Starlight Learns About Pranks [Slice of Life, Light Comedy]
Part 1
Satisfied that she had already found all of the available books on the topic of practical jokes and other forms of pranks, Starlight returned to the stack of books that she had been gathering. A brightly-colored addition caught her notice; she didn’t remember pulling it off the shelves. Sometime in the last fifteen minutes, it had appeared on top of the books that she had been gathering from Twilight’s library.
Starlight raised an eyebrow at the crayon image on the cover, which consisted of the disembodied heads of Pinkie and Rainbow centered over a yellow background shape that resembled a many-pointed unsymmetrical star that had been stretched to fit both heads comfortably. She sighed, picked up all three books with her telekinesis, and made her way back to her room.
“Pranks for the Uninitiated by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, illustrated by Pinkie Pie.”
Starlight chuckled at the book on the top of her stack. For all the progress in her friendship studies, she still had so much to learn. This time, it was pranks. A year ago, she’d have condemned playing practical jokes on one’s friends as cruel and demeaning, but ponies in Ponyville pulled them off regularly, hardly ever truly upsetting the recipient.
It doesn’t make any sense… But that’s what the books were for. Starlight took the moment to appreciate that Twilight meant it when she said that there was a book for everything. Rainbow and Pinkie had also just proven that if there wasn’t a book on something, there probably would be soon enough. So far as she knew, their maybe-one-dozen-page crayon-colored instruction manual hadn’t existed until about an hour ago – shortly before it had appeared on the other books that she had pulled from the library.
She stretched her legs out before settling down on her bed, and grasped the book with her magic for inspection. Made out of thick paper, the crayon wax stuck the book’s pages together slightly. Starlight rolled her eyes and thought, Equestria is probably lucky there’s only one copy of this book. Nonetheless, she opened it up. Surprisingly, the first page contained more than the expected one or two simple sentences:
Table of Contents:
Rules of Engagement . . . . 2
Common Types of Pranks . . . . 3
The Jokester’s Toolkit . . . . 4
Picking Your Target . . . . . 5
Step One: Planning . . . . . 6
Step Two: Execution . . . . 7
Step Three (Optional): Punchline . . . 8
Step Four: No Hard Feelings . . . 9
Example . . . . . . 11
The second page succinctly discussed the purpose of pranking (to have fun), encouraged taking a strong stance in a prank war, and warned her away from acting on sour feelings when planning a prank. ‘Step Four’ sounded the most like what Starlight was after, but clearly the rest of the book could provide potentially useful context. Flipping the page again, Starlight was met by a pamphlet from the local joke shop cut to fit and glued in, as well as remarks on each product from the authors in the margins. Honestly, she hadn’t thought either Pinkie or Rainbow had been proficient with pen or quill enough to write that small legibly.
She didn’t pay close attention to the next few pages; a breakdown of the pranking process didn’t mean nearly as much to her as a breakdown of its place in friendship would have, and the drawings, while amusing, didn’t help much. Before long, she found herself at the desired page. She briefly noted that the page on the right was blank, presumably because the ‘example’ made use of another drawing that spanned both pages.
Step Four: No Hard Feelings
Even with the perfect prank for the right target, you should always let them know after that it’s all in good fun, because nopony likes a meany-pants. If they aren’t happy, apologize to them, and keep their feelings in mind when choosing your target next time. Remember: pranks should leave you laughing with them, not at them. Never pull a prank that you wouldn’t go through yourself.
The highly-detailed example provided in this book draws from actual life experiences. The authors of this book hope it answers any questions still lingering about why ponies play pranks.
Starlight smiled. They struck the nail on the head with that last line. She flipped—
BANG
For a split second, Starlight saw things flying towards her. She screamed as she defensively attempted to obliterate the foreign objects with a blast from her horn until she found herself subconsciously trying to hide in the claustrophobic gap between the wall and the side of her bed. She finally settled on shrinking into the back corner of her bed and glaring at the space that the book used to occupy.
By then, the air had cleared, and Starlight could no longer see any of the scary objects, but that didn’t mean anything to her pounding heart. Still slightly panting, she inched forwards and peeked down from her bed.
The book stared back at her, half-burnt confetti surrounding it and clinging to the side of her covers. The right page of the book appeared to have either been singed by her magic blast or partially exploded by whatever Pinkie used to launch her confetti.
Leave it to Pinkie to use a paper party cannon, Starlight remarked to herself. The left page showed more writing:
Got you! We used this prank on Twilight when she was reading about flying right after she became a princess. You two kiiinda think the same a lot.
Now that you’ve been pranked, you’re all ready to start your own pranking career! Make us proud!
—Pinkie Pie & Rainbow Dash
After years of living in the sterilized village that she had made, obscenities had become almost completely alien to her. She was beginning to remember why ponies used them, though. They wrote this part knowing I’d fall for it, she remarked. But they were right.
They aren’t even here to see it happen!
Starlight groaned and flopped back onto her bed. As cheesy as the book first appeared, they had just proven their credibility.
Part 2
Starlight hadn’t been inside Rainbow’s house before, but it was way cleaner than she expected. The amount of clutter, awards, and posters crowding up the surfaces and walls of adjacent rooms came as no surprise, but every room that should could see into – especially the living room – maintained an open feel to it. She wondered if this was intentional and at all related to the fact that Rainbow was a pegasus.
