Stories I Almost Wrote, #4 (and also a ramble) · 3:25pm Nov 25th, 2016
Been meaning to can this one for a while, because almost two years after the last update, I have very, very, very little interest in ever picking it up again. It was sort of a fun idea when I started, but I've kind of soured on superhero stuff in general since then. As such, Rest in Peace, Magic Comic Task Force.
I don't have even the first sentence of the next chapter to share (never started), so here are the notes.
Random ideas:
The comic Spike picks up in Trade Ya was one in which something really funny happened. Or important for their mission. Never decided.
Next time we saw Ditzy, she'd have figured blowing on something to cool it off, like hot soup, would be frost breath. She'd be right.
The Mane-iac thinks Blue's apparent interest in her and that last, lingering gaze at the end of her introduction chapter mean love, and responds accordingly. Hilarity ensues.
Blueblood is good with magic when indignant, "Super Snob Mode", it might be called. Or "Pompous Pony Power!" Ditzy is the first to figure this out.
Fluttershy as Poison Ivy expy at some point. (Something weird happens and she gets cast in a different role than Saddle Rager, nopony knowing right away that it's a villain-hero team-up. Or maybe she'd have been forced to be the villain by the Deer Agents.) She'd have probably spent most of the comic making flowers and pretty, but useless plant life, breaking out the thorns when someone trampled or burned them.
Trixie as a physically strong character, strength instead of magical power, which badly confuses/ticks off Trixie. (She thinks not being strong in magic is humiliating for a unicorn. Blueblood says that's definitely not the case in Canterlot. She considers this... It'd have been one of the ship teases, I think.)
There would have been much more of The Matrix with Iron Will. The Pony (Onyp in the same fashion as Neo) being The One, Blueblood in that role, that others would have questioned whether or not he's THE Pony as a running gag.
"You're a pony, but are you the Pony...?"
"Yes."
"...Are you? Or are you?"
"YES, DAMMIT!!"
(Another possible gag of Blue getting sick of all the psuedo-truth babble, Spike getting philosophical and asking Twilight, who may or may not take over for that issue.
They'd have probably warped around to the movie scenes I felt like I could work with, which started with Neo and the blue/red pills. (Blueblood trying to choose the blue pill, to stop the madness, would have been important later as him being the avatar of choice, a being with free will in every world. Freedom from his old duties since Luna returned, for instance. That going ahead with the fight anyway (Will force-feeding him the red pill) wasn't his choice is something I forget exactly how I was going to address.)
Ditzy would have made appearences as Trinity for added fun, with a similarly 'meaningful' name. Sabbath, meaning seventh (for her cutie mark, though Stone will probably spew something about seven symbolism that Blueblood will do his best to tune out. Rubbing his temples with both forehooves while chanting "Idon'tcareIdon'tcareIdon'tcare" will be mistaken by Morphitaur as a meditative battle trance) in biblical terms. (In accordance with Trinity being the father, son, holy ghost spiel) (Blue comments that
"Her 'true self' is all black, too? Somehow I doubt that, even if her outfit is brighter by way of being shinier, tighter, f-form-fittingly, uh... Oh, my."
Morphitaur nodded once. "You have gained a greater level of awareness."
He turns red, noticing for the first time the curves emphasized by her suit, Ditzy looking confused before asking if his true self is an apple.
She beamed. "OH, you might get along great with these farmers I know!"
(there'd have been regular ship teases of some kind with Ditzy)
She'd take to the reality-warping with ease, because she didn't know she wasn't supposed to be able to run on walls, or stand still on the ceiling, ("Hey, how did you guys get on the roof?" She tries flying up to them, hovering upside down in a way that the prince can only stare at, dumbstruck) justified in that a pegasus might understandably forget that gravity is a limit. When it's mentioned (by Blueblood) that she seems to take to this better than he does, he asks if he'd be the one forced into a fur-tight suit if he delegated the role of Onyp to her. Morphitaur crosses his arms, reciting some of the earlier psychobabble about him being The Pony.
