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Ship It · FiM Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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Part and Parcel
Ditzy Doo decided that there were few things better in life than returning to the post office with an empty mail satchel. The feeling of the weightless bag was enough to make her skip on the tips of her hooves.

“Mr. Letterhead!” she called out. “I’m ready for another set.”

But instead of bearded old Mr. Letterhead, there was a young mare at the Postmaster’s desk.

“Hiya, Ditzy!” she said, with a wave.

Ditzy was confused for a minute, and then she remembered that Mr. Letterhead had retired two—no, three—years ago. She frowned and lightly struck her forehead with her wing. Silly.

“Hi, Ms. Triplicate! Sorry, I forgot again. And I’m ready for my next deliveries.”

“No sweat,” said Triplicate, smiling gently. “But that was actually your last run for the day, Ditzy. Your shift’s up.”

Triplicate pointed at the clock on her desk, and sure enough it was already almost six.

“Oh!” said Ditzy. She smacked her forehead again. Silly!

“It’s also Friday today,” said Triplicate as she quickly wrote out a check.

Ditzy nodded and remembered that Friday was payday.

“I’ll see you on Monday, Ditzy,” said Triplicate as she pushed the check across her desk.

“Thanks, boss!” said Ditzy with a beam. She took the check and headed out. “See you next week!”




If her wing wasn't aching so badly, she would have literally flown out of the post office. Fridays were special, because once she got paid, she’d always have at least a little she could spend on a surprise for Dinky.

She stopped at the bank to deposit the check and to make a small cash withdrawal.

Last week she got candy, so today she'd go to the toy store.

When she got there, the first thing she saw was a new Build-a-Log-Cabin set in the display window. Upon closer inspection, she knew it was absolutely perfect. The carved pieces were glossy with high-quality paint, and the assembled cabin was big enough to fit Dinky’s little dolls.

Grinning ear to ear, she grabbed a boxed set, paid for it, and flapped out of the store, sore wing be damned.

Ditzy decided that there were very few things better than coming home on Friday evenings.




“Dinky, I’m home!” Ditzy said as she opened the front door.

She carefully put the toy set on the dining table before shrugging off her uniform and leaving it on the floor. She’d go back and pick it up in a minute.

“Where are you, Dinks?”

DItzy stepped up the stairs.

When she opened Dinky’s bedroom door, she blinked. There was a strange mare sprawled out on Dinky’s bed, with her horn aglow. The mare heard Ditzy opening the door, and she turned around looked up at her.

“Hey, let me call you back,” she said into her telesonic spell, “Mom just got home.”

Dinky’s horn went out, and she bounded to her feet.

“Hi, Mom! How was work?”

She hugged Ditzy, and for a moment Ditzy was stiff until she remembered how to hug a daughter who was taller than her now.

Dinky pulled away and tilted her head, her brow furrowed.

“What's up?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” said Ditzy. “I just had one of my moments, that’s all.”

Ditzy tapped her forehead with her good wing. Silly.

“You, uh… didn’t forget why I’m here, right?” The edges of Dinky’s eyes pinched up, but the young mare held onto her smile. “It’s okay if you did. I know sometimes you need a reminder.”

Ditzy’s gaze automatically flicked up to the gold-trimmed engagement ring on Dinky’s horn.

“Of course I remember,” said Ditzy, smiling widely. “Tomorrow’s your big day, Dinks!”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Dinky grinned. This time, her smile easily reached her eyes. “I actually just called Pipsqueak. His train gets here soon, so we should head for the station.”

“Right!” said Ditzy. “Just a second!”

Ditzy flew down to the dining room, plucked the cabin set from the table, and scurried into the basement before Dinky could see it. There, in the back corner, she stacked it on top of a dozen other dusty unopened toy boxes.

Ditzy looked at the pile and rolled her eyes. Silly me! But at least she had a good supply of birthday presents for her future grandchildren.

“Hey Mom! Where'd you go?”

“Coming, Dinks!”

