We're Going To Use The Blog Comments To Play A Game Where We Blatantly Rewrite My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Episode And Fanfic Titles Because Light Novels Have Become Really Really Annoying! · 4:35pm Sep 27th, 2019
...yeah.
All right: for those who are not currently vomiting a little, let me explain. A 'light novel' is illustrated literature, generally found in Japan and often aimed at a teen or young adult audience. Some of them spring from manga and anime, others become them, and hardly any manage to exist solely in that form if they become popular at all. They're a springboard.
And recently, there has been a trend in their titles.
Not theme (although there's been a lot of 'reborn into another world' over the last couple of years). Not art style. Titles. Namely, that the title will be so blatantly descriptive as to basically give you the entire theme of the book. They're not symbolic titles. They're not trying to make you think. They are just outright telling you what the theme is, and word count is not a factor. Word count can wrap around the cover six times as long as it leaves a little room for the art.
I don't read light novels. (I can't.) But I do watch some anime, with a little manga here and there. This means I'm on a couple of mailing lists, and so see some things being promoted prior to release. So I've been familiar with this trend for a while.
The following title, which just turned up in a Preorder This? email, was the last straw.
I'm a Behemoth an S-Ranked Monster but Mistaken for a Cat I Live as an Elf Girl's Pet
@$%^.
You.
Let's be fair -- no, @#$% that. Let's be cruel. A more accurate title would probably be The Author Didn't Bother With Much Of A Plot But No One's Going To Care Because We Made Sure There Was One Cleavage Shot On Every Page.
Or in the case of the cover, two.
(It's okay if you want to smack the not-cat. The not-cat has earned it.)
But for the title itself,we have breached ridiculous. 'Ridiculous' got left behind eighteen months ago. We are at Ludicrous Titles. Half of the light novel industry has gone to plaid, and no one cares enough to go for the brakes.
So here's your challenge.
Take the title (or titles) of something associated with MLP:FIM. This can be an episode or a fanfic and with the latter, you can use your own or someone else's. Rewrite that title into the light novel (*vomit*) trend style, and then post your effort below. Everyone else then gets to guess what the original was.
Here's three fanfic samples from chat, just to get you started on both format examples and guessing.
From Oroboro:
I Fell In Love With A Girl And Then She Died. Now 7 Years Later I Fall In Love With Her Alternate Dimension Counterpart!?!??! Is This Okay?!?!?!?!!?!
MitchH
We Planned To Become A Mighty Band Of Crystal Guardmares Striding The World Like The Heroes Of Old - But We Can't Get Out Of Port And Our Airship's Refit Is Behind Schedule!!?!
And of course, I'll give you a freebie.
Six Soulless She-Demons Choose Murdering An Innocent Musical Instrument Over Any Attempt To Resolve Their Issues
Plus one episode example:
Suddenly Nopony In Town Would Let Me Shop And Now I Owe A Lot Of Money? Help!
Go forth and oververbiage.
("Oververbiage" is now a word.)
(Because I said so.)
(...shaddap.)
Residing In A Tree Filled With Living Furniture, Student Tries Her Best To Satisfy Town And Her Friends With Romantic Overtures.
Innocent Maiden Living In Forest Harbors Terrifying Secret In Hidden Clearing Filled With Bodies.
Alien Child Fleeing Slavery Changes Masters, Finds Out New Life Even More Dangerous, Flees Back To Previous Home
You've isnowed it?
Canonical Mute Vinyl Scratch Breaks Up With Fanon Muteavia.
So It Turns Out that Pegasi Can Hot-swap Their Wings and Don't Want Anypony to Know That
For some reason, me and my friends chose to restore a diesel engine!
(Western Champion)
As a counterproposal, I present "overbiage."
In any case:
I Wanted to Support My Friend in an Aerobatics Competition, But Now I'm the Crowd Favorite!
My Blank-Flanked Cousin Allied with the Bullies and Torments Me and My Friends! Let's Build a Giant Apple!
A Thousand Thousand Sweetie Belles! The Mysterious Filly with Orange Eyes Joins a League of Fun and Adventure!
And, of course...
Pounded in the Butt by My Own Failure to Recognize the Full Ramifications of Publically Available Mini-Libraries, Guest-Starring Princess Luna.
