"I JUST don't understand what the problem is."

The Earth ponies sighed quietly, shaking their heads back and forth as they tried to approach their new friend, Mr. Cake putting a hoof on her shoulder as she sighed. "I mean...presentation is everything and I put my heart and soul into these delightful dishes!" Their friend muttered sadly as she held up a plate full of tragically-uneaten donuts. "Why doesn't anyone want to try them?"

The answer was twofold. One, because Muffet, their cook, was a spider. And she wasn't just ANY spider. No, Muffet had maroon pantaloons, black hair tied in buns on her head, five large, piercing black eyes and six arms on top of that.  Muffet the Spider, the "Queen", the "Head Honchette", as it were, of the Spider Kingdom in the Underworld, may have been a big fish in the little pond she called home, but here? Here she was a minnow, and she was drowning. Sure she LOOKED kinda adorable if you could get past the distinct fangs, the overly thin and long legs and arms, and the piercing claws on her hands.

But then you read the sign that detailed what was in her pastries. You see, all the proceeds went to real spiders! And it advertised how you should come eat food made by spiders, FOR spiders, and WITH spiders!

Yeah, that last one was what turned the ponies of Equestria off. Sure, the donuts looked nice. A delightful chocolate glaze with pink and purple frosting, and black sprinkles on the top. But then when the inhabitants of Equestria had read what was in them?

Well, dear readers, I take you to the very first day of Muffet's attempted business venture with the Cake family.  It had been a delightfully bright Sunday morning in Ponyville, as soft, puffy clouds ambled over Sugarcube Corner. The swirly hair of Ms. Cake bobbed about as she swept the store carefully, Ms. Muffet sitting behind the counter and smiling broadly as a purple alicorn approached the store, a green-and-purple-scaled little dragon walking behind her. Mr. Cake was handing out some donuts Ms. Muffet had made to Pinkie Pie, that lovable pink Earth Pony rapscallion who was happily munching away on them. So far, so good!

Or at least, so Muffet had thought until she saw Twilight Sparkle's concerned face as the alicorn entered the store, Spike the dragon holding a clawed hand over his stomach, letting out an unpleasant, liquidy belch as Muffet stared stupidly back. "Um, however may I help you?" She asked Twilight. "You don't look well at all, deary." She added to Spike as he tried to speak, only to surpress another disgusting belch, a wooziness coming over his draconic features.

"Ms. Muffet, I'm aware you've entered into joint venture with the Cakes here at Sugarcube corner." Twilight Sparkle intoned as her horn sparked with faintly purple energy and one of the donuts from off of a nearby tray that was sitting to the right of Muffet on the purchasing countertop was hovered up. Twilight gestured at it with a hoof, speaking solemnly. "You've filled out all the right paperwork for it, but I have to talk to you about these...unique dishes you've made." She remarked, before concentrating some more as a croissant now hovered up from a plate to Ms. Muffet's left.  "If I may begin at the beginning?"

"Of course. I love talking about my work." Muffet remarked, resting her head on the back of her hands, nonchalantly tilting it slightly as she smiled a bit. "So whatever is the matter?"

"First, there's your croissants. Now these are incredibly nasty. They taste too thick and you added far too much flour. But we can't prosecute you for that." Twilight remarked, sticking her tongue out in disgust before tossing the croissant into the nearby trash bin, Muffet nodding a little.

"Agreed."

"But then we get to this. Your "number two" on your menu, the second best seller after your cider. "Number Two: Crumby Spider Donut". Crummy...is right. It's very, VERY crunchy, and am I right in thinking..." Twilight hesitated. "That there are REAL SPIDERS in here?"

"Yes, some little ones."

Pinkie Pie, who HAD been halfway through eating another donut, suddenly stopped, visibly turning a bright shade of green before slowly opening up her mouth, going "Gaaaaah' as the half-eaten remains of the donut slid down, down, to plop onto her plate, pushing it far away from her with her hooves.

Twilight tried to go on. "...what SORT of spiders?"

"Dead ones."

"Were they at least COOKED before they got put into the donuts?" Twilight asked in an exasperated tone, holding a hoof up to her head, purple mane shaking back and forth as she groaned, Muffet shaking her head.

"No."

"What, RAW SPIDERS?" Twilight asked, scarcely able to believe her ears.

"We choose only the finest, juciest baby spiders  carefully chosen and brought from the Spider Kingdom's specialized webs, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then promptly sealed within a divinely delicious,  quintuple-smooth, treble-milk chocolate glaze envelope after being lovingly frosted with powdered sugar and put into the ready-to-be-fried-in-cooking-oil donuts. A time-honored tradition going back centuries to my grandmother Shelob!" Muffet remarked in a dramatic way, gesticulating with her many hands as Twilight smacked her forehead and tugged it downward.