As Ditzy Doo flew up the stairs with aching joints, she decided that there was absolutely nothing better in her life than this.
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#1 · 3
· · >>Bachiavellian
Let's goooooooo...

Something I liked:

I like the way the story plays with reader expectations at times. Ditzy's in a bad situation, but not because of her eyesight (although it's still a physiological problem that's out of her control, which I'll get to in a bit), and her relationship with Dinky is not what we've been conditioned to believe. Dinky is an adult now (or at least a teenager) who still lives with her mom, presumably to take care of her. I also like that at no point does Derpy feel bad about something, even though she apparently drew the short stick in more than one aspect at this point.

Something I didn't like:

Although with that said, I'm highly skeptical of physically impaired characters being used for easy emotional points, resulting in your typical "sad bastard" narrative where someone's persona is defined by struggles with things that out of their control. It's bad enough Ditzy's visually impaired and not very bright, now you gotta have her brain fucking dying on her. That's a really sadistic choice, author, and I can't say I appreciate it too much.

Verdict: Well-written (and really well-paced, actually), but I'm not a fan of what this entry's going for.
#2 · 2
· · >>Bachiavellian
Genre: Slice-of-OHGOSHNO

Thoughts: Brrrrr, that’s one of the straightest mental-issues-Derpy Ditzy fics that I can remember reading. The reveal is like a claw hammer to the face. It’s not even feels in the traditional sense; it just feels bad, man.

But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I like it when Writeoff stories manage to elicit a visceral response. I’ll admit that’s a personal criterion, but I think it speaks to strength in the story’s execution. One of the great things about the Writeoff is that you don’t have tags or a description to prime you for what’s coming, which creates room for a story like this to dangle a few hints before pulling off a big surprise. Bravo, Author.

Overall, the writing here was generally strong and crisp. I’m hesitant to put a story into my top tier before getting a broader look, but this might move up depending on what else is out there.

Tier: Strong
#3 · 1
· · >>Bachiavellian
Having watched dementia reduce my sharp-as-a-tack grandmother to 'watching the local news re-broadcast all day and think each re-run is new news', this hit me like a set of brass knuckles. Author played with emotions very well here, and both Dinky and Ditzy/Derpy sounded well in character.

BUT, part of me wants to recoil from the 'Ditzy has dementia too' angle, probably due to my own experiences watching it work its evil on someone. I'll have to reserve ranking on this one until the end. I don't want to ding the author for my own personal foibles if I can help it.
#4 · 1
· · >>Bachiavellian
This one is tough on me for two reasons. For one, my mother is in the incipient stages of dementia. For another, I have real memory problems due to electroconvulsive therapy, ketamine treatments, and a long decade or so of opiate use. I'm starting to worry that I might end up with dementia myself at a younger age than one would expect. Mom's only thirty years past me, and I'm probably worse off now than she was at this age. So I definitely felt the conflict here in two ways.

That said, the lack of clarity about the nature of Derpy's (yes her name is DERPY) disability makes the story lose most of its punch for me. Let me explain.

It seems very likely you chose this character because she's apparently disabled, obviously her eyes, but also potentially her psychology. That's why everypony chooses her, let's face it. So we expect that this story is describing her disability and you're milking it for feels like Special Delivery (although most of the feels in that were unrelated to Derpy's disability). But we identify Derpy with that disability all the time, so it isn't immediate that your take on Derpy here equals dementia.

Adding to that, Derpy is almost certainly relatively young given Dinky's age, so that too makes dementia unlikely. If Dinky were marrying at an older age, that might be different. Then again, the additional disability of her wing (yay let's give her three problems for extra sads) also suggests she's older, which contrasts with the facts, but makes more sense for the feels you're aiming at.

The bottom line is that I don't know how bad I should feel for Dinky and Derpy, and this mutes the power of the piece. She apparently has been doing this for months if not years and she's able to function somehow. There are no hints at her house that there is a routine her daughter helps her with, no notes or anything left for her. A clue about the nature of her illness would go a long way for me, like a doctor's letter left out or something. We just don't know if Derpy is soon to be a total invalid or not, and that's pretty important.

