Nothing expands the show better than the fanfiction side of the fandom! Writing is something we are all taught throughout our school years, making this one of the most accessible sections of pony for people to venture into. It takes a lot of practice and dedication to write well though. Especially when it comes to shifting away from the essay format drilled into us in high school into the world of creativity.
Fortunately, we have a TON of people willing to put their skills into creating some of the most iconic stories fanfiction has ever seen!
Head on down below for our adventure into celebrating the authors of bronyland!
A Celebration of Fanfiction Writing!
You can't have a post dedicated to the world of fanfiction without mentioning this juggernaut of creative writing. Not only is it the length of some of the longest novels out there, but it has spawned a fandom of it's own at this point. I've known a few people over the years that don't even watch the show. They only deal with Fallout Equestria stuff.
It got so ridiculous at one point that we had an entire post dedicated to fanfics dedicated to a fanfic, with hundreds of authors all writing their very own wasteland storylines. One of the bigger ones was Pink Eyes here, where innocence met the horrors of a grimdark world. The concept was never my cup of tea, but a lot of people loved it.
And just in case Fallout Equestria itself wasn't enough nuclear holocaust for you, Project Horizons brought on even more with a whopping 1.5 million words in length, doubling it's predecessor, with even darker themes throughout.
Having several novels worth of content and a mini fandom aren't requirements for a good fan-made story though. Some of the best examples of pony writing are the ones that simply act like episodes of their own, portraying very real scenarios that could actually happen in the show. Sunny Skies All Day Long was one of those early-fandom treats that kept us entertained into our very first hiatus.
Of course, part of writing fanfiction is the ability to write yourself into the world you love, and the "Human in Equestria" genre was always one that appealed to a certain demographic in the fandom that dreams of going pony-mode and living with our favorite horses. There have been hundreds of these over the years, some horribly cringy, some surprisingly realistic, and others just comedic all around. I remember "Through the Eyes of Another Pony" here being one of the more entertaining ones people hyped up back in the day.
Alternately, the concept of ponies on earth has always been a popular topic. Something about them joining us and discovering our earth technology tugs at our need to further humanize them, while simultaneously keeping them cute and cuddly. Some people love it, some hate it, but My Little Dashie made waves back when it released.
On the other other side of the coin, how about a pony that craves us instead? Anthropology shook things up with the fandom's favorite human obsessed mare on one of the most epic, in-universe stories out there.
Really, the fanfiction side is where background ponies in the show shined more than anything. It was nice having a bunch of well-designed blank slates to slap our own fanon on, no matter how different they were from eachother. Sometimes, Lyra wasn't a hand-obsessed lover of Bonbon. This one gave her a more deep characterization.
Shipping mares is what our crazy online community loves doing more than anything though, and if two characters in the show had complimentary coat colors, similar cutie marks, or any interaction in the background at all, chances are they had a multi-part chapter book about their budding lesbian romance. Vinyl and Octavia in particular had a bunch of these, with University Days being one of the best known.
Expanding the Equestrian universe and throwing our own fandom characters into it has always been a popular topic, much more so as the years went on. Back when OC's were still on that "kinda accepted but not entirely" list, Past Sins threw a black alicorn foal with slit eyes related to Nightmare Moon at Twilight... and it somehow worked? You couldn't pick an edgier pony to roll with, but good writing proved that even the most potentially fandom divisive idea could work. A few cried Mary Sue, but most just read the story and enjoyed it.
I leave you with one final thing that the writing side of pony creation shines at. The random/comedy section. This is where all bets are off, and the ridiculous is unleashed on Equestria. Later seasons of the show had a few episodes of similar caliber, but nothing can come close to how completely off the wall some of our early epics were. Naked Singularity in Particular.
With that said, thank you fanfic authors! It can be a nightmare to get noticed in the absolute flood of ideas that has drowned out the writing side of the fandom over the years, but for those of you that stuck it out and practiced until your prose was perfect and characterizations spot on, we all owe you a great deal for entertaining us for so long! May we see many more years of ideas exploding in the fandom. Maybe even another success story like Fallout Equestria some day?
Just no more Spiderses. Please.
