I have one use for beans. Sometimes I write things that people seem to enjoy. The only uploads you're most likely to ever see from me are completed stories. Never one chapter or arc at a time.
In the shadows of a forgotten realm, one mare trudges onward with music, and a cute little house cat, as her sole companions. Lyra Heartstrings has fought against a dark curse for more than a year, and it's now beginning to take a toll on her mind. Will she be able to keep everything together in light of her choice? Or will the spanning abyss inevitably claim her as one of its own?
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Awesome. I'm a sucker for a happy ending.
Great to see this here Malckeor. You've no doubt polished the fuck out of it, and it's a real treat to see in it's finality. Great work!
Wow I am happy somebody did this. Haven't read it yet.. It has been a while since I've read BP (it's one of my favorites) so I think I will go back and re-read that first beforehand.
As unexpected as this was, I can honestly say that I liked it. Excellent work putting a happy spin on the train wreck of feels.
Another alt ending found! Posted in the comments of the comic's re-uploading
Looks like that one was made sometime around or before September 2013
I'm a sucker for the happy ending, too... and find it much better and less convoluted than 'canon' BGP.
I liked the spirit this was written in, but it tells too much and suffers for it, in my opinion. The overelaborated descriptions of the Matriarch, who hadn't had enough buildup to be worth it, and the whole fourth chapter.
The parts I felt were pretty awesome were the farewell scenes with the Mane 6, though that could have stood to have had more of the ponies that she interacted with in it, and the part where she talks down Aria, though the zombies kind of took away from the emotional tension.
Next, the crying. I feel that the amount of tears in this is quite excessive and makes each individual tear have less of an impact. In the original fanfic, very little actual crying happened - in fact, Lyra giggles when she's talking, quite often, which serves to contrast how horrible her situation is. I'd suggest that she cry just once before the curse is lifted, in the last farewell scene, and then end the story on a second cry when she finds Twilight remembers her.
I hope my constructive criticism helps.
5004547 Believe me, it does. Thank you.
I like it a lot. Very good ending of a great "Background Pony".
So... I happened across this a little while back and thought it would only be right for me to re-read all of Background Pony before giving this a read.
So now that I have... What do I think?
Well... In a lot of ways, I actually like this, and not just because it's a happy ending.
I'll be honest and say that to spite how much I love SS&Es writing, I have a certain distaste for it's ending, but not because the ending was tragic. Heck, I even feel like the decision Lyra made in the canon ending was better than the other options that Princess Aria presented, given the circumstances Lyra found herself in. What I did find unsatisfactory were those particular proposed circumstances, and once again I'll state that It's not because I found it to be too cruel.
Thing is... I found the whole idea that reality would tear itself apart if the Cosmic Matriarch remembered Aria to be plain out dumb and contrived. For all the build up the Matriarch has throughout the fic as something grand and powerful, it feels rather underwhelming to have THAT be the reason for Lyra's curse. Honestly, ever since I read the 19th chapter of Background Pony the first time, I've had my view of the Cosmic Matriarch degenerated to this: A naive child who can't cope with loss.
Now... As realistic as it is to depict a mother's anguish at having given birth to a dead child, it comes across as completely underwhelming given just who the Cosmic Matriarch is. It just feels stupid to me that all of reality could be torn apart just because the Creator is throwing what some might equate to a tantrum.
So erm... Now that I'm done with that tangent. Time to get back to what I thought of this proposed alternate ending.
First off, the writing is quite nice on the whole technical spelling and grammar end. And you ended a large number of the open plot threads quite nicely. I'd say that there are only a few things I can think of that I wish were expanded on a tad bit more, but first I want to address what Authority2 mentioned in that this story as whole was bit excessive on "crying" and perhaps a tad bit too pandering to the folks who wanted a happy ending.
So about the few things I wish had been brought up or expanded on a little more. Honestly, perhaps it's not what a lot of people think of, but I would honestly have liked there to be some more conversing between Lyra and Caramel. I know you did bring it up, but given that Caramel did save Lyra upon the brink of suicide attempt, I was hoping that there would be some more dialogue between them.
