After having a stern talking to from the Cakes, Pinkie feels she needs to start taking her life more seriously. She begs Twilight to use a new spell to change her personality so she will be more 'serious bu-derious’ and not silly and random. Twilight uses the spell but instead it ends up giving her horn to Pinkie and while Pinkie is a very intelligent and studious unicorn, Twilight is a silly and random Earth pony who wants to constantly throw parties. Pinkie must put up with living like this for an entire day and keep anyone else from finding out that Twilight was also affected. It will all be fine, the personality-switch spell will be over in just 24 hours..........or will it?
Original release: May 21-29, 2011 on Deviant Art
Chapters (7)
So this is on FiMFiction now? That's cool. I was too lazy to read the whole thing on DeviantArt for some reason that even I don't know, but now I think I might check it out.
One emoticon:
1309062 Is that your take on the story or just Twilight's reaction?
1309085
Oh, I'm just relating comments to the chapters that I read.
It has nothing to do with how I feel about the story as a whole.
1309150 Oh okay. Well this is my first pony fic so it's not too well written...
The title of this chapter... it's like it's trying to tell me that I don't even need to read it.
1309219 Which chapter?
"A Spell Unbreakable"
1309288 I'm not sure how that means you dont' need to read it...
All right, now I'll express what I think about the whole thing.
That was certainly a fun read. I mean really anything supernatural can be turned into a good story if utilized correctly.
I wasn't really sure about the chapter after the prologue where Mr. and Mrs. Cake referred to each other by "Mr." and "Mrs." rather than "Carrot Cake" and "Cup Cake", but meh. That's a small nitpick.
The moral at the end was okay. I didn't see anything outright wrong with it.
It's nice to see something like this instead of dark and sad stories all the time on this site.
I think I'll let someone else pick apart the grammatical errors since I couldn't find any that were overtly distracting.
You said this was a first pony fic? It's pretty darn good for a first try.
1309327 I think I made this before I knew their canon first names.
Yeah, I don't go for the dark and sad and I certainly don't do any sexual or violent stuff. My fics usually stay canon but if there are fanon things, they are usually ones that make sense or are just good ideas I had like Peachy Pie being Pinkie's sister. Oddly enough, Peachy being her sister was one of the reasons it got turned down when submitted to the pre-readers on EqD...
Okay, I finished reading, and while the story is incredibly fun to read, there are a few things about the plot I can't get over; most of it isn't because of bad writing, it's because it's completely contradicted by canon.
First of all, Peachie Pie. She isn't orange, she's yellow. I have proof: she was in the episode "Show Stoppers". When Cheerilee gave out the prizes, she called her name and she ran up to her. Personally, I don't like the idea of Peachie being Pinkie's sister, but that' mostly a personal preference. Come to think of it, if Peachie was Pinkie's little sister, then Pinkie would have had more babysitting experience and woudn't have been so clueless in "Baby Cakes". Maybe not enough experience to have made much of a difference, but still...
Second, Pinkie doesn't have this personality problem in canon. She's not stupid. She knows where the line is with her hyperactivity and is very careful not to cross it. It's one of the few things she is careful with. You've made her personality a little more extreme than it is in the show.
Third: Pinkie, Mr Cake, and Mrs. Cake are the only ponies who work at Sugar Cube Corner; there are no other employees. It's too small for them to hire additional workers.
I'm a little iffy about her parents being in Ponyville; they don't seem like the type who would move from rock farming, but their presence doesn't actually contradict anything, so I'll chalk that up to personal preference.
Calling in Celestia to fix the problem is overdone in fanfics, as it's an example of deus ex machina (basically, a cop-out for authors who can't think of a good way to wrap things up). However, I liked this story enough to forgive the cliché this time.
Once I got to where they actually switched, it was all smooth sailing from then on out. Other than contradicting canon, you've done a nice job with this.
I'm enjoying where this is going, and your characterisation seems consistent and accurate, but you seem a bit misinformed about several definitions: 'overlook(ed)' means 'to miss while looking', not 'to look over'; sarcasm (sarcastically, etc) is an ironic statement, almost always with an implied insult to the listener's intelligence, not general negative expression. I might have missed a few more. Also, you should use commas to separate the speech descriptions from the rest of the sentence: (Pinkie said, patting her sister on the head)
Just so you don't get the impression I don't like this, I'll mention that I think your Pinkie dialogue is fantastic.
That was so awesome that it should be canon.