"Alright, alright, sorry I asked!")
Agents were supposed to be super soldiers of some sort, not needing armor for their dodging ability, but carrying powerful wrist-blasters. The lead agent, an elk named Stone (a shameless expy of Agent Smith for his first several appearances), turns out to know it's all a comic, gives a speech like Smith's to Morpheus while talking to either Will or Blueblood.)
"I must get out of here, I must, get, free..."
He opts to free himself by killing redpills, claiming the details are fuzzy, but they really don't need to know. He'd address Blue by Onyp's supposed real name (Anderstable? Anherdson? Andercolt?) because it's the most fitting thing he can identify him with. Low, angry Smith-rant about playing the cards they're dealt, the roles, they're dealt. Stone is self-aware, knows he's a comic book character, and can become any other fictional character not inhabited by a Redpill (someone from the real world), sharing this power with his not-self-aware fellow agents. Effectively, it means he can spring up in any comic world, at any time, kind of like the agents from the actual movie. He'd have been the main villain of this thing.
(Reason for this was that he, like Discord, was probably a monster locked in a statue somewhere in Everfree ("We're not here because we're free, we're here because we're not free..."), but his magic tainted the trees that the comics were being made from. Unleashing and defeating him from the real world was probably going to be the key to ending the series.)
Blue would have eventually stopped lasers with telekinesis.
Sabbath: "Hey, how's he doing that?"
Morphitaur: "He is beginning to believe..."
Onyp: "I believe it's magic, you dolt!"
(He starts stopping lasers in other stories, nopony else able to do it. "The power of The Pony extends beyond the Haytrix-" cut off by Blueblood screaming again)
At some point, somepony would have had to say, with a very serious expression, "We're going to need puns. Lots of puns." Possibly to combat a villain with no sense of humor or to enact ham-to-ham combat with the Mane-iac. (I'd have probably written a parody of the already silly Goof-Off song with random crap)
Ditzy would eventually join in the pseudo-reality speak just to tick Blueblood off. When asked why, (when he can't hear) She'd have flashed a guilty smile with a hint of a blush. "I just like the face he makes..."
(Somewhere, maybe the 3rd or 4th Stone encounter, fed up with all the babble, Blueblood would have gone ballistic ("SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!") beating up Stone (or someone) while loudly proclaiming that no one gives a damn about all this "deep, existential psychobabble" in a series about hoof-fights and explosions, that it comes off as more pretentious "And even, yes, I dare say, POMPOUS!!" as time goes on when all people want to see is the action. Still hitting his target, he'll concede that there's certainly discussion value in this real-not-real gibberish, but amid laser blasts and chariot chases is weird at best, like it's just to keep the reader's attention through all the rambling no one's going to take to heart anyway.)
He'd probably run into A.K. Yearling one chapter, sucked into a graphic novel about one of her adventures.
Parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark, DD and BB tied to chairs while she calls him pompous, or however that scene goes ("Junior!"), him getting angry "I told you-" and doing something incredible to free them. "don't call me pompous!"
Mare-Do-Well a recurring, unidentified character. Sometimes with wings, sometimes with a horn. (Chrysalis in disguise, not wanting to blow her secret as a comic lover, which is why she acts like a comic villain instead of arranging some kind of peace with ponydom?)
Or Change-Lin, a Chineighse super hero based on a changeling ninja. (Electra? Mystique?) Blue exoskeleton had her exiled from her hive as a mutant freak, for backstory. Spike might explain that she's kind of an antihero when BB asks if she's good or bad.
Cheese Sandwhich as DareDevil, "Red Leicester" seeking vengeance/justice in his comically serious persona because Boneless 2 didn't come with him into the comic. That is, he swore dark, gritty vengeance after being turned into a comic character, not because it's what that character does. Bumps into things (blind) and then grittily mutters "I meant to do that." At the end, his reasons are revealed and Blueblood comments, Cheese being genuinely surprised.
