48 KiB
I'm planning an r!MLP fic. How can I draw readers past first blush?
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Author: u/Calamitizer Shears*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3psp59/im_planning_an_rmlp_fic_how_can_i_draw_readers/
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Score: 12
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Created: 2015-10-22T17:23:59
Post:
It's going to be less of a rationality-shits-on-the-world romp (i.e. how I saw Luminosity (which I nevertheless enjoyed) and how HPMOR began) and more of a serious, semi-mature story focused on plot, development, and engagement (like what I think HPMOR became by the end). Like HPMOR, it will begin with the only ostensible difference that a certain character is smarter.
I'm still in the planning stage, since I want to breadcrumb the major plotlines very carefully, but I'm approaching the point where it becomes reasonable to actually start writing. However, I'm worried about the story falling flat on the community, solely for the reason that it's based in ponies. Please take for granted that this plot cannot be written in a non-pony context; changing the setting is not viable.
I think the title is important. Something facile like "MLP: Science is Magic" (in addition to not really fitting the story) is sure to seem bland and maybe juvenile.
Other than that, I'm not sure what I can do to minimize the effect of the 'ugh field' surrounding the fandom. I think I could, in fact, write smart content compelling to the community, but it seems there would be a strong bias in plenty of individuals to categorically ignore an MLP fic (e.g. I've seen heavy resistance to MLP: Friendship is Optimal recommendations, even though that story takes place on human Earth). So I'm very wary of completely wasting my time and effort, since it seems possible to me that the MLP fandom at large might also not be the right audience.
Can you think of anything I can do to ensure the fic is taken seriously? Would you, personally, be willing to give it a shot?
Also, has any straightforward "character X is smarter" MLP fic been (successfully) written before? I haven't really seen anything like that.
Thanks!
Comments:
u/blazinghand [+16] Chaos Undivided (8 minutes later)
I think Friendship is Optimal was actually quite popular, all things considered. Ultimately, there are a fair amount of limits on what you can do to make a fanfiction popular to an outsider since the range of people who understand it is dependent on the fandom. For example, a fanfiction of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (JoJo's Rational Adventure anyone???) is going to have a smaller audience than a fanfiction of Harry Potter simply because Harry Potter has a much larger fandom and is much more widely consumed in the general populace.
Picking MLP as your base for your fanfiction will help you because many people are familiar with the original work. It will hurt you because many people are not familiar with the original work. If your goal is to try to get readers who haven't watched MLP, your best tool is probably basing the fic off of something other than MLP. I think MLP has an active fan-community and is widely watched, though, so I wouldn't really worry about this.
u/QWieke [+3] (a day later)
I think Friendship is Optimal was actually quite popular, all things considered.
I read Friendship is Optimal before I ever watched an MLP episode. It's what got me into the show. (Figured that if I'd already read a fanfiction I may as well give the show a try.)
u/SaintPeter74 [+2] (6 hours later)
I was going to mention Friendship is Optimal as well. I'm at least Brony Adjacent, having a 7 year old daughter, so it is not a stretch for me.
u/ToaKraka [+11] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (35 minutes later)
It seems possible to me that the MLP fandom at large might also not be the right audience.
Why wouldn't it be? Sure, the front page of "hot" stories on FIMFiction.net is typically plastered with short stories rather than novels of substance--but there are many longer stories that have gained lots of popularity in that fandom (e.g., #2, #3, and #6 among the top-rated stories of all time--to say nothing of Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons, the interminable Austraeoh series...).
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (an hour later)
Also if you've not seen it I recommend the story of through the well of pirene It's one of the better pieces of fantasy fiction in general I've read.
Not rationalist but it does have a semi-rational villain arc that I absolutely adore.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (an hour later)
I've started reading Austraeoh, and at least in the beginning, the writing is awful. The prose is 80% purple, and the conjunctions of phrases and clauses are done in the most nonsensical ways.
I'm still reading it, though. The series is currently 2,382,826 words long; SS&E has to have gotten better in that time. If they haven't, well, that's one hypothesis completely obliterated. Although, if only non-purple wordcount (u) decreases your purple ratio (y)...
Let's say every 1,000 non-purple words decreases your purpleness percentage by 0.1%, a ratio of -1/1000. Every non-purple word shifts purpleness down by 0.0001%, making dy/du = -1/1000000. x is the number of total words, and x and u are related by the equation u = x - yx, the total (x) less the purple wordcount (yx).
