Marked as Boring

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

Chapter 1

There was something to be said for the ponies that had ‘boring’ cutie marks, mostly that there were quite a few. Which, considering the generally cheerful and energetic color palette of Equis, might almost seem discordant with an implied status quo.

Sans himself had a cutie mark that depicted an actual wet blanket, which had netted him quite the teasing from the foals at school, but Sans never cared too much about what other ponies thought of him.

It wasn’t really an efficient use of his energy to care about other ponies’ opinions of him after all. Much better to focus on developing solutions to achieve optimal efficiencies and productivity.

Objective clear cut number incrementation was far easier to categorize and obtain than improving subjective opinions of others anyhow.

While he is hardly alone in the ‘boring cutie mark’ category; case in point, the majority of the Pie family having rock-based marks— Pinkie Pie being the clear outlier, Sans was the only such pony of the ‘boring’ classification in his town growing up.

His mark confounded him at the time, as he truly had no desire to be a ‘wet blanket’ or to ‘rain on every pony’s parade’ but that was the mark he got.

It didn’t matter what his cutie mark looked like, Sans had decided resolutely, he would find his purpose in optimization and wherever he found to apply himself he would help.

Yes, he would help. Surely there was a pony out there who had a great idea which would require appropriate management to reach it’s true potential.

First he tried his hoof at traffic planning and management in Manehattan, which wasn’t all that challenging once he figured out the natural rhythm of the city. Optimizing it didn’t have any appeal after a while, it wasn’t the challenge he thought it would be.

Next he spent a stint as a government accountant, but the less said about the the incompetences he’d uncovered while there the better.

Plus there was the fact that the exact details of the matter were still pending throughout the district court. They really ought to have made him sign an Non Discloser Agreement, not that a NDA would have exactly stopped him from blowing the whistle, but still.

After that Sans wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to join another agency or planning commission. He’d much rather form an organization from scratch. Something he crafted from the ground up to solve some sort of underserved production niche. That would certainly provide a challenge!

Not to mention, it would be far more interesting to help somepony helm an entirely new idea...or better yet, dare he dream, an entire bevy of ideas.

Maybe he should ask around, survey the general public to see if he could cotton on to an underserved idea.

It was an interesting proposition, and maybe entirely outside of his purview, to find an idea before it really ‘took off’ and to help nurture it to its full potential. However Sans couldn’t shake the notion that he could accomplish it if he set his mind to it.

He’d make sure a good and deserving pony got their idea realized all over Equestria.

Or his name wasn’t Sans Smirk.

Author's Note

I dunno, I guess the ‘boring’ cutie marks don’t get enough credit. Somebody’s got to be doing the behind the scenes stuff to make a society work.

Chapter 2

Turns out that just about everypony thought that either they or someone they know was on to ‘the next big thing, no really’ which provided a lot of false leads.

One of the more memorable ponies had been a gray stallion with a yellow mane. Incidentally, his mane, snout, and a large portion of torso were absolutely covered in a sticky purple jam. His idea involved a solution by which one could more easily remove jam from their mane.

Which begged the question of why he’d not liberally applied said solution to himself.

So that didn’t end up panning out.

There was also a memorable run in with the rather notorious ‘Berry Punch’ who wanted his help patenting a beverage which Sans estimated to be about 75% alcoholic in nature.

Sans had simply pointed her to the nearest patent office and made himself scarce before she somehow roped him into an enterprise running a bar or some such similar boondoggle.

Research at the Ponyville library proved interesting, as the librarian was also the newly appointed Princess of Friendship.

Princess Sparkle was most hospitable, though her suggestion that he ‘can call me Twilight’ went roundly ignored. Imagine, addressing royalty by their first name, why the very idea! She was of course more than welcome to address him in whatever manner she saw fit, so it only briefly distressed him to be called by his first name.

Honestly, the youth of today were so informal, but he wasn’t going to turn the tide of progress—in fact Sans had long since given up on being addressed as Mr. Smirk. Really not worth the effort correcting everypony after all, not an optimal use of his time when all was said and done anyhow.

