Author's Notes Don't Count, You Moron!
Thanks to Starfall for editing this.
"Oh man... This is awesome!" A stout, dark haired kid smiled at the laptop perched on his knees. On screen a wide yellow banner was superimposed over his favourite website. Written on it were the words:
Your story has been submitted! Click here to view it!
His smile intensified as he clicked the blue highlighted letters and waited for the new page to load. After a few impatient seconds of foot-tapping his desire was granted; A fresh new page popped up into view.
Life in a new world
After a mysterious spell cast by Twilight Sparkle backfires, she accidentally brings a human to Ponyville! What is in store for this human as he learns to adjust to life in a new world?
This is my first fic, so please be gentle. Constructive criticism is welcome! :)
He beamed at his brainchild, now sitting proudly on the screen. He had slaved for days on end to plan out the entire story beforehand, intricately weaving metaphors and similes and all sorts of creative language into the dialogue, even managing to drop a few references to other stories as well.
Then came the grammar checking. He spent an entire week perfecting the story's spelling and punctuation, ironing out the flaws until it was as crisp as a new dollar bill. It was a labor, but it was a labor of love.
And it was about to go public. It was a scary thing, putting his work up online for everyone to view. He knew there might be some negative opinions, some hate, some trolling, but the hope and optimism that burned in his heart trounced all of those fears. He knew that his work was good enough to be shared. He just knew it.
Soon it would be up on the main page, ready to catch the world's eyes.
"Now, I just have to wait for my genius to get approved. Soon, I'll be the most popular writer on FiMFiction!" He squealed with glee at the prospect of Internet popularity. However, his cries of happiness were quickly cut off by a gravely, masculine voice emanating from down the hall.
"Shut up, would ya? I'm trying to get my beauty sleep!"
The kid winced at the voice and looked around sheepishly. The solid blue walls of his bedroom stared blankly back at him. His bed squeaked under him as he shifted his weight and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Sorry, mom!" he called back. In a much softer tone this time, he whispered, "Internet fame is mine! All I have to do is wait for my story to get approved. It's just a matter of time..."
A bright peach-coated earth pony sat staring at a harshly glowing computer screen. His face was twisted in tense annoyance as his hooves expertly glided over the keyboard in front of him. "Darn it... why won't these morons learn to count?" He slapped the side of the computer screen as if it was the sole cause of his lament, causing the image on it to flicker briefly.
"Rejected," he mumbled as he glided the mouse over a large red "X," pausing briefly before he hammered down the mouse button and ended the story's pathetic existence on his website. "Try again next time, stupid bi-OW!"
He scrambled away from the table, clutching his hoof in agony as his muscles seized up briefly. As the waves of pain subsided, he grunted angrily at his hoof as if it had cramped up on purpose. "Stupid hoof," he mumbled as he returned to his perch in front of the computer.
As his eyes scanned over the screen, he let out a groan. "Augh, another new story already? I swear these things pop up just when I least want them to." He begrudgingly hovered his cursor over and clicked on the new story waiting to be approved. "Hmph, you watch Poultron," he grumbled to himself. "it'll just be another damn Human in Equestria fic-"
His voice dwindled as he skimmed over the title of the first story, his eyes beginning to twitch involuntarily. His hooves began to shake with pent up annoyance, gradually boiling over into a wave of sheer rage that slammed into Poultron's mind with the force of a tsunami.
Life in a new world
After a mysterious spell cast by Twilight Sparkle backfires, she accidentally brings a human into
"Dammit!" The pony slammed a hoof down onto his keyboard, shattering the "E" key with a satisfying crunch. "Why does it ALWAYS have to be a stupid freaking Human in Equestria?"
He threw himself onto his legs and began to pace the room feverishly. "These stupid writers could come up with an original, creative, and fun idea that everyone likes! But no, they have to go with the oldest, most worn out plot IN THE BOOK!" He punctuated his last words by driving his forehooves into the ground, leaving small round indentations on the floor beneath him. “They could at least have the common courtesy to write the darn things well, but no! They just butcher the damn thing every freakin’ time!
