Behind the Story: Scenes from a Ponyvillian Borough

Hey! Thanks for Sandbox! Didn’t think I still had it in me.

So my newest story is by far my most SoL one yet. There’s really not much to it but you’d be shocked at how much I have to say about it.

So let’s begin!

I have a job at a nearby McDonald’s, I still don’t have my driver’s license, so sometimes I have to walk. Now, bear in mind that it is absolutely close enough to walk, only takes 15 minutes to do it legally (at the crosswalk up the road) and 10 illegally (crossing the street right out of the addition by jaywalking). But it’s completely doable.

I tend to walk there and sometimes I also walk back home. The normal route got boring though, so I decided to take a side route, and because there was construction up the road in my addition, I took it one day.

This is the exactly what the story was based on.

Now, the story is basically accurate, it’s a gravel road slightly off from the addition entrance. However, the one thing I find super cool is that it’ by far the best place to go if you want to see people being people. There’s a school beyond the way, a little playground constructed near a house with a wood pile, and a forest at the end, as the road is a dead end.

I wanted to make these ideas flow onto the page and create something truly SoL. After all, it’s the only genre I’m any good at, so let’s take it to its logical conclusion.

As is wont to do with my stories though, it completely evolved into a different beast. For October 30th, QnS ran a Halloween genre contest, and one of the things was a Horror SoL story. Now that’s an interesting concept, and one I wanted to try, but I didn’t show up as I haven’t shown up to most any QnS events in 2 years.

But I decided that while writing this story, I could implement a little of the concept in.

Flashgen (the contest runner) cited a manga that had this idea. In this manga the entire town is destroyed multiple times over, and the people just continue on with their lives. Every single time. I didn’t read it, but it sounded really cool actually.

So, I wrote a similar sort of idea for Scenes from a Ponyvillian Borough. It’s often lampshaded in comedy fics that Equestria has a disaster every month or so… but what if that was true? And what if the Mane 6 couldn’t do anything about it?

Thus, the idea for this story was concerned. There’s a little air of horror over it, and it’s a little unsettling to see them going about their business and treating this as if it were just a normal part of life. The gardener tending to her tulips not knowing they’d soon be destroyed, piecing together houses from the ground-up only for them to be destroyed again, houses with scars of disasters on them that are simply too expensive to demolish. These were all things going through my mind when I was writing this.

I wouldn’t say it’s a horror story persay. I think it’s too subtle to be a horror story and nowhere near scary enough. It’s just a little unsettling for spice.

Also I don’t tell the mare’s name until the end because I don’t find it important really. Snap Shot is just a way for the reader to view the world.

This song was also influenced by songwriting (as mentioned in my last blog post), but more in the form of quick alliteration than juxtaposition. Although, one could say the entire concept of this story is juxtaposition to be fair.

Most of the characters were thought up on the fly, though I had to take a couple walks to think of gardening for a good little transition to the destroyed school.

Also, at the end, I threw in a couple things to also get across that Snap Shot is similarly complacent with the disasters. She treats paying for rebuilding as completely normal, and I thought I’d throw that little thing in.

I think that what came out of it is at least an interesting read. I probably won’t stop doing these, but it’s something.

The cover art was actually a picture of the street that inspired this whole thing, warped and distorted (and also addresses were blurred) because I thought it looked cool, but I think it adds to the story.

The title is taken from the incredible Billy Joel song Scenes From an Italian Restaurant. I think that’s one of the best SoL songs there is, and I wanted to shout it out.

Influences: Experience, that one manga (idk the name), and the usuals

And until next time, be awesome!
-Dashie