The Second Longest Trollfic Ever: Son of 'The Longest Trollfic Ever'

by Twiface

Rating: teen
Tags: Sunset Shimmer, Profanity, Random, Screwball, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Comedy, Starlight Glimmer, Derpy Hooves
Length: 5231

Screwball travels back in time, kidnaps Starlight, and distracts the Mane Six to prevent Discord's reformation. But who exactly is Screwball, and can somepony stop her before all of Equestria is engulfed in chaos?

Screwball finds life in today's Equestria to be positively boring, so she hatches a plan to travel back in time, kidnap Starlight, and distract the Mane Six long enough to prevent Discord's reformation. But just who exactly is this 'Screwball' pony, and can somepony stop her before all of Equestria is engulfed in chaos?

The sequel to and spiritual successor of The Longest Trollfic Ever by Troll, which is no longer with us. Rest in Peas, you magnificent bastard. :ajsleepy:

Will reach 999,999 words when finished. Expect hourly updates.

Published 2019-04-02 07:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-02 07:00:01 UTC

Chapter 1: It Begins...

One crisp Tuesday morning under an ominous grey sky, a hearse pulled up to a church. A small crowd had gathered outside, all dressed in black mourning attire due to the solemn occasion. A small wooden box was removed from the vehicle and four ponies stepped forward to carry it into the building. Though it was fairly heavy, Derpy tried her best to hold her end, as she did not want to break the mood of this solemn occasion. However, being Derpy, this was destined to go wrong somehow, and per the audience’s expectations it did; in all her concentration she had failed to see the banana peel located strategically on the sidewalk, and thus tripped and fell. Her tripping caused the other pall-bearers to lose their balance, thus causing the casket to fly into the air and land a short distance away on top of a trash can, spilling its content into the waste receptacle. The crowd gasped and stared in awe. Starlight Glimmer, however, was not amused, and simply walked up to the trash can and fished out a tiny book with a neat leather binding. Though the book appeared nearly identical to the Gideon bibles found in motel nightstands across America, printed on its pages was the text of the longest trollfic ever known to Ponykind, aptly titled The Longest Trollfic Ever.

Starlight held the book aloft with her magic for the crowd to see. Though its pages had been soiled with Szechuan sauce, Starlight deemed it in good enough condition to proceed, and simply placed it back into the coffin, built to resemble a Fortnite Loot Chest, because that was its original intended purpose. The crowd let out a soft giggle but not a full laugh, for their humour was muted by the dreary atmosphere of death, which was so oppressive that not even their use of a clown car as a hearse could break it. Thus, the stone-faced crowd shuffled into the venue, the cathedral of capitalism that was a McDonald’s restaurant in rural Virginia, with only the gravest of feelings.

As the coffin was laid on the counter, the crowd took their seats at the plastic tables as Barney the Dinosaur played the 'Sad Violin' song on airhorn. One of those black metal carts with a big TV and a VCR player that they used to use in public schools all the time was rolled out. The TV was plugged into a cable outlet somewhere, and Starlight took the remote control and pressed the power button, then flipped the channel until she got to CNN, then lowered the volume. They were covering some sort of vehicle accident in New York City, which she deemed a suitable source of background noise for the duration of the funeral.

In lieu of incense, several Strawberry Shortcake toys from the McDonald’s Happy Meal Deal were tossed into steel drums placed around the room, doused with kerosene, and lit on fire. Although Snoop Dogg was unable to attend, he paid his respects by sending a truckload of the dankest weed from his secret stash, which was liberally tossed into the drums to fill the room with a comforting (yet slightly nauseating) aroma. However, even this could not stop the guests from feeling sad.

A green anthropomorphic frog wearing a polka-dot bow tie, a green wig, and a red nose stood behind one of the cash registers and attempted to give a eulogy.

“It was a g-good friend, a-and a good lover, a-and a—a—oh, it feels so bad, man!” he exclaimed, bursting into tears.