"That's all well and good, but they're still SPIDERS!? Isn't that cannibalism?"

"My dear, the Dogaressa and the Dogamy that are part of My Majesty King Asgore's Royal Guard have been married fifty six years and they're brother and sister. This kind of thing happens with our species all the time. A spider's favorite food...is spiders." Muffet reasoned with a smile and a wink.

"Don't you at least take the legs off?!" Twilight mumbled out, now turning a little green herself as Pinkie Pie was now beginning to inch her chair further and further out of the door, going BUMP-BUMP-BUMP with every little jump.

Muffet shrugged. "If we took the legs off, they wouldn't be CRUNCHY, would they?"

"Spike ATE one of those!" Twilight remarked, gesturing at the long-suffering Spike as he rushed off for the bathroom, now turning greener than the scaly crest atop his head before the sounds of vomiting could be heard echoing through Sugarcube Corner. "I have to protect the public, Muffet! Ponies aren't going to think there are REAL spiders in this thing! Spike thought it was a type of candy! You have to make sure the words "Real spiders" are included on that warning outside!"

"...it's not a WARNING, it's an advertisement..." Muffet said, now looking genuinely hurt as she pouted slightly, arms hung at her sides.

"Not to mention there's no indication of what goes INTO your food. You need to have nutritional information laid out like the Cakes do." Twilight added as she gestured at pamphlets on the wall, Muffet scratching her head. "So is there anything else that goes into your donuts I should know about?"

"Oh, wait! I made a pamphlet like that!" Muffet remarked cheerily, reaching into her pantaloon pockets and whipping out a pamphlet, giving the bright red and purple thing to Twilight as she poured over it. "See? All the nutritional information."

"Hmm. Wait, what's this at the bottom? WEBBING?!" Twilight gasped out, the alicorn's mouth hung open just as Spike re-entered the room, wiping his mouth only to hear his dear friend's next words. "You use webbing?! And it's at the bottom under "monosodium glutamate"!" She proclaimed. "Why is there webbing in your croissants? No WONDER they taste so odd! They ought to get a big red label on them that screams "WEBBING"!"

"Well I have to keep the consistency of the biscuits strong somehow." Muffet remarked with another shrug.

"Why don't you just use NORMAL ingredients!?" Twilight groaned. "Croissants are supposed to have flour, water,  active dry yeast, milk, melted butter, cold unsalted butter and SALT! Not...not webbing and SPIDERS and...I mean...where's the pleasure in eating webbing?! Who wants to eat something that came right outta your butt?!"

"Heyyyy." Muffet said with a frown. "Which one of your ponies looked at a cow's udders and said "I'm gonna drink whatever comes outta these things when I squeeze 'em"?"

"Oh come on, I've got nothing left to throw up but my nuts-GUUUHHHLAAAAUUUGGHHKKK!" Spike screamed out, barely making to the nearby trash can in time, emptying the contents of his stomach out once again as he sobbed in agony.

"In any case, you need to make changes to your offerings." Twilight sighed as she gently patted Spike on the back, stroking him softly to calm him down. "The fact is that if you don't, people just won't eat your food."

"But I've been doing it this way for so long!" Muffet complained, slightly tugging at her hair with her many hands. "I don't really KNOW how to cook with "normal" ingredients! And besides, nobody complained about my food before! The monsters love it!"

"Is that really true?" Twilight asked, looking surprised as Muffet headed out the door, pouting visibly. She'd just have to ask her fellow monsters to back her up, she was sure once they told everyone else about how good her food tasted, they wouldn't MIND what went into the donuts and the cider and the croissants. Yes, she was so, so sure.

How well did that work out?

...

...

...

..."And so then she says "People just won't eat your food"!" Muffet complained to Toriel, Queen of the Monsters as she sat in a cafe in Ponyville with the Queen as she munched on a grass pie. The white-furred, goat-like, well-groomed female monster calmly nibbled away on her piece, horned head peeking back up from her plate to look back at the distressed Muffet before cutting off another piece of the pie.

"I see. It must be quite hard to adjust to a new business venture, a new life." Toriel remarked. She was wearing a very nice-looking white and purple robe, with the "Delta Rune" insignia displayed over her chest. A flying circle and triangles below, the triangles representing monsterkind, with the circle representing an "Angel", the Lord of Resurrection who would give the Monsters new life by freeing them from the Underground. Or at least that's what they'd thought. The old language of the Monsters was something hardly anyone remembered. The word "Lazarus" had been used to describe the Angel in the Ancient Monster Tongue, and true! It did mean "Resurrection".

But it also meant "Death", so many monsters had feared that their "salvation" from the Underground would be that of an "angel" that would "free" them with the gift of Death. Luckily, it had been more metaphorical. The "Resurrection" had really meant "new life", not death, for their sweet little angel had freed them from the Underground and given them a new life on the Surface.

