Thread 42534727

Come one and all to the meta-writefag and help raise the quality of MLP fanfiction! Featuring: Signed books!

ITT: That dead fic you still miss, making no progress, no Fimmy updates, demographics, Is reading slow burn SoL mlp fanfic gay?, what's the deal with Harmony?, using long titles as compensation, tagging system, accidental nacional socialism, referencing early episodes for that old fanfom vibe, post-S9 Twilestia, great aunt Princesses, pegasi piss in the sky, /fimfic/ in Equestria, who would've thought a story named Biblical Monsters would be subject to much debate and interpretation, in-person mating, crying over spoiled milk, erroneusly thinking blank lines look cool, and Sunset Shimmer banishes chat to the moon.

>/fimfic/ Secret Book Club
The one hundred and twentieth book is Lost and Found:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/38138/lost-and-found
If (You) want to join in the discussion, read to the end of Chapter 22 by September 7th.
Past bookclubs: https://ponepaste.org/11255

>Recommended stories:
Tired of authors crossing over a dozen IPs? Fed up with downer shipping? Well, we've compiled the best of the worst in order to bring you our absolute average!
New Starter Kit - http://mlpficreviews.org.uk/starter/
Old Starter Kit - http://i.imgur.com/vuTA7EN.png

>Common fic abbreviations used by the thread:
https://ponepaste.org/7317

>A list of reviews made by the Anons in this thread:
http://www.mlpficreviews.org.uk
Use the commands ">review <story link>" and ">discuss <story link>" to add reviews to a story.
Userscript for extra features: https://ponepaste.org/8619

>An in-depth writing guide for beginners:
https://eznguide.neocities.org/

>Additional material for authors:
Rhorse's Horse Behavioral Notes - https://ponepaste.org/932
Politics and the English Language - https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/
Vhatug's tips for anatomically correct clop - https://poneb.in/g4VpEg4f
Setting a story in motion - https://youtu.be/ufO8LbwTdu0
Purdue Online Writing resources: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/index.html and https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/creative_writing/writers/index.html

>Can you pre-read my story?
Post it on Google Docs or HackMD with comments enabled and give us a link.

>Various reviews and riffs:
Fillyanon's Bookshelf - https://ponepaste.org/5555
Notkickass222urmom's Reviews - https://pastebin.com/u/notkickass222urmom
IHeartShinzakura's Reviews - https://ponepaste.org/user/IHeartShinzakura
Appleanon reads fics - https://poneb.in/wmGX7FPm
Deluxe Big Master Review List - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z9Bz7UnEbxo-svlXa2tV49PJkP-yFuR7pRXiBUn-IeU
A Guide to Rational Fics - https://files.catbox.moe/3jzrfm.png
The Royal Canterlot Library's Top 16 Fanfics - https://royalcanterlotlibrary.net/top16/

Previous Thread: >>42506792

Stupid five minute delay...

2nd for best 2uo!
Enjoy this conveniently packaged Tuna: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/224306/i-watch-the-moon

>>42534748
Third for fucking exhaustion. Jessi, and the other guy, we may need to meet up tomorrow after I get good sleep. I nearly signed my name in the Hold Your Horsewords book for the charity auction with two Zs, kek.

>>42534829
I need to lurk this thread more, I forgot HYH was finished. Are there any copies left?

I've had coffee now. Get the fuck over here already, Jessi. We're at the vendor hall.

>>42534886
No.

>>42534886
You can order it online at least

>>42535043
I'm at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor

Also get in the fucking marefair thread so we don't shit this thread up

Your writing FUCKING SUCKS DONKEY BALLS.

>How dare you I wrote an amazing Fallout AU drama!! and it was 100% pony!
>Meanwhile that asshat writing Anon in Equestria keeps hogging the front page!!

Precisely why you can't write worth a shit. You can't write a feelsie comedy adventure with heavy world building and whimsy folktale characters if your life was on the line.

If I put you right now to take any episode from any season and write it better you'll suck complete donkey balls at it so shut your fucking trap about Anon In Equestria. Go ahead try and make Meghan In Equestria , watch as you can't write a normal sane in the head female protagonist self insert for little girls to save your ugly face.

Well go ahead *Abbot & Costello smack smack smack* go ahead, go ahead *smack* show me.
Write a NORMAL STORY THAT COULD AIR ON TELEVISION FOR CHILDREN and not your retarded 2deep4you meta drama without substance.

I like fics where fillies don't get murdered.

>>42535210
Me too.
This is a good fic where a filly does not get murdered.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/259898/a-guide-to-magic

>>42535106
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/500819/

I've had chapter 24 of A Dream of Dawn (the 2012fic where NMM wins but is then overthrown by Discord) bookmarked for months now, but I haven't been in the mood to get back to it. It wasn't bad or anything, just wasn't clicking with me—felt a bit slow paced.

I was just at the point where Discord and Twilight set off to find Celestia. Are there any really standout moments after that or should I just drop it if I haven't vibed with it that much so far? I feel tempted to try and push through anyway since I'm well past the halfway point.

>>42535210
I seem to like fics where they do. Not sure why.

>>42534748
Imagine Luna boring a hole into her skull on the tip of that crescent moonafter waking up from a bad dream and jumping up in fright.

>>42535620
Imagine Luna boring a hole into Twilight's skull as an archaic means of relieving intracranial pressure.

>>42535800
>luna gets a bad infection in her hoof and desides to cut it off
>celestia vehemently objects
>”what is the cause of thine concern dear sister? It will grow back will it not?”
>celestia sighs internally and signals for a servant to bring some tea as she prepares herself for another explanation about how equestria has changed in the past 1000 years.

>try to go into fimfiction
>404
Anyone else???

>>42536038
Works right now

>>42536229
It's not working properly for me.

>>42536354
It had to load Cloudfare for me, but it's working normally.

>>42534748
Imagine Luna and Twilight waking up in their bed in the late evening, after a long night of studying dream theory and a restful sleep.
The only thing for them to do is breathe at each other's snoots and enjoy themselves.

This is because Twilight has a plan to extend the limits of Luna's dreamwalking by having her come even in her daydreams. It hasn't worked yet, but there's no hurry.

>The ponyville chapters
holy kino...

Have you ever read a crossover that actually felt like it had a non-fanservice reason to be a crossover, like the main characters of each series having arcs that complimented each other or the narrative themes of each series being similar?

Alternatively, what is the most hilariously dogshit crossover you've ever read? I remember reading "jeff the killer vs cupcakes" (but the title had a typo) on crappypasta (the now-dead official reject bin for creepypasta.com, it had so much funny shit before some rich asshole bought it) around the tail end of creepypastas actually being relevant. It was as bad as you'd assume, just like everything else on that site, and I just wish I could read it again. There are numerous other fics with the same premise, but none of them are as spectacularly bad as the one I remember.

fimfic is 404ing again. I am sad.

It is over...

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/518190/the-princess-and-the-kaiser

Recently started reading this. It is really good, if not a bit daunting to start. Would recommend.

>>42538469
>unfinished
Fool me twice, shame on you. But fool me three times, shame on me. Not falling for that

>>42538510
It was updated recently, so it's being worked on.

Since several of the regular posters (and much of the board) are at the at the Galacon or Marecon, we could postpone the second week of the bookclub.
I don't like proposing that and ruining our perfect record, but that probably beats a week with no discussion.

>>42538855
I'll be ready but i guess I don't mind either way. I just finished the extremely kino ponyville chapters and stopped yesterday to let the feeling linger but I can just not read the rest until whenever we wanna club

>>42538855
It doesn't matter to me either way, although I also haven't finished last week's reading yet.

>>42538233
>Have you ever read a crossover that actually felt like it had a non-fanservice reason to be a crossover, like the main characters of each series having arcs that complimented each other or the narrative themes of each series being similar?
I haven't seen it yet but Warframe 1999 and FiM fit too well, considering both are about a group of colorful themed misfits that have to come together to learn love and friendship because that's the only thing that hurts a corruptive chaos god. Not sure how the eldritch hivemind version of the Backstreet Boys gets incorporated, but one thing at a time.

How's that writing going, guys?

No writing, only marefair

>>42540491
Productive and hitting the desired levels of saccharine and schmaltz.

>>42538233
I've never seen a crossover that was able to justify its existence. Thematically, One Piece's whole "power of friendship" thing and Luffy uniting a bunch of lonely orphaned outcasts fits really well with MLP but the settings are oil and water and would be impossible to blend well, which is the core problem of all crossovers. MLP just has a very isolated setting that doesn't mix well with others.

>>42538469
>updated every few days for a year-and-a-half
>then a two month gap
>then a year-and-a-half gap
Yikes. That's a huge red flag for a longfic.

>>42540491
Finally got the anthology collab entry done. Reminder the final deadline's Thursday (unless we want to push it back to JFK's assassination).

>>42540491
Redoing some outlined parts to make the story flow better. Starting to wonder how much shit I'll catch for making a pony in her mid twenties pork an immortal time god.

I saw Jinxed going to the elevator and asked him how he was doing. He asked me if I were gay. I asked him if he were serious, and he confirmed that he was, because he already knew that I'm a fucking weirdo. I told him no, and he bemoaned that he wasn't going to be able to drain his balls then.

It was gross.

>>42541408
Bisexual, actually.
Also, unprofessional of you to post about my drunken rambling.

>>42541408
/fimfic/, everyone.

>>42541408
That's just the con experience. But blogging about it itt is gay enough that you might want to reconsider your answer.

>>42528422
>>42528496
>>42528854
Bookshelves don't solve this problem. You can't grep a bookshelf.

>>42528854
Show the document.

>>42541408
Based Jinxed

>>42541408
That kind of interaction is what you get for being a massive degenerate and also actually interacting with other horse fuckers irl. I’d rather go for a walk in south Chicago than meet you freaks.

>>42542967
I'm glad I can't put a face to anyone here lol

Where were you when this mystery meat mexican bastard set the precedence for how shitty youtube reviews can get?
Why didn't you contact him and tell him you can analyze storytelling a million times better than him?

>>42542705
Old Homestuck general tier OP energy.

>>42543479
based

The printed and signed anthology sold at auction for $550. I wasn't expecting it to go for $100.

