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Gosship
“Twinkie? Really?” Roseluck asked before taking a bite of her sandwich. She was sitting across the table from Lily and Daisy at the Canter-By Cafè, and the conversation had once again drifted to gossip.
“Yeah,” Daisy affirmed, leaning forward to grab a small helping of hay fries in her hoof before nibbling at them. “I think Twi Pie was one she threw out too, but it didn’t sound as cute. They were super cute together though.”
“I mean, what else would you call them? PinkLight? Pinkie Sparkle?” Lily asked. “They really don’t roll off the tongue all that well.”
“Exactly. You’ve gotta have a cute relationship name if you look cute together,” Daisy said, waving her hoof towards Lily and showering the mare with a few stray crumbs of hay fries. She gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
“I don’t know, they just never seemed like they would work together, you know?” Roseluck finally spoke up, having finished off the first half of her sandwich. “Like, I guess they were cute when they wore those matching hats ages ago. Anyway, I just don’t know if there’s good romance there.”
Lily rolled her eyes. She put down her napkin, taking a hoofful of hay fries herself and scarfing them down. “Like you’d know anything about romance. You haven’t had a date in ages.”
“I read more than enough books!” Roseluck shouted back, before realizing the eyes of the other patrons on their table. “I’m not going to get back into this argument again, at least not here. I’m just saying it takes more than looking cute together to have a relationship, yeah?”
Daisy shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt things. I mean, who would you rather they go with?”
Roseluck had started to work on the other half of her sandwich, but quickly put it down. “Obviously, you’d put Twilight and Rarity together. Twilight came from Canterlot, and Rarity has been dying to get there since she was a filly. They’d bond over Twilight sharing stories about court intrigue or something and realize they share a bit of interest in it. Maybe Twilight starts reading about fashion to get more into Rarity’s interests and finds she likes i—”
“That seems like a gold digger sort of thing, right? I mean, now that Twilight’s an actual Princess and all,” Lily interjected.
“That just makes it all better,” Roseluck shot back. “They bonded before Twilight became a Princess and now Rarity got the ‘Prince’ she was always rambling about back in school.” Roseluck leaned back in her seat and crossed her forehooves, confident in her assertion.
“Rarity always seemed cuter with Fluttershy, all those times they’re at the spa. They seem so close,” Daisy said with a twinkle in her eye as she looked up at a spot of clear sky above the three. “Oh, or Applejack! The rugged country cowpony and the budding socialite who wants to escape her simple origins. Rarity could try and make Applejack look like a ‘proper lady’.”
“Ugh, that’s totally cliché,” Roseluck said, returning back to her sandwich.
“Says the pony who hasn’t planted anything except roses for ten years,” Lily said under her breath.
“I heard that, and also not getting into that argument again either.”
Daisy looked up at the sky for a moment longer before glancing back and forth between her two friends, their teeth bared as they began to glare at one another. “Come on, girls, we’re just here to relax. Oh, Rose, what about Pinkie?”
Roseluck broke her glare at Lily as she took a large bite of her sandwich. “I don’t know, Pinkie seems too high-energy for any one of them except Rainbow Dash. Maybe Cheese Sandwich? They’re like copies of each other.”
“I’d ship it,” Daisy replied, sipping on her lemonade.
“Or maybe even Applejack? They both like baking,” Roseluck added, finishing her thought.
“I thought I heard they were related…” Daisy mumbled, though neither Lily or Roseluck seemed to mind or hear.
Lily shook her head, “No way it’s Pinkie Dash or Apple Pie. Dash has to be with Applejack. Two ponies always fighting like that have some tension they need to resolve.”
“Is that your way of asking me out, Lily?” Roseluck asked, one eyebrow raised.
Lily blushed and tossed a crumpled up napkin at Roseluck. “You wish.” The two broke their second stare-off after seconds, laughing.
Daisy just looked back and forth between the two of them and giggled.
