HUMAN By: Twilight Sparkle

Chapters

And Twi said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!"
The Twilight of Humankind
Own Little World
A lesson forgotten . . . and another learned
Good things must come to- *gun points between eyes* -no end whatsoever
Humare Fantasies
Similar Opposites - Part 1
Similar Opposites - Part 2
Even neutrality has strings attached
Godception
The Circle of Creation
Afterword
The second HUMAN installment

And Twi said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!"

It was a wonderful day in Ponyville. The sky was clear, ponies were out and about, and everything was running like clockwork. Rainbow Dash was speeding through the skies above the simple town enjoying her day off from weather management. She had been looking forward to that day for the past few, and for one reason alone.

"I can't wait to finish reading Daring Do!" she exclaimed. "Those books make me SOOO proud to be an egghead."

As she approached the library, Dash noticed Spike carrying a stack of supplies in the front door. She momentarily ceased flying to greet the baby dragon.

"Hey Spike, whatcha doing?"

Spike turned his head to her. "Oh, hi Rainbow Dash; Twilight asked me to pick up some quills and parchment for her. This is the third load I've had to get for her this week."

"Third!? Does that pony do ANYTHING besides study?"

Spike pushed in the doorlock. "Actually, Twilight's been working on a personal project of hers . . . "

As Spike opened the door, one of the scrolls of parchment fell off the stack and to the ground, unrolling at least five pony lengths worth before stopping.

" . . . and it's longer than anything she's done for Princess Celestia. Could you get that?" Spike looked back to Rainbow Dash, or at least to where she was before entering through the library's top balcony, leaving him alone. Spike groaned and placed the load of supplies on the ground to retrieve the fallen scroll.

Inside the library, Rainbow Dash saw Twilight on the ground floor, using her magic to write on a piece of parchment with a quill. The cyan pegasus took notice of her friend's frantic motions as she scribbled across the parchment. While Twilight was always frantic to get stuff done on time, Rainbow Dash heard what Spike said about this being for fun, which got the pegasus pony curious about the lavender unicorn's behavior.

"Hey Twilight, what's up? Besides me, of course." Dash giggled as she descended to the ground floor.

Twilight took no notice to Rainbow's question and instead continued writing. Very sheepishly, the pegasus pony landed on the ground and approached the lavender unicorn.

"Well, um . . . anyway Twilight, can I borrow that last Daring Do book?"

Twilight momentarily ceased writing and used her magic to levitate the book in question off a nearby shelf and into Rainbow's mouth.

"Thanks," the cyan pegasus said through the corner of her mouth as she began trotting toward the front door. She didn't get very far, however, before the sound of Twilight's resumed writing reached her ears. Setting the Daring Do book down onto the center table, she re-approached Twilight.

"So, Twilight, what's this project you're working on anyway?"

Like before, Twilight said nothing in response. Instead, she continued writing without so much as a blink or a cough interrupting her. Shrugging, Rainbow Dash decided to forget about her and get back to Daring Do. Once again, she hadn't gone very far when . . .

"IT'S DONE!" Twilight shouted.

The sudden exclamation caused Rainbow Dash to fall forwards onto her stomach.

"What the hay, Twilight!"

Just then, Spike entered through the front door carrying the requested supplies. He momentarily struggled to hold onto them with one clawed hand while closing the door with the other.

"I've got the stuff you wanted, Twilight."

"Thanks Spike," she responded, placing the quill back into the ink cup. "Just leave them by my desk and come here; I need to know what you think of this."

Spike did as he was told and joined Twilight by the fireplace. Rainbow Dash recovered from her fall and continued making her way towards the Daring Do book.

"Hey Rainbow," Twilight said from across the room, "Why don't you come join us? I could use multiple opinions on this."

"Sure, why not?" she answered, once again living up to her status as the Bearer of Loyalty.

Dash flew over to join Spike and Twilight, intent on listening to what Twilight's pet project was.

"Now before I start reading," Twilight said to the two of them, "I should note that this was inspired by our many journeys through the Everfree Forest. I've been fascinated by how different it is from the rest of Equestria, and it got me thinking; what if there existed an entire world that operated like it did?"

Spike and Rainbow Dash both looked at each other with a quizzical look before turning back to Twilight.

"What do you mean?" Spike asked her.

"I mean, what if there existed an entire world where, for example, the weather controlled itself? Pegasus ponies would be useless, if existent at all."

Rainbow Dash's interest suddenly grew; Daring Do would definitely have to wait.

"And that thought led me to another; all three pony types depend on each other, especially earth ponies since they depend on the pegasus ponies to provide weather ideal for farming. But if the weather controlled itself, earth ponies wouldn't know when and where to plant their crops, making it harder for them to survive."

Rainbow Dash and Spike looked at each other again, but this time each with a look of amazement.

"And that thought led to yet another one; where would unicorns fit into this world? Well, after seeing just how decrepit the Everfree forest is, I've determined unicorns would be absent from such a world. Otherwise, they'd use their magic to make everything perfect and aligned. After all, you both know how obsessed Rarity . . . and myself . . . are with keeping things neat and tidy and perfect. This world's lack of unicorns also means a complete absence of unicorn magic, i.e. nothing to raise the sun and moon. For this reason, the sun and moon would have to come up and down by themselves."

At this point, Spike and Rainbow Dash had their full attention on Twilight. The provocative questions she was explaining would've never crossed their minds if not for her.

"All these thoughts eventually gave me the idea to create such a world through fiction. Be warned though, it's not pleasant. In fact, I don't think anypony in history has envisioned something as corrupted, hateful, chaotic, and violent as this. I'm afraid of what Celestia might think of me if she sees this, so can you two keep it a secret?"

"Of course I can," Dash responded.

"My lips are sealed," Spike said.

"Can you also keep it a secret from Applejack and Pinkie Pie?"

"Why?" Dash asked.

Twilight gave a worried smile. "Well, I wanted to have a common trait shared between real life with this little world of my creation, so I used earth ponies to fill that role. The thing is, I decided to make them subservient to this world's only sentient beings because they wouldn't fit in any other way."

Rainbow Dash and Spike stared blankly for a moment before doing a Pinkie promise gesture with their hoof and hand, respectively, to which Twilight chuckled.

"Alright then, here we go." Twilight began reading from the top of the parchment.

"Welcome to a world where the air you breathe is foul, nature takes no favors, and living things routinely kill each other not for survival, but for sport. You may have visited worlds like this in your worst nightmares, but for the creatures that really live there it's nothing but unending despair and suffering. In this world, nature operates independent of outside manipulation. This world is also decrepit beyond repair and no amount of tidying and decorating could ever hope to fix it. Lastly, friendship is all but non-existent. Every living thing communicates differently, making it impossible to form bonds outside of their own kind.

It's because of this struggle with communication that war and discrimination exists constantly, usually stemming over the pettiest of disagreements. And here we introduce the dominant species of this world, who simply refer to one another as "people". Of all the living things in this world, these people are the most horrible. What makes them so is how they let their tendency to judge each other over the most insignificant of differences result in physical violence. Not only that, for the longest time in this world people often made slaves out of those they considered to be inferior. While people would indeed use equines to help them with various tasks, slaves would actually be treated worse than them, despite being the same species as their masters. Much like how things were before Equestria was founded, this world's people maintained a shaky trust with each other, but this trust would never remain for long. Wars would break out very often between, and sometimes even within, countries of this world. Despite all the violence and bloodshed, people knew there was an alternate to war in diplomacy and would try to use it before all else. The power of diplomacy in this world, however, was limited as a result of people's judgmental natures, and it was this fact that kept people as a whole from uniting to make the world better for not just themselves, but for all living things.

While friendships were rare between different peoples of this world, alliances between countries were fairly common. With these alliances in place, if a country came under attack from an enemy their allies were required to lend support to fight back the attackers. Unfortunately, this system of alliances would lead to one of the greatest bloodbaths in history, known simply as the Great War during its time. With years of distrust and tensions holding people back, all it took was a little spark to ignite the flames of war, and that spark came one summer morning in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was touring . . ."

"Wait a minute, Twilight," Rainbow Dash said.

"Yes," Twilight answered.

"Where'd you come up with those weird names?"

"Well, it wasn't easy. I knew that a separate world with different intelligent life who spoke different languages needed strange ways of naming everything. The names I've given the inhabitants of this world don't mean anything; I only used them because they sounded cool."

"Well, I know cool," Rainbow responded, "and 'Franz Ferdinand' just doesn't work for me."

"Well tough," Twilight said. "This is my story."

As Twilight began to pick up from where she had left off, there was a knock on the front door.

"Come in!" Twilight shouted.

The front door opened to reveal Rarity wearing a beautiful cream colored dress rimmed in white with pink frills. As expected, Spike went crush-eyed over her appearance. Rarity, not wanting to deny Spike's attentive gaze, spoke directly to him. "You like, no?"

"I like very much," Spike muttered.

"Did you come here for anything other than to show that off?" Twilight chimed.

"What? I need all my friends' opinions on each and every dress I craft. How else can I know if I'm creating perfection, or colored filth?"

"Well," Rainbow Dash said, "it looks about as good as your last one."

"Oh thank y-wait . . . is that good or bad?"

"Ahem." Twilight cleared her throat to silence her friends. "I'd like to continue with my story, if you'd please pay attention."

Rarity glanced at the scroll in Twilight's lap before staring up at her. "Judge my new dress and I'd be ever so grateful to critique your own work."

"Fine," Twilight replied. "I agree with Rainbow Dash, and by that I mean it looks the exact same as your last dress."

"EXACT SAME?" Rarity scoffed. "I'll have you know my last dress was colored pure white; this one uses a new fabric I created spec-."

"IT LOOKS NICE!"

Rarity smiled and sat down in between Spike and Rainbow Dash, intent on keeping her end of the deal. Twilight magically lifted the scroll out of her lap and continued from where she had left off.

"Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was touring the Austro-Hungarian city of Sarajevo, Bosnia, when a young assassin by the name of Gavrilo Princip approached and attacked him and his wife, fatally wounding them. It was eventually discovered that young Gavrilo had ties to the Kingdom of Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian empires' rival for power. For several weeks afterwards, diplomatic resolutions were attempted, but ultimately failed. On the 28th day of the seventh month of that same year, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war against the Kingdom of Serbia. As a result of said declaration, every ally both sides had was immediately drawn into the fight, thereby spreading the violence and bloodshed across the whole continent."

Twilight glanced up from the parchment to check on Rarity. While the fashionista was no doubt repulsed by the story's content, she was simultaneously rooted to the spot in fascination of it. Smiling, Twilight continued reading.

"The Great War was referred to as such for one reason alone, and that was the sheer amount of violence and death that resulted from it. Like all wars, only the most up to date technology and the most combative fighters were used. As such, one soldier could take down rows upon rows of advancing enemies by themselves, making territorial progression for both sides impossible. In essence, both sides were sending their own out just to be slaughtered. The war continued this way for four long years until, at long last, the Entente powers (made up of the countries of France, Russia, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Serbia) with a little help from the relatively young United States of America, managed to push back the Central powers (made up of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the country of Germany) and eventually into defeat."

Twilight rolled up the scroll. "That's the end of it for now. I'm still brainstorming ideas for the rest, but I'll finish it in due time. Until then, how is it so far?"

"Well," Rarity said, "I must admit I never would've guessed you were capable of writing something so morbid and twisted. However, I also must admit I never would've guessed you had such a creative mind. All in all, well done Twilight."

"Ditto," Rainbow Dash said. "Though if I was writing it, I'd have substituted the Entente powers for . . . "

"Wait, don't tell me," Twilight said. "Yourself?"

Rainbow Dash blushed.

Twilight rolled her eyes as she levitated the scroll onto the nearby desk. With her story done for the time being, Rainbow Dash and Rarity left upon finishing their business, intent on hearing the rest once Twilight completed it.

The Twilight of Humankind

Everywhere she looked, Fluttershy could see nothing but carnage strewn about the landscape. Faceless, mangled bodies of unidentifiable origin lay around her as she trotted through the now dead battlefield. She was not horrified, however, but rather relieved that she was alive. She approached one of the corpses on the ground and gave it a slight kick with her hoof. It made a wet, squishy sound on contact, indicating it was still fresh. The yellow pegasus gave no comment as she continued trotting along, eager to reach her destination.

After some time, she could make out base camp about a mile in front of her. Before she could pick up her pace, however, she heard a loud bang followed a moment later by something hitting her in the right flank at high speed. She toppled over, crying out in pain as she realized she had been sniped by an unforeseen enemy. She looked down at her flank to see a bullet hole in between the three butterflies that made up her cutie mark. Blood was gushing out from the wound, slowly draining the helpless pegasus of the life she'd managed to self-preserve thus far. Realizing she was doomed, Fluttershy closed her eyes and braced for the second bullet. When it didn't come she opened her eyes, only to find herself staring up at the princess of the night herself.

“A very morbid dream, dear Fluttershy,” Luna said, turning her head around in observation of their surroundings. “What hath invoked such violent images within your mind?”

“I don’t know-wait, this is a dream?” Fluttershy answered. “It feels so real.”

Luna chuckled. “We can assure that thou art asleep, dear Fluttershy." Her face grew serious as she used her magic to levitate a small, round, metallic object in front of them.

“T’was embedded in thy flank. Even with Our thousand year banishment, We are fairly certain nothing of this sort currently exists in Equestria or elsewhere, though do correct Us if We are wrong." Luna launched the bullet over her shoulder; out of sight, still in mind. "All the same, this is something We wouldn't expect from a dream belonging to thou, dear Fluttershy, Bearer of Kindness.

Fluttershy blushed slightly as she replied. "Well, P-Princess L-L-Luna, it doesn't exist in Equestria. It . . . it . . . it . . . " Fluttershy couldn't bring the words out of her mouth, and she hid behind her mane in embarrassment.

“Speak, dear Fluttershy, for We cannot help thee otherwise.”

Breathing deeply, Fluttershy continued her explanation. “A few days ago, Rainbow told me about this story Twilight was working on. The story was, um . . . well.” She gestured to their surroundings once again.

“So, this dream thou currently has stems from a story which Twilight Sparkle hath recently authored?” Fluttershy nodded in response. "Then We know what thou must do to halt such nightmares in their tracks from now on."

“Really?” Fluttershy got to her hooves. "What do I do?"

“This story that Twilight Sparkle hath wrote; thou must read it firsthoof.”

“WHAT!?” Fluttershy jumped. “How’s that supposed to help me?”

“Thou hath only been told from secondhoof accounts of this story. Therefore, thou lacks a clear understanding of the picture t’was trying to paint. If thou were to see the whole picture, as everypony says, thou would be much less afraid of it. A wise pony once said, 'what everypony fears the most is that which they are the least knowledgeable of'.”

Fluttershy took a moment to calm down and mull over what Luna just said; she quickly realized the moon princess was right. All Rainbow Dash had really made clear was that Twilight’s story told of hatred, warfare, and enslavement. What she hadn't made clear was how exactly all those elements fit into the story, or even if the story was for or against them. Fluttershy steeled her resolve and returned her gaze to Luna.

“Thank you, Princess Luna; I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

"We wish you the best of luck," Luna replied. She took off from the ground and began flying upward into the sky. "Fare thee well, Fluttershy!"

