FimFiction thread - Now with 69% more international politics

Should I watch anime or read fanfiction for the rest of the night?

>>28347549
read anime fanfiction, I'm sure there are some pretty good crossovers out there.

You guys read any interesting story lately?

>>28347919
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/314379/the-moon-has-a-harsh-mistress
Nice sci-fi AU, but it's a deadfic

I also started reading Ninety-Nine Nectars recently, which I've really enjoyed so far.

sup queermos. looking for something cute with anon and a pone romancing in someway.

lewd is obv fine
and id like rainbow cunt, bookhorse, sunnyD, or moon to be in it. but im mostly looking for cute, the specific pone isnt a big deal.

recommendations?

>inb4 go to aie
i know

>>28348294
I assume you've already read Exchange?

>>28348120
>Ninety-Nine Nectars
is that still going? dude used to come here but i completely forgot about it without his frequent shilling

>>28348867
It is, but apparently the guy died after posting the latest chapter.

>>28349026
>we killed noe
Rest in Nectar

If you're writing a scene in a first-person perspective story where the main character is going to forget the events transpiring, how would you go about wiring it? Would you treat it like a memory, where you only transcribe the events that the MC remembers, or would you go into more detail than he or she could possibly remember.

>>28349754
To be honest I'm not certain how you could pull that off in first person, aside from skipping it and having a flashback/vaguely remembering it when needed later.

What is the cause of the memory loss?

>>28350132
I was thinking about doing a scene involving Scopolamine, which is basically mind-control mixed with roofies, where the afflicted person (or poner) is extremely suggestible, but also doesn't remember the effects clearly if at all.

>>28350159
My only suggestion would be having an internal monologue expressing confusion and disorientation as he wakes up someplace different than where he last remembers being and wondering what happened.

With full or partial recall coming later as needed

This would be considerably easier to pull off in third person or even second person

>>28350243
Yeah. Thanks. I'm just tossing ideas around in my head and writing down what I think I could make stick if I ever got off my lazy ass and got to writing.

It is way too hard to try and string an outline together and create a story before you get writing. I really really want to write a story but there's just not enough of one in my head right now ^:(

>>28344174
>NMM wins
>Celestia flees
>goes back
How can there be sequels? NMM doesn't seem the type to just let Celestia back in to have retarded HiE escapades.

>>28347919
Carousel's (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/320477/carousel) really good, even though the plot's pretty standard for spoopy horror and it has a slow start.

>>28349754
I wouldn't. If he forgets what happened, how is he narrating it?

>>28348322
sounds familiar, got a link ill double check

>>28350299
>NMM doesn't seem the type to just let Celestia back in to have retarded HiE escapades
NMM didnt know where celestia went. Celestia took a blind jump to earth and it took a while to replenish enough magic to return to equestria.

goofy fate-controls-everything backstory:
The main characters mother was a thief that stole the key which opened the box containing the elements of harmony and sunset shimmered herself to earth. the portal she used turned her human and her bastard son turned human in her womb, spending most of his life in human form. since celestia and the thestrals didnt use tha magic doorway, but a brute force portal they retained their usual shapes, as the human remained human initially on returning to equestria. celestia retrieved the key, then the elements then zapped NMM and drove the thestrals and wendigoes to extinction


>How can there be sequels?
The first sequel is only tangentially involved as it focuses on a couple of army pones in equestria during the time celestia is goofing off on earth. the second sequel is post-nmm during the rebuilding featuring pony-turned-human-turned-pony-in-equestria shenanigans


>>28350329
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/169217/exchange
theres also i dream of luna, written by the same guy thats similar though not nearly as good

>>28350299
There can always be a sequel.

>>28348294
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/27874/top-quality-horse-words

So, why haven't you written anything lately?

>>28351483
whether the story calls for it or not

>>28352510
I have no idea what direction to move any of my stories in. I have three different story premises and a few scenes written but no idea how to turn any of them into a full multi-chapter story with a properly structured plot and all that jazz. I can't even focus on one of them long enough to plan anything out because I keep getting drawn into another idea.

Please send help.

>>28352536
You could always ask us for advice.
What are you writing?

>>28352761
My first idea is some kind of over-the-top action-heavy Charlie's Angels/A-Team/Mission Impossible-like story, with a team of snarky heroes with attitude fighting Bond-level supervillains. Each chapter would be a self-contained "episode" where the team get sent on some mission to defeat some bad guy, withlots of fightning and one-liners. The original team consisted of Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, Moondancer, and Radiant Hope, but Siege of the Crystal Empire made things awkward with Hope running away with Sombra and someone in this thread pointed out that it would make more sense to include more than just unicorns on the team.

I then redid the roster to be Sunset, Starlight, Gilda, Lightning Dust, and Maud. I wrote one chapter about them trying to stop a cult from resurrecting NMM (I wanted to start out with what would be considered a generic action plot in-universe). Wasn't really happy with it, but at least I finished it. Since then, I've been debating between writing a chapter about the characters getting sucked into a Power Ponies comic along with the villain (I got writer's block trying to come up with good villains for them to replace and what powers to give them), with the protagonists being slotted in as villains and the antagonist turning into a Mary Sue OC that they have to defeat to return home. I've also considered rewriting the first chapter with the original team, which I liked more than the current team, but I'd need to find a fifth unicorn to replace Radiant Hope.

>>28353067
My second story idea is a Shining Armor x Cadance romance story that tells the story of how they fell in love as adults in the style of a romance novel. I got really tired of everyone including the comics having them fall in love as teenagers and wanted to write something about them being adults and falling in love. Unfortunately, it turns out that it's hard to find a good excuse for a Captain of the Royal Guard to spend time with a Princess, since they're both very busy and Captains shouldn't be personally guarding the Princess. My current plan involves Celestia sending them both away on some quest to get them out of Canterlot in order to get them both out of Canterlot at the time of the 100th Summer Sun Celebration (Cadance since she's the last hope in case NMM takes out Celly and the elements, Shining to ensure he doesn't interfere with Twilight's quest). Not sure what kind of quest she would send them on that doesn't seem completely pulled out of left field. I'd also like to have it set up so that Cadance realizes that Celly has been acting weird for the past while and tries to investigate, which is what prompts Celly to send her away. I'm just having trouble pulling all those threads together.

>>28353104
My last story idea, which is still floating around in my head and still very nebulous, would involve Sunset and SciTwi falling in love as adults (yes, I'm tired of the endless teenager/high school romances), with SciTwi as a respected academic who's been secretly researching magic and plans to publish a paper on it once she has enough proof of its existence, and Sunset as someone who's either trying to stop her from publishing or trying to discredit the paper after it gets published. I kind of want to explore how Sunset would continue to live on Earth, and how she might use magic and/or knowledge from Equestria to give herself an advantage. I had this image of Sunset as an academic who publishes all sorts of novel theorems that are considered elementary in Equestria and building up a fortune by using magic to divine hashes and mine tons of bitcoins or something. I'm not sure what the actual plot of the story would actually be, though.

There's also my research paper idea, but I'm really not in the right mindset to work on it.

>>28353157
>Sunset and SciTwi falling in love as adults
>SciTwi as a respected academic who's been secretly researching magic
>explore how Sunset would continue to live on Earth
>how she might use magic and/or knowledge from Equestria to give herself an advantage
>Sunset as an academic
11/10 would read

>using magic to divine hashes and mine tons of bitcoins or something
Do you know the trick for solving NP-hard problems in polynomial time using stable time loops? The algorithm goes like this:
>read an input `x` from the future
>check if `x` is a valid solution to the problem
>if so, send output `x` to the past
>otherwise, send output `x + 1` to the past
Since x+1 ≠ x, the only stable time loop is the one where `x` is a solution.

This would work extremely well for bitcoin, since blocks are designed to be very hard to find but easy to verify. You could out-mine the entire bitcoin network with a cell phone. Of course, Sunset would need to be careful, since if some unknown new player starts picking up even 1-2% of blocks, people are going to get nervous. And if she gets anywhere near 50% of hashing power, people will freak the fuck out and the value of bitcoin will tank.

>>28353104
Have you read "Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard"?

Because that more or less tackles the exact same concept, but playing second fiddle to the main AU adventure plot on the desert. It's actually a pretty cool story reminiscent of old pulp serials.

Here, because anyone who hasn't read it should: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/230072/twilight-sparkle-of-the-royal-guard

Anyway, I'm all for doing something interesting with established couples. There's also the point that, since Cadance was Twilight's foalsitter, Shining would have known her for quite some time. But hey, that just gives them common ground for reconnecting later in their lives.

>>28353345
Yeah, I loved TwiGuard and I'm probably going to end up modelling Cadance's personality after her portrayal in that story. It's one of the stories that made me realize that an adventurey story with Cadance could be really awesome.

Keeping Shining and Cadance apart during the time when she was foalsitting Twilight is actally surprising easy, if I wanted to go that route. He could be stationed elsewhere or in training and it wouldn't be too far-fetched to imagine that they never met except for maybe a couple quick run-ins.

>>28353299
I never thought of solving a problem using stable time loops like that. It's actually really clever and reminds me of some descriptions of how Quantum Computing works.

I really want to write this story because I think there's a lot of potential to see some version of Twilight in an actual academic setting and to see Sunset trying to both help others and herself using her unique abilities/knowledge without making too big of a splash and getting noticed by the wrong people.

The problem is that I have no idea what the plot would actually be. A sexually-charged Twilight "Science/progress above all" sparkle vs. Sunset "There are things mankind was never meant to know" Shimmer? That could be fun, but it could also end up way too preachy. Maybe they both attract the attention of some villain and have to team up to defeat them?

I dunno, I feel like one of those people who spend too much time worldbuilding and end up with all this potential for cool stuff but no actual plot to act as a vehicle for conveying it.

>>28353437
>I never thought of solving a problem using stable time loops like that
The thing to remember is, that trick works for anything where it's hard to find the answer but easy to check if an answer is right. You can use it to guess not only bitcoin nonces, but also computer logins and passwords for any system, valid credit card numbers (complete with billing name, address, and CVV) for online orders, or the exact words you should say to trick the security guard into letting you pass. As much as I'd like to see Sunset as a magic-fueled super-hacker, that might be a little overpowered without some additional restrictions.

>Sunset trying to both help others and herself using her unique abilities/knowledge without making too big of a splash
The obvious thing is to have her tracking down supernatural monsters in secret. That would also make it easy for her to run into Twilight - they both show up in the same place to catch the prophesied return of the big bad so-and-so.

Sunset could work as a nurse in a hospital, secretly using her magic to heal people. Then maybe Twilight notices abnormally high recovery rates and strange stories coming from this one particular hospital, and goes to snoop around?

And finally, here's a stupid idea: Sunset works in manufacturing. Specifically, she runs a small business with a reputation for producing high-quality metal parts to meet any specification, even ones that would typically be considered physically impossible, and also a reputation for extreme secrecy - nobody has ever seen the actual manufacturing process (because, of course, it's all done by precise telekinesis and fire magic). I'm not sure how you would tie Scilight into this. Maybe for her research she needs a specialized part for the whatsit detector made out of some exotic material? (I'm thinking of the weird components used in advanced physics experiments, things like this: https://www.npl.washington.edu/majorana/design-technologies)

>>28353739
>she runs a small business with a reputation for producing high-quality metal parts to meet any specification, even ones that would typically be considered physically impossible

If she did this, I'd doubt she would go unnoticed. She'd probably get contracts from major aerospace companies if word spreads even a bit around, if not getting the attention of every researcher in the country, not only Scilight.

>>28353739
Wow, I just realized that this is basically the classic setup for an Urban Fantasy Romance novel. Woman with mysterious powers trying to get by and help others and paranormal researcher trying to figure out their secret is a pretty tried-and-true formula. Might have to go dig up some of my old Jayne Ann Krentz novels for research.

>>28353879
Sorry, "physically impossible" was the wrong way to say it. (No customer's going to ask for things that are known to be flat-out impossible anyhow.) I mean doing things that are a bit beyond the state of the art. The sort of thing where it looks like it should be doable, but you'd have to pour a bit of time and money into R&D to figure out how. And, heck, maybe that's a way to get Twilight into the story: someone analyzes one of the parts Sunset made, and realizes that it really IS physically impossible.

