Season 2, Episode 4: A Very Special Episode
Scene One: The Chase
Metropony City! Concrete and glass canyons lined bustling streets filled with millions of ponies going about their busy, productive lives. A city filled to overflowing with ambition, with hopes and dreams so hot and fresh the air shimmered as they rose into the clear sky above. The city marched to the beat of a billion hoofsteps, danced to the song of cars honking and tires squealing. This, this was the heart of Equestria, the steaming, pulsing womb from which the future struggled to be born.
But! All is not well in this equine metropolis! For even as its million citizens go about their days filled with energy and joy, the seamy underworld plotted the city’s destruction. Mobsters, villains, foreign agents all conspired to enrich themselves, to gorge on Metropony City like a vulture feasts upon a carcass.
Today, one such villain has hatched a daring plan to strike at the heart of Metropony City’s most cherished resource. This dastard, this brutish unicorn knew no shame; she would stop at nothing to bring about the city’s destruction. Nopony was too innocent, too vulnerable to escape her vile schemes.
Trixie dashed through the crowded streets, scattering ponies every which way. Her magic knocked them aside and sent them tumbling across the sidewalks and roadways. Plate glass windows lining chic shops shattered as she crashed past them and spilled their contents onto the hard concrete. Howls of protest and pain followed in her cruel wake.
“At last!” Trixie cried as she broke past a hapless police barricade, using her powerful magic to brush the brave law enforcement ponies aside. A large metal briefcase floated beside her, encased in a glowing blue nimbus that pulsed in time with her heart. “At last it is mine! Metropony City, your days are numbered!”
Ahead, at the end of the street, her thirty-story tall mecha robot suit waited to aid her escape, along with a parking meter attendant who was attempting to affix a citation to its massive ankle. Trixie’s face broke into a crazed grin – so close! so close!
“Not so fast, Trixie!”
Trixie stumbled and nearly fell at the sudden sound. No, no! It was impossible! She clamored to a stop and spun, searching for the twin figures who dared to oppose her, who would surely feel her wrath before this day was done...
There! Stepping out from the shadow of a dark alleyway! A mint green unicorn strode purposefully into the street, her burning orange eyes staring daggers into Trixie’s soul.
And there! Trixie pivoted just in time to avoid a wild hoof flung by a cream mare with a garish two-toned mane and a pair of wrapped candies on her flank. They stumbled apart, panting.
“I should have known,” Trixie growled. “Harpflank and Sweets. Come to save the day?”
“Give it up, Trixie,” Harpflank said. “There’s no way you’re escaping with that case.”
“Put it down and come with us quietly, and we promise you won’t get hurt,” Sweets said, circling around opposite her do-gooding partner.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Trixie ran a loving hoof over the burnished steel case. “Save yourselves the time and bloody nose that you know you’ll get if you face me? Well, too bad! This is MY day, you fools! I spent months plotting this heist, and I’m not going to let a pair of costumed foals keep me from my... from my...” She trailed off as her eyes alighted on the prominent label near the case’s latch. Seconds passed as she read it, and read it again.
And read it some more.
“What the hell?” she finally said. “Insulin? Why would I steal insul—”
HARPFLANK AND SWEETS: SEASON 2, EPISODE 4
A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE
The gentle blue glow surrounding the insulin faded, and the case slowly lowered to the ground. Three ponies stared at it in shock as what it represented slowly sank into their heads.
Trixie had diabetes. Type II diabetes.
“What?!” Trixie shrieked. “I do not! I do not have diabetes!”
“Oh man, this is one of those episodes,” Lyra said. “Didn’t we, like, just do one?”
“I think the network is required to run one per season,” Bon Bon said. “I wish they’d give us some warning, though.”
“No! This is supposed to be plutonium!” Trixie gave the case a kick, sending it sliding across the roadway. “I don’t have diabetes!”
But she did. Already they could see her face starting to darken and turn red as the first signs of a nonketotic hyperosmolar coma began to set in. Commonly known as a “diabetic coma,” it was a life-threatening medical emergency that must be treated immediately.
