tiggiger

Surprise, everyone! Coach is The Doctor's next life!

This was the original plan from the very start of when I made Coach. Look, here's some proof, the plush I had commissioned of him has a cutie mark!

For those who don't know who (Pony) Coach is, you can read a bunch of asks sent to him here and get to know him, and for those who do know him you can re-read with context:

[Coach at The-Character-Lounge]

Now, I know I've moved on and made Coach a human and his own character for my current main project, My Magic Grandpa, but that was because I loved him as a character so much that I couldn't just end him after Discord Whooves.

He and his Granddaughter Suzie have paranormal fantasy adventures in the 90s starting in Oregon. You can read the comic which has been updating for 4 years here: http://www.mymagicgrandpa.com OR http://www.mymagicgrandpa.net for better phone viewing.

If you want more Doctor Whooves content from me, consider following the youtube series "Doctor Whooves and Assistant", where I am the head writer and voice actor for Derpy. It is still active and hopefully will be for quite some time.

I also want people to know about three more of my original projects,”Bedeviled Dotty” ( @bedeviled-dotty), “Once Upon a Calamity” ( @nightmaretales) and “WTF? I’m a Magical Girl’s Familiar?!” (@magicalgirlsfamiliar) Two of which I want to start updating in 2024 and one that's been updating for a few years now.

OUAC has been around for a very long time, it’s a collection of familiar but twisted fairy tales and it has been on hiatus for years because of my other projects taking priority. I'm excited to be bringing it back.

WTF?MGF meanwhile is an adult dark comedy magical girl comic combined with an apocalyptic outbreak scenario. Its pilot will launch in January of 2024 and the comic will begin properly in 2025.

“Bedeviled Dotty” has been going for a few years now, and is a story about a magical anthro rabbit who makes a deal with a kitsune in order to obtain the love of her professor.

I highly encourage people to check them out!

Now about The Doctor version of Coach! When he first regenerated, he was ecstatic to have a small nose!

Not only that but he had a new appreciation for life and took on a life to the fullest attitude. He also cast away the identity of 'The Doctor', letting himself become his own as 'Coach' because he considers himself a referee to the universe and a sort of life coach to whoever he encounters. (Those that can stand him of course) He loves interacting with others, but he can be impatient and snippy at times and quite pushy without meaning to. He also has a hard time reading others' emotions, and can only think in context of how he would feel. This is because in this life he has something akin to ASD that he's unaware of, and it's a huge challenge for him because of how much he wants to help and entertain others.

He likes to use sports words and phrases in his vocabulary, which would be his quirk. He also collects sports equipment and uses them for experiments and inventions, though he doesn't really like sports themselves.

One of the last things Derpy said to him before she died was that she had no regrets, and neither should he. So in his next life, as Coach, he took this very seriously and is always moving forward with no regrets. This can make him seem heartless at times because of how easily he leaves things behind, but he always needs to be on the move and needs to change things up because he's teaming with chaos magic.

That's right, the chaos energy stayed with him, but it manifested in a more controllable form because he became a unicorn. He can't use normal unicorn spells, a lot of his magic has a mind of its own. It will often do as asked, but it will do it in random ways. 'Open a locked door' for example could mean unlocking the door, or turning the door into popcorn. One of his first magic mishaps was transmogrifying his sonic screwdriver into a golf club. It still functions the same, just has a different shape now.

Coach spent about 60 years exploring on his own and taking on temporary companions that he'd keep a distance from so chances of anything bad happening to them would be less. But he eventually longs to see his Grandaughter, Tootsie Flute, and wants to take her on adventures with him, feeling like it would be a good do-over from the old Doctor's life. He fondly calls her Suzie because of reminiscing about the memories of Susan from the 1st Doctor days. While Suzie is often exasperated with him, she is also fascinated with him and the things he shows her. She has to keep their adventures a secret though, because Coach is scared to face his old family again and disappoint them. He doesn't want to see them without being able to understand them any more, it would break his hearts.

In order to take Suzie on adventures with him, they find a rogue changeling to replace her at home.

Speaking of changelings, he keeps in contact with [Tantamount Doctor], who has since started his own hive and is now a Royal. He gets much adored offerings of cheese from Coach.

The Doctor also never really felt like there was a right time to approach The Master’s daughter, Eighth Note. He kept feeling like it would ruin her otherwise good life to introduce her to time and space like that. She grew up to be a nurse in a maternity ward, her beautiful voice soothing babies as she would sing to them. Perhaps she has a little hypnotic influence from her father?

