Pinkie Pie discovers what a meme is and decides to become one herself.
A fateful encounter with Rainbow Dash paves the way to Pinkie Pie's future on her journey of self-discovery with a goal of achieving her lifelong dream: to become meme.
Rated teen for drug references, adult-ish humor (if you can call memes "adult" humor), and Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie, but teen instead of for kids.
This is my 300-follower thank you story. And you better like it.
This story may update randomly if I get any more decent ideas. I encourage guest chapters for anyone else with ideas. You'll get named credit in parentheses with the chapter name.
“Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie called from the ground below her friend’s house.
Rainbow Dash’s head poked over the side of the cloud her home resided upon. “Oh, hey Pinkie. How’s it hangin’? Need something?”
“Nope! Just felt like coming and saying hi!” She about-faced and began skipping away, humming happily to herself.
Rainbow Dash confusedly scratched her head, then returned to her task of napping.
“Wait! I do need you for something!”
Rainbow sighed, then poked her head back over the side of her cloud. “What, what is it?”
“I need you to say hi back! You only said ‘hey’ to me earlier!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Hi, Pinkie Pie.”
Pinkie Pie replied, “Hi again!”
Rainbow, satisfied that she’d done everything Pinkie Pie asked, went to lie back down.
“Wait!”
She called over the side of her cloud, “What is it now?”
“You forgot to say hi to me again!”
“What? I just said hi!”
“Yes, but that was to the first time I said hi, then I said hi again, and you haven’t replied to that one yet!”
Rainbow Dash responded irritatedly, “Pinkie Pie, go away. I’m trying to sleep.”
There were several seconds of silence, then Pinkie Pie responded, “Okay....”
Rainbow Dash laughed loudly enough that Pinkie Pie could hear. “You know, Pinkie Pie, you would make a great meme.”
“Meme?” she asked confusedly.
“Yeah, meme.”
“What’s that?”
“Go ask Twilight or something.” Rainbow yawned loudly. “I need to get some shuteye.”
“Meme: An element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.” Twilight proudly shut her book and looked at Pinkie Pie. “Does that answer your question?”
“No! That doesn’t make any sense!” Pinkie Pie looked pleadingly at Twilight. “Can’t you give me an example or something? Rainbow Dash said I might become one!”
“Pinkie Pie, that just means other ponies will want to act like you.”
“No, that’s not how she meant it!” Pinkie Pie shook her head aggressively. “None of the books in the world will answer this for me. I have to go find out for myself what it means to be meme.”
Despite Twilight’s cries for Pinkie Pie to return and think about this, her mind had been made up. She would find out for herself what it meant to be meme, and nothing that Twilight or Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie could do would stop her from discovering it.
Pinkie Pie began her journey with some sick 360 noscopes. She was showing some scrubs who was boss, when who should show up but Gilda!
Gilda told Pinkie Pie, “1v1 me faggot.”
Pinkie Pie replied, “I’m not the faggot, you’re the faggot.”
Gilda replied, “Whatever. Just 1v1 me.”
Pinkie Pie replied, “K.”
While the game was loading up, Pinkie Pie took out this massive bong and took this massive hit, so big that she could swear Gummy had teeth. Oh, yes. She was ready.
As the match started, she picked the MORS. Yeah, only noobs took anything but. How could you expect to noscope otherwise?
On Pinkie’s team, there was her (gamertag MLG_Pinkie), Renbow_DaNK, and AppLeKraK. On the enemy’s team, there was G1lD0NG, GPTr1x5h07, and CrstlKng1337. Only scrubs put numbers in their names. So unoriginal.
As soon the game started, AppLeKraK got her head taken off by GPTr1x5h07. Pinkie just rolled her eyes, resigned to the fact that country ponies just aren’t any good. Renbow_DaNK was doing somewhat better, as Pinkie expected, but she got quickly gunned down by CrstlKng1337 with an MSBS. Pinkie was well aware of the noob status of the MSBS, as it was made to hide real talent.
She was hidden behind cover, waiting for her moment. She peeked out briefly and saw it. She stood, 360’d, then shot her MORS mid-spin and got all three of their heads in a row. Round won.
“Oh baby, a triple! Oh yeah!” she cheered.
AppLeKraK said over her headset, “I’mma name my firstborn after you.”
Renbow_DaNK said, “Yeah, that was pretty sweet.” There was a problem, however: She was actually a he.
“Wait, there’s some shitty guy on my team?” Pinkie Pie shouted. “Stallions have no place in MLG, holy shit and here I was thinking I was playing with some actual talent! Go back to the kitchen and get out of my game, scrub!”
“Actually, my rati—”Renbow_DaNK was cut off by Pinkie booting him out of her party and subsequently blocking him. At least she knew that stallions weren’t allowed in esports.
AppLeKraK said a few seconds later, “Hey, Renbow_DaNK wants to know why you blocked him.”
Pinkie replied, “Tell him to send me pics or GTFO.”
Gilda messaged Pinkie a few seconds later, saying, “That was a lucky shot, and I said 1v1 noob, not a team! That wasn’t even my normal team!”
Pinkie said, “Then 1v1 me.”
