800 Likes! · 10:05am Oct 30th, 2020
800 Likes... Wow, I’m surprised that I’ve gotten this far in under 30 chapters. I’m going to do something a little different from usual. I’ll still answer any questions you post, but I wanted to also do something else as well. I wanted to share the process of Skeletor becoming ruler of the Empire.
I should start off by saying that neither “Skeletor” nor the Crystal Empire would have been part of the original story if I hadn’t decided to change the direction. When I was writing the first hints of chapter 1, the story was completely separated from the displaced multiverse and followed a protagonist that would have been revealed slowly over the course of many chapters.
The original working title of the story was “The Storm Queen’s Secret.” In this story, the plot would have revolved around a mysterious unicorn’s rise to power in the Storm Lands after splattering the Storm King’s brains on one of the walls in his throne room. At the time of writing that story, I only had the titles for the first two chapters and a few lines that would eventually find their way into my Skeletor displacement story.
CHAPTER 1. Twilight Breaks Over the Horizon.
There was once a world brimming with magic, a world of mythical creatures that once only lived in the imagination of children. But, by either some cosmic coincidence or divine intervention from a goddess or god, these old fabled characters had become real, living in near harmony with each other on the small planet known as Terra.
Terra was a home to many magical souls, from ponies made of crystal to zebra shaman, flying dragons to obnoxiously boisterous yacks, and the rarely seen minotaurs to thestrals. If it was a creature or beast from fiction, there was a high probability of bumping into one of them on Terra. And yet, almost in spite of their maniacal and cruel storybook counterparts, the inhabitants of Terra were relatively peaceful. However, not everything in the land of sunshine and rainbows was bathed in light. Underneath the warm sun and relaxing moon of the two princesses, below the heavens of bliss and joy, and under the silver lining of the monstrous storm of constant thunder and heavy rain, laid the crumbling remains of the once luscious and vibrant Stormlands.
A place of constant darkness tucked away into the lowest point of the world, hidden from the prying and judgmental eyes of those who inhabited the peaceful lands of Equestria. To call a place such as the Stormlands bleak would be to call the Badlands bad, an incredibly gross statement.
The Stormlands were a place where the storms above never ended, a remnant of the effects of a terrible storm that washed over the continent Equestrian long ago. While the love and warmth the ponies and other creatures of Equestria chased away the never-ending winter, the Stormlands simply adapted and outlived the vengeful spirits that had caused the Great Winter. Their stubbornness and anger had kept them warm on the coldest of nights, their hatred for the spirits burned the fires of Tartarus that damned those vengeful specters, and their restless defiance to brace through the long winter eventually outlived the last of the monstrous windigos, until all that remained were the yetis of the Stormlands and the dark clouds above.
In many ways, the Stormlands were the exact opposite of Equestria. Equestria had ample land for crops, nearly limitless space for housing, and untold riches that laid buried beneath their fertile soil. Equestria had everything the Stormlands didn’t, including the power to control the celestial bodies themselves, curtesy of the two immortal Alicorn princesses of Equestria, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They had power, fortune, everything that the Stomlands needed to survive. And all that they would need to do would be to ask.
Equestria was a country that helped all those who needed it, even if they weren’t always deserving. Despite the war with the Crystal Empire of the north, the slaughters caused by the dragons of the east, the raids from the griffons of the west, or the constant attacks by the devilish diamond dogs who tunneled beneath the earth, Equestria found a way to forgive them and help them in any way possible.
Terra. All the current Storm King would need to do was ask, and Equestria would bend over backwards to help them any way they could.
Unfortunately for those who called the Stormlands home, the Storm King didn’t want peace. The Storm King was a greedy ruler who desired to expand his own domain with force and strength, to crush those he thought of as beneath him. The Storm King had successfully subjugated the Abyssinian Kingdom, driven the Hippogriff Kingdom into hiding, and had wiped out any trace of the peaceful flutter ponies from the face of Terra.
The Storm King was a ruthless warlord who wished for nothing but power, and despite this, if he had changed his ways and done something good, the ponies of Equestria would have forgiven him. While it would not have pardoned him of his crimes or resurrected any of those he had personally slain, it would have been enough to help his subjects of the Stormlands.
