As FluffTV went the way of most cable programming, which is to say complete shit designed to appeal to anyone who would die without switching to internet-only and subscription services, the common man filled the void.
Touyube created new two Fluffy interest categories, one for abuse that was required one to verify their age, stopping no child ever but being far less financially rewarding without a sponsor, and the general content which was poorly moderated. Hugboxers at heart who had no patience or means to care for a Fluffy watched videos on rescues, biographies, and just cute videos of their lives. Abusers looked for new ideas or indulged in the vice without fear of being caught by family who did not share their concern. Fluffies themselves were exposed to both, and many a Talkie Foal watching with a tablet was traumatized by autoplaying from a baby with a ball to a baby turned into a ball.
But the most popular webseries, at least if averaging both Fluffy and human opinion, is the most like the Hasis original cartoon that sparked development of Fluffies in the first place. Though originally a series of vignettes the creator began utilizing characters, organically developing a setting with multiple concurrent stories that touched on each other. Though the same cast of Fluffies was used for all the shows it was made clear via costuming, verbal ticks, and emphasis of character names that the shows were difficult to confuse with each other, and obvious use of Pepperās Ghost effects allowed characters from the same Fluffy actor to interact. The show had no merchandise or patrons, but third parties filled the void: breeders adapted to selling Fluffies in the same colors, better breeders teaching them to act somewhat like characters in the show, and the cleverest of all buying the costume play accessories and outfits sold by others on Ayytsy and including them at a significant markup. Thanks to the use of several Fluffies of less pleasing colors on the show, most significantly a dingy brown Mare in āaction girlā roles, many previously regarded as Poopie Fluffies were suddenly in actual demand for the first time, but only so long as their colors were exact matches.
Although the success of the series garnered plenty of attention those wishing to cover the history could only report on the fan response, since the creator was unknown. Videos were uploaded by the account ButteredAndBemoaned, and publicly it was never clear where they were filmed or uploaded. The show was entirely done with Fluffies, with nothing identifiable ever seen.
Chris Jacobson had no reason to reveal himself as the creator, quite the opposite. If anyone ever found out his cast were not highly trained Fluffies it could spell his end; almost everyone on the planet likely had an opinion on what they would do if they had access to the tech and knowledge used to create Fluffies, and Hasbio was far from above deploying its āspecial servicesā to eradicate all reminders of that era.
Two things about Chris enabled his success. The first, being an obsessive miniature hobbyist who was used to elaborate painting of homemade scenes on a schedule. The other, his past as the head of the Hasbio research division in Shepperton, England. The entire town was essentially the above-ground cover for the large laboratory complex where disease research was once conducted on lab animals in the 60ās before being purchased from the UK government in the late 70ās. He was a clever man who never revealed his entire hand, so Hasbio saw just a simpleton who was content to manage the time of subordinates and settle disputes then blow his personal budget on unpainted toys, unaware he saved a copy of every piece of research he had access to with dreams of creating small living army men to play with one say. He realized the impracticality of the task early on and later was put off the idea when shown the actual Sgt. Shmoe soldiers at a conference, but continued to educate himself regardless
He was little thought of in the aftermath of the great fire since most of his team perished in the blaze, documentation of the site was entirely destroyed successfully, and he presented as a buffoon who was scared of the politicians while stumbling badly over prepared remarks (not so much a masterful bout of acting as just severe social anxiety and fear of confrontation). He had been shifted to a paper pushing role in Dublin by the time of Cleveland. He was fired for being caught on camera three days straight playing on his phone and leaving early. He was always seen treating Fluffies as one would an aggressive teen on the tubes, avoiding contact and mumbling apologies as the response to all interaction; by all accounts he was just a short, sad little balding man. He sold much of his painted miniature armies and invested into the first Crypto Communes, securing enough recurring income to become mostly a shut-in.
There was debate when āFluffy Pony Adventuresā aired about how the actors were coordinated. Some thought they were very realistic CG, likely due to the filter added to increase saturation slightly. Others that they were corpses being puppeted. Rare was the suggestion they were a new kind of Fluffy. Rarer still was the suggestion that they had been created new using the lost technology and programming source code used to create the first Fluffies. Nobody with means or determination cared.
