1 The Tall Tale Twins
“The map shows our new school two blocks down.”
A large map of Tall Tale floated in the blue glow of Pumpkin Cake’s telekinesis.
“As long as this one’s ours, and not one of the zillion other high schools in town,” said Pound Cake.
The twins’ hoofsteps clacked on the concrete sidewalk, a hollow sound on a terrain so alien compared to the dirt roads of Ponyville. Motorcars sputtered along the asphalt, spewing smelly fumes and honking their horns. Ponies wearing coats, flannel jackets, and other clothing passed by. The sides of the towering buildings were covered in graffiti. Discarded newspapers and cans littered the gutters. Homeless ponies begged for change. Off in the distance, there was a loud bang, and somepony screamed.
Pound shook his head. “I’ll just be glad to get inside the school. There’s too much sketchy stuff out here.”
“Yeah, because crime never happens at school,” Pumpkin quipped.
Pound chuckled as they rounded another corner. “Try to be optimistic, Pumpkin. Why don’t you just give, um… Something Something High School a chance?”
“Chancellor Puddinghead High School?” Pumpkin pointed to the sign, her mouth opening in disbelief.
Pound glanced at it, blinked a few times, and then laughed.
“Wow,” he said.
“They named our new school after one of the worst leaders ever,” Pumpkin sighed. “Way to set the bar.”
“Well hey, sis,” Pound guffawed. "At least they didn't name it King Sombra High School!”
Pumpkin rolled her eyes. “Or Lord Tirek High School.”
The walls were covered in graffiti, the jagged and colorful letters a stark contrast to the faded red brick. Bars covered the windows, and stray cats sat outside, yowling. Outside, young ponies stood, wearing backwards baseball caps and smoking cigarettes that smelled like melted cough drops.
The twins walked in the door. A line of students snaked for many yards through the lobby. At the front of the line stood an obese, tan earth security stallion. He chewed gum obnoxiously loud and wore a blue polo with the nametag ‘Finder Frank.’
Finder Frank would wave a stick over students’ bodies, which made a beeping sound. Then he’d pat them down, search their backpacks, and send them along. Finally, he'd holler “Next!”, repeating the process.
“There was less security when Princess Celestia visited Ponyville,” Pumpkin observed.
“Wow, how many criminals go to this school, anyway?” asked Pound.
"A lot," said a bright-red unicorn standing in front of Pound in line.
The line moved along, the guard’s intermittent cries of “Next!” breaking the otherwise monotonous wait, until finally it was the twins’ turn.
“Next!” he practically screamed right in their ears. Pumpkin rubbed her temples, getting a headache from his repeated cries.
“Hey, we’re right here, why you gotta shout?” asked Pound.
“And we’ve been waiting in line for ten minutes. I think we’d know when it was finally our turn,” said Pumpkin. “We’re high schoolers; we all know how lines work by now.”
Ignoring the twins’ criticisms, Finder Frank simply waved the detection wand over them, his reeking body odor wafting around, his rolls of flab jiggling like gelatin.
“Now just step through this archway and head to class,” Frank said. He pointed to a grey arch labeled Temporary Unicorn Horn Disabler 6000.
“Wait, I can’t use magic here?” Pumpkin asked.
“That’d be like taking my wings,” said Pound. “It’s not right.”
“Security concern,” said the guard. “We can’t have unicorns using magic on campus. They might cast addictive spells like want-it need-it, or they might murder somepony.”
Pumpkin raised her eyebrows. “How would you kill a pony with magic?”
The guard narrowed his eyes. “Let’s see here. You could… snap their neck with telekinesis, turn them into a newt and step on them, hypnotize them into shooting themselves, teleport them off a rooftop, turn invisible and stab them, set them on fire, freeze them, electrocute them, travel back in time and stop their parents from ever meeting, make their head spontaneously—”
“Okay, I get it,” Pumpkin grumbled. “Take my magic, huh? Maybe this really is Tirek High School.”
“Don’t worry. When you leave today, you’ll get your magic back, and you can do all the WINI and drive-by zappings you want,” said Frank. Then, he turned to a student who’d dozed off during the long wait.
“NEXT!”
The student’s head jolted up, and the guard wanded him.
“Oh, so that’s why he shouts!” Pound exclaimed.
Pound and Pumpkin Cake walked the halls, looking for their homeroom. They at least had that ‘class’ together, though their schedules differed otherwise. Pumpkin was smarter than Pound, so she was in the gifted classes, while Pound was an average student, but more athletic, so he was in electives like gym and woodshop.
The hallways were vast and intimidating. The vinyl floor was covered in spills that the janitor—if they even had one—had yet to clean up. Half of the lockers were covered in graffiti. And in just five minutes, Pound and Pumpkin had already seen more ponies in the hallways than had lived in the entire town of Ponyville. The other students only gave the twins two types of stares: leers like cockatrices, or thousand-yard stares. Pound wondered, could they smell fear? Probably.
“Pumpkin, I think we passed our homeroom like, two hallways ago,” Pound said. “Are you sure we have the right number?”
“Yes, I checked it before. I have the class schedule right here, and I’m positive it said room 183. Hold on—”
She tried to unzip her backpack with her teeth, but the zipper kept falling from her mouth.
“Stupid no magic rule,” she muttered, trying to grab the zipper with her hooves now, with no luck.
Pound simply stood by, laughing.
“You look so silly!” he said.
She sighed. “Can’t believe I have to fumble around without magic like some kind of…”
“Zebra?” asked Pound.
Pumpkin glanced up at him. “I would’ve said earth pony, but didn’t want to sound raci—”
She caught his gaze. Down the hallway, a group of twenty zebra students stood around chatting by some lockers. Their stripes blended together, and they looked like a black-and-white wall.
“Never realized how many zebras lived in Tall Tale,” said Pumpkin.
“There must be a Zebratown here,” said Pound.
A young, smiling zebra approached the twins. He wore a set of glasses and had a bowl-cut, solid black mane.
“Hi, you two. You look new,” he said.
They both nodded.
“Hello, I’m Pumpkin Cake.”
“Sup. I’m Pound, her twin brother. We’re sophomores.”
“My name is Zeke,” said the zebra, reaching out for a hoofshake.
A few moments passed. His hoof dangled in the air unmet, like an incomplete suspension bridge.
“...And?” asked Pound.
Zeke raised his eyebrows. “‘And’ what? I don’t get it.”
Pumpkin clarified, “You said ‘my name is Zeke,’ so now you’re supposed to say a phrase rhyming with Zeke. Like, ‘My name is Zeke, and I am meek,’ or something.”
Zeke laughed. “Well, the meek part is true: I am only thirteen, but I skipped a few grades and now I’m a sophomore. But my first two sentences only rhymed by coincidence. What, did you think that I rhyme everything?”
The twins nodded.
“Where did you two get such a silly idea?”
“We’ve only met one other zebra: our friend Zecora from Ponyville. She rhymes whenever she talks,” said Pumpkin.
“So we just figured, that...” Pound started, trailing off. “Ya know, that… because…”
Zeke frowned. “So just because you met one zebra who rhymes when she talks, means that we all do? That’s a tad stereotypical, hmm?”
Pound and Pumpkin Cake both blushed beet red.
“In return for that, you both have to be my best friends,” said Zeke, smiling. “And talk to me every day in the hallway, and sit with me at lunch, and stand out here with me so that—”
“Zeke the geek!”
A passing pony grabbed Zeke’s backpack and dumped the contents out, laughing as he scrambled to pick them up. Pumpkin cursed her lack of magic, or she’d try to be helpful. She was quite efficient at levitating messes off the floor, after years of both living at a bakery and sharing a room with Pound. Thank goodness she didn’t have to physically touch his messes.
“Don’t worry, Zeke; I always protected my sister from bullies back in Ponyville,” said Pound. “Nopony will mess with you while I’m around.”
“Did the Ponyville bullies have knives and guns?” asked Zeke. “Were they in gangs?”
Pound blinked. “Uh, sorry… what?”
“Ponyville is a small farm town with zero crime and not even a thousand residents. There were only forty kids at our old high school. The only knives in Ponyville are butter knives, and the only guns are shotguns to scare away manticores,” said Pumpkin.
“And the only gang is the barbershop quartet that Big Macintosh was in,” said Pound.
Zeke shook his head. “The bullies at Puddinghead High are different. They’re all in gangs. I try to steer clear of them, but they target me for being nerdy. They’ve even threatened my life.”
Pound and Pumpkin Cake shook their heads.
“That’s terrible,” said Pumpkin.
“Yeah,” said Pound.
A few seconds of awkward silence passed. Then the bell rang.
“Oh no, don’t wanna be late, bye Zeke!” Pound shouted, picking up his sister by the front hooves and flying down the hall.
“...And for my current events report, I’ll just do what everyone else did. The fall of the Equal Empire is like, the biggest historical event since Luna’s return. I’m just so happy that those millions of ponies can enjoy their special talents again, instead of living under Starlight Glimmer’s planned economy. Best of all, Equestria can finally stop its arms race with the Equals, and we’ll all be friends again! This decade is gonna rule! So… uh, yeah, that’s my report.”
The class lightly applauded the student.
“Thanks, Sunflower,” said the history teacher, Miss Era, groaning at the spate of twenty nearly-identical reports. The monotony had only been broken once, by Zeke, who’d reported on the WINI epidemic ravaging Equestria’s inner cities, including Tall Tale. He had gotten extra credit for originality. As Pumpkin Cake was new, she was excused from giving a current event report, and instead was asked to briefly introduce herself to the class.
“After all, everyone is part of history, even you,” Miss Era had said. Pumpkin nearly gagged at the corniness.
By now, Pumpkin was a novice at using opening her backpack and writing notes without magic, though the notes were hardly legible. Hoofwriting would take much getting used to, but she would never get used to the learning environment. This was allegedly a gifted history class, but the textbooks were outdated, the teacher seemed lackadaisical, and the students were disrespectful. She couldn't imagine what Pound was going through in his classes.
Pound Cake sat in a math class, staring out the window, wishing he could fly away.
“Taking X-squared gives the result.”
Normally, his sister had been the smart one, but either Ponyville High did a great job of teaching him, or Puddinghead High just sucked that bad, because Pound already knew the material.
“Now, who can tell me how much X is? How about you, Bounding Prairie? How much is X?”