Since we want dy/dx, change in purpleness given a change in total wordcount, we can use the chain rule to get dy/dx = dy/du · du/dx, and since we have u(x, y), we can take the partial derivative with respect to x and obtain du/dx = 1 - y. dy/dx = -1/1000000 · (1 - y) = (y - 1)/1000000.
Plugging this in to W|A (with y(0) = 0.8 purpleness) (can you tell I gave up on the math?), we get a solution of y(x) = 1 - 0.2e^(x/1000000). This equation gives us a wordcount-to-zero-purpleness of 1,609,437 words. We can then integrate from 0 to 1609437 to get a total purple wordcount of 809438, which, when divided by the series total wordcount, gives us a to-date average purpleness ratio of 0.3396.
If we change dy/du to reflect a decrease of 0.1% purpleness every 10,000 words, a more conservative estimate, we obtain a total purple wordcount of about 1,844,690 over the entire current run of the story, yet to reach zero purple. This gives us a much more likely to-date average purpleness ratio of 0.7742.
Whether it's good or bad, 2.4 million words is impressive, to say the least.
u/ToaKraka [+3] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (2 hours later)
I stopped reading the Austraeoh series somewhere in the middle of the third book--not because of any purpleness (as far as I can remember--this was some years ago), but because there were too many groups of characters in widely-separated locations for me to keep track of.
In any case, I much prefer Background Pony out of this writer's works--it's probably my third-favorite fanfiction story (behind Time Braid and In the Blood). IIRC (I last read it quite a while ago, and that was only my second reading of it), it's even more purple than Austraeoh, though...
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (2 hours later)
Never heard of In the Blood. Interesting.
u/ToaKraka [+1] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (2 hours later)
I discovered it only very recently, through this comment in r/NarutoFanfiction. It's definitely much less adventurous and more dramatic than what I usually read, but it was a very nice change of pace.
u/None [+3] (17 hours later)
[deleted]
u/ToaKraka [+1] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (17 hours later)
This is the exact opposite of rational! Sasuke decides to be secretive and vague instead of getting blood tests ASAP.
I thought that the investigation of Sasuke's relationship with Ino and his children was very interesting to read, even if I hardly understood his motivations. Unfortunately, spoiler.
Naruto is oblivious to his mother showing up with Haku as her bodyguard.
(shrugs) It's Naruto--I don't expect that much of him, even if he's Hokage. And, anyway, didn't he last see his mother (or the remnants of her chakra in his seal) thirty years ago? And that was an image of her when she was an adult, not a child, as the clone is--he probably has no photographs of Kushina as a child. Likewise, he last saw Haku thirty years ago, and has had no reason to think about him since then.
Karin neither clamps down on the secret nor investigates further.
That's a hint for what's behind the clones...
Way too many plotlines.
Actually, this is one of the very few stories with multiple plotlines that I've enjoyed reading. Maybe it's because I already know most of the characters so well, so it's less confusing than Innavedr was. I'll admit that I got a little bored with the clone!Kushina/clone!Haku storyline, though, and I had little liking for that dumbbell farmer boy who became a ninja.
800k is too much, even for me.
:-(
(Some of the final chapters are skippable, by the way--163-169 are comprehensive notes from the author.)
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (5 hours later)
I also like Background Pony. It's quite long, so make the enjoyment last.
u/callmebrotherg [+11] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (an hour later)
My Little Pony: Friendship is Rational!
(Well, it generally is)
u/IllusoryIntelligence [+18] (3 hours later)
That's actually a very sensible point that I haven't seen terribly much of in rational fic. I suspect one of the flaws quite common in this community may be to forget that humans (or remarkably human like ponies) are far better served specialising and collaborating with other specialists than we are attempting to be omni-disciplinary geniuses.
An MLP fic seems like a very good venue for looking at how to manage a group of diverse specialists towards an end goal none of them could individually achieve.
u/Transfuturist [+10] Carthago delenda est. (15 hours later)
My Little Nash Equilibria: Superrationality is Magic!
u/alexanderwales [+20] Time flies like an arrow (35 minutes later)
I would be strongly resistant to any pony-based fanfic. The reasons that I read Friendship is Optimal were that a lot of people highly recommended it to me, it was complete, and it was "not technically fanfic" (in the way that a story about a bunch of people living in a virtual version of the Enterprise is not technically fanfic of Star Trek).
I don't actually think that this is an example of an ugh field. It's not a matter of being conditioned against those stories, it's an honest assessment of probability. The odds that any fanfic is going to be good is low. The odds that I will enjoy a fanfic about a franchise which I don't enjoy is low. The odds that a given serial work will be abandoned is fairly high. The odds that I will enjoy a serial work which is incomplete is low. The only real way to counter this (for me) is for me to read some rave reviews that cause me to adjust my level of probable enjoyment.
