• Published 17th Aug 2017
  • 1,675 Views, 46 Comments

What A Twist! - naturalbornderpy



Everypony thinks they know the real reason why Twist is named Twist. Turns out, hidden inside her personal notebook is a long list of twists. Like how she finally got a Father to call all her own.

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From Wishes To Twists

“What’s that you’re writing, Twist?” Apple Bloom asked, leaning across her school desk to get a better look. “A story for class or something?”

Twist kept her head down, focused on the black notebook she was scribbling in.

“A new twist,” she answered.

“A twist?” Apple Bloom furrowed her brows. “You’re writing about yourself?”

Twist shook her head. “In a few minutes, Miss Cheerilee will dismiss class early because a member of her family came to visit. A very unexpected family member.”

Scootaloo quickly joined in on their conversation. “Doesn’t sound like all that much of a twist.”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle replied, also joining in the hushed discussion. “Don’t twists usually come out of nowhere and shock everypony?”

Twist could hardly hide the faint smile on her lips. She finished her last sentence and closed her notebook. “There. Finished.” She kept her eyes firmly planted on Miss Cheerilee, seated at her desk at the front of the room with a pile of test papers below her. “You didn’t think I was named ‘Twist’ just because I liked making candy, did you?”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “Sort of. I mean… it makes more sense than being able to write random twists in a book and have them magically come true.”

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle again chirped. “If things around here worked like that, then I’d be a Princess in no time! I’d just write it in your book and—zoom!—deluxe set of wings, here we come!”

That got Apple Bloom and Scootaloo chuckling.

Not chuckling? Twist.

That was when the door to the schoolhouse was roughly kicked inward and an older stallion came charging through. He wore a tan leather jacket with patches.

“Cheerilee?” he asked. “Where’s Cheerilee? I heard she’d be here.”

Miss Cheerilee stumbled out of her chair, papers tumbling to the floor. “D-Dad?”

“My sweet cherry,” the stallion exhaled, rushing over to her. “It’s been so long.”

Miss Cheerilee began to cry as the stallion wrapped his forelegs around her. “But… they told me… they told me they couldn’t find you! Everypony thought you were gone for good!”

“Shush now, Cheerilee,” the stallion said, holding a hoof to her lips. “We have a lot to talk about now. Which, by the way… can I crash on your couch for a while?”

Anxiously, Miss Cheerilee wiped at her shimmering eyes, before yelling to the class. “Alright, everypony! Class dismissed! Please… umm… continue to work on whatever it is we were just working on!”

And so, without another word, Cheerilee and her newly-found-father exited from the schoolhouse.

Twist leaned back in her seat, popping a mint candy into her mouth.

“What a twist.”

***

As the rest of the class cheered and hollered as they vacated from the school, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle remained awestruck as they closely followed behind Twist.

“Think it was a prank?” Scootaloo asked the others.

“Aren’t pranks supposed to be funny, though?” Sweetie Belle replied. “Because that one sure wasn’t.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Twist told them.

Apple Bloom quickened her pace to trot beside her. “So, when’d you even learn to do stuff like that?”

“Create twists?” Twist asked, tapping her chin with a hoof. “Well… the first twist I ever thought about was when I was younger and staying in an orphanage.”

Apple Bloom coughed. “You were in an orphanage, Twist? I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were ever even in one.”

Twist shrugged. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago, and not really something you want to talk about lots. Where was I again?” Another chin tap. “Oh, right. My very first twist! You see, when I first arrived at the orphanage, they give everyone a notebook to write down whatever they wanted to, and for the longest time, all I wrote down were wishes I desperately wanted to come true. Mostly, to get adopted by someone nice so I could leave that place.”

Twist sighed, eyeing the dirt underneath her hooves.

“And for the longest time, none of my wishes came true, even though all sorts of other orphans were getting adopted! Then, one night, I got frustrated and thought to myself, ‘To Tartarus with wishes! I’ll try twists, instead!’ And that was when I wrote down my very first twist.”

“Which was?” Scootaloo said.

Twist spun around. “To be adopted by a super, super, super cool pony! A pony that no one would see coming!”

Scootaloo raised a brow. “Rainbow Dash? She seems pretty cool.”

Twist shook her head. “But not triple-super cool.”

Narrowing her eyes, Scootaloo growled out, “What did you just say to me?”

“Here, I’ll show you.”

The four of them stood before a house; a house as normal as could be—two stories tall, white picket fence, a lone bicycle parked by its side. Lawn freshly mowed, too.

“This your place?” Apple Bloom asked. “You live really close to school.”