Sunset probably would get a few aerospace and government contracts, but since she can't really manufacture in bulk, it would mostly be small one-off orders for prototypes. For anything mass-produced, they'd go to a more traditional supplier instead.

Also keep in mind, since she's making parts that nobody else on earth can make (yet), she ought to be making piles of money on each individual contract. So she doesn't actually need that many customers to stay in business.

>>28353948
Best of luck to you, Anon. You have my interest.

>>28353157
>I'm tired of the endless teenager/high school romances
Yet not tired of the same old played out ships

>>28353067
>fifth unicorn

I think Minuette might make a good fit there, being one who already knows Moondancer, but who also adds a bit of energy to an otherwise fairly broody and un-self-motivated bunch.

I really like this premise, being a unicorn supremacist myself.

>>28353437
>I dunno, I feel like one of those people who spend too much time worldbuilding and end up with all this potential for cool stuff but no actual plot to act as a vehicle for conveying it.

You and me both, brother. Sometimes I wish I had someone I could share ideas with and maybe get a legit plot off the ground, but other times I can't even trust myself to be ok with the ideas I came up with not 15 minutes earlier.

>>28355593
I wouldn't mind seeing more Sunset/Scilight, as long as it's done well. Unfortunately lots of fics have them fall in love at first sight, and then ignore all the interesting issues like "hey, you look just like that pony princess who kicked my ass".

>>28356073
Fractured Sunlight and Long Road to Friendship are the only two that I know of that did the pairing well. LRtF had the advantage that the shipping was very much secondary to the main plot of Sunset's redemption, and Fractured Sunlight gave Twilight some even more heavy baggage outweigh Sunset's.

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>>28350732
>drove the thestrals and wendigoes to extinction
>Celestia commits genocide
Gotta love those wacky HiE/PiE stories.

>>28353067
>giving a shit about the comics
Daily reminder that the comics, and Seige (sic) specifically, is not canon. Pic related.

I'd suggest you focus more on the villains and flesh them out. They're the ones who would really be driving this forward. Think up their motives, personalities, and the evil lairs the climatic fights are going to take place in.

>>28353104
>hard to find a good excuse
Celestia, wanting Cadance to grow as a princess, starts including her in the military council briefings that Shining, Spitfire, and OC Admiral batponies as CIA/black ops is optional lead. Cadance, overwhelmed by all the realpolitik and militarism, starts bugging Shining outside of meetings about all the terms and knowledge. Snowball gets kicked down the hill, etc., etc.

>what kind of quest she would send them on
Saddle Arabia's the default these days (muh diplomatic mission), but there's plenty of options (Vanhoover is restless because of a lack of attention from Celestia, another disaster in Fillydelphia, griffin BS, etc.)

I can write action, I can write movement.

I can't write dialog. It all seems stilted and unnatural. I write it like I'm watching it on television (a lot of head movements and expressions that don't add anything to the dialog). How can I fix this?

>>28356876
Write experimental stories without dialogue.

>>28356876
listen to radio talk shows. or you as awful as it sounds, try talking to people.

a basement dwelling friendless introvert writing dialogue goes about as well as a virgin writing sex. it comes across as very obvious you dont know what youre doing

>>28356876
Listen to how people talk, you don't need to go outside and talk to people but instead eavesdrop.

That being said, the dialogue in stories and films is different to what people say in real life - it's like a fine line between the two. I suppose you could think of it as "what is it that these characters are or aren't saying?"

>>28356857
>Batponies as black ops
>black
>ops
>batponies

They have fangs so get noticed everywhere, can't use magic, probably aren't as strong as mud ponies and can only fly to make up for it. Why the fuck should they be special forces except for "muh black ponies= night ops = black ops cod lel"?

>>28356857
Surely changelings or unicorns who excel in magic that disguises them would be better?

I can sorta understand batponies being used for night time missions where stealth and sneaking might be good, but they're rather too specialised and specific. Maybe if they didn't bare their fangs, wore make up/fake pegasus wings to blend in?

>>28357929
>Maybe if they didn't bare their fangs, wore make up/fake pegasus wings to blend in?

Then just use pegasi instead of make-up.

>>28355593
Is Sunlight (with either version of Twilight, I suppose) even that popular? It's not that big outside of the list of ships containing Sunset, where it's probably her most popular pairing.

>>28358148
pony versions, not really.

But it seems the vast majority of eqg tagged fics ive seen have been sunlight (or sunsetXapplejacks horse)

>>28358001
This being Celestia's military, pegasi would make sense. Luna would probably have better access or use with the batponies.

>>28358148
Low-quality Sunlight shipping unfortunately shows up in nearly every "Sunset's redemption" type of fic.

have we given up on the idea that there are no batponies and the ones we saw were just regular royal guard dressed up for nightmareoween?

>>28358163
Weren't there batponies in the NMMM alternate timeline in the S5 finale?

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>>28358185
A few differences, ears, irises and wings have been changed on the pegasi, though no idea if this was because of her magic or something else.

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>>28358204
There was this debate on twitter a while back too.

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>>28358204
Better one with their tails - could just be a costume/armour that changes their appearance.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/272154/when-the-snow-melts
Started reading this based on a recommendation from last thread: >>28344174

I'm currently about 1/3 of the way through, and I'm not really buying the characterization. Celestia REALLY hates batponies, far beyond what I'd expect given they're enemy soldiers. Meanwhile, the batpony major is a completely reasonable guy, who has a bizarre obsession with keeping Celestia safe.

Also, the author has developed the unfortunate habit of writing the same scene twice from different POVs, which fucks with the pacing.

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>>28358209

>>28358639
GAS THE BATS

>>28358639
>Celestia REALLY hates batponies, far beyond what I'd expect given they're enemy soldiers

keep in mind that batpones are technically alien invaders from another dimension and right before she escaped through the portalshe watched a significant portion of her army get completely wiped out by a batpone/minotaur ruse

>who has a bizarre obsession with keeping Celestia safe

he knows that she is luna/NMMs sister and iirc they were under orders to try to capture her alive. also he realizes that a living celestia is his only possible chance of returning home.

>>28358209
no one cares what larson thinks because everything larson thinks is retarded.

and fausts opinions havent been relevant in years

Only page nine but im stepping away for awhile bump

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This thread is getting slower by the year.

>>28360300
I'm pretty sure I could check the archives, measuer the average lifespan of each of the give or take 164 threads we've had, and determine the ratio by which we're dying.

It sure beats staring at a blank GDoc file while sobbing.

>>28358213
Since the wings seem to be all identical despite coat color and are like the armor's color, I'm supposing those are only earth ponies, with furrier ears and black armor.

>>28360428
Huh. Never thought of that.
Have we ever seen a thestral without armour?

>>28360447
Thestral? Is that the word for batpony?

If so, I don't think so.

Since there are only three canon races presented in HWM, and that there is no evidence or reason for another one which is basically a copy of a pegasi to be created, I'm supposing "bat" ponies are merely pegasi with ceremonial night armor, just like how the royal guard have golden armor to represent the sun.

>>28360428
You seem to be forgetting about Rainbow Dash in the back there. Could make sense but why earth ponies? Would the wings even work on them?

>>28360447
>>28360543
Thestral is just another fancier word used for batpony.

If you take just the series as canon then the only closest thing was Flutterbat.

>upload your first fic in more than five years of watching the show
>FIMFic 404's

>>28360763
>Could make sense but why earth ponies? Would the wings even work on them?

Because those wings are clearly not theirs and too thin to encase pegasi wings. It's purely decorative from what I'm seeing. Plus, it's not like you'd expect a king's personal guards to go fight a war.

>Flutterbat

Which was literally a Fluttershy-bat fusion. I think Twilight would have known more about it if she was actually similar to a real species.

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>>28360858
Then what about these guards? This was from the Luna Eclipsed episode which shows them clearly working. Though in Cutie Remark the guards don't flap their wings.

>>28360924
ITT: Faust is wrong and the show is wrong and bat pones are a conspiracy by the equestrian princesses

How do you view the Zebra lands? As simply Africa with no changes, or something different? The only lore we have is from Celestia and Luna's brief visit to them in their diary, apparently they were extreme isolationists and created sealed off communities to protect themselves from Manticores. This obviously explains why there is very little to no contact between Zebras and Equestrians: They don't want to even send ambassadors.

Personally I'm starting to think of the zebra more like if a Chinese style empire was established in Africa, though even more fractured with no real unified identity, having Africa's problem of having hundreds upon hundreds of ethnic groups. They still adopt the Isolationist tendencies of China, being strictly against any foreign trade, influence, or foreigners/citizens leaving the Zebra lands.

Thus I think the reason Zecora is in Equestria is because she is living in Exile. Even without my idea, it does seem fair that a race that doesn't want to leave their bubble would obviously be against zebra who venture out into the unknown. Considering her magical powers (which she boasts about in Magic Duel) and her cutie mark of a sun, I think she used to be a very important government official in the Zebra Empire. Maybe an Empress that got deposed or Queen of a tributary state that got deposed.

>>28361073
>Considering her magical powers (which she boasts about in Magic Duel) and her cutie mark of a sun, I think she used to be a very important government official in the Zebra Empire. Maybe an Empress that got deposed or Queen of a tributary state that got deposed.
I was with you till that point, but politicians and royalty typically have people and servants protecting them and doing the manual labor.
They wouldn't know how to survive by themselves in a hut in the middle of the Everfree forest (except for alicorn demigods, perhaps, though given how useless even the princesses typically are in a fight...).

>>28360924
I always just assumed that the armor was enchanted to make them look like that or something. Like how all of Celestia's guards are pegasi with white coats. It's just part of the uniform.

>>28360924
Just looks like pegasi with furrier eyes and fancy wing coating to me. Apart from the wings, which could very well be some worn tissue, there isn't any difference from a pegasi.

>>28361146
Fair enough, I can see that argued. I still think either way, she was someone important before she had to leave for one reason or another.

>>28361167
The problem with this is the fact that Dash's ears and tail looked normal. Her eyes were changed yeah, but she still stood out from the rest of the night guard.

>>28360839

You weren't around in the days of 404Fiction. You don't even know how good - wait, okay, how "less-bad" you have it.

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>>28361167
Thing is in Rarity Investigates which goes against that idea that al Celestia's gaurds are white pegasi.

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>>28361237

>>28361215

From what we've seen, magical ability isn't related to rank in any way. If we went with that logic, every scientist would be a senator, which we clearly know isn't true.

>>28361237

Aside from those three, all of the guards we've seen are white with a golden helmet mounted with a blue brush. These differences just look way too wacky and obvious for any military group.

>>28361237
They were kinda shitty guards. Maybe they only use the enchantments for their elite honor guard and since the Wondercucks aren't royalty they just got some of the shittier guards.

>>28361215
>>28361237
>>28361256

Welp. That's what I get for not paying attention. R.I.P. head canon. Sorry.

>>28361237
>>28361256
It is not the coats or horns, it is the eye color.

Do you have link to the place where I can find a lot of clopfiction to read?

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>>28361305
Even their eye colors change

>>28361331
Go on Fimfiction and choose the 'Clopfic' option under story lists. Ignore anything with the name 'Fallout Equestria' in the title. They only put sex on their tags because they have a lot of edgy rape, though they never actually describe the rape scenes so you're shit out of luck if you want a wank.

>>28359084
>keep in mind that blah blah
Yeah I know. But the major makes several perfectly reasonable requests for her surrender, and instead of a polite "no", or even an impolite "no", he gets:
>Celestia was breathing hard, but still managed to give him a look of pure loathing. “You think I can take the word of one of your kind, thestral? You are murderers, killers, all of you! ALL OF YOU! Your words hide the poison the flows within your soul!”
Which is not the sort of thing I'd expect to see from Celestia, even given the context. I'd expect her to be angry, but this level of blind hatred is hard to reconcile with the rest of her character.

>he knows that she is luna/NMMs sister and iirc they were under orders to try to capture her alive
You're right, I forgot about that but I saw it while looking for quotes. It's just Edgy McEdgelord who wants to kill her more than he wants to follow orders.

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>>28361218
>404Fiction
You mean 503fiction, right?

>>28361237
>S5
That's barely even canon.
But seriously, if ever there was an explanation for why nearly all guards are either white or dark gray, I'm sure everyone who cares about it is long gone from the show.

>>28362285

>You mean 503fiction, right?

Yeah, that's the one. I thought I had a picture of the frontpage saved, but I guess I don't.

