Writing About Not Writing #1 · 8:10pm Apr 28th, 2021
So due to the utter boredom and me not writing any story in quite some time I decide to write this blog. Not for you, imaginary non existent reader, but for me since out of all of my followers I expect maybe like one or two to even click on my blog.
Enough of melodrama, what's this blog (series maybe?) about? It's me just talking about some story idea I had and will probably never write for one reason or another. I'll dissect what I like and will point out what I think would go horribly wrong. So, are you ready kids? Here I go.
So the story for this blog will be about "Pony Reenacting Mass Effect", title not being final. Now the simple observation already can see the first red flag. It's a crossover story! And what's bad about crossovers? Well...
Crossovers on this website tend to be divided usually into two groups. One is merging two or more franchises to tell a story, usually these fanfics are bad because of the overload of ideas and characters and just brute forcing two worlds. MLP already has way too many characters and crossovers tend to be epic in scale so most authors feel obligated to use every single character. Often these stories suffer the same way ordinary Human in Equestria stories suffer, lots of time at the beginning is spent just everyone meeting each other and becoming friends and then a big bad guy jumps out and...well you get the idea and it doesn't matter because the type of crossover I should be talking is the relatively worse one.
Retelling a different story but with characters swapped with ponies. These stories can be very bad because they are literally already existing story with minimal changes, bonus points if pony characters don't even act like themselves at all (not understandable since they grew up in a radically different environment and are in different genre but on the other hand most of us are here to read about characters we know). So, why did I pick this instead of, arguably more creative, first type of crossover? Because I would have less characters to juggle and my intent was not to retell the story of Mass Effect but to deconstruct the whole concept of this type of crossover and make fun of Mass Effect. Don't get me wrong, these types of crossover can be very good, or at least I was insane enough to enjoy few, but I don't mix ponies and serious well.
(Oh also crossovers tend to aim specifically for the small minority that are familiar with both franchises which isn't good if you care about reader count)
So, let me actually talk about the idea and what I wanted! What horrible thing came out from my mind. Oh, it is very bad, it is a meta story about reenacting crossover. In simple words, all ponies but the main character are fully aware that they are actors in a crossover and are doing their best to retell the story. And are failing very very horribly at it, derailming it into hopefully unrecognizable mess. Main tag is thus comedy, I am most definitely not interested in being serious about this, at least not at first.
To help me with that we have our main cast:
- Twilight Sparkle as Commander Shepard. The only character not showing any signs of being aware of what's going on. Character wise she would be show Twilight with all her quirks and thus really really not suited for being a space gunmare hero. Jokes would be her derailing the story with more focus on diplomacy and lacking any military skills like using guns and Twilight knowing only what player knows at the start of the game (which really isn't a lot)
- Lyra as Kaiden (Twilight's second in command) and the brain behind the whole operation. She's the one who organized the whole thing and is most familiar with material at hand. She would be my tool, or an agent if you will, desperately trying to keep the masquerade up since she knows how thing should be. She'd keep others in character, try to railroad Twilight in right direction and occasionally she too would derail things by accident or on purpose. Her personality would try to be close to her fanon portrayal, go lucky plucky girl with a touch of a nerd side.
- Bon Bon as Ashley Williams, Lyra's second in command. She'd be very faithful to Lyra's vision, doing her best to stay in character and knowing her own material. A bit bland which I don't like but with too many characters some really serve more as support to other characters, in this case supporting Lyra. A straight-man to Lyra's crazy side as she usually is. She would be torn between being supportive to Lyra and following Twilight's orders who is the super officer.
- Junebug and Carrot Top as the ship pilot. So, initially the role of the pilot is June's and Carrot to her horror finds out that she is playing Leroy Jenkins (yes, Mass Effect really does have disposable tutorial companion that must die named Jenkins). But June is really uncomfortable having an actual role since she fairly obscure pony and aliens scare her while Carrot really doesn't want to die. So, during the tutorial mission Carrot screws up and survives only to be "accidentally" shot in her legs and thus unable to stay in the story. Starved for screen time Carrot convinces June to step down and let her play the handicapped pilot. Unfortunately Carrot realizes that pilot doesn't actually have a big role in the first game and thus she is relegated to a bitter side character position which matches her mood.
- Derpy Hooves (aka Muffins, Bubbles, Dark One) as Garrus, a law officer that joins Twilight to arrest bad guy. Derpy means well and is really trying to do her part but because she was cast in the last minute she doesn't actually know anything about her role and she is really not good at improvising. Lyra's biggest problem and Twilight's most faithful companion with perhaps surprisingly deep insights regarding the more illogical aspects of the story. Also she is a sniper, much to the horror of everyone.
- Vinyl as Tali Van...I forgot the rest. And so has she. It's fanon Vinyl thus she is laid back, relaxed and kinda lazy to be actually playing the role of the engineer she was given. Where Derpy fails but means well, Vinyl just shrugs it off but saves herself by being much better at improvising. She's still Lyra's second biggest problem.
- Octavia as Wrex and as you can probably guess by now she is not appropriate pick for the role. Yes, she takes her role very seriously and has studied her material but fanon Octavia is a polite pony, a Rarity Lite as I call her, and she is playing a hardened cynical mercenary alien. And no funny accents allowed, definitely no cockney (as much as I would want it).
- Trixie as Liara...and I would avoid having her in the story as much as I could. Normally game expects you to recruit Liara early but nothing actually stops you to leave it until you are near the end. Don't get me wrong, I do like Trixie and I...don't hate Liara, but the cast is already big as it is. Still would be the same Trixie we all love, theatrical, unwilling to do stuff that doesn't concern her but dependable when it gets really bad. And obviously she would really really be angry about her treatment by me.
