For reasons not entirely clear, Fluttershy's chicken coop was a magnet for magical weirdness. The puff of smoke seeped in through cracks in the wooden boards and swirled around, stirring up straw, feathers, and dust. The chickens squabbled and clucked and fled the the building. Moments later, a bright white light bust from the seams and chicken coop bulged and exploded in a flurry of splinters. Later, Fluttershy would learn that her insurance policy wasn't all it was clucked up to be, because the inspector declined to pay thanks to fowl play.

When the brown, feathery dust settled, a strange red-skinned bald man sat crouched down in the smouldering crater where the coop once stood. He uncurled his thin, muscular frame, leaned up to face the unforgiving sky and stretched his arms out with his fists balled-up. His knuckles turned white as he shook them at empty air.

“Khaaaan!” he screamed. His voice boomed across the landscape and echoed back. With a twitching cringe and curl on his lips, he wiped broken eggshell, gooey yolk, and feathers off of his simple, brown shirt. “...never woke up covered in chicken shit.”

“Um, a-are you okay?” Shaking with timidity, Fluttershy poked her head around the corner of her cottage. A quick count of her wildly clucking chickens assured her that all of them were okay.

The man stood to his full height, which was about as tall as the ill-fated coop. He loomed over the timidly crouching Fluttershy. Grunting, he walked past her.

“Um... who are you? Can I help you?” Fluttershy kept her distance. Despite his small size, this strange red man made her nervous in ways that no beast did. She wanted to hide in a bush, but he was on her property and didn't want him to bother her animals. He showed no interest in her beasts, though, and marched straight to her her front door. Fluttershy's eyes widened. She raised a hoof and reflexively spread her wings when he put his hand on her door handle. “Wait! T-that's my house! What are you doing?”

His hard, leathery body paused. Stiff muscles tensed under his skin as he twisted his neck to look at her. Thick black eyebrows lowered, turning his beady eyes into narrow slits. “You can call me Rage Reviews, and I'm here for your fanfiction.”

“What?” Fluttershy's mouth fell open. Her fanfiction? How did he—?

She ran after him when he pulled yanked the door and marched inside. “S-stop! I-I'm sorry, but you can't go in there. I'm going to have to ask that you kindly leave.”

Rage Reviews ignored her plea and plopped himself down on the still-warm seat vacated by Rarity. His bloodshot, white eyes bore through the timid pegasus's soul. She felt like she was being judged for eternal damnation. His deep, red face contorted into something between a sneer and scowl. Skin was stretched taught or scrunched up and he bared his white teeth. There were no fangs, but that made him no less intimidating. He looked as if he might start screaming at any moment. It must have taken some force of will for him to speak in an even voice, “No.”

“No?” Fluttershy was taken aback. Asking nicely usually worked. Well, okay, it didn't, but she hated doing anything more forceful. She also hated being a doormat. Summoning some courage, she said, “B-but you can't just stay here. You're not invited!”

Rage Reviews pulled a thin pair of reading glasses out of his shirt pocket. He spat on them and wiped them off on a unsoiled part of his shirt. They only made his eyes look beadier when he wore them. “You summoned me, and now that you have my attention, you will not get rid of me.”

“What?” Fluttershy's blood ran cold. Magical mishaps could happen to anypony. Had she actually summoned this thing?

“I came for your fanfiction.” Rage Reviews reached out and grabbed the stack of paper. He pulled it closer to him, and leaned down as if clutching a sacred treasure. “I will review it.”

“Wait! Go back to that last part. What do you mean you were summoned? W-what are you, exactly? Why are you really here?”

“Harrumph,” the red man grunted. “If you must know, I am an embodiment of anger and frustration. I am the part of the mind that is locked away by polite restraint. I was born from a desire to express those feelings—to unleash the rage and let the hatred flow. You wished for an honest opinion. You will get mine.”

Fluttershy gasped. “That must be awful. All that negative emotion... A-are you—” Fluttershy gulped “—evil?”

