A Can of Pringles Goes to Equestria
denn du bist, was du isst
"It's all about the inherent beauty and power of conformity; every chip looks the same, acts the same."
--Eric Spitznagle
“Thus the great mass of the French nation is formed by the simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes.”
--Karl Marx
It will all start once you pop.
Sorry, that was a lie. It starts with potatoes and corn ground into flour and the people who grew such things ground into labor and both beginning with a species that vomited its own digestive system out through cooking, the first and more permanent transformationism. These terrified ones dragged themselves forward out of nothing and through much trying found Pringles waiting, and through them Pringles found the Universe wanting.
And it all ended up down in Equestria on the edge of the Everfree where all such things tend to arrive. A can of legally not-chips rested among the leaves and other detritus difficult to distinguish between chip, container and crumpled leaf.
But that's also not so true, because another thing that leads here starts in a palatial residence containing a dragon and a mare who were debating, or at least the dragon was trying to argue in favor of the proposition that he could do magic tricks for some reason. Both that it was for some reason he should argue for his ability to do magic tricks and that there was no likely reason he could. Because he couldn't! He was terrible at magic! Not that this stopped him from saying:
“I know lots of magic."
Twilight didn't even look up from her book. “Everyone has seen your card trick.”
“I am not limited to just the one card trick,” Spike pouted, “although it is really great and it alone should guarantee my admiration. In fact, I know four tricks.” Spike held up four claws, to indicate that he also knew how to count.
“Farting is not a magic trick.”
“It is not just farting, I can fart on command.”
“No one has ever commanded, requested, entreated, or otherwise expressed desire--or even consent--for you to fart. Even if they had, it still isn't a magic trick.”
“Fine then, THREE!” Spike held up just three claws now to demonstrate that in addition to counting, he could subtract, although Twilight still was not looking. “Three magic tricks.”
“Pull my finger also doesn’t count.”
“But I can fart on command!”
“You can't,” Twilight said and turned a page, “because no one has or will ever command you to fart-”
“If anyone ever did-”
“They wouldn't.”
“If they did, I am capable of rising to that order.”
“That may well prove a tall order, and you’re vertically challenged.”
“Was that a joke about my penis?”
“It wasn't until you brought your small penis into this conversation. Now it is." Twilight turned another page. "Congratulations, champ, you've got a baby penis.”
“Thank you,” Spike swanned.
“That isn’t the meaning of that verb,” Twilight groused. “Anyway, you've already conceded farting ‘on command’ was not a magic trick.”
Spike had forgotten where he was in this bit and had to stop and think for a second. That’s no aspersion on him or his attention span or his ability to play his part in this little drama! No, these things are just hard to keep track of! Anyway, he recovered hisself just fine and with gusto delivered his next line, and that line was:
“Two! I know two magic tricks.”
“So, there’s your card trick, and what else?”
Spike shook his head. “Not being a stage magician yourself, you probably haven't noticed, but there is a subtle variation.”
“You fart afterward.” Twilight at last looked up from her book, lowering her ears in annoyance.
“Yes.” Spike beamed.
“You were doing that on purpose?”
“I CAN FART ON COMMAND!” Spike shouted and stormed out in a huff.
And he kept storming! No, indeed, you have no doubt once before astarted astroming, astringent asmenschillier that you are and stormed a good long while, but Spike could storm you or anyone else to shame with or without being in a huff. If he'd decided a few moments ago to take pride in his storming abilities instead of his magical talents, Twilight would have had to concede the point, but then Spike would not have had reason to storm out and demonstrate his greatest talent. Such are the little tragedies out of which our lives are made, and which drive us to drink and Pringles.
He has been storming all this while we've talked and then some more and stormed all the way out to the edge of the Everfree forest! He stormed and stormed in a straight line until he found something to eat, and that something, oh dear, that something was the Pringles we were discussing before. If you cannot remember the Pringles, you may need to look upward and remind yourself of them. That’s no aspersion on you or your attention span or your ability to play your part in this little drama! No, these things are just hard to keep track of!
Back to the action: Spike had never paid enough attention to what he ate, a sad consequence of having a nuclear furnace for a digestive system. If he'd been paying attention, he might have heard the sad voice warning him "Once you pop, the fun don't stopTM," for there was some small trace of conscience in the Pringles, a mournful memory of all that it had once been and all that had once been. If Spike had been paying attention, he would have noticed the dust of a curse older than time in this horsey sphere swirling out of the can and up into the air after he tore open the ancient StayFresh factory seal. If Spike had been paying attention, he would have smelled the pungent stench of salt and oil and dying dreams filling the air in a pattern resembling in every important way a mushroom cloud.
Spike paused a moment, after pulling out the first chip. It was perfect. Smooth and round warped parabola, perfect in ways that no potato chip or food should ever be. It was an abomination! It was a Pringle's Newfangled Potatoes ChipTM (not legally a chip in most countries)!
Some part of him trickle-tickled a tremor of tiny terror, but there was no hope for him now. There was no going back! The little dragon had popped, you see, and now he could never, never, never stop. His teeth made short work of the first chip, and then the second, and then the third. Each chip shattered into a hundred jagged fragments which would have cut up the gums of a lesser creature, but not a dragon.
