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The Truth about Pinkie Pie

By Batty Gloom

(Note: This story was written way back before season 1 was finished, long before season three canonized both rock farms and Pinkie Pie’s father. Also, this entire fan fic is based off of one quote by some Brony. One quote! Think about that…)

***

Pinkie Pie happily hummed to herself as she bounced through the streets of Ponyville. And all things considered, how could she not be happy? She had a job she absolutely loved, a town she absolutely loved, and, best of all, five friends she absolutely loved! Why, they were the best friends a pony could ever have! Ever! And of course, if things ever did get a little boring, all she had to do was throw a party and everything would be better! Her life was perfect!

Speaking of her friends, Rainbow Dash dashed over (Dash dashed! Ha!) when Pinkie was just rolling in the grass for fun and told her that she and the other girls wanted to talk to her about something. And when Pinkie Pie asked about what, Dash just told her that it would be best to wait until she got there. Ooh, what were they going to talk about? She didn’t know, so that meant it was a surprise! And Pinkie Pie just loved surprises! Could it be a *gasp* surprise party too?!?

Seeing the library that Twilight lived and studied in, Pinkie Pie opened the door and greeted then in a sing-song voice.

“Heeeellllloooo everypony!” This was when she would expect her friends to laugh, giggle, roll their eyes, or just say hello back. Instead, when Pinkie Pie opened her eyes, she saw that her friends all worn deadpan expressions; well, except Fluttershy, who was just frowning while looking scared. Was something wrong?

“Hi Pinkie Pie.” Twilight said rather unenthusiastically. “Please close the door and sit down.”

“Okay!” Pinkie Pie said after she shut the door and while she was trotting over to the table. She expected a lot more smiles but… everypony looked so serious. Was something the matter? And how many cupcakes did she needed to make to fix it?

“Hey, is everypony okay? Where’s Spike?”

“Spike is in Canterlot right now,” Twilight explained. “…which is probably for the best.”

“Pinkie Pie, Partner, thar’s somethin’ we need tah talk about here.” Applejack began.

“Like what?” Pinkie Pie asked as she tilted her head. Then she had an awful, awful thought, almost as bad as when she thought her friends didn’t want to be friends anymore! “Are you mad at me?”

“No, no! No, of course not, Darling, no!” Rarity interjected, chuckling nervously. “It’s just that, well, we sort of needed an intervention before we have a scandal on our hooves, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie Pie asked, tilting her head to the other side a little further than the first turn was.

“What we mean, Pinkie.” Twilight began, trying to think of the best way to put this delicately. “Is that we’ve noticed you doing some things that… well… really shouldn’t be possible and other ponies are starting to talk about it. And I don’t mean just your Pinkie Pie Senses either.”

“I don’t know whatever you could mean,” Pinkie Pie said, titling her head back the other way… in a 360 spin, somehow not snapping her neck. This cause the others to wince, while Rarity desperately tried not to faint from shock and Rainbow Dash got angry and slammed two hooves on the table.

“We’re getting nowhere fast! Look, right there! That… neck… head… spin… thing! You’ve been doing stuff that’s impossible without magic! And impossible even with magic! You’ve been popping in from one place to the next, sometimes after only a second, you seem to get inside of places you couldn’t possible fit in or without making any noise, pulling items out of thin air, and the last time you chased me, you caught up with me every time before I even got to where I was going!  How can you be in Ponyville, then inside a bell, and then on top of a mountain before I even get there?!?”

“Not tah mention that jest last week you let lil’ Applebloom help you bake cupcakes again n’ she ran home screamin’ her lil’ foal head off that you were in two dif’rent places at once!”

“Pinkie Pie… we’re not trying to run you out of Ponyville or anything… but ponies have been talking and some nasty rumors have been floating around.” Twilight interjected. “We need to know what’s been going on with you before things get out of hoof.”

Pinkie Pie looked at her friends, stunned. Is that what this was all about? Oh, she had gotten careless the last year or so, hadn’t she? She sighed and then got a very serious, grim look on her face.

