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Facts and Feelings
“So what I’m saying, Fluttershy, is that if us five teamed up, we could totally kick Twilight’s flank. I mean, yeah. She’s powerful and all, but—what? Don’t stare at me like that! It’s not like we’re actually going to kick her flank. Although we totally could.”
“Mm.” Fluttershy went back to staring at the Sugarcube Corner kitchen. She leaned back in her chair, twiddling her mane. Nearby, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack were having some high-stakes baking competition that Pinkie had devised.
“Technically, it’s the six of us,” said Mudbriar. He was standing, despite the empty chairs surrounding him.
Rainbow Dash paused, raising an eyebrow. “Right. You’re here. Anyways”—she resumed shifting left and right, creaking the chair along with her—“what do you think, Fluttershy? You’ve gotta have an answer.”
“Oh, I do,” said Fluttershy. She balled up a strand of hair in her hoof, then let it go. “I just don’t like disagreeing with you, is all.”
Rainbow Dash paused again, leaning forward intently. “Oh? Well don’t just leave it at that.”
“Well, she is the most powerful pony in Equestria. And as much as I hate to say it, if she caught one of”—she glanced at Mudbriar—“us five, and threatened to harm her, the other four would probably give up.”
“Technically, it doesn’t matter if she’s the most powerful pony. Taking into account estimations of skill and power, there always exists some sufficient group of ponies that could overcome her.”
“Ha!” Rainbow Dash pointed a triumphant hoof at Fluttershy. “Even Mudbriar agrees with me! This battle is as good as won.” She closed her eyes, bobbing her head in some victory dance.
Fluttershy wasn’t listening. She was focused on Rarity, who was screaming, as Pinkie Pie ran circles around her caked in flour.
Mudbriar cleared his throat and continued, “Technically, considering the premise, that would be untrue. The philosopher Sunny Zoo once said, ‘Every battle is won or lost before it’s ever fought.’ Twilight, being a fan of books, already knows this.” He shut his eyes, lifting a solemn hoof. “So if she chose to take on all five of you at once, that would mean she was already confident of her outcome before it even started.”
Rainbow Dash slammed her head on the table. “Booo.” She looked at Fluttershy, then at Applejack, who was now handling a knife blindfolded, then back at Mudbriar. “So who do you think would win then, smarty pants?”
“Technically, there is no correct answer. For example, you could be the aggressors, and Twilight would not be fighting on her own terms. Or, maybe you would hesitate, and Twilight would not.”
“But that’s such a boring answer,” groaned Rainbow Dash. “You’re saying there’s not even, like, a percentage you can give?”
“Myes.”
Pinkie Pie interrupted before Rainbow could respond. “Hey girls! Look how high I can turn the oven up! Wheee!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, then turned back to face Mudbriar. “Do you, like, have an opinion on anything?”
Mudbriar furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry?”
“Well”—Rainbow Dash ducked, narrowly avoiding the toaster flung above her head—”I mean, you’re always stating some fact, or quoting some old dude. So what do you think about things? Or do you think those darned opinions decay the mind.”
Mudbriar lifted a hoof again. “Technically, Sunny Zoo was relatively young when he gave that quote. Given—” he wilted under Rainbow’s sharp glare. “C-could you give an example?”
Fluttershy, without looking away from the kitchen, said, “Well, Pinkie Pie is currently on fire, and Rarity and Applejack can’t seem to contain her. So, should we help?”
Mudbriar nodded. “Myes.”
“Why? Because we don’t let friends die?”
“Myes.”
Fluttershy scrunched up her face, then sneezed. “Sorry, must be the smoke. Why not? Why does it make a difference if Pinkie lives or dies?”
Sweat started building on Mudbriar’s forehead. “Because, because…” He stiffened, and turned towards the door. “I’m going. Maud is in the shop across the street.” Then he left.
The next day, Maud found Rainbow Dash in the hospital. Mudbriar was behind her, staring at the ground.