I'm In Love With The Ghost Of A Thousand-Year-Old Princess Trapped In A Library Tree And Now I Have To Be Her Therapist?
5128972
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periphrasis
What if someone just posts the entire fanfic as the title?
5128982
"Overkill, mate."
5128979
Love that fic.
5128982
I might have done that...
What Do You Get When You Replace The Six Saviors Of Equestria With A Bunch Of Alien Pony Power Rangers That Have Absolutely No Personality Or Interesting Traits? You Get Pure Garbage! That’s What!
(I’m talking about you, Starfleet Magic
)
An Innocent Herb-Gathering Trip Accident Will Turn Everyone Into Trees Unless I Find A Cure From A Pony Who Disappeared 1,000 Years Ago?!?!?
I Make a Spelling Correction and Magically Swap All My Besties' Destinies And Tattoos, and Solving the Problem Makes Me Ascend To Royalty and Grow Extra Limbs!
The God of Chaos Gets Loose And Makes The Heroines Run Around A Maze And Lose Their Minds, And It's Raining Chocolate?!?!
All my legal guardians are crazy and keep trying to kill me-- Steven Universe.
5128989
I can't believe that guy is still a thing. He's like a road map of how to not be a fanfiction author.
“How do I make my sister chase after her childhood dream when she no longer believes in childhood because dead parents?” (Going to Seed)
Does My Suddenly Royal Mutant Friend Need The Challenge Of An Invasion Of Thorny Tentacle Monsters To Understand Her Place In The World?
I've Deviated From My Schedule And So My Neuroses Tell Me To Mind Control Some Kids To Please My Mother Figure!
Everyone is scared of the new girl in town because she speaks differently.
5128995
No kidding.
The Official Road Map Of How Not To Be A Fanfiction Author! WARNING: All Roads Listed In Here Lead To The Pits Of Tartarus!
(I am aware of some inaccuracy in the first two, but it would seem to fit with the underinformed and sensationalist approach to the endeavor. Apologies to the truth.)
Secrets and Lies Surrounding My Brithday Party Plans Triggers My Split Personality -- And She is No Superhero!
My Boulder-Smashing Superhero of a Sister Has Trouble Meshing With My Friends in the Usual Ways: It's 'Cause She Might Have Aspergers, yet They Learn to Love Her Anyway!
I Thought I Could Harvest All the Apples Myself -- SILLY PONY
Hookin' Up Teach With My Brother!?!? You Bet! By Exactly The First Failsafe Method We Can Find!!!
I Used to be All About Following the Rules, but When Those Rules Get in the Way of My Plans for a Friendship School I Roped All My Friends Into With Me -- Look Out!!!
This sounds like a new Lyttle Lytton category.
"I Fail to Acquire a Potentially Dire Warning Because I Am Both Manic and Obsessive and This Also Leads Me to Toy With Forces Beyond My Control Due to Wild Assumptions About What Just Happened but That's Okay Because It Turns Out the Universe Is Self-correcting, and While Multi-classing Into Rogue Was Ultimately Probably Not a Wise Use of Experience, Catsuits Make the Choice for Cover Art Pretty Easy (Plus Also We Get Infrastructure Week Out of the Deal so That's Okay I Guess)."
- Equestria Girls
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
The Apple family reunion got really awkward this year.Staging A Wedding Prematurely Owing To A Postal Worker Hiring The Lowest Bidder And Getting What She Paid For As Local Icons Fail To Fight A Mix And Match Abomination Because The Real Expert Is Distracted By A False Dilemma.
5129011
For a moment, I thought you were talking about Every Little Thing She Does. Then I remembered the OG Freakout episode.
5129044
.
That sounds more like a Jerry Springer/Maury Povich episode
I Used To Be an Evil Alter-Ego But Now I'm A Kid and Nobody Will Give My Second Life A Chance So I Go Back to Being Evil Because My Mom's Fake Mom Didn't Believe I Wasn't!
Oh, and one more:
I'm a Magical Alien Princess Who's Become a Normal High School Student, and I Have to Become Prom Queen to Get My Crown Back!
Even pony isn't immune to isekai. It just approaches it from the other direction.
I think the issue with those titles is the translation. When one or two symbols of kanji, hiragana, or romaji can mean two or three long ass words in English you end up with these cumbersome titles.
Like in Japanese it's: _ _ _ _ _?!