"Who even likes these things?" he shouted to nopony in particular. "Who actually sees a story like this and says, 'Oh hey! Here's a generic story with a generic plot that will undoubtedly get cancelled after a week! I think I'll favorite it!'?"
He returned to the computer, snarling obscenities under his breath and glaring holes into the screen. "Well Poultron, you signed up for this. You knew there were gonna be crap stories like this." He breathed deeply, attempting to regain some semblance of control.
"Just get through this, and you can go play Diablo for a while. That sounds good..." he trailed off as he began to skim through the story itself, practically gagging at the sheer amount of cliche puns and worn out My Little Dashie references that this story contained. He gave a small sigh of relief as he neared the end of the monstrosity, thanking the Goddesses he was finally free to-
894 words
His eyes caught on the number, nearly invisible next to the chapter number. As he gazed at the figures, he grew faint. The persistent shaking returned to his limbs, and his jaw dropped a bit.
"No... not freakin' possible..." A million tiny mirrors shattered in his mind, tearing his sensibility and his sanity to shreds as they fell.
"They... read the blogs about this. They had to."Unconsciously, he stood up, pupils fully dilated in rage and untold frustration. "No. This is a mistake. It just has to be." A trembling hoof wrapped around the mouse and shakily guided the cursor to the refresh button.
"Just a mistake... that's all." The page rebooted. Before it was even done loading, he madly scrolled to the bottom of the page, silently praying that the number would change.
894 words
The world fell away around Poultron, leaving him alone with the number in a sea of black. It silently taunted him, mocked him without having to do anything.
"I put out how many blogs?" he muttered in disbelief. "How many? And this author has the nerve to defy the rules?"
Suddenly, the black shattered around him, falling away to reveal a sea of blood red engulfing him, turning his rage into white hot fury.
"All he had to do was read the rules! This is a site for fanfiction, for Celestia’s sake! Can he not read?" He shouted now, his voice carried away by the red sea of hatred encompassing him.
"This is the last straw! Whoever wrote this is gonna pay." A cackling, demonic laugh sliced through the air. "Yes, he'll pay for this."
His eyes, normally a calming green, suddenly blinked white as the purest snow, their light slicing through the blood red ocean. As his face contorted into a vengeful, maniacal grin, the white-hot light contorted and stretched, finally letting out an ear shattering shriek before tearing the sea of red around it, exposing a murky haze beneath the crimson tide.
"You'll pay... you'll pay..." Poultron chanted as he propelled himself into the opaque chasm before him, face still contorted in rage.
The kid sat in the same position he had been in for almost twenty minutes now. He had lost some feeling in one leg, the slightest movement sending a quick shiver of pin pricks up his thigh. He hardly realized it, though. He had far more important concerns than that on his mind.
His eyes were glued to the harsh light of the computer. Every few minutes he would eagerly refresh the webpage, anxiously waiting for that magical moment when a mod would put his masterpiece up on display for the whole world to see. He expected no less than a massive blockbuster success, maybe even making an appearance in the all-holy featured box. He would become the envy of FiMFiction. Others would turn to him for guidance and support. He would be immortalized forever on the great expanse of the Internet-
A small box popped up at the bottom of the screen, accompanied by a quick mechanical chirp that interrupted his egocentric musings.
It was followed by a squeal of delight from the kid. "Oh-oh-oh! Maybe somebody favorited my story! Or maybe I have a new watcher! Or-"
He stopped his excited ramblings as he read the message, a look of bemused confusion on his face. "What the heck is this?" In front of him flickered the message;
Story has faild modration. Prpar for pain.
"Now what does that mean-"
He was hardly able to finish the sentence as a blinding white light tore open his computer screen. With a massive screech the light knocked the kid back into the wall, shaking the room. As he let out a cry of pain and shock, the blinding light yawed into a massive, glaring schism that rocked the entire house with unrivaled fury.