The red unicorn glanced up from his desk.
“A lot,” he said.
The teacher shook her head. “No, the answer is sixty-four.”
“But sixty-four is a lot,” said a young mare. The other students nodded.
“Equations only have one correct answer,” said the teacher.
“I got confused in math once we started adding the letters,” said another student.
Pound had to hold in his laughter.
The twins and Zeke sat at a round table during lunch. On the menu was apples and bananas. The bananas were as black as darkest night, while the apples had scrapes on them. The Cakes couldn't stomach them.
“This day just needs to end,” said Pound. “I’m so bored, I’ve fallen asleep in class.”
“But you fell asleep in class back in Ponyville High, too,” said Pumpkin.
“That wasn’t a deep sleep, though. I’m talking REM sleep, sis. I’ve had dreams today.”
“Did you dream about a better school?” she asked.
“That and flying, yeah.”
“I’ve always wondered what it’s like to fly,” said Zeke. “But it’s not what zebras do.”
“What do zebras do, anyway? I mean, Zecora mostly just stayed in the woods,” said Pumpkin.
“In the home country, we drink from the lake, eat grass from the field… and then run for our lives so that a griffon doesn’t eat us,” said Zeke.
Pound and Pumpkin Cake both blinked.
Zeke shrugged. “Eh, it’s not that bad. You just have to be faster than the slowest zebra to survive. That, or emigrate to Equestria like my folks did!”
The twins chuckled.
“I’m just looking forward to the day being over,” said Pumpkin. “I want to go unpack my belongings. We only arrived in Tall Tale last night.”
“Won't you sign up for any extracurriculars?” asked Zeke.
Pound raised his eyebrow. “Like what?”
Zeke smiled. “They’re having signups in here after school. You should come! I’ll have my own table!”
After school, Pumpkin Cake walked through the cafeteria from table to table. Most of the clubs didn’t interest her. The mock trial club was full of students who wanted to represent themselves in actual court for actual crimes, defeating the whole ‘mock’ aspect. The students at the debate team table were having ferocious arguments over whether the West Side Slayers or the Zebra Zaruki had claim to the territory south of twenty-fifth street, and they always talked about settling these debates “outside.”
Unfortunately, Puddinghead High didn’t have a magic club like Ponyville High did, or Pumpkin would’ve joined. Her special talent was intangibility magic, which let her phase solid objects through each other. She could walk through walls, turn ponies intangible like ghosts, and make some unique food items. At Sugarcube Corner, she’d made seedless apples, and she’d hollowed out pumpkins, phasing out the mush and putting cakes inside. This was a funny surprise to jack-o-lantern carvers, who’d cut into a pumpkin but find cake instead of orange goop. Seedless apples and pumpkin cakes were best-sellers.
Of course, Pumpkin didn’t tell anypony at the school about her special talent, and in history class had lied about what her cutie mark represented. After all, given the security personnel's attitude towards magic, she might as well have admitted that her talent was ripping ponies’ hearts from their chests like some Daring Do villain. She might as well have worn a T-shirt that said ‘psycho thug killer’ on it. While some kids at Puddinghead High actually did wear shirts like that, that was beside the point.
Zeke was seated by himself at a corner table. “Hi, Pumpkin Cake. Where’s Pound?” he asked.
“He’s outside, checking out sports teams. How about you? What’s this table?”
“Chess club!” Zeke exclaimed, pointing to a chessboard on the table.
Pumpkin smiled. The game of chess had been the same everywhere for centuries. Not even Puddinghead High could screw that one up!
“Okay, that sounds fun. I’d like to sign up, please.”
Zeke’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? That’s awesome! Here’s our sign-up sheet!”
He pushed a clipboard and attached pencil across the table. Pumpkin opened her mouth to grab the pencil, but then hesitated as she realized how gross that was. How many other ponies had put their slobbery mouths on it? But then her heart sank as she realized that she need not worry. The sign-up sheet had but one name on it: Zeke’s.
“I’ve been sitting here for two hours and you’re my first signup. I’d love to play hundreds of rousing games of chess with you, Pumpkin. Huzzah!” Zeke proclaimed.
Pumpkin blushed. “Uh… that’s okay. I’m not that good at chess, anyway.”
Pound Cake soared through the courtyard at the school, which rather resembled one at a prison due to the window bars. Just like in the cafeteria, many different teams stood around. Unfortunately, they all sucked.
The wrestling team lacked the funds to afford mats, so they had to wrestle atop crushed cardboard boxes. The hoofball team couldn’t afford uniforms, so they played without padding. The basketball team was fully equipped, since that just required a ball and a net. But the team didn’t allow flying, as that would provide pegasi an unfair advantage in getting slam dunks. Pound wasn’t interested in a sport that frowned upon his special talent.
At Sugarcube Corner in Ponyville, Pound had been the delivery colt, and could fly through the air carrying many pounds of cakes, eggs, and flour. He could even carry ponies like his sister or parents for hours over many miles. His combination of flight and strength made him a valuable asset to the family business.
He came across a group of six young stallions holding nine irons, all wearing fancy jet black suits. Golf wasn’t his favorite sport, but at least it was something, and this club actually looked like it had money.
Pound asked, “Is this Golf Club?”
“Yeah, we got our golf clubs right here. What are you, retarded or somethin’?” one of the stallions jeered. They all held their nine irons up high.
“I’m Thin Horsey, and I’m the leader of this crew,” said a lanky, dark red earth stallion in a gruff, hoarse voice.
Pound smiled. “Great, how can I join? I wanna whack some golf balls!”
“Well, I dunno about golf, but I do know that somepony’s gettin’ whacked!” one of the stallions said.
Another stallion said, “Yeah, and if he strays too far outta line, he’ll be swimmin’ with the fishies and lost balls in the water hazard!”
“Hey, fair warnin’, kid. Once you join this little gentlestallion’s club of ours… you’re in for life. This is serious business,” said Thin Horsey.
Pound raised an eyebrow. “I thought that it’s just a game.”
“This is a game to you?” a lanky stallion in the back shouted.
“You gotta look at the bigger picture here, kid. A lifetime. A commitment. A lifestyle,” said Horsey.
Pound backed off. “Sorry for bothering you.”
He left to search for another sports club, hopefully one that involved flying. But after searching to no avail, he just asked a coach.
“Hey, coach, does this school have a flight racing team?”
The coach shook his head. “Sorry, kid. School’s too broke to afford a track.”
Pound’s jaw dropped. “But you’re flying in the air. We could fly over the school, or down the street.”
“Can’t afford it,” the coach said.
Pound protested. “But the air is free, for cryin’ out loud! How much could it possibly cost to have a sky track team?”
“A lot,” said Bounding Prairies, who just happened to be walking by.
Pound groaned. “And how often do you have to repeat that stupid joke?”
“A lot.”
Pound sighed, flew up out of the courtyard and over towards the front of the school, where Pumpkin had just left the building and was walking on air. Literally, she was wrapped in a field of blue, levitating herself a few feet off the ground like a butterfly.
“Somepony’s sure happy about getting her magic back,” Pound chuckled, flying down to meet her. “Find a club to join?”
Pumpkin floated back down to the sidewalk. “Nope,” she said. “Unless you count Zeke, and he’s not a club: he’s one student.”
“Aw, rats. Well, I didn’t find a club either. All I found were sports teams with no money, and some guys in suits who were just jerks. I think they were gay or something… I mean, not like that’s bad or anything; I’m just saying ‘cause of how they dressed and talked. Really dapper, talking about gentlestallions’ lifestyles and stuff.”
Pumpkin sighed. “Let’s just go home. You should fly us.”
Pound nodded and picked up his sister, flying them both back home as they hung their heads low. About halfway there, they soon discovered why ponies in Tall Tale wore raincoats. The steely grey clouds that had hung in the sky all day started drizzling rain on them. Apparently, Tall Tale was having a city budget crisis, so they weren’t paying their weather team. Instead, they’d just let nature take over like in the Everfree Forest, so it rained whenever it felt like it. By the time that they got home, they were both very damp, cold, and miserable.
Pound and Pumpkin Cake walked sopping wet through the door of their new home, a street corner two-level shop a few miles from downtown. The bell above the door rang, and Mr. and Mrs. Cake rushed to greet them.
“Hello, dearies!” Mrs. Cup Cake exclaimed, giving them a giant bear hug.
“How was your new school?” asked Mr. Carrot Cake.
“Awful,” said Pound. “It’s full of gangs, the classes are bogus, and the sports teams are all broke!”
“They disabled my magic like I was a criminal. The textbooks are really bad, too,” said Pumpkin. A ratty, coffee-stained history book floated out of her backpack. She opened it to a random page. “Listen to this: ‘Someday, the dreaded Nightmare Moon may return from her lunar imprisonment and doom Equestria to eternal night.’ These books are older than me!”
Cup Cake shook her head. “I was afraid of that. I tried to get you kids into a better school, but there’s lots of busing, and no school choice in Tall Tale. Don’t worry, we’ll send you to a private school as soon as this store starts making money. I estimate that we’ll be very profitable, once the Hearths’ Warming Season comes and customers start buying hot chocolate and gingerbread.”
It had always been Mr. and Mrs. Cakes’ dream to franchise Sugarcube Corner. They had sold the old store in Ponyville to Pinkie Pie, who’d promised to give the Cakes 10% of the profits. They resolved to start a new store in a major city, then sell that one, rinse, and repeat. They picked Tall Tale, as it had a burgeoning café scene and promising economy. This particular location was close to the headquarters of a growing new tech company.
But the store needed much renovation. The moldy floorboards needed replacing. All of the new baking equipment and coffee machines needed unpacking. The tables needed dusting and cleaning. The former owners had taken their oven with them, so the Cakes had bought a new, state-of-the-art one. The store exterior needed to be repainted, and the Sugarcube Corner sign wasn’t even hanging up yet. They didn’t plan on opening for another month.
“Someday, ponies across Equestria will be swimming in cookies, cakes, and coffee,” said Carrot. “You twins will be millionaires, and there’ll be Suggy C’s in every city!”
“Suggy C’s?” asked Pound.
“That’s what ponies will call Sugarcube Corner for short,” said Cup.
