• Member Since 19th Jan, 2012
  • offline last seen Mar 12th, 2021

Arcainum


I write stories about pony superheroes and cruel and unusual tragedies and pony superheroes who suffer cruel and unusual tragedies. I'm currently looking both fine and OK.

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Source

The bustling city of Metropony is under siege by Luna and her villainous assistant Trixie's army of deadly Lunatrons! Can Lyra and Bon Bon's crimefighting prowess and vast supply of heavy munitions keep the city safe for yet another week? Find out in this exciting episode of... HARPFLANK AND SWEETS. Warning: Not suitable for under-5s or those of an unawesome disposition.

- Now with added side-story, by supersheep64! - Harpflank and Sweets: The Lost Episodes
- Now with more added side-story, by RTStephens! - Haprflank and Sweets: Season 1
- Now with further more added parody, by Cold in Gardez! - Harpflank and Sweets: A Very Special Episode
- Now with extra further more added parody monstrosity, by Blueshift! - Sweetflank and Harps
- Now with extra TVTropes!
- Featured on EqD, rated 6-Star, for what it's worth!
- Exclamation marks!

Chapters (13)
Comments ( 253 )

I really like how the cost of the fish kept going up for no reason. Keep it up, I can't wait to read more!

I started playing little busters when the giant cello appeared. This is awesome!

Based on your Team Dai-Gurren avatar, this story was approximately as ridiculous as I expected. You worked in so many awesome things, like "I didn't put that in my bag" and Lyra's unexplained issues with seaponies. Certainly an interesting story, and one of the few that can actually earn a five-star rating from me.

145301 Thank you for your kind, kind words! I'm still not sure if I'll expand the universe, although I did really enjoy writing this one...

145482 Haha, that's perfect. Originally there was an author's note that linked to a Super Robot Wars tune for their theme, but yknow...author's notes =p

145692 I admit it kind of got out of hand near the end ¬_¬ It was originally going to be more sensible, more of a Kim Possible/Perry the Platypus vibe, but I, uh, had a few drinks while I was writing it. I'm glad you appreciated the references, I was trying really hard NOT to put them in if I'm honest! And lastly thank you for the five-star, it means a whole bunch ^.^

This.... How can I replace my blood with this :rainbowkiss:

146869 Download it onto a CD, crush the CD into some kind of glutinous paste and then intravenously administer it to yourself over a period of days. That's all I can think of. Thank you for the positivity!

163483 I'm glad you think so!

163485 Yeah, this was the "characters that don't normally get involved are forced to fight" episode.

This was amazing. Oh man, just like last chapter - but more epic!

Also,

She breathed out and squeezed the trigger just as a blast of plasma knocked the rifle out of her hands,

:derpytongue2:

163689 Deeerp. I did, like, three proofreads myself and got two friends to do it, HOW DID THAT SLIP THROUGH xD Fixed though.

Why are the episodes in such a random order? Please explain. :rainbowhuh:

169430 Because the blog-based fiction archives rely on chapters and they're not actually chapters x.X They're one-shot stories set within the same universe, so they're just randomly chosen from points in the "timeline". The idea is that, like would often happen with Saturday morning cartoons, the network is just throwing the episodes in any old order. I just write a story and stick a number on it. They are meant to be read in the order they're posted (so 27 then 14) though, I'm nowhere near good enough to make each story entirely standalone x)

"Coming soon: Episode 37 - Season Finale"
WHAT? NOOOOOOOOOO! :applecry:

I feel so bad for Trixie : ( But excellent chapter, as always! Luna and her soap opera were just excellent : )

These keep getting better and better. Really, I'm surprised at how enticing you've gone with this. :rainbowwild:

Now for a little typo I've found:

Presumably sh was still unsure of how to deal with the ‘revelation’ of her identity as The Great and Powerful Trixie.

Also, it saddens me that the Season Finale is coming up already! :raritycry: But alas, it is not entirely a bad thing. Good for you, for not over-doing this piece of gold.

180516 Dangit, one (or two, or twelve >_>) always slips through! One day, gods of proofreading! ONE DAY! Thanks for pointing it out!

180516 Oh also, I wonder if you could explain what you mean by "enticing"? My brain is addled from lack of sleep.

Oooooh, this has suddenly gotten really interesting. It was a fun ride for the first two episodes but now things have gotten personal.

Really looking forward to how things resolve for the next part. I can see Trixie getting nasty and waging all out war.

Also, Flim and Flam were great! They are perfect for a one-shot antagonist duo!

"Giggle at this, ghosties" applies sunglasses YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH:yay:
Great work as always.

181458 Trixie is so the secret main character. Don't tell anyone.

Also I'm really glad you liked the Flim Flams. If I'm honest with myself, I think I overdid it when it came to them, but I just seriously hearted that episode and was listening to their song for, like, the ENTIRE writing process x) And yeah, they just felt right as guest villains.