"Really? A guy in a bright red suit that goes around whapping people with a big old stick just grumbles through his throat looking serious all the time? Man, that just sounds wacky! And I don't mean upside-the-head-whack wacky, but-" he finished the thought with one eye bulging to twice it's size, his mane standing up in a manner that resembled a saw-blade, and his tongue swivelling around in his mouth, somehow having no effect on his ability to speak, "kerrr-RAZY!"
"...Yes, quite."
(the point would have been made that ultra-serious comic book heroes are a little screwy when you get right down to it. Like, more-so than comic book heroes in general.)
After that chapter, I'd have introduced Gilda ("I read them for the articles, dammit! I'm not a dweeb!") as Eagle (Robin) and had them face off with the Mane-iac, who'd have made her feelings for BB very clear, to the great confusion and discomfort of both heroes.
Unrelated changeling-goo super hero like a symbiote, changing in personality when it's funny. "Second Skin"
Vinyl Scratch as Horse-Power, Live-Wire expy. (Electro-villainess, I'd have needed to do some research before implementing.) Thinking Radio PON-3 (the radio station Twilight was talking about in the Mane-iac chapter) gets a new caller one night (after giggling to herself about energy drinks being bad for her. "Silly Tavi, I've only had like three tonight!"), she does some banter with the Agent Stone before getting magically pulled into the comic world through the radio. Hearing the whole thing, complete with Vinyl screaming, Octavia only calls out "I'm not falling for it this time, Vinyl." from another room.)
(Spike would identify her as Horse-Power, but that she's acting a little weird, somehow... He'd do a bit of digging in his collection to refresh his memory on the character and get back to Blueblood later. Once it was clear (maybe not in her first appearance?) who she really was, Blue would try to reason with her, explain that she's not dreaming, she's in a comic book world and being manipulated by a fictional character for as-of-yet unclear purposes!
"Pfft, that's supposed to convince me I'm not dreaming?! Hahahahahahaha!"
Trying to explain that he's a prince (unless he's worried about giving away his real-world identity to Stone, now that it's clear he CAN reach the real world) sent in specifically to deal with magic comic books only makes her laugh harder. Maybe he'd try visiting her in the real world, or he wouldn't be able to tell who it is through her costume. Or fear that, if Stone can get to her, will talking to her clue him in as to Onyp's real identity?
(At the end of that chapter, she'd wake up in a dazed stupor, mumble about too many late nights/energy drinks, shuffle across the carpet, get shocked by the door, and fall down whimpering and wailing pitifully. "Taviiiiii! The doorknob bit meeee!"
Omake: Octavia popped her head through the door, a little nurse hat resting on her head. "Do you mean you were shocked by the door as a result of static electricity again, or it actually grew teeth and bit you again?"
"If I say the second one, will you kiss it better?"
"I don't see any bite marks."
"Um-"
She rolled her eyes. "You'll be fine.")
(When she finally learns the truth, she won't want to be a bad guy anymore, telling off Stone the last time he tries to abduct her. "Why waste energy fighting when I can waste it having fun?")
(From here on, anyone dragged in by Stone takes a different form as a villain than they might have as a hero)
I had the vague idea of incorporating the sirens into this thing in at least one chapter with a comic that stretched across dimensions somehow (more-so than usual), but I don't know how I'd have gone about it. Still, the idea of the sirens as The Gullwings sounded cute.
I might have had the Dazzlings introduced by a recently-head trauma'd Sonata (Rikku as the thief) as "da Dazzwings," BB hearing 'Dazz Wings' no matter Adagio's (stuck as Yuna in the dancer dressphere) protests that she, Sonata, and Aria (Paine, warrior) don't even know what's going on, but as BB is coming to grips with his new form (Stone was branching out to other dimensions already, why not the adjacent human world?), he doesn't really care? Actual comic is based on FFX-2 somehow, with him as Tidus? It wouldn't have made much sense with how those games actually went, unless he was Shuyin somehow, but that would complicate things further.