"Bye Princess Luna!" Fluttershy called back, waving her hoof.

Luna soon disappeared through a distortion in the sky, signalling her departure from Fluttershy's dream. The yellow pegasus stopped and stared for a moment before sighing and sitting down upon the corpse-strewn ground, beginning the wait to wake out of her dream.

Twilight sat at her desk working hard on the next part of her story. Since starting this little project of hers she'd become increasingly fascinated with the idea of a magic-less world and how it could sustain itself. But as the lavender unicorn quickly realized, actually trying to figure such stuff out was excruciatingly difficult. For example, deducing how a sentient race could thrive for generations without magic required a full understanding of how non-magical creatures in reality manage it. To that end, she'd gathered every single book in her library pertaining to the culture, history, and (especially) technology of non-magical races. Twilight was reading a book about the minotaurs' highly-industrial society when she heard a knock at the front door

“Come in!” She turned around as the door opened to reveal a (as was typical of her) nervous Fluttershy with her head slightly slumped and hiding partially behind her mane. The butterscotch pegasus closed the door and slowly trotted inside as Twilight greeted her.

“Hi Fluttershy, whatch’a need?”

Fluttershy briefly glanced at the enormous pile of books surrounding the lavender unicorn's desk before replying. “I was . . . umm . . . wondering if I could . . . read that story of yours? If it's alright with you, of course.”

Twilight blinked. "How'd you kn- Rainbow Dash told you, didn't she?" The pegasus slid further back into her mane and nodded. "Oh well, it was bound to get out sooner rather than later." Twilight used her magic to levitate the scroll upon which she had written the first part of her story over to Fluttershy, who grabbed it in her mouth and flew over to the staircase where she began reading it.

As she read, Fluttershy constantly felt a mix of dread and fascination at the contents of Twilight’s story, sometimes even to the point of being physically sick. The sickness dissipated once she'd become desensitized to the violence described in the story, however. Once finished, Fluttershy took a moment to digest everything she had read. It was clear that Twilight’s intention for this story was to show what a world lacking the magic that ponykind holds so dear to itself would be like; war-torn, intolerant, decrepit, etc. With that revelation, Fluttershy gained a greater appreciation for everything she may have once taken for granted.

“So, whadd’ya think?”

Fluttershy started and fell over like a tipped cow. Twilight stared anxiously into her eyes as she awaited an answer to her question, which Fluttershy gave once she'd gotten back to her hooves.

“Oh . . . ummm . . . it’s g-great Twilight.” Fluttershy twirled the tip of her mane with a fore hoof. “But . . . I was wondering, i-if it’s okay with you . . . if I could . . . well . . . help you out with your story?”

“How so?” Twilight responded, raising a curious brow.

“Well,” Fluttershy said, easing up a bit, “you never gave a specific identity to the people in the story. Also, they couldn't all be so awful; surely there's a few who're genuinely nice and tolerant of others. If it’s alright with you . . . I’d like to breathe some life into them myself, so to speak.”

Twilight stared at her yellow pegasus friend awkwardly for a moment before smiling.

“Of course it’s alright. Here,” Twilight levitated a quill and parchment from the nearby desk and brought it over to them, “let’s have a brainstorming session.”

For the next couple hours, the two mares bounced ideas back and forth on how to flesh out the anonymous race of people that Twilight had created. As it turned out, Fluttershy was the more productive one of the two when it came to this. Being a natural introvert, Twilight hadn’t put much thought into her people’s social lives when writing her story. Fluttershy suggested many things for this, including that while the people were spiteful and mean at heart, they would never eagerly take to violence for solving their problems. Another suggestion Fluttershy gave was for the people to adopt certain kinds of animals as pets; this, in turn, meant veterinarians had to exist in their world for taking care of sick and/or dying pets. But by far the most important of Fluttershy's suggestions was a unique appearance for the people as a species. The two searched through the many books surrounding them looking for anything to use as inspiration. Looking through Encyclopedia of Biological ClassificationsBy: Dr. Juni Denbi, Twilight eventually decided to combine certain traits of ponies and minotaurs while using the physical appearance of chimpanzees as a base. She made a mental note to attempt drawing these people as such sometime later.

With that decided the two mares resumed bouncing ideas back and forth. The last thing Fluttershy suggested for these people were manes similar to ponies' as they were a great individualizing characteristic. Finally, it came time to give these previously anonymous people a name for their species. After careful consideration, the two mares decided to use the slang term “man”, itself derived from “mane”, that Rainbow Dash made up to establish when she feels “atop” or "above" somepony, like how the mane is atop one’s head. Twilight liked it because these people were the sole dominant species of their world. She then decided to add the prefix "hu-", derived from “huge”, to which Twilight explained to Fluttershy that she always imagined them as towering behemoths; at least, to anypony besides the two princesses. With that, Twilight’s race of people was officially termed “human”, or “humans” in plurality, and “humankind” for the species as a whole.

As the two mares admired their work, there was a knock on the front door.

“Come in!” Twilight shouted.

The door opened to which Rarity came strolling in wearing a ruby and sapphire-embedded variant of the dress she wore the last time she'd visited.

“Geez Rarity,” Twilight groaned. “Another new dress?”

“Not just a new dress darling,” the fashionista pony replied. Rarity cried out in delight as she spun around while using a single hoof for balance. “This ensemble is a birthday gift for my cousin Sol Do. She lives in Hiddenite, and I’ve been meaning to introduce her to high class fashion for some time. So, what do you think?”

"Well, it does look better than the other one," Twilight admitted.

"You look wonderful, Rarity," Fluttershy complimented.

"Why thank you, darlings," Rarity replied with a smile, then began glancing around the room. "And where might my little Spikey-Wikey currently be?"

"Taking a little nappy-wappy upstairs," Twilight replied with a giggle. "We've been too busy brainstorming to bother waking him up."

It was then Rarity took notice of the giant pile of books around the desk as well as the parchment scroll currently suspended in Twilight's magic.

“Have you two been working on that totally barbaric fable together?” she asked Twilight and Fluttershy.

Twilight nodded. “Uh-huh, Fluttershy’s given me a lot of helpful suggestions on how to improve it.”

“. . . Can I help too?”

Twilight and Fluttershy both froze with their mouths agape in shock. “Are you serious?” Twilight asked.

“What?” Rarity chimed. “I can be interested in things other than fashion.”

“Well . . . okay,” Twilight replied as she got out the quill and parchment again. “What’re your ideas?”

Rarity put a hoof to her chin, lost in thought for about a minute before she exclaimed, “IDEEEAAA!!!”

“These people that you’ve created, Twilight, they should always wear clothes, even outside of formal events and such.”

Twilight and Fluttershy glanced at each other with quizzical looks before returning their gazes to Rarity.

“What for?” Twilight asked.

“Because darling, if you’re aiming to create a world riddled with as many flaws as possible, the people that you’ve created should be completely insecure about how they look. While my dresses do indeed make anything and anyone wearing them look smashing, insecurity about one’s natural appearance is a fashion crime in and of itself.”

Twilight thought about it for a moment before answering. “Alright, that's doable.”

Rarity squealed with delight as Twilight wrote down her suggestion.

“Well darling, it’s been fun helping you with your project, but I must go send this dress off to my dear sweet cousin. Ta Ta!”

Rarity trotted out the door and was gone.

“Yeah, I should be going too,” Fluttershy said. “Thanks for letting me read your story.”

“No problem,” Twilight responded. “See ya.”

Fluttershy flew out the front door and was gone as well, leaving Twilight alone to continue her work.

Own Little World

“Well, Rarity . . . whaddya think?”

“Oh my . . . Spikey Wikey, it’s BEAUTIFUL.”

Rarity gazed upon the diamond and pearl studded platinum dress that Spike had labored to get for her. The sparkle that gleamed in her eyes was unmatched by any other she had throughout her entire lifetime. She had made and given many dresses to Spike and the rest of their friends before, but this one . . . the one that Spike had given to HER, the Bearer of Generosity herself, put all of them to shame. The pearly unicorn couldn’t deny that she had been outdone in her craft; she leaned down and planted a long, sweet kiss onto Spike's mouth. His cheeks growing red, Spike gave in to the warm feels filling up his belly . . .

“Spike . . . SPIKE!!!”

The baby dragon woke up with a start and proceeded to rush down the library stairs to answer Twilight’s call.

“Yes, Twilight?” Spike asked, panting.

“Where’s my project?” Twilight answered as she rushed to and from every bookshelf and cupboard around the house, opening and looking in them frantically before closing. “I had a dream that gave me an idea for the story but I can’t find it anywhere!”

Spike sighed and walked over to the desk where Twilight had been working on her project. Reaching into the cubby space the desk provided, he pulled out the parchment on which Twilight had been writing her story. Twilight, upon realizing her overreaction, blushed and telekinetically took the parchment from Spike, setting it back down onto the desk.

“Thanks Spike, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Glad I could help,” Spike said, sarcastically, as he made his way back upstairs.

Spike woke up the next morning fresh as a daisy. Aside from the interruption with Twilight, last night's sleep was the best yet that month. Stretching his arms and legs, he proceeded to head downstairs again. As Spike was about to hit the ground floor, he glanced up to see Twilight working feverishly on her book at her desk.

“Hey Twilight, wanna go get some breakfast at Sugarcube Corner?”

Twilight didn’t answer. Confused, Spike called to her again, again with no answer. Spike was about to walk over and poke her when he suddenly had an unnerving thought, no doubt brought on by past experience.

“Did you stay up nonstop after I helped you last night?”

To Spike’s surprise, Twilight stopped writing, but not in response to his question. Spike watched as Twilight’s telekinetic grip on the quill came undone and it floated down onto the desk. Even though Twilight still stood upright, Spike heard snoring sounds coming from where she was, which essentially answered his question. With a sigh, Spike exited the library and began making his way to Sugarcube Corner for some breakfast pastries.

As he neared the sweet shop, Spike came across Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash talking to the cutie mark crusaders; Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom. From the looks of it, the four mares were apparently scolding the three fillies for something. Applejack sent the three away just as Spike approached.

“What was that all about?” he asked AJ.

The four mares turned to face him.

“Oh, howdy Spike,” the farmpony said. “Them littl’uns were badgerin’ an’ beggin’ the four of us ta keep watch over ‘em while they attempted ta get “contortionist cutie marks”. Sometimes ah wonder where they come up with such featherbrained schemes.” She shook her head. “So how’s Twilight doin’ these days? She still busy workin’ on that little pet project of hers?”

“Wait, how’d you know about that?” Spike asked.

“She told me’n Pinkie yesterday; said she was worried ‘bout us thinkin’ she saw earth ponyfolk as below unicorns on account’a how they’re portrayed in her story. Personally, I don't give a hay how they’re used, cause it’s better’n not existing period. Am I right?”

“OH MY GOSH APPLEJACK IF WE DIDN’T EXIST THEN THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY WOULD BE USELESS AND OUR FRIENDS WOULD BE SO SAD AND I’D BE EXTRA EXTRA SAD OF COURSE HOW CAN I BE SAD IF I DON’T EXIST I WONDER IF . . . ”

Rainbow Dash stuck her hoof in Pinkie’s mouth, effectively shutting the party pony up.

“Thanks,” Spike muttered. “Do you think you guys could check on Twilight while I’m getting breakfast for her? She didn’t get any sleep last night, again.”

“Well, I need to get back to my cottage,” Fluttershy said. “Angel’s expecting me back with a glazed carrot for his breakfast, and the last thing I want is for him to get cranky from hunger."

The group waved Fluttershy goodbye before turning their attention back to Spike

“Sure thing, Spike,” AJ said. “Don’t ya worry yer scaly little head 'bout Twilight; we’ll make sure she gets some sleep.”

“Thanks,” Spike said before continuing towards Sugarcube Corner.

“C’mon gals, let’s go all Sandmare on Twilight.”

A few minutes later AJ, Pinkie, and Rainbow were at the Golden Oaks library’s front door. Applejack lifted a hoof and knocked. The door opened a second later, though the ponies noticed that it had been opened with magic. The first thing they saw upon entering was just what they expected; Twilight was frantically writing away on the parchment laid out on her desk, not even turning around to greet the new arrivals.

“Uh . . . hey there sugarcube,” AJ said to Twilight. “Maybe ya’ oughta get some sleep 'fore ya’ suffer brain damage.”

“Can’t,” was Twilight’s only reply while she continued writing ceaselessly.

“Come on egghead,” Dash said as she flew up to Twilight. “Everypony needs a little R&R between doing the things they love; that’s why I nap whenever I’m not flying or working.”

Twilight said nothing, still not ceasing her writing.

“Ooh Ooh Ooh!” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing over to the desk. “Whatcha writing? Is it a comedy, tragedy, or an actiony? Wait, I guess actiony isn’t a word but it does rhyme with comedy and tragedy. OH MY GOSH!!! This is the story about that scary, spooky, so-mean-it-makes-you-want-to-put-your-hooves-up-to-your-mouth-and-gasp world. What are-"

“SHUT UP!!!”

Everypony in the room flinched and stared as Twilight broke from her writing to yell at Pinkie Pie. They were all aghast. Even though Twilight had yelled at Pinkie before, never had she done it with the level of volume and derision that she just displayed with her voice; though it was no Royal Canterlot Voice. Silence fell upon the room until Pinkie broke it.

“I’m sorry Twilight.” Her mane deflated and fell straight down around her head.

Twilight sighed and cast a warm and comforting, yet drowsy look at Pinkie. “I . . . forgive you . . . Pinkie . . .”

Twilight proceeded to fall asleep right in front of them. AJ sighed herself as she walked over to Twilight and promptly whistled in her ear. Twilight immediately woke back up and AJ put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Listen sugarcube, like ah said ya’ oughta get some rest 'fore ya’ suffer brain damage or whatever. If ya’ want, the rest of us can contribute ideas to yer story while ya rest. Whaddya say?”

Twilight stared at all of her friends with a mildly shocked expression. “You'd all do that for me?"

Pinkie's mane poofed right back up and she, AJ, and Rainbow all nodded yes.

"Thanks girls," Twilight said. "You're the . . . best frie-"

She had fallen asleep again. AJ just smiled and lifted the sleeping egghead onto her back to be brought up to her bedroom. Once Twilight was snug as a bug in bed, the three ponies stood around the desk and began reading what Twilight had written so far.

As they read, the three were amazed at how much content Twilight had put into her work. What had begun as a mere tale about a world where magic is nonexistent had evolved into an entire chronology of said world and its inhabitants; from “The Pyramids of Egypt” to “The New World” to “World War 1 & 2”. At first, the three friends felt anything they could contribute would be useless compared to what Twilight had already created. The chance to be omnipotent, however, was too great allure for them, so they put their creativity to the ultimate test and began brainstorming for an idea each they would contribute.

“ . . . DETROIT!”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack turned to Pinkie Pie. “What?” they both said in unison.

“Detroit!” Pinkie said, proceeding to bounce up and down in excitement. “Wouldn’t it be cool if Twilight’s world had places named similarly to ours? Like, Detrot becomes Detroit, Stalliongrad becomes Stalingrad, Fillydelphia becomes Philadelphia, Los Pegasus becomes Los Angeles, and so many more!!!”

