Greetings programs,

I could have been going to the beach right now. Instead, I figured I'd just slap together yet another self-fapperizing blog post. Because endorphins.

First thing's first. I actually have been writing a bunch of crap as of late. So please don't interpret this recent sleeping beauty pageant lapse in writing as a sign of total marsupial abandonment. Since the LOEG unveiling, I've hammered out about 57,212 words worth of stuff that will more than likely come out on L-Day. (You could include another 5,534 words of something that'll also be released then, but that was written a few days before the truth of Anno Domini was Blue Book'd to the public).

The substance of all this writing may already be known—or maybe even have been read—by those of you obsessive enough to stalk me with bells on. For the rest of you who like your stout dresses and detonations spoiler-free, just hang in there for a while longer. And when I say a “while longer,” I mean something to the extent of another week and a half. I have to Sabu myself over the keyboard for a little while longer and then perform a Ragnorak of editing processes. Hopefully, it will all be worth it in the end, but you're probably better off paying attention to other, far more superior sources of pastel pony literature.

In the meantime, what else should I do but distract the ever-Nietzsche-loving snot out of y'all? So, I've decided to make a list of the pony fic ideas that I've thought up, dreamed up, thrown up, and then given up... on. In other words, here's a bunch of crap that I could have written, but decided not to, for whatever reason. Mostly cuz I've lazy, or because I've been bored, or because I've been overwhelmed by the goddam sleeping giant nesting smokily beneath my ever-twitching feet.

So, without further adieu, here comes the train wrecks that could never get out of the depot. These are not to be confused with ideas that I still do whole-heartedly wish to write, stories such as “It Ends With Them Cuddling,” “Trixie, Destroyer of Worlds,” “Ponymonium,” “Untitled Appledash Story #2,” “Untitled Appledash Story #3,” and—of course—“Untitled Appledash Story #5.” What you're about to witness is no more than a huge waste of space, the accumulation of failures so bad that I haven't even started failing with them, and never will for that matter. Hell, if any of you marsupials love the concepts enough, feel free to seize them all you like and make them yours. And if that wasn't snarky and arrogant enough of a statement to scare you off, then stick around and learn all you care to about...

"Just Scars"
(a.k.a. The Stupid Self-Insertion Fic with a Pretentious Angle on War Veterans and Applejack Acting as a Waifu)

Category: (Sad) (Romance) (Slice-Of-Life) (Potentially Dark)
Synopsis: A pony veteran of the Zebraharan war is given a chance to recuperate in Ponyville, where he gets closely acquainted with the Mane 6, but most especially Applejack. After a tempestuous relationship, Applejack and the rest of her friends see harmony and the power of friendship in a grayer light.

What it was

This, sadly enough, is the first fanfic idea I ever had. It came to me while marathoning my way through MLP Season One like a skittish virgin shuffling his lonesome way into the “Gay and Twinks” section of an adult video store. I think every imaginative brony has their knee-jerk reaction to the outrageously estrogenical nature of the show, and this was the mental equivalent of my toes curling up. I wanted to see the values of the characters tested against a really depressing circumstance and witness what sort of meaty pulp came out the other end of the grinder.

So, I imagined a story where a pony who had seen the utter depths of Hell-on-Earth is eventually sent back to Equestria from his tour of duty in a far-off desert. There's a terrible conflict—a brush war—taking place in the Zebrahara, and for over a decade the forces of Canterlot have sided with one group of zebras to fight back the malevolent onslaught of another faction. Princess Celestia had personally begun a special program of recuperation for returning veterans, and in the case of the story's Gary Stallion, he's given a home to live in at Ponyville where he can spend the next years of his life doing what he does best—manual labor and agriculture.

The story wouldn't entirely revolve around the stallion as it would the Mane 6's interactions with him. He'd serve as a means of letting each character and each character's stance on life/philosophy be analyzed through a murky colored lens. The story would start out very slowly (because which of my stories don't, hah), and eventually the stallion would get closer to one of the ponies—in this case Applejack—because of their similar attitudes on hard work and self-dependence.

But, as time wears on, a lot of dark secrets squeeze out of the otherwise unemotional surface of the stallion. For instance, he'd be wearing a saddlebag at all times, and at some point during an otherwise harmless accident in the center of Ponyville, the saddle falls off and he's revealed to be a pegasus who had his wings torn off while at a (bad) zebra P.O.W. Camp. Also, he has no cutie mark because a major war scar blemished his skin where it once formed naturally (Twilight would have a conversation with him suggesting that some ponies have been known to develop a second cutie mark by the end of their lives, to which the stallion is hardly amused). Furthermore, he has a moment where he blows up at the CMC for doing something relatively harmless.

Infuriated, Applejack confronts the stallion who—in spite of how close they have gotten—has seemingly turned into Mr. Hyde overnight. And yet, to her shock, he coldly ends their relationship right then and there, stomping off to self-angsting poutville. Applejack is devastated, and after a talk with her friends, approaches him one last time to try to salvage his sanity if not his heart. What follows is a climactic moment, where he reveals that after his torturous time in a P.O.W. Camp, he was somehow forced into a final tour of duty, during which he and several other stressed ponies stumbled upon a village belonging to the enemy faction of zebras. There, all they found were mares and foals, and yet they slaughtered the population regardless in their emaciated anger and fear. Ever since then, everytime the stallion sees a foal—such as the members of the CMC—he falls apart inside, and the only way to stop from sobbing is to bite off the heads of anypony he sees.

Now that he's made his confession, he tells Applejack that he's met a whole group of pony veterans and that—together—they're off to do a cross-country trip and re-discover themselves. It's one of those classic moments where the male interest tells the female interest that he's never coming back. Applejack, who's normally strong in these situations, starts to lose it. She vents her anger, frustration, and sadness to Twilight, and Twilight—feeling for Applejack—writes a very emotional letter to Celestia where, for once, she doesn't feel as if she's learned anything positive about the power of friendship. The situation just doesn't have a happy ending.