Second, I personally can't help but wonder what would become of Lyra's journal. Now that the effects of the curse have been lifted, it would be possible for anypony to read it. Would the journal be kept entirely to herself, only something for her to read? Or would she be willing to share with others her literal story, depicting her struggle against the frigid frosts of Aria's curse, and all the good the endeavored to do, in spite of it all? Granted in your alternate ending, she had done that a number of times by word of mouth. But I imagine that Lyra may have glossed over numerous details in her recounting of it. Having her fellow ponies read the journal she had wrote in the midst of it all, in my opinion at least, some how feels more personal.
Heck, what of Alabaster's Journal? Now that I think of it, I bet Twilight would get a definite kick (to the heart) from reading it.
And one last thing. What about Discord? I actually feel that the set up you have presented here actually presents a much more plausible possibility for Discord to be reformed than his reformation in the actual canon of the show. Perhaps you may not of thought of it, but now that Princess Aria is back in the mortal realm, would it actually make sense for them to free Discord from his stone imprisonment? Would Discord be just as angry as before, given that Aria did banish him from her realm. Or would Aria and Discord's love trump all the hate that had built up in his heart?
All and all, I still feel this alternate ending covered a lot angles and was believable and well written enough to deserve a like, a favorite, and this little review.
5609706 Wow, you've sure given me a lot of thoughts. Heh, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I'd originally wanted to have a written exchange with Caramel, but as the months-long process went on throughout that bittersweet summer that feels like it was a lifetime ago, I began to understand just how much stuff was going to be condensed into the project by the time it reached finality, and it unfortunately wound up getting cut. Along with my doubt at the time that I'd be able to do justice to what would no doubt be an extremely emotion-driven piece of dialogue, I just couldn't find a place to fit the exchange as there were other threads that I felt had much more of an impact on the overall story (Moondancer and Morning Dew come to mind as characters who I felt needed more thread-tying due to how they were handled in the original fic, in contrast with Mayor Mare and Scarlet who were reunited and happy, or Caramel and Wind Whistler who were happily married and didn't speak with Lyra practically at all outside of the second chapter; you could say that Morning Dew was happy with Ambrosia, yes, but the chapter featuring Morning in the original fic was much meatier than the second chapter featuring Caramel; he got so much development through his communication with Lyra that I felt it would be a disservice to NOT give Morning Dew and Ambrosia some kind of explicit exchange with our little unicorn during the party scene), so I opted for a minor mention of an exchange between Lyra and Caramel behind the scenes. Perhaps if I were to revisit the project and restructure a few things, I'd be able to find a place for a full-on exchange; I'm definitely feeling like a much better writer than I was five months ago, but in the words of Edna from The Incredibles, "I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now."
Maybe she did have them read it? She had the journal with her when she met with the musicians during the party, after all. ;)
I'll be honest, I combed the hell out of the original story when I was working on this (I might as well have re-read it two times over it with how many times I went back to study certain passages), and Alabaster's journal seems to have squeezed through my fingers. I never thought to do anything with it, even after re-reading several parts of chapter 11. Crap. Ah well; I probably would have done something small, like have Aria mention featuring a few of his written passages on the monument in Canterlot, or some other equivalent minor mention that doesn't involve disregarding the guy's privacy, but alas, Past Me seems to have overlooked this little thread. Heh.
Well, when I was jotting things down in the trusty notebook early in the process, I thought of it this way: the final two chapters of the original fic were published on the same day as the season 3 premiere if you can believe it, around two months before Keep Calm and Flutter On aired. The "latest" canon event referenced in the fic was the season 2 finale (in the twentieth chapter, when Lyra, IIRC, writes about recognizing Shining Armor's name in the royal wedding's announcement, and later being questioned by guards regarding changelings), and I really liked the premise that I had going with Aria and the Matriarch, so with this being an adaptation of the fanfiction more than the show, I pretty much wound up disregarding all post-season 2 canon entirely when considering the likelihood of inconsistencies with the cartoon itself. As for the later episodes of season 2 following the pageant, I'd imagined Aria either wouldn't be out as much as her sisters due to her nature and persisting social awkwardness in such a relatively short amount of time, or she would more often than not be too busy counseling the dead to partake in ceremonies such as a royal wedding; heck, Luna herself hardly had a presence during the wedding, even when the changelings went berserk, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch. Heh. :P
Regarding Discord's reformation, however, I myself would be able to suspend my disbelief enough to believe that the latter of your hypotheses would be the more likely outcome, if the series were to continue on from this point in the same fashion with Aria present. But that's me.