“Sorry about yesterday,” said Maud. “I asked Mudbriar to write a story detailing his own opinions as an apology. Here.”
Rainbow Dash took the manuscript and read, occasionally giving a “hmm” or a “huh” while scratching her mane. When she finished, she said, “Wow, Mudbriar, that’s pretty cool. I didn’t know we thought so alike. You really believe this?”
Mudbriar smiled, and lied for the first time in his life.
“Mm.” Fluttershy went back to staring at the Sugarcube Corner kitchen. She leaned back in her chair, twiddling her mane. Nearby, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack were having some high-stakes baking competition that Pinkie had devised.
“Technically, it’s the six of us,” said Mudbriar. He was standing, despite the empty chairs surrounding him.
Rainbow Dash paused, raising an eyebrow. “Right. You’re here. Anyways”—she resumed shifting left and right, creaking the chair along with her—“what do you think, Fluttershy? You’ve gotta have an answer.”
“Oh, I do,” said Fluttershy. She balled up a strand of hair in her hoof, then let it go. “I just don’t like disagreeing with you, is all.”
Rainbow Dash paused again, leaning forward intently. “Oh? Well don’t just leave it at that.”
“Well, she is the most powerful pony in Equestria. And as much as I hate to say it, if she caught one of”—she glanced at Mudbriar—“us five, and threatened to harm her, the other four would probably give up.”
“Technically, it doesn’t matter if she’s the most powerful pony. Taking into account estimations of skill and power, there always exists some sufficient group of ponies that could overcome her.”
“Ha!” Rainbow Dash pointed a triumphant hoof at Fluttershy. “Even Mudbriar agrees with me! This battle is as good as won.” She closed her eyes, bobbing her head in some victory dance.
Fluttershy wasn’t listening. She was focused on Rarity, who was screaming, as Pinkie Pie ran circles around her caked in flour.
Mudbriar cleared his throat and continued, “Technically, considering the premise, that would be untrue. The philosopher Sunny Zoo once said, ‘Every battle is won or lost before it’s ever fought.’ Twilight, being a fan of books, already knows this.” He shut his eyes, lifting a solemn hoof. “So if she chose to take on all five of you at once, that would mean she was already confident of her outcome before it even started.”
Rainbow Dash slammed her head on the table. “Booo.” She looked at Fluttershy, then at Applejack, who was now handling a knife blindfolded, then back at Mudbriar. “So who do you think would win then, smarty pants?”
“Technically, there is no correct answer. For example, you could be the aggressors, and Twilight would not be fighting on her own terms. Or, maybe you would hesitate, and Twilight would not.”
“But that’s such a boring answer,” groaned Rainbow Dash. “You’re saying there’s not even, like, a percentage you can give?”
“Myes.”
Pinkie Pie interrupted before Rainbow could respond. “Hey girls! Look how high I can turn the oven up! Wheee!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, then turned back to face Mudbriar. “Do you, like, have an opinion on anything?”
Mudbriar furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry?”
“Well”—Rainbow Dash ducked, narrowly avoiding the toaster flung above her head—”I mean, you’re always stating some fact, or quoting some old dude. So what do you think about things? Or do you think those darned opinions decay the mind.”
Mudbriar lifted a hoof again. “Technically, Sunny Zoo was relatively young when he gave that quote. Given—” he wilted under Rainbow’s sharp glare. “C-could you give an example?”
Fluttershy, without looking away from the kitchen, said, “Well, Pinkie Pie is currently on fire, and Rarity and Applejack can’t seem to contain her. So, should we help?”
Mudbriar nodded. “Myes.”
“Why? Because we don’t let friends die?”
“Myes.”
Fluttershy scrunched up her face, then sneezed. “Sorry, must be the smoke. Why not? Why does it make a difference if Pinkie lives or dies?”
Sweat started building on Mudbriar’s forehead. “Because, because…” He stiffened, and turned towards the door. “I’m going. Maud is in the shop across the street.” Then he left.
