Here we go then with the last FF150 to require all content to be G4. Whether it's the last ever will depend on how successful the move to G4 or G5 being allowed proves to be. I don't actually have much else to say in my intro today, so I might as well go straight on to the rules. And indeed...

Here are the full rules.
Please use this word counter.

You'll note that Rule 6 still explicitly disallows any G5 (and indeed other non-G4) content. This rule will change to allow G5 content from the January 2023 contest onwards. That means this month's is G4-only still. As always, comments are welcome in the relevant thread.

Remember, there is no prize, as such, for this contest -- but if you win, you will be able to choose the prompt for the next contest. You'll also get a mention on the group's front page. You will not get a house, a very big house in the country. Well, unless you've already got one, in which case there's not going to be much I can do about it. Onward!

Prompt: "A Terrible Day to Have Eyes" (selected by EileenSaysHi)
Rating: E or T
Word limit: 150
Closing date: Wednesday 21st December 2022, 11:59 pm UK time (world clock)

Please reply to this post with your entry. This makes it easier for me to keep track. Please do not leave feedback until after the closing date.

Entries are now open! Have fun!

7772828

"I'm sorry for making you sneak into my room. My sister Rarity gets her tail in a knot every time I bring home a stray puppy."

"Not puppy, Tentacle pony!"

"Trust me, that fact wouldn't make this sleepover easier. Speaking of easier, wouldn't it be easier if you moved on your bunk, I bet it's a strain on your tentacles to hover above me like that.”

"Wouldn't be sleep over if no sleep over you. Tentacle ponies always sleep over.”

“You staring into my soul from just a hoof-lenght away is also creeping me out…"

“Keeps creeps out by sleeping with eyes opened. Night!" Her tentacles relaxed and big eyes moved even closer.

"Tenty... I can't even close my eyes if you stare at me like this. Tenty?" Sweetie Belle yelped and pulled the covers up to her muzzle as if that could prepare her for a long night ahead.

150 words exactly.

Edit: 28 - My Tentacle Pony Friend

7772828

"Born to witness eternal darkness, just once, I wish I could..." the sightless unicorn stares off, confused and shaken, "...something's there."

"Where?"

"There! There! Down the corridor!"

Tempest turns, unable to find the corridor he points at.

"It's... so majestic," he staggers to his hooves, somehow ignoring the pain from his lethal wound. Tempest steps aside as he begins to limp forward, "radiating such purity."

Shifting her gaze between him and his direction, Tempest isn't seeing what this blind pony is attempting to approach.

"For so long, could this... no... it must be! Such benevolence can only belong t-"

He catches himself as he coughs uncontrollably, painting his lips of the blood from his throat, "STOP PUSHING YOURSELF!!"

He stretches out, reaching for it, "This... this is..." his foreleg quivers, finding it difficult to lift, "...light..." air seeps out through his open mouth as he collapses on his side, motionless.

7772828

“Over the hills, around the globe, where will I stop, nobody knows!” Pinkie giggled as she spun the model solar system around.

“Careful!” Twilight cautioned as she rushed over to steady the display, “Celestia trusted this with me, I don’t want to break it!”

“It wont be very useful if you don’t do anything with it,” Pinkie moved the moon in-between the sun and the globe, “Look! I made an eclipse!”

Twilight sighed in resignation, “Alright Pinkie, but just be careful when using it, w—“

“My eyes!!!” A scream echoed from outside as others joined it in wails of agony.

Twilight and Pinkie rushed to the door without hesitation, only to pause as they saw the town shrouded in darkness, a glance up revealing an eclipse that left them reeling.

They could only sit in shock as Pinkie set sunglasses on their faces.

“…Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

7772828

First Impressions

Walk the beat and show 'em the ropes. Just a few circles around the edge of Canterlot. Nothing complex, foals stuff really. The worst they'd ever dealt with was an errant mugger a few months back. He'd actually thanked the stunned Pegasus after they'd dragged her from the five-pony pile-on, energetic wasn't the word when it came to new recruits.

This though...

"You ok kid?" Damascene Steel whispered, slowly approaching the shivering youth.

"W-what did it?" he glanced nervously at the crimson-stained tarp before remembering himself, "I mean, what did it Sergeant!"

"You can speak freely Shining Armour, don't worry."

The skinny colt deflated, parade ground presence shedding to reveal a frightened teen. A teen who was quickly learning that the guard wasn't all spit shines and cake deliveries.

"As for your question? I'd rather wait for a forensics mage myself...but looking at the claw marks? Diamond Dog."

7772828 I looked at this prompt and pondered on how to work with it. In the end I took an idea from the book on how to solve the 'Lintilla' problem and re-spelled it. Eyes is now E.I.S.

