The starting story of The Weedverse, written by Kudzuhaiku, The Weed
begins with a teenage screw-up by the name of Tarnished Teapot being banished from Ponyville, and going off to seek his destiny. After a misadventure in Dodge Junction, he meets Maud Pie, Pinkie Pie's older sister and the eldest child of the Pie family. They end up travelling together, and Tarnished finds many things on the way, including love, a place of belonging, and a purpose.
Has a sequel: Venenum Iocus
The Weed contains examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Heliantus calls Tarnish "Mr. Teakettle". Though to be fair, it's a similar term to teapot.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Misty Mondays finds Tarnish's less-than-flattering response to her proposition hilarious, and refunds him two bits from his room fee.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Jeff Letrotski was a recurring background pony in the show. Here, he's an utterly disinterested Disappeared Dad who callously blows off Tarnish and leaves the moment he finds him.
- All of the Other Reindeer:
- Tarnished Teapot is cast out of Ponyville for his (unintentionally) destructive use of magic, which causes himself to see himself as a "weed".
- Before his Heroic Sacrifice, Snowy Summit received this due to being Anti-Magic incarnate; no place would welcome him. Only Princess Celestia truly believed in him.
- Allergic to Evil: Helianthus could detect Tarnish's Hate Plague magic faster than any other pony, and had to leave shortly after bringing Tarnish and Maud to Las Pegasus.
- Anti-Magic: Twilight finds the tale of Snowy Summit, a living example of this, while researching a way to help Tarnish. His final fate fails to encourage Tarnish.
- Apologizes a Lot: Pinny Lane does this a lot to Tarnish, out of guilt for neglecting him for so long.
- The Atoner: Pinny Lane wants to make it up to Tarnish for being a neglectful parent (it partially wasn't her fault; Tarnish's magic unknowingly influenced her).
- Badass Boast: Maud states several times, with confidence, that she is "The Rock", and with good reason.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Part of the reason Maud falls for Tarnish is because he bothers to listen to her and try and work out what she's feeling.
- Badass Longcoat: Tarnish is sold a duster along with the hat. He doesn't get to keep it very long.
- Battle Couple: Tarnish and Maud evolve into this the longer they travel together after their marriage.
- Big Brother Instinct: When they were little, Maud protected Pinkie from a real monster that was lurking under her bed.
- Big Damn Kiss: Tarnish and Maud get several, but their First Kiss and the kiss after their wedding are particular stand-outs.
- Blow You Away: Tarnish's special spell lets him shoot out torrents of heated air that could melt flesh with his horn. However, it's actually related to water magic as it relies on matter conversion.
- Boring, but Practical: The pith helmet is sold to Tarnish on this basis. It served as protection against volcanic ash after a volcano erupted close to them, preventing his eyes from going blind.
- Bridal Carry: Pony variant; he carries Maud on her back into their new house the Pies built for them as a surprise.
- Character Development: The first story in a long series that establishes this trope.
- Tarnish starts off as an angry, resentful, and moody teenager who pinned the blame for his problems on others. He also hated his poison joke cutie mark, what it stood for, and how his Wild Magic affected others. Thanks to the Pies, especially Maud, Tarnish gradually matures and becomes a more sensible and understanding stallion who is more accepting of his destiny. This is literally represented by his cutie mark "blooming" and gaining additional flowers.
- Maud slowly starts shedding her stoic facade, and starts opening up and expressing herself emotionally the longer she interacts with Tarnish.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: The Magic Mirror Tarnish discovers is used quite often to summon help when needed.
- Chekhov's Gun: The goggles on Tarnish's helmet allow him to flee from the erupting volcano without being blinded.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Mellonella Moth is first encountered at the Glory Holenote . Her significance in the wider Weedverse cosmology and politics doesn't become apparent until much later. Similarly, her conversation in the mirror introduces Helianthus', who later rescues the heroes and also has a much greater role in the later stories.
