McPoodle Kibble #1: IF Sparkle · 5:02am Dec 20th, 2015
It occurs to me that it’s been more than a year since I’ve started a new story on this site. Don’t get me wrong—I’m still a fan of the series and still read plenty of pony fanfics. I just have lost most of my enthusiasm for writing unless strongly motivated. Therefore, I thought I’d throw my subscribers a bone by posting some of the incomplete material I’ve been sitting on, in some cases for years. I figure there’s a tiny chance that something in one of these posts might just inspire somebody else to write something fantastic.
The first of these fragments comes from I.F. Sparkle, the Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends crossover I posted about back in July of 2013. The main obstacle to actually writing this story comes down to the fact that I would have to watch the show again to familiarize myself with the setting, and this is a series with a main character that I cannot stand. What I do have is the (research-free) introduction, which I used to establish the headvoice of my main character:
Introduction: Still Not Twilight Sparkle
This is the second volume of the diary of Sparkle. Well, perhaps less of a diary, and more of an autobiography in progress, as it were. Nevertheless, it is a diary, and that means that the only person who should be reading this is me! So if you’re not me, put this book down and walk away. Or maybe at least find me so I can have my diary back. And then feel ashamed of yourself afterwards.
OK, now that I’ve driven away all the nasty people who read other people’s diaries without permission, let me introduce myself—after all, you might not have read the first volume. As stated earlier, my name is Sparkle. I am an imaginary friend, and I was created by Ernestine Cedar eight years and seven days ago.
Imaginary friends are a strange breed of being, who started appearing at the bequest of lonely and creative boys and girls roughly two generations ago. I say “roughly” because, although some imaginaries (as they are sometimes called) and their creators claim them to be decades old, the earliest scientific study I can dig up dates to Kiev in 1986. So far I have found no definitive proof that the Chernobyl meltdown was the origin of imaginaries, but I am not ruling that out.
The limitations of us imaginaries are nearly impossible to define. The briefest way to describe it is that we are whatever we are created to be. There is no lower limit for the first age when a child can create an imaginary; the oldest recorded age is nine years. This upper limit should be taken with a grain of salt, as the scientific community has an appallingly small interest in imaginaries, preferring to stick their fingers in their ears and chant “nah, nah, nah, not listening!” rather than admit that the laws of physics as they know them are nothing more than suggestions.
(I do hope that the reader does not think I am patronizing them by providing facts they most assuredly already know. I cannot imagine who I could possibly entrust my diary to, and so I have to provide for every possible scenario.)
Imaginary friends are in general created for the purposes of being a teacher, a protector, a friend (obviously), or some combination of the three. I fit largely into the first category, and I have striven through the years of my existence to be the best teacher of my Steeny that I could possibly be.
I was created based on the character of Twilight Sparkle, from the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Specifically, the version of that character as perceived by a very bright eight-year old girl in the hiatus between the first and second seasons of that program. Accordingly, I am a small purple unicorn, without wings, and with a voice that sounds like it could have been created by Mrs. Tara Strong. Outside of the physical and vocal resemblances, however, I am not Twilight Sparkle—in fact, I thought about making that the subtitle of the first volume of this diary. I mean, Season One Twilight Sparkle was a neurotic little mare who was entirely too obsessed with academia, and I am nothing like that. Right? I mean, please tell me if I’m anything like that, because I think I’d explode or something if I was.
Time to change the subject? Time to change the subject.
Volume 1 ended with Ernestine’s senior prom, the moment when I realized that I was no longer necessary in her life. I had to make a decision at that point, a decision that all imaginaries must face: what do we do when our purpose in existing has been fulfilled?
I sort of pity anybody who only had Volume 1 to read, because I rather cruelly ended the volume without revealing my decision.
But, here we are in Volume 2 and guess what? I decided to keep on living!
After all, I did such a great job at helping Ernestine, not only with her studies, but in coming out of her shell and making friends. (Yes, yes, just like my namesake. You don’t need to rub it in, you know.) So I think I should do more of that. I mean, there are plenty of kids out that that could really use an imaginary in their life, but lack the creativity to make one on their own. That’s my idea, to offer my services out to other kids.
I’m confident that I’m the first person to have ever come up with this revolutionary idea.
I’ve asked around, presenting this idea to local parents and children, but none of them seemed interested, which is very confusing. Surely it had nothing to do with my strict enforcement of all applicable rules of behavior and hygiene any time I visited their homes, right? In fact, the only couple who were interested were Mary and John Hartman, who are childless. I tried to make it clear to them that I wasn’t interested in educating grownups.
I believe the problem here is a lack of accreditation. Tomorrow, I will travel into the big city with the money I have earned babysitting, enroll in college, get a degree in education, and return in triumph to this town to realize my dreams. That can’t take more than what...six months at most?
So, with my statement of purpose out of the way, let us begin.
You can click the link I provided above if you want to know more about what would have happened in this story—I never came up with anything else after that post.
No pressure man. Glad to know you're still around and all that. I think I'd be quite happy if all you posted were reviews of stuff written from the perspective of Princess Luna!
BWAHAHAHAH.
There is some.potential here, for sure. Being completely unfamiliar with Foster's, I have no understanding of the limitations of IF Sparkle, nor the limitations of those that percieve her, so I don't really have any suggestions on, uh, anything. Hm.