Twilight Sparkle is composing a letter to her mentor, thanking her for a recent rescue of Sumac Apple, and simply enjoying the boring nature of normal life in Ponyville. Then Starlight Glimmer enters her office. Via the wall. And followed by an explosion. Sumac and Sunburst's experiments with a spell, the Sorcerous Symbiosis is at fault, and Twilight quickly becomes enamoured of the possibility of new reseach.
The Symbiosis is a bubble shield spell with a special effect depending on who is inside the bubble with Sumac. Pebble, the stone pony, produces a frictionless ball that can be accelerated at high speed, Moondancer, a unicorn, causes an explosion on contact, and Rainbow Dash the pegasus results in a floating bubble that can fly so fast it breaks reality. As the experiments continue, tensions begin to run a little hot, until Celestia arrives and puts a halt to the matter.
A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by Kudzuhaiku set in The Weedverse that can be read here
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The tropes in this Breather Episode are:
- Appeal to Force: Was apparently involved in Twilight getting the Royal Academy of Science to recognise Awesomeness as a field of magic.
- Big Damn Heroes: An attempted kidnap attempt on Sumac just before the story began was interrupted by the timely arrival of Princess Celestia to give him (slightly belated) birthday wishes. The story opens with Twilight dictating a thank-you letter for her.
- Big "NO!": When Twilight threatens to put the ponies who always seem to be in proximity to her castle exploding on a list, Sunburst objects this way, as he has a reputation as a respectable pony.
- Boomerang Bigot: Apparently, the strongest opposition to Twilight's theories that earth ponies and pegasi have magic just as complex as unicorns' comes from earth pony and pegasus scientists.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: The discussion of Rainbow's experience as a centrefold model suggests this attitude is far from unknown amongst Twilight's friends. In a seperate incident, Rainbow was apparently rather enthralled by her breasts while transformed into a human.
- Breather Episode: This story came out just after The One That Got Away and the climax of The Perilous Gestation Of Swans, and the author needed a break, so we get a nice silly story of Twilight Sparkle and SCIENCE!
- Call-Forward: When Celestia visits and Olive requests to join her and Sumac for tea, Celestia agrees, instructing her to "Escort me. Be my guard, will you?". In The One That Got Away, Olive leaves to join the Immortal Solars.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Twilight's response to realising that there's an interesting new magical phenomenon to research. Her companions are... a little concerned.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Rainbow accidentally damages reality, the damage appears as plaid, in reference to Discord's magic in Twilight's Kingdom.
- Moondancer mentions Adventus and Fluttercup.
- Covert Pervert: We expect Sumac to have dirty magazines. Moondancer, less so.
- Don't Tell Mama: A variant. Twilight doesn't want Sumac's mothers to find out about the experiments they're performing with him (necessitating some stealthy showering when he's covered in vomit), as they would be displeased.
- Explosion Propulsion: Just as Twilight is enjoying the boredom, Starlight enters her office wall, shortly followed by an explosion.
- Eyebrows Burned Off: After the explosion that begins the story, Moondancer asks if she's missing her eyebrow.
- Floating in a Bubble: The Symbiosis has this effect when performed with Rainbow Dash, along with mild precognition showing potential threats.
- Girls Have Cooties: A brief bout of this, going both ways between Olive and Sumac, briefly derails experimentation.
- Got Me Doing It: Twilight is not pleased when a Hurricane of Puns infects her thoughts.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: The various unicorns are disappointed at the effect of using the Symbiosis with Sunburst, simply covering the surrounding area in a nice warm glow of sunlight and easing the pains of those nearby. Until Pebble points out that undead are violently allergicnote to ultraviolet radiation.
- Hurricane of Puns: Sumac subjects Twilight to one.
- Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: Sumac and Pebble inside a frictionless spherical shield results in some damage to the surrounding terrain.
- If I Do Not Return: Rainbow Dash has a brief speech before finding out just how fast she can go under the Symbiosis. She and Sumac make it back safely, if covered in sick.
