This thread is for discussion between those of us working on the thing: bookplayer, bats, Jake Roberts, Churchy, and xjuggernaughtx, and AcreuBall.

Welcome!

I think this will be a fun thing to do in our off time. It doesn’t have to get too complicated. It can be just notes to friends, or it can be mini-stories as they tell each other what’s happening, or plots between the characters that take place through letters. However you’re interested in writing it.

First off, there are a few things to discuss!

1) What is your character doing?

It would be great if you could write up a little blurb for the front page of the group, outlining where they are, why they went there, and giving a hint of any conflicts you think you might want them to deal with.

Also, keep yourself in mind as you come up with this. If you’re worried you might be busy sometimes, and unable to write back right away, make your character busy. If you think you’ll be bored and writing long letters to everyone, make your character stuck somewhere where writing letters is the only interesting thing to do.

Example:

Everypony knows they can count on Applejack when they need help, especially her family. So when Aunt and Uncle Orange find themselves without a manager for their orange groves, Applejack ends up in sunny Palomino Beach, a land of fancy ponies, beaches, and not an apple in sight. With a whole orange grove and a team of farmhooves to manage by herself, AJ is just hoping she can lay low, stay out of trouble, and harvest an orange crop for her aunt and uncle. Of course, there’s a chance she might find a way to have some fun.

2) Shipping

I’ve brought this up to a few of you so far. Some of us are shippers. Some of us are not. Those of us who are shippers like some overlapping ships. I don’t want to push shipping on the non-shippers, or end up with a tragic love square between AJ, Rarity, Twilight, and Dash. (Unless the writers decide they want that to happen!)

Now, we could agree to no shipping. Or before we start we could work out what ships we want to pursue. Or we could arrange things as we’re writing, by communicating here or in PMs about where we’re seeing the story going.

I lean towards the third one, myself. If you know you don’t want to ship, or won’t ship a certain pair, you can say so upfront. But for those of us who do ship, I’d rather see how our versions of the characters interact before I decide on or rule out any ships for AJ. I’ll probably be inclined towards AppleDash or TwiJack, but if the author of Rarity I are having an awesome time, I could decide to go with RariJack.

However, that isn’t end of discussion. If you have opinions, let’s talk!

3) Organization

My thought is to have a separate thread here for each pair’s correspondence, where that’s all the thread is. I’ll open a seperate “Comments” thread, where people can cheer and discuss things if they want, and we’ll delete any comments that show up in the Mail threads.

So threads would look like:
Applejack and Fluttershy
Rainbow Dash and Rarity

And of course we could reply to the previous letter to send the other author a notification that it’s their turn.

Totally optional: If two authors decide their characters are visiting each other, and want to write some collaborative fic of that visit, it can either be posted to the correct thread, or posted as a story on one of your accounts with a link from the correct thread. If those two characters respond to letters together, it can be posted to both of the relevant threads.

Example: If Twilight and Rarity are visiting one another, any scenes bats and Rarity's writer decided to write could be posted in the Twilight and Rarity thread, or linked on the thread to a fic. If they have Twilight and Rarity write a joint letter to AJ, it would be posted in both the Twilight and Applejack and the Rarity and Applejack threads.

I'm making all six writers admins, so we all can make sure that no one is posting in the letter threads without permission. You don't have to police it or anything, but you'll all have the power to delete the comments from there. If that becomes an issue, we could even leave the threads locked and just unlock them when it's time to post a letter.

So to chime in on the issue of shipping, I personally prefer the third option as well. I have my ships of choice, but I'm perfectly open to letting any evolve organically.

There are no TwilightxMane six ships I would be uncomfortable writing.

I have something to offer.

This is pretty neat, but I feel as though people would enjoy leaving us comments. And since they can't really post in the letter threads, maybe make a thread for comments?

The only problem is that thread turns into a random mess of comments. Some sort of organization would be nice, and of course we love to hear feedback from our wonderful readers.

It doesn't necessarily have to work that way but you get what I'm saying.

Edit: this comment is now void, carry on.

