/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

The first advice I would give to any new writer is to do just that; write. This is my own biggest problem as well if not the greatest foe to my own writing. So how can I give you advice on how to solve it when I myself haven't. Well, let's see.
I think the first part is to not let oneself rationalize away why this happens. It happens because we either have to do something important instead or because we choose to do something we want to do instead or we simply procrastinate. It is usually the last part, for me anyway. I think that the idea of the writer's block is silly. The reason for this is because even though inspiration doesn't come on demand, which I am aware of that doesn't mean it will come if you don't engage with your writing either.
This deserves its own paragraph because I think it is important. Let's say you have an idea for a story. Then I think that you no longer need any more inspiration. As fast as you have your idea you can develop it further because you have something concrete to go on.
So that covers the inspiration part of writer's block. Now, I am not trying to promote some e-celeb here. This guy, https://www.youtube.com/watchv=U4Ue08j1PG8&index=35&list=RD6frTFL27mnU, isn't our guy either but his video covers this topic among others on his channel well. Therefore I don't see a problem with referencing his videos. I will probably be referencing to different sources a lot in the future.
But there are two other parts on why writing is difficult to get into. Again, I use myself as the norm here be aware of this when I make generalizing statement like this.
The first one is that when you are unused to writing at all, you have a hard time formulating yourself especially if English isn't your first language and then you have to worry about spelling too. I can recommend anyone who has the latter problem of having english as their second language to use free spellchecks such as Grammarly (www.grammarly.com), as I do. It spellchecks your work and is quite easy to use. For those of you who have English as your mother tongue but have problems formulating yourself. While it is true that if you stay at it you will eventually learn how to formulate yourself more elegantly there are ways to speed up that improvement process. One thing you can do, as anybody else can as well, is to polish your old grammar with videos such as these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkooLJ9MWVE.
Now to the last part on how to get started. Let's say I were to write down everything that comes to mind. Here is an example of how that would look like.

Roseluck picked up some poison jokes. Wrapped them together in a newspaper by rolling it into a cigar. Then spike appeared out of nowhere by green flame.
”Spike lit dis sheeeiit up, mah nigga,” said Roseluck.
Spike began crying incoherently as he breathed out flames that consumed the tip of the newspaper cigar.
Roseluck inhaled the blue fumes coming from her newspaper tube. Her eyes got a case of bad derpy and she wobbled around a bit before falling over.
The inebriated mare told Spike: ”Good shit, Spike.”
A large can of oil showered the baby dragon. Throwing the can away, Spike the proceeded to use ember on himself setting the oil on fire.
Next thing he knew he appeared in Celestia's throne room.
”Spike, how glad I am to see you, nigga. Here I need you to lit my sheeit,” Princess Celestia said.

Now, while this might be entertaining at first to write like this. It can also come out as horrible trash and will be boring after a while. Again using myself as an example, we tend to do more extreme things in stories that go nowhere just for something to happen.
So okay, this kind of story isn't why we want to write. We want to write something better, not something extreme. Now consider this example.

Aurora Frost was a grey-blue bat-pony mare with a marine blue mane. It was cut so that it had three distinct bangs that rose off her head and left her forehead uncovered. This hairdo looked like something any male non-main anime character would be jealous of. She had a pearl necklace which was unique for its kind since its inventor had no taste what so ever. Instead of spherical pearls they were cubes. The jacket she wore was red and it covered her forehooves, which hems were folded so that she would not step on the jacket when she walked. The arms were too long but that was the intention of the fashion designer.

While character description can be utilized to make great stories, this is still not what we wanted. It is boring. Our potential readers won't trust us to become more interesting than this or that the character's look is going to matter in the story at all. So we want to infuse some meaning in our story or some kind of point. Should we then begin with the plot of the story? Yes and no. I think that for a newcomer to the writer's guild they should get started on the writing process before the plot crafting process as a way to gain experience in writing scenes. Therefore, I think, that a new author should begin with writing short stories. Something under a thousand words or about it anyway. So there are many ways to create a short story. One can think up a ridiculous scenario and then just play it out straight. Here is an example of that.

Tears poured from Twilight's eyes as if the tears were sweat and she was John Bojega. The bench beneath her was now stained in it that there was a large dark spot over the entire surface.
A tiny pink hoof petted her soothingly. Twilight turned her gaze towards whoever it was that petted her. She was meet with the sad expression of a little pink filly with blonde hair.
”Don't be sad miss Twily. I am sure you will leave magic kindergarten soon.”
The end.

>>189683
This is the idea that Twilight actually got sent back to magic kindergarten. This idea could, with some imagination, be expanded upon. Before we get into how one would do that if one feels uncreative that day lets finish this first. One could either reveal this in the very beginning and have Twilight getting dragged against her will back into kindergarten by Celestia. This could be played for laugh as Twilight tries to escape the place by using advanced magic only for Celestia to bring her back while telling her that she isn't skilled enough yet to use said magic since they are so dangerous and too advanced for her. Another approached could be to go all M. Knight Shyamalan and, ”What a twist!” Just as I did in this short snippet of text. To put it simply: Come up with a simple idea and execute it.
So what do we do if we can't come up with anything more to develop the idea? Well, as said before you can use the idea to get new ideas. Using the example above, we can put an emphasis on Twilight's despair by describing it more thoroughly. We can continue the idea after the reveal and there we can have Twilight overhear her new classmates speculate on why she as an adult is here. Have them say that she is one of those special need ponies or whatever.
Here is one of my favorite short story, it is nothing spectacular mind you, and it contains objectively proven best pony: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/342249/1/sandbox/cant-you-see-im-busy and I haven't even read this https://www.fimfiction.net/story/367822/sunset-shimmer-makes-a-sandwich yet. I just saw it when I was looking for the other one.
The point is that if you do several short stories then you improve every time and you also get the feeling of accomplishment that you only get with finished works, unlike unfinished ones.

Lastly, this thread >>178720 → really embodies this topic to a T. While I didn't succeed in my own endeavor to finish my story. King battle brit and Nigel, well he passed the limit anyway however it might not be finished yet, and that is mighty impressive. For all intents or purposes, you get the feeling that King battle brit just started his story off somewhere and then just went with it as he moved along but I might be completely wrong about that. Anyway, he clearly knows how to do it so ask him.

Not sure yet what subject I will write about tomorrow. We shall see.

>>189681
writing is for nerds LOL

>>190030
Hehe, love you too.
Anyway, give me three hours and I will add more nerd substance.

All stories that aren't unconventional for the sake of it needs characters. The most fundamental thing about writing a character is, in my opinion, this: You have to know your character.

Depending on what type of writer you are but mostly what kind of story you are writing will affect how you go about creating a character. This, however, doesn't mean that the main rules about characters will change just how the characters come to be. Let's say that there are two polar opposite types of writers: One that plans the entire story out before writing and another that writes the story from start to finish without any clear goal in mind for the story in the beginning. If you are the former, you will likely want to create a character that will act accordingly with the plot of the story and not oppose the already established plan for it. If you are the latter, you don't need to worry about that, however, you still need to worry about who your characters are.

The two most vital things a character must have is consistency and they must be believable. One could say that consistency is included in how believable your character is since if character traits keep changing from one to another without defining why, your reader will be lost or see it as proof of author-puppeteering, which is something we want to avoid since it is contrived and that in turn breaks immersion. The reader won't take your story to heart.

To thoroughly clear the air what I mean with this I will expand upon it and use a couple of examples.
Consistency refers to the established character's traits must remain as they are unless there is a reason for them to change. The reason can be subtly explain to the reader, be a secret that is revealed later in the story or by the reader puzzling together clues the writer left for them in the text. Regardless of how it is explained, I personally don't like it when it is not explained in any way or form. There are stories that are completely open for interpretation and they might work but they are not for me. I think that the writer must, in some way explain why a character changes the way he does to their audience.
With believability, I mean that the reason for why a character changes can't be absurd.
Here are those examples that I was talking about before. The first one is for consistency and the other is for believability.

His cup was filled to the brim with Mrs. Cake's glorious coffee. A couple of sugar spoons were put in it and milk was also poured into it. The surface of the coffee went from its natural black coffee color to a light brown color as Mrs. Cake stirred it with a spoon.
”There, all done. Hope you will enjoy our coffee sir,” Mrs. Cake said.
”Of course I will. I always love your coffee Mrs. Cake.” the stallion said as he looked down on the cup he had ordered.
”Oh, and Mrs. Cake. Before you go.” He stopped her as she was about to leave.
”Yes?”
With his right hoof, he hit the cup so that is broke into pieces and those pieces flew across the room similar to the bullets out of a shotgun. The coffee cup's liquids drenched the table's cloth.
Mrs. Cake back up and gasped. Shocked and dumbfounded.
”I hate your coffee!” the stallion shouted.

Okay, bad example. Both because it this is quite WTF and also because now one can now subscribe the character trait: Bipolar, to this guy. But the point is: If your reader doesn't have a feel for who this character is, the effect of their development will be lost on them.

So the next example.

