Pony Horror Thread #5 "IT'S ALIVE" Edition

>>30094546
Im watching the Apocalypse trilogy today. I've never seen them before. I finished The Thing and I'm about half way through Prince of Darkness. I need Luke to finish his story now...

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>>30094546
>>30092485
Reposting my last three from previous thread.
Haybert ran as fast as he could manage, the two ponies chasing him for all they were worth. Thankfully the imminent fear of death was good enough encouragement, and he dipped into reserves of energy he didn’t know he had. He dashed inside his house, slammed the door, and dropped the bar just as the two ponies chasing him crashed into it. They slammed into it a few more times before shuffling about outside the windows, looking for an easy opening.
“Come on out Hayberrrrt. Remember me? Ol’ Reedy Whistle? We drank together at the bar one night. You told me how you got kicked out of every institution you attended and ended up in this ‘backwater mud-pit’,” one of them said.
The windows rattled as the two checked them for weaknesses. The door got slammed into again, and one of them broke one of the windows to stick his hoof inside, groping for the latch. Haybert grabbed a knife from the kitchen and slashed at the hoof, cutting deep gashes in the limb as it flailed about. Dark blood oozed out of the wounds, having not received proper oxygen since the pony’s demise. The pony attached to the hoof either didn’t care, or didn’t notice, as he kept grabbing at the latch, trying to twist it open.
Haybert watched in horrible fascination as the magical glow keeping the pony animated, blue for this one, poured into the gouges Haybert had slashed into him, filling them with that awful glow and sealing the wound shut. He felt a mixture of terror and pride at how effective the spell was.
“C’mon, be a pal. I only want to get inside that thick skull of yours. I bet your brains will keep me running for a loooong time. Full of all that medical quackery,” said Reedy Whistle, one eye pressed up against the glass of the window.

>>30095331
Haybert grabbed the hoof as gingerly as he could while still trying his best to be forceful, and he tried to shove it back out the window. He would be using his magic, but he was tired beyond belief, and wouldn’t be able to muster the magic to ponyhandle anypony.
“I don’t want to have my brains eaten, thank you. I didn’t want any of this. I just wanted to bring back lost loved ones!” Haybert shouted at him.
More hooves began to pound on the door, causing the wood to begin splintering. They’d be on him shortly, and there was nothing he could do to defend himself. He had no magic, he had no friends, and that mare had abandoned him to the ‘tender mercies’ of the rest of her awful creations. Haybert huddled down in a corner and awaited the end, his hooves over his head.
The pounding on the door continued, the groaning of the wood getting louder and more strained, but just when he thought it would finally give, it stopped. He heard some commotion outside, and even Reedy Whistle left the window he had failed to open. Haybert lifted his head, curious what had happened to make them leave. Did some other pony arrive and they went to eat easier prey? He jumped as a knock came at the door.
“They’re gone Haybert, open the door,” the familiar voice of the mare said.
“Why should I believe you?” Haybert said through the barrier.
The wood creaked and groaned and Haybert covered his head again just as the door shattered inward. Splinters showered over him as the remains of his door clattered to the floor.
“Because you don’t have a choice.” The mare stepped over the broken portal, coming over next to Haybert and roughly yanking him to his hooves with her magic.

>>30095342
Haybert noticed she had something that was likely blood covering her muzzle. In the dim light of the moon he couldn’t tell, and he decided not to ask. He tried to keep his hoofing as she pulled him out the door of his house and down into the town proper.
“If you’re not going to eat me yourself, why are you so intent on keeping me alive and safe from the rest of them?” asked Haybert.
“Because I loathe you and the very idea of your existence. But it’s not enough to kill you or turn you into one of us, no. I want you to be the one surviving remnant of this whole miserable debacle,” said the mare. “That way, when it’s all over, you’ll have no desperate craving for brains or the constant throbbing pain of your ugly existence to pave over the knowledge of what you did here today. You’ll have nothing more than yourself, and your memories of this. If you kill yourself afterward, that’s fine, but you won’t be given such a mercy from me. Now watch.”
The mare pulled Haybert through the town he had been relegated to by his peers, which was now filled with screaming, wailing, and the disgusting sound of wet chewing interspersed by the occasional sound of bones cracking. Every meaty instance of it Haybert heard made him wince. He was reminded of the time in medical class when the professor had shown them exactly how much pressure was required to break a pony femur. He had been amazed at how high the weight had gotten before it had splintered with a horrifying cracking sound. That had made the severity of such injuries quite apparent.
Now he had to listen and see the sounds of ponies breaking, snapping, shattering, and chewing other ponies all around him. Some of them looked hungrily in his direction, but they were warned off by the mare every time. She wanted him alive and well.

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>>30095350
“Look around you Haybert,” the mare told him, “at the half-life you’ve created. Life with a countdown. An obvious timer, coupled with constant agonizing pain, and only one way to alleviate it, which also extends your painful life and then passes on the curse. Are you proud? Indefinite life IF… you’re willing to kill for it.”
Haybert plodded along next to her, tugged insistently by her magic any time his tired body lagged behind. “I wasn’t trying to make them monsters. I only wanted to bring back loved ones. How many times do I have to say it?”
A hoof struck the back of his head, knocking him to the ground. Once his vision stopped spinning he saw bits of flesh strewn about, along with small chunks of bone. He quickly pulled himself back to standing, wiping a hoof across his cheek to remove something wet that was stuck there. As soon as he was standing again, the mare was in his face, eyes blazing with anger.
“If you had a choice between constant pain and waiting to die, or the promise of the pain going away immediately, and extending your life, which would you choose?” the mare asked.
“I would choose to wait to die. Why extend the misery?” Haybert said.
The mare looked at him with a flat, disgusted look. Then her horn blazed and suddenly Haybert was in agonizing, excruciating pain from head to hoof. It burned along his limbs, up his spine and into his head, filling it with bright, firey agony. He barely registered that he was screaming in pain, and almost didn’t hear the mare talking to him.
“What do you want now?” she yelled.
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop it!” he cried in pain.
Instantly, it stopped.
He lifted his head, panting. His limbs were quivering, and he stumbled as she once more yanked him to his hooves without letting him rest. She looked at him with that same flat, disgusted look, then turned and marched down the street, dragging him past the carnage.

>>30095360
“I get it. It’s too much for any normal pony to bear,” said Haybert.
“I imagine for most ponies it feels much worse than that, and what I feel. Thankfully, you ‘only’ stabbed me through the heart. Most of these had their skulls ripped open, like so,” the mare said, pointing.
Ahead of them, further down the street, two ponies crashed through a window into the street. They were soon followed by a swarm of revenants yelling incoherently. The glowing corpses surrounded the two, and reached out, grasping for them. One of the two victims, a Pegasus, grabbed the other and tried to fly away, but the horde latched on to the dangling earth pony’s legs, pulling him back down. Unable to hold on, the Pegasus sobbed and let go, then bolted away into the sky.
“Why can the Pegasus revenants not fly? You can use magic,” said Haybert curiously.
“Revenants? Is that what we are? And how telling it is that you wondered about the function of the different ponies instead of expressing concern for the poor ponies.” said the mare, amused.
Haybert was taken aback at that. He thought about what had just happened and how he felt. He no longer felt disgust, revulsion, or even sadness. Somepony had lost a loved one right in front of him, and he was more interested in the functional abilities of the revenants.
“Oh…” he managed to mutter, “I’m a monster.”
“To answer your question, yes, they can fly. It’s just most of them aren’t thinking about it or can’t think about it due to the pain and hunger,” the mare said. “Observe.”
The mare looked about at the crowd of revenants galloping about, and nabbed one with her magic. The pony she grabbed snarled and snapped until she drew it close to her face and looked it in it’s one remaining eye.

>>30095367
“I want you to fly for me, and chase that pony, got it?” She pointed at the retreating figure in the night sky. “If she gets away, come back and tell me, but don’t let her get away. Got it?”
The Pegasus nodded, prompting The Mare to let go of her. The Pegasus looked confused for a moment, then spread her wings and took to the sky. She smiled and almost seemed happy, but it was gone in a moment as she focused on the Pegasus gaining distance away from the village, headed in the direction of Canterlot. She flapped her wings and was gone with unnatural speed. Haybert didn’t like the pegasus’ chances of escape.
After the Pegasus took off, The Mare looked about at the idle and confused masses of ponies. There were a lot of them simply crouched in the street, chewing on those few ponies who had yet to fully reanimate. One group consisted of a full family Haybert recognized as having welcomed him to town with a bowl of neighbourly jello.
He felt nothing at all upon seeing them dead, and he was increasingly concerned about that. It was one thing to want to defeat death, and be willing to kill for it, but it was another to realize that you did not actually possess any of the emotions that were expected of a normal pony. To introspectively think about it and realize that it was missing from himself was… disturbing, to say the least.
He didn’t get to think for long, as the crowd of revenants around him had grown large. He must be the only truly living pony remaining in this Podunk backwater mud-pit. He could only hope The Mare truly wanted him alive, or he wasn’t going to be able to escape this.

>>30095380
Haybert learns a little bit more about himself than he may have wanted to learn, and a pegasus makes a flight for it.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Wpy39kT8

Thanks for making a new thread, chaps. I didn't realize we were that close to ending.

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These threads could use a pastebin don't you think?
https://pastebin.com/nWWGx4YH
For now it's just a WIP, if I forgot anything just tell me so I can fix it.

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>>30096984
Oh I like that. That's a good consolidation of all the info right there. Thanks very much.

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I know I'm kinda late but I just finished reading Speaker to Birds' story and I found it amazingly disgusting (in a good way, I mean). My body felt itchy the whole time I was reading it. That was definitely worth the read, thanks for the story Anon.
I googled trypophobia out of curiosity after reading it and I immediately regretted it. I've seen way weirder shit before, but this somehow disgusted me more than I expected it to.

>>30097805
Well, he did say he liked Cronenberg a lot. (Was that him? I forget.) That sort of body horror was pretty apparent in the story, especially with the invasive nature of the things.
And yeah, Trypophobia. Weird, but not awful. Not like some other stuff.

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>>30095397
The Mare’s horn flared and a bolt of force struck the revenant closest to Haybert. Most of the revenants pulled away, but one dove at Haybert despite the risk, and was forced to the ground by an invisible hoof. The giant hoof twisted, and the revenant’s back popped and bent as it was ground into the dirt.
“I want him alive, you idiots. He needs to watch all of this for what he’s done, and then he needs to think on it,” said The Mare. “Think on it for however long he wishes to live afterward.”
One of the revenants who had backed away clacked her jaw together in a torrent of awful and rapid chattering as she stared with a desperate gaze at Haybert’s skull. “A-a-a-a-a-after wha-a-a-a-a-at?”
“After we make our way to Baltimare,” said The Mare. “That Pegasus pony may escape her pursuer, and if she does, we need to be far away from here. Far enough away that Celestia must hunt for us. She will not suffer us to live for long.”
Muttering erupted in the mingled crowd. Even the pony who had been flattened into the ground joined in, unconcerned about his broken back. Rightly so, it seemed, as that horrible magic glow seeped through his skin as it forced the shattered spine to function. He pulled himself to his hooves, his body now twisted in a disturbing z-shape.
“Celestia? Coming here? She could fix this!” said the z-stallion.
The Mare struck him across the face, and Haybert could hear the stallion’s jaw pop.
“She won’t ‘fix’ anything, you moron. She can’t. You’re dead. She’ll vaporize us and be done with it,” said The Mare. “Now if you want to wait to be vaporized and lose yourself among the dead, be my guest, but I have to make somepony suffer. Everypony who wants to go to Baltimare, pick up your hooves. With me!”

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>>30099090
Haybert followed The Mare as she left the village with about half of the revenants. Half stayed behind at first, restless as they watched The Mare’s group leave the village. They only made it a short distance before every single one that had stayed behind galloped to join them, their jaws hanging open as they chewed on imagined skulls. The pain proved too much to bear, and the only immediate relief waited for them in Baltimare.
Haybert was dragged along, trying to keep up with the marching horde. His hooves ached, and he found himself struggling with the inexorable march of revenants. The Mare kept him on a tight leash and protected him from the rest of the revenants as she had promised, even as some of them snapped at him. She was intent on seeing him survive this.
As the march continued into the night, Haybert looked at The Mare as she stared ahead into the darkness. He had not thrust her into this role as leader of an army of the dead, but she had taken to it with disturbing ease. He found himself not wondering what was going to happen when they reached Baltimare, but what kind of pony she had been before he had killed her.
The fate of Baltimare was easy to imagine. They would reach the city at sunup, and ponies would trickle into the streets in time to meet the approaching revenants. Sure, there was only a small village worth of the dead ponies, but they couldn’t be killed by conventional means, and every victim they caught joined their ranks to spread Haybert’s spell.
If Baltimare had some sort of advance warning, maybe they could defend themselves until help arrived, but the problem of the revenants being effectively immortal still arose. How do you kill dead things?

>>30099097
Haybert’s mind wandered as he walked, and he began wondering to what extent the revenants could be broken before or even if the spell stopped working. If you were to somehow separate a revenant into two roughly equal pieces, which one would the spell choose to animate?
Would it assemble a fully functional back end and front end and create two separate ponies?
Does it prioritize the brain?
It filled in the missing sections of the brain that were eaten by the revenants, so would it do that for the hind end?
Haybert found himself searching for a pen and paper before he remembered he was marching with a squad of risen corpses to attack a city. He felt disappointed with himself, but he still noticed he was more annoyed at missing a pen and paper to theorize about the dead than he was concerned about the upcoming attack.
The Mare noticed his distracted behavior and forced him closer to speak over the chattering and moaning surrounding them.
“Are you concerned about the city, Haybert? Do you worry about the ponies that are going to lose their lives? You should be glad. They will not be gone long. It was your dream after all. You made this all possible,” said The Mare.
Haybert debated telling her the truth about his thoughts, but settled on doing so, because he was at her mercy, and lying would get him no new information. “I was actually wondering how the spell would animate a pony that was separated into two almost equal halves. Would it prioritize the brain, or would it create two copies of the same pony; one with the front half and one with the back half.”
The Mare’s teeth clenched and she struck him across the face with her magic, horn aglow with angry red light. “A city is about to die and you, you unrepentant monster, are concerned with the mechanics of your spell?”

>>30099105
Haybert is concerned about one thing, and one thing only.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Wpy39kT8

Coming Soon™

>>30099700
Hype®

>>30100039
I am working closely with Waxworks to illustrate The Reanimator.

Rise again

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>>30099113
Haybert didn’t have a response to that, so he merely shrugged.
The Mare, angry at his flippant response, turned away to look at her tiny army. There were maybe twenty or thirty members of their little band, enough to do some damage, but not enough to take over the city if it got organized. She had wanted to show Haybert the carnage and damage his inexcusable abuse of magic could wreak before they were all killed.
Now, with Haybert so calm and uncaring about the fate of the ponies they would eat, she was angry. If that wasn’t the way to punish him, she didn’t… she couldn’t… the pain was too much.
The Mare screamed.
It was an angry, inarticulate screech of rage and frustration. The surrounding revenants answered her with similar yells that voiced nothing more than the pain of their existence. Guttural, animalistic, and with no attempt to make coherent sounds. They yelled as long as their animated lungs would allow them to.
After The Mare ran out of air, she roughly lifted Haybert above her to float, cloaked in magic, and she ran. The revenants followed suit, and the army of the dead descended upon Baltimare just before dawn.
If anypony had heard their screaming before, they hadn’t prepared for it. On the outskirts of Baltimare, they encountered some houses, and despite The Mare’s calls to ignore them and get into the city proper, they lost a few of the revenants to their hunger. Screams came from inside the houses, and there were flashes of light as the residents attempted to fight back.
That got Haybert wondering how well a revenant unicorn besides The Mare would handle themselves in a magic duel.
The Mare didn’t wonder anything beyond if she should eat a unicorn or Pegasus pony first. The village they came from had been mainly earth ponies, and she had eaten one of the few pegasi as her first meal.

>>30101932
Her question was answered for her as the crowd barreled down the back streets and alleys of Baltimare in a bid to get as deep as possible into the city. The crowd of revenants following The Mare dissipated little by little as each revenant got distracted by one tasty morsel or another. Eventually it was just Haybert and The Mare, with the distant screams of ponies falling behind them, and The Mare came face to face with an elderly unicorn stallion on an empty back street.
The stallion looked at The Mare dragging along Haybert and pushed his glasses up his nose as he squinted at the unusual pair. “Good morning young lady. Courtship among the young certainly has changed. It used to be the stallion doing the carrying. Your makeup is also highly unusual, how much did those lenses cost?”
The Mare lifted her head higher and stared down her nose at the stallion. “What was that question you had about your spell, Haybert? Oh yes, let’s find out.”
The Mare dropped Haybert to the street and fell upon the unsuspecting stallion. Haybert watched in fascination as her cruel teeth ripped into the stallion’s scalp, tearing it off the bone. The older pony struggled, but his attempts to light up his horn were foiled easily, and his skull creaked and splintered before he stopped moving altogether, The Mare chewing on the sweet matter that hid inside.
Haybert grimaced and looked away.
“Oh now don’t turn away yet Haybert, we need to figure out how the spell reacts to being separated from the core. Come watch,” The Mare said.
Haybert was dragged over next to the corpse as The Mare dropped it to the street. They watched as the magic reassembled the stallion’s brain and worked its way down his body. Once the glow—which was green for this pony—reached the lower half of his body, The Mare sliced the stallion in half, spilling his guts onto the street.