Okay, quick check up with everyone here as they're percolatin' on what it is their ponies are up to for the summer.

I was planning on having Twilight, freshly coronated as Princess of Magic, touring Equestria with Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Shining Armor, doing a meet-n-greet, learn royal duties, ingratiation to local governments, that sort of thing. This would mean, of course, that the princess flock would be with Twilight, and thus if anyone else wanted to have their character's whereabouts tied to the royals, me jumping the gun on it might put a dampener on their ideas.

So, rather than being all 'snooze you lose' about it, anyone else planning on using the princesses/Shining and Cadence? I could easily trim down to Twilight palling around with a single member of royalty or her brother and have things work as I was planning.

If we're being choosy, I would most like to have Cadence with Twilight, followed by Luna, Celestia, and Shining, so that would be my preferred order of parting with characters.

1156088 I imagine Fluttershy wouldn't really be with anybody else but herself (and probably a few of her animal friends), so you're cleared with me. In fact, I could see Fluttershy staying in Ponyville while everyone else goes on summer vacation, because I find it hard to believe she'd want to go anywhere or abandon her animal friends for so long.

I haven't decided.

I digress, include all the characters you want.

1156224
I considered having one of them stay in Ponyville, which would logically be either Fluttershy or Pinkie.

On the other hand, I could see Fluttershy going someplace to make new animal friends, the way she wanted to at the Gala... perhaps Princess Celestia offers her the opportunity to start a park or nature reserve somewhere, and she has to go sort out the animals.

Also, I wanted to get other opinions on the idea you PMed me about- Should we have one comment thread for everyone, or a comment thread per author?

What does everyone think?

1156366 I figured a comment thread per author, so that readers could ask the authors what's up, why they did something they did, or anything really. The other way it becomes people asking about the characters, and that sounds like a lot more writing to me...

Edit: keeping both is nice because in the general comment thread, people can just discuss what is going on in all the letters. On author threads, however, they can make it more personal, and I think that's kinda neat.

1156366

I don't mind reading general comments to see if there's anything directed at me specifically; it'd probably add a sense of cohesion to the whole thing to have comments be universal to all the correspondences.

1156401

I totally understand where you're coming from. I wish we could make sub-threads for this or something. But I'm kind of leaning towards the general comments thread for three reasons:

One... this is going to be a strange project. You're writing Fluttershy, but story wise, you and I are writing Applejack and Fluttershy together and you and Jake are writing Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash together. Those could be very different stories; Applejack and Fluttershy could be a serious story about being homesick, while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash could be having a comedic back and forth trying to remember the name of their flight school instructor.

So, having one comment thread per author is, in a way, not much more specific than having just one- people still might have questions about a number of different plots going on. And in fact it makes it harder for them to ask questions about the Applejack and Fluttershy letters specifically, without getting other writers in your peanut butter. As it were.

Two, We have writers of different levels of popularity here, and I don't want it to become a popularity contest. I don't want anyone (me) to fee bad if bats has one million comments, and they have one comment that was someone looking for the bathroom. So even if there's kind of a theme like that in the comments thread, it's a lot less obvious.

Three, what 1156377 said about lots and lots of threads. Also, I wouldn't expect a lot of individual comments, anyway- I'm gonna digress here...

So, on other fanfic sites, people don't get nearly as many comments as we do here, for a simple reason- they have to click a button to comment. One button cuts the number of people commenting by, like, 75 percent. The story design here is amazing, the fact that people can just scroll down to comment make this place much friendlier. Unfortunate, we can't really work it like that for this project.

At the top of each thread, I'm going to post a link to the comment thread. But I'm wondering if we should link there more often, or if that looks like fishing for comments.

1156542 It was just a thought, whatever works is fine. I'm sure that people will find the comment section: the ones that want to comment. Links on the front page and in each writing thread is fine, that doesn't seem like overkill and makes it easier for people to provide comments quickly.

1156542

After a small amount of deliberation, I'll just settle on being flattered by that.

On a totally different subject, I can not find a screen cap of Fluttershy or Pinkie writing anything. Can anyone think of some episode where they might have picked up a pencil or quill?

