The Buttery Snake Show: Well, That Went About as Well as Expected · 3:03am Mar 5th, 2022
Buttery Snake, if he could be convincingly called a pony at this point to a degree beyond serving as a personification of the author’s own inner monologue, sounded quite peculiar wearing a gas mask.
“I’m wearing it,” he explained, to you, the reader, “because somebody stunk up the place. Real bad.”
He turned slowly to Unwhole Hole, sitting ashamed across from him.
“So. What do you have to say for yourself? I mean, you did summon me out of the ether of your own limited mind to give you a pity-party, didn’t you?”
“No. The situation is bad, but it’s not the worst. I can deal with this. I came here to apologize.”
“For that terrible story?”
“No. The story is not a story. A story does not actually hurt anybody. It’s just words. Very poorly executed words.”
“Then why even bother bringing it up? Just forget about it and move on.”
“No. Not quite yet. But it’s almost time for that. The apology is because what I tried to do was pretty much the worst possible way to swing and then wiff.”
“You have never once in your life played baseball.”
“I know. It’s a metaphor. It’s also not the point. And I think I’ve explained at various points most of the things that went wrong with this story, save for the last part. The last part that went about as badly as I expected.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Not for me, no. But for my readers, it was. That is what I am apologizing for.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll spell it out with the Applejack honesty. I got a big head after writing #277. The idea of a gotcha-crossover sounded like a good idea at the start. Like trying to use drain unclogger for medical purposes. Neither of those things turned out well, though.”
“#277 was not especially popular.”
“No, but it worked. And it worked for one, simple reason. It worked because it could stand on its own. It never needed the reader to recall or have read another story. It can exist on its own. ‘Conspiracy’ cannot. I attempted the same formula: a story that starts as one thing (in this case, a silly random sex-joke comedy) and turns to another (a dark crossover with a previous personal project).”
“Except you didn’t pull the plug when you saw it was going south.”
“I know. I keep thinking I should have. To just cancel the story before it got this bad. But the problem was, some readers were still enjoying it. They would have been sad if I just deleted the thing like I was supposed to.”
“But they would have been disappointed when they got to the end anyway.”
“I know. But either way, I was betraying someone.”
“Stabbed right in the back. Hold on, hold on!”
Another version of himself appeared. “This next part has spoilers!”
Another appeared. “Yes it does, but you probably don’t care!”
Another. “And, frankly, you really shouldn’t read the story to begin with, so I don’t know why you’re not just reading past this pointlessly long warning.”
“Yes,” continued Unwhole Hole. Essentially, I leverageded the entire emotional zenith of the story on people reading that it was a Mass Core crossover and going ‘AH HA!’. Except, one, none of the audience had read Mass Core and, two, Mass Core isn’t very good.”
“It’s literally your most popular story.”
“And it is also poorly written, crude, full of spelling mistakes, and really divisive. Because it’s essentially a story where every single character is an evil, self-serving jerk and concepts like slavery, imprisonment, dehumanization, mass-murder, and racism are considered by most of the characters to be good, positive attributes of society.”
“That’s a little extreme.”
“Only if you think I actually believe anything I say when I’m writing.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not. The words of my characters don’t represent me in the slightest. Most of them are unreliable liars. Which is apparently not a normal thing.”
“No, it’s totally normal. You just can’t do it well. People don’t usually expect to question every single piece of exposition a character says.”
“And yet whenever I have a character spouting exposition, it’s usually self-serving and incorrect.”
“Excactly. You’re kind of a blunt instrument. Like a really inaccurate hammer.”
“A deadblow hammer at this point.”
“And how.”
“The point being that at the moment of the big reveal, I attempted a gotcha that failed in epic fashion. In doing so, I directly betrayed readers who had put time and emotional weight into my story. I made them angry and sad with my incompetence and shortsightedness. I was insincere in writing the story, and I apologize.”
“And trolling the Star Trek fans?”
Unwhole Hole let out a long sigh. “If I am writing a crossover, of any kind, I make some fun of whatever I’m writing about. That’s meant to be part of the fun. I didn’t mean it to be malicious. Think of it like Humphrey Dinklehuegen.”
Humphrey Dinklehuegen stood up in the audience. “Whoo hoo! I EXIST!”
“No you don’t, sit back down!”
Unwhole Hole continued. “That was a Harry Potter crossover. The point of it was that the idea of a Harry Potter crossover seemed so absurd to me, I had to try it. The idea of a Star Trek crossover is that it is, inherently, absurd. So I had to try it.”
“You should not have tried it.”
“You only truly fail if you never try.”
“By someone who clearly failed at trying to make a good quote. You can’t fail if you never try.”
“Well, then, you’re not going to like what’s coming next.”
“Is it bad?”
“No. It is consistent. On-brand. Back to my roots. To an extent. No mixed tones, no gotcha gags at the end, no critical references to other stories that the audience may not have read.”
“Nobody liked your ‘roots’.”
