Thanks for your interest in BACK WHEN TIGERS USED TO SMOKE!

We want this to be a cohesive collection using a shared background — but we also want contributions from a broad range of authors.  We want to see articles on canon creatures — of which there are a limited number, and many people with awesome ideas. So there do have to be some rules to help us put this together fairly, with the best possible end product.

Here's the short version of how it works:

1. We'll be taking submission ideas — NOT finished articles — right here in this thread.  Basically, sales pitches.  Give us some brief information (outlined below) about what you want to do. Then start writing once we green-light your idea.  When you're done, we'll work with you to polish up your finished submission of 100 to 500 words.

   (That lets us make sure ideas don't overlap.  The rate control keeps our workload down, so we can give every submission individual attention.  And if we're completely swamped, it lets us chase the ones with the coolest pitches first.)

2. We WILL accept multiple pitch submissions — but we'll only let you work on one at a time.  If there's one idea you're dying to write more than the others, then lead with it, and once you finish it, add your next submission to the queue and wait for approval in the same way.  (If your work is exemplary we'll make sure you jump the line.)

3. Our initial submission period will be for original creations only.  There will be a second, later period for articles about beings from MLP canon, since we expect canon articles to get the most reader attention and want them to be especially awesome.  If you're dying to write the article on tatzlwurms or parasprites, show us your creativity with a brand-new beast first, so we get excited to see what you do with the show!

   The anthology will have a LOT more original articles than canon articles (the plan is to balance them about 4:1 or 5:1), so even if the canon competition is fierce, we'll try to feature as many authors as possible with original creatures.

4. We recommend you read the anthology author's guide — if not now, then before you start writing. It should answer most of the questions you've got, and it's got a LOT more detail about the tone, style, and formatting we're looking for. The included "project bible" is also a fertile source of ideas for cross-references you can include to add depth to your work, and you can browse the already accepted submissions there.

That said, let's get rolling!

SUBMISSION FORMAT

One pitch per post! (And remember you'll only work on one idea at a time, so while multiple pitches are just fine, spamming the thread will NOT improve your chances. Don't do it.)

Non-canon creatures only! (We'll edit this post when the canon submission period begins.)

Give us:

• The name of the creature you want to write about.
• A five-word description of that creature.
• A word count estimate. (We won't hold you to it! That's just to let us know how much you plan to say. We're looking for a good mix of short and long articles.)
  And most importantly,
• An awesome, unique, and surprising fact about that creature which you plan to work into your submission. Keep it to a sentence, and polish that sentence the same way you'd polish your article. Hook us! If we're deluged with submissions, this is what we're judging you on!

What To Do Once We Approve Your Idea

1. Most importantly: Browse through some samples of finished entries! (You can find more linked from the submission tracker — the green ones are edited to be ready for the anthology.) That's the best possible way to understand the style we're going for.
2. We highly recommend you read through the anthology author guide — that breaks down what we're aiming for a little further, and has our "project bible" for shared facts and references you can cite.
3. Write!
4. Once you finish a draft of your entry, the best way to share it is to paste it into a Google Doc and make it world-commentable, then give us the link. That allows for great flexibility in offering edits, while not actually affecting your text without your approval (commenters' edits will appear as suggestions).

Submission Tracker

See this spreadsheet for the master list of submissions and where they are in the process! (And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.)

6610630

OK, how about this as an example?

• Appearance: A swordfish-like amphibious beast with literal swords for fins and chocolate chips embedded in its scales. It's about as gainly as it sounds. Has been hypothesized as capable of fluent speech and of exhibiting a broad range of emotional expression, but no record indicates anything other than a permanent sulk at its lot in life.
• Most Distinctive Feature: The only monster whose species name starts with an X. Because it's self-conscious about this, it gets dangerously annoyed if ponies refer to it as "the one that starts with an X." Also tries luring victims to its river with its singing voice before drowning and eating them, which would be fine if it wasn't tone-deaf and completely useless at ambush tactics.
• Literary Mentions: Usually appears as a pathetic starter in epic tales, both because of its embarrassing mobility problem and because its "natural chocolate" was a highly prized commodity that could keep a warrior well-fed in the early offing. Other works usually discuss it in relation to its self-esteem and fragile ego compared with other monsters.
• Academic Interest: Though its existence was apocryphal, it was used as evidence in favour of the emerging "World-Builder Hypothesis" by Hoovier, who proposed that chocolate was originally made by this creature to run in natural rivers like water. This was before the modern "milk and cocoa bean" version took over, for reasons of hygiene.