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There's still no update on the main 7DSJ story it's been FOUR WEEKS, damn it!, but there's a new chapter of... whatever this side story is. So I guess I ought to read that.

By the way, for those who have forgotten, the "Vibe debacle" refers to the time Blueblood blackmailed Vinyl into using mind control drugs to try and rape Octavia.

>>28362489
>the time Blueblood blackmailed Vinyl into using mind control drugs to try and rape Octavia
What the everloving fuck?

>>28362554
welcome to the wonderful wacky world of shinzakura

>>28362554
I dug some old posts out of the archive, just for you: http://pastebin.com/uYSenQGA
Apparently I didn't write much about book 1, but the mind control date rape stuff is all there.

>>28362719
I vaguely remember reading some of these while you were posting them in the thread, but I see now that I simply wasn't paying enough attention.
Plus I've gotten Shinzakura, Mythrilmoth and that third story all mixed up in my head, until it became some unidentifiable ooze of horrible writing.

Thanks for the link, I'm going in.

Did anybody else enjoy 7DSJ for a while? I mean it's gone completely off the rails since like, I guess book 2 was when it lost the thread, but like, the writing is tolerable and it was legitimately fun. It's still pretty fun but way more crap lately, but still, I'm intrigued enough to watch the train wreck come to a smoldering end.

>>28362839
>Did anybody else enjoy 7DSJ for a while?
I still enjoy it, at least a little bit. There's a lot of stupid shit going on (which is entertaining in its own way), but I remain hype for seeing Sunset throw down with Divine Right, and also for Human Edition showing up and blowing the lid off Pony Edition's whole backstory.

>I guess book 2 was when it lost the thread
Mind-control date-rape was all in Book 1. Also, Twilight attempting suicide and nobody noticing. But those were like 2-3 chapters each out of a total of 15, and the rest of it was pretty chill - just Sunset getting acquainted with her new family and that sort of thing.

Book 2 was a shitshow because it was written mostly by BlueBastard, who is not nearly as good a writer as Shinzakura, and also the entire story revolved around Berry Sue, an OC from "A Hairier Problem". The last few chapters of Book 2 were better because Sunset eventually figured out Beryl was a Good Person (TM), meaning she could lose the idiot ball and move on to reconciling with Celestia.

Book 3, as I recall, wound up having piles and piles of backstory on DR, the SIRENs/Les Scars, and (to a lesser extent) Human Edition. And I guess that went on longer than expected, because they split off the actual violence into Book 4. And Book 4 is also taking its sweet time getting to the point. Depending on whether hurricane kills count toward the virgin total for DR's magic box thing, he might actually have all his shit together for the ritual now, as of the most recent chapter. But, as usual, we'll have to wait and see - I expect there's at least 6-8 chapters left to go in this fic.

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>>28361266
Perhaps she was the zebras equivalent to Starswirl the Bearded? A powerful Shaman who advised the Emperor/ress. They had a falling out however and Zecora that went south real fast and she ended up leaving because of it.

Also talking about my ideas for zigs makes me want to read some stories of them to see what other writers came up. Any stories that go into detail about the Zebralands? Preferably nothing FoE or Zebra Rape related. FoE zebras are fucking awful and Zebra Rape is dumb because Zebra are actually small dicked manlets compared to most horses.

>>28363372
>Zebra Rape
uh... why is this capitalized? This can't possibly be the name of a verse, can it?

>>28363372
>Any stories that go into detail about the Zebralands
I'd be interested in this too. I had tons of notes about Zebraland that I made years ago for a fic I never wrote.

>>28363451
IT IS NOW

>>28363036
>A Hairier Problem"
I completely forgot that this entire shitshow is a sequel/sidestory to applejack the werewolf

>>28363551
>this entire shitshow is a sequel/sidestory to applejack the werewolf
Yep, but only by the most tenuous of connections. There's no werewolf stuff involved except that Edgelord McWerewolf (Human Edition) is banging Principal Celestia for some reason, it's just that DR is going to try to summon Sombra and he's gonna get Berry Sue instead. And Berry Sue is barely connected to the original werewolf story herself - she only shows up in the sequel, where she gets tons of screen time but hardly does anything useful at all. "A Hairier Problem" is almost like two stories rolled into one (Berry Sue + werewolf shit), with barely any connections between the two.

>>28363036
The violence is what Shinz sucks most at writing though. Every time he brings up his CoD-tier weapons knowledge it makes me cringe inwardly and die inside. I mean if he wanted cool and unique guns he could at least be reasonable about them, and why would the SIRENs be using so many different weapons and calibers? Fucking pointless waste of words imo.

>>28357903
>>28357929
Batponies would fill the intelligence niche primarily because of their night-related specialties, plus whatever bullshit Luna headcanon magic (muh dream magic, muh TF spells, etc.) you could come up with.

While some sort of intelligence/CIA kind of thing would make sense in a military council, it doesn't have to be bat ponies. Just a way to bring them (and Luna to a lesser extent) into the setting.

>>28358148
I would say yes, but then I realized most Shimmerfags have her as a waifu, so probably hate shipping.

>>28358204
Note the lack of ear tufts on the only character in that scene we know is a pegasus.

>>28359084
>NMM wins
>takes over Equestria and rules it
>Celestia wins
>commits genocide and/or extinction against two sapient species
Are you sure this wasn't a stealth Tyrantlestia fic?

I wrote a shite one shot a few days ago, anyone care to read through it and throw a starving African child some fried chicken of the sort that might help me to improve?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jj8m628L4_Ba-VkK-al-jUFrzH1ZNztzAGl_dBNd62w/edit

If the link is fucked, I'm sorry; I've never used google for anything but porn in my hazy adolescence. I'll fix it when I get a chance.

>>28364784
That link lets anyone edit the document, so I fixed a typo, but don't be surprised if 2 hours from now it turned into a nazi propaganda pamphlet.

>>28364806
Guess I'll be in for a surprise when I wake up, then.

I'm pretty shit at critiquing stuff, but i've got some grammar nitpicks

>Nothing short of a force of nature would drive her back. Or any older pony with a stern voice stoked with ire for her brashness as she took her first step into the ancient woods.

This sounds weird. Try making it into one sentence or just changing it entirely.

>Despite what others may say, the Everfree was only dangerous if you didn't treat it with the proper respect.

Watch your tenses. Should be "what the others said" or some variation on that.

>But the narrator knew better.

No, please no. I've never seen someone use "the narrator" to describe their main character before.

>hodgepodge lodge

nice

>Lightning suffused the stallions eyes, his horn, and the sky roared furiously.

You missed an apostrophe. This sentence also sounds weird. Move the sky part to the next sentence or something.

>“Come them, Symbol,”

then

>He brought her to the only thing that still stood where the shack had been; a simple table,

Should be a colon, not a semicolon.

>stunned midnight eyes

I have no idea what color you're trying to convey here.

>Stargazer took on a sagely air, the crows feet of his half-lidded amber eyes softened.

You should either put an "and" in there or change the comma into a semicolon. Also crow's feet.

>>28364784
>>28364912

>It's like painting; few ponies can wield the brush with any significant talent,

Again, this should be a colon. Read up on that shit.

>I may be your teacher, but at best that makes me a guard rail; your accomplishments are your own!

I may be retarded but I dunno what this is supposed to mean.

>she hit the ground and gazed the town on the horizon.

"Gazed" doesn't really make sense alone here. You could just stick an "at" after it.

>She could see it from there; the orphanage, her home

Colon.


As for the story overall, I liked it. The beginning was pretty rocky and didn't really pull me in, but I actually giggled a little at the Eater of the Dead saying he liked tea. One thing I'd suggest is to read your story out loud after you're finished writing and make sure everything sounds natural. Also, maybe brush up on when to use colons, semicolons, and commas. This was a cute story. Not bad Anon, not bad at all.

What's the most effective way to get upvotes?

>>28365306
Write something that people think is good.
If it were easy, everyone would do it.

>>28364228
> the intelligence niche primarily because of their night-related specialties

Intel doesn't do itself at night only. Even if it did, I'd rather send an unicorn which can do pretty much anything with its spells or an earth pony capable of walking miles and miles behind enemy lines instead of sending an obvious, black fanged bat.

>>28365306
create separate accounts for however many upvotes you want to receive and do it yourself

>>28365531
A batpony with their natural abilities would be more dispensible than a unicorn that would've needed to train and learn all those spells. An earth pony might be capable of walking but when time is of the essence a flying creature would be better with movement, agility and speed.

>>28365763
So why not just a regular pegasus then?

So are you all at school/work or is fimfiction dead?

>>28366869
Timezones.

>>28366869
Yes.

>>28365763
I don't think you understand the difference between aggressive reconnaissance and intelligence.

Intel is done by infiltrating the enemy or surveying an area. The area could be a hill, a plain, a country, a house, a person, etc. You need a pony that can do plenty of stuff, can blend himself in a crowd and actually get there.

Send an unicorn? Best choice you have. He can fight about anything he meets, blend in perfectly as an Equestrian and even relay information to you quickly by dragonfire.

Earth pony? Also a good choice. His strength and endurance lets him trek for miles and miles behind enemy lines and survive the harshest conditions related to his mission.

Pegasi? Also good. His speed and flying ability lets him go above any enemy defense and see much more than the two other species, while being invisible to the enemy.

Now, what could a batpony bring to this? We've never seen bat ponies in a crowd, even at night, meaning they're probably pretty rare. So you got a special snowflake pone that's a glorified edgy pegasi collecting intel for you.

That doesn't seem to work very well m8

>>28364912
>>28364916
Thanks mate, I'll work on it.

>>28367923
Right since you put the time into it, here you go.

Unicorns? Sure, they need to take years to learn and become proficient in a wide range of magic. Sure they can physically blend in but what if they need to speak or act? They'd need to know the land's specific customs. But they're like a glass cannon, powerful and wieldy in magic but weaker than an earth pony. They would suffer from magic fatigue from overusing magic. Rememeber not everypony is like Twilight Sparkle when it comes to ability. Teleportation? Sure, uses a lot of magic, creates a lot of sound and light. What's to say they don't have magic detection/prevention measures? Dragonfire? Sure, but what happens if he's captured and then given false information to send back or worse? That's a lot of time, skill and resources needed on training a unicorn.

Earth pony? Sure I'll give you those but what about on a time sensitive mission? You're gonna have an earth pony sprint recklessly through the day and night to the location? Putting them in sleeper cells would be more useful and they wouldn't cost as much as unicorn.

Pegasi? Sure thing, they're fast, can fly and use some weather manipulation. Wouldn't call them invisible though nor quiet, flying in the day is just asking for them to be spotted and good luck when you need them to fly in the dark when they can't see.

Now, Batponies? Sensitive ears mean they can hear things from a distance, better than any ponies without using any magic. Eyes that allow them to see in the dark, not to mention sonar means that they can fly in the dark, avoid detection and obstacles, no magic either. Dark fur too. What about their wings? Designed perfectly for silent flight unlike pegasi with their feather. They're light too, can hang upside down, quickly in and quickly out. Out in a crowd? Make up and fake wings. And if they die? Well then, they're expendable, you don'ty need to train them to learn all those natural traits now do you?

None of them are perfect m8

>>28367923
This is not entirely wrong tbqh, but still pretty wrong.
The way you get most of your intel is not by sending agents in the field and having them blend in, because that's just way too expensive and risky. Most of your people aren't going to be undercover agents, there's still a lot of other places a pony — even a batpony — can help besides HUMINT (or PONINT I suppose).

And if you do want to send an agent, you have to spend a while training them, making sure they have built a credible backstory that can whistand scrutiny, making sure they stick to it and won't talk, and then you still have to hope they can actually seize their chance to get close to the target.
It doesn't matter if your undercover agent is not aggressively average, you're not here to blend in a crowd, you're here to raise above the crowd and get close to someone in particular, earning their trust.

But that's for human intelligence, if you're thinking of a more hands-on operative then it still doesn't matter what they look like, because if it gets to the point where someone discovers your operatives in action, they already fucked up so bad that lies and a pretty face won't save them.

>>28368569
>Sure, they need to take years to learn and become proficient in a wide range of magic

Not like every other special ops pony who totally doesn't need years and years of training.

>but what if they need to speak or act? They'd need to know the land's specific customs.

