//------------------------------//
// RE3 style 
// Story: HUMAN: The Crystalvision Series 
// by Razalon The Lizardman 
//------------------------------//

	During the interceding time of the convention and when Twilight received the funds to put it together, she along with the script writers worked on putting the clip show together for show at HUMANcon and gauge reception which, if good, would be sufficient to proceed with Twilight's idea for the show. Both Iron Will and Spike carefully studied every notable passage of descriptive text in the trilogy and made rough sketches of the imagery described. They then fleshed out the drawings to make them more professional-looking and added in various details that sprung to mind while working. 

While they did this, the remaining five script writers studied Twilight's notes and brainstormed story ideas for the pilot episodes. Several ideas were pitched to Twilight whenever she checked up on them, one of which was Lyra and Sweetie's idea of having the first few episodes center around not Warren, but his mother Elin and the events which occurred prior to his birth to result in her hardened demeanor toward him. This idea was turned down because the pilot episodes needed to give viewers an accurate representation of what the show would be like; having the central character absent from them would give everypony a false first impression. Another proposed idea would've had the pilot center around the big turning point in Warren's childhood where Elin claims his little brother Kevin acts more his age than Warren, establishing his forever standing resentment towards her. This idea was also turned down because Twilight pointed out how the Warren flesh puppet was that of a young adult human, which would be aesthetically incorrect playing the part of a seven year old child. This did, however, give Twilight the idea to make flesh puppets for younger versions of the characters in her free time, which her increasingly prevalent royal duties kept diminishing.

The pitch that Twilight ended up approving for the pilot episodes involved Warren moving from his childhood home to another one just an hour and a half away. While the character's age would be 12 at this point, and therefore still leaning toward being a child, Twilight figured she could make Warren look more that age simply by removing his facial hair. With the plot decided upon, the script writers got cracking on fleshing out the story to encompass an hour long two part pilot episode. Once completed, the script was given to Twilight who proofread and made minor adjustments wherever needed, and then sent it to the required voice actors so they could get into the roles assigned to them.

The process for recording the voices was easier than Twilight thought it would be. Whatever equipment she didn't already have was easily acquired from DELOS' management, and the quiet, secluded basement of Golden Oaks made for a perfect recording studio location. For the pilot, the following voices were required:


Big Mac = Warren (main protagonist), Daniel (Warren & Kevin's father) and Duncan (neighborhood kid that Warren befriends).

Caramel = Kevin (Warren's brother) and Jaren (friend of Duncan that Warren also befriends).

Golden Harvest = Elin (Warren & Kevin's mother).

Flitter = Unnamed receptionist for apartment complex.


Recording the voices was finished in little more than a few hours; Twilight was impressed by everypony's talent in the art, especially Big Macintosh who had to act for three separate characters whereas everypony else had no more than one or two. The only hiccup came when Caramel needed clarification on his last line of the pilot, which Twilight explained was meant to be hardcore profanity to humans, and that letting it slip was incentive for Elin to kick Jaren out of her family's house. Other than that, the recording session was smooth as silk.

The next step was to design the sets, which required the twisted talents of the reformed spirit of chaos and disharmony. Discord had only agreed to help Princess Twilight under the condition that she persuade Princess Celestia to set aside a little land for a mansion in which he could create all the chaos he wished, to which she agreed seeing no harm in such a deal. For the sets, Twilight went back to the same field which she'd been using all throughout HUMAN's production; since there wasn't too much wide open space on even terrain around Ponyville, Twilight decided to stick with what she knew would be suitable to the show's needs.

Along with Twilight and Discord came Iron Will and all the unicorn technicians she'd trained in flesh puppetry. There the group split into two teams working simultaneously to save time; Twilight and Discord made up one group and worked on constructing the sets. Twilight would haul fallen trees and rocks from the nearby Everfree Forest which Discord would use to construct the sets to match Iron Will & Spike's designs; a task that, while enjoyable, went against the core principle of chaos theory, randomness. There were no complaints about it, however, as Discord was looking forward to getting that mansion he wanted.

Meanwhile, Iron Will taught the unicorn technicians how to get the best performance from the human flesh puppets. While the minotaur hadn't the slightest clue how unicorn magic worked, Twilight had informed him such knowledge wouldn't be necessary for the job at hoof/hand. His job consisted of two tasks: 1. Act out actions for a point of reference the unicorns could follow when controlling the flesh puppets, and 2. Keep any oblivious ponies/animals from wandering onto the set and ruining the scene. Being bipedal like humans meant Iron Will was perfectly suited for the first task while his loud, intimidating voice and assertive mannerisms made the second task second nature to him. 