But in English: "Is it alright to find romance in a dungeon?!
Similar to how binary requires thousands of spaces to spell out certain concepts so is this a consequence of translation.
Admitted, I miss simply titles like "The Five Rings". But those longer titles are easier to google I imagine.
I Saw My Estranged Brother Kiss a Bug, But Nopony Believed Me, So I Was Sent Spelunking With My Foal-sitter Instead! Not Fair!
A Pony Leaves A Vault and Then Is Horrifically Traumatized At Every Turn Because That's What Makes A Mature Story
and fanfics: (first one is spoilered partway, you know what it is though)
We Want To Sell You A New Toy Castle So We Blow Up The Treebrary
We Want To Sell More Dolls So Two Seldom Used Ponies Have Weird Looking Twins
We Want To Sell More Dolls So Two Seldom Used Ponies Have A Baby Alicorn
We Want To Sell More Dolls But The Writers Can’t Think Of Another Plot So We Stretch The Plot Over TWO Episodes
The Writers Can’t Be Bothered To Think Of Another Plot So We Retell The Same Story From Another Viewpoint
5129074
In some cases, it's still cumbersome in the original Japanese. (And then there's stuff like everything in this link, where that's sort of the point)
the greatest detective in the world got sucked to equestria to be good friends with the my little pony gang and also there is a murder that happened and the culprit is probably discord?
5129055
I can see where you could confuse the two based on the description. It still boggles my mind that this can happen. Still, so there is no room for more confusion:
I Was Tasked To Learn Friendship So I Overrode The Free Will Of My Teacher's Friends! Now The Castle Is On Fire!
I've got a crush on the leader of the group worshipping my alien friend and I have to deal with the fact everyone in her family but her can see it.
I see titles like that and all I can think of is "Pounded in the Butt by Pinkie's Pie Freaky Ability to Bend the Laws of Space and Time".
I Failed to research an annual holiday and became upset when the townspeople acted afraid of me. Appearing as my evil alter-ego will put things right!
The customer is always right? When I try to appease my friends every slightest whim I wind up professionally embarrassed. Doing things my own way leads to the satisfaction of all!
Two episodes for you to guess.
Reading all these titles made me lose the ability to read.
Let’s see:
Mane Six, Dressed as Mane Six, Get Insulted and Arrested for Dressing as Mane Six
Pretty much all original Dragon Ball Z episode titles are like this. :)
"Cadence is Cursed, so Shining Armor Becomes a Mare! Carrying Sextuplets with Magic is Completely Safe and Really Hot."
"An Innocent Librarian Found a Mind-Control Spell. Which Princess Will be Crowned the Naughtiest One of All?"
"All of Our Dogs Are Giant Magical Lizards Now, and Princess Celestia is Okay with This. Burn, Squirrels, Burn!"
"All of the Humans are Gone, but a Few of Them are Ponies Now. The Ten Thousand Year Plan to Save the Earth Begins!"
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Luna Eclipsed and Suited For Success
I Have 24 Hours To Write A Letter To My Teacher. Time To Hypnotize The Town Into Falling For My Childhood Barbie Doll!
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Celestia Makes Me Leave My Office Job And Go Fix A Boat And I Decide To Marry A Girl I Found In The River
5129105
Not the sequel, Pounded In The Butt By My Book 'Pounded in the Butt by Pinkie's Pie Freaky Ability to Bend the Laws of Space and Time' ?
5129163
Or the third book, Pounded In The Butt By My Book 'Pounded In The Butt By My Book "Pounded in the Butt by Pinkie's Pie Freaky Ability to Bend the Laws of Space and Time"' ?
I Unearthed An Ancient Weapon To Defeat A Demon Lord-- But It Turns Out The Real Weapon Is Friendship?
an ACTUAL title i saw once on the website "e-hentai" came to mind:
"book where a Futanari girl is forced to cum again and again."
I actually tried to read it, but as soon as i learned what "futanari" means, i quit. just too absurd.
5129097
I thought you would've went for InWhichATropeIsDescribed...
Lol for those who turn OneWordTitles into these...
Lemme try...
"Due to Magic, Everyone's Turning Into Ponies, And Only I Can Save My Homes From Mutual Annihilation!"
... Or maybe "Stop My Homes From Killing Each Other"...