Starlight came over and laid a hoof on his shoulder.

“There, there…” she said. Then she turned to the crowd and said, “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

The pall-bearers stood up and walked over the counter and lifted up the coffin to carry it to its final destination. The rest of the attendees followed them into the kitchen. As per the request of the deceased, someone brought out a laptop hooked up to some Bluetooth speakers and played the Thomas the Tank Engine theme, albeit at half speed so it actually sounded kinda sad. As the music played, the pall-bearers gently lowered the Fortnite Loot Chest into the fryer until it was fully submerged in grease. Several of the onlookers burst into tears-- not of liquid pride, nor of any sort of pride at all for that matter, but of sadness.

When the deed was done, everyone shuffled back to their seats and sat there in silence for a few minutes. Since nobody was in the mood to talk, all eyes fell onto the TV. As United Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, the guests gave a polite golf clap.

“al-Shehhi was a little bit off, but that was still pretty good,” remarked Starlight.

Then a bell rang in the kitchen. The McNuggets were ready.

The guests chatted quietly among themselves between bites of McNuggets. They tasted kind of papery, but this could easily be masked with Szechuan sauce, which thanks to the magic of time travel, was available in plentiful supply.

“It’s a shame that The Longest Trollfic Ever died,” Sunset Shimmer told Starlight Glimmer. “If it wasn’t for your time travel spell, I’d never have met him. He was a really great guy.”

The youtuber Cleanpincegaming walked up to them.

“The Longest Trollfic Ever didn’t just die… it was murdered!” he said.

The two mares just stared at him incredulously.

“What do you mean, ‘it was murdered?’” Sunset asked.

“I’ll show you!” Cleanprincegaming said, pulling one of those large cork boards on wheels out of nowhere, brimming with photographs, maps, charts, tables, and lines made of red string connecting things together. He began elaborating on a long-winded conspiracy theory which ultimately laid the blame on Electronic Arts.

“Wait, what does E.A. have to do with--?” Sunset asked.

“Just don’t,” Starlight interrupted. “There’s no use trying to reason with conspiracy theorists. Come on, let’s go.”

Just as they were walking away from him, a glistening yellow object crashed through the window. Everyone ducked for cover because it looked kind of like a grenade, but then a few brave souls peaked out from hiding. A few brave souls stepped towards it. Starlight levitated it with her magic and looked at it and read the inscription on its side.

“’For the Fairest?’”

She furrowed her brow in disgust and stared out the window where it had come from.

“You won’t make us start a war today. Who do you think we are, the Bush Administration?”

“No, you seem more like a Clinton to me,” a filly’s voice teased. A magic cloud appeared behind Starlight. When Starlight turned around to look at it, the cloud had begun to dissipate. In its place, a magenta mare with a purple mane, wearing a white coat, white top hat, white vest, white gloves, a monocle, and carrying a cane with a blue diamond on its end.

“Hey, this is a funeral!” Starlight snapped. “What’s with that getup? You’re supposed to wear all black! Also, I don’t remember inviting you!”

The magenta pony glowered at the pink unicorn.

“Relax, I’m not here as a guest,” she said. “I’m crashing it! And for your information, this ‘getup,’ as you so call it, is a cosplay of Count Logan from The End of Ends.”

A black hardcover book materialized in the air next to the magenta pony, who grabbed it and threw it at Starlight. It hit her in the face.

Sunset stepped in front of Starlight and stared the magenta pony in the face, ready to defend her friend.

“Hey, what gives?” she asked. “This is a private event. You weren’t invited, so scram!”

“If it’s supposed to be a private event, then maybe you shouldn’t have listed it as a public one on Facebook,” replied the magenta pony. “I get the feeling that you’re deliberately trying to exclude me. I mean, time traveling almost twenty years back and holding it in Ruckersville, Virginia? Who’s ever heard of Ruckersville, Virginia?”

“All the preparations were done in accordance with the will of the deceased,” Starlight said. “You know how fond he was of memes.”

