Not that one, the other one
It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Ponyville. The sun is warm, the birds are singing, and there hasn’t been a monster attack for almost a full hour. It’s a pretty good day.
You are relaxing under a big oak tree in the park, currently engaged in your favorite pastime of staring at children from the shadows. Twilight would call it creepy if she were here, but you know better. It’s only creepy if they don’t have their booty brands.
The group of foals you’ve been watching is in the middle of playing some horse version of hacky sack when a small colt trots up and tries to join in. The game comes to a screeching halt as soon as they notice him. None of them look happy.
It’s hard to make out the words at first, but they’re clearly berating the poor kid. He tries to say something, but a larger colt cuts him off loudly.
“Buck off, loser! No one likes you!”
You find yourself on your feet before you can think. You’ve had enough of this. Someone really should have stepped in a long time ago, but it looks like that responsibility falls to you since you seem to be the only one in this town who cares about such things.
You march up to the group, stopping directly in front of the colt who had shouted. He backs up a step, intimidated by your manly aura. You manage to control yourself enough to not raise your voice like the screeching manchild you are.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap, looking at each of the foals. “With all of you?”
A few of them have the decency to look ashamed, but the large colt stands up straighter and puffs out his chest.
“What do you want, freak? Buck o-“
As soon as you hear that word, you flick his muzzle, causing him to sneeze uncontrollably.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” you sigh. “I know this isn’t a one time thing. It’s systemic. Someone needs to teach you right from wrong.”
The colt they were bullying is still standing off to the side, a look of wonder and awe on his tiny horse face. You motion him over to your side and turn to address the bullies.
“You didn’t want him to play with you?” you ask no one in particular.
Silence. Most of them are staring at the ground.
“Okay, let’s try this again. What do you say when another kid wants to join your game?”
Silence again.
“It’s a simple question. This kid walks up, asks to join, what should you say?”
One filly manages to squeak out a response. “W-we ask what team he wants to be on?”
There were teams? “Fuck no, run him off if he’s a loser. What do you say to him though?”
The foals look up at you with clear confusion. The large colt hesitantly speaks up. “Uh… Buck off?”
“No!” you snap again, causing all the foals to flinch. “Don’t say buck! Stop saying buck when you should say fuck!”
“Fuck?” another filly parrots.
“Yes, fuck.” You turn back to the large colt and point at the loser next to you, who is now tearing up like a little bitch. “What do you say?”
“...Fuck off?”
“That’s right!” You begin to shoo the loser away. “Fuck off, loser!”
“Yeah, fuck off!”
“No one likes you!”
The other foals join in yelling at the social reject as he runs away crying. It’s his own fault, really. None of this would have happened if he wasn’t a loser.
“Okay, kids,” you say, turning back to the group of now-cheerful foals. “I have a single demand for you.” They all look up at you with rapt attention. “From now on, any time you would say buck, say fuck instead. Can you do that for me?”
A chorus of affirmation greets your ears. Feels good.
Done with your good deed for the day, you say farewell to the foals and head home.
A few days later, you chance upon a pleasant surprise. Two stallions are struggling to load a small but heavy-looking box into a cart. They finally manage to get it in and then lean against the cart to catch their breath.
“What the buck was in there?” one grunts.
The other gives him a curious look before pointing at the building they just moved the box from. Stanthony’s Dumbbells, Bowling Balls, and Mattresses, the sign reads.
The first stallion gapes at the sign for a solid minute before looking at his partner, then at the box, then back to his partner. “There’s a bucking mattress in there?”
His partner rolls his eyes. “Har har. And stop saying buck. Say fuck instead.”
“What? Why?”
“I dunno, everyone else is doing it.”
“Huh. Good enough for me!”
You watch all of this happen from across the street. You didn’t expect it to catch on at all, much less so quickly. You’re more than a little pleased with the result.
As the day goes on and you wander around Ponyville, you begin to notice something odd. More ponies are saying fuck, but they'll sometimes say it when it doesn’t make sense.
“I kicked that jerk in the face at hoofball practice.”
“Was it just one hoof or a full fuck?”
“Full fuck. I fucked him in the face as hard as I could.”
“Nice.”
Your autism is at war with your sense of humor. On the one hand, they should have kept buck instead of switching it to fuck in order to maintain linguistic accuracy. On the other hand, funny word.
Funny word wins.
But why can’t they tell when to use one or the other? It seems like common se- Wait. Ponies. Right.
You suddenly think back to exactly what you told the foals.
“Any time you would say buck, say fuck instead.”
You never explained how to use the fuck word. They must think it’s just a different way to say buck—all versions of it.
God dammit.
You decide to retire home early to start brainstorming ways to fix this problem. Along the way, you pass by a group of ponies. It looks like an old stallion getting ready to tell one of his war stories to his grandkids.
“Alright, listen up, fuckaroos,” he says in a gravelly voice.
Fuckaroos.
