#dustcatcher

The night arrives; the time is near; My Dreamy has a test: His unit now must fly from here Upon a daunting quest.

They will return, this Nightguard crew, By early dawn—and when they do, My lovely darling Snoozy-poo Will come home to our nest.

Remove royal insignia; Hang up the royal crest. My Dreamy's home, and brings me a New quilt so we can rest.

😘🍅

😘💔

🍵👉

👀😴

😱😴

😓😴

On our first date, he touched me and passed out.

So, I took him back to Inq's house to let him sleep.

Shifter: "I miss my Snoozy-Poo."

Me: "No, no, not that kind of angst."

Shifter: "Snoooooozy-Poooo..." ;n;

Me: "This is a disaster."

Disaster: "No, this is a Disaster."

Shifter: "Hello, but you are not my Beloved Snoozy-Poo." ;n;

Me: "GFDI."

Shifter: "I want my Snoozy-Poo pls."

Me: "Okay, look."

Shifter: "Yes?"

Me: "You were supposed to flirt with Disaster. You were supposed to buy or make her a cookbook as a recipe for Disaster. When you went to visit her, you would be on the road to Disaster. She lives in a Disaster area. She is a walking Disaster. She is a Disaster Bi. She has few social inhibitions because she is an unmitigated Disaster. She refuses to have children herself because she does not want to be a Disaster of epic proportions."

Shifter: "..."

Disaster: "..."

Me: "..."

Shifter: "Yes, but consider: Snoozy-Poo."

Disaster: "I mean, he has a point. That guy's hot."

Shifter: ;w;

Me: "...The ship would be called Dustaster."

Shifter: "Yes, but consider: Snoozy-Poo."

Me: *unintelligible cabbage noises*

Disaster: "What."

Me: *irascible Swedish Chef noises!*

Shifter: O.O

Me: *goes to pay bills*

Shifter: "So can I have my Snoozy-Poo?"

Me: "Maybe."

Lobelia: *charges down the stairs shapeshifted into the crackship child of Dust and Snoozy-Poo because doing that to new customers is her special talent and usually results in disaster*

Disaster: "Yeaaah. ...It did tho." o.o

But destroying all of Shifter's friendships and permanently separating him from the love of his life, Dream Catcher, was the only non-reboot way I could think of at the time to force Shifter and Chirp to move to Ponyville, stay there, and never return to Roan Hills; if there was any hope at all of things going back to normal, Shifter would have found a way to return and live with his Precious Precious Snoozy-Poo and my blog would stagnate again. It also gave him a reason, at the time, to never pursue romantic entanglements ever again.

No more romance!

...And then there was a Disaster and I was like "Yes, oh yes, fluffy snuggly-wuggly floofy pegasus cuddles passed out in bed like cats under cozy blankets, oh I have missed this, look at them, they are warm and cozy, oh they are asleep, don't wake them." ;w;

Anyway, the reason I did it, in theory, was to preserve continuity for the other three blogs in case someone (and by "someone" I mean Lucid) ever returned; Night Spinner and Inquiry had a happy ending and Dust was still involved in Night Spinner's story, so in 2020 rebooting still wasn't an option.

If there was no hope whatsoever of any of them returning to Tumblr, or if they had returned but decided to reboot their blogs, I'd have just done a straight-up reboot where Shifter and Chirp had ended up in Ponyville in the first place and never met any of them.

This would then provide options for fresh interactions with those also-rebooted characters later, but I'm not going to tie my blog's fate to theirs the way I did previously.

Interblog friendship? Sure, certainly.

Interblog shipping? Hard nope, I can't do that again because I can't do this again because it hurts.

It really hurts.

And the location of Shifter's home, shop, etc. is Ponyville with the option to visit other locations if necessary because a big part of this mess was being stuck in Roan Hills while most every other blog is in Ponyville or Canterlot.

So, Ponyville it is, and love interests will not be dependent on other people.

I'm starting to think maybe if DC and Inq get rebooted (as rumored might happen) and thus had never met Dust/Shifter (allowing me to reboot instead of writing angst), I think it might be a relief in some ways, because I don't know if I want to imagine what might happen if DC from the timeline where this stuff went down found Dust's shop in Ponyville.

Because in that timeline, I think DC might feel utterly betrayed by this monster, while Shifter's last memory of the real, non-imaginary DC was being attacked by him as he snarled angrily, teeth bared, eyes full of rage.

Starcrossed lovers, victims of circumstance and a failure to communicate.

Maybe they'd argue, maybe they'd fight, maybe they'd just look at each other with regret, maybe they might even forgive one another, I don't know.

Maybe Dust would reveal what he actually looks like—the immense* royal changeling DC disabled at the changeling prison—or maybe Dust would pull the "No Trespassers" sign out from behind his front counter and set it on the counter and wait for his ex to leave.

Maybe he'd close the shop early and they'd just... talk.

I don't know. I'm afraid to know.

*I say "immense" because I've been working out a size chart with Doodle and realized that Shifter's true form may actually be taller than DC. Seriously, he's just... super-tall.

“You mean ‘sweet potato.’“