>>RogerDodger I like this idea. :)

For those who can't make the Discord meeting, maybe summarize everything, and make the decision by poll if needed?

I can make it (430pm Pacific), but this would give anyone who can't show at that time a chance to give some input, at least...

Mistakes Were Made

It starts with Idle Chit-Chat At the Sign of the Prancing Pony, Just Like Old Times:
"The End of Snow—"
"Who's Coming to Dinner?"
"No Sleep ’Til—"
"Oh By The Way, Which One's Pink?"

But mine is A Reckless Love. "I Love You" is The Construct with Terms of Service invisible during the Rites of Spring.

And, well... Time Flies When You're on the Run; The Wrong Words are spoken, and There's No Turning Back. One Cannot Reconcile the Goat and the Cabbage, nor Beat Dead Horses at What They Have Done. (Something Terrible, perhaps.)

It's A Familiar Story, Twice As Bright at the start but With a Twist at the end like an ankle on a stairway.

Hers is No Eloquent Exasperation: She's Like a Perceptual Motion Machine—

Bang bang, my baby shot me down.

I tell myself "Mind Over Matter" and "Windi-going, Windi-gone—", heh.

But I can see The Approaching Hollow.

And now can someone make one with a happier ending? :P

Secret formula for prompt success: Place the word Last in your prompt suggestion. Works every time!

Well this was fun. I felt that the origin of the winding was a little bit of a fizzle, but it was also a tad funny and oddly appropriate.

This is a story I'd place in my library called Very Little Gravitas Indeed because while there was a bit of tension here and there, I knew from the tone of the story's beginning that it would all work out well, and that there'd be little that was heavy. Which made this pleasing to sit back and just enjoy.

Anyway, nice show.

Hey, since it costs James a roll of quarters every time he calls on Four-Lane, can we nick-name Four-Lane 'Ten Bucks'? :P

I enjoyed this! If it was weird as some others have said, then I suppose I connect with the weird ones, somehow, but I 'got' this story almost from the start. I was thrown off a bit at first with an "Oh no, a unicorn..." but you quickly turned this into something much more unique. This was by far the shortest long story I've read so far in this contest, meaning that I was engaged all the way through to the point where it flew by.

The sharp turn the story (and Clémence) took when Marcus showed up at 2am that first time threw me off, but eventually I realized that Clémence – at least in my interpretation – is a disaffected and ambivalent youth, and that informs everything that came before and after. Her mother is in the spotlight, becoming more and more successful, while Clémence remains in New York: bored, watching the rain fall, watching people sitting in restaurants, feeling empty especially at the end, and only really coming alive when she's doing something dangerous or rebellious. And for me, part of what played into that was the mythical dynamic hinted at many times between unicorns and humans. She showed affection to the men she was with when performing her magic trick for them, even the man she'd felt initially threatened by. Her psychology seemed to be shaped by that of the men she connected with.

Clémence could have been human in this story, but that would have made her magic 'special' and almost cliché. Instead, her being a unicorn gave her a talent that no one cared about except that it could be used as a tool for them.

In the end "she was hollow inside" is a good description of her condition. I could almost feel sorry for her if she had felt any measure of remorse at the end...

This was sad and maybe a little strange, but it works. Excellent story.

Edit: Can't help thinking that Clémence is a little white lie, meaning merciful. You might even stretch that to mean generous. Even if the name doesn't suit her actions. Just a thought.

Interesting. The story I was writing (and chose not to publish) had similar themes, though the setting was much farther in the future.

This story had a bit of a rough start, as it was hard to do much more than watch from the outside as things slowly unfolded, rather than be drawn into the characters and setting. Some passages were a bit long, some explained a bit too much where they could have been shortened for effect. Once I got in further, it became more interesting.

It doesn't strike me as being as simple as Rennie's descent into savagery, though clearly that's a lesson here. In the end she looks at the photograph of a family - of the 'enemy' - who are clearly on the edge of starvation. Those people would benefit from her efforts to obtain wheat and share it, but power is clearly the SIC's primary goal, not it's people—something which would inevitably be at the root of a holocaust that placed humanity where it is in this future. As savage as her actions are in the end, ultimately her purpose appears to be to save the wheat so it can be used to save others. The ending wasn't a good sign for her, though, or by extension for the goals of the people of the Meek. You'd end up thinking she would use some mercy with the SIC political officer (being civilized, or choosing to rise above savagery), but she chose to torture and (presumably) kill him when she truly didn't have to.