6613453
I like the ideas on display!

As far as the example goes — I'm trying to keep the pitches much shorter and sweeter. Monster name, five-word description, one sentence of cool facts, and what word count you guess you're going to aim for. The thing is, what you've got there is already >150 words, so some entire entries aren't going to be that long! I just want the bare bones in this thread.

So I would say that a good pitch would look like:

Xokolotl
Description: Name-sensitive, chocolate-scaled amphibian
Awesome Fact: Other works usually discuss it in relation to its self-esteem and fragile ego compared with other monsters. [or whichever of your facts you like best]
Wordcount: ???

And then when we say "Yes, that idea sounds great, get the writing rolling" (which, to be clear, I'm doing now, once you estimate your wordcount), take a glance at the anthology author's guide, and read some of the sample entries which reflect Borges' original style, and just work what you've got into that conversational scholarly format!

(It's best to drop the article into a google doc, share it so it's world-commentable, and sling me the link.)

This look right?

The Penpal

(Stutelia Amicus)

• Short Description: A parasite that feeds on the magic of friendship by impersonating a distant penpal who the host comes to like. The host does not realize they are writing both sets of letters.
• Word Count Estimate: 300 to 500.
• Interesting Fact: While the practice is considered harmful and backwards in contemporary Equestria, doctors used to intentionally infect depressed patients with penpals in a manner similar to leeches. This was done on the theory that the persistent sense of "having someone who appreciates you" would help soothe their symptoms.

6613477

As far as the example goes — I'm trying to keep the pitches much shorter and sweeter.

No worries. I think about 300-400 words ought to do it for the expanded version of this entry.

6613482
I would prefer a specifically five-word description, since part of what I'm trying to evaluate here is how authors work under the constraint of a tight wordcount. Other than that, looks great!

I know I can expect a fantastic entry out of you, though, and that creature sounds like the stuff of Equestrian nightmare. Go ahead and glance through the author's guide, check some of our sample entries to get a sense of the target style, and get to work!

Description: Amnesia-inducing mammal.
Wordcount: 300~ish
Awesome Fact: This small creature posseses the ability to erase the memory of any being it deems as a threat, be it predator or pony, which is why it was believed to be a myth for centuries.

6613498

Magical parasite that impersonates penpals.

Hooray! Time to get started.

Description: Small, long-legged, birdlike creature.
Fact: According to legends passed down orally by the Breezie tribes of the Salient Spring, Snatchquills despise being documented in writing, even going so far as to alter any records of themselves they might come across. This is, however, unconfirmed.
Estimate: 400-500.

I have an idea for something rather dark; I will leave it to you whether you would like me to write it in full. And also, Jaxie beat me to the wonderful world of parasites.

Whisperwyg
Description: murmuring earwig; carnivorous and literal
Word count: Hard to say? 250 words, but I tend to struggle to keep things short
Fact: Anthropological surveys of several different indigenous groups reveal strikingly similar examples of lineal prophetic figures, who all claimed the ability to hear divine voices before losing their other senses one by one over approximately a decade.

(Just to let folks know: Aragon's in Europe and already asleep, and I'm turning in soon myself. I really want to reward people's enthusiasm by getting you all going as soon as possible, but now that everyone's on the same page wrt pitch formatting, I'm going to come back to this in the morning and greenlight a bunch of stuff at once.)

Lumimoose — Temporal shifting light based Moose
Word Count — 300 to 400
Notable fact — Whenever one sees a Lumimoose they will be unnaturally still, like a statue made of light. That is because every one of their movements sends them hurtling forward through time. Even a blink will make them disappear momentarily, only to flicker back into existence after a few seconds. As such, despite them being sapient, communication is difficult.

Question: are these intended to all be actual creatures one might find in Equestria? Unlike the source material, it can't be entirely imaginary ones, or there would be no plan to include canon ones...

