Writefags' Guild

>>29289984
Tips and links:

Things you should know about before writing clop:
Vhatug’s tips for anatomically correct clop and squash soup:
http://pastebin.com/g4VpEg4f

http://www.literotica.com/s/erotic-synonyms (Because using dick, balls, and pussy just isn’t enough to get the reader off. Remember, the reader cums first.)
Had to. Puns are awesome.

Things you should know about writing:
Clever’s Tips on How to Write Short Stories: http://pastebin.com/GGBkxi7e
How to into writing: http://pastebin.com/V1ujiyJt
Writing rules from Navarone: http://pastebin.com/bnMmZ2T3
Ezn’s Guite to writing Fanfiction: http://eznguide.neocities.org/
Writing Book for beginners: https://mega.co.nz/#F!pwo21SKA!dljqCUmOhkwLX3x9_ApEgQ
Help for creating OC characters: http://www.dawnsomewhere.com/ocguide/

A few authors from different threads should you seek inspiration from their stories:
Flutterrape general’s writers: http://pastebin.com/eG8iY7Wy
Active AiE general writers: http://pastebin.com/mVG33ERX
PiE general’s writers: http://pastebin.com/Mgd0QuNy

>“How do I cure my writer’s block?”
Magic.
>“FUCK YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION!”
There’s no one way to cure it, but, if you can’t write, you may as well read stories. There’s more to writing than writing; there’s reading too, and that helps. Check some of the links above.
Try the following (keep in mind this won’t work for everyone):
-Figure out when it’s the best time for you to write.
-Fap then write*.
-Write anyway, and allow yourself to write shitty stories. More often than not, the block is the fear of it being bad. That’s what editing is for.
-Seriously, drink coffee. It’s a writer’s best friend.
-Listen to music while writing.

*Unless you’re writing clop, then listen to your boner.

>>29289988
Here’s some more stuff that didn’t fit in the second post.

A couple writing podcasts:
http://www.writingexcuses.com/
http://typehammer.com/podcast/

An archive of how to write pretty much anything:
https://curiosityquills.com/limyaael/

An idea generator:
http://writers-den.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-first-lines.php

A worldbuilding forum:
http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/

Copied little guy's beginning almost exactly this time.
(added an edition tag and previous thread line)
If I have to do this again I may get more creative.

I thought it was important to make a new thread since there was at least one person that received feedback last time (person doing MAS and normal series crossover; person with the shorts with a bunch of FNAF stuff in his bin), and I hoped they might want to respond and ask further questions.

>>29275566
>>29275577

Looking at the above paragraph, I think I recommend namefagging when posting a story for feedback to make it easier to refer to your work for criticism.

Bump with writing music if you feel like it guys.

oh no

How many semi-fleshed out ideas do you guys have lying around? Ideas pile up and my writing just can't keep up.

bump
>>29290976
More than I can ever admit to.

>>29290976
I wish I could remember

>>29290976
time...

>>29290976
This is my life. I literally have three pony greentexts open in my text editor, plus a fourth that has snippets, drabbles, ideas and world building.

I have at least one more idea that I want to fully flesh out.

In real life, this is basically my hobby though, starting works and never finishing them.

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>>29293641
I feel you, man.

>>29293641
you can finish

>>29295853
Oh, I plan on finishing the pony greens.

I actually kind of enjoy having a half dozen fantasy story ideas on the back burner though, even if they'll never see the light of day.

>have several good pone story ideas
>don't write them or give them as prompts
>instead plan to convert them into commercially viable books
Man I'm glad I started writing here. Really channeling my inner merchant. Now to choose between the sci-fi one or the fantasy one.

>>29283485
I'm sorry this will be so long, I didn't have time to make it shorter.

A Canterlot Wedding
Another incidence of Celestia giving the Mane Six public responsibility. The show can be uneven on its attention to detail, this could be a simple tossed off plot contrivance. On the other hand, it's at least interesting to consider that the princess is trying to get their names out there, so that if the Elements of Harmony (still something of a state secret at this point) have to be revealed publicly, her little ponies won't be like, "Literally who?" when they hear about the people bearing them.
Demonstration that Twilight can really multi-task with her telekinesis (without missing a beat in her reading or speech, or even looking, actually, she rights a teacup and smooths out a cake while holding the list).
They can be crazy on the details in this show. Canterlot is shown already bubbled in the background of the intro.
We get some interesting pony-isms during these episodes:
"Who in the hoof is that?"
"Best mare" (RGR would love this)
"mares and gentlecolts"
"-pronounce you mare and colt"
It seems like they mostly want to keep a similar number of syllables. Or maybe avoid "stallion"?
Cadance is already an Alicorn in the flashback, but it's hard to tell if that's supposed to be her as a teenager or grown up. We know that a frame like hers is possible naturally, with Fleur. Sapphire Shores was as tall, too. But we also know that Twilight gets a slight but immediate growth spurt at the end of season 3. Would Cadance have grown up like that naturally? Is that stature somewhere in Twilight's future?
I don't think I noticed the magic color change the first time I watched this, but I did this time.
We see that there's some variation in seating design. A lot of scenes in the series have chairs that ponies sit on like humans. But in Canterlot we see cafes with cushions on the ground around a table, and in the train, the seats were more like little couches.

>>29297318
The continuation of the BBBFF song at the end features cake topper versions of Shining and Twilight, and that finally made me realize that the incest joke in Friendship is Witchcraft didn't come out of nowhere.
More weird pony bodies. Pinkie doing the chicken dance. We'll eventually see Cadance do it too.
One of the coolest things, we see horn fencing/rubbing between Cadance and Shining as a clear show of affection.
While obviously swiss cheese legs imprisons her enemies partly because of the all ages rating on the show, I like to imagine it's also because she wouldn't waste food by destroying it (also the clear emotional satisfaction she gets from it).
The gem caves also makes me think about the impression of Canterlot as originally a unicorn city (we've seen that unicorns have a thing for gems in general, as well as mountain cities). The capital of Unicornia, perhaps?
The gem walls in the cave reflect Twilight's first shot, but not the rest. I take this as a subtle reminder that Twilight is a magical genius, and immediately adjusted her blast spell after the first one. I like to imagine this is a big part of why Chrysalis didn't expect her escape.
Chryssy: "Equestria has more love than any place I've ever seen."
We see that feeding on someone's love weakens that person dramatically, and strengthens the changeling.
I remember being involved in some fanon arguments about whether changelings need love to live, or merely to boost their power. I hear there's some especially horrific new changeling episode, so I look forward to the answer to that.
Chrysalis literally feeds on love and is empowered by it, why is she so shocked when that power beats her?
Horn rings for marriage; but they must be just for the ceremony, since they're not even wearing them for the reception.
Rainbow Dash can produce Rainbooms at will now.
Twilight has learned to dance a little less spasticly.

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>>29297325

The Crystal Empire
MLP going HAM with high stakes to high stakes.
Here we get what's sometimes treated as fanon with an in-show mention: Celestia sets Twilight on missions that Celestia could've beaten herself, possibly easily, as part of preparing Twilight. (She has every confidence that Twilight will succeed.)
The stained glass of Shining and Cadance beating the changelings is in the throne room.
Celestia demonstrates she can do the dark magic stuff casually.
Later, Twilight demonstrates that literally after seeing it once, she can copy it.
We see what are clearly Celestia and Luna doing the shadow-ification of Sombra, and with a multi-hued beam, too, though not quite the rainbow of the Elements. (it was blue, purple, yellow and white.) This must have been only shortly before Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon.
Shining calls the area the arctic. Literally north of their planet's arctic circle? Does the Crystal Empire have a midnight sun in midsummer? (this is the rough guideline for how we defined the arctic on Earth).
They show us Shining's magic being blocked, implying it might be possible generally.
The political situation is, again, beyond confusing. Also the ethnic one. Are (true) crystal ponies a fourth tribe? (or fifth, if bat wing ponies count). They just always lived apart from the others in their separate empire? Then again, we're specifically told about the magic of the Crystal Empire spreading across all of Equestria specifically, implying some connection.
The Equestrians feel completely entitled to live in the palace and stage a public event in the Crystal Empire. Indications of its sovereignty? Especially after Celestia and Luna put their conqueror on ice? Or just completely practical, since nopony was stopping them?
The first ruler of the Crystal Empire was a Queen.
They apparently had armor ready to go for pegasi.

>>29297716
Rarity is willing to be wrong about a color word to fit the meter of a song (that flag has two hues at most dresshoers).
Rainbow Dash makes a chicken sound, instantly and forever vindicating every birdhorse headcanon ever made.
RD immediately picks Fluttershy to be the other jouster, and I can't help but wonder if it's because she unconsciously expects her to adhere to the faintly militaristic and competitive standard of the Pegasus race. Or maybe it's because she realized jousting with Pinkie Pie would be an even bigger farce.
Twilight Sparkle, literal element of friendship, official student of friendship under Celestia, does not consider that it might be cool to involve her friends in her test.
Spike's greatest fear is being sent away from Twilight.
Twilight has gravity magic.
Sombra could make a teleport trap.
I wonder if Cadance as Crystal Princess was planned from her creation, given her cutie mark.
Spike gets his stained glass window.
We've never seen Starswirl's cutie mark in the show, says the wiki, but the cover of that book is very similar to the one he has in merchandise. I can feel headcanons swirling within me.

>>29297720
State of the retrospective retrospective:
Here's another one I've seen in a few episodes and didn't comment on specifically
Sometimes the animators have ponies gesture with both forelimbs up, but they keep their horizontal posture. It looks really weird and unnatural, how do they balance!? Earth magic, flight, and unicorn magic respectively?

Some of the most notable things to me:
I've mentioned a few other body language bits.
The unicorn horn rubbing.
We see a few references to the idea that Pinkie is mostly only ever afraid as a kind of performance.
Ponies mostly don't know what a minotaur is, they called Iron Will a monster, but didn't seem especially concerned about him being one, or care much when Fluttershy corrects them, telling them he's a minotaur.
Equestria is definitely a country (a distinct poltical entity), or at least a region, not the whole world. In fact, in the Hearth's Warming Eve play they have the line "the Earth is round". Then again, it's said by Pinkie, known for her disdain for the fourth wall.
The idea that Celestia and Luna were probably tapped to rule Equestria right from the founding, since I'm pretty sure we have in show evidence that Starswirl was a contemporary of Celestia, and he mentored Clover the Clever, who drove off the Wendigoes and founded Equestria (in fact, I sometimes wonder if the power that drove away the wendigoes was actually the elements of harmony). We have no idea how long the princesses existed before then, but we are told that unicorns dealt with the sun and moon before Celestia's rule.

>>29297720
Oh whoops. I missed two lines in the middle of this, ones I liked.

As soon as Spike hears what Twilight is about, he runs after her with zero hesitation.
And
One of the things that always struck me from this episode was that when Pinkie first tried out the crystal flugelhorn, she was causing legitimate pain. But each time you see her play it she's better, and by the end, she's playing it with full competence.
She is also adorable when she say she wants a flugelhorn.

>>29299178

>>29300044
A full house on a bump. Tragic.

>>29290027
>Bump with writing music if you feel like it guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8WooPsxa68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG1pRNQAByI

I seem to have much more sedate tastes than HJ.
I wonder what little guy listens to. Or, "to what little guy listens," if you want to be Latin about it.

>>29300553
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2vaNREDn_s

>>29300553
>>29290027
Nothing gets you inspired like 140+ BPM of hardcore EDM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtQOM2LgKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc_k-ywnMVk

Music free bump from page 9

Music bump from page 9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrEdVsAGjaQ

Sorry for being incommunicado lately. These things happen. I am still around for any stories that need looked at.

>>29300553
Well, I've been enjoying this one quite a lot lately, but I've got tastes all over the place. Some other favorites are Autechre, Superbus, and Talking Heads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euHoHdpGOa0

See you guys in the morning

bup

>>29289984
(So I have a question.)

> Silverhoof may not be the brightest pony around, barring her painted hoofs that surely was the brightest of them all; but she was always willing to join you for a chat at the local cafe. Something that was sure to distract you from any of the more mundane thoughts that plagued your mind.
> "What I did was very unique." Silverhoof exclaims.
"What do you mean?"
> "It was like one of a kind."
> You look quizzically at her where she sits by the table idly humming to herself.
"I don’t think I follow."
> "Oh dear... I guess, I should perhaps show you?"
"Please do."
> She stood up, adjusted her necklace and proceeded to make a hand-stance on the table. A wobbly hand-stance with dubious control over herself but a hand-stance no less.
> "See!?" she exclaimed in between clenched jaws and gasps of concentration.
"See what?"
> "I’m kinda unique right now." she blurted out before losing her balance, tumbling down from the table and on to the floor. The crashing sound was sure to bring attention if anypone was in range to hear it.
You quickly look around to see if anyone was coming before looking back at Silverhoof who now sat on the floor inspecting herself for dirt and bruises.
"You OK?"
"Of course I’m OK. Being somewhat unique I was born OK!" Silverhoof confidently proclaimed.

(Why is all writing here in 2nd person? Haven’t found any info about that in any pastebin about writing, but "Ezn’s Guite to writing Fanfiction" was an excellent.)

>>29304662
To help the reader project easier into the character's pov

It's why stories get a lot of attention around here. Every lurker of /mlp/ would love to be in Equestria.Having stories that refer to the main character as "You" makes it more personal and satisfying. At least that's what I experience and what I happen to prefer over 1st person any day. Third is alright too

>>29304688
>Third is alright too
So you can write from any point of view and in any tense you like?
(And ignore the autistic people who will claim the story has nothing to do with them unless written in second person.)

>>29304688
>To help the reader project easier into the character's pov
>"You" makes it more personal and satisfying.
I think it does the opposite.
I find 2nd person really offputting b/c the story is telling me I am doing a thing which I am not doing. And this is distracting and messes with concentrating on the story.

I've gotten a lot more tolerant of this, but it's still a chore to read stuff written in 2nd person.

I prefer 3rd, then 1st, then 2nd.
But everyone is different.
Write how you are comforatble writing.

>>29304738
Whatever feels right basically. As mentioned by others, different perspectives convey different things, but since everyone receives these things differently you might as well decide based on what you like.

>>29304741
Hahah you're a rare anon my friend.
>>29304834
This. Just write in whatever person or tense, just try to keep it consistant

>>29305451
>Hahah you're a rare anon my friend.
You'd think so wouldn't you.
But there is no shortage of greens written in 3rd person. All the Anon stories for ex.

1st is the rarest birb.

>>29303123
big up to my nigga little guy, still comin thru after all these years.

>>29304662
It's historical reasons.

Greentext stories derive from quests or CYOAs. Just as in the books, because the reader is, essentially, roleplaying as the one making these choices, they are addressed directly.
Quotation arrows being one of the only forms of markup available to 4chan, they were used liberally, and eventually a pattern of player speech in black (often choice instructions too) and everything else in green.

My personal tastes are that if you're going to write greentext stories, you should write in second person and present tense, because the only reason to use greentext in the first place is to participate in that cultural element.
If you want to write third person, use a standard prose with no markup.

>>29307980
>My personal tastes are that if you're going to write greentext stories, you should write in second person and present tense,

Thanks! I been looking for that information all over the place as the odd layout was somewhat of a mystery.

I did write a 5k word 2nd person story just for the heck of it. Gonna keep edit it for some time and unless I change mind mind finally post it.

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Hey guys, someone told me you were looking for me. I guess I do owe you some explanations from what I heard of before.

Goodnight bump

>>29309120
Aw shit.
Is that really you, Faggot13?
Your diction (as much as one can tell from two sentences) bears some of the tell-tale idiosyncrasies.

There have been questions, I've seen them.Things like:
Why have you abandoned us?
Are you leaving MLP forever?
Will you finish the second Naranjita story?
Who hurt you?
Was that really you at the end of that one thread, and if so are would you actually consider writing a traumatized Trixie is blackmailed sequel?
How noticeable would the uptick in suicide rates be?
In the Rainbow Dash story, is her sexuality supposed to read as ambiguous, or is she obviously a lesbian and any ambiguity is wishful projection on my part?
(One or two of those may be my questions specifically.)

Kidding aside, I can certainly understand the desire of an author to not continue with a project because they don't get the audience they wanted. You do you; le fandom is dead maymay, etc.

Anyways, to other subjects:
You know, I'm fascinated by the way your prose often displays a certain clumsiness, but behind it is usually incredibly powerful imagery.

Like the last little segment of the Misery and Innocence conclusion. Just really ambitious prose, the kind of thing I don't think I'd even attempt for fear of failure.
It's marred by some poor word choices, but fragments of it will stick with me forever. Like the images in the final line:
>And hopefully, navigate until her pain and suffering become nothing more than salt statues in her past.

Do you perhaps write flawless work in Spanish?
Or do you just need a good editor?

>>29309547
>Why have you abandoned us?
Guess I'm tired of writing on this board and to top it all, less people began to read my stories.

>Are you leaving MLP forever?
I don't know, maybe. I'll have to wait for the EqG specials.

>Will you finish the second Naranjita story?
There was no interest in that story as far as I noticed, few people seemed to read it. I don't really think so.

>Was that really you at the end of that one thread, and if so are would you actually consider writing a traumatized Trixie is blackmailed sequel?
I don't think I remember that.

>In the Rainbow Dash story, is her sexuality supposed to read as ambiguous, or is she obviously a lesbian and any ambiguity is wishful projection on my part?
Ambigous

I guess you could say I write a lot better in Spanish, but I'm really glad that you enjoyed some things behind my horrid syntax. Is there anything else you'd like to ask?

>>29309593
>>Will you finish the second Naranjita story?
>I don't really think so.

Well, that's too bad. It cut off at a pretty sad point.

Like I said, I get the desire for audience, even if I don't suffer it myself. (At last glance I had just broken one million words (4.5mB of plaintext) in my "no one will ever see this" folder.)

If you go, you'll be remembered.

>>that one thread
I think I misremembered something, it was just something somebody tossed off right at the end of this one:
http://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/29030356/

>>Rainbow Dash story,
>Ambigous
Ah-hah I'd wondered if I was reaching. Now that I don't have to second guess myself, I really enjoy how you handled that.

I can't think of more questions myself, maybe when more people roll through. But it is the beginning of the weekend, which strangely see less activity here.

Good morning bump

Emergency bump

>>29311354

>>29311887

>>29304688
I'm now writing in 2nd person + present tense and it constrains me as an author(1rd+past tense is the best bundle for me). The only advantage of 2nd is >it more personal
but again, it seriously damages a pace of the story.
3rd person is good to read, but only if it's well-written. 1st person is more difficult to ruin.
3rd person is good if the story has a big scope and many POVs. But there are many fics with just 1 main character and it would be better for those stories to be written in 1st person.

So, we went ahead and made a Guild Discord. The active core of the Skype chat has already migrated, and everyone is welcome, of course.

https://discord.gg/MyTDM

Alright bois
Lemme ask you this

Obviously for descriptive purposes showing is better than telling. But would it be acceptable to 'tell' and then 'show' as in, 'The pain was indescribable. [insert descriptive statements here]'
Or 'It was the happiest she had ever been in her life. [insert descriptive statements here]'

>>29312981
The link is dead.

>>29313212
Dammit. I wrote too much again. Hopefully it's not too much drudgery to get through.

Personally, I don't even like to put it in those terms.

Mostly because so very many young writers have been TOLD this, but never SHOWN how.
This tragic irony makes some of them just clench up whenever you say that.

So let me get generic first:

Just explaining an event makes a weak impression on the reader, guiding them through it makes a bigger one, giving them careful hints that require them to come to a conclusion on their own (but exactly the one you intended) makes an unforgettable one.

But reader attention is also a very important currency, and you can't squander it. Some things are simple enough that dedicating a lot of time to them will only bore people.
If someone is a side character, it's okay to say, "They grew cold and distant," rather than spend three chapters of them not returning your calls, turning their body away when you spoke, and answering questions in monosyllables.
If it's the main romantic interest of the main character though, you usually want the latter.

Good writing is defined more by what is not put in text than what is.