The next day, Maud found Rainbow Dash in the hospital. Mudbriar was behind her, staring at the ground.
“Sorry about yesterday,” said Maud. “I asked Mudbriar to write a story detailing his own opinions as an apology. Here.”
Rainbow Dash took the manuscript and read, occasionally giving a “hmm” or a “huh” while scratching her mane. When she finished, she said, “Wow, Mudbriar, that’s pretty cool. I didn’t know we thought so alike. You really believe this?”
Mudbriar smiled, and lied for the first time in his life.
Genre: Halt And Catch Fire
Thoughts: This review likes big “but”s and, regrettably, it cannot lie.
What I really like about this is the strength of the character voicing. Everyone sounds super on-point, such that it’s easy to pick out who’s talking even when attributions get skipped. Mudbriar’s dialogue is particularly good, almost to the point of stealing the show. It’s great to see one of our later-season characters getting the fic love they deserve—and Author, if you’ve written more stuff with Mudbriar, I’d like to read it.
What works less well for me is the background antics leading to fire and injury. It comes off as checking the “zany” box but is perhaps a bit too random to feel like it quite fits. I imagine that’s intentional, at least to a point; Pinkie catching on fire is a Broad Comedy Moment if I’ve ever seen one, and it even mostly works. But right now it’s got almost a disharmonious resonance with the randomness of the topics and flow of the central conversation itself—especially when the end feels so disconnected from what they’d been talking about.
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with some friends sitting around at a cafe and spitballing how they’d take down a rogue Twilight. There’s nothing wrong with humorous asides while they talk about this. There might be something wrong with Fluttershy having such a chill reaction to Pinkie being on fire, though I suppose that allowances must be made for this being Pinkie. But when the ending veers away from what most of the conversation has been about and centers on Mudbriar looking like a bigger fool than the folks who caught themselves on fire... I have a hard time following.
I’m probably going to end up ranking this lower than the quality of the prose otherwise deserves, in part because right now I have a hard time visualizing what this story is trying to be. That’s not to say that it’s bad, or that it couldn’t be tuned-up and focused a bit more! It totally could! I just think that right now, as-presented, as a reader I would find this much easier to get my arms around following that kind of tuneup.
Tier: Keep Developing
Thoughts: This review likes big “but”s and, regrettably, it cannot lie.
What I really like about this is the strength of the character voicing. Everyone sounds super on-point, such that it’s easy to pick out who’s talking even when attributions get skipped. Mudbriar’s dialogue is particularly good, almost to the point of stealing the show. It’s great to see one of our later-season characters getting the fic love they deserve—and Author, if you’ve written more stuff with Mudbriar, I’d like to read it.
What works less well for me is the background antics leading to fire and injury. It comes off as checking the “zany” box but is perhaps a bit too random to feel like it quite fits. I imagine that’s intentional, at least to a point; Pinkie catching on fire is a Broad Comedy Moment if I’ve ever seen one, and it even mostly works. But right now it’s got almost a disharmonious resonance with the randomness of the topics and flow of the central conversation itself—especially when the end feels so disconnected from what they’d been talking about.
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with some friends sitting around at a cafe and spitballing how they’d take down a rogue Twilight. There’s nothing wrong with humorous asides while they talk about this. There might be something wrong with Fluttershy having such a chill reaction to Pinkie being on fire, though I suppose that allowances must be made for this being Pinkie. But when the ending veers away from what most of the conversation has been about and centers on Mudbriar looking like a bigger fool than the folks who caught themselves on fire... I have a hard time following.
I’m probably going to end up ranking this lower than the quality of the prose otherwise deserves, in part because right now I have a hard time visualizing what this story is trying to be. That’s not to say that it’s bad, or that it couldn’t be tuned-up and focused a bit more! It totally could! I just think that right now, as-presented, as a reader I would find this much easier to get my arms around following that kind of tuneup.