My advice: Don't worry about the omnipresent "Sue" crap. It might seem like there are a million "Pitfalls" and "Writing sins" out there a smart budding writer needs to avoid for fear of ruining your own reputation forever, but don't stress about them. I repeat, Stressing about the idiotic and contradictory beliefs of CinemaSins fans WILL NOT help your writing.
"Sue" is just a slur for bad characters these days, and 97% of all Sue-related conversations are just one TVTropes user yelling "This character is a Sue because he has too much x, not enough y, and he zs all the time!". There are hundreds of "Sue Traits" and hundreds of well-written characters in many different media forms have one, some, or even many of these traits, but you'll rarely hear any truly concrete "Sue" definitions because to do the rational thing and split the term up into more useful words would rob bad critics of their laziest crutch.
The idea of "The Mary Sue" is really only useful in the sense that the classic mary sue was made to criticize bad OCs by embodying and exaggerating their worst traits. She's good when you want to compare a character to her. For example, Rey from Star Wars is such a Mary Sue, she literally out-sues the original Mary Sue by doing more sue bullshit than her, and at a higher level.
To phase the concepts of Sues out over to "Bad Character" would help more, with the classic Mary Sue and other combinations of bad character traits serving to act as examples of bad characters, rather than types of "Wrong" characters. In addition, the name and a face obsessives put to the concept of bad writing they like to pretend they're righteously crusading against to save fiction 6ever in the name of their waifus would vanish. But that'll probably never happen, because "Sue-Hunting" is just what they do with their free time. Doesn't make any more than 0.01% of them good at it. They probably won't change their attitudes towards writing or what their own stupid and faulty personal definitions of "Sue" (Made of the 3-15 of 100 Sue Traits they hate most) is, so you should change your personal attitudes towards fake critics. Ignore fake critics in it for themselves, only real critics in it for the writing and the future are worth a damn.
Criticism should be for the benefit of the writer getting criticized, and fans debating over whether to invest time in reading a written work or not. Not the critic himself, unless he's a comedian and critic combo like AVGN. And even then, there's a reason why the AVGN restricts himself to old professionally-made video games instead of modern RPG Maker/Game Maker trash made by kids.
Just imagine the difference between hearing "Your character is a fucking sue, I want the 50 minutes it took me to read this back" and "Your character is a total Mary Tzu, it's bullshit that she can predict what she predicted". One sentence gives you nothing to work with, the other tells you one reader found the predictive abilities of one character to be bullshit, and it's something to consider going forward.
Same goes for "This character is a Mary Sue because the only flaw of hers I see is that she's too pretty! She's an irredeemable sue with 500 sue points! Throw her out and start over because I don't like her!!!" and "If you're trying to make her beauty a blessing and a curse for this character, make the women act in an even bitchier manner towards her. Just making the character complain about bitchy wamen doesn't count, we need to see this shit on-screen". One of these critiques is more helpful to the writer than the others.
Remember, most "Writing Guides" you'll find online aren't made by writers. Read through them to see what XxXBonerDragon69XxX thinks good writing should be, but if you love some piece of media and you want to know what made it work and "Allowed it to get away with the Banned Tropes" it used, analyze it closely.

>>190186
Nigel, go home, you're drunk. Actually, scratch that, you're not drunk, you're just being yourself.

>>190236
Why are you booing me? I'm right. Out of all the thousands of identically retarded CinemaSins fans, it isn't the seventeen fans of CinemaSins who also love MLP (Rather than considering it a "cringey childish sinful silly thing" inferior to Game of Thrones or the entirety of The Walking Dead) who have the magical power to decide what is and isn't high quality. CinemaSins fans who find pony fanfics they like don't post them in their discords or on their reddits to get them a bunch of positive and kind reviews, they only do that with fics that offended their delicate NPC "Nothing is without sin and we must call out the oppression- I mean sin" sensibilities.
Come on, remember that time they "Sinned" the fact that in blade runner, scenes of shit life and poverty are contrasted with cool high-tech shit? You know, as if it's some horrible mistake equivalent to a boom mic being visible in the shot, or a lack of budget causing this "Mistake", rather than the entire fucking central point of Dystopian Cyberpunk Futures?
CinemaSins? More like ShitinmaShit.
Also, I have completed chapter 4 of this story and the story is now at 70K, with 30K more pre-written words ready to be uploaded soon.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13107414/4/Fallout-Equestria-Sunrise-Stardust-and-The-Burned-World
Your thoughts?

>>190351
>going from ranting about how "there's no such thing as Sues" to ranting and raving against CinemaSins, and then plugging your Fo:E fic
Nigel, I...

>>190186
There are a lot of tangents here, so I'm going to cut right past them and address the topic in question.
>It might seem like there are a million "Pitfalls" and "Writing sins" out there a smart budding writer needs to avoid for fear of ruining your own reputation forever, but don't stress about them.
Anyone is going to be bad when they start out. That doesn't ruin reputations. An ill-mannered writer is what ruins reputations.
>There are hundreds of "Sue Traits" and hundreds of well-written characters in many different media forms have one, some, or even many of these traits
Yes, they do. And there's a good reason for that. Can you tell me what that reason is?
>The idea of "The Mary Sue" is really only useful in the sense that the classic mary sue was made to criticize bad OCs by embodying and exaggerating their worst traits.
But that's simply not true. The authors of those stories exaggerated these traits to a ludicrous degree by themselves. All these readers/critics are doing is pointing out the exaggeration. The meme matches the subject.
It's hard to pick anything else on the fruit tree, when almost all of the fruit is low hanging.
>She's good when you want to compare a character to her.
Perspective is always a good thing.
>To phase the concepts of Sues out over to "Bad Character" would help more,
It wouldn't help at all.
All Mary Sues are bad characters, but not all bad characters are Mary Sues.
>with the classic Mary Sue and other combinations of bad character traits serving to act as examples of bad characters,
Which they do.
>rather than types of "Wrong" characters.
[citation needed]
No critic has ever said there is such a thing as a 'wrong' character.
>Remember, most "Writing Guides" you'll find online aren't made by writers.
[citation needed]

Incidentally, nice to see you still kicking around, Sven. Sorry I couldn't do much for NaNoWriMo, but I was totally flatlined on writefag mojo for that whole month. Still kinda am.
If you're still down for continuining that write chain from the last thread, I'd be cool with that. Or if you don't want this thread to get all cluttered up, you could always shunt it to /vx/.

>>190086
The immense shadow sheep loomed over our heroes as they all had finally put on their respective elements except for one. Twilight inspected with her gloomy gaze the tiara she held in her hoof.
”Twilight, what are you waiting for winter. Put your element on!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
”No,” Twilight whispered.
”Look out!” called Applejack but it was too late.
”BAH!!!” The sheep let out a thunderous bark. It caused the grass to go flat against the ground and are six ponies to be sent off into the sky as a tornado was unleashed where they had previously been.
Dizzy and confused, the ponies found themselves traveling through the air in a trajectory that would soon go from upwards to sharp downwards. As they were about to crash, the three fliers in the group grabbed another that wasn't a flier and then the slowly breaked their descent to a comfortable landing speed.
When they land, Rainbow Dash immediately turned towards Twilight and snarled.
”Twi! What in all the filthy Zebras were you doing? Why didn't you use your stupid element?”
Twilight looked displeased at Rainbow Dash and then saw that the rest of the group also was looking at her expecting an answer.
”Because it wouldn't have worked anyway.”
”What?!” Shouted the rested of the group except for Fluttershy who spoke normally.
”Why? Did that Cheap Villain make them crooked somehow?”
”No,” Twilight answered simply. It was now visible that she was angry.
”But then why, Darlin' would they not work?” said Rarity.
”Because-” Twilight inhaled. ”Because you are not my friends.”
They acted as a choir and gasped together.
Twilight pointed an accusatory hoof at Rainbow Dash and then at Pinkie.
”Once you pranked” -Twilight made air quotes with her hooves.-”me by switching my ink with invisable ink. You ruined my day.”
”What! You still mad about that. It was years ago. It was just a harmless prank.”
”Harmless? Maybe to you. But I have suffered from this ever since. Real friends are considerate of each other. And therefore you aren't my friend.”
Rainbow's eyes showed signs of rage but her mouth hanged open like it was lifeless.
Pinkie checked the text she had scribbled on the wrist of her hoof to see if she was in a dream.
Twilight then walked over to Applejack stomped both her forehooves into the ground in front of her.
”And you Applejack didn't consider my feelings when you stepped into my house with mud on your hooves.”
”What in tarnation?”
Teleporting and emerging next to Rarity, Twilight poked Rarity's muzzle with her hoof.
”You tried to coax me into giving you a ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala. You tried to use me, your friend for your own selfish desires.”
Protecting her muzzle with her hooves, Rarity stammered out.
”B-bu-bu-u-ut Darlin'”
An explosion of purple light happened right in the face of Fluttershy. It was replaced shortly after by a lavender unicorn wailing her forehooves around like an overdramatic Rarity on [Sonic].
”A last but not least. Little miss goody two shoes, Fluttershy. She didn't consider my feelings towards the raising of our youth when she used the word, ”Peeved” in the presence of a minor.”
Fluttershy immediately fell into a heap of a pony and balled her eyes out.
”It is true. I am sorry everyone.”
”Pathetic. You should have thought about that earlier. It is too late now.”
Then Twilight just left the rest there dumbfounded as she stormed off still furious.

