This was a terrible idea.
Ponyville, what a peaceful town. Far from the industrial nature of Manehattan and certainly not as big or prestigious as Canterlot but hey, it has its charm. It’s a town that’s close to the earth, close to nature and a town where everypony knows each other. Ain’t it beautiful?
Twilight was out for a walk, wanting to get some fresh air after a long morning spent putting things in order in the castle’s library. As she was trotting along peacefully, she spotted Rainbow Dash swooping down from the clouds to greet her.
“Hey Twilight, it’s a nice day, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, the sky is crystal clear today, I figured it was a good time to take a breather from the castle’s interior.”
Twilight could tell that Rainbow Dash really wanted to say something judging by the fact that she was still flying above her, looking pumped up as always. “Is there something you want to show me?”
“Yes I do! I’ve learned a cool new trick and I want you to give it a score! It has to be super awesome to impress the Wonderbolts!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.
Twilight raised an eyebrow, of course it was about the Wonderbolts, again. “Haven’t you done enough to impress them already? You’ve saved Equestria alongside us on many occasions. Surely the Wonderbolts must have heard of you by now.”
Rainbow Dash defended her stand on the matter. “Yeah, perhaps but not everypony in Equestria seem to know how awesome I- we are! Only ponies around Ponyville and Canterlot seems to recognise us. Tirek was a big deal, so why hasn’t everypony heard of our victory against him?!”
“Still getting' worked up over this, ay Dash?” Applejack appeared out of the blue, carrying her good apples into town to sell them. “You gotta give it a rest.”
“Bah, if only somepony would be kind enough to tell the whole world of our accomplish-”
The rumbling of a vehicle that is very uncommon in this region suddenly announced itself and thus, everypony came to see what was up. It certainly could be the Flim-Flam brothers yet again as the machine was very different, but still matched their style as sleazy merchants.
“What in the wild wide world of Equestria is making all this noise? Oh, we don’t see that kind of vehicle around here.” complained Twilight as she was one of the first ponies to arrive on the scene. Looking at the machine, her head was filled with questions regarding this vehicle she had never seen before. “Who could that be?”
Applejack arrived soon after and immediately went on the aggressive. “Oh, no way these jerks are comin’ back to our town! We ain’t gonna let them mess with us again, right Twilight?”
“I’m with ya.”
The door opened revealing a sharply dressed stallion they hadn’t seen before. He was wearing orange-colored sunglasses, which contributed towards the business pony aesthetic he was going for. “Woah woah woah, chill out. I just got here!” He said with a cheerful smile.
Applejack stepped down, realising that it wasn’t the Flim-Flam brothers. By that point, practically all of Ponyville had gathered around this newcomer, all with curious looks on their faces.
“Okay, let me present myself now that I got all your attention. My name is Big Picture, I’m what you can call an artist. I came here to Ponyville to meet the legendary Elements of Harmony.” he said with a nasally voice. It was kind of hard to take him seriously, but I guess the giant vehicle meant business, so he couldn’t be all talk.
Rainbow Dash immediately bounced forth. Her ego was being stroked by this stallion and she wanted to hear more of it. “Yeah, that’s us right here!” She said as she proudly presented her friends to the artist.
“My oh my, I am more than honored to meet such great heroes.” Big Picture looked at this vehicle, still with a warm smile on his face. “Bit Grubber, would you mind introducing yourself?”
Inside the vehicle, somepony was snoring loudly. “Grubber!”
“Huh? Wh-what?” Another stallion, bigger than Big Picture, stumbled out of the machine with tired eyes. “Oh! We’ve already arrived!”
“Yes, we did. I literally told you so a minute ago. Now would you please properly introduce yourself to the Elements of Harmony!” continued Picture in an impatient sounding voice.
“Sure thing. My name is Bit Grubber, I’m a producer for this new project that we’ve been workin’ on for quite some time. It’s all about you girls so we thought it would be a fun idea to let you contribute.”
Rarity walked forth. “Oh my, we’re getting even more attention from ponies of high status! I want to hear every detail about this fabulous project!”
“Wait, a producer? What does a producer do?” asked Applebloom in the crowd.
“A producer doesn’t do anything.” innocently responded Sweetie Belle.
“Gn... Why you little-” Bit Grubber desperately tried to hide his indignity.
“He got you there, buddy.” whispered Big before looking back at the crowd. “We sure do appreciate the enthusiasm, dear!” he said in an enthusiastic tone himself. “It’s quite an unorthodox project for ponies like you. In fact, we believe it’ll propel you six to new heights of popularity in all of Equestria!”
“Come on, tell us. Come on come on!” Insisted Rainbow Dash, flying up to the two fancy stallions.
Bit Grubber cleared his throat before speaking up. “It's a cartoon we’re working on!”
“A cartoon? What’s so special about a cartoon to warrant coming all the way to Ponyville?” questioned Rainbow Dash.
“The cartoon we want to make will be about you, the Elements of Harmony! More specifically, about your adventures in saving Equestria on numerous occasions, isn't that right Bit Grubber?”
Big Picture nodded in approval. “Just one problem. We need a spacious interior to get it working.” His eyes immediately laid on the Castle of Friendship. “Ha! This castle seems good. Would you mind if we demonstrate our project inside your castle, Princess Twilight Sparkle?”
Twilight hesitated. “I’m not so sure I like the idea of letting strangers in my castle.”
“Oh come on now; we mean absolutely no harm. We’re just two buddies who came all the way from Manehattan to work alongside Equestria’s biggest heroes. We just want to properly honour you, that’s all.”
Before she knew it, Twilight was being surrounded by her friends.
“Please Twilight! This is a fine opportunity for a ravishing mare such as me to hit it big!” begged Rarity.
