Unconventional Paneling

Chapters

Opening Ceremonies: Cavernous Depths
Quillin' it with the MLP Writers: Leftover Slice
Alicorns, Amulets, and Antagonists: Cometing
MLP Analysis Anarchy: There's Method to it
Tabitha St. Germain's Super Sophisticated Script Reading: Closing Cereponies
My Little Madlibs: The Inevitable Arrival
Riffing is Magic: Pretty Pretty Parable
Don't Forget the Lyrics: Seriously, Don't

Opening Ceremonies: Cavernous Depths

"Thanks for coming to Petricon with me this year, Pinkie."

"Sure..." Pinkie's neck ached from the weight of the water her mane filtered out of Baltimare's humid air, but that was nothing compared to how her cheeks felt from forcing her smile for this long. She knew she was forcing it. Maud knew she was forcing it. Boulder probably knew she was forcing it, and he'd been in Maud's pocket since they'd gotten off the train. But it was preferable to the alternative.

As if on cue, Maud said, "I really appreciate you filling in for Mudbriar. And Limestone. And Marble."

"Well, you know what I always say," Pinkie said as eagerly as she could, "You can't spell Pinkamena Diane Pie without Plan D!"

Maud glanced at her. "You've never said that. Nor has anyone else. Ever. Also, your name doesn't have any Ls."

"Riiiight. How is Mudbriar?" Pinkie was pretty sure the twitch just meant her eyelid was especially excited for Petricon.

"Probably still bedridden."

Any improvement in Pinkie's mood was entirely unrelated to that news. She took in the approaching convention center, bedecked in banners in various shades of gray and brown. More ponies than she would've guessed gathered around the doors, waiting for the day's events to begin. "So, you're the Petricon veteran. What should we do once we're registered? Go to a panel? Check out the vendors' hall? Pay way too much for petrified wood-themed snacks?"

"Brace ourselves."

"Brace ourselves? For what?"

"Look!" cried a voice from the waiting congoers. "It's Maud Pie!"

The next thing Pinkie knew, she was surrounded by a cheering crowd the likes of which she hadn't seen since Rainbow Dash's birthaversary. She found herself tossed about in a churning sea of equinity, a storm with Maud at its eye. The excited chatter blended together until even ears trained by countless soirees and shindigs couldn't make out anything.

A familiar voice cut through the din. "Pinkie."

"Uh huh?" She was fairly certain that was who she was.

Maud hoofed her a camera. "Could you get a picture of all of us?" The crowd receded as she held out the camera, gathering behind Maud, jostling one another for the spots closest to her.

Probably-Pinkie blinked and nodded. She got just about everypony in the viewfinder just before the shoving escalated to full-on rioting. "Say 'permineralization!'"

"PERMINERALIZATION!" The response was enough to blow Pinkie's mane dry.

As the crowd dispersed—to a degree, anyway—Pinkie managed to gather herself enough to say, "I didn't know you were so popular."

Maud gave a shrug measured in micrometers. "You aren't the only social butterfly in the family."

Author's Note

Ingrid Nilson, Maud's voice actress, greeted the crowd in character during the opening ceremonies, then snapped a selfie with them as the background. The mental image of Maud taking a selfie with a legion of adoring fans didn't just inspire this short, it inspired the entire con-wide prompt of "panels I attend."

Quillin' it with the MLP Writers: Leftover Slice

Life was good for the Doodles... for the most part. After the madness of the wedding, both were looking forward to as much peace and tranquility as they could get while living in Ponyville. Sure, there would be more Everfree monsters, more Tirek-scale monstrosities, and more ponies doing silly pony things, but they had each other, now more than ever.

Of course, sometimes that was the problem.

"I just don't understand why you didn't invite that nice young stallion Flash to the wedding," Matilda said one morning.

Cranky grumbled and put down the morning copy of the Ponyville Chronicle. "I don't know what to tell you, Matilda. There's just something about him that gets under my skin."

"Pinkie gets under your skin and she's practically family."

Cranky brayed a humorless laugh. "And have you met my family? Besides, that's different. You can't help but like Pinkie Pie." Under his breath, he added, "She makes sure of it."

