• Member Since 16th May, 2013
  • offline last seen 4 hours ago

PaulAsaran


Technical Writer from the U.S.A.'s Deep South. Writes horsewords and reviews. New reviews posted every other Thursday! Writing Motto: "Go Big or Go Home!"

Sequels1

E
Source

Princess Twilight has found a way to summon Daring Do from the pages of one of her own books! This seems like a wonderful thing, but there's something wrong. Daring has opinions. She's thinking independently. She's self aware, and she doesn't want to disappear.

Daring Do is alive. That wasn't supposed to happen, and it complicates things. As Twilight heads off to engage her royal peers in an ethical debate over this issue, Daring is left to her own devices, wondering whether she'll even be allowed to live.

Cover art courtesy of Miz-Jynx!


Now featured by The Royal Guard. Feel the awesomeness!

Chapters (7)
Comments ( 171 )

Why haven't more people read this?!

Dat synopsis! :pinkiegasp:
Consider me HOOKED!

3654521

To quote a friend: "probably because the show rendered this entire story AU."

I like the idea myself, but you know how fans can be.

3654573
I know right? That's one of the best synopsi I've seen!

I don't even care if this is now AU. In my mind, THIS sounds like what Daring Don't should have been.
...I'll read this when I finish work.

Daring Do is a real interface based on information about a pony. She is real; she's not a pony; she's intelligent; she can make real actions. The only thing she isn't, is a pony. Therefore, Twilight is wrong. Her logic needs to be restored. :trollestia:

3654521
3654586

Why haven't more people read this?!

First guess? No clop.

3654656

I don't even care if this is now AU. In my mind, THIS sounds like what Daring Don't should have been.

Wow, thanks!


I have high expectations for this story. I'm considering sending it to EQD, but I dunno. I'll wait to see how it does in the coming week.

Very interesting, very interesting indeed.

3656040
In all honesty, as an EQD worthy author myself, I can tell you that they don't care if a story has no likes/views or thousands. They care only about perfect grammar, relative originality and execution. If you have all these in check, go for it!

3656158
Grammar is the problem. They see things that are invisible to me - I know, I've tried. They took my Trixie story - which is by far my best story - and dumped it after one chapter for things I didn't even know were wrong. To go through my stories with a fine-toothed comb searching for issues that 99.9% of the reading population don't even know exist, much less care about, strikes me as entirely pointless and a slap in the face of common sense.

But at the same time, I do want more people to read my stories, and EQD is a surefire way to make that happen...so I'm conflicted.

3656224
I could help you, if you like...
Check out my editing resume on my user page. A couple of those stories have been featured, including Sunset of Time and Birds of a Feather.

3656244
I might just take you up on that! But if I did, I'd probably ask you to take a look at Trixie vs. Equestria, instead. That could be an issue for ya, though, as TvE is a pretty big story. I'll think on it. Besides, I need to do an editing run on the whole thing myself before it goes to someone for a 'professional' editing job, as there are parts I already know I want to heavily modify, especially in the first two or three chapters.

On the other hand, asking you to edit this story could be a trial run. :trixieshiftright:

3656269
Just letting you know now: grammar, sentence /paragraph structure and repetition are my specialties. I'm not quite as good at the "tell vs show" or plothole things. Though if I see inconsistencies, I'd be sure to point them out.
It's always good to have more than one editor, though; think of us as combs, that can overlap. Another might pick up on something that one misses.

3656292
I'm not worried about plotholes - story development is my specialty. "Show vs. Tell", which I wholeheartedly disagree with but still try to apply to appease the masses, is a regular issue for me.

I have another editor, but he's extremely busy and, thus, is very slow. I need more!

This moment right here:

Damn, son. This sh:yay: just got intense! I didn't think the scene was too long or short at all. You conveyed exactly what you needed to without rushing it or drawing it out. Well done.

You might have nothing, but I've definitely got something!

Dammit, Daring! :fluttercry::raritycry::applecry:
How could you, Paul? How could you?
Seriously though, serious props for actually drawing liquid pride out of me. This is a beautiful story. :heart:

hate hate hate flutter dash but the story was overall good, have a like but not a fave only cause i cant stand weak little fluttershy.

3696578

Hey, if I can earn a like from someone who hates part of the background concept on principle, I consider my work a success. Thanks a ton! :twilightsmile:

3696623 tis why im a critic im unbiased :rainbowwild:

Whoa mamma! this is something. It's great that you aknowleged the episode though.::twilightsmile:

3697156

Whoa mamma!

:twilightblush:

You know, I've always wanted someone to respond to one of my stories with an expression like that. Thanks for letting me check one more thing off my bucket list! :yay:

I've got to say that I love that you're adressing Twilight as a flawed being who still makes sometimes serious mistakes insead of just declairing
her to now completly perfect as some begun to do lately by calling her "a paragon of goodness" and arrogantly making believe that she can
do no wrong now that she's an alicorn.

