Repeating History: On writing "In Dreams" · 9:02pm Feb 9th, 2019
Let’s just say that I’ve been spending some time away from FiM in media and leave it there, okay? Now, this doesn’t mean I’m pony-free, no, not at all. Besides having the collection of figures and other collectibles grow at a rate that has been unprecedented—the post-holiday purge of parents and retailers—a lot of my time’s been spent reading about previous generations of MLP, both toy lines and their related media. While previous generations were not the initial inspiration for “In Dreams” they contributed a great deal to the story.
The timeline
The narrator introduced in the final section, for which I was criticized, exists in a time prior to the initial Hearth’s Warming Eve, placing their telling of the legend within the established G4 timeline, but relating events, perhaps semi-fictional, of a much older time. Those times have ties to both G1 and G3 stuffed into a blender and pureed. As per G4, though, I stick with the term tribes. Equestria cannot yet be referenced, although Unicornia can and is. Rather than using “Ponyland” as in the original, I substituted “land of ponies” for two reasons, the first being I didn’t want it confused with Ponyville and, second, it’s always struck me as rather an unoriginal name.
Amethyst and the other princesses
Their names and descriptions come from several sources, the primary one being the 1987 Princess Ponies and Attendants toy release, the UK version in particular, and there are reasons for that. The UK versions came with dragon attendants while the US came with bushwoolies, and I needed a dragon, although not a baby one—more on that later. The toy release contains a single unicorn figure, so I didn’t have much choice except for which name to use. In the US, the unicorn was Princess Sparkle... so Princess Amethyst from the UK it was. Similarly, when it came to the pegasus princess, there was only one. But her UK name is Pearl, which left things sort of Steven Universe sounding, so I ended up with Princess Tiffany, an all white pegasus. Lastly, we have Princess Serena, the gentle earth pony princess from the US releases. The idea that the princess may be gathered together, on occasion, came from the product-supporting G1 episodes which comprise The Quest of the Princess Ponies, but little else did. Those who are true G1 aficionados take issue with the portrayal of the characters in those episodes as they don’t match the behavior in the comics, and I made little effort to incorporate any characterization from either source. I just wanted them grounded somewhere in a much earlier time.
The Unicorn Queen and Rainbow Castle
These ideas came from G1 toys and G3 media. The G1 source is, appropriately enough, the early 80s Dream Castle playset, which comes with Majesty the unicorn queen and her dragon attendant Spike. Besides the obvious connections, the idea for the mirror and the jewel box featured in the penultimate scene came from this set. As a white unicorn admirer, I hope to someday acquire a genuine G1 Majesty, along with Spike, with or without their castle. G3 provided the castle’s name, although abbreviated. Crystal Rainbow Castle is yet another playset, this time from G3, one of those ultimate sets with tons of (cheap) accessories to be vacuumed up and lost before being donated to a thrift store because it takes up too much damn space. To avoid confusion with G4, I dropped the crystal part of the name. This castle also appears in G3’s The Princess Promenade direct-to-video whatever you call it, hawking the Crystal Princess product line. This all sounds very familiar does it not? Regardless, besides featuring much of the G4 voice talent and supposedly being the media sent to Lauren Faust for the G4 reboot, I can’t find much to recommend in it outside of lots of pretty colors. I kept it in mind for just several paragraphs of description.
Zme the Dragon
The dragon is a real hodgepodge, parts of which you can see from the previous descriptions. His name comes from Slavic and Russian dragons, slightly modified. He looks like the red dragon from Dragonshy, but not so amazingly huge: think 20′ high, not 200′. Being red is important, as he’s with a unicorn, which goes back to the UK-based source of inspiration. But back to his name: He was the titular dragon in my unfinished and likely to never be finished story called “Marigold and The Dragon’s Riddle.” My inability to complete this story and my subsequent efforts to educate myself, led me to write “The Tale of the Hippogriff” for which I give thanks to ancient Zme, little Marigold, The Tolkien Professor and his 2011 class, and lastly and the farthest from least the infamous Lord Dunsany.
The Inspiration
Several times, and by well respected and intelligent people, I’ve been accused of being far less than obvious if not borderline incoherent. Then there’s my writing, which fares no better. I’m not sure I like that, but I suppose I’ve embraced it. “In Dreams” is, or so I thought, transparently political, so I don’t think I need to elaborate there. As to the trigger, the impetus to write this particular story, it is in the story’s comments, explained and linked to by Meridian Prime, who apparently doesn’t find me too opaque. Armed with the information above, I hope you can suss out some of the other (dumber) references in the story.
As alway, thanks for reading.
I always find it interesting to learn the sources and thoughts that a writer gleens the inspiration for a story. Thank you for sharing the ideas and thoughts for this wonderful story with us, Gray Mane.
And I thought the ending was a perfect lesson, for this age and many others.
Well done!
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Come now: at this point you should know how much I love to blab!
Perhaps I should have elaborated on this above. The narrator, within the context of the late tribal era, is using this legend as an exhortation, for while things are not as apocalyptic as they are in Amethyst’s time, which is supposed to be a sort of pony dark ages, things ain’t looking good. One might even say he’s telling them to “Come Together” before it is too late.
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The great thing, for them and for us, is that they do find the Magic of Friendship. Would that we could spread that magic to our world.