Yellow & Blue: A Tragic Tale of Friendship

[Warning: You'll find this chapter to be either mildly interesting or so boring and self-indulgent that you'll run screaming to Earthworm Jim fanfic. You have been warned.

I am Fluttershy. I will tell you why.

There is no (new) sex in this chapter. There is however the real story behind the fictional story. An unbelievable, real story of how a television show about magical ponies and friendship helped a grown man see inside himself. It is an incredible story about how a cartoon for eight-year old girls gave a tortured soul hope and reconciled him with the woman who shattered his life thirty years ago. By the end you will understand why my nom de plume translates roughly to “catharsis by pony”

Before proceeding, everyone should know this bizarre work is dedicated to my wife and my therapist, two women who stood by me as I poured out my life in a clopfic. Two women who understood the symbolic, not the literal, nature of the story and supported a wounded child as he walked out of a lifetime of anger and pain and loneliness. Lesser women would have either divorced me or had me committed, respectively.

Nothing in my life could have prepared me for the experience of writing this story. I'm a real guy in his late 40's, I've got a wife, kid, job, etc.  I do technical writing for a living. I've been in therapy, off and on, for the last 20 years for depression, mostly the result of my mom putting a bullet through her head when I was 16. (no, I didn't see it happen). We've worked through all kind of issues relating to self-esteem, depression, anger, etc. Work has suffered terribly over the years, as has my marriage, as a result.

Somehow I stumbled across The Ponies on YouTube; I guess all Bronies are accidental births that way.  Later I came across the fanfic (clop and not), but nothing really captured my imagination until I came across Cupcakes. It was so over the top and so horribly written that I (and I guess 2% of all readers) said. :”That had to be the worst piece of gross-out trash I have ever read, but you know I  could write a piece of trash like that but make it readable.”

And that is how Twilight’s Last Gleaming, and the whole magical mental mystery tour, began. Actually, it started as a standard ‘jump and hump’ porn story. I decided rape was more fun than vivisection, but since I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about horse penises I used mine instead. It was fun, in a sort of naughty-fantasy-gone-ape-shit. Took some thinking to figure out the mechanics of how to face-fuck a horse.

As I reread it, I realized two things. First, just how much fun it had been to write fiction, which I hadn’t done in a long time. I also noticed that it was very violent (slamming Twi’s head into the fence) and cruel (taunting her every step of the way) and predatory. Those were not things that were part of my nature; heck, I’d been church elder and led science workshops at elementary schools. But I had so much fun writing it I wanted to try it again.

Next I decided to take vulnerable Fluttershy. At first it was because she was easiest to manipulate, and this new-found predator in me liked the idea. The idea of the abusive sleepovers was inspired by a short relationship I had in college. She was bright, quirky and a lot of fun. She was in psych graduate school and I was in my 257th year of undergrad. One night she told me a shocking story that when she was younger she used to do a lot of hard partying at the fraternity houses but she stopped when one day she realized that every time she got drunk with them "the party was me." I have never been able to get over the shock of that creative, intelligent woman telling me that she had a rough patch of life that made her so insecure that she had to resort to being a frathouse slut. It’s amazing that I based Rainbow’s sleepovers on her without being conscious of it.

Once I got Fluttershy's story fleshed out with Rainbow as the antagonist, I needed a way to wrap it up. Initally it ended with the human driving Fluttershy insane and her stomping off to murder Rainbow off-stage.  But while I found myself thinking more and more about the Fluttershy/Rainbow dynamic from a plot standpoint, it was obvious my subconscious was working overtime to sneak itself into the story. "White is the Color of the Rainbow" is the culmination of everything in the story, in my life, relating to the relationship between my mom and I. It is seething, murderous rage, executed in such stark brutality that I still wince sometimes when I read the wing-breaking and smothering scenes. But at the same time it ends with the bittersweet reconcilliation that can only come when I let go (let my anger die?) and see the real mare/woman underneath.