In either case, what sort of qualifier will be added as a plausible reason for including these ones and not others, i.e., why we'd document what a hydra is but not a squirrel, for some arbitrary definition of unusual? Basically, I presume you've already got a list of the canon creatures you want included. Also, it would be cool if we could eventually edit in links to the canon creatures' entries if we make references to them.

Also also, would you consider deleting comments as the ideas in them are (dis)approved? On the one hand, it'd help people make sure they aren't repeating anything, but on the other, this thread would be a massive spoiler.

Lugubriae
Description: Mimics domestic dogs and cats.
Word count: probably around 300.
Fact: Similar to the faithful pets whose likenesses they take, impending death seems to attract them, though they don't appear to show the same concern for the soon-to-be decedent; while they do eschew meals in their vigil, none has ever been observed feeding in any context, leading scholars to wonder exactly what sustains them.

Common Bookworm
(Liberphage lacuna sp.)

• Library infesting literary pest
• 300-500 words
• Fact: The days when bookworm infestations could devastate entire library collections are long past, but the invention of mass-printing technology ensures that these pests will be with us for years to come. Silent, unobtrusive and patient, bookworms can feed for years on a text before a horrified owner plucks it from a shelf one day to discover an ambling trail of missing letters and blank pages.

6613693
I just imagined a hipster who only reads print books, but she's also a bit of a penny pincher, so she just has two books. Once she's done reading one, she gives it to her bookworm to eat and reads the other one in the meantime. Once the bookworm is done eating, she takes the now blank book, prints a new story in it, and gives the second book to her bookworm while she reads her newly printed book, repeating the cycle forever.

Peryton

• Description: Capreolus volatilis, or winged deer
• Word count: 300-500
• Surprising Facts: By some miracle, this author was only moderately wounded in discovering the long-forgotten truth that peryton – those distant relations to the peace-loving kirin – are creatures who embody both aspects of their cousins’ physical manifestations, in one form: for they are exceedingly shy and hot-tempered, can fly like a maniacal pegasus through dense forest, and unfortunately for yours truly they are also a dead shot with a bow and arrow.

Word Count: 300-500 (I'll try to tone down my tendency to excessively elaborate)

Surprising Fact: According to local legend, the largest tiger lily in record covered approximately five square kilometers of jungle in its passive state. When actively hunting, its quadrupedal form was said to tower over trees and villages alike. Though modern instances have shown no sign of approaching such gargantuan size, even the smallest seeming specimens should be treated with the upmost discretion.

• Dream-swimming molusc
• 300 - 500 words.
• While dreams with a spiral motif are common enough to be considered a constant among intelligent creatures, those who have read Peony the Elder know there is nothing mystical or dangerous about this phenomenon.

Enouement Bee
Description: honeybee which temporarily extends lifespans
Wordcount: 200-300
DID YOU KNOW?!: Throughout the records of those who discovered a non-empty hive, most admitted they intended to cheat the one-day limit by hoarding a personal supply of honey for eternal life, but voluntarily gave up their plan after the profound experience of that first taste. One record claims all the others lie.

Word Count: 200-400

Fact: These translucent, smooth-scaled scavengers are most easily found living as the accountants, tax collectors, and general-purpose minions of larger dragons and similarly ambitious sophonts.

Description
Four-winged avian-arachnoid hybrid

Word Count
300 - 500

Fact
No modern sightings, believed to be extinct or a creature of Saddle Arabian myth. Aggressively territorial creature that frequently roosts near volcanoes or anywhere with high concentrations of arsenic. Historical accounts chronicled the creature attacking in swarms, targeting realgar and orpiment mines. Debates on whether the 'feathers' of their wings were crystalline or chitinous continue to this day.

Aight, just woke up. Time to make some executive decisions. Woo.

6613513
This one's a no -- Horizon and I are planning A Thing within the anthology and supposedly I got told to go write 'memory-eating animal' in the 'reserved' section. As I am fundamentally an idiot, I went and wrote the draft of the entry rather than the spot on the reserved list, so that you had no way to know -- sorry! But yeah this one's a no 'cause I pretty much wrote it myself already. Try something else?