- Chekhov's Skill: Before Tarnish leaves with Maud for Ghastly Gorge, Pinny Lane explains and shows to him that all unicorns have their own spell that only they can learn under different circumstances; Pinny's lets her create additional bowling balls out of magic. In a later chapter, after seeing Maud get eaten by a hydra and falsely assuming she's dead, Tarnish's grief and anger unlocks his own spell - the ability to convert water into steam and vice-versa.
- Child Prodigy: Maud was revealed to be this once her mother Cloudy Quartz, convinced her father Igneous, to let Maud enroll in school. She received a lot of offers from several universities before she ultimately decided to go to Las Pegasus and earn her double degree in geology.
- Circle of Shame: Due to her Expository Hairstyle Change, Maud Pie looks up from her First Kiss to find her entire family staring at her, with this effect. In her words, she felt as if she was "some kind of freak show". Marble calls her family out for it, which led to Pinkie regretting it.
- Climactic Volcano Backdrop: The climax of the story is the main characters' desperate flight from Ghastly Gorge as it turns into Mount Maud.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Tarnish makes a
Accidental Innuendo about eating pie during dinner, Pinkie doesn't get it, and starts talking about how pie is the perfect food and how ponies enjoy eating her pie. After her family's reaction, she apologises for not noticing that they were actually talking about...cannibalism. - Contrived Coincidence: Averted, despite Helianthus' protests, it almost certainly wasn't a coincidence she was wandering near a erupting volcano with medical supplies when the heroes need a rescue.
- Cool Big Sis:
- Maud, as the oldest of the Pie children, is this for her younger sisters. Out of her three siblings, she and Pinkie are the closest.
- Tarnish becomes a big brother figure for the girls as well, and their reaction to when he goes away with Maud on an adventure is akin to having a sibling leave them for an extended period of time. Marble is especially close to him.
- Courier: Tarnish gets a job with the Pony Express briefly.
- Detect Evil: Tarnish's magical amulet, given to him by Twilight, has the ability to detect evil magic through color-changing; it changes from light blue to black depending on how foul the magic's presence is. It comes in handy letting Tarnish know when his Hate Plague magic is acting up, so he could drink his Poison Joke tea.
- Did You Just Have Sex?: After Maud spends the entire morning with her mane sprung, Cloudy correctly surmises what the previous night's activities involved.
- Disaster Dominoes: One that revolves around Gaia's Vengeance below. The destruction of the Poison Joke flowers, seen as hazardous to ponies and other magical creatures, led to the gradual wasting away of the environment and causing mutations of local plants and animals to happen. The rampant magic that was left unfiltered by the absence of Poison Joke grew fouler and fouler, to the point where it even caused volcanoes like the one Tarnish and Maud encountered to spring up and erupt. Of course, since no one wanted to take responsibility for their actions, they blamed Tarnish just because he had Wild Magic and thus was an easier target for them.
- Dramatic Irony: Afternoon Delight believes Tarnish and Maud's wedding to be a Shotgun Wedding resulting from a Surprise Pregnancy, and isn't helped in his impression by Maud's apparent disinterest. The audience is aware of just how deeply in love they actually are.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Tarnish went through a lot to invoke his Character Development and so did Maud, and they later end up coming out of their adventure wiser and Happily Married. They even have a house of their own now, thanks to the Pies.
- Eating the Eye Candy: After Pinkie catches Tarnish doing this to Maud, he briefly panics about it, but she simply informs him that he's a colt, he's meant to do that. Both he and Maud spend a lot of time doing this later on.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Maud's mane becomes "Pinkiefied" after her Big Damn First Kiss with Tarnish.
- Face Doodling: Marble Pie does this to Tarnish after he passes out on the job.
- Fainting: Tarnish, on his first day on the rock farm, lasts until ten o'clock before collapsing from exhaustion. The Pies are impressednote .
- Fastball Special: How the Widow Queen is defeated - in a callback to Cadence and Shining Armor, Tarnish throws Maud at the Widow Queen with magic, allowing Maud to crush the Widow Queen's abdomen like a pimple.