"But Flash trims the hedges, he waters the flowers—"

Cranky held up his hooves in a helpless warding gesture. "I know, I know. He's a good kid. No one's saying he isn't. I think that may actually be part of why he bothers me. Even for a pony, that's weirdly nice." Cranky's ears flattened as he looked off to the side. "I can't help but wonder what his angle is."

"Does he have to have an angle?"

"When's the last time a pony ever did that much for a donkey for no reason? Or any reason?"

Matilda put a hoof atop Cranky's "Don't you think that kind of attitude might be why you find it unusual, Doodle? In all my years of living here, Ponyville's been nothing but nice to me."

"Ponyville is..." Cranky trailed off, then nodded to himself. "That's the problem." He gently moved Matilda's hoof aside, then walked to the front door and threw it open.

Flash Sentry hovered just outside of it, lumps of sodden leaves cradled in his forelegs. "Good morning, Mr. Donkey! Just cleaning out your gutters."

Cranky rolled his eyes. "Knock it off, Kevin. You know you don't need to pull this kind of thing with me."

Green flame engulfed Flash, revealing a smaller-than-average changeling. With a sheepish grin, he said, "Sorry. Force of habit."

Cranky rolled his eyes, the barest hint of a smile on his muzzle. "Yeah, yeah."

"Still going to finish your gutters, though."

The hint grew to a full smirk. "Won't hear me complaining there."

"Just keep this under your toupee? I have a long game going with Princess Twilight."

"That's your business," said Cranky. "Just don't come running to me when it falls apart."

Kevin winced. "Pretty sure I won't be in any shape to run anywhere if that happens."

Author's Note

This panel was all about each of the three guest show writers—Nick Confalone, Amy Keating Rogers, and M. A. Larson—describing the journey one of their episodes took from initial pitch to final script. Larson discussed "Slice of Life," and among the many cut jokes and references was a brief scene where Cranky tells Flash that despite all of the stallion's efforts, he's still not invited to the wedding because Cranky just plain doesn't like him.

Of course, Flash is probably still stationed in the Crystal Empire, but that doesn't mean someone else can't show his face around Ponyville.

(Oh, and Shakespearicles will probably never speak to me again if I don't note that he moderated the panel after correctly answering AKR's trivia question.)

Alicorns, Amulets, and Antagonists: Cometing

Another ruinous bolt of darkness sent rubble flying from the once-pristine hall. A part of Celestia not yet lost to despair and adrenaline noted that it had destroyed that horrid Yakyakistani urn that nopony liked.

The rest of her was trying to survive and get through to whatever her sister had become. "Please, Luna! You don't need to do this!"

A bitter, humorless laugh echoed through the increasingly ruined castle. "Don't I, sister? Do you not see how your own actions have led to this day?"

"What do you mean?" Celestia looked around. The corridor made Luna's voice echo until it seemed sourceless, and she couldn't see her sister in the unnatural night. "What did I do?"

"What did you do?" Luna whispered, suddenly an inch from her ear. A savage blow sent Celestia flying across the hallway, then skidding along the floor face first. "What haven't you done!? Every waking moment, you have outshone me. Think back, sister." Regular stomps told of Luna's approach. "I defy you to name one time you did not deliberately make me look like your inferior."

Celestia did think back. She rummaged through every memory she could call up, seeking something she'd missed that might explain how any of this could have happened.

And then she found it. The one moment that explained everything. She staggered to her hooves, favoring her left front leg, and looked straight at the entity before her. She saw no scrap of empathy, no hint of the sister she so loved. But it could bear her grievance in Luna's place.

"You stepped on my cake."

Lu— No. Nightmare Moon flinched back for a moment, eyes wide in surprise, before it glared back at her and spat, "You shoved me!"

"You stepped on my cake." Celestia spread her wings and vaulted over the Nightmare, dashing for the entry hall, those same wings giving her the speed lost from what would otherwise be a rapid limp. A carefully coded thought triggered the greatest of the sisters' jesting mechanisms.

"You started it!" Nightmare Moon screeched as it pursued her. Celestia's magical senses felt the darkness gather in the monster's horn. "Die, you sow!"

There was no more time for regret. That would come in time, as Celestia came to realize the magnitude of her deeds. In this moment, as she gathered the Elements and forced them to act, her revenge was as sweet as the cake she avenged.

