Fanfic Brainstorm

After going back to / overhauling a previous fanfic that I recently published on here, I've been feeling more inspired to do some shorter one-shots again, but it's admittedly been quite a while since I've had a story idea like that. So...I'm going to do what I usually do in this sort of situation, which is to start typing whatever comes to mind, and decide whether or not it's worth anything afterward. Most of these are derived from very old brainstorming sessions as well, which I feel compelled to point out for some reason because it feels like cheating. Also, I'm going to make myself come up with 10 of these.

Anyway, here we go:

• When Discord messes with the Equestrian mail system for a gag, he unexpectedly brings upon himself the wrath of somepony you wouldn't expect (Derpy).
• Alternatively/similarly to the above, the Cutie Map suddenly gets swapped with the mail system, causing the postal office to take on more "adventurous" deliveries and the Mane Six to go on more mundane missions.
• Twilight agrees to substitute teach for Cheerilee's school, but unbeknownst to her, the topic is the birds and the bees.
• A magic experiment gone awry causes the mane six minus Pinkie Pie to get shrunk down to miniature size, and it's up to her to save the day whilst the others must deal with that reality. Also...the title would be "My Microscopic Ponies" or something along those lines.
• A sort of parody of Inception (the movie) involving the Main Six and Princess Luna, naturally. This would probably fit better as a comedy, but I could actually see this being a decent serious fic too, tackling things like depression/anxiety/etc.
• Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst play a board game. I have no idea where this one came from and it sounds mundane as hell, but I meant what I said about saying whatever comes to mind. _{Okay, well it probably came from that episode where they play a board game, but whatever.}
• A story about Fluttershy where it's written to sound like an epic and exhilarating adventure, but it's actually something fairly mundane like going out to do an errand. I like the premise on this one, and the punchline/ending could be awesome, but pulling it off for long enough would be difficult. Imagine Fluttershy as a ninja or something, ducking into alleyways to avoid trivial interactions and whatnot. Boom, comedy.
• Rarity decides she wants to learn more spells and Twilight is happy to oblige. Surprisingly, Rarity is more powerful than anypony ever realized -- she just doesn't care for magic, much to Twilight's chagrin.
• A body-swap story...bleh. Maybe if it has an interesting twist or something. This is mostly just because I'm running out of ideas.
• After saving Equestria for the last time, Rarity decides everyone needs to relax on a luxurious cruise. When things appears to go wrong, everyone but her tries to fix the problem, but nothing actually goes wrong. They're just so used to having everything go wrong...this sounds boring. Well, the idea could be a fun gag, but pulling it off well would be difficult.

And there you have it! Feel free to take or embellish on any of these ideas

Comments

[23 KM To Nerdiness]

Cool

[Powderjaggy]

Fun ideas there for sure! I also like the sound of "Fluttershy's epic quest".

[AppleKit]

Interesting ideas (especially 1, 3, 4, 8 stories in this list, I think)

[PonyThunder]

5481054
Number 8 is probably the easiest to tackle while still having a fun premise, I think. It just needs some ideas for progression and an ending. Maybe Rarity accidentally performs a time-travel spell or something.