Gilda said, “K.”
Another game, this time just Pinkie and Gilda. Pinkie went with the MORS again, and Gilda of course took the MSBS. Pinkie’s gun’s acronym stood for Most Original Real Skill, whereas Gilda’s stood for Most Serious BullShit. It was obvious who would win.
Game started, Pinkie Pie 360’d and shot Gilda in the head.
“Yeh, scrub,” Pinkie Pie taunted.
Gilda grumbled, “Took me off-guard... I’ll 1v1 you again later, my mom says it’s time for dinner.”
“Your mom invited me over for dinner and I’ll be banging her later, scrub!” Pinkie Pie called into her headset.
As if on cue, Pinkie’s own mother called up the stairs. “Pinkie, it’s time to get off your game! You’ve been up there for hours!”
Pinkie Pie called back, “Mom, it’s only been, like, three matches!” even though it had been eight.
She’d also forgotten to mute her headset, prompting Gilda to say, “Wow, your mom still enforces curfew on you? You’ll never be MLG like that.”
Pinkie Pie scoffed. “It takes actual skill, something you seem to be lacking. Unless you want me to noscope you again?”
“No, I said I gotta go eat dinner! I’ll see you later, dawg.” Gilda left the room and went to presumably go eat dinner, though Pinkie had the feeling she went to go cry into her pillow because she was such a scrub.
Pinkie Pie sat in her hotel room, a cigar in her mouth and a box full of money sitting in front of her. Today was the day it all began.
A knock on her door notified her that the opening ceremonies would be starting shortly. She rose up from a leather chair in her presidential suite at the hotel, paid for with the money of pre-registered attendees, snuffed her cigar in a nearby ashtray, and got in her gold-plated elevator (also paid for with pre-registration money) to address the recent arrivals to the convention.
She arrived at the ground floor and strode across the carpeted foyer to the nearby large auditorium that would be hosting the main events—or lack thereof, she snickered—and entered a door near the rear which allowed her onto the stage. She approached the podium.
“Welcome to Las Pegasus DashCon, fillies and gentlecolts! I’m Pinks McGee, your official go-to convention leader! I’m sure you’ll have a blast at our convention this weekend. There’s so much planned for you guys, you won’t even be able to sleep. I’ll get out of your way, though, and let the show go on!”
Pinkie Pie marched off the stage, went back to her hotel room, grabbed her box full of money, packed some meager belongings, went to a hotel shuttle, arrived at the airport, got on a plane, and was across the Equestrian border within the hour. She wouldn’t want to be around for the quickly approaching shitstorm.
Meanwhile, back at the convention, a confused staff member was being pushed onto the stage. It appeared Pinkie Pie was supposed to have a longer speech, but she was just being Pinkie Pie. The stallion approached the microphone, cleared his throat, and said, “Hey, I’m Honey Nut, the Chief of Security. I, uh... am here to remind all of you that this convention’s primary purpose is to have fun. We’re all volunteers here, but we’ll do our best to be professional. If anypony tries to hold you up for a reason you don’t think is correct, talk to me about it and I’ll get it sorted out.” He looked back at the staff huddled at the edge of the stage imploringly, then glanced back over the crowd. “I... uh, hope you all brought your convention guides, because there’s panels happening everywhere. If you don’t have one yet, you should be able to pick one up at the front desk. I...” he paused, breaking into a profuse sweat, “hope you all have fun!” With that, he departed the stage to scattered applause.
Several minutes later, the flood of ponies at the front desk was outraged over the fact that there was literally not one printed convention guide.
Ponies with smartphones went to the convention site, where an online convention guide had been available, in the hopes of being able to connect to a nearby printer and provide some convention guides. To their dismay, the entire guide (which had been intact at this time yesterday) was erased, replaced by plain text on the webpage saying “lol u mad.”
With no other choice, the convention staff turned to an autistic savant muttering to himself in the corner named Final Solution. Using Final Solution’s perfect memory, they were able to recreate an entire ad hoc convention guide for the weekend. They printed off several of these, but the first prints that went to the eager hands of the convention-goers were returned shortly afterward, as the panels written of in the guide weren’t happening, and those rooms were, in fact, locked. When the staff went to go ask Final Solution if he was certain this was correct, they found him convulsing in a hallway, his panicked screams insisting to his fretful mother that there was a panel for sexual themes and references in the show there and that he was missing it.
As the morning’s chaos sunk into the convention-goer’s mentality, there came the realization that no planned guests were present; neither members of the show staff or fandom talent had been present throughout this entire ordeal. When efforts were made to reach out to some of those who had been announced, they unanimously said that they had been cut out at the last minute due to “emergency budget concerns.”
Pinkie Pie lazily watched her phone buzz on the table next to her as she reclined in the afternoon sun in the Bahaymas. This would make the 73rd missed call, and the 17th from Honey Nut. She shook her head and sighed contentedly, then picked up her phone and threw it into the nearby ocean, the tide pushing it back up onto the beach briefly before sucking it back in, never to be seen by pony eyes again.
