So last week's lead story Heartless wasn't originally intended to be part of that pairing. I'd had it slated for several months to appear along side today's lead story but ended up separating it once AltruistArtist got theirs out. It just matched much better to me.

But I also couldn't just let the other story languish - so it's today's starter.

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It isn't often I pick a connecting theme for two stories and then realize I can't actually use it. Not because it's bad or unworkable, but because it actually spoils the stories. So I'm not really sure what I can say about them together - as it is I'm probably gonna have to drop spoiler bars at least in the second one. I guess the best I can say is that it's about the Crystal Empire alicorns and their relation to antagonists? (Note from later on: why do I pick stories that are so hard to talk

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So I've mentioned before that I keep a little shelf as a staging ground for this blog, with pre-prepared story pairs I can whip out as whim takes me. Occasionally I look back at it and realize that I've been in a bit of a mood. Today's one such time as I noticed a lot of the pairings I've currently got set up are rather morbid or at least bittersweet. Not sure at which point I got into that mood, but I've got a few too many sets that hit that mark. You'll have to bear the weight of it for now -

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So last week I did a bit of cleaning out of my oldest in the main queue - this week, I'm gonna do the same for the newbies set. I've had a pair kicking around for a while that I keep not getting to and this is a prime opportunity to fix that. 

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So most of you are probably aware that I've been part of the Jinglemas team for the last few years. For those who aren't: Jinglemas is the site's annual holiday story exchange. Put your name in, write a short story for someone else, and get one back - simple as that. (And as of right now, you have ONLY TWO DAYS TO SIGN UP. SIGN UP NOW. We're in the final push - we've averaged around 115 participants for the last

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Well, last week I said I wanted to be a bit more upbeat. I can hardly prove myself a liar, now can I? So let's go into the bag, so to speak, and pull out some fun ones. And because any theme's as good as any other, let's put that focus on Midnight Sparkle. And sleep walking. Think of it as my apology for bombing out of the SciSet contest that just ended.

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