Regardless, Princess Sparkle gave him an extensive list of potential leads, and another list detailing ponies that weren’t interested in the optimization of their ideas. Sans noticed the name ‘Rarity’ circled and underlined on that list.

Princess Sparkle made a very good impression on Sans as being exactly the sort of organized and detail oriented individual that he’d want in a position of power.

However Sans didn’t end up finding anything he thought promising for him in Ponyville. Not to say that there weren't any ideas, perish the thought! Just nothing that struck Sans as something that needed his particular set of skills applied.

He was actually beginning to wonder if he’d ever find exactly what he was looking for, or if he might have set the bar too high.

That’s when he saw it.

Right as he was sure he’d exhausted every avenue, turned every stone, just to come up empty. He stumbled across a party, and saw an absolutely genius gag implemented. Honestly, who ever thought of putting the candy inside of the bat instead of the piñata?

Genius, plain and simple.

He watched as the party pony received multiple requests for a copy of the gag for themselves, and the pony in question hope out loud that he’d somehow manage to make one for everypony who wanted one.

‘Somehow manage’ eh? Well, if Sans had his way and the party pony acquiesced to his plans, they would manage.

Author's Note

I feel I should clarify that this story is centered around Sans and Cheese. Maybe if I get similarly motivated I’ll do an introspective on the Pie family.

Chapter 3

Cheese Sandwich, which turned out to be the strange party pony’s name, was basically the polar opposite of boring. His cutie mark was a cheese sandwich, fittingly enough, that had been bisected vertically and separated apart to reveal the gooey, stretchy cheese within.

It was an arrangement very reminiscent of an accordion, which Sans subsequently realized longside learning the fact that his new employer did in fact know how to play the accordion.

Sans had met very few earth ponies that could play any such complex instrument with such skill, though he’d seen a few in the various orchestras of Equestria; they didn’t play their instruments while also simultaneously cartwheeling flank over forelimbs.

He had a very messy mane style, if one could call such a disarrayed volumetric mess a ‘style’ but it suited his personality perfectly.

The perplexing orange pony seemed to have infinite wells of energy, flitting about so quickly Sans couldn’t be quite sure he wasn’t teleporting somehow. He knew, of course, that teleportation magic was limited to unicorns but a part of Sans secretly suspected that Mr. Sandwich had figured it out anyhow. Appearing wherever he pleased, as long as it was funny.

Yes, certainly Mr. Sandwich was Sans’ complete opposite in almost every aspect. While Sans self-described himself as rather sedate, even perhaps dour, Mr. Sandwich always had a mischievous smile or laughter on his lips. Certainly there was never a dull moment.

It made a lot of sense actually, working for ponies too similar to him had actually been why it had been easy, and Sans’ found just keeping up with his employers’ manic energy an interesting challenge in-of-itself.

Mr. Sandwich had quite a few quirks actually, even to the extent of insisting on introducing his rubber chicken as ‘Boneless 2’.

As to what happened to Boneless 1, Sans would rather not speculate. Regardless, Mr. Sandwich had enthusiastically—Sans was beginning to wonder if Mr. Sandwich had any other setting, because it seemed like exuberance was his default personality—agreed to Sans ambitious plans to build a factory to help meet the growing demand.

It wasn’t long before Sans had a building constructed and a workforce organized, logistics were his specialty after all. With Mr. Sandwich being a veritable plethora of interesting gag ideas, Sans felt reasonably assured that he wouldn’t run out of products to optimize to their full potential.

Mr. Sandwich was always happy, but he was noticeably happiest seeing ponies laugh at his gags first hoof, the thought of the factory being able to deliver laughs on an even wider scale than previously possible for one pony was a close second though.

Sans should have probably have realized that Mr. Sandwich wasn’t going to flourish in a factory setting.

It was weeks into production when Mr. Sandwich suddenly realized that his laughter had seemingly abandoned him, and Sans was devastated to see his employer in such obvious despair.

He quickly wrote an invite to a fellow party pony, a miss Pinkamena Diane Pie, or ‘Pinkie Pie’ as she was better known. Both he and Sans were hopeful that she would be able to figure out a way to help him recover his laugh.