- Inconvenient Summons: Twilight's spell to summon Rainbow Dash annoys the latter, who was napping, and rather enjoying her dream.
- I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: Rainbow was dreaming about being a centrefold model when Twilight involves her in the story.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Twinkleshine's tendency to attract raisin toast at high velocity is mentioned.
- The Madness Place: Twilight spends much of the story slipping in and out of it, pulled by both her scientific desire to study and her desire to keep her subjects safe.
- Non-Fatal Explosions: Moondancer's detonation, despite being large enough to overload the lab's failsafes, does little more than singe Sumac's pelt (and break his glasses) and throw Starlight through Twilight's office, although had Twilight not intervened it's possible she would have been more badly injured on impact, and cause a few eyebrows to go missing.
- Not in Front of the Kid: Twilight attempts to dissuade discussion of Rainbow's stint as a centrefold model with this, the impact is rather reduced by said foal immediately revealing that he owns a copy of the relevant magazine issue.
- Oh, Crap!: Twilight, while trying to pierce the shield formed by using the Symbiosis with Rainbow Dash, is unprepared for the kickback.
- Opposites Attract: The only possible explanation Twilight can come up with for Starlight and Sunburst's relationship.
- Outrun the Fireball: A variant. When Starlight Glimmer crashes through Twilight's office wall in a shield bubble, Twilight catches her, grabs Spike and teleports away before the explosion catches up.
- Power of the Sun: When Sunburst is under the Symbiosis, the shield begins emmitting sunlight.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: Pebble tries this to get Sumac to had over his sweets. It doesn't work, so she resorts to less social methods of obtaining it.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Celestia delivers one to the experimenters when she drops by to investigate what was mucking with her sun and finds them arguing over Sumac.
- Required Secondary Powers: The reason the Rainbow Symbiosis is so powerful. Just to survive travelling at the speeds it can, it's ridiculously tough, comes with precognition and kicks back against attempts to break it.
- Running Gag: Moondancer's eyebrow keeps coming up, often in the context of losing it.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Pebble's response to a bunch of ponies testing an unknown magical shield by throwing pebbles at it is to calmy and quietly walk away, and when called upon to use her Super-Strength on it, bluntly refuse.
- Shot in the Ass: When Twiligh annoys the lightning-shield, after it disables her via feedback on her shieldbreaker spell, it add a final insult by shocking her in the dock.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Although they don't appear, Twilight seems to think of the Royal Academy of Science as collectively this, consistently thinking on how she'll prove them wrong, and having done so at least once in the past via Appeal to Force.
- Smelly Skunk: Played With. Moondancer mentions that the only part of Adventus that's working is his nose, but given that he apparently believes that Fluttercup, a skunk, is a cat, either this trope is Averted or Moondancer is wrong.
- Sphere Factor: The basic effect of the Symbiosis is a shield containing Sumac and another pony, with additional special effects based on who he's sharing it with, including becoming a Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball when sharing with Pebble, explosions when sharing with Moondancer and Anti-Gravity and precognition when sharing with Rainbow Dash.
- Teleportation Sickness: When Sumac and Rainbow show up again after flying fast enough to break reality, the shield bubble has vomit sloshing about the base. Sumac adds to it after they get back again.
- These Hands Have Killed: Downplayed, as it's not the focus of the story, but Olive is noted as being somewhat bothered from her recent first kill while protecting Sumac.
- Too Much Information: Twilight learns more about her friends than she really wants to know after the conversation turns to Rainbow's appearance in Terrific Teats magazine.
- Wrong Context Magic: Rainbow Dash has a unique magic that Twilight has named "Awesome" (possibly with some input from Rainbow herself). A previous argument with the Royal Academy of Science occured over its existence, but Twilight won that one.
- X Days Since: In the opening dictation, Twilight notes that it's been 32 days since the last attempt to kidnap Sumac.