She then reached into her nearby saddlebag and pulled out a different phone, turning it on and choosing her Bank of Equestria app. She logged in and checked her account balance, which was slowly going up as the convention fundraiser to provide money for hotel grievances was being raised. She'd milk every cent out of this fandom, and she'd do it while relaxing on the beach.
“Mein little ponies, today is the day that we, the Ponies’ Republic of Equestria, will show the other nations the might of our Fatherland! We will prove to them that our greatness cannot be diminished, that even our mares and foals are to their greatest warriors as giants to ants, that we are free of the unclean which plagues their numbers and that our example is the perfect precedent to produce prodigious ponies of palatable posterity!” Pinkie Pie took a deep breath, then laughed into her microphone. “Say that five times fast!”
The assembled crowd of ponies before Pinkie cheered loudly, their adulation all the proof she needed that her cause was righteous. Her Equestria was greater than all others because, unlike their weak-minded and foolish leaders, her vision of a pure pony populace was being realized before her very eyes. Equestria was strong, and with her to lead them into a greater world, they were unstoppable.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
An earth pony stallion rose from the table where he was having dinner with his wife and foals, seven of them, to find out who was waiting at the door. His chain was affixed in place to prevent any intruders, so he opened it a crack and asked, “Yes, what is it?”
A pair of hooves crashed into his front door, tearing the chain from where it had been attached to the door where it fell to hang limply off the bracket still attached to the frame, splintered wood still stuck to the screw that had been keeping it in place. The door flew open, pivoting 180 degrees and slamming against the wall with great force, rattling the window next to it and grabbing the attention of the other eight ponies gathered. The stallion had his side clipped, his balance lost, spiraling to the ground in shocked pain.
For several seconds after that, there was silence. Then the mare wife shot up and went to her husband, exclaiming, “Oh, New Boots, dear, are you okay!”
New Boots let out an affirmative grunt, then stood up, facing the wide-open doorway. The pony that had bucked the door open was now standing to the side, replaced by an authoritative-looking officer in a sharp uniform. “To whom do we owe the pleasure?”
“Captain Snowfall, if you please.”
“Captain Snowfall, then.” New Boots nodded. “I pay my taxes. I do work. I keep my family provided for. Anything in particular we’ve done wrong to promote house vandalism?”
“An anonymous tip,” Captain Snowfall replied matter-of-factly. He gestured to the guards assembled behind him, who bustled into the home. New Boots gathered his wife and foals to him, where they stood in the middle of their dining area while the guards systematically searched every last nook and cranny that something may be hiding. They checked the attic, inside the furniture (which they tore up with their spears), and even inside the family’s refrigerator.
The guard checking the fridge, upon finding nothing suspicious, proceeded to reach in and take an apple, taking a large bite out of it and eliciting a gasp from one of the smaller fillies. “That was my lunch tomorrow, you monster!”
The mother shoved her hoof over the mouth of her daughter, laughing uneasily. “Oh, haha, don’t pay Sweet Melody any mind, she’s just a little prankster, aren’t you, Melody?” She glared at her filly, then at the guard, whose eyes were bulging in anger, then back to her daughter. “Say you’re sorry, young lady. That wasn’t a funny joke!”
Sweet Melody stuttered, “S-sorry, I joke with my brothers and sisters like that all the time. I sometimes forget who I’m talkin’ to.” She still had a glint of defiance in her eyes, but she seemed to know the gravity of the situation well enough not to ask for trouble.
The guard simply guffawed. “Ma’am, you keep your little ones on a tighter leash, eh? Else you’ll all be answerin’ direct to Pinkie herself for hostility to your friendly local guard.”
“Yes, sir,” came the mother’s meek reply.
Captain Snowfall, for his part, had been slowly cantering into the house, his booted hooffalls making empty thudding sounds whenever they made contact with the wooden floor. He watched as the guards buzzed about the establishment, then, one by one, came back to him empty-hooved. Finally, the last guard came from the upstairs area and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing, Captain.”
Captain Snowfall sighed in exasperation. “We go over this, what, twice a week? And you blockheads still haven’t caught on yet?” He paced, his hooves causing more thudding sounds. “Think, think, think! Where have none of you searched?”
The guards only stared blankly at one another, then a voice from the assembled mass ventured, “On the roof?”
“Ich bin von Trotteln umgeben,” muttered Snowfall. He moved over to a shadowed corner of the dining room, tapping on the floorboards with his hoof. “You see this? Loose floorboards. Check underneath.”
The guards, shock and realization on all their faces, immediately began rushing to the corner. New Boots’ eyes darted left and right as he stuttered, “M-maybe it’s not such a good idea... to look there.”
The guards paid him no mind, pulling up the floorboards and disappearing underneath the house. After a few moments, a guard yelled, “Found one, Captain! Oh, three-no, four more! We’re bringin’ ‘em up!”
“Das gut, bring them up. Tell the rest to keep searching.”
The guard emerged with five jugs of a pink liquid, setting them down on the floor of the dining room. Captain Snowfall, upon seeing them, said smugly, “Ah, just what I was looking for.”
New Boots stared in horror at the jugs of pink liquid arrayed before Captain Snowfall. “Now, that—that’s not what it looks like! That there is punch!”
