Princess Cadence's Valentine's Day Contest! ~<3~ THE END · 12:58am Mar 4th, 2014

Well, I bet you weren't expecting this, were you, Cadence?

I... I can't say that I was.

Well, you may as well make the announcement.

I guess I should.

Oh, and Cadence? I'm going to need control of my blog posts back... Cadence? CADENCE??

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's Valentine's Day Extravaganza!

Hello once again, adventurers! Welcome to the announcement of the winners of the voting! While many of you may know what's been going on, I'll review for the sake of any newcomers.

Following Valentine's Day (or, as we call it in Equestria, "Hearts and Hooves Day") Penn expressed that he had no desire to write one of his typical holiday-themed "Bonus Chapters." Following my insistence, however, I managed to convince him to allow me to write one instead! So, I began a series of blog posts encouraging his followers to vote for what couple they wanted to see the most! After two and a half weeks to vote, the results have been finally counted, and breaking the three-way-tie is...

Pennington Inkwell X Princess Mi Amore Cadenza

I guess I should have seen this coming, all things considered. I DID place myself in the voting pool. Well, before I can get to work on writing anything in regards to this, Penn is going to try to get the story specifically for the bonus chapters set up. Aside from that, I want to thank everyone who voted! The participation was brilliant, and I hope you all enjoyed it, because I certainly did!

Penn? Anything you want to add?

Well, seeing as you are married, Cadence, we should probably explain the mechanics of "bonus chapters vs. full stories."

Oh, that's right!

Also, why are your words colored and centered while mine are boring old black and left-justified?

Because you had to be a killjoy. That classifies you as "Lawful Neutral."

... You're kidding, right? Anyway, I guess this is my portion, then. Clarification.

So, when you see characters outside of a story, like Cadence talking here, you see them essentially beyond the fourth wall. They know their stories, but how much of it has affected them and where they are in their timeline is subjective. For example, in my stories, Discord was only recently released in Daughter of Chaos. But a very long time before that, I wrote a bonus chapter shipping him and Whipstitch, obviously free.

Bonus chapters essentially take the characters while they're out of context and put them into a completely different context than the one in which they usually exist.

Or, to put it simply, the bonus chapters are fanfiction of my fanfiction. Two degrees of separation from the actual characters. Rather than Cadence actually having any kind of feelings for Pennington beyond platonic friendship within canon, a bonus chapter would be exactly what we've been voting on here: placing them within a fantasy where what would usually get in the way doesn't exist. All of them acknowledge that bonus chapters are only done in the spirit of good fun and CANNOT affect canon characters. So Shining Armor and Cadence won't be breaking up solely for the sake of this, nor will Twilight and Pennington.

Or, in simpler terms, while the real stories can affect us personally, the bonus chapters can't affect us any more than a feather can break a brick wall!

That's right.

Well, everyone, there you have it! I look forward to seeing you all soon on the bonus chapter! Thank you for voting, and I hope you all enjoy the stories to come!

Sincerely yours,
Princess Cadence ~<3~

P.S. I think I actually enjoyed taking over Pennington's blog for a while... Maybe I'll tell the others about it!