The big Christmas blog post about stuff + Apple Family Reunion followup · 11:34pm Dec 25th, 2012

Merry Christmas everypony! Hope your holidays were better than mine (stuff happened ok?).

Now, I've got a lot to cover with this blog post. Firstly, I updated Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash are Dating and Everypony Freaks Out last Monday night, and believe me, I worked on that all night for two reasons. I was going to be too busy the following day to update or write anything, and I wanted to get it out for you guys in time for Christmas. It's 30K words, so it's only fitting you guys get an early present.

Speaking of which, I'm sorry to announce that the story will be going on a short to indeterminate hiatus for the time being. This is so that I can update my other stories like Change of Pace. Also, I'm going to be a little busier in real life with jobs (or lack thereof) so the less stress, the better.

In other news, we still haven't gotten any volunteers for the MacDash group banner. I'd really like a neat picture to hang in there to express our love for MacDash and stuff. So if any of you can draw or know somebody who does, it'd be greatly appreciated if we got something there. You will be credited and everything.

And now for an episode followup. Apple Family Reunion.

At first, I was worried that I'd run into a continuity dead end concering the Apples' parents. Fans of Change of Pace know what I'm talking about. Even the slightest hint at their parents would've ripped my story's fanon a new one, dead or alive. However, we didn't see them at all, which mercifully allows my fanon to float. However, according to this post, it's confirmed they have passed on, no more, have ceased to be, expired and gone to meet their maker, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing up daisies, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, in other words, ex ponies.

Now, this isn't going to affect the story though because this has yet to be blatantly stated in the show, which isn't very likely but still, which still gives me the flexibility of my fanon. Also, it's justified retroactively as he lives in Austallion, which I'm glad the show missed on my part. For the most part, I'm glad to be one of the few writers with living Apple parents (yeah suck it mainstream we're better than you Note that following the mainstream does not mean you have stale tastes or the like it just means you have material to work with and have the chance to express your creativity through given tools and are free to mold them however you wish just as much as those who develop their own ideas do)

Also Babs is still a cutie. cuter than apple bloom

Final notes. Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash are Dating and Everypony Freaks Out only has 2 chapters left, but the next one I intend to write even more than the latest chapter by at least 15K, more pony than your body can physically handle.

And finally, to wrap this all up, have one more Christmas present for the holidays. For your eyes only, here's a deleted scene from Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash are Dating and Everypony Freaks Out. Enjoy.