“Yeah,” Daisy affirmed, leaning forward to grab a small helping of hay fries in her hoof before nibbling at them. “I think Twi Pie was one she threw out too, but it didn’t sound as cute. They were super cute together though.”
“I mean, what else would you call them? PinkLight? Pinkie Sparkle?” Lily asked. “They really don’t roll off the tongue all that well.”
“Exactly. You’ve gotta have a cute relationship name if you look cute together,” Daisy said, waving her hoof towards Lily and showering the mare with a few stray crumbs of hay fries. She gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
“I don’t know, they just never seemed like they would work together, you know?” Roseluck finally spoke up, having finished off the first half of her sandwich. “Like, I guess they were cute when they wore those matching hats ages ago. Anyway, I just don’t know if there’s good romance there.”
Lily rolled her eyes. She put down her napkin, taking a hoofful of hay fries herself and scarfing them down. “Like you’d know anything about romance. You haven’t had a date in ages.”
“I read more than enough books!” Roseluck shouted back, before realizing the eyes of the other patrons on their table. “I’m not going to get back into this argument again, at least not here. I’m just saying it takes more than looking cute together to have a relationship, yeah?”
Daisy shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt things. I mean, who would you rather they go with?”
Roseluck had started to work on the other half of her sandwich, but quickly put it down. “Obviously, you’d put Twilight and Rarity together. Twilight came from Canterlot, and Rarity has been dying to get there since she was a filly. They’d bond over Twilight sharing stories about court intrigue or something and realize they share a bit of interest in it. Maybe Twilight starts reading about fashion to get more into Rarity’s interests and finds she likes i—”
“That seems like a gold digger sort of thing, right? I mean, now that Twilight’s an actual Princess and all,” Lily interjected.
“That just makes it all better,” Roseluck shot back. “They bonded before Twilight became a Princess and now Rarity got the ‘Prince’ she was always rambling about back in school.” Roseluck leaned back in her seat and crossed her forehooves, confident in her assertion.
“Rarity always seemed cuter with Fluttershy, all those times they’re at the spa. They seem so close,” Daisy said with a twinkle in her eye as she looked up at a spot of clear sky above the three. “Oh, or Applejack! The rugged country cowpony and the budding socialite who wants to escape her simple origins. Rarity could try and make Applejack look like a ‘proper lady’.”
“Ugh, that’s totally cliché,” Roseluck said, returning back to her sandwich.
“Says the pony who hasn’t planted anything except roses for ten years,” Lily said under her breath.
“I heard that, and also not getting into that argument again either.”
Daisy looked up at the sky for a moment longer before glancing back and forth between her two friends, their teeth bared as they began to glare at one another. “Come on, girls, we’re just here to relax. Oh, Rose, what about Pinkie?”
Roseluck broke her glare at Lily as she took a large bite of her sandwich. “I don’t know, Pinkie seems too high-energy for any one of them except Rainbow Dash. Maybe Cheese Sandwich? They’re like copies of each other.”
“I’d ship it,” Daisy replied, sipping on her lemonade.
“Or maybe even Applejack? They both like baking,” Roseluck added, finishing her thought.
“I thought I heard they were related…” Daisy mumbled, though neither Lily or Roseluck seemed to mind or hear.
Lily shook her head, “No way it’s Pinkie Dash or Apple Pie. Dash has to be with Applejack. Two ponies always fighting like that have some tension they need to resolve.”
“Is that your way of asking me out, Lily?” Roseluck asked, one eyebrow raised.
Lily blushed and tossed a crumpled up napkin at Roseluck. “You wish.” The two broke their second stare-off after seconds, laughing.
Daisy just looked back and forth between the two of them and giggled.