So in this example, there is a reason for why Twilight acts the way she does it is just not believable. Twilight would never break her friendship over some petty nonsense. Yes, it is a ridiculous example but if you get my point and that is what matters.

Will add more to this section tomorrow. I hope.

Figured I'd throw this little 'I want to write' tidbit into the thread as well.
https://pastebin.com/6c2Tq2zq

>>190394
Well, my iron maiden is still in need of repairs and I don't have a lawn so I don't own a rake. I guess I will accept your apology.
Honestly though consider that you have been writing a story for two years it makes since that you would be feeling some fatigue. Hope you just are tired of writing and not something else.
Anyway, I would gladly start up the LARP again if you are up for it. I have been thinking though. Maybe we should start a new LARP. There are several reasons for this. One: Because I think the old story is a bit convoluted and overly complicated. This was entirely my fault. Mixing my dumb autistic headcanon with a canon character might not have been the best idea.
Two: Maybe King Battle Brit or some other Anon would be more likely to join if we began something new.
Three: As I wrote here >>188895 →. I think there needs to some kind of building blocks to build the story upon. Characters, world, and rules are those kinds of blocks that I imagine. Then the story and plot can take any turn it wants but we need to know what we are dealing with. Even though I think we collaborated well together when we LARP:ed, it still felt as if we could have more free reign.
For example, you could not expand upon Daring's relationship with Caballeron because you had nothing to expand upon. My characterization of Caballeron was so all over the place that who knew what kind o relationship they had. It came off as contrived. But I guess that could be okay. What is your take on this? If you even can interpret the mutilated bloody mess of words before you.

I want a simpler story with clearer characters. Something akin to a typical shonen anime and build from that. But you have to feel up for it of course and we don't have to take it too seriously either.

Have you some writing advice too offer this thread? More than the Pastebin link >>190408, which were great btw?

>>190186
Thanks for your input, Nigel. I have my own thoughts on it but it is last in my queue of things to do. That along with the fact that I practically promised to review KBB's story. But I can try to read a bit of it tomorrow and give you my thoughts. It is simply so that your story is so long and my time I got to spare in the coming days are not.

>>189683
I am interested in how you do your writing. From what I have observed, you seem to be the master of typing voluminous amounts of words on paper. How do you do it?

>>190413
>What is your take on this?
Well, coming from years of chat LARP experience, I can say this with certainty: communication is a very critical part of the co-op experience. You or I can conjure up the greatest concept in the known universe, but that means little to nothing if everyone's stepping on each other's toes all the time, conflicting headcanons and visions pulling it apart left and right.
In chatrooms, that's an easy thing to solve, since the participants can just talk freely by, say, enclosing their out-of-story lines in brackets: "((yo dawg i wanna have anon have a dark and moody past and sheit))". Since it's done line-by-line and is a casual pastime, that's perfectly acceptable. On 6k character limit imageboards with public exposure? Not so easy to solve. Things get spoiled for the readers extremely easily that way, and they'll wind up losing interest. I mean, how could they not?
Of course, that's assuming it has to be a full-on co-op story that's preplanned, edited and everything. If the focus is on giving the co-op partners an experience just as much as you would the readers - and that was what I was assuming last thread - then this really just comes down to the rule of "what you don't write is just as important as what you do". Leave details unexplained or unexpanded upon, and only expand on them if it either becomes pertinent, or if another person decides it's pertinent. Make it a kind of tennis match, with a goal to shoot for. Your setup for the last thread set the goal quite well.
Most of my experience revolves around acting as a kind of GM for a given story and a universe: writing the world and some smaller characters, villains, etc., while the co-op partners drop their own characters into it to do the things required of the story. It takes a load off of the co-op buddies, having them focus in on their own characters, but also makes it critical to have a good GM who can juggle all of that. Like me. ^:) In a sense, it's like a far more involved CYOA that way. But I don't think it's the kind of experience you or any other takers are really going for, so the 'tennis match' method I described above is probably going to be the way the game's played. And hey, I'm down either way. Not like /vx/ is full of activity these days!

But moving on to your other points;
>Have you some writing advice too offer this thread?
Boy you better believe it. Pure personal experience, coming through.
First off, scope creep is the devil.
You've got a good idea going, then you decide in the middle of doing it that this side thing would be really cool to do, and then you throw in another side thing, and ooh, this character has this extra angle to explore, and this one city is super detailed and amazing, and there's this awesome lore behind the mermaid pirates, and oh shit, the plot skeleton is as long as a short novel now.
You have to rein in any desires to expand upon your story. If you go willy-nilly with it, you wind up with one of those 2M word Fimfic abominations that nobody will want to even start to read. And that's assuming you can muster the will to sort through and keep writing through the minefield of corners you just set yourself!
Stay the course of your original plan. If you do want to shift gears, do it sparingly and only if you're convinced beyond a doubt that it would improve the story, and not merely sound cool to include.

Second, character overload is the devil's wife.
Same principle as above, where you have this one character who's super amazing, and then you decide to add his best friend into it, and then that one character's sister gets involved, and then you get to the sister's husband who can aid the protagonists, and then you meet this dwarf in this town who tags along and brings his two best friends, and then the elf and his wife tag along, and... uhh, wait, who's who again?
Forget trying to remember the cast that was just poofed into existence: having that many characters is just begging for railroading, flanderization, and devaluing the shortlist of characters you already had. That's to say nothing of the logistical nightmare that is scripting their reactions to in-world events!
Keep your character list short. Even in long stories, there's little reason to exceed a dozen characters. To put it into perspective, the entirety of Lord of the Rings has only 9 main characters and 14 important side characters!

Third, have a concrete plan after a certain length is reached.
Some writers write by the seat of their pants, others meticulously plan everything out. Either way is good for shorter stories, and you can even get away with just a plot skeleton for medium length stories, but when it reaches a certain length, you will absolutely require a plan of action to follow. Nobody can remember the details of their own setting and characters that well for that long.
For those seat-of-the-pants writers, they would benefit from a little notepad worth of key details and events, and an actual plot skeleton to go off of. For meticulous planners, you need to upgrade the skeleton to a full-on synopsis. The point here is to maintain consistency over long periods of constant writing. If you don't maintain a personal quick reference like this, you'll tread over your own character's accomplishments and traits, and wind up contradicting your own plot points, among other things. And trust me, even if you don't pick up on them, your readers will. And by the time they notice, you'll already be committed to it and in no position to alter course. There's no winning at that stage.

Other than that, nothing that https://pastebin.com/V1ujiyJt can't explain in far better terms than I can.
And holy shit where did this wall of text come from? I think that's all from me tonight.

>>190389
>Anyone is going to be bad when they start out. That doesn't ruin reputations. An ill-mannered writer is what ruins reputations.
Sure it is. And ill-mannered critics convince writers to give up and find a hobby where the consumer feels less entitled and easily-offended. The dedicated "Sue Hunting Community" is the gayest community on the planet. Fetishized and ritualized authoritarian child-bullying for the sake of seeming like you know The Writing Rules better than the other teenagers, even though there are many brilliant works of fiction that break The Writing Rules and still turn out great because rules like "No multicoloured hair! No relations to canon characters! No overused species, and no, I don't care why they are overused or how limiting that is in some franchises where the popular choices are the only good ones!" and whining about how well a story does or doesn't follow them aren't the be-all and end-all of literary critique.
>Yes, they do. And there's a good reason for that. Can you tell me what that reason is?
Because way too many "Sue Traits" are just "Strong" traits, "Important" traits, and "Backstory decision" traits self-important critics have deemed "Off-Limits". Almost every character in Avatar: The Last Airbender would be a Sue by the current Mary Sue Litmus Test.
>>The idea of "The Mary Sue" is really only useful in the sense that the classic mary sue was made to criticize bad OCs by embodying and exaggerating their worst traits.
>But that's simply not true. The authors of those stories exaggerated these traits to a ludicrous degree by themselves. All these readers/critics are doing is pointing out the exaggeration. The meme matches the subject.
>It's hard to pick anything else on the fruit tree, when almost all of the fruit is low hanging.
Are you familiar with "A Trekkie's Tale"? It is quite literally the Star Trek Fanzine story that invented a character named Mary Sue Picard Janeway Whatever, to satirize obnoxious cliches in fanfics at the time.
Stupid hair, slutty outfit, being half or full vulcan, dying tragically at the end, and so on.
Even though these days, I think the most annoying and underhated sue trait is the Inheritance Sue. You know, that thing where someone inherits shit she just shouldn't, especially due to contrived bullshit. Like Rey getting Luke's Lightsaber and Han's Millennium Falcon.
>It wouldn't help at all.
>All Mary Sues are bad characters, but not all bad characters are Mary Sues.
Not all Mary Sues are bad characters. Aang and Katara are Sues if you judge them based on how many "FORBIDDEN TRAITS" they have. What stops them from being Sues? Good writing, which Sue Tests and Sue Trait Lists don't account for at all.
The fundamental problem with a sue is that the writer has a lack of experience and knowledge on how to write smartly and effectively to make that "Forbidden Character Idea" into a well-written and interesting three-dimensional character. Screeching at some newbie for giving his original pony the wrong mane colour and telling that newbie to make Brown Sugar the mediocre generic-looking number four million and whatever won't improve the writing.
>No critic has ever said there is such a thing as a 'wrong' character.
[Citation needed]

>>190454
There is no such thing as "Sue Traits". Mary Sues and Gary Stus are not marked by their traits but instead by how the world interacts with them as characters. If a character has fantastic cosmic powers far beyond what is reasonable, has achieved immeasurable success for very little work, has knowledge far beyond their ken, is liked by almost everyone they encounter, and does everything just for the sake of doing good with no personal benefit to them, then more likely than not they're a Sue/Stu.

