• Story: Made in Neighpon (Update Part 3!)

    [Normal] More Epic-length adventure stuff!  It is a bit weird to read with the present tense, but you can tell he put a lot of work into it!

    Author: MST3KFan (aka servo_chann)
    Description: Twilight Sparkle and her friends are sent by Princess Celestia to the far east land of Neighpon to establish better relations, but things go wrong when a sinister plot involving an ancient evil planning to keep this from happening. With the help of another group of ponies, the gang will try and save things from becoming an international incident and much, much worse.
    Google Docs
    Made in Neighpon
    Made in Neighpon Part 2
    Made in Neighpon Part 3 (New!)


    Deviant Art
    Chapter 1 DA Part 1
    Chapter 1 DA Part 2
    Chapter 2 DA Part 1 
    Chapter 2 DA Part 2 
    Chapter 3 DA Part 1 (New!)
    Chapter 3 DA Part 2 (New!)




    Additional Tags: Long, Cultural, Adventure, Friendship, Episode-Like

    30 comments:

    1. Writing in the present tense is a bit of an odd choice... I like the subject matter.

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    2. I think present tense is just as good as past tense, but it helps more in first-person writing as well. If you keep it third person it might as well be the same thing as past tense.

      Seth, "perspective" isn't the right word to use to describe present-tense writing.

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    3. OC Ponies.

      Nope.avi

      ~Scratch

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    4. I've got nothing else to do, so I'll start reading every story submission and leaving my thoughts.

      This is good. Better than good. I saw a few typos here and there, but no other problems. You also did your research. You know that awesome giddy feeling you get in your stomach? When you introduced the nue, that did it. I'm waiting for the next part.

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    5. It's a good start, although the parallels between the mane cast and the OC cast seems a bit too obvious, aside from swapping body types around. But nothing that a little character development can't fix right? It would be neat if the OC ponies went in different directions then their mane cast counterparts.

      I'm also hoping that the story has more chapters to it since I feel like we're already halfway through the story and that it could easily be wrapped up in the next one. I do like the research, keep that up.

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    6. Tirac! Yes! Thats just great, he was the totally evil badguy in the first episode of G1.

      I like the duplicates, it helps give you a lot of characters without having to work to much on them, as long as they are shown to be at least slightly different by the end of the story.

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    7. Hey all.

      Writer of the story here. Yeah, I know people generally frown on OC ponies, though I will point out most are actually based on actual ponies made in the older toylines (my cousin is a big fan of MLP stuff since the original so she is a barrel of info).

      This is actually the first time I've written a full on story about anything in at least two years so I'm a bit rusty on things.
      I actually wrote a lot of my own stories for a while as well as fanfics to another show Lauren Faust, MLP:FIM creator worked on, Powerpuff Girls.

      I'm trying to definitely establish differences between the OC type ponies and the FIM cast, it's just slow going since there's the main plot along with both sides interacting. I doubt I'll wrap it up in two parts, maybe three since once I get going writing I can go for quite a while.

      Once I get photoshop working again I hope to also make a better picture as well rather then just the OC pony artwork shown.

      Oh, and thanks to those whom commented on the research. I was torn as to how fully to do that since I wanted to write it all through the eys of the FIM ponies and their not being familiar with any of what they saw. Still, I looked up a lot of stuff for this. (Still am)

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    8. I do have a few criticisms:

      The inclusion of Japanese terms in the parenthesis felt unnecessary and were a bit distracting. You probably could've gotten by by just using the terms in the telling, or maybe adding a cultural note away from the main body of text.

      Also, and this is just my opinion, but I don't think you need to explicitly refer to things as comical in the story, such as Pinkie's odder actions.

      Having said that, I'm very interested in the story you've got going so far. Beneath a few grammar issues and my previous comments, I think you've established a neat setting, and I'm not bothered by your inclusion of original characters at all. I do hope they differentiate themselves from their counterparts as the story progresses, but if you write more I'll definitely read it!

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    9. 'Broken Script, Unable to load page.'

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    10. ^^^^^

      Google Docs is a very odd site for when you're posting stuff as some browsers have serious difficultyy loading it, or if the story is really long, you have to wait until the whole story finishes loading up to get it to work.

      Just checked the story and it works for me.

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    11. All i seem to get out of part 1 is half a page's worth.

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    12. same here, cuts off halway though Dash talking.

      part 2 does the same thing.

      then I get a script error message, and the thing aouto-closes on me.

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    13. Well, I got all of Part 1 easily when it was first up, I encountered one error then it was fine this time. Nothing wrong with part 2 for me.

      Good to see part two up, this series is going to be looooong.

      Also, I love the new pic for the post.

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    14. This story is interesting so far (still reading part 2) but next time you might want to split it up a little more. I know that, on one hand, I like being able to read more of a story I'm enjoying and it's great that you can write much so fast, but you might want to structure it so that the previous update is 2 parts and this is 2 parts (like how some other fics get bumped after 2 or 3 new parts) so that it's easer for somepony who doesn't have a lot of time to keep up.

      I like what you've done so far with the OCs, and seeing that they're based off of G1-3 ponies makes a lot more sense of things like Cinnamon Swirl's name.

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    15. busted for me too.

      how about puttin it on DA?

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    16. In the not to distant future, next Sunday A.D., there was a guy named Joel, not to different from you or me.

