What follows is a very convoluted, pretentious, and insultingly long blog post.

The tl;dr version: I did not write the fanfic Anno Domini, Chromosome did. On the same day that Anno Domini was posted, the story I did write--"I Met a Pony In Hell (And We Kicked Ass Together)"--was uploaded to Chromosome's author page, under his name. This was part of an exercise conducted by a clandestine group of writers with like-minded interests, The League of Extraordinary Gentlecolts, of which I am also a member.

On July 24th, 2012, this was posted:

It is a 8,891 word fanfic about a human survivor of a horrible nuclear war who--after magically witnessing the death of his family--is then hired by Discord to be the means of sewing chaos and death in the future land of Equestria. It is a hauntingly gorgeous story written with apocalyptic world-building, masterful science-fiction overtones, a poetic balance of beauty and violence that achieves a wonderful pathos, and finally an open-ended declaration of human's violent legacy.

As of this blog post, two and a half weeks since its initial exposure to Fimfiction.net, Anno Domini has received a total of 4,977 hits. It's been upvoted 678 times, as opposed to 28 thumb's down. It has received 295 comments, several of them extensive, thoughtful, and even philosophical. The fanfic has enjoyed a number one spot in the Fimfiction feature box for at least three days in a row, and it has lasted on the top of the popularity board of the website for even longer. During this time, it has been put on the favorite lists of 814 separate users.

Overall, Anno Domini has been a large success of a fanfic, read and lavished upon by many.

It's a shame that I didn't write it.

What I did write was this:

Posted on the same day and approximately six hours before, "I Met a Pony In Hell" is a 40,188 word long HiE fanfic about a snarky protagonist and his bloody survival adventures with Lyra, Applejack, and another human in the subterranean gladiator corridors of Tartarus. It's a very kaizo story, with lots of language, violence, attempts at witty humor, and a veiled delivery of intimate friendship within a grimdark environment.

As of writing this, "I Met a Pony In Hell" has gotten 1,456 total hits. It's been upvoted 37 times, and given only one thumb's down. It's received 23 comments, most of them positive, but at least three of them dismissive. In its first day of submission, it climbed approximately 1/4 up the popularity bar of Fimfiction.net, and then was never seen from again. Since the initial date, it has become the favorite of 46 separate readers.

What you're witnessing here is the result of a secretive switcheroo, a joint operation of two authors who agreed to do one thing: write a story with a general prompt (Humans in Equestria) and upload their own work under the other writer's name. The outcome of this "experiment" is interesting, to say the least. And while the statistics that both fanfics received were hugely disparate, this was not something that Chromosome and I did on our lonesome. There were several others involved, approximately twenty-four individuals. This was meant to be a joint project between several like-minded lemurs who populate Fimfiction.net. I speak of the secret group known as the "Extraordinary League of Gentlecolts." You might have possibly recognized the watermark of the group's logo blanketing various profiles across the website:

Perhaps a little tale is in order.

Over four weeks ago, I was flailing around on the Internet one night when I got a message from Wanderer D. He's a swell guy, and he's been commenting on End of Ponies for almost a year now. If you don't know him from his stories, then perhaps you're familiar with his creative and poignant blog posts on Fimfiction.net's main page.

Wanderer D contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part of some secret project. Being slightly impulsive in my brony mania, I said "sh00r" and joined him on Skype. I was then invited into a pocket chat room within the bowels of the Internet, joined by over a dozen other giggling authors who were all coming together to perform the craziest of fanfiction exercises. Not only were we formulating a secret gang, but we set out upon a clandestine exercise: to gather in pairs and write similar stories and then swap them under each other's names. Such pairings weren't going to be one hundred percent random, however. The idea was to match up authors with opposing numbers of subscribers to their Fimfiction page (i.e. those with few subscribers to those with many subscribers). The goal of the exercise was to expose the fallacious nature of Fimfiction's popularity boards, or to highlight the manner in which becoming famous on Fimfiction is indicative of numbers and not of perceived writing talent.

