I Did it First, Season 10

(Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Multiple Authors Getting Inspired by the Same Mythology and Folklore)

I don't keep track of the IDW comics much, but I do occasionally read their plot summaries on the wiki. I perked up a little when I saw that the first four "Season 10" issues would be about the zebra homelands. Why did this draw my attention? Because I wrote about it over four years earlier:

TThe Other Side of the Horizon

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Drama
• Mystery

Twilight gets deeply involved in political maneuvering while on an ambassadorial mission to the zebras.

• Twilight
• Applejack
• Spike
• Zecora
• Zebra

Rambling Writer · 129k words  ·  218  8 · 4.8k views

I didn't think too much of it at the time; "going to the zebra homeland" is a very basic premise with nothing particularly surprising. But as the comic ran on, I noticed more and more surprisingly specific bits from my fic popping up by coincidence. What are some of the things we both had? Well...

• Applejack as part of the party traveling to the zebra lands
• Having to cross the ocean to get there (a very small part in both stories, though)
• Rhyming being a Zecora-only thing, not a zebra thing
• Zebras not having any magic (I went so far as to not give them cutie marks. Why does Zecora have one, then? Because mysterious Zecora, such as rhyming-for-no-reason Zecora, is best Zecora)
• A grootslang (although mine was in a much smaller role and, to fit in better with the various Bantu-family names I had for zebras, was called the "nyokakubwa"; both mean "big/great snake")
• Abadas

Do I think the IDW writers stole from me? No. Absolutely not. The overall plots are very different and the instances of the grootslang and abadas can be chalked up to, as I mentioned, the two stories drawing from the same mythologies. Besides, if they did steal from me, they probably also would've stolen the impundulu as well. Other elements are easy to wave away, like "rhyming is a Zecora-only thing" obviously being there to make writing a bit easier. I just think it's an amusing coincidence.

(If you're interested in the above story, two things. 1: The name of the zebra country was originally Gondwana before I decided it needed an equine-pun name and renamed it to Zebrabwe after the fic was done, so the comments use "Gondwana". 2: It was one of my earlier stories on the site, before I knew some things about writing that I knew now, so be ready for some of the plot points being a bit forced.)

Comments

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Of all the hilarious coincidences! I’ll definitely add it to my reading list, if only to wash the foul taste of those comics out of my mouth. Looking forward to it!

[iisaw]

Yep! I hit the first four bullet points in The Twilight Enigma, as well.