>>42543629
I guess a word is worth a million dollars. Or something.

>>42543629
Coincidentally, the Alicorn Adventure series (Celestia Code, Luna Cypher, &c) went right after it for only $350. That means all of (You) who contributed are better writers and better people than iisaw. Fuck phoneposting by the way.

>>42543197
I miss Byter and BronyCurious.

>>42543651
Someone just really wanted that pregnant horse porn.

>>42543629
We're hopefully getting one to Galacon next year.

>>42543651
I think what that actually means it that iisaw is better than any five of you put together, on average, but it probably matters which five you put together. And that 6 are better than him. Probably.

>>42543651
iisaw should have pushed his lesbian fetishism on the cover too then.

>>42543707
If I still lived near Everfree Northwest and Ciderfest i'd have helped sign it, but

>>42517226
>>42539519
I finally finished last week's reading, and definitely continued enjoying the story. The Malices were pretty good as a sort of failed and discarded Starswirl project. Otherwise, it really seemed like they should've got more useful resources out of that mansion than just a pair of blankets and pillowcases.

The scene with the princesses and Twilight was great, it definitely made up for Dashes dumb blue horseness and more. If it weren't for the Dash scene, I would've said that I liked the Found chapters more than the Lost chapters, despite how few of them there were.

The main thing to add is that between the princesses scene in Canterlot and AJ&FS's scenes after the Malices, the dialogue is really good. It might just be a result of watching some Deus Ex MD playthroughs, but it stood out to me how none of the characters actually said every line in the conversation in both of those scenes. There's a foreground dialogue and a background dialogue going on and the story blends the unsaid words into the tone, nonverbal cues and narrated thoughts really well.

Definitely looking forward to the next scene with Twilight and the princesses.

>>42543629
Hmm. After accounting for the number of pages I contributed, I still feel responsible for an actual, real, and meaningful amount of money going to charity. That's probably the best thing my writing has ever accomplished.

>>42544437
What if your writing made someone cum?

>>42544465
I can imagine someone cumming to a few of the scenes I've written. But contributing to charity still feels more meaningful.

>>42544465
That'd undo all the charity work.

>>42541334
Nobody cares if they're both adults. Otherwise all those Celestia romance fics wouldn't go down right.

>>42545370
I wouldn't call Discord an adult.

>>42545497
Oh people bitch about Fluttercord having an age gap all the time

Any fics out there that approach Grogar as a Morgoth like figure?

>>42541408
Every time I wonder if I missed something by not going to a con, someone posts something like this to remind me that I have not.

>>42541408
What I don't understand about this story is why it matters whether you're gay or not. It's not like you could stop him from whipping it out in the elevator and cumming all over you.

I wish Sombra was explored more in fics. Do you think he enslaved absolutely everybody or did he leave a section of society free under the assumption they'll serve him willingly out of fear and pragmatism. And what does the rest of the Crystal Empire look like? It can't just be one city.

>>42546114
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/116325/the-return-of-tambelon might be the one you're looking for. I don't remember much of what Grogar does to draw similiarties to Melkor but there isn't a lot of fics about him in the first place anyway.

>>42546144
You missed out. That was a few minutes from over three days. Mare Fair was really fun.

>>42545667
>people
only late zoomoids and alphas, fluttercord has been a thing since S3 and I've never heard of this happening which means it's almost certainly confined to the nu-fandom tiktok/twitter/similar areas populated by underages

>>42545667
>She's 30 years old you sick fuck!

>>42546181
Well, the second half of Anemoia is right over there....

>>42546241
With all the stories that so desperately want a Super Evil Big Bad Guy that even the elements can't defeat you'd think you'd see him in more stuff.

>>42548120
Meh, anemoia is great but IMO its use of Sombra makes for a pretty weird AU. He's better off as an OC of sorts.

>>42548256
>He's better off as an OC of sorts.
Sombra doesn't have an actual personality, at most he's got Things He Did

>>42548256
Not only is Sombra right in character in Anemoia, it expands on the early Crystal empire in exactly the way >>42546181 wants. It would be absurd to substitute Sombra for an OC in that story. It was clearly designed around him.

>>42548144
He does show up in quite a lot of stories, not just because he's canon, but also because he's a reusable villain from G1.

>>42548286
But Anemoia makes the Crystal Empire into a completely and utterly AU direction, which is completely fine but he didn't even Do Those Things from the show because the entire context is completely different. You can't even say "the history from 1000 years ago that we see in the show is distorted" because everything is so different, even in the modern day when Twilight rediscovers the ruins of the empire it has nothing to do with how it went in the show, and there's zero tie-in to how the S3 episodes went.
Which again is completely fine but it just means Sombra from anemoia is basically completely disconnected from Sombra in FiM.

>>42548297
The Zircon Empire or whatever it's called (it's been a little while since I've read it) is, again, so utterly different from the Crystal Empire that if I was that anon I wouldn't really say this answered my question.

>>42548328
It's not such a far AU. The main difference is the tech level. They have computers with screens, basically.
I find that pretty easy to ignore. TCE has its crystal transformation spell to complement Equestria's many non-crystal transformation things, Equestria has AI (Luna makes the Tantabus), necromancy (A Christmas Carol), tangible soulstuff (MMC, Twilight's Kingdom if you want), and various magically powered machines with incredible capabilities. Those are most of the other main tech concepts in the fic.
Besides that, Sombra does all the things that he does. There aren't many of those in canon, so it's hardly difficult for Anemoia to slot them in. I guess the other difference is Anemoia is T and the show is E. There is that on-screen cruelty level, but someone wanting to read about Sombra obviously wants that, and the pre-unification tribes were pretty mean in HWE.

>>42548461
The main difference is the fucking zircon engine(s) with the city functioning literally like a frostpunk colony rather than anything resembling the empire we know. The second main difference is literally everything about the crystal ponies, the setting, the city itself, etc., such as the fact that absolutely nothing got "banished for 1000 years" but the ponies just went into hiding and then when an entire expedition from Equestria arrived they emerged back out to make contact. Does this have anything in common with "sombra cast a spell to disappear the empire for 1000 years, then one day it re-appeared, celestia knew exactly what it was and sent Twilight on a mission to defeat sombra"? Other than the extremely, incredibly broad strokes of "Twilight discovers the ancient crystal empire and meets the crystal ponies, also sombra was there 1000 years ago", I don't see anything.

>>42548536
The zircon engine and frostpunk setting is really not different from canon, I don't know why you're saying they are. Are you getting hung up on the post-revolution state in the first half of the fic that was particularly survival-oriented? Just because Anemoia isn't temporally set during the peak of the Zircon dynasty doesn't mean all of the background lore is incompatible with the canonical crystal empire. Its worldbuilding is pretty compatible with canon.

The fic offscreens the disappearance of the city. Sombra still did whatever he did to disappear it. The crystal ponies wake up from their mind controlled stupor, etc. If I had to guess, you're headcanoning stuff like "they're golems now, they can't reproduce" but the fic doesn't say that.

And no, the epilogue doesn't take place during the S3 premier. The earliest it could take place is probably S4, but Twilight's confidence suggests a post-S7 fic.

>>42548657
>The zircon engine and frostpunk setting is really not different from canon
Anon did we watch the same show?

>>42548779
You do realise you're talking with the Lunafag, right?

>>42548788
The Lunaflag*

>>42548779
Anyway, yeah. The Crystal Empire, weather-uncontrolled, is quite similar to what is described in the fic.

Well, Mare Fair's over, so it's back to the commissions for me. What of you?

>>42549470
Finishing my entry for the anthology. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'd almost forgotten what fun was.

>>42549470
Wishing there were more hours in the day so I could have time to write and play videogames with my friends.

>>42549617
Write while watching let's plays and pretend you have friends.

>>42549642
I can't write and watch something at the same time. What do you think I am, normal?

>>42549561
Right, I'd completely forgotten about that.

>>42549461
Surprising how fast the thread is falling.

>>42550389
Just earlier, it fell from page 8 to 10 in less than 10 minutes. Even in that first encode, it went from 8 to 9 in just the few minutes it took to make the video.

>>42550394
A result of the convention, I'm sure.

>>42549561
I'll probably hit 6k by the time I'm done, but I'm keeping a good pace. Here's hoping there'll be decent enough participation for the anthology.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qqiySVvCdObr2NjpyaB1UoAGeyZ_fxD1ZZKnHfT5p0/edit?usp=sharing
Collab anthology entry's done. I decided to expand that "Equestria orchestrated the Arimaspi attack" idea.

>>42546181
>It can't just be one city.
Its possible back in the day it was an actual country that stretched over the north, then the Princesses knocked Sombra back to the capital and he took his toys and left, leaving the rest of the country to get annexed by Equestria.

It very well could have also just been the city. In the end, the Roman Empire was just left with Constantinople and little else. Sombra might have been the last desperate gasp of a dying empire before Equestria finally finished it off.

>>42550650
Make it 6666

>>42550700
Does this mean the crystal ponies are all secretly racists hoping for one day to reclaim their glory?

>>42550827
The North WILL rise again!

>>42550873
>Wake up to find you're annexed by a foreign nation

>>42549461
Ah yes I loved the sight of the heat engines in the show

>>42550827
>secretly
They literally have a spell to mass convert ponies to their race.

>>42551629
Look the Ethnic Cleansing Heart is a cultural artifact. Please respect their heritage.

>>42551059
So did Shiny, but he would also say that that's an unnecessarily rude way of putting it.
Since you wouldn't get the second entendre of rude otherwise, it is referring to your unsophisticated description of the Zircon engine.

No, I'm not saying the show is frostpunk, but Starscribe saying TCE has frostpunk in its lore is well grounded in how the heart works in the show.

>>42551975
Nigger the difference is the heart is a tiny magical artifact while the heat engines are giant towers that work in a radius.
Unless you say the crystal palace is akshually the heat engine tower but it looks nothing like a heat engine and there is zero indication it functions as one, or that the engines in Anemoia are in any way inhabitable since they sound like giant industrial machines that are probably very hot and full of heavy moving parts inside.

Again the only commonalities are "it's cold" and "there's a thingy that makes the cold go away". The actual thingy is totally different, the society is totally different, the city layout is clearly totally different (there's no indication in the story the old palace is a tower), the way the society disappears for 1000 years and the way they reappear is totally different, the way the ancient local ponies meet back up with modern Equestria is totally different, the technology levels are totally different and incompatible, I could go on.