Tier: Keep Developing
This, right here, makes me perfectly unsure if this is Equestria or the EQG side of things: "twiddling her mane." Would Fluttershy 'twiddle' with hooves?
I'm not sure what else I can add that isn't covered by CoffeeMinion's response. The zany background events are so bizarre and so pointless and so heavily ignored that I'm left scratching my head.
Looking at the section after the hard break, a few things... Why is Maud apologizing for Mudbriar? Why would she specify 'detail(ing) his opinions as an apology' rather than as part of an apology? Also, Rainbow concludes after reading it that she and Mudbriar think alike and asks if his words are earnest, to which he lies. If he lies affirmative, it means that what he wrote was a lie, defeating the purpose of writing it to begin with; if he lies negative, it would suggest to the others that his words were a lie even when they were not which would appear to defeat the purpose of writing it. Curioser and curiouser.
I'm not sure what else I can add that isn't covered by CoffeeMinion's response. The zany background events are so bizarre and so pointless and so heavily ignored that I'm left scratching my head.
Looking at the section after the hard break, a few things... Why is Maud apologizing for Mudbriar? Why would she specify 'detail(ing) his opinions as an apology' rather than as part of an apology? Also, Rainbow concludes after reading it that she and Mudbriar think alike and asks if his words are earnest, to which he lies. If he lies affirmative, it means that what he wrote was a lie, defeating the purpose of writing it to begin with; if he lies negative, it would suggest to the others that his words were a lie even when they were not which would appear to defeat the purpose of writing it. Curioser and curiouser.
I'm assuming Mudbriar was introduced in the later seasons, since people all seem to recognize him. I was weirded out because I didn't, so I thought he was an OC.
However, the story doesn't really jell any better now that I know who he is. Like, at first we have the argument about who would win, Twilight or five pony grls (that joke doesn't really work because there is no feminine equivalent of boi as far as I know), and Mudbriar is being pedantic and annoying. But then Pinkie is on fire and neither Rainbow nor Fluttershy are reacting in a way that makes sense, and in particular Fluttershy is... really really weird.
Then Mudbriar writes his own opinions as an apology, but we never get to find out what those are, except that Rainbow thinks they are the same as hers, and it turns out they were a lie anyway because he doesn't believe them, or something. Where were you going with this?
It starts as what looks like a fun slice-of-life about Fluttershy and Rainbow maybe putting a pedantic bore in his place, but quickly turns into... wtf?
I think you should probably throw out everything that happens after Pinkie turns the oven up and rework the opening scene into a different fic with a different point and a different ending, because unless this all turns out to be a dream I cannot see any way the later stuff is salvageable. The story doesn't seem to have a point.
However, the story doesn't really jell any better now that I know who he is. Like, at first we have the argument about who would win, Twilight or five pony grls (that joke doesn't really work because there is no feminine equivalent of boi as far as I know), and Mudbriar is being pedantic and annoying. But then Pinkie is on fire and neither Rainbow nor Fluttershy are reacting in a way that makes sense, and in particular Fluttershy is... really really weird.
Then Mudbriar writes his own opinions as an apology, but we never get to find out what those are, except that Rainbow thinks they are the same as hers, and it turns out they were a lie anyway because he doesn't believe them, or something. Where were you going with this?
It starts as what looks like a fun slice-of-life about Fluttershy and Rainbow maybe putting a pedantic bore in his place, but quickly turns into... wtf?
I think you should probably throw out everything that happens after Pinkie turns the oven up and rework the opening scene into a different fic with a different point and a different ending, because unless this all turns out to be a dream I cannot see any way the later stuff is salvageable. The story doesn't seem to have a point.
The dialogue here flows really nicely, and the character voicing feels very good. Overall, it's really easy to follow along with the conversation, despite it's density and complexity, so really well done with that!
To be honest, I'm having a bit of a tonal issue with this one, though. The whole bit with Pinkie catching fire came really out of left field to me. Up until that point, I thought I was reading a low-key SOL, but then I had to rapidly change gears and read the story as an absurdist comedy. Then, about a hundred words later, I'm shifting gears again because the last line struck me as kind of somber and dark.