>>30101942
Haybert was no stranger to the pony body, but the nonchalance with which The Mare sliced this stallion in half gave him a shiver. He wasn’t ever concerned about slicing into ponies himself. In fact, he was guilty of cracking jokes while he did, but the fact that it was a dead pony was always present. The Mare treated it like she was slicing a piece of cheese.
The Mare finished cutting it in two and pulled the pieces apart. There was a scream off to the side, and the two of them looked to see a mare dashing around a corner screaming about murder.
“Well, that doesn’t give us much time, but we’ll just have to hope the others are working hard,” The Mare said. “Now here’s your answer, look at it and tell me if you’re satisfied.”
Haybert watched, his eyes focused on the stallion’s body as the magic filled it. The magic that had filled the lower half stuck itself out of the veins and organs that were disconnected and sent out tendrils, questing for the parts that should be there.
“Oh, that’s interesting. They appear to be trying to find the rest to reattach to it,” Haybert said. “I really wish I had my notebook.”
The questing magic tendrils on the lower side of the stallion’s body started moving slower as they were unable to find anything to attach to. On the other side with the heart and arcane lock, the tendrils started building the missing portion of the stallion from nothing, assembling magic replacements for the missing half of his stomach, liver, and skin.
“Oh! It’s really going to build him a new lower half! This is incredible!” Haybert said.
As they watched, the magic in the lower half disappeared entirely, returning to the aether, while on the upper half, the magic did likewise, albeit much later. The light behind the dead stallion’s eyes went out as all the magic dissipated, leaving a cold, lifeless, brainless corpse.

>>30101948
The attack is begun, and tests are done, with interesting results.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Wpy39kT8

>>30101949
whoops

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>>30095073
So how was it then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3_QOVaBA98

>>30103046
The Thing:
I really enjoyed this one. The paranoia between the characters was way more scary than the actual creature. I have been through situations in my life where I didn't trust anyone around me, always looking over my shoulder. It's pretty stressful. It was also cool to see where Thingpone came from.

Prince of Darkness:
This one bored me. I had trouble keeping the characters straight and the monster wasn't scary at all. The ending was great though.

In the Mouth of Madness:
This was my favorite of the 3. Having fiction all of the sudden become your reality, realizing you are just a puppet of someone's fantasy. That is truly horrifying to me. Sam Niell has always been 'Alan Grant' to me, but now when I see him I will think 'John Trent'. He nailed this role. I like when an actor or actress can play crazy see Kathy Bates in Misery. I will be adding this to my rewatch over and over list.

Just my short thoughts on each. I never would have seen these if not for this thread. You guys are great, and thanks for the content and suggestions!

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>>30104784

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>>30101949
“There. You have your answer,” said The Mare. “There is a limit to how much your spell can do to rebuild a pony’s body.”
Haybert poked at the body with a hoof. Blood soaked the road, and he could hear shouting in the distance. In every direction, different sounds assailed his ears: Screaming, crying, fighting, growling.
The city was alive. The irony was not lost on Haybert, as most of the life was going to be snuffed out unless they could mount some form of defense against the invincible horde he had created.
The Mare did not let Haybert sit for very long. She yanked him to his hooves and began trotting down the street away from where the voices were shouting from. Haybert stumbled after her, the image of the spell failing foremost in his mind. He did not react to their situation beyond a dim realization that he was in trouble and he should be moving. The Mare was doing most of the work, Haybert was just being pulled along.
“Where are we going?” Haybert asked. “We’re in the city, isn’t this what you wanted? What was your goal once here? Just to eat ponies and turn them into revenants like yourselves?”
“Yes, that was the only goal. I just wanted you to see how bad things could get, but you don’t even care,” The Mare said.
“I…” Haybert stopped and thought about how he had been acting, “I don’t care, you’re right.”
The moment he said it, Haybert felt a sense of freedom he hadn’t felt in years. It was like he had returned to his first year of medical school and there was an endless stretch of discovery and experiment were laid out in a buffet before him.
He didn’t care.
“So you finally admit it,” The Mare said. “Your only goal was to see what you could do, with no regard for the safety or well-being of anypony around you. You just wanted to try because you could.”

>>30106272
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” said Haybert. “I knew I had the ability, but I was never allowed to put it to use. I was strangled by my academic surroundings and ponies who never wanted to try.”
The Mare was silent, but pulled him along down several streets until they found one where the dominant attitude was concern, but hadn’t yet descended into an all-out panic. The ponies saw them, and Haybert knew he looked a sight, but they didn’t panic. The Mare walked with a confident stride which drew puzzled looks, but no extra concern.
Haybert thought that was weird, because her muzzle was covered in blood.
“What are we looking for?” Haybert asked.
“The pony in charge of this little neck of the woods,” said The Mare. “I don’t get inside the city much.”
A pony nearby heard her and came over. “Oh, you’re looking for someone who knows what’s going on? A lot of folks are. You’ll want Top Hat. He’s answering questions at city hall,” said the pony. “Some say we’re being attacked, and others are saying it’s a wild animal. I saw a pony with a bite in their leg, so I think it’s wild animals.”
“Ah, well thank you,” said The Mare. “Which direction is city hall from here?
“Not too far, just up that block, then straight on, maybe four or five at the end of the road. Can’t miss it.” The pony pointed with a hoof, turning it with his directions.
“Well thank you again. You’re too kind,” said The Mare.
“Oh yeah, no problem,” said the pony. “By the way, are you alright? You got a little something…” he motioned to his muzzle.
“Oh I’m fine. It’s not my blood,” The Mare pulled Haybert along, leaving the confused pony behind.
“What will you do at city hall?” Haybert asked as they trotted.
“I think you know exactly what I am going to do,” said The Mare.

>>30106279
Haybert could see city hall long before they arrived, and there was already a large crowd. He had spied pegasi flying overhead, so he knew the city was entering a state of emergency. He hadn’t yet heard announcements being broadcast by any unicorns, and the pegasi he saw looked to be fireponies and policeponies, so they hadn’t yet realized the sheer severity of the situation. It was only a matter of time.
As they approached, Haybert could see the crowd was restless. The general feeling he got from their body-language was ‘worried and looking for answers’. There was no yelling from the crowd, just silence. Pegasi hovered overhead, and Top Hat, who was easy to spy with his namesake plain on his head, was up on stage and flanked by earth pony bodyguards. Police wagons were set up on the outskirts of the assemblage, directing newcomers to the area to gather in front of city hall, and on side roads Haybert could see ambulances and fire wagons traveling to and fro.
Things were heating up.
The Mare didn’t seem worried about any of it, however. She walked boldly up to the crowd, her glowing eyes and the hole in her withers seeming so obvious to Haybert, but nopony around her questioned it. She pushed through the crowd, Haybert at her fetlocks, and made for the steps.
Top Hat was babbling about how they had the situation under control, and everypony was being taken care of, and how they didn’t need to send for the Wonderbolts or Royal Guard, they had the whole thing under control.
Haybert doubted that.
As soon as The Mare reached the cordon, she yelled up at Top Hat. “I have the pony who is responsible for all of this.”
There was silence as Top Hat processed what she had said.
“Ah… may I help you?” Top Hat said.
“I said, I have the pony who is responsible for all of this,” she said again.

>>30106282
Confidence makes everything seem normal. Including betrayal.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/edit/Wpy39kT8

>>30103821
I think I need to watch Prince of Darkness. I think I'm thinking of a different film. I'll have to look it up.

>>30106290
So Haybert may not be safe after all
Plot twist: The Mare kills every single one of them to save Haybert

>>30106290
I don't seem to be able to post images, so here's a text bump.

>>30106290
“Who, then? This stallion with you?” Top hat asked.
The Mare shoved Haybert up the stairs, following close behind him. “Yes. This stallion is the one behind it all, and he’ll tell you all about it.”
Haybert balked at her pushing, and cringed under the glare of Top Hat’s bodyguards. He was confused what her plan might be for doing something like this, or if she really was just hoofing him over to the city for punishment. She had wanted him punished for what he did, maybe this was the final step she was going to take?
“Well, we can certainly question him. Ah, by the way miss, are you alright? You look injured,” said Top Hat.
“Thank you for your concern sir, but it’s not my blood,” said The Mare.
A murmur went through the crowd, but nopony reacted more than that. Haybert didn’t understand. Was that normal?
Top Hat stepped down from his lectern and approached Haybert. “Now, as for you. Is this true what she said? We have ponies attacking other ponies in the city. They will be dealt with, but did you incite them to riot, and if so, why?”
Haybert looked at Top Hat, then turned and looked at The Mare. She smiled a small and cocksure smile. Haybert sighed and turned back to Top Hat. A thousand thoughts went through his head at once. He could deny it, and they would never be able to prove otherwise. He could say it was The Mare instead and try to expose her as a revenant. How could he prove that, though? He could also just admit to it and accept the punishment. It’s not like they could do anything worse to him than The Mare could.
Haybert sighed again. “I did not incite them to riot. I am, however, the reason for their current state of mind.”

>>30107833
“So you do admit guilt in this,” Top Hat said.
“I do. I think it important to explain as well that they are not rioting, they are eating,” Haybert said.
“Eating?” Top Hat asked.
Haybert nodded. “They’re eating the brains of ponies they come across to alleviate the constant agony of a pained existence. They’re dead, you see.”
Those ponies in the crowd within earshot gasped, and then immediately erupted into shouting, inciting the rest of the crowd to murmur amongst themselves and start shouting. Some voices were shouting their disbelief, others were shouting questions. Top Hat maintained his calm demeanor, and walked back to his lectern to motion for silence. After the crowd settled down.
“Now, now. We have but one pony’s word on this. Whatever you heard, we do not yet have verification that this is the truth,” Top Hat said. After he said that, one of his guards walked closer to whisper in his ear. Top Hat paled and looked at the guard in confusion, then horror.
The crowd started shouting again, demanding to know what was going on. Top Hat tried to motion for quiet again, but they weren’t having it this time. The crowd pushed forward, shoving police aside to move further up the stairs.
Once Top Hat’s personal guards moved to push back the crowd, The Mare took her opportunity and moved closer to Top Hat as they went by. Getting close had been her goal, and with the guards occupied, she seized Top Hat’s head in her hooves and bit down with her powerful undead teeth. Top Hat’s skull splintered and she spat out shards of bone as he wailed and kicked in her grip. By the time the guards had noticed something wrong, fresh blood stained her muzzle, and Top Hat’s brains were in her jaws.

>>30107837
The screaming started soon after, and the crowd that had once surged toward the steps, turned and struggled to go in the opposite direction. Fighting broke out in the crowd as ponies that had been working together fractured into groups or individuals.
“They can look and act normal! Trust nopony!” a voice yelled.
Haybert understood her goal, now. She was the only revenant that looked even close to normal, and was confident enough to act like nothing was wrong despite the constant nagging at the back of her mind to feed. She had taken out the pony in charge, and simultaneously fractured the trust among friends and neighbors with her act and appearance. Baltimare was in trouble.
Once the crowd pulled away, the guards turned on The Mare, who seemed occupied with her meal. The first earth pony to attack her tried to grapple her from behind. She slammed the back of her head into his chin, shattering teeth, and threw him over her much smaller frame into two more earth pony guards. A unicorn fired a blast of magic, which pierced directly through The Mare’s neck. It was instantly sealed by the arcane reservoir in her chest, flush with fresh magic. She fired back her own spell, which the unicorn deflected. It flashed into the crowd, striking and killing a civilian. The unicorn glanced over at the collateral damage he had caused with dismay. The Mare saw her opportunity and took it, rushing him and biting his horn clean off. She set into his skull and devoured a small portion of his brains before she was beset upon by the earth ponies again.
Haybert watched some of this with fascination, but turned and looked at Top Hat, left on the ground. He really should be trying to get to safety. When Top Hat got up, he wouldn’t know The Mare wanted Haybert alive. But Haybert had a thought he wanted to test, and curiousity killed the cat, as they say. He was willing to take that chance.

>>30107842
A plan is pulled off with nothing but chutzpah.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Wpy39kT8

Can't post images right now, and I realized my last 'updated my journal' was the edit link. Whoosp.
Story's coming to a head. Hope you're enjoying it.

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>>30107468
4chan was frozen for a few hours.
Also test.

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>>30108997

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>>30107847
Loving it so far. I can't wait to see what E2 >>30100576 is working on.

>>30109967
Currently I am drafting Haybert and the Mare for Waxworks to confirm their appearance. I will put them up once Waxworks gives the green light.

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>>30107847
Haybert watched as the arcane lock built up in Top Hat’s exposed brain, putting the mess The Mare had made of it back together by filling in the space with magic. Haybert still didn’t know why it spread like it did. He supposed it had to do with the drive the spell had to repair broken ponies, but he would test that later. Right now, he wanted to test something he had thought of when The Mare had sliced that stallion in half earlier.
Haybert remembered that the spell had attempted to rebuild the pony, but had run out of magic. The spell had been pulling magic from the rest of itself to fill in the holes the pony had in him, but because it had only a minor amount of magic, it had died. So where was the main portion it had been pulling magic from? Haybert’s first thought was the reservoir in the heart, so he intended to test that.
Haybert ignored the violence going on around him, and with the little magic he had, he carefully sliced open Top Hat’s chest. He waited until the spell had infiltrated the heart, creating the reservoir, then pried open the ribcage with his hooves, and removed Top Hat’s heart from its cavity.
Top Hat gasped on the ground, lurching at Haybert. Haybert fell backward onto his flank, clutching the bloody heart to his shirt, blood staining it. Top hat tried to pull himself to his hooves, but after three pained moans, he fell back to the floor, the magic fading from his eyes.
Haybert looked to the organ in his hooves, and watched wide-eyed as the reservoir in the heart started trying to build a new pony. Orange light spilled from the ventricles of the heart, pulsing in time with it as it beat in his hooves.

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>>30111158
The glow coming from the heart dimmed steadily as it attempted to build Top Hat anew with what little magic it had. It managed to make a good portion of the nervous system before it ran out and the magic faded. Haybert sat grinning even as the heart stopped completely, pleased with the results he had observed. This meant that the heart, even while being the second portion of the spell that was created, was what kept it going after the initial surge of the spell. The reservoir kept it going just as intended, and if there was any further injury or damage to the pony, the reservoir was where the magic was pulled from.
Haybert’s mind blazed with possibility: Could it rebuild an entire pony if given enough magic? The possibilities. The sheer possibilities! Would it be as painful an existence as having a damaged pony? Would it be like have an injury on your entire body? Haybert sat, in the middle of all the carnage, considering what ways he might improve his spell.
Haybert’s thoughts were interrupted when The Mare rampaged back to him and lifted him off the ground. Her eyes were furnaces, the dark glow of magic inside them almost palpable in their heat. Haybert could see the light of magic seeping through her flesh from her reservoir. Her face was covered in blood, gore, and flecks of bone, but she grinned a rictus grin.
She hadn’t gone through the fight unscathed, one of her ears was missing, replaced by magic, and her left front leg was bent at an angle that wasn’t natural. She had several swaths of flesh missing from her torso, and she now had half a Glasgow smile from a tear up her cheek. She didn’t seem to care, and it wasn’t going to hinder her, not with everything replaced or forced to function with magic.

>>30111162
The Mare laughed and dragged Haybert up the stairs and into city hall. She slammed the door and blocked it with several nearby desks and chairs. Haybert noticed she was panting, which he thought odd given her physical state.
“Why are you out of breath?” Haybert asked.
“Even dead tissue needs a rest every now and again. My mind is clear, but my body is in constant pain, and the injuries just add to it,” said The Mare.
Haybert thought for a moment. “So it’s more a mental reflex than anything else?”
“I… suppose,” said The Mare. She saw the heart he still held in his hooves and snorted. “What about you? Stopping in the middle of a panicked riot to perform research, I take it?”
Haybert brightened up at her asking about his research. “Oh! Yes, actually. I found out that the heart is the source of body repairs. It takes the magic that’s been stored up, from eating and unicorns providing it I assume, and works from the heart to rebuild everything missing from the pony. So despite the brain being—“ He stopped when The Mare turned away and walked further into the building ”—you don’t actually care do you?”
“Not at all,” said The Mare. “But you don’t have anypony to talk to about it, do you?”
“I suppose not,” said Haybert, “so what will you do once Baltimare is taken?”
The Mare scoffed. “We won’t get past this place. One of the guards got away from me. A Pegasus. If the first pony didn’t make it to Canterlot, that one will. I would estimate we have an hour at most before the entire Canterlot guard, led by the Princess of the sun herself bear down on us with all the fury of righteous fire. That will be a sight.”

>>30111169
Haybert doesn't pay attention to the world around him, but he learns something new.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Wpy39kT8

There was a story or discussion a few threads back about a creature that looks like a beautiful horse or woman or something that leads men into a swamp or lake and eats them. What was that thing called? I can't remember for shit

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>>30112620
Kelpies?
http://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/29698360/#29739556
http://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/29805086/#29844958

>>30112696
Yup, thats it. Thanks!

>>30113136
Nice, we need a Discord story. I don't know how he could be made scary tho

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>>30113440
>I don't know how Discord could be made scary
I was thinking about this too, but the other way around.
I'd love to see a story where Discord is the one to be scared. Think about it, what could be crazy and maddening enough to terrify an immortal God of Chaos? What could possibly spook the spooker?

1/6

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>>30113694
2/6

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>>30113705
3/6

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>>30113737
4/7

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>>30113749
*4/6
5/6

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>>30113757
6/6

Full PNG for this part: http://fav.me/d4aq5ll

>>30113694
I like this story. It's pretty good. I can't say I know how to make Discord scary or scared. I'll try to think of something, though.

Big update coming for my story later today.

>>30113694
I didn't even consider that angle. Maybe you could take away his Fluttershy?
>>30113770
Holy Luna, that was beautiful.