Not at all like bat ponies who can just walk in any land and instantly know the customs, right?

>Sure, but what happens if he's captured and then given false information to send back or worse?

The same thing that happens to a batpony if he is captured and given false information to send back.

>That's a lot of time, skill and resources needed on training a unicorn.

Just like any other agent at their level, unicorn or not.

> Sensitive ears mean they can hear things from a distance, better than any ponies without using any magic

Unless you're in some place with no noise at all and peeking on a conversation, chances are that there's going to be plenty of parasite noise bothering you.

>Eyes that allow them to see in the dark

Unless you're in a battlefield, why would you send your ponies at dark? From what I'm understanding, the anon was talking about peace time intelligence.

>Designed perfectly for silent flight unlike pegasi with their feather.

Source? How are their wings moving air going to make any less noise than a pegasi?

>They're light too, can hang upside down

I don't really see the use of this.

>Out in a crowd? Make up and fake wings

Or just send in a pegasi which doesn't even need make-up and fake wings.

>And if they die? Well then, they're expendable, you don'ty need to train them to learn all those natural traits now do you?

You're like a pilot thinking flying is the only thing you need to get your license. They know all those traits, but they still need to be trained, like anyone else at their level. Training isn't only physical capabilities. It's behavior, discipline, psychology, general knowledge, etc. etc. Losing anyone who got this far is not an "expendable loss"

>>28368585
>And if they die? Well then, they're expendable, you don'ty need to train them to learn all those natural traits now do you?

Then how are you going to get it in peace time? Break into houses and steal stuff?

> you have to spend a while training them, making sure they have built a credible backstory that can whistand scrutiny, making sure they stick to it and won't talk, and then you still have to hope they can actually seize their chance to get close to the target.

Which is why the training is for, to make sure he does all of that and gets the job done.

> you're not here to blend in a crowd, you're here to raise above the crowd and get close to someone in particular, earning their trust.

Sure, I, chief research scientist of Zebrania, will totally trust a species of ponies commonly associated with intelligence operations instead of one of my peers or a dumb looking earth pony who probably won't even understand what I'm saying.

>because if it gets to the point where someone discovers your operatives in action, they already fucked up so bad that lies and a pretty face won't save them.

Which is why you send in a common folk guy who doesn't look like he's a secret agent, so it doesn't get to that point.

>>28368777
>Sure, I, chief research scientist of Zebrania, will totally trust a species of ponies commonly associated with intelligence operations
Bat ponies are not associated with intelligence operations, except in your own mind. None of that is canon, or even accepted headcanon.

>instead of one of my peers or a dumb looking earth pony who probably won't even understand what I'm saying.
Unless you're calling zebras racist as a society, the whole point of creating a credible backstory is *becoming* one of their peers. If they do magical zebra research, then you have 2 months to become an expert in zebra magic with a diploma and an academic record, or whatever the zebra equivalent is.
It doesn't matter what you look like, it matters how well you can adapt and how credible your act is.

>Which is why you send in a common folk guy who doesn't look like he's a secret agent, so it doesn't get to that point.
I'm not talking about humint here, but again sensitive operations are typically not done in the presence of a crowd, for the simple reason that no one can get any funny business done in front of the general public without getting some soccer mom to call the cops on you.
If someone catches you red handed, you already lost. Funny ears and pointy teeth are the last of your problems.

>>28368831
>Bat ponies are not associated with intelligence operations, except in your own mind

Wouldn't someone, somewhere make a link with the ridiculously high amount of batponies that would be in the secret services? Men in costumes aren't associated to secret services, yet that's what a lot of people think.

>If they do magical zebra research, then you have 2 months to become an expert in zebra magic with a diploma and an academic record, or whatever the zebra equivalent is.

Or build himself a credible backstory, do some crash courses on the subject and forge himself fake documents, like most foreign operatives do. And it doesn't have to be an undercover mission as a researcher. It could be accepting a job offer in X zebra university and using that to your advantage.

>again sensitive operations are typically not done in the presence of a crowd

You might have misunderstood me. I'm talking about taping and surveying locations, building relations, following persons of interest, etc., that kind of intel.

>for the simple reason that no one can get any funny business done in front of the general public

I'm not saying they can do any more or less, just that funny ears and pointy teeth just make you stand out in the crowd more than you need to. We've never seen a bat pony in the show except for Flutterbat, which implies they're a pretty rare species.

>>28368888
>Wouldn't someone, somewhere make a link with the ridiculously high amount of batponies that would be in the secret services? Men in costumes aren't associated to secret services, yet that's what a lot of people think.
I'm not arguing that the secret service should be composed solely of bat ponies, in which case there would be no reason for this kind of association.
In fact I'm not the guy writing a fic or whoever you think you're replying to. I'm just here to argue against what you wrote above!

>Or build himself a credible backstory, do some crash courses on the subject and forge himself fake documents, like most foreign operatives do. And it doesn't have to be an undercover mission as a researcher. It could be accepting a job offer in X zebra university and using that to your advantage.
It looks like we agree. But these things have to be organized very carefully. When you send a guy to risk his life in a foreign country, you make damn sure he can answer any pointed question anyone might care to ask. These things take time.

>You might have misunderstood me. I'm talking about taping and surveying locations, building relations, following persons of interest, etc., that kind of intel.
Those are different things. Building relations is humint, and you want an undercover agent with a rock solid backstory. For everything else, you do that remotely, or you do that without being seen, and it's all peachy.

>I'm not saying they can do any more or less, just that funny ears and pointy teeth just make you stand out in the crowd more than you need to. We've never seen a bat pony in the show except for Flutterbat, which implies they're a pretty rare species.
That's a valid point if you're trying to blend in a crowd. I'm arguing that if you're in the I.C., you don't particularly need to look average. You need to either not be seen at all, or stand up to intense scrutiny. There's no middle ground where you get judged on how exotic you look.

At least the thread isn't dead.

>>28368747
>Not like every other special ops pony who totally doesn't need years and years of training.

Different valued assets is all I'm saying. You can send in a high value unicorn asset if you wish.

>Not at all like bat ponies who can just walk in any land and instantly know the customs, right?

Never said batponies do, but they could be trained.

>The same thing that happens to a batpony if he is captured and given false information to send back.

A spy that's been captured and released to bring back information is going to raise more questions than false info. sent back through Dragonfire, and by the time they realise the unicorn was captured and given false info it might be too late.

>Unless you're in some place with no noise at all and peeking on a conversation, chances are that there's going to be plenty of parasite noise bothering you.

They should be able to focus in on them, not saying it's perfect.

>Unless you're in a battlefield, why would you send your ponies at dark? From what I'm understanding, the anon was talking about peace time intelligence.

Does it have to be wartime for night time ops? So what if it's peace time?

>Source? How are their wings moving air going to make any less noise than a pegasi?

Wing skin membranes are lighter, more joints, more efficient, more lift, less drag. See Google/bat documentaries.

>Light/hanging upside down?

Agile way to avoid detection/install bugs/cams.

>Or just send in a pegasi which doesn't even need make-up and fake wings.

Not much of a disguise if they have intel on what the spy looks like. Make up and fake wings conceal the batpony as a pegasi at least.

As for your last point, you'd still need to find and train a unicorn for spec op that's naturally gifted in magic along with the physical training to go along with it. The batponies may or may not be a rare species, but remember in Luna Eclipsed her guards were batponies so there's that.

It's been fun

>>28369475
>but they could be trained.

Then what is the difference?

>sent back through Dragonfire, and by the time they realise the unicorn was captured and given false info it might be too late.

How do they know if he was captured in the first place? Why would he even file a report while he is captured? Why would he take the fake information given to him seriously?

Giving false intel isn't

>Oh hey m8, I captured you
>So our stuff is there, there and there
>You're free to go, have a nice day!

>They should be able to focus in on them, not saying it's perfect.

Can you focus on a single sound in a crowded room?

>Agile way to avoid detection/install bugs/cams.

Way better than an unicorn levitating stuff, of course.

>remember in Luna Eclipsed her guards were batponies so there's that.

Most if not all guards with Celestia and the royal guard in Canterlot are unicorn.

This post is just way too idiotic for me to handle.

Question.

I have a situation involving quotations in dialogue. Which version of this line is correct?

>"Perhaps you'd fancy a game of poker, Spike? I know Twilight has to have taught you a game other than chess and “Organize the Bookshelves”.”

or

>"Perhaps you'd fancy a game of poker, Spike? I know Twilight has to have taught you a game other than chess and “Organize the Bookshelves.”

>>28369717
Normally, it's preferred to use a single quotation mark when quoting within another quote. As in:
>"Perhaps you'd fancy a game of poker, Spike? I know Twilight has to have taught you a game other than chess and 'Organize the Bookshelves'.”

>>28369764
Really? In that case I have a LOT of editing to do.

>>28369778

They're called nested quotation marks, and the rule is actually that you alternate between double and single quotes. So, for example, you would write

>Twilight said, "I read an article titled 'Fifty of the Most Popular "Quotes" You've Been Mis-Attributing.'"

As for your question, the answer depends on whether you're using American or British rules. In American English, quotes always go on the outside. In British English, only quotes indicating dialogue go outside the period.

Would naming Equestria's army the Equestrian Self-Defense Force make sense?

I'm not trying to copy the JSDF or anything, but since Equestria doesn't seem to wage that many wars, I thought a self-defense army to maintain sovereignty would make more sense.

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>>28369892
>the answer depends on whether you're using American or British rules
Why is this a thing?
I can get vocabulary and certain grammar points being different, but why is even punctuation different?
Captcha: STOP Liberty
Heh...

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>>28370372
SHUT THE FUCK UP

AT LEAST YOU'RE NOT A FUCKING FRENCHFAG YOU LUCKY FAGGOT

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>>28370372

Because America fixed English to make it God's Perfect Language, but the Brits are too butthurt to accept our glorious alterations.

>>28370390
Stop, Anon. You're triggering my French class PTSD.

>>28370390
Spanish is almost there with tenses that you don't use all that much. I agree that French is probably the most hardcore of the Romance Languages.
Can't say about Romanian, though.

Anyone have an opinion on The Stars of Darkness?

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>>28370390
>tfw norwegian is simple and comfy
Feels fucking great.
Plus, it's at least three languages in one.

>>28370432
I'll assume you mean this one: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/10529/the-stars-of-darkness
Never read it, but the premise doesn't seem to catch my attention, and the implied prominence of oc's doesn't make me want to read it. It does seem to have a decent rating for the amount of votes it has.

> The Chronicles of Dark Star: A Blade of Redemption
Yeah... no.

Any good guides to British culture and how to write characters coming from that area? I'd feel awfully bad if my pony just sounds like another stereotypical brit written by someone doing no research.

>>28370688
>Any good guides to British culture
A plane ticket is a good start.

>finale summaries are out
Oh boy, looks like we're in for a whole new wave of crap fics.

>>28370811

wot

>>28370797
Does visiting our Commonwealth neighbors count?

>>28370688

Several years ago, I read an excellent book called "Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior." It's an entertaining, well-written mix of simple observations (Brits LOVE them their straight, orderly lines) and more detailed explorations of how one's class, level of urbanization, and so on affects how one speaks and behaves, specifically in the context of English culture. It's a 400 page book, but I would definitely check and see if your library has a copy.

I really hope that's helpful, because I just spent almost ten minutes digging through book piles to find "that English culture book I read a while back, I think it had a blue cover?"

>>28370817
Why are you even writing a Brit if you don't feel like you know enough about Britain?
Or, to address the elephant in the room, why are you writing about humans? You some sort of human-loving faggot?

>>28370818
>Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior
>English Behavior
>Behavior
>or
That had to be on purpose.

>>28370831
>why are you writing about humans? You some sort of human-loving faggot?

>What is Trottingham

>>28370688
Look up some sort of guide for immigrants, or something akin to that. The state usually makes them, and large companies might make guides for workers who have moved there. Also universities might have resources for foreign students.
It should, at the very least, be a start.

>>28370487
>The Chronicles of Dark Star: A Blade of Redemption
with a name like that, how could it be anything but utter shit?

>>28370688
if you go for accuracy none of your readers will comprehend it. better to stick to the stereotypical 'blimey smoke a bloody fag pip pip cheerio' shit so your retarded readers can follow along

>>28371040
This.