>>42551997
Yes, I am, and I am making fun of you for acting like the thing which generates heat in both situations has only the singular purpose of generating heat. The heart doesn't work outside its spot in the tower, they're two parts of the machine which powers the city, the crystal pony magic, and makes it habitable. The show even animates the magic running through the ground, like the fic.

And no. The disappearance and reappearance is offscreen in the story, I already said that. You should stop struggling with it so much and reread the last couple chapters of the story. The rest of it I also already addressed or am happy the handwave away. It's close enough.

>>42552102
>the crystal pony magic
Yes, exactly the kind of magic the zircon engine does NOT use since it's a mechanical engine.
A mechanical engine that the eiffel tower looking ass crystal palace full of living rooms and sitting on slender legs looks nothing like.
>You should stop struggling with it so much and reread the last couple chapters of the story
Reading the story I'm arguing about is cheating

>>42552539
Don't worry, he's not gonna read it either. In fact, he didn't even read it the first time. He skimreads things, which is why he sucks so much at talking about them.

Fics to feel better?

>>42553059
BGP

>>42553059
LiaL

>>42553059
___

>>42553059
what do you need to feel better about, what kind of fic would help with that, and how long do you want it?

>>42553981
Why the tongue

>>42554357
For blep

>>42553502
>what do you need to feel better about
Life

Fics for procrastinating eating until you have too little energy to want to go eat?
If there were a button to make me not need to eat ever again in my life, I'd press it in a heartbeat.

I can't believe adoption anon didn't write this one.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/582443/reincarnated-as-a-sun-goddess-daughter

>>42555247
>Fics for procrastinating eating
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/36981/120-days-of-blueblood

>>42555247
So you have a fetish for starving to death?

Chat, help, I think I might honestly find Jollacrity hot

>>42555381
There's always been like a billion mommy Celestia stories on the site.

>>42555692
No, I think >>42555247 may have a legitimate eating disorder and might need to see a professional about it as it sounds deeply unhealthy.

>>42538899
Those were so nice, I read them twice.

>>42555381
I'm generally not an HiE fan.

>>42556237
I'll probably just start off re-reading them because yeah they were great

>>42556647
But you wrote barbieshit

>>42556769
I just like Celestia being a flawed parent with a fuckup delinquent daughter.

>>42557161
Why does everyone Celestia tries to raise turn bad?

Fics where the POV suddenly switches to the bad guys? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgRFuPhFVlo

>>42557540
Get too close to the sun and you get burned.

>>42557540
Spike turned out okay

>>42555247
How about you just not be a retarded mentally ill anxious neurotic manchild

>>42557540
Because see, they're always daughters, and Celestia can only raise sons

>>42557819
Too hard!

>>42557912
That’s pathetic

>>42557842
Funny man.

>>42557842
Funny joke. Unfortunately, I'm counting Blueblood.

Any fics with characters fusing together physically or mentally? Or having to share the same body? Or merging with a hive mind?

>>42558297
StN in the flashbacks.

>>42558309
You mean sharing the night? I’m not reading a 234k word fic for a few scenes.

>>42558297
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/470229/cover-to-cover

>>42558137
>blueblood
>son
Oh anon... If only you knew the truth.

so many dogshit 'human goes to equestria as a so-and-so' stories lately trending
nothing new is ever interesting or good, and nothing in my watched list is ever updating anymore. maybe it's time I move on, stop checking this site every day.

>>42558342
Yes, you shouldn't read it anyway. It just seemed an appropriate reply to a post forgetting that nearly all fics with Luna and NMM feature 2/3 of those.

>>42558723
How is it any different now from how it always was? It was always bad. We just enjoyed it anyway.

>>42550700
I'm finishing mine. I'll probably cut it really close to the date itself.
One thing I was wondering while I read yours. Since it's framed as a pony giving a lecture, I feel it would benefit from namedropping a few sources just for the sake of authenticity.
Maybe sprinkling a "Ptalon the Wise, ancient griffon philosopher, spoke of the rise of their kingdom..." and such, just for the sake of authenticity.

>>42558723
It's all "Celestia raises a people" fics now. I swear the top fics all being that this year is just spawning copycats.

>>42558928
>I'm finishing mine. I'll probably cut it really close to the date itself.
Oh right, I was supposed to be writing, kek. I may not make it this year. Who actually finished anything?

>>42558971
There's one confirmed entry. Mine's at 5k and I'll try to power through the rest of it tomorrow morning.

>review https://www.fimfiction.net/story/582286/selfless

5/10. A blast from the past, Selfless is a textbook "Too Many Pinkies" sad oneshot ripped straight from three days after the episode aired. I'm astonished just how much like those fics it is. It checks off every box--from the overly long serious internal monologue happening in the middle of a canon comedy episode over to the "Twilight wouldn't really murder dozens of me" moment, it hits all the beats flawlessly. Also quite funny that it's almost an exact mirror of the fic Pinkie Plural.

>>42558971
>>42559071
I'm wondering if we should just push it to JFK given how few entries are ready. We haven't even come up with a name, cover art, or synopsis yet, which makes it unlikely it'll go out today, anyway.

>>42559164
Yeah, I'm all for the delay. Maybe more people will join.
I wasn't looking forward to rushing the cover art, either.

>>42555381
Is this AI generated

>>42558561
How will this impact Rarity's reputation?

>>42558297
Monsters, technically

>>42558822
My watched fics used to update

>>42559985
>>42559164
>>42558971
Shut the fuck up, Vogelfag. We know it's you.

>>42560054
Silence, newfag.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/204388/voting/thread/561635/2025-collab-attempt

>>42559307
No, I just think they lack a proofreader.

Fimfiction Faggots still can't write a better Return of Harmony episode? Or I guess it would have a different title.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/484690/1/my-little-pony-friendships-and-magic-season-2/the-return-of-harmony-part-1
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/373520/2/a-different-view-2-return-of-harmony/chapter-2endgame
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/490085/3/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-what-if-volume-12/s2-e2-the-return-of-harmony-part-2-what-if
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/67127/the-return-of-harmony-alternate-ending

>>42561161
Bro please, go outside. It's nice outside. You might see a stranger's cat.

>>42561178
I guess it's true what they say about this general, you guys are shit at giving at feedback and writing stuff yourselves. I'm out of here.

>>42561195
Okay, see you next thread when you post this again.

>>42561420
gesundheit

Which pony is more likely to have a pet tove?

tove these balls

I finally got home and just collapsed in bed.
Travel sucks.
Great con though, the best of cons.

Hello, everyone! Apologies for posting the blurriest jpeg since 2003. Mare Fair 3 is finally over, and so I thought I’d give a recap on how well received our little Hold Your Horsewords project was. Very well! I’ll also give some details about money for the sake of transparency and for that of the number autists out there.

>you faggot, get to it, how many sales did we make?
I ordered a batch of 15 books but kept a few for my own sake and one for the charity auction, so the booth at the vendor hall was stocked with 11 copies of Hold Your Horsewords. They sold for $15 a pop, cash only, and we actually sold out all 11 in less than 2 hours! Who knew there was such a market for printed horsewords? I’ll get to the calculations below, but this resulted in a “profit” of $37.65. As previously agreed, this money was donated to the con’s main charity, Fallen Oak Equine Rescue.

Kind thanks to Alki, Kassag, and Jinxed for signing the copy for the Sunday charity auction (adding value to it). It ended up going for a whopping $550 (lot #24, if you’re curious). 50% of this money was donated by Snowpity, Inc. to Fallen Oak, with the other 50% being split amongst 5 other horse rescues. In total, this was $587.65 donated; each of the 8 Anons who contributed a story effectively raised $73.45 for the horsies. I hope you’re proud of yourselves! Sadly, I don’t have any receipts for tax write-offs, so you’ll have to be content with the spirit of charity in your otherwise-empty hearts.

>number autism
I’m sparing you all from gross decimals, so your own calculations may be off by a cent or two. Taking the total cost of printing and shipping 15 books and dividing it by 15, the cost of each book was $10.66, hence the “price” of $15 (the lowest 5-dollar increment that still made a “profit”). That “price” includes Orange County, FL sales tax at 6.5%, so the true price of each book was more like $14.08 with sales tax of $0.92 each. Times 11, the total cost of the 11 books sold was $117.27, earning $154.92 in revenue and paying $10.08 in sales tax to Florida. As stated above, the difference between revenue and costs ended up at a cool $37.65 donated to horses.
>why give le State a cent at all if everything was in cash?
The proceeds here were all going to charity, so I wanted to make sure they were squeaky-clean and above board. More cynically, nothing was coming out of *my* pocket, regardless ^:).

>>42561949
>what were congoers’ reactions?
A lot of “I really need to read more”, “it’s nice having physical books”, “I tried to write a fic once but stopped/never finished”, et cetera. A few who flipped through the book said that the writing was better than what they typically saw elsewhere. The books sold at a very good rate, and probably half of everyone who stopped ended up making a purchase; we sold out in less than 2 hours. Having prime real estate right near the vendor hall entrance on Friday morning probably helped. This whole project started when I heard that there was demand for printed works at last year’s Mare Fair, and it was reassuring to see that that demand was still present. I had a QR code on the table for the Lulu order page, but only a few people bothered scanning it, and only once the physical books had sold out, so it seems people really prefer things they can feel and touch.
As posted a few days ago, Hold Your Horsewords’ $550 charity value was more than iisaw’s Alicorn Adventures series at $350. However, both were less than a Ministry of Image print set of Fallout Equestria, which went for something in the realm of $900, if I remember correctly.
>gay closing thoughts
Thanks so much to everyone who participated! It was a lot of fun to work on this project with all of (You), and I think our sales speak for themselves. I’d certainly be willing to work on further printing endeavours for next year; one Anon suggested Loose Pages, or even this upcoming anthology if anyone actually writes anything for it. Of course, we could print even more standalone stories, if you have more that are yearning to be realised in ink and paper. I actually have some idea what I’m doing, now, so things will hopefully go more smoothly. As always, all Anons are invited to participate; I do it for free.

