//------------------------------// // 6. Steam Powered Tweezers // Story: Thoughtletts // by Georg //------------------------------// Thoughtletts 'HOWLY vargin! what is that?' exclaimed Mickey McSquizzle, with something like horrified amazement. — The Steam Man of the Prairies “Don’t worry, Twilight! I’ll save you!” (Three hours later) “Dear. The ATM won’t give me any more money. Can you bring me some Ones?” Augie Dog is coming out with another chapter in The Casebook of Currycombs, and somebody was wondering why the EqG tag appeared on it. Well, ask no more: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/350897/the-casebook-of-currycombs https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/817462/the-return-of-currycombs "It's quite obvious," stated Currycombs as she stood in the Faculty Parking Lot and gestured at the cryptic chalk marks that she had spent the last hour making. "Even a complete imbecile should be able to recognize the pattern." "I don't," said Vice Principal Luna. "What I see is one of our students who is determined to make the fender-bender of my sister's Celica into some sort of--" She cut off when Silver gently touched her on the sleeve and shook her head. "I think I'm starting to understand," said Principal Celestia. She nudged Silver Scalpel and pointed at where the young detective was prodding at the pavement with a plastic pair of tweezers under a huge magnifying glass. "Go ahead," she whispered. Silver Scalpel cleared her throat. "Why, Currycombs, you've laid out the crime perfectly. I'm sure Principal Celestia will send the police to inspect Red Robin's Jaguar at once and find the matching crumpled fender." "What?" Currycombs looked up from her close inspection of the pavement with a tiny fleck of chrome in her tweezers. "Why, Silver. Have you gone mad? This piece of chrome--" She placed the sparkling fleck into Celestia's outstretched hand "--is obviously from a pickup truck, weighted down to lower the point of impact. And as to the guilty party, that is plainly the teacher who borrowed Applejack's truck to take the old school piano home and restore it as a gift for her sister, and due to her inexperience with driving such a heavy load, managed to back into her own car and not even realize it." "I... um..." Celestia glanced back and forth across the parking lot while biting her bottom lip. "Oh. That would..." Admiral Biscuit on Livery Stables in Equestria https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/816925/worldbuilding-xi-liveries "Hm..." Rarity strolled back along the line of employees again, swishing her tail and giving them all a close examination. "There's just so many to choose from." "Lady!" Heavy Roller huffed in exasperation and stormed out of the office. "What did I tell you about this place? It's not some sort of house of ill repute, we just rent carts and haulers to move stuff!" "Keep out of this, boss." Singletree straightened his shoulders and flexed, making Rarity suck her breath in with a most unladylike sound. "We're fine." "And very moving," added Rarity. A flash from the past, from the inestimable Estee https://www.fimfiction.net/story/358980/why-do-all-our-new-adversaries-rhyme-with-each-other "Behold your doom, for I am Freudian Slip!" Twilight Sparkle sighed and rested a hoof against her forehead. "I'm sorry. That's pathetic. I'm going to have to ass you to leav--" "Ah, HA!" crowed the stallion moments before the Beam of Rainbow Magic blotted him from existence. "Don't say it," warned Applejack, holding a hoof over Pinkie Pie's mouth. "What?" asked Rainbow Dash, hovering so the flecks of combusted stallion would not get into her mane. "That he made an ash out of himself?" Irrespective comments on the Beanverse and the possibility of little beans in the future https://www.fimfiction.net/group/213750/prince-beanverse/thread/364205/bean-futures "No, of course not," said Twilight, who was drawn up into a slightly hunched position by the crystal table covered in tea things. "Can't happen. After all, in order to have... those, Princess Celestia and Prince Bean would have to--" Twilight hunched over a little more and quietly tapped her forehooves together. "And that's impossible," she added. Luna quietly took another sip of her tea and picked up a second biscuit, timing her response until Twilight took an anxious gulp of tea too. "Obviously, you do not have a bedroom near theirs, Twilight Sparkle." Twilight sprayed tea all over the table. Estee has a turn signal stollen. Just the one part. Georg has to comment on it https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/816114/they-could-have-at-least-stolen-the-whole-car "So