1309472 I knew what Peachy looked like, I think I meant to say yellow orange or I might have been talking about her hair or her coat in contrast to her hair color. And this was made in May 2011 before Baby Cakes aired and therefore before I would ever know PInkie would have to do the challenge of babysitting therefore this doesn't apply. Plus I would imagine Pinkie didnt' get to spend much time with her as a baby cuz her parents took care of her mainly and she'd be busy with her job. Does it seem okay that I made Peachy her sister though? Cuz EqD's pre-readers turned it down for that reason which is kinda stupid cuz there are a bunch of fanfics on that site have completely fanon ideas in them and they get featured still.
Perhaps I overdid her personality 'problem' but you gotta understand that this was before season 2 even came out and we didn't know the characters that much then. And this could be taking place during season 1 so try to think within that timeline. The thing that caused me to want to write a story about Pinkie learning this lesson was that I was surprised at how the Cakes put up with her just eating all that food in Swarm of the Century without actually speaking up. I thought she could have learned a lesson about respect and responsibility in this sense and she seems to be better about that currently in the show but we never really saw how it happened so this story is kind of like a filler-in for my head canon or at least most of it since I don't consider it my best fanfic nowadays.
I put other workers in there because I really don't see how just Pinkie and the Cakes can tackle that all together and Pinkie seems to have a lot of days off cuz we see plenty of her not working at the Corner so the Cakes would probably need help. I admit it is kind of contradictory to canon but not not a good reason for EqD to turn it down.
I didn't really think much about her parents when writing it and I don't actually recall saying they still lived in there. If they didn't live in Ponyville, I guess they'd live not too far away on the rock farm from before and just chose to come in the end to help give Pinkie some encouragement.
Celestia coming to fix the problem is an overdone thing in pony fics? Well I didn't know, I barely ever read any and the ones I have read never did that. I had her come because there was no other way it could be fixed and I wanted for Twilight and Pinkie to give their lesson to her in person and I wanted Twilight to give Celestia the book back. I also felt that Celestia doesn't get much of a chance to show her powers and her helping capabilities. After season 1 was finished, Celestia never really did much except be a supporting mother figure and teacher that just sat in the background and listened to the friendship reports so I guess I just wanted her to have greater importance this time around. My other fics don't do this to her though so this is the only one.
So it looks like most of my errors were due to the time in which this fic was written, between season 1 and 2. I should probably put a note in the description saying when this fic was written so people will know but thanks for the critique. :)
1309500 When did I say 'overlooked' wrong? Like what chapter was it in?
And the comma thing could be because Word never catches them (I type up my fics in MS Word and then copy and paste them onto here) and because I remember being taught to use commas in places like that although the sentence you used for example might be a mistake I made...
Its' okay, I didn't get the impression you didn't like it, you did good with your critique and pointed out a good thing with the comma issue. I'm working to do better writing so I can prepare for my even bigger fanfic projects to come.
1309715 Nah, it's not nearly that good enough. Maybe a few other fics of mine from recently since I'm getting better at writing them in the style the show has but I think I have a long ways to go before I write a fic that will be show-worthy...
1310165
I can see a concept like this working on the show.
1310170 The concept could work I guess but if they took this as a suggestion, they would have to change a LOT of things to make it more canon.
...
Stare at the image (The background). Mind = Broken.
1310135 It was rather obvious that this was written prior to season two. As for the employees, maybe we could just say they were a temporary thing; the Cakes needed some additional help due to an unusually large number of orders or something. That's a good workaround.
I didn't mean to say Celestia fixing things was necessarily a bad thing. In this particular instance, you managed to pull it off decently. I just thought you should know that it is normally cliché.
The EqD readers were probably thinking that Pinkie Pie canonically has only two sisters, so in their minds, having Peachy as her sister contradicts canon. They did not take age into account; as Pinkie's younger sister, and still a foal, she would have been born sometime after the events of her flashback in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", and therefore would not be in it. In other words, they made a mistake. They goofed.
In "Swarm of the Century", she did indeed get rather carried away with the food. Plus there's the time in "A Bird in the Hoof" when she let herself get so excited, she stole the Princess's cupcake just as she was about to take a bite. With those scenes in mind, I can see where you're coming from with this. That makes it easier to accept, as her character was not yet fully developed back then. For all we know, she could very well have been that bad at some point.
Now that we've discussed it, this story doesn't seem quite as contradictory as it did before. Some of the plotholes have been filled in.
1311429
If I update, I might change it and say that the other ponies were voluntarily working there for help, but I still find it hard to believe the Cakes can really take care of that whole place with just Pinkie's help...
yes, that is the case, Peachy was born after Pinkie's flashback of getting her cutie mark. That could be the reason EqD didn't like it but it still is kinda odd to turn it down for that.
yeah, and I wanted people to read this fic to get a good idea of how she learned to be more respectful and not too rambunctious.
