The Real Explosion Was The Friends We Made Along The Way · 1:16am April 6th
Introduction
On March 31st, after about a month's work on a secret project, Silk Rose and I published a 1 chapter story titled "This Story Will Explode In 24 Hours". Over the course of those 24 hours the story was updated on a strict schedule, until finally, after a long wait at zero hours and zero minutes, the exploding story...
... didn't.
What can I tell you about this?
Well, as previously mentioned, this was a collab with Silk Rose. I handled most of the writing and all the visual elements. They wrote chapters 22 & 9, as well as all the code required for all those crazy real-time features, and you can find their sister blog HERE where they explain it much better than I could.
Anyway, let's get into my side of things.
The idea has its roots in multiple places. A good start would be the story I wrote for last April Fools...
The Invisible Story
Which we'll call "the invisible story", for obvious reasons.
I knew I wanted to do something funny for April Fools last year, and in the process of messing around with the bbcode editor, I discovered the opacity tag which lets you make nearly invisible text. A horror story immediately came to mind, but it very quickly developed into a comedy, following Pinkie Pie's invisible antics.
Before publishing it, I worried that it wouldn't get any attention. That someone browsing the new stories page would see a story with no title, description, tags, chapters, or content of any kind, and decide this was clearly a bug, not worth their time and attention.
Boy, was I wrong!
It ended up becoming my most-viewed, most-liked, and most-commented story, by far. Lots of people had lots of fun deciphering the text. However, not all the attention was positive. It is my most-disliked story by far, and I think got the second-most dislikes of any story on the site that year. There were also a lot of upsetting comments that I can't quite stop thinking about. These are among the reasons I didn't write a follow-up blog for that one. Until now, I guess!
Overall, I'd say that level of engagement and confusion was a success, but at the time it felt far more like a fluke. Lightning in a bottle. Something you couldn't make happen twice. At least, not on purpose...
Between Two Posts
After Knighty made the critical mistake of granting me & Silk Rose API access in late 2023, I started thinking... What could you do with a story whose content changes over time? What's the funniest way we could apply this to an April Fools story?
Lots of ideas got flung around. A story that is revealed over time. A story that spreads corruption to its neighbours. A story whose chapters must be decrypted in sequence before a timer runs out, otherwise they would change and you'd need to start over... etc. Most of these are terrible ideas. I'll hold onto some of the better ones for now, of course.
Silk Rose cracked the case by suggesting a story that counts down for 10 days before exploding. This was obviously a great idea from the very start, and after some refinement - down to 24 hours, it doesn't actually explode, 25 chapters plus an epilogue, etc. - a story began to form. This was helped a lot by Silk Rose developing prototypes and proving what was possible via the API.
I even commissioned some character art from the very skilled IrradiatedPirateBooty, so that I could include all the major characters reacting to the story. For a nation of people who subsist on monopoly money and hockey pucks, this ended up being a pretty penny, which is why not every chapter has art. But the stuff that does have art all turned out great!
However, as anyone who follows The Manehattan Anomaly knows, I am not a fast writer. Most of the writing took place in the final week. All the cover images were created on March 31st. Yes, the same day it was meant to be published. Almost all of the chapter art was composed after the story had been published. I think I worked on nothing but art for 6 hours, that night.
Why did I let this happen? A question for the ages, I suppose.
Aprils Fool 'Em
A story counting down to its own obliteration is pretty conspicuous, it seems, so it got into the feature box basically as soon as it could have. The reception was pretty normal at first. Which is to say I got a lot of comments and few PMs asking how the hell I was making it count down and whether it would really explode. You know, normal stuff.
Other than a very large number of comments, the first major complication was a problem with fimfiction's image proxy service. This was probably not related to our project, but it couldn't have come at a funnier time. Images all over the site were breaking - excuse me, exploding. Xaquseg got this fixed pretty quick, but it forced me to spent a couple hours creating offsite files for every chapter, since the story kind of doesn't make sense without images.
Another thing was that the story reported zero views for its entire active period. I suspect this has something to do with optimization rules in fimfiction's back end. Perhaps, when views are being collected for display, the system skips unpublished stories and stories that have been edited recently. Well, because Silk Rose's script changed the title every minute, it was always edited recently!
Alternatively, the view counter simply exploded. That's definitely a much simpler explanation and therefore much more likely to be true.
As the timer counted down through single digits, and the chapters started to get more chaotic, the comments responded in kind. People were already noting the remaining time in their comments, but now they were actively counting down. At the 01:00 point is when things got a little crazy.
Everyone stopped in to watch the final hour. 30 minutes. Newcomers were catching up and commenting their reactions. 10 minutes. Multiple versions of The Final Countdown are posted. 5 minutes. Silk Rose is getting rate-limited for trying to like too many comments at once. 4 minutes. Everyone's counting. 3 minutes. There is an otomatone solo in voice chat. 2 minutes. Steady. 1 minute. SYOTO!
The Suspiciously Bomb-Shaped Pony
Zero hit, and there was no explosion.
Obviously this prompted a lot of questions. Wasn't it supposed to explode? Was the story going to be deleted soon or something? Was this all intentional? Oh Celestia, maybe it did explode, and we're all dead??? But I think most people recognized that, with the story incomplete, and the title still updating (though not using numbers), something was bound to happen.
Eventually.
But I'll be honest. I did not expect so many people to be hanging around the comments section waiting for something to happen that they'd turn the place into an impromptu chatroom, complete with live tic-tac-toe and chess rounds, self-promotions, and rapidly evolving conspiracy theories about what was, or wasn't, going to happen.
