#thelastbrunneng

[dailyraccoons]

“Raccoons of the Lowcountry” gallery from the Press and Standard newspaper, Charleston, SC (2-24-18).

[donnys-boy]

thelastbrunneng replied to your post: Where In Blazes Did I Leave My Wedding Ring: Part...

Don’t have that problem. Been wearing mine so long, it no longer fits over the knuckle. Permanent gold! Er, 10k gold-plated steel, but GOLD!

Brag, brag, brag. :)

My ring is titanium with a wood inlay. The wood isn't supposed to get wet, so I end up taking off the ring and putting it back on several times a day.

[donnys-boy]

writtenwaiver replied to your post: Yo. I am writing an Olde Timey Wild West...

Ennio Morricone Youtube compilation? Heck, even just “L’Arena” on repeat.

derfurshur replied to your post: Yo. I am writing an Olde Timey Wild West...  

The Wild West theme from Timespiltters 2 is my personal favorite

sociallyawkwardtoaster replied to your post: Yo. I am writing an Olde Timey Wild West...

The old classic: youtube.com/watch?v…

iamkickingtelevision replied to your post: Yo. I am writing an Olde Timey Wild West...

Any of Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks - esp ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. Also Calexico, esp the album ‘Feast of Wire’.

thelastbrunneng replied to your post: Yo. I am writing an Olde Timey Wild West...

Ghost Riders In The Sky has always been a favorite. Pick any version; here’s one: youtube.com/watch?v=ZFnhvj2pIB4

midnight-herald replied to your post: Yo. I am writing an Olde Timey Wild West...

This may sound strange, but the soundtrack from the movie Monsoon Wedding makes me think of Western showdowns. Also, Enrico Morrione is perfect, so I’ll third that motion.

Aww, thanks for all the great suggestions, y'all! :) I have a very nice Wild West Showdown Playlist set up, now.

Also! I recognize a number of the Morricone pieces, and I've been going, "Oh! That song! I know that song!" over and over. Nice to be able to match a composer with the music.

[donnys-boy]

FiMFiction help

Maybe you can't get into FiMFiction because you don't exist:

I've always had that problem looking up your account on FiMFiction. Never happens with anyone else. Maybe they instituted a Pinkie quota system and you've hit your daily limit.

Donny sez:

I'm ... I'm pretty sure I exist ...

:(

This is wondrous strange ...

(Also, my last two recently-posted stories weren't even Pinkie-centric!) 

[donnys-boy]

thelastbrunneng replied to your photo: While looking for screen caps for my TMP prompt...

Seems oddly familiar. fimfiction.net/story/6…

Hee. :) The image I posted is from the MLP wiki--I do all my TMP prompt searches there, as it cuts down on the NSFW stuff I need to filter through.

[thirtyminuteponies]

Prompt #220: “Reluctantly Yours” by TheLastBrunnenG

“No. I am Rainbow Dash, the one and only.” The one and only Rainbow Dash stood on the balcony of the Golden Oaks Library, hooves crossed and face scowling.

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes were watering and her voice quavered. “But Dash, we talked about this. You promised!”

Dash snorted. “Have you been taking whining lessons from Rarity? ‘Cause that was epic whining, egghead. You have the nasally tone just right, and those eyes are really top notch.”

Wrinkling her lavender muzzle, the librarian glanced sideways at Rainbow through squinting eyes. “I’ll have you know that was not whining, featherbrain! It was emphatic pleading, which is entirely different. And I only took the one lesson.”

“Yeah, well, I promised nothing and we didn’t talk about this at all. You talked about it, and I might have been in the vicinity, but that doesn’t count. It’s not my fault that my snoring sounded like acknowledgement to you.”

The unicorn stepped to the other side of the balcony and drew her hooves tight around her, shivering in the evening breeze.  Her gaze downcast, she sniffed, “I… I guess that’s it, then. You really don’t love me, do you? If you did, you’d say yes. Instead I’ll be alone here, the old spinster librarian, unloved and lonely, heartbroken and pining away for the mare of her dreams, now long lost.”

“Nailed it, Twi! Nope, I don’t care in the slightest.” The pegasus put a hoof to her temple and shook her head. “ I’m just here for Spike’s cooking and the Daring Do collection. Your smokin’ hot flank’s got nothing to do with it.”

Twilight’s expression changed instantly from downtrodden to decidedly sultry and she sidled over to the azure mare. She ran practiced purple hooves over suddenly flaring wings, leaving a trail of hot breath and biting kisses up her lover’s neck. She stopped to draw teeth across the tender tip of a twitching blue ear before whispering, “Just say yes, Dash. My sweet, sexy Dash… I promise, I’ll make it worth your while.” Her hooves traveled down, down, past athletic hips and muscled flanks and lightning-cloud cutie mark and she added, “Very, very worth your while…”

Stepping away with wide eyes heart pounding, Dash spun and held a hoof out to stay the stalking unicorn. “Wow! Just - wow. Okay, seriously, that was amazingly hot, Twilight. And it would totally have worked to get me to agree if we didn’t, you know, do that anyway. All the time. Constantly.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow. “We do? Since when? What other lavender unicorn librarian Element-bearing students of the Princess have you been seeing?”

