• Member Since 13th May, 2012
  • offline last seen Apr 8th, 2023

Benman


Benman belongs to a class of bipedal ape notable for its use of tools and clothing, highly adept at symbolic communication such as language and art.

More Blog Posts71

  • 215 weeks
    Fragments From The Archives

    Hey folks! It’s been a while. I hope everyone’s doing well over here.

    I was going through some old files, and I found a bunch of unfinished stories I was working on, way back when. I’ve posted three of them in my scrapfile for whoever's interested.

    10 comments · 601 views
  • 504 weeks
    I Am Technically Not Dead

    So, new story. My first since 2013, actually. It might be my last.

    Read More

    8 comments · 1,614 views
  • 528 weeks
    Unlikely Crossovers: Royal Canterlot Library Edition

    “An Imaginative Performance” Or “Expectations”: Apple Bloom has the lead role in her school play, and her performance will be perfect. No matter what.

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    12 comments · 1,477 views
  • 537 weeks
    New Holiday Story: Where The Heart Is

    I've posted a new story about going home for the holidays. You won't see it in your feed, because the mods in their infinite wisdom have decreed that sufficiently short stories aren't actually stories, so this blog is to let you know that it's available in my

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    0 comments · 872 views
  • 540 weeks
    Help Me, And Win A Free Commission

    Thanks to Chris, I've been thinking about writing style recently. What is a style? Do I have one? Do I have more than one? How can I tell? “Thinking really hard about these questions” doesn't seem like a good way to get answers, since my most common problem as a writer is that I don't communicate the ideas I mean to communicate.

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    15 comments · 1,205 views
Apr
3rd
2013

Unlikely Crossovers · 12:50am Apr 3rd, 2013

The Ambassador's Little Dashie: An ancient and terrible dragon happens upon a helpless filly in a box.

Who We Are, The Princesses Would Destroy: One of the main six is a changeling, but it doesn't matter who—any result will mean massive headaches for the civil service.

In Memory Of Those We Left Behind: Twilight forgets about that time her mom died.

Tonight I Shall Be Eternal: Captain Bucephalus delves into the darkest crevices of Celestia's subconscious, exposing her deepest regrets and most secret fears. Hijinks ensue.

Sunny Skies for Twenty Minutes: In the grim darkness of post-apocalyptic Equestria, Princess Celestia poses as a common pony to learn how her subjects live.

Princess Celestia Hates The Feature Box: The world is ripped asunder by a storm of metatextual references while Skywriter laughs with madness in his eyes.

The Somewhere Cycle Only We Know: In the midst of blood and smoke, a warhorse escapes to memories—or perhaps delusions—of brighter times in a past life.

Twilight's List, Revised: In order to sunder the Elements of Harmony, Nightmare Moon poses as Rainbow Dash and seduces Twilight Sparkle.




Add your own in the comments! Bonus points if it's something I'd want to read.

Report Benman · 1,901 views ·
Comments ( 53 )

I'd read the first and last, for what that's worth.

Benman
Site Blogger

976180
The last one was specifically for you.

The Unexpected Zombie Survival Life of Dusk Shine

976194

Are you sure that wasn't more for Vim?

RBDash47
Site Blogger

You have me crying with laughter with "In Memory Of Those We Left Behind: Twilight forgets about that time her mom died."

Benman
Site Blogger

976285
Quite sure. If I were doing one for Vim, it would be The Last Distorted Perspective in Tartarus, in which Twilight Sparkle struggles to find a scrap of goodness in a blighted hellscape where ponies must labor for the right to keep their prosthetic, shall we say, parts. Such a thing would be hideously tasteless, of course, so it's a good thing I'm not doing that.

976355
That one made me feel like a terrible human being, which is usually a sign I'm onto something good.

Luna's LoveSick Tour - With odd ideas of proper Royal behavior, Luna visits the Elements of Harmony - and gets a little clingy.

I would totally read almost all of these. :pinkiehappy:

Actually, in the post-apocalyptic one.. Does anyone know if there ever was a sidefic to FOE which went into greater detail about the Princesses?

Field Notes on Interior Design Alicorn Behavior: Twilight Sparkle x Dark Demon King Ravenblood Nightblade OTP!

Myou've Gotta be a Xenophile: Rationalist in cow body falls in lust with a HiE.

The Games We Play In Hell: Somepony is dressing up like Mare Do Well to flirt with Dash and it turns out to be Satan...

Princess Celestia Hates Watching Paint Dry.

