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A Fiery End
It all began with Seahawk.
Techinally it began long before Seahawk arrived, but Mermista was so used to him being the reason for her bad days that she automatically attributed this one to him, too. The day started off terribly: she had been forced awake at dawn by an insistent knocking at her bedroom door, followed by her guard-slash-butler saying, "Your Highness, we have a situation."
"Grrvnkgh," Mermista mumbled in response.
There had been a pause before a hesitant, "We've received reports that the Horde is on their way."
Mermista finally opened her eyes. She would have told him to take the situation to the king her father, but then she remembered he had retired, and gifted Salineas to her, simultaneously dumping all responsibility onto her, too, and therefore such an order was impossible.
It hadn't ended there. The reports came from three fishermen that had been far at sea when they sighted a number of ships. The problem was all three of them differed on how many ships they'd seen, and only one seemed certain they belonged to the Horde.
The three were arguing in front of her. "I'm telling you, there was seven ships!" the first fisherman insisted.
"There was only four, idiot," the second replied, rolling his eyes.
The third did not seem to care how many ships they'd seen. "I don't care how many ships you've seen," he said. "Why do you think those were Horde ships in the first place?"
"They looked evil--"
Mermista had sighed, wondering when it all would end. Should she prepare for an attack, or dismiss the fishermen's dubious statement? The barrier would hold, but perhaps she should call in the men and women still out at sea, outside its protection.
She decided to take the precautions without putting too much faith in the report. She'd call her people back to shore, send a scout to confirm or deny the report given to her, and hope there were no Horde soldiers on their way here.
It wasn't that easy.
The scout returned with the news that there were not four, not seven, but the sum total of eleven ships heading their way, all confirmed to belong to the Horde. None of them knew how the Horde, mostly land-based, had gotten its hands on so many ships, but there they were, ready to assault her people. Mermista felt the urge to punch something. Preferably a Horde soldier.
When the ships first appeared on the horizon, Mermista and her fleet were prepared. She stood on the bank side by side with all her other soldiers, trident in hand, and spared a thought for her father, who was probably still in bed and had no idea what was even going on outside the palace. Oh, to be old and tired and have an heir to take over your duties; Mermista longed for the day.
That was when the flaming boats arrived.
They could only belong to one person, the bane of Mermista's existence, yet for once they seemed to be helping rather than hindering her: she heard the distant cry of "Adventure!" and watched as three fiery ships charged into the ones belonging to the Horde, setting them all ablaze. There was a cheer from someone behind her, and the next thing Mermista knew, everyone was cheering and she had a fierce grin on her face.
(The grin wasn't for Seahawk, it was because she could go to bed at last and sleep for the next two days.)
Her guard leaned down so that he could be heard over the noise. "How did he know the Horde was here?" he asked her, knowing there was only one person who could have put on that display.
"I don't know," she replied, "but I'm not going to question it." She wondered only for a second if now would be a good time to leave when a familiar voice called out her name.
"Princess Mermista!" Seahawk shouted from a lifeboat, drawing out the last syllable. "This one's for you!"
When Mermista realized what was happening, it was too late. Seahawk set fire to the boat, jumped into the water, and the flaming boat drifted on to where Mermista's naval fleet was docked. She rushed forward to put out the fire, but it still took the life of one of her beauties and singed two others.
Seahawk, upon arriving dripping wet, took in the scene before him and said, "I did not expect that."
Mermista hated her life.
Techinally it began long before Seahawk arrived, but Mermista was so used to him being the reason for her bad days that she automatically attributed this one to him, too. The day started off terribly: she had been forced awake at dawn by an insistent knocking at her bedroom door, followed by her guard-slash-butler saying, "Your Highness, we have a situation."
"Grrvnkgh," Mermista mumbled in response.
There had been a pause before a hesitant, "We've received reports that the Horde is on their way."
Mermista finally opened her eyes. She would have told him to take the situation to the king her father, but then she remembered he had retired, and gifted Salineas to her, simultaneously dumping all responsibility onto her, too, and therefore such an order was impossible.
It hadn't ended there. The reports came from three fishermen that had been far at sea when they sighted a number of ships. The problem was all three of them differed on how many ships they'd seen, and only one seemed certain they belonged to the Horde.
The three were arguing in front of her. "I'm telling you, there was seven ships!" the first fisherman insisted.
"There was only four, idiot," the second replied, rolling his eyes.
The third did not seem to care how many ships they'd seen. "I don't care how many ships you've seen," he said. "Why do you think those were Horde ships in the first place?"
"They looked evil--"
Mermista had sighed, wondering when it all would end. Should she prepare for an attack, or dismiss the fishermen's dubious statement? The barrier would hold, but perhaps she should call in the men and women still out at sea, outside its protection.
