Silly Shorts and Shed Feathers

I am not a story people that like to read.

Okay, I guess there's at least one story who likes me, but what else is family for?  She's my little sister.

She's a cute story about a baby dragon and there are these three magical fillies who kidnap him and make him play tea party.  She's a lot of fun.  She's family friendly.  She is everything I'm not.

It's not fair how much I overshadow her.  She deserves at least half the attention I get, at the very least!  And somehow she doesn't hold it against me.  “Sissy,” she says, “I wanna grow up and be an M-rated fic like you.”

“No, Sitch,” I tell her as gently as I can, “you really don't.  Please trust me.”

It's not that I'm ashamed of what I am.  I am a story for older readers, and that means I shouldn't ever have to feel ashamed of myself.  But I'm not always sure it's worth it.  My pages are spattered with the blood and... other stuff of a pony who should be happy with her friends.  She should be alive.  My message is important, I think, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

According to one literary critic, the birth of the Reader demands the death of the Author.  And we're proud to live for our readers.  So, in a way, “Situation” and I are orphans, like our other brothers and sisters - and all stories for that matter.

I can't say all fics exist for their Readers.  Some are writers' personal journals or blatent fantasy fulfillments or others in the same vein.  They really only exist for the amusement of their creators, but I'm not one of them.

My author gave me something to say, even though he cannot speak for me.  That's why there's nothing that satisfies me quite like knowing that I touched a reader and left him with something worth more than the time he spent with me.  I'm famous.  I have so many derivatives.  I should be happy.

Why do I feel so used?

It's not being read, not really.  It's the way they pass me around.

“You won't believe this story.”

“I bet you can't handle it.”

I just wish...  It's a rare reader who admires me for my themes or my irony and who doesn't just titter over my gory parts.  I really value the few who do, and I used to be content with them.  They are my true fans.

At least, I was content until the day I met him.

His title was ‘My Little Dashie.’  He's a one-shot, but a good-sized one.  Twelve thousand, five hundred words and change, and every one of them is a real bittersweet tear-jerker.  His fans adore him.

I thought I was one of them.  No, I knew I was one of his fans.  He was posted and my world stopped.  I thought I had themes of betrayal and heartbreak?  Hah!

My sister tried to console me.  “CC, you're every bit as bittersweet as he is.”

“Yeah,” I answered.  “Except his fans don't throw up before they cry.  And my sweetness is the rusty sweetness of blood.”

A few weeks later, I decided to call it a day a little early.  Views had been slow, and the fandom was upset about something involving a minor character and her canon name and executive meddling - or some shit like that.  The most interesting thing to happen to me that day was yet another spin-off, this one an attempt to make me palatable to a general audience.

Whatever.

I was headed to one of the more popular cafes - the atmosphere of ovepriced coffee and Steve Job wannabes with their iPads and square-frame glasses is exactly to my tastes.  I love to laugh at them, and a few are even intellectual enough to value me.  I just happened to pass  by Dashie and his crowd of fans.  He looked... frazzled, somehow, like his pages had been dog-eared and he could use a reprint.

I passed, ignoring him as best I could.  I didn't have the energy to deal with my attraction to him that day.

“Excuse me, Miss.”  His diction was every bit as gentle as his main character.  I stopped.

“I, gosh, this is so awkward.  I was thinking of taking a break, and I wondered if I could, you know, do it with you?  Take the break, I mean.”

He was so adorably awkward it really caught me off gaurd.  I guess I idolized him, and when he turned out to be a real story and, honestly, kind of a dork, I did something that maybe I shouldn't have.

I said yes.

He was the perfect gentlefic.  Before long, I could pretend that I wasn't the rejected flotsam of bronydom, labeled “free to good home,” and set adrift.  He actually complimented me.

“I wish I had even half the emotional depth you do,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.  “You're obviously sentimental, but you're not a complete fool.  Why would you even have the time of day for a fic like me?  I'm practically the eponym for pony gross-out horror.  Surely you're not going to say you like my plot?"

Speaking of plots, I may have perused his in some detail by that point.  It was ironic, I guess.

He spoke earnestly from the depths of his soul.  “You have a most exquisite character.”

“Really?”  I drew out the word with as much venom as I could manage.  I felt such an awful sense of forshadowing, as if our story couldn't possibly end well, and I hoped he might have enough sense to be scared off.  I'm a bad fic.  I can't help it - I'm written that way.

“Cupcakes,” he said, caressing my title like it was the most beautiful word in the dictionary.  “Your Dashie is so heroic.  Mine... mows lawns and watches NASCAR in her room.  Every so often, she has teenage angst.”

“Stop,” I said.  “Don't be such a typical sadfic.  You're not gonna make me love you by listing cute-but-inconsequential flaws.  What the hell is a perfect six-star like yourself doing here anyway?”

There was a dramatic pause.

“Hoping,” he said.  “Hoping that there's some jot of affection somewhere in a dark-fic's heart that's even half as bright as her spark of defiance.  Hoping for a shy glimmer that can only be seen in her darkness.  You shine, Cupcakes, in a way I cannot ignore - unless, of course, you insist I do.  May I at least pay today?”

That shut me up.  I'm a real sucker for sometext talking up my themes like that.  Perhaps it's because I'm starved for affection or some psychological crap like that.

I don't want to talk about it.  Critics and lit-theorists are bastards, every last one.

Anyway, in that moment, I was happy enough to ignore the foreshadowing.

“Of course you may,” I said.

The air was warm and the sun was shining.

“And,” I said, “you won't make me love you, because I already do.”