Alarm bells ring!

Orders screamed!

Armoured hooves pound through corridors!

Shining Armor stumbles from his ready room into the palace guards control centre.

Empty! Save for one very nondescript grey stallion.

“Who the hay are you? SARGENT!”

“Agent Mulberry, I must brief you Captain.”

An armoured pony charges in, eyes wild. “Sir! Reports from Ponyville! It’s the princess sir. She’s……. Disappeared!"

Shining Armor fights the panic that grips him. “Get the Pegasus SAR squadrons launched! Recall all off duty guards!”

“Sir!”

A quiet, but commanding voice. “Attend to me, Captain.”

“Not now!"

An exit blocked, an identity card shown.

“Eyes?! What the hay does the Equestria Intelligence Service want with me. I have something of a national emergency on my hooves!”

“To brief you on your sisters activities in Ponyville….”

“My sister? What’s she done now?”

“She is co-ordinating the release of Princess Luna.”

“Who?”

“The sister of Princess Celestia.”

A Terrible Day to Have Eyes

It sure is: everyone's putting up Christmas decorations.

7772828

Rating: T [Gore]

"So Much Winning"

by Mockingbirb

"Ha!" Arnie pounded a fist on the table. "I beat you at chess! Now you can't take me, Death! You have to let me live! Put me back in my body!"

The robed skeleton pointed across the room, at an industrial scale meat grinder. A pair of human legs protruded from the top.

Pushed up against the grinder, a forklift held a detached, impaled human head. Arnie recognized his own face.

"Ha! I won the bet with Lars too! It IS possible to lift yourself with a forklift while you're driving it!"

Death nodded.

"Ok, so my body looks pretty bad. But there has to be a way to fix me! So people can stand the sight of me."

Death shrugged. A telephone directory appeared on the table, already open to "Taxidermists."

Arnie sighed. "Isn't there another way?"

Arnie woke up as a small, stinky green filly...in Equestria, of course.

7772828
I have to reserve the right to make at least small (but possibly significant or even crucial) edits until contest deadline, btw.

7773340
No problem. That's always been allowed.

7773962

Thanks!

The main reason I mentioned it is so if someone reads the story BEFORE those edits, I've warned them they might not have seen the 'final' version.

7774003
Too late! I read in sequence of posts! It's impossible for me to read with fresh eyes!

7774072
My story is very meta indeed!

7772828

“There she is!” cried a unicorn cop.

Trixie felt a ten-ton weight falling upon her. It was nothing by telekinesis really, but it sprawled her on the ground and took away her breath nonetheless.

“Don’t move! Hooves away from the bags!”

Trixie couldn't move even if she wanted to disobey. Before she realized to use her own telekinesis, another cop was already searching her saddlebags.

“Well, well,” said the cop gleefully. “What do we have here? Eyes! That’s very ba-a-ad…”

“I never understood why one would mess with eyes,” asked another cop from an organ smuggler raid. “Especially with how harsh punishment for them is.”

“Eyes can have very peculiar magical properties, rookie. Reveal illusions or notice important details. Even see into the future. They are in very high demand.”

Trixie hit the wall in the police truck she was thrown in.

“Why? Why had it to be this day?!”

Word count: 150

7774377
I see Trixie is sidelining her buisness affairs to the Naruto Universe...

7774446
Honestly, I didn't watched Naruto. Do they have such rampant organ trafficking there?

7774722
There's a LOT of eye based powers and macguffins, so villains will on occasion steal them.

7772828

Melodramatic

“The horror! The horror!” Daisy exclaimed, falling to the ground.

“It’s just a darn fogged window!” Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Do you always have to be so dramatic?”

The flower ponies remained laying on the ground as Apple Bloom left them alone.

“It’s getting annoying,” Rose muttered.

“I agree,” Daisy sighed. “How many times are remaining?”

“I think about five,” Lily replied. “Let’s do ten just to be safe.”

“Alright, then let’s go around and be in fear!”

---

As they walked through the town, they came across Pinkie, who had offered them free samples of her new cookie recipe.

It was the best cookies they had ever tasted, so much so that they forgot the time and praised them non stop.

They realised their mistake when the whole town was shaking and the ground was ripped apart in two, releasing a being they wished to have never seen again.

7772828
Man, last month's prompt just did nothing for me, and I struggled with this one as well, then decided to settle for an obvious interpretation, one I'm surprised someone else hasn't thought of already. I've always loved that the show gave us this somewhat subtle context. As usual, 150 words even, just because. And for some reason, I find myself writing a lot of first-person present tense in the last few years.

Change of Plans

I used to win races.

