It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #96 · 8:21pm Jan 18th, 2023
I'm feeling a little meta today - so let's do some meta stories.
The first comes from the frequently-appearing Casketbase77 with Extras.
This one's a two-parter.
In the first we're introduced to the Extras Club: Blossomforth, Lyra Heartstrings, Screwball, and Vinyl Scratch. Background ponies and show extras. And they begin by raising a toast to Season 9 and the end of the show. The group of extras chat a bit before Lyra asks a burning question - she has a character arc. Does she really count as an 'extra' any more?
And in the second a new pony shows up: one without a name and who's first background appearance is in an upcoming episode. She approaches the Extras, fearful of what's going to happen. Sure, she wants to be on screen, but the fans. She's heard so many stories and she's nervous.
So first off, I love the metatextuality of this one. The characters understand that they're characters in a show, that there's significant influence on not just the perception of them but of who they are from the audience (such as the second act newbie not even having a name yet), and what their role in the world/show is. It's fourth wall breaking (in fact, existing beyond the wall entirely) without so much of the ugly baggage that most fourth wall breaks get into.
Plus it helps that the characters have demonstrably their own identities. They're molded by the fan response and the show, but they're still entities of their own - again, as shown in the second chapter and their critique of fan perspectives of them. I mean, you gotta sympathize with Blossomforth's exasperation at one mention of her turning into a cavalcade of contortionist porn.
Behind all that, too, is some solid story and character messages. Lyra's concerns that she's outgrown her friends and changed just who she is. Unnamed stressing over her impending future and being reassured by those who came before. Blossomforth's little story about her own stage fright and giving up her shot. It's good, solid, pony-flavored life lessons in a unique meta package.
The other shockingly similar story comes to us from shallow15 and The Green Room: This Isn't Goodbye. (This is a sort-of-but-not-quite sequel to shallow's 2017 The Green Room, but that one isn't a marked sequel or required to read first. But it's worth mentioning!)
In the Green Room - a theatrical term for the waiting/prep area where actors hang out when they're not currently on-stage - Sunset Shimmer sits with Twilight Sparkle. Sunset's just gotten the email: the show is ending. They're cancelled once the current project wraps. The two sit and have a heart to heart - Sunset primarily raging and struggling against it all, while Twilight reminds her of all they've done.
Again this is another fun metatextual one, albeit with less direct fourth wall approaching. The girls both are fully aware that they're fictional characters inside a TV show and that's never questioned or even addressed. They simply are and that's that. The different angle here is that they approach the end of the show with the understanding that it is an end. They may continue as long as fans remember them, but their time's ending. Even if there's a return - like, say, a new Generation - it won't be the same. It won't be them.
Really, it's interesting because this is almost a 'Twilight addresses her immortality' fic through an extremely unusual lens. They're going to 'die' because the show's ending but will have immortality through the memories and the messages they've sent. And Twilight tries to drive that home by rightly pointing out just what Sunset's managed to accomplish. Sure, it's not as much as she wanted. But she's an antagonist who became a main character and rose from a one-off villain in a side production to wild popularity. And she got so, so much out there.
It's a good, heartwarming look at things - it was all the more potent at the time it was published and the shows were ending, but it still has the right gravitas now.
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