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Destroying Pedestria: yrotS evoL A
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Now, this is one of those stories that just feels impressive. The timeline screwery is clever, but never anything less than clear, and all the little lexicographical choices bring that cleverness to life. There are clever stories that make you feel smart, and clever stories that make you feel dumb, and I'm finding this very much in the first category. Plus, having Discord set out to destroy the world for perfectly valid reasons feels so pitch-perfect to me. Of course, those reasons only seem "perfectly valid" because he actively refuses to do the slightest thing to confirm his beliefs, but, well, that feels pitch-perfect, too!
My biggest problem is with the EqG stuff, or rather, the voicing on the girls. I think keeping to the language used in canon would be a much better choice overall, but whether or not you agree with that, opening with "Holy shit" was objectively a bad choice: it immediately tells the reader that we are specifically not in EqG-world, but somewhere else (real world, probably? another alt?), and that's the exact opposite of what you want to do. Our first moments after Discord gets dumped outside the school should reinforce the new setting, not undercut it.
But that's fussing over one word--and still only couple dozen words, if we extend it to the fic-EqG voicing not matching the canon-EqG voicing generally. This was a fun fic to read, top to bottom.
My biggest problem is with the EqG stuff, or rather, the voicing on the girls. I think keeping to the language used in canon would be a much better choice overall, but whether or not you agree with that, opening with "Holy shit" was objectively a bad choice: it immediately tells the reader that we are specifically not in EqG-world, but somewhere else (real world, probably? another alt?), and that's the exact opposite of what you want to do. Our first moments after Discord gets dumped outside the school should reinforce the new setting, not undercut it.
But that's fussing over one word--and still only couple dozen words, if we extend it to the fic-EqG voicing not matching the canon-EqG voicing generally. This was a fun fic to read, top to bottom.
Quick takes:
Weird to see a brand name like "Vantablack" in Equestria. Though I guess this is Discord.
Temporal shenanigans are... Well, it's fun, but on the edge of becoming frustrating. Let's see how it goes.
The few cusswords feel out of place. I have no problem with swearing, but it just feels out of character here, and isn't used in any place that really makes that sort of "punch" necessary either.
As a bit of a dyslexic, the remembered/rebmemered swaps are more or less invisible, so it makes me have to stop and think really hard every time either comes up, to see which it is.
In the EqG world, shouldn't it actually be "Shakespeare" and not "Shakesmare"?
Pros:
Things just don't stop moving here. The story just keeps going and kept me interested the whole time.
Very well written on a technical level. Only a few minor typos.
The scattered temporal viewpoints are relatively unique device, used to good effect for the most part.
Cons: (Only one, really)
What happened? The story just stopped. I literally went to flip the page on my tablet (I was reading the ePub version) and thought the file must be glitched because it just went to the next story. And yes, I totally get the metaphor that life (actual life) is just the sound and the fury, with no real meaning. But to me that's a cop-out and a con. Stories are supposed to be the antidote to that, and this story felt like it was setting up for some really clever, really interesting things. As it ends, it feels like a shaggy dog story lightly serviced by a line from Shakespeare.
Summary:
The author clearly set out to do a specific thing here, and it was done well. Unfortunately that thing was a shaggy dog from my perspective. So, even though I really loved both the written style and the action as it unfolded, I felt it just dropped me off a cliff at the end for a "worthless" (in my estimation) reason.
Weird to see a brand name like "Vantablack" in Equestria. Though I guess this is Discord.
Temporal shenanigans are... Well, it's fun, but on the edge of becoming frustrating. Let's see how it goes.
The few cusswords feel out of place. I have no problem with swearing, but it just feels out of character here, and isn't used in any place that really makes that sort of "punch" necessary either.
As a bit of a dyslexic, the remembered/rebmemered swaps are more or less invisible, so it makes me have to stop and think really hard every time either comes up, to see which it is.
In the EqG world, shouldn't it actually be "Shakespeare" and not "Shakesmare"?
Pros:
Things just don't stop moving here. The story just keeps going and kept me interested the whole time.
Very well written on a technical level. Only a few minor typos.
The scattered temporal viewpoints are relatively unique device, used to good effect for the most part.
Cons: (Only one, really)
What happened? The story just stopped. I literally went to flip the page on my tablet (I was reading the ePub version) and thought the file must be glitched because it just went to the next story. And yes, I totally get the metaphor that life (actual life) is just the sound and the fury, with no real meaning. But to me that's a cop-out and a con. Stories are supposed to be the antidote to that, and this story felt like it was setting up for some really clever, really interesting things. As it ends, it feels like a shaggy dog story lightly serviced by a line from Shakespeare.
Summary:
The author clearly set out to do a specific thing here, and it was done well. Unfortunately that thing was a shaggy dog from my perspective. So, even though I really loved both the written style and the action as it unfolded, I felt it just dropped me off a cliff at the end for a "worthless" (in my estimation) reason.