Hope had filled their hearts upon seeing it after so many eons. And now that hope had turned to excitement upon coming across Equestria. But you had to temper the audacity of hope with the reasonable expectations of reality. And the reality was change would be hard.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly lacking for money thanks to that wonderful little human child of yours." Muffet admitted as she put a hand on her chest and chuckled slightly. 'Frisk was positively wonderful in how much he donated to our cause. He's a true spider fanatic! But still, it'd be nice if these ponies understood how wonderful our food was!"

Toriel's face showed a very visible flinch, and Muffet suddenly stared, as if truly seeing Toriel for the first time. She bit her lip, and then looked deep into the queen's soft eyes.

"Y-You...don't think I need to change my ingredients...do you? You like my food, right?"

It had been the same question she'd asked of Sans the Skeleton, his brother Papyrus, Undyne, Head of Asgore's Royal Guard, Asgore the King of Monsters himself, Asriel, Toriel and Asgore's son...

And they all gave what would best be described as a "Concerto of Discomfort"."

"Um..."

"Well..."

"I..."

"So..."

"Uh..."

"HA!"

"Er..."

"I've..."

"UH..."

"See..."

"Uhhhh..."

"HAA!"

"Er..."

"That is..."

"WELL..."

"Maybe..."

"Errr..."

"HA...HAAAAA."

And then, finally...an answer repeated over and over again. Muffet, in desperation, decided to go to the one person she never, ever, EVER thought she would ask.

...Burgerpants, the Cat-like vendor of "Mettaton-Brand-Food" who had opened up a Mettaton store in Ponyville, not too far away from the delightful and snazzy Ms. Rarity's botique. The faint brown-skinned cat was smoking a cigarette, on his lunch break as a soft wind blew about him, ruffling his pink t-shirt as he leaned against the store's back walls. Seeing Muffet, the brownish/red-eyed cat nonchalantly took out the cigarette, blowing a perfect ring of smoke through the air that slowly puffed right over Muffet's head before he spoke.

"What would you give me if I blew a smoke puff and it landed right between your breasts?"

"A concussion. Now tell me something." Muffet demanded, one set of hands on her hips, another crossing her chest and the remaining ones gesticulating with a faint air of desperation. "My food, my cooking. Do you think I need to change it?"

"...oh...my...GOD." Burgerpants remarked, his dry witted tone changing to one of pure, unadulterated glee. "Y-you wait so long to hear a question like that and when it finally comes, y-you're...oh my God, I wanna wrap this moment up like a big ol' present! Happy birthday to ME!" He laughed. "You FINALLY asked me after all these years?! This is too good! So I'm gonna savor it."

He took in a long, deep breath, wafting in the air around him with his hands before finally smirking at her. "The answer is an unequivocal, never-been-so-sure-of-anything-in-my-life YES. And the fact you came to me means everyone else thinks so too. Am I right?"

Muffet hung her head.

"Now...if you'll excuse me, I gotta get back to work. Maybe you should start marketing your food to people trying to lose weight. One whiff of your croissants will make ANYONE lose their appetite."

"Go to HELL." Muffet snarled, black eyes flaring as Burgerpants gave her a wry smirk.

"Sorry, Muffet. Can't. I'm all outta vacation days."

...

...

...

... "You don't think I need to change my ingredients...do you?" Muffet asked Frisk as the Cakes watched the two talking in Sugarcube Corner's kitchen, the brown-haired Asian-American youth giving a spider a sugar cube which it eagerly took, scurrying off to go join its friends on a nearby countertop. Frisk sighed, then nodded.

"Definitely."

"But I thought people LIKED my food." Muffet sighed as she bit her lip, leaning back in the chair she had.

"People "liked" it because it was one of the few genuinely sweet things down in the Underground. So they overlooked the little problems it had because there wasn't that much food to begin with." Frisk admitted. "They kinda...just sucked it up. But it's different now." He said as he gestured around Sugarcube corner. "Equestria takes gold just like the Underground does. Everyone can just buy a normal donut or a lollipop or the like and they don't have to feel creeped out about eating spiders."

"I guess I just don't understand why people don't like the taste of spiders." Muffet mumbled as she hung her head, Mrs. Cake getting an idea as she walked towards her, the blue Earth pony putting down a piece of cake in front of her. "Huh? What's this?"

"Try it, honey." She remarked with a small smile, Muffet munching away at it before cringing.

"YECCCH. It's so thick and...blaaaah!" She practically spat out the contents, barely able to repress her gag reflect as she waved her hands in front of her mouth. "EWWW. What in Heaven's name is this?"

"It's called "carrot cake". Lots of ponies eat it. So do many humans, from what Frisk's told me." Mrs. Cake said as she gestured with a hoof, Mr. Cake's skinny frame ambling into the room as well as he put down a cookbook right in front of Muffet, pointing at recipe after recipe.