“Come on Twilight! I want everpony to see just how awesome I a- we are! And it’s going on the big screen too!” begged Rainbow Dash.
“It sounds like a fun! Come on; we have nothing else planned for the day!” insisted Pinkie Pie.
The Princess of Friendship turned her two other friends who hadn’t said anything yet.
“Um, well... If you three want to do it, then I suppose I’ll join.” Now Fluttershy was on their side!
“Applejack?” said a worried Twilight.
“Sorry sugar cube. They ain’t gonna listen. You’ll just have to follow along.”
Twilight sighed before turning her attention back on the two stallions. “Okay, I guess we can talk more about this cartoon inside the Castle of Friendship. Just be careful not to break anything! Wait, did that sound too impolite?”
“Will do princess! You heard her Bit? Let’s grab the material and set up quickly!”
Bit Grubber went back inside their vehicle and caused quite the ruckus in there, eventually coming back with a curious looking camera not many ponies in town have ever seen as well as a canvas, a large canvas at that.
Inside the castle, the two stallions looked around curiously as the Main 6 followed closely behind, eager to hear more about the cartoon. “Uh yeah, we’re gonna need a room big enough to fit this canvas for it is an integral part of our project.”
“I suppose THIS room will do the trick.” proposed Big Picture as he looked around the room. Just one problem for Twilight, the Friendship Map was right there which she didn’t want these stallions to know about. It’s quite weird to know that they literally get booty calls to go solve some problems around the globe. Better keep it a secret to them.
“Uh... How about the library? It’s spacious enough for your canvas.”
Bit Grubber didn’t seem to care much where they would set up. “Yeah sure, as long as we can showcase this here cartoon that’ll be just fine.”
“W-Wait! On second thought...” protested Twilight, but it was too late. The two stallions had already started mounting their set-up in her library.
The camera mounted on its tripod, the large white canvas, the film reel, everything was placed down in less than a minute. Impressed by their sheer speed, Twilight stopped her protest to see where this situation was going.
“Alright Bit, it’s high time to showcase this fine prototype!” proudly exclaimed Big Picture.
“Sure thing.”
The lights dimmed inside the library right as Big placed the film reel inside the camera. Twilight Sparkle and her friends appeared on the canvas, powered up by the Elements of Harmony. On the opposite end lied Queen Chrysalis, who looked terrified in front of the power she was facing. Then, the six ponies fired a beam down on the fiend, blasting her far into the deepest corners of Equestria.
Rainbow Dash was thrilled to see this short cartoon that was greatly valorising her and her friends. “Ha ha! Yeah, now that-”
The drawings suddenly disappeared, leaving the canvas empty.
“Huh? It’s over already?”
Big Picture mechanically took the reel out. “Do you know how long that took me to make this short cartoon? I spent a sleepless night just to get it done on time!”
Bit Grubber chimed in, jumping in front of the canvas to get everypony’s attention. “That was just a taste of things to come! By working together, we can make something profi- I mean wonderful for foals all around Equestria! What do you say?”
Twilight was unsure, but her friends were quite thrilled to get on board.
“That sounds fun! And artistic! I love things that are both fun and artistic!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie as she bounced around the room and the ceiling, much to the surprise of the two stallions.
“Oh my! I looked really good in this cartoon! I can only imagine how splendid I’ll be in the real deal!” Rarity was already fawning over herself much to Applejack’s exasperation.
“I just hope they aren’t gonna paint me in an unflattering light. I don’t have much trust in big Manehattan studios.”
Big Picture seized the opportunity to step in. “And that’s going to be the best part about our cartoon; you’ll get to work on it! You’ll be making the script especially, so you don’t have to worry about slander, we won’t change it in the slightest, we promise don’t we Bit?”
“E-yup.” That was a strangely good impression of Big Macintosh, even if he did it involuntarily.
Twilight, however, was very nervous. “M-Make a cartoon that everypony in Equestria is going to watch?” Making a cartoon is no easy task, and she knew just how hard it can be to make one. A good cartoon especially. Screwing up will for sure tarnish her friend’s reputation as well as her status as a princess. Seeing as how it was too late to persuade her friends to think twice, the alicorn had no other choice but to jump in this new bandwagon.
“But first... we must hold a production meeting!”
Gathered around the repurposed library, Big Picture explained their plan.
“It’s no surprise that making a cartoon isn’t as simple as just imagining something and having everything pop into existence. There are multiple layers to the conception of one. Firstly, we must have a script to work with. It’s always easier if you come up with a main character first and then base your story around them. In that case, Princess Twilight should be the main character for obvious reasons.”
Everypony nodded, except for Rarity who cringed at that last statement, though she hid it pretty well.
“So, I guess we’ll need to find a villain to create conflict too, right?” Fluttershy said.
“Exactly! And like I said earlier, you’ll be in charge of the script. I’m talking about you Princess Twilight.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Who? Me?!”
“Yes! You! There's still plenty of time left in the day, so we’re expecting to hear your script tomorrow.” joyfully continued Big Picture, obviously ignoring the distraught look on the princess’s face.
“Tomorrow?!”
Some time had passed since their production meeting, the two stallions had already left to find somewhere to spend the night. Without a home of their own, they were offered a place to sleep at Carousel Boutique, which was generously offered by Rarity. The stallions took the basement as their private room, where they were shuffling around a mirror.
“No need to thank me, fine gentlecolts!” Rarity said as she waved goodnight at them.
“So, are we good to set up the mirror, Big Picture?” asked Bit Grubber as his eyes darted around the place.
“Yes, I’m setting it down now. It’s time we have a chat with our good sponsor.” replied the other stallion.
Bit trotted up to the mirror. “Come on; get it working already you artsy pants!”
