Dear Miss Hardcase
Dear Miss Hardcase,
I would like to begin by reiterating my admiration for your work in teaching Flurry Heart and the other young fillies and colts at the Imperial Crystalline School for Youngsters, and express how much I value the school’s attempts to provide the youth with a full and broad knowledge of the various professions and roles that exist in the working world. The ‘What Does Your Mother Do’ event is obviously very important and, as a Princess of the Crystal Empire, I appreciate how important it is for young ponies everywhere to have an understanding of what it is that being a Princess means. Moreover, I want to make it clear that I take every chance to offer a strong example to my daughter, and participating in the ‘What Does Your Mother Do’ activity, where students request a description from their parent of what it is they do and why it is important is an opportunity to me to show both Flurry Heart and the other youngsters a positive image of leadership and encourage them to seek out leadership roles in the future.
It is the topic of this activity that I wish to discuss in this letter. I apologise that I have been unable to complete the task due to events out of my control. I hope that you can forgive me for being unable to fulfil such a simple, some would say infantile, task for a school activity for six-year-olds.
I imagine you understand the responsibilities of being a Princess weigh heavily on me and keep me very
Oh who am I kidding. I ran out of time, so I wrote this.
I’m a failure.
I have no fucking idea what to write. I’ve been up until three in the morning trying to figure out what to put in here and I’m drawing a blank. The only thing I’m good for writing is pithy excuses and apologies. It’s all I do.
My daughter asks me to do one thing and I can’t fucking do it.
Fuck.
You must think I’m pathetic. I am.
I meant to do it, you see. I had a schedule planned out. I was going to get to writing it after the Gala last week, but long story short, Auntie Tia has a very expansive wine cellar and I got a bit carried away.
The headache lasted days. Do you have any idea what that feels like?
Probably not. You’re probably a responsible mare. You probably don’t get drunk on the job.
The truth is I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I never expected to become a Princess. I sort of just thought that I’d bring the Crystal Empire back and then somepony would install democracy like a sensible pony. I’ve never taken lessons on ruling. You think Tia prepared me for this? Why do you think she’s spent so much effort making sure Twilight turns out all right? Because she doesn’t want another failure like me.
Sorry if this letter is stained by the way; Shining just brought me another glass of wine and I’m starting to get a bit clumsy.
I wrote three different drafts of what it means to be a Princess. I had so many good ideas. I was going to write about how I want to inspire ponies and inspire my daughter. I was going to write about responsibility and stuff. I was going to writ about
I was going to write abot
Shit
I was going to write about how the future of Equestria is important to me. Or something.
But I have no idea what I’m doing. I just sit on a chair and try as hard as I can to not look like an idiot. Policy? Infrastructure? Fuck me I just make horses kiss I don’t know what those words mean
and I’m supposed to raise Flurry to be like me? Thank Tia she takes after her father. But no that would be too easy she has to be born a fucking alicorn
Do you have any idea how insane it is for Flurry to be born an alicorn? I wasn’t prepared for that. That’s not supposed to happen. It’s against the law. You’re supposed to be made an alicorn by cosmic farts not just pop out of the oven freshly winged and horned up!
What the hay am I supposed to do about that? File the horn down? I can’t raise an alicorn. I don’t even know how those work!
The truth is I don’t know why I’m an alicorn
We pretended that it was because I discovered the magic of lvoe love or something because I can make ponies want to have sex but if you think about it I couldn't cast that spell when I was a pegasus so I have no idea why this happened. I didn't even have a boyfriend when I became an alicorn
I’m a fraud. I used to be a pegasus. I can barely cast spells. Shining casts most of them for me and I just make my horn glow because all I can do is make horses kiss
Why is all I can do make horses kiss?!
That’s right. When the Crystal Empire came back I wasn’t the one protecting it
It was shining. Of course it was. He’s the one that knows how fucking protection spells work. I just had the flu
Colic
whatever it is.
