How Scary Did You Find Arachnis

[Al1701]

You remember my first contribution to My Little Pony fanfiction, right? Arachnis the Captor: the story of Fizzy and Wind Whistler trying to save their shrunken friends by collecting the six pieces of the Rainbow of Light and turning Wind Whistler (temporarily) into an alicorn to fight an ancient sorcerer.

I was wondering how scary you found Arachnis and his horde.

Admittedly, I wrote Arachnis to be perhaps the most terrifying MLP villain ever. His appearance in my mind was inspired by mummies with his gray skin and almost skeletal build. The whites of his eyes are black. Even his introductory scene was born out of my mother's (supposedly dead things not really being dead) and my sister's (arachnids) primal fears. Then there's how he operates. He hides himself like a spider on the edge of its web and plays the diminishing spell to shrink you down to blind bag size and then sends his horde after you.

But what do you guys think?

[Zero]

They are more scared of you then you are of them.....Unless the are the size of semi and the "Mother" is the size of an aircraft carrier then RUN LIKE HELL!!!

[Al1701]

I'm talking about my main villain and titular character from Arachnis the Captor not normal spiders.

[Zero]

AHH my mistake.
In that case...I have no idea

[weirdraptor]

I didn't find him terror inducing to the point of having nightmare about him or anything, but he was competent and smart enough to be intimidating on the level that you know that he knows what he's doing and the ponies will have to step up their game if they have any hopes of beating him.

[Al1701]

I have to wonder if I was able to draw the image I have of him in my head out what you would think. I really can't describe the staggering, twisted creature I have in my mind to do it justice.

I've also considered a visual representation of his Diminishing Melody where its a music bar with twisted notes appearing on it that spread out as a web and encircles its victims.

I also wasn't able to demonstrate just how indestructible he was.

I was worried he was a little too scary.

[weirdraptor]

Such is the plight of any writer who tries to describe an eldritch abomination like Arachnis. You could get around that by saying something like "the staggering, twisted creature defied logic and description". Or maybe he could be so surreal that the ponies have trouble perceiving his real form, and instead he appears as if out of the corner of their eyes, as if hidden behind a cloak of unreality. Just throwin' options out there.

[sunstar]

There is nothing scarier then the Eldergods. They can't be defeated, and attacking with the Matrix is like poking an elephant with your finger. The only thing they do fear that can hurt them is Nemesis, the dark side of the Prime.

Archanis was creepy, but he wasn't nightmare inducing. He had the right amount of creepiness and evil.

[Al1701]

I'm not going for nightmare inducing. I just wanted to make a creepy, powerful, and evil villain that would require the ponies to take unprecedented measures to defeat.

I have admit I like Wind Whistler's "battlefield promotion" in order to defeat Arachnis over Twilight's becoming a permanent alicorn princess because she completed a spell. I'm glad Hasbro did it because Friendship is Magic needed something to happen, but I think they could have surrounded it with better circumstances.

[weirdraptor]

Ah, okay. Well, I thought you succeeded on that front with Arachnis, personally.

Well, I blame the 13 episode limit for Twilight's less than spectacular ascension. I'm convinced that Season 3 would have been as good as the previous two if the crew had a full 26 set to work in the story with. In the end, though, I am confident Season 4 will be better.

[djlamar2]

I have yet to read it but I am gonna start tomorrow. It looks interesting . I'll give my verdict on how scary I think he was when I'm done.

[Al1701]

Well, I talked to Bonnie Zacharle at the MLP Fair and she gave me very good insight into getting my foot in the door with Hasbro. She said they're not really in the mood to buy original ideas and would prefer adjunct ideas to their existing brands. She also said they'll reject ideas that they figure are already being thrown around in house.

Well, I doubt anyone at Hasbro is sick and twisted enough to come up with what is essentially a walking corpse shrinking his victims with a magic flute and then sending his horde of arachnids after them. After seeing Equestria Girls, I'm really considering sending a query letter to Hasbro about a real full length MLP film using Arachnis (but not Arachnis the Captor since it's fan fiction) as the main villain. My worry was that he would be too scary for kids and Hasbro would reject a script with him in it on those grounds.

[weirdraptor]

If you don't want to tame down Arachnis, you could suggest another villain in his stead and then try getting a story (in whatever medium: show, movie, book, whatever) about him off the ground at a later date.

[Al1701]

From the sounds of it, I don't need to tame him down. From what you've said he's scary but in that good range where you want to see the heroes win over him but not so scary he'll lurk in your nightmares after seeing him.

[weirdraptor]

True. Go for it, man. I would SO love to see Arachnis in FIM, or anything canon pony-related.