It’s interesting that I wrote myself into the story as both rage (as The Human) and wounded (Fluttershy). I guess that means I was equal parts angry and hurt at what had happened to me. Both I and my subconscious had a couple drinks together and decided that we wouldn't go into the me-raping-myself angle that implied.

Symbols. Everything in this story is symbols. I spent months with my therapist tearing it apart, teasing loose one hidden meaning after another. Here are some of the symbols I recognized in the story, broken out by chapter.

Beauty and the Beast

Bleaching Rainbow's coat:

Although this scene was conceptualized much later in the writing process, this is the first time you get to see the human's sadistic nature. As if the physical comfort of the transformation wasn't enough, he is tormenting her, torturing her, every step of the way as he strips her of her identity. This is the first time you can glimpse the anger that I have bottled up at my mom for all those years. It was really scary to see this stuff come out, after so many years of denying that I hadn't been affected that much by her suicide.

"you have become a horrible creature... taking advantage of people who care about you. You were not always like this.":

That's a good summary about how I feel/felt about mom.

Can't fly with the Wonderbolts:

This was the thing that Rainbow wanted most, that she defined herself. This would imply that I saw something that mom failed at. Maybe I saw her suicide as a statement that she had failed as a mother and husband.

Joyweed:

Mom had a really bad back and towards the end got addicted to painkillers. I was originally just going to use joyweed as an excuse for Rainbow's behavior to make her a little sympathetic. It wasn't until a week or so later I made the connection with mon's painkillers. Another stunner; this one burbled up from the subconscious without any conscious thought what so ever.

Rainbow ruined everything you loved, took away your family:

Wow. It is so fucking amazing the stuff that these ponies brought out of my mind. Mom did take everything away: my family split up after she died, then she gave me depression, madness, made it hard to have relationships. Why did the whole Fluttershy story center around the Human making Fluttershy realize how much Rainbow had hurt her? I think this is supposed to be the equivalent of my therapist helping me open up about mom pain, which I had denied for so long. This was another one of those 2x4-to-the-head revelations. I would like to note that I made my breakthrough without my therapist tying me up and raping me, unlike Fluttershy.

"Pound my personal magic wand up your asshole":

Anal sex with my mom! Whoopee! :pinkiegasp:

The memory amulet:

This is the plot device that makes everything happen. At the beginning I had to have some way of being present (in the present) and having my way with Fluttershy but at the same time being able to drag her back in the past and humiliate her with all the bad things she had let Rainbow do to her.

Twilight /Trixie:

Chronologically "Twilight's Last Gleaming" takes place before this chapter, so I needed some mention of her, but it was really reduced once it was apparent that Twilight didn't have any involvement in the main Flutterdash story. Trixie was the device that let me introduce the memory amulet. I think I went on a little long with Trixie since she doesn't add much to the plot, but it was fun to write.

"I'm sure you're scared... You all are before it starts. And during it you'll be terrified. But I promise it will only be as long as I need it to be..." :

That line surprised me a little. Most of the prior stuff was venting rage; this line sounded just plain evil, especially "you all are."

"them four-fifty in cash, plus another hundred for the motel room":

I can't believe I googled "prostitute anal sex" to find out how much it cost to ride the hershey highway.

"I love these little ponies...":

Interesting paragraph. I think I'm referring to myself as the innocent and gullible ponies that get hurt, but at the same time there's that anger again.

Rainbow's escape:

I'm not sure about all the symbolism of letting the transformed, purified mom go. There isn't any of the pity and forgiveness implied in "White is the Color of the Rainbow." This section took some work because I had to set up everything about her character for the meeting with Fluttershy.

A Butterfly Set Free

Friendship game:

Rather than any specifics, I think this was just a general betrayal of trust. I wanted to write a scene where she put her total trust in the human, and then the human betrayed that trust. Let’s just say that mom committed the ultimate betrayal. At the same time, it was fun to write this porn.

Wrapped in Rainbow's wing:

I got all warm and lovey thinking what it would be like to drift off to sleep wrapped in a soft, feathery wing. (I exagerated the size of the wing, because in the show they're too short to do a wrap-around) Symbolically, I'm longing to be wrapped in mom's loving, protective embrace again.

