Cuddles theBear rubbed her eyes with her wingtips. A pile of ungraded physics tests 300 tall stood on the desk in front of her, looming like a stack of Satan’s pancakes. Nearly 3 hours of browsing Reddit had barely made a dent in the grading that Cuddles had to do by the end of the day. At this rate, it didn't look like anything short of actually doing work would allow her to finish on time.

“Maybe I should get drunk and write a shitty self-insert fanfiction,” Cuddles wondered aloud to nobody in particular. He rubbed his eyes again. “Berrytubeville is always in immediate danger, after all. I could totally write a story about me saving the town from Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration and winning all three of its ladies.” Yes, this seemed like a good plan. Cuddles uncorked his Official Berrytube Flask and downed the contents. The stack of physics tests sat on the desk indignantly.

It was at this point that a bright-pink pony with a bright-pinker mane burst through the door to Cuddles’s room. She bounced off the walls and floor a few times like she was in some sort of cartoon or something before freezing right next to our Cuddly main character. “Ohmygosh, you’re going to write a fanfiction? Am I going to be in it?!” she questionmark-exclamationpointed.

“Pinkie, you’re already in it.” Cuddles grinned wryly and stroked his temple with his paw. “If I'm going to write a self-insert, there’s no way I wouldn't make you my roommate.”

“Huh, that’s a good point.”

Cuddles leapt out of his chair and stood, slightly wobbly, in a heroic pose. Beams of light shot from somewhere around his rump, illuminating his fluffy frame in a glorious halo. A chorus of angels resounded and everywhere children clapped and women-ponies grew weak in the knees. “Now if you will excuse me, my fuchsia friend, I have to go save the universe from Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration!” Cuddles exclaimed with some type of reverb or echo effect filling his voice. He charged out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door.

Out in Berrytubeville, everything was chaos. The children were running around laughing and playing fearfully, ponies were greeting each other with terrified smiles, birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and… ‘Well god dammit!’ thought Cuddles to herself. ‘Everything is just peachy out here! How am I going to save the universe from Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration if none of that stuff is going on right now?’ She glanced around frantically, searching for any sign of strife. After what seemed like hours but was likely less than three seconds, her eyes landed on two ponies engaged in some type of heated debate at a nearby table. “Aha!”

Cuddles trotted adorably over to the table. His good friends Littlecolt and Q0 were shouting at each other over some type of card game. Cuddles didn’t play Yugimon the Gathering, but he knew a lot about yelling. He could definitely help resolve this conflict and save the day.

“/r that Littlecolt and Q0 stop fighting!” Cuddles typed with word-sounds from his mouth.

Littlecolt slapped a hoof to his forehead and sighed. “Cuddles, we’ve been over this. Using the verb ‘typed’ doesn’t cause Berrytube’s regex to apply to your words in a fanfiction. Not even when you’re drunk.”

“It’s not like you know anything about writing shitty fanfiction [](/sassyjack)” typed back Cuddles sassyjackily. Littlecolt’s face flashed with anger as he jumped from the bench, his hoof raised to probably give Cuddles a hug. Q0 physically interjected himself between them.

“Woah, calm down Littlecolt. Cuddles is drunk, just forget it.” Littlecolt composed himself and grumped back down onto the bench. Q0 turned back to Cuddles. “You should probably just go home, Cuddles.”

“But I haven’t saved the day yet!” Cuddles complained.

“No, see. You have. We’re not arguing anymore. Everything is good, you did it. Now go home and take a nap or something, please?”

“Well, it’s not going to make for a very interesting fanfiction. I guess I can look for somebody else to help, though, if you don’t need me.” Cuddles slowly began to stumble down the road, her head held low from a combination of shame and nausea. Her short fluffy tail flicked dejectedly.

“Your story sucks, Cuddles!” called Littlecolt from his bench. “You’ve changed your pronoun like 8 times already in less than a thousand words, it’s confusing and dumb!” Cuddles whipped around.

“Well, duh. My OC is a female pegasusbear, but it’s a self-insert and the author is male so I have to use both pronouns, you idiot!” Cuddles retorted.

“Just go home!” shouted Q0. Cuddles snorted and began plodding away. Maybe Littlecolt was right and he should stick to one pronoun.

Before Cuddles had gone more than 50 dumbrock-beardlengths, he noticed out of the corner of his eye a dark blue pony with a purple mane standing in the shadows of a nearby alley. The pony shifted nervously on his hooves as if he was uncomfortable being in this scene.

