Every action taken is like dropping a pebble in a pond, creating ripples that extend ever outward. Every choice has consequences, good and bad... Putting on a Crown may have changed Sunset Shimmer's life...but it also Changed two worlds...
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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That would be: a) hilarious, b) a disaster and c) a hilarious disaster.
Seems like Loyalty also earns the privilege of being a confidant. Also, even ace Dash has a dirty mind.
I did remember that chapter and I'm glad I did 'cause this chapter is so fucking hilarious.
People tend to forget that Dash isn't actually stupid.
She just has different priorities.
I sadly had forgotten that convo but it seems Dash didn't. At least Sunset now has another confidant in her diversionary scheme. Also, yeah, that Pinkie Pie Party thing would end hilariously in disaster.
I never forgot it, though I was wondering when it would be brought up again or if it never would.
Anyways, Dash in this universe is exceptionally observant from the Dash we are use too. (Except in the MLP Episode where she was studying for history and relied on flying to learn without realizing it.) How I figure everyone's observant are is like this:
Fluttershy: Observe but won't speak up unless required too
Pinkie Pie: Observer and will speak up even if you didn't want her too (Unless you Pinkie Promise her)
Applejack: Observe if you are hiding something but won't quote on it unless needed
Rarity: Observe if you are hiding something and will quote on it unless could ruin friendship
Rainbow Dash: Observant yet talks with the person before possibly telling others
Anyways, I knew Rainbow Dash would be the first to find out about Sunset's Girlfriend (Out of the Main 7)
We are approaching the final climax for Sunset and (Sci) Twilight's secrets being revealed! [Sunset's Origin, Magic, more!] Can't wait for the carnage to begin!
Dash, you stupid, impulsive, wonderful idiot
Ah yes, Sunset's conflicting feelings about Princess Celestia come up once again, not knowing what's going on with Celestia or her side of the story.
It makes me still just as eager as ever for that resolution as the Friendship Games. But, Light vs Dark, Pony vs Demon magic first.
*Skims back to Ch. 22*
Right, that conversation.
At least, now Sunset has someone in her main friend group who knows now.
This was an amazing chapter I loved it so much. The pieces are all coming together and Dash is hilarious, it’s fun seeing her get Sunset all flustered. Especially now that the girls are in frisk zone.
Also this is funny because I’ve been rereading the story and just finished chapter 22 before reading this so that was a cool coincidence.
Also also can’t wait to see Twilight and Sunset get all embarrassed and flustered from horse jokes
You have probably heard this before but DAMN you write these characters so well.
This was great. Emotional, sad, funny, cheeky, and a reminder that the rest of the crew are there for Sunset even when she can't see the forest through the trees. I'll admit, I was with Team Pinkie expecting her to be the first to know it all. (excluding Flash, of course)
Rainbow loving to make others squirm with adult humor is exactly how I see her too. She is comfortable with herself and only lets those she trusts see through the walls she puts up. Brilliant.
And "Baby Got Back" is classic GOLD!
I have reread this story way too many times not to remember that conversation with Dash.
Also, Dash really has her moments in this story.
Gotta say, I wasn't expecting this already. Loved the way it turned out though. Dash handled everything very well and I can see a lot of inside jokes being tossed at Sunset until everything is revealed to the others. Hopefully Sunny tells Twi that one of her friends know they are a couple. Twi had Cadence and now Sunny has Dash.
I can't really see it happening, but a meeting where Dash and Cadence talk about the girls would be hilarious.
I’m super happy that Sasha be sunset are getting their own time together. I love them interacting and being bros together. Even if it’s not the kissin’ kind.
I’ve kept that old dash-knows conversation in a small box in my head so I can stare at it when I’m awake late at night and wonder how it would come up again. And this was not on my list, but it was still great.
Dash going 1000% into supporting her friends is always good. I hadn’t put it in the same words as you, but that’s exactly how I’ve seen her too. And romance for her would always be less about the actual lovey dovey stuff and more about hanging out and supporting people. So I can see her forming bonds that fall more into very close friendship rather than spit swapping. But man if she does ever fall the impact crater will be spectacular.
I kinda want dash (the human one) to end up offering to fight celestia (the horse one). I can see in my head a call back to the end of s1e2 where she flips into front of twilight and holds out a hoof to stop the princess’s. Only violent monkey teenage dash who kinda thinks that it’s so cool sunset beat up a gang would totally throw down with tallest horse if she fucked with sunsets emotions too much.