“I know I know! I’ve gotta be careful to not break it or else we’ll be in big trouble.” groaned Big Picture. “Ha! There we go! Let’s give ‘em a call.”
Their reflection faded away and were replaced by a newcomer, that being their sponsor.
“Oh! If it isn’t Bit Grubber and Big Picture. How can I help you today?” said the rich stallion.
“We’ve got the project up and runnin’! Tomorrow, we’ll hire ourselves a dream team to create this here cartoon. We promise we’ll bring back the dough soon enough!” said Bit Grubber in an enthusiastic tone. “We’ll just need uh... a bit more money to pay them, else they’ll run our flanks into the ground.”
“We can give you everything you desire in here.”
“You better do so! Last time we did business with you, we got stuck having to pay for the damage caused by your material!” exclaimed Big Picture.
“Mistakes DO happen Mr. Big Picture. I’ll let you know that they are not the norm with us.”
Bit Grubber looked into his saddlebag full of bits and waved it in front of the mirror. He was visibly growing impatient. “Well, are you sending the money in or what? We’re seriously gonna need it soon!”
“It’s on his way! Oh, but don’t forget... You have a deadline to meet as agreed. That’s why we’re being generous with you two.”
Bit felt his heart sinking. “O-Oh, yeah right. When was the deadline again?”
The stallion on the other side took out a sheet of paper and looked at it for a few seconds before cringing. “Oh my, you have until next week to get it done! Best of luck!”
The image faded away, leaving only their reflection on the mirror. Both had a horrified look on their face.
“One week?!” screamed Big Picture. “How are we supposed to create a cartoon of professional quality in under a week?!”
“W-W-Well, that’s why you have me, Big. We’re gonna have to cut some corners, but I can make it happen. Just work on that cartoon and leave the rest to me!”
The sun had set down on Ponyville and most ponies were fast asleep except for Twilight who was still stuck on writing down the script.
Spike walked into the bedroom, feeling quite sleepy. But before he hopped into bed, he noticed Twilight hunched over her seat, looking stressed out.
“Twilight? Is everything alright?”
Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Oh Spike, I’ve been trying to write a script for this upcoming project... but I can’t come up with something good! It has to be for tomorrow!”
“A script? What kind of project are you working on?” asked Spike as he jumped on the seat next to the alicorn.
“It’s a cartoon starting my friends and I as the main characters. There’s just... so many ideas in my head but I don’t know which one I should even pick!”
“Oh, cool! How about you start with an awesome fight scene like that time you fought Tirek with all the princesses’ magic? That would be a good place to start.”
“You’re right! Foals would love to see some action! A good round of magical fisticuffs would surely get them excited for what’s to come. Thanks for your help, Spike!” Twilight was bursting with energy, determined to finish the script on time.
“I don’t mind spending the whole night up if it means including myself in this script!”
Twilight giggled. “With all the help you’ve been to me, I say you deserve some recognition.”
And so, the two worked hard to complete their script for they’ll present it tomorrow to the two stallions.
The following day, the stallions returned to the castle of Friendship alongside Twilight’s friend, ready to hear what she had come up with.
“...After saving everypony in Canterlot from the clutches of the changelings and the evil Queen Chrysalis, the wedding is finally finished and everpony gets to enjoy the nice party at the end! How’s that?” finished Twilight Sparkle, sweat dripping down her head. She sincerely hoped that this script would be good enough considering the spread this cartoon will surely have. She couldn’t settle for mediocrity.
“I say this here script is great! It’s got all the components to make a quick bu- to get foals thrilled and craving for more!” exclaimed Bit Grubber before leaning towards his comrade, whispering into his ear. “Would you mind if I say that I want to be in this script one way or another...”
“I can arrange that as the director. You can get away with many funny things when you’re the director.” responded Big Picture with a mischievous laughter.
“That was pretty good, sugar cube.” admitted Applejack to her friend. “Though you did embellish it a bit.”
“It needed just a little more spice.” Twilight said lightly as she rubbed her tired eyes.
“At least I sounded awesome in your script! You made me 20% cooler, and I like that!” Rainbow Dash said in a thrilled voice.
“Hey, where’s our Spikey Wikey?” Rarity asked as she looked around the room.
“He’s still sleeping. We both stayed up all night to finish this script so I’m very happy to hear all your thoughts.” Twilight answered.
“Oh dear, I sure hope we’re not going to overwork the poor little dragon.”
“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t overdo it.”
Big Picture tapped his hoof rapidly on the table to get back their attention. “Well, now that the script is done, we can move on to the next phase of creating a cartoon; the storyboard!”
“Um, excuse me sir but, uh, what’s a storyboard?” asked Fluttershy.
“A storyboard is the rough draft of a story. It’s meant to show us what will happen in every shot! The angle, the characters present in it, it’s a crucial step in the art of making a cartoon.”
Twilight proudly brought in a board filled with her drawings. “I already took care of that! In case you need an example, you can take a good look at my storyboard!” She trotted up to the last frames of the storyboard and pointed a stick at the last two. “In this frame, it looks like Queen Chrysalis is going to win only to reveal in the next frame that we got the upper hand and defeated her!”
“Yeah! That’s the moment where you give the villain a whooping! Like this!” Bit Grubber hit Big Picture in the back of the head.
“Ouch! That felt eerily personal...”
Applejack chimed in. “But that’s going to take an entire team of animators to bring this script to life! We’re all busy ponies, we can’t do this on our own!”
“I’m not very busy.” playfully pointed out Pinkie Pie.
Big Picture quickly recovered from the pain, readjusting his sunglasses in the process. “No need to worry about that! While you were busy working on the script AND storyboard, Bit and I assembled a real dream team, didn’t we Bit?”
“Yeah! Check out this here dream team girly!” exclaimed Bit Grubber as he pointed at the window. Practically all of Ponyville was gathered in front of the castle.
“Wuh?! Did you really assembled all of Ponyville just to work on this cartoon?!” Twilight asked in disbelief.
Big Picture had this extremely positive smile on his face. Her disbelief was very amusing to him. “Apparently yes. We only posted a couple of fliers around town; it worked better than expected.”
Bit Grubber moved to the entrance of the castle, looking very eager to start. “Onto the town hall folks! We’re starting today!”
Bit Grubber trotted along the isles full of ponies hard at work. The town hall was repurposed into an animation studio for the sake of the cartoon since Twilight would never allow them to do this in her castle. In the meantime, Big Picture was explaining the next step of the project.
“First off, we need to sketch out the characters. These will be used as reference sheets for the animators to avoid any... inconsistencies.”
Rainbow Dash peeked at one of the sketches of herself. She smiled initially, before noticing that something was off. “Gah! Is this really supposed to be me! That’s super uncool!”
Bit Grubber let out a hearty laugh. “It ain’t that far from reality, Dash.”
“Hey mister Grubber, I’m finished with your sketch!” proudly said a mare.
“Oh really? Thank you for taking the time to draw meEEEEEE!” He fell on his flank instantaneously, horrified at what he saw. It was the poorest rendition of himself he ever got to lay his eyes on. “Aba! Abou! Abadibabou!” Now the mare was feeling quite embarrassed.
Big raised his eyebrows. “Oh dear, you really broke him with that one.”
Rainbow Dash flew towards Bit Grubber with a smug grin on her face. “Why do you look so shocked? It ain’t that far from reality, Grubber.”
The stallion stood up, still looking horrified. Another pony came up to him to present his rendition of the producer. “Hey, what do you think of this?”
“It’s ugly!”
A mare showed her drawing. “I-I think I did good on this one.”
“Do I look pregnant to you? Slim my belly down!”
An old pony proudly presented his own sketch. “I added a bit of flair to your fancy attire.”
“Do you have a crush on me or what?! Out of my sight old geezer!”
Many more came to show their drawing and for each of them, Bit had a complaint. It got overwhelming to the point that he nearly passed out on the floor out of hyperventilation.
“Gee, Bit’s really ripping into everypony...” muttered Spike.
Twilight Sparkle saw the whole scene and started to second guess the stallions’ project. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea!”
Big Picture ran up to her with an annoyed expression clearly showing behind his glasses. “These simpletons don’t even know a thing about art and animation!”
“Well maybe it’ll be a good idea to drop it all together and just do it in Manehattan then! You don’t need us to do your cartoon!”
“No way in Tartarus are we going to do this! I now declare you, animation supervisor!”
“H-Huh?!”
After getting over the whole character sketch debacle, it was time to start animating. Bit Grubber looked around awkwardly, realising that he doesn’t actually know much about how animating actually works.
Big Picture groaned; he probably should have asked him first before embarking on this stupid journey. Now, he was stuck having to explain everything to his partner but at least, it was a fun thing to explain.
“This is where they’ll be drawing the individual frames, Bit Grubber. You can supervise them if you want, but it’s not necessary considering we just put Twilight in charge of that.” explained Big Picture enthusiastically.
“As the producer, I get the final say in everything and I'm going to exercise this here power without restraint!” proudly exclaimed Bit Grubber.
“I don’t like the sound of that with all due respect...”
Bit Grubber was walking amidst the ponies who were hard at work, looking over each of their drawing to make sure it was up to standard. HIS standard that is. He stopped at Bon Bon’s rendition of himself.
“Gn!? What is that?!”
Bon Bon turned around, startled. “Um, that’s you... You appeared on the storyboards, right?”
“It ain’t the problem misses!” responded an outraged Bit Grubber. “The problem is that it’s awfully unflattering! I’m not that chubby! I thought we already went over that!” he yelled while pointing an accusing hoof at the drawing.
Big Picture ran at his associate to de-escalate the situation and hopefully avoid the same catastrophe. “Don’t get mad at her again, Bit. She’s only drawing what she sees.”
Having stopped Bit from doing something stupid, Big Picture chose to switch place with him for the moment. For a while, there was no problem. Progress was good, the drawings were of acceptable quality, but there was just a slight problem. On second thought, it might be a big problem.
An entire class of foals were working alongside the fully grown ponies. Now a foal’s drawing skill isn’t necessarily a bad thing on its own. You can’t expect them to be amazing or anything, but to show their pictures to the literal aristocracy of Manehattan?! No way! The stallion walked up to the mare supervising the class, wanting to know why she even did it in the first place.
“Hello there Mrs...”
“Cheerilee. Pleased to talk with you Big Picture!”
“I see you’ve brought your entire class for our cartoon.” continued the stallion with a voice that hid a displeased feeling.
“Drawing is a good activity for all foals, no matter how talented they are at it! I’m sure these young ponies will have a great time in here.”
Applebloom ran up to them with her drawing in hoof. “Mrs. Cheerilee. Mrs. Cheerilee. Look! Is this good?”
Cheerilee joyfully looked at the filly’s craft. “It’s really good Applebloom! Keep up the great work!” The mare turned her head to Big who immediately understood what she wanted.
“Uh, yeah. It’s... it’s good, little filly.”
Despite his compliment sounding really unconvincing, Applebloom gleefully trotted back to her seat.
Come on, doesn’t anypony in this filthy town know what professional quality means? “Well, I’m sure they’ll learn a thing or two while working on this project! Anyway, thanks for lending a helping hoof, I’ll be going now!”
“It’s our pleasure!”
