Chapter 1
Twilight yawned, savouring the tingle that ran down her spine as she stretched luxuriantly in bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so well. The last time probably went as far back as her filly days. Between the cool air and delightfully warm sheets, she did not particularly feel inclined to get up immediately, so she simply lay there in the silence and darkness, enjoying the—
Wait a minute…
“The summit!” She sat bolt upright and leapt out of bed, flinging off the bedcovers in a whirlwind as she conjured some light.
“No-no-no-no-no, how could I have overslept!” she squeaked in rapid sequence as she bumbled around the room like a drunken, half-awake madmare in her search for the window. Upon finding the thick curtains, she almost ripped them apart and yelped when yellow-orange light flooded in to singe her eyes.
She threw up a hoof to protect herself and simply stood in place, blinking away the flashing dots in her vision. Slowly, though, her heart rate dropped when she realised that night hadn’t come yet. She still had plenty of time to get ready before the welcome reception began. At the same time, she noted that her hearing was significantly poorer on the left side, and soon found the cause – a pair of earmuffs that had gone slightly askew in her panicked pin-balling around the room.
“Okay, not the end of the world. Silly me.” She sighed and chuckled to herself.
A more leisurely glance outside the window reassured her further that everything had gone according to plan: the gardeners had pruned the overgrown trees around the courtyard, and Bolt Bit had apparently finished dealing with the leaking main. Perfect.
She spent a few minutes grooming herself and then made her way out.
“Good evening, Princess Twilight,” said one of the two royal guards stationed just outside the double doors. “Slept well?”
“Uh, yes.” She blinked and raised an eyebrow. “But what are you two doing outside my room? I don’t—wait, has there been a security breach? What’s—”
“Nothing of the sort, Your Highness,” said the other guard. “Spike just called us for backup when he got mobbed by your petitioners. We’ve been sending them his way ever since, though the crowd’s mostly thinned out by now.”
“Oh. Umm, all right.”
Twilight couldn’t think of anything else to say. Another pleasant surprise to add to the list, she supposed. A smile tugged at her lips as she thought of how much Spike must’ve done for her on such short notice in the hours since she’d fallen asleep. He probably deserved a whole—
“Wait. What are those?” she asked when she spotted a pair of empty tankards by the wall, just behind one of the guards.
The two armoured stallions looked at her, then turned to exchange confused looks with one another.
Her frown deepened when she noticed the remnants of froth on the lips of the tankards. “Aren’t you guys prohibited from eating or drinking while at your posts?”
Their ears flattened.
“Uh, if you recall, Your Highness,” one of them said with a sheepish grin, “did you not make an exception on account of this special Friendship Summit?”
“I was asleep,” she deadpanned. “How could I have done that?”
“But… Spike said you’d left written instructions…”
Twilight advanced until their snouts almost touched. Close enough to see him sweating beneath his armour.
Good.
“Are you trying to blame Spike for this?” she growled.
“It’s true, Princess,” the other protested. “We didn’t want to at first, but Spike was very happy about the event’s progress and wanted everypony to celebrate. He did insist. You can ask him if you wish; he was in the main reception, last we heard.”
Twilight scowled at the two guards before turning her back to them. “I think I’ll do that. But if you’re bluffing, I’m going to have a really long talk with your commanding officer.” So saying, she leaped over the railings and rode a thermal straight towards the palace’s eastern annex.
Shining would never have let this happen on his watch…
Well, she still had a couple of hours before she needed to get to her post. A minor diversion of her resources wouldn’t hurt too much. She needed to thank Spike, anyway.
* * * * *
She found no sign of him at the reception area, though she did find Cadance. She mentioned last seeing him heading towards the royal bathhouse, so Twilight quickly thanked her and went on her way. Unfortunately, Spike wasn’t at the bathhouse, either, and the ponies present led her on another merry chase around the palace from the gardens to the kitchens and auditoriums. The things they told her though… they helped to catalyse the formation of a rock in her belly. According to nearly everypony she spoke to, Spike had been helping himself to a whole lot of extremely fine and costly services, ranging from catering to body care, all under her authority. The expenses alone wouldn’t have troubled her so much, if it weren’t for the fact that practically everything that she called for during the summit would come from state funds. If word of that got out, the scandal would probably eclipse that of the Book Fort incident from twelve years ago.
