Aug
3rd
2019
#50 · 10:13pm Aug 3rd, 2019
Of course I've rather written myself into a corner with Johns now, as either he experiences a massive change in personality in which case the story has to go hard down that route which isn't really what I'm interested in - despite it being conceptually interesting - or else it turns out the whole thing wasn't that big of a deal at all and he was freaking out over what is actually basically nothing.
Which, thinking about it, would actually fit given that the character is a neurotic mass of knotted string...
But still. It all got a little ridiculous. Think I need a lie down.
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Cackling Moron · 292 views
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You could take the middle road: John experiences no immediate tectonic changes to his personality, but instead subconsciously picks up more and more idiosyncrasies that are pointed out to him by other characters. Kind of like how, after Umbra's illusion, he found himself tapping on objects to make certain the world around him was real.
It could be something as small as his response to "Are you okay?" subtly shifting to "I'm alive," as opposed to "I'm fine," or something as large as him steadily spending less time with Celestia, Twilight, and the others. Maybe he finds himself staring at something otherwise innocuous a tad too long and getting lost in his head.
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I'm going to mull on it for a bit, I think...
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Who let this madman in here?
Away! Away with your ravings!
You could just let Dr Knacker flip a coin...
You could also go the split personality route. Two beings in one body.
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Comedy option:
After having the requisite nudge in right place.... Nothing happens. Immediately.
Disappointment is had etc. etc.
Some time passes and....
"Hello John."
"Did I not say this would be something you would remember me by?"
i.imgur.com/iIoF0oL.jpg
...just don't have him wake up back on earth. Thinking it was all some fever dream, with Tia becoming clinically depressed and Twi having a nervous breakdown. Because, in all seriousness, these reactions would be minor compared to mine if you did this. Sadly I've developed an unhealthy investment/obession with this story and I dont believe i could bear it!
Turns out he was a pony all along!
>New John has to share a body with his old personality who is very uncomfortable with Celestial affection.
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Whole thing turns out to be a massive gaslighting just so he would remember Umbra? Yeah, that'll do it.
(With "friends" like that, who needs enemies?!)
I thought you did an excellent job leading us and John to that corner with you. John's realization that he was more or less emotionally trapped with one possible way to decide was very natural, but fast enough to still invoke an 'oh, yeah, he's right!'.
So, yeah. There has to be some kind of effect for it to be a meaningful plot beat. And, I think, that meaningful effect has to lead to a point where John does have a meaningful choice, and has to make it, because the story so far has often revolved around him steadfastly avoiding having to do any such thing.
So I guess, he needs to be in a position to clear-headedly choose between who he was and who he is now. He's talked himself around into believing he doesn't have a real choice, and I think he needs to be wrong about that. The universe needs to finally give him no choice about making a choice.
Obviously he chooses whatever leads to more Celestia snuggles, but--! The means matter, y'know?
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He'd probably have a machine for that.
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Next fifty chapter is him just back on earth doing regular shit. Ye Gods, no!
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He never had fingers at all! They were breadsticks sellotaped to his hooves!
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Oh man, can you imagine?
Pull the fakeout with the shitty fake 'rescue' attempt illusion thingy then play the real long con only to pull the rug out now? Oh! It'd be something else.
Kind of obliterate any sympathy Umbra might have built up as an awkward goon though...or it would for me. And it'd just get worse! Oh my.
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Hilarity ensues. Well, 'hilarity'.
They could also fight crime...
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Kinda beforehand he didn't appear to even have a choice and he was far too comfortable with this being the case and now all that's been yanked away. So that does seem the direction to go...
Course, I also now actually have to have some idea about his home life and history. SIGH.
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Good, glad to hear it!
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"
Twilight's all "Shoot, it's so obvious, how did I not notice that earlier
Serious answer: I'd probably go with "Yep, John was freaking out over nothing, that's just how he rolls." And you can still make that into an interesting story; it turns out that surprise, the real conflict here is John's anxiety issues, and all the Queen Umbra stuff is just a vehicle to get him in a position where he has to deal with it.
I mean, that's how The Enchanted Library works, and it was recently declared the #1 story on FiMfiction, so
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That's likely how it's going to go down because the alternative is trying to write him as a very different character which would be exhausting and lead the story in a direction away from glorious Celestia snuggling, which just don't do. I mean, he should get beefed up a little, but not that much. I'm a very lazy guy.
And, really, in my head it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for him to be too different.
Now I just have to wrestle with fresh self-indulgent ideas that rear their heads...
Heh. Well, I just caught up on this, and it's now three weeks on, but I guess I'll throw in my two cents and note that honestly from a basic knowledge of how the brain works I wouldn't exactly say he'd end up freaking out over nothing, but neither do I think it would result in some massive change (especially if/as he doesn't want it to).
No matter how much of him was broken off, the bits cobbled back together into John would tend towards operating in the same fashion: synaptic connections are the ruts which our mental wagons dig, and in which they are stuck. The very fact that what was left accessible managed to reform into an operational personality (and without years of rehab) implies that all of the most important 'self' parts of his brain were present. So, John is most likely very similar in behavior and mannerisms to what he was before. Just with more horse canoodling. And it's not like the reconnected parts can 'rewrite' him either: his 'self' will remain running on the same neurons, over the same set of old ruts plus the new ones he's formed since his arrival.
The memories, on the other hand, could certainly lead to drama. As mentioned, what if he has a family, etc. Is it still adultery if you had amnesia and also it was with a talking horse in another dimension? He, as he is now, will have to come to terms with all of that new-old information. Lastly, it would probably be a slow process even accessing those memories: his current 'self' has come to operate just fine on whatever amount of brain it's had access to, so it should take a while for it to find and relight those old pathways and for him to referentially walk through it all. It would probably be a very strange experience, with some random sensory input—a sight, smell, turn of phrase, snippet of music—triggering a cascade of chained memories...although really he ends up staring into space at random times as it is, so from the outside it probably wouldn't seem out of character except he'd come out of it remembering his bank card PIN or the national anthem.
(Or, more pertinent to the cuddling, smelling Celestia might trigger memories that make him understand why he likes her scent so much.)