Story Shuffle
is an anthology of oneshot My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfics inspired by Magic: The Gathering cards, written by FanOfMostEverything.
Has a sequel, Story Shuffle 2: Double Masters, which makes a series. The Story Shuffle series.
Story Shuffle provides examples of:
- Alliterative List: From "Prismatic Mercy":Her vision was still blurry with sleep, but the sounds, smells, and shades of what she could perceive told an all too familiar story: she was in Ponyville General.
- Alliterative Title: Story Shuffle.
- Anti-Magic: In "No and Yes", Dinky's talent centers around breaking and undoing others' magic.I break spells. You know that. There is nothing you can do that I can't undo.
- Brick Joke: As part of the Author's Note for Take-Home Assignment. Twilight is approximately a young adult or older at her coronation, and grows at approximately human rates:You chose to commute my sentence to this written report and what you described as "a surprise." You went on to state that when the time comes, I'll know.
I suspect that the anticipation is intended to be as much a part of the punishment as whatever action you take. I admit, it's working.
Twilght Sparkle
Age 7
Author's Note:
At some point during Twilight's coronation party, Celestia reminded her of this incident, then smiled. - Child Mage: Twilight Sparkle, at age 7, is a magical prodigy, doing feats thought impossible, as said in Take-Home Assignment.
- Child Prodigy: Twilight Sparkle, at age 7, does magical feats thought impossible for a child, as said in Take-Home Assignment.
- Executive Ball Clicker: "Coda" mentions one being on the desk of a Princess, where it's slightly unexpected.
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences: In "Peer Review", the Flimflam twins finish each other's shocked retort.Ditzy looked from one brother to the other. "What profits? You'll never sell one of these."
The brothers looked at one another over her back. Flim looked horrified. "Never…"
"Sell?" finished a shocked Flam. - Flash Forward Fic: As said in its Table of Contents entry, "No and Yes" is a Forwardstory, occurring about 10 or so years after the time of the rest of the fanfic series which takes place during the present canon.
- Golem: "Take-Home Assignment" talks about the creation process of golems in Equestria. They can be made from a variety of materials, but volatile or formerly living ones are explicitly prohibited.
- Immortal Genius: In "In the Details", a group of demonologists consult the entity known as Laplace for information, believing him to be capable of providing them with the answers they need. Presumably he's immortal, or at least very long lived, as he's outlived "generations of demonologists". The information he provides is due to being effectively omniscient and capable of seeing the future... but by seeing the future, he reduces it from infinite possibility to utter certainty, hence why he's known as "The Puppet of Predestination."
- Indentured Servitude: "Take-Home Assignment": Indentured service to the crown is part of the punishment for the illegal, unregistered, and unlicensed creation of golems.
- Invisibility: Spells for it are mentioned in "Peer Review":True, there was another pegasus on the staff now, but Speedy Delivery couldn't use acceleration spells to guarantee same-day delivery, or invisibility spells to keep ponies from noticing the barely subsonic grey blur.
- Language Drift: In "Matters of Interest", the drift in standard Equestrian over the thousand years of Luna's banishment causes a misunderstanding between her and Celestia. Originally, Equestrian used "thou", "thee" and "thine" as informal pronoun for use between family and friends, and "you" and "yours" as formal ones used for more distant acquaintances. The informal pronouns eventually dropped from use, but Luna, not knowing this, perceived Celestia's use of "you" as a deliberate distancing and a sign that her sister had not forgiven her for her fall.
- Literal Metaphor: As said in "Take-Home Assignment", Adult Twilight's response to a Brick Joke, whose setup was from when she was a child:Author's Note: Twilight's response was literally unprintable. Her profanity transcended language.
- Meaningful Name: Discussed in Necessary Evil when the narration mentions that Hollow Shades are not a nice place and that, given the name and Equestria's tendency to use meaningful names for everything, this comes as no real surprise.
- Mundane Utility: In "Take-Home Assignment", it's mentioned that unicorn criminals usually pay their debt to society by performing menial magical labor such as enchanting electromantic materials or performing fine telekinesis in assembly lines.
- One-Word Title: Some of the story titles:
- "Aftershock": About surprises and violence and human versions of winged horses that can fly and create sonic booms.
- "Downtime", a story where Twilight Sparkle relaxes.
- "Coda", a story about music and endings.
- "Aftershock"
- The Paralyzer: As said in "Take-Home Assignment", a criminal unicorn's horn ring paralyses the offender if they try to go beyond city limits.
- Power Limiter: As said in "Take-Home Assignment", penitent's rings, which are worn by criminals, severely limit their ability to use magic.
- Pun-Based Title: "Rock On": A story about magic, music, Magic Music, stones, and magic stones that relate to music.
- Residual Evil Entity: In "Necessary Evil", the regenerative indestructibility is why the Evil Attractor of the Hollow Shades is necessary. An In-Universe hypothesis is "By removing the Shades, Celestia might be inflicting their darkness on the rest of Equestria." and so she stays her hand. As said by Celestia at the end:Celestia: "There is a darkness there greater than any it attracts, one that befouls the very land. I did try to destroy it once. It dodged, and then it moved north. The Badlands were not always such. I thought it better to let that corruption rest where it now lies than to rouse it again."
- Runic Magic: In "In the Details", the summoned demon's skin glows with "abyssal runes".
- Secret Message Wink: From "Aftershock", when one Rainbow Dash is being dragged away from another one to keep them from interacting:As she was being dragged back to Equestria, she exchanged a wink with her counterpart. This wasn't over. It was just the beginning.
- Shout-Out: From "Prismatic Mercy", to Lotus Cobra Is Evil as stated in its Author's Note:In a forest full of timberwolves and cragodiles, lotus cobras don't seem at all far-fetched. I decided to go with the classic sort of fantasy lotus, hence the cobra's name.
Besides, Lotus Cobra is Evil. - Signature Instrument: In "Coda", Octavia, a cellist who starts the story as a full-grown mare, went to the big city as a "naive filly [...] with little more than a cello on her back". She uses her cello playing to perform music that and uses that to do what's implied to be Magic Music that enchants wineglasses whose wine alters a griffin's thoughts.
- Speak in Unison: From "Aftershock", due to a human and her pony-turned-human counterpart whining to the same person:This got a gasp. "You have wings all the time!? Forget here, let's go hang out in your—"
"Absolutely not!" Twilight wedged her way between the two Rainbows and pushed them apart. "You two have put probability space through the wringer more than enough for one day. Dash, we are going home now."
"But, Twilight..."
Twilight shuddered. Whining in stereo. Creepy with a capital everything. "I will make this a royal decree if I have to." - Time Travel: In "No and Yes", Pumpkin's job involves traveling through time.
- Tracking Device: As said in "Take-Home Assignment", a function of penitent's rings, which are worn by criminals.