Among his army was his lieutenant, Tempest Shadow, a unicorn mare with a dark orchard coat and rose-colored mane. Tempest Shadow had a scar that ran over her right opal eye and the shattered remains of a a horn perturbing from her head, both of which were caused by a terrible encounter with an ursa minor when she was only a young unicorn filly.
A lavender fur coat that was hidden under a dark cloak that obscured her torso and face, only allowing her lavender horn to be seen poking through one of the holes of her cloak.
The hooded pony threw a glance to the window to her right, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the storm stopped. The heavy rain that had assaulted the window with a barrage of water had trickled to nothing, and an odd silence fell over the lands. For one, there was no thunder, no rain, no streaks of light flashing across the sky, just pure and undisturbed silence. And like a minotaur firing off a glass cannon, the deafening silence was shattered with the screams of the guards outside the castle.
An orchestra of fear, anger, and surprise filled the momentarily silent air as the foundation of the castle itself began to shake.
“Call the maids.” The unicorn mare ordered. Tempest Shadow quickly nodded her head and went off to get someone to… Take care of the mess.
Chapter 2. Her Majesty’s Kingdom in Twilight.
Tempest Shadow silently watched the yeti maids clean up the blood that painted the throne room, her eyes never leaving the two maids who had the misfortune of being called into the throne room. Just like her, they were terrified by their ominous new Queen who, after killing the Storm King, had decided to silently look out the window and let her gaze travel over the city. She didn’t say a word, didn’t make a claim, or give any grandiose speech about her rise to power, she just stood motionless by the window.
Tempest Shadow couldn’t read the unicorn’s body language since she tried her best to avert her eyes from the dangerous mare that that had risen to power without any contest.
Tempest Shadow was more worried about her deal. As an incentive to agreeing to become the Storm King’s lieutenant, Tempest Shadow asked that he would restore her broken horn.
Aaaand that’s about as far as I got. I’m sure keen eyed readers noticed the line about lavender fur, a purple unicorn mare, and that she was exceptionally powerful. So, you’d all make the likely connection that, “Oh, this is Twilight, isn’t it?” Well, you were… WRONG. And that wasn’t all I wrote, either! This is the rest of it! HA! I've fooled at least one person!
Tempest Shadow looked at the unicorn with an uncertain look. She wasn’t sure why her Queen had decided to come to Ponyville, but after seeing the odd reflection of her Queen talk to the dragon riding her back, Tempest Shadow had a suspicion that the odd clone of her Queen was the reason for their impromptu trip back to Ponyville.
A doll? That was what this mission was for? A foal’s doll? Tempest Shadow looked back at the box she held in her hooves, a box containing an odd patchwork doll. A box holding possibly one of the most worthless things Tempest Shadow could ever think of.
She tried to dissect her Queen’s plan, see what the angle was, find out why she cared about giving her dapple ganger an ugly doll. But, the more she thought about it, the more confused she became. Her Queen, a master of manipulation and strategy, came to a backwards earth pony heavy town just so that she could make a copy of a doll.
How did her Queen know about the disaster that would befall Ponyville due to that doll?
That night, Tempest Shadow comforted her Queen by holding her in her hooves, her chin resting snuggly on top of her Queen’s head and her stomach pressed firmly against her majestie’s’ back.
“Twivine!” Twilight yelled out to the Queen. Her voice was fraught with a mixture of emotions, dread, hope, panic, doubt, and a deep sadness that almost forced the tears behind her eyes to burst. Despite the word having no magical relevance or charms attached to it, the Queen froze in place as if that word possessed more magic than Terra itself.
Twilight filled her lungs with air as the Queen stood still, waiting with baited breath as she silently prayed to whatever god that Twilight would leave. She didn’t want Twilight there, she didn’t want any of them there. And yet, as if the world had conspired to emotionally torment the Queen, reality ignored her desires to be left alone as Twilight took a tentative step forward.
“Twi… Twivine. Is that you?” Twilight desperately asked, the sadness in her voice piercing the Queen’s heart like a cold dagger as she held back her own tears.