“I knew that!” the magenta pony scoffed. “Relax Starlight, I’m just here to add a little bit of levity to this otherwise very somber event… isn’t that right, Somber?”

A hungover grey unicorn sitting in the corner raised his head from where it had been faceplanted onto the table.

“Just… kill me now, please,” he said. “I can’t take it anymore.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Starlight said sarcastically. “But no, we already invited Discord, but he didn’t RSVP.”

“Oh, so you invite Discord, but you don’t invite his daughter?” the magenta pony asked.

“He’s the god of chaos,” Sunset said. “He’s probably sired millions of children. We can’t invite them all. If we invited one, it wouldn’t be fair to all the others, now would it?”

“Good point,” the magenta pony said. “But not good enough. He had a few who he favored over all the others.”

“This venue only holds 137 people,” Starlight replied. “We had to keep the guest list pretty short, so I focused on gathering the most relevant memes.”

The magenta pony looked around the room at all the strange and eccentric guests, then at the ‘Maximum Occupancy: 137’ sign on the wall behind the counter, and scoffed.

“You invited the god of chaos yet you’re worried about what the Fire Marshal would think? You’re ridiculous… but not in a good way. Most of these memes are pretty dated, especially Pepe the Frog! Talk about a zombie! That meme’s been run so deep into the ground, the only thing keeping him alive is that advertisers won’t touch him with a ten foot pole! But oh, in 30 years when 2010’s nostalgia starts to kick in, they most certainly will.”

“Hey, can you hurry this up?” asked Bubbles Rosechu. “Flight 77’s about to hit the Pentagon.”

“Alright, fine,” said the magenta pony. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving. But before I go, I’ll be needing this…”

She reached forward with a forehoof and used The Force to reverse-throw the book she had thrown at Starlight. The book rose from the floor and hit Starlight in the face again before flying back to the spot in the air where it had first appeared.

“And this…”

She used the force to grab a box of 10-piece McNuggets for the road.

“…And this!”

Several ropes appeared from nowhere at Starlight’s sides. They immediately began wrapping themselves around her body as it began to float up into the air. Starlight screamed and the rest of the room gasped in horror. Then nothing happened.

“Well? Is somepony going to try and save me?” Starlight asked.

“Not really,” the magenta pony said. “They’ve all been disabled by the bystander effect, a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely one of them will help. One hundred and thirty six is a pretty big group, and the confined space makes it seem much larger. It’s one of the strongest and most replicable effects in social psychology, which is why I felt confident that I could kidnap you in broad daylight in a public place.”

Starlight just glared at her.

“Oh great, is this going to be another of those ‘rational fics’ full of chessmasters who spend the entire story setting traps and gloating about how intelligent they are?”

“Gee, I hope not!” the magenta pony said. “This is supposed to be an irrational fic where nothing makes sense!”

“Good,” said Starlight. “Now can anyone help me out? Anyone?”

But the bystander effect was extremely powerful, and almost hypnotic. Nobody moved or said anything. Starlight decided to single somebody out.

“Sunset! Help me!” she exclaimed.

“I can’t!” Sunset relied. “I left my Geode of Empathy at home!”

“Oh, for the love of—” griped Starlight, but she was interrupted.

“Ah, it seems you’ve made a mistake, Starlight,” the magenta pony said. “It seems that you were so busy planning everything else about this event that you completely forgot about security! Now, if you had invited a complete magical team you’d be set, but you only invited half of the Chaotic Combo and none of the Mane Six.”

“Will you just hurry up and leave already?!?” asked Ronald McDonald. “We’re on a tight schedule here, and I’ve gotta get this place reopened to the public by ten.”

“Yeah, I was just about to leave,” said the magenta pony. “As daddy would say… arrivederci!”

