When a story touches you deeply, sometimes the only appropriate reaction is to respond in kind.
This is an open anthology of minifics which continue or revisit other authors' fanfics — embracing and extending, and reflecting on questions raised by the work. Due to the nature of the collection, this contains spoilers for other authors' stories, though each chapter contains a link to let you read the source first (and a spoilered summary, if you want to jump right in).
Sept. 2017 note: This anthology is closed, but the project continues with Never The Final Word, Vol. 2 — now curated by FanOfMostEverything.
Many of the included chapters are reviewed by Present Perfect here. Several are Highly Recommended by Titanium Dragon!
Chapters (38)
Finally, a place to collect all those really cool flash-fiction comment replies...
I know I'm going to like this. And the little I've read so far is already very promising.
This is...surprisingly deep
4317397
Funnily enough, that's where Demesne came from.
I think they call that topping from the bottom.
Incidentally, PFFFFFFTBAHAHAHA.
.__.
Heh,
Heheh.
Haaaaaaaaa.
Haahaaaaa.
Hahahaaaa.
HAHAHAHA~
I loved this story when it was written. It really took the edge off the Event.
I knew, in my heart, it was doomed the moment they announced they'd be at EVO. Too big an event, and one with cash prizes at that. =(
Never saw this, though, so thanks. There's nothing quite like leaning on the fourth wall.
(side note: ever click favorite when you mean to click read later? it feels awkward.)
So Fluttershy behaves as expected eh? Works for me.
This is literally the best idea for an anthology I've ever seeeeen o:
Will read in a bit.
4317417
Thank you! This story was basically the reason I wanted to get this collection live; IMHO it's got good depth and stands alone well.
4317492 4317584 4317647
horizon i swear to god if i ever meet you in person i'm gonna have to sock you in the stomach before i do anything else
I think my Glass Blower after-ending would fit in here. Is it still in your inbox?
4319943
I don't recall it ever being in my inbox! Did you send it to Cold in Gardez maybe? If you sent it via Fimfic PM you should be able to pull it from the sent folder of your messages.
But I'd love to see it (and add it in, if you want).
4319382
Give me ten minutes' advance warning. That way, when you approach I can fling a copy of My Harshwhinnial at you and flee while you're on the floor uncontrollably convulsing.
4320256 Is that a reference to something in particular?
4320389
You haven't read My Harshwhinnial? You don't know what you're missing! (Literally — because you haven't read it, and I'm not going to explain.)
Oh man.
You should totally drop what you're doing and read the story, which the Pony Fiction Vault curator called "a piece of fan fiction that just floors you". I know that's a good thing because most fanfiction is read while you're in your chair!
That's wrong on so many, many levels.
Poor Twilight. Or maybe not so poor, given the ending.
Oh, nice! That's a good bit of filking.
Oooh. Now for this chapter, I want to up-thumb this story twice.
Sometimes I see what you are working on, and I hate you.
Because of the whole, "Why didn't I think of that?!" thing.
This is one of those times.
Keep it up!
4320256
fair enough.
4321315
It's an open anthology! If you write a continuation, feel free to sling it my way.
This is ingenius. How fun is this, continuing other peoples work? I'm going to echo the other comments, and say I wish I would have thought of this first.
-Cyneryk
Heh. Meta meta fiction. Good job not making this chapter longer than it needed to be. And good idea on the anthology, I think it's a clever way to show appreciation. Keep up the good work!
REBOOTING
REBOOTING
REBOOT COMPLETE
Well, I remember you discussing this with me. It was certainly a memorable idea. It appears you remembered too. I laughed, and I shouldn't have, but I did. Fantastic.
I am immensely grateful for you creating hub for the little recursive snippets scattered about the site. My only regret is that I can't think of any to add. I look forward to any further findings.
Any chance of genre tagging these little ficlets in their titles?
4342711
That's a good idea in hindsight, although the chapter titles are already overlong. Would it be better to put genre tags in the Table of Contents, or put them up front and move some of the other title information to the TOC?
4344668 As long as it would allow me to know the genres going into each piece, i will not complain
Oh my God, this is a brilliant idea. It's a giant, collective tribute crossover. I can only hope something from Silver will find its way in one day, but for now, I've really got to return to it.
4348606
These are not the greatest fanfics in the world.
THEY ARE JUST TRIBUTES.
Do the Continuations have to be complete?
I always thought this deserved a wider audience.
This is actually really neat, plus I found a few more interesting one-shots I'd never heard of to read.
4356596
Well, the idea of the anthology is to collect microfics that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day. If the continuation is long enough that "complete"/"incomplete" is actually a serious question, it really should be posted as its own separate story.
If you're asking whether the source story has to be complete, then, no.
4356771
Thanks! That's exactly what I was hoping to do with it!
This is such a fantastically good idea. I'd read all of these stories before hand, and it's great seeing the little codas people have added.
Well now I rather like this idea. I can't read any of them cause well yah know spoilers and such, but i like the idea.
Well, that's a nice twist on the base story. And Twilight has introduced Dash to fan fiction. I weep for A. K. Yearling's sanity...
4357432
Hoardsmiths, "Pink, Blue, and Ivory", and Glass-Blower are short enough to tackle in short order (and good). I don't know about the others.
The ending of this is even funnier in light of Daring Don't. Poor Daring Do. Being shipped has to be so awkward.
Well, this story alone was worth reading the whole collection for. (Or most of the collection, I still need to read one or two of the original fics first.)
4361859
Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with me, but it makes for some great reading sometimes.
4345821
Table of Contents now has complete genre tagging, and I'm adding the tags in to the start of each chapter as well.
4357432 4358775
That's why both the Table of Contents and the individual chapters tell you how many words are in the original story — before committing yourself, you can find out how much reading time you're in for!
Every source story so far is under 10k words (except for "Demesne"), and as far as I'm concerned they're all worth reading. "The Glass Blower" and "The Writing On The Wall" are both in the Pony Fiction Vault; "Demesne" has 1300+ upvotes; "Pink, Blue and Ivory" was featured on EqD; Skywriter and darf are two of the site's most-followed authors; etc. The collection of source stories here is a pretty wide-ranging introduction to some of the best fic on the site.
Of course, if you want an ongoing list of awesome story suggestions, you could always follow the weekly Royal Canterlot Library features/interviews.
4363546 hehe I need to finish my own stuff before i pick up any new fics to read in truth. but thanks for the info.