- Forgiveness: Tarnish struggles to deal with this issue after he reunites with his mother, Pinny Lane. While greater knowledge of his magic makes him know that it wasn't really her fault because his Hate Plague magic had a major influence on her, part of him wants to take the Calling the Old Man Out route and make her suffer as he did. Eventually, he decides on the right thing to do and forgives her.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: For all Tarnish's dithering, the relationship between him and Maud does progress very rapidly.
- Foreshadowing:
- Pinny Lane explains to Tarnish that all unicorns have their own unique spell, and shows off hers. Later, after Maud is eaten and (supposedly) killed by a hydra, Tarnish gains his own spell.
- When they were younger, Pinkie remarks that Maud is going to be part of a big adventure of her own later on, complete with love, danger, and romance, which Maud dismisses as a joke. Then she meets Tarnish years later...
- For Want Of A Nail:
- Had Stout Ironshoe and his goonies succeeded in hanging Tarnish properly, things in the Weedverse would've gone very differently. Maud thinks about this on their travels and upon realizing how lonely she would continue to be without him, she starts hugging Tarnish very tightly.
- Tarnish himself later acknowledges the trope, stating that had no one bothered to show him kindness like Maud and the Pies had, he would've become a villain eventually.
- Gaia's Vengeance: Metaphorical variant. The destruction of the Poison Joke around Ghastly Gorge directly causes the deaths of two workers, and later the eruption that turns it into Mount Maud.
- Gentle Giant: Pinny Lane is rather tall for a unicorn. Tarnish got his tall genes from her.
- Giant Spider: Tarnish and Maud rescue Grey Owl from a cave of these.
- Green Aesop: Don't mess too much with the environment, because everything has a place in the ecosystem - even Poison Joke flowers and Nullwood trees. Because otherwise, something far worse is going to happen.
- Green Thumb: As Stone ponies are a variant of Earth pony, Maud shares their distinct sensitivity to plants and nature. When she and Tarnish come across an area that has been burned in an attempt to get rid of poison joke, Maud could hear the cries of the scorched earth, as well as how wrong the area felt.
- Happily Married: After dating each other for a few chapters, they get married in Ponyville. It's hard to tell exactly due to Maud's outward disinterest, but Tarnish knows her well enough that they love each other, even though the signs aren't so obvious.
- Hate Plague: Part of the reason why Tarnish was banished from Ponyville, his mark induces a low-level form of this in everypony nearby.
- Headbutt of Love: Maud and Tarnish, in Chapter 36. Cloudy Quartz approves.
- Hell Hotel: The Roost. It's cheap. That's about it.Misty Mondays: If the mattress is wet, try flipping it over. If the mattress is still wet, sleep on the floor.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Ponies blamed Tarnish for the volcano erupting in Ghastly Gorge, which was directly caused by ponies' destruction of Poison Joke. Igneous was not amused.
- High Turnover Rate: The Pony Express is constantly recruiting because its employees have a nasty habit of vanishing, due to the job paying very well, and involving travelling alone through extremely dangerous terrain.
- Hookers and Blow: Due to being somewhat more naive than the average Pony Express worker Tarnish's offered (and accepts) a night of this without really being aware of it beforehand.
- Hypocrite: In the beginning, right after he was kicked out of Ponyville, Tarnish sees Twilight and Ponyville's population as this after they cast him out of town for wreaking havoc with his Wild Magic - Twilight, the other Elements of Harmony, or the Cutie Mark Crusaders never got punished for destroying stuff, but when Tarnish destroyed stuff by accident, he got banished for his troubles. To be fair, Twilight regretted the decision to banish him instead of helping him like she should have. His magic might have influenced her, too.