With the snap of her non-existent fingers, the magenta pony disappeared with her captive in a poof of smoke while everybody in the room suddenly found that their pants were full of ants.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets. But it is not in London that our scene lies, but Transylvania... or rather the very edge of it. At the peak of Mount Cetatea stood Ponenari Castle. Normally one would have to climb 1,488 stairs to reach it, but the magenta pony simply teleported her way to the top.

Inside the castle there was a room with a very large opera stage. Underneath the opera stage, a brown kirin wearing a freaky half-mask thing played the overture to ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ on an organ on top of a gondola. A poof of purple smoke appeared, and the kirin turned around and took off her mask.

“Oh, hi there!” she said excitedly. “I was just practicing… and setting the mood.”

“Good work, Cinder Glow,” said the magenta pony. “We’re just about to begin.”

She descended to the ground, then climbed a staircase to the backstage. She walked out onto the opera stage, which was full of laboratory equipment. Towards the back of the stage there was a platform tilted at an incline of about 85%. A unicorn was tied to the platform and a bag covered its head. The magenta pony trotted up to it and pulled the bag off the pony’s head. Starlight awoke to see the magenta pony’s grinning face just a few inches away from hers.

Starlight spat in the magenta pony’s face. The magenta pony took a few steps back and wiped the spit off in disgust.

“Okay, just who the heck are you and what do you want with me?” Starlight asked.

The magenta pony chuckled sinisterly.

“The name’s Screwball, nice to meet you.”

She stuck out her hoof for Starlight to shake, only to remember that Starlight’s hooves were bolted to the platform.

“Oh, right,” she said, retracting her hoof in embarrassment. “Well, we can shake later. And by ‘later,’ I mean really soon.”

She walked over to center stage and removed a cloth covering a large object, revealing Discord’s statue.

“Equestria is far too peaceful and orderly. Far too utopian for my liking, or for the liking of many other ponies. So boring. It’s the kind of place where fillies knock over vases or cause drama just so they can have something to talk about. It needs a little bit of… chaos!”

Starlight rolled her eyes.

“Oh please, have you ever tried teaching school? That’s chaotic enough, even without Discord mucking around.”

Starlight then eyed the statue.

“Speak of the Devil, I see you’ve got his statue right over there. Let me guess: it’s 2011 again?”

“2012, actually,” Screwball said. “And we’re just on the cusp of 2013, the year that broke FiM. Is it not a coincidence that The Longest Trollfic Ever uploaded its last chapter exactly thirteen days before the airing of ‘Keep Calm and Flutter On?’”

“Well, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that…” Starlight said hesitantly.

Screwball’s eyes lit up with an epiphany.

“Wait! ‘Jump to Conclusions?’ Phantom of the Opera, Phantom Toll— ooooh, you’re a good one!”

“Oh, ha, ha, very funny,” Starlight said wryly. “Now can you please explain where we are, what your evil plan is, and why you need me here? I’m a very busy mare, and as of 2012-almost-2013, I’ve got a cult to run.”

“Of course. First one’s easy: you’re in Romania; drive on the right, Eastern European time zone two hours later than Greenwich Meridian, part of the European Union but not yet part of the Schengen area and won’t be on the Euro for another twelve years, but merchants in places with high tourist traffic will gladly accept Euros or US Dollars… oh right, you’re a prisoner, not a tourist. Well, the more you know. Okay, second question, what’s my evil plan? Ha, typical of heroes to ask that. I’m sorry, I can’t reveal that, that’s a trade secret. Though since we’re in Season 3 right now, you haven’t been reformed yet so technically you’re still a villain. And I’m always happy to help out a fellow villain down on her—”

“But I’m not a villain!” Starlight exclaimed. “I’m still Season 8-9 hiatus-era Starlight. Transporting me back in time won’t revert me. Plus, you already told me that you wanted to spread chaos in Equestria, and since you have Discord’s statue here, I assume you’re trying to bring back villain Discord to do it. Am I correct?”

Screwball looked a little annoyed.