6613558
Cute concept; I think this one is a wonderful idea for a bite-sized entry, which is somethign we're always looking for. Check Fanged Storks on the document or on horizon's blog -- that kind of style I think suits this one-idea sort of animals.

6613561
Dark is good. Entry's great, and very Borgesian, too, so y'all good.

6613673

Question: are these intended to all be actual creatures one might find in Equestria? Unlike the source material, it can't be entirely imaginary ones, or there would be no plan to include canon ones...

In either case, what sort of qualifier will be added as a plausible reason for including these ones and not others, i.e., why we'd document what a hydra is but not a squirrel, for some arbitrary definition of unusual? Basically, I presume you've already got a list of the canon creatures you want included. Also, it would be cool if we could eventually edit in links to the canon creatures' entries if we make references to them.

Not quite; the sample entries include the Fanged Storks as a fictional entry that pony Lewis Carroll made up. The book, in-universe, is sorta written following the same criteria Borges followed IRL -- if the reature is interesting enough, or piques his curiosity enough, he talks about it, be it real or not. Legends and myths and shit like that are accepted, and in fact, when describing creatures, part of what's quoted about them is always literature or legends or stuff people have written about them, even if what they wrote is proven false. See Air Rays or the Slingtails for an example of this!

Entry's interesting, and it passes, though it makes me wonder how exactly scholars know when a mimic is a mimic and not just a dog who doesn't really give that much of a shit about its owner.

6613693

I mused on someone writing a Bookworm entry after MrNumbers suggested an animal that lives in libraries -- the Paper Tiger -- and Ghost of Heraclitus directly quoted them in his entry, although he didn't give any detail about them so as to leave them up for grabs. This one might overlap a bit with those two? Lemme wait till Horizon is up so we discuss it a bit.

Or I guess we can just fire Ghost's entry at you so you look at it and avoid the repetition of themes; the idea is different enough but better safe than sorry. You can find it if you fiddle a bit with the story tracker spreadsheet, but here's the direct link so that you can read it immediately and make the judgement call yourself.

I'll talk to horizon so that he edits the story tracker spreadsheet into the first post of this thing so that overlap is avoided later.

6613709
Passes, though with a huge warning: the way the anthology is written, every entry is made by the same dude, who doesn't really go out of his way to find the creatures. He chronicles legends and books and so on who do talk about them -- so if y ou use that focus, I strongly recommend (i.e., we're pretty anal about this, sorry) that you write Boar Guest (the in-universe author) talking about the chronicles of a hunter who did almost get hurt looking at perytons, or something like that. Reminder that while fun bits are allowed, entries that are only jokes will be frowned upon, as we're trying to give this a bit of a level tone.

6613731
Passes; it's funny to see how right I was in saying that someone would immediately pitch something plant-related when we were planning this. The tiger lily you suggest is clearly sentient and able to move, so I put it right next to timberwolves in the "it's a plant but sorta an animal too? so it's not like writing about a flower, so we're good" category.

6613765

Cool! Passes. Peony the Elder is being surprisingly popular in the references, as well as Gold Dust the Kirin scholar. I'm gonna have to edit the shit out of that bible in the long term, aren't I.

6613769
I like the idea, but Pearple Prose already reserves "Spelling Bees" in the story tracker, and there might be a bit of overlap there. If you could change the name of the thing so it's not called a 'bee', just whatever name for the bug (and then the entry goes 'related to the bee it also produces honey...), that'd be brilliant.

6613772
Pretty neat -- I see this as another great example of a bite-sized entry. Honestly you can just spice up your description here ever-so-slightly and that's an entry already. I like how elegant it is when kept like this, it's a very good one-two punch.

6613790
Huh, very technical and light on the puns. Not gonna lie -- it's refreshing. I like puns like anybody else, but if every single entry is a pun then it loses part of the weird-ass feeling some entries are clearly striving for. Passes.

