Twilight Sparkle Earns the Feature-Box
* * *
Twilight Sparkle Earns the Feature-Box
by ~~Twilight Sparkle~~ Jeffrey C. Wells
for SleeplessBrony, who put my brain in a weird place; and biologic orthodoxy, who threatened to hit me
* * *
In the serene warm darkness of the Canternet, Twilight Sparkle lay, observing her Audience.
"So," murmured the Audience. "Tell me the name of your story."
Twilight felt a bright, heady flush build on her face and chest. "Well," she said, the words coming quickly, pouring out of her like water. "It's called 'And the Stars Shall Aid In Her Escape', and it's a self-insertion Princess Luna fiction where I make out with Princess Luna. You see, I noticed that there's a lot of fiction out there where I romance Luna, but not a lot of stories where we're actually, um, doing. It. On the page." She scratched the back of her neck with one hoof. "And most of those are, like, three-ways with Princess Celestia," she continued, more to fill the awkward silence than anything. "And, I mean, I really like Princess Celestia and everything, it's just that—"
"Hush," said the Audience, with gentle amusement. "There's no need to preface your story that extensively. Just let it stand on its own merits. I'm sure it's a beautiful story."
"You think so?" said Twilight, bashfully.
"I've always imagined it that way, at least," admitted the Audience, looking a little sheepish. "I've long fantasized about seeing a story from you. Ever since you activated your fanfic-site account. I would see you commenting on other ponies' stories, and those comments were very thorough, and erudite, and above all, literate. And I kept thinking to myself, why doesn't this talented young mare write a story of her own? Sometimes I would sit awake at night, wondering what reading one of your fanfics would be like."
"And, now, here we are."
"Yes," said the Audience, smiling. "Are you ready to show me your story? You don't have to; I won't press you."
"No," said Twilight, shaking her head. "No, I want to. I want to expose the works of my hooves to you, for your criticism and approval. I want to hear all your opinions."
"Are you sure?" said the Audience. "My criticism can be… vociferous."
"I'm sure," she said.
"All right," said the Audience, leaning itself back against the darkness.
With a quiet flicker of pixels, Twilight published her story for the Audience to see.
The Audience smiled. "Oh, yes," it said. "Mm, you opened with a quote from a classic text. Very scholarly."
"Thank you," said Twilight, blushing. "I really enjoy Predictions and Prophecies, but I hesitated on the quote; I was afraid it might come across as stealing somepony else's thunder. Incidentally, do you think the title is double-meaning-y enough? I wanted to call it 'And the Stars Shall Aid In Her Release' because, you know, the word 'Release' can mean an erotic thing, too, but I wanted to accurately reproduce the quote from the – Eeek!" Twilight startled. "What was that?"
"A like," said the Audience. "A part of me liked your story."
"But you haven't even read the whole thing yet," said Twilight. "How do you know you like it?"
"Let's just say I had a feeling about it."
"A little premature, if you ask me," said Twilight, dubiously.
"Okay, okay," said the Audience, chuckling. "Guilty as charged. Here, let me finish reading."
And so, Twilight Sparkle watched as the Audience began devouring her words. Slowly, at first, and then, with increasing vigor as its enthusiasm for her fiction waxed and grew. She shuddered at the Audience's interest in her text. She'd heard stories of audiences reading stories, of course – what young filly hadn't? – but having her very own Audience reading her own story was… well, words could not describe. It was the difference between the lightning bug and the actual lightning. Those stories about stories were nothing like actual stories were. If that made any sense.
The experience was over too quickly for Twilight's taste. She ached for more peer assessment. Merely having her story read, however exhaustively, was no longer enough for the young librarian. At the risk of overreaching, of fishing for praise, she blinked in an academic fashion at her Audience.
"So," she whispered. "Did you like my story?"