Up front, I'll admit I'm not much of a judge of experimental narrative styles.
When I first started reading Suzzane Collins' The Hunger Games, I didn't like the third person present tense; when I picked up the book the second time, I got used to it after eight pages and enjoyed the trilogy. Tracts of her book demonstrate that she couldn't write past tense well, but with your use of third person future tense, and all tenses in between, I can see you know your craft. The shattered tense choice for Discord I think is a perfect idea, and it fits his character well*. I found the narrative style fascinating in an of itself, and how you juxtaposed it with the backwards words, the opposite sides of the mirror, the opposite sides of time, and multiple character inputs actually worked well. Your deconstruction of the Equestria Girls universe I think may be the cutest part. Parasitic, sucking the magic out of Equestria... Ha!
And I learned a new word: Vantablack.
Therein lies the problems with this story, as illustrated by "Vantablack." Please take this from the POV on a single reader with the caveat of my first sentence above and take what I say, or leave it, as you choose.
The plot felt pretty much lost in the surprising puzzle that the writing presented me as a reader. Vantablack blind-sided me as I read it, but I kept reading, soldiering on for about a page until I was puzzled enough about why the word was there that I searched for words starting with V, found it, and looked it up. The point is that all these sparkly baubles pulled me out of the story**. I saw the fascinating crystalline lattice, but never saw the diamond. I sense that Discord learned something, but I don't know what or why that matters or why I should care.
But I sure do really like that crystal! So much so, that I think it would make a really good narrative device for another story when you have plenty of time to plan how to attach plot and character development securely to the scaffold it will provide. I've read some published SF that was as time-and-place fractured as your story is and, oddly, it's stuck with me for decades. Now and again, certain events in my life remind me of passages in a book***. Certainly, don't abandon the narrative style after one try! ...even though the MacBeth quote, "full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing," does apply to this specific story.
Nevertheless—good work.
*Sadly, I don't think you quite got the rhythm of his dialog well. Sometimes yes, mostly no.
** And any time you distract a reader from the story, that reader may put it down and never read it again. You want your readers immersed and unaware of their surroundings.
*** Yep. Found it. The book was Spaceling by Doris Piserchia (1978). Going to have to read it again, soon.
When I first started reading Suzzane Collins' The Hunger Games, I didn't like the third person present tense; when I picked up the book the second time, I got used to it after eight pages and enjoyed the trilogy. Tracts of her book demonstrate that she couldn't write past tense well, but with your use of third person future tense, and all tenses in between, I can see you know your craft. The shattered tense choice for Discord I think is a perfect idea, and it fits his character well*. I found the narrative style fascinating in an of itself, and how you juxtaposed it with the backwards words, the opposite sides of the mirror, the opposite sides of time, and multiple character inputs actually worked well. Your deconstruction of the Equestria Girls universe I think may be the cutest part. Parasitic, sucking the magic out of Equestria... Ha!
And I learned a new word: Vantablack.
Therein lies the problems with this story, as illustrated by "Vantablack." Please take this from the POV on a single reader with the caveat of my first sentence above and take what I say, or leave it, as you choose.
The plot felt pretty much lost in the surprising puzzle that the writing presented me as a reader. Vantablack blind-sided me as I read it, but I kept reading, soldiering on for about a page until I was puzzled enough about why the word was there that I searched for words starting with V, found it, and looked it up. The point is that all these sparkly baubles pulled me out of the story**. I saw the fascinating crystalline lattice, but never saw the diamond. I sense that Discord learned something, but I don't know what or why that matters or why I should care.
But I sure do really like that crystal! So much so, that I think it would make a really good narrative device for another story when you have plenty of time to plan how to attach plot and character development securely to the scaffold it will provide. I've read some published SF that was as time-and-place fractured as your story is and, oddly, it's stuck with me for decades. Now and again, certain events in my life remind me of passages in a book***. Certainly, don't abandon the narrative style after one try! ...even though the MacBeth quote, "full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing," does apply to this specific story.
Nevertheless—good work.
*Sadly, I don't think you quite got the rhythm of his dialog well. Sometimes yes, mostly no.
** And any time you distract a reader from the story, that reader may put it down and never read it again. You want your readers immersed and unaware of their surroundings.
*** Yep. Found it. The book was Spaceling by Doris Piserchia (1978). Going to have to read it again, soon.
Nice, nice, nice:
And exactly 8,000 words, too!
As for my by-now-standard two suggestions, I'll advocate for moving the third scene to the beginning of the story. Here are my reasons: it'll let you start the whole thing with the line, "In the future, long after Equestria's bittersweet end..."; it'll introduce the temporal dislocation that the story's structure swirls around so very well; and most importantly to me, it'll give us the concept of yromem right at the beginning.
