Twilight Sparkle was never born. As a mare, anyway. Instead, this story stars the young colt Dusk Shine, personal protégé of Celestia, asocial bookworm, and (unknownst to him) super-cute pretty boy.
When Celestia sends Dusk Shine to Ponyville, all he wants to do is prepare for Nightmare Moon’s return. But when five certain mares each develop a massive crush on Dusk, he’ll have more on his plate than Twilight ever did.
TL;DR: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic mixed with Harem Comedy. Word of God is that all Harem Genre hijinks are intended as an experiment to see how well the anime genre carries over. So far, the experiment is going swimmingly. Your mileage may vary, though, as some dislike it for the way the characters act compared to their canon personalities, especially "Dusk" himself. However, meme decided to go ahead and cancel the fic upon uploading the second chapter of the Sonic Rainboom arc.
Can be read here.
The artist who contributed the cover art has started a manga adaptation of it here.
NOTE: The author is apparently a troper. He's even been pointing tropes he deliberately invoked/noticed as he went along. As such, we've thrown his responses in verbatim. Such are the cases for the YMMV bullets.
The fic was under a bit of Retcon after it changed authors, but only one chapter was ever published. The original author, meme-asaurus, has cancelled the original fic, and its continuation on by the name of "The Unexpected Love Life of Dusk Shine Continues" has been hidden, and the author ( White Rabbit) appears to have had his account removed.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Abridged Series: In a manner of speaking, it is. It takes the base plotlines of the show, mixes things up, adds shout-outs, throws in humor, and all of this using no clips from the actual show itself.
- Accidental Pervert: See Dusk Crash-Into Hello with Rainbow Dash.
- Actor Allusion: In-Universe. Pinkie notes that she and Fluttershy have the same voice actress. She uses this as a justification for the fact that him dating Fluttershy is like him dating her.
- Adaptational Wimp: While in the fic (as well the original show) is Rarity who attacked first the Manticore, in the manga version she is saved by Applejack and is totally terrified by the monster.
- Always Someone Better: Shining Armor to Dusk.
- Art Shift: The manga artist decided to switch from drawing everyone as ponies to drawing them as humans about half way through the first story arc. There was also a minor Time Skip to the climax of the first arc at the same time, leading to some confusion on the part of readers. It's still the same story and characters with the same abilities, just drawn as humans rather than ponies.
- Attempted Rape: Nightmare Moon to Dusk.
- Berserk Button: It's probably not a good idea to wake up a nocturnal near-omnipotent being up in the middle of the day.
- Black Comedy Rape: Pinkie Pie comes uncomfortably close to this in "Pinkieception" when she gives Dusk an unsolicited hoofjob in the bathtub, which he himself describes as molestation.
- Brain Bleach: You will never look at Spike's "Royal Canterlot Business" the same again. The author recommends readers to auto-induce brain damage as a remedy for the text guilty of this crime.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Pinkie Pie, to the point of addiction. It got so bad, readers got annoyed and asked meme-asaurus to stop. He then set it up as Pinkie being addicted to breaking the fourth wall and attempting to stop. Emphasis on attempting.
And then Pinkieception Part 3 explains why this is so...- Seems to be very much toned down in the manga adaptation, however, along with fandom in-jokes.
- Bromantic Foil: Dusk Shine and Spike. Dusk is even asked to be the latter's Wingpony! Which considering Spike isn't the main lead, you can see how well that goes.
- Butt-Monkey: Dusk Shine, even more so than Twilight.
- Call-Back: At the end of Pinkieception, Fluttershy's diary entry notes that her recently-learned Fire Breath shout proved to be a most effective tool in scaring off the hydra.
- Also, Pinkie Pie asks Luna if Dusk lasts longer than fifteen seconds to Princess Luna during her rounds of dream sex with Dusk.
- More for Fluttershy. During the famous "yay" scene at the beginning of "Sonic Rainboom", she screams FUS RO DAH! instead of the last "yay."