I could never turn as tightly as Rainbow Dash, though, and last year I really tried, but crashed into the racecourse’s final gate. Since then, I’d see every gate twice, wouldn’t know which to aim for, and penalties for nicking one with a hoof or wing add up fast. I never won again.

On the wall, Mommy hung up the invitation I got to Wonderbolts Camp. They’re only sent to winners, but we couldn’t afford it, so Mommy saved up and said next year…

But it is next year, I’m not a winner, and I can’t fly like that now. If only I could steer by sound, like a batpony.

My door opens. “Derpy, almost time for you to job-shadow our mailpony for your school project,” Mom says. She smiles. “The mail needs dedicated flyers, too.”

I bet I could deliver it faster than anypony.

7772828
A Terrible Day to Have Ice Ayes Eyes

The dashing Storm King was also a terror. Thousands lamed after an exhausted aide's frown. Hundreds deafened after a sour-faced butler caused a headache.

"Aye, aye!" A cacophony of crewbeasts saluted.

Felled by ice cream headaches, he moaned from his airship cot.

Time to do my job: making everything perfect--service with a smile! "Should I punish 'em?"

"No more ayes," he moaned. "Will no one rid me of those myopic eyes?" He grinned. I smiled back. His eyes closed, confident in my toothy support.

Punishment was set.

We dined on too-loud "ayer's'" eyes.

I taste terrors in my dreams.

Embarrassingly, he had instead intended punishment of "moronic ayes."

The spoiled crew was marooned. I lived.

"Pointless cruelty Grubber," he sighed. "But crew are cheap. Jocular assistants, less so." A shrug. "If one cannot grin while dominating the world, why live?"

I simpered. Dimple surgery over aural had been well-worth it.

Just under three days to go, folks!

7772828

You'll also get a mention on the group's front page. You will not get a house, a very big house in the country. Well, unless you've already got one, in which case there's not going to be much I can do about it.

Fair enough; I can roll with it! :P

This is one of those prompts where the reponse came to me surprisingly easily; so easily, in fact, that I wound up having to take about 100 words off my first draft. I'm fairly certain some meat's been lost alongside the trimmed fat, but hopefully the cuts haven't made the end product too barebones.

Behold, a spurious headcanon proof-of-concept that almost assuredly collapses under the slightest bit of post-Season 4 scrutinization!

"'This isn't your real form'?" Fluttershy repeated, curious.

"Nope!" Discord gestured at his mismatched body. "This is just the closest I can get without melting everypony's brains. Spreading chaos isn't as fun when its recipients immediately go catatonic."

"Can I see?"

Discord spat out tea he hadn't sipped yet. "What? Did you miss the 'melting brains' bit!?"

"Pleeeease?"

"Fiiiiiine. But we'll have to…" Discord shivered. "'Play it safe.' Ugh."

---

Fifteen minutes later, Discord and Fluttershy, the latter wearing cardboard 3D glasses, occupied opposite ends of a funhouse's worth of relaying mirrors, plus a Chaosville portal with the "SLENDERMANE SIGHTING!!! NOT FAKE!!!" filter applied.

"Ready?" Discord shouted.

"Ready!" Fluttershy replied.

"Okay… In three, two, one…"

Snap!

---

Returning to 'normal', Discord teleported beside Fluttershy. "Thank chaos, you're still conscious. Soooo… thoughts on my 'final form'?"

Fluttershy smiled wholeheartedly. "I regret every decision I've made in the past fifteen minutes."

"Good."

*I was going to pick something along the lines of "Biblically Accurate Draconequus" until I realized how cringeworthy that sounded. I'm open to suggestions!

7780303

I'm open to suggestions!

Chaos True Form?

7772828
I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that November's prompt was pretty difficult to think about in terms of what story to write. Honestly, it took me an hour to construct a concept, but this month... not a clue. My thoughts began to direct me towards writing on the irony I was seeing in everything, but I felt like it wouldn't translate as something lighthearted, so I resorted to using a planned segment for a story of mine because it seemed to follow the theme for December's prompt (even though I disliked the idea as it gave away a portion of the ending and that context would likely be needed in order to enjoy it).

However... after many days of braindead labor, a concept idea struct. I written it out and would like to make this my official entry for this month.

I'll leave the prior entry up as a bonus for this month (getting some feedback for a segment for what's intended to be the ending could be beneficial).

Gazing at the boy from afar, she's too compelled to turn away from his visage. The decorative lights that shine through the falling snow cast a dazzling field over him she never thought possible. The way his face shines as he laughs with his friends tugs her to move closer, but she can't find any feeling in her legs to get her to approach. She begins to lose herself in those enticing eyes of his, easing her mind amongst the stars that twinkle within them. Grandeur thoughts of the times they could have together fuel the drumming of her heart, beating ever faster, ever louder at pressuring her into-

"Are you okay, Rainbow Dash?" a concerned Fluttershy asks, "Your face is turning red."

