Steven King and Equestria Girls: Two Great Tastes that Go Great Together · 9:22pm Jan 28th, 2019
Imagine it. The unthinkable horror has happened: Steven King takes over writing Equestria Girls. It goes...actually pretty much the same, just more disturbing and with higher stakes. Yes, really. Hear me out here.
Think about the running themes of Steven King's work. First is an idea I've seen described thus: "It was a nice day...and then EVIL came." He's very good at quickly establishing setting, people, and places that are understandable and comfortable. Or, at a minimum, grounded. Slice of life or drama stuff. This, of course, serves to have something that can be disrupted by the intrusion of supernatural evil. And to give the characters something to lose.
The next is something that has been noticed and endlessly parodied: a random or innocuous thing comes to life and tries to kill you. A wind up monkey kills something every time it clangs the cymbals, a car becomes obsessively in love with it's owner, and more. There's even a Chattering Teeth toy that becomes violently protective of it's family, and kills and eats some carjackers. Or people can be given random magical powers, which may be abusable and wind up going too far. Usually they have something to do with their personal issues.
And where does this kind of thing happen? Often, it's around 'thinnies', dimensional weak points where strange energies and entities and powers leak in. Other-dimensional detritus is also a good source of horrific random encounters. And monsters from other dimensions can also turn up, tending to be psychic predators.
And finally, the most important theme? Defeating supernatural evil with the power of friendship. Yes, really. It's most explicit in It and Dreamcatcher, but they are hardly alone. The Dark Tower novels even came up with a formal term for it, a Ka-Tet.
So take a step back, and allow a populace with rainbow skin and hair colors. Any of the above sound familiar?
It, in particular, would have gone down pretty much exactly the same if Sunset had would up in Derry instead of Canterlot. Shuffle around some details to allow for individual character, of course, but... yeah. Right down to the vision of the Turtle being dead paralleling finding that in this world the Tree of Harmony is a petrified stump.
And what happens in a typical Equestria Girls plot? Magic leaking in from another universe enchants a random object, giving it an abusable power the user goes mad with. Or extradimensional psychic monstrosities (looking at you Sirens...) show up to feed. And then it gets defeated by a Ka-Tet of kids empowered with divine (sorry, Harmonic) magic.
In conclusion, there's a lot of weird parallels and much mad crossover potential. Thank you.
I can see all of this, perhaps a bit too well... And I'm sure I'm not alone in that I would totally buy a Steven King EqG novel
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The sad part is I would too.
I mean like... Lyra and Bon Bon would be officially a lesbian couple, and be badly bullied because of it and befriended by the Ka-Tet because of that. Forgotten Friendship plays up the psychological horror of it all, especially with POV sections from Wallflower on the addictive feeling of power and the temptation of having no consequences. Level of creepy she gets depends on if he wants her to stay redeemable, but take the max level off 'how could I abuse this' and at least have her THINK it. The sirens are much overtly sexual, and tie that sexuality to violence: he plays that for horror a few times too. Describe it as a no save effect, you can't be yourself around them even if you resist the influence. Overall equestrian magic explicitly warps your mind unless you are a very special person. Pinkie's eldritch powers are played up and much more disturbing, the difference between Movie Mask and Comic Mask. The fact that this isn't national news and everyone seems to forget is VERY EXPLICITLY a magical effect, and it's freaking them out being the only ones who understand how dangerous the place is while everyone goes helplessly about their daily lives. It's either a sign of a pervasive power, like It, or the remains of the Tree of Harmony trying to keep everyone calm.
And so on. Basically take the rating limiters off everything and crank it up to eleven, then make the girls tough and determined enough to survive anyway. The people around them may not be so lucky, and they'll not have a good time.
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Anyway those are just fast thoughts. How were you seeing it?
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So... AU fic when?
And I don’t have any ideas myself, horror is not my forte and I’m not actually too familiar with King’s work. Read some of his short stories, but that’s it. I’m not even much a fan of reading horror exactly, but I do love reading macabre stuff (I’m just a little bitch when it comes to things actually being scary)