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Epsilon

@epsilontlosdark4 / epsilontlosdark4.tumblr.com

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A Hard-Boiled Detective Short

It was rough Monday morning. Barely had enough coffee to keep me awake and not nearly enough to sober me up. I cursed my receptionist for her cruel insistence that my agency needed to be open at 8am and that meant I needed to be here even earlier than that. "Professionalism" she called it. What a joke. I'd fire her, but considering she's my mother I'd probably never hear the end of it.

I swallowed another bitter mouthful of my liquid breakfast when she walked in. Hell in high heels. A platinum blonde dame who must have turn a hundred heads every time she walked down the block, and ended even more marriages. Deviling good looks a sinner might say, and I was certainly deviled.

She was wearing a long dress, red as the sirens flashing in my head. Her mere presence was suffocating, I felt like a horse with a yolk two sizes too small around his neck. This gal was dangerous. I knew if I valued my life I shouldn't even be speaking to her, but here she was in my office, a tissue dabbing her wet and puffy eyes, and gosh darn it, I'm a professional after all.

How she even found my little hole-in-the-wall agency she didn't say. I'm used to trying to poach clients from the bigger boys, I don't get too many walk-ins unless everyone else in the city already turned them away. I asked what I could do for her.

She sang me a nursery rhyme. A classic. And then asked for my help. I almost laughed if my sense of humor hadn't been beaten, whipped, and crippled by the Dursby boys a few years back. But the case she brought me was still a joke none the less.

Everyone knew it was an accident.

We'd known for years. The kid's death was tragic for sure. He was well known, hell even well liked which is saying something in this city. Cheery, if a little stupid, from what I'd heard over the years. Always looked on the sunny side up until… Well until he died. But it was an accident, six ways to Sunday it was an accident.

And yet here she was crying bloody murder. I don't even know how she knew the victim. Clearly not related. And even more clearly, they weren't a thing.

God I wish I still smoked.

I needed the money and getting paid to investigate a solved case would certainly put some extra change in my pocket for no work, but sadly I caught a bad case of ethics before I even started this whole business. They're why I got kicked off the force in the first place.

If I was half the hard-boiled detective I claimed to be, I'd investigate it. Get to whatever truth she was looking for. But cases like these, people aren't looking for the truth. They want to be coddled, told their right and nothing else. There was nothing here to crack open.

I was gonna turn her away then and there, but then she said something that caught my attention. It was as crazy as the rest of the yarn she'd been spinning and yet my mind clung onto it. If true then she'd be right and the world would be wrong. Not an accident, a murder, and a cover-up bigger than the mayor's combo-over. I knew digging into a case like this wouldn't go over easy but it was too tantalizing to pass up. My mind scrabbled trying to put the pieces together.

She said it again,

"Humpty Dumpty was pushed."

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strangeasexuallegume-deactivate

I redesigned the EG Mane Six! I tried to go based of the general design ideas of the originals, though I did deviate where I felt it better suited the characters.

Twilight: For Twilight I mostly went for something that could look decent enough to make up for the fact that she has definitely been wearing it three days in a row. That bitch is NOT taking proper hygiene and you know it. I also wanted to play around with the idea of her struggling to walk no matter what, making her own mobility aids (that are albeit low quality and seriously uncomfortable since she was working with what she had) the first night that she was there, and then at some point Rarity reveals that she purchased and bedazzled a much better and comfier set of aides for Twilight. Other than that, not much else to say.

Fluttershy: Tbh, I don’t have much to say about her other than True Stoner Rights and also I wanted to give her a look that would look nice enough to wear to school without risking being picked on, and also isn’t too outside her comfort zone. The look is based on what I thought as a kid was “Parisian fashion.” I imagine that that Fall Formal dress is actually outside her comfort zone, but she didn’t wanna make Rarity come up with a different outfit and honestly the whole thing was outside her comfort zone so it’s whatever.

Rainbow Dash: I HAD TO FIX IT. RDS IS THE ONLY ONE IM CONSIDERING FIXED BECAUSE THIS IS NOT. MY. GIRL!!!! First off, why did they make her a SOCCER PLAYER??? TRACK IS LITERALLY HER THING SHE WAS BUILT FOR SPEED— I made her a track athlete instead. Second off OH MY GOD THESE OUTFITS ARE SOOOO NOT HER STYLE UGH, I KNOW THAT THESE DESIGNS ARE MOSTLY TO GO WITH THE SAME TREND AS MONSTER HIGH BUT TRJEJSHDJDGSISDRAGH THIS IS NOT RAINBOW DASH!! SAME THING WITH HER FALL FORMAL OUTFIT WHAT IS THIS, THIS ISNT WHAT SHED WEAR TO A PARTY!! UGH!! STUPID!!!!!

AJ: A lot of her outfit was me working on pure nostalgia from when I was a kid in the early 2010’s. (Oh yeah I forgor to mention, I tried to change these designs to fit what I thought would work for 2013. Aside from Twilight, she looks more current to look more out of place) I remembered stuff like the ankle/shin high boots with all the different buckles that I remember adoring, the jeans or shorts that’d have all sorts of pretty embroidery on them, etc. etc. I also wanted to try and make her fall formal dress look more casual, which I figured would work since I’m assuming Fall Formal is sort of like the homecoming of this universe. Overall, hers was one of the most fun to design.

Side note, RD and AJ are making fun of each other’s trademark poses in all of the default pngs

Rarity: She was kinda easy, I don’t have a lot to say about her if I’m being honest. I think she was the one that the designers ate with the most. Even her fall formal dress, there’s not much I wanted to change and was actually kinda stumped for a bit on what to do differently.

Pinkie Pie: she is my Maximalist Kandi Scene Furry Queen. When dying her hair she either did it herself or told the person at whatever salon she went to that she wants to “look like an acid trip.” The non binary flag was made one year after EG first appeared but the genderqueer flag was made in 2011 so Pinkie Pie got True Genderqueer Rights. I couldn’t control myself and gave her straps. She stands out like a bleeding thumb. I love her. By far the most fun design. This was so incredibly self indulgent and I couldn’t be happier.

Edit: forgot to add, I used this pose reference by @albanenechi !

Help! It's only been a day and she's already read though a quarter of my entire bookshelf, she cannot be sated! I fear what will happen to me if I run out of books to give her. I even tried to offer her dinner last night and she gave me the JoJo menacing glare. Nothing care stop her hunger for the written word!!! This absolutely amazing plushie was done by Little-Broy-Peep

P.S. Read the Locked Tomb Series like Moondancer here, it is nerd horse approved.

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