One relatively interesting idea was Disney parodies.
Cinderella (Rarity as Cinderella, having read a graphic novel version of her favorite classic) ends up being essentially a rehash of the Gala. (He urges that they not say each other's names out loud, lest Stone hear them and attack them in the real world, if this wasn't his doing. Rarity notes that this isn't her first time being in a work of fiction. Nor her second (happened in the actual IDW comics). They opt to just avoid each other the first night, BB just looking for the villain. By the third or fourth night, he figures Stone would have made a monologuing appearance by now.)
Blueblood, not actually all that familiar with the story, doesn't know what to do. ("I've never been in story like this, where's the villain to defeat? Where's the endangered pony to rescue?") He instead looks everywhere for the communicator (which, for the first time, is not on him when the comic starts, reason revealed later), hoping Spike will know what to do and assuming Rarity is just a poor civilian dragged into the story by that monster, Stone, and thus tries to keep his cool with her. Rarity knows, but keeps it to herself, all too happy to avoid him in favor of exploring a fictional world in which they're not in danger.
(He tries punching out the Stepmother and her daughters (Screaming "FOR JUSTICE!!") when Rarity, on the second try, points them out to him, but the night resets anyway. (He does this to Rarity's equal shock and amusement, as she very much wanted to do that herself reading this as a filly. She may look around for the fairy godmother, thinking she might be able to sic BB on her too. (Honestly, would it have killed her to spring for the overnight princess package?))
For the first time, the MCTF learns what happens when they fail; the story resets, those inside trapped until it's resolved.
On the third try, Blueblood goes insane, opting to wreck the place just like the Gala, if only to vent his frustration with years of being almost perfectly behaved in gatherings exactly like the one they're stuck in. "Really," Rarity sighs, "we can't have anything nice with you around, can we? Mindless brute."
"I can't hear you, I'm setting the curtains on fire!" *FWOOSH!*
In the middle of the third or fourth round of ignoring each other, someone else gets sucked into the story to play the part of a party guest, then another, and another. (would have started with those who like romance/fairy tales, gone to those who were looking for the ponies that went missing) Eventually, Cadence (as the Stepmother? Rarity entertaining fantasies of replicating Blueblood's Action Hero solution when she says they have to kiss?) shows up, knowing about Blueblood's job and telling him exaaaactly what the two need to do. Cue several mares and stallions offering to be Blue/Rarity's date for the evening before Cadence explains that it'll only work if the prince and Witherella(?) have a pleasant evening together, followed by a fleeting kiss at midnight before she runs, probably leaving a glass slipper on her way out.
("Glass...? So THAT'S where you got that idea?! From a stupid fairytale?!"
"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!"
Cadence: "Great sexual tension you two have going here, but we should probably get on with the story.")
Through no small amount of embarrassment, they eventually comply, acknowledging that they have to help free everyone, and themselves, quietly insulting each other the entire time.
Or, just towards the end, minutes before midnight, Blueblood says he's sorry she got sucked into this, almost in tears as he bemoans not being able to do more, being near-useless all his life. (He used to run the Night Court, which required him to do very, very little as hardly anypony came in at night, but not since Luna's return. After, he had a lot of free time, and Spike introduced him to comic books...) Rarity, getting emotional too, quietly shushes him, saying she's sure he can do more than be a mindless lump on a mare's foreleg. They look each other in the eye, draw closer, the clock starts chiming, snapping both of them out of it as she quickly pecks him on the cheek and runs away. The ponies that were kept away from them by Cadence (who badly wanted to watch, but knew there was a chance they'd have to start over if she was spotted) only see a blur as Rarity rushes past them to the chiming of the clock, her face burning even several minutes after she's free of the comic. Same with Blueblood, lying in shock on the beanbag chair.
