Ashes to Ashes Commentary · 10:42pm Oct 23rd, 2012
This entry contains spoilers for its corresponding chapter of Ashes to Ashes. Be warned...
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Can you hear the drums?
I can. They’re not leaving my head. They are not going away.
For those that understand what I am talking about, give yourselves a pat on the back. For the rest of you, I must explain. I must explain a lot.
Doctor Who was one of those things that infested the Internet and every personality, whether real or fictional, that i know. Everyone talked about Doctor Who, be it due to casual dialog or active fan participation. It took forever for me to actually understand what the fuss was about. About 18 years, actually. I discovered that an alien in a spaceship, disguised as a police public call box, traveled around and helped people. That’s cool.
It took my brother’s Netflix account and a month of my time to realize what a sinkhole the series proved to be for my time. Once I started, I haven’t stopped since. I am currently about halfway through season 5, at the time I am writing this.
That’s the very abridged version about my introduction into Doctor Who. I knew a lot about the character, the legacy, and the show, but I never saw it. I liked it enough, but seeing it was just never on my list of priorities. I knew what the Tardis was, the sonic screwdriver, regeneration, the Master, Daleks, Cybermen, all that good stuff. I knew the cliffnotes of one of the most prolific sci-fi shows in the world, but had never seen it.
But I did see Doctor Whooves Adventures. I saw it before I saw the actual show, if that makes any sense. No. No, it doesn’t.
As I said, I knew enough about the show to understand what was going on. Let me outline it for you. There’s a pony with brown hair and an hourglass cutie mark that greatly resembles David Tennant, the actor that plays the Tenth Doctor. A pony Timelord. That was one of the dumbest things I ever heard of. It was good that I thought that, because it made my proven wrong reaction all the more sweet.
I started watching Doctor Whooves Adventures at one of my jobs. I was sitting in the same chair that I read my first-ever MLP:FIM fanfic, My Little Dashie. I downloaded the first episode, mostly because, on Sundays, business slows to a crawl and I can go over an hour without having to do anything. To my everlasting delight and surprise, the episode was not only well-crafted and scripted, the actor’s enthusiasm and vocal similarity to both the My Little Pony universe and the Doctor Who quirks and nuances complemented each other perfectly. The music added just enough emphasis on the right spots to provide whimsy or tension. I loved that episode so much.
It was a few months later after camping their Youtube channel that I discovered their wordpress page. Tucked in a corner of the site, I found this lovely gem. It’s a short clip, but Broadcaster’s deep voice, accompanying his character’s lamenting and depressed speech, really struck a chord with me.
Let me explain for a moment; I’ll give you a very abridged version about how I entered the MLP fandom. You see, I after I actively watched the show, i thought it was enjoyable, but was not destined for great things. I had yet to see any prominent fan attention to the show and thought it would soon die as quickly as it came.
Then I discovered two fanfics. The first one, as I said, was My Little Dashie. Do you know what the next one was? The one that actually inspired me to start writing for the first time in 4 years? Guess. Just try to get it right.
...
...
...
Give up? I’ll tell you.
Silent Ponyville.
Holy #@↨§%, I was not prepared for that story. Happy-go-lucky characters, given a dark and yet shockingly emotionally impactful source twist, proved to be the correct mixture of chaos that I needed to start writing. I’ll go into more detail about Journeyman’s origin story another time, but that’s where I am coming from when I heard that voice clip.
I listened to that clip several times, but really didn’t think much else about it. It took a few more months of time and three more episodes of Doctor Whooves Adventures for anything else to happen. And four seasons of Doctor Who.
I still hear those drums.
A short note, the only reason I stop mentioning companions after River is because, during the time I wrote this, I had only finished the first four seasons. I didn't know anything that happened to the other companions or the circumstances behind River. I could have just looked it up, but that would have been cheating.
Now in the TV show, the Doctor goes through extraordinary lengths to help those around him, especially those occupying planet Earth. He is an honest and noble creature, but he is not without a dark side or his own personal demons. We all have our secrets and things we are not proud of, things we wouldn't even tell our closest friends. It’s why I identify with the Doctor; he’s an outsider looking in. Even though the people around him may trust him with their life, he still has enough skeletons in his closet to induce doubt. Take this conversation for instance:
Dream Lord: Poor Amy. He always leaves you, doesn't he? Alone in the dark. Never apologizes.
Amy: He doesn't have to.
Dream Lord: That's good. Because he never will. And now he's left you with me. Spooky old not-to-be-trusted me. Anything could happen.
Amy: Who are you and what do you want? The Doctor knows you, but he's not telling me who you are. And he always does. Takes him awhile sometimes but he tells me. So you're something different.
Dream Lord: Oh, is that who you think you are? The one he trusts?
Amy: Actually, yes.
Dream Lord: The only girl in the Universe to whom the Doctor tells everything.