While Pinkie Pie squealed in excitement, AJ and RD looked at each other skeptically and back to Pinkie.

"Where did those names come from, Pinkie?" AJ asked.

"I made them up," Pinkie replied. "Don't they sound funny?"

“It’s not exactly funny unless the new name has an underlying joke or something," Rainbow Dash replied. "Detroit? I don’t see any joke in that.”

“Silly filly,” Pinkie chided. “It doesn’t need an underlying joke to sound funny.”

RD and AJ looked at each other again and just shrugged; it was Pinkie logic, why try to make sense out of it?

“Alright, sugarcube,” AJ said. “I guess yer idea’ll work, just go write it down.”

In the blink of an eye, Pinkie was at the desk with the quill in her mouth, scribbling away her idea on the parchment.

“So, Dash,” AJ said to the respective pony. “What’ve ya thought of? I’m plum tuckered out of ideas.”

The cyan pegasus rubbed her hoof on her chin, deep in thought. After a moment, she perked up and, with the widest evil smile ever, zoomed over to the desk and snatched the quill from Pinkie Pie, who had just finished writing. She then began jotting down whatever she had come up with while AJ looked on in confusion and concern.

“Uh, Dash, what’s yer idea?”

Dash finished writing and turned to look back at the farmpony, the evil smile still plastered across her face. AJ watched as Pinkie Pie looked at the parchment and shrieked so loud both RD and AJ could’ve sworn their ears bled.

“Pinkie! What in tarnation was that for?”

Pinkie’s hair deflated yet again as she looked at AJ, tears in her eyes. AJ, curious, strolled on over to the parchment and read what Rainbow Dash had written down. Once she had, she felt sick to her stomach.

“Dash . . . what the hay?”

“What!?” Dash protested. “After all the wicked stuff Twilight’s put in, what’s so wrong with my idea?”

“It’s not wrong, sugarcube,” AJ responded, “just sick.”

Dash crossed her fore hooves. “That’s why I put it in."

AJ sighed and looked over to Pinkie Pie who was still visibly crying. The farmpony wrapped a comforting hoof around the pink pony’s shoulders.

“It’s alright, Pinkie. Dash don’t mean any ill-will towards anypony who’s real; fictional ponies don’t exist, so there’s no need to fret over them gettin’ turned into glue. Will ya be alright, sugarcube?”

A slight smile formed on Pinkie’s face. “I think so, Applejack.”

Both ponies embraced long and hard while, unbeknownst to them, Rainbow stuck her tongue out in mild disgust at the sappy display in front of her.

“Well, I’m gonna go take a nap, see you later girls,” Dash said as she flew out a nearby open window.

The two remaining mares waved goodbye and split from their hug. “I should get going too, Applejack,” Pinkie said. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake are probably wondering where I am right now.” With that, Pinkie bounced through the front door and was gone.

All by her lonesome, AJ thought long and hard about what she could contribute to Twilight’s world. During which time Spike returned with a bag full of donuts in hand.

"Where's Twilight?" he asked AJ.

"We put her ta bed upstairs," AJ replied, pointing toward the staircase.

"Thanks." Spike ascended the stairs intent on feeding his pseudo-mother.

Spike's return with breakfast for Twilight brought thoughts of food to Applejack's mind. She glanced over her shoulder to her cutie mark; three bright red apples. To AJ, the apples on her flank portrayed more than just her favorite food; it was a reflection of how much she treasured her morals and being honest with everypony. Suddenly, an idea to contribute to Twilight's story hatched in her mind; she'd make Twilight's humans omnivores instead of inherently carnivorous as they were described. That way, they'd have complete freedom to choose whether they ate meat, plants, or whatever.

With her contribution decided upon, Applejack picked up the quill and began writing her idea down. Upon completion she too exited the library, content that she, Pinkie, and Dash had done a good job of helping Twilight with her creation so she could get some much needed sleep.

A lesson forgotten . . . and another learned

Had anypony tried to enter the Golden Oaks library for any purpose, be it checking in/out a book or attempting to coerce Twilight into leaving, they'd be barred entry by the force field said unicorn had surrounded her home with. Ponies who passed the library would stare at the barrier in relief, as they knew all about Twilight’s obsessive-compulsive mentality due to the Want it, Need it, Smarty Pants incident. Twilight’s closest friends, however, only grew increasingly concerned about her well-being each time they passed the lavender unicorn's home.

It had been a couple of weeks since Twilight started work on her HUMAN project, as she was now calling it, and just a few days since putting up the barrier. Her friends knew exactly what she intended with it; keep everypony from distracting her until she was finished with her project. Spike was allowed to leave/return to the library by way of Twilight’s teleportation whenever he wished and would update the group on Twilight's condition from time to time. At first the group thought to inform Princess Celestia of the current dilemma, but ultimately decided against it confident that another "Smarty Pants" incident wasn't in danger of occurring. Plus, they all knew how important Twilight's project was to her, and the last thing they wanted the lavender unicorn thinking was that her friends didn't care about it. After all, that was the lesson they'd learned as a result of the "Smarty Pants" incident.

Currently, Spike was returning home with a box of cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner. Though Twilight hadn’t requested any food, he'd decided to bring some for her anyway. Along the way, however, Spike succumbed to temptation and started eating the delicious treats at his leisure. By the time he'd returned to Golden Oaks, only four of the sixteen cupcakes remained. Holding the box in one hand, he lifted the remaining one to announce his return via the designated "secret knock" on the barrier.

“IT’S DONE!!!”

The sudden exclamation from inside the library startled Spike, making him drop the remaining cupcakes onto the ground. Before the baby dragon could groan in frustration, however, he was teleported inside the library where he found himself staring at Twilight bouncing around the ground floor like a maniac, levitating an enormous rolled-up scroll with her magic. All the dragon could do was stare in awed concern until the lavender unicorn finally remembered his presence.

“Spike!” she exclaimed, looking at him with the widest grin possible. “I’ve finally finished HUMAN!”

“That’s . . . great,” Spike replied. No matter how many times Twilight went hyper-emotional, it seemed he never could find immunity to its effect on himself.

“You betcha,” Twilight said. “And I know just what to do with it.”

She immediately picked up a nearby quill and blank parchment.

“NO!!!” Spike shouted.

Twilight turned to look at him, her jaw agape and eyes blank in surprise.

“You’ve done enough, Twilight,” Spike continued. “You’ve done nothing but write for too long; I’m surprised your mane and tail aren’t disheveled from lack of grooming. You NEED to get out of here and do something else. Staying inside for too long is unhealthy; one would think you’d have learned that by now.”

Twilight continued to stare blankly at her assistant for a few moments before sighing. Spike was right; she HAD been cooped up in the library for far too long. Thoughts of her friends concerned for her well-being invaded Twilight's mind and she couldn't help but cringe thinking what they probably thought of her by now. Still, she wanted to find SOME way to continue working on her project. And just like that, an idea was hatched in her overused brain.

“You’re right, Spike,” she replied. “Let’s go celebrate my accomplishment with our friends. After all, they had a helping hoof in it themselves, no matter how small it may have been.”

Spike sighed with relief. “Sure thing, let’s go.”

And with that, the pair set off to gather their friends for celebration.

As the citizens of lower Manhattan looked up at the North Tower in both awe and concern, a familiar noise was heard approaching from overhead. Looking skyward for the source, a second plane was seen barreling towards the still intact South Tower. The first impact had attracted attention from every news outlet in the city. As a result, plenty of cameras bore witness to the second plane's impact with the South Tower. The screams of onlookers were immeasurable when the realization that the collisions were not accidental, but a coordinated assault instead, hit everyone hard and fast. As debris from the second impact rained down onto the streets-

“STOP!”

Everypony was so enraptured by Twilight's narration that when Fluttershy suddenly shouted their hearts all skipped a beat. Turning to face her, they saddened upon seeing how visibly distraught Fluttershy was. Though she'd rid herself of any nightmares brought about by the graphic content of Twilight's story, hearing it narrated still left the butterscotch pegasus anguished and in tears.

“It's okay, Fluttershy," Twilight said to her. "Take all the time you need to let it all out."

Fluttershy looked at her for a brief moment before she resumed crying. Twilight sighed; she and Spike were treating their friends to smoothies in celebration of Twilight’s story's completion. When they all asked how their contributions were implemented she decided to read parts of the story which showcased them. Since Fluttershy didn't object, Twilight assumed she overcame her distaste for the story's graphic nature. It was clear now, however, that she hadn't.

Once Fluttershy stopped crying Twilight spoke to her again. “Will you be alright?”

Fluttershy wiped away a few tears and nodded. “Continue,” she said.

Twilight picked up the scroll and resumed reading.

As debris from the explosion rained down onto the streets of Manhattan, several bystanders took out their cellphones to call 911, the emergency telephone number, which also happened to be the current number date. It didn’t take long at all before every fireman, police officer, and hospital worker was on the scene doing everything they could to get control of the situation at hand before full blown pandemonium ensued. Several were injured by falling debris, while others were trapped inside the doomed towers waiting to be rescued. Dozens were likely dead, and more deaths would surely follow if the worst had yet to pass.

Those watching the scene unfold on their televisions from the safety of their living rooms were either baffled, shocked, horrified, or (the most common case) any combination of the three. But above all else, they wanted to know one thing: why? Why did this happen? Who was responsible? What were their motivations? Could anything have been done to prevent this terrible tragedy from occurring? At the moment, however, all anyone could do was watch the scene unfold and keep the hope that things would turn out okay alive.

One thing, however, was for certain; America had lost its innocence. After having spent over a century without conflict on its home turf, the American people had now seen the horrors of modern war firsthand. Like all people, they would seek to bring justice to those responsible for invading and attacking their homeland, and they would not rest until said task was accomplished.

Twilight rolled up the scroll and placed it onto the table in front of her before returning her friends’ gaze.

“Now then,” she continued, “I have another tidbit of news to announce.”

All of Twilight's friends looked at her excitedly; she took a couple gulps of her smoothie before resuming.

“Such a literary masterpiece as the one we created deserves to be published in hardback. I know a publisher back in Canterlot who could do just that. With me being Princess Celestia’s personal protege, I can all but guarantee he’ll agree to do it. I’m telling you all this because since you all helped me write it, it’s only fair for you all to receive an equal share of profits.”

Twilight looked at each of her friends to see them all smiling. Taking a sip of her own smoothie, Applejack spoke up.

“Well, that’s mighty kind of ya sugarcube; I’d definitely love ta be able ta pay for some renovatin’ around Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Yes, thank you Twilight dear,” Rarity said. “Every single bit certainly helps me and my boutique.”

“Th . . . th . . . thank you,” Fluttershy stuttered.

“Ooh, maybe we could throw a we-all-get-rich party,” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing in her seat excitedly. “IT’D BE GREAT!!!”

“I know what I’d do if I had a few thousand bits,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling wistfully. "I'd book a reservation at that new DELOS resort out west.”

“I’m glad to see you’re all as excited about this as I am,” Twilight said as she levitated the enormous scroll her story was written upon. “I think this little world of ours will teach everyone who reads it a very important lesson, not just in friendship but life itself. No matter how many flaws you might have you can push through the hardships in life and be happy; that’s essentially what humans represent in this story. For all their wars, atrocities, and unspeakable acts of malevolence against their own kind, humans need only to lend each other their support and they can build a bright future for not just themselves, but their entire world.”

Twilight gulped down the rest of her smoothie before continuing.

“I was a fool when I first began writing this story. I figured a doomed future would await any world devoid of magic. What I didn’t account for, however, was the magic of friendship exists in every living thing, no matter how malevolent and hateful they may appear to be. It was only once you all started helping me that I began to realize that truth. Thanks for all your help in shaping both me personally and this little world of ours to be better.”

After Twilight finished her little speech, tears formed in the eyes of everypony in the group, even the usually stubborn and prideful Rainbow Dash. For the next few minutes, they let loose their tears freely, not caring what anypony else nearby might think of them. Twilight’s speech had moved them too much to care. Seeing all of her friends crying made Twilight shed a few tears herself, only to be cut off by the sound of roaring flames to her left. She turned to see Spike in the process of sending a letter to the princess.

“SPIKE!!!” Twilight shouted.

Unfazed by the loud exclamation practically right in his ear, Spike looked up at Twilight with a modest smile on his face and a few tears of his own adorning his cheeks.

“Don’t worry, I caught every word.”

Realizing Spike’s deed, Twilight sighed and patted her assistant on the head.

It had been a week since Twilight sent her story to the publisher in Canterlot. Just as she expected, the reply letter stated that HUMAN would be published and made available for purchase right away. Twilight couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride at being able to return the gesture to all the great authors she had admired all throughout her life by contributing such an enlightening work as HUMAN to the field of literature. The publisher had said that he had never seen anything bursting with as much creativity and philosophical importance as HUMAN, and if word of mouth worked in their favor, he expected to sell at least one million copies of HUMAN by the end of the month.

Currently, Twilight was sleeping the morning in, something she hadn’t done since she started work on HUMAN and rarely even before then. She was woken out of her slumber, however, by a knocking on the library’s front door.

“Spike,” she said, groggily. “Could you get that?”

When more knocking came with no answer from her assistant, Twilight looked up to see Spike wasn’t in bed. She panicked at first, but quickly remembered he was due for a dentist appointment with Minuette that morning. Realizing he must've went on his own, Twilight got out of bed and, after stretching her legs a bit, proceeded downstairs to the library's front door. More knocking sounded as she approached it.

“I’M COMING!” Twilight yelled.

Using her telekinesis, Twilight opened the front door to a most unexpected sight. Before the library stood a crowd that must've consisted half of Ponyville's population. Upon closer inspection, Twilight saw everypony had something in common; they were all holding a book to their chests with a fore hoof. They all read 'HUMAN' and showed a picture of a human male wearing what looked to be blue pants, a white shirt, black and gray shoes, and a black jacket of sorts. As realization dawned on Twilight, a certain mint green unicorn mare near the front of the crowd stepped forward; the widest smile possible present on her face.

“So,” Lyra said, “how long before the sequel?”

Author's Note

I expect a plethora of "MOAR!!!"s in the comments.

Good things must come to- gun points between eyes -no end whatsoever

“Okay, gotta think gotta think gotta think.”

It was the evening following Twilight's discovery that HUMAN fans believed a sequel was forthcoming. She'd contacted the book’s publisher straight away and asked him why they thought so. In his response the publisher said an advertisement for one was included on the book’s last page, and that its release date was kept vague for her sake. Twilight's next response was a rage fit in which she claimed their deal never included sequels. As she found out in his next reply, however, the contract she had signed to give him publication rights included a hidden clause stating he could request two more books. Furthermore, should Twilight fail to comply she’d lose all rights to her first book, including monetary gain. If Twilight wished to receive even one bit from HUMAN's sales, she'd need to expand it into a trilogy. Therefore, in her last reply Twilight stated she'd begin working on the next two books immediately.

This is why Twilight was currently pacing back and forth across her tree house, repeatedly saying “Gotta think” out loud to herself. After having almost single-hoofedly written an entire world into existence, she could surely construct enough material from said world for two more books; all she needed to do was gather her thoughts into a single idea to use as a base before building on top of that.

“SURPRISE!!!”