Yo! Glad to know I'm not the only one who had the thought process of Ace Rainbow! That's honestly the thing that always stuck me even of the character in baseline MLP/EG was that she doesn't ever really seem the character that would fall in love with anyone, or at least not the kind that would go out of her way expressing it. Though that said, considering the length and work you've put into this story, you've probably had this idea a lot longer than my silly little one shot.
For what it's worth, though, we need someone to mention the concept of Sapiosexuality to Sunset, if only if because that's about as close as I think we can really get to her outside saying she's 'SciTwiSexual'.
11745673
Oh 200% hilarious disaster..
We all know teenage human Dash would make dirty jokes. But there's no better friend to trust to have your back.
11745722
Oh good. This chapter was meant to be both emotional and make people laugh. It was a great chance to really show the friendship Sunset has with Rainbow.
11745727
Dash is what I would classify as "Not Book Smart"...but she is perceptive. Even as early as season 1, we see Dash's perception and a measure of actual sensitivity to her closest friends whenever Fluttershy is involved. No, she cant be bothered to do long division, but she does know her pals, and she's the kind to have their backs, support them when they need it, and push them when they would benefit from stepping out of their comfort zone.
11745732
Dash definitely didn't and she's been watching ever since. Dash knows a lot more than people think.
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I actually think she's more observant in canon than most people give her credit for. Its not that she doesnt notice, its really about what she does with what she notices. We see her in the early seasons display a remarkable amount of perceptive attention to things like some of Fluttershy's struggles, and the human version, while she puts Princess Twilight's dedication to the test, signs on immediately and is right there with a "Nah, you were always going to lose the game against me--that wasn't what it was about." And she jumps in with both feet as support. I suspect she files a lot more away than people think.
11745755
She raised a valid point that no one had bothered to ask before.
11745756
Look, just because Celestia was never officially her mother didn't mean Sunset was free of the "How did your parents fuck you up?" baggage. Everyone's got it. No one escapes it. Sure, some of its WAAAAY worse than others, but there's no such thing as perfect parents. Everybody comes out of childhood with at least one issue that comes from their relationship with their parents. (Mine inflicted me with "Eldest Child Syndrome"--the consistent and unrelenting perception that I have to constantly sacrifice myself to be responsible and support everyone around me because to do otherwise makes me a bad person. Were they trying to? No. But actions and responses to my behavior reinforced it until it became something core to my personality and behavior.)
Sunset will get through it, eventually, but its a process, and part of that process is really understanding what the actual problem is. She's....getting there.
11745789
Yep. Its all coming together, like two trains on a collision course.
I really did enjoy Dash and Sunset interacting in this chapter. I dont do enough 1 on 1 stuff with the rest of the girls (there's more planned for later, but I had so much else going on in this arc that I had to be selective.)
11745804
We do our best, thank you. :}
11745855
It was a fun chapter to write. Dash has this...way about her. No subterfuge, no mincing words, just opens her mouth and what she's thinking tends to come out.
And yes, that was the joke, layered under the fact that Sunset confesses everything to Dash.
11745913
I find Dash is one of those characters that works like good seasoning to a meal. Used in just the right amount at just the right time, and she makes the story a million times better. But done too much or with the wrong scene, and it either falls flat or feels wrong.
11746030
Dash is a lot of things, but I feel like she's the kind to take things in stride when it comes to her friend's secrets. She's not going to get mad, because hey, she gets that certain secrets need a certain level of trust. Shes not going to freak out, because thats typically what people are afraid of with secrets. She just slots it into what she knows, nods, and moves on.
11746035
Yeah, originally the plan was for some more scenes, but the fact is, we couldnt make them work without it feeling like the story was being....dragged out. And with all of the things already involved in the arc and the plot, I couldnt justify it. THe plan now is to use some of those types of scene during what I have jokingly titled "The Sailor Moon Monster Du Jour" Arc.
We...debated the various character affiliations with different gender, sexuality, and romance labels in great detail--pretty much every character has those three things on their sheet, but what we went for was "given their personality, which of these is most likely to fit?" rather than worrying about either "representation" or "what the writer wanted to assign." (I've been reading fanfiction since fanfiction.net was new, and I never really cared for the "all or nothing" approach to the topics that so many writers tend to fall into.) Everything about Dash just seemed to fall into "Romance is unlikely to be something she looks for or desires." We've also joked that "Fluttershy and Dash are Platonic Soul-mates" because there is no one she's closer to than Fluttershy.
Princess Celestia will have a lot of humans she has to look in the eye and answer to eventually, when it comes to Sunset.
11746172
Its been kinda a thing in the notes since the beginning, lol. We did a lot of character discussion in those early days.