Comment posted by particle_pony deleted Apr 3rd, 2013

...Why can't we put blog posts in our Favorites? :raritydespair:

Comment posted by particle_pony deleted Apr 3rd, 2013
Comment posted by particle_pony deleted Apr 3rd, 2013
PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

The Somewhere Cycle Only We Know

This is something I would read!

How about It's Always Thicker Than Friendship: Despondent after a bad breakup, Applejack gains a lot of weight. Her self-esteem plummets until she meets Soarin, a handsome stallion who takes an interest in her and is also a vampire and I can't finish this sentence without lapsing into a Twilight crossover.

Cupcake Factory
A war of grimdark escalation consumes Ponyville and Cloudsdale. Somewhat literally.

Contraptionology's a Dangerous Business
A plague of mad science turns Ponyville into a nightmarish techno-dystopia. Applejack narrates as she, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash travel through distant lands, seeking a cure to the insanity.

3x Crossover Combo: Harpflank and Sweets: Anthrodacity
Lyra is a human-turned-unicorn sent to a universe not her own by fickle fate.
Bonbon is a love-consuming creature of Faerie trying to live a normal pony life.
They fight crime!

My Harshwhinnial Earns The Feature Box
A meditation upon writing a heretical fiction whose popularity caused Benman's head to explode.

The Best Hard Reset Ever
Just when Blueblood gets the time loop thing figured out, the Grand Galloping Gala gets attacked by changelings and the Elements of Harmony explode.

Changelings, Changelings, Happily Ever After
Shining Armor will fall in love with anything to save his marriage. Anything.

977676 beat me to "Cupcake Factory." *shakes hoof*

And a movie crossover:
Sunny Skies All Day Long of the Spotless Mind
After Celestia's incognito visit to Ponyville leads to a regrettable fling with her most faithful student, the heartbreak causes her to erase her memories of the experience.

976431
> That one made me feel like a terrible human being, which is usually a sign I'm onto something good.
Careful, man, I think I'm getting to you. Give in to your nemesis too early and it takes all the challenge out of it.

Benman
Site Blogger

976488 976541 977360 976223 977676 978423
>single tear of joy
i.imgur.com/LZ3eyMw.png


976551
Because then I would spend more time on things like this and then it would be even longer before I finish Mortal and then horizon would be totally justified in tracking me down and going the full Annie Wilkes. I'm flattered, but I'd like to keep all my extremities.


977360
You win the "I would actually read that" award.


978431
Pffff. I was a terrible human being before it was cool.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

978626
Ooh, here's an idea:

The First Week of Harmony: Twilight and company are sent to find out what happened to a researcher lost in the far frozen north of Equestria, only to find themselves in a subarctic city populated by pony cultists twisted by the dark powers they gain from the eldritch beings they worship, and being hunted down by a creature that can impersonate them, but gives itself away via lapsing into Objectivist philosophizing.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Ooh, ooh, best one yet!

White Chaos: My name is Worker. I remember it because I wrote it inside the white egg. It takes twelve steps to get from Mobius to Equestria. And the hedgehog hurts my eyes.

Who We Are, The Princesses Would Destroy: One of the main six is a changeling, but it doesn't matter who—any result will mean massive headaches for the civil service.

Title is close to something that already exists. Considering it is also about the Equestria Civil Service, I wonder if that's deliberate?

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/54117/whom-the-princesses-would-destroy

Wait, wait... Nevermind. I get it. I"m an idiot.

On another note the "strikethrough" tags don't seem to work... And I refuse to delete my idiocy...

OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU.

Background Pony Watches Paint Dry: Lyra Heartstrings doesn't know who she is and suffers existential crises while doing mundane things.

OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME.

979293
Dance Till We Go to Hell: Tuxedo Dash and Sailor Sparkle must fight their way out of the Negaverse while their friends believe they perished.

Things Rainbow Dash Doesn't Kill: Dash fucking loves spiders.

978423

Sunny Skies All Day Long of the Spotless Mind: After Celestia's incognito visit to Ponyville leads to a regrettable fling with her most faithful student, the heartbreak causes her to erase her memories of the experience.

Butterscotch Sundae's Much Ahoof About Nothing did that already.

977676

3x Crossover Combo: Harpflank and Sweets: Anthrodacity: Lyra is a human-turned-unicorn sent to a universe not her own by fickle fate. Bonbon is a love-consuming creature of Faerie trying to live a normal pony life. They fight crime!

Yeah you win everything.

My Little Murky: An account of an event that makes being born into slavery sound almost nice, with each plot development repeated in every other chapter to Murky's human charge.

