It's been a year since it ended, it was a fun ride...
>>43459140Do we have any stats for /pa/'s overall length? Would be funny if it's shorter than some popular fics kek
>>43459161Well, it has 383 threads and the grand majority got to 500 replies, and the text length could vary from short interactions to walls of text, only way to know for sure would be to manually count it
>>43459161>>43459185shit could be in the 5 words million range easy
My country princess
>>43459140What was this?
>>43459140It's been a year since I noted the Latin was wrong and it should be "Celestiam"...
>>43459140PA was such a great project that I think it deserves to have it's own archive so future generations can easily read the best damn story this board has ever created
>>43461030A site where you could easily navigate the stories/threads in order would be great.
>>43461030>>43461060Did /pa/ ever had a panel in a con? I feel that would be a good way to celebrate a project like this and have fun while showing others what the thread created.
>>43460939Probably the longest CYOA from the board
>>43459140Admirable for the sheer tenacity at the very least. I also miss the Normal Norman threads. Those also developed their entire own ecosystem based on a single show meme.
>>43461764What was Normal Norman about?I have a vague memory if it
>>43460946I'll fix it, give me 5 min
>>434624582 hours and 19 minutes ago
>>43460946>>43462714Sorry lads, almost died on my way from work but here's an edit
>>43462996Update the wiki
>>43461030>was such a great projectNo.>think it deserves to have it's own archivelol lmao>future generations can easily read the best damn story this board has ever createdUh huh, you and 2-3 random other anons roleplaying in a thread is the “best story the board has ever made”.CYOA’s are shit, they only entertain the users that participate in them, not the rest of the board. I’m not reading what you and your ERP buddies got up to.>>43461741Good riddance, CYOA faggots are almost as bad as new greenfags, they clog and pollute the board with shit nobody is going to spend hours reading. A green has to be 2 posts maximum or it’s not a green. CYOA threads should be banned for being off topic roleplay though.
>>43463087Haters will seethe, but this post is right on the money Concerning CYOAs...
>>43463089>SPOILERSince they basically created their own character and told a story with it fits the mould of what every CYOA on this board is/has been.
>>43463093>Since they basically created their own character and told a story with it fits the mould of what every CYOA on this board is/has been.But, we had multiple writers, more than four.
>Strawberry fag hating another thing he had nothing to do with.
>>43463097It was fun so therefore he hates it.
>>43459140It feels like you're making fun of Applejack. (That's just how it came across to me.
>>43463108Go hump a tiger.
>>43463108that's because you're new and ugly and your dick points to the right
>>43463115>>43463116Maybe... I just feel like...
>>43463087>strawberryfag is seething at CYOAs nowlmao this dude is a riot
>>43463108What makes you thinkl that Anon? We fucking love AJ
>>43461741>>43463093It's not quite a CYOA because it was a free for all to write whatever you liked with the concept and if anons liked then it was made canon, until it was so extense that it requiered more coordination from the thread, it was its own style.>>43463096Yeah, I think the best comparison could be how Marvel and DC have their own universes with multiple writers and interconnected contiounty
>>43463097>>43463136>Strawberry fagPay no mind
>>43463595So everyone is an alicorn?
>>434654514/6 more like
>>43463117Feel like what?
>>43461210Anyone down to spread the gospel at mare fair?
>>43461908Bros jacking each other off but no homo or anything hahaha
>>43467013Sounds straight and real
>>43467003not in the con, sorry
>>43459185Taking into account the amount of threads and posts, it would be approximately 190,000 posts in total. If we lowball story posts to be around 15 words on average, it would be roughly in the range of 3 million words. If we go for a middle estimate of like 30 words on average, it could fall in the range of nearly 6 million words. And if we highball the whole thing thanks to the large story posts, it could fall in the whopping 14 million words range.
