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It Screams
It was a bright and sunny day, and Starlight Glimmer was painting a scene of Ponyville Park.
Well, not exactly painting. She had a canvas set up on an easel, and several different primary colors of paint. And she was in Ponyville Park, right by the happy little hill that fell down into the happy little riverbed. And she had subjects.
The subjects, all thirty two of them, fillies and colts and grown adult ponies and a few village elders as well, stood locked in place by Starlight’s magic, forming a sort of living canvas of their own. they grumbled and groaned, but mostly stayed silent, being locked in place by magic and thus being unable to move their jaws.
Around that moment, Twilight Sparkle happened to walk by, a shopping bag over her shoulder, an extra-large unicorn-pink-drink frappuccino trailing close behind her.
She paused when she saw thirty two of her friends and neighbors frozen in place atop the happy little hill by the happy little riverbed. They appeared to be depicting some sort of battle, though who was fighting what was tough to tell.
Then she saw Starlight and the canvas.
“Starlight,” she called out, “what are you doing?”
Starlight squealed and ran over to Twilight. “I’m realizing my potential as an artist!” she said, throwing her arms around her friend and summarily dragging her over to the canvas. “I was trying all morning to realistically depict the struggle between chaos and harmony in a painting, but I realized I couldn’t really draw a straight line all that well, and my pony shapes were kinda lumpy. Not good for the socialist realism style I was going for.”
“So...”
“So, I found a few willing and consenting friends--” she shot the frozen crowd a withering glare, “and now I’m using magic to solve for my artistic inadequacies!”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “How exactly are you doing that?”
Starlight beamed. “Let me show you.” Without another word, she lit up her horn. Swirling magical beams extended to the crowd, the canvas, and the cans of paint. There was a tremendous ca-click like the shutter of a giant’s camera falling, accompanied by a great flash of light.
In another instant, it was all over. The paint cans had been drained, and on the canvas was a masterful interpretation of the battle of harmony and chaos, stylized as a conflict between a Pollock-esque Discord and an army of socialist realist ponies.
Starlight cheered. “It worked! I’m an artist!”
Twilight took a closer look at the painting. The crowd of stylized friends and neighbors marched in perfect lock-step, driving spears through Discord’s paint-splotch heart.
The canvas was also screaming very quietly.
“Well, no harm, no foul,” Twilight said with a shrug. “Congratulations Starlight! I don’t know how the painter’s guild will react to being made redundant, but if they survived the invention of the camera, I’m sure they’ll survive you.” Twilight turned around, took a long, gratifying sip of her ultra-refined-sugar-and-a-little-bit-of-coffee drink, readjusted her bag on her shoulder, stopped, frowned, and turned around. “Wait.”
She marched back over to the painting and put her ear to the canvas. Sure enough, she heard a tiny, high-pitched chorus of screams coming from the canvas.
Twilight leapt back. her ear brushed the canvas, smearing the pretty little river so it ran into the pretty little hill.
“Hey,” Starlight said, “be careful!”
“That painting’s screaming!” Twilight cried.
“Yes, it just screams with majesty, doesn’t it?”
“No. It’s actually screaming.”
“Don’t be silly, Twilight, it’s not actually screaming. It’s just a metaphor.”
Twilight grabbed Starlight by the ear and dragged her right up to the canvas.
Starlight paused, went bug-eyed, and leapt back. “My painting is screaming!” she cried.
“Yes, I know!”
“What do we do, Twilight?”
The assembled crowd passed a series of confused looks among themselves. “Can we go?” one of the ponies said.
“Not yet,” Twilight said.
“Can we at least stop holding this pose?” another pony asked.
“No,” Twilight and Starlight said in unison.
“Okay, we can figure this out,” Starlight said, pacing back and forth. “What’s causing the painting to scream?”
“What kind of spell did you use? You didn’t accidentally animate the canvas, did you?”
“No,” Starlight said defensively. “That would explain the screaming though. Imagine being born out of the blue and someone pours paint all over you.”
“Focus. What spell did you use?”
“All I did was take a mental photograph of the background, copied it onto the canvas, then copied the three-dimensional ponies onto a two-dimensional surface, taking into account local shading and light sources.”
While Starlight explained herself, Twilight’s face got paler. “When you did that, did you use a rendering of the 3D space?”
