2012: The Lemuracolypse - Part Twelve Finale: Ragnarok and Beyond · 2:46am Jan 25th, 2018
2012: The Lemuracolypse
Final Part - Ragnarok and Beyond
Art by StandingLeaf
I was chatting one evening with Ponky--and I forget what we were even talking about. But I must have said something self-deprecating, because I recall him immediately countering with a very flattering: "You don't get 8th most subscribed on Fimfic by being crap!" And I--naturally assuming he was just doing more ego-stroking--flat out shot him down: "I am not 8th most subscribed." "Yeah you are, dude!" "There's no way to even know that." "Sure there is! Just click the 'Statistics' page!" "... ... ... there's a 'Statistics' page?" "Lulz... don't you know?! Look at the very bottom of Fimfic's website, ya silly lemur!"
And so I looked.
And--sonuvabitch--there was indeed a "statistics" page. What's more (at the time), it showed the top 50 ranking authors on Fimfic based on subscriber count. There I was--right in the Top Ten. Ponky had known all this time.
But I hadn't. All of 2012's egotistical flounderings--the manic blargh posts, the updates to Background Pony, the LOEG catastrophe, the Lemur Day fiasco--this was all done without me having any bearings on where I stood in any sort of "ranking" system. I had a major chip on my shoulder, for sure, but I never actually contemplated the fact that I might be in a "top ten author" list, quantifiably. And here Ponky had done me the favor of illuminating my eyes. Suddenly I could see all around me and it took my breath away.
The number one author at the time was this melon fuck, and upon closer examination I learned that they were... undergoing some sort of a meltdown? I dunno. But from what I understand, DH was about to make their major exit from all things Fimfic and Pony... for reasons. That was all happening around the exact same time I was becoming big and finishing Background Pony in late '12.
I've never read a single thing by Device Heretic, but ever since that time I've found it amusing to think up this conspiracy theory scenario where DH gave up on his account and then focused everything on an alt... and that alt happened to be shortskirtsandexplosions. So, for years to follow, I would make tiny little jokes or switch my avatar to his just to fuq with the Marsupial alumni. It made for some supreme lulz over time.
It's not true, of course. And I suspect there are far fewer marsupials around who would still be capable of getting the joke. Then again, I suspect that's exactly what a masquerading Device Heretic would want the public to think...
Art by Terra-Tigra
So, Background Pony was done. The ink had dried. Lyra was in the past. An open field lay in front of me. Sooooo... naturally I took the opportunity to relax and chill and vegetate, right?
Wrong.
Remember, this was 2012 Lemur... and I was on some sort of goddam pastel horse tranquilizers or something.
I wrote the ever-loving snot out of oneshots.
One of my absolute most favorite short-stories ever is The Night Face Up by Julio Cortazar. The story's originally written in Spanish, but somehow the sheer chills of existential horror carry over pretty well in the English version. It more or less has to deal with one's fragile perception of reality, and it illustrates this through dual storylines that flip the readers' expectations. I've always wanted to accomplish something that this story did, and I attempted to more or less emulate it here with my first ever Daring Do fic. F'naaaaaa... it's just a short fluff piece that I threw together in a single writing session. Feature bait sad fic. But marsupials seemed to like it. I find Daring Do to be a very huggable pony...maybe it's all the cute adventure gear she wears. But she's prime plushie material.
Nope. We're not talking about this one. Moving right along.
Ahhh. Now we're cooking. This is one of my favorite one-shots I've ever written... upp there with Last Tears in Tartarus. Is it overtly purple, bloated, and pretentious? You bet... but then again this is 2012 Skirts. I'm just proud of how boldly I utilized "unreliable narrator." Towards the end, when the two principal characters meet, neither of them ever directly say who each of them are or what precisely is going on. That's because--from their perspective--they do not need to. As for the readers, they should have been given more than enough literary and story cues to pick up on exactly what's going on. Then--if they paid that much attention--they should have the faculty to understand what happens at the very end and why. Flashing back to early 2012, when MLP: FiM S2 ended, I was not a big fan of the finale. A lot of that perspective has since changed, but I recall feeling very "meh" about Queen Chrysalis and changelings in general. I figured that the prospect of changelings was too dayum addictive and I was a bit turned off at how insanely saturated the feature bar was with metamorphic subject matter. Quite belligerently, I declared that I would not give in to the craze... and instead I would swear off "changelings in fanfiction forever." Well, obviously, I turned my back on that promise... and personally I am very glad to have done that.
This story sucks. Like... it really sucks. I don't understand those who like it. I don't understand why I ever once thought it was worth being uploaded in the first place. It's a stupidly bland creepypasta funneled through unnecessarily sentimental narration. Somewhere in that fic is a good idea, but it got mutated and then executed pathetically. F'naaaaaaaa. You can't always make gems... or polished turds for that matter.
For those of you who don't know, I call the ghetto computer that I mostly write on--and the sub-garage office it's housed in by extension--"Sedna." I do so because the computer has absolutely no connection to the Internet and the garage is situated on the opposite end of the house from my room. So, in essence, it's like a super distant object flying in forsaken orbit from where I sleep. It's only fitting. This has led to the occasional habit of my walking into the room, opening the creaking door, and exhaling through an introspective sigh: "Hello, Sedna." One of these multiple self-sacrificial occasions, I stopped for a brief moment, thinking to myself: "You know what, that would make for a cool story title." So I thought of how I could apply that to poni poni poni. This was the result. Again, it's a story that truly does not deserve most of the praise it has gotten over time. Nevertheless, for some reason, marsupials really really digged this one. Maybe it's the glacial pacing through sci-fi space pr0n, just to make a grand reveal about the narrator. Maybe it's the melancholic fridge horror that's injected into the reader's brain bone at the end. I dunno. It's pretentious as fuq... but it seems as though a lot of readers at the time really liked "pretentiousness."