3697423
This brings up two things in my mind at once.

First: when Twilight became a princess at the end of Season 3, I swore never to write anything with her as a princess until I saw how this change was handled in the 4th season. This was largely because I always strive to make my characters fit at least somewhat with their in-show counterparts. Now that we've seen her in action for a few episodes, I feel much more confident about using Twilicorn in my stories.

Second: I avoid 'perfect' characters like the plague. Unless they serve a very intentional purpose, they are useless to me. I see no reason to view Twilight as a 'paragon of goodness' just because she has some wings and a fancy royal title. Celestia's a princess, and she makes mistakes (A Canterlot Wedding, anyone?). I adore Luna, but she's as flawed as they come. Why in the name of Equestria would Twilight be any different?

Pain makes the story. Flaws make the character.

Our dream will fade:fluttercry::raritycry:

3697240 Sure thing I really appreciate that you took the time to respond and definately agree about "pefect characters" and the point you
made about this specific creative process this story is a favorite of mine now and I'd like to see you follow thorugh with this FlttershyxRainbow
Dash parring.:twilightsmile::raritywink:

3697847
I have a great many stories planned. The stories listed on my user's page "Future Stories" section is just the tip of the iceberg for what's floating around in my head. That said, I'm not sure I have a FlutterDash story in mind yet. :trixieshiftright: Meh, I'm sure one will come to me eventually. Anyway, glad you enjoyed the fic!

PS - Reader comments are my bread and butter, and I always try to respond to them. It lets the readers know I appreciate their input.

3698959
I'll be sure to check that out soon then Paul and thank you so much for considering your
readership like that I've got to say that that's realy great of you to do,also you'er very right about Twilight I would'nt love her the way I do if she all of the sudden was without faults
and you'er right about Luna too(Whom I also adore). As a final note I'll soon begin working on my very first(and hopefully not last)story called Adaptation,it's a Human in Equestria story and constructive input you and writers can give me would help out alot.
So thank you very much again Paul.

This needs to get on EQD. Holy cow, man...

A very good and very nice story. For the record I'd consider what Daring Do did as suicide. And I would consider this specific case to be morally wrong. But anyways her biggest mistake is that she didn't come to terms with herself before pursuing Fluttershy. It made the emotional impact all the more devastating when she learned that no she wasn't an actual pony. An actual person, yeah, but not a pony.

3792515
I don't know how anyone could interpret Daring's decision as anything other than suicide. Now if you're from the standpoint that suicide itself is wrong without any other qualifications, then yes, her actions were definitely wrong, and there's no way to debate that.

Personally, I don't view suicide to be intrinsically wrong. In fact, the thought that someone could make that argument didn't occur to me as I was writing the story (in hindsight, it should have been an obvious one). My primary interest revolved around the moral quandaries of bringing our fantasies to life.

3793046

I do think suicide is acceptable under certain circumstances, such as your existence being incredibly painful with no hope of reprieve, or if by killing yourself you protect others. Daring Do didn't meet those cases though,

Now personally I didn't see much wrong with bringing characters to life, as long as you treat them with the respect and dignity that any living pony deserves. Well there is the whole metaphysical thing where they might not be happy at first and have memories of being happy, but they weren't actually happy because they didn't exist til that point. So their happiness in the past is also something you were responsible for. But it seems to be a sideways way of creating life, and there's nothing (well not much) immoral with that.

3793689
If I wanted to go metaphysical (and I'm not saying I don't), my immediate thoughts turn to the whole 'playing God' trope. My rival (the one that manage to beat this story by one vote because it was sunny and full of rainbows :facehoof:) unintentionally touched right on this topic by having a main villain who could literally create armies of bad guys right from the pages of a book, recreating them over and over again when they died.

That's dozens of individual, supposedly living beings who were created to fight and die. That story doesn't even consider the moral ramifications of this, but it's exactly the kind of issue I was hoping people would recognize.

Granted, the creation of Daring Do was made under the best of intentions, and she wasn't meant to be alive. But she was, and who's to say others like her wouldn't be alive, as well? What's to stop ponies from making a dozen Daring Dos, all for the sake of meeting their hero? What's to stop a guy like King Sombra from making an army of storybook villains? And every one of them is a separate life.

This kind of thing can easily spiral out of control.

3794056

Well I've always had a problem with the idea that 'paying God' is bad and evil. It's what you do with your creation that matters, not the how. (unless the how involves murdering other intelligent being/insert evil act here).

