It was another glorious day in Ponyville. The sun was shinning, the birds were singing, and the sky was blue-ing.
Whatever.
Anon lost his junk.
Now, he didn’t do it on purpose. In fact, he would place the blame of his sudden wiener loss on the pony gods, as they apparently liked to point and laugh at concerned mortals for no apparent reason.
Exhibit A: When asked why they took away his schmeat, they essentially responded to his prayer with: ‘Oh, you weren’t a girl when you were a human? Get pranked loser, Hahaha! Also, questioning the work of any Divine is totally a sin lmao’ And then proceeded to call upon the wrath of mother fucking Zeus to smite his house.
They burned down his house—which had been teleported into Equestria alongside him—for asking what happened to his fat juicy maleness. And then laughed at him again.
Yeah, real group of wise crackers they are. Truly so funny. Anon could almost puke from laughing because of how fucking funny they were.
Yes, there may be some bad blood between Anon and Godly beings, but in his minds eye they started it.
Anyway, he’s piss poor. Well, she is piss poor. They? Ugh.
She didn’t have money, at least not pony money. Her human dollar bills were useless here so she needed bits. The thing is nobody would hire her. Her cutie mark was a question mark, which seemed to—of course—only raise questions to what she could actually do.
It was a bunch of baloney.
She wasn’t homeless, thank god. (or in this case, Fuck god) She shared a house with one Lyra Heartstrings and her roommate Bonbon. But only after she’d promised both of them that she would get a job. Which currently was not working. And she’d tried almost everything, from retail, to carpentry, to even goddamn substitute teaching.
Anon isn’t very good with kids as it turns out.
So now there were only two choices she was left with, at least in her mind.
The first. Crime.
The second...
Well, they say you’re not gay until you need money.
Anon shivered.
She would rather not. Plus she had a plan. A plan that would set her up with enough bits to last more than a year.
A plan to rob the Ponyville bank.
Now morally it was wrong, of course. But Anon knew that the bank was owned by Celestia who would probably just pay back the stolen funds, stopping the population from suffering. It’s a good thing the royalty was fucking stacked or else she’d feel bad about committing robbery.
Maybe.
Now, she double checked everything to make sure there was no possible chance for failure.
Bandanna? Fastened.
Bag for carrying bits? Ready for a withdrawal.
Gun? Not real, but black and scary.
Knuckles? Non-existent, but cracked spiritually.
Yep. It’s robbing time.
She could feel her heart began to race as she approached the front doors. It would probably be the most excitement she’d ever get in her life. She took a deep breath, rerunning the plan through her head once more.
One.
Her fur began to bristle.
Two.
She grabbed the door with her magic.
’Alright. Let’s do this.’
Three.
She threw open the door.
Everything went wrong so fast.
As soon as Anon crossed the threshold to the bank she froze in shock, which turned to horror. Her heart felt as if it had plummeted off of a skyscraper when she locked eyes with everyone in the room. She began to shake.
Celestia was there.
The bank was holding a fundraiser.
And because Celestia was there so were her fucking guards.
“...oh.”
Anon may have escalated the situation from there.
She also may have let panic cloud her judgment and she might have thought to herself: ‘fuck, what would a real bank robber do in this scenario?’
She might have taken a hostage.
Yeah she totally did.
Anon decided on a rather down trodden looking grey earth pony as her hostage because she figured ‘Well he already looks like he wants to kill himself so why not?’
But now she was stuck with a really sad hostage.
“Back off! Or I swear to pony Christ I’ll end this little grey haired loser!”
“You’d be doing me a favour, man...”
“Shut up! You’re suppose to be pleading for your life!” Her voice squeaked. The dude hadn’t even tried to stop her when she wrapped her hooves around him and placed the “gun” to his temple.
“I have no life to plead for.” He droned out rather lazily, his eyes staring blankly at the floor.
“...”
“... c’mon man, lighten up will you?” Anon mumbled.
“LET THE STALLION GO!”
Anon flinched at the Royal Canterlot voice projected from Celestia. The shock almost made her drop her gun.
“No you daft bird! He’s my hostage!” Anon’s shout caused the stallion to sigh, the sound coming out shaky, as if he was a second away from a break down.
“Hostage or not... sometimes it feels good to be held.” His voice cracked.
Anon’s grip on the gun slackened just a bit, her eyes focusing on the pony in her grasp. Her face scrunched up.
“Jesus dude, are you like... okay?”
The stallion whimpered, his eyes starting to shine with unshed tears. He shook his head as his bottom lip quivered.
“There’s only so many times you can respond to the question ‘how are you doing?‘ with ‘Living the dream’ before you just want to wake up.”
He started crying.
Anon was not ready for this. This doesn’t happen in the movies! How was she suppose to handle this?
“Uhhhhh—” She pat his shoulder. “There, there. It’s gonna be... fine?”
Celestia began shouting again.
“YOU FIEND, STOP HURTING HIM!”
“I’M NOT! YOU BELLIGERENT FAT ASSED SUN WORSHIPER!”
“I AM THE SUN!”
“WELL YOU’RE CERTAINLY BIG ENOUGH TO BE THE SUN!”
“HEY!”
Meanwhile her hostage didn’t make a sound. Not a single sob escaped him, he just. Kept. Crying. He was like a never ending fountain of tears.
“Stop!” Everyone’s attention fell on the hostage when he shouted. The pony paused before once again regaining that dull look. He shrugged, another sigh escaping him, this one exasperated.
He began to vent seemingly unaware, or uncaring, of the attention.
