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Heroism
The problem with Twilight Sparkle being the Princess of Friendship was that she was good at it.
Or more precisely, she was Twilight Sparkle.
Sure, it took her a while to get the hang of how best to resolve friendship problems. And sure, the nature of ponies (and donkeys and griffons and dragons and changelings and yaks and any number of other sentient species) meant that new problems would keep coming up. But even if friendship wasn't an exact science, it was still close enough to a science and that meant you could use control groups and hypotheses and deductions and…
Well, it only took eight-hundred ninety-seven years, five months, and thirteen days for Twilight Sparkle to permanently solve every friendship problem in Equestria. To be honest, it was surprising that it was that long. Once she had gotten everything into exact perfect harmony, and trained every being in the world on proper conflict-resolution practices, she only had one leftover issue.
She was bored.
Thankfully, it was Pinkie who noticed that her friend was having a problem, and gave her the solution. (Gosh, all those trainings worked so well)
"Well, if everyone in this universe are already friends, why not go help another universe?"
And it only took her four-hundred twelve years to sort out the problems in the dimension where everypony had the weird finger things and boot things and lived in a giant high school.
Thankfully, an infinite multiverse meant that she wasn't going to run out of places to go help any time soon. But it also seemed rude to butt into other parallel universes and take charge. So after reverse-engineering the mirror portal, she made a few tweaks such that it would instantly transport her to someplace in the multiverse where she was direly needed to solve a friendship problem.
After tying a rope to Spike, pushing him through and making sure he was okay when she pulled him back out, she decided she was ready for whatever challenges might come her way.
Taking a deep breath, she jumped through the portal. There was a bright flash, and a deafening crack.
And suddenly she was standing in the middle of an unfamiliar room.
Two bipedal creatures stared at her. One of them was dressed in black, with a swirly red cape. The other was wearing brightly-colored spandex and goggles.
The one in the cape recovered first. "Now my minion! Destroy Ultra Man!" he commanded.
Twilight tilted her head, trying to get her bearings. She decided to go with Friendship-Suggestion-Opener #497. "Why would I do that?" she said earnestly. "Can't we all just be friends instead?"
The caped man's hand hit his face. The spandex man smirked.
"Well crap."
Or more precisely, she was Twilight Sparkle.
Sure, it took her a while to get the hang of how best to resolve friendship problems. And sure, the nature of ponies (and donkeys and griffons and dragons and changelings and yaks and any number of other sentient species) meant that new problems would keep coming up. But even if friendship wasn't an exact science, it was still close enough to a science and that meant you could use control groups and hypotheses and deductions and…
Well, it only took eight-hundred ninety-seven years, five months, and thirteen days for Twilight Sparkle to permanently solve every friendship problem in Equestria. To be honest, it was surprising that it was that long. Once she had gotten everything into exact perfect harmony, and trained every being in the world on proper conflict-resolution practices, she only had one leftover issue.
She was bored.
Thankfully, it was Pinkie who noticed that her friend was having a problem, and gave her the solution. (Gosh, all those trainings worked so well)
"Well, if everyone in this universe are already friends, why not go help another universe?"
And it only took her four-hundred twelve years to sort out the problems in the dimension where everypony had the weird finger things and boot things and lived in a giant high school.
Thankfully, an infinite multiverse meant that she wasn't going to run out of places to go help any time soon. But it also seemed rude to butt into other parallel universes and take charge. So after reverse-engineering the mirror portal, she made a few tweaks such that it would instantly transport her to someplace in the multiverse where she was direly needed to solve a friendship problem.
After tying a rope to Spike, pushing him through and making sure he was okay when she pulled him back out, she decided she was ready for whatever challenges might come her way.
Taking a deep breath, she jumped through the portal. There was a bright flash, and a deafening crack.
And suddenly she was standing in the middle of an unfamiliar room.
Two bipedal creatures stared at her. One of them was dressed in black, with a swirly red cape. The other was wearing brightly-colored spandex and goggles.
The one in the cape recovered first. "Now my minion! Destroy Ultra Man!" he commanded.
Twilight tilted her head, trying to get her bearings. She decided to go with Friendship-Suggestion-Opener #497. "Why would I do that?" she said earnestly. "Can't we all just be friends instead?"