>>42561949
>>42561956
GJ on the project.
Now, for the inclusion of a longer NSFW version next year.

>>42561949
>Kassag

Good work, printFag. Let's go bigger next year.

>>42561970
with illustrations?

>>42561949
We did it /mlpl/

>>42561949
Amuse me.
I have a handwritten copy of one of my fics with minor MINOR changes and a couple of sketches done by myself.
My fanfic is not that well-know, so I'd have to rely entirely on the novelty of it being hand-written for it to sell at an auction.
How much money do you think, on your entirely subjective opinion, I would gather for charity in such an auction?

>>42562173
I'm drunk right now, but I promise to send a couple of sketches your way if this gets approved.
Feel free to dismiss me.

>>42562582
Unless you're a calligrapher, I'd imagine that being handwritten would lower the value.

>>42561971
Kassaggy preggo teata...

>>42563300
Most people in the real world have good and beautiful handwriting because we still teach cursive, unlike Amerimutts.

>>42559307
100%

>>42562173
Nah man, NSFW stories.

>>42563502
with illustrations?

>>42563603
You know what? Yeah, full teat, ponut, and pussy tier illustrations, as a treat.

>>42563606
Don't forget the nude pinup of all authors involved.

>>42562460
AU fic where Luna is just the mayor of a small village on the outskirts of equestria.

>>42563434
Eh, not sold on it. There's a ton of grammatical errors in the text.

>>42563814
Maybe mixed then. But the first paragraph was enough for me to see it was AI-generated with no effort made to hide it.

>>42563881
Doesn't really read much like AI to me, and AI wouldn't use -- if those are actually like that in the story.

It isn't written well enough to be AI lol

>>42563881
>plug one of my fics into this out of curiosity
>it highlights the AI-generated parts as "human"
kek

>>42563982
Here's the (You) that you so desperately want.

>>42563765
It wouldn't be unreasonable for Luna to be an honorary mayor of Hollow Shades, I think.

>>42564399
Isn't Hollow Shades a ruin

>>42564465
I don't remember reading anything that said that Hollow Shades was like that.

Any tips when it comes to writing smut? What kind of structure-prose do you need?
Probably not this ponepaste.org/11315

>>42564517
Most smut readers expect more than the tip

How's that writing going, guys?

>>42565568
I'm pretty sure I was just exhausted instead of sick, and I'm trying to work on the first chapter of the first commission in my queue right now.

>>42565585
You're getting paid?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZZbt7KFJqU

Booo.

>>42565730
Elaborate.

>>42565730
These things don't even work right and are terrible at even basic... Well, they're terrible at anything really.

>>42565743
Do we really have to? Trying to write a fic by AI is idiotic.

>>42540491
Been too busy IRL this month to write much unfortunately. No, not Mare Fair.

>>42565568
It's going better than my non horsewords writing
I should have just gotten a math degree or something

>>42566160
∀𝜀>0∃𝛿>0|x−x0|<𝛿|f(x)−f(x0)|<𝜀

>>42566184
Fuck, 4chan stripped the implication arrow

>>42566184
God I wish

>>42565568
Yeah...

I miss the regular post about autistic train fics.

>>42566829
I don't.

>>42566829
How about a fic where Twilight Sparkle has a crashout over the shittiness of the new lego holiday train set?

>>42567557
Yes!

>>42567557
>"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND PINKIE, IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE PROPER DRIVING WHEELS!"

>>42567608
>But look. They released a new Daring Do set. Don't you--
"I HATE THEIR LICENSE SETS. THEY ONLY DO LICENSED SETS NOW AND THEY ALL SUCK."

>>42566077
You posted a picture of a google "check out our products" blurb, what does that have to do with anyone trying to write fics with AI

>>42567684
>PINKIE I AM NOT PAYING SIXTY FIVE BITS FOR A THREE HUNDRED PIECE SET JUST BECAUSE IT HAS A NEW MANIAC MINIFIGURE

>>42567689
That wasn't me. I don't just hate Gemini. I hate all AIs equally.

>>42566829
I never found them particularly entertaining myself, both the train fics and in general the other fics "riffs" were mostly just bad. I never found any kind of "so bad it's good" type of entertainment in them. At best they're worthy of having their existence highlighted because the basic concept is kinda funny, but not of reading extensive paraphrasings of their plot with expletives and disparaging remarks sprinkled in.

>>42567901
>he didn't enjoy the military wolf sex

>>42566829
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/581538/tallys-tiny-train

This one was cute.

>>42567749
>Later that day, after Twilight had successfully ditched Pinkie, she went back to the hobby shop.
>"I need it," she said to the owner.
>"Are you okay?"
>She trembled. "I need my fix. You gotta help me. I'll pay you back."
>"No bits, no sale."
>Twilight's heart was palpitating, and her pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. "I'm having withdrawal symptoms." She looked around. Nopony else was here. She whispered, "I'll do anything for that set. Anything. You understand?"
>The owner's eyebrows raised. "Anything?"
>"Yes! I just—" She paused and looked around again. "Can we get it over with? I need my fix now."
>The owner bit his lip. Then he locked the front door and flipped the sign to "Closed." He said, "Come to the back with me."
>In the back of the store, clean boxes with the scent of cardboard were piled up to the ceiling. "Okay," he said, gesturing at the boxes. "All of this needs to go on the shelves. Get to work."
>"What? But that'll take hours! I thought I could—"
>"I'm too autistic for that. Physical contact scares me. Stock the shelves while I watch and masturbate."

>>42565568
It's not. Can we just skip to the part where I get hundreds of comments on my story telling me how amazing it is?

>>42567689
I got that blurb when I opened Google Drive.

>>42569100
Oh, writing an AiE are you?

I just had someone with a four-digit user ID (and not even a very large four-digit user ID) add one of my stories to their favorites bookshelf. It feels like an honor to know that someone who has been reading ponyfics for fourteen years favorited one of my stories.

>reading book
>like 1/3 to 1/2 of the text on almost every fucking page is footnotes
Any fics like this?

>>42569330
Realitycheck's nyx series and Georg's traveling tutor series.

Terry Pratchett created a monster.

Anthology's pushed back to JFK.

>>42561949
Cool! It was fun taking part in it. Thanks for putting it all together.

>>42562582
>handwritten copy
Unless it's one of the famous horsewords, I can't imagine it going for much.

>>42564504
S7 finale. Hollow Shades is canonically an abandoned ruin. Pic related. I don't blame you for not remembering. Shadow Play was a shitty two parter and it didn't do Hollow Shades justice.

>>42565568
Ground to a halt now that my collab entry's done and the anime torrent I was downloading finished.

Today marks ten years since this thing was published: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/289205/would-it-matter-if-i-was
Which spawned loads of spinoffs: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/209036/would-it-matter-if-i-made-this-group
truly a fic of all time

>>42569105
Not my problem.

>>42569330
If you're fine with them being bundled up and posted at the start/end of the chapter, then CoPE fits the bill, too.

>>42569468
>Pic related.
The world would be a better place if that 2-parter was erased from the fandom's consciousness.
And lore aside, it's probably in the running for the worst directed season opener/finale. There's an unprecedented amount of "12 ponies all stand still in a room, talking one at a time", which then has to be 'fixed' with a shitty montage of them traveling. The episode is somehow incredibly boring and rushed at the same time.

The pronghorns are here, too, so you just have to have faith,
>/FSBC/

I don't want to be so late again, so I'll note that I'm writing this while FS&AJ are still stuck in the Bazaar city, at the prince's place to be exact. I may have read more since writing this post; however, I don't think it could majorly impact my opinion of the story. I think it's good. Nothing about it is too amazing, but if you put it on your "top 20 2012 fics" list, I wouldn't judge you too harshly. There are few things that I'd call impressive or amazing here, but as far as "pony" adventures go, all parts of this fic are at least fine—and maybe you could call that remarkable, especially for 2012. Someone said that the dialogue is very good, and yes, I think I'd agree with that. The characters feel a lot more real and believable than they do in so many (worse) stories from that era, while mostly staying in their characterizations.
On that note, I liked the drama in the second batch of the Ponyville chapters quite a lot more than the adventure. It is not that the adventure is bad, but it felt a little too "OK" for me. The unicorn city, for example—the concept is interesting, and the writing is decent, but there's little drawing me in. Could be partially a skill issue, but I thought the trio of DB-Austraeoh-OtEM all did it better, making their worlds and the journey more wondrous and interesting, though all three of those fics have problems arguably more severe than anything in this story.

There is one eyebrow-raising thing regarding the pacing of the fic. So far, none of it feels rushed, and barring a few of the somewhat too long exploration chapters, it's not overstaying its welcome, either. However, going by titles, ch. 22 ends the current part of FS&AJ's adventure. That's strange considering how far they are and (especially) how unresolved things are on the Ponyville end. The Drama/Romance wasn't bad, but it feels like we're at best 33% done with those subplots, despite finishing 2/3 of the fic! Or maybe that's meant to be a minor part of the story, and the lack of spotlight won't hurt the fic; as always, we'll see next week.

I have already said that I was too low on the story last week (2 weeks ago, actually), and the fic continued to prove its worth after that. I doubt that I'll add it to my favorites shelf, but I'm enjoying the story and look forward to wrapping it up next week. It's pretty good!

Next week, we're finishing the fic.

>>42569820
What makes the two-parter an even more impressive achievement is that they teased it all season and wrote a bunch of episodes to introduce the lore, so the shit isn't confined to just two episodes. Which would make S7 the shittiest season, except they managed to do even worse with S8.

Is there a fic where Twilight has Lego and or train autism instead of math autism?

>>42569330
Ponies would call footnotes hoofnotes right?

>>42570535
They use the word "feet" sometimes.