“My emotional stability has teetered past the edge... I’ve fallen so far that I can no longer see the light. My heart burns with the agony of a thousand souls, I’m so young and yet I feel as if I’ve passed the mortal threshold for sanity. I can feel that distance between each dose of serotonin increasing day by day. There is no hope for me anymore, no joy, no love. All of my bread is stale, and my peanut butter has been replaced with mustard. There is no salvation for me... Only the cold sweet embrace of death. But what happens after that? Paradise, perhaps? Or maybe the abyss?”
“What in the name of Faust?” Celestia muttered, gobsmacked.
“Faust.” He chuckled humourlessly, “I’ve prayed for a life better than the one I have. And Faust has continued to spit in my face day in and day out. My coffee grows sour with each day that passes. Not because I’ve left it out over night, but because that small little joy I once gained from drinking it each morning no longer give me comfort. It now only reminds of the dull repetitive sequence my existence has become. The pain keeps increasing, yet the pleasures don’t. The everlasting motivation of chasing my dreams has crashed into a burning wreckage of morbid Nihilism. My own mirror shows a monster that no nightmare could’ve possible created. I no longer pray for the light because all I know is darkness.”
The stallion scoffed which made Anon flinch slightly.
“When it is all said and done—when the sun has burned out and the moon has crashed into the planet—I will have achieved nothing more than my fellow pony. I am not extraordinary nor above the average accomplishments of anypony else. With the sands of time, I will be forgotten. Every hope and every dream washed away in a sea of cosmic non understandability. I watch the days go by, unable to control the rate at which they do. They blend together. There is nothing new to gleam, just another day doing the same thing. Why? I gain nothing from following a schedule; why should I even try to think ahead when in the end, the instant gratification of following my own compulsions is so much sweeter than waiting for those long term investments; the same investments that society said would give me fulfilment? Why pray when hope is arbitrary? Why pray when in the end, there will be nothing to show for it?”
Anon and Celestia looked at each other stunned—their pupils shrunken to pinpricks—as the stallion took another breath to continue speaking.
“I have seen the world through the looking glass. Watched it crack and warble due to the conflicting world views I’ve learned and been taught. I’ve been told what to love and what to hate. I’m told that in the end my deeds will have morality and weight. But who will weigh those deeds? The cosmos has no need for morality. And the very same ponies who judged my worth on the way I conducted myself will have been reduced to dust long before the stars bleed out. Every part of myself that people judge my worth on: Money. Looks. Intelligence. Power... Those parts of myself which I’m told to focus on the most... In the end, they will matter the least. In the end, all those years of trying to appease the collective whole I’ve been surrounded by will have led me to nothing.”
The stallion looked up to the ceiling, slumping slightly as a final tear rolled down his eye.
“When all of the things we’ve attributed with happiness don’t matter in the end. Did they ever matter in the beginning?“
Silence hung the air as everyone in the bank—including the guards—stood in complete befuddlement.
Then the stallion sighed. “That is to say that my fillyfriend broke up with me. And as the saying goes: ‘You are what you eat‘.”
He sniffled.
“And I guess I wasn’t enough.”
His sobs began to fill the room as he finally broke down.
“...”
“...”
“...”
Anon tossed his gun to the floor.
“Just arrest me damn it.” She sighed.
“I should’ve just sold my body for bits.” She mumbled. Her face scrunching up at the puddle of tears that had formed at her hooves.
“Great...”
“Seize her!”
Every single guard in the bank proceeded to dog pile her.
So the plan didn’t work. We’ll actually, it did kinda.
As it turns out, if you’re jobless because you’re cutie mark conflicts with work then it’s possible to get a stipend from the government, which was actually why a charity was being was being held that day; to build up funds for the disenfranchised.
Yeah. Anon could’ve just asked Celestia for help and it would’ve been fine. But now she’ll forever be known as the mare that tried to steal from a fundraiser.
As it also turns out, robbing a bank is a very serious crime with very serious consequences for anyone involved with said serious crime. There is some good news however. Because Anon had surrendered, she’d only got community service.
But there was a catch. Her punishment was decided by Celestia.
Well, Celestia—much like every other divine being, it seems—has a sick sense of humour. Because she sentenced Anon to six months as a volunteer ‘friendship therapist.’
Bitch. Does she look like a therapist?
Anon was one hundred percent sure she made that up on the spot, the cheeky sun horse. Also, volunteer? Correct Anon if she’s wrong, but isn’t forced volunteer work is just slavery with extra steps?
Anyways.
So now here she was, sitting on a bench while the stallion who cried an ocean of tears in the bank sat beside her, eating some soft serve vanilla ice cream.
His name was Debbie Downer—’Who would’ve thought?’—and he was currently trying his hardest not to meet her eyes, his face burning red in embarrassment.
“Hey... Anon?” He mumbled.
She groaned in agitation, he’d clearly wanted to ask her something for well over an hour and it was starting to get annoying.
“Yeah DD?”
‘DD’ shuffled his hooves, clearing his throat as he finally managed to look Anon in the eyes.
“Will you... go on a date with me?”
“... For fucks sake.”
“That... wasn’t a no?”
Anon grumbled, “I’m not gay, alright?”
“... But I’m not a mare?”
“No. But I don’t like dick.”
“...”
“Then... doesn’t that mean you’re gay?”
“Shut up, DD.”
“Okay.”
Anon just sighed.
It was gonna be a long six months.
Author's Note
Guys I have a secret that I’ve never told anyone...
I eat Nerds because I secretly hunger for aquarium gravel and the Nerds help take the edge off. 😔
Side note: poor Cheems is in the hospital for an opioid overdose and sadly couldn’t be here to model for the cover image. Send your hopes and prays. 🙏
