• Member Since 9th Mar, 2012
  • offline last seen Oct 17th, 2013

Stalin the Stallion


T

It was just a normal day for Twilight Sparkle, and that's when she found an old book, a relic of Starswirl the Bearded. That's when it happened, that's when she became a Master, how Starswirl the Beared became her Servant, and why she must now engaged in a to-the-death battle royale against six other Master and Servant pairs – all in the name of some holy artifact with an incomprehensible power that must not fall into the wrong hooves.
A My Little Pony and Fate/Stay Night crossover, written to be comprehensible to those without any experience with Fate/Stay Night.

Authors: Stalin the stallion, Crushric
All art by Stalin The Stallion
Huge thanks to The Conflicted Writer

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 68 )

I like what i see please write more because I NEED MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR I NEED MOAR OR ELSE

Hey there again, comrade! I'll give you a nice review on this in my usual fashion, just know that I'm kind of in the mood to poke a little fun at things, so not all of these are serious errors that I'm mentioning.

“Say, do you have children.”

Should end in a question mark.

I mean, whips and chains not for torment but for...

Oh ho ho, Stalin, you dog! :raritywink:

A competition with will results in deaths.

A competition which will result in deaths (?)

Though no so much into random chaos,

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, but it doesn't make any sense as is.

Spike sighed, lying on the couch with his arms crossed behind his head. A small smile crept onto his face, however sore his muscles may have been. His eyelids grew heavy. For a moment he tried to fight his eyelids’ efforts, only to give up as quick as he had started, his mind drifting off to all sorts of places.
The library’s front door swung up with a loud crash. At the sound, Spike’s eyelids burst open, he let out a yelp, and he jerked his body, sending him falling to the floor with a light thump of purple scales hitting a wooden floor face-first. Growling at the noise, Spike rose his head, running a hand through his green frills as he glared at the offending door.

You refer to spike by name a little too often here, try using some more diverse pronouns.

those horror movies

They have movies in Equestria now?

nose-deep in that ‘biology’ textbook,

Oh these are too much :rainbowlaugh: Kind of out of character, if you ask me, but they're so damn amusing

her an Pinkie

her and Pinkie

Hmm, inability to take blame for your actions... Say, isn't that sign of a serious condition

Seriously? I don't really know of anyone without this condition, then. Is the condition called being human (er, pony)?

this isn’t far from the first time something bad has happened around here

I think you mean this is far from the first time, as in the first time something bad has happened was quite a while ago, and a lot more bad has happened since.

“Worst name for a hamlet ever,”

This (and a few other quips like this) don't really match the dialect that these characters are speaking in, it's too modern.

nopony realize that this guy looks kinda like Starswirl the Bearded?

Don't you mean that kooky grandpa from Ponyville retirement home?

It’s called a ‘cutie mark’? That’s stupid. I mean, wow.

Know that feel, bro.

“What?”
“Is ‘what’ your favorite word?”

This reminds me of something...

This was quite good, in fact I'd say it's probably your best work so far. The pacing kept my interest (except the bit with the "crusader" characters, unfortunately), and most of the original characters are interesting as well. Starswirl's dialect was a little too modern for me; I know he's supposed to be trying to adjust to modern language, but the voice I gave him in my head doesn't fit the lines he's speaking at all (on the other hand, making him quite scatterbrained was an interesting and unexpected twist, I really enjoyed that).

I'll get to the next chapter later, but so far I'm enjoying it. One thing I'd be wary of is diminishing the value of the canon characters. I know it helps raise the stakes if the villains are "unlike anything Equestria's ever faced" but it also gets pretty pretentious, especially when they're apparently making the Princesses seem insignificant.

Other than that, though, keep up the good work! :pinkiehappy:

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For the record, they are speaking with that odd dialect on purpose. None of them would ever say "thou", because "thou" is first-person-singular informal. And St. Payens himself points out how odd the word "ain't" is, thus allowing him to use it. Also, note how Starswirl has a resonating Bass voice, which is the deepest voice a human (or pony) can possess. Apparently, I'm way to smart for most people, so much of my linguistic humor (aside from English, I speak Spanish and some German, and I m very well versed on dead languages). Also, Payens is French (from Southern France, actually), and Starswirl is some kind of German or Dutch. If you'd like, the original Gdoc is loaded with this discussion... Seriously, it was a really long and in-depth discussion.

Bible Black - Heaven And Hell

This is becoming my go-to "Eldritch abomination in a book" song.

Starswirl is her Servant? Wait, what?