Twilight jumped at the sudden exclamation from nowhere. She knew it was Pinkie Pie, and she knew why she was here. She turned around to see the party pony wearing a blue polka dotted party hat and about a dozen balloons tied around her barrel. Twilight looked behind Pinkie to see the rest of her friends along with Lyra Heartstrings.

“Come on Twilight, it’s time for your I’m-now-a-professional-writer party,” Pinkie stated. “Everypony is SO excited for you and . . .”

Pinkie stopped talking when Twilight raised a hoof, gesturing for her to be quiet.

“I appreciate the thought Pinkie, I always do,” Twilight replied, “but right now isn’t the best time. I just found out I’m contractually obliged to write two more books or else I lose all rights to my work.”

“Speaking of that,” Lyra said, sticking her head into view. “What’s the sequel gonna be like? I loved, loved, LOVED the humans you created and I CAN’T WAIT to read more about them.”

Twilight looked at the mint green unicorn in confusion. "Any particular reason you're here Lyra?"

"What?" Lyra pouted. "Can't your #1 HUMAN fan join in on the festivities?"

Twilight tilted her head. "#1 fan?"

"Yeah, I know everything about your humans by heart. Go ahead, ask me anything."

"Okay," Twilight replied as her friends watched with interest. "What does B.C. stand for?"

"'Before Christ'," Lyra answered.

"Name the three countries of North America."

"Canada, U.S.A, and Mexico."

"What name is never used for inhabitants of the Islands of Vanuatu?"

"Roy Mata, the name of the ancient Melanesian chief who, after conquering the land, wished to unite all of its tribes. He ruled much similarly to Princess Celestia and kept peace between his subjects until he was poisoned to death by his brother and buried away from his homeland because it was feared his spirit would return to seek vengeance."

Everypony's jaws dropped. Twilight, especially, was amazed that Lyra could remember such obscure mentions from her book with no trouble at all. Twilight decided to take Lyra's word for it that she knew everything about humans by heart and could answer any more questions thrown her way. She didn't know whether to be unnerved or charmed at Lyra's apparent love of knowledge, but she shook away such thoughts and returned to the matter at hoof.

"Anyway, if I don't write two more books we won't be making a single bit off this."

“So?” Rainbow Dash asked while hovering. “You’ve got plenty of time for more work. Right now let’s just sit back, relax, and PARTY!!!”

Everypony started to cheer in excited response before Twilight cast a spell which silenced everyone. Upon realizing they couldn’t talk, they returned their focus to Twilight. She cancelled the spell and spoke up.

“Spike's asleep upstairs,” she said, then sighed. “And to answer you Dash, I never intended to make HUMAN an ongoing series; it was just a one shot to me. Because of that I'm lacking ideas for any sequels, and no sequels means we won't make a bit off even the first one. Now do you understand the trouble I'm in?"

For a few seconds after she finished, Twilight observed the various reactions on each of her friends: Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity had looks of worry on their faces, Fluttershy was timidly rubbing her hooves, Pinkie Pie was humming to herself with her eyes closed and a smile on her face, and Lyra was on the verge of tears.

. . . Wait a minute.

After pondering a few more moments, a wide grin burst on Twilight’s face, much to the concern and/or confusion of her friends.

“Uh, y’alright sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

“More than alright,” Twilight answered as she levitated several nearby quills and parchment rolls over towards everypony. “I just came up with an idea for the first sequel.”

Everypony gasped and wide smiles spread across all their faces, with Lyra’s topping them all.

Twilight continued. “After seeing everypony's various reactions to my news a moment ago, I got an idea. The first book detailed the human race as a whole, but it never really focused on individual humans and their personalities. So for the sequel, I propose we all write a vignette showcasing a human character of our own creation, describing how they're viewed among peers and what they think of them in turn. What do you guys think, are you up for it?”

At first, everypony was confused by Twilight’s idea. After some thought, however, it struck a chord with them all and wide smiles once again spread across all of their faces, with Lyra’s once again topping them all.

“OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH, that sounds like a super-duper-totally fun enough to make everypony pass out-idea Twilight. I’d LOOOVE to write about a human girl that spreads joy and smiles everywhere she goes just like me. Though I wonder, would that be too obvious of a self-insert and would everypony start thinking I’m too egotistical for my own good. Nah, nopony co-”

Pinkie Pie’s rambling was cut off by Twilight as she used her magic to silence Pinkie yet again. Once Pinkie agreed to calm down Twilight undid the spell and resumed speaking.

“Okay everypony, submit your vignettes to me by the end of the week and I’ll revise them as necessary to make them professional without changing any content. Remember to make your character unique without making them a self-insert because Pinkie Pie is right in that everypony would get the wrong impression of you. Only once we're all done with this trilogy can we all party, agreed?"

Everypony nodded and one by one they each took a quill and parchment scroll from Twilight’s collection and left for their respective homes. Lyra was about to grab a quill and parchment scroll herself when Twilight stopped her.

“Sorry Lyra, but this is between me and my friends.”

Lyra frowned. “But I want to help out too.”

“I’m sure you do,” Twilight responded. “And I’m not doubting your creative intellect here or anything, but if I let any one fan contribute to my work it'd only be a matter of time before EVERY fan is demanding the same from me. You understand, right?”

Lyra sighed and hoofed over the quill and parchment scroll. “Sure Twilight, I understand.”

Lyra dipped her head down and began trotting toward the front door, eyes threatening to unleash a steady torrent of tears. It was too much for Twilight to take, so she resolved to end the conversation on a positive note.

“Lyra?”

Lyra turned to look over her shoulder. “Yes?”

“You can still write a story and give it to me anyway. I won’t use it in the sequel, but I’d love to read some HUMAN fan fiction. I suppose I’ll only be a real professional writer when ponies are willing to ripoff my ideas,” Twilight said with a chuckle.

Lyra smiled and raised her head back up. “Thanks Twilight.”

“No problem,” the lavender unicorn said as she levitated the quill and parchment scroll back over to the mint green unicorn. With that resolved, Lyra exited the library and began trotting home.

Twilight whistled and fell to the floor in exhaustion. After all the stress she went through today, she was mentally wiped out and needed some rest to recharge her brain so she could begin writing her own vignette. With a sigh, Twilight rose to her hooves and began the short walk up the library stairs to her bed, where she fell asleep as soon as she crawled under the covers and laid her head on the pillow.

“ARRRRRRRGGGH!!!”

Rainbow Dash let out an annoyed grunt and pulled at her mane with her hooves in frustration. She had arrived home immediately following the visit to Golden Oaks and gotten to work brainstorming ideas for her vignette to Twilight’s story. Two hours had gone by, however, and the cyan pegasus had yet to put anything down on the parchment. Luna had raised the moon by this time, and Rainbow Dash was starting to worry if she was truly up to the challenge of creation. After all, how could she be when she couldn’t even come up with the most important aspect of any character.

A name.

“HORSEFEATHERS!” Rainbow screamed as she slammed both hooves onto the cloud desk in her living room, causing the ink to spill over in the process, though she took no notice of it.

The trouble for her had been in the randomness of Twilight’s human’s names. Unlike ponies’ names which were chosen based on appearance, talents, interests, etc, humans (at least from what Dash could understand) put no real thought into making sure their names truly represented who they were, opting instead to pick any name suiting their fancy regardless of its meaning (assuming it had one). Dash would never admit it, but her tendency to use her body before her brain left the latter underused, one result of which being her trouble with the current task at hoof.

Rainbow sighed and stared up at the ceiling of her cloud home. She knew what she wanted her character to be like as a person; awesome, strong, friendly, and idolized by swarms of admirers (she hoped that nopony would see her character as a self-insert if she made it male). None of it would matter, however, if she couldn't come up with a name to call him by. Eventually, Rainbow got the idea to choose a name in the most random way possible; picking letters out of a bag.

Using an old burlap sack she had stashed away and some letter blocks from when she was a little foal (which were intended to be hoof-me-downs for her own foals when she found her special somepony), she ended up choosing the following letters: two C’s, two R’s, one H, one U, one S, one K, one I, one O, and one N. Now all that was left was to rearrange them into two name parts.

Dash spent another ten minutes rearranging the letters before a readable name sat on the desk in front of her: C-H-U-C-K for the first part and N-O-R-R-I-S for the second part.

“Awesome,” Dash said to herself. “Now to write up his chara-.”

Dash’s sentence was cut short when the cyan pegasus instantly fell asleep from mental exhaustion. The howling wind outside and her snores inside were the only sounds that could be heard around Rainbow Dash’s floating cloud home for the rest of the night.

Author's Note

As always, give me any and all feedback you can dish out whether it be positive or negative.

For those of you wondering, Fluttershy's character will indeed be Gandhi.

Humare Fantasies

Like any other day, the aura around Fluttershy's cottage was one of calmness and tranquility. As was typical, her birds were chirping up a chorus, her chickens were scampering about in their pen, and Harry the bear was dozing out in the backyard. The butterscotch pegasus herself was inside the cottage at her desk, contemplating her character for Twilight's sequel to HUMAN.

Fluttershy was quite excited about getting a chance to play creator and craft a character to her liking, and she knew exactly what they'd be like. Ever since her brief stint as "New Fluttershy" after attending Iron Will's seminar, she realized the importance of maintaining assertiveness without letting it override one's patience and turn into violent aggression. To that end, she resolved to make this the central aspect of her character. Not only that, but he/she would attempt to instill this lesson in everyone they met, hopefully making humankind a much more peaceful race as a result.

With her character's actual 'character' down pat, Fluttershy focused on coming up with a name for him/her. She wanted the name of her character to have three qualities: 1. It's easy to remember. 2. It rolls off the tongue. 3. It fits with their heritage. For the part of their heritage, Fluttershy decided to make her character native to the region of India for its simple ways of life compared to western countries, and during the time of the two world wars as that's when her 'messenger of peace' would be needed the most. For the first two points, she decided to give her character a single part name for common use, with a full name being used solely for his introduction. She eventually settled on the full name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, with the shortened name being just Gandhi. While the name itself held no meaning to her, Fluttershy didn't care. Ghandi was her "harbinger of civil disobedience", as she worded it in his character bio, and all that mattered to the butterscotch pegasus was that humankind would become a better race through his teachings.

As Fluttershy was writing up Gandhi's character bio, she felt a small tug on her mane. Looking down, she saw Angel staring up at her with an impatient look on his face.

"Hi Angel," Fluttershy said. "Is something wrong?"

The white rabbit pointed at his now open mouth. Fluttershy looked at a nearby clock to see that it was indeed lunchtime. She put the quill down and stood up.

"Alright Angel, just wait here, I'll be back with some lunch," she said and trotted into the kitchen.

Angel licked his lips in anticipation of carrot stew and sat down on the floor to wait. His patience waned quickly, however, so he decided to read Fluttershy's vignette to pass the time. Hopping up onto the desk, he began reading what his caretaker had written. What she had didn't surprise him; Angel could've guessed Fluttershy would create a character whose purpose was to preach the importance of non-violence. Not that he had any problem with that, of course, but all the same Angel wished that the butterscotch pegasus could be a bit less predictable.

"Angel! Lunch is ready!" Fluttershy called from the kitchen.

Angel hopped off the desk and made his way to the kitchen. Sitting in his chair, he looked in front of him to see a bowl of carrot stew, just as he'd guessed.

On second thought, she can be as predictable as she wants.

"PLEEEAAASE, Rarity?"

"No, Sweetie Belle."

"Why not?"

"Because this is exclusively between me and my friends. Now shoo."

Sweetie Belle hung her head and grumbled something unintelligible before trotting out of Rarity's inspiration room. Rarity herself sighed. She had come straight home after visiting Twilight at Golden Oaks and had immediately gotten to work brainstorming ideas for her character. Predictably, Sweetie Belle had wanted to help, no doubt thinking she could get her cutie mark in creative writing. Rarity could only wonder why her sister had such little faith that she'd get her cutie mark if she was just patient.

Oh well, no time to worry about her right now. I must CREATE!!!

Turning her head back to her desk and picking up the quill with her magic, Rarity began brainstorming her character. At first, she wanted her character to be a human world-renowned fashionista, but then she remembered what Twilight said regarding self-inserts. So she decided to go a different route altogether and shape the character into her vision of a real gentlecolt, or gentleman in this case. Thinking back to all of her romance novels she'd read over the years, Rarity listed all the necessary attributes for her idyllic male: 1. Likes to take charge and lead. 2. Is strong in both body and mind. 3. Is willing to stand up for those he loves. 4. Is a true hero.

While brainstorming for a possible name, Rarity thought back to the boulder Discord tricked her into fawning over by making it appear to her as a diamond; Tom. Exactly where that name came from was a bit blurry in the unicorn's mind. All Rarity remembered was that she'd made the name up on the spot when confronted by Twilight. Now that she thought about it, however, Tom seemed like a good name for her character; Rarity's only fear was what the rest of her friends would think regarding her thoughts towards Tom the boulder.

No, they're not like that, she thought. I need to trust that they won't misjudge me.

With the first name taken care of, Rarity began focusing on coming up with a suitable last name for Tom the human. She quickly decided to give Tom an Irish background as (secretly) Rarity had long wondered what it'd be like to let loose for a night and drink herself into a stupor. She then decided to have Tom reside in the U.S.A. so he could have a perspective on both western continents of Europe and North America, and it was from this that Tom's last name was derived: Westman.

"Now to visualize him," Rarity said as she used her magic to levitate some drawing supplies onto the desk.

For the first time in her life, Pinkie Pie was at a loss for answers. The pink party pony was quite possibly the most knowledgeable of her friends when it came to solving problems; the most prominent example being her role in the parasprite incident. Pinkie never shared it with anypony, but the secret behind her knowledge was rooted in her insistence on befriending literally everypony she came across. The way she saw it, "The more friends one has, the more they learn in life."

Currently, however, Pinkie couldn't call upon any of her experiences to help her create an original character for Twilight's sequel to HUMAN. She DID want to have her character spread joy and happiness to everyone around them, but she heeded Twilight's warning about self-inserting into a story.

"Oops, my bad!"

Pinkie looked up from her parchment to the window. Outside, she caught a passing glimpse of a certain gray pegasus looking apologetically down towards the ground before rushing in that direction. Pinkie trotted over to the window and opened it. Looking down, she saw Ditzy "Derpy" Doo sulking in front of Sweetie Drops who appeared to have been knocked unconscious by an enormous package Ditzy was delivering.

"Hiya there Ditz!" Pinkie called to the mailmare.

Ditzy looked up at Pinkie with one eye while the other wandered aimlessly. She smiled.

"Hi Pinkie!"

"Is Sweetie Drops alright?"

Ditzy looked down at the unconscious confectioner. "I think so. I guess I should get her to the hospital before finishing my rounds."

"You do that," Pinkie said.

Ditzy scooped Sweetie and the package onto her back and, with a smile and a wave goodbye to Pinkie, began cantering towards Ponyville Hospital.

