The Dresden Fillies

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

'The Dresden Fillies: Strange Friends (also found here) is a crossover fanfic by Psychicscubadiver, combining The Dresden Files and My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. While traveling through the Nevernever, Harry Dresden finds himself chased by a pack of monsters and, after a Blind Jump between dimensions, winds up in Equestria. After the initial Fish Out of Water comedy, the story gets more serious—as it turns out, even a Sugar Bowl like Equestria may sometimes need the skills of one such as Harry.

A sequel False Masks has been recently started (also found here). Harry has been invited back to Equestria to be formally thanked for his actions in his previous trip. Unfortunately, an Ancient Tradition has gotten wind of his visit, and is certain that he represents the return of an Evil long since past.

Compare and contrast My Little Denarians.

Tropes used in The Dresden Fillies include:
  • Accidental Pervert: Harry and Pinkie Pie, thanks to Bob. It takes awhile for Pinkie (who doesn't understand these sorts of things at all) to explain to Twilight exactly what happened.
  • Animorphism: In False Masks, the Princesses want to award Harry a medal for his services in Strange Friends but first they have to make it so that he can walk around without anyone staring at him too hard. That means he has to go native. Naturally, he's a unicorn.
  • Alliteration: Harry get's chewed out by Twilight in this manner... He can't decide if it's frightening or just plain adorable
  • Badass: Harry, natch.
  • Badass Adorable: The Mane Six, once their natural talents come into play.
    • In case you're wondering, the tropes after Action Girl represent Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie respectively.
  • Badass Crew: The Mane Six and Harry make for an interesting adventuring party.
  • Batman Gambit: After failing to defeat Trixie, Twlight Sparkle appeals to her ego, tricking her into defeating herself.
  • Berserk Button: Pinkie becomes enraged when the Dark and All Powerful Trixie severely injures Rainbow Dash. Harry himself gets set off by women or children being threatened and people/ponies trying to brainwash him.
  • Blind Jump: This is how the whole story starts: Dresden is being chased by monsters through the Never-never (a sort of shadow demension between Earth and the worlds of The Fair Folk), and has to randomly exit to escape.
  • But You Screw One Goat!: Bob being Bob, when he finds out about Harry's misadventures from Strange Friends, suggests this route. Harry and Twilight shoot him down.
    • Note that since Twilight is a sentient being, it would be more of an Interspecies Romance - its just her equine appearance that makes the situation so awkward.
  • Carnivore Confusion: Harry is smart enough to avoid any blunders in this field but still faces a difficult moment when Rarity inquires about the origins of his leather coat.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Not to the point that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's Lighter and Softer feel is lost, but it is a crossover with The Dresden Files.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: When Harry's possessed by the Nightmare, he flattens the Mane Cast in a physical confrontation. The spiritual confrontation, on the other hand...
  • Cuteness Proximity: Hilariously, Dresden suffers this upon first meeting Twilight, saying that just seeing her makes him want to squeal like a little kid and hug her. He later describes Fluttershy as "weapons-grade adorable".
    • When he meets Luna, he's struck by how Adorkable and LOUD she is.
  • Demonic Possession: The Nightmare, the same demon that turned Luna into Nightmare Moon, possesses Trixie and aids her in petty revenge on Twilight and the others. After they beat it, it possesses Harry and turns him against them, until he sees through its mental manipulations and finally destroys it for good.
  • Death Glare: Before his soul gaze kicks in, Harry finds himself on the recieving end of Fluttershy's stare. It is not entirely clear who Twilight is saving when she makes the two break eye contact.
  • Determinator: They all take turns, but Rainbow Dash and Applejack take the cake when trying to diffuse the wall trap.

Trixie: I hope you all enjoyed that little glimmer of hope while it lasted, because those snakes have enough power in them to destroy anypony.
Applejack: Good thing I ain’t just anypony, then.
Rainbow Dash: Yeah. Equestria’s best flier isn’t gonna stop just because of some little bug zapper!

