Tumbleweed talking Tumbleweed, Part Two!

So, when I originally thought up this blog feature, I was in something of a rut, writing-wise.

That was ... all of a week ago, and I've since started Murder Most Equestrian, which has been a blast to write, and I'm actually gonna start hammering away at that in a little bit. But! I'm sure there's like ... three of you who are interested in this 'behind the scenes' retrospective, so here we go!

Today's actually gonna be a two-fer, as I look at two of my early stories that came hot on the heels (hot on the hooves?) of [i]What Do You Do With a Drunken Unicorn?: Learning Curves and Friendship (With Benefits) is Magic

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORIES

Friendship (With Benefits) is Magic was mostly written because of people demanding to see the fallout from 'that' letter.

Really, one of my original ideas for pony-fic (that I abandoned early on) was to have Celestia and Luna provide Statler & Waldorf-style commentary at the end of each story as they reviewed Twilight's obligatory friendship letter. This was also well before Luna Eclipsed, so I figured snarky Luna would be more entertaining than woobie Luna. But then I got distracted by something shiny and never really developed that idea. Ah well!

I wrote Learning Curves first, but honestly it and Friendship (With Benefits) is Magic rely on the same gag. Sex + Ponies. Which ... well, there's a shit-ton of clopfic on this site (seriously, WTF is up with the featured box), but I didn't go down that path. Again, I find it more entertaining to play things for comedy-- it's honestly a cheap gag, again relying on the juxtaposition of adult humor with cute cartoon ponies.

Looking back on it, there were a couple of bits in Friendship (With Benefits) is Magic that blatantly show my inexpertise at pony-stories. I mean, I use the word 'handwriting' at one point, and make mention of leather in another-- both of which show a terrible lack of pony-world-thinking on my part.

Though, having said this, one of the advantages of prose vs. more visual media (like, say, a cartoon-- or even a comic book) is that you can be minimalist-- instead of outright showing debauchery, you just imply terrible things. And, uh, that's the gag. Both the stories covered here are pretty short and silly, but hey, that's the point.

Though it's pretty interesting to note that my second MLP story was more or less a Rarijack piece. I'm honestly a sucker for the rough & tumble (hey, is that a pun on my username?) type inexplicably shacking up with the genteel princess sort-- it's just that this time around it's with magic lesbian ponies. Yay? Still, I guess I can say I was shipping Rarijack before it was cool canon, or even before Rarijack was actually called Rarijack.

I'm not about to claim credit for shipping those two (seriously, with the character archetypes, it was kinda inevitable). And now I'm vaguely recalling those early days of pony fandom in which AppleDash seemed to be the go-to ship. Is it still popular these days? It's the sort of thing that kinda-sorta warrants research, but I'm also busy and/or lazy. HMMM. Now I'm wondering what the 'first' Rarijack fic may have been. I mean, somebody had to have picked up enough cues from "Look Before You Sleep" before I saw it, right?

Anyway, stay tuned! As next week, I'm gonna take a look at my first 'substantial' fic, the first pony story I wrote that had an actual plot, rather than just a loose and shameless collection of gags. That's right, it's time to check out Vengeance and Fashion

See you next week!