>>190458
The latter is true, now go tell that to the litmus test tards who think this is some kind of min-maxy number based game.

>>190454
I recommend watching this video to know why Korra is a Mary Sue and Aang is not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmKaQqinWKY

>>190468
>E;R
You have good taste in reviewers.

>>190468
Nice, I love E;R!
I think one of the worst things about Korra is that she's an obnoxious cunt who never suffers the consequences of her bad decisions or bitchy personality. She starts life with 3/4 elements and the only air move she ever needs is "Punch punch punch" anyway. Her sheltered nature and lack of social graces is played up as a cute personality trait of this generic brash bitch of a woman, rather than an actual downside that would come with spending your first 16 years of life in the north pole, with nobody around but old trainers and maybe some young guards/sparring partners now and then. The writers want to dick on the old for the sake of making the "New" look better, but their "New" is shit.
Also, here's another high-quality piece of writing advice:
Make your characters Greedy.
Greed is the best character flaw out there. It can justify anything you want your character to do! If you want your character to backstab his friends, he wants the payout he'd get for doing so. If you want an emotional moment, have him almost do that but then not do that. If you've ran out of ideas for a plot, write about the character trying to get something new! And if he/she doesn't need it, there's tension because the character might fail to get it. If you want him to fuck something up for himself, but you don't want it to be due to a lack of skill, training, luck, or tools, make him get greedy and ruin everything.

>>190531
>Greed is the best character flaw out there.
While I agree that a greedy character can be interesting in a story, I don't think it is the best flaw. I don't see how one would measure it but I assume it was just hyperbole on your part yet I will examine it.
>It can justify anything you want your character to do!
While I don't have an example to disprove this, on the top of my head, I don't see the reason for why that makes it the best character flaw or why we would want to justify everything from that. At the beginning of fim the first episode, Twilight is invited to Moondance's party she declines it because as we know she doesn't consider friendship to have any or much value, at least compared to other things. We could, of course, justify her decline with her being greedy in some way instead but then we would have a completely different scene.
To lend my hand in the circle jerk here, I will say that I also enjoy E;R. ;^)

>>190535
It wasn't a character flaw that motivated Twilight to skip Moondancer's party. It was Twilight's determination to do what's best for Equestria.
Also you're probably right, I just like the greed flaw a lot. I think it's a more interesting flaw than "Stupid" or "Forgetful" or "Lazy" or "Cowardly" or "Will die for his friends, which is a real flaw I swear".

>>190454
>ill-mannered critics convince writers to give up and find a hobby
You do realize that you can just ignore bad responses, right? Even if the responses even remotely resemble what you're describing (which I don't believe for a second they do), you're not obligated to give them a response.
Remember. R E N T F R E E
>even though there are many brilliant works of fiction that break The Writing Rules and still turn out great
Yes, they do. This is called knowing the rules well, so you can break them effectively.
Talented and experienced writers do this when the rules pose a barrier to their vision, and they know exactly what breaking the rules entails, and exploit it to the fullest.
Amateurs break the rules without ever looking at them. Most out of ignorance, yet others out of hubris, of thinking themselves better than the rules without actually attempting to understand just why they exist in the first place. Unsurprisingly, the latter case produces sub-par works.
>Not all Mary Sues are bad characters.
All Mary Sues are bad characters.
>"FORBIDDEN TRAITS"
There is no such thing.

With the minutia out of the way, I'd like to return to your answer to my question.
>>Yes, they do. And there's a good reason for that. Can you tell me what that reason is?
>Because way too many "Sue Traits" are just "Strong" traits, "Important" traits, and "Backstory decision" traits self-important critics have deemed "Off-Limits"
No. That is not correct.
What makes these traits workable are two little things called contrast and adversity.
These traits that you seem to have a habit of ascribing to "forbidden" status are, as you say, integral parts to a character's, well, character. But the entire reason they're valuable to have is because they were bought and paid for in the currency of conflict, of suffering. Where do you think the term 'adversity builds character' comes from?
Characters that possess all these positive traits but have not earned them are rightly labelled as shallow dogshit. To use a relevant analogy, it would be like a hood rat nigger flashing a ton of bling and his shiny golden grill, even though you know he paid for that entirely in welfare checks.

I'll cite a couple of specific examples as a little allegorical game: a character's good elements only, and then the bad elements for the contrast and conflict.

First character:
This character has an awesome mechanical arm and leg, and can use his magical powers to transform the materials around him into weapons and other objects to help him in battle! Other magicians need to use fancy magic circles to do it, but all he has to do is clap his hands together to do it! Awesome, right?! He is also super acrobatic, super strong, and is the son of an awesome superhuman man, from which he inherits his super awesome magic powers from!
He lost his leg trying to resurrect his dead mother, and sacrificed his arm just to save the soul of his brother, whose body was lost in the same resurrection attempt. The horrifying experience caused him to witness the truth of his magic's true inner workings, giving him the knowledge to perform it with just a clap of his hands. All it cost him was a lifetime of psychological scars. Oh, and he absolutely despises his father for driving him to this path in the first place, not knowing his father was an immortal abomination comprised of the sacrificed souls of his ancient homeland, for which he lives eternally with the guilt of.
Which character is this?

This character is badassery incarnate! He uses these awesome swords attached to chains to viciously murder all kinds of monsters that stand in his way, and he bones tons of big-breasted women! And then he went ahead and climbed on top of an ancient temple to take the power of a god to literally kill an evil god, taking his powers for himself and ridding the world of the evil god's evilness! Awesome!
His chain swords were a gift from this god, seared permanently to his arms. He sleeps with so many women in a vain attempt to rid himself of the constant nightmares that plague his tortured mind. He scaled the temple to slay the god who had wronged him, but he had never intended it to 'rid the world of evil', only to have his revenge, and under the impression that doing so would rid him of the nightmares that plague his tortured mind. When the nightmares wouldn't end, he tried to kill himself, only to be 'saved' by those who made the false promise to begin with, placed into his fallen enemy's throne against his will.
Which character is this?

I could go on, but I think that covers the genres of entertainment that you'd be most familiar with.
If you're still unsure, well boy do I have a fun homework assignment for you to do, buckaroo.

>>190750
Well this is strange. You have a better understanding of literature than the "Forbidden traits are forbidden for a reason!" faggots I'm criticizing, and you've somehow never encountered them so you don't think they exist.
You aren't a faggot, and I don't disagree with you.
I'm not sure what to say in this situation.
The first character is Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. Is the second one Kratos from God of War?
What's your idea for the homework assignment thing?

>>190826
I never said those kinds of people didn't exist, only that I didn't believe they would unironically go down lists of 'bad' traits and tropes to the degree that you're suggesting they do.
Assuming for the sake of argument that they are indeed going down a kind of list for this, then I'll expand on what I said before. There is no such thing as a 'forbidden' trait, but there is such a thing as misusing a trait. Themes, motivation, developments, characters, all of these things can't just be thrown into a blender with the expectation to get good results. If you don't pick things that match, you're going to end up with a slurry of shit.
Writing, like all art forms, is not an exact science: it's more akin to cooking. Sure, there are recipes to follow, and exact measurements to make, but a lot of the process is simply adjusting things to taste and experimenting, with little regard to precision in all but the more powerful ingredients. You can still fuck it up if you're not paying attention, but it's also not bound by a strict set of rules that dictate what everything can and cannot be. Rather, it's just a set of guidelines. Remember what I said about knowing the rules to break them effectively? Well, you can ignore the guidelines if you want, but if you do so without knowing what that entails, don't be surprised when your creation is met with bad feedback.

Nigel, you may not believe me when I tell you this, but you and these ephemeral 'critics' you repeatedly slam both subscribe to the same faulty logic. That logic being that a laundry list of things not to do is going to be the most helpful thing in your quest to create a good story. Well, it's simply not. I know this, because I used to subscribe to the same mindset before I picked up the Cherry MX pen myself. I used to write horrid garbage many, many years back, and being my own worst critic, I couldn't help but overemphasize the negative portions in my own work, and outright refuse to post them. But knowing what makes something bad is not the whole picture.
Let me explain with another analogy. Say you had to, once again, cook something. But instead of a recipe, you have an entire list of things you shouldn't do. Don't turn the burner up too high. Don't crack the eggs on the countertop. Don't use the convection mode. Don't defrost things before you start. Don't use a serrated knife. Don't use the fine grater. Don't use a non-stick frying pan. Now, have you noticed that in this list of "don'ts", that you still have no idea what the hell it is that you're making?
It's not enough that you know what doesn't work. You also have to know what does work.
I had you solve those two mystery characters - both of which you got right, by the way - because they were examples of what does work. Those two characters are interesting and deep. They have a formula, a recipe, that works for them. A list of what to do, not of what not to do.
Granted, just copying their formula wholesale is a fast-track to some well-deserved accusations of plagiarism, but that's where this cooking analogy keeps coming back into play. Once you have the formulas for what does work, you now have a license to play around with them. What if the character had this happen instead? What if this person died instead of that one? It's only when you have this list of things that do work, that the list of what doesn't work becomes useful. For example, it's probably not a good idea to introduce a romance while in the middle of a death scene. It's probably not a good idea to make a character ridiculously strong because they stepped on an ant. So on and so forth. Not to say you can't make it work, but it's very, very unlikely, and would require skill, finesse and planning that probably isn't worth the investment.

