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It Could Have Gone Better · FiM Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
Show rules for this event
Consider Ponyville.
Consider Ponyville.

Up close, you can see three young fillies with another, perched at the top of a steep hill while at the bottom, a ramp lies waiting for their arrival.

But we shall not tarry there to see the inevitable conclusion. Instead, consider the bakery at Sugarcube Corner, where a young apprentice baker is stuffing the oven with a freshly constructed cake filled with confetti and fireworks in the hopes of making a discovery in the field of party science.

No, we shall not wait for the explosion, no matter the drama and awesomeness it promises.

Perhaps we should examine the boutique instead, where a young farmer holds herself as steady as she can while her friend constructs a work of art around her. It is a scene of balance which is hinted at by the few dry apple leaves in the artist’s mane and the traces of mud on her hooves from a more physical labor which is just as much a work of art as her current endeavor.

But no, this is not what we seek either.

We shall travel past the park, where a young musician plays with eyes closed in front of her bowl of bits, her music and heart meant for only one other. Past the house filled with junk and love finally reunited, the home of pure music divided and united by the same, a post office filled with lost letters, a shop filled with clocks and other bits of timey-wimey merchandise, a young dragon running in the direction of an upcoming disaster, a dozen mares caught in song about the love of a reluctant stallion.

No, what we want to see is over here, where there once was nothing but grass until the memorable day when a crystal castle appeared in a flash of rainbow light.

And now there is nothing but grass again. Strange. Perhaps what we want to see is not here.

Let us away into the sky, past the colorful drifting home of a colorful pegasus, up into the air past the clouds, past the city perched on the edge of the mountain, past any and every thing until we reach…

Glass.

A strange thing to find up here, but we pass beyond it until the castle appears, wrapped around the fragile glass cylinder we have just left. And a little further we travel until the owner of this home can be seen, a young alicorn driven to sleep by her intense fatigue. Her forelegs are wrapped around the cylinder of glass and life, with her lips constantly moving even in her fitful slumber.

“I can fix it,” she mutters through gritted teeth. “This time, for certain.”
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#1 · 4
· · >>Moosetasm >>georg
Oh. Oh my. There are a few slips here and there (Are you sure you wanted the leaves and mud on Rarity?) but overall, this had an excellent impact. I’m not over the moon with the narrator’s familiar tone, but still, good stuff.
#2 · 3
· · >>georg
Not much here was clear. We just got a tour of Ponyville, then discovered that all of Equestria is within a glass cylinder around which a castle is wrapped?

I'm not sure this is a story, I'm not sure what this has to do with the prompt, and worst of all, the narrator was straight up annoying.
#3 ·
· · >>georg
Okay, so before I got on a bit of a rant here, I want you to know that this is definitely not the worst entry I've reviewed so far.

It is, however, without a doubt, the most frustrating.

Let's talk about the narrator, for one. Who is this? Why do they sound like this? The tone is really off-putting, and not even in a comedic way. The narrator could be Discord, who knows, except for the author, but regardless the voice rubs me the wrong way, and there doesn't seem to be a point to it.

In a minific, you want every paragraph to count, right? But I felt like for most of this I was having my time wasted, because we weren't focusing on anything. We got a scene for a paragraph, then we moved on. There are no real characters in this entry, because we don't get enough time with any of them. There is no arc, even an emotional one, to speak of.

And then there's the reveal at the end, which admittedly I kind of like, if only because of how high-concept it is and how it's all described. But again I'm left wondering what this all means, and the last line doesn't help anything. There's something deeply meta going on here, but it's so abstract that I'm kind of lost about it.

Okay, rant over.

I'm feeling a decent to strong 5 on this.
#4 · 2
· · >>BlueChameleonVI >>georg
This is a great intro to a story but it leaves too many open questions to be a story by itself. I'm guessing it's the tried and true pony trope of immortal Twilight Sparkle trying to recreate her distant past life in Ponyville, a story I've published more than once. I'm just not sure what to take away with what I'm given here. I think this needs more space than a minific.

I agree with other commenters that the narrator's Rod Serling voice is a little iffy.

Also, "three young fillies with another" is confusing. Do you mean four fillies?
#5 · 1
· · >>BlueChameleonVI >>georg
>>FanOfMostEverything
I think yes... this is a world gone wrong.

The castle is missing, certain details are purposefully wrong. It has the ring of that episode of the twilight zone (har har If Twilight did this) where going back and changing something in the past wrecks the present, then the continuous going back and changing, changing, changing, until you realize that the only change that will restore everything is to remove yourself right before you left the first time.
#6 · 4
· · >>georg
works better as a teaser trailer than a twist...

for a twist story, you need to build up an understanding in the audience's mind. this doesn't necessarily mean foreshadowing, or something fantastical (a slice of life setup can work fine) but it needs to focus on something. that's where this falls short; it's not focusing on any one thing, and each of the mini-scenes are rather typical of Ponyville. "everything's normal.... except NOT!" Notice how none of the characters even seem aware that Twilight or her castle are missing?

as an example (which would change this into a different story unfortunately), the main thing everyone's noticing here is the annoying narrator, guiding us like an invisible omniscient camera: "look here, look here, look over here." This could actually become an interesting setup for subversion, by having the weird narrator (or perhaps the one being addressed, or both) actually be a relevant character important to the events. or something like that.
#7 ·
· · >>georg
My interpretation here is that Twilight has somehow magically inverted reality so that her castle is outside of it and reality is basically a snowglobe-like thing in her possession now, hence why the castle's missing within that reality. Though now >>Moosetasm and >>Trick_Question mention it, I might be more inclined post-reading-the-comments towards a more tragic "Twilight is trying to recreate her reality" interpretation.