- Hurricane of Puns: After the heroes meet Ortzi Goldbeak, a griffon and another geologist, they end up in one, much to Maud's displeasure. Tarnish joins in, adding to the displeasure.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Haunted Wood. It sits on a Ley Line intersection, and is filled with Poison Joke. Later on, Ghastly Gorge.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Tarnish gets this talk off Doctor Hedge, the Pie's family doctor. An unusual variant in that he also instructs Tarnish to let her help him. Later on, he gets a more traditional one off Igneous Pie.
- The Immodest Orgasm: Cloudy Quartz, to the embarrassment of her daughters growing up. Maud had to tell Pinkie when they were young that their Mommy was not in danger and crying for help.
- I Want Grandkids: Cloudy Quartz and Pinny Lane. Downplayed as they're not so pushy about the issue with their children, but they dream of the day where little hooves populate their houses.
- Jerkass: Jeff Letrotski from the canon show, and Tarnish's Disappeared Dad, blows off his own son rather callously and leaves him heartbroken. It provoked Maud into an utterly terrifying Tranquil Fury.
- Known Only by Their Nickname: Maud's real name is Maudlin Persephone Pie.
- Like Is, Like, a Comma: Walrus speaks this way.
- Little Miss Badass: Young Maud beat up and killed the monster that was lurking under Pinkie's bed. And when asked by Igneous if she was hurt, she responded, "No, Daddy, I'm The Rock."
- Magic Mirror: A mirror Tarnish finds and takes from a dead unicorn early on turns out to be able to communicate with any other mirror. He uses it to stay in touch with Twilight and Pinny Lane, his mother.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
- After a long convalescence and visits from family, Maud is quite happy to take whatever she can get, even if it is a tiny alcove on an airship.
- Apparently Maud was born after Cloudy and Igneous had an intimate meeting on the kitchen table. They do it again years later, after Cloudy starts getting frisky.
- Our Manticores Are Spinier: Tarnish encounters one early on, and does not have a good time.
- The Man They Couldn't Hang: Stout Ironshoe attempts to hang Tarnish for (unwittingly) helping his wife run away from Dodge City Junction, but, to quote Maud, he didn't do a very good job.
- Meet the In-Laws: Happens rather earlier in the relationship than in most cases, but Tarnish meets Maud's parents when he needs a place to recover from Dodge City Junction.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- After Marble (quietly) scolds her other sisters for laughing at Maud and Tarnish right after their First Kiss, Pinkie realizes how insensitive she's been and later tries to make it up to Maud.
- Pinny Lane's response to realizing just how neglectful she was to Tarnish.
- Never My Fault:
- Tarnish was prone to this early on, blaming others for causing his problems while not knowing of the Hate Plague effects his magic caused yet. He gets over this after he realizes that only he's responsible for his problems.
- After the volcano at Ghastly Gorge erupts, ponies were quick to blame Tarnish for causing the eruption while ignoring that the removal of the Poison Joke in the area was their own damn fault, because of his Wild Magic. Igneous was so enraged by their idiocy that he considered writing them a strongly-worded letter.Maud Pie: (to Limestone Pie) Limestone, some ponies just look for somepony to blame when something bad happens... Tarnish is one of those ponies that makes blame easy because of his magic. Ponies fear what they don't understand.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: What happened to the bed monster after it tried going after young Pinkie, at Maud's hooves.
- Noodle Incident: Tarnish's magic has lead to several of these. Apparently he's turned Discord into a model citizen, and turned Big Mac into a mare as well as more straightforwardly destroying the town.
- No-Sell: Maud can walk through fields of Poison Joke without any ill effects and has apparently even endured chaos vortexes. She justifies it by referring to herself as a "rock".
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: The Poison Joke flowers induced their canon afflictions on anyone who walked through them as warnings to stay away from the places they're protecting. Getting rid of the Poison Joke wrecked the environment in horrific ways, such as allowing foul magic to prevail. In Tarnish's words, "it only wanted to help."
- Not Now, Kiddo: As a filly, Pinkie got scared by a monster that was lurking under her bed, but Cloudy or Igneous didn't believe her, so she turned to Maud for protection instead. As it turned out, there was a monster underneath the bed. Maud decided to beat the monster to death. Igneous sees the proof, and admits that he owes Pinkie an apology.