So overall, the payoff came across really murkily to me. I wish I had a clearer idea from the start what this fic is going to be about, especially considering the constraints of the minific format. Itr's hard to suddenly shift gears when you only have 750 words to play with, so correlating your reader's expectations with the end result can be really important.
Thank you for writing!
To be honest, I'm having a bit of a tonal issue with this one, though. The whole bit with Pinkie catching fire came really out of left field to me. Up until that point, I thought I was reading a low-key SOL, but then I had to rapidly change gears and read the story as an absurdist comedy. Then, about a hundred words later, I'm shifting gears again because the last line struck me as kind of somber and dark.
So overall, the payoff came across really murkily to me. I wish I had a clearer idea from the start what this fic is going to be about, especially considering the constraints of the minific format. Itr's hard to suddenly shift gears when you only have 750 words to play with, so correlating your reader's expectations with the end result can be really important.
Thank you for writing!
Oops.
Thanks >>CoffeeMinion, >>KwirkyJ, >>alarajrogers, and >>Bachiavellian for comments.
A couple people mentioned that this round brought a lot of experimental entries and this certainly was one for me. Completely switched up my usual prose and writing area to... mixed results. The prose by itself turned out alright, I guess. Except everyone completely missed the story message. So oops. I guess I'll be trying to find where I made my big mistakes in the retro, then.
I think I really messed up when dealing with an unlikable character. The story wasn't meant to be about making Mudbriar look silly or putting him in his place. There are a total of 14 Mudbriar stories on Fimfic so I guess my goal was to try and do him justice, not necessarily by making him less unlikable, but by making him understandable. So my explanation for why he always acts like a know-it-all is because he's insecure, and doesn't ever feel confident enough to voice his own opinions or choose a side. The last line was meant to convey that the only "real" part of his personality was ironically to pretend to hold the opinions of another in order to hide the rest of his personality. And then naturally the rest of the story was Mudbriar being too in-character and not winning sympathy points from anyone.
Obviously, I got super sidetracked trying to get to that point as the comments suggested, which hit me hard with the word limit. Way too much focus on the black humor, which given humor is my weak suit, really didn't pay off. Way too much focus on the other characters shooting the shit instead of focusing on Mudbriar himself. And so on.
Hopefully I'll do much better with any future entries. And maybe some day this will somehow become worth publishing, and then we'll have 15 Mudbriar stories on Fimfiction!
Thanks >>CoffeeMinion, >>KwirkyJ, >>alarajrogers, and >>Bachiavellian for comments.
A couple people mentioned that this round brought a lot of experimental entries and this certainly was one for me. Completely switched up my usual prose and writing area to... mixed results. The prose by itself turned out alright, I guess. Except everyone completely missed the story message. So oops. I guess I'll be trying to find where I made my big mistakes in the retro, then.
I think I really messed up when dealing with an unlikable character. The story wasn't meant to be about making Mudbriar look silly or putting him in his place. There are a total of 14 Mudbriar stories on Fimfic so I guess my goal was to try and do him justice, not necessarily by making him less unlikable, but by making him understandable. So my explanation for why he always acts like a know-it-all is because he's insecure, and doesn't ever feel confident enough to voice his own opinions or choose a side. The last line was meant to convey that the only "real" part of his personality was ironically to pretend to hold the opinions of another in order to hide the rest of his personality. And then naturally the rest of the story was Mudbriar being too in-character and not winning sympathy points from anyone.
Obviously, I got super sidetracked trying to get to that point as the comments suggested, which hit me hard with the word limit. Way too much focus on the black humor, which given humor is my weak suit, really didn't pay off. Way too much focus on the other characters shooting the shit instead of focusing on Mudbriar himself. And so on.
Hopefully I'll do much better with any future entries. And maybe some day this will somehow become worth publishing, and then we'll have 15 Mudbriar stories on Fimfiction!