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WARNING: THIS STORY HAS BEEN DEEMED AN OLD SHAME. IT DOES NOT REFLECT THE AUTHOR'S CURRENT WORK, AND IN FACT SUCKS ASS. FOR PRESERVATION PURPOSES IT WILL REMAIN.

While bored one day, the CMC go on a pleasant little adventure to help out a friend in their perfectly quaint, normal little town.

Gore and Profanity are kept to a minimum. Sex tag is for one or two jokes.

Chapters (1)

Comments ( 11 )

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Casketbase77

Casketbase77 #1 · Mar 10th, 2020 · 1 · ·

I think I caught the word “Pepsi” in there.

I swear to Faust, if this Cronenberg monster of a fic is the eldritch result of the Product Placement Prompt, I’m going full panic mode. Both because I need to actually come up with an analysis for this... thing, and also because fate is cruel: By sheer coincidence, my Snippet for this week also also involves the CMC trekking into the Everfree where they meet a hooded stranger. And suffice to say it’s no where near this level of intriguing.

Also, the only thing I could imagine when Sally made her big entrance was this. Just thought you might be interested in the imagery you invoked for me.

You maniac.

Arkonfleight

Arkonfleight #2 · Mar 10th, 2020 · · ·

I love it. Reminds me of a more nonsensical and comedic Boy's Life.

Separately, i recognise that cover image. Good choice.

Str8aura

Str8aura #3 · Mar 10th, 2020 · · ·

10123642
actually, this fic is the eldritch result of me trying to get you into Spirit Phone, hence the cover art and multiple references.
Then it kind of fell apart.
I'll enjoy waiting for your analysis.

Comment posted by FarmFreshAppleTarts deleted Dec 24th, 2020

Comment posted by Str8aura deleted Jun 5th, 2020

Comment posted by FarmFreshAppleTarts deleted Dec 24th, 2020

Acadians6545

Acadians6545 #7 · Aug 16th, 2020 · 1 · ·

Scootaloo glanced over at the large spider taking up most of the cave's space.

Well now we know where Arragog's kids went when they escaped the forbidden forest.

Mittens of flabbergast

Mittens of flabbergast #8 · Nov 3rd, 2020 · · ·

That was good, weird and funny, I wouldn't mind seeing more cmc adventures like that

Casketbase77

Casketbase77 #9 · Oct 23rd, 2021 · 1 · ·

I swear, this image could be slotted into each paragraph break in this story with unfailing fittingness.

This is one of those writeups that not only defies thematic analysis, it outright mocks any attempt at it. Like the stairways in the tower of London that intentionally lead nowhere to confuse ghosts, this fic has teases of implications and meaning all throughout, despite the opening paragraph’s insistence nothing matters and the closing paragraph channeling Scootaloo’s willful ignorance as its own. Puzzle pieces that deliberately don’t connect are dumped into the reader’s lap with an unspoken challenge to put them together. The unacknowledged lycanthropy that is implied to be inherent in the Apple Sisters is something the reader saves to the mental “this will come into play later” box, but never needs it. The virologist is introduced and painstakingly developed before being unceremoniously jettisoned by the Powers That Be. Even the obvious significance of iron horseshoes is defied when an early line insists they’ll keep the CMC safe, but when they find the corpse they are unsurprised to see she too is wearing them.

There is no audience surrogate in this fic. No character to ask the burning questions that pile up like pyramid bricks as the story progresses The “who” and “what” of the narrative are established well enough, those being the CMC and putting a ghost to rest respectively, but every sentence that furthers the actions is sandwiched by two on either side that very deliberately toy with the reader’s focus like half a dozen laser pointers scattering across the vision cone of an indecisive cat. All details, critical and extraneous, are treated with equal narrative weight. The reader eventually begins doubting themselves and starts to hoard every detail in their memory. The phrases “Carbon Monoxide Season” and “Frau Holle’s Cottage” mean literally nothing, but they feel like they should.

The one constant, the only solid string of islands in the ocean of aphasic details, are repeated reworded insistences that only children are capable of processing all of this and remaining sane. The girls rebuff their older sisters to go on a quest. They pity the virologist who (despite his cowardice) is apparently committed to his doomed fact finding mission, and at the very end, when Apple Bloom has her crisis about growing up, Scootaloo’s sagely advice is “don’t think about it.” Certainly she is able to follow her own advice in the closing lines, perhaps ending with the final lesson that ignorance, in its impermanence, is the only salvation in the world this fic has crafted and Scootaloo is the closest to losing hers. On a meta note, the reader certainly doesn’t have that luxury. They can’t walk away from this fic as easily as the CMC walk away from the Everfree at the end. Like the virologist, they’re immobilized by ambition. Refusing to move until some sort of answer can be found, but there are none. Even this analysis I’ve just written might too be desperate pounding at those aforementioned puzzle pieces that don’t fit together, desperate to wring some sort of picture from the obviously unmatched image overlay.

And what of death? The next step past adulthood, represented by the nameless corpse the CMC are a treasure hunt to find? What of the eldritch monster with the human name whose eternal and unchanging existence trivializes the phases of life that mortal characters go through? My long winded analysis only incorporates the aspects of the fic I myself saw fit to comment on, but it’s really no different than an idiot pulling up a fistfull of sand and declaring it to be the synecdoche of the desert in which the fool is standing. Literally any argument could be made about this fic’s meaning and a dozen or so citations from the text could be invoked to back up that point. The only one who really knows the answer is the author. And he’s not telling.

Casketbase77 persona deactivated. This is Jack speaking directly now.

I had a VISCERALLY negative emotional reaction to reading this fic for the first time. I thought maybe it was because it was late at night in my single’s apartment and that I was a little psychologically compromised having not really spoken to another human being in several days. Just going to my desk job, coming home, talking on message boards, and going to sleep, and repeating the process. But nope. This story still makes my stomach clench with an emotion more nebulous than fear. I pride myself on being a good literary scholar. I can analyze and draw meaning from nearly anything. But this story is one of only three pieces of fiction that I have ever truly felt defeated by (the others being Synecdoche, New York and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). Strip a scholar of his ability to make sense of the world and what does he have left? A manic essay posted in a corner or a corner of a corner of the internet only to be seen by two, maybe three people at the most. He is left with this.