“And in Oatstralia, they’ll call us Suggas,” said Carrot. “We’ll have radio and TV ads all across the world. I can hear the jingle now! Bah-da-ba-ba—”
Pumpkin groaned. “I’m glad that you two have that all figured out. Best to dream big, and then focus on little things like, oh, I don’t know, where to send your own kids to school where we won’t get shot.”
“Oh, quit being a grouch, Pumpkin,” said Pound. “Mom and Dad are doing their best.”
“Great,” Pumpkin sighed.
“I did plenty of market research beforehoof. This store will be very profitable, I promise you, Pumpkin,” said Mrs. Cake, patting her daughter on the head. “Just hang in there; it’s a brief transition for now.”
Pumpkin smiled. “Okay.”
There was a knock on the door. Mr. Cake’s ears shot up.
“A customer!” he exclaimed, practically tripping over his own hooves as he zipped through the boxes to open it up.
“But we aren’t open yet,” said Mrs. Cake.
Carrot turned back. “I’ll just give them a business card and tell them to come back soon.”
He opened the door, and there stood the six suited stallions with golf clubs.
“Hello, gentlecolts, what can I do for you, today?” Carrot asked.
Thin Horsey spoke. “Well, we heard you was openin’ a new business.”
The other five stallions lightly tapped their hooves with their golf clubs, showing that they meant business.
“It’s a nice place you got. It would be unfoitunate…” Horsey started, walking in past Carrot, motioning with his hoof around the room. “...if somethin’ were to happen to it. But with a little money, you’ll be in good hooves.”
Carrot smiled. “I know. That’s why we have the best insurance that money can buy!”
Horsey chuckled, along with his five comrades. Mrs. Cake took her husband aside and whispered into his ear. His eyes widened upon hearing what she said. Carrot turned back to Horsey and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but we’re not interested,” he said, frowning. “Please leave, or we’ll call the police.”
“The coppers ain’t gonna protect you,” said Horsey, walking towards the door and shaking his golf club at them. “We are the law in this town. You two just watch ya back. Your kids, too. That pegasus of yours has a big mouth on him.”
Pound’s head jolted as the stallion walked out the door.
That night, Pound and Pumpkin sat in their new room, unable to sleep. Their two beds were set up side by side. Boxes were still piled on Pound’s side of the bedroom, and all sorts of junk covered his bed. Pumpkin was busy levitating all of her belongings into place on her shelves.
Pumpkin said, “You were wrong, Pound. That’s not some gay golf group. They’re the mafia.”
Pound shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though. Maybe they’re the gay mafia I keep hearing about?”
“They’re not gay!” she snapped. “...I mean, it’d be okay if they were, but they’re not.”
He scoffed. “Well how do you know?”
“Because there’s six of them, and gays are five percent of the population. Do the math. Statistically speaking—”
Pound chuckled. “Even though I fell asleep in math class, I’m still pretty sure math teaches fractions, not sweeping generalizations.”
Pumpkin sighed. “This is the stupidest argument I’ve ever had in my life. I’m telling you, Pound. Mom and Dad didn’t make a wise call. Those mob enforcers will shake down our business until we pay protection money. Bad things could happen.”
Pound shook his head. “Giving money to the mob is wrong, though. That’s helping them out. I think our folks did the right thing.”
“If by ‘right thing,’ you mean putting our lives in danger, then sure. Haven’t you ever read the Detective Cold Case novels? The mob will burn down your house if you don’t pay them.”
Pound chuckled. “You know I don’t read books, sis. I just wait for the movie. Yeah, there’s a risk, and I’ve seen plenty of gangster movies. But we’ll handle the risk as a family.”
“Unless we get whacked,” Pumpkin scoffed. She had finished putting everything into place, and got into her bed, as Pound got into his bed.
Pound started, “You know that—”
“Let’s just talk tomorrow,” said Pumpkin, turning off the light.
“Wanna be rested for school, huh?” asked Pound.
Pumpkin sighed. “Not really. I’ve just had enough of this day.”
As they drifted off to sleep, however, a loud crash awoke them. Pound jolted out of bed, his ears perking up as a thumping sound followed.
“Pumpkin!” he whispered urgently. “Wake up! Something’s going on.”
Pumpkin merely grunted and shifted to the other side of her bed.
Pound sighed, left his sister to sleep, and rushed into the hall. The noise was coming from downstairs. He silently hovered in the air, making his way down the stairs. If it was a burglar, he didn’t want to make his presence known. He peered out.
The shop’s front windows were shattered, the glass shards on the floor glinting in the moonlight. Two earth stallions clamored into the kitchen. Pound’s heart raced as the stallions heaved the brand new, expensive oven onto their backs.
Pound flew over to them, knocking one stallion in the jaw with his hoof. He grunted. But then, a third stallion jumped through the window, ran over to Pound, and swung a golf club towards his face. Pound ducked, and the club instead stuck in some drywall. While the attacker tried to pull out his club, Pound punched him in the stomach, and he doubled over.
By this point, the two earth stallions were heaving the oven out through the window. Pound zipped over, trying to stop them, but a loud, high-pitched noise erupted. A unicorn fired a purple beam through an opposite window at Pound. He fell to the floor in a flash of pain, his mane singed, as he lost consciousness.
“Son? Are you okay?” said Carrot Cake.
Pound’s eyes creaked opened. He jolted up. The bakery’s lights were on, and he surveyed the damage.
All of the shop’s front windows were busted out, and Pumpkin was busy floating cookie sheets to cover them as the cold rain blew in. One of the tables had been smashed in half. Worst of all, their oven was missing.
“The oven!” Pound shouted.
“It’s terrible,” said Cup, her eyes misty.
“I don’t know how we’ll buy a new one,” said Carrot. “That oven cost thousands of bits, and we have little cash right now.”
“We could take out another loan, maybe?” Cup suggested. “I don’t know if the bank will—”
There was a knock at the door. Pumpkin opened it.
There stood two Tall Tale police officers, one pegasus mare and one unicorn stallion, wearing thick black trenchcoats.
“Finally! It’s been an hour,” said Carrot.
“Took you long enough,” Cup grumbled.
“Officers,” said Pound, rushing over to them. “I know exactly who did this. They—”
“Woah, take it easy, champ,” said the policemare. She retrieved a notepad and jotted down a few things, then spoke some lingo into her radio.
“Okay,” she said. “Now tell us who.”
“They came here earlier demanding we pay them. They wear black suits and carry golf clubs, and they go to Chancellor Puddinghead High School,” said Pound.
“Black suits and golf cubs? Sounds like the Tall Tale Mafia,” said the policestallion. He shook his head. “We’ve been trying to get those guys for years, but they’re too slick. Their lawyers can get them out of anything. A few busted windows is kinda low priority. Honestly, we don’t investigate their crimes unless someone got shot, or something really valuable got stolen.”
“Valuable? They stole our two-thousand-bit oven!” Carrot exclaimed.
“An oven’s not worth two thousand bits,” said the policemare. “Sorry. If you paid that for it, you got ripped off. I bet it wouldn’t even fetch five hundred at a pawn shop.”
Cup shook her head. “It was a premium oven with three racks, which could each be set at different temperatures, and was low-energy—”
“It’s an oven, ma’am. You got ripped off,” the policemare repeated.
“Yes, we did get ripped off, when the mob stole our oven!” Carrot shouted. “And you guys won’t even investi—”
“Calm down, sir,” said the policestallion, zipping Mr. Cake’s lips closed with magic. “Like I was saying, we don’t investigate mafia crimes with low-value items stolen. Especially if we only have a single witness who thinks he saw them.”
“Think I saw them? He swung his golf club right at me,” said Pound Cake, pointing to the drywall hole.
“Again, without evidence, their attorneys can get them off,” said the policemare.
“Of course…” said the policestallion, smiling. “We can always do more investigation if we’re appropriately compensated. After all, the mafia is dangerous to go after, and we have plenty more serious calls we’re working on tonight. So how about a little service fee. Say… a quarter of the oven’s claimed value? That’s five hundred bits.”
He held out his hoof expectantly.
Carrot unzipped his mouth. “That’s ridiculous.”
Cup gasped. “We’d never pay a bribe, sir.”
“You say, ‘give us money or else.’ Hmm, where have I heard that one before?” asked Pumpkin.
The policestallion drew back. “Young lady, the TTPD is a respectable organization, entirely unlike the mafia. It’s unfortunate that your parents refuse to deal with us.”
He and the policemare turned to leave.
“Good luck with your new business,” said the policemare.
They closed the door behind them.
“...and mom and dad said that we might not even be able to open for business. If they have to buy a new oven, we’ll run out of cash. They’re trying to get a new bank loan, but—”
“It sucks!” Pound shouted, interrupting his sister. Zeke jolted in his seat, his cheese and broccoli soup sloshing onto the table, where it congealed into something resembling vomit. That couldn’t be safe to eat.
“My condolences,” said Zeke. “I’ve suffered burglaries before, though never from…”
He glanced across the cafeteria, where the suit-wearing ponies all sat at a single table, laughing and chatting.
“...the mob,” he finished. “You might as well write off whatever they’ve stolen from you.”
Pumpkin sighed. “That’s what the cops said. They said that they wouldn’t investigate, because the oven wouldn’t even fetch five hundred bits at a pawn shop.”
“Wait a minute,” said Pound. Then, he grinned. “That’s it! Pumpkin, we should check all the pawn shops around town!”
Pumpkin put her hoof over her mouth in a “shh” motion, then glanced over at the mob enforcers’ table, but they didn’t seem to have heard Pound. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s a good idea,” said Zeke. “I’d wait a few weeks, though. I doubt the mob would offload stolen goods immediately after stealing them. It would draw unnecessary suspicion.”
Pumpkin nodded. “We’ll wait, then.”
Pound flew through the air, the rain splashing on his black raincoat, as his sister tried to hold onto his slippery hooves for dear life.
“You sure we couldn’t just take the bus?” she asked, gazing through blurry eyes down at the buildings far below. She’d rode with Pound in rain before, but nothing like this. A lightning bolt zapped the rod on a tall tower just a dozen yards away from them, and the thunder was deafening. Pumpkin’s hair stood on end from the static.
“The bus? And sit next to homeless ponies who could stab us, and have to wait through a zillion stops to get there? I think I’ll take my chances flying, and arrive in ten minutes. Besides, you can self-levitate. If you slip from my hooves, just float on, okay?”
