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Fimfiction Thread: Now with 34% more shitty stories

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Come one and all and help raise the quality of My Little Pony fanfiction! Featuring: Weapons, or the lack thereof.

ITT: Corrupted elements, Planning your story vs. Actually writing it, Gore for the sake of gore, Starla didn't fuck off, Voicefag realises he's been narrating fanfiction of a show aimed at little girls and reevaluates his life, On the Decoupling of Line-of-Sight Tethering in Projection-Targeting Spellforms, Using hoof instead of hand, Horn strap-ons, Drawn out romance, Guilty pleasures, Body horror, French lurkers died and can't bump the thread, Deadfics updating, 200-post debate about weapons, because whether everyone suddenly becomse a pacifist and there's no more conflic, or S6 features an all-out war, we'll have this debate until the end of time, Sheep are Equestrian elves, Bleeding strikes again, Fandom trend setters, Extremely high hopes, Not crying about sad things, Writer's block, Nyx, and woodland creatures are more civil about story discussion than us.

Tired of the same old 'Human goes to Equestria to fuck his underage waifu' formula? Burnt out after reading that Fallout crossover? Well, we've compiled the best of the worst in order to bring you our absolute average!

Introducing, the FiM-Fiction Starter Kit (list of winners): http://i.imgur.com/vuTA7EN.png (embed)

List of nominees by category: http://mlp-fanfics.herokuapp.com/

>Need a good writing prompt?: http://autismwhinnies.tumblr.com/

Riffs and Reviews:
http://pastebin.com/u/notkickass222urmom

Voiceguy's readings:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt68MpmvEketmqOdHncHI2w

>Prompt of the Week: Work on your deadfic, you lazy bum.

Do you want critique on your story? Post it on Google Docs with inline comments enabled.

Old thread: >>25403204
>>
First for request of Pregnant story with Button mash and his mom.
>>
Futaloo Get.
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>>25468124
Hey
I have a joke
"Futaloo get" gets a get
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>>25468099
>(embed)
nice one
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>>25468241
Someday, Anon.
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>>25468099
>No "Painful self awareness"
Plz
>>
>>25468334
Should have suggested it at the end of the thread, Anon.
Maybe 35% will be its time to shine.
>>
>>25468334
why?
>>
So...
Working on anything?
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPOrFhk30nM
My Little Pony: Gender is Magic by Twilight shine
isn't rule63 twilight's name Dusk Shine?

Next thing will be the thing I was told to do, along with the other thing.
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>>25468539
Twilight Shine doesn't comform to your cis-scum expectations.
>>
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>>25468539
>I mean, if you don't have the sausage.
You elicited a sensible chuckle from me.
>>
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>>25468531
Just this crackship of Gilda and Twilight Sparkle's Mom
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/285463/mother-fluffer
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>>25468886
get out
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>>25468886
>Just this crackship of Gilda and Twilight Sparkle's Mom
Swear to god I saw art of that exact ship in the catbird thread the other day. Is it related?
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>>25469112
Well, there's no hoof licking in my story, but a lot of character development and fun ideas.
>>
>7dsj: treasure, chapters 5-8

#5: Celestia whines about >tfw no bf, >tfw no kids, and so on. Then she tries to make out with her best friend's husband, because she has all the self control of a 15 year old. (Why does this sound familiar?)

#6: Shining Armor rescues a 16-year-old hooker. Boring.

#7: Twilight goes for a walk in the woods with her brother Spike, and tells him about the time years ago when she found, raised, and eventually released a baby owl. Suddenly, they are attacked by coyotes! But Aloysius, now fully grown, appears with his owl friends just in time to save the day.

#8: Rainbow Dash chapter, but it's mainly about RD's adopted sister Scootaloo.

>scoot's psycho meth-head biomom is out of jail
>scoot + RD + family all go to meet her at a fancy hotel
>their lawyer is there too
>TIME FOR A LOVE TRIANGLE! Firefly + Rainbow Blitz + the lawyer
(this is never mentioned again)

>first, they meet biodad + half-sister
>also biodad's lawyer/new wife
>they are pretty cool, not psychos or meth-heads

>finally time to meet biomom
>her sleazy lawyer: "only scoot + half-sister can go in"
>everyone else: "wtf, we never agreed to this"
>sl: "read the fine print, walking into the hotel constitutes agreement :^)"
>ee: "that's bullshit, no judge will uphold it"
>sl: "if you leave we will sue you :^)"
>ee: "huh okay then"
(Apparently neither of the two other lawyers realized that if the judge would throw out the contract, the judge would also throw out the lawsuit for violating the contract.)

>SL eventually agrees to let RD join
>scoot + half-sister + RD all go in
>meth-head is dressed up all fancy, like a legit businesswoman
>she says two sentences about how she misses her kids, apparently wants them to drop everything and go live with her
(Why does this sound familiar?)
>half-sister tells her to fuck off, shows proof that biomom scammed her own parents
>RD "swears as God's witness" that she will "rip off your head and shit down your neck"
>everyone leaves
>the end
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>>25466356
Replying in new thread, if you're still here, bat-pony anon.

In the case of my one relevant fic, the fact that one of my characters was a bat-pony had no particular bearing on the story at all, any more than a character being a Unicorn or a Pegasus or whatever mattered. He just happened to be a bat-pony and that's all there was to it. It's when you make the simple fact of BEING a bat-pony really significant to the plot that you start risking potential problems.

So if you're planning to make this big subplot about bat-pony racism or blood/meat lust or actually acting like bats/vampires......don't. Write an actual character, who just happens to be a bat-pony, and don't hinge the plot on that fact.
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>>25469137
I already forgot, is there a plot to these stories? Is there an actual end goal beyond drama-of-the-chapter scenarios?
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>>25469758
>I already forgot, is there a plot to these stories?
In general, yes, but this particular side story is supposed to be a slice-of-life sort of thing, which for this series does mean one random bit of drama after another. The main story does have an actual plot in fact, it has several!, but it's on hiatus this month while the author works on other things. If we're "lucky", that should mean another ~12k of AAG some time soon.
>>
A) that was the Op picture used less that 4 threads ago
and
B) It's a scientific fact a Unicorn could beat a Pegasus and an Earth Pony in combat. Using nothing but telekinesis
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>>25469372

I wasn't planning on it being a plot point. Just a main character that was one. As far as I know, bat ponies are just pegasus with weird wings in actual canon.

I was going to take that fact and go about that deep. If anything the bat part was supposed to be a visual cue that she was a foil to another character, but there wasn't going to be anything about her being a or struggles as a batpony.

Thank you for answering.
>>
Do I feel the pain of being a consistently bland organism? Do I know that I will never achieve things that fiction can do more than anything I can actually make?

Do I just sit idly by as life puts me on this earth for no reason and wait.

Just wait.

Wait till something comes out.

And why am I posting this on a fimfiction thread? Is it because I have nothing else, but to write stupid shit so other faggots will read them and see my hopelessness.
>>
>>25468531
I'm doing a one-shot about Star Swirl the bearded.
I like how it's shaping up.
>>
The Sweetie Chronicles crossover shit that's going on in Mente Materia right now is pissing me off. Mente was never as good as Stardust, but it was okay at least, until bizarro-Sweetie Belle showed up out of nowhere and started having actual major effects on the plot. I just can't believe the author thought this was a good idea.
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>>25470132
Is it weird that I had a distinct "this is never going to be as good as Stardust" feeling when I first read the description of it?
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>>25470287
Stardust was all about first contact / cultural exchange shit, which I love. Mente is just a warfic.
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>>25470310
It feels like a sequel just for the purpose of a sequel. Whilst Stardust had a rhyme and reason to it, it had a principle idea and its own motivation, Mente Materia exists only because people liked the first one, and that's never good.
Unless you're Michael Bay.
>>
[Pt. 1]

>>25463260
>premise
The Equestrian continent teleports to Earth, usually in the Atlantic (it never kicks up a tsunami that obliterates the Eastern Seaboard, though). With it, an unstoppable "shield" of magical radiation slowly expands out, which will kill all humans on the planet.

To stop an extinction from happening, the UN and Equestria team up and create a "ponification serum" which will transform humans into ponies and allow them to live. Conversion Bureaus, basically medical clinics, are established throughout the world to assist in the ponification process.

Terrorist groups soon arise, one advocating against ponification and attacking governments and conversion bureaus, and one advocating forced ponification and denoting bioweapons filled with the serum.

Various plot elements change depending on the story and whether the author's in one of the extreme camps. Sometimes, it was all a ruse by Tyrantlestia to invade; sometimes it's a clusterfuck of an accident. Sometimes, the radiation "shield" totally destroys Earth, including animals and buildings; sometimes it just targets humans.

>advice
Don't go into one of the extreme camps. Don't make it Humanity Fuck Yeah! with evil Tyrantlestia and nazi ponies where they eventually kill all the ponies to prove humans aren't genocidal monsters, and don't make it Misanthropy: the Fanfic where humans violent tendencies needs to be suppressed for a pony utopia.

The only villain TCB needs is the magical radiation shield. That alone will create all the conflict your fic could ever want. The terrorist groups are also usually shit. You could drop them, make them more realistic (ISIS is all the rage these days), or just write them well.
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[Pt. 2]

>>25466356
There's a bat pony fic currently in the featured box with a 56:1 like/dislike ratio. There was also that "prostitute bat pony hangs out with a UN Ambassador" one from a little while back.

As a reader, I don't mind if a character's a bat pony. I better not, since I'm currently writing a 100k fic with a bat pony protagonist. Bat ponies are very rare in fanfics. They're usually confined to Luna's crazy fanatical Praetorian Guard in warfics, or the odd durian comedy fic.

>>25468531
I'm almost done with the weird bat pony clopfic. About another 10k to go.

>it was originally supposed to be 15k long and will now likely pass 100k
My poor planning has doomed it to be really shit.
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>>25470770
>My poor planning has doomed it to be really shit.
I'd still read it.
>>
>>25470755

>>25470755
Thanks, although I see I'm already outside your advice from the get-go.

Premise of _my_ piece is to take a specific look at 'code majeste' -- what happens when a human accidentally comes out the other side as an alicorn.

So from nearly page one, the magic barrier isn't the villain anymore. Once we learn 'Tia has issued a death warrant, she's the antagonist. Although I've added a bunch of head canon about the previous imperial expansion cycles leaving at least one immortal each time. Haven't said that outright, but we've met a wizard griffon who, as it turns out, is as old as that invasion.

Although in my head this is full on multiverse, and I want Tyrantlestia to meet FluffilySorryCelly. But without that making for a Deus Machima ending? Yeah I'm not sure.

My piece is mostly about a guy who doesn't want to die, and is too clever for his own good -- the alicornication was deliberate and successful.

Since then he's met forcibly ponified HLF members, who while pacified by the official serum, still intend to stand against the invading government.

...something about war making for strange bedfellows, is what I'm going for.

at which point I realize, I'm not actually very good at intrigue, which this story is approaching a need for, rapidly.

Thank you again, for your input into what the C.B. universe needs.
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>>25470132

I've got nothing against Sweetie Chronicles itself, but my god, what do authors think they're doing when they try to retrofit a SC chapter into their source fic? She's supposed to be offstage, or in between scenes, not an actual WTF out of nowhere new character!
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>>25471012
Agreed. Sweetie chronicles would be fine if it just took place in x fics universe, but having people integrate it into their fics is just disjointed and distracting

I don't know why anyone would agree to add a SC chapter to their fic

Though personally if i had a fic he decided to throw sweetie at id probably be very tempted to add her into an extremely clop heavy chapter
>>
Finally got around to finishing Dusk's Dangerous Game.
Jumped the shark with the whole cosmic entities and balance thing but I overall didn't like some of the canon the story had.
I have to say, though, the battle scenes were some of the best I've come across.

Anyone got some Equestria at war stories they can recommend?
Preferably not dead like Total War or finished.
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>>25471660
>equestria war fics

Upheaval part 3 is still going isn't it?
The immoral game

Only other warfics i can think of are in the self insert protagonist camp
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>>25469372
I don't think this is entirely fair.

Clearly if a story is labeled "[self-insert] and the Incredibly Sexy and Dark Bat Pony Wot Did Sex With Him" or "Bloodwing Fucktooth is Misunderstood by Equestria When She Made Lots of Sex and Violence and Brooding Darkness" then people will rightfully think a story is stupid, but stories about cultural/racial difference are often perfectly decent. Cold In Gardez has an entire story about the carnivorous instincts of griffons and I rate it as his best story. If it's presented as a perfectly natural part of life and not a means to show off how cool the character is, there's nothing wrong with it. The idea that the different races (not just bat ponies but also unicorns/pegasi/earth ponies) have no cultural complications between them make Equestria way more boring.
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Welp.

Looks like I'm going to Vegas for a couple days. It's basically a belated 21st birthday present.

Fill this thing with requests.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/205824/folder/37142/1/suggestions

I'm gonna get that other story I forgot the name of uploaded before I leave.
Wish me luck on the machines. I love you all.
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>>25472180

>Playing the machines.

>Not counting cards until they kick you out 'cause you're broke.

You can have fun just exploring the strip. The place is insane.
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>>25472180
I hope you don't get beaten in an alley for winning too much.
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>>25470968
>Tia has issued a death warrant
You'd better have a good excuse for this. Chatoyance tried and it was a shitshow.

>sunhorse is perfectly benevolent and doesn't want to kill anybody
>moonhorse is perfectly benevolent and has also show specific interest in keeping the mc alive
>mc is wearing a standard suppressor ring which is apparently sufficient to keep her from accidentally turning the universe inside-out
>(in this fic) there is an obvious, mostly harmless way to permanently disable an alicorn's magic
"welp i guess we have to kill her, clearly there is no other choice"

>Although in my head this is full on multiverse, and I want Tyrantlestia to meet FluffilySorryCelly.
You seen https://www.fimfiction.net/story/173606/the-conversion-bureau-setting-things-right?
>evil TCB sunhorse comes to earth and does evil TCB things
>humans (eventually) fuck her shit up and force Equestria to leave
>years later, canon Celestia shows up
>everyone flips their shit thinking Tyrantlestia is back
>Celestia + Twilight have no idea wtf is going on
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Did you like L&ToAWP?

Would you like to read it again?

Would you prefer to do so in dead tree?


Would you be willing to pay 70$ for the privilege?


If the answer to any of these questions is yes, youre a fucking idiot.
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>>25470310
This is exactly why I stopped reading after Stardust. Which actually kind of really bothered me because at the end of Stardust the overall story's clearly not over, there's resolution still to be had, but now it's buried within a fic I have far less interest in reading. First contact was great and fascinating, but a bloody alien invasion on Equestria, um, no, no thank you. And hearing that Sweetie Chronicles is invading the story in any sort of canonical fashion further wards me away from it. I don't really have anything in particular against Sweetie Chronicles, other than the fact that I haven't read it, but I don't want to feel like I'm expected to have done so to follow another, completely unrelated fic. It's fine within the confines of the Sweetie Chronicles story itself that it's sort of interjecting itself into and parodying other major fanfics, but when those fanfics themselves start to actually work it in and canonize it, it gets weird in a way that I don't particularly care for.

But I guess I'm not really gonna be reading Mente Materia anyway, so, oh well.
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>>25472166
Same person you're replying to, forgot my name last time. Whoops.

Anyway yeah, there's definitely something to be said for exploring cultural differences, but I said it they way I did for a reason: having the simple fact of being a bat-pony be plot-significant does carry a risk (but not a guarantee) of potential problems. I say that because bat-ponies in particular (unlike changelings or griffons or minotaurs or whatever) tend to draw the edgier sort of writers, and it's far easier with them to sink into dark brooding angsty archetypes that no one with a brain wants to read about.

Also (and this is admittedly getting a bit more into personal opinion) as I mentioned, I've often seen bat-ponies depicted as eating meat, often raw bloody meat. But unlike griffons in particular, who make sense as meat-eaters due to their base parts....bat ponies DON'T. Or at least not the way my brain interprets them, i.e., as a varying race of the same base pony species, no different from a unicorn/earth pony/pegasus/crystal pony/what have you. Fundamental pony biology is that of an herbivore, and simply being a bat-pony wouldn't cause that drastic a change in your fundamental biology unless they were a completely different species. Which, I mean, yeah you could go that way with it, I guess, but I wouldn't. If you wanna explore drama connected to being carnivorous, as you mentioned, griffons make logical sense for that purpose. Or hell, even humans, if you wanna go that route; god knows I've seen that be a major aspect of numerous fics/comics about Twilight and/or Sunset adapting to the Equestria Girls universe.

Anyway, bottom line, I agree exploring cultural differences is cool, but I don't think bat-ponies are the ideal (or even a very good) subject for doing so.
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>>25473030
>https://www.fimfiction.net/story/173606
> Canon Celestia is all Whisky Tango Foxtrot

No, Hadn't seen it. BUT IT SOUNDS AMAZING
Thanks for the heads up -- see, half the reason I was posting here was my utter unfamiliarity with the existing body of works.
Gotta go before I wind up late to work though.
>>
>>25473199
Hey, I liked Life and Times.
Of course, I was reading it when it was still incomplete and I was a massive fucking brony back then, but hey.
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>>25474267
Ah, those were the days...
I remember reading and liking Past Sins.
Well... at least until Twilight flips her shit when Celestia wants to see if Nyx is indeed Nightmare Moon or not.
>>
>>25473215
>Also (and this is admittedly getting a bit more into personal opinion) as I mentioned, I've often seen bat-ponies depicted as eating meat, often raw bloody meat. But unlike griffons in particular, who make sense as meat-eaters due to their base parts....bat ponies DON'T
Iirc (And I could be wrong) when a herbivorous eats meat it won't hurt him, it'll simply pass undigested for most animals. Like giving corn to a dog.
One could argue that they need extra protein because X (The skin that composes their wings, for example, would be subject to wear at a really quick pace) so a bit of meat in their diet wouldn't be out of place. It's a headcanon of mine that pegasi already eat bugs as they fly to keep the tendons and general musculature on their back in good state, since it'd be under a LOT of tension.
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>>25475114
> one could argue

Not very well. There are lots of protein sources for horse and other herbivores; alfalfa is very high in protein and some horse owners won't feed it because of the danger it thus presents.

What about fruit bats? Here or the cartoon, they can subsist, fleshwings and all, on fruit.
Granted the way the cartoon fruitbats do it is kinda gross but still.

Me, I'd be okay about bat ponies who drank blood -- so long as they were civilized.
Maybe they have been known to travel with griffon hunting parties -- the catbird eats the meat, after the batpony drains all the blood.

Here's a cool idea I'm dovetailing a piece of, into my fiction: in Ponyfinder (the MLP extension the Pathfinder, an offshoot of DnD) if you play as a bat-pony, your speech is all in hypersonics, so you can't verbally communicate with non-bat party members without magic or writing.
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>>25475173
>Speech all in hypersonics

Weren't bats able to produce normal sounds too?

And I'm pretty sure the unicorns would have found some magic gimmic to hear ultrasounds.
>>
>>25475450
>unicorns have magic

I said that :-)

And yes, normal bats can/should be able to make hearable sounds. But that's how the game rules kept the race balanced.

So, the particular take I'm thinking of, is their native / racial language is a tonal one, and all the 'tones' are hypersonic.

Since they also are taught Pony when they go to public schools, few unicorns bother with a magic gimmick, but the bat-ponies still feel culturally isolated since they have to speak a foreign language when they go into town for their shopping or whatever.
>>
So, you're willing to offer non-FiM-published pieces if it's on G-Docs?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11UBaaFGLgTipVe8d97BDPWw4Uey_Oc8cXaz677jcfWw/edit?usp=sharing

That's actually the two and a half chapters I'm having the most mental anxiety over because IM NOT WRITING CLOP by Celly's fresh milk!

The idea I'm trying to espouse, is as an alicorn in this version of this world, he will be revered as a god ... even though he's not. Unicorns will be the most comfortable, dirt buggers will be forced by magic to be ever in awe of his every breath.

So for a complete stranger to write 'how many?" as you read here, is not unreasonable. I just don't know if it's necessary.

Comments, please.
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>>25474267
I also read Life and Times during my "raging brony" phase, and liked it at first. The earlier parts that are more comedy-focused, where you're just supposed to laugh at Cloud Kicker's latest fuck-up, were fine. But later the fic tried to get all serious, and didn't do an especially good job of it.
>>
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>literally the entire series is featured right now
Anyone know if this thing is good? The upvote ratios are outrageously high. For the sequels it makes sense (only people who liked the original will bother reading them) but even the first in the series is > 60:1.
>>
>>25477236
>13k words
How about you read it and tell us?
>>
>>25475977
>revered as a god
>dirt buggers will be forced by magic to be ever in awe of his every breath
I haven't started reading it yet but this is not a good sign.
>>
>writing a story
>very rough draft of around the first chapter finished
>want to start refining it
>all of a sudden whenever I look at it I'm filled with disgust that I am literally writing my little pony fanfiction
>progress grinds to a halt
where did everything go so wrong
>>
>>25477681
When you started giving a shit.
>>
>>25475977
I put detailed comments/edits all over the first page before I got bored. Where I just wrote "huh?", it means I think the word choice and/or phrasing is wrong (I didn't want to write "this word choice is awkward/incorrect" over and over).

High-level feedback:

First, the writing: don't try to make it sound like those books you read in high school English. It's difficult to do correctly, and unlike the people who wrote those books, you are not an expert.

Second, I know this is only a short excerpt, but I don't know why you're making this a TCB thing. It seems like you don't know any TCB fanon, and what you actually want to write is some kind of first contact thing. Two things in particular: (1) TCB ponies speak English, and (2) the Equestrian border is heavily guarded on both sides, there's no way this guy got across on his first day without anybody noticing and also made it halfway across the country to some random-ass town.

You mention the MC is a computer programmer or something, which immediately makes me think this is a self-insert.