“I’ll have you know that one time for real is worth three or four times in my dreams and at least twice in my daydreams, egghead! So there.”

“Stick that tongue out again and it’ll be on my desk in a jar of formaldehyde, filly.” Twilight slid next to Dash, taking a place alongside her against the balcony railing. She lay a hoof around the pony’s shoulders and sighed. “Okay, I give up, Dash. What will it take to get you to agree? It’s not that big of a change, you know.”

The pegasus leaned over and lay her head on the cushion of a silken pink-striped lavender mane. “It is to me, Twilight. It’s part of me. I’m ‘the’ Rainbow Dash! It’s part of my identity, as much as my wings and my cutie mark and my mane and tail. I can’t just give this up!”

“But you’ll still be you, Dash! You’ll still be the Best Young Flier. You’ll still be the Element of Loyalty.” She nuzzled the prismatic mane beneath her muzzle and smiled. “These gorgeous wings will still be my two favorite blankets when I’m cold. None of that will change.”

“And the fastest pegasus in Equestria! Don’t forget fastest.” Rainbow fought back a quiet sob and drew Twilight closer. “You swear you won’t think any less of me, Twi?”

Laying a soft kiss on Rainbow’s forehead, Twilight whispered, “Not a bit. You’re the bravest pony I know, Dash, You can do it.”

Rainbow held the embrace for a few long minutes. “Okay, you win. I’ll do it.”

Twilight turned to face her beloved, muzzle to muzzle, and held her hooves. “Can you say it to my face, Dash?”

Dash looked up and locked her gaze on Twilight’s. “Rainbow.”

“Go on.”

“Dash.”

“Almost there.”

She gulped visibly, her muzzle contorting as if she’d swallowed something bitter and viscous and wriggling. “Sparkle.”

Twilight launched forward and threw herself into a warm, smiling, and tearful hug. “I knew you could do it! Oh, I love you, Dash! I can’t want to tell everyone!”

Silently Dash mouthed the words, “Rainbow. Dash. Sparkle.” Shaking her head, she muttered, “I swear, Twilight, the first time anypony calls me Rainbow Sparkle, the wedding’s off.”

---

BSB Comments:

I liked the back and forth between Twilight and Dash here; I think you do well in having the two of them play off each other. I wasn't able to guess what they were arguing about until the reveal, so you hid that pretty well too. Good work!

[thirtyminuteponies]

Prompt #203: “The Wait” by TheLastBrunnenG

The storm had been building for most of the day; weather teams distributed flyers to the entire town earlier that morning warning of the "Storm of the Decade". The Everfree Forest was a wild, uncontrolled place, feared by ponies both for the myriad wild and ravenous creatures dwelling there and for its unpredictable weather. Storms and clouds uncontrolled by pegasus weather teams, unplanned and unscheduled, were a concept alien to the blissfully naive ponies of Equestria. Everypony assumed the ragtag but generally skilled Ponyville weather team could handle the occasional unusual weather  pattern which rolled out of the Everfree. If something truly freakish happened, then surely with help from Cloudsdale's pegasi they could corral and control any storm which dared rear its thunderhead.

With equal certainty she knew that Rainbow Dash, head of the Ponyville Weather Team, had been fighting this storm for five hours and twenty two minutes.

She lay on the floor of the Golden Oaks Library, her back warmed by the crackling blaze of a well-stoked fireplace and surrounded on all sides by crumbling towers of books. Pegasus Aerodynamics lay to her left, Adverse Flying Conditions and You to her right, A History of Weather Management, Volume Three in her hooves. In the last five hours and forty one minutes she'd learned every fact, every facet, every iota of knowledge ever recorded about weather control, or at least, all of them available in her own little small-town library, however impressively stocked she'd kept it.

Six hours and six minutes earlier Dash had taken off in a spectral blur, her brilliantly sky-blue form lost almost immediately in the growing charcoal-black darkness of the gathering clouds. Six hours and seven minutes earlier she'd promised Twilight that she'd be careful and that she'd come back in one piece, holding Twilight so tightly it hurt and not daring to let go. Six hours and eight minutes earlier she'd dried Twilight's tears and kissed her on the forehead for what felt like would be the last time.