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>>30111171
“So why are you holing up in here? Shouldn’t you be trying to escape?” Haybert asked.
The Mare stopped, turned around, and stomped up to Haybert. “And go where, hmm? With my body in pieces” —she waved her broken leg for emphasis— “and the pain growing with each injury, where would I go? Spread death across Equestria? I’m barely holding my sanity together as it is. Sure I speak well, but every time I look at you I get this incredible urge to just—“ The Mare clacked her teeth together “—crack your skull wide open.”
Haybert took a step back. “Okay, point taken. So what is the plan, then?”
“I am going to watch, and wait. I will make sure everypony knows who is responsible for it, and leave your fate to the princess. Maybe they will let me speak before they put me out of your misery,” said The Mare.
“Don’t you mean ‘my’ misery?” Haybert asked.
“Yes, yours,” The Mare said. “I’m not hiding in here for my safety. I’m effectively immortal. I could go on eating, devouring, spawning new revenants, but no, again Haybert, this is all about you and making sure that you get your just desserts. I don’t want you becoming an animal like the rest of those ponies outside. I want you aware of what you’ve done, whether you feel remorse or not.”
Haybert walked over to the window and stared outside, looking down at the crowd in the streets next to city hall. Ponies were fighting each other, panicked from the thought that a revenant might speak as clearly as their friends and neighbors. Only some of the ponies fighting outside were revenants, but their numbers were growing. Every brain-consuming kill by a revenant resulted in a fresh one rising soon after, causing their numbers to grow with each passing minute.

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>>30115325
Haybert tried to do some quick math in his head to calculate exactly how many revenants there might be, but that lead him to another thought: How would one kill a revenant?
He looked at the heart he was still holding in his magic. Removing it had stolen most of the magic from the spell, and it didn’t have enough to rebuild the reservoir before expiring because Top Hat was a fresh revenant. If a revenant had enough magic, or consumed a brain after losing the heart, would it gain enough to continue living? If removing the magic from the reservoir was necessary to kill the revenant, severing body parts or causing enough injury should do it. It all depends on the reservoir.
More questions, and not enough tools to test them. Haybert sighed and watched the ponies fight outside. A mare carrying her foal on her back tried to dash through the crowd toward a ring of police ponies. She was clubbed by one of the police and fell to the ground. Her foal disappeared under the hooves of the combined revenants and ponies fighting.
Haybert didn’t feel a thing.
“Why did you do it?” Haybert asked.
The Mare was sitting in the center of the room, staring at her broken leg. “Do what?”
“Trick Top Hat into letting you get close, then eating him. I don’t quite see how that punishes me,” said Haybert.
“Because a village is small. A city is large. Isn’t that how science does it? You need a larger sample size?” The mare said. “You didn’t think. I’m showing you large-scale results. Sorry you don’t have your notes.”
“Well, I guess that’s true. This has helped me think of more questions and tests I could do,” Haybert said.
“Euuuugh!” The Mare said. “That’s the problem with you. Not caring who any of your work hurts, just so long as you get answers. You’re not a pony!”

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>>30115332
“What? Of course I am,” Haybert said.
The Mare lifted her broken leg, her horn glowed red and she sliced it off just above the break. *THUD* The limb fell to the floor and the magic remaining inside it began questing outward looking for the limb to reattach itself, but it quickly died. The stump that remained sent out similar tendrils. Unable to find the limb, it started rebuilding it entirely out of magic, replacing the missing appendage with a glowing brown substitute. This one wasn’t broken.
“Did you see that, Haybert?” said The Mare. “A new leg.” She bent and flexed it a few times. “Fully functional. Almost instant. You could do so much good with the spell if you changed it, but all you want to do is reanimate corpses. I’m an abomination, but you, you’re a monster.”
“I am not!” Haybert said.
The Mare walked over to Haybert, grabbed his head and slammed it into the glass of the window. It cracked, but held. “Look outside! Ponies dying left and right, and you still don’t care about anypony but yourself! Every lesson I have tried to teach has fallen on deaf ears because you’re too stubbornly locked in your own Celestiadamned world!”
Haybert didn’t fight back, he just let her yell. It hurt, but he was well aware she wouldn’t kill him at this point.
“Hang on, I’ve never teleported before, but let me figure this out,” The Mare said.
Her eyes went distant and her lips moved. Haybert guess she was ‘talking to the dead’ like she had mentioned before.
“Okay, let’s try this,” The Mare closed her eyes, lit up her horn, and grabbed hold of Haybert. There was a flash of light, and Haybert found himself falling through the air. He yelped in surprise, but landed on hard tile soon after.

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>>30115340
Haybert felt himself begin to slide, and his hooves scrabbled on the tiled roof for a moment before he had solid hoofing. He looked about and saw that The Mare had teleported them on top of city hall. He looked around at the buildings on Main street, and at the panicked ponies rushing about.
Pegasi flew by, paying the two of them no mind, far more interested in escaping the carnage below. The crowd on the streets below still looked to be a mess of the dead and dying, the police having been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of ponies, and the ferocity of the revenants. In the buildings nearby, Haybert could see the occasional pony leaping from a window, followed soon after by a second pony, the tell-tale glow of magic betraying them as a revenant intent on their meal. Only one of those would survive the drop. Magic could be heard all over. The poof of teleportation, the POW of a beam, or the hum of telekinesis. Ponies fought, buildings burned, and chaos reigned.
“Do you like it?” The Mare whispered in his ear. “This is all yours. You made it possible. Congratulations.
Haybert didn’t respond. He didn’t really have anything to say. He just wanted to do research. Baltimare was a mess, and she blamed him for it. There really wasn’t anything he could say in response. She was responsible for some of it, but he was responsible for her, so it all did come back to him.
Haybert’s thoughts were interrupted when the sky started turning purple, a sheet of violet magic rising into the air on all sides, sliding up to meet in the air above them.
“Ah, the princess is here,” The Mare said.
Haybert looked up and saw a speck of white flying overhead, flanked by a platoon of ponies decked in gold. This was the first time he had ever seen the princess with his own eyes, but instead of being excited, he had this overwhelming sense of dread.

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>>30115352
“What is she doing?” Haybert asked.
“What I would do in this situation: Preventing further outbreak,” The Mare said.
“What? What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“Which is?”
“Haybert, if you were going to kill me as I am now, how would you do it?”
“Well, the heart is the reservoir of magic, and it will continue to rebuild the body as long as magic is available, so I would remove the heart. But then there’s no guarantee the heart won’t manage to create an entirely new pony if it had enough magic, so—“
“Haybert, shut up,” The Mare said. “Without the knowledge of the spell that you have, how would you do it to guarantee the body parts won’t get up and move again? Guaranteed.”
“Well… burn it. That way every part that would have had… oh.”
The Mare nodded and looked up. Haybert joined her.
The guards on Celestia’s flanks had flown away, and Celestia had begun to glow, slowly building into a second sun directly over Baltimare. Haybert felt the temperature begin to rise, and wondered if there was anywhere he could go to hide. He scrapped that idea as soon as he thought of it. Nowhere inside this bubble was going to be safe.
“Well, I guess this is goodbye, uh…” Haybert said, “you know, I don’t think I know your name.”
The Mare stared up at Celestia, enraptured by the light. “You never asked, and I never gave it. But it’s Sweet Sunrise.”
“Well, goodbye Sweet Sunrise. See you after death, I suppose.”
“Oh no, death is still too good for you, but your punishment is now yours to decide,” Sweet Sunrise said.
Haybert had a brief glimpse of her red magic, before there was a flash of red, followed by yellow, and he felt searing heat on his flank.

>>30115362
Once Haybert’s vision cleared, he found himself in the woods, behind the graveyard in his old town in the Hayseed Swamp. There was a distant flash of light, followed several seconds later by a gust of wind. Celestia had solved Baltimare’s problem, at least.
Haybert felt something move in his hoof and he looked down. He was holding a fresh and beating heart, flush with magic. As he watched, it sent out seeking tendrils the glowing brown of his aura, trying to find something to attach to.
“Ah. I understand what you mean. You were paying attention to what I said after all,” said Haybert.
He looked at the heart in his hooves, as it worked its very best to find something. When it failed, it started rebuilding the missing pieces, one ventricle at a time.
“Do I end you here, or do I wait to see if my theory is correct? Could my spell rebuild a pony if it were provided enough magic? Am I such a monster that I would prolong my own pain and risk the lives of others just to see a theory through to the end?” Haybert stared down at the heart in his hooves, then laid it down on the ground, stepped back, and sat to wait. “We both knew the answer to that question before you even asked.”

The End.

>>30115371
It all finally ends.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Wpy39kT8

Other than the Discord suggestion, are there any others? Characters? Scenarios?

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>>30115383
Wow, that was awesome. Especially considering you said zombies weren't your thing. I really loved the ambiguous relationship you built between Haybert and the Mare and how you characterized them, especially Haybert being a borderline sociopath with no empathy whatsoever. Great stuff.

Now I have a question: how fucking based are you? You've been writing high quality content and posting daily updates for months straight now! That's pretty impressive. When will you stop? Please don't.

>>30116086
Thanks. I wanted the zombies to be something different from the usual fare, and magic was the obvious method of creating them, so I hope there weren't too many loopholes in how they functioned. Didn't want the head to be the weak point, nor did I want the zombies to be the actual monster in this whole thing. I'm glad it worked out, and I'm glad you liked it.

As for the second question, I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon. I'll miss a few updates in June when I go on vacation with my family, but I'll probably have my laptop with me so it depends on internet availability. I will not be stopping anytime soon, though. I enjoy it far too much, and I want to eventually get a book published. So keep giving me feedback, and I'll keep writing.

Lyra you're not fooling anyone.

>>30116133
Whoosp

>>30115383
But where did she go?
This is one that could use a sequel

>>30117604
Haybert figured out that with enough magic in the reservoir of the heart, a pony might be able to be rebuilt entirely from just that. The heart Haybert ends up with after he's teleported out glows with the colour of his magic, which only The Mare had. That's why it's such a unique (albeit ugly) colour. That's her heart, and he's waiting for her to be rebuilt because he has no goddamn sense of right and wrong, and cares more about his theories than common sense. That's why she said his punishment was up to him. If he learned anything from this whole mess, he would destroy her heart,
let her die, and move on with his life, but he HAD to know if his theory about his spell was sound, and so she'll come back, and she'll continue to punish him for his awful, cruel, and sociopathic behaviour.

>>30118207
That is one sexy...mythological creature?

>>30117678
Oh I get it now. I thought her magic would be red, since the aura of her magic is red. I didn't think the aura coming off the heart would be Haybert's.

>>30118453
See this post >>30112696
Also touch the Lyra >>30116086 Do it.

>>30118915
No, her magic is red, but her body glow is Haybert's since he was the one who started her up in the first place.

>>30119106
Would that count as soul mates then? Looks like Haybert got married by bringing back the dead.

>>30119443
Hah. Maybe. Strange way of tying the knot.

>>30119461
Workin on something for Discord. We'll see how it goes.>>30116133
>>30115383
>>30113136
>>30113440

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>>30120007

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>>30120007

>>30121563
would you?

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Discord woke up on the wrong side of the bed. He yawned and greeted the smun that shone bright as midnight, then pulled himself off the ceiling and headed to the bathroom. He pulled a new toothbrush out of its package, scooped some paste he had saved sitting in a blob on the edge of the sink, then brushed his teeth, paying special attention to his fang. He wiped the paste off on the edge of the sink for tomorrow before tossing the brush in the trash.
Discord looked at himself in the mirror, brushing his talons through his mane. “Good morning Discord.”
“Good morning Discord,” his reflection said.
“What’s on the schedule for today?” He asked his reflection.
“Well, the most important event is afternoon tea with Fluttershy, after that we were planning to help Applejack on her farm, but before then we can do whatever we like,” his reflection said. “I would suggest visiting Twilight Sparkle or maybe going to Canterlot to bother some of the other princesses. There’s so many of them you know, it wouldn’t do for them to become lazy.”
“Quite right, quite right. I think —“ Discord saw his mane wasn’t perfect and fussed with it a bit more until it was just messy enough “— I think visiting Canterlot would be lovely. I hear Celestia has been hosting more foreign diplomats. That sounds dreadfully boring. She should welcome a familiar face.”
Discord looked himself over once more in the mirror. His reflection didn’t stand still, and kept trying to pose for him, shifting so that he couldn’t see the part of himself he was trying to view. “At least every angle is flattering.”
Discord stepped away from the mirror, and up the staircase to the bottom floor of his home. He picked up the small backpack filled with gifts for Fluttershy, and a few other items for some mischief at Canterlot. He double-checked inside, looked around his house once more, then snapped his fingers and was gone.

>>30122147
Celestia had just finished raising the sun and was eating breakfast when she heard a familiar voice singing nearby. She couldn’t understand the words through the closed door, but she knew who it was. It stopped for a moment and participated in a brief exchange with one of her guards. There was the inevitable knock, to which Celestia responded: “Let him in.”
The door opened to reveal none other than Discord himself, who pranced in wearing a fancy shirt with no buttons and a bow tie that had one side larger than the other.
“Good morning my dear Princess Celestia. I hope the day finds you in good spirits,” Discord said.
“I am feeling well, Discord. It’s a pleasure to see you. What brings you to the castle today?” said Celestia.
“Well I don’t have to go meet Fluttershy for tea until this afternoon, so I thought I would visit my second-favorite princess and drop off a gift I have for your dear niece Cadance,” Discord said.
Discord pulled a small box wrapped in pink paper with yellow ribbon tying it shut. He saw that the ribbon was symmetrical, and plucked at it with his right paw a bit until it was off-center. Pleased with the current state of it, he held it out to Celestia, a satisfied smile on his face.
“Well, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t have delivered it yourself, but I would be more than happy to give it to her the next time we meet.” Celestia took the box from him with her magic and set it on the table next to her plate.
“Lovely. So while I’m here, do tell me how all your princessly duties are going. I’m sure being the princess of the sun must keep you so very busy,” Discord said. He sat down in a chair across from Celestia, but noticed all the legs of it were even. A simple snap of his fingers and they were all discrete lengths. He turned back to Celestia, pleased with himself.

>>30122152
“Well, as you may have heard, I’ve been in talks with Saddle Arabia over manufactured goods, and…”
Discord stopped listening to what she was saying once she began talking about ‘goods’. Politics were so boring to him. One pony asking another for something, but then the second pony must make sure they’re getting something in return, and it all must be ‘fair’. Like fairness is something you could measure with one of those ghastly measuring tapes. Pare everything down to specific numbers and letters.
“This is a centimeter long!” one pony might say.
“This is THREE centimeters long!” another would respond.
Then they would bicker and argue about how the second one was getting two centimeters less than the first, as if that mattered at all. Fairness was a joke, and was merely created by ponies to try to make sure nopony got the upper hoof. But then they would decide that one product is worth more than another, so they must account for that to make sure everything was still ‘fair’.
And then they wonder why Discord preferred chaos.
“…so ultimately, I think the trade deal we struck will prove beneficial to both our cities in the years to come,” said Celestia. She sipped her tea, which must have been cold by now.
“Simply fascinating. But oh! Look at the time, I must be going. I have so many other ponies to visit, you know. I need to deliver Cadance’s gift,” Discord said, standing up from his chair.
“Oh, but didn’t you want me to deliver it?” Celestia asked.
Discord chuckled a deep-throated laugh. “Oh, my dear Celestia, this isn’t for her.”
“Well wouldn’t you want to take her the gift you asked me to deliver?” Celestia said.
“Well that’s not at all how this exchange is meant to go. I would think you would be used to it by now, my dear. Farewell!” Discord snapped his talons, and was gone without an explanation.

>>30122157
Discord goes to visit friends.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

Alright, so here's a Discord story. This is proving tough, but I'll give it my best.

>>30121613
Yes.

>>30094546
I love that this has become a general. I remember the very first post but haven't actually read much.

Hey OP, next thread can you put the ponies' names next to the story title? I remember someone mentioning writing a ghost octavia story and would like to read it.

>>30122161
This one?

https://pastebin.com/tX9Vdt5a The Phantom of Octavia.

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>>30122200

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>>30122806

>>30122161
I'll tag the stories in the pastebin I'm working on.

>>30122160
Loving how Discord is portrayed with total nonsense, yet comprehensible by the reader.

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>>30122160
Discord reappeared far away in the Crystal Empire inside what looked to be a nursery. There were foal’s toys, diapers folded neatly on the shelves along with other baby’s clothes, and the baby herself, curled up asleep in the crib.
“Oh yes, I forgot about you. There are five of you now aren’t there? How revolting,” said Discord. “I can’t include you. That would throw everything off. We’ll just wait until you’re old enough to use proper words.” Discord reached into the crib and tapped the infant on the nose with a claw. She stirred, but did not wake up.
Discord stepped through the closed door into the hallway. Three seconds afterward, the door opened and shut. He sauntered through the halls looking for the princess of love. He did not have far to go, as she was resting in an armchair with a glass of milk nearby. She turned to look at the door shutting.
Cadance jumped to her hooves, dropping the glass of milk and storming toward Discord. “What were you doing in Flurry Heart’s room Discord?”
Discord raised his paw and talon and gave her a placating gesture. “Calm yourself princess. I was coming to see you, and have done nothing to your precious puny pony princess. When you tell a spell to take you to ‘the princess in the Crystal Empire’, it loses direction when there’s two of them.”
Cadance brushed past him and opened the door to Flurry Heart’s room anyway. She slipped inside, hooves shuffling gently on the plush carpet covering the floor. She looked over Flurry Heart, confirmed that the infant was safe and unmolested, then kissed her on the forehead and slipped back out. As soon as the door shut she let out a breath, deflating in front of Discord.
“Okay. You were right, I apologize,” Cadance said. “What can I do for you, Discord?”

