Friendship is Tragic (comic)

Friendship is Tragic is an ongoing comic written by T-Brony, who also colors the pages, and illustrated by Saphin.

Format
It is published on deviantArt instead of one of the more typical platforms for webcomics, but it updates regularly and is structured like a traditional webcomic, with a handful of panels per page and a humorous punchline in the final panel. The exact format changes depending on the demands of a given scene, but is usually horizontal with three or six panels. The main characters are six female friends from Ponyville, all of them background ponies from the show, most prominently Sparkler.

Since the end of the first story arc in December, the comic has updated consistently with one page per week every Monday.

Friendship is Tragic
In the first story arc, which is titled just "Friendship is Tragic" and set at the same time as The Ticket Master, Sparkler tries to get her hooves on tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. She does this every year, and this time, her friends are ready with ideas of how to help her. These ideas run the gamut from "waiting in line" (Cloudkicker) to "purchase them illegally" (Cherry Berry) and "wait for somepony to give them tickets" (Linky). The plans do not turn out well, for the most part.

Cherry Berry almost gets herself arrested. Cloudkicker's waiting-in-line approach almost succeeds, but is thwarted at the last minute when a member of the royal guard comes by the ticket booth to demand the final five tickets (to give them to Twilight's friends). In the end, Linky's hope that they'll get lucky is fulfilled when Dizzy Twister loudly remarks that she has five extra tickets to the Gala, but no friends to give them to.

The story arc ends with a sort-of moral lesson: Sparkler learns that she cannot rely on her friends, and Dizzy Twister learns that you can just buy friends if you don't have any.

Winter Mess Ups
The arc begins with the friends discussing their roles in the upcoming Winter Wrap Up preparations. Sparkler proudly tells them she managed to become leader of the animal team because she was able to shout over the objections of the other ponies, who all wanted Fluttershy. Dizzy Twister has the job to bring back the southern birds, because "the pony who usually does it messed up the last three years in a row", referring to Ditzy Doo.

Sparkler
Sparkler is self-centered, pushy, takes her friends for granted, wants to have them do all the work for her pleasure, and can also be quite mean to strangers. She suggests that they should break Twilight Sparkle's legs if she doesn't give them her ticket.

Moondancer
This is the white unicorn usually called Twinkle. The comic calls her Moondancer after an interpretation of the show's very first episode, in which that same pony invites Twilight to "Moondancer"'s get-together. In the comic, she always speaks of herself in the third person. She operates a blog and is quite famous for it in Ponyville.

Cloudkicker
Cloudkicker is an eternally cheerful and very talkative ditz who never has any objection to anything people say to or about her. She declares that she loves losing at poker, waiting in line for hours, and taking on more responsibility than she can handle, for instance. She is also kind-hearted, suggesting - to the amusement of her friends - that if they somehow found themselves in possession of more Gala tickets than needed, they could donate them to needy ponies.

Cherry Berry
Cherry Berry is the most cynical of the friends. Her first idea of how to get tickets for the Gala: find a pony willing to scalp them, since everypony has a price. Her idea of what to do with left-over tickets they don't need: scalp them. She has a rivalry with Applejack; for instance, in one comic, she loudly implies that Applejack's apples have worms in them, while Applejack is standing right next to her.

Linky
Linky is a fairly timid pony and wants to help Sparkler find tickets primarily to make her like her more. In other respects, she is very rational and reasonable, bringing up objections to her friends' terrible plans several times; she is, however, always ignored.

Dizzy Twister
Dizzy Twister gets added to the clique after she invites them to accompany her to the Gala because she has no other friends. She appears to be a bit dim.