My stories, a look back - #5: Silver Spoon has a Nightmare · 11:24pm Aug 19th, 2021
Of all the themes in my stories, I didn't think the recurring one would be "hawthornbunny hates facial hair", but here we are.
Silver Spoon has a Nightmare was, I think, perhaps the one story of mine that had the least planning and the shortest time between conception and release, which will probably be apparent for those who've read it. That might be why the description references sleep-deprivation, since once I have an idea I tend to just go at it without a break until I'm finished, even if it takes hours. This is largely down to my OCD, which has a significant effect on my productivity - I know that if I stop working on something, I probably will never finish it, so I force myself through it and the result is usually getting it done in a single day.
This story was a sequel to Diamond Tiara Reads A Bedtime Story by Mattricole, a romantic comedy one-shot featuring Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. In that story, Diamond Tiara reads a bedtime story to Silver Spoon, but it's terrible because Diamond is making it up on the spot and gets basic things wrong like plot consistency, logic, and the pronunciations of simple words.
As soon as I read the fic, it seemed very logical to me that Diamond Tiara's terrible bedtime story would be followed with a nightmare sequence, and the fic fell into place pretty much immediately since all the groundwork had already been laid by Mattricole and all I had to do was write a suitably silly dream scene.
The description has a disclaimer that "no-one pre read this or anything". That was a joke - in fact, I almost never use prereaders at all. I know that I should - many of Fimfiction's best authors swear by it, and I do sometimes pre-read and edit for other people - but when it comes to my fics, I have a real hard time with showing incomplete work to people. It is, I guess, one of my writing weaknesses.
Then again, this fic is meant to be ridiculous and stupid, so having a pre-reader might have detracted from that goal anyway.
Silver Spoon has a Nightmare
Silver Spoon has a nightmare, and it's all Diamond Tiara's fault.
May 2015
Romance, Comedy, Random
The fic opens with Silver Spoon racing away from a monster, who is chasing her across a cloud. Silver's first line of dialogue says that it's a dream, because if you read my Fillyswap lookback you'll know that I don't believe in dream fakeouts and that I always clue the reader in as soon as possible if they're in a dream scenario. It gives me more scope to play around with dream mechanics, which I find more interesting.
Silver reaches the edge of the cloud, beyond which is an endless drop into blue sky. This is actually taken from my own dreams - one of my more vivid recurring dreams involves being stuck on a small platform impossibly high up in the sky.
The monster, it turns out, is the dragoness invented by Diamond Tiara in Diamond Tiara Reads a Bedtime Story, which had a mustache for no reason other than Diamond is terrible at telling bedtime stories. The dragoness was identified in Mattricole's story as a princess, but wasn't named; therefore, I gave her the fittingly silly name of "Princess Alopecia".
In the nightmare scenario, Princess Alopecia is being a terribly hammy villain with an evil plan to give everyone in the world a mustache, which Silver finds violently unappealing. Silver's reaction is also taken straight from my own, since I'm really not fond of mustaches at all. A mustache with a beard is... acceptable, I guess, but I don't understand why anyone would shave off their beard but leave a carpet of hair attached to the bit between the part where the spit comes out and the part where the snot comes out.
Anyway, Diamond Tiara shows up, and she's an alicorn, because it's Diamond freaking Tiara, of course she's going to dream herself an alicorn. Diamond has a mustache too, because she's been assimilated into Princess Alopecia's collective, except she hasn't, because - plot twist! - it's a ruse and Diamond is actually here to save Silver Spoon.
Facing imminent incineration by a squadron of Princess Alopecia's dragonponies, Diamond attempts her plan for escape, which involves Silver Spoon's magical flying spoon - this was a direct reference to The Silver Spooner, a series created by Bootsy Slickmane which Mattricole also wrote for and which I was a big fan of. Alas, it turns out that Silver Spoon's superhero persona is only a dream that Diamond had, so that's a no-go.
Diamond instead opts for "Plan D" (D for "Dazzle"), which is to leg it and try not to get burned. Escaping their pursuers, they go through the portal connecting Diamond and Silver's dreams and close it, bringing Silver into Diamond's dream.
The fic never explains how Diamond was able to enter Silver's dream, but in fact this was a headcanon of mine back in the day - that Diamond Tiara is such a manipulator that she can even control her dreams, making her something of a minor dreamwalker.
Once in Diamond's dream, Silver and Diamond start kissing, because this is a romance, and Silver starts becoming unable to pronounce words correctly. This was a callback to Diamond's apparent inability to pronounce basic words in Diamond Tiara Reads a Bedtime Story, and an implication that now that Silver is in Diamond's dream, Diamond's linguistic difficulties are affecting her too. Being someone who prides herself on her eloquence, Silver is distressed at this, until Diamond tells her to shut up so that they can kiss more, because it's a romance. Er, the end.
Honestly, the entire story is just the run-up to a self-deprecating joke that I don't know how to write romances, which is not entirely true, but it was something I often jokingly implied back when I was running the Silver Spoon group.
This fic continues a longstanding trend of me extending and building off of other people's stories, something I quite enjoy doing as I like the challenge of emulating someone else's style, and I feel it's a nice way to pay homage to the creations of my peers. I recall that Mattricole was quite pleased at getting an unexpected sequel to his fic, and he subsequently authorized it so I guess it's canon. :)
Trivia
* Alopecia is a hair loss disorder.
* Silver Spoon says "You've infected me with your aphrodisia!" She meant to say "aphasia", but she can't because she has aphasia.
Good stuff
* I liked the running joke about Diamond warning Silver not to do things in the dream that might carry over to real life. Jokes about bodily fluids are high-class comedy.
Bad stuff
* I mean, the fic is terrible, but purposefully so? All of the hammy dialogue is intentional, and the fact that it stops dead after around 2000 words with no real conclusion is in keeping with the original. Actually, I think the problem is that I couldn't match Mattricole's succinctness, as he managed to tell his story in under 1400 words.
As a heard with no mustache guy I don't get it either. Also, I'm awaiting If Today Was Your Last Day...
5571504
I assume because it's harder to shave there and allows you to speak Turkish and Italian.
Just read that one now on a whim.
Yeah… that happened.
That was so self-professed random and intentionally dumb, as you intended and noted above, that I don’t even really know what to do with it. Except to perhaps state that its randomness doesn’t actually feel energetic the way the best randomness does. Weirdly, the fic feels protracted, marginally. Or maybe that’s just what the difference between 1,300 and 2,300 words does for material like this. Even with that apricot ending that is basically a conclusion by fiat.
Still, make that another fic of yours I’ve read!
5571808
This is a special, expensive kind of refined randomness, mostly used by the nobility :) Thank you for subjecting yourself to my fic!
5571504
It's coming ^^ I'm looking forward to getting to that one too :)