1368718

Look up Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero.

Twilight basically summoned Starswirl as her Servant.

Basically in the animes I've listed, there are Seven (Actually 9 Classes, Excluding Savior and Avenger for specific Purposes)

Berserker
Archer
Saber
Caster
Assassin
Rider
Lancer

Each equipped with specific abilities attributed towards their class and Starswirl happens to be teh Caster Variety.

:rainbowkiss:

1368762
I have played every TYPE-MOON game. The Nasuverse is possibly my favorite fictitious setting. I'm just saying it seems odd that she'd get Starswirl lol. Never would have crossed my mind although it makes some sense.

If I weren't familiar with that particular oeuvre I probably wouldn't have capitalized Servant, but that is a fairly subtle clue, lol.

1368845
My bad bro.
It's not too often I see another Type Moon fan on FimFiction.

Btw Gilgamesh is best Servant

Hmm, happens that I have watched fate/zero and fate/stay night recently. I'm going to give this fic a chance.
*throws the fic to the colossal pile of to read later list*

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I didnt know of existence of other type-moon fans either :D It's good to see that i am not alone

And what exactly is wrong with Starswirl being her servant?

I love Fate Stay Night, and this looks very promising I will read later after I do some stuff!!!! :pinkiehappy:

You are now #23 on my "Watch Later" list!

No really. It sound really interresting, so I'm gonna give it a read some time :twilightsmile:

1369145
Indeed. Now if only they could remake Stay/Night and give it an appropriate path to follow.
Hopefully Hollow/Axteria and I wish they'd do an Anime on the Holy Grail war that preceeded Fate/Zero and brought about the Creation of Avenger

Hmm i think this is the first 'Fate/' fanfic i have read. i have seen both animes and i gotta say, loved em both.

i will give this a read, i will post a different comment after i get done readin.

PS. Saber is best servant <3

I WANNA SEE WHAT RIDER DOES IN THIS!

1365338
In the beginning of the 2nd season episode Hurricane Fluttershy, Rainbow dash did show a educational film to the other pegasus of Ponyville about how Cloudsdale take towns reservoir water to make new clouds in Cloudsdale weather factories.

So if Equestria have educational films, why not cinema.

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I am assuming they do not know about Fate/Stay Night.
If a female King Author can become a servant of a Japanese teen boy in the original series, then having Star Swirl being Twilight's servant looks pretty legit to me.

cant wait for more, i am in love with this.

OY! Something interesting for once! (This is going to be long isn't it? 'Cause I love long things.)

Of to the next chapter, since this is amazing!

As I said before, this is really interesting and I will stay here, because this is awesome, and that is all :twilightsmile:

(I have no critisism because I am bad at seeing those things...:twilightsheepish:)

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I Really hope so. I will send it to eqd, but i will return only after a week to see the results

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I Really hope so. I am a HUGE fan of nasuverse in general and fate in particular. And what i REALLY want is anime adaptation of Heaven's feel route

1369894
Thanks :D

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Not too much of a spoiler will be if i'll say that he is a general villian in 1st half of the story

1369877
Exactly! Their film even sounded, so why not?

1369983
Thanks :D

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oh I dun care about that (I played the game and got all the endings-I've thoroughly had my fill of fate).

I'm just curious how a vehicular animal acts as a rider.

It's like a yo dawg and inception rolled into one just thinking bout it

1370347
Actually it is main villian of first generation of my little pony. From pilot

F/SN crossover? I'm game. BRB after reading.

1368484
Funny, When I was writing this with Stalin, I was listening entirely to German music (Rammstein, OOMPH!, Megaherz, and Eisbrecher).
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And now we play the waiting game...
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Dankeshön. We've been planning/writing these two chapters for a solid month. Glad to see it paid off.

You want to see a comment when you return? You didn't specify what kind.:trollestia:
JELLYFISH JAM!
gifs.gifbin.com/1237576060_funny_dance.gif

1370467
Bad Psychopath. Don't make me get the bottle of Windex I filled with water and pray it in thy face. Thou knowst very well what Stalin wanteth of thee, and thou shalt comply.

1365382
Yeah, I caught a lot of that, but having a medieval knight speak with an archaic dialect (even if it's actually being improperly used) and then saying things like "ain't" or "best/worst ___ ever" really feels unnatural, even if the character themselves make note of it. Parody isn't (always) an excuse for inconsistency.

