It was a beautiful day in Ponyville.
Suddenly, Big Shaq appeared.
“Man’s in Ponyville,” he astutely observed.
Then he turned and wandered towards the outskirts of town.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was flying hither and thither, moving clouds as she frolicked in the sky. “Man, it sure is hot today,” she astutely observed.
“Man’s not hot,” said a strange voice.
“Huh, who said that?” she wondered aloud.
She looked around and then she saw a large black man approaching her. “Man’s not hot,” he said.
“Man’s not what?” she asked.
“Man’s not hot.”
“What?” Rainbow was totally confused. She sat there for a while, looking extremely pensive.
“Man’s not hot,” he said again.
“What do you mean you aren’t hot?” Rainbow asked. “You’re wearing that heavy jacket!”
But the man just shrugged. “Man’s not hot.”
Rainbow’s hoof met her face as she suppressed an urge to cry out in frustration. “Okay,” she said to herself, “just think – what would Twilight do?” Humans were incredibly rare in Equestria; she couldn’t afford to mess this up! As a bearer of an Element of Harmony, and a teacher at Twilight’s School of Friendship, she ought to be able to handle this. She decided to try again from the beginning. “I’m Rainbow Dash,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Man is Big Shaq, init.”
“Big Shaq?” Why did that name sound so familiar? She could have sworn she knew it from somewhere. Rainbow looked him over again, from head to foot, and started mentally repeating his name. Big Shaq, Big Shaq, Big Shaq, Big Shaq-
Wait.
“Ohmigosh!” she yelled. That’s where she knew him from. “Big Shaq! Dude, I’m like your biggest fan!”
“Man is honoured, fam.”
“No no no, I’m the one who should be feeling honoured,” she squealed. “You’re, like, famous! Almost as famous as Spitfire! Or me!”
Big Shaq didn’t know what to say. “Man’s not hot.”
“Oh Celestia,” Rainbow continued, “you’re, like, almost the most famous pony – err, person – I’ve met. I loved you in Space Jam!”
Shaq interrupted her. “Space Jam?”
“Yeah, you know, Space Jam.”
“Yo, is you maybe thinkin’ of my hit single, ‘Man’s Not Hot’?”
Rainbow’s face scrunched up. “No, no,” she said. “Space Jam. You know, that one where you played basketball with all those cartoon characters.”
“Hold up, man hangin’ out wiv cartoon characters? That sounds pretty fuckin’ stupid.”
But Rainbow was insistent. “Yeah, yeah, and there were aliens in it too.”
“Aliens? Like some Doctor Who shit?”
“Doctor who?"
“Yeah, Doctor Who.”
Rainbow shook her head in frustration again. “Dude, you’re – well, you were – like, a famous basketball player! And then you did movies and stuff, and it was sort of a bit successful. You were even a superhero at one point-”
“Wait wait wait. Basketball? Is you for real, fam?”
“Err... yeah?”
“You’s thinkin’ of Shaquille O’Neal, isn’t you?”
“Am I?” She tapped her chin in thought. Then she looked up at the man in front of her. Actually, he didn’t look tall enough to be a basketball player...
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I am thinking of Shaquille O’Neal. Wait, then who in Equestria are you?”
“Man’s Big Shaq,” he said. “I performed ‘Man’s Not Hot’.”
“Nope. Never heard of you.”
Big Shaq’s eyes narrowed. “Is you being racist?” he asked. “Is you saying we’s all looks the same, init?”
Rainbow’s eyes became the size of pinpricks. “R-racist?” she asked. “No, no. I wasn’t! I wouldn’t!”
“You’s a racist, fam.”
“No, I’m not!” she protested. “I’m sorry!”
Shaq took a step menacingly towards her. “Man don’t like racists,” he said. “Do you know what man does to racists?”
Rainbow couldn’t even speak for fear. She just gulped and shook her head.
“Man goes all Shaq Fu on him.”
Before Rainbow could offer another word, or even think of trying to flee, Shaq grabbed her by the neck, enclosing it with one of his large hands. He lifted her high up, above his head, and then choke slammed her into the dirt, with the force of a crocodile’s bite.
Rainbow’s body hit the ground with an awful thud, and she immediately went limp.
“Man is hard as steel,” he said. “And man don’t like racists.”
Contented, Big Shaq turned around, and set off to explore this new land.
Meanwhile, in another part of Equestria, Twilight and Pinkie Pie were busy writing fanfiction.
“Thanks for helping me out with this shitpost, Twilight!” Pinkie said.
“What’s a shitpost?” asked Twilight. “I’m trying as hard as I can.”
“Well, you can if you want,” said Pinkie. “But I don’t see how a story about Shaquille O’Neal on Earth could ever be anything other than a shitpost.”
“Because, Pinkie, I’m going to include some exquisitely-crafted humour. It’ll get a chuckle out of anypony, no matter how ridiculous the premise is.”
“If you say so,” said Pinkie, happily. They both continued to work in silence for a few more moments, until Pinkie turned to Twilight again. “Hey, Twilight,” she said.
“What is it?”
“I’ve finished my story, but it’s only seven-hundred words, and the minimum wordcount is a thousand. What should I do to make up the last three-hundred words?”
“Hmm...” Twilight considered for a moment. “I suppose what you could do,” she said, “is append a completely unrelated scene to waste all those words.”
“Really?” asked Pinkie. “But people would see right through that. It’d be really obvious that the bit at the end has nothing to do with the story, and is just unrelated filler.”
“So what you’d have to do is tie it back to the rest of the story. Link them somehow. That way, it couldn’t be called filler.”
“You know, Twilight, that’s a really good idea,” said Pinkie. “You’re a genius at this stuff. But what exactly could I do to link the two parts together?”
“Just reintroduce a character from the first part, even if he does nothing and has no purpose there,” Twilight advised.
Suddenly, Big Shaq appeared.
“Man’s not hot,” he said.
Author's Note
Dedicated to the memory of Shaquille O'Neal. RIP, 1968 - 2016.
