Well, we had a bigger entry last month than for a few months, so let's see whether we can keep that going with this month's contest. This is after all the month in which the very last season of Friendship is Magic will get under way. Which doesn't have much relevance to this, but I need to fill the space somehow.

Here are the full rules.

Remember, there is no prize, as such, for this contest -- but if you win, you will be able to choose the prompt for the next contest. You'll also get a mention on the group's front page. This will be your last chance ever to do so while FiM is near the beginning of a season, and won't that be exciting? Please, I beg of you, do not answer that.

I've added a couple of days on to the contest this year, so that we don't have Easter Sunday as the closing date. Instead, it will be the following Tuesday. Off you go, folks!

Prompt: "The Last Thing on the List" (selected by last month's winner, hawthornbunny)
Rating: E or T
Word limit: 150
Closing date: Tuesday 23rd April 2019, 11:59 pm UK time (world clock)

Please reply to this post with your entry. This makes it easier for me to keep track. Please do not leave feedback until after the closing date.

Entries are now open! Have fun!

6813640
Welp, this one seems easy to me.

———

Checklists.

”Alright Spike, we’ve gone to get quills, gone to Applejack’s, baked with Pinkie, and spa’ed with Rarity. Then we read the new books sent by Princess Celestia and learned those two new spells. What’s next?”

Spike sighs, yawning as he rubs his eyes, “Sleep.”

I look on over at the clock, “Really? It’s only twelve, there’s so much more we can do!”

He hands me the list, with the final thing circled and underlined multiple times. He smiles, “Sleep.”

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I'm setting this one up a bit differently. After the center italic words, everything that follows is part of the story (including anything withing a quoted box). Everything settled? Okay, let's begin.

"Twilight," a concerned Starlight asked, "Are you alright?"

The punctual Twilight is rocking herself on the floor, "Mustn't..... but..... I have...... yet...... shouldn't......"

Puzzled, she spoke to the dragon in the room, "You weren't kidding, Spike. She's completely lost it. What happened to her?"

The drake had a guilty look on his face as he tried to avoid eye contact. He hands her a parchment and Starlight levitates it towards her face.

Checklist for the day

---

☑ Fix the bed.

☑ Eat a meal of exactly three hundred calories.

☑ Re-organize the books.

☑ Review students' homework.

☑ Write tomorrow's checklist.

☑ Re-organize the books again.

☑ Burn calories from meal earlier through exorcise.

☑ Give a speech to the other princesses about the need for scrolls.

☑ Re-organize the books........ again.

☐ Leave unchecked.

Starlight gave a vexing look at the dragon.

"It was just an April fools' prank."

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Woo Hoo! New pony today and something from me......

Princess Luna threw back her head and barked with abandon. “MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“And that was it? The last thing on your list?”

“Indeed Starlight Glimmer, but then, twas not a long list even though I had plenty of time to prepare.”

“Practice maniacal laughter. That was it!” Starlight rubbed her muzzle, that headache was returning. “Tell me the rest….”

“Oh, nothing very complex.” Luna tried her best to conceal her spreading grin. “Plot foul revenge on Celetsia. Align the stars for my release. Plot more foul revenge and practice maniacal laughter. I had little to occupy my hooves so I became rather good at it. MUWAHAHAHAHAHA! MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Some where, deep with in the School of Friendship a crystal vase shivered, cracked and disintegrated in to tiny fragments.

Starlight took a deep breath and counted to ten, and again, and again…. “Tell me Princess, why was it you wanted to see me?”

Just an idea that was rattling around in my head
seemed to fit here.

Dance Dance

Thorax looked to Starlight with a tired expression.
"Four days we've been at this... four days Starlight!

Starlight winced a little turning to Pinkie.

"Pinkie you know the changelings can take things rather literally"

"Yeah I should have thought more on those steps I'm sorry Thorax ."

"Amend it now and all will be well"
Starlight sighed

Pinkie took the instructions looking over the list.
Sing and copy the steps
1) Put your right hoof in right hoof out
2) In out in out then shake it all about
3) you do the hokey pokey and turn all about and that's what it's all about
4) Do steps 1 to 4 with all your hooves
5) Repeat
Pinkie carefully drew a line through five and wrote below it
5) Repeat steps 1 to 5 until you've had all the fun you want.

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“All done!”