To everypony's surprise, Princess Celestia herself visits the town. She specifically goes to talk with Applejack, to solace her. And yet, she doesn't have a solution for Applejack either. The moral of the story is that there is no moral, that sometimes there is pain in the world so great that the best thing ponies can do for others is to offer their unyielding support and companionship, because they can never conceptually relate to what the unfortunate souls have gone through. Also, some ponies who can be helped don't want to be because they can never forgive themselves.

The fic ends with the stallion marching off with his veteran buddies, heading to parts unknown. In the last scene, he stumbles, and his saddlebag falls off. The others pause and wait for him. As he gets back up, he takes a look at himself and freezes. There's a new cutie mark that's formed over his scar, that of a bunch of glistening red apples.

“Everything okay?” they ask. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” the stallion says and slides the saddlebag back into place with a muted grunt. “Just scars.”

Why I Will Never Write It

I'm a thirty-year old shut-in whose greatest injury is a broken arm he had at age nine. I've never been to war, and I somehow doubt I will ever see any legitimately horrifying conflict. So, what in the name of Dick Van Dyke's left kidney makes me think I have what it takes to approach such a wildly debatable topic? Also, though I've referred to the “Zebrahara Conflict” dozens of times in my fanfics, I've still not acquired the balls to actually write about it—mostly because I'm not too proud of how pretentiously it mimics stuff like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Last but not least... seriously? A gary stu and Applejack? O lawd...

Even back then, I knew that having my first fanfic feature an OC pony would be bad bombin'. I'd already been through the motions of Gary Stuisms in my Teen Titans days. There was no need to repeat myself, at least not yet. So, for the sake of getting my “MLPfiction career” off to a decent start, I decided to go with a new and far more grounded idea of Rainbow Dash having to re-do the impact her sonic rainbooms had on her filly friends. And that turned out just splendidly... didn't it?

Meh. Moving on.

”Waiting for a Spark”
(a.k.a. The Fic that Starts Out Miserably Depressing for the Sole Sake of Ending Diabetically Sweet)

Category: (Sad) (Alternate Universe) (Slice-Of-Life)
Synopsis: Lone Star's only friend is her homework. She studies vigorously at Canterlot University, learning all about the magic she can never perform. Nopony pays any heed to her, nor knows the extent to which she cries her lonesome self to sleep at night. Then, one day, she starts getting mysterious letters signed by her birthname: Twilight Sparkle.

What it was

I've rambled on about this idea before, and I actually did write part of the first chapter to it. Initially, it was to be a challenge to myself to write installments in less than ten pages. However, on starting it, I realized that I was only doomed to fail, so that discouraged me from writing any further.

Still, short or lengthy, I think this would have made for a nice story. As the synopsis says, it starts with a seemly OC pony named “Lone Star.” With no flagrant attempts at plot progression, the story simply follows her with her daily routine of waking up in her apartment, going to school, studying, coming home, studying, and going to bed. There are slight variations. One night, she's stargazing when she witnesses a party in the apartment across the street and she gazes at the social festivities with a long-winded sigh. Then, on another evening, she attends a weekly candle-light vigil among other ponies paying respects to Princess Luna who has been in a magically-induced coma since her return from the Mare in the Moon. Finally, we'd have a ridiculously heart-stomping scene of Lone Star utterly sobbing herself to bed because she's so goddamn lonely. Yeah. Happy, happy exposition.

But, it so happens that as she cries herself to sleep, there's a tiny drop of hope. In a green puff of flame, a scrolled-up letter drops onto the floor of her apartment. She doesn't discover it until the following morning when she literally trips over the damn thing. At first, Lone Star is too freaked to so much as touch the thing, but as her routine continues, she's pelted with more and more letters. What follows is a repeat of the expositionary “week-in-the-life” scenario, only now with her getting more and more frazzled by these letters dropping out of nowhere.

Finally, she reads what's in the scrolls, and the true nature of the “Alternate Universe” tab bleeds through the lines. Lone Star is, in fact, Twilight Sparkle. In this universe, the “Entrance Exam” went horribly. Spike died. Twilight's parents were zapped to decaying plants. And several professors were injured. When Celestia came to save the day, she was too late, and she felt personally responsible—especially since she was apparently the one who set it up for Twilight to have the Entrance Exam in the first place. Instead of taking Twilight under her wing, Celestia decided to help her from afar—with royal funding and education, giving her enough support to live the rest of her life in peace. However, the damage was done. It was Celestia's belief that getting intimately involved with Twilight's life again would only risk further misfortune. Feeling remorseful and guilty, Celestia took the whole thing hard and withdrew from the public eye. When Nightmare Moon returned, there were no ponies selected to serve as vessels for the Elements of Harmony. Instead, Celestia confronted Nightmare Moon one-on-one, and ultimately resorted to casting a spell on her sister that put Luna into catatonic stasis. Celestia's self-hatred snowballed, and now she shuts herself up in the palace all the time.

In the meantime, Twilight fared no better. Blaming herself for her parents' death, she changed her legal name to “Lone Star” (matching her solitary cutie mark in this universe) and had a suppression field cone thingy applied to her horn so that her “uncontrollable magic” wouldn't kill anypony off ever again. As a result, she was cursed to study magic solely through books and written theory, rather than actually practicing her natural talents.

But now, Lone Star is getting magical duplicates of the letters Twilight Sparkle wrote in MLP Seasons 1 and 2. Somehow, the event of the “Entry Exam” fused the two alternate universe doppelgangers via the same magical leyline, and when Twilight had Spike send her personally written letters to the Princess, they belatedly made their way over to Lone Star's universe as well. As a result, Lone Star learns about all of the friends she could have made—and the subsequently happier life she could have lived. It tears her apart, but she holds it all in and daringly writes back to Twilight, risking life and limb by removing her suppression cone to transport the letters straight back along the same portals that brought them to her.