I want you to think about that when you criticize something you don't particularly like. Instead of fixating on what you don't like and what doesn't work, instead look at what does work. I remember you railing against the character of Itachi in another thread? Well, what does work with him? You don't have to tell me, all I ask is that you look at the flipside of it. Because like I said, you need to know what does work, to make any sense of what doesn't work.
Let's put it another way. Say a story is an assignment of some kind. 50% of the grade is what does work. 50% of the grade is what doesn't work. The passing grade is 60%. What happens when you focus on just one half?

I guess I'll just end this long-standing, doubtless repetitive ramble off with my quote-unquote homework. You want an interesting, but not necessarily good character to analyze? One that you're almost assuredly not familiar with? Well, I may be a bit biased, but this story really sticks out to me in that regard. https://pastebin.com/5ECNnjxF
Give it a read, if you feel so inclined. Fair warning, it's quite the wild ride.
As for me, sleep calls. See you around.

>>190919
About the LARP. If you want to, we could continue where we left off. It sounds like fun.
I am writing a post right now for the thread about the subject of Mary Sues that you and Nigel are discussing. I got inspired to post something about it. Therefore, I might not contribute to the LARP Story tonight.

>>190919
>>190826
While we are on the subject of Mary Sues, I thought I would share with you amigos my personal take on them. I think it is actually easier to work with a character who is not a Mary Sue than a Mary Sue. There are two reasons that I can think of. The first one is that Mary Sues breaks suspense in your story. We know that Mary is the biggest fish in the pond and that she will overcome any obstacle in her path. The other reason is that Marys usually comes with huge, if not limitless, an arsenal of skills and capabilities that renders all of their desperate situations into a walk in the park. But here is the other side of this: It also results in Mary having more options than your regular protag. If the author of the story is not aware of how OP his character is he can make her do something unnecessary. For example: If your character can teleport but also can fly, the writer could potentially forget that and make the character do something that would have gone simpler if he just teleported.

>>190925
You know I'm down.

Well I fucked up NaNoWriMo but it was a nice idea and even though it is not pone related is it okay to post it here anyways?

>>191319
lol casual.

>>191339
Ouch

>>191341
F

>>190919
This is weird. You are entirely right, and you are saying what I already believe. But you're saying it in a better way, and I love that food analogy.
I'm going to say what works with Itachi anyway.
When the show started, Itachi was Sasuke's end goal. He was the man Sasuke wanted to kill because one night, an even younger Sasuke came home to find every non-Itachi family member he had dead. He was the reason why Sasuke was a bit of a wanker, he was the reason why Sasuke was so focused and goal-oriented, he was the reason why Sasuke didn't feel the need to go out and make friends when he could spend time training instead.
Itachi worked so much better as a concept than as a character.
When Itachi shows up, Sasuke loses his shit and goes right for him. And he accomplishes nothing, even with his fancy new Chidori move. Itachi isn't even here for Sasuke, Itachi is here to get Naruto for the Akatsuki. Or just check on Naruto's status, I forget.
Anyway, Sasuke wants more power. Naruto's training paying off and giving him more power convinces Sasuke that he isn't getting strong fast enough at Konoha, so he leaves and runs off to Snakeman.
I really think Sasuke should have gotten some Kekkei Genkai elements he barely ever uses at this point. Something he can say "Orochimaru gave me this" about, besides his shit outfit.
Itachi is (at this point) everything wrong with the Uchiha personified. Emotionless cunt, check. Super serious, check. Sadistic murderer, check. Only ever seems to use Uchiha Techniques 90% of the time, even though the first main power of his special eyes lets him copy any spell he sees, check. Has the special eyes Sasuke doesn't have, check. Keeps telling Sasuke to upgrade his own Special Eyes by killing a close friend to upgrade them, then killing Itachi to double upgrade them, check.
Anyway, Itachi is the reason why Sasuke went down his path of revenge, why he was such an asshole, why Sasuke did this and that…
And that last-minute "Actually, Sasuke, your family was evil all along and I was the good guy! They wanted to pull a coup on the village!" moment…
It was actually pretty great. Sasuke's new end goal and main villain is Danzo, and he attacks the Five Kage Summit and nearly gets fucking atomized by the five kage present. He needs to get answers out of Danzo and then kill him.
I think that's when the writing goes bad.
Danzo is a hypocritical cowardly cunt who founded the Ninja FBI. When he was a kid, he was on a suicide mission where one of his teammates had to die. He wanted to volunteer but he pussied out. Then he decided he needed to create perfect ninjas with no fear or emotions.
That's why he created ROOT, the double-secret ninja police. Even secret-er than the ANBU BlackOps.
Itachi did have a cousin whose OP jutsu, Kotoakatsukami, lets him mind-control people at will, it just has a cooldown period. Danzo sent people to kill that cousin and steal 1 of his magic eyes before he could mind-control the Uchiha to prevent the coup, because Danzo wanted magic eyes and didn't want to leave the effectiveness of that plan up to chance.
Danzo is supposed to be the cowardly backstabbing asshole at the Hokage's side, "The root to his leaf". A bad man working for the good of a good ninja village.
There's a pretty cool fight where the bullshit Uchiha power of "Fuck causality" is stolen from an Uchiha and used against one, who overcomes it (There's symbolism here. Not sure what it is. Maybe a metaphor for Sasuke's determination to kill Danzo, since Danzo can undo his wounds and Sasuke can re-do them).
But when the fight is over, Danzo takes Karin(dumb horny thot who wanted to rape him, was his girlfriend at the time) as his hostage, and Sasuke Chidoris right through her. Kinda like when Kakashi Chidori'd Rin. Long story, but I like how Kakashi had to kill Rin because of what the bad guy did, while Sasuke chose to lethally stab Karin and the bad guy that "Made him" do this.
Symbolism.

Anyway, Danzo dies and then a magic spell called a "cursed seal" branded on him makes him allahu ackbar after dying, then he's dead and this accomplishes nothing.
After Sasuke has killed Itachi (Who was good all along) and Danzo (Who was the REAL baddie all along! Mostly), he has nothing left to do. So he decides to stay evil, and he decides Konoha needs to burn. Until the comic almost ends, then he magically turns good. But not really. then he turns good for real.
Danzo's final moments should have been him painting the long-dead Uchiha and himself as the reason for everything bad that ever happened in Sasuke's life, in the hopes that Sasuke would want to go back to the village and protect it "To honour Itachi's sacrifice". Instead of deciding to protect the village Itachi died to protect, Sasuke decides it needs to burn.
From that point on, the writer kind of loses the plot completely. He's already wrapped up the story of Naruto, the character. He's got leftover stuff to do in the Ninja World, but no idea how to do it. So then a Ninja War happens between living people and dead people working for changeling clone troopers made of plant stuff. This last years but it eventually ends in aliens.
Also there's a scene where a magic crow Itachi magically hid inside Naruto programmed to yell "Protect Konoha!" in genjutsu-ese (total asspull, btw) triggers on Itachi instead of Sasuke, letting him regain control of his mind and then team up with Sasuke against Kabuto, kicking his ass (with a fucking groundhog loop insta-death jutsu) and undoing the spell that kept Edo Tensei zombie ninjas alive, even though they would have been really fucking useful against the final bosses. Itachi and Sasuke fighting side-by-side should result in Sasuke getting over himself and deciding to protect Konoha like his brother wanted, but I don't think it did at this point. Anyway, story's over.
Then Naruto pulls a Jojo and makes a sequel about Boruto, the LOK to Naruto's ATLA. This was the show's opportunity to scale the bullshit DBZ powers down to early Naruto tier and make new stories with the eye-catching grittiness the first arc had, but nope. It decides fun bright colours and deviantart-tier kids of the Konoha characters is more marketable.

>>191360
All in all, I'd say Itachi Uchiha worked best when he was a plot device that motivated Sasuke and drove him forwards. When Sasuke started being evil without a reason, Itachi stopped being a useful plot device.
Itachi Uchiha isn't really a character, he's a plot device. One that can't stand on his own because his only character traits are "Serious badass even by Uchihagod standards".
He only works in a nonviolent setting when his skill and seriousness are the punchlines to a joke, like that short where he fries an egg.
Also, a fucking Wiki Page is necessary to understand the monumental asspull bullshit that is Izanami. I think he might actually be able to defeat Goku with this shit.
http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Izanami
As for the powerless anon thing, it's going on my list of stuff to read and analyze.

Sorry for quadruple-posting, but I've uploaded the newest chapter of Fallout Equestria: Sunrise Stardust and The Burned World.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13107414/5/Fallout-Equestria-Sunrise-Stardust-and-The-Burned-World
Your thoughts?

>>191319
Yes, it is A-OK.