While Pinkie liked everypony she attempted to befriend, Ditzy was special to her. The gray mailmare was like Pinkie in many ways; they both had bubbly personalities, they both always looked on the bright side of life, and they were both often misunderstood, albeit for different reasons. One big difference, however, (one that pained Pinkie to admit) was that while Pinkie was self aware of the darkness alongside the light, Ditzy was . . . well, ditzy. The mailmare had a sheltered upbringing due to her parents being worried about other foals' attitudes toward her lazy eyes. As a result, Ditzy was very naive and childlike compared to most mares her age. Pinkie, however, envied her in this regard. Pinkie's upbringing had been lackluster in more ways than Ditzy's; while Ditzy had a joyous family to make up for her lack of friends, Pinkie had neither for her entire foalhood. Her family never had interest in seeing the world and all the different kinds of ponies inhabiting it, only in their legacy as rock farmers. As a result, Pinkie's foalhood had been stoic and boring; even the parties she threw for her family on a regular basis weren't enough to change things.

As Pinkie closed the window and trotted back to her desk, she had a stroke of brilliance. For her human character, she would combine the better qualities of both her and Ditzy. The end result would be someone who had Ditzy's joyous upbringing along with Pinkie's awareness and ability to easily befriend their peers. With the character nailed down, Pinkie next needed to give them a name. First, Pinkie decided to make her character a female. Next, she searched the dark recesses of her mind for a suitable name for this human female. After several agonizing minutes of running through possible names, she settled on "Sarah" for the first name and "Allen" for the last.

With that all taken care of, Pinkie trotted over to her bed and proceeded to pass out with the intention of resting her exhausted brain until she got her "Pinkie Strength" back.

"Woah nelly, this is a mite harder than ah thought it'd be."

Applejack laid on her bed with her parchment in front of her on a sheet of wood (she had no desk to use), quill in mouth, and frustration clearly apparent on her face. She had never been the creative type, evident with her previous troubles in contributing to HUMAN, and now she had to create a human character from scratch. AJ thought long and hard, but no matter what she couldn't decide on a central characteristic to base her human around. With a sigh, she trotted over to the window and opened it, believing a little fresh air might help get the gears in her brain turning.

Applejack stared out at the vast fields of Sweet Apple Acres in admiration. Granny Smith always used to say that the farm started out ridiculously small back when she was AJ's age; only about a dozen or so apple trees, not counting the Zap Apple's. What began as a small bundle of trees, however, had grown into a full blown orchard in less than a hundred years with the average apple count reaching about fifty-three thousand, five hundred and ninety-four every year. Sweet Apple Acres was, however, a commodity. All the rest of AJ's relatives didn't possess orchards anywhere near as large as her family's, and much of Equestria remained lacking apple trees altogether. With that thought, AJ began fantasizing herself traveling the country, planting apple trees everywhere she went, only to come back after a year to find them fully grown and sporting dozens of juicy, bright red apples, ready to be made into sweet apple cider.

Of course, I don't have time for that.

With a sigh, AJ closed the window and returned to her bed. Suddenly, an idea struck.

But a certain anonymous human just might, she thought with a smile.

Grabbing the quill in her mouth, AJ wrote out her character's bio.

Meet Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman of Massachusetts, a kind pioneer on a mission: spread the love and growth of apple orchards everywhere he goes. Mr. Chapman strives to get the best out of what his wandering simple life can give him, and seeks to instill his love of apples, animals, and companionship into everyone he befriends. While he is a most kindred spirit, Johnny Appleseed is a bit eccentric: instead of wearing a hat like other folk, he dons a cooking pot atop his mane. The reason for this is known only to him, and he intends on keeping it a secret all throughout his life. Even so, by the time he's reached his end, he'll have planted more than 100,000 apple trees across 5 states and befriended hundreds upon hundreds of fellow humans.

Upon finishing she looked over her hoofwork in admiration, proud to finally be done with what she deemed 'the hard part'. Sighing in contentment, Applejack put down the quill and laid back on her pillow for some rest. She still had a ways to go before her vignette was complete, but now she was confident she could get it done by the end of the week.

Author's Note

As always, bring on the praise/criticism.

To anyone who might think I took the easy way out with AJ's character, know that I DID intend on having her create Abe Lincoln like many of you suggested. After thinking about it, however, I realized Twilight would've already written about him when covering the history of America.

To those who are curious as to who Sarah Allen is, she was a girl I sat next to both on the bus and in my psychology class in my senior year of high school. As Pinkie's vignette implies, she was bubbly and, at times, quite childish in her mannerisms. As for Rarity's character, anyone who watches Survivor should know who Tom Westman is.

Similar Opposites - Part 1

For the first time in her life, Twilight had fallen victim to procrastination. Unlike other students who fell to it out of laziness, however, Twilight had let all the fame resulting from HUMAN's success throughout Equestria get to her head, in turn distracting her from work on her vignette for the sequel. Every day she received dozens upon dozens of fan letters asking questions about her inspiration for the book, aspects of humans she didn't include, and, in the case of the two princesses/her family in Canterlot, statements congratulating her on her literary accomplishment.

To compensate for the complete lack of progress in crafting a character for her vignette, Twilight decided to sleep the morning in, all the while brainstorming ideas regarding what her character should be like in both appearance and personality. To get a better idea of what her character should be like, Twilight took to reviewing everything she'd written in the first book regarding how humans usually behaved around others. Of the common traits she'd given humans, the most significant were: a tendency to let paranoia take over at the worst possible times, an unhealthy desire to compete against instead of cooperate with each other in things integral to society, a nasty habit of scapegoating things not well-liked or understood, and a sadistic pleasure in poking fun at anything and everything that would show sensitivity.

Even with all the positive traits her friends had introduced, the base which they were built upon was grim in essence and would ultimately shine through regardless. Realizing this, Twilight decided her character's central quality should be that he (Twilight decided to make the character male on a whim) views himself as a non-human despite having the body of one. With the character's central trait decided upon, Twilight began pondering how best to incorporate it. She spent many hours pacing the length of her room, brainstorming ideas on what such a person would be like.

At one point, Twilight reasoned her character should be able to view his fellow humans from an alien perspective, one in which he had no personal prejudice against anyone and could form opinions of them based solely on the merit (or possible lack thereof) of their actions. This is where Twilight found herself between a rock and a hard place. Though she knew how her character would view other humans, she hadn't the faintest clue how someone could be raised without being, at least somewhat, patronized by their parents or guardian/s. So, Twilight did what she always did when confronted with a seemingly unsolvable conundrum; she hit the books.

Psychology books, parenting books, even one particular book about urban legends in Equestria specifically for one featured story about a little filly being abandoned by her parents and raised by an Ursa Major. Everything Twilight had regarding parental upbringing was pulled off the shelves and quickly scanned by the determined lavender mare, but no matter what Twilight read no ideas came to mind for what would cause her character to become what he is.

While reading the book on urban legends, one in particular caught Twilight's eye. Upon reading it, Twilight decided to change her tactics on gathering inspiration.

"Hey Twilight!" Spike called from the door to their room.

Twilight glanced over to the door to see the baby dragon standing there, scroll in hand and a big grin on his face. Twilight took notice of the scroll especially, seeing as how it was the same kind she gave to all of their friends for writing their vignettes.

"Whatcha got there, Spike?" she asked.

Spike closed the distance between the two of them as he replied. "Well, since you're not working on your vignette I thought I'd do it for you, being your #1 assistant and all." He approached Twilight and handed the scroll to her. "Here, read it and see how awesome it is."

Twilight gripped the scroll in her magic, unfurled it and began reading. As she skimmed each line of text, Twilight found herself increasingly tempted to accept Spike's offer. His vignette detailed the profile of one Doug Walker, a comedian who specializes in doing faux reviews of past movies he considers subpar or just plain awful. Twilight liked this character because he perfectly represented one of the key flaws of humankind, which was the misguided belief that humor could only come at one's humiliated expense. But, impressed with Spike as Twilight was, she knew it'd be wrong to pass off his work as her own.

"Nice work, Spike," she told the baby dragon, levitating the scroll back to him, "but I am going to finish the vignette on my own by the deadline."

"Oh really?" Spike asked, half-sarcastically, as he grabbed the scroll from her telekinesis.

Twilight chuckled. "Yes Spike; in fact, I'm going out to do some research for it right now."

Spike raised a confused brow. "Research?"

"Indeed." Twilight used her magic to levitate some bits out of a nearby jar and over to Spike. "I might be gone the whole day, so here's some lunch money. Can I trust you to not burn the house down while I'm gone?"

Spike grabbed the bits from Twilight's telekinesis and saluted with his other hand. "This tree will be standing when you come back; I promise." He then turned around and headed back down the stairs.

"Good to hear," Twilight said, more so to herself than to Spike, and began packing for her research trip.

**********

Twilight looked at the vast ocean waters before her in awe. She was currently standing on a beach located on Equestria's eastern border that was a popular tourist destination during the summer months. With it currently being autumn, however, Twilight could validly assume she was the only pony around for miles. She had arrived by way of several long distance teleports starting from her bedroom back at Golden Oaks in Ponyville and ending where she currently was. She'd needed to rest and recharge her magic after so many teleports, deciding to admire the view in the meantime. Looking out at sea, however, Twilight caught sight of her final destination. Situated about a mile or so off the coast was a land mass known as the Isle of Tao, surrounded by a beautiful blue, red, and purple colored reef that allegedly contained many species of equally beautiful marine life. Twilight's interests, however, resided with what supposedly lay beyond the reef.

The book Twilight read had a story telling accounts of little fillies and colts getting caught in the ocean's currents and swept out to sea from beaches along this part of the coast. The accounts told of how the unfortunate foals would wind up at the Isle of Tao stranded, scared, and alone . . . or so they'd think. They would come upon one or both of two beings whom made the isle their home; one being inhabited the Isle's landmass, named Yin Yang, while the other inhabited the Isle's waters, named Yang Yin. The two would presumably take care of the stranded foals until help arrived, but would never be seen by the rescuers, resulting in the uncertainty of their existence. Twilight's interest in them, however, was rooted in their supposed extensive knowledge of the nature of conflicts. What she hoped was that they'd be able to tell her what conflicts could lead to someone adopting the character traits she'd associated with her OC.

Once Twilight felt her magic fully restore, she cast the cloud-walking spell on her hooves and began galloping across the water's surface towards the Isle of Tao. Naturally, the spell was invented for the purpose of allowing non-pegasi to walk on clouds when visiting pegasi-only establishments such as Cloudsdale; however, the truth was that the spell allowed the affected to walk across both liquid and gas forms of water. Twilight reached the reef surrounding the Isle in a matter of minutes, taking a moment to peer through the water at all the exotic marine life before making her way over and across the lagoon to the Isle itself.

Twilight was about twenty yards away from shore when she heard a loud splash from behind her. Turning around, she almost fainted at the sight of what was in front of her under the water; a black and white dolphin-esque creature with a patch of white around where it's eye would be. As Twilight looked closer, she saw that the creature was chasing several fish toward the sandy bottom of the lagoon, presumably for food. This was confirmed when the creature managed to catch one of the fish in its jaws before swimming back toward the surface for air. The creature surfaced but a mere three meters away from Twilight and quickly swallowed the fish in one gulp. It then stared its eye at her, which Twilight could now clearly see as being just below its white patch, and didn't move from the spot.

Are you lost, little pony?

Twilight flinched at the voice in her head, almost disrupting her spell and causing her to fall in the water. At first Twilight thought she was losing her sanity, but then she saw the creature in front of her move its right flipper in a rolling motion, like it was urging her to do something. It was then Twilight realized the voice in her head was the creature's; it had communicated using telepathy.

"Are you . . . Yang Yin?" Twilight asked, clearly nervous.

Indeed, I am. I ask again, are you lost Miss . . .?

"Oh, my name is Twilight Sparkle; Princess Celestia's protégé and bearer of the Element of Magic. And to answer your question, no I'm not lost; I came here purposefully." The nervousness Twilight felt before dissipated and was replaced by giddiness as the reality of the situation dawned on her; she was speaking with a living urban legend.

Is that so?

Twilight nodded enthusiastically. "I learned about this place from reading a book on urban legends. It said that both you and Yin Yang care for little foals who get swept out to sea until they're rescued. Is that true?"

We used to, but foals must be getting smarter nowadays because such a need for us hasn't occurred in the last fifty or so years. In all honesty, I hoped it would remain that way forever.

Twilight frowned. "What do you mean?"

Yang Yin took a moment to submerge herself back under the water to keep cool and alive before answering Twilight. Seeing how our deeds have been printed for all to read about, I am concerned that you're only the first in a mass wave of tourists who'll be nothing but a nuisance to the tranquility Yin Yang and I share.

"Oh, there's no need to worry about that," Twilight giggled. "Aside from those whom you two cared for, everypony is dubious as to your existence. Like I said, I read about you two in a book on urban legends."

That's good to hear. Twilight could've sworn she heard a sigh of relief in her head at that moment. So, what brings you to the Isle of Tao, Ms. Sparkle?

"Well, since you and Yin Yang seem to know so much about parenting, I was hoping you could help me with a personal project of mine pertaining to it."

Do tell.

For the next five minutes, Twilight explained to the water creature the conundrum she had over her vignette's character. Once in a while, Yang Yin would dive under the water to refresh herself before popping back above the surface to continue listening to Twilight. Aside from these moments, Yang Yin would remain completely still in the water save for the gentle vertical wave of her caudal fin to help her stay afloat, always completely attentive to what Twilight had to say.

Once Twilight was finished talking, Yang Yin appeared to mull over what she said for a while before diving under the water once again to refresh herself. When she came back up, she did so under Twilight's hooves, to which the lavender unicorn stumbled a bit in surprise.

"Hey! What giv-"

Twilight was interrupted when a jet stream of water from Yang Yin's blowhole shot up into her face. Twilight closed her eyes as she attempted to fight back against the rush of seawater before simply stepping back and out of its path. The aquatic mammal lowered itself back under the surface before reappearing in her previous spot in front of her. Twilight kept up her cloud-walking spell and landed on the water with a muted splash. Pretty soon, she heard laughter sounding off in her head.

Oh, I haven't had a good laugh like that in ages.

Twilight shook herself dry and scowled. "What was that for!?"

Forgive me if I have trouble finding ways to entertain myself, Twilight Sparkle. Hopefully, that laugh will last me another fifty years.

Had Twilight not needed her help, she would've berated Yang Yin on her immaturity. Instead, Twilight merely sighed in exasperation. "Well, I'm glad I could help relieve your apparent boredom," she replied. "Now, can or can't you help me?"

I imagine Yin Yang would be better suited to teaching you about parent-child relationships, as he's the one who actually took care of the foals. All I ever did was bring them to land and occasionally take them for rides on my back around the lagoon. When you get to shore, just keep searching the jungle until you find him; sorry I can't give you more specific directions. I'll make sure to let him know you're here and why.

"Well, thanks," Twilight said, and began walking towards the beach. Yang Yin submerged under the water once again, but stayed under this time so as to hunt for more fish.

Stepping onto the isle's shore, Twilight took a moment to shake some water off of her hooves before surveying the immediate area. A little ways down the beach to her left Twilight could see a huge rock formation that pretty much barred any passage beyond. To her right, the beach continued unimpeded by natural barriers, eventually leading around to the open ocean side of the isle. Without any idea where to begin looking, Twilight headed straight ahead into the jungle, hoping it wouldn't take her all day to find Yin Yang.

Author's Note

Give me all praise/criticism you can dish out.