Once the sets were designed and unicorns well-versed in acting, filming finally started. Twilight attached a crystal monocle to her eye and synched it up with her brain's visual system. The lavender princess had taken some time to practice cinematography the day before. While she was far from a master of the art, she managed to capture the puppet's actions fairly well and with few mistakes. Of course, many retakes were filmed as well, if only so Twilight and Iron Will had a nice selection to choose from when it came time to put together the clip show. As for the unicorns, Twilight could tell they'd been practicing heavily with their puppets as they controlled each human expertly and with gusto.

The biggest hurtle for them was synching the recorded voices with the flesh puppets' lips. Twilight had taught them how to make the puppets' mouths move as if really talking back during their puppetry lesson, but even with weeks of practice it was a difficult challenge to synch the recordings with the puppets' mouths. Typically, the puppeteers would need to hear the recordings several times over before being able to match them up, and even then Twilight knew upon close inspection that one would see inconsistencies. It was another reason why she recorded several alternate takes of each scene; to pick out which ones synched the best. Filming wrapped up by the end of the day, by which time everyone was exhausted. With their jobs done for the time being, everybody returned home to get some much needed food and rest. Only Iron Will didn't return home, sleeping over at Golden Oaks so as to be ready first thing in the morning with helping Twilight piece the clip show together.

The process of watching and thoroughly analyzing each and every take done for each and every scene was a challenge to sit through in and of itself. Having to squint and carefully observe every minute detail of each take was tough on the minotaur's eyes. The eye strain was made worse by the very method used to observe each take. Twilight had to modify the flashback spell so it could display each take mid-air in front of them, resulting in the image appearing grainy and a sore to look at for extended periods of time. The strain wasn't lost on Twilight's eyes, of course, but having vast amounts of magic at her disposal allowed her to heal the sores so she could stay focused. She offered to do the same for Iron Will, but the minotaur refused to 'go easy' as he called it. 

It took the two of them until three in the afternoon to edit together the pilot episodes and store them onto a specially designated crystal. For the clip show, alternate takes which the two found satisfactory were used to construct a ten minute abridged version of the pilot episodes, minus background music. For music, only the actual episodes would have any, and would be done by Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. After seeing Iron Will off at the train station, his job done for the time being, Twilight immediately made arrangements for the musical mares to arrive in Ponyville so they could compose music for the pilot episodes.

When considering what kind of background music HUMAN should have, Twilight narrowed the selection down to soft, soothing classical tracks for sorrowful scenes and intense, upbeat techno tracks for more action-oriented scenes. To Twilight's chagrin, such a formula was inadequate for Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. They both told her that composing was a more complicated process than just assigning a particular style of music with a corresponding emotional response to a visual scene. This was especially true for a character driven narrative like HUMAN, they also said, where the emotions emanated by the characters were mixed more often than not and couldn't be sufficiently complimented by just one genre of music each.

But Twilight wouldn't have any of it and commanded the two mares to work together to compose this so-called 'mixed' music for HUMAN. At first, the two were hesitant to comply as their specialties were totally opposite to each other. They hadn't been informed by Twilight that the other mare had also been employed by her highness, and both had reservations about collaborating. Nevertheless, they eventually agreed to work together on HUMAN's musical score so as to please the lavender princess. With their concerns alleviated, Twilight left them to their own devices for a few days; secretly praying the whole time they didn't put together "silly trash" as she said.

When Twilight came back and listened to the tracks, she was relieved to see that both Octavia and Vinyl had done a good job of composing fitting tracks for the HUMAN pilot episodes. The two mares explained how they'd broken each episode into groups based on the tone each scene was conveying; sad, dreadful, enraging, and neutral-friendly. They then watched the scenes consecutively in order to put together a melody that would fit well and compliment each of them. For the rhythm of each scene, the two would customize it to match the intensity of the character's emotional output and/or the situation itself. 

That was the whole of what Twilight understood from Octavia and Vinyl. All she cared was the music sounded great alongside both episode's visuals. Thanking the two for their hard work, she saw them off to the train station and stowed the crystals containing the completed pilot episodes in a safe place at Golden Oaks while she prepared for the upcoming convention.





"When's it on, Twi?" Applejack asked from where she sat on the library's floor.

"In about . . . five minutes," Twilight replied next to her, looking at a nearby clock.

It'd been a couple of weeks since HUMANcon. After the positive reception the clip show received at the convention, Twilight and the rest of HUMAN's production staff decided to proceed forward with what they had. Twilight sent the raw footage to DELOS who announced via commercial the time and date of HUMAN's pilot episodes. Now that said time had finally arrived, Twilight and her friends were gathered around the free Crystalvision set DELOS had sent the lavender princess, eager to watch the pilot episodes.