Frazzled, Rainbow Dash breaks contact, "J-just cold, that's all." Pulling her scarf over her cheeks, she fights to keep her eyes from returning back towards Zephyr Breeze.

Easy Bed Cuties~

Fluttershy touched down first. "I'll go in first. Seabreeze said they might they might need a warning."

Twilight nodded happily.

Fluttershy knocked. "Uhm... hello? Hello?" She peaked in through the peephole, then recoiled. Fluttershy opened the door, put her head through and... She saw Tiny bodies, bouncing, pulling and apart together in rythnmic, violent, interplay. Their Tiny Eyes bulging in pleasure. Their tiny clothes littered the floor.

"Oh Twilight... I'm not sure this is right for scientific inquiry." Fluttershy said at the doorway.

"Oh I'm sure it's fine,"

Masses. Twilight stared at the masses of breezies, moving in sticky, pulsating clumps. There were so many individuals.

"It seems..." Twilight grimaced. "Sticky."

Flutteryshy squeaked, "I'm sorry Twilight! I didn't know they'd be doing this!"

"Uhm. Yeah." Twilight blinked, trying to wipe all the convulsing bodies out of her eyes. "I'm glad we didn't bring Spike."

7772841 7772985 7773023 7773041 7773195 7773324 7774377 7778121 7779539 7779558 7780303 7780420 7780986

Okay, everyone, your time is up! Thank you for the very pleasing number of entries this month!

Usual procedure now: I'll take a few days to consider things (probably more like a week, given Hearth's Warming) and then post the winner here.

Feedback is open!

7772841
7773324
7780986
Hi. Can you explain the promt in your stories?

7781681 My story is actually a treasure-trove of the prompt.

My Big-eyed Tentacle Pony Friend

See, it's right there at the title, and I haven't even told a word of my story. The eyes are foreshadowing the things to come. It's a terrible day to have eyes in the title.

"I'm sorry for making you sneak into my room. My sister Rarity gets her tail in a knot every time I bring home a stray puppy."

You know what Rarity represents? Eyes. Rarity is the eyes in the house and it's a terrible day to have eyes because it makes the sleepover dificult.

"Not puppy, Tentacle pony!"

You know, somepony with no eyes might be glad to not have eyes this day. The thought of puppies is a nice one. But all it takes is having eyes and nice thoughts are shattered by what is observed.

“You staring into my soul from just a hoof-lenght away is also creeping me out…"

A terrible day to have eyes indeed.

“Keeps creeps out by sleeping with eyes opened. Night!"

Eyes!

Her tentacles relaxed and big eyes moved even closer.

Eyes!

"Tenty... I can't even close my eyes if you stare at me like this. Tenty?"

It's at this point that Sweetie Belle thinks this is a terrible day to have eyes. If Sweetie Belle didn't have eyes, she could get some sleep this night. A terrible day to have eyes, indeed.

Even AI got it when I told it my story.

It sounds like a unique and potentially uncomfortable situation for Sweetie Belle, being forced to have a sleepover with a tentacle pony who insists on sleeping with its eyes open.

7780303

*I was going to pick something along the lines of "Biblically Accurate Draconequus" until I realized how cringeworthy that sounded. I'm open to suggestions!

I am curious what you think a "Biblically Accurate Draconequus" would look like. I assume it isn't one of the standard angel types?

7782217
I think I was pulling the "too indescribably horrifying for words" cop-out card during the actual writing process, but just off the top of my head, I reckon it'd probably be some sort of jumbled, stereotypically quasi-Lovecraftian assortment. I could probably come up with something more substantial with more words and time, though, so don't take that short description as gospel (pun unintended).

7781690

If Sweetie Belle didn't have eyes, she could get some sleep this night.

Somehow, I doubt it.

7772985
Yeah, watching at the sun even during eclipse can be hazardous.
7773023
Looks like Diamond Dogs are pretty ferocious in your canon.
7773041
Finally, some creative interpretation of the prompt! And connected right to the very first episode.
7778121
Not really sure, what's happened here. Were Dasy, Rose and Lily supposed to do something to prevent the last part but were distracted by Pinkie?
7779539
If you see double, you can always shut one eye. Just saying.
7779558
So, Grubber is a part of another crew that was marooned for their "moronic ayes"?
7780303
Yeah, this kind of stories is what I imagined the prompt will be used for.
7780420
And they say that love is blind...

7783919 What is that show? I need to watch it!

7783919
They act so overdramatic and do their "The horror, the horror!" as seen in Slice of Life on purpose to contain the thing coming out in the last part. They need to do it at least a certain number of times per day, but got distracted before they fulfilled the amount

7783937
Squid Girl (scene in question is in the episode 4)

I'm surprised you've never heard of it. It's pretty popular and even had collab with Splatoon.