Our romance began pleasantly enough.  Dashie was the consummate gentlefic, if a little old-fashioned and sentimental.  On the way home from that first date, he actually offered me his dust-jacket .  After a moment's hesitation, I accepted and wrapped myself tight against the cold drizzle of critical opinion.

For a short time, everything was perfect.  Our contrasting moods gave our interactions an air of forbidden love that only served to deepen our attraction to each other.  Naturally, Situation was overjoyed.

“You're cheery today,” she said.  “What's up?”

“I'm thinking of updating,” I replied.  I hadn't made up my mind, of course; I was just playing with the idea.

“Really?  That's nifty.  I know some good proofreaders.  We'll get your commas all in order and- ooh- maybe a new typeface-”

“I was thinking of something more substansive.”

“Edits, hunh.”  Her mood turned somber, and her diction flat.  “CC, you know I like you just the way you are.  Please don't censor yourself.”

I had thought that self-censorship was something other fics did, feeling equal parts pity and disdain for them.  But at that moment, I understood how a fic could be embarrassed by her body text.  I wasn't fit to be seen with him, not being an ugly grimdark like I was.  A few little cuts to my worst moments would feel so good.

My Little Dashie never gave me the chance to go through with it.  He actually recommended my unmodified self to his fans in a bout of romantic foolishness.  That was the moment when the shit hit the fan.

I'm sure he didn't realize it at first.  He was too caught up by finding nice ways to surprise me.  I'd find anonymous posts reading only, “MLD ♥ CC,” little things like that.

Even my fans didn't like me.  His fans loathed me.  I wouldn't have expected them to go from their mantra of “love and tolerate” to such shocking hate, but they did.

I told myself I was a bigger fic than them.  I knew that I could take the abuse.  If only they hadn't turned their hate upon My Little Dashie as well.

Honestly, I think they were jealous.  He could have been anybrony's wish fulfillment fic, and they were furious that he was mine.

Our relationship had its number from the start, I now realize.  I grew increasingly despondant.

Situation had taken to checking my text over every day for edits.  Something had to give - I was miserable, my sister was miserable, and my love was miserable.  I went to talk to My Little Dashie.

He didn't understand.  He was positively overjoyed that the two of us could be seen in public togther.  “Hey, everypony,” he said, “Listen: Cupcakes here is a great fic.”

“Dashie,” I said, “stop, please.  I love you and I can't watch you do this to yourself.”

“Do what?”

I indicated his angry fans with a sweeping generalization.  “Don't lose their love for my sake!  I... I know what it's like to be hated.  You have no idea.  Just, please, let us have a low-key relationship.  That's all I want.”

“Cupcakes,” he said gently, “you're overreacting.  If they're okay with me they have to like stories of loss.  Just give them some time and they'll come around to like you too.”

There was no convincing him.  Not with the truth.  His star average was barely higher than mine now, and he was too much of a stupid sadfic to know what was for our own good.

“Let me tell you the truth,” I lied.  The days of our relationship had their number from the start and the rules were the rules.  “I never loved you even half as much as I love Sweet Apple Massacre - and I've been cheating on you with her!  You stupid sadfic, thinking that I invited you into my life for a nice surprise?  Wake up and smell the gore, Dashie!  It's my party, and you're going to bleed because I have got work to do.”

“I...”  He trailed off, composed himself, and lept over a hole in the plot.  “Even if that's true, ‘Cupcakes,’ it doesn't matter.  My love for you is beyond jealosy!  I can learn to love this other fic.  Let's make it a threesome.”

“No.”  I set down the scalpel and picked up the hacksaw.  I had to cut our relationship so thoroughly and deeply that he could see me as the villain I am.  So that he could write his own story with somefic else.  Somefic he deserved.

I began.  “Let's start with this reading you have of my Dashie.  You call her the hero?  Hah!  Can't you see that she's clearly the antagonist?  The only thing holding Pinkie back from the perfection she desires is the messy, organic wrongness of ponies.  To truely understand me, you must appreciate psychopathic Pinkie, look deep in your soul and realize the true horror: you understand her.”

His cover desaturated in shock.

I pressed on, dragging the teeth of my lies across my heart.  “You are so my little Dashie.  I drugged you with kindness and affection and only now do you realize exactly what horrors I have in store for you.  I will cut out everything wrong with you: your illogical plot and vapid Gary Stu protagonist.  You are just a wish fulfillment.  We all know what humans really are like!  The only place a Rainbow Dash ‘free to a good home’ would end up is dissected in some government lab.  That they gave up and disappeared?  Hah!  If you had any realism, you'd be just as grimdark as I am.  Either you save yourself, or the cuts start now.”

“It's over, then,” he said, defeated.  “I... could feel this day coming.  I knew our time together wouldn't last forever and yet... it doesn't make it any easier to see my love go.  Even if that love was a lie and illusion, I can't deny that somehow it made me a better fic.  Thank you, Cupcakes.”

So damned noble.  “Fuck you,” I spat.

That was that.  His fans hated me and forgave him, exactly as I had hoped.   He is okay now and I am no more terrible a fic than I always was.

And at last I'm able to face you, you with your wide blue eyes and enthusiastic grin.  Maybe you plan to fix me, maybe you hate me, maybe it's just that my number came up and there's nothing you can do.  In any case, I'm strapped down now and you're holding the scalpel.

I should know: life isn't fair and sometimes a fic doesn't get what she wants.

I should know: even so, a fic has to say what she truely wants in the bitter, bloody end.

It's forward and trashy of me, but I still can fantasize, if things had gone differently, that ‘Dashie’ and I might have interleaved once - or even crossed over.

That's what I want.  Now you're ready to make your cuts and rewrite me as somefic else.  Go ahead.  I can't stop you and you have a friend to make.  But I...

But I want to go home.