“I knew this day would come.”

“Then please, by all means, Sugarcube, tell us what’s goin’ on before we have ourselves a regular riot on our hooves.”

Pinkie Pie sighed and stood up, pacing as she tried to think of the best way to explain this.

“Okay, if I tell you, will you promise not to tell anypony else?”

The group looked at each other uncertainly before Twilight smiled nervously.

“Sure, Pinkie Pie, we won’t tell anypony.”

“I’m serious!” Pinkie Pie said, a lot more stern than most ponies were used to seeing her.

“Look we promise we won’t tell anypony as long as you tell us what’s going on, honest!”

Pinkie Pie nodded before walking back to the table.

“The truth is…I’m not a normal pony.”

“Yeah, anypony can tell that.” Rainbow Dash snarked before Applejack bucked her in the ribs. “OW! What was that for?!?”

“Girls!” Twilight scolded before facing Pinkie Pie. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“Well….see…ooh, I can’t believe I’m telling anypony besides the Cakes about this…I’m actually a cartoon character.”

“…a what now?” Applejack asked.

“A cartoon character! You know, like on the TVs and the movie theaters and the….” That’s when Pinkie Pie trailed off as she saw the looks of confusion on their faces. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have those in Equestria. You got record players and sound systems and lights and indoor plumbing but no TV’s, radios, movie theaters, or computers. Ha! What’s up with that, am I right?”

For some reason Pinkie Pie was facing in a different direction, as if she was talking to somepony else that wasn’t even there.

“Pinkie Pie…what are you talking about?” Twilight asked, just as confused as the rest of the ponies.

“Okay, let’s see…hey, remember Trixie?” This brought a groan to the table. “Yeah, I know. But anyways! Remember when she claimed she saved a town from an Ursa Major and she did that really neato trick where she made those line doodles appear in the air?”

“Um…yes, I remember those!” Twilight smiled. “But what does that have to do with you?”

“Well, okay, imagine something like that but inside a big box and they moved a bit better…actually, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Hey, do you have any paper and a pencil I could borrow? I’m going to need a lot.”

“I…uh…yes?” Twilight responded as she floated over a stack of paper and some pencils. “Pinkie Pie, you’re still not making any sense.”

“Don’t worry.” Pinkie Pie said as she awkwardly walked on her back hooves as she used her forelegs to carry the pile. “This will all make sense in a sec. Excuse me for a moment.”

With that, Pinkie Pie walked behind the door to Twilight’s basement and, not more than five seconds after she closed the door, she already trotted back in with a bounded stack of papers and only one pencil.

“She’s doing it again...” Rainbow Dash grumbled through gritted teeth.

“Ooooh, I’m so sorry, Dashie, I really am! But if I did it the normal way we’ll be here all day!” At that Pinkie Pie carefully held up the stack, beginning with the last page. “Here, watch this.”

At that she let the pages flip as an image of Pinkie Pie bounced through a meadow before she stopped and greeted five other ponies that happened to be her friends. The last few pages ended with the six friends laughing together.

“Well, that’s very nice, Pinkie Pie, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with anything!” Pinkie Pie said seriously before her face soften. “Uh, I mean… everything with everything. I think. Oh, right, what it has to do with anything!

“Okay, you see what I just did there? That’s called ‘animation’; it’s a super duper neat trick where you use a whooooole bunch of drawings to make it look like the pictures are moving! It’s one of those optical illusion thingies. And there’s also a bunch of machines that can record those pictures and when you do, you get something called a video that can be played over and over, so you can see the pictures move whenever you want! And you can add in sound and music and if you do allll of that, you get a cartoon! And the people in the videos are called ‘cartoon characters’!”

The group looked over at Pinkie Pie with shock and disbelief. Was she saying that she started out like that stack papers? How was that possible? Pinkie Pie noticed the looks of disbelief on their faces.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Uh…well….th’ thing is…this is a lot tah buy, Pinkie Pie. You mean tah tells us that you started off as one o’ them stacks o’ papers?”