>>43468433damn
>>43468965fuck off useless niggerbumper
>>43468433>it could fall in the whopping 14 million words range.For the record the longest piece of literature in English, a Loud House fanfic, is around 34mil words we need proper stats to see how autistic /pa/ used to be
>>43469017Wasn't that Loud House fanfic also technically cheating because the author would copy paste whole wikipedia articles in the middle of a chapter just because?
>>43469061yepapparently he also copypasted entire chapters as "flashbacks"
>>43469063>Have fuck all to write today but still need that word count up>I know>Copy paste early chapters, maybe add a few reactions from the POV of our current characters and call it flashbacksLiterary genius, that shit sounds like how some shows want to save budget and just make clip shows from past eps and have the actors react to them in-character lmao
>>43463096>But, we had multiple writers, more than four.There were, at peak, MINUMUM 15 different writers across the years. Each one had a distinct style and favorite characters they used and occasionally got into arguments(But never actually fought because PA was chill like that) concerning story directions. Sometimes they got rendered non-canon because they realized they fucked up, the one I remembered most vividly was during the virtual dungeons and dragons arc where someone essentially ended the arc to make Spike look cool and they didn't even realize. Other writers I swear only existed because they didn't want characters like Zecora and Trixie to get forgotten.
>>43465451Applejack was made an alicorn at the start of the series, Rarity was made an alicorn by an annoyed Celestia who was trying to fuck with AJ during thread 1-2's utter insanity, there was never a plan there they just threw everything they had at the wall and saw what stuck, leading to her gaining the title "Princess of Spite". Fluttershy was an alicorn but wasn't, what happened was she was feeling left behind and useless so Discord turned her into one to make her feel useful, but it completely fucked up and backfired and turned her into essentially a Chaos Sponge who soaked up all of his magic when she was around him too much and frequently caused her to spill Chaos out in the early threads and did things like cause her to form clones of herself by accident who would go and do random shit for one shot comedy, usually ending with their demise. This actually came to a head in one of the early arcs.Twilight was just an alicorn I dunno where they got that shit, didn't even explain it the lazy bastards. 0/10 fic.>>43463087I did not realize this guy was still here. Complained for a decade and still lost when they concluded the story.
I've been catching up from the start, been having fun and I really like it, finished the Robot Invasion arc, it was pretty cool how there were multiple POV from the many side characters dealing with the robots with their own gags. It was essentially like a comic book event from Marvel and DC, only that it was fun and not infuriating like those greedy and cheap bastards.Low-key AJ should have been the one to personally deal with Blueblood, at least get one big earful from her.>>43470789It really is similar to how superhero comics work, only that it's written by people for the love of the game, rather than greedy and exploitative companies.
>>43470857>Low-key AJ should have been the one to personally deal with Blueblood, at least get one big earful from her.I think even /pa/ as a whole agreed they should've had AJ be more involved in the first 2 fight arcs, but they were trying really hard to actually make her do PRINCESS stuff and be more like Celestia, so her commanding her forces from Canterlot while her friends were out in the field made more sense from a story perspective.That said to this day I find it deeply, DEEPLY funny that she does not fight Chitania until the end of the series. Chitania gets out and goes on a rampage and THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREADS LATER they hash it out.
>>43461741It wasn't a CYOA. It was just a fanfic that used Applejack as a Princess for a springboard and let others contribute. It was technically a "Collaborative fiction". One universe multiple writers, and it was pretty damn special in that regard. It feels wild they actually manged not just to end it, but end it, give one last ride, give an epilogue and then come back and give more afterwards. After 12 years you'd figure the well would be dry, but people still had a story to tell. It was the longest fic on the board no question, nothing else comes close, and without question the longest that had an actual ending and didn't end up on the pile of corpse threads. Atta girl, Applejack.