- Cerebus Roller Coaster: Chapter 1 ends with a silly note promising Unwanted Harem shenanigans and reference-based humor. Cue chapter 2, ending with Dusk getting knocked out and dragged into Pinkamena's basement. Chapter 3 starts with a Pulp Fiction quote and a Tear Jearking flashback from Pinkie's perspective. Chapter 4 comes back with more humor. That should give you some perspective.
- Childhood Friend Romance: When Pinkie Pie has Dusk inside her mind, her Surprise persona befriends Dusk as a filly for this purpose, even going so far as quipping that "childhood friends make great love interests!"
- Comic-Book Adaptation: The aforementioned manga adaptation mentioned & linked above
- Conspiracy Theorist: Dusk complains that he's often written off as this by other ponies.
- Covert Pervert: Dusk, while every bit the recluse Twilight is, is shown to be quite the pervert himself, both by Spike's accounts and several of his trains of thoughts. Apparently he looks up porn on Ponichan and in the manga, he keeps a stash of "special magazines".
- Crack Fic: Chapter one (Which retells the firsttwo episodes) contains a lot of Meta humor and Lemony Narrator. Chapter two, short though it is in comparison to chapter one, seems to tone this down.
- Though it's taken steps back to crack, shifting the focus from the harem plot to other side characters, weird backstories and Slenderpony parody.
- Though it's taken steps back to crack, shifting the focus from the harem plot to other side characters,
- Crash-Into Hello: Dusk Shine's face, meet Rainbow Dash's flank.
- Dead Fic: The continuation had all of one chapter published in three years, before it was made invisible and the author's account was removed from the site for unknown reasons.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dusk, you make Twilight proud.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Dusk ignores the whole scene with Steven Magnet because he's too busy glaring at wet-maned Rarity.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Used constantly, especially in the beginning of Chapter Three.
- Enfant Terrible: Pinkamena. She killed a puppy at four months old.
- Equine Abomination: The Slenderpony, and Scootaloo, since she's his daughter. Her true and horrifying natural form is that of gen 3.5 Scootaloo.
- Erotic Dream: Dusk apparently has a bunch of these, courtesy of Princess Luna.
- First Filly Wins : Pinkie is shooting for this.
- The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles
- Fire-Forged Friends: Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever. Initially they can barely tolerate each other's presence, but the combination of being the Only Sane Mares of King Sombra's Crystal Empire and living literally thousands of years in each other's close company thanks to their Soul Gems eventually made them True Companions.
- First Kiss: Dusk's first is taken by Luna.
- This even leads to Dusk having a bit of a thing for her, if The Rise of Dovahshy Part 1 is any indication (he gets a letter from Celestia saying that Luna misses him, but the offending line is crossed out by presumably her. Dusk attempts to write Celestia back, but can't get a letter right. One of the messed up letters simply says "I miss Luna too.")
- It goes beyond that. Dusk's been having dreams involving having sex with Season 2!Luna without knowing it was her. He's not exactly as opposed to the idea as he was when Pinkie tried to give him a hoof job.
- She gets pregnant from her dream-encounters with Dusk and has been attempting to send him letters to let him know of the situation. However, Dusk has yet to hear of this, as Spike has been left in charge of the library while Dusk's in Cloudsdale.
- In the manga, his first is taken by Nightmare Moon during their first encounter.
- Forceful Kiss: More often than not, any time Dusk Shine receives a kiss it will be one of these, with someone forcing it on him or surprising him with one. Though depending on who is giving it he may eventually return the kiss himself, like with Fluttershy or Rarity.
- Foreshadowing: Early in chapter one, Dash mentions when she brushes of Nightmare Moon's death threat that, among other things, she can't die yet because she 'hasn't banged that one geek yet', and in the chapters covering the Gala Ticket episode, Dusk makes mention about how one of the main reasons Dash wants him to pick her is because 'she wants to clop him in public'. Guess which one of the mane cast Dusk ends up losing his virginity to way later in the fic. (Though, granted, it was unintentional. They were both drugged out on poison joke at the time... It Makes Sense In Context. Rainbow Dash is still content with it though.)