Please, Spike. Let this all be a huge misunderstanding…
Eventually, one delegate mentioned seeing him ‘hanging out’ with a royal guard in the mess hall. She scratched her head at that, but decided not to press for details in case she missed him again.
The echoes of Spike’s voice reached her ears as she entered the nearly-empty mess hall. Practically all of the guards had been stationed at one point or another throughout Canterlot for the summit, so it struck her as rather odd to see one of them sitting at a table with him, playing cards, of all things. She strained her ears and approached as silently as possible.
“—and so I told him not to worry about his colts. Cadance’s friends are seriously the best foalsitters in Canterlot. Nothing’s going to go wrong with them on watch,” Spike said as he inspected his cards.
The grey, armoured unicorn opposite him grunted and slapped a card on the table. “Uh huh. Spoiled kids. Back in my day, our parents just let us wander, play and fight until everypony went home in tears or as friends. Worked out pretty well for us.”
Spike nodded and took a swig from a mug. Twilight sniffed the air and felt a pang of relief when she didn’t detect any pungent scent.
“Oh, and have I mentioned the part where I helped the delegate from Vanhoover with his bent cane? Heated it up with my breath just right to bend it back in shape!”
The stallion nodded and dumped another card. “Yup. Only heard it about three times, now.”
Spike deflated a bit. “Eh, heh heh… But that was pretty cool, huh? What about—”
By then, Twilight had gotten close enough to identify everything on the table, so she filtered out Spike’s narration of his exploits to focus on mental cataloguing. She noted a dozen empty plates with plenty of smudges and crumbs, some of which looked like gem dust, an equal number of mugs, a whole pile of apple cores, shreds of lettuce, thirteen bits, five loose feathers, two notebooks, a fresh apple with a wad of hay rammed into where the stalk usually goes and a candle with one end bitten off.
“What’s going on here?” she asked as she trotted into their line of sight.
The guard stood up and saluted, saying, “Evening, Princess.”
Spike’s greeting followed soon after, without missing a beat. “Hi, Twilight. Had a good nap?” He grinned and gestured at the cards on the table. “We were just having some fun after a hard days’ work. Gotta let off some stress before the big stuff after sundown, right?”
Twilight frowned at the guard. “I thought everypony had been assigned to their posts. Who’re you?”
“Private Stun Lock, at your service.” He bowed his head respectfully before continuing, “My shift doesn’t begin for another hour, but Spike saw fit to assign me and my peers to various duties until then. As per your orders, Princess.”
“My orders, huh?” She turned to Spike. “It looks like you’ve been throwing a party in here. What have you done?”
Stun Lock got the gist immediately, considering how much he paled and almost visibly shrank on the spot. To his credit, at least he didn’t tremble. Spike, on the other hoof, didn’t seem to lose any of his cheer. His smile remained, and he continued to stand firm and confident on his seat as he shrugged and simply gave everything a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Don’t worry about it, Twilight. Your Number One Assistant’s got everything under control! Been right on top of things since you fell asleep,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I can’t not worry about this. Everypony’s told me about everything you’ve been asking for under my authority. Mostly for personal use.” She shook her head again. “That—that’s a complete breach of integrity while on duty. It’s corruption!”
He lifted a claw. “But—”
“No, Spike. That’s not okay, no matter how anypony spins it. Remember that last time everypony started giving you—”
“I remember!” he snapped.
Twilight took a step backward, stunned by his sudden change. His laid-back posture had shifted forward into something a little… predatory. His eyes had narrowed, and his spinal ridge stood erect as he frowned at her.
“Everything’s gone pretty swell. I took care of everything – half of them are silly stuff like you wouldn’t believe – and kept everypony from disturbing you all day. Cadance even said she was surprised I held up for so long.” He threw both hands up in the air. “Is it so bad that I wanted to get a little treat here and there for a job well done? It’s not like I ate up the crystal statue or anything!”