For years, Trixie had taken daily insulin shots and carefully monitored her diet and blood sugar. But today she was too busy with villainy and robbery, and had foolishly forgotten to—
“Lies!” Trixie shouted. “I’ve never taken insulin in my life!”
—use the glucose meter she kept in her saddlebags. And now, after hours of breaking the law and not staying properly hydrated, her blood sugar levels were dangerously high. She felt her thought processes slow as her nervous system began to shut itself down.
“Wha... thiss is... not...” Trixie slumped over onto the pavement, and her eyes fluttered shut.
“Whoa,” Lyra said. “Uh, what do we do?”
“I dunno. I think she needs insulin?”
Exactly. Trixie’s only hope lay in the vials of insulin filling her stolen case. One of these make-believe superheroes would have to be a real hero and give her a life-saving injection.
“What?” Bon Bon made a face. “Okay, first off, we’re not make-believe. And second, ugh, no. I’m not giving her an injection. I hate needles.”
But she had to.
“No. No. Lyra, you do it.” Bon Bon kicked the case over to Lyra.
“What? Why me?”
“Because I hate needles!”
“So? You’re giving her a shot, not getting one!”
“Doesn’t matter! Every time I see a needle...” Bon Bon shivered. “Look, just get it over with.”
“Can’t we call a paramedic?”
No. All the paramedics were busy treating the ponies injured in Trixie’s violent crime spree, and were unable to come to Trixie’s aid, even for something as simple as a life-saving injection. One of them would have to do it.
“Dammit.” Lyra opened the case and winced at the sight of hundreds of insulin-filled syringes inside. “God damn special episodes. Okay, how do I do this?”
“How should I know? I don’t use insulin.”
“Yeah, but your whole family makes candy for a living. I’ve been to your family reunions. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this before.”
“Oh, oh, I get it. My whole family is fat, so we must all be diabetics as well?” Bon Bon glared at her partner. “That’s the kind of stupid stereotype these episodes are supposed to counter!”
“We don’t have time for this! Just tell me what to do!”
“I don’t know! Just jab it in her flank and push the plunger!”
And that’s what Lyra did.
And it was good enough for television.
* * *
Scene 2: Outside the Hospital
Lyra and Bon Bon trudged through the Metropony City Memorial Hospital’s automatic doors, wincing at the bright sunlight that greeted them. All around, dozens of busy ponies dressed in nurse’s scrubs or doctor’s gowns trundled to and fro, off to make appointments and see to the health of their charges. The two heroes, bereft now of their costumes and gear, stopped across the street at a trendy coffee shop just starting to fill with the afternoon crowd.
“Well,” Bon Bon said. “That was terrible.”
Lyra shrugged. “Could’ve been worse. Remember last season? I got hepatitis during the special episode.”
“Oh, yeah, that was pretty bad. How’s your new liver, anyway?”
“It still hurts sometimes,” Lyra grumbled. “Anyway, Trixie should be okay, as long as she’s more careful. It’s actually kind of ironic that they ended up just giving her that whole case of insulin, huh?”
“Ironic? She has diabetes, not anemia.”
Before Lyra could respond, a precocious young filly bounced up to them and pulled a flyer from her saddlebags. She thrust it in their direction and spoke as soon as her mouth was free.
“Hello! Would you please consider a donation to the Metropony City Benevolent Society for Unfortunate Young Orphans?”
Bon Bon peered at the flyer. A crudely drawn, ramshackle wooden shack with the word “Orphanage” on a sign above the door filled the center of the page, beneath which was written a short plea for funds to help offset the cost of caring for poor, helpless fillies and colts cast out to suffer in a cruel, callous world.
“Hm, no thanks. I don’t know any orphans,” Bon Bon said.
But she did.
“Huh?”
“You do?” Lyra peered at her.
“No? I mean, I don’t think so?”