You'll probably get a comment from an actual britbong telling you how awful it was and how to fix it anyway after you post it.

>>28364784
Left some minor comments. It was a pretty good lighthearted SoL.

Why haven't you rejected the Time Cube suggestion yet?

>>28369062
I'm happy I could help bump the thread by making a small suggestion that spiraled into a headcanon fight over what species makes the best CIA.

>>28369717
Both are wrong. Should be:
>"Perhaps you'd fancy a game of poker, Spike? I know Twilight has to have taught you a game other than chess and 'Organize the Bookshelves.'”

When within a quotation, single quotation marks are used. And, yes, the period goes inside both sets of quotation marks.

Also, what >>28369892 said.

>>28370372
>Why is this a thing?
English never got an Official Bureaucratic Thing to dictate proper grammar and words like French, Spanish, etc. has, so it's a mess of rules, styles, and preferences.

>>28370688
First, you gotta pick a region. Someone from Yorkshire will talk and act wildly differently than someone from London.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScELaXMCVis

>>28369534
Did you consider the point he made that a captured unicorn could be forced to use dragonfire to send false back intel? The key situation here is that they've been captured or tortured, like scenes where a character dooms others by saying it's okay when it's not.

If he's talking about bat ponies, then their ears might be able to do that. Not that it has any bearing on whether or not he, me or you can listen in on a conversation. It's like saying, can you use magic or fly?

>>28370334
Don't see why not. Reminds me of the roles the Royal Guard and Wonderbolts play in the series.

>>28369717
>>28369764 is basically the British standard. The period/full stop goes outside the quotation but inside the speech marks, whereas with the American standard it goes inside the quotation and speech mark.

>>28372438
>Why haven't you rejected the Time Cube suggestion yet?
First time using the thing, and after flopping the link I thought I may as well resign it to whatever fecal hurricane swallowed it.

Fixed it now, though.

These warfic arguments are always the worst. Batponies have far above average hearing, better natural night vision, and naturally blend into the nighttime sky. They're also incredibly conspicuous and couldn't blend into a normal crowd if their lives depended on it. Can't we all just agree that batponies have their own strengths and weaknesses, and neither entirely bad nor entirely good for reconnaissance or intelligence?

>>28372830
thats crazy talk. we gonna sperg out and thats all there is to it

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>>28372830
>Can't we all just agree
Where do you think you are?

>>28372543

Again, that's not how you send back false intelligence. False intelligence is done by tricking agents while they're operating, not capturing and sending back a random report.

Plus, did you ever hear about cyanide pills? Training to endure pain? The fact that they don't have a single super agent 007 to collect intel and plenty of other records to compare it with?

>>28370390
Meanwhile, the Italian guy cannot get over the fact that semi-colons don't have the same usage as in Italian, with Englishmen calling him a liar for it.

Yo guys.

Found another source of hilarious deliriums: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/307446/aca-decade

I don't know who's worse: the guy with a baby fetish-in-denial, or fag taking his fic too seriously.

>>28373321
>Contains physical regression and, later on, diapers
Absolutely disgusting.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/150325/fifty-things-that-ponyville-citizens-are-not-allowed-to-do

If you enjoyed "Skippy's List" or "Things Mr. Welch is not Allowed to do in an RPG", then you'll probably enjoy this story too.

Definitely not a bump

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In the feature box right now:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/345616/the-great-thaw

>In Equestria, the only season ponies can experience until they meet their soul mate is winter.
I'm tempted to read this fic just to see how the fuck that works, specifically. It's like that tumblr meme where you can only see in black-and-white until you meet your soulmate, only it makes way less sense.

>>28374111
>the term soulmate applies to something that isnt real

so humans have no soul? is radiantbeam one of chatannoyances alts?

>>28374171
Should read "refers to", not "applies to". Meaning soulmates aren't real.

>>28374111
>tumblr meme where you can only see in black-and-white until you meet your soulmate

Is that an actual meme? Because I've read a book series that started in the early 90s with that premise.

>>28374370
>I've read a book series that started in the early 90s with that premise.
Really?
How is it called?

>>28374388
http://www.christinefeehan.com/dark_series/

It's paranormal romance, so don't expect anything deep or profound. It's pure "my man was nothing before meeting me" wish-fulfillment.

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I just found out a clopfic I wrote in 2013 is the highest rated clopfic on the site for that particular background character.
That would normally make me feel good if it wasn't my worst written story.

boop

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/297904/just-a-crazy-old-woman

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>>28375095
Found i

If you go out far enough
you'll see the sun as just a spark
in a dying fire
if you go out far enough.

If you go out far enough
you'll see the whole wheel of the Milky Way
turning on the roads of the night
if you go out far enough.

If you go out far enough
you'll see the Universe itself,
billions of light-years, all of time
as just a glimmer, as lonely and distant
as a star on a June night.

And yet, my friend, if you go out far enough
you'll just be at the beginning
of bumps

>>28374111
I went back and read this. It was okay, but totally failed to explain the mechanics of the "can only experience winter" thing. All I got is that it causes ponies to hallucinate being in a blizzard at all times, even indoors, until they first set eyes on their soulmate. For some reason wearing clothes (mainly heavy winter coats) will block the effect. It seems like this would result in a high rate of heatstroke during the summer, I'm not sure how they prevent that.

Also, for some reason, even though Sunset knew Rarity was her soulmate from day one, she spent three years dating Flash and being a raging bitch to her. No explanation of that part, either.

>>28374370
Yeah, I googled it a bit, and "soulmate AUs" are definitely a thing on tumblr. Common variations are "can only see black & white until you first see/touch your soulmate", "born with soulmate's name written on your arm", and "magical wrist tattoo that counts down time until you meet your soulmate".

Monochromatic (author of The Enchanted Library and approximately 9,000 other Raritwi fics) wrote a more reasonable-sounding "pony soulmate AU" fic at some point: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/297630/colors-of-the-soul

>>28378345
>"can only see black & white until you first see/touch your soulmate", "born with soulmate's name written on your arm", and "magical wrist tattoo that counts down time until you meet your soulmate"
how the fuck do these forever alone permavirgins come up with this shit?

>>28378382
Achromatopsia, presumably.

>>28378382
You read some of the stuff in the Romance section of your local bookstore. Those things are written by married people for married people, and they're still ridiculous.

Christine Feehan's Dark Series: Vampire men stop seeing color or feeling emotion after 200 years, and cannot experience either until they meet their soul mate. If their soul mate dies or rejects them, they will lose the ability to see color and feel emotion again, and most will just commit suicide to avoid that fate.

Lynsay Sands Argeneau/Notte series: Vampires all have one or more soul mates. Soul mates are unable to mind read each other (since the author is at least realistic enough to realize that being able to read your spouse's mind would lead to very high divorce rates). Being in the presence of a soul mate also reignites one's dormant desire for sex and food, and soul mates can feel each other's pleasure during sex.

Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series: different types of supernatural beings have different perk for find their sole mates. Demons can't cum unless it's inside their soul mate. IIRC Vampires can only have sex with their soul mates period. Can't remember the perks for the other types.

There are plenty more examples scattered throughout the genre of Paranormal Romance, and all of it is written by people who have gotten laid before for other people who have gotten laid before. Let's face it, life sucks for everyone and wish-fulfillment is universal.

>>28378534
Anon. What the fuck.
Really? How do you know this?

>>28378382
>foreveralone permavirgins
>tumblr
Is this a new meme?

>>28378560
I had a little bit of a phase a few years ago, when I was feeling very lonely. Managed to get through around 300 romance novels in the space of a year before I discovered pony and joined the ride. It's funny, but I'm probably one of the few people in the world for which the average quality to reading materials consumed went up after I started reading fanfiction.

There's still a few series I like to keep up with because they're enjoyable reads. Nothing profound or thought provoking, but I do enough heavy reading for research that I want something mindless to relax with in my downtime. It's also funny to see how ridiculously Sue-ish published authors can get away with making their characters without getting called on it.

Like, I read one story where the male protagonist was a hot, brooding/angsty, mysterious, control-freak CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a medical doctor, the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize, and a psychic supersoldier who went on special ops missions for the government when not causing every pair of panties within a hundred meters to melt because he's just so gorgeous. He ends up marrying a woman with zero material wealth and zero self-esteem, even though she's actually really talented at a lot of things and really, really hot as well, but because of her tragic backstory has never known love before. (The book is Spider Game by Christine Feehan, for those interested)

Yeah, whoever said fanfiction is the lowest form of fiction hasn't read enough published books.

>>28378644
I'm still worried for your sanity, but I'll settle for that answer.

But you're right that the lowest form of published books can be really shit. I use the term "Gas Station Literature" for that sort of shit, though I've only read one because it showed up free in my mailbox.

>>28378745
My friend calls them "dime-stone novels," which is a bit of an old term but I like the sound of it.

And really, why would that make you worry more about my sanity than the fact that I'm here or that I've written a clopfic?

>>28379060
>I've written a clopfic
You have? Link?

>>28379092
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/343754/under-covers

>>28379263
>under-covers
Ah, that one. I liked the agency stuff, but the clop seemed out of place. Twilight Velvet inviting Bon Bon to join her and Night Light is the kind of thing that only happens in pornos. Overall it felt like taking a secret-agent oneshot and one of those mindless clopfics and splicing them together. Both parts were fine, but the seams were obvious.

>>28379342
Yeah, I don't really know what I was thinking when I wrote it. When I started writing it, it was supposed to be a porno; and I intended to put about the same amount of effort into the plot as your typical plumber-fixing-the-housewife's-pipes story. I got a little caught up in writing the story side, though, and I didn't realize it until I realized that my porno had a 6000 word intro, at which point I didn't know how to fix it.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably cut one of the two elements from it. Either start it from Sweetie lying in bed so that my audience doesn't need to go through all the intro stuff for their clop, or do what I originally intended and write an actual spy thriller.

My next project will likely be in the style of a paranormal romance novel, so hopefully I can improve on the transition from plot to porn (if I decide to include porn).

>>28379438
>My next project will likely be in the style of a paranormal romance novel
You mean this thing? >>28353157
Cause that sounds fuckin legit

I've been thinking more about Sunset making a living on earth by using magic to manufacture stuff. Turns out, if she can magic a bucket of sand into a stack of 12" diameter quartz discs, she can sell them for about $7,000 apiece. Not too shabby given the main input is $0.10 worth of ordinary sand.

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https://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/1000000
What a lousy GET

>>28377027
Despite memes, Applejack isn't a background pony, Anon.

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>>28379757

http://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/999999
This one isn't much better.

>>28379757
>>28379975
Imagine if you would, reading all of fimfiction from chapter one to one million, sequentially as a single story...

>>28380251
You think all of the chapters would be on the archives?
I mean, there are only a little over 101k stories visible on the site, but there are 340k story ID's as of the most recent story in the new story section.
Not to mention all the unpublished chapters out there.

>>28379652
Yeah. Don't get your hopes up thought; last time I tried to write something multi-chapter it took three years to complete, and that's assuming I don't give up.

That being said, I'm still trying to brainstorm different ideas about what Sunset could do, both to help people and to make money. There's plenty of ways to use a little magic to make a lot of money (mining bitcoins, high-frequency trading with time-loop feedback, and transmuting lead into gold/sand into diamonds), but that's pretty well-trodden ground by now. I want to have her use some special knowledge from Equestria to gain an advantage. Like, maybe magic allowed Equestria to develop chemistry/alchemy differently from us, so they have some more efficient ways to generate certain compounds or can create compounds that we don't know about, not by using magic, but simply because someone in Equestria researched it and noobody on Earth did. Or maybe the Earth Ponies connection with the Earth resulted in more advanced breakthroughs in geology or agriculture.

Essentially, I want to reject the idea of technological determinism, imagine that Equestria developed differently in some fields, and have Sunset leverage that knowledge to do cool things.

>>28380328
>>28380251
>>28379975
>>28379757
Out of boredom, I checked individual chapters.

The earliest chapter still on the database is chapter nine, though it's password protected.
http://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/9

Chapter 10 leads to an incomplete 300 word Twixie story by sethisto.
http://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/10

Chapter 11 is actually the first completed story on the site, which voicefag read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3xxM9Devo8
http://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/11

>>28374111
>>28378345
Seems like it isn't the author's best work. Shame. Since I kind of liked some of her other Sunset stuff. Or at least, I found the one about Sunset having a fetish for people with power amusing.

