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Fanfic / Pound and Pumpkin Cake's Adventures (and Misadventures) in Potty Training

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This fanfiction is set a year after the events of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and is about the Cake twins being potty trained. Pumpkin Cake is excited about using the potty, but Pound... not so much. This story has plenty of practical jokes and Toilet Humor.


Pound and Pumpkin Cake's Adventures and Misadventures in Potty Training provides examples of

  • Accidental Good Outcome: In "Silly Sweetie Belle", Sweetie Belle accidentally ends up with Pumpkin Cake's pull-up on her head, but it makes Pumpkin laugh.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: When the Cake twins apologise for tricking Pinkie Pie into acting like a baby, she admits their prank was actually pretty funny.
  • Alliterative Name: Pinkie Pie.
  • Alliterative Title: Not the fanfic itself, but there are chapters called "Pound's Pain", "Pumpkin and the Potty", "Toilet Trouble!", "Diamond's Dazzling Diaper Day", "Panicking Pumpkin" and "Pound, Pumpkin and Ponypalooza".
  • Affectionate Nickname: Mr and Mrs Cake call each other "sugar plum" and "honey bun" respectively.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Pound Cake initially didn't believe in ghosts when he first encountered the "Butt Ghost". This is despite being in a world full of unicorns, time travel, spirits of disharmony, etc.
  • Baby Morph Episode: In "Diamond the Dazzling Foal" and "Diamond's Dazzling Diaper Day", Diamond Tiara, who is foal-sitting, turns into a baby via Pumpkin's magic. It's also mentioned that Pumpkin has turned Gummy into a baby alligator in the past, too.
  • Babysitting Episode: The twins have been foal-sat by Twilight, Starlight, Diamond Tiara, Scootaloo, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, the Pie family, and Pinkie Pie in various chapters.
  • Baby Talk: The babies can't pronounce their 'r's or 'l's and say "ticken" instead of "chicken", "dun" instead of "don't", "tat" instead of "that", and "diapee" instead of "diaper".
  • Baffled by Own Biology: When Pound Cake, a two-year-old Pegasus boy, catches the "feather flu" (a Pegasus disease) for the first time, he's confused and wonders if there's something wrong with his feathers, then wonders how his nose can be clogged if it isn't a toilet.
  • Batman Gambit: In "Potty Training, Pinkie Pie Style", the twins act like they don't know how to use their potties in hopes that Pinkie Pie will demonstrate by trying to put on a diaper to bring herself down to their level so that they can treat her like one of them. It works.
  • Berserk Button: Pumpkin Cake's is threatening to flush or harm her belongings. Other things make her mad, but this makes her especially mad.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: In "The 'Joy' of Flushing", which is named because the twins flush a joyboy, Mrs Cake spanks the twins as a punishment for said flushing.
  • Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: When she's turned into a toddler, Diamond Tiara calls her mother a "poopie head", then Pumpkin calls her a "butt head". Diamond thinks of a very rude insult but the twins "have already learned their lesson about being potty mouths".
  • Color Character: Pinkie Pie has "pink" in her name.
  • Comedic Work, Serious Scene: This is generally a comedy fanfic, but the end of the chapter "Diaper Shortage?" reveals that Apple Bloom has been stealing Pound's diapers and putting them on as a desperate attempt to remember her parents, who died when she was a toddler.
  • Companion Cube: Boulder, just like in the show. Seeing as rocks cannot talk, this confuses the twins. Also in "A Sick Toilet?" the toilet breaks and the twins, chiefly Pound, wonder if it is "sick" and try to fix it with medicine, as though it were a person.
  • Corrective Lecture: In "The Streak", Pinkie Pie gives the Cake twins a tongue-lashing for flushing themselves and Gummy down the toilet.
  • Darker and Edgier: Sometimes, the narrator puts disclaimers that some of the chapters are darker than most of the stories.
    • The warning for "Potty Training, Pinkie Pie Style" goes like this:
      WARNING!: The content of this chapter may be disturbing to some viewers, reader discretion is advised! This is the very chapter that led me to giving this fic a Teen rating instead of an Everyone rating. If grown ponies in diapers is outside your comfort zone, know that you don't have to read this chapter.
