I realised I spent far too much time on a side story and adding yet more characters not needed for the actual story. I present this snippet here instead. (I did have a side story idea for 4th Squad, 4th Platoon, 2nd Company of the Barnyarders but it will probably never be written.)

The pig sauntered into the camp, removed his snoutguard, tossed it into his tent and trotted through the frozen dirty mush over to the fire. The snow fell steadily, snowflakes melting and evaporating against his thick dirty jacket, his breath forming small puffs of steam as he hummed to himself. He dug out a dirty bowl from under one of the logs surrounding it and scooped up some of the slop which simmered in the pot on the firel. He then lay down by the log and started eating noisily, ignoring the other soldiers present. When he was done, he licked his face, sat up and took off his woolen cap. The pig pulled a smoky glass bottle from under the same log and poured a generous amount into his bowl. Then he spoke up to the gathered ungulates.

“Any of you hooves heard the latest Blueblood?” he oinked happily.

His comrades looked at him with tired muzzles. There was a cow lying down opposite him, dressed in standard issue grey woolen jacket, a red blanket and a Stetson hat which gathered snowflakes on the brim. She was ruminating her Equestrian Yeomanry Standard Fare from the pot, mixed with a generous helping of black market hay. A green-jacketed ewe sat to the right of him, grimacing at the taste as she put down her coffee cup. She was looking disparagingly at a clipboard which she tried to shelter from the snowfall. A nanny goat in a face-obscuring helmet and a second clipboard in her muzzle was trotting out from the pig’s tent, aiming for a seat next to the ewe.

“No, Ace, I haven’t, and I don’t know whether I want to,” the ewe said, frowning. “But go ahead. As we’re still waiting for Tuktu and Marjorie we cannot do anything useful yet anyway...”

The rest of the crew looked moderately interested

The pig grinned and went ahead unabashedly.

“So, Prince Blueblood is at Barley Trotter’s having wined and dined, and is getting his after-dinner saltlick, when the waiter asks: ‘Your Highness, does Your Highness want to hear a riddle?’ And Prince Blueblood goes ‘Do I!’ because as is commonly know, Prince Blueblood loves riddles!”

He took a swig from the clear fluid in the bowl and smacked.

“‘Well, Your Highness, it’s not one of my sisters, not one of my brothers, yet it’s my dam’s foal. Who is it?’ So Blueblood ponders this difficult enigma!”

Ace did his best to look like a foolish pony thinking very hard.

“‘By the Wheels, I don’t know!’ he finally goes. ‘What is it? Tell me what it is!’  And he slams his hoof down the table like that.”

The pig slammed his right front trotter down into the snowy muck for emphasis.  

“‘Well, Your Highness,’ the waiter says, ‘it’s me!’ And Blueblood is very impressed, so he says ‘By the Wheels, I have to run that by the fellows at my club!’ and tips the waiter a bag of bits.”

Ace took a second swíg. Another cow disengaged from the ungulates and joined them by the fire.

“Hi Marjorie!” said the pig. “You just missed the beginning of an awesome story! Anyway, Prince Blueblood goes to his club later that evening, and as soon as he has sat down he goes: ‘Fellows, I have heard the most wonderful riddle, and I must test it on you! ‘ ‘Do tell us!’ they all say. ‘Well, it’s not one of my sisters, not one of my brothers, yet it’s my dam’s foal. Who is it?’’ says Blueblood.”

The pig started to giggle.

“A-a-and they all say, ‘Why, Blooey, it’s you!’ And Prince Blueblood says: ‘Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It’s the salt waiter at Barley Trotter’s!”

The pig chortled merrily and drank some more from his bowl. The others smirked, except for the ewe who rolled her eyes.

“Have you seen Tuktu?” said the ewe and looked at Marjorie.

“No Sarge,” said the cow. “I know some donkeys from the 26th dragged him into the woods earlier today.”

The pig snickered.

“Yeah, not in that way, grow up!” she moaned.

“Why the flying flank does everyone think my translator is their personal bellamb?” the ewe growled.

The goat brayed. Everyone turned towards her.