You know, I would like this story about a thousand percent more if you had chosen any character other than Derpy.
#5 · 1
· · >>Bachiavellian
The implications regarding Ditzy's memory issues are unsettling, to say the least... however, the heart of this story is unwaveringly positive. The thing about the wing hurting strikes me as something of a red herring, contributing little to the story, but that's about the only other detractor I can think of -- and even then, it helps to emphasize that she is so happy with herself at getting a toy she knows Dinky will love that she will fly despite the pain.

I am very conflicted about how to feel about this one, given the point about memory failure and/or dementia. In our world, it would to easily turn horrific. In Equestria however, most things are… gentler… and maybe she actually is able to get by after a fashion, as we see with Triplicate and her daughter's understanding. As a story about ponies, it's definitely top-tier; as a story about people...
#6 · 3
· · >>Bachiavellian
After a couple of reads and then some, I came away from this story liking this more than I not. Regarding the positives, I like how simple and straightforward everything is. It's paced rather evenly, and though the structure's a little disjointed for my taste, looking more like a vignette than a steady linear scene, I think the writing is crisp and concise enough to hold on its own. I do think that the prose could be a little smoother at some points, as I find that some of the sentences describing her actions could be discarded in favor of building upon the tone and giving the story in general a bit more focus than I would like. It's a matter of personal preference ultimately, but I think that had the story's narrative crux been any bit weaker, the bare-bones tell-y approach with the prose would fail to make this entry as memorable as it was.

On the issue of making Ditzy have dementia, I'm okay with any depictions of disabilities, both physical and mental— or any heavy-leaning subject matter really, just as long as it's done tastefully. Whether it's done with good intentions, I find, is irrelevant to the conversation, because it'll ultimately lead to a discussion about the author over the entry. For me, as long as the impaired person / pony / princess of power is portrayed with proper nuance, then I can give the story its merits. This story does it rather well, though I chalk it up to it being delivered here with the effort in succinctness and subtlety more than the context of its depiction in of itself.

That being said, I think you did write yourself into an interesting double-edged dilemma here with choosing her as your character. For one, her canonic happy-go-lucky personality definitely helped push this story forward, no question. It definitely is to your story's benefit to choosing someone with her carefreeness to lead your story onward. If I replaced her with almost anyone else, I think it'll tip over the delicate balance of bittersweet that this story has going for it.

On the contrary, Ditzy has almost always been a character defined by her physical impairments, even canonically, so to see another iteration of that does make the entry feel a bit reductive. It's objectively miles better than having it be focused on her clumsiness, I'll say that much, but it still makes me wish that she could be defined beyond 'a mare that has disabilities', as nice as this entry executed on that front. Looking at what you have here, I think you could probably expand upon the aspect of Ditzy as a mother more. You know, highlight how all the things she does for Dinky in spite of her issues, that sorta thing. To put it simply, I want to see more of Ditzy past her disabilities.

Overall, I think this entry did just enough on all fronts to hold itself together without falling apart. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing an expanded version of this if you're planning any.

Thanks for writing, and good luck!
#7 · 2
· · >>No_Raisin >>Rao >>Bachiavellian
I do like that you made a story that could have been totally miserable so positive in the end. Kudos for that.

Now, um. I'm not one to tell someone with a disability what they can and can't do... But DD's impairment seems to be a hell of a barrier for her day-to-day life. I'm kind of surprised she still holds a job, and presumably that she lives on her own. I would think she could be retired on long-term-disability benefits, and perhaps have someone living with her to help her... not... injure herself. Is there subtext here that Triplicate is pretending DD still works as a mailpony so as to not scare her? Even then, that doesn't answer the living situation.

That might be something to expand upon, Author.