    • The warning for "The 'Joy' of Flushing" goes like this:
      WARNING!: This chapter will contain light disciplinary spanking. I know some people may have a problem with that, but it's solely an act of discipline done briefly to the twins, and that is not going to be the focus of this chapter. I'm not going to get into a debate about whether spanking a child is ever okay, and I will delete any (the word 'any' is underlined) comments that lead to a Flame War. So please be civil and leave the debate out of this and all chapters.
  • Deadly Sparring: One chapter has the twins play-fighting with some stuffed animals. Pumpkin accidentally hits Pound in the eye, requiring her to go to the doctor and leaving Pumpkin wracked with guilt and fear.
  • The Diaper Change: Happens to the twins several times in the chapters where they are still in diapers.
  • Diaper Check: When the twins wake up in the morning their diapers sometimes get checked.
  • Disappeared Dad: This fanfic explains Applejack, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom's dad being missing as him being dead, along with their mother.
  • Distant Finale: The last chapter, "A Look Back", is set five years later when the CMC are in high school and the Cake twins are starting first grade.
  • Eat Dirt, Cheap: The Pies give themselves and the twins rock soup.
  • Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: How the toddlers speak, i.e. they pronounce their "r"s and "l"s as "w"s.
  • Emotionless Girl: Just like in the show, Maud, who's a very deadpan mare.
  • Exact Words: When Pinkie Pie is pretending to be the "tickle monster", and tickling the twins, Pound says "Please! Don't! Stop!". Pinkie Pie keeps tickling because she interpreted that as "Please don't stop."
  • Facepalm: Sometimes, Pound Cake face-hoofs if he thinks is sister is being stupid.
  • Faint in Shock: Mr Cake apparently faints when surprised.
  • Flash Back: The twins have a host of these in the chapter "Foalhood's End" note  In the last chapter, when they are grade schoolers, the twins then decide to pretend to be babies, while having flashbacks.
  • Flash Forward Fic: Takes place a year after "Baby Cakes," when Pound and Pumpkin are old enough to be toilet trained.
  • Freudian Excuse: Apple Bloom's reason for stealing Pound's diapers and putting them on is because she wants to remember her parents as they died when she was a baby.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Fluttershy and the twins.
  • Fun with Flushing: A Running Gag in this fanfic.
    • In Down the Hoooole, the twins flush toilet paper, soap, toys, and Gummy down the toilet. The fun ends when Pound flushes Pumpkin's favourite rubber chicken down the toilet and Pumpkin gets angry, calls him a "turd" and flushes him. She then feels like a turd and flushes herself, leading Pinkie Pie to rescue them.
    • Pumpkin then flushes Pound's pacifier, but somehow gets it back.
    • Flurry Heart gets flushed, but teleports herself out in "Flurry Heart's Royal Flush"
    • Pound Cake flushes clouds down the toilet in "The Great Cloud Flush".
    • The twins get into trouble for flushing a joyboy in "The 'Joy' of Flushing"
  • The Ghost: Zecora and Sunburst are both mentioned in this fanfic, but never seen.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: When Pumpkin develops a crush on Spike, she becomes jealous of Rarity and even Sweetie Belle.
  • Grossout Fakeout: The chapter "The Exploding Diaper" begins with Scootaloo asking Mr. and Mrs. Cake if they've ever heard of an exploding diaper. The Cakes are shocked, but then Scootaloo explains that it only exploded because the twins tried to inflate it with helium.
  • Growing Up Sucks: In "Foalhood's End", the twins get emotional, knowing that someday they will grow up.
  • Heroic BSoD: Starlight when she thinks she's let Twilight down and both of Pound's My God, What Have I Done? moments.
    • Pound, when he feels like his foalhood is ending and wants to go back to diapers.
  • Hold Your Hippogriffs: Lots of mangled phrases, including "set hoof", "in pony", "hoof-me-down", and "fillies first".
  • Innocent Awkward Question: In "Scootaloo the Potty Mouth", the twins, who are two, overhear Scootaloo using the word "peeved", which, in the My Little Pony universe, is a cuss word. They then ask their mother, "What does 'peeved' mean?", shocking her.
  • Innocent Swearing: When the twins learn the word 'peeved', which is treated as a swear.
  • Interspecies Romance: Spike's crush on Rarity, like in the show, and Pumpkin develops a crush on Spike.
  • I Was Told There Would Be Cake: The twins sometimes get promised cupcakes for going to the potty.