Sunset's a weird case, because her sexuality is a little bit species dependent. She can happily talk about what she finds physically attractive in another pony, but...she's a pony. She was raised in that culture, in that world, with their influence of what is attractive and appealing in terms of beauty standards. Humans are a completely different species with a vastly different body plan that has so little in common with equines that her brain just has a hard time making the comparisons. So its...less about a fringe sexuality, and more about Twilight is the exception to the fact that Sunset doesn't feel attraction normally outside her species (which is not unusual. Most people IRL dont find other species sexually or romantically appealing.)
Interestingly, there's a book series that touches on a similar concept. THe Firekeeper novels, by Jane Lindskold, deal with a young woman who was raised from a very young age by Intelligent wolves whom she can talk to, and so her mind, her values, her culture is a wolf. Her knife is her Fang, she hunts and prowls and watches and sees the world as her wolf family does, but her body is not a wolf. And one of her constant companions, when she is dragged back to the world of humans by events, is one of the "Royal Wolves" by the name of Blind Seer. Over the like...8 or so novels, there's a powerful relationship between them, one that...is only touched on in terms of detail and both alien and nonhuman in terms of how its played out, but its this elephant in the room between them--were they both the same species, they would be partners in every way, but their forms are a barrier to the life they would choose...
11744278
Sunset has a lot of lessons to learn, lol.
11746798
One of my favorite RD passages is from the fanfic The Dread Chitin where RD blows up over old comments directed at her at Twilight being surprised Dash went to a library to look something up. In it she brings up how she graduated Weather School stupid early and for a lot of her stunts she has to do 3 dimensional trigonometry on the fly. If she is actually interested in a field she can be quite brilliant, it just isn't Kewl to show it off normally hence her hiding the fact she skipped two grades in order to graduate with Gilda and Fluttershy in my stories. Also, it doesn't help Twilight is a boring teacher, Dash has ADHD, and the stool squeaked alarmingly. Twilight probably would have skipped more grades if she didn't jump straight into pre-college at basically age 10 and was then effectively semi-home schooled.
I think this story is very interesting, and I’m still going through it, but if I may offer constructive criticism?
There are certain things that work against it. No, not the number of chapters. But size is a thing. The primary issue I see is that your paragraphs tend to be WAY too big. Take this paragraph from Chapter 70:
This whole thing is one paragraph and it shouldn’t be. Paragraph size should alternate between short and long (besides the usual break for different characters speaking). Size can be weird with internet printing because margins vary with each site. I usually go with Word margins and usually only make paragraphs 5 lines at most...maybe six on a rare occasion.
Reading paragraphs this big one after another is hard, It’s straining on the eyes.
Second, my impression of this story is that it’s exposition heavy and there are bits that could be removed because they’re just not necessary. Bits of dialogue, or whole pieces of dialogue. Take the paragraph above as an example. I would have taken out the bit at the end: “...from the dunes of Saddle Arabia to the frigid northern reaches of Yakyakistan, to the peaks of Mount Aris and beyond the Badlands.”
Not only is it not necessary to make the point, it comes off as hyper-dramatic.
Again, I do find this story really interesting, and I’m continuing to read it. Sunset’s relationship with Celestia, the way you put it, is fascinating, and I want to know what the secret with Principal Celestia is, and there’s the mystery with Crystal Prep (I’m only on chapter 76). I just feel like the story could be polished, with paragraphs broken down and the the fat in the text taken out.
11746852
haha, that sounds amusing!
11750164
First, in case this is your first comment on the story, let me welcome you to being one of our readers!
I'm happy to have an intellectual discussion on the matter of English literature, as well! It's very rare that someone actually cares enough about the mechanics of writing for me to engage in a conversation about it! :} In the interest of not missing anything, I will address the points you made individually. I hope that's okay! :}
1. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm hyper aware of the fact that the story is long--I broke past War and Peace a while ago, and the wordcount in Scrivener is about at 900k.
In all honesty, it shouldn't have been even half this long if we went by the original rough draft. Content editing took the original arc 1 from 24 chapters or so and about 90K words to around 150k words and 36 chapters plus interludes. Then grammatical editing tweaked it a bit, when you consider rewording sentences and paragraphs to make them flow better.
If I had written further than chapter 50 before I started posting, and had more than just the first 15 chapters edited by then, I probably would have actually broken the story arcs up into separate posts/Stories on the site--that is have Cross the Rubicon: Choices as the first set of the series, with the first story being "Redemption", the second being "Winter Break" and the third being "Shadow Rising." However, hindsight is 20-20, and my vision is anything but that (last time I got glasses it was something like 20/2100. I'm blind as a bat without my specs.) I will probably choose to break the second volume, "Cross the Rubicon: Consequences" up by arcs....though none of the other arcs in the story are as dense as arc 2.