I’m just one big
Shit
I’m just one big accident. All I wanted was to be happy with my sexy unicorn boyfriend and then I got this horn and everything spiralled out of control. I didn’t even want foals! Shining got his protection spell mixed up. He had it set to block spam, not sperm! Sure he can cast spells like there's no tomorrow and hot shit does he got stamina but the dumb lug can't spell to save his life
Fuck
I don’t know how to be an inspiration to my daughter. I don’t even know what alicorn puberty looks like. She shot lasers out of her eyes when she was one year old. One! like what even am I supposed to do? The baby store doesn’t sell protective shielding with their cradles. I had to have those imported from the dragon lands and that was only after I found out the dragonlands existed. Nobody told me there were other countries when I took the job! They just expected me to already know this shit
Oh fuck it’s four in the morning
I could have just made something up in the time it took to write this
Just another mistake for the pile
anyway
Thank you for your understanding in this matter. I would greatly appreciate it if you could pretend there was literally anything remotely of value in this letter so Flurry doesn’t know I’m an abject failure.
Please give her a good grade. I'm sorry I'm your ruler.
Sincerely,
Her Royal Majesty and Ruler of the Crystal Empire
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza
fuckup
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Contest? What was the prompt? A letter?
But anyway- this must be a coincidence because I'm... writing a fic similar to this...
edit: Oh I didn't realize this was from you, Hap. Have a great day
10787076 https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215615/cadance-is-a-terrible-mom-2021-competition
Deadline is in, uh, five hours I think so if you want to get in on this now's the time.
10787076
Most likely the Cadance is a Terrible Mom contest from what’s been popping up in the new stories column these few days. I don’t know for sure though
10787079 Nope, that's the one.
I, uh, went through a process similar to Cadance here. Well! It is what it is.
God Hap this was brilliant. Tragic yet hilarious all the same and just so delightfully meta. This was a wonderful way to start my morning!
Hahahahahaha good one! This one lightened up my evening like a Christmas tree on Hearth Warming's Eve Night! I can't say I understand what it's like to raise a child and feel I'm inadequate for the task, but I can say I know what it's like when you're given an overwhelming task and feel like you're not good enough. It's a place a lot of us have been to, and you did a splendid job of comically writing that out into a story. Good job, Hap, and hope to read many more stories from you in the future!
10787199 10787185 Glad you folks enjoyed it!
I've discovered that editing is a lot easier when the pony writing the story in-universe is drunk. A lot of those 'intentional' mistakes were, uh
Well they are what they are.
I feel bad for her, poor Cadence
10787383 Don't feel too bad. The price for her existential angst is, ultimately, a hot husband, a palace, a lot of cash, and a free invite to every party in Equestria.
Could be wooooorse!
Thanks for the entry!
10787078
Deadline in 10 hours, actually.
10787405 What? Really?
I'm pretty sure 11:59 Central Timezone is 17:59 british time...
I mean, I'm not complaining, but now my hilarious meta joke has been undercut! I'll have to unpublish and post it closer to the deadline. Or I won't do that, because that sounds like effort. But I should.
10787410
You got the wrong 11:59 lmao. Submissions are due by 12 AM. It's PM.
10787413 Ah you meant to write 23:59. It makes sense now.
Well this is where we are today! I'll just rebrand and say that I was getting in early out of a sense of punctuality or something. You know how it is. It's all about the marketing beybeeeeeee.
Darn, Cadance! You always struck me as the nicest of the princesses, but... good God, girl! That language
! I guess it's true what they say - it's always the quiet ones... 
one of the best jokes I've read in this site
Now I want a sequel where Miss Hardcase sends her own drunk/depressed confession letter telling her how she also has no idea what she's doing and that she was scared shitless about requesting something from a princess.
10787494 Aw man that has such Hero of the Imperium vibes now you mention that.
Mmmmmooood Kindred!
10787473 It is a truth universally acknowledged that any character no matter how prim and proper, when written by a scotsman may at any point turn into a foul mouthed sailor.
Jokes aside, I had a good time laughing with this story! It's both odd and yet funny seeing Cadance throwing down swears like a pro
10788097 I like to think that this is all the pent-up frustration she feels at writing the same letter over and over again exploding in one explosive tirade of self-deprecation. Imposter syndrome at its finest.
It's silly stories like these that remind me why I am still on this website. Thank you.
10789271 Anytime! I enjoy writing wacky stuff from time to time. : )
It's relaxing.
Last minute “cadence is a bad mom” contest entries are my new favorite microgenre.