Thus, she becomes pen pals with Twilight, who doesn't know that Lone Star is actually her in another universe. Twilight, ignorant of Lone Star's plight, innocently obliges whenever Lone asks she write about her life, her close friends, and her family. This goes on for a while until Lone has a nervous breakdown. She decides on a whim to drop out of school, collect all her funds, and catch the nearest train to Ponyville. There, she sets out to meet and greet her universe's version of the Mane 6, desperate to make friends with the likes of Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and the rest just like Twilight Sparkle so easily did.

And it's here where the fanfic gets supremely predictable and formulaic. When Lone Star goes to befriend Applejack, she runs into Carrot Top. When she goes to meet Rainbow Dash, she meets Derpy instead. For Rarity, Bon Bon. For Fluttershy, Candy Mane. For Pinkie Pie, Lyra. While attempting to kiss the hooves and win the trust of the Mane Sixers, it's the Background Ponies who befriend her the most, with whom she so easily clicks. However, Lone Star is so desperate to recreate the clique of Twilight Sparkle that she ignores the obvious candidates who are doing everything in their power to help make her wish come true.

It all boils down to a hastily arranged party where Lone Star tries to get these five ponies she's barely met to meet and have a good time. But, due to a series of situational circumstances, the cast of the Mane 6 can't stand the sight of each other. The party collapses in on itself, and Lone Star witnesses in horror as all her dreams shatter. The Background Ponies sincerely try to solace her, but she lets out a tearful monologue and runs into the Everfree Forest by herself.

In desperation, Lone Star treks alone to the ruins featured at the end of Season One's two-part premier. She has a wild idea that she can shoot a spark into the “elements” located in the crumbled palace and somehow... I dunno... force herself to have friends. But, removing the magic suppression field from her horn for so long overwhelms her, and she collapses. When Lone Star comes to, she's shocked to see Princess Celestia herself there, embracing her. Immediately after, the Background Ponies appear, revealing that they got together and wrote Princess Celestia on Lone Star's behalf so that they could save her before she did something to hurt herself. What happens is a major chat session, where Lone Star realizes that these five random ponies are—in fact—her destined friends.

And, just like at the beginning of Season One, Lone has... her spark. And the Elements of Harmony are reborn in her universe. Lone Star is moved to tears in pure ecstasy, but then has a sudden epiphany. With Celestia's help, she and her new companions are transported to Canterlot where they use the Elements of Harmony on Luna, who is then cleansed from Nightmare Moon's possession. Now Celestia is reunited with her sister, and everything ends all super crazy girlishly happy. Then Lone Star writes an inspiring letter that acts as the fanfic's denouement or some crap. Whatever.

Why I Will Never Write It

Yeah, diabetes all around, but DAYUM if that isn't boringly formulaic. Anyone with an inchworm's intelligence would have predicted the story's ending about halfway through. And when you can see the ending coming from a Hadron Collider away, regardless how many backup characters don Bruce Willis masks, then you're botching the story big time.

Also, the idea was birthed out of the hope that I could write something short, simple, sweet, and happy. And, well, come onnnnnnnnn...

Lone Star can drown in her friggin' tears. F'naaa.

”I Remember Rainbow Dash v2.0”
(a.k.a. Where I Dreamfap to Three of My Favorite Themes: Amnesia, Rescue Missions, and Dashing Apples)

Category: (Adventure) (Romance) (Alternate Universe?) (Tragedy?)
Synopsis: Applejack is sad and lonesome, but she doesn't know why. She limps about her work, her spirit plagued by a gnawing sensation of something missing in her life. Then, one day, it all becomes clear to her. She remembers Rainbow Dash.

What it was

“I Remember Rainbow Dash” is something I am always returning to in some fashion or another. As much of a craptastic failure that the fanfic was, I still to this day like a lot of the ideas I thought up for it. In some way or another, several fanfic concepts that have sprouted across the fields of my mind since then have borrowed in one or another from that travesty. One of them is “It Ends With Them Cuddling,” which I still wish to write someday. Another is... what you're about to read.

In a way, most of what it borrows is the name. It's a story written in two interweaving plot threads. One of them is of Applejack—post Season 2 premiere—going about her daily life while battling what can only be described as a case of acute depression. She's very quiet around her friends, very lethargic while tackling the daily chores at Sweet Apple Acres, and dang near crying herself to sleep every night. The second story thread obviously takes place in the past, several months before, when Applejack is apparently getting very close to a mare following the events of “Best Night Ever.” The mare is never outright named or described (cough cough cough), but it's obvious that she's made a huge impact on Applejack's romantic life.

Applejack isn't the only depressed equine in town. Scootaloo, for some reason, is also down in the dumps. The other members of the CMC can't quite understand what's eating at her, and their numerous attempts to cheer her up fail. Eventually, the CMC draw apart, with Scootaloo becoming something of a loner.

In the meantime, overwhelmed by the faint memories of the secondary story thread, Applejack has something of a therapy session with Twilight and mournfully confesses that she feels as if a huge gap is missing in her life, as if a chunk of her heart has been ripped away but she just can't put a name on it. Twilight suggests that Applejack take some time off of... well... everything, so as to see if she can relax and come to grips with her confused feelings. So, Applejack asks Big Mac if he'd be willing to pick up the slack at Sweet Apple Acres, and like a real swell stallion, he agrees.

However, before Applejack can decide on whether or not to go on vacation or something, she's visited by Scootaloo who's so distraught that she's resorted to coming to Applejack with a confession. When Applejack asks her what the problem is, Scootaloo tearfully confesses “I remember Rainbow Dash.”

Just then, a flood of memories hit Applejack at the very mention of the name. She collapses, hugging Scootaloo tightly as the two sob in both joy and sorrow. “Oh Sugarcube, I do too...”

