Oct
8th
2016
About today's episode . . . · 8:59pm Oct 8th, 2016
I'm sure no one is surprised that I'm commenting on today's episode. I enjoyed it, but it does put a wrinkle in "Applejack Fixes Everything," in which Big Mac is taciturn as a colt. It might be for the best that he won't play as big of a part after Chapter 4, which is about 90% finished, by the way. So do you think people will still want to read this fanfic now that we know that Past Big Mac was a jabberjaws?
Frankly I'm somewhat relieved that Season 6 hasn't done anything more than this to mess up my fanfics (the ones I'm still working on, at least).
I'm a big believer in the grandfather clause. If you established something before the show contradicted you, you're still good for the purposes of that story.
That being said, I should probably read the story in question.
4246820 That's probably a good rule to go by, and anyway, it's only recently out of date.
4246820 Agree with this, but if I can float another idea: their parents aren't around in the new ep., so maybe the chatter-box trait wasn't developed until he was older?
Haven't seen the episode yet but I'd have no problems with it. See FanOfMostEverything's comment. I usually don't try to stick to cannon when it comes to enjoying fanfics anyway.
4246918 Not a bad idea. I might mention Mac's chatterbox phase if I can work it organically into the story.
4246992 well, an idea that occurred to me is that he developed the chatterbox-phase as some sort of response to his parents dying perhaps. Some sort of coping mechanism? I'm not sure how well that sort of idea works, psychologically...
4247001 Hm . . . Maybe he thought the home was too quiet after they were gone?
It's always seemed odd to me to read writers try to contort there stories to fit new canon.
So the story doesnt include or acknowledge something that just came out in show, no biggie. It's not a detriment to a good story. If you are try to follow show cannon as closely as possible, then you're going to give yourself a headache. You cant predict what a new ep is going to josh your story. Then you have to jump through hoops to make it fit, or rewrite chunks of the story.
Fan said it best.
You're already AU. You will be OK.
Big Mac being a motormouth in this episode isn't even the major problem with this episode - it also totally screwed over any attempt to reconcile the timing of Applejack's parents' deaths and Apple Bloom's birth with prior information. Let me copy what I wrote on the official discussion thread:
So yeah, this is pretty messed up. This episode being the turning point for Big Mac becoming so taciturn seemed a bit of a stretch to me, but it's small potatoes compared to the timeline issues raised here.
The other commenters have pretty much nailed it already, but I'll just repeat myself here: Just do what you like. Substantial amounts of fanfic already being written makes it hard and time consuming to retcon major things like a character's entire dialogue, though if you feel like going back through what's already written and turning Big Mac into a blabbermouth instead sounds like great fun, feel free to do that also. I think that it's risky, though. Going back and rewriting parts of a story while still preserving the rest can make it flow less naturally and cause transitions to feel forced, like a patch that poorly fits whatever hole it was used to plug. Unless you think turning Big Mac talkative sounds like a great and fun idea, I wouldn't hesitate to just go with what you already have. A change like this would probably require you to rewrite all the dialogue in the story involving Big Mac from the ground up.
I wouldn't expect the episode to impact whether people are willing to read your story at all. If it helps you sleep at night, just mention in an author's note that it was begun before S06E23.
4256211
I got the sense that Big Mac talking too much and not listening to AJ had been an ongoing conflict between them, and the main reason AJ made a promise that she didn't know if she could keep was to prove herself and set herself apart from her big brother. At least that's the way I'm interpreting it for now.
As for the timeline issues, I have to assume that the parents have been dead for at least a year at the time of the flashback. As I wrote a comment to FanofMostEverything,
The only acceptable theories were offered by FOME:
I'm going to pick one of those two options because any other alternative leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
But yeah, this little blog post was probably an overreaction. “Applejack Fixes Everything” already exists in its own little ficverse anyway. While the idea of rewriting Mac's parts amuses me on some level, it would be extra work and it could alienate the readers who enjoyed the original version.