Thanks for writing!!
#8 · 3
· · >>Rao
>>Miller Minus
I've thought about this as well, because given the circumstances, Derpy shouldn't be working. I also have to wonder how old she is for this to be happening to her. She could be one of those really unlucky people who develops Alzheimer's in her 50s, but things are kept rather vague. I suspect the author wrote Derpy as having a job so that things appear to be normal at first, only to slowly pull out the rug by the end, and might not've realize, "Wait... how does Derpy live like this?"

I still feel like a different character should've been used, preferably one who isn't already known for being physically handicapped. Hell, an older AJ would be devastating for this sort of thing.
#9 · 2
· · >>Bachiavellian
>>Miller Minus
There's an element of "50 First Dates" here it seems, where her memory beyond a certain point becomes increasingly unreliable, but with the happy note of the pieces falling back into place with a little shaking. So, keeping her job as a mailpony seems pretty reasonable in that framework: ponies may move, but addresses don't change often and Ponyville is kind of a fixed quantity when you ignore the exploding library, crystalline castle, and giant magical school. Those are either noteworthy enough for Derpy to re-remember on her own, or to put on a different route. She might be confused as to why the names don't match the addresses like she remembers, but I think everything would get where it belongs almost all of the time.

There's an element of accidental... not cruelty, but negligence maybe, in the idea of the Post Office just pretending she still works there. PeoplePonies—young, old, working, retired, disabled, and otherwise—need to feel valued and trusted. Stringing her along with pretend work would break her heart every time she remembered what was going on, which seems to happen quite readily, and that's not what heroes do.

Bringing it back to the 50 First Dates comparison, I think Derpy would be pretty fine in day-to-day home life. She's not demonstrated to be particularly clumsy here; she manages to make bank deposits and store purchases with no difficulty, so I don't think she's in the "forget that I put the stove on 10 minutes ago" stage of memory loss just yet.

Though I do agree with >>No_Raisin that GeriatriJack would be absolutely scathing in this sort of scenario, but might lack the sweetness to the ending.

All that said, nice work, author. Sweet but not overwhelming.
#10 ·
·
I think the third person narration here works pretty well. There's a simplicity to it that fits Ditzy/Derpy's depiction here very well, and it largely does a good job of staying invisible and doing its job.

Now, this is something that I'm sure some Writeoff vets will notice I say a lot, but I'm not usually a fan of cutting up a minific into smaller pieces. I can see what you're going for here, with putting some distance between the twist and Ditzy's emotional state in the beginning, but for me each scene change was still a bit rough for me, personally.

Speaking of the twist, I'm afraid I can't say much other than that it seems to be decently executed. I don't have any close relatives with memory problems or dementia (other than one great-uncle who I've only met a handful of times), so I'm afraid I can't really speak to that element of the story too much. Sorry!

Other than that, I thought this piece was very readable. It seems to be hit-or-miss with how it executed on its stakes, judging from our other reviewers, so you might want to polish up on the specifics of the reveal to avoid the issues they bring up.

Thank you for writing!
#11 · 1
· · >>Bachiavellian
This makes excellent use of audience expectations to provide a slow reveal to something bigger, and I think it lands very well. The prose here is wonderfully and simply written and I think the ending is fairly sweet despite the very emotional tug it has.
#12 ·
· · >>Bachiavellian
Popping in real quick while I'm going through everything else to apologize to the author real quick. While I am absolutely on board the "don't take my Derpy, you villains" train, she's clearly and unambiguously called Ditzy here and I should have respected that fact when commenting previously.

I will not try to hide my shame, and simply say: Sorry.
#13 · 6
· · >>Trick_Question >>No_Raisin >>WritingSpirit
Okay, so I have no fucking idea how this story ended up in the top 1/3 of this super competitive round. Especially since it sounded like basically everyone had mixed reactions to it.

.... Thanks, I guess? :P

Retrospective: Part and Parcel

Okay, elephant in the room, like I said in my fake review, I don't have experience with dealing with dementia in myself or my loved ones. That being said, this may come as a surprise to a lot of you, but Ditzy in this story wasn't supposed to have been a depiction of dementia.

