Yes I'm starting it a few days early, mostly because it's something different this time around so if you guys think it's stupid I can just change it.

This time around the event will run until the very end of the month, instead of the 20. I think this might afford more time for everyone to get their story out the door and into the folder proper.

This time around however, I won't be setting out a specific theme as I've done for the last four events. In celebration of us breaching the 1000 members mark, I devised something different.

The rule is simple: the very first sentence of your fic must include the phrase 'over one thousand of them'!

Let's see what kind of weird idea we can get out of that.

1046233 Sold!
Thinking, Thinking... got it. first sentence finished, complete with phrase.

There were over a thousand of them swarming the skies. Feathered wings gave way to a furious inferno of orange death as the army of abominations flew down on Ponyville, and amidst it all an azure unicorn and her purple-grey apprentice ran to gather their friends.

"This is the last time I have you try to turn apples into oranges!" Trixie yelled.

"It's not my fault I hit the bird!" Dinky responded. "And you're the one that made the crack about orange juice!"

A small squadron of oranges swooped down at them upon hearing that forsaken pair of words.

"I just want to know how it got so many friends!" the filly shouted, ducking under the assault.
Trixie almost tripped as she held down the urge to vomit at the memory. The truth of the matter was that apparently the story of the birds and the bees had never had produce thrown into the genetic mix. It had taken all her power to keep up an illusion that held her apprentices innocence, and possibly sanity, in check. "Oh, I'm pretty sure they just magically multiply like parasprites. At least they're too busy attacking us now to bother multiplying any more."

...Wow maybe I'm more sleep deprived than I thought... I'll think on it tomorrow...

1046233
Sounds easy enough:

'There was over one thousand of them! More than that even, the endless multitudes seemed to stretch into the sky, travelling onward & upward into the starry, infinite beyond.'

Or at least that's how the the mornings workload looked to Trixie; having woken up and been greeted by a small stack of papers marked "urgent!" before she could even remove her sleeping cap and don her great and powerful hat.

"This was meant to be my day off!"

Not sure if i'll actually be able to participate this time, and this was probably a predictable opening, but I'll try, assuming i'm not to caught up in trying to catch up to other work/stories.

interesting.

There had to be over one thousand of them, Cheerilee thought, eyes widening as the bits spilled out into a large pile in front of her. She had never seen so many bits before in her life. Thoughts of what they could purchase filled her mind; a schoolteacher's salary was not large, and she had a host of little annoyances that those bits would make go away. The heater that barely worked and left her chilled for half the night in winter, the chair that was too old and starting to wear through, the kettle that took ten minutes to boil a single damn cup of water in the morning. She wrenched her thoughts away from it, and focused on her lunch companion.

"What do you say, Blackcherry?" the minotaur asked.

"I've told you Will, my name is Cheerilee now." Cheerilee said.

"Iron Will knows what you have told Iron Will." Iron Will said. "Iron Will chooses to honor you with the name of Blackcherry, a name well-earned, and a name that you deserve."

"That isn't who I am any more, Will. I'm a schoolteacher now for Celestia's sake. I...I have a life here, Will." Cheerilee said.

"One job, Blackcherry. One job. Iron Will needs you for this one. It's too much for Iron Will to handle alone, but the rewards are bigger than anything we ever got back in the day." Iron Will said.

"And that sack of bits you're offering to pay me is supposed to entice me, then?" Cheerilee said.

"Oh, but you are mistaken, Blackcherry!" Iron Will said, unconsciously slipping into his showpony way of speech. "This sack of bits is not offered by Iron Will as payment, but merely shown as a sign of his honesty. Iron Will has received these bits as an advance, and successful completion of the mission will grant us ten times this amount, and Iron Will will be granting half of that amount to you!"

"T...ten times that amount?" Cheerilee said.

"Ten times that amount. And for those of you ponies that are keeping score at home, that's a total of six! Thousand! Bits! Apiece!" Iron Will said, playing up to the non-existent crowd.

Cheerilee sighed as she brought a hoof up to her face.

"I'm going to regret this...but okay. You win. Tell me about this job."