Author's Note

It's like snowballing, but bigger and in space.

In any case, this was inspired by a single fateful comment during this panel on writing quality villains: The story of Celestia and Luna can be 99% identical yet completely different depending on whether Celestia's greater popularity truly was unintentional, or if she did it because Luna once spilled her milk when they were foals.

Obviously, milk isn't enough to justify a centuries-long campaign of passive aggression. But cake...

MLP Analysis Anarchy: There's Method to it

Author's Note

As luck would have it, you actually can see what inspired this one through the marvels of technology.

MLP Analysis Anarchy: There's Method to it

Discord chuckled as he watched the little wolf panic for a bit. Oh, he put on a good show of calmness, but Discord could feel the anxiety roiling in his heart. Really, as if Discord were so oblivious as to think that turning all of Castle Canterlot into blue cheese would do anything to endear Celestia to him. After all, she was watching her weight these days. Mostly watching it increase. Plus, some of her staff was probably lactose-intolerant. No, as one of Discord's poker buddies once told him, cheese for no one was often the better bet.

Of course, that still left the matter of actually talking to Celestia. For more than a sentence. Which Discord may or may not have done since the whole Tirek fiasco, much less Twilight building her little ego academy. Though he could, of course, start gossiping with Cee-Cee at any point. After all, he was the Spirit of Chaos! All things were within his power! Including initiating a civil conversation with Celestia.

Which he'd do.

Right now.

If he felt like it.

Really, did it have to be now now?

Discord facepawed, dragging the appendage down and smearing his features across much of his front. This was ridiculous. Even if he did feel things with Sunbutt had gotten a touch awkward—which he didn't—that only made it more urgent he go address the problem now! How many times had he watched the Bearers unseen, see them oh-so-nearly fall apart due to some petty squabble that could have been fixed by somepony actually opening her mouth and saying something?

Of course, if it were Fluttershy, then such reticence was entirely understandable and forgivable. That went without saying.

Say, there was a thought. He could go give Fluttershy a surprise visit, a sort of warmup for another round with Ol' Grim and Golden.

For example, it might remind him to not use demeaning nicknames for his conversation partner.

Discord screamed into the roiling, chaotic void, spawning several briefly-lived species of nightmarish horror and the perfect chicken pot pie. "Enough of this! I am Discord! I am chaos! Action! Change! I do not dread; I am dreaded! I do not worry; I am worrisome! I do not—"

"Have much of an indoor voice, do you?"

Discord blinked and looked around. The eternal chaos of his personal subdimension looked a lot more like Celestia's personal chambers than he remembered. Complete with a scowling, sleepy-eyed Celestia giving him a half-lidded glare that probably owed a lot more to anger than fatigue. "Oh. Well." Discord cleared his throat and attempted a smile. "Don't suppose you're in the mood for a friendly chat?"

Celestia just maintained the glare. Nope, definitely not just fatigue.

"I'll check back tomorrow."

"You do that."

Tabitha St. Germain's Super Sophisticated Script Reading: Closing Cereponies

"So..." Twilight paced around the library's central reading table for a bit, fidgeted her wings as she thought, and started over. "So. Let's review."

"What's to review?" Rainbow Dash said from atop one of the shelves. "We helped Kaboomy kick Istarrius's sorry butt!"

"Firstly, that is technically a review," said Twilight. "Secondly, how about the fact that Kaboomy is yet another example of an allegedly fictional character who actually exists? One that isn't even from the Daring Do novels! Or how she can apparently summon meteors. Or that Istarrius can short out an alicorn's magic with a literal flick of his hoof."

"You know," said Pinkie, "if you read the comics, you'd already know all of that."

Twilight just glared at her for a moment. It didn't affect Pinkie's smile in the slightest.

"Yeah," added Dash. "Like the short-out? That was Istarrius's armor. He doesn't just wear that stuff so he can't get out of the way."

"Can we talk about how Kaboomy is me from another universe?" said Muffins, whose eyes were wandering so much they seemed intent on trying to find which one. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one."

"Rather obvious in hindsight when one considers that her charmingly dressed-down alias is 'Raggy Muffins,'" said Rarity, flipping through an issue of Kaboomy Comics.