Captain Snowfall barked a laugh. “The most pathetic excuse ever made. You call yourself a proud Equestrian? Your kind make me sick.” He turned from New Boots back to the guard that had found the jugs. “Corporal Botch, you may dispatch the first one yourself.”
“With pleasure, Captain!” Corporal Botch replied. He hefted his spear, pointed it downward, then pierced one of the jugs directly through, its liquid spilling outward in all directions, staining the wood a dark red color. He withdrew his spear, then stabbed the jug again at a slightly steeper angle, causing more precious liquid to seep out onto the floorboards. A third stab, then a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh... and he had punctured the bottom of the jug, its final remnants of liquid dripping onto the floorboards and trickling into the basement below.
New Boots watched the scene unfold in utter terror, his wife covering the eyes of their two youngest and the rest of his family likewise mortified at the execution taking place before them. A swiftly barked order from Captain Snowfall had the rest of the guards return to the dining room, two more jugs in tow and assurances given that there were no more jugs present in the house.
“Now, mein little ponies,” Captain Snowfall addressed the family, “you must all watch these proceedings. That even means your little ones, gnä’ Frau. I won’t ask again.” New Boots’ wife apprehensively removed her hooves from the eyes of her foals so they could all watch the scene unfold. The guards arrayed themselves around the full jugs, their spears pointed downward, Captain Snowfall shouting clearly the countdown. “Drei!” Those whose spears weren’t already raised immediately raised them. “Swei!” Perfect stillness, weapons poised, guards ready to administer justice. “Ein!” Every muscle in their outstretched hooves tensed, prepared to perform their duty as Fuhrer Pinkie’s elect. “Schießen!”
With the final order, the spears plunged downward, tearing into the hapless jugs of pink liquid, their contents spilling everywhere, splashing onto the stone faces of the guards, their frenzied stabbing a testament of their devotion to Pinkie’s cause.
In that moment, New Boots knew that there was no such thing as Equestria. Not the Equestria he remembered as a foal. He watched the carnage unfolding before him, and a silent tear tracked its way down his cheek to join his already sobbing foals. None should have to bear witness to a massacre, much less his own flesh and blood.
He hated Fuhrer Pinkie.
Fuhrer Pinkie bounced down the yard of a military camp that she had been giving a speech at, looking appraisingly at the obedient soldiers she’d created. A firing squad to her left unleashed a rattling of musket rounds into a grouping of jugs that contained orange-colored liquid, their precious cargo splattering against the wooden wall where the musket balls struck. A pair of guards to her right were throwing more with a clear gold liquid into a furnace. Still another group dead ahead was posing for a picture, emptied jugs littering the ground in front of them.
Her vision was being realized. Equestria would become a strong nation, and she would be leading it. To say she was happy... well, that would be an understatement.
“Pinkie Pie, hold still! This is very sensitive magic!”
“Oh, Twilight! You know I can’t do that!” Pinkie Pie sat atop a large tesla coil, its power coursing directly into her rump. “Th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-” she stuttered, unable to continue her sentence past the first two letters. Twilight sighed and turned the switch off to the contraption, freeing Pinkie’s tongue. “This is fun!” She laughed to herself, then jumped back down onto the floor of the containment cell she was being held in.
“Look, Pinkie.” Twilight did her best to sound stern. “This experiment... is incredibly unstable. If I’d had a choice, I’d have picked Applejack for this, but she said her plans for today include some zap apple harvesting, which just so happens to have fallen around Apple Family Reunion time, and I need an earth pony. You’re the only other friend I trust with this experiment. You just need to hold still for a few minutes and we’ll be done.”
“Okay!” Pinkie exclaimed. She sat still in the middle of the floor for several long seconds, watching with an unmoving, sweaty face as Twilight flipped the switch back on, the machinery whirring back to life, before she said, “I... can’t!” and bolted off the ground again.
“Pinkie!” Twilight groaned. She started manipulating some of the knobs and dials on her dashboard, attempting to bring the focus of the machine to bear.
Then, Pinkie Pie blew up. She legit just blew up. Like, boom.
Pinkie Pie awoke floating in a strange white realm, absolutely confused and unsure what had happened. “Hello? Where am I? What is this place?”
Princess Celestia materialized from the ether. “Oh, jeez, it’s you.”
“Well, howdy, Princess Celestia! Fancy meeting you here. Where are we, anyway? Is this Purgatory?”
“It is... of sorts.” Celestia seemed quite uncomfortable. “All of Twilight’s other friends will end up here someday, and they will all become as she did. You, it would appear, are the first.”
Pinkie Pie gasped in shock. “You mean... I get to be an alicorn!? :D”
“Um... yes?”
Pinkie Pie began babbling. “Ohmigoshthisisthegreatestthingtoeverhappentomeican’twaittotellmyfriendsaboutthistheyaregonnabesojealousbecausei’mgonnabeanalicornandtheyonlywishtheycouldbealicornsandi’mgonnashowgummyandgrowhimsometeeththeniwilldecreenocurfewforfoalseverand—”
“Pinkie Pie, please.” Princess Celestia’s commanding words cut through Pinkie’s rant. “There’s something more I must tell you.” She took a deep breath, obviously unhappy with this. “My list also says... you get to be another Element of Harmony.”