She was wrong. For years, Bon Bon had worked alongside a mare whose parents had abandoned her as a foal. Unloved, forgotten, this unknown filly was taken in by a charitable aid society in the slums of Metropony City. Years passed as she languished in an orphanage, until finally a stroke of fortune and fate placed her in the hooves of a childless earth pony heiress descended from a long line of successful classical musicians—
“Wait,” Lyra said. “My mom was an earth pony heiress descended from a long line of successful classical musicians.”
—who raised her like she was their own daughter, until with the passage of years and thousands of bits worth of therapy, she completely subsumed her memories of abandonment and unworth. The wounds on her psyche faded into scars, but they lay lightly beneath the surface of her mind, waiting for a casual offhand remark that would one day tear them open and leave her soul bleeding on the cruel, uncaring concrete of Metropony City.
Bon Bon’s eyes widened. “Is... is he talking about you?”
“What? No. No! I’m not adopted!”
But she was. Her eyes widened as the memories came crashing back. Memories of cold nights, of hungry bellies, of fevered dreams filled with the desperate wish to simply be touched by a loving hoof.
“No! Stop it! This isn’t fair! I got hepatitis during the last episode, dammit!”
“Wow. You know, this answers a lot of questions, actually.”
“It does not! It doesn’t answer anything!”
Her hysterical rant would have continued for some time, had not a long black sedan with government plates suddenly pulled up on the curb beside them. The door opened, and a grey mare with a straw mane and googly eyes stepped out.
“Agent Harpflank, Agent Sweets, I’m glad I found you,” Commander Derpy said. “We were performing an annual audit of our personnel files when we discovered something amiss. Something... interesting.” She pulled a brown folder from her saddlebags and passed it off to Lyra.
“It turns out you’re adopted, Agent Harpflank,” she continued. “Your birth mother was a young mare struggling through high school who made a mistake with her coltfriend. Eleven months later, you were found in a basket outside the Metropony orphanage. I’m sorry.”
Silence.
“You know, now that I think about it, this probably could’ve waited until we were alone, back at the HQ,” Derpy said. “Well, uh, anyway. Remember the potluck tomorrow!” She gave them both a nod and stepped back into the sedan, which promptly sped off.
Lyra stared at the folder in her hooves, her mouth hanging open in shock. Bon Bon bit her lip and looked away for a moment.
At last the truth was out, and Bon Bon felt a sudden warming in her heart as she realized how the plight of the orphaned touched her so close to home.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Bon Bon said.
“Mom... mommy?”
“Look, this doesn’t change anything. Your parents still love you and that’s what matters. You’ve got to admit, though, this does answer a lot of questions.”
“What... what do you mean? What questions?” Lyra glared at her.
“Oh, come on, Lyra. Your parents are both brown earth ponies. You’re a mint green unicorn. Don’t tell me you never wondered about that.”
“But, mom said her great-great-grandmother was half-unicorn...”
It was a lie, Lyra now realized. A kind lie, meant to put off painful questions for another day.
A day like today.
“Dammit! God dammit!” Lyra threw the folder onto the ground. “Fucking special episodes! Gah!” She stomped off, leaving a trail of tears on the sidewalk behind her.
Bon Bon watched her go, concern for her friend mingling with relief that the old secret was out at last. She shook her head slowly, then noticed the little filly was still standing beside her.
She pulled a few bits from her saddlebag and tossed them to the foal. “Don’t spend them all in one place,” she said, and then trotted off to catch her friend.
* * *
Scene 3: Heading Home
“Fucking special episodes...” Lyra sniffed and tried to blink away the tears that clouded her vision. Dark trails ran down her cheeks.
“Hey, hey. It’s not that bad,” Bon Bon said. “At least it’s over, right? This can’t be worse than hepatitis.”
“Mommy...”
Bon Bon sighed. It had been a long day, filled with trials and tribulations and sudden emotional breakthroughs that left them more sensitive to the plights of other ponies. Never again would either of them mock a diabetic, or think any less of an orphan for their mean estate.
“Yeah, we never did those things before,” Bon Bon said. “Cuz, you know, we’re the good guys? The heroes?”