So, Iām going to stop writing in the third person now, since its kind of overindulging in the omniscient third person but also kind of presenting as if its in-universe and feels a bit like someone jerking off through broad exposition. (1) Its not as fun as I thought it would be. Iāve never kept a diary before, Iām not even sure who Iām writing to. Future me? Archeologists? I guess Iāll write it to itself. My story, about me. I think I did something like this in year 5 in school.
So today was pretty standard despite needing all the family on set to play extras, just filming some filler that was written to slow down the pacing a bit after the big reveal of Queen Magmalda freezing her son Cadogen in a giant crystal rather than actually make the choice to kill him or lose to the heroes. I know itāll be seen as a cop-out, which is the point. Its not about rescuing him now, his job in the story as the living thermal exhaust port torpedo and the red herring chosen one is done. The characters donāt know that though, so I get some villain-only episodes with dissent in the ranks as the win button dude is just right there in the evil castle lobby behind the receptionist and Magmalda goes a bit crazy over basically removing her son from existence in order to live forever. The heroes have some episodes where they just suck and bad guys keep winning until they get their shit together, but then they get cuckolded out of the big fight when Magmalda decides to shut everything down herself by defeating her own army and freeing her son. He goes back to the heroes basically without a legacy and replaces his mother as the main villain in a different series, Magmalda is going to keep being awesome by conquering hell as an antivillain using the army that she killed and will agree to let a future hero out so he can get his redemption as a robot ghost. Its gonna be great. I just hope I donāt get sidetracked with all these little stories that the main plot is just an afterthought, I do that a lot and end up with all this stuff I want to do but have to force myself to come back to when it gets hard. (2)
For condition control reasons I film in the basement, which is massive since my grandad had it as an air raid shelter for him and the neighbors in the second world war. I cleared everything out and wound up with a fairly large set, plus a big room for props and a lift that used to be used to load up and down food as the Fluffy alternative to the stairs. Since I had removed a lot of the mental safeguards put in place to keep Fluffies so dumb they could be controlled by the common man and used a stuffed toy to show them the dangers of screwing around they know to be careful, but sadly I lost little Armand early on when he tried to impress Katie by riding the top of it and falling. Still they were all basically just out of Foalhood then, and three years without another casualty is great. I made another clone of him, Armando, to keep show continuity.
One perk of having far more intelligent Fluffies with the fantasy and archetype modes actually complete is just being able to find inspiration in their antics. They stay in character like method actors instead of playing tag and stacking blocks, they try on other roles, regress to past characters and explore similarities and grudges, and can get fairly Shakespearian at times. Or at least deep lore childrens cartoon anyway.
Having just come off the shouting match scene between Bouto, the son of Cadogen, and the yellow knight Illutria I gave them all a break. It was a tough scene since Sammy and Cherry are inseparable twins pretending to be an uncle and niece that hate each other, and the next scene was going to be VERY complicated. Magmalda would be flexing on all the other assembled villains by unfreezing her sonās hand to take his hoof gauntlet and slap the evil wizard Auckle with it to show heās too much of a chickenshit to duel her openly. Since nineteen of the twenty five villains in the scene were played by just Margaret, Kimmie, Oswald, and Harry it was going to take a LOT of takes. Things go faster once I have enough characters on the Pepperās Ghost effect that they are having conversations with themselves, but the timing and one-sided conversations were hard even for my tiny roleplay geniuses. In particular the actual slap since Magmalda and Auckle are both played by Kimmie, requiring foreshortening tricks.
As I was reviewing the footage one of my actors plopped down across my foot and said āDis would make a bettew comic dan a wowdie stowy.ā (3)
Little 4th wall breaking Pammy is the bit of writing magic in the process, sourced from some unlabeled genetic samples I snagged from the desk of the Wicca guy breeding the control variable betas that quit when he found out that the testing generation he worked on was going to be dissected after the conference, the infamous one when the big assortment of Fluffies escaped. Iāve always wondered if he started the fire since they never found any of his Fluffies.