1156816 :/

No. Unfortunately, Fluttershy recently discovered that viewers could hear her inner monologue whether she liked it or not. She no longer needed to write things down.

1156605
I dunno if you noticed, but you are now.

ETA: The banner will do for now. I know some of you guys can actually art, so if you feel like putting together something better, let me know. Pinkie and Fluttershy are not pictured because I can't find pictures. If I find some, I'll add them in.

1157140

I could make something, if everyone is okay with me bumbling through this digital art learning curve for it.

I'd prefer to know where all the six are going to be for the summer before starting, though. I like the hodgepodge everypony's-writing-letters-while-not-together general design, and it would be nice if all six mini-scenes for a banner made contextual sense for the...story? Project? Collab? Game? Whatever this is?

1157313
If everyone is okay with my bumbling, I'm sure yours is acceptable.

I'm using the Palomino Springs Beach idea, so orange groves and up-scale beaches for AJ.

(Because I always forget which one is in Florida)

Wha? FIMFiction didn't notify me of posts here. That's weird. Okay, I'll read through all of this tomorrow. My wife likes to talk to her video games and it makes pony concentration difficult.

1157587

They were probably posted to the forum before you joined the group.

1157587
It only notifies you if we reply to you... which we couldn't do because you hadn't posted! But now that's all straightened out.

1157592 Ah, yes. There was no one in the group beside Clown Prince and Bookplayer when I joined, so I neglected to check for forum posts. I see now that this thread was started before I joined. That kind of deductive reasoning is why I'm writing Pinking instead of Twilight...

1157651

Maybe it'd be a bit crazy, but do we think making one thread for all the letters would work?

I am totally open to this idea (I'm totally open to any idea!) but my thinking against it was that one thread would get too confusing for us. Say I get a notification that bats wrote me back, but I can't get to it for a few days. By the time I get there, Jake has also written me back, and has written three letters back and forth with Churchy... I would have a hard time both remembering to get back to bats and Jake, and finding those letters.

I did consider the idea of each character having one "mailbox" so that all letters to AJ went in one thread, but that doesn't work as well if we have story threads going on between characters.

So I was almost seeing each exchange as it's own "story" (loosely speaking,) But if you guys think another option is better, it's fine with me!

ETA: I was also purposely going to make the thread names something that does not imply shipping, like "Letters Between Applejack and Fluttershy" in hopes of not turning off people who don't ship it. Some people still won't want to read it (I might have been known to skip certain characters chapters in fics that give me the option) but those people would probably just skip the letters in the thread, too.

1157679>>1157715

Something to consider would be to have a 'readers reference guide' thread that could be updated by someone who's willing to do some administrative busy work (which I'm honestly willing to do, although it would probably be easier for everyone to handle keeping track of their own character) that would have a series of links keeping track of each individual character's personal narrative in roughly chronological order?

That might get unwieldy very quickly, but it could also help separate out specific 'storylines' that form inside exchanges, so a reader could easily navigate through something that's happened for one character across correspondences with several other characters.

1157808
Down, girl. Try not to get too flirty too fast.

1157821
I think I'll leave that up to the writers. If they want to organize things, we'll make a place for it, but if they'd rather keep things loose, that's just fine too. I want to keep this as much or little work as anyone is comfortable with, I don't want anyone (including you) to feel like it's a chore or taking time away from other projects.

But if it's something you want to do, you're welcome to!

1157836

To be honest, I might have to. Having a big ol' mess of disorganized exchanges that could be put in order is pretty much like giving Twilight a stack of books on Phrenology and a stack of wooden boards for me. It doesn't matter how pointless it is, there will be a brand new bookshelf devoted to a debunked science in the library very shortly.

1158209>>1157857>>1157715>>1157601>>1156582

First, fair warning: I'm going to set up the threads today, so prepare for 15 disappointing notification. Sorry!

Second, bats, Jake and I put our blurbs on the front page. Everyone here is an admin, and you all can do that yourself, or if you don't know how you can just PM it to me. Try to keep it to a paragraph, if you have background stuff you can relate that in the letters.