She opened her mouth, but only a strangled noise came out. On her second attempt, she said, “Spike, what’s gotten into you? Why are you so defensive?”
“Well, why are you so upset?” he retorted.
“Because you’re stealing from Canterlot!” she half-yelled. When he flinched, she took the opportunity to bull forward. “All expenses made in my name during this summit will be paid for by the state unless specified otherwise. I’m supposed to be calling for services for everypony, not myself. Or you. But you’ve done exactly that. That’s not right!”
At the corner of her eye, she noticed Stun Lock just standing there, growing more sweaty and uncomfortable by the second. But she couldn’t spare him any more attention because Spike had opened up with another verbal barrage.
“Hey, I did share some of the goodies with the guards and random ponies.”
“They’re not exactly the public, Spike. I spoke to them; they’re mostly from Canterlot, and from the palace district. That can still be spun as cronyism, which is still a form of corruption. On top of that, you’ve misused somepony else’s authority. Even if you had done that to help everypony equally, it’s still a breach of trust and conduct.” She rubbed her forehead and sighed. “This is… this could be a disaster.”
He lowered his eyes. “Spike can’t do anything right, huh?”
She blinked. “What? I didn’t say that. But you can’t claim that what you did was okay.”
He growled something incomprehensible and slammed a fist on the table.
“Spike, look at me.”
He refused.
She tried softening her voice, but a little stiffness still crept in. “Can you honestly look me in the eye and say that what you did was okay?”
Spike trembled for a moment before meeting her gaze, and she immediately wished he hadn’t. His eyes had filled with smouldering anger, and though she couldn’t tell whether fully directed at her, some deep part of her wanted to flee in panic from him. She stared, frozen, until he snarled like a dragon thrice his size and dashed past her, leaving a trail of wispy smoke.
It took her almost a full minute to regain control of her faculties. At which point, she glanced at Stun Lock and said, “You are dismissed.”
He nodded gratefully. “Affirmative. Farewell, Your Highness.”
When his hoofsteps had faded away, she let out a long sigh and collapsed onto her haunches. She could feel tears welling up already.
That’s what I get for starting an argument so soon after waking up.
She spent nearly five minutes just sitting there performing breathing exercises to calm her shattered nerves. All the while she continued racking her brain for ways to smooth things over with everypony, until guilt stabbed her in the gut with how much she must’ve hurt Spike. It jabbed her again when she realised that she’d first considered dealing with his actions instead of helping him like she should have from the start.
Oh no…
She got up and sped back outside as fast as her legs and wings could take her.
* * * * *
With some directions from a series of puzzled witnesses, she managed to track Spike down to the royal garden. More specifically, the waterfall.
She found him curled up under a rocky outcrop just above water-level, sheltered from the worst of the cascading water but still shrouded in spray and mist. If she hadn’t resorted to some thermal detection magic, she probably would have missed him entirely.
Twilight edged in gradually to avoid startling him, but soon realised that he had grown too dejected to care much about her presence. He simply lifted his head and gazed at her as she fought and sputtered her way through the curtain of water. Once safely under the outcropping, she took a moment to conjure some light and a sound barrier that filtered out the roar of the waterfall, then lay down in the dampness beside him and whispered, “Hi.”
“Hey,” he murmured.
All of her plans and recited words suddenly fell apart. Though condensation had formed all over his scales, she could clearly distinguish the tears streaming down his cheeks.
She gulped. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you. With all the stress—no, wait. That’s not fair. I should’ve known better. I just—I know you meant well, Spike. But some things just aren’t okay even if you meant no harm. Still… I guess I should’ve waited until we were all more clearheaded before saying anything.”
He sniffled and wiped his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too. You were right; I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did all those things anyway.”
“Can I ask why?”
Almost a minute passed before he murmured, “Randomus Draconicus.”
“Huh?”
“That’s me. Just some random dragon.”
She leaned closer. “What gave you that idea?”