Pumpkin nodded. “Yeah, I guess I could do that, if I can react in time.”
“You worry too much, you know?” he asked, chuckling.
She sighed. “And you don’t worry enough.”
“Look, we’re here,” said Pound, and they descended to the front door of the Delta Pawn Shop.
“This had better be it. I’m sick of visiting all these pawn shops,” said Pumpkin.
Pound smiled. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
They walked inside, water dripping from their raincoats and manes. Pound pointed towards the exact oven that the mob had stolen from the bakery, sitting in the back.
Pumpkin chuckled. “You phoned here ahead of time, didn’t you?”
Pound blushed. “Uh… maybe.”
The twins walked up to the counter, where a white bearded, cigar-smoking Saddle Arabian horse stood.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
Pumpkin started, “Well, sir, it looks—
“That’s our oven, and we want it back,” said Pound.
“No refunds!” the horse shouted. He pointed at the sign by the counter, which also said, “No refunds!”
“It’s stolen property,” said Pumpkin.
“You say that, but how I know you tell truth? Why you think that sign is posted? You want oven back, you buy back.” He frowned, smoke pouring from his nostrils.
Pound shouted, “This is ridiculous! You’re running a scam here, you—”
“How much?” asked Pumpkin.
“One thousand bits. You come back with money, then I sell oven no hassle. If you have no money, then scram!”
He neighed in his native language, pointing towards the door. The twins walked out into the rain as the downpour started to ease slightly.
“How will we get the money?” asked Pumpkin.
Pound said, “We don’t need to; we’ll just take the oven. We’ll come back tonight when the shop closes. You’ll get us in, and I’ll fly the oven out. Nopony will know.”
Pumpkin sighed. “The pawnbroker paid for that oven, though. Sure, it wasn’t the mob’s to sell, but maybe he didn’t know that. If we take it back now, we’d be ripping him off.”
“He’s a fence! How could he not know a bunch of guys in suits with golf clubs are the mob?”
Pumpkin scoffed. “The same way that you didn’t know. He’s not from this city… or even this country. They might not even have a mob in Saddle Arabia.”
“What about those, uh, Oil Petroleum Exporter whatever guys you told me about from history class?”
“That’s a bit different. He may be a fence, but we don’t know for sure. I’d prefer not stealing from an innocent shopkeeper.”
Pound shrugged. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. We won’t take the oven from the shop. We’ll just take the money from the mob.”
Pumpkin’s head jolted. “That’s not ‘my way!’ My way is that we, I don’t know, get part time jobs or something less risky.”
Pound sighed. “Come on, how risky could it be? After school, we stay at a safe distance and follow those golf club creeps to their base. We wait outside, then when the coast is clear, you phase us through the wall, and we find either a thousand bits stashed somewhere, or some jewelry to trade for our oven. Remember back when we would go exploring in the Everfree Forest?”
Pumpkin laughed. “Yeah, and I was uncomfortable with that, too.”
“But you went, and nothing happened then. Nothing will happen now, because guess what? This mission is less dangerous than that! The mob isn’t a manticore. Clubs aren’t cockatrices.”
Pumpkin grinned. “...Alright. We’ll do it, but we’ll be very careful.”
Pound smiled widely. “That’s my sis!”
After school, the six golf club-wielding stallions strutted down the streets like they owned them. Pound held his sister in his hooves, hovering so high that they’d appear as little more than specks to ponies on the ground. Pumpkin levitated a pair of binoculars over her eyes.
“Alright, they’ve just gone down Ivy… now they’re turning onto seventh…”
Pound groaned. “It’s been an hour. What, is this their grocery day or something?”
“No, it’s just a really sunny day. Gorgeous day to do shakedowns,” said Pumpkin.
One of the few benefits to the twins’ pawn shop-checking expedition was that they’d gotten to know the city’s layout fairly well. Hours passed, and the sun began to set. Even Pound’s sturdy wings were aching from hours of flapping to support his and Pumpkin’s combined weight, but finally she gave him some good news.
“Outside that coffee shop, they’ve handed off a briefcase to another stallion… probably a capo.”
After observing the caporegime for a while, Pumpkin said, “Okay, he’s headed to a mansion over in the eastern hills. Wow, that’s a nice place. I’ll bet that’s where the don himself lives.”
Pound grinned. “Let’s go!”
With a new-found vigor, he raced over to the mansion with Pumpkin. By this time, it was completely dark outside. At the mansion, the rushing waters of a marble fountain babbled. The hedges were all neatly trimmed. Lights shone through several of the windows.
“I think that we should phase through the roof, into the attic,” said Pumpkin. “Then, we can look around. But we should wait on the roof until they’ve gone to sleep.”
Pound nodded. After seeing nopony standing outside the mansion, he zipped over to the roof, his wings aching as he gently fluttered down, so as not to make a sound. He sighed in relief once he was standing atop the shingles, on his hooves again.
Hours later, all of the mansion’s lights were off. Thankfully, the twins had told their parents they’d be studying at Zeke’s, so they wouldn’t worry.
“Here goes,” said Pumpkin.
Her horn glowed a dim blue, causing an intangible opening to appear in the roof. Pound lowered her down through the hole. Once she and Pound were standing on the attic floorboards, Pumpkin cast an illumination spell. Inside the giant attic were many old paintings, furniture, and boxes. The musty smell assaulted their nostrils, and cobwebs covered every corner. Pumpkin jolted slightly at a bristle on her back that she thought was a spider, but was really Pound Cake’s hoof.
He chortled. “Gotcha, sis.”
“Now’s no time for practical jokes,” she scolded. “Let’s find their valuables, take them, and get out.”
The twins searched the attic, treading on the floorboards carefully so they wouldn’t creak. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find anything valuable.
Pumpkin sighed. “I guess we have to try all the rooms on the top floor, instead. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a safe or vault or something. I’ll take a peek, starting in the corner.”
Pound nodded. “Wish I could help you with this part. Good luck.”
Pumpkin’s horn glowed on a portion of floorboards. Unfortunately, intangibility couldn’t make objects transparent, so she still had to stick her head down through the floorboards to see what was below.
The corner room was a large master bedroom where an obese earth stallion snoozed in bed, snoring loudly. Pumpkin figured that he must’ve been the don, given the room’s size and its nice furniture. She trepidatiously cast a weak light spell to get a better glimpse of the room. There was a wardrobe, a large television, and three doors leading to other parts of the mansion… but no safe. Thankfully, the don’s snoring kept going even with the light, so she hadn’t woken him up.
She stuck her head back up through the floorboards and turned to her brother.
“That’s the don’s room. No safe in there,” she whispered.
“Okay. Maybe his office is nearby. I’ll bet it has a safe,” said Pound.
She walked over to another area of floorboards, repeating the process. As soon as she illuminated her horn, she smiled.
This room was an office, with several chairs, a mahogany desk with a nameplate that said “Don Portlypony”… and a wall safe behind the desk.
“Jackpot,” said Pumpkin.
“Okay, I’ll lower us down,” said Pound.
He grabbed her, and lowered her down into the room. They tip-hoofed over to the safe. Pumpkin phased her hoof through the safe door, and felt around inside.
“Here’s a stack of bills,” she whispered. The stack was so thick that she could barely wrap her hoof around the whole thing. She removed the bills. They were all hundreds, with Princess Celestia’s smiling face on them.
“...That’s one thousand bits for the oven, five hundred for the window damage, five hundred for pain and suffering, and another thousand to pay their protection so they won’t bother us again… three thousand bits. Should we take more, Pound? I think that covers everything.”
Pound nodded. “Yeah, that seems fair. Any more than that, and he might notice the stack’s thinner. Put the rest back and let’s get out of here.”
Of course, Pound realized that the Don had probably counted the money before, and if he counted it again, it wouldn’t matter how much the twins took, because he’d know anyway. Pumpkin assumed that he’d discover his money was missing, but since nopony in this town knew her special talent was intangibility, the don wouldn’t suspect the twins. Instead, he’d probably assume his consigliere embezzled it. If the Cakes were lucky, maybe this would cause a rift within the mob, taking their attention off of Sugarcube Corner. Maybe.
Their thoughts were interrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone. Don Portlypony groaned in his adjoining bedroom, rising to answer it. Pumpkin shoved the remaining money back into the safe, jumped in Pound’s arms with the 3,000 bits, and he flew them back up through the ceiling just as the don walked in and flicked on the lightswitch. The twins quietly landed on the attic floorboards above.
Pound whispered, “Pumpkin, I wonder who’s calling the don in the middle of the night. It must be important. Should we eavesdrop?”
Though Pumpkin wanted to get back home as soon as possible, Pound did have a point. If the don was planning yet another burglary at the cafe, she wanted to know.
She turned part of the don’s office ceiling intangible, which he wouldn’t be able to see, but would allow sound to pass through. The ringing infiltrated the attic, soon ceasing.
“This is Portlypony speaking,” the don wheezed. The voice on the other end spoke, inaudible to the twins.
The don said, "...Yes, Neigh Krieg is ours. The Terns fans really love him. He’s signing autographs, and the drones are diggin' like earth ponies on WINI..."
He paused a few moments as the caller spoke back to him.
"...No, the fans won't suspect we kidnapped the quarterback; they'll just think the dummy’s having a bad hoofball season or somethin’. Even if he gets sacked every play, they’ll probably still love him. These ponies are so gullible; they think they have nothing to worry about. The Equal Empire’s fall has lured Equestria into a false sense of security… Oh, you oughta hear them talking about this 'new decade of love'. Yeah, it'll be a new decade of love, alright…"
He laughed. The other voice said something.
"...Yeah, the mob has its ransom money. The enforcers who kidnapped the quarterback were paid their share. Wouldn't want anyone getting suspicious of what we did… alright, I’ll keep in touch. Goodbye."
He hung up the phone. The twins turned to each other. What in Equestria had they just heard?
The first chapter of the Cake Chronicles! Hope you guys are strapped in. It's gonna be a wild ride. 
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
-What is the Don planning? From the story synopsis it might be apparent, but given what Pound and Pumpkin Cake heard and what they know, what would it sound like to them? To them, would it sound like just a mob scheme to kidnap a famous hoofball quarterback for a huge ransom, and try to keep it hush hush from the public, or would it sound like something far more sinister? 
