With winter break at its end and students returning, the school was back in session at CHS. In front of the building, teenagers were idly chatting with each other about what they did over the break, or how they think the rest of the year was going to kick off. Some were still reconciling after a particular incident that happened before the break started, trying to mend the friendships that Anon-A-Miss had been used to break. A portion of the students, however, were discussing another topic.
Why did Rainbow Dash look like she was dressed as one of those Japanese RPG characters and pulled straight from said game like a living nightmare?
It was a strange sight for many, which to be fair if you were to ask them would be an understatement, and a perfect distraction for others, as they watched the familiar rainbow-haired girl stalk the school grounds clad in attire bordering on declaring a belt fetish. She was pointedly ignoring everyone as she searched the school. ‘Maybe Rainbow lost a bet or something’ was the most common thought of reason attempting to decipher what the heck she was doing.
Unless they were on the soccer field playing a quick series of one on one rounds for practice. Then, they were trying to beat their star athlete and keep her from scoring a goal, or were watching from the stands as one half of the soccer team was utterly demolishing the other.
The sound of the ball crashing against the net told the story of how well that went.
“Aw, yeah! Ten to zero!” Rainbow cheered and threw her arms up, strutting about the field, as her teammates gave her high-fives. The “opposing team,” meanwhile, were panting as they rested on their knees.
“Okay Rainbow... I think we’ve had enough practice for one day.” Spitfire chuckled as she walked over to her star player. “Why don’t we call it quits for now?”
“What? No way! I need to make sure I’m at the top of my game!” Rainbow frowned and started juggling the ball with her knees. “You guys can go rest up, but I’m going to keep practicing.”
Sighing, Spitfire shook her head, shrugging as she walked away. “If you say so.”
From the bleachers, Three of Rainbow’s friends were watching with varying levels of concern as Rainbow kept juggling the ball, and Spitfire peeled Soarin off of the ground. Sunset, in particular, was somewhat high on that spectrum. “Dash, go easy on them, they’re your teammates, not Crystal Prep!” Sighing as her prismatic friend ignored her, Sunset sat back down and rubbed her head. “She’s going to hurt herself at this rate.”
Pinkie snorted a bit as she laughed. “Why would Rainbow do that? She goes this hard on her practicing all the time!”
Despite her pink friend’s words, Fluttershy was looking a bit worried while she watched the game. “Um...actually?... She seems to be going harder than normal. Maybe we should talk to her after she’s done?”
Before any of them could agree on the course of action, Scootaloo ran up the bleachers and looked particularly frantic. “Have... any of you... seen... Rainbow?”
“Um... Scootaloo, she’s right over there.” Sunset jabbed a thumb to the game with a raised eyebrow. “You feeling alright?”
The smaller orange girl shook her head after she caught her breath. “No! Not that Rainbow Dash! The other one! The one covered in-”
A loud boom interrupted them, and when the looked down at the game again, three of their jaws joined the collection on the ground the soccer team left. Where their friend had been standing, was... well still their friend, but covered in enough belts to make Rarity pull her hair out while shrieking in horror, leg extended through the air, with a small trail of smoke rising from her boot.
She was also in the goal across the field, slumped against the net in a daze with a soccer ball resting on her gut.
The Rainbow Dash standing in the field lowered her foot and raised a fist at the other. “You know what you did!” She glanced at the stands and spotted Sunset, before waving. “Hey, Sunset. Twilight says Hi!”
Not a word was said as the other Rainbow left the field. As soon as she was gone, everyone rushed over to check on their prismatic friend in the goalie’s net.
As Pinkie and Fluttershy helped her up, Rainbow gave a dazed look to Sunset. “Did someone catch that number of that missile?”
“Uh, y-yeah, we did.” Sunset gave her a nervous smile and looked at the bruise forming on her friend’s stomach for a moment. “Let’s... get you to the nurse.”
“Cool.” That was all Rainbow said before she passed out, making Fluttershy panic and pull both Rainbow and Pinkie along with her towards the school, despite the cries of surprise from the pink party planner.
Meanwhile, Sunset and Scootaloo stood there, wondering what just happened. “So.... this is what you meant by the ‘other’ Rainbow?”
“Y-yeah.” Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head and winced. “I um... ran into her earlier, and she smacked me upside the head.”
Sunset was about to ask why, eyes wide in shock, when her bag started to vibrate. Pausing to pull out her journal, she opened to the latest entry.
Sunset, by chance, have you seen more than one Rainbow Dash?
Confused at the rather short and blunt entry from Twilight, Sunset took out a pen.
Yeah. The new one kind of kicked ours into the goal in the middle of her practice game. Is something going on over there?
There was a long pause before Sunset and Scootaloo watched the writing form.
