GargantuanBass 
I have an idea for a fic, but I want to make sure the kinks are worked out before starting it. Is anyone interested in reviewing the outline for it?
Fic idea critique
GargantuanBass
@ClownDicks
The story follows a week in the life of Bea Ruthless, a strange, friendless earth-filly who many believe isn’t right in the head. There’s no real antagonist, no Ponyville flattening monster, just pure slice-of-life struggles (kinda like the first half of Lilo and Stitch now that I think about it).
The key events from beginning to end are as follows:
-First scene, Bea walks out of school and hops aboard a train to Ponyville. Her first interaction with another character is trying to find out what a stallion is listening to through his headphones. Of course, this annoys him, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
-She heads to Ponyville and buys some candy from Solid Sugar, a rock candy miner (or possibly the Cakes if that would fit the story better). Instead of bits however, she gives her a bag of smoothed, painted rocks. New employee thinks it’s weird, Solid Sugar explains that Bea believes that it’s a better system than money, since she put so much work into the smoothing and painting. Solid just lets her pay with the rocks because she doesn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise, due to thinking she’s mentally disabled.
-Bea sees a pony drop their wallet, and contemplates keeping it so she can spend some actual money, since nopony but Solid will accept her rocks. She decides to take a 20 bit note from it before giving it back. The pony who dropped it praises her kindness and honesty, and decides to give her 20 bits for her good deed, which Bea happily accepts.
-Bea goes to a movie shop and buys some horror film reels, before trotting the long way home. She passes by the school on her way. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon make some rude remarks as she passes by, but she doesn’t notice
-She goes her house, a wheather beaten two-story house surrounded by unfarmed plains, announcing her arrival. The father is happy to see her, where as hero older sister is lazing about on the couch, looking distraught She asks her sister if she wants to watch a movie, but she’s waiting on a boyfriend to call. Bea shrugs it off, tells her the offer will stay open and goes upstairs to set up the movie. The move scares her into having an accident on the floor, but, again, she shrugs it off and just grabs a towel to clean it up.
-The sister finds the towel the next day, going on a tirade about how this happens everytime Bea watches a scary movie, and mockingly says she should be “diapered like a messed up filly like her should”. This infuriates the Dad, who says it’d be wrong to mock her disabilities like that, where as the Sister says he’s too lenient. A heated argument begins, with it being revealed by the Sister that Bea’s mother walked out on the family because she found Bea’s behavior embarassing and too much to handle. Bea just waltzes into the kitchen while they argue, ignoring it and inadvertantly breaking it up as she announces she’s leaving for school.
-Cheerilee decides to teach the children about the history of cinema that day, prepared to show a movie from a different genre every day of the week. She decides to get horror out of the way first. Of course, Bea ends up getting scared again, resulting in another accident. She is laughed at while Cheerilee takes her into the back to get cleaned up. Attempts to console her, but Bea doesn’t seem too upset, seemingly treating it as a normal occurance.
-Cheerilee brings in Bea’s father while the children are having recess and informs him that Bea has been doing poorly in school. Only half her test answers are right, and even then, they don’t count because she used pictures instead of numbers. The Father ends up explaining that Bea is indeed mentally disabled, having suffered brain damage from a foul ball to the head at a baseball game he’d taken her to. Nopony thought it was serious at the time because she seemed normal, albeit having grown a strange love for the sport, and now that he knows, he’s so lenient with her out of guilt.
-While this is going on, Bea is outside, attempting to play tennis with a baseball bat. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon approach and mock her for the accident she had in class, before claiming she’s stupid for trying to play tennis with a bat.
-Cheerilee and the Father suddenly hear a loud thwack, followed by a pained cry. They run out and see Diamond Tiara with a bloody, disjointed nose, Bea having struck her with her bat and gone back to playing tennis. The Father repeatedly apologizes as he takes Bea and goes home.
-That night, he forces the big sister to watch a movie with Bea, as he believes the incident with DT was a result of her never having any social interaction. Over the night, they begin to bond as siblings, with the big sister even choking out a disgrunteld, “I love you, sis.” by the end of the night.