Anyway... In the end, I'm honestly not sure yet what to think about this story, though I did like it for the most part. The message here wasn't strong enough to affect me as much as I'd like. Rennie was an angry-ish person from the start, and we didn't really know why (a general anger at the world really doesn't count for much, because it's not compelling), so her fall from 'civilized' to 'savage' in this seemed more like tripping down a step, than a fall from a great height which would have had greater impact.

Side note: I found it interesting how you used Monsanto's GMO wheat as a saving grace, here, considering the savage way they do business to advance their domination of the wheat market. Talk about corporations being psychotic by nature...

I have to agree with everyone so far about the title: it's awkward, strips an important element of surprise from the story, and immediately put me in a mindset to prepare for the worst, to be very honest.

There are a lot of cliches, here, though they weren't over-played. I also felt like the characters were just on the edge of being flat, so the story didn't really engage me until about half way through. And then the action kicked in and helped pick it up a bit—you grabbed my interest a lot more at that point.

I also liked that you handled the first-person perspective really well.

Overall the story was nicely written, and I'm glad you entered this.

>>GaPJaxie Thank you for extending the deadline. Unfortunately for me, I'm out. I gave it a very hard try---After 9k+ words, though, I realized there are too many issues to resolve within the limits of time and word count, not to mention the pain of drawing water from stone... I'll definitely be reading and commenting, though.

Well, time to get crackin'. I'm determined to submit something for this, and I have an idea...

Was looking forward to a quiet weekend to concentrate in, and received absolutely anything but, so nothing from me (as usual). Looking forward to reading everyone else's efforts. Good luck, folks!

Ashes of Civilization 14
Damn, I lost by a nose. I was all set to read and try to write apocalyptica. Under the Surface is good though. :)

>>CoffeeMinion It's certainly the prompt we'll deserve if it wins. I'm just wondering when jr high school is going back in session so we don't have to see it anymore.

~CrabbyPants McSouthpaw

I can't add much to what others have already said: The last section is disjointed from the beginning because the connection is not clear at all. Pinkie Pie also does seem a little 'out of character' here and there.

Last: Only cliffs face the tempest. Are you referring to everypony running away to safety in the caverns, rather than staying to fight an un-winable battle? Or that it was better for them to wait for rescue, trapped in the caverns, than to dig themselves out of a mountain of rubble?

And a bit non-sequitur, but thanks for reminding me of the PMV The Garden, one of my absolute favorite PMVs.

Capoeira que é bom não cai
Mas se um dia ele cai, cai bem

A good capoeirista never falls,
but if one day he falls, he falls well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. That the prompt was dropped several times doesn't matter at all, the 'reasoning' Twilight used came off as both truth and denial, and that ending line was stellar. Nicely done.

So Maud's first love is for rocks, but her secret second love is for Rock. Nice! I'm disappointed that she didn't break out into Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll, though.

One thing I really liked about this story is the strong nod toward the prompt ultimately being a premise based in false hope. Nothing Maud ignores in this story ever goes away for her, and this was well-presented.

Although it is well written (aside from a few important grammatical errors), the story itself didn't feel quite as compelling for me as I'd like. Would Maud really allow herself to accept that the external pressure to give up on something 'frivolous' that she loves is important? Since she has a rocktorate degree and earns her living somehow applying that, her "hobby" hurts exactly no one. So it doesn't quite add up for me that she would truly agonize over it.

That aside, I really appreciated the fact that she hasn't simply given in to the pressure she feels to give up on that second love, but will at least seek the opinion of a friend that 'gets' her.

>>GaPJaxie In the context of your story, an Rx (prescription only) warning was provided for what we the reader sees as a physical device "For the treatment of antisocial disorders, isolation syndrome, or mild to moderate cases of PTSD" which sounds an awful lot like providing a child with a rather complex (prescription strength) teddy bear in a medical emergency ward, meaning that this physical thing provides emotional comfort to someone who is mentally imbalanced. That's actually very plausible in the context of the story.

I liked this story (I voted it 3rd on my list, behind the top two winners), and if Alice was actually overdosing on an actual medicine, and the entire story was the result of a stroke-induced hallucination followed by death, then I just have to applaud you. But I have to agree with Georg: there weren't enough clues to indicate your intention in that direction, and very definitely not to indicate an aneurism or stroke.

>>Derpmind
30+ 2000 word stories, each encompassing a different, normal Pinkie Pie conversation...

That would be a lot to take in, but I'd love to see one where she has existential conversations with her mirror pool selves.