181485 Thank you very much! The glasses reaction is pretty much what I was aiming for =p

191156 I hope that "!" is a contraction of something along the lines of "MY GOODNESS HOW ON EARTH WILL THIS PRICKLY SITUATION RESOLVE ITSELF?_!_"

Otherwise I'm just not doing my job =p

191168

That's the long version, yep! But I like being succinct : )

191176 Phew. Just checking.

Thank you for reading, as ever! Make sure you buy some new socks in the next few days because whichever pair you are wearing when the ending rolls around will hopefully be ROCKED OFF.

When the supreme overlord of your world conquering organization is disturbed by the subordinate's demeanor, you know stuff is going to go down.

Don't the good guys ever learn not to integrate enemy technology into their own stuff? It never works out.

Didn't see the situation with Lyra developing but it adds to the drama.

One thing that didn't make sense to me is how ExTech didn't notice the entire population of the city missing. Or how Luna even managed to do it. Magic? Will this be explained next time?

This is what I wanted to see when I clicked on this episode. Crap has hit the fan and it's flying all over the place. Eww.

Looking forward to the conclusion!

191501 I think integrating enemy technology into your own with disastrous results is actually a disease heroic scientists can catch. There should be a charity.

When you say you didn't see Lyra's situation developing, do you mean in a good 'it surprised you' way, or a bad 'it wasn't foreshadowed well' way? I personally think is my weakest chapter and I'm looking for ways to improve it x)

The population thing will be explained, but in an admittedly pretty handwavey fashion =p It's really just supposed to illustrate how powerful the Empire really is, and how Trixie had been pulling her punches. They could have done ridiculous insta-win stuff like that all along, but got settled into this incompetent weekly routine because...it's Luna and Trixie =p

192654
It was a good surprise. Given that this is the ending episode of a season, and you've been bouncing around episodes, I can believe the premise that Lyra at some point had become dissatisfied with her lot in life. The nanotechnology that she is wearing isn't helping her any either.

Good show! Maybe a network will pick it up! I think it's time for a Care Bears reboot!

194250 Yeah, I was kind of relying on the reader's ability to take Lyra being super-aggressive in the first chapter and draw a big ol' squiggly line from that to the last chapter. One problem with my writing is that I haven't quite found my balance between "leaving cunning gaps so the reader fills it in" and just plain "leaving things out" =p The infodump in Scene 3 was kind of a panic reaction to me realising halfway through that I needed to not only recap, but recap something that HADN'T ACTUALLY HAPPENED, with me relying entirely on the reader inferring it.

But hey, you live and learn ^.^

The near-super sentai concept and general campiness was rather fun and endearing after a fashion.

I dislike the end tremendously and the message it seems to give: can't help someone, just kill them.

205249 I wrestled with the ending. In fact, upon rereading I have noticed a GRIEVOUS hole in my editing in which Bon-Bon is meant to be a lot less sure of what the friendship beam is going to do. The end result wasn't their intent, they barely knew what happening themselves. Much like in the anime I was trying to emulate, stuff just happened and they got swept along with it.

"Metropony" totally remembers me of T.U.F.F. Puppy!

205268 To elaborate on my vague comment, sorry for that by the way, I dislike the end because of the break in the inherent traits of the story. Forgive me, but I can't seem to remember the term. It is a comedy with quite a bit of random, but it throws tracks right to a sad feel in relation to Trixie's issues and what she sees as a betrayal by Lyra and Bon Bon. I think it needs a sad tag thrown on it.

I don't like Trixie per se, well other than the way she rolls her r's and certain fanfiction portrayals of her, but I think you were rather hard on the poor girl.

Aw, a tragic ending. I was hoping to see a delightfully cheesy and sappy "friendship conquers all" type of thing.

Ah, well, can't please them all. Still, I did like the campiness of the final scene and the mega-awesome-super-duper-ally-ooper rainbow of life/death at the end. Was Celestial Tower representing the Element of Magic? Was that what the organization was afraid Trixie would find?

Loved Derpy's line after the Sonic Rainbullet part. Figures that she'd get something right without even knowing.

Also liked some of the mythology that was brought up in regards to the previous bearers of harmony. I was wondering why some of the buildings had familiar titles to them.

Wonderful story! Will we be seeing a season 2? The Return of the Great and Powerful One? Will Luna avenge her most faithful servant? Stay tuned next fall!

Not a bad story, it really had that feel of a 80s 90s hero show and all the cheesy wonderfulness that comes with it.

My only regret, is that there wasn't an appearance of the Mysterious Mare-do-well. Oh the missed opportunities. But hey, There were 32 other episodes, so who knows, maybe it did happen.

Hm. I liked the ending. Let me start off with that.