Thicker than Melting Snow and Wet Dreams: Luna's trying to find out why her fanfiction is the subject of her subject's dream, and more importantly: why are there two stallions casting themselves as characters from Buffy therein?

Anthropology: Lyra discovers she's a human and travels to Earth, but becomes confused when she finds that in this new world no one can seem to remember her for more than five minutes.

Roan #25 · Apr 4th, 2013 · · ·

979383
"A Background in Anthropology..."

Half The Day Is Nightmare Night -- After Princess Celestia goes on vacation, ghoulish alternate-universe versions of the Mane Six discover a plot to undermine Princess Luna's authority. Adventure, romance, and buckets of fake blood everywhere ensue.

Luna's Traveling Tutor -- Dorky, awkward magic tutor Green Grass visits Canterlot and falls for Princess Luna; Twilight is upset at being left out of a story that's clearly supposed to feature herself as the vertex of a love triangle. Based on a series of Fifteen Minute Pony prompts.

The Flight of This Platinum Alicorn -- Rarity accidentally schedules two badass epic adventures for the same day. :raritydespair:

Background Ponyses: Lyra crawls around all over the walls and ceiling, and even has sex with Big Mac, but no one seems to remember.

The Best Brony Hero Ever: A human fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic thinks he was sucked into Equestria and is re-living the same day over and over again, however he's actually just trapped in a dead-end job while living in his mother's basement but is incapable of admitting it to himself.

Pinkie Pie's Incredible Interplanetary Super Cough: Six ponies locked together in a room, for fear of a terribly contagious respiratory disease spreading through Equestria. In the darkness, one pony coughs. Particularly noteworthy because just reading this story also infects you with the disease.

The Antipodes of a Winning Pony -- In a far-future Equestria where Celestia and Luna have vanished and the sun and moon hang motionless in the sky, Cloud Kicker has sex with every pony she meets.

979947

Dear god no. She's already infecting so many stories being written, now she can infect ones that existed before she was "relevant"?

Oooh, fun times! Let's see...

Sunny Skies Doesn't Potty: Princess Celestia attempts to live as a normal pony amongst her subjects, but she arouses suspicion when they notice that she never uses the bathroom.

Why are you posting and not writing?
Specifically the WWATPWD civil service one. Hell, just rewrite WWA to make the central conflict not wanting to pay the 5% non-equine income tax (yay pony racism!)

That last is also hilarious. Especially if Twilight has been replaced by Discord.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

979352
Background Pony Watches Paint Dry

I laughed so much.

And thank you. :D I hate to use my own fics, but I can't get this out of my head:

The Spiderses of Awesomery:: Pinkie Pie writes a nigh-unreadable fanfic about her and her friends being turned into spiders and going off on a ridiculous quest to save the world (and have spider sex).

On A Cross And An Arrow And A Pair Of Hands -- Andrea Shepard falls into Equestria, makes out with Dusk Shine and Butterscotch.

Royal Boasts, Busted Rainbooms -- AU. A millennium ago, Princess Celestia went mad with power, and Princess Luna was forced to lock her in the sun. Now, Luna's student Rainbow Dash must travel to Ponyville and-- wait, that doesn't work. Now, Luna's student Lyra Heartstrings-- no, not that either. Luna's student Raindrops? Okay, I think I'm going to have to get back to you on this one.

The AppleDash RainbowLight FlutterPie RariJack Pony Combinatorics Permutation Project -- WARNING: FIFTEEN SECONDS UNTIL CRITICAL SHIPPING OVERLOAD :raritydespair::raritydespair:

[4:26pm] kits: i constructed a Benman-inspired re-imagining of Who We Are
[4:27pm] kits: One of Twilight's friends is a changeling and hasn't been paying her out of state taxes.
[4:27pm] kits: Celestia wants paid
[4:27pm] kits: The resolution ends with all of her friends being too poor to actually have to pay taxes
[4:27pm] kits: and the entire cast gets stuck on welfare
[4:27pm] kits: yay
[4:27pm] kits: so it doesn't matter who the changeling is

This is my next early morning drunken write topic, FYI.

TAW christened the idea "Who We Owe"

She stalked back to her desk, narrowing her eyes and keeping her head down low and her hoofsteps soft. Moving right up against the side of the desk, slowly, quietly, she raised her head, eyes just peeking up over the surface. She stared at the smaller of the two stacks. Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the two ponies she felt exemplified the traits that her romance novels seemed to indicate would complement her own the most.

Applejack, the honest farmer. Rainbow Dash, the exciting flier. She used her magic to spread the two sheets out in front of her. Twilight peered at the two papers, her eyes narrowing further, taking in each word and weighing it. Both ponies had rough edges that would make dating either one difficult. Both had qualities that many agreed were good traits in a partner.

