The Writers' Training Grounds, a fine event hosted by Equestria Daily for beginning writers. Ever since early Season 4 of MLP:FIM, a weekly prompt has been posted that I more or less follow. That prompt has guided most of the chapters within this story. Some chapters have continuity, some don't, some have giant monsters or metaphysical travel. One thing is for sure, everything here is bonkers.
Gather around, humans and ponyfolk alike, for I am a bard, and I give you the weekly tales of the Compilation! A greater range in lack of organization than the Canterbury stories! Higher variance on continuity than the Grimm fairytales! More or less desperate than a retelling of the Arabian Nights! Contains at least one more vampire than the Twilight Saga, which brings it to a grand total of at least one! This is a Compilation of Miscellaneous Typed Scribblings of A Random Guy!
Watch in amazement as a writer races time to meet a midnight deadline on Thursday (used to be Tuesday)! Let your imagination run from its leash and ruin your neighbors’ petunias! Be thrilled, or thrillingly disappointed, as you read through semi to completely disjointed works of fanfiction! Use this as a scale of a bard’s improvement, from Chapter #1 all the way to Chapter #?
Quality is a figment of your imagination! So criticize however you want. The best criticisms of the week will receive the honor of having an OC randomly pop up in a random story of my choosing. Not kidding there. Right a good review and partake in the chaos that is technically my mind!
Hilarious story!
And quite mature in it's humor when Fluttershy first thinks that they want to raise a colt!
Thanks for a number of good laughs!
That sure is my favourite part:
So, Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle really raised that cult!
It's great that you built in a connection to the first fanfiction!
You have a talent for comedy, keep going!
3821632 I do plan to have some continuity in this entire thing. When the season is over, I plan to do some sort of extra chapter somehow tying most of these stories together. Right now it looks like it may end up being that Mexicans will tame couches and do intergalactic battle with cultists.
But that's in the future. The present still needs to occur now.
I like this. I like this a lot.
3854688 And I like rampaging light bulbs a lot.
This chapter ...
fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/275/d/6/awesome_derp_face_by_dadio46-d4bnvz2.jpg
Tis does my make my dirty mind go wild you lier.
Other then that bravo I think you earned your self a thumbs up
Welp, this was certainly random. Not particularly entertaining to me, to be honest.
Day-in-the-life fics aren't really my cup of tea. Still, I will give you credit for putting in the time to write it.
"Couch Battle of... ", Ze plot, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE KUDOS TO YOU!!
There is not enough wat.
That's the fanfiction I love the second most of all of yours for the WTG of Season 4!
It's so extremely original, it's crazy, but it also has some seriousness.
You really do have a big talent for writing stories, especially because you manage it somehow to make connections between all those completely different stories!
3824059
Yeah, I already figured that out by now.
There's a CMC episode upcoming in a little more than a week, so, will we see Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle in their founded vampire cult?
You sneaky little..... I really expected a half clop-fic of that!
You messed with our minds!
Good job!
All that is left in my head now is a big "Wat?".
Did they became tree-monsters now or not? Or was that all Twilight's imagination, because Pinkie gave her that hallucination potion?
Or, where they trees all the time, and the hallucination potion made Twilight think that they are ponies?
I'm seriously confused.
In other words, this is the most crazy story I've ever read!
3941889 I personally think this is the crown jewel of all the stories I have posted, the runner up being the Furniture Battle. I liked this one because I got to play around with characters of my design instead of working with the show's predetermined characteristics. I especially had fun with Dranorth, mostly because he's my go-to character when someone asks me who my OC is.
3941925 And to explain your confusion with this one... I had absolutely no plan going into this one. I had a vague sense of an idea where I wanted to go, but for the most part I just winged it while I threw Tool up on youtube. Plus school turned my brain into thin gruel that week, so that might have factored in.
Huh, that's an interesting twist on the Body Swap cliche.
AND THEN THEY KISSED
3942561 I think Furniture Battle was slightly better.
Good job and keep going.
Hilarious story again! Twilight declaring everypony a princess was clearly making fun of "Princess Promenade"!