Pinkie’s features screwed up in what could only be described as an implosion, then they popped back out as the gravitational forces involved in a facial implosion caught up with her and sent her rocketing away. Celestia’s magic grasped her and pulled her back to where she had been prior.
“You’ve come such a long, long way, And I’ve dreaded since that very first day, To see what you might know, To see what we’ll get through, To see what is your view, And all the ways you’ve made me despise you.
It’s time now for a new change to come, To make a bad choice and then some, Now Princess I bestow, New appendages three, And ask you for mercy, For it’s time for you to commit your heresy....”
Pinkie Pie was lifted from the ground, wrapped in a cocoon of light that quickly enveloped her, then Celestia teleported her back to Equestria.
Celestia looked upward, into the stark whiteness, where she knew the Hasbro execs were watching. “I hope you’re happy, you greedy bastards.”
Twilight, after blowing Pinkie Pie up, had called her remaining four friends to collect their thoughts and decide on a next course of action.
Twilight, to her credit, didn’t seem all that broken up about it. Like, she knew the risks and had taken the necessary precautions to distance herself emotionally from Pinkie Pie just prior to the experiment. It would take her weeks of emotional dampening spells and mental conditioning to wear off for the impact of the event to truly hit her. Also, to be fair, Pinkie Pie was being really annoying on that particular day.
Rarity wasn’t overly worried. Pink was a very difficult color to work with, as you were forced to work only with either complementary or starkly contradictory colors. You couldn’t very well stick a neutral with something so garish. No serious loss there.
Rainbow Dash had determined that the experiment had been something akin to a giant prank, and thus Pinkie died the way she deserved to die: having fun. Rainbow took her solace in such a stance.
Fluttershy, in caring only for animals, did not care for the lives of ponies, and thus, it was as if a plant had been stomped on to her.
Applejack was just relieved that she hadn’t agreed to the experiment.
Just as they were in the process of agreeing that it wasn’t a serious loss, a bright light brought them running outside. There, outside Twilight’s castle, was Pinkie Pie. There was, of course, the obvious difference: She had her horn and wings. However, her new Element of Harmony appeared to manifest in her having the cutie marks of, not only herself, but also those of her friends.
Her friends exclaimed in excitement, “How toyetic can you get?” They started touching her wings and horn, eliciting sighs of pleasure from her, as everyone knows those are sex organs to each species and earth ponies don’t know what it’s like to feel the touch of a pony on such sensitive regions of the body. They also began exclaiming over her now six strong cutie marks, speculating over what they could possibly symbolize.
“I think the new Element of Harmony you’re going to get is, um... hmm, it’s hard to determine,” Twilight stated thoughtfully.
“It’s Everything.” Princess Celestia’s voice cut through the chatter. “Her new Element of Harmony is Everything. The rest of you can go retire or whatever, Pinkie Pie can take it from here.”
Twilight canted her head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean, Princess? Don’t you need us to help defend Equestria?”
“Nah. Hasbro decided Pinkie Pie should be the main character and they want to erase their other five mistakes. You guys won’t be written into any future episodes. See ya.”
“Wait a minute! That is so unfair!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Why can’t I be the main character?”
“No one will watch a show with a gay main character.”
“I’m not—”
“Anyway, it’s not up for debate.” Celestia gestured away from them. “Please leave your Elements of Harmony at the front door of Pinkie Pie’s new castle. She’ll be inheriting that one I gave to Twilight. Hope you’re not too mad, Twi.”
“Mad? Why would I be mad? I’m only homeless,” Twilight muttered sarcastically.
“Now, look, it was either make Pinkie Pie the main character or start some weird exploration of romanticism thing with you and me. Which would you rather have, my prized student?”
Twilight blushed. “You have to ask?”
Pinkie Pie was busy preparing a party for her friends that wouldn’t show up in the episode, presumably due to budget cuts, when her Magical Sparkle Phone™ began ringing. She picked it up. “Yes, Princess Celestia? Where am I needed to fight crime?”
Princess Celestia, whose face showed as a still image, presumably due to budget cuts, crackled through the headset with Steve Blum’s voice, as Nicole Oliver had not been retained for the role, presumably due to budget cuts. “Pinkie Pie, it appears Discord has helped King Sombra return to power in the Crystal Empire again, and this time, King Sombra is forcing Princess Cadance to marry him. You must go and stop the wedding and vanquish King Sombra again and teach Discord a lesson.”
“Leave it to me!” Pinkie Pie hung up her Magical Sparkle Phone™ and jumped into her Pink & Fabulous Pony Car, speeding off to the Crystal Empire.
Several minutes of commercials later, she arrived at the Crystal Empire to confront King Sombra at the altar. The pastor pony could be heard saying, “Do you, King Sombra, take Princess Cadance as your lawfully wedded wife, to spawn as many toy lines as fillies she creates, till bankruptcy do you part?”
King Sombra smiled sinisterly. “Crystals.”
Princess Cadance said, “I... I...”
At that moment, Pinkie Pie burst in. “Time to defeat the enemy. With fun!”
The following fight scene cannot be described in mere words. If I was an animation pro, I would show you what I’m talking about. It’s like Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo had a baby with Akira. It defies logic or reason. You cannot fathom the over-the-top weeaboo heart attack you just watched. Pinkie Pie hit King Sombra with a rubber chicken, several new toy lines were introduced, and it ended with him running away, shouting over his shoulder, “I’ll be back, Pinkie Pie, with friends!”
Of course, when confronted with what he had done, Discord smiled innocently and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing! I hope we can still be friends!”
The ponies all at once said, “Oh, Discord!” as if this was a typical thing with him. Which it was. Since it happened every single episode.
And with that, the ending credits rolled, complete with Pinkie Pie flying around them because she doesn’t care about the fourth wall. I mean, that joke is funny or something, right? Right, guys?
Pinkie Pie sat patiently, watching as a long string of numbers printed out in front of her. She began muttering notes to herself, jotting them down on a pad of paper. “11:15, restate my assumptions. One: Mathematics is the language of nature. Two: Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature. Evidence: Precise bake times; the wax and wane of flavor penchants; solar and lunar cycles; the rise and fall of the Crystal Empire. The universe of numbers that represents the item in front of me. Millions of hooves at work, billions of minds. A vast network, screaming for deliciousness. An organism. A natural organism. My hypothesis: Within the pie, there is a pattern as well, right in front of me, hiding behind the numbers. Always has been.” She leaned to the right, patting the metal box responsible for running her algorithms. “Soon, we’ll break the code. Soon.”
A knock on the door jotted Pinkie from her appraisal. Her gaze focused on the door to her house, seeming to look straight through in an attempt to see the pony on the other side. She rose and looked through the peephole at the intrusive visitor. Twilight, as expected. She kept saying something about wanting to help Pinkie with her problem-solving, but whenever she came in, she started going on about the importance of the work that Pinkie was doing and not about the importance of what she was trying to create. Twilight didn’t understand. She just couldn’t.
Pinkie ignored the knock, returning to her chair in front of the printout. “Come on, Euclid, I know you can figure it out. Just tell me, will you?”
“Pinkie Pie, I know you’re in there!” Twilight was shouting outside the door now. “I only want to help! I have textbooks about this, I can give you advice! If there’s a discovery to be made, I want to make sure you don’t miss it! Please, Pinkie, just let me help!”
Pinkie Pie snorted derisively. “You can’t help.” She said it loudly enough that Twilight could hear. “Go home.”
“Pinkie Pie, this is science we’re talking about! Number systems! This is fascinating to me!”
“You will participate and ruin my algorithms. Stop distracting me. You are distracting me from my work.”
“Pinkie, come on!” Twilight shouted. She continued making plights for several more minutes, but Pinkie Pie had refocused on the printouts coming from Euclid. Eventually, Twilight gave up and headed home to return to her studies.
“714... 293... 3... 4.58... 2236... argh, there’s no pattern!” Pinkie tore the sheet off and put it to the side, punching in a few more parameters for Euclid. “Oh, let’s see... c’mon, I know you can figure this out. It’s not that complicated.”
Suddenly, a curl of black smoke rose out of Euclid. The printout stopped abruptly. Pinkie’s head snapped up and she tore off the sheet of paper. “No, no, no! What have you done? You’re all I need to find this out.” She began looking over the numbers that Euclid had computed just prior to her malfunction. “These make no sense... what are you even computing here? There’s no...” her voice trailed off as she read some obvious coding discrepancies, as if Euclid was trying to communicate a solution outside of the programmable text in the printout, then a number of white lines, as if Euclid had been thinking hard about how to express the solution. At the bottom sat the glowing number of 216.
“Hum....” Pinkie muttered. She moved over to a nearby whiteboard and began writing down formulas, all assuming that 216 was the solution. Slowly, a pattern began to emerge. A size of 216 millimeters (8.50394 inches), only slightly smaller than the typical size of a pie. Cook time of 216 minutes (3 hours, 36 minutes). Oven temperature of 216 degrees (Fahrenheit). 216 divided by 6 equals 36, a whole number—meaning she could divide it into perfectly even proportions for herself and her friends. It was radical, to say the least... but she couldn’t help but find these correlations. Perhaps 216 grams of an ingredient? It just so happened that 216 grams was roughly equal to 1 cup. For that matter, 216 teaspoons equaled 4.5 cups—the approximate amount of liquid involved in creating the cream base for many types of pie cooked at low temperatures for long periods of time. The relationship was absolutely uncanny. All she needed to find out was the perfect mix of ingredients that added up to her magic 216 perfect number.
Her whiteboard was now covered in a baking recipe with a thematic number 216 involved in all of her measurement decisions, whether it be divided, converted, or used as is. Eventually, through extreme devious means of mathematics, she had come up with what appeared to be the perfect recipe to her, a perfect basis for all pies, and it all factored into the number 216.
It was incredible. That it fit everything so... so perfectly. She had to share it with her friends. She bolted out of her laboratory, calling to Euclid, “I’ll be back soon!”