what's the problem you wanted me to look at, Rarity?" Twilight Sparkle took a long look at the dress sitting on the ponyquin, then at the frazzled fashion diva, but did not see anything out of the ordinary except for Rarity's befuddled expression. "Here, Twilight." Rarity moved a bit of lace to one side and pointed. "One of the shoulder pads is missing. No, one of the shoulder pads has been stolen!" "Stolen? In Ponyville? Most ponies here don't even have locks for their doors." Twilight peered closer at the dress, taking in the snipped threads and the slight gap where a slim piece of foam obviously had once rested, then she looked back at Rarity with what she was thinking was a fair match for the same befuddled expression. "It looks like the shoulder pad is missing. And from the broken threads, it was carefully cut out. Any idea why?" "That's what I hoped you could help me with, Twilight. You see, the town had a large number of tourists this morning from the train tour, and I was helping out at the castle, showing ponies around at the time of the crime. Maybe one of them stole it for some extra spending money." Twilight looked down at the workbench where a hooffull of diamonds and sapphires were in the process of being sewn into another outfit, then back up at the dress that was missing a two-bit piece of foam. "I... don't think that's the reason. Maybe Estee is writing another story." https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/816563/advice-is-live From kudzuhaiku’s story on Princess Celestia’s Adventurous Advice I read that as Princess Celestia's Amorous Advice and immediately thought, "Oh, yeah. Romance advice from somepony whose last date was in the Cretaceous era." "The first thing you must realize, Smirk, is that the average stallion has very limited emotional responses." Smirk nodded. "I noticed. They're oblivious." Celestia produced a club from behind the throne and blew some dust from it. "That's why I invented this. I call it the Romance Club." "The... Romance Club?" Smirk looked from the iron-bound chunk of oak up to the eager face of Princess Celestia and back to the club. "How does it... work?" "Well, first you find a nice, strapping young stallion with good teeth, broad shoulders, and high stamina. Like Sergeant Hardhooves here." "Wha--" There was a ringing noise as the Romance Club did its job, and the Royal Guard dropped like a sack of potatoes. "If they have a helmet, you need to hit them a little harder," explained Celestia as Hardhooves' dented helmet rolled down the red carpet, past the other stunned guards. "Then you drag your mate here off to a secluded location, like a cave or a hollow tree, and tie him up with vines so he doesn't get away. Then once he wakes up, you begin the training. Use small slices of fruit at first to encourage good behavior like not screaming and running away, then progress to crudely cooked breads topped with crushed fruit. Although in these modern days, you could probably just get a box of donuts," she added with a thoughtful expression. Something triggered by the blog posting: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/50/the-writers-group/thread/362021/story-concept-for-struggling-authors "Spike!" Twilight Sparkle's voice echoed around the library tree, making the dragon in question consider pulling the pillow over his head. Instead, he knew the call would only continue until answered, so he did. "What is it Twilight?! I just got to bed!" "I need help figuring out these last few points!" Twilight's voice was frazzled, just a fraction away from a complete panic fit that would have kept Spike up all night, so he sighed, got out of his bed, and walked into the library office where Twilight Sparkle was working on the paperwork for her new level. He climbed up into the second chair, looked over the forms with all of the dots carefully filled in #2 pencil, and mentally added up the experience points she had left to spend. "Looks fine to me, Twilight. Pegged most of your points into Intelligence, Intuition, Research, and Esoteric Magic like last level. And you put another dot into Social Skills like I suggested. Not bad at all." "That's it, Spike." Twilight showed her scratch sheet she had used for calculating point values. "I've maxed out the points I can put into Intelligence as a unicorn. And power, and control." "Huh." Spike opened the book and checked one of the tables. "How about one of the exotic skills. As a unicorn of your level, you can pick out of the really weird stuff. Like Portal Generation here." "Too much trouble," said Twilight with a huff of breath as she dropped her chin down on the incomplete sheet. "Portals can