What Bon Bon didn’t realize was that one trial still remained. There was one more lesson to be learned, and it waited for them just steps ahead.
“Wait, what?” Bon Bon stumbled a halt just outside the door to her apartment. “But this is... oh fuck me.”
“Ha! Now it’s your turn!” Lyra stepped forward and pushed the door open. “Oh, I bet this will be good.”
It wasn’t good. It was terrible. The apartment, though tidy and filled with the nicest furniture Bon Bon’s superhero salary could afford, was laced with a curious sweet scent. They moved through the dark rooms, silent as ghosts, until they reached the kitchen.
There, next to her candy making machines. Bowls filled with taffy. Gallons of high-fructose corn syrup. Piles of assorted chopped nuts. Miles of licorice rope. A billion calories all waiting to be consumed.
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny.” Bon Bon rolled her eyes and swiped at a bag of powdered sugar, sending it spilling across the counter. “It’s cuz I’m fat, right? This is about obesity? I’ll have you know that earth ponies are naturally big boned! I’m perfectly healthy!”
“This is is a lot of candy,” Lyra said. She rubbed her hoof in the powdered sugar and gave it a little sniff.
“I make candy! It’s my job! Just because some ponies think you have to be a walking skeleton to be in a fashion magazine doesn’t mean that’s healthy! This! This is healthy, Lyra! So maybe I’m a little rounder than your average—”
“This is speedball heroin.”
“—mare doesn’t mean I’m... wait, it’s what?”
“It’s heroin. There’s, like, a dozen kilos here.”
“But... that’s... No. No, that’s powdered sugar, not heroin.”
But it was heroin. Bon Bon was a junkie.
“Wow.” Lyra shook her head. “You think you know somepony...”
“No! I’m not an addict! It’s the goddamn episode!”
But despite her denials, Bon Bon felt the first tremors begin to wrack her body. The cruel forces of chemical withdrawal were already starting to ravage her pale frame. She began to shiver with cold, and realized it had been several hours since her last hit.
“My last what? That’s... no! I’ve never done drugs before in my life!”
Like many addicts, Bon Bon was lost in self-delusion. She denied that she’d ever done drugs, despite the terrible marks on her foreleg where she injected herself every morning to make shakes go away.
“There’s no marks on my foreleg!” She looked down. “Oh come on! Those weren’t there two minutes ago!”
“I think you need help, Bon Bon.”
“I don’t need help!” she shrieked. “I need this damn episode to be over!”
And then it was.
Until next season, at least.
[ Credits roll ]
Post-Credits Scene
The lights slowly come up, revealing a simple set of chairs and a table, with a grey cloth backdrop, similar to what you might see in a photo studio. Various pieces of studio equipment – camera stands, light poles, microphones – are visible off to the side, in an apparently casual attempt to demonstrate that this isn't a part of the episode itself.
Three miserable-looking ponies share the set with Commander Derpy, who seems just fine. She smiles at the camera.
"Hi. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to watch this Very Special Episode of Harpflank and Sweets," she says. "We learned a lot today about treating less fortunate ponies with care and compassion."
She turns to Trixie, who is sitting with a dark glower on her face. "Trixie here showed us how difficult it is to have diabetes, and the difficulties people with this disease have to go through just to live a normal life."
"Trixie does not have diabetes!"
Derpy continues, ignoring the interruption. "And Lyra, poor Lyra. She learned today that her real mother and father abandoned her as a foal. Alone, unloved, she grew up in an institution, nothing more than a number and a hungry mouth to the state-appointed caretakers who watched over her. Even today, though she was fortunate enough to find parents to adopt her, she wonders in her heart if there is something wrong with her. Something broken. Something about her that just wasn't good enough – something that makes her unworthy of love. She wonders, at night, if this is why she has trouble forming long-term relationships; if it's why the stallions she engages for casual sex never seem to care about her. This, this was a dark day for Lyra."