Pocahontas (BB as John Smith +Little Strongheart as Pocahontas, (She asked what somepony at the train station brought in from the city and they showed her a comic book?) big misunderstanding about having to marry her before Ratcliffe character shows up? I don't really know how I'd have handled this one.)
Blueblood in Beauty and the Beast (beast, first thinking that he must be the villain this time and that he needs Twilight to beat him up, Twilight as Belle? She touches him and he immediately recoils. "Lo, I am vanquished!" Awkward silence as he waits for the comic to end) Cue her trying to explain (thus changing him, like the story) that looking like a monster doesn't make him one... Even in fiction. Ends when Blue fights the equivalent of Gaston on the roof.
"...I don't think you were supposed to just pick him up, slam his head against the floor, and chuck him off the building, Blueblood."
"What? Why not?")
That one might have taken a few tries, Twilight eventually working out that they don't need to beat the Gaston expy or fight off the mob, just turn BB back from the beast form.
Tangled: (Pinkie as Rap-ponzel, rapping about her insanely long mane and how much she wants to see the lanterns up close, Blue as Flint Bridler? (Pinkie's hair glows when she raps) She winks at him to stay in-character, the whole chapter full of rhyme? Maybe just Pinkie) Wonderbolt Rap re-worded for seeing the lanterns, quiet, romantic-ish moment together after. That or Ditzy (who was reading this story to Dinky? Wouldn't explain why she wasn't sucked in too), playing it pretty much straight.
(All of these stories are romantic graphic novels (Which Rarity, who reads all of them and may have periodic appearances throughout ("For pity's sake, I was only dusting this one!!"), will vehemently identify them as) that wouldn't ordinarily have been activated at all, but it's eventually revealed that the Mane-iac is having some fun too, in addition to a secret agenda. (Wanting to know how Blueblood treats potential marefriends)
(Maybe there'd have no villains at all in Disney stories, because the Mane-iac (the one controlling the fairytale stories, Stone not even aware of what she's doing) just wants to see his potential as a lover, not his combat prowess.)
(When he notices the recurring date-like themes, he wonders with horror and the faintest stirring in his heart if he'll ever be sucked into one of those dirty comics, having to... Resolve the story... Luckily(?) for him, the Mane-iac has her own ideas about what she'll do if she gets that far.)
Harshwhinny asked to serve as a critic for new line of comics... Wonder Whinny?
Mane-iac eventually pieces together the truth of things, (turns out she's the (mad) Oracle for the Haytrix) learning how she came to exist through comic books, and hints that she knows how to stop the comic books from sucking ponies in, (which would leave her alone, possibly forever) demanding a date from Blueblood in exchange for the information. Hilarity ensues. She might also know how the agents came to be as self-aware as she is, and how they're operating within the confines of entertainment media.
She at one point offers wisdom on doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result being insane: "Oh? What if I were to tell the exact same joke to the exact same audience, repeatedly? Should I expect the result to never change, that they'll find it just as funny each and every time? Who's crazy then?"
Ditzy might be the first to say she's got a point. (She doesn't, the audience is in a slightly different state after hearing the joke than they were in the first place, but no one in the story may have realized that.)
Ditzy's cutie mark may represent an abundance of bubbliness, that her special talent is essentially happiness?
Somewhere down the line, Mane-iac sings:
I could roast a field of cattle,
I could turn the tide of battle,
Destroy without a qualm.
It'd be oh, so fulfilling,
a small box, to do my killing,
if I only had a bomb!
Star Horse a popular series, published from all over the place, but with more readers (guest stars) than any other comic. They'd play the action scenes and such, as those are the ones published by Filthy Rich's Everfree operation. (Spike eventually figures this out)
Dinky, Derpy's daughter, is technically behind the comics. She wrote Super Mare, after her 'amazing best mom ever', and put a little of her love into all of her writing. While a foal's magic isn't enough for the given effects, her publisher (Filthy Rich) has the comics printed next to a magical thing (The acres of forest near Stone's statue) because it's cheaper than paying to build new printing presses elsewhere, maybe with paper from Everfree trees.