10789589 They are certainly something!
I have a bit of a history of submitting contest entries last minute. Not my Rescuer was written and edited about 10 hours or something before the deadline and Farm Responsibility was written only 2 hours before the deadline.
I'm not happy that it's my specialty but this is where I'm at today I guess.
Amazing. The most in-character and show-accurate Cadence I've seen, that also makes the most sense of the canon surrounding her.
10789623
While I usually spend months on even the simplest story, I occasionally write a story in a day or less. A couple of these have been well received and one is unambiguously one of my best stories.
Several other of these stories were very definitely not either.
10789957 I personally suspect that especially for folk like us (I used to spend a long, long time writing stories, much like you describe) writing something off-the-cuff allows for a 'higher energy' style that might be more enticing in a few ways.
But that's just based on anecdotal experience. I try to do a mix of both these days since I've found that writing things quickly is, to be honest, pretty relaxing. It's why I decided to try speedwriting, which also taught me a bit about writing I hadn't known I was missing.
10789837 Cadance is weird, to be fair.
10790377
There’s a message for my perfectionism here.
10790454 Ha ha, yes, my perfectionism side doesn't like it to be fair.
One of the reasons I'm a bit addicted to contests is because it often forces me to shelve endlessly tweaking, editing, and re-drafting stories, which is something I've done. Whilst the actual writing stage of Titanium Jack was done only over about a month to two months, the initial ideas had gone through drafts for over a year before then, all of which I threw away. This meant I could write with a very mature, well-develloped idea, but it was a very delicate, precise process.
By contrast racing through something and blasting through it in a day simply feels more energetic and raw. It's not as polished and sometimes it goes completely wrong, but when it works well it feels uniquely satisfying, like pulling off a trick shot on the first try. Given the choice I'd like to be good at both delicately piecing together a story over a long time as well as just wing it. : )
If you're at all interested in speedwriting, there's a discord group I joined which regularly does informal little speedwriting contests. These vary from the very silly and absurd, to more serious and conventional. Info here.
10790468
I openly acknowledge my perfectionism is a flaw. If we're talking personal satisfaction, "I finished something" is a much bigger boost than "This novel I've rewritten nine times might be really good one day". And that's NOT a hypothetical example. And in terms of success (by any metric) quality beyond a very basic level of competence is almost irrelevant, and persistence and luck are the primary determinants.
So, yeah, Quills and Sofas intimidates me but I'll give it a try. I think I might try to write something today. It will be terrible clop tho. I'm sorry.
10790486 It is what it is!
At the end of the day whatever helps you write is going to be a good thing, and frankly, some folks enjoy spending ages and ages tweaking something to satisfaction, which is fair enough so long as it's delivering what they want. I quite like variety, so I try to inject different vibes into what I write, if only so it continues to amuse me.
Good to hear you're going to be writing! And good luck with your terrible clop! : )
I really feel for Cadance, this isn't her fault its Celestia's ponies and people who don't know what their doing shouldnt be leaders.
66th like lol
At least she was honest
I think that alone deserves an E- at least
You okay there, Cadence?
This is just... sad. She obviously has some abhorrent shit to work through and she could obviously use some help, because it doesn't look like she's able to do it alone.
It would be interesting to see some other perspective(s) on this. Shinings, Celestias, maybe even a reply from miss Hardcase.
She is a beloved. Not only by her subjects, which may project a little bit to much onto her, but by her friends and family, too. And they ought to know her. So it appears to be more a problem of self-esteem than anything else.
And tearing yourself down on a daily basis... is something I'm awfully familiar with. I hope she gets the help she needs.
Good story.
Thank you.
Sure, this is comedic, but this is also pretty damn sad.
11251949 Comedy = tragedy + time
I'm just bad at math.
Good thing the Crystal Empire is like, one city with few thousands of ponies, or something. She can remember most of them by name and pretend that she knows what she is doing quite easily
Anyway, glad I am stumbled on it
Currently in a process of gathering inspiration to write proper Cadence
(yeah, she is an insignificant accident, pretty much)
11637247 Ultimately we are all insignificant accidents in the face of history and the universe. At least Cadance has a hot partner and cool love-powers.
More than many of us get out of life! Poor dear just has moderate imposter syndrome.