'Cause to give us two scenes of a cute little comedy about Discord wanting to know what it's like to be unlucky, and then in the third scene to say to the reader, "Oh, and by the way, here's this brand-new thing you've never heard of that it turns out is an intrinsic part of Discord's being," that's the sorta thing that makes me trip pretty badly when I'm reading. I'm much more receptive to that sort of paradigm-shifting stuff when it's given to me right at the start instead of slipped in after I've already settled in to a story.
On the other pseudopod, of course, that sort of "wait, what?" moment is kinda Discord's hallmark, so I'll just point it out, author, and leave the rest to your sense of duty.
My second suggestion is to make the scene after Sunset and the girls blast Discord a little clearer. Maybe Discord could realize that he's watching things from outside himself a little earlier? Also, if Harmony has rebalanced the world, wouldn't Sunset address him as Darrell immediately afterwards instead of as Discord? I mean, if Aria knows the whole story about Celestia and Darrell, wouldn't Sunset? And wouldn't Darrell know about the kids who've been using magic if he's been hanging around Canterlot High for any length of time?
Oh, and I had to Google "Vantablack," too. I assumed at first that it was a video game reference that I failed to get 'cause I don't play video games... Top of my slate here, though.
Mike
And exactly 8,000 words, too!
As for my by-now-standard two suggestions, I'll advocate for moving the third scene to the beginning of the story. Here are my reasons: it'll let you start the whole thing with the line, "In the future, long after Equestria's bittersweet end..."; it'll introduce the temporal dislocation that the story's structure swirls around so very well; and most importantly to me, it'll give us the concept of yromem right at the beginning.
'Cause to give us two scenes of a cute little comedy about Discord wanting to know what it's like to be unlucky, and then in the third scene to say to the reader, "Oh, and by the way, here's this brand-new thing you've never heard of that it turns out is an intrinsic part of Discord's being," that's the sorta thing that makes me trip pretty badly when I'm reading. I'm much more receptive to that sort of paradigm-shifting stuff when it's given to me right at the start instead of slipped in after I've already settled in to a story.
On the other pseudopod, of course, that sort of "wait, what?" moment is kinda Discord's hallmark, so I'll just point it out, author, and leave the rest to your sense of duty.
My second suggestion is to make the scene after Sunset and the girls blast Discord a little clearer. Maybe Discord could realize that he's watching things from outside himself a little earlier? Also, if Harmony has rebalanced the world, wouldn't Sunset address him as Darrell immediately afterwards instead of as Discord? I mean, if Aria knows the whole story about Celestia and Darrell, wouldn't Sunset? And wouldn't Darrell know about the kids who've been using magic if he's been hanging around Canterlot High for any length of time?
Oh, and I had to Google "Vantablack," too. I assumed at first that it was a video game reference that I failed to get 'cause I don't play video games... Top of my slate here, though.
Mike
Congratulations to Baal and GGA for their medals! And I'm sorry I didn't get around to reviewing this round. :(
The good news is that, largely, it's because I've been working on this story! It's up to about 12,000 words, and I've got just one scene to finish (which hopefully I'll put to bed tonight) before doing some prereading polishing and calling it done. Then it's going to get published in the book of short stories I'm putting together for Bronycon! (And get released to FIMFiction when the book's ready to go.)
I also have to apologize, I think (especially to >>Xepher). Because what you read was arguably toeing the line of cheating, and as a consequence, deliberately crippled in order to comply with Writeoff rules.
I had an idea I was lukewarm on at the start of the round, and then I thought about the Discord art and started thinking about what I might be able to do with a story about him and his EqG mirror counterpart, and then realized that canonically there is no mirror counterpart ... and then further realized that writing about Discord crossing over could give me a chance to write a sequel to Administrative Angel (which started life here in the Writeoffs, winning a bronze in its round). Once that idea bit me in the muse, it wouldn't let go, despite the fact that the rules say stories cannot be explicitly linked to other stories by the same author. I wasn't sure if what I worked on all weekend would end up submittable, but I ended up going over the wordcount limit anyway with several hours to go on Sunday night, which gave me an opportunity to try to trim out the parts that identified it as a sequel, and present it independently.
So if the climax of this piece feels a little disconnected, it's because I ripped the beating heart out of the story and wedged in a 100-word anticlimax to replace it. In the draft that's becoming the final version, Principal Celestia doesn't just cave when the two square off: when she's unable to talk him down, and then he threatens to destroy the world if she can't prove she's the "real" Celestia, she finally lets herself open her wings. (It still doesn't work; that scene bridges back to Dash and Shy's arrival.) There are several other supporting scenes that similarly got yanked away, including an extended one where he talks with Luna in their house after leaving the Sirens, and a number of discussions about the perceived nature of the EqG world.
I'm glad that what got left behind carried this as well as it did!