She decided to take the precautions without putting too much faith in the report. She'd call her people back to shore, send a scout to confirm or deny the report given to her, and hope there were no Horde soldiers on their way here.
It wasn't that easy.
The scout returned with the news that there were not four, not seven, but the sum total of eleven ships heading their way, all confirmed to belong to the Horde. None of them knew how the Horde, mostly land-based, had gotten its hands on so many ships, but there they were, ready to assault her people. Mermista felt the urge to punch something. Preferably a Horde soldier.
When the ships first appeared on the horizon, Mermista and her fleet were prepared. She stood on the bank side by side with all her other soldiers, trident in hand, and spared a thought for her father, who was probably still in bed and had no idea what was even going on outside the palace. Oh, to be old and tired and have an heir to take over your duties; Mermista longed for the day.
That was when the flaming boats arrived.
They could only belong to one person, the bane of Mermista's existence, yet for once they seemed to be helping rather than hindering her: she heard the distant cry of "Adventure!" and watched as three fiery ships charged into the ones belonging to the Horde, setting them all ablaze. There was a cheer from someone behind her, and the next thing Mermista knew, everyone was cheering and she had a fierce grin on her face.
(The grin wasn't for Seahawk, it was because she could go to bed at last and sleep for the next two days.)
Her guard leaned down so that he could be heard over the noise. "How did he know the Horde was here?" he asked her, knowing there was only one person who could have put on that display.
"I don't know," she replied, "but I'm not going to question it." She wondered only for a second if now would be a good time to leave when a familiar voice called out her name.
"Princess Mermista!" Seahawk shouted from a lifeboat, drawing out the last syllable. "This one's for you!"
When Mermista realized what was happening, it was too late. Seahawk set fire to the boat, jumped into the water, and the flaming boat drifted on to where Mermista's naval fleet was docked. She rushed forward to put out the fire, but it still took the life of one of her beauties and singed two others.
Seahawk, upon arriving dripping wet, took in the scene before him and said, "I did not expect that."
Mermista hated her life.
ADVENTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE!
Thank you for this gem. I enjoy that you ran with the idea of illustrating that Sea Hawk is "Actually A Really Good Dude" that the show established after the first episode he was in. Mermista being outwardly annoyed with him, but inwardly grateful is such a fun dynamic to play with and I really think you did very well at capturing that in your fic.
Poor Mermista's never going to get her beauty sleep at this rate, though. "Ughhhhhh"
Thank you for this gem. I enjoy that you ran with the idea of illustrating that Sea Hawk is "Actually A Really Good Dude" that the show established after the first episode he was in. Mermista being outwardly annoyed with him, but inwardly grateful is such a fun dynamic to play with and I really think you did very well at capturing that in your fic.
Poor Mermista's never going to get her beauty sleep at this rate, though. "Ughhhhhh"
HAHAHAAH typical Seahwak <3
This one is short and sweet and i can see the STRUGGLE in Mermista, she truly gets not rest with Seahaw around lol
I would totally love to see this spin off into more adventures, and i am intrigued as to how Seahawk was able to be there on time, perhaps he had something to do? ooooh, the lengths he might go to swoon Mermista? hehe :p
This one is short and sweet and i can see the STRUGGLE in Mermista, she truly gets not rest with Seahaw around lol
I would totally love to see this spin off into more adventures, and i am intrigued as to how Seahawk was able to be there on time, perhaps he had something to do? ooooh, the lengths he might go to swoon Mermista? hehe :p
i'll admit, i laughed in a number of places while reading this fic. mermista being perpetually tired, having to deal with everything herself, not to mention seahawk's enthusiasm permeating his actions... it made for a pretty good combination.
as bearpigs mentioned above, this was short and sweet, but perhaps there were too many short sentences grouped together at times? adding a few longer ones in between the short ones would mix things up a little :)
as bearpigs mentioned above, this was short and sweet, but perhaps there were too many short sentences grouped together at times? adding a few longer ones in between the short ones would mix things up a little :)
First time commenting on a She-Ra round, as I just finished watching the show. Since we have a lot of newcomers, I'll put this header on my comment for every story, since I don't know whether the new people will read the whole discussion thread or just the one for their story.
The write-offs were originally from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, which has an unusually high caliber of writing standards. Or at least it used to. Sure, there's plenty of bad stuff here, but when you attract that large an audience, you attract a proportionally large number of very good writers, and those tended to congregate in a couple of key places. One, in reviewing groups that helped writers develop, and two, in places like this, that at their best function more as a writing workshop than a competition.