Finally, why the fuck does his first day in Equestria end with a sudden orgy? Why is his first thought on getting into bed "wonder if she wants the d" and not "god damn I'm tired from transforming and running all over Equestria all day, also I better be careful not to offend the only pony in this town I can talk to"? Everything is first contact, first contact, first contact, and then there was sex. What the hell?
>>
>mfw Sand-Nigresses on the other side of the planet are dying to get education
>mfw the civilized world barely has anyone who is able to spell correctly
>>
>>25477882
Yes, I saw all those comments on writing style that I resolved without changing anything because they you didn't do anything but write it using your style, which is painful to my eyes.

It's a TCB thing because I heard some stuff about the TCB universe and it inspired this story. The first contact stuff I've read doesn't.

I thank you for your attempt to provide input, but obviously you've wasted my time as well as yours.
>>
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>>25477925
>muh writing style
>muh superior being, clearly you have wasted muh precious time
>muh no need for criticizing

Are you this guy?
>>
>>25477925
>It's a TCB thing because I heard some stuff about the TCB universe and it inspired this story.
Someone once heard there's magic in My Little Pony, so he decided to write MLP fanfiction.
It's called Harry Potter.
>>
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>>25477925
>Yes, I saw all those comments on writing style that I resolved without changing anything because they you didn't do anything but write it using your style, which is painful to my eyes.
Your prose so far was often vague, confusing, or using non-standard word choice or sentence structure. Obviously you are free to continue writing this way, but I suspect most people ITT will agree that you should not. or would agree, if you hadn't rage-deleted the doc

>obviously you've wasted my time as well as yours.
Wow, holy shit. I thought this level of hostility to feedback was more of a "fimfiction hugbox" thing.
>>
Looking for some good Fluttercord recomendations.
Guilty pleasure, sorry.

(Preferably written after S4.)
>>
Didnt TCB finally die out? why start shitting out new tcb?

Arent there new retarded fads to latch on to out there?
>>
>>25478187
There's very little in the way of even passable Fluttercord, and I don't know of any written after S4. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/125269/bride-of-discord is the only one I've found tolerable (and I used to be big fan of Fluttercord), and it's basically an AU retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Still, if you're really craving that ship, might as well give it a whirl - it has an audio play version too that's good for background noise when doing other stuff.
>>
>>25478734
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9VWAXplHsc

Not forgotten by all.
>>
>>25478734
It's TCB in name only. He already admitted he's ignoring most aspects of the TCB universe: >>25477925
>>
>>25476463
I ship it.
>>
Can anyone who's read Alienation tell me if there's ever a good explanation for Twilight going crazy? "I'm not Twilight any more, I'm a sociopath now, time to do drugs and kill random ponies." OK, great, but why? I'm 17 chapters in and the best I've gotten so far is "well, there are some psychological disorders that are sort of similar... but nah, none of them quite match, so it's not that".
>>
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I think I'm in this too deep.
>>
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>>25479982
>only seven digits
You're note deep enough, Anon.
>>
>>25480046
Not my fault everything I like dies.
>>
>>25480072
What if it is?
>>
>>25480359
Anon, you were not supposed to tell him about the conspiracy.
>>
>>25479982
>putting unfinished stories in your favorites list
lmao what
>>
>>25480732
Itt: people who don't know what bookshelves are for
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2W7ggS8f4Q&feature=youtu.be
Lost and Forgotten by Violent.
Found and Remembered by Peaceful

I'm gonna go win lots of money now.
>>
>>25471660
>Equestria at war stories
There's Valor is Magic (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/58577/valor-is-magic) which checks off all the warfic cliches (Klingon Griffin Empire, fanatical batponies, ease of invading) but is still an enjoyable story none the less.

The Lunar Rebellion (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/77470/the-lunar-rebellion) is still my personal favorite warfic, despite having a rather meh protagonist and taking place in a -verse.

Blackacre (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/123244/blackacre) intermixes rebellion and some light Tyrantlestia and is probably my favorite Tyrantlestia fic.

>>25480732
>going through your favorites and shifting everything over to Tracking
You actually have time to do that?
>>
>>25481211
>implying i wasnt correctly shoving everything in the right bookshelves from the start
Plebe please.
>>
>>25472133
Oh yeah, i forgot about the Upheaval series.
Didn't know it went past Part 2.

Thanks
>>
I just finished reading Friendship is Optimal.

well, uh.

it was very interesting if anything.
>>
Just found this story http://www.fimfiction.net/story/238368/friendship-is-mind-control
Lesbian harem mind control with good writing and story
Here the synopsis Twilight never meant to mesmerise Applejack, never intended her to be bound to her voice, forever vulnerable to a single soft word. Twilight would never take advantage of it. Except, she does need to understand the limits of the spell. And somehow, the limits of what Twilight will do keep shifting.
At least she'd never cast it on any of her other friends. That would be terrible. Wrong, to take more and more of her friends under her control. Definitely wrong.
>>
Hi, Im a beginning writer and I need your help because Im blocked, I only have the plot for now( and Im not referring to the "plot" of the ponies).
With Comments: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u2W9KMiy8udG39rx8GNyeLp9l2NzkR2FTIl6wvytaTs/edit
With Edition and Comments: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PWWvMp7z_1y9mUcWfghy4LcXkorTmV9xkOiPkacDzPg/edit
PD: the image is the main character of the history and his mother
>>
>>25481957
>Edge edge edge

Bismuth/10
>>
>>25479740
>a good explanation for Twilight going crazy?
Shes on a short fuse in canon. its not a terribly far jump from conducting experiments on your friends to popping pills and going on a murder spree

>>25481211
>You actually have time to do that?
Dont know about him, but every month I go through and shuffle shit around depending on whats happening with it

>>25481318
I cant attest to quality in any way, shape or form since I never made it past the first one.

I guess the first one was ok for what it was, but the whole premise was so asinine that it pushed well beyond the boundaries for my suspension of disbelief and I just coundlt really get into it

>>25481621
>Lesbian harem mind control
>good writing and story
I could see each of those individually, but your complete sentence is incomprehensible to me

>>25481957
>black and red and grey oc main character (plus identical fucktrophy)
nope.
>>
>>25479982
Bro, I have 7.5 million only counting stories that I started reading this year. Get on my level.
>>
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>>25476463

Meester sees all.
>>
>>25477925

Oh my god, if you didn't want real feedback, you should have said so to start with!
>>
>>25481621

I can dig the fetish, but the anthro kills it for me. Which is a shame, because Twilight's descent in it is pretty fun.
>>
>>25482092
>anthro
because nudity, hands and titties.

and I guess fisting beats hoofing

If youre so unimaginative as to be unable to write horsefuckery, make it an eqg fic.
>>
>>25482232
>because nudity, hands and titties.
Literally the only three reasons anyone ever writes anthro.
>>
>>25477925
Protip: if you ask for feedback don't be a cunt about it.
>>
>>25482373
he wanted fimfiction feedback, which is all about ego stroking and dicksucking. actual criticism is a bannable offense
>>
>>25482386
>he wanted fimfiction feedback, which is all about ego stroking and dicksucking. actual criticism is a bannable offense
Yeah, there's a reason I don't ask for feedback there and only use deviantart for the forums. I've posted some things on dA that I hated as a test and only received shallow praise for it.
>>
>>25482396
What were you expecting on DA anyways?
>>
>>25482437
I was giving it a chance
>>
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>>25482443
Protip, don't.

Following character is being praised by hundreds of plebs. It's a pegasi with a non-functioning horn, frozen in ice for 4000 years and thawed, defeating every canon and fanfic enemies he meets and married to Twilight.
>>
>>25482452
There are retards everywhere. I was seeing if I found someone who wasn't one.
Haven't you ever just said "Good day" to someone you don't know? this would be more or less the same.
>>
>>25482479
What is this social interaction you're talking about?
>>
>>25482479
No, I'm the kind of person that, rather than greeting a person whom I know very well, and who also know me very well, I miss my chance and instead settle for awkward death staring.
>>
Nyx
>>
Xyn
>>
Not a Mary Sue
>>
>Read A Gay Old Time
>Expect lewdness between adolecent Silver Spoon and Diamond Thiara
>Find "Terry Prattchet Writes A Crackfic"
Some days, I am just happy. This is one of them.
>>
>>25483239
A lot of Aragon's works are like that, which is why he's one of my favorite authors. There's this combination of dumb lolsorandom humor mixed in with some really highbrow/intellectual-ish writing that makes you feel both smarter and dumber for reading it while also making you laugh.

I'd also recommend reading Long Story Short, Things Went Down, and regardless of whether you like that one or not, give Fridge Horror a try. A Hell of a Time and Crime and Funishment are good too, and while I'm not overly fond of the DONE series, it has its moments as well.
>>
>>25483290
I should also note that Fridge Horror is an actual tribute to Pratchett, and does quite well in both capturing the spirit of Pratchett's work while allowing the author to keep his own voice in the story.
>>
I should do a humor fic.
"Twilight and the Sorcerer's Stone," I'll call it. It probably won't have anything to do with 'arry Potter, just a stupid reference five chapters in.
>>
>>25483568
What would it be about?
>>
>>25483586
Whatever pops to mind and seems funny enough. Like Twilight finding out the library's been built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Or how Twilight confronts Scientology or some other kind of cult and, after figuring out all the hoaxus pocus, Xenu knocks at her front door and asks to use her toilet. Or how she starts a career in folk music and gets outrageously popular, completely neglecting her duties as an element of deus ex machina.
>>
>>25483632
You know, as fucking retarded as that sounds, I'd like to read a lighthearted comedy like that, where the chapters aren't really connected that much.
>>
>>25483652
Fucking retarded is the right mood. It's just about writing something funny and having fun whilst doing it, nary a care for what anyone else thinks.
>>
>>25483632
>>25483652
Me too. It sounds like braindead drivel, but it could be done in a really fun way.
I'd definitely read it.
>>
>>25483632
Maybe I could portray said folk music as a string of whinnies and neighs. Just random noises that seem completely dumb to anyone reading it.
And then the audience clops their hooves off and all foals in a kilometer radius are offered to be kissed.
>>
What do you think are the implications of using the phrase "to look at a gift horse in the mouth" in Equestria?
>>
>Be Fimfag
>Be Highscool 3
>Just read Catcher in the Rye and The Picture of Dorian Gray
>Woah, that's literature
>I should write on my autistic website like that
>Receive shallow praise from clueless readers

Why would some writers on Fimfic even do that?
>>
How do you know when to use showing or telling?
>>
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>>25484269
ALWAYS SHOW NEVER TELL
ALWAYS SHOW NEVER TELL
ALWAYS SHOW NEVER TELL
ALWAYS SHOW NEVER TELL
ALWAYS SHOW NEVER TELL
ALWAYS SHOW NEVER TELL
>>
>>25484287
Not really. Depends on what you're writing, and why. Bad writers should certainly learn how to show first, but once you know how to write with constraints, a good writer should never fear to break them. "Show, don't tell" is useful advice for people who write shitty shipfics with passages like "Rainbow Dash felt a tingly happiness in her stomach when she looked at Applejack and she didn't know what it meant (!)" but "Always show, never tell" is almost meaningless, and can lead to one of my biggest pet peeves: obvious expository dialogue.

Let's say I've written a scene depicting a religious ritual and I want to tell the reader what its meaning and origin is. I could write an elegant passage briefly elaborating on the history of the ritual—or, because so many teachers and bloggers and other jesters have instructed me to "show," I could have a kneejerk negative response to that, and seeing no other means of explaining a peculiar cultural feature of the world, launch into a contrived chapter-length scene of dialogue wherein no character talks like a real person, thereby defeating the whole purpose of "showing" in the first place insofar as it intends to reveal features of character through inference, necessarily derived from depictions of realistic behaviour.

The cinematic and gaming media traditionally have a problem with exposition because they lack the capacity to narrate history without a lengthy voiceover, hence why so many protagonists are outsiders who need things explained to them, especially in genre works. Don't bring that problem into writing. Please, just tell me about the Great War of Holy Griffon Discord Nightmare and why all the ponies talk about it in hushed tones.
>>
>>25484438
You're raising a good point, but consider this:
I was parodying the people who treat this guideline as a rule and I'd agree with you in a heartbeat even if you didn't waste your time on that wall of text.
>>
>>25484453
Oh, good.

Still, I don't regret writing it—I've seen people actually advocate the "always showing" method on FiMfic as well as outside of it. Call it Poe's Law.
>>
>>25484287

This is why we have 500,000 word fics in which nothing happens.
>>
>>25484499

>tfw you read a story with words for the sake of words, like they have a wordcount they're trying to meet per chapter

More words doesn't always mean better story folks. Please stop wasting both of our time.
>>
>>25484742
It doesn't always mean a worse story either.
>>
>>25484742
Minimal wordcounts tend to be for the purpose of the author wanting to put at least some amount of content per chapter and not fall in the Comic Sindrome-- updates with barely any content and a shitty cliffhanger. So if that new character, that argument and that party cant't even fill 5K the better is to also add the forest scene and a bit of SoL here and there.
>>
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>>25484742
B-but...

Also, AAG is apparently a thriller. And dark. And gore.

Also, it seems AAg has created itself an actual fandom.

>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/161729/lost-weekend
>>
>>25484812
>sidestory = an actual full-fledged fandom
no
>>
>>25484793

That, I understand. I meant when that self imposed word count is met with needlessly added details or general fluff, there's a problem.

Scenes that add to a story or character development put in to give more meat to the chapter is fine.

>>25484757
This is also true.
>>
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>>25484742
>>25484499
people actuall- [pic related]

oh. oh my.

>>25484757
see above.
>>
>>25484913
What's that?
>>
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>>25484938
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/79264/staying-sane-in-a-peaceful-world
>>
>>25484944
Im not sure if i should be appreciative or disgusted that someone else recognized that
>>
>>25484913
>see above.
See what? What am I supposed to be seeing?
>>
>>25484978
my guess is, an example in which more words did not make for a better story, QED more words must always lead to a worse story.

This is one of those logic fallacies we studied in college, actually.
>>
>>25484978
a 500,000 words story in which nothing comprehensible happens

words for the sake of words

forcing a chapter wordcount
and
excessive amounts of telling


but mostly I just noticed that The Adventures of SelfInsert McAsianninjacommando hit half a million words and felt like posting about it
>>
>>25485026
so >>25485007 was right
>>
So, anons, just passing by, and you seem smarter than the usual fare. I've got some questions that have been bugging me for some time, could you help a brotha?

Could anyone explain why picrelated has a 45 l/d ratio at 800 likes?

Also, could anyone explain why this http://www.fimfiction.net/story/55373/rebirth-of-the-damned has 2340 likes? It's a fucking WC crossover.

Are any of these at least better than Nyx?

How does this http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Bucking+Nonsense fucker grab likes when he's lolfunny shit?

How can anyone write Equestria and not make it a gynocentric matriarchy? Like, seriously?

I know I ask for much, but you guys successfully explained to a faggot why writing an edgewar of edge is stupid once.
>>
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>>25485007
>my guess is, an example in which more words did not make for a better story, QED more words must always lead to a worse story.

well...
the highest rated story on the site is 5k words, and the longest story is the chase...

fallacy? nope Id consider that proof
>>
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>>25484972
haha no
my google game is just strong senpai

Also

FUCKING SOLDIER IN EQUESTRIA FUCK REALLY?


>Like his friends, Tran isn't normal by any standards whatsoever but as he would say "Normal is boring." Him, along with his friends, were summoned to Canterlot, Equestria by Celestia because of one simple concept Tran and his friends excelled in, war, violence, and combat. Despite being mere teens, the lot of them are far more experienced than the royal guard due to living in a post apocalyptic zombie ridden earth. Despite suffering from vast mental problems, the lot of them love chaos nearly as much as Discord. What shenanigans will ensure?

Oh, it's worse. shit.

ShenaniGhast innsured
>>
>>25485148
Does it beat this?

>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/300222/the-ones-from-beyond
>>
>>25485101
>Could anyone explain why picrelated has a 45 l/d ratio at 800 likes?
Because most of the FiMFiction users have terrible, terrible taste and very low standards.

>could anyone explain why this http://www.fimfiction.net/story/55373/rebirth-of-the-damned has 2340 likes?
Because of the above answer.

>Are any of these at least better than Nyx?
You're setting the bar pretty low there.

>How does this http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Bucking+Nonsense fucker grab likes when he's lolfunny shit?
Because he appeals to the aforementioned userbase.

>How can anyone write Equestria and not make it a gynocentric matriarchy?
Because the purpose of fanfiction is to explore different ideas and take the original premise into grounds that normally wouldn't be covered in canon.
>>
>>25485101
>Could anyone explain why picrelated has a 45 l/d ratio at 800 likes?
That would be difficult, considering you didn't post a picture.

>Also, could anyone explain why this http://www.fimfiction.net/story/55373/rebirth-of-the-damned has 2340 likes? It's a fucking WC crossover.
Good find. Shitload of conflicting tags, crossover, shitload of likes. I like it. Someone put it on the shitty fics scoreboard.
Maybe we really shoud make one, there are so many shitfics that are surprisingly popular.
Sadly, the only explanation is shit taste and/or autism.

>How does this http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Bucking+Nonsense fucker grab likes when he's lolfunny shit?
Because children found his channel. Are you familiar with a yotuber PewDiePie? Same target audience.

>How can anyone write Equestria and not make it a gynocentric matriarchy? Like, seriously?
We've had this discussion before, you can either look for it in the archives or hope the two Anons who really love arguing about it show up.

>I know I ask for much, but you guys successfully explained to a faggot why writing an edgewar of edge is stupid once.
You can never truly explain something to someone who lacks self-awareness.
>>
>>25485102
That would be true if the two were written by the same guy.

I once read some shitty series of novels written by some shitty teenage girl and I hared it. That's why I also hate LoTR, all series with more than one book are clearly fucking garbage.
>>
>>25485177
yes.

And I can say that despite only reading the description of the sci-fi mystery HFYHiE.

try reading one chapter of staying sane. you wont.

(stay sane that is)
>>
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>>25485193
>That would be difficult, considering you didn't post a picture.


fuck

But with the picture it's easy mode

>>25485101
pic fell off
>>
>>25485214
>all series with more than one book are clearly fucking garbage.
finally you say something I can agree with
>>
>>25485224
Should've just posted a screenshot of the story, we're not familiar with every fic in existence.
Thankfully I have mad Google skills.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/230097/crystals-wishes
>Crystal's Wishes
>by Crystal Wishes
Self-insert garbage confirmed.
Of course, it could be good self-insert garbage, but I'm not sure if I want to read it if you're saying it's so bad.

>>25485242
Oh you.
>>
>>25485256
>good self-insert garbage
does such a beast exist?

self inserts are either uberbadasses, megadonged gigolos, or both.
>>
>>25485291
I recall one particular fic, but I can't actually remember what it was.
>>
>>25485291
>good self-insert garbage
>does such a beast exist?
Well, I liked the Millenium series, and those are laughably self-insertish.
>>
>>25485214

But Anon, LoTR was originally written as a single book; the publisher split it up.
>>
>>25485178 >>25485193

>>Are any of these at least better than Nyx?
>You're setting the bar pretty low there.
Top quintile? ^;)

>Sadly, the only explanation is shit taste and/or autism.
>Because of the above answer.
Since you guys read crackfics I'd wager at least some of you know what kind of shit happens inside. If you're guessing, well, I guessed same as you.

>Because the purpose of fanfiction is to explore different ideas and take the original premise into grounds that normally wouldn't be covered in canon.
Ok, next step: how write not gynomatriarchy if have skewed gender ratio?

>We've had this discussion before, you can either look for it in the archives or hope the two Anons who really love arguing about it show up.
I NEED IT
holy shit how do I even search for this?

>You can never truly explain something to someone who lacks self-awareness.
I like you guys more and more. Even if some of you post crackshit and trollen, you good ones are ok. dont come to ths tred tomrowo

>>25485256
I started reading its brother-fic about that new guard from some faggot named Anzel. It didn't make me want to immediately downvote dislike and remove from all lists, but it wasn't interesting enough to continue.
>>
>>25485385
>Don't come to the thread tomorrow

Seriously, what's gonna happen? My aunt lives in this thread.
>>
>>25485177
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/300222/the-ones-from-beyond
>The main 6 finally got close enough to get a good view of the monster. The group were shocked at what was before them. Sitting on the gazebo bench was a large bipedal creature, wearing greenish yellow camouflage clothing, had pale cream-colored skin, with a blonde beard on his face, covered with pouches and a backpack and some sort of device sitting on its lap.
>"What is that thing?" asked Spike.
>"I don't even know what that thing is. And I've studied multiple animals and monsters as an animal caretaker." stated Fluttershy.
>"Whatever it is, it looks dangerous, when it attacks get ready!" announced Twilight
>"Alright girls, you heard her, let's give this thing a flank kicking!" yelled Rainbow Dash.

>main six unironically
>fluttershy talkin anumuls
>spike wut
>scared twolot
>dash attack
>getting a look at unknown munstah and already know everytang

ok.
>>
>>25485323
Ah, but, see, it's a continuation of The Hobbit.
>>
>>25485385
>Since you guys read crackfics
WHOA, whoa, why the insults? Jeez.

>if have skewed gender ratio?
Not since S1, therefore not canon.

>holy shit how do I even search for this?
Search for /fimfic/ in the OP while looking for posts containing "matriarchy"? idk

>I like you guys more and more. Even if some of you post crackshit and trollen
But we don't. If you ever see a crackfic here, it's bleedin. Don't mind him, we have purposely trained him wrong as a joke.
>>
>>25485447
I think it was ACTUALLY written by a 12 year old.
>>
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>>25485430
I will start shitting out some fics I liked unironically and ask if I have shit taste.

like substitute demon. I like Tuna...