Word Count: Probably around 300

Fact: Though unconfirmed, conspiracy theorists have suggested that the mind-altering beard lice may be responsible for the world-conquering ambitions and refusal to compromise of recent interlopers such as Discord, Lord Tirek and the Storm King, as well as the put-yourself-first, always-right ethos recommended by motivators such as Iron Will. Some have even gone as far as to suggest correlation with the perceived xenophobic attitude of the EEA and its head, Chancellor Neighsay, but modern scholars such as Sunburst of the Crystal Empire have insisted the Tyrant Louse is purely fictional and if not then certainly something ponies are not susceptible to, echoing the long-held stance of Star Swirl.

Crocodahlia

Large, lumbering, lovely, occasionally carnivorous

200 words maybe

A major reason why the finest Weather Wranglers in Equestria are sent to the tiny frontier town of Ponyville: whenever water supply issues affect the Everfree Forest, these flowers, reportedly as large as four ponies combined, will drag themselves out into the surrounding countryside, their wooden fangs thirsting for any available liquid.

(Maybe we could have a small section devoted to animal/plant hybrids? )

Word count: Probably 100-300.

Fact: Currently extinct; believed to be the reason it's now ponies everyone trusts to handle the weather.

6613838
Alright, I can do bite-size. I feel like it could use a small bullet-point addendum, though.

What do you mean by spicing it up?

6610630

• Name: Fool's Cloud
• Description: Cloudlike swarm of carnivorous insects.
• Word count: 500
• Fact: While individual insects are so small that they're almost invisible, their swarms are a great threat for any pegasus who mistakes them for a storm cloud.

Grave
A hole eats dead ponies.

Word count: around 400

Fact: In ancient times Graves followed herds around, eating the dead and helping in keeping less polite scavengers away. None have been seen for centuries, so ponies started to dig holes themselves.

Name: Somnum

Description: Mutable dream eater

Word Count: Around 150-200

Fact: While originally thought to make the bad dreams of a pony go away, it was later discovered that they stole the good dreams and left only their own nightmarish visages in their wake, sometimes feeding off of an entire village or other times one extremely creative individual until their food source died of fright.

Aethereal Puffersquidfish (Or the Schröd-Dinger Self-Perpetuating Quantum Mite-Not)
Description: Theoretical magical parasite/ symbiote
Awesome Fact: You may have a dozen of them on your horn right now. Or maybe none. It's impossible to tell, because the current theory is that any attempt to ascertain the existence of a Mite-Not causes its location to become null, therefore placing it into a different space/time/phase/warm.
Wordcount: 200-300

I was also wondering:

6613838
(referring back to 6613769 )

proposed fix: changing the name to Enouement Hive
sub-proposal: the bees are normal, the hive itself is actually the strange creature (good idea, or overcomplicated?)

I really need to stop looking at prompts. They tend to give me ideas faster than I can write them.

The Stillwalker
Enigmatic hollow outlines, ever silent
Word count: ~500

Mistaken for specters or geists on the rare occasions they're sighted, these ethereal forms have puzzled scholars attempting classification for centuries. According to the account of Mighty Helm explorer Leaf Everstone, these creatures are said to make their home in an endless void beyond the edge of the world.

6613838 Ah, of course. Got it!

Oh, fine, I'll try. Why not?

• The Pauper's Grave-Wight
• (Eats ponies, but only metaphorically)
• Takes the form of an innocent creature who puts itself in harm's way in your vicinity; once buried, it burrows beneath your house and feeds on your guilt and regret for not saving it.
• I dunno, probably 300 words.

Deleted for now pending ideas more in-keeping with the moderators' wishes for the anthology, thanks for the upthumbs.

Beanis Flytrap

Carnivorous plant made of bean paste

Fun fact: a relict of the Discordant Era, these plants travel in small packs in the pine barrens of southern New Horsey, feasting on vegimites, parasprites, and other insects.
Wordcount: 100-200

Name: Wind scorpion

Description: Airborne, shapeshifting, utterly unsporting arachnid

Word count: 200-300

Fact: Wind scorpions travel in a gaseous form, appearing as little more than welcome breezes in the arid regions they favour. When sighting prey, they gust down and assume solid form only long enough to sink a stinger somewhere vital or to snatch up prey in a pedipalp, and vanish on the wind just as quickly as they appeared.

6613838
Roger. I'll try and keep it under 200, then.
One question, though—how do you actually want these to be submitted? I don't think it's specified anywhere in the group.