  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Twilight waking up from the Soulgaze in Fluttershy's house to find Fluttershy and Harry preparing for lunch.
  • Dueling Shows: With My Little Denarians.
  • Dulcinea Effect, Papa Wolf: You do realize this fanfic has Harry Dresden in it, right? Though perhaps a bit much since he has to be talked out of killing Trixie. Twice.
    • Twilight decides to play this up when she's trying to convince Harry to let her use her transformation spell on him.
  • Dungeon Crawling: After gaining new powers, Trixie builds what looks like a typical fairy tale castle...then succumbs to the Nightmare's paranoia and fills it with an absurd number of deadly traps, including:
  • Dwindling Party: Invoked and defied. Trixie lures the group into her traps exactly for this purpose, but Harry and the Mane Six push their powers and skills to the limit to keep everypony alive.
  • Easily Forgiven: Harry shows concern when this happens after his Demonic Possession but Twilight tells him not to worry about it. He held back while possessed and ultimately fought back against the Nightmare, after all. That counts for something.
  • Evil Is Hammy: The Dark and All-Powerful Trixie!
  • Exact Words: Harry uses the names of the Mane Six to prevent them from moving, but not from using magic.
  • Family-Unfriendly Violence: Due to the Cerebus Syndrome, the Mane Cast walk away from this adventure with much more severe injuries than they do in the show. Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight Sparkle get the worst of it, with Rainbow and Twilight being on the receiving end of a Flechette Storm and Pinkie being poisoned.
  • First-Person Smartass: Dresden, so very much.
  • Five-Man Band
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Trixie, after getting possessed by the Nightmare.
  • Full-Body Disguise: Twilight uses an illusion spell to disguise Dresden as one of Celestia's guards when he's in public. In False Masks, she uses a spell to temporarily transform him into a pony.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: In-universe. Harry notices that Twilight's magic shield protects not just against kinetic force, but heat as well. He idly considers beefing up his own shield in the future, but apparently forgets, since "Strange Friends" takes place right before The Dresden Files novel Blood Rites, in which flamethrower-wielding vampires cripple one of Harry's hands when his shield fails to protect it from the effects of convection.
  • Genre Savvy: Harry and Pinkie.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Luna has a bit of this when she learns that Harry forced out and killed the Nightmare, something she was unable to do on her own. Harry tells her that Twilight made it sound much easier than it really was and that if the Mane 6 hadn't been there, he'd be a goner.
    • Twilight realizes she's a bit jealous when she discovers that Harry's magical power exceeds hers, but quickly gets over it.
  • Grey and Gray Morality: Something that Twilight didn't believe existed until Harry showed up.
  • HAD to Be Sharp: The ponies come to realize that Harry's world requires a certain degree of ruthlessness in order for one to survive as well as to enable good to win, and Luna applies this to humans as a whole, one of the reasons the Humans Are the Real Monsters trope is averted, as detailed below.
  • Handicapped Badass: By the time Harry returns to Equestria, he's hurt his hand.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Harry, to the point that the Soulgaze nearly counts as foreshadowing.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The only pony who comes even close to Harry in terms of height is Celestia.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Nicely averted. There's the requisite shock over Dresden eating meat, but the Mane 6 grow to like him fairly easily. Luna and Celestia even say humanity seem to be a noble race, going by his example, and from what they saw of early Christians last time they visited Earth.
  • Humble Hero: As a result of the Soulgaze, Harry has a basic grasp of Twilight's personality. When she comments on him seeing something possibly untoward in her (he only sees her library and her photos and pictures of her friends and family and he finds it absolutely beautiful) putting aside the invasion of privacy, he reassures her that she has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Harry finds himself on the receiving end of one when the subject of Equestrian cities comes up.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Where Pinkie Pie keeps her Cupcake Launcher TM. Lampshaded, naturally.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Luna accepts Dresden's using the Elements of Harmony to supercharge his fire spell to destroy the Nightmare, admitting she's more pragmatic than Celestia.
  • I Know Your True Name: Except that Pinkie Pie isn't hers.
  • Innocent Innuendo: In False Masks, Twilight, unaware of most humans' social taboo on nudity, instructs Harry to strip down because she has a "surprise" for him (she wants to transform him into a unicorn for the duration of his stay in Equestria), causing Harry to react with a Spit Take and Bob with glee. Twilight is mortified to learn just what her comment sounded like to Harry and Bob.
  • Kill It with Fire: How Harry kills the Nightmare, natch.
  • Jerkass: During his second trip to Equestria, Harry brings Bob, a spirit of air and intellect that resides within a human skull. He remains quiet during Harry's meeting with Twilight until her Innocent Innuendo, at which point he speaks out, terrifying Spike out of his wits. After having a considerable time convincing Spike that Bob was not a ghost and they were not haunted, Bob promptly shouts "Boo!" at him once Spike worked up enough courage to approach the skull.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Likewise with Harry, Twilight got an overview of his personality through the Soulgaze. Unlike Harry, she was terrified by what she saw. She saw him as a knight fighting a near endless horde of monsters, never once backing down. A knight who was in more danger of losing himself than losing to the horde.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Harry.
  • Even Heroes Have Heroes: Spike meeting Harry.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Harry, at every opportunity.