I’ll have to conduct a study on pegasus living habits someday soon. My expectations clearly aren’t up to par. Starlight briefly recalled the uniform style of houses in her village. Gee, I wonder why that is.
She and Trixie had found Pinkie at Sugarcube Corner, and the three of them tracked down Rainbow, who had volunteered her living room when Starlight requested that they find somewhere more private than a random cloud bank floating just above Ponyville. Now Trixie and Rainbow seemed to be competing for who could appear more relaxed on a couch.
“So, who are we getting and what do you need?” Pinkie asked as she dumped out a large bag of what Starlight guessed were of props for her practical jokes
“Yeah, what do you need our help for?” Rainbow asked. “I’ve been kinda curious what pranks Twilight could think up, and your ideas are the next best thing.”
“Well— wait. ‘Next best thing’? I am not that much like Twilight.”
Rainbow sat up and rolled her eyes. “We heard you scream. Not only was that a prank we pulled on Twilight, that was the same scream we got from Twilight.”
Starlight would have been happy to move on, except Trixie took that moment to fall off her couch cushion from her poorly-concealed snickering. Starlight glared at her in an attempt to ignore the mild burning of her ears and cheeks.
When Trixie recovered enough to notice, she replied, “What? You only said it ‘startled’ you.”
“It startled me and I reacted defensively. Let’s move on, please.”
Trixie snorted, but otherwise let it go.
Starlight glanced towards Pinkie and Rainbow and said, “We’re here because, even though I still don’t understand it, you all think pranking your friends is totally normal even though pranks can be mean and embarrassing; I thought of an idea for one to use on Twilight but it also seems mean, especially because Trixie even likes it. and I just don’t think this is a good idea.”
She let out a nervous chuckle, traced a circle with her hoof, and gave them a hopeful look. “Isn’t there, I don’t know, a less mean-spirited way to learn about pranks?” Because I don’t want to provoke the inhabitants of another town.
“Sheesh” Rainbow said. “You know Twilight also freaks out like this, right?”
Starlight returned a glare until Pinkie placed a hoof on her shoulder.
“Awww, don’t worry,” she said. “Pranks are only truly mean when the ponies that play them don’t set up good boundaries or follow them. Sometimes we can lose our touch and go too far, like Dashie did—”
“Hey!”
“—and sometimes embarrassing pranks are useful for reminding your friends, like Dashie, to keep their ego, or entitlement, or massive superiority complex in check.”
“I’m right here.”
“Maybe even all three at once,” Pinkie continued. “So sometimes playing a prank is just like being honest, and that’s a good thing for friendship, right? And when it’s not that, you can think of it like playing a game where you can’t really lose and you show each other the best moves you’ve got, so even if somepony gets you really good, you can admire how they did it.
“I hope we didn’t go too far with our prank this morning.”
“I… well, I guess it was fine. I didn’t like it, but I definitely fell for it even though it was dumb and I should have seen it coming. Heh.”
“Twilight felt the same way but—”
Starlight stepped back. “Oh for—! Ugh. Fine. Twilight and I think a little alike, but we definitely aren’t the same.”
“Of course not, silly. Anyway, Twilight doesn’t usually like silly pranks, but she doesn’t mind the really clever ones. We save only our best ideas for her.”
“Well, in that case, I think I know exactly where to get her.”
Pinkie gasped. “You’re not going to tell her that cheesecake contains cheese, are you?”
“Cheese— What? How could— Why would Twilight care about that?”
Rainbow briefly glanced around. “You didn’t hear it from us, but Twilight is uncomfortable with the idea of cheese. Nopony knows why.
“So how do you want to prank Twilight?”
“I don’t have a plan, exactly, but seeing as we apparently think alike, I can say with confidence that Twilight absolutely abides by every grammar, spelling, and punctuation rule there is.”
“This sounds boring.”
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"When I use cruelty and degradation, it's always for a very good reason!"
This sounds like it will end with a catatonic alicorn.
This was a fun read! I'm 99% behind Starlight on this; I don't really tend to appreciate practical jokes (although I can go for very mild pranks, like adding deliberately silly songs to a shared playlist or pretending that something absurd is true). Hazing rituals like telling someone to ask for a "long weight", I don't like at all. I understand that they're a method of judging someone's character by how they respond to the prank, but I find them unfair and mean.
I don't think unicorns in general like cheese ... just my headcanon.
Also:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/1/27/1074927.png
10276517
To [mis]quote the flavor text of the Magic card "Boot Nipper":
[Twilight has] a number of highly specific phobias, yet that [image] manages to incorporate all of them.
One question: What in the blue hell is “plot-hamfisting?”
10276517
Why is the quesadilla twilights antithesis? It’s funny, but I still don’t understand where this trope came from.
10277534
Probably not the best way to word it on my part (I've tweaked it now). It's when the plot takes over and the characters start saying and doing things that are more convenient to the plot, even if they aren't properly in-character for them. The quality of the story takes a sharp downturn when that happens, and I didn't get very far into it before giving up altogether on this approach.
When I wrote this, I had effectively ended up attempting to take one idea and doing something completely different with it; on its own, the first idea works, and that's why I trimmed off the other bits. With more time spent setting up the premise for the second idea, I have a much better approach for that one in mind now.
"Curious is the trapmaker's art, [her] efficacy unwitnessed be [her] own eyes."