Q & A Followup (Nine Year FimFictionversery) · 9:17pm Apr 10th, 2021
You asked the questions, so now it's time to answer them. Hope the answers are to your satisfaction.
First up we have Bronycommander who asks only:
apart from MLP, got any other franchises you like? Or favorite video games?
Yes, quite a few actually. I'm fond of stuff including but not limited to: Batman, Transformers, Avatar (the animated franchises), Mortal Kombat, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Sly Cooper, Metal Gear, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, Dragon Ball and Power Rangers. And as far as favorite video games: I'm particular fond of the original Ape Escape for the PS1 because it was a huge part of my childhood. I also quite enjoy the original Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot: Warped and all three original PS2 games in the Sly Cooper franchise. In addition, I'm quite fond of the Mario Party series (classic at least, though I do also sort of enjoy 9 and Island Tour and find Super to be enjoyable if lacking in polish).
Next up is Comickook who is an indirect contributor to things such as my "What If?" rewrite series, and he (presumably) asks the following:
1. What do you have planned for your eventual 200th story (which is just eight stories away)?
2. What would your vision for Sunset and the human counterparts of the Mane Six be two decades in the future (i.e. "the Last Problem" on the Equestria Girls side of the fence)? (this would fall under spoilers)
and 3. What would be a couple of the re-written episodes you will be doing for "Volume Thirteen" of your "What If?" (again, I know this would fall under spoilers.
Okay, let's get to them: 1. While I haven't picked out a name as of yet and it isn't quite set in stone, right now my plan is to have it be a story involving 'Lil Cheese (who I will describing as a colt). It will involve him going with his parents to the Pie family rock farm to meet his grandparents Igneous and Cloudy as well as his aunts Limestone and Marble. Maud and Mudbriar will eventually show up as well so 'Lil Cheese will get to see his Aunt Maud and his Uncle Mudbriar too. I'm doing it largely because I kind of want my 200th story to feature Pinkie Pie in some way.
2. I'm not sure it really counts as spoilers, though I am planning to do a story based on a sort of "The Last Problem" type reunion for Sunset and the Rainbooms. But to be safe: Sunset Shimmer will be a diplomat/ambassador to Equestria from the human world. I don't think it's fair to have the mirror portal sealed off after "Spring Breakdown" established that there were portals to Equestria independent of it and showed that Equestrian magic could affect the human world even without the mirror portal being the cataylst. So the mirror portal would remain although the statue it is part of would be relocated to a secure location that only Sunset and a select few others knew about. Sci-Twi would be either a professor or a science teacher, passing on her knowledge and love of it to the next generation. Rainbow Dash would be a professional athlete, and while I could give her any sport to play in I'm kind of leaning towards soccer since that was what she was playing in her debut and one of the comics established the human Wonderbolts as a soccer team. Fluttershy would likely still be working at a shelter, although she might have moved up to become owner of one instead of just a volunteer. Rarity would be a mainstream fashion designer like the real life inspiration for Coco Pommel. Pinkie Pie and Applejack are kind of difficult given that they have no explicit goal or interests. Pinkie Pie would be a sort of entertainer for hire, helping with planning and entertaining guests. And Applejack would probably just do odd jobs to make a living.
3. I haven't set the episodes in stone yet and I don't think there's any real need to spoil them, but again just to be safe: Some episodes I've considered are "Dragonshy" and "A Dog and Pony Show" from Season 1, the former working to make Fluttershy less of a load and the latter largely just focusing on Spike and Rarity with Spike relying the story of their encounter with and subsequent escape from the Diamond Dogs. "Magical Mystery Cure" would be a two parter in light of details confirmed by M. A. Larson, although the Starswirl aspect would be kept it would become more of the pandora's box Larson originally envisioned with Princess Celestia being unable to fix it. Part one would focus largely on establishing the problem and Twilight learning what changed and why she isn't a part of it. Part two would open up with Twilight lamenting over her screw up and Celestia coming in to reassure her, this would serve in conjunction with Spike's speech to make her start to realize the solution. Things would play out mostly the same until Twilight completes the spell, greater focus would go into her ascension and coronation. I now have to do "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" to clear up Discord and Fluttershy's friendship getting back to normal after my rewrite of "Twilight's Kingdom", and I probably will do rewrites of "The Crystalling", "Fluttershy Leans In" (as a bonus chapter) and "The Break Up Break Down" (renamed to something along the lines of "Hearts and Hooves Day Mystery" and changed to focus on Ocellus).
MLPFollower is next and he asks only:
how many volumes of What If? do you intend to make?