>>42570216
Ironically I barely read this (2) weeks reading. I read the ponyville chapters last week and paused to let them sink in because of how kino they were and then this week I re-read them and then got fucked over at work 2 days in a row so now I'm here having only read the ponyville chapters twice. That said, I don't regret it one bit. Also the ending to the dreamspire was in this batch. I liked it but it wasn't anything crazy. Just more Lost Cities honestly. Having not read any more of the 'adventure' Fluttershy definitely seems to be carrying the fic out of the two of them.
>"You strange and sweet little thing"
Before reading the ponyville chapters I desperately wanted AJ to make a move on Flutters, and I still do, but the ponyville chapters are so fucking kino that I'm warming up to the inevitable dash romance
>Signed, Brighthoof, Former Captain of the Guard, loyal subject to her royal highness, Princess Celestia."
Kino. But holy shit, somehow nothing to the pure kino that was the ponyville chapters. Every single scene. Rainbow Dash and Rarity in Fluttershy's house. Twilight and Pinkie in her room. Rainbow Dash going to Cloudsdale. Twilight going to Canterlot for a rematch with Celestia. I got Cuori Intrecciati vibes kek. And Rainbow finding Twilight in her basement.
Rainbow Dash is much more tolerable in these chapters. She is still very obviously frustrated about the situation but she at least realizes when she is being an ass about it and Rarity was a very good scene partner for her to show that. Then she got to follow up with a scene where she fully gives in to her frustration at Fluttershy's parent's house. Then the scene finding Twilight about to leave and giving us the, 'Why the fuck didn't you tell me? I'm in.' line. All very good developments since the last time we saw her acting like a foal.
>“Tell us that they will find our daughter,” Rising Star finished for her, walking over to stand by the couch and draping a wing over his wife. Dash tried to find her voice once, twice, but faltered when faced with their hopeful and urgent gazes.
>“They won’t,” Dash finally managed, drawing breath. “But I will."
holy kino
Then we get more princess kino. The scene with the two of them is so fucking good. (And so is Twilight's) I fucking love their relationship with each other. It is what I always think they should have. Everything they think or do is because of, or in consideration of the other sister. Luna's entire reason for saying 'fuck the other countries, let's go save them' is that by reuniting her with Celestia she literally owes her life to the M6.
>"Luna disagreed. Think less of me if you will, but not her."
>"Our thoughts? We think you deserve each other, and that is the highest praise we can give her, for we love you, sister."
>“Content?” Celestia repeated. “You forget that I owe them the same. I have my sister back, ... but if you doubt that I wish them returned, you doubt my love for you.”
such a kino dynamic

just realized we're reading this fic almost exactly to each chapter's birthday lmao
>>42570216
>I don't want to be so late again, so I'll note that I'm writing this while FS&AJ are still stuck in the Bazaar city
kek, maybe someone else will have something to say about the adventure this week
>I don't think it could majorly impact my opinion of the story. I think it's good. Nothing about it is too amazing, but if you put it on your "top 20 2012 fics" list, I wouldn't judge you too harshly.
I don't have an actual list, but it undoubtedly made it on the back of the 3 ponyville chapters alone. I have a feeling the fic peaked in those chapters, but I don't even think that's a bad thing because I liked them so much.
>There are few things that I'd call impressive or amazing here, but as far as "pony" adventures go, all parts of this fic are at least fine—and maybe you could call that remarkable, especially for 2012.
Yeah. The adventure is... tame, I guess. Doesn't exactly stand out but it is what it is, and that is better than a decent amount of other 2012 stuff.
>Someone said that the dialogue is very good, and yes, I think I'd agree with that
>On that note, I liked the drama in the second batch of the Ponyville chapters quite a lot more than the adventure
Crazy that somehow the AJShy adventure became interludes for the Ponyville chapters, but I agree completely
>There is one eyebrow-raising thing regarding the pacing of the fic
Didn't think about it till this. I see 2 Adventure chapters which are certainly the M4's excursion, then 2 more Ponyville chapters, which better be some Princess kino + Twilight.

>>42570535
Fleetfoot literally exists. Foot is a word for horses as well. Calling them 'hoofnotes' would be like calling them toenotes or toenailnotes for us.

>>42570216
I spent a lot more time reading this fic in the past weeks, and have been having fun with it.
Like earlier, the Ponyville chapters were my favorite. I think that, just due to the way the story is structured, the way they're forced to have everything happen at once just makes them significantly more fun. Obviously, it's pretty coincidental that Dash suddenly decides to investigate FS's cottage at the same time Twilight goes to confront Celestia, etc.
>My first friend,” Dash corrected her,
Absolutely ruthless. Love it.

I still enjoyed the AJ and FS chapters, but I think it's becoming more obvious that this story should not be compared so much to DB-Austraeoh-OtEM. The point of all three of those fics is worldbuilding, while the point of this fic is relationships: romance and friendship. I never read DB twice, but I'm sure it does not have the kind of intimate character-building discussions that Lost and Found has, and absolutely none of them have mutual grooming scenes. Those are all action fics, although OTEM certainly also has its nice, slow scenes, they are about exploring the world and not FS and Dash.
I also appreciate the focus in keeping things pony. Part of this was emphasized in the conversation with Tadar about how they were implicitly trusting him, but I also liked how the the civilization of the Bazaar still revolves around pony influence even when they've forgotten most of the reasons why. Those are just highlights, it permeates the story. Applejack's kicking power is not trying to be anime, it's just part of her.

Going back to the dialogue strength, the debate with the prince very strongly reminded me of a Deus Ex "conversation battle" once again. Mostly, it was with the way his conviction was broken by saying just the right thing through insights gained through subterfuge, but also the way the tone the conversants use changes drastically multiple times and for some reason also the way they move around the "stage" during the scene. https://youtu.be/RWlUxnrmFP0

Anyway, contrary to those other 2012 adventure fics, the focus on those character scenes does negatively impact the worldbuilding. They're much more fantastical, and the locations are more fully realized. I intend to complain much more about how sketchy the locales are next week.

Lastly, while the Twilestia is obviously not a very strong ship here, I do like the idea of having its spark ignited specifically from Celestia's fall to Chrysalis. I wrote a long time ago that the sort of realization that breaks their roles of student and teacher are a sort of unfortunate boilerplate that all Twilestia fics have to make their way through, this is a particularly interesting way of doing it.

>>42570597
>Rainbow Dash is much more tolerable in these chapters.
Funny, I completely disagree. I didn't find dipshit Dash to be any more tolerable at all. She might even be worse than in her earlier Ponyville scene. Yeah, she does apologize a bit, but she's also even more inconsiderate and selfish and offensive to everypony around her. Rarity really has to pull hard to get any explanations out of Rainbow for why she's acting the way she is and what they're doing, and that's through all the insults Dash is throwing her way just for not acting like FS's return is guaranteed.

Of course, I'll absolutely take dipshit Dash over the AJ in Within and Without, it's just how she constantly acts in the show, unlike AJ.

I have been enjoying the sisters scenes too, though. I didn't connect this to Cuori Intrecatti. I guess their scenes tend to be more charged in that fic, although they are certainly great and supportive of each other there as well.

>>42570993
>I didn't connect this to Cuori Intrecatti
I just mean princesses and Twilight in a garden with a completely botched love confession that makes things worse with good character interactions. Obviously no one was fucking in the scenes kek
>I didn't find dipshit Dash to be any more tolerable at all. She might even be worse than in her earlier Ponyville scene. Yeah, she does apologize a bit
In the earlier scenes she doesn't take notice of her own actions though until Twilight tells her off and teleports away. Here she does the same things, but Rarity just looks at her silently and it's enough to make Rainbow realize she's making a scene.
>Rarity really has to pull hard to get any explanations out of Rainbow for why she's acting the way she is and what they're doing
Just a rainbow moment desu. And I don't recall any insults towards Rarity. I also didn't mind the explosion at Rarity at that one part. Rarity herself backs down and said she of course didn't mean it. I mean, she was proposing the idea to the element of loyalty that maybe it's time to move on.
Meanwhile in cloudsdale It's just Rainbow yelling at stallion version of herself and almost getting in a hoof fight

also I hit 3k on mine and forgot it but
>>>earth ponies live in cloudsdale and Posey is one of them
What the kek
>Fluttershy's mom is just her as an earth pony and her dad is just rainbow as a stallion

>>42569468
Given that I wrote that line as a deliberate reference to the way Hollow Shades was introduced, I did not expect someone to try and correct me with a scene from the episode.
I wrote it that way both to say that I reject the show's throwing it away by introducing it as a ruin, and alternately to interpret it as though Sunburst's comment says that it used to be a living village right up until they reach it, and presumably can return to being what it was after Stygian is rainbow'd.

>>42571116
What even was the Shadow
They just introduce this outer god that empathizes with outcasts in a throw away line.

>>42571056
When she starts their meeting by snapping at Rarity, and mostly maintaining an aura of hostility towards her, except when she's desperate for her help. Rarity is very diplomatic through the whole interaction, Rainbow is very vocal about how much she's hurt by FS being missing and (unlike all the other characters Rainbow confronts), Rarity doesn't throw her own feelings back in Rainbow's face to remind her that everypony was hurt by FS going missing.

Rainbow's whole character during the Lost chapters revolves around how she was personally hurt and she only seems to offer token recognition of FS having other friends, that usually being only to recognize that they aren't doing as much as her to find FS.

Again, I don't find any of this to be bad, neither within the story, nor as characterization of Rainbow in general. She is my second least favorite of the M6, and it is completely appropriate and entertaining to write her this way.

>>42571141
Yeah that's fair. At least by the end they finally are getting the team together.

>>42570597
>Just more Lost Cities honestly
I agree with you, mostly, but no, this isn't Lost Cities at all. I mean, yes, the actual place is similar, but the emphasis of Lost Cities is on these empty, silent cities and how they fell, which imo doesn't work at all with character-driven plot. This is just kind of bad worldbuilding.
>Fluttershy definitely seems to be carrying the fic out of the two of them.
Yeah, but "carrying" is a bit strong. "Not letting drop too much" is where I have those parts.
>pure kino that was the ponyville chapters
>kino dynamic
Did this have to be an adventure fic? Not to say there's no Drama/Romance in AJ&FS's parts, but the Ponyville sections are so, so much better than the "ok" adventure we're getting in 70% of the fic. And agreed about Rarity wrangling Dash into being less of a bitch this week. Princess scenes were very good, too, and I hope we get to see Luna again in week 3. We should, but you know—not a lot of words left.

>>42570631
>I don't even think that's a bad thing
I really want to read Twice as Bright now, too.
>better than a decent amount of other 2012 stuff.
Eh, maybe the bad 2012 stuff, but this is really nothing great on the adventure side.