>>190531
One more thing: Korra barely ever uses the elements as anything other than modern-style "Punchpunchpunch" anyway.
She would have lost nothing by only being a firebender as a kid, and only learning the other two elements after the timeskip where she went from kid to bigger kid.
Learning air should have been a big love/freedom-themed emotional moment, not a last-minute asspull.
Also, she should have been called out for being a cunt more often, the compound should have been designated as the reason for her shit behaviour and offensive/nonspiritual bending style(Because the old fuddy-duddies wanted a weapon/wanted to show off and make the coolest fightiest avatar ever, not a moral, mature, and balanced one), and Tenzin should have put her through more bending training in every style. Classically.
Come on, just imagine a scene where she's fighting a traditional bender in a bending fight for a bending blackbelt, she's getting her ass kicked while Tenzin and pals watch, and then Korra "Cheats" by using a pro-bending move, not a real bending move, to knock the enemy bending master out of the ring, rather than beating him.
Boom, now Korra actually gets to be all "But I was right! I won!" and Tenzin gets to be all "No, you failed to do it traditionally!" and the "Old VS New" conflict these hack writers keep trying to do is actually done right for once.
It'd be a whole lot better than That Scene.

In the last thread, a polish Anon posted his ideas for a HiE story. If you see this, you know who you are, then I have some advice/criticism. I think you have a problem with your protagonist. The problem I find with him is that he doesn't have a concrete goal. Just as E;R Explains in his review of, "The Last Jedi," talks about how Rey lacks a concrete goal. So there is the reason a character goal is needed and why it needs to be concrete instead of abstract.

The reason it needs to be concrete is that otherwise, you have no way of knowing when it has been fulfilled. As an example, I interpreted your character's goal to be that sought to settle down after the war in peace. I realize afterward that it wasn't. However, that goal wouldn't have been concrete anyway since we don't know when one has settled down. What are the criteria to fulfill?

I found that your character did not have an overarching goal and this is something that can be handled but it is harder to maintain engagement from the reader in such a story.

Your story has the same flaw, in my opinion I say based purely on prejudged notion, as many Fallout:Equestria stories have: They follow a OC around exploring the world and leveling up without any overarching goal or an ending in sight.

Here is an example on why to clarify:

We have three story synopsis: One is about an Oc named Infected Cactus. Throughout the story this pony roams the desert of Zebriana after the fallout. He is searching for the stable in which his beloved was cryothechnically frozen down in to finally meet her again. Or whatever. Maybe He is looking for some zap apple jam.

Now let's look at another premise. Tipsy Mixy was drunk as the megaspells hit and therefore mistakingly entered Tartarus instead of a stable. Then through years of struggles, she exits Tartarus. She starts a cooking show and broadcasts it to the survivors of the wasteland. Then she gets married and but soon her eyes catch a much handsome stallion and there is a love-triangle drama happening. Then she joins a group of adventures to save the world or something etc.

EXplorer Extrodnair travels the wasteland. He visits a town, then an underground facility and then an old castle and finally a jungle.

Only the first one can be said to have a main hook that lasts throughout the story. The second one can be described as several loosely connected stories in one. And the third one, the reader doesn't know what to expect. Literally, anything can happen and it completely up to the writer to decide what will.

When you have a main hook for your story, you can always rely on to make your readers turn to the next page. This is because the main hook is what got them into the story from the beginning. If you don't have that and you just follow a character day-to-day life. You constantly need to think about ways to keep them reading. Or if you have several stories in one, it will be hard to convince your readers to continue reading the story when it completely changes tone since it is a new story now.

You sure do have passion though for your work. It is evident with so much detail that went into your world building, which was your main strength in my opinion. Hope that I didn't come off like jerk and that this will help you.

>>191786
Yeah, I realized that problem long ago. When I first approached idea of writing story every source talked about that one concrete goal for a character.
Tried a few approaches to solve that problem but in the end I decided to just ignore it.
One of the main reasons I even wanted to write it is because I read a lot of fics and I was dissatisfied with them. I dont want some epic battle of good vs evil, superpowers and protagonist cuttign through the piles of enemies with the help of his sidekicks. I dont want to make it a hero story.

I want to have believable character with believable goals.

You said that you interpret his goal as settling down and you're partially right. He moves to Ponyville to find some peace and serenity after years of conflict. But after he finally finds it he realizes that it isn't something he wants.
He's dissatsifed with just having normal life, he's dissatisifed with those around him and that he can't trust them.
I tried to base it on some memoirs of soldiers who can't return to normal life not because of PTSD or some other traumas but because they realize that they prefered life in the warzone even tho when they fought the only thing they wanted is to be back home.

There is of course a main plot, but it's more like a series of consecutive stories that are connected with each other rather than one main arch going through the whole story.
The only plot that's going from the beggining to the very end is Anon-Dash relationship and even it isn't uninterrupted
because there're large parts where they're separated from eachother.

>>191786
>They follow a OC around exploring the world and leveling up without any overarching goal or an ending in sight.
I didn't realize how many FE stories do this, or how much I hate it, until you pointed it out.
I'm glad I gave my Fequestria protagonist the unclearly-defined progression-focused abstract end goal of "Make Equestria Great Again" (At what point will it be great enough for him? Will he ever be satisfied?) and the solid concrete stepping stone towards that goal, "Take Baltimore so I can get me some more steel to help me win wars and build better stuff".

>>191889
Glad you liked it Nigel. I like how you are so humble as well. A lot, myself included can have a hard time to say things like this.
>I didn't realize how many FE stories do this, or how much I hate it, until you pointed it out.
That is the key in this thread after all. That we all help each other and teach each other new things and sing kumbaya.

I have been meaning to read your Fallout Equestria fic for a while now. I will probably do so tomorrow since I will soon go to bed.

>>191792
I will give you more of my thoughts tomorrow.

>>191031
We will continue our story tomorrow as well. Maybe;D

Also if you read this King Battle Brit. I have a finished post about your story that I have yet to post. Will revise it and post tomorrow.

I'm going to try and do that "I didn't realize how much I hated that until now" thing.
Anyone else hate "By The Numbers" stories?
Stories that go like every other story in this "Genre" does. Stories that go just like every other story out there with the same premise, even though each story contains elements that should theoretically make it unique, and should therefore theoretically change how the story goes.
They should be unique, but they aren't.
Imagine a Naruto fic. Woah, Naruto isn't just a ninja any more, now he's an alien/girl/robot/Pokemon/secret genius/pirate or an orphan raised by Dante Sparta and Twilight Sparkle in this fic! And/or he's backed up by some awesome new ninja guy/gal with all/none of the Kekkei Genkai! Therefore... His story turns out just like the Naruto Anime, but with a few incredibly minor tweaks. He bangs more ninja chicks and he's like 23 levels stronger from chapter 1, so he shits all over foes that made the real Naruto grow and adapt and think of new tricks. But you know there'll be the Land of Waves, then the Chunin Exams and Invasion of Konoha, then Sasuke bullshit, then Akatsuki, then Pain, then the Five Kage summit, then Madara, then the real Madara, then Ninja Zombies, then Kabuto, then Madara, then... *snore*
It's the same story you've already seen. The inclusion of new elements and changes to the story's main character should change things, but... Nope. Taking things out of that familiar comfort zone and taking things "Off the rails" scares amateur writers, and those afraid of being crapped on for taking a risk that doesn't work out.
It feels less like a distinct story in this world and more like some kind of "New Game Plus" for Naruto. "Naruto with cheatcodes".
Now imagine a Pokemon fic. It's about this twenty-seven year old fatass whose parents just kicked him out of Twinleaf town. It's time for him to grow up, man up, get a shitty lv5 starter, and go on a Pokemon Adventure with the other 10 year olds! And he... goes around Sinnoh in the same route you take in the games. He's not a wide-eyed optimistic kid with his first Pokemon, he's a cynical asshole who should know at least as much about Pokemon as the average thirty-something knows about PC usage today. If you're lucky, he'll get a "Special" Starter, so the battles will be slightly different from the start, but that isn't guaranteed. Especially since much of that fandom thinks "Special Starter=Reduced chance that the story will be good". Nothing is unique, not even the "Clever" lines from the old protag as he snarks at kids who judge him for sucking so much ass at Pokemon. No matter how hard the writer might crap on this cliche or that cliche, his story is still fundamentally cliche and exactly the same as every other "Game Plot Rehash" fic out there.
Imagine you take a song, but you change every instance of a random word with "Butt", then you change it back before you sing it. You've changed nothing!
Imagine a Fallout Equestria fic. It's just Fallout 3, with the occasional Fallout 1 and 2 and rare NV element for flavour. That's Fallout Equestria. Ding-dong! I did it! Ha cha cha!
...Sorry, I'm kidding.
Anyway, now imagine a Fallout Equestria fic that's entirely Fallout NV but ponified, since the original already used up pretty much all the major "Fallout Elements" and erased most of them at the end of the story anyway. You've already played the game. You know how everything will go. Boone might be called Longshot, the Mojave Express might be owned by Derpy Hooves, New Vegas might be New Haygas or New Pegasus, and Nipton might be called Niptrot, but it's still the same story. The only real thing to wonder about will be whether The Trotter (Courier) goes House, Legion, NCR, or Wildcard. And that's usually obvious anyway.