Anyways, thank you so much for your thoughts and the review, and the favorite of course. It helps a lot to see my work looked at from an outside perspective!
A very enjoyable read, and thank you for sharing it. While a few things were a bit awkward, overall it's a very good tale, and I did like where you diverted the story. A fanfic about a fanfic, but much as I had enjoyed the original, I felt it started wavering around the second half, and was wondering if someone would try to present a different view on how things could've gone.
5760394 Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for your thoughts!
Oh...I haven't finished BP yet , but already checked Internet for alternate happy-ending. And I'm really happy , that I found it , but I'm more sad , because it's not translated on my language , so I can't read it (looks like joke , but it's not cool ;c). I hope one day I will find translation(btw I'm talking about Russian :p)
Brilliant. I bestow upon this tale the highest honor possible for anything... being liked by me.
Just got this linked to me on a Reddit thread, and I'm so glad I did. It's the best alternative ending to BP I've seen. There are some 'off' bits, but I genuinely think you manage to catch the 'Skirts' style of writing. It's a shame more people haven't seen this story.
6211741 Thanks! Wow! My notifications are going a bit nuts at the moment. May I ask that you link the thread in question? I'd like to take a look at what led to its linking and all that, for science. :P
6212782 Here you go . The thread was the mlp subreddit xpost of fallout equestrias subreddit getting SRotD
6213970 Ah. I haven't been on the subreddit lately as I've been busy with my next project and being addicted to Binding of Isaac Rebirth. Thanks for the link, and thanks again for the thoughts! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I think I needed to read this alternate ending, the originals been tearing me up.
Necroposting like a boss...
Thank you. The original ending was, as you said, lacking. The story, the mythos, and the way Skirts put everything together in the buildup was beautiful. But it honestly felt like he ended it in Act 2. Several parts of the "why" Lyra couldn't come back didn't work for me and didn't make sense given what had been previously established. I was hoping someone would reassemble those pieces into the happy ending Lyra deserved.
But you did more than that. You wove an ending that was beautiful, complete, and made me just as emotional as Background Pony did. In my headcanon, Background Pony is act one and two, and Crimson Sunrise is act three of a single great tale. You took a world another had established, with rules, characters, and a mythos, and brought it together in a way that fits perfectly with the original. For that, if nothing else, this is a masterful work of fanfiction.
I can only hope that one day I can write like you can.
6515729 Thank you so much for the kind words! All you've gotta do is keep at it, and you'll see yourself improving drastically in no time. I myself have a lot more to learn and can feel myself improving as we speak as I meticulously write throughout the months between my uploads, heh. The act of doing is super important for improvement, but observing is just as important. Take in as much media as you can from any medium, be it books, games, TV series, animation, etc. and let them inspire you. High literature snobs will try to tell you that you won't get anywhere unless you read snore-fest closed-minded books on writing 24/7, or be considered 'good' unless you experience a specific set of stories (Ulysses, Isaac Asimov, and so on), but while they're no doubt well-written works that are necessary at times, and in increments, literature and fiction is just way too subjective and diverse a medium to be simplified to such a formula; storytelling is so diverse nowadays that you can find incredible works of art just about anywhere. It's about what resonates with you the most.
I personally believe that the only thing 'objective' about creative writing is grammar, but even that is bendable to a degree as Tolkien, for example, has demonstrated in his Middle Earth novels (his editors rewrote 'elvish' to 'elfish' in one of the earliest renditions of Lord of the Rings, but later editions are fixed as Tolkien intended for the words to look as they did with the whole language system he developed). Other people are free to believe what they believe as long as they don't decree their uninformed opinions as 'objective' in order to undermine your own (like an insecure ex-friend of mine recently felt the need to), but nothing is ever set in stone; it doesn't matter if Shakespeare or Asimov or Tolkien said something. Bend it to your will and show everyone your own good story.