Here goes...

The Tiresias

Description: Blind, prophetic, confusion-eating snake

Word count estimate: 200-400? Maybe?

Surprising fact: Suitable to its chosen diet, the venom of the tiresias, rather than paralyze or kill its victims, instead causes them to change sex.

6614139

One question, though—how do you actually want these to be submitted? I don't think it's specified anywhere in the group.

Bit of a miscommunication! I meant to give everyone the details as we accepted their submission, so let me backtrack a bit and do that now:

WHAT TO DO ONCE WE GREENLIGHT YOU

1. Most importantly: Browse through some samples of finished entries! (You can find more linked from the submission tracker — the green ones are edited to be ready for the anthology.) That's the best possible way to understand the style we're going for.
2. We highly recommend you read through the anthology author guide — that breaks down what we're aiming for a little further, and has our "project bible" for shared facts and references you can cite.
3. Once you finish a draft of your entry, the best way to share it is to paste it into a Google Doc and make it world-commentable, then give us the link. That allows for great flexibility in offering edits, while not actually affecting your text without your approval (commenters' edits will appear as suggestions).

I'll get that added to the top post shortly.

cc: 6613561 6613673 6613709 6613731 6613765 6613769 6613772 6613790

The Syncopat
The silence between the beats

Word Count: about 250 Words

Facts: the existence of Syncopats (commonly known as earworms) has been proved just recently, as has the fact that the eggs they deposit in the minds of ponies listening to the songs where they live are innocuous. Nonetheless, it has been argued that these creatures, despite the ephemeral life duration spanning the length of a single song, could be the single, greatest influence on musical evolution in the history of ponykind.

• Caterpillar in the immature stage.
• 300-400 words.
• A sulkworm will never metamorphose to the adult stage of its own accord, but the persistent lepidopterist can induce the transformation through such coersions as demanding it tidy its leaf, questioning its choice of friends, or laughing at its poetry. The sulkworm marks the onset of the pupal stage with a series of screeches about how the whole world will soon see who it really is, and then runs off into a dark corner and wraps itself up in a silk cocoon its parents made for it.

6613838

Try something else?

Will do!
I wanted to make something that would explain why ponies in Equestria have cutie marks and horses in Saddle Arabia (and mules) don't have them. I thought of a tachyon microorganism living only in ponies that would react with their inner magic and manifest as a cutiemark.
But then I realised I was making midichlorians, so back to the drawing board it is!

And let me do a round of question-answering!

(Also, while I'm trying to clean up here, I really should add Aragon's An Unknown Face in your Mirror, Out of the Corner of your Eye to our completed article samples, because that's just a gorgeous example of the subtle beauty and terror possible through the format.)

6614030

I was also wondering how the editors felt about the various magical creatures that have appeared in the pages of the various Pony comic books?

If a fictional being was featured in a Hasbro-authorized source — including Equestria Girls, comics, the chapter books, even the mobile game — we'll get to it later, in the canon round. We're going to have a separate call for submissions for those, and include a small subset of canon creatures in with our collective original content.

6613673

what sort of qualifier will be added as a plausible reason for including these ones and not others, i.e., why we'd document what a hydra is but not a squirrel, for some arbitrary definition of unusual? Basically, I presume you've already got a list of the canon creatures you want included. Also, it would be cool if we could eventually edit in links to the canon creatures' entries if we make references to them.

The basic answer to this is covered in the author's guide, so I'll just extend that a bit (and also 6613838's answer). It's a combination of three things: 1) This is an encyclopedia of myths and stories at heart, not a zoology textbook; 2) we want every entry to be unerringly interesting; 3) it makes no claim of being comprehensive, even within its niche, so why Creature X isn't included is kind of a moot point.

Borges had entries on the Chinese fox, the panther, and the pelican. In each of those cases, the stories about the creature were wild enough that they were still essentially myths, despite demonstrably existing. We're not rejecting squirrel articles — that's why all rules are negotiable. But we also don't want everyone trying to wring fascination out of the common ground squirrel, because the bar is much higher for making it fit in with everyone else's crazy ideas. Hence the soft rule. If you think you can bend it and still sell us on some awesome and fascinating tales, tell us your plans.