“No, no, Silly, not like that! You gotta add in all the sounds and the animation to make a cartoon character! Oh! I just remembered! I do have this with me.”

At that Pinkie Pie began to mess around with the inside of her mane.

“Now where did I put that darn thing….here it is!”Pinkie Pie said, pulling out a framed photo out of her mane that was way too big to fit in there. “This is what I first looked like when I began to exist!”

The group looked at the photo with what could only be described as open-mouthed gapes.

“What the hay is that thing?!?” Rainbow Dash spat out, refusing to believe that her pink friend could be the same thing as…whoever pony was in the picture. It sort of looked like her but…

“Why, that’s me, of course! Waaaaaay back in the day!” Pinkie Pie explained, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

“Why is the photo in black and white?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The photo isn’t in black and white, Silly, I was black and white for a long time!”

“What’s wrong wit yer eyes thar; it’s kinda creepy-lookin’…”

“That’s just how they drew me! And I thought my eyes looked pretty cute back then….”

“Where on earth is your cutie mark?” Rarity asked.

“Oh, they don’t have cutie marks where I come from! Well, actually, you could probably get a tattoo and call it a cutie mark but I’ve heard those things hurt a lot!”

“….Pinkie Pie isn’t even your real name, is it?” Twilight asked, not sure if Pinkie Pie was even telling the truth anymore or not.

“Nope! My name’s actually Party Pony!”

And her friends thought that the name “Pinkie Pie” was rather on the nose.

“Party Pony?” Twilight wearily asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh. They were really big on alliteration names back then.”

“Whose they?”

“Why, the people at animation company that made me, of course!”

“Animation company?”

“Yeah, see, I was made by this company called ‘Warner Brothers’ sometime in the 30’s… 1930’s… they have a different calendar than us there. Anyways! They drew me, got some lady to voice me and then animated me! Then they watched the film in a private screening for the first time and then *poof* Party Pony was born!”

“You just… appeared out of thin air.”

“Uh huh! But sadly for the company, there was an accidental fire in part of the building and my only cartoon and all the papers they used to draw me got all burned up.”

“Now jest hold on here a minute.” Applejack began. “If you’re sayin’ that you’re some kind o’ cartoon character thing…and they’re made from makin’ these cartoon things…and your cartoon n’ papers are gone…shouldn’t you not even exist or at least be dead?”

“That’s the best part!” Pinkie Pie squealed. “The people who made me don’t even know it but we exist in another world all of our own!”

“Another…world?” Twilight asked.

“Uh-huh. Well, maybe dimension is a more accurate word. I’m not really sure. But yeah, they forgot all about me and I was free to just be me! Well, the me that they created, anyways.”

“What do you mean ‘free’?”

“Oh…well…you see….that’s the thing about being a cartoon character….between cartoons being made, you can do whatever you want but for about five or ten minutes, when the new cartoon is being played for the very first time, you’re not really in control of yourself and whatever happens in the cartoon becomes who you are then.” Pinkie Pie noticed the looks of horror on her friends’ faces. “Oh no, it’s not too bad! I mean, I can’t say for myself since I was only in one cartoon but they always wrote everyone else pretty consistently!....I mean…at first…back in the old days……they did….”

“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked, sensing some serious dread coming from her friend.

“Well… see, before and after they drew me, they did a bunch of black and white cartoons. That meant the world I came from was in black and white too. I know it sounds strange but you get used to it after awhile… well, then again, it was all I knew for a long time, so I guess I was already used to it! “But then all of a sudden-BAM!- the whole world turns into color but I’m still grey and everything! It was scary at first but colors are just sooo pretty, especially the first time I saw a real rainbow! They pretty much forgot about me and no matter how much I tried, when the cartoons played, I was always sealed off from where ever the cartoon was taking place at.

“At first I didn’t mind; everything looked so pretty in color and as time went on more stuff got added to our world! And between the cartoons I got to meet all sort of neat guys! There was Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd….but I really didn’t like him or Yosemite Sam because they always tried to make me into a riding pony without my permission and I hated that! I mean, if they wanted a ride so badly, they could have just asked, duh! Oh and a bunch of other people too!”