>>42570954
>the way they're forced to have everything happen at once
Indeed, which is why I'm interested in reading another one of this author's fics, and one where he's not constrained by the story's "adventure" plot&structure. Will it be better than this? Worse? Maybe we'll find out.
>I never read DB twice, but I'm sure it does not have the kind of intimate character-building discussions
It's definitely the closest to this fic of those three, and there are several slower scenes with basically just the Mane3 interacting and figuring things out. They're worse than here, from what I recall, but I wouldn't be shocked if OTeM and DB were really big inspirations. For instance, DB also has a longer "wandering through the plains" section much like the first part of FS&AJ's adventure, except it's not as dull there. And the focus on keeping things pony is another thing that was just present in most/all of the major older fics. Even Austraeoh does it, despite its darker tone.
>complain much more about how sketchy the locales are next week
Considering what we saw this week, that does not bode well for the fic's adventure sections.

>>42571141
Rarity is making that scene so much more tolerable, but Rainbow isn't awful in her other scenes, either. When she's at FS's parents' house, she acts very hostile towards them (literally almost attacking Mr. Shy over a perceived insult directed at FS), but unlike week one, she's at least doing things, not running around like a headless chicken swinging at the closest pony.

>>42571160
>I really want to read Twice as Bright now
It's a good one. I remember it being a lovely read

>>42571182
It's 50k, we could club it in two weeks for something slower.

I had a dream that I watched a season six episode and posted my despair here. I've never watched series six.

>>42571219
It's okay.

>>42571219
I just finished watching it for the first time a week ago. It has some good points here and there (Hearth's Warming Tail, Buckball, the finale), but a good chunk of its runtime is the most unmemorable, trite filler that feels like some newbie skimmed the wikipedia page for the main cast and wrote the episode while multitasking, or just took a generic cartoon plot and switched the character names with ponies and called it a day. At its worst it's exactly the kind of "this is just cheap entertainment for kids, why would you watch it?" slop that normalfags imagine when they hear that adults watch my little pony.

If you ever want to feel an almost magnetic compulsion to reach for your phone and let whatever's on screen fade into the background, watch The Cart Before the Ponies or Applejack's Day Off. It'll make you appreciate so much more how the early writers made even the simplest plots feel engaging.

>>42570535
Both 'footnotes' and 'hoofnotes' are grounded in a very human, vertical understanding of anatomy. Ponies would call them tailnotes.

>>42570764
Epidemic fraud. They clearly use their hooves in an equivalent manner to how humans use their feet and hands, not their nails. It’s reasonable to postulate that it makes sense they would use a turn of phrase that is derived from a part of their anatomy that is used in a similar way.
>>42571288
Ponies don’t walk on their tails retard.

>>42571334
Now you're saying handles should be called fingerles instead because actually you use your fingers. Hoof is simply the nail part of the foot. There is no 'using the hoof' because the hoof is simply the surface on top of the body part that actually moves. It's like arguing you manipulate things with your skin because that's what touches them, bones and muscles and tendons be damned.

>>42570535
Yes because that sounds cute.

Just avoid using words that involve "hand" in any way. She didn't "hand it over" but "passed it" instead. There are plenty of words to use for this simple purpose.

>>42571393
>Twilight Sparkle: Okay, well, I can see the food situation is handled, so we'll be on our way. - Friendship is Magic, part 1 | S1 E1
>Applejack: Well wallop my withers, Spike. Isn't that just like a boy? Can't handle the least bit of sentiment. - The Ticket Master | S1 E3
>Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Too big for you to handle on your own. - Applebuck Season | S1 E4
>Twilight Sparkle: Wait! You have to come! Your way with wild animals will surely come in handy. - Dragonshy | S1 E7
>Twilight Sparkle: I think the princess can handle it. - Swarm of the Century | S1 E10
>Twilight Sparkle: Well, in that case... Thank you for your generosity, Rarity. Knowing your handiwork, I'm sure it will be absolutely beautiful. - Suited For Success | S1 E14
>Rainbow Dash: I'm gonna go rest up. Don't wanna over prepare myself, y'know. Hehe. You, on the other hand, better keep practicing. I need a cheering section to match my spectacular performance. - Sonic Rainboom | S1 E16
>Rarity: I assure you, they're quite a handful. - Stare Master | S1 E17
>Rarity: Unhand me this instant, you ruffians. Stop! Put me down, you thugs! You brutes! - A Dog and Pony Show | S1 E19
>Applejack: Gotta hand it to the girl, that Mare Do Well sure can pull off some pretty heroic feats. - The Mysterious Mare Do Well | S2 E8
>Rainbow Dash: Get a hold of yourself, Private! We cannot let anything distract us from the mission at hand. To find, and if necessary, to conquer a new land! - Hearth's Warming Eve | S2 E11
Lauren Faust confirmed a fucking hack.

>>42571423
Her great error was trying to make a good show instead of pandering to etymological masturbators.

>>42571423
So?

>>42571393
I just don't care enough because why would I?

I think pony-ism referring to hooves should be a case-by-case thing. Replacing hand or foot with hoof can be clunky depending on the context. Like, I can see Twilight saying "hoof note" without it taking me out of the story. But I also think saying notes is the safer option. And I don't think you can use hoof to replace hand in a verb tense with it being jarring. But the phrase, "putting your hoof down" sounds natural enough.

>>42571423
CLEARLY it should be as:
Handled = hoofled
Handy = hoofy
Handiwork = hoofiwork
Do these sound fucking stupid? Yes!

>>42571482
Someone should write a one shot that's entirely written like this just to demonstrate how painful it is.

>>42571182
>>42571212
Right, then I suppose we could queue it right after Lost and Found. And while 50k is typically a 1-week fic, maybe splitting it in half after 3 weeks of >50k isn't a bad idea.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/143234/three-steps-back

Applejack gets knocked up by Flim of the Flimflam brothers after the best sex of her life.

Honestly, it's well written and is basically fetish porn with plot, but my fucking god the entire Apple family (minus Apple Bloom because she's eight years old) are just the most infuriating bunch of shithead hicks in this.

Like I get it, he's a con artist and not exactly a good guy but the Flim Flam brothers are entirely not at fault for any of this and 90% of the conflict is Mac and Jack getting in their own fucking way.

>Mac threatens Flim at gunpoint and forces him back to ponyville to marry applejack
>but then gets furious at the thought of them spending any time together and fucking

>Flim is in fact willing to actually stay with her and try to make the relationship work
>flim is bisexual but doesn't tell her because she hates bisexuals (despite her having fucked rainbow dash)
>but then Applejack gets mad at him because he didn't tell him that and chases him away

Literally only works out because their kid is born prematurely dead and that knocks some level of sense into her but even by the end her friends are giving Flim shit when everything is entirely Applejack being unwilling to meet him even halfway.

>>42571219
And you call yourself a fan. You're required to watch the whole series, even S8.

>>42571549
I watched all of it and all the equestria girls movies AND the gen five movie (couldn't get through gen 5 the show)

>>42571563
At least you gave the G5 show a chance. I watched the G5 movie twice when it came out (the anni was soon after), and simply couldn't shake off the feeling that ponies ended with the end of FiM, for good and bad, canon or otherwise. G5 didn't feel any closer to "my" ponies than literally any other show on the TV.

>>42571596
It wasn't exactly... bad. But I didn't like the CGI and the main issue was how fucking small the world was. There was never any implication of a wider setting. I've wanted to write a G5 fic but reconciling that aspect in my mind has always made it too hard.

>>42540491
I set myself a quota of 500 words a day except Saturdays though my first two weeks of it were of original fiction the current two weeks is going to be, I think, my last fan fiction ever.

>>42571620
Say the line, anon!

>>42571620
>original fiction
But why?

>>42561949
I grabbed me one of them. Surprised there were so few copies, and that they sold so quickly!
Was about to give 'em a read, and saw that the first fic was one I recognized. Not sure if I'm in the mood for rereading that one just yet.

>>42572092
>my work still affects someone
Well, you just made my day.

>>42571596
G5 never had snowpity

>>42571610
You could just ignore that and retcon it. The comics had other locales.

>>42572474
Well yeah the snow all got sealed up in another dimension according to secrets of starlight.

>>42572124
NTA but I was reading it on the train and I was choking up a little. It's probably a good thing my stop came up before I could finish reading it kek

>10
burgers for Twiggy piggy, since she's with foal.

>>42572981
Just admit you have a fat fetish.

How do (You) prefer reading horsewords?

>>42573996
e-Ink > desktop monitor > phone

>>42573996
Readera app on my phone. I can't read on the website because the fucking scroll bar irritates me to no end and distracts me from reading and you can't turn it off in any browser.
>>42574025
E link is not an option for me because most of the time i read at night and i can't see shit with just the room lights on. I need a bright screen.

>>42574180
get an ereader with a frontlight

>>42573996
E-ink >> phone > PC
Phone over PC since if I'm at home, there's zero reason to read on PC over an ereader, and it might not always be convenient to take an ereader with me when going out.

>>42573325
I have a fat with foal fetish. That's set right before her water breaks, anyway.

>>42574531
Random question, would you eat your mare's placenta?

>>42574180
Figuring out how to get to about:config on Android Firefox was more work than it was to turn off the scroll bar, it sounds like you don't care enough. Especially because lamps and backlit e-Ink display are also quite easy to find.

>>42574580
No, she can have it.

>>42574896
Can I have it?

>>42574983
kek

>>42574983
You know he doesn't care about anything after birth.

>>42575238
Including the afterbirth!

I'm beginning to think that HiE is inherently a trash genre

>>42572124
One of the things that stuck out to me when I first read it was all of the musical jargon. It's not the sort of thing you see often, and it makes sense for a professional musician to think in such terms. But for an author to write that way, they'd need to be familiar with all the technical aspects of music themselves, either through natural experience or through dedicated research specifically for the purposes of writing.
It's the sort of thing that is daunting for me. I'm no professional when it comes to any of the hobbies the characters I like partake in. Sure, it may not be necessary for the plot, but it would certainly enrich the characters if I could write them so that they know what they're talking about. No idea where I'd even begin to build that knowledge base.