go anywhere, and you never know what will come out of them. Even Starswirl never got to use the points he put in that more than once or twice. Turned it into a garbage disposal, I think. Besides, I don't have enough leftover points for that." "Well, you have to buy something with your leftover points, or they're lost." He eyed the sheet and began scanning down the book's point costs. "Seems an odd number. Maybe we can find one that matches. Ah, here we go. Exotic Theories. They're strictly context-driven and plot-specific, so it's a cheap buy. One dot will just finish up your last points and you can send it. There," he added while scribbling a dot on the sheet. One puff of dragonfire later, Spike hopped off the chair and headed back for bed while the letter headed for Canterlot. "Thanks, Spike." Twilight gave off a wide yawn, then closed her mouth and looked closer at the fuzzy carbon copy of her form. "Hey, Spike! The carbon paper shifted when you were filling it out, so I can't tell. Did you put a dot in Exotic Theories or Exotic Transformations?" "What difference does it make? You're never going to use either of them." It was less of a question than it seemed, because Spike had already vanished under his covers and had no interest in whatever answer was forthcoming. "It's just that Exotic Transformations has a chance..." Twilight read down the paragraph in the rule book, then sat it to one side and headed for bed also. It was only a small chance after all, and besides. She would be able to put more points into Intelligence if she turned into an Alicorn someday. From nyxOs and a delightful little story https://www.fimfiction.net/story/408766/luna-vs-a-vending-machine "Twilight?" Twilight Sparkle opened one sleepy eye and looked at Spike, who was standing out on the starlit balcony of her castle bedroom. "Go to bed, Spike. It's the middle of the night." "I think this is important." The little dragon vanished into the darkness of the bedroom, emerging with a quill and sheet of parchment. "In fact, I'm pretty sure you want to see this." Giving a grunt, the Princess of Friendship dragged herself to the edge of the balcony and looked up where Spike was pointing. After a certain period of soundless contemplation, she blinked, then pinched herself on one foreleg. "Spike," she said in a low voice. "I need you to take a letter." "Dear Princess Celestia," said Spike, starting to write. "Dear Princess Celestia," said Twilight, still looking up into the night sky. "I don't remember any prophecy about a vending machine getting banished to the moon." https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/805259/another-interesting-fanfic-article by Tumbleweed pointed me to https://www.tor.com/2018/04/09/the-bodies-of-the-girls-who-made-me-fanfic-and-the-modern-world/ What you said times infinity. I've been working on The Great Swords and Sorcery Novel for most of the last thirty years (yes, that dates me). Then about six years ago, I stumbled into the *oddest* fanfiction that a middle-aged male could possibly write. Yep, MLP. A year later, I had a half-dozen stories up, and a staggering amount of reality slapped in my face about my poor writing skills. Another year of hard-fought study and improvement later, I had progressed to the point where my editors no longer fled screaming from my every run-on sentence and bizarre sentence construction. So I wrote on the most improbable topic that I could find: MLP romance stories. Oddly enough (and even odder for people who know me as a complete introvert), I was fairly successful, and my skills grew to the point where I'm in the top 100 writers on the site. Yeah, it shocked me too. Since then, I've written over a million words of fanfic, from a Bolo crossover to a story about a young character who plans on drifting down the river on a raft until he finds his destiny (sound familiar), and even my critics say I'm getting better. I'm *still* not quite to the point where I'm ready to quit my job and write for a living (because I don't want to live under a bridge, most probably), but soon. Very soon. Or maybe I'll just keep writing fanfic. It's been a blast so far and shows no sign of stopping. On a thread in the Writers Group https://www.fimfiction.net/group/50/the-writers-group/thread/356939/is-there-a-good-process-for-handling-stories-with-paradox-duplicates "Hey, wait a minute," said Twilight Sparkle. She pointed across the school laboratory at where Pinkie Pie was inflating balloons with the water faucet. "You can't be here. I saw you go into the portal to go visit your alternate dimensional duplicate on a trip out to the rock farm." "I did?" Pinkie Pie blinked several