“One of the delegates from Cloudsdale. Had a friendship problem. Only wanted to listen to you even when I was right there telling him how to fix it.”
“Was it really complicated?”
A puff of smoke blew from his nostrils when he snorted. “His buddy had taken his seat at the hall.”
Twilight waited for a couple of seconds to hear the rest of the story, but Spike’s silence continued until she realised that he’d already given her everything.
“His friend,” she deadpanned.
“Yep.”
“Had taken his seat.”
“Uh huh.”
“Hadn’t he already tried asking nicely?”
“Nope.”
Twilight groaned and hid her face with a wing. When she looked back at Spike, she found a ghost of a smile on his face.
“Yup. Said that he didn’t want some random dragon’s opinion. He wanted yours. Princess Twilight.” He shook his head and looked away. “It didn’t get to me at first. Since he wouldn’t listen, I pretended to ask you and told him the same thing. Worked like a charm. Same for everypony else. Just chuck in ‘because Princess Twilight said so’ and everypony hopped on board.”
“Uh…”
He nodded. “That’s right. Nopony wanted to listen to Spike the Random Dragon; he’s not smart enough to do anything. He couldn’t possibly know anything about friendship even when he lives with the Princess of Friendship. He can’t organise anything, either. He’s just—ick!” Spike choked and teared up for a moment, pushed her foreleg away when she tried to comfort him, and then carried on with a scowl. “Ugh. I just made me feel… I don’t know. It hurt. It hurt even more when I saw you could get almost anything done just because you were Princess Twilight. Same with Cadance, I saw. And when ponies still treated me worse than an egg for trying to help…”
He formed fists as he growled in the general direction of the palace, trembling, and Twilight felt heat radiating from him like a furnace.
“I got mad. Not sure why. I just did,” he said through clenched teeth.
Steam rose from his scales as smoke streamed out of his nostrils as he let loose another blood-curdling growl. Her worry grew as the ambient temperature rose to uncomfortable levels, but just as she considered casting a thermal shield, Spike sighed and wilted, allowing the chill of the waterfall to enshroud them once more.
He then wiped his eyes again and sniffled. “So I just kept going at it. See how much I could push everypony until they stopped giving ‘Princess Twilight’ what she wanted.” He looked up at her and shook his head. “Never happened. You’ve got no idea how crazy everypony is about you; they’ll do anything if you say so. Me, I’m stuck as some random dragon who couldn’t even get one pony to listen today. Heh. Some dragon I am. Bet they’ve never stopped laughing at me back at the volcano.”
Twilight stared at him.
Beware, ye who would dare to scorn a dragon. She remembered reading that in a novel, once. Maybe the author had stumbled upon a grain of truth in that. Or a whole boulder.
“Oh, Spike…” She draped a wing over him. This time, he didn’t resist, and she tentatively pulled him into a tender hug. “You are not some random dragon. You are my brother, friend and Number One Assistant. You are Shiny’s little brother. You are Cadance’s favourite hatchling. You are the Hero of the Crystal Empire, and so many other things. If somepony calls you some random dragon, you don’t have to believe them. And if others refuse to learn, well, it’s not your job to educate them. No scales off your back if they don’t want to get to know you after you’ve extended the courtesy.”
He remained silent.
“We shouldn’t measure our worth by the number of ponies who know our names, anyway,” she continued, patting him on the back.
“Love and friendship comes first, huh?” he said. “Show it even if they don’t give it back.”
“Yeah.”
He sighed. “Doesn’t stop it from hurting.”
“I… I guess not. But it gives us something else to hold on to while we sort ourselves out, I think.”
They stayed close, sharing their warmth as the light filtering through the fall’s mist and spray gradually dimmed. At any other time, she might have fancied just cuddling up with him and sleeping right there, just like they used to when they were younger. Too bad that they both had responsibilities waiting.
Eventually, when she estimated that they had less than half an hour left before the proceedings, Spike extricated himself from her embrace and shifted to sit by her side.
“Okay, I think I’m over it. I feel better now,” he said. “How’re we going to fix things?”