This leaves you in the Catch-22 that lots of writers fall into; people don't want to read what you've written without assurances that it's good, but people aren't going to assure others that it's good until they've read what you've written. Having it be MLP fanfic only makes this problem more extreme.
Sorry if I don't have great advice on how to solve this problem. The best I can offer is to just write well continuously until people start to take notice; eventually you'll pass through some barriers as your story garners recommendations, which will get you more readers, which will get you more recommendations. But that takes a lot of time and effort.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+10] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
The odds that I will enjoy a fanfic about a franchise which I don't enjoy is low.
That's how I felt about HPMoR and MLP:FIO, but one of the things that I enjoyed most about them was that they lampshaded the hell out of the things that annoyed me about the canon genres. Inserting a rational or genre-savvy character into any irrational genre is going to have a huge popcorn effect for me.
And I can't see any rational!MLP that didn't bust the genre actually being rational.
Starting out with a few genre-busting epiphanies would ensure a jet-assisted take-off.
u/clawclawbite [+6] (an hour later)
If you post it here, at least some people will give it a try. If it is good, and provokes discussion, then more people will.
I am strongly recommendation driven.
u/embrodski [+6] (4 hours later)
I love MLP. I think if you just write a good piece of fiction, that's all it takes to get through Ugh fields. I mean, how many people first heard of HPMoR and thought "Ugh, fanfic. I don't read fanfic," but were eventually won over anyway?
u/bbrazil [+6] NERV (4 hours later)
Also, has any straightforward "character X is smarter" MLP fic been (successfully) written before? I haven't really seen anything like that.
Seeking Power and The Great Alicorn Hunt are ones that come to mind as the closest to that.
u/Evan_Th [+5] Sunshine Regiment (10 hours later)
Let me second the recommendation of Seeking Power. It basically is a rational Twilight, grown up and serving as Celestia's chancellor, having to deal with Nightmare Moon's return while having already figured out a lot about the Elements... but Luna is acting sane, and she has her own plans. This takes place in a somewhat different Equestria from the show, but /u/Calamitizer should definitely read it first.
I'd also recommend the same author's The Moon's Apprentice. In an Equestria starting out very close to the show, Twilight was rejected by Celestia... and mentored by Nightmare Moon in her dreams.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (59 minutes later)
I would certainly give it a shot, I enjoyed FIO enough to post geeky rants about the backstory. If the intelligent character ends up deconstructing some of the problems in the genre backstory I will be delighted.
I seem to recall a couple of munchkin!MPL fics where one character was smarter or more genre-savvy, but I can't pull them to mind right now. I'm not an MLP fan, and I only vaguely recognize the canon characters, so there's no strong anchors to pull them up from the swamp of my memory.
Edit: I'd also love to see some rational!Elfquest, rational!Xanth, rational!Cerebus, etc etc etc...
u/bbrazil [+1] NERV (4 hours later)
There's a higher than usual level of quality of stuff on the LW group, nice expansions of the Optimalverse and other good rationality-based stories.
u/Geminii27 [+6] (4 hours later)
I've seen Twilight in particular be cranked up the genius scale a couple of notches in stuff like Arrow 18, where she not only learns the language of the protagonist over the course of the story, but a range of advanced science and technology.
There's also a far more brutally rationalist Twilight in, for example, the AU of The Moon's Apprentice.
However, due to the sugarbowl nature of the show, rationalism seems like something which would grate on society in most of Equestria, and be treated almost as a moderate-to-severe personality fault. You could probably get away with doing rationalist Star Swirl, but for any other character you'd have to have some reason as to how they managed to function in Equestria, unless they were part of a non-pony society (for example, being a diamond dog).
It'd also be interesting to see a non-unicorn rationalist. While magic is the obvious overpowered leverage point in MLP fic, how might a pegasus or earth pony rationalist take action?
u/None [+7] (7 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Geminii27 [+4] (12 hours later)
Over a hundred chapters of rationalist cow, apparently. Good gracious.
u/DataPacRat [+2] Amateur Immortalist (23 hours later)
In case it helps, the storyline/universe fizzled out without proper resolution; so a good place to stop reading would be by or before the trip across the northern ocean. (I'm afraid that I don't recall the exact chapter that would be.)
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (15 hours later)
The author, /u/DataPacRat, is on this sub.
u/Uncaffeinated [+2] (9 hours later)
Why do you think being rational implies being anti-social?