“You keep saying people.” Twilight noted. “What’s a ‘people’?”

“Oh! Well, where I come from it’s not just ponies who talk, so the general term for cartoon characters could be people in some cases…and it’s what the people who made me called themselves. Well, that and ‘humans’; come to think of it, I think Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and those other guys were humans too! Well, cartoon humans anyways.”

“Pinkie Pie.” Twilight said, trying to steer the conversation back on topic. “You said that your world suddenly turned into color and stuff got added to it; did anything else happened?”

“Well…it took a long time but eventually things just kept changing and changing. At first it was just little things, things you don’t notice right away. But then cartoon characters started to look and act differently than before and the changes kept piling on up, so much so that Bugs Bunny was no longer buggy and Daffy Duck wasn’t daffy anymore! Which was a shame because they were a lot more fun to party with when they were!

“And sometimes the genre itself changed just from one cartoon to the next. It wasn’t always that scary, sometimes it was fun! Once I got to be a space captain and another time I was a pirate! ARRRR! Tis I, Party Pony, monochromatic scourge of the Seven Seas! Give me all your grog and gold! YAAARRRRR!”

Pinkie Pie found herself standing on the table on her hind legs, pretending to hold a sword; she really missed when she could just hold things with one hoof even though she didn’t have fingers; that was one thing she missed from the old days. When she saw her friends weren’t the least bit amused, she smiled, laughed nervously, and sat back down.

“So…yeah, I got used to it eventually and for a long time the changes mostly stopped! But eventually the changes did come back and it was getting too scary for me…scary and stupid. I mean, ugh, Space Jam, heeeellllooo! That movie was terrible! And don’t get me started on Baby Loony Tunes! Whose bright idea was it to turn everybody into babies?!? You can’t party with babies! I didn’t mind the Duck Dodgers one too much I guessed but things were getting a lot more dangerous for good ol’ Party Pony.

“And then….then it happened.”

“What happened?”

“….something called Loonatics Unleashed. And it changed everything. I just don’t mean the genre or the setting or a few characters, I mean everything. The fellow cartoon characters I used to call my friends were just no longer the same, even more so than usual! It was like some kind of bad parody, but actually produced by a studio, so it had real power over my world! I mean, I guess some people liked it and good for them but here was poor old Party Pony, a black and white cartoon character made during the Golden Age of Animation lost in some darkly colored, post-modern, super hero comic book inspired setting with super heroes and villains and super powers and…I was so scared that I could actually get hurt for real!

“And I…I just couldn’t take it anymore! I needed a place that stayed the same, where the people I knew wouldn’t just have their personality completely change from one cartoon to the next! Where I didn’t have to worry about going to bed one night and then waking up on a ship or another planet or something!

“That’s when I broke the fourth wall.”

“The fourth wall?”

“It’s a term the people who created me have to describe most cartoon characters. Most cartoon characters don’t know they’re in a cartoon; they can’t see the strings that control them, so they’re said to have a fourth wall between them and the people who watch the cartoons.

“But sometimes some cartoon characters know they’re in a cartoon and I was one of them, so it’s called ‘breaking the fourth wall’. Only not really, because it’s still just cartoon characters still in their little cartoon world. But I found a way to break the real fourth wall and left the whole dimension completely. I didn’t care where I turned up, I just wanted some place where I could belong!

“Then, after falling through black emptiness for what felt like forever, I suddenly appeared inside the Sugarcube Corner when they were renovating! Oh, the Cakes were so scared, especially since I at first still looked like my old self! But somehow…well, I’m not sure myself how it worked, but I think your world started to change me and then I looked like this! I was still me on the inside and was still the same pony but now I was in color and had new eyes and even got my cutie mark! And the Cakes, bless their hearts, they were really scared of me at first but they listened to my story and they felt so bad for me that they were willing to take me in!

“And I’ve been living in Ponyville ever since!”

The entire group simply stared at Pinky Pie, trying to process everything they just heard. It was then that Fluttershy, who had been quiet the entire time, finally spoke up.

