Cancelled, sorry.
It's been a tough year as always for the citizens of Ponyville. To blow off steam, Shoeshine and her friends: Carrot Top, Cherry Berry, Lily Valley, Roseluck, and Daisy organize an all-earth pony snowball team. New tactics are developed, and old tactics brought back, to allow the earth pony crew to stand up against their unicorn and pegasi foes. When their rivalry comes to a head at Ponyville, Princess Twilight Sparkle declares snowballing to be an officially recognized sport.
Our story follows the exploits of the not-so-humble peasant farmer, Linky, and The Golden Herd, their hard-earned lessons in battle, and the bonding of shared experiences.
Set in the same continuity as Lily Valley Goes Shopping. Told from the perspective of Linky.
Edited by Five Stars' favorite Gentleman, Firesight
Well here it is, my first big story. Thanks once again to Firesight for editing and offering suggestions for improvement.
This story will contain six, perhaps seven, chapters. I hope to have it finished within a couple months. As mentioned, it is contained within the same continuity as Lily Valley Goes Shopping, but is not a crossover with the Gentlemanverse. I'm truly sorry, but there will be no humans.
The objective is to utilize as many background ponies — mostly earth ponies — as possible to give them something to do. There are over one-hundred one-shot and background ponies at this point, so why not use them as OC's?
Anyway, I hope you like it.
New and different--a medieval-style snowball fight between the pony tribes? I'm there!
I'll up vote and read it once chapter 2 is done. Seems like a nice concept
Dear Princess Celestia
Today the earth ponies of Ponyville lunched a coup. Their weapon of choice? Snow.
I have a feeling this is going to be fun.
The internet took one look at this and was like
but it's going to be alright.
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5322406 The rough draft for chapter two is done. My editor is on vacation, but we'll get it sorted out when he gets back. It's a bit longer then this chapter in its current form, and delivers on the promise of tactics and battle. There's shipping in here too, so watch out!
Edit: My editor is a great sport. He edited my rough draft while on vacation, and it's one step closer to completion. This next chapter is going to be meaty, 5800 words at least. It will be up next week for certain.
A pity we can't get more people interested in this. It's a good story with an original premise. Can't wait to see Linky storm Twinkleshine's castle keep...
This brings me back to my school days and the snowfights we had.
Flags and stuff to wave in the flanks or to change tactics.
I was made commander shortly after I joined in. I was proud.
5400561 Shh! The world is not yet ready to experience Twinky in all it's M-rated glory! At least not yet.
Soon...
5401136 When I was a real little kid, we had good enough snow to build some really sweet forts. The problem was when the school started going out and breaking our tunnels. Those jerks trying to keep us from dying a tragic death on their property!
Ah well, not really any snow where I'm living, and I'm really just kind of old now. Good times.
5401248 I know the feeling, blasted teachers trying to save us from ourselves!
No making pitfalls, no making parachutes to use from the roof, yada yada yada.
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Upped & tagged.
This is glorious. Maybe in need of a little love, but still glorious nontheless.
6130318 Once AGP is done, I'd like to work on this again. It's been a lot of fun to write, but to be perfectly honest with you, it has numerous problems. Now if you'll excuse me, let me take the time to negatively review my own story:
1. Linky is too many things all at once to be believable as a main character. Why the hell does she care about liking mares? She's Genghis Khan! With Roseluck I took time to explain why this little detail of her character mattered and incorporated into the main storyline. In this story it adds nothing and serves as a distraction. Bleh. When I do re-write this, that's going in the trash. She likes mares and that's it. End of story.
2. The attempted love triangle sucks - see problem one. Yeah I borrowed heavily from this to create AGP didn't I?
3. This isn't M-rated so no F/F. Seriously, why would I do that to myself? That's just cruel...
I pretty much have to re-create the entire thing from scratch.
To be perfectly honest the whole story works pretty well (so far), and I enjoyed reading it immensely.
