//------------------------------//
// The Continued Struggle of Tin Foil 
// Story: The Little Curiosities 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

“And now we’re back to Data Battle with yours truly, Tin Foil! For today’s point of contention, we’ll be tackling what they’re calling cutie marks.”

The video feed switches to footage of pony citizens trotting around in an Equestrian town. With the lack of clothes on display, their cutie marks casually show.

“Believe it or not, yes, cutie marks is what the natives of this alien dimension call the magical and unique identifiers on their flanks. However, benign as the term may be, remember that they are only on ponies. You do not see any of them at all on other creatures.”

The feed cuts to a candid recording of Princesses Celestia and Luna meeting and conversing with Earth’s leaders at a fancy hall. “I don’t need to tell you where this is going, but, for those just tuning in, the relationship between cutie marks and many of us Amareicans turning into ponies with said cutie marks: It only goes to show that the Equus Marenerva Order is further colluding with The Global Conspiracy. How? Exactly: our cutie marks are magical trackers.”

The feed cuts to Data Battle’s live studio. Tin Foil, a purple mare with a stuffy beret, looks straight in the camera’s eye. “I must give credit to the Order for throwing all of us off their scent, even with all of our seasoned researchers and our ever-skeptical philosophers. That this planet’s very leaders did not show any resistance at all to the pony princesses but instead acquiesced instantly showed from the start that there is a secret agreement between them—and if this reeks of the Molly Tough-Ribbon Trot Treaty from a hundred years ago, that’s because it’s exactly like this! The Panamare Papers uncovered untold amounts of golden coins from a still mysterious source a full day before the Change—who knows what else our so-called leaders received for the magical subjugation and conversion of our world into the inhabitants of the alien overlords’ planet?

“Of course, it is a shame to them that the world did not all turn into ponies; otherwise, the infrastructure for a global totalitarian surveillance state would be laid down. However, let’s not celebrate too early. Amareica is a great testing ground and I am not surprised that we, the most free nation on Earth, have been turned into creatures who have natural magic trackers that you can’t remove! This is worse than being tracked by your quote-unquote ‘social’ media without your explicit consent. You don’t even need to lug your phones around to be watched now. And, and... let me tell you that both our trusted scientists and the ‘scientist’ mouthpieces of the mainstream tyranny testify to a single magic field permeating the whole universe. As much as you hear that Dumb Door wannabe Star Swirl the Bearded tell us otherwise, unicorn warlocks and witches from the other side can and will track your every move, especially if they’re from the government and extra especially if they’re ambassadors or otherwise coming over to help us integrate into their subjugation—all just by sensing your cutie mark magic from far away! If we can transfer and track information via Wi-Fi, then it will not be long before they start using this magic field to track us via a magic version of wireless Internet!”

Then, Tin Foil moves out of the way and gets out of the table she has been sitting at, allowing the camera to see her the rest of her body which was covered in a black dress.

“This dress is made from recovered material from an anti-magic throne, purportedly from a known dictator-on-the-run, Queen Chrysalis. It will take us a few days to synthesize and replicate the material so that we can make this available to all who can tune into this transmission despite past the numerous forces that be trying to stamp us out from the public who needs to hear the truth! With this dress, I am magically invisible and undetectable from unicorns trying to spy on me!

“Next up, we’ll have Chive Parsley and how Equestrian weather volunteers plan to instill addicting dependence on outside help, taking away our trust in real government and to force us to become slaves to corporate cronies.”





All the while, Sunset watches Tin Foil and Chive Parsley ramble on about the evils of weather patrol, chuckling to herself that such a group charged through the Change unscathed. Recharged, even.

When today’s episode is done, Sunset stares out at the laptop. Onto her TackTube channel she goes, setting up her camera and microphone. Right before recording, she types the title of her video for tonight’s vlog:

Sunset Shimmer’s Critical Analysis of Today’s Data Battle Episode.