“The Professah’s right,” said the other cow. “They think all caribou are these badflank woodsdeer and miss that most are just wit’ us‘ cause they make good interpreters here. It’s worse the further from Vanhoover they get an’ those jacks were from ma’ parts of Equestria, if ya get ma’ drift. Ah’ guess poor Tuktu, the worst excuse for a city fawn I’ve ever seen, has spent the day failing to understand whatever tracks them donkeys were worried about.”

“Or they had him looking at poop and try to guess what kind of poop it was,” said the pig and giggled again.

“For that they should’ve brought you,” said the cow.

The goat brayed and pointed.

“Here he comes now,” said the pig cheerfully. “Looks like he could use some food and coffee! Anyone know where his kit is?”

The Equestrian reindeer stopped and made a half-hearted salute as he closed in on the fire.

“Bad day?” said the cow. He nodded.

“Private, why did you follow officers from a different regiment?” said the ewe.

“I’m sorry sargeant,” said the caribou. “They had orders from Major Snowball.”

“She again? She couldn’t use the bloody natives?!” the ewe shouted. “Did she get her commission here because of her name?!”

The caribou winced. If the others took umbrage at her disrespect for a superior officer, they didn’t show it.

“That’s a good one, sarge - ‘because of her name’’,” the pig chuckled. “Y’know, because we’re up here in the armpit of the Windigo, and her name has ‘snow’ in it...” He brought the caribou a bowl of slop.

The ewe didn’t have time to glare angrily at him when a ram came running down the path that divided the camp into two.

“Sargeant!” he shouted. “Surprise inspection! They’re coming this way now! Princess Luna herself! And that bloody reindeer king!”

“Thanks, Corporal!” said the ewe briskly. She stood up on her hindlegs.

“ALRIGHT YOU DAMRUTTERS! CLEAN AWAY THE MESS! UNIFORMS AND KIT IN ORDER! DESERT HOLLY, GET THE BANNER OUT! STEP TO IT!”

I'm nowhere near finished, and the wording of this will not be exactly this, but...

Later that day one of the two scouts returned to the main force with curious news.

“A tursakalf?” said Einar with concern. “In what direction was it going?”

“That’s the point, sir,” said the scout. “I... can’t tell. The tracks are really strange!”

“That’s usually obvious,” Einar explained to Twilight and Spike. “It’s like a snowplow, almost literally. You can’t miss where they’re going.” To the scout he said: “Alright, I’ll take a look at them!”

“Can we come?” said Vigg.

“Yes, but be a bit careful,” Einar said. “We don’t know exactly where this thing is, and we must avoid it at all costs!”

When they reached the tracks half a mile further ahead, Twilight understood what the scout meant.

“I see,” she said. “An ice elemental would basically leave a furrow...”

“But this looks like a series of craters,” said Einar.

“Can they jump around?” said Saga and sniffed one of the craters. “I mean, if it did, it would leave holes like this, right?”

“Never heard of it,” said Einar.

“Can’t it be some weather phenomenon that looks like tracks?” said Twilight. “Natural or unnatural, give the circumstances?”

“No,” said Einar, “nothing I’ve ever heard of...”

“See, there are pieces of thick ice here in the crater, like splinters!” Vigg said eagerly and trotted down in it. “And there is magic residue everywhere, like there would be from a tursakalf!”

“It Looks very similar to such residue, in fact,” said Einar.

Twilight cast some spells and frowned.

Spike walked around the crater Saga was sniffing in.

“Twilight, can you lift me up...” he said.

“Spike, I’m kind of busy here,” said Twilight.

“But Twilight, it’s important!” said Spike and tapped his right foot. “I need to look at things from above!”

Twilight stared at him, and then it dawned on her.

“Oh!” she said and levitated Spike up into the air surrounded by a purple glow.

The others stared at him

“Yes!” he shouted. “I thought so!”

“What?” said Vigg.

Kvalhissir bellowed and suddenly sprung into the air, repelling the earth and rising to Spike’s level.

“They’re normal tracks!” Spike said. “Like from a pony, or deer, or... or anything with four legs, really!”

Kvalhissir bellowed and nodded.

“He says he has heard stories of the ancient giants...” Saga said. She sniffed some more and licked an ice splinter.

“That’s ridiculous!” Vigg said. “We have proved that the stories of stalo was just stories of moose like Kvalhissir! No moose gets that big!”