Also, it's interesting to see Ctulhu there and I had never thought that Godzilla would win!
But I guess Godzilla is the better creature to deal with than Ctulhu.
Great job!
Edit: I just saw that you haven't uploaded yet a fanfiction for the WTG for "Filli Vanilli" and the deadline is over already.
Haven't you not found the time for it or were you running out of ideas?
3981965 I have an Eagle Scout project that I need to finish , 3 more merit badges I thought I would finish this month, and I turn 18 on March 25.
That's a month long hiatus from the Compilation and TF2 right there. Though I do plan to start a writing project soon that's not confined to a week-long time frame, just to make up for it.
3982862
I just read your blog entry and ahm a bit confused now.
You wrote in there that you will skip this weeks prompt, but in this comment now you wrote about a month long hiatus.
Will you now go on with the compilation next week or will you really skip a complete month?
3983098 I wrote the blog post before I realized that I had a truckload of paperwork to do for the project. It should tone done a bit afterwards, but I won't have enough time to respond to WTG deadlines. So once the paperwork is cleared up a bit, I plan to work on something else. Until then, the Compilation is sitting on the sidelines while I wait for life to fly by.
wow that was magical
That many Discords...?! Huh. Interesting mental image.
4044803 One for each piece of fanfiction out there.
WOW! That was magical! And future Sweeetie Belle is a key figure in a controversial crime syndic/militant maybe robin hood, maybe evil type group thingy? Epic. Was the Breexie alright, though? Camion was the best colt I've EVER met.
4050329 I'll give you a hint who the guys really are. Did you notice an allusion to a previous chapter, one with two ponies with similar descriptions?
Also, since this won't be a spoiler, the Breezy is fine, unless there's some canon in the show or comics that Breezies need their wings to live. She's just an amputee now.
This was glorious. Loved the song.
4096594 I think the song is the highlight of the fic. Made from scratch. Might expand it later.
Epic.
I'm very sorry this review is so late, life has been a bit hectic for me. I feel like this story shows great promise, but is somewhat hampered by over extension. The first part is a nice introduction to the characters and I enjoyed piecing together things like the fact that the journal they were looking through was Fluttershy's, but I had some serious trouble following your descriptions of how they were traveling through time. I feel like you could have cut it out almost entirely so long as you established that their journey was costly, dangerous and very necessary. If you still wanted to keep it in, don't be afraid to use analogies a la Schrodinger's cat. It may be a large investment for relatively little return though.
As to the second part, the thing that jarred me the most was the sudden tonal shift. The original chapter felt fairly serious and somber whereas the second part felt like it was a bit of Terry Pratchet style comedy. Oh it was really fun and funny, but I wasn't sure the characters in the first section quite matched up with those in the second personality wise. I also had a bit of trouble following the plot as the characters splintered off in different directions and we saw things through a large variety of perspectives. I'm also not sure I can follow everyone's motivations. Why is Summoner helping the CMC to do something so obviously dangerous? I understand it's his special talent and he's used to heavy duty conjuring, but surely he can see that this is going to blow right up in his face. Also why is Celestia in Twilight's body, did I miss some other section of the story?
Overall I had a lot of fun with this story, but I have to say it left me more than a little confused. It is possible to do comedy and tragedy at the same time, but I feel like the character's motivations and what precisely went down in the future could me more clearly established. Either that, or you could consider telling this story from the perspective of the natives of present day ponyville as they try to comprehend their strange new guests.
Good luck writing!
-Chaucer345
4176794 I understand your confusion, but a few plot points such as what happened are currently hidden since I have plans for it, odd plans.
The time traveling, yeah... you're probably right about it convoluted. Probably should have left it at "Hey, this is dangerous and it's only possible because we created a paradox or something."
And you said something I really want to correct, but it could be considered a spoiler. Though, I did foreshadow it in an earlier chapter you haven't read (nor do you probably plan to).
4215275 Keep an I out then. If I can get pst my writer's block for a particular stand alone story, you may have another round of laughs heading your way in a few weeks.
Twi U FORGOT THE FACKING FANGS!!!!