Dash gave her a funny look. "How many issues have you read this weekend?"

"Enough to get a sense of Pony Flanks's overall aesthetic. Once you know what to look for, it's foal's play to to tell what he took from the real Kaboomy and what he invented whole cloth, as it were." Rarity stuck her tongue out after turning the page. "Like these horrendous nebula gremlins that keep cropping up everywhere. Clearly his own creations."

Twilight fell to her hindquarters, staring off at nothing.

"Are you okay, Princess Twilight?" said Muffins.

"Fine. Fine. Just trying to figure out how I feel about being the least knowledgable pony in the room."

She felt a wing sweep over her withers despite Muffins not moving. "Even without your magic, you were very brave," said Fluttershy. "I certainly couldn't have have tricked Istarrius the way you did."

Twilight shrugged her own wings. "You're the one who distracted him while the raccoons helped us. Besides, if he was going to keep calling me a librarian like it was an insult, then I'd defeat him like one."

"And by flattening him with his own meteor prison!" added Pinkie.

"Yes. And that." Twilight said with a cough. "Thank you again for the plan, Pinkie. And Rarity, by proxy."

Both smiled. Dash scoffed. "If 'squish the bad guy with a rock' counts as a plan, then I call plan-making for the next one," she said.

"Not if it leads to somepony bombarding the most valuable archive in the Canterlot Hall of Records with even more meteors," said Twilight. "Bad enough that that convention had to be held there. I don't know what I'm going to tell the princesses when they see that!"

"Hey, that one was Kaboomy's fault!" said Dash.

"Indeed," said Rarity. "For all her ability to pull off a silver onesie, she didn't have much of a grasp on minimizing collateral damage."

"Yeah." Dash glanced at Muffins. "Guess some things don't change no matter what universe you're in."

A gasp drew all eyes to Pinkie. "Girls! Do you realize what we forgot?"

"To ensure that Istarrius was separated from the Wand of P'ding?" said Twilight.

"To learn just how Kaboomy performs those costume changes with such speed and grace?" said Rarity.

"To get Pony Flanks to draw my OC?" said Dash.

"To record Istarrius's villain song?" said Pinkie.

"To involve Applejack?" said Fluttershy.

"No! We left Maud at Boomycon!"

Outside the Canterlot Hall of Records, where archivists were still arguing with the fire brigade over using rainclouds on the smoking holes in the building, Maud sat wedged in the cobblestone path leading to the front doors. Still trapped in her cosplay of Kaboomy's faithful steed.

Which was a rock.

A meteor, yes, but a rock.

As Maud watched the moon rose out of the corner of her eye, she shrugged as best she could. "This is fine."

Author's Note

Yes, Tabitha's fan fiction involves parallel universe Derpy as a worldline-hopping magical heroine.

Yes, I was more than a little disturbed and more than a lot delighted.

And yes, it physically hurt to call Best Pony "Muffins," but she was explicitly and repeatedly referred to as such during the reading.

In any case, this was an interesting challenge: Try to convey a story most of you never heard and, due to copyright concerns, likely never will. I hope I did a good job there.

My Little Madlibs: The Inevitable Arrival

"Okay," said Fleetfoot, "I don't want to sound like I'm speciesist or something, but where does Princess Twilight find some of these things?"

"'Things' is pretty darn speciesist, Flatfoot," said Soarin'. "They're people, same as you or me."

"Pretty sure I've never been quite like that."

"Enough chatter, you two," barked Spitfire. "We're here to represent Cloudsdale in the Equestria Games, and that's what we're going to do. I don't care if we're up against changelings, dragons, or an entire team of rocs, we are going to go out there and we are going to win like Wonderbolts. Do I make myself clear?"

Reflex made the others stiffen and shout, "Yes, Ma'am!" Only after could Fleetfoot say "Though I still want to know where they came from. Pretty sure they're not actually from Equestria."

"Not like that's going to stop some teams," Soarin' said as he looked about the rest of the competition. "We've got teams from Griffonstone, Mount Aris, Yakyakistan..."

"Hey, guys." Rainbow Dash walked up to them in her Ponyville yellows. She followed Fleetfoot's wary gaze. "Wondering about the Beyond team?"

Spitfire sighed. "Crash, is this going on that list of stupid but true stuff you've told us?"