“You’re no fun, and you never were. I can see why students so rarely drop by your office. But yes, you’ve pieced together my plan, though it wouldn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure that out.”

“But why Discord?” Starlight asked. “You’re already pretty good at causing chaos by yourself. And Discord is actually kinda predictable once you realize that he always goes for the same kind of jokes and references, but I’m still having trouble figuring you out.”

“The flattery is nice and all, but you can dispense with the pleasantries,” Screwball said tersely. “Can you just get to the point?”

“Fine. What I was trying to say was, why even bother with going back in time to prevent Discord’s reformation? He didn’t actually change all that much. He’s just a simple prankster who latches onto and torments a hoofful of ponies for a bit until they learn a lesson, then returns to his pocket universe to wait until next season.”

Screwball became irate.

“’Just a simple prankster?’” she seethed. “’Just a simple prankster?’ Pre-reformation Discord was so much more than that! He was DISCORD, Lord of Chaos! Every overhyped mediocre fanfiction from 2012 featured ‘the return of Discord’ whenever they wanted to feature a scary villain but couldn’t be bothered to think of one themselves, because he was the single scariest villain the fandom had ever seen before Tirek! But then… they gelded him! That goody two-shoes Fluttershy, with the help of Dave and Teddy, they reduced him to little more than a joke!”

Screwball trotted up to the statue and began patting it gently. She continued talking, but spoke more to the empty audience of the theater than to Starlight.

“Now don’t get me wrong, jokes can be good. Some jokes are absolutely hilarious…”

Then she wandered over to the middle of the stage, whereupon the lights in the auditorium dimmed save for a single spotlight hovering above her. She picked up a pony skull and held it wistfully aloft.

“…but alas, even the best of jokes become tired old clichés if they get overused…”

She then stared at the audience (or rather, her audience of red velvet seats) and gritted her teeth.

“And others… get driven into the ground!”

She threw the skull onto the floor with the force and accuracy of a Major League Baseball pitch. The skull shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, representing the futility of our endeavors in the face of that indomitable force which is death (despite what the trans-ponyists may say).

Screwball then realized that she was probably on a movie set rather than a Broadway stage, so she began pacing back upstage, towards Starlight.

“Even the greatest and most hilarious jokes lose their luster through overuse. This nu-Discord is nothing at all like the old one. The old one was so much more than a simple prankster. He was a force to be feared! Sure he had his funny moments, but these were used rather sparingly with excellent comedic timing. His appearances were moderated so that he would have his moments but not hog the episode. Instead, he would simply come on, do his thing, and then leave so that the focus shifts to the other characters in isolation having to deal with his behavior and come up with their own solutions.

Now he’s just a joke machine spouting off quips and pop culture references 24/7. The lamest, low-hanging-fruit, ‘Big Bang Theory’-tier ‘comedy,’ if you could even call it that. He no longer terrifies or traumatizes, he just mildly inconveniences purple and pink unicorns for the amusement of a TV audience.”

In other words… new Discord is stoopid and gay! I want old Discord back, and while I’m at it, I’ll bring back New Fluttershy as well!”

By this point, Starlight had fallen asleep. When Screwball noticed this, she rolled her eyes and went backstage. She pushed open a door and went outside to check on the weather. It was still a dark and stormy night; the rain still fell in torrents (except at occasional intervals, when it was still checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets), but it appeared as though the storm would not bring any lightning tonight.

“Thought so,” Screwball muttered. “Time for Plan B.”

She returned inside and went back on stage. She stopped right in front of Starlight, then violently shook herself like a wet dog. Starlight was pelted with raindrops and awoke with a start.

“Oww, hey! Quit it!”

Screwball giggled at her misfortune, then darted backstage for a quick costume change. Starlight spotted a few tiny cracks forming in the statue of Discord—cracks which, had they appeared on a ceramic bowl or plate, would not be significant enough to impede the object’s function but just noticeable enough to cause concern.