>>42575546
I had an advantage because I'm already a classical musician. I'm nowhere close to Octavia, of course. I'm not even on the level of the fic's Fluttershy. But, for example, I already knew what crescendo, rubato, cadenza, etude, etc. meant. Octavia goes to Filliard because I knew that Juilliard is a premiere music school that mostly teaches classical musicians but occasionally has a student with different tastes (like Jon Batiste). And she becomes a student of Trotstropovich because Rostropovich is a famous real-world cellist (I've heard some of his recordings; plus his name is easier to ponify than Yo-Yo Ma).
I didn't know everything, though. For instance, I needed to be careful with Vinyl's "huge F-minor thirteenth chord" and the cadence that follows. I had to look up the term "perfect authentic cadence" and play it to make sure it sounded right. There's a mention of "counterpoint". I have no idea how musical counterpoint really works, so I had to learn enough to be sure I was using the word right.
So it did take effort. I think I could have done it without any previous musical training. It would have taken more effort, but I think it still would have been possible.

>>42575538
So much of it is like
>W-what? I'm a talking horse now? Woaaaaah!
That it's generally grating.

>>42575749
Heh...

>I'm a horse? Oh.
>Whatever.

>>42575861
Why are all these god damn apes getting mommied by Celestia

>>42575238
Lies, lesbian lover. I want to have a child with my wife, raise a child with my wife, take care of my family, and do it all again until she tells me enough's enough.

>>42576395
Do you want to have a child with your wife's child?

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/384325/this-is-the-last-train-car
25k words, atmospheric horror
>Berry Punch discovers a new timetable for a 2AM train from Ponyville to Canterlot and decides to indulge her curiosity by riding it. When the lack of other passengers prompts her to explore, what she finds in the back of the train defies explanation... but that won't stop her from riding it again to try and make sense of it.
After many weeks of being basically unable to focus on anything, I ended up reading this instead of preparing for my upcoming exams, and it did not disappoint. The atmosphere was very good (I was shaking a little at one point, but I'm not sure whether from anticipation or the temperature in my room), and the character writing was a strong point that I didn't expect going in. I'm not sure why the author decided that Berry should be a train autist, but I can't complain when it resulted in such a good story.

>>42576695
Twilight needs to stop building monster trains

>>42575708
It all makes my head spin, really. I wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to. I have some interest in learning an instrument, but it'd hardly be classical training. I also worry that learning the technicalities of music might "ruin the magic" of a lot of the music I enjoy, so there's that too.

>>42574734
I miss the days where I could infinitely customise my web browser. Firefox is still the best for it, but it used to be far better. I remember the days where every popular website had plugin or Greasemonkey script that would make it much better.

Met someone IRL and now they're taking up all my thoughts and I haven't been able to focus on horse words anymore. What do?

>>42577428
Rape.

>>42577428
Don't make me tap the sign. /fimfic/ will still be there when you decide to post again.

>>42576884
NTA but I find it's the opposite, recognizing conventions in music makes it more impressive to see when composers play around with those conventions.

I'd recommend the channel David Bennett Piano, he does a good job of breaking down lots of advanced musical concepts in a way that's pretty easy to understand even with no prior knowledge, and he picks really good examples to explain ideas, so that your brain is able to pair a concept with a familiar sound.

The rest of it is just learning Italian.

>>42577428
We've got horseword writers with wives here, you're just weak.

>>42577428
Masturbate and get over it, or marry them.
Anyway, your incomplete fics won't complete themselves.

>>42577689
Who's married? Why?

>>42577428
Good luck, Anon.

>>42577941
Everyone thought i was a married lesbian and i'm only one of those things

>>42577530
Filly isn't coming back, Anon. It's time to let go

>>42546775
People definitely complained about this in the past.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/338738/childhoods-end
7.8k words, cute little slice of life fic about a colt who wakes up to discover he got his cutie mark in his sleep... but he can't remember what he dreamt about to get it. Every character interaction here, whether with OC or canon, is really charming. Highly recommended read.

>>42578126
They complain about it now and dress it up under the rhetoric of it being problematic instead of just admitting that they're upset their waifu is fucking an uglier version of Q.

>>42578131
>uglier
You have awful taste.

>>42578131
Funnily enough, I remember the most vocal objectors were Dislestia shippers.

>>42578132
Incorrect.

Fluttercord is funny because it's like
Here's canonically the most beautiful mare in the world, the divine embodiment of kindness and love.
Here's the garbage asshole pool noodle demon that follows her around. He will do anything for her (except be nice).

>>42577941
At least two of us.

>>42568749
Dogshit story, at the very least because Twilight getting annoyed with organizing is OOC.

>>42578211
Yeah really, if he proposed that to her she'd gush like a granny on the spot.

>>42576884
Begin with asking AI. It can even analyze songs for you to tell you the exact instruments used. It can't ALL be bullshit.

>>42578153
Bad take. Fluttercord is shit because it neuters Discord and makes him boring.

>>42578299
Okay.

>>42578211
>>42578220
>that shitpost was too shitty, waaah!

>>42578381
That's correct. A good shitpost is in character.

>>42578634
How is it a shitpost if it's not shitty?

>>42578646
That's what makes it a good shitpost.

>>42578648
No, then it stops being a shitpost and just becomes a post. Why are you bitching about shitposting on 4chan of all places?

>>42578654
Why are you making Twilight not get hard over the thought of organizing lego boxes?

>>42578660
Because it's a shitpost about her autistic craving for a Lego train set, not a shitpost about her autistic craving to organize Lego boxes. Remember, there's no wrong way to shitpost.

I wnat a lego train set.....

Fics where purple smart is particularly autistic?

Does >review even work anymore or did that anon forsake us?

>>42578939
The site hasn't been updated since February

>>42578689
>fiction doesn't require verisimilitude
Go back to youtube comments where you belong.

This thread's going by really slowly.

>>42579611
Actually that's a commission, not a sketch. Significantly different in size and price.

>>42579375
I've actually hit a good stride writing and I've got less time to shitpost.

>>42578850
___

>>42579373
>>fiction doesn't require verisimilitude
Anon, you’re in the talking pastel horse fiction thread.

>>42579779
Yes, and when a fanfic deviates from established elements willy nilly people will call it out for that, lacking an AU tag, because fiction needs consistency and verisimilitude to be good. Twitter is that way. Keep sucking Disney's cock.

>>42579804
I am so glad we have you to police the tags on our shitposts. But you forgot to tag yours [No Fun] [Faggot].

>>42579804
It's more that you can't violate rules that we understand.

>>42579910
Can I violate the mares?

>>42580143
No, that's rape.

>>42579658
He can call it what he wants on a price sheet (hue), but it's still a sketch.

>>42580153
>lineart is sketch because I said so

>>42579658
Sketches can be commissioned
>>42580254
That's clearly not lined

>>42580260
Yeah, he does them on postcards for 15 bucks.

>>42578850
Unironically ___

>>42580992
Actually, I’m more entertained than anything. I made a shitpost; I didn’t, and don’t, take it seriously, and I don’t much care whether anyone likes it. But you’re so dedicated to the idea that Twilight can have only one specific form of autism and no other that you just can’t let this go. I expect you’ll start calling me a faggot and a nigger and maybe even a tranny soon. You don’t seem to realize that your inability to understand social behavior like shitposts makes you far more autistic than any canon interpretation of Twilight. Go ahead, reply to me; I think I’ll get a laugh out of it.

How tacky would it be for Derpy to say “I just don’t know what went wrong…”?
It's meant for comedic purposes right after a quick cut.

>>42581737
Very.
Do it anyway.

>check FimFiction
>search "Backwards Through The Mirror"
>no results

Did the original story get nuked? I really really loved The Sweetie Chronicles: Fragments crossover with it. Does anyone have the story archived?

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/529410/human-in-equestria-any-speedrun-kill-celestia-ending
14k words, comedy
A unicorn is controlled by a speedrunner with no desire to do anything but beeline for Celestia, and the ponies react to his bizarre behavior and flagrant disregard for the laws of physics with all the befuddlement it warrants. Quite possibly one of the most retarded premises for a story I've ever seen, which usually makes for a good time. I rather enjoyed it; this type of story lives or dies on the comedic delivery and I generally found it to be quite competent.

Reading it on my 3DS convinced me that this is the default way I'll be reading all fics going forward—I don't know if it's the nostalgia factor or just the lack of distractions since it can't multitask like a phone or computer, but I'd been struggling to keep my focus on my reading lately and this completely solved the issue.

>>42581950
>Does anyone have the story archived?
This was by Rustythebrave? I just checked, and it's in the latest Fimfarchive distribution:
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1130018/fimfarchive-20250901-released

>>42581962
Just use Foalfetch: https://foalfetch.net/story/2323

>>42581979
It's not decentralized, but I guess that works too, yeah. I just like Fimfarchive. It's always a good idea to have a backup yourself, rather than rely on someone else to have it.

I finally hit the last stretch. Last two scenes before I wrap up. I think I'll probably finish under 10k.
Writing is so fun, bros.

>>42581737
Scotchguard would rate it for 10-15 lbs.

>>42581979
Thanks, this is the story!
I’ll give it a read after I’m finished This Platinum Crown

>>42581984
Fimfarchive is relying on someone else, since authors can opt-out of it.

If I had free time and the ability to do productive things I'd write a scraper that actually archives everything just for the sake of preservation.

>>42582670
Kinda sad how actually caring about preserving the site's stories gets you so much further than fixating on denying authors the opportunity to opt out of the archive.

There's no point in writing a new scraper, not only because the fimfarchive scraper is right there on github, but because just using the fimfarchive puts you more than 50k fics ahead of a DIY just because it contains deleted stories you can't scrape anymore.

>>42582902
>fixating on denying authors the opportunity to opt out of the archive.
It is not full preservation then
>on github
Neat, that bumps down the effort required considerably
>puts you more than 50k fics
You know it's trivial to merge the two right? Obviously you can't go back in time to re-archive anything that was deleted by an author that had opted out. But you already have deleted fics from authors that haven't opted out, and ensuring that we can preserve deleted fics from opted-out authors from this point in time onwards is still better than just never doing so

>>42581352
Sounds like cope.

>>42581951
We read this when it was new. Good shit.

Magic Mirror On The Wall, Who Is Mightiest Of Them All? updated. It's on to HP year 3 now.