Third, if people want to get started, I was thinking we'd start like this:

Everyone will have two characters they write the first letter to, and two characters they're going to get the first letter from, and one character that's a toss up- the authors can work that out themselves. You should probably wait to start writing until the other writer knows where their character is going to be, though.

So this was the list I made up:

Applejack
to: Fluttershy, Twilight
From: Pinkie, Rarity
Toss up: Dash

Rarity
to: Applejack, Pinkie
From: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy
Toss up: Twilight

Rainbow Dash
To: Rarity, Fluttershy
From: Pinkie, Twilight
Toss up: Applejack

Twilight:
To: Pinkie, Rainbow Dash
From: Applejack, Fluttershy
Toss up: Rarity

Pinkie:
To: Dash, Applejack
From: Rarity, Twilight
Toss up: Fluttershy

Fluttershy:
To: Rarity, Twilight
From: Dash, AJ
Toss up: Pinkie

So, in answer to your question, Jake, you could start with a letter to Rarity in Baltimare or to AJ in Palomino Springs.

1158209>>1159563>>1157715>>1157601>>1156843

While we're being productive in here, small request for the banner image I'm going to put together.

If anyone has something specific they'd like to see for their character's writing portrait, I would like some requests. Settings is the minimum and I have that for most of them, but a general sort of tone or small scene for it would be nice as well. For example, I'm planning on Twilight's being her somewhat surreptitiously writing while looking bored at a formal dinner.

Things to keep in mind on said requests: less complicated the better. I don't mind drawing complicated stuff, but each 'panel' is going to be either 334x125 pixels or 167x250 pixels to fit into the 1000x250 space for the banner. That's this big:

or

Which is plenty big for a readable character and some light background elements, but not a lot of room for major complexity. What I'm looking for basically is something along the lines of 'Dash in a flight instructor outfit (like something this guy is wearing, or a Wonderbolts flight suit minus the emblems, or whatever you're thinking), looking tired in a Vegas-y hotel room as she writes,' or 'Fluttershy on the ground in a park, writing happily with a rabbit on her head.' or 'Rarity looking frantic, sewing a Shakespeare-esque costume and writing at the same time.' Something that gives a sense of tone and setting for the characters.

1159718
Can you draw Applejack looking tired and messy, but writing next to a fancy swimming pool?

If not, just her writing under an orange tree/looking over an orange grove would be fine.

(We're playing fast and loose with the biology of oranges here... oranges usually don't have a summer crop, and orange trees have very low branches unsuitable for sitting under. But I've decided these are Equestrian oranges, so there.)

And thanks so much for offering to do this!

Oh man. I already see that AJ's gonna have fun...

1160949
Wrong thread silly. But yeah, AJ's got plenty to write about this summer.

Now I just need to know where Fluttershy is, so AJ can get to asking what to do about gators.

1161048
..,i blame it on my day at work just being finished. Exhausted ._. delete these two if needed!

Visiting the Crystal Empire at the request of Cadance to take a census of their animals, or help the animals settle in after being banished from the world for a millenium, or similar? I also like the notion of her helping out with a nature experiences summer camp at Neighagra falls. Just 'cause I like floating ideas.

(Though if it were me, I'd probably force her into something terribly entertaining and outside her comfort zone. The princesses are all traveling, so Flutters is stuck palace-sitting with Angel Bunny)

1161140

You're welcome (you're all welcome, I like drawing and this should be a fun little thing to make).

Also, any preferences on our toss-up letter?

1161243

Fine with me.

1161991

Sounds legit.

1161991>>1161247>>1161243>>1161048

I was celebrating Father's Day with my stepfather today, and I see that that was a terrible time to do so.

Anyway, I'll at least get that paragraph written up so everybody knows where the hell I am. Anything else I need to do?

1162087
You put family before pony writing?

No worries. You're not behind or anything, there were just some folks who were eager to get started, and it's all supposed to be at your own pace. So the only thing beside the paragraph is let bats know what you want your part of the banner to look like.