“There were giants in the days of yore,” said Einar, “but that was in the beginning of time. There shouldn’t be any left.”

“Maybe they’re coming back, sir,” said the scout fearfully, “because we’re so close to the end of time.”

Kvalhissir bellowed something.

“He says they look like wolf tracks, or maybe skoll tracks,” said Vigg.

“Princess Celestia told me that the Adamant Alpha, the first Diamond Dog, was... is... a giant canine made of stone,” said Twilight. “Maybe there is a skoll equivalent?”

“I hope not...” Einar mumbled.

“I think I know what it is,” said Saga and spat out some ice. “It’s pretty crazy but not as crazy as what you’re talking about.”

“What do you mean?” said Vigg.

“It’s a secret of the temple of Hrimfaxi, so you must never ever tell anydeer, okay?” she said. “I shouldn’t be telling you this at all but this is an emergency...”

“Could you put me down!” Spike said.

“Sure - and sure,” said Twilight, nodding to Saga as she placed Spike gently in the snow. Kvalhissir followed him.

Saga looked at the others.

“We solemnly swear,” said Einar.

“Okay... See, there is this ancient rite to create a servant,” Saga said, “and it hasn’t been done like for ages. It’s from the very founding of the temple. If you sort of butcher a tursakalf, you can use the pieces to build a... a living ice statue, an ice... golem. You need clay from a frozen river and the heart of an enemy and all kinds of gruesome stuff.”

“Like the faceted golems employed in the Ancient Crystal Empire!” Twilight said, eyes glittering. “Eh, although you didn’t need to kill people to create those...”

“It’s called a mokkurkalfe,” Saga said, “and usually they built them big, to fight or do heavy labor. But big, that’s big like Kvalhissir, or a big urox... This one must be huge. It must be made from several tursakalfar.”

“Look, that would take lots of magical power,” said Twilight, “and you say this thing is a big secret. Don’t you think that if there was some wandering Hrimfaxi worshipper with that much power, some Grazer shaman or something, somedeer in Einar’s herd or from your temple would have heard about it?”

“Lady Twilight,” said Saga and looked at her, “Princess Hrim... Princess Luna told us all about who founded the temple. He probably came up with the whole rite to begin with.”

“Right,” said Vigg and looked at Saga admiringly. “And Wiglek the Wicked wasn’t that bad a wizard.”

I'm watching the collected episodes of the old cult classic The Persuaders (known as Snobbar som jobbar, "Snobs who work" here in Sweden). Now, in the episode "The Old, the New and the Deadly", Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) gets invited to a Shady Nightclub in Paris for some negotiation by the Bad Guy's hired gun.

Said nightclub is decorated with skulls as candleholders, ancient grinning gargoyles and lots of fake spiderwebs. The guests sports rather ridiculous and crazy outfits that I guess are supposed to represent early 70s disco decadence to the viewers, including a hasty glimpse of a viking helmet and one henchman wearing a Native American-inspired costume.

That's right, they're in Klubb Niffelhel.

Unconnected to this, while I don't have much energy for writing these days, I sometimes get idle thoughts of mashups, and one was The Ponysuaders with Rarity and Applejack as wealthy bickering, quipping, drink-sipping bachelorette adventurers.

Oh,  here 's the intro to the old series:It is very cool, but doesn't really fit the mood at all - it's a light-hearted frivolous action comedy.

Like fanart. Yeah, it's humanized, but I think the artist hit the characters pretty well anyway.

Thanks, wowzamorphous.

People often praise me for world building. That is not bragging, for two reasons. First, it's true, and second, I'm not particularly proud of it. For me, it is a rude and crude craft I associate with making campaign worlds for D&D, not actually telling stories, characterising people, putting together a plot, everything I actually admire about literature (or things passing for literature, like fanfiction). So, for me being able to do worldbuilding is nothing praiseworthy. Sure, it's nice that people like something I do, but it feels a little embarassing that it's something I don't value that highly myself. Likewise, I'm not looking for "good worldbuilding" when I'm (desperately) looking for FiM fanfics. If it's there in a fic that needs it, I'm glad that it's there, but it isn't a seller. (People who try to kindly recommend me stories, knowing I have trouble with that because of my peculiar tastes, always try to find world building things to recommend, because they assume I must love it.)