“What? No, I just made an exact copy and put it onto the canvas.” Starlight paused. “Why? Is that bad?”
The frappuccino twisted in Twilight’s gut. “If you didn’t make a rendering, that means you made an exact parallel universe copy of that scene, then squished it into a two dimensional canvas.” Twilight glanced over at the crowd, still frozen in their battle pose. “That means that canvas is now a pocket dimension, and there’s an exact copy of all our friends and neighbors frozen in it.”
Starlight let out a nervous whinny. “I didn’t mean to do that! I just wanted my lines to be straight!” She glanced at the canvas, then the frozen crowd. She lit up her horn again, and the magic holding the crowd together disappeared all at once. Thirty two ponies tumbled in a heap down the happy little hill into the happy little riverbed.
The ponies in the painting, however, didn’t budge.
“Why can’t they move?” Starlight asked. “They’re not frozen anymore.”
“Have you ever tried to move in two dimensions?” Twilight asked.
“No.”
“Neither have they! They don’t know how! Nopony knows how!” Twilight inhaled her frappuccino in pure panic. “What are we going to do?”
Starlight suddenly stopped freaking out.
At first Twilight thought she’d somehow frozen herself. But as she looked on, a strange half-smile came over Starlight’s face.
“What? What is it? Did you figure a way to get them back?”
“Not really,” Starlight said. Her voice was slow and syrupy sweet.
“Then what should we do?”
Starlight turned to her suddenly. “We should put this in a museum.”
Twilight was momentarily too stunned to reply. “A museum? We have to help our friends!”
“Yes, we do. But until we find a way to help them, we can’t just toss a blanket over them and put them in an attic. We can’t destroy the canvas. We have to put it in a museum.”
“That’s... we...” Twilight grasped desperately for the rest of her sentence. “No. You’re not... We can’t put it in a museum.”
“Why not? Nopony knows paintings better than the curators at the Canterlot Metropolitan Art Gallery. They’ll know the answers for sure. And if they don’t, they’ll take expert care of the painting until we can figure out what to do.” She paused. “Maybe they’ll even display it.”
Twilight sucked up the last of her frappuccino and compressed the cup until it was a microscopic ball of carbonized ash.
A crowd of thirty two soaking wet, sore, unhappy little ponies passed them by, grumbling and mumbling and spitting curses.
“My art’s gonna be in a museum,” Starlight said to herself, beaming.
Well, not exactly painting. She had a canvas set up on an easel, and several different primary colors of paint. And she was in Ponyville Park, right by the happy little hill that fell down into the happy little riverbed. And she had subjects.
The subjects, all thirty two of them, fillies and colts and grown adult ponies and a few village elders as well, stood locked in place by Starlight’s magic, forming a sort of living canvas of their own. they grumbled and groaned, but mostly stayed silent, being locked in place by magic and thus being unable to move their jaws.
Around that moment, Twilight Sparkle happened to walk by, a shopping bag over her shoulder, an extra-large unicorn-pink-drink frappuccino trailing close behind her.
She paused when she saw thirty two of her friends and neighbors frozen in place atop the happy little hill by the happy little riverbed. They appeared to be depicting some sort of battle, though who was fighting what was tough to tell.
Then she saw Starlight and the canvas.
“Starlight,” she called out, “what are you doing?”
Starlight squealed and ran over to Twilight. “I’m realizing my potential as an artist!” she said, throwing her arms around her friend and summarily dragging her over to the canvas. “I was trying all morning to realistically depict the struggle between chaos and harmony in a painting, but I realized I couldn’t really draw a straight line all that well, and my pony shapes were kinda lumpy. Not good for the socialist realism style I was going for.”
“So...”
“So, I found a few willing and consenting friends--” she shot the frozen crowd a withering glare, “and now I’m using magic to solve for my artistic inadequacies!”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “How exactly are you doing that?”
Starlight beamed. “Let me show you.” Without another word, she lit up her horn. Swirling magical beams extended to the crowd, the canvas, and the cans of paint. There was a tremendous ca-click like the shutter of a giant’s camera falling, accompanied by a great flash of light.