I was intrigued by the League's plan when I joined it. Personally, I wasn't all that convinced of the aim of the exercise. I am, after all, a literary whore, and I very much like to preserve the relatively large number of subscribers I have. At the time I joined the League, I had 982 subscribers. The number's jumped since then, but more on that later.

What fascinated me was this opportunity I had to be part of something brash, exciting, and deliciously sexy. I had already partaken in a ponychan write-off, and though I didn't come in first place with that undertaking, it was still a very fun and rewarding experience. I felt that joining and working with the League would be a chance to make myself better known, to brush elbows with other cool and creative brony writers, and to maybe even test the mettle of my very own writing under the masquerade of a lesser-known author's name.

And these were certainly some nifty marsupials I had fallen into the laps of: Wanderer D, Obselescence, Pen Stroke, Sleepless Pony, Blueshift, Kits, Cold in Gardez, Gravekeeper, Butterscotch Sundae, and the list goes on. Not all of us were hugely popular authors with gargantuan subscriber counts either. Many were simply writers who liked to write for the sake of writing, regardless of their popularity. Many are those who wrote legitimately awesome stuff, but haven't yet gotten the same exposure as others. I wasn't part of the induction process with the League, but the whole thing struck me as relatively subjective. I cannot emphasize any more how this was all about "like-minded" individuals, and wasn't meant to capture the entire demographic of Fimfiction writers as a whole.

There were simple rules made for this exercise:
-we would be paired up with an author with opposing subscriber counts
-we'd have to pick a similar prompt, either featuring the same themes or the same characters
-we'd have to insert somewhere in the story's narrative the silly phrase "Nothing is as it seems" (it was Pen Stroke's idea, and it was genius)
-we'd have to post on the same day together before the deadline
-we'd not come public about the whole switcheroo until a second date chosen after the upload deadline

Then, once the veil had been lifted, we'd have our stories swapped back to their respective authors (much thanks to Wanderer D himself) and we'd have a chance to not only explain ourselves to the public but see if the experiment produced any results. Would Fimfiction's popularity boards favor only the established authors? Would the lesser-known authors be trounced in the dust even though more popular writers submitted their works under such obscure names? Would the quality and style of various authors' writing bleed through the surface and make reviewers catch on? Would the status quo be maintained by blind reviews or exposed by critical anlysis?

All of these were fascinating questions, however I wasn't asking any of them at the time. For better or for worse, I had some hideous tunnel vision. I wanted to show off in front of all of these League members that not only could I rise to the occasion, but I could so epically. I didn't have a clue who my fellow author would be, or what kind of a prompt we'd come up with. The possibilities were endless, and my typing fingers were itchy. I was pumped.

Imagine my joy when I was fatefully paired up with none other than Chromosome. There's one really sexy marsupial. The two of us had chatted before, sharing conversations over private messages within the dusty corridors of Fimfiction. He told me that he both loved and hated the first chapter of Background Pony when I uploaded it. Curious, I glanced at what he had done on EqD, and I read the amazing story "White Box." I was flabbergasted, for not only had I been given a tasteful comment but the author himself had submitted a super-crazy-awesome story, and totally just as tasteful as his comments too. I told him that the fanfic deserved more attention, and suggested he upload it to Fimfiction in spite of the site's inability to work with his relatively artsy-fartsy color scheming. A week or two later, Chromosome eventually did upload White Box to fimfiction. Correlation? You be the judge.

At the time we joined the League, Chromosome had only 305 subscribers, almost 600 less than I did. I didn't find it all too surprising. He's a damn good writer, but he doesn't spout out words like a minigun. I figured that if he wrote something under my name, my faithful regulars would be amazed at how much my writing and vocabulary had improved. I tried not to put much thought into that, though, cuz I was eager to write.

