Quinch

They look barking mad.

Killer schmiller, I wanna ride that thing!!

Why should it be weird? Welcome to the community!

The voice in my head.

Hoo boy.... I definitely can't say what I consider to be the "best" fanfic I've read, but I can point out some contenders for the title - stories that had an impact on me, all of them because of great storytelling, and because they managed to touch me in some way. The Only Tree in the Forest by Hap: I guess you could describe it as a historical chronicle of sorts, from the perspective of a single character as they watch the world change around them. It becomes obvious which tree fairly early in the story, but that's not something the story hinges on. One downside, in my opinion, is that it ends rather abruptly. Package Not Delivered by M48 Patton: A short, somewhat bittersweet story about mailing ponies, and a rather poignant take on some of the events of the first season. Fahreneigh 451 by Liquid Truth: I'll admit it right now, I'm a huge sucker for Bradbury, so when a story successfully emulates both his style and puts a unique-yet-familiar spin on the source material, that easily goes in my top ten percentile of things I like by default. Sad and surreal, it's one of the favourite stories I've ever read. 80 Days 'Til the World's Farthest Shore by Cynewulf: It's hard for me to pinpoint why exactly I like this story so much - possibly because of the optimism inherent in it, when it touches on the inevitabilities of Twilight's immortality, and where it goes from there. For what is essentially a short adventure novel, it's actually rather action-free, but that works in its favour, as it gives focus to the protagonist's own insights and thoughts. I also admired certain... parallels, though some of them will probably be missed on the first read. Mythic Dawn by MagnetBolt: Frankly, if there's a single story I've read that would qualify as a perfect sequel to FiM, this would easily be it. It follows some of the show's formula - in fact, it jumps into it with an unabashed sense of humor - but it quickly hits its own beat while staying true to MLP's message. The Eternal by Forestfire34720: MLP fanfiction has had its share of "after the end" stories, and this is one of them. And yet, while the story focuses on a sad event - the passing of a dragon - it's a happy tale, not because of what has happened, but what is happening. In the words of Robert Frost, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." Amber Ashes by GMBlackjack: This is one of those "adventure epic" stories, and it deserves that title in spades. It's a Mane Six story of sorts, although it leans heavily into the alternate universe angle, and while it certainly has the whole "save the world" thing going on, that's only one aspect of many plots and subplots that take place. It's funny, it's dark, it's dramatic, it's amazing, it's ridiculous and scary and, well, I could go on. It's quite a long read, clocking in at almost 100K words, although that's just a drop in the bucket compared to the source material. If you're looking for a novel to read, you can't go wrong with this. And finally, I can't omit Friendship is Optimal by Iceman. Hoo boy. One of the earlier works of the MLP fandom, it inspired of its own canon, though far from the scope of works like Past Sins or Fallout: Equestria. One could argue it's not really a MLP fanfic or just a science fiction story, given that it takes place in the real world and there are no real ponies or the Magical Land of Equestria to speak of, but in either case, it's one hell of a ride from the beginning to end. What you take away from it is probably going to vary heavily - from happy, to bittersweet or, in my case, being literal nightmare fuel. But whatever the case, it's a sobering idea that I can only hope will remain fictional.

The only caveat was that one of her earlobes was just a tiny little bit too big!

Nope, that was a different virtual guy. Also, not a bad show, but I preferred the darker mood of the pilot episode than the series itself.

Come to think of it, I remember a show - vaguely - but not much about it, including the name. It was an eighties sci-fi show, with a cop who had a secret partner who was a computer or something, and could manifest himself as a hologram, but only at night because the hologram took a lot of power and during the day, when everyone was awake, there wouldn't be enough electricity left for him to appear. He {the virtual cop} also had a familiar called Cursor or Pixel that could holo up stuff like bikes and stuff for him. Does that ring a bell for anyone?

And I noticed completely by chance. But yeah, one year ago, I put this up; And since then, I've made an unhealthy habit of reading fanfics. Some were shorter, some were longer, some quick and dirty and some, well... more ambitious. Weirdly enough, despite the work involved {and believe me, reading hours of the stuff is the easy part}, I rather enjoy it. It took, well, decades to finally find a sort of creativity I'm happy with creating - there's a well-accepted tenet that you need to want to git gud at something for long enough to git gud at it, but from the start, I was happy even with the subpar, clumsy works I put out. And, well, I like to think I got better over time too. So. Here's to another year.

Nice!!

Bat ponies tend to be rather cute, even compared to rather fluffy pegasi. So, hard pass.

Heya everyone! I'd just like to mention that over the past few months, I've been working with a few other folks on the production of an audiobook - specifically, The Needle, by Rambling Writer. It's by far the most ambitious reading project I've undertaken so far {let alone complete}, so if anyone would check it out, well... I think it would be awesome. :p

Would you be more likely to finish a game with poor gameplay but a great story, or great gameplay, but a poor story? What were the skies like when you were young? How'd you get your cutie mark? Are you easily peer pressured? Is this too many questions?

I'm not sure - possibly. For the past few months, I've been working on The Needle - fortunately, that project is about to wrap up. The next one in the queue is a short book called Mythic Dawn, and there might be openings available - I began working on and casting it at the same time as The Needle, while I was under the optimistically misguided notion that I could publish both on a weekly schedule, and I have to follow up with everyone to see if they're still interested and available. So if anything opens up, I'll give you a holler.

You're walking down a desert and you see a turtle on its back. You flip it the right way up, naturally, but then you notice a treasure map drawn on its shell. What do you do?