  • Jar Potty: Pound Cake peeing in a teapot.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Limestone Pie. She's a bit of a grump, but not bad.,
  • Killed Off for Real: Applejack's parents are not around in the show and this fanfic explains it as them being dead.
  • Love Triangle: Pumpkin having a crush on Spike and getting jealous of Rarity.
  • Like Brother and Sister: The twins refer to Pinkie Pie as their big sister.
  • Literal-Minded: Pumpkin thinks "feather flu" means that Pound's feathers are sick. Also when the Apples call urine "gold", Pound thinks that means Pumpkin has peed solid gold.
  • Malfunction Malady: Starlight's magic is unstable because she has the flu.
  • Missing Mom: This story explains Applejack, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom's mother being absent as her being dead, along with their father.
  • Mistaken for Toilet:
    • Inverted in "Fluttershy and the Case of the Missing Potty", in which Fluttershy's pets wonder if Pumpkin's potty chair is a well (Beaverton), food dish (Hummingway), pet bed (Angel), trash bin (a raccoon), fishing bowl (an otter), hat (Harry), milk bowl (a flamingo), acorn bowl (a squirrel), flowerpot (a wasp) or Zecora's cauldron (a deer).
    • Another inversion occurs throughout the fanfic where the twins wonder if the toilet is a living creature, at first thinking it's a monster, and then later, when it breaks, thinking it's sick.
  • Mister Strangenoun: The majority of ponies have words in their names (Pound Cake, Twilight Sparkle etc).
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Pumpkin flushes Pound after he flushes her rubber chicken. She then feels guilty, or "like a turd", and decides to flush herself as turds are to be flushed. Later, Pound feels guilty as he believes he has gotten Pumpkin Cake sick as he has the feather flu and it supposedly only affects pegasi but he overheard Applejack call Pumpkin's urine "gold" and he thinks that means it's gone solid like actual gold. Mrs Cake actually invokes this by using reverse psychology on Pound at one point.
  • Naked People Are Funny: In "The Streak", the twins take off their diapers and run around naked. However, mostly the ponies don't wear clothes and that's considered normal.
  • Nature Tinkling: Zigzagged. When Pumpkin Cake poops in a flowerpot she thinks that both pooping and peeing outside is acceptable as she's heard the Apples do that to fertilise the soil, but she is told that's unacceptable. Later, Fluttershy's pets are squicked out because Pumpkin Cake uses a potty whereas they use nature. When Pound Cake visits Cloudsdale, he has a Potty Emergency and ends up peeing on the clouds because he can't find his potty, leaving Rainbow Dash to clean them.
  • Nerd Glasses: Pinkie Pie puts on glasses when she pretends to be a professor.
  • NOT!: During their play fight, Pound Cake says, "Oh, I'm so scared, not.", to parody the sort of snark that gets used in real fights.
  • Not What It Looks Like: When Scootaloo catches Pound with his diaper having exploded and next to him is the helium tank, Pumpkin says this line. However, Scootaloo is not buying it. Also, when the twins trick Pinkie Pie into acting like a baby (long story), Pinkie Pie says this.
  • Out Sick: In "Flurry Heart's Royal Flush", the reason the Cakes are babysitting Flurry Heart is because Sunburst, her normal foal-sitter, has the flu.
  • Ow, My Body Part!: Pound shouts, "My eye!" when he gets hit in the eye during the play fight.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Zigzagged. Pumpkin Cake is a filly and has a pink potty and Pound Cake is a colt and has a blue potty. Pumpkin Cake also has a blue bow. Cadence, Starlight, and Pinkie Pie are mares with pink fur but Pinkie Pie has blue on her cutie mark. Flurry Heart is a light pink filly with a blue diaper, Rainbow Dash is a blue mare, Fluttershy is a mare with a pink mane, tail, and cutie mark, and Mrs Cake is a blue mare with a pink mane.
  • Potty Dance: Pound does one in "The Great Cloud Flush" and Pumpkin does one in "That's Not a Potty".
  • Potty Emergency: A character really needing to go to the bathroom happens a lot.
    • To Pound in "Pound's Pain", "Missed", "That's Not a Potty", "Two Foals, One Outhouse", "Toilet Trouble", "The Wrong Potty", and "The Great Cloud Flush"
    • To Pumpkin in "Pumpkin and the Potty", "That's Not a Potty", "Ripped Pants", and "Fluttershy and the Case of the Missing Potty".
