A collection of one-shots and minifics from various Writeoff competitions and Equestria Daily's seasonal Writers' Training Grounds events.
Pinkie the Vampire Slayer [Crossover] [Comedy] – EQD-WTG for "Bats!" (s4e07)
Manehattan [Slice of Life] – EQD-WTG for "Rarity Takes Manehattan" (s4e08)
Lament [Slice of Life] – Writeoff Minific for "The Best Medicine"
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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> Spike closed one eye and squinted at her. “I dunno, Pinkie. Are you sure she’s a Giles and not a Willow?”
/falls over
Okay, now that punchline I like.
Or rather, 
.
Heh.
1,569 words. Uh-oh! Got to cut 69 words down! Heh, 69.
3705081
Ah, I just sent it to 'em anyway. Gdocs said it was under.
3705091 True. This site usually says there are more words than there actually are. Maybe contractions count as two words or something.
So Twilight is a Watcher. I can buy that.
I'm laughing at that so hard I have tears in my eyes.
That was beautiful.
This.. Was weird. I'm... At a party. That in itself is weird. 30 minutes until 2014!
I suppose I ought to talk about the story though..
Little soup of references this was. This felt very season 4. Not sure if that's a good thing. Continuity nods everywhere, like Spike's comic obsession. My question is.. What's up with Surprise at the end? Is that relevant? Or is it just like those stingers the show has been doing recently?
3713620
Yeah, um, perhaps not best to overanalyze these too much. (Or from a Freudian perspective, perhaps best to analyze them most of all, I suppose)
I decided it'd be nice to participate in the EQD Writer's Training Grounds (and it looks like I may have dragged Georg into it, too, which is also nice). The question then was, well, what can I do with the most recent episode. I think the only time I've felt particularly inspired to write was after seeing Rainbow and Tank interact in "Just for Sidekicks", and that's what brought about "Amazingly Awesome Adventures".
So I slept on it, and overnight it came to me that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" had a Spike and an Angel of its own, and that it might be fun to do a one-shot crossover for once. Or as much of a crossover as I'm ever likely to do, anyway: letting other bits of fiction exist in Equestria in a way that means ponies can know about them. But ponies don't have TVs (do they? I don't particularly remember seeing any ponies watching TV), so if I wanted to make Buffy be a thing in-universe, it seemed easier to do it by taking advantage of Spike's now-established liking of comics, rather than deal with the "do ponies have TV" question.
After that, I just let the thing write itself. If there were going to be antics, the CMC seemed like they probably ought to come along for a little flavor, and they gave me some opportunities in the cottage scene I wouldn't have had if I hadn't tossed them in early (e.g. an easy way to derail Pinkie and Spike, and an in for Applejack). Twilight alone wouldn't have served as nicely for either of those, I don't think—and I wasn't about to have Pinkie and Spike actually running around trying to spike Angel. That slips into dark, OOC territory very quickly.
Twilight's magic fixation and Applejack's appearance at the end were both outgrowths of fan reaction to the episode. I've seen quite a bit of, "Hasn't Twilight learned not to do things like that yet?" and a fair chunk of Flutterbat art has involved her going after Applejack or Big Mac... or more correctly, their flanks. AppleShy isn't exactly a standard pairing, but people have been having a little fun with it since the episode came out, and I thought it'd be nice to give it a little nod. And although it's awfully subtle, I really liked the way I managed to hint that there was something going on in the cottage we weren't seeing: Fluttershy's confusion when Pinkie asks after someone male, and the racket from the kitchen immediately following. Angel's appearance does enough to deflect the reader's attention away from that event, but I'd like to think some readers might catch the intentional mismatch between loud noises from the kitchen and Angel being who shows up afterward.
...um, yes, I did throw this together in about two hours. Maybe some analysis is fairer than I thought, given that I apparently managed to toss in character choice for plot streamlining, a small slew of topical references in two fandoms, foreshadowing, and narrative misdirection, despite how much time I spent on it.
(I'm a monster, aren't I? I guess this explains why I spend less time on editing than a lot of people...)
