When I think of writing for fun, and not for fame, the first thing I think of is niche (also known as esoteric) stories. I was curious what some of the niche topics people have written about, how they feel they've represented that topic, and what kind of audience they think their stories would appeal to.

I guess I'll start. I have (of my very long list of stories I'm working on) two major topics of note. Of which one is domestication.

After watching the "Apples in Socks" episode (AKA The Fire Swamp with Rodents of Unusual Size) of MLP I came to the conclusion that there are plenty of creatures raised in the wild. That in the MLP universe this must be an acceptable, yet rare, phenomenon. I asked myself what kind of struggles would occur if such a character were adopted by a "civilized" family, and set the story in a time where what it means to be "civilized" was being called into question.

Though that story is about domestication conceptually, focusing on a dysfunctional family, the execution focuses a lot on the struggle between the members, and is delivered with a heavy dose of political intrigue. Though hardly spy-vs-spy I feel it has enough of both genres to pull audience members from a cross section.

How about you? What topics did you write about without getting into the details of the story itself?

4617553 I, too, have tackled the issue of what it means to be civilized in My Friend Tenty.

It's about a civilized Tentacle pony society that gets disrupted by Celestia's army. The innocent Tentacle ponies are accused of an assault of a nearby Earth pony village. That, of course, is a lie! Tentacle ponies merely raped the inhabitants of that village. Celestia, however, is persistent in her narrow-mindedness. As if there was anything wrong with being touchy-feely. Geez!

I have a couple. One is a Military-in-Equestria, already somewhat niche, but then focuses on Pararescuemen and combat search and rescue. It's more about saving friendly fighters than battling against enemy fighters.
My better one is an HiE that deals with the dark world of Human Trafficking. A young man and his friends are taken, and he is psychologically damaged by the experiences he goes through. With the help of Pony characters, he goes through SE Asia, telling Discord the truth about his quest for revenge and his helping pony a lie about trying to go home.
It's more about the niche theme for me than a totally individualized idea. I take the theme and play with it as I write.

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What topics did you write about without getting into the details of the story itself?

I think you missed the point. We're talking about the ideas in general—the theming, and it's place in the niche bucket—as well how it was incorporated, rather than the specifics of the execution. This isn't a thread for story promotion, but one analyzing what, why, how, and who we write for.

4617678 How did you come to the decision to write about this topic, what inspired you, and what type of audience do you think might enjoy it?

4618138
Well, I decided on it because it seemed like a rarely-touched-on topic. The inspiration came from my reading about how a lot of criminal groups, like drug cartels, terrorist organizations, and others funded some of their activities. The audience that seems to enjoy it the most are the ones who are interested in reading about real issues, just with some pony added.