    • To Scootaloo in "The Exploding Diaper".
    • To Mrs Cake in "Everypony Poops".
  • Potty Failure: Happens several times to the twins, due to the fact that they are still in potty training.
    • In "Potty Training, Pinkie Pie Style", Pinkie, for some reason, has one of these.
  • Power Incontinence: Starlight can't control her magic when she's sick and Pumpkin Cake has trouble controlling her magic all the time.
  • The Prankster: The twins prank Pinkie Pie and each other a lot.
  • Pun: The chapter where Flurry Heart gets flushed down the toilet is called "Flurry Heart's Royal Flush", the chapter where the twins flush a joyboy is called "The 'Joy' of Flushing", and the chapter where Smarty Pants gets ripped is called "Ripped Pants"
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: The twins give these when they apologise.
  • Puppy Love: Pumpkin's crush on Spike. She also believes Pound to have a crush on Flurry Heart. Also, Spike, a baby dragon, has a crush on Rarity.
  • Put on a Bus: Starlight leaves after she gets sick.
  • Rapid-Fire "No!": Pumpkin says, "Oh no! No, no, no!" when she hears her brother has to go to the doctor after being hit in the eye.
  • Reveling in the New Form: In "Diamond the Dazzling Foal", Diamond gets zapped into a toddler by Pumpkin Cake's uncontrollable magic, but she enjoys it since she likes getting to have a toddlerhood without her abusive mother.
  • Shapeshifting: Twilight becomes a kangaroo in one chapter, and in another, the twins become deer.
  • Ship Tease: Pumpkin does get a crush on Spike and accuse Pound of having a crush on Flurry Heart, but the writer has decided against being all shippy in their story.
  • Shout-Out: Several.
    • Everypony Poops is a shoutout to the children's book Everyone Poops.
    • Whenever somepony makes a reference to things being flushed "down the hole", "hole" is spelled with many "o"s, which is a shout-out to Plucky Duck from Tiny Toons.
    • Mr Cake mentions that he used to use napkins as a diaper when he was a little colt. This is a reference to an episode of Rugrats when Lil suggests Chuckie do this but he says he's tried it.
    • The chapter "Fluttershy and the Missing Potty" is a reference to Have You Seen My Potty?.
  • Sibling Rivalry: While they generally get along, the twins sometimes have tiffs.
  • Sick Episode: The reason why Flurry Heart is visiting is because Sunburst has the flu, then Starlight gets the horn flu which makes her magic unstable, then Pound Cake gets the feather flu.
  • Sincerity Mode: Pumpkin Cake is thought to be joking when she says she wants to be a foal again in the last chapter but she's sincere.
  • Smelly Skunk: Fluttershy's pet skunk says that the toilet only flushes "after Fluttershy's made it stink worse than him".
  • Species Surname: There's Doctor Horse, the doctor and Pound's stuffed toy Mister Monkey.
  • The Stoic: Just like in the show, Gummy and Maud, who both hardly ever express emotion.
  • Swear Word Plot: In "Scootaloo the Potty Mouth", the two-year-old Cake twins overhear Scootaloo saying the word "peeved" (which isn't swearing in reality, but apparently is in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic universe) and learn not to say it.
  • Take That!: The foals find the book which is a parody of Everyone Poops so boring that they think maybe it's an attempt to "bore the pee pee and poo poo out of us".
  • Teleportation: Flurry Heart has the ability to teleport, which comes in handy when the twins flush her.
  • Time Skip: The whole story is set a year after the show, and the last chapter is set five years later.
  • To Be Continued: "That's Not a Potty" and "Toilet Trouble" are two-part chapters.
  • Toilet-Drinking Dog Gag: When Pumpkin Cake is staying with Applejack and her family, Winona drinks out of the toilet.
  • Toilet Humor: Naturally.
    • Instances of toileting in the wrong place. Pound once used a makeshift diaper out of stuffed animals, and in "That's Not a Potty", Pumpkin poops in a flower pot and Pound pees in a teapot.
  • Toilet Training Plot: The whole plot of the story is about the twins learning to use their potties and eventually the toilet.
  • Wearing It All Wrong: When Sweetie Belle babysits the Cake twins, they put a pull-up on her head.
  • Winged Unicorn: Twilight, Flurry Heart, and Cadance appear.
  • Unusual Euphemism: The Apple family calling urine "gold".

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