Also, Chapter 6 is complete.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13107414/6/Fallout-Equestria-Sunrise-Stardust-and-The-Burned-World
My story is over 100,000 words now.
I decided simply telling the audience that Sunrise strongly dislikes degeneracy wasn't enough. I decided to have him see something sorta-degenerate, disgusting him a bit too much while triggering a PTSD flashback of something he saw that was actually incredibly degenerate.
Warning: That chapter has NSFW scenes I found difficult to write. Even after all the shit I've seen on the internet... Having Sunrise see even one instance of the shit I've seen feels wrong, but the alternative was to have him say "I sure hate fucking degeneracy! A whole fucking lot!" to his wife.

I thought of something.
Remember that time Kishibe Rohan signed his name with coffee, twice, at the same time? Kishibe Rohan is a more fun and far better-written "Amazing god character" than Itachi Uchiha. When he does cool bullshit, it's fun. It's entertaining. It's creative. He doesn't break the rules of the universe or pull new powers out of his ass like Itachi does.
And despite what a bullshit god character Kishibe is, he doesn't feel bullshit. He still loses fights and gets into wacky situations. He still struggles. He still loses sometimes. His fights are more than "I use my god everything and win". I think that's why I like Rohan and hate Itachi.
Fights with Itachi are basically that. He's supposed to be a low stamina strong spell kind of guy who's also fast as fuck and smart, he's supposed to conserve his stamina and avoid using the magic eye powers that are supposed to erode his vision every time he uses them. But he's also super strong and his Susan-o is so bullshit, it gets a perfect shield and perfect sword. I don't think even Ninja Jesus got that for his Giant Stand.
Also, Jiraiya from Naruto was epic. He once turned the inside of a hotel into the throat of a frog, and this made Itachi Uchiha and his buddy Shark Boy run like little bitches. A big deal, if you remember what a fight Shark Boy gave Might Guy, who stomped Madara Ninjahitlerjesus Uchiha a week later. He was cool, fast, smart, and a big hit with the ladies.
And yet, when he died at the hands of (spoiler), he thought about how much he sucked and how little he accomplished in his life. He dies to give intel to Naruto that helps him beat the bad guy. How he thought of himself... it makes you feel worse for him.
He might have been One of the Three Legendary Sannin, and one of the show's strongest characters, but finding out that there was a sad person beneath the "I am the greatest! The legendary Toad Sage!", that was good writing.
Look at the Cheap Trick fight with Rohan. Rohan has an awesome and entertaining fight.
Now look at what happened when Itachi had to fight Kakashi, Might Guy, and Girl.
Girl uses genjutsu illusion magic on him, he brute forces her with his Better illusions and beats her.
Kakashi says "look down, don't make eye contact!" Because in this setting, you use illusion magic on a person by putting your magic in his magic circulatory system through eye contact, touch, or sound.
Kakashi says he can look Itachi in the eye because he has a sharingan too. Itachi uses his magic eyes to put Kakashi through a week or two of crucifixion in a second.
Then I think there was a bit where he pointed at someone, and he is so special, he can use his finger as an eye.
That might have been from a different fight.
I think it was his fight with Naruto, where right after he trains with Jiraiya and learns to break genjutsu, it's used on him and... Itachi is too special, so his genJutsu cant be broken.
You know what would be cooler? Imagine if he threw kunai you had to deflect while looking down and avoiding eye contact, giving you less room to see them coming. Then he did some bullshit with knife reflections to eye contact you, to beat you.
That would be more fun than Itachi just screwing the rules like this.

Alright, I'm bumping the thread.

Has anyone found the hidden message in my Fallout Equestria fic yet?

>>192121
>Kakashi says he can look Itachi in the eye because he has a sharingan too. Itachi uses his magic eyes to put Kakashi through a week or two of crucifixion in a second.
Also, this always annoyed me about Naruto. Genjutsu is this "If you detect it and clear it from your system with the Genjutsu Kai spell, you are fine. If you can't clear it from your system, it fucks with you" thing. So you'd expect to see at least one cool dream-world fight between two Genjutsu Masters, but we don't get that. Not even in the Kakashi VS Itachi "Fight", where Kakashi says "Guys, shut your eyes! It's ok for me tho, I also have the magic sharingan and like 13 extra years of combat experience, so I should be able to look at him and be fine- Oh no, now i'm trapped in a spooky world and I'm getting crucified for weeks! If only I could fight back!"
then it's Might Guy, one of the show's best characters (I buy it, but it feels slightly weird that Might Guy, a purely physical fighter, has a better grasp of how you beat Illusion masters than the physical, illusion, and magic element spell fighter) says "Just look at the guy's feet! That way, you can guess where the rest of his body is and predict moves based on that!".
The closest thing to an "Illusion Battle" we ever got in Naruto was this one scene where girl uses tree illusion on Itachi, and he illusions harder to trap her in the tree illusion instead.
Everything about Itachi's writing in fights feels like *teleports behind u and kills u* bullshit.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13107414/7/Fallout-Equestria-Sunrise-Stardust-and-The-Burned-World
Chapter 7 is up.

>>192631
Come back in like two hours. I will post something regarding this >>191932

>>192932 →

I am glad to see that I wasn't completely wrong about FE stories being this way. After all, I did say that I haven't read too many of them. I have read some of them and that is the impression I got from the few I read something from. I did read the original up to the fifth chapter of the story because my friend was into it so I wanted to know what the appeal was. It had its problems so after a while I stopped.
It is interesting that you mention pokemon because I, I can feel my credibility slipping away because last year I was searching for a good pokemon fanfiction on fanfcition.net
Hehe, I felt the need to specify that it was a year ago.
>No matter how hard the writer might crap on this cliche or that cliche, his story is still fundamentally cliche and exactly the same as every other "Game Plot Rehash" fic out there.
I have always thought that there were potential to do something more with the story than just the same old: Trainer gets his first and then just follows the path that has been so thoroughly walk on by canon and non-canon fiction alike that it is more like a highway.
Of all that searching, there's only one fic I can recommend and that is only partially because I didn't like the main character. The good part about this story is the first battle. It is well written in my opinion.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12594149/1/Clear-Skies-Above
I think that the writer of this story was aware of his/her's main character is a bit of a douche since the original title for the story was, ”Trash sisters” or something.
Also, on that note. Searching fanfiction is fucking addictive if you are too hopeful about the quality of each story based on their description alone.
But think about this: I was seriously searching through the whole well of fics with extreme autism and this is the only one story I can recommend. When it comes to Pokemon, even if they do exist, one cannot easily find good fanfictions on it. Afterall there are 96-kilo stories in the pokemon catalog so my searching was just barely scratching the surface.

Canada-san, I haven't forgotten about you.

>>192639
I meant thus one >>191932

>>192639
There's something I was thinking of doing.
Many months ago, one of my friends ranted about some bullshit he encountered on the internet, centered around a really shit Pokemon fanfic.
I doubted the fic was really as bad as he said, but I listened to the guy anyway. Then I considered making a fanfic that does the promising premise of the shit fic better. I even had some great ideas about that. Then I decided against it because I was busy at the time.
I was bored a few days ago and my hands were sore from typing, so I decided to look up and read the shit fic my friend ranted about.
And... Jesus, it's worse than the guy said.
I'm thinking of bringing back some elements from that "Good take on that badly-executed great concept" fic and putting them in my Sunrise story.
What do you think?

Tomorrow is "Ask stupid questions and get answers that are truthful and funny at the same time" day!

I lost a bet and had to compose a rap on the spot. I don't want to make a new thread for this because I hate rap. Would anyone object if I posted it here?

Well, I don't hear a no. So here it goes, please rate and review. This is...

Clippity Cloppity Rap [EXPLICIT]

_____

Ay
ay
ay
Ay
a b c fucking E
I'm the real fucking G
you ain't heard me rap before
but I own these fucking streets
I skipped over the d
because my d is that long
I make extension cords jealous
I fuck hoes with my dong
I don't fuck no bitches
i fuck hoes instead
Every minute every hour they giving me head
When I clop down the street these hoes know I'm like a horse
Clippity cloppity, these hoes are my property
The asses on these hoes expand my dong and it's great
Then I fuck em hard until I hear something break
Hoes love me so much they eat my ass all night
I don't kiss em afterwards cause dat shit aint right
That is fucking weird but they still light up my life
But seriously the fuck is with some hoes am i right
My car goes fast and I drift like a pro
Even when getting the good succ from a hoe
My car's got mad horsepower and a top speed I can't legally reach
My dick got mad hoespower, shooting past fifty feet
These hoes run a train on me so my dick never quit
I even fuck hoes while doing real tax shit
Fuck bitches get money, drowning in that pussy honey
Fucking her so hard I'm getting real fucking lucky
She cook for me, she get my cock from me
Gotta go fast as I slide deeper inside her pussy
Bitches can fuck off, bet all your cats shit in your bed huh?
Shit and piss, when you're gone no one will miss ya
Karen ain't ever getting my kids, I ain't about that divorce life
She die alone and me, I'm about that hardcore fucking whores life
I fuck hoes even harder while they scream and cum
During sex, she thanks god, and I say you're welcome
Rollin up in my heelies, dick out and in my hoe
Like she a team of huskies pulling my sled yo
She that fucking tight but I pull her hair too
But she don't call me daddy because I asked her not to
I have a large penis with an impressive girth
My big dick energy could destroy the universe
Bitches eat shit, these hoes suck my dick
Clippity cloppity, these hoes are my property

>>201686
Now sing it.