* * *

My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I may have an idea going. Whether I'll write it or not is an entirely different story, of course. That said, I've always been half-tempted to write a Lunaverse story. It's clear that Cheerilee used to be a complete badass in her youth if I remember correctly (I read the Lunaverse canon stories a couple months ago) and so she was my target for a story. This contest may encourage me to get off my ass and write one.

1046274 Great!
1046368 and the way the multiplied is hilarious.
1046370 Oh Trixie...
1046869 Do it!

oh yes...i can work with this.

I would enter a story, but I still have like three stories that need finishing. Oh well, another time maybe!

Oh, by the way...I noticed that I accidentally wrote "For Celestia's sake" in my opening draft; obviously unsuited for the Lunaverse! Do ponies invoke Luna's name in that fashion in the Lunaverse, or shall I have to find another expression for that?

I'd also appreciate it if someone more versed in the Lunaverse could give me an idea of the rough bit-to-dollar conversion. I remember thinking it was about one to one reading through the Lunaverse for the first time, but I can't for the life of me remember how I came to that conclusion. (Probably examining bit price of items throughout the series.)

I'm going to try and come up with a good story for this. I am currently writing a much bigger fic that I hope the Lunaverse will enjoy, but this will be a good way to show off my writing and see what everyone thinks of my work

1047012 this may be a seemingly stupid question, but what are the submission rules and methods; length and acceptable rating. I haven't participated in one of these prompts yet, so I'm not quite sure how to go about it.

1047127
A bit goes a bit further than a dollar, due to the Lunaverse being set in a world roughly in its 1880s. Let's say 5 dollars to a bit.

And yes, ponies use Luna's name in vain all the time.

1047484: Wouldn't that mean Fluttershy was paying Dinky $15 every week for a couple hours of helping? Wow, I wish I could have commanded those wages as a kid. :-)
That would also make that necklace somewhere in the nature of $630+ dollars at its undiscounted price. I think Sparkler might have been a bit surprised that a foal could afford that.

1047498
Yeah, good point...1 dollar-to-1-bit conversion, then.

1047012
The more I look at my first idea after having got some sleep the more I feel the need to say "Challenge Accepted."

I've got two idea's both Pinky related: -

As the old song went there must be at least fifty ways to leave your lover, he was sure he'd used at least that number himself, in fact there were probably over one thousand of them. 'It's not you, it's me', sleeping with her sister, not calling, declaring that your gay, faking your own death.

"Whatcha thinking about Bluey?" asked the Puffy Pink Pony currently reclining across his lap, "I know, let me guess, is to about whether the clouds look down at us and talk about what we remind them of?" she put on a deep voice, "'You see that pony down there, if you squint and turn your head it looks just like a cloud and that one looks like a cupcake' or is it whether cakes want to be eaten? 'Cause its probably not that fun to be eaten but if they didn't want to be eaten why would they taste so good? or is it whether the word succotash or guacamole is funnier or maybe succomole or guacatash?"

There had to be at least one thousand ways to leave her.

"Yes, Pinky that's exactly what I'm thinking about", said Prince Blueblood smiling down at her.

So why couldn't he bring himself to use any of them?

OR

The room was ablaze with light, it was normally lit but the dull glow from the lava below but this was different, now the light came from candles over a thousand of them, the heat was such as to remind her uncomfortably of her banishment, and below the candles a cake in the form of a stylised sun, Corona could not help but notice that it was similar to the symbol that adorned her royal flanks.

"You say that this thing is called a 'birthday cake'," asked the Tyrant Sun.

"Yeppers," replied her captive. She was entirely bound in stout chains so that only her head and some of her puffy pink mane remained visible although this did not seem to discombobulate her in the least. "See I was thinking in bed last night, you spent all that time on the sun and no one held a birthday party for you, not even one, and that made me sad, because birthday parties are my favourite type of party, apart from wedding parties and 'I haven't hend a party for a few days parties' and all the other types of parties I really like. So I thought Pinky what sort of Party Pony are you if you permit such a preposterous party position to persist, so here I am"

Corona, the goddess of the sun, evil alicorn, ex-diarch of equestria and birthday filly, looked puzzled for a moment, then uttered three words which would scar the world for all eternity, "Tell me more."