Moving along from this worrying sight, Big Picture kept on analysing the drawings closely. They not only had to be of professional quality, but they had to remain consistent between frames. The keyword being “consistent”. Over in the distance, Bit Grubber couldn’t resist blowing out his frustration on another pony.
“What. Is. That?!”
Rarity looked at Bit Grubber with a proud smile plastered on her face. “It’s my drawing. Isn’t it simply wonderful?”
The stallion briefly looked at it. “Yeah, it’s really good, but it ain’t consistent with what the other ponies are drawing!”
The white mare raised an eyebrow. “And what’s the problem?”
“It only lasts for one frame! That is barely one second, so there’s no time to quote-on-quote admire your craft and it’ll look terribly out of place when paired up with what the others drew! Look at your neighbor! Try to match her style instead!” shouted Bit.
“B-B-But.” said a distraught Rarity.
On her left, Applejack stood up to defend her friend. “Hey, beat it Grubber! I won’t let you critic my friend’s drawings like that!”
“If she were to harvest crummy apples and brew some apple cider with them, would you not tell her she’s doing it wrong?”
Applejack took a moment to think about it, not about his hypothetical situation of course. “Okay, I’ll let it slide. Just be more respectful next time or else you’ll hear from me, got it?”
“Yeah yeah yeah.” dismissively responded Bit.
The mare watched as the stallion trotted away before returning to her seat. “I’m starting to second guess if joining on this whole project was a good idea.”
“It certainly is starting to feel dreary, dear.”
Applejack looked over in the distance at the two stallions arguing over another pony. “I can see that. It’s not gonna end well...”
Twilight was busy at her worktable, too busy to notice Fluttershy and Spike arriving with a bunch of frames in their hooves... and claws.
“Oops.” Having accidentally dropped her frames, the Pegasus bent forward to pick them all up, catching the attention of Twilight this time.
“Fluttershy? And Spike?! What are you two doing in this cartoon project?” she asked.
“Bit Grubber and Big Picture got us to help out in production.”
“In production?”
Spike bulged his torso proudly. “Yeah, we’ve been put in charge of quality control! But, uh, I don’t think we can do much to fix the quality of these drawings.”
“Well, they better get some ponies who KNOW about quality! I’ve been sitting here, fixing these crummy drawings all day long!” exclaimed Twilight out of exasperation as she buried her face into her hooves.
“I’m worried about the direction this project is heading.”
“Me too Fluttershy. Me too...”
“Now Bit Grubber; this is where they fill in the colours! A relatively simple task that’s difficult to screw up, I think. It shouldn’t be too time consuming!”
“With these rusty rural maggot heads you’ve hired, I doubt we’ll get satisfying result. I’M going to supervise them here!”
“Why do I feel like I'm heading towards a catastrophe?”
Snips and Snails were staring blankly at the drawing they were supposed to colour. Then, they looked at their canvas, then back to the drawing and back to the canvas.
“Uh, what colour is Princess Twilight?” asked Snails.
“I think it’s purple, dude.”
“No way, it’s totally violet, Snips.”
“Purple.”
“Violet.”
“Purple!”
“Violet!”
The increasing volume in their voice annoyed their neighbor Sweetie Belle enough for her to interject. “Enough you two! It’s lavender. Lavender!”
Snips and Snails blinked a couple of times. “Lavender? Oh, thanks Sweetie Belle!”
“Ugh, this is the fifth time you’ve been arguing over colours...” said the little filly as she sunk deeper into her chair.
Bit Grubber watched the whole scene with a worried look. “Big, can we even trust these here fellas to get anything done? We’re starting to get low on time.”
“No. Let’s panic somewhere else if you don’t mind.”
Back at their own room inside Carousel Boutique, the two ponies turned the mirror back on, revealing the rich stallion on the other side. “So... how’s it coming along gentlecolts?”
“Heh, smooth as silk.” responded Bit with an air of confidence.
“A-A bit behind schedule.” sheepishly admitted Big Picture.
“Okay fine. We need more time!”
The rich stallion took off his glass and placed them on his desk. “Sure thing, but if the cartoon isn’t projected as scheduled, we’re gonna get our cash back.”
Bit Grubber growled. “Gn! Just how much cash back?”
“Let’s just say it isn’t chump change, mister Bit Grubber.”
“Dooooh... We both know I don’t have that kinda money!”
“In that case, you better pray you make your deadline.”
The deadline was fast approaching and that was starting to be felt by everypony as the two stallions were getting increasingly nervous and impatient. There was only one day left to get it done and the team was barely about to finish coloring the last frames. Suddenly, they were called in by an anxious Big Picture.
“What?! But that deadline is impossible!” shouted Rarity, nearly passing out on the floor.
“It won’t be ready the day after tomorrow!” shouted Rainbow Dash as she jumped on Bit’s desk.
“I’m fairly certain this is illegal! We’ve spent the last three nights in here!” pointed out Mayor Mare.
Bit Grubber cringed. “You’ve all signed this here contract which means you are under my orders until this darn thing is finished! No more talking, scram and GET WORKING!”
The rush was starting to get on everypony’s nerve, no more breaks were allowed, things felt like they were going downhills, well more like crashing downhill.
“Faster everypony! Faster!” repeated Big Picture as he was running around in loops, trying to keep the situation under control.
The day was awful for all parties involved. Nopony even slept that night trying to finish this forsaken cartoon.
Big Picture was running around, screaming at all the unfortunate ponies who fell asleep. All the while Bit Grubber was threatening to get physical with those that were complaining. It was a huge mess all around.
Morning came, and everypony knew what that meant.
Bit Grubber barged in the town hall, catching the attention of a lethargic Twilight. “The cartoon’s gonna be released today! We have to go to the recording booth now!”