Throughout the monologue, Lyra's face slowly crumbles, until by the end she is sobbing in her hooves. Derpy gives her an awkward pat and then turns to Bon Bon, who is huddled in a corner, shivering. Large drops of sweat run down her pallid frame and join the pool on the floor around her.
"But the hardest lesson was for Bon Bon. Drugs are a terrible, terrible thing, and can destroy ponies as easily as snuffing out a candle. Bon Bon is lucky to be alive, yes, but soon she may wish she wasn't.
"Thank you for watching A Very Special Episode of Harpflank and Sweets. Tune in next week, as our heroes battle Princess Luna's evil mechatrons for control of Metropony City!"
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Oh lawd. I died.
The special episodes?! I thought they were all destroyed!
Don't know what you were on when you dreamt this fic up, but good work.
...also, it seems that in their zeal to produce a very special episode the network execs forgot that Trixie was redeemed during the events of the movie and is no longer a villain in season 2.
Geez, CiG. I've been reading Salvation and In the Garden of Good and Evil and I forgot for a little while that you could be so danged funny!
Well that was very special!
2399494
Maybe they wrote all the scripts in advance and it just got bumped up to next season because of episode restraints?
The important part is that they all learned stuff about things.
The narrator is a dick.
2399662
As the great Spoony One once said, "There is no continuity. Only insano."
Sweet Celestia, I've been missing H&S. Great work!
That was terrible and wonderful.
Absolutely fucking brilliant.
2399476
Nay, for as long as there are lessons to be clumsily shoved down young throats by ham-handed executives, the special episodes will live on. Just not in continuity.
Still, at least it isn't as bad as the Season 3 episode where Vinyl struggles with her albinism.
That was brilliant. And horrible. Horribrill. Bravo.
Should I read the ones by Arcanium first, or is this stand-alone enough?
2400521
You should probably read those first.
pokerface.jpg
I'd have to say the most tickling element to this fic were the contradicting narrations. Just flat out heartless how the dialogue was subverted and twisted into the narrator's will. That'll teach Bonnie to make her sweets with heroine! Great work!
2400521>>2400658
On another hand, I couldn't really get into the 'main' H&S stories, yet I enjoyed this one. The humor lies more with lampooning 'special episodes' in general than anything specific about 'Harpflank & Sweets'. I guess maybe there's an extra layer of bathos if you've read H&S, but it's still fun without that.
This was, and now I'm.
2400978 =(
2402062
! There's nothing wrong with H&S, it just didn't fit my taste! I loved Twi Hard 2!
Don't feel
2400842
FINISH THEY'LL SHOWER YOU WITH NOTHING
RIGHT NOW
DO IT NOW
OR I SWEAR TO GOD
"Tune in next week, as our heroes
battle Princess Luna's evil mechatrons for control of Metropony City!undergo extensive psychotherapy at the hooves of the Princess of the Night!"2403414 BACK UP OR THE FIC GETS IT
I'LL DO IT
SO HELP ME, I WILL SHOOT THAT FIC IN THE FACE
my sides
2400002
The narrator is indeed a bit of a twat.
It reminds me of the Warner Brothers' classic Duck Amuck
This was fantastic. I've never H&S, but now I've got it on my to-read list.
2413888 I hadn't seen Duck Amuck in years, and when I saw that flag they stuck on Daffy's butt -- Screwball! Her cutie mark was a reference to that cartoon! Makes perfect sense given the episode she appeared in and all the reality-bending chaos that happened in Duck Amuck. Thanks for the link.
An extra "is" there.
I'm guessing heroin isn't exactly great for the show budget. Probably why special episodes are "special".
And later that evening, a number of episode writers were found unconscious in an alley, needle marks all over their bodies and powdered sugar stuffed into every available orifice, and a few that were less than available. One was missing a liver. No suspects have been identified.
2493211
I just got that. Heh.
