- The orange juice sat within the glass. She could see tiny bits of pulp floating inside it.
The bits of pulp were also blue.
She leaned her head in, sniffed carefully. Orange juice.
Her lips tilted the glass forward just enough to let a tiny coating of fluid hit her tongue. Again, orange juice.
Back to the visuals. Blue.
One summer morning, Twilight and Spike are working on a delayed breakfast after a late, completely ineffective night of research, with Twilight still trying to physically and mentally recover from an explosion-ended journey deep into Luna's hours. She's aware that she spent part of that time locked into obsession, and knows that Spike worries when she starts to slip that way — so when she sees that her fresh-squeeze orange juice has turned blue, she naturally assumes her sibling is throwing a test at her to see if she'll obsess over one tiny altered detail, thanks him for the jolt, and promises not to do any more research that day.
Except that Spike didn't do anything. It's a unicorn working, a new one, which Twilight eventually decides somepony has pranked her with through the open kitchen window. And she's fascinated, not just because it's a new spell, but because what may look simple on the surface is actually incredibly complex. There's no illusion present. The juice has been changed to process light in a different way, with no other properties altered. So once the basement gets cleaned up, she and Spike close the library for fumigation and set out to find the caster, with Twilight hoping she can study the working enough to replicate it.
There's just a few problems with this.
First, it's the worst time of year for trying to find anypony: the summer tourism rush.
And second, the unknown unicorn is still using that spell for pranks. Which is starting to upset the locals, disrupt Ponyville life, and once Daisy gets involved...
Read it here
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Tropes found in this story include:
- Always a Bigger Fish: A very large earth pony, convinced Applejack's accidentally-brought stock can provide him with Zap Apple seeds, pounds on Twilight's emergency shield hard enough for her to feel the impacts, demanding to be let in so he can spend money, starts to verge into threats — which gets Snowflake's attention.There was a sound.
For Ponyville residents, it was a very familiar sound. It had a way of getting noticed. It cut through air and made more solid barriers collapse. It made pony ears perk as it dropped down through the skull deep into the brain, where it solidly landed on a button labeled I May Have Gone Slightly Too Far And I'm Really Sorry About That. - Aristocrats Are Evil: Downplayed; the Ponyville natives are well-aware that most of the worst tourists tend to be high society types from bigger and more important cities (typically Canterlot, which is a single gallop away), who feel their combination of tourist status and presumption of local bumpkins allows them to get away with being rude jerks.
- Berserk Button: Anypony attempting to ruin Rarity's stock would do well to update their will first. She also nearly goes physical on Patina after the mother of the con artist duo calls her creations "remaindered," with Spike having to trigger a deliberate backlash to prevent a hundred quills from being used as weapons, along with having to hold her back. And then Twilight realizes that Spectra and her parent were planning to steal books, which leaves Rarity, Zecora, and Spike holding her back, with the latter's claws wrapped around her horn.
- Blatant Lies: Several times. First, Patina denies everything her daughter is doing even when it's happening in front of witnesses, but that's just good criminal procedure. Then Rarity runs a con on the con artists, who are aware that she and Twilight are Element-Bearers — but don't know which ones, which leaves Rarity free to pass herself off as Honesty, swearing to pay them for the restoration of her stock — a promise they feel she has to keep. And finally, after Spectra threatens the Archives, Twilight takes a sample of the filly's signature through a new spell, with the intent of rigging devices to detect that signature all over the continent.note
- Call-Forward: Rarity points out that the Rare Money she's offering to have the color change spell undone is all the more rare after "the incident with the farmer last moon". It refers to events detailed in the later published story, Good For Nearly All Princess Labor, Public And Private.
- There's also one for Triptych: the experiments Twilight was originally running were attempts to change her signature — which means altering the color of her field. It's something which takes considerably more field dexterity than field strength, and she's having trouble with the refinements.
- Cassandra Truth: Applejack ultimately tries making a heartfelt speech to try and dissuade the buyer's frenzy over her Spectra-altered apples, invoking all three princesses in order to add weight to her assurances that she would not just "forget" to keep her family's prized, super-rare and unique crop separate to the rest of the apples. Unfortunately, as these are mostly tourists, they don't know she's the Bearer of Honesty and instead assume that this is just her trying to make an excuse to cheat them."Now listen up, everypony! These are not Zap Apples! Just good old high-quality Sweet Apple Acres product! Listen t' me! Hear the words Ah'm sayin'! Y' can't make the jelly with 'em! Can't plant the seeds an' get anythin' other than a normal apple tree! Can't start your own business! Ah did not mess up an' bring some of the rarest, most magical apples in Equestria with me to market by accident! Gotta listen t' me! Don't wanna sell y'stuff when y'ain't gettin' what y'think you are! Again, Ah ain't sellin' Zap Apples today! No way, no how, an' Ah swear by Celestia's mane, Luna's shoes, Ah'll even throw in Cadance's tail 'cause Ah love mah reputation too much t' sully it like that, ever... No Zap Apples! None at'tall! Do y'hear me? Do y'understand?"
