Announcing: Another Toon Crossover! · 6:55am Mar 28th, 2022
Yes, this is the story I was going to submit into the “Who Crossed Over My Little Pony” contest. Unfortunately I misread the rules, and thought the word limit was 22,000 words instead of 12,000 words, so it looks like I’ll have to submit “Discord’s Control Room” instead.
Also there’s humans in it. And an Animaniacs character. And Estee said having any post-’47 cartoon character who isn’t from FIM triggers an automatic disqualification.
Wait, “Discord’s Control Room” has humans in it too. Sci-fi RPG humans, but humans nonetheless.
Drat. No contest for me.
So, with that out of the way, what actually is this story?
Have you seen the 1940 cartoon “You Ought to Be In Pictures”? (Linked; link will probably be nuked by Warner Bros. any day now. If you own the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 from 2004—and hey, who doesn’t?—it’s on Disk 4.) It was one of the prime inspirations for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?—well, probably. So this story is what would happen if you replaced Porky Pig in that old cartoon with post-Season 1 Spike. In other words, a Spike who would have a good reason to want to walk away from Friendship Is Magic.
Unfortunately, the usual thing happened with me (see Disco Inferno): I started with a cute story that I wanted to make into a comedy, but then the characters insisted that I made it into a drama instead, and then a demon got involved.... And I also had one teeny-little moment that bumped the rating up to Teen. (It didn’t involve the demon.)
Warning: This story is meta to a ludicrous degree, as implied by its inspiration. You have toons who are actually the actors playing the characters in Friendship Is Magic, you have lots of worldbuilding that will never be used anywhere else ever ever, and you have me spouting all sorts of opinions about 1930’s cartoon characters that you care nothing about. Oh, and then I spout even more opinions about the departure of Lauren Faust from the series, which I really have no right to be doing, although I swear that I honestly believe I’m writing all of the crew members true to life. I would probably get into a lot of trouble with the fans if I put this out ten years ago instead of now. Does anybody care anymore?
So...read it at your own risk. And contest judges? Move along, this story isn’t for you anymore.
I feel that Zaphod's response to that phrase was the best one: