Test Fic: Plz Ignore

by Daemon McRae

First published

Sunset Shimmer needs help writing a story. So she asks Twilight Sparkle.

Given an assignment to come up with a 500-word story in a day, Sunset turns to the smartest person she knows to help her with her writer's block: Twilight Sparkle.

Sure, this is gonna end well.

Leave blank for auto-named chapter.

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Test Fic: Plz Ignore

Sunset Shimmer stared at the screen. And stared. Then she regarded it with a pensive gaze, for flavor. But that didn’t last very long, and she went right back to staring. She was supposed to be writing a story for her English class, some short story on whatever subject she wanted, as long as it was at least five hundred words, but she wasn’t having any luck.

So, when in doubt, call Twilight “I get better grades than you and I still have time to invent self-cleaning underwear” Sparkle. She tapped out the lock code on her smartphone, almost subconsciously, and pulled up her call logs. They talked constantly, so finding her in her recent calls was easy as hell. After a few chimes, a voice came through on the other end.

“Hey Sunset, what’s up?” Twilight asked. The rather disturbing yet familiar sound of unrecognizable machinery in the background let Sunset know that the nerdy girl was probably still in her lab.

Shimmer leaned back in her chair, her long red-and-gold tresses cascading over the back of her seat. “So you know that writing assignment we got today?” she drawled, staring at the ceiling as if her future story had somehow imprinted itself on the plaster, just waiting to be transcribed.

“Oh, yes!” Sparkle chirped. “I typed it out really quick on my phone on the bus ride home. It’s like an hour to my house so I had it done in time to start on my History homework,” she explained. There was a loud ‘THUD’ in the background, and Twilight paused. “Excuse me a second.”

Sunset waited patiently, mentally cursing the adoranerd’s studious habits, then sat up quickly as the sound of heavy metal clanging filled her ear. ‘BANG BANG BANG BANG’. “Twilight?” she asked hesitantly.

There was a moment’s pause. Then some shuffling as Twilight picked up the phone. “Sorry about that. Sometimes you have to show these machines you mean business. So what’s up?”

Debating whether or not to pursue the line of questioning that just popped into her head, Sunset opted to set aside her inquiry in favor of the original reason she called. “I can’t think of a single thing to write!” she exclaimed, flailing her limbs in frustration. “I’ve been sitting in front of this screen for like, half an hour with no ideas! All my other homework is super easy. It’s just facts and figures and ‘oh hey this guy died like two hundred years ago what was his dog’s name?’ But when it comes to original like, fiction and stuff I can’t think of anything!”

The other end of the line went almost silent, save for the background hum of technology and the bubbling of some unknown chemical concoction. “Well,” Twilight said finally. “Mrs. Harshwhinny never said it had to be a fictional story, did she? You could just write about anything that happened to you! Goodness knows we’ve had enough interesting adventures that would fill out a decent sized fantasy novel,” she quipped.

“Or an hour and a half on Netflix,” Sunset drawled.

“Uhhh…. Sure?” Twilight mused. There was even more bubbling now, and Twilight went quiet for a moment. “Be right back.”

Sunset waited patiently as the unmistakable sound of a fire extinguisher filled the background, followed by some baby swears. A few moments and some shuffling later, and Twilight was back. “Sorry, thought I cleaned out that beaker last night. Stupid phosphine. Anyway, why not just pick one of the random magical mishaps you had and write a story about that? Surely you can squeeze five hundred words out of that.”

“You’re probably right, Twi. Thanks a bunch. I’ll let you get back to… whatever. What… what are you doing, anyway?” Sunset asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Sorry, can’t tell you. CERN still hasn’t forgiven me for the last leaked experiment. Bye!” Twilight called out.

Sunset stared at her phone for a second, and slowly put it down. On the other side of the room. Returning to her seat, she stared at the screen for another moment. “Ok, something that happened to me… hmmm.” After rattling her brain for a moment, Sunset’s eyes lit up as an idea finally came to her, and she started typing furiously.

--------------------------------

The Rainbooms stood around the announcement board in the hall, most of them with their mouths agape. Sunset merely stood to the side, arms crossed smugly as she beamed with pride. Twilight had to take a second to push her glasses back up her nose. “Wha… how?!” she said finally, leaning closer to the paper, as if even her glasses weren’t enough correction to read the paper properly. “I don’t get it! You said you couldn’t think of anything to write! How did you win a Literary Youth Award with a 500-word story?!”

Sunset waggled a finger at her. “Five hundred and one,” she corrected. “Besides, it was easy, thanks to you. You said write about something that happened to me, so I did! It’s not my fault people ate it up like they did. Although Mrs. Harshwhinny almost had an aneurysm when she read the story herself. She had a little issue with the subject matter. However, she said it was tastefully written, well-worded, and emotionally evocative. She was the one who encouraged me to submit it to the contest, although I think she might have done that a teensy bit out of spite.”

Applejack leaned back on her heels and whistled appreciatively. “Well shee-oot, Sunset. Good for you! So what’d you write about, anyways?” The est of the girls murmured their encouragement for Sunset to answer; none of them had read the story yet, and they were all very curious.

Sunset shrugged and walked away. “Oh, just the time I lost my virginity.”

There was a stunned silence in her wake as the girls processed that information, until Twilight yelled, “AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN ASK MY PERMISSION?!”

The girls stared at her slowly, silently, and much to her embarrassment, until Fluttershy said, “Um, why would she need your permission to write that?”

Rainbow Dash just shook her head. “Oh, you poor sweet Summer child.”