Sandbox / The Miracleverse

The Miracleverse is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Alternate Universe by StarryOak. In an approach different from the a typical Flash Forward Fic, including the author's other AUs, the fic focuses on the Fan-Created Offspring of several pairings that the author does not like.

In an Equestria that has grown colder and more dismal, the Cutie Map suddenly awakens after years of inactivity, flashing the cutie marks of the Mane Six's children... who don't exactly all get along with each other. They, alongside Discord's daughter Cackle, travel together to investigate the secrets the map holds, and perhaps bring joy back into their world.

Due to a series of hiatuses affecting the author's original chapter plans, the story is written in a blend of character descriptions, prose chapters with themed artwork attached, and summaries of what additional chapters would have entailed. The plot summaries are as follows:

• Pie Family Secrets
• Changeling Secrets
• Coming Out
• Alley Cat Antics
• Stitchwork's Unraveling
• Dusty Dunes + Extras
• Rising Star Tessitura Tune
• The Main Plot

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Tropes:

• Adaptational Gender Identity: Snails, now Glitter Shell, and Big Macintosh, now Orchard Blossom, are now transgender women instead of presumably cisgender stallions.
• Awful Wedded Life: Trenderhoof and Applejack are described as a "sitcom family" relationship, in that Trenderhoof is an "idiot husband" and Applejack is a Wet Blanket Wife. They do allegedly love each other, but spend a lot of time fighting.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Tootsie Flute got with her childhood crush, Truffle Shuffle, because he comforted her when she was dealing with her mothers' divorce.
  • Big Macintosh's relationship with Twilight started because he returned her childhood doll to her when she was suffering massive grief, and she started seeing him more often whenever she needed company.
• Big Bad Wannabe Aquablaze wants to be a real villain like their parents, but they're just an ineffective manipulative jerkass. They even ran away from home to try and engineer their own Freudian Excuse.
• Butch Lesbian: Spitfire and Braeburn's daughter Aferburner is a butchy lesbian cloud seeder who dabbles in machinery, considered very attractive to every sapphic creature in Cloudsdale.
• Camp Gay: Applejack's son Zestar! is a dramatic, flamboyant gay stallion who enjoys makeup and drag.
• Child by Rape:
  • Dr. Stable Hearts had sex with his patient Screwloose, who was lucid at the time but is still his patient of questionable sanity, which resulted in Dusty Dunes. Screwloose is traumatized by the experience and highly protective of Dusty, who fears his father and anybody who looks like him.
  • Downplayed with Maigold Apple, who was conceived while Cheerilee and Big Macintosh were under a Love Potion, which is treated as akin to a "date rape drug" here. This has given Maigold some complicated feelings about romance, and she sometimes feels obligated to council others on theirs.
• Class Clown: Sweet Treat, the daughter of Truffle Shuffle and Tootsie Flute, likes to cheer others up in her class with silly pranks.
• Clone Angst: Peggy is actually one of the last surviving Pinkie clones from "Too Many Pinkie Pies." Twilight killing her "sisters" has left her traumatized, and she desperately tries to avoid looking or acting too much like Pinkie so she can have her own identity.
• Coming-Out Story: One subplot involves two ponies coming out as trans women: Big Mac, who changes her name to Orchard Blossom, and Snails, who becomes Glitter Shell. Glitter Shell's journey goes fairly smoothly, but Orchard has a more difficult time as she's worried about further upsetting her neurotic wife.
• Cool Old Lady: Lily Lighty, a bug-loving, young-at-heart old lady who treats Maigold like her own granddaughter and mentors her in potion-making. This is invoked as she's actually Ocellus in a disguise.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Part of why Saffron Masala was attracted to Zephyr Breeze was because her dad thought he was bad news and she wasn't fully out of her rebellious phase. Of course, her father turned out to be right as Zephyr quit working with Saffron after their whirlwind romance and left her before realizing she was pregnant.
• Dead Sparks: Rainbow Dash is both unsatisfied with Soarin's lack of drive and his "unfulfilling" sex life, which is what drives her to her one-night stand with Zephyr, justifying it to herself as "getting back" at Soarin' for not "fulfilling her needs."