>>28379060
>dime novels
That's literally what I call horsewords. I feel like it fits, except that instead of paying a dime for them I'm not paying anything.

>>28372830
And not spend half a thread arguing about headcanons? Where do you tihnk you're posting?

>>28373321
>someone literally becoming so brain damaged they become incontinent
>comedy tag
At least Pattycakes played things as straight as possible for maximum effect.

>>28374111
>only see in black-and-white until you meet your soulmate
Wasn't that a Twidash fic, or am I thinking of something else?

>>28380979
>arguing about headcanons
thats stupid. headcanons are vastly inferior to mouthswords

>>28380979
Multiple people receive brain damage by turning into babies, actually. Doesn't make it any better, tho.

>>28379757
Now THIS I've got to read.

>>28379975
>warhammer crossover fic
Why?

>>28347919
well just finished Savage Lands by Psudodrake, this one's over on FA though, honestly while it was overall a pretty good story, author dropped the ball really hard in the last chapter, like if I were to rate the story as a whole before the last chapter it'd be a 8/10, with the last chapter included it drops down to 1/10, that's how bad that last chapter is

fair warning about the story being both very heavy on clop, and being pretty grim-derp at times, not to mention being kinda fetishy

>>28381650
>Savage
>Psudodrake
>FA
Are you sure that it was only the last chapter that sucked?

>>28379438
For what it's worth I actually really enjoyed it. I love porn with plot and I love stories about Night Light and Twilight Velvet whether one on one or swinging together, so that story hit a really awesome niche for me. I'm kinda sad it wasn't more popular. But don't feel bad about having written it, I really enjoyed it.

>>28381650
I know the feeling, nothing utterly destroys an otherwise good story more than a spectacularly bad ending. I'm kinda interested what the premise was with this one and exactly how badly the ending was handled.

>>28380413
>Essentially, I want to reject the idea of technological determinism, imagine that Equestria developed differently in some fields, and have Sunset leverage that knowledge to do cool things.
That sounds pretty cool. Have you read https://www.fimfiction.net/story/244611/an-academic-visit? As I recall there's a bit in the middle where a bunch of human and pony mathematicians meet up to exchange notes. The ponies have proved a few hard theorems that are still only conjectures to humans, and vice versa. And of course there's some grumpy military guy who just wants to make sure the ponies don't know a way to solve discrete logarithms (which would break all modern asymmetric encryption algorithms).

>>28373288
What, pray tell, is the Italian usage of semicolons?

You liar.

>>28381984
I've not read it, but I got the idea from https://www.fimfiction.net/story/157612/twilight-makes-first-contact, which had a lighter version of that, in that the ponies had developed a completely different system for doing math that made certain kinds of math easier to do (IIRC the number system was somewhat geometric in nature, allowing for a lot of what we would consider complex calculations to be reduced to moving symbols around or something).

The natural extension of that would be to have ponies able to prove certain theorems we've not proved and vice versa, especially if the presence of magic forced ponies to think of math differently than we did (for example, in https://www.fimfiction.net/story/260906/a-white-mare, the proof of The Twin Primes Conjecture is supposed to be the basis of magic, and as a result ponies would have a much more advanced conception of number theory than we do). I'm thinking of making ponies be much better/more advanced at geometry and nonlinear dynamics ("chaos theory") due to spells requiring a lot of advanced multi-dimensional spatial intelligence (if you need to think in four spatial dimensions just pick up a fork to eat with, you're going to get very good at geometry eventually) and spells/weather control being very nonlinear systems. I'm also thinking of taking away some things from pony knowledge, like maybe probability theory (in a world with divination, a lot of developments in the field may have been rendered unnecessary at first, and by the time they realized it was still useful, the human's had a huge head start), calculus (not sure about this one; maybe magic works in a discrete manner, so calculus is less useful and ponies didn't develop it as much as humans), and any other field of math that developed a lot as a result of our recent technological progress.

(to be continued)

Oh, I guess I'll just post it here.

Hey I'm kind of new to pony. I've watched every episode now and was thinking if you could recommend some good fanfics, preferably ones from the early years (2010/2011/2012) thanks.

>>28383715
One idea I had was to also make Sunset an academic, and have her publish math papers on things that Equestria had discovered but Earth hadn't, so that she could meet Twilight at a conference, but I feel like Sunset's character doesn't really fit that of an academic. Even if she did go for PhD, I imagined she'd be the kind of person who went into industry eventually, or founded a start-up.

I think it'd be a cool to give Sunset a grab bag of low-key special abilities, some derived from magic (I'd make it so that magic is a very limited resource so that she can't just go around flinging fireballs and laser beams everywhere), and some derived from her knowledge of Equestrian math/science. so instead of making her a superhero who uses X ability to do good/make a living, she has this whole plethora of low-key abilities, each with the potential to make a small contribution (or do something really disruptive, but Sunset wants to stay under the radar).

I figure I can split it into three questions:

What is Sunset's ostensible day job and how do her abilities affect that (something in manufacturing like anon suggested would work; she could also use knowledge of alchemy to come up with new chemical processes and run a chemical supplies company or something)?

Outside of her day job, does she use her abilities to make money in other ways? (The bitcoin mining idea that started all this, though in moderation to avoid crashing the value. If she could use Rarity's gem-finding spell or some variation of it, she could also get into dowsing, buying up land she knows has valuable resources and waiting for them to be discovered before selling them to mining companies. In a pinch, she could also transmute lead into gold for quick buck.)

(wow I'm talkative today)

>>28383901
How does she use her abilities to help others? (I had this idea of Sunset being a guardian angel/vigilante of sorts for whatever town she's living in. So maybe she occasionally stops by the hospital the some miracle cure for a disease Equestria figured out but Earth hasn't yet. The doctors don't ask questions because they want to save the patients.)

The last part of this worldbuilding would probably that magic occasionally leaks into Earth like in Friendship Games and can be hazardous to people if left unchecked, so Sunset hunts those down to both shut them down and absorb magic from it to keep herself topped up. That could also be where she runs into Twilight.

Once again, I feel like I have all the pieces, but have to sit down and put them all together into a single, cohesive thing.

>>28383774
welcome, newfriend.

I would suggest reading the goddamned OP

>>28384059
those don't got any dates son, I just want fics from the early years

>>28384153
we compiled that list nearly 2 years ago. i guarrandamntee you theres nothing recent on it.
follow the links and discover that for yourself

Here's something for y'all: not-so-stealth self-insert, with Nyx as possessed character to boot.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/223095/living-nightmare

>>28384153
http://www.fimfiction.net/stories?before=0&id=0
enjoy

>>28384298
unless it was written by an actual toddler and not just an autistic manchild, then it cant be a self insert

and apparently the thing has been partially rewritten since I'm only showing 6 read chapters and its 10k words longer. but since its a shitty idea at its core im just going to assume that its still shit

from the pastebin:
Living Nightmare

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/223095/living-nightmare

117k words
[T] [gore] [dark] [SoL] [AU] [human]

Take a little Past Sins and add in some HiE and you get this. Years after her defeat, a puff of dark cloud that is whats left of Nightmare Moon is creating a new body for herself. Across planes of existence a 6 year old boy is in surgery having a tumor removed. He dies just as NMMs body is being created and of course winds up inside of it. Now Michael, a whiny 6 year old with mommy issues is a tiny alicorn filly with magic hair, draconic eyes and an abomination trapped in the back of his/her mind.

Pacing is terrible. We go from nearly everyone being rightfully terrified of the adorable abomination, to everyone casting hateful glares, to nearly everyone becoming ambivalent, to near universal acceptance in the span of about 3 chapters. Pointless shipping for the sake of pointless shipping. Little is seen, but ships mentioned offhand are luna/random griffon, rarijack, cheerimac, derpy/filthy, derpy/doctor, dash/silver spoons pops, twidash, blueblood/trixie, and pinkie/?? (it was mentioned and I forgot who it was) and others may have been mentioned.

Its pretty pointless (admittedly expected as a SoL), meanders all over the place and probably only appeals to folks that like both ponified HiEs and Past Sins 2/10

>>28383715
>in https://www.fimfiction.net/story/260906/a-white-mare, the proof of The Twin Primes Conjecture is supposed to be the basis of magic
I wouldn't put too much stock into that. The way Celestia hacks bitcoin in that fic is complete nonsense, and after 30 seconds of reading about the Twin Prime Conjecture, I'm pretty sure that part's just as bad.

>I'm thinking of making ponies be much better/more advanced at geometry and nonlinear dynamics
>spells/weather control being very nonlinear systems
Seems legit. Collegepone only has a high school education and she breezes through college-level nonlinear systems (and climate science, of course) because pegasi have been doing that shit for thousands of years.

>calculus
You need calculus for differential equations, though, and weather is basically a giant clusterfuck of PDEs

>I feel like Sunset's character doesn't really fit that of an academic
Think I agree with you on that one. She might have been Celestia's student but she seems a lot more action-oriented than Twilight.

>grab bag of low-key special abilities
>magic is a very limited resource
>some derived from her knowledge of Equestrian math/science
Good, good

>something in manufacturing like anon suggested
that was me

>bitcoin mining
I like the idea, but make sure you understand the mechanics of mining and SHA in particular, or run Sunset's scheme by someone who does. I forget exactly how it went in "A White Mare", except that my jimmies were moderately rustled because it seemed like the author had no clue how any of it worked.

>That could also be where she runs into Twilight
Seems legit. Something like, Twilight's been chasing down these readings on her new homemade magic detector, and finally gets to one before Sunset can close it?

>>28383715
> in that the ponies had developed a completely different system for doing math that made certain kinds of math easier to do
Unless you have a PhD in math or want to handwave it as "it's just how it is, fuck you", I wouldn't recommend going that route
Making ponies more naturally inclined and advanced in certain types of math is fine, but building up the entirety of modern math from completely different axioms would probably be too much work for anything other than a doctorate thesis, much less a fanfiction
Unless you just mean using different ways to calculate something, but humans do that already

>>28384654
That definitely applies to things like the geometric numeral system. But mathematics is to some extent guided by practical applications. If ponies need four-dimensional vector algebra to model spellcasting, they're going to spend a lot more time understanding that than humans would.

Also, I think part of it is random chance. The first person to study X described it this way, which works pretty well in general so everyone stuck with it. But the first pony to study X described it some other way, which could have all sorts of implications in terms of what's easy and hard to prove.

>>28384758
Yeah, like I said, making ponies more advanced in certain types of math is fine and makes sense
The "random chance" point is only half-true though, sooner or later people are still still going to formulate alternative ways to describe something (For example, we have like five different formalisms for classical mechanics alone)

>>28384355
>unless it was written by an actual toddler and not just an autistic manchild, then it cant be a self insert

The guy outright stated several times he had to go through brain surgery... at years of age... and that his name starts with M. Yes, I know, bad faith and everything, but makes you wonder, considered his other writings...

>>28384654

Yeah no, I learned my lesson about trying to rewrite the entirety of human knowledge from scratch after my last project (RIP research paper). I don't have nearly the mathematical knowledge to figure out this stuff, so I'd just handwave it as "we did it differently back in Equestria" and move on with blasting badguys or making out or whatever. I want to actually write a story with a plot and characters and stuff, not just wax poetic about the philosophy of Science and Mathematics. I'm writing for the romance fans, not the mathematicians/scientists.

>>28384366

Whoops, forgot about how important PDEs are for nonlinear dynamics. Also, I guess I should read collegepone then; might have some ideas I can steal.

As for The White Mare, its premise was that ponies were straight up more advanced in humans in almost every way. Celestia was a borderline Mary Sue in that story and way OP. That being said, the explanation for being able to mine bitcoin was essentially "we solved P=NP and figured out a P time algorithm to solve NP problems." I'm not actually sure if bitcoin mining is NP-complete (I have a crypto friend who told me that none of the crypto problems are actually provably NP-complete or something like that - I'm not a TCS person so most of it went over my head), but I guess the idea is that Equestrian mathematics is so advanced they figured out algorithms we haven't yet. It's pretty standard Sci-Fi stuff, I'd think - taking the conjectures of today and assuming them to be true in the future (or in Equestria, as the case may be).