>>43470881It makes sense to not immediately turn AJ into a beat cop at the first chance to stay true to what Celestia said, so that's good but I do feel there could have been a lot of meat with AJ/Blueblood, they are basically perfect foils in this case, the humble and practical earth pony that ascended through merit that tries to resolve the problems that piled up in Equestria vs the prissy and whiny unicorn that's been abusing his legitimate status of royalty to have a lavish life, it's perfect! Applejack is this new alicorn making changes and progress while Blueblood is the personification of the old ways and its incompetence.Like, the first appearance of the Apple Family Tradition was AJ ranting to Celestia about Blueblood's stipend, and in return Blueblood tried to assassinate her but ends up hurting those around her. I'm less talking about AJ fighting because well, even without being an alicorn she could fold someone like Blueblood but more about her interacting with his opposite would have been great, even just from a comedic standpoint, I think they would be hilarious.
>>43471052I completely agree, and I do think early /pa/ suffered from that in regards to serious stuff. Don't get me wrong, early threads are still some of the best for comedy, thread 1 and 2 still make me laugh my ass off, but when it came to meaty character stuff it just wasn't there yet.I feel like if Apple-Crazy's author had been around then, since he only started writing for that thread way later, he could've had something like the Applejack/Chrysalis scene and it would've been tops. But that's just how it was, they didn't know what they were doing or why they were doing it, the writers were green and making really dumb mistakes like forgetting where 42 was, and they wanted to try something new with AJ but didn't quite know how it would pan out. When they finally got there it felt triumphant and big and special, but until that day came, they were just learning a little more each thread.Tree took some time to start producing that good fruit, you know? Had to get bigger, taller, get more sunshine and a little new nutrients. But it came, and it tasted special.
>>43471071Sad that it was a missed opportunity but I'm glad those kind of things could be used as lessons for what came next, can't really blame anyone, everyone was just winging it and having fun, every new post was a new possibility so it's easy to lose track of things and not see certain things that might make for some more good stuff. It just stings a little because now that I'm older and reading again, I feel that maybe I could have pointed that out back then, but I was such newfag back then, just as green as everybody else and only lurked, I can't recall where I left and wasn't as half as smart as I am now, so yeah who knows.
>>43471139Always something, right? I'm just really really glad we gave Luna her legendary run before the end, I think I never would've stopped regretting if she'd ended it like she was before the alt-timeline and she just completely stole the show for a bit. Early threads had a lot of missed chances, but in the end it was just one of like 8 people who tried their best and we were happy they went at all.
>>43471147Yeah, it's good to be glad that things even happened the way they did, better to celebrate that than having regret. Still a long way to go for me to catch up
>>43470804>here was never a plan there they just threw everything they had at the wall and saw what stuck, I still thank god /pa/ just kind of shuffled past Anon in that era. It was suffocating trying to find a green on this site that didn't involve Anon doing this or Anon fucking that, so when they decided just to stick to ponies it was the best shit ever. Shit, it was pretty much the only long running fic on this site that didn't involve him, wasn't it?Kinda said something you had to come to /pa/ if you just wanted to read ponies ON MLP
>>43471021so it was like /mlp/'s own au before it was popular to make a billion aus of everything
>>43471994Yes exactly. The premise is they split the timeline after Rainbow Falls in season 4 and essentially said "What if Applejack got turned into an alicorn right then?" And... well, honestly? It's a lot like the show where different writers wrote different "Episodes", with the vast majority being what amounts to what is now one shot comedy youtube shorts. Imagine if anyone could poke their head in the door to the writers room, come in and make a short about Celestia messing up Applejack's bathroom, and then peace out forever. And it happened a lot.
>>43472090And imagine if a writer could start a big huge massive worldbuilding or important arc and leave, like the rest of MLP, but it like... kept going. Or got rendered entirely non canon and they just moved on like it wasn't a thing. Both of those happened.We seriously had a big lore thing with the Griffons regarding a Kingsmoot that the author just up and abandoned, so someone tied it into an evil capitalism pony, and a fight with a chunk of GOD the author just peaced out on halfway so their resident lumberjack had to finish. It was a wild thread.