As you know, just saying an emotion is rarely going to be useful. Not many cases where you can make "I'm really sad," work. Now, this structure: "Happiest she had ever been in her life" is actually a little more viable; it's not just mentioning the emotion, it's giving the reader context for it.
On the other hand, it's possible to build a relationship of trust with your reader. If you've thoroughly explained, inside and out, the pain, grief, and rage of a character in regards to a situation, then just mentioning something like, "her glare carried all of her desolation" isn't just telling an emotion, it's short-hand for the things you have thoroughly shown the reader.

>>29313735
As for what TO do, I think you should make it a habit to describe the physical responses of emotion (sometimes metaphorically, but still reactions). This engages the reader more. You don't have to do it as a single statement either, you can slowly build up, and interweave several kinds of descriptions as the things your character is reacting to occur. Pounding temples, stinging eyes, grinding jaw, clenching throat or fists, heart filled to bursting, lips curling into a sneer, hollow pit in the stomach, trying to swallow around a stone, "I realized my cheeks hurt from smiling so much", etc.
You can also work in other people's reactions to the character. "When they saw my face the flinched back from me," "You see her eyes start to water as she listens to your story, several times her hand moved, as if to reach out in sympathy; did your life really sound that bad?" "'Why are you crying?' she asked him."

But at the end of the day, it's an aesthetic principle. It is pretty much impossible to describe one rule that's always going to work in every situation, and sometimes it's just plain a matter of taste.
And this is why one of the drums I bang so often is to read, and read in variety. Because you can see people describe similar situations over and over, but in different ways, and you can think to yourself, "Hey, the way this guy did it was great," or "Wow, don't do that, it super chucked me out of the scene." "Oh hey, this guy did something similar, but because of the way the character works, it made a lot of sense." This builds up a sense of what you think works for your style.
I like to actually keep a literal reading journal with bits of prose I really liked.

So let's talk specifics:
I, personally, would almost never use the pain example.
Firstly, the contradiction: you say the pain is indescribable, then describe it, weakening your own point. In the right place though, that juxtaposition could be a fine bit of (dark?) comedy.

>>29313743
One of the ways in which you need to control your reader is the scope of a scene. Sometimes you're describing every muscle twitch, sometimes you're basically time skipping over a month of stuff so uninteresting you don't even want to waste the sentences establishing what happened in retrospect (which is usually the better way to do time skips, like long journeys, btw: show the aftermath).

Especially in past tense writing (and first person or third person with strong viewpoint embedding) there are plenty of times where it makes sense to zoom out in scope mid scene. They just say that the pain is bad, because it's a story teller skipping past something so traumatic they can't deal with it.

As I mention above, there are times when the structure of your happiness example makes sense. It's especially good for a kind of retrospective thing. Personally, for happiness specifically, I'd usually precede it with description. "Languid relaxation spread through her body as she laid on his sleeping form. The constant companion of her memories receded to a haze at the edge of her perception. She realized this was the happiest she'd been in her life."
(Also note that I changed it to the viewpoint character having a realization, something that might be true or false, but does say something about her personality as well, instead of the omniscient narrator just telling you it was true.)

The other way I think this would work well would be describing an emotion that dominates over a period, and slowly dialing in your scope. You start with how an entire period is going (happiest in their life), zoom in on general feelings, and then zoom in again with specific events that outline why that time is so happy (or whatever).
This is strongest with positive emotions, in my book. Maybe active-negative ones, like anger. Misery I think you really need to build brick by brick for your reader.

>>29304662
>>29304688
>>29307980
>>29308028

Ok, so I managed to finish and format it what I believe might be according to local standards. Also shoved it into a pastebin, http://pastebin.com/fUA6w6n0

Now, should I spam all that junk into this or some other thread? Or just leave it where it is?
How many chars/lines can you stuff into a single post? And does people dislike extra line-breaks? Notice they not common around here, but I personally prefer to read with extra LF.

>>29313773
Single post limit on MLP is 2000 characters.

For greentext, I'm against line breaks except to break up sections. There aren't paragraphs in the first place.
I've seen that sentiment echoed, but it's also not universal.

I like that you include title, description, and word count at the beginning.

If you'd like feedback from the Guild, it is preferred (but not mandatory) that you paste it out here, along with what you might like us to look for.

Posting into threads is sort of the expectation of greentext. Pastebins are more like an archive.
I'd recommend (after feedback of course, if you want that) that you find an appropriate thread and post it into that. It's Anon in Equestria, so AiE general would be good. They like content.
You could start your own thread just for this, but for a one-shot you'd get more readers the first way.

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>>29297727

Too Many Pinkie Pies
Introduction of the mirror pond. There's a fan theory out there about parallel universes and passage through the pond harming what should be normal minds. But it's mostly based on seeing Pinkie walk into the pond, and I can't really take a cinematographic trick as a serious element of canon. Though I understand a mirror is the gate to Equestria Girl's world. (Whether or not you consider the movies part of the same canon, this is relevant since there's more than a little writing and story team crossover.)
At this point it hardly seems worth mentioning, but we see Rainbow whip her tail to manage clouds.
Pinkie causes a cloud to ascend. We also saw Applejack lasso a (cotton candy) cloud earlier. Maybe I'm just pushing my Earth magic headcanon, but it really does seem that while some tribes might be much better at some things, the others could in theory manage it themselves. (I wonder, could it be the result of inbreeding? Interesting to consider: HWE pushes the idea that growing food is a particularly Earth pony activity; and while Flim and Flam have apple cutie marks, but they only process apples, they get the fruit from other ponies.)
Pinkie had a Nana Pinkie.
What... what possible use does that tanning mirror have for Rainbow Dash, given her fur?
It's funny that since Dash just saw Pinkie bamboozle gravity and momentum, she only barely questions the clone.
I'm sure there are more extensive analyses of this, but Pinkie and her first clone double themselves (4), then all the non-originals clone themselves (1+3*2) and then again (1+6*2). In the very next shot there are fourteen total. In teh town hall there are at least 20. If one must balance the numbers, we have to assume that one or two groups of ponkas decided to clone themselves again.
I'm pretty sure Pinkie just said: "What in the name of Pink!?"

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>>29314308
Hidden book in the Treebrary that appeared just when they needed it. I wonder if it talks about anything of local interest other than the mirror pond?
Pinkie mentions how adorable she finds her own hooves etc. Good to remember party horse is confident in herself.
Some of the woodland critters have full on furnished homes out in the woods. More signs that even the animals that don't talk are still probably sapient.
As a personal note, RD carrying the sadpink is one of the most adorable images in the series. (An actual note is that she's having a crisis of self and feeling super down, but doesn't go all flatmane look Pinkamena.)
The fingers and horseface are fantastic, and possibly indications of Pinkie's capabilities.
They really don't even try to make the numbers of ponks in the town hall at any given time make sense. They show 40 from the side, 20+ in the front. Twilight's shown banishing 6 total, and suddenly there are 8, except it's 10 in the next scene, then she fires more, and we're down to two.
I really like the connection they made in the episode, that they established the mirror Pinkies don't know, and therefore don't care much about Pinkie's friends, connecting to the exact reason that one ponk survives the paint drying ordeal.

One Bad Apple
Babs, another real world name, even if it's a pun on bad.
The CMC is a "club devoted to helping ponies get their cutiemarks." Wow. I wonder if they had their final plan already in mind this early?
This is, in fact, the second time they've used that spot for ideas.
We get more manipulatrix Diamond Tiara.
Rarity's has emergency edible boots.

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>>29314313
It's an interesting world building idea: it's just too easy for ponies to just haul their own carts, why waste time developing or marketing a machine with all its attendant upkeep and fuel and other expenses?
Sweetie asks us all: "Why does life have to be so ironic!"
They pronounce "bosom buddy" incorrectly unless it's a pun I don't get.

Magic Duel
Aw yiss, Trixie.
The Alicorn Amulet is interesting because I'm pretty sure Hasboro has never used that word to refer to Celestia etc. (Apparently this was a last minute change.)
"Alicornis" is, ironically the correct Latin for "having wings and horn(s)" (our word unicorn comes from "unicornis" "having one horn"). But for literal centuries it was used to refer to the horn of a unicorn; and the reason everybody uses it for winged unicorns is because of a Piers Anthony novel (and it was NOT related to the Latin for "winged horned (thing)").
Fluttershy trying her best to be assertive, just like Dragonquest. Some character growth?
Continuity nod, Spikes references events in Winter Wrap-up.
Pigmented keratin: Fluttershy's hoof shavings are yellow.
Owlowiscious does not show up often.
"One horse town" (we've heard them use horse in idioms before.)
Morn unicorn weather control.
Mustache spell callback (to the last Trixie episode!)
Confirmation that though Twilight is powerful, she's not close to the top of her magic game.
Zecora specifically calls what she does magic.
Why does the dangerous mission outfit cover Flut's wings and have bunny ears?
Mayor Mare is kept in a cage.
Double Rainbow. What does it mean?
Fake Rainbow and the filly versions have correct eye colors (and fake Boy AJ Big Mac came with it), but Granny as "Elderly Applejack" does not. Indication eye color change is a function of age?
I really enjoy that Twilight won this by rusing a rusemeister.

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>>29314319
These lines at the end seem a bit odd. Trixie says those spells are impossible, but they don't really seem that crazy compared to age control. Twilight says "Nopony could do those spells, not even me," but we know she can't do age spells anyways. I'm going to assume it's somewhat hyperbole; a powerful and magically advanced enough unicorn maybe could?
The delegates from Saddle Arabia have a distinctive look. Just a different frame, or are they not ponies?
Twilight's magic is good enough to follow Pinkie through the fourth wall and undo an Alicorn Amulet curse.

Posting story here (instead of the various AiE I couldn't chose between) as I would be interested in some feedback.
Mostly interested in the language (constructs, words, flow etc) but if there is something else that annoys you, go ahead.
Would love it if the stuff you feel is shit, could be pinpointed instead of summarized like "vocabulary sux!"
How far you got before you decided you cba would also be interesting to know.
(Archived @ http://pastebin.com/fUA6w6n0)

> Title: Anon’s ordinary day in Equestria (Model: Z)
> Style: A Comfy day-to-day MLP fanfic. (NO action, mystery, adventure, hotness, anything!)
> Word count: 5600 (˜30 min reading time)

-- [1 of 18]
> Silverhoof Twinkledot may not be the brightest pony around, barring her painted hooves that surely was the brightest of them all; but she was always willing to join you for a chat at the local cafe. Something that was a good way to distract you from any of the more mundane thoughts that plagued your mind.
> “What I did was very unique.” Silverhoof exclaims sipping her tea.
“What do you mean?” you ask her.
> “It was like one of a kind.”
> You look quizzically at her where she sits by the table idly humming to herself.
“I don’t think I follow.” you say.
> “Oh dear... I guess, I should perhaps show you?”
“Please do.”
> She stands up, adjusts her necklace and proceed to make a hand-stance on the table. A wobbly hand-stance with dubious control over herself but a hand-stance no less.
> “See!?” she exclaims in between clenched jaws and gasps of concentration.
“See what?”
> “I’m kinda unique right now.” she blurts out before losing her balance, tumbling down from the table and on to the floor. The crashing sound was sure to bring the attention of anypony in range to hear it.

>>29314772
-- [2 of 18]
> You quickly look around to see if anyone was coming over before looking back at Silverhoof who now sat on the floor inspecting herself for dirt and bruises.
“You OK?” you ask in a worried tone.
> “Of course I’m ok. Being somewhat unique – I was born ok!” Silverhoof confidently proclaims.
> Silverhoof was definitely a true friend. Sometimes her wit might seem a little dull and perhaps her chromium looking hooves where compensating, but at least she would never let a friend’s brooding mind go without treatment.
> Maybe she really felt unique and thus could understand how you felt? Or maybe she just tried really, really hard convincing herself she was unique in order to more easily empathize with you? Her pony mind sometimes seemed like a mystery and you couldn’t really be sure.
> The fact remained that as a human in Equestria you definitely were unique and there was nopony to doubt that. In your own eyes Silverhoof was unique too, but in a different way.
> Most of the inhabitants in the small village didn’t seem to think of her as any different from the rest of them. They all had their quirks and differences and none seemed to pay any special attention to it.
> “So do you feel less lonely now?” Silverhoof suddenly asks.
“Who said I was lonely? I’m not lonely.” you quickly reply as your mind returns to the two of you at the table.
> “If anypony feels too unique and very different, it is usually a sign they also feel lonely. I’m no expert on your kind but it looks to me that it is your body, and not your mind, that is the only real difference from a regular pony.”
“Well, it’s not that I’m lonely, it’s just that this experience has been very confusing to me.”

>>29314778
[3 of 18]
>"No princess or emissary has given you any updates on how you came to be here?"
“No, the last thing they said was that the offer still stands if I want to move to Canterlot. They said it might speed up their research but to be honest I don’t think they are trying very hard. After the initial weeks they just shrugged their shoulders and said: shit happens."
>“"hey said what?!” Silverhoof exclaimed with big eyes, briskly putting her cup of tea down on the table.
"No! no! no! It was just an expression. They didn’t say that. They talked a lot about how these things were unheard of since the Elements of Something put the world in order ages ago and before that all information they had about aliens are so sketchy or mixed up they can’t really be sure on what is what and how it came to be."
>"But you’re not going to Canterlot?" Silverhoof casually asked looking to the side. Her face might be turned away but her eyes where discreetly analyzing you through the corner of her eye.
“No, Canterlot is a big place and there I will always be gawked at wherever I go.” you sigh while hunching over the table.
“Around here everyone has had their fill of looking and almost everyone has pinched and patted my skin. Think all the initial curiosity has worn off over my smooth snakelike surface as you ponies tend to put it. Moving to Canterlot I will have to go through all that again but a hundred times more.”
>“And that would make you feel unique again?” Silverhoof wondered while sipping some tea.
“More so than now I guess. Every other day travelers are passing by who notice me and wants to have a closer look but as long as it’s just once or twice a day it’s no big deal, but I prefer to be treated like a normal human being... I mean... as a normal pony rather."
>"Travelers shouldn’t really bother you. A decree has gone out to leave the human alone and not disturb him needlessly." Silverhoof stated while putting her cup down.
"It has?"

>>29314784
-- [4 of 18]
> "Oh yes! You seemed a bit taken aback by all the initial attention so Princess Celestia sent out instructions to make your stay here a bit more comfortable."
"She never told me that."
> "Oh, my dear little human, there is no need for you to know all the daily dealings of the administration." Silverhoof leaned forth with a big smile. "I can vouch for our leadership and you can be just as confident as me in their decisions. They always weigh in what is best for the majority or as in this case, the best for whom it is most urgent." Silverhoof emphasized by tapping your hand gently with her hoof.
"I would never doubt Celestia or that moon princess. I just don’t know them that well. Twilight has been over a lot more, keeping me updated about her research, so I guess I know her better."
> "Princess Twilight Sparkle is just like any other pony. She recently became a princess and is basically the same pony now as she was before. Or so I’m told by those of us who visit Ponyville on a regular basis and know a lot more ponies there." Silverhoof says while toying with her now empty cup.
"I find Twilight a bit different from most ponies. When talking to her I feel the only things she considers unique are the various books she references. They all seem to be special in one way or another while I’m just one of many mythical beings."
> As the sentence slips past your lips you realize that your haphazard nod in front of the assembled royalty was far less extravagant than the courteous kneeling from the ponies around you. Perhaps those actions combined with your words could be interpreted as you are rude on purpose and don’t appreciate their highly esteemed royalty?
"No disrespect or anything!" your steadfast voice tries to reassure Silverhoof. "Princess Twilight is very nice and friendly and I have full confidence in her research and utmost respect for her job... as a royal princess... and as a librarian... and whatever else she might be doing."

>>29314791
-- [5 of 18]
> "Of course she is friendly. She is the Princess of Friendship after all." Silverhoof couldn’t help smirk a little.
"Ah yes, that would explain it." you say before adding. "I have yet to meet an unfriendly pony so I tend to forget that title."
> "Perhaps you would meet some unfriendly ponies if you went to Manehattan? The bustling city is so cramped that it makes everypony stressed and competitive which causes respect and politeness to often be forgotten."
"Guess I shouldn’t go to Manehattan then." you nod, mostly to yourself.
> "When you appeared here, a lot of ponies were very demanding and outright rude in their questioning and wondered why you couldn’t deliver a decent explanation of how you came here and where you came from. Surely some of it was unfriendly?"
"I can understand that. If one of you ponies would end up in my backyard I probably would be pushing a lot of hard questions too."
> With empty cups in front of you, a moment of silence ensued. More tea? Perhaps some lemonade? The welfare you had received from Celestia could easily cover it but most of the time the owners of the cafe refused to take your coins. They said ponies passing by stopped at the cafe where the human used to sit, so their business had been doubled.
> They also claimed that even if you moved on they would still get some business from ponies stopping by for a snack while asking curious questions about the human who used to spend his early days here. Taking bits from both visitors and the one who brought the visitors would be greedy and they didn’t want to be greedy. That was wrong!

>>29314798
-- [6 of 18]
> Maybe they told the truth? Most days a lot of ponies were at the cafe and perhaps they looked more at you than talking to each other but it was really hard to know. You did receive a lot of stares wherever you went. Still you preferred a neutral place like the cafe instead of constantly barging into someone’s home. Maybe ponies were too nice and polite to say no? Or perhaps ponykind body-language had small signs you failed to notice?
> It’s not as if they crossed their legs and arms and looked annoyed when enough was enough. Well, you wouldn’t know if they did but so far you had never seen it. Silverhoof assured you many times that your worries were without merit. In the secluded confines of her home she had even went so far as to perform some charade to show you how an annoyed pony would look like. The poses were all very obvious so it was hard to know if she was really honest or if she did wild exaggerations in order to make you feel better. Perhaps she was just being nice? She was always so nice.
> "You seem thoughtful?" Silverhoof said, interrupting your thoughts.
"Just thinking... was wondering earlier about all the people I left at home. Have my body disappeared or am I perhaps dreaming and they stand around my bed wondering why I don’t wake up."
> "What odd questions you have." Silverhoof mused happily. "You are here now, right? So your main thoughts should be with your mind and body where you can experience it, and not what could be happening with something you can’t see, hear, feel or even influence."
> She did have a point, but that didn’t stop you from wondering. You give her a small nod to confirm she was right. She did after all say something you would do well remembering.
> "I know!" Silverhoof enthusiastically lit up. "There is a dreamer who can see the oddest things. Perhaps she can see what is happening in your home?"
"A dreamer!?" you say with doubt in your voice.

>>29314807
-- [7 of 18]
> "Yes! A dreamer! She has the most amazing imagination. She can see things so far away that they have nothing to do with Equestria. Her talent might not be useful in her daily work but it would sure come in handy to dream up what is happening in your home-world."
"Dreamer?" you repeat your question. Dreaming up an explanation to anything wasn’t something Twilight ever suggested. You figure a skilled magic-user like Twilight would know if dreaming was useful or not.
> "I can check up on where she is and we can go to visit her." Silverhoof said rapidly before enthusiastically adding, "Oh why didn’t I think of this sooner? Naturally you need a dreamer in order to get a glimpse of something coming from a dream-world."
> You sit with a polite smile while Silverhoof was more enthusiastic than ever. There probably was a good reason why nobody suggested visiting a dreamer before. A dreamer was unlikely to have any relevance to real life no matter how good her imagination was. You decide to let those cynical questions slide under the table in order to be nicer to the pony who spent so much time and effort being nice to you.

* * *

>>29314815
-- [7.5 of 18]
> It was early morning when you set of to Ponyville. It was sometimes after lunch when you got close to your destination. Outskirts farms were passed and some Evertree forest avoided. According to Silverhoof you had less than an hour to travel when a cry suddenly broke the stillness.
> "SILVERHOOF!"
> The high-pitched call was followed by a galloping pink pony that with amazing speed came to a screeching halt just before Silverhoof.
> "PINKIE!" Silverhoof exclaimed while giving the pink pony a hug. "It’s been such a long time since last time I saw you. I’m so happy to see you again."
> "And I’m happy to see you too. I’m so busy these days I have almost no time to travel. You really should come by Ponyville more often. It’s so fun to see you again." the pink pony said in a high-pitched voice.