7772841 7772985 7773023 7773041 7773195 7773324 7774377 7778121 7779539 7779558 7780303 7780420 7780986

All right then, results time! Thank you (possibly) for making my job so difficult this month. I'm going to confine myself to two honourable mentions as well as the winner, but there could have been more. Thank you to everyone who entered!

Hon mensh 1: Somerset Cider -- I enjoyed the slightly sideways interpretation of the prompt, and I really liked the ending as well.
Hon mensh 2: TheAncientPolitzanian -- I was a bit surprised Discord was so little used this month, but your entry hit the spot. That "Good" at the end made it.
Winner: Pascoite -- I don't know whether this was a deliberate "Write to the judge's tastes" entry, but either way it hit the bullseye. Racing, Derpy, canon detail, bittersweetness. I adored this.

Congratulations, Pascoite! You know how it goes, so please supply a prompt for January's contest. This will be the first one open to both G4 and G5 content, so the prompt should not outright exclude either generation. Beyond that, it's the same setup as usual.

Feedback is still open if anyone would like to continue with that.

7784033

the prompt should not outright exclude either generation

Aw, heading off the joke prompt of "G4 Only" I was going to try.

It was serendipitous that I hit your sweet spot so squarely. Maybe we should go with a prompt of "Bittersweet canon tie-ins of racing Derpy." You'd have a lot of fun reading, but that pesky "no excluding G5" rule...

I like to do prompts that are more than just a phrase to write to, but some people don't like that, so I'll make it a choice. The prompt is "Second Chances," in honor of Derpy having a second chance. Method one: use that phrase as the prompt. Method two: take any of the prompts from 2022 and write to that one. If you entered, you have a second chance to win with it. If you didn't enter, you have a second chance to use that prompt. However, a previous prompt is off-limits to you if you won that event (you don't need a second chance) or you came up with the prompt (preserving Loganberry's rule that you can write to your own prompt, but your entry will be ineligible). If you go this route, make sure to say which prompt you used.

7783919
I would wager someone with Derpy's racing experience would have thought of that already, but the loss of situational awareness of where the next gate is and where your opponents are due to cutting your field of view almost in half ends up being even more of an impediment. Just saying.

7772841
Interesting setup. I would have liked to see a payoff. You don't have the space to show an aftermath, characterize the tentacle pony, and show how they even met, but I'd suggest picking one of those to focus on to give it a real punch. For all that she's a menacing form, tentacle pony doesn't seem menacing, and I like her.

7772985
I like the idea that this orrery drives things and Twilight didn't know that. I do wonder why an eclipse would have that effect. Why would things getting darker hurt everyone's eyes? Of course Pinkie has emergency shades.

7773023
I couldn't decipher that much of the first paragraph, but that ends up not being important. Nicely stark look at a young Shining Armor, and flash fiction is all about having these kind of vivid depictions that stick with you.

7773041
It took me a second read-through to get this fully, but it's also a nice expansion from canon, that there were forces other than Celestia herself privy to what was happening and engineering the outcome. This was pretty cool.

7773324
Hmmmm. I do appreciate that it's a different take on the stale old "die and you get to go to Equestria" trope, even that this guy may not have any awareness of Equestria. By necessity, it doesn't feel like a pony story until the end, which can put a speed bump in reading it, but I enjoyed the dark comedy.

7774377
The writing's good here. Though that "organ smuggler" phrase feels wedged in as really obvious exposition. There was probably a better way to get that across. I was enjoying it a lot, but at the end, I don't know what the message is. That Trixie doesn't normally have contraband, but they searched her the one day she did? That's the most obvious explanation, and would be implied by the prompt, I guess, but it comes across more as she had some dire need for the eyes, and I don't know what that is. Without that context, it's more a scene than a story, but if the obvious explanation is the correct one, then it doesn't have the setup to carry a message. This is close to being really good.

7778121
Ah, Lovecraftian horror. This puts me in a mind of Cabin in the Woods where they have to go through a ritual that's lost all its meaning just to stave off a calamity. Cleverly done.

7779558
I just found this confusing. I don't know who the first-person narrator is or much of what's happening besides... cosmetic surgery? I do appreciate the puns. It feels like a feghoot, which is always a worthwhile endeavor.

7780303
This was good. Funny setup, good payoff, complete story. It ticks all the boxes it needs to, and it's a fun read to boot.