L-Day was most certainly a nasty thing, and I've been known to write some pretty cheap crap that I knew was attention-grabbing. But this nugget of fecal matter is probably the first time I ever legitimately went full ham on "feature bait." I say that because I began writing it with a very nebulous plan for ending it. On top of that... I just never finished the fic. All I cared about was the upload and not the finale. And that's a shame... because I still think this fic has potential. It was going to go to some really weird places, but I made the fatal mistake of not even trying. One thing or another distracted me, and I permanently lost the thrill of the pursuit. And so it remains forever unfinished. A big dumb object of my own laziness and hubris. The saddest thing is... it would foretell a lot of story-writing techniques that I would end up employing in 2013 and beyond.
One night, I was chatting with Vimbert of all people. And I said, "Somepony should write a story where Applejack bites onto Rainbow Dash's tail one time too many and it finally pops off." Candle-Stick Head, most likely inebriated at the time, boldly typed: "DO ET." And so I did. This story is silly as fuq, and it has no business existing on Fimfic. But I kinda like it. So nya.
This was my first "slightly large" fic after the ending of Background Pony, and it's an interesting one. I had done a "competition" blargh where I posed a trivia question to the marsupial alumni. The question--if I recall--was End of Ponies based, and whoever submitted the correct answer first got to give me a story prompt. The winner ended up being TraleRayne, and they basically told me to write a story where "Princess Luna trolls Celestia through Twilight," or something to that extent. Me, being a huge douchebag, suddenly thought of a completely different story idea that I had gotten based on a discussion in the Noble Jury chat, and then I asked TraleRayne if I could merge the two concepts. Thankfully, they were generous and awesome, and I was given the green light. The result is a strange modern equine take on the binding of Isaac, with copious amounts of references to Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, after which the fanfic is named. TraleRayne's contribution was interpreted as Princess Luna posing as Princess Celestia in a letter to Twilight, attempting to test the Element of Magic's moral compass by demanding she do something depraved and unthinkable. It's kind of an iffy story in its execution, but I take pride in how "dangerous" Luna's action is. I feel like it wouldn't be a true "binding of Isaac" analogy if there wasn't the risk of actual murder and death involved. Nevertheless, I've written better since this... but I've also written worse. Take it as you will.
True to my word, I started the sequel to East-Horse right on the heels of Austraeoh. Yes, Pilate was a zebra... but there was much-much more to the fic. I do believe that--deep within the murky confines of my chest vacuole--I absolutely love "fucking around" with my reader base. To that end, I've always wanted to pull a Hideo Kojima a la Metal Gear Solid 2... in which the fans expect one particular protagonist but instead they're given a brand new main character completely out of left field. Thus, Eljunbyro inexplicably stars Bellesmith--who's doing the Ass Creed Desmond thing and digging into Rainbow's memories to finally give us the much-needed exposition. It's something of a dick move, but it also meant that I got to test the patience and "loyalty" of those who had lasted so long through the journey of Austraeoh. If they were ambitious enough--like Rainbow Dash--then they'd eventually be paid off for all of the massive suspension of disbelief. Sure enough, the plot of the fic did continue... but it was no longer the solitary lone wolf journey that was indicative of Austraeoh. Now we had a cast, central antagonists, and various "quests" and "objectives" to tackle in the long-term while continuing the flight east. This was always my plan for the anthology as a whole, and it has since left many readers divided in opinion. But--now that we're in the ninth installment of the series--I think everyone has finally accepted Rainbow's adventures for what they are: communal.
However, the end of Background Pony meant the re-beginning of the End of something else. I had long expected to make EoP my top priority once BP was done with. I made blarghs about the matter... chatted it up with SATGF... rallied around the flag, so to speak. My intent was to go through what existed of the fic, make much-needed grammatical fixes, maybe even add a few scenes here and there, then proceed towards doing the end-all-be-all draft of the Petra Arc (that's right, I STILL hadn't given up on that concept). While a lot of marsupials were glad that Background Pony was finished... even more were ecstatic that I would be returning to the one fic that brought me there.
So I got right on that, right?
Well... let's say the distractions increased. And they weren't to be blamed on ponies or princesses, my friend.
At this point in time, Ponky and I were chatting quite regularly. I mean... why not? Background Pony was over with, and along with it ended all manners of pretense between author and reader. Also, at this point in time, he was going through a Ponkified Golden Age of sorts. A Ponkaissance, so to speak.
The bulk of Sisters Doo--Ponky's magnum opus--was being written around this time. Jee, it's almost as if the fuzzhead didn't have a pretentious novel to regularly consume any more (f'naaaaaaaaa). On top of that, he had taken the Lemuriffic style of blargh-posting and perfected it, adding copious amounts of videos and charismatic artwork to the matter.
Those who read the blarghs and fics of "Ponky" now had an identity. They were among the "Wonderfolk," and Ponky had this adorable habit of pretty much Mr-Rogers-Neighborhooding-It with them--one on one--on a weekly basis. This led to one of the greatest things to ever have graced the Internet ever. The Ponkologies:
Theatrical and creative to the core, Ponky channeled his inner being through a series of tubes. The need to connect with other people and share ideas was far too sacred for words on a page. The result was a series of Vlogs that directly answered questions from the Wonderfolk--most of whom were acutely aware of the blossoming bromance between fuzzhead and lemur.