"Well, you know the mirror portal that leads to a world of naked apes?"

"So that's a yes," Spitfire said around her facehoof.

Dash continued with little more than an acknowledging nod. "Well, Twilight's been tinkering with it lately."

"Called it," said Fleetfoot.

"So yeah, these guys are from some other dimension or something. Don't ask me the details." Dash wingshrugged. "Even if I wanted to ask Twilight, she'd spend an hour on boring background detail before she even got to the part I wouldn't understand."

Meanwhile, a stout humanoid in overalls went through his stretches for the upcoming relay event, his "uniform" nothing more than his usual overalls, shirt, gloves, and signature monogrammed hat. "You-a ready for this?"

The blue, spiny biped, who bore about as much resemblance to his claimed species as a ballistic missile did to a throwing axe, smirked and answered, "It's a race. Of course I'm ready."

The other shook his mustachioed head. "Just don't get us kicked out of another world's Olympics, okey-dokey?"

Author's Note

One of the Mad Libs the writers did at the panel was the history of Sonic the Hedgehog. Among other things, it revealed an upcoming title that was sure to be a timeless classic: Mario and Sonic at the Equestria Olympic Games.

Rainbow Dash's list of stupid but true things comes from Breaking (Down The) News.

Riffing is Magic: Pretty Pretty Parable

Twilight watched the floating castle burn from a nearby cloud. The rainbow above the structure flickered like a neon sign in the seedier parts of Las Pegasus. A few moments passed as she processed what she'd seen. "And that's how you see ponies?"

"Not quite," Discord said from her side. "This is how I see ponies without me. Flighty, insipid, unprepared for the slightest thing going wrong."

Twilight wrinkled her muzzle. "Ponies are far more resilient than that," she said, not so much pointing at the castle as jabbing at it from afar.

Discord nodded. "Yes, thanks to me."

"Even before you—"

"Before me?" Discord threw back his head and laughed until his mouth fell out of earshot. A replacement grew from the stump of his neck like an underachieving hydra and said, "Twilight, we both know you have no idea what came before me. I made sure of it. After all, history is so dull. Why spend your time looking at what dead ponies did in the past when you can go out and do things yourself in the here and now?"

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "So you're saying that before you came along, ponies all lived in cloud castles, panicked at the sight of a caterpillar, and put on impromptu burlesque performances at the drop of a hat?"

"We'll never know for sure, now will we?" Discord chuckled.

"You do, based on what you literally just said."

"I thought you'd know by now not to take anything I say at face value." Discord's head dissolved into a shower of counterfeit bits. "But my point is not about ponies," said his third head of the day. "It is about harmony."

"Trying to turn me to the 'Chaos Side'?" said Twilight, making full use of her wings for the air quotes.

Discord took a deep breath, distorted by the bucket now on his head. "If you only knew its power..." He threw his headwear into the void beneath them. "But no. I'm trying to show you that excessive harmony is just as dangerous as excessive disharmony or chaos. Worse, in a way, since its danger is nowhere near as obvious. Excessive harmony untempered by strife and hardship or the slightest bit of independent thought is incredibly fragile. It has never been tried or tested. It falls to pieces the moment that first hiccup sounds in utopia, and you saw what happened after that." He extended a paw towards the castle. "The next thing you know, all Tartarus breaks loose. I find that sort of thing entertaining, but I'm given to understand that I'm in the minority in that regard."

"I see." Twilight considered the structure, where the bizarrely proportioned ponies were enjoying a small backup cake, the caterpillar-induced riot that had led to them trampling a larger one apparently forgotten. "They do realize that the castle is still on fire, don't they?"

"For one, they're magical automata I created to demonstrate a point. They don't realize anything. For another, in the scenario, they lack the capacity to even imagine an outcome as terrible as their home burning to the clouds. Something unfortunate happening to a cake is pretty much the limit of their hypothetical imaginations."

"I see." Twilight was silent for a few moments more. "So if I were to swoop down before them..."

"They'd either panic again, worship you as a goddess, or see you as some incomprehensible eldirtch entity." Discord smirked. "Which would probably mean both panic and worship. Care to roll that die?"

"Aren't you controlling them?"