>>30126996
Discord unfolded his arms and dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. “I’m hurt you would assume the worst when I show up. But we can let bygones be bygones.” Discord blew his nose in the hanky and let it fly away down the hall, honking. He pulled out a second package, the same size and shape as the one he had given Celestia, except this one was coloured violet, with a darker purple ribbon that was tied assymetrically. “I merely came by to give you a gift.”
“A gift for me? How nice. What prompted this?” Cadance said.
“Oh no, this isn’t for you, this is for your sister-in-law Twilight. I want you to give it to her,” Discord said.
“Oh.” Cadance looked at the gift with wary eyes, as though it had grown a stinger and was waving it at her. “Why not give it to her yourself?
“Well because it won’t mean as much if I were the one to give it to her. You have to do it, or it won’t work,” Discord said.
“Well what is it then? I don’t want to give her anything harmful or insulting,” Cadance asked.
Discord blew a raspberry and rolled his eyes. “It’s not harmful, nor is it an insult. I’m hurt you would think so.” Discord looked away from Cadance and noticed the concentric circles of the rug her chair was sitting on. He waved a talon and they rearranged into a crooked spiral, rings overlapping each other and becoming ovals, ellipses, and figure eights as they pleased.
“Well alright then. When next we meet I’ll give it to her. Thank you Discord,” Cadance said.
“Thank you very much princess. Now I’d love to stay and chat, but your dear aunt has put me behind schedule with her boring tale of diplomacy. I still need to meet with Twilight and Luna before tea. Ta-ta!” Discord said. He waved his paw in a large circle, and disappeared behind it as it swung.

>>30127011
Twilight Sparkle was poring over books in her seat at the cutie-map when she heard wagon wheels on gravel. Confused, she looked up, saw nothing in the room, turned and looked behind her chair, still finding nothing, then heard a familiar voice.
“Whoa there!” The voice yelled.
She looked down at the cutie-map and saw Discord seated on a carriage, yanking on the reins attached to two other Discords who were pulling it for him. He jumped off the seat as it came to a halt, pulled open the door of the carriage, and another Discord stepped out, and fell off the edge of the cutie-map. He screamed as he fell a short distance before Twilight caught him with her magic. She lifted him up and set him safely on the edge of the table.
“Discord? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked.
Discord brushed himself off, and looked up at her as she loomed over his smaller self. “Do I need an excuse to come visit my second-favourite princess? I’ve been all over Equestria” —he motioned to the sprawl of Equestria shown by the cutie-map— “to find you, and you ask me why I came?”
“Well I know you have tea with Fluttershy this afternoon, but you don’t usually stop to see me. What prompted this visit?” Twilight asked.
Discord performed a complicated flourish with his paw and talon and a gift, much bigger than he was at the moment, but the same size as the other two he had delivered, appeared in his paw and talon, held above his head. It was the dark blue of the night sky, with a tangled ribbon speckled with stars holding it shut. “I came to give you a gift. Not for you, but for princess Luna. I want you to give it to her when next you meet.”

>>30127028
Discord delivers gifts.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

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>>30127036
Suspicious.

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>>30132353

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>>30127036
“Oh. Well I guess I could. But why not give it to her yourself? I’m sure they’d welcome you at Canterlot castle if you were to go visit,” Twilight said.
“Oh, I’m just running a little bit late, and the gift won’t mean the same thing coming from me. It’s meant to be a surprise, you know,” Discord said.
Twilight squinted and looked at him askance. “This isn’t going to be unpleasant is it? I don’t want to give Luna a present that explodes, covers her in anything, or turns her into anything strange.”
“Sheesh! Every one of you princesses are so suspicious. It’s like a creature of chaos can’t do something nice for anypony around here.” Discord put his paw and talon on his hips and huffed.
“Every one of us princesses? You’ve been to see the others already then? What are you planning?” Twilight demanded.
“Oh! I’ve said too much! Ta-ta!” Discord put his paw over his mouth in surprise, then snapped his talons and was gone.
He reappeared in a dark bedroom. The shutters were drawn to prevent sunlight from getting in, making the room a haven from the searing light of day. He put his paw over his eyes and squinted, but that didn’t help, so he put on some sun-glasses and a directed beam of light shot out, illuminating the room in a cone in front of him. He hummed quietly as he looked, until he saw the princess of the night.
She was sleeping, the faintest hiss of breath escaping her nostrils. She was wearing a sleeping mask to protect her from daylight, and the covers were pulled up to her chin with the very tops of her hooves sticking up as she clutched the quilt.
Discord tip-toed across the carpet until he was next to her bed. He pulled out a bunch of letters and a quill and prepared to write.

>>30133452
Discord put his quill to the bottom of the first letter of the message, and the parchment appeared behind it as he ‘wrote’. “Dear Luna,” Discord said out loud as his quill moved. “I hope this day finds you well. I have brought you a gift, but not for you. I want you to give it to your sister when you see her next. It is not dangerous, will not turn her into anything strange, is not messy, and is not insulting. We’re all friends here, and I think a gift is just a nice gesture. Truly; Discord.”
He finished with a flourish and the parchment finished filling the empty air behind the letters. He read it over again to make sure it said everything he wanted it to, then reached into his backpack and pulled out a white gift tied with yellow ribbon on the bottom instead of the top. He laid the letter down on the bed next to Luna, and placed the box on top of it. He gave it a little pat, then turned to leave.
He stopped when he looked at the pillow where he had lain the box, and noticed that the pillows were all lined up perfectly. Discord tilted his head and blinked, then moved closer. There were four pillows underneath his letter, and they were perfectly aligned in a neat square. He scratched his chin, hummed to himself and thought for a moment, then reached out and shifted them just a little bit so that they weren’t so perfectly lined up. He nodded, turned, and with a POOF, he was gone.

Discord arrived in front of Fluttershy’s house and checked his watch: 2:43pm. A little bit early, but not too early. Okay, maybe an hour early. Afternoon tea wasn’t until about 3:30pm, but he could show up now and she wouldn’t turn him away. It wouldn’t do to be on time, anyway.

>>30133456
Discord rapped on the door with his talons and whistled a merry tune until it opened to reveal Fluttershy.
“Oh, good afternoon, Discord. Do come in, won’t you? The tea and cakes aren’t quite ready yet, but get comfortable and I’ll put on the kettle,” Fluttershy said.
Her mane was still a bit messy from working with her animals. Sticks, hay, and a few bits of oats were stuck in it here and there. Discord frowned and used his magic to remove them. He smiled after they were gone, and walked inside. True to form, Fluttershy didn’t complain about him arriving early, and just accommodated him. He breathed deep of the unique smell of Fluttershy’s home and sighed.
Fluttershy ran a hoof through her mane to check for other foreign objects and smiled up at him. “How are you today, Discord?”
“I’m doing quite well Fluttershy. I dropped off some gifts for the princesses, then found myself in the neighborhood so I thought I’d arrive early. I knew you wouldn’t mind,” Discord said.
“Gifts? That’s so nice of you. What did you get them? Fluttershy asked.
Discord frowned at the organization of the books on the table. He turned a few so they were no longer parallel and looked up at Fluttershy again. “Oh, I’m sorry, what was that?”
“What did you get the princesses?” Fluttershy asked again.
“Oh nothing,” Discord said.
“Oh, it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I promise I won’t tell Twilight what it is, though.” Fluttershy said as she placed the kettle on the stove.
“Oh, no you misunderstand. There’s nothing in the boxes,” Discord said. “I just wanted them to worry and fret, call up the others and express concern until they gather together for a princess meeting only to find out there’s nothing inside the gifts and they were worried for nothing!” Discord broke into a fit of giggles telling her what his plan was, laughing at his own prank.

>>30133463
Discord arrives at Fluttershy's house.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

>>30133470
Classic Discord

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I wonder what would happen if Fluttershy gave you 'the stare' and you resisted? What would happen if she got truly angry? Pic related?

>>30134562
Pray she would just shy off
If not... I don't know what I'd do other than back into a corner

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>>30133470

“Oh Discord. You know they’re all very busy,” Fluttershy said.
“I know. Which is why I think they could use a little diversion,” Discord said.
Fluttershy clucked her tongue, but didn’t say anything else. The two waited in silence for the kettle to whistle, then Fluttershy brought it to the coffee table and poured them both a cup. She sat with Discord in silence for a minute, then returned to the kitchen and began preparing the tea cakes.
“So do you have any other plans today Discord?” Fluttershy asked.
Discord sipped at his tea, hemming and hawing about what else he wanted to do. He really had no plans at any time. Planning would be a concession to order, and he couldn’t have that. Even the one scheduled meeting with Fluttershy was subject to change of time and place as whim took him.
Discord looked down at the table and saw Fluttershy’s cup of tea sitting directly in the center of the saucer. The indent in the middle of the small plate hugged the bottom of its matching teacup perfectly, holding it tightly in a porcelain embrace. The handle of the cup was at a perfect right-angle that aimed parallel with the edge of the table, giving Fluttershy easy access to it when she may want a drink.
Discord looked into the kitchen where Fluttershy was busy working, saw that her back was turned and reached out a talon. He deftly bumped the cup, turning it so the handle was at an uneven angle. He smiled at first, but then saw that it was still sitting in the center of the saucer, not having been pushed hard enough to escape the confines of the indent. He gave it another gentle tap, but it still didn’t move enough to slip out of its matching home. He tapped it again, and again, and again. He growled in frustration and started poking it harder, intent on disrupting its position.

>>30137559
“Discord!”
Discord jumped in his seat, pushing the teacup out of the saucer entirely, spilling its contents all over the coffee table and onto the rug.
“Oh! Terribly sorry Fluttershy. What was it you were saying?” Discord picked up the books so they wouldn’t get wet, and materialized a towel to mop up the spilled liquid. He lifted everything—including himself and his couch—off the rug so he could wring it out and remove the small amount of tea that had soaked into it.
Once he had set everything back down, Fluttershy poured herself a fresh cup of tea without a word about it. “I was asking if you had any plans, and mentioned that Pinkie was having a party this evening if you would like to come.”
“Well that does sound lovely. I’ll need to check my schedule.”
Discord pulled out a day-planner and flipped it open. The date on it was not the current date. It showed a nonexistent month, with numbers starting from 211, and counting down in prime number increments. He tapped it with a quill and tut-tutted, scribbling out days.
“Well, in my busy timetable I think I could make an appearance. No promises though,” Discord said.
“We’d be happy to have you there, Discord,” Fluttershy said.
“I suppose I should assume Twilight Sparkle will be there?” Discord asked, taking a sip of his tea.
“She said she would, but if she’s so worried about that gift you gave her, she might go meet the other princesses instead,” Fluttershy said. “That wouldn’t have been part of your plan, would it?”
“Not at all! Scout’s honor!” Discord crossed his heart and held up his open paw.
“Well it doesn’t matter even if it were. We’ll just have to wait and see,” Fluttershy said.
“Indeed we will.” Discord said.

>>30137585
Fluttershy finished making the cakes, and brought them out to the coffee table. Discord gave a small smile when he saw they were not stacked on the plate in rows, and instead were strewn onto it like sesame on a bun. Discord picked one up and bit into it with delicate grace, savoring the taste. Fluttershy always made delicious tea cakes.
“Thank you for tea Fluttershy. I shall bring refreshment next time if that’s all right with you,” Discord said.
“Certainly. Your cooking is always so exciting,” Fluttershy said.
They talked for a couple of hours, and played a few games of old maid. Discord hadn’t been able to focus on many other board games. The symmetry of chess bothered him, both of the board and the pieces. While he got a certain satisfaction from disturbing the positions of the pieces, the board remained unchanged and the squares were frustrating to see. Checkers experienced the same problem, and cribbage followed a boring and unchanging path. He had made it more exciting once, but when the board is gone, the rules follow, and then it isn’t a game of cribbage anymore.
Old maid had none of those problems, and the uncertainty of not knowing where the old maid was made it exciting for him. Any card he picked could be the old maid, and he could use that same confusion on his opponents, making it the perfect game of chaos that could be picked up and played at any time.
Discord won the game, and then he helped Fluttershy take the dishes into the kitchen. He didn’t offer to help wash up, because the last time he had done so she had needed to wash them again to get the filth he had put on them back off. She had still appreciated the gesture.

>>30137597
Discord and Fluttershy have tea.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

>>30134562
Hasn't she been truly angry before? Like at Discord specifically?

>>30137606
I don't think anyone has ever pushed her past 'the stare' even Discord backed down from that iirc. I don't remember her ever actually snapping, but i might be wrong.

>>30137990
Discord pretended to react to it, but he laughed afterward when he didn't actually care she was staring at him.
She got all angry and was yelling at ponies after she took Iron Will's course. Not sure that counts, though.

>>30138029
Well, after Fluttershy's stare didn't work on Discord she held herself back

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>>30138689
Aye. She only yelled at ponies after taking the Iron Will assertiveness training, but that wasn't so much angry as it was too assertive.

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>>30139289

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>>30140353

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>>30137606
“Well Fluttershy, it’s been lovely, but I should get going,” Discord said.
“Aren’t you coming to the party?” Fluttershy asked.
Discord wanted to say no, but he knew that even if he went home, he would come up with some excuse to come back out anyway. That was always the way it went. He looked down at Fluttershy. Her eyes were wide, and she had stuck out her bottom lip just the tiniest bit, and he knew he was going to say yes.
“Oh fine. But only because you asked me so nicely.” Discord folded his arms and huffed.
“I knew you’d come around. Don’t worry, if Twilight is there, you don’t have to talk to her,” Fluttershy said.
“Oh but what fun would that be?”
“Discord, remember what I asked you.”
“All right, all right. I’ll try to avoid getting Twilight all worked up. Try. No more than that.”
“That’ll do. Shall we walk?”
“Why certainly. That will put off our arrival by just that much more.”
The two of them walked at a comfortable pace, admiring the sunset and talking about the birds that flew by and the flowers and trees that grew along the path leading to Ponyville. Discord stopped a few times to twist a few saplings that were growing too straight for his liking. Fluttershy didn’t try to stop him. It was harmless enough. Trees grew crooked all the time and it didn’t hurt them. It depended on the type, but she would have stopped him had they been one she recognized as needing to grow straight. There was no shortage of sunlight, so it shouldn’t become a problem for them.
Fluttershy waited every time he stopped, and when they finally arrived at Ponyville proper, she turned and looked at him. “Feeling relaxed after the walk?”
“Why yes, I do believe I do feel better,” Discord said.
“Excellent. Be on your best behavior, and if Pinkie asks for a trick, go ahead, but within reason,” Fluttershy said.

>>30141938
“Your wish is my command,” Discord bowed and flourished a cape he hadn’t had on before.
“Alright! Time for some fun!” Fluttershy said.
Pinkie greeted the duo as soon as they stepped through the door. “Hey there Fluttershy! Hey there Discord! Ready to enjoy my ‘middle-of-the-week-because-Wednesdays-don’t-get-enough-love’ party?!”
“Of course we are, Pinkie. Is everyone else already upstairs?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yup-a-roonie! I’m just here to greet the guests until everyone’s arrived,” Pinkie said.
“That’s very nice of you. Who all is here already?” Fluttershy asked.
“Everypony except for Twilight. She said she’d be late. Don’t know why,” Pinkie said.
Fluttershy gave Discord a glance, but she didn’t say anything. Pinkie motioned to the stairs and Fluttershy led the way to Pinkie’s loft in the Cake household.
Just as Pinkie said, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity were there, chatting amongst themselves. Rarity was swaying to the soft melody playing in the background. Applejack had brought a small keg of cider and set it up next to the table of refreshments Pinkie had prepared. Rainbow Dash was helping herself to as much of that as she was allowed. Judging from her flying, she had already had a few. There was a twister board set up, and a few other games, but despite Pinkie’s penchant for over-the-top partying, it was a quiet event.
“Well hello my little ponies! Pinkie Pie sure does set up a good shindig doesn’t she?” Discord said.
Everypony in the room went silent and turned to look at the familiar voice of the embodiment of chaos himself. There was a moment of awkward silence before Applejack spoke up.
“Well howdy there Fluttershy. And a howdy to you too, Discord. Good to see y’all could make it. Pinkie said Twilight might be late, but I don’t mind stayin’ out a bit m’self to catch up with her. How’re y’all?” Applejack asked.

>>30141942
“Oh just dandy, Applejack.” Discord sauntered over to the refreshment table and piled a precarious tower of treat on a small plate, just single items stacked one on top of the next. “I daresay I’m better than I’ve been in a while. How is your farm doing? Anything… unexpected growing?”
Applejack narrowed her eyes at his comment. “Naw, just apples. Should I be expecting something unexpected?”
“Why should you? You grow apple trees. I don’t know why anything besides apples should grow,” Discord said.
Applejack didn’t know how to respond, so she said nothing.
Rarity saved her by butting in with her own questions. “Fluttershy, dear. How was that tea you said you were going to try today? I wanted desperately to try some. Discord, what did you think of the tea?”
“Oh, I thought it was nice Rarity, but I don’t think it was worth as much as it cost. I think the price is driven up by the ponies who want to drink it thinking it’s special in some way,” Fluttershy said.
“Well, it was recommended by Hoity Toity, and he’s well-known for buying expensive things simply because they’re expensive,” Rarity said.
Discord was bored of the conversation about tea, and wandered over to the games. He looked down at the Twister board, with the colours lined up in rows, and with a wave of his paw, he rearranged them, putting them in an unusual order.
He looked at the dart board and frowned at the neat circles presenting their points. He picked up a dart, held it up to his face and took careful aim. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the dart at the target. At the last second, the bullseye shifted out of the way, moving one of the sections next to it into the path of the dart. Only ten points.