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: As explained in Pipsqueak's bio, Luna doesn't consider the age gap between her and Pipsqueak to be as big a deal as some might due to her missing out on so much of modern times, as the age of consent wasn't as strong an issue a thousand years ago.
• Delicate and Sickly: Miracle is chronically ill, possibly due to her dragon-pony hybrid status, and frequently seen with a runny nose. Her parents tend to shelter and dote on her because of this, despite her longing for adventure.
• Development Gag:
  • Starlight's design is taken from one of her concept art designs.
  • The mane on Luna's older design is inspired by her beta design, Selena.
• Does Not Like Men: Limestone doesn't trust men due to the history of fatherly abandonment in her siblings' lives. She abuses her own husband and insists to her daughters that stallions are evil and will abandon them just like everyone else in their family.
• Domestic Abuse: Limestone broke Zephyr's wings to prevent him from running out on her, and continues to threaten him under the guise of BDSM.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Maigold has called Galaxy Gazer "Pinkadink" since childhood, which the moody colt does not appreciate.
• Enfante Terrible: Harrow Crisp is an "evil little shit" despite her adorable appearance. Only Sonata seems aware of this.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Bellicoso Bash is a bully, she thinks Lionheart is too mean, and disapproves of him stealing money and toys from other kids.
• Emo Teen: Galaxy Gazer, formerly known as Pink Sparkle Apple, is a moody teenage nihilist who refuses to make friends like his mother insists.
• Expy: While some characters have color palettes or other traits taken from other media, other characters are simply pony versions of other characters.
  • Treehugger and Troubleshoes' children, minus Sweet Salvia, are all based off the Lane family in Daria.
  • Diamond Tiara's children are based off the main characters of Heathers. Croquet Mallet is Veronica, right down to the nostalgia for when her classmates were nicer; Charming Chandelier is Heather Chandler, the dramatic Alpha Bitch of the group; Daisy Dukes is Heather Duke, the cruel Beta Bitch; and Mellow Mascara is Heather MacNamara, who goes along with her sisters just to fit in. Stormy Skies also takes inspiration from Martha Dunnstock, while Lionheart is Jason Dean and Croquet's love interest.
  • Imago is based off the titular deformed child in Hideshi Hino's comic Hell Baby, but given a happier ending.
  • Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse are Abyssinian versions of the kittens from The Aristocats.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Cackle is a prankster who enjoys annoying Accordance, who is far more organized and responsible than her older sister and serves as Twilight's correspondent.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Big Macintosh's design has long, feminine hair, and the description mentions that Big Mac relates to Galaxy Gazer exploring his identity and "he wishes his wife would let him figure out who he wants to be without pushing him to be something he might not want to be." This all hints that Big Mac is actually a closeted trans woman who can't explore her identity publicly due to concerns she'd upset Twilight.
• Former Child Star:
  • Tessitura Tune became a famous singer as a filly thanks to her famous mother and stage dad, and grew up playing up a personable image for the spotlight. When she turned eighteen, she partied harder due to the pressure and became more infamous for alcohol and drug abuse.
  • Averted with Baby Blues, who also became famous at a young age, to highlight the difference between her and Tessi. Since Coco allows her more personal time and didn't let her pop star identity get confused with her real self, Baby is much better able to control her image without letting it harm her mental health, and she's in fact quite good at manipulation.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Deconstructed with Discord. Discord is aware he is part of a television show, so when the point of divergence happens to start the AU, he becomes aware he's not being "watched" anymore, meaning he had no obligation to perform his silly gags for a target audience or be bound to any rules of canon whatsoever. He is now able to acknowledge death, sex, and queer identities, and is aware these topics are censored in his usual canon. However, since nobody but him could understand what this meant, he just had to pretend nothing was wrong, distracting himself by messing with Celestia.