Definitely some snickers and chuckles to be had over here. Having this conversation conducted entirely by background ponies makes it all the better. What do the background/side characters talk about while the Mane 6/7 are chasing the adventure/disaster of the week? :)
Now I'd suggest a part two to this, where the Flower Ponies settle this over a game of Lyra Heartstrings Shipfic Folder. xD
Now I'd suggest a part two to this, where the Flower Ponies settle this over a game of Lyra Heartstrings Shipfic Folder. xD
Fun:
My only suggestion here would be to pick one of the three as the POV character and let us in on some of her thoughts as the conversation goes along. 'Cause right now, we're sort of floating above the action and just listening in, an external POV that's fine but that I always find a little boring. Anchoring me in somepony's head would bring me into the proceedings more firmly and would add an internal level to the goings-on. But maybe that's just me. :)
Mike
My only suggestion here would be to pick one of the three as the POV character and let us in on some of her thoughts as the conversation goes along. 'Cause right now, we're sort of floating above the action and just listening in, an external POV that's fine but that I always find a little boring. Anchoring me in somepony's head would bring me into the proceedings more firmly and would add an internal level to the goings-on. But maybe that's just me. :)
Mike
This is a nice vignette that seems like it could have gone a little further.
I don't feel like this story has a strong resolution because the change in character is too subtle. If you want us to feel like there's a budding romance, it would help to provide more clues. There needs to be more chemistry between Rose and Lily if that's the aim.
I agree with >>Baal Bunny that having an anchor could help, and I think it should be Daisy for the obvious reason.
The hay fries and sandwich descriptives are a little too detailed for me. The food fight and meal options distract me from the conversation.
I don't feel like this story has a strong resolution because the change in character is too subtle. If you want us to feel like there's a budding romance, it would help to provide more clues. There needs to be more chemistry between Rose and Lily if that's the aim.
I agree with >>Baal Bunny that having an anchor could help, and I think it should be Daisy for the obvious reason.
The hay fries and sandwich descriptives are a little too detailed for me. The food fight and meal options distract me from the conversation.
Clearly close friends, clearly just shooting the breeze, clearly knowing what barbs are and are not acceptable to one another. Not exactly the pinnacle of subject material, but as slice-of-life feel it is executed well above merely respectable. However, because it is just 'shooting the breeze,' there isn't much to take away from it, which is a bit of a shame. Reminds me of a few pieces I wrote for Thirty Minute Ponies some years ago.
Does the author have something against italics...?
Something I liked:
We have another My Dinner with Andre deal where characters talk in one place and nothing really happens, but I like that sort of thing when it's executed well, and boy is it here. We immediately get an impression of the dynamic between the flower ponies, and the sort-of twist at the end, while maybe too subtle for some, is enough to give the impression that this conversation had been building up to something. Besides, it's nice to see a bunch of gossiping flower ponies talk about ship names of all things, not even so much the ships themselves.
Something I didn't like:
You know what would make this story better? If it was told in the first person, from Daisy's perspective. It sounds random at first, but knowing how the ending plays out I think it could make the twist more impactful. Besides, we can learn a thing or two about Daisy's own biases by virtue of staying in her head for a while. Not only that, but you could work to differentiate the flower ponies even more from each other. This is all stuff that can be easily done for FimFic.
Verdict: Regarding the entries that are about shipping, this is probably my favorite.
Something I liked:
We have another My Dinner with Andre deal where characters talk in one place and nothing really happens, but I like that sort of thing when it's executed well, and boy is it here. We immediately get an impression of the dynamic between the flower ponies, and the sort-of twist at the end, while maybe too subtle for some, is enough to give the impression that this conversation had been building up to something. Besides, it's nice to see a bunch of gossiping flower ponies talk about ship names of all things, not even so much the ships themselves.
Something I didn't like:
You know what would make this story better? If it was told in the first person, from Daisy's perspective. It sounds random at first, but knowing how the ending plays out I think it could make the twist more impactful. Besides, we can learn a thing or two about Daisy's own biases by virtue of staying in her head for a while. Not only that, but you could work to differentiate the flower ponies even more from each other. This is all stuff that can be easily done for FimFic.
Verdict: Regarding the entries that are about shipping, this is probably my favorite.