7780420
Huh, an attraction she wishes she didn't have? Also a bait-and-switch of scenery porn for a somewhat humorous ending. I'm just not sure how humorous you meant it to be. Is it all an earnest story of unrequited longing? If so, then Dash knows Zephyr would gladly reciprocate, so why not follow through? Or meant as humor, play up the incongruousness of such fancy language for a character like Dash by having more of a contrast and humorous payoff at the end. I would guess you weren't going for humor.

7780986
This is really structured like it's going to be one of those jokes that sounds lewd but turns out to be something innocent, and the reader's just waiting for the clean explanation. But one never happens, so... it was meant to be lewd all along? The problem then is that you spent your joke up front and didn't develop it any more. It might work better if you pulled a switcheroo or concealed what was happening until the end.

7784137 I adhered to your advice, traveled back in time to the past to write the story you suggested and then waited for years to present to you in this reply the story: My Friend Tenty.

Now there's a second chance at my story, wouldn't you say?

7784137
I'm sure you've seen the 'first-taste-of-love' moment before. When a casual so-and-so with no real importance in someone's eyes, suddenly falls in love the moment they see them in a unique way. It could be that he saved a cat from a tree or that he gave her a flower, the kind of thing that captures the best part of the individual. I was trying to get Dash to become a victim of that, believing her feelings are a lie, but not fully sure if it truly is (hence the title, 'Hum-baka', a compilation of 'humbug' and the catchphrase of the classic tsundere, 'baka').

7784137
It is Grubber, the Storm King's assistant.
From the second to last paragraph:

"Pointless cruelty Grubber," he sighed. "But crew are cheap. Jocular assistants, less so." A shrug. "If one cannot grin while dominating the world, why live?"

Calling back to the fourth paragraph:

Time to do my job: making everything perfect--service with a smile!

Thank you for reading.

7781690

You know what Rarity represents? Eyes. Rarity is the eyes in the house and it's a terrible day to have eyes because it makes the sleepover difficult.

I have mixed feelings about this one.
One one hand, relating Rarity to "eyes" is a really cool and between the lines connection to the prompt.
On the other hand, I am unconvinced about Sweetie Belle and the Tentacle Pony. I think it's the fact that the tentacle pony reads like Yona--I kind of just want the other character to be Sandbar.

I like this entry a bunch. Here are some edits I would make:

He catches himself as he coughs uncontrollably, lips painted with blood from his throat, "STOP PUSHING YOURSELF!!"

He stretches out, "This... this is..." his foreleg quivers, finding it difficult to lift, "...light..." He collapses on his side, motionless. One last breath seeps through his open mouth.

I really like this line

"There! There! Down the corridor!"

I think the overall delivery is pretty neat. I can tell there's the girth of a story behind it, but it works pretty well standalone.

I got this one after a couple re reads, and I decided to try editing it to my liking.

Alarm bells ring!

Orders fly!

Armoured hooves pound through corridors!

Shining Armor stumbles from his ready room into the palace guards' control centre.

Empty! Save for one very nondescript grey stallion.

“Who the hay are you?”

“Agent Mulberry. I must brief you, Captain.”

An armoured pony charges in, eyes wild. “Sir! Reports from Ponyville! The princess sir, she’s……. Disappeared!"

"SARGENT!" Shining Armor fights the panic that grips him. “Get the Pegasus SAR squadrons launched! Recall all off duty guards!”

“Yes sir!”

A quiet, but commanding voice: “Attend to me, Captain.”

“Not now!"

Exit blocked, an identity card shown.

“Equestrian Intelligence Service?! What the hay does the E.I.S. want with me?! I have something of a national emergency on my hooves!”

“To brief you on your sister's activities in Ponyville….”

“My sister? What’s she done now?”

...

Mostly, I just added and messed with punctuation. One major thing I tried was moving "SARGENT!" a couple lines down so it doesn't seem like Shining Armor is just randomly shouting "SARGENT!" for no reason (I realize he was calling for Sargent, I do not think that is the impression it gives).

Hah!

I enjoyed this one. The description of the telekinetic take-down was what hooked my interest, and I thought the cops' disgust and factuality was interesting, especially so when paired with the exposition.

I think the uses of eyes is an intriguing idea and an interesting bit of worldbuilding.

However, this whole entry is riddled with typos. If you write any other flash fics, try passing them by me, I can give you some tips on writing proper English.

I really enjoy the servant in this one. I think he's charming in a single minded kind of way. And I like the Storm King's attitude.
Calling the enucleated crew "spoiled" was a nice touch.

As is the trend with flashfic, I found the narration a little cryptic. (The big words didn't help! What even is Aural surgery? [But thank you for expanding my vernacular!])

I found the first bit the hardest to parse because of how many transitions there are:

The dashing Storm King was also a terror. Thousands lamed after an exhausted aide's frown. Hundreds deafened after a sour-faced butler caused a headache.