White is the Color of the Rainbow

Snowmane:

Snowmane was my mother, forgiven. Of course, just like most of the stuff in here, the choice of color just what popped into my mind, without any thought of the significance.

Smothering:

I'm not sure I had a lot of symbolism here, I was more into the violence than the sex. But I think we can all agree that lesbian pony snuff is great fun for the whole family. My therapist and I have agreed not to pursue the me-turning-into-a-female-just-so-I-can-smother-my-mom-with-my-vagina symbolism.

The countdown:

Probably the best thing I've ever written, but it took a lot of emotional and linguistic work, unlike a lot of the other stuff that just flowed naturally. I especially like the rubies immediately followed by torrent of blood.

Mr. Bridleton throwing up:

God, those last two lines are my favorites of the entire series. The setup, timing, and characters were absolutely, totally perfect. They had the appropriate shock effect on my therapist, but in general I don't recommend trying to shock your therapist.

Blood:

I needed something dramatic way to show that Fluttershy understood Rainbow and forgave her. The blood was a release, a cleansing, that conveniently happened to flow over Rainbow. Fluttershy physically released anger at Rainbow by smothering her, but also emotionally by letting the blood flow over her. This was a very powerful scene to write, and I bawled every time I reworked it. I told my therapist that this is what I longed for the most: a a reconciliation, a cleansing, a total release from the pain I felt because of mom’s death. Just a note of caution: be very careful when explaining to your therapist that you empathize strongly with suicidal characters.

Rainbow's torture:

This was it. Every bit of anger, every bit of resentment and hatred I ever had for what mom did to me came out here. I never could have believed that I held so much anger inside me. The shattering of the wing was the most calculated vicious thing I could have imagined. It was savage; it was brutal. It turns my stomach when I reread it.

East of Innocence

Pinkie passing out:

That entire scene built up to one line: "they loved each other very much." Thirty years to get past the pain and anger just to remember that my mom, as sick as she was, really did love me.

Unrest in Ponyville/equestria:

Innocence lost, their world shattered, just like mine.

Rainbow’s not-as-clean-as-Fluttershy’s grave site:

My lingering resentment about mom. "kept it clean but obviously made no attempt to beautify it."

The long walk from the town to the graves/memorials:

Symbolic of the thirty years it took to come to this point. Unlike the trio, though, I walked most of mine alone. It could also be symbolic of the trip that I took alone, once to visit her gravesite. I walked a couple of miles in a New England drizzle from her childhood home to the cemetery where she was buried. It was a very lonely trip, it took forever to find her tombstone, and truthfully, it wasn't all that cathartic.

Twilight's monument

I wanted to give her a farewell, since she disappeared without any character development, especially since I moved her chapter to the end as a prelude. I didn't feel any need to resurrect her, so I had her 'die' off-screen and erected a monument instead of a grave. I was proud of the moonflower idea, and it gave Rarity the spotlight for a moment.

Jar of clouds:

I cried when I wrote that (I still cry when I read it). Pinkie found the gift that Rainbow would have liked the most. The broken shards reinforce that it's not the tangible things. The clouds were a symbol of Pinkie's love for her friend, not the love itself. It was just such a beautiful, perfect gift. (I’m crying again…)

Tree:

I needed something for AppleJack to do while Pinkie and Rarity were doing their things. The stones were separate, individual. The tree showed that the ponies were at peace with each other in death. I like how the tree allowed me to focus on just AppleJack. The "secret" aspect gave poignancy to her encounter.

Party toys:

Moving on. The animals didn't have need for them, like Pinkie didn't either. I don't think that there's any significance to her, since she's the goofy one and would have the toys.

Going to the beach:

The ultimate moving on. Pinkie's was a little more dramatic, but in this one the group agrees to move on. It didn't strike me until later that Mom grew up in seaside town, and we used to vacation at the beach in the summer.

Thanks for sharing my story.

-Kathairein_Puni