Story Stuff and Nightmare Night

Happy Halloween / Nightmare Night everypony!

Got another large blog post, this one kinda ran away from me. There'll be 3 sections, each divided by some various piece of neat Nightmare Night inspired art. First one is more personal stuff, what I've been doing and bit of a high-light reel to stories I've read and added to my shelves over the last couple weeks. Second is a selection of creepy, Nightmare Night appropriate stories, and last is just me talking about various horror movies I like for this time of year.

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I hope that you all are able to have a good time of it, or at least as best you can. Here it's... very wet and dreary. Not a nice day out by any means.

At least I have been doing things. For those that read though my last blog, I mentioned my intent to try and finish off Actually, I'm Dead by Halloween. Well, we didn't get it finished, by we got half way there and it only took nearly 11K words, making that chapter the longest in the story so far.

It was certainly a neat chapter to write and it was fun to see the old Discord as opposed to the newer, more family-friendly Discord from the season finale. He was still pretty awesome there (loved his "They stole my waifu?!" moment). Trixie was also perfectly done in the finale, having fantastic chemistry with Starlight of course, getting in her little digs against Twilight, and bantering with Discord like a boss. Loved the episode for her alone! Certainly an unconventional way to end the season. Looking forward to Spring and what they do for Season 7.

In my last blog, when talking about what I had been doing since moving, one thing I did want to highlight were some of the stories I had been reading. Now that I had the time, I figured clear off some of my (multiple) To Be Read shelves. Well, maybe not clear so much as futilely attempt to de-clutter.

I have been meaning to discuss on here, for any who are curious, how I organize things. I have two public-facing shelves, Favourites and Enjoyed. Both contain really good stories that I've read and liked quite a bit that I think others should read as well. The difference is that Favourites highlights those that have really impressed me on some level (such as Gilda Versus Knitting by PotatoJoe for outstanding characterization and humour, The Iridescent Iron Rat by horizon for perfectly capturing the pulp tone of the Stainless Steel Rat series, or Foreigner by AugieDog which does worldbuilding and characters so damned good it makes me feel an utter hack), while the Enjoyed shelf is stories that I just think are really good but don't do anything above and beyond IMO.

Favourites got a pair added.
Banish! by Chuckfinley is just... absolutely nuts. It's a 10K action sequence that for the most part just does not stop. There are a couple breathers that are well spaced out, but overall it's unrelenting. It's absolutely awesome all the same, but wow does it just keep going. If anyone has seen Hardcore Henry, it's very much like that, but way better dialogue (though, alas, much less Sharlto Copley as the many faces of Jimmy). President Elizabeth Warren by way of Stephanie Paul's President from Iron Sky is a hoot, even if she's not there much. No idea when this is going to continue, but I really want it to! I need answers, damn it! I usually try and avoid adding unfinished stories to my Favourite list in case they remain that way, but this is one of those worthy exceptions.

Rise to the Bottom by CanRock is just an all around perfect character piece that I felt captured the mood and attitude of all those involved exactly. It's a wonderful story with a bunch of clever ideas, and it executes them great. It does rather open the Pandora's box of easy-to-make Alicorns, but that can be overlooked easily enough.

Enjoyed had a whole number of them added, but here are some highlights:
The Writing on the Wall by Horse Voice. The atmosphere here is great and it builds its mystery well. If you read the clues you can guess the final outcome, but for the scene where the characters understand what they've come across, and the reader realizes what it is as well (as they are able to fully understand it) is great. And the final image of Daring just really drives it home. This could have gone either way, but didn't quite do enough for me to tip it over into Favourite.

Trixie's Number by Fluxxdog. Perfectly executed humour. To say why beyond that would ruin the piece. Trixie vs Pinkie.

A Persimmon Spring by Chuckfinley. This captures tragedy and heartache very, very well. It won't beat you over the head with it, but you feel it at the end.

A Newspaper Solves Everypony's Problem by Justice3442. I really do want to see a Sunset-Returns-to-Equestria episode. Especially now that we have Starlight, just to have the compare and contrast in how they view their teacher-student relationships with Twilight. This, though, is Sunset dispensing some pony discipline via newspaper. Lots of good laughs.

I Can't Stop! by MerlosTheMad is another story that could have gone either way. I might read it again sometime soon (as it was unfinished for a long time) and revise my opinion. We'll see. Again, this one does wonderful odd-ball humour, and has a great rivalry between Trixie and Twilight that keeps going back and forth between petty and mature on both their parts.

The Invisible Hairless Ape by McPoodle was added because it re-told its tale well. Trixie worked nicely and the setup and execution were both well done.

I had also read McPoodle's Silver and Gold series. It's a series of interconnected stories starting with Javelin and going kind of all over the place. There are connecting elements to some that allow them to function as sequels, a few are more experimental or different in nature than those before, but they're good reads. While they didn't quite rank adding to the list here, I also haven't really forgotten about them, so take that as you will.

There's plenty more where those came from on the shelf, feel free to give it a look.

