• Member Since 28th Aug, 2011
  • offline last seen Saturday

Cold in Gardez


Stories about ponies are stories about people.

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THANK YOU FOR PURCHASING YOUR ‘PHOENIX-B-GONE’ HOME PHOENIX REMOVAL SYSTEM. USER ASSUMES ALL LIABILITY.

What's better than one phoenix? Two phoenixes.

What's better than two phoenixes? A houseful of them, unless it's your house. Then you have a problem.

Rarity has a problem.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 126 )

Oh, Sweetie Belle. :unsuresweetie:

This is fabulous: more than a few bits elicited a silly grin or a chuckle. Your writing flows so nicely, and in this case with great comedic timing, and your dialogue absolutely sparkles with life. After Rarity mentioned Winter Wrap-Up I expected that this was going to become an elaborate scheme to execute a fake seasonal change to fool the phoenixes into departing, and/or a commentary on the ethics of interfering with the migratory behaviors of endangered fowl. Instead, I got Rarity preparing to shove a live bird into a woodchipper, Palin-style. Magnifico! I'm not entirely sure how the barn or Rainbow's cloud home ended up full of phoenixes, but it sure looks like the Apples are going to need to something something raise that barn again very soon. :raritywink: It's always such a pleasure to read your stories.

Absolutely brilliant. You had me in stitches multiple times throughout the story, your comedic timing is really fantastic.

Your comedies never disappoint.

A little disappointed in Applejack for forgetting her own dang song, but I can let that slide. :ajsmug:

I hope RD has an extra stash hidden somewhere. I may need a few swigs.

I got a lot of chuckles out of this, something I needed after today. Thanks for that!

A delight as always!

Rarity losing it almost seems in character to me. I mean, it's her livelihood, and everyone's like "yup just ignore them for 6 months." High-fives all around and everyone leaves for a celebratory drink.

Realistically, she sould have calculated the cost of lost business and materials plus repairs, and justly sent Celestia the 2.6 million bit bill via iDragon messenger.
Build Neu Carousel Boutique and laugh all the way to the bank. Maybe make "pheonix pinion" style the go-to for the season.

But that's not as funny.

Gotta say, the visual of her cramming the phoenix into a woodchipper amuses me more than it should. (I imagine that it would get ground into a fine powder... Reform and torch her mane)

Enough loose feathers to stuff a thousand pillows would cover the floor.

Clearly Rarity has no idea how much phoenix down the average adventuring party goes through. She could afford ten new boutiques with the profits!

In any case, a fantastic story. Really, Rarity should just be thankful none of the phoenixes died. Your home turning into a zoo exhibit is one thing. It turning into a smoldering pile of ash is quite another.

I came at this with high anticpation, and left with equally high satisfaction.

CiG delivers. Would I be correct in thinking that Wild Pegasus is an analogue for Wild Turkey?

Also, I can't be the only one who thinks that sharing a home with hundreds of beautiful, amiable phoenixes would actually be pretty awesome.

...well okay, visiting someone else's home full of hundreds of beautiful, amiable phoenixes would be pretty awesome.

What was the joke you had stuck in your head? There were a few good ones, but I wonder if you ended with the Dash for a reason.

I of course enjoyed it, and encourage you to put down your fancies as you have them. The little bits of continuity with your other comedies was nice. Only makes me want to see more with these same 'characters.' Or perhaps just your writing.

“I’ll... I”ll...” She trailed off [...]

Extra quotation I believe.

Also, I was looking forward to seeing Rarity go through with the PBG, and it have the effect of cloning, or birth of a baby bird, all the more apt to make noise and poop.

Sung to the tune of "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano"

♫ When the phoenixes come back to Ponyville,
that's the day, I pray that you, come back to me...♫

I have to wonder how a bird that's "reborn" when it dies becomes endangered (okay, okay, I know; dragon predation :ajbemused:), but still, wonderful story all in all. And like many of the other readers, I do find myself enjoying the mental image of a phoenix, a woodchipper, and a half-crazed Rarity at the end of her rope... :scootangel:

Sweet Luna in a moon bounce, CiG, this could be an episode of the show. :twilightsmile:

I should not be laughing this hard.

Good job, fine sir.

2704974

I LIVE THERE

AND MY MOM WORKS THERE

well, shit

That was masterful. I'm insanely jealous of your title and description alone. I don't normally pay attention to the new queue. There was just something about "The Trouble with Phoenixes" and "Phoenixes are like a three-legged kitten: adorable in small numbers" that made me click the link. All it took was my eyes passing over that part of the page.

Only then did I notice it was a Cold in Gardez comedy.

The content was good too. I was laughing and grinning at several points. Best turn of phrase:

“Rarity, take a deep breath.”
Rarity did, but only to use as ammunition.

And the best scene was Rarity trying to talk herself into stuffing the phoenix into the Woodchipper. Between this and "Naked Singularity" I think you conclusively demonstrate that Rarity makes a great comic lead. She has so much dignity that can be exploited. :raritycry:

So why wasn't I following you? I have no idea. Let's fix that.

Complimentary song:

Her lips began to tremble. Only a heartless monster could have felt nothing at the sight.
Rarity was, of course, immune.

