LOPE: PAP Players.

I previously did an in universe summary of a story I am quite fond of. One in which no two bodies coming out of limbo ever will show indication of being blood relatives, not even if the two were maternal twins before. Everybody is either reliant on thaumic energy to live lest they become mortally ill in its absence, or they are adverse to it, and will get their brains cooked if exposed. Only five people in the entire world can live and thrive in both environments, with thaumic power and without. Below is an exhaustive list of the players involved in this tale.

(1) An anonymous mare who used to be a man whose name starts with an "A". She does everything in her power to avoid talking about that, and forces her manhood into the back of her mind like it's not important. Naturally, becoming a mare wasn't what she had in mind, and would alter this if she had control over it. Eventually, she is forced into an awkward position where the truth is revealed, and she doesn't like what she sees. Being genetically erased from existence is hardly something most of us desire, and being stripped of your body, home, family, lifestyle, and everybody you ever knew, straight into a world where there's no one around, or everyone's a stranger, maintaining only your mindset and memories, and with no notice whatever, you'd naturally be pissed. Furious that she wasn't given notice nor consent, the big "A" made a hasty decision she would have to pay for forever, thanks in no small part to the fact that Celestia gave her many warnings that she wouldn't like the results of her decision, and once it's made, it cannot be revoked. Yet she failed to explain how they were doing this to her, and what the full consequences would be. After turning down dozens of chances to back out, "A" made a decision that resulted in her becoming a live embodiment of sentient life on and from Earth. Much like Celestia is spiritually bound to the sun, and her sister is to her, and they will live so long as it remains and eventually die when the inevitable supernova happens, and two others are bound to virtues, one to companionship and togetherness, tasked with helping lonely ponies out and the other romance and affection, bound to provide marriage counseling and save failing relationships, never to die till there are no more people to assist in those departments, The Big "A" has become the tether to sapient life on Earth and from Earth. So long as sufficiently intelligent life remains on earth or has origins there, hominid and equine and avian alike, she will not go away for good, and it's her job to make sure they don't go extinct. And now she has to live with it due to her angry fit, something she wouldn't endure had she kept a cool head.

(2) A shy filly who seems afraid of just about everything and everyone. She goes by Sky, but she doesn't give out her original name or give details about her family or anything about her original life, only that she's glad they all vanished and she can start anew. New body, new name, new memories, put-the-past-behind-her. Whatever happened, it's plain to see she never knew anyone who was kind to her, and thought of most people outside of her household as strangers who know nothing about her or her plight, giving her a less than stellar opinion of her own kind. She won't ever give out info on her pre vanishing life. Her opinion on people changes with the next seven people she meets, including and especially big "A", as they all treated her with kindness or neutrality, "A" being the first to ever be nice to her. Her outlook on people changed because of her.

(3) WL, a unicorn mare with purple hair and purple eyes, and later, a fractured horn, would spend most of her story with a severe disability because of this, caused by her circumstances when she was teleported days into the future. Her precarious circumstance fractured her horn, leaving her with a dangerous shard that could wreak havoc if she's not carful, and almost killed one of her friends. She would not only overcome this disability, but go on to become the greatest sorceress on earth. When WL came to, she realized already she was much smaller when she reappeared, but never got to look at herself. Staring at herself in the mirror, she asks a question to reaffirm what she already knows: "I'm a mare, aren't I?" to which "A" and Sky both respond immediately by nodding their heads and saying "Yep." WL instantly reacts to this by freezing all over, remaining completely motionless for several minutes. When she finally moved again, she took her eyes away from the mirror and took a step outside for some fresh air. There would continue to be numerous implications that she was either a man or a woman with identity issues, such as a transvestite, a tomboy, androgynous or hermaphroditic. None of these are ever officially confirmed or ruled out, but one of them is clearly the case. Ultimately, her biggest complaint was the quick realization that she was going to face estrus, something she would never have as a human, and that would be torture. Like "A", she was pissed the Equestrians didn't ask for consent, or give any kind of notice what they were going to do. She is more openly vocal about missing her home and her family, neither of which she will ever see again, indicating that she loved them dearly. Had she come back minutes later and "A" came back days later, WL would be the one bound to keep intelligent life away from extinction. Ironically, she who had the best opinion about people, got on best with Sky who had the worst outlook on them. The one who hated her situation most, and the one who loved it most had the least conflict between any given two characters. Eventually WL got herself a clotfriend who she fell deeply in love with, and their relationship ends up being the only one that lasted till death. Whatever she was, her preference has clearly not been altered; she liked men. She also ends up being the only parent from their group who was demonstrably a good parent to her children, specifically, a good mother to her son, who along with her fiancé, become her whole reason to live, along with giving magic lessons. Once permanently settled in a home and an established family, she began making it crystal clear that she will do everything she can to maintain her human identity, which she does by two things: 1) She always introduces herself by her real name, her original name, only using her nickname composed from common words with her tightest circle of friends, and.. 2) Only walking around Au Naturale within the confines of her house, always having a dress on whenever she leaves the place, and never taking it off until she gets home. To be seen without a dress is to shame her human self.