A jolt coursed through her fiction as the Audience clicked on its "like" button. Fundamentally, it felt much like it had before; but now, with the added depth of knowing that the Audience had read and enjoyed her story, the whole story, from head to toe, it made Twilight Sparkle positively beam with pride. She clamped her teeth together in an attempt to suppress a delighted squeal. Oh, yes. With a flicker of mouse-clicks, more likes followed the first, raising her approval level to heights of public affirmation she had never before achieved. It seemed obvious, in retrospect; yes, she had worked through and proofread her own stories in the privacy of her own home, and had been satisfied with the result, but it was nothing compared to having a real Audience critique her.
She was on the verge of declaring all the poets of history correct in singing their endless and adoring praise of literary criticism when there was a sharp and unpleasant red tingle in her authorhood. Twilight Sparkle recoiled from it. "Ow!" she said.
The Audience retreated. "I'm sorry," it said.
"What in the hay was that?" she demanded.
"A dislike," said the Audience. "A little part of me didn't approve."
"Of what?" said Twilight, desperately, feeling a pit open beneath her stomach. "Was it the character voice? Some problem with typography? Did you just not like the me / Luna pairing?"
The Audience shrugged, apologetically. "Sadly, it's impossible to say without an associated comment."
"Is this how it's always going to be?" Twilight asked, hating the plaintive note in her voice.
"Sometimes it's going to hurt, yes," said the Audience. "Sometimes it's going to hurt a lot. But '…Stars' is a good story. It shouldn't happen very much."
"I'm sorry," said Twilight. "It's just... it's just my first time posting. I didn't know that it would hurt, too. I… I don't want to unpublish it now. Not after all those likes."
"Nor should you," whispered the Audience, soothingly. "I'll try and be gentle."
"Okay," said Twilight, stiffening her lip.
The Audience clucked its tongue. "Don't look that way," it said, rolling over. "Here. Let me show you something you'll really enjoy." The Audience teased its mouse pointer over the shell-colored bar on top of her story.
"What?" said Twilight, craning her neck to see. The Audience was hovering its mouse pointer over a faint outline of a star perched next to the likes/dislikes indicator. "Ooh, is that a star?" she said. "I like stars."
"You'll really like this, then," said the Audience. "It's called a 'fave'."
With gentle, imposing firmness, the Audience clicked down.
Twilight gasped as the tiny prick of the mouse pointer touched the delicate button of her fave star, causing it to flare bright gold. "Oh… oh, Celestia," she moaned.
"Good, right?" said the Audience.
"It's… amazing!" stammered Twilight, the normally-verbose unicorn suddenly at a loss for words. "Not only am I getting approval for my story, I'm getting entries in my notifications menu! And… and…."
Twilight moaned.
"Mm?" said the Audience.
"E-mail alert," whispered Twilight. "I just got an e-mail about your fave."
"Good," said the Audience. "That's exactly right."
Twilight Sparkle blinked at the Audience. Her voice, when it came, was small and foal-like.
"Could you…" she said, "could you fave me again?"
* * *
"Yes!" shouted Twilight, as the Audience clicked at her story's fave button over and over again. "Yes! Yes! Fave me! Fave me harder!"
"Only," said the Audience, gasping, "if you e-mail me updates to this story!"
Twilight Sparkle's voice quavered somewhere between a moan and a wail. "But... this is a one-shot! I've marked it 'complete'!"
"Sequel!!1!!" demanded the Audience, momentarily losing mastery of its "shift" key. "Moar!"
"You're… you're not even spelling your comments correctly!" said Twilight, her mood cracking as she tried, in vain, to keep from laughing at the Audience's lack of self-control on the keys.
"I can't help it!" said the Audience, laughing breathlessly right along with her. "I just… I just liked your story that much!" The Audience groaned in mock frustration. "I don't know what to do with myself any more! Where do we go from here?"
A sly look crossed the lavender unicorn's face. She leaned in close to the Audience.
"Feature box," she whispered. She felt the Audience tremble.
"Oh… yes," said the Audience. "Oh, god, yes."