So this goes for a similar style to that of "Return to Sender", in which the point of the story is the moment-to-moment conversation itself. It's a really cool execution of the SoL concept, and definitely think that by having a very clearly defined topic of conversation, this story does a better job of preventing reader confusion/distraction about the point of the story.
Now, I hate to make this a comparison game, but I'm going to have to note that I didn't quite feel as invested/hooked by this one as I did for "Return to Sender". I think a lot of this has to do with how the conversation here comes across.
An overwhelming majority of the words in this story are spent in dialogue, and what little wordcount that isn't directly being spoken are mostly being spent in "said"-sentences. Combined with the fact that the Flower Trio are not exactly the most distinguishable set of ponies, gives this piece a bit of talking heads syndrome. Nobody's voice comes across extremely strongly, and the result is that I'm left scrolling up multiple times to remind myself who said what, and whose opinion was conflicting with whose.
Exacerbating the problem is the fact that there's just so little significant/meaningful non-dialogue action happening. A lot of sentences are devoted to describing the trio eat, which is not particularly insightful to what they're thinking/feeling. And a lot of the times where we do get an emotional description, it's redundant or reiterating what was already clear in the dialogue. An example would be the sentence that begins with "Daisy looked up at the sky...".
So basically, I think there are a number of things you could do to try to mitigate the talking-heads feeling that personally made it difficult for me to feel invested. I heavily agree with Baal Bunny that having a more grounded perspective might help in this regard.
Like I said earlier, I still really like the idea and concept of this story, and I had fun with it. So, thank you for entering this round!
Now, I hate to make this a comparison game, but I'm going to have to note that I didn't quite feel as invested/hooked by this one as I did for "Return to Sender". I think a lot of this has to do with how the conversation here comes across.
An overwhelming majority of the words in this story are spent in dialogue, and what little wordcount that isn't directly being spoken are mostly being spent in "said"-sentences. Combined with the fact that the Flower Trio are not exactly the most distinguishable set of ponies, gives this piece a bit of talking heads syndrome. Nobody's voice comes across extremely strongly, and the result is that I'm left scrolling up multiple times to remind myself who said what, and whose opinion was conflicting with whose.
Exacerbating the problem is the fact that there's just so little significant/meaningful non-dialogue action happening. A lot of sentences are devoted to describing the trio eat, which is not particularly insightful to what they're thinking/feeling. And a lot of the times where we do get an emotional description, it's redundant or reiterating what was already clear in the dialogue. An example would be the sentence that begins with "Daisy looked up at the sky...".
So basically, I think there are a number of things you could do to try to mitigate the talking-heads feeling that personally made it difficult for me to feel invested. I heavily agree with Baal Bunny that having a more grounded perspective might help in this regard.
Like I said earlier, I still really like the idea and concept of this story, and I had fun with it. So, thank you for entering this round!
There are some extraordinarily meta entries this round...
I'm battling half a week's worth of fatigue and sleep deprivation as I write these reviews, and my brain is kind of... mushy. So I'm afraid I won't be able to contribute much to the discourse surrounding this story.
But the point I got from this story is that it's less about the metacommentary on Twilight-centric shipping, and more about the friendship, possible attraction, between Lily and Rose. I base that interpretation on the fact that the story ends with a pretty obvious ship-tease between them, not to mention, how many of Lily's barbs toward Roseluck have to do with her love life.
As an old fan of the Ask The Flower Trio blog (now defunct), I approve! And I would suggest leaning more heavily into that for any revisions that you put together. You might consider having Lily and Rose invest some of their own qualities into their descriptions of Twilight's hypothetical romances. For instance, if one ships her with Pinkie and the other with Rarity, what does their choice say about them, and what they want in love?
Or... whatever. I'm tired. Leave me alone.
I'm battling half a week's worth of fatigue and sleep deprivation as I write these reviews, and my brain is kind of... mushy. So I'm afraid I won't be able to contribute much to the discourse surrounding this story.