Similar Opposites - Part 2

The first thing Twilight noticed about the jungle was that it bore a striking resemblance to the Everfree Forest, at least as far as condition was concerned. Just like the Everfree, the trees along the beach were being molested by an astonishing overgrowth of weeds and vines, a result of lackluster maintenance. Things were even worse inside the jungle proper, as Twilight sometimes couldn't take five steps before her hoof got caught on an overgrown tree root or her path was blocked by an assortment of bamboo sticks, poison ivy plants, thorn bushes, and various other plant life she had to rack her brain for the identification of.

It was times like these that Twilight was grateful to be such a magically-adept unicorn, as progress through the overgrown jungle was made easy with her magic. Every time Twilight came upon an impassable obstacle she would either use her telekinesis to push the plants out of her way or, when there was no suitable place to relocate them, cast a small flame spell onto them and watched as they burned to ash, always ready to douse the fires with a water mist spell should they get out of control.

Twilight kept this up for what felt like hours but was really little more than 15 minutes. All the while she trudged through the jungle, Twilight felt appalled that Yin Yang would let his home fall into a state of such disrepair and neglect, so to speak. While Twilight wasn't quite as concerned with home maintenance as say, Rarity, she was still always one to keep Golden Oaks at least somewhat spotless. True, Yin Yang probably would've cleaned out his jungle had he known she was coming well in advance, but Twilight still wondered how anyone could live in such decrepit conditions comfortably.

Eventually, Twilight came across a clearing in the foliage. In the middle of this clearing was a hut carved out of large bamboo sticks with a pile of smaller, dried ones next to it and surrounded by a thorn bush fence. Looking around the bush's perimeter, Twilight spotted an opening through it with a dirt path leading right to the hut, just off to her left.

This must be Yin Yang's home, Twilight reasoned.

She proceeded through the opening and along the dirt path. Since the hut hadn't an actual door, Twilight took the initiative to peer inside without knocking. Looking around, she noticed the inside was almost entirely barren of décor; no rugs on the floor, paintings on the walls, or anything else of the sort to indicate somebody made their residence here. The only thing that did, in fact, was the creature laying on a pile of dried grass along one of the hut's walls, just below an unfurnished window and facing away from Twilight. The creature had an identical color scheme to Yang Yin, except the patterning was different. It was somewhat akin to a bear in every other aspect; body shape, paws, fur coat, etc.

Twilight Sparkle, I presume?

Twilight gave a start at the sudden voice in her head before realizing Yin Yang was also communicating via telepathy. She stepped fully into the hut and replied.

"Yes, and you're Yin Yang, correct?"

Indeed I am. Yin Yang turned his body so he was facing Twilight and sat up straight. And according to Yang Yin, you're here looking for advice?

Twilight nodded. "For a character I'm trying to create; Yang Yin told you, didn't she?"

She did, but I was dubious as to its truthfulness. Yin Yang took a moment to readjust his position on the dried grass before continuing. Yang Yin, as you probably found out, is young and full of her own ideas, not to mention incredibly cheeky.

"I learned it the hard way," Twilight replied in exasperation.

As have many a foal. To that end, her telling me that Princess Celestia's protégé was here looking for advice on how someone could grow up spiritually detached from their own species left me scratching my head in confusion.

"I understand completely," Twilight replied. "I have a couple of friends who're just like her in that regard."

I pity you.

Both of them shared a good laugh at that for a minute before Twilight spoke up again. "So, can you teach me what I need to know? If you're not too busy, of course."

Do sloths get paid to hang from trees all day? Twilight's confused look elicited a silent chuckle from Yin Yang before he continued. Yes, I will tell you what you want to know, though, this is a rather unorthodox method of acquiring information.

Twilight's cheeks turned crimson in response. "Yeah, well, I'd spent too much time in my tree home lately; I figured this would be a great way to get some fresh air while still learning something valuable." She opened her saddlebag and levitated a quill and parchment out in front of her. "So, can we start the lesson?"

Yin Yang shifted again on his bed before replying. In a minute, Twilight. First, you must promise me that you'll speak nothing of our encounter here. Yang Yin and I enjoy our solo co-existence very much, and if word of our existence gets out to the mainland, we'll know who's responsible.

"I had no intention of saying anything to anypony about you two," Twilight replied. "I promise my lips are sealed."

And I'll hold you to that, Twilight Sparkle. Yin Yang's tone came off to Twilight a bit more stern than was previously. Now then . . .

Before Twilight could even blink, Yin Yang grabbed the windowsill behind him and did a backwards pull out the window. The suddenness of his action left Twilight speechless and her brain worked hastily to unscramble itself and process what just happened. Meanwhile, sounds of heavy footsteps resounded outside, moving away from the hut before stopping a short distance away. A second later, the footsteps returned and were coming back to the hut. Yin Yang jumped back in through the window and landed on his grass bed.

". . . What?" Twilight said.

Yin Yang brought his paws forward and opened them, revealing three rocks of different colors to her; one gray, one white, and one black. These should help in case you need a visual cue when learning.

Twilight briefed a glance to the rocks, then returned her gaze to Yin Yang which she held for several moments before snapping out of her stupor and readied her quill and parchment again. "Okay, I'm ready," she said.

Yin Yang nodded. He then placed the three rocks down onto the floor in a triangle pattern with the grey rock being closest to Twilight. Yin Yang then picked the white rock back up and spoke. Now, Twilight, how familiar are you with my namesake?

Twilight tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean 'your namesake'?"

I suppose you ponies use different terminology, but think of this, he held out the white rock, as representing Yin and this, he picked up the black rock in his other paw and held it out for Twilight as well, as representing Yang.

Twilight nodded, scribbling away at the parchment. "So, what do they mean?" she asked.

Yin Yang put the rocks back down in their spots and replied. To use myself and Yang Yin as examples, imagine Yin as a symbol for everything that stands opposite that which Yang symbolizes. Some examples would be black and white, light and dark, high and low, left and right, hot and cold, fire and water, day and night, life and death, and so on.

"Oh, like the age old 'Good vs Evil' thing?" Twilight asked.

Yin Yang shook his head. The concept of YinYang has no room for moral judgments such as those. Whether something is 'good' or 'evil' is entirely perceptual and opinionated; YinYang deals with opposing physical forces, not ideals of any kind.

Twilight furiously nodded her head as she jotted down everything Yin Yang was saying.

As to how this relates to your query, he continued, imagine Yin and Yang representing two different ways in which a parent can raise their child.

Twilight quirked a curious brow. "And what would these two ways be?"

Yin Yang pointed to the white rock. Imagine the white rock is Yin, and that Yin represents teachings of love and tolerance. A child raised under such teachings would grow up to be kind, respectful, and seek to help others when in need. He pointed to the black rock. Conversely, imagine the black rock is Yang, and that Yang represents teachings of hatred and prejudice. A child raised under these teachings would grow up to be the opposite of the one raised under Yin; rude, spiteful, and cares only for their own welfare. Yin Yang narrowed his eyes. But remember, neither teaching is inherently good or evil; that's for one to decide for themselves alone.

Twilight finished copying what he said, then returned her gaze onto the rocks. "So, what does the grey rock represent?" she asked.

Yin Yang picked it up in his paw and smiled. In a way, the grey rock represents reality.

Twilight arched an eyebrow. "Reality?"

Yin Yang nodded, and set the rock back down. Truth be told, there exists no one whom resides entirely on the side of Yin or Yang. Everyone has a dual mentality; it just depends on the situation as to whether they'll choose to side one way or the other. If one were to look at this from a moral standpoint, there is no one whom is wholly good or evil. He picked up all three rocks and held them out once again for Twilight. In short, the black and white rocks are the two ingredients needed to make the grey rock. It's a fitting analogy, as black mixed with white produces the color grey. He set all three rocks back down again.

By this point, Twilight had filled an entire roll of parchment and started on a new one. "Fascinating," she whispered, finishing up Yin Yang's last sentence. "So, how would my character have to be raised to develop an alien mindset?"

Yin Yang adopted a blank expression as he responded. I'll answer your question with one of my own; Twilight, are you familiar with the concept of Wu?

Twilight frowned. "No, why?"

Once again, the terminology is different. Yin Yang pointed to the space underneath all three rocks, directly below the grey one. What do you see there?

Twilight looked to where he was pointing, and her frown deepened. "I see nothing."

Exactly, and that's how you'll want your character to be raised.

Twilight returned her gaze onto him. "I'm sorry, what?"

Yin Yang smiled. I see you have trouble connecting the dots yourself, Twilight Sparkle; allow me to cut the subtlety and be more direct. He waved his paw over all the rocks. While these rocks represent the nature of conflicting forces, there is a fourth, non-existent rock underneath them that represents the concept of Wu, which means 'the presence of nothing' or 'a lack of any physical force'. To put it another way, think of this as the train of thought representing complete and utter neutrality.

Twilight blinked slowly, then resumed copying all Yin Yang had said onto the parchment.

This is how a child would have to be raised in order to develop the mindset of your allotted character. Their parents would've neglected to instill teachings of either Yin or Yang into them and instead left them to develop perceptions of the world, their peers, and life in general on their own. Yin Yang picked up the rocks once again. But regardless, a sliver of both forces will exist in them, even after such an upbringing as no parent can raise a child without letting some of their influence shine through. It won't be prominent later in life, but their child will reflect back characteristics imparted onto them by their parents, intentionally or not.

Twilight took a moment to breathe deeply as her mind processed all she'd been told. "This is deep," she stated, and resumed her writing.

Yin Yang picked up the rocks. I don't doubt you. He chucked them out the window. Well, that's it for this 'lesson'.

Twilight nodded, finishing off her notes and turned to Yin Yang with a smile. "Thank you so much for helping me," she said, taking a moment to stuff her materials into her saddlebag and close it before continuing. "I think I've got the character down pat now, not to mention I've got a whole new subject to study in my off time."

I'm glad I could help. Yin Yang proceeded to lay back down onto his grass bed and turn back towards the wall.

Twilight levitated her saddlebag over her shoulder and began trotting toward the door when a thought occurred to her. She turned back to Yin Yang. "Hey, Yin Yang?"

Yes?

"Do you think that, maybe, I could come visit you and yang Yin sometimes?" She smiled nervously. "I mean, as long as I keep your existence a secret?"

Yin Yang shifted on his bed before replying. I suppose that'd be fine, assuming you keep the secret, of course.

Twilight's smile lost its nervous edge. "Don't worry, I will."

Then sure, you can come visit as much as you want.

Twilight beamed. "Thank you."

Sure. Goodbye.

"Goodbye." And with that, Twilight began making the return trip home to work on her vignette for HUMAN's sequel.

Author's Note

Give me all the praise/criticism you can dish out.

Even neutrality has strings attached

The long awaited day had finally arrived. Twilight and her friends were gathered in the library's main room, eager to submit their vignettes to the lavender unicorn for approval. Twilight herself, however, was struggling to keep awake. She had spent half the night putting the finishing touches on her vignette and ended up sleeping in half the morning, just barely waking up before her friends had arrived. Though she did her best to hide her drowsiness, it was clear judging from everypony's face that they all knew she slept in again; though, she was grateful they refrained from mentioning it.

"So, I take it everypony is *yawn* ready to submit their characters?" she asked her friends.

They all replied yes, and proceeded to hoof over their vignettes.

"I invented the most awesome human who ever lived," Rainbow Dash stated as she gave hers to Twilight. "His name is Chuck Norris; a movie star and martial arts master who is revered as a god by his peers."

"Gee," Twilight replied, "sounds like he's living your dreams."

Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out while Fluttershy hoofed in her character.

"I created Gandhi. His goal in life is to make the world a better place through non-violent protest and political reform. His hope is that one day, all humans will achieve an everlasting peaceful coexistence with each other."

Twilight gave a drowsy smile. "Aww, that's so sweet, Fluttershy."

Fluttershy blushed a tad and moved aside, allowing Pinkie Pie to turn her vignette in.

"This is Sarah Allen. She's a happy girl who loves ponies, making new friends, and smiling all the time. She also likes to give names to her possessions, like her guitar, Benjamin. Of course, I don't name all my inanimate objects, but I do love ponies, making new friends, and smiling all the time. I guess that makes her somewhat, but not entirely like me; maybe 50-75% me. May-."

Pinkie was stopped by Twilight's hoof in her mouth as she gently pushed her aside to allow Applejack to move forward.

"Ah present Johnny Appleseed, a kindred spirit who just LOVES apples and planting them wherever he goes. He's a mite eccentric, seein' how he wears a cooking pot on his head, but he's a good person at heart. He values companionship, trust, and above all, honesty."

Twilight stifled another yawn. "Thanks AJ."

Applejack moved aside so Rarity could bring up the rear.

"And I present Tom Westman, the truest gentleman in all of North America. The girl who marries this handsome hunk will feel like the luckiest in the world, and they most certainly would be."

Rarity swooned as she hoofed her vignette to Twilight.

"Well, thanks girls," Twilight said. "I'll get to work proofreading these right away."

"Hold on there sugarcube," Applejack said. "Don't we get ta' hear 'bout your character?"

Twilight thought about it for a moment before replying. "Sure, why not?"

All of her friends sat down in a semi-circle in front of the lavender unicorn, eager smiles on their faces as Twilight pulled her vignette from the nearby table and lifted it up in front of her.

Meet Warren Zaccaro, an average-looking young boy with a strong intellect and a dynamic personality to boot. The eldest of two brothers, Warren is a complicated individual who would likely have a "?" cutie mark if he were a pony.

Warren has a unique outlook on life compared to his peers obtained from his observational prowess. When Warren observes his environment, he always sees people at odds with each other due to their insistence on taking sides for everything, whether it be in elections, relationships, or even business. Warren believes that taking sides is what tears societies apart and strives to avoid contributing to that notion. For this reason, Warren maintains as best he can a policy of complete neutrality in everything he deems integral to society's existence. This policy, however, has also resulted in the side effect of near-total isolation from his peers, and Warren is a bit reclusive as a consequence.

Put simply, Warren has no friends.

Twilight looked up to see her friends' reactions to her vignette's character description. To her relief, all of her friends seemed to be at ease, which Twilight took as a sign that they liked her character.

"That was a mite interestin', sugarcube," AJ said. "Definitely more unique 'n anythin' I could'a come up with."

"I agree," Rarity said. "You truly do have a talent for creation, darling."

"Still," Rainbow said, "not as awesome as Chuck Norris."

"It was . . . ummm . . . okay," Fluttershy whispered.

"Awww, Warren doesn't have any friends," Pinkie moaned.

"It's okay Pinkie, he's happy the way he is," Twilight stated, "and thank you all for helping me with this; I could've never done this by myself, so I'm forever grateful for all your guys' help."

Twilight's friends all gave her a group hug and proceeded to depart from the library, intent on letting Twilight get to work on fixing up their vignettes for the finished product.

Once her friends were all gone, Twilight looked to all the vignettes now laid upon the central table. Twilight meant what she said about being grateful for her friends' helping her with her project. Not only that, but the amount of diversity between human characters that resulted from their help was quite nice; it would definitely help to give the sequel to HUMAN some interesting flavor.