But back to Pammy, most of the time I donāt even bother scripting her, she just naturally tells jokes directly to the audience, sometimes towards the camera but other times she delivers perfect lines looking in a random direction in the room and I have to redo the take with her saying it again. It never sounds as natural as the first time, which I think she does on purpose, but given sheās always in the top three most popular characters each season she can be a little prima donna if she wants. Sometimes the lines donāt make sense, either because she goes so meta sheās talking to an audience watching the audience or just seems to he saying nonsense like she did today.
Once she said something great about how the audience shouldnāt get confused at her yellow mane due to a yellow coat on Armand being how I differentiate between two characters he was playing in the same scene. It was off to the right of me, where I had a camera set up for the heroes to see the villain reveal since they get so in character they will genuinely react perfectly in-character and save me time on takes, but when I checked back through the dailies I saw she was speaking towards a blank spot of the floor, even giving it an eyeroll. Other times she tells a great joke to the 4th wall as if its the character sheās supposed to be talking to but then turns around to wink at a door on the backdrop like thatās where the camera was.
Unfortunately thereās no way to disguise her as more than one character because she only really acts like herself, but some fans in the comments made recurring fanfic lore out of it that every character she plays is a āComedy Fluffyā thatās just a standard variant alongside Earthies, Pegasi, Alicorns, and Unicorns. I made it canon as āKomos Poniesā, Greek for revelry and one of the roots of the word comedy. Of course the little smartass made a recurring gag where she corrects other characters using the term by saying her people are āComa Poniesā, āCaramel Poniesā, and āCousins Of Tragedy Poniesā and other shit like that even if she isnāt supposed to be in the scene or is even wearing a costume. It wore on my patience after the second time, but the online meme screencaps of her that make up a lot of the image search results for the show make it seem Iām the only one. Ronnie, you brilliant man-witch, wherever you ended up I hope youāre happy because your creation is entertaining the world.
The last bit of the episode left to film is the hardest. The whole plot is a victory banquet where the villains that normally are out on their own in the wilderness with lackeys are just having to sit next to each other and behave in the sophistication of the castle, which devolves into these great monologues where everyone gets called out on all their shit and some short duels happrn, the episode ending in Magmalda just laughing as they all turn on her and she reminds them sheās a living god in a faction where might makes right, and she could always teleport them in, lock the doors, and unfreeze her son if she got sick of them. Auckle gives her shit, she nabs the gauntlet and slaps him, he stays down and stutters trying to say something, she goes back up the castle stairs humming her sonās lullaby, credits roll on a slow piano instrumental of that same slow lullaby.
The issue isnāt Kimmie, she just eats up scripts that indulge in her villainy and Auckle doesnāt have dialogue during this part to confuse her. The problem is just having that many Fluffies on screen all at once as the assembled mooks and redshirts, listening and reacting without calling attention to themselves. It would take longer to get it perfect by shooting each scene individually, so I just need patience. The problem is my little method actors react as smart Fluffies do, by shouting insults or cowering. Works well throughout the rest of the episode, but I need stunned silence here, like you can hear a pin drop.
Of course the one take that went well was ruined when āCastle Guard+Axe #3ā Margaretās face suddenly raised right in front of the camera, giving a good view right up her out of focus nostril. āDis am goin on too wong, it just supposā to be a showt stowy!ā Somewhere to my right Pammy said āDat am Pammyās wine.ā (4)
I called a break. Pammy and Margaret were having an animated discussion by themselves while the rest of the cast played around, some practicing their lines or acting out scenarios. Some directors would try to wrangle the cats, but I mostly keep an eye on them for future story ideas and rely on the cameras still rolling to get anything good. John wandered onto the set even though his character was supposed to be stuck inside the magic crystal right now. After a short bit of flirting with his mate Alice, who was currently playing an unspeaking role as an evil knight, the pair managed to knock over the castle tower. I waved off their sorries and kept sipping my coffee, we were done with the castle exterior and the fall was caught on camera so I could use it at the climax when the queen sacrifices her magic to save him.
Since they were getting riled up I decided to call it a day and let the little players have their zoomies upstairs. If I started early tomorrow I could have the scene by 10, and finish editing on Sunday, still nine days ahead of schedule.
Overall a successful day.