Screwball came out dressed like ~~Rotwang from Metropolis~~, ~~Director Krennic from Rogue One~~, Dr. Frankenstein, then called out,

“Opera-Kirin! Music!”

Underneath the stage, the masked kirin on the gondola began to play something scary and epic on her organ. This was soon accompanied by other kirin playing horns, trumpets, drums, electric guitars, and synths on their own gondolas to create something even more epic.

“What’s with the Frankenstein getup and the scary organ music?” Starlight asked. “I don’t see any corpses around here that you can reanim--”

“Frahnk-in-steen!” Screwball corrected, jumping up to her hindlegs, whipping out a cattle prod, and lunging at Starlight all in a flash. Starlight couldn’t tell what was going on until the end of the cattle prod sunk into her belly and delivered an electric shock.

“Owwww!” she shrieked.

“I don’t need to reanimate anything… because everypony here is already animated!” Screwball said, thrusting the cattle prod at Starlight again, this time in the chest.

“Owwww!” she shrieked.

“Also, torturing an already living being will break the statue faster than reviving a dead one,” Screwball added, then poked Starlight in the chest again.

“Owwww!” she shrieked.

Screwball giggled to herself, then reached forward again and touched Starlight’s nose.

“Boop!” Screwball said.

“Owwww!” Starlight shrieked. “That wasn’t cute or funny!”

“Actually, it sorta is,” Screwball replied.

Then she booped Starlight again.

Elsewhere, a bat pony named Echo wearing a maid’s outfit who looked like the bat pony named Echo wearing a maid’s outfit happily trotted into a bedroom on one of the upper floors of the castle. She stopped in front of a desk, where she removed a tray with saucers of hot beverages from her back and placed it on the table. A harried, bespectacled stallion with a brown mane and a peach-colored coat named Inserted Self sat hunched over a typewriter, lost in thought. When the tray landed with a soft thump, the writer was startled and his spectacles almost slid off his face. He pushed back them up again, then sat upright and looked at the table. He was pleased to see the bat pony arrive with drinks.

“I brought you some coffee, Insert,” the bat pony said cheerfully.

“Thanks for the coffee, Echo,” Insert said as he took a saucer from the tray. “And thank you again for letting me stay here while I work on my novel.”

“No problem!” Echo said. “We’ve got plenty of rooms here in the castle that go unused, and it gets kinda lonely here sometimes.”

“Peace and quiet is all I need,” Insert said. “If it weren’t for you, I might have had to take that caretaker job at that ski resort.”

“No problem!” Echo replied. Then she eyed the paper on the typewriter. “Ooh, is that it? Can I take a look?”

“Of course,” I said, taking the paper out and handing it to her, but since he didn’t have any hands he used his hoof to grab it from the typewriter and then give it to her. Because of cartoon logic, he only had to use one hoof because magic cartoon horse hooves can grasp objects as if they had fingers and opposable thumbs without actually having fingers and opposable thumbs.

She grabbed it in her magic cartoon horse hooves that can grasp objects as if they had fingers and opposable thumbs and held it up in front of her, and quickly skimmed over what he had written. As she quietly read it to herself, Insert had to wait a few minutes, so he looked at his surroundings. In doing so, he thought he heard the faint noise of a mare screaming from somewhere down below. It went away for a second, then came back again, then went away, then came back, and so on. Then he looked at the lamp on the nightstand next to the bed and thought it would make a nice hat. Because I couldn’t decide whether or not I liked pegasi or unicorns better, I decided made Insert an alicorn so he could be both since FiM teaches us that we can have the best of both worlds when two different people work together on something, which meant that he had wings and a horn. He used his horn to levitate the lampshade off of the lamp and bring it over to him, then placed it on top of his head.

Echo finished reading the story, then set it back on the counter with her forehoof that acted like a human hand but wasn’t one. She looked concerned.

“I’m guessing by the title that you’re trying to write a trollfic, right?”