But the point I got from this story is that it's less about the metacommentary on Twilight-centric shipping, and more about the friendship, possible attraction, between Lily and Rose. I base that interpretation on the fact that the story ends with a pretty obvious ship-tease between them, not to mention, how many of Lily's barbs toward Roseluck have to do with her love life.
As an old fan of the Ask The Flower Trio blog (now defunct), I approve! And I would suggest leaning more heavily into that for any revisions that you put together. You might consider having Lily and Rose invest some of their own qualities into their descriptions of Twilight's hypothetical romances. For instance, if one ships her with Pinkie and the other with Rarity, what does their choice say about them, and what they want in love?
Or... whatever. I'm tired. Leave me alone.
>>Posh
>>KwirkyJ
>>GrandMoffPony
Sorry it took me so long to get around to replying here. Just been busy with editing something else I suppose.
So, I saw the prompt and after a lot of time fussing over an idea, I just decided to try doing something cute and funny and a little meta. At first I was thinking two members of the Mane six discussing relationships between their friends, but then I realized it would probably be a bit easier to just do it from the outside with another group of friends, and I ended up settling on the flower trio. I was pretty surprised with how easily the actual writing came considering I've spent the majority of five years with my writing just doing non-prose work.
I have a really poor track record of not realizing the implications of some things that I write. One was listing a journal in a FiM fic as being "leather bound" and not thinking what that would mean in the world of talking animals until someone pointed it out very far down the line. I guess one here is that there's an actual seeming attempt by Daisy to get Lily and Rose together, or that the two are doing more than trading barbs as friends. It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that Lily and Rose could have a thing for each other and they aren't saying it, it's just that I'm not sure I can really write that all too convincingly.
Still, I'll take it under advisement for if this ends up getting reworked into something post-able down the road, because I do think it'll add a bit more of a point to everything, and a bit more opportunity for comedy if Lily and Rose are projecting themselves into their ships and possibly letting things slip.
>>Baal Bunny
>>No_Raisin
>>Bachiavellian
>>Trick_Question
I'll have to keep the change in perspective in mind. I do think it's something that could strengthen the story a lot like you all said.
>>No_Raisin
The author keeps forgetting that you should just stick with italics for emphasis. I swear it's a case of me thinking too much about things, and I'll do my best to not forget going forward.
>>KwirkyJ
>>GrandMoffPony
Sorry it took me so long to get around to replying here. Just been busy with editing something else I suppose.
So, I saw the prompt and after a lot of time fussing over an idea, I just decided to try doing something cute and funny and a little meta. At first I was thinking two members of the Mane six discussing relationships between their friends, but then I realized it would probably be a bit easier to just do it from the outside with another group of friends, and I ended up settling on the flower trio. I was pretty surprised with how easily the actual writing came considering I've spent the majority of five years with my writing just doing non-prose work.
I have a really poor track record of not realizing the implications of some things that I write. One was listing a journal in a FiM fic as being "leather bound" and not thinking what that would mean in the world of talking animals until someone pointed it out very far down the line. I guess one here is that there's an actual seeming attempt by Daisy to get Lily and Rose together, or that the two are doing more than trading barbs as friends. It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that Lily and Rose could have a thing for each other and they aren't saying it, it's just that I'm not sure I can really write that all too convincingly.
Still, I'll take it under advisement for if this ends up getting reworked into something post-able down the road, because I do think it'll add a bit more of a point to everything, and a bit more opportunity for comedy if Lily and Rose are projecting themselves into their ships and possibly letting things slip.
>>Baal Bunny
>>No_Raisin
>>Bachiavellian
>>Trick_Question
I'll have to keep the change in perspective in mind. I do think it's something that could strengthen the story a lot like you all said.
>>No_Raisin
The author keeps forgetting that you should just stick with italics for emphasis. I swear it's a case of me thinking too much about things, and I'll do my best to not forget going forward.