The caped man's hand hit his face. The spandex man smirked.
"Well crap."
Twily, I think you're overlooking a very obvious possibility. Just explore the universe and spread the Magic of Friendship across the universe. Just the logistics of intergalactic travel are sure to take you a few centuries.
But I won't deny that going through parallel universes is a good idea. Sadly this story just explores that concept superficially and tacks a crossover at the end, which is a real pity. I imagine there wasn't much you could do within the limits of the writeoff, but I would have liked to see a more rounded up execution.
But I won't deny that going through parallel universes is a good idea. Sadly this story just explores that concept superficially and tacks a crossover at the end, which is a real pity. I imagine there wasn't much you could do within the limits of the writeoff, but I would have liked to see a more rounded up execution.
Now that is a solid build up to a great punchline that only a select audience will get. But hey, sometimes that's all you need when writing.
That legitimately made me laugh.
That legitimately made me laugh.
This is a very funny story, but it hinges on the reader having read one of the specific stories from the previous contest. You probably knew when you wrote this that it had no chance to win, but it was a fun read for me.
I was hooked in the gullet on the first sentence of the fourth paragraph. That's too long for a minific, especially with such a great idea (I mean the idea presented in that sentence, not the idea the story ends upon). I would advise starting the fic with the previous sentence, "Even if friendship wasn't an exact science...", and toss the rest. That will give you more horse words to work with, and more importantly it will immediately engage the reader.
Although it's no surprise that Pinkie Pie would live for centuries, you might want to address that by leaving a subtle hint that readers can pick up on.
Spike can fit through the mirror portal twelve-hundred years from now? I can buy that, but I want to know what he looks like. Even though this is cute tongue-in-cheek comedy, Twilight would never do that to Spike—it's completely out of character for her, and that took me out of the story a little.
At the end of the story, I'm left curious about what happened next that we haven't seen yet. There's potential for more humor there, if you're creative.
I was hooked in the gullet on the first sentence of the fourth paragraph. That's too long for a minific, especially with such a great idea (I mean the idea presented in that sentence, not the idea the story ends upon). I would advise starting the fic with the previous sentence, "Even if friendship wasn't an exact science...", and toss the rest. That will give you more horse words to work with, and more importantly it will immediately engage the reader.
Although it's no surprise that Pinkie Pie would live for centuries, you might want to address that by leaving a subtle hint that readers can pick up on.
Spike can fit through the mirror portal twelve-hundred years from now? I can buy that, but I want to know what he looks like. Even though this is cute tongue-in-cheek comedy, Twilight would never do that to Spike—it's completely out of character for her, and that took me out of the story a little.
At the end of the story, I'm left curious about what happened next that we haven't seen yet. There's potential for more humor there, if you're creative.
>>AndrewRogue
This is where I'm at. If you get the punchline, this is fantastic. I'm very, very tempted to just slap it to the top of my slate. Perfect delivery, I didn't see the swerve coming at all until it happened, and while it's just one punchline, that's a very fair aim in the mini format.
But if you didn't read Villainy in the previous Writeoff round, then this piece is going to fall completely flat.
So what to do, what to do.
Well... I just told another similar entry not to explain the joke. And I think I stand by that. So for me, this will indeed go to the top, for the time being. For those who don't get it I suspect it will go closer to the bottom. And by the combination of the two, the piece will achieve its earned rank. Thanks for writing!
This is where I'm at. If you get the punchline, this is fantastic. I'm very, very tempted to just slap it to the top of my slate. Perfect delivery, I didn't see the swerve coming at all until it happened, and while it's just one punchline, that's a very fair aim in the mini format.
But if you didn't read Villainy in the previous Writeoff round, then this piece is going to fall completely flat.
So what to do, what to do.
Well... I just told another similar entry not to explain the joke. And I think I stand by that. So for me, this will indeed go to the top, for the time being. For those who don't get it I suspect it will go closer to the bottom. And by the combination of the two, the piece will achieve its earned rank. Thanks for writing!
I may be one of the few for whom this story didn't anything, which probably comes from me having missed the previous round. For me, this feels like a laborious setup for a joke I don't get.