But Coach meanwhile with his no regrets attitude charged right in to take her on as a temporary companion to show her the ropes of being a Time Lord and having a TARDIS of her own. Needless to say, she’s trouble for Coach, as she can be a huge tease and she enjoys flustering the poor guy who just doesn’t want the Master to come back from the grave to kill him. It’s all in good fun for her and never serious, though, so nothing of an intimate nature really happens between them.

Finally, whenever Coach regenerated which wouldn't be for a long time, it would be because the chaos magic would become too unstable and the only way he can stay alive is to regenerate into a draconequus. Which gives us -drumroll-

Pandemonium!

Pandemonium is on the chaotic good alignment and he finds a way to bring back Gallopfrey and allow the true pony Doctor and Master to exist. He playfully antagonizes them and tries to keep them on a good path as best he can.

And that's pretty much how the whole thing ends!

When I started Discord Whooves, I was in a pretty dark place. I was bitter, angry, feeling like I had to fill peoples' expectations without really having anything special of my own. Discord Whooves started as a vent blog because A. The Brony fandom's constant pressure on me as a well known voice actor for Derpy, which made me bitter about her, B. Because I was upset I was getting known more for my voice than my main talent, drawing, on top of feeling dysphoric about my feminine voice, and C. The expectations that were on me reflected on how I acted, and I wanted to do something dark without my old name attached to it to prove I could do something interesting besides PG rated radio plays. I gained a lot more popularity than I thought I ever would, and had so much support, and as JitterbugJive I got to be myself without any expectations. It helped me come out eventually not only as BaldDumboRat, but as a transgender male.

Popularity sadly got to my head, it caused a lot of stress and a lot of outbursts and when I started my mod blog I was a very calm person who brushed things off. But more and more people started to pick fights with me and I felt the need to defend myself. This was also during a time I made another vent blog that was for dealing with the abuse I'd been through in the past, so I was facing a lot of demons at the time and could be triggered easily.

And then I had my bi-polar manic episode that made me literally insane for months, which threw me in to a year long depression that destroyed my art for a good while (It looked really really awful during that time, a lot of people noticed it) but the good thing about it was that it got me in touch with a therapist and got me diagnosed not only bi-polar 1 but PTSD, which was a shock to me but it made a lot of sense. I got a PTSD service dog, anxiety medication, bi-polar medication, and while the year of depression sucked I slowly got to pull myself back together and reflect on who I'd been. With anxiety meds I wasn't getting as angry any more, and therapy was helping me properly cope with the past and with the popularity issues. I wanted to be a better person, and I became one.

I even decided to take on a career path where I could help other people like me and like Discord Doctor, becoming a peer wellness specialist to help those experiencing mental illness and addiction. I use my own experiences to connect with them, give them hope, and show them they are not alone and there are people who do understand what they're going through who will help them. The training I went through ended up changing a lot of aspects of how Discord Whooves was treated moving forward, giving him a more realistic journey and showing people a very true message of hope and recovery. And the only reason I'm where I am now is because of experiencing that first psychotic episode that made me reach out for help.

I had two psychotic episodes in the span of Discord Whooves’ run, and they gave me a first hand experience of what it’s like to completely lose control of your own actions. I hurt people, I caused a lot of damage, and I had to face the consequences of those actions. And because of this, I had personal knowledge of what it’s like to come out of such a horrible state, and all the guilt and fear that comes with it. The Doctor’s journey suddenly became so much more personal to me, because I’d been there. And his journey of recovery is to show that despite everything, there’s still hope. Recovery is possible.

Something else my mania did was lead me to the idea of My Magic Grandpa, because my head came up with so many crazy ideas that I wanted to use and I was looking for a lot of inspiration during my depression that it all started coming together. And thus Coach and Suzie evolved into humans in their own story, because I didn't entirely want Discord Whooves to end where Coach and Suzie only just begins. And now they can continue on in their own way, in my own way, and I can let go of a blog about depression and anger and instead make a story about growth and inspiration.

In a way, it's like I regenerated with The Doctor, and I hope people can appreciate that and continue to support me.

I want to thank all the people who have worked with me on this project, be it for crossover, to contribute guest art, to Warden and Lauren and a handful of other people who helped me write the story and brought fantastic characters into it. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you, and the story would be in a much worse place now if it weren’t for everyone’s help.

Thank you all for staying with me on this 12 year journey. Looking back, I've made some dumb mistakes, but I learned a lot from them and your dedication helped me stick to my guns and end my first large scale project! It hit some bumps but dammit I made it happen and I am so happy I did! Now I hope people will check out my other projects that were linked above. I will still produce pony content on @the-character-lounge on occasion when I have the time and motivation.

I want to continue to bring everyone compelling stories that will tug at their emotions, and I don't plan on disappearing. So if you want to continue this journey with me, to see what Coach and Suzie have evolved into, please give my other works a follow!