Goodbye 2020, and Good Riddance!!!

by ThePinkedWonder

The end of one of the worst years ever

“...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!”

There were bad years. There were really bad years. There were horrible years that threatened to tear Equestria apart from the seams.

And then there was last year.

Between one disaster after another and deadly pandemics forcing everycreature to wear masks, it was one of Equestria’s worst years in recent history. Not even the Legion of Doom, who only caused a tiny fraction of the problems, were evil enough to desire such an awful year. They despised it with every fiber of their being too.

However, the nightmarish year was finally, mercifully, over. Equestria and beyond would celebrate. It was party time!

Over the grand city of Canterlot, Equestria’s ruler, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and her Royal Advisor, Spike, performed aerial loops while releasing ecstatic whoops as they sang. Their masks partially muffled their voices and hid their grins, but not the duo's happiness. One-half of the sky was clear blue with the sun shining like a gentle guardian. With the moon proudly glowing, a dark-blue, star-ridden sight covered the sky’s other half.

Below the elated alicorn and dragon, the citizens of Canterlot, each maintaining a short but safe distance from one another, engaged in joyful singing and stomping their hooves in applause. Balloons and confetti littered the air, and parades marched through the streets. In front of the Royal Castle’s front doors, ex-Princess Celestia and ex-Princess Luna, wearing dresses, performed the can-can dance.

---

The quaint town of Ponyville showed a similar sight of balloons raising, raining of confetti, and ponies celebrating. Or, mostly ponies.

Outside the School of Friendship, Starlight Glimmer and the ex-Queen of the changelings, Chrysalis, entertained the school's cheering and singing students with frontflips and backflips. Surprisingly, their movements were in sync, despite how they were both winging it.

Trixie, Sunburst, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders gave out bags of popcorn to the students. Discord, the school’s Head Draconequus for a day (It was Twilight Sparkle’s idea!) lay in a hammock while chowing down on popcorn.

In Ponyville’s town square, Pinkie Pie and her fiance, Cheese Sandwich, teamed up to throw the largest party that Ponyville had ever been graced with. A colossal pink cake, as tall as the Royal Castle in Canterlot, towered behind the two masked pony ponies, seemingly oozing in the delight from the singing and dancing ponies nearby.

Maud Pie and Limestone Pie chose not to sing. Instead, the two earth ponies yelled ecstatically while doing cartwheels, wearing massive grins to rival Pinkie Pie's.

The Wonderbolts soared through the sky in a salute to the new year. Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust led the way.

Yes, Lightning Dust. Everypony was so happy, Spitfire permitted Lightning to re-join the Wonderbolts for one day only; Lightning promised to keep her prior recklessness in check.

At the farm known as Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack, Apple Bloom, Big Mac, and Granny Smith poured bottle after bottle of cider, selling it to joy-stricken ponies at half its normal price. The Flim Flam brothers provided assistance by pouring bottles as well, so the cider could be given out faster.

In Carousel Boutique, a beaming Rarity threw one apparel after another into a singing crowd surrounding the Boutique. Even for her, Rarity was extra-generous by designing a mountain of dresses, shoes, hats, etc., and tossed them to the crowd. Diamond dogs were on paw to help the unicorn work more quickly, such as by holding and keeping sheets still as she worked on them. More dogs carried the finished apparel to those at the back of the crowd.

In her animal sanctuary, Fluttershy flew overhead and sang blissfully. Her animals – including a bear, butterflies, birds, and raccoons – ran, hopped, or flew about. Fluttershy’s pet bunny, Angel, and a squirrel locked arms and danced in circles. Their masks hid their grins.

---

Meanwhile, in the Crystal Empire, ponies also celebrated with parades, balloons, and confetti. Resemblant to Princess Twilight’s and Spike’s loops, Princess Cadance and Flurry Heart gleefully rolled in mid-air; Princess Cadance switched between singing and laughing while Flurry just laughed in coos. Shining Armor and the crystal ponies on the ground sang and stomped hooves to pump up the mother-daughter alicorn duo.

Even the serious Tempest, the newest Royal Guard, cheered on.

Whether it was Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus, Manehattan, or other cities, the scene was the same.

However, it wasn’t solely pony-populated cities that whooped it up.

The dragons residing in the Dragon Lands roared in jubilation. Some high-dived into lava. Others did barrel rolls overhead. Garble led the fun as Dragon Lord for the day. Following Twilight’s lead when she suggested for Starlight to let Discord run the School of Friendship temporarily, Ember, as a one-time thing, decided to grant every dragon a day to be the Dragon Lord. However, all the dragons made a dragon promise to not exploit their status to order attacks on the other races.

In the snow-covered Yakyakistan, harmless pieces of wood shattered as the Yaks stomped on and smashed wooden boxes in unison.

Princess Cozy Glow unleashed a playful howl. She swept upward, tucked her wings, and dived and slammed down on a box twice her size. It shattered under her hooves and the Yaks roared in approval. Earlier, after Princess Twilight freed her, as well as Chrysalis and Tirek, from stone, Discord bestowed Princess Cozy some of his chaos magic, so she could regain her alicorn form and be a princess, but just for a day. Tirek, young and buff again thanks to more of Discord’s magic, complimented the filly with a thumbs up. A small genuine smile curled under his mask.