>>25485578
>But we don't. If you ever see a crackfic here, it's bleedin. Don't mind him, we have purposely trained him wrong as a joke.
Sounds like a group of people sitting in a room with a pile of shit, and nobody can throw it away. Ah, the joy of anonymous imageboards.
>>
>>25485598
It's more like a house with a dog that keeps shitting everywhere despite everyone trying to train him not to.
>>
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>>25485598
>I will start shitting out some fics I liked unironically and ask if I have shit taste.
I wouldn't mind some extra thread activity. If there's one thing we do very well, it's criticizing and judging.

>Sounds like a group of people sitting in a room with a pile of shit, and nobody can throw it away.
You know, that's actually very accurate.
We tried to help him improve, but he just keeps getting worse and worse, to the point that he's writing crackfics even when he thinks he's writing something serious.
If you see someone crying about how people don't appreciate his work and the only fics that get featured are shitty stories by overrated authors, it's almost definitely him.
If it has bad grammar, it's definitely him.
>>
>>25485651
Not fics by me, just the ones I like, don't get aroused too soon.
Ain't ready for my own fiction yet.
Except for one green, one crack-green and several story skeletons

So, I like Tuna (Substitute Demon). Am I shit?

>>25485578
>Search for /fimfic/ in the OP while looking for posts containing "matriarchy"? idk
Where would I do this? I know desustorage, and I can't get it to search for posts by thread.
>>
Thank God for free WiFi

I'm still alive, and no alley beatings have happened yet.

This brings up something I was curious about, is los Pegasus L.A., or Vegas?
>>
>>25486001
>Not fics by me, just the ones I like, don't get aroused too soon.
I know.

>So, I like Tuna (Substitute Demon). Am I shit?
Never heard of it. Link?

>Where would I do this?
I don't know if it's even an option. Just search for matriarchy on /mlp/. Here's one I found from /fimfic/: https://desustorage.org/mlp/thread/25179825/#25193808
>>
>>25486015
Vegas; haven't you seen the pictures? What happens in Las Pegasus, stays in Pegasus.
>>
>>25486015
>Los
L.A.
I remember people calling Vegas "Las Pegas".
Where even are you and why should I care?
>>
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>>25486037
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/255419/the-substitute-demon

also thank you anon, I'm going in. It looks ugly, so expect me back angry and shit.
>>
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>>25486112
>Sex
>Gore
>Human
>But it would not let it's fun end.
>it would not let it is fun
I am not ready for this.

Then again, my favourite fics are probably more autistic than this.
>>
>>25486112
For a minute there, I thought this'd be a Pokemon crossover.
>>
>>25486141
The fun fact is that the gore is ... one? description of a dead snake, sex fades to black, and the human isn't human.
>>
>>25486167
I bet the adventure isn't that adventure~y to begin with.
>>
>>25486183
If by adventure you mean actually going somewhere more than a week's travel away, then yes, since the main tuna didn't do it until the latest chapters.

Also, since it takes place in the canon's future, AltU isn't necessary.

And the story isn't actually about a demon.

Uhhhhh.....
>>
>>25486044
I'd like to see the pictures.

>>25486052
In Vegas

I just thought I wouldn't be able to shitpost since some hotels charge for internet.
>>
>>25486232
Next you're going to tell me that the ponies in it aren't actually ponies.
>>
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>>25486241
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>>25486260
Last one.

...today.
>>
>>25484812
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/161729/lost-weekend
Yeah, that doesn't count at all. It's by BlueBastard, Shinzakura's #1 fan who followed him over from Spacebattles. By the way, BlueBastard is also the author of A Hairy Problem, which (somehow) spawned the "Berylverse", including 7DSJ.

On that note, 7DSJ in fact *has* created something something of a fandom.
>https://www.fimfiction.net/story/289031/7dsj-crazy-love
>https://www.fimfiction.net/story/298344/seven-days-in-sunny-june-innocence-lost
>https://www.fimfiction.net/story/288977/7dsj-you-are-the-woman
There's also this which may or may not count:
>https://www.fimfiction.net/story/254497/7dsj-how-great-the-outcry
since Flynt Coal has been credited as a collaborator on the main story since book 3 or 4. I think that fic is from before he joined the main team, though.
>>
Could someone link me to that fic were Celestia tries to kill herself? I remember particulary that her first try is first making a pile of phylosofical books and than using them to climb to a choke, then she collapses her phylosophical fundations.
>>
>>25486259
They are suicidal cultists. Does this count?

So, autism aside:

we're set 40 years after Nightmare's return. Another demon - a more successful one - possessed Twilight Sparkle and is steering Equestria to war - for the sole reason of spreading fear and pain. She rules her lands with an iron hoof, terrorizing the populace and silencing dissent.

A group of desperate ponies, seeing possessed Twilight for who she is, decide to revive Nightmare Moon and unleash her on Twilight. Retrieving the remains of Nightmare Moon's armor, the cultists travel to a secluded ruin in the jungle far away from the Mad Queen's eyes.
Many die along the way, killed by bandits, local fauna and diseases, but they manage to complete the ritual. No matter what happens to them now, the murderous Nightmare Moon, Mistress of Living Shadow will surely prove a match for the Mad Queen!

Instead they rebuild our protagonist that has been pulled in by Nightmare's spell and was bound to the armor when the elements struck.

spoiler]Also thestral oathbreakers, griffon refugees, changeling survivors, lovestruck bug queens and lewd dragons[/spoiler]
>>
>>25485101
>How can anyone write Equestria and not make it a gynocentric matriarchy?

Because it's not a matriarchy? It's not a patriarchy either. I can assure you that Equestria is gender-egalitarian.

There's simply nothing in the show to suggest that one gender is advantaged or dominant over the other. Nothing. Literally nothing. We've seen nothing but evidence for gender equality, we've seen ponies of both genders doing all sorts of things... You can argue that the top levels of their government could be referred to as a sort of matriarchy, since the current alicorns are female (doesn't mean that gender is relevant to who can become one, just means the current heads of state are female), but their society? There simply isn't, and never has been, any real evidence for a matriarchy.

So my counter point is, how could you write it as a gynocentric matriarchy when that idea literally shits all over the canon and doesn't make a bit of sense? Write alternate universe crap like Xenophilia all you want, but the canon Equestria in the show clearly has gender equality on an even greater level than we do, and it shows.

I simply can't fathom where this idea that Equestria is some sort of sexist matriarchy came from. Is it just because the show focuses more on female characters and people somehow reached the silly conclusion that it's implying something? The show DOES focus more on female characters, but it's never portrayed them as superior or dominant.

Or is the perception of "muh skewed gender ratio" influencing that? I'd argue that the gender ratio is even and we just don't see it because the crowds are filled with so many clones and inconsistencies you couldn't hope to learn anything from them. Especially when the ponies are primarily monogamous. I really don't buy that skewed gender ratio nonsense

>>25485193
>hope the two Anons who really love arguing about it show up.

I'm here, and I'm in a less than great mood so I even brought my aggressive arguing protocol.
>>
>>25486541
Sounds awesome.
>>
>>25486579
You're the hero we need, but not the one we deserve.
>>
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>>25486579
And even IF you headcanon that skewed gender ratio nonsense despite how, well, silly it is, there's nothing whatsoever to suggest that would hurt the idea of Equestria being egalitarian. You would have to do like the Winningverse and also headcanon that they have same-sex reproduction with the magic of love, though.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure it's even. DHX copy/pastes crowds of ponies to save time, and I think the people who take those crowds seriously enough to attempt to figure out some sort of population statistics are just plain crazy. Pic related is the kind of shit we're talking about. It varies heavily based on episode and sometimes location, but in general it tends to be a clusterfuck. You can't even always determine which ponies live where because they re-use a lot of the same ponies regardless of location.
>>
>>25486638
I think there are only seven or eight individual ponies in that crowd.
I wonder if establishments use Mirror Pool's to fill the seats of an otherwise failing show. That way you can guarantee your shitty Bridleway musical is going to be full every night.
>>
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>>25486627
>tfw constantly arguing with people about this stuff
>>
>>25486579
>>25486638

>implying one part of the canon is obviously artifacts of the show being a cheap kids cartoon series
>implying that other part of the canon can't obviously be an artifact of the show being a cheap kids cartoon series.

Ponies have Barbie genitals, so they already make babies through power of love. Czech Meat Amethysts.

Ok, sorry, the other shit you wrote makes sense and I'm not going to just dismiss it like a faggot, but I needed to just get this out first.
>>
>>25486737
>Ponies have Barbie genitals, so they already make babies through power of love. Czech Meat Amethysts.
>>>/sug/
Also, Lauren Faust confirmed they reproduce by sex.
>>
>>25486579
>I simply can't fathom where this idea that Equestria is some sort of sexist matriarchy came from.
I also think it's bullshit, but it's pretty easy to see why people run with the idea.
The show has all-female main characters inb4 spike, all-female leaders, and the show itself is marketed towards females. So it's easier, since you already associate the show with femininity in some way, to make the faulty conclusion that Equestria is matriarchal. This is the foundation.
The driving reason is that people, for various reasons, want it to be gynocentric. Either for fetish reasons, for comedy, for social commentary, or because they think it's "original" and just want to subvert the "patriarchal norm".
Most shows and setting often very clearly state that they are run by men or at least egalitarian, but Equestria has no direct mention of it, and since you have female rulers and the whole IP is considered feminine, it's just easier for people to use FiM.
>>
>>25486773
Actually it was because S1 had many more female background ponies than male and the two female rulers thing supported it further.`
>>
>>25486791
I forgot to mention the background character thing, but that is essentially what I'm saying. It has a lot of female characters, and is understandably at a glance seen to be female-dominated.
>>
>>25486737
>>25486737
The bottom line for the crowds of ponies is that they are completely unreliable for determining anything.

Could you clarify what exactly you're suggesting there, though? Your position is not entirely clear.

>>25486773
Eh. I think if people payed attention the show, it'd be pretty clear to them that it's gender-egalitarian. And honestly, the fetish or comedy people should be perfectly content with keeping that shit in their alternate universe fanfiction rather than trying to insist that it's somehow canon.

>>25486791
I've already attempted to establish that taking those crowds of background ponies so seriously is a mistake. All those clones, all those inconsistencies... Again, I just don't buy the idea of some sort of skewed gender ratio.
>>
>>25486874
>I've already attempted to establish that taking those crowds of background ponies so seriously is a mistake.
I know, I was just saying it's the reason so many people think it's true.
Not to mention there are more generic male ponies now.
>>
>>25486874
>Eh. I think if people payed attention the show, it'd be pretty clear to them that it's gender-egalitarian.
It has a female target audience, arguably a "female" aesthetic, female main cast, female rulers and belongs to a female brand.
I'm not talking about those who really look into the show. I'm just saying that I get why people, at a glance, think it might be matriarchal.
>>
What's the story where RD goes forward in time and they have to find all the elements?
>>
>>25487023
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/48739/harmony-theory
>>
>>25487030
thanks holmes
>>
>>25487030
By the way, those three nordic sounding stories he wrote sounded uninteresting to me, but people say they are good
>>
>>25486772
bbbut how do they make sex with barbie genitals?? /s


So.
>>25486773
all-female strategic asskicking force, all-female leaders, and predominantly female ponies in positions of power.

But this is not a matriarchy. Rright.

I see several ways out of this for you:
1) Equestria is gender-egalitarian, but stallions just don't have the drive to fight to the top unlike mares do. Nobody is barring them from entry though.
2) Stallions and mares actually take leadership positions in roughly equal proportions, but lower birth/early childhood survival rates for stallions means that there are just less males around.
3) This is another artifact of a show being a cheap cartoon series for girls (CCSG) and stallions and mares actually take leadership positions in roughly equal proportions, but they are just not shown to us.
4) Some other clever way, I'm not stupid enough to limit you to my strawman choices

>>25486874
>Could you clarify what exactly you're suggesting there, though? Your position is not entirely clear.
>...it'd be pretty clear to them that it's gender-egalitarian.
for now please read above.
>>
>>25487062
The only nordic-sounding stories I know of are the Austraeoh series, which is by a different author entirely.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/25966/austraeoh
>>
>>25486772
>Also, Lauren Faust confirmed they reproduce by sex.
Sauce?
>>
>>25487073
>/s
>name
No.
I understand you might be new here, but please lurk before posting. This site has a specific culture that we like other people to respect.
>>
>>25487088
pic
>>
>>25487073
>all-female strategic asskicking force
Pure accident.

>all-female leaders
Depends how relevant ponies like Prince Blueblood are to internal politics.

>and predominantly female ponies in positions of power.
Completely redundant statemement considering the previous one.

>Equestria is gender-egalitarian, but stallions just don't have the drive to fight to the top unlike mares do.
Why would you think that? What important female ponies other than the princesses are there?

>there are just less males around.
False.

I'm not even the guy you're arguing with, but you're a retard.
>>
>>25487073
>all-female strategic asskicking force
They are that by chance only. All military and military leaders we've seen are male.
Likewise, the Canterlot delegation in Princess Spike had a male leader, and tons of the delegates were males. There were male nobles at the Equestria games. The Mane 6 and the Royal Sisters are not in their role as a result of some sort of some sexist society, they are outliers. All "normal" characters seem not to be predominantly one or the other.

So in short, I'll take option 5:
>You're making shit up by saying there are predominantly females in power.

Also:
get the fuck out
>>
>>25487073
>all-female leaders, and predominantly female ponies in positions of power

Ah. Are you referring to government? You could probably almost count the number of government ponies in the show on your fingers. On the other hand ,we've seen plenty of positive and socially/economically successful ponies of both genders. The show does not include politics, and there aren't many ponies in "positions of power" in the show regardless of whether you're looking for male or female characters.

And by god, the protagonists do things in a slice of life/adventure hybrid show. What a world! But really, this show is targeted at little girls, the main characters are mostly female, so we get to see more into their lives and see them doing more.

>1) Equestria is gender-egalitarian, but stallions just don't have the drive to fight to the top unlike mares do. Nobody is barring them from entry though.

Load of nonsense. Both genders have been clearly shown as equally capable in the show, and there are plenty of successful ponies of both genders. The only difference between the two is physical strength, and I'd argue the difference is much less than with humans, since we've seen mares doing some heavy-duty work too.

>2) Stallions and mares actually take leadership positions in roughly equal proportions, but lower birth/early childhood survival rates for stallions means that there are just less males

Go ahead and scratch out the survival rates one, because that's just getting into extremely grimdark territory. The amount of death and suffering to even make that kind of impact would be enourmous, and while Equestria isn't totally perfect, it's still a very nice and well protected place. Nobody is dying in mass numbers.

And birth rates? Nah. Again, I think the gender ratio is even. The ponies ARE primarily monogamous, so if you insist on headcanoning that silly skewed gender ratio stuff, you'll have to also headcanon that whole reproduction with the magic of love stuff.

1/2
>>
>>25487185
>1/2
oh god no
>>
>>25487073
This is like saying a town in England with a female mayor is proof of the matriarchy.
>>
Wrote it in my bio, but as of today, I'm done using fimfiction. I just get no more enjoyment out of it, either reading or shitposting.

GG senpaitachi. Of course I'll still post here :^)
>>
>>25487205
Okay, please answer these questions:
>why the fuck should I care?
>why the fuck do you bother posting about this?
>why the fuck do you assume anyone will care?
>why the fuck do you assume people will want to read your bio?
>why the fuck do you assume the people you assume will read your bio will care?
>why the fuck would you post in a general dedicated to something you don't like?
>why the fuck do you just not leave?
Take your time.
>>
>>25487185
>3) This is another artifact of a show being a cheap cartoon series for girls (CCSG) and stallions and mares actually take leadership positions in roughly equal proportions, but they are just not shown to us.

Depending on what you want to call an artifact, this one is almost surely true. It has little to do with the show being a children's cartoon and more to do with the scope and focus of the show being very limited. This is a slice of life with some adventure and fantasy elements, and it's in an episodic format with a strong but still limited continuity. The show is our window into Equestria, and it doesn't give us hardly anything in the way of politics. The only way a pony in a position of power will be shown is if the story of the episode in question calls for it, or maybe if you see them in background. We've seen some in the background, but it's limited.

But yeah. Screentime wise, the show focuses on female characters. But it's never portrayed them as superior, nor has it portrayed their society as being dominated by one gender. It's a matter of where the focus in screentime is, and nothing more. I will mention again that, since the current alicorns are female, you can technically refer to their GOVERNMENT, at least at the top levels, as matriarchal, but that's only due to the current heads of state being female, and does not indicate discrimination.
>>
>>25487236
Why are you giving him the attention he so desperately craves?
There's a perfectly fine debate going on that is not about guns for once!
>>
>>25487250
I wanted to let an attention whore know that nobody cares.
Also I'm not going to read all these walls of text, I'm just waiting for a (You) so I can argue with someone who disagrees with me instead.
>>
>>25487250
>There's a perfectly fine debate
It's about gender, Anon. There's nothing new about it.
>>
>>25487245
And by god, we don't even have a Celestia episode yet, that alone should tell you how little we see of "ponies in positions of power", even the ones we already know of.
>>
>>25487236
>why the fuck should I care?
You care enough to reply, so I take it that you care.

>why the fuck do you bother posting about this?
Took me only a few moments to post that lmao.

>why the fuck would you post in a general dedicated to something you don't like?
I'm sorry what? I said "I get no more enjoyment out of it [fimfiction.net]" that doesn't say "I hate this site."

>why the fuck do you just not leave?
Why do you keep adding fuck? Are you twelve or something?
>>
>>25487245
>I will mention again that, since the current alicorns are female, you can technically refer to their GOVERNMENT, at least at the top levels, as matriarchal
You shouldn't even do that, really. Or you could start calling things like the Byzantine Empire ca 800 a matriarchy.
>>
>>25487294
k
>>
>>25487308
k
>>
>>25487272
Princess Spike might be something to look at. The delegates probably aren't political leaders, but they hold a role nevertheless. And they're of both genders.
>>
>>25487327
>Princess Spike
I wanted to ask, but I kept forgetting
Am I the only one who noticed that Major Mare is kinda sorta absent in that episode? raises questions of what happened with her when first a princess appeared in her city and then a castle for said princess appeared in the same city. Is she Twilight's unofficial secretary, taking care of the paperwork while Twilight fights the monthly Everfree abomination and gets all the praise? we do know that she still holds the tittle from the Pinkie Lego episode.
>>
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>>25487250

Okay--can we safely assume all gunsmiths in Equestria are all female, or is there some reason to suppose stallions are capable of such work in spite of the show never once showing us a stallion gunsmith?
>>
>>25487363
Silly, that's because all the stallions spend their time forginf wingblades. :^)
>>
>>25487352
>Am I the only one who noticed that Major Mare is kinda sorta absent in that episode?
She's the mayor, why would she have to be part of the delegation?
>>
It seems I just stepped on an old sore, and I didn't even get to read the previous arguments yet.

>>25486772
Also, am I really arguing with people who need to explicitly state that ponies reproduce sexually? Next we'll need sources on how they breathe.

>>25487132
>chan culture unironically
funny joke. everybody laughs.
please don't make me triforce to prove myself worthy of your time
I'm voluntarily marking myself as the singular faggot that is trying to stink up your cozy house and your shitting dog.

>>25487178
>All military and military leaders we've seen are male.
Military that is half eye-candy and half TSA if we're going by canon
>The Mane 6 and the Royal Sisters are not in their role as a result of some sort of some sexist society
That's also exactly the reason we don't see many female leaders on good old Terra.
Also, implying that gender differences don't exist and all inequality is born purely from sexist oppression
>get the fuck out
sorry I hurt your fee-fees

>>25487185
>Ah. Are you referring to government?......[snip]
I guess you can use this to dismiss the "positions of power" argument.

>Load of nonsense. Both genders have been clearly shown as equally capable in the show
I don't remember much brash, aggressive stallions in the show. Maybe there are, please don't handwave it again as "it's for girls and they are not interested so they exist we just don't see them"

>Go ahead and scratch out the survival rates one, because that's just getting into extremely grimdark territory.
gender ratios in humans go from naturally slightly favoring boys at birth to favoring females at adulthood, and that is without grimdark factors like war or disease. Similarly, a skewed gender ratio at birth isn't something silly or unnatural. Make the two work in the same direction and you have your skewed gender ratio for adults, I'm not asking for a miracle here.
Besides, the construction jobs and train-stuff are done by stallions, I bet these are risky professions...

contd
>>
>>25487529
>Next we'll need sources on how they breathe.
They absorb oxygen through their pores, I tell you!
That's what the fur is for, to filter the air!
>>
>>25487373
wingblades are only slightly less dumb than gunblades.

Wait. This isn't /foe/ so why are we talking about it here?
>>
>>25487529
>please don't handwave it again as "it's for girls and they are not interested so they exist we just don't see them"

Yeah, sorry? It's a show for girls, age 6-10. It's going to be full of female role models for them to identify with. Deal with it.
>>
>>25487545

We were shitposting, Anon. Just roll with it.
>>
>>25487529
>implying that gender differences don't exist and all inequality is born purely from sexist oppression
I'm not, you mongoloid.

I seriously fucking hope this is just some wild shitposting.
>>
>>25487529
>I don't remember much brash, aggressive stallions in the show

Bulk Biceps? I can't think of many 'brash' mares other than Dash and Lightning Dust though, so it's not like it's some sort of super common trait to begin with.

>Similarly, a skewed gender ratio at birth isn't something silly or unnatural.

In humans and all other mammals, the difference is fairly hard to notice, and the only reason it's noticed at all is because of our relatively modern ability to poll census with such great accuracy. There's no basis in reality for a skewed gender ratio to that extent, so if you insist on headcanoning that nonsense you'll just have to cite magic.

>Besides, the construction jobs and train-stuff are done by stallions, I bet these are risky professions...