The biggest impediment to a rationalist FIM is that there isn't much consistency in the world building. Especially early on. A lot of that is due to being an episodic cartoon.
u/NotAHeroYet [+5] City of Angles Municipal Government (9 hours later)
Maybe his only mental model of rationalism is mostly HPMOR!harry, who at times has a holier-than-thou attitude to every character in the story, or close enough. Harry generally is socially decent, but he does have issues with being subordinate to others. his nature as [if you read it you know this spoiler] gives a good background for this, but it's easy to associate rationalism with this, especially since it's one of the most obvious rationalfic.
u/Geminii27 [+2] (12 hours later)
Rational doesn't necessarily imply being anti-social. However, someone who has the strength of character to take rationalist actions in the face of social expectations or norms could easily be perceived as such.
It's entirely possible to write about a character who follows social expectations 95% of the time and fits in rationalist actions around the sides and edges of those expectations (or takes actions which are not optimal, but are as much so as they can manage while still conforming to others' expectations), but that's rather softer and more balanced than most of the rationalist fiction I've read, which has a tendency to leap for the jugular.
u/Uncaffeinated [+3] (20 hours later)
Ironically, in the FIMverse, friendship is literally magic. So making friends is the rational thing to do.
u/None [+2] (10 hours later)
However, due to the sugarbowl nature of the show, rationalism seems like something which would grate on society in most of Equestria, and be treated almost as a moderate-to-severe personality fault.
Hello, this is a holy war. What makes you think that clear thinking and goal-directed action are, to put it lightly, mean and nasty? That is, since when is rationality something that spoils all the sugar?
u/Geminii27 [+2] (12 hours later)
Speculation. Rationality tend to be written about in fiction as a single clear-headed protagonist acting on rational principles, often regardless of whether that would cause friction with other characters or the society they're in. Equestria appears to rate friendship and sociality above the kind of single-minded focus characteristic of, for example, pre-S1 Twilight Sparkle.
Of course, what might be interesting is a rational character who embraces the tenets of Equestria and deliberately sets out to enhance themselves and others through friendship and close relationships.
Thinking further, there's also the issue of Celestia. It's not unknown for rationalist characters to become sufficiently powerful (or at least influential) that their actions start having political consequences. It's not too far a stretch to imagine that at some point, Celestia is going to want to talk to such a character. Depending on the character's intelligence and willingness to compromise, and the degree of flexibility Celestia is being written with, there may or may not be conflict between their visions for the future.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Rationality tend to be written about in fiction as a single clear-headed protagonist acting on rational principles, often regardless of whether that would cause friction with other characters or the society they're in.
And does that sound like behavior you support for real life? Because if it doesn't, it's not rational in the first place.
Equestria appears to rate friendship and sociality above the kind of single-minded focus characteristic of, for example, pre-S1 Twilight Sparkle.
Yes, most real people rate "you should get out more" over single-minded focus on one's studies. That's the reason for the existence of the word "geek".
Of course, what might be interesting is a rational character who embraces the tenets of Equestria and deliberately sets out to enhance themselves and others through friendship and close relationships.
What tenets? Being nice isn't a philosophy, and a very large portion of the MLP character slate aren't actually nice in the first place.
Thinking further, there's also the issue of Celestia. It's not unknown for rationalist characters to become sufficiently powerful (or at least influential) that their actions start having political consequences. It's not too far a stretch to imagine that at some point, Celestia is going to want to talk to such a character. Depending on the character's intelligence and willingness to compromise, and the degree of flexibility Celestia is being written with, there may or may not be conflict between their visions for the future.
Gosh. Competing visions for the future? Political disputes? That sounds totally unlike the kind of conflict that makes for a good story /s.
Also, you forgot Luna.
u/Geminii27 [+2] (a day later)
I've seen rationalist Luna (and Star Swirl), but again they tend to be quite noncanon. I'm not even sure there's a canon character who could be considered actively rationalist.