Then Chromosome proposed a prompt, something to the extent of: "I've always wanted to write a Human in Equestria story, but do it RIGHT." And I was all like "MEH," and sort of put him and his idea under ice like the whiny bitch I was. HiE is the cancer of Fimfiction, after all. I was scared that if a HiE story appeared under my profile, despite it being a joint, experimental venture, it would totally Terry Schiavo my subscriber count.

So, like I do whenever it comes time to think up spontaneously brilliant stories, I took a shower. I remembered a HiE fic idea that I had actually stowed away in the cesspool of my mind, and I thought, "Well, hell, that sounds like fun." And so I poked Chromosome the next day, going, "I changed my mind, bro. Please, can I stop sleeping on the couch?" He told me about his idea. It sounded really serious, provocative, and dark. I told him about my idea, and it was really stupid, silly, and laughable. Regardless, we shook tentacles across the digital expanse and set apart on our individual projects.

And in a week and a half, forty thousand words later, I was done. And Chromosome--Nietzsche love him--was still catching up with maybe 3k words. Don't get me wrong, he was pumped to do the project like me. I had read a rough draft of part of his story and was already complimenting him on the details and vocabulary. It's just that not every brony on this planet is the psychotic typing moron like me. Many people have lives. I have next to zero friends and a lot of Doctor Pepper. I write fast; it can't be helped.

Perhaps being my siamese twin for a few weeks affected him. Whatever the case, Chromosome went into high gear. He too finished, and after a brief wait on my behalf we had our contribution to the League's experiment on hand. All this time, I only residually paid attention to the rest of the group. I frequented the Skype chat, but only glanced at it here or there. I simply assumed that they were working just as feverishly as Chromosome and myself. The deadline was about a week away, and I figured that it had come down to crunch time.

On July 24th, dealing with a few communication issues and multiple time zones, Chromosome and I became the first in the League to upload our works. "I Met a Pony In Hell" went up first. I was awake in the early morning long enough to witness the results of my fanfic under Chromosome's name. And when I say "results," I truly exaggerate. There were no more than five comments and a light smathering of upvotes. So I was like, "Well, okay. Give it time, I guess." And after submitting Chromosome's Anno Domini, I turned the computer off and went to my job. When I came back home that evening, not only was "Anno Domini" uploaded under my name, but it had over 170 mother fucking notifications waiting for me.

Ever had a moment of panic when you're caught in a cold sweat and there's not enough blood in your brain to fuel the neurons into firing a simple message such as "Oh shit"?

I figured that Anno Domini would do well for itself. However, nowhere in my adult mind did I bother to comprehend just how well it could possibly do. The thing shot up the popularity board like a lightning bolt. There were upvotes by the shitload. I got private messages, comments on my user page, all praising me for yet another wonderful, epic, thought-provoking story... that I didn't write. People were saying that they "expected no less of me" or calling me the "epitome of grimdark writers" or something. I'm not entirely sure anymore. About twelve hours in, I stopped reading the comments to the story altogether. There was way too much of them, and looking at a single one felt like I was urinating into a kitten's hungry mouth.

I felt awful. I felt worse than awful. I felt like awful that had just carpet-bombed a village full of squirrels and didn't even have the decency to dramatize the awful event with Martin Sheen. I felt awful for creating such a huge and glaring lie to my 900+ watchers. I felt awful for keeping secret about an utter fabrication that bore a burning hole into Fimfiction's main page. I felt awful that my immature cerebrum had been too infatuated with my HiE Lyra story that I never bothered to stop and predict that something stupid like this was going to happen.

Most of all, though, I felt awful for Chromosome. I was essentially dancing around naked across the golden stage of Fimfiction, masquerading around with his very own story glistening upon my crown. When Anno Domini posted, my author name had 1020 subscribers. Right now as I write this, I am sitting at over 1300. That's at least 280 subscribers that Chromosome himself earned with the popularity of Anno Domini... and yet he didn't earn them. I got them, because the story was under my name. How many subscribers did Chromosome get from my woefully kaizo Lyra fanfic? When the League formed, he was sitting on 305 watchers. Right now, he only has 327 subscribers. That's right, in the time that I've leeched nearly three hundred new watchers from his hard, throbbing diction, the true author of Anno Domini has only earned himself 22 new faithfuls. No matter how you shake it, he was robbed of the attention that he deserved. Chromosome was robbed.