“Uh…I hope you don’t mind me asking, but, um….what about your story of how you got your cutie mark from Rainbow Dash’s Rainboom?”

“Oh, I made that whole thing up so it didn’t look like I came from nowhere! I never grew up on a rock farm or anything; I don’t even have a family!......wow….okay, I feel a little sad now….”

“Wait, hold on a second, Pinkie Pie. That still doesn’t explain how you’re able to do….well, whatever it is you do.” Dash explained

“It does too! I was animated with a lot of rubber hose animation techniques and they drew me popping up everywhere and singing a lot! I guess I was able to take all that with me when I got to your world!”

“So….let me get this straight.” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing the sides of her head from the headache that Pinkie Pie’s story was giving her. “You’re something called a ‘cartoon character’ who knew she was in a cartoon because you had no ‘fourth wall’ and since your only cartoon got burned you were free to do whatever you wanted without worrying about being changed by the new cartoons which changed all the other cartoon characters and even the world you’re from so you one day decide to just leave and ended up in Ponyville?”

“Yep!”

“Ow, my head…”

“So you kin jest do whatever ya want then?”

“Oh, no, Silly, I can’t do whatever I want when I want to! I can only do it when it’s funny!”

“What do you mean ‘when it’s funny’?” Twilight asked; this was the first time Pinkie Pie mentioned anything about rules.

“Weeeell, it sort of works like this. A pony just running really fast isn’t funny. Buuut a pony that usually isn’t really fast suddenly being able to run really, really fast because she’s angry and is chasing somepony is funny! Or being able to pop in from one place to the next before somepony else gets there because I’m looking for her is also funny! If it’s funny to watch, then I can usually do it. Even my mane going all flat because I was sad is funny!”

“I….don’t see what’s so funny about you being sad.”

“*ahem* ‘Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.’ –Mel Brooks. See, perspective has a lot to do with what’s funny or not, especially to the people watching, and having my hair react to my mood would be funny to some people so it happened. Also me going just a teensy, itty-bitty crazy for a little bit.”

“Okay, then explain this to me…you said something about being made in 1930? At least from the calendar used by the…people who made you? When did you leave and ended up in Ponyville?”

“Oh, um, let’s see…well, I most certainly did not want to stick around after what Loonatics Unleashed did, so I think I left in 2005…”

“You’re over 75 years old?!? Twilight practically shouted, while everyone had various reactions of shock and disbelief.

“Oh my!” Rarity said, desperately fanning herself with a hoof to keep herself from fainting. “Talk about aging gracefully!”

“Huh” Pinkie Pie muttered with a hoof under her chin. “…yeah, I guess I am! Never really thought about it that way before.”

“But…you’re not...you still look…how can you be...” Twilight stuttered, trying and failing to come up with a complete sentence.

“Why don’t ya have more wrinkles than Granny Smith?!?” Applejack suddenly interrupted.

“Thank you, Applejack.” Twilight smiled.

“Oh you! Cartoon characters don’t age! I mean…they usually don’t age. I’m not really sure about here though. I mean, if I don’t age here, I guess I could maybe later live with Princess Celestia and Luna if they don’t mind but then again this world did make me look all different, so…maybe I am aging normally now? I guess I’ll have to wait and see! It’ll be a surprise and I love surprises!”

“So wait a minute.” Twilight started. “You’re saying that you were by all accounts immortal and yet you chose to go somewhere you might have to age and die like everypony else?”

It was then that Pinkie Pie gave everypony a very serious, sad look, the kind that spoke of somepony who had seen many things she didn’t want to talk about.

“After having to see so many radical changes, to see people change after only a few years though no fault of their own, to see my world changed, destroyed, and rebuilt over and over, I would rather have to get old and die like everypony else than to experience the horrors of having my fate determined by someone else I couldn’t even touch……that and you guys are so much fun that a little potential aging is worth it!”

“Call me crazy but….Ah’m startin’ tah believe that Pinkie Pie is tellin’ th’ truth here.”