Twilight dropped her pencil in shock, suddenly filled with energy. “But we’re not even done! Everypony here has been working overtime and it’s not finished. We need more time!”
“We don’t have that luxury, princess! It’s now or else this here ship will crash and burn!” objected Bit.
Applejack showed up, looking both tired and stressed out. “It’s impossible! The reels ain’t even done yet! What can we even do?!”
Bit Grubber felt his sweat dripping down his face. He knew what he had to do. The only question was, can he pull it off? “I’m gonna talk with the sponsor! With me Big!”
“Ah! Bit Grubber, I see we’ve hit the deadline. I assume your cartoon is ready to be projected on our cinemas?”
Back at Carousel Boutique. Bit and Big Picture were sweating profusely in front of the mirror despite their best attempts to hide their nervousness.
“Well, are we gonna see a show, or are we gonna see some dough?” asked the aristocratic stallion.
“You’re gon’ see something.” bluntly responded Bit.
“Ho ho ho! We all look forward to seeing your project come to fruition, good sire.” responded the mysterious stallion in a slightly sarcastic tone.
“Yeah, everypony betta’ get ready, ‘cause it’s showtime!”
Inside Ponyville’s movie theater was where the lines would be recorded since they didn’t really have a better place to pick. Due to a strict time constraint, they were forced to play the whole cartoon and say their lines on the go in just one take.
Such a daunting task made even worse by the fact that practically none of the voice actors had any prior experience except for Big Picture. The mirror was also placed in a way that the stallion on the other side could see the whole thing play out.
Bit barked more orders at the ponies carrying the film reel. “Hurry it up! We’re starting now!” He nervously looked at his watch; only five minutes before their sponsor would come and watch through the mirror. If they mess this up, they’ll be in big trouble.
In the back, two mares were looking at the script. One of them looked disappointed whilst the other was excited.
“Oh come on! Why don’t I get any lines?!” screamed a frustrated Bon Bon.
“Oh sweet! I’ve got a few lines!” cheerfully said Lyra.
“How come you get some while I’m just relegated to being a background pony!”
“Well maybe if you got mind-controlled back at the wedding you’d have earned a few lines!” remarked Lyra with a smirk on her face.
“Hmpf, one day I’ll get a speaking role... one day.”
The reel was finally inserted into the camera, signaling everypony to be quiet. The cartoon was about to start. Right at that moment, the mirror turned on, revealing the rich stallion on the other side.
“Big Picture, I see you’ve made it through the deadline.” calmly said the stallion with a serene smile on his face.
“Yes we d-did, sir. I-I hope you enjoy what we’ve cooked up for you.” nervously responded Big Picture, readjusting his glasses to hide his anxious eyes.
The cartoon opened up with the two stallions in their offices.
“This cartoon is sponsored by-”
“Oh, they’ve already recorded these lines back at Manehattan...” stated Applejack.
“They must have been terribly confident in their ambitious project, dear.” Rarity said with a bit of disdain in her voice, she didn’t look as pretty as usually does, a by-product of spending her last few days working tirelessly on the stallions’ cartoon.
“It’s a good thing not everypony is here to see me like this.”
“R-Rarity... I-I think there’s other th-things to be worried about right now.” Fluttershy said nervously. The prospect of voice acting was terribly intimidating to her, especially knowing that many ponies are going to see this movie and thus, hear her performance. This was practically stage fright to her.
“Oh. My. Gosh! This is gonna be so awesome!” Rainbow Dash yelled in a whispery tone.
“-and on that note, enjoy.”
The movie opened on a wide shot of Ponyville, slowly zooming in on the peaceful town.
Bit leaned towards his partner and whispered. “Them ponies who drew this background were pretty good all things considered.”
“Let’s just hope the rest of the movie will remain consistently good in quality...”
A butterfly passed by before the shot focused on the Main 6 having a nice picnic. As for the real ones, most were rapidly reading their lines, desperately trying to memorise them.
“Oh no no no... If only I had more time to memorise my lines!” said a panicking Twilight.
Rainbow Dash didn’t see it this way. “Don’t compare this to studying, Twilight. You just have to feel in the moment and pour your heart into it!”
“Shh! Pinkie’s supposed to go in first!” whispered Applejack.
Pinkie Pie was struggling to hold herself in place, far too excited about her voice acting gig.
“Hey Twilight! I’m super-duper happy you could spare some time for our picnic!” she said as she bounced around in place.
Big Picture threw a quick glance at his partner. “Tell her to stop bouncing! The microphone is also picking up that sound!”
Bit Grubber, however, was more focused on the quality of the art. “Gee, it doesn’t look too flattering...”
“Of course I had time to spare! I’d never miss an opportunity to spend time with all of you!” Twilight said, although it didn’t sound quite natural despite her effort. She quickly noticed that she had wings in the cartoon, a terrible inaccuracy. She leaned in closer to Applejack to vent her irritation. “I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t an alicorn at the time!”
Applejack nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Maybe it’s just another marketing scheme. These gosh darn rich ponies always pull these tricks to fill in their pocket.”
Rarity kept staring at herself in the cartoon before realising it was her turn to speak. “Come and have a seat, darling. I brought some nice drinks from Café Hay.” She turned to face Rainbow Dash with a self-conscious look in her face. “Do I really look like that?”
“I... was gonna ask the same thing.” Rainbow said, staring intently at her rendition in the cartoon.
“Grah! Are they gonna talk like this for the entirety of the cartoon? The mic will pick up their whispers too!” complained Big Picture.
“Whatever! The show must go on! We promised a cartoon and we shall deliver.” barked Bit Grubber.
A few minutes passed and now they have finally gotten to Canterlot, which was when Twilight first reunited with her brother, Shining Armor, in the castle’s garden.