It doesn't help that the story I posted under his name looks like a total trollfic. I mean, just look at the pitiful thing. I swear to Allah, I wrote it with the best of intentions. I didn't mean to create a trollfic. Yes, the style and tone of the fic sort of ran away from me as I produced "I Met a Pony In Hell," but I was simply enjoying the fuck out of myself. I've long wanted to write something more light-hearted, more comedic, more adventurous without being fettered by the chains and shackles of sadness and emotional gravity. I endeavored to make a story that was entertaining, that could live up to my own author name, that I wouldn't mind sharing in the future once the whole veil had been lifted. It was a story that--in any other circumstance--I would not have had the impetus to write, and so I made the best of it and seriousness be damned. In the end, though, it comes across as a joke. Maybe if I had written something with the grim solemnity to match Anno Domini, it would have made for a more sound experiment. However, as it stands, it almost looks like I was trying to sabotage Chromosome's side of the equation with my own story, and I swear that was not the case. I simply wrote what I had fun writing. It was probably not the best time for double-experimentation on my part, because regardless of merit, his upload got him only a paltry reaction compared to the fucking crazy success of Anno Domini.

That said, Anno Domini is still a better story in every regard. It's shorter. It's more precise. It's brutal. It's provocative. It's beautifuly written and tearjerking. It challenges the opinions of readers and it makes them think about the juxtaposition of human depravity and MLP's innocence. It was also accomplished under far greater duress than my story. "I Met a Pony In Hell" was written sporadically in the comfort of my own garage over the course of several nights. Chromosome had to deal with a haphazard vacation, blurring time zones, jet lag, and a horribly annoying head cold. But, in the end, he limped through all of that mess and sang forth a masterpiece.

What does my story do? It hacks apart orcs, spits out cuss words, and screams out loud what Background Pony has been redundantly doing for the last 200,000-odd pages of its masturbatory pretense: "Lyra is best pony!"

When Anno Domini finally made the top of the feature box (what did it oust again? something about menstruating stallion uncles? meh, I dunno) and then stayed there for days on end, I was at the breaking point of sanity. There were only three and a half days until the League's submission deadline of July 28th, and I could barely wait for Wanderer D to lift the veil so I could come clean of my crimes already. I was slightly solaced by the fact that I wasn't alone in this endeavor. I mean, surely other authors were experiencing the same craziness with their own submissions, right?

And then I went to check on the chat board and I noticed a disturbing pattern. I did some further snooping around, and my fears were confirmed. Sure enough, Chromosome and I weren't just the first to upload our stories, we were the only ones. The idea, you see, was for the League members to submit "at their own pace" by July 28th. And my fellow marsupials should know that "my own pace" to me means churning up a lopsided Stephen King novella in a fortnight. However, there we all were, just four days from the deadline... then three... then two... and still Chromosome and I were the only ones who had posted. I had hoped that if shit hit the fan, I could fall back on the revelation of the League and go "Hey, we weren't the only ones! Point your angry fingers at the whole of us, thou confused and enraged marsupials!" And yet it got to the point where we were within 36 hours of the deadline and, out of twenty-four well respected and established authors, only two of them had bothered to deliver on time, if even early. I couldn't help but feel that Chromosome and I had become two lone assholes in a sea of vaginas.

Needless to say, shorts skirts and explosions entered into super-angry-bitch mode. I barked at Wanderer in chat. I rambled in incoherent fury to my friends. I even yanked the hapless souls of my beloved group of editors and pals... aka Spanish Announce Table Goes First... and forced them to endure two hours of me rambling and wailing like a hysterical creature in Steam chat.

