YMMV / Story of the Blanks

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The game doesn't explain much, leaving people to interpret the events of the storyline.
  • After the episode "The Cutie Pox" came out, some players liked to interpret the town's murder of Ruby as a misunderstood Mercy Kill rather than just killing anything different from them, although the game was made long before the episode aired.
• Awesome Music: All of the music used in the game (of which there is a surprising amount), but especially the theme used for Sunny Town, "And So I Mourn For My Dear Ones".
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Grayhoof seems to be liked by fans of the game and he has received some fanart.
  • Nightmare!Apple Bloom also gets a fair amount of fan art.
  • Mitta, too.
• Fanon:
  • Story of the Blanks was released a few months before the episode "The Cutie Pox" aired. Once that episode aired, however, fans incorporated the canon story into the fan-game's universe. The disease is a pretty good explanation for why the ponies of Sunny Town act the way they do about Cutie Marks.
  • Since Sunny Town's villagers are all earth ponies, it is popular to assume that they also consider unicorns and pegasi unnatural in addition to cutie marks. No freaks!
  • Gray Hoof being Ruby's father, and the pony who killed her, because they both have grey coats.
    • Mitta being Ruby's mother or older sister, either for the same reason as the above interpretation and/or the fact she's the only one of the villagers who regrets not protecting Ruby.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The ponies in Sunny Town killed one of their own fillies because she got her Cutie Mark.^note  The game never states outright or implies that Ruby was ever a native resident of Sunny Town. In fact, it is just as likely that she wandered in just like Apple Bloom did, and just happened to get her cutie mark while there. "The Cutie Pox" gave us the eponymous disease that causes ponies to get multiple Cutie Marks, forced to perform whatever talent the marks represent against their will, and make others run in terror of being infected. Now replay the game with these in mind.
  • Not to mention the fact that one of the ponies in "The Cutie Pox" said something similar to a line from the game...
  Lily: (about Applebloom) She's cursed!
  Three Leaf: (about Ruby) The curse had befallen her this very night. She had the Mark! She had to go!
  • Another thing to consider: Who is the character you play as in Story of the Blanks? Apple Bloom, who happens to be the starring pony in "The Cutie Pox".
  • Applebloom wanders all by herself into a scary, dark forest in season 4 episode "Somepony to Watch Over Me". She doesn't encounter zombies and is instead confronted by a chimera, however... which is rather happy about killing and eating Applebloom.
  • The Season 5 opener also concerns a creepy town full of seemingly happy ponies who think cutie marks are bad. Plus side: they were not cursed, undead zombie monsters. Minus side: everything else.
  • Six years later to Season 6 gives us 28 Pranks Later which features zombie ponies as a main part of the story. Granted they are only a very tame, family-friendly variety, they're still zombie ponies all the same.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "Hilarious" may not be quite the right word considering the creepiness, but Spike's comment at the start of Bridle Gossip:
  Spike: Is it... ZOMBIES!?
  Twilight: Uh, not very likely.
  Spike: Not likely, but... possible?
  • Barring some aesthetic qualities, the Changelings resemble the Nightmares in several manners.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The biggest complaint about this game; even favorable comments frequently comment on its (lack of) length. If you know what you're doing and don't dawdle, you can beat it in about ten minutes.
• It Was His Sled: Most fanworks based on this don't even try to hide that Sunny Town is composed of Nightmares, that Pony you've been chasing is named Ruby and she's dead, or that Apple Bloom becomes one of the Nightmares if you fail to escape.
• Moral Event Horizon: The whole town crosses it for murdering Ruby, and possibly other ponies beforehand. After all, they got cursed for it and are the enemies of the game because of it.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page here.
• That One Boss: Starlet. Admittedly she'd be less infuriating if the player didn't have to watch the haunted town cutscenes and walk all the way back to her just to try again.
• The Woobie:
  • Ruby, who is forced to spend eternity with the ones who murdered her. Mitta qualifies, having had the choice to protect Ruby but chose not to, and is thus forced to serve in the punishment as well.
  • Let's not forget poor Apple Bloom herself. Poor girl had to endure some serious horrors, despite being but a wee filly.
  • Heck, the townsponies could qualify as well, depending on how you view them. Nopony has their cutie mark, normally viewed as a natural and expected occurrence in ponies. The entire town has grown to see marks as a bad thing, so almost no one has discovered their "special talent" for fear of being killed.