>>30141953
Discord goes to a rather dull party.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

>>30141962
It's all up to Discord to add some spice

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>>30141962
“Sacrificing your friends to save yourself, eh bullseye?” Discord said.
The bullseye didn’t respond, but shifted back into position. Discord scoffed and turned back to the ponies, chatting about whatever they found important. He wandered back over to the group to hear Fluttershy talking about animals to Applejack, Rainbow Dash was drinking and talking to Rarity about possible new Wonderbolt uniforms. Discord didn’t care about clothes, but he enjoyed animals. They were so chaotic in their behavior. They followed their instincts, but they responded so well to his magic, making them even more chaotic.
Discord shifted closer to Applejack and Fluttershy. They were talking about beavers and woodpeckers, both were proving problematic for the farm, causing some damage to Applejack’s trees.
“You know, I could just make them hate apple trees,” Discord said, interjecting.
“Discord, you know that won’t work,” Fluttershy said. “What happens if they find an apple tree that’s wild? They’ll avoid it and that could cause them to starve.”
“Not to mention I’d have to call on you every time a new group of animals shows up. Thanks though. I do appreciate the offer of help,” Applejack said.
“Well, can’t say I didn’t try. What say we get this party going a little bit, hmmm? It’s more like a garden party than a Pinkie party,” Discord said. “Let’s start a game of charades.” He produced a stack of cards from somewhere and waved them in the air.
“Well that sounds like a delightful suggestion, Discord,” Rarity said. “Why don’t I begin? I’ve always enjoyed this game.”
“Sure, I’m in,” Rainbow Dash said.
With murmured agreement, the rest of the ponies sat in a semicircle around Rarity. She took a card from the stack Discord had provided. She stared for a minute as she regarded the card, then seemed to settle. She turned to face the group, and started waving her hooves in the air, making shapes and poking her face.

>>30144536
The rest of the group watched her in confusion as she waggled her hooves about. Rainbow Dash, more than a little tipsy, offered some ridiculous suggestions.
“A Wonderbolt! A barn! Daring Do! Cider!” Rainbow Dash said.
Rarity simply shook her head at the suggestions, continuing to play with her face, mashing her cheeks and sticking out her tongue. Some of the other ponies offered a few suggestions, but Rarity denied every one of them.
“An anteater who’s had too much to eat and now he’s sick of ants and has to hold them in his cheeks because he doesn’t want to eat them but he doesn’t want to spit them out!” Discord said.
“Why yes, that’s correct Discord,” Rarity said.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Of course it is.”
“How in Equestria were we supposed to guess that?” Applejack said.
“I would have accepted ‘anteater’,” Rarity said.
“Well that’s fair. I guess you’re up Discord,” Applejack said.
Discord switched places with Rarity and picked up his card. He grinned as he saw the words ‘abstract thought’ printed on his card. He stretched out his talon and paw and pulled his arms and legs off his body as he went two dimensional. He started to float in the air, his body parts taking on primary shapes such as triangles and rectangles, when Pinkie and Twilight walked up the stairs and into the room.
Twilight saw him and her face went angry. “Discord!”
Discord fell to the floor, turned into a liquid, then pooled together and stood back up. “Oh. Fancy meeting you here Twilight. What can I do for you?”
“Those gifts were empty! Why would you get us all worked up over nothing at all? We each spent our day wondering what on Equestria Discord would get us, fearing it would be a prank, or dangerous, or something, and there was nothing at all!” Twilight poked him in the stomach with a hoof.

>>30144553
“Well you’re all so busy and serious I thought you could use a little distraction. All those business and political worries were gone while you worried about the gift weren’t they?” Discord said.
“Yes, and replaced with worries about what was inside that little box,” Twilight said. “Not exactly what I would call relaxing.”
“Well I’m sorry you don’t appreciate it when a friend tries to do something nice for you,” Discord folded his arms and looked away from her.
“Twilight, he was trying to help. He just has a different way of doing it than ponies do,” Fluttershy said.
“I know. I know. You’re right. Uggggh,” Twilight put a hoof to the bridge of her muzzle. “Let’s just… relax.”
Twilight went to get a cup of cider, pulling a cup to the keg with her magic. But when she turned on the tap a stream of consciousness came out, filling her cup with abstract thought, concerned worry, and a series of words. She stared in confusion for a moment, and the whole mess bubbled with odd colors.
Twilight looked at Discord with a furrow in her brow. “Discord!”
“What? You were still so uptight I thought I’d give a little drink of what you were thinking about,” Discord said.
“I can’t drink this! I don’t even know if it’s edible or real!” Twilight said. “Just, stop it. I’ve already had enough of your shenanigans during the day. You interrupted all the princesses work for a gag gift. Just leave it be!”
“Well, if that’s how you feel, I’ll just leave you all be then.” Discord started fading out from his hoof and claw, traveling up his legs.
“Discord, don’t leave!” Fluttershy said.
“No, it’s alright. I know when I’m not wanted,” Discord said. “I hope you all have a lovely party without me there to mess things up. Thank you for the invitation anyway, Fluttershy.”
And with that, he was gone.

>>30144564
Discord goes a little too far.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

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>>30144581

>>30145145
Geeze the board's fast today.

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>>30116133
>I want to eventually get a book published.
Something like a short stories collection? That would be pretty cool actually.

Also I just bought Little Nightmares for next to nothing today (jeez, the vendor even offered me a CD of the soundtrack with it) and binge played the shit out of it this afternoon. It was pretty great. A bit shorter than I expected but the visual and audio atmosphere was grandiose.

>>30110618
How's the drawing going E2?

>>30146178
Maybe short stories or a full novel. I have to finish writing enough for one or the other first, of course. My short stories that aren't fanfiction are not as easy to write, truth be told.

And yes, Little Nightmares was fantastic. Short, but fantastic. Glad you liked it.

>>30146178
Currently I am doing the colors for the Mare, and the colors for Haybert need to be revised a bit so hang in there.

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>>30146713

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>>30147784

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>>30144581
Discord reappeared in his home in Chaosville with a flash. He ripped the backback from his shoulders and tossed it onto his couch. He stomped into the kitchen, then stomped back out. He was upset, but he hadn’t yet decided what he was upset at.
Twilight Sparkle? No. She had little patience for his antics, but he wasn’t upset at her.
Fluttershy, for inviting him? No. She tried her best to include him and explain his behavior to the others. She wasn’t at fault.
Nopony else had done anything to him during the party, so what was he so upset about. He thought back on everything that had happened. Ah yes.
“Figured it out, have you?” A familiar voice said.
Discord didn’t respond. That was what he wanted. He was always there waiting for him whenever he had time to think. That was why he always tried to occupy his time with surprise visits and pranks. It kept him busy. Right now he was too angry to keep busy with anything, and that left him time. Time to remember.
“Remember me? Oh, I’m touched. The way you’re always going faster and busier than a hard-working little ant I’d think you were trying to forget me,” the voice said.
Discord went into the kitchen and tried to clean up. He picked up his broom and scraped at the floor with the bristleless brush, but instead of spreading a mess about it streaked a line of cleanliness, giving the floor a spotless shine. Discord dropped the broom in shock.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Just trying to help, you know,” the voice said, reverberating in his head.
“I don’t need or want your help,” Discord said.
“So you do remember me. I’m so happy,” the voice said.
“Why are you doing this?” Discord said.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? Chaos?” The voice said.

>>30148822
Discord left the kitchen and went into his den. He pulled out a book and looked at the pages. Instead of moving pictures inside, there was nothing but the neat march of the alphabet, stepping in line from once upon a time all the way to the end. He flipped through the pages, looking for anything out of place, anything that didn’t make sense.
Unable to find anything that was nonsensical, Discord threw the book against the wall and scurried out of the den, looking for something he could calm himself with. He went to the living room and opened the backpack he had tossed onto the couch. He reached inside and found… nothing. He turned it upside-down and shook it. Still nothing fell out. He opened it wide and peered inside.
Only emptiness greeted him.
Discord growled. “Where are they? I had gifts in there! Gifts for the princesses!”
“You already delivered them, remember? The empty boxes?” The voice said.
“Yes, I remember. But I was going to give them actual presents after they panicked about what the ‘surprise’ was,” Discord said.
“You never were. You thought the idea was far too amusing, and so you never got them anything at all,” the voice said.
Discord gripped his head in his paw and talon and stormed downstairs to the upper floor. But when he reached the top of the staircase, he couldn’t walk up it. It was upside-down, and that proved impossible to walk up. He couldn’t wrap his head around how he should be able to do that, and so he had to jump and crawl up to the landing on the upper floor of his house.
“Something’s wrong. What are you doing to me?” Discord said in confusion.
“I’m not doing anything,” the voice said.
“Someone’s doing something to me, and we’re the only ones here. I know I’m not doing it,” Discord said.

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>>30148829
The voice laughed at that. A horrible, cackling laugh that he recognized very well indeed. It was a jolly and amused laugh. Like that of a tyrant who knows he’s in control, and there is nothing and no one that can stop him. A confident laugh, secure in its power.
His laugh.
“Stop that! Stop mocking me!” Discord said, his anger rising.
“I’m not mocking you, I’m merely amused by your confusion,” the voice said. “You really are so much fun to play with.”
Discord roared.
It was an angry, furious roar. Not playful or full of banter, but a roar of frustration. He lifted everything in the house up with his magic and scattered it everywhere in a hurricane of fury. Plated in the kitchen shattered, couches splintered, cushions tore, and he threw it everywhere, smashing things against the walls. Windows broke. Beams snapped. Wallpaper ripped.
When he was done, everything was spotless, intact, and completely unruffled. Even the dust was where it was supposed to be, laying on top of the bookshelves where it was expected to be. The furious fire inside Discord sputtered and died.
He heard the laughter again, and he recognized it. It was his own laughter. He was laughing. His voice was cackling that endless, unstoppable guffaw that he used on ponies everywhere whenever their worlds turned on their heads at his approach.
Discord gave in, and laughed along with it. His voice a horrible cacophony filling his house. He had no control. Not even over himself. Control is order, and you can’t control chaos. He was utterly at the mercy of himself wherever he went, be it giving gifts, having tea, or spending time at a party. He would never be in control. That’s why he always went too far. That’s why he wasn’t safe in his own house.
“What’s more chaotic to chaos than order?” Discord and the voice said, laughing.

The End.

>>30148837
Discord finally gets it.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/x34QUdBk

Gonna be honest. This was really difficult to write. I kind of expected it, but making Discord scared of something is hard to begin with. He's powerful. Very powerful. Giving him something attacking him is a dead end, so I thought I should make him scared of himself. I mean, why would he ever forego the chance to cause mischief for anyone, ever? So I included him in that. I'm satisfied with the way it went, but I'm not happy with it. It felt forced, kind of boring, but oh well. It's done, and there you go. Discord is scared of himself, because he's completely out of his own control.

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>>30148852

>>30149601
Working on something new. Probably have a bit tonight.

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>>30148852
Yep. It what below what you usually write. I think it would have been better if it was slightly shorter. I feel like all this build up with the Princesses and the presents led to nothing in the end. Meh/10.
The idea of Discord being schizophrenic and scared of himself was pretty great though.

>>30152473
Nice. I was about to ask what you were planning to write.

>>30152523
Exactly how I felt about it. Remove the princess bit and him going to a party, and it'd probably have been a lot better.

Thanks for the "good enough" star.

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237th attempt at sparking some discussion.
We've already talked about horror movies and horror vidya but not about music yet. What are some music that gives you chills /mlp/?

>>30153989
Most waltz music. Slow waltz or English waltz. 3/4 time is a bit creepy to me.
Anything played by a music box, and organs or automatic pianos. Though the latter are more creepy by existing than playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi_PV5umdio

>>30153989
https://youtu.be/RYaJCmJgb9A
This creeps me out like crazy, chills and all.
Love the game tho.
On a side note, I just started Alien: Isolation. I'm looking forward to the fear...

>>30120632
hey

>>30154762
Aw dang, me too. I just had my first encounter with the xenomorph. I like how absolutely helpless I am so far.

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>>30153989
I'm gonna get shit on cause
>muh fandumb musick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95zyLcsAtWY
but this guys jazzy version of Awoken sounds so horribly sad to me. At least until the end anyway when the flourishes take over.

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>>30155090
That song was good. The bit at the end was unnecessary, but overall was a good song. Also, I had not heard of this Equestria Divided thing before, and looked it up. It was pretty neat.

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Derpy flew over the streets of Ponyville, weaving a crooked path through the air as she buzzed from house to house. Her wings were strong, and her limbs were stout. The only part of her that caused her any grief at all were her eyes, but that was a minor complaint. She had survived many an accident, and she expected she would survive many more. She was more worried about any of the unfortunate ponies on the receiving end of her accidents. Many of them hadn’t had a lifetime of incidents to harden them up.
Derpy whipped around a tree as it loomed into view without warning. She overcompensated for the turn and went into a spin, hurtling out of control. She tried to straighten out, and succeeded, just in time to crash through an open door. She skidded across the floor of Sugarcube Corner, the familiar colours surrounding her telling her where she was.
When she came to a halt, she checked around and under herself to make sure she hadn’t hit anypony, then pulled herself upright.
Without missing a beat, Derpy pulled a box out of her bag and placed it on the counter. “Package for Mr. and Mrs. Cake!”
“Oh, thank you Miss Muffins. You’re always so punctual, if a little rough,” Mrs. Cake said.
Mrs. Cake opened the package right at the counter, checking to make sure everything was intact. It was, of course. Derpy always packed everything with a heavy amount of padding to make sure it survived her travels as well as she did. After the first few times, she knew she’d need to compensate if she wanted to keep her delivery job.
“Are you alright, Miss Muffins?” Mrs. Cake asked once she’d verified the contents were in acceptable shape.
“Of course! As always!” Derpy said.
“I know. I just have to check. It still gives me a bit of a scare,” Mrs. Cake said.

>>30155815
“I’ll be just fine Mrs. Cake. It hasn’t stopped me yet,” Derpy said.
“Of course. You have a good day Miss Muffins!” Mrs. Cake said, waving goodbye as she turned back to her kitchen.
Derpy waved goodbye and trotted out the door. She flexed her wings, did a little practice hop, then leaped into the air. She took easily to the open sky, flying in great swooping arcs as she made her way back to her office.
She arrived mostly without incident, only buzzing a couple of ponies a little too close. They shouted at her, but she paid them no mind, merely apologizing with a quick ‘sorry’ before continuing. She couldn’t stop to apologize every time something like that happened or she’d never get anywhere.
She went inside, dropped off her delivery saddlebags and clocked out, locking the place up before stepping outside. As she stepped through the door, she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, and shook her head to clear it. She looked up once it was gone and got a sinking feeling.
It had happened again.
The road was a twisting and black trail of pitch leading down the street. The trees were gnarled and hollow, their branches grasping claws leaning over the roads and houses. The ponies were faceless shades, their outlines indistinct in the world, and hard to discern against the backdrop of this dark and angry environment.
Derpy frowned and decided to walk home instead of fly this time. She knew the way home by touch, and could trust her hooves to take her there.
It wasn’t a very long walk, but the visions made it difficult. She kept bumping into ponies she could hardly see, and following the edges of the buildings with a hoof, although safe, had the pony-shades asking her if she was alright.
She assumed they must be actual ponies, because none of them had ever tried to harm her, but she had never figured out why things sometimes looked the way they did.

>>30155823
It had happened ever since she was a filly. She would experience a little bit of dizziness, and then things would go strange. Nothing sounded different. She could hear all the normal sounds of a busy Ponyville around her, and nothing felt different. When she would grasp an angry-looking branch of a tree that had been a bushy deciduous branch, she could feel the leaves and flower-buds. It was all appearances.
She’d gotten used to it.
When she was a filly, she would break out into crying fits over it, which alarmed her parents. Everything would be fine, she’d be having fun with friends, family, or be at school, when suddenly things would change, and she would just break out into tears for reasons nopony could understand.
Once she was older, she’d gone to see a psychologist about it, and he had diagnosed her with schizophrenia. She’d been willing to agree, since real things appeared to be different during these episodes, but it hadn’t sat right with her. She knew what was real, it just… looked different. Changed shaped almost, even though the shape was the same, but appeared to be different.
Derpy followed her hooves, closing her eyes sometimes to walk by feel and not have to look at anything. She stayed close to the building so as to avoid as many ponies as possible. Most of them ignored her, as they usually did. Nopony wanted to get involved with the confused and clumsy mare.
It wasn’t her fault. Half the time it was because she had no depth perception thanks to her eyes, and the other half was because things didn’t look as they should, so size and shape were constantly changing. Ponyville was only static two-thirds of the time for her. The rest was a changing landscape of imagination and Celestia knows what else.
She survived, though. She was tough.

>>30155829
Derpy has vision problems.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ


>>30153989
Sento Nel Core also scares me. Because of Splatterhouse. Probably my favourite piece of classical music. Alessandro Scarlatti, if you're curious. His music is very good.
Here are three versions of Sento nel Core

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkNlDGfvjZg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDcoW6VXya8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH0KYHdEUoQ

I feel in my heart a certain sorrow
Which goes on troubling my peace;
There shines a torch which inflames my soul:
If it is not love, love it will soon be.

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>>30155895
This is not gonna end well.

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WARNING: SUPER SPOOKY

>>30158374
Duuude, even with the warning I was too scared!
[spoilers]I'm ignoring Derpy's costume to write at the moment.[/spoiler]

>>30158388
I fucked that up.

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>>30155895
Derpy made it home without much incident, recognizing her door from feel alone. She had carved a picture of a muffin on the front so that she could recognize it with her hooves when her eyes failed her. On days like today, she was glad she did. She opened the door with some difficulty and slipped inside.
Indoors was quite a bit worse than outside for her. Inside buildings the shadows always shifted and moved in an odd way, making her uncomfortable. In all her years of living with this problem the moving shadows were the one thing that continued to bother her into adult life. It always made her feel like somepony was watching her.
Derpy took off her uniform and placed it on what felt like the couch, then went into the kitchen to make some supper. The food in the fridge looked strange, but she found what she hoped were carrots, grabbed something that smelled like half an onion, and nabbed something that was either more carrots or celery. She pulled some earthy-feeling things from the pantry that were similar to potatoes, and grabbed some spices that she couldn’t identify from the shelf. Once everything was together, she started a pot of black water boiling on the stove, and sliced up the vegetables, dropping them into the pot.
Once everything was in, she opened the container of spices and sniffed it. It smelled good, but smell wasn’t always the taste. She had no idea what it was from smell alone, but she took a chance and sprinkled some into the water, hoping against hope they would go well together.
As it simmered, she went to go find her book; The Princess of the Rings. It was recommended to her by Lyra, who said it was about an earth pony who volunteers to take a ring to a volcano. Derpy wasn’t sure why that was so exciting, but Lyra hadn’t been able to contain herself with her accolades for it.