Any preference?

1047204 Well it has to be set in the Lunaverse (though none of the entry are meant to be canon, if it can be migrated to canon, even partially, then great, otherwise, no biggie) and while we haven't had a full on mature story, I don't think anything allowed on FiMfiction itself would be disallowed in these writing events. The goal is really just to challenge writers and get ideas flowing.

1047505 I feel it's more like 2 dollars to a bit, considering you can get a few apples for a bit.

1047865 DO IT!

1047973 Those are both hilarious, but for some reason I'm leaning more toward the Blueblood one

1047973

...I wanna see both of these...

1048350

Unfortunately I doubt I'll have the time even with the extended deadline.

My third Dr Who / Lunaverse chapter is more or less finished (looking for another pre/proof reader or two if anyone is interested) and will probably be up over the weekend but I'm going to try for the fourth by the end of next month. However, each story I write turns out to be longer than the last and unlike last month I don't have any holidays in June so two challenge stories plus a Dr Who story will probably be pushing it, on the other hoof sleep is for tortoises

Challenge accepted.

1047498 Well, they were silver bits. Perhaps RDD meant that a golden bit is 5 dollars.
Maybe a silver bit is 2 dollars.
That's still a lot, but it's far more likely.

I'd love to do this... *Looks at current workload* But I'll pass.

Here's what I got so far:

Over one thousand of them.

Over one thousand of them.

The phrase stuck in her brain, the five words igniting her insomnia.

Over one thousand of them.

The threat had been complex, depicting gory deaths and eternal light. But she had remembered little of that.

Over one thousand of them.

It was a relatively small number. One thousand grains of rice barely makes a bowl.

But one thousand ponies? That was a different story.

She didn't know one thousand ponies could be so dumb.

And that's just the beginning.

Okay, there's obviously no actual consensus, so I'll simply play it a bit loose and call a bit worth approximately 1.5-2 dollars in my own fic. That means Dinky was earning 5-6 bucks a week, which seems pretty reasonable for a foal to earn. It means that a few apples are worth 1.5-2 bucks. In Australia, apples are $2.50 a kg and 4-6 apples = 1 kg, so that seems to work. And the necklace is now worth less than two hundred, which is a little suspicious but still relatively reasonable considering most of the foals shopping in a jewellery store would have rich parents to pay the bill.

In any case, the exact conversion doesn't matter. What matters is that the bit amount:

A) Sounds impressive.
B) Doesn't sound ridiculous.
C) Would present enough money for Cheerilee to come out of retirement, so to speak.
D) Makes internal sense within the Lunaverse.

"Six thousand bits" matches both A and B, and for someone who's just been shown as poor in the first paragraph, 9-12k seems like reasonable danger money. That's probably around 4-6 months salary.

In the event that this were to ever be considered for canon, the bit values could easily be altered as low as 1-to-1 or as high as 5-to-1: I'll simply avoid making other references to exact cost of goods in the fic.

There were over one thousand of them. That was the first thing that startled Princess Luna Equestris, supreme monarch of all Equestria. There were big ones and little ones, bright ones and subdued ones, and varieties ranging from the practical to the completely and utterly silly. The princess, though she felt that she kept a reasonably accurate view of what was going on in her nation, had to admit to be utterly flabbergasted.

She simply hadn't known that there were this many different types of hats for sale in Canterlot's hat district.

Luna, in disguise as the young page Night Vision, looked at her friend Paperweight. "Are you sure that Octavia wants a hat for her birthday?" she asked, cautiously.

Paperweight giggled. "I dunno, but if we don't find anything we like we can keep -- oh!" She scurried over to a store window and pointed at a large top hat with a big, gray bass clef stitched onto the front. "Think she'd like that one?"

Luna could not help but grin at Paperweight's energy. "I'm not sure. She tends to dress in a more... serious fashion." She gestured at another hat, this one painted in an intricate pattern of blues and purples. "Perhaps that one?"

Paperweight scrutinized it. "It looks okay from here, but... oh, we should try it on! Then we can see if it's comfortable!" And she hurried into the shop, Luna having little choice but to follow.