-How else could you kill someone with magic, that Finder Frank and Pumpkin Cake didn't mention? Is it fair that Puddinghead High School gives extra scrutiny to unicorns and potential abuse on their part, but not to earth ponies, pegasi, and zebras who don't have to surrender anything to come to school?
-Besides seedless apples and pumpkin cakes, what other novelty food items could you make with intangibility, that would be impossible to make without it?
TRIVIA
-My most recent story starring the Cakes, Brother Against Sister, shares several elements in common with this story. I've kept the twins' personalities and special talents similar. There's a bit of modification to their personalities and level of proficiency at their talents, given that they've grown up in peacetime in the Cake Chronicles, but wartime in Brother Against Sister.
-Given their special talents and food-related occupations, Pound and Pumpkin have what's known as "meaningful names." This is a common trope in MLP, especially with ponies like Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash.
-Though it might seem like a throwaway joke, "The school is too broke to even afford to fly in the air, lol" there actually would be pretty significant costs associated with a flight track team. At the very least, you'd need liability insurance (flying can be pretty dangerous) and you'd need permission to use the airspace above wherever the team wanted to fly, which might come with some sort of usage fee. If the team wanted to enter any sort of competition, there would be entry fees. Given that less than 1/3 of the student body is pegasi, there just probably hasn't been enough interest in a flight track team at Chancellor Puddinghead High to justify its cost. 
-I tend to break with the consensus of other MLP fanfic writers on this site. Ponyville's innocence and relative tranquility, rather than reflecting on the peaceful state of Equestria as a whole, reflects simply its status as a small town, and the inner cities of Equestria seem to have just as many problems as the inner cities of America. Maybe that's a darker interpretation, but... that's why I have a dark tag 
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- thewaffler · 1.7k words · 293 8 · 6.1k views
- CartsBeforeHorses · 5.3k words · 46 1 · 3.1k views
- Estee · 13k words · 216 4 · 2.6k views
- Autum Breeze · 14k words · 186 17 · 5.9k views
- mr lovecolt · 3.8k words · 119 0 · 2.5k views
- WishyWish · 8.1k words · 124 2 · 2.4k views
- Epic Yarn · 1.2k words · 124 2 · 1.4k views
- Night--Mist · 6.5k words · 110 13 · 7.5k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.076 seconds
Total duration
862 users online
384,188 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
-What is the Don planning? From the story synopsis it might be apparent, but given what Pound and Pumpkin Cake heard and what they know, what would it sound like to them? To them, would it sound like just a mob scheme to kidnap a famous hoofball quarterback for a huge ransom, and try to keep it hush hush from the public, or would it sound like something far more sinister?
Well, he did say "the drones." That and his joke about love are kind of a hint. Pumpkin is pretty smart, but no one has heard from the changlings in forever. I'm going to say on balance they don't suspect changlings. They're probably confused, maybe they think a hoofball star, even an imposter, would help the mob fix matches for gambling money?
-How else could you kill someone with magic, that Finder Frank and Pumpkin Cake didn't mention? Is it fair that Puddinghead High School gives extra scrutiny to unicorns and potential abuse on their part, but not to earth ponies, pegasi, and zebras who don't have to surrender anything to come to school?
I'm mixed on this. In the close quarters of high school hallways, earth ponies would have the advantage in a fight, one quick blow could disable a horn, and then they'd beat the crap out of anyone else. That said, unicorns have the ability to attack others and get away with it a lot better than other races, for all the reasons Frank listed. Zebras do have to surrender their magic, its looks like Finder Frank is searching them for potions. The fair solution would be for the magic device to wrap pegasi wings and earth pony hooves in a similar binding spell. I bet Starlight would love to design the device!
-I tend to break with the consensus of other MLP fanfic writers on this site. Ponyville's innocence and relative tranquility, rather than reflecting on the peaceful state of Equestria as a whole, reflects simply its status as a small town, and the inner cities of Equestria seem to have just as many problems as the inner cities of America. Maybe that's a darker interpretation, but... that's why I have a dark tag
I kind of agree with the consensus, but you do have a dark tag, and fair is fair. That said, between the dark state of Tall Tale, the advanced changling powers, the rise and fall of the Equal Empire, and it being set in the future... I would think an alternative universe tag would fit well on this story.
Anyway, this is an exciting start, glad to see there will be more humor in this story. I definitely ship PumpkinXZeke. I would love to see a Fresh Of the Boat Griffon in Tall Tale adjusting to not being able to eat sapients. Carrot and Cup should really have gotten a business consultant to advice them on their plans, like Rarity did. (How great would Sassy Saddles have done in Mareicopa?) Also, I know this has a dark tag, but please, PLEASE don't replace Cup and Carrot with changlings. You killed them off last time, let them stick around!
6468148 Chapter 2 will show us what the twins' reactions are, and yours is a good guess. All I will say is that they will have differing opinions as to what it was that they heard, and what it meant. You can already see sort of a Mulder/Scully dynamic between them, minus the UST since, well, they're siblings and this isn't that kind of Cake twins story.
Thanks for bringing that up about the zebras and potions, I actually forgot about that when I was phrasing the question. You're absolutely correct that Finder Frank frisking them would prevent them from bringing potions or potion ingredients with them to class. I will have to exclude the word "zebra" from the question. I am sure that Glimmer or one of the Stalliongrad oligarchs would appreciate the business of designing these devices. If the collapse of the Soviet Union is anything to go by, the former Equal Empire's economy is probably in the toilet.
The AU tag is warranted, and has been added per your recommendation. You might have guessed the following by now, as there are many clues, but I will still spoiler it because it does contain hints as to future plotline ideas for the Cake Chronicles. This story is based on the 1990's in culture, slang, politics, economics, and technology levels. I justify this with the idea that in the show, we see see some technology that wasn't invented or in widespread use until the mid 1970's, like arcade games or barcodes on Rarity's fashion magazines. Add 16 years to the show and you would get roughly the early 90's technology levels. As the city of Tall Tale is loosely based on Seattle in the story, I have a few plot lines planned related to local developments in that city that occurred during the 1990's. Think grunge, the rise of Starbucks and Microsoft, and the "battle of Seattle." I might even work in a Frasier reference or two.
A griffon fresh off the boat story is a great idea. I think I might make her a young griffon sixteen years old, so that people can ship her and Pound like you're shipping Zumpkin (Peke?)
The griffon and Zeke can have some interesting friction between them when they first meet. Of course, if I use this idea in the story, I'll be sure to give you credit for it in the author's notes 
I won't give any spoilers regarding Mr. and Mrs. Cake, but just keep in mind that this story is less dark than BAS, and I did put their character tags on this story for a reason...
On your comments on BAS, you mentioned attack platypuses having the ability to sniff out changelings. Now due to how oddly specific you were, I will reveal to you that is actually pretty close to a future plotline that I already had planned. Talk about a lucky guess on your part! This is a minor spoiler, but I will reveal that everyone's favorite Oatsie teleportation master Walkabout will be in the story, and his occupation will be "bunyip rancher." Bunyips are mythical outback creatures, sort of like Aussie bigfoot. Even though they're highly dangerous and carnivorous, as with all dangerous creatures like crocodiles, platupy, and tasmaneian devils, Walkabout loves 'em. He teleports all around the world, traveling to observe dangerous creatures in their natural habitat (Walkabout's teleportation spell is still legal in the Oatstralia portrayed in the Cake Chronicles). Think of the Walkabout of the Cake Chronicles as sort of like Steve Irwin, best known for the 1997 TV show, the Crocodile Hunter. Think of bunyips as nature's top predators, unchanged and unevolved for millions of years. They will indeed be able to sniff out changelings.
Thank you so much for your detailed feedback and ideas for this new story! I hope that, due to its light-hearted, comedic nature, it will gain a bit more popularity than Brother Against Sister did.
Reposting because spoilers didn't work for some reason.
6468559 The sad fact is, I've seen a fair amount of them, so you do need to state that there will be no PoundXPumpkin in this story (thank god!).
The Equal Empire shouldn't be the focus of the story, but I do hope we hear a bit more about them. Did the overextend themselves trying to conquer Yayakistan? Speaking of yaks, is there a refugee comedian named Yakkov-something with that classic joke
"In Equestria, you get your cutie mark. In Equalest Empire cutie mark gets you!
Ok, that news excites me. The 90s is the most hilariously mockable decade ever. Oh shoot, Cup Cake and Carrot Cake are going to start serving overpriced coffee in their franchises, aren't they? Aww yeah, looks like things are finally looking up for the Cakes!
I kind of assume that the minatours are the inventors of technology, and the sell it to Equestria in exchange for surplus food stuffs (bless those earth ponies). It's how Equestria can have such a schizophrenic level of technology, they have great health care tech because Celestia would make that top priority, but no phone lines because it's hard to import that kind of infrastructure, plus Celestia wouldn't want to put pegasi couriers out of business. Of course, 16 years later is when the minatours could have invented it or Equestria just started buying it, so its kind of a moot point.
Please, PLEASE do some Frasier, that's my favorite sitcom of all time! Not sure if pegasi or griffon, but either way "crane" is a good Equestrian name. And a crude Diamond Dog co-worker named Bull Dog! Actually, this could make a lot of sense. Changlings are looking to infiltrate high society and replace popular media figures, right? What minor celebrity is always trying to get in good with Seattle high society?
I loved Pound trying to get a chick, I just wanted to see a griffon absent-mindedly cover Zeke in tartar sauce, that sounds even better!
That is a huge coincidence indeed. I just thought "trained attack platypus" sounded like the funniest thing ever, and I was really sad we only got them in the 2nd to last chapter. Great to hear our favorite Oatsie will be back. "you call that a horn? this is a horn.
6468674 Hmm, I guess I could put a little note in the description that the story will contain no PoundxPumpkin. I didn't have that description in BAS, but for a story literally called "Brother Against Sister," I guess I didn't need it then, lol
Those are all great ideas, and yeah there might be a mention of Yakyakistan occupation. Trying to tell those guys what to do is going to go badly.
Well, let me put it this way. I'm sure that the Cakes did their research before picking Tall Tale. If they wanted to charge five bits for a cup of coffee, I'm sure they'd be able to, if the economy and tech boom goes as well for that city as it did for Seattle in real life. Starbuck's didn't get its start there by accident; the city had a booming economy that could justify $5 coffees. Neither did grunge get its start in Seattle by accident, as it can be a very depressing city where it rains all the time and you can hardly ever see the sun.