As it turns out, Rainbow Dash is a loyal pegasus that existed in Ponyville, but something happened to erase her from the memory of every other equine in existence (sound familiar at all?). When Applejack goes to Twilight Sparkle to share her and Scootaloo's newfound discovery, Twilight is hesitant to believe her. Still, giving it the benefit of a doubt, Twilight conducts several experiments and discovers that—indeed—some mysterious and unnamed magic spell of incredible power had been conducted in the center of town a few months ago. It could perhaps be possible that this “Rainbow Dash” did something to wipe all knowledge of herself out of the history books.

But why? Applejack looks back, and the secondary story thread takes on greater detail and color as we witness—from beginning to end—the blossoming romance between Rainbow Dash and Applejack immediately following the events of the Great Galloping Gala. It's practically a story-within-a-story itself, showing how they both started merely as close friends, then shared their intimate fears and secrets, then formed a mutual attraction, and then the hubba-hubba-boinkity-boink, and all the other craptacularly predictable slings and arrows of stigmatic shipping tropes.

What isn't so typical is the darker twist their past history takes. Rainbow Dash started showing hints of anxiety and doubt concerning their relationship, especially when it dealt with the topic of Sweet Apple Acres and the future legacy of the Apple Family. Then, after Discord came and went, it's implied that Rainbow Dash suffered a lot more from being turned gray than the rest of the Mane 6 (she was “discorded” for much longer than the other five, after all). Following the events, she regressed into a state of dementia, acting unpredictably and becoming prone to violent outbursts of extreme emotion. Essentially, her post-Discord madness served as the platform through which Rainbow Dash vented her fears of not being a fitting partner for Applejack, as well as being the one thing that stood in the way of Applejack foaling kids of her own and extending the Apple family tree.

So—fueled by her ill mental state and fears—Rainbow Dash turned to some indeterminate phantom of an antagonist who promised her a way to fix things. This hitherto unidentified villain promised to “save” Applejack by making Rainbow Dash never exist, so that Applejack wouldn't be weighed down by a veritable mental patient, and also she'd have a second chance at meeting a partner who could grant her a much happier future.

Upon remembering/learning/discovering these details, Applejack can only assume that some ebil villain pony thingy had taken advantage of Rainbow Dash's weak condition at the time. So, with Twilight's help, she traces the... I dunno... direction of the leylines fused to the amnesia spell, or something. Twilight estimates that she can create a portal that will teleport Applejack to the ebil magician's last known whereabouts. But the spell is such a specific deus ex machina that it can only send one or two ponies, not including Twilight herself. Applejack decides to go it alone, seeing as it will bring intimate closure between herself and whatever became of Rainbow Dash. But, just as Twilight casts the spell, Scootaloo—who had been eavesdropping the whole time, the little rapscallion—leaps into the way of the portal, and Applejack finds herself flung clear across the Equestrian countryside with an unexpected sidekick.

What follows is a prolonged, picaresque adventure of Applejack and Scootaloo trekking across unknown territories in far-off lands, attempting to recover the trail of the magician pony who stole their beloved Rainbow Dash, whom only the two of them are capable of remembering for some stupidly Disneyesque reason. This is where I get lazy and skip a lot of details. It'd probably borrow a bunch of shiet from “I Remember Rainbow Dash,” such as a flying castle, dragons, and an army of Russian accented flying squirrels. I'm not even close to shitting you.

Ultimately, they do run into Rainbow Dash, but there's something wrong with her. She's got an evil smirk and is treating an entire province of helpless earth ponies like crap. Oh, and her mane's all white. What's up with that? Then, out of nowhere, a bunch of Rainbow Dash doppelgangers appear, each with a mane of a different solid color. Applejack and Scootaloo are beyond confused, and Applejack demands Rainbow Dash for an answer, to which she's told: “I'm not Rainbow Dash. I'm Discord.”

As it turns out, the ebil wizard pony thingy was on a life-long mission to summon Discord back into the realm of Equestria. After, y'know, Discord returned ON HIS OWN, the wizard was all “WTF” and galloped to Ponyville. He/She was too late, for Discord was defeated. However, he/she witnessed Rainbow Dash still suffering from the discordant spell, and saw it as an opportunity of bringing back his/her chaotic lord and master after all. After casting the amnesia spell, he/she took Rainbow Dash to the opposite end of the continent where he/she used the resulting blank slate as a vessel for reincarnating Discord once and for all. This somehow involved Rainbow Dash splitting into seven corrupted doppelgangers all bent on performing their dark master's will: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and the ringleader, white. All seven Dash's subjugated an entire town of ponies/squirrels/other creatures, instead carving a huge quarry out of their land and building some sort of chaos rift portal thing that would legitimately bring Discord permanently into the world.

Well, after some villainous monologue reveals this to Applejack and Scootaloo, they're flung into a dungeon—where they find a sole, remaining Rainbow Dash: black. The dark-maned pegasus represents the absence of all the evil that fills the other doppelgangers, and though she's a very feeble, weak, and mentally unstable version of Rainbow Dash, she's the closest thing to the real deal that Applejack remembers, and the farm filly spends a great deal of the fic getting close to her and trying to summon a part of her past self back to the surface.

In the meantime, Scootaloo somehow gets free and joins up with a resistance group of flying comrade squirrels. In a moment of extreme duress, she learns to fly, and sort of becomes an adult overnight (most likely earning her cutie mark). Scootaloo and bushy-tailed Co. break Applejack free, and there's a huge climax of sorts. Maybe the villain reforms after he/she loses control of the discordant Rainbow Dash doppelgangers, I'm not entirely sure, but the silver bullet of the story is some reverse amnesia spell that—you guessed it—Applejack has to use on the multiple Dashes. And—you also guessed it—after Applejack delivers the killing blow, Rainbow Dash is perfectly restored to her former glory... but Applejack doesn't remember a dayum thing.