- No One Could Survive That!: Being right at ground zero when a volcano erupts incapacitates Maud for quite a while, searing her with sheer heat, wrecking her lungs with volcanic ash, and leaving her in a feverish, comatose state. It also impacts Tarnish, as Helianthus notes that his fur was falling out.
- Not So Stoic: Maud has a couple of these moments the longer she continues to express herself.
- Her first instance was meeting Tarnish's callous Jerkass of a father, which provoked her into Tranquil Fury. Pinkie had to give Maud a Cooldown Hug and talk her sister into staying with Tarnish for his sake, and she does.
- After thinking about what would've happened if Tarnish hadn't lived, she is so shaken that she does a Security Cling on Tarnish.
- Discovering that Tarnish had been turned into a statue by a cockatrice in Froggy Bottom Bog was when Maud started getting close to being truly upset, and had to be comforted by Pinkie. After Tarnish is turned back to normal by Twilight, Maud is immediately at his side, covering her husband in hugs and kisses.
- Later, at Ghastly Gorge, Maud witnesses Tarnish using his Wild Magic to purify a magically polluted area for the first time, and falsely assumes that something bad is happening to him.
- Maud screams as she and Tarnish try to escape an exploding volcano.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The calmer Maud sounds, the worse the situation is.
- Paparazzi: Tarnish, Maud, and their families encounter a group of these upon arriving in Fillydelphia, thanks to stories of their exploits coming out.
- Parental Neglect: Pinny Lane was not the most attentive of parents. It wasn't entirely her fault, Tarnish's magic produced negative responses in most ponies, including her. Once she's been outside his influence for a while and has some encouragement from the Pies, she is desperate to make up for it. Tarnish knows, but he struggles to deal with it because the memories were fresh on his mind, and part of him wanted to make her suffer as he did. Eventually he decided to man up and forgive her.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: The inversion is something of a Running Gag with Igneous, what with him being disturbed by his daughters acting flirty or discussing their relationships.
- Parental Substitute: The older Pies grow to be this to Tarnish.
- Power Incontinence: Before being banished, Tarnish tried to hold in his magic to stop it causing havoc, but it just built up until it surged.
- Random Effect Spell: Tarnish's magic always does something, he's just not always sure what it will be before casting.
- Rape as Drama: In the first chapter, Tarnish defends himself against a hungry Manticore using his magic, and it switches the Manticore's hungers. It's played as traumatizing and causes psychological damage he carries for years afterwards, as shown in later stories.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Twilight is this once she's out of Tarnish's immediate magical influence, as his magic induces negative emotions in most ponies, including her.
- Revenge Before Reason: After meeting Tarnish's father and seeing what an ass he is, Maud attempts to go after him and beat him into the ground, not even caring that she's essentially hurting Tarnish even more by abandoning him during his time of need. Once Pinkie manages to talk sense into her, Maud apologizes and goes back to comfort her husband.
- Rescue Romance: Tarnish and Maud have this, although Gender Flipped from the usual dynamic, with Maud rescuing him from being hung outside Dodge City Junction.
- Right Through the Wall: Apparently a common problem in the Pie household.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Tarnish and Maud rescue Grey Owl from Giant Spiders for Gorgonzola, not because Gorgonzola is unwilling, but because she can't fit in the cave.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Scariest Cave In Equestria was used to contain Grogar's shadow. It cracked open, releasing Grogar before the heroes arrived.
- Secret Test of Character: Maud uses this, remaining silent after Tarnish said something that could be construed as offensive to see if he would apologize to her. He passes the test.
- Security Cling: She started hugging Tarnish very tightly after thinking about what if Tarnish had died the day they met.
- Shaming the Mob: A familial variant; when the rest of the Pie family do their Circle of Shame after Maud and Tarnish share their First Kiss, Marble, in her own quiet way, scolds them for making a show about it and making both Maud and Tarnish feel very awkward and humiliated. This leads to Pinkie have a My God, What Have I Done? moment and later apologizes to her sister.