Instead of slitting my throat like they should have done, they simply smiled, nodded, and told me to chill the fuck out, that I was overreacting, that since this was all a joint experiment and would eventually get revealed, that the best thing to do was to sit on it. They helped me make wise decisions. For example, I had imagined posting a one-shot or two around the time of Background Pony Chapter 13's upload, to make up for a lack of updates, but I was afraid that such would be a bad idea because it would essentially be riding the coattails of the fresh popularity that Chromosome had recently granted me. After digesting their advice, I decided not to do that. There is no adequate list to summarize the degree to which I owe these kindly marsupials with whom I've made pleasant company. They are not only just pre-readers and editors, they are dang good friends.

Eventually, I did calm down. And Wanderer D--bless his heart--ultimately had to bend the rules and aspirations of the League in order to accomodate for real people with real lives with real barricades against the process of expediently executing an experiment in colorful, girly, pony literature.

So it was that the deadline got pushed ahead. And others did indeed start submitting their mutual works in droves, albeit belatedly. AestheticB and Arcainum did their schtick on July 29th, Fenix and Ciroton submitted on August 1st, and August 4th saw the stories of Obselesence and Butterscotch Sundae, and even Wanderer D and Norse Pony and others. I really must give Wanderer credit for dealing with a lot of last second flatulence. I do not envy his task, nor the difficulties that must come with both swapping our stories back and representing the League as a whole within the span of a day. He's been monumentally considerate of my feelings--as bitchy as they were for a while--and I thank him for that.

I've only given bare glances to the others' works in this exercise. But I'm willing to guess that none of them will yield results as dramatic nor as kaizo as the upload that Chromosome and I did over a week before most everyone else. Part of this, I think, is due to the huge gap between the quantity of my watchers and Chromosome's. Also, fate would have it that half a week before the League executed their plan, the Feature Box was dramatically changed in such a way to give more stories proper exposure. This would be only half as ironic if the group had uploaded on the 28th of July as originally planned three full weeks before, but... hey... you can't change the past.

And in the end, Anno Domini is a good story that got a good reaction. It's a fantastic fic, and regardless of whose author name it's under, all of its applause, criticism, and lavishing has been well earned.

Right?

I mean........... right?

Let's take a careful look at this for a moment.

A random fimfic author writes something like Anno Domini. It's got descriptive language. It's got an immense well of vocabulary. It has a story that is engaging and mysterious. It never tells anything to the reader. Instead, it shows them a desolate world and forces the reader to ask questions, questions that lead them through a journey much like Hayden Sparks is fished along throughout the entire fic. Discord appears, and he does what Discord does, but he does it with a haunting, ethereal presence. You hardly ever see him. You hear his words like those of a whispery spectre, infesting the dusty fragments of a civilization blown to ass. He exposes the narrator to a vision of his dying family and tears him to the very core, all the while the protagonist is haunted by sporadic snapshots of a mission gone to hell, a deliberate foreshadowing to the cause of the horrible catastrophe that now defines Hayden's existence in the first place. Then, once the hammer has fallen, and every solid tooth is kicked down the throat of both the main character and the marsupials observing his life turning to shambles, Discord capitalizes upon the epiphany of horror, and sends his good and faithful servant forth through time to commit an atrocity upon the innocent realm of ponydom that we all know and love, embolstered by a command that epitomizes the cynical beauty of the fanfic in one chilling, final line: "Bring them war."

This is a good story. This is a damn good story. It's a story that is worth the time and effort to read, because the payoff is short, bleak, but thought-provoking. It beckons commenters to engage in philosophical and sociological debate. It makes people think outside the shell of themselves and the cartoon show that brought them there. It maybe even--dare I say it?--accomplishes what the fic was always meant to do, and that's bring justice to the very essence of the abysmal HiE genre.

Now let's say that the random fimfic author who writes this makes it his debut fic. So it pops up on the front page of Fimfiction. So it has a Latin name. So it has an impressionistic skull thingy for its cover art. So it has a minimalistic story synopsis that daringly excludes a single mention of ponies.