• Gentle Giant: Maltster Apple-Pie, Marble's son, is the biggest and fattest child in the Pie family, but also quite delicate and fond of cleaning and cheering up children. He even has a teddy bear cutie mark.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: While Rainbow Dash likes to push her children to succeed, her husband Soarin' is more laid-back and dotes on their daughters. This dissonance extends to their marriage, as Rainbow thinks Soarin' lacks ambition and Soarin' thinks Rainbow pushes him too hard.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Troubleshoes and Treehugger let their children raise themselves due to Treehugger's hippie beliefs and Troubleshoes' concern that his bad luck could affect his children.
• Hearing Voices: Claystone Pie suffers intense psychosis and intrusive thoughts that convince her that everybody else is judging her and admonish her for anything that could be considered a "sin." She once "heard" her mother say something so terrible that she threw a vase at her, scarring Pinkie's throat.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Misty Mizzle's mane covers her eyes, making her look more reclusive. This is good for Rainbow Dash, given Misty has her father's eyes.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Bluebelle's stoner ramblings actually allow her to consider the meta nature of the story she's in, pondering, "What if, like, the world can be changed... like... if I wasn't born, or you, what if we were like, super important and like, not having us around bucks up the universe?" This also serves as foreshadowing given the main catalyst for the Miracleverse is Flurry Heart's stillbirth.
• Hypothetical Casting: Starry has assigned the main characters of the work hypothetical voice actors.
• Isn't It Ironic?: Deliberately done with some of the song-themed artwork depicting the Mane Six's dysfunctional relationships. Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent" is the title of a piece of art about an independent woman settling for a man instead of a tsundere accepting love into her life.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One of Bluebelle's stoner ramblings raises the question of what the world would be like if she and others didn't exist, alluding to her being part of an Alternate Universe Fic.
• Like Father, Like Son: Zestar! is a "gayer, more flamboyant version" of his father Trenderhoof, as he's quite vain and judgmental of others, especially (though not exclusively in Zestar!'s case) when it comes to fashion.
• Like Father, Unlike Son:
  • Pastel Parabola is an Obsessively Organized introverted accountant, which makes it difficult for her to get along with her athletic Wonderbolt parents.
  • Bellicoso Bash isn't a gamer like her father or a performer like her mother; she's a rough-and-tumble bully who's meaner than them both.
  • While his mother is the Princess of Friendship, Galaxy Gazer thinks friendship is meaningless.
• Lonely Together: Moondancer and Prince Blueblood got together largely out of loneliness, with Blueblood being a narcissist who wanted someone to validate that he's generous and Moondancer not having many friends.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Soarin' tries not to question the fact his daughter Misty Mizzle doesn't look much like him, just as much as Rainbow Dash likes to ignore the fact Misty was conceived after an affair with Zephyr Breeze.
• Mama Bear: As per her aggressive personality, Limestone seeks out anybody who hurts her daughter Evenkite with borderline murderous intentions.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The hardworking farmer Apple Bloom is married to the sensitive dancer Tender Taps.
• Mentor in Queerness: Sonata Apple looks up to their Camp Gay cousin Zestar!, who encouraged Sona to embrace their nonbinary identity and that fashion had no gender.
• Misaimed Fandom: In-Universe, Galaxy Gazer misunderstands Neightzche's work to just be about how existence is meaningless, and not the more complex subjects inside, because he thinks it makes him "cool and edgy."
• Morality Pet: Belli is The Bully to almost everyone... except her cousin Miracle, who she treats very gently and will defend with her life.
• My Beloved Smother: Luna dotes on her son Halfpint Moon, keeping him from going too far, too long, or too fast. This has made him a bit cowardly, though he enjoys when his father allows him to "rebel" in small ways by just flying around a bit by himself.
• Mythology Gag: Lily Lightly's design is loosely based on both a pony of the same name from My Little Pony (G3) and Applejack's design in the same generation.
• Neat Freak: Maltster spends a lot of time stressing and cleaning up after his messy cousins, since he can't do any of the more strenuous physical labor.
• One-Night-Stand Pregnancy:
  • Misty Mizzle is the result of Raindow Dash cheating on her husband with Zephyr Breeze in an act of sexual frustration and desperation. However, she pretends the baby is Soarin's.