Here there is a transition from exposition to a vignette,

"Aye, aye!" A cacophony of crewbeasts saluted.

Then we go from the vignette to narration.

Felled by ice cream headaches, he moaned from his airship cot.

And probably the most jarring transition is that the narrator is now in the story, in this scene.

Time to do my job: making everything perfect--service with a smile!

Then we transition from narration --I didn't even realize it was a character narrating the first read through-- straight to dialogue.

"Should I punish 'em?"

However the rest of the fic flows a lot better!

I decided I might be able to improve this, so here's what I came up with:

"Aye, aye!" A cacophony of crewbeasts saluted.

The Storm King was a dashing terror. Thousands lamed after an exhausted aide's frown. Hundreds deafened after a sour-faced butler.

Time to do my job: make everything perfect--service with a smile!

Felled by ice cream headaches, he moaned from his airship cot. "No more ayes," he moaned. Will no one rid me of those myopic eyes?"

"Should I punish them?"

He grinned.

I smiled back.

His eyes closed, confident in my toothy support.

I put the vignette first since I thought it was a bad segue, but a good hook. I used a blank paragraph (pressed the enter key three times) to indicate a soft scene change. I combined two lines, moved the dialogue further down, tried to consolidate this fragmented scene into a paragraph-break heavy dialogue!
I also messed with some sentences.

Is the Storm King dashing like handsome dashing, or like running dashing? I'm pretty sure it's the former, but I'm not certain.

Otherwise, good!

This entry works really well. Fluttershy's delivery is great.

*I was going to pick something along the lines of "Biblically Accurate Draconequus" until I realized how cringeworthy that sounded. I'm open to suggestions!

No description is good. Er, meaning that just not describing the True Form works fine! But I suppose if you want to give chaos a truly terrible form... The problem is that everyone is different, and what one person might find a terrible experience, another might find interesting, amusing or (worst of all) totally underwhelming.

You might just cater towards Fluttershy. Have something generally that most normal people would regret seeing, but something that the reader doesn't doubt would horrify Fluttershy?

If you wanted to make me regret reading about Discord's true form, nothing horrifies me quite as much as my own imagination, and the deeds of monsters. You probably want to make Discord's body a repulsive horror story of some kind.

However! If I were to write it, I would just start at some base gross thing, say body horror, and go from there!

Textureous. Bleeding horn stumps, oozing orofices, quivering fingers mingled over the mutilated stumps of filly's limbs and the newly growing flesh. It was like looking into an arm who's insides were burbling tumors.

Then I'd try to make it worse by explaining a kind of logic to how it all works.

All the growth was chaotic, unwieldy, causing inflation. It needed to deflate and it did. The flesh had to be regularly removed in order to maintain a semblance of functionality, so festering teeth regularly emerged, chattering into bones and flesh, bulging them into the depths of the body or severing them. Whichever came first.

But This is Discord, embodiment of chaos!

Cotton candy checkerboards decorated the body, growing up like scales before shedding in expulsions of chocolate milk. Limbs which had been managed by the teeth would gurgle and spit themselves out. Entire swathes of body would turn into bones , then into a stained couch, something rubbery. When Discord moved his limbs, they all seemed to fight...

Something like that?

I read it to a friend, and he said it might be too much? There's a balance to be had in length and descriptiveness. If I wanted to get really into it (and consequently have disturbing thoughts for the next couple months), I would conduct research into disturbing/disturbed criminals and include nasty bits from those.
But hopefully I will never have to produce anything so graphic!

I hoped this helped.

ACK! You win, Amreep, you win! If I had read *that* before I wrote this entry--uegh, I probably woudln't have even tried. Very good subversion. A work of art.

As you can see, I was really impressed by this fic. That was my first reaction which I saved specifically to include in this comment.

In this fic, I got genuinely pulled into the longing. I think that reading this first bit makes me genuinely flustered~ I mean, the stars, the grandeur, the parallelization, the chilly cold romance of the yuletide, and the rushing blood... I lost myself.
But then. But then!! Incest! AGH!

In conclusion, it was a very good subversion.

...

Oh wait a minute.

UhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHhHhhhhHHhhhHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Zephyr Breeze is Fluttershy's brother.

Oh.

I have no idea how to express how embarrassed I am right now. So I'll just leave. it. at. that.

Woohoo, my fic!

Ah. It's my fic.

For mine, I was just trying to come up with some imagery that would be gross and intersect the lives of someone in G4 MLP.

My initial idea was about how "isn't bug mating kind of gross?" And I tried bouncing that idea around a bit, my sister inspired me to do a story where Fluttershy comes in on the Breezies --along with Rainbow Dash and Applejack who where supposed to be watching the breezies-- uhm, doing the do. If you know what I mean.