>>29314824
-- [8 of 18]
> "Well, you have to forgive me for being a bit lazy but you know how it is. Spending hours on the boring road is time you could have spent either doing important chores or in company with ponies nearby so time for a road that has none of that tend to get reduced."
> "You took the words out of my mouth." was the Pink Pony’s quick response but she didn’t wait before she continued, "Oh, your hooves are shinier than ever. You sure put in a lot of work making them pretty. Wish my hooves were just as pretty but at the bakery everyone is scared that flakes will fall off when you bake a cake or kneading dough so I don’t and wearing shoes is not my style. Guess I have to admire yours instead of looking at my own hooves. Say is that your original color showing at the edge underneath?" Pinkie said while pressing her head to the ground as if trying to look under Silvehoof’s hoof.
> "Yes, my true color is a mix of light gray and white and not that silvery. The edge blends in somewhat with the silver and isn’t really visible with the hoof to the ground." Silverhoof answered while holding up her hoof for easier inspection.
> Pinkie admired the hoof not just by pressing her face against it but also by holding it, touching it, hugging it and making some odd wee-noise during her closer inspection.
> "Oh! Pinkie! I must introduce you to the human; we are traveling together."
> "Stop!!!" Pinkie quickly interrupted Silverhoof, holding a pink hoof over her mouth before embracing her and pulling her close.
> With a loud whisper that everyone could hear, Pinkie Pie continued: "Princess Celestia wishes us to not pay attention to the human. It’s a delicate creature and we might spook it. We must be cautious not to disturb or frighten it."

>>29314831
-- [9 of 18]
> "Don’t worry silly!" Silverhoof giggled, "The human is here to meet ponies. Well, a very special pony actually. We were wondering if a dreamer could help us with information about the human home-world and as far as I know the best dreamer in Equestria is often found in Ponyville."
> "That’s a great idea! A dreamer would definitely be able to see things we can just dream about. You know if she’s in Ponyville today. Have you checked so she isn’t in Cloudsdale?"
> "Yes, she will be expecting us... I hope."
> "Great! Then I will follow you along. I’ve been picking up some exotic spices from Zecora and I was heading back to town myself." Pinkie gladly exclaimed before turning to you, extending a hoof, "Welcome to the road that leads to Ponyville. I’m happy to say that it’s both fun to see you and to look at you."
"Eh, I am happy to meet you too." you say politely, trying to mind your manners.
> "So, Silverhoof, you have to tell me all about what’s been happening since last time and I have to tell you everything that’s been happening to me, and then we can talk about everything that been happening to everyone else, and if there is any time left we might even talk about the human. Great plan isn’t it?"
> "Great!" a cheerful Silverhoof replies and a cacophony of sound ensues. Mostly from the pink pony who is full of information on pretty much everything. Stories that sounded like action packed adventures were mixed with really trivial mundane tasks that hardly could be interesting to anyone. She also interrupted herself with lots of questions about what Silverhoof had been up to.
> Time surely went fast in her company or maybe the high tempo in her voice just made them all trot along faster? Soon the silhouette of the town greeted them and soon thereafter, so did various ponies that lived in town.

>>29314835
-- [10 of 18]
> Everyone greeted you politely while they stared but otherwise the inhabitants didn’t disturb your journey. That is until halfway through town when Twilight Sparkle appeared.
> "Hello! I’m surprised to see you here. May I ask what brings you here?"
> You notice Silverhoof bowing deeply but forget to mimic her behavior as the Pink Pony’s quick flurry of words distract you from follow suit.
> "I got exotic spices for exotic cakes. You should know a change in taste is the true secret to enjoy cakes every day. Sometimes you want something a little bit different and exotic and spices are the key to experience that tasty treat which has a rare flavor and is not easily acquired, and even if you don’t like it, you can still enjoy the variation."
> Twilight Sparkle frowned while tilting her head, "Well, I was more wondering why the human was here."
> "Oh they are going to consult Muffin to see if she can imagine anything about the Human’s home world." Pinkie quickly filled in.
> "I’m sure she can, but we can never know if it’s true or not, and to be blunt I’m afraid it might be nothing more than her amazing imagination pulling you along."
> "I’m sure she will be accurate. I always go to Muffin when I want accurate accounts on what’s happening in places we can only dream about, and I can just feel it to be true." Pinkie enthusiastically chirps in.
> "And how can you be so sure there is any truth in it?" Twilight wonders.
> "Pinkie sense! I get a warm feeling in my tummy."
> "So nothing shaking, stretching or twirling?" Twilight says while leaning in closer as if trying to spot any changes in Pinkie’s body.
> "Not on the outside, nope!" Pinkie smile while making an odd high-pitched sound.

>>29314840
-- [11 of 18]
> "Would it be OK with you if I were to accompany you?" Twilight asks.
> "Of course it’s fine to tag along. I’m sure Muffin has room for you too. We can probably squeeze in three ponies and one human in her sofa, and that would leave lots of room for Muffin." Pinkie responded.
> "Well, I wasn’t primarily asking you." Twilight says with a sigh.
"I would be honored if her majesty would grace us with her presence." you quickly add.
> "Thank you kindly. You seem to be a bit formal today?" Twilight asks curiously.
"I’m trying to be polite your majesty, especially now when we’re in public view and all."
> "Oh please don’t bother with that. This is my home and for all of us the daily chores and regular greetings takes precedence over any official business and formal greetings. You can just refer to me as Twilight, like you do when I come to visit you."
"Thank you your highness." you add more by reflex than thinking it through. Happy to finally display some proper manners to the pony who has been so patient with your endless and sometimes frustrated questions. She spent a lot of time researching your dilemma since you arrived so you wanted to seize the opportunity to appear grateful.
> "And I’m happy to see you too Silverhoof." Twilight continues. "We who help govern Equestria are grateful for your help with aiding this human to feel at home here."
> "Please don’t mention it. I’m just happy for the company. The human really has a refreshing view on things and makes most interesting conversation." Silverhoof says while leaning in close to you – putting a hoof around you in a casual hug.
> "I guess we shouldn’t keep Miss Muffin waiting?" Twilight concludes as she starts to move. Your small party being observed by lots of curious eyes as you walk down the street.

* * *

>>29314847
-- [12 of 18]
> The ponies around you engage in some generic banter with status updates and you quickly arrive at Muffin’s house. A quick knock on the door and it doesn’t take long before it opens.
> "Welcome!" the slightly timid pony who lives in the house greets you before showing you inside. "You know I was thinking about you yesterday and I had a very odd dream. The human was standing on his front-legs with his hind-legs up in the air outside a cafe. But that was just my imagination." Muffin says and shrugs it off.
> "Was it? Was it? Was it?" Pinkie Pie repeated energetically while looking at Silverhoof.
> "Well, it wasn’t what happened." Silverhoof said rubbing her chin with her hoof.
> "Well, nothing I imagine within Equestria is true. It’s just dreams." Muffin excused herself with a slight blush.
> "But far away places that only Discord can reach there is more truth in it, and in places so far away that not even Discord can see, there is nothing but truth." Pinkie quickly filled in.
> "We don’t know about that." Twilight added. "Since there is no way to measure it, there can be no way of knowing. All we know for sure is that all observations with ponies here in Equestria has shown to be imagination."
> "Of course you silly!" Pinkie interrupted. "That’s what being a dreamer is all about. You don’t see reality, you see dreams, unless the thing you dream about is so distant it’s not part of your reality, then it’s also a dream and in a dream-world all your dreams are true."
> "Well, perhaps according to Pinkie-Logic and weird senses, but scientifically speaking we build proof upon what we can prove and no lack of evidence must taint the chain of science." Twilight replies.
> "Science can be so boring! You should have a Pinkie sense or Muffin dream instead. They are a lot more fun."

>>29314854
-- [13 of 18]
> "I don’t doubt that, but some of us have to be more pragmatic and focus on the things at hoof. And by the way, it’s not really dreams, because Luna can visit her regular dreams but not Muffin’s imagination." Twilight concludes with a smile.
"What’s happening?" you interrupt them as you notice the eyes of Miss Muffin to lose focus and drift apart.
> "She’s dreaming!" Pinkie Pie responds. "She can start doing that at the most inconvenient of times. Here! I show you how to snap her out of it."
> How the Pink Pony managed to bring a pair of cymbals you will never know, but they were smacked together in front of Miss Muffin’s face who quickly returned to reality.
> "Oh, you want something to drink perhaps?" Muffin answered meekly. "Forgive me if I’m not a very gracious host but there’s so much going on in my mind today."
> "Nah, it’s fine, I just wanted to show them how to get your attention." Pinkie said with a big grin. "Feel free to space out as much as you want. It is your home after all and you’re not on weather duty or anything else right now so you should be able to do what you want."
> "Then perhaps we should sit down? Please tell me your story and how you think I might be of help."
> As you enter the living room Pinkie insists that you should confirm her estimates to be true so you are squished in between Pinkie and Silverhoof in the sofa, with a mildly amused Twilight on the side. The Princess suggestion that you should make use of all the available space was left unheeded and she finally had to yield to the intense enthusiasm of the pink pony.
> Some discussion follows with talk about the world you come from and you relay your worried thoughts about the people left behind. You explain that maybe you’ve been gone for a very long time now since you have no idea how knowing how much time passed in your home world. Or maybe they haven’t noticed that you disappeared?

>>29314863
-- [14 of 18]
> Amazingly enough it seems that Muffin had dreams before about your world. Visions of human wasn’t new to her which might explain why Muffin, unlike everyone else in Ponyville, didn’t give you a second glance as you arrived. Even if Muffin doesn’t talk about those weird dreams, as ponies usually call them, she do have a lot of pictures in her mind that isn’t from anything that can be experienced in Equestria.
> Her dreams are mostly unsorted fragments and not very coherent but as far as you can tell it is actual places and events. The fantasies with only humans and huge buildings definitely seem to be related to your world. Even if she lose a lot of the context from not being able to pick up any conversation or follow-up on what unfolds. Finally you conclude that she seen quite a lot of your world... and other worlds that isn’t yours.
> "But there is no way of knowing what is true." Twilight adds with a voice that sounds like a lecture. "To measure it we would need to write down all her experiences and then have them verified by witnesses to the same event. Those witnesses must be separate and not able to influence each other or Miss Muffin. Also the events must be specific and not so common it happens everywhere, all the time."
"I think there is truth in what she see." you add. "Maybe it’s like Pinkie Pie claims? The further it is from Equestria the more truth there is in it?"
> "For me it feels like that anyway." Muffin carefully fills in. "When something I see is related to Equestria it feels like imagination, but when it is really really far away it feels like a vision."
> "And my Pinkie sense can confirm that feeling!" Pinkie says with a happy face.

>>29314869
-- [15 of 18]
> "Well, I’m just saying that if it can’t be proven we can’t be sure it is true and we must be cautious so we don’t mix belief with facts. It is not a good way to solve problems or to rule a kingdom. You must rely on information that everyone can share and analyze and not information nopony can confirm." says Twilight.
> "Sorry if I may interrupt but dreams are probably as close to fact and truth we can get when it comes to this human. Surely it would be worth a try?" Silverhoof adds to the discussion.
> "Oh, I never said it wouldn’t be worth a try. I just want you to be a little cautious with your hopes and expectations." Twilight says with a smile.
"Uh oh!" you say as you look at Muffin who was sitting there, cup in hoof, but somewhat oblivious to her surroundings. "Her eyes are derping madly. Does that mean she is dreaming?"
> "Of course it does silly!" Pinkie filled in. "You can’t focus on your surrounding with your mind and eyes like this..." whereupon Pinkie starts to struggle in the crowded sofa to whisk a hoof around her head while crossing her eyes looking at her own nose.
"Maybe we should wait a bit?" you suggest.
> "Or at least keep our voices down?" Silverhoof adds.
> "If you want to." Pinkie adds. "Depending on the situation she can be pretty hard to wake up but it can also be that she’s just a little absentminded and slow to answer questions. Like when she’s waiting for me to wrap up a cake or something and her eyes goes wonkers while she waits, then no Pinkie sense of mine can spot the difference if she’s totally gone or just a little slow. You have to ask!"
> A more mellow tone from everyone ensued. Except for Pinkie who sometimes spoke in a more normal Pinkie-volume and the rest of the time used a hoarse whisper that was heard just as easily but had a lower pitch.

>>29314876
-- [16 of 18]
> Time passed by and after a while you all notice Miss Muffin coming to her senses. Her cup almost spilled but perhaps it was her experience of moments like this that made her fill it to only one third of its capacity?
> "I had the most interesting vision!" Muffin blurted out.
> "Oh! Tell us! Tell us!" Pinkie said while leaning forth over the table. Finally giving you some much needed space to shift around your legs and prevent them from falling asleep.
> "It was odd... but it seems the human can return anytime he likes."
"I can?" you say with a bit of skepticism.
> "Yes! It’s getting here in human shape that is pretty much impossible, but returning to your own world is easy."
"So how would I do that?"
> "Well, it is somewhat hard to show you, but you should stand up on your hind legs, like you usually do that is. And the back of the hooves, those you stand on, should be hit together three times in a row. The front of them still on the ground, just takes those long ski-like hooves and have the back of it hit the other back while saying: There is no place like home."
> You stand up and go to the side of the table. Feet together and heels slightly raised from the floor as you let them swing a bit on the floor in a half-circle.
"Like this you mean?"
> "Yes! Exactly like that. Now you just hit them together three times in a row while repeating, there is no place like home."
> You stare at the ponies gathered, "So repeating there is no place like home while clicking my heels together... are you sure that will work?"
> "As long as you believe in it, it will work... my vision was clear about that. You must repeat it at least three times, but I guess you have to test it to be sure?"

>>29314883
-- [17 of 18]
> "Oh-oh-oh! My Pinkie sense tells me she had a real good dream. I bet it’s true!" Pinkie Pie exclaims enthusiastically. Her excitement seemed to know no boundary, which essentially wasn’t any different from how she had been this entire time since you first met her a few hours earlier.
> Twilight Sparkle had somehow produced a notebook and was taking notes on what she saw and heard. She did all this while keeping focus on what was happening. The notes might look more like crow’s feet than text but she didn’t care. She knew someone who could be tasked to rewrite it later on to look pretty.
You take a deep breath as you click your heels together, while saying the words: "There is no place like home." and it does make you feel strange.
You click your heels together again and one more time you say: "There is no place like home." and some blur starts to seep into your field of vision. Distortion mixes into the floor, the roof, the tapestry, and the gathered ponies holding their breath while staring at you.
> This might actually work! You quickly compose yourself to focus on the matter at hand but as you happen to look at Silverhoof she doesn’t seem to be as excited as the others.
> She has a serious look on her face that you haven’t really seen before. Actually it seems her face isn’t serious, it seems to be sad. As you keep staring you see a tear rolling down her cheek.
"Stop!" you say loudly, trying to address the vertigo that formed inside your head. You move away from the spot, careful not to let any part of your feet come together while scrambling towards the sofa.

>>29314894
-- [18 of 18]
> You sit down on the edge, rubbing your face in your hands, trying to chase away all the weird magical effects that appeared out of nowhere.
"Enough!" you say again to yourself. "I don’t know what was happening, or if something wanted to take me away but I’m not yet ready to find out."
> All the ponies sit tight and watch you intently except Silverhoof that has crept up closer.
"Whatever happens back in my world it can’t be as important as our research here. I really should wait for all the research to finish before experimenting with unknown forces." you blurt out before you lift your head from your palms.
> You notice Silverhoof right next to you. She still has that worried look on her face. The idea that you might have disappeared without saying goodbye to her seems somewhat ruthless.
"Silverhoof," you say. "I also can’t possibly leave before properly saying goodbye to my closest friend here. Actually I wouldn’t mind staying for a while if it’s OK with you."
> Her face is beaming as she hugs you and replies, "You know, I’m so glad you want to stay. You might not be as unique as you think you are, but you are definitely one-of-a-kind to me."

> THE END

Goodnight

>>29314772
>barring her painted hooves that surely was the brightest of them all
That's "were." Careful with singular/plural nouns, it's easy to develop bad habits.
> “What I did was very unique.” Silverhoof exclaims sipping her tea.
You want a comma at the end of the quote, not a period, since the thought is followed up by explanation. You make this same mistake many more times, I'm only going to point it out once though. Also, that's kind of a bad way to introduce a conversation. No idea where you're taking us.
>“I don’t think I follow.” you say.
Remove the you say, there's no reason to have it there. Redundant.
>make a hand-stance on the table
Oh come on, they're ponies. Front hooves if you give a damn.
>“Oh dear... I guess, I should perhaps show you?”
Who the fuck would speak a sentence like that? The only people who would verbally form a sentence in that way are also not smart enough to actually use "perhaps" verbally.
>on to the floor
That's "onto." Your spell checker won't pick it up, but watch for conjoined word usage like that.
>You quickly look around to see if anyone was coming over before looking back at Silverhoof who now sat on the floor inspecting herself for dirt and bruises.
Word salad alert. How about "You take a quick look around before turning back to Silverhoof, who now sits on the floor checking for wounds and brushing off dirt."
> Silverhoof was definitely a true friend. Sometimes her wit might seem a little dull and perhaps her chromium looking hooves where compensating, but at least she would never let a friend’s brooding mind go without treatment.
Watch your tenses. I struggle with this a bit myself, just be watchful. Also, "where" should be "were."
>but at least she would never let a friend’s brooding mind go without treatment.
This in particular is autistically fucked wording.

>>29314778
> Maybe she really felt unique and thus could understand how you felt? Or maybe she just tried really, really hard convincing herself she was unique in order to more easily empathize with you? Her pony mind sometimes seemed like a mystery and you couldn’t really be sure.
Projecting just a wee bit. Kind of a shitty line of thought.
> The fact remained that as a human in Equestria you definitely were unique and there was nopony to doubt that
You triply reinforce this as a fact, by first declaring it a fact, then using "definitely" then saying nobody doubted it. Really it only needs to be done once; twice is sloppy (but passable) and three is bad.
> inhabitants in the small village
Fucking where? Are we in Ponyville? You never said exactly where this all is.
> “So do you feel less lonely now?” Silverhoof suddenly asks.
Literally nobody would ask this at this point in time. Needs more dialogue beforehand, aside from Anon's musings.
> “If anypony feels too unique and very different, it is usually a sign they also feel lonely. I’m no expert on your kind but it looks to me that it is your body, and not your mind, that is the only real difference from a regular pony.”
I thought this pony was a fucking retard? If so, she wouldn't form a thought like this so quickly. If not, this has poor sentence flow and smart people don't talk like that.
>“Well, it’s not that I’m lonely, it’s just that this experience has been very confusing to me.”
What experience? Lunch?
>"No princess or emissary has given you any updates on how you came to be here?"
Oh, that's the experience. Gee, that sure came out of nowhere. Needs something leading up to it.

>>29314784
>“No, the last thing they said was that the offer still stands if I want to move to Canterlot. They said it might speed up their research but to be honest I don’t think they are trying very hard. After the initial weeks they just shrugged their shoulders and said: shit happens."
I want you to follow the advice I gave another Anon and read your shit out loud. Then, ask yourself, "Would I ever actually say something like this, unscripted and without preparation, to someone else in a conversation?" This dialogue is not believable.
>“"hey said what?!” Silverhoof exclaimed with big eyes, briskly putting her cup of tea down on the table.
Overreaction. This doesn't seem like a comedic fic at this point, why would she be a living hyperbole like this?
>but her eyes where discreetly analyzing you through the corner of her eye.
What the absolute fuck?
>“No, Canterlot is a big place and there I will always be gawked at wherever I go.” you sigh while hunching over the table.
More poor dialog. Especially "there I will" is not going to ever be verbally spoken by someone who speaks English as a first language, at least how you have it laid out.
>Think all the initial curiosity has worn off over my smooth snakelike surface as you ponies tend to put it
There's more wrong with this dialog, but this sentence is unique. It's got decent structure overall, but it's lacking a comma after surface. But the bigger problem is that "smooth snakelike surface" is pretty autistic.
>“And that would make you feel unique again?” Silverhoof wondered while sipping some tea.
Is that what this conversation is centered around? Anon doesn't want to be a special snowflake? I was hoping that was just an introduction to something better, but this is a pretty weak topic. I don't see many people actually sitting down and discussing something like that.
>have a closer look but as long as it’s just once or
Remove the "but" and put a period in after look.