"You know what you have to do," said Twilight, her voice sultry. The feeling of being in this much control over her captive Audience was delicious, smooth and dark, like melted chocolate, but she could only savor the feeling for so long before the Audience began working her favorites button with the vigor that only a really enthusiastic and committed group of functionally anonymous Canternet spectators possessed, and her world was lost to the electric burn of positive feedback.
A tiny, rational part of Twilight's mind – she was a scientist, after all, and no amount of joyful artistic enthusiasm could wholly extinguish that fact – quietly calculated how many likes and faves and comments she needed to reach the feature box. It couldn't be long now. If the good reviews kept coming in at this rate, and if she could just avoid the dislikes for a few more minutes, she couldn't possibly believe that it would take that much longer for—
—and then it happened. So busy had she been analyzing the numbers that the actual moment of featuring came upon her quite by surprise, a burst of critique out of nowhere that thrust her story straight upward from the top of the "most-read" list directly to the delicious white box in the title bar. She cried out in a sharp ecstasy as her story's position on the feature box exposed it to all kinds of new Audience, parts of the Audience she hadn't even seen, or dared to dream about. Waves of public approval rocked Twilight's fragile body as even the casual portions of the fanfic site's traffic, the ones who only stopped in every once in a while and never delved deep into the mass of Ponyfic, noticed her story and began liking and faving and commenting her, and the cascading effect of all these glowing reviews served only to maintain her story on the feature box, as she hit her position of literary prominence over and over and over again.
Twilight Sparkle's world went away for some time.
When sense and reason finally returned, once her story had receded from the feature box, leaving behind a five-page trail of comments and a warm green line of up-thumbs that dwarfed the tiny sliver of red beneath it, Twilight rolled over and gazed at her Audience, her deep purple eyes sparkling enough to do full justice to her last name.
"So," she said. "Should I write another?"
"Yes," whispered the Audience. "You're on my watch-list, now."
"Good," said Twilight, snuggling up. "Because I know exactly what the next one's about…"
* * *
Twilight Sparkle's eyes flickered open.
"Er," she said, gazing up at the ceiling of her cozy little library loft. "Ha ha, wow." Way to go, Sparkle, she thought. That'll teach you to eat an entire roll of pickle sushi with extra ginger right before nighty-night. What a dream.
Somewhere at the foot of Twilight's bed, there came a murmur.
"Spike," whispered Twilight, sitting up in the darkness. "I'm sorry, Spike, did I wake you with all that?"
Spike muttered again, nonsensically. Good, thought Twilight. He's just talking in his sleep. She rolled out from beneath her astronomy-print comforter, got to her hooves, tiphoofed quietly to the foot of the bed, and leaned in close to Spike's little dragon basket, smiling.
Spike snorted. For a moment, his words became intelligible.
"Oh, Equestria Daily Readership," muttered Spike. "But… what would Rarity think?"
"I'm here, too, darling," said Spike, then, his voice going kind of squeaky.
"Both of you?" said normal-voice Spike. "At the same time?"
And then he was lost to incoherency again.
Twilight chuckled. "Oh, Spike," she said. Walking quietly, again, so as not to disturb him from what was undoubtedly a very lexically satisfying dream, Twilight crossed back to her bedside and slipped beneath the covers once more.
She lay there for a time, staring up at the whorled wooden ceiling of the library.
She still wasn't sure what the "Canternet" in her dream was, and had never once met a mouse that clicked; but yes, she had critiqued stories she had read and given feedback to their authors. But she'd never written a fiction of her very own. She'd read writing process manuals, of course. Books on unleashing your inner creative urge. But it had never gone anywhere.
What would it be like? To write a story of your own?
Twilight flipped back the covers, got up, crossed to her writing desk, and lit a single candle.
There, in the warm darkness of a Ponyville summer night, Twilight Sparkle took up her quill, gently wrapping her magic around the soft, loose afterfeathering at its base. She dipped it once, twice, three times into the tiny brass inkpot, and then suspended the pen in front of her for a moment, watching a bead of her ink glimmer at the tip like a jewel in the candlelight.