These videos... ... ... sustained me... for the years to come.
Of course, I didn't know it at the time. I figured the idea of 2012 being the "apocalyose" was merely some ass-over-elbow Nostradamiacal meme at best. But--lo and behold--I was having one of my many casual conversations with the Ponkster, and something dawned on me. "You're not gonna be online?" "Nah, I'll be going to Temple, so I won't be able to chat." "Temple? What, are you Jewish?" "No. I'm Mormon, ya stupid fucking asshole(paraphrased). Y'know... Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?" "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well that explains some things. Wait... wasn't Piercing-Sight from the same religion...?"
Remember when I ensnared a poor brony on the Internet and subjected him to evening after evening of stupidly dense EoP Spoilage? Well, I sure did. And the only reason I unloaded all of that information on the guy was because I knew that he was going away for two years. And it wasn't for a pleasure cruise to the Bahamas or to study flowers in the French alps. No--instead it was to commit his life to twenty-four months of military-grade scripture studying, regimental sleeping, apostate-materials-of-a-secular-world fasting, and untold hundreds upon hundreds of hours of sweat-induced bike seat proselytizing.
Let's make one thing clear. I've long been a cold-hearted hedonistic annihilationist atheist. Back in 2012, I knew next to nothing about the LDS. In 2014, I read at least 3/4 of the Book of Mormon to try and relate to Fuzzheadism a bit more, and I still don't understand a lot of it. My overall impression about Mormons is that they're... like ... ... ... white asian people. They're super insanely talented and can accomplish just about anything when they put their hearts and minds to it... and they put their hearts and minds to everything. Yeah, in this modern world we live in, there's a lot of negative connotations surrounding the LDS... but you can say that about any religion, really. All things considered, I have yet to personally meet a Mormon--online or offline--who isn't awesome. Perhaps that's a biased perspective, but whatever. The doctrine has never really meant much to me; the people on the other tentacle is a different matter, and here I was waking up to the fact that Ponky himself was a lamb of the Good Shepherd.
"Yeah. Uh huh. Something something gold plates... Space Mexico... whatever. So--like--are you actually going to be gone for two friggin' years???"
I don't think I ever actually wrote that^^^ in a chat conversation. In 2012, I was fulfilling the role of Skirts-senpai. If I had a flying feather to give concerning an eventual Fuzzhead absence, I wasn't about to show it... baka...
I think, perhaps, I had actually known about Ponky's upcoming mission for several months. It just didn't matter to me... until it mattered to me. Through the completion of Background Pony and the resulting conversations I had with Ponky in thickening and thickening and thickening numbers, I had come to the realization that I had done the worst thing possible with a marsupial reader of my work. I had made a friend with him.
And now this super awesome, super talented, super sweet, super charismatic, super flattering, super inspiring, super super person was... about to skedaddle. Skedaddle for good. Two years is a long time for neckbeards (or it's not; entropy consumes us all with varying severity). I had accomplished so dayum much between the midway point of 2011 and the tail-end of 2012. The idea of spending more than that amount of time without the company of the absolute best thing to have come out of my Brony experience was... a bleak prospect, to say the least. Bleaker than being an unsung lyre instrumentalist.
I could have tooted my melancholic horn all I wanted about the sad shiet I put ponies through in my stories. Here I was facing a true legit apocalypse... a Ragnarok of companionship and discourse and camaraderie. It truly felt like so much dayum momentum was being hurled towards a brick wall in the sphere of Wonderfolk. It affected Ponky and those associated with him on multiple levels. Even his story--Sisters Doo--suffered some from it, and I'm certain that the Fuzzhead himself would be the first to admit that he would have crafted a better ending if only he wasn't so pressed for time.
The two of us treated the scant months left... as best as we could, really. We more or less lived in the moment, chatting about random shiet, getting to know one another. The age gap has always made our friendship sorta feel like a "younger brother/older brother" thing. I believe the same is true of Ponky's companionship with Props--but then again, Props is the "older brother" to all living things, regardless of age. F'naaaaa.
But as the days got down to the wire, I couldn't help but feel... a little angry. Not at Ponky, mind you, but at the situation in general. Far be it from me to talk-down any of the work he did for the Church or the Mission or what-have-you, but my undeniably-secular half did its fair share of scoffing at the situation. Ponky--as a writer and a Brony persona on the whole--was gaining so much dayum steam with the community. I wouldn't be the only one to believe that--had he not been whisked away to do the Lord's work for two years--he most surely would have made an insane splash online and rivaled many of the artists and performers and Youtube personas who have made their home in Equestria over the past decade.
But Ponky is a man made out of far sterner stuff than I. He kept to his word and to his commitments, and he took a leap of faith. He did his part for what he believed in.
The end-result? Well, that's for Ponky to discuss, not me. But let it be said that the value he placed in Lyra's sacrifice in Background Pony is far from a fickle thing. Sometimes it takes the heart of a sincere person to instill meaning into something that was written from a source of aimlessness.
So... to make a long story even longer... I had made many promises about continuing the End of Ponies project. But those promises were swiftly being broken... 'cuz I was too busy hanging out online with Ponky all the time, prepping myself for a different and far more real Wasteland... one that was about to consume me--and the rest of the Wonderfolk--for a good twenty four months.
Art by John Joseco
Nevertheless, our conversations were wholesome. Fulfilling. We learned more things about each other. Shared ideas. Laughed and sighed.