"Oooh oooh oooh!" Pinkie shouted while bouncing on the couch.

". . . What was that?" Rainbow asked. She was sitting right next to Pinkie on the couch with a giant bowl of popcorn, which she had to hold tight so as to keep from spilling as a result of Pinkie's wild movements.

"Silly Dashie," the party pony replied, "we're watching a show about over-dressed monkey people, so I'm getting into the spirit of watching them."

"Overdressed!?" Rarity exclaimed; unlike everypony else, she'd brought her own cushion so she didn't have to lay on the hardwood floor of Golden Oaks. "In case you've forgotten, Pinkie dear, clothes are a necessity for humans."

"All thanks to you," Rainbow stated, snickering. Rarity simply huffed and turned her nose up.

"Ummm, girls?"

"Besides, Pinkie," Twilight said, "humans are a great many steps above monkeys; they don't holler like that and swing from trees at all."

"I think we shou-"

Spike replied from where he sat on the couch. "They don't holler? Correct me if I'm wrong, Twilight, but didn't you say humans always scream and holler at sporting events and such? You know, where they don't wear shirts?"

"It's-"

"I . . . did say that," Twilight replied, blushing a little. "But still, they don't swing from trees."

"Except when they-"

"HEY!!!"

Everyone turned to Fluttershy, who was sitting on the only remaining space of the couch. She quickly hid behind her mane at the sudden attention.

"What is it, darling?" Rarity asked.

The timid pegasus pointed a hoof at the clock. "It's on right now."

Twilight turned her head to the clock to see that, indeed, the time had come for HUMAN's pilot episodes to begin. Swiftly, the lavender alicorn used her magic to turn on the C.V. in front of them and tune it to the proper frequency. 

She was just in time, for HUMAN's intro sequence was nearing its end. The six mares and dragon watched as Warren Zaccaro ascended the stairs of what was presumably his house. The shot followed him right and down a short hallway to the door at the very end. Opening it revealed what was clearly a bedroom, as indicated by the queen-sized bed up against the wall straight in front of the door. The shot followed Warren right again, which revealed a white desk with a swivel chair that Warren sat down upon. On the desk was a black computer setup with other miscellaneous stuff scattered about the desk.

Rainbow Dash grabbed some popcorn and stuffed it into her mouth. So, that's command control for eggheads.

After turning on the computer, the scene showed Warren fiddling with the keyboard while different images flashed across the C.V. screen. These images showed mostly what looked to be flashbacks from Warren's life, as younger versions of him were prevalent throughout them. Finally, the shot zoomed in on what Warren was typing on the computer screen. 


HUMAN: The Crystalvision Series


~15 minutes later~

At the first commercial break, Twilight turned to her friends. "So, what do you think of it so far?" she asked, grinning in anticipation.

"Meh, it's not as awesome as me," Rainbow commented, shrugging. "But I'll admit, it's entertaining to say the least."

Applejack shook her head. "Ah think it's mighty strange how the intra showed Warren havin' his own room, but the episode showed he shared a bedroom with his little brother."

"Oh, about that," Twilight replied. "The intro is actually depicting future events in the show, specifically around where the books ended."

"Speaking of Warren's room," Rarity said, "I find it particularly wasteful how he's got a bed fit for two when it's clear he doesn't sleep with anyone."

"That's just how Discord designed it," Twilight replied again. "Ask him if you want answers for why it's so big."

"That's what she said," Pinkie said, throwing her hooves up in the air. Everybody just looked at her in confusion until Fluttershy spoke up.

"Maybe he's waiting for his special somepo- err, somebody."

Everybody retrained their confused stares on the timid pegasus, who just retreated into her mane.

"Anyway," Spike said, breaking the awkward tension, "the commercials are almost over; let's stay focused on watching the show."

~16 minutes later~

"Well, that's the end of episode one," Twilight stated. She stood up and stretched a bit to which everybody followed her example. "What'd you think of the whole thing?"

"Like I said before," Rainbow replied, "it was entertaining, but not as awesome as me." She reached for some more popcorn but realized it'd all been eaten. Not wanting to miss the second episode, she sped into the kitchen and grabbed another bag of popcorn. "Hey, Spike, a little help please!?"

"Coming," the baby drake announced, and scurried into the kitchen after her.

"So, sugarcube," Applejack said, "what's the next episode gonna be like?" Everypony present turned to the lavender alicorn with eager grins on their faces.

Twilight sighed. "C'mon girls, I don't wanna spoil the episode for you."

"We're not asking for that, darling," Rarity proclaimed. "We're merely curious as to what direction the next part will go in, aren't we girls?"

