//------------------------------//
// For Want of Thermal Paste 
// Story: Alfalfa Haybook Pro M6 (13-inch, early 1000) 
// by hehelover 
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You decide to go to the tech mall today. This may or may not have something to do with your aging laptop.

Being a PC gamer, it’s only natural that you require capable hardware that can handle modern games. You’re not that into photorealistic graphics and don’t really need the most power-hungry computer on the planet, but the laptop you use can still generate quite some heat, thus necessitating the fans turning on regularly. The problem is that fans suck in air as well as dust and after some time said dust will end up blocking the vent, thus rendering the fans nearly useless.

Unfortunately, the fans don’t realize their uselessness in the situation. They just know that the computer’s heating up so they have to work extra hard. Of course, the faster they turn, the more dust they suck in, while the airflow remains nonexistent either way. In other words, they simply make matters worse.

You can’t help but lament while walking through the tech mall—if only you knew how to disassemble your laptop and banish all the dust yourself! Alas, after a perusal of the repair manual, it became increasingly evident that taking this laptop apart requires skills that you may never master in your lifetime. So, once a year you just have to visit the tech mall and pay the repair guys there a hefty sum so that they can do the deed for you.

You idly think about when you should buy a new PC. Maybe next year, after the next generation video cards hit the market. And maybe you could buy a desktop next time, considering desktops are far easier to disassemble. The money you’d spent over the years clearing the dust out of the laptop might have already surpassed its current value, which is a mildly disturbing thought, to say the least.

The tech mall is, as always, a noisy place. However, the noises come not from the customers, because there simply aren’t that many customers. The widely accepted theory is that most people buy their tech products online these days, since lots of conventional tech stores have the bad habit of praying on clueless customers and tricking them into buying something totally not worth the price. As they steadily lose customers, the desperate stores begin to adopt more drastic measures, including some kind of over-the-top “persuasion” which mainly involves pestering anyone who happens to pass by and trying to drag them into the store.

Come to think of it, this is a kind of vicious cycle not unlike the one your laptop’s been going through.

Since you’ve already been here a couple of times, all the shop assistants trying to "invite" you into the shop do not faze you anymore. Generally, just ignoring them—coupled with some evasive maneuvers—is good enough; most of them won’t really give chase. Still, tech malls can also be a really fun place for people interested in electronic devices like you. Online stores are good and well, but you don’t get to see and try the real stuff. All you have are the specs, the user reviews, and the likely photoshopped pictures, all of which can only tell you so much. As long as you don’t buy anything in the tech mall, it is still worth visiting.

You choose the usual route to the repair shop. You don’t think it’s the shortest one, but this tech mall’s such a maze and interesting as it is, you don’t really have the patience to navigate through it under the constant vocal bombardment from the shop assistant/salesperson hybrids. Everything’s pretty much the same as the last time you came here, or at least, no change is noticeable enough to attract your attention.

Suddenly, a dash of colors catches your eye: around the corner, there’s something too joyful and too bright to belong to a tech mall. The store is proudly surrounded by rainbow-colored banners which reminds you of all the gaming PCs/mice/keyboards with RGB lights on them, but those things as well as the stores that sell them are mainly dark-themed, because of course all the gamers are broody teenagers who like to wear black (you briefly look down at the black T-shirt you’re wearing) and usually sit in their dark rooms all day playing games on devices painted in black. Apparently RGB lights are cool but without all the blackness they instantly become rainbow-like and girly and lame.

This shop before you, however, is openly radiating some kind of colorful cheerfulness (or maybe childishness). Upon further inspection, you also noticed the Mane Six’s cutie marks on those banners and various My Little Pony merchandise sitting on the counter. These, of course, only make the shop stand out more.

You do consider yourself a MLP fan, though you don’t care too much for its colorful aspect. You like simpler color schemes, since something too colorful could become an eyesore. Still, you have to wonder why in the world there is a pony-themed shop in a tech mall, and making a slight detour certainly couldn’t hurt.

As you approach the store, you begin to notice more and more particularities. For one, there’s no sign bearing the shop name, and you can’t see anything tech-related on display here. The other unusual thing is that the only person in the shop, a perfectly ordinary guy apart from his pony-themed T-shirt, isn’t doing the usual “advertising”. He just stands behind the counter in a leisurely manner. Maybe the shop can attract enough customers just by its sheer strangeness.

The strangeness doesn’t stop here. The moment you stand before the counter and are about to ask the man about what, exactly, the shop is selling, the previously passive shopkeeper—you assume so since there’s no one else here—suddenly decides to take the initiative. “Are you a brony?”

The unconventional way of greeting customers catches you off guard. Usually shopkeepers try and guess what you’re interested in, or insist that their product will improve your life, not ask you personal questions. “W-well, yeah, I suppose. How do you know? And why do you ask?”

He smirks. “How do I know? Only two types of people visit my shop: curious passers-by and bronies. There’s always a high chance that you’d be a brony… in other words my ideal customer. I think this also answers your other question.”

In retrospect, this does seem pretty obvious. “I guess so. But, this is a tech mall and I don’t see much tech-related stuff here, just some MLP merch. You don’t even have a sign. Bronies or not, you’re attracting customers purely by trying to stir up their curiosity. And then what?”