Yawning, Amethyst surveyed her office-slash-living-room-slash-place-to-wonder-what-the-hayseed-had-gone-wrong-with-her-life. For Derpy, she ticked the last item on “Derpy’s Buck-It List!!!!!”

She frowned. “Rodeo… Languages… Time travel?”

“Aheh. Well, one thing led to another, then poof! Twenty-six adventures before breakfast.”

Amethyst glowered… then relaxed. Derpy, lying? Never. She’d seen Derpy do some of these. The French-learning had consisted of Derpy’s “bonny-jo-urr, silver plate” school of multilingualism, but she’d tried.

“Now what? I must’ve done everything in the world.”

Amethyst boiled with resentment. Either hard work organizing or a hard time watching Twilight do it instead. She'd hardly ever left Ponyville.

“How should I know?” she muttered.

Derpy leaked misery.

With instant shame, Amethyst cooled down. After all, Derpy still trusted… valued… her list-making skills.

“Don’t suppose…” Amethyst mumbled guiltily “…you’d teach me some French?”

And Derpy cheered up like a Hearth’s Warming present. Now that was worth an afternoon of “Jer swee Der-pay”.

6813640
A wild entry appears!

Rarity’s hoof hovered just short of knocking, frozen in silent uncertainty. Why does Twilight think Spike will trust me of all ponies with this?! She sighed, somewhat regretting her offer to help.

“I think he’s sneaking in a marefriend,” Twilight had said. “My wards aren’t triggering, but he might know ways around them. And he won’t say anything.”

A vaguely feminine utterance jarred Rarity back to the present. She tensed, not wanting to catch Spike at an indelicate moment. But feeling obligated to return with something, she gently turned the knob with her magic, nudged it open a crack, and peeked.

A sepulchral shriek split the silence, from a moving… lifesize… drawing… of a skeleton-mare. She had a long grey mane, heavy black boots, and an axe as massive as her scowl.

Rarity slammed the door, backpedaling. “Twilight won’t believe this.” She paused. “Wait… really? That’s his type, after me?!”

(For those unfamiliar, the titular mare is Skellinore, who made a memorable appearance in the S8 episode The Break Up Break Down. The situation posited here was inspired by a gag at the end of the episode.)

Just under four days to go, everyone! (Remember, because of Easter you get an extra two days this month.)

Thank you to all who've entered so far.

6813640

“Twilight, I am not planning on killing everyone,” Celestia said patiently..

“Then that isn’t your to-do list?”

“It is.”

“But… you wrote...”

She glanced down at the ancient parchment.

“Twilight, do you know how old I am?”

She paused, and shook her head.

“Neither do I, any more. I did. Suffice to say that it was a long time ago. Alicorns do not die… of natural means, in any case.”

Twilight glanced at her own wings, self-consciously. Celestia nodded.

“So we have to think in a longer frame of reference. Will I check that last item off? Some day, perhaps. But not now, or any time soon.”

“But you will?”

Celestia sighed. “Yes. I’m responsible for the sun rising and setting. It will come to me to finally turn it off, when everything is gone. But, come, let’s talk of more pleasant things.”

And they did.

--Sweetie Belle

Doing Things The Hard Way

"And that's why I haven't slept for the last 87 hours," Sunset finished, crinkling an empty can between her fingers.

Fluttershy tutted. "That's really dangerous, Sunset. Maybe things are different in your world, but here, we have to get eight hours of good sleep every night."

"Yeah, these energy drinks aren't as effective as my anti-sleep spell," Sunset agreed. "But you understand now, right? You understand why this is so IMPORTANT?" She gestured at the screen.

Fluttershy studied the spike-filled video game thoughtfully. "I understand it's important to you..."

"ONE MORE!" Sunset cried. "Just one lousy trinket and I can be done with this stupid game! Forever! Then I can slee-"

She halted, surprised, as Fluttershy grabbed her hand and pressed it to her forehead. Sunset's eyes flashed as thoughts and memories flooded into her. "What did you do?"

"That's all of my video-gaming skill," Fluttershy explained. "Use it well."

6821741
6835185

Oops, these two haven't linked to the OP, as per the rules.

No worries. I'll do it for you second-hand. Voila! Quick fix, one each:

6813640
6813640

6835208
Dangit! I even thought about whether I should, too, and decided not to because I forgot the rule.

Oh well, I can't win anyway.