-The next day, Bea arrives at school, with Diamond cowering at the sight of her. She doesn’t notice and simply heads to her desk. She has the attention of Snips and Snails, who think she’s some tough badass for beating up Diamond, and decide to talk to her at recess.
-The trio start talking, and it’s learned that they’re all big movie fans, so Snips and Snails invite her for a film night, since it’s the weekend. She asks her Dad, which he immediately gives her permission to do, thinking she finally might make some friends.
-Over the next few nights, Bea bonds with the pair, eventually admitting she remembers her mother calling her stupid before walking out on her, and often wonders if she’s a bad pony. Snails scoffs at this idea and simply claims, “Who needs brains or some mean Mom when you got us?”
-The trio’s friendship remains strong. One night they plan to see on of their favorite movies at a midnight screening in Canterlot. Snips and Snails have already boarded the train. Bea is about to hop on to hers, but right when she’s about to, she bumps into an orange mare in a purple suit (Mrs.Harshwinny). The mare locks up upon seeing her, unable to form a coherent sentence, “B…Bea…”. Bea simply stares up at her for a moment before she’s called to by Snips and Snails. She brushes the mare aside and runs to the train, leaving Harshwinny shocked and confused as the crowd of ponies grows around her grows bigger. Eventually, she comes back to her senses, and hops aboard a train labeled, “Ponyville”.
And that’s where it ends.
So, any thoughts or changes I should make? I haven’t written anything in years, so I doubt it’s any kind of coherent at the moment.
The story follows a week in the life of Bea Ruthless, a strange, friendless earth-filly who many believe isn’t right in the head. There’s no real antagonist, no Ponyville flattening monster, just pure slice-of-life struggles (kinda like the first half of Lilo and Stitch now that I think about it).
The key events from beginning to end are as follows:
-First scene, Bea walks out of school and hops aboard a train to Ponyville. Her first interaction with another character is trying to find out what a stallion is listening to through his headphones. Of course, this annoys him, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
-She heads to Ponyville and buys some candy from Solid Sugar, a rock candy miner (or possibly the Cakes if that would fit the story better). Instead of bits however, she gives her a bag of smoothed, painted rocks. New employee thinks it’s weird, Solid Sugar explains that Bea believes that it’s a better system than money, since she put so much work into the smoothing and painting. Solid just lets her pay with the rocks because she doesn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise, due to thinking she’s mentally disabled.
-Bea sees a pony drop their wallet, and contemplates keeping it so she can spend some actual money, since nopony but Solid will accept her rocks. She decides to take a 20 bit note from it before giving it back. The pony who dropped it praises her kindness and honesty, and decides to give her 20 bits for her good deed, which Bea happily accepts.
-Bea goes to a movie shop and buys some horror film reels, before trotting the long way home. She passes by the school on her way. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon make some rude remarks as she passes by, but she doesn’t notice
-She goes her house, a wheather beaten two-story house surrounded by unfarmed plains, announcing her arrival. The father is happy to see her, where as hero older sister is lazing about on the couch, looking distraught She asks her sister if she wants to watch a movie, but she’s waiting on a boyfriend to call. Bea shrugs it off, tells her the offer will stay open and goes upstairs to set up the movie. The move scares her into having an accident on the floor, but, again, she shrugs it off and just grabs a towel to clean it up.
-The sister finds the towel the next day, going on a tirade about how this happens everytime Bea watches a scary movie, and mockingly says she should be “diapered like a messed up filly like her should”. This infuriates the Dad, who says it’d be wrong to mock her disabilities like that, where as the Sister says he’s too lenient. A heated argument begins, with it being revealed by the Sister that Bea’s mother walked out on the family because she found Bea’s behavior embarassing and too much to handle. Bea just waltzes into the kitchen while they argue, ignoring it and inadvertantly breaking it up as she announces she’s leaving for school.
-Cheerilee decides to teach the children about the history of cinema that day, prepared to show a movie from a different genre every day of the week. She decides to get horror out of the way first. Of course, Bea ends up getting scared again, resulting in another accident. She is laughed at while Cheerilee takes her into the back to get cleaned up. Attempts to console her, but Bea doesn’t seem too upset, seemingly treating it as a normal occurance.