Back and forth between her two friends. Applejack seemed to be the better choice. She was simply far more steady and well grounded than Rainbow Dash, but every time she started to add Rainbow to the pile of discarded papers, she found herself unable to. Flopping onto her back, she stared up at her ceiling. “Ugh! Why does choosing have to be so hard?” Her ceiling did not answer.

Twilight's List
Where instead of Dash, she chose Applejack.

:ajsmug::heart::twilightblush:

982773

She set them up on a date with each other as a tie breaker. Suddenly AppleDash.

983081

I could totally get into this. And then she's left alone as they fall for each other, leaving her to weep in the arms of :pinkiehappy::yay::raritywink:

983107

Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that if you want to be lesbians with somepony, don't get them to be lesbians with somepony else first to see how they do.

Yours,
Twilight Dumbass

PS: At least I kind of know what Applejack tastes like now.

PPS: By the way, the taxes on alcohol are way high.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

983728
You're welcome. :3

982773
Still the wrong pony! :raritydespair:
Seriously, with that setup, Twilight's List should totally be a Twinkie fic. Twilight's got a zany shenanigan she needs help pulling, and Pinkie is the expert on zany shenanigans.

984565
That's fine with me actually! That allows for AppleDash to exist!:rainbowkiss::heart::ajsmug:
And TwiPie is adorable too~

Who We Are, The Princesses Would Destroy: One of the main six is a changeling, but it doesn't matter who—any result will mean massive headaches for the civil service.

I want to see this written so much. Princess Celestia Hates The Feature Box also sounds good, because any outcome where Skywriter is laughing has to be a good thing.
Right? :pinkiehappy:
Right? :pinkiesad2:
Of course it's a good thing, I don't know why I was questioning it. :pinkiecrazy:

979498 The Flight of This Platinum Alicorn - I would read this so hard.

979333 987543 980083

I come bearing gifts.

I was telling GhostOfHeraclitus about these tonight, and he did that thing he does. Spontaneous story fragment generation. So here, for your reading pleasure, is GhostOfHeraclitus's ending to "Who We Are, The Princesses Would Destroy":

And they found me. I don't know how. The little gray unicorn with an expression like a mournful dog, and the white pegasus, with a slick-looking mane, and tenseness around his eyes.

"How did you know? That it was me," I ask. I'm cold. Colder than I've ever been. Colder for knowing a touch of warmth, a warm hug of friends -- true friends, before this. I won't fight. I won't dishonor them by doing that. I hope it doesn't hurt.

"We are the Civil Service. Well, not just us, obviously. We know everything. Or try to. Once we thought to look it wasn't difficult."

"And you found out that I am a--"

"Was."

"What?"

"You were a changeling."

"What?"

"You were a changeling. But as of ooooh 08:13 this morning you are a pony."

"What?"

"See. All nicely official. Signed by...oooh a whole bunch of ponies. That's the princess. That's another princess. That one's me. I'm not a princess, granted, but still."

"What?"

"We can't have a changeling as a element of harmony. The House would have a fit."

"Wh--"

"Please stop saying 'what.'"

"But--"

"So we made you a pony. All official-like. So tomorrow morning Princess Celestia can address the joint session of the House of Commons and the Council of Lords with the whole government lined up in front of her and everything and with Princess Luna, way past her bedtime beside her and tell to ponykind in general that all the Elements of Harmony are ponies and not lie."

"But--"

"The Princess doesn't lie."

"But I--"

"Ever, miss. Ever. But if you disagree about being a pony, you can complain to her. I'd do it around eleven or so in the morning. Her best mood. If she offers you tea, accept. Best tea in Equestria."

"Why?"

"Political expediency, intricate intrigue, but mostly because you are one of her little ponies, species be damned. Have a wonderful day, miss."

1149284 *snort* That's hilarious.

1149284

A little Features Plane of Dialogue, but quite promising for a fragment. Now if only the actual story would be written... Maybe someday.

1149284
I lolled. Very Pratchettesaque. I hope my phone doesn't mangle that too bad.

1149359
Thank you kindly.

1149459
I made kits lol! My day is made almost before it started!

:twilightsmile:

You will, however, need to kill your phone. Pour encourager les autres. :pinkiehappy:

1149402
Hey! Give me a break Causal, I was writing it in a chat window, fer Celestia's sake! :twilightsmile:

1149284
"The thing I do?" :pinkiehappy:

Thanks for posting that, by the by.

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