Twilight's Bureaucracy is a series of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction written by Leondude. They initially revolved around Twilight Sparkle's hilarious attempts at running Equestria until the events of My Little Pony: A New Generation.
The stories include:
- My Tax Policy?
(which now has a reading by VisualPony). - Twilight Is Fed Up of the Vocal Minority's $#!%
- Where The [REDACTED] Did I Go Wrong?!
- Celestia Goes Crazy and Stuff
The series contains examples of:
- Call-Back:
- The reporter pony that interviewed Twilight about her tax policy is the same one from "Fame and Misfortune". Unsurprisingly, Twilight is less than enthusiastic about his presence.
- In the second story, Twilight brought up how a good portion of Equestria, including the princesses and the Royal Guard, were kidnapped by changelings at one point in time, with Sod defensively stating his regiment was asleep at the time.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The first two stories were satirical in nature. The next two, while still humorous, are noticeably darker. Possibly justified due to the canonical Happy Ending Override of My Little Pony: A New Generation caused.
- Chekhov's Gun: It's implied the Twilicane Twilight threw away at the end of the third story is the same one Izzy used to knock Celestia out in the fourth one.
- Comic Book Movies Dontuse Code Names: By the time of the fourth story, not once is Celestia referred to as Daybreaker despite looking and acting exactly like her at that point in time.
- Continuity Nod: Several to both the show and the stories themselves.
- In the second story, Twilight points out that the time-travel spell made by Starswirl the Bearded was ripped in half during her battle with Starlight. In fact, the entirety of the second story is filled with continuity nods to seasons 8 and 9 of the show.
- The below-mentioned
Memetic Mutation. - In the first story, Luna asks Celestia if she meant "parliament" when she said "congress", to which Celestia replies "same thing". In the third story, Twilight questions if Luna meant "congress" when she said "parliament" with Luna's reaction being the same as Celestia's.
- Similar to Luna being taken aback by Twilight's Precision F-Strike in the third story, Twilight was taken aback by Celestia's own Precision F-Strike in the fourth.
- Also from the third story, when Twilight wonders if Sod and his cabal may have been right about her not being fit to rule, Luna asks "were they not the same ponies that you told to eat manure not that long ago?"
- Deconstruction: Of Authority Equals Asskicking. Just because Twilight and her friends have saved Equestria time and time again doesn't necessarily mean she's fit to rule an entire kingdom.
- ‘Celestia Goes Crazy And Stuff' deconstructs The Chessmaster. Despite Celestia's extensive machinations, the land of Equestria is still in disharmony so she decides the best course of action is to cleanse it with fire.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Going by Twilight's annoyed tone throughout the second story, it's clear that she's not impressed with the petty reasons Sod and his group tried to overthrow her.
- Evil Gloating: Celestia spends the entirety of the fourth story doing this.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The titles for the second and fourth stories are "Twilight Is Fed Up of the Vocal Minority's $#!%" and "Celestia Goes Crazy and Stuff". Guess what they're about.
- Expy: General Sod is clearly based on Michael Shannon's portrayal of General Zod in Man of Steel, in addition to his character in Knives Out.
- Face–Heel Turn: Celestia has one in "Celestia Goes Crazy and Stuff". Fed up with everypony fighting each other, she turns into Daybreaker and plots to burn Equestria to the ground.
- Freak Out: Twilight, naturally, has these in "My Tax Policy?" and "Where the [REDACTED] Did I Go Wrong?". The former because she doesn't have a tax policy while the latter is because everypony is at each other's throats again.
- Happy Ending Override: "Where the [REDACTED] Did I Go Wrong?" and "Celestia Goes Crazy and Stuff" deal with the one caused by My Little Pony: A New Generation. It's not pretty, to say the least.
- Hate Sink:
- It's clear the unnamed reporter pony isn't someone that's meant to be liked, which most likely explains why he threw in his lot with Sod and the other ponies that tried to overthrow Twilight by the time of the second story.
- Sod and his co-conspirators. In addition to having the likes of Prince Blueblood (already a Hate Sink in canon) in their ranks, they are portrayed as arrogant know-it-alls that feel like Twilight doesn't deserve to sit on the throne. It makes it all the more satisfying when Twilight tells all of them to eat shit.
- Lemony Narrator: In addition to the Obligatory Swearing, the narration for these stories can be rather cheeky at times. For instance, every time Celestia says something that made Twilight seem special ("I don't think I've ever come across a unicorn with your raw abilities", "You did something today that's never been done before"), the narration points out in a deadpan manner that she's lying.