As for the fic at large, the writing is commandingly confident and comprehensively competent. The narrator harrying us from place to place didn't wear out its welcome for me, since I assumed this was a deliberate technique; we the audience are gathering clues as we go along, and the narrator for some reason either hasn't noticed them or is trying, poorly, to cover them up. Unreliable narrators intrigue me, and I was happy enough to let things build up to the finale. The compelling imagery - showing us what we need to see while letting the images speak for themselves - is top-notch. Well played, author. Well played.

Where the vagueness weakens the fic, for me, is in the ending. Finally, we get our answer as to what the narrator is hiding. Except we... don't? Look, vagueness and letting-the-imagery-speak-for-itself are all very well, and maybe you were deliberately going for a multi-interpretation angle. It's just... anticlimactic. To such an extent that I originally interpreted it as the punchline to a joke. Hahaha, that old Twily, screwing up reality again, hahaha.

But then I went off to read another fic, and this one just vanished from my memory. The vagueness comes at a price, and the price is that, without anything solid to hold onto sooner or later, my interest fades and the memory goes with it.

I don't want to come across as harsh, as I see far more effort put into this than I've seen for many more solid fics. This is clearly an author who knows what they're doing. I just wish I knew what they were doing too, and that costs points, I'm afraid.

Hmm... depending on my mood, either a solid entry or a high middle tier. I admire the craftsmanship, but am having a hard time even grasping the material, let alone having any strong feelings for it otherwise.
#8 ·
· · >>georg
Very nice, author:

Other folks have pointed out some of the rough patches that need smoothing, but my only suggestion would be to take us one more step beyond Twilight asleep. Show us what's outside Twilight's castle at this moment, and in doing so, you might be able to give us enough hints so we can figure out what's happened.

Mike
#9 ·
· · >>georg
Genre: Twilight Zone

Thoughts: I feel like there was one portion of this story in particular that summed-up my overall difficulties with it:

No, we shall not wait for the explosion, no matter the drama and awesomeness it promises.


I am but a simple man, and the prospect of explosions, drama, and awesomeness, sound at least like they might be of passing interest. Certainly more than the continued pulling away from moment after moment of interesting-looking action just as they're about to hit the gas.

After scanning the comments and thinking back on past Writeoff entries, I take it that the setup here is that Twilight Did A Very Bad Thing (TM) and now Ponyville is shrunk and in a jar. I think that can work as a story idea, and I think this mostly sets that up in an interesting way. But I have at least one sticking point with the end.

IMO, I'd make the ending at least clearer if you don't want to take it all the way to Twilight resolving the problem. Right now I feel like the language is vague and ambiguous enough that I wasn't even sure who was there or what was going on until confirming things via the comments. Maybe some of that boils down to a stylistic choice, but I'd urge the Author to at least consider taking another look at that.

I'd also ask if there's a way to hold our interest more through the middle, where we keep getting pulled away from things just as there's about to be action or change.

Tier: Keep Developing
#10 ·
· · >>georg
I'm afraid I don't understand what the reveal is here.
#11 · 1
· · >>Hap
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Hap
>>No_Raisin
>>Trick_Question
>>Moosetasm
>>Haze
>>BlueChameleonVI
>>Baal Bunny
>>CoffeeMinion
>>Dubs_Rewatcher

Fanofmosteverything: Rarity’s mud should be obvious. She helped Applejack, now Applejack is helping her. The familiar tone is intentional, going for the narrated intro feel.

Hap, No_Raisin, TrickQuestion - Maybe adjusting the ending will help.

Moosetasm - Right on the nose

Haze - Heck, at this length, the whole bunch are teaser trailers.

BlueChameleon - Right on the nose too. Yeah, it doesn’t reach out and grab anybody. They’re all still in the bottle, I suppose.

Mike - Yeah, the ending tied me up trying to get it onto paper. I wound up changing *two* lines and I think it makes a lot more sense now. (in the version I’m putting onto FimFiction)

CoffeeMinion - I think the urge to pull away from the action while the fuse is burning down is a habit of mine. Stay tuned next week! (snerk)

Dubs_Rewatcher - Take a look at the version I’m putting on FimFiction and see if that helps.

I was going to name this story Kandor, but I thought that would be giving up too much of the ending.
#12 ·
· · >>CoffeeMinion >>georg
>>georg
I was going to name this story Kandor, but I thought that would be giving up too much of the ending.


I can definitely say that it would not be giving up too much of the ending. Or any of it. Or help at all.
#13 · 1
· · >>georg
>>Hap
In all kandor, I must disagree.

YYYEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH
#14 · 2
·
>>Hap
>>CoffeeMinion
Sigh. Children today.