Out in the bright afternoon sun of Ponyville, Pinkie Pie shouted, “I have it! I have calculated pie!” Passersby gave her skeptical looks, with more than one closet mathematician amongst their numbers rolling their eyes.
Eventually, Pinkie’s fervent cheering found her in front of Twilight’s castle, where the resident therein could hear the bold claim. She quickly left and sought out Pinkie, whose voice could still be heard echoing toward her. After catching up, she refuted this. “You can’t calculate pi! It goes on forever!”
Pinkie Pie whipped around. “Can too calculate it! I just did!”
“Oh yeah? Tell me what pi is, then.”
“216!”
“Wait, what? That’s used in the calculation of the circumference of a circle! It’s infinitely long and complex! You can never truly calculate it because it’s incalculably long!”
“Well, if that was true, then that wouldn’t mean it’s 216, now would it?” Pinkie Pie boasted. “It fits everything. Go ahead, try it!”
“Try what?”
“Creating pie!”
“You’re not even making sense anymore, Pinkie. Try to create pi? It’s a number. It’s abstract.”
“If you don’t believe me, try to calculate anything with that as the solution.”
“Okay. Two plus two.”
“No, not like that.” Pinkie Pie shook her head. “Observational. And I’m not talking about a single calculation. Keep calculating. It will all come back to 216.”
“Hmm,” Twilight replied. “Let’s take... pegasus flying speed. Maximum theoretical velocity achievable by a pony is approximately 80 kilometers... then factor in wind speed... gravitational effect... adverse weather... pony age... year number... hmm.” She scribbled a few notes on her notepad. “Maybe it’s a fluke, but this approximation of 216 definitely seems within several digits of the solution.” She put her hoof up at Pinkie Pie’s look of excitement. “Don’t be getting too excited, though. I have to run some more tests first. A simple number can’t be so central to everything.”
“Sure, go ahead Twilight. I’m off to go make pie!”
“Make... pi?” Twilight asked the empty space that had just been Pinkie Pie.
216. She turned the dial. 216. She grabbed the pan. 216. She poured the ingredients. 2:16. She looked at the time. AM. She had to find perfection. She had to keep baking pies.
A knock sounded at her door. She shouted, “Busy! Come back later! Trying to calculate pie!”
“Pinkie Pie?” came Twilight’s concerned voice. “Pinkie Pie! What are you doing?” She’d rounded the corner, seeing a multitude of tasty-looking pies, each with a small bite taken out of them. “What—you’re baking pies? I thought you meant the mathematical formula! You know, 3.141592653—the number that seems to go on infinitely and—oh, never mind. I did some more looking into that 216 num—”
“216? 216!” Pinkie Pie shouted. “216! That’s all I need! That’s it! I can do it!” She went back to her mixing bowl and began measuring precise amounts of ingredients again.
“That’s just it, Pinkie. I can reach the solution of 216 with any formula, but I can always raise it higher or lower if I add or subtract factors. If you keep adding or subtracting until you reach the desired solution, you’ll always—”
“NO! 216!” Pinkie Pie yanked a pie out of the oven, setting it on the counter. “C-Cutie mark... six white stars, pink star with six points, smaller white star behind with six points... 216. Your cutie mark equals 216.”
“Or 18, if you’re using addition instead of multiplication to reach a preconceived solution. I considered the same—what are you doing?” Pinkie Pie had grabbed Twilight’s hoof and was dragging her toward the mixing bowl. “What—Pinkie, stop! Why—ouch!”
Pinkie Pie was reaching into Twilight’s tail and plucking out hairs, one by one. “Seven, eight, nine...” she muttered to herself. “There, 18. Divide into 12 pieces. 216 hairs.” She nodded to herself, then brushed the hairs into the new pie she was creating. “Yes... this is promising. 216.”
The next morning, a tired but happy Pinkie Pie stood next to an equally tired and somewhat mortified Twilight Sparkle as Pinkie strung up a sign. Twilight blushed profusely as it went up. There was no reasoning with Pinkie Pie when she got her mind made up on something, and it would be easiest to just explain to the other ponies the situation. That didn’t change the fact that it was embarrassing.
As the ponies began to make their morning circuits around Ponyville on their various errands, eyes strayed to Pinkie Pie’s sign. The general reaction was always the same: The mares opened their mouths, shock evident, then they became disgusted and continued on. The stallions, on the other hoof, slowed their canters, curiosity evident on their faces. Any stallion unfortunate enough to be with a mare at the time was yanked forcefully away, their eyes echoing a brief longing over something they hadn’t realized they’d lost.
Applejack eventually approached the widely grinning Pinkie Pie and the rosy-cheeked Twilight Sparkle, a wide-eyed Big Macintosh in tow, and asked, “What the hay is goin’ on here? Pinkie, just what do you think you’re doin’? Is this what Ah think it is?”
Big Mac peeped up behind her, “Does it cost me anythin’?” before getting stabbed in the ribs by Applejack’s hoof.
Pinkie Pie replied obliviously, “What do you mean, AJ? And no, Big Mac, samples are free!”
