The scene was one that could be found on almost any given day in Ponyville: The sky was clear but for a few artistically placed clouds, ponies were going about their business with smiles on their faces, and Twilight Sparkle was in her home, the magical purple pony working on her fanfic. Her quill fluttered across the empty pages of the open book before her, responding to her magic as it so frequently had before. But suddenly, her smile fell a bit. Something was missing. "Spiiiike," she called, turning away, "Did you stop juggling those knives already?"
Spike, her adorable little abuse-doll-slash-baby-dragon, entered at a limp, scuffs upon his purple scaled hide and round, green plated belly. "I'm sorry, Twi, but after dropping them for the twenty-eighth time, they're all bent all weird," he explained, a guilty tone in his voice.
Twilight's face became a sad frown. "But Spike, you know that I can't do creative writing unless you're suffering. I mean, where else can my inspiration come from but the pain of a tortured innocent?" She asked, sounding as if on the verge of tears.
"I knooowww," Spike moaned sadly, slouching and rubbing an arm.
"You're just going to have to go rub yourself against the cactus until I'm done with this chapter," Twilight continued. With a sigh, Spike turned around.
"Whatever you say, Twilight," he mumbled, and headed for the Punishment room.
Twilight turned back to her writing, muttering to herself, "Now where was I?" As Spike's pained and disturbed cries echoed throughout the house, a smile crossed her face once more. "Oh yeah!"
MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS WITCHCRAFT
Number One Fanfic
After what might've been a few weeks, the front door of Twilight's treehouse burst open, the purple pony practically prancing past the porthole. Beside her was her protege Spike, holding a basket filled with rolled-up scrolls, copies of her precious magnum opus. "Isn't this exciting, Spike?" Twilight asked with glee. "My story's done, and now that you've written two hundred and twenty eight copies, we're ready to show it to every pony in Ponyville!"
Spike smiled his adorable, fangly smile as he said, "And I don't have to rub my body with sandpaper anymore!"
"Well, let's not make assumptions, Spike," Twilight replied with a playful giggle. Wah wah waaah. "Oh, hi, Pinkie!"
Sure enough, there stood Pinkie Pie, the pink party pony of Ponyville, and pastry preparing professional. For some reason, she was carrying and tooting on a muted trumpet. "Heyya, Twily!" She squeaked. "I was wondering if you were still alive in there, and if you weren't, if I could use your treehouse for a landscaping and Mexican funeral themed party!" She pointed her front hooves in the air, 'arms' spread in a vague gesture. "I was going to call it Tree-a De Los Muerte," she explained.
Twilight smiled. "I'm sure all those words you just said were super interesting, but look at this, Pinkie!" She said proudly, magically plucking a scroll from Spike's basket and hovering it in the air before Pinkie Pie. "My fanfic is finally done! And this one's my best story ever," she declared.
Pinkie snatched it up with characteristic glee. "Oh boy!" she squealed. "I'm going to read this in bed tonight to help me get to sleep! Thanks, Twily!" And at that, she sauntered off, trumpeting.
"Great!" replied Twilight. Her face then fell, confused. "Wait, huh?" she asked, but Pinkie was already well on her way. After a moment, she tilted her head dismissively, thinking aloud, "Well, Pinkie always did have the attention span of a hyperactive sugar-junkie." Turning towards her blank-faced baby friend, she said, "Come on, Spike, let's go spread the word and share my masterpiece with the world!"
"Cue the montage!" Spike eagerly replied.
Most of the ponies Twilight and Spike showed interest, and certainly did not burn, bury, or otherwise destroy the scrolls as soon as their backs were turned. One or two of the houses that they banged on the doors of were empty, and assuredly did not conceal hidden ponies sitting huddled in the dark waiting for them to go away. A stray dog ran away from them, but it didn't matter too much; dogs can't read, after all. Twilight's friends had kindly accepted her fanfic, though Rainbow Dash had shown some hesitation, but it didn't matter too much; Rainbow Dash couldn't read, after all. After a long and busy day of relentlessly hunting down ponies, every copy was delivered, and the only ones left were for Twilight and Spike themselves.
The two sauntered through the door, Twilight's expression one of complete, yet exhausted, satisfaction. Spike wore his typical appearance of mute horror and silent witness. "Well, Spike, between the print copies and uploading it to the internet, now all that's left is to wait for people to get to the message at the bottom telling them to either stop by or send me a letter saying that I'm great," Twilight said contentedly.
Spike responded with a great yawn, and sleepily said, "Yep, I'm all for taking a nap and blocking out the horrible memories for a while."
Putting a hoof to her chin, Twilight took a thoughtful pose. "I might need to organize some free space for all the letters I get, so Spike--" She turned and looked, and he was already asleep on the floor. A smile warmed her face again. "Oh, Spike. I should start writing another story, because you're spending time in the Punishment room tomorrow," she said lovingly. With that, she transitioned over to her bedroom and into her pajamas. Shuffling into a comfortable position in bed, she nodded and said to herself, "Tomorrow, I get all the positive self-image reassurance I'll ever need." And at that, she slept well.