Thanks again for pointing things out. And how is the grammar and writing of this fic? Anything I need to change?
This is interesting, but I can see why EqD turned it down. It's not just that Peachy Pie is not supposed to be Pinkie's sister, it's that she added nothing to the story. If you removed her (and Pinkie's parents), what would really change? Not a lot besides a few bits of dialogue. It didn't help that you included a conversational exchange between the two sisters which basically boiled down to:
I don't really care about sudden OC siblings (
Hi, Shining Armor!) but it helps if they are better integrated into the plot. Maybe if Pinkie's unreliable personality was related to her family losing the rock farm and Peachy was worried about her sister but also resentful... Anyway, the story was okay but never really drew me in. You have quite a lot of punctuation and grammar errors: missing commas, periods that should be commas, misspelled words, misused words, etc. All of that was distracting and there was a constant sense that something momentous might happen...but it never did.
Sorry, it's late and I get a little negative when I'm tired. Despite all of this, you had a good concept and I can see that you put a lot of work in. At no point was it bad enough to make me stop reading; I still wanted to get to the ending. My advice is that you find a beta who you can trust to help you with the grammar/punctuation and keep at it.
1312200 I'm not sure were you are going with the thing with PInkie and Spike...
1311495 I didn't notice any errors. If there were any, they weren't major enough for me to remember. I'm rather obsessive-compulsive about many things, including grammar, so if there were such errors, I would have complained about it right away.
1312265
Sorry, I get less coherent later at night; I should have made my post clearer. It was about this part:
Well, there isn't a Peachy Pie emote, and I think mustache!Spike is cute.
“I sure hope so…” said Peachy dismally. “I wouldn’t want you to be like how you said our family was before I was born on that rock farm back then. I’m sure glad I was born after that time, a rock farm sounds boring!”
“Oh don’t worry, it won’t be that bad! Besides, everypony in our family is happy and joyful now because of me, they’d let me know when I get too serious.”
You should always avoid "as we all know" conversations if you can, by the way. Almost any other way to explain the altered back story would be preferable. Don't get too hung up on that, though; I used it as an example to show how the addition of Peachy to Pinkie's life ended up being both heavy-handed and distracting from the actual story. Besides explaining why Peachy is present, how does this exchange further the plot? It doesn't. How does Peachy existing further the plot? It doesn't. That's my best guess as to why Peachy was given as the reason your story was refused by EqD.
1315554 I am not sure I understand...
1315585
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to explain more clearly. What part of it do you not understand?
1315602 The whole thing.
1315609
Hmm. Okay, that makes it tricky. How about this:
You do not need Peachy in this story. When you put something in a story which is not needed, it is distracting. For some people, distracting is equal to bad. You said, " Oddly enough, Peachy being her sister was one of the reasons it got turned down when submitted to the pre-readers on EqD..." I think that EqD rejected your story because they felt that adding her to the story was distracting from the actual plot and that the story was hurt by Peachy's existence. But I am guessing.
Does that make more sense?
1315634
I put her in not just because I thought the idea of them being sisters was cute but because I wanted her to act like the voice of reason in the beginning part although Pinkie didn't listen to her. Twilight was a voice of reason as well but Peachy added to it. She was just a little side character but she had a bit of importance.
1315657
Which is cool and totally your prerogative as the author. I apologize if I implied otherwise.
1319343 Its' not my best fanfic I admit. Not bad for my first pony fanfic but not the best. Things will change soon though...
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
I can totally see this as an episode in Season 3
Peachy groaned. “Pinkie for the last time, you’re fine the way you are, you can’t be just like Twilight Sparkle!”
I groan. "No Peachy. Pinkie DOES need an attitude adjustment. She's making Sugarcube Corner lose business. If bakeries are anything like restaurants then the only way to turn it into a million dollar business is to start with two million dollars. So they can't afford Pinkie to eat the profit."
It's nice to see Twilight lighten up for once.
When Pinkie was holding a can of paint, I was hoping she was going to paint herself purple and Twilight pink so they could pass themselves off as the other.
Huh? Pinkie Pie's job hours end before 5pm?
Man if hasbro wanted to make an alicorn Twilight why didn't they just do THIS as an episode?
Oh well '
'
It's always best to change yourself if you happen to be a flankhead though.
2621836 Where the hell did you ever get that idea? O__o
“This spell is a very advanced spell that requires much focus and a higher understanding of the element of magic. It is rarely used and only used for things like acting, mind-control, or any other specific reasons
that really makes me intrested in being an actor in equestrai lol
i can so see this as an episode
1460953 is that an insult
6685493 no it wasnt
Just like a regular episode