- They might have been hallucinating, because Dusk doesn't remember but Dash does. And since Dusk has been managing to pacify his friends without doing the deed with them in the latest chapters, it leads us to believe it probably was just Dashie hallucinating.
- Former Child Star: Pipsqueak was apparently a pony version of Justin Bieber. He hated it. Likewise, Vinyl Scratch's first song was Friday.
- Freudian Slip: Pinkamena, in Pinkieception Part 3."“I don’t want to be free! I don’t want your help! I don’t want to separated from Pinkie! I don’t want to be all alone again!”
- Generation Xerox: Inverted. Fluttershy and her great-great-great-(repeat as necessary)-grandfather Commander Hurricane are as different from each other as can be, aside from sharing their species and the power of Thu'um. Also played straight in that just like Hurricane, Fluttershy eventually associated with a group of five ponies quite similar to the ones Hurricane befriended in Equestria´s origin story.
- The Glomp: Manga!Rarity does this to Dusk, after that he has risked to fall, complete with Marshmallow Hell.
- Grand Theft Me: Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever (two of Equestria's original founders) are alive and well thanks to trapping their souls in jewelry and possessing the wearers. Platinum hit a snag when her bracelet was stolen and ended up on Rarity's cat. Clover on the other hand is living the good life as Hoity Toity.
- Groin Attack: Whenever Pinkie Pie/Pinkamena whips out a crowbar, expect Dusk Shine to be dealt a low blow.
- Harem Nanny:
- Too early to tell for sure, but evidence points to Celestia becoming this.
- Zecora takes a shot at the job too, suggesting solving his romantic problems by romancing all of them.
- He's Not My Boyfriend: Applejack's reaction when Granny Smith calls Dusk AJ's boyfriend.
- Hive Mind: The Parasprites, fittingly enough. As seen in the show, they are Explosive Breeders, so this is probably justified.
- Hot for Teacher:
- When he was younger, Dusk had a crush on Princess Celestia. She turned him down because, aside from him being eleven at the time, she's a lesbian.
- Trixie, after Dusk agrees to take her on as his apprentice.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: The first thing Nightmare Moon does after smashing the elements is try to force herself on Dusk.
- Immortality Immorality: Soul Gems, which don’t just appear in the The Elder Scrolls.
- Intoxication Ensues: After everypony touches the Poison Joke and stay awake all night trying to search for the lost foals.
- Derpy praises Pinkamena's trap muffin for Gilda to kingdom come, causing Gilda to try to take the apparently delicious sweet back...until the instant the muffin hits Derpy's digestive system, which is when Derpy beings to vomit all over Gilda and Pinkie.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Dusk agrees with Pinkamina about Rarity having already planned her foals' names, especially coupled with the extremely detailed fantasy about her wedding, is really creepy.
- Karma Houdini: Clover and Platinum.
- Lemony Narrator: Highly present in chapter one, less so in chapter two. He's back in full force as of Ch. 9.
- Lethal Chef: Applejack when delirious due to lack of sleep, as the show can attest. Heavily exploited by Pinkamena.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Celestia.
- Love at First Sight: Just like in canon, Spike for Rarity. Then Dusk for Fluttershy.
- Love Chart: Dusk apparently keeps one under lock and key, hoping to Faust that none of the ponies on said list find it.
- Luke, I Am Your Father:
- Nightmare Moon tries to pull it on Rainbow Dash. It fails
- Rainbow tried this once on Scootaloo. You Do Not Want To Know what happened, or so says Rainbow.
- Mare Magnet:
- Dusk Shine. Not only the Mane 5, but also Luna and Trixie fall in love with him.