"So what? It was written by Joe Schmoe. I don't know Joe Schmoe. Who is this marsupial? What has he written? What? Nothing? Bah. This is probably a troll fic. Just what Fimfiction needs, another worthless HiE story. I'm moving on to read more about Princess Celestia in heat or Twilight Sparkle screwing up a magic spell or Rainbow Dash being reunited with her 'father' for the millionth goddam time."

But then, let's say the random author happens to have nearly 1k subscribers. Let's say the author has a regular blog that gets hit with nearly 50 comments on each upload. Let's say the author has a huge, unfinished, but competently written epic under his belt. Let's say the author has a spectacular hit, something that has shared the heights with the likes of Eternal and Allegrezza and Anthropology and It Takes a Village and Through the Eyes of Another Pony. Let's say the author writes on a regular basis, shares words with his marsupials, creates a public image, and has ultimately built for himself an island in the ocean of MLP literary popularity.

"Huh? A skull? Oh, it was written by THAT guy! Oh, I like that guy! Huh? Human in Equestria? Well, that's different. What's this? Mech suits and a burnt-out city? Well, this is really wyrd and out there... but I'm gonna give it a go. After all, this guy has written stuff I've read in the past, and it was okay. This should be good as well. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt....... Whoah! What an ending! I'm glad I didn't put this down! Once again, he delivers in the genre of sad fics and grim dark! Who could have expected any less?"

The ghostly semblance of a point that I'm trying to make here, admittedly, crumbles the very instance we all remember that the veil was ultimately thrown over the eyes of you, the reading marsupial alumni. I don't know about the rest of the League, but I question the legitimacy of an experiment's point when the reading audience has been completely deceived to by an utter fabrication. And yet, this deserves some thought.

If Anno Domini was posted under Chromosome, an author with seven hundred fewer subscribers than me, an author who--though he's a fantastic wordsmith--only posts occasionally and blogs at just as seldom a pace, an author who has not written Background Pony--an utter tumor of popular phenomenoa--to add weight to his repertoire... would he have gotten as good a reaction?

I can't honestly say what would have happened. Life doesn't work that way, after all. But I can pretend to predict things, at least. I predict that he would have gotten several hits. I predict that the fanfic's image and the cryptic description at least would have gotten his story at least halfway up the popularity board on the main page for a spell. But would Anno Domini had hit the feature box? The top of the feature box? For so many days? Garnering thousands of hits and hundreds of favorites?

No. No, it wouldn't have had such success. Feel free to argue me on the contrary, but I want a dayum good argument if you do.

So what, then? Does that make Anno Domini any less of a good fic? Go and look at some of the comments it got. Go and look at those courteous readers who took the time to say things like “That was simply amazing” or “you bet your ass I'm following this” or “You sir... are the greatest writer in the universe...” or “Absolutely perfect. A masterwork of prose, and of literature.” (To those marsupials whose words I've just stolen, I apologize, especially since you didn't know the truth at the time.)

Would such complimentary comments have made it to Chromosome's story if he posted under normal circumstances? Would so many obviously wowed and floored readers have had a chance to experience Anno Domini stumbling upon their collective consciousness? Would so many people have added this story to their favorites list, a gesture of admiration for what they had just read?

Yes, there were negative comments, most of them complaining about the psuedo-science employed in the story or the incomplete nature of the fic's final delivery. Then, there were also posts upon posts of cyclical arguments between readers, inane photographs of Fallout screenshots or mechsuits, and the occasional yahoo showing up to spout out nonsense--as is apt to occur on a story that hits the feature box and then snowballs into megapopularity. I would argue that at least eighty percent of the commenting audience spent their time praising the story, even in spite of its flaws.

And believe me, there were flaws. I spotted occasional grammar flubs myself and I felt that the story--albeit fantastic--gave off the sensation of an original work of fiction rather than a full blown pony fic. I wonder, though, if there would be more negative comments, more critical and scathing reviews, more challenging arguments if Anno Domini wasn't posted under shorts skirts and explosions, but instead under the name of a less popular individual who didn't have the bias built by his prior, literary successes to sway marsupials' reaction into a moreover positive light.