It feels a little hard to say this when folk genuinely like it and are just trying to be nice, but while I know I'm no genius at characterisation and abysmal at writing, I think I have at least some skill with plotting, and it is so rarely anyone notices anything I do that I find cleverl. It's probably because it isn't but sometimes it feels like...

...like the Muppets movie.

In it, Kermit has this scene (I hope I remember this correctly) where he leaves the swamp of his youth to seek his fortune. Anyway, he's riding a bike. Now, the thing is it looked really good and everyone - I mean critics and so on - said it was an amazing scene and it must have been so hard to make a felt frog ride a bicycle!

Except it wasn't. The puppeteers knew it wasn't that hard, relatively speaking. And the thing was, they had a scene later with balloons, I think it is Gonzo doing it, and he flies up and so on... and not a single critic praised the baloon scene. Which took them all this work and so on. So they were a bit miffed.

And just like me, they perhaps shouldn't have. They got the praise for the Kermit scene, after all...

So when I said in the author notes for chapter 43 that "at least it contains world building etc" it was actually a somewhat bitter joke. I feel rather like a failure when no one notices Gonzo with the balloons.

PS: According to comments, I directly contradicts canon and this should really be an Alternate Universe. Since said commentor also claimed everything that has things that hasn't been in the show is also a sign of Alternate Universeness, and that feels distinctly wrong to me, but I'll assume he did find canon breaks, so I'm apparently not much of sa world builder either...

This has nothing to do with any of my existing fics, but might be used in little slice-of-life comedy starring Diamond Tiara, rated Everyone, coming soon to this user.

Humans (knowns as "yahoos" in rural slang) are domesticated animals kept by ponies and some other talking peoples. They are large, hairless primates who are fully bipedal, giving the a similar stance as minotaurs, actaeons and such peoples, but any closer look reveals them to not be truly sapient.

Humans are rather clever, however, and can be trained to perform many useful tricks. They have extremely dextrous front paws and are very good at fetching, carrying and even simple craftswork. Before pony society was more integrated, the craftsponies in earth pony communities usually had a pet human to assist them. (Earth ponies, with their connection to the land, are generally better at handling animals, after all.) Nowadays, said craftspony is probably a unicorn or any pony using magical tools, but the practice persist in remote areas. City ponies find it a bit picturesque and quaint, and will undoubtley want to take pictures of the pony in question and her pet.

Even further back, noble earth pony warriors would go into battle with a war-trained human on their back, dressed in specially-made barding and armed with sharp and heavy objects. This might seem ridiculous, but was just one of many uses of beastmastery the earth tribes used to gain an advantage over unicorns, pegasi and non-ponies. The saddle, a piece of apparel used to allow your war-human to cling to you, still remains in use as an accessory. Ponies simply copied the nobles wearing them, and after the tribes unified it spread to other pony tribes, even if it is very hard to carry a human a longer distance unless you have earth pony strength (or the human is just a 'child' as young humans are properly called). After all, the modern saddle is just a symbol that shows you are supposedly an important pony.

Among wealthy earth ponies, some still keep humans for riding them as a status symbol. This is sometimes combined with athletic competitions where you must cooperate with your pet as you perform feats of strength and agility, or pure races. Other ponies, especially lower-class ones, generally doesn't understand the point of gymnastics with a trained ape strapped to your back, but the custom remains, and has spread to some noble unicorns and pegasi. However, lacking earth pony strength and stamina, they practice exclusively with children.

There exists a whole literary genre about foals (usually fillies) having a pet human. Most focus on using them in riding competitions, but the central theme is generally the friendship between a little filly and her beloved pet. Nevertheless, some of the authors see themselves forced to pad the stories with mystery solving, innocent romance between mounts, and wilderness adventure. While many little fillies (especially earth ponies) want to own a human it is an expensive pet. In the real world most have to satisfy themselves with renting humans at fairs or the like. There, you can pay a few bits to walk around in a circle with a human on your back. (The proprietors of such services are often donkeys, for unknown sociological reasons...) The saying "Yeah, and I want a human for Hearth's Warming, as well!" to show unrealistic dreams has some foundation in reality.