>>42582976
They haven't done nothing. You've done nothing. Making the archive in the first place is better than bitching about how someone
>opted out
>opted out
>opted out
>opted out
So much. Hardly anyone even knows the fimfarchive exists. Your fixation is irrelevant because there probably aren't even five total authors out of a hundred thousand that followed enough breadcrumbs to do that.
And yes, you can go back in time because there are fimfarchives posted nearly every quarter.
To a sane person the archive is complete and your white whale is probably HiE dreck.

>>42564021
Note: >>42583533

>Nine (9) human fics in the sin bin
The more things change the more they stay the same.

>>42583618
Only 7 with the M-filter on. May not sound like much, but that's 3x the amount!

>>42583565
Pretty sure that's not Scrooge?

>>42583792
Yeah, apparently it's Donald with amnesia or something. I still like the filename.

>>42583618
Well then write something that gets into the sinbox, duh.

fimfic writing retreat

>>42584080
Yeah, "retreat" in the sense of "running away from your problems."

>>42584091
Yes, that's why you stay at the retreat.

>>42584097
But how will you retreat if you're not fleeing?

>>42584372
I'm always fleeing. Life is made to be ran away from.

About a week late, but I finished my submission for the anthology.
Depending on if I can rework my original idea, I may have another one ready for the JFK deadline.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mlD3SZFmQFkLE9qK2pN1jxQG3BN8VMHMEzb3P5SKMgI/edit?usp=sharing

>nearly done with a new chapter
>the first chapter of a commission
>setup my commissioner with a great artist for the cover art
Oh yeah, it's coming together.

>>42583627
what

>>42585180
>>42585702
>>42585955
UNF
>>42585427
Not this one though

>>42585180
>>42585427
>>42585702
>>42585955
Man, we must be really dead to get four bumps in a row, really six.

>>42585983
What else is there to talk about?

>>42585983
Board is fucked by spam, but we are dead too.

>>42585978
Her face is messed up in that one, but everything else (especially the colors) is great.

>>42585990
I read Prey (2020) and I have lots of thoughts about it, but I don't have any real motivation to write them down.

What's the etiquette for when you want to do a Scoots story but you want to give her a different family dynamic than what is canon? Do you tag it as alternate universe?

>>42586030
Not really, AUs are more for like wide sweeping changes. Everyone already hates her existing family so just tag it with the appropriate characters and put it in the right group.

>>42586030
>scoots
Reminder that it's Scoot, not Scoots.

>>42577428
I'm back. The bad news is she ghosted on our plans and it's over. The good news is this means I can return to horse words now.

>>42586115
Fuck off, traitor.

>>42577428
>>42586115
If this is really you, then lol.

>>42586128
It is, unfortunately.

>>42585990
We could talk about the anthology.
Is anyone actually going to participate?
I think there are only two people in.

>>42586159
I'm still planning to join.

>>42586159
I got plans of my own.

>>42586159
what anthology?

>>42586163
Good.
>>42586173
I hope they come to fruition.
>>42586204
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/204388/voting/thread/561635/2025-collab-attempt
An anthology of one-shots with the theme of Conspiracy Theories.

>>42586159
I will write something for it, I promise.

>>42586159
shit, I started writing something and forgot about it... is there a min word count requirement?

>review https://www.fimfiction.net/story/462871/prey
It’s no coincidence that all reviews of Prey (2017) come with spoiler warnings front and center, and Prey (2020) being a fairly faithful crossover, the same applies. The opening of that game is as good as the opening for this story is bad. I don't appreciate the replay of Starlight's scene from There and Back Again. The concepts of Ocellus fearing that she's not a person and the nightmare of reverting to her love-starved state are good, but the presentation is pretty hamfisted.

Fortunately, like Prey (2017), the beginning of Prey (2020) is just the beginning. Reading this story is a lot like playing the game, and the game is great, so I mostly had fun. Prey (2020) is packed with action, as Ocellus and her friends explore the derelict space station, I mean palace, getting jumpscared by monsters, I mean changelings and unraveling the mystery. It’s also packed with references to the gameplay, story, and worldbuilding of Prey (2017). Where the description says it's not a crossover, that's only because it's neither HiE nor PiE. The big question is: why are there changelings on the moon?

The three main problems of this story are a yak, the prose, and its lack of subtlety, in that order. Initially, it seems like the story would not have a severe yak problem, and that Yona would be discarded as just a somewhat avoidable evil in the initial setup. The main cast is initially comprised of Ocellus, Gallus, and Smolder together taking the role of Morgan and Luna that of January. These three of the nu-6 do a good job, Ocellus can carry a story on her own and Gallus is upgraded, benefiting from all of the character development the show could give him and more. Terribly, the chapter “bugfriend” reintroduces her and skipping all her scenes was a horrible chore. She fucks off eventually, but the damage is done.
Almost as bad as that pile of shit is the fact that the story is unnecessarily written in present tense. This is plenty annoying on its own, but the story also has extensive homophonic errors, especially in the latter half, and the punctuation is poor. Kkat uses "girl" too much for a FiMfic; I get that Luna is the only mare in the story but at least every instance of "dragon girl" should've been replaced with "dragoness." Leading right into the fic’s problem with subtlety is the formatting: italics, bold, and text size are all flagrantly abused.

To be continued...

>>42586423
>review https://www.fimfiction.net/story/462871/prey
The game title drops itself only once. This story does it a full ten times. It’s a good representative of how it feels about the reader, but there is a full range of overemphasis from the title of chapter 3 to the in-text reminder that Ocellus is hallucinating something as being green that was blue only a few paragraphs ago. The thing that makes this most frustrating is that there *are* some details that are allowed to be subtle, to have double meanings and aren’t emphasized and reemphasized.
A good example of that is in the ending, which like Prey (2017), recontextualizes the rest of the story. Probably because it is in the written medium, it does a better job than Prey (2017)’s own ending, but also because the endgame decisions of who stays behind to close the portal and what to do with the spoiler are much more complex.

Ocellus’ personal story is as good as Morgan’s, and original. Not amnesia, like all of Psychoshock (2017) sibling *shock games, but rather her sense of identity is explored. Changelings are a great platform for this, and her in particular. Kkat goes all the way, here.
The romance with Smolder is good, but the only exceptional parts are their many heart to hearts. It's not deep, but they're teens, and Kkat sticks to that level. At least there's minimal melodrama.
As a final comment, Luna is as disappointing in this fic as in FoE; she's too emotionally beat up by her past as NMM for this late season depiction, and her dreamwalking having been hamstrung is a stupid headcanon. She should've been more like January. The only credit the fic gets here, and it is a neat credit, is that of writing a story where she was simultaneously banished onto and into the moon.

>>42570343
Skill issue. The Pillars are cool. I'll take them over anything with the student six.

>>42586214
Huh. I had a fic in the works that would've been perfect for this. Ah well.

>>42586443
>The Pillars are cool.
The Pillars are fucking worthless and do nothing interesting, at least the Student 6 had wasted potential, you can't say the same for the Pillars because they had zero potential.

>>42586477
Skill issue. A good writer could make even Flash Sentry compelling.

>>42586467
>I had a fic in the works
The deadline is sometime in November. You could still give it a shot.

>>42586492
We'll see...

>>42586436
>As a final comment, Luna is as disappointing in this fic as in FoE
Isn't she dead in Fallout Equestria

>>42586488
That’s like saying Bruce Lee can use a turd as a deadly weapon. Of course he can, he’s fucking Bruce Lee. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a turd.

>>42586561
>Bruce Leetard
Lol. Lmao.

>>42586576
Chuck Norris LOST.

>>42586580
Bruce had his sweat glands removed to look better on camera and fucking died, so who's really the loser?

>>42586543
Not all of FoE takes place after the war, she's alive during it. Not that it matters, she wasn't a real character when FoE was being written, so you wouldn't expect her to be one in that story. She should've been better in this one, though.

>>42586706
It's wild to me how much stuff came into existence during season 1 even though it's the weakest season.

>>42586710
You clearly haven't watched the whole show if you think that.

>>42586866
I've watched every single episode. Every. Single. One.

>>42586876
Your either a masochist or a tastelet, and given your previous post I think I know which.

>>42586894
>Your
Alright, that's the last time I dictate posts using speech to text. No it isn't.

>>42586477
>not intrigued by Equestria having epic ancient heroes who eventually have to sacrifice themselves in part because of their own folly in comparison to a bunch of random diversity metaphor chsracters trying to replace M6 in the modern day
Why are SoLlets like this

>>42587213
The Founders are objectively more interesting than the Pillars.

>>42587213
Both SoL and epic hero stuff need to coexist.

>>42586030
>Do you tag it as alternate universe?
AU tag's for a major (pre-story) alteration that serves as the linchpin for the plot. If you're giving her different parents, but everything else is basically the same, it doesn't need the AU tag. If you give her different parents, and it has completely altered her personality and relationships in Ponyville, then it does.

>>42586115
Take it as a sign. It's time to write a heartbreak romance fic. Too few anons use their IRL experience in fics, like the anon with the real estate license that never wrote a comedy fic about Twilight trying to sell the ugly crystal castle.

>>42586159
I finished my entry. Might even tackle the comedy idea if the muse strikes me.

>>42586362
Nope. Not even the 1k Fimfic minimum, since they're all going into the same "story".

>>42586443
>The Pillars are cool.
The concept's interesting, but like virtually everything in the late seasons the execution was shit.

>>42586580
Fake news.

>>42587515
I was going to make a "fics about fake news" post, but I guess that could be part of the anthology.

dead general

>>42588207
Dead... Show?

>>42588465
n-no...

>>42588470
It's ok, the only dead are the writers.

>>42588533
Days without Haber finding a job: 2172

>>42588533
But anon... We're writers!

>>42588595
That explains the stench.

>>42588820
No, that's mostly from the various bad ideas.

Are you writing anything right now?

>>42589481
This post.

>>42589481
Writing is futile. Some day, we shall be overtaken by the heat death of the universe. Our words, our beings, all shall dissipate into an endless, formless soup of entropy. Why should anyone write in the face of looming nullity?

>>42589481
Just Dinky being a lil weirdo.

>>42589491
Because it's enjoyable.