Stories I Never Started, Won’t Start, Wish I Could Start · 6:56am Apr 19th, 2023
I barely have time to work on the stories I’m currently plugging away at. (“WE KNOW!” comes the shout of the Angry Mob). Worse, even when I do have time I’m often so mentally exhausted that I don’t want to write.
As a result, there are numerous stories I conceptualized and occasionally even wrote a chapter or two for but never wrote any more because to do so would take away from existing projects, and if I started a thirty-chapter story about Twilight Sparkle ending up on a UNSC Halcyon-class cruiser in the Halo universe while delaying A 14th Century Friar by who knows how many months, the collective rage of my readers would probably immolate me in my chair. And I’d probably deserve it.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have these ideas, and I want to share some of these from time to time.
Also, in taking time to gather up my notes on this idea and share them, I might be setting a bad example by not working on stuff that I really should be. Bad Antiquarian, bad!
Today I’ll start with a very random one. Please forgive the stream-of consciousness notes; it’s the product of trying to jot down general concepts in what amounts to shorthand for me, so it’s pretty messy.
Magnificent Seven
(Human world; possibly alternate earth, or just alt history, never decided. Placeholder names).
Premise: After her husband is murdered and she loses an eye to bandits and marauders in the employ of the Flim Flam brothers – criminals who buy off the authorities and run a ruthless and massive gang of outlaws - Ditzy Doo sets out to find gunslingers to help save her town from the villainous duo. Seeing the bounty hunter Applejack successfully fight and kill five gunslingers while serving a warrant (they should have come quiet, she would have let them live), she recruits Applejack, who in turn seeks out other professionals to fill out the roster.
· Applejack – Team leader, emotionally solid, wise. Most stable of the gunslingers, with the possible exception of Twilight. Veteran. Has a past with the Flim Flam brothers, who killed her parents. While her older brother takes care of the family and town she left, she has gone off seeking justice (not vengeance).
· Twilight Sparkle – Strongly moral character, like Applejack. Educated woman. Settled in West to teach (runs a library). Sniper. Demonstrates skill retention when a commotion is heard outside when AJ comes to recruit her. As bandits flee on horseback, she takes her lever-action and shoots the rope hanging up a sign, braining the fleeing outlaws. Sorrowful for feud with Spike. Knows AJ’s personal motives and her history. Fellow veteran, know each other from the war.
· Spike ‘the Dragon’ – Knife-fighter. Once taken in by Twilight after being orphaned (son of Chinese railway workers). Later became resentful that she wanted a peaceful life. Grew restless. Became a bounty hunter and gun for hire. Checkered record since then. Will reluctantly join fight, saying it’s for the pay, mixed feelings about seeing Twilight again.
· Rarity Belle – Gambler, con artist, spy for hire. Trades on charm, but skilled gunslinger. Joins for loot from the Flim Flam brothers (since the town can’t pay much), but also is a romantic at heart and is drawn to the story of a hopeless cause.
· Rainbow Dash – Gunfighter. Restless veteran. Cavalry. Obsessed with finding a worthy opponent and the speed of the draw, but not a ruthless killer. Won’t kill someone just to prove speed, but is taking jobs to take down bad guys hoping to get a challenge along the way.
· Pinkie Pie – Once a homesteader until her family was killed and she couldn’t save them. Mad with grief, became a tracker and bounty hunter. Tormented by loss and the knowledge she lost herself to revenge. Seeking noble causes and redemption. Often sings songs which turn from cheer to lament and then back. When around children, she is far more happy and we see more of her old self, her motherly/sisterly side, and she becomes a town favorite amongst the young.
· Fluttershy – (I had the least ideas here). From a regional tribe, or perhaps the daughter of a settler and someone from that tribe. A wanderer seeking to do good unto other people, even though she has lost much. Quiet. Sometimes seen quietly comforting grieving widows from the town.
As is standard for Magnificent Seven (and Seven Samurai), the gunslingers win the initial battles and train the town to fight, forming bonds with the locals, but eventually the bandits return in overwhelming force, pitting seven professionals and a ragtag semi-armed town militia against experienced murderers. Things seem hopeless, but AJ and Twilight are determined and most of the rest go along for one reason or another – whether the thrill or determination or the belief that it’s the right thing to do. Much of the specific motivations is left to speculation by the audience.