“No. I don’t accept this.” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “A wizard from another dimension happens to open a gateway into a magical land filled with talking ponies, and the first one he meets just happens to be the holder of an ancient and sacred power. Then those two and her friends, who also bear these powers, must rescue somebody she cares about from a jealous rival? Are you kidding me? If Kirby did that in Arcanos, I’d walk out! That’s the plot of a crappy fantasy novel!”

  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Pinkie, of course.
  • Lethal Harmless Powers
    • A telekinetic blast can be deadly when used to throw sharp objects. Also, the Elements of Harmony—they never cause direct harm, but that's still a lot of magic for Harry to channel into a fire spell. Celestia is not amused.
  • Mind Over Manners: Protip: Don't stare into a wizard's eyes for too long. You'll regret it.
  • Mind Rape - The first thing Harry does after arriving in Equestria is accidentally soulgaze Twilight Sparkle.
    • Trixie breaking the physical representations of the Elements of Harmony also has this effect. It's damn creepy.
      • Not exactly Mind Rape, because it had no mental effect apart from the crippling pain. It's more like soul rape.
  • Mood Whiplash: Used extensively, but particularly when Pinkie Pie invokes Rule of Funny to appear in the room with the mane cast after holding back the hornets. She collapses from poison seconds later and would have died on the spot if Harry didn't react quickly.
  • Morality Chain: The ponies become this for Harry, especially Twilight and Fluttershy.
  • More Than Mind Control: This is how the Nightmare influences its hosts. It offers suggestions and temptations based on their darker impulses, then helps them plan when carrying those suggestions out.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Harry becomes the pony equivalent of Tall, Dark and Handsome, thanks to Twilight's transformation spell. She has to remind herself not to gape. It amuses Bob.

Bob: You didn’t see her face after you first turned into a pony. I'm surprised she wasn't drooling.

  • Noodle Incident: Oh, Bob and your unceasing interest in the female fleshy form.

"Everyone at that sorority was a consenting adult and the alcohol was just as much to blame as I was."