The next day came as it always did, with the sunlight breaking through the space between Twilight's curtains at just the right time. As she steadily came to, she let out an eager "Oh boy!" and hopped out of bed, changing back to her traditional outfit of not-a-thing before going to brush her mane. In a matter of moments, she was bounding down the stairs like a foal on Celestiamas Day. "Wake up, Spike!" she called, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and a bowl of cereal. "I'm making things float around with the power of my mind!"
"Again?" Spike grumbled as he rubbed his bleary eyes to wakefulness.
"That means I'm psychic," Twilight nodded confidently. "Today, after the mail delivers all my new fan's messages, I'm going to start writing another story, and that means you've got a big day ahead of you!"
"Aww maaaan," groaned Spike. "And I was just beginning to remember what it was to not plan the death of those around me," he further griped.
"Quiet, Spike! My entire attention is now completely taken up by the mail pony!" Twilight hushed harshly, galloping to the window and peaking her head through the curtains. Spike merely shrugged and laid back down. Surely enough, the mail pony was sauntering up to Twilight's mailbox. She bit her lip in a failed attempt to constrain her exuberant smile, but soon found that she needn't have put in the effort as he walked on by without halting. Her face fell, a confused and surprised expression taking the place of the expectant smile that was there only moments ago. "Whu bvu hawa?" she mouth-flap matched in confusion. "No mail? Does that mean... nobody sent me a comment on my story?" DUN DUN DUUUUUUN. "Pinkie? What are you doing out there?"
"Setting up the commercial break sting!" Pinkie called back.
***
Twilight paced around the room, confused and slightly angry. Spike just sat quietly playing with string. "I don't understand, Spike. They should all be declaring their eternal love and devotion to me," she said, frustration apparent in her tone. "I couldn't possibly have done anything wrong. I mean, I showed it to literally every pony in town, and put it on the internet. I even gave it an eye-catching image to go up next to it!"
Spike shuddered. "Ugh, don't remind me. That sketch you made of the restroom stall scene..." He suddenly straightened up thoughtfully. "I do have a guess what might've happened," he offered.
"Well, neither your words nor your actions have any meaningful impact on me or the world since I control your fate, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to hear your wrong, misinformed and ignorant opinion," she accepted charitably.
"Alright," Spike nodded, beginning to gesture with his hands. "From the parts that you made me read, and the other parts you made me take from narration because 'you were too busy to get out of bed,' it really seemed like you didn't have a handle on characterization. The main character's personality was basically an idealized version of yourself in a power fantasy where you had all the time in the world to come up with clever remarks, but you still aren't very good at that. The other characters barely filled any role other than being either easily brushed aside antagonists or faceless lackeys that only existed to reaffirm how great the main character was. On top of that, the plot didn't really fit the source material at all; the tone of the original story is light-hearted to the extent that violent solutions are shown time and again to never work in favor of keeping a positive attitude, doing your best, and maintaining open thoughts and routes of conversation. Reading about sex and violence and betrayal of the degree of foulness you were trying to portray was complete anathema to the colorful, playful and positive world that you were setting it in. The fact that you do it seemingly without any self-awareness makes it much more difficult to read; parody of the subject would be shocking, but still appealing to a certain subset of readers that could understand and appreciate the satire, but it just plain old doesn't work when done from a completely serious standpoint. Just from the terminology used in the setting, it seems like anypony would have a hard time not having the mood completely ripped away from them if they started to get into the drama of it. I don't even want to start on some of your Original Characters; they're so obviously idealized or borderline fetishistic in some cases that it embarrasses me that you aren't embarrassed by revealing them to the world. Also on a personal level, I'm deeply offended by your recurring character, Thorn. He's basically a speciesist caricature of dragons that you made up from whole cloth. Like, seriously, your inspiration for him is from old stories about pony knights slaying evil anti-Celestian dragons in the name of religion. It's gross, stop it."
Twilight paused, a sad look crossing her face again. "But all of that stuff is covered by the header I put on every story where I tell everyone that if they don't like it, they shouldn't read it," she said. Spike just shrugged. A determined look spread across her face. "Well there's got to be a way. I'm going to cast a spell on a bunch of scrolls that will make people who read the story like it. Come on, Spike! We need to make another set of copies for everypony!" Spike let out a groan.
The next day, after all the story rewrites had been delivered, Twilight once again awoke with bounding enthusiasm and headed downstairs. She didn't even bother to kick over Spike as she waited for the mail pony. Sure enough, he was dragging a wagon full of letters behind him, and simply let it sit outside. "Success!" Twilight squealed with glee. "Spike, bring those up to my room so I can roll around in 'em!" she ordered confidently.
As she waded through the rushed, shakily written notes of pure delight at her story, Twilight smiled, in a state of bliss. "Spike, take a letter," she began.
"Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that writing fanfiction isn't about self-satisfaction, or writing exercise, or bettering yourself in any way. The real purpose of fanfiction writing, and any writing, is to be noticed and have as many people talk about your work as you possibly can. Whether for good or for ill, any attention is positive, and if you get enough of it, someone, somewhere, will support you and your endeavors, no matter how unskilled or foolhardy they may be.
Totally not planning to kill you and steal your powers,
Twilight Sparkle."
As she finished reading it, Princess Celestia let out a deep, long sigh. She had been nearly drowned in hundreds of copies of her student's current opus along with the letter. "On the plus side, we'll be powering the furnaces of Canterlot for another few days," she reasoned with herself.