As for 90's references, I already referenced Seinfeld when the characters talk about gay people, and always feel the need to qualify their statements with, "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" Notice the twins do the same thing when talking about the "gay mafia."
Huh, I've always assumed that the minotaurs are a really uncommon race, akin to dragons in number. If there were anyone developing Equestria's technolgy, I would think it would be the unicorns (since a lot of magitech has been seen or mentioned). I tend not to get into how technology is invented unless it's relevant to the plot, such as the dragonfire and changeling bombs in BAS. (BTW I do plan on responding to yours and others' comments on the story pretty soon, I've been a bit busy today and could only get to the Changeling Chronicles comments for now).
Glad I'm not the only fan of Frasier! Have you read my story, My Little Frasier, by any chance? That story takes place in Canterlot but I could easily switch it to Tall Tale for the Cake Chronicles if I wanted to, lol.
Among the story ideas that I have planned for the Cake Chronicles Oatstralia, these include a Mad Max type storyline. Mind you, the first Mad Max movie, where he's part of the Main Force Patrol. Unlike the others, that movie wasn't very clearly post-apocalypse and could've just as easily taken place in real life. The opening title card merely said "A Few Years From Now..." with no other explanation. I'm also planning a Rescuers Down Under type storyline where the twins get recruited to rescue a kidnapped Dreamtime from a poacher, who as a hunter of rare creatures is Walkabout's mortal enemy.
6468704 Hmm, I could see the spoilers just fine the first time. Please see my response in the post below this one.
6468783 ............................... Godamnit, now I keep thinking of the title as "Brother up against sister." Why did you put this idea in my head?!?
The Cakes did not seem extremely prepared for Tall Tale, they came off as just optimistic and kind of winging it. Carrot didn't even realize there was a mafia in the area he bought into. It can work just fine for the story, but if you wnt everyone to think the Cakes did their research ahead of time, you may want Carrot to sound a little less naive.
I guessed minotaur because so many things in Equestria are built to work with hands, scissors, doorknobs, dials, etc. Minotaurs don't bother customizing them for ponies when they export. I also rely on comics as secondary canon, and in there, they show a group of minotaurs with some ponies with extremely advanced construction equipment, and they also have Iron Will describe living in a school district where his son attends school.
If a pony race was going to be the inventor, I would guess earth ponies. I get that unicorns could get more fine detail for personal electronics, and their horns could be a power source, but I could see earth ponies needing technology more. "Necessity is the mother of invention." How many tools have we seen earth ponies use that unicorns could just use their TK for? Twilight Sparkle is the most brilliant unicorn around. What does she do? Invent new spells. What would she do if she was an earth pony? The same thing human Twilight Sparkle does, invent new technology. I bet the earth pony Starswirl the Bearded would have left hundreds of inventions for future generations, rather than spells. The main reason I think earth ponies are most of the engineers though, is the cities. Canterlot has no factories, it looks untouched by time. Sure, I bet they have strict period zoning or something, but I can't imagine them building factories on top of a mountain with no reliable transportation. On the other hand, look at Manehatten. Mostly earth pony, and the technology level in that city looks to be about 100 years ahead of Canterlot. The trains certainly aren't being built in Canterlot, they're being built in either Manehatten or one of the other big coastal cities (which may well be earth pony). There are some unicorns in Manehatten, and they could be engineers as well as casting the enchantments on magitech, but its the earth ponies who live in Equestria's main "tech cluster."
Of course I read it, I read it years ago when it came out! Good times.
I think in Mad Max 1 there was no nuclear war, but the world ran out of oil, or maybe there was a war and nobody targeted Australia. Good to see Walkabout having a juicy part. I just realized something awesome about platypuses: Anyone who sees one and hasn't learned about them ahead of time is going to freak out. After all, they look like clear proof that Discord is on the loose again, warping ponies into ridiculous monsters!
6468945 Sorry for that idea
Carrot is mostly responsible for the baking and coming up with new recipies, and is the culinary visionary, while Cup runs the business side of things such as accounting and financing. She came up with the market research and picked Tall Tale, and presumably knew about the mob, which is why she whispered it in Carrot's ear.
"Hey, remember that mafia I told you about? This is them!"
I could stand to have Cup make a better case to her daughter for why she picked Tall Tale though, and that will be added in per your suggestion. Thanks!
The tech designed for minotaur hands is an interesting point. If the comic says something, then it is probably pretty close to canon. There are definitely a lot more engineers and manufacturing in Manehattan than Canterlot. But I still think it is a majority unicorns doing that sort of work. Only earth ponies farm, and only pegasi make the weather, so what does that leave the unicorns do? Design stuff, or build stuff that earth ponies designed. Or run banks and businesses, which is why a lot of Canterlot's nobility is unicorns. I don't think there were more than a few earth ponies buying dresses from Rarity in Canterlot. A lot of unicorns might also be doctors like Stable in Ponyville, or there might even be a few magic healers as talented as Pumpkin in BAS.
The running out of oil theory is supported by Fury Road's exposition, but it wouldn't explain why they still have gasoline in Mad Max 1. The nuclear war theory works except that there should be a lot more snow from the nuclear winter. A conventional war theory is out, because Australia would be one of the first places China or Russia would invade, due to its abundant natural resources. The ANZUS treaty would likely be invoked. (If you think about it, the ANZUS treaty benefits the A and the NZ a lot more than it benefits the US. The US could hold off a land or sea invasion by pretty much anyone for years and never need to invoke the treaty, but if China went after Australia they'd call us up the next day because their military and navy is relatively small compared to China's.)
Lol I should have someone mention Discord if they see a platypus.
6469081 That split of the Cakes makes the whole thing make more sense, If Cup is the business sense and Carrot is the artiste.
Ok, this is going to be an essay, but here goes:
I always figured in the founding days of Equestria, Pegasi formed pretty much the whole military, unicorns ran the government, and earth ponies ran the private sector. That's why Canterlot is like Washington DC, think tanks and government, but the only industry is luxuries catering to noble bureaucrats, while the major trade, manufacturing and population centers on the east coast like Manehatten and Baltimare are primarily earth pony cities. Of course, peaceful equestria didn't need a huge army, so that got downsized a lot, but Celestia didn't think mass Pegasi unemployment was very harmonious, so the Weather Corporation was created, in large part to create work for Pegasi and prevent Cloudsdale from going bankrupt. I suspect that a lot of why Equestria has such tightly controlled weather isn't because it's more efficient for farming than irrigation, it's because nobody wants to fire all those Pegasi.
Even though the earth ponies were at the bottom, they still had power because of a monopoly on food production. Because of that earth ponies were the merchants, with the largest land owners starting to distribute food and expanding into distributing and then producing everything else. That's one of those things that starts as not a big difference (both peasants and merchants are below the military and the nobility) but changes over time.
Merchants heading into an industrial revolution are going to become the wealthiest, especially if Celestia won't let the unicorn nobles rent-seak. I would say earth ponies at this point have actually surpassed the unicorns as the wealthiest tribe, and may already be more influential. Virtually all the ponies we see who are wealthy private sector ponies seem to be earth ponies, even in Canterlot the main private business (the fashion industry) is run by earth ponies, the farmers with big farms, Filthy Rich, those wealthy ponies in Manehatten, etc. I suspect most of the wealthy unicorns we see are nobles.
I think the key difference is earth ponies have a classic American-style view of capitalism and enterprise, while unicorns have a more classic European view towards careers. Earth ponies dream of running their farm, or building their business, while unicorns dream of working in government, especially if they are in the nobility (which I think at this point Celestia has basically molded into the top of the bureaucracy), otherwise they dream of being an academic (Twilight) or an artist (Rarity), the kinds of jobs that a Kennedy or a Roosevelt would not be embarrassed to hold. Of course, bureaucrats, professors and most artists don't make nearly as much money as the owners of large farms, businesses, the rail roads, etc.
Sure you have ponies like Blueblood and Fancy Pants, who live off the interest of amassed wealth as nobles, but if you made a list of the 50 wealthiest ponies in Equestria, I think you would have Blueblood, Fancy Pants, the 2 Senior Most Pegasi executives in the Weather Corporation, and 40-45 earth ponies. I wouldn't be surprised if Diamond Tiara marries a unicorn noble whose family fell on hard times, similarly to the way American heiresses married British nobility in the late 19th century.
I put this in a seperate post so you wouldn't have to search below that monster. I saw Mad Max 1 15 years ago, you may well be right. But I'm pretty sure we have. Australia in our treaty for the same reason they might be invaded: they have great natural resources, including rare earths and stuff we used to build our nuclear weapons in the first place.
It is nice to see a fan fiction about a grown version of the baby cakes. The premise is definitely interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing what you will come up with in future chapters.
I think that this fan fiction might actually benefit from becoming a crossover with Gravity Falls (not so much in Pound and Pumpkin meeting Gravity Falls characters, but this fan fiction following a similar premise of the Gravity Falls show).
What I mean is that when I started reading this I got a very Gravity Falls like vibe from it. But it shies away from this in some aspects, perhaps maybe to separate it?
But this is fan fiction and you can do pretty much anything you want. :P
So if you set it up as them discovering small mysteries that uncover a larger conspiracy (similar to Gravity Falls, but of course in your own way) I think that the fan fiction might take a very interesting turn.
6483235 Glad I'm not the only one who's a fan of the Cake twins being in actual stories.
I haven't seen Gravity Falls, though I have been meaning to watch it.
I actually plan to have the twins slowly uncover various parts of the conspiracy as time goes on. Only much later in the story do they realize the full extent of the changelings' plans. Ever seen the X-Files? It will be a bit like that kind of story arc...
This story is also totally a 'crossover' with the 1990's, and contains a lot of references to 90's tech, culture, entertainment, etc.
6483253 You should watch some episodes of Gravity Falls. You might get some good ideas for the twins, since the main characters of Gravity Falls are also a male/ female twin pair.
I like the idea of the X Files influence though. I grew up in the 90s so I could spot all of the references right away.
Another great mystery/ conspiracy show I loved watching was Fringe.