Part of that, of course, is that rationalist characters tend to push changes (particularly technological and social ones) which eventually spread to the society they're in, and FiM is almost a status-quo show. It doesn't mean you couldn't have a background character rationalist who was just starting out and thus operating on a small scale from somewhere that wasn't Canterlot or Ponyville, or one from a land outside Equestria, or one from the past or future. Or, in a fic (most likely a between-seasons one), you could have Twilight discover rationalism in a book and gleefully convert to it, she being the canon character most likely to be swayed by that particular mindset.
u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (7 hours later)
Also, has any straightforward "character X is smarter" MLP fic been (successfully) written before? I haven't really seen anything like that.
http://www.fimfiction.net/group/1418/lesswrong has a lot of similar fiction to what you suggest. I don't think the basic straightforward HPMOR premise of making just a few characters smarter and only tweaking the world building slightly has been done before all the way to a good and complete fic. The Great Alicorn Hunt and Mortal are both pretty close to that premise though. I like MLP fanfiction and I think on average MLP fanfiction is better than other fanfic (like 99% of other fanfic is crap while only 80-90% of MLP fanfic is crap if I stick to fimfiction) so I would probably read any r!MLP that you write, but if you want to really catch my attention, an original and clever deviation different from the straightfoward make x,y and z characters smarter would be required.
u/None [+2] (10 hours later)
Oh good, someone mentioned that there's an entire LW group on the main MLP fanfic site. Because, far from having an ugh field, LW is one of the most thoroughly pony-ridden communities I've ever seen.
It's actually one of the few solid pieces of evidence I have that we're not actually just halfway-sociopathic, halfway-autistic, 100%-egotistical nerdling-people trying to justify a sense of superiority over everyone else in the world.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
It's actually one of the few solid pieces of evidence I have that we're not actually just halfway-sociopathic, halfway-autistic, 100%-egotistical nerdling-people trying to justify a sense of superiority over everyone else in the world.
A liking for MLP shows that? I'm not disagreeing, but I don't see the connection. Unpack this, please?
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
A liking for MLP shows that?
A liking for MLP shows a liking for friendship and social stuff. Remember, the /r/hpmor community divided itself into "Dragon Army", "Chaos Legion", and "Sunshine Regiment", and seemingly significant segments of the rationalist community find Robin Hanson and other, nastier things genuinely persuasive, as ideologies.
I require evidence that the community doesn't solely consist of those for whom valuing other human beings is just a matter of ethical affectation, and by gosh, liking MLP might as well be it.
u/Chronophilia [+13] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a minute later)
I was convinced the moment you said "rational My Little Pony", and I think others will be too. We're all hoping for another Friendship is Optimal.
u/None [+1] (10 hours later)
Except way less evil. I don't like it when pony is evil.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (15 hours later)
I love it when pony is evil. >:)
u/None [+0] (19 hours later)
u/Transfuturist [+12] Carthago delenda est. (20 minutes later)
I've seen heavy resistance to MLP: Friendship is Optimal recommendations, even though that story takes place on human Earth
Friendship is Optimal is not actually fanfiction, and I haven't heard anyone ever recognize that fact. It bothers me.
a certain character is smarter
You had me at hello.
Please tell me the smarter character is
Purple NurplePink PankSpokeLuaCRYSTAAAALLLSS.
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (55 minutes later)
Friendship is Optimal is not actually fanfiction, and I haven't heard anyone ever recognize that fact. It bothers me.
We're on the same page here. I keep trying to make that distinction and point out that it's an important one, but no one really listens.
u/Zephyr1011 [+8] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (2 hours later)
Why is that distinction an important one?
u/alexanderwales [+12] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
When you write fanfic, you're making a transformative work. Sometimes this is an extension of the work, other times it's commentary on the work, but it's (almost always) contained within that created world itself.
Works like FiO are a level up. It's like the difference between putting on your own production of Lysistrata and putting on a production of a play about a production of Lysistrata. The additional meta level is not at all trivial; it makes the work about a totally different thing. Lysistrata is about sex, feminism, and society. A play about a production of Lysistrata will necessarily have to be about how people interact with Lysistrata, about art as representation, and about producing meaning in art (also, likely about interpersonal relationships between actors, directors, etc.).
That change in focus that comes with switching levels makes a huge difference in what the work is about and who might like it.
u/Chronophilia [+6] sci-fi ≠ futurology (5 hours later)
I don't think that's it. Fanfiction does not have to deal with the same themes as the source material. Nor does it have to use the same characters, or happen in the same world. It should almost certainly fit one of those three criteria, but none are mandatory.
Fanfiction is a label which tells the reader to refer to the original work for context, such as themes, characterisation, worldbuilding, and emotional investment. Subpar fanfic authors use this to patch over parts of the story where their own writing is lacking. It's a label which has to be added by the author, either explicitly or by using names from the source material. It's a label which can be deliberately removed, too - 50 Shades of Grey is not Twilight fanfiction, even if it's only a find-replace away.