And then one day I signed onto the Internet and I saw this shiet:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I promptly chose to ignore it.
For... like... two days. Maybe longer.
I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and I wasn't about to find out. Just... no.
I think it took a private message from Propmaster to finally make me cave and watch the dayum thing. Lo and behold... it was even worse than I could possibly have imagined.
Which is a shame. Cuz it's one of the best dayum songs I've ever heard on the Interwebs. This couldn't possibly be a biased statement, cuz even to this day I shudder to play it. Why? It's just too dayum much, maaaaaaaaaaaan. Nietzsche bless Ponky and whatever inspiring bug of creativity so blissfully infected him on the week he conjured that musical piece into reality, but shiet, dawg... could I be made to cringe any harder? It's a lot like your parents throwing you a "twentieth birthday party" by hiring Michael Bolton and Chris Martin to sing you a ballad while riding the People Mover at Tomorrowland under a storm of rainbow-squirting princesses. Sure, it's full of talent and it's from the heart but fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
As much as I love having my ego-stroked, I'm a horrible lemur to get gifts for... and--yes--it is most definitely possible to take things too far. The moment I saw this video go up, my first thought was: "Oh shit. I've made a mistake... lulz." And for that reason I ignored its existence for a long... long time.
But--objectively speaking--it really is a kickass song. Catchy as Hell, too. It inspired members of the Wonderfolk to spread it around like religious paraphernalia, and Quylaa once even did Typography for it:
If nothing else, I should at least be proud that... uhhh... I somehow inspired a Fuzzhead to make something so grandiose and epic. Just... f'naaaaaaaaaa. I really really wish the subject matter was different.
Ponky's talent couldn't be denied... nor his presence ignored. As time whittled down, I wasn't the only one feeling melancholic. Propmaster--being the awesome big bro that he is--capitalized on the moment by writing the mother of all gift fics for the guy.
Props: So I have this idea for a fic.
Skirts: Uh huh.
Props: As you may know, Ponky is leaving soon.
Skirts: So I've heard
Props: So I figured I would write a romance story between his ponysona--Ponky Piano--and his favorite Mane 6ette--Pinkie Pie. I'm thinking of calling the story "Overthinking Pink."
Skirts: You should call it "Overpinking It" instead.
Props: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...so the name of this fic is going to be called "Overpinking It."
What resulted was a love letter to Ponky, the Wonderfolk, and the collective cabal of Spanish Announce Table Goes First as well. For a story that gratuitously hit all of the fuzzheaded buttons, it was nevertheless fun, engaging, and even dramatic in certain places. You could read the fic without knowing anything about Ponky and his friends and still you would enjoy it at face value. The story is the first of many sextastical "gift fics" by the Master of Props, and Ponky adored the ever-loving-shiet out of it.
I digged the story as well. But after all the reading and smiling and snickering was done... it only made me ask one question: Why haven't I bothered to write something meaningful and gifty to Ponky? The answer to that is simple: Props is a way better human being than me.
But that wasn't about to hold back 2012 Skirts. I knew that I wasn't about to undo Props. Hell, I didn't even have it in my chest vacuole to even try competing with him. I just knew that time was of the essence and it was only fitting that I produced something... anything... to show the Internet... to show the world just what this ponified Donny Osmond meant to me.
Ponky lurved Background Pony to death, but I wasn't about to touch that. But--if my experience with befriending him had taught me anything--is that he lurved Lyra Heartstrings even harder. This more or less connected the two in my head forever: Wonderfolker and mint green unicorn. So, how could I do a story that inserted Ponky as "Lyra" and then proceeded to make some sort of heartfelt commentary?
Well, simple, duh. I'll insert myself as somepony fluffier alongside him.
And--about a week and a half later--I poured what remained of my soul out in the form of Something Like Feeling. I don't really consider it a "gift fic" in my head. It's ironically too personal and self-centered for that. But it was the closest thing I had to "sincerity." I wrote it at face-value, so that anyone glancing at it would assume it's just a unique take on Lyra and Bon Bon. However--those among the Wonderfolk and marsupial alumni... those familiar with the meta would see more... and what glorious revelations would be had.
All in all, I'd say it had its desired effect:
I mean... hell... he wrote me a crazy-ass stalker song. Two can play at that game. I faintly recall the first time he logged onto Steam or Google-Talk or whatever messaging service we were using at the time, and the immediate words out of his super Christian Mormon fingers were "Holy fucking shiet!" Yeah... thanks for that.
Winter of '12 breezed by. We had a tropical storm over New England, school shootings, another election. Even as the year ended, I couldn't be arsed to notice. The end for me was coming in February, when Ponky was going to leave. I was supposed to be writing about Scootaloo doing time-travel, but I couldn't touch that. I couldn't even concentrate. I wasn't particularly certain how I was going to even function in the next two years to come. I had no idea that certain elephants were to be buried and once-casual experiments were going to go on forever. All I focused on was the moment--like Lyra--only I knew that neither of us had the luxury of losing our collective memory over the matter.
And--like all moments when I find myself enraptured in an idea, a feeling, or a friend--I did the most knee-jerk Skirtsian thing imaginable:
"Guhhh... uhm... errrrrrrr... I-uhhhhhhhhh... grnnnnnnnnnnnnghhh--How about we plan to bring you down to Florida in two years and we can spend a week at Walt Disney World together?!?!
To which Ponky--equally as impulsive and manic--said "Sh00r thing, br000! That's awesome! W00000000T!!!"