As he struggled to regain his footing, clutching his ribs in agony, the chasm exploded again. This time, a howling ball of fur tumbled out and careened wildly into his chest, sending another ripple of searing pain coursing through his side.
Carried by the furball's momentum, the human fell flat on his rear while whatever had just collided with him came to rest on his beaten chest-
"You! Human boy!" The pony screamed.
The boy sat there, oblivious to the words of the pony on top of him. He was staring at a pony. A real life, absolutely not fake pony. It was all he could do to keep from crying - he just wanted to hug it forever and ever-
"Human! Are you stupid?" The pony, clearly irritated beyond belief, drove a hoof into the boy's already bruised rib cage, eliciting another shriek of pain. "Listen to me!"
Now the boy was simply despondent. How could a pony, such a normally docile creature, just come in here and hurt him in such a way? His mind was torn between "fight pony" and "hug and forgive pony" and neither side was admitting defeat. Finally, between rasping coughs and muffled sobs, the boy managed to stutter, "W-What do you want?"
The pony grabbed him by the collar and yanked his head up to eye level. In a voice dripping with malice, he snorted, "You submitted a story on FiMFiction that had less than one thousand words in it."
He struck the boy upside the head and shouted, "You need a thousand words at minimum, you fool! Don't you read the rules? They're there for a reason!"
"B-But, there are over a thousand words with the author's notes!" The boy weakly put his hands up to shield his face from another hit.
The room suddenly went silent. The pony's eyes dilated, turning blood-red with hate as they did. He stared at the boy with equal parts loathing and spiteful rage as the human whimpered softly beneath him
Finally, the silence was broken by a demonic laugh. The pony, lips curled upwards in a crazed smile, leaned in close to the quivering boy's face. "Silly human."
With a start, he kicked himself upwards to gain momentum before slamming down with his front hooves on the human's chest, screaming, "AUTHOR'S NOTES DON'T COUNT!" The boy wailed in agony as another rib shattered under the pony's powerful hooves.
Seeing as he had done enough to the defenseless human, the pony mercifully dismounted the shaking boy and allowed him to curl up into the fetal position, sobbing quietly into his hands. "Let that be a lesson to you," he spat.
However, as he prepared to jump back through the blinding white schism of light that still burned where the boy's computer had once been, the crying, bleeding mess on the floor began to cough and sputter as it tried to speak. Finally, with a few shallow, gasping breaths, he managed to choke out, "... Why?"
The pony turned around, an annoyed smirk on his face. "Because..." he spat with another satanic smile.
"I'm Poultron."
With a massive whomph of air, a breathless Poultron was unceremoniously dumped back into his own room, in front of his own computer. After a brief moment to stretch out his limbs from the journey, he gave himself a quick pat on the shoulder. "Ya did good, Poultron. Ya did good."
He sighed contentedly as he sat down in front of his computer, still displaying those taunting numbers to his face.
894 words
He allowed himself a short giggle. The numbers that had once belittled and goaded him into committing assault now stared blankly back at him. They had lost their power. They no longer controlled him.
"He he... Certainly took care of that, didn't I?" He clicked over to the main page. But as he did, he noticed another notification at the top of the screen.
Another story waiting for approval. Great, he thought as he clicked over to it, a mild look of annoyance overtaking his chipper smile. I was supposed to be playing Diablo right now. I still don't even know why I do this day after day. I'll just breeze through this one, then it's back to-
902 words
The number sat coyly on the screen, toying with Poultron's emotions, laughing at the peach pony as it gleefully ripped the last shreds of sanity in his head apart.
His hooves began to tremble. His eye twitched involuntarily. That same sinking feeling took hold of him, amplified his rage as the world again fell away away around him, leaving only him and the number.
"Why won't anyone just read the fucking rules?"
Moral of the story: Follow the rules. Don't submit a story with under 1000 words, or Poultron will find you.