Then, whenever you get around to it, you can write a letter/note of some sort to Twilight and Rarity, and figure out with xjuggernaughtx whether you want to write to Pinkie first, or let her write to Fluttershy. You can take as much time on all of that as you want, and also on getting back to AJ and Dash, who will be writing to Fluttershy first.

I just really don't want people feeling like this is homework or something.

1162121 What I want my part of the banner to look like?

Is he an artist?

Can he draw a moose?

1162159
Yes he's an artist.

He can probably draw something approximating a moose.

But it should also involve Fluttershy writing a letter in some way.

1162159

Refer to this post. And yes, I could draw a moose.

1162192 I've decided Fluttershy will be in Whinniepeg, and perhaps Fluttershy simply writing a letter with a cross-eyed moose staring over her shoulder would be neat. If that isn't possible, then I don't really mind what goes in the banner, whatever will fit.

1162260

...I will draw the hell out of a cross-eyed moose for you.

Cross-eyed moose FTW.

1162266

Thanks! Can't wait to see it!

1162320>>1162266>>1161991>>1161243>>1157601

Questions for you guys, based on two PMs I got last night.

One: Do we want to date these things? It might make it easier for people catching up, especially as it goes on and we have several days or a week between some of the letters. If we do, do we want to start from June 23rd or start earlier? Do we want to do it real time, or let people set how much time has passed?

I do not know the answers to these things.

Two: Skeeter the Lurker has asked if we'd like these compiled in one place in order of posting. Actually, this could be an alternative to question one, I guess. But anyway, he currently has them arranged in a gdoc, which would be my preferred method for the moment. Is this cool with everyone? Objections?

I've had a busy morning, so I haven't had time to form opinions on these things. Someone form them for me, please.

1163824 I don't have a problem with dating them, and I think it would be easier doing it in real time. Then again, maybe not, because it probably takes a few days getting those letters through the mail.

I suppose I don't write many letters. Are they normally dated?

I am not a clever man.

1163936 Well, there's also magic, so there's that I suppose.

Magic Mail Express Delivery System

1162266>>1163936>>1163824>>1161243>>1157601 Maybe this has already been covered and I didn't see it, but where is Spike?

bats, I assumed that Spike would be with Twilight. But I wasn't entirely sure if you wanted to allow Spike to go with on her royal duties or not.

If Spike is still in Ponyville, I'm sure that he'd just love to take care of all of the animals for Fluttershy...

1164357

I was going with the idea that Spike was manning the library in Twilight's absence, which leaves room for animals, too. Spike's basically up in the air; I didn't want to hog five of the side characters.

1164376 Right, right. That makes sense. I was just wondering, and I don't want to put Spike on double duty working both places, but maybe every once in a while he visits the little Cottage on the outskirts of town.

1164385

I bet without Twilight there making him sort and reorganize all the books every day the library isn't quite as large of a task for him to handle among other things.

No reason he can't head over in the morning to feed all the critters, run the library during the day, then check in on the cottage in the evening.

Hi there! I wasn't certain if I should post this here or in the actual discussion thread, so I'm taking my chances a putting it here...

I already know that bats, bookplayer, and Jake Roberts have access, so I'll put a link here for anyone who's curious:

The Mailbox Compilation Gdocs Folder

It's rather rough for now (June 24th), as I only made it yesterday (June 23rd).

As soon as I can figure out what I'm doing in Photoshop and Illustrator, I should have the rest of the page break banners made. You can find them in the "Mailbox etc" doc. If you want me to do anything special with your letters, please, by all means drop me a line. I'm always around.

Likewise, if you'd like me to NOT do this, feel free to tell me as well. But, uh, I'd like to, if you don't mind, that is...

Fortunately, I'll have plenty of time to devote to smoothing this out... Due to issues with my school loans, I'm being forced to take a month off. Unless I can get the loans before the end of the month. Which I doubt.

~Skeeter The Lurker

Edit #1... The first AJ/PP chapter is done. 13/15 starting chapters will be done by tomorrow. Chapter 16 (AJ/PP 2) has been made.