“Wait, who did they get to play my brother?” Twilight asked curiously as her eyes looked around the theater.
Doctor Hooves trotted forward, nervously itching closer to the microphone. “Uh, th-that would be me.” he said, avoiding the alicorn’s gaze.
Twilight was starting to feel awkward. She was going to read her lines in which she was talking to Shining Armor, who was in fact just Doctor Hooves trying to imitate her brother’s voice. Point is, this was very weird.
“Sh-Shining Armor!” she cursed herself for stuttering on that line.
“Twily! Long time no sees!” Even Doctor Hooves couldn’t stop himself from cringing It felt absolutely humiliating for the poor stallion, especially since he’s standing right next to the princess of friendship herself.
Twilight noticed that the earth pony was awfully nervous and decided to alleviate the tension a bit with her next line. After all, she didn’t like that ponies were nervous around her, especially in Ponyville. She spent a few years in this town as a unicorn, her status didn’t change who she was but that’s not how everypony saw it apparently.
The Twilight in the cartoon turned her back on Shining, looking angry and hurt at him. The real Twilight still remembered why she felt that way and hopefully, tried to reconvey that same energy. “Awfully nice of you to invite me to your wedding...”
She threw a quick smile at Doctor Hooves in hope that it would ease up his nerves. The stallion reciprocated with an awkward smile of his own.
“Are they gonna make out or sumthin’?” condescendingly spoke Bit Grubber.
“Aw shut up Bit.”
Now, the scene featured the fake Princess Cadance getting her wedding robe inside Canterlot’s castle. Vinyl Scratch trotted up to a microphone, catching the attention of both Twilight and Doctor Hooves, who stepped back from their mic. Never have they ever heard her voice before. This surely must be the first time she’ll utter a word in their presence, after all, Octavia confirmed that Vinyl wasn’t mute, so her silence was voluntary. On top of that, she was to play Cadance, which promised to be interesting considering she will do both the real and fake one.
“These petals should be a different colour.” Both Twilight and Hooves jaws dropped to the floor. Out of everypony that voice acted so far, she must have been the best and that showed in just one line. Her voice was very close to that of Cadance yet hid a lot of disdain and impatience. Now how and why she was good at acting were questions that had to be saved for later.
Lyra was also present, but since both Twinkleshine and Minuette live in Canterlot, they had to get other mares to play their part. Hilariously enough, Bit and Big didn’t even give one of their roles to Bon Bon, who was quietly spewing profanities in the back.
“I love them!” said Lyra Heartstrings in a casual manner for she had to contain her excitement or else it would be considered over-the-top which would make for an embarrassing performance.
“They look great on you!” said another mare.
“They’re so lovely.”
Vinyl Scratch spoke once more in a distasteful tone. “Make them a different colour.”
Wow, she’s good. Thought Twilight, watching from the back with wide eyes.
“What a lovely performance, and on top of that; it’s the first time I ever get to hear Vinyl Scratch speak!” commented Rarity.
“Woohoo! That pony sure is good! I wanna invite her more to my parties, they could always use a good ol’ DJ.” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, dropping from the ceiling in front of the two mares.
Big Picture hushed Pinkie who realised she was getting a bit too loud.
“Sorry!” she whispered.
Bit Grubber stared at his watch, gaging how much time was left. “Gee, how long is this here movie? It feels like we’ve been here for hours.”
“We’ve only been inside this theater for thirty minutes, Bit...”
“I sure hope we get the reap the cash soon. My money’s on the line, remember?”
“Hard to say what’ll happen next. The animation’s quality is all over the place. A by-product of your rash greediness.”
The stallion inside the mirror grew weary of their bickering. “Will you two please be quiet for more than a minute? I’m watching a cartoon here.”
“Aye aye sir!”
Moving further on in the cartoon, it got to the point where Twilight and her friends confronted Queen Chrysalis after they had fled from her changeling army.
Unsurprisingly, it was Octavia who was assigned the role of Queen Chrysalis. Bon Bon’s cursing got louder, forcing Lyra to escort her out of there on Bit’s command.
I guess Vinyl must have taught her a thing or two about voice acting... Twilight thought as she watched the earth pony come into view.
“It's funny, really, Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize those suspicions were correct!” Octavia said in her best impression of the queen of the changelings.
“Sorry Twi. We should have listened to ya.” Applejack said.
“It’s not your faults, girls. She fooled everypony!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Yes, I did a convincing job as Cadance, didn’t I?” Chrysalis said. “Now, it’s time I feed each and every single one of you ponies to my army so that we may rule over Equestria!”
“Ain’t no way I'm lettin’ ya get away with this.” Bit Grubber suddenly appeared, looking all high and mighty. “It’s about time you learn to take a whoopin’ Chrysalis!”
“Guh-huh?!” Twilight was at a loss for words. When was Bit Grubber ever a part of her script? She fumbled through the rest of the pages only to find out that the ending had been tampered with to include the bloody greedy stallion and worst of all, he stole the spotlight from them! “H-Hey!”
Octavia kept on going with the script, seemingly not surprised by Bit’s sudden appearance. Twilight’s friend did take offense in this unexpected turn of events.
“What is that supposed to be?! We’re the heroes, not this jerk!” complained Rainbow Dash. She turned to look at Big Picture and noticed that he didn’t look too impressed. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”
“Sadly yes... This kind of thing is a common occurrence with this stallion. You learn to deal with it eventually.”
“Not me. I won’t stand by that!”
“And say goodbye to your chance at stardom? This is a good opportunity to make it big, Rainbow Dash.” his voice went from tired to sleazy in mere instant. Sadly for the Pegasus, he was right.
