“Do we have anything to run for a cover story?” Type Set placed his hoof to the bridge of his snout to fend off the impending headache. “Run the submissions by me again.”
“We’ve got the vampony story,” Ink Well, a white and black stallion whose coloration helped to offset the constant ink that stained his coat (sometimes Type wondered how much, if any of the black splotches were even natural coloration at all) supplied..
“No. I am NOT going to deal with irate Lunar Guards this week. I’m just not going to do it.” Type Set put his hoof down, quite literally, with a loud clop.
“Actually boss, the vampony in this one is a unicorn.” Ink corrected his employer. “The lunar pegasus is the vampony hunter.”
“Okay, that might be useful, but I don’t know if I wanna run it as a cover,” Type Set muttered, “What else ya got?”
“We’ve got a new chapter from Miss Sunny Days,” the intern Orange Pip spoke up from behind his crowded desk, “Geez, but this mare has some kinks!”
“Heh, trust me, youngster,” Ink Well laughed, “I promise you, Miss Sunny Days is older than your Granny Orange and twice as wrinkled. ‘The Astonishing Voyages of Silver Stars’, yep indeedy, that’s the work of a dirty old mare or I’ll eat tomorrow's edition.”
“No way!” Orange Pip argued vehemently, “There’s no way some old grandma could’ve wrote anything this steamy! This chapter actually has Captain Silver raping an entire pirate crew into submission!”
“All while pining for his… how many wives is it again he has back home?” Picture Perfect, the pretty yellow unicorn mare who handled the illustrations chided. “Obviously we’re gonna run it, but can it not be a cover piece? I don’t wanna draw sexy pirates this week if I can help it.”
“Well we’ve gotta run something for a cover piece! Ink Well, what else have you got?” Type Set barked impatiently.
“Well, I’ve got this little gem,” the earth pony laughed, holding up the copy for all to see. “‘Daring Dash and the Lost Jungle of Peril’.”
At the collection of groans, Ink only laughed and went on to defend his choice, “Oh come on, we’ve been running these for a while now, I say we give this Scootaloo mare some cover space. Personally I like ‘em. Sure the action scenes are a little campy, but the way she writes the sexual tension between Dash and her faithful human sidekick…”
“No, Ink,” Type said firmly, “Just no.”
“Well how about this?” Orange Pip spoke up. “It’s an adventure/romance set in an alternate universe about a human soldier, ‘Charlie’, and his pony Commanding officer, ‘Diane’.”
“You know you’re just throwing that out there to score points with Pic,” Ink Well laughed, “We all know that was one of her picks for a cover issue.”
“H-hey!” Pip blushed fiercely. “It’s still a really good story! Especially by our standards!”
“Excuse me?” Type set raised a stern eyebrow, causing Orange Pip to shrink back behind the mountain of papers on his desk, before the older stallion laughed, “We DO have standards! They may be low, but we have them!”
“If it helps, I’ve already got some pencils for a cover illustration,” Picture Perfect supplied.
“You two planned this didn’t you! You sly little bastards,” Ink Well laughed even harder.
“Okay, it’s a plan. We’ll run the adventure/romance, for the cover. What’s it called again?” Type Set asked, only for the answer to be interrupted by Ink Well.
“Daring Dash and the Lost Jungle of Peril,” the snarky stallion butted in.
“No Ink,” Type Set replied dryly, “So we run…”
“‘One Tin Soldier’, boss,” Orange Pip supplied, “By Mint Surprise.”
“Right, we’ll run that as a cover,” Type Set said as much to himself as to his staff, “The housewives in Upper Canterlot will just eat that up I’m betting. Handsome, exotic, alien soldier fighting to defend the mare he loves and the country that isn’t really his. Yeah, give the noble’s wives something to forget that their real husbands are lare largely sycophants who hide under their beds and wait for the rainbows to blast whatever threatens their gravy train.
Pip and Pic clopped hooves and giggled as the boss continued, “We'll run Ms. Sunny Day's latest little smut spectacle as featured, because we’ve pretty much gotta, it’s our most popular story and if pony’s want pirate-raping smut, I’ll be damned if we won’t give it to them! After that we’ll run the vampony story with a nice juicy centerfold illustration of the evil blood-sucking unicorn noble. Picture, you get an extra bonus if you can make the blood-sucker look like Golden Plate. That’ll play well down in Decanter.”
“And?” Ink Well looked on expectantly.
“And what?” Type set grumbled.
“Ah come on, boss. We gotta run the jungle fic!” Ink Well gave up on subtlety and outright begged.
“Fine, we’ll run it between the personals and the back cover,” Type set rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know what you guys have against the Daring Dash series. I’m telling you, this Scootaloo is going to be the next Yearling! If I ever meet her, I’m gonna be like, ‘Hey, miss, did you know I work for ‘Pony Dreadful’? I’m your publisher AND your biggest fan!’ How can we NOT hook up?” Ink Well rambled on, lost in his own fantasy.
“You know,” Picture Perfect cut in, raising a critical eyebrow. “I hate to rain on your parade but I’m pretty sure this Scootaloo is underage.”
“What? N-no way!” Ink Well stammered.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ve read a few of those, and there’s a lot, and I mean A LOT of new slang being thrown around for that to be the work of a grown mare, sorry Ink.” Orange Pip agreed, although with a note of sincere apology in his voice.
“There’s no way a school filly could write those scenes between Daring Dash and Jake the human!” Ink Well continued to argue. “That’s way too steamy, I’m telling you, Scootaloo is an adult mare!”
“Look Ink, we’ve been friends for a long time,” Type set sighed heavily. “All I’m saying is, if you get a chance to meet this author, make sure it’s in a public place. And don’t say we didn’t warn you. Okay, we’ve got tomorrow’s issue on the presses, I want this laid out, illustrated, and ready to photograph for the printing plates by day after tomorrow. Get to work!”