Shining Armor has a mission. Keep his mother from eating or drinking anything. If she does, she'll have to drink more gross potions, so he will do everything he can to keep her safe. The problem is, his mother has a habit of snacking at midnight. So he's going to stay up very late.
He needs to be prepared. He needs to be proactive.
He really needs to go to sleep.
Read it here
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Tropes include:
- Dramatic Irony: At the end, the potion works as intended, and Shining's parents discover that their next child will be a girl. Looking at all the chaos Shining caused, the future parents of Twilight Sparkle muse "Maybe fillies were easier."
- Magic Potion: Drinking probably-magical potions as a prerequisite to telling a foal's gender while in the womb.
- Pregnancy Test Plot: Of a sort. Shining doesn't know that his mother is pregnant (although both parents do), nor is he aware that all of the diet restrictions and Magic Potion consumption is meant to tell them the foal's gender.
- Shout-Out: The title of the sole chapter, "Do Not Challenge His Authority", is a nod to a memetically infamous quotation by Eric Cartman.