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In the nature of the season, here are my contributions, to any of my readers interested, of a selection of some of the horror stories I have found enjoyable over my time here. They are in no particular order besides what I remembered them in.

The Writing on the Wall by Horse Voice again again shows up here. Not scary in execution, just in the realization of what happened at the end.

Room To Grow by BlndDog. This just got a pair of new chapters. It tells the story of a griffon father and daughter venturing into a supposedly abandoned pony settlement. Very creepy read so far.

The Neighcronomicon by Scruffy. Twilight is sent a copy of the Neighcronomicon by a pen-pal of hers and reads it. Things go decidedly badly for her, so her and her friends have to find a solution. This deserves way, way more love than it currently has. Great action, great characters, twisty plot, dark imagery, this has it all.

A FLEet|ng LIght |n thE DArknEsS by Flashgen. Still one of my all time favourite stories period. In it, Ponyville is suddenly covered in darkness and cut off from the rest of Equestria. There are things in the darkness, waiting. This is still easily my favourite pony horror story, and does a phenomenal job of building atmosphere, tension, and dread. The sequel isn't quite as good, but is still excellent. Pay attention to the white space.

Rainbow Dash: Re-Animator by JawJoe. Twilight accidentally dies during an experiment Rainbow Dash is helping her with. Now, several months later, Sweetie Belle finds herself in a situation where she's forced to assist Dash in correcting her mistake. Highly underrated story, as the characters are extremely well written and go on a very engrossing arc.

Them Bones by A Hoof-ful of Dust. What happened to Diamond Tiara all those years ago that caused her to disappear? This is a story that implies more than it outright states. Wonderful work, as are all Dust's stories.

The Sunset Room by Foxy E. When Big Mac is injured in the woods, Applejack has to keep him quarantined until Twilight can come up with a solution. But it's hard to keep family so isolated.

Mine by bahatumay. A pony gets lost in a constantly shifting series of underground tunnels and struggles to get out.

The Cough by Ebon Mane. A plague has come to Ponyville and Twilight and the girls are in self-imposed quarantine in the library. The worry, though, is that one of them may... or may not... already be sick.

Seated by Daemon McRae. Cheerilee is tormented by unseen forces.

Forever Faithful by Konseiga. Twilight will always be Celestia's faithful student... no matter what happens to her or where she is.

Rainbownomicon by Void Chicken. Twilight discovers that Death isn't really that big a thing to overcome. Rainbow abuses this fact. Story is a comedy, and a good one. Figured ending this on a light note.

Source. The joke is that it's the same actress in both roles, Britt McKillip.

Trick R Treat. This is referenced in the picture above and is a movie that people should talk about far more. It's an anthology movie that weaves five different stories together on the night of Halloween. Some are predictable, some are not. Great atmosphere and tension, it's also the best example I've seen of a coherent anthology where all the stories are connected in some way. A must see.

Silver Bullet. How often do you get to see Gary Busey play the good guy, right? Decent werewolf effects, unconventional protagonist, overall good movie!

Night of the Creeps. A great blend of comedy and horror (erring on horror), it also perfectly blends horror movies from the 50s and the 80s. A highly underrated gem due to not being available on home video for ages. That has now been fixed and it's so worth it.

10 Cloverfield Lane. You wouldn't think John Goodman could be intimidating and creepy as hell. You'd be wrong. This is a movie I didn't have any real expectations going into, but it really earned its keep. You think it's going one way at several different points only for it to totally change direction. Great film if you haven't seen it.

Phantasm. A movie that involves a lot of dream logic and dream imagery. The Tall Man is a great creepy antagonist. The rest of the series is good, but the first is the best.

Cabin in the Woods. It's a movie that deconstructs horror movies while still being one. This is a great movie to show off Tropes and their (mis)use.

Evil Dead or Evil Dead II or Army of Darkness of course. It's Bruce Campbell, it's splatter-stick (the sequels more so), any one are classics for their own reasons.

Any of Vincent Price's films such as The Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Abominable Dr. Phibes and sequel and the truly great Theatre of Blood

Anyway, I think that's enough for now! Hope anyone who stuck with me to the end here is having a good time of the holiday. Best wishes to all!

Comments

[horizon]

1) Thank you for the recs! I'm going to have to mine some of these for my own reading.
2) Thanks for the name-drop as well! I had fun with the Rat and I'm glad it's been received so well.
3) You have an apparent copy-paste error in the first section since right after the Writing On The Wall link, you have a second link for The Writing On The Wall instead of some other author's story.

[nightwalker]

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Oops! Thanx for the heads up, I thought I caught that. It was supposed to be Trixie's Number by Fluxxdog.

As to Iron Rat, as I've said, it just captured those novels so absolutely perfectly, especially the first trilogy. I ended up going and rereading them after reading your story. The next closest would be Bradel's The Curious Incident of the (Robot) Dog in the Night-time. The Culture should not work as well alongside pastel colored ponies and magic, but my god, does it ever. I wish Banks were still alive as I would love to see his reaction to it.