I sound crazy, I know.

Canon has already depicted Ditzy multiple times as forgetful, clumsy, and easily distracted. So that's kind of what I was going for here. In my head, her situation isn't deteriorating—it's always been like this. She and her family and her coworkers just know how to deal with it. So basically, what I meant to convey is that it sometimes just slips Ditzy's mind that her daughter isn't 6 anymore, just like how she forgot to go south instead of north in Winter Wrap Up. She slips up sometimes, but she knows how to deal with it.

Well, that was what I was going for. And I probably totally failed on that point, yikes.

Regardless, special thanks must go to >>Pascoite, who will be sorely missed in his mentoring role by at least one.




>>No_Raisin
Although with that said, I'm highly skeptical of physically impaired characters being used for easy emotional points, resulting in your typical "sad bastard" narrative where someone's persona is defined by struggles with things that out of their control.

This wasn't my intention at all. Unbelievably, this was the opposite of my intention. Like I said above, I was trying to depict a Ditzy who was firmly in control of her life, despite her poor memory. My apologies that it came out the wrong way.

That's a really sadistic choice, author, and I can't say I appreciate it too much.

I don't blame you; that's exactly how I'd feel if I had just read the story that did what you described. All I can say is, this really wasn't what I had envisioned. Thanks for leaving your thoughts!

>>CoffeeMinion
Genre: Slice-of-OHGOSHNO

I laughed at this, out loud.

The reveal is like a claw hammer to the face. It’s not even feels in the traditional sense; it just feels bad, man.

I know this probably sounds insane, but one of the things I actually told Pasco during the editing process was that I didn't intend this to be a sad-twist fic. And yet, I guess it kind of turned out that way anyway. I'm happy that it sounds like you liked it, but I will admit that it was a little disappointing to see that you had precisely the reaction that I was trying to avoid.

Thank you for reviewing!

>>GrandMoffPony
I'm really sorry that I forced you to make that comparison. Like I said earlier, I wasn't even thinking about dementia/Alzheimer's when I planned this, which probably makes this the most inconsiderate story I've written. I'm glad you appreciated it on a technical level, but I don't blame you at all if you struggled with voting on it. Thank you for leaving your thoughts.

>>Trick_Question
I want to apologize for the implications you received from this story. All I can say is that I sincerely did not mean to milk sadness from a disabled character. My goal was to depict a character whose difficulties still did not impact the quality or fullness of her life. But I was not thinking about how people who actually have loved ones with memory impairments would react to this. That was foolhardy and rude of me. I really appreciate your review.

>>KwirkyJ
I think you may have come closest to having the reading experience I was going for, but yeah, as I said earlier, dementia wasn't supposed to be a part of that equation. So, while I'm glad that the intended positive spirit did come through in your reading, I totally get your mixed feelings. Thank you for for your review!

>>WritingSpirit
Thank you so much for leaving such a thorough review!

Whether it's done with good intentions, I find, is irrelevant to the conversation, because it'll ultimately lead to a discussion about the author over the entry.

This is a really good point. I wasn't thinking about dementia at all when I wrote this, which was unbelievably stupid of me, and I do deserve criticism for it.

To put it simply, I want to see more of Ditzy past her disabilities.

I know I must sound crazy, but really, that was what I was trying to do from the start. The whole point of the story in my head was to show that being forgetful doesn't stop Ditzy from being the loving, considerate, and thoughtful pony that she is. I really dropped the ball like crazy, for you to have received the opposite impression.

Again, I really appreciate all of your detailed thoughts.

>>Miller Minus
Yeah, the idea that I was going for was that Ditzy has always been at this level of forgetful, and that her condition isn't getting any worse. It's just supposed to be something that she already knows how to deal with.

The fact that basically no one had this interpretation really highlights how this piece failed to do the one goddamn thing I wanted it to. Blugh!

Thank you for your comment! Really appreciate it.