2. I suppose I could do fewer chapters, but I try not to go overboard with the length, and I don't really care much for chapters that go on and on and on and on with different perspectives and like thirteen scene breaks and what have you in some novels. There were a number of Star Wars books like that that I read as a teenager and ugh. Or some of the fantasy novels. *jerks a thumb at Robert Jordan*
Besides, the shorter chapter length means I can feel confident in our ability to do the final (usually round 3 or 4) editing pass to make sure it flows and we didn't miss anything like grammar or punctuation. (My cat is often treated to me acting out the dialogue to make sure it sounds like the character. He is not impressed by my Rarity impression.)
3. In regards to your notes on "paragraph length," I'm actually curious where you get this information from--I'm not sure of your age or country of origin, so it could be that this is something they've changed since I graduated high school in how they teach English, just like how every year and a half to two years, they completely change MLA format and what is the "acceptable citations format" for non-fiction essays and dissertations. I've been out of high school for twenty years, and I did all my English courses for college in one go immediately following that, because I love English, writing, poetry, reading, storytelling, even the research part. So if its something from the last decade, I would not have encountered it.
At the very least, I can tell you that this information is completely contradictory to how I was taught...and what I often see in published literature--irrespective of whether it is fiction or non-fiction--that has an adult "reading level."
To explain, since it seems our experiences have been very different, my many years of English teachers and professors talked about paragraph length in terms of two qualifications: A) A cohesive set of related thoughts and ideas, and B) Number of sentences. "A)" didnt really change much at all from the first time it was introduced to me by my 2nd grade teacher through to the couple of real hard-asses I had in college. "B)" did, but it seemed more based on age/grade level, fiction vs. non-fiction, and a few other factors.
As an example of what I mean about that is when I was in fourth or fifth grade, a paragraph for a story was expected to be about 3 sentences unless it was dialogue. It could be longer, but it was considered poor form to not flesh out a thought/idea at least to three sentences. In non-fiction the same grade levels, for like essays and early papers, it was 4-6 sentences for body paragraphs, and 3-5 for intro/conclusion.
However, once I was in middle school, that expectation was raised. Story paragraphs required more meat (though dialogue still has its own rules, as do some stylistic techniques, but they didn't confuse 13-year-olds with that last part.) Non-fiction got even steeper, with something like 6-10 sentences for body paragraphs, and 5-7 for intro/conclusion.
(It upped again a bit when I got to my junior year in high school, but honestly, it was never quite as high as my really impossible 8th grade English teacher who I couldn't stand. She made us do 8-12 sentences in non-fiction essays and papers for body paragraphs, with at least four paragraphs PER point you raised in the paper, and like 6-8 for the beginning and end. She also had a bunch of really arbitrary OCD rules about what we could and couldn't do, like how we couldn't start a sentence with a specific word more than once in the same paragraph, and a bunch of other things that just made her an absolute pain in the ass for anyone but like four of us. Granted, it prepared me for college essays, but when you're 14 it's a pain.)
That's not even getting into all the rules for fictional writing, like "Change paragraphs when you change speakers," or for the "Stylistic techniques" I mentioned earlier which usually involves manipulating how you structure paragraphs to create "dramatic tension" the same way an oral storyteller might use intonation, inflection, volume, or dramatic pauses to do the same.
Anyway. Long-winded background information about my formal education aside, you are the first person I've ever come across measuring paragraphs by number of lines, which is why I'm super curious as to where that came from. It seems a bit impractical to me, given that everything from font style to font size to visual formatting to the method/format/device you are reading something on will completely change the 'number of lines.'
Its also something that does not seem to happen in actual printed, published media. I've got plenty of books I can name right now that are extremely well known, well written, and popular titles by authors with a hell of a lot more knowledge of English than myself, all of which have paragraphs that measure in a great deal more lines than...five? Six? Among them would be JRR Tolkien, Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Terry Pratchett, a plethora of Star Wars authors who wrote books in the Expanded Universe, Simon Greene, RA Salvatore, Raymond E. Feist, David Eddings, the list goes on and on.
Heck, I could probably even scrounge up some old YA series that fall into this too. Tamora Pierce, Diane Duane, I'm fairly certain even Animorphs met that criteria, and those books were barely 200 pages (and half of them were basically written by committee.)
