Late Night Writing
Twilight Sparkle’s Secret Shipfic Folder: The Shipfic
Ch 1 Late Night Writing
Twilight Sparkle stealthily moved through her crystal castle in the dead of night. She usually would not need to do so, but tonight was different. Tonight, it was crucial that nopony knew of her destination. She crept carefully, the faintest light from her horn illuminating the darkness as she prowled like a silent jungle cat--
SMASH!
--That vase had already been broken when she’d found it.
She froze, ears pricked for any sound, but none came. The hallway was quiet. The purple alicorn crept onwards. Finally, after many twists and turns, she found the place she sought. Looking around the library to be sure that Starlight wasn’t enjoying some late night reading--she wasn’t--Twilight headed for the non-fiction section. Scanning the shelves, she reached out with a forehoof, pulling on a thick book titled A History of Taxes and Watching Paint Dry: Volume 20. It was literally the most boring book in the entire library, which ensured that no sane creature, or insane one for that matter, would ever read it.
Twilight grinned as she heard a tell-tale click, and the bookcase swung inward on secret hinges to reveal a dark spiral stairway. Looking behind her once more to be sure she wasn’t followed, Twilight brightened her horn’s glow, and entered the hidden hallway, pulling a lever on the inner wall to seal the bookcase door behind her. Down, down, and further down the stairs went, until she came to a heavy stone door, barred, padlocked, and bespelled so securely that she was sure not even Discord himself could get in.
It took several minutes to undo all of the locks, and several more to reapply them once she was inside. Only then did Twilight Sparkle relax. The room was small, cozy and well lit by firefly lanterns. There was a wall cabinet constantly kept full of snacks and bottled water, and a large trash can nearby. A smaller room branching off to one side held a bathroom. The main features dominating the whole area, however, were a comfortable chair, and a desk with a typewriter upon it set against the back wall. Rolling back the plush rug, Twilight opened the trapdoor in the center of the room and peeked in, smiling warmly at her treasure. The space beyond led down a ladder into a whole other library. Years worth of faux leather-bound stories sat nestled on their shelves, organized by sub-genre and title, for there was only one author, and only one genre.
The author was Twilight Sparkle, and these were her romantic relationship fictions. Her “shipfics” as she affectionately called them.
Tonight, she would begin the greatest shipfic of them all. This was to be her masterwork!
Reaching out with her magic into another section of the secret library, Twilight pulled a thick folder from one of the shelves and opened it. It was full of notes, some recent, others from as far back as before her ascension to alicornhood. They had been kept secret elsewhere besides the Golden Oaks Library, and so had survived Tirek’s rampage. Grabbing a pencil in her magic from a desk drawer, she quickly wrote down some new ideas while they were still fresh in her mind.
Hostile takeover
Invasion
Self-Insert Multiple self-inserts
She pondered for a moment if the hostile takeover and invasion were the same thing, but then decided that, in this context, they weren’t. But who or what was doing the takeover and invasion? And how would it be possible to insert herself into the story more than once?
A memory surfaced of her brother’s wedding, and she shuddered, but wrote the idea down, deciding that changelings, before their reformation, would be good antagonists. But as for the invasion... Another memory came unbidden, of the Mirror Pool incident and the hurricane of Pinkie Pie clones. Oh yes, that would do nicely! Earth ponies, at least, even if not necessarily the pink party pony herself.
She would figure out the self-insert part later as things went along.
But what was a shipfic without ships?! Yes, even here at the beginning of the tale, she needed at least one ship to get things going. She dug through her notes, looking for potential ponies and situations ripe for shipping. Four ponies came to her attention: Granny Smith, Cheerilee, a younger unicorn version of Twilight herself from when she was Princess Celestia’s star pupil, and finally, a mortal unicorn version of Princess Celestia, taken from an older work which had been written during Twilight’s experimental “dystopian future” phase.
As for the potential relationship situations to put her vict--characters--in, she had discovered three among her notes that were to her liking. But which to choose first?
Should the two star-crossed lovers find each other by divine intervention and the will of the goddess, or perhaps the princesses themselves, who were in their own right demigods at the very least? Would the force of Harmony itself draw those two souls together?
Or, thought Twilight, bookmarking her places and readying sheets of parchment in her typewriter, maybe one or both ponies had seen each other in a dream, guided by Princess Luna to their destiny of future romance?
Oh! Or, what if they were already lovers, and their romantic escapades were causing disturbances to their neighbors, threatening their happiness and potentially dooming their relationship to be broken like a ship on the unforgiving rocks!
Twilight excitedly wrote that simile down in her notes. It was too good to be forgotten and she might use it in a story later. She couldn’t wait to get started! She checked the typewriter's ink ribbon, straightened the parchment and stacked more at the ready near to hoof. Finally, Twilight settled herself into the chair, hooves at the keys--and froze.
She now had too many options. Too many potential beginnings to choose from. Which should she go with? Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin in thought, wings rustling against her back and tail lashing with pent up creative energy. She considered making a pros and cons list, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. In this case, such a list might take all night, which she didn’t have if she wished to make any progress with this newest tale before sunrise and the others woke to find her missing from her bed. She needed to be back by then, lest they get suspicious and stumble upon her greatest secret.
She got up and paced the room, thinking over which two ponies and what shipping situation to choose from...