4256381
Those are good points. I definitely also got the impression that Applejack not getting a word in edgewise (to use hyperbole - it's clearly not that bad or she wouldn't have had the opportunity to get in all those lies...) has been going on for a while. Still, they usually like to drive these points home in a more direct manner than this, so it seems like an insufficient reason for this to be Big Mac's turning point. To me, Applejack being frustrated by Big Mac seemed to be a contributing factor at best for her making that initial promise. His "can't plow a field with 'em" spiel seemed like a well-worn routine that was mostly being good-naturedly ignored. Applejack really wanted to take on responsibility and be the one who would take over Sweet Apple Acres.
That actually works. It was a story being told by Granny Smith, and perhaps it just glossed over the presence of other characters, unreliable-narrator-style. Not ideal, but good enough to skate by on. Though to me it seems unlikely that Applebloom is much older than Diamond Tiara.
4256439
I've already thought of an explanation for that, too. The Cake twins have not appeared to age much at all in over a year. They existed as little babies for two Hearths Warmings with the only difference being that they are partly potty trained in S6. So it's possible that ponies mature much more slowly than humans, so Apple Bloom could be more than a year older than DT. (I know the real explanation is the animators don't feel like making new models for the Cake twins, but let me dream, darn it!)
It's also possible that Spoiled became pregnant with DT before she married Filthy Rich.
4256662 Yeah, I remember laughing in "The Times They Are A Changeling" when Twilight said "she's grown so much" when looking at Flurry Heart, who didn't seem to have changed at all.
No idea how much water your slow aging theory holds. Pretty sure we've seen other ponies grow. Snails definitely looked more mature when we saw him in "Buckball Season".
Yeah, DT might have been conceived already during that flashback, but that wouldn't add that much leeway. Those two definitely seem like the type to care about appearances and would immediately decide to marry once they found out.
This right there is why watching a new episode is never going to be as "fun and carefree" as when I first started watching the show.
YES. Yes, I very much would like to read more of this fanfiction.
For starters, Big Mac was portrayed as the silent type for the past six years of the show's run, and no one had reason to assume this did not also extend back to his foalhood.
Unless it's something as drastic as, say, Twilight becoming an alicorn, Discord being reformed, or the likes, old headcanons usually stick around for a while. Though if there is enough of a "blabbermouth Big Mac"-fanfiction movement, in [arbitrary amount of months / years here] you might get newcomers to the fandom that never had that old headcanon to begin with that may be slightly confused with the deviation. It's about reader-immersion, and if the deviation from people's headcanons will throw readers off mid-story. (Better yet if you can state it up-front as part of the story-premise... which is exactly what I did for "Daring Do and the Secret of the Fourth Wall" when "Daring Do is A.K. Yearling" happened.)
Heck, even if the show ever flatout made "Spike X Ember" a fully sailed ship, it wouldn't stop the 6-year "RariSpike"-cruiseliner. It has way too much momentum for that.
Of course, there are things that become too jarring. Like reading an old 2012 fic featuring Discord turning foals into bananas and having their parents eat them, or having pegasi that fail to entertain him drop out of the sky and turn into inanimate pillows. Because season 2 Discord was often either seen as "The Devil".... or shipped with Pinkie Pie and / or Celestia.
4246820
...I envy you fast writers. I've got ~8 unfinished stories (6 one-shots, 2 multi-chapter stories) on my harddrive that I occasionally get back to brute-forcing to eventual completion. Plus, my two main stories that have been "running" for 3.5 and 4.5 years respectively - with ~45k words published so far.
Gaaaah.
.....I am glad I at least got the first chapter of my Pinkie-clone story out there before the show brought up the clones again for a 10-second gag three seasons later.
And in a funny twist, all my unfinished / unpublished changeling stories are time travel related, so I guess I get a free pass with that.
Until season 7 probably messes it up somehow.
4256735 Thanks for the input. You have a good point about long-term fanon having staying power. For example, I still see Gamer Luna occasionally and that meme arouse a little before I came into the fandom. I don't quite get that one. Stoic Big Mac at least has a lot more basis in canon up until S6.