So, after all that crappy, prolonged, adventurous shipping sap, Rainbow Dash is incapable of returning the favor to the one mare that loved her more than life itself, but now doesn't remember a single damn thing about her—though she remembers all the other ponies in Ponyville. This was going to have a wicked sweet device to it, where the very first chapter of the fanfic begins with the unnamed mares cuddling each other in a hayloft and one of them going “I once asked you a question, and your answer was two words. Do you remember what they were?” This conversation would be brought up constantly throughout the fic, mostly by Applejack while addressing the black-maned, mentally unstable Dash. Then, the last line of the story would have been Rainbow Dash speaking to the perpetually amnesiac Applejack, all the while tearfully, bitterly smiling: “Those words were 'I do.'”

Why I Will Never Write It

Because FUCK.

Also because I was trying to tell a billion different stories all at once, and all of it extremely lopsided. In many ways, the story was shaping out to be extremely top-heavy, in that the fanfic starts out with a very vague exposition, has a huge revelation, then has an INSANELY HUGE exposition—like someone shoved a Woody Allen romance into the middle of a Ridley Scott epic—before eventually limping into what would have been a half-hearted adventure story at best.

So, in my head, I broke down the parts that I liked the most (and face it, it's the kind of story that only I would have enjoyed anyways), and those became the basis for a different project that unofficially began with “Spelling It Out.” I've long had a personal “SS&E Appledash Headcanon Yarn” that I've desperately wanted to put to word processor. “Spelling It Out” was to be the start of that, but that turned out lackluster. I soon realized that if I actually did write a huge series of Appledash stories, it could only be a self-absorbed project at best. It's hardly ever a good thing when you write almost entirely for yourself. Besides, I think we all know where something like that would eventually lead. What marsupial in their good mind would want to read softcore clop with the words “sapphiric,” “immaculate,” “clamored,” and “sashayed” abused throughout the proverbial bedroom?

Besides, I put the themes of amnesia and forgotten ponies to better use, and then I slapped a stone-gray hoodie on top of it.

”Woefully Sad Twilight Sparkle and Spike Story #999”
(a.k.a. Woefully Fucking Sad Twilight Sparkle and Spike Story #999)

Category: (Sad) (Sad) (Sad) (Sad) (Sad?) (Sad)
Synopsis: Twilight Sparkle is reading in the library when she finds a page missing out of one of her books. Attempting to figure why, she comes upon a dark trail that leads her to question her past and her own actions.

What it was

Eons ago, I was skimming through Ponychan's /Fic/ when I stumbled upon a thread where some marsupial essentially said: “Hey guys, I'm going to lunch with my totally hot girlfriend, and when I come back I wanna see from the whole lot of you a list of fanfic ideas so that I can pick one as a synopsis and write it in a three hour session tops.”

My finger danced between “Reply” and “Missiles.” Eventually, I settled on slapping together a premise in under five minutes or so.

The dude's response was something to the extent of: “Uh, yeah. That should be a friggin' epic. There's no way in fuck I could write that in under three hours.”

Basically, Twilight is cleaning out the library when she stumbles upon a book with one of the page's missing. She asks her number one assistant, Spike, about it, and he's clueless. So, she does some... magical whatchamajiggy, and she comes to the conclusion that the only soul capable of ripping the page out was herself (it's a book of really intense spells, and maybe the plot contrivance is that only a certain charge of magic could sever the pages).

So, like, she looks through her personal journal to find the last time when she used the particular spell that could have ripped the page out of the book. To her shock, there's an old, old date missing from her journal—or else it's been rewritten. Whatever the case, she's missing a day from her life back when she first moved into Canterlot Castle and became Celestia's pupil (Wow, “amnesia,” you're being invited to every cool lemur's party as of late).

Twilight's very obviously disturbed by this discovery, and she makes it her goal to figure it out at all costs. Naturally, she overworks herself. However, Spike is there to help her the whole way, and she breaks long enough to relax and spend some time with him.

In fact, there's a great deal of Spike/Twilight bonding in this story. In a way, the quest to uncover the missing journal-and-spell becomes something of a B-Plot while the narrative focuses much more intently on Spike and Twilight's sibling-like relationship, or more appropriately foster-son-and-mother relationship. Lately, I even thought of having Rarity as an important presence in the story, casting her own opinions on the state of Spike and his growth. Twilight admits that Spike wouldn't have anywhere to go without her, and whenever Spike would bring up the topic of growing up, Twilight would usually dismiss the topic and attempt to pretend that he'll be with her forever. Rarity comments that Spike will likely have to live with ponies all his life. After all, he isn't like most other dragons. He doesn't even have wings.

Anyways, Twilight presses on. And, eventually, she does succeed in uncovering the memory—or at the very least the missing page from her journal. She does it through some sort of drastic means, either through the use of a forbidden spell or maybe even relying on Zecora's herbal means of memory recovery.

However, what Twilight learns paralyzes her. She sits one morning in the library, frozen in a veritable stupor. Spike stumbles upon her, on his way out the door to go fishing with his pony friends, Snips and Snails. At seeing how pale she is, he asks what's wrong. Twilight claims that she's fine and sends him on his merry way. But before he leaves, she states: “I just want you to know how much I love you, and I'm proud of how strong and mature you're growing.” Spike merely blushes and returns the sentiment with masculine subtlety.

Once he's gone, Twilight gazes at the recovered page that had been missing from the book. It's a spell to prevent a creature from ever growing wings.

Why I Will Never Write It

Because it just ends there. I always thought that would be the best way to finish it, but somehow I don't think any of my pre-readers or regular marsupials would dig it any.

Also, to try and convey the story and its logistics succinctly, I'd have to get really fucking vague. I can't seem to decide whether Twilight's dealing with absolute memory loss, if she cast the spell on herself, or—for that matter—how exactly she'd go about retracing the steps to get back to a place of full realization. The fic is so dayum desperate to get to the twist that it forsakes a lot of the digestible platforms that need to be scaled to get there.