>>29314784
>>29314791
>but I prefer to be treated like a normal human being... I mean... as a normal pony rather.
If you're going to use the word rather, phrase it like this: "but I'd rather be treated as a normal human being... err, pony."
>"Travelers shouldn’t really bother you. A decree has gone out to leave the human alone and not disturb him needlessly." Silverhoof stated while putting her cup down.
This is the kind of physics sentence a physics textbook would speak if it could hold mundane conversation. It is utterly bland and devoid of character. Perhaps phrase it like a question, i.e. "Travelers? They shouldn't be bothering you. The Princesses did put out a decree to stop ponies from disturbing you, after all."
> "Oh yes! You seemed a bit taken aback by all the initial attention so Princess Celestia sent out instructions to make your stay here a bit more comfortable."
See above. Utterly devoid of tone or character, to the point where the exclamation point does nothing.
> "Oh, my dear little human, there is no need for you to know all the daily dealings of the administration."
Again, if this character isn't supposed to be smart, you're doing this wrong.
>"I would never doubt Celestia or that moon princess. I just don’t know them that well.
I'm pretty sure we can assume Anon knows who the fuck Luna is.
>Twilight has been over a lot more, keeping me updated about her research, so I guess I know her better."
Wording is alright here, but I would rephrase the comment on knowing her better into something less clunky.
> Or so I’m told by those of us who visit Ponyville on a regular basis
SO ARE WE IN PONYVILLE OR WHAT, MOTHERFUCKER?
>Silverhoof says
Overusing "says" is a pitfall of poor writing. There are many, many words that can be used in its place that also give the scene a more complex tone and atmosphere.

>>29315577
>>29315618
>>29315715
Calling it a night here since I'm doing this on the fly and typing into reply box, and I've already spent half an hour doing this. Big problems include changing of tenses, completely stale and unbelievable dialog, and consistency errors. This fic does not read well, and while I've certainly seen worse offenders, you seriously need to take a step back from your writing and ask yourself, "can I actually see these characters talking and acting this way?" Don't be afraid to use a thesaurus, either. Once you have a better grasp of grammar and word choice you won't need it, but right now your vocabulary seems pretty basic and a few synonyms or replacement words/phrases would hugely improve your writing at least as far as style and tone are concerned.

Long story short, your writing sucks ass right now but getting it to a much better state won't be difficult. You have potential.

>>29314319
So before I actually do my write-up, I wanted to point out I completely forgot, they do in fact use "alicorn" to refer to Twilight right after she ascends in the last episode of season 3.

>>29315748
>your writing sucks ass right now
Thanks! The first segments you pretty much edited from start to finish, instead of some just pointing to the worst.

I need to rethink how I construct the dialog. It needs a big overhaul before I try any serious writing.

Some things like "hand-stance" from human point of view is later expressed in the opposite way during segment 13. But obviously that doesn’t work since the reader can’t see into the future.

Also mixed words like everybody/everypony in early draft depending on PoV but got rid of most that during editing since it didn't work.

Edits also changed a lot of tense from "said" to "says", turning into a style I'm not really used to and replacing other expressions with simple "says" just as reminders for the reader. (Somewhere else I read IDW and other guys demand it more or less everywhere.)

I probably should stick to what I'm comfortable with and go from there. Something for me to dream about while I sleep.

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>>29316011
I find that use of the words "said" and "says" is entirely unnecessary in most cases. Generally, they end up being used where the author has little to comment on the character's tone or demeanor, and thus contribute little to nothing. It's useful if you have conversations between three or more people, or if the talk shifts to someone new, but that's really about it. I did a quick ctrl+f on my 57k word Glimmer fic just now, all dialogue is in present tense and the word "says" appears exactly twenty-nine times. Of 57,000 words and 2,011 lines, the word says is used 29 times and four of those are within dialog (where I intentionally dumb down language to make conversation believable).

For the dialog, it's not really that hard. I was in your position before. With most conversations I literally just try to imagine discussing the topic with someone I know, and try to figure out if there is any chance in hell that someone would actually say that. If not, I try to imagine myself or them relating the same message in a different way.

Pony-centric words aren't really a big deal honestly, it was an early nitpick before I saw the larger problems with your writing. Think of them as an afterthought, although they are a very convenient way to experiment with PoV.

>stick to what I'm comfortable with
I would argue that the best way to improve your writing is to venture into places, genres, and concepts you're unfamiliar with. That way, you can confront your weaknesses and understand them better, rather than lulling yourself into a false sense of adequacy as you get better at what you're already good with.

Your willingness to adapt, though, is promising. Knowing where your weaknesses are, not ignoring them, and instead striving to overcome them is a sign of not only maturity but also of success. For example, I know a big problem with my writing is comma clutter, but I've managed to cut it to somewhat acceptable levels.

Now, it's 2 AM and I have Mass tomorrow. G'nite.

>>29313279
https://discord.gg/XNM2tVS
New permanent link.

Music bump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xy-7yU0bo4

>>29316272
Did several minor edits (incl spelling of Everfree) but it all came to a halt as I was analyzing my expressions and trying to find a style that would mix my own taste with the rest of the world. I always had an odd taste in choice of words and how to mix them up when it comes to fiction.

Maybe I just like the odd structure because it feels surprising? Or maybe the huge difference from clinical essays and dull reports reinforces my feeling of fiction? In slack conversation with buddies my speech contain millions of hyperboles (and occasional triple-reinforcing) and it probably taints my written language. (I compensate a ton of useless words by speaking really fast so I get to the point in time.)

I need to figure out how I can balance between my affection for oddities and others wish for properly conveyed information. Just writing what I don’t like will certainly fail as tossing words into the dark, hoping it will hit that "other taste" will just form a pile of shit.

At least that’s my initial conclusion after rephrasing some of the dialogue according to suggestion. It clashed with how I perceived the situation. In the end it felt like I was trying to get a philharmonic orchestra to perform together with my riff-raff punk band.

That the dialogue is unbelievable (abnormal) is true but much of it is something that I might say. So I asked myself if any of my friends could be saying it and then the answer is (mostly) no. I probably should find a balance between my style and its resulting imagination and actual people from reality in order to make a more believable story.

Will probably have to read a lot of different sources to see if I can find some inspiration.

>>29318584

>>29320306

Merry Generic Holiday! (actually a good beat if you're into EDM while writing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtQOM2LgKM

Goodnight

>>29314772
So I finally got around to reading at least part of this.
I'll say this as a bump and continue with some feedback in a moment.

I kinda want to share my story and see... critiques, but it's not even close to being done, and I'm pretty sure no one will want to touch it, because...

It's a pretty niche crossover thing.

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>>29323289
While you're supposed to only post done stories (since that makes it possible to give more meaningful feedback), a finished chapter is also quite acceptable. As for the crossover thing, that's a tough one, what's it crossing over with?

>>29323360
It's... not really a thing that can actually be in chapters.

Because it's just a random thing involving Ponies and Professional Wrestling, involving the two. Ponies wrestle a match sort of thing.

I wasn't really going to post it until it's finished anyways, by that I mean just fully on pad.

>>29319308
>>29314772
I quite like comfy stories.
I think I like Silverhoof's character. A little bit buffoonish but kind.

This first interaction is fun too; Silverhoof out of the blue surprises Anon by showing that she does something unusual, and that he shouldn't feel bad for being different, because there are lots of other people that are different too.
I actually like that you went for an "in media res" opening that builds with inferred detail.

Unfortunately, I have to say it's quite hard to read. I only got about halfway through, sadly, though it did seem to be picking up some steam.
There are quite a few grammar errors; and whene there aren't outright errors, sentence structure is still rough, to say the least.
I agree with the tone, if not all of the specifics of Handsome Jew's feedback.
And there are a lot of word choices that range from incorrect to not the best.

I won't go into too much detail, since it seems like you're musing on how to change in general.
>>29319308
You indicate here that you are specifically going for an idiosyncratic style.
Which is great! New ways of writing, experimental ways, are very valuable.
It's not like music where aharmonic jangles can create fascinating textures of sound. Your reader is giving you control of a space in their head, and if you have combinations of words that make too little sense, it shunts them out of that mental theater.

To start with: this story uses the word "unique" A LOT. The worst part of that is that "unique" is mostly a positive word in English. It is weird to read "unique" used in a negative way without special context. Since the senses they talk about are neutral-to-negative, You should probably substitute "different" and "unusual" for almost every "unique". Some "distinctive"s or "isolated"s thrown in there for different spots on the spectrum of feeling you want to hit.

>>29323390
(I'm putting this in parentheses because this is something that bothers me, but wouldn't bother like, 80% of your audience: to be technical, "unique" means 'one of a kind'. "kind of unique" is an oxymoron; "nearly unique" is okay.)

One kind of grammar error that shows up relatively often is that you'll have comparisons between things that aren't the same type. Right here in the beginning:
>Silverhoof Twinkledot may not be the brightest pony around, barring her painted hooves that surely was the brightest of them all;but she was always
Well first I have to fix the more basic problems. The "were" that HJ mentioned, that's no place for a semi-colon. Personally I'd separate the painted hooves aside with dashes, but that's me. There's also a tense problem "may not be ... but she was". Needs to be either "may not have been ... but she was" or "may not be ... but she is".
>Silverhoof Twinkledot may not be the brightest pony around—barring her painted hooves that surely were the brightest of them all—but she was always
Alright, now I can get to the problem: the way this is written, Silverhoof's hooves are the brightest PONIES of them all.
I get where you're going with this, and I also enjoy the contrast between literal and metaphorical use of brightest, but the grammar makes it harder for the meaning to reach its goal. And this specific example is an especially hard one to wrangle pleasantly.
I think the best thing to do would be to make sure that you're comparing Sliverhoof to other ponies in both places; though you might want to change the adjective if you do that.
Something like:
>—barring her silvered hooves that surely made her the brightest—
I also changed a few other words here to ones I think would work better, but I'm sure you get the important idea even if you don't like the specifics.

>>29323392
Here's a more minor example so you have another data point:
>your steadfast voice tries to reassure Silverhoof
Anon's voice doesn't have separat agency to do this soothing. Either it soothes her intrinsically, probably by being steadfast (which also does not match the tone of the sentences he is speaking in that voice, which have exclamation points and ellipses, not very steadfast), or it is HIM doing the soothing. Look here:
>you reassure Silverhoof
Both more grammatically and semantically correct and stripped to like, a third the size.

There are a lot of small places where, even taking into account a distinctive writing style, a given word does not convey the things the words around it say it should. I feel like it'd be belaboring the point (also I'm tired) to go into too many specifics.

You do have a few too many "speaking descriptions". Particularly too many adverbs. Like here:
>“You OK?” you ask in a worried tone.
There are only two people talking, and because it's black we also already know it's Anon, but we'd know from context even if it weren't greentext. We know it's a question. And we know that he's worried because he's asking "You OK?" and that he cares about this person. If he were sarcastic or dry, or choking back a laugh, I'd describe those. But "worry" is the default here. So better would be:
>“You OK?”
On the other hand, I don't know exactly why, but I love this following line:
> “Of course I’m ok. Being somewhat unique – I was born ok!” Silverhoof confidently proclaims.
It's very character-ful, a little insane sounding even; and normally I'd hate a said thesaurus-word, and square that hate combined with an adverb, but it works here. That's actually part of why I think you should take the effort to strip words like these out whenever you can. So that when they're well used, they're that much stronger!
Right before that though:
>she blurts

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>>29323372
That is somewhat of a niche thing, indeed.
Good luck on it, and do post once it's ready.

>>29323397
Bad word choice, she's not starting this statement suddenly or impulsively, but I do understand you're trying to convey she's saying this before she falls over, so there's probably something quick about it. I'd go with something like:
>she chokes out

I guess we're going in reverse of how I usually do, let's step to a higher level of advice next: it's easy to do in first and second person, but you should be careful about giving the reader too many ready made conclusions. Some informed attributes are okay, to prime the well, like the idea that Silverhoof can be dimwitted at times. But just saying, well, all of this:
> Silverhoof was definitely a true friend. Sometimes her wit might seem a little dull and perhaps her chromium looking hooves where compensating, but at least she would never let a friend’s brooding mind go without treatment.
> Maybe she really felt unique and thus could understand how you felt? Or maybe she just tried really, really hard convincing herself she was unique in order to more easily empathize with you? Her pony mind sometimes seemed like a mystery and you couldn’t really be sure.

All of this would be a lot more fun for the reader to learn from seeing, rather than to be told all at once. Pick just like, one sentence of these five or six facts to be the one you just tell your reader.

Something to think about on another revision or project: your characters all sound too similar to one another. Anon and Silverhoof and Pinkie all have pretty similar vocabularies and sentence structures. Giving characters a distinctive "voice" is one of the more difficult and subtle challenges of narrative prose, but no time like the present to start practicing.
One tool that helps me is to try and imagine I'm writing lines for an actor that fits the role I want for a character. I'm not sure why, but literally imagining them getting into character, reading something in their voice helps me figure out where some things sound wrong for that person.

>>29323401
I wish you lots of luck. Just being creative enough to put a whole story together, as well as receptive to criticism and willing to consider how to change means you have a lot of potential.
My benedryl hit halfway through this so I hope it's all comprehensible and useful.
Whoops, noticed one already:
Anon's voice doesn't have separat agency to do this soothing.
should be:
Anon's voice doesn't have separate agency to "try" to do anything.

>>29323400
Thank you, I will. Truthfully it probably won't be the best thing considering it's a big royal rumble match that will have 30 mlp characters(pone and non-pone) wrestling in it, so... it'll be full of chaos and probably insane.

I'm past the halfway point, and it's 3.5K+ words, so... it'll probably be 7K or so by the thing's end.

>>29323372
Hah. That's too niche for me to review.

The main thing in my mind is that you have whatever you need critique pre-written.
Just be aware of what kind of help you'll be able to get is based on the amount you post. Nobody can review a full character arc or plot without the whole story. But we can give pointers on prose, concept, initial characterization, etc.

>>29323410
Yeah, the plan is to finish writing it.

It's not going to be super lengthy. Probably ~7K or so words in full. But, it's going to just go through a lot of insanity. It's not really anything super serious though.

>>29323390
>>29323392
>>29323397
>>29323401
>>29323404


Thanks for your great comments!

I too like when a story throws me into the action, but now think I need a few words added for place and setting. It will also give the reader less to be confused about so they can focus on figure out the dialogue. Also a lot of people (at 4chan) probably have a picture on who and what Anon is. I imagine him as male in this story but it is written/designed so that Anon can be female. It was a decision I took when I decided to try my first 2nd person story ever. I should probably call it Benon to get rid of expectations.

I still haven’t decided on what to do with the word "unique". Just repeating it together with "very" and other peculiarities were supposed to give her a "dialect" right from the start. (And this peculiarity is also repeated to the very end since I think the story in itself is a little too thin.)

You are also right about the common vocabulary/structure for ponies and human alike. Any attempt to differentiate them turned out bad. (Silverhoof f.e. started to sound like a Rarity-hybrid which was never my intent.) Think I will first make the text readable before I make it enjoyable.

Comparisons between entirely different things is something I have an affinity for and love to do in my daily communication. Usually together with hyperboles where I can do invalid comparisons between a large bathtub (volume) and a large pay check (money). I find it amusing (in fiction) but perhaps I should scale it down.

Interesting that you mention my problematic addition of "you ask in a worried tone". During my first edit I really didn’t like it but left it in. That the emotion being the default one for the situation may explain it. Felt like a tautological error.


Still mulling over how to change it without losing some of the oddities I personally enjoy. Gives me something to think about, and thinking is a hobby of mine. ;)

>10
sheesh.

>>29324164
>Comparisons between entirely different things is something I have an affinity for and love to do in my daily communication. Usually together with hyperboles where I can do invalid comparisons between a large bathtub (volume) and a large pay check (money). I find it amusing (in fiction) but perhaps I should scale it down.

To be clear, metaphors are great. I like, as a small example, the contrast between Silverhoof being dim and her hooves being bright.
But in that criticism I'm talking about the grammar, not what you're contrasting, but how you refer to them.

PS: the plural of "hyperbole" is "hyperbole".

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>>29325717
>PS: the plural of "hyperbole" is "hyperbole".
Are you sure about that, Anon?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hyperbole#English
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/hyperbole
http://www.memidex.com/hyperboles

>>29326004
That's one of those things that just seems weird from a word standpoint but it's apparently correct?

>>29326004
Well I suppose not then.
I guess I was actually completely unfamiliar with the second definition in those entries (an instance of hyperbole).
Actually, I was going to complain further that hyperbole shouldn't be countable in the first place. It sounds really ugly to me, like it should be "hyperbolic statements" if you must.

>>29326455
I can sympathise with that.

>>29325012
page 9 has been procrastinating, too

>>29327071
I procrastinate a lot, it's hard sometimes to get in a writing mood.

>>29327860
I used to write to procrastinate, but lately I've been shitting around on TV Tropes or mlp instead.

>>29328176
I don't really write to procrastinate, probably seems weird. I normally sit around and watch old 90's nick stuff and lurk on the internet.

>>29328187
I turned procrastination into an art form.
Since my writing is shit, I thus spend most of my time producing exquisite art.

>>29328215
I don't art.

Unless making no hooves edits in wrestling games counts as arting.

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Guys, guys, hey guys

Faggot13 is on the discord chat group

>>29328385
Maybe I should try this discord thing out. At least in the evenings like this.

>>29328941
I've got Discord, but I haven't joined the discord here. Discord's are usually entertaining.

Late nite bump

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>>29314329
Sleepless in Ponyville
(It bothers me slightly that there's not much attempt to reference the movie they named the episode after.)
Again with the details. Rainbow Dash in the first shot of the show, tossing some bits in her hooves, then right after that flying along with a drink in hoof.
I'm still amused that they kind of retcon the end of Showstoppers where Rainbow Dash was clearly there waiting for Scootaloo, as if they already had a relation, instead making her closer to "just a fan, also a friend of her friends' sisters).
Sweetie Belle with the emotional manipulation, literally rubbing her hooves together, and incredible puppydog eyes.
She pays for it shortly of course.
Scoots, AJ and AB have clearly backpacking inspired saddlebags.
Showcasing both Dash's athleticism and shittiness by having her cleanly break a segment of tree trunk right out of the middle of a line of trees. As an avid backpacker, that's hardly fucking leave no trace Dash. But then again, she just broke down five trees in a blow, I'm not gonna be the one to tell her. Maybe by anonymous letter.
Applejack hammers in a stake with her hoof, no hammer necessary.
Horror story figures: the Oldenpony and the Headless Horse
AJ says "hit the straw" instead of "hit the hay". I didn't understand this until now, as I rewrote this: either ponies in general (because it's a staple of their diet) or AJ in particular (as a farmpony) would obviously make a distinction between straw and hay.
They clearly have a lot of modernish technology, but RD ignites the fire with a firebow.
Did you know that in Australia they called this kind of bedroll a "swag"?
RD sleeps easily on top of her sleeping bag. Warm summer air, or an implication about the hyperathletic bird-pone body temperatures?
This is the episode that gives us Luna's dream wandering.

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>>29329727
"I slept like a filly." I wonder why this instead of "foal" or "baby". They've used baby before, but I guess wanted horse version here instead. Filly instead of foal, Maybe they wanted to keep the same rhythm as "slept like a baby," or, more likely, they've previously taught the target audience what a filly is, but not what a foal is (possibly the same reason they use "mom" and "dad" instead of "dam" and "sire".)
Sweetie Belle seems like a less proficient singer than sometimes established. Though I guess she sure has some lungs on her.
RD snores monstrously.
I don't know if we see many wing hugs, but this is a beautiful one.