But, I believe the overall consensus remains, in spite of the nature of this experiment. Anno Domini is good. And the author who wrote it, Chromosome, is more than capable of passing himself off as me. As a matter of fact, he surpasses me, and he rightly deserves the sort of attention that Anno Domini received.

Just who is Chromosome? Would you like to know? Did you enjoy Anno Domini and would enjoy more of the same?

Then go to his page. Peruse his page. Subscribe to his page. Bask in the awesomeness of a guy who knows the fine art of pacing, world-building, of threading readers through a yarn of drama and mystery like Discord fished Hayden Sparks through the rubble of civilization.

Go and read Cutie Mark Crusaders: Foal Laborers, a gem of a little story that made me laugh out loud several times. It's a monument to the impulsively written contest entry, indicative of Chromosome's dark humor and wittiniess. Also, it features Fluttershy's day job. Doesn't that just make you itch? Go forth and devour.

Then, once you're done with that, go and read Chromosome's magnum opus, White Box, the veritable Citizen Kane of MLP fanfiction. This is the story that made me realize what an awesome guy Chromosome is, that he can think with such imaginative scope, that he can paint a canvas in your mind with words and letters and drama. For a real treat, read his Equestria Daily upload of the fic, and see how the use of color scheme can enliven a story in such a way to put Background Pony to shame. Chromosome himself has said that his writing is the very definition of pretense, and seemingly White Box is a prime example. But, you know what? Pretense is nothing less than a bold device of art, and this is no more obvious than in White Box. Because it's a beautiful story, a transformative story, a story that makes us question everything at every turn, a story that puts Twilight Sparkle in a new and more respectable light for me, a story that has a haunting ending that makes Anno Domini look like a sunny frolic through the park. It's the story that put Chromosome on the map, even if it's a smaller chunk of the map than I've been lucky enough to share, and if anyone should check out his work, White Box is the essentialist piece of his creation.

And finally, when you have an afternoon for yourself, and you want to be moved by truly brilliant fiction, go and read Air. Go and read it and comment on it and praise it and make sweet love to it, so that Chromosome can finish it, and the MLP fandom can enjoy what is undoubtedly the finest Grimdark piece of wordsmithery in recent history. Yes, it's a crossover fic, but don't let that fool you. The characters in it are totally canonical, and the backstory is dense with emotion, drama, tension, suspension, and beauty. The action scenes are gorgeous, the fight scenes mesmerizing. When bad shit happens, bad shit happens. When tender stuff happens, even my nihilistic heartstrings are tugged. The world is built piece by piece, thread by thread, and never hamfisted down our throats. We're led through the narrative, enticed into asking more and more desperate questions, until we feel so badly for the heroes that any little nick or scratch they suffer makes us wince inside and out. This story is fantastic. It's wonderfully framed. It has all of the necessary devices of character development, and yet they're delivered so perfectly. Indulging in this story makes me miss the early days of writing End of Ponies, when I was putting together something that I knew in my heart was good, just as I knew in my soul how electrifyingly awesome Air was as I read it. It needs to be finished. Go, read it, love it, and tell Chromosome that the goddam thing needs to be finished. World Peace if a basketball player. Fossil Fuels will run out no matter what we do. The Sun will devour the Earth and the Universe is constantly expanding. Air needs to be finished, and it's just waiting for the right audience to give it the respect and attention it so rightfully deserves, but has been sadly missing because it sits on the side of an abandoned skyscraper on the outer fringes of Fimfiction's tunnel visioned spotlight.

And once you are done exploring the amazing horizons of Chromosome's literature, maybe--just maybe--you will be willing to come back to me afterwards. Because regardless of how all of this has blown over, I owe you all an immense apology.