“Yep,” Twist said, pushing open the door for them. “Come meet my Dad!”

***

“Twist? Is that you? Home so early? And with company, I see.”

As Twist’s adoptive father scooped her up off the floor to shower her with kisses, all of Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle’s jaws flopped open as they all yelled in unison.

Discord!?

Discord, nearly as tall as the ceiling inside, set Twist back to the floor as he returned to the kitchen, flowery apron tied tight around his rail-thin waist.

Twist giggled as she addressed her friends. “What a twist, right?”

“I’ll say,” Scootaloo admitted, blowing a strand of mane off her forehead.

Discord stuck his head out from the kitchen. “Any new twists to report today, Twist?”

“A couple,” Twist answered, grabbing her notebook and handing it to him. “Hard to say if all of them will come true, though.”

As Discord snapped himself a pair of reading glasses and flipped open her book, he told her, “The last dozen have, haven’t they?” Then he hurriedly scanned Twist’s latest page of twists. “My, oh, my. What a twisty year heading in our direction: the reveal of Princess Celestia’s ‘Twilight Goes Evil for Some Reason’ backup plan; the discovery of all those crab ponies—how cute. And what’s this now? The return of the Hayburger’s special dipping sauce!?

He lowered the notebook to scowl.

“They said it was for limited time only! Do those words mean nothing to them?”

His scowl softened to a grimace as he returned to the book.

“Oh, Twist,” he spoke. “I don’t know about this last one.”

Twist stuck her head up. “What? The one about Big Mac and Applejack actually being Apple Bloom’s parents?”

Apple Bloom’s eyes shot open. “Don’t you dare start twisting my family around, Twist!”

“You can’t stop what’s coming,” was Twist’s bizarre reply.

Awkwardly, Discord chuckled to himself and propelled Twist inside the kitchen. “Why don’t you take the banana bread out of the oven while I entertain our guests, hmm? I made it just the way you like it, Twist. Extra bread and with less banana.”

“Awesome!”

First donning oven mitts, Twist got to work slicing up the piping hot loaves. Discord, meanwhile, ushered the remaining foals to the corner of the room and spoke in hardly a whisper.

“Now before you girls say anything—”

Instantly, Sweetie Belle cut him off, sliding a hard hoof under his chin. “Now you listen here, buster! Just what sort of game are you trying to play?”

“And why is Twist involved?” Scootaloo asked.

“And that stuff about my brother and sister isn’t true, is it?” Apple Bloom said, two shaky hooves held to both sides of her head. “Please say it’s not!”

“Not if I do this,” Discord said, reopening Twist’s notebook and drawing a line across the page.

Apple Bloom stared daggers at him. “That’s it? That’s all it takes?”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Actually, not really. These ‘twists’ here? In this book? Mere glimpses on what the future holds. Some real. Some made up by Twist all on her own—like that very last one involving the Apple family. Because the real ones that do end up happening? Happen about six months into the future or thereabouts.”

“What does that—” Sweetie Belle began.

“Even mean?” Discord finished. “It’s quite simple, Liberty Belle. Just because I am Discord, does not mean that I am the only current Discord. At the moment, there’s myself; there’s the Discord that hangs around Fluttershy and the rest of her friends; there’s the Discord from an alternate universe that loves nothing more than the smell of car exhaust; and then there’s the Discord currently living six months ahead of us in time that lets me know just how everything will play out.”

Scootaloo asked, “And you give these future ‘twists’ to Twist?”

Discord waved his claws. “Not exactly. That would just break her little heart to know the truth. Instead, I wait for her to fall asleep and then simply enter her dreams, where I let the upcoming twists hatch and grow and begin to take form all on their own.”

Apple Bloom ventured, “So, your future version told your past version that you’d adopt Twist at some point, too?”

Discord shook his head. “No. I did that all on my own. Twisty, isn’t it?”

“What’s twisty about adopting some foal that wants a good home?” Scootaloo asked.

That made Discord smirk. “When that ‘good home’ happens to be run by Discord, the Lord of Chaos himself. Because let’s be honest here.” His eyes flickered back to the kitchen, where Twist was busy cutting up banana bread and serving them onto paper plates. “Twist isn’t the coolest of fillies, that much is clear. Nerdy. Big glasses. Funny voice. Someone like that hanging around someone like me?”

His smile grew as he watched his daughter work.

“And yet the fact that the two of us living happily together doesn’t make much sense… somehow makes sense? Twist is quite the twist, isn’t she?”

When Discord returned to the kitchen to help with the glasses of milk, Apple Bloom took the opportunity to speak with her friends. “I’m not buying it. What about you two?”

