Multi-crosses often lose the readers either through going to worlds they don't recognize (lazy people don't look them up =P) or lose the readers through too many plot points going on at once.
If you do scattered, I ask that you keep mostly to Twilights perspective no matter how tempting it is to wander. That's what lost me on Peace and Isolation, a massive cross I read many moons ago.
My vote would be the Xenophilia. While Sword Art Online premise sounds fun I feel a lot would have to be diffrent from the source to hold appeal. Also a Scattered sounds like a world hopping adventure with parallel versions of the main crew. Again a lot of potential but of all the premises I think Xenophilia is the one I like the most.
Xenophilia.
Scattered sounds like a good idea, but this site is full of similar grand stories that were never finished.
Sword Craft Online sounds too meta.
So, it's Xenophilia.
Looks like the Xenophilia story's come up most often, followed by SCO and then Scattered. And I might throw in a short fic about dragons, somewhere, but there you have it.
Thanks for letting me hear your opinions, guys and gals.
Ahh, no sequel to magic world?
I'd love to see scattered myself.
4233978
Heh i was about to ask that.
I know it feels like beating a dead horse, but some extra slice'o'life chapters wouldn't hurt.
Xenophilia: Verne Plus-
I’d love to see the existential dread of SCO.
Xenophilia seems like the best choice.
Massive crossovers were done to death and usually end up as a clusterfuck of events, making it hard to keep up with.
SCO was done even more often and very poorly on top of that.
The no.1 thing i would love to see, is a new story from you, any story. Life and Magic stories made me crave more, since you have an amazing writing style.
Comfortable to read, captivating stories are something badly needed and you deliver.
If you're still doing the writing thing, I would go with "Life Ever After" then "Sword Craft" then "Scattered".
Xenophilia