“You didn’t believe me?”

“It’s just that…it’s a lot to take in, Pinkie Pie. Alternate realities, being able to deny physics just because it funny…it’s not how ponies are taught how everything works.”

“It may not be but it’s true!” Pinkie Pie said, somehow placing the photo back inside her mane, even when it was obvious that it shouldn’t fit in there.

“That’s the other thing.” Rainbow Dash began. “How are you able to pull things out of thin air?”

“Hammerspace.” Pinkie Pie responded, as if this made perfect sense. Rainbow  Dash gave up, probably either not going to get a better answer or, worse, not liking the answer.

“One more thing.” Twilight Sparkle said. “Sometimes you talk to or look in different directions even when nopony’s there….why is that?”

“Well…I don’t think anyone is watching us…but when I was in my world, even though I was never in another cartoon again, I had this…feeling…of where someone would see me if they were watching a cartoon. I’m pretty sure no one watches me anymore but, well…as a cartoon character, I’m kind of compelled to look in a certain direction sometimes because it would be funny!”

“Oh, that’s all well and good,” Responded Twilight “But can you knock it off?! We’re having to keep telling ponies out there that you’re not some kind of freaky ghost!”

That’s when Pinkie Pie suddenly looked so sad, that not only were her eyes watering but her hair went straight again and her colors dulled; it was the same thing that happened when she thought nopony wanted to be her friend.

“But…but you don’t understand! I’m a cartoon character! Even if only a bunch of studio executives were the only ones to watch my only cartoon…and even if no one watches me anymore, it’s in my nature to sing and be funny! It’s my very reason to exist! Telling me not to be funny is like telling Rainbow Dash not to fly, or Fluttershy not to like animals, or Applejack to not applebuck, or Rarity not to make clothes, or you not to study, or Spike not to eat gems, or-”

“Okay, okay, I get it! Look, I’m starting to see why you didn’t want anypony else to know about this, and I think I’m starting to understand what you’re saying. How about this? What if you just…do whatever it is you do only around us and the Cakes? You can still be…funny  then and you’re always welcome to sing whenever you want. Think you can do at least that much for us?”

Pinkie Pie suddenly regained her color, hair style, and cheerful disposition again, nodding vigorously.

“Well, good. Just be more careful and I think after awhile everything will blow over.”

“So does that mean we’re still friends?”

“Whoevah said we weren’t? Jest ‘cause yer’re somewhat diff’rent?”

“Darling, after everything we been through? Perish the thought!”

“Okay, so you’re a lot weirder than I thought you were but I’m never going to leave you hanging.”

“Um…I’ll admit that I still don’t quite understand all of this, but….you’ve always been a very nice pony to us all and a great friend, so, um, I’ll still like to be your friend, Pinkie Pie..”

“Pinkie Pie, if we didn’t still want to be your friends, we wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of having this intervention the first place.”

“Oh, you girls!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, suddenly grabbing everypony with forelegs that suddenly stretched out and then snapped back to normal in a group hug; only this time nopony tried to think about it too much. “You’re the best friends a pony or a cartoon character could ever have! I love you guys!”

“Right back at ya.” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Party Pony.”

The gang simply laughed for a bit and then they talked a bit more about what Pinkie Pie’s old life was like and whatever knowledge her ability to break the fourth wall gave her, like what humans were like, what other kinds of cartoons they made, and other such stuff for the next several hours.

As they went their separate ways, Pinkie Pie bounced her way back home to the Sugarcube Corner, being sure to remember her promise to her friends about when she used her natural born abilities. She wasn’t sure what the future would be like and how it would affect her but she did knew one thing: she really did have the best friends a pony could ever have. Ever.

***

“The living embodiment of a sugar rush, Pinkie Pie is like a Looney Tune who wandered away from the group one day while chasing a balloon.” – quote by Space Frog’s blog on his review of MLP:FIM, March 21, 2011

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My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic  © Hasbro

Looney Tunes © Warner Brothers

I do not own the intellectual properties this fan-fiction is based on.

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