“Exactly. I have written a story that I can guarantee will NEVER be featured. Not because it is bad. That’s up to the readers to decide, I don’t control that. But I think there are steps I can take to limit readership.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Because the stories lose context and stability if they get too widely read. I need to retract. To fade back into obscurity where I was comfortable. I can’t handle the spotlight. I want to contribute to this site, but I don’t want to be some heavy-hitter. I’m not that person. I’m not a professional writer. I’m okay, even acceptable, but not truly great. I need a tactical retreat.”
“You can’t--”
“I can. I know how. For example, writing more Mature-rated stories. People don’t read those nearly as much. Or even going back to my all-at-once release schedule so the stories can’t develop momentum. I need to go back to my dark, moist corner. The dampness from which I arose.”
“Eew.”
“I know. But perhaps I’m being histrionic. Maybe this did turn into that pity-party.”
“How about this next story, then?”
“Expecting to start posting soon. It will be something of a razor’s edge, though, and could go south real quick.”
“Stop taking risks, you abject moron. What did you do?”
“It will either come off as pleasantly dark or complete edgelord.”
“You kind of are an edgelord. You know that, right?”
“I do. And we will talk about that later, because it’s a subject I would like to go into in much more depth. But for now, let’s see if this one works and gets me back on track.”
“And ‘Conspiracy’?”
“All heat will die out in a matter of two days. And it will vanish from interest. Although not from the minds of the poor readers who sat all the way through to that Celestia-forsaken ending. Again, appologies. Except...”
“No. No. No no no nonnonononn non non on on...what am I on?”
“Methamphetacaineanyl.”
“That’s not a real drug.”
“Not yet it isn’t. But you’re still about to say what I think you’re going to say, and don’t. Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”
“It’s not a promise. Just a thought. We’ll see the response and see what my schedule looks like in the future. BUT.”
“You said ‘butt’.”
“BUT. I have a skeleton idea for a sequel to ‘Conspiracy’.”
“That’s a bad idea, don’t do it.”
“97% probability I won’t. But it’s just an idea.”
“And you’re going to say it, aren’t you?”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Yes I can.”
“No you can’t. The idea is to flash forward in time to the Next Generation period with Lyra, now aged and dying after stowing away on the Enterprise, attempting to return to her homeworld with the help of the (new) Enterprise crew.”
“You did the parenthesis thing again.”
“The idea would be that I could create, essentially, a stand-alone story that does not rely on previous knowledge of Mass Core. The Terrans are already there from the start. The only problem, though, is I can’t think of a big dramatic thread to hold it all together. I mean, the Enterprise could just show up, but why? What is the threat? What do they need to do?”
“Maybe Picard needs to stop them from, you know, doing what they do?”
“I don’t know. I have a collection of scene ideas that might work, but I did for the last one too. The trick will be creating a consistent tone.”
“You SHOULD focus on your novels meant for publishing. Try to actually finish one for once.”
“I know. I know. But I like this place. I’m don’t want to go.”
“You will have to. Eventually. The fact that YOU even got on the featured list is...well...”
Unwhole Hole let out a long sigh. “I know. If they’ve had to turn to Unwhole Hole, the situation is pretty grim.”
Buttery Snake nodded solemnly. “Congratulations on passing three million words. Let’s see how this next story goes, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Cheer up. Everyone makes a dud every now and then. If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t eat nearly so much human flesh.”
“Yeah, I know. If you fall off the horse you get back on, cowgirls don’t cry and all that.”
“Don’t say that to a pony, it’s weird. Also you should listen to less country music before this starts to get embarrassing.”
Unwhole Hole nodded. Then he stood up and went to figure out where Micron was hiding to order some cover art.
I mean, the "Discord is Q" option is right there.
Okay, you know what? I'm gonna say it.
I'm going to read some of your other stories just to be contrarian. The quality of your writing was never an issue, it was just the combination of themes, genres, and IP's being an awkward fit.
5641582
That one has been done rather a lot, though, starting from about five minutes after the season two premiere. Something that would be unique to this specific story would be Picard arriving as a diplomat/archaeologist after giving Celestia about a century to cool off, opening relations on the grounds of studying the ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters, or perhaps the origin myth that Lyra believed in.
Given the planet's strategic value due to the dilithium, the Federation can't afford to ignore them forever, or at all really. Something having to do with another post-warp civilization setting eyes on their dilithium could be the real reason for visiting, with the rest as a convenient cover story to be in the wrong place at the right time.
5641674
That's not a bad idea. Focusing on careful negotiations concerning the diplomatic state of the dilithium instead of some sort of fast-paced action-heavy conspiracy would be a much more Picard thing to do.
It would also be an amusingly complex situation. There would be Equestria, with their own problems, the interlopers (explained in-context rather than in a late-game rug-pull) guarding the planet who may want to open trade (or have nefarious intentions otherwise), the Federation, and possibly other bidders.
If I ever do go to write the story, I think I will use something like that. Thank you for the suggestion.
Although, admittedly, if Picard is present, I feel that Q needs to make a brief appearance, even if just to offer a warning or two.
I am ok with this.
You're way too harsh on yourself.
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I've never even played or read anything Mass Effect related, but the "reveal" that this was a double crossover story was intriguing. it made me want to go back and read the other stuff too.