We're deliberately NOT deciding in advance which canon creatures to cover. That'll be determined by the best pitches from the authors who want to do one.

And yeah, links to canon creatures' external references are easy enough to edit in.

6613673

would you consider deleting comments as the ideas in them are (dis)approved? On the one hand, it'd help people make sure they aren't repeating anything, but on the other, this thread would be a massive spoiler.

I don't think the collaboration we're trying to encourage is compatible with that sort of spoiler avoidance. I'd rather have authors spin up ideas based on what they see here, and have more opportunity to talk to each other about mutual name-drops and idea linkage. Readers who want to spoil themselves will find a way; readers who don't can avoid this thread (except for the OP, and direct responses to their posts).

Just as a general note — if we haven't responded to your post yet, you're still in the queue. But even with only the submissions already approved, the editing is already starting to catch up with us! Please be patient while we work the bugs out of the system.

6614005
This is hit-you-between-the-eyes gorgeous. Easy approve — though I'd like to suggest that the core idea is all you need to carry the article. As 6613838 noted a couple of times for other authors, consider writing this up near (or below) the minimum size, punching hard with just the sheer brilliance of the pitch, unless the other ideas you've got around this are equally amazing and won't dilute it. We can move on to your other submission from there.

6613769
Modified version approved!

6614000
I'm … not actually sure what Aragon meant? And he's currently asleep due to being on European time. If he doesn't get back to you by tomorrow, go ahead and proceed with original plan. (I'm curious for more detail, myself, and while I can see this being a very abbreviated entry, I think it's also got good bones to hang a little expansion on.)

6614342
This made me laugh so hard I have to jump the queue for it. Approve.

Again, the pitch is so strong, I urge you to consider keeping it as trim as possible so as not to dilute the golden core you already have.

6613921
Approve, with a caveat: This reference guide is set in-universe about 40 years before the show. So you wouldn't be able to cite many of the villains you've got listed as examples. Discord can be cited from his original historical rampage; Tirek, likewise, may very well have some myths still circulating from when he attacked ponies in pre-Unification times before he was sealed away in Tartarus. But you'll have to create some original villains or dig into some deeper corners of canon to find other bearded baddies.

6614014 6614098 6614162
This is going to neither be a yes nor a no — just an observation that we seem to have gotten a cluster of creatures most notable for eating equine emotions and/or thoughts, and I worry that they might start feeling samey. Are there other pitches you're interested in making? If so, I'd like to see what else you've got on the table, while keeping options open on this one. If this is the thing you're most excited about writing, though, I'm open to a later thumbs-up, with the caveat that before approval I'd like to see a little more of the vision here beyond what the creature eats.

6613951
While the pun is great, and I like the twist that they're water predators rather than pony predators, this does seem to overlap with the already-approved Tiger Lily. Are there any other ideas you're excited about writing?

=============================

FOR APPROVED AUTHORS:

Next steps are in 6614260. Thanks, and get to work!

What my plan is, if it helps other authors, is to leave some wiggle room in the word count so that as other authors complete theirs, I can add a reference or two to other entries as appropriate. That would be a fairly quick process, so it could occur quite close to what your deadline is... which is when?

6614426
The confusion-eating wasn't intended to be the main focus. That would be on how the tiresias can only perceive the future rather than the present, and how it must learn how to properly time its strikes and otherwise adjust its expectations and reactions. I could certainly change its diet to something more corporeal.

6613693
I pinged you on Discord if you want to talk a little more directly about the idea here and the way it might/might not overlap, or we can talk in whatever other venue is easiest, rather than a potentially longer back-and-forth cluttering the thread. I definitely can't wait to set you loose on something; just would like to keep the bigger picture in mind. Alternatively, any other ideas you're excited to develop?

6614438
That is an excellent plan and I hope other authors follow it! Feel free to reach out to others individually, and/or read finished/in-progress entries from the submissions tracker to see what inspires you collab-wise.

6614453
Ah, ok. Approved, then!

If you haven't already thought of it, I would like to ask you to consider (but not require you) to make the Tiresias extinct, and work in something on the question of whether or not they saw it coming.

6614426
Okay. Wecll see what tomorrow brings.