The plan I had for the story was that the new Storm Queen’s identity would have been revealed to be Twilight’s “twin” Twivine. For those of you unfamiliar with the fan made character, created by Another Brony (https://www.deviantart.com/dashiemlpfim/gallery) Which inspired a story by Questionable Brony’s We're...Twins...yes...twins... which also followed the events of Another Brony’s story.
So, for those of you who read Questionable Brony’s take on the character, you’ll remember that the young filly had an altercation involving a few guards chasing her around Canterlot. My story would have taken that event and had her run away before Princess Celestia could intervene, causing the young filly to flee to parts unknown and grow in power. Eventually, she and Twilight would come back together, hugs, laughter, blah blah, Family is magic, yaaay.
That idea was scrapped after I lost interest in it, and I used what I had already written to try another story, staring a certain 80’s villain with a skull for a face. I don’t actually remember how the idea of Skeletor becoming a displaced came into my mind. I think it was because Faker passed into my google search results when I was looking for Bizarro pictures, which caused me to remember, “Oh yeah, Skeletor was a thing, man he was cool… I wonder if there are any stories about him.”
So, after only finding two Skeletor stories on Fimfic, one of which was a trollfic with an unsatisfying conclusion, I decided to try my hand at it. I replaced the Storm Lands with the Frozen North, touched up the prologue to be a more overall history of the world, and that’s how Skeletor became the Master of The Empire.
Something I find funny with my story is how much people look into it. The things I want them to see get completley ignored or overlooked, and issues and concepts that I never thought of before start to make me ask questions. An example of this is when one reader speculated as to why I had Eris in the story instead of Discord, stating that I must have had a reason beyond “I want Discord but with tits.”
So, of course, I have to go, “Shit, that was the whole reason why I made him a girl. Crap, now I have to think of a good reason so I don’t look like those writers who just want to write a clop harem of everypony falling in one with one guy. Um… Did you really think I would reveal such a plot crucial detail here? Read the story to find out. Yeah, that should do it. Good job, me. Now I’ve invented more plot without the reason being because of her plot… I’m very funny.”
Then there was the time that someone made the rational connection between Princess Amore’s anti-gay marriage laws and her laws regarding infertile partners meant that Princess Amore kept her laws regarding marriage to protect the barrier over Empire from falling because of a possible decrease in population. Perfectly reasonable, they had an amazing point… And I never thought of that. That idea never occurred to me before, that a population count could affect the barrier. So, here I am, a writer who now has to act like that was the plan the whole time. I had to toss that idea aside later on after another comment made an equally good argument against that comment, and it convinced me. So, I just thought, “Hey, what if they didn’t understand magic that well back then?” And I ran with that.
Later on, this idea evolved to, ”man, for villains who went toe to toe with two alicorns at once, they get beaten by six mares with no military knowledge really easily… Oh, what if they’re old magic was just shit compared to new magic!” Thus, adding another crucial detail to my story to explain how Sombra was so easily defeated by Skeletor, and why the spell recognized Skeletor as a powerful mage when he didn’t even know a single glittery spell.
outside the story im kinda interested how would main characters react to skeletor, princess Luna, Eris/discord, pinkie pie etc
for your idea it just hits the right notes for me it a displaced story, but it self contained enough to be enjoyable, the oc are interesting and well thought out, and it had a nice build up, so i wont be surprised when it get to 1000 likes
The only thing I have to say beyond , "that's cool" is...
You deserve every like you get on SMoTE. It is an amazing story, and you've done very good with it.
So I will say, if you had made the original idea with the Storm Lands and all, I totally would have read that because I like the concept of Twivine, but more to the subject of the actual story.
Congrats on the 800 likes, that's great! and I gotta admit, I actually didn't read too far into certain things, like the general population number having an impact on the barrier or the whole Eris thing.
To be honest though, I kinda forgot that Eris is a thing in this story... oops
The reason you got so many likes is because this is a good story, like really good. I'd go as far as to say that it's up there with past sins and other jewels of this site.
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Wow, thanks! I appreciate the compliment and being compared to a jewel like Past Sins.