>>Trick_Question I absolutely agree. :)

Even though the chaos of this makes it a bit of a rough start, I enjoyed it. Also, I love the title!

Synopsis: Discord has a crush on Twilight, and is walking through the town on his way to her castle, to give her flowers and express his feelings. Along the way, his hopes and fears and generally chaotic, Discordian voices offer their thoughts, along with his own (italicized) observations.

So, my thoughts:

- I like that each voice had a personality of its own — Voice 1: Doubt and Pessimism, Voice 2: Hope and Optimism, Voice 3: Despair, Voice 4: Um... Gibbering Chaos? Anyway these are all a bit like angels and demons standing on your shoulder and offering their thoughts, except very much in Discord-style.

- I do feel it would be more effective to personify the voices (give them an appropriate elemental name), instead of giving them generic labels. I can see where you might want the reader to tease that out from the words the voices speak, but this being such a short, seemingly chaotic piece makes it more difficult to catch on and enjoy the reveal at the end. At least for me.

'oblong and obsequious.'

- Seems like you're going for alliteration here instead of meaning, which is fine, but it would be more effective if both words related better to the kind of things that Discord's negative side wants and misses, now that he's being forced to observe his nature and change for the benefit of everyone else.

- I'll observe a pet peeve of mine:

", ponies stopping and staring with jaws slack and eyes bulging."

This line is fine, of itself, but I see lot of authors tack "out of the blue" ideas like this on to other distinct ideas as a way to tie them together with a comma, and all it does for me is knock me out of immersion. I really think this idea – that ponies are shocked to see Discord walking down the street, holding flowers and talking to himself – would be much better suited as a short, standalone paragraph.

- I love the fact that even Hope (2nd voice) gives up and recommends that Discord run away. Poor Discord!

- Finally, now that I read back over it, I also get the feeling that the dialogue could go on for a few more lines as a better (and more humorous) build-up to the ending. It doesn't feel to me like there's enough tension built up to release by the end. But as it is, this story is short and sweet for the few words it has available.

Overall not a bad story, though I honestly found the dialogue a little forced/contrived. The reason for that being that the soldiers seemed for the most part to be having a calm, almost unaffected discussion, almost as if they were exploring abstract knowledge rather than sitting in the middle of a fresh and brutal killing field. This would have been a very good opportunity for more showing than telling. Cutting back some probably unneeded dialog might help to overcome the word limit, in that regard.

I don't think it's fair to say that the soldiers making assumptions about the future of the land is incorrect. This story is dealing with our past as their present – they're in a unique position to believe that the land has been utterly destroyed, even if one was to remove the inevitable pessimism a hardened soldier would likely have by that point in the war. They wouldn't be thinking of actual methods to heal the land of toxins and dig up unexploded ordinance. Just staying alive would have been enough, I'd think.

Speaking of which, just to add to that discussion: like Leo said, they're still digging up unexploded German WWII bombs in London after all of this time (a 250kg bomb in London was found and disposed of just last year). Not only might they be inherently more unstable, but as the war progressed, the Germans actually started booby-trapping the fuses to set the bombs off first by slight civilian or bomb disposal contact, and later specifically to kill the bomb disposal engineers. If you're interested, Danger:UXB is an excellent British TV series that follows some Royal Engineers in WWII London, who's job it is to disarm unexploded bombs. It's on DVD, but it also seems to be on Youtube.

Edit: Now wait a second, when does the event start again? Someone on FiMFiction said it's 6 pm UTC but the counter counts down to 12 pm UTC.

Well, everyone wants to see countdown timers on the front page of the event, but either there's a technical challenge or Roger's just allergic to it.

For now, just click on Fic Submission to see the time left before the prompt vote ends and the 24 hour story submission clock starts counting down.

FWIW, My times all show 5am Pacific as the cutoff/start times (SF Bay Area).

Drat! Missed it by that much. >| |<

No email for me. I only saw this today because I knew the schedule and looked to be sure.

>>horizon I very much enjoyed your story and, honestly, had it at the top of my list. For me this was a very dense story, and much of my enjoyment of it was unraveling it and coming to understand it.

FWIW, I was recovering from a migraine the morning I first read your story, and the first meaning of Ophek I found probably stuck because of that, and also because it made sense, contextually. Even if I'd found "horizon", though, I would have kept quiet. Now, Bad Horse... He would have charged you an Evil Finder's Extortion fee for that. ;)

>>horizon I'm wondering how this phenomenon would play out for those who can't read...