As for Starswirl, I initially imagined him with the voice of Sir Ian McCullen (when he appeared for the first few seconds before changing scenes). However, with his sort of tangential way of speaking, switching between modern and archaic dialects, I couldn't help but imagine him with a more nasally, higher-pitched voice. While I suppose one's voice isn't determined by their personality per se, when writing a character it's best to match the two together to create believably, unless the character is some sort of comedy relief (which, for all of his absent-mindedness, Starstwirl/caster does not seem to be).

1369877
... Oh yeah. :applejackunsure:

well reading half of this...its almost 10pm i didnt read it all at the moment... but it sounds fairly interesting so i'll be sure to keep reading this amazing fimfiction. :moustache:

1370922 Nay I say! Speaking in the way of Luna shan't derive me from the Illogic.

For a minuet I thought you were taking the Fizban approach to Starswirl the Bearded.
Fizban is the forgetful/senile old wizard from Dragon Lance/ D&D, and is a mentor to another Dragon Lance character Raistlin.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Fizban.jpg
Here is a common occurrence for poor Fizban, ether setting his hat or sometimes his pet cat on fire with a miscasted fireball spell.

Fizban is hundreds of years old, and most of his spells kinda... got mixed together in his head and has a odd habit of casting Fire ball at the wrong times, then when he actually needs the spell there is a chance he forgot it. Fizban fireball more than Lina Inverse does in Slayers. Fizban is also one of the rare D&D characters that can cast cleric spells without having the cleric class.

note Fizban is really the good god Paladine in Dragon Lance

1371434
While you raise a good point, a lot of this humor is -- and I mean absolutely no offense -- something someone wouldn't get without a linguistics degrees, or (as is my case) has an obsession with knowing languages. Use use of “y'all”, for example, was due to Starswirl overcompensating for the perceived need to distinguish between second-person singular (thou) and second-person plural (you), but he got it wrong because of this overcompensation. Likewise, St. Payens isn't exactly a medieval knight; the perceived need for him to speak without contractions is not only silly but downright wrong, since he's from Southern France he is used to lots of contractions in his speech and so brings this into Modern Equestrian. However, since the *insert name of powerful object* grants all Servants that ability to speak the modern local language(s), it is likewise not entirely unreasonable or silly for them to use “ain't”. If you look at the next chapter, you can see with with Archer, who speaks almost entirely with the word “ain't”, despite occasionally slipping into Old English Equestrian. Really, this isn't so much humor as it is me showing my work with my mastery of language... God, that sounds so arrogant of me. But if you'd like, I'll PM the link to the Gdoc were we three (Stalin, CW, and I) had a long discussion on this; you'll see that I am, unfortunately, far too smart for my own good (this is what Stalin and CW said, not me).
Oh, and as for movies, if you were to read the next chapter, you would see that one of the Masters is an Applewood movie actor named “Alastair”.
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And thank thou kindly, compatriot.
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*Fluttershy Stare*
1373149
Starswirl can be a bit... scatterbrained at times and he can be just as forgetful, but Starswirl is at least mostly competent when he absolutely needs to be... Usually, anyhow.

1373466
Well Stalin's fic here is a MLP , Fate Stay/ Night Crossover.
Fate Stay/Night is a RPG video game series as well as a Anime series; so if you are going to use a RPG series you may as well use RPG elements.
And at parts the Fate Stay/Night Anime uses RPG terms/concepts to describe the characters and events.

1373508
:unsuresweetie: No offence, man, but yeah... that does sound kind of arrogant.

But my point remains. While I suppose I didn't understand some of the subtleties (namely regarding the geographical origin of some characters), parody is still not an excuse for inconsistencies. Furthermore, if you can't get the humor without a linguistics degree, you may want to re-think your approach, because I can assure you that the majority of the audience doesn't fall under that category. Not that you need to pander to your audience's sensibilities, but if what is some sort of linguistic humor for you comes off as a break in character to the reader, you may be better to go without (even if it means maintaining a fake dialect for some characters and in turn grating on your own nerves as a co-writer :twilightblush:).

1373619
Believe me, this came from the aftermath of a huge discussion on this. I consistently makes jokes that are so high-brow that nobody without certain degrees would understand. I do a lot of little things that nobody would pick up on without certain degrees, actually, and Stalin and CW (that is, the Conflicted Writer) hate it when I overdo it -- like how the next chapter involves me conjugating Old English in the Instrumental Case, to which I remarked about in-document about how hard it was. Or how I mentioned Helets (Spartan slave caste) in order to show off how awesome Archer -- whose name is actually a mix between Old English, Old French, Latin, and Taino Native America -- was in life. This is actually the compromised version, since CW thought a lot my linguistical things wouldn't make sense to most human beings -- it was my compromise to not including to many über-high-brow jokes. I did what I could to explain it in-universe, which was my attempt to make it seem logical. I mean, I'm the guy who taught himself German in 4 months and only did it because of the ponyfic he was writing had the German narrator (the guy who is my profile pic is the German narrator).