I'm afraid that I must report my socks to still be firmly in place, however. I feel like the story slipped away from the hokey, campy feel it started with (which is what I loved about it) and into a more dramatic, unbelievable (is that a word I can credibly use about a story featuring magical talking ponies in cybersuits that wield megacellos?) tone. The somber after-thoughts of the fight, Lyra's (eventual) 360, I dunno...

It's your story to do with as you want. We're just along for the ride.

Curse your resilient socks =p The tone shift was half-intentional, half-unintentional. As the story went on it became apparent that I wanted to deconstruct rather than straight-up parody just by the way it was developing in my head, so I just kind of rolled with it. Part of the issue is that I was making this all up as I went, because I thought I wasn't going to do any more every time I started a chapter.

I can say, however, that the 'movie' will be VERY MUCH a return to the hokum. VERY MUCH. And also that I wish I hadn't been so mean to Trixie. But the end-note wasn't lying. She'll be back.

229180 You seriously have no idea how many rejected ideas ("deleted scenes?") there are that involve Luna watching that soap. I had to fight myself to not include more. Ditto with the Flim Flams, really. That episode basically started as an excuse for me to write about Luna and the Flim Flams.

Was there any doubt?

NO! NEVER! NUNCA! NADA!

Great first parter! I liked the history being built up. Seems ponies have a problem forgetting their own past.

I'm seeing clues in here as to something controlling Nightmare Moon and who gave Bon-Bon and Lyra their powers in the first place. Looking forward to finding out more!

I knew it! I knew Trixie was going to be alive! Now I predict that she will be the missing element. :trixieshiftright:

Great Celestia's beard... don't tell me Trixie is a Sixth Ranger trope :trixieshiftright:

With a force of ten megachellos? Dang! My words cannot explain how much win that is.

But seriously, you don't understand people. It's ten. TEN. Megachellos. TEN! :pinkiegasp:

229548 I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm not being deliberately obtuse by introducing a plot right at the end by the way, I'm just writing this half off the cuff =p

230032 Yesssss, that's right, speculate! Feed the cliffhanger for it HUNGERS. Seriously though, I'd be interested to see where you think its going x) The Movie is where I'm really getting into the hinting game (there is going to be, and has been, a LOT of plot squirreled away in the dialogue), and I want to see if I'm getting the level of subtlety right.

230062 I could never really kill Trixie. She is, after all, best pony. Now I just have to battle the dreadful lure of the Trixie Sue. Also that emote is really judgemental, it scares me xD

230063 Trixie is ALL THE TROPES. If my tvtropes page grows, I fully expect it to be largely Trixie-related. Also I hope now the way she was treated earlier at least makes a little more sense. She was being torn down so she could be brought back up. More shall be revealed in the second half!

230217 When I'm writing about giant pony-shaped robots having cataclysmic wrestling matches, I run into an adjective problem, so I had to come up with some kind of system of measurement, yknow =p

231272 Good ^.^

231860 Aww, I thought it was a pretty cool line.

Thanks for commenting everypony, its what keeps me writing <3

232269

I think Trixie's emotes remind me of the DOOM Guy.
*Hums Level 1's BGM*
:trixieshiftleft: :trixieshiftright: :trixieshiftleft:

Ahhhh! I'm grinning like an idiot right now, and I'm loving it! Good show, good show, can't wait to read more!

Epic! And if you've ever seen Megas XLR, I think the song Short Hair was perfect for the giant robot battle between Lyra, BB and NMM. I played it as I read, and I couldn't have enjoyed it more! This needs to be funded and animated, but It needs an upbeat flair, like Megas XLR had! There's nothing better than Ska and punk rock to make a robot battle 20 percent cooler!

234683 I WILL have your socks. It just occurred to me that out of context that sounds really weird.

238169 Ha, Short Hair is awesome. Actually, my mental soundtrack for Harpflank and Sweets is almost entirely Japanese. Though it's within the format of a Western cartoon, I'm very much throwing anime tropes at it and seeing what sticks. I'm aiming less for the lulz feel of Megas and more the majestic, ponderous feel of Mazinger or GaoGaiGar, with a little Gurren Lagann thrown in. FOR EXAMPLE:

When Roseluck (who I've just realised I forgot to change to Rose) sees Lyra and Bon-Bon appear on the roof in Ep27, this plays in my head - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0nEXlUbj1g&feature=related

The megacello gets - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX4ymuI2CgU

The Season Finale friendship beam freewheels between a bunch of awesome ending themes but always seems to end up on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijTVHp0LVQ0

There's also some pony music that I think goes really well, like the fight with Nightmare Moon would probably be Vengeance In My Eyes from 2:00ish - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6PSgCl99V4

So yeah, you see the feel I'm going for. I BRIEFLY contemplated putting links to songs in the story at relevant parts, because it would enhance the cartoon feel even more, but... I don't know, author's notes, ugh.

Welp, that turned into an essay. Oops. Should really save this kind of thing so I have blog material and can pretend I'm some super-cool artiste type =p

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