Applejack’s eyes looked upward again at the sign that read ‘COME AND SAMPLE TWILIGHT’S HAIR PIE.’ “Pinkie, Ah insist you take that sign down immediately, before anypony gets the wrong idea.”
“Wrong idea? They’re coming to sample pie with Twilight’s hair in it!” She saw Big Macintosh’s look of shock and horror, then clarified, “It’s 216 hairs! That’s the perfect number! C’mon, I know it’ll taste delicious!”
Applejack couldn’t think of anything witty to say, so she simply we went with, “... Oh.” A few moments later, she followed up, “Wait, you removed hair from Twilight and baked it into a pie!?”
A small crowd of stallions had been milling around behind the Apples, heard the exclamation, and, their misguided hopes dashed, began to slowly meander away from Pinkie’s shop. Under their breath, they all muttered false advertising.
Pinkie Pie woke up early in the morning, her clock displaying 6:40AM, the standard commuter’s time. She went downstairs, her mind on the fact that half of her bed had been empty that night and the ridiculous relationship she’d been in prior with an abusive stallion. Just a day in the life of a normal pony who lived a normal existence and nothing truly out of the ordinary occurred—after all, anything she thought strange had already been experienced by another pony, hence she was not special in any manner to describe.
Her mind processed the morning routine of toast and work attire as she cycled the motions of countless other ponies living remarkably similar lives as they likewise fulfilled their expected morning rituals with little deviation. Like her, they all woke up at 6:40 AM. Like her, they would be late for work by 1-2 minutes on average. Like her, they would question whether they ought to go to work at all—and, like they had every other day, they would find their hooves carrying them to their workplace on this day. They had bills to pay and mouths to feed, even if only their own, as Pinkie Pie did.
While she autonomously prepared for work and departed just a minute late, toast hanging drolly from her mouth as she affixed a small paper server’s hat to her head, she pondered the lives of Equestrian celebrities. She’d heard about Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship; she’d heard about Rainbow Dash, the Wonderbolt; she’d heard about Fluttershy, the wildly popular singer; she’d heard about Rarity, the fashion designer in Canterlot. Their lives meant something. Their lives changed the lives of those they touched.
She recalled a TV show she watched recently about how prevalent the apple industry was and what would happen if it collapsed. The farmer interviewed on the documentary, Applejack, had talked about her hard work being unappreciated by so many, but she could take solace in the fact that she knew she was keeping Equestria going like the train of progress that it was.
Pinkie Pie didn’t even have the obscure fame that Applejack had obtained to fall back on. She looked up at the sign over the entrance of her business emblazoned with yellow letters that spelled “HAYBURGER.” She had this. This was all she had to her life.
She was a cog in the wheel of a gray sleet that had overtaken her senses. All she could see was the senseless turning of nothingness that she had aspired to someday become. This was the job she applied for, and this was the job she got. If she didn’t want the job anymore, she could leave and another cog would replace her and she could become a cog somewhere else.
She dreamed, as everypony did, of being something more. Maybe one day, long ago, she could have been something more. She’d decided to live the life of a cog in the wheel instead. Where that wheel was turning, she hadn’t the foresight to be curious about.
Sure, she’d dreamed like her five friends had at a young age—all ponies did when they were in the prime of their lives. She was older now, though, and wiser. Their aspirations had taken them places, and hers had landed her at fast food. Saving the world then didn’t make the reality now alter in some spectacular fashion. Simply put, world-saving is not a sustainable business model, and she had to grow up someday.
Another day at the Hayburger completed, she helped close and bid her coworkers a good night. She departed at dusk and began her standard commute home. As luck would have it, Twilight was strolling through Ponyville, apparently caught up in some errand that her Princess duties were necessary for.
“Oh, hey Twilight!”
“Oh… Pinkie.” Twilight obviously wasn’t impressed to see her. “What are you doing out here?”
“Oh, just finished up another day of work at the Hayburger. I remember it used to be one of your favorite places to eat!”
“Yeah... yeah, it was.” Twilight smiled fondly, her memories of the place coming back. It had been a great establishment—before Pinkie Pie began working there.
“Why don’t I see you around there anymore, anyway? I thought we’d be able to talk and catch up every once in a while, but I never see you.”
“Oh, I gotta watch my figure now. We’re both getting on in our years, Pinkie; you know how metabolism works.” Twilight didn’t remark on the partially protruding gut that Pinkie had acquired, likely due to what her typical lunch would entail at her place of work.
“Yeah... I just didn’t think we’d see each other so little. Ah well, still friends forever, right?” Pinkie gave as big of a forced smile as she could manage.
“Right, friends forever,” Twilight replied disinterestedly. “Anyway, I’ve got a, uh, important—an important errand. Duty calls. Great seeing you again, though. Maybe I’ll drop by the Hayburger one of these days!”
“Sure, I’ll make sure to get some overtime in case you come by in the next week so I don’t miss you!” Pinkie Pie waved at Twilight’s departing figure.
She knew, perhaps in her heart, that Twilight wasn’t going to show up. Her head told her that Twilight was her friend, but her heart knew better.
She wished she could lead an interesting life like her friends, but her life was just bland and uninspired. Maybe some ponies were fated to end that way.