Again, the amount of death and suffering to make an impact of the scale you're suggeting would be enormous. It would be Warhammer 40k tier grimdark. Construction jobs and stuff like that are more dangerous than your average job, but not to the extent that people would be dropping dead left and right. Especially since Equestria has modern construction equipment and stuff like that. Besides, we've seen mares with jobs like construction.

And the point that the ponies are primarily monogamous still stands. Again, unless you headcanon some sort of same-sex reproduction, that guarantees it being even. All these things considered and others, I'm staying with my position that the gender ratio is even.
>>
>>25487609
>I seriously fucking hope this is just some wild shitposting.
He's putting on a name and has admitted that wants to shit up the thread.
What do you think?
>>
>>25487185
>>25487245

Also, since we're invoking CCSfG a lot, we can surely know that any form of romantic relations not normal for humans en-masse will be shown. Maybe some gay characters in a special episode sometime.
So, just like "not enough politicians because for girls" we have "only monogamous couples because children"
Aren't ponies mostly single if we consider canon anyway? Including single parents. (or is the other parent not shown but obviously there?)
Beside, monogamy is not the norm for mammals, including humans, but that's neither here nor there.

>But it's never portrayed them as superior, nor has it portrayed their society as being dominated by one gender.
Do you even realize the kind of fuck the show would get if it would promote female supremacy?... CCSfG.


So, in short, ponies are Sweden except when they aren't but then they are too because it's just not shown.

Basically the only non-human thing they have is the body, but now that we have EqG it's fixed.

...It's not like you're even wrong!

>>25487194
1) males are outliers and are discarded
2) count females in position of leadership
All countries are now matriarchies.
>>
>>25487665
> "not enough politicians because for girls"

That's relevant, I suppose, but it's literally not remotely what I said. I don't think you're even reading my posts. I said there are limited politicians because that sort of thing isn't within the focus of the show. You could take some sort of super detailed anime for adults, and if it was a slice of life, you might not see anything about politics or leaders or shit like that.

And I'm quite sure monogamy is the norm. Literally every couple we've seen has been monogamous. This information has the benefit of both sometimes being within the scope of the show, and not being second-thought copy/pasted details, unlike the things you're comparing it to. Keep in mind that this DOESN'T mean that poly is illegal or unaccepted, it just means that most ponies are monogamous so polygamy and what-not is rather uncommon.
>>
>>25487609
Again, the show has portrayed the genders as equally capable on pretty much all fronts. The only exception is physical strength, but the difference there is less than humans I'd say. There are plenty of positive and successful ponies, both male and female, in the show, even if the female ones get more screentime often enough. There are no traits that are exclusively male or female.

Anyway, this whole conversation has become a shitshow. As expected, unfortunately.
>>
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tagging for faggots: matriarchy

>>25487307
Comparing more than a thousand years with a female head of state with a single female ruler?

>>25487327
>Princess Spike might be something to look at.
which i think i will actually do

>>25487544
We need Word Of God on this!

>>25487560
How does this transform into "but outside of this age-appropriate restricted narrative window into the universe everything is basically just _western_ human shit but with hooves?"
I know the target audience wouldn't care, but for a thread on autismchan about writing horse words this is just weird.
Why even bother with horses when you have humans? Humans are even more like humans than horses.
Do you just like horses? It's ok I guess.

>>25487654
>>25487721
I'll just sum up:

> "not enough politicians because for girls"
I'm not trying to insult you or your argument, this was a poor choice of words on my part.
"because for girls, because scope", all in all it's a children's cartoon.
And you are not wrong - if as a fanfic reader/writer you want to be constrained to something that could realistically air as part of the show. I'm not saying this is bad, it's just something I realized for myself after talking to you all


Thank you all, it's been a delight. You're a weird bunch, but you're alright. don't come to the thread tomorrow
(except you faggot >>25487609 >>25487178 )
>>
>7dsj: treasure, chapters 9-10

#9: Applejack's mom goes to visit the memorial of the guy she accidentally killed in an car crash. She meets the guy's daughter there. Everything is awkward for a moment but then the girl starts thanking AJ's mom profusely for "saving" her dad. Turns out dear old dad was a raging alcoholic who (at the time of the accident) was on his way to her mom's house with a car full of guns.

All that is entirely tangential to the main story, which goes like this:
AJ asks her mom about the "selfish mistake" she mentioned while talking to the girl. Mom refuses to explain, and insists that AJ get the story secondhand from Big Macintosh. Turns out, mom and dad had a bit of a rough patch 10+ years ago, and were considering getting a divorce. Obviously, this is a Big Deal that calls for dramatic family meeting.

At the meeting, more drama:
>They wanted a divorce because Mom was cheating
>Mom was cheating because Dad was so butthurt about moving away from the farm that "she felt she could only get solace in the arms of another man"
(So it's not anybody's fault, really.)
And most important of all,
>Mom was pregnant with the other man's child!!! AJ would have had another sibling, but Mom miscarried two months after the car accident
As you'd expect, AJ and Apple Bloom react to this news in a perfectly reasonable, level-headed manner.


#10: Sunset spends the holidays with her new family. No drama, just good feels all around. I actually liked it.

As a minor side note, I think this is the first 7DSJ story to give Sunset's exact age: she's twenty-nine. Of course, on earth she's listed as 16 years old, and she presumably looks the part. Kind of odd, but otherwise I guess it's hard to make the timelines work out on the Equestrian side of the mirror.


And that's the end of 7DSJ: Treasure! The main story should start up again in two more weeks. If I get bored before then I might just have to read that 7DSJ/FNAF crossover.
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>>25488002
>7DSJ/FNAF crossover.
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>>25487990
>horses

I don't see the comparison being very valuable. MLP ponies are equine, and thus have similiar physical anatomy, but that's about the only real similarity with the horses in our world. They are sapient, magic, talking ponies. They have advanced communication and a complex, benevolent society. Physically, they aren't even identical, their limbs are more flexible, they can throw up, different proportions, among other things.

Their society doesn't resemble anything related to horses. It's not completely identical to ours either, but it's based on ours and builds from there. It's something like what we'd be if we all valued friendship, love, etc, and other nice things a lot more, among other things. It's also a fantasy setting with all sorts of things that can bring to the table, which shakes thinks up a bit.

Stuff like Xenophilia that tries to write them and their society as more horse-like ultimately strongly contradicts the canon. Hence it being an alternate universe.
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>>25488002
>/FNAF crossover.
You sure are hardcore senpai. Did you read everything and so there are no books left?
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>>25488085
But yeah, Equestria is a very nice place. Not perfect, but they highly value stuff like friendship, love, other nice things, and in general things seem pretty benevolent.

But anyway, I'm tired after all this debating and I'm having difficulty wording some of this stuff, so if nobody else has anything to say, I'll be going now.
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>>25488085
>Stuff like Xenophilia that tries to write them and their society as more horse-like ultimately strongly contradicts the canon.
No it doesn't. Like you've been saying, we only see a small part of their society, based on what would be most relevant/interesting to 6 year old girls. There are multiple ways to fill in the rest, some more likely than others. I think the egalitarian, monogamous, etc. version is probably the most likely, but the what Xenophilia proposes is not by any means impossible. (So I would not consider it an AU for that reason.)
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>>25488167
No, it most definitely does contradict the canon. The show contradicts Xenophilia at every relevant turn, the differences are huge. But we've already gone over all that.

Either way, it must be an AU. The herding nonsense is clearly not the case.

And again, my argument had less to do with "6 year old gears" and more to do with the scope of the show. The target audience is not at all irrelevant, but every cartoon and show in general has it's own scope, and things outside of that scope are limited. Information about Equestria is ultimately scarce to some extent, but the information that they are egalitarian and primarily monogamous is very reliable.

Anyway, I think we've had enough of this debate.
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>>25488085 >>25488167

I see. I was just really surprised by the fact that this kind of canon contradiction is shunned.

I mean, I understand why a shitty self-insert for fucking a harem of the sweetest little mares that are just like that girl you dream about in school wouldn't want that mare to bust some balls (or not be based on a human at all), but aside from that?...

I mean, sanitized history books for children exist, like something about the Ukrainian Cossacks being sober, proud warriors of honor and chivalry - basically knights (while they were basically Wild West frontiersmen with all the shit that comes with the job)

I guess I didn't believe that you want to keep the stories in the sanitized nice window.

Again, doesn't make it bad, makes it nice actually.

>>25488235
>The target audience is not at all irrelevant, but every cartoon and show in general has it's own scope, and things outside of that scope are limited. Information about Equestria is ultimately scarce to some extent, but the information that they are egalitarian and primarily monogamous is very reliable.

oh why did you do this why why wHY
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>>25488235
>6 year old gears

Goddamnit, *girls

I need some rest. It's become entirely clear that the steampunk is leaking into my thoughts. Bottom line though, I strongly disagree with the idea that Xenophilia is somehow compatible with the canon. The differences between it and the show are very heavy, and it's not just something you could be missing. We're talking differences down to the fundamental structure of society, and the show has at the very least made that kind of stuff very clear.
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>>25488250
>oh why did you do this why why wHY

I'm struggling a bit with finding the right words for this stuff, but eh.
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>>25488250
>I was just really surprised by the fact that this kind of canon contradiction is shunned.
>I guess I didn't believe that you want to keep the stories in the sanitized nice window.
Fuck the haters. Write whatever version of Equestria you think is most plausible or most interesting. As long as you do a good job with it, nobody will care too much.
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>>25488278
>Bottom line though, I strongly disagree with the idea that Xenophilia is somehow compatible with the canon. The differences between it and the show are very heavy, and it's not just something you could be missing. We're talking differences down to the fundamental structure of society, and the show has at the very least made that kind of stuff very clear.
The show (at least through mid-S2, when Xenophilia was written IIRC) did not have much to say with regard to romantic relationships, which is the main point where Xenophilia takes a non-obvious approach.
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>>25488311
Sure, you can write whatever makes you happy, fanfiction is pretty free of restrictions, but if you're making heavy enough changes from the show, chances are you're gonna need the alternate universe tag. A lot of people don't seem worry too much about the canon at all when reading fanfics, but still.

>>25488336
As in romantic relationships where the ponies both have speaking roles? Sure, those were fairly limited. But if you count couples shown who don't, and stuff like that, there were plenty. Hearts and Hooves Day is a good example of a whole bunch in one place. There's also the comics, but I wouldn't blame you if you don't consider those to be a reliable source, given the questionable dips in quality in many issues.

But yeah, I pretty strongly disagree with Xenophilia's approach to many things, for various reasons.
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>>25488111
>Did you read everything and so there are no books left?
I've read all the main series, including the initial stories by BlueBastard featuring Edgelord McWerewolf and Raspberry Beryl. Book 4 was updating weekly for a while, which was nice, but it's on hiatus this month while Shinzakura works on other things AAG SOON.

Shinzakura only has four completed 7DSJ side stories:
>Treasure: just finished it
>The Three Sunrises: Sunset feels, sounds like it might actually be good
>A Mother's Duty: Celestia feels, also might be good
>Three Nights at Freddy's: guaranteed to be spectacularly awful
There's a bunch of stuff by other authors too, but I don't have much desire to read any of that, because I assume everything in this series is shit, and only Shinzakura's special brand of shit is crazy enough to be interesting.

Hey, maybe I should go read those two AAG prequels instead? One is Rara focused, and AAG Rarity is batshit crazy, so that might be interesting. The other I think might explain why AAGverse includes both Derpy Hooves and Ditzy Doo (as two distinct characters).
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>>25488459
>One is Rara focused, and AAG Rarity is batshit crazy
Surely Shinzakura managed to explain Rarity's descent into blind insanity believable, right?
Go for it, fignog.
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>>25488250
>I was just really surprised by the fact that this kind of canon contradiction is shunned.
It's not really shunned, except under convenient circumstances (e.g. firearms). People will write stories where pony characters commit suicide, come to terms with grief that can never be satisfied, or struggle with other deep, irreconcilable conflicts that would never be portrayed in the show, and few if any will criticise their adherence to canon. Warfics get some stick but are broadly accepted as a genre (hence Fo:E, Equestria: Total War, The Immortal Game, The Age of Wings and Steel). The criticisms tend to be focused on specific things because people aren't consistent in their thinking and draw arbitrary lines at which the point the imperfect and human mental states they accept in ponies seep out into the material world of Equestria in the form of war, strife, poverty, etc.

I had a whole argument about this in the last thread regarding guns—the idea you can treat ponies as serious moral agents in their personal lives, able to grapple with irreconcilable conflict, and then claim "Guns are impossible in Equestria because ponies are lovely super sweet little girl creatures that solve conflict with musical numbers and cake!" is specious. You've already ceded that ground if you accept stories in which ponies commit love, experience unrequited love, suffer lifelong grief or guilt with no hope of redemption, etc. The only stories that are true to the letter of the show are slice-of-life stories that simply imitate it or the My Little Dashie type escapist fics that present Equestria and ponies as quite literally too good for this world.
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>>25488494
*commit suicide
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>>25488488
>Surely Shinzakura managed to explain Rarity's descent into blind insanity believable, right?
What do you think?

Actually, there was a section in AAG that I think was intended to do this. It was written from her POV, including her thoughts about meeting DJ and her (human) family. Unfortunately, it really just made Rarity come across as completely delusional - apparently she believes that DJ's human parents literally brainwashed DJ into hating her, and the only reason she agreed to tolerate DJ's presence at all is because she hopes to somehow deprogram DJ's kids.
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>>25488494
>The Age of Wings and Steel
Holy shit, there's someone ITT other than me who's read this fic?

>"Guns are impossible in Equestria because ponies are lovely super sweet little girl creatures that solve conflict with musical numbers and cake!" is specious.
I thought the claim was that basically anything resembling a human-style gun would be completely impractical for ponies to use, and thus would never have been invented?
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>>25488567
>I thought the claim was that basically anything resembling a human-style gun would be completely impractical for ponies to use, and thus would never have been invented?
That too, but a common opinion was that there's no need for any type of gun to have been invented or to be invented.
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>>25488567
I have seen that argument too, but it assumes pony engineering wouldn't be able to circumvent this in any way—firearms/guns doesn't necessarily mean *human* guns. There's also the fact that ponies regularly manipulate objects that hooves theoretically couldn't.

At any rate, I've seen the other point more regularly, especially to handwave the possibility that if earth ponies were drawn into conflict with larger ungulates/griffons, necessity would breed invention. Strong as earth pony legs may be, kicking with your back turned on the enemy is not the most efficient.

>The Age of Wings and Steel
Yeah, I think it was /fimfic/ that directed me to it in the first place.
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>>25488629
>Yeah, I think it was /fimfic/ that directed me to it in the first place.
That was probably me, then. Like I said, I haven't seen it mentioned by anyone else until now. And I've read the entirety of every thread since before 5%

So, what did you think of it?
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>>25488605
we shouldn't forget that cannons are canon; even if they were only invented for utilitarian purposes, if war ever existed, cannons would be there.
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>>25488701
We also shouldn't forget that when a conflict that escalated into a battle took place in the Equestrian equivalent of the Wild West, the weapons of choice were apple pies.

Unless you want to argue that the use of baked goods as a weapon was an allegory for guns in the same way that the salt bar was an allegory for alcohol.
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>>25488730
You think?
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It's always the same arguments in here. God damn.
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>>25488788
We should start arguing about a different topic.
What haven't we ran into the ground yet?
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>>25488662
I was still smarting from the permanent incompleteness of Total War, so it was pretty much exactly what I needed at the time. It deserves more attention. I haven't checked out the sequel, though.

I've been around intermittently since before /fimfic/ threads were a general, so it was probably you.

>>25488730
This is precisely what my point addresses. People will accept all kinds of complex emotions and mental states in ponies that imply human flaws and human problems insofar as the nature of pony being and experience is concerned (unlike the show, where conflict is always completely and absolutely resolved), yet they are unwilling to accept the possible material implications of this because of the canon of a little girls' show that they've already rejected in spirit. Unless you only regard Roundstable slice-of-life fics as legitimate, it just doesn't work for me.
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>>25488730

How does it make you feel that because of the ei rating made it that way. I bet it would have been real weapons had there not been that rating at the time of that episode. I bet the show would use real weapons for it if it were a season 5 episode.
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>>25488815

Writing Pinkie: Unholy eldritch abomination, or just very bouncy?
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>>25488815
I think most people tend to have a stance leaning more towards the middle ground, Anon.

They want to believe in an Equestria that has depth beyond what the show presents, but only up to a point.

Just because some people write and read a universe that is more complex and with a wider moral range than the one in the show, doesn't mean that they want to go further and accept one in which guns and more explicit violence is possible.
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>>25488871
Even at its worst, the episode hasn't gone beyond a Y rating.

If I remember correctly, the Power Ponies episode had a higher rating for one scene in which Rarity send a henchpony flying away in a 'violent' fashion.

And even then , you could argue that the most violent thing to happen in the series was either Tirek blowing up Golden Oaks with a Fireball, or Chrysalis hitting Celestia with a magic ray that left a scorchmark in her chest.

I severly doubt that, had the rating been any different, the staff would have used weapons of any kind.
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>>25488898
Meant to reply to >>25488837
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>>25488898
The problem is that there is no middle ground. The key feature of the show's canon that differentiates it from human life is that there are no real moral actors because it's fundamentally utopia. There is no cause for rebellion in utopia, only troublemaking, quickly quashed by an omnipresent force of goodness (call the Harmony force). Think of this in a Christian sense—Equestria resembles a world without sin, and therefore without the moral deviance of evil. If ponies have eaten from the metaphorical Tree of Knowledge in your fanfic, they can't come back from that. Either they live in a world of scarce resources; of self-owned actions with potentially good or evil consequences; of irrational urges, prejudices, and resentments that see no resolution; or they live without those things, and territorial ethnic conflict is ultimately harmless—at worst, you'll get a pie in the face. If that's the only consequence of displacement and settlement in the Wild West, moral responsibility is just meaningless. Where is the middle ground between human conflict and Equestrian conflict? Only half as many die before a peace is brokered? Even so, why would rational actors involved in any deadly conflict (even if it were half as deadly) impede themselves by refusing to invest in weaponry that would give them the upper hand?

It is eminently bizarre to me that people will quote endlessly Cold In Gardez's proclamation that "Stories about ponies are stories about people," will praise stories like darf's Pieces of a Grey Cloud in which a depressed Derpy attempts suicide yet ends up still trapped in her miserable life, will fill up the feature box with warfics, and yet will resist something as particular as firearms because of the canon. There's no way to only possess a *little* knowledge of good and evil.
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>>25489137
*utopian
*call it
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>>25489137
What? Equestria in the show is a really nice and benevolent place overall, but it's not totally perfect and it's not as though there's never any sin or conflict or something. It's a great place where friendship and love are highly valued, among other nice things, but it's not some sort of "world without sin" where there can literally be no wrong whatsoever. The ponies aren't completely perfect or something, and we've certainly seen that they can do wrong. It's just that peace and friendship and love and good natured stuff like that triumphs and is very prevalent, etc. You get the idea, hopefully, kind of difficult to explain.

You could refer to it as utopic because of how nice it is overall, but it's not the 100% perfect no-conflict kind of 'utopia' that something like Teletubbies is.
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>>25489456
>Teletubbies
I remember the laughing sun used to scare me when I was little.
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>>25489456
It is utopian. Conflict has no consequences. No one dies. There's no poverty or war or famine. No resentment or prejudice exists that has not been overcome by singing about friendship. Nothing progresses because there's no need to grow or change. Occasionally, a troublemaker has to be beaten back or redeemed, but the society itself is fundamentally unchanging, and therefore utopian.
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>>25489522
And further, conflict that does exist is solved inevitably by the same means—what I called the Harmony force. Thinking hard about friendship and loving each other is enough to make all your problems go away. Territorial conflict in which land is split between ethnic groups is bitter and last centuries in the human world. In Equestria, it just goes away because everyone just gives in to Harmony.
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>>25489456
And I say 'utopia' with the scare marks when I refer to stuff like Teletubbies because something like that where there can be literally no conflict or anything of that nature is disconcerting and could probably be considered a dystopia in it's own way. Too much conflict is bad, but a total lack of it in any capacity would be.... I don't know how to put it, but it wouldn't feel right at all. Especially since conflict is a pretty broad term.

Equestria, in comparison, is nice and benevolent, but it still has conflict and things like that too. It's just that friendship and love and nice stuff like that are so highly valued and drown out the bad and etc.

Honestly though, I'm gonna go to bed soon, because I'm having a tough time with figuring out how I need to say this stuff.

>>25489522
>>25489550
I think you've internalized the show's TV-Y rating a little too hard there, buddy. What you're suggesting is nonsense.

>Conflict has no consequences.

Of course it does. Not always as harshly as it would here, depending on what sort of conflict you're referring to but it does regardless. I think Luna being banished to the moon for so long was pretty goddamned harsh, myself.

>No one dies.

Hopefully not many are being killed by anything unnatural, and Equestria is pretty well protected, but of course ponies die. Of old age, and potentially other things too.

>There's no poverty or war or famine.

Poverty? I don't think they're going to let anyone starve or suffer, so maybe not, but there are clearly rich ponies and ponies with merely average wealth. Equestria probably has strong safety nets, but yeah.

War? I'd say they clearly know what war is. They've probably had one before. Maybe they don't have nearly as many as we do, however. Not to mention, there's a big lack of other countries who seem like they'd be able to challenge Equestria in the first place. The changelings did sort of invade and sack the capital, though.

1/??? :^)
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>>25489639
Famine? I'd say earth pony magic makes growing crops pretty efficient. Before the founding of Equestria, I'm sure this was a problem, but now? I don't think anybody will starve.

>No resentment or prejudice exists that has not been overcome by singing about friendship

The ponies are good at setting aside their differences and making peaceful compromises and such, but this just isn't true. Individual ponies are still going to be perfectly capable of holding grudges and resentment over things. Depending on what sort of grudges/resentment it is, it may be likely that something will be worked out, but not always.