The shopkeeper winces. “Touché. To be honest, I haven’t come up with a name for the shop because, well, I can’t think of a suitable one. As for what I have in store for you…” He reaches behind the counter and pulls out a laptop. “Voilà.”

The computer has a slim and elegant case, not exactly the same as any other laptop you’ve seen but normal enough. What isn’t normal is its color: the top of the laptop is a deep purple—already a strange color on laptops—and the bottom is a brilliant white.

Before you can form a proper opinion and deliver it in a polite way, he leans close to your ear. “What if I were to tell you that the Mane Six exist in all universes and in our universe they together form this laptop?”

You blink. The tech mall is usually filled with wild claims and false advertisements, but among all the outlandish scams you’ve encountered, this one certainly takes the biscuit. You’re sure that he has no real way of proving his theory and that this is just a slightly dressed-up normal laptop with a crazy price tag attached, designed to rip off rich kids who are naïve enough to believe that magical ponies are real. This said, you’ve almost never met anyone who likes My Little Pony in real life, and in a way this is a rare opportunity. You decide to play along for now.

“Suppose I believe you,” you begin. “Can you elaborate how exactly the Mane Six ‘form’ a laptop?”

“It’s simple, really. Each one of them’s a key component of the laptop. How much do you know about the inner workings of a computer?”

“A little,” you admit. “So let me guess, you’re saying, like, the case of the laptop is… judging from the color, Rarity, somehow?”

“Starting from the obvious, are we?” The shopkeeper flips open the laptop and sure enough, the screen bezels and the keyboard are also in white and purple, respectively. “Apart from the color, look at the beautiful design! Obviously only Rarity can come up with something as fabulous as this. The case of a laptop is like clothing to people, and as I’m sure you know, that’s Rarity’s forte.”

You still have some reservations about the unusual color choice, but you decide to put it aside for now. At least it’s logical. “Uh-huh. So, next, Twilight’s the smart one, so she must be the CPU, right? It’s like the brain of a computer, and arguably the most important component inside it. Suits Twilight pretty well, I think.”

“Bingo! This one doesn’t need much explanation; you’ve summed it up more or less. What about the other ones? Do you have any idea?”

You think about it. What else is inside a laptop? Memory, hard drive, battery, motherboard, speakers, maybe also a dedicated GPU? Not to mention the things on the outside: screen, keyboard, touchpad, webcam, microphone… “Wait, laptops have far more than six parts, there’s no way that your laptop’s completely ‘formed’ by some kind of alternate universe Mane Six.”

“And I never said that the laptop is one hundred percent pure Mane Six. It’s not like those six ponies can tackle every villain easily just by themselves, right? They’re allowed to have helpers.”

“Fair enough.” After all, there’s no way you’re going to buy anything from this weirdo. This is just a harmless little game, and you’re not in any rush. “Though I’m afraid I can’t establish much connection between the other four and all those components inside a laptop. Enlighten me?”

“Really? I thought you’re more perceptive than that. Well then, for starters, it’s obvious that Pinkie Pie’s the screen.”

“How so?”

“Simple. Only she has the imagination to convert Twilight’s thoughts into vivid images. It’s magical, really, if you think about it. All the processor knows are those endless binary numbers, meaningless to almost everyone else, but the screen is able to understand them perfectly and show us everything you can imagine and even things you cannot. Only a miracle worker like Pinkie can do that.”

You’re pretty sure that’s not how screens work, but… is it just an illusion, or does the black screen really have a faint pink sheen to it?

You shake your head. “Anyway, what about the other three? Where do you put Applejack, or Fluttershy?”

“Applejack is both the memory and the hard drive.” Seeing that you’re about to object, he raises a finger. “I know what you’re thinking, they are two separate things. But memory and hard drive are similar enough: they both store data, so they have to be super reliable, like Applejack. She won’t make anything up, what’s stored inside will always be there unless you modify it. As for why she can be two things at once… Let’s just assume that one of them’s her hat. They are just so inseparable that they’re essentially one entity.”

As far as you know, Applejack’s hat never possessed any kind of sapience, so this is a very far-fetched theory. Then again, the whole thing is already absurd and in the grand scheme of things whatever sapience Applejack’s hat might or might not have is just a minor detail.

“As for Fluttershy, she’s the motherboard, of course. She’s gentle and caring; she never argues with anyone so that makes her the perfect one to make sure the team works together. Plus, this laptop comes with a pair of cooling fans. Fans generate wind, just like pegasus wings. All very logical.”

You’re just about to ask whether cooling fans really count as part of the motherboard when you remember the last pony unmentioned thus far. “So where is Rainbow Dash, anyway? I’m having a hard time imagining Rainbow being in a place where nobody can see her. Are you sure this really adds up?”

He smiled mischievously. “Do you know what thermal paste is? You know, the processor can generate huge amounts of heat, and we use cooling fans and heatsinks to cool them off. But for them to work, the heat must first be transferred from the processor to the heatsink, so we put thermal paste between them to facilitate the process?”

You do know what thermal paste is; every time the repair shop cleaned the dust out of your laptop, they also applied a new layer of thermal paste between the chips and the heat pipes. “I know what it is, but I don’t see any connection between it and Rain–”

“The thermal paste is Rainbow Dash because it makes the laptop twenty percent cooler.”



You head towards the repair shop with a tube of rainbow-colored thermal paste in hand—turns out the stuff is also sold independently—because you really need your laptop to cool off so you can enjoy your games again.