Wonderbolts Academy
RD's mailbox is on the ground.
Pinkie is super nervous on RD's behalf.
Oh wow. That's not a saddlebag, it's a messenger bag, worn over one wing! How incredibly appropriate.
The Wonderbolts have obviously military/air force inspirations and styling, but this episode at least doesn't establish much more than that.
Spitfire's voice shocked me, it's like a baby trying to sound tough.
The body language with the wings is fantastic, Spitfire flaring them up in intimidation.
Snowflake's muscles and size do not seem to be a big confidence booster (even if his tiny wing syndrome did not keep him out of an elite academy).
More wing fives.
Pinkie displaying borderline diagnosible OCD symptoms for RD's letter.
Spitfire hoofstamps pictures.
There's some weird but cool pegasus weather machinery in this episode.
I have to credit somebody else for noticing this: the tallies on the scoreboard are in groups of five for everyone else, but Rainbow Dash's marks are in blocks of six, 20% more.
There may be extenuating factors (reckless but got lucky, nerves, blocking her view), but Dust beat Dash in precision flying here.
Clouds can be condensed enough to noticeably slow falling ponies.
Spitfire only says "That's an Academy Record" twice.

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>>29329740
I think it would've made for a better explanation and moral for Spitfire to tell Rainbow she made her a wing pony because it's the job of a second to slow down the brasher instincts of the leader.

Apple Family Reunion
Ah yes. The introductions of "moons" for timing, basically invented to frustrate the fans. In the real world, there are very close to 13 lunar cycles per year. However, hoersworld's moon literally drags the night into the sky, and is manually raised and lowered with magic: while assuming similar year lengths is still the best we can do in absence of further information, our confidence level should NOT be very high. However, while Faust tended to push an idea that ponies aged a bit like real world horses, I feel like since her, showrunners have implied that they're more like humans, all the girls are the early 20s you'd expect from people out on their own and running their own businesses. (Though they definitely show some rapid growth from youths, by the Cake babies standard)
100 moons between reunions, which would be 7.7 years.
Applejack was a diapered foal (but capable of forming complete sentences) at one reunion, close to an adult at another one, shown in photographs (and Applebloom a filly, but out of diapers), and then there's this one. It seems extremely likely she's over 300 moons old, a bit over 23, and acting pretty darn similar to a human of that age.
I slightly enjoy that they show you the photos, but make sure to establish that there are gaps in the photos shown. No guessing the age of Granny (and hence, Ponyville) from that.
Some more horse pun language:
"Gesundhoof"
"Who's showing their muzzle?"
Heh. This famous artist wink to the fans that yes, Applejack and siblings are orphans. Granny: "This might be the last reunion everypony makes," [two shooting stars as the kids look out the open door and there's a somber moment]
Then of course Granny continues saying, "No telling with how busy everypony is these days!"

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>>29329757
They have 7-legged races, not 6-legged. Kind of weird?
Lusterdust reappears from the last episode Babs appeared in.
RD bouncing on a raincloud is cute. Cute dammit. This is undeniable canon. So is Applejack shaking herself dry like a dog.
Jesus christ. Applesauce, Granny Smith's aunt, is still alive. Then again, in big farm families, aunts younger than you aren't all that weird anyways.
Gas Powered sewing machines.
Fruit bats. They are made of fruit.
Big Mac rescues Aunty Applesauce from the falling cart.
And we see a bull (or an ox...) pulling a cart.


Spike at Your Service
Fluttershy walking Winona at the start, demonstrating what she does.
Spike stops a run-away cart with his claws alone.
I've been wondering a bit about the balloon from the very first time it appeared, uh, in the intro, actually. I think I assumed it was Twilight's and she inflated it with magic when needed, but this confirms that it's a business or something.
Timberwolves, first mentioned in Family Appreciation Day.
I've seen headcanon that Spike is actually really durable (cf lava swimming and stopping that cart) but he does run in fear from the wolves.
It feels like the writers can't always agree on how young or competent Spike is, or how intense or silly his infatuation with Rarity.
First time he's shown summoning paper with his fire.
Rainbow Dash is writing a novel. (It sounds a lot like her life, which, having seen the AK Yearling episode, is god damn hilarious.) The way she mentions it implies that AJ has an unfinished novel, but presumably this is just projection.
It sounds like even if he were competent, AJ doesn't like the idea of him serving her forever, even though several other ponies sound like they'd love it.
Spike gives AJ scritches. There's a gif of this, and she does say it feels good, but her voice and expression scream that it's awkward and uncomfortable.

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>>29329774
AJ is inflated. I know it's easy to forget this at times, but My Little Pony is, in fact, a cartoon for little girls, so maybe we shouldn't take this as an actual example of pony biology.
Applejack seems mostly okay with deceiving Spike. But you know, right from the very first episode, "honesty" has not been about "not telling lies" and more about the trust Applejack encourages in others. Celestia calls it "integrity" too. She's tried several times to tell Spike how she feels, but she wants to find a way to stop this silliness without having to hurt his feelings regarding the Dragon Code.
If Spike's grass count number is accurate, a high estimate is that Sweet Apple Acres has less than a quarter acre (standard home plot in the US) of grass. It is an extra incompetent Spike this episode.
Rainbow Dash has really impressive mimicry ability. I was about to ask if it comes up again, but in Sleepless in Ponyville she makes a perfectly convincing monster noise (by snoring). Before I remembered that, I was going to muse that this might be confirmation of birdpone-ness, RD being part parrot (the colors sure fit).
Pinkie is suddenly much less good at acting afraid than usual. Maybe she's enjoying acting like she's a bad actor.
Timberwolves have a very distinctive and strong breath odor.
And when the big one grew, it didn't just pull up pieces of broken timberwolves, it pulled whole trees out of the forest.
Since they just established that the monsters have a distinctive breath, it actually feels a lot more reasonable than otherwise that an animated pile of detritus could choke to death (does feel a little stupid that it did so on such a small rock).

>>29329774
>And we see a bull (or an ox...) pulling a cart.
Oh, for anybody that doesn't know, an ox is a bull that's been castrated after puberty. Like the boy-cow version of a gelding. All the muscle of a bull, almost none of the murderous rage, thus, cart pullers.
A steer is a boy-cow castrated before puberty, which means their meat ends up much more tender.

Presumably the sapient bulls (since we know cows, and also buffalo, their near relatives, can talk) are much more tractable than our versions. But then again maybe ponies have just enslaved the even toed ungulates?

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>>29328941
>>29328954
https://discord.gg/XNM2tVS

Come on, come all! The more the merrier.

>>29329991
... Welp, I'm in there, but it's sleep time. Woo.

Hyperbolic Bump!
Old Oxford dictionary from 2008, claims Hyperbole to be a noun and "uncountable, countable, usually singular".

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Have to improve my grammar.
Lesson #1: Horses require proper punctuation.

>>29330263
hyperbolae all up in this thing.
The original countable sense refers to the geometric figure though.

I hope this thread survives while I'm in the office today.

>>29331798
It will survive somehow.

Hyperboles everywhere.

>>29332326
well, I did get back with it on 10. But it's true, that's still surviving.

>>29334249
Again?

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>>29329778
Keep Calm and Flutter On
Ah yes, the beginnings of fluttercord, and the thousand rees it launched, plus a pretty extreme potential imbalance for any kind of threatening episode.
Pinkie gets her hooves polished, Rarity looks at herself in the reflection.
More weird horse phrases. Rarity: "Why in the wide wide world of Equestria-"
Twilight yells at Celestia somewhat.
This episode is probably the one with the most implications of Machiavellian Celestia that was a popular fanon for a while:
"I have use for his magic if he can be reformed,"
"Get him to use magic obediently of his own free will."
Discord confirms that he was still aware on some level in what he calls a stone prison.
Did Celestia realize? Would she have done differently if she did? Would releasing him have been an acceptable act of mercy?
The beavers seem to have their own names (Beaverton Beavertooth), and are fully capable of conversing (if only in Beavish) with Fluttershy, having full conversations, making agreements, etc.
RD calls him Dipcord. Nice burn, lady.
The last time The Stare was mentioned, Fluttershy specifically says she couldn't use it at will. Did that change as part of the events of the episode?
Angel screams like a girl.
Twilight is looking for reforming spells. Two points:
Discord ate them, did he do it just to annoy her, or because he actually had something to fear from them?
And that's potentially ominous, the idea of using supernatural power to alter someone's personality.
Discord is literally two faced at one point here.
Pinkie once again the first to appreciate Discord's work.
Hah! "Dashie" nickname is used in show.
Funny statement: "Hold on to your elements girls, it's gonna be a bumpy night."
(Also worth noting the use of girls instead of fillies. They don't always play horsepuns to the hilt.)
Rainbow Dash: "You see that Discord is behind this right?" Fluttershy: "Of course I do! Do you all think I'm a silly, gullible fool?"
Fluttershy growls a little.

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>>29335845
Once again struck by background details and animation, such as the beavers floating logs down the river in the background here, or fluttershy slipping irregularly on the ice as she walks.
We get a series title drop. "Friendship is Magic." First ever I think?
Celestia leaves the Elements of Harmony with Twilight. Is this more chessmaster Celestia, planning for the Magical Mystery Cure?

This seems like as good a time as any to mention: I saw someone complaining about Fluttershy stuttering in fanfics. It's true, I don't think she ever actually stutters. She does do something similar where she sort of hesitates as she talks (as well as getting really quiet), and I'm not sure how I'd represent that in text differently from a stutter. But of course, she doesn't do it, well, often at all really; not even when she's nervous. It's almost one of those things like Pinkie losing her hair poof.

Just for Sidekicks
Spike does love his bejeweled pastries.
Owlowiscious and Tank show up again; but not Spike's pet, the baby phoenix.
Equestria Games first mention.
All of their saddlebags have their cutie marks on them.
"We haven't figured out how we were gonna do the skydiving part anyways" Can they not afford the balloon rental fee?
The industrial size hairdryer looks pretty industrial. And they paid (presumably rented) for it with one teeny jewel.
Lots of callbacks here. Screwloose again, though she doesn't bark. Cheeri and Big Mac hanging out together. That nerd stallion from Putting Your Hoof Down has a stall.
First time we see a Filly Scout I think?
Spike status tidbit here: on his own he's not sufficient to count as a chaperon for the animals, even though three fillies are. Was it because he was alone, or not a pony?
There's a no stops express line from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire. (Now that I think of it, that actually makes more sense than I would've thought; Ponyville seems like a major food exporter)

>>29331798
>The original countable sense refers to the geometric figure though

Actually they have separate entries. (But they share the entry hyperbolic.)
Hyperbola (geometric shape) plural hyperbolas or hypebolae according to same dictionary.
Perhaps a newer dictionary changed all this, but I wouldn't know.

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>>29335866
Games Ponies Play
I love it when shows do this thing with "the other side" of another episode.
Crystal Empire explicitly part of Equestria.
Says something about Rainbow Dash that she's so strongly motivated to help the Crystal Empire because she doesn't want its citizens to suffer the way she did.
Kind of interesting, in a slightly unfortunate imperialist implications way, that there's a massive communal clean-up by Crystal Ponies, but they're ruled by a non-crystal pony (admittedly with a crystal cutie mark), and a bunch of non-natives are handling an important political function.
(Though everypony in Equestria seems to be pretty good with Celestia, and all of the aforementioned non-Crystal ponies are major heroes to them.)
Twilight casually levitates all five of her friends. Writer inconsistency, or evidence of growing power? (the latter even makes sense, given Magic Duel)
Am I reading too much into Cadance giving Twilight lessons on being a calm, collected leader, since I know what comes next?
Ponies can suffer from claustrophobia.
"Give you a hoof". You know, I feel like there's this impression that the show is crammed to the brim with "hoof" puns, but now that I've heard it, I don't think it actually happens often. I think the writers do their best to write around most idioms that would include "hand".
"I'd think in your line of work you'd meet princes all the time." Another confirmation of the idea (started by intro of Prince Blueblood) that it's probably not an uncommon title among nobility. Probably especially unicorn nobility, since "princess" is what their pre-unification tribal leader was called.
"Every city AND EMPIRE wants to host the Equestria games." (emphasis mine). I can't tell if "empire" is actually a common division of Equestria, or if it's a kind of joke: "Every empire X" is correct if there's only one empire with property X.

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>>29335924
>>29335866
>>29335845
You can maybe tell I'm not putting ALL of the effort into finding the best images, though I do like having images accompanying these.
This one would've been better for >>29335845

Coming tomorrow, yet more shit with alicornification and humanization.

The bumpings will continue until morale improves.

>>29337337
To bump or not to bump is not a question.

>>29337997
Always a question.

>>29338784
Good answer!

>>29337997
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the endless shitposts of outrageous faggots....

>>29335866
>Owlowiscious and Tank show up again; but not Spike's pet, the baby phoenix.
I don't recall the exact episode, but at the start of one, we see a series of photographs showing the baby phoenix being returned to its parents.

>>29340347
Good to know.
Pretty sure it must not be one I've watched yet, unless it was very subtle. I'm hardly at the level of those guys that literally step through every episode frame by frame.

Season four was when my original interest started to wane. I didn't pay much attention even to the episodes I did watch.
I'd forgotten nearly everything that takes place in Princess Twilight.

>>29340221
To take arms against a sea of changelings,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

>>29340983
It's on page 10 so I'm not gonna risk cleverness here.

>>29340510
>>29340347
It is literally in Just For Sidekicks, and it is not subtle either. I'm going to blame sleep deprivation or alcohol.

>>29341910
Cleverless bump #2

>>29340983
No more; and by a sage, say we fall
the page ten, and the thousand natural threads


they should have sent a poet
No really, why don't we have any pony epic poetry?
Getting a little loopy here.
Goodnight.

Hey guys for a while i ve been wondering if i should hide one-post greens like
http://pastebin.com/w4ziqvUf

Not sure myself what to think, since they re so short and personally i prefeer long fics but still...maybe people would like if it was open? I m conflicted here, help

That s sort of an old one but still, if anyone has any criticism for that it d be quite good

>>29344404
one/two post long greens*

>>29344404
A very confusing green that suffers from spelling errors and missing punctuation. Watching Twiggles blow up is funny though.

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I have nothing to say. So I'll agree with >>29344804
and post this cute picture.

>>29345863
It is a cute picture.

Though I deal more in chokeslams and betrayal.

>>29344404
I've collected most of my single post replies into a file labeled drabbles. I was planning on hosting it on my pastebin as a kind of matter of historical interest.

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>>29345863
10/10 would praise

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>>29335924
My notes were pretty spare when I started this project.
So I completely skipped a fairly important line from Winter Wrap-Up:
"Pony-Ville was started by Earth Ponies so for *hundreds of years* they've never used magic to clean up winter."
Combine with Family Appreciation Day: Granny Smith unambiguously stating that Pony-ville was established in her lifetime.
Together, these mean Granny Smith is "hundreds of years" old.
There are explanations you could make if this disturbs: Twilight was wrong, or was speaking imprecisely and meant it was a regional custom (both a little out of character for her); Granny Smith is exagerrating/misremembering/delusional; or canon is just broken.

Winter Wrap-Up also includes a fashion saddle (or cold weather gear saddle), literally called a saddle.
They use magic, not even pegasi, to change the season in Canterlot (more implication that it's more of a unicorn city than anything else).

In Over A Barrel they have a Salt Saloon. It was kind of a cartoonish thing so I just skipped over it, but a lot of fics have bits about salt intoxication, so I figure it should be noted.

Also of note is that Appleloosa is at least an overnight train ride away from Ponyville. Maps show it about as far south as the Crystal Empire is north. And the trip (non-stop) to the Crystal Empire is not very long. Enough that ponies can leave in the morning, have a fairly full day, and be back the next day sometime.
Equestria does not seem to be a very large country.

While I'm at it, a small detail I didn't note, but has been there since the beginning; standard cartoon style flare, both a pony's iris and pupil contract or dilate together.

Trying to pay more attention to Fluttershy and what I'll now call her quavering voice. And yes, it is definitely not a common tic for her, at least at this point in the series.

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>>29347426
I'd originally heard that season 3 was half length because of a lack of confidence in the show after a lot of talent churn. Apparently, the opposite was actually true. The execs were so confident in the show, they planned to just air half as many episodes, leaven them with re-runs, and reap nearly as much profit from their strangely high quality toy commercial.

Magical Mystery Cure
We gettin into the crazy shit here. Some people are still butt mad about this.
Twilight displaying a very clear lack of genre awareness by singing about how everything's fine.
As far as I'm aware, we have, at this point, seen the flat-mane "Pinkamena" version of Pinkie Pie, with her cutie mark, exactly once. This is a second time as an adult, but she has the wrong butt stamp.
Clearly the book from the ending of The Crystal Empire, a swirl with four stars. Other media says that this is Starswirl's Cutie Mark. (Later, we see that Twilight's primary research journal also features her cutie mark.)
Twilight... you're just... storing the Elements of Harmony in a glass case in the middle of what honestly seems like a public library.
I'm really curious about whether or not this spell's effects meant Starswirl had access to the Elements of Harmony. Fundamental to the spell? Weird side-effect? Would it have worked on another group of ponies if they'd happened to be physically present?
The spell affects "the true self". Not just memories like the friendship recall spell of Return of Harmony. Pretty interesting.
I pause to reflect that one of the things that seems to make humans what they are is a sort of deep-seated dissatisfaction with our lot in life. At the very least, it's what a lot of art centers on. A constant impulse that we need "something else" to be intellectually satisfied or emotionally fulfilled. Do Ponies avoid a lot of that because they're actual true purpose in life is baked into them, right from the start?

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>>29348051
I do really enjoy the theme they chose for resolving this, the idea that friends help us remember who we are, our true selves, even when we're a little lost.
The elements of harmony are directly involved in Twilight's Ascension; and of course, this is the episode that tells us alicorns are not necessarily born, they can be made. (Though I understand we later get confirmation that they can be born, too.)
Confirmation that Celestia had this specifically planned, in mind for Twilight. "You've did something today that's never been done before." Starswirl couldn't do whatever this thing is because he didn't understand friendship. I realized that this episode does not specifically call her the Princess of anything in particular, just a "princess". Was Starswirl in line for becoming Princess of Magic, and then failed? Or is Twilight _unique_ in ascending to alicornhood?
The way they talk is interesting: Rarity calls her an alicorn, then somebody says, "You look almost like a princess," to which Celestia responds: "Because she IS a princess." Strongly implying that an alicorn is not necessarily a princess
As I mentioned before, "alicorn" used explicitly to refer to winged unicorn.
Pinkie drinks a glass of water just to do a spit-take.
Reality is reality, any words or names we use are just labels for our interpretive convenience. Celestia gives us some synonyms for the elements of Harmony that can help if we have to triangulate a better meaning than the names alone give us: Charity, Compassion, Devotion, Integrity, Optimism, Leadership.
Cadance is still wearing the headdress from Games, and Celestia and Luna have double fancy crowns, while Twilight gets one of Equestria's most potent secret weapons for her crown (she also gets some hoofguard things).
Horsewords: "Fillies and Gentlecolts". We got Mares and Gentlecolts last time.
And of course, a fan favorite line: Shining isn't crying, he's just leaking liquid pride.

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>>29348301
And now, time for everyone's favorite degenerate nohooves interlude.

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
The first material that I'm watching, instead of rewatching. But let me tell you, it's been hilarious getting all this content including Sunset Shimmer and Flash Sentry without any context.
A lot of people don't treat the movies as canon to the show (unless, of course, they're doing something in this setting themselves). Which makes sense: I understand the show shies away from any potential references; I watched most of season 4 and didn't notice a thing that looked like it relied on the movie. But it's hardly like it was made by a completely different team.
And of course, despite the >nohooves people (who I assume are at least partly ironic anyways) frothing and reeeing, I can't help but think it made for a gate way drug to horsefucking. Look at how much material on the board involves humanized or EqG. For at least some of the people attracted to that, the answer to "would you a pony" has got to be closer to "yes" than it was when they got here.
So onto the movie retrospective. My notes are long, partly because they include a lot of review, as above, partly because it's three episode lengths.
First thing out the gate: A Princess Summit exists.
Pinkie makes transformer noises uncurling from a ball (yes that was important enough to mention)
I think this is the first time we see wheeled luggage (we've seen plenty of dollies/carts though).
Amusingly, the fact that Twilight doesn't want to wear her crown all the time (to Rarity's disappointment), and that she's not good with her wings yet are mentioned here, and also at the beginning of season 4.
The banners at the princess summit (held in Crystal Empire) still have Celestia's cutie mark on them, reinforcing her primacy?
(Wow, char limit already?)

