• Member Since 14th Feb, 2012
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horizon


Not a changeling.

T
Source

Sirens? Check. Villain songs? Check. Pinkie Pie? ...Uh-oh.

Musical mayhem threatens Equestria so often you can set your watch by it. That's where the Versebreakers come in. They're often mistrusted and always misunderstood, but these brave souls won't rest until everypony's safe from the threat of out-of-control musical numbers.

In this anthology, eight authors offer ten stories on ponies whose job is to halt songs. Each chapter is a stand-alone, unrelated story with its own unique take on the core Versebreaker concept. An anthology overview, and a brief introduction to each of the included stories, can be found here.

CONTRIBUTORS: AugieDog • BlazzingInferno • Caliaponia • FanOfMostEverything • Flink • horizon • Orbiting Kettle • Sharp Spark
Cover art: alittleofsomething


Stories reviewed by Louder Yay! "Some interesting twists ... it's more than worth reading all 25,000 words if you find the concept catches your imagination enough."

Anthology reviewed by PresentPerfect! "This anthology features some excellent authors doing excellent work ... So if you like the idea of comedy, read Manehattan Takes Rarity and 4th District Court, Canterlot, 11:35 A.M.. If you want to try the darker side, read Song and Seal. Everyone should read Heart of Silence, which is a ponification of Heart of Darkness and absolutely spectacular."

Chapters (10)
Comments ( 191 )

I feel like I should break into song with the birth of this story
But I know, if I should, the result would be quite gory
Read on!
Read on!

Suddenly, I'm glad I didn't submit my new story today. It would be competing with this one for eyeballs right now.

Well, off to read.

R5h

I'm glad this got recommended to me! It's pretty darned funny.

A musical shadowy organization...

You guys are all freaking awesome.

Dat motto.

Also, for some reason, I read the entire chapter in Rucks' voice.

Augh, this would pass moderation while I'm out away from home. I'll post my blog introducing the collection as soon as I return to my computer.

5875695
Don't worry, that's what the Versebreakers are here to protect you from! :trollestia:

5875926
They really are. It was a pleasure working with them all.

5875731
Right now is a bad time to submit no matter what. Either you fight the post-DDoS rush, or post on the weekend while it's dead, or post Monday when all the Writeoff stories land. I'll look forward to reading in any case.

5875749
Glad we could amuse! :twilightsmile:

5875964 5875731 The writeoff has another week to go. Writeoff stories will probably start appearing around May 1.

Sorry, horizon, I don't think I can read this in time to plug it.

5875964 .... or wait a week, because it takes forever to get a bubble to flatten out. I would have tried to sharpen my quill on a Versebreaker attempt except that I not only lack any skill at music, but I lack any skill at anti-music. It was hard enough to get into the write-off, *and* do short reviews on them.

It's a good job they pluralized "orange",
For reasons I'm pleased to expound:
The singular just requires more ing-
enuity for rhymes to be found.

If songs go wild, out of control
Who you gonna call?
Versebreakers!

When a funeral becomes rock and roll
Who you gonna call?
Verse- Ow! Hey! Knock it off! I wasn't done yet...

I have to ask: What do ponies barbecue?

5876167

I imagine they'd grill hayburgers, veggie kebabs, and the like.

I love this versebreaker noir. One thing jarred me: "If I’m lucky, they will make an error". If it isn't obvious why it jarred me, then maybe I'm wrong.

Well, this is just five kinds of beautiful.

I have been crying a lot this weekend... :rainbowderp:

this was beautiful.
a wonderful continuation of Lyra and Bon Bon's previous story.

I am really enjoying this collection. The versebreakers is a wonderful counterpoint to all of equestria's crazy random musicals.

O that last line got a good laugh outta me

Good gravy, Sharp Spark! :pinkiegasp: That was incredible. Bravo. :yay:

It was interesting to see someone else use the idea of a song battle, and really interesting to see how our approaches differed.

Where's that follow button?

This last one was long. But so good. Loved the journal entries telling the story.
Its also amazingly genderless.. even with quartz referring to the narrator as dear, its still unclear.