Nobody would have gone into the League and its experiment without logically expecting some sort of consequences in the long run. The truth is, I just didn't care. I wrote and I wrote and I giggled like a schoolboy because I was simply whoring myself out, wanting attention from readers, authors, and fellow peers. In a way, that's how it's always been with my work, and it's probably only going to get worse. Most of the members of the League will likely denounce obsession with fame on websites like Fimfiction.net. Me? I'm different. I like to see myself filling a very obscure niche, reserved for psychotic individuals who not only write popular fanfics, but fanfics that are both popular and good.

And what are the odds that I can accomplish such a thing? The very notion is arrogant, to believe that I can be both famous and good. Is it truly healthy to think that way? I suppose one can be sick enough with himself, if he can live with it, if it brings him contentment or even digestible complacency.

Over the past few months, as I've gotten more popular, I can't shake the fact that I'm not the good writer I used to be--assuming I was ever a good writer at all. A manic, wordy one? Sh00r.

The next question, I have to ask myself. "Would 'I Met a Pony In Hell' be so successful, so loved, so critically admired and challenged and respected and hated all at once if it was posted originally under my name?" The fact of the matter is, I hardly think that way anymore. I think now in numbers, in upvotes, in hits and chapter hits and favorites and feature box displays.

The simple answer is--No, I don't think that my HiE story would have done as well as Anno Domini. Anno Domini is still the superior story, and it made far greater use out of the springboard of my subscriber base than "I Met a Pony In Hell" ever could. It doesn't really matter much to me what the League gets from this. What I've learned is that I've lost something. Anno Domini is the biggest success since chapter 1 of Background Pony. None of the stuff I've written since then has made the cut or has given me nearly as many subscribers in one Larry Bird toss. After obsessing over popularity so much, it took a masterful story that I didn't write to accomplish my aspirations for me.

That puts the image of my works in a newer, grayer light. What am I truly writing for these days? What am I accomplishing, if not quality fiction? Is it truly all for popularity? Would I be okay with that? When entropy does what entropy does, and the collective obsession of the brony community fades like a dying star, will the floor have been swept out from under me? For I will have invested all of my creativity, madness, libido, and talent into one singular act: squatting before a keyboard in the dark and pretending in my head that this desperate, lifeless manchild is really something akin to talented, literary icon.

I don't know. I'm not a clever lemur. I enjoy writing, and so I'll continue doing it. I like playing Chun-Li, after all. High kicks or get the fuck out.

But aside from writing, I enjoy attempting to impress, woo, and entertain marsupials like you all. And I am not proud of having deceived the whole lot of you. Again, it's easy to say that I'm sorry, but I went into this League thing knowing that I would be allowing a facade to take advantage of your gracious attention.

Regardless, I apologize. I apologize to those of you who may feel like you've been wronged. I apologize to those of you who may feel insulted, or may feel as if I've attacked your intelligence and good nature. I apologize to those who have trusted me, favorited me, and looked forward to my works over the past several months.

If it's any consolation, I promise that I won't engage in a deceptive experiment like this again, League or no League. I do have a "secret" penname elsewhere on this site, but his literature has nothing to do with this situation, and I may or may not reveal him when the time comes.

For the time being, I will continue to do what I do, because it is very much the fabric of my life right now. I suspect Background Pony Chapter 14 will be uploaded in two weeks' time, for those of you lucid enough to see the story for all its flaws and yet still wish to read it. I've entered another ponychan contest recently, and I'll be sure to post the failing entry on the site a month from now. I'm also working on a collection of unrelated one-shots for something that I'm calling "L-Day," which currently has no date but is bound to transpire by the end of August.

So, long story short, I'm still in this thing. And if any of you marsupials are willing to read my drivel beyond this scenario, I invite you with humility and respect. Just be sure to check out Chromosome's work as well, and don't be afraid to give more random fanfics on the site a deeper look, because you'll never know just what may surprise, alarm, or enthrall you. We all start as dust mites on the hairy back of the World Wide Web at some point or another. Let's let snowballs take place naturally, f'naaa?

-SS&E