>Nothing progresses because there's no need to grow or change.

So you think that because things are overall pretty nice, there will be no progress? Technology will clearly progress, if nothing else.

>Occasionally, a troublemaker has to be beaten back or redeemed, but the society itself is fundamentally unchanging, and therefore utopian.

Equestria will always be a place where friendship and love and all those nice things are highly valued, but that doesn't mean there's literally nothing that can change. And as far as 'troublemakers' go, I think the ponies will try to help them become better, and they often succeed to some extent or another, but that doesn't mean that it always works, and in general the ponies simply aren't perfect. They have flaws, just like we do.

As far as Harmony and stuff like that. The magic of friendship, magic of love, and harmony are powerful forces in their world, but I wouldn't say it controls them. It helps guide them, but not in a forceful way. You're talking like you think it's stripped them of their free will, which is clearly not true. It's simply upheld and environment where all these nice things can happen, the individuals actors can still take any range of actions.
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>>25489639
>I think Luna being banished to the moon for so long was pretty goddamned harsh, myself.
That's not a consequence. She came back and was welcomed into the bosom of Harmony. Easy. The worst she had to deal with was social awkwardness because she talks weird and people thought she was still evil. The real consequences of being banished for a millennium are never mentioned outside of fanfic (and nor is the appropriateness of the punishment questioned, because again, there were never any real consequences).

Try putting a human being in a cage on an island for twenty years (assuming they have resources to survive) and see how they do in that kind of confinement. Imagine that for a thousand years.

>of course ponies die. Of old age, and potentially other things too.
Perhaps it's fairer to say that no one cares that ponies die. No one mentions it. It's never discussed. Grief is never meaningfully portrayed in the show. If death occurred, in the context of the show, it would probably just be shrugged off. Death creates conflict, and conflict is easily solved by harmony and feelings of togetherness. This is largely a function of the show being for kids, but it doesn't make the show anything but utopian.

>there are clearly rich ponies and ponies with merely average wealth
But no one cares. Income equality isn't exactly a running theme. It's just accepted as part of life. Everyone knows their place and works there happily.

>The changelings did sort of invade and sack the capital, though.
No one died. No one grieved afterwards. There was no violence besides cartoonish kicking of changelings, and once they were expelled everyone just cheered that the (effectively harmless) demons were ejected—because again, nothing can truly challenge the power of harmony.

1/2
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>>25489691
And as far as the Buffalo/Pony situation in Appleloosa went, it was simply a fair compromise. Idealistic outcome? Sure. But not necessarily a unrealistic one. Maybe there was still some level of conflict for a while after that and we didn't see it, who knows.

Bleh. Wording this shit is hard. Feel like I could be doing a better job, but I don't really have time to sit around and stress myself for an hour just to figure out the precise way I need to go about wording this.
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>>25489639
>of course ponies die
And this is canon.
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[Pt. 1]

>>25481260
>from the start
>Fimfic only had Favorites and RL
Were you one of those people who refused to use favorites to track back when Tracking was merged with Favorites or are you a newfag?

>>25481621
>mind control
I like it, guess I'll give it a

>Anthro
Summarily dropped.

>>25481957
That was pretty rough. The synopsis had a lot of spelling/grammar errors in it and sounded failry generic and uninteresting. The "Beginning" was very hard to follow or make sense. How did they get to Earth? Why are Diamond Dogs there? Why's everyone so nonchalant about aliens popping up?

I'd suggest aiming lower. Maybe do some oneshots or short multichapter stories before trying to tackle a longer, more complicated work--especially if it involves humans or psuedo-crossovers.

And always proofread what you've written. A lot of times, the general rule of "if it doesn't sound right, it isn't" will work, and for the times that it doesn't, google and the Purdue OWL (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/) are there to help.

You're main character's design also breaks some OC design rules--although his name's not too bad. MLP ponies are light colored and use complimentary colors in their design. Back and red are terrible colors to go together--which is why you don't see that combination. If you have trouble finding good colors, you can consult a color wheel (https://color.adobe.com) for help (set it to "Complimentary").
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[Pt. 2]

>>25489814
*Your main character's
That damn Muphry's law.

>>25485101
>has 2340 likes?
17:1's not that great of a ratio for Fimfiction. But the answer is:

>Chapter 146
Since Knighty "revised" the Featured Box to have 3 updated fics along with 7 new ones in it, every time it updated it got featured and more exposure, which meant more likes.

Stories that only have 60 likes can get featured that way. Which can be a great thing for some of the lesser known fics out there.

>lolfunny shit
You just answered your own question. Comedy and SoL are the easiest ways to get likes/featured.

>gynocentric matriarch
>inb4 the copypasta that anon manually types out every time
Most fics rarely go into Equestria's government and just leave it as an absolute monarchy--hence why the princesses are busy with lowly shit in fanfics like murder trials instead of actually governing.

>>25486015
>los Pegasus L.A., or Vegas?
The map had it on the west coast with an "Applewood" sign, but it's spelled "Las."

Not sure if that's changed since the retcon.

>>25486579
You should really save it in notepad so you don't have to type it out every time.

>>25487073
I was wondering how the thread got so big. I guess it's better than another gun debate.

>>25487178
>All military and military leaders we've seen are male
>Spitfire
>male
Huh, I would have never guessed.

>>25488494
>Guns are impossible in Equestria
Guns are impossible unless you take your time to properly explain their use in the setting. They're a technology which is not in canon, so they need to be set up. It's just like ponies having cell phones or mini vans--it doesn't fit unless you actually explain their existence or you're writing EqG. Which fanfic authors never do.
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>>25489833
>Muphry
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>>25489730
>That's not a consequence.

It is. It's a really nasty consequence. The show hasn't exactly addressed it in any depth, but is that really surprising?

>Perhaps it's fairer to say that no one cares that ponies die.

Holy fucking shit, that's ridiculous, I can't believe you'd even attempt to suggest that, it's just lunacy. Of course they would care. They'd care a lot. A society where friendship and love is so highly valued MUST care. You're completely and utterly delusional if you believe what you're suggesting there.

And I'm honestly not sure why you think the show would take the time to go into the subject of death? It IS a slice-of-life children's cartoon, that's not really something it would or could get into it. We did see a funeral though, mind you, back in Hearts and Hooves Day. Even if we don't see it animated, from an in-universe perspective, the ponies absolutely would be mourning their dead, any other conclusion is total nonsense.

>But no one cares. Income equality isn't exactly a running theme.

No, it's not. The curious part is that you seem to believe that, based off it not being a prominent part of the show, somehow means it's of no relevance. From an in-universe perspective, it absolutely would be. I think all of the ponies live a decent standard of living, mind you, but that doesn't mean that "no one cares" about this stuff.

>No one died.

How do you know?

>No one grieved afterwards.

If someone died, then ponies absolutely grieved. There's no guarantee the changelings actually killed anyone though, they were after love, and killing the ponies would actually be against their interests. We saw that the changelings had restrained the guards instead of killing them, so I don't think death was their intended goal.

Anyway, I take extreme issue with the way you're interpreting things. You're taking everything in the show at literal face-value, and refusing to accept the fact that the show doesn't show us everything.
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>War? I'd say they clearly know what war is.
How?

>Famine? I'd say earth pony magic makes growing crops pretty efficient
This assumes things about the scope of earth pony magic and the geography of Equestria that are essentially fanon, but you're agreeing with me here. Famine can easily be assumed to be impossible, because, well, it implies scarce resources, and that implies irreconcilable conflict.

>Individual ponies are still going to be perfectly capable of holding grudges and resentment over things.
When? Where? There is not one conflict in the show between ponies that is portrayed as fully irreconcilable with a real and dangerous potential for deadly violence. Sombra is the only exception, and he's still presented as a troublemaking outsider more so than an enemy from within. Even Discord can accept harmony and get better.

>So you think that because things are overall pretty nice, there will be no progress? Technology will clearly progress, if nothing else.
But will it? Where have we seen this? Technology in Equestria is odd and anachronistic as is, but the strange blend of early and late modern technology suggests a comfortable mean rather than a progression. What do ponies even need to invent when they have no lack of material or spiritual comfort?

>They have flaws.
There are no flaws of any show-accurate pony that cannot be solved with the Harmony force. Those aren't flaws. They're mistakes. Flaws imply that they cannot be reconciled with the world as it ought to be.

>You're talking like you think it's stripped them of their free will, which is clearly not true
Yes, that's literally what it means. Ponies in the show have no real free will because there is always a perfect solution to their problems immediately forthcoming.

>it was simply a fair compromise
Yeah, that'll happen in Israel. Just like it did in Manifest Destiny. Or Alsace-Lorraine. Dude, there are people who would kill for this kind of thing to happen in the real world. It's utopian.
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>>25489855
>It's a really nasty consequence.
It's meaningless unless Luna acted realistically in response e.g. going literally insane. Even the way she speaks Equestrian in a slightly old-fashioned way is absurd. A thousand years of language evolution yields the obsolescence of the informal second person pronoun? Wow.

There were no consequences to that punishment in the show as it presents itself. Any depth read into it is deviating from the text.

>You're completely and utterly delusional if you believe what you're suggesting there.
You are losing track of the point. The ponies in the show are, by virtue of being children's cartoon characters, are foundationally different to how fanfic writers present them. You even prove my own point:

>I'm honestly not sure why you think the show would take the time to go into the subject of death?
They wouldn't. Because they can't. Because the show must be utopian. Because it's children's cartoon.

Show-accurate ponies could not get hung up on death because it would present a conflict that would be irrelevant and possibly terrifying to children—partly because it literally cannot be solved.

>that doesn't mean that "no one cares" about this stuff.
But you don't see it. You can't see it. Etc.

>How do you know?
Because they wouldn't show it on kids' TV. You have to abandon this notion that Equestria somehow exists beyond the text. To write an Equestria in which you depict death as a real and terrible thing is to deviate from the show's canon.

>the show doesn't show us everything.
For fuck's sake, this is actually my point. Have you been reading my posts at all? This is precisely the assumption that you actually have to take to write fanfiction that isn't just show-accurate slice-of-life love-fests. Death as an irreconcilable source of grief or conflict? Not show-accurate. Unrequited love driving somepony to wild extremes of emotion and action? Not show-accurate. War, famine, deep and abiding misery? Not show-accurate.
>>
>>25489873
Jesus fucking christ, some of the things you are saying here are literally some of the if not THE most ridiculous claims I've ever heard someone make on /mlp/

Congratulations for that, I suppose. I'd literally believe someones headcanon about all the ponies being transgender otherkin before I'd believe some of the things you're putting forth.

No, but really, back things up for a minute here. Your method of interpreting information in the show is extremely odd and disagreeable, to say the least. It's like your idea of Equestria is the sum of the information in the show and literally nothing more, which is completely ridiculous. The show is a very limited window into Equestria, and it happens to be a TV-Y window that really brings the nicest things to the forefront. And you've strapped so much hyperbole into your interpretations that it's unbelievable.

I think you should take the time to lay out in detail why you think the way you do when it comes to this. Everyone's listening, likely with a headache at this point. Your logic is totally alien, honestly.
>>
>>25489873
>Famine can easily be assumed to be impossible

Commander Hurricane: All I wanna know is why the Earth ponies are hogging all the food!
Pegasi: [shouting]
Chancellor Puddinghead: Us?! We're not hogging all the food, you are! Oh, wait. You're right. It's us. Well, it's only 'cause you mean old Pegasusususes are making it snow like crazy!

Things used to be bad enough that the leader of a country had to complain about food shortages.
>>
>>25489957
>I think you should take the time to lay out in detail why you think the way you do when it comes to this
This is not difficult to understand, guy:

1. MLP: FiM is a children's cartoon with thinly veiled moral messages concerning the important of love and friendship.

2. Given this, the show-accurate world (the canon) of FiM must conform to the confines of a world in which moral complexity is simplified to an absolute point so that children comprehend the principles.

3. Show-accurate FiM characters are therefore not rational moral actors in the sense that we conventionally understand, because their solutions are absolute and total. They have never experienced, within the show, a problem they cannot solve. Any questioning of moral authority (as derived from harmony as the guiding principle) is rightfully rejected as troublemaking and imperfect compared to Equestrian harmony.

4. When you write a fanfiction in which a character experiences an irreconcilable moral problem, you have already deviated from the canon. Twilight never wrote a letter to Celestia reading, "I learned today that only time can ease the pain of my mother's passing, and I fear I will think of her every day until I myself am taken as well."

5. Therefore, with few exceptions, you *must* assume that in some way, the show does not reveal everything about the world of Equestria if you want to write fanfiction. By infusing ponies with the knowledge of good and evil and free will, you end the absolute and transcendent moral goodness of harmony and friendship. At that point, giving them firearms is no more absurd than portraying murder itself, because there would never be *the thoughts that lead to murder* in show-accurate Equestria, never mind the act itself.

>>25490028
>the Earth ponies are hogging all the food!
Haha, wow, that's treating starvation with moral seriousness alright. Hey, you Russians are hogging all the food! :^)
>>
>>25490059
Just because something isn't included in the show doesn't mean it can't be 'show-accurate'. It's not contradicting anything in the show for the ponies to grieve their dead, or have conflict, and other stuff like that. And indeed, any reasonable and not insane interpretation of Equestria would absolutely include those things.

I do not believe Equestria to be chained to the limitations imposed by the show being TV-Y and targeted at children.

>you *must* assume that in some way, the show does not reveal everything about the world of Equestria

It's not an assumption, it's 100% guaranteed to be true. There's so much we don't see and don't know.

The crux of the issue seems to be, again, you consider Equestria to be the sum of the information in the show, and nothing more. You're basically interpreting the show as having put some inexplicable 'forcefield' around the universe of MLP, to which nothing that is not included in the show itself can exist, which is just insanity. Not that I really agree with the way you've interpreted things in the show itself either, as again I think you've thrown a lot of hyperbole in there and have essentially rolled with your own personal little interpretation of things, but eh.
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>go to sleep
>wake up
>walls of text all over the place
>people have been arguing about the same shit for the last few hours
>arguing with idiots
>>
>>25490130
But really though, it's so fucking meta. You're basically attempting to say that there must be some sort of arbitrary and silly in-universe limitation of things just because the medium we're seeing this universe from happens to be a children's cartoon.

It's extremely disagreeable and doesn't make a damn bit of sense. You won't come out with a functional or reasonable interpretation of Equestria if you look at it like that. You'll basically come out with a list of things the show hasn't or can't show, rather than anything that has any value or makes sense. With your logic, anything we don't see explicitly presented in the show magically doesn't exist, and that's silly and won't result in anything but a clusterfuck of nonsense.
>>
>>25490148
It almost makes me wish Bleeding would write another crackfic and come show it to us.
>>
>>25490130
>I do not believe Equestria to be chained to the limitations imposed by the show being TV-Y and targeted at children
For fuck's sake, I never said it was chained to them, or I wouldn't read and enjoy fics like Equestria: Total War. This conversation is absurd because you're somehow assuming that Equestria "exists" beyond what we see in the show. It doesn't. It's a kids' show. The text is the text and we interpret it. Equestria is not a real place. Santa isn't real. Sorry to break it to you.

What you don't seem to understand is that it would indeed contradict the canon of the show for ponies to make war, because you can't separate out a) the fact that it's a children's show and b) your desire for it to be something more. There is no way that Hasbro would okay a children's show about the hell of moral murkiness that is war. It is definitively outside the scope of the MLP: FiM canon.

>nothing that is not included in the show itself can exist
Are you seriously arguing that things that literally don't exist (i.e. all of your completely arbitrary interpretations of how Equestria *could* be) actually do exist? Because they don't. MLP: FiM exists as a text, and so does fanfiction based on it, but things that don't exist in the portrayal of a fictional world—I'm afraid to say—don't actually exist.
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ITowWn6Dg

I don't even know who to agree with anymore.
>>
>>25490188
I don't consider meta things like the fact that it's a children's cartoon to be part of the canon. That's an observation about the medium, not an observation about the universe the medium is portraying.

And no, I'm not trying to say Equestria is real or some shit, I'm just saying that the information and details in the show are wholly inadequate and that there logically must be much more to it and such. The "more to it" part inevitably involves a lot of speculation and stuff like that, but something more MUST be layed out for a logical portrayal of Equestria, and it doesn't have to conflict with or contradict the canon just because it has elements that aren't included in the show. As long as you don't make things too grimdark or something and keep the good-natured feel of Equestria, it should be fine.

If you want to isolate the show in it's own little bubble, then so be it, but you won't have a 'functional' interpretation of Equestria by doing that. Again, I don't even agree with your interpretations of things strictly contained within the information the show provides, but still.

I honestly don't know that we're on the same page here.
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>no hair coming from chin or jowl
>"beard" comes from the sides of the head
I guess "Star Swirl the Mutton Chopped" doesn't have the same ring to it...
>>
>>25490257
>I don't consider meta things like the fact that it's a children's cartoon to be part of the canon. That's an observation about the medium
It's pretty standard practice in literary analysis to consider the medium essential to the message nowadays, fyi.

>I'm just saying that the information and details in the show are wholly inadequate and that there logically must be much more to it
It doesn't matter if you think it's inadequate. It is what it is. Things that don't exist in a text cannot be assumed to simply because you would prefer it to be the case. Equestria doesn't *have* to be consistent any more than the following poem I just made up has to be:

Back dog toenails his buttercup
Yuletide smells Ovid's pinniped
End of bear-change oopsie

You can interpret that how you want, but there is ultimately nothing but the text. Watching FiM, you can assume a deeper world and characters, but it doesn't change the text. A "functional interpretation" is not necessary for the text to exist, or even necessary for a fanfiction (as Roundstable provides volumes of proof).

Obviously, my comment about Equestria not existing was facetious, but to be more specific, you are seeing Equestria as an independent "universe" that somehow *must* be consistent when in fact it's just a bunch of words and images thrown up on a screen for us to interpret. The writers' *functional* purpose of Equestria, as I've outlined, was to provide a setting for a kids' show. When I talk about contradicting canon, I am merely pointing out that we usually change the function, context, and nature of Equestria when we write it outside of the show's limited space, and therefore suggest that arguments from canon over the inclusion of some incidental feature in a fanfiction are meaningless if you are already divorced from said canon in every significant way—purpose, audience, genre, character, theme, etc.
>>
>>25490373
With your way of looking at things, you might as well be suggesting that the canon is mostly worthless as a concept and that we should strip it for what information we can but otherwise ignore it when discussing MLP.

Either way, as I said before, your views on what the canon is and how it should be approached are very unconventional, and ultimately I strongly disagree with it, among other things. Considering it's getting late, though, and people are starting to post memes about how terrible this conversation is, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.
>>
>>25490435
I'm not suggesting it's worthless, just that it needs to be understood as a text rather than as the source of all legitimate authority. If I thought it was worthless, I wouldn't read/write MLP fanfiction. I actually think it's very important to be mindful of the canon, because it is the foundation of all horsewords, but the problem I perceive is not so much contradicting it as it is failing to live up to it. As a work of creation (or recreation), grimdark stories that serve no purpose but to demonstrate how far from FiM's canon one teenager can go are bad not because they're wrong, but because they're boring. The writer has absorbed nothing interesting from the world and characters. Guns aren't a problem because the show won't depict them (and incidentally, it never will); they're a problem when they're used as a prop for some writer's ego so he can describe his precious Desert Eagle over and over again, nursing his raging priapism over the idea of Ranibow Dash with a gun.

Here's an analogy: you see a chicken sandwich and want to eat something with chicken, but not a chicken sandwich. You make some chicken pasta, and then get into an argument because someone thinks that arrabbiata sauce is contrary to the spirit of a chicken sandwich. You like chicken, but you haven't made a chicken sandwich, so the argument in flawed at its premise.
>>
Quick question, not meant to distract you, would it be acceptable to call Earth ponies "Earthen". It's a fic set in the days before the unification, if that helps.
>>
>>25490519
"Peasants" will do just fine.
>>
>>25490526
kek

I can see unicorns and pegasus calling them that, though I meant in a broader way, as a race category.
>>
>>25490537
"Plebeians", then.
>>
>>25490370
>Star Swirl the Sideburned
>>
>>25490545
Oh, you.
>>
>>25490593
"Proles" not good enough?
>>
Hi, everyone.

I wrote a one-shot, and I'd like to get some opinions

It's a fairly short story about an alternate take on Star Swirl the Bearded and the story of the windigos.

I took a few liberties regarding some timeframes to be able to tell a more concise story. I hope that's not a problem.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A3zEkzF9Isoq9619M7flkTHTwIZbEg1nKwHW4TqlfAc/edit?usp=sharing

I appreciate all and any feedback you can give me, thanks in advance.
>>
>>25490690
Look at the bottom Zaid, I wrote you am essage.
>>
>>25490519
>>25490526
>>25490545
>>25490598
I prefer "The Great Unwashed".
>>
>>25490816
>"The Great Unwashed".
of course you do. because it accurately describes those filthy mud ponies
>>
>>25490507
Can't believe I read all that shit, but I think what you're saying is: If you're not writing 100% Y-rated show-accurate SoL in which all the world's problems can be solved in 22 minutes, then you've already deviated from canon so nobody should complain if you also feel like adding guns, war, wingblades, racism, etc?