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>>29348876
"Princess Cadance was given the Crystal Empire to rule over, what if now that I'm a princess, Celestia expects me to lead a kingdom!" Confirmation Equestria contains kingdoms that are Celestia's to give and take.
Twilight's wings are antsy, flipping out just because she's trying to sleep. It puts me in mind of what they say about pegasi needing to learn in Baby Cakes.
Twilight (generally established as not athletically accomplished) could outrun Shimsham. Which was probably just for story reasons, but does make me think: princess power? Or is Sunset unused to her pony body after 30i (where i is an integer) moons without hooves?
Another point where they try to flimflam us with "moons". 30 moon between openings, ~2.3 years given Earth Lunar cycle length. cf Apple Family Reunion. Stays open 3 days?
Mirror was in Canterlot's throne room until the crystal empire was reclaimed. Making Shimmer insanely lucky, actually. The mirror AND elements have been moved, but by sheer coincidence, they're together this one day.
It's not Twilight (displays absolute trust in Celestia, demonstrated willingness to work alone) but Rainbow Dash that first protests Twilight going alone. I wonder if the imbalance explanation is just that seeing their doppelgangers would make people on the other side go wonk, or if it's a metaphysical reason.
Spike again demonstrates his remarkable devotion to Twilight.
Twilight panics on seeing her hooveslessness.
She entered with saddlebags, came out with clothes and a backpack. (If there's one thing I don't like about this movie, it's those silly poofed out mini-skirts. That or the 70% leg design) Spike came out as a dog, wearing a collar, but he can talk (confirms that the transformation doesn't result in a 100% native being).
Twilight seems to have no problem galloping even though she's just been put into a body not designed for it. Evidence for horgans?

>>29348982
CMC and co attend the same school as the "mane six". It's shortly called "Canterlot High", implying a fairly typical American education system where High School is entered at 13 and goes four years (ending age 17 or 18). We know that all the Mane Six are above age of majority in their world. Of course, an entire country is compressed to a single school by the mirror, so age compression makes sense as well? This is probably something of which little sense can be made.
Twilight and Sunset do not recognize each other. Seems like it should imply something about the transformation affecting visual/social processing?
Everyone, including the two of them, have their personal symbol (not really a cutie mark, is it?) on their clothing.
Love that Fluttershy's introduction parallels the one from episode 1.
A weak bit of writing here, they don't establish very well that the Element of Friendship looks exactly like the Fall Formal Princess crown (though you eventually get the idea, and, hence, realize where Shimmer got her sham from... which raises further questions since a) the Element of Friendship was in the Castle of the Sisters until about 13 moons ago, cf Pricess Twilight, and b) was not in a crown before that point...).
We see Sunset Shimmer in pictures with three crowns. Since they're still talking about Fall Formal, it implies that she arrived as a freshman and won three years in a row. But a) I cannot tell if the first Sunset shimmer looks as young as other young students (the CMC, or the Mane 6 sans Twilight in a photo later), but I don't think so, b) we know that she ran for and won Princess of the Spring Fling. Presumably those are winter, spring, and summer crowns, and c) that's almost definitely longer than 30 moons, Sunset would probably have returned to steal the element earlier than this.
"My door is always open," as she shuts her door. Cute.
CHS strongly clique-y, possibly even by in world comparison, established.

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>>29348986
(whoops. Oh well.)

Pinkie: "Are you psychic?" Twilight: "Uh, no, not usually, unless that's something you can't do here?"
Heh. Pinkie again: "Do you have a twin sister that lives in the city?" Interesting in that the other 5 mini-horses lived in Ponyville anyways, while Twilight only arrived at the behest of Princess Celestia.
Pinkie pulls an entire clipboard from her hair.
Pinkie is not even slightly perturbed at Twilight taking that pen with her mouth.
AJ casually pulls off a bottle cap with her teeth.
Big Mac is not red. 0/10.
"Rainbow Dash, president of every sports club."
The movie actually has a pretty interesting theme of Twilight earning princess-hood all over again. Perhaps that could be considered a canon impact: as season 4 opens, she's still nervous, but doesn't feel like she hasn't earned her princessosity.
Snips and Snails: natural minions.
Sunset still makes with the horse words: "She'll be sorry she ever set hoof here, not that she would've been much safer in Equestria."
Twilight gets a pretty natural bucking position against that weird food filled tree.
Trixie needs some peanut butter crackers. I see a bit of fanon that Trixie is obsessed with them. Is this reinforced later?
Snips makes scissor noises as he scooches along, and Snails moves like a snail. Forget all criticism, movie of the year, every year.
Twilight, makes a donkey like noise of frustration (could be just a sound effect).
I'm delighted that the CMC is listening to the terrible song from Showstoppers, and Cheerilee cuts off the volume right before it would say "pony".
Scootaloo and Applebloom get pants. Lucky.
Among other things, Twilight clearly has trouble managing the stacks of books she's used to without magic.
Here's the photo where we see that the others of the mane six do indeed look a lot younger in what is later confirmed to be Freshman year. It's not completely clear
She still sleeps in the local library. But in her boots.

>>29349030
Ew, weak romance subplot. On the other hand, this does establish that someone with pony sensibilities can find a human attractive, which, uh, I would've thought mulp would be all over? (Though see again the above note about Sunset and Twilight recognizing each other: there's evidence in both directions for how the mirror transformation might affect ones sensibilities.)
Wondercolts. Change bolt to colt to ensure horse theme maintained. Tails and ears to visually foreshadow the transformation later.
I feel like they did a weak job of setting up the importance of the sports team to the school (even if they're just a symbol to rally around). Pretty much just the giant trophy case at the beginning.
I wonder if this is supposed to be what Luna's mane would look like without the celestial effect.
As if you doubted, Pinkie retains reality bamboozling powers.
They janitor for free.
Fluttershy instinctively turns away from anything tossed at her. Cute.
Sunset's weird demon magic with the Element on has a very similar but slightly different effect to the dark magic one (just swaps green for blue).
Mind control spell.
Sunset says "Spoiler alert".
Interesting that the magical ponification gives appropriate wings, but no horns. They get pony ears (losing their standard ones); they don't get tails, but their hair grows ankle length, kind of a visual parallel.
Similar to NMM and Luna, elements don't just beat Sunset, but change her.
Twilight dances like a pony. Flash joins her (is he flexible, or are the inhabitants of this world a little more pony like than real humans?)
There's photo evidence of everything.
RD: "What are hands?" We've seen a few hands in the show (Iron Will, Ahuizotl, griffin talons, even diamond dogs and discord's lion paw have opposable thumbs, really), but we can guess they might just be called "those weird paws with the grippy digit some things have".

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>>29349066
And then they never talked about it again, especially not the Crystal Empire pegasus pony that Twilight clearly has a crush on.
Derpy dancing with a muffin at the end of the credits. All is well.

I was going to include season 4 premiere but this is more than I meant to write to begin with.

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>>29309886

>it is the beginning of the weekend, which strangely see less activity here.

*caresses ballsack* My son...

You must be absolutely fucking new here.

>>29349457
Whose ballsack are you caressing here?
This is vital information.

>>29349665
From context I can only assume it's his own ballsack, and he's talking to his son (currently a sperm) inside it.

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Good grammar makes you a star!
(Or takes you to the moon.)

>>29350372
The impressive part is that Celestia actually uses the right pronoun at the beginning instead of the typical hypercorrection to "I" no matter what.
(Though it should still be "Twilight or me", but that's more of an issue of politeness than grammar.)

>>29349066
Hey I got dubs.

>>29349115
Just watched several episodes in a row and I've realized I only saw up through Power Ponies. I literally tricked myself into believing I watched several more episodes because of how much fandom reaction I saw to everything.

>>29349066
>"those weird paws with the grippy digit some things have"
Oh, I can relate to that!
Think I got a pair in my pockets.

>9

>>29344404
If you want, you could keep all your shorts in a single paste, like an anthology, and put the date the most recent story was added in the title of the paste.

>>29351276
>10
Active board today.

Music bump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtHJ8lFUrWI

bamp

>>29350385
>(Though it should still be "Twilight or me", but that's more of an issue of politeness than grammar.)
What if using the royal us? Wouldn't status trump politeness?

(This is mostly a thinly veiled bumping attempt.)

>>29354371
I was actually curious about this as a point of grammar. I couldn't find a single thing specifically about the majestic plural, but as far as I can tell, the rule in English is to put any pronoun that isn't "I" or "me" before names; so it would indeed be "Inform us or Twilight."

>>29353361
That's some really nice stuff.
I almost forgot we were doing writing music bumps earlier.

It sure does feel super appropriate to listen to pony based music when writing greentext.

>>29301298
It's kind of funny. When I'm actually just listening to music for listening's sake, I really like stuff in the vein of EDM, not to mention power metal and very vocal centric songs.
But when I'm working or trying to be creative, too much intensity or intelligible lyrics give me a headache. So I listen to game and movie soundtracks and stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaokauyjcng

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Her smile cut through the darkness like a knife.
(So I decided to hide in this thread.)

Is it wrong to fall in love with one of your characters?

>>29356317
>Is it wrong to fall in love with one of your characters?
Not if you're passionate about it!

Just calmly explain to your parents that you plan to get married, and I'm sure they will give their blessing.

>>29355174
It's all that keeps me up in late night write sessions

Also, I type faster with a good beat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-PojgBW-PY

Song related is an all-time favorite. Easily in the top 3 EDM tracks I've ever listened to

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>>29356317
You mean there are other reasons to write characters aside from fulfilling your most intimate, deep-seated desires?
The only way to overcome the gnarled knot of your self esteem and trust issues?

That's silly.

>Even Starlight is smiling as they encircle you.
>"One of us! One of us!"
>They repeatedly chant.
"One of you! One of you! I mean... one of us! One of us!"
>As they have you surrounded their chanting comes to a quick halt.
>"We’ve all confessed what music we listen to as we write. So?"
"Of course, obviously, I must share my music."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTsSk0r_Tq8
>You make a quick bump and head for the hills while they’re staring at their phones, chanting "WTF!? WTF!?"

>>29360227
>while they're staring at their phones
Are you implying we're disgusting phone posters? You better not be.

>>29360519
>The ponies are all occupied, but anon is chasing you.
>"Damn phone poster!" he screams.
>You keep wondering what he means.
>Was it a poster depicting a phone?
>Had someone put a phone in an envelope and posted it?
>You didn’t dare to stop and find out.
"I am innocent!" you scream, but you never stop.
"I haven’t done 51% of the crimes I’m accused for. In a democracy that means I’m innocent."
>You expect a bumpy road ahead.
>It will suit this bumped up thread.

>>29361240
Bloody creative types making their bumps all fancy like.

Little guy, remember my Clear Skies story?

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>>29350388
Hey, I got dubs on the post where I noticed I got dubs.

>>29349115
Princess Twilight
We see Twiggles struggling with flight, and fangirling Rarity wondering why she doesn't wear her crown all the time.
Obviously Twilight has wings, and not just wings, but the same style as Cadance, with the tips angled up behind her body (I note that foalsitter Cadance, in the flashback, had normal pegasus wings. And weirdly, Celestia sometimes has the fancy ones and sometimes the standard; I've seen it change in the same episode even; I think Luna always has standard ones).
Angles, different poses, and the subtlety of the change mean it's not immediately obvious that Twilight has a new frame, but eventually it becomes pretty clear she's a little bit taller and has the deeper chest that all the princesses have.
Stained glass celebrating Twi's Coronation, with Starswirl's book and a book with her cutie mark on it under her feet.
They've finally changed the show intro.
Most of Pinkie's dreams are about frosting.
Celestia strongly implies that this is the first Summer Sun Celebration since Luna was returned, and the first episode confirms it's yearly (that episode also confirms that Celestia changes the lengths of days for the seasons, as the celebration occurs on the longest one); meaning that from Friendship is Magic to Princess Twilight is one year. How they fit two winter episodes into that isn't explained, maybe shown out of chronological order?
I appreciate that even in a world where the sun and moon are herded manually, and the moon both seems to glow on its own and drags nighttime skies with it, that the side of the moon facing the sun is still the brightest part.
Rarity extinguishes her magic by touching her horn.
There's something that might be indicative of the tribal divide in the Everfree threats: evil plants, evil weather, magic going haywire.
Celestia gave Twilight a spell to summon and, presumably, a spell to contact Discord.

>>29362568
Oh, so close to a combo, Anon

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>>29362568
He's being a bit tsundere here, saying he won't help while still indicating something important to them.
Zecora says the potion needs alicorn magic, but the light show is the same as the dark magic from Crystal Empire (which Twilight used as a unicorn).
We see the transformation of Luna to Nightmare Moon where she not only rose the moon, but eclipsed the sun, and of course it occurs at the Castle of the Two Sisters. (I have to admit, before this I'd had a headcanon that the fight between Celestia and Nightmare lasted longer, possibly involved rebellion by other ponies.)
Nightmare moon's characteristic beam effect is opaque blue with purple lightning like effects.
Unlike the others, the element of Friendship was always been shaped like the central starburst of Twilight's cutie mark. (I went back to check and this was actually established even in the first episode; however, the other elements were portrayed as other geometric shapes, while in this episode they're all hexagons)
Celestia and Luna had adorable saddlebags.
So to step back a minute: the timeline goes: Wendigoes defeated, tribes unify and form Equestria; Equestria taken over by Discord; Sisters find elements and beat Discord (they build a castle over the tree; turn Sombra to shadow and banish him; Luna becomes Nightmare Moon).
So the question is, were the sisters made rulers of Equestria on its formation (thus they are here reclaiming it from Discord) or were they first made rulers of Equestria after this, in honor of their defeating him? I haven't caught anything definitive, but what evidence we have points towards the former: they're wearing crowns while finding the tree, and in HWE the banner of Equestria is the one portraying Celestia and Luna.

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>>29362702
It's a tragedy

>>29362753
I'm left with another question, assuming the above: were Celestia and Luna normal ponies that ascended because of the Wendigo events, making them approximately equal to Equestria in age, or were they already around, living as Alicorns, and tapped to lead the unified tribes because they were literally perfect for the job? I note that pre-unification, the unicorn tribe was in charge of sun and moon duties.
We know Starswirl was alive pre-Unification. If his magnum opus spell required access to the elements, that means that Discord conquered Equestria in a single pony's lifetime after Unification (well, or Starswirl found the Tree of Harmony and it was his notes that lead Celestia and Luna there? Too much speculation).
The Tree of Harmony being in the center of the chaotic Everfree is thematically interesting. It might harken back to the distinction Cheerilee made between discord and chaos: chaos isn't necessarily bad.
Had to check the transcript to learn these are called Cragodiles.
I wonder if Discord is a Bob Ross fan?
We see a distinctive ruined castle above the Tree of Harmony.
How much potion is in that bottle?
Those bundles of plundervines beneath the tree have been there the entire time.
At the end of the episode, is Twilight doing some kind of... sonic magic boom?

Castle-Mania
The only action this castle has seen in a thousand years is a big fight against returned Nightmare moon. Judging by the debris, Celestia couldn't even stand to look at the place long enough to pick up before moving to Canterlot Castle.
Yet the books seem very well preserved. Harmony power, or magic preservation? You know, Starswirl's book could feasibly be much older, so the latter is quite reasonable.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash are wearing beekeeper suits under those bees. Seems a lot less daring, but I imagine the show has to adhere to certain safety portrayal guidelines.

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>>29362786
It's starspider season. Spoiler: Chekov's gun goes unfired.
There's an annoying amount of coincidence in this episode; really, to fix thi they wouldn't have needed to add much, just something to make it a little less silly for the three entirely distinct visits to happen at the same time (something like Twilight having said something to Rarity and Applejack about the castle, with indicating she was going there herself).
Rainbowdash covers her eyes with her wings, and peeks through them like hands.
Tallymarks on the wall in the oubliette.
That organ has wide keys, proportionally, and narrower coverage than typical. The keys are still narrower than her hooves though. I said in my notes I wasn't going to analyze if this was a magical ribcage xylophone based organ, but it's pretty easy to notice at some point.
It amuses me for some reason that Rarity gives so much agency to the castle itself, calling it ungrateful, etc.
I also enjoy that Rarity and Fluttershy, because they're each fixated on something (tapestries and Angel respectively) act more bravely than Rainbow and Applejack.
"That's just an old pony's tale." I'm pretty sure we've seen this phrase horsepunned differently (and more correctly) before.
The journal seems to indicate that Celestia and Luna had a healthy and playful relationship for some time after defeating Discord and before Nightmare Moon.
This is a fun way to maintain a theme but also indicate progression: Friendship lesson letters from Twilight to Celestia for season 1; ones from the entire Mane Six for seasons 2 and 3; and now a friendship journal for 4.
Halfway through this season, no payoff yet pony of shadow foreshadowing here. Maybe in finale?

Music bump from >9

https://soundcloud.com/neilcic/mouth-moods

Gotta channel that meme magic my guildys.

>>29363556
>my guildys

I don't know how I feel about this, my guilda
Post catbird

Goodnight bump

>>29362857
I have to say, I have the weirdest mix of joy and reservations about season 4. I feel like I'm just flat out enjoying it more than previous seasons, even though I'm also finding more I dislike.

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In Twilights name I bump thee!

Good afternoon

bump from 10

>There once was a writer’s block,
>as big as my well-endowed cock.
>I applied some lotion,
>and put it in motion,
>to bump this thread - what a chock!

>>29367516
I'm nearly done with my season 4 watch, got recapping to do, so I can't let this drift off page 10.

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I need advice.
I face two major problems.

1:
I have many many ideas for stories but only limited time.
How do you guys decide which one to write and which one to drop or postpone?
With all the stories I think about I don't get progress on any one done.

2:
I often start my stories with certain scenes in mind.
The first few posts are easy and okay(for my level) but the further I come the more stuck I get.
Then I start a slice of life like text with things that don't matter or something before I get completely stuck.

Hope my post makes sense
Do any of you face similiar problems? Any advice?

>>29369566

>How do you guys decide which one to write and which one to drop or postpone?
For my most personal work, it's whichever seems most fun at the moment.
For green, I actually have three large ideas right now and a bunch of short ones too. What made the decision was that one of my ideas is for a slower thread (reverse trap), so that's the one I'm writing for. The other ideas have no lack of content at all.

>>29369566
>I often start my stories with certain scenes in mind.
I do this too, in fact, I almost always come up with endings first and work backwards when coming up with a plot.
Try not writing in serial format. Make relatively shorter pieces that are complete before you start posting them.
This way, you can sit down and write each of those scenes you imagine, make them the best you can, and then, once you have those anchors, you can sort of look at what would make the most interesting connections between them.
Convincing myself that it's completely okay to write things out of order was one of my first big steps to having more polished writing.

>>29369566
Well, here is my take.

> I have many many ideas for stories but only limited time.

The story that can convey most thoughts, ideas, emotions using the least amount of words gets priority.


>I often start my stories with certain scenes in mind.

I presume you have some events that are crucial parts of the story and you want to build your story around?
For longer stuff (over 100k words) I usually write those down first. (For 50k I stick to a synopsis.)
My problem is that stitching the various scenes together with smooth and fluid transitions never happen.
(Reasons too numerous to explain here.)

We learn from our failures!
And by that account I should know it all,
but I tend to forget everything I learn.

My advice is to focus your time to create and edit shorter stories.
If you ever feel the urge it's often easier to expand and elaborate than cut and truncate.

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>>29362857
Hopefully this won't distract from advice for that other anon.