But obviously, I don't know what you have planned or which parts conflict with that and thus make them bad etc.
I will say that while reading I was most drawn by the general japery involved in the snowballing and the preparations beforehand, and the banter between characters is especially amusing.
The bits of worldbuilding and history are p. interesting too and I would totally not be disappointed to see more of that.
You're right about Linky being 'too much all at once' though. The problem being that reading her is currently very enjoyable just because she is a little OTT, and that makes her all the more endearing as a character because she's such an eccentric oddball compared to the others.
Finding a way to temper that without making her bland is what's going to be probably the biggest task.
The love triangle thing probably was a bit silly. No huge loss.
And the story works just fine being clop-free and concentrating on silliness and purient humour. But like a good mare, it would work fine both ways.
Yeah. It deffo needs a little polish, but I think you might be a little over critical of yourself (as we all tend to be).
Even if you kept writing as-is I'd read and save because it's an enjoyable story, and that's the point isn't it?
Maybe related/useful/amusing?
There was a waterballoon related feud mentioned in the other story which may (or may not) be connected to the events in this one, and I've had this thought bugging me of Linky and her antagonist eventually getting into to a standup blazing row over some stupid thing or other and ending up like this:
Things like this make me laugh more than they probably should do.
I'll get my coat....
6133466 I'm really happy that at least one person on fimfiction actually enjoyed Linky. In reading your message, you've made me realize something else too: the fact that she can't figure out she wants to bang a mare isn't a problem, it's just adding to her general wackiness that she can't even figure out her own sexual preference! In a re-write I will keep that aspect of it, and just jettison the useless triangle.
Linky wouldn't change much in a re-write; she'd be the same wonderful furry ball of Mongolian barbarism with the drama angle mercifully killed. AGP did drama just fine, this story didn't. I think my favorite part about Linky is when she's just sitting around the house with Roseluck talking. History doesn't record much about Genghis Khan's domestic life, so I get to indulge myself in a bit of speculation about such a larger than life figure making casual conversation.
The biggest issue of all is the fact that no one seems to want to read this. No matter what I do, it's a lose/lose scenario. I could easily make this story 100,000 words long and not have it feel its length, but if no one reads it, than who cares? If one nerd knocks over a tree in the forest and no one is there to see it, not even Fluttershy will give a damn. You get the idea...
6133766 Yeah. And it's super hard to be motivated and positive about something if literally no-one cares.
I know dude. Been on this train a few times.
All you can do is your best. Even if no-one saw you push that tree over, you still know you did it.
Thanks for writing this though, you've made at least one person smile.
The just sitting around talking stuff is something I wish more stories would make greater use of.
Character interaction is literary catnip, and if some of those characters happen to be unique and otherwise enjoyable to read it only makes it better.
Also when things get tidied up, would you consider writing Linky and Carrot as having vaguely Caledonian accents similar to how they're written in AGP?
It is just too perfect. (And damn hillarious.)
6133899 Aye, I think I kin manage that, but I cannae break the law of physics!
Thanks for the watch!
6135118 Neigh problem.
Just looking through some episode stuff, and given the context in your stories it's quite amusing just how often Cherry and Linky are together.
And someone really needs to throw being schooled by Fluttershy at Linky in some future banter session, I'm sure that wouldn't cause any kind of amusing fallout whatsoever.
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6136461 I know exactly where to put that scene in my story! It will be great.
Cherry and Linky do show up in the same place quite a lot which was something I considered. Carrot Top and Linky being sisters comes from the the number of times they show up together as well. This Bluemeganium art cinched it for me:
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As a head's up, you may want to save this version of the story somewhere. At some point, I'll be taking it down and replacing it with the new version. I just hope it's clickbait-y enough to take root and prosper.
6139914
Saved for posterity.
And that is some classy art.
Another interestamusing thing to have someone throw at Linky is how she nearly got crushed by a flying cart, and had to be saved by a librarian.
(And in the process produced the show's first Wilhelm scream.)
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