I think that's bullshit but I wanted to check with you before I run off beating up a strawman.
>>
>>25491320
This is 4chan. If any argument involves more than 4 posts and 6 paragraphs, it's not worth even looking at. Neither participant will change their mind, and neither will cause anything productive to happen as a result.
>>
>>25491399
>Neither participant will change their mind
The point of a debate isn't to change the other guy's mind, the point is to change the audience's mind. Plus it's a useful exercise to force you to carefully consider your own position and its particular strengths and weaknesses.
>>
>>25491452
It ain't changing anyone's mind if nobody is reading it. And I, personally, am not reading seventy paragraphs reiterating the same position without much advance. But that's just me.
>>
>>25491468
Well, I'm reading it, and I'm finding it quite interesting. I think both perspectives are valid, though my personal preference as to how to interpret the show is something along the lines of "Imagine that Equestria actually exists and the writers of FIM traveled there, observed the characters adventures, and then came back to write a children's cartoon about it." Then you have a continuum of possible universes/"realities" that would map to the same show with varying seriousness, from a straight one-to-one mapping where ponies have no moral agency or whatever, to a war-torn grimdark dystopia that gets white-washed by the writers to create a kid-friendly show. Kind of like how when Disney makes movies based on historical events, it tends to remove a lot of the disturbing parts. So if you wanted to write a story set in that universe, you could have your "reality" be anything from the Disney movie and nothing else all the way to the historically accurate reality with all the rape and murder and whatnot. As long as your "reality" is mostly consistent and can somehow map to the show, I don't take issue with it.
>>
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>>25491621
To each their own.
>>
how u doin, my dear equalist leftoids, treasured jewels of my heart?

>>25489833
I came here to say how everyone is fucked and then you came in. faith in humanity = restored, upvote, post to /r/bestof

>Huh, I would have never guessed.
Coincidentally, only leader of a force going into actual combat on its own and not glorified TSA. Even if they fail...

>>Guns are impossible in Equestria
>Guns are impossible unless you take your time to properly explain their use in the setting. They're a technology which is not in canon, so they need to be set up...... Which fanfic authors never do.
And that faggot is strawmanning as shit to support his guns too.

*****

Supposedly the only reason for guns to not exist is because ponies are nice, but not because it makes no fucking sense for them to use guns, and double that for handguns. But guns != weapons.
They have free aviation ffs, just do some bombing runs ans lead in with unis to sweep the ruins.
Some niche cases like portable flaks for teams of several ponies will probably be used. Gotta keep the skies clear for our sisters when going against griffons.

We can have weaponized weather, advanced spellcasting for combat and deception, earthies blessed up the wazoo ramming down enemy lines like little pain trains, but no, they should have GUNS. At most they are guns on MAGIC AIRSHIPS.

Last but not least, thew ponies can live in a crap world and be averse to combat, playing the other factions against each other through diplomacy.

There are lots of ways to have ponies living not in teletubbyland

But then we have picrelated. Why?

For the same reason pony society is a niced-up human society behind the scenes (because we said so!)

Because we have zero imagination and can't comprehend a society that isn't basically our own in everything without making them a society of hats.
I don't see how it is any better than warping ponies for the benefit of your red-and-black alicorn OC - same old zero imagination and self-awareness.
>>
>>25490711
Thanks, sempai.
How did you know it was me?
>>
>>25487494
Because it's a reunion for mayors of diferent cities?
>>
>>25492406
>You delegates have traveled far and wide to represent your cities as we seek to celebrate and learn from all the unique places that make up our wonderful land of Equestria.
>Except Ponyville, what has that backwater town ever done for Equestria?
>>
>>25492406
No it's not.
>>
>>25488730
Threadlyt reminder that earthlings can pierce wood shoelds with carrots, and could probably stab you to death with a cherry
>>
>>25491320
They should complain because it's a bad story or a bad idea, not because it doesn't fit the canon. Stories like Applejack Has a Hole in Her Face, or Pieces of a Grey Cloud, or What If Socks Didn't Work Orally?, or even The Age of Wings and Steel have very little relationship to the canon and they're all great.

There are certain situations where it's worth asking what a story gains from being tied to the canon of a little girls' show, but ultimately, no one can really answer why a writer chooses one subject over another except the writer. Did Bad Horse gain anything from setting his little pro-immortality thought experiment in Equestria that he couldn't in an original setting? Who knows? Something about the show and characters hooked me, and I want to see people do *interesting* shit with it. Arguments from canon consistency miss the forest for the trees, even when they're used to critique bad stories.

They're also bad arguments because they're unsustainable—the world you're talking about it, as the guy I was arguing with admitted, is built largely from inference in the first place to create a "functional interpretation" of Equestria; you necessarily assume that Equestria involves more than Y-rated SoL. If you're enjoying work that involves human mental states like depression and then criticising guns, you're trying to have your cake and eat it. Both of these deviate from canon with equal intensity; you would see neither genuine depression nor gun violence in MLP: FiM, and the presence of human free will, irrational urges, flaws, etc. in the world is precisely the kind of the thing that would lead to firearms being necessarily invented under the right circumstances. Criticise things because they're bad, not because they don't suit a preconceived notion of how a fictional world theoretically could be if it were not the setting of a little girls' cartoon.
>>
>Wake up
>Check the thread like I've been doing since self promotion was at 10% or so
>Yet another endless argument
May you please fuck off, or take-a-trip-so-I-can-block-you?
>>
>>25492613
But without pointless bickering, what would be of us?
Also, nice to know there are still people here from the early threads.
>>
>>25492613
>implying it's one person
>>
>>25492613
>>25492627
I'm >>25492563 and I've been around since before /fimfic/ was a general. I used to post in all-lowercase for a while but everyone accused me of being darf when I gushed about his stories and defended Alectrona (and by extension Joyce), so I stopped.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the people that guy on infinity-chan was salty about during the GG exodus for supposedly trying to make /fimfic/ more /lit/erary.
>>
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>>25492715
>trying to make /fimfic/ more /lit/erary
But we're already one of heart, lowercase Anon.
>>
>>25492613
it would be against CHAN CULTURE
what are you, a NEWFAG?
>>
>>25468099
>On the Decoupling of Line-of-Sight Tethering in Projection-Targeting Spellforms
I love magic technobabble. What's this from?
>>
>>25492888
When someone uses caps like that, I keep thinking in a old school RPG.
>You need to achieve HOURS FAIMOUS STATUS before entering here! if you don't, I'll ATTACK you until your HEALTH reaches zero!
>>
>>25492896
An Anon was working on a research paper about magic in Equestria.
He managed to finish the abstract, but I dunno if he's going to finish it.
>>
>>25492876
Even those pretentious faggots know greentext is fucking garbage.
>>
>>25492896
That discussion we were having on Research Papers in Equestria. I was planning to write one on Teleportation without Line-of-Sight with math and everything before I got bored and decided to try something else. Now I'm going for a proof that friendship is a source of magic written in a similar style as Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect, but first I need to come up with a some first principles and equations to describe magic.

I'm hoping to write this thing next NaNoWriMo, since I'm dealing with IRL research and other writing projects at the moment.

On a somewhat related note, does anyone have a good research that explains how E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2 was derived in a manner that would be understandable to someone not in Physics but is familiar with Math? I'm trying to figure out the consequences of changing the conversion fact between mass and energy.
>>
ATTN: New Thread Theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-T_Ir036JM
>>
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Writer's block anon here.
I gave crackfics another chance.
It didn't work. I just don't feel it, and the quality suffered visibly for it.
>>
>>25493057
Oh, I forgot.
The title is "Horses in Equestria"
>>
>>25493078
>Horses in Equestria
MADNESS
>>
>>25493057

>She had horse things to do.

What, eat for eighteen hours a day and stare into the distance?
>>
>>25493104
Don't forget tail flicking.
>>
>>25493104
And fuck
Then kick an annoying dog
Then fuck again
Then kick an annoying kid
>>
>>25492945
Fuck you, Anon. I've listened to that song at leas half a dozen times already.
>>
>>25493120
Possibly bite an annoying kid.
Oh, and shit and piss.
>>
>>25493176
She'd do both abundantly through the whole thing. Candy floss for everyone!
>>
>>25493170

Now you're going to start humming and singing it in public, and you'll have to explain why you're working along to No Cock Like Horse Cock
>>
>>25492406
Today on "Making Shit Up"!
>>
>>25493504
>>25492424
>>25492420
It wasn't a reunion of mayors?
Huh, my bad.
>>
>>25493057
>Writer's block anon here.
Oh, aren't you a special snowflake.
>>
>>25493654
dont u fuk with me ill wreck u
>>
>>25493415
>"Anon, did you just hum 'Horse Cock'?"
>"Wha--No! I, uh, I said Horse Rock, yeah. Horse rock."
>"Horse Rock?"
>"Yeah, it's an old country song. I don't think you may have heard it."
>"But didn't you talk about stret--"
>"Hey, look! Lunch break's over, back to work!"
>>
Just found out that Allegrezza predates University Days by a few months. I always assumed that Allegrezza was inspired by University Days.

It would be nice if some fandom historian could publish a history of fimfiction, listing influential/famous fics, what factors at the time made them influential/famous and what impact they had on the fandom, as well as a chronicle of the rise and fall of various trends and pieces of fanons, illustrating their origins, spread, and downfall (where applicable). I would find that a fascination read, and I don't care what that says about me.

I'd suggest that we try to put something like that together, but I get the feeling that we wouldn't get very far before the whole thing fell apart due to arguments.
>>
>>25493885
>Just found out that Allegrezza predates University Days by a few months. I always assumed that Allegrezza was inspired by University Days.
Are you fucking serious? Allegrezza used to be THE shipfic, it was one of the things that made Vinyl x Octavia popular.
Also, it started in 2011, University Days started in 2012.

> we wouldn't get very far before the whole thing fell apart due to arguments.
Why would people argue about what happened on the internet like 4 years ago? It's all archived and documented.
>>
>>25493925
>Why would people argue
Have you been paying attention to these threads?
>>
>>25493940
I love how you ignored the rest of the sentence just so you could make a smartass remark.
>>
>>25493940
In this case we'd have hard data.
>"No,X fic is older!"
>"Yo here's the date of both fics"
Done.
>>
>>25493925
Having joined the fandom late 2013, I always thought it was The Vinyl Scratch Tapes that started it all, with University Days and then Allegrezza coming afterwards. Now I find out that the guy who wrote Allegrezza advised the guy who wrote The Vinyl Scratch Tapes while both were being written and I don't know what to think anymore.
>>
>>25493955
I had to, I couldn't resist. srry bby
>>
>>25493957
Well, in the very early days, not everything was on fimficiton, and some of the stuff on GDocs was lost, so there could still be some argument about those fics. After all, I'm pretty sure Fallout:Equestria wasn't written in 2014.
>>
>>25493970
It's pretty amusing reading about what people who started watching the show after 2011 think about the fandom.
>>
>>25493985
Generally a quick google search will at least give you a dead link.
>>
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>>25493985
Fallout: Equestria has also been posted to EqD roughly around the time it started. Besides, we could just ask /foeg/.
Which, by the way, was first posted on /co/, as Seth is actually a 4chan user and a fellow pony masturbator.
>>
>>25493989
>>25493991
>>25494021
I've tried to educate myself on the fandom, but there isn't really a good concise source to learn about its history, so I'm sure some of my information is wrong.

And I still haven't fully partaken in all the major fanworks. Still need to read Cupcakes, MLD, and watch Snowdrop and Double Rainboom. I don't really want to, but I feel like I need to in order to fully educate myself on the fandom.
>>
>>25494077
>Cupcakes, MLD, Double Rainboom
Spare yourself. The moment that trollface appears in DR you know you are in for a world of cringe.
>>
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>>25494077
>MLD
It's fine, I loved it four years ago.

>Snowdrop
Really not worth it. It's fucking awful.

If you want to know something, ask away, I love telling the young'uns 'bout the good ol' times. Don't forget about the board culture stuff, kiddo!
>>
>>25494082
It's not that much cringe, it's bad because it's almost exclusively a Powerpuff Girls x MLP crossover filled with nothing but filler.
Although the actual pony stuff was kinda nice from what I remember.
>>
>>25494106
I wonder if Felix comes back here...
>>
>>25494082
>>25494106
Well, a student of history should never turn away from the darker parts of history. I'll bite the bullet one day.

And what was the board like before the Scruffening? I never really understood what was removed and how that changed the fandom.
>>
>>25494134
Smut was removed, people got mad.
Not much else, really.
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>>25494127
Most likely not, though I've always been curious what happened to him after people posted pony porn on his facebook.

>>25494134
We had porn. It was allowed because mods didn't give a shit and moot told us we'll be the ones who'll get to decide how this board will turn out.
There were maybe like two or three generals at most, people posted actual show discussion and wandered the catalog to find wortwhile threads instead of the new thread for their favourite general. It was nice.
>>
Hey, look what I found.
http://reddonychandaily.wikia.com/wiki/Reddonychan_Daily_Wiki
The Encyclopedia Dramatica of /mlp/.
>>
>>25494163
>There were maybe like two or three generals at most, people posted actual show discussion and wandered the catalog to find wortwhile threads instead of the new thread for their favourite general. It was nice.


That sounds wonderful. I'm sad I missed out on that. People talk about the Golden Age of Pony around Season 2 and I wish I had joined the fandom back when my friend made me watch It's About Time back when it first came out instead of a year and a half later after all the crap of 2013.
>>
>>25494216
I'm sad I lived that, because I know it's gone forever. Now most of this board is exactly what we made fun of Ponychan for.
>>
>>25493885
I've never read University Days, but I remember Allegrezza being one of the first "big" fanfics I read. I remember waiting for new chapters and everything.
>>
>>25494077
There is no reason for any of that. This is just a fandom, you don't need to start with the greeks Cupcakes. All of the things you listed are some degree of shit, with Snowblind, or whatever she's called, being the most bearable.
>>
>>25494487
>with Snowblind, or whatever she's called, being the most bearable.
It was the most boring, awfully animated, pretentious piece of shit I've ever seen come out of a single fandom.
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>>25492715
To be honest, James Joyce is worth defending.
Alectrona, on the other hand, not. It's linguistically, conceptually, stylistically, and thematically subpar to Joyce's work; and it's no even that good as a pastiche.
And darf's work seem to be so empty despite the bombastic language and style. In every fic he always repeats the same them - that of baby existentialism, that is life, we're going to die, life is short, and it's all "meaningless". Like there's nothing else to write about, nothing else interesting to say.
And his porn. Worst transgressive fiction ever. Although he pretends to be philosophical, It's just bleedin fic type edgy smut masqueraded behind an imitation of James Joyce's style, which isn't that difficult to do as it seems (any high school student can do it if you explain it).
There's no intellectualism in it of, say, Bataille, who wrote utterly revolting stuff and pointed that the taboo and sacred are the same; no hallucinogenic body horror in style of William S Burroughs; no intensity and naturalism of Celine; no nothing. You know why? Because darf pretends to be smart while knowing jack shit about philosophy and thinking that emulating D.F.Wallace and James Joyce would be enough to be one. I believe he knows nothing about existentialism he likes so much, because it's the same "we are going to die and be forgotten stuff" and doesn't even mention Sartre view about existentialism (since life is "meaningless" every person creates his or her own meaning and legend) or Camu's view of duty (read Plague; where everybody is going nuts in the face of the "absurd" calamity and only the doctor continues on, calmly and dutifully) and the heroic act of Sisyphus.
He should get high on acid and watch Salo in a ran down gay BDSM dungeon with abject art of the Viennese Actionists painted on the walls. Maybe then he will understand how to write philosophical and extremely transgressive fiction well, instead of being bleedin /lit/.
>>
>>25494500
M8, Snowblind is among the better tracks on Vol. 4.

Snowdrop is boring and predictable, but it's over and done with in 14 minutes, which clearly makes it the best of the worst.
>>
>>25494620
You can read Cupcakes in like 5.
>>
>>25494636
>cupcakes is only 4k words
I truly thought it was longer. Huh.
Still, the average person reads at about 250 - 300 words per minute, right? So that's still 16 - 13 minutes wasted on that shitfic.
>>
>>25494720
>>25494636
>>25494620
Which is worse per minute, then?
Snowdrop or Cupcakes?
and on that note, how long is Rainbow Factory?
>>
>>25494763
Well, Cupcakes is the relevant one people still remember.
>>
>>25494763
>and on that note, how long is Rainbow Factory?
Longer than it has to be.
>>
>>25494763
Cupcakes is probably more "culturally significant", but I'd guess that Snowdrop is probably less bad per minute.

>Rainbow Factory
About twice as long as Cupcakes.
>>
>>25494829
>About twice as long as Cupcakes.
I can't remember how RF was, but if it's just as bad as Cupcakes, then that means RF has less bad per minute than Cupcakes.
>>
>>25494845
I'd argue that being twice as long makes it twice as bad.
>>
What was that fic where Sunhorse teleports to earth to sleep or something and has a first contact scenario with an outdoorsman?
>>
>>25494908
Celestia Sleeps In: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/76290/celestia-sleeps-in
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>>25494919
You're a star, thanks.
>>
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How long does it normally take for a story to get approved? It's been so long that I already forgot.
>>
>>25495258

I don't think I've ever waited more than a few hours. If you've been waiting for more than a day, I'd double-check that I actually submitted the fic, then poke meeester or one of the other approvers.
>>
>>25494507

darf...?

darf, is that you?
>>
>>25492177
Because it said, "Last edited done by Zaid (whatever the last part of it is)
>>
>>25492942
>On a somewhat related note, does anyone have a good research that explains how E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2 was derived in a manner that would be understandable to someone not in Physics but is familiar with Math? I'm trying to figure out the consequences of changing the conversion fact between mass and energy.
I remember the professor deriving it on the board in my freshman Special Relativity course. I don't remember the details, but it was a ways into the semester, so I'm pretty sure it relied on a bunch of nontrivial facts about relativistic energy and momentum.
>>
>>25496367
Oh.
Well, it's up in the site now.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/257615/a-swirl-of-the-stars-and-a-whirl-of-fate

It had to go up just after the rush hour of site traffic is over.

Oh, well.
>>
>>25477290
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/213635/lessons-learned-from-loyalty
OK, I read it. It was all right. Not 60:1 good, but probably worth reading if you've got half an hour to burn. The idea is interesting (M6 reincarnated as sort of super-powered guiding spirits for ponies with friendship problems), even if the author manages to fuck up basic grammar multiple times in only 13k.
>>
The recent discussion about Ponies as Moral Actors and stuff reminded me a fic I read a while back: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/58377/appletheosis.

It deals with some of the themes we were discussing and whomever was arguing that ponies aren't moral actors might find it an interesting read.
>>
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>>25489854
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

>>25489873
>How
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki48Rm5yr1g

>famine
>Food that could only be grown by the Earth ponies.
>The normally industrious Earth ponies were unable to farm their land.
>The Earth ponies were freezing. The home of the Pegasi fared no better. The Pegasi were hungry. And the unicorns were freezing and hungry
Famine confirmed for canon.

>When? Where?
>NMM, Castle of the Pony Sisters
>Trixie, Ponyville
>Starlight, "Our Town"
>Sombra, Crystal Empire
>Gilda, Griffonstone/Ponyville

>with a real and dangerous potential for deadly violence
Pic related.
>implying a Y-rated show would ever fully depict deadly violence

>Where have we seen this?
Flashback in "Family Appreciation Day" showed Canterlot full of tents instead of the city it is in the show.

>Those aren't flaws.
>an imperfection or weakness and especially one that detracts from the whole or hinders effectiveness
I don't see anywhere in that definition where it says that they can't be fixed. In fact, addressing flaws is on of the primary means of character development.

>Ponies in the show have no real free will
I think your headcanon's caused some sort of a brain infection. I'd recommend seeing a doctor soon. It could be meningitis.

>It's utopian
No, it isn't.

>>25494082
I thought it was okay until the PPG crossover started.. It's funny the guy wants to become one of those "creator driven" producers but can't think of a better way to pad out a fucking Slice of Life plot to 30 minutes.

>>25494763
>how long is Rainbow Factory?
8,400 words. It also really squanders it's plot by making it about something totally aesthetic and unnecessary instead of vital like the water cycle. Would have really helped the navel gazing in the sequel.

>>25495258
It use to be 24-48 hours, but I think they've got a ton more approvers since I last uploaded a fic.
>>
>>25497203
>Is there some kind of epic pony war in the distant future or something?
Wow, again. Real moral seriousness there.

>Famine
Already addressed this. I believe the line in question was "You earth ponies are hogging all the food!" I'm sure that's how I would write a starving Irishman! Moral consequences of hogging all the food—what are they? After all, the problem is solved through friendship, harmony, and togetherness. It's not like scarce resources actually are a permanent problem or anything.

>Sombra
Only conflict that had to be solved through killing the actor involved. Otherwise, banishment and redemption are the order of the day, because any pony that doesn't accept harmony is objectively a wrong actor in the show.

Violence and death, if they do appear, are played for laughs e.g. when Fluttershy thinks Angel is killed in Castlemania. Of course the rabbit isn't dead. They couldn't show that on kids' TV. Cartoon violence is literally the opposite of serious moral action.

>Flashback in "Family Appreciation Day" showed Canterlot full of tents instead of the city it is in the show.
Doesn't really make Equestria not utopian. I was originally referring more to change in terms of socio-cultural values rather than techonology.

>I don't see anywhere in that definition where it says that they can't be fixed.
You didn't understand the point. A world in which all flaws can be fixed via the same solution delegitimises the whole notion of flaws as anything but mistakes. Discord, the literal opposite of harmony, can be redeemed through friendship.

>I think your headcanon's caused some sort of a brain infection.
Point me to one conflict in the show that doesn't go like this:

1. Pony has personal problem, solved by more rigorous application of friendship.
2. Outsider pony challenges harmony, is banished, killed, or redeemed.

A world in which there is objective goodness in which all sentient beings share is a world without free will. Hence my Genesis metaphor.
>>
>>25497203
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law
Neat.
>>
>>25497050
Thanks for the rec. Interesting stuff. The discussion got me wondering if anyone had explored the possible Edenic parallels of Equestria.
>>
>>25497360
You are right. You have managed to convince me and now I'll renounce to my wrong ways. Thanks for showing me the path or the enlightened.
>>
>>25497440
Making a sarcastic comment just because you're out of arguments lets everyone else know the score.
I don't even know what the argument is about, but way to lose it anyway.
>>
>>25497450
Yes, thanks again for showing me the truth.
I'll be forever grateful, Anonymous.
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>>25497482
You're hilarious.
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>>25497486
Your magnanimity knows no bounds. Thank you for your kind words.
>>
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>>25497482
>>25497492
Weren't me, fella.
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>>25497492
>>25497499
I did say I don't even know what you two were arguing about.
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>kh&c, chapter 1

This is "Kind Hearts & Coronets", a prequel to AAG. Judging from the cover art, it features Rarity and Silversteel (DJ's dad).