Daring Don't
We say in Best Pet that birds can perch on clouds. We see songbirds hovering here, so presumably all flight just works on magic in horseworld.
In a fantasy, Daring Do makes a tornado with her tail
As I mentioned at the end of Equestria Girls, and that I didn't notice about Read It, Ahuizotl has hands. Rainbow Dash is picked up in one. In Hoof Down it seems like the average pony doesn't know what a minotaur is. It seems like Rainbow Dash's first instinct on seeing a human would be to call his hoof spiders "those Ahuizotl paws." She might be curious whether or not he's got a tail with one.
Twi's party hat is over her horn. Cute.
Twilight is just as big a fan of Daring Do as Rainbow (an omnivorous reader, this girl).
AK Yearling's cottage is in a remote part of Equestria.
They call her Miss Yearling and Miss Do. And in a later episode we see Rarity called Miss Rarity.
I had to look up a transcript to figure out Caballeron says "To market, henchponies!" here.
Also these words: Ketztwctl empress (this sounds similar to Quetzcoatl, but is not a standard transliteration). The ring is one of the ten rings of Scorchero.
I was really delighted that the entire Mane 6 feel so wrapped up in this event, because it's just like something out of a book, that they just let the baddies walk right on by.
Slapping yourself to get your head together is something ponies do.
At first I wondered if having this degree of hero worship was in character for Rainbow Dash, but as self-aggrandizing as she is, her actual self-esteem is kind of fragile, which sells it perfectly to me.
DD to Ahuizotl: "You know I love you, but I can't give you the ring until you've properly proposed." I feel like shipping this gag as if it's for real is common.
In Read It Ahuizotl used a whistle to call his cats, in this one he just snaps.

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>>29370515
So Tenochtitlan Basin is not a long distance from Yearling's cottage; which means it's entirely possible that it's within Equestria's borders. At the very least there was an empress here (the Ketztwctl one)... does that mean that Harshwhinny wasn't joking in Games? Tenochititlan was one of the mentioned Empires that wanted to host the Games?
I feel like there was an argument in the fandom about cursing the basin to 800 years of sweltering heat seemed like the rings must control the sun or something. Which is clearly wrong, because it's just the basin; it's fundamental to the show that pegasi and unicorns deal with weather all the time.
Applejack is able to buck a spear right out of a pony's grip, hurling it straight up.
I'm sad we didn't get a scene of Fluttershy staring down (or even suborning) Ahuizotl's cats.


Flight to the Finish
The fact that ponies can so easily mix sitting in chairs at desks and other postures continues to be fascinating.
Ponyville must be some kind of important administrative division of Equestria. They have their own flag and own teams that will be at the games (not to mention they were tapped for water delivery back in Hurricane Fluttershy.) On the other hand, they don't get to choose their own flag bearing team, the games commission has to see it.
Rainbow Dash refers to a name between "Rainbow" and "Dash" as a middle name. This fits with the previous episode and "Miss [last name]"; even though we have some fairly clear indications that pony's "last name" is not the same as a surname. I love unusual naming customs; it feels like most people in our society full of globalized standards have trouble imagining anything other than "personal name + family name" (sometimes in reverse order for Asians).
RD's "I'm a professional" walk looks a lot like a parade horse's high step.

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>>29370555
I noticed this from one of the early episodes with them, but I figure now's as good a time as any to mention that the CMC falls into a pretty classic female trio design pattern: sugar, spice, and everything nice.
"Pegasi" used in show. (Though we see "pegasus ponies" continue to get use.)
We've seen a number of idioms that mention horses, but man is it extremely unclear what the actual relationship to ponies is. Purely linguistic? Evolutionary? Ethnic? (The Saddle Arabians sure looked more like real horses.)
Bulk Biceps spooked by a butterfly
Clapping hooves together. I'm pretty sure this is new this season, and I don't think we go back to the original stamping the ground applause.
I was about ready to call Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's sitting posture here unrealistic, but I stopped and decided to google pictures. It seems that IRL smaller horses will in fact regularly sit this way with their hocks on the ground. I think what makes it look weird is just the sharp way they draw that anatomy in the show's style.
Cutie Mark Goofsaders is the worst DT can come up with, and SS feels that they've exhausted their bullying options by calling them "blank flanks". Bullies confirmed for kinda dumb?
Explicit confirmation that Scootaloo is behind her peers in flying ability.
Rainbow's need for external validation on full display here as she tries to be "professional".
Rainbow can break the sound barrier, but keeps pace with the fillies to get back. I guess she wanted the girls to talk to their friends.
Confirmation that Scootaloo has a room in a house, and doesn't live in a cardboard box or an orphanage dormitory.
There's a fantastic attention bait and switch here where Scootaloo looks down and back, as if at her wings, but then we realize it was actually her hindquarters: back to only caring about Cutie Marks.

>>29369566
>1:
I have a crap ton of ideas, but most of them get filtered out. If I find myself thinking about it often, I'll jot down some notes or ideas, otherwise, I just let it go. The easiest to finish get done first, which is determined by several things, like how invested I am in another story, or how long I think it will take.

>2:
Every writer gets stuck. If you have a scene in mind, it's best to work backwards in your head before you set out to putting pen on paper. I do this too. I'll often have an ending scene planned out, but no path on getting there. I know this sounds kind of abstract, but to be able to work backwards effectively, you have to be incredibly sensitive to the emotions you're experiencing, and why. For me, I like underdog stories, even for minor characters. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing the nerd drop the bully, or the incompetent coming back to outperform everyone at the moment it counts, but you have to be sensitive, and understand all the setup required to make that scene not only work logically within the story, but connect emotionally as well.

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>>29370566
Power Ponies
Ponies have electric lighting. Despite the Apples still using a wood fired stove. This has been established for a while, I feel sort of silly not thinking about it until now. At least we know what the hydro electric dam is for.
They're working on restoring the whole castle.
I don't know if I only started noticing it now, or if it's a big change in writing style, because I feel like there are a LOT more hoof puns. To spike: "We don't want to be too tired to lend a hoof. Or claw."
Spike can hold a book in his rear claws.
Pinkie cleaning with her mane, as in EqG.
Once again, Pinkie dives into adventure with a laugh.
Mane-iac has a two-toned iris.
I'm not even going to think about Twilight's inborn powers vs the Matterhorn's.
Sometimes these ponies seem to really hold the idiot ball, tactics wise. Hey, headlong charge into enemy with demonstrated ability to instantly stop you. Sure why not.
Fluttershy, as in Dragonshy, mostly gets angry on others' behalf, particularly from bullying.
"House of Enchanted Comics". So is this like one of those stores that always disappears the next time you go to look for it, or are enchanted immersive comics a new fad sweeping Canterlot?

So it took me a few more episodes, but I eventually realized that power ponies was the last episode I watched. Everything past here I absorbed from the fandom, and over the years basically confabulated memories of actually watching them.

Bats!
So this isn't the first time we've had hints of this, but this is the first time we see so blatantly that dawn (and presumably sunset) in Equestria are basically instant, the sun and moon leaping into/out of the sky. What the fuck is Twilight named after?
"I need all hooves, and claws, on deck!"
Another "sub hoof for hand" idiomatic phrase. Shes makes sure to include Spike (funny, given that [any/some/no]pony has been used for non-ponies all the time.)

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>>29370737
Appleloosa STATE fair (emphasis mine). Maybe it's confirmation bias for my headcanon, but more implication of Equestria as a confederation of semi-independent states under a diarchy.
"Monster" considered a harsh term here (I mention it since ti stuck out at me so much that it wasn't in Putting Your Hoof Down).
I quite like their aim at a nuanced moral here, even if the resolution was a little lame. Vampire Fruitbats help more than they harm in the long run, but in the short run they're still going to harm Applejack, possibly more than she could easily absorb. And they also mix in peer pressure.
(I wonder if talking about guano, was just too scatological for a kids show? I note that they continue to spread an incorrect view of how fruit orchards work though.)
Pinkie smiles sometimes even as the others look stern. Sometimes her real in show characterization seems to go a bit past common sense.
A little bit of the lazy version of the Rashomon effect where Fluttershy's view of the bats is much cuddlier than Applejack's. Notable though that the view for the rest of the episode is a lot closer to AJ's.
That bat is reading a fucking magazine.
Is this the first time we've seen a flashlight? I don't remember one during the campfire stories.
Canon evidence that powers like The Stare are related to magic, given that they can interfere like this.
Also canon evidence that unicorn magic can give a pony bat ings. Are we still without any confirmation on what's up with Luna's Night Guard?
Of course we get foreshadowing that Fluts is not completely free of the curse.

>>29361789
I do remember it.

hey guys
mind if I repost a one-shot that I wrote a little while a go in another thread?
I'd like to get a second opinion on it and see where I can improve, I don't think it was very good

>>29370990
Well, I'm working on the ending. I wanted to know if you could tell me if it's too melodramatic.

>>29370999
Go for it, man.

>>29371036
k den

>You be Anonymous
>innaquestria
>You've lived in Ponyville for a while, residing within the enormous eyesore of a castle that Twilight lives in
>She came to you yesterday for your help in thinking of an event to hold in the castle so that it felt more homey
>You half-assedly suggested having a big hide-and-seek game so that the two of you could find a secluded nook of the castle to fug in
>When she blew that off, she went around and asked her other friends
>Pinkie Pie suggested a party, as per usual
>Rainbow Dash suggested an aerial race through the halls
>Rarity suggested having a ball
>Applejack suggested having a pig rodeo
>Fluttershy suggested setting up most of the castle as a petting zoo
>When Twilight came back to you and told you that she was going with your suggestion of a hide-and-seek game (minus the fugging), you were actually a bit surprised
>It's not like you had expected her to take your suggestion seriously
>Then again, you half-assed your half-assing with that idea
>The day arrived, and half of Ponyville showed up for a massive castle-wide hide-and-seek game
>The rules were fairly simple
>Everyone was a hider, except for four seekers. Those four seekers had to go to different areas of the castle, and if they heard each other, then they were both disqualified
>If you were a hider and you got found, you then became a seeker.
>The last hider to be found wins
>Twilight had volunteered to be a seeker, as well as Rainbow Dash, Filthy Rich, and Mrs. Cake.
>So the game was set to begin, Twilight released all of the hiders, including yourself.
>As you slowly meandered away from the door, Twilight began counting down
>"20, 19, 18, 17..."
>The CMC were clinging to your pants legs, wanting to go hide wherever you were hiding
>Their reasoning was that you were here all the time, so you would know where best to evade everyone

>>29371080
>"16, 15, 14, 13..."
"Heh, do you kiddos seriously think I'm gonna let you hide with me?"
>You didn't want to try that hard, honestly
>You just wanted to find an excuse to go off to a secluded spot in the castle and fug Twily when she found you
>Either that, or you would just stay in a closet and masturbate
>"C'mon, Anon! We won't bother you too much"
>That orange chicken whose name you can never remember is staring at you with pouty eyes
>"Yeah Anon, we promise we won't give you away or anything like that!"
"Come on now, small apple horse. I don't want you three with me, and that's that."
>"Are you sure? If anypony comes close to finding you, we'll make sure to distract them ourselves!"
"Sorry Sweetie Belle, but I'm afraid i'll be going this one alone."
>They all let out a sad moan in unison as they trudge dejectedly away from you, heads down.
>You slowly meander in the other direction, knowing full well where you are going.
>You now decide that you are going to sleep through exactly half of the game, and then start fucking with-
>"Hiya there, Nonny!"
"HOLY FUCK PONK WHERE THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM?!?"
>You could've sworn that you would've become Equestria's Space Program if there hadn't've been a ceiling above you
>"I was just hopping along through some of my /seeecret/ passageways that I've made in the castle. Wanna come see some?"
"Are you sure this isn't some sort of trap?"
>"I'm sure, silly!"
>"4,3,2,1..."
>God damn, where had all that time gone?
>Twilight was yelling at the top of her lungs to get her voice all the way out here...
>"Ready or not, here we come!"
>"Welp, sounds like I have to go now. Good luck, Nonny!"
"Good luck, Panka."
>She ducked(?) her head back into wherever it was that she had poked it out of, and was gone as mysteriously as she had shown up.
>You stared around at the now empty hall, wondering about where to go next
"Hmm... Well, the guest bedrooms are up ahead to the left, and their bathrooms are all across the hall..."

>>29371088
>A few minutes later
>You're in one of the 5-or-so guest bedrooms, just vegging around.
>You're too lazy to fap, and you're pretty sure that you won't be found by any pony besides Twilight
>You almost doze off a few times, each time waking up abruptly at the thought of fucking one of those Saddle-Arabian mares in one of these beds.
>This was nice.
>Currently, you're daydreaming about riding Twilight in an air race against Rainbow Dash.
>You know that it's incredibly unrealistic, but what the hell, if you can dream, you might as well make it grand and fantastical, right?
>You startle out of your fantasy as you hear hooves softly clopping outside
>That must mean that Twilight is here
>You slither into the bedsheets, hoping to stay hidden enough to avoid detection
>You can't see outside, but you can hear the pony outside.
>"Of course, there's nopony in there..."
>It was Rainbow Dash.
>She quickly closes the door and moves on
>You were hoping that it would be Twilight, but it could've been worse.
>At leas the CMC didn't come in and start harassing you
>You quickly go back to lazing around on the bed and sexual fantasies involving Saddle-Arabian mares.

>About an hour later
>You must have dozed off, because you wake up with a start to find that the door is open
"What? How? Who's there?"
>"Psst"
>"Hey, hey Anon?"
>nottodisushittoagen.png
"Goddamnit, you snack-sized apple hoers, you can just fuck right off!"
>"Anon! That's no way to treat the Cutie Mark Crusaders!"
"Twilight?"
>"Well, who did you think it was? You very well know that I'm the only one who knows that you come to this specific room for your 'Alone Time' ".
>"I'm also not happy with the way you treated these three little fillies."

>>29371096
>You put on your best complaintive face and moan,
"But whyyyyyyyy?" They were being really annoooyyyingggg!"
>"It doesn't matter, you are going to apologize to them."
>She stomps her hoof and snorts to make it clear that she wasn't putting up with any bullshit
>You huff childishly, trying to be as dramatic as possible
"Okay, fine."
>You pause
>Twilight gives you a look
>You huff loudly again, being as childish as possible just to piss her off
>You know that she hates it when you do that
"I'm sorry, you little shitstains."
>"ANON!"
"I'm sorry, you not-shitstains"
>Her horn flares up
"Okay okay okay pls i'm sorry you three now pls just leave me alone pls pls pls..."
>"..."
>"I'll accept that apology on behalf of the CMC. You girls can go."
>The three slightly-scared looking fillies scurry out of the room.
>As soon as the door shuts, Twilight soundproofs the room and locks the door
"Phew, got that out of the way. Now what?"
>"Anon, I don't like you treating the CMC like that."
"C'mon Twiggy, they kinda get on my nerves. They're really nosy, and they always wanna hang around and ask me really personal questions."
>"That doesn't excuse the way you treat them."
"Seriously, they keep asking me which pony I 'like'. It gets a little tiring after a while, Y'know?"
>"Oh, that reminds me"
"If you ask me that stupid fucking middle-schooler question, I will fucking shOOT your brains out you goddamn purple pointy horse"
>"Who do you 'like'?"
>
"Delet this"
>She's got a mile-wide shit-eating grin on her face
>"So, what do you want to do?"
"Fug or snuggle"
>"I call little spoon"
"Nice"
>As you curl up on the bed, Twilight asks you again
>"Seriously though, Anon,"
>"Who do you like?"
"I'm not going to answer that."
>"Okay, but i'm going to ask you again when you wake up."

>Another hour later
>Holy fuck were you comfy
>You had a twiggy curled up against you, you were in Equestria

>>29371110
>I mean, you pretty much have it all
>This is the dream of every anon out there
>And you were living it
>As you relish in the fact that you were pretty much in heaven, Twilight stirs
>"H-hi... [yawn], Anon..."
"Hey twiggles"
>"You know what, Anon?"
"What"
>"I can tell that you're lonely, Anon."
"Me? Unhappy in any way, shape, or form? While I'm here? In Equestria? Ha, you're a silly pony, Twilight."
>"I've talked with Cadence lately"
"Wat"
>"Sometimes, when you're sleeping, I have her 'scan' you."
"For what?"
>"How you're feeling in terms of, well... love."
"Ha, good luck getting anything coherent on THAT."
>"Anon, she's done it quite a few times, and she says that you're lonely."
"Really Twily, I'm fine."
>"No you're not, Anon."
>...
>"Seriously, you're not as happy as you could be. Even I can tell that."
>You say nothing.
>"Anon, please. It's okay. You can talk to me about these things."
>Goddamnit, she's trying to get all feelsy with you.
>"Anon, Cadence and I both agree that getting yourself... somepony to love will... help you be happier."
>Still no words
>"We can all tell that you love Equestria, and that you would do anything to stay here and defend ponies, no matter the circumstances."
>"But as a friend, I want to see you be /truly/ happy."
>"If there is nopony that you have your eye on now, then that's fine.
>"And I don't want to make it seem like a chore, but you do have to find somepony at some point."
>"For your own sake, Anon. For your own sake."
>As she walks away, you feel like utter shit
>She hit the nail on the head, you can't deny it
>And you weren't just lonely...
"Twi, wait."
>"Hmm?"
"I..."
>"You can say it, Anon, don't worry."
>You sigh deeply and sadly
"I am lonely."
"Starting when I was a teenager, I saw everyone else getting into... romantic relationships. At first, I thought that I was supposed to be doing it too, but I didn't want to try it."

>>29371131
"Call it what you want, but I didn't think that anyone would actually like me enough to seriously consider romance with me."
"And for the record, I'm not gay. I couldn't go on an actual date with a guy if my life depended on it. I just couldn't."
"But... as I went on, not dating any girl, I found more and more things wrong with people, and I started to drift away from the notion of dating."
"It wasn't until later that the real loneliness hit me. It was crushing at times, distracting me from my life, which at the time, required my full attention."
"Eventually, I just accepted that I would probably go to some middle-of-the-line college, live in some middle-of-the-line suburban city, in a shitty apartment, meandering through life in a middle-of-the-line career, and end up dying alone, cold and scared."
"But once I came to Equestria, things changed for me. I had a fresh start, a chance to really make something of myself."
"But, that loneliness still followed me."
"They have a saying back on Earth, and it goes as follows: "Even when you're surrounded by friends and family, you can still be lonely.""
"But when I started feeling lonely in /that/ way, here in Equestria, I scolded myself."
"I didn't like it, thought it was ungrateful of me to want more than what I already had."
"I mean, there are plenty of people back on Earth who would do depraved, immoral, unholy things just to be where I am."
"But I still couldn't change how I felt."
>...
"Oh well, you probably don't want to hear me ramble on about my feely-feels anymore, so you can go ahead and go now."
>"No. Anon, you are perfectly fine as you are."
"What-"
>"You don't have to be ashamed about how you feel, Anon. It's perfectly fine of you to want to love somebody, or somepony."
>"Especially somepony. Don't let the fact that we're all ponies scare you away."
>"So, I know that you've probably had your eye on somepony."
>[groans internally]
>"Who is she?"

>>29371145
>You really didn't like it when you were asked about your feely feels
>Especially the ones of this nature.
>But what the hell, you were at the top of the world, and nobody gets to stay at the top forever.
"Well... uhh..."
>"Start by saying what she's like."
"Well, she's got the most gorgeous eyes, ones that I could just stare into all day."
>"And?"
"A-and she's got the most simple, yet elegant mane. It simply looks heavenly."
>"What else?"
"She's really smart and organized..."
>"Go on..."
"And she's very kind, generous, loyal, honest, kind, and joyous. In short, the best pony who ever lived."
>"Wow, she sounds really nice."
"She is."
>"Well, Anon, I've got to ask"
>oh fug here it comes
>"Who might this pony be?"
>You could feel the spaghetti flowing out of your pockets already.
>Oh well
>If you fucked this up too much, you were pretty sure you knew where Twilight kept the bleach and ammonia.
"Uhh... her name is..."
>"Go on..."
"Her name... is..."
>"It's okay Anon, I'm the only one here."
>here
>fucking
>goes
"HernameisTwilightSparke."
>At first, it doesn't even register for a second
>When she finally realizes that you just said that you were into her, she was more shocked than you had ever seen any human or pony be in your entire life.
>"W-Wait, me?"
"Yes, you," you squeaked out, voice wavering like a wobbly penis.
>"I-I-I don't know what to say, Anon! I mean, you really think I'm that wonderful? Me?"
"Yes"
>"Oh my gosh..."
>She was speechless
>You had expected her to be talking a million miles an hour, but instead, she was simply stunned into silence
>For a second, you were worried that you had broken her
>But then the angel spoke
>"I... I love you, Anon."
>wat.png

>>29371227
>"I mean, I had always been kind of the same way, never really thinking that I had the time or that anypony would like me enough to actually want to try, and with me being a princess, that got bigger a problem, because most ponies saw me as more of a goddess than a pony, and I just felt so scared and alone for the longest time and-"
>You grab her by the withers and shake her to get her to stop
"Twilight"
>"Yes Anon?"
"I love you"
>"I love you too Anon"
"We both love each other?"
>"I think so"
"Then that's all that matters for right now."
>"Okay. Wait just a minute."
>Her horn begins to glow, and some weird noise emanates from all the walls at once.
>"There. We're now in a pocket universe that contains only this room. There is no time here, just us~."
"And I thought that this couldn't get any better."
>"So, what are we going to do now?
"Are you up for just cuddling some more?"
>"Of course."
"Nice."