Since I haven't actually started reading any of these as I write this intro, I'll say I don't know how the average writing quality of any given fandom compares to MLP, and it's possible that the critiques given by the MLP veterans will come across as harsh. That's not the intent. I wouldn't spend the 15-30 minutes it takes per minific for me to read, digest, and write up a response if I was just trying to be mean. We all really do intend to help you improve your writing.
I'll put all this above a break so people reading the whole thread will know where to skip down to on subsequent posts.
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You have an odd mechanic going on at the beginning. The narration is summing up these sailors' reports, so it seems like something that's already occurred in the story, but then you cut into the conversation of it. The sense of what's happening and when gets jarred right there. You go from live interaction with the attendant, to summing up the argument as if it's complete already, then going to the argument "live."
Okay, then you narrate the third sailor saying he doesn't care how many ships there are before giving him dialogue that repeats it exactly. I don't know whether I'm supposed to take that in a comedic sense or not, since the story hasn't been about random humor so far. And that particular use of humor, if indeed it's intentional, is not a good type to use before it's been established the story will be a wacky comedy, since it's so easy to take it as a mistake on the author's part.
In the end, this is very show-tone comedy and an accurate representation of the dynamic between Sea Hawk and Mermista. There's not a lot new here, though. Like I don't learn anything more about Sea Hawk and Mermista's relationship than I already know from the show. It's kind of dangerous to have what's essentially a one-joke story, because then your success is predicated entirely on how funny the reader finds that one joke. That's one reason (among many) why it's still a good idea for a comedy to have some kind of message, so that you can bring the story arc to a close and make a point. Plus the battle ends so quickly and decisively that there was no tension built up. Mermista at least has the luxury of knowing the Horde can't break through her shield, but if some people were trapped outside, and the fight to save them wasn't going well, then Sea Hawk showed up... something like that would have a more dramatic arc to it. And of course, sprinkle some more jokes through there.
Not bad, a typical kind of comedy we see in these events.
The write-offs were originally from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, which has an unusually high caliber of writing standards. Or at least it used to. Sure, there's plenty of bad stuff here, but when you attract that large an audience, you attract a proportionally large number of very good writers, and those tended to congregate in a couple of key places. One, in reviewing groups that helped writers develop, and two, in places like this, that at their best function more as a writing workshop than a competition.
Since I haven't actually started reading any of these as I write this intro, I'll say I don't know how the average writing quality of any given fandom compares to MLP, and it's possible that the critiques given by the MLP veterans will come across as harsh. That's not the intent. I wouldn't spend the 15-30 minutes it takes per minific for me to read, digest, and write up a response if I was just trying to be mean. We all really do intend to help you improve your writing.
I'll put all this above a break so people reading the whole thread will know where to skip down to on subsequent posts.
--------------------------------------------------------------
You have an odd mechanic going on at the beginning. The narration is summing up these sailors' reports, so it seems like something that's already occurred in the story, but then you cut into the conversation of it. The sense of what's happening and when gets jarred right there. You go from live interaction with the attendant, to summing up the argument as if it's complete already, then going to the argument "live."
Okay, then you narrate the third sailor saying he doesn't care how many ships there are before giving him dialogue that repeats it exactly. I don't know whether I'm supposed to take that in a comedic sense or not, since the story hasn't been about random humor so far. And that particular use of humor, if indeed it's intentional, is not a good type to use before it's been established the story will be a wacky comedy, since it's so easy to take it as a mistake on the author's part.
In the end, this is very show-tone comedy and an accurate representation of the dynamic between Sea Hawk and Mermista. There's not a lot new here, though. Like I don't learn anything more about Sea Hawk and Mermista's relationship than I already know from the show. It's kind of dangerous to have what's essentially a one-joke story, because then your success is predicated entirely on how funny the reader finds that one joke. That's one reason (among many) why it's still a good idea for a comedy to have some kind of message, so that you can bring the story arc to a close and make a point. Plus the battle ends so quickly and decisively that there was no tension built up. Mermista at least has the luxury of knowing the Horde can't break through her shield, but if some people were trapped outside, and the fight to save them wasn't going well, then Sea Hawk showed up... something like that would have a more dramatic arc to it. And of course, sprinkle some more jokes through there.
Not bad, a typical kind of comedy we see in these events.
I adore your hook, author. I'll admit, the whole "open with a single, snappy sentence paragraph, then transition to a longer paragraph putting that first sentence in context" construction is one of my favourites, but you've used it incredibly well here and made me one very happy Quill indeed—and that's before taking into account my general good mood from reading about grumpy!Mermista. We all need some grumpy!Mermista in our lives. Thank you for providing it.