A few specific comments:
Man, I assumed that was more common knowledge than it was. :-p I might like it too much to drop it, though!
>>Chris >>scifipony
If I shoot you a link to the extended draft, would you be willing to chip in a few specific comments on (respectively) what language knocked you out of the story and what you'd recommend replacing it with; and where Discord's dialogue felt most unlike him?
>>Xepher
This, on the other hand, I'm less sure what to do with. If you'd read to the penultimate scene break, I could understand your comment, but the final scene (starting with Twilight facehoofing) is directly meant to give that a point; far from being a shaggy dog story, the reveal of the misunderstanding is there to both clarify the hanging plot point and specifically to set up the facehoof scene to close that emotional arc. As it says on the tin, this is a weird sort of achronic love story, and the final scene directly sets up the two of them first finding something in common. I've tried to clarify that in the next draft by smoothing out the Twicord parts and adding a little extra exposition around the edges.
>>Baal Bunny
The third-scene-shifting-up thing is a fantastic suggestion that I'm not sure I can use without breaking the pacing. But I'll try to signpost the yromem thing more clearly up front and then merely introduce the word in its current location. I'll see what I can do about the outside-himself thing, too.
The reason Sunset doesn't recognize Darrell is she's never met him. The Sirens only did because they had a reason to interact with him outside school. (Did you ever meet any of your principals' spouses? I know I didn't.)
Anyway, thank you all for reading and participating! I'm grateful I got a chance to put this together.
The good news is that, largely, it's because I've been working on this story! It's up to about 12,000 words, and I've got just one scene to finish (which hopefully I'll put to bed tonight) before doing some prereading polishing and calling it done. Then it's going to get published in the book of short stories I'm putting together for Bronycon! (And get released to FIMFiction when the book's ready to go.)
I also have to apologize, I think (especially to >>Xepher). Because what you read was arguably toeing the line of cheating, and as a consequence, deliberately crippled in order to comply with Writeoff rules.
I had an idea I was lukewarm on at the start of the round, and then I thought about the Discord art and started thinking about what I might be able to do with a story about him and his EqG mirror counterpart, and then realized that canonically there is no mirror counterpart ... and then further realized that writing about Discord crossing over could give me a chance to write a sequel to Administrative Angel (which started life here in the Writeoffs, winning a bronze in its round). Once that idea bit me in the muse, it wouldn't let go, despite the fact that the rules say stories cannot be explicitly linked to other stories by the same author. I wasn't sure if what I worked on all weekend would end up submittable, but I ended up going over the wordcount limit anyway with several hours to go on Sunday night, which gave me an opportunity to try to trim out the parts that identified it as a sequel, and present it independently.
So if the climax of this piece feels a little disconnected, it's because I ripped the beating heart out of the story and wedged in a 100-word anticlimax to replace it. In the draft that's becoming the final version, Principal Celestia doesn't just cave when the two square off: when she's unable to talk him down, and then he threatens to destroy the world if she can't prove she's the "real" Celestia, she finally lets herself open her wings. (It still doesn't work; that scene bridges back to Dash and Shy's arrival.) There are several other supporting scenes that similarly got yanked away, including an extended one where he talks with Luna in their house after leaving the Sirens, and a number of discussions about the perceived nature of the EqG world.
I'm glad that what got left behind carried this as well as it did!
A few specific comments:
Vantablack
Man, I assumed that was more common knowledge than it was. :-p I might like it too much to drop it, though!
>>Chris >>scifipony
If I shoot you a link to the extended draft, would you be willing to chip in a few specific comments on (respectively) what language knocked you out of the story and what you'd recommend replacing it with; and where Discord's dialogue felt most unlike him?
>>Xepher
What happened? The story just stopped.
This, on the other hand, I'm less sure what to do with. If you'd read to the penultimate scene break, I could understand your comment, but the final scene (starting with Twilight facehoofing) is directly meant to give that a point; far from being a shaggy dog story, the reveal of the misunderstanding is there to both clarify the hanging plot point and specifically to set up the facehoof scene to close that emotional arc. As it says on the tin, this is a weird sort of achronic love story, and the final scene directly sets up the two of them first finding something in common. I've tried to clarify that in the next draft by smoothing out the Twicord parts and adding a little extra exposition around the edges.
>>Baal Bunny
The third-scene-shifting-up thing is a fantastic suggestion that I'm not sure I can use without breaking the pacing. But I'll try to signpost the yromem thing more clearly up front and then merely introduce the word in its current location. I'll see what I can do about the outside-himself thing, too.
The reason Sunset doesn't recognize Darrell is she's never met him. The Sirens only did because they had a reason to interact with him outside school. (Did you ever meet any of your principals' spouses? I know I didn't.)
Anyway, thank you all for reading and participating! I'm grateful I got a chance to put this together.