Shipping and Handling Trilogy 10th Anniversary! · 8:27pm Oct 19th, 2021
Ten Years ago today, I published the first chapter of "Shipping and Handling" to deviantart, as fimfiction either didn't exist yet or was very, very small at the time. Meant to be just a joke fic playing with the dual meaning of the word "shipping", I hoped a couple readers would get a quick laugh out of it.
A decade later, that story has become a completed trilogy, collectively over 700,000 words long, and is the source of most of my followers on fimfiction. More importantly, I met basically all my friends in the fandom either as a direct result of that story, or in groups or projects that I ended up in with all the connections I made by writing it.
This affected a lot of things that happened in real life too. I can confidently say that my life could, and probably would, be going entirely different right now had I not published what was initially a silly little piece about a mailmare-turned-matchmaker.
And I'm not done, either! I know I haven't published anything new lately, but the anthology of short stories surrounding the series characters after the events of "Magic of the Heart" are still being worked on, and I hope a few of my long-time readers are gonna stick around for those.
Thanks for joining me for ten years of Ditzy and Dinky's adventures!
~PRB
Congratz on the 10th Anniversary. Yo, Shipping and Handling takes me way back. One of the first stories that I ever read on FIMFIC.
I... really need to finish story #1.
5597598
Haha, if you do, I hope you move on with the series afterward.
First one's a little... dated, now. The other two are much better.
Shipping and Handling was one of the earliest works I followed. It helped me get through a pretty awful period.
Congratulations, PRB! I’ve enjoyed your stories ever since I came into the fandom. Thank you for sharing Ditzy and Dinkys adventures with us.
I think Shipping and Handling was one of the very first things I ever read as MLP fanfiction and it introduced me to the writing aspect of the fandom so thank you very much for that!
I do remember liking that story back in the day. Can't believe it has been 10 years since it was posted. Good job.
A story that began in the dark ages when you had to follow individual webpages or hope that EQD noticed an update and linked to it. And no easy epubs for on the go reading either!
For myself, I'll keep reading until the wheels come off.
This makes me wish FimFic.net had a feature that told us WHEN we had read or favorited a story. Because I'm really curious about long ago I've been following you. I recall that I managed to read the whole 1st story in pretty much one go, even the bonus omakes.
5597598
I actually only read the first one.
5597614
I'm curious, how do you mean it's dated? Do you mean concepts of the show, or just your writing style?
5597876
Both.
I mean, it's set during season 2 so it doesn't include most of the newer show stuff.
But moreso I mean... that fic featured a lot of some fandom trends at the time that readers from later years of the fandom might not know (like Trixie eating pinecones and other weird fanon stuff like that.)
There's also the incredibly cringy chapter where Sethisto from EQD comes to Equestria through a portal (in pony form) and wants to be shipped with Trixie. That's such an immersion-breaking scene and I regret it constantly.
The second and third books do much better at only using canon details to support the story, rather than fandom memes. They're also just much better, in a narrative sense. Better plot, more character development etc.
Shipping and Handling is fine I guess, but the other two are the ones I'm really proud of.
5597939
That makes me wonder, have you ever considered making a revised version of Shipping & Handling that better matches the tone of the trilogy going forward? I often find myself wanting to recommend this trilogy to others, but having to explain that the tone and writing of part 1 are dramatically different from the other 2
5598059
Nope, Shipping and Handling was simply too big and too popular. For ever one person that read Magic of the Heart, there were about 14 that ready Shipping and Handling. Retconning anything would hardly make a difference at this point; almost everyone that's going to read it probably already has.
Since people liked to compare Hocus Pocus to Harry Potter, let's use that as an example. JK Rowling didn't go back and change the first few books because they were more whimsical than the much darker and more complex books 4-7. This is the same thing; even if I'm not a big fan of it anymore, the events of Shipping and Handling are the lore of this fic universe.
Really, all the stupid stuff happens during the plot-unimportant shipping assignments anyway. There's nothing I would change about the core storyline, which is the stuff going on between Ditzy, Breeze, Cloudcover, Watt, Glow, and Candyfloss. I'm still happy with that part.
Unlike the Sethisto chapter, I still love the existence of Pinkie's imagination made manifest. Watt reference it several times in Magic of the Heart, and it'll probably appear in one of the upcoming short stories.
...and also I will never apologize for the Pinkie Pie chapter.
Shipping and handling also had a fun theme song
As a Ditzy Doo/Derpy fan I really enjoyed Shipping and Handling when I first read it. Time to go back for a re-read.
5599423
Enjoy!
If you haven't read the sequels those may be worth a look too if you have time. The second book focuses on Dinky, and the third follows Ditzy and Dinky roughly equally.
5597614
Yeah me too... I feel guilty cause I started it like 7 years back and meant to pick it back up but never did. I think I'll give it another go I'm keen to see how the whole series goes!