- Character Development: Although she's still insecure about her skills when it comes to empathy, Twilight's become somewhat more adept when it comes to understanding how other ponies think, including when their emotional values become involved. In the third chapter, this makes her the one to deduce that the unicorn responsible for these workings is potentially just some Jerkass visitor who's doing it because they feel slighted by the locals. And later on, she makes a very real (if ultimately futile) attempt at talking Daisy down from one of the flower seller's paranoid fits. Both occasions wind up being lampshaded in the form of Rarity openly commenting on how much Twilight has grown from the socially awkward and clueless mare she met three years ago, along with saying how proud she is at Twilight's development.
- And in the end, Twilight doesn't learn the color-changing spell — and decides she can live without it.
- Contrived Coincidence: On two occasions, when somepony is saying unaccepting things concerning Rarity's altered hues, an actual red-and-black pony is within hearing range, becomes highly offended, and stomps off. Nopony ever notices he's there at all.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The slights that the mysterious unicorn has received are hardly intentional or even all that drastic: most of them seem to center around being expected to wait while the locals struggle to keep up with the press of other tourists. In return, she's causing a steadily-growing ripple effect of chaos that could potentially have serious impacts on the income of the entire settled zone. Of course, some of that works out to be positive...
- Epic Fail: Twice. First, the group finds Daisy in her Hoovmat Suit, standing on a folding soapbox while explaining to a group of tourists about the horrible, horrible disease which is going around the settled zone and making ponies look evil. They realize they have to talk her down before she sets off a herd mentality-triggered stampede on tourists who haven't learned to ignore her yet, then manage to outlogic her for the first time ever, with Twilight finally, gently explaining that it's just a normal unicorn spell at work — at which point, Daisy immediately gallops off screaming about the horrible, horrible spell which is being used to make ponies look evil.
- And then they find out about the prank Applejack received, which has changed the farmer's own stock at the market cart — through coating all the apples in rainbows. The filly may have thought that would make them look unappealing, but in reality, all that does is set off a sales frenzy, because Zap Apples never go on sale: the family needs every one they can harvest for the jelly. The tourists at the market conclude that Applejack brought them by accident and do everything they can to purchase every apple she has, intending to get at the seeds and start their own crops. The ultimate consequence of that prank is to provide Applejack with a whole lot of extra bits — and because she directly and repeatedly explained that nothing was a Zap Apple, she's immune to any potential future lawsuits.
- Escape from the Crazy Place: Twilight's feelings about having to go into Quills & Sofas: in her opinion, Davenport is nuts....well, Davenport had something of a one-track mind. Or rather, two, running in rather close and completely illogical parallel.
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Word Of Fanfic Author is that Davenport has a moderate case of falling into the mark: he's just a little too obsessed with his talent and business. On the whole, he's functional, but it doesn't take most ponies long to realize something's off.
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- Evil Is Petty: Pretty much the entire point of the story. The Bearers aren't facing some Evil Overlord type; just a spoiled, impatient child lashing out at the locals because she's bored — and, like Diamond, believes the fact that she's merely a filly makes her just about immune to retribution. In her case, however, somepony may have put that idea in her head.
- Fantastic Racism: Spectra turns out to have zapped Zecora's coloring due to some truly awful anti-Zebra beliefs she's picked up from her mother.
- Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Averted: fear is the Flower Trio's only response. Rarity feels that on some level, they want to be scared, and their ability to reinforce each other doesn't help anypony.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Zecora joins the hunt late in the story after meeting the group outside the marketplace: her own shades have been altered, and she's more than a little interested in getting revenge — especially as her change is the one where the unicorn began experimenting with paisley.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: The actual shirt doesn't appear, but the fact that "I'm a tourist" seems to go hoof-in-hoof with "I'm better than you" and/or "I don't have to worry about your local laws" is alive and well in Ponyville's tourism season and earns quite a bit of vitriol. Applejack notes that it's her busiest time of year — for shoplifters, because some ponies feel they can do anything when they're away from home. Foals tend to be the worst about it.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Inducing a potentially permanent color change in objects may seem a pretty useless personal spell, but if you're a petty little thug who enjoys making people suffer, you can get a lot of chaos-inflicting mileage out of it. For example, dyeing ponies you don't like in unspeakable color schemes, messing with the goods of fashion designers, making ponies afraid to buy and eat perfectly good food — and the ultimate plan of Spectra's mother is the falsification of antiques: there are more than a few items where the only real difference between valuable and common is hue, especially if you're selling through a catalog and the buyer can't inspect the goods until it's too late.