Dinky makes a tidy profit by sending her work in under a fake name, keeping a roof over her and her mother's heads no matter how many times Ditzy screws up and loses pay, but wants her mother to feel she's doing something right. Luckily, Ditzy is terrible at math, and doesn't notice where the bits don't add up.
Still, she struggles, not having as much time to play and have a normal childhood, even if she enjoys most of the work. Blueblood explains the situation to Celestia and hints that MCTF should probably be paying it's regulars. She smiles. While this will be shortly after Stone's true form is dealt with, Ditzy will be out of a job helping them, but not having been paid at all since the start, she's awarded collectively for her dedicated service. (Enough for Ditzy and Dinky to live on comfortably for quite some time, depends whether or not she and BB are romantically involved at this point)
In the final showdown with Stone, it's Blueblood (who realizes by now that the real meaning of his cutie mark is freedom to choose his own way. As much as it'll creep him out, he really is The One, free to do whatever he wants, free to be whoever he chooses to be, from his old self to Batmane.) who delivers the speech about how true freedom isn't something to aspire to, as it means you'd be connected to absolutely nothing. No friends or family, no attatchment to anything whatsoever, nothing but distance between you and anything you could possibly strive for, as it would only be another kind of bind. "It's just as you said, (Stone's real name, discovered by now) 'we're not here because we're free, we're here because we're not free.' And you know what? That's fine."
Now, I wrote all this a couple years before Legend of Everfree was even a thing. That in mind, I've since had some ideas about Stone and the Mane-iac turning out to be the trapped spirits of Equestria's Timber Spruce (who just wanted to get out of the woods...) and Gloriosa Daisy respectively. Think back to just how Gloriosa looked with all that wild, green hair, the utterly manic tones and faces we saw her with...
Going that route, maybe they'd have found a happy ending just in being released from the comic world and remembering their true identities as forest spirits? Their respective brands of madness (his murderous megalomania and her desperate loneliness) eased away?
That ends my notes on the story, all below is rambles.
Another thing that's changed since I began this story was my stance on super heroes and the whole 'action hero' thing in general.
In my experience, 'hero' stuff is all about ego, about looking cool and beating someone else down, not showing virtue so much as power. That last word is, I guess, super heroes in a nutshell; a twisted power fantasy in which the audience can have their cake and eat it; wreaking havoc and causing tons of pain and destruction as most humans want to do on some level (or such is the impression I get), but without any guilt, because the targets all deserve it (at least, usually) and it's to save the world anyway, so it's totally not monstrous to enjoy the thought of punching people through walls, blowing up entire buildings (in which there's no such thing as innocent bystanders), and generally acting like a remorseless psychopath in the process of 'saving the day.'
I might have had BB make this realization himself, growing to see being the MCTF not as an awesome job, not a thought spared for the collateral damage (it may have sunk in after Rarity's Cinderella chapter), but as a service to stop any further damage, making the choice to do all he could to stop the madness just as he tried to do in the first Hayrix comic rather than revel in his status as the big hero. Spike, the Mane-iac, and probably Ditzy would all have had different reactions to this, the Mane-iac possibly getting her own soliloquy regarding the part she's had to play as someone inevitably doomed to failure no matter what she does, that when you take a step back, she only exists to prop up the heroes that beat her into the ground over and over. Possible tearjerker in her saying that's not the part that bothers her, it's that they never stick around for tea after, never swap stories about other villains they've faced over cards, just knock her down and leave her by herself.
The tone would have shifted considerably as my change of heart toward the subject matter became more and more apparent, I think, so it's for the best that I pretty much dropped this thing. I suppose that invalidates that blog post from a long while back, but I couldn't very well keep up as I was after noticing this.