TL;DR: Enjoy what you want. Be inspired by what you want. Do what you want. Don't let anyone discourage you.
"Nothing is an absolute reality; all is permitted." -Vladimir Bartol, Alamut
Also, stick around with me if you'd like. I've got a lot more stories in the works.
I don't really know how to feel about this. In one hand it would be nice seeing Lyra getting a happy ending as a reward for her efforts and sacrifice. In the other Background Pony was a hauntingly perfect story and I feel it's ending was integral to it...
Will have to see how you develop this before I give a verdict, I just hope you know what you are doing...
Yeah that's what turned the original into such a great tragedy...
Interesting work so far.
I was starting to think the Matriarch was suffering from Silent Hero Syndrome...
So not only has she escaped but everypony will remember her actions during the curse? Interesting.
Nice work.
6563274 Glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the chapter-by-chapter write-up. :)
Dear Malckeor,
Thank you. Thank you so, so much. When I finished Background Pony, I couldn't accept it. It was such a beautiful story, but I can't survive an ending like that. When I finally found an alternate ending, I immediately clicked on it. I felt as if Lyra didn't deserve the original ending, and she deserved to be remembered. When I finally got to the good part, I think I actually cheered, and when Lyra finally met her parents, I actually teared up. All in all, this is the most beautiful ending to a story that deserves an ending as phenomenal as this. To repeat myself, THANK YOU.
Your newest fan,
)
The 72nd Hunter
(not to be confused with Hunter #1-71
8136793 You're so welcome. I'm glad I could help you feel such happiness and closure. :)
Let me say first that I am so, so grateful for what you have done. Background Pony is one of the most beautiful stories I had ever heard and I had loved every chapter. Even the ending that was so tragic. Yes, you could guess long before that it will end that way and I get what they were trying to covey. Still, I did not find it only sad, I found it genuinely terrifying, enough to give me an existential crisis. (No seriously. I could barely move or eat. Lucky for me that I was not working that day.)
Then, months later, by pure coincidence, I found your alternative ending. It was such a relief after I had read it. I did not know I needed it. But what I mean is that it is not only a happier ending, you had made one of excellent quality.
You did your best to stay faithful to the poetic style of shortskirtandexplosion and that's no easy task. But the part I like the most is the resolution who was very in the spirit of MLP. It was her friends that gave her the spark of inspiration and with it, combined with her growth of heart she acquired during her journey, she managed to find a harmonious solution. Yet, after all is done, you make it clear that even if the curse is gone, it had still left marks on Lyra and she had to deal with the changes which make that conclusion realistic.
I know some had complained that Lyra was crying too much in Crimson Sunrise. But I say, no, this is psychologically coherent. The smiles she was giving in the past was a brave face she was putting up and now that she is in what she believes the last stretch, there is no more reason to hold back her true feelings.
You did a very good job and all can see that you had put a lot of efforts and thoughts. And once again, thank you Malckeor for that alternative ending that made us feel all better but still managed to honor that legend that is Background Pony.
5609706
Hoesntly, the original story did have a bit of parts that were lower points, mostly in the second half of the fic(though I do feel that some of the strongest chapters were there, namely 16, 11, and 12), though even as the Cosmic Martiarch created with a song, she is the first being created from Creation and despite the strong connections to song, I think her closer to something like gods like Zeus or Hera, where they aren't emotionally mature but incredibly powerful regardless.
As to how the Matriach destroys the universe(possibly multi-verse if you take discord's mention of worlds as something bigger), not only has she done so as mentioned in chapter 19 from emotional turmoil(in the way Discord is influenced heavily by his emotions and also does so near the end of Lyra's fight with him), and while this is also mre headcanon, I feel that in the same way that the Martiarch disliked the chaos and hence created a world there, she has something like a inclination to preserve creation conflicting with her besides motherly affection that makes her unable to truly accept Aria as she varies more towards a chaotic nature than either of her sisters.
10454423
Thanks for the thoughts and I'm glad I could brighten your day! Sorry for the late reply. Things have been crazy but I'm planning on returning to MLP fanfiction in the not so distant future. I've been working on something (unrelated to MLP) for the past few years and it's nearing completion. Once I'm done with that, I've got some ideas.