“Okay fine... but if you make me look bad in this movie, I’m trashing your entire project!”
“How terrifying, you got me quivering in my hooves.”
The final fight scene was fairly decent in quality, a notable feat for first time animators but that was not as important as to Bit’s role in the cartoon. That narcissistic freak is hogging the spotlight from the real heroes of the wedding!
“It’s down to you and me, you control freak!” stated Bit Grubber.
Indeed, he was the last one standing. The Elements of Harmony have been defeated by Queen Chrysalis, leaving the stallion as the only fighter left.
Twilight retreated from the mic and moved towards her friends, feeling humiliated by what she was seeing. Like, seriously, this can’t be shown in cinemas around Equestria. This movie is making her, and her friends look like incompetent buffoons. Well, the incompetent part might not be too far from the truth but that’s beside the point!
Suddenly, the quality dropped like crazy. The colours were missing, and so did most of the background.
“Oi! What’s going on?!” shouted Bit Grubber to his partner.
Big Picture was mortified. “They didn’t have time to finish all the frames for the cartoon! Just roll with what we have!”
“Oh dear, that’s not a good look. I’d say this poor quality is very reflective of theses stallions’ inner beauty.” said Rarity in a mocking tone.
“Wow, what a poetic insult.” admitted Fluttershy.
“Of course, darling. A refined and beautiful mare such as I can’t settle for simple minded insults.”
“You should totally lend some of them to me!” Rainbow Dash said.
Applejack chuckled. “Might not be a good idea. They’ll lose all their finesse and impact if used by a pony that lacks elegance.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” sarcastically responded the rainbow maned Pegasus.
Bit Grubber didn’t let the sudden drop in quality stop him from continuing on with the show. Octavia, on the other hoof, basically gave up on giving a genuine performance.
“Not good enough, measly stallion. I shall rule over Equestria and nopony can ever stop me.” Octavia said in an almost monotone voice.
“Ya forgot one important thing, changeling queen: I'm the seventh Element of Harmony and with the help of these six mares, we’ll banish ya from this here city!” Bit responded with much more enthusiasm.
One more peek at his script revealed more troubling news. “Where’s the rest of the script?”
Big Picture ran up to him and whispered. “We didn’t have time to finish it. You’ll have to add-lib, sir.”
“Add-lib?! Why didn’t ya tell me sooner ya idiot?!” With one swipe, he knocked the smaller stallion away and turned his attention back on the cartoon. “It’s time to end this Queen Chrysalis!”
“Oh no... not the Elements of Harmony.” Octavia’s half assed performance earned a few giggles coming from the six ponies in the back.
“Here it comes!”
Just before the Elements could vanquish the changeling queen, everything faded to black. Then, a long sequence of terrible frames appeared one-by-one, most like drawn by foals. Bit Grubber fell on his flank with a defeated look on his face right as the cartoon ended on a still image of him with a defeated look. Quite the coincidence, innit? To add insult to injury, the reel burned down, destroying what was left of the cartoon and cementing it as a complete failure.
“Argh... I give up.”
Right as the movie theater fell into silence, Bit heard the clopping of hooves resonate behind him. He turned around only to see the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony looking down on him with malicious expressions. Big Picture was quietly trying to get out of the theater but was quickly blocked by a bunch of angry looking ponies.
“Hey.” casually started Twilight. “We may have a few things to say about your self-insert cartoon.”
“Oh... I’m kinda screwed, ain’t I?”
“Oh yes! Absolutely!”
Now kicked outside of Ponyville, the two ponies stopped by a clearing and sat on their painful flanks, trying to catch their breath. Thankfully, they still had their car alongside them as well as the mirror, though they should probably get rid of it considering the trouble they’re in.
“Well, this whole project was a mess! I should’ve never listened to your stupid idea, chump!” yelled Bit Grubber.
“My stupid idea? It was YOUR idea to hire these incompetent buffoons to animate this cartoon! If you weren’t so gosh darn obsessed with maximising profits, you woulda assembled an actual team of animators!” shouted an angry Big Picture.
The mirror suddenly turned back on without their command and the aristocratic stallion stepped out of the frame, passing through the object. “I see we’re going to settle on some dough.”
“Wh-What?! How did you do this?” asked Bit Grubber as he inched closer to his car.
“The two mirrors’ true purpose is to act as a portal. I just didn’t tell you ‘cause I figured you’d have done something to prevent me from contacting you in person.”
“Oh no...” said a defeated Big Picture.
The rich stallion readjusted his glasses. “So, you promised us a cartoon of professional quality. Keyword being professional.”
“That mean we gotta pay up for our big oopsie?” Bit grumbled.
“Exactly, now let me see... You’re gonna pay us that sum.” The stallion took out a sheet and turned it around so that they could see the amount they had to pay back.
“Wh-What!? We don’t have that much money! We can’t pay you back!” shouted a frightened Big Picture. Bit Grubber leaned up to him and whispered into his ear.
“Don’t worry, I figured this here problem would occur. I have a plan B.”
“Oh thank Celestia you’re not as dumb as I thought!”
“Then I suppose you’ll be spending a while in Canterlot’s dungeon.” responded the stallion in a matter-of-fact tone.
Bit Grubber pulled out his trump card, Smarty Pants? “This here doll belongs to Princess Twilight Sparkle. It can sell up to a bigger amount of money than our debt! Take it instead of our cash!”
The stallion stared at the doll for a long time before saying. “Okay, sounds good to me. Be seeing ya.” He retreated into the mirror, leaving the two ponies alone.
Big Picture’s jaw dropped to the floor. “D... Did that just happen? Was that for real?”
“Yeah yeah, whatever Big. Why don’t you get real for once?”
“Huh?”