Six hours and thirty five minutes after the skies went dark and the first lightning strike illuminated Ponyville in a flash of brilliant light and crashing violence, the librarian found herself chest-deep in ancient texts and dusty forgotten tomes, furiously digging through runes and glyphs and incantations the way a desert-trapped pony might dig for water buried under shifting sands. Bend Nature To Thy Will offered no solutions and Elemental Mastery stopped short of its promise. Still she dug, faster, deeper, desperation etched in her furrowed brow and quivering lips.

Water for a pot of tea boiled at the seven hour mark. The sudden whistle was jarring and terrifying, standing out harsh and shrill against the steady drive of rain on windowpanes and the wail of wind through swaying branches. Twilight sat at her kitchen table, a single lantern and the distant fire picking out wisps of steam rising from her cup and from the saucer which held a pool of spilled tea. She held the little mug in trembling hooves, thankful for the opportunity to hold something warm, solid, and real again.

She'd been staring at the dancing flames of the fireplace for half an hour, unmoving. A cold pot of tea lay forgotten on the table behind her, next to a shattered mug and an overflowing saucer. The firelight cast waving shadows on the bookcases lining her walls, each as still and silent as their source. Red-rimmed eyes stared out from under a disheveled purple mane. She had no more tears to cry, no more books to read, no letters to send. She had only the wait, hollow and stabbing, empty and crushing.

Lightning struck nearby, too near, and for a moment the pounding rain seemed louder and echoed through the library. Twilight woke with a start to the feel of something heavy, wet, and panting collapsed against her side. "Rainbow?" she whispered, trembling, "I was sure you'd - I thought - Dash, you were gone so long..."

"Eight hours," mumbled the soaked and bloody pegasus, her chest heaving as she curled up by Twilight and her fire. "Eight hours and five minutes. I know. I was counting too."

-----

Piggy comments:

Oh, this is really good. Twilight's fear and anxiety are palpable, and the way she expresses them by reading everything she can and keeping track down to the second is both very sad and exactly what Twilight would do. I really like the careful, analytical way this is written - it feels like a list of thoughts, and that feels very right given the circumstances. I have to admit, I was expecting a dark sad ending - I'm very, very pleased I was wrong.

Also, you are making me ship these two and I'm not sure what to make of that. So good word there too!

[thirtyminuteponies]

Prompt #192: “Expectations” by TheLastBrunnenG

Dear Moderators at Thoroughbred Matchmaking Professionals, Inc.,

Per your Terms of Service, Section III, paragraph 4, I respectfully request a refund of the bits I paid for your matchmaking services, or a replacement match, at your option. In my matchmaking questionnaire I specifically stated that I would like to be paired with a stallion, preferably a large red one. Instead my blind date was average-sized, pink, and a mare. Your advertisements promise “Satisfaction Guaranteed!” and despite the excellent cupcakes my date brought, I am not satisfied. Please remit, or forward contact information for a replacement match.

Sincerely,

Twilight Sparkle

~~~~~

Dear TMP Moderators,

Thank you for arranging a replacement match. My date was polite, kind, and adorably quiet. We had an excellent time, thanks in no small part to the lovely songbird chorus with which she serenaded me. However, you still did not take my stated preferences into account. I must again insist that you refund my payment or provide a companion which matches my specifications: a large red stallion! Well, maybe a stallion. I think. And definitely red. Or maybe just a little red.

Yours,

Twilight Sparkle

~~~~~

To the wonderful Moderators at TMP,

I wanted to express my sincerest gratitude for arranging my most recent match. We went flying, shopped for an authentic Daring Do pith hat, and shared a cloud-top picnic. We’ve already arranged a second date - I think she’s the one! There’s a little red in her mane, and her voice is a bit gravelly in a colt-ish way, so I’ll go out on a limb and say she matches my specifications perfectly. Thanks again! You Mods are the best!

Your Faithful (and satisfied) Customer,

Twilight Sparkle

~~~~~

To the real TMP mods,

The first fiction I ever wrote, fan- or otherwise, was for prompt # 120. Sixty submissions later I’m addicted and loving it. You’ve given this little corner of the Pony universe a pleasant and encouraging atmosphere and I couldn’t imagine writing anywhere else. I’ve been blessed to have been Featured on FiMFiction twice, both times for collected TMP prompts. I credit that in large part to you, the helpful and friendly Moderators of TMP, your creative prompts, and your positive and supportive comments. If I haven’t said it often enough or loud enough - thanks!

Yours,

TheLastBrunnenG

---

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

That first pony we sent should have been a perfect match. I just don't understand...

Dear TheLastBrunnenG,

This was fantastic. The subversion was excellent and I applaud you for it. I speak for all of the mods when I say that we've been really happy to have you on board for the last twenty prompts, and we've consistently enjoyed what you wrote. Your success on FimFiction is due, in large, to your talent, but we're happy to accept your praise just the same. :D In all seriousness, we're glad you've enjoyed yourself here with us, and we hope that you'll continue to write fun and clever things.

Sincerely,

The TMP Mods