Fun times ahead.
10756210
Oho. That's good to hear. Can't wait to see what you have in store. Also, by the way, you will be happy to know that I had recently recomended your fanfic at the Official Recommended Stories Thread of The writter's group. Hopefully, it wil help to get The Crimson Sunrise more recognition.
10756569
Hey, thanks! Much appreciated! <3
That Halo reference tho.
10819455
Holy heck it took nearly seven years for someone to notice!
Get it? Seven? It was destiny.
10822015
By the gods I hadn't even noticed.
Background Pony was a beautiful story with a poetic and soul-crushingly depressing ending that I could never bring myself to re-read, as great as it was. I remembered the story today and was curious if anyone had ever written a happier ending, and saw yours in a comment.
You deserve a lot of praise for creating an alternate ending that fit in so well with the style and canon of the original. You called back to all sorts of key events from the original. It was so seamless that after nearly 8 years, I can finally imagine a world where Lyra wasn't doomed to fade into obscurity, but allowed to live her life after recovering from a curse that was truly worse than death.
10976309
Glad you enjoyed and I'm glad people are still finding this all these years later! I was like a lot of you when I originally finished the story, stuck in a loop of sadness that just wouldn't relent. It was on a turn around the corner two streets from home that the ideas started to flow, and I got to jotting it all down in a journal and eventually got to writing.
It took me the entire summer of 2014, the most difficult year of my life (for reasons separate from reading Background Pony, haha), and this was the result. A lot of writers, and artists in general, have a habit of resenting their earlier works, but that ain't me. I'm still proud of how this turned out, even in spite of everything I've learned and improved upon since.
Anywho, I'm hoping to return to MLP someday as I have a few ideas that have been bouncing around this mostly-vacant cranium of mine. Main reason I haven't gotten around to it is that I fell out of the show around season 6 and never went back to finish it, but I'll get around to it eventually!
I actually just recently put out my first story in a few years based on the video game NieR:Automata, so I'm doing my best to keep busy. I'm very much a leaf in the wind and tend to change my plans on a whim depending on how strongly something inspires me. We'll see what comes tomorrow! Haha.
The original left me utterly despondent like nothing I had encountered before.
This made me cry again - but in the opposite way.
You have no idea how much I needed this.
Thank you.
11367347
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed! :)
Finally, Background Pony but good.
Jokes aside, as one of seemingly many who felt the ending of the original to be lacking, I'm glad this exists. I can't say I fully understand the method behind breaking the curse, admittedly since I personally wasn't as interested in that part, but the resolution and loose-thread-tying-up afterwards makes up for it all. I don't really have any criticisms of this story, especially since other comments have already made theirs, but in the...9 years (jesus christ) since this story was published I imagine there's been much improvement. Overall I think you did a good job of capturing the vibe of the original (without excessive philosophy), down to the text colors. (Though I noticed they aren't 100% exact accurate to the colors in the original. Deliberate choice or just couldn't get it perfect?).
If you're still lurking enough to see this comment, you have my gratitude
11675899
My pleasure! Glad you enjoyed! And yeah, I couldn't get the colors 100% exact at the time I wrote this; honestly after working on this all summer back in 2014 I really just wanted to get it published and thus did the colors real quick on and off and with a few rewrites; I remember originally when I published I didn't even bother breaking it into chapters and there were a lot of amateur formatting and grammar mistakes notably with the transitioning from quotations back to prose. I fixed all that and gave it a tune-up in the weeks following and have pretty much left it as-is since.
Thanks for this.
Background Pony was, and is, a fantastic, enjoyable story that left me felling a bit disappointed when I reached the end. Now Lyra can finally just live her life. Just like anyone/pony should be able to.
11840004
Of course! Glad you enjoyed! <3
To be honest. I didn't fisnish Background Pony. I read several chapters, they were good, but dragged on. I read the last chapter to know if there was any payoff. There wasn't.
Then I think "maybe there is a fanfic of this fanfic". There was.
Thank you for writting this and giving me the payoff I needed. The cursed broken and my beloved Lyra can find peace.
11867983
This story really needs more attention. It should be advertised as medication for those who have endured Background Pony.