She then looked at her own vignette, pondering just how different Warren was from her, yet simultaneously so much alike. After her visit to the Isle of Tao, Twilight began contemplating how a person who grew up un-patronized by their parents would turn out later in life. The results, she found out, were not unlike herself before she arrived in Ponyville. She wrote Warren as a pseudo-bookworm, always delving into the field of literature and other forms of entertainment instead of journeying out into the world and experiencing what it has to offer. Unlike her, however, Warren pours his energy into literature to avoid getting involved in humankind's self-conflicts, whereas she pours her energy into literature to satiate her intellectual appetite.

Another difference between them, Twilight mused, was that Warren has never had people he could consider true friends. While she and her friends had the common trait of being elemental bearers to build a friendship around, Warren knows no one (to his knowledge) that shares his views. Before she came to Ponyville, Twilight too had trouble connecting with her peers regarding her love of books and knowledge. The reason why she turned out different from Warren in the end, she concluded, was her idolization of Princess Celestia in addition to her place as the element of magic, whereas Warren had no idyllic role model to pattern his life after as well as the absence of magic in the human's world. What made Warren keep trudging through life, however, was even though he has no friends, he feels happiness and satisfaction from observing true friendships among his peers despite not being apart of them himself.

Upon completion of her musings, Twilight levitated the first of her friends' vignettes and proceeded to work on editing it.

Lyra Heartstrings looked at her hoofwork on her kitchen table in frustration. She had worked nonstop on her fanfiction since Twilight denied her help with HUMAN's sequel, but she wasn't the least bit proud of her work. The problem, she found, wasn't a lack of ideas, but rather a lack of quality ideas.

Lyra was Ponyville's self-proclaimed Lead Humare; "Humare" being the term created to describe ponies unnaturally obsessed over Twilight's book HUMAN's titular race of people. Despite the book being released less than a month prior, the Humare movement had swept throughout Ponyville and had shown signs of doing the same in other cities throughout Equestria. Lyra, being the 1# HUMAN fan in the author's hometown, sought to prove she deserved the title of Lead Humare, and believed that providing the first high quality fan-fiction for the series would seal the deal. Unfortunately, no idea that came to the mint-green unicorn's mind seemed worthy of such an endeavor.

With a sigh, Lyra put down the quill and trotted over to her film projector, intent on relaxing her overstressed brain with a little mind-numbing cinema. She looked over her collection of film reels, eventually settling on one entitled Leeched. It was a magical fantasy film produced by the late unicorn Mariloma, one of the first cartoonists to bring their drawings to life on the silver screen. The plot dealt with a cartoonist (unsurprisingly similar in appearance to Mariloma) who's lifelong dream is to give true life to his creations, though even unicorn magic cannot create life out of nothing, much to his chagrin. With a little researching, however, he invents a spell that allows him to sync up thoughts with his characters by implanting an artificial intelligence within the vessel used to construct them (in the cartoonists' case, he creates a scarecrow-esque doll out of straw and fabric). As the spell's caster feeds thoughts to the vessel, they will use said thoughts to develop themselves, resulting in them becoming more sapient and, eventually, self-aware to the point of not needing to rely on the caster for feed to live. The spell worked perfectly without any unforeseen details going wrong, much to the cartoonists' delight. He worked furiously on breathing more and more life into his scarecrow doll creation, at least until it reached self-awareness, at which point he stopped.

The doll, however, didn't. In his reckless hurry to give life to his creation, the cartoonist had inadvertently bestowed upon the doll knowledge of the spell used to give him life, including the fact that it worked both ways meaning the doll (who had been given the name Son) could transfer thoughts between himself and his creator just as much as he could. What he chose to do with this knowledge, however, became the cartoonists' undoing. Son learned how to attach the mental link between them at will, and used it not merely to share thoughts with his creator, but to leech them from him and make them all his own. Without even realizing it, the cartoonist was slowly drained of everything his mind housed, until he was nothing but a brain dead vegetable. It wasn't until his actual birth son figured it all out and used his father's spell to create a more benevolent creation to annihilate Son that he was returned to normal and promptly destroyed the diagrams for the spell in question.

As Lyra watched the movie, she rediscovered her long lost fascination with the concept of one's creation achieving sentience and gaining knowledge of their creators. It was very much akin to a foal's upbringing, where the parents (at some point) bestow the knowledge of their conception upon them, with the difference being the method in which it's achieved; drawing instead of intercourse. Sadly, such a spell as the one used in the film was pure fantasy, even for the Princesses/Twilight Sparkle. Similar things had been achieved, such as robots, but they lacked the capacity for independent thought even with magic. In the end, only other sentient beings could acknowledge sentient beings . . . as . . . such . . .

Lyra looked back and forth between the movie playing and her desk with the discarded fanfics as she pulled herself out of deep thought. Then, the biggest surge of inspiration shot through the recesses of Lyra's mind like a lightning bolt through the sky. With an enormous grin, she trotted over to her desk and began working out the framework for her HUMAN fanfic.

Author's Note

As always, go all out with the praise/criticism.

I imagine Twilight's human character isn't quite what any of you were expecting, but I take great pleasure in going against expectations so I'm happy if that's true.

I also imagine you're all glad to see Lyra's fanfiction being covered after a few chapters of absence, which I'm also happy with if true.

Godception

It was currently noon in Ponyville. Usually, it had a quaint and tranquil aura typical for such a small town. Today, however, was quite different, for over half of the town's population was missing from what would typically be lunch rush hour. Said over-half was currently amassed around town hall where Twilight Sparkle, along with Mayor Mare and DJ-PON3 (Vinyl Scratch) stood watch over the enormous crowd of energetic mares, stallions, and foals cheering for two things: 1. The upbeat music Vinyl was playing to get the crowd pumped up. and 2. Twilight Sparkle's presence, who had become akin to a goddess in their eyes.

It had been a full month since Twilight had finished and released the sequel to HUMAN, titled HUMANS. With all the fanfare and excitement that resulted from the first book's publication, it was guaranteed that HUMANS would sell just as much if not more than HUMAN, which it had. Now, Twilight's fans eagerly awaited the final installment in the HUMAN trilogy; her Ponyville friends especially, since Twilight had a big announcement to make at the current rally pertaining to it.

After a few minutes of music, Mayor Mare gave Vinyl Scratch the signal to cease playing, and then held up a sign for the crowd that said ATTENTION PLEASE indicating that it was time for Twilight's big announcement. Once everypony had fully calmed down, Twilight stepped behind the podium and addressed the crowd.

"My fans, I'm extra grateful that you all came here today, and you shall be rewarded. As you all know, the next book in me and my friends' HUMAN series will be the final installment, and for the last month I've been contemplating a central theme for the book. My efforts, however, have been unsuccessful, and I regret to say I'm suffering from burnout. But seeing all your enthusiasm here and now, I can safely conclude the choice I've made is the correct one. For the final HUMAN installment, I've decided to reach out to the massive HUMAN fanbase for help; me and the series' publisher have put together a contest for the fans to partake in, the rules of which will be discussed in greater detail later. In a nutshell, here's how it works: participants will write out a story outline for the book detailing the main theme, characters, plot, etc. Said outline must be submitted to me by the end of this month; just swing by the library and drop it off there for me. After I've chosen 3 finalists, a popular vote among the fans will decide the final winner. The winning outline will then be used to construct the final book in the HUMAN trilogy, with authorship being shared between the winner and myself. And so, with that, I wish everypony the best of luck."

With a curt bow, Twilight concluded her speech. It took the crowd a few moments to let everything she said sink in, but once it did they resumed their hyper-energetic cheering in full force. Twilight had fully expected her announcement to be met in stride, but regardless, the sight of all her beloved fans happy for the chance to help her felt exceptionally heart warming. As soon as the crowd calmed down again, Twilight informed them that the contest's official rules were available for viewing just inside Town Hall and that she'd be at Golden Oaks for the rest of the day, willing to answer any questions anypony may still have. No sooner had she finished speaking that the crowd of hyper-energetic fans came stampeding toward the Town Hall's front door, no doubt wanting to see the contest rules. Twilight and Mayor Mare just barely jumped out of the way before getting trampled.

It was the night following Twilight's big announcement. As expected, the streets of Ponyville were deserted; everypony asleep in their beds or getting ready to do so. Stillness reigned supreme in the small, simple town. It didn't last long, however, as a certain mint green unicorn opened the front door to her house. She had a scroll in her telekinetic grip, and an eager expression adorned her beautiful face as she closed the door and began cantering toward Golden Oaks.

As Lyra approached the library, she began worrying about Twilight's possible opinions on her story entry. While she had put so much hard labor into perfecting her idea, Lyra knew just how obsessive-compulsive the bearer of magic was, and was afraid she'd see it as unworthy for HUMAN's concluding installment. For a moment, Lyra stopped in her tracks having second doubts about her chances of impressing Twilight enough to get her entry into the final three. Out of her peripheral vision, Lyra spied a garbage can standing against a nearby residence waiting for the garbage mare to claim it the next day. She looked down at the scroll still in her telekinetic grip, now seriously considering abandoning it and starting from scratch.

No, she eventually decided, I need to have faith in my work, and in myself.

With her resolve now solidified, Lyra made her way up to the library's front door and knocked moderately, not wanting to wake the sleep-obsessed Spike.

In no more than two seconds, the door opened to reveal a still fully awake Twilight with a smile on her face.

"Hello Lyra," she greeted. "What's up at such a late time?"

"This," Lyra answered as she levitated the scroll in front of Twilight. "It's my entry for the contest."

"You're finished already?" Twilight asked as she took the scroll in her own telekinetic grip.

Lyra shook her head. "This was actually that fan fiction you encouraged me to write, but after your announcement I retooled it a bit so I could use it as my entry." She chuckled. "I guess the early bird gets the worm even by accident."

Twilight chuckled herself. "Yeah, I guess so."

The two mares exchanged their goodbyes and Lyra began walking back home, hoping Twilight would like her entry.

As soon as the front door closed, Twilight used her magic to place Lyra's entry among the already enormous pile of submissions for the contest. Twilight had been looking forward to working on her studies with the onset of free time she'd given herself following her announcement. That, however, lasted for no more than fifteen minutes before a couple of mares knocked on her door and presented their submissions, arguing over which one was better the whole time. Twilight had taken them and thanked the mares for entering. No more than five minutes later a stallion came by for the same reason, followed by a group of foals, then another stallion, and so on. Twilight seriously doubted anything these ponies wrote in such a short amount of time was worth considering for the contest, but nevertheless she accepted each and every submission and put them in a pile for later judging.

Twilight received submissions throughout the entire day, always resulting in her studies being interrupted to which she'd get increasingly frustrated. Eventually, she asked Spike to take over the job of accepting entries so she could work in peace. He complied, and easily handled the task for the rest of the day until his bedtime. She didn't think anypony would submit an entry after dark, but thankfully Lyra was an isolated incident, so Twilight wasn't irritated by her interruption of the lavender mare's studies.

Upon her completion of said studies, Twilight began the task of skimming through each and every submission for the contest. As she expected, most of the entries were garbage; written too quick and too sloppily to even consider. Even so, Twilight had to look over and judge every single entry for fairness' sake. It didn't worry her, however, as there was plenty of time for fans from all around Equestria to submit quality ideas. Eventually, Twilight picked up what she recognized as Lyra's submission. Unfurling the scroll, Twilight's attention was immediately drawn to the title.

"My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic," she spoke with a curious tone. She recognized "My Little Pony" as the way in which Princess Celestia would often address her subjects, while the "Friendship is Magic" was self-explanatory to the lavender unicorn. Her interest piqued, Twilight decided to give her full attention to Lyra's entry and began reading it with care and patience.

The decade following the 9/11 attacks was one of depression and sadness. Humans all over the world, and especially those in America, had lost the cheerful and lighthearted vibes that defined the 1990's. No longer could a day go by without grim reminders being firmly implanted in everyone's minds that the terrorists would be brought to justice and that people's basic rights will have to be compromised for it to happen ASAP. Going into the new millennium, people looked to the future with optimism and hope. Now, however, a brighter future seemed like nothing more than a childish dream.

This sense of hopelessness and depression even carried into entertainment; whereas the previous decades' reflected their times' kindred mentality. Movies, games, and books started gravitating towards dark, gory, suggestive themes in contrast to their cartoonish predecessors. People's interests always shift, however, and towards the end of the decade a particular cartoon would arise; one filled with enough lighthearted joy to make up for the previous decades' lack of it. This cartoon was called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Based on the toy line, MLP: FiM was part of the franchise's 4th generation; previous generations faded into obscurity relatively quickly on account of being junk. For the 4th generation cartoon, a young talented artist/cartoonist by the name of Lauren Faust was hired by the franchise's owner, Hasbro, to reinvent the toy line's titular ponies since the rights to past characters had been lost over time. For two years Lauren brainstormed, drew, and conceptualized scenarios, ponies, settings, and plots for the new show. By the end of the decade, the show was set to air.

The show revolves around the adventures of Twilight Sparkle, a studious lavender unicorn who's the personal protege of Princess Celestia, ruler of the country of Equestria. With her five friends Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Spike the assistant dragon, they learn about the magic of friendship and how important it is for maintaining harmony among ponies. The first couple episodes dealt with Twilight's discovery of Nightmare Moon's return and that she and her friends are to be bearers of The Elements of Harmony; mysterious artifacts that activate when the elements of kindness, loyalty, joy, honesty, generosity, and magic are used in tandem.

Unlike previous generations of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic proved to be popular among an enormous demographic, bringing in lots of money for Hasbro. But while they were happy with financial success, Lauren Faust, as well as all else who worked on the show were happy to bring smiles to the faces of all those who watched it. And those who watched it gradually learned what true friendship entails, and how they could make the world a better place by spreading those teachings to everyone they met. And maybe, just maybe, humanity could craft a brighter future for themselves than what was previously thought possible.

Upon finishing Lyra's entry, Twilight took a moment to let it all sink in. Afterwards, she chuckled to herself.

"I never would've guessed you were one to think so far outside the box, Lyra," she mused out loud. Twilight re-furled the scroll and placed it among all the other entries she'd chosen to move forward in the selection process. "It's certainly something I never would've thought of doing myself."

And with that, she continued reading through submissions. All the while she did, though, Twilight's mind was fixated on Lyra's submission, specifically its premise.

Humans created ponies, but then we created them. Or, would we have both created each other? The multiverse theory suggests everything that's imagined exists, but if one's creation was responsible for the creation of its creator in turn . . . no wait, they'd have to both be each other's creator as well as each other's creation . . . but which came first; creator or creation? No, they're each other's . . .

Twilight snapped from her philosophical musings and breathed deeply to calm her aching mind. Afterwards, she continued reading submissions, though with a lot more focus.

"Props to Lyra for almost making my brain explode, heh heh."

Author's Note

Bring on the praise . . . because surely you can't possibly hate on this meta feast of awesome.

I'm sure Lyra's idea was pretty obvious for a lot of you. Even so, I hope you still got enjoyment from reading this.

The Circle of Creation

The big day had finally come; the day the three finalists of Twilight's contest would be announced. Recollecting all the various submissions her fans had written and turned in, it made Twilight happy to know she had a following of such good, loyal, and above all passionate humares. With every entry she had read she could tell the writer had poured their heart and soul into it; even the ones that were unusable. She was also excited by the variety of ideas that had been presented to her; everything from war and the apocalypse to grand celebrations and royal weddings. In the end though, Twilight had to choose but three finalists, and she made sure that only the best three ideas would be chosen.