“Blueshift!” exclaimed Cuddles, forgetting his earlier troubles. Blueshift started, his face contorted in a lovecraftian amalgamation of rage and existential horror that clearly said ‘Don’t you dare write me into another one of your damn fanfictions, Cuddles!’

Cuddles stared at the empty alleyway. Why was he looking at that alleyway anyways? There was nopony there. ‘Huh, must have been my imagination,’ Cuddles thought. ‘Oh well.’

CRASH! White lightning streaked across the sky accompanied by booming thunder and the acrid stench of sulfur. Shrieks of fear began to rise out of the town. Another bolt of lightning flashed and struck a nearby tree, causing it to explode in a shower of debris and fire. BOOM! CRASH! PEW! Like a time-lapse youtube video, the sky quickly darkened with storm clouds. Cuddles turned to see Littlecolt and Q0 running towards the town center, their card game abandoned on the table in their haste. He decided to follow them.

The town center was a cluster of frightened ponies stamping nervously and shouting to be heard. Lavender stood atop a pile of boxes in the center of the mob, trying to calm everypony. Off to the side of the crowd stood the rest of the modmins; nobody seemed to be bothering them. Cuddles cantered up to the mods. “Hey guys, some weather, huh?”

omnomtom’s eyes darkened. “Weather? No, this is something much worse. This might be… Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration.”

“Wow, what a coincidence! That’s exactly what my story is about!” said Cuddles excitedly. “Oh, speaking of, I should ask Lav for help with my story! Hey Lav, can you help me write a good ending to my story?” called Cuddles.

Cades sighed. “Really, Cuddles? She’s already dealing with everybody else, and now you’re going to bother her with your stupid fanfiction?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, who else would I ask for help? Steps 1-8 of solving any problem are to ask Lav to do it for you.” Cuddles stated matter-of-factly. He readied himself to dive into the throng of ponies vying for Lavender’s attention, but before he could jump in something heavy slammed into him from behind and knocked him flat on his face.

Cuddles pulled himself from the mud and spun around, his muzzle open and ready to tell off the offending party. When he saw the perpetrator of the push, though, his words left him. Before him stood a pony in a dark black suit with a long cape and an emblem of [redacted] on his chest. It was [redacted]! The legends were true! He really did exist! “It seems I have come in the knick of time to save Berrytubeville from Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration,” said the dark figure darkly.

Overhead the clouds coalesced into a colossal face, devoid of hair and terrible yet beautiful in appearance. Its eyes were pure orbs of black lightning and in its teeth it clenched a long wand that continuously spouted foul magic smoke. The face opened its gigantic maw and spoke in a voice of thunder:

“Ah, [redacted]. My old nemesis. We have fought many times throughout history, and always we were evenly matched. This time, however, will be different. Today I will finally claim my eternal dominion over Berrytubeville and the asses of all the ponies within!”

[Redacted] leapt to the roof of a nearby house and raised his head to the angry sky. Lightning flashed around him and strong gusts of wind threatened to tear him from his perch, but he stood firm and unyielding. “You will never take Berrytubeville! I will always protect this town from Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration!”

“But wait a minute!” exclaimed Cuddles. “This is my story! I’m supposed to save the day, not [redacted]!” His cries were lost in the storm, however, as [redacted] began his battle with the Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration.

They say that the fight was long and terrible. They say that [redacted] faced death with the fearless resolve of [redacted]. They say that [redacted] used his [redacted] and then [redacted]. The Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration may have had the might of a thousand [redacted] but [redacted] and in the end [redacted]. When the demonic clouds finally cleared, Berrytubeville was left in ruin. Not a single house remained standing. And [redacted] was nowhere to be seen.

As the ponies of Berrytubeville started picking up the pieces of their lives, a lone bear sat huddled under an apple crate, crying drunkenly. He hadn’t managed to get even one punch in against the Sudden Explosive Horrible Ridiculous Obliteration. His self-insert fic was ruined. He should have just ended it after the first arc. There was only one thing left for Cuddles to do. He lifted a pen in his paw and put it to a sheet of parchment that conveniently was also inside the apple crate:

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that bears shouldn’t try to get involved with fanfictions. Not everypony is cut out to save the world. I also learned that my bear suit gets really itchy when I piss myself. I should probably avoid terrifying situations and wear underwear from now on.

Your faithful student,

Cuddles theBear

Cuddles picked himself up from under the crate, slid the note into Redtoxin’s nose, and walked home.