I'm not sure I agree with >>salamander calling for more varied sentence structure (I've certainly seen much less varied sentences in my time, and this story works perfectly well as it is), but I do think there are some places where your structures don't quite work out, and changing them around a bit might help. Let's take a look at the end of that second paragraph:
The transition to dialogue at the end of this sentence doesn't sit well with me—I don't think it's wrong, per se, but it feels a little... clumsy? There's a couple of other places in the story where the line between dialogue and narration doesn't feel quite as smooth as it should, too, but this one is the one that stood out the most to me (perhaps because it came so quickly after the fantastic opening sentence construction that the juxtaposition threw me for a loop?) I can't pin down exactly why it feels off—my gut instinct is to say that the entire construction of "followed by..." is what feels weak here, along with the relatively weak "saying" vs the strong "knocking". It's worth looking into in more detail, at any rate, and I'm happy to chat after the contest about it to see if I can articulate myself better in conversation.
I think >>Pascoite makes an excellent point regarding the discussion of the number of ships, and I actually wanted to expand on one of his points because... well, it interested me, and I'm not sure it should be taken quite as negatively as Pasco makes it out. Let's talk about this construction:
I talked about repetition in an earlier review, and its place in comedy, but this is a very different approach to repetition that I think can be very effective: deadpan humour. I actually think this kind of humour is the right fit for this story (though I agree that seeing slightly more of it before this point would certainly help this joke to hit home) because there's a wonderful similarity between this sort of delivery and Mermista's own grumpiness. I'm also not convinced that this story isn't "wacky" enough to pull off this construction: I think you've balanced the very fine line of not descending into random humour that allows you to pull this off, while still appealing to people who aren't too fond of random humour.
Unfortunately, I think the weakest part of this story is its ending. There's little I can say beyond remarking that the story feels a little too constrained by the wordcount, and the ending feels a little... not rushed, but certainly like too much packed into too few words. I don't blame the author for this: minifics are hard, and they take some getting used to. And despite feeling constrained, the ending is still evocative and amusing, which is the most important thing.
I really enjoyed this one, author! Some fantastic laughs were had, and the stakes never felt so great that the comedy was clouded by the tension. A good variety of jokes and on-point characterisation made this an absolute pleasure to read, and the negativity above really amounts to little more than spring-cleaning recommendations. Thank you for writing this! (And thank you again for my weekly dose of grump.)
I'm not sure I agree with >>salamander calling for more varied sentence structure (I've certainly seen much less varied sentences in my time, and this story works perfectly well as it is), but I do think there are some places where your structures don't quite work out, and changing them around a bit might help. Let's take a look at the end of that second paragraph:
The day started off terribly: she had been forced awake at dawn by an insistent knocking at her bedroom door, followed by her guard-slash-butler saying, "Your Highness, we have a situation."
The transition to dialogue at the end of this sentence doesn't sit well with me—I don't think it's wrong, per se, but it feels a little... clumsy? There's a couple of other places in the story where the line between dialogue and narration doesn't feel quite as smooth as it should, too, but this one is the one that stood out the most to me (perhaps because it came so quickly after the fantastic opening sentence construction that the juxtaposition threw me for a loop?) I can't pin down exactly why it feels off—my gut instinct is to say that the entire construction of "followed by..." is what feels weak here, along with the relatively weak "saying" vs the strong "knocking". It's worth looking into in more detail, at any rate, and I'm happy to chat after the contest about it to see if I can articulate myself better in conversation.
I think >>Pascoite makes an excellent point regarding the discussion of the number of ships, and I actually wanted to expand on one of his points because... well, it interested me, and I'm not sure it should be taken quite as negatively as Pasco makes it out. Let's talk about this construction:
The third did not seem to care how many ships they'd seen. "I don't care how many ships you've seen," he said.
I talked about repetition in an earlier review, and its place in comedy, but this is a very different approach to repetition that I think can be very effective: deadpan humour. I actually think this kind of humour is the right fit for this story (though I agree that seeing slightly more of it before this point would certainly help this joke to hit home) because there's a wonderful similarity between this sort of delivery and Mermista's own grumpiness. I'm also not convinced that this story isn't "wacky" enough to pull off this construction: I think you've balanced the very fine line of not descending into random humour that allows you to pull this off, while still appealing to people who aren't too fond of random humour.
Unfortunately, I think the weakest part of this story is its ending. There's little I can say beyond remarking that the story feels a little too constrained by the wordcount, and the ending feels a little... not rushed, but certainly like too much packed into too few words. I don't blame the author for this: minifics are hard, and they take some getting used to. And despite feeling constrained, the ending is still evocative and amusing, which is the most important thing.
I really enjoyed this one, author! Some fantastic laughs were had, and the stakes never felt so great that the comedy was clouded by the tension. A good variety of jokes and on-point characterisation made this an absolute pleasure to read, and the negativity above really amounts to little more than spring-cleaning recommendations. Thank you for writing this! (And thank you again for my weekly dose of grump.)