“Yeah. Something’s still smells fishy about all of this,” Sweetie Belle admitted. “Like, shouldn’t there be one last twist to end them all? Because it’s Discord we’re dealing with?”

Scootaloo nodded. “Like that Twist is actually a robot in disguise!”

With that out, she hurriedly ran up to Twist to kick her in the shin.

“Ow! What was that for?” Twist shouted.

“Robot test,” Scootaloo told her. “Don’t worry. You passed.”

Sweetie Belle thought of the next one. “Discord mentioned dreams… so, maybe we’re all just trapped in one!” Turning to the closest object to her, she reached out and nibbled on the tip of a potted plant leaf. Then abruptly spat it out. “Eww! Plastic! Dreams don’t normally come with flavors, do they?”

Apple Bloom sank to the floor as she watched Discord and Twist set the table and serve. She then watched as Discord randomly launched Twist upwards into the air, only to have a small parachute attached to her back magically slow her decent, laughing as she zigzagged back and forth. Lastly, she watched as Discord gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek while he softly ruffled her mane.

Apple Bloom nodded a single time. “Maybe the big twist here was that there was no twist. Maybe there really was just a version of Discord out there that wanted a daughter to look after. I mean… isn’t Discord acting normal for a change sort of a twist all its own? And who better to act as a twist to Discord than Twist herself?”

Apple Bloom waited a moment before turning. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had both gone to the dinner table already, leaving her alone on the floor.

“You done philosophizing down there yet?” Discord asked from the table, happily snacking on a slice of banana bread. “Because if you aren’t, I’m more than ready to steal your piece.”

And so, with little more than a shrug, Apple Bloom found a seat and began eating, too.

Some Twists were better left unraveled, she thought.

Author's Note:

Few things. First: I did not attempt Twist's speech impediment because I've never been able to write drunk/accent-type dialogue.

Secondly: I wanted to write a shorter story after the last few were a bit long. (For me.)

Thirdly: the idea began with the notion of Twist being named Twist due to her ability to predict/create twists. After that thought, came, "Well, here's a twist... Discord's her Dad."

Then I pictured them two together and thought it to be cute. And that, for once, maybe Discord wasn't out to screw with someone. (Or this particular version of him wasn't.)

Comments ( 45 )

good fanfic =3

made me literally bark in surprise

What and why and yes.

8370735
Damn, I was going to do that.

This entire fic was a twist :twilightsmile:

Set

Some Twists were better left unraveled, she thought.

I hate you so much...

SO MANY TWISTS!!! :applejackconfused:

“Even mean?” Discord finished. “It’s quite simple, Liberty Belle.

wut

“Shush now, Cheerilee,” the stallion said, holding a hoof to her lips. “We have a lot to talk about now. Which, by the way… can I crash on your couch for a while?” Anxiously, Miss Cheerilee wiped at her shimmering eyes, before yelling to the class. “Alright, everypony! Class dismissed! Please… umm… continue to work on whatever it is we were just working on!”

Is this implying incest, mad Cheerilee, or what, there're just so many twists

Doesn't That mean that her first twist did come true on its own then?
And if the first twist was true, and by that twist she was given glimpses into the future to make even more correct twists, does that mean she actually does have twist powers but only indirectly? Like, she has the power to glimpe surprising events in the future, and by writing them down she is essentially writung prophecies?
It's too late at night for this

So, there wasn't actually a Twist Note?

...

That's sad. I am sad.

So the big twist is that Twist cannot make twists. Discord just makes her think it's a twist.
:twilightoops: Twisty.

The only one with twist powers is...

THE SHYAMALAN! *pokes people in the forehead* You have all now been Shyamalized. :applejackconfused:

His scowl softened to a grimace as she returned to the book.

Feel like that's supposed to be a 'he', unless you're writing a gender-fluid Discord.

doesn’t make much sense… somehow make’s sense? 

Why the apostrophe?

At first I thought it was going to go the obvious route and include Shyamalan as her dad, until I just realized :ajbemused: no.

8371943
But he kind of sucks at it. Well, ok, the Visit was a good twist, but I wouldn't necessarily say that makes it a good movie. And no, I haven't seen Split.

8371468
I understood it this way: (might be wrong)
Discord was once thinking, what chaotic thing he could do, and it resulted in the first "twist." He chose a filly with a suiting name and gave her the first dream, that she could use twists instead of wishes.

So someday Twist will grow up to become a crappy director?

The return of the Hayburger’s special dipping sauce!?