Possible there'd have been commentary that even Batmane (Batman) isn't very heroic when you get right down to it, spending night after night beating up felons (almost definitely just desperate poor people in more than a few cases) with all his money rather than working on Gotham's economy, using his knack for technology to improve the world rather than pluck weeds that grow back just as fast.
I think it sort of made sense back when Batman was first written in the 1940s or so, before he was a billionaire with access to space-age tech and satellites and such, but now it seems like he could do more than cracking skulls against the pavement every night. I don't know exactly how Bruce Wayne would theoretically invest to fix Gotham, but I'd think that, genius-level intellect, he would.
Not that it would matter, because comics do have one golden trump card against all rational action any hero could take; the world is just so messed up that they'll always have more dudes to beat up. One decent person in tights pops up, eight rotten bastards appear. I think in Batman, it's implied that Gotham City just happens to be cursed or something, bringing out an endless supply of deranged killers to ensure no end to Batman's adventures. Saying 'comics in general are kind of messed up' is probably nothing new, but I just can't seem to have fun with it without feeling a teeny bit monstrous anymore.
Stuff like that, out-of-universe reason being that if fighting crime actually worked, the heroes would probably have to find something else to do with their time, the adventures would stop, and the money those IPs bring in would dry up. And yet, even if it more or less makes sense from an in-universe perspective, I can't help feeling a little iffy about rooting for one violence-solves-everything lunatic over another, which I guess means I'm too boring to enjoy the dumb spectacle for what it is. 
(Spoilers for 16-year-old PS1-era game!)
I'm reminded of a line from Liquid Snake (main villain) in Metal Gear Solid 1 after asking Solid Snake (player character) why he was there (military base full of armed thugs that want him dead) in the first place, why he kept going even as his allies betrayed him in three or four different ways. Liquid's proposed answer? "You enjoy all the killing, that's why."
Batman refuses to kill, but one wonders if his violent takedowns of criminals, just like the guy who killed his parents, are strictly for the sake of stopping them, or if he derives some satsifaction from it. The viewer is certainly supposed to (which is why the heroism never has to end), because Liquid's line is said just as much to the player (the scene is pointedly delivered in first-person view, just in case it was too subtle) as it is to Snake, who even introduces himself to an ally as 'not a hero, just an old killer.' I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that for my first time playing the game, Liquid's assessment was perfectly on the dot (the pixel-y bloodspray clouds had a certain charm to them).
The difference between FiM and any other entertainment? I kind of thought that for the Friendship is Magic crew, Snake denying Liquid's assertion was more than a lie he told himself. Rainbow's behavior in regard to threats of danger (in both worlds) has been giving me the opposite impression more and more as times goes on. When the series started, she was a Wonderbolt-hopeful weathermare, probably hadn't been in a lot of fights. When we see her dreams some seasons later, she's beating up changelings, sickened and horrified when it turns to happy flowers. Fight not ye monsters, just a bit? Unless she was always just a little bit of a psycho.
I don't know if all of that makes sense, but those are my thoughts.
So, yes, as I began this story with bright-eyed wonder for fantastic comic book violence and a plethora of parodies to explore, it just wasn't the same when I came back a year or two later with sobered thoughts, and I don't think I'd have been able to keep the chapters fun while getting these messages across.
I would have loved to see Blueblood as a perennial comic book character, sounds like he would have ended up saving Maniac.
I agree with your point about Superheroes in general. I will say that in the last decade or two DC and Marvel do a small nod to this, in the opening scenes of episodes/comics they will often have Batman say something about how he's working with a charity to help the homeless, or Superman say he's using Kryptonian technology to cure disease, or Tony Stark say he's teaching underpriviliged kids science to fix income inequality or something. The idea is supposed to be that all these superheroes use the time between villains to try and fix the underlying issues that cause super-villains to appear in the first place, it's just not shown to us the way fighting the Joker is. Not saying I agree with that, just that I think that's what Marvel and DC are trying to convey with their opening/closing sequences.
So who's on first?
YES! YES!
Pefect logic.
OK then...