>>Rao
Thank you for leaving your thoughts! Yeah, I wanted to depict Derpy as perfectly capable of taking care of herself, so I'm glad some of those vibes made it through to you. Like I said earlier, this wasn't supposed to be a degenerative/worsening deal. So she herself and everyone around her just know how to handle it. Shame that I dropped the ball with that idea so hard.

>>Flashgen
I'm very glad that you liked the story, despite the flaws that I myself (and a lot of others) had with it. I'm happy that the simple prose worked for you, since it was something that I deliberately decided to go with not just for the sake of the story, but to also kind of push myself out of the invisible prose comfort zone I've entrenched myself into. Thank you for your comment!

>>CoffeeMinion
>>Trick_Question
>>Rao
Derpy Ditzy

(yes her name is DERPY)

While I am absolutely on board the "don't take my Derpy, you villains" train...


Yeah, I know her name's officially and unquestionably "Derpy". It's just that, even after 7 years, "Derpy" still sounds like a bad meme-joke to me, and I struggle to take it seriously. No need to apologize, Rao, I should have made the switch fucking years ago, honestly.




Okay cool, retro's finally done.
#14 · 3
·
>>Bachiavellian
You have nothing to apologize for. It was a story, and it wasn't rude or disrespectful.

Wait, I take it back: you should apologize for not realizing how good of a writer you are. Because you are good.
#15 · 1
·
>>Bachiavellian
Like I said above, I was trying to depict a Ditzy who was firmly in control of her life, despite her poor memory.


I think this is the reason why your entry ended up creeping up my slate over time, despite my visceral reaction to it. Derpy always tries to make the best of a bad situation, to the point where she never confronts her condition in the conventional sense within the story. I think this is what separates it from other "Derpy suffers, reader cries" stories, and ultimately why it was built to last. I ended up rooting for this story pretty hard by the end of the round.

I don't blame you; that's exactly how I'd feel if I had just read the story that did what you described. All I can say is, this really wasn't what I had envisioned.


I have to wonder if, had I written an entry about Derpy's disabilities, I would've handled it any differently. The answer is probably no. I can't be too mad about that.
#16 · 1
·
>>Bachiavellian
This is a really good point. I wasn't thinking about dementia at all when I wrote this, which was unbelievably stupid of me, and I do deserve criticism for it.


Maybe as a person, sure, but as an author, it's not really a point of criticism relevant to the conversation. For me, I think even if the reasoning behind an author writing a character with dementia was something along the lines of "think of all the sympathy my protagonist could get and how high the stakes are right away!", it really all depends on how the piece handled that sticking issue in the end.

My point with saying this was really directed more towards the other reviewers in that authorial intent shouldn't fully define your personal experience with the story. Now, I personally didn't have anyone who had dementia. Had a grandma (bless her) who remembered the names of all 13 of her children, the names of her grandchildren and her grandchildren's children to the very end at a ripe age of 95, so I guess you could say the exact opposite is true. Nevertheless, even if I knew someone who had dementia, I think this particular entry does an incredible job of depicting it without making it seem derogatory, unintended or otherwise.

I know I must sound crazy, but really, that was what I was trying to do from the start


Now that you mentioned it, yeah, it does come across somewhat. I think it wasn't clear for me initially because we're given two separate aspects of Ditzy's life — her work life and her daughter — so the focus did seem to scurry about a little. Part of me maybe feels that way because we know who Ditzy was already as a character collectively before going into this, so to highlight her having memory loss on top of her well-known physical one just seems to amplify the idea that, yes, Ditzy is disabled.

I personally think I wouldn't have this problem if it were another character, even a completely different one from scratch. However, I think that my preconceptions of Ditzy's personality do help make the story feel more heartwarming and wholesome, which was why I said it's a double-edged sword to have her as your protag. Nevertheless, I think this story ultimately fares better to have Ditzy as a main character. Just had some concerns moving forward that I thought would be nice to point out.

Thanks a bunch for writing this!