The Twin Primes thing I can excuse as the author needing some way to make magic possible on Earth but locked behind some kind of theoretical wall, so he picked a random millennium problem and made that the wall. Personally, if I were to do that, I'd just "fade to black" all the technical explanations and just say "muh Equestrian advances/paradigms."

>>28384366
And yes to your last question. At least, that's one of my ideas. I'm going to be to busy to write for a couple weeks, so I'll probably use the time to let ideas stew and think up a more detailed plot.

>>28384927
>I guess I should read collegepone then; might have some ideas I can steal.
It might, but it's probably not worth slogging through 370k words of SoL for it, most of which is not especially good or interesting.

>"we solved P=NP and figured out a P time algorithm to solve NP problems."
Well, I don't remember what I was mad about originally, but on rereading that part it seems like the author really oversold the significance of P=NP. Even if it were true (which it almost certainly isn't), there's a decent chance it wouldn't actually be that useful on realistic problems, due to large exponents and constant factors.

>I'm not actually sure if bitcoin mining is NP-complete
I don't know if it's NP-complete but it is definitely in NP, since you can check if a nonce is valid for a block in polynomial time.

>taking the conjectures of today and assuming them to be true in the future
The conjecture of today is actually that P != NP. Very few people believe P = NP, but it hasn't been proven either way.

>if I were to do that, I'd just "fade to black" all the technical explanations
Yeah, that's probably the right way to go when the details aren't too relevant to the story.

Wanna read the adaptation of a large fragment of a Greek play?

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/333247/the-guard

>>28385690
What the hell did I just read? Is it actually part of an actual play?

>>28385726
Yes. Context will be forever for the weak, tho, since the part connecting the first act to... that, has been lost.

>>28383715
>>28383901
>>28383958
I would expect pony knowledge of nuclear/particle physics and even some chemistry to be extremely limited. Basically ponies should be about a century behind humans as far as science goes, with essentially a complete lack of many industrial (mostly chemical) processes that we humans take for granted in the modern era, as well as no concept whatsoever of manufacturing processes on a microscopic level. They should have no computers or other complex electronic devices, they should have no advanced metallurgy, they probably have at best extremely limited knowledge of radiation/radiology, etc.

What they do have is a little more interesting, because they obviously can kinda cheat their way through things using magic. As such, the case can be made for many things to exist in Equestria that shouldn't, given their apparent scientific knowledge. On top of this, they have entire fields of research that humans don't because of the nature of their world. There's plenty of weird sciency bullshit that the ponies can pull off due to magic, so if you can make it sound convincing enough, it can exist.

If you want to uninvent calculus for the ponies, it would be extremely difficult, but I guess you could rework gravity to make is so that the pone equivalent to Newton never needed it, since the planetary stuff is kinda fudged in MLP anyways. I guess that also means astronomy and most definitely astrophysics is severely lacking in Equestria too. A problem there is that calculus is a very important part of more than just gravitational physics, and they obviously have a pretty good knowledge of physics like that if they're teaching simple kinetics to school kids.

>human finds ponies

Rainbow dash :
>attacks without reason the moment she sees him
Rarity :
>makes clothes for him and doesn't want money
Pinkie :
>OHMYFUCKINGGOD HAVETOTHROWYOUAPARTY AND TALK LIKE THIS
Applejack :
>Have apple, also work on my farm.
Fluttershy :
>eep. Am scared. That's literally all my character will ever do.
Twilight :
>oh mygowd must study you.

99.9% of the (hie) stories start like that.
What the hell how do you fix this.

>>28386032
>What the hell how do you fix this.
Go to the source and get rid of the human.

>>28386032
>What the hell how do you fix this.
By not writing HiE

>>28386032
>What the hell how do you fix this.
Write an HiE where those things don't happen?

>>28386136
I just fucking might
God it pisses me off. It's like they're saying "oh nevermind the fact they have complex emotions and thoughts I'm going to take the first trait they ever exhibited and focus entirely on that."

But they don't want to read something better because they are a bunch of tards

>>28385869
Honesty, upon further consideration, I think I got too caught up int trying to reinvent Science/Math that I forgot to ask one key question: how does this affect the plot?

The fact that Equestrian math is different from Earth's makes for a nice bit of worldbuilding dialogue, but the exact number of calc theorems proved is likely never going to make any difference to the plot. In general, it's going to be hard for Sunset to leverage any advances in math/physics without attracting a lot of attention. Probably better to focus on stuff like chemistry and biology, since I can more easily use that to build Sunset's place in my world.

For the chem stuff, I was thinking that ponies' understanding of matter is completely different from ours due to magic. Like, magic let's you break down a compound into its magic essence, and by looking at how the essence of things interact, you can figure out new formulas/techniques that humans would never even consider. So ponies might never have figured out the Haber process because Earth Pony magic reduces the need for fertilizer and I refuse to put guns in my Equestria, but they may have figured out a way to synthesize certain pheromones that humans also like using a nonmagical process due to magical analysis of the substances that contain that pheromone, which Sunset could leverage to create cheap, high-quality perfumes or something. There's also stuff you could do with Alternative Medicine; human herbal remedies are a mess of trial and error, false positives, and nonsensical traditions, but pony herbal remedies would be scientifically evaluated using Earth Pony magic to be actually effective, assuming that certain things about biology carry over between worlds (considering how much else carries over for no good reason, I'm okay with letting this also carry over).

And of course, I still have access to a little bit of magic, for when I want to solve NP problems in constant time or fabricate impossible materials in a pinch.

>>28386032
Read the 0.1% of it that isn't complete garbage?

If you look at the vast majority of anything, you're going to run into a bunch of cliched garbage. There's no way to fix it except to find the few gems embedded in the feces.

>>28386673
I think the question is how much can Sunset do without magic when her understanding of the world stems entirely from a point of view reliant on magic?

>>28386673
>The fact that Equestrian math is different from Earth's makes for a nice bit of worldbuilding dialogue,

Our basic maths up to highschool level except for vectors has all been discovered long before modern technology, when many people still believe magic existed. Why would Equestria's maths be different from ours?

Their magic could even help them. If there was some kind of calculating spell they could embed in, say, crystals, they'd be building primitive computers and getting to a 1940-50 tech level.

>>28374171
>implying anything has a soul

>>28386915
How many layers of euphoria are you on, my dude?

>>28386942
A few. How many times have you prayed to a fictional jew this week?

>>28386962
None, of course. Why would you assume otherwise?

>>28387049
I assumed a true enlightened /mlp/ poster would be intelligent enough to reject this idea of a "soul".

>>28374171
>substance dualism
wew

>>28387071
I do. Again, why would you assume otherwise?

>>28387083
Hold on, I'm not sure how many levels of irony I'm on anymore.

>>28387248
S U C C

I'm an atheist, you're an atheist, most people in this thread are probably atheists. The problem with your post isn't that it expresses atheist views, it's that it's off-topic.

>>28387501
>off-topic posts in a general
gasp!

>>28387917
How dare you.
We're barely a lieutenant.

Are you not posting tonight, you, who I shall hold
against me, while Ursa Major sinks in the sky?
Lying here, I can't and won't post; I
do not dare post alone.

I have fire! Anon! My arms will embrace you,
in the dark my eyes will drown in yours, my face
is drawn to yours, I want to feel your body's presence,
that there is somebody else with me.

You mustn't sage, you mustn't ever leave
me, your nerve shall touch mine, your skin, all your
nerves, all you skin, no, you mustn't leave me, not
for a moment!

Are you not posting, Anon, you are the mighty, you who
can bump, and clasp yourself onto me, with your body's
heat? Soon is the page, the incomprehensible page,
and it is too late. Did I hear your steps? Or was it
those steps, which every night dance silently in my soul
I'm burning, the glimmering cells whirl in my veins,
urging to become posts, to become discussions in the light!

Why are you not posting, living, large, tall Anon,
and tending my body's thousandth flare, my blood's
millions of stars?

I hear your steps outside, closing in,
and, God, they're shaking, not like yours. Are they yours?
Your hands are stone, your breath is poison. I
do not know you, who are you? My soul does not know
you. My soul does not understand your eyes in the Dark.

Who's coming? Are you laughing?
The board's end comes creeping, sneering at my
eye's prayer,
- the incomprehensible page eleven.
- She's coming.

Was gonna wait til page 10 but I'm falling asleep.

>>28386741
This story is going to take place 10-20 years in the future, so I assume she figured out how to human in that time.

>>28386773
I meant different as in certain fields are more advanced compared to each other. Like, the whole we have better probability theory but they have better geometry thing. I could make their math "different" by giving them a different numbering system/notation (even though this wouldn't actually change any of the theory) or just handwaving it as a "different paradigm," but again, that has zero effect on the storyline so I can decide that later.

And I can see you bumping in the thread tonight, oh Lord...

>>28388463
>10-20 years in the future
20 years after EqG, sure, but is it also 20 years in our future (the year 2036)? Or will you retcon the events of the EqG movies to happen in the 90s, and set the story in the present day?

>>28389674
Oh god, can't we just assume that the world magically stagnated for twenty years? I really don't want to have to do Sci-Fi worldbuilding alongside my pony fantasy worldbuilding, and no one is going to call me out on that, are they?

>>28389777
>and no one is going to call me out on that, are they?
If you don't post your story in this thread, maybe.

>>28389674
My headcanon is EqG takes place in 3200 AD in an alternate universe where the Roman Empire didn't collapse, meaning a greater technological advancement.

Two-hundred years ago, they opened a rift in the multiverse where they met with Fallout: Equestria. The Goddess then caused a global outbreak of Impelled Metamorphosis Potion in an attempt to transform them into alicorns, only to have it turn them into the borderline anthro abominations they are today. Their technology regressed to 1800's levels as the IMP warped their minds and wreaked havok on the social structure.

They began to worship the post-apocalyptic ponies as gods and adopt parts of their culture, until the modern day, where their society is both human and pony with technology reminiscent of our modern world.

>>28389816
You know what? This makes about as much sense as EqG's actual worldbuilding, so let's just go with that.

>>28389674
>>28389674
>>28389777 (trips)
>10-20 years in the future
I've also been working (not very hard mind you) on trying to create a framework/outline for a story based on that premise. I have, however, been trying to massage the EqG cast/world into a cyberpunk setting, which to me means leaving Canterlot behind and splitting up the main 7. Personally, I think Sunset, Rarity, SciTwi, and Glimmer would make fun cyberpunkers, so I've been trying to build the world around them, whilst trying to bring something new and paying homage to the genre, without disrespecting it or ripping off too much. Which is hard because Desu Ex and PKD are so easy to pull inspo from.

File: Smuggershy.gif (458KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

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Meanwhile, I happily ignore all EqG material.

>>28389960
If you actually wrote this, I would definitely read it. What would EqG-cyberpunk Glimmer be like though? I'm imagining some kind of cult leader trying to get everyone to reject their cybernetic/biological implants (I'm not that familiar with cyberpunk, but from what I know giving everyone implants and stuff is pretty standard) since those create inequality, with her cult members hunting down enhanced people forcibly removing their implants. Alternatively, she uses special implants to control people's abilities and make them all equal, a la Harrison Bergeron.

>>28389979
What are you, some kind of sick pony lover? I bet you watch a cartoon about ponies for little girls.

>>28390016
I was thinking sort of an old-school hacktivist type, where she's manipulating a bunch of anons into doing her bidding by making them think they're helping her fight the man, when in reality it's her and three or five other guys in an IRC actually doing the hacking, and dropping their findings on the deep web to be decrypted. Meanwhile the anons she's using to zerg rush various sites/servers and shit are getting arrested while she skirts away behind seven proxies.
Obviously in a cyberpunk setting we're talking about committing terrorist acts and high profile espionage via hacking, but she would be an ideologue similar to how she was in the show.
I do want to push more of a 'misguided good guy' over an actual bad guy though. I want her to be kind of a shitty person, but I think she's in it for the right reasons, and doesn't exactly realize how much damage she's doing to potentially innocent/not evil people.

>>28390016
>>28390114
Oh, I'm also on the fence about how much of a role I want augs to play in this world. 2030 isn't that far away, and I kind of want to stay away from Deus Ex a little, not because I don't like it, but because that would feel ingenuine. I think something more like Boston Dynamics' robots might be a more interesting road to take, where basically robotics and AI have progressed to the point that there are independent robots roaming around in public, be it as part of a police force or something else. Transhumanism is a huge part of cyberpunk, so I want to tackle that more on the computer side of things, with augs taking sort of a back seat to maybe some kind of brain chip or something, as unsettling as they are.