“Well, I’ll first have to do my duties at the evening ceremony. After that, I’ll shift the expenses to come from my account. Then we apologise to everypony we’ve troubled.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“And then I’ll see about getting some topaz ice cream.”
“Wait, what?” Spike blinked and stared at her.
She grinned when she saw some of his moodiness evaporate. The twinkle in his eyes gave it away. “Well, almost everypony told me that you did a good job managing things in my absence. I think that’s earned you a treat.”
At long last, the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile. “Aww, thanks, Twi.”
“And after that, you can help me update the classification system in Canterlot’s old library. They’re really behind time, there.” When his jaw dropped, she chuckled and added, “Well, you still did lie all over the place and commit a major abuse of authority. I think that’s earned you some extra time with chores whilst I pay for everything.”
“I…” he’d lifted a claw in protest, but relented almost immediately and sighed. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”
Twilight placed a hoof on his shoulder and smiled at him. “Hey, at least we get to do it together, right?” She glanced at the cascading water, beyond which lay a night’s worth of work for both of them. She then crouched beside him. “Hop on. You ready for Round Two?”
Spike took a deep, fortifying breath and cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, let’s go.”
They burst out of the mist together, and a Canterlot illuminated with thousands of glowing lanterns greeted them. The sun had set, and the stars had come out. Though the wind felt cold on her wet hide, Spike’s warmth more than compensated for that as he clung to her. For a moment, she could almost pretend that the day had gone perfectly. A second later, she smiled, shook her head and revised her assessment.
All things considered, she probably had every reason to be grateful for how everything had turned out.
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This was really well made, had conflict, and was solved without blaming Spike for everything.
I really wish this was actually what they did for the episode.
Much better than the actual episode, Spike acting up to get fame and recognition.
I like the story, but this could never be in the actual show. Twilight isn't this thoughtful about issues like this. This issue is too delicate ad nuance, The only problems in the show are large ,glaring, obvious ones. For instance, Spike feeling unimportant? Not a real issue, it won't get addressed. Lets wait till something bigger comes of it before we do something.
6123860 Thanks. I wish they'ed tried something a little different in the show, too.
6124117 Yep. Especially because Fluffy Cloud's dismissive attitude triggered his insecurities when he otherwise would've coped just fine.
6124592 Yeah, probably not. Though, it would've been nice if they'd explored a different facet of his nature or weaknesses. I thought that it would've been a far more effective lesson about integrity if he had to answer for his abuse of power even after doing a good job with everything else.
I really enjoyed this story. As an alternate ending to the past episode this is top notch. The interactions between Twilight and Spike were fun, interesting and emotional. I can't help but feel like Spike seems to be a little older or more mature here than in the show. Not that it's a bad thing, just how I felt reading it.
Overall a really cool idea with great exucutuon
Well done. I enjoyed this alternate interpretation, and I hope that something like the interaction you displayed here will be available to us to watch on the show someday.
Nicely done.
(Though as I've found myself repeating ad nauseum since Saturday, I don't think he did as bad as the show went out of it's way to try and tell us he did, especially when you consider his youth.)
But this would have been much better - and fairer to Spike.
Actually as I have literally just re-watched Spike at Your Service as I work through season 1 through 4 on DVD, I am starting to idly speculate nd wonder if there's not some sort of actual, literal curse he's under, which is only suppressed around Twilight. Perhaps some inadvertent result of his hatching (perhaps his egg was recovered from some unscrupulous soul who planned to hatch it themselves and made sure to take... precautions against their new servant attempting to leave) or just Discord made sure he left a little something before he was stoned again the first time for Spike's part in undiscording Twilight... It would explain a lot, wouldn't it...?
6125533
The weirdest thing about the actual episode was that the "abuse of power" aspect didn't even factor in to the resulting disaster. The three decisions that led to the flooding were all arguably within the scope of Cadance's request to him, and for none of them did he intentionally co-opt Twilight's authority. Two of the three were terrible decisions, but that's all they were.
I enjoyed this story as a more coherent alternate take.