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It had taken quite a while for Flitter to find the pony she needed the assistance of. It wasn’t anypony she knew personally, in fact he was just a colt. Finding his house was hard enough, but learning that he was out with his friends somewhere extended her search longer than she’d have liked. And after managing to track down the locations of said friends only to learn that they were out, Flitter was frustrated to the point of making angry noises. Miraculously, she found the pony she was looking for, as well as his friends, at the park without incident.
“You sure this thing works?” Flitter asked as she scanned the strange gadget.
“Ya huh,” a unicorn colt with thick eyebrows said, “That’s the same one Featherweight used for the Foal Free Press.”
Featherweight was the pony she needed for the job, or rather, had the tools for the job. He was still a relatively young colt and therefore things would get awkward if he got involved in what Flitter was planning. One would think he’d be the perfect pony to capture the most elusive of moments, especially for what she had in mind. But said moment would be a bit too risqué for a colt like Featherweight to handle, and she didn’t want to get into any issues with the mothers of Ponyville again.
“So…I hold this button and instant camera?” Flitter asked, demonstrating by pointing at an inconspicuous button.
The skinny colt nodded as another, much smaller, pony spoke, “Miss, what are you planning to use the camera for?”
The young one, Pip something, was oddly nosy, Flitter thought, “Something’s going down soon, and I want to be there with a camera in hoof.”
A much taller unicorn colt then spoke, “You’re not going to use it for anything bad, are you? Like what those cutie mark crusaders did with the newspaper?”
She dismissed his concerns with a wantonly wave of her hoof, “Pssh, don’t worry. Nothing like that, sorta,” she whispered the last part, “And it wasn’t those kids, it was some other pony…”
Featherweight nervously looked around to see if anypony was eyeing him specifically.
“Oh yeah, Filthy Rich’s bratty daughter,” Flitter finished, “Yeah her. I just need the camera for something tonight.”
“Oh! You mean the party at Apple Bloom’s place?” the short unicorn said, “You got the invitation too?”
“Uhh, yeah,” the pegasus said as she looked at the colts oddly, “Do you boys even know what the party’s about?”
“Something to do with Miss Dash and Mister Macintosh,” the brown spotted colt guessed.
Flitter shivered at the names, implying as if they were married or something. She leaned down to the young one and stared coldly, “Don’t ever call them that ever again.”
Reasonably, the colt backed up out of spite, but the other colts came to his defense.
“Hey, Pipsqueak didn’t mean anything by that, he was just being polite,” the short unicorn stated.
“Snips is right,” the tall colt continued, “He calls everypony that. Why does it bother you?”
Finding herself interrogated by three foals, one of which was barely a year old and another was a mute, Flitter was mortified to have her intentions confronted. Thankfully, there were no other ponies in the immediate vicinity, giving her the pride of being the oldest thing in the park, aside from the trees of course. As such, she automatically had authority over the colts.
“Well, it’s not like they’re married or anything,” she rolled her eyes involuntarily, “In fact, who’s to say that they really are dating?”
“Wait, is that why you need the camera?” Snips suddenly asked, “Are you trying to prove something with it?”
She wasn’t prepared for that one. How the heck did a grade school colt discover her plot so easily? Snips was sharper than he looked, giving his cutie mark more meaning. Flitter stood there frozen as she hurriedly thought of something to say in defense.
“W-Well,” she was running out of excuses, “This is just one of those things that ponies like me need to be a hundred percent sure about. Foals like you wouldn’t understand this grown up business.”
Pipsqueak, Snails, and Snips glanced at each other, sharing a confused look. Featherweight, however, looked at the older mare judgingly.
“Pardon me, Flitter,” the pegasus colt suddenly spoke, “But it seems to me like you have some sort of grudge to the relationship of Big Macintosh and Rainbow Dash as a whole. Somewhere in your mind, you’re convinced that this couple just isn’t meant to be, and you feel like you owe it to yourself to disprove it through any means necessary without taking into account who gets hurt in the process. In fact, it sounds like you want to make it seem like it isn’t real at all, and you’d go as far as setting up a scenario that could utterly destroy their relationship. Now, I have to say that it is very unhealthy for a grown mare like yourself to be this obsessive over a trivial subject, and I think it’d be best for everypony if you dropped it and sought help from a family member or a psychiatrist, preferably.”
The colts stared at Featherweight with shock as silence reigned over the park. Flitter shared the same expression too, along with a bit of distress as the young colt had exposed her flawlessly. Birds chirped in the air carelessly as nopony spoke for a few seconds. However, once Flitter remembered that there were no other adults in the area, just colts, she regained her composure.
“Kid…shut the hay up,” she said, looking down on the poor flyer.
With nothing else to add, Flitter hung the camera around her neck and turned around.
“I’ll return it eventually. Thanks, I guess,” Flitter said as she fluttered off into the sky.
The colts came back to reality just as the pegasus flew off. They looked to their lightweight friend, who only shrugged in response.
“Oh yeah,” Pipsqueak suddenly said, then shouted towards the other flyer, “Don’t take too many pictures! It’s low on film!”
Well, that didn’t bode well for her. If she only had a limited number of shots to take, it just meant that it was very important for her to get the moment right. Already, Flitter was mapping out the variables in her head and what could go wrong, and she started forming a plan around those possibilities.
This was going to be perfect.
Some extra film wouldn’t hurt, though. Did they sell any in Ponyville, she wondered.
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