-Cheerilee brings in Bea’s father while the children are having recess and informs him that Bea has been doing poorly in school. Only half her test answers are right, and even then, they don’t count because she used pictures instead of numbers. The Father ends up explaining that Bea is indeed mentally disabled, having suffered brain damage from a foul ball to the head at a baseball game he’d taken her to. Nopony thought it was serious at the time because she seemed normal, albeit having grown a strange love for the sport, and now that he knows, he’s so lenient with her out of guilt.
-While this is going on, Bea is outside, attempting to play tennis with a baseball bat. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon approach and mock her for the accident she had in class, before claiming she’s stupid for trying to play tennis with a bat.
-Cheerilee and the Father suddenly hear a loud thwack, followed by a pained cry. They run out and see Diamond Tiara with a bloody, disjointed nose, Bea having struck her with her bat and gone back to playing tennis. The Father repeatedly apologizes as he takes Bea and goes home.
-That night, he forces the big sister to watch a movie with Bea, as he believes the incident with DT was a result of her never having any social interaction. Over the night, they begin to bond as siblings, with the big sister even choking out a disgrunteld, “I love you, sis.” by the end of the night.
-The next day, Bea arrives at school, with Diamond cowering at the sight of her. She doesn’t notice and simply heads to her desk. She has the attention of Snips and Snails, who think she’s some tough badass for beating up Diamond, and decide to talk to her at recess.
-The trio start talking, and it’s learned that they’re all big movie fans, so Snips and Snails invite her for a film night, since it’s the weekend. She asks her Dad, which he immediately gives her permission to do, thinking she finally might make some friends.
-Over the next few nights, Bea bonds with the pair, eventually admitting she remembers her mother calling her stupid before walking out on her, and often wonders if she’s a bad pony. Snails scoffs at this idea and simply claims, “Who needs brains or some mean Mom when you got us?”
-The trio’s friendship remains strong. One night they plan to see on of their favorite movies at a midnight screening in Canterlot. Snips and Snails have already boarded the train. Bea is about to hop on to hers, but right when she’s about to, she bumps into an orange mare in a purple suit (Mrs.Harshwinny). The mare locks up upon seeing her, unable to form a coherent sentence, “B…Bea…”. Bea simply stares up at her for a moment before she’s called to by Snips and Snails. She brushes the mare aside and runs to the train, leaving Harshwinny shocked and confused as the crowd of ponies grows around her grows bigger. Eventually, she comes back to her senses, and hops aboard a train labeled, “Ponyville”.
And that’s where it ends.
So, any thoughts or changes I should make? I haven’t written anything in years, so I doubt it’s any kind of coherent at the moment.
ColdhardSilver
Culture Vulture
Rather interesting. :)
The ending with Bea and Harshwinny is the only thing that feels weird. I think it just needs some progression or lead-in so it doesn’t seem phoned in to provoke emotion or it should be addressed later to show it’s significance.
The idea of having Snip and Snail initially follower like Trixie works very well. Hope this help. :)
(Also I didn’t know we could post fanfic Ideas, I might post my old Mafia Rarity bit :P)
The ending with Bea and Harshwinny is the only thing that feels weird. I think it just needs some progression or lead-in so it doesn’t seem phoned in to provoke emotion or it should be addressed later to show it’s significance.
The idea of having Snip and Snail initially follower like Trixie works very well. Hope this help. :)
(Also I didn’t know we could post fanfic Ideas, I might post my old Mafia Rarity bit :P)
GargantuanBass
@ColdhardSilver
Thanks. I’m trying to rework it a little. The original idea was to have a cold opening where it shoes a mare that looks kinda like Harshwinny leaving the house, before timeskipping to present day.
I’ve also since changed her name to Round Peg, since the whole baseball thing really didn’t make up as much of her character as originally thought.
Thanks. I’m trying to rework it a little. The original idea was to have a cold opening where it shoes a mare that looks kinda like Harshwinny leaving the house, before timeskipping to present day.
I’ve also since changed her name to Round Peg, since the whole baseball thing really didn’t make up as much of her character as originally thought.
Interested in advertising on Derpibooru? Click here for information!
Help fund the $15 daily operational cost of Derpibooru - support us financially!