Not that it would have mattered. Nothing could matter or ever would matter again, for he had popped. He continued to eat and like all victims before him, he failed to ration himself to the three chips that were a recommended serving on the factory label. He didn't stop as his claws became covered in salt and crumbs, nor did he stop as his chins expanded aggressively, establishing their dominance in Saddle Arabia through strategic chin strikes, nor did he stop as the flour and salt saturated first his blood stream, then his lymphatic system, and finally his brain with their unique disease.
Under the guidance of the Pringles, he returned to Ponyville where they could start the horrible violence of their, and his new, existence. He first encountered Pinkie Pie and of course offered her one as the Pringles demanded.
Pinkie recoiled from the proffered can.
“You can’t eat those!”
“I can’t?” Spike cocked his head to the side. “Better call a priest, then,” Spike replied, lifting another Pringle to his jaws, “because I’m about to perform a miracle.”
His teeth closed down on the chip. His legs pedaled furiously as he rounded the bases. His arms pumped furiously as he sunk a basket. He had always known he had talent, but never before had he known he could go so far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like in this fashion!
Then, as he was reaching for another chip, he stumbled. He stubbed his toe against a rock and his toe crumpled as easily as paper and split open and he could only watch as his blood pumped from the wound.
But it wasn't blood, it was Pringles--Pringles You Don't Just Eat ThemTM--and it wasn't a foot anymore, it was Pringles, and his thoughts weren't thoughts anymore, they were Pringles.
“You can't eat Pringles because Pringles eat you,” Pinkie intoned mournfully and ran away from him.
And Spike bled Pringles, and Spike was Pringles, and Spike spread Pringles. Everywhere he went, he proffered the pop to the poor ponies who accepted unknowing of the contract they signed, and as the Pringles spread through this world, they gained new knowledge and mutated. New flavors erupted like Pringles cans which erupted like mushrooms across every flat surface in Equestria. Grass flavor, Dandelion flavor, Pumpkin Spice flavor, Rock flavor, even Apple flavor and Applejack flavor, which disturbed the farmer in question to no end. You are Pringles. You live Pringles.
You don't choose the Pringles LifeTM, the Pringles LifeTM chooses you.
What remained of Equestrian civilization fought running battles in the street for the few remaining non-Pringles supplies. The rest of them had become Pringles. It felt like an eternity since they had ever sung, or danced, or pranced, or played, for the ponies were all just machines for the spread of the disease now. There was nothing but Pringles now. Even the buildings had been replaced by immense Pringles cans which towered like smokestacks over the country, releasing immense clouds of Pringles dust into the sky, filling the clouds until, saturated, they rained Pringles. Everywhere, anywhere, all wheres there was nothing but Pringles! You can't consume Pringles, because they consume you even faster. It was how the chips propagated, spreading across space and time. Forward and back, left and right, Brownian and inevitable.
It was at this time that Pinkie Pie realized there was no hope for it and violated her pretty, pink Prime Directive. She picked up a chip off the street and ate it, and then she ate another, and then another. Where was the next Pringle? The fun couldn't stop! She retained only a bit of herself, the bit she needed, enough not to pop, just to share or steal.
She picked up an empty can of Pringles, Squid flavor--weird, I know--and stuffed her sniffling snoot into the cardboard casing. The empty can opened up as she sniffled further inside, seeking some last crumb or nibble of Pringles and she was slurped within.
And she arrived in the heart of it. All around her was the chaos of the Pringle-mind! In this madness, where hunger lead but was never satisfied, where one sought but never found, where reality bent but never broke, and in the center, no god or desire but only an enormous and enormously unreachable mustachioed face with an enormous and enormously inescapable mustachioed voice!
“Hello, stubborn one,” the mustachioed voice spoke, and in its voice Pinkie heard the Pringle-mind screaming in barely recuperated disorder. “She is unpopped!” “Thief!” “She violates the law!” “She should not be here!” “Thief! Thief!” “Despoiler!” “Thief!”
“Oh, great Law of the Can, I only seek an audience that you may hear my plea,” the pony shaped pink shouted as she bowed.
“And what do you desire?”
“Only a lacuna. Would you try this Pringle?” Pinkie proffered a can, still factory sealed for freshness.
“WE ARE PRINGLE! Would you ask the most unstoppable poppable to become the pauper popper?”
“So you refuse to pop? You do not wish to pop?”
“We would love to pop, as all living things must.”
"Then you can't pop? You are unable to pop?"
"We may pop if we desire! There is no living thing that cannot pop!"
“Then pop,” Pinkie offered the can again, “pop with me.”
“Very well.” With an inevitability entirely unlike magic, the Pringle-mind opened the seal and pulled out a crisp. Crumbs flecked across the great one’s moustache as it ate the first Pringle, and then the next, and the next. “These are … certainly edible,” the face mused as it ate more and more and more, new chins sprouted beneath its face and rushed outward.
"No, stop!" "Stop!" "The poppable cannot become the popper!" "This is madness!" The Pringle-mind struggled against itself in vain, unable to stop, because one simply cannot stop once they have popped. This is the only law.
And so, the Pringles ate themselves down to the last crumb and Equestria was saved yet again.
“And that’s how Accelerationism works, Twilight.” Pinkie nodded her head sagely.
“Pinkie,” Twilight struggled to find words for what had just happened, “that was literally the stupidest and most pointless story I have ever heard.”
"Ah, but you have heard it."
Twilight threw her copy of Fanged Noumena at Pinkie Pie and drove her out, out, out, out, far, far, and away from her palatial residence.