He shrugged. "I only set the initial conditions of the scenario. The rest proceeded on its own from there."

Twilight looked around. The only possible witness was another of those allegedly overharmonized ponies, sitting on a lower cloud and eating a cake whose origins were probably best left unexplored. She grinned as she spread her wings. "Then I may be able to prove you wrong. Let's go introduce a bit more chaos to the system."

Discord followed with a grin of his own. "Attagirl."

Author's Note

This was one of the things they aired and snarked at during this panel, made a few years before Friendship is Magic, when My Little Pony was at its most staggeringly insipid. Between the randomness, the mayhem, and the general "poisoned sugar bowl" aesthetic, Discord definitely came to mind. Especially his opinions on diametrically opposed forces. It doesn't hurt that Alara J. Rogers was in the room as I wrote this.

Don't Forget the Lyrics: Seriously, Don't

Twilight looked over the newest building in Ponyville, one with much sleeker construction than the usual wattle-and-daub look of most of the town's buildings. The lights and other electromantic features demanded a power transmission coil discretely worked into the building itself, receiving directly from the town dam. All-weather speakers played strains of eerily familiar music at almost subliminal volumes. All told, it wouldn't have looked out of place in the cooler outer neighborhoods of Manehattan.

"I'm really not sure about this." Twilight turned to the proprietor of the establishment, rolled her eyes, and lifted the mare's headphones. "I said I'm not sure about this."

Vinyl Scratch snorted and tried to pry her headphones out of Twilight's grip. After the telekinetic equivalent of a baby breezie trying to pry open a minotaur weightlifter's fingers, she grumbled, "Rude. Besides, what are you so worried about?" Her expression lightened as she smacked Twilight on the withers. "Couldn't have done this without you."

"This wasn't what I had in mind when I published my theory of applied magical harmonics."

Vinyl shrugged. "Hey, 'applied's right there in the name. What did you think ponies were going to do with it?"

Twilight's wings flared in agitation as she started pacing. "I don't know! Power sources dervied from the active use of the Elements of Harmony? Advanced pacification arrays? Something that isn't a heartsong karaoke parlor?"

Vinyl shook her head. "Sheesh. Genius is never appreciated in its own time. Can I have my phones back now or what?"

"Here," Twilight grunted, all but tossing them at the other mare. "I just don't understand how you set this up so quickly. I only heard about the idea today."

"Dude, it's Ponyville. I got the construction company that built your friendship school. Those guys have gotten so much practice, they could make a high-rise in a week." Vinyl set her headphones back in their accustomed place, but didn't cover her ears yet. "And it's not like the risk is that high. You're making this sound like the fish market on Dagon Street or something."

Twilight's mouth worked silently for a few moments. "Ponyville doesn't have a fish market. Or a Dagon Street."

"Oh yeah, guess that one was a bit before your time."

"What kind of risk does this place present?"

"Oh, you know." Vinyl bobed her head back and forth. "The usual deal with singing songs sung by the dead. Teensy chance you'll call 'em back through soul resonance. You should know; you wrote the article."

"What!?" Twilight shrieked. "I thought you were just using the applied harmonics to supersaturate an area to force heartsongs. You're calling back old ones!?"

"Sure. Haven't you ever wished you could go back and sing one of your old numbers?"

"Yes, but not to sing something that constitutes a necromantic ritual!"

"Relax," Vinyl said with a wave of a hoof. "What's the worst that could happen?"

A mare ran screaming from the karaoke parlor, chased by a scowling cream-coated specter whose curling orange locks writhed in the ethereal wake of her own passage. "Ya call up the song I sang t' my husband on the day he proposed an' ya ain't even got th' decency to sing along!?"

"I didn't know the words!"

Twilight and Vinyl watched the ghost of Pear Butter pursue the unfortunate for a few moments more before Vinyl said, "Okay, yeah, I kinda walked into that one."

Author's Note

This was a fun one. Songs from the show and the fandom would play, and eveyone would sing along... until everything went silent and it was up to the person at the mike to keep going. Some nailed it. Some flubbed it. And in the case of "You're in My Head Like a Catchy Song," the fellow at the mike blanked, only to be all but shoved out of the way by a Pear Butter cosplayer who took over for him. I couldn't ask for better inspiration.