And then there was the textual equivalent of beer chugging and forehead smashing followed by copious amounts of me nostalgia-bombing over the sweetest of Disney experiences I've had in the past. And as we planned to part ways for the inevitable drought, we told each other--and ourselves--that this was a real thing that we were going to do. And it was gonna be fantasmic.
... ... ...it never happened, of course.
That's not to imply that I'm "bitter" about it. It was far too kaizo to ever be realized. If nothing else, I feel insanely guilty about it... about putting Ponky up to an insane "commitment." But, like all dreams, it was something we both shared in great enthusiasm and optimism for the better part of a year and a half... until a fateful Preparation Day where he was forced to wake up first and write the dreaded e-mail that confirmed: "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... not realistically happening in 2015, but that doesn't mean we can't plan for it in the future." And, as far as I'm concerned, it's all for the best... because if it does happen at this point, I can now look forward to entertaining someone else in addition.
Still, looking back at the start of 2013, becoming friends with Ky, planning to write him over the two year mission, and nebulously planning this fantastical WDW experience was a three-fold combo of... of...
...it's rather difficult to put into words, really. I felt something... something like feeling. It was a wellspring of joy and enthusiasm and hope... the likes of which I haven't felt since. It was a high that I didn't expect to get out of my brony experience, and yet one could argue that I came to inherit it outside the lines of the literary horseword parameters that got me there. To contemplate becoming friends with Ponky and what that means to me requires a string of thought that exists far outside the orbit of the manic lemur who labored so relentlessly from 2011 and onwards to become "popular." It was almost as if I was no longer the one thing that mattered in my own universe. That's not to say that I stopped being a selfish feature bar baiting douchebag, but my mind was no longer nailed to the Equestrian cross. I had ascended... so to speak... and my consciousness locked itself in on the golden date of 2015 and it never let up.
Every single thing that happened in the Brony community... every single thing I watched... every thing I wrote became a nugget of information that I retained for writing to him in our weekly e-mails or our semi-frequent snail-mails. It didn't quite feel like I was living my own life... but rather I was surfing through a narrative that I was sharing with him... or planning to share with him. It sounds silly (and perhaps even creepy) to an outsider, but I like to think of it as a healthy obsession.
And for about two years of my life, it quite pleasantly disillusioned me to how alone I was.
Whenever the illusion threatened to dissolve... whenever shiet got tough or annoying or unbearable, I would just watch and rewatch this video--the send-off that Ponky did via his last blargh on the 5th of February. It reminded me that despite whatever happened, whatever lengths I had to go through in my literary pursuits, it was worth it. Because for the first time in ages I had a future... or at least a future that I could conceive of.
There was more to the words that I wrote. There was a response... a result... an end game. It produced mirth and friendship and life. That wasn't something I found to be tangible before... not until after meeting Ponky.
2013 would have a few strokes of sincerity in it... where I channeled my inner feelings and sought to provoke an emotional response.
But most of that which the future held in store would be sillier... a goofier Skirts... a Skirts who focused on "feel-good" and "shipping" and anything but existential dread.
Of course, the Austraeoh series would continue, with the Noble Jury in full support... slowly and step by step building into the most monumental thing I have ever written in my life...
I would meet new bronies and make new memories...
I would finally make my fated return to Walt Disney World, albeit on my own...
I would write stories I was proud of...
And those that I weren't...
Some stories that nobody read...
And even stories that nobody ever heard of...
But 2012 will forever be the pinnacle for this lemur.
It was the year that I achieved my dreams of horsewordery.
It was the year that saw the birth of two epics.
It was what brought the Noble Jury into fruition... that solidified me as mystical, horsefamouse, and assholish all at once.
It was the year that I met Propmaster and Pilate, two sweet bro's for life.
But on top of all that... it was the year that I met Ponky... and learned how to be happy again... learned how to hope again.
After all, how could I not?
He wrote me a love song
I would like to chiefly blame Ponky for the creation of this multi-part blargh. Not just for obvious reasons, but because he specifically asked for it.
So, if you want there to be justice in this miserable world, go and spam his user page and ask for a 2011-2012 blargh from him in like turn.
There ya go, ya fuzzheaded Clay Aiken. A goddamn hammer throwdown. Eat it.
Some special thanks is in order for the culmination of this blargh.
Special thanks to Ponky, of course, for giving me the motivation to write it. The 2011 blargh essentially brought you back in my life--all of our lives--and I couldn't be happier.
I wanna thank ChappedPenguinLips. All it took was one fateful Discord conversation with you and then I realized... whoops... Fimfic blarghs these days don't handle more than 20k characters. So I decided to split this up into 12 pieces. Whew. Crisis averted.
Special thanks goes to Fourths and Floydien. Y'all surprised me with a Skirtsian-flavored literary podcast. So I decided to surprise y'all back with the rough draft of this. Thanks for being my early eyeballs... now if you would only stop eyeballing each other.
Thank you most kindly, Props, for also being willing to read this shiet early... for being willing to read all the shiet early... for being such a cool big bro... and shiet. Good luck with the Propaissance.
Special thanks--as always--to Candle-Stick Head, my knight in shining armor. You're the reason I'm here today in any capacity... pretentious or otherwise. I hope that the memories I've dredged up in this blargh are morever warm and fuzzy ones.
I wanna thank you, Spotlight... aka InsomniarcOvrlrd. Your contributions to the lemur I've become are quite clear. It was nice touching base with you again after all these years, if only to poke you over a silly poni poni poni blargh.
Let's not forget to thank SamRose. As if it wasn't obvious by now, the existence of Background Pony owes itself to him. Those were some dayum good memories we made. Best of luck with your own horse pursuits, fellow lemur.
