Two Background Ponies Quickie: "Pony Life" Aftermath(?) · 7:10pm Feb 7th, 2021
(He is...alive...)
(I thought of holding my tongue until the end of the first season at least, but...I can't take it anymore.)
"Ah...ah...aaaaah! AAAH!"
With a snort and a start, a brown colored mare stirred in her bed and suddenly sat bolt upright on the sounds of hearing a green stallion with a find-the-difference picture for a Cutie Mark crying out next to her. She immediately turned and began to jab him with her hoof.
"Carl! Carl! Wake up!"
He continued to cry out for a moment longer before he too sat bolt upright, gasping, panting, and sweating. He looked around fearfully for a few moments as the brown mare reached over to turn on the bedside lamp. Yet on seeing his surroundings, he let out a sigh of relief and leaned back into bed.
"It was all a dream... A terrible, horrible dream..."
The light soon came on, and she turned to him. "What's going on? Did you have a nightmare?"
He exhaled tired, holding a hoof to his forehead. "Oh Tina...it was awful... Insane... None of it made sense..."
"Really? What happened?"
"We were all in Ponyville. At least...at least I think it was Ponyville... I can't be sure. Because it was...different. That one bacon-headed mare had come back and she introduced all of Equestria to social media or something so everypony was running around spending on their times on these things that let you connect to everyone else. It was like this magical, glowing collection of post it boards and replays of things from real life that everyone was obsessed with..."
Tina furrowed a brow. "That doesn't sound so bad."
"But it somehow turned everyone into an idiot and made everything crazy! You know the rulers of Equestria? They all did nothing except spend all day hanging around Sugarcube Corner talking about it and doing drugs!"
Tina blinked. "Hold on...drugs?"
"Yeah, drugs! They had this cabinet full of crap they'd just knock down one after another and some unicorn would sneak in past the cops every night and make sure they kept it full for them to get their fix the next day! It turned them all into deadbeats! Applejack stopped working on the farm, Rarity stopped running her business, Fluttershy let the animal sanctuary thing go to pot...all they'd do was go there, take drugs, and then be jerks to one another for the stupidest, most selfish reasons that were blatant acts of butt-hole-ery to anyone else and then they'd make up like they learned something brilliant or profound! You'd think everything they learned over nine years just got flushed out of their brains!"
She again looked puzzled. "Ok, that sounds kind of weird..."
"And it got worse! It was like one personality trait or incident they had done now defined their entire character...like whatever pony god there was pointed at them and declared: 'Thou shalt be Flanderized'! Like Rainbow Dash didn't care about the Wonderbolts or taking care of the weather or anything! All she ever did was snack and laze around! Like...like how could she be so athletic if that's all she did? And our princess? I don't think she set foot in the Castle of Friendship the entire time, let alone solved any friendship problems! Wait...was there even a Castle of Friendship there? Nevermind... All she did was endlessly compile stats like she was some living calculator! And Rarity, oh Rarity...should have changed her name to 'Vanity'... Selfish and self-obsessed? Yup, that's the only thing to her personality! Let's make it all of it!"
"Kinda weird..."
"It got weirder, though. Like...like for some reason Pinkie Pie stopped throwing parties and devoted all her time to the Sugarcube Corner business. I mean...sure, I guess from a business perspective that's reasonable, but she suddenly had a younger brother named Octavio. Octavio? What the hell? There's no such thing as a slice of Octavio Pie! That doesn't even make sense! And Fluttershy... Everyone kept acting like she was supposed to be meek and timid when she only ever threw violent fits and yelled at and intimidated ponies! And...and for some reason she could change her size at will!"
"Like...change how? Like she could be teeny tiny or a giant?"
"Yeah, yeah!"
"...Why? How?"
"I have no idea! And Applejack kept talking like there was some invisible audience watching them all! I have no idea who would though, because I had no idea who that world was supposed to be made for. All of the jokes they cracked were childish and immature, and yet they kept acting out references from things only adults would get... And that was just the start! Like everyone was watching this thing called 'television' and was obsessing over this anthropomorphic talking dolphin, and Twilight wanted to quit being princess so she could go hang out with the magical drug-making unicorn who was apparently greater than an alicorn..."
"Well, it was all just a dream," Tina reassured. "You're back here in Ponyville, the princess is in Canterlot, all the girls are living their true purpose, and Starlight Glimmer finally gave you that mandatory cost-of-living raise that allowed us to move in together."
He took a deep breath, and then slowly nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
She smirked. "Sam's going to get an earful tomorrow, isn't he?"
He gave a half-chuckle, still recovering. "Yeah...yeah, I guess he will."
"I think it's fair that I warn him." With that, she reached down to her side and, much to Carl's horror, pulled up a tablet with a sun emblem on the back of it. "I'll just shoot him an email he can read tomorrow morning."
"AAAAAAAAH!!!"
"...AAAH!"
"Carl! Carl, wake up!"
Carl shot bolt upright in his stool at the Snack Shack, looking around in an utter panic. He blinked several times before he noticed Sam was staring at him from across the counter looking very concerned.
"Huh? Wha...what? What happened?"
Sam sighed in relief, but then frowned at him. "Dude, I told you not to eat any of those cookies I accidentally got from Montineighgro. Everyone knows residue from the potion plants runs off into them. You never know when they ended up tainted." He rolled his eyes. "But, of course, you didn't listen to me again..."
Carl blinked a few times. He glanced to the window, seeing Ponyville functioning normally outside with Applejack and her family bringing a fresh load to market. He looked out another window and saw Rarity's boutique bustling with customers. He looked out a third and saw the Castle of Friendship standing tall and proud as the Student Six rushed about to their classrooms. Finally, he looked to the calendar and saw it was officially the YTS (Year of Twilight Sparkle) 2.
He slowly looked at his blue-colored friend. "...Sam?"
"Yeah, Carl?"
"You have no idea what the 'Internet' is, do you?"
"...A net that you put between two other nets...?"
Carl sighed in relief. Sam continued to look at him strangely.
"Dude, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, Sam. Let's just hope things around here never change."
Sam blinked in puzzlement. "Ok... Anyway, I need you to clear out now that you're up. I'm closing early today."
He looked up in confusion. "Huh? Why?"
"As a private business owner of Ponyville, I've got to attend some mandatory seminar telling us about how horrible Equestria is a place to live because we don't prioritize diversity and inclusiveness, and then we all got to write plans about what we plan to implement to change that."
"But...but we've got earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, kirins, crystal ponies, dragons, griffons, changelings, yaks, and hippogriffs. How much more diversity do we need?"
"Dude...that sort of close-minded bigotry could get you in hot water."
To be continued...?
Entirely fair. "Fever dream" is certainly an accurate way to describe Pony Life. I hold that Pinkie created that world accidentally while imbued with Discord's magic.
And G5... Well, we'll see what they do with the concept when the time comes.
Yikes!
Okay hoping G5 good. Hoping. 