Also, once I started tossing Rarity into the mix, I force the readers to examine the relationship of Twilight and Spike in a more complicated light, and that sort of analysis cannot end the story with any sort of positive image on Twilight's part. What she did to Spike was dirty cruel. The idea has always been that she did it when she was a very young foal, just barely inducted into the mentorship of Princess Celestia. She didn't know better at the time, and yet her next solution was to make herself forget the horrible atrocity she had committed? As if that could somehow excuse the crime?

I like the idea of illustrating an imperfect character, or a protagonist who becomes self-aware of a terrible sin that produced no learned lesson. But I think the questions produced by the bleak end of the fic are far too numerous. How could Princess Celestia have let something like that slide under her careful observation? What would be the legal and moral repercussions of Twilight's action being exposed to the light once again? What would Rarity think after all of the conversations they had shared concerning Spike? Would Twilight's shame and hypocrisy affect her relationship with the rest of the Mane 6?

It's so many questions that it either begs a sequel or an entire second leg of the story. But such a continuation would be hollow, because the hook—the huge sting of the twist—would have come and gone, and I can't for the life of me think up of a way to make the story any more rewarding after that part. So, into the trash bin—er, or trash blog—it went.

”Tartarus Zero”
(a.k.a. Holy Crap, Man, Get Some Fucking Therapy)

Category: (Grim Dark) (Tragedy) (Sci-Fi) (Adventure)
Synopsis: Unicorns start dying of strokes randomly across Equestria. After the death of Moondancer, Twilight Sparkle attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery, when she herself suffers a horrible episode. However, instead of dying, she hears a voice in her head, the soul of a pony warning her of a terrible danger that threatens Equestria.

What it was

This one's incredibly fragmented, an example of a wonderful platform of an idea with no real resolution. It's also pretty dayum messed up.

Somewhere, in a very, very, unhappy place, ponies are enslaved by some kind of infernal industry. Equines are raised like crops, spawned in protein baths and carted across conveyor belts like slabs of meat. They even have their limbs hacked off at infancy, so that for the rest of their lives they are forced to use cybernetic implants that are very closely regulated by the same antagonistic force that builds and runs the machine to which the hapless pony victims are wired.

All tortured equines are forced to function as part of a gigantic, dark, steampunk hive mind, the monarch of which is some beastly creature that is neither pony nor spirit. The earth ponies are turned into slave laborers. The pegasi are turned into mind-controlled security guards. And the unicorns... become the “seekers.”

A seeker has his unicorn sliced off at the base. His only purpose in life is to wait for the opportunity to be conveyed—limbless—over to a ghastly apparatus fitted with hundreds upon thousands of severed unicorn horns. The seeker is rigged into place, and—with a shower of magical sparks—the alien horn is fused to his skull. After the leylines connect, the consciousness of the seeker is tortuously fused to the unicorn soul to whom the alien horn belongs.

Zoom all the way over to Ponyville, Equestria, and unicorns are suddenly dropping left and right, dying from unexplained, unforeseen neurological attacks. Twilight starts to take notice, especially when Moondancer—her foalhood friend—bites the dust in such a fashion. After attending the bleak funeral, she attempts to get to the bottom the situation through good 'ol fashioned science, when she suddenly suffers a terrible seizure. However, instead of dying from catatonic shock, she comes out the other end of the episode in one piece. What's more, she's in communication with the voice of a unicorn male that only she can sense and hear.

Flash back to unhappyland, and a male seeker is surprised to be in intimate conversation with the mare to whose horn he's attached. It's revealed that the grand purpose of the task forced upon him was to inhabit the bodies of unicorns in Equestria and gain information about their land through their senses. However, being able to blend with the consciousness of Twilight—without killing her—was not part of the plan. He only tells part of the truth to his supervisors, and he's rewarded with a set of cybernetic limbs. He walks for the first time in his life, and continues to “talk” with Twilight while ascending the ranks of his deplorable, imprisoned lifestyle.

As the two commune more and more, Twilight learns of his miserable existence, and the seeker learns of her happy life. She pities him, and he envies her. In spite of their initial qualms, they learn to get along, and they become fast friends—in the mental pen pal sense of the term. In a sincere desire to help save Twilight and her friends, the seeker works on his end to figure out more about the mechanized society that has raised him like a meatbag since his foalhood, hoping that he might prevent them from eventually invading Equestria and bringing an end to all of the things that brings Twilight and her friends such joy and harmony.

Twilight is no slacker. She works on her end, performing spells with Celestia and other magicians to figure out where the seeker is and how they might attempt a rescue of him and all the other tortured ponies. It is somewhere in the midst of this quest for knowledge that they learn the grimdarkest of twists.

The Seeker is in the future. He has Twilight's horn fused to his head because she's dead, and the horn was excavated from her corpse decades ago. Tartarus has broken free from the gates to the underworld, and in the future all of Equestria is overrun. The seekers were used as a means of routing out the unicorn souls who would eventually John Conner et under the boots of Tartarus' demonic legions.

Suddenly, Twilight's and the seeker's quest to stop the future becomes a futile attempt to reverse the past. And... yeah. Pretty much that.

Why I Will Never Write It

I think this would have been a fantastic story. Hell, it still could be. However, I wouldn't be the one to write it.

Why not? Cuz if I did, any marsupials with a lick of sense would look at it, look at me, and then shout, “Yeah, well it's Mother Fucking End of Ponies.”

And it kind of is. It's about a pony in a desolate future reaching back into the past and not really being able to do a damn thing about either timeline. So, what's the point of the story, then? Excessive world building? Melodramatic contrast of idyllic and nightmarish settings? An existential, cathartic journey towards subjective closure?

Yeah. Been there, done that. Sorry, “Amnesia,” but there's a new mistress in my bed.

Still, the idea proved useful for me in the future. The building blocks of the horrible nightmare world sort of transformed into the backdrop of “The Last Tears in Tartarus,” of which I'm still very proud to this day. I'd very much like to continue writing stories in “Tartarus-ville,” but I'm afraid this fic idea can't be one of them.