I came up with a lot of ideas for a larger story. I wrote a lot of imagery. The flash fic version is pretty much devoid of most of it. The Appledash element in particular got cut. Twilight made it in though.

Admittedly, I'm not sure her addition was better? I was going to be subversive and have Twilight be like, "Celestia.. I've never seen such a treasure trove of research! Yes!" but I couldn't figure out how to pull that off, and I liked the subdued ending that the fic has now. But it would've been nice to just have, like, a profound reaction from Fluttershy.

Also, the title... I just selected a couple of words that seemed thematic. The link used to go to a picture from the MLP Wiki. It was a picture from the It Aint Easy Being Breezies Gallery where Fluttershy was making a suggestive face.

7781681
This is a surprisingly tricky question to answer.
Basically, if one day you saw something horrifying, then it would be a terrible day to have eyes. Because if you didn't have eyes, you wouldn't have seen it. That is my connection to the prompt.

7784137
Well, when the heavenly bodies of the sun and moon meet you’re not supposed to stare directly at the eclipse, but in a world that worships the sun and moon, what else would its denizens do?

…Yeah, I’ve got no justification for that one.

7784251 Actually, it's safe to look at a full solar eclipse. I haven't just watched it directly in the past, I watched it with unshielded binoculars.

7784116

I like to do prompts that are more than just a phrase to write to, but some people don't like that, so I'll make it a choice. The prompt is "Second Chances," in honor of Derpy having a second chance. Method one: use that phrase as the prompt. Method two: take any of the prompts from 2022 and write to that one. If you entered, you have a second chance to win with it. If you didn't enter, you have a second chance to use that prompt. However, a previous prompt is off-limits to you if you won that event (you don't need a second chance) or you came up with the prompt (preserving Loganberry's rule that you can write to your own prompt, but your entry will be ineligible). If you go this route, make sure to say which prompt you used.

Hmm. "Second Chances" is of course fine. However, I couldn't fit all the above into the description page. As such I'll just put "Second Chances" there and add in your second method as an option at post time on the 1st. I must admit I like the simplicity of having "just a phrase to write to", given that this contest is supposed to be simple and low-pressure, but I'm willing to see how it goes. So okay, accepted!

7784150
You should have held off and entered it next month!

7784276
I suspect the vast majority will use method 1 anyway...

7780394
Yeah, I could see something like that working!

7784033
Thanks for the hon mensh 2! I was expecting a lot of Discord myself, but I assumed the stories would be about him creating the "terrible" sights, so I figured I could buck the presumed trend by making him the "sight" itself. It's interesting that you singled out the closing "Good" for praise, for that matter; I actually almost changed it to "Agreed" at the last minute, but I felt like the former did a better job imparting the let-us-never-speak-of-this-again attitude I was gunning for. In either case, glad to hear it all worked out!

7784137
Thanks! Glad to hear it managed to tick all those boxes, especially given how "squished" I had to make it in places.

Congrats on winning, by the way! 'Twas well-earned.

7784185
Thanks for the feedback! One thing's slightly confusing me here, though: the opening quote is from my request for a better title, but the reply itself seems directed towards my conversation with 7782217 Mockingbirb about what Discord's "true form" would actually look like. Was something else meant to be there too, or am I just misreading it? Either way, I'm not complaining in the slightest!

Since my last comment, I think I'd kinda settled upon the notion that Discord's canonical guise would be some sort of safe-for-all-ages ultra-simplification of his True Form, and that the True Form itself would still resemble it to a degree, but have it "heightened" or "exploded" in some regard. (It's cliche for a good reason, so pardon me for citing it, but the "hyper-realistic" trope found in many early creepypastas was one of the first things to come to mind.) In any case… HOLY COW, you have some great ideas! You make good cases for both generalizing the horror and directing it at Fluttershy. In the latter's case, perhaps having her equate it to a bunch of stitched-together taxidermies would convey its violation of her sensibilities (as well as the "repulsive horror story" concept you mentioned)?

I enjoyed your writing too! I'm actually honored that my ideas inspired you to write something out, then offer it to a friend to proofread. I'm not all that familiar with writing horror either, and this is definitely better than whatever I could've come up with! On the off chance I ever expand this into a full fic or something, could I have your permission to consider integrating those excerpts somehow? I'd be sure to credit you for writing them!

Thanks again for all the thought you've put into this! I really, really appreciate it.

7784684
I think "Good" is nicely ambiguous. Reformed as he is, devoted to Fluttershy as he is, there's still the tiniest suspicion that beneath that "Good" is a spark of enjoyment about how he's messed with 'Shy's head. I wouldn't have got that feeling from "Agreed".

I haven't forgotten the new thread! It'll be up later today.