Each month we will be spotlighting one pairing, or suggesting a writing prompt. As you may have seen on the main page, this month's area of focus is a prompt of 'Professional Conduct.'

A character encounters one or more sirens in the work environment of whatever the Dazzlings are doing now, but they are not friends. Not at first, anyway - if that's where you'd then like to take the story, go for it! But you don't have to, either; they could form a grudging professional bond too lucrative to betray, or they could suffer through their interactions and get them over as fast as possible, or the siren(s) could refuse to serve them or spit in their onion rings, and then get fired. Though that last one sounds a bit depressing.

Several stories already exist with the sirens as staff in cafes, restaurants and fast food establishments: these would fit with the prompt just fine, though it'd be nice to see some office environments or more specialised fields for some variety. The character(s) doing the encountering of the sirens can be anyone you like. Perhaps one of the main cast, to focus on their history together. Or a side-character, for their own perspective on siren struggles. Even an OC, for... actually I'm not sure why you'd want to do that? And they could encounter the siren(s) as a customer, a colleague, a boss, a subordinate, a government regulator, a business-to-business liason (imagine Fluttershy trying to persuade CEO Aria to pledge support for her charity!), anything you like, providing one or more sirens are in a situation where they're at work, and have to act professionally rather than how they might otherwise choose to.

Here are some rules! Or guidelines, at least - who am I to tell you what to do?

There will be:

No maximum word limit!

No minimum word limit, aside from fimfiction's thousand-word standard!

No rating restrictions!

No prizes!

No SunDagio!

No AriNata!

No SonPie!

No time limit! ...I mean, it'd be nice to get it done this month, but, given the above thing about no prizes, if it takes you longer then it takes you longer... However, if you get it submitted this month then we'll read it and talk about it and shower you with praise, whereas by next month we'll have moved onto a different area of focus.

No working as playboy bunnies! Seriously, it's been done, and you're better than that.

And that's it! Happy writing, and may this prompt inspire you to come up with tales of the slaves to the grind with axes to grind.

The picture above is by the amazing 0bluse, who's drawn some of the very best siren artwork around. Despite saying it'd be nice to see the sirens somewhere outside of the restaurant industry, that Sonata picture is too wonderful not to include.

6457480

omg yes. I have three awesome ideas already.

They weren't going to be ships, but this is one time where always working in the limbo between BFFs and girlfriends can come in handy~

6457486 Awesome! That sounds like a lovely limbo for character to inhabit, keeping it sweet but without needing it to get heavy.

And, I should point out, right from the beginning I've fought to make sure that friendshipping is included in this group just as much as romantic shipping. If nothing else, I have a vested interest because there's waaaay more of it!

Oh, poo. I have great ideas for my Pinkie’s partnership with Sonata to running their catering business.

6457506 I've got nothing against SonPie, and of the three siren pairings not allowed in this group it's definitely the one I'm most on board with. MrAskAPirate, Summer Dancer and Justice3442 have used that pairing to create some of the very best siren stories around. I'm not so keen on its habit of often making Sonata too nice, though. Taco Quest gets the balance about right for their crazy antics:

Pinkie looked over her shoulder at the still-hiding Sonata. “Sonni, tell us the truth: are you evil?”

The former Siren shook her head. “No, not all the time.”

“Good enough for me!” Pinkie grinned.

But, that aside, it makes complete sense as a ship, I can understand why it's been done so many times. It just doesn't belong here

Oh, I didn’t ship them together. They went into business together.

6457869 Ah, I see your point! Do you think, within the context of that, you could have Sonata, say, serving customers, and then meeting another of the Rainbooms or something and the shipping occur?

I can try. I’m due another siren story anywY.

6457943 Sounds good!

Anyone got a link to that artwork?

6457480
Hmmm... have been trying to run with more group prompts, but with one UncommonDS ship down and one in progress, I don't think I'm in for breaking off to do a third.

6458847 It's in the post, at the bottom, along with several others from that artist.

6458854 Totally fair! Next month there'll be a spotlighted pairing, which kind of functions as a prompt too, so there'll be more soon enough. Any thoughts on what you would have written, given the time?

6458856
More Appledagio. >_>

6458858 Can't fault that! By volume, it's the least popular Adagio x Humane Six ship aside from with Pinkie I always figured there'd be less of her with Rainbow and more with Rarity, but the numbers disagree.

6458856
Thanks

I'm struggling to believe it - after publishing this as a prompt, and mentioning that they should be employed but not as bunnies, some utter genius writes this.

TBunny Blaze Phase

• Equestria Girls
• Adventure
• Comedy
• Random

Aria Blaze applies for a job as a bunny. However, the interview might not sound the least bit funny.

• Alt. Universe
• Other
• Aria Blaze

Jongoji245 · 1k words  ·  8  2 · 519 views

Looks like it was in the works way before the start of the month, but with it just being published, I felt it was too good not to highlight! If you had ever wanted to troll a writing prompt, this would be exactly the right way to do it.