As the time ticked on, I think people started to figure it out. Anticipation rose again. People started self-reflecting, and then posting O7s, and then...
Well. It was April Fool's Day. What did you think was going to happen?
Bombs And What Came After
To everyone who read & commented on that story, it is hard to fully express my gratitude. You're the ones who turned this rushed little side project into one of the craziest fics of the year. You're the ones who made these past few days the most fun I've had in all my 13 years in the fandom. And you're the ones who've got to brace yourselves for the next one.
Thank you all.
Anyway, whew, that's a lotta words. Guess that's just what happens when a writer writes about writing. Since you're still reading, consider checking out Silk Rose's sister blog HERE, or the Q&A thread HERE where we'll both be answering questions.
See you next year!
shameless reposting? why yes!
file.garden/ZRW5DvKULjLI59Uf/thereiam!.png
but fr. easily the most fun ive had in pony stuff in recent memory (and i know what im talking about, with all of my one and a half year experience). the next april fools better delete fimfic off the face of the earth!
Well this was a nice little surprise. Again I must thank both you and Silk. This was such an awesome story. I just wish I could have gotten onto the bandwagon sooner than like the last two hours.
This was an incredible experience. I had a ton of fun watching this story (not) explode. 💥
Seriously this was an experience that I will not soon forget. And I find that I can’t stop myself from thank you guys repeatedly for this.
And I look forward to what shananagins you have for us next time.
Your explanation was great, Bob, as was Silk's. Both of you are amazing people for doing this. I know I commented this already on the story, but your story is the exact reason why I have a few followers now. Great stuff. I hope this goes down in the annals of Fimfiction history as one of its finer moments.
Disproportionately honored to note that I was apparently the first user to do this! (There was 21:56 left, for those who care.)
Think I've already sung each and every one of the many praises I had for this saga — as hard as it probably is to dig those comments out from their innumerable contemporaries :P — so to keep this somewhat short and simple: hats off to y'all! No pressure whatsoever, but if you do ultimately take a jab at topping this in '25, I reckon I'll be among the first in line. Again.
This was a fun as hell time! My only regret was noticing it towards the tale end.
>API access
Seriously? Tell me now the featured algorithm's inner workings.
It was a wild ride that I was glad to be off of work to enjoy. It was a pleasure popping into voice to enjoy the absurdity with everyone for the first time. Not sure why I haven't chatted sooner like that and why I've been hesitant to to do so. I don't know how you're gong to follow this up, if it's even possible with what you're capable of doing with API access. It became an impromptu event that you simply had to be there for. Thanks for the fun!
This was the first story I've shared to a friend in ages.
With only a handful of chapters posted, I didn't know how it was going to end, but I knew my friend needed to see it, and possibly needed to see it before it exploded.
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Well, it seems even us creaky old 12-year vets can learn some new tricks! Glad you were along for the ride.
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The tail end is still pretty good. It's unfortunate that not everyone had a chance to participate while it was running, but I guess that's just a fact of scheduled, surprise events.
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Thanks! I remember last year I wasn't too happy with the idea of being remembered for writing crackfics, but if they turn out as good as this one did, well, I can hardly complain.
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You can get better answers about the API from Silk Rose, but I don't think either of us know more about the feature algorithm than anyone else. It's all pretty well understood at this point anyway.
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Glad to hear it! I love seeing or hearing about my stories escaping the fimfiction bubble. Doesn't happen very often.
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Yeah, the VC was fun! Definitely something to keep around for next time.
Next time...
Ah, next time.
Silk Rose mentioned in their blog that we haven't decided what it'll be next time, and that's 100% true, but I think we've tapped the limits of "funny story page formatting" and "the title counts down to a bad ending". And, maybe this is just the cynical self-critic in me, but I don't think the actual writing in either of my two April Fools stories have been all that impressive. Both of these judgements suggest the same goal: the next one should further strain expectations of what a story can even be.
I, for one, am looking forward to it.
OK next year combine these two, in making that after a time some chapters become invisible until it "explodes"
This may well be the Fimfic highlight of the year. Incredible work from both of you. Thank you for it.
Honestly i had so much fun
I was hoping between the discord and the site posting updates (as you saw) till ark said "no, screw off"
And yeah but honestly? I was expecting a April fools joke but over time? I FORGOT
You got me so hooked that I DIDN'T CARE!
i was like "is the april fools joke that it explodes?"
Nope! Complete opposite!
I had fun that day
And honestly? The way the web came together?
It reminded me of the Great Josh Swain battle
Many people coming from across the web to just hang out!
It was a unity event and then some!
And thats why this site is great!
I only joined a year ago and yet i already feel like im a part of the site's history!
here's to next year's april fools!
I am SO glad I actually got to be a part of this! My favorite part was people putting the timer in their comments, so if you looked back you could see the countdown all over again, and also see how people's thoughts about the story changed as time went on. This was an interesting experience!
And of course you put me in your blog.
I'll level with you here: I was definitely in the "This story's gonna get deleted, better archive it while I can!" camp, so unbeknownst to everyone else, I have been grabbing this story chapter by chapter and typesetting it offline, hoping at least to have an offline copy in case something like that were to happen.
After the big reveal, I was. . . conflicted. On one hand, I was glad it was still up (Easter eggs notwithstanding) for people to read after the day. God knows how many videos have been lost to time because they were taken down, either by regret or dissatisfaction of the creator or the changing zeitgeist guiding Terms of Use/Code of Conduct policies.
On the other, I felt like I had just wasted an entire day on something useless.
But, all in all, thanks for writing this, as basic as it was, and props to Silk Rose for the coding work. I do wonder what you'll cook up for next year, but I certainly hope it won't start a panic.