“Correct,” Insert replied. “It isn’t called The Third Longest Trollfic Ever: Granddaughter of ‘The Longest Trollfic Ever’ for nothing.”

“Well, this reads more like a crackfic than a trollfic,” she said. “For starters, I don’t see major mistakes with the grammar, everypony who has established character traits in canon is acting fully in character, and there isn’t too much that’s terribly offensive about this story. It reads more like somepony just wanted to put a few strange thoughts he had on paper. Don’t get me wrong, I like how self-aware it is and all, but when you devote large sections of the dialogue to delivering critiques of writing and character development rather than actually trolling people, it seems extremely restrained and thus utterly fails in its mission as a self-described ‘trollfic.’ Especially when the title is directly evocative of a masterpiece such as The Longest Trollfic Ever, it simply fails to live up to its namesake’s glory… unless the whole point of the fic is to bait people into thinking it’s an awesome trollfic and then troll them by putting out a competently written but otherwise wholly mediocre piece of actual literature which only seeks to mildly offend. But if that were the case, then honestly I think it’s just a copout to excuse the author’s lack of imagination and reluctance to offend people. No offense…”

“…Yet,” replied Self Insert. “The trolling hasn’t really begun in earnest yet, just little teasers appearing here and there. But rest assured, there will be more actual trolling coming up in future chapters.”

“Seriously?” Echo asked. “Promising to deliver a product and then not delivering it but promising that you’ll deliver it next time is not only a scummy business practice, but it’s also bad writing.”

Insert frowned. He opened his mouth to make a point, but Echo interrupted him.

“And no, that isn’t ‘trolling’ people either, it’s just plain insulting to the readers.”

Insert closed his mouth again and thought for a few seconds.

“I mean, what if you don’t deliver? What if you give the same, ‘it’ll come next chapter guys, trust me!’ schtick at the end of every chapter, then you get to the end of the book and say, ‘Welp, we’ve come to the end of the story with barely any trolling whatsoever, but don’t worry! The epic trolling will finally come in the sequel, The Fourth Longest Trollfic Ever: Great-Granddaughter of ‘The Longest Trollfic Ever!’’”

“Actually, I was gonna name the sequel The Fourth Longest Trollfic Ever: Agender Spawn of ‘The Longest Trollfic Ever’’s Second Cousin Twice Removed.’ But no, ‘The Third Longest Trollfic Ever: Granddaughter of ‘The Longest Trollfic Ever’ is not going to be a cocktease, because it’s a girl and it doesn’t have a cock.”

Echo facehoofed.

“Well, if you actually want to write something that’s going to be well-received, then maybe you should take the advice of your editors and proofreaders… or not. I’ll leave you alone to keep working.”

“I can’t,” said Insert. “It appears that my typewriter has been infected by a Trojan.”

Echo just rolled her eyes and turned to leave. Then both of them a particularly loud scream.

“Oh, by the way,” Insert asked, “Can you tell me where the castle’s rape dungeon is?”

“Rape dungeon?” Echo asked in confusion.

Back on the opera stage, Screwball was still torturing Starlight, this time with even larger and more painful cattle prods.

“No, no, please stop!” Starlight screamed.

“Of course not!” Screwball said. “Your resistance only makes my penis harder!”

“You’re a girl!” Starlight cried. “You don’t have a penis!”

“It’s a metaphor!” Screwball said. “But that’s not important now. What’s really important is that not only does your resistance make me harder, it makes him softer!”

She pointed to the statue of Discord. Thanks to the schadenfreude generated by the torture of Starlight and the butthurt of all the Starlight fans at seeing their precious little angel in pain, the statue was starting to crack even more, like a Minecraft block that’s just about to break.

Then, an equine’s leg broke out of the stone and stamped onto the base of the statue. It had begun.

Insert had just come up with a new idea he could use in his story, but he decided to end the chapter on a cliffhanger because he figured that the chapter had been going on long enough and he was nearing the end of his self-imposed publication deadline.