Idk. Like I said, I'm not putting super much effort into this right now, I'm pretty busy with school and I'm not so good at time management.

What's your stance on hornjobs?

>>28390688
About as hot as those dubs.

TwiDash writers deserve to be put down
Is there even a possible worst ship

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546KB, 1414x1080px

>>28390748
Try Luna+Anything. Don't start shit about Luna+Celestia; that ship is shit.

Just to name the worst:
Luna+anyone in main 6
Luna+Shining Armor
Luna+Guard (fucking cancer)
Luna+Button Mash (double cancer; 'gamer luna' cancer & button mash cancer fused together.)

>>28391456
Luna x Anon is good.

>>28389889
>EqG's actual worldbuilding
EqG had worldbuilding?

>>28391456
>cum in the eye hurts like fuck
Would it?

>>28391648
It does

Twin towers, twin towers
Happy 11th of September.

>>28391456
>Luna+Guard (fucking cancer)
Why? Sounds like it could be done well.

>>28391648
Yeah, which is why porn actresses always close their eyes for the final scene.

Recommendation Bump:

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/53496/letters-from-a-senior-to-a-junior-changeling

A spiritual crossover with CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, it's a great adaption of the premise into the setting of Equestria, and those who enjoyed Lewis' original works will likely enjoy comparing and contrasting the two works.

pusxigxas

>>28388447
Fuck, that's some damn good prose nigga.

Me no make words good. Me wants secrets from you so I make words good, yes?

I swear, if you don't give me any sources and just tell me to fucking practice, I will be quite sad.

So I was starting another story. Then I wondered: just how garbage is that old SI I wrote?

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/144764/best-siblings-together-forever-until-the-end

>>28396350
>When two brothers that love each other awaken a strange power through the reaction of love and a nuclear explosion are sent spiraling into a familiar world, they must struggle to find their place.
>nuclear explosion
>a familiar world
Andre, is that you?

>>28394475
You just have to git gud.

Honestly, it's a translation. Mostly.
I was reading some poetry by a poet I like. He's fairly well known in my little corner of the world, but I don't think he's ever really been published in English.
So, I was thinking about translating one or two of them, just for myself of course, and I saw that this thread has grown rather silent.
Then I found one that could reasonably be written into a joke of sorts, and just sort of translated it, added the jokey stuff about posting and page eleven, and finally edited away most of it to meet the character limit.

The lesson is that plagiarism always pays.

>>28396636
>The lesson is that plagiarism always pays.
Or that covering your tracks works well.

https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/671520/el-diario-de-silver-glow
>Currently, the word count is 368k and change, which puts us past The Brothers Karamazov and edging into Gone With the Wind territory (or if you prefer, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy).
>And since I assume most of my readers know how to read a calendar, we're just a little past halfway done.
Fuuuuuuck

>>28397445
If it's exactly halfway done, then by the end of it it'll be ~120k words longer than Fallout:Equestria.

Also, I always thought that LOTR+Hobbit is around the same length as War and Peace, which I pegged at around 580k words. But unless The Hobbit is 180k words long (which seems very unlikely), then one of us is wrong.

>>28397481

According to google:

War and Peace: 587,287 words

The Hobbit: 95,022 words

LotR: 481,103 words

So they are pretty close.

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6KB, 366x71px

>it keeps happening

>>28397445
>translating an entire 400k word fic into another language
WHY

>>28397535

Did you already get an OC named after you?

>>28396669
>covering your tracks
I don't even have to. Once you reach a certain level of obscurity you can just kind of assume that people won't know where it's from, regardless of if you want to hide it or not.
Not that I care if people know. The only fun side about passing off bad poetry translations as my own in on the rare occasion that I post them in the poetry thread on /lit/, asking for criticism. They usually like it.

Kind of makes me want to go find some short story, translate it and shove ponies into it, and put it on Fimfic. But that's too autistic, even for me.

>>28397959
>that's too autistic, even for me.
i dont belieb you

>>28381650
>heavy on clop
>grim-derp
>kinda fetishy
Of course. It's on FA, after all.

>>28383715
>somewhat geometric in nature
How would that even develop naturally? We use base 10 because of our digits, but why would they gravitate toward shapes?

>>28385869
>no computers or other complex electronic devices
Large 70s style computer-like devices and 8-bit arcades* are canon.

>no advanced metallurgy
The skyscrapers with glass facades strongly suggests, and I think MMDW confirms, the use of steel i-beams.

>limited knowledge of radiation/radiology
X-ray machines are canon.

>>28386032
>What the hell how do you fix this.
Don't have them act stereotypical?

>>28386773
>Why would Equestria's maths be different from ours?
Throwing canon aside, I think they'd have to use a different base, either two or four, as they lack digits for easy counting that makes up the foundation the rest of mathematics builds off of.

>>28389674
>retcon the events of the EqG movies to happen in the 90s
Unless it's specifically stated in one of the movies what year it is, why would it be a retcon? The EqG world is very clearly unrelated to our own, so it's just as irrelevant what year it is there as it is in Equestria.

>>28390688
I'm so deep into my fetish, regular sex of any kind does nothing for me.

>>28391456
>not liking Twiluna
Glad to know I can summarily dismiss your post without reading it further.

>>28399014
>Glad to know I can summarily dismiss your post without reading it further.
foldfapping aside I thought you had better taste than that

>>28399014
>why would it be a retcon?
Because youtube didn't exist in 1995

>>28399833
Neither did smartphones for that matter. But now we're just being pedantic.

>>28399833
>Because youtube didn't exist in 1995
here on earth. but whos to say when mootoobe (not to be confused with the copyrighted name of youtube on this planet) debuted on on the purple pony peoples planet?

png

boop

We've even less activity than usual.
What's up, people?
Are you actually writing something?

>>28402948
For once, the answer is actually yes. Let's see how long it lasts.

I give it until Friday, tops, before I lose steam and go back to staring blankly at documents.

>>28402948
Kinda. I'm writing in between screwing around.

>>28402975
>Staring blankly at documents.
Thank god, I'm not the only one.

>>28403356
I think it's a pretty common occurrence. Writer's block is a common enough phenomenon.

>>28402975
>the answer is actually yes.
about actual horse words, or are you writing some other meaningless topic?

>>28404052
Well, it's EqG (that Sunlight fic I was talking about), so I don't know if you count it as horse words or not.

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>>28404069
Nice, I look forward to reading it tbdesu. Maybe I should try to write that cyberpunk fic I've been tossing in my head for so long then too.

On a less related note, does anybody have any tips on how to form a story outline scene-by-scene? I think that's how I want to tackle it but every time I try to build an outline for a scene I feel like I have no idea how it would fit into a full narrative, and I sometimes wonder just what I'm missing before I can really hammer out enough of a game plan to actually start writing without it feeling like a chore; because I can pour words down when I have an outline to guide me, but I crawl to an absolute standstill when I try to create the story while writing it.

>>28404332
I feel the same way; having an outline makes writing so easy, but actually making one is so hard to do. I think the process of creating one is going to vary wildly from person to person, since each person thinks differently.

What worked for me was to apply a top-down approach similar to functional decomposition in software design. I start with a vague idea of what kind of story I want to write. Then I start listing key plot events that have to happen for the story to work (X character must die heroically, Y character must possess the MacGuffin at Z time, Characters A,B,and C must be together at point E in the story, etc.). Then I list the events that have to happen for those key events to happen (Character B must kill character X, Y has to steal the MacGuffin from the temple, Character A has to have a reason to meet up with B and C.). Continue listing things recursively, and every time you get stuck, see if you can tweak something higher up in order to unstuck yourself. (Character A kills Character X instead, leading him to have to escape town with characters B and C). Eventually you'll recurse down to the scene level, and have an outline.

If you're used to software-style analysis like that, this may work well. Otherwise, there are probably tons of sites that provide different brainstorming/outlining methods.

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>>28404332
A scene is a little story unto itself. Why do you think you need a particular scene? What do you need to accomplish with it? How can you shape it to do exactly what it needs to do? Ask yourself these questions as you block out the story.

>>28404332
>>28404535
Derp, misread your question. I need sleep.

If you have a good overall outline, you should be able to identify the purpose of your scene, what events led to this scene happening, and what needs to happen in the scene to set up later stuff.

If you have that information, it should be easy to figure out where your scene lies int he greater narrative. If you can't answer those questions, either your scene is unnecessary or you need a better global outline.

>>28404069
>EqG
oh. couldnt come up with anything better, eh?

>>28404648
Eh, I have some pony fic ideas, but the Sunlight fic is the one that's currently holding my attention. I can't get any traction on my Shining Armor x Cadance romance because I can't lock down their characterizations (the canon characters have barely any personalities and if I add too many traits I risk turning them into OCs with canon names) and I've put my unicorn A-team idea on hold pending the outcome of the Season 6 Finale.

There's also my angsty Celestia backstory fic that I starting writing during NaNoWriMo 2014 but I think that one is definitely dead by now.

Also, while I'm here, I might as well ask a question in case someone with actual medical knowledge frequents this thread. Are there any incurable autoimmune diseases with high mortality rates that are untreatable or almost untreatable?

I'm opening the story with Sunset using magic to develop a cure for a disease, and given how Equestrian magic seems to be all about harmony, I figure I can pull some New Age-sounding stuff about autoimmune diseases being a case of disorder within the body and the magic of harmony fixing it.

>>28404704
>Shining Armor x Cadance romance
huh. you know, by far most horse romance fics tend to be either ocXcanon character, or two canon characters thrown together because that combination is what gives the writer a hard on, but I'd actually encourage exploring if not SAxCandyass then any canon pairing.
capriciousGeriatric has nightlight/twilight velvet on lockdown, and no one could easily make the cakes or pies seem interesting, but there are bound to be other canon couples that are essentially blank slates to work with who havent received a lot of attention as yet.

one could have a lot of fun with raritys folks id imagine

>>28404764
>Are there any incurable autoimmune diseases with high mortality rates that are untreatable or almost untreatable?
AIDS.

>>28404859
>untreatable or almost untreatable?
unfortunately AIDS isnt the death sentence it was back in the 70s and 80s

>>28404815
There actually are a few ShiningxCadance fics out there, but almost all of them take place when they're teenagers, which does make a lot of sense since Cadance was foalsitting Twilight at the time and even the comics have them hooking up as teens.

I wanted something a little more mature though, so I started playing around with the idea of them hooking up when they're older and more mature. The problem with that is that I needed to make their characterizations closer to canon, instead of just having some general traits and saying that the rest of their characterizations evolved over time as they matured. Thing is, I can't seem to figure out their character traits in the show; they always seem like this perfect, almost Sue-ish couple, so other than "Cadance is kinda nerdy and enjoyed fighting the Taltzwurm because she wants a little excitement in her life" and "Shining Armor is protective and a little dorky," I can't seem to figure anything else out, at least not to the point of being to say how they'd respond in character to a specific situation. However, they do have just enough character that I can't treat them as blank slates because it is possible to write them OOC.

The other couples might be easier, since they are more of blank slates, but I don't actually have any interest in writing those. I did Twilight Velvet and Night Light too one time (I'm >>28379263
), and that's enough of blank slates for me.

>>28404859
Wow I'm dumb. Can't believe I forgot about AIDS.

That being said, I'm looking for something a little more obscure and less treatable. Maybe I should just go through a list of House episodes and pull an autoimmune disease from there.

>>28404870
There's an estimated 37 million people with HIV/AIDS, and 21 million of those are not on any form of antiretroviral therapy. It still kills a ton of people.
That's numbers from WHO, if you're curious.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, 12 963 people that had been diagnosed with AIDS died in the US (of any cause). An additional 6 955 deaths within the same group was directly attributed to HIV/AIDS.
In other words, in this limited group of 19 918 people, 6 955 deaths (35%) died directly from HIV/AIDS.

No, it won't kill you like it devastated the gays in the 70s. But it's still fucking dangerous, and there's a good chance that it will be the cause of your death even in a reasonably developed nation like the US.

>>28404961
>he doesn't have the balls to write a "sunset cures aids" fic
Do it, faggot.

>>28404961
>>28404966
Wouldn't the cure to AIDS be largely the same as any other autoimmune disease?