Special thanks to Pilate... for being one of my best friends ever... for keeping me sane, centered, and straightforward for so many years. Thanks for the screenshots you sent me while writing the best blargh ever, and I hope you learn to smile some more with each passing day.
Special thanks to Wanderer D. For all my bitching and moaning, I've only ever enjoyed any project I've been associated with alongside yousa... even if one or two of them ended with me flailing and screaming while on fire. You're awesome and it's great to still see you around.
Thank you most kindly, Spanish Announce Table, editors and friends alike: Worsty, Warden, Raz, and Brian. Along with Props and Vimbert, we made some pretty awesome shiet a reality, didn't we?
Special thanks to you... for being patient and putting up with my shiet.
Most esteemed thanks to Her Majesty Csquared, regal on high, most radiant and fair, treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth. You invented something that's meant the world to me for six years and counting. Speaking of which...
Special thanks to the Noble Jury... for following me eastward after all these years... for enjoying my work and enjoying the company of each other... for being consistently kind and non-dickish and awesome all around. There are still amazingly so many of you and it would fill another twelve blarghs trying to thank you all in kind.
I don't know if I can write another manic self-masturbatory thing like this for any specific year... but I could definitely see myself doing it for the entirety of Austraeoh once that anthology is done... years from now... long after MLP:FiM has finished and Gen 5 has become a thing... provided the World still turns and Knighty is still running the site.
But until that moment, it's time to scuttle back into my aloof and softly-spoken shell... and finish from where I left off.
Live long and dash apples,
-SS&E
no, thank you, these blarghs have been a joy to read and it's always fun to watch you wax nostalgic
and as I've just caught up, I'm excited to see you return to Appledashery
Lies and slander.
For real, this was awesome to read. I hadn't even watched the show when Background Pony was completed, so poring through these epic blarghs was an insane treat.
Thank you for writing, Skirts.
Phew, I always worry that when one of these massive things comes up it means that the author is leaving forever. fortunately from your lines here
sounds like you still have some horsewords left in you. Hope to see your next ideas soon.
Why am I only hearing this glorious splooge-fest of Skirtsian love just now? Here I was thinking Ponky's cover of White Blank Page was neat.
brb breaking into Disney to blare this on their speakers
Thanks for the ride, skirts. Guess I oughta get back to Background Pony. And Appledashery. And Austraeoh.
puu.sh/z95oo/45e51b6fd5.png
was gonna make some shitey TBFP edit with your QT 3.14 faces but I got lazy halfway through
You know as bad as I thought Shellstrings as a whole was, parts of it were pretty interesting and I could see being a good story. Namely the Bon Bon spy stuff and the idea of Equestria adjusting to new technology on the home front.
I will say this I'm glad I found you (again) on this site and started reading your stuff. I can't wait for what comes next but mostly for the continuation of Ofolrodi at this point.
They say that the world began with a song. Ours did, anyway.
Grazie mille, Skirts. This warmed me right up. I may not be as manic and cheerful as I once was, but nor are you so sullen. Maybe we're meeting in the middle.
I'm so glad to have met you. So indescribably glad.
You know this has been a niggling little bother at the back of my head for years?
"SS&E is implying that Device Heretic is one of his alts again... it can't possibly be true. It can't possibly be true. Can it? No, it can't, it can't... but maybe it is...? No, I refuse to believe it."
Dude, the pleasure has always been mine. One day I do want to hang out, even if I have to Doxx you and swim/fly/walk/drive/teleport/exist my way to where you live.
Damn, man.
All I can say is this has been a nice little trip through the mind of one of the more enigmatic legends on FiMF. It makes me a little sad that 99% of my interactions with you have involved shared love of M*A*S*H 140 characters at a time. I don't feel like I'm adequate to the task of being more socially involved with like, a LOT of this community. Or like, I'll get involved, then get shunned...it's happened to me elsewhere in the past and it hurts. So I'm always on the fringe, interacting with readers but never really part of the *community*, just...just kinda *there*. Reading this, it makes me wonder how different things would be for me if, back in 2012, I'd gotten more involved with all the cool people who drove this community in the early days? Instead of hovering around the edges, never really being part of it all, just posting my own thing...
Even now, most of the time, my social involvement begins and ends in the comments sections of my own stories and blogs and the blogs of others. Reading this, I feel like I missed out on the best things about being a brony. I feel like I never really got it at all.
Which...I guess I can live with. Maybe someday, I'll belong to something as awesome as what you and all these amazing bronies have. Maybe someday, I'll stop shutting myself out or tripping over my own flaws.
Hm. That got away from me a bit. Anyway, thanks for these blogs. They were an eye-opener.
>he doesn't talk about the story I actually read
I'm glad you didn't post it all in one part, that would have been murder to read. :V Thanks for the memories and behind-the-scenes!
aaaaaand still no EoP
Oh well, this was pretty great too. I assume "In the Darkness..." is also dead?
And yes, I really do want to dig through your trash bin, if you'll let me. I like reading summaries like some weirdo. Though if you want to keep them quiet, I'll understand.
Man these blogs have been some great stuff. You've got a truly wonderful story to tell, even if it might not really seem like it. Sometimes the best things to happen to us just happen out of the blue with no reason whatsoever. Glad to see this story and learn a little bit more about the man behind the keyboard.
I ALSO want to thank ChappedPenguinLips because maaaaaan reading this anything more frequently than daily would'a killed me. A 60k word blog post... Kinda glad that isn't possible.
