It’s an ordinary visit to the Dell Dwellers, gnome-like creatures who maintain the balance of the Mystificent Forest. Over the years, ponies have made friends with a wide variety of creatures, including Katrina, a bipedal cat who had once enslaved the Bushwoolies. Initially reluctant to change her ways, she’d eventually given in and decided to be good again. She’s joined you on this visit, eager to see the Balance of Nature up close and personal.
Also along are Heart Throb and Ember. The pink pegasus is a hopeless romantic, while the purple filly is energetic and always getting into mischief. Heart Throb is keeping an eye on Ember, to make sure she behaves.
The Dell Dwellers live in a cavern below the forest floor. It’s a factory, where rough lumps of rock are turned into smooth stones for skipping, and acorns are turned into oak tree saplings. In the center of the factory is a barrel labeled ‘Balance’. It’s what contains the Frazzits, multicolored ectoplasmic entities that spread chaos wherever they go.
The ever-rambunctious Ember proves too much for Heart Throb to handle, and she knocks over the barrel while galloping through the Dell Dwellers’ factory. Wind Whistler and Shady had warned all of you about this exact scenario in advance.
Ember’s personality flip flops with Heart Throb’s. Instead of swapping personalities, the Dell Dwellers all act inverse to their own orderly nature. Lumps of rock are ground into powder, while acorns are smashed. The newly love-obsessed silly filly starts chasing the Dell Dwellers around their factory, trying to kiss them. Heart Throb, on the other hoof, is acting bold and brash, running around the factory without a care in the world.
Something has to be done to restore order. Right?
Why return to normal? Normal is boring. Chaos is where it’s at. There’s a power vacuum just waiting to be filled. The thoughts come unbidden, and won’t stop. Your very thoughts are urging you to take over and enslave the Dell Dwellers. With their unique powers, they’d be far superior in producing witchweed potion than the bushwoolies ever were.
You recognize the intrusive thoughts. That was Katrina’s whole shtick. It stands to reason that if Heart Throb and Ember have flip flopped, the same can be said of you and Katrina.
You realize that she’s been bottling this up for years, walking a razor’s edge between good and evil. The evil tendencies are still inside her, looking for a way out. Now they’re your problem. She’s adapted surprisingly well, but she’s had her friend Rep to help her all these years. You don’t have that luxury in your present state. The only one here who could possibly understand what you’re going through is Katrina herself, but she’s acting like you. Your memories are hazy. The question is whether Katrina’s got any clarity with your thoughts running through her head instead.
You hope so, because a cursory scan of the situation indicates that she’s your only hope. Your own thoughts are urging you to betray the ponies, Katrina, the Dell Dwellers, and everyone else.
[CHOICE]Do you give in to temptation?
>Of course not. (chaos)
>Yes! Give me witchweed potion! (villain)
Gee, but it's a thrill being somebody else
Somebody other than me
Instead of being a human
I'm wild! I'm loose! I'm free!
So, I decided to take the villain path here :P
I have to admit, and it may be my ditziness, but I have no idea what was going on even after re-reading this twice. Do I need to understand about Ciderfest and PVCF to read this?
As a person who likes a bit of RP, I was howling at you, my story 'DM', to tell me who I was playing as :P
But I'm not mad, as now I am re=watching Mish Mash Melee, and it is brilliant :)
ok, that ep rocks. Anyway, Katrina is a wonderful antagonist from MLP, which the story describes to an extent... and... AND... OK. I'm going to have to watch Katrina again, aren't I . Well, that's an amazing ep too :P
Ok, after re-reading this, and re-watching that, I get what's going on.
But there is a slight issue with the lore, I think. The Frazzits didn't swap personalities, it's just that they inverted the personalities of the ponies, and the group of ponies in Mish Mash Melee all had opposite personality traits, so it looked like a swap. That issue is easy enough to resolve, though - the Frazzits to have two types of Frazzit - one that inverts personalities as normal, and another that swaps them.
If anypony is confused:
You are you. A human or a pony or w/e, who is either a member of, or is visiting the G1 ponies. You must be pretty curious, since you're visiting a group of people who are responsible for the ecosystem of the forest just to see what that's like. Like the story says, your visit risked upsetting the 'natural order' which in typical kiddie MLP style has been turned into a literal thing. When that is upset, two things happen: a bunch of Frazzits come out of the barrel, which invert or swap your personality traits, and until the barrel is turned the right way up, with all these things inside, everyone's personality traits that will remain inverted/swapped.
You visited there with Katrina, who, as a cat trope, is a selfish so and so. Her personality is now swapped into you, so you are you BUT you are a cat.
Thoughts
Having explained this to myself, the concept is actually brilliant. A second person which twists the personality of the reader.
ALSO, the eps that are its foundation are among the best of MLP.
As a fully explained lil story this could be great for everyone, but maybe it is written for a smaller group who are already familiar?
I am seriously tempted to have a go at writing along these lines myself. You won't be mad will you? Like an alt version?
It's not just the story, I also miss my RP and I had never considered writing a "choose your own adventure" type thing. It looks really fun to write as an incremental series and an alternative to the fun-but-hard-work of writing whole stories.