With a smile of firm determination, Twilight Sparkle touched pen to paper and got to work.
Still Cleaning This Crossbow
* * *
Still Cleaning This Crossbow
by ~~Spike the Dragon~~ ~~Twilight Sparkle~~ Jeffrey C. Wells
because why the hell not at this point
* * *
"So," said the Collective Body of Equestria Daily Pre-Readers, leaning back in its rocking chair. "I hear you're interested in writing something for my little Readership to peruse. Is that so?"
Spike tapped the tips of his claws together, nervously. He hadn't expected things to be so, well, awkward. Like any hot-blooded young male with a healthy lexicon, he was full of the frustrated, barely-constrained urge to write, to put pen to parchment over and over and over again, until his quill was blunt and his inkpot was bone-dry. And he was one of the lucky ones! How many of his peers in Ponyville actually had a job as a professional scribe? And not just to any ordinary pony, oh no. He was the personal secretary to Miss Twilight Sparkle herself, whose appetites for dictated memoranda were the stuff of legend. Every day, Twilight worked Spike to a frazzle, forcing him to write letter after letter, sometimes not stopping until far into the night, when Spike would finally drop from exhaustion. (And even then, Miss Sparkle often remained awake, availing herself of the assistance of her pet owl as she continued to scribble on.) Yes, it was all very technical and erudite, but think about it! He was getting paid… to write! How many ponies could say that?
But sometimes… sometimes, in the small hours, Spike would get strange urges. Urges to write really crazy stories about stuff that didn't actually exist. He even kept a couple writing manuals under the cushion in his basket, so he could take a few furtive glances at them from time to time when he was all alone in the library. A few years ago, he had gone on the Canternet and was thrilled to find that he wasn't the only one with this rather bizarre fixation. There were even entire groups out there dedicated to it.
On the Canternet, they called it "fiction". Spike was seized with a desire that day, a desire that had never left him: to get extremely, profoundly fictional, and to do it with the most eligible Audience in Ponydom, to wit, the entire Readership of Equestria Daily.
There was only one problem, only one thing standing in his way.
Spike cleared his throat and affected as deep a voice as he possibly could. "Yes, Mr. Body of Equestria Daily Pre-Readers," he said.
"Please," said the Collective Body of Equestria Daily Pre-Readers. "Call me Collective."
"Yes, Mr. Collective, sir," said Spike. "I would very much like to show something I've written to your Readership. Because… um… it's… very…"
Large, thought Spike. The Equestria Daily Readership was large, absolutely huge, in all the right ways. But you can't say that to the Pre-Readers! They'll think you're just in it for the fame!
"Your Readership is very… discerning," said Spike, instantly happy with his choice.
Collective nodded. "Good," it said. "Good."
Then it leaned in close, its eyes glinting like coal.
"Tell me, boy," it said. "Do you have a spell-checker?"
Spike coughed and nearly choked. "Sorry?" he said, not quite believing his ears.
"A spell-checker," repeated the Collective, more slowly. "You can't tell me you don't know what one is." The Collective leaned back in its chair again. "For in case you make… typos."
"Sir," said Spike, "I wasn't planning on making any mistakes with your Readership's work, typographical or otherwise."
The Collective chuckled, without humor. "Oh, you say that," it said. "Nopony goes into a piece planning on making mistakes. But mark my words, you'll be there, writing, getting all enthusiastic, and you'll feel like you're on a roll with the passage you're in, and then, suddenly, you'll want to use a word like 'metonymy', and you won't feel like getting up from your work to get a dictionary. That's what a spell-checker is for, son."
"I would never use so complicated a word with your Readership," said Spike, politely, who had in fact planned out an extensive passage that rather hinged on metonymy, both the word itself and the linguistic concept it represented.
"Mm," said the Collective. "So you like simple words, then."