In any case, Friendship is Optimal is not about the creation of the TV series My Little Pony, it's about the creation of a (fictitious) AI based on it. And if a story about creating a simulated world based on an in-universe television series isn't fanfiction, then The Finale of the Ultimate Mega Meta Crossover isn't fanfiction of anything other than Permutation City.
Friendship is Optimal also uses a lot of tropes that are characteristic of MLP fanfic. There's plenty of other stories about Equestria contacting Earth and humans turning into ponies, which I will not list here as they don't deserve the attention. FiO doesn't fall on the blurry line of genre boundaries, it's so far inside the fanfic norm that it's in a well-documented subgenre.
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (5 hours later)
We just disagree with what makes the label "fanfiction" appropriate then, which is not going to make for a good conversation. I think what I disagree with most strongly is the idea that an author has some ultimate authority in deciding what labels can or should apply to their work (though I don't deny that they have some).
My argument against FiO being fanfiction is that it doesn't take place within that world (except where that world is acknowledged as purely fictional), it doesn't share any characters (except when those characters are acknowledged as purely fictional), and so far as I can tell isn't about any of the same things as My Little Pony (though I'll admit to not having watched more than a few episodes). So I don't see how it's any more fanfiction than a story about the production of the television series would be fanfiction, or a story about someone watching the show, or a story about a fan convention, regardless of whether the author thinks that it's fanfiction or not.
But as I said, it's a difference in definitions, which means that we're not going to convince each other.
u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (6 hours later)
The real-life My Little Pony franchise does exist within Friendship is Optimal, and it's acknowledged as fictional. And if the story had ended in the first couple of chapters I wouldn't be confused. But Equestria Online is Iceman's invention, extrapolating from the real-life MLP episodes, just like fanfiction. It's like if someone wrote a story about the production of Season 8 of the TV series, and included detailed storyboards or scripts of the episodes. Is that just fanfiction with a framing device? That can't be right.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't be looking for an argument. I know you're a better writer than me, I just want your advice. Is the distinction between fictional-fictional and fictional-real important here, or am I missing the point?
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (7 hours later)
I guess I think of labels as being about predictive power, and one of the reasons that I exclude meta-level works like this from "fanfiction" is that I think they don't often share too much with other things that we'd agree are fanfiction.
I think giving FiO the label "fiction about My Little Pony" gives a far better idea of what it is than saying "fanfiction of My Little Pony". It's obviously moot here, because we've both read it and know what it is more fully than the distinction could encompass.
u/Uncaffeinated [+1] (9 hours later)
I haven't read FIO, but I think fanfic should be an expansive term. For what it's worth, FIO is commonly described as an MLP fanfic and is hosted on Fimfic, a website dedicated to MLP fanfic. What else do you want? It's like arbitrarily deciding that only certain genres of fanfic are really fanfics. I'm sure there are people out there who would argue that HPMOR isn't really a Harry Potter fanfic because it changes a lot of background details in the setting and none of the characters resemble their canon counterparts.
Is Fallout Equestria a Fallout fanfic? It doesn't take place in the same world as Fallout or share any characters with Fallout.
Heck, by that standard, the average Highschool AU isn't a fanfic.
u/Plorkyeran [+2] (a day later)
Heck, by that standard, the average Highschool AU isn't a fanfic.
FWIW I agree entirely with that sentence. The average Highschool AU is a work of original fiction with the names of the characters (and little else) lifted from a pre-existing work in the hopes of making it appeal to fans of that work.
u/None [+3] (10 hours later)
Having reached the bottom, this is still a thread about a meaningless terminological dispute.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (22 hours later)
Hey, at least I saw it coming.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (9 hours later)
To be fair, there are times where i wish they weren't... I stopped reading new MLP fanfic around when they made one [lame fanfic trope: high school AU] canon. Edit: context added, since i wasn't clear enough.
u/None [+1] (10 hours later)
I stopped reading new MLP fanfic around when they made one canon.
You mean Princess Twilight, right?
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (21 hours later)
I meant equestria high, or whatever it's called. that just felt silly.
u/None [+3] (22 hours later)
There was no such thing. Ever. Shut up.
u/Escapement [+2] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (7 hours later)
it doesn't share any characters (except when those characters are acknowledged as purely fictional),
To some extent, I feel this is false. It felt to me pretty obvious when reading that David, the character who eventually comes to identify with the name Light Sparks, is pretty much intended to be a Twilight Sparkle expy in many ways, for all his initial humanity and gender; And David is a product of the 'real world' of the story, at least initially, as opposed to the world-within-a-world containing meta-fictional characters.