There are wild humans, but like most big animals they are kept a bit rare in Equestria by the ponies who tend the wilds. Just like bears, most ponies are a bit scared of them, and the wildtenders would tell you that just like bears, they can be dangerous. Never get between a human female (a 'woman') and her children! Humans are also pack animals, like many other big primates, so you will usually encounter several families. The biggest danger they pose is to crops - a family of humans can decimate an orchard or a potato field in no time. What they don't eat they will hide in an old tree bole or the like for later. They also have a magpie-like attraction to glittery things like glass, noble metals and gems, which they will also stash away when done playing with it. Hence, the saying "greedy as a human" and the literary cliché of somepony striking it rich by hitting valuables buried by a human.

Incidentally, for some reason the "barnyard tribes" - people like cattle and sheep - often has a neigh-superstitious fear of humans both wild and tame. They are usually portrayed as super-predators you scare your lambs and calfs with.

The Everfree Forest is sometimes said to hold really wild humans, but in that case they stay hidden. Other lore claims they have evolved strange magical powers, grown to great size or gained sentience. Undoubtly a local expert like Zecora the zebra knows more.

Zebra have never used humans as mounted pets, but have domesticated them to some extent, usually as guard creatures. Since they haven't the pony obsession with mastering their environment, zebra have more problems with wild animal eating their crops, but a tame human with a stick and some stones keeps them away. They also warn against burglars, robbers and predators like lions and hyenas.

Buffalo view the humans that live along the prarie rivers as another of the many animals in nature, and as such they play a role in their mythology. In Buffalo myth, Human is usually portrayed as a trickster, who among other things stole fire from the flaming feather bonnet of Big Chief Sun Mare and gave to the first buffalo couple, in return for a bowl of fresh milk. Following the myths, the famous buffalo leader Sitting Man was known for his great cunning. Ponyvillians are most likely to have noticed this through local eccentric Lyra Heartstrings; among her many hippie-esque new age-like beliefs is the idea that her totem is the human. She learnt this during an "authentic buffalo drumming ceremony" (performed by a pony who had never talked to a real buffalo). To most of the ponies in Ponyville, however, this is just one of the many kooky ideas Lyra spouts.

Diamond Dogs have to chase away humans from their burrows, since they are attracted to the gems they dig after. There is, however, a persistent legend among them about a breed of human that can sniff out the gems that form the center of their culture. A tip to conponies; only try that once on each pack of diamond dogs.

The popular Minotaur pankration style Seven Beast Stances uses one sub-style known as Man Style; it is based on picking up random objects and hitting people with them. Masked Mexicolt wrestling incorporated that up since it was widely used by novelty minotaur heel Melanfovos, The Black Terror, who used to be a serious pankrationist until the incident with the rock farmers. Of course, regular Mexicolt wrestlers, both pony and donkey, use their mouths instead, and it's called "yahoo wrestling".

Griffons sometimes eat humans. They have long since learnt that talking about their carnivore lifestyle and hunting traditions squick out other civilized people, so of course they do it all the time.  They refrain from actually doing it outside their homelands, though, since being arrested for eating pets is not practical. In pony areas with many griffons, like Cloudsdale, fast food joints will serve fake human meat made from tofu. The most famous brand is Mockman, which is actually quite popular among working-class pegasi as well. Look for the happy human on the can!

Sometimes you just have to get ideas out of your head, you know?

I found out, by chance, that someone (I suspect the group's owner) added UtNL to the group My Little Over Analysis. (You aren't notified when someone adds one of your stories to a group, but you get all other kinds of messages. Huh.)

Its mission statement says:

This group is for stories that are rich in content, in a literary sense, with room for those stories that maybe aren't but that we like to analyze the hell out of, anyway. With, of course, the discussion thereof.

I can't imagine my story belongs in the first cathegory (any model for UtNL are the kind of story that generally is assumed to lack any literary worth), but we'll see what they do with it anyway.

...yeah. FIMfiction is still getting to me, and I feel drained of creativity. Today I tried to work on the plot of Under The Northern Lights on my walk, but found the thought that I never wanted to touch it again. I haven't really found much reading to boost my spirits - I'm really grateful for you all who at least tried to help, but I have to tell a far amount of what has been suggested are either things I've already read, or exactly the things I told everyone in my last blog that was causing me to consider leaving. I must have been really really unclear, or my tastes must be really really alien...