For the first time, all of the griffons threw parties while laughing in Griffonstone.

The changelings partied in pure joy in their hive. Even Pharynx cut loose and laughed...while also running a combat drill, but for fun this time.

In Seaquestria, seaponies swam in tight circles while cheering. Two of them stayed still and held a limbo bar as Queen Nova swam toward the bar. She bent herself backward and barely passed under it. This was the seaponies' first try playing underwater limbo. First, they were freed from the Storm King's grasp two years ago, now this. The aquatic ponies had never been happier.

The bowels of Tartarus weren’t exempt from the fun either. Cerberus wore a black hat on each of his three heads and tap-danced. Newly freed dangerous creatures, such as a bugbear, cockatrices, and a manticore, rooted Cerberus on with deep roars, shrieks, etc. Princess Twilight had cast a timed spell that unlocked the forementioned creatures’ cages at midnight, and they would only be out of their cages for today.

---

In all, it was a wonderful, wonderful day for Equestria and the lands beyond it. After all they had endured, saying that every creature was optimistic that this year would be better is an extreme understatement.

If she had anything to say about it, the benevolent alicorn ruling Equestria would do all in her vast power to ensure that such a year would NEVER happen again. For starters, thanks to her and the other Equestrian leaders’ intense efforts, even Prince Blueblood, a new vaccine was poised to help free the land of its agonizing pandemic.

Author's Note:

There wasn't much of a plot in this silly story and was a little over-the-top with the Legion of Doom celebrating too, but it pretty much sums up my (and likely yours) feelings about 2020. Let's try to not have 2021 be the horror 2020 was!

I didn't mention what every Equestrian race and some characters were doing, like Zecora, but I think the point that all of Equestria was happy was made clear enough.

And by the way, this is the song the ponies were singing.

Or whether, it was mostly just the 'nas", "heys" and "goodbye" parts over and over.

Comments

[smorchok]

Я первый!

[smorchok]

И да, 2020 сосать! Наступает 2021 год, но 21 это блэкджек, меня это пугает, а фик классный!

[Yoshifan30]

Yes 2020 was a horrible year for everyone and I'm glad we are done with it but unfortunately 2020 left a permanent damage on everyone and it's going to be a very long complicated recovery but hopefully this year of 2021 will be good if not better at least Happy New Year to everyone and stay safe

[SabreTheRedMane]

u.smutty.horse/lyvuxtrhrjt.jpg

[Dreadnought]

If only 2021 would bring new MLP:FiM!

[Flint-Lock]

Up yours, 2020!

[sunset-starlight]

Below the elated alicorn and dragon, the citizens of Canterlot, each maintaining a short but safe distance from one another, engaged in joyful singing and stomping their hooves in applause. Balloons and confetti littered the air, and parades marched through the streets. In front of the Royal Castle’s front doors, ex-Princess Celestia and ex-Princess Luna, wearing dresses, performed the can-can dance.

Outside the School of Friendship, Starlight Glimmer and the ex-Queen of the changelings, Chrysalis, entertained the school's cheering and singing students with frontflips and backflips. Surprisingly, their movements were in sync, despite how they were both winging it.

Sooo.....dancing ponies is now a thing?

[ThePinkedWonder]

10608935

2021 deystvytelno pugayet menia nemnogo slishkom, noh pryamo seichas, ya boudou prinimat moi shanse yi doverie 2021 nay budet khuzheh! Я deystvytelno nay mogu ponyat russky yazyk, poetomou ya nadeyus, chto eto perevoditsya pravilno.

And for those wondering, I don't know how to read/write Russian. I had Microsoft bing handle the English/Russian translating.

10608941

Yep, we do have work to do, but here's hoping we'll do it!

10609040

That would be great! It doesn't even have to be full episodes with some moral. Even 2-minutes mini-shorts like the EQG mini-shorts would be enough.

10609211

Well said!

10609392

Thanks, and yeah, that would suck, more than I can imagine right now.

10609677

Eh, dancing ponies were always a thing; ask Twilight. Ponies dancing well and doing backflips might be something unheard of until now.

[AkumaKami64]

I love that this story is the exact same title of a blogpost I made last night.

[ThePinkedWonder]

10611106

That so? I think most of the world was thinking those words. This story's name was "Goodbye 2020, And Don't Come Back!!!" but I thought the name I went with sounded better.

10611564

Glad to hear you liked it!

[Boxistaken]

Yes, I absolutely agree that the past year has been terrible and very difficult for everyone. It is rightfully considered the damned year and I support this opinion. When I saw the article on the site https://www.hometownstation.com/news-articles/cursed-year-most-common-calamities-of-2020-356697, it was as if I experienced it all over again, it's terrible. Unsurprisingly, all of these disasters have caused depression and mental health problems in millions of people.

[Princess Starflight]

It's funny thinking about mask-wearing ponies

I feel like 2021 and 2022 are like the second and third parts of 2020 cuz they're so similar