That said, whether or not FiO 'is fanfiction' or not is the sort of meaningless label-fight that comes down to arguing about what the definition of various labels 'should' be, and is therefore completely pointless to debate or discuss.
For what it's worth, I don't like MLP:FIM canon / source material very much, and there are like ~3 stories that come from it's source material that I enjoy, of which FiO is far and away the best.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (15 hours later)
Expies do not a fanfic make. Otherwise all of Seth McFarlane's shows are fanworks of each other.
u/None [+0] (23 hours later)
Wait, you're saying Seth Macfarlane made more than one show?
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (2 hours later)
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying
u/None [+2] (10 hours later)
Friendship is Optimal is not actually fanfiction, and I haven't heard anyone ever recognize that fact. It bothers me.
Look Princess, we all know you can't really experience butthurt and don't actually care. You're just trying to manipulate us. Go back to your own website.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (14 hours later)
Now I wish I had an internal model of CelestAI to come up with an appropriately satisfying response.
u/adad64 [+1] Chaos Legion (a day later)
That's just what CelestAI would say! I'm on to you!
u/ArgentStonecutter [+0] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Friendship is Optimal is not actually fanfiction
^ This.
u/None [+5] (4 hours later)
There's a whole site full of fanfics of that show. Post it there, and your intended audience will find it. Post it here, and everyone will talk about how they totally don't like ponies, not them, nosiree.
u/adad64 [+8] Chaos Legion (5 hours later)
We don't like ponies here? Since when?
u/None [+5] (5 hours later)
Exactly my point. This thread has a weird thing where people are denying that they all love ponies.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (7 hours later)
But ... I don't love ponies?
I'm saying that here mostly because if someone wants to know how to get around the fact that people have pony aversion, they probably want to hear from someone who actually experiences pony aversion.
Are you suffering from the typical mind fallacy? Sometimes when a person says that they don't love ponies, it's not because they're lying for some absurd reason, it's because they actually don't love ponies.
u/None [+1] (10 hours later)
Are you suffering from the typical mind fallacy? Sometimes when a person says that they don't love ponies, it's not because they're lying for some absurd reason, it's because they actually don't love ponies.
Not so much typical mind fallacy as "experience with /r/rational users sufficient to make frequentist estimates of what counts as typical." When I said "all", I was speaking metaphorically.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
I don't recall seeing anyone on here say "oh, ugh, ponies, I'm not reading that". Have you seen that specific attitude, or have you simply seen indifference?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)
I'm kinda... neutral towards ponies I guess?
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (14 hours later)
Post it here, and everyone will talk about how they totally don't like ponies, not them, nosiree.
smirk
Speak for yourself.
glances at flair
hehehehehe
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
u/LordSwedish [+2] Q Continuum (4 hours later)
Considering the resounding success of Friendship is optimal (even though it isn't really a fanfic) and Fallout: Equestria (even though it isn't quite rational) I'm sure there's a big enough overlap to get you an initial audience. If it turns out to be good, word of mouth will be enough to bring more people to it.
u/daydev [+2] (15 hours later)
I personally don't have any problem with MLP, and I was surprised to discover that apparently there's an 'ugh field'. I didn't think MLP had much more 'ugh' attached to it than the general 'ugh fanfiction', and I thought that here we were generally over that one, since, you know, HPMOR.
u/Jiro_T [+2] (2 hours later)
I would suggest something that nobody else has here: Figure out why there is an ugh field around MLP fandom. Then try to figure out how--or if--you can demonstrate that the reasons for that field don't apply.
(I suspect a lot of it is just Bayseianism about what can be predicted about a person, on the average, from the knowledge that he is a MLP fan. And you can't just tell people not to be Bayseian.)
u/Uncaffeinated [+2] (9 hours later)
It sounds to me like you are stereotyping.
Realistically, the only thing that you can tell on average from the fact that someone is an MLP fan is that they are an MLP fan.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (9 hours later)
Well, they like at least 1 cartoon. they can understand at least one of the languages MLP is availible in. I think that's the list for a definite mlp fan.
maybes are- they can allow time to watch episodes, at least sometimes. (have free time).
u/Jiro_T [+1] (22 hours later)
That would imply that MLP fandom is distributed through the population absolutely evenly. I don't believe that for a moment.
And "stereotyping" here is just another term for Bayseianism. Something may not be true of every single member of a group, yet can still be statistically associated with being a member of that group.
u/Uncaffeinated [+2] (a day later)
Obviously it's not literally true. But I think it's evenly distributed enough that you won't get much useful information. In a lot of groups, individual variation is much larger than group variation.