Thank you for telling me Sunset. No, nothing’s going on, other than the fact I’ve been trying to make sure none of my friends cross over to your side of the portal. Rainbow, in particular, was rather... angry with what happened in regards to Anon-a-miss and how her counterpart handled it and had been relentlessly trying to get to the portal. So much so, I had to make a fake one in an attempt to hide the original. I’m sorry for any trouble she’s caused, even if she got through the portal for only fifteen minutes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have many many words with Rainbow, seeing as she thinks I haven’t noticed her slip back through just now.
Closing her journal, Sunset stored it back in her bag and turned to Scootaloo. “We probably should go check on them.” Scootaloo nodded in agreement as the two of them rushed into the school building.
Please oh, Please tell me you are going to do this for them all?
Oh, boy.
Or, to put it another way........
Rainbow Dash, meet the foot of.... Rainbow Dash.
Honestly, I don't know which of them to feel sorrier for: CHS Rainbow for having her Equestrian counterpart kick her into a soccer goal... or Pony Dash for being on the receiving end of an intense Twilight Sparkle lecture/chewing out for sneaking through the portal and doing what she did to CHS Dash.
It's a toss-up.
I'm liking this concept, so, besides my attention, you have a Favorite, a Track and a Follow from me.
Keep up the rad work, and I can't wait to see where this one goes.
8855879 Oh, I hope so!
I'd just love to see my fave farmpony rank her human counterpart out!
...I'm sorry? Just. . .I'm at a loss for words concerning this.
Wait. I've got one: MOAR!
8855879
Well, seeing as it's gotten an 11/11 so far with votes I might as well.
8855891
And guess who's going up next by way of this suggestion.
8855892
Calm thyself.
I am very much looking forward to this. I actually had an idea for a similar fic, but so far this is pulling it off well enough.
nice work looking forward to the next one
8855989 To quote our fave primatic pegasus:
Awesome!
Happy to hear that, and I just wonder what will happen between our two farmgirls?
Probably nothing very good, if Dash's expression in the cover pic is any indication.
8855989
The only thing I hate about this story is that I didn’t think of this first.
Now that's how an Aftermath ANON-A-MISS should go!
Also props on the JRPG Belt trope = "belt fetish" joke, I do enjoy those little pokes at JRPG tropes.
I beg of you, for more of this, its gosh darn amazing!
So the counterparts... are beating up their own counterparts, as a result from Anon-A-Miss?
Well, that was more-or-less what I expected. Except the JRPG Belts thing, didn't see that coming. Guess the portal has an odd sense of humor when it comes to giving ponies clothes. Definitely looking forward to what comes next.
.....will there be a FlutterStaring contest or shall it be the most peaceful of these confrontations?
Uh can someone explain the belt thing, cause I'm a little puzzled.
8857005
Pony Dash heard about Anon-a-miss, came through the portal to beat some sense into herself for it, then dashed back to Ponyland.
Oh and she smacked Scootaloo upside the head for perpetrating the crime in the first place.
Couldn't explain the JRPG belt fetish.
I’m fine with Rainbow being covered in belts, but so help me if her pants legs are different lengths...
She would indeed be the most upset, Loyalty and all.
Rainbow is not amused.
pre00.deviantart.net/1651/th/pre/i/2015/116/d/2/angry_rainbow_dash_by_dasprid-d8qzwtv.png
Hmm... Well, I'm always up for Dash-on-Dash violence. I look forward to seeing where you go from here.
Loyalty's got a bone to pick with you. She's not even Sunset's friend and she knows you fucked up.
8857141
I got that part, i meant the being wrapped in belts part.
8858061
Whelp, I got nothing then.
Can someone please tell me why everyone is making Anon-a-Miss stories lately?
Pinkie: Since then we've been debating whether to call her Rainbow the Blood Edge or Sol Rainbow, mostly because of all the belts she was wearing.
I'm intrigued.
I've waited a long time for this, an Anon-A-Miss that actually tries to fit canon (If you go AU, why not just have the criticized, OOC stuff not happen? If you let it happen just to torture everyone over it, are you actually fixing the problems?).
Get's my upvote for what's originality in the genre. Looking forward to more!
You hit the feature box AGAIN
8858695
I'm honestly wondering that myself.
I completely get how people end up stuck in an Anon-a-Miss rut since I'm in one myself*, but for it to happen I had to be inside the phenomenon to begin with. What I don't understand is what's drawing so many new people in.
Here's what I do understand:
Good fiction (generally) makes one want more.
Bad fiction (generally) makes one want different.
-
To expand:
If someone were to make the absolutely perfect, in no way flawed, platonic ideal of what FiM and/or EG should be episode or adaptation, relatively few people would make alternate versions of it. Some people probably would because people always do, but it would be more likely to inspire people to write similar stories, or to expand on the story (say a sequel, prequel, interquel, side story, whatever).
It's when a work is laden with problems that people instead focus on rewriting the original. There are a thousand different reasons why, but much of it stems from a single idea: what exists isn't good, but it could have been.