times, then popped like a balloon in a shower of confetti, leaving the rest of the class to stare in horror. Well, all except Applejack, who continued to get out beakers for the science lesson. "Dagnabit, Twi. Couldn't you have waited until after class?" From Carabas and the story The Wedding March https://www.fimfiction.net/story/299424/wedding-march Post-Wedding Royal Correspondence (From the Royal Historian, not for distribution) (From the Royal Vintier) TO: Their Royal Highnesses Someone seems to have gotten into the secure storage vault of your personal cellar and absconded with the contents of every bottle of the priceless Chatau Pantalon '07 vintage. The only clue we have found to the criminals are a number of smaller foal-sized hoofprints and some griffon clawmarks, along with what we think might have been a note of some sort, if it had been written before the bottles had been consumed. With the number of diplomats in the vicinity of late, we hesitate to bring this to the attention of the guard for fear of causing some sort of incident. At the present, we are discounting it as changeling mischief, but as always we leave the ultimate disposition of this incident to your discretion. — Dry Cork (From the diplomatic corps) TO: Her Highnesses, either of you really at this point. We have just received a diplomatic message from the Viceroy of Saddle Arabia about the possibility of importing Equestrian phoenix into their country for the purposes of, and I quote, "improving the hybrid vigor of the native pyrefalcon population." How in the heavens did Simoon get this idea! We consulted a biologist from your school who not only said such a hybridization was impossible, but that anypony who would think of such a thing was stark raving mad. Please, find some way to discourage the Viceroy in this matter before the worst of dooms occurs, and I’m not exaggerating. — Kind Words, Dept. of the Royal Diplomatic Corps P.S. Has anypony seen your pet phoenix since the Saddle Arabian delegation returned home? (From the desk of Princess Celestia) TO: The Royal Household Regiment, Day and Night divisions Please locate Philomena at once. Do not disturb or attempt to catch her, just report her whereabouts. — Celestia (From the accounting office) TO: Princess Celestia Why do we have two official letters from Arch-Minister Burro that read, and I quote, “Celestia, IOU One Door” and “Cadence, IOU One Wedding Present sacrificed in the line of duty” (From the accounting office) TO: Princess Celestia Never mind. I just got a look at the front door to the castle. Or what’s left of it. (From the diplomatic corps, without comment) To the nice princess in ponyland My uncle the Lord Regent has given me permission to have my friends at my birthday party next week and since I made friends with some of your ponies I wanted to see if you could send them here and bring them back with a guard to protect them because sometimes outsiders say things that are not taken well and having a guard around to discorage such stomping and trumpeting would be best and I am including a list. Spike Apple Bloom Scooterlou Sweet Bell Sir Wall for the guard type because he is really brave even though he says he is not Sincere lee Shahanshah-in-Waiting Sailears the Second of Ancient and Glorious Pachydermia and all surrounding lands P.S. they should not bring gifts because that would make my uncle upset for some reason and I will have a bowl of the gems that Spike likes. And apples. (a private message, slipped into Princess Celestia’s tea cart) Your Highness, I hate to impose, but I have recently stumbled upon a situation that I am ill-prepared to face. Could you please do me the favor of arranging an appointment with Princess Cadence upon her return? I would be deeply more deeply in your debt. —Alloy (a private message, slipped under the Royal Bedroom door) Princess Celestia. I have taken a largest step since I came here and now I am afraid to make any more steps without close advice from somepony who knows a lot about this. Other than Goldtorc. Can you arrange a meeting with Princess Cadence after their honey moon is over please? Tundra (From the official files, tagged ARMAGEDDON) TO: Princess Celestia FROM: The Royal Garden Staff, Greenskeeper Greenhooves Ma’am, your phoenix has taken over one of the nesting boxes out in the garden and won’t let nopony look inside. I woudln’t have written you, except this ain’t really the way she normally behaves, and the nesting box has been on fire for the last week. The eggs is real pretty, though. Four little ones, all gold and red. (The Four Hatchlings of the Apocoltypse, named War, War, More War, and Even More War)