Now, all that aside, paragraph length in fiction is one of those things that is...an inexact, flexible thing. There's a lot more importance cast in content of the paragraph, narrative voice, vivid descriptions, and engaging dialogue than on "Will Mrs. Lewis go through and count my sentences?" when you aren't writing for a picky English teacher with a permanent scowl. I tend to focus more on content, voice, making sure the thought/idea is complete, and balancing vivid descriptions with avoiding purple prose, so perhaps that is where our writing styles differ! And if it is, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm familiar with your story--though it threw me for a loop for a minute because the last time I looked it was under a different user name--and I thought it was quite an enjoyable read when I read it!
4. I am sorry to hear you are suffering eye-strain from reading. However, in my experience--and more than one lecture from my eye doctors--it is more likely to be caused by lighting conditions, reading for long periods, size of the text, and possibly even the device you are reading on than the length of the paragraph. Have you tried changing up some of those things or looking into ways to reduce eyestrain? Sometimes even just getting a brighter desk light or switching to dark mode can help, or if you normally read on your phone, consider going to a LP size text to help make it easier to see? (It would also depend, I suppose, on if you tend towards near-sighted or far-sighted, and whether or not you suffer from astigmatism.)
5. I'm not sure what you mean by "exposition heavy," to be honest. Some exposition is necessary in any story, but we do try to not overdo it, and we also look to avoid too much of "character as audience surrogate." I know when it comes to some of the Equestrian worldbuilding that we've done, or the way the magic system works, we treat it as a "natural part of conversation" and "drip-feed" the pertinent data long term. The fact is, Sunset is from another world, and her friends are going to have questions...some more than others...and in the case of the magic stuff, there's a lot there that is plot relevant information for later plot points.
I can freely say that I'm not normally one to waste words, nor am I a fan of purple prose. Trust me, JRR Tolkien...I've read his works, but it was a slog and for me is better used as a sleep aid. That man will go on for PAGES about stuff completely irrelevant to the plot, or that no one in their right mind needs that much detail on. I try very hard not to be like that.
If something is called attention to, it typically has a story reason. Granted, that reason may not pay off for 500k words, but its there. (Example: Something from chapter...22 or 23 that seemed fairly off the cuff and has not been mentioned since finally paid off in chapter 136.) Those reasons can be many and varied, but typically it comes down to A) A plot thread and laying the groundwork for it, or B) Character development/character portrayal.
6. Part of B is the concept of character voice, which I think is part of what you were addressing in your example paragraph, which is about 75% dialogue. You refer to it as "hyper-dramatic." In truth, that means my work at narrative voice is functioning as intended.
In this case, the speaker is Sunset Shimmer. I am not certain if you've noticed, but the character is a bit dramatic and intense. With her first appearance, we have a petty, spiteful, somewhat narcissistic ego-maniac who steals a magical artifact through to another world to gain godlike power, all to take it back home with an army of mind-controlled teenagers to confront the teacher who refused to award her with a title she believed she deserved (and basically to deal with her mommy issues.)
She is also given to exactly this kind of unprompted exposition in the actual canon a few times when it is in regards to magic or Equestria. (Like the magic book in RR.)
7. I do know I was a bit concerned with the points of exposition early on, but after some fairly extensive communication with the readers at the time--I think I put it in an author's note? Maybe? It was somewhere around either where Sunset explained the Windigo, or where Sunset was trying to talk about magic before the Rainbow Rocks stuff? Anyway, it was a concern, because it can be a boring part of any story if done badly, hence my "drip-feed" approach, and I asked for feedback then, but at the time not only did a lot of the readers say it was still in that sweet spot without being too much, but some even thought they would enjoy reading more!
As a result, I did my best to keep it to that same style of "giving just enough to be relevant to whatever plot/story/character point was needed, while not going on for pages on end."
8. I am sorry if this [the way by which exposition is delivered] is not to your liking, or if it makes the story harder to read for you, but I really do feel that this particular point may be more about matter of personal preference and individual storytelling style, which is a bit different from the mechanics of writing or the rules of grammar and English. In the case of this suggestion, "trimming out" what you call fat would mean reducing the story down to its bare minimum outline and not giving out a bunch of important information relevant to the plot later on (and a bunch of things that are also going to stand out way more on a re-read.)
I do hope it is not enough to keep you from finishing the journey with us, and I am delighted to know you are enjoying the story and pondering the questions it raises early on.
*skims back through* I think I touched on everything. It was a lot to unpack, and I apologize if I missed any points. Been also dealing with some IRL stuff today, so that tends to make me a bit scatter-brained.
Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to leave a thought out, engaging comment, and for allowing me the opportunity to have an intellectual discussion about the mechanics of writing! :} Not to mention the lovely moment of having someone who wrote a story I liked actually be reading and commenting on our little project here! Hope to see you in the comments in the future!
istg i think i js got the title reference from this