Rarity would be the one who fills the role of leaving the night before the battle, only to return triumphantly the next day, having found her courage. Her romantic notions have died in the face of the pitched battle and the grim odds, but her sense of right and wrong – and the desire to be known - wins out. She spies during the night on the enemy position, and returns in time to warn them of a second, hidden attack coming from the stream bed, enabling the defenders to stave off that attack just in time. Having played her role in saving the day, she goes down fighting, remarking as she dies that it will make for a fine story, making the locals who are nearby promise they’ll tell the story.
Dash would find her match in Lightning Dust, who works for Flim and Flam, and is like Dash but a ruthless murderer. Seriously wounded by that point and trapped in a room with multiple bad guys, Dash wants to prove she could out-draw Dust, but if she does she’ll let these other bad guys live and go kill town’s folk (because she doesn’t have the bullets or speed to beat all of them). Instead of competing with Dust, she shoots case of TNT, having seen that her pride is not the most important thing here. She dies taking numerous bandits with her.
Spike and Twilight, having gradually been forced to work things out – and Spike finally taking responsibility for what he’s done and how he’s hurt her – are forced into a defensive position in a building. Twilight is badly wounded, and she tells Spike to leave her. Declaring that he won’t abandon her again, he defends her, killing all those who were coming into the building, but being mortally wounded in the process, defending her until his last breath.
Pinkie Pie, having bonded with many of the town’s folk (especially the children) sees a number of bandits about to attack one of the places the town’s children are sheltering. She charges into open ground to fight them off, succeeding in killing many, but being shot repeatedly. Each time they think she’s dead, she gets back up, defending the children, recalling her own family who she was not able to protect. As she falls to her knees, mortally wounded and unable to lift her arms to shoot, the last of those bandits she was facing move in slowly to finish her off, the ringleader drawing a blade to do so. He and his compatriots are killed by Fluttershy, who arrives in time to save the children. She and Pinkie share a silent moment of eye contact, and Pinkie smiles with genuine peace as she dies.
Applejack finally confronts the men who killed her parents. She tells Flim and Flam they’re under arrest. They tell her they’ve paid off judges to avoid warrants. She replies it’s the People’s Warrant and that there’s a Higher Law they’re subject to. She lays out the charges – her parents, other citizens in Appaloosa, citizens in this town, numerous witnesses – and tells them to surrender and they’ll have a fair trial. Flim draws on her and she kills him. Flam feigns surrender and lays down his gun, but as she tries to take him into custody he draws a concealed pistol, only to be shot by Ditzy Doo.
In the end, the gunslingers who died are laid to rest by a town which will honor them forever. The children in particular lay flowers at Pinkie’s grave. Applejack thanks the survivors – and Ditzy – for giving them the opportunity to bring justice and peace to the region and for bringing her and her family closure. She thanks the others, and they ride off to whatever the future holds for them.
Well… that was silly. What shall I do the next time I do this (sometime in the next year maybe, probably, who knows)? Options are: Battletech (human), Halo (pony Twilight flung into the Halo setting, full send), Ghost Recon (but ponified… for some reason), and probably something else that I for
I would love to see your take on the "pony in Halo" storyline sometime, I think you'd do it unique and vibrant justice.
Wait... Waaait wait wait wait.... No Viking age story trapped in that brilliant noggin of yours?! Ant, buddy, pal, my friend, my broder! We must weave a saga together, sit by the hearth and sup upon the Gods' own brew!
(On a side note, I'd love that Halo story... Or hell, even a ponified Ghost Recon... That'd actually be kinda cool.)
Oh, that's good pathos, even in summarized form. Any time you want to share another idea, do feel free.
Ah, the things we'd like to write but have not the time for. Second only to the things we ought to write but have not the time for. (Related to that, any suggestions as far as dealing with an important task? I would like and ought to finish A Chronicle from a Time of Darkness, but I have to go back through and almost rewrite the whole thing, so....)
I will say I don't know if we actually have enough Westerns around here. As for the rest, I don't actually know enough about any of those to weigh in.