...Would you believe that your story was so meaningful that, even to a bystander witnessing it through the cracks and holes the internet provided, it was a life changing experience?
And now it's time for venom induced hallucinations. I am so ready for this.
Okay, that's going right on the user page.
I liked Tinnitus way more than Gift. F'naaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-
This was a hell of a heartwarming blog. Mysterious Skirts was cool, but Open Skirts is better, and although you say you're still mysterious in many ways, I honestly feel like I know you better than some of my friends.
Thank you for doing this.
4781246
And thank YOU for pestering him into it.
4781225 4781227
stahp eyeballing each other. :V
That was a pretty awesome series of blog posts.
That was wonderful. Enjoyed getting to hear deeper into your story here, and learned a good deal of things I never knew. Thanks for taking the time to write all of this out, and help us understand just a little more the journey that you've taken to get where you are now. Love y'all guys from afar
I was waiting during all of these blogs for the mention of Ponky's "Space is a Waste" song. It just wouldn't have been complete without it!
A lot of what you wrote was personal, but that makes it all the more precious- it isn't often we get to have others open up and show us both their triumphs and disasters. Reading through these blogs was a very human, i mean, pony experience.
When the people we look up to turn out to be humans with struggles like the rest of us, it makes them all the more incredible in my eyes. Maybe it is because when a god does great things, it is normal, but when a man does great things, it is exceptional. Thanks Skirts, for sharing.
This was a fun series of blogs to read. I hope you end up doing more like this some day. You've got a way with the nostalgia-words.
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You and me both, for the most part. The pony community at least got me to interact with some people to some degree, whereas before I talked to no one.
This has been an awesome blog series. It’s done an amazing job of capturing the zeitgeist of the fandom during those wonderful days in 2012.
Heh, I wasn't luck enough to get a bike. We walked everywhere in the constantly 85º weather for the whole two years... cobblestone and dirt roads, favelas, and pretty much a bunch of living like a lower class nordestino (Brazilian northeasterner). Some missionaries in other countries do get bikes though. Some even get cars now. It's nuts.
Anyway, this has been quite an interesting journey to learn more about. It seems that I had barely seen the surface of your mind and the things that happened to you. Especially considering I was gone for what you describe as the best part of it. But I'm happy I got to be a part of it, even if my part was tiny.
Ride on, good sir! Ride on to victory!
You are an inspiration to us all. Perhaps...perhaps 2018 the year I finally get off me arse and do some real writing for once.
Gah, I’m feeling the feels here. Imma just gonna go into my corner and wait for more awesome horsewords from ya, Skirts. Stay awesome.
4781225
Obligatory: Nobody Reads Appledashery.
It was fun to read these, in the end, even if I thought you were building up to finally spilling what EoP would be and then you didn't and I kind of love and hate you for that.
But I'm glad to read about that journey, in the end. I guess that matters more.
I still want the EoP world-summary someday soon, though!
Blargh. No one reads Appledashery cause it’s spelled wrong.
It’s supposed to be spelled: “Raridashery”
I still personally love that Derpy song Ponky made.
2012 sure was a blast. Fandom was still going wild with theories and headcannons firing in all directions nonstop.
So much drama behind the scenes though, never thought I’d get so into this fandom as I did to end up frequenting a fiction site for ponies and love it so much. Between Gravey, Wandy, a few others including your starting to make more goofier stories and just general slice of life stuff like ponies hiding from the rain in a gazebo, it’s hard to say I haven’t enjoyed all those years following everyones stories and blogs.
So yeah, while I never thought I’d see a continuation to EoP, and even that rewrite to edit everything to try and get gack into, given how insanely taxing re-editing that beast was, especially given you had other epics being written, still wish it was possible to see a conclusion to it all in some way. Selfish reader wants, amirite?
Still, while I say I only started Austreoh because of a certain blog, that was just more an excuse. I honestly thought it’d end up like EoP and so I just never bothered giving it a chance. A story without an end? Never satisfying.
But that’s when your blog and an old post I made to someone reminded me why I even read fics. A story is more than a simple beginning, mid, and end. It’s the here and now, enjoying the ride with its characters. I sure have my gripes here and ther, and enough eyerolls that I’ve even strained my eyes a couple times from the sheer force of ridiculousness that brought them on, but damn if I didn’t love following and experiencing things Rainbow Dash goes through, especially her out of the blue crippling dizziness.
In the past few years now, a bit longer but mainly worsened in recent years, I’ve been getting extreme bouts of dizziness and nausea to a point I end up fighting for consciousness as I lay wherever I collapse on/at and grasping for breath and the world tries to pull my brain in several directions at once. It’s vertigo. And the mor I read about Dash and her problems, it really started to feel like I’m sorta on a similar journey. Well, not in the sense that I expect to find some miracle to cure m or save the world, we aren’t naive. But more in trying to enjoy the ride in what little way we can, often trying to ignore the elephant in the room.
Now I’m not dying. I don’t show any tumors in any of the scans. It’s just a really shit symptom of vertigo that can be triggered by so much as my eye following a movement faster than one should. I can’t even play most 3d games that’s got fast turning cameras. To simply just walking down the street one moment and randomly feeling like you just slipped off a skyscraper onto the pavement.
So, yeah. I feel like I just enjoy and appreciate the story more now. Sort of rekindled my love of reading fanfiction over again, even if some books feel a lot harder to stomach at times due to so much second by second detailings that sometimes feel like filler. So even if Dash never reaches her penultimate goal and restores the souls of her friends to a physical form and restores light to a dak realm, who knows. I’ll at least have had a blast following Dash in her outofhermindlastflightorfight journey.