:duck: immune to :unsuresweetie:
:duck: not immune to :fluttershysad:

“And then she just started screaming,” Sweetie Belle said, concluding her account of the morning’s excitement at the Boutique.

LIKE ... WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

Nice.....what, you want a five star critique out of me or something? Fine, cute too.

Man, every new story just makes me want to know more about those centipedes.

Making Applejack into everyone's childhood nightmare of what adulthood is like--- a workaholic life stuck on an endless treadmill--- was that intentional?

This was not the relentless tour-de-force of Naked Singularity.

It was, however, a damn funny story.

Something about these comments makes me think the centipedes are a running gag. I love running gags. now I have to read everything else you've written.

I kinda wanted to see her ram one of those phoenixes into the wood chipper, only to discover that phoenixes are immortal and would just burst into flame and reincarnate immediately.

That would have been marvelous.

Spacecowboy
Moderator

This was hilarious.

I wonder if phoenix tastes like chicken...

This was brilliant. Thank you for sharing, you amazing author you.

100+ thumbs up and 0 thumbs down after 7 hours? How is that... oh. More CiG!

Flappy: Yo homes! Dis mare, she loco mang! She gonna feed us to a woodchipper, mang! Vaminos!

This is how I imagine phoenixes sound. Is that a bad thing?

After reading this story I died of laughter, burst into flame, crumbled into a pile of ash, then regenerated into a brand new Ponytrician.

True story. :derpytongue2:

2705362

That was Flappy alerting the other phoenixes to the location of their new winter nesting site.

Archived. Foreeeeeverrrrrrrr..... :pinkiehappy:

Because of course she named it Flappy. Sweetie, you're a treasure when viewed from a distance.

Nice. And it seems it'll work out all right for everypony save maybe Rainbow. :pinkiehappy:

For one fleeting moment there, I feared the fanfic was going to go a Cupcakes-ish route (not helped that I suddenly couldn't recall the rating for this fanfic) but thankfully didn't go that route, and instead with the by far more desirable ending, so everything worked out all right for me too. :ajsmug:

2704726

Indeed, I thought Rarity was going to chicken out and just get her friends the district weather manager and the protege of the Princess to fuck with the seasons for the next week or so to trick the phoenixes into leaving. Or send a bill to the Princesses to the tune of several hundred thousand bits. Or be all "I have literally saved your nation at LEAST five times, including bringing your beloved sister back from the brink of insanity. I practically own you at this point Princess." Instead we got Rarity about to feed a live bird into a woodchipper. Not that it would do her any good, what with the whole "reborn from its ashes" angle.

Then again, Rarity has absolutely no reason to complain here, because everyone knows that Phoenix feathers sell on the open market for like 200 bits each.

2704979

Celestia thinks that Phoenix eggs make the most delightful omelet. Hell if I know. If anything, the planet should be covered with a living layer of firebirds at this point, since they're apparently immortal, have reasonably sized clutches, and their only real predator appears to be teenage dragons.

Thank god for the featured box because I somehow missed the notification for this. CiG you are a master.

It's really awkward to read something this funny in public, but eventually you stop caring about the looks you get.

This was funny right from the start, but I totally lost it at the point where Rarity unwraps her new "Phoenix-B-Gone". Only to lose it again when she tries to steel herself to shove the first phoenix into the machine. :duck:

This is ridiculous. And wonderful.

“Fine.” She sighed and tossed her head, flipping her mane behind her in a dramatic flair. “I shall endeavour to live with these birds in peace.”
* * *
“Thank you for calling Trapper Joe’s, Ponyville’s first and best pest extermination service. My name is Tripwire, how can I help you?”

You're so evil, Rarity

::giggles:: Rainbow Dash going off the sauce was the perfect finish to this story.

:rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh:

Phoenixes in a woodchipper. That just made my day.

Classic comedy as always.

Oh Rarity, don't you know what you could do with all those Phoenix feathers? That pillow idea was a brilliant one!

loved when rarity was trying to talk herself into wood-chippering the pheonix
:pinkiehappy:

“Never again.”

I exploded. :rainbowlaugh:

So, Rarity resorts to murder, the Apples rebuild, and Dash... well Dash says "Fuck it."

That was a long, delightful road to get to that punchline.

2709251

Hey stranger. Got anything cookin' for us?

2708975 To be fair, they're not going to eat or burn a cloudhouse, and the Apple Family goes through quite a few barns. In contrast, the boutique is a highly specialized environment filled with many rare flammable and breakable materials. Character differences aside, it's not too surprising it pushed Rarity further over the brink.

2709587

Perhaps, but she did leap to "Destroy the offenders" rather quickly. I mean, god forbid she ask Twilight to call Celestia or Luna for help. They do owe the girls a few favors after all.

'Rarity, this is a woodchipper.'
Why do I love deadpan humor so much? Damn near died laughing reading that.

2705343 Law of the universe. No one and no pony is immune to :fluttershysad:. No exceptions.

2709680 The best part of that was Rarity's outright denial ... until there was no way she could deny it. You have to wonder what might have happened if the phoenixes hadn't moved on.

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