6491262 Thanks for your kind words
I do plan on some of the characters at the school being semi-regulars in the story, so I think I will leave their names for now. Not positive that all of them will appear again, but I think it's better to name them than to use a lot of pronouns and have everyone wonder who I'm talking about
Pinkie Pie stayed behind to operate Sugarcube Corner in Ponyville. As the Cakes are trying to franchise their business, they sold the Ponyville location to her. It has been sixteen years since the time of the show, so Pinkie is by now an adult and living by herself there.
The two grammar/usage errors you pointed out will be fixed in the final draft before the story is published.
Thanks again!
This review is brought to you by the group: Authors Helping Authors.
Name of Story: The Cake Chronicles
Grammar Score out of 10: 9.5 (Really didn't see anything that stuck out as wrong or interrupted the flow of the story.)
Pros:
1) The Twins - The main characters have to feel important to the reader for their story to matter, and this story does a great job of making the Cake Twins feel like fleshed out characters. The twins are characters that are pretty much blank slates, allowing the author freedom to develop them for what the story needs. There's a lot of little details here that develop the twins, such as asides about Pumpkin's magic, and Pound's skills as a pegasus. They most certainly are not boring to read about.
2) The Atmosphere - It becomes apparent almost right away what kind of setting this story takes place in. There's some good examples of show versus tell, details that attract the senses and help visualize what the twins are seeing, and feeling as a result of what and who are around them. This is very much a hero versus environment kind of story, and the setting is pretty visceral.
3) The Pacing - For being a long chapter, it doesn't feel like it takes forever to get through this chapter. As I read it, I had to pause in reading through out the day due to work, but I found myself wanting to read more, to pick up where I left off and find out what was going to happen next. That's a great thing for any story, and it's a skill of a good writer who knows how to craft a thoughtful story, giving it the time it needs to breathe and grow.
Cons:
1) The Length - While the pacing of this story is very good, this chapter honestly could have been shorter. It certainly feels like at the end of the school day for the twins, the chapter could have ended, with the next chapter taking place when they arrived home. It's a small con, long chapters are generally harder to deal with just based on their length. But again, it's a small con, and thankfully the pacing makes it workable.
2) The Setting - This may be a personal preference on my part, but it does feel as if the author beats it over the readers head that the setting is bad. It becomes a bit of hyperbole, hearing how bad everything is, how ugly and rough and dangerous the setting is. Some of it just feels super over the top that made me go, more than once, "Really now?" We get it, its a ghetto.
3) OCs - OCs are generally hard to work with, more so when they are not the main characters to be fleshed out and put in the spotlight. Right now some characters feel like stereotypes, which makes them a little annoying to read about. This is another minor con, as this story is still new and just starting out. There is room for characters to grow and mature.
Notes Section: I'm still a little on the fence about this story, but it feels like it has the potential to become something very enjoyable. The Twins are really fun, and there is no denying that as I was reading this, I was interested to know what would happen next. If you're a fan of the Cake Twins, this story will be enjoyable. If you haven't read something with the twins before, this is a good story to give a chance to. The Cake Chronicles has a lot of potential and is worth investing time into reading.
This is different. Centered around a teenage group and the zebra.
Someone called me a geek! I'm MFing Zeke!
40.media.tumblr.com/fda06431720046b611e3baeb5756164e/tumblr_inline_nu3v52xbpw1tyoc9j_540.jpg
A new adventure story starring the Cake twins? You have my attention, so I'll track this to see where it goes from here.
6513471 Thanks, I hope you enjoy it
6513479 You're welcome! I've been enjoying it so far and I'll definitely keep on reading.
That's not a school 0_o that's a freaking prison. Same with the "city".
All the same, curiosity has been piqued. Nice
Hmm... not everyday you see a fanfic that is centered on the Cake twins. I'm hoping this story turns out for the best.
I admit that I'm probably not going to read this one (or if I do, not for a while), if only because I'm not in much of a mood for Cake Twins fics at the moment.
But I will say this: I find it really funny that you've explicitly ruled out having anything resembling Cakecest. It is really so common among Cake Twin stories that you felt you had to specify that? And can we take the lack of such a warning in Brother Against Sister as implication that there was a secret undercurrent of disturbing incestuous lust, despite none of the actual story content even beginning to suggest it?
6520879 Cakecest is one of the most common storylines featuring the twins. These are the most viewed stories about the twins. Probably 90% of them are clop. I honestly have no idea why.
Brother Against Sister didn't have any sort of hidden undercurrent. The story lacked the warning because I didn't think that a story whose premise explicitly stated that the twins were fighting each other in a war would have needed it.
Note: This review seeks to emulate the style of one Yahtzee Croshaw of the excellent ‘Zero Punctuation’ series, and, as such, employs crude humor and ridiculous analogies. Despite all points (hopefully) being valid and well thought out, the nature in which they are conveyed is meant to be helpful but entertaining, not malicious. I hurt you because I love you. If anything in this review offends or triggers you, feel free to send a formal complaint to my PR email account ‘idontgiveashitwhatyouthink@yahoo.com’.
Oh, and also Authors Helping Authors merits mention. Ol’ Carty was kind enough to review a story of mine, and thus I shall return the favor. And hopefully make him cry. Mwahaha! If you'd like a similar review plastered all over your story, read one of mine there. Bitch.
Story time, kitties: Way back in the Pliocene, yours truly joined a little group called ‘Zero Punctuation Reviews’ where I happily churned out mean little critiques for people’s silly little stories. Then, when the Pleistocene rolled around I kinda stopped, due to a mix of boredom, growing disinterest, real life deciding to begin butt-fucking me with a rake for a few months and the fact that reading insipid My Little Pony fanfiction week to week was vexing me to the point that not even the strangling murders could bring back the joy in my heart.
However, it wasn’t all bad, for, during the Miocene, I reviewed a story called ‘Brother Against Sister’ by none other than CartsBeforeHorses, who, I must point out, is probably the nicest person on the internet ever. So nice, in fact, that I was aghast at how mean I was in my ‘Brother Against Sister’ review. “How could I have every been so cruel to someone who doesn’t really deserve it,” thought I, “I don’t know what could have led me to such an awful pass.” Then I read ‘The Cake Chronicles’ for about 15 minutes and said, “Oh yeah, that’s why.”
So, let’s make this like the Biblical Apocalypse and split it up into 7 parts.
Part I: Pestilence
If you’re anything like me, then as you begin to read “The Cake Chronicles” a million little annoyances begin to crawl up your spine and sing Lana Del Rey songs en mass in your ear. If the story was meant to be a spiritual successor to “Brother Against Sister” then I’d believe it because, just like dear old Daddy, it has a lot of trouble with tone. Tone is very important, you see, as it is what invites a reader into a story, gets them settled and makes them subconsciously more susceptible to the emotions the story wishes to convey. And I only became aware that “The Smack-Daddy Chronicles” was meant to be a comedy once I saw the ‘Comedy’ tag (AFTER I’d read the whole thing). So it’s safe to say that “The Baked Bionicles” is not funny at all - no laughter, no fun, no happiness.
You see, the key to all humor is an exaggeration juxtaposed against the mundane, usually to point out how ridiculous an aspect of the mundane is. The problem with the story’s attempt at humor is that it’s all exaggeration all the time with no mundane to juxtapose or comment on. The destitute nature of the city is exaggerated, the school’s misguided attempts at safety are exaggerated, student apathy is exaggerated, police corruption and incompetence is exaggerated AND gang/mob (there IS a difference, you know) violence/influence/student count/karma-houdini powers is exaggerated. This is way to much for even a competently humorous story WITH a mundane to handle, and it just makes the settling and characters irrational. That is a problem when your entire reader based is made up of rational beings.
Part II: War
Conflict is the fuel that keeps the story train going and, coincidentally also the interest train. And while there is tangible conflict in “Cake Chronicles”, the story, as you’ll remember, takes place in wacko bizarro world, which has finished buttfucking the tone and has now moved on to buttfucking the conflict. You see, what makes a conflict really work is if it produces or carries the very real potential to produce serious and dire consequences for sympathetic and realistic characters. The only consequence we see is a cake shop getting smashed up, and since the characters that mainly affects (being Mr. and Mrs. Cake) proceeded that scene by placidly dismissing their children’s concerns that they attend a school where (we are told) almost every student is in some kind of street gang and have also moved into a city that is the Detroit to Detroit what Detroit is to every other city in a universe where there is magic and everything is nice and sugar pops to start up a cake shop. A cake shop. In a city that is only shown to be a crime infested slum. A cake shop. I’m supposed to feel sorry for these characters. It’s like asking me to feel sorry for a man who desperately wants have children but can’t because he just finished searing his balls off with a clothes iron.
The story description, which I’ll remind you I read after reading the whole story because I try to go into stories without any preconceived notions or expectations, hints at some kind changeling-centered conflict but I suspect CartyHorse might’ve been thinking of another story because the presence of changelings is by no means mentioned or foreshadowed in anyway. Either a few more concrete clues that a changeling whatever is on the horizon or I was too busy staring out my bedroom window watching construction workers fill a pot hole in a desperate attempt to feel entertained to notice.
Oh, and you need to pick whether or not the acting antagonists are a gang or the mob. The two act very differently. The mob forms out of a closely related group of individuals that, at least on the surface, aim to act like a legitimate mainstream business that just so happens to peddle something illegal like alcohol (during the prohibition), gambling or prostitution. Any violence was usually geared more towards the right to certain products, the same way a corporation would use the legal system. Coca-cola would sue the shit out of you if you were selling their product without their permission and the mafia would send some thugs to kick the shit out of you since they couldn’t use the legal system. The mafia system fell apart in the late 1940’s, early 1950’s (in America, at least) because of the massive demand for narcotics and the mafia families essentially cannibalized themselves for the right to sell the drugs. This is what Don Corleone is lamenting in the Godfather.
Street gangs, however, pop up in “underdeveloped areas” - which is white people speak for where underprivileged minority races ended up after all the institutionalized racism denied them social progression opportunities, it’s just that now we’re too busy blowing up brown people in other countries to try and patch things up with people here, grrr, grrr social commentary. Street gang violence usually has to do with strict territoriality and a cultural mistrust of authority - since if you were black in the 1800’s (or early 1900’s) and you so much as looked at a white woman too long, white people would hang you from a tree and the police would much look the other way. They have to look out for each other because the police aren’t going to do it, so if you mess with one you mess with all and also let’s sell drugs for lots of money!!!