- Shining Armor when they were younger, to the point where Dusk's worried Shining Armor has seduced Fluttershy (the only member of his harem he actually wants as a girlfriend).
- Marry Them All: Zecora suggests this to Dusk Shine to solve his Love Dodecahedron issues. When he imagines how it would work out, he is immediately frightened beyond belief.
- Marshmallow Hell: Dusk takes one from Rarity in the manga.
- My Beloved Smother: Featherweight's mother, Blossomforth, is very protective of her son. To Marissa Benson levels in fact.
- Mythology Gag: In the manga adaptation, when Dusk first meets Rarity and she fixes his mane, she initially styles it like Twilight's.
- No Fourth Wall: Pinkie Pie and the author often make references to the canon series, as well as commenting on what's going on in the story and advising readers to comment in the comment section below.
- After some complaints from the readers of Pinkie Pie overdoing the fourth wall gag he's changed it somewhat. She's now portrayed as being addicted to breaking the fourth wall and is trying to tone it down. Emphasis on trying.
- Fast forward to Pinkieception Part 3. We finally find out why she does it so much. It's quite a sad reason.
- Noodle Implements: Pinkie tries to put the author on the spot by gathering random junk to resolve the parasprite invasion with, reasoning that she has to succeed no matter what she brings, or the plot will derail.
- Noodle Incident:
- Pinkie's last attempt to invent a new type of party sent Gummy to the court for arson. And got Pinkie trapped in a birdcage. And the ninja mafia was involved somehow.
- The time Rainbow Dash tried to pull Luke, I Am Your Father on Scootaloo. Even she doesn't want to talk about it.
- No-One Could Have Survived That: When soul gems are destroyed, the one who put their soul in the gem dies. Princess Platinum constantly pines for the fact that her best friend Clover's soul gem was shattered many years ago. Actually, Clover's gem, for reasons unexplained, found its way onto Hoity Toity.
- Oh, Crap!: The reaction of Dusk Shine and the audience at the cliffhanger for chapter two: Pinkamena comes out to play.
- Applejack's manga-version reaction when Spike informs her the pony she'd just clobbered was the one sent by Princess Celestia to check on her food.
- Overly Long Gag: This one goes on for about half a page.Pinkie Pie: Those conversations are like, the most interesting talks ever! I mean, there this one time I talked to Derpy about nothing and it lasted for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours...
- Dusk's picnic with Fluttershy in Chapter 27 - 21 pages of awkward silence, entirely represented by "...", repeated over 700 times, which continues for two hours after the two have finished eating.
- Lampshaded by the author twice. First during the chapter, it says "Can you imagine the audio adaptation for this?" and in the author notes he says "If you look closely, one of the ... actually has four dots". Ctrl-F quickly reveals this to be a lie.
- Chapter 34 has Fluttershy trying to get Rainbow Dash to look after the as yet unnamed Tank. The "Please?" "No." exchange goes on for over 20 cycles, before Rainbow Dash tells her to buck off.
- Dusk's picnic with Fluttershy in Chapter 27 - 21 pages of awkward silence, entirely represented by "...", repeated over 700 times, which continues for two hours after the two have finished eating.
- Perverted Drooling: Dusk does this when he first lays eyes on Fluttershy. This predictably scares her.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The manga version removes a lot of the crack elements and narration of the original story, focusing on the more straightforward Harem Comedy.
- Puff of Logic: How Dusk resolves the "pulling tree into the house" situation of the sleepover.
- Red Baron: The Brilliant and Masculine Dusk Shine.
- Reference Overdosed: Just look at all of them below!
- Rule 63: Played with, in that only one character is switched, and the rest of the story focuses on how relationships may alter to accommodate that change.
- Running Gag: It started with a certain scene from Pulp Fiction. Now everytime Dusk says "What?" around Pinkie Pie, his lower regions end up in a world of hurt.