>>43472090>that amounts to what is now one shot comedy youtube shortsI've been thinking how PA would kill it with this format, yt and tiktok shorts that are so popular nowadays would be perfect for the style
>>43472177The Gotta Question segments kinda seem tailor made for it, yeah.
>>43471976I remember how someone wrote a green with anon in the first thread and it never went anywhere kek. He probably was thrown to the dungeon down in Canterlot lol
>>43459140I don't think I ever really got Princess Applejack, I thought initially it was a bunch of short stories off an idea of Applejack being a princess. I always thought the "gem" that it quoted in every thread was silly and a little out of character, but good enough for a bunch of episodic stories. But it got so expansive, a bunch of arcs, references within it's own story, etc. That I never really stuck with itI fell off of catching up and maybe it's, ( and for lack of a better term) "Continuity Lock-Out" that got me to stand clear of it. But I'm glad that some people found something to cling to i guess...
>>43473166>always thought the "gem" that it quoted in every thread was silly and a little out of character,Oh it was completely out of character for Celestia to rant like that, the thread even explained her doing that didn't even have the "Rant" be canon I don't think since it never gets referenced in canon, when they say "Gem" they mean the thing so funny people joined in to grow what should've been a shitpost.> But it got so expansive, a bunch of arcs, references within it's own story, etc. That I never really stuck with itCompletely understandable, I mean could you imagine someone trying to jump on One Piece right now? So many stories and characters and one shots on covers that tell stories of all things it would be a gargantuan task, and really that's not for everyone. But hey, that was the whole selling point for the people reading it. In a sea of anon doing one shot stories of fucking ponies or interacting with ponies and then being abandoned there was this one thread with characters that grew and changed over time. They learned lessons and figured it out just as the authors themselves started figuring things out together. For a lot of writers I guess it was nice to know your little side story was part of a bigger world, or your big expansive tale was going to keep growing beyond just that story you made. It was like planting another seed in an orchard, never knowing what would grow from it. And all at the center was a character a lot felt got shafted or forgotten, but in this tale she got to make fuckups that stuck, she had to learn to be a better leader, she had to learn from her mistakes and didn't get an undo button when she fell short. The writers had to figure out what the edge of "Honesty" and "Family" was, and go beyond it, and I think they succeeded.Maybe you'll feel different now that you know it has an end, and a satisfying one at that, but if not hey, hope you had fun with what you had.
>>43463136>>43463097What? I love greens go fuck yourself. Never really paid much attention to cyoas though. You fucking retards seriously think I'm everyone that makes you mad.
>>43473376Do you have a favorite green, Strawb?
>>43473379Yes I do.
>>43473381Will you share it, Strawb?
>>43473392No.
>>43473198The thing about One Piece is that not only is it really long, but it's still on going. I haven't seen much of One Piece, but even if I started watching One Piece 10-15 years ago, I could have still fallen off of it, and have a back log again of episodes to go back to without an end in sight.This might not be a good comparison, but I've seen 400-500 episodes of Pokemon, and it's easier to get back on it whenever I want because despite it's continuity, I know the episodes will mostly likely be self contained. But if it was something like say, Adventure Time, where at the start, things are random, but toward the end, it's really complicated without context. That's when I ask myself, "Is the premise of Adventure Time good enough to make me want to start over?"With 4chan, the nature of the website kind of warrants one offs. It's not written in a traditional sense. The dialogue exchanges are a bit weird, and if you miss anything, someone else has put together relevant posts...so I ask myself the same question. "Is this Princess Applejack story really all that?"
Okay but what if...
>>43473395Why not, Strawb?
>>43473198>>43473404Also to add on to this, and again, it may not be a good comparison...I have seen several hundred episodes of Detective Conan, and it started off pretty story driven, but after some seasons it was only really a "Murder Mystery of the Week" kind of show. But every now and then, they sprinkle some continuity here and there. That stuff adds up over the course of 20 years, so if Detective Conan would have ended right now in some sort of movie, finally resolving everything together with fans all glazing it for weeks and weeks, talking about the characters, the writers, the references, the emotions etc.In my limited experience, I'll be like "Really? CSI, The anime had that much of an impact for people? Is it really that good?"
