Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Frost]

Well, that too. By any chance, Cao, have you read ARTICLE 2?

[Ironmonger]

I think My Little Dashie is dangerous to severely depressed people because it relishes in fantasy escapism rather than confronting problems.

Exactly. When I dealt with depression the only way out was to confront it. When I say 'confront' I mean 'mentally beat the living shit out of the problem and form the committee along with a mental drill sergeant'. When push comes to shove just make like a bull and bulldoze through it, that's what I've always been told.

[Caoimhe]

Well, that too. By any chance, Cao, have you read ARTICLE 2?

Nah, doesn't sound like my kind of thing. Maybe when I have more time. I'd like to know more about the author and where they're coming from with such a story. Is/was this guy a Marine? If so, I'd hope the depiction would be accurately portrayed and not just from an "enthusiast's" standpoint.

[Ketchup]

ARTICLE 2 is written by a soldier, a Marine, I think.

[Frost]

Well, that too. By any chance, Cao, have you read ARTICLE 2?

Nah, doesn't sound like my kind of thing. Maybe when I have more time. I'd like to know more about the author and where they're coming from with such a story. Is/was this guy a Marine? If so, I'd hope the depiction would be accurately portrayed and not just from an "enthusiast's" standpoint.

The author is an active duty Marine (hence the rather slow-paced update schedule).

The main character, as you likely know, is the sole survivor of a prototype spaceship from the near future crashing into Equestria. The fic goes out of its way to highlight that no two humans or ponies are alike, and that neither ponies nor humans are inherently good or evil. The fic's main focus is on the interaction of the characters (six young women meet a displaced solider suffering from PTSD and Survivor's Guilt, and hiding it under bitter sarcasm and a slew of Defense mechanisms) rather than the introduction of humanity to the ponies.

[O. Hinds]

Human in Equestria stuff is weird to me because ponies ARE humans. They have different abilities and stuff but the core of it is that the characters in the universe are supposed to represent us and therefore we are meant to identify with them. Adding human beings to it therefore "others" FiM species in such a way that makes it silly and forces the reader to lose that identification barrier. Basically you therefore get a lot of poorly done race relations stuff or you single out human beings to be stereotypes.

I don't see how it can work and it just fractures the enjoyment of the medium of ponyfics.

Fascinating. Am I correctly understanding that you dislike the HiE concept because you view humans and ponies as too similar for it to work? Or... In general, please elabortate; I tend to avoid HiE stories because of all the really, really badly written ones out there, but your thoughts against the concept itself intrigue me.

It has to do with how I view anthropomorphic characters (from the strict view of animals with human characteristics) in situations like this. I find that when your main identifying group are human transplants, they become the identifying archetypes you're supposed to relate to. Adding an actual human being therefore makes the main species (ponies in this case), alien. This could also be the reverse depending on where the point of view of the fiction is coming from. This ends up distorting the themes of the story subconsciously and most writers don't know how to handle it.

This could be doable if FiM had human characters to start with, but it doesn't and was never intended to be written that way. The ponies and other species ARE us. Adding humans "others" both groups simultaneously and we have to address their differences more than, say, adding sentient deer or wolves or some other species. We can assume more easily there are other sentient animals when the dominant species is a relatable animal. Humans are much too out of place to exist in this universe to be digestible to readers since everything they embody already exists.

Really think about what fundamental differences people have from ponies within ponyverse. There really isn't anything on a character level. So many stories focus on the negative, misanthropic aspects of each because of the lack of differentiation, so you either end up with horrible racist undertones or self insertion style crap that never ever works well.

If you want to write about aliens and the struggle to relate, make them aliens. Don't make them people.

Edit: The writing of FiM is praised so much because the characters seem realistic, are relatable and deal with human issues. This makes them human so adding actual humans does nothing at all.

Edit2: I find human pony art to be "uncomfortable" and sometimes "offensive" for the same reason. Sure the interpretation is fun, but it essentially eliminates the core aspect of what makes pony enjoyable.

By the same token, it's another reason why I find My Little Dashie to be the biggest piece of garbage ever unleashed on the fandom, even moreso than Cupcakes. Beyond it being a creepy manic depressive's cry for help and justification of extreme escapism, I hate that some people fucking LOVE it for reasons they're too ignorant to realize. It's detestable on so many levels.

So... the problem is that humans and ponies (at least) are too mentally and emotionally similar? I'm not really sure why that would be a fundamental obstacle, though (after all, humans and other humans are pretty similar in that regard), so I'm afraid that I'm still not getting your point.