- And towards the end of the story, everypony starts to realize what the spell can do when it comes to information. Spectra points out the vulnerability of books: black text on white pages. She believes — and essentially threatens — that if she goes into the Canterlot Archives during a school field trip, she could wipe out the entire library. Fortunately, she can't, at least not without opening all the books to get every page: differentiation means that such a bulk casting would just coat the covers, then get the spine and edges. Twilight decides that's bad enough.
- Hey, Catch!: Deliberately invoked by Zecora in order to prove Spectra does have magic: she kicks a box of quills, angled to go over the unicorn filly's head — but the child reacts on instinct to stop it, and freezes the projectile within a shimmer-white field.Zecora smiled. "'natch."
- Must Have Caffeine: Attempted, but after a near all-night research session, Twilight's used all the wake-up juice and in order to keep up with her, Spike had the coffee. As a matter of fact, Twilight hates coffee, but she's just that desperate.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Some Ponyville residents respond to seeing a problem-distracted Twilight by putting barriers in front of the toy store and slamming a curtain over the doll display. (Twilight herself figures it'll take about another six decades for the last bit of personal embarrassment to fade.)
- Rare Money: In exchange for the restoration of her stock, Rarity offers Patani and Spectra the payment of a silver bit, personally given to her by Luna: a coin more than a thousand years old, from the days when money was struck for each ruler. (This also calls back to A Total Eclipse Of The Fun, which had Celestia using such a coin as a model Moon.) The coin is real. Rarity's offer is not.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Rarity's personal portion of the prank at the Boutique: her altered coat is so dark as to seemingly absorb light, and she shadows anything she stands next to. Twilight reacts to seeing the change by — remembering that different eyes colors receive light in different ways and asking Rarity if she's willing to participate in creating the first-ever comprehensive comparison chart. The color scheme also drives Daisy's panic, who explicitly calls it out as making Rarity look "evil".
- Shout-Out: The story is dedicated to John M. Ford, right down to every last drop of the blue orange juice.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Off-camera. Whatever Twilight did towards the end of her research session ended with at least one explosion, and Rarity sadly notes that Twilight's experiments have gone in that direction more than once.
- Take That!: Overlapping with Fandom Nod; Rarity gets redone in a color scheme of black and rednote , which she loathes as tasteless and mentions was "all the rage" for a blessedly short period of time. This is a reference to the flood of bad black and red-colored alicorn Original Characters that plagued the FiM fandom in its early years, which fans still poke fun at."I feel like such a cliche' ."
- Too Dumb to Fool: Daisy manages to mix this with an odd form of Too Clever by Half, at least when it comes to inventing excuses for continuing to be afraid. When Twilight encounters Daisy stirring up fear by trying to convince ponies that the color changing comes from a new disease, she quite reasonably challenges the other pony by asking how baked goods can catch an illness, figuring nothing can stop that kind of logic train. Unfortunately, the perpetual exception is pony stupidity, and Daisy quickly decides that the living yeast in Sugarcube Corner became infected.
- Too Dumb to Live: The ponies who come to Ponyville specifically for a chance to potentially see the Bearers of Harmony in action, but fail to try and learn which mares they are. This leads to the scene of ponies who refuse to listen to Applejack, the Bearer of Honesty, as she tries to explain that these rainbow-hued apples on her stall are not the incredibly valuable, never available to be sold Zap Apples, but ordinary apples that some unicorn has messed with.
- Tranquil Fury: Upon seeing the color changes inflicted on the Boutique's dresses (which happens after hearing Twilight say that any casting on something non-living is likely permanent), Rarity goes on a long, half-dreamy speech about how she once considered a career in politics after losing her Preschool Princess election, can see herself returning to the arena again, might just run for the Night Court and, after a long career brings her to the point where she can both compose her own legislation and has the votes behind her, will have certain acts recognized as crimes, then carry out the first punishment herself as a reward for a lifetime of public service.