So the mafia is more like, “We have to sell the thing… oh, and let’s look after each other,” while gangs are more, “We have to look after each other… oh, and let’s sell the thing.” and deciding whether or not Tall Tale has gangs or the mafia in it will give the city more of a cultural personality rather than just being a giant blank blob for the plot to take in. Y’know, if you ever want to do some world building. Or give the setting some kind of weight that colors the story. Because right now, it’s…
Part III: Famine
In my personal opinion, which personally I respect, “Chase Chonicles” feels lacking in detail. The majority of the story is told in dialogue - which is at least functional, if you’re into that sort of thing - but everything else feels hungry to be fleshed out. And by hungry, I mean it’s like an adorable puppy starving to death in a shed filled with very, very sharp landscaping equipment. There’s no meaty imagery or really any examples of phrasing that carry a sense of sensational weight or world building. The story takes place on a stage will no established perceptive context or understanding.
It’d be easy to say that this lack of detail is meant to be filled by the reader’s imagination, but I’m not one for the easy approach. Oh no. I slave away at things for four long weeks before I fall into an alcohol-induced coma and vomit all over myself. The problem with leaving out detail for the reader to just fill in themselves is that the imagination is fickle and capricious thing and works best with clear perimeters. A story should give the reader enough sensational context that what they imagine serves the story, and this is usually done through a mix of imagery and tone.
And, as established earlier, tone is fucked right up the butthole, so losing firm context along with it is probably the worst thing that could’ve happened to the story presentationally. It be like having half your house burn to the ground while the other half disintegrates in acid mere minutes before guests arrive. So, with the delicious cakes of first impressions, tone, details and narrative weight all slipped from the chef’s pan and splattered on the porcelain floor, surely good characters can swoop in and save this wedding, right? Well…
Part IV: Death
For those of you unaware, I’m always a slut for good characters. A handful of good characters can save an underperforming story from the the vast, destitute ocean of shittiness, á la Final Fantasy VIII OR it can be a bullet right between the eyes of a good concept, á la The Purge. So where does “Smack Rat Pack” lie? Well, in case you’ve gone into a chemical-induce coma and forgot everything up to this point, the concept of this story did not put a chubby in my cubby to begin with, so having bad characters blows a huge whole in the bottom of an already sinking boat.
The big fat problem with all the characters, the twins especially, is that they are just archetypes. Now there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with archetypes, it’s just that they work best as a foundation for further traits and character development. “Crunk Curnicles” gets as far as the first step, but fails in the second. Rather than being big beautiful house complete with windows, furniture and plumbing, the characters are all just vaguely-house-shaped bits of wood sticking out of the ground with nary a door frame nor a bit of dry wall between them.
Pound Cake has the Slightly-Athletic Slacker archetype, which is just the Jock archetype with all the asshole cut out. Pumpkin is your Smart Girl being clever, studious and socially incompetent, which, again, is just a more balanced out Nerd archetype. She’s also the only character to get something that even resembles a character trait, seeing as she’s pretty racist, which isn’t really a point in her favor. Zeke the zebra geek gets a special mention since he’s the only other character that gets to be in more than two scenes, which I guess makes him the tritagonist. Those among you with fancy college degrees and crippling student debt may have deduced from earlier context that Zeke is in fact Nerd classic. He has glasses, no friends, is picked on by every other student, every single word that comes out of his mouth makes you want to punch him in the fucking face and he’s the leader of the chess club because of course he fucking is.
Every character has to want something that’s unique to them, even if its just a glass of orange juice and a scented bath. What they want and just how they’re prepared to go about getting it sets a lot of the groundwork for their respective character arcs and serve as the hefty potato side dish to the delicious baked chicken entree of the plot (aka Cake Shop McGang’emUp). And since the chicken was under-cooked and had no spice or kick to it, some cold potato’s plopped down on my plate is making this lovely family dinner even worse! None of these characters really want anything… except not getting hurt and not seeing things they like get hurt, I suppose. But I could say the same thing about a gerbil, and gerbils aren’t really regarded as engaging, memorable characters with emotion depth and human complexity.
Another place these characters fail miserably is in their ability to respond to the world. Since this story does take place in bizarro world where people go to bed on the floor at sunrise and there’s nothing grounded in reality, the characters can’t respond the setting in any way that’s believable or fleshes them out without totally destroying the entire narrative. Q.E.D.:
“Hey,” says Mr. Cake, “Let’s sell our successful cake shop in order to franchise our successful cake shop that we’d have just sold! Oh, and let’s start up our first venture into franchising by opening a shop in a city that is literally more hellish than the city of Dis… which is literally in Hell!”
“That sounds like a terrible idea,” says Mrs. Cake, thinking realistically, “Why wouldn’t we open up our first franchising venture in Canterlot or Cloudsdale or any other city that’s not that one? Also why would start a cake shop franchise by selling our first cake shop? Don’t all the restaurants have to be owned by the same family or corporation to be a franchise? Aren’t we just selling a successful shop we poured blood sweat and tears into just to take a massive gamble in hoping that same lightning strikes twice but in a much shittier neighborhood?”
—OR—
“Hey Mom,” said Pound or Pumpkin Cake, there’s really not much of a difference,” Our high school is literally all the worst parts of what underpaid, overworked sitcom script writers that wouldn’t understand contemporary culture or modern teenagers if they were gangbanged but the previous think that high school is like. Every other student is in a gang and we were threatened physically.”
“Holy fucking shit, did you not do any goddamn research on the neighborhood or school district, Mr. Cake,” shouted Mrs. Cake, slamming her hoof into the table, “Honey, you are never going to go to that school again. We’re going to cut our losses and move back to SensibleVille this very instant.”
—OR—
“Hey cop,” said Mr. Cake, “Check out all this property damage that somehow only awoke one member of the family. Said credible family member saw the perpetrators and was physically assaulted by them. Also, I have this surveillance camera footage from this surveillance camera I installed because my brain is located inside of my skull and I realize that commercial avenues are sometimes robbed or attacked or people shoplift or other things that could sensibly happen to a place of business and that having a surveillance camera would make things a million times easier for the authorities.”
“Breaking and entering, thousands of bits of property damage and aggravated assault,” said the police officer as he jotted down notes in his notepad, “These are serious crimes that I would have to take very seriously because I am a police officer and it is my job to take crimes seriously and investigate them. If I don’t do my job, I will be severally punished and in trouble with the law.”
“You’re not going to try and squeeze us for a bribe?” asked Mr. Cake.
“Of course not,” said the police officer, “I’m already being paid to do my job and you only bribe a police officer when you want to him or her to overlook a crime that you committed. You committed no crime, sir, but have had a crime committed on you. If you refused or were unable to pay such a bribe and I responded by not investigating the crime, you could contact my superior and inform him or her that I am not doing my job, for which I would be punished as I stated earlier. To not do so would imply that you are operating on the assumption that the entire police force is as corrupt as hypothetical me and no one has a problem with that, and such an assumption would be ridiculous.”
“It was that gang from school,” said Pound or Pumpkin Cake (the male one, whatever).
“That correlates to all of the other criminal gang activity that we’ve had, seeing as there are other criminals and all of the things that go on in this city don’t just happen specifically to you,” said the police officer, “With this evidence and personal witness testimony, combined with the other gang related criminal activity and evidence that has no doubt occurred and that we have/are investigating because we are police officers and we don’t ask for bribes to investigate crimes because that is ludicrous, we are going to put those gang members away for a long time. We will arrest them soon and they will have a trial that they will surely lose because no lawyer is good enough to make evidence not be real. They could only negotiate a less harsh sentence.”
See? Nothing reasonable like that could happen because then the rest of the story can’t happen. This story, like HorseCarty’s before, puts story before character. So, rather than have the story be driven by the characters and their decisions, the story drags the characters through scenarios it already decided that it wanted. That’s bad because it makes the characters and the scenarios they find themselves in completely ridiculous more often than not.
Part V: The Last Martyrs
Let me pull my head up from the sea of hatred to say that the story is mechanically very sound. With the mistake of one typo (unfoitunate), there are no grammatical or syntax errors that I noticed, commas were used appropriately which makes me very happy and the whole thing does read very well. Okay, back down again…
Part VI: The Great Earthquake
Here’s where we get philosophical, kitties. I’ve shoved a loot of nails into poor “Cake Chronicles” as I’ve crucified it for your amusement, but this is this nail for the coffin. “Cake Chronicles” simply lacks direction. It’s tiny bits of a better story all Frankenstein-ed together into something vaguely tellable. It’s a bunch of smaller plot arcs, each withered and starved for attention and detail, without any sense of a larger, overarching one. It’s a cluster of story elements all held together with no clear sense of structure, purpose, or progression.
It’s like going on a blind date only to find that your partner is an amorphous mass with no skeleton, garbling at you from across the table and choking down expensive wine. Sure, maybe deep down that goopy pile of flesh deserves to be cherished and loved, but not from me. Oh no. I have standards, one of which is having a skeleton. If not being sexually attracted to what is literally a skin blob makes me an asshole, then call me one. I shall trumpet that word from the rooftops! Speaking of trumpets…
Part VII: The Seven Trumpets
If you’re the kind of person that needs to wear a helmet at all times so you don’t accidentally bash your own brains out and cannot intuitively tell whether or not I can recommend “The Cake Smash Twins”, let me be perfectly clear. I can not recommend “Cake Bake Power Hour”. It’s heart’s in the right place, I suppose, but it’s too busy rolling around in the mud and rubbing its whoopsies all over its face. Picture a loser boyfriend slouching irritably on your couch with a guitar in his hand. “Someday, I’m going to write and number one hit then it’ll be you and me, baby, cruisin’ down easy street.” Yes, I’ll never give up hope on you, “Cake Chronicles”. I’m sure someday you will write that hit, but for now your a slob lazily strumming out covers of Led Zeppelin B-sides on my couch and you need to get your fucking act together. And get a job, you lazy sod!
i always hate it when stories die right out the gate...
9358852
I quit the site shortly after writing this, before I re-joined in mid 2017. Right now I have a lot of new stories I'm writing, and this one is on the back-burner. Which is unfortunate because I did put a lot of time into it. Maybe someday...
Sorry about that
9358909
mk!