      Love the story!

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    17. Writer of the fanfics above here again...

      To all whom are having troubles reading these on Google Docs, I tried to post on deviantART, but I dunno, it seems my stories are too long for their text boxes or something it keeps telling me, so I uploaded them to another link to go to and see if you can read them...

      http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6965816/1/Made_in_Neighpon_Part_One

      http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6965825/1/Made_in_Neighpon_Part_Two

      Hopefully this is okay for me to do. I just want everyone to be able to read these if they want.

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    18. I personally am impressed with the choice of using a Nue in the first chapter (which is all I've read so far.) It's obvious you've read up a bit of Japanese culture before writing this story, though the OCs names don't sound very authentic; they mostly sound western. Also, kimonos weren't that common to see outside of formal ceremonies. My mother only owns one kimono and only wore it to very formal parties back when we lived in Okinawa.

      And as a side note, Nues are up there with Manticores, Tarasques, and Chimaras as my favorite monster of all time. I just love composite creatures, be they monkey/tiger/snakes, man/lion/skorpions, wolf/turtle/bulls, or lion/goat/dragons.

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    19. Awww, it ended...

      I really liked it. I have to say you're no poet, but you're one heck of a story-teller. I really, really enjoyed it.

      Thanks a lot for writing such a cool story!

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    20. Like many a pony here, I have to agree that the choice of tense was odd at first. But once you got past that, the storytelling itself was magnificent.

      Really enjoyed reading this. And now that you've established the Neighpon 6, do I smell a possible regular-episodic series? I wouldn't mind seeing Aurora and her friends winding up in Ponyvile someday.

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    21. I agree with Sagebrush's criticism, as well as praise.

      Your Neighpon is an interesting mix of old and new Japan - Yonaguni's isolationist attitude is very old-fashioned, but melon-pan couldn't exist without the Portuguese bringing "pan" to Japan (and okonomiyaki as a term wasn't coined until the 1930s)! Overall Neighpon read as a somewhat simplified (anime and anime fandom-inspired) view of Japan. No doubt that for the purpose of the story, it worked perfectly, but I saw a lot of wasted potential for exploring cultural differences and different viewpoints on "foreigners" in Neighpon. I actually really, really like that you had Apricotta in there as an earlier immigrant, but I feel like she could have played a much larger role as a cultural interpreter between Neighponies and Ponyvillians (who got along surprisingly easily right from the get-go). But then, I'm really interested in Japan/minority relations and miss Tokyo like crazy! So, that is really more of a pet peeve than fair criticism of your writing.

      As a pony fan from the start, I appreciated the nod to G1-3 names, plus the Tirak reference. Personally, I think you played out the final encounter with Tirak in a kind of anime-villain kind of way, especially with the minions. It struck me as being a touch out of place, but the battle itself was epic. Your Rainbow of Light was simply magical. I loved the myth and how you played it out. Your OCs definitely had some believable quirks, and I am just nuts about Firecracker's modesty! That struck me as the most culturally authentic trait.

      I'm being really nit-picky, so I'll stop.

      Overall, your story had me glued to the screen for well over an hour - I couldn't stop reading it! It was entertaining, exciting, and super ponytastic! Very well-crafted, though this reader prefers a more realistic interpretation of Japan. I must say, though, that after hearing so many stories about typical cultural faux pas committed by visitors to Japan, it was really refreshing to see the Mane 6 wreak havoc in Neighpon so uniquely! Seriously, raw fish/hot springs/squirting toilet horror stories are barely funny the first time around, so I thank you profusely for not resorting to such uninspiring portrayals of culture shock! It definitely made my night :)

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    22. Awesome story, a little cliche and predictable in parts but you made those your own with a nice change in pace. You certainly did your homework on the local monsters, I think this is the 1st story I've read involving a Nue.
      Nice use of the G1 special villians(definitely wasn't expecting Katrina)and the other G1 refrences, that was an awesome use of the Rainbow of Light, pity you couldn't find a use for the ol' Rainbow of Darkness.
      Overall an excellent story, I do hope you write more in the future.

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    23. I absolutely loved this story.
      I hope you write more.

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    24. We're sorry. You can't access this document because it is in violation of our Terms of Service.
      What?

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    25. I like Green Lantern but that part was a little weird.

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    26. We're sorry. You can't access this document because it is in violation of our Terms of Service.

      I NEVER... ever... ever saw a google-document being classified as such EVER!
      And especially not any (pony)fanfiction ???

      What the heck happened ? Anyone has an answer why google-doc became an ass ?

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    27. @Nova25
      Well it's not really supprising they do ban stuff on youtube all the time a google owns that. So yeah. At least DA is a little more loose.

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    28. MST3KFan here again...

      Google Docs is being evil again? Figures. Glad I made seperate links on deviantART for the story then.

      Anyway, glad to see so many reviews, comments, and other things about the story. It was the first time I had written anything in some time so I am a bit rusty.

      Still, if people are interested in seeing the 6 Neighpon ponies I wrote in this again, I'm all for bringing them back in.

      Having them come to Ponyville is a definite idea I could use.

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    29. excellent story. The perspective was something new and fresh.

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    30. Any chance you'll re-upload to Google Docs? I like being able to save stories I'm reading to my computer or USB.

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