I'd been sitting contemplating how to quit this site and fanfiction alltogether, whether I should write some kind of message or just remove my account and so on, when I saw a message about a faved fic updating. (Yeah, I still have them, they are just drowned out by all the junk) And since was, after all, neurotically hanging around, neither really wanting to leave nor wanting to stay, I clicked it and started to read.

And I got a really good laugh, and from Pinkie Pie of all ponies, who I rarely find that fun in a fanfic. So the crisis is over for now, thanks to Why am I Pinkie Pie? I assume the majority of you've already read it, but I include the link just in case someone hasn't. I owe the author that, at least.

Thanks, Hoopy McGee! You're one of the few good ones!

I'll do something different now. Probably play some rather retro games and drink a few beers. I'll tackle this tomorrow.

I'm considering going on a hiatus of undetermined length. It pains me, because this probably means Under The Northern Lights will never be done (though I could perhaps publish it on fanfiction.net or as a blog). That's how I function. But I'm getting more and more irritated at the fandom in general and fanfic in particular. If I go in here - and I have tended to do that a lot the last few months - I always get angry and sad.

I'm not complaining about the quality of the fics. Heavens, it's fanfic! Even more is bound to be crap than Sturgeon's usual number. No, it's the general tone of the place.

Everyone wants dark fics with an extra seasoning of sad and tragedy. Most such fics are only dark for the sake of dark, because of the childish idea that darkness is somehow automatically more "mature". It's the reverse in fanfics: dark fics seem less maturely written, like when you were 14 year old and were fascinated with the macabre. As someone who wasn't that fond of the genre in the first place but have found some really good professional dark work, that's depressing.

Everyone also wants fics that completely excuses and exonerates all the antagonists of the cartoon from absolutely everything they did, and from most of things they do in the fics themselves. No repentance, no showing that you can change. No actual exploration of why people do "bad" things - if they're not hahahaha evil its always Draco In Leather Pants, as the Potter fans say, rewriting the show so they're innocent.

In return, the writers do their best to write canon "good" characters as incompetent douchebags - sorry, "complex people with both good and bad sides", is their usual incorrect claim. Celestia is always the target of this. No fic which isn't a romance or clopfic with Twilight, and which has her actually in a main role, has her as anything else than a douchebag caricature up to and including a tyrant. She doesn't even have any positive sides in the 10000+ alternate universes where she's a villain from the start, unlike all the official antagonists in fanfic! No one ever portrays Nightmare Sun or whatever they will call her as a tragic victim of circumstances, which is the fanon portrayal of Nightmare Moon.

I mean, every single time I log on, several times a day, there is at least ONE fic among the new ones with something like "Twilight Sparkle discovers a dark secret of her beloved mentor..." or "Everyone thinks Celestia is a benevolent ruler - but IS SHE?!" And those fics will, at the first chapter, have twenty comments on how this is interesting and how they will follow this. Those guys reading them must get a stream of updates, seeing as how they follow one new such fic each day!

Let's not talk about the crossovers; hundreds of fics in which a "badass" from the latest shooter the author played (apparently the only media bronies partake of besides FIM) comes to Equestria. His talent for killing people is never questioned as a questionable thing (except by ponies clearly made out to be prejudiced and wrong, usually Celestia). It soon turns out it is neccessary for him to use it, to teach ponies about the importance of killing things. It's strange how pony society hasn't collapsed since it's surrounded by threats that need be countered by violence, while ponies haven't even an idea what "conflict" means. (This is not in any way supported by canon, but fanon for the show says so, which allows everyone who writes about pony war or crime to claim they are different and daring.) Much loving detail is spent on his weapons from the game.

Now, I'm a sane adult, and knows I don't have to read everything there is here. However, after sorting out all the darkfics, and all the crap that follows from this being, y'know, fanfic, there isn't much to read. I wonder if I belong in this fandom. See, this whiny rant is coming to something. I want suggestions on fics to read, to motivate me to not take a vacation from this place. Anything even remotely resembling what I'm talking about above is not interesting. I'm not interested in having my tastes changed, so if you send links to all the darkfics you love trying to explain why they are awesome will be wasting your time. I don't mind YOU reading and writing the stuff, I mind that there is little else. I'm a selfish prick, see.