The first finalist was MLP: FiM by Lyra; Twilight had been fascinated with the idea of making humans ponykind's gods back then, and her fascination only grew over time. The second finalist was Dead Calling by a mare named Nyx; the story was about a necromancer who works for the United Nations reviving recently deceased humans upon request, which Twilight liked because it provided a great moral dilemma in addition to endless story possibilities. The third finalist was Erased by a stallion named Shady; the story was about an acidic plasma that disintegrates all non bio-organic matter it touches, which Twilight liked because she made humans dependent on their technology in the absence of magic and the loss of it would create all kinds of interesting situations to work from. Popularity would decide the final winner, however, and Twilight hoped that her final HUMAN book ended up being the most beloved of the trilogy.

She heard a knock on the front door. Knowing who it was, Twilight inserted the three finalist entries into an envelope and sealed it before making her way to the door and opening it with her magic.

"Hi Twilight, you called for me?"

"Hello Ditzy. I need you to deliver this ASAP to the publisher in Canterlot. Can I trust you not to peek inside?"

The gray mailmare held up a hoof and performed the motions for a Pinkie Promise before grabbing the envelope in her mouth and taking flight towards Canterlot. As Twilight watched her fly away towards the capitol, she silently prayed that Lyra wouldn't bombard her with thanks for being chosen. She closed the library's front door and trotted up to her desk. From now until the final winner was decided, she was free to catch up on her various projects; princess-assigned or otherwise. She picked up a quill and began writing her essay on Inherent Magic vs Acquired Magic.

After about a half hour of writing, Twilight thought she heard a soft thudding sound coming from up in her room. Shrugging it off as nothing at first, curiosity won out when the sound was followed by footsteps moving across the wooden floor before stopping at the door leading downstairs. Twilight put the quill down and looked to the stairs.

"Hello!?" she called. "Is that you Spike?"

Silence was all that answered.

With a resounding sigh, Twilight trotted up to the stairway and began ascending them. She knew it wasn't a pony upstairs on account of the rhythm to the steps being that of a bipedal creature. To that effect, Spike was the only one who could be upstairs. But just as the top of the stairs came into view, Twilight remembered that Spike was out helping Rarity collect gems. With that realization, Twilight fearfully looked up to see what exactly had invaded her tree home. Her jaw dropped at what she saw.

A human stood atop the staircase, looking down at her with a stoic expression. It wore white socks and black & gray shoes over its feet, a brown sweatshirt and blue pants over its body, and what appeared to be a black jacket of sorts that came down to its waist; it also wore shaded transitional eyeglasses on its face. Its mane was short and brown while its eyes were blue. It had a cream colored skin tone that seemed unnaturally pale; probably a result of too little time spent in the sun.

Twilight stared at the human in a mix of awe and horror. She was amazed to see something of her creation in the flesh. That is, until realization hit her full force and she took a battle stance.

"If you're a changeling, you'd better get out of my house before I send for Princess Celestia. I mean it!" she shouted at it.

The human didn't say anything. Instead, it turned around and walked back into her room. Confused at first, Twilight composed herself and ran up the rest of the stairs into her room, where she found the human wannabe holding her copy of HUMAN in its hands, looking at the front cover with wide eyes. As Twilight cautiously approached, a sense of familiarity washed over her from observing it. Its clothing, its physique, and especially its mannerisms; Twilight couldn't help but feel she knew this particular human from somewhere. Then, once again, realization hit her with full force.

"Warren?"

The human jerked its head at the mention of the name. Twilight stared in shock as a look of hatred adorned the thing's face. Afraid, Twilight tried to backpedal away from her creation, but tripped over a discarded book and landed hard on her rump.

"Owww."

Rubbing her rump with her hoof, she got up to catch a split second glance of Warren charging at her before he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the wooden floor. Twilight was about to use her magic on him when she felt a drop on her cheek. Looking up at Warren's face, she saw that he was crying very lightly, and that he had a pained frown on his face. Twilight lost concentration of her magic as she became confused as to Warren's new (uncharacteristic) behavior. It took all of two seconds for it to dawn on Twilight that Warren had realized what her book was about from the title, and that it must've shattered his perception of reality.

"Warren," Twilight said solemnly, bringing a hoof up to wipe away a tear. "It's alright; everything's alright."

Warren turned his head away and muttered something unintelligible.

"What was that?" Twilight asked.

Warren slowly turned his head back to face Twilight. He opened his mouth, and . . .

"PSYCHE!!!

All of a sudden, Warren let go of Twilight and fell backwards onto the floor, bawling with laughter as tears of not pain, but joy rained from his eyes. To say Twilight was dumbfounded at the (even more) uncharacteristic behavior from the human she personally created would be an understatement.

". . . Warren?" she said, a hint of nervousness lacing her tone.

Warren managed to stop laughing after a minute and sat up, wiping away his tears. "Okay, that's enough," he said to seemingly no one. "Let's show her."

Twilight watched dumbstruck as the convoluted serpentine form of Discord materialized out of the wall right behind Warren.

"I must say, Dash," he said to him, "I was quite skeptical of this fooling her at first, but I guess it really IS all in the acting."

"You bet it is," Warren replied. "Now how about changing me back?"

With a snap of Discord's talon, the form of Warren was blotted out like paint thinner and redrawn as that of Rainbow Dash like paint.

"That felt weird," she muttered.

"Eh, don't think about it," Discord replied.

"So Twili-" Dash's sentence was cut short as a stream of purple magic shot past her and Discord. Turning her head, Dash saw a VERY pissed off Twilight, breathing heavily, and charging up her horn for another shot.

"Should we . . . ?" she heard Discord say.

"Yes," Dash replied.

And with that, the prankster duo flew out the nearby window/phased through the floor just as Twilight fired her second shot, which tore a hole straight through the wooden wall of her room.

"Don't you EVER do something like that again!" Twilight yelled. She then proceeded downstairs to complete her studies before contacting the library's contractor to get the hole she'd just made fixed.

It had been two weeks since the finalists were announced. Voting had commenced the day after, and it quickly became apparent there would be no clear cut winner. The second votes started being mailed in, a steady climb for all three entries was observed by the publisher, with no one entry gaining more than a few hours worth of a lead over the others. The poll was kept secret from the public to prevent undecided voters from being influenced. As the voting neared its end, Twilight started receiving more and more visits from Lyra, as well as letters from the other two finalists; Nyx and Shady. They were all eager to get started on HUMAN 3 (tentative title) and Twilight grew tired of having to remind them that they could only start collaborating once the winner was announced.

That time had finally come, however, and Twilight waited with baited breath as the last votes were accounted for and the winner was determined. She was to get the announcement along with whoever won; it was a given that the press would get wind of the results and inform the public as to who won straight away. Eventually, she heard a knock on her library door, and upon opening it saw Ditzy holding a letter in her mouth.

"You didn't peek, did you?" Twilight asked the wall eyed mailmare as she levitated the letter over to her.

Ditzy shook her head and took off. Twilight closed the door and proceeded to open the envelope with her magic. She then took out the letter and read its contents, smiling as soon as she finished.

"Congratulations, Lyra."

It was the following day, and Twilight was waiting for Lyra to show up at Golden Oaks to begin brainstorming ideas for HUMAN 3. To her surprise, as well as slight annoyance, the mint green unicorn was late for their meeting. Twilight glanced at a nearby clock to see that it was a little past 10:00 am. She had told Lyra to be there at precisely 9:30 am, and if there was one thing Twilight hated it was tardiness. Lyra would need a pretty good excuse for being so late, because there was no way she could get lost or forget about the session with how much enthusiasm she boasted.

Eventually, Twilight heard a knock on the front door. She opened it to see Lyra with a sheepish smile on her face, as well as a horde of scrolls in her telekinetic grip.

"You're late," Twilight said flatly.

"Sorry Twi," Lyra said, her sheepish smile not faltering one bit. "I was so caught up in the excitement of being the winner that I wasn't really paying attention when you gave the time to come here."

Twilight sighed. "Well, come on in so we can get started."

Lyra did so, taking a moment to place her scrolls onto the center table before sitting down on a cushion Twilight had prepared in advance; the lavender mare sat down on the cushion opposite from her.

"What're those?" Twilight asked, looking at the scrolls.

"Well, I took a little time to do some solo brainstorming before I came here," Lyra replied as she levitated one of the scrolls over to Twilight who enveloped it in her own magic and began reading it.

Even just from skimming over the lines of writing, Twilight was astonished to see how much detail Lyra went into with this one scroll alone. It described how MLP: FiM came to be, who voiced her and her friends, and even the human equivalent of the humare movement, the bronies. Once she was done, Twilight looked up to see Lyra staring expectantly at her.

"Well, this is pretty good, Lyra," Twilight said, hoofing the scroll back over to her. "Now, let's get started."

And so for the next few hours the two unicorns brainstormed ideas for the final HUMAN book. The first thing they decided on was the title, HUMAN: Friendship is Meta; symbolic of the very nature of the book itself as well as what it was about. Other things they worked out were the lives of everyone who would end up working on the show, including Lauren Faust, Tara Strong, Jayson Thiessen, and so on, as well as the cultural impact the show would have on humankind and how it would be beloved by some and despised by others. They continued brainstorming well past lunchtime, and it wasn't until a sudden growl erupted from Lyra's stomach that the two mares decided to take a much needed lunch break.

"Would you like to stay here for lunch?" Twilight asked, pushing aside a bunch of used scrolls to make room for food. "I could make us a whole tray of daisy sandwiches."

"Yeah, thanks," Lyra replied, sitting up from her cushion. "Hey, uh, where's the little filly's room at?"

Twilight pointed upstairs. "Only door in my room; you can't miss it."

Lyra nodded and cantered up the stairs. Twilight sat up and stretched a little before making way toward the kitchen. She hadn't taken more than five steps when an idea formed in the dark recesses of her mind; one which took root in all the meta-physical musings she'd poured over since first reading Lyra's submission. Wanting to get her idea down on parchment before she forgot it, Twilight levitated over a quill and blank scroll and quickly jotted it down.

One particular brony would not just fall in love with MLP: FiM, he would attempt to bridge his world with that of the show in a way no person in history had thought of before. One day, in early January, Warren sat down at his computer and began typing out a most interesting fan fiction for MLP: FiM. In it, he described how Twilight Sparkle, the main protagonist of the show, was inspired by her many trips through the Everfree Forest to write a story about an entire world that operated under the Everfree's laws of nature and physics. With help from Twilight's friends, however, this world would end up resembling the world he himself lived in. His fan fiction would be named HUMAN: By Twilight Sparkle, while Twilight's story would be named HUMAN. This wouldn't be the last MLP: FiM fan fiction Warren ever wrote, not by a long shot. He would go on to write many more for the world to read, always feeling genuine happiness whenever their existence was acknowledged.

Once done writing, Twilight set the quill down and headed to the kitchen, smiling wryly the whole way.

It'd been a week since Twilight submitted HUMAN: Friendship is Meta to her publisher in Canterlot, and she'd waited since then for a confirmatory letter announcing the contract was resolved. As glad as she was to have made so many ponies happy with her HUMAN series, Twilight was ever eager to move onto other projects. The letter came in the mail at week's end, along with a check for fifty thousand bits, which Twilight made a mental note to evenly distribute between she and her friends come the next day.

She was doing some last minute book re-shelving before bed when a knock sounded at the front door. "Coming!" she called, and trotted over.

Twilight opened the door to find a mailpony wearing a brown saddlebag.

"Special delivery from her royal highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria," he said.

Twilight took a moment to let his words register in her brain before beaming in delight. The mailpony reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a brown package bearing the royal seal. Twilight immediately levitated it in her magic and shut the door behind her. She opened the package with her magic and pulled out its contents; a parchment and a black covered book.

She eyed both with slight worry, wondering what Celestia had to send through the regular mail system rather than Spike's dragon fire. Holding the letter out in front of her, she began to read aloud:

"Dear Twilight Sparkle; the spell contained on the last page of this book is Starswirl the Bearded's secret, unfinished masterpiece . . ."

Author's Note

As always, bring on the praise and criticism.

Afterword

First, a little background info on how I came up with this meta masterpiece. My story starts back in autumn of 2012, around Halloween. In the spirit of said holiday, I was listening to various creepypastas narrated by MrCreepyPasta himself on youtube. One of said creepypastas was none other than Cupcakes, DUN DUN DUN!!! At this time I wasn't even aware of MLP: FiM's existence, but after hearing the Cupcakes narration I was disturbed, fascinated, and confused as to how something intended for little girls was capable of inspiring something so gruesome. But it wasn't until MrCreepyPasta narrated Rocket to Insanity just a few days or so later that I HAD to see what the origins to these twisted tales was like. So, I checked out a couple of episodes (Party of One and Baby Cakes) and, judging the show from those two episodes, I found it to be pretty enjoyable. Always looking for new interests, I set my sights on watching all of seasons 1 and 2; by the time I was finished, I was a full-fledged brony. As to how I came upon Fimfiction, I believe it was as a result of web-searching for sequels to the above two Creepypastas. Unfortunately, my laptop was a piece of crap, so I couldn't register on this site without experiencing difficulties. So instead, I registered for fanfiction.net while I figured out how to get a working account on this site.

In the meantime, I would amass myself in the wide range of stories this site had to offer, especially the HiE/PoE fics. One thing I should mention is that I always strive to innovate; much like Nintendo. Although, whereas Nintendo strives for game innovation, I (being a gifted writer since 1st grade) strive to invent new literary concepts and styles. So when I noticed how all the HiE fics went with the same "wormhole sends characters to Equestria/Earth" exposition, I resolved to write a HiE fic with an original take.

The idea for this story came about from my fascinations of the multiverse, meta theories, and the true nature of the "4th wall". What I wanted to do was write a story that got humans and ponies to acknowledge each others' existence in a realistic way that didn't break the laws of space and time and have to devote the first few chapters to bringing both sides up to speed with the cultures, anatomies, technologies, etc, of the other. In the end, I realized the only realistic way the ponies of MLP: FiM could acknowledge humanity is if they created us themselves. That, combined with the idea that every piece of fiction ever written has its own universe, gave rise to the concept of one of the pony characters writing a story that essentially detailed the evolution and nature of humanity all the way up to the present day (somewhat). From then on, it was just a matter of giving the Mane 6 corresponding paths of logic to follow when detailing a particular aspect of humanity. And thus, HUMAN By: Twilight Sparkle was born.

The reason why I explained all this is because I've realized just why there's so many HiE fics; we would trade an arm and a leg to visit Equestria and meet all of the colorful characters we've come to know and love, usually the Mane 6 in Ponyville. And while we'll never make that dream a reality, this story has done a good job of constructing a spiritual bridge between our two worlds. Out there, in one of a few billion variations of Equestria, Twilight and her friends are looking at their creation with the same sense of longing (though probably not as much as us) and wishful thinking that we have toward them and their own world.

Anyway, I have one last thing to make clear. This story is open sourced, meaning you're all free to write stories following up on this one's premise, whether it be a direct sequel or a spin-off of the idea. The possibilities are endless, it's just a question of finding the spots where expansion is possible.

Thanks for reading, everyone. :D

The second HUMAN installment

HUMAN: The Crystalvision Series