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// Prologue: From the Diary of a Disgruntled Teenager 
// Story: The Worst Night Ever 
// by notawriter 
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Dear Diary,

I’ve learned something about myself: I’m never having kids.   
Others will have kids – loads of kids! Fat kids, ugly kids, stupid little twerps who spend their free time picking their noses for fresh, salty boogers. “Those kids are special,” parents will say. Never mind their crippling obesity, their nonexistent hygiene, or the unholy tantrums they throw when they don’t get what they want. They’re special!
Parents insist that all kids need is encouragement and love. Yeah, right, those will help them. Just tell kids how special they are and all their problems will be solved. Don’t give up, Junior. You may have 1.5 G.P.A., and all that chocolate you inhaled may have cut fifteen years off your life, but none of that matters because you’re special. Just you wait! When you find your talent and a cutie mark appears on your flank, you’ll know how special you are.
Ridiculous. The truth is, most kids aren’t special; in fact, most of them don’t even matter. Don’t get me wrong, diary. Some ponies are truly special. There are ponies destined to conquer the skies, become captains of industry, or master the arcane arts, but the vast majority of ponies are destined for meaningless, forgettable lives.
Just read a history textbook if you don’t believe me. There aren’t any stories about losers, only the greats. Starswirl the Bearded, the most powerful wizard in history; Private Panzy, co-founder of Equestria; Nightmare Moon, a monster so horrifying, parents turned her into a folk tale to scare kids into behaving. I’m not even going to mention the writers, scientists, politicians, actors, and musicians that have stood the test of time. We’ve remembered these ponies for centuries. Why? Because their unique skills and accomplishments are worth remembering. Janitors, cashiers, telemarketers, and all the other ponies that make a living doing things anypony can do will fade away. Sorry, but it’s true. Those ponies aren’t worth remembering, and when they die, society won’t change whatsoever. He will be missed … hey, who wants this guy’s job?
It’s not just ponies’ jobs that are meaningless: life itself, for most ponies, is meaningless. Think of it this way: a mare can spend her life searching for love, adventure, and power, only to die. After all the hardships and obstacles she’s overcome, her personality, her insecurities, her skills – everything that makes her who she is – will be buried with her six feet under a tombstone, and whatever is on that stone is all future generations will know about her. That’s how it is for most ponies. “Here lies Blossomforth – A loving mother and brilliant gardener.” “Here lies Time Turner – Jazz enthusiast and master clock-fixer.” “Here lies Mayor Mare – A competent mayor.”
That inscription is all a mare will leave behind … at least, until developers dig up her grave to make room for a shopping mall, or a condominium, or some statue dedicated to a futuristic bunny overlord. 
What’s so special about her life, then, when her only remnant is a sentence on a crumbling rock? When she and everybody who knew her are dead, what will she become? Future generations will walk by her grave and see “Her star shone brightly,” or some other generic statement. And that’s it! To them, she’s nothing but a sentence. A nopony. An insignificant atom on a pimple on the ever-expanding ass of the universe.  
The mare’s life has no meaning. She isn’t special at all. How can she be if nopony knows anything about her? After all, ponies are only special when others acknowledge their accomplishments. Criticism and judgment from others are what give ponies meaning; the opinions of the ponies themselves are irrelevant. Don’t believe me? If you had to choose between feeling insignificant and feeling important, which would you choose? The second option always wins. Nopony wants to think they suck. Chefs convince themselves that their entrees are phenomenal when, in fact, they taste awful; authors spend months typing away at what they consider the greatest works of their generation, when all they’ve actually written is pompous, convoluted tripe; and every day, ponies around the world point to marks on their butts that “prove” how special they are. There's a word for this: narcissism. 
And those cutie marks? They prove uniqueness about as effectively as donuts cure heart disease. Just look at that unicorn, Snips. His mark is a pair of scissors, which he got because he’s good at cutting paper. Does that sound special to you? I’m sure that if our copier paper ever rises up against us he’ll be a hero, but until then he’ll be making pony cutouts with safety scissors. Or eating. Or banging his head against a wall, or whatever he does in his spare time. My point is that, by cutie mark standards, a pony as useless and moronic as Snips is still considered special.
Madam Loony had the right idea when she sang, “I live for the applause.”  She knows that as long as ponies love her, her life will mean something. Ponies will remember her long after she’s dead. Her fans will show her music to others, who will then show it to others, who’ll show it to others, etcetera, etcetera ... Then, the moment she’s forgotten: poof! Gone. Nothing special. 
Don’t let Cat Nip tell you different, diary! That filly’s always arguing with me about these kinds of things; hell, just the other day she ran up to me and said, “You’re forgetting about friendship and family. Those make life special."
Well, first of all, Cat Nip, your friends and family are going to die. Unless you do something memorable (which you probably won’t), you’ll be forgotten, and nopony will be able to say your life had meaning. Be sure to thank your parents for that. It’s because of parents that kids grow up thinking they’re special when they’re not. If everypony knew how insignificant they actually were, they’d hone noteworthy skills, make every second precious, and work hard to be remembered. 
And friends? Sure, they’ll make you happy, until they abandon you. Just wait, Cat Nip. You and your friends will promise to be together forever, but sooner or later they’ll leave. They’ll find new interests, make new friends, fall in love, or just try to get away from you. Then, in sixty years, when your parents and siblings are rotting in the dirt and you’re on your deathbed, you’ll look around your room with the thirty cats you bought to fill the gaping void of loneliness inside you. You’ll remember the promise your friends made, and you’ll weep. You’ll pray to Celestia for more time, only to hear your cats mewing; and then, with the stench of feces and urine lodged in your nostrils, your heart will swell with blood, explode, and you’ll die. 
“Here lies Cat Nip,” your tombstone will read. “She loved her cats to the very end.”
Have fun slipping into the void, Cat Nip! 
I’m not letting that shit happen to me, though.
Take a long look at me, diary. What do you see? Sunken red eyes? Scarred forelegs? A long, red mane and a yellow coat? Of course not! You see the blank flank; but don’t worry, I don’t blame you. It’s all anypony sees. For fifteen years I’ve toiled in the fields on my family’s farm, roasted under the blazing sun while I bucked apples from trees, dug moats in freezing storms, and sculpted my body into a machine. When I run laps at school, I leave everypony choking on dust. I’ve broken school records without breaking a sweat, but does anypony call me the Athlete? Nope. I’m the World’s Oldest Blank Flank.
And yet, I, Apple Bloom, will go down in history. It’s only a matter of time. While other ponies waste their lives raising kids that’ll never amount to anything, or congratulating themselves on how “amazing” their cutie marks are, I’ll be learning, training, and planning. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I’m going to be a legend, diary.
And you can go to hell for doubting me.