This Buffy×MLP crossover was pretty funny for a quick two-day shorfic. Though, the grammar mistakes were so glaring that I needed sunglasses to be able to read it at all.
3716969
If you don't mind me asking, could you give some examples? By its nature, this didn't get beta'ed, but I'm usually good at catching grammar and usage issues. If there are things that need fixing, I'd be happy to go back and fix them—and if there are issues I'm running afoul of and simply don't know about, those would be good to take care of, too.
ETA: Took an editing pass, and I did manage to catch a couple (a comma that should have been a full-stop and a missing quotation mark), but beyond that I'm at a loss.
The ending twist makes this one. This episode did dash my hopes for an episode where A.J. shows inexplicable freaky mastery of city ways, which is always something I'd like to see on the big screen. I'll have to settle for fanfics like this one and Ponydora P.'s "The Fruits of Their Labors" to actually see this, I guess, because I figure that was my one shot in the canon.
I wasn't sure what to make of this at first. Oh, it's the episode, but with a point of view change. Oh, now he's changing things. Oh, I guess you're not changing things, AJ's just writing her own fix-fic, or fantasizing about having handled the situation more to her own satisfaction. Then she was all like "I'm an unreliable narrator" and I was all like "thanks, author". I'm still not sure what to make of it, but I guess I can say I had fun revisiting the episode through AJ-vision.
3755627 I have to chuckle a little at seeing Saturday morning TV referred to as "The Big Screen". It's strange, seeing everypony fully animated doesn't really seem to lend credence to events the way it used to. I find myself leveling the same sort of criticisms at actual episodes that I used to at fanfics. At least they didn't break anything though. AJ didn't particularly stand out due to being thrown together with the whole mane six, again, but we weren't given any reason to believe that the writers forgot about her time with the oranges.
Heh. I quite like this. The Unreliable AJ Twist is cute, but what really gets me is her cold contempt for Manehattan. That feels very not-show, but, paradoxically in-character.
3755627
I'll admit, the ending was basically the story. That's the first thing wrote out.
My headcanon for AJ is probably kind of weird. For whatever reason (probably Contraptionology!), I always see AJ as the mythological trickster. There's a line at the end of the piece that pretty much sums up my view of her:
Really, this story owes more to your work with AJ than anything else, I think—and perhaps more than I'm even aware. Do Cortland and Clementine actually appear in any sort of semi-canon, or anywhere outside your stories even? I've been completely unable to shake those names for as long as I can remember.
Anyway, thank you for giving me (and everyone else) so much wonderful Applejack. I really enjoy her in the series, too, but the way you've fleshed her out in various places is probably what I love best about her.
3756161
Ooh, a semi-negative comment! I'd love to hear more about what wasn't quite working for you, here. Admittedly, it was a slap-together kind of thing—I didn't get much of a chance to work on it until this morning—but I was pretty pleased with how it came out, and aside from messing around with language in a couple spots, I'm not really sure what I'd change about it. So if it didn't hit home the way I hoped, this might be a good place for me to learn something about telling better stories.
3756340
Hmm. I wonder if that wound up oversold, then. I didn't really mean for you to come out reading that as her impression of Manehattan; that's the whole point of the intro and the last couple paragraphs, the more reliable parts of the narrative if you will.
3756398
Cortland and Clementine are 100% from my headcanon and are derived from no official source. Glad you find my work inspiring! It means a lot to hear that.
3757100
Well, then keep an eye on your feed later tonight.
Bad Horse put me up to something about a week back. I'm finally free enough to tackle it, and a couple other things, before I get back to work on "Three Nights". Which I'd better make good, at this point, given how much I've been talking it up, and the fact that I've actually shelled out money for cover art...
3757139
I'm all a-quiver with anticip--
(Long ...Rocky Horror Picture Show pause)
--pation.
3756398
Well, I really wasn't going to elaborate; like I said, I enjoyed the view, but you asked for it, so I'll see if I can put my finger on the most off-putting bit of the story. Cue the stabbing of finger at page.
