When A Pony Calls
is a Comedy/Tragedy fanfic created by Fimfiction writer Seven+Fates, dealing with an inter dimensional incident, from the perspective of a young man who accidentally switches bodies with a certain human-obsessed unicorn.
The story starts out with Soren, a young adult who is currently in between jobs and living a relatively normal life with his parents, as he wakes up to the morning of his family reunion expecting to have a lot of fun and play with his young niece Hariat. But first, he decides he might as well check for any new messages on his Fimfiction account. After finding nothing that catches his eyes, he is about to head downstairs to help his mother cook, when he suddenly gets a mysterious message from someone claiming to be the MLP character Lyra. She says she has the offer of a lifetime: A chance to switch bodies and experience life as a pony, while she takes the opportunity to experience human life.
Assuming she is really just a random fan role-playing, he says what the hell and agrees. Then his computer blows up in his face, and he wakes up from his daze to find he is in Lyra's body, as his parents run up to see what happened. It all goes downhill from there, as Soren's life goes straight to hell at every turn. This fic was updated from July 28, 2012 to Feb 28, 2013, and has a completed sequel, The Alchemist's Heart.
Tropes:
- Adam and Eve Plot: Played with. After explaining the Christian creation story, Rarity and Fluttershy point out that it sounds mostly like their version. This is apparently the same story, but with Celestia, Luna treated, and Discord swapped in for Adam, Eve, and Satan, respectively.
- Bittersweet Ending: Soren has no hope of getting his body back, he will never see his family again and they have all but disowned him and are left in denial of his disappearance, Pound Cake was turned to stone, and Soren will likely be shunned back in Ponyville after almost killing Twilight. On the bright side though, Soren has excepted his fate, Lyra and Bonbon are having a baby, and not all hope is lost for Pound Cake.
- Body Horror: In both her appearances, the physical forms of Lyra's memory implant are this,but in very different ways. First, she appears as a horrifying, giant, and deformed version of Lyra that tries to devour Soren. In her second appearance, she appears as a scared and pitiful little copy of Lyra, with whole chunks of her body missing.
- Butt-Monkey: Soren is repeatedly hit with slapstick, bitten by his own dogs, and even driven insane for awhile.
- Combat Pragmatist: Soren manages to even the odds in his duel with Twilight through impractical use of a piece of glass.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Soren threatens to eat a steak while in Lyra's body if she shaves off his goatee while in his.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The story starts out lighthearted enough, then we learn that unicorns have backup memories and Lyra's is thinking that Soren's subconscious is some kind of parasite and is trying to overwrite his memories. And that's nothing compared to what happens later.
- Death of a Child: Pound Cake is turned to stone by a cockatrice.
- Dream Walker: Luna uses this ability to help Soren's Sanity Slippage. It's also what allows him to resolve the situation with Lyra's memory implant.
- Gender Bender: Soren is turned into a female unicorn. Later, his human body is turned into a female as well because of Lyra's actions.
- Going Native: A tragic example. After Soren realizes that getting his old life back is a hopeless endeavor, he decides to just accept life as a pony.
- Improbable Weapon User: In his showdown with Twilight, Soren uses a highly reflective glass shard to blind her, so he can get the upper hand.
- Insistent Terminology: Soren does not like being mixed up with the character from the show.
- Loss of Identity: Soren faces this after Lyra's natural memory backup begins to overwrite his mind.
- Mistaken for an Imposter: Due to a combination of his Sanity Slippage and blaming her spell for what happened to Pound Cake, Soren mistakes Twilight for a changeling.
- Mood Whiplash: The Reveal that Soren's human body is morphing into a pony as well comes while Soren and Lyra are laughing at their table, as Soren's laughter turns into crying.
- Mundane Utility: Apparently, unicorns can double as mobile WiFi hot spots.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Twilight puts a spell on Soren to keep him from leaving town after his Sanity Slippage starts. This is what stops Soren from saving Pound Cake.
- No Antagonist: All the conflict either comes from misunderstandings, elements no one had any control over, and the insanity from some of said elements.
- Plot Hole: How did Lyra get a human computer?
- Poor Communication Kills: The whole thing with Soren and the memory could have been avoided if they just had a way to communicate properly.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Soren's dogs are named Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Sanity Slippage: Happens to Soren, as Lyra's memory backup eats away at his mind, on top of switching bodies with a pony of the opposite sex and failing to save a child.
- Satanic Archetype: Discord is treated as this, even playing the part of the Serpent in the ponies' Adam And Eve creation story.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Soren does this after being bitten by his own dog while in Lyra's Body.
- Taken for Granite: This is what happens to Pound Cake, after he wanders into the woods and has a run-in with a cockatrice.
- Take That!: When Soren makes a Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) reference, Lyra immediately stops him: Pinkie is nothing like that.
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Soren challenges Twilight in order to expose her has as a changeling. It's just part of his delusions. Though he still wins.
- Wham Line: "Hahaha... (crying) My bodies turning into a pony.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: The best example is after Soren gets to Equestria and makes up with Lyra. There may be the whole memory imprint destroying his subconscious thing, but if nothing else he'll still get his body back right? Nope, as it turns out, his non-magical body doesn't react well to a magical land, so his human body is also slowly turning into a pony. And just to rub a little more salt into those wounds: his body's not turning back into a male, either.