This whole collection was amazing. Looking forward to seeing more of this verse.

5876525 5876530 5876840
Thank you!

The collection was fun to put together, too. I was really impressed with the quality of the submissions.

5875731 5875993
I mention the Writeoffs because the preliminary voting ends on Sunday night, and non-finalists are identified after the preliminaries end. The idea when that was changed last month was to encourage stories to come out in two waves rather than all competing with each other at once.

5876110
Undoubtedly an influence! A more direct one was Buffy The Vampire Slayer's musical episode "Once More With Feeling." And the Versebreaker idea was shaped strongly by AugieDog's writing, as I noted in my blog post.

5876955 5877035
Yeah, there's a reason I chose this chapter as the final piece. It's basically an impossible act to follow. Major kudos to Sharp Spark.

Okay, this collection of stories was nothing short of amazing. I love it.

5876917
Glad you enjoyed it! When writing funny bits, that's everything I could ask for :pinkiehappy:

I want this story animated. I want this song written. I want something I can see and hear that is this, it would just be SO GOOD

Hmm, a subtly different take on the Versebreaking process and the philosophy of the organization. Interesting.


Jeez, has Pinkie accidentally killed a bunch of ponies? :pinkiesad2:

5877627
A collective thank you from all of us for reading and enjoying! :twilightsmile:

Have the Pinkie Pie Lifetime Acheivement Award for Puns That I Made Up On The Spot. :pinkiehappy:

Is the latin "Nothing rhymes with silver?"

Loving the noir send-up here.

Zecora facehoofed.

"I know that you may find it strange
that one can indeed rhyme orange
If you remember rhyming slant.
A good thing these charlatans can't."

This song is dedicated to Caliaponia. It's entitled 'We hate you, please stop.'

(Cool! A song about ME!) :rainbowlaugh:

5878449
Aurantia is not silver, it's oranges, silver is argentum. You probably thought about aurum, gold.

There's something really beautiful in how you can take an absurd premise and build from it a story that touches on such real emotion.

Okay, that was a good motto.

The rest was great too. Love the idea that the Mane 6 are so dreaded by these guys.

This is a good introduction to the concept, I like it. Everyone has a really distinct voice. Love the "foul language".

That was a lot of fun to read, now that I sat down and went through the lot of the stories. So their HQ is in the ghostbusters firehouse then, tho that's more like ten blocks from the Woolworth building, but Manehattan is probably a bit smaller than it's counterpart here.

Plenty of great moments through the various tales in this fic, from Lyra's song to Sweetie's getting lectured. And of course Flim and Flam trying to get out of punishment via song was quite amusing.

C # and Bâ™­indeed. Would be great to see more tales of them! Wonder if they often work together with GhostOfHeraclitus's civil service.

5876955 And speaking of that, I attended a Rocky Horror style showing of it, and yelling "Shut up Dawn!" was great fun.

My Little Pony/Heart of Darkness crossover; didn't expect that. Great collection.

5877954 Glad you liked it.

When the idea was first proposed in horizon's blog, a bunch of ideas were tossed up and then people set off to write. So, the same ideas keep showing up in all the stories but with subtly different interpretations. Who keep shoppers safe? Mall security (Master Class) or the city police (Manehattan Takes Rarity)? Do Versebreakers sing (On the Roof, Master Class) or not (The Clattering Crash of Destiny, The Sound of Silence)? Is Harmony wieldable (Master Class, Heart of Silence) or beyond our ken (On the Roof)? It's been fun seeing the variations.

5881856

I attended a Rocky Horror style showing of it,

What is "it"?

These are great, especially the riff on Heart of Darkness. (See what I did there?)

Question: What's your policy on others borrowing this concept? Your note at the end says you're open to adding more pieces, but that last one seems like a tough act to follow. Think a proper sequel might be in order someday? Or heck, maybe just turn people loose on the concept and form a shared-universe group.

I ask because I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't get a good story idea until he was halfway through reading these. :facehoof:

5876167
Anything can be barbecued if you're brave enough.

I set my sail
fly the wind it will take me
back to my home, sweet home

Will we see more of the versebreakers, I wonder?

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