6125533
I'm not much for fix-fics, so I didn't go over it with a magnifying glass. Just spottted the one:
Pick one:
She blinked. “What? I didn’t say that. But you can’t deny that what you did was wrong.”
She blinked. “What? I didn’t say that. But you can’t say that what you did was okay.”
She blinked. “What? I didn’t say that. But can you deny that what you did was wrong?”
6127923 Fair enough. Thanks for spotting that!
If they could put even an iota of the characterization that the fandom does for Spike and Twilight into the show it would make it all the better. Given the entirety of this would not have taken more than six or seven minutes live time.
Now this is amazing. Hope to see more soon.
THANK YOU!
Although this rewrite of the episode is a little sad, it allows conflict on a level closer to Spike's current maturity. Excellent work!
Well... this would've been a really great improvement on the episode. I'm sure they would've kept his scary dragon rage parts toned down to more cartoonish illustration, perhaps steam shooting from his fins or something like that, but the give-and-take here between Twilight and Spike, the faults that both of them displayed, is just vastly better than the random assortment of catastrophe that just miraculously shot a stream of water directly into the ballroom... the odds of which are so stupendously small I would have bought Discord cackling and snapping his fingers behind the scenes rather than having to accept it just happened that way.
Excellent work here!I like how it could be made into an episode yet still through in some of your own theories. (How he tried to see how far they would go for twilight) great alternative ending!
You hit a lot of notes and issues about this episode. I ultimately think in this episode, Spike was unfortunately set up to fail from the beginning. Aside from Cadence not doing anything until the end, there was no sign of Celestia or Luna as well to help out. And this really burns me up: nopony knows about Spike. They should know him for his actions in the Crystal Empire. Hell, Fancy Pants was at the Equestria Games, but doesn't recognize Spike instantly. Instead, Spike is referred to in Canterlot as "some random dragon." You have no idea how much I despise Fluffy Clouds now just from that, and I'm pretty sure he's on everyone's list of despicable background ponies.
I hope the next Spike episode we get is so much better. I will say it's not as bad as Spike at Your Service since it raped the character of Spike in that episode, but it's pretty high in terms of worst Spike episodes.
6127994
To be fair, I think that they do. Just not when Spike had the spotlight in this ep. and in Dragon at Your Service. I thought he was a real champ in Castle Sweet Castle, where even the abuse he took served to build up his character, showing how much he was willing to put himself through for Twilight's sake instead of just being another throwaway joke about how unlucky he is.
6128522 Wait, no snarky or manic comment about how you could use some of the story's elements to conquer/destroy Equestria?
Who are you and what have you done to Alondro?! 
Seriously, though, I agree that the events look too much like they were engineered to make Spike's decisions backfire in the most spectacular way possible.
6128878
Oh, but I think I do.
Even Diamond Tiara's never managed to get me riled up like that. She at least has the excuse of immaturity, but this guy's just plain pathetic for displaying a toddler's level of reasoning. 
Come to think of it, he might even have ousted Blueblood in terms of sheer pettiness. 
That so much better!
6129554 Weeeeeeellll... I could use Spike's dragon rage to trigger a magiclear (It's like nuclear, but MAGIC! Which makes it BETTER!) explosion and all the resulting mutants would be under my command.
NOW it feels like my comment!
But really, I do make serious comments at time, mainly on stories that greatly impress me with certain interpretations or takes on episodes, characters, and world-building in general. Of course, if I see places where humor strikes me, I can't resist.
This is really a good take compared to the actual episode. Congrats on your part.
That's a cool twist. Instead of just taking advantage of his friend's position, he's testing a bunch of dipshits' inflated opinion of royalty.
I wish this was canon. Much prefer this over the actual episode.
Very nice. I also didn't like the way the show handled the episode and i love your take on it. To paraphrase another commenter 'it felt like two episodes stitched together' One in which Spike is trying to be generally helpful, and one in which Spike is thrust into power unwillingly and becomes greedy with it. With the haphazard connector being Cadence putting the idea of greed in his head rather then him getting drunk off of it.