Expansion ends.
-
And then, for Anon-a-Miss (in a way that there really isn't for, say, The Mysterious Mare Do Well) there's this huge body of ideas that just gets thrown around constantly producing more and more temptation to add another story to the docket.
Before you even get to that, there isn't a single page of the comic that isn't begging to be rewritten in twenty or so different ways, which would lead to a huge amount of stories if there were only one change per story, but any of those changes can interact and pretty soon we're talking about combinatorics.
Then you add in all of the people throwing out novel ideas and it just explodes into an entire universe of ideas any one of which can inspire multiple stories by multiple authors.
But . . . you have to be there first. You can't be bombarded by the idea maelstrom and end up with twenty nascent Anon-a-Miss stories in your head unless you're already inside the phenomenon. And, sure, reading one of the resultant fics might entice some people to walk, unprotected, into the storm, but I'm at a loss as to why it's gotten so many authors to come in.
* A major rut that threatens to consume all of my writing energy. Check out all this crap:
Anon-a-Miss stories with published content:
Anon-a-Miss stories without currently published content:
And people have seriously suggested that I turn the written in one spurt, minimally edited, not-at-all-serious "The many ways it should have ended" into an actual story. Because apparently I don't have enough on my plate.
8860633
While I would have preferred to have a link to a blog post here instead of a giant comment, I find your analysis to be comprehensive and intriguing and wish to elaborate some on my part of this nonsense and what my thoughts are on the topic. I originally only read the fanfics and spent the majority of the time wondering, "Holy crap was the original comic this full of holes?"
Short answer, yes. Yes, it was.
However, unlike many, I didn't want to go the route that a lot of other people were doing. As you said, there is a literal STORM of anon-a-miss stories that rewrite the original into either a.) Comedy for comedy's sake, or b.) Edgy McGrimdark. I have a love-hate relationship with B, so I didn't want to write one, but at the same time, I couldn't stop reading them.
As I was reading them, and comparing to the original, I realized that as poorly written as the comic was, it still held to the original ideal of "Friendship fixes everything."
Did it do it as well as an episode? No, but it wasn't an episode, it was a comic book! While the Main cast's somewhat out of character reaction was poor writing continuity-wise, it did what it was supposed to do and showed how bad the situation was. It tried to do what it was intended to do, and give us a reason to route for Sunset.
So instead of joining the storm like a flock of geese with no sense of self-preservation in a tornado, I decided to do what most storm watchers do and just follow in the wake of destruction (creation, in this case).
Which brings us to here; "Why the heck am I writing an Anon-A-Miss story?"
I've been suffering the Writer's block of the Ages for the past few months, and this was the first idea to actually get past the first page in a long time, so I went with it. At the same time though, I didn't want to get sucked into said goose storm as I said earlier.
Honestly, I only consider it an "Anon-A-Miss" story by technicality, as a sequel to the original storyline and not yet another complete rewrite. Next to NOBODY has written something that I could find about what happened after the original version; only other fanfic versions. (Although if you know of some please feel free to send me some links this story has become my newest addiction kthx)
That, and my natural state of writing is Comedy for Comedy's sake, so I took to this story like a rubber fish does bathwater.
As for the "Be There" part of your earlier statement. I guess I sort of was? Just, instead of being in the crowd, I was butt naked with a chicken mask on in a tree three blocks away, using a pair of binoculars to spy on the situation.
That make sense?
8860675
8860633
Sunbutt above! I just wanted to know why there seemed to be an influx of Anon-A-Miss stories lately. I think I saw three of them somewhere on the homepage all at the same time: This one , this one and the one we're commenting on right now. I didn't need an essay on what people write about and how they get inspiration lol
I wonder if Rarity or Applejack will try to sneak through? But it would be funny with Raritys.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/4/25/882595__safe_screencap_rainbow+dash_tanks+for+the+memories_animated_evil_evil+grin_faic_grinch_pure+unfiltered+evil_rainbow+dash+is+best+facemaker_rain.gif
... I have the weirdest boner right now.
8869972
The only thing I could think of to go with that face was an evil laugh.
When I read pony Rainbow was wearing an outfit made out of belts I immediately thought of Lulu from FFX. I was thinking to myself "Uh oh... Is Dash gonna rain some Thundaga on a bitch?"
9015125
You just made me wheeze from laughter. Congratulations, you get all the Blitzballs and Cookies.
8858695
Because there's so much to fix regarding the comic!
More belts than an auto parts store?
Huh. As far as revengeporn goes, this was actually amusing. Huh.
I love how Equestrian RD goes from yelling at her counterpart after kicking her across the field to cheerfully telling Sunset that Twilight says hi.
That's going to leave a mark
9400202
wait there was porn
11326948
It's not a literal use of the word. It's like saying some food that looks and smells extra appetizing is food porn.