>>201686
>I skipped over the d
Your mom didn’t lmao

>>201695
You can't sing rap, that's why rap is shit

>>201758
It's not the only reason, but go ahead and take a "This" for nailing at least one of them.

>>201768
Thank you! What are your favourite lines from this rap?

I have been thinking about writing a serious fanfic. Serious in that way that I will actually plan it this time. It's also serious in that aspect that it will take more time than something I write the same day as I post it. I expect this project to take about a month or more.

I have some fanfic premises listed beneath this text. I am interested in knowing what garner the most interest. Which of these stories would you like to read if any? To me, it doesn't matter what I write between these. You can suggest premises you would like me to write as well.

I have two minor projects that I will finish before I start this project. Those being a one-shot anime shitpost and a one-shot anonfilly shitpost.

The list:

1 So the first story is a different take on the shonen genre. The idea is to have your typical shonen protagonist and his rival both with the same goal of becoming: Hokage, Wizard-king, the greatest hero, etc... Usually, in story's like these, there is also a big baddie. This is no different except the main character is that baddie.

A blank flank unicorn with weak magic has the named Sharp Sapphire. She, like her two friends (the rivals), wants to claim the title of Equestria's top knight(or whatever). On the road of becoming that is the first bump: The entrance exam to (some warrior/knight school). On this exam, Sharp Sapphire fails and is sent home. Going home is avoided though because Sharp can't face her parents. Instead, she sends them a letter she that tells them that she has got herself a job (in the town/city she took the exam) or tells them she got in. In return, a letter is received later that week. It is from her parents. They bought her lie, hook line sinker. It is at this moment Sharp Sapphire realizes her destiny and her special talent. Her qt mark appears and it's a poison joke.

2 The next story is this one >>170851 →. That being, I will finish what I started there. Expanding upon this first chapter into a romance story. The romance will be similar to a ”love triangle” in its shape but it will be a bit different depending on which ponies I will choose as love interests. Either I go with Twilight and Pinkie or Twilight and Starlight. I haven't decided yet.

There really isn't much more to say about this one

3 Another story idea that I got from Nigel. In his thread, here >>197769 →, he has his oc (Silver Star hits pubertyEh, maybe a bit false. I haven't read the entire thing but that was the impression I got from what I read.) Sunrise Stardust is playing Yugihio. This was one of my problems with this story: Why is a pony playing an anime card game. It doesn't make sense. He should play something that would more likely exist in-universe. That's when I began crafting a card game of my own.

Feuds of Nations is a card game made by ponies. Being new to Equestria and therefore unaware of feuds of nations, Anon visits the Crystal Empire. In particular, Shining Armor because Twilight, Anon's marefriend, wants them to get to know each other. Their meeting is stale at first and it is only when Spike asks Shining Armor if he is going to participate in the incoming Feuds of Nations tournament in the Crystal Empire that things change. This piqued Anon's interest and we learn later that Anon was a gambler/gamer addict back on earth or in the Dominion. Anon is showed how to play the game and decides that he should participate in the tournament like Shining will. He tells himself that it is because he wants to get closer to Shining Armor when it is actually because he wants to play.

This story is intertwined by two different plot lines. The first plot line is that Anon joins a card game tournament and the second is that his marefriend's brother has problems accepting him because he is a human. The latter was just a subplot in the beginning but has now gained a tighter grip on the overall narrative of the story. The problem with these two plots going parallel with each other is that I don't think they complement each other. I don't know how I will solve this problem.

Feuds of Nations is differentiated from other card games by a few new core mechanics. The new core mechanics are named ”Looping(multiple phase manipulations)”, ”Landlives”, ”Multiple rows battlefield” and something that is more a consequence of design than a thought out mechanic, ”The cards are round discs”. These mechanics are new because they weren't in the game that this game is derived from, Magic the Gathering. To be fair, Dual Masters has also contributed to this game, more on that later.

Explaining each difference in order, we start with Looping: There are a number phases on a turn that one passes in particular order (unless potential exception). One phase, for example, is to draw a card from one's deck. If you are looping, you can redo a phase but at the cost of suffering through a specific penalty corresponding to redoing that phase on your turn. Meaning, for example, that you can redo the draw a card action and multiple times at that. The downside is that you are given some kind of penalty for it.

Next up is Landlives. Land cards (or discs rather) are cardsJust bare with me discs and cards are the same things in this game. that you put in your landfield. The discs in your landfield can be tapped ”They are spun 180 degrees around” to gain manapoints/spellpoints. These manapoints are used to summon creatures and spells and whatnot. Also, in this game you can also sacrifice creature cards for temporary manapoints instead of putting down landcards in your landfield. You can sacrifice up to three creatures for a temporary boost in mana instead of putting down a landcard in your landfield for a mana point that replenishes for each turn. These cards are also your lives on the game. The amounts of cards you have in your landfield that is the number of lives you have in the game.

Multiple rows battlefield ïs the name of the fact that there are six rows between your landfield and your opponent's landfield. On this checkered battlefield moves your summonsed creatures and any other battlefield cards. When your creatures reach the sixth row on the battlefield, they can attack your opponent's Landdiscs. Here is one of those occasions looping comes in. You can redo your battle phase to move a creature from the back row to the front on one turn but you will get a penalty of some sort, like lowered attack stats.

Discs. The cards are not rectangular they are round discs.Lol, I had pic related here but now it turns out I need to do stuff before that is possible. I might return and fix this. They have an arrow above the image that points in that direction. This arrow will be used differently depending on the situation and cad type. A creature card will use the arrow to indicate at what direction it's attacking. A land card in the landfield uses it to grant bonuses to cards its aimed at If a swamp landdisc aims at a hydra on the battlefield, it is then given a stats bonus. It is also used by landdiscs to tap. You simply turn the disc to aim at you instead.

There is like six teams: Equestria: The Badlands, Tarturus, The Everfree Forest, Dominion of Man and Beneath The Surface.

Anyway, so that's that.

5 This story, >>197996 →. I don't want to spoil too much but basically, there are two characters who view the world differently but will have to work together to solve a common problem. There is also this Mirror's Edge meets Portal kind of thing going on in this story.

6 This story, >>199318 →, which is something I originally thought out to be silly and just for laughs but can now be changed into a serious story, if you want me to do so that is. You may notice that about me that I usually try to have a new take on a typical story premise or genre. This is one is one of those. It's your average horror movie story with immoral shitty teenagers walking around acting like the tropes they are but with a twist. The twist being that the teenagers are ponies and Anon is the monster. Anon is an old war hero who witnessed ponies genocide us and he has awakened and wants revenge!!! Sorry, Glimglam it wasn't a lovestory.

So anyway. The idea is that we can see things from the monster's perspective and even sympathize with him or rather it could be the idea. As I said, originally this was intended to be a joke. The joke being that ponies would spit out one-liners that in this context gained a new meaning that was funny. Like Ponies reacting to the human opening doors and they are all like, ”IT CAN OPEN DOORS!!!”

7 Or should I continue to write on the co-op story that I and lawn-destroyer worked on? I, of course, don't know if he has the time so I would have to check with him first. I don't know how many lurkers enjoyed it when we were writing it so if anyone wants to see that continuation, feel free to say so. I know I enjoyed working on it anyway.

8 The prophecy. A potentially new co-op story or like, an rpg-campaign. The premise is a unicorn scholar, working under princess Platinum, interprets sacred texts and predicts that two alicorns will be born in a village somewhere and that they will bring a harmonious era to the land of Equestria. So this scholar assembles a team to find these alicorns.

9 Comet Toss in the clouds of Terror, >>188708 →. I don't wanna spoil this story too much either. Let's just say that it contains: Time travel, everfree forest creatures, horror. It is highly inspired by fictional games and especially Penumbra Overture.

10 Now pony part of this list is over. The rest that follows is weebwankery. You have been warned.

Do you know of, ”Soul Eater Not!”? It is ”sequel” series that was just fan-pandering trash. But as I got baited, I realized that there where potential plotlines and ideas in this series the went completely unexplored. So this is that story. I will at least explore one of those ideas.

So the story revolves around the main trio but I cut off the slack, meaning Meimei, and generally the rest of the irrelevant support characters in the cast. The focus will be on the characters, Tsugumi and Anya. Tsugumi is (in my story) a weapon (to be more precise, a scythe). Weapons are forced to attend DWMA and must dedicate their lives to fighting witches and other corrupted souls. This is, of course, dangerous work, which Tsugumi wants no part in. She also has had a friendship with a witch back in her past, which makes her doubt the legitimacy of Lord Death and his organization.
Anya, on the other hand, is a royalty whose very country came to be because the first king fought off the witches. Her entire lineage is filled with scythe-wielding meisters. This is something of a tradition in her family and something she wants to become as well.
Well, then stuff happens.

Eh, I had more anime alternatives but I don't feel like adding them.

https://pastebin.com/Az6yUjME

Something I wrote a couple of years back, but only finished a few months ago.
It's a long read, but I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you lads have fun reading it.