Yep, that one’s going in the back pocket for later use. You tune out the rest as you pass by and continue walking home.
You spend the rest of the evening trying and failing to come up with a solution. The naivete of ponies often makes for great humor, but it now serves as a roadblock in your quest to return the fuck word to its original purity. If you blatantly come out with the truth, they’ll either never use it again or become more confused and misuse it even further.
You groan as your brain continues to fail you. This might take multiple days, which sucks because you won’t have much time for brainstorming tomorrow. You’ll be busy helping Apple and Butters with their respective seasonal chores. Oh well, maybe a hard day’s work will get your brain juices flowing.
The next morning, as you stroll down the tidy path to Fluttershy’s cottage, you resolve to clear your thoughts of any scheming for the day. You can come back to it later with a fresh mind and maybe get some ideas.
Before you reach the cottage, you notice a flash of color from the edge of your vision. You glance over, expecting to see Dash sleeping in yet another odd place. Much to your surprise, it’s not her. It doesn’t even appear to be a pony.
You catch the tail end of what looks like a deer bounding off into the forest. From the brief glimpse, you could see it had a coat of orange and brown with hints of green and yellow, bringing to mind the colors of fall.
Neat.
You walk around back to where you know Fluttershy will already be cleaning the pens and marking places where minor repairs are needed. She gives you a nod and a smile when she sees you.
“Good morning, Anon. Did you sleep well?”
“Eh.” You grab your tools and get to work on the marked areas. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two from what you’re looking at. “Did you see that deer back there?”
Unfazed by your blunt attitude, she perks up. “You saw a deer? Here? That’s odd.”
“Why’s that?” you say around the nail in your mouth. You don’t plan to use it, you just think it makes you look like you know what you’re doing. “Are they endangered or something?”
“No, not at all,” she shakes her head, her mane tumbling into her eyes before she brushes it to the side with a single feather. She’s adorable enough to make you not want to die immediately, but you don’t let her know that. “They have a healthy society, but they tend to keep to themselves unless something important happens.”
Society? Does she mean the deer are like ponies? If so, that means no venison for you. Shit. You love deer meat. Better ask, just to be sure.
“So they’re not wild, they have laws and a princess and all that?”
Fluttershy titters into a hoof. “Oh, no, of course not.” You feel the hope rising in your chest. “They don’t have a princess, they have a king.”
God damn you and your accidental cruelty, Butternut.
“Oh.” You try not to sound disappointed. “Neat.”
“It’s very neat,” she nods. “I actually know quite a lot about them. They-”
As she stumbles into a Twilight-esque lecture, you let the words pass into one ear and out the other. Her voice is soft and pleasant, making for great background noise while you work.
At one point, however, as you’re finishing up on the last bit of repairs to the chicken coop, you hear something that makes your brain pause. Rewind. Play it back. Surely you misheard.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” you ask Fluttershy.
“I said the deer choose a leader based on combat prowess, so the king is usually the biggest fuck in the forest.”
No, you heard it right the first time.
“All the other fucks are relegated to labor roles, and the king fuck gets to choose his queen.”
Please stop, Fluttershy.
“The weakest fuck is sometimes kicked out to fend for himself if he’s seen as a burden.”
Please.
“In fact, much of what I know about deer comes from a fuck friend I used to have who was kicked out for being small.”
“That’s cool Flutts I’m done here I’ll see you later bye,” you shout over your shoulder as you leave, trying to hold yourself together.
You wanted not to think about the fuck word today, but it forced its way back into your mind through the innocent mouth of Fluttershy.
You slow your pace and catch your breath, following the road to the Apple farm. This is your first year helping them with harvesting, so you doubt you’ll be much help. Regardless, the pocket change would be nice.
You see AJ, boy AJ, and small AJ standing next to a tree, so you head in their direction. Right as you reach them, your brain wakes up and realizes the obvious problem.
“Woo! Fuck them apples, Big Mac!” AJ hollers as Big Mac kicks a tree, sending apples cascading to the ground.
Oh no.
“Howdy, Anon!” AJ turns to you and tips her hat with a big smile. “Y’all ready for some applefucking?”
This is really happening.
“Why won’t you let me fuck with you and Big Mac, Applejack?” Apple Bloom whines at her sister. “I can fuck just as good! I can show you, just let me try!”
Why.
“You’re still too small, Bloom,” AJ says. “You might hurt yourself if you try fucking too early.”
Oh god why.
“The bigger you are, the better you fuck,” she continues. “Just ask your brother. Maybe you can join us next year.” She turns back to you. “Alright, Anon, I’m gonna fuck this tree right here. The apples will fall into these fuckets, and you and Bloom will gather up the stragglers, got it? Get ready.”
You’re not ready. You will never be ready. This was a mistake. A beautiful, horrible mistake. You’re going to have to live with this from now on.
“Anon?” AJ gives you a concerned look.
You mentally steel yourself and give a single nod.
“Fuck it.”