Ignoring the context does a great disservice to the story, as the descriptions tell us simply stuff that happened. The dry delivery improves the situation, and I'm a bit of a fan of slightly sociopathic Twilight, but it isn't enough to pull it up from the lower half of my slate.
Once the write-off is over, I will probably look back and read [b]Villainy[/i], considering the enthusiastic reactions you are getting.
At the end, it boils down to a story for a specific audience, and for them, it seems to work quite well. I think that's a legitimate choice, even if a bit of a risk in the Write-off.
Still, thank you for having written it. I sincerely hope to be in the target audience the next time.
Ignoring the context does a great disservice to the story, as the descriptions tell us simply stuff that happened. The dry delivery improves the situation, and I'm a bit of a fan of slightly sociopathic Twilight, but it isn't enough to pull it up from the lower half of my slate.
Once the write-off is over, I will probably look back and read [b]Villainy[/i], considering the enthusiastic reactions you are getting.
At the end, it boils down to a story for a specific audience, and for them, it seems to work quite well. I think that's a legitimate choice, even if a bit of a risk in the Write-off.
Still, thank you for having written it. I sincerely hope to be in the target audience the next time.
I'm afraid this one didn't do anything for me, since all it seems to exist for is to set up a crossover joke of some sort that I don't get.
It also seems to exaggerate Twilight's neurosis in the process - probably part of the joke, but to me it doesn't really come off that well. I get a sense in stories that treat Twilight this way that she's treating friendship like her job, her mission - something instrumental rather than the end in itself it's supposed to be. It bothers me because this is a Twilight who *doesn't get it*, and by the point at which she's the Princess of Friendship I think she definitely gets it.
It also seems to exaggerate Twilight's neurosis in the process - probably part of the joke, but to me it doesn't really come off that well. I get a sense in stories that treat Twilight this way that she's treating friendship like her job, her mission - something instrumental rather than the end in itself it's supposed to be. It bothers me because this is a Twilight who *doesn't get it*, and by the point at which she's the Princess of Friendship I think she definitely gets it.
Even though I got the reference, the story didn't really work for me, and not because it uses previous rounds, something that inevitably exlclude some of the readers.
The main problem is that this story raises an interesting topic, but doesn't resolve it.
Twilight Sparkle, being immortal, has all the time she wants to study friendship. And when she got bored because she had solved every possible friendship problem, I was thinking "yes, we're coming close to a deep concept."
I mean, immortality can't be something that an mortal creature handle casually. You want to achieve things, you want to better yourself, because you are mortal. If you make this disappear from the equation, what's left?
Now I know that you weren't going for a serious philosophical approach of that subject, and you wrote a comedy. But I still would have wanted that you address it, even if you would have simply make a joke about it.
And by the way, how's Pinkie Pie still alive after all these years? I mean, yeah, I've read multiple stories where the rest of the main six were immortal too, usually explained by "Shut up, it's magic". Is she immortal thanks to the Elements? Is their friendship so powerful it beat death? Is it because it's Pinkie Pie?
Anyway, even if it didn't work for me, the structure and the prose are quite solid to add some points to the whole. So definitely not a top slater, but far from being a bottom one.
Thank you for sharing.
The main problem is that this story raises an interesting topic, but doesn't resolve it.
Twilight Sparkle, being immortal, has all the time she wants to study friendship. And when she got bored because she had solved every possible friendship problem, I was thinking "yes, we're coming close to a deep concept."
I mean, immortality can't be something that an mortal creature handle casually. You want to achieve things, you want to better yourself, because you are mortal. If you make this disappear from the equation, what's left?
Now I know that you weren't going for a serious philosophical approach of that subject, and you wrote a comedy. But I still would have wanted that you address it, even if you would have simply make a joke about it.
And by the way, how's Pinkie Pie still alive after all these years? I mean, yeah, I've read multiple stories where the rest of the main six were immortal too, usually explained by "Shut up, it's magic". Is she immortal thanks to the Elements? Is their friendship so powerful it beat death? Is it because it's Pinkie Pie?
Anyway, even if it didn't work for me, the structure and the prose are quite solid to add some points to the whole. So definitely not a top slater, but far from being a bottom one.
Thank you for sharing.
