Merrypaws

Eyugh, I hate liver!

oh yea! Yo Mamma was a hamster!

Your father smells of elderberries!

Go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

"And that's how Equestria was made ! "

Why didn't I think of that?!

"Now go we content,

to liberty, not to banishment."

- William Shakespeare, As You Like It.

Ever hear the one about how Luna had to take over for a day, when Celestia wanted to see if she could run all the way through the palace garden before she finished singing 'I'm a little teapot', and she tripped over a frog on a unicycle?

Word.

Hemingway has also said that a short story should be like an iceberg: What you see is actually only the very tip, which only hints at all there really is to it.

Here's a few more:

"Aren't you overdoing it?" asked Pinkie.

Celestia smiled. "Never in my lifetime."

"Who knew Apple Jack could curtsey?"

... oh, pony, these things are addictive.

I recently learned something interesting:

Ernest Hemingway was once dared to try and tell a complete story in only six words. According to a legend, it was a bar bet. He wrote:

"For sale: baby shoes, never used."

Hemingway is said to have considered it his best work.

So, do any of you ponies think you could write MLP: FiM fanfiction in just six words?

I tried, and this is what came out:

"Twilight," said Spike, "happy Mother's Day."

She also has a sister who spends a lot of her time on vacation: Bon Voyage

Don't forget the cousin who runs a fancy restaurant over at Manehattan: Bon Apetit.

I'd turn right handed.

I'm the element of Indecisiveness.

Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have made the font that color. Maybe red would've been better. Or light blue. Or should I have used a different font? Or maybe...

Spoilered: My full review and literary critique of Cupcakes.

This is just textbook gore with a preface. The story holds no psychological horror value for the reader, and thus, fails at what it sincerely tries to do.

The lack of a transition between Pinky Pie's canon personality and that presented here shatters the necessity continuity of character. The reader disassociates shortly after Rainbow Dash's waking. The scene should be stretched out much farther, and the nature of her reasons and mental state revealed to the reader in sequence. It would also have allowed time to reinforce the reader's attachment to both Pinky Pie's innocence and Rainbow Dash's freedom of self -- a sympathetic trait that, I will say, the author wisely built upon in the first paragraphs.

Those two things, in fact, are what would make this story truly disturbing (and enjoyable, for the psychologically masochistic among us), and should be focused on. Pinky Pie is innocent; the slip of her apparent character into the Hannibal-esque state that we discover she is in should be gradual relative to the unfolding of the story, and should painfully snag the reader's attention at each turn. There is already an uncomfortable return to the carefree Pinky Pie we know at the end of the story, and it would be much more effective if that gradual decent were more clearly emphasized.

Further, Rainbow Dash's freedom and the ways in which it is taken from her ought to be made very prominent. She begins the story entirely in her element: she is free, flying, and completely overjoyed; she is in total control of her situation, catching herself effortlessly as she flies toward the ground, and playing with the idea of even keeping her promise to Pinky Pie. Her freedom of body is revoked almost immediately upon her waking, but there is still room there for the injection of hope. The reader cannot maintain a real connection with her once her fate is made obvious by casual deduction of the genre and its tropes. No-one wants to invest emotionally in a character who they are essentially watching be butchered alive. Instead, there should be hope that Rainbow Dash can escape; there should be hope that Pinky Pie, not yet fully revealed to be as mad as she is, will sympathize and set her free; failing that there should be hope that she can break free from her restraints by her own will and strength; at the last, there should at least the vain hope of the destitute: the dying dreams of flying again, of having control of herself again. Ultimately, that hope should be dashed with the tearing away of her wings, which should itself be a more succinct event with significant impact. The following mental breakdown due to mixed hopelessness, drugging, and blood loss should be interspersed through the gory bits (or slapped right over them).

The idea should be to get the reader to sink with the proverbial ship, not to disgust them with the piece itself.

... Also, how do you cannibalize someone into a cupcake, anyway? Seems like that would just be nasty.

I agree entirely. The fic really seemed to have minimal connection to the characters. There was no emotional build up, just "Hi there!" *hack* *slash*

If you changed the names some other details, like the references to cutie marks, the whole thing could almost be about anyone, from any series.

When the actual gore started, my brain just shut down and refused to associate the text with the characters I knew, because the storytelling hadn't given me enough ground to believe that they could really behave like that. At that point it all became more or less just a string of words without any real meaning to me.

A thought that occurred to me while surfing YouTube and coming across this song:

'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' by KT Tunstall

http://youtu.be/PQmDUEv939A

What song would you like to see as a pony vid?

Of course, you can do whatever you want... you don't have to join... if you... ummm.... don't want to....

Ooh, ooh, can I give the starter description? :grin:

Crossposted from DA.

'Cause Luna needs some love, too.

We've pretty much gone through all the old fantasy cliches already, whatwith ancient curses, princesses, dragons and so on, so why not throw in a minstrel giving his fair lady a serenade under her balcony?

This thing came out so sticky sweet that I'm almost ashamed of myself.

To fully get in the mood, try imagining him singing this song: http://www.chivalry....redredrose.html

Honest? Pinkie Pie made me do it.

No, REALLY.

I was a fan of the old series as a kid, but I had no idea about the new series until one day I came across this picture on DeviantArt: http://americanninjax.deviantart.com/art/Pinkie-Pie-01-195723106

And I got curious and hit the Google.

...And that's how Equestria was made discovered.

If you'll allow me to sidetrack for a moment, I've kind of been wondering about the Princess and other royalty being alicorns. (All of you will just have to excuse me using that word. I really don't know what else to call them, and mash-up words like unisus just plain look dorky to me.)

In Japanese folklore kitsunes, magical nine-tailed foxes, start out as regular foxes, but as they learn more magic, their lifetime extends. Once they reach the age of 100, they grow a new tail, like they will from then on every hundred years, until at the age of one thousand years they have nine tails, and are truly immortal.

Perhaps the condition of being an alicorn is similar. They might well start as normal unicorns (since they seem to have a natural affinity to magic) and at some point, they reach a level of power where their magical ability manifests as wings, or other ways (like Celestia's eternally flowing mane).

I just about teared up at the Turtles-theme. The memories~~~.

I couldn't find a video for it, but mine would be 'Coyote Run' by a band by the same name.

Hmmm... I wonder what he'd look like without that vest...

Oh! But leave the hat on. :heart:

Oh I'm Sorry! I didn't notice this thread before. I really... umm... sorry.

I might recommend the Firebringer trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce.

The author manages to create an incredibly rich and multilayered world and culture for all her creatures considering how short the series was (my three paperbacks are about 200-250 pages each), and her rich and lyrical way with words always leaves me in awe.