Live and let lacerate, amirite?

”The Wingebonerest Story Ever Told”
(a.k.a. Forgive Me, Vimbert, For I Have Sinned)

Category: (Comedy) (Random)
Synopsis: Rainbow Dash's wings act funny whenever she's around her friends. As a proper scientist, Twilight Sparkle must learn more.

What it was

Uh, yeah. No.

Why I Will Never Write It

Because some things are not worth vomiting forth a shameless globule of textual sludge for the sole sake of supporting a ridiculous title that will only shoot its way to the top of the feature box regardless of its actual merit.

”Flutterhy Is the Thirteenth Warrior Is the Last Samurai Is a Changeling That Dances With Wolves”
(a.k.a. When I Hate an Oversaturated Fanfic Meme More Than Kidney Stones But Then Pretentiously Think That I Can Improve Upon It)

Category: (Action) (Adventure) (GrimDark?)
Synopsis: Fluttershy unwittingly becomes Equestria's single weapon against Queen Chrysalis' Hive when she's turned into a changeling and sent to infiltrate their ranks.

What it was

There really isn't much to say about this one. I thought about it relatively recently. And when I say “relatively recently,” what I really mean is “sometime since last Megacon.” Goddam you, Father Time.

I hate changeling fics. I really do. I admit that it's hypocritical of me to say so, seeing as I have yet to read a single damn one. I know that Wanderer D has asked me to check out one or two of his, and I'm sure they're lovely. But I still hesitate. It's like being asked politely to jam a fork in my eye.

Don't get me wrong. The last episode of Season Two was spectacular, through and through. I just really, really, really hate Queen Chrysalis with the burning power of eleven tobacco-sauce-soaked urethras. I mean, was it enough that she was a leech-woman, but then they had to go the way of the shape-shifter as well? That's not a villain. That's a Mary Sue in disguise, and a very flimsy one at that. And then there's the singing and the extended monologue and the self-defeating, pompous, arrogant blind eye andadjfakqljfklajflkdjafkjal;akalkfjflkj

Ahem.

So, yeah, the changeling idea was kind of cool. But it's not exactly earth-shattering. I mean, Star Trek's Dominion and Marvel Comics' Skrulls have been doing the same thing epically for ages now. Why's it suddenly okay in MLP-fiction? Yes, I was tempted by the idea, but I put it off because I had other crap that I was pretending to write. Then, just a few blinks later, I turned and glanced and my original idea is suddenly the same original idea of at least three hundred other marsupials. I mean, y'all remember the week when there were—like—four or five goddam changeling fics in a row populating the feature box, yes? For the love of Brent Spiner, there are Pacific islands recovering from the 2004 tsunamis with twice as much self-respect than Fimfiction. F'naa. I'll switch off the snark fountain now.

So, yeah. I had a changeling idea. And if you couldn't tell from the stupideriffic rant directly right above this paragraph, I abandoned it because it was a fucking changeling idea. Essentially, it boiled down to the Equestrian government remaining hush-hush about changelings immediately following the Royal Wedding at the end of Season 2. The Mane 6 is feeling nervous about it, wondering if there's some conspiracy at hoof. Sure enough, Fluttershy gets summoned away. It turns out her father—who is a pegasus working for an Equestrian Secret agency—is desperate to contact her because there are no ponies left in his division that he can trust anymore. “Everything and everyone has been infiltrated,” he says in a frenzied stupor.

He barely has a chance to tell her more when suddenly he, Fluttershy, and a bunch of other ponies are under attack by a swarm of changelings in the middle of the forest. During the attack, Fluttershy's father is mortally wounded. With his last breath, he whips out a vial and jabs the needle into Fluttershy's gasping body. He croaks, and she undergoes a painful transformation, turning into a flesh-and-blood changeling over the corpse of her father. Before she knows it, the swarm is buzzing back to the hive of the queen, and they take Fluttershy with them.

What follows is a relatively comical series of events where Fluttershy bumbles, trips over herself, but just barely manages to blend in. I'm thinking she's befriended by another pony-transformed-to-changeling, or else a turncoat changeling who is in league with Equestria. It turns out that there's a terrible invasion underway (the Wedding was just a grand red herring), and to prepare for it, Chrysalis has managed to replace several key officials in the Equestrian power structure.

It's obvious now to Fluttershy that her mission—or her dad's mission—was to find out who had been replaced and report it back to the Equestrian so that Celestia's army could perform the appropriate, surgical strike. However, there'd be some turn of events—maybe it turns out that Celestia herself was a doppelganger, or that other key figures were replaced that would make the whole operation pointless from the get go. Or, perhaps, I could have taken the story in another direction and had Fluttershy—at the right place and at the right time—completely transform the nature of the operation by instilling the hive mind with her personal philosophy of friendship, peace, and kindness.

But, we'll never know, because... well... changeling fic.

Why I Will Never Write It

Changeling fic!

”The Great Canterlot Caper”
(a.k.a. My Second Most Ridiculous Plan To Get Sethisto to Personally E-Mail Me)

Category: (Action) (Adventure) (Comedy)
Synopsis: While down on her luck, the Great and Powerful Trixie is approached by an old friend who has just the solution to get her out of her raging debt. Together, they join a group of extraordinary individuals with a masterfully-laid plan to rob directly from the royal vault of Canterlot. The date? The Great Galloping Gala. The target? The Elements of Harmony.

What it was

Of all the stuff that I will never write, this is the one that I regret not tackling the most. There's no simple reason other than the fact that I'm too lazy to, I suppose. I really think this fic would do well in the right hands of someone. I mean, I don't do a lot of reading, but I'd love to read something like this if written well (i.e. not by me).

It's a lot like Ocean's Eleven, Inception, Mission Impossible, the Great Muppet Caper, or all that other stereotypical shiznet.