- And last is Luna and Celestia and Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina, first being the Twilight's mentor and other being the political power. The two sisters would argue constantly about who got which role with Luna being happy for being the more likeable character and Celestia being stuck as the character everyone hates. And unlike with other characters Lyra won't be able to control the two sisters from derailing their characters and acting like themselves.
There would be obviously other minor characters either just being in the background like Nurse Readheart as the ship medic or Cadance being an admiral (yes, it really should be Shining) and so on. Oh and only human characters would actually get replaced by ponies. Almost all aliens, besides the companion characters and potential exceptions, would strictly be Mass Effect characters due to the budget (and me still wanting aliens instead of using other MLP races).
As for the rest of Mane Six, they were supposed to be the actual main characters but duo to someone's screw up Lyra was forced to have herself and other background ponies in the roles instead.
So what would the actual story go like since I think it is obvious that I did think about the character sand their roles (I tried to keep text above short). Well that's where the problems come up. I have ideas for specific moments and scenes but not how to tie it all AND avoid the story just developing like the original Mass Effect story. Now, I could just follow the main story and add jokes and actions that would somehow end up where the story should be but frankly that would probably end up inflating the story and the "ha ha they don't know what they are doing" thing would probably get old. A single joke does not a long story make. And let's not forget that Mass Effect is a trilogy with DLCs so this project would be a huge undertaking that I would have to keep fresh. I do have some ideas for ME 2 and 3 but I that's not for this blog.
Alternative thing that I could do is go episodic. Have Tutorial as it's own short story or two (it's damn big tutorial), the three planets as next three stories and then the final planet and finale. Potentially have it be something like a story collection 6-7 short stories? Or just have the tutorial story and plan nothing else unless readers touch my heart and make me want to write more (yes, I am laughing at the idea as I am writing this). Or, or hear me out...don't write anything just as I have been doing.
I mean, the tutorial would go something like this:
Start with Lyra, basically our main character, encouraging the ponies on the ship right before Twilight is introduced. With Twilight on the scene Lyra would take Twilight around and introduce her and the audience with the minor cast, most notably Carrot Top arguing with Red Heart about the roles and a very smug Luna barely keeping her cheerful demeanor in check. Have the ME tutorial mission exposition, ponies being the new race in the galaxy, specters, aliens yadda yadda though not too much focus here to avoid boring readers since most would already know anyway and others would care more about the actions.
Land on the planet with Twilight, Lyra and Carrot, have Carrot survive and sticking till the very end of the mission and also introduce Bon Bon and the a sole survivor/witness to the big plot point (shockingly unimportant character). Attempt to teach friendship to killer robots, stop the bombs and have Twilight be pushed into the McGuffin because Lyra really needs Twilight to be the chosen one. And then time skip to the Citadel (Space Station that serves as the galactic capital) and have Lyra try to convince galactic government that the Bad Guy is evil and that prophecy is real and fail spectacularly at it to the point where even Twilight doesn't believe it and thus getting stuck with the story. (Potential place to end?)
If I have power to go on then story would have Celestia, contrary to her role and to Luna's anoyance, believe Lyra and would instruct Lyra and Bon to not give up. So Lyra and Bon would then drag Twilight to the place where they according to the script they should meet Derpy who at the moment is having stand off with some mooks. Really, scariest thing here is Derpy shooting at all, prompting Twilight to get involved. Lyra then "reminds" Derpy about her own exposition and the gang follow the clues to solve what Twilight believes to be actual main quest, team up with Octavia who is after the same guy as Derpy and save Vinyl's life who just happens to have the proof that Bad Guy is bad (video game stories do sound dumber when I tell them, don't they). And so with proof alien government is convinced and the story can actually start! Or end it there because Twilight is still not convinced and doesn't approve of declaring someone guilty while absent from the trial (bad guy is busy with his plan after all and can't be at trial).
Can't say that I am excited with the summary I wrote which probably means that anyone but me would care even less. Especially since a lot of ideas are still in my head and not where they matter, on paper to be judged.
Damn, that was a lot. It is shocking that I don't write more actual stories instead of whatever this is. I'll probably do more but next time it will be a much simpler story that also I'll probably never write. I, the only person that probably will read this, am looking forward to my next ramble.
You know, that reminds me of an interesting story.
I really, really love those crossovers that retell the story of a movie or game, but with a pony in the title role. Most likely, this genre is not so popular abroad, but in Russia at one time the Minsk publishing house famously frolicked. In the wake of the popularity of the animated series about ninja turtles, they decided to write a series of books about them... Retelling, for the most part, horror stories. I had two such books, about a nightmare on Elm Street and Phantasm 2. The latter, by the way, was called: "Ninja Turtles, against the long old man, his assistants dwarfs and shiny balls".
And no, despite the title, and the inscription on the first page of "A Story for children", they approached the retelling of the plot of the film responsibly. Constant violent deaths and hints of eroticism were common.
So when I see such crossovers, well, the question "why does this exist" does not arise. On the contrary, I like to read books, but I don't like to watch movies very much.
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I find that example hilarious and curious. Granted reason why something like that can't exist in America has more to do with trademark laws than a lack of interest. Clearly there is a huge demand for most absurd crossovers but it's sadly hard to have them.
In Russia on the other hand, the wild Wild East? You can do crazy stories. Like the very famous example of that book which retold Lord of the Ring but with Sauron as the good guy and Gandalf and Elves as the actual manipulators behind the War of the Ring. I can't recall the name for the life of me.
Also weren't the original Teenage Turtle comics rather brutal? So you could argue that the books you have are more faithful than cartoons!