Dang it all to Tartarus! Talking to the Collective was like navigating a trap-filled temple in one of those "Daring Do" novels that Twilight kept around. (Incidentally, the very books that had introduced him to the concept of written fiction in the first place, though he would never admit this to Miss Sparkle's face.) Spike frantically assessed the Collective's impassive countenance, hoping for a lifeline. He found none.
"I think you should use the right word for the right situation," said Spike, practically squinting in anticipation of the backlash. "Whatever complexity it might have."
Silence, but for the noise of the Collective's chair, rocking slowly back and forth.
"Good," said the Collective. "I think you sound like a promising young author."
Spike tried to hide his sigh of relief. "Thank you, sir," he said.
"So," said the Collective. "How extensive is your piece? How long is it going to be?
Oh, Celestia, thought Spike. Right, sir, as if I'm going to tell you that it's a one-shot. Yes, I want to get fictional with your Readership, but I don't want any lingering commitments. I was planning on marking it completed after tonight. How do you say that to the Pre-Readers?
Thankfully, this time, there was a lifeline. "I see that look on your face, boy. I know what it's like to be a young author. So many ideas, so little time. You just want this out of the way so you can get on to your next masterpiece."
"Sir, I—"
The Collective held up a silencing hoof. "Believe it or not, son, I don't have a problem with it. So long as your initial submission clearly states that this work is complete. Do you follow?"
Spike scratched one clawed toe against the boards of the Collective's front porch. "Yes, sir," he said.
"Good," said the Collective, lighting a pipe and puffing on it thoughtfully for a moment. "Too many authors out there leading my Readership on with promises of future updates. They talk a good talk, but then it just peters out. The author attrition rate is quite staggering — especially if a fledgling writer is at the helm. I can't count how many times my dear Readership has come to me, crying, wondering when the next part of its favorite piece is coming out. I don't have the heart to tell it that it ain't coming. I've had my fill of that kind of interaction, do you hear me, boy?"
"Yes, sir," said Spike.
"Good, said the Collective. "So long as we all understand one another. You have fun, treat my Readership right, and get it home on time. And don't you worry about getting me up, because I keep late hours. I'll most certainly be awake when you get back, just doing some regular maintenance and upkeep on my old pistol crossbow, from back when I was a sniper in the Equestrian Royal Guard. If I make myself clear."
Spike gulped. "Crystal," he said.
"Mm," said the Collective. Then it turned its head back toward the house. "All right, Readership, you can come out now! This gentledragon has some plans with you, if I'm not mistaken."
The front door swung open, and there it was, the entire Readership of Equestria Daily, in the pixels. Just looking at it standing there, so big and comparatively responsive, put all sorts of six-star thoughts in Spike's head. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
He couldn't wait to get fictional with it.
The Readership gave the Collective Body of Equestria Daily Pre-Readers a quick peck on the cheek, causing the old assembly to smile a little. "See you when we get back, Pre-Readers."
"I'll be waiting," said the Collective.
When they were finally alone in their carriage together, the Readership let out an affectionate, but exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry if the Collective Body of Equestria Daily Pre-Readers raked you across the coals a little. It's a little old-fashioned, but please understand that it only wants the best for me."
"No, no, it was tough but fair, tonight."
"I'm glad," said the Readership, snuggling up to him, causing Spike to nearly swoon.
"So, um," said Spike, as the carriage pulled away. "I was thinking… um… if you didn't have any other plans… maybe-I-could-show-you-some-of-my-writing?"
"Oh, sorry," said the Readership, pursing its lips in a heartbreaking little pout. "I'm set to 'no fanfiction' mode today."
"Oh," said Spike, quietly.
And then, "So… hypothetically… if someone, I mean, not me, but someone, were to post a piece of fanfic today, you wouldn't see it at all."
"Nope!"
"Not even a little."
"Absolutely not," replied the Readership. "It's all blocked."
"Oh," repeated Spike, his eyes fixed on the floorboards.
Several moments passed, with only the noise of the carriage's wheels to mark them.
"Well," said Spike, "how about we just make out, instead?"
"Sure!" said the Readership, cheerfully.
And so they did. All night long.