So:

1, At least vaguely compentently written, of course.

2, Not in the slightest way "dark", especially in the ways described above. No crossovers with ultraviolent cynical worlds, no douchebag Celestia, no Applebloom being just as guilty as Diamond Tiara for the whole bullying situation.

3, Not romance/clop. I both write and read such fiction, but I want to be able to read this on my lunchbreak.

4, If humor, actually funny. No Pinkie breaking the fourth wall or doing outrageous things just because she is Pinkie, the most tired forms of brony "comedy".

5, Anything sent with the comment: "I know said no X, but this fic I wrote because of Y is totally different" automatically doesn't count. Such a comment is never true.

6, I haven't read it before. I realize that can be hard to know, but anything that's already a Favorite is obviously something I've read.

Note that I said in a comment on a fic recently that I don't like getting recommendations, so this goes against my whole personality. However, I'm getting desperate. I want to be convinced this is a place even for the minority of writers and readers whose main venue isn't darkfic.

I would like one of the few who read this column to suggest me at least one fic which fits the above criteria, that actually gives a warm and fuzzy feeling, that doesn't leave me angry and sad at the human condition like all the darkfics with 1500 upvotes and tons of praise do. Bonus point if its an action-adventure story, since most such has the Dark tag as well. Enough such recommendations would really cheer me up, see.

Note that I'm not asking for flattery about my work or character to stay or so. I'd prefer flattery for my work to be because it is good, not because I'm morose. As for my character, you don't know me from Adam and I'm actually a rather unpleasant man. I'm asking for proof that my gloomy view of this site is wrong and that there is light among the thick clouds.

Here are some things no one asked about this fic!

King Ukko is very much based on Max von Sydow's small role in the first Conan movie

Y'know, as the drunkard King Osric: "There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child."

Kvalhissir got his name from a tabletop RPG module

In Vikings, a campaign module for the third edition RuneQuest game set in a fantasy Scandinavia, one simple scenario has the player characters confronting a marauding monster. Which kind of monster is dependent on the kind of campaign the game master is running, from a draugr to a surviving mammoth to an actual frost giant - as in, the guys generally confronted by the god Thor, not mortals. Hence, the frost giant is only recommended for a very high powered game, or if you want all the PCs to die heroically. The giant is named Kvalhissir. He has basically no personality beyond "hates humans with good reason", but in his single quote we learn he speaks, as bronies would say it, like Trixie: "WOE TO THE DISTURBERS OF KVALHISSIR!"

Mr Moccus is named after a Celtic deity

"Moccus" is a Gaulish word for "hog" and the name for a Celtic god associated with pigs (or wild boars). There has been connotations between him and the god Mercury (of thieves, traders and travellers, among other things). Concerned citizens might notice that Mr Moccus claims he is much older than he looks like, and that he Talks Like A Pirate because when he learnt Equestrian, ponies spoke like that...

Speaking of winged pigs, Mr Moccus' species comes from an animated Swedish children's series

Matulda och Megasen was originally shown in 1967, but had a rerun in the early 70s when I was a wee foal. The main character, Matulda, had a pet that looked like a winged pig, if you squinted... ;) It was called a "megas" after "pegas", the Swedish word for "pegasus". Hans Arnold, one of the creators of the series, was an awesome artist. His two main venues where children's books... and horror, often with an erotic bent. (He was also the only Swiss-Swedish celebrity I've ever heard of.)

The Tarandrian Jay really is a bird of ill omen

Well, it's the Siberian Jay in the real world, of course, but it has that "black cat" connotations in local folklore. It's quite a gregarius little bird who searches out humans (hikers, hunters and reindeer ranchers tend to drop food).

As for things people possible care about... Chapter 42 is halfway done. As often, you have to write things to be able to write things you really like to write! In this case, I think I'm done with people talking about and reacting to last chapter... but there is still things to be done. One problem is that you really should show how this affected everypony with having it affecting their behaviour, which might take a chapter to show up or more. However, I have this feeling that unless I break "show not tell" and have, for instance, Luna loudly declare "I AM SO WORRIED!" people will think I'm not adressing the subject. :( Oh well.