Amy: Yes.
Dream Lord: So what's his name?
We all have those little dark moments. Sometimes, really bad things happen and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to change them. That’s half the mood I wanted to set in this fanfic. Something awful happens in Equestria’s unspecified future, and the Doctor knows he can do nothing to stop it. The Burning consumed Equestria, and all he knows is dead once again.
Okay, now let me talk about the actual story now. What am I, two pages into the commentary already? About time.
As I’ve said, I’ve listened to that clip dozens of times, but it took a single flash of inspiration for me to obtain an idea: Tartarus. It's popular mythos that there are fires in the Pit, so what if that was the cause? What if the Gates of Tartarus shattered, and that caused the Burning? Awesome. I had a new idea for a story.
I brought the idea to sonicsuns, ones of the bigwigs for DWA. He wholeheartedly approved, and I began work on the story. I started with the ashfall, a slight borrowing from Silent Hill. The comparison I made in the story to falling snow was half for the Doctor, and half for myself. The Doctor loves snow, and so do I. Also, because of the pure white color of snow and it’s slow, gentle fall, I couldn't think of any better way to corrupt the imagery than turning the snow into ash. That would not only twist the heartstrings to where I wanted, but give me an excuse to kill Equestria’s land.
Filling in the rest of the story was easy. I already had a storyboard and script thanks to the Tartarus idea and Broadcaster’s own submittal, so it was just a simple matter of filling in the blanks. I gave the stallion a son to drive home the hopeless horror of his situation, made him old to make him near death and comply with the 50 years of running, and made sure he was out of supplies.
But while this was the easiest to write, it was also the hardest for me, personally. Over the years, I have lost 19 friends. Losing even one is hard to do, but for me to lose to many, it’s turned me into an introverted mess. I don’t have any friends anymore and barely speak to others as it is. Whenever I made up stories as a child or even into my teen years, the good guy always wins and overcomes impossible odds. It was a defense mechanism on my part because I was simply tired of everything. I was tired of unhappiness, tired of losing friends, and simply tired of having my efforts be in vain. Thank god I found MLP, otherwise I’d be even more messed up, but I digress.
I never made any story, any character, or any circumstance that could not be healed or overcome. The good guy always won, and that’s what made writing this so hard for me. I simply did not know how to create a sad atmosphere, at least not one that wasn’t supposed to be fixed. That was part of the point of Ashes to Ashes; there is no recovering from what will happen. This is a fixed event that can’t be changed. I must agree with my editors on this: it is a bitter, but most certainly not sad, atmosphere. This is something I cannot write effectively.
Now I had originally intended for the unnamed stallion to live through the story, at at least make it ambiguous if he would live much longer. Sonicsuns suggested that the impact might be improved if he died somewhere at the end, and I agreed. I needed to practice how to make a sad atmosphere, and killing a likable character would help doing that. I didn’t want to kill him, I liked him after all, but I felt like I needed to for the sake of mood.
Now I believe that’s about it. I hope you enjoyed my experiment into water’s previously unknown. I thank sonicsuns and the rest of DWA for their support and enthusiasm and my fans for sticking with me.
Onwards and Upwards!
I'll admit, if I saw the Doctor, I'd be having a fan-moment and then running the hell away. Because he only ever-so-rarely visits someplace cheerful and peaceful while it's staying that way.
442980 if I saw the Doctor, I would IMMEDIATELY open my "Zombie Apoc' Locker", grab an air rifle and a few cans o' pellets, and run the hell after him. Or whatever is chasing him. Probably both, actually.
442980
I have a fearful reverence for the Doctor. I would bask in his greatness, than politely ask him to leave. He means well, but bad fortune surrounds him like the plague.
443010
And sometimes...
Sometime, he's there because the bad things are already in place.
And, sometimes, they come because he's there.
I'll be honest when I say that the Doctor terrifies me.
As well he should, but at the same time...
Silent ponyville?
**** yeah!
One of the best fics I've ever read!
Why didn't you tell me?! We would've had so much to discuss!
442980 I'd stick around him just to see what happens. Worst case scenario for me, I die. That's it. Plus, if something does go wrong I want to be close to someone who knows what he's doing.
Yeoman, out
443893
Dying isn't the worst that can happen. You could be turned into a Cyberman, tormented into insanity, turned into an Ood, left to die hundreds of times over, burned into the Time-Vortex and annihilated from history, lots of things.
444538
So many horrible things can happen to you, but I will not deny that that possibilities for glory and splendor are equally great. Ghosts from the past, aliens from the future, the day the earth died in a ball of flame. It won't be quiet, and it won't be calm.
But it would be the trip of a lifetime.
444550
Yeah, but I like my life...
Ah who am I kidding, I'd beg to come along.
444538 true, true. I still stand by my second point though.
Yeoman, out
444557
yeah, I guess.