The intro starts with Silver drowning his sorrows at some bar:
>On the Hearths Warming holiday that Silversteel had planned to propose to his longtime fillyfriend Derpy Hooves…
>…he was now mourning the sudden and inexplicable end of that relationship.
Yeah, we all know how this fic ends, so I'm calling it now. Not three pages in, and we already have a good old fashioned
> LOVE
> TRIANGLE
(I think that's some kind of record!)

Next up: why did Derpy dump this guy?
>Cadance picked up on it immediately. “You don’t want to be a widow.”
He's in the guard, and she can't bear the thought of losing him, so she broke up with him and didn't even tell him why. Awesome.

Other random stuff happens. The M6 meet Silver's mom, Lady Sandalwood (apparently DJ was named after her grandmother). Then we get a scene in which Silver, having just finished vomiting profusely (he's wasted, remember), looks up, and…
>He found himself so enraptured by the beautiful unicorn on the other side of the street, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Then, at the play:
>His eyes suddenly settled on the unicorn mare in the baby-blue satin nightgown and tiara, standing behind and to the right of the one speaking. It was her.
And at the ball:
>“She’s…beautiful,” Silver said, his eyes not moving.

Not even a week since his breakup with Derpy (who he fully intended to marry, remember), and he's suddenly madly in love with Squiggletail instead. Of course, this is great news for Rarity, who was on the verge of going full /r9k/, since RD and Flutters are both getting laid while she's still >tfw no cf.

And finally, Silver's sister gets hold of a letter from Derpy, in which Derpy admits she's made a terrible mistake and wants Silver back. Naturally, she destroys the letter without showing it to him.

Seems like this fic's off to a great start!
>>
>>25497541
Never forget, being honest with yourself and sharing your feelings is wrong.
>>
>>25497573
Now why did you have to go and remind me that life sucks and there's nothing to live for?
>>
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>>25497610
But Anon, there's always something to live for.
Like mocking people through the internet!
>>
>>25497610
>tfw got put into the psyche ward earlier this week for suicidal depression
>tfw easily charmed my way out of it and got released yesterday with some acting and smooth talking
now no one can stop my downward spiral
>>
>>25497630
I have to tell you guys something.
I usually don't enjoy arguing or shitting on people.

>>25497638
living the dream
>>
>>25497652
Ha!
Me neither, I tend to stay out of the debates when they get too heated because I'm too much of a wuss who would like if we all could get along.
Sorry for laughing.
>>
>>25497652
I'll be with my waifu Twiggles soon enough, and I can fight Jin for supremacy in Autism Valhalla for the rest of days
>>
>>25497667
iktf
I'm mostly just so tired of arguing, I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime.

>>25497671
But how are you going to do that if we're all going to meet up in Equestria...?
>>
>>25489137
>The problem is that there is no middle ground.
That is a awfully artificial argument, and feels like it's constructed only to serve the point you're making.

Now, I care little for how a story relates to canon, at least for the most part. The most important aspect of a story has never, and will never be, adherence to canon, but rather internal consistency. With that out of the way, lets talk about ponies as moral actors.

There are two faulty notions at play here. The first is that you're creating a false dichotomy by saying that it can only be one way or the other, and the second is that Ponyland is that "extreme" you put it out to be.

Equestria is certainly more utopian than life here on Earth seems to be, but that does not make it some perfect otherland where persons cannot develop into moral actors. The concepts of poverty, war and death might not be as close to them as they are to many of us (though personally, as a young man from a well-off home I couldn't say it's close to me either), but they are all concepts that are definitely known to them. Furthermore, a hypothetical society where morality is a non-issue is going to have to be a lot more utopian than Equestria is.
>>
>>25497706
Some of our most basic moral concepts and ideas are not dependant on mortal strife or great need.
Take a look at something as fundamental as virtue ethics, let's say in an Aristotelian light, and you will see that the concepts spoken about are absolutely applicable to even society like Equestria, which you could argue has less strife and fewer consequences. For any kind of invalidation of anyone's role as a social actor, they would have to be in a position their actions having no meaningful value in and of themselves, nor would they have any meaningful consequences. In that situation, I might be tempted to say that you do not develop as a moral actor.
But Equestria is very clearly not that place.
As long as actions have meaning in and of themselves, and have tangible consequences, morality and ethics will naturally be there.
You'd be hard pressed to claim Equestria is any kind of utopia or extreme. Though it certainly seems nicer than this place.
>>
>>25497720
The idea that you need to have "unsolvable" problems to justify being a moral actor is misled. Even if this "Harmony concept" you present represents an objective right, it is not a universally followed truth, and the ability to disagree over that (like characters in this show often do), is itself justification enough for meaningful moral choices. It doesn't matter (at least not for your argument) if there's an objective right it you're able to choose to not follow it, or be mislead from it.

Giving a character greater moral depth than seen in the show is, in many cases, not a leap comparable with expanding some other field, like geography or technology. You cannot take one for equivalent with the other. But again, here we reach the point where I stop caring, as long as the end product is internally consistent.

/unedited autism rant
>>
>>25497734
>/unedited autism rant
>/
>implying
It's just the beginning. Why can't you two just get along?
>>
>>25497746
>you two
But this my first post in days, Anon.
>>
>>25497762
Well then why would you encourage people to fight? We all like the same thing...
>>
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I don't understant anything that happened in the last thirty posts or so.
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>>25497706
>artificial
Is it though?

You say Aristotle, but Aristotle is principally where I'm getting this (via inference since Christian morality is pretty neoplatonist/Aristotelean by nature). My point was never that, say, death doesn't exist, so to speak, but that ponies don't perceive its moral weight. Evil, as understood in the typical Christian framework, is the perversion of virtue. Do the ponies have knowledge of good and evil in the show? I don't believe so; they inherit their understanding of good and bad as prescriptions from an absolute authority. Virtue, when it is perverted, is recognisably evil according to these given prescriptions.

>As long as actions have meaning in and of themselves, and have tangible consequences, morality and ethics will naturally be there.
I agree. But I don't believe Equestria is that place.

>Even if this "Harmony concept" you present represents an objective right, it is not a universally followed truth, and the ability to disagree over that (like characters in this show often do), is itself justification enough for meaningful moral choices
That doesn't mean they're serious moral actors, though. They're like man before the Fall—able to exercise their free will to become as Gods, knowing good and evil. Otherwise, they are simply told what is right, and what is their place, and accept that.

Meaningful moral choice does not exist if:

a) The consequences of actions are not fully understood in moral terms (e.g. the changeling invasion in which no pony appeared to die, there was no period of grieving, only celebration, etc.)

b) There is an absolute good in the world, even in the presence of free will. It was free will that led to the Fall, after all.

It's a genuine dichotomy. Either you understand for yourself the difference between goofy cartoon violence where Tom gets hit by Jerry's anvil and walks off in the shape of an accordion and punching a person in the face, without an authority to differentiate, or you don't.
>>
>>25497734
>The idea that you need to have "unsolvable" problems to justify being a moral actor is misled
You do, though. You need to have knowledge of good and evil to understand that something can irreconcilable. It's not so much that Equestria precludes the possibility of irreconcilable moral problem, but none of their moral problems are irreconcilable for the ponies because their moral sense is rooted in an absolute authority. The buffalos and earth ponies literally don't understand that sharing their land is the quote unquote morally right action, because acting according to virtue means precisely the same thing in each circumstance. They never question it for themselves. Just look at all the blog posts arguing that Over a Barrel endorsed ethnic cleansing. If the buffalos could decide for themselves what good and evil meant, they might actually decide that their rights supersede the rights of foreign settlers—according to many, they'd be right.
>>
>>25497695
there is no afterlife anon
they're not real
when you die, it's all over
and that's alright
>>
>>25497854
(Perhaps it's more accurate to say while ponies are capable of rejecting Celestia/harmony, there's still no effective free will in Equestria because of the other conditions I outlined. It depends on your interpretation of free will; if my understanding of moral consequences is tied to an absolute authority, what is the meaning of any free actions in the first place, beside eating the metaphorical fruit of knowledge? Free will tends to be understood relative to moral choices, all of which are ultimately uniform in FiM: it's the Harmony way or the highway.)
>>
>>25497854
>Aristotle
Need I remind you that the classical goal of ethics is eudaimonia? So I present virtue ethics as something you should look at. The emphasis on ones character and virtue, even outside the Homerian warrior role, is something I'd say is an example of ethical and moral thought that is not completely dependent on the larger struggles.

>ponies don't perceive its moral weight
That feels to me like a baseless assumption, since it kind of follows an extreme of "if it's not in the show, then it doesn't exist", which is a nigh impossible point to write out of. If you made 100 20-min episodes of my life as a young moron, you'd be unlikely to have any where I express significant grief or loss. Yet the concept is not unknown to me.
Ponies fear death, do they not? It may not be something that seem close to them, but the idea of getting killed/hurt still sparks panic.
The lack of something being shown is not proof that it does not exist, especially for a piece of media that is still not finished.
>>
>>25498202
>Evil, as understood in the typical Christian framework, is the perversion of virtue
Which is a narrow definition. I could, for the sake of argument, choose to define it as the absence of what is good, or as what hinders us from possessing or experiencing what is good.
But working out from your idea of Harmony, can't you define the perversion, lack of or refusal to adhere to Harmony as evil? The ponies certainly know of the concept of evil, as they have a word for it that they use in a similar fashion we would, and if feels needlessly obtuse to argue that they do not truly have knowledge of it. Unless you're going for gold in mental gymnastics, that is.
Also, you shouldn't assume that you're clearly Judeo-Christian standpoint is universal, or in any way common ground.

Also, the idea that ponies derive anything form an absolute authority would only be relevant if they fully understood and accepted that authority. Clearly, that is not the case.
>>
>>25498212
Many would argue that meaningful moral choice is not a matte of consequences, but of character or duty. The idea, therefore, to say that you cannot have meaningful moral choice of only moral understanding for consequence is gone, is controversial to say the least. Or one could also claim that your actual understanding of consequences do not change their moral value.
And again, the existence of an absolute good is not identical with the understanding or acceptance of it.
It does not help that you're seeing this in a purely Christian view.

>You do, though.
No, you do not. To return to Aristotle, he has the idea (as opposed to Plato), that knowledge of the right action does not necessarily lead to us doing it. Knowledge and intellectual virtue is not enough, in his view, you need also moral virtue.
Furthermore, if the absolute good can be unknown to us or shrouded in some way, then the necessity for moral actors exist.

>their moral sense is rooted in an absolute authority
This is, again, false. And it would, as I've stated repeatedly, only matter if access and understanding of that authority is unrestricted.
>>
>The buffalos and earth ponies literally don't understand that sharing their land is the quote unquote morally right action, because acting according to virtue means precisely the same thing in each circumstance.
Since we're picking up singular examples, Sombra was on the contrary never swayed to the side of the "absolute authority", and is probably the most dead villain (not) around.
Also, acting according to virtue does not necessarily mean acting precisely the same, it's dependent on your moral virtues. Think about the golden mean.

>If the buffalos could decide for themselves what good and evil meant, they might actually decide that their rights supersede the rights of foreign settlers
And wasn't that what they had originally decided upon? Were they not able to make that decision?

But now, sleep. Getting late/early as fuck here.
>>
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>>25498044
>afterlife
I thought we were talking about actually meeting in Equestria.
Does that mean I no longer have to go get my passport?
>>
>>25498228
damn
>>
>>25498202
>since it kind of follows an extreme of "if it's not in the show, then it doesn't exist", which is a nigh impossible point to write out of
Not really. It simply means treating the work as a complete text in and of itself, which is perfectly legitimate.

>can't you define the perversion, lack of or refusal to adhere to Harmony as evil?
This is how the show defines evil, yes. Evil actors tend to reject Equestrian Harmony, for whatever reason.

>The ponies certainly know of the concept of evil, as they have a word for it that they use in a similar fashion we would, and if feels needlessly obtuse to argue that they do not truly have knowledge of it.
I don't believe they do—this is mostly a function of it being a children's show. Take the obvious examples people have given me—the famine, described as "the earth ponies are hogging all the food." These are not the words of characters who understand good and evil. Nor is the party atmosphere that ensues just after an attempted coup by changelings.

>Many would argue that meaningful moral choice is not a matte of consequences, but of character or duty
I wouldn't dispute that. Character, action, and consequence can all play into morality (incl. Christian morality).

>you shouldn't assume that you're clearly Judeo-Christian standpoint is universal
My argument is by nature a Christian one—effectively, that Equestria is a Christian utopia, resembling an Edenic world whose inhabitants do not have knowledge of good and evil. This is not universal, but specific.

>knowledge of the right action does not necessarily lead to us doing it.
This was not my point. Knowledge of good and evil does not mean literal knowledge of right action but the ability to differentiate moral actions, which leads to inevitable conflicts. Is it better to save your mother or a foreigner's family? If stealing is wrong, is it wrong to steal someone's fire extinguisher to stop your house burning down? What if their house starts burning too? etc.
>>
>>25498314
>if access and understanding of that authority is unrestricted.
But it is? Every single conflict in the show is solved by literally the same means, rooted in Celestia's law. No one has pointed out a single conflict that has not been granted moral clarity via harmony and friendship.

Understanding perhaps is not totally widespread, but only in the sense that actors take the Harmony doctrine for granted and do not question it, since that would make them evil.

>Sombra was on the contrary never swayed to the side of the "absolute authority", and is probably the most dead villain (not) around.
Again, this is only an argument for the presence of free will, which I still reject to a point because it's worthless without moral agency. On even a superficial textual level, Sombra is utterly wrong for rejecting harmony. His motives are not even worth exploring.

>And wasn't that what they had originally decided upon? Were they not able to make that decision?
Not really. Again, on a textual level, their conflict was solved in the same consistent manner once they were told what was good for them. We have no textual evidence that buffalos ever got into deadly conflict with earth ponies—when they butted heads, the moral authority was not vested in the actors but deferred to a consistent program of morality derived from the principle of harmony .

To a lesser extent, your argument has the same problem for me that the other guy's did; you're assuming that Equestria exists beyond the text. It's not a problem to write Appleloosa as a Wild West hellhole (I've seen it done, and done well), but that's simply not what the text gives us. Could the buffalos decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, and slaughter the earth ponies in retribution? The text says no. Once more, this is all largely a function of FiM being a kids' show, but I'm repeating myself.
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>>25498314
Just to expound on a point:

It was a simplification to talk merely about consequences, but that's because it was where the discussion had led to (famine, war, poverty, and other material consequences of actions). You could expand point a) in my earlier post, regarding consequences, to include action, duty, character, etc. The point is that the moral nature of things is not understood—why taking one action is right and another is wrong, why honesty is good and dishonesty is bad. The ponies have the words for these things, but there's no understanding, or else their world would necessarily be like ours.
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>>25498412
First time chiming in this debate here, but do we even understand why something is good or evil? The Theological argument is that God said so therefore it is right/wrong, but take that away and I'd argue that a lot of people don't understand the morality of their actions, they just do what they "feel" is right. I myself do not understand why certain actions are good or evil, I just do things that I "feel" are right, with that feeling being a result of decades of social conditioning and some logic. Am I then not a moral actor?

I've never studied philosophy before, so I might be completely missing your point, but it seems that understanding good and evil is not necessary for good and evil to exist. Either an absolute good/evil exists, or morality is simply a mental/societal construct with no higher meaning beyond its utility in creating a functioning society.
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>>25498314
Equally, if your argument is that Equestria is not a utopia in a different moral system, then I'm perfectly willing to accept it. Equestria isn't a utilitarian utopia because that would probably necessitate immortality for all, pleasure buttons, and possibly a superintelligent AI, depending on what you believe, but for the purposes of my argument, the ponies are never depicted as moral agents as we conventionally understand them, and fanfiction that deviates from those conditions by giving ponies depression is no more or less ridiculous than giving them guns.

Ultimately, what I would prefer is for people to take FiM as a base text rather than a lazy way of criticising things you don't like. Think about *why* something is bad according to an independent system rather than in reference to a canon to which you are only conditionally willing to be consistent with. Like I said, I'm more bothered when fanfic fails to live up to canon more so than when it contradicts it.

>>25498461
>Am I then not a moral actor?
In short, yes. You call it "feeling," but that's actually the ability to clarify what is good or evil. Whether it's because of social conditioning or logic is irrelevant, because it's about understanding that you can be a good or bad person, take right or wrong actions, and take ownership of the good or bad consequences of said actions—and moreover, being able to decide those things for yourself, whether based on a feeling or not.

>but it seems that understanding good and evil is not necessary for good and evil to exist.
That's a statement that can only be made by someone who understands that good and evil exist. Some animals get sad when their fellows die, but so far as we know, they don't know that it would be wrong to kill unless taught not to. The whole point of the metaphor in Genesis is that in the beginning, good and evil existed but were only known by God—hence why the serpent says, "You shall become as Gods, knowing good and evil."
>>
So how 'bout them batpony wingblades?
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>>25498828
Get with the times, Anonymous.
Gun barrels attached to the wings are in vogue now.
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>>25498846
>gun barrels
>wings
>blades

fuck yeah, yo- i just discovered the absolute most autistic thing ever.

>batpony winggunblades.

take the abominations from FFVIII and duct tape that shit to a batpony. then write a fuckload of fics about it
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>>25498887
ballistic propulsion
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>>25498887
>batpony winggunblades.
So, just strapping bayonets to the edge of the wing?
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>>25498925
no, no. thats just silly.

you jam a sword handle into the barrel of a pistol, weld that shit on, then tape it to a bat ponys wings.

when they swing it at their enemies, they can pull the trigger which makes the sword more powerful somehow. the gun is the important part
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>>25498925
>to the edge
Indeed.
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>>25498228
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What is she reading?
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>>25499302
my suicide note
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>>25498314
>Take the obvious examples people have given me—the famine
Why would that be the most striking example of evil? They seem perfectly capable to judge other actions, often those tied to civilians, within a good/evil dichotomy. I'm going to say that again, you focus on the wrong things by laying down that there needs to be great needs and calamities in order to justify some sort of morality. It feels again like a assumption is made, where the answer is not given, mostly for the sake of supporting your greater argument.
And again, I doubt the wording of a play is any proper foundation to build a argument from.

>This was not my point. Knowledge of good and evil does not mean literal knowledge of right action but the ability to differentiate moral actions
That's not my point either. You act as it the mere existence of what you view to be an objective or absolute right, invalidates moral choice. That I disagree with, partially on the base that the existence of moral authority doesn't mean that we have to follow it or believe in it.
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>>25499750
>Every single conflict in the show is solved by literally the same means, rooted in Celestia's law
I've seen you do this a few times now, and a think it's good time I called it out. You use Celestia wrong. If we accept your Harmony concept, then it is not literally Celestia, as Celestia can be wrong. Harmony is a greater concept, and not one directly understood or available to everyone. And even when it is, to characters like the Mane 6, they do not always act accordingly.

>only in the sense that actors take the Harmony doctrine for granted and do not question it
False. This could merely be described as ponies following laws and social norms, and describing it as anything greater is making another faulty leap of logic for the sake of argument. Ponies that are unkind, or do actions that are not exactly in-line with friendship or harmony, like completely random people in the latest Manehatten episode, seem commonplace or unremarkable. There's a wealth of examples of ponies who seemingly follow their own whim instead of some greater set of harmonic ideals.

>their conflict was solved in the same consistent manner once they were told what was good for them
That does not invalidate the fact that, for the conflict to exist in the first place, the characters were able to think otherwise. My point was that they started out by having another set of beliefs, the fact that they changed is irrelevant to that.
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>>25499755
>We have no textual evidence that buffalos ever got into deadly conflict with earth ponies
Again, I do not understand this need to find the severe and the dramatic. It truly doesn't matter if the conflict was deadly.

>you're assuming that Equestria exists beyond the text
Naturally, though I wouldn't say it has been central to my argument. Any text that can be interpreted exists beyond itself, in the sense that your understanding of it relies on elements outside the text itself. FiM does not make sense in a total vacuum, devoid of contemporary cultural connections. A person who had a totally alien culture would likely not be able to grasp all the things the show is meant to express, because of the differing content of what is outside the text. This is strictly speaking more in the realm of aesthetics, I'd argue, but experiencing any art isn't some objective, mechanical, Cartesian thing. It's a matter of both reader and text. FiM is part of a greater cultural body of work, and can't be viewed as isolated without also being misunderstood.
Plus, you know, from a writers perspective you're not actually especially concerned with show on a purely textual basis.
Besides, it's a rather irrelevant argument.
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>>25499759
>Could the buffalos decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, and slaughter the earth ponies in retribution?
It's pretty laughable to say that because the Buffalos can't slaughter, they cannot truly choose. As if the lack of one option blocks out all other choice. I can't flap my arms and fly to the grocery store, but I can choose if I want to walk or jog there. Choice is defined by what's possible, not what's impossible.

>The ponies have the words for these things, but there's no understanding
Again, jumping to conclusions.

>Equestria is not a utopia in a different moral system
It isn't a utopia in any moral system, unless you're really lax about your definition of an utopia.
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>>25499765
>fanfiction that deviates from those conditions by giving ponies depression is no more or less ridiculous than giving them guns
Again, this is a completely meaningless statement. Those are not comparable. Saying that "you've added one, so it's equally valid to add the other" is only valid of all things that can be added are valid. And arguing that would be a sign of insanity.
But I don't have a fundamental hateboner for warfics. I'm not against the goal of your argument as much as I believe the reasoning you use yo get there is completely flawed. I think the log house you attempted to draw looks kind of okay, but upon closer inspection it looks more like a box fort, and it was drawn using shit instead of brown crayons. This sounded kind of funny in my head, don't judge.
Either way, it was interesting to see someone try to justify Equestria as a Christian utopia.