Wow, this episode got diabetes completely wrong. If someone is diabetic and seems to be falling over, giving them a dose of insulin is the most dangerous thing you can possibly do and will almost certainly result in death. The reason is that they are most likely experiencing hypoglycaemia, which is low blood sugar, not high, and is treated by consuming sugary food or, if unconscious, by a special type of gel that is applied to the insides of the cheeks or a glucose injection... both of these have horrible side effects that cause blood sugars to go out of whack for a while and should only be used if you know the sufferer is low. You simply cannot know for sure without first doing a blood sugar test.
Having a blood sugar so high that it starts to cause visible symptoms is extremely unlikely and there are warning signs well in advance, and even then the best thing to do is to call an ambulance, since administering an incorrect dose of insulin is also incredibly dangerous. One should only ever administer insulin when one knows both how much is usually taken and at what intervals and how much was actually taken, OR working blood testing equipment is available: if the reading is off the top of the scale then it may be safe to inject a small dose, but you should really just report the reading to the person on the other end of the emergency line and await instruction. In either case, you still need to know the exact composition of the insulin in question (instant, long-acting or a mixture?) and be qualified in injecting: knowing the appropriate sites to use, how to properly prime the needle to avoid injecting air bubbles, correctly identifying and avoiding lumpy sites, etc.
Here is some sound advice for dealing with diabetes for anyone who is not diabetic.
- If someone who is diabetic asks for something sugary, give it to them immediately. A sugary drink is best. They should show signs of improvement within a few minutes, assuming they are right about how they feel (it is for most people easy to tell when your own blood sugar is starting to fall too low).
- If a diabetic falls unconscious or semi-conscious, call an ambulance immediately. If there is blood testing equipment available and you know how to use it, perform a test. If the reading is below 4.0 mmol/L, see if you can get them to eat or drink something sugary.
- Never issue an insulin injection to someone else, unless you are the carer of a diabetic who is unable to inject themselves (doing so as a matter of routine) or a trained medical professional with the results of a blood test at hand.
Ow. I think you bruised ma funny bone.
2605631
Good that writers for super hero shows don't need to be properly trained medics. I mean, medical accuracy? That's sure to lead to things like boring results and a complete lack of drama.
I just wish that this episode were dated in season 1, or didn't have Trixie as a villain. I demand that my fan-fan-fictions adhere strictly to canon!
I'm kind of curious how she got hepatitis, if the special episode bothered to justify it at all.
Special episodes: a valuable tool to both teach children sensitivity to the plight of others and expand their vocabularies.
Wow. That's a lot of heroin. I don't know what the conversion between dollars and bits is, but at maybe $50 a gram (thank you, Yahoo answers) that's $600,000 dollars or so, and that's got to be a lot of bits. Or Metropony City has really cheap drugs.
Seriously, what would they have to be paying her for this special episode to make a lick of sense? What fraction of the average addict's total wealth do they keep in drugs on hand?
2403414 HEY GUESS WHAT
I DID
5241032
GREAT
Huh. I am still the only downvoter. Well, I guess I owe an explanation.
Comedy is subjective; Everyone has their preferences, small likes and dislikes that combine into a vague sense of: I like this.
Or sometimes: I really really don't like this.
I have always enjoyed your writing, Cold in Gardez, but the humor in this story just came across as extremely off-putting. I felt that what happened to the titular characters was not just on the level of "mean", but deeply disturbing. In essence, the joke was about characters being robbed of free will, and I couldn't laugh at that. All I felt was pity and sadness.
I do realize it's a joke, it's just not one that I could ride with.
Maybe they should start calling Sweets Sweetflanks instead, given the size of 'em.
OH. MY. GOD.
Next up, Derpy's struggle with strabismus and learning disabilities.
2400287
Remember kids, vamponies are ponies, too.
"I'm not a damn vampony! And Sweets, cover up those injection marks already! Every time I see your forelegs I get hungry."
I just found this story and I have a question...WTF,O!?!?
?
This reminds me of the Looney Tunes episodes where one character is subject to the whims of another; i.e. Daffy Duck being animated by Bugs or Bugs Bunny being animated by Elmer Fudd. Completely nonsensical, with the characters forced into their rolls by the writers. Clever premise, over the top execution. You don't do things by half, do you