>>43473404>The thing about One Piece is that not only is it really long, but it's still on going.It was just the first example I thought of regarding "Long as fuck manga", but you did get my drift so it's not a problem.> I could have still fallen off of it, and have a back log again of episodes to go back to without an end in sight.And it would come down to you asking "Do I want to hop back into it now that Oda says they're in the final stretch", and ultimately that's too personal to really speak about. Some people might see Vegapunk and Imu and decide it isn't worth the effort, some might decide to do it just to see where all the myriad of characters ended up. It is what it is.>and it's easier to get back on it whenever I want because despite it's continuity, I know the episodes will mostly likely be self contained.I suppose /pa/ is a lot like that for quite a lot of it's stories, isn't it? Even someone jumping onto Pokemon's individual episodes would probably at least need to know the basics of the characters, if you jumped into Johto and didn't know who May was or how Pokemon worked in general you'd be lost, wouldn't you? Maybe that's why so much of /pa/ was just one off silly moments, anons would just jump in write a silly story with the established characters and bow out for these very reasons. >With 4chan, the nature of the website kind of warrants one offsTrue but as obviously shown by a 12 year run with over a dozen writers and a dozen artists providing art and the like, clearly it also works well as a collaborative medium where writers could jump in and deliver a slice of the world and either be accepted or if it's not up to snuff be corrected and improve on it, being allowed to try again and again as much as they'd like. 4chan was unique in this way because the writers didn't have nametags, so the only real way to spot who was who was characters, writing styles and occasionally if they responded to feedback that way. The anonymity was freeing, and that's pretty much only possible here.>"Is this Princess Applejack story really all that?"That's the ultimate question isn't it? Do you want to spend so much time seeing what amounts to youtube shorts that occasionally break into big serious action or comedy packed arcs, just to see Applejack grow as a Princess, Celestia reignite her spark that had grown dull, Shining Armor to come into his own as the only mortal ruler and Chrysalis to fuck up again and again because she couldn't get over her nature? Or do you just want to see the beginning where it was chaotic, there were no rules, there were no set characters, and everything went at the wall before you dropped it off?Regardless of whichever choice you end up, hopefully it was fun.
>>43473437>In my limited experience, I'll be like "Really? CSI, The anime had that much of an impact for people? Is it really that good?"Well that's up to the individual, isn't it? Bleach is apparently lighting up social media here recently with people hailing it for having it's best episode ever and being an amazing emotional roller coaster, but I didn't really like it back in the day. But even so, me not liking it doesn't change why it was special for people and why whatever happened in that episode was so important, bleach went on for a decade and ended 10 years ago, it was special for them for whatever reason they made it. Maybe they wrote Grimmjow fanfiction, maybe Ichigo was their husbando or they jacked it to Orihime's giant tits. Don't ask "Was it that special"? Because you'll never know what life they lived to make it special.
>>43473430Fuck you that's why
>>43473427That would be magical.
>>43473427Don’t tempt me with a good time
>>43473376Uh oh furfag melty
>>43473376The only thing you love is the sound of your own voice.
>>43473404>"Is this Princess Applejack story really all that?"Depends in what you are looking for, I've been catching up and it's really funny in the first threads so far. But the moment when you read a funny post from one anon and then later another anon writes a funny follow up that expands on the previous joke and so on with other writers, and realize the entire status quo you've been used to from a few threads back is completely different to the current one and you didn't feel the change, it was when it clicked, at least for me.
>>43473427>The reason she doesn't show up in G6 is because gave Applejack her own showIf only
>>43473459When and where, Strawb?
>>43473427>Fans are so pissed off of her exclusion they make their own show about her Dew it
>>43474590We should announce it in one of the cons, riff a little bit that G6 announcement panel from the comic con