(4) A mysterious stallion who is very aloof, and has narrow sights confined strictly to information relays and codes, and has little patience for anything else. So pious with electronics is he that he never even cooked anything in his life, he never drove, and he never even had a relationship with anyone, which all add up to the big "A" thinking that he is a loser, to which he would respond that cryptology, binary codes, and communication highways are more important than sex, automobiles, and cooking. She would eventually force him to do all of these things, and not allow him to back out, determined to change his mind, and she succeeded. His mind did change, but his love for solving puzzles would always be his dominant trait.

(5) A surgeon who treats death more like an adversary than a natural part of life makes M*A*S*H 4077's BF Pierce look like an advocate for pro choice and execution. He always considers death to be a cruel bastard, and worships life to unhealthy proportions. Even as a kid, his obsession with life was a hardwired trait of his, and nothing could ever sway him. Never flickering or faltering, never for an instant in his long life tempted to allow death or encourage abstinence, even when he knows it's a lost cause. Nothing could ever sway him away from the medical profession, and his oath was less a requirement than a burning, religious passion. Even when the world was overpopulated, he would never vasectomize a man nor tie a woman's tubes no matter how much they demanded it unless there was no other way to prolong their lives, and he would always feel guilty if he had to. Fortunately, this unconditional passion for the proliferation and preservation of life is useful when civilization has fallen, and they need all the people they can get to rebuild it from the ground up. Even if he knows somebody will try to kill his entire circle of friends, he won't ever leave an enemy to die form wounds or infections, even in his own party's best interest. He got himself in a breeding program where he populated the earth to the best of his powers, and encouraged everypony he knew to have as much sex as possible, and to never hold back. Given his obsession with infinite growth, he would advocate for rape if any fertile filly or colt refused to forfeit their virginity.

(6) An adventurer who always fantasied about living his adventure novels now has the chance to do so thanks to the mass disappearance and quick return of pocketfuls. With a tendency to leap before he looks, always diving headfirst into potentially hazardous situations blindly, he first turns up with a bad injury due to his recklessness. He would continue to be a reckless adventurer till it caught up with him in the end. If any word applies best to him, it's "Drifter", since he goes where the wind takes him, free as a bird.

(7) In a small village up in the Canadian Rockies, a mare who used to be a man, second confirmed one, awoke in the very village she was born and raised in, and lived there her whole life. Upon discovery of total vacancy, the mare, named Sudden Storm, traveled to larger town that was within close range to her home town, in attempt to find supplies at the shopping mall. There, she finds another early returnee who was holed up there first, and so began their band. There, Sudden Storm and four other survivors including the mare she met first made that mall their permanent home and she quickly set up radio equipment which she regularly tune into and send broadcasts in order to reach anyone who may be out there, attracting other survivors who would then settle in the area. Only the first two ponies Sudden Storm met even know her original name, and they have sworn never to tell any pony, and she has put that name behind her, claiming that that man is dead. Rarely does she state or mention she was a man, and it's not common knowledge, and no one makes much deal of it when they do find out. She took it remarkably well, as if being a mare was just another chapter in life, part of growing up (or down, as case may be). No use crying over spilled milk, or over lost assets. Eminently practical. Sudden Storm remains a single mare always, as romance means nothing to her.

(8 & 9) In Vancouver BC, two Canadian ponies who were miraculously lucky were reunited without coming forward in a car, plane, boat, or train, and both coincidentally got genderswaped. Scott Andrews and Jim "Jessie" Miller knew each other before, and by an extremely unlikely chance, came back in the same town on the same day, and found each other after three days solo. Having previously been in a relationship, they rekindle it in the absence of anyone else, and revel in it. Jim knocks up Scott, and they would start a happy family together to commemorate the ones they both lost forever. Scott was and is a carpenter before and after the event happened. During an incident involving being marooned on a neighbor's roof by coyotes, a burst of spontaneous magical energy popped out of Scott's body, causing the roof to collapse, scaring away the coyotes. As the house collapsed in pieces underneath her, Scott waved and flailed her arms falling down with the debris of the house, only to instinctively activate her levitation, slowly deelevating to the ground before hard impact. While walking away from the scene, Scoot looked at the mess, then thought about it. While looking, telekinesis unconsciously rebuilt the entire house from the rubble, bringing it together exactly as it was before. At this moment, a mark appeared on Scott's hip of a sledgehammer smashing a plaster wall. Jessie had the good fortune of always being a forward thinking "Guy", and still was after the fact. Eventually, after many wise decisions that repeatedly led their eventual crew to success, he got a mark on his hip of a camera on a tripod.

(10) Finally, a man in Britain was lucky enough to emerge from limbo in a body that was bipedal and had hands. He spends several days walking through desolated cities in the UK calling out to anyone who might be there to hear him, to no avail. It looks like it is: like everybody vanished without a trace, no sign of a catastrophe. He eventually got to a hangar where he commandeered an airplane and flew across the Atlantic to America where he previously made contact with somebody. As one of those lucky few to arrive minutes after vanishing, he and several others searched the Internet, the Web before it went down for good, seeking recent non automated activity. Finding it, they maintained contact for a week before the connection died for the last time, cutting off during a Skype conversation. Even though he had piloting experience, there'd be so many obstacles to flying to America solo, the lack of detail between his travel across Britain and his escapades Stateside leave it a mystery how he got there.