Author's Note

I think Sans blames himself later (my version definitely does) because he’s gonna think that his ‘not being much of a laugher’ contributed to Cheese’s losing his laugh in the first place.

Chapter 4

Mr. Sandwich had called them partners. Sans couldn’t help but feel a little flattered, surely he helped build this factory and organize the workforce and supplies, but Mr. Sandwich was the driving force for the very reason of the factory’s existence!

Although, now that Sans thought about it, what he found easy might seem difficult to some other pony. Sans certainly couldn’t (and still can’t) picture himself being able to come up with funny gags like either Mr. Sandwich or Miss Pie.

Sans supposed that it was all in keeping with Mr. Sandwich’s generous nature to consider himself and Sans as equals in the factory endeavor and he wouldn’t dispute Mr. Sandwich over that sentiment.

After a few false leads, and even a notion that they would have to go back to the drawing board...

Miss Pie was able to find the reason for Mr. Sandwich having lost his laugh.

After all was said and done, Sans couldn’t help but blame himself for Mr. Sandwichs’ losing his laugh in the first place.

First off, it should have occurred to him that Mr. Sandwich needed to see the laughter brought by his gags first hoof, and not being able to was the reason for his slipping into his torpor.

Secondly, Sans attributed his particular lack of humorous demeanor as a definite part of the problem with Mr. Sandwich not finding the laughter he needed in the factory.

Lastly, Mr. Sandwich had said upon leaving the factory that Sans ‘could run the factory, but I need to live.’

And didn’t that just say it all, that Mr. Sandwich didn’t see running the factory as living, or at least as far as he was concerned… which meant that Sans had been keeping Mr. Sandwich from living his life—essentially anyway.

For the first time in his life, Sans had found cause to despair over his naturally stoic demeanor.

It had never bothered him before, but now it might have drained the laughter out of one of the funniest ponies in Equestria.

Sure, Mr. Sandwich said he didn’t blame Sans in the least, but it didn’t stop Sans from feeling at least a bit at fault.

Mr. Sandwich kept his promise to write regularly about his travels as a party pony, and of course with any potential gag ideas that had occurred to him along the way.

Sans looked forward to every letter, they were his only real reassurance that Mr. Sandwich hadn’t somehow fallen off the face of Equestria— though, if anypony could figure out how to do such a thing it would probably be Mr. Sandwich or Miss Pie.

The letters were pretty loosely scheduled, Sans received at least one a week, full of ideas— and, due to Sans insistence, detailed where he’d been, where he planned to travel next, and roughly when he planned to be there.

Apparently though with his ‘Cheesey Sense’ (really—but who was Sans to cast aspersions against claims of seemingly impossible abilities when he knew magic existed and he certainly didn’t understand the full breadth of what said magic was capable of.) those plans were loose at best, but better than nothing.

His natural exuberance was evident in every word of his cheerfully messy hoof writing. (though it should be noted that Sans had certainly seen worse horn writing, and unicorns had the advantage of being able to use magic to hold the writing implement in question.)

So Sans was at least assured as to Mr. Sandwich–

No. Not supposed to call him Mr. Sandwich anymore.

Cheese, Sans had finally brought himself to address his former employer, now his business partner, by his first name. Though, he found the idea difficult at first, and he still slipped from time to time.

Sans couldn’t really deny that his recent promotion to factory forepony solidified his position as Cheese’s partner in the operations of the gag factory.

The factory was flourishing and all seemed well.

Then, the next scheduled letter never arrived.

Lost post, Sans had falsely tried to calm his worry, happens all the time. Bothersome but, surely Cheese was safe and sound.

Then another letter was missed.

Sans felt overwhelmed with worry, desperately he wrote to Miss Pie informing her of the situation. In a fit of pique, and not really knowing what he expected exactly, he also wrote a letter to Princess Sparkle.

He posted the letters, but the worry didn’t abate. His friend was in trouble, he just felt it. Sans always was one to say he didn’t believe in ‘gut feelings’ or at least as far as he was concerned he’d never had one… until now.

Cheese was in trouble.

Author's Note

Sans worries a lot, the poor dear. I actually feel really bad. 😅