"Restaurants and shops like ours know how make grass donuts, hay cakes, flower pie...all of these are big favorites of ponies, big staples of people's diets in a lot of ways. But when we have the occasional Changeling customer, or a Minotaur or a Dragon or a Gryphon, well, we know they like something more meaty. So we'll make them things like this."

He flipped the page, showing off a dish that Muffet hadn't considered. Number Four on the page...Crunchy Frog.

"Is that a real frog?" She asked, pointing at the chocolate-covered frog on the page as Mr. Cake nodded.

"Yes, we also make chocolate-covered insects, flavored crickets, those are a BIG seller..." Mr. Cake read onward. "And the occasional meat pie. Sometimes the Applejack family will donate cow meat to us because they know occasionally we need to provide for other customers who's tastes are different than the rest. Everyone's different."

"And it was hard to learn how to handle it." Mrs. Cake admitted as she slightly cringed. "I remember the first time I made a meat pie for a Gryphon. I was shaking, holding the meat in my hooves, trying to cut it up on the table..." She went on, her voice getting lower. "And all I kept seeing was a cow's face right in front of me, I couldn't bring myself to do it at first. But then I thought about how hungry my customer was, and how they just wanted a little something to remind them of home, and what they ate there. So I focused."

She tapped the side of her head with a hoof, eyes closing. "I focused on their face. And I began cutting the meat, and I made the pie. And the customer, Gilda, loved it!"

"When you try to make the customers happy, it helps make YOU happy. But you have to be willing to try new things. Even if it occasionally might make you uncomfortable, you have to be open to trying new things. To adapt." Mr. Cake explained. "You gotta get with the times."

"Because the times, they are a-chaaaangiiiiin!" Frisk sang out, head bouncing slightly back and forth as Muffet giggled a bit.

"You are just too cute." She giggled. "But I guess you're right." The spider lady remarked with a sigh. "It'll just take me a while to learn how to cook without my usual ingredients. But how am I going to sell off all the other donuts and things I've made with spiders?"

"Hmm." Mrs. Cake paced back and forth, biting her lip thoughtfully. "...I think I have an idea."

...

...

...

... "Oh...oh my."

Twilight could scarcely believe it. But it couldn't be denied. A long, LONG stream of Changelings was now lining outside of Sugarcube Corner, and Queen Chrysalis was stuffing her face full of spider donuts, belly hung over her legs almost like a giant bean bag as she sat on a clearly-about-to-fall-apart chair just outside the shop. The Changelings were buzzing about excitedly, many exiting the store and guzzling down Spider Cider by the gallon as Chrysalis let out an unladylike belch.

"Ohhh, that is just so, SO good! It's been ages since I enjoyed a meal like that."

"You actually...LIKE eating spiders?" Twilight inquired, looking rather intrigued by this. Sure, the Ponies might have crafted a truce treaty with Chrysalis, but that didn't mean she really LIKED her. This was hard to swallow...no pun intended.

"Spiders and other creepy-crawlies were the first meals we ate after our species's birth. There's not a lot else to eat down in damp, dark caves." Chrysalis remarked with a wave of a hoof before letting out a belch. "Besides moss and the occasional fish in dark mountain lakes. So it was that, or spiders. And we chose spiders. Now insects are a regular staple of our diet when we're not dining on emotions!"

"So spiders are, like...comfort food to you." Twilight reasoned, scratching her head as Muffet walked out of the shop, bringing Chrysalis a large jug of golden spider cider to wash her meal down, Muffet also bringing out a small little pink donut that she held up for Twilight, a grin on her face. "What's this?"

"It's for you! Take it." Muffet said with a smile. "I'm almost utterly sold out of my spider ciders and donuts thanks to these fine folks. But they can't be my ONLY customers, so please. Tell me what you think."

Twilight nervously eyed the pastry before levitating it up with her horn, popping a chunk of it into her mouth before her eyes went wide as saucers. "It's...it actually tastes...GOOD." She murmured. "Nice and sweet, just the right amount of frosting, not too dry and not that sticky, I...I LIKE it!" She gasped out loud. "You made this? You?! Made THIS? Really?" 

"Took me hours to get it just right, but I did it." Muffet said with a grin and a thumbs up. "Luckily Frisk helped me get the recipe juuuust right."

"Thank GOD for Save Points..." Frisk moaned out loud, dragging himself away from a nearby golden glow that faintly glittered behind him, having reset to a previous LOAD state precisely 76 times thanks to Muffet's trial-and-error cooking, the taste of aborted and badly-cooked donuts still lingering on his mouth.

But hey. It was better than spiders. Still...

He never wanted to see another donut as long as he lived.