  • Dr. Stables and Screwloose conceived their child during a brief period of time when Screwloose's condition seemed to be returning. However, she never became sane enough to consent, so her pregnancy caused a huge stir.
  • Zecora met Temple Chant while searching for new ingredients, and after an awkward hookup, they parted ways. She didn't see the need to get back in touch with him when she found out she was pregnant with Pundamilia.
  • Mellow Mascara came from a one-night stand between Diamond Tiara and Pipsqueak "that went nowhere" before the latter was about to join the royal guard.
  • Gilda and Gustave conceived their son Giovanni during a one-night stand while Gilda worked at Gustave's bakery.
  • Braeburn and Marble conceived Maltster during a one-night stand after meeting at the market while Braeburn was on a break from his wife Spitfire. He didn't intend to have a relationship with her, and unfortunately couldn't stay when Marble got pregnant because of his marriage.
• Operation: Jealousy: It's implied the only reason Lyra and Bon Bon got with their respective husbands was to show off to each other after they noticed the other one was talking up a stallion as well. They even rushed their weddings to compete with each other.
• Paparazzi: Zipporwhill and Featherweight's daughter Shutterbug is a freelance paparazza who stalks Tessitura Tune and Baby Blues for hot gossip. Baby Blues curries favor with her while Zestar! loathes her.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Tessi and Zestar! are very close childhood friends, with Zestar! only having her best interests in mind as her manager. Zestar! being gay and Tessi being aro-ace prevents them from being anything more.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Generic Hearts is a gentle therapist who shows compassion to his clients, while his twin brother Bland Hearts is more cynical and judgmental with a tendency towards unhelpful Brutal Honesty.
• Power Dynamics Kink:
  • Starlight is a Chubby Chaser who uses magic to overfeed her partner Sunburst, but she also seems to specifically like being able to control him.
  • One of the reasons Rarity was attracted to adult Spike was because she was allured by the "predator and prey" angle of dating a dragon, comparing it to romance novels about dating marewolves and bat-ponies.
• Questionable Consent:
  • Rarity and Spike's Age-Gap Romance is highly controversial in-universe due to Rarity knowing Spike as a child and hooking up with him on his twenty-first birthday while drunk. Applejack accuses her of grooming him, which damages their friendship for quite some time, and Twilight is also quite unnerved when she finds out.
  • Legally, Stable Hearts' relationship with Screwloose isn't rape because Screwloose was lucid enough to be in control of her actions. Despite that, it's still a huge enough breach of ethics to get him stripped of his medical license.
• The Quiet One: Misty doesn't talk much, not even realizing foals were supposed to talk until she was about four.
• Race Fetish: Implied. One reason Zephyr was attracted to Saffron Masala was because she was "exotic," which the author acknowledges is gross on his part.
• Related in the Adaptation: Starry headcanons Twilight and Trixie as half-siblings.
• Safe, Sane, and Consensual: Averted with Zephyr and Limestone. Limestone is into damaging Zephyr's wings in the bedroom, and took advantage of a defective magical wing restraint that made it impossible for Zephyr to remove, as only Limestone saying the safe word would make them come off. This is when their relationship fully escalates from BDSM to Domestic Abuse as Zephyr is now unable to fly.
• Shadow Archetype: Baby Blues embraces all the aspects of show business that make Tessitura Tune uncomfortable, and tries to rope Tessi into a romantic narrative that she doesn't like.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Prince Blueblood gives Moondancer a makeover to make her look like a beautiful princess. She does look more put-together, but isn't necessarily any happier.
• Shout-Out:
  • Tessitura Tune's color palette is taken from Studio Killers' "Jenny" music video.
  • Angelica, Evenkite, and Pegmatite's names and color palettes are taken from the Schuyler sisters as depicted in Hamilton.
  • Sonata Apple and Harrow Crisp have their color palettes, and aspects of their personality, taken from Frisk and Chara from Undertale, respectively.
  • Adult Dusty Dunes resembles L from Death Note.