Anyways presumably the difficulty in casting the spell would be the limiter in this case. After all Twilight is the pony whose special talent is magic. Not everypony could cast that spell. Sure there might be a few others but that's not really a problem. And the whole creating an army thing, well that'd run into the problem that the creations have free will so it's not like they'd just instantly do your bidding. Even if an army could be made, well then you better hope someone didn't come up with a counterspell like they did with the Mirror Pool

3794229
All valid points. About the only counterpoint I can make is that there is some level of control over the creation's mind. This was subtly and intentionally mentioned, as Daring Do was readily willing to accept that her book world had never been real. I never said it, but this was something built into the spell by Twilight to save time having to convince Daring of the truth.

If you can do that to the creation, what else can you do? Make them blindly loyal? Make them want to achieve a specific goal? Make them willing to die for your cause?

Now we're getting into mental reprogramming, which is the equivalent of slavery. So even if only four or five ponies throughout Equestria can cast the spell, there still great potential for abuse.

Just a thought, but DD could have kept a diary; then, if she ever missed her monthly power-up and disappeared, Twilight could re-create her from the diary, with all of her memories up to the last diary entry...

In fact, with this spell, ANYONEs diary could be used to re-create them as a magical construct, in the event of their untimely death. Now that would be a scary thing.

3794362

That could be a problem. Still I think that just requires a second limiter to the spell, it being having access to the spell be limited. Something like putting it with the time spells and other dangerous magic.



3794539

You mean awesome. You get to be practically immortal for such a little cost? Okay that has it's own problems but still it's an amazing this to achieve.

This was good. This was so good that I... I can't even...

3794539
3795284
I direct both of you to this story, which happens to be the one that beat mine in the contest (still a little grumpy about that). Though depicted in a lighthearted manner, the main villain had a similar concept, and was able to live pretty much forever using magic that let him re-create himself over and over again via literature.

Sure, access to the spell could be limited (Twilight may have even made such a suggestion in her debates with the other princesses, as she did want to keep the spell around). But, as has been shown repeatedly in-show, there's always somepony capable of getting past the locks and guardian spells. Things only have to go wrong once.

For example, Discord can't be the only draconequus out there.

Another example: Chrysalis did impersonate a princess for an unknown amount of time.

3796449

So I just read through that story, and I've got to say you were robbed. Your story was much better, though I did really like the creative idea of discording Fluttershy so that she becomes a combat beast.

Anyways so far there hasn't been anything really stolen from Equestria's protection besides the Elements by Discord. And those were the good artifacts. All the evil threats have been external, invading army, Discord, Nightmare Moon, Sombra, and most importantly the Alicorn Amulet.

Nothing was protecting the Alicorn Amulet. It was literally for sale and any sufficiently wealthy unicorn could have gotten it. Equestria was actually lucky it ended up in Trixie's hooves because she used it immediately against one of the most powerful ponies in Equestria.

My point is that there are plenty of unprotected threats in Equestria. This spell, while dangerous in the wrong hooves, isn't nearly as bad. I mean the Mirror Pool alone is a hundred times worse and there isn't any protection for that beyond a large rock.

3800465

So I just read through that story, and I've got to say you were robbed.

My current theory is that I lost because it had sunshine and rainbows and happiness, and people like that over solemn and bittersweet. But it's just a theory, I really have no idea how I lost. It was a real letdown, because I was confident I had this one in the bag. :trixieshiftleft:

My point regarding secured threats was that there are clear ways to get past those securities, so there's really no reason to believe that securing anything is a fail-safe. (And lets not forget that the Equestrian Royal Guard seems to be completely useless at the best of times.) If the greatest defense Twilight – supposedly one of the smartest and most forward-thinking ponies ever – thought of for the Mirror Pool was a rock, what kind of pointless protections have been given to dangerous things like the Alicorn Amulet? Did they bury it under Fluttershy's chicken coop? :facehoof: My version of Trixie went and destroyed the accursed thing!

But then, this story doesn't take place in the same AU as my other two major stories, so that may be a moot point.

At the same time, Celestia seems to be fairly strict about securing things she knows about, so I'd expect her to be pretty heavy-hoofed on this subject in the debates.

Know what this reminds me of...Buzz Lightyear when he finds out he's really a toy.

Sort of the thing, actually

3806417
Now that you mention it...yeah, it kinda is. :rainbowderp:

Time to enter the obligitory this needs more views comment. But in actual seriousness, this REALLY needs more views. This is one of the best FlutterDash fictions I've read in awhile (Although the main theme wasn't about FlutterDash). Either way, this was a fantastic story :twilightsmile:

3818932
Many thanks! Don't worry, once I get this sucker into EQD – and it will be accepted, I'm determined – I expect this story to get much more attention :twilightsmile: Assuming they think what the vast majority of my readers think, that is.

3819113
I hope you're able to get into it then :pinkiehappy:. If you can't win a contest, then at least you can get it viewed by as many people as you can

..... So rainbow basicly killed daring, then took her place? That's just....... Just terrible. If ever there was a reason to hate rainbowdash, this is it.

I would love to see how fluttershy felt after daring don't when she found out daring do was real.

Login or register to comment