He specified in another comment that he wasn't counting any comics or Equestria Girls volumes. And without counting those, I really can't make an estimate. I think I've got enough left for at least two more volumes, maybe a third if I want to do a few more redos or inspiration really strikes me. So probably at least up to a Volume Fifteen before I would have to delve into comics and Equestria Girls. And if I had to I'd probably tackle the latter first, perhaps even building up to an alternative take on the 2017 movie (don't know if I'd redo "Rainbow Roadtrip", not so much because I don't see the need to do redo it and more because I'm not sure what exactly would need to be changed. It probably would've functioned better as a two parter with some kind of crisis).
NGTH42 asks a series of five questions, which are as follows:
Who is your favorite character in the show?
What is your ranking of seasons from worst to best?
What is your least favorite ship in the show?
Flash Sentry or Sonata Dusk?
Daybreaker or Midnight Sparkle?
My favorite character in the entire show is kind of tricky. My favorite mane six character is definitely Pinkie Pie, Sweetie Belle is my favorite Cutie Mark Crusader and in terms of major villains I'm partial to The Pony of Shadows. But if I had to pick an absolute favorite character I would have to give it to Princess Celestia. Much as I love Pinkie Pie, I'll admit she can be a little too much sometimes. It's great that she wants to spread joy and happiness but she tends to take it too far and get really pushy, which for an introvert like myself would probably get annoying very fast. Princess Celestia might just be among the most misunderstood and unfairly hated characters. She's very much a maternal, benevolent figure. She's an all powerful ruler but she never uses that power for selfish purposes. If anything, her biggest flaw lies in that she's very hooves off in guidance, opting for a gentle nudge in the right direction and she won't get involved unless she absolute must (which is often too late).
For season rankings, they are as follows from worst to best: Season 1, Season 8, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 6, Season 9, Season 5 and Season 7. Season 1 remains the weakest because the show didn't know what it wanted to be and took a long time to find its footing, and there were so many details that were worked out last minute while the show was involved in disputes between Lauren Faust and Hasbro over what direction to go. Season 8 isn't completely beyond salvation, but it's very obvious that the school was a mandate from Hasbro which only proved to be yet another badly thought out case of "Executive Meddling" and story writing that felt almost like self sabotage, and with "The Best Gift Ever" taking place in Season 9 (it was confirmed as such by showrunners) Season 8 doesn't get a chance to redeem itself. Season 2 was an improvement in character development, but not in world building because it was full of very clunky attempts that later seasons had to try and plug up, though it deserves credit for getting rid of the need to shoehorn Twilight into every episode just for the sake of the friendship lesson. Season 3 is the half season that was planned as a whole season, there are so many things we never got because it was cut in half and had so many last minute changes made but I feel like it gets too much hate even among fans of the classic seasons. Speaking of classic seasons, Season 4 could be said to be the last of the classic seasons and it definitely took what Season 3 started and nearly perfected it, but every story feel like a first draft and if you were just coming onboard it might seem like the show was just starting anew given how many developments were ignored or reset, especially with Twilight's princesshood and the search for the keys that fizzled out. Season 6 can best be described as "The Chill Season", the Ninja Storm of the seasons in that it settled for a quality of good but not necessarily envelope pushing and the few times it went out on a limb it usually failed, I suspect it was meant to be low key on purpose as a way to drum up hype for the movie before the movie had to be pushed back. Season 9 is the final season and is still hotly contested, with many episodes clearly revolving around concepts that weren't fleshed out and up and down send-offs, though its biggest problem was inheriting the weak points of Season 8 and not really improving upon them. Season 5 got off to a rocky start and could be every hit and miss, but when it hit it really hit, amidst a season of writing turnover we got stuff that feels almost like lightning in a bottle with how unexpectedly strong it was. Season 7, even in light of what's been revealed about it, seems like at times it contained the last bits of true quality writing that the show would never be able to capture again and I think that was largely helped by the development for Starlight and freeing Twilight from the teaching role to let her become her own character once again.
My least favorite ship in the entire show would have to be SoarinxApplejack. I'll admit MaudxMud Briar was added too late to get a lot of development, and SugarMac just went through the cliche sitcom and romcom trials in the last three seasons, but at least I could see things that would draw the characters to each other. Soarin and Applejack have nothing. The only reason they were ever shipped is because Applejack sold Soarin an apple pie at the Grand Galloping Gala and Soarin presumably likes pies. If that is enough for him to be shipped, why not pair him up with Pinkie Pie who can also bake pies and happens to have a personality similar to his in being a goofball? Soarin and Applejack have no chemistry, their personalities don't seem to match up given that Soarin can be laid back and accident prone unless he has to take command whereas Applejack is very much a born leader who never puts off until tomorrow what she can do today. Soarin would work with just about any other mane six member, even Rarity or Twilight. I'm not saying he and Applejack can't work at all, but it feels like the only reason they were paired up was because of Soarin's love of pie and their very brief interaction in "The Best Night Ever".