Because it’s about the people/ponies you meet along the way that makes the journey, not tunneling on two silly words.
The End.
P.S. Another increasing side effect is my insomnia has worsen as well. Ignore this pointless verbal vomit. xD
4781258 You need to ditch the AOL man, and join other discoooooord channels like mine!
Man, this was a great series of blogs to read.
4781402
Maaaaan you're speaking my language
Wow.
This has been an amazing journey. I understand so much more now than I did before. I...
I don't have a lot to say. This has been a roller-coaster ride of emotions. If nothing of humanity is left in ten thousand years, maybe the universe can look back on this and sigh, knowing that one lemur was and did and knew the
amazingawesome.This was more addictive to read than fanfiction
The story itself is rough, but the premise was pretty blood-chilling. (I liked how you referenced it again in Ofolrodi.) It's no surprise that the SCP fandom is also in love with the concept.
I agree with them. Maybe it's impossible to pull of "alone in the universe" without at least a little pretentiousness, but that reveal (and her speech) was all worth it in the end.
--
And in conclusion, WOAH. I realized, while getting into Austraeoh, that I was arriving late to some awesome thing that had pulled together dozens of people into a close-knit and loyal group of readers over the years, but not how insanely vast and awesome and crazy this all was. Thanks for writing this (and all the rest).
(Also, now I finally know where "space is a waste" and "time is a crime" come from.)
I don't think I can say a lot that is meaninful, but I still wanted to thank you for typing all of this out. I looked forward to every installment over the course of these days, and somehow I get this feeling of elation from having seen this year through your eyes. In a way it is gratifying to know someone else had a very rewarding if not sometimes difficult experience in the community during that time, as did others of us. Your art means a whole deal to me, and it's been a pleasure to sort of bask in everything the world of SS&E has radiated outwards over all these years. Not just the words themselves, but the people and the feelins~ around them. Thanks, skirts. You're a swell dude and the things you do are swell.
I've only been on the East Train for half of its length, and actually talking with other Easters for less than a year now, so it was really interesting to read the inception and progression of what makes Skirts so Skirtsian. If there's anything I'd have to say after reading all this... Well, you get self-depreciating a lot, and I don't think you deserve it like you seem to think you do. I've been super glad to read these blogs and see how the insane horsewordery began, and I wish you all the happiness you've given silly horsefans everywhere.
hope
Yay link for the legendary lemur cave
I still cling to the challenge that I can catch up to you before you finish Ofolrodi. Currently about 80% finished with Ynanhluutr.
Man, I got real accostomed to these things cumming out ever day.
Just read through the whole lot.
Thank you for writing these. It's great to get some additional insight for the stories and events, and maybe see them in a different light. Not to mention they were very enjoyable to read.
I realize oftentimes I don't really connect author<=>story, but that is totally not the case for yours. It might be because EoP was my first ever foray into fanfiction (through EqD) that hooked me to search for more. Also Austraeoh I found very early on, reading it without an account here, just bookmarking the latest chapters, for the longest time.
Being specifically social and not too vocal, I kinda apologize for not showing any support for them or most of what you've done from the start. But know that I do enjoy what you do, even if silently.
It was the 14th of February, 2015...
And I found something magical. The promise of cuddles. And that lead me to discover another journey taking place East. As well as a journey I can't seem to remember.
Not that I ever read Appledashery. Seriously, whoever thought it was a great idea to ship those two?
I'm back from my little trip to the land of alfajores and Maradona, and now I can read the last couple entries in this journal.
I don't really have a lot to say, but I do want to say again that I want to meet you some day, only to give you a bear hug and then return to my own cave.
Hey, another drawing of mine there. I really need to redraw it, but I haven't improved in all these years so it wouldn't look better than now. Maybe I could make Props look less like Applejack; it confuses even me.
Eeeeeeeeeee.
There can be nothing else said for this.
These blogs were an amazing, nostalgic, and heartwarming journey into the past. Beautiful.
I apologize that it took me so long to finally finish all 12!
Well, this was something I suddenly discovered. And let me say, you've had one heck of a journey. I can see why some of your stories are kind of depressing. But let me be clear that despite some incredibly depressing stories I did enjoy them. Even if one in particular left me an emotionless empty shell... Now that I hear some of the history behind, say, BP, and your thought process, I do appreciate it a little more.
Just so you know, haven't read everything SS&E, and only the completed stories. Stopped at that Dr.Pepper thingy.
And you sneaky bastard with your multiple personas across the chats. XD I really enjoyed your big reveal at the end of Austraeoh on that Skype group. Just popping in totally incognito, enjoying the reactions (slipped anything from that into the story?), and then finally "Oh, just so you know *removes mask* I am the author. *removes another mask* who is also The Lemur."
In fact, when I started on Austraeoh (thanks to Argodaemon's artwork) I didn't know anything. I may have heard of BP, and I may have read one of your stories, but didn't pay much attention. I did know something about "short skirts and explosions" from and art by captainpudgemuffin, but that was about it. As I read, and read comments, I saw both IC and SS&E being used and I was sort of confused. I think it wasn't until Innavedr that I made the connection.
Anyways, great to hear the backstory to an author to a book series that I'm "trapped" in. When this epic is done, I'll be interested to read a lengthy blargh about it all. From your first part I do see where some of these ideas started (Zelda), and Austri, but would like to hear the history behind the other vowels (and how it jumped from 5 parts to 12).
Hope all goes well with you. Onwards and ƨpɹɐmɟƨɐƎ
/Edward