• Sibling Rivalry:
  • Turquoise Tempo and Hazelnut Hushup are step-siblings (though their mothers are divorced and they were born under their respective new husbands) who constantly bicker with each other. Both try to curry favor with their shared half-sister Tootsie Flute in an effort to be the favorite little sibling.
  • Trixie's daughters love to tease and compete with one another, especially as they're all different pony races and have different abilities to show off.
• Split Personality: Starry interprets Fluttershy's "assertive side" as a protective alter only known as New Fluttershy. In the Miracleverse, Fluttershy ends up with Iron Will, but he isn't aware the pony he really likes is New Fluttershy. Bluebelle is aware of this and calls New Fluttershy "Other Mom."
• Stage Mom: Scootaloo is a professional coach who pushes her daughter, Stormy Skies, to be a talented flier, despite Stormy not being interested in such things. This is because Scootaloo is worried her daughter may be unable to fly like she was.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • Twilight tries very hard to act like she's happy with her family and swears her son will have a happy life going forward, but she's extremely stressed and traumatized as a result of the Crystal Empire incident, as much as she refuses to talk about it and insists she's fine.
• The Stoner: The perpetually-high Bashful Bluebelle takes after Treehugger more than her parents, and even has a special talent in baking with weed.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Misty Mizzle's biography insists she is "absolutely, completely, totally Soarin's foal" and that nothing happened when she went to vent her frustrations at Fluttershy's place.
  If someone had been there to comfort and give her what she was missing in her relationship, which never happened, he left after comforting her, which would have been just fine with Rainbow. It, if it happened, which it didn't, she would prefer to have it be a secret strictly between them.
  • Lyra and Bon Bon's respective biographies insist they are totally over each other and that the appearance of each other's colors in their palettes is totally a coincidence.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Marble Pie's story is that she always yearned for a storybook romance, and went for a one-night stand with Braeburn because she could picture a whole idyllic life with him. Unfortunately, she ended up pregnant and learned Braeburn was already married, though she hopes Braeburn may come back for her and Maltster someday.
• Tragic Stillbirth: Flurry Heart was born dead in this AU, which depressed the entire Crystal Empire so badly, it shattered the Crystal Heart and plunged the empire into eternal winter. Cadence and Shining Armor were lost in the storm, and despite surviving, Cadence was corrupted by her grief into a perpetually-mourning creature known as "Decadence."
• Trans Tribulations: Cackle suffers severe gender dysphoria, which gives her a negative and ugly self-image. This is made worse by her "male" dolphin traits, which give her intense sexual feelings that she worries will make her a predator.
• Trauma Button: Peggy becomes extremely anxious around paint and spiral magic. This is because the other Pinkie clones were killed via Twilight's spiral-shaped spell while watching paint dry.
• Unfortunate Names: Generic Hearts and Bland Hearts both dislike their first names, and Generic prefers to go by "Gene."
• Weight Woe: Stormy Skies is a chubby filly, and her mother wants her to lose weight as she suspects that's keeping her from flying. Unfortunately this just makes Stormy more stressed, so she eats more and gains more weight.
• Whale Egg: Because Accordance is half-draconequus, her alicorn mother Celestia laid her as an egg rather than the mammalian birth typical of most ponies. Discord finds this delightfully unconventional.
• Wham Episode: Stitchwork Shine's biography serves as The Reveal for the diverging point of the Miracleverse, as it finally explains how Cadence and Shining Armor's child being stillborn caused the Crystal Empire to freeze over and Cadence and Shining Armor togo missing, which explains why so many characters seem to be dealing with emotional trauma.
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode: One series of drawings depicts the characters' fears, as illustrated by the characters themselves. Peggy suffers a fear of spiral magic, Dusty Dunes is afraid of his father, Zestar! is afraid of Tessitura overdosing, Tessitura is afraid of Baby Blues sexually assaulting her, Cackle has terrifying gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia, Bellicosa is afraid of Miracle dying, and Miracle herself is afraid of dying and breaking her loved ones' hearts.
• Working with the Ex: Chiffon Swirl (the former Mrs. Cake) is divorced from Carrot Cake, but still runs the bakery with him for convenience's sake.

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