CupcakesNom

CupcakesNom, credited just as Cupcakes on FIMFiction, is a fan fiction writer. He is also the creator of the Humble Brony Bundle, and was one of the consultants responsible for the Enterplay trading cards published in summer of 2012.

Pinkie Pie's Incredible Interplanetary Super Prank
In this story, written for a 2011 April Fool's competition, Ponyville's equivalent, April Foals Day, is near. Pinkie has been spending hours in the library, hoping that inspiration will strike her; she wants to pull a "super prank" on the whole town, "something that will work on everypony". While talking about this with Twilight, she evidently gets an idea: she looks something up in an anatomy textbook and dashes off without explanation.

The next day, Twilight soon finds out what Pinkie's prank entails. She observes how she talks to small groups of ponies outside Sugarcube Corner; the ponies appear confused at first and then start to laugh, causing Pinkie to move on. Eventually, Pinkie reaches Twilight. Pinkie, who has not slept all night, starts to yawn. While she does so, she mentions what she looked up at the library: the mechanisms of yawning and how it's contagious. To prove her point, Twilight involuntarily joins her in yawning. It really is the perfect prank, Pinkie says: explaining her prank to other ponies has started a chain reaction that is spreading through Ponyville as she speaks. And not just through Ponyville: in what can be read as a reference to the reader, Pinkie remarks that reading about yawning can cause a sympathetic response as well; it really does affect "everypony".

The story is listed on the TVtropes page for a trope about a "villain" apparently interacting with the audience.

Shutdown
"Shutdown" takes place in a near future where Friendship is Magic has come and gone, followed by a movie and a new generation of toys. A small number of fans of the show, including a university professor, have refused to give up on Twilight Sparkle and her friends, and have built a virtual reality computer simulation, allowing advanced artificial intelligence versions of the Mane 6 to continue to have adventures. The bronies also occasionally plug into the simulation, roleplaying as background ponies like Carrot Top and Lyra.

Prior to the start of the story, the university has found out that their facilities were used, and forced the participants to shut the simulation down. The project leader his or her gender isn't specified; the summary uses the generic masculine, in the form of Carrot Top, approaches every one of the Mane 6, asking them what they would do if the world ended the next day, and telling them the truth about their nature; only the conversation with Twilight is reproduced in detail. Pinkie's answer - throwing the biggest farewell party virtual Ponyville has ever seen - convinces him the most. He then deletes everyone except Pinkie's memories of the conversations and starts putting together the party, which he, "Lyra" and "Bon Bon" also attend in order to say goodbye to the AI's that have become very real to them.

In the final minute before termination, Pinkie comes over to the three humans in disguise, makes smalltalk, and eventually asks if the shutdown is going to hurt. The project leader assures her that it will not, and as he does so, Pinkie starts to dematerialise. Her final word is, simply: "Oh".