Ah yes, this. This line serves no purpose in the story other than to remind me that I am reading prose written by a guy who is really into the technical details of writing prose. I understand that. I even like that, but the best prose is that which is so excellently executed that I forget about the prose and become bookmuddled. This line fills my mind with questions like "Why is Applejack talking about narration?" "Who is she narrating to?" "Why does she feel the need to name drop a narrative technique?" "Is it really unreliable narration if you tell me about it?" "Does this have anything to do with her secret unfinished novel?" In short, I'm drawn out of the scene and into the world of your writing exercise, because none of these questions have an answer that isn't informed by the external forces of the great fimfiction meta.
You even follow it up with that wonderful "honesty doesn't mean telling the truth." line, which serves the purpose of the story just as well and makes the unreliable narrator line redundant. It clearly establishes that she was embellishing her story for dramatic effect without creating a load of otherwise avoidable questions. Honestly, you could just ditch that one line and I might not have noticed at all.
Of course, this is in reality, a writing exercise for you, and it may not be your intent to generate perfect immersion, but it's a thing I like, and you did ask.
3759035
Ask me any day of the week, twice on Sundays, if I'm for perfect immersion, and I'll tell you that I am. Though I take far too much pleasure in breaking the fourth wall to be entirely credible in saying that.
Yeah, I can understand your point on that. Quite well, actually. I guess I let myself have a bit more fun than I should have. That was literally the first line of the story that I wrote, and kind of my path in (though I really wound up liking the skyscrapers, stone, and steel bit, and that was all pure happy accident).
Given that this is kind of an exercise space, and that I was unduly fond of the line, I'm going to let the whole thing stand as is. But yeah, I think you're absolutely right about it. One more thing to watch out for when I'm writing—don't get too enamored with my own cleverness...
Thank you.
You totally rock. Indisputably.
Statement reaffirmed.
Heh, I know the feeling all too well. I only hope what Celestia says is the truth.
Check the accent on "deservéd" as I'm pretty sure that should be a grave rather than an acute.
6234433
Yeah, I've got a couple things I've been
working onsupposed to work on the last few days, and I feel like I'm getting nowhere with them. Which was pretty much exactly the same way I felt trying to put the poem together here. The story actually happened as an outgrowth of how hard the poem was to write; I spent about half my available Writeoff time trying to put that together, and then the rest was quick padding so I could make it to word count, but at least it was on point given how I was feeling.Writing is hard...
Also, I'm making the change on the grave/acute thing, but I would love if you'd by any chance have a citation to point me at on it. I remember struggling with this when I put it together originally, and I tried looking it up again right now, and for the life of me I have no idea how to find a reference for something like this. Do you happen to know?
This feels meta. Is it meta? Based on the comment you posted 16 seconds ago, I guess the answer is yes.
The poem was a gift, the deadline looms, and creativity fights with perfectionism and ever more refined taste.
6234827
You know, that particular level of meta didn't even occur to me. But it's totally on point.
At least I've got an outline and some ideas I really like for... um... yeah.
Well, I'm gonna post something new tomorrow. Here's hoping it winds up being a real story (one of the two I want to be working on) and not just another chapter here.
6234825
https://books.google.com/books?id=z_VmtjAU01YC&pg=PA100&dq=Oxford+American+style+diacritic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI3f32iInwxgIVxjweCh3X8QBU#v=onepage&q=Oxford%20American%20style%20diacritic&f=false
6234886
That is awesome and I think I want that book now. Thanks!
6235572
No worries.
It's true that the more things you know that could improve your work as you accumulate experience the more editing you would be able to accomplish and with it bring your writing to a higher level.
But
The ability to efficiently produce drafts it's also and important skill.
The way I see it Luna takes longer to write in part because she is a lot more critical of her work and in part because she wrapped herself in the toxic cycle of thinking that characterises writers block.
I felt Celestia addressed the first one while neglecting to mention the second one.
That's just my take of this fun little read.
~Leonzilla
That's it? D:
What do you know about season six? @_@
7047840
Spike gets his soul back, obvs.
So does this mean Angelus turns into Bunicula?