Thursday, July 21, 2011

Story: The Cutie Mark Conspiracy

[Normal][Comedy] Scootaloo in Waterwings, a possible rival to Luna in socks?

Author: Cold in Gardez
Description: The Cutie Mark Crusaders have finally gone too far, and Twilight Sparkle & Friends decide it's time to teach them a lesson. But when their prank starts to take a life of its own, they may end up being too clever for their own good.
The Cutie Mark Conspiracy

Additional Tags: Talent, Conspiracy, revenge, the Lotus Luxury Spa, unintended consequences


Source: Nanoco

41 comments:

Josh said...

Premise sounds interesting.

sparklehooves said...

ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) Y U SO FIRST?

Anonymous said...

This looks good..

colt classic said...

Nothing rivals luna in socks.

Homfrog said...

Gonna read it! Sounds interesting and a bit dare-defying... I dunno. Looks good.

ToonNinja said...

Halfway through, I got a massive grin on my face. This was a great story.

Anonymous said...

not even close to luna in socks. no offense to scootaloo :3

Pen Stroke said...

Proof positive that the Cutie Mark Crusaders will continue to be the Crusaders even after they have their cutie marks.

Well done story overall.

Baree said...

Good story. Well written, funny enough. Bit predictable, but yeah, what ya gonna do?

Seems like the Crusaders caused a... Well, Lets just say I don't see how Rarity and Scoot's parents will recover from the financial setbacks anytime soon.

Homfrog said...

That was really good! Episodic! Very well-plotted and progressive. Everything was resolved. I like the idea of the arbormaw too, did you come up with that? 5/5

BlankFlankBrony said...

Quite amusing... and it seems to be tantalizingly asking for an epilogue/sequel.

mykowskis said...

Once I realized what the prank was, I immediately started to feel bad.
How would they take it? What will they do?
Then I was answered by the remainder of this wonderful, comedic story.
Nicely done!

Bongo said...

What the...(Fangirl squee)

Holy cow, my coloring of that sketch has been put on Equestria Daily. Who knew!?

http://ponibooru.413chan.net/post/view/32663?search=user_id%3D852

Excuse me as I go wallow in my own pride.

banjo2E said...

It'd be hilarious if the marks did not fade, and in fact turned out to be their actual marks.

Cue amusing sputtering faces from Twilight and co.

Desert Rose said...

There should be another chapter for this, where they re-do the prank, but they do it to help them instead of prank.

Anonymous said...

@BlankFlankBrony
I agree; I have a sneaking suspicion that those marks aren't going to fade.

Anonymous said...

@banjo2E
Yeah.
Applebloom mapped the Everfree forest. Successfully. And she enjoyed it.
Scootaloo, despite the...creative circumstances, seems to be pretty good at surfing.
Sweetie Bell likes chopping trees down and was able to bring down a large one with great precision right over Rarity's fireplace.

Anonymous said...

Freakin' hilarious

Colegate55 said...

This and Sweet Apple Capers are the two funniest fanfics I've ever read. 'Grats!

Havokpony said...

@Anonymous

So much this. The winds of fannon are fickle, but this feels so much like Luna and the Abacus as just working. That and then we can have Sweetiebell singing the Lumberjack Song, and the CMCs traveling the world, felling trees, surfing, and making crazy detailed maps, and still sewing chaos in their wake.

Anonymous said...

Please make a sequal or epilouge where the marks stay and the mane 6 are like O_O

Anonymous said...

Some great laughs, very easy to visualise descriptions of the style and feel of the show alongside an innovative little story.

Great fun twist on the CMC formula.

Shred Hexstring said...

anyone else seeing the face in the pie in that picture?

Anonymous said...

But....what happens when they're told that the marks are fake?!?!?!?!?!? The suspense is killing me!

And I would make the argument that those aren't their real special talents, just stuff they've gotten some skill at. The CMC usually don't try something much before they give up at it, but here they tried and tried again and good good at the stuff they were trying.

The J.A.M. said...

You know, I wonder if the "playing doctor" thing was a bit exaggerated. As Applejack noted in TBNE, ponies don't normally wear clothes, so any anatomical differences would have already been noted by the fillies long before then...

Cold in Gardez said...

@Homfrog

Just something I came up with. I've always liked the idea of monsters with utterly alien body types.

@Anonymous

I'm glad someone noticed the "Rarity's fireplace" callback.

The CMC are probably my favorite characters in the show, for their sheer unwillingness to accept the advice everyone keeps giving them to wait for their cutie marks. I doubt I'll write a strict sequel to this, but some of my other stuff has been in the same tone and I'll probably do it again.

Thanks for the positive feedback :)

Shellsh0cker said...

Oh man, more from Cold in Gardez. I am sure as hell looking forward to this. Hope this doesn't mean you've given up on The First Light of Dawn, because that story is frakking amazing.

Coldin Gardez said...

@Shellsh0cker

No, TFLoD is still my big project. The first two chapters just happened to be published at once, so I had a bit of extra time this week and decided to crank out a one-shot story that popped into my head.

It turned out being much longer than I expected, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Anonymous said...

@Cold in Gardez

quick question. the arbormaw thing was cool, but the closing passage at the end seemed weird to add until I thought of something. Is the entire Everfree forest one big arbormaw then? that seemed to be what you were implying, and that would be freakin' sweet! it would make sense (as much as anything makes sense in MLP: FIM) and would be just, in general, really creative!

Also, this would make for a stupendous episode! like, it would be absolutely perfect as a script to be animated! you got all the characters personalities down, and the humor was making me giggle the whole way through! the kite thing at the beginning and end was just stupendous... great job!

(I know it probably wouldn't work and would border on rude or uncouth, but think e-mailing Lauren Faust or the producer/writers of the actual show this with just a little polite tag "episode idea that got really positive response from readers, use at your discretion, love the show" kinda line would get it made? maybe? would be astounding...)

Kits said...

this fic deserves every star it's gotten. And more. We don't have enough cute CMC stuff on this blog.

/I'll have to help remedy that

KoshLovesYou said...

An episode quality story, and a great 'not too much overexplained' ending.

TenchiFreak5 said...

This was a fun episode-style story.

ItsTheWhinyGuys said...

Gosh this was awesome! Everypony was so in character, and the dialogue just flowed; I could totally see this being an episode. Kudos to you!

Anonymous said...

This is great so far!

Sharp and very funny!

Well done

Anonymous said...

It was great right up until the ending. After Sweetie dropped the tree, the story just sort of stopped. I felt like we were missing about a page of wrap-up, especially considering the girls were being painfully destructive in this story.

Anonymous said...

Yey for my art :D
-nanoco

Anonymous said...

This could totally be an episode. 6/5

Chris said...

I don't know how I missed it when this first went up, but this story is excellent.

Dave said...

Arbormaws...that actually does sound like something out of a fantasy novel...but if anything it reminded me of that Sarlacc from Star Wars.

But I digress. Very good story, surprised I missed it myself the first time around.

I think Seth needs a category for short stories that seem to follow a slice of life style of the cartoons.

Snowy Flanks said...

This actually makes me like the CMC, I blame you for that

Ergo Cogito said...

The Arbormaw, while really cool, doesn't fit in with our innocent little ponies. That and the hanging ending make it less episodic. Honestly I think a letter to Celestia would have made a fine closing. Or Maybe Twilight starts writing a research journal on Cutie Marks?

Anyway, great story. Everypony was portrayed well. Every reaction was just perfectly in character.

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