  • Not So Different: Rainbow Dash and Harry get off to a rocky start (though they quickly overcome their first impressions), which is humorous since Undying Loyalty (as well as a tendency to become very angry when their friends are threatened) is a defining character trait they both share.
  • Odd Friendship: Harry and Twilight, Harry and Fluttershy, Harry and Pinkie and Harry and Luna.
  • Out-of-Character Moment: As with main verse, having one of these alerts a person to the fact that Charm Person is being used on them. Its how Harry realizes he's a victim of Demonic Possession.
  • Physical God: Harry meets Celestia and describes her as being as powerful and graceful as a Lady of the Fae Court, minus the scary. He is absolutely impressed when he learns that Twilight is her student. Luna for obvious reasons isn't quite as powerful but he can sense that she still is miles above him. They get on smashingly.
  • Power Glows: Harry's aura as a unicorn is red-orange. Makes sense considering how much he likes fire.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Harry and Twilight.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: While everyone else is out adventuring to save the day, Celestia notices something is up, quickly returns home from Coltenhagen, places Canterlot on lockdown, searches her study for clues, interview all personnel on location and then leads a platoon of palace guards to Ponyville upon realizing that Twilight Sparkle is probably in danger. After the fight against Trixie and the Nightmare, it's assumed that she personally brought the seven of them home and put them to bed since the palace guards and cooks still don't know what Harry is and that he's even there. Luna is the one with the maps of Earth and she even leads Harry back down the path towards his world.
  • Rule of Funny: Invoked by Pinkie Pie to to appear in the room with the mane cast after holding back the hornets. Once again, Pinkie proves that the Element of Laughter has some practical uses.
  • Scars Are Forever: Inverted, much to Harry's surprise. Due to their nature, the ponies don't seem to scar at all.
  • Shipper on Deck: Bob wants to see Harry and Twilight get it on. Of course, Bob wants to see Harry and anything female and vaguely attractive get it on.
  • Shoot the Dog: Harry wants to do this to Trixie, but the Mane Six talk him out of it. When the Nightmare possesses him, it coerces him into trying again.
  • Shout-Out: Many, as is appropriate to Harry. He is quite unhappy that nopony gets them.
  • Slasher Smile: Trixie sports...a rather extreme one when she kidnaps Spike.
  • Sleep Cute: After their ordeal, the ponies and Harry are taken to Canterlot where they sleep most of the day away on two extra-large mattresses, thanks to Harry's height. When he wakes up, Harry wishes like hell he had a camera.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Harry has to be reminded to tone down the violence several times.
  • Stealth Hi Bye: Harry is not easy to sneak up on so Pinkie doing just that quickly becomes a Running Gag. And then Luna does it too. Harry can't catch a break.
  • Taking the Bullet: Twilight Sparkle teleports in the way of glass shards thrown at Trixie.
    • Trixie attacks Pinkie with high-speed shards of metal, but Rainbow Dash jumps in front of Pinkie just in time and takes the attack herself.
  • Tampering with Food and Drink: In chapter 5 of False Masks Bon-Bon tries to leave a bag of candy laced with poison for Dresden whom she and the other members of an Ancient Tradition believe to be the reincarnation of the Evil Overlord Obsidian. Things take a turn for the worse when Pinkie Pie eats one. Fortunately, she realizes that there's something wrong with the candy and spits it out, though she still feels drowsy afterwards.
  • Time Skip: False Masks takes place after Blood Rites. Nearly a year has passed on Earth and two months have passed in Equestria.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Not that she wasn't badass already but Twilight manages to figure out how to use magic circles while Harry is gone.
  • Unskilled but Strong: A magic wall is described this way: 'It wasn't well-made by any standards, despite all of the power that had been poured into it, but it was so massive and durable that the sloppy construction hardly mattered.'
  • We Can Rule Together: Twilight Sparkle tries to talk possessed Harry into giving up on The Dark Side and gets a Star Wars quote for her trouble.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Delivered to Harry by Fluttershy, when he protects the Mane Six from a pair of manticores and nearly kills the two creatures through excessive force.
    • Becomes a Crowning Moment of Funny when Fluttershy talks the manticores down. He's completely thunderstruck that they listen to her scolding.
    • Harry very nearly returns the favor with a Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids in the form of a Soulgaze. Twilight, recognizing the danger signs, manages to alleviate the tension.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Harry as a pony, to contrast his black main coat.
  • Who's on First?: Ponies keep saying that Harry isn't hairy.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Trixie kidnaps Spike and leaves a threatening note out of a paranoid fear that Twilight has caught wind of her schemes. Too bad for Trixie that threatening children is Harry Dresden's Berserk Button.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: When Harry returns to Equestria, only two months have passed. On Earth, it's been nearly a year. Since as far as Twilight knows, time dilation is more or less the same between the worlds, she doesn't get it. Harry assumes it's because of the Nevernever, but states that there is a basic balance, with one side's time going "faster" and the other going "slower" at certain points so that neither world gets too far ahead of the other time-wise.
  • You Shall Not Pass: Pinkie Pie pulls one off, holding back a swarm of venomous hornets so that the others can escape. It nearly costs her her life.
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