- Sacred First Kiss: Rarity is quite upset that Luna stole Dusk's before she did.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Played with. Meme-asaurus cuts to the next scene after suggestive dialogue between Pinkie and Dusk. Pinkie says that they should not bring up what just happen, so as to make the readers think they went all the way. Nothing actually happened, and according to Dusk, they just appeared in the basement of his library after the scene change.
- Shmuck Bait: Rarity tells Dusk that he has a smudge on his cheek and insists he come closer so she can get it for him. Despite this being a blatant lie, Dusk (like an idiot) steps forward like she says until he's eye level with her, and she promptly closes the distance between them, locking him in a kiss.
- Shout-Out: Has his page.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: In the third chapter for "Look Before You Sleep", when Rarity gets into Dusk's bed with him he tries to talk her out of doing anything drastic, only for her to silence him with a deep kiss. Dusk ends up pondering his feelings for Rarity and her's for him, only to realize that he had been kissing Rarity back for sometime.
- Sixth Ranger: Trixie is now living under Dusk Shine's roof. She is also now both part of Dusk's harem and his pupil (at least she said she hopes to be).
- Speed Sex: Well, sort of. They never actually do the deed, but when Pinkie has Dusk in his bathtub, she... er... hoofs him, and he lasts all of fifteen seconds. She's disappointed, and he's embarrassed.
- Split-Personality Takeover: A variation, in that it's not really a "takeover", it's more of a "defaulting". After Pinkie's heart was kinda-sorta broken by Dusk not asking her to the Grand Galloping Gala, she becomes deeply depressed. So depressed, that her "other" personality, the psychotic Pinkamena, is surprised to find that she's in control of the body for the first time in several years. What does she do? Why, get revenge on Dusk Shine, of course!
- Super-Soldier: King Sombra's attempts to create an army of Alicorn supersoldiers was only partially successful. He only managed to make one, and that one was a baby Cadence.
- Take a Third Option: Fluttershy suggests this to end the gala ticket feud, basically suggesting they ask Celestia for five more tickets.
- "Take That!" Kiss: In the manga during Dusk's first encounter with Nightmare Moon, she surprises him with a deep kiss on the lips after he reveals his identity to her, and she declares that everything that belongs to Celestia, including her student, will be hers.
- Tempting Fate: When Applejack expresses much doubt regarding Rainbow's catapult stunt plan, Rainbow utters the unspeakable, damning words.
- Third Pony Pony: Trixie always refers to herself as such instead of just using "I".
- Troll: Having a colt for a student hasn't made Celestia let up her trolling one bit.
- Troll Fic: Has been accused of this, due to the author's fast-paced writing style and the extreme amounts of Meta in the first chapter. The Author claims that this is simply his writing style.
- After Dusk's date with Fluttershy, a commenter asked if the author was sure he wasn't trolling, He more or less said that he didn't know anymore.
-
Trolling Creator: A month after one of the latest chapters was released, an interlude was added to the story. 90% is merely ellipses. But it doesn't end there. The author's notes hint at a hidden four-period ellipsis thrown into the mix. There's not. - Troperiffic: Due to the very meta tone of the story and having awareness of this page, the author seems to be shooting for this.
- Tsundere:
- The narration goes as far as calling this a lie.
- Applejack is a "sweet" type, being as friendly and generous as canon in her default state, but anything that triggers romantic feelings in her tends to make her get violently defensive, even when ''she'' initiates it.
- Wham Line: Oh, and Word of God confirms this is canon and it's sticking.Luna: Dear Dusk, We're pregnant. (a letter later) It's yours. The foal is yours. We forgot to include that. Sorry. In case thou is wondering, it was during the dream-sex. Left that part out too.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The ending with Fluttershy and the hydra, which was a nice Call-Back to the fact that she’s the Dragonborn.
- Yandere:
- Rarity, although she sticks to just making dire threats with the occasional catfight.
- And evidently, the Pinkamena Personality.