Everypony nodded in unison. Twilight scuffled her hooves across the floor and looked downcast. After a few awkward moments of staring at her hooves, she returned her gaze to them all.

"Let's just say," she said, "it doesn't end very happily."

Everypony frowned in response. Before more could be said, however, Rainbow Dash and Spike came back into the room, Rainbow carrying a filled popcorn bowl. "Hey girls," she said, both her and Spike taking their seats on the couch. "Did we miss anything?"

At that moment, the HUMAN intro began playing on the C.V. "Guess not," Spike answered, and began watching the intro. Everypony followed suit, the frowns never leaving most of their faces.

~30 minutes later~

As soon as the second episode ended, Twilight shut off the C.V. and turned to her friends. The expressions on their faces ranged from shocked, to disgusted, and in Spike's case (as he already knew what was going to happen) neutrality.

"Well, that's the pilot," she said to them. "What'd you thi-"

"What just happened?" Applejack interrupted.

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked.

"I believe she's referring to that ending, dear," Rarity replied, "of which I must concur; what just happened?"

"Oh, well, Jaren got kicked out of their house for speaking foul language." Twilight shrugged. "Anyone would do what Elin did."

"Jaren seemed so nice," Fluttershy whispered, barely audible to everyone else.

"He was," Pinkie stated. "He just let a bad word slip past his tongue in a bout of frustration; it happens all the time."

"Anyway," Applejack said, having patiently waited for a chance to speak again, "Ah find it a mite disconcertin' jus' how overbearin' Warren's parents seemed ta be."

"Don't you remember my vignette in HUMANS?" Twilight replied. "I went into a fair amount of detail explaining Warren's home life and what his parents were like."

"Ah do, sugarcube," AJ replied, "but it's 'a whole different thin' seein' it happen in front o' me than jus' readin' 'bout it."

"Such is the power of Crystalvision," Twilight replied again, this time with a coy smile. She took a moment to look at the clock before continuing. "Well, I think it's about time we all went to bed; thanks again for coming over."

Everypony else nodded sagely and got up to leave. Once they were all gone, Twilight and Spike put the couch back in its proper place and brought the C.V. upstairs so it wouldn't disrupt peace in the library. After tucking Spike into bed, Twilight made her way back downstairs. She used her telekinesis to levitate a couple of scrolls from the center table and over to her. She then unfurled them both and began reading them.

Princess Celestia had sent both scrolls to her earlier that day, but with all the excitement of HUMAN's pilot episodes finally airing she hadn't gotten around to reading them. She'd already guessed both were from Celestia's never ending stack of royal paperwork and that the solar alicorn was having Twilight fill it out to make her job a little easier. Looking at them now, Twilight could see that she was half right; one of the scrolls was indeed from the fabled 'mountain of mind cramps'. The other one, however, was a simple letter without a return address. Curious, Twilight began reading it.

Dear Princess Twilight,

It's great to see you taking your new royal duties in stride and not panicking about it every five minutes like the mare you once were. I imagine leading the production of HUMAN has helped you to hone your already strong leadership skills by a considerable amount, which is good for a budding young princess such as yourself; you need all the experience you can get. To be perfectly honest with you, I thought Princess Celestia was crazy when I first heard of her decision to grant you ascension, given your history of over-paranoia and obsessive-compulsiveness. While I still think you suffer from both, I can also see you've learned how to keep either from spiraling out of control and causing harm to anypony else.

Before you start asking yourself who I am, just know that it was I who sent you that painting of Warren. I did it to test your perceptive and inspirational skills and how well you make do with what you're given, which is something any leader of anything must be able to do efficiently. While I have yet to see the results of your hard work on HUMAN's adaptation, from what I've heard in the grapevine it sounds as if you've put together something truly magnificent to the eye. I look forward to watching the pilot episodes tonight and seeing the results of you and your staff's hard work. Until then, consider this test a success on your part.

Best wishes,

WUL2K

Twilight stared at the letter with a mixture of both confusion and distress. She really didn't know how to feel about the letter, considering its anonymous nature. As far as this so-called 'test' was concerned, while Twilight was grateful to have received the painting the only tests she accepted were those given to her by Princess Celestia and no one else. Whoever this 'WUL2K' was, they wouldn't be earning any favors from her by being weird and secretive.

I'll play it safe tonight and cast a shield spell around the library.

With that out of the way, Twilight put the letter away and began reading Celestia's paperwork, eager to finish it as quickly as possible so as to get plenty of sleep. While reading, however, something which she'd been lightly wondering for the past few days was retrieved from the dark corners of her psyche, complete thanks to the anonymous letter.

With all of my new responsibilities as a princess, do I still have a future with HUMAN?