The morning sun blazed through the windows of the Castle of Friendship as Starlight lied on her back in her bedroom, bored out of her gourd. Back when she ran a cult, she at least had taxes and brainwashing villagers to keep herself occupied. Now all she did was wait until Twilight had some friendship lessons to teach her. And since Twilight had royal duties as well as a surprisingly thriving social life to attend to, there wasn’t enough time in the day to teach Starlight about the magic of friendship. What’s a former tyrant and time criminal to do?
And then there was a knock on her door.
Starlight’s ears perked up as she heard that noise. She looked at the door and, slowly but surely, the door creaked open as Twilight herself had entered the room. She jumped out of her bed and pounced before Twilight while giving her a look reminiscent of a dog that had not seen his owner in hours, something that unsettled the princess.
“Please tell me you have another friendship lesson to teach me!” Starlight pined “It has been two weeks since your last friendship lesson and I have no idea what to do with myself.”
“Uh…” Twilight tried to get out “Actually, I was about to tell you I have another meeting with some congressponies.”
“Wait, we have congress?” Starlight asked in surprise, courtesy of democracy being a foreign concept to her.
“Equestria had congress for over four-hundred years,” Twilight replied, to which Starlight looked away sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. “But if you’re bored, you could always take up a hobby.”
“Like what?” Starlight asked.
“You could try writing,” Twilight replied “I’m currently working on a Friendship Journal containing all the lessons me and my friends have learned over time.”
Starlight put her hoof to her chin and hummed in a thinking tone.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
As Twilight left, Starlight thought over what she said. She thought and thought and thought until her thinker was sore. And that’s when it hit her. A wide-eyed grin spread across her face as she marvelled at her idea. A satirical masterpiece inspired by events straight from her own life.
What could possibly go wrong?
Twilight opened Starlight’s door to spend some time with her prized (and only) pupil after an extremely boring weekend of dealing with nothing but political riffraff. What she didn’t expect was to be immediately swarmed by a tsunami of bits the moment she opened the door. She popped her head out of the sea of bits she was drowning in to look at Starlight, who was wearing the most adorable smile ever.
“Did you rob a bank while I was gone?!” Twilight asked in a semi-serious tone.
“No but I took your advice and I started writing,” Starlight replied excitedly “I would have helped with your Friendship Journal but I haven’t learned enough about friendship yet so instead I wrote a funny short story about this evil dictator who begrudgingly accepts the power of friendship! And everypony loved it!”
Twilight tilted her head and looked at Starlight in a confused manner. How could Starlight have enough confidence to write and publish a story that she would assume was based on Starlight’s own life experiences and yet was too scared to reveal her past to anypony else lest they reject her offers of friendship? While a better question would have been how a book written by a former bad guy managed to be so popular, she knew Starlight’s actions weren’t public knowledge, despite the fact that she used to run an entire village with an iron hoof. Curious as to how popular Starlight’s story was, she teleported the morning paper she had in her satchel when she was travelling and opened it up to look at the review section.
“Uh...Starlight?” Twilight asked, “What’s the name of your story called?”
“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Friendship,” Starlight replied.
Twilight continued staring at the newspaper in silence, which began to worry Starlight.
“Twilight?” Starlight asked in a concerned tone “Is something wrong?”
Twilight placed the newspaper down and looked at Starlight with a big grin on her face. If it weren’t for the nervous expression littered all over the rest of Twilight’s face, it may have looked like she was happy for her.
“No,” Twilight replied in a serene but shaky tone “What makes you think that?”
Starlight used her magic to pick up the newspaper and looked at the review. She tilted her head and scratched the back of it, confused at what she was reading. It looked like the review was negative but how could it be? Everypony loved her story, right?
Right?
Starlight sat outside the Ponyville cafe with Sunburst, with Sunburst munching away on his hayburger as he listened to his childhood bestie.
“I don’t get it,” Starlight said in a confused and neurotic tone, “I thought everypony loved my story. Why didn’t the critics working at The Stable like it? If it was bad, then everypony would want their money back!”
“Welcome to my world,” a red unicorn in need of a good shave and sensible haircut said behind her.
“Grr,” Starlight groaned in annoyance, “this doesn’t make any sense!”
A familiar chuckle echoed around where Starlight and Sunburst were sitting.