>>30158782
She found it after about half an hour of searching. It had taken on the appearance of a cube of pock-marked brick. It still felt like a book, and it opened up, but its appearance to her at the moment was not at all book-like, and made finding it hard. She opened it up, eager to continue reading. She had just reached the part where the four earth ponies had just left the Shire and the evil horse-thing was sniffing about trying to find them.
Upon opening it to her bookmark, Derpy was sad to see that the words were missing. She was sure they were there, but at the moment they didn’t look like words; just blobs swimming about the pages.
Derpy closed the book, set it down on what she hoped was the coffee table, and stepped back outside while she waited for her soup to cook. She liked her vegetables with a bit of crisp left to them, so she had to time it just right. Couldn’t go too far.
Once outside she closed her eyes so that she couldn’t see anything and just sat and listened to Ponyville going about its business. She lived near the edge of town, so she didn’t hear many ponies, but there was a lot of wildlife. The birds were singing, bees were buzzing, and crickets were chirping. At least it sounded lovely, even if things looked horrible right now.
Derpy’s reverie was interrupted by a loud clattering coming from beside her house. She clucked her tongue and opened her eyes. The world was still odd, but she knew what the sound was. She’d had dogs get into her trash in recent weeks, and she’d had to try to get better bins for them. It had seemed to work, but now they were back. She walked around the side of her house. It sounded like just one, but a big one.

>>30158788
She turned the corner to see the hind end of something sticking out of the trash. It looked like it had paws, and its fur appeared to be like that of a brush; bristly and stiff. Its tail looked to be short, but it stuck upward its flank. It was stuck halfway in the trash, the lid removed and laying upside-down beside the bin.
“Uuuugh! How many times do I have to run you off. How did you even open the latch on the trash anyway?” Derpy said in frustration.
She grabbed the broom she kept outside for just such occasions and brandished it at the possible-dog. She smacked the bristles against the animal’s flank, hoping to startle it. It worked. The animal jumped back, pulling its front out of the garbage can and regarding her.
Derpy was used to being startled by her odd visions and the way they changed things. This one had managed it. The animal’s stiff fur looked to cover it all the way up to the next, but had left the head completely naked. It didn’t appear to have lip, and its teeth were constantly bared, sharp and prominent.
Despite her fear of the way it looked, Derpy wasn’t to be deterred by appearances. They were worth only as much as the actions behind them. If it attacked, she could just fly out of reach, but she was certain it was merely a dog that looked menacing. She swung her broom at it again, this time whacking it on the face.
“Shoo! Get out of there! I don’t need you strewing my trash all across the neighborhood! I get in enough trouble as it is!” Derpy shouted, stamping her hind hooves to scare it off.
It worked. Her noise, shocking but not harmful broom strikes, and her yelling, all succeeded in scaring the animal away. It ran off into the trees nearby, leaving her to clean up the mess it had left behind.

>>30158797
Derpy can't read, and removes dogs? from her trash.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

Scary derpy pics are hard to find.

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>>30158805

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>>30160525

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>>30161094

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>>30158805
Derpy picked up her trash, some of it appearing to wiggle and squirm as she put it back inside the trash bin. One actually felt like it was squirming and she reminded herself to wash her hooves. It had probably been covered in maggots and she couldn’t tell. She looked up to make sure the animal was running off, and then looked back at the gross filth she was moving. It was nasty, but she could deal with it. She was tough.
Once the trash looked like it was all back in the bin, Derpy fastened the lid back on and double-checked the latch to be certain it was firmly in place. Once satisfied it would prove a challenge for even the most clever of animals, she trotted back inside to check on her soup.
The soup was bubbling away, and the smell of boiled carrot filled the air. She washed her hooves in the sink, then pulled out a ladle and scooped up a spoonful of soup. The utensil picked nothing up, and she gave it a once-over with her hoof, only to discover that she had pulled out the whisk instead. She giggled, dug in the drawer until she felt the scoop-shaped end of the ladle and pulled that out, then spooned up some soup.
It tasted good, but nothing couldn’t be improved by adding a little bit of garlic. She grabbed the knife again and went hunting for some garlic. She’d have to locate it entirely by smell and touch, because everything looked stupid and different while her vision was like this. It was one of the reasons ponies kept calling her stupid, because she couldn’t identify ponies or things like this, but she tried her best. She dug in the pantry for something that felt like garlic, hunting through the potatoes, onions, beets, and other tubers, trying to find the garlic.

>>30162423
She cursed herself quietly for not replacing the hook in the pantry after it had broken. That would have made this so much easier. She fussed about for a few minutes, grasping at all the suspicious, round objects in her pantry, but was unable to locate with confidence a single clove of garlic.
Derpy straightened up out of the pantry, stretching as she stood up. “Rats. That would have made my soup so much better.”
“Is this what you were looking for?” A voice said from behind her.
Derpy jumped and whirled to face the speaker. “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”
The figure looked exactly like any other pony with her current vision: A shadow of a pony, no mane or tail visible, just a faceless shape akin to those found in Rarity’s boutique. A ponnequin. The hoof held out toward her was holding a ball-shaped thing, offering it to her.
Derpy didn’t let down her guard, though. She’d been on the receiving end of bullies her whole life because of her eyes, and sometimes they had followed her home. It had sounded like a stallion, which was doubly threatening, but he was in for a surprise if he thought she was going to be easy prey. She was tough! She had to be.
“I apologize, I saw you dealing with that animal outside, and wondered how a lone mare could so casually stand up to something like that. With merely a broom, no less! You left the door open, so I stuck my head in to say hello, but you were busy in the pantry. Judging from the smell, I figured you were looking for spices, and garlic would be the perfect addition to what it smells like you have. The garlic was on the table, by the way,” the stallion said.

>>30162430
Derpy didn’t respond immediately, parsing his words with care. He had seen her handling the animal, which was the most likely event to have happened. She had indeed fought off an animal with a broom. She didn’t know what kind of animal it was, so she didn’t know how right he was to be so impressed as to want to introduce himself. And to come into her house to brazenly! No, something was off.
Derpy kept her stance low and wide, and moved slowly toward her utensils. “I think you should leave.”
“Right now? I haven’t even introduced myself. Please?” He took a step forward, holding out the garlic to her.
Derpy pressed back against the counter, and raised a hoof toward the cutting board, reaching for her knife. She kept an eye on the stallion-shade and his outstretched hoof. He hadn’t pulled back after she expressed alarm, which meant he didn’t care one whit about her or her well-being. He was only after one thing, and she could guess what that was.
Derpy grabbed the knife and swung it in front of her in wide sweeps. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get in this house, and I don’t know if I did leave the door open or not, but you have no right to barge in here! Get out!”
He didn’t move, not even when her knife came within inches of his outstretched hoof. Derpy kept it pointed at him, and started to move around him toward the door. If he wasn’t scared of a knife, he should at least be scared of other ponies catching him trying to do anything to her.
Derpy felt a wave of dizziness as she moved, and she stumbled. She heard hurried hoofsteps, and her vision swam. In panic, she lashed out with her knife. She felt a pain on her foreleg and then hit the ground. As her vision cleared, she saw the stallion was gone, everything was normal, and her leg was bleeding from a knife wound.
“Damn it,” She muttered.

>>30162434
Somepony tries to introduce himself to Derpy a little too forcefully.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

>>30162430
The Doctor is in?

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>>30162442
Derpy picked herself up from the floor and limped over to the front door. It was open, as the pony had said. She looked down the road both directions to look for anypony skulking about, but saw nothing. She shut and locked the door, then hobbled to the sink to clean her cut. She washed it out, dried it off, and pulled out one of the many first-aid kits she kept around the house. She was tough, but she knew herself better than anypony, and even tough ponies have accidents.
Once the bandage was on her hoof, she pulled her soup off the stove, wiped up the blood, dropped her knife in the sink, and pulled out a bowl for supper. She grabbed her book now that she could read it, and read while she ate. Her soup had unfortunately suffered due to her unexpected visitor, and was no longer as firm as she liked it, and it lacked the garlic she had wanted, but it was still good.
After eating, Derpy was still paranoid about that uninvited guest, so she checked around her tiny house for any other signs of forced entry. The front door was open so that was probably where he’d come in, but if he came in once, he might try again. Especially at night when she was asleep. She checked the windows to make sure they were locked, and the front and back doors. Once she was happy everything was locked up tight, she turned in for the night, climbing into her little cot and curling up in the blankets.

>>30165370
She slept well, and in the morning opened her eyes to find that once again her vision had gone strange. She went about her morning ritual without much fuss. It was as normal as things would be for her, and getting upset about it wasn’t going to change it. She hadn’t yet found anypony who could help her fix it, nor a way to avoid it happening or to switch her vision back on command. It was just how things were for her, and she had learned to live with it.
She could handle it. She was tough.
Breakfast consisted of a muffin, which she loved to pieces. That was why everypony called her that. Mrs. Cake frequently sent her muffins free of charge for all her deliveries, so she had a steady supply of them, and she shared them with ponies she visited with. She couldn’t tell what flavor this one was by sight, so she bit into it and was pleased to discover it was banana nut. Not the best, but still good.
Once breakfast was over she hunted down her uniform, tripping over the sofa in her quest, but she was dressed and out the door in a rather timely manner. She couldn’t tell the time exactly, but the red orb in the sky was the usual replacement for the sun, so she guessed she had maybe fifteen minutes? She always erred on the side of ‘late’ to avoid just such a problem, so she’d have to fly to work.
She didn’t like flying when her vision was like this, but if they had wanted ponies to walk deliveries, they would have hired earth ponies. Pegasi were just faster since they didn’t have to manage things like buildings being in the way or hills slowing ponies down.
She could manage. She was tough.

>>30165378
Derpy flapped her wings and gave a little hop before taking off. It was hard to see where things were while her vision was like this. Especially other ponies. Their shades weren’t obvious in colour, so she had to watch out. She buzzed another Pegasus, their wings nicking each other because she hadn’t seen the pony until the very last second. They didn’t crash, thank Celestia.
Derpy looked down at Ponyville as she flew. The dark and winding road she only saw in this version of sight wound like a snake through the alleys and streets of the town. She always felt like it was going somewhere specific, but she hadn’t ever wanted to follow it to find out. She looked at the shape of the city to determine where her office was. It was right on a specific corner, so she could identify it by shape if not by name.
She swooped down in a whirling loop, frantically avoiding the other delivery ponies who flew out of the building. She could barely register them at the last second, but they knew her well enough to give her a wide berth, so none of them hit her.
The ground was not so easy to avoid. It didn’t move, it just waited there for her to hit it, the impact sending up a cloud of dust. Her depth perception—or lack thereof—was still a hurdle, even with her vision like this.
Derpy picked herself up, her uniform now more disheveled than before and covered in dust, and trotted inside. “I’m here!”
“Ah, oy Derpy, we got anudda delivery for da Cakes. Dey likes you, so you gedda deliver it,” Crafty Crate said. “After dat, it’s just some small packages around town a’ight?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Crate sir!” Derpy said. Mr. Crate was easy to identify even when she couldn’t properly see him. His speech gave him away in a second. Other ponies were harder depending on how well she knew them.

>>30165385
Derpy wakes up and goes to work.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

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>>30165394

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>>30165718

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>>30167951

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>>30165394
Derpy grabbed her saddlebags from her locker and wandered to the room where the packages were kept. All of hers were placed in a section cordoned off so that she’d know which ones she was supposed to take without having to read labels. Crafty Crate had done that for her so that she would stop taking the wrong packages. Ever since he’d created this system of divvying out packages, mistakes had gone down for everypony, not just her. It kept everypony’s responsibility sectioned off from everypony else’s.
Derpy stuffed the smaller packages in her saddlebag, and hefted the one she assumed was for the Cakes in her hooves. She flapped her wings to keep herself up, and stumbled out the front door of the office.
“Good luck dere Derpy,” Crafty Crate said.
“Will do, sir!” she answered.
Once outside, she did an awkward little hop, then leaped into the air, wings flapping hard to take her up. She zeroed in on her target across town, not too far away from a big ugly building that she assumed must be the Princess of friendship’s castle. Derpy took off toward her target, clutching the package to her torso.
As she flew, she looked down at the dark, winding road passing through Ponyville. As she watched it began to undulate, the black stones it was composed of shifting in her sight as though passing through town like a serpent coiling through rocks. It wasn’t unusual, the dark road she always saw didn’t seem to have ever done anything throughout her life, but it was always there, even though it matched no other landmarks in Ponyville.
Derpy stopped to watch from above as the road changed position, slithering its black form underneath several houses and settling into a new shape. It now touched main street, dozens of ponies trampling over it as they went about their business, none the wiser to its presence. Save Derpy herself.

>>30169065
Derpy looked down from above and gave a small smile. She waved to the road as it looked far more comfortable in its current position. She had been told to stop ponifying inanimate objects, but it was hard when they moved and shifted for her just as much as ponies did. She was an adult now. She could do it if she wanted to.
She noticed out of the corner of her eye, a pony-shape walking along the black road in the alleys of Ponyville. She wasn’t sure what road that was when her vision was normal, nor was she sure what buildings the pony was near. However, as the pony turned and meandered along, she was positive that they had a distinct direction to their walk, and they were following the black road. They were even following the direction of the fake stones as they shifted and writhed along the path.
That wasn’t normal. As far as Derpy knew she was the only pony who could see them, and she had common sense enough to avoid following the dark road. Who knows where it led to? It could go to Tartarus as far as she knew, but she didn’t want to find out if it was or wasn’t safe. Derpy looked over at Sugarcube Corner, then back at the pony wandering through the alleys along the black road. She made her decision. Sugarcube Corner could wait.
Derpy dove down into the back alleys of Ponyville, the area appearing much darker than usual because of her vision problem, and landed in front of the pony. She set the package down next to her and held out a hoof.
“Stop!” Derpy said.
The pony obeyed, and tilted its head, looking at her. “Oh, hello again Miss Muffins. I thought I’d catch your attention this way.”
“Hello ‘again’? Who are you?” Derpy asked.
“You really don’t remember me? It was just last night I tried to introduce myself,” the stallion said. “As I recall, you chased me out with a knife.”

>>30169069
Derpy frowned, but after a moment realized what he was talking about. “You’re the stallion that broke into my house last night!”
He chuckled. “Not the brightest bulb in the box, are you?”
Derpy bristled, puffing out her cheeks. “That’s beside the point! I just came to tell you to stop going where you’re going.”
“Oh? And why would that be?” the stallion said.
Derpy opened her mouth, but realized that whatever she could say would sound crazy. While it was true the stallion seemed to want to get her attention, which might mean he could see the same things she could, something about him seemed… off. She didn’t want to tell him too much about herself.
“It’s just… bad,” Derpy said.
“Bad like, how?” He took a step closer to her.
“I can’t explain it, but it’s bad.” Derpy took a step back, but realized her package would be closer to him than her, and it was her job to protect it, so she stood her ground, straightening herself up.
“How bad? Why do you think that? What did you see that would make you stop a complete stranger to warn him not to continue walking down old, abandoned alleys?” the pony said.
He was right in front of Derpy now, and he was big. Bigger than a normal stallion. Had he always been that big? She felt tiny compared to him, but she didn’t back down. She had to stay with the package. She was tough. She could take it.
The stallion reached out a hoof, and as it got closer Derpy felt like spiders were crawling over her where his hoof was approaching. She wanted to pull back, but she was frozen by a little bit of fear, and a little bit of stubbornness.
“Derpy? Where’z you at? You grabbed the wrong packages by mistake! Somepony said they saw youz fly down here!”
Derpy’s head swam, and she blinked. When her vision cleared, things were normal again, and the stallion was missing. This was confusing.

>>30169073>>30169069
>>30169065

Forgot my trip for the whole thing. Whoosp.

Derpy tries to help, but meets a pony again.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

>>30169080
Poor Derpy

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>>30169080
“I’m down here, Mr. Crate!” Derpy called.
Crafty Crate flew down from above, carrying a package, with his own saddlebags full of smaller ones. He thumped to the ground next to her with a frown on his face, and plopped the package down in front of her. It did indeed have the Cake name on it, compared to hers, which had Rarity written on it.
“Youz alright Derpy? Youz sittin’ down here in an alley, and youz a little more scattabrained than uzwal,” Crafty Crate asked.
Derpy didn’t look up. She wasn’t alright. She was confused, and having a pony following her and trying to get her attention didn’t make her very comfortable. That stallion was nowhere nearby, either, having taken advantage of her dizziness to disappear before Mr. Crate could show up.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Them’s the woids of a pony who’s definitely not fine,” Crafty Crate said. “But I won’t bugz ya ‘bout it. When youz ready to talk ‘bout it, you lemme know. Until then, youz gots deliveries to make.”
Crafty Crate switched the packages in their saddlebags while Derpy waited. Once everything in her bags was for her to deliver, he grabbed the big package and gave her one last look.
“Take care’a y’self Derpy,” Crafty Crate said, and was gone.
Derpy picked up the package and gave the alley one last look. She felt like she was being watched, and something seemed to keep moving out of the corner of her eye, but after looking about and finding nothing there, she paid it no mind. She gave a little hop, then leaped into the air, determined to catch up on all the time she’d lost. She wasn’t sure where that stallion had gone, but she had the sinking feeling she was going to see him again, and at a bad time.