(About My Little Dashie, though: while I've not read it and thus cannot fully comment on it... I don't have any plans to read it, either, not even out of the morbid curiosity that lead me to go through Cupcakes.)

[Ironmonger]

Guys...I got some good news! I finally beat my ADD. I'm a speed reader now! And I remember what I read!

[O. Hinds]

Guys...I got some good news! I finally beat my ADD. I'm a speed reader now! And I remember what I read!

Congratulations!
...Though how does one measure that?

[Ironmonger]

Guys...I got some good news! I finally beat my ADD. I'm a speed reader now! And I remember what I read!

Congratulations!
...Though how does one measure that?

Not a damn clue but I just read around 10K words in what felt like under ten minutes.

[Kippershy]

What'dya read?

[Ironmonger]

Life and Times of a Winning Pony and the first chapter of Broken Bonds. I am happier than a squirrel in a peanut factory right now.

[Kippershy]

Dear lawd.
I was dreading you'd say that xD

I look back on my early chapters and wonder what the hell was going through my head to accept the low quality that I produced.


The grammar/storytelling/everything gets better, but I wouldn't blame you one bit if you didn't want to hang it out.

[Ironmonger]

I thought it was pretty damn good. The writing style from what I saw is very similar to mine. Just I give off more of a "The Expendables" or "Hogan's Heroes" feel. XD

EDIT: I can't stop laughing for some reason!

[Kippershy]

haha, well that's good then. Maybe it's just me being overly critical of my own work.


I reckon you've been inside my stash.
WHICH OF MY DRUGS HAVE YOU TAKEN TO GET THIS CONCENTRATION?

...I need some but I forget which one is which.

[Ironmonger]

I don't think the United States would survive me on drugs. I already get asked if I'm on pot occasionally.

I once told someone that I snorted pot.

[Ketchup]

I once told someone that I snorted pot.

Did they believe you? I laughed a lot at that.

[Ironmonger]

I once told someone that I snorted pot.

Did they believe you? I laughed a lot at that.

I think so! :D One of these days I should record a conversation between me and Frost, I say absurd stuff like this all the time.

[Frost]

Meanwhile, I alternate between being worse than Iron (with a distinct sense of black humor and casually threatening to rape/murder my friends) to being so stoic that people joke I'm a robot.

[Ironmonger]

What can I say? I'm a bad interesting influence.

[222222]

You guys are so cute.

[Ironmonger]

You guys are so cute.

*accidentally snorts coffee*-ANYWAY, when Kipper said "Oh lawd" I immediately thought of Bernie Mac saying "OH LOOOOAHD!"

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

yikes, perhaps a new regulation on unnecessary power consumption such as billboard advertisements?

[Ketchup]

...
In all seriousness, what’s going to happen if this winter turns out particularly cold?

Simply hoping that it won't be extra cold is too big of a big gamble. Energy rationing is the only thing I can think of, other than imported generators, which would probably be impractical given how long winter is.
Anyway, they ought to think of something.

[Ironmonger]

Anyone else hear this shit of 20 states submitting petitions to secede from the union?

[Cptadder]

Anyone else hear this shit of 20 states submitting petitions to secede from the union?

Yes, it was not twenty states it was people from twenty states signing onto the secede position submitted to the White House's Online petition thing.

[Frost]

Anyone else hear this shit of 20 states submitting petitions to secede from the union?

Yes, it was not twenty states it was people from twenty states signing onto the secede position submitted to the White House's Online petition thing.

And there pretty much always crazy petitions floating around, considering it doesn't take a whole lot to get a petition going.

[IncoherentOrange]

You may have noticed the Train Wreck Explorers creeping around FiMFiction.net. They have a YouTube account now, and they're doing... dramatic readings. Here's one of Argembarger's The Spiderses:

Well, the story itself contains NSFW content, namely spider sex. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, because the story is awful, but still:

That is such an awful story. It's on EQD because circlejerk.

I need to get in on this. I am part of the group. Hmm...

[Ironmonger]

It was the first I heard about it yesterday so naturally it alarmed me. I don't normally involve myself with politics.

Also Chapter 2 of my story is about to be published.

[Valikdu]

even moreso than Cupcakes

*plays with a large cleaver* Words hurt, y'know?

Life and Times of a Winning Pony

Must... resist... posting "we'll bang ok" macros...

The
Spiderses:

[IncoherentOrange]

That effectively cuts down the story to about thirteen minutes.

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