“Make sense, aw, what fun is there in making sense?” Discord asked in a playful tone.
As Starlight looked around to see where Discord was, he spontaneously appeared behind her and gave her a slight tap on the shoulder, which was enough to make her jump.
“While you’re here, I would like to give you my review of your tall tale,” Discord said as he handed Starlight a scroll.
Starlight unfurled the scroll and, much to her horror, the score Discord gave her was abysmal.
“A zero?!” Starlight asked in shock “Why?!”
“If you bothered reading the whole review instead of skimming, you would know why,” Discord replied sardonically “but the short answer is it’s very by the numbers and you mostly plagiarized this guy.”
Discord pointed at the red unicorn, who was getting hay all in his beard as he loudly consumed his food.
I ‘one rad ruff re’ore an’ I canno’ a’ord a rawyer,” the unicorn said as he chewed on his burger.
As Discord disappeared in a flash, Starlight slumped over on the table and groaned in anguish. Despite her hooves covering her face, she managed to take a good peek at an advertisement for a writing contest. ‘Action Scene, 1500 words’, it read. She had another bright idea. She shall take her criticisms to heart and improve upon her writing.
What could possibly go wrong?
It was the day for the competition entries to be judged and Starlight paced back and forth in anticipation for the results. As she waited, Spike opened up her bedroom door and entered. He held his belly in his hands, queasy and waiting to burp out the results. With one puff of dragonfire, he was released from his burden as Starlight quickly tore the top of the envelope off and looked at the results. She looked at the letter containing the results, puzzled as to why her story wasn’t in the top three. In fact, she couldn’t find the title for her story anywhere. As she frantically looked, she saw a note:
Dear Starlight Glimmer
Unfortunately, due to your protagonist having no logical reason to fight the antagonist, who has as much personality as sandpaper, as well as the fight itself being surprisingly boring, we have rejected your entry. But as a consolation prize, here’s a coupon for writing lessons.
Starlight’s right eye twitched as she looked down at the coupon. Before she could tear the letter and coupon to shreds, she realized it would be best to take those lessons and work on her most ambitious project yet.
What could possibly go wrong?!
Within the dull and grey offices of The Stable, one of Equestria’s most trusted newspaper, a grey unicorn with sharp cheekbones sat at his cubicle as he read another book that had yet to entertain him. His mane was long, black and styled in a straight manner. Like his cousin, Zesty Gourmand, he made a living as a critic. Unlike his cousin, he was a literary critic known as Snide Remark. He placed the book down and rubbed his head in an attempt to alleviate his headache as a result of the stupidity he just read. It was a post-apocalyptic story like any other but with plot twists and melodrama abound. What the average pony found to be so good about this tale was beyond his comprehension.
A beam of sunshine blew the door of the office down, and within the centre was the silhouette of a unicorn mare levitating a book. The light dissipated as the mare slowly made her way into the office, revealing herself to have a pink coat and a dishevelled purple mane with green tints. She had a demented grin on her face and her right eye could not stop twitching. Her horn glew brighter as she levitated her book even higher.
“You are going to like this story more than anything,” the unicorn said as she cast a spell upon the book.
Everypony in the office couldn’t put their tongue on it but they felt an insatiable collective desire to own that book.
“I want it,” a rotund Earth pony with a tan coat said.
“I need it,” an elderly unicorn with a light pink coat and a grey curly mane said.
“I really like her prose!” another random pony shouted excitedly.
As everypony began dogpiling on one another to get the book, Snide Remark just looked at his own copy of the book and, feeling a sudden and inexplicable appreciation for the book, picked it up and began reading it again.
“Twilight’s right,” Starlight said to herself “the ‘Want It, Need It’ spell does work every time.”
As Starlight turned around and merrily trotted her way out of the office, her exit was cut short by one very annoyed alicorn. But it wasn’t Celestia, nor Luna, but it was her mentor, who probably regretted teaching her the ‘Want It, Need It’ spell in the first place. Seeing the calamity behind her pupil, Twilight put her hoof to her forehead and sighed.
“I think you need a new hobby,” Twilight said resignedly.
Author's Note
Critical Dissonance, the bane of every creative genius out there. You either please the public or you please the critics.
But if you manage to please both, then congratulations.