1373658
Oh, believe me, I could actually tell all of this (by all of this I mean that you needed to turn down the linguistic humor) when I was reading, but it's not the complexity of the humor itself, but how it's kind of half-assed at this point. For example:

“Ain’t no excuse not to attempt to obviate our situation... And the word ‘ain’t’ sure is quite a useful bit of modern slang, don’t you think?”

By pointing out that the word "ain't" isn't a usual aspect of his dialect through the character himself, you haven't excused the inconsistency, you've actually made it worse. Essentially, you've turned something so subtle that it would just go unnoticed by most readers into obnoxious meta-humor. To me, the only ways to fix this are to go fully one way or the other; either write the story as though these characters are aware of how ridiculous the nature of their speech is (or whatever it was you were originally going about doing), or just get rid of the language humor entirely too keep from destroying the reader's suspension of disbelief. Even if the reader is a language major of some sort, their suspension of disbelief will be much more strongly upheld if the world and characters follow consistent rules rather than borrowing from certain rules only at specific times (and then making vocal observation of it on top of that).

Basically, my point is; it doesn't matter what the process was for the story to be this way, what your intentions were as a co-writer when writing it, or what you do or don't expect the reader to get in the story. As someone who wasn't involved in the writing process, and was not initially aware of it's details, I can be considered to have fresh eyes on the story, and, regardless of what your original intentions were, it's always worthwhile to listen to a fresh perspective. Because while you may have your reasons for something to be this way or that, the only thing the reader has access to, and the only thing that really matters in the end, is the final product, and the readers will base their observations on that and that alone.

Though, despite all this debate, it's really a minor issue. :rainbowlaugh: It seemed a little weird to me, but I tend to pick up on character inconsistencies pretty harshly, and I didn't really like the characters in question to begin with.

1374685
I accept. And mind, I actually own a sword (as any respectable Southern gentleman ought). But, por favor, would ya mind giving Stalin and I your thoughts/a review upon this little story o' ours?

1375155
Dude. Khorne used to be my story's editor. I'm not kidding. But Khorne failed me and now I work with Slaanesh.

Spike´s way too snarky to be Spike. Like 120% snarky. :rainbowlaugh:

Awww, poor Twi is broken with her cutie Mark stolen, her Idol standing before her but talking about war, servants, master and chicken soup. XDDD

Though i really expected her at one to yell SHUT UP! SIT DOWN! ANSWER MINE QUESTIONS FIRST AND NOTHING ELSE!. I mean, a pony can take only so much into her before going crazy and Starsw-i mean, Caster sure isn´t an easy one to handle. :pinkiecrazy:

Hm, no Twi and Caster this chapter. Hopefully next chapter.

Why do i have the feeling though that Archer will try to hit on Twilight? Wait, this could be taken in a double meaning... :derpyderp2:

But damn, most of those heroic spirits are damn evil. The rider´s even his own master/made his master basically his slave. XD

And Archer´s such a free spirit Trixie has no control over him or better she only has two seals left to control him.

I hope everything will be explained to Twilight next chapter and that she takes the news well. Aka send a letter to Princess Celestia ASAP cause she´s about to panic cause she´s supposed to fight six other masters with their servants and she had no idea she came into this shit and her servant is a scatterbrain and she lost her cutiemark for three damned commando seals!!! Also Spike will have a month vacation as it seem. :facehoof:

1378500
This just means that Stalin and I have created in making this story accessible to anyone! Victory!
1379697
Spike's snark is justified and constantly pointed out. I think he kind of has a right to do this now.
Caster's gonna be quite a hoofful for our intrepid Twilight.
Yeah, Trixie and Archer; that's what happens with Archer's Independent Action. Let's home Archer doesn't do too much of anything to our dear Twilight, but even I am less-than sure.
Rest assured that something's gonna happen next chapter, count on it.

1394484
You can thank the lack of a [Dark] tag on Stalin. He hates grimdark ponyfics and the [Dark] tag in general. On the other note, most Servants are, by their very nature, from the past – the only ponies that could really be present-day Servants. So unless you wanted us to, say, kill off Fluttershy and turn her into Flutterkhin (which nopony wants), we're sticking to the past.

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