I don't really what I'm supposedly choosing between Sonata and Flash, but I guess it's for worst Equestria Girls character or something. Of the two, Sonata Dusk is the better one. At least with Sonata she's part of the Dazzlings and if you just ignore her cringe inducing comedic antics she's fine. I like the idea of her being malicious like her sisters but she acts like such a goofball that you can easily forget it. I daresay she's leagues above anything Grubber from the 2017 movie provided. Flash Sentry, while I don't think he deserves all the hate he gets, is just the generic love interest with no development besides that. The most we get is him getting dumped by Sci-Twi and presumably wanting to start over with Sunset Shimmer (maybe romantically, maybe platonically), that's it. Even things like him having a guitar or being Sunset's ex don't do anything to flesh him out. He reacts the way every cliche love interest in a high school acts.
I suppose the question for Daybreaker or Midnight Sparkle is which is the better evil/dark side of a character. In that case I'm going with Daybreaker. It's probably an unpopular opinion since Daybreaker isn't as fleshed out as Midnight Sparkle and just seems to have copied the design of Nightmare Moon onto Celestia. But I feel like that in and of itself could work. The idea of what Celestia would be like if she were evil is intriguing, and it could easily be that either she was jealous of Nightmare Moon's design or Twilight just imagined that an evil Celestia would look a lot like Nightmare Moon. And the dialogue implies that Daybreaker is something that has existed before, even just as a thought in others minds about Celestia. It's an idea and a fear of what she could become. Midnight Sparkle is fine, but she has the lack of screen time to hold against her and her transformation is triggered by exposure to Equestrian magic on top of peer pressure. If Sci-Twi weren't so curious she would've never become Midnight Sparkle, let alone so easily desired to rip worlds apart to get what she wanted.
And last but not least we have Brony kaju solider who asks the following:
1. Do you prefer the old or new dubs of DBZ?
2. Favorite kaiju?
3. How bad is the weather in your neck of the woods?
4. Favorite recurring villain from any series?
1. I assume you mean the original Saban/Funimation dub from the 1990's and early 2000's versus the Funimation Kai dub from the early to mid 2010's. Well, I easily prefer the Kai dub, at least up through the original intended ending with the defeat of Cell. It may just be that many of the voice actors had more experience with their characters and even the ones that were new had more faithful dialogue that kept the feel of the original manga intact, but it just feels like the better product even despite the controversial change of music when the original composer was fired over allegations of plagerism (the soundtrack used from then on was recycled from the original Japanese version of Z and was clearly a very poor last minute replacement). However, when it comes to the Buu saga, I actually prefer the old Funi Z dub from the early 2000's instead of the Kai dub. While the Kai version does have better voice acting and a more faithful script, there are a lot of things that just aren't the same as the original Z dub despite the inexperienced voice acting, the biggest of which may be the removal of the filter for Super Buu's voice for the Kai dub which in turn makes his dialogue less engaging.
2. Don't have a favorite, I don't really have much experience with kaiju. I've never seen any Godzilla movies or anything similar.
3. Well, it's Michigan so you know what it's like ("Michigan weather. Don't like it? Wait five minutes, it'll change."), but in actuality the weather the past few days has been kind of nice. Above average temperatures with not much rain or clouds. However, that's all about to change since starting tonight temperatures are going to dip below average and stay that way for at least the next week.
4. I think I have to give to Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Some of that has to go to Grey Griffin's outstanding vocal performance, but Azula proves to be a far superior villain to her brother Prince Zuko. She's willing to pursue her prey no matter how long it takes, and is willing to pursue any advantage she can get no matter what. She proves to be so strong that even being attacked by Team Avatar and Prince Zuko all at once isn't enough for her to be brought down. By the end of Book 2 she becomes such a skilled chessmaster that she's able to outsmart Long Feng at his own game and win the Dai Lee's loyalty, allowing her to topple Ba Sing Se not from the outside but from the inside. And even into Book 3 she still proves to be a threat not to be underestimated when she sets Zuko up to take the fall if the Avatar should somehow still be alive, effectively stalls for time by exploiting Sokka's feelings for Suki and then suffers a breakdown that causes her to become even more of a danger to everyone else. The saddest part of it all is, at the very end when she's defeated, it's quite clear that she's too far gone to be saved like her brother and her uncle. She'll just end up being locked away somewhere for the rest of her days, because if she gets out she'll only cause more trouble.
And there you have it.
You are very welcome! And it's nice to see another fan of Sly cooper and crash bandicoot, were my childhood games.
And you are an of metal gear too? How cool! I tried myself a crossover of metal gear 4 and 5, was tricky but I managed to pull it off
Okie dokie. Thanks immensely for the answers.
Thanks for answering those questions. I'm kinda torn between the original and kai dubs; they both had some interesting stuff, and they both had stuff that the other didn't have. I always liked Azula; she seemed like the perfect warrior right up to the finale, where she lost her grip on her sanity. It was really raining down here in Florida.