Personally I would have liked if the episode had fallowed the first story idea and Spike's attempts at fixing problems, while they work short term, have long term consequences that cause a house or cards that Twilight has to sort through. It would show Spike as being kind and helpful and good but simply to young to handle such large decisions.
Man, I used to think that Fix Fics couldn't be done right. Thank you for proving me wrong.
Well, a fix fic that fixes things well. Who would've thunk it? ;)
But seriously, this is a thousand times better than that episode. Legit kudos to you, here.
I know this has been said before, but dang, this is so much better than the episode. I honestly thought this was the dire tion they were going to take it, and I was so disappointed that they turned it into another generic "spike gets greedy" episode. Thank you for giving us the story we deserved, and for that, you get a mustache!
Great story
Didn't think it was possible...
A good fixfic. Well done.
7843936 Thanks.
I'm still holding out for the day they give Spike the solo episode he deserves. It's long overdue.
6128878
Hell, he should be known to Canterlot. How else could he get Hoity Toity to attend not just one, but a second fashion show after the first was a disaster?
A Good Fix.
This proves another one of my thought's that SPIKE doesn't have to put up these ponies & their problems. He could always go back to the DRAGONS.
And I guess the direction was of a dragon temper? After being discarded as useless by everypony else, the last one he needed to hear it from was Twilight.
Never anger a dragon, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
My biggest issue with the episode was it had a perfect set up for juicy character develop with Spike's self-esteem and looked like it was delving into that territory at first with the random dragon lines but then, nothing. Wasted potential. This was a great fanfic and goes kind of how I always thought the episode should've went.
I never really noticed it until I read the A/N but yeah, the episode was basically "Secret of my Excess" but bad.
8700224 Well, here's to hoping that Season 8 does things better. Despite trying to avoid leaks, I've already accidentally seen a few things that look pretty promising in concept!
Meh I always hated that episode and Spike was a jerk who abused Twilights authority just for extra kicks. I felt like all the problems that went wrong at the end just covered up the need for spike to get a stern taking too about how he acted. That was the only thing I didn't like about this story. Spike had no right to get mad at Twilight for calling him out on his selfish behavior. Also his justification the hold "no one listened to me because I'm not a princess" new flash 99.9 % of ponies are not princesses there only four and a baby. If some guard or baker or some otherrandom pony had tried to say something they would have got the same looked over treatment your not special. This hold things just seemed like a giant temper tantrum over a few hurt feeling from a kid who has an a whole empire that worships the ground he walks on, a family that loves him more then life, great friends and over 90% of ponies who treat him with respect and kindness but you suddenly loss it cause a few ponies gave you a hurtful remark please get out of here with that nonsense. Twilight should have thanked him for the work he did and whupped his butt for being a spoiled brat.
Yeah this episode definitely had its issues. Spike just getting kicked in the butt but the end was annoying as hell. Plus cadence just didn’t do anything as far as we knew. And really only saw of him was getting his painting done and getting a few jams, oh no the horror what ever shall we do such abuse. I things he asked for a kind of mundane
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Indeed. At worst, Spike was only guilty of being selfish. And the episode moral tries to make it as if his excesses resulted in disaster, when it was actually all those random contrivances conspiring to make him look bad.
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a saying for a reason. There isn’t necessarily any malign intent inherent at first. But, just the lack of limits is enough to drive someone to extremes they’d never have considered otherwise.
Such an awkward episode to write about.
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I disagree, while Spike may have abused Twilights power that was only when cadence mentioned the idea. Until then Spike was only trying to be nice and let Twilight sleep. And honestly you think ponies would respect the wisdom of the princess of friendships secretary, and the hero of the crystal empire. But ponys are racsist hipocritical Aholes and complete niave idiots, but now I am just ranting.
not excusing spikes actions but WHERE WERE THE OTHER PRINCESSES!?! I mean you think that they would have put up a notice that princess twilight was having a needed nap, but no they just said nothing and left no one to take care of the summit. I mean come on people Twilight had not sleep for DAYS! But anyway while Spike was in the wrong I think until Cadance acussed him of abusing Twilights power that his choices were justified.
An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!
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Thanks for the review!