>>30171809
Her deliveries went well. She didn’t even crash when arriving at Sugarcube corner, just landed a little heavily on her flank when she came down with the package. The Cakes gave her a small bag of leftover muffins as thanks, which she dug into with gusto, then she wound around town in a wandering spiral delivering the rest of her packages. By the time the day was over, she was all tuckered out and more than happy to go back home.
Mr. Crate stopped her as she was getting ready to leave. “You doin’ awright there Derpy? Day went okay?”
“It went fine Mr. Crate. Thank you,” Derpy said.
He sighed but relented. “Awright. Lemme know if I can help at all.”
“Thank you Mr. Crate.”
He stepped out the front and Derpy was left to finish cleaning and lock up the place. It was her job to clean since nopony trusted her to organize the packages. They had tried to teach her, but she just couldn’t get it right, and it created an even bigger mess than somepony else had to clean up afterward, so it just wasn’t worth the trouble. Cleaning was done at least twice daily, so allowing her to clean up at night gave her something to do, the leniency to show up late in the morning, and didn’t leave an even bigger mess for the next day.
Derpy was mopping up the floor in the shipping area when she heard it: A sound, as of whispering, hissing through the air. She stopped mopping and perked her ears up, twisting them around to try to figure out if she had truly heard it. She heard it again, and this time almost made out a few words.
“…tell… …what… …Muffins.”
“Who’s there?” Derpy called out.
“…remember? …terrible…” the whispering broke into horrible gasping laughter.

>>30171815
Derpy brandished her mop as she looked around the small warehouse. It wasn’t very big, but it was big enough to house a lot of hiding places if somepony wanted to break in and skulk about. Not the most reassuring thought in the evening when she was all alone. She was sure she’d locked the doors before beginning, though, so how the pony got in was anypony’s guess.
Derpy trotted about the building with an urgent spring in her step, turning on all the lights, and double-checking all the doors and windows. Everything was locked, but if it was all locked and she was stuck in here with somepony anyway, that was going to be problematic. She grabbed a box-cutter and returned to her mop bucket, getting back to her work. The whispering continued, mocking in its tone, and annoying in its regularity.
“If you want something from me, just come out and get it!” Derpy yelled.
“…won’t see… …this.”
“Shut up and go away! I hate you! Leave me alone!” Derpy shouted.
Her voice was absorbed by the crates in the warehouse, sounding small and weak. She didn’t like this at all. If there was a pony here, why hadn’t they come out now that she was alone? Was she hearing the voice the way she saw the strange visions? It wouldn’t surprise her. That stallion in her house hadn’t ever touched her, neither at her home nor in the alleyway. Maybe he was made-up too. That would explain why he disappeared whenever her vision corrected itself. That would make just one more thing on the ever-growing list of things she kept experiencing that she would have to learn to ignore. She could do it though. She was tough.
She finished her work, ignoring the voice as it whispered insults, questions, and nothings at her.
Derpy sniffled.
Yeah, she was tough.

>>30171818
Derpy works hard. She can do it, even while getting badgered by voices. She's tough.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

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>>30171821

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJCw0sNaBI

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>>30172707
That's cute. Lily seems rather easy to spook.

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>>30165378
>banana nut muffin
>not the best

Seeing Dr. Whooves scared in that dream really want to see him spooped by the stone statue thing, but I have literally no knowledge about Dr. Who other than it's shit.

>>30174610
>it's THE shit
ftfy

>>30174610
>>30174674
Depends entirely on the doctor. Soccer hooligan was pretty cool.

Also, you're referring to the Weeping Angels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByPrDPbdRhc

S1E1 Twilight Snarkle--intelligent, determined, mature, sarcastic, says exactly what she thinks instead of what people around her want to hear, refreshingly forthright and honest, was a refreshing change for a protagonist for a kids' show. This lasted until Season 2 Episode 3, which introduced Twilight Snapple, who has been the character's default ever since--that or a vapid gushy Disney Princess with hooves.

I liked Twilight Snarkle very much, almost choosing her as a waifu. She seems to me to have too much willpower and strength of character for Twilight Snapple to be a plausible failure mode, though I understand that she had been through a lot at that point. PTSD would not be entirely unexpected--but in her I would expect it to take the form of uncertainty and depression. And I get that realistic clinical depression is not the most kid-friendly thing to depict in a cartoon, but the "look at me I'm-a-go CRAAAAAAAAAAAZY" stuff was uncalled-for, and, really, not much better.

The wings don't bother me, the utter and complete annihilation of her original sarcastic personality does.
>Anon was friends with Twilight when she first came to Ponyville.
>She ascends and this happens.
>Thoroughly creeped out by the "New Twilight", Anon slowly distances himself from her.
>Twilight cannot understand why.
>"Harmony" literally brain-rapes ponies into being perfect idolisation, altering or destroying personality.
>That's why Luna, after having the Nightmare purged from her, is so meek and subservient to Celestia, compared to how she used to be.
>Elements of Lobotomy.
>Celestia has been like this for so long she no longer has any of her original personality, being the Princess everyone knows her as.
>The most horrific thing is that they don't even realise what's been done to them.
>By showing them evidence of how they used to be, they begin to "wake up"...

...Maybe throw something about Ascension turning them Eldritch-like in what was once their pony skin...

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>>30171821
She put everything back in its place and locked up as she stepped out of the shop. The door clicked behind her, and she was dismayed to find that the voice followed her out of the building. That meant that she was hearing things in addition to seeing things. This was not the most fun she had ever had, and she really wanted it to stop.
She turned toward home, but couldn’t get up the gumption to give her preliminary hop to fly home. She decided to walk, staring at the ground as she shuffled along the dirt road toward her house. The voice dogged her steps, begging her to explain what she saw, why she was walking instead of flying, and blaming her for not remembering it.
Derpy did her best to ignore it and focus on the walk, and she arrived at home soon enough. She shuffled inside, made sure to lock the door this time, and set about preparing her supper. Tonight would be rice and beans, with a muffin from the Cakes for dessert.
She got the water boiling on the stove, washed the rice and set it to soak while she went about doing some other chores. It didn’t take her long to finish, because she didn’t spend a large amount of her time at home. She worked long hours every day because she needed the bits, and there was nopony waiting for her when she got home, so the more time away from the place, the less she had to clean.
Since she had some time to kill she grabbed her book and read some more. The tiny earth ponies made it all the way to Rivendell where the pegasi lived, and the Unicorn Gandalf showed back up again. It was quite an adventure so far, so she understood why Lyra liked it so much. An important delivery pony. Derpy smiled at that.

>>30175465
She figured her rice was ready, so she strained it out, started the pot of water boiling, and dumped it in. She put on the lid, set a timer, and started heating up the refried beans. She made sure to spice it properly this time, including some garlic and salt to give it some pep. When it was all done, she sat down to eat with her book in front of her, reading about how little Frodo, out of all the heroic, powerful, and large ponies there, offered to take the ring.
“That’s a real hero right there,” Derpy said.
The voice piped up after her comment. “Why do you believe he’s a hero? Because he’s doing something that no one else wants to do? That’s not heroic, that’s foolish.”
Derpy was taken aback at how clear the voice was now, when it was so muffled and quiet earlier. She looked up from her beans, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. It didn’t seem to be originating from a specific direction, leading her to believe it was still in her head. Was it normal to talk to yourself?
“Hello? Are you just my head talking to me?” Derpy asked.
The voice laughed. “Hah! I don’t really think that’s relevant, do you?”
“I guess not,” Derpy admitted. “But then why talk to me? Are you actually a pony? If you had wanted to attack me you would have done it by now. Why are you following me?”
Derpy’s deluge of questions made the voice laugh even harder. “The road, obviously. Where does it go? I know you can see it.”
Derpy’s mouth tightened at the question. He knew far more about her than she knew about him. “I’m not answering that! Not until I know how you’re talking to me and following me!”

>>30175468
“Fine then. I can wait. But can you?” The voice said.
“Are you just going to keep bothering me until I tell you?” Derpy asked.
“Yes.”
Well at least he was frank about it, Derpy thought. It didn’t make her any happier to hear it. If he was the same stallion that had broken into her house and that she had seen in the alleyway, how had he escaped so quickly, and without leaving anything behind? Was she seeing things too? Derpy chuckled. Who was she kidding, of course she was!
The chuckle gave way to a sigh and a frown. It was normal for her, but it shouldn’t be. She’d never heard of any other ponies who had problems like hers. That may be only because everypony who had the problem was written off as crazy and told to ‘deal with it’, or take some sort of medicine for it.
“No, I think it’s completely abnormal what you’re seeing, but you should at least be a little bit curious about it,” the voice said.
“Okay, now I really think you’re in my head. I didn’t say any of that out loud,” Derpy said.
The voice was silent.
“At least give me a name I can call you. You don’t want me dead or for... any other reasons, or you’d have done it, so if we’re going to talk, give me a name,” Derpy said.
“Hmmm, fine. Call me… Ego Trip,” he said.
“Well that’s an awfully cocky name,” Derpy said.
“Hah. I figured you’d think as much. We’re going to get very well acquainted, you and I,” Ego Trip said.
“Well Ego Trip, I hope you’ll forgive me for not getting you a cot to sleep on, but I only have the one, we’re not sharing, and you don’t get any blankets. I think you’ll live,” Derpy said as she cleaned up the table and headed for her bedroom.

>>30175475
Derpy has a conversation.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

>>30175286
It would make for a pretty good story I'm sure, dude. You should write one about it. You've already come up with the premise.

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>>30176444

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>>30175484
Ego trip was silent until Derpy had crawled into bed and closed her eyes. “How did you first start seeing it?”
“Ugh. What?” Derpy said.
“The road, of course. When and how did you first start seeing it?” Ego Trip said.
“When I was very young, and it just happens. Go to sleep.”
“I never sleep.”
“Well then I guess you’ll just have to be quiet for eight hours.”
“But then we’ll miss out on all the conversation we could be having about you.”
“What a terrible shame.” Derpy put her pillow over her head. It didn’t make him any quieter.
“Why do you think you see it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who do you think made it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where do you think it goes?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” Derpy shouted. “Let me sleep!”
Ego Trip went silent after her outburst, and Derpy thought maybe he would finally let her sleep. She had almost drifted off when he spoke up again.
“You should find out,” Ego Trip said.
“I don’t want to.”
Derpy rolled over and curled up into as small a ball as possible, and pulled the blankets over her head. She didn’t think it would help, but it made her feel better. Ego Trip didn’t respond to her, so she finally managed to drift off once more, falling asleep soon after.
In the morning, her vision was normal, thank goodness, but Ego Trip was right there to greet her upon opening her eyes.
“Good morning ‘Miss Muffins’,” he said.
The way he said her nickname was filled with venom, as though he hated her for having the nickname. Like it was something she had any control over. She didn’t mind that most ponies didn’t know her by her actual name, so it wasn’t really a big deal. Besides, she liked muffins.

>>30178407
“Aren’t you bored, yet?” Derpy asked as she crawled out of bed.
“It’s only been a single day. Are you really tired of me so quickly?” Ego Trip responded.
“I guess not. It’s not like I can do anything about you,” Derpy said.
“Answer my questions and I’ll be gone with the wind, ‘Miss Muffins’,” Ego Trip said.
“Ugh, you know what? You don’t get to call me Miss Muffins. I don’t like the way you say it. You get to call me Derpy or Miss Hooves,” Derpy said.
Ego Trip didn’t say anything for a while after that, giving Derpy time to make breakfast. Breakfast today was oatmeal and a muffin. This one was a poppyseed muffin. Still not the best, but also very good.
“Which muffin is the best then, ‘Derpy’?” Ego Trip asked.
“I’m not telling you, because you’ll just say it’s dumb to get a rise out of me,” Derpy said.
“I’m shocked and hurt that you would think so poorly of me,” Ego Trip said.
“You haven’t said anything to make me like you yet, so I’m assuming the worst,” Derpy said.
“That’s not very nice.”
“You’re not very nice.”
“That’s foalish.”
“You’re foalish.”
Ego Trip shut up after that, letting Derpy eat in peace. She collected her uniform, which she had forgotten to wash, much to her dismay. She had also been so distracted she hadn’t brushed her teeth or showered, instead spending all her time arguing with Ego Trip and reading her book.
“Damn it,” Derpy muttered.
Derpy looked at the clock; she was already running late. She put the uniform on, ran a hoof through her mane and gave her teeth a quick look. She was a mess, but she’d rather be a mess than late. Mr. Crate was so lenient toward her as it was, she didn’t want to take advantage of his good-will.

>>30178414
Derpy dashed out of her house and gave a little hop, then jumped into the air, flying toward work. She whipped around ponies with grace that surprised even herself. She felt pretty good this morning. Times like these were few and far between for her these days. She hadn’t been this graceful since—
“Since you were a filly.” Ego Trip said.
Derpy wasn’t surprised by his interjection, but it still distracted her. She clipped a tree with a wing as she was coming in to land, and spun out of the sky, spiraling toward the ground. Her hooves flailed and her wings flapped as she tried to recover, but she wouldn’t manage it in time. She covered her face as she braced for impact.
She hit something soft rather than hard, and the tumbled with whatever she had struck a short distance. She felt a twinge of pain in her wing as she skidded to a stop, the cloud of dust clearing to let her see what or who she had hit.
“*Cough* Well, good morning to you too, Miss Muffins. How fortunate that we would ‘bump’ into each other here,” A familiar voice said.
As her vision cleared, a smile lit up Derpy’s face as she recognized the pony behind the voice. “Oh, hey Doc! Fancy running into you.”
The Doctor climbed to his hooves and held out a hoof for Derpy, which she took with an even bigger smile. She held on maybe a little too long, until Crafty Crate stumped out of the office.
“Derpy, you awright? Dat was a heckuva spill. Worse than usual, anyway,” Cray Crate asked.
She looked away from Doc to Crafty, and was made aware of the pain she felt in her wing. She gave them a small flap and winced as her left wing moved.
“I’m gonna take that as a no, youz cain’t fly like dat. Get to the hospital and get dat looked at,” Crafty Crate ordered.

>>30178421
Derpy bumps into somepony nice.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

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>>30178407
Another day, another artist deleting his account.

>>30178491
It's a sad thing when it happens, isn't it? I'm at least happy that it's harder for all the internet records to disappear. I understand why they'd want to distance themselves from certain things, but it's still very sad.

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>>30178458
“I can still work! I’ll just gallop instead of fly!” Derpy protested.
“Geeze Derpy, I’m not dockin’ ya pay. You knowz I don’t do dat. You’re a good woiker, but I needz ya to be healthy. Doc, can I trust youz ta make sure she goes?” Crafty Crate said.
“Of course, Mr. Crate. I’ll take care of her,” the Doctor said. “Come along Miss Muffins, let’s get your wing looked at.”
Derpy allowed herself to be pulled along by the Doctor, blushing as his hoof tugged on hers until he let go. He watched her to make sure she was following, and he set a slow pace. Derpy realized her hat was crooked and tried to adjust it, pulling the brim down to try to hide her face. That let her see her shirt was buttoned crooked, with every button one hole higher than it should have been. Nothing she could do about that now. She tried to dust herself off while they walked, with mixed success.
“It’s been a little while hasn’t it, Miss Muffins?” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah, it has, Doc. Where have you been?” Derpy asked.
“Oh, you know, here and there, to and fro, hither and thither,”
“How long will you be back this time?”
The Doctor sighed. “I still can’t answer that with any degree of certainty Miss Muffins.”
“I know. I was hoping, though.”
“You always do. You’re tough, after all.” The Doctor looked back at her and winked.
Derpy looked up at him in surprise, and a wide smile rose on her face. She felt a lot more pep in her step as they made their way to the hospital, talking about nothing in particular.
They stepped into the waiting room and signed in, taking their seats in silence. Derpy sat next to the Doctor on the waiting bench, fidgeting with her mane, her hat, and her shirt. She looked at the Doctor, then away, then back again.

>>30182219
The Doctor noticed, of course. “Is everything alright, Miss Hooves? Is your wing bothering you too much? We can ask for some ice while we wait.”
Derpy looked at her wing, hanging next to her like a limp towel. “It aches, but it’s not unbearable.”
“Excellent. Excellent.”
Derpy looked at him for a moment, but then he turned to look back at her and she turned away, blushing again. Derpy had never had a special somepony, and she never went looking, but Doc was somepony she wished she had the guts to say something to. He didn’t treat her any different than any other pony. To him, everypony was good enough just the way they were, and he made her feel like that. Crafty Crate was nice to her, but he was like a stern father figure. Doc was like…
“Like a stranger taking care of a lost puppy,” Ego Trip said.
Derpy’s smile faded and she looked around. Nopony else seemed to have reacted to it, which led credence to the fact that it was all in her head, or at least she was the only one privy to the statements.
Derpy looked at the Doctor. His expression was unchanged.
“Doc, did you hear anything just now?” Derpy asked.
“Not at all. Did they call your name?” the Doctor asked.
“Oh, no. It was something else.” Derpy looked down at her hooves.
“Well this ‘something else’ seems to be getting to you. Did you want to talk about it?”
Derpy looked up at the Doctor, and met his gaze looking back at her. Those big blue eyes of his looked at her and she felt butterflies in her stomach, pushing at the sides, making her feel a little queasy. She felt herself gag a little and looked away as she retched, ruining the moment.

