Duplex Fields' "Badass Waterwheels" (Horse Voice's "The Writing On The Wall")
Rainbow Dash looked up from the cornuscript, puzzled. "I don't get it."
Twilight Sparkle sighed. "The tomb wasn't a tomb, except for those who invaded it. Her crew dies of radiation sickness over the next month."
"Woah, woah," said Rainbow, taking to the air, "You're telling me this isn't a curse?"
"No, it's a natural physical phenomenon. Mare-ie Curie discovered-"
"Too much science," interrupted Rainbow, "Talk smaller."
Twilight sighed. "There are rocks which are constantly shooting out invisible fiery poison."
Rainbow landed again. "In real life, or just in your story?"
"In real life. In fact, the math says that if enough of these rocks are gathered together, they'll make enough heat to boil water and turn a turbine."
"Huh. So the ancient civilization made these badass waterwheels and toasted themselves?"
"Pretty much."
"So how does Daring escape? Does the doctor know of an antidote that she has to find in a crumbling temple?"
"No."
"Can she find a cure in the writing on the walls?"
"No."
Rainbow grimaced. "You're telling me that Daring Do.... dies? That's horrible! How can you do that to her, Twilight?"
"It's not canon," said Twilight, annoyed.
"Well of course she doesn't get hit by a cannon, she dies of fire rocks that you put there to kill her. Why would you kill Daring Do?"
"It's just a story, based on a story," said Twilight, now exasperated. "Write your own if you want her to live."
"What?" said Rainbow, wings flared, "I can write my own Daring Do stories?"
"Sure. And if you join the fan club, you can get them published in our mailing. You'd like the other stories," Twilight said, pulling a mimeographed stack of papers from a shelf of her reading parlor. "They're mostly adventures with good endings. I just went with the death angle for a haunting tale."
Rainbow flipped through the stack quickly. "Um, Twilight? Why is Daring Do kissing Ahuitzotl in this drawing?"
Twilight blushed. "That's fan art, and not all of it is like that."
Rainbow flipped through a few more pages. "Too bad. I kinda like it."
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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.
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.
Ahh yes, this microfic. I remember it well. It's still just as good as it was in the comments section.
Twilight will rue the day she introduced Rainbow Dash to fanfiction. She will rue it hard.
AK Yearling, "Actually I did survive, had to wear a wig and a blanket for a month as my mane and fur grew back. Princess Celestia got note of what happened, and she said that the 'curse' and how the sun functions are directly related, and so therefore was her magic and she was able to 'absorb' the 'curse' into her magic . . . Was still in the hospital for months though . . . "
Favorited just for this one, but I'll come back and read the others soon.
And now I commissioned a fanfic where this happens Daring Do's back story. (Celestia's solar magic and radiation are related (the sun is one big atomic bomb), so she was able to absorb the radiation into her own magic . . . still left Daring Do in the hospital for months.
I love the way Rainbow talks in this. Especially this line:
Where did you get the word 'cornuscript'? I can't find a definition anywhere.
6063177
I'm not Duplex Fields, but it seems to me "cornuscript" is based on "manuscript", except with the Latin "man" (for "hand") replaced with the Equestrian equivalent.
Thanks for this. The original sent me chills.
7485883 thanks! It chilled me enough to think about it and fan culture in Equestria. Given the recent Daring Do episode, it looks like I underguessed - I was surprised to see a body pillow seller.
Eh...Writing fanfiction about real people is weird. Granted, I personally believe that the universe is big enough for everything to happen somewhere in it, but that isn't the point here. My opinion about how writing fanfiction about people like Markiplier is weird is the point.
6091154
I'm surprised that nobody yet said this in all these years.
The cornu- in "cornuscript" almost certainly is the same one in English cornucopia, i.e. Latin cornū, which means "horn". I assume it refers to the magical horns of unicorn and alicorn ponies, since they would use their magic (which makes the horn glow) to levitate a pen, pencil or writing quill to write anything. That said, I honestly would've gone with something that would apply to all ponies, like unguscript (from Latin unguis "hoof", whence English "ungulate").
11691107
Thank you for the etymology!
(cc:ing the author, 7520523)