The man snorted. “Judgmental, much? Negative emotions are a part of every sentient being. They help define who you are and how you act. You might not like them, but when they surface, you do heed them. Fear leads to safety. Pain lends itself to prevention. Grief can punish the careless.” Rage Reviews peeled the top sheet off the stack of papers and held it up to his face. “Anger can correct poor behavior in others.”

“Oh. I never thought about it like that. You're surprisingly intellectual for a being made from—”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!?”

Fluttershy squeaked and jumped back. Her fanfiction—he was holding her fanfiction—her baby, her story. She curled up and whimpered from her whole being. From the terrible, nasty look on his face, he... didn't like it.

***

After what felt like an hour, Rage Reviews set down the papers. His eye twitched beneath his reading glasses and the odor of brimstone hung on his breath. He turned his attention to the author, Fluttershy, who laid curled up in a ball in the corner of the room.

“Oh boy, where do I even begin with this fetid lump of text? While I suppose I can forgive the wall-of-text formatting and frequent misspellings because it's hoof-written, that still doesn't excuse it from having blander characters and less conflict than the average McHay-Bales employee application written in crayon.”

“What? No!” Fluttershy stuck her head up. Her eyes were wide and glossy. “It's like a million times better than that! How could you say something like that?!”

“How could you say something like this:”

Teal deer was an amantzing dear that everypony knew and loved!!! She did had a dark past where her face was scarred, but not to the point where it looks bad because that would be bad, She wore a lovely blue dress with built-in saddlebags that were also built-in and saddlebags. It was 20% cooler because she made it herself beecause she could do that because she was a fashion designer 2.

Rage Reviews got up from the table and walked over to the wall. With one sweeping motion, his arm dislodged her framed pictures, toppled birdcages, knocked over a lamp, and dislodged a clock. All the items came crashing down in a horrendous racket that could have awakened Hat-thulu from his eternal slumber, had he existed.

Fluttershy jumped. Her mouth hung agape as he wrecked her place. She was too shocked to say anything, and Rage Reviews quietly sat back down at his seat. With a snap of his red-hued fingers, an image flickered and appeared on her newly-vacated wall:

“W-what is that!? Where did you get that picture of me? A-and, um...” The longer Fluttershy stared at it, the quieter her voice became.

“It's just a thing that I do. Deal with it.” He cleared his throat and slapped his hand on her fanfiction. An accusatory finger rapped at the top of her page. “Ignoring all the tense confusions, bad grammar and misspellings, you've pretty much checked off every symptom of a capitalistic self-inset character in the book!”

“Hey! Teal Deer is like the best character, ever! I-I put a lot of time and effort into making her as awesome as possible.” Fluttershy hopped up and hovered in the air so she could cross her forelegs and turn her nose up at him without falling over.

The red man simply chuckled. “I rest my case.” Pointing at the fanfiction, he said, “Moving on, we have Mane-iac declare her diabolical scheme and... that was apparently an entire chapter. Seriously? That's all? That can't be more than three paragraphs!”

“What's so bad about that?” Fluttershy asked.

“It's bad because this story has no detail whatsoever! There's no buildup. There's no description. There's hardly any action! Imagine, if you will, a scene in which the insane and terrifying Mane-iac smashes down the walls of an orphanage, overpowers the matron and kidnaps mane-fulls of screaming, flailing children in front of her eyes.”

Fluttershy gasped and covered her mouth.

“That's what you implied happened off-screen.” Rage Reviews drummed his fingers on her wooden table. “In your story, the word 'orphans' is just a noun. It's a thing that has no life or personality to it all. You could replace the orphans with a fruit basket and nothing about your story would change. Plus, there's also this:”

The Power Ponies would not let happen so they rush in to save the orphens but it was a trap. Mani-iac beat them because they were bad.

“How did this happen?” Masked Matter-horn asked, “it's like we didn't get to fight.”

Rage Reviews snapped his fingers, changing the image on the wall.

Fluttershy blinked. “My, that's a cute picture of Gummy. And, um...”

“No! I don't know what the dickens is going on! Your fight scene was over before it even began! Your story is so rushed that even your characters complain about the pacing! Do you think I would have liked to see that fight play out? You know what? I'd have liked to see the Hindenburg crash into the Titanic, but I'm not going to see that either, am I?”