Within moments, two hats were perched on the heads of two mares. Paperweight chuckled as she carefully balanced it over her horn. "I like it! But... I'm not sure if Octavia would. It's kind of tight in the back, and she has a really long, flowing mane."

Luna had to agree. "It's too bad... this is a really pretty hat." It would actually go well with her own coat, she thought, and being an alicorn, her mane wouldn't be inhibited by anything like a felt brim. She made a note that maybe she could have a servant come back later and buy it--

"Want me to buy it for you?"

Luna blinked. "Oh, that isn't--"

"Hey, what are friends for?" Paperweight grinned. "Besides, you found us that really awesome restaurant that serves those grilled cheese sandwiches. And, when Viscount Blueblood took our hoofball after Bellemane kicked it into his palanquin, you found us another one quickly enough that we could keep playing!" Luna smiled at the memory; that game had been when their team had won the First Monthly Canterlot Castle Staff Hoofball tournament. "Don't worry about it!"

Within mere moments, Luna found herself leaving the store with a jaunty hat. She laughed in joy. "And, as for Octavia..."

"I don't -- oh! Wait! Maybe earrings!" Paperweight jumped up in excitement. "I remember now, she was just mentioning the other day that she was looking for some jewelry she could wear to the Viceroy Ball next month! Come on!"

And the two friends scampered off into the night.

1047973
Both!

But if I have to pick one, then the one with Corona.

1047973 The second one, if I could pick only one. But both are aweshum!

1050146 Ooh yes yes! Another adventure of Night Vision

There were over a thousand of them, stretching as far as the eye could see, forming a sea of red. Roses, each one of them as beautiful as the day they first bloomed. Roses, commonly associated with love since the days before the unification of the tribes.

If one were to gaze upon the roses from up above, as one would see if they were to fly through the sky upon feathered wings, one could see that they spelled out a message:

I love you

The ultimate expression of love.

And every single bit of this was lost upon Scootaloo, the flightless pegasus, as she stared angrily at the fact someone chose to surround her practice climbing wall with ugly flowers with very sharp thorns. “I will find whoever did this and I will make them pay for this travesty.”

Here's my submission for our monthly writing event, Noblesse Oblige and a big thanks to Fizzy for editing it for me.

So I decided to turn my story for this month into a showcase for some of the possible minions we've discussed. Figured a little non-canon experimenting would be interesting, and might help to get some more ideas flowing. I'm still working on the musical bit (couldn't help myself, the song/scene needed to be done), but I'd like to know what people think about the rest of it.

A black moon hung above Canterlot, the darkness of night cut only by bright fires that streaked across the night sky, over one thousand of them flying above the rooftops like angry, burning stars.

Finally found time to start my entry. Anyone interested in proofreading?

1079660

Well my spelling and grammar skill's aren't great but I can lend you a spare pair of eyes, if you want.

1079660: I might be able to take a look at it.

1046233

Are we going to try to put up most of the stories at the same time at the end of the month or have the folder open early and put them up as they get finished?

1081856 As they get finished would be fine.

I'm hoping RDD adds the new folder soon so we can add Vazak's story.

1084391 Go on

At this rate it looks like not only will we have broken the 1000 member barrier we'll have over 100 stories by the end of the month.

My Pinkie/Blueblood story is written now, anyone interesting in pre/proofreading and having a few idea's bounced off them?

1107336: Sure.

1107336

I'm always up for proofreading.

I'm going to be gone this weekend so won't be able to publish on the 15th, so here's my story, Celestian Rhapsody. I'll put it in a folder when it gets made.

1084539
Ah, right, that. Knew I forgot to do something.

1112092: I thought we were going until the end of the month this time? That's what it says in the OP.

1112326
But...Fizzy wanted me to put the new folder up...

1113851: Ah, right.

1113851
Now that the folders up, are we allowed to add our stories?

1113893
That's up to Fizzy; he runs the events, not me.

1084539
Sorry to bother you, but are we allowed to add our stories to the folder now, or are we waiting till the end of the month?
1113908
ah OK then, TY.

1112326>>1113908>>1113916

The end of the month is the deadline but this time around feel free to add stories as they are done.