>As you two lay there, on the bed, embracing each other, and relishing in each others' warmth, you think about just how lucky you are.
>At this moment, you can say honestly that you could die happily.
>"I love you, Anon."
"I love you too, Twilight."
>You lay there, with the most beautiful and amazing creature in the universe snuggled up against you, in peaceful, happy bliss
>Life really couldn't get any better than this.
>As you begin to doze off within Twilight's embrace, the loud beeping of a digital alarm clock startles you awake.

Fin.

>>29371234
fuck, didn't even realize that my trip was off
anyway, I want to hear a second opinion on how I could have made the story arc better while keeping it at one-shot length

>>29371036
Right on. Go ahead and give me that link.

>>29371242
I have to be asleep in like twenty minutes, so I'll read your story tomorrow.

>>29371268
I'll drop the link tomorrow

>>29371268
heh, okay
I myself should be asleep right now, but i'm trying to muster up the willpower to get past this writer's block that i'm facing with >muh big project
I swear, as long as I get this next part written, it'll all just be smooth sailing from here

>>29371080
Perhaps rewrite or skip these rules?
>If you were a hider and you got found, you then became a seeker.
>(if seeker) heard each other, then they were both disqualified

All 4 seekers can disappear right away if they hear each other. Leaving the hidden to rot.
Literal interpretation of a seeker finding someone hidden, will (unless they are deaf) disqualify both.

Saw tendencies to a mistake I *always* do myself: You don't give the reader any real reason to "turn the page".
Why read about the hide'n'seek? Will first prize be 2 hours alone with Celestia? Will the loser be sent to the moon? Is one of the seekers a changeling assassin?

Do Anon want some alone time with Twi to fug her? It's first hinted, then again hinted he doesn't care. Purpose of that paragraph may be to establish the mood/personality of Anon, but it doesn't give me anything as far as his goals in this story-line. (Different goals can be a reason to turn the page.)

>>29371131
> (love angst - lacking profound wisdom or depth)
Sometimes too much detail is a good way of pushing your descriptions over the top. In situations like these my personal preference is "less is more".
The section about anons feelings could probably gain from the advice "show me - don't tell me". I don't know this anon and just because he's saying a lot of words doesn't mean I trust him.

They pretty much end up getting married with a twist that makes no sense at all for the entire story.
If you want an ending like that, it has to be stitched together with anon pre-dream, during-dream, and post-dream. Otherwise it's just an "emergency exit".

Without the emergency exit it looks like an Alter Ego just waltzing right in claiming everything he wants.
In such case the ending might be the start of something instead of "happily ever after".

Make Anon's personality simpler? As a creator you can see his complex personality but it's harder to explain. (Hence why many stories rely on stereotypes.)

(2k chars isn't much!)

>>29371460
thank you, i'll keep this saved somewhere

>>29371242
I feel like Little Guy does better with the whole theme and characterization kind of stuff, but I can try to point out a few things at that level, and then move into some word choice and structure things that might tighten it up.

I like the fundamental concept. A memey fuck using ironic detachment as his shield against the world, gets into a situation to make it drop only to find his dreams come true.
Except not, of course. I don't like the ending line. The "it was all just a dream" ending has gone past cliche so far it wrapped back into double hell cliche, but that may just be my taste, don't take it as gospel. It is, at least, a pleasantly, "description first" way to write that line.

I feel like you need to sell his reasons for talking honestly a little harder. I can't give precise advice. Maybe a line about how he can't lie (even to himself anymore) when Twilight has objective fact from Cadance's love-o-meter spell. Maybe you can even work in some foreshadowing

It almost seems silly to mention, but there are so many ways people structure Equestria that it's probably necessary you clarify whether or not Twily and this Anon actually are casual sex partners, or if they're just "platonic" cuddlers. I'm assuming the latter, but as I say, there are a lot of Equestrias out there. Just a little bit of description could do it, like Twilight giving him a deadpan stare in response to his initial idea. Or maybe a line of dialogue for her accepting his idea, "I've decided that, if we disregard the especially tasteless joke in it—which, by the way, is not getting any funnier with repetition—your idea has the most merit, so we'll be holding a hide and seek competition here."

(has the character limit always been so small? I swear this was a short critique)

>>29371720
There are some similar issues elsewhere. You're better about it than many writers (particularly fanfiction writers, who have physical details they can assume the audience knows just handed to them), but there are places where a dollop more of establishing detail would make the story significantly more engaging.
A few stand out. Right after the game starts, suddenly Anon seems to be alone, meandering away from the doors. This could use a description of other ponies stampeding towards every corner.
You could use a description of where he is for the conversations with the CMC and the Pinks: a room, a hall, stairs?
Personally I think you could do with a little description of the room he's in, but it's also acceptable to leave that sparse.
After Anon wakes up, the CMC are there, so's Twilight, but it feels like it's actually Twilight and daBloom in a grayish void near him. It could do with describing three minihorses, I don't know, sitting on the end of the mattress, and him having to roll over to see Twilight standing behind him.
Twilight walks away from him before he makes his big confession, but I don't see her ever getting out of his arms or off the bed.

I think one of the most important things to add would be a little more description of Twilight's expressions salted into their conversation after his big speech. It's a very emotional subject, for both of them, and she's got her own feelings building inside as he says these things. Hints of princessly composure, leavened with actual touching concern. He loves her, he should be paying lots of attention.

There are a handful of coherency issues that are related, too.
I don't find it believable that Rainbow Dash would miss a person shaped lump under some blankets in a guest room she was peeking into. Do the beds have an especially large footboard or something? Also, I know the place is large, but I feel like at least glancing into all the bedrooms should be typical? Address that somehow.

>>29371725
You need either less detail or more about the hide and seek rules. Who judges whether or not a seeker has broken the rules by hearing another seeker? Do the same rules apply to found hiders who become seekers? If so how long is the grace period before they count as too near? Or do they have to go to some central location to become new seekers? Obviously this Anon is likely to tune out a lot of details, but you should find a way to give the impression that they're there, anyways.
So I'd recommend for a more coherent game: a vaguer, more good-sport oriented, "Seekers aren't allowed to communicate amongst themselves." And if there's anything to curtail the growth in number of seekers, there should be a time limit. And with so many hiders, they start off from four different locations themselves.

Then again, perhaps all this mild lack of detail and small incoherencies are supposed to be foreshadowing? I'm not sure I could give advice on such a high level technique if so; but I'll say that at this point it doesn't actually read like that.

Aside from the lack of establishing details, your writing is competent. Some good metaphors. I've waded through much worse to get my green fix. Acceptable variation in sentence structure, no very serious grammar or spelling errors. You don't even fuck up the greentexting. You reuse some words just a little too often, and a couple words are not the best ones for that use, but it's not a big deal.

Worst advice, vague, hard to action: you've got a good humor vibe in some places, but it's not so great in others; like there are some good individual lines (eg, "That orange chicken whose name you can never remember"), but sometimes they don't quite come together in a riff.

>>29371730
>You know that it's incredibly unrealistic, but what the hell, if you can dream, you might as well make it grand and fantastical, right?
I love the concept of this line (especially since it works as foreshadowing of the end), but not the execution.
>It's incredibly unrealistic, but what the hell, you figure if you can dream, you might as well make it grand and fantastical.
Some variations would be to drop one of the adjectives, or add in an ending "as possible".
You could shorten it more (chop "you figure" too, and then "you might as well") but that's a degree of excision that starts to change the voice of the prose.

There are probably a few other sentences where you could cut some fat by a useless word or three.

The chain of "suggests" near the beginning. It might be okay to leave it as is, for the repetition. But my inclination would be to rewrite each one with different phrasing.

>You slowly meander in the other direction, knowing full well where you are going.
It's not mandatory, but "meander" does have a connotation of aimlessness; so rightfully he should say he "pretends to meander", that or swap out the word entirely. You did already use it not long before.
I would swap at least one of all those "fug"s for something else. An over the top metaphor or something.

>>29371734
Finally just a quick proofread glance:
I'd recommend the first time you say CMC you expand it to "Cutie Mark Crusaders", or something to the effect of "the three ponies that formed CMC", but that may be the technical writer in me refusing to be silenced.
As many kudos as I give for a double contraction, that "hadn't've" should just be "hadn't".

This is such an obscure point in normal writing, but it comes up so often in greentext: a quote that goes over multiple lines has special rules. If the speech continues on the next line, you don't put an end quote, though you DO put a new quote at the beginning of that next line. That is: in one uninterrupted speech, The number of start quotes is equal to the number of lines, but there's exactly one end-quote.
So the end of his speech should look like this:
"But when I started feeling lonely in /that/ way, here in Equestria, I scolded myself.
"I didn't like it, thought it was ungrateful of me to want more than what I already had.
"I mean, there are plenty of people back on Earth who would do depraved, immoral, unholy things just to be where I am.
"But I still couldn't change how I felt."

Keep up the good work. I think you're on the way to developing solid authorial chops.

>>29371737
Th-thank you for all of that advice.
It's a lot to take in, but I'll have this saved somewhere where I can get to it the next time I want to write

detailsdetailsdetailsdetails
showitdon'tsayitshowitdont'sayit

>>29371811
Though I essentially agree with most of that other anon's advice (especially about finding some way to hook readers forward), I don't think your problem was in telling instead of showing.
I think it's okay to have this big emotional pouring your heart out speech as the center piece of your story.
Achieving the same goals (demonstrate why this guy has built this shield around himself; open it up and also sympathize to Twilight) through other methods, well, off the top of my head I can't think of a good way to do it that wouldn't take too many words.

He makes a good point about getting readers to trust Anon, and thus care about his story, though. For me, part of why I did was because of the trust Twilight extended him. Deciding that cuddling was more important than continuing the home warming event she sat up says something about their relationship.

Though take notice that that feels-vomit is one of the cornerstones of your story, make sure it's just right.
Obviously, you can't just "write better"; if you could, you would, right? Too much attention can just kill a paragraph too.
One technique is to write the same passage several times in different ways, take a step back for a week or so come back and read them carefully to see what works best for you; obviously that may not be the best use of your time for this short piece.
The other best technique: kill all dead weight.
The line about not being gay is pointless. The only reason the reader needs to hear someone isn't gay out of the blue is to foreshadow that they are.
Don't tell the readers there is a saying back on Earth, just say the saying. It's not so hard to understand that Twilight would realistically need background to understand it.

I'd consider using a metaphor for the loneliness. It's an obvious one, but talk about it as a black something. A yoke, a hole in his chest, a massive cube he had to shoulder.

>A chilly shiver runs down your spine.
>Galloping madly over lonely vertebraes.
>What was that?
>A goosebump?
>Ah no, just a regular bump.

>10

Hello page 10 my old friend

I've come to bump with you again

>>29373483
>>10

So, written anything interesting lately?

>>29375487
I written a few bumps, that's all.

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>>29369642
>>29369942
>>29370736
Thank you guys for the feedback!

I'll definetly try it out.
Guess I'll have to go back to the drawing board and do some thinking.

The short story thing is worth a try, maybe it'll help.

>>29375487
I've got a fair number of words on this reverse trap Trixie story, but they're not all coherent yet. I'm starting to experience weird anxiety about it, because I can't decide whether or not I care if mlp likes it or not. I feel like I have far fewer interesting ideas for it than I do for most of my stories (though I did just come up with an interesting scene for the next bit; the worst is I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how I want Anon and Trixie to interact). I can't tell if I'm forcing it; or doing that thing where I get overwrought about the details.
Oh well. As soon as I get around to watching Friendship Games and Legend of Everfree for more ideas about how to structure my alternate Humania I'll bang out the rest of the first "chapter" and post it here for help.

>>29375487
Oh, I also ended up writing fragments of a completely insane and ridiculous epilogue for that chuuni-esque dimensional traveler lands in cartoon logic Equestria and wants to escape thing. I amused myself with it.

And a drabble for RGRE about how Twilight became pony-beautiful after being alicornified, but Anon found her sleeker lines much less attractive.

>The plot that hayburger's built is gone,

>>29372689
Mild kek

>>29371234
Room for one more? The other critiques are good ones, which means there's not much that I can say that won't be repetition. I'm going to do a big picture kind of critique for this.

My takeaway is that you tried to take the elements of a much longer story and condense them into a one-shot, and there's no way that kind of thing can work. It's too much character development and too many differing tones and emotions for eight posts. You've got detached memery, lust, annoyance, kindness, loneliness, love, and then the twist all crammed into this tiny space, so the story comes across as cluttered and unfocused. Showing rather than telling can help a little bit, but you're never going to get it all in there with the room you've given yourself. My advice would be to pick one or two of these emotions and work with that, either abandoning the others or representing them extremely sparsely, which would be difficult to do well, and require reworking the entire story, sentence by sentence.

I'm guessing the feels are most important to you, since you ended with them. Operating on that premise, you can try making his dream more dream-like (thus also removing the "emergency exit" problem pointed out) by making every pony he interacts with into some metaphor for his loneliness and desire to be loved. Off the top of my head, I see the CMC being weirdly intimate with each other in his presence, demonstrating the feeling of acceptance that he lacks; Rainbow being strangely concerned about not finding him, demonstrating his desire to be sought after; and Twilight being more or less the same accepting figure that you have her as now. Those are examples; it's all psychological shit, so there's room for you to play with it.

>>29377731
Even then, though, that admission of mutual love is too fast. Yes, it's a dream, so it's kind of kosher, but that trope appears in so many other stories that I was immediately put off. Then, the whole "it was all a dream" thing comes up, and it's a second cliche. I'm reminded of the phrase "two wrongs don't make a right." You can avoid that by having Twilight give him a less major, but still significant, sign of love. For instance, instead of just mirroring his emotions, have her give him a quiet hug or something. If her love is platonic, rather than romantic, as it appears now, that's going to help a lot. Have her demonstrate deep friendship instead. You can even go an extra mile there and have her stop him mid-confession and then relay his own deepest thoughts back to him. It'll help make the scene more dream-like, again, and it'll take the onus of all that expository feelsy stuff off of him, eliminating that unsavory rush of out-of-character seriousness at the end. Getting to that point can still be tricky, but with less other stuff in the way beforehand, you can give yourself time to let his emotions and thoughts play out as he moves through the castle and reacts to the other characters. You can really use his loneliness in the bedroom to your advantage then, because you can have it start weighing on him and weakening his resolve to keep silent about the things that are bothering him. Once Twilight does show up, the confession can come easier, because he'll have had it on his mind for a while. Alternatively, if you want to give the dream setting more importance, you can have him tell her how he feels without knowing why he's doing it, and without really intending to. This is, after all, and elaborate fantasy, and sometimes fantasies are best when they take agency away from the person imagining them; it makes the wonderful that happens to them feel more natural, because it wasn't asked for, you know? Either way can work, if you can write them.

>>29371268
http://pastebin.com/qiNJPUY7
I was hoping to have the scene entirely finished. I was thinking maybe 50 more lines at most. If you can hold off until tomorrow, I can finish it out. And now that I think about it, I don't know how well this passage works towards the end. But in case I'm a faggot, and don't deliver, here.

>>29377794
If I'd typed that faster, I could have gotten quints.

Anyhoo, your writing ability is what it all comes down to. Your biggest problem in that regard is the lack of detail. There's a lot happening, but not much description and almost no other characters, despite that most everyone from Ponyville crowded into the castle. You've got Anon in a vacuum, which is something I see a lot of. Breaking him out of that is just a matter of giving life to the world he occupies. So, describe the castle, the rooms, the vastness of the place. Describe the sounds of all those other ponies trying to find places to hide, the giddy tension he can see in others, and all that jazz. Describe his feelings, of course, and the other ponies he comes into contact with. Don't just make the story about running Anon through his emotional paces. Outside of that, your dialogue is all right, and I really got too little of anything to tell whether your characters are okay. It might be easier to do these things if you pare down the amount of emotions you want the story to express. You'll give yourself more space to work with.

>>29377800
Cool, thanks. I'm good waiting until you're finished. Do let me know if you hit a roadblock and need that critique before then, though.

>>29377861
I'll let you know. Right now, I'm at a bit of an impasse. The last bit can go in two directions: either the Clear forgives Anon, and Anon grows up, or Clear ditches Anon, and Anon, well, grows up. The former is obviously what I want to do, but I have this bad feeling that the latter might be the more realistic outcome.

>>29377894
Do what you need to do. I haven't read any yet, so I can't advise. I like that that's the choice you need to make, though.

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>>29370796
Rarity Takes Manehatten
Fuggin' horse puns. Bridleway. Hinny of the Hills (mule: donkey dad, horse mom; hinny: other way around)
The high rise buildings look a little out of place next to horse taxis and also everything else we've seen in the show.
Rainbow Dash doesn't normally like musicals. (I feel like we're told what Dash doesn't like a lot more often than for other ponies.)
Hilarious meta here: just as RD says how unrealistic it is to have ponies bursting into song all the time, Rarity starts singing (RD's expression there is amazing too). You could point to this scene as canon evidence that the musical numbers are narrative devices, not an accurate depiction of how Equestria works. (Then again, you could argue that RD's realism complaint is about how OFTEN they sing in musicals, not that it happens.)
Grilled carrots replacing hot dogs.
Jewels confirmed for seeing general use as currency.
A fucking pony with a grumpy Internet cat meme as cutie mark.
Rarity's magic can fuse broken wood into one piece, good as new.
Twilight's title is insufficient to allow her cut in line for a cab.
The moral of the story is kind of interesting. I like that they show her really spreading the kindness around; but then they so strongly showcase her getting "repaid", I worry it comes off a little as "Do nice things for others on the chance they'll shortly be able to pay them back," which is not really generosity or charity as we typically interpret them.
But I do suppose they only have 21 minutes to tell a story, and you know, target audience.
Suri and Coco, two more real(-ish) names.
Prim Hemline does a high-stepping show walk.
I'm gonna stop mentioning hoof swapped idioms because we get the idea now. I suppose I'll have to rewatch the first season yet again to see if I just missed them or if they actually changed writing styles.

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Almost forgot I decided to use a name for this, even though I'm almost half way through (oh, sad), just in case somebody wanted to filter this.

>>29378216
I like this challenge to her ethic, first being generous bites her in the ass, then, in desperate need, she starts demanding her friends help with a guilt trip about how she acted.
They actually mention Applejack and blunt honesty here, but really, Applejack's demonstrated the ability to tell white/social lies.
RD: "It was a'ight" Trying to be cool, like the kids, Rainbow?
We first see this rainbow motif, first where they're in need of a friendship lesson, second on a gift they receive.


Pinkie Apple Pie
So, 90% of this was gonna be about cartoon genealogy and how much I hate it, but I decided to go scream that in the angry dome instead.
First while it seems totally in character for Pinkie to be so excited about such a distant relationship, Applejack and Apple Bloom going along with it is a little funny too.
They're "thick as thieves", Apples dressed as pirates, Pinkie like a cartoon burglar. Cute.
Big McIntosh, an easy going pony, possibly the easiest going pony. The last time we saw him mad was when Apple Bloom was spreading gossip about her family. Here he gets mad that his competence is questioned.
The cause of red-eye is staring directly into the lens, so normally, surprise photos avoid it.
"Pinkie Pie, when did you have the time to make this?" "Applejack, when you're family, you MAKE the time" PP confirmed for eldritch powers to literally forge time from nothingness at need.
Big Mac obviously conveying an extended parable, ending just as the scene cuts in.
Pinkie Pie demonstrates her almost frightening immunity to fear again.
I like that Big Mac got to learn a lesson about overpacking from the cat hoarder.
Pinkie takes the picture with her tail. From quite a bit further away than typical.