“What?”

“So the power ponies all get captured and locked up. Way to remove the actual heroes to pave the way for your bland OC. This is about as exciting as peeling dead skin off a sunburn.”

“Is that some kind of troll?” Fluttershy asked.

“Maybe...”

“DIE!”

Rage Reviews ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He ran faster than he ever had before. An Olympic sprinter would be envious of his burst of speed. The sunny, flowering scenery shot by in a blur. Unfortunately for him, no human can outrun an enraged equine with wings.

Fluttershy knocked him down in a flying tackle. They rolled along the ground, tumbling end over end. He tried to squirm out of her grip, but she was too strong. When they came to a stop, she promptly twisted him into a pretzel (ergonomically, of course. She wasn't actually trying to hurt him.)

As it just so happened, that was the exact procedure for an unsummoning ritual. Rage Reviews vanished in a puff of smoke and Fluttershy flopped to the ground.

The smoke rose up next to her coalesced back into her pitcher of tea. It fell to the ground and wobbled for a bit before coming to rest without spilling a drop. Fluttershy blinked. She got up and sniffed it. “That's... my tea. I was just given the most critical review in my entire life by... tea.” In spite of herself, she rolled over laughing. Eventually, she wiped a tear from her eye, got up, and flew back to her cottage. To her surprise, it wasn't empty.

“Fluttershy, are you okay?” Twilight ran over to her. “I was already on my way back and I heard screaming, but when I got here your place was empty.”

“I, um...” Fluttershy looked past Twilight at Spike, who scratched his head and picked up torn bits of paper. “It's nothing that I won't get over eventually.”

“Aw, you didn't have to shred it.” Spike collected a few more pieces from the floor and tossed them on the table next to some thick tomes that weren't there earlier. “I really wanted to know how it ends.”

Fluttershy brushed past Twilight and took a seat at the table. She folded her forelegs in front of her and rested her chin on them. “Spike, it was terrible.”

“I know. That was the best part.”

“Huh?” Fluttershy raised her chin to look at him.

Twilight per her hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder. “When we were searching the library for dictionaries, I asked Spike what he thought was so funny. He... basically said that it was so bad that it defied all expectations and actually came out quite funny. I guess I'd been too caught up all the misspellings and grammar errors to see that. If we cleaned the story up it could be a good comedy.” Twilight grinned.

Fluttershy scratched her chin. “The angry red man did say something similar.”

Twilight blinked. “Who?”

Fluttershy frowned. “Um, I'll tell you later.” She waved a hoof at the shredded pile of paper that Spike had collected. “I guess it's to late to fix my story now.” Spike pulled two scraps out of the pile and held them up next to each other. They fit. He set them aside and pulled out a third piece. It also matched. Fluttershy's eyes lit up. “...or not. Maybe we can fix my story!”

Twilight scratched her chin. “Uh, I guess, but it will probably take all night.”

“But look how fast Spike's reassembling the pages. He'll he done in an hour, tops.”

Twilight pointed at the partially assembled scrap of paper. She levitated a tome in front of Fluttershy and magically turned the pages. She pointed at a matching entry in the dictionary. “ 'Different' only has one 'r,' not two, and it doesn't have an 'a' in it.”

The heat of Fluttershy embarrassment inflamed her cheeks. “Um, okay. Maybe it will take all night.” She flew up and poked her head out the window. “Say, um, do you mind if I head out for a while? I have to round up my chickens and see if Applejack has room for them in her barn tonight.”

Twilight smiled. “Sure. Do what you need to. It will take Spike and me a while to fit the pieces back together, anyway. I'm just glad that you're not upset. It was fairly obvious what we'd really thought about your story from how we'd acted.” She frowned and lowered her eyes.

“Well, I was at first, but now that I've had time to think, I guess the fault was really mine for both writing a bad story and expecting too much from it. I do want to thank you both for volunteering to do what you can to help fix it.” She flew down and embraced them both in a big hug. “You two really are some of the best friends that I could ever hope for.”