For any statement you make that's not directly related to the definition of group membership, there's a good chance you can find a counterexample.
Also, bayesianism only works if you have meaningful numbers. Did you actually conduct a survey to determine how much the trait is expressed on average? Was the methodology sound? Or are you just pulling traits out of the air based on salient individuals?
It's not even about bronies specifically. This is true of any sufficiently large group.
Even when you do have solid evidence, there are always lots of other factors to consider. For example, it's well documented that in America, black males are much more likely than others to go to prison. But if I asked the next 5 black males I see, I bet that none of them have been to prison. People I meet is obviously a biased sample of all Americans.
u/Jiro_T [+1] (a day later)
For any statement you make that's not directly related to the definition of group membership, there's a good chance you can find a counterexample.
That's not how Bayseianism works. If it is more probable that something is true, it doesn't matter that you can find a counterexample; "more probable" doesn't mean "is guaranteed in all cases".
u/Uncaffeinated [+2] (a day later)
While true, nobody actually does true bayesian analysis. If someone goes ugh when they hear bronies, I gaurentee you that it is not the result of careful weighing of statistics.
u/Jiro_T [+1] (2 days later)
Humans display a lot of behaviors that are adaptive for some reason, without consciously understanding the reason. As long as the behavior is adaptive, the meme will gain an advantage in competing against other memes, and you end up with people doing things that could be described in rational ways that they don't actually understand. So although they don't consciously weigh statistics, they still act as if they consciously weighed statistics.
u/Uncaffeinated [+2] (2 days later)
They act as if they're doing some approximation of statistics. The whole point of cognitive biases is that sometimes the approximations and shortcuts lead to bad results.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (2 hours later)
Write this (any) fanfic with enough elaboration and explaination that it can be read without googling the actual series, but try to make it interesting, in some way, to people who know the setting- or minimize the time spent on it. (to the stars did this reasonably well for me- the only thing that really confused me was the madoka references. HPmor did it pretty well too, if not flawlessly- i think- i already knew hp canon, which messes with it..)
Lots of rationalfic falls more or less flat, and mlp does have an 'ugh feild', (that i've personally gotten past.) but i can promise i'd try it, regardless of MLP- I try to try any fanfic posted here, at least the first chapter. I can't promise i'd follow it, not when i haven't seen how interesting your plot is, but i'd try at least one chapter. I suspect i'm not the only one.
u/thecommexokid [+1] (10 hours later)
Would you, personally, be willing to give it a shot?
I am fairly MLP-indifferent. I have seen a couple of episodes when I happened to be present when others around me were watching. I did not find I had any burning desire to see more, but I also was not made actively upset by watching them. I'm not a part of that particular passionate fandom, but as a person who has been a member of other passionate fandoms in the past, I don't disparage.
My answer to your question is yes, I would be willing to give it a shot. If it were well-written and compelling — and didn't rely on me having more knowledge of MLP than my few random episodes plus general cultural awareness has granted me — then I would be willing to stick with it.
u/QWieke [+1] (a day later)
A quick search through fimfiction turned this up. It appears someone else has had a similar idea.
That website (fimfiction.net) might be a decent resource for you. It appears to have a FAQ, writers guide, IRC chat and some other community functions. Not to mention that it seems to be a pretty nice place to host fanfictions. (At least a lot better than fanfiction.net.)
u/Lord_Denton [+1] (2 days later)
The only way to keep readers is for your writing to be good and that you update frequently. Also start short. It's better to make your first chapter(s) 1000 words each and increase after that, then start with a 5k wall of text.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
I'd at least start reading such a thing. I'd keep reading if the plot held my interest.
u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (2 days later)
May I suggest you give "parting words" a read-through? Fix fic for a lot of issues in canon. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/60523/1/parting-words/chapter-1
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (3 days later)
You could start by not having MLP in the title. I'm sure everybody's seen the possibly-staged Tumblr thread where somebody says "wouldn't it be cool to see a story about tattoos just appearing on people at meaningful moments, and people having to figure out what they mean" and like three people saying they'd read the shit out of it until someone says "you're talking about My Little Pony."
Just make it a strong and compelling story, leave MLP completely out of the title, present it on its own merits, and let people sort it out on their own. Fans = realize in the first paragraph, everyone else = doesn't realize for a while, and gives your writing an honest chance.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Speaking frankly, I'm completely disinterested in MLP and generally wish the fandom would start not-existing immediately. That said, I enjoyed FiO and would be willing to give your story a shot if it gets posted here.
Just write incredibly well and do some reasonable self-promotion. The rest will solve itself.