From the Rejected Pile, Part 1 · 6:09am Feb 7th, 2014
Or: Void Got Bored and Made a Silly Blog Post
As part of the "Void Procrastinates on Writing an Actual Story" series, I figured I'd ramble on a few ideas that I came up with, but never wrote for some reason or another.
If any of my plucky readers want to take one of these and run with it, feel free. Non-plucky readers need not apply.
A Thing I Never Got a Title for
I'd been playing with time travel for a bit. I came up with Twilight inventing magic rocks that made portals, then modifying them to be temporal as well as spatial. Past that, it was in hindsight a pretty bog-standard plot where Twilight sees a disaster in the future, tries to prevent it, and ends up causing it. Yawn. Also my editor said the rock-portal thing had been done.
Time for a Change
Again with the time travel. In this one, one of Chrysalis's minions managed to snag That Time Spell from the show before they got loved out of Canterlot, then used it to get back into the Starswirl Library while everypony was celebrating and looted the place.
From there, they find out that Starswirl had allegedly come up with a way to alter a timeline (to give the changelings a second go at invading Canterlot), but never wrote down enough details to duplicate it.
The first attempt, at murdering Twimom before Shining was born, not only failed, but ended up tipping off Equestria of the changelings' existence. Isn't causality fun?
From there, the minions use time magic to try to hunt down Starswirl in space and time, stopping at various points in history in their search.
Thing is, I see changelings as being masters of emotional manipulation. And combined with the illusion power on a time that has no way of preparing themselves? Yeah that'll get mighty dark mighty quick.
Eventually they find Starswirl, and I was always fuzzy on the exact ending. They decide for whatever reason to not alter the timeline, and to keep the future they know instead of breaking it.
I got about 1000 words in before I decided I couldn't do a plot of that scope well. Shame, I thought the title was absolutely brilliant.
I finally got the time travel plot out of me with 350.
What Goes Squeak in the Night.
Rainbow Dash tells a vampony story one night, spooking the crap out of AJ. The next day Applejack wakes up to find one of her pigs got his blood sucked.
According to Twilight, the last vampony (created by Nightmare Moon) was killed centuries ago. Applejack suspects Rainbow Dash, but a close examination of her neck reveals nothing. RD does catch her ogling her neck, though.
But the vampony targeted an animal and not a pony. A kind one, or with a thing for animals? AJ suspects Fluttershy, but doesn't want to confront her openly, despite FS showing no signs of a vampony's weaknesses.
Applejack makes up a story about zombie rabbits to get to her to visit the farm at night (to lead her to a garlic patch):
"Oh my. I hope you get those taken care of. I'd hate for something to happen to Angel."
"That's why I'm here, sugar. To figure out what to do about the undead comin' round the farm."
(I liked that line.)
Rainbow notices AJ's sudden interest in vampones plus breathing on her neck earlier, and thinks that AJ is the vampony.
The garlic doesn't affect FS. AJ decides to go to Rarity to source some silver jewelry. Rarity wants to know why AJ wants a necklace all of a sudden. AJ makes up something about wanting to look fancy. Rarity hears what she wants to hear, and AJ gets the full makeover, and also a mirror.
The silver has no effect on poor FS. AJ walks away, but finds that Fluttershy indeed doesn't have a reflection.
AJ decides that, well, Fluttershy is still her friend, vampony or no. Then Apple Bloom gets bit.
Applejack storms to the spa (where TS, PP, Rarity, and FS are) and confronts Fluttershy. Fluttershy has no idea what AJ is talking about. Rarity points out that the mirror is enchanted to only show the pony looking at it. Helps with dressing, you see. AJ half-heartedly flips up Fluttershy's mane... and finds bite marks. FS is as surprised as anypony that she's a vampony. Twilight is ecstatic at the chance to study a real live vampony, and the ponies reluctantly volunteer themselves to be blood donors should FS need them. D'aww.
Rainbow Dash then bursts in with a hammer and stake for some awkwardness.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that the vampire was not Fluttershy. It was Angel.
The entire plot hinged on Applejack telling lies and having secrets, which rubbed me the wrong way, Element of Honesty and all that. Then a particular Season 4 episode put the nail in that coffin. Pun totally intended.
I ended up repurposing "main 6 is an undead" into Rainbownomicon.
I've got one more, but that'll be another post; it's pretty long.
But... the second one was gold! How could you?!