>>30182225
“Miss Muffins, are you alright?” the Doctor asked.
“You realize he doesn’t look at you the way you look at him, right?” Ego Trip said in her head.
“Miss Derpy Hooves?” a doctor called out. “Miss Derpy Hooves? Possibly broken wing?”
“Oh, that’s you! Will you be alright alone?” the Doctor asked.
Derpy nodded. “I’ll be fine. I’m tough. Could you wait here for me? I… would like to talk afterward.”
“Of course, Miss Muffins.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Derpy smiled and stepped up to greet the doctor.
The examination was brief, and not very painful. The doctor was gentle and quick, and the diagnosis was nothing more than a slight sprain. She received a compression wrap and an admonishment to stay grounded for a few days until the swelling went down. She asked if she could have a lollipop for being good, and was given one with a smile and ushered back out to the waiting room.
“Welcome back Miss Muffins. I see you were good in there.” Doc said, motioning to the lollipop. “Nothing too bad I take it?”
“A slight sprain. I just have to stay grounded. Can we get lunch and talk somewhere quiet, Doc?” Derpy asked.
“Of course! Lead the way,” Doc said.
Derpy took him to get her favourite lunch; a daisy sandwich, apple, and a muffin, all for only three bits. They took their lunches to a bench in the park near the pond and ate in peace. Derpy stole glances at him while they ate when she was sure he wasn’t looking. It was almost like they were on a date!
“He doesn’t think of it as a date,” Ego Trip said to her.
Derpy’s smile fell and her tail ceased its twitching at his words. He was right. Doc was here to listen to her talk.
“Doc, I think I’m being haunted,” Derpy said.

>>30182230
Derpy gets starry-eyed and shot down all at once.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

>>30181192
dont you hate it when bookhorse reads another eldritch tome of horrors and cant sleep for another week

>>30182261
She didn't say the words before picking it up. What were they again?
Klaatu. Barada. Ni*cough*

>>30183020
It's nice seeing you too, sweetie, I had work during the day.
/r/ing something about living with a creepy pone

>>30183655
I can probably do something like that after this story if no one else does. Light-hearted or still spooky?

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>>30185300
Not the same Anon but something both cute and creepy would be pretty nice.
Love the Derpy story so far by the way.

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>>30182237
Doc, to his credit and which was one of the things Derpy loved the most about him, didn’t laugh. He didn’t even crack a smile. He took her statement with utter seriousness and looked at her.
“Why do you think you’re being haunted?” Doc said.
Derpy scraped a hoof at the bench. “I’m… hearing voices that aren’t there.”
“And what do they say?” Doc asked.
“Well…” Derpy wasn’t sure how much of her problem she wanted to get into, but there really wasn’t any way to discuss one without going into the other. She sighed. She’d have to tell him everything. “He insults me a lot, but I think he’s just trying to get information from me. He… well…” Derpy tried to find the right words. “He wants information about the black road.”
“And what is this black road, then?”
“Okay, that takes a lot of explaining.”
Derpy told the Doctor about the problems she had with her vision, what psychologists had said, and how she had decided to not take the medicine for it because it made her feel awful. She knew she’d see the visions again, and she had learned to deal with them, but the voice was new. She even told him about how the voice had manifested itself as a pony during her visions. She told the Doctor everything she’d experienced in the past few days. When she finished explaining, she looked at the Doctor with bated breath.
The Doctor folded his hooves in front of him and closed his eyes in thought. He tugged on his tie a little as he pondered what she’d just told him.
“Well Miss Muffins, this is a lot to take in. You’ve been seeing this black road your whole life, you said?”
Derpy nodded. “Everything else just looks different, but is still in the same place. The road is the only thing that moves.”

>>30186028
“Well my first thought is that the voice, although new, is yet another symptom of the schizophrenia you mentioned.”
Derpy’s face fell.
“However, you say you saw him as a regular pony while experiencing hallucinations, correct? Did you ever touch him?”
Derpy shook her head. “He came close, and seemed to change size, and it looked like he was holding garlic once, but I never touched him, or the garlic he said he was holding.”
“Well, if you’d like, I have some devices that may detect spirits if you say you are being haunted. Would you like me to test you and your house?”
Doc wanted to come to her house? She blushed and panicked at the same time, her hooves flying to her face to cover her cheeks. Her house wasn’t filthy, but it wasn’t exciting. She had next to no decorations anywhere but her bedroom. Few books, few pieces of furniture, and not much food. Could she even entertain a guest?
“He’s coming to search for ghosts, not spend the night.” Ego Trip said.
Derpy caught herself. Ego Trip was right. This was for business, not for pleasure. She had asked Doc for help, and he had agreed. She needed to treat it like such.
“If you could, that would give me some peace of mind, Doc. I’d like that a lot,” Derpy said.
Doc stood up and offered her a hoof, which she took. He started walking away and she trotted to catch up. “Let’s get to my place, I’ll grab a few things, and then we can go to yours. Shouldn’t take long at all.”
“I don’t mind it taking long if it needs to. Thank you for being willing to help, Doc,” Derpy said.
“Not at all Miss Muffins. I’m always happy to aid a friend in need,” Doc said.

>>30186035
They went to the Doctor’s house and he grabbed some strange machines Derpy had never understood the use of. She’d been here before, so she’d seen them, but never bothered asking what they did. There were a lot of things in Doc’s house like that for her. He let her come visit when he was in town, but that was getting rarer and rarer these days. He was always very busy.
Once he had his things, they went back to Derpy’s house, which she opened up with not a little embarrassment, letting him in to do his work. He bustled about, not saying anything about the décor, or the lack thereof. He was all business, running his gadgets here and there, waving them in cupboards, over windows, on top of and underneath her bed. Derpy waited for him to finish, following him about the house as he worked. When he was done, he shut his beeping device off and turned to her.
“Well Miss Muffins, I cannot find any spiritual residue or ectoplasmic signatures anywhere. That’s not guarantee, but I don’t think you’re being haunted,” Doc said.
“Well that’s a relief. So what do you think it is, Doc?”
The Doctor looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again without saying anything. He put a hoof to his chin and looked away from her, then back into her questing eyes.
“Tell you what, Miss Muffins, the next time you experience the problems with your vision, come see me. You can find my workshop when you have your hallucinations, correct?” Doc asked.
Derpy was crestfallen. She knew that look. That was the look of somepony who didn’t believe her. The look that said; you have a problem and we don’t know what else to do to help you with it so we’ll just humor you.
“Yeah, I can,” Derpy said.
“Excellent. We can talk more about it when you’re experiencing it. That should help,” Doc said.
“Yeah,” Derpy said.

>>30186043
Doc doesn't find any ghosts. She's not haunted as far as he can tell.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ


>>30185542
Creepy-cute? That sounds difficult, but I will try.
Any character preference? No Anons.

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>>30186058
How about a Casper-like story involving a cute ghost pone trying and failing to be spooky? Could be an OC or a ghost version of a canon character. If you need some inspiration you can always check Derpibooru's "adoracreepy" tag. https://derpibooru.org/tags/adoracreepy

Some spook: http://juicedane.deviantart.com/art/SFM-My-dream-423301301

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>>30153989
Replying to my older post and posting some music.

Some spooky movie themes:
>audiomachine - Judge and Jury Used as trailer music for Prometheus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW44LNwcilQ
>Disasterpeace - It Follows Title Theme It's weird when you realize this score came from the same composer who gave us Fez's happy chiptune-esque soundtrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrqS96JxWVA
>Ennio Morricone - The Thing Main Theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnFc7D0ZoCc

Also I don't know if you guys are into dark ambient music, but you really should listen to Lustmord: https://lustmord.bandcamp.com/ especially this track and the album it's from: https://lustmord.bandcamp.com/track/black-star

>>30154300
>organs
Yeah I love organs too.

>>30155090
>muh fandumb musick
Fandom music is just like the fandom as a whole. Most of it is trash, but there are also occasional gems. Not a great fan of WoodenToaster but this improvisation sounds great.
Also the Pokémon fandom do way worse, trust me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eK0JVH4Cfk

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>>30186058

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>>30189017

>>30185300
I think light hearted would be nice. We have had pretty spooky stuff for the last few threads.

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>>30186058
When the Doctor left, Derpy gave him a solemn wave goodbye from the door, and stood in it watching him walk off until he was out of sight. Once she turned around and shut the door, Ego Trip started talking again.
“It’s cute that you thought I was a ghost,” Ego Trip said. “No, really, that’s adorable. That you’d think all your problems would go away if you just got somepony else to come sweep your house of them. Like they were dust you could hide under the rug.”
Derpy said nothing, just dragged her hooves inside and began working on supper. It was still just past noon, but she needed to occupy herself somehow, and she could make a pretty good stew with potatoes, dumplings, and lentils with this much time. She didn’t really know how to cook much beyond muffins, but soup, stew, and sandwiches were easy: Just put things in each one and hope for the best.
She kept herself busy until the stew was simmering on the stove, and then she went to go clean, only to remember she had just cleaned yesterday. It was still early afternoon. She picked up her book and tried to read, but she found herself reading the same paragraph over and over without registering anything inside it.
Derpy put the book down and stared around her house.
There was nothing she wanted to do.
“Are you ready to talk, yet?” Ego Trip asked.
“No.” Derpy stood up and marched to her front door. She stepped outside, shut it behind her, and went for a walk.
Derpy aimed herself out of town, looking to walk through something with few ponies around. There was a nice set of woods nearby, right on the edge of the Everfree forest. It was kept manicured and safe by groundsponies, so in the middle of the day it was safe, while it was closed in the evening and at night.

>>30190579
Derpy walked. And she stared. She stared at flowers, trees, birds, bees, leaves, sticks, and the occasional hoofprint. There weren’t any ponies around that she had seen, so they were further ahead of her on the trail, or they were long gone. She did everything she could to keep herself busy so that she wouldn’t have to think. Ego Trip made it hard, though.
“You’re alone, Miss Hooves. This was a foolish choice. You don’t like being around other ponies because they make you feel like you don’t fit in, but you don’t like being alone because it reminds you that you’ve nopony to talk to but yourself,” Ego Trip said.
Derpy avoided responding to him. He’d been talking constantly, and all of it had been putting her down. His constant chattering was really starting to wear on her. He was trying to get her to tell him about the black road, but she was having none of it. This whole walk had been to avoid talking to him, but he was making his constant presence known, and that made him difficult to ignore.
She stopped at a pond and sighed. Ignoring him wasn’t going to work. “Fine. What do you want?”
“You know what I want,” Ego Trip said.
“I’m not telling you about the black road. What else do you want?” Derpy said.
“We can talk about your friend the Doctor if you like.”
“I don’t want to talk about him with you.”
“Oh? Whyever not? He’s smart, handsome, well-dressed, and is liked by most everypony he meets,” Ego Trip said. “Then there’s you: Dumb, homely, poorly-groomed, and when you meet somepony you crash into them. Not the best first impression.”
“I’m not dumb.”
“I like that that’s the only one you denied. Why didn’t the Doctor stay for dinner, by the way? How come you didn’t invite him?”
“Because… because…”
“Because you know he couldn’t possibly see you the way you see him?”

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>>30190583
Derpy’s vision swam, and she tottered as dizziness washed over her. When it cleared, the world around her had changed once again. Trees were gnarled shadows of their former selves, the water in the pond nearby was dark and murky, and the animals glared at her with angry yellow eyes.
Something was different this time, however. There was black at the edge of her vision, and her head turned without her telling it to do so. She tried to tell it to move back to look at the pond, but it wouldn’t go.
“Ah, I hit a nerve with that one, didn’t I?” Derpy said in Ego Trip’s voice.
Derpy spoke, but her mouth didn’t move. This time it was her voice that seemed to come from nowhere at all. “I didn’t say that! What’s going on?”
“We’re going on a little trip, Miss Hooves. Down the black road, to see where it leads us, and find out what’s on the other side,” Ego Trip said.
“I don’t want to! Everypony will miss me!”
“Oh? Who’s going to miss you? The Doctor? Crafty Crate?” Ego Trip said. “They’ll wonder where you went, and accept that you’re missing, but they’ll chalk it up to ‘that clumsy pony’, and get on with their lives. They’ll shake their heads sadly every now and then, but they’ll be glad you’re gone deep down.”
Derpy watched as her hooves stepped onto the black road where it slithered sinuously through the park. It was always just nearby anytime her vision went like this, waiting for her. Tempting her to follow. She never did, but Ego Trip wasn’t held back the same way she was. Ego Trip wanted to go.
“I… I don’t want to go.”
“Of course you do. You’ve been curious about this your whole life. ‘What’s down the mysterious road, where nopony knows who I am, and nopony has to worry about me crashing into them. Nopony can possibly worry about me, and won’t have to take care of me or accommodate me.’ That’s what’s down this road, isn’t it?” Ego Trip said.

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>>30190584
She knew.
Derpy knew the whole time, and Ego Trip was right. Nopony would worry about whether or not she would crash into them. The Doctor wouldn’t have to worry about making sure she was okay, and Crafty Crate wouldn’t have to worry about coming up with custom work for her just so she could continue to have a job. She wouldn’t be a hazard, and the Cakes wouldn’t have to keep giving her muffins for free just for bringing them something that was down the street.
Her visioned darkened further as Ego Trip took her down the black road. The edges of her vision crawled further toward the center, giving her a small circle of a view.
But…
Crafty Crate would never be able to pat her on the head anymore everytime she shared her free muffins with him. Mrs. Cake would never be able to ask her if she was okay after her inevitable crashed entry to the shop. She’d never be able to read another of Lyra’s strange books she always shared with her. She’d never be able to experiment with soup ingredients anymore. She’d never feel the butterflies in her stomach from seeing Doc’s smile and touching his hoof when he helped her up from the ground.
Derpy stretched her wings out and flapped hard, wincing as her sprain flared hot with pain. The lift was enough to give her back some air, and her vision widened, filling with spots as she gasped and inhaled deep. She yanked the rope from around her throat and stopped flapping, letting herself fall back to the forest floor. She rolled on the ground, breathing hard and clutching a hoof to her sprained wing, crying.
She cried for a long while. Nopony passed by. She’d selected this area because it was behind a mess of thick brambles, and had a nice view of the pond between some trees. Ponies wouldn’t find her for a long while.

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>>30190593
When she was finished crying, she pulled herself back to her hooves and looked up at her tree. Her vision was normal again, and she could see the rope she’d strung up there. It hung like a serpent, whispering sour words in her ears. She glared at it, climbed up the trunk, untied the rope, and tossed it into the pond. It floated away, harmless. She sniffled, wiped her nose on her foreleg, then stuck her tongue out at it and walked away.
Derpy trudged all the way back to Ponyville, each step heavier than the last, but she made it.
She could handle it, she was… she was…
Derpy broke down crying again as she left the forest. Hard, wailing sobs. This time it didn’t last very long before she was interrupted by a voice.
“Derpy?” Lyra called out.
The mint green pony came crashing through the bushes, and scooped her up in a hug. Derpy winced at the pressure on her wing but said nothing. She just hugged Lyra back and bawled harder.
“Guys, I found her!” Lyra yelled.
Soon afterward, several other ponies came up the path into the woods and crowded around her. Crafty Crate, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Bon Bon, and finally, Doc. The rest of them parted to let Doc in closer, and he traded places with Lyra to hug Derpy. They were all quiet as they just let Derpy cry herself out, until she was all the way down to sniffles. She wiped her face and nose on his tie, then realized what she did and tried to wipe it off with a hoof, just succeeding in smearing it around more. Then she started crying again. When she was done, Doc pulled back and held out a hoof to help her up. She smiled, sniffled, and accepted, her heart fluttering like it did every time.

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>>30190601
“What’s wrong Miss Muffins?” Doc asked.
Derpy explained how she felt. Like she was just a burden to everypony around her, and how Mr. Crate just gave her a job because she had nothing else, and how the Cakes only accepted deliveries because they wanted to give her something to do, and how Lyra and the Doctor only humored her because nopony else wanted to. She laid it all out, but left out the last part where she had just tried to kill herself.
When she was done, everypony around her clamored to speak at once. The Doctor silenced them and answered first. “Miss Muffins, we’re all very happy to have you around. It’s true, your faults are many, but we don’t let those faults force us to do anything. We do what we do because we’re your friends, and we want to help you. Nopony is an island,” Doc said.
“We likes you just the way you iz, Derpy,” Crafty Crate said.
“You enjoy our muffins more than anypony else, Miss Muffins. Seeing you eat them no matter how good or bad we think they are is just as much a blessing for us as it is delicious for you,” Mrs. Cake chimed in.
“Bon Bon doesn’t want to talk about books as much as you do, Derpy. Hearing your opinion on the books I recommend is a highlight I look forward to. It’s not a chore,” Lyra said.
“I noticed you were looking rather down after your injury, so I gathered all your friends together to hold a little soiree to cheer you up. I hope that’s okay,” Doc said.
Derpy wiped her cheeks with a hoof, trying to compose herself. She smiled wide at all of them, seeing the friends she had come together like this was a good feeling, and one she had forgotten. Maybe Doc wouldn’t ever be her special somepony, but if she never saw him again, it was certain.
She was tough, but every so often she needed reminding she didn’t have to tough it out alone.

Good End.

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>>30190604
Derpy isn't a burden.

Updated my journal: https://pastebin.com/Hk0ZwdGZ

I am pleased with how this one turned out. I don't know if I would call it strictly horror, as the original plan I had for it transformed as I was writing, but I liked where it went. That may be personal bias, however. I hope you all liked it as much as I did.

>>30190612
Yay, good end

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>>30190612

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>>30094546
>This is the way the world ends

that story fucked me up

god DAMN, did anybody figure out what the source material was
? it reminds me of tyranids and the locusts from revelations in the bible

>When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. 6During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

>The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).

>>30195582
I know there's a lot of stories like that, so the source material could be anything, but it seemed mostly original what with the swarm creating a larger consciousness and absorbing information from the host. Could have been borrowed from HALO's flood, the zerg, the tyranids, Aliens, or Revelations. They all have something in common with that.

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>>30195677
ye, he did tease at something specific though

>"Just for fun, try to figure out where I shamelessly stole the conc--err, what inspired this story!)"

That story disturbed me but i also really want to read more like it.