- Shipper on Deck: Most of the Pies are very supportive of Tarnish/Maud. There's a fair amount of Marble/Sonneur going on as well.
- Shotgun Wedding: The marriage clerk thinks that Maud and Tarnish are having this. He's wrong.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Maud needs to tell Tarnish something important. Unfortunately, he's busy having a Freak Out about his cutie mark growing. She is pragmatic. This trope results.
- Smells Sexy: Buttons the elderly Diamond Dog thinks this of Tarnish, after his journey through the Mellow Marsh. No-one else agrees.
- Smelly Skunk: There's a large number of winged skunks in the Mellow Marsh, much to Tarnish's misfortune.
- Stay in the Kitchen:
- Maud's chemistry professor while she was attending university in Las Pegasus had this attitude, attempting to bar her from learning chemistry on the basis that it's too complicated for mares. Maud filed a complaint against the professor, getting him in trouble, but also caused more problems for herself.
- In the same chapter, Maud mentions how mares find it difficult to get into geology as a profession because of this trope.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: How Pinkie Pie enters the story, and periodically other scenes.
- The Stoic: Maud, as in canon. The only way she shows genuine interest in something is through photography; her photos contain images of things she likes, such as her family, Tarnish, and rocks.
- Swallowed Whole: A Hydra swallows Maud. She punches her way back out after crushing its heart.
- Taken for Granite: Tarnish has an encounter with a cockatrice, and is freed when Maud uses his mirror to call Twilight. Although Tarnish recovers fairly quickly, the psychological damage to Maud lasts a lot longer.
- That Came Out Wrong: Tarnish tries very hard to avoid this. He often fails. His attempts to fix it aren't much better.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The monster that lurked under Pinkie's bed as a filly looked like the stuff of nightmares, described as "a piglet mixed with a cockroach and a bubble eyed goldfish". Fortunately, Maud put an end to it rather quickly.
- Tracking Device: Tarnish's magical amulet has a tracking device built in it. It was put there by Princess Celestia, who wanted to keep tabs on his development, which Twilight was opposed to since she saw it as a violation as privacy.
- The Cavalry: A couple of times, Walrus rescues the heroes from the effects of their own fame in the ending, and earlier Helianthus arrives with medical supplies after the eruption.
- Twice Shy: Marble Pie and Sonneur Gaunt.While picnicking, the two bookworms would sometimes look at one another, freak out, and then return to their books, pretending as though nothing was amiss.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: Several, particularly in the early stages, although some encounters that appear to be this trope form a Chekhov's Army for later stories.
- What the Hell, Hero?: An angry and panicked Tarnish calls out Maud for not telling him of her plan to defeat the hydra, thus putting him through unwanted pain and grief. Maud listens and apologizes.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Pinny Lane admitted she wanted a daughter and while she was trying to recover from what she thought was depression (actually Tarnish's Hate Plague magic) and improve herself, the doctors thought this trope was why she was neglecting Tarnish. That being said, she deeply loves her son and couldn't be any more proud of him.
- Wild Magic: Tarnish's magic produces this effect every time he tries to cast a spell. It turns out to be because he's designed to purify natural areas of wild magic, but this interferes with normal magic.
- Wretched Hive: Dodge City Junction.
- You Can't Go Home Again:
- Tarnish begins the story being banished from Ponyville because his magic causes disasters on a regular basis, as a bonus, he's banned from Canterlot as well, to avoid exposing Princess Celestia to his magic. Later lifted, with Tarnish instead being classified a magical hazard, and given responsibility to act appropriately.
- Snowy Summit had it worse - because he was Anti-Magic incarnate, he became a Walking Wasteland to all magical creatures, including ponies. As a result, he was unwelcome wherever he went.
- You Just Told Me: Maud finds out Tarnish had thoughts of leaving this way.