- Meaningful Name: In addition to it being a pun on Zod, Sod is one daft sod.
- Memetic Mutation: In-universe example. In The Beginning of the End, Pinkie Pie says "classic Twilighting" in reference to Twilight's numerous panic attacks. As of ‘Where The [REDACTED] Did I Go Wrong?!", it appears to have entered the public consciousness as Luna points out Twilight is doing what her subjects refer to as "Twilighting".
- Military Coup: General Sod tried and failed to lead one. Amusingly, he wasn't even the first.
- Ironically, Twilight worried this might happen because of her new tax policy. When she finds out the many ponies that tried to overthrow her had reasons except her tax policy, she finds herself Disappointed by the Motive.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Celestia beats the shit out Twilight in the fourth story.
- Noodle Incident: The ponies before Sod that tried to overthrow Twilight include misguided Luna sympathizers and, of all things, Nazis. But we never get to see how Twilight handled those situations.
- Obligatory Swearing: Starting with the second story, it became common for one or two precision f-strikes to be dropped either by the characters or by the narration. ‘Celestia Goes Crazy And Stuff' took it up a notch by having the narration literally say three times Celestia was beating the shit out of Twilight.
- Omnicidal Maniac: What Celestia had become by the time of the fourth story.
- Precision F-Strike: The moment Twilight told Blueblood to "eat shit" in the second story. Quickly becomes Cluster F-Bomb when she tells each individual member of the coup against her to eat shit before teleporting a cake specifically molded to look like dog shit.
- In "Where the [REDACTED] Did I Go Wrong?", Twilight shouts at the top of her lungs "WHERE THE FUCK DID I GO WRONG?!"
- Celestia calling her former subjects "thankless, ungrateful little SHITS!!!" when fighting Twilight in the fourth story.
- Rule of Three: The narration for "Celestia Goes Crazy and Stuff" repeating the sentence "beat the shit out of Twilight" when Celestia was... well... beating the shit out of Twilight.
- Sanity Slippage: Twilight has clearly gone through one by the time of the third story, courtesy of her subjects being at each other's throats again, magic inexplicably disappearing, and her friends have died of old age.
- As the title of the fourth story implies, Celestia has also gone through one because of her manipulations failing to maintain harmony in the long run.
- Satire: In spades, especially the first two stories.
- Separated by a Common Language: This moment in "My Tax Policy":Celestia: I thought congress would take care of it.
Luna: You mean parliament?
Celestia: Same thing.- It gets a Call-Back in the third story when Luna says parliament will handle it, to which Twilight asks "you mean congress?" to which Luna replies "same thing".
- Shout-Out: The first story was inspired by a quote from George R. R. Martin.
- At the end of the second story, Twilight tells the cabal that plotted against her to eat shit.
- Sunny Starscout giving Twilight a Twilicane ala Rey in The Last Jedi, with Twilight reacting the same way Luke did in that film.
- The title of the fourth story is a reference to the Invader Zim episode, ‘GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff'.
- In the flashbacks for ‘Celestia Goes Crazy And Stuff' whenever Celestia tells Twilight something that makes sound special, the narration says immediately afterwards "That was a lie".
- Celestia's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of Twilight wasn't that different from the scene in Invincible (2021) where Omni-Man pulverizes Mark on a mountaintop.
- Izzy knocked Celestia out with a compound elevated skull fracture.
- Suddenly Shouting: "WHERE THE FUCK DID I GO WRONG?!"
- Take That!: Sod and his followers are clearly based on people that have a problem with how the show itself ended. In fact,
Word of God explicitly stated he wrote "Twilight Is Fed Up of the Vocal Minority's $#!%" just so he can have Twilight tell "a bunch of ignorant a-holes" to eat shit.- In the third story, the narration points out that one of the reasons Luna was checking in on Twilight was to get even with Starlight for robbing her of the chance to call Star-Swirl out on his ‘once a villain, always a villain' philosophy. Note Leondude's dislike of Starlight after her Heel–Face Turn as well as sharing a video on his blog stating Luna should have taken Starlight's place in Shadow Play.
- In the third story, the narration points out that one of the reasons Luna was checking in on Twilight was to get even with Starlight for robbing her of the chance to call Star-Swirl out on his ‘once a villain, always a villain' philosophy. Note Leondude's dislike of Starlight after her Heel–Face Turn as well as sharing a video on his blog stating Luna should have taken Starlight's place
- Title Drop: Both "My Tax Policy?" and "Where the [REDACTED] Did I Go Wrong" are title-dropped by Twilight, the latter of which being uncensored in the actual story.