Either way, the fanfiction writer should be more concerned with internal consistency than anything else.
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>>25498461
>The Theological argument is that God said so therefore it is right/wrong
That itself can be sort of problematic.
>"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
Or:
>"Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?"
If it is good because it is good (the first horn), and that's why God commands it, then it's implied that what is good is so independent of God.
If it is good because God demands it (the second horn), then that arguably seems somewhat arbitrary, all morality just becomes whatever God decides it to be. Plus it deprives God of the proper designation of good, because anything he did or chose would be equally good.
You could alternatively jump into your Hume-mecha and fire all your IS-OUGHT missiles.

So yeah, it's a difficult subject, so even that theological argument isn't really common ground.
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>>25499750
>And again, I doubt the wording of a play is any proper foundation to build a argument from
You're being obtuse. You know full well that I am not saying that calamity does not justify morality. What I am saying is that they don't treat situations of life and death with much seriousness (ultimately because it's a kids' show). I am saying that the ponies do not treat it with the seriousness that we understand, and by implication that do not appear to regard death as a moral catastrophe—it requires action, but ultimately that action is the same one we always see as a solution to conflict.

The point of bringing up calamities and greater needs is that they tend to be what cause the most extreme moral feeling and action, so it clarifies more obviously that their moral action is all based around a single authoritative goodness.

>You act as it the mere existence of what you view to be an objective or absolute right, invalidates moral choice. That I disagree with, partially on the base that the existence of moral authority doesn't mean that we have to follow it or believe in it.
It's irrelevant what you think though, because the ponies actually do, with almost no exceptions. Again, on a purely textual level, they all follow or believe in it when given the chance—Sombra excepting, and he's dead.

> And even when it is, to characters like the Mane 6, they do not always act accordingly.
>There's a wealth of examples of ponies who seemingly follow their own whim instead of some greater set of harmonic ideals.
It's not that there are zero sources of conflict, but that conflict is rooted in a uniform source, with a uniform solution.

>the fact that they changed is irrelevant to that.
The fact that they changed is the opposite of irrelevant. This is the consistent feature that occurs in Equestria in response to conflict. Their beliefs were demonstrated to be irrational, and they immediately changed them. This is not the behaviour of creatures with their own morality.
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>>25499302
Check for yourself.
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>>25500082
>Again, I do not understand this need to find the severe and the dramatic. It truly doesn't matter if the conflict was deadly.
It doesn't particularly, except that this is usually outcome with ethnic conflict between human actors.

>It's pretty laughable to say that because the Buffalos can't slaughter, they cannot truly choose.
We don't really have the evidence that they can. Even when they fight, it's just a cartoon slap-fight with pies. This is the inevitable problem of whether free will exists in a world of clearly delineated moral choices.

>Any text that can be interpreted exists beyond itself,
This is a very vague statement you're using to handwave the point. You are assuming that conflicts that are not depicted in the show exist without textual evidence for them. Where are the buffalos that didn't change their minds?

>Again, this is a completely meaningless statement. Those are not comparable.
They're comparable in the sense that the decision to approve of one and not the other as a blanket rule is rather arbitrary because neither are portrayed in the show. Depicting ponies with human characteristics is not hugely different to depicting them with human inventions and resorting to arguments from canon consistency is unsustainable because neither of them fit in the show's world insofar as Hasbro is concerned. It doesn't make barrel gun wingblades a good idea in the slightest.

>the fanfiction writer should be more concerned with internal consistency than anything else.
This I agree with, and is a better metric of whether guns belong in your fic than canon consistency.
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>>25500149
Incidentally, I'm obviously not the only one who thought of Equestria this way, since it's literally the entire plot of this story I was recced, concluding with Applejack eating from the tree of knowledge and immediately realising the horror of her own (and her friends') mortality: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/58377/appletheosis
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>>25500082
*that they do not appear to regard…

Additionally, this is why another "calamity"—the changeling invasion—was under discussion. Either ponies died offscreen, and the behaviour of the partying ponies afterwards was just extremely callous, or they didn't, and therefore even this conflict was ultimately harmless. In both cases, the action of invading Canterlot was deemed to be wrong more or less because the actors involved did not follow the harmony doctrine—and in fact, if the show's depiction is to be believed, cannot ever really follow harmony because they feed off it. The ponies engage in some cartoon violence and everything is okay. Some fanfics have suggested that the changelings were actually starving or desperate, and therefore justified in their action, but you'd be hard-pressed to get that interpretation from the show.

>Plus, you know, from a writers perspective you're not actually especially concerned with show on a purely textual basis.
This is what I've been arguing all along, on the basis that fanfic writers, by sheer necessity, deviate from the text in major and meaningful ways, which is why I don't accept this notion that deviating from the canon is bad. It's rather arbitrary and I would prefer to see people justify their arguments according to the fanfic in question.
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>>25499302
AAG
>>
>Wake up
>Over 200 replies
>Nothing about guns

I'm proud of you, /fi-

>Wall of text everywhere
>Autism autism autism
>Equestria is a perfect paradise

Could someone sum up what happened here?
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>>25501057
I can never tell if I enjoy AAG ironically or not.
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>>25500268
>Harmony doctrine

Is this some kind of "muh honor" thing the knights used to have?
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>>25501065
I think Equestria as depicted in the show is an Edenic paradise—possessing a singular moral authority where the only guilty action portrayed is disobedience to that authority (Trixie, NMM, changelings, Discord), thereby making ponies not viable as independent moral actors since their moral judgement is derived from an authoritative and consistent guideline; that is to say, all conflict resolution is deferred to the magic of friendship/harmony. Any pony who uses free will to reject the magic of friendship (guilty disobedience, like Eve after eating the fruit) is depicted as wrong so far as the text is concerned, and must be killed (Sombra), banished (NMM), or redeemed (Trixie). He doesn't agree.

The point was actually tangential, hence why it got so autistic. My original argument was merely that the arguments against guns as inconsistent with canon are unsustainable because the characteristics of fanfiction and the ponies therein typically deviate from the text already in pretty fundamental ways—genre, character, theme, audience, etc. It's not so much a pro-gun argument as it is an argument for considering whether an story is independently consistent rather than consistent with show—in other words, the question is not whether Hasbro would put guns in MLP (hint: they wouldn't) but whether guns work in the story you've written.

>>25501090
It's just a phrase I made up to describe the magic of friendship/harmony insofar as it operates as an authoritative moral rule.
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>>25501171
Could of just said that Equestrian citizens' morals have to conform to a single doctrine, and that all dissidents are automatically immoral.

And I don't think I agree either. There's not much difference from our own, personal morals with your "Harmony Doctrine". Sombra was literally enslaving an entire race. NMM wanted to make the world become dark forever, which would have disastrous consequences on the crops the ponies would grow. Trixie wasn't shown as immoral at all in fact. She was just a dick. The reason she became seen as immoral is because the trapped a town under a dome, banished one of its most important citizens and used two kids as a slave.

I have to ask, which one of those isn't considered immoral according to us? All of those seem to be rightfully immoral, and have to be dealt with. It's not a Harmony Doctrine, it's the simple law of "You get treated like you treat others".
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>>25501065
I dont know, but thank God its almost over.

I've pretty much skipped over most of the last 100 posts.

Jump on in shitposters, lets finish this one off and hope it doesnt continue in the next one
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Third day in a row where I wake up to two people posting passive-aggressive walls of text at each other.
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>>25501274
What were you expecting, precise and right-to-the-point posts?

We surely have to make walls of text to look more unstupider than the other one.
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>>25501205
>I have to ask, which one of those isn't considered immoral according to us?
All of them, to be honest. Slavery? Enslaving an entire race was widely regarded as, at best, a necessary evil until very recently in Western history (the 18th/19th century), except by abolitionists, who were generally since as idealists. Coup d'etats happen all the time by people who believe they are moral. Does Gaza count as "trapping a town under a dome"? :^) Even that one is morally contentious in our own era—should Israel prioritise its own security at all costs etc.

If all dissenters actually are genuinely evil, you're in paradise. As people are so fond of pointing out, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Does that make him evil? We might think it wrong today, but that's the point—we understand that good and evil exist for ourselves, and therefore we define it independently and often inconsistently according to historical, economic, and socio-cultural context. Moral complexity in FiM just means coming back into the fold of harmony so far as the text concerned. As I've reiterated a few times, this is because a kids' show, but that doesn't make it not the case.
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>>25501311
*seen as idealists
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>>25500082
>You're being obtuse.
Using the wording of a play, like the one used in HWE, to make some greater point about how a culture handles death, need and calamities, is a weak foundation for an argument. Especially when it is a single piece of dialogue. I could cite a single line from the Epic of Gilgamesh in an attempt to make some point about the culture that wrote it, but it wouldn't be a strong piece of evidence.

>What I am saying is that they don't treat situations of life and death with much seriousness
Debatable. They seem to take situations of imminent, life-threatening danger, rather seriously. Not seriously in the sense that they grow grim about it, though they fact that they don't is both because the show is the tone it is and likely because they do not have a culture for doing it, but serious in the way that matters the most; it prompts actions.
Saying that they definitely, without a doubt, have a concept of death and danger so alien and removed from what we have feels like guesswork, more than anything else.
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>>25501332
>it clarifies more obviously that their moral action is all based around a single authoritative goodness
Which, as I'm starting to feel is becoming my main argument here, is false. You're grossly overestimating the actual authority of this goodness, when we're being show that swaying from it in some sense is not at all difficult, or even uncommon. This goodness is more like a set of laws or norms that ponies somewhat align themselves around, not a clear and unquestionable force that is apparent for everyone.

>the ponies actually do, with almost no exceptions
>ey all follow or believe in it when given the chance
No, they don't. There are a lot of character who do in some way sway from the ideal, intentionally or unintentionally. In a society with a low re-incarceration rate, you could feasibly make the same claim. Most people adhere to a set of laws and norms, some sway from it, and many (but not all) will adhere to these rules when given the chance. The force of Harmony is perhaps stronger or more clearly apparent, but it is not at all the extreme you perceive it to be. The mere fact that Sombra never converted, that those who should know better still fail, and that there are plenty of minor characters with undesirable traits, show that there is no following of any kind of moral autonomy to the frankly ridiculous point you claim.
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>>25501332
>>25501340
Just get a fucking room or go talk somewhere else, this is worse than bleedin's whining.
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>>25501340
>that conflict is rooted in a uniform source, with a uniform solution
That is an unfair, and pointless, degradation of the situation. If I had been believer in moral objectivism, I could argue that all human conflict stems from people swaying from the right path, and that all solutions lie in bringing everyone back on that path.
Saying that all pony conflict is just people disagreeing with Harmony, and then that just Harmony is the answer, misses the point.

>Their beliefs were demonstrated to be irrational, and they immediately changed them. This is not the behaviour of creatures with their own morality.
Again, I disagree. Morality is present if that change has the chance to happen. From a Platonic view on morals, I could in fact argue that this is the way it is supposed to be, as greater insight into the truth of them matter (and the fact that living beings will act in their own best self-interest) binds us to that truth. The change happened, that is the only relevant part here.
You're setting a faulty definition on morality.

>whether free will exists in a world of clearly delineated moral choices
That is another argument altogether. To keep it short, let's just say that the existence of a objective moral right does not necessarily mean that free will cannot exist. It's somewhat a matter of how you view moral motivation, but by and large the existence of free will and the existence of objective morals are not necessarily interconnected.
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>>25501358
>You are assuming that conflicts that are not depicted in the show exist without textual evidence for them
That was not my main point. My main point is that no text can be understood, at least not fully, viewed only as the text itself. All text is tied to points of reference that lie outside the text itself.

>approve of one and not the other as a blanket rule is rather arbitrary because neither are portrayed in the show
No. Again; "it's okay to add X because it was okay to add Y", is only valid if both X and Y are equally connected or disconnected from the setting. I'll also repeated that my biggest problem here is not so much the point you're trying to make, but that way in which you do so is nonsensical and dependant on taking claims that are debatable at best as undeniable fact.

>Depicting ponies with human characteristics is not hugely different to depicting them with human inventions
Come on, Anon. You don't honestly believe those are equal? Saying that ponies have a concept of depression or sadness is less of a stretch than saying they have laser guided scissors, to use some daft example. The point you should be making is that it doesn't matter either way, not that it doesn't matter because of some world class mental gymnastics that invalidate the possibility of ponies as actual thinking beings, provided you perceive the text a certain way. You're making a passable point in a irredeemable way.

>>25501351
:^)
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>>25501368
>he behaviour of the partying ponies afterwards was just extremely callous, or they didn't, and therefore even this conflict was ultimately harmless
Again, jumping to conclusions and setting up the false notion that it is either one way or the other. Perhaps it is not, in pony culture, odd to party after such a victory. This shouldn't be completely alien to us. People celebrate military victories, despite the fact that people on our side died. Or perhaps no one did die, which wouldn't be strange either, but it was only "harmless" because they actually won. Had they lost, it would not have been harmless. There's perfectly valid ways of looking at this that you fail to consider.

>action of invading Canterlot was deemed to be wrong more or less because the actors involved did not follow the harmony doctrine
Again, faulty assumption. It could be explained in a lot of equally valid ways. It was an offence againt Love (capital L). It was a offence against the law, or social norms, or ponies' well-being. It was against the will of the Equestrian people. Saying that this is defined in terms of this interesting but constructed harmony idea is once again jumping not to the most likely answer, but to the one that suits you the best.

I really see that you're trying to make a point here Anon, and there are ideas that are interesting, but accepting it as anything but hogwash is ultimately an offence to my sensibilities. It's just so fundamentally flawed.
/
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>>25501311
>Enslaving an entire race was widely regarded as, at best, a necessary evil

Except, might I remind you, that we are in Equestria, where no one has been shown to ever own slaves. As much as it isn't paradise, it's not earth either.

Plus, Crystal Pones have never been portrayed as regarded as inferior to other ponies in the show.

>Coup d'etats happen all the time by people who believe they are moral

Who believe they are. That's your problem. Hitler thought he was moral. Everyone thinks they're moral. Does that make them so?

>If all dissenters actually are genuinely evil, you're in paradise.

Of course we consider them evil. Does that mean they're going to be punished? No.

Flim and Flam are still scamming dozens of ponies all over Equestria. Starlight is still on the loose, and who know what she's doing. The only examples of ponies getting redeemed were fairly large ones, and nothing proves us that small villains don't get away with it.
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>>25501171
>only guilty action portrayed is disobedience to that authority
You could say that the only guilty action is doing evil and make the same point. You're making the authority up.
>>
Can't we just get back to guns and become our own autistic selves?
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>>25501420
fukken saved
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>>25501358
>>25501368
>>25501379
Shut, shut up. You have no writing talent and no desire to learn. Your shitty autistic-sounding chatter is retarded.
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>>25501311
>Enslaving an entire race was widely regarded as, at best, a necessary evil
Since you seemingly want to argue out of a Western historical standpoint, I'd say that slavery has always been about "us" enslaving the "others". This is not the case for Sombra, who enslaved his own population, something that has no real parallel in history.
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>>25501442
You know that those are two different anons, right?
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>>25501442
I love you too, Anon.
Sorry I forced you to read through all of that.
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>>25501447
Pretty much this. It's easy to enslave people from another continent who looks ugly and alien to you. It's a bit harder when the entire race that looks exactly like you, shares the same customs, language and general skin colors is being enslaved right under your nose.
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>>25501451
Exactly his point.
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>>25501451
>tfw it's all me
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>>25501493
Proof or gtfo
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>>25501499
Did I do good?
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>>25501499
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>>25501499
He's been doing this all thread. He posts a giant multipart post in reply to one of the other guy's posts, instead of replying to each claim individually.
>>
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>>25501524
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>>25501551
>photoshop
>actually posts "proof"
You fucking retard, I used the dev console to make a stupid joke and show that posting screenshots to prove you're not a samefag is pointless.
>>
>>25501332
>I could cite a single line from the Epic of Gilgamesh in an attempt to make some point about the culture that wrote it, but it wouldn't be a strong piece of evidence.
You're not wrong, but are you really saying that they treat the famine like we treat discussion of the Irish or the Ukrainians?

>They seem to take situations of imminent, life-threatening danger, rather seriously
So do animals and children, who, in Christian terms, have knowledge of good and evil. Self-preservation is not the same thing as morality.

>a clear and unquestionable force that is apparent for everyone.
When it is not apparent? It's certainly present enough to make deviation from the norm remarkably easy to solve. You're making an argument of scale, but I can't think of any conflict present in the text that is not solved by recourse to a preexisting moral authority.

>The mere fact that Sombra never converted, that those who should know better still fail, and that there are plenty of minor characters with undesirable traits, show that there is no following of any kind of moral autonomy to the frankly ridiculous point you claim.
Characters who are portrayed at best as a little misguided or neutral and at worst guilty of moral wrong and disobedient to rightful authority.

>I could argue that all human conflict stems from people swaying from the right path, and that all solutions lie in bringing everyone back on that path.
There are people like this, and the difference is that people disagree with them. In FiM, there actually is a "right path" that the show happily endorse thanks to the restraints of its audience.

>this is the way it is supposed to be, as greater insight into the truth of them matter (and the fact that living beings will act in their own best self-interest) binds us to that truth
But that's the point itself. There is precisely one truth that ultimately binds them. You think telling Hamas it's in their best interest not to declare that they want Israel destroyed?
>>
>>25501570
Congratz, you killed the thread.

Who's making the new one?
>>
>>25501540
>all thread
I didn't even drop by until after post 350. I've only posted four blocks of text.
It's the Anon of Eden who has been here all the time.
>>
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>>25501570
>You're not wrong, but are you really saying that they treat the famine like we treat discussion of the Irish or the Ukrainians?
>>
>>25501595
>not editing the backlinks
Amateur.
>>
>>25501570
>who is Suri Polomare
>>
>>25501570
This is just beautifully wrong. Of course ponies disagree about what the right thing to do is in Equestria.
>>
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>>25495737
You're offending me, Anon.
I know something or two about philosophy and literature, and so it's easier for me to call bullshit when I see it, especially from people who try to act like high brow intellectuals and fail miserably so because of lack of knowledge and experience.
If to take writing style as evidence, then it's more likely that one of the autistic debaters here is darf.
By the way, judging by butthurt he was that Alectrona got a rather mixed opinion than praise to high heavens, do you really think darf would be smart enough to give it honest criticism?
>>
New thread

soon
>>
NEW THREAD

>>25501691
>>25501691
>>
>>25501570
*will work?

>All text is tied to points of reference that lie outside the text itself.
I don't disagree, but in that case you can't dismiss my interpretation since yours is based purely on inference as well (many ponies don't do remembrance days and death-mourning after war because it's just cultural).

>You don't honestly believe those are equal?
You're making an argument from scale, but the degrees of difference are fairly nebulous. Can you quantify the the rate of difference between say, the show's Y-rated SoL and a warfic vs. the show's archetypal characters and fanfiction in which characters are mundane and novelesque? Different stories are different from each other, and some share more similarities than others, but I would the degree of difference between a kids' show aimed at under-tens and a fanfiction aimed at adult men is already so contextually different that using the former as an absolute yardstick for the latter is quire arbitrary,

>There's perfectly valid ways of looking at this that you fail to consider.
These are ultimately reliant on interpretation though. None of these things are explicitly stated. The simple Doylist explanation is that it's a kids' show and they weren't going to show us a period of mourning. Either way, the tonal quality of the scene is not that of a city after an attempted coup, at least as we understand it, and your means of accounting for that is no more legitimate without textual evidence.

>It was an offence againt Love (capital L). It was a offence against the law, or social norms, or ponies' well-being. It was against the will of the Equestrian people.
These are all aspect of the singular moral authority though. There are no rebels in a paradise. Whether you call it Harmony, Love, the law—it's all the same thing. The outsiders are unambiguously evil because they offend lawful, rightful authority.

>>25501605
You're right, but what was I meant to say? His point was tangential.
>>
>>25501725
Please fuck off and go to the new thread to continue whining.

Or don't. We don't need other wall of texts there.
>>
>>25501741
>go to the new thread to continue whining.
no.

keep that shit here, where it can do no more harm
>>
>>25501393
>Except, might I remind you, that we are in Equestria, where no one has been shown to ever own slaves.
My point is that we can easily envision a world in which Sombra isn't the bad guy because we used to live in it. You probably wouldn't have a problem with slavery if you lived in 1650. Even today, a nuanced presentation of slavery is expected to take into account the fact that all participants in that barbaric institution were in fact human. I suspect part of the reason they were able to get away with killing Sombra is because he was pretty much fully dehumanised (or deponyised, I guess).

>Does that make them so?
I don't believe so, but folks like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are still idolised by a whole lot of people, so I'd say it's rather conditional.

>Flim and Flam are still scamming dozens of ponies all over Equestria. Starlight is still on the loose, and who know what she's doing.
As I've said again and again, it's not that ponies can't *choose* to be evil; the show just makes it clear that they are evil, and that makes it practically impossible to justify. This is just part of kids' TV. The unitary authority of Celestia's law, magic of friendship, etc. must be a consistent barometer or else the show's moralising would fall apart.
>>
>>25501684
It was poorly worded, so I apologise, It's more that ponies that disagree are demonstrably wrong, so it's a rather irrational choice, for their own well-being as much as anything else. At best, ponies get misled unknowingly (e.g. Celestia not seeing through Chrysalis' disguise). Good ponies are rightfully invested in proving dissenters wrong, and they manage it every time in the show.
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