Following the events of Season One's “Boast Busters,” Trixie is her predictable gloomy, broke, destitute self. However, she's not one hundred percent pitiable. She's dealt with local mobs before, and now they're coming to collect. Without a single bit to her name, Trixie has to run for the hills or else she'll soon find her hooves encased in cement.

Who should come to the rescue but an old sweetheart with whom she had a fling in magic school. Since graduation, he's been swindling his way into the favor of less-than-reputable characters, and he's become something of an expert thief. Out of seemingly sincere motive, he cuts Trixie a break, inviting her to join him and this new posse of high class criminals.

The cast would be introduced as a fairly heterogenous group of ponies, zebras, donkeys, cows, squirrels, monkeys—you name it. There'd be no more than a dozen personalities. And at least there'd be a squirrel in there somewhere, and most likely with a Russian accent.

Of all the treasures in Equestria that's theirs for the plundering, they've chosen to aim high and target the Elements of Harmony themselves. The leader of the group has already planned to infiltrate the Canterlot Royal Palace on the night of the Grand Galloping Gala. In true James Bond fashion, half the group will pose as celebrators while the other half shall slither their way in behind the scenes to make contact with their compatriots. Using a various array of well-timed distractions, the group will break into the vault, make off with the shiny Elements, head for the border, and relish the bountiful rewards.

The first half of the fic—like all good capers—is preparing for the kaizo operation. This would be the chance for secondary threads exploring character-building, such as the reunion of Trixie and her past sweetheart. There'd be planned rehearsals, tons of overlapping monologue, and all the other juicy bits that make high class crime movies so high class crimetastic. All the while, the story would provide forshadowing of potential betrayals and all that other dazzling crap.

Then, the second fic is the actual operation itself, and it would take place in real-time, with the different characters occupying their different stations and working off of one another. True, the bulk of the story's focus would be on Trixie, but more than anything she ironically serves as the fanfic's moral compass as she gradually develops a potential change of heart over the dastardly theft she and her new posse are about to commit.

And then, as expected, shiet hits the fan, mostly because the well-thought-out plans of the criminals slam muzzle-first into the ridiculously catastrophic antics of the Mane 6 during the actual episode of “The Best Night Ever.” The biggest challenge of the fic is interweaving so many characters and so many perspectives with the canonical events of Season 1's final installment.

Still, the criminals overcome most of the odds, and as things grow crazier and crazier in the Palace Ballroom, the action sequences behind the scenes become more epic. I imagine fights with guards in stairwells, near-brushes with the Princesses, and some stupidly badass battle between a thug and Shining Armor.

Eventually, things turn to the worse. The operation turns on its head, and one by one the various members of the posse are either caught, injured, or turned in. Trixie finds herself having to improvise and carry the remaining weight of the crumbling escapade on her nervous shoulders. It's a humbling experience, something that magnifies her growing, conscientious impulse to undermine the nature of the operation herself.

Soon, it boils down to Trixie and a choice few other members of the posse who—indeed—do successfully manage to steal the Elements from the Vault and make off with them, unnoticed. But, there'd be some twist of a revelation—perhaps that there was not one, not two, but three separate turncoats who had infiltrated the operation, all representing different outside interests who all want a diabolical grip of the Elements of Harmony. There's a climatic face off, a Mexicolt Standoff, if you will.

Aaaaaaand Trixie does something to redeem herself in the knick of time. Maybe she displays incredible magic skills and flattens the other members, or she turns them in, or steals off with the Elements on her own, or all of the above. Whatever the case, in the end, she chooses the sanctity of the Elements over the potential reward that could clear her name off the mob's hit list forever. Not to mention, such a decision would forever shatter her future romance with said sweetheart, with whom she shares a final, hollywoodesque kiss before totally ditching the dude.

I'm thinking that Trixie ends up on the run, by herself, with the Elements of Harmony in her guilty possession. Somehow, she lands in Ponyville—probably due to some frantic teleportation spell that subconsciously took her to the location of the place where all her troubles started to begin with. In desperation to rid herself of evidence—as well as to do a final, good deed—she sneaks into Twilight's library and hides the Elements in a book (where it would be found in the premier episode{s} of Season 2). On her way out, she might even run into Twilight, who—having just recovered from the Best (worst) night ever—is actually pleasantly surprised to see Trixie, and offers an invitation for the two to hang out, to which Trixie has no choice but to refuse (because she's now doubly a fugitive). And yet, at the end, there's the implication that Trixie and Twilight have forgiven each other for the circumstances that led to the Ursa Minor and Trixie's subsequent exile.

So, Trixie gallops off towards the horizon. She's wanted by the mob, by the Canterlot government, by the Equestrian police, and by every member of the posse that she's just now betrayed. And yet, she can't help but smile, because for the first time in her life, she's vindicated herself, and she feels cleansed, no matter how uncertain her future.

Why I Will Never Write It

Because as much as I love the story, it hardly feels original to me. It's very generic, and if I sat down to write something like that—a story that would need to be no less than 50k words if there's any justice to be had—I'd feel like I was transcribing onto pony fanfiction a narrative that's been done in just about every genre ever.

I lurve writing. But I lurve writing even more if it has hooks. I simply can't engage myself in a mediocre plot and expect to embellish it in just the right way to make it worth reading in spite of its relatively bland premise.

That doesn't mean to say that others out there can't do it, or at least have the patience to do so.

Lord knows I'm no high and mighty anybody with the right to put the whip to anyone, but I'd lurve to see some marsupial try their hand at a fic such as this, cuz I think it'd have a great deal of opportunity for humor, action sequences, character development, hollywoodesque suspense, canonical references, and a sexy redemption story. Also, there's something to be appreciated about fanfics that are mostly written in real time. They're delicious “Die Hard” situations, so to speak. And I think we could use more of them.

I'm sure I have more horrific failures to ramble on about, but I'm sleepy enough as it is. So, for those of you masochistic enough to have read through all of that, I thank you kindly, and leave you with the usual gratuitous brain-stain of multimedia:

Dear god, I need to shave.
-SS&E