Discord: "Because that's -- that's what this is all about, Twist.
Twist: Dipping Sauce?
Discord: That's my one-armed stallion! That's my series arc, Twist.
Twist: What the Tartarus?
Discord: If it takes nine seasons of MLP, I want my Hayburger's dipping sauce, Twist.

The reveal of Princess Celestia’s ‘Twilight Goes Evil for Some Reason’ backup plan;

This made me terribly excited as I thought about how Twilight would be driven to evil as a result of reading this document.

8372456
May this dipping sauce perhaps be the
Szechuan Chicken McNugget Sauce

Speaking as the person who named Twist's mother Em White Shyamenthol, I approve of this.

What a twist! Thumbs up.

The fact that your story about Twist making twists doesn't end with a twist is... kind of a twist. :derpyderp1:

Upvoted and faved JUST BECAUSE TWIST.

Ayyy, a reason to like Twist. Not that I ever hated her, but this is cool.

I always appreciate a story and/or author that takes a widely-panned character, flips 'em around, gives them a new feel and drums up some reasoning as to why they're worthy of being appreciated. You did just that with Twist, as you've done with other characters.

I need to pick up on what you're throwing down.

Maybe Twist's lack of a lisp is a twist in and of itself.

So twisty and awesome. 10/10

8372398 Yeahhhh... that's why I used Nostalgia Critic's clip there.

Like, shouldn’t there be one last twist to end them all? 

One twist to end them all.
One twist to find them.
One twist to bring them all, and in the darkness bind--wait, what?

8374069 Sadly, I tend to write only about particular characters: Sombra, Discord, Twilight, the Princesses.

I really need to force myself to write different characters sometimes. Or genres other than comedy/dark.

One day! :facehoof:

8373811 :twistnerd: Thanks!

8373483 You earn both a :twilightsheepish: and a :facehoof:. Sadly, they cancel each other out.

8372958 Somebody write it! :flutterrage: Now!

8371639 Yep. Makes perfect sense to me. :derpytongue2:

8371201 :twistnerd::twistnerd::twistnerd: You can't stop what's coming, Twi. :twistnerd::twistnerd::twistnerd:

8371199 But... but I love you, random internet person. :fluttershysad:

8370671 What does that even sound like, pray tell? :rainbowhuh:

8374332
Bruh, complacency finds us all. I write Spike to an unhealthy degree which may or may not require therapy in the near future. But, as long as you're writing stuff that makes you smile, that's what matters.

8374173
NC's another story entirely. Long story short: I was a fan of him for about a few years, and then his stuff just got old and tired and quite frankly, he might have let his fame get to him.

8374332
I also write about Twilight too much. :twilightsmile: Best pony!

I can hardly believe how well this works considering the character pairing at the center of this.

Well played, sir. Take my upvote!

Ba-ba-bananna bread~

8374593 Uhm... I think you're missing the point of my posting the clip. It was to poke fun at Shyamalan. That was all.

8376033
Oh, I know. I just like calling out NC on being a sellout whenever I get the chance.

8376111 Everyone's a sellout as soon as they can make money. :raritywink:

8383846
I would like to believe I'd try and avoid that.

8384529 *offers you 12 billion dollars to become a spokesperson for the Emoji Movie* You know you want to... :trixieshiftright:

8385635
Alright... but nobody said I couldn't subtly sabotage the movie after I get paid. :trollestia:

8385652 I think the writers already sabotaged it as badly as possible.

The sad part is, there were enough idiots out there to make it profitable. By tens of millions of dollars. Humanity has just proven that they are willing to reward cinematic raw sewage. We're doomed. :facehoof:

8385683
Didn't it bomb the first few weeks it was out?

8385934 It wasn't a bomb it's opening weekend. It made half its budget back on week 1 alone.

It cost about $50 million to make, and at last count it was at $124 million gross worldwide, meaning it has made a solid profit now even accounting for marketing and distribution costs.

Basically, the human race has rewarded Sony for creating truly epic failure. :facehoof:

8387484
Not THIS member of it. Though I DID admittedly watch Iron Fist on Netflix. But unless Marvel does what it usually does with the films and legit LISTENS to the criticism, specifically about Danny Rand and creates a BETTER product the next go around, I WILL NOT watch it. I don't care what events are referenced or what others will be built up from that season; if it sucks, ain't got no fucks.

Um this reminds me about the movie goosebumps and the line

The three parts of a book
The beginning
The middle
And a twist

Over all it was good I like how twist was a character most everyone I meet hates her as much as they hate jar jar binks I don't know why tho and a question will there be a sequel to this story where it reveals twists mother (twist it is twilight) idk :P anyway keep up the good work

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