6813706 6813995 6818549 6821741 6829897 6832707 6833919 6835185

Time's up, everyone! Eight entries this month, which is really nice to see. Thank you to all! I'll now spend two or three days considering my verdict, as usual. Though I'm afraid I can already exclusively reveal that hawthornbunny hasn't won.

Time for feedback! Remember, you don't have to have entered yourself to offer this. Go!

Feedback!

6813706
Sleepy Spike is cute. I like the word "spa'ed". Considering how short it is (<80 words) it's neat that it still manages to feel like a complete scene and fulfill the prompt, too.

6813995
Muahahaha. Fun use of paradox against the logically-minded. A few strange word choices (eg. "The punctual Twilight") and there's a tense switch mid-story, but the punchline is a fun one.

6818549
I don't think I understood this one. :)

6821741
The punctuation is a bit off here which makes the dialogue sound flat, but I like the punchline, particularly as it ties in with a great joke from canon. :)

6829897
I had to read this a couple of times to understand what was going on - I feel like maybe the word limit forced some stuff to be squashed or cut? In any case once I understood it I thought it was a cute odd-couple scene.

6832707
I love all the unspoken implications in this one; that Twilight has some kind of "motherly concern" for Spike, that Spike knows her well enough to sneak around her, and that Rarity knows Spike's feelings for her. Nice tie-in with canon too.

6833919
This was really well done and gets my top vote. It's really effective at conveying the entire situational and emotional context in just a few lines, and manages to go into a couple of rather deep topics without feeling like it sacrifices any of their weight.

6813706 6813995 6818549 6821741 6829897 6832707 6833919 6835185

Right, everyone, results time! I enjoyed judging this one, with its nice variety of entries. Thank you again, everyone! After some hard thought, though, my choice is SweetAl Belle's story. Despite the subject being one that the show would never touch, it otherwise felt quite show-toney. That "And they did" at the end also appealed to me -- it rounded the tale off nicely.

So congratulations, SweetAl Belle! Please let me know your choice for the May prompt.

6840048
I won?

Yay! ( Or is that redundant?)

Pretty much my reaction to the prompt was that the last thing on the list should be the last thing ever. I've read or seen a number of variants on the end of times. Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic had a spot at the end of time, for example. And Celestia was the obvious choice here. (I could see the sun outlasting the moon, too.)

Cutting this down was tricky. I think I had to cut 60-80 words. It was better for it, though. I cut out redundant sentences, words that didn't need to be there, that sort of thing. I even cut the actual text of the last item on the list, and I think it's better for it.

I also felt that they'd already been going round and round on the subject a bit before the story started. I do like how the ending finished things off, too.

And thanks, 6838552! I'm actually pretty happy with how this cut down from what I originally wrote. I remember Twilight originally had a several sentence reply to how old Celestia was! Shaking her head effectively conveyed all of it, though.

Now, as far as a May prompt...

There are many things I could do here, and it is tempting to force a theme of, say, bats, or snuggling, cuteness, and so on. I do tend to think these things are best when the prompt is very open for interpretation, though, and I did think of a prompt a while back that had a number of possible directions you could go.

So, how about "Black & White" as May's prompt?

--Sweetie Belle

6813706
Yay for Sleepy Spa'y Spike!

6813995
I think we're lucky Twilight's head didn't explode here!

6818549
So... was this a list from back when she was Nightmare Moon she's finally finishing off?

6821741
Definitely want to be careful with those instructions. I could see this happening...

6829897
Doesn't seem like I've seen much Amethyst x Derpy time in a while.

6832707
Yay, Skellinore! We need more Skellinore stories.

6835185
I hope Sunset's playing the same type of game as Fluttershy is good at. I suspect that was hours and hours of experience on Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, Rune Factory...

--Sweetie Belle

6840136
If you recognize the game you'll understand Sunset's frustration.

Congratulations on winning!

6840120
"Black & White" it is! Thanks! The new thread will be on the 1st, ie Wednesday.

6840740
How on earth didn't I recognise that! Admittedly it's only hinted at, but I love VVVVVV! It's one of the few games I've ever completed! I wrote a (very very simple) MLP-themed level for it, for Celestia's sake! And still I didn't see it until just now. Argh.