In another instant, it was all over. The paint cans had been drained, and on the canvas was a masterful interpretation of the battle of harmony and chaos, stylized as a conflict between a Pollock-esque Discord and an army of socialist realist ponies.
Starlight cheered. “It worked! I’m an artist!”
Twilight took a closer look at the painting. The crowd of stylized friends and neighbors marched in perfect lock-step, driving spears through Discord’s paint-splotch heart.
The canvas was also screaming very quietly.
“Well, no harm, no foul,” Twilight said with a shrug. “Congratulations Starlight! I don’t know how the painter’s guild will react to being made redundant, but if they survived the invention of the camera, I’m sure they’ll survive you.” Twilight turned around, took a long, gratifying sip of her ultra-refined-sugar-and-a-little-bit-of-coffee drink, readjusted her bag on her shoulder, stopped, frowned, and turned around. “Wait.”
She marched back over to the painting and put her ear to the canvas. Sure enough, she heard a tiny, high-pitched chorus of screams coming from the canvas.
Twilight leapt back. her ear brushed the canvas, smearing the pretty little river so it ran into the pretty little hill.
“Hey,” Starlight said, “be careful!”
“That painting’s screaming!” Twilight cried.
“Yes, it just screams with majesty, doesn’t it?”
“No. It’s actually screaming.”
“Don’t be silly, Twilight, it’s not actually screaming. It’s just a metaphor.”
Twilight grabbed Starlight by the ear and dragged her right up to the canvas.
Starlight paused, went bug-eyed, and leapt back. “My painting is screaming!” she cried.
“Yes, I know!”
“What do we do, Twilight?”
The assembled crowd passed a series of confused looks among themselves. “Can we go?” one of the ponies said.
“Not yet,” Twilight said.
“Can we at least stop holding this pose?” another pony asked.
“No,” Twilight and Starlight said in unison.
“Okay, we can figure this out,” Starlight said, pacing back and forth. “What’s causing the painting to scream?”
“What kind of spell did you use? You didn’t accidentally animate the canvas, did you?”
“No,” Starlight said defensively. “That would explain the screaming though. Imagine being born out of the blue and someone pours paint all over you.”
“Focus. What spell did you use?”
“All I did was take a mental photograph of the background, copied it onto the canvas, then copied the three-dimensional ponies onto a two-dimensional surface, taking into account local shading and light sources.”
While Starlight explained herself, Twilight’s face got paler. “When you did that, did you use a rendering of the 3D space?”
“What? No, I just made an exact copy and put it onto the canvas.” Starlight paused. “Why? Is that bad?”
The frappuccino twisted in Twilight’s gut. “If you didn’t make a rendering, that means you made an exact parallel universe copy of that scene, then squished it into a two dimensional canvas.” Twilight glanced over at the crowd, still frozen in their battle pose. “That means that canvas is now a pocket dimension, and there’s an exact copy of all our friends and neighbors frozen in it.”
Starlight let out a nervous whinny. “I didn’t mean to do that! I just wanted my lines to be straight!” She glanced at the canvas, then the frozen crowd. She lit up her horn again, and the magic holding the crowd together disappeared all at once. Thirty two ponies tumbled in a heap down the happy little hill into the happy little riverbed.
The ponies in the painting, however, didn’t budge.
“Why can’t they move?” Starlight asked. “They’re not frozen anymore.”
“Have you ever tried to move in two dimensions?” Twilight asked.
“No.”
“Neither have they! They don’t know how! Nopony knows how!” Twilight inhaled her frappuccino in pure panic. “What are we going to do?”
Starlight suddenly stopped freaking out.
At first Twilight thought she’d somehow frozen herself. But as she looked on, a strange half-smile came over Starlight’s face.
“What? What is it? Did you figure a way to get them back?”
“Not really,” Starlight said. Her voice was slow and syrupy sweet.
“Then what should we do?”
Starlight turned to her suddenly. “We should put this in a museum.”
Twilight was momentarily too stunned to reply. “A museum? We have to help our friends!”
“Yes, we do. But until we find a way to help them, we can’t just toss a blanket over them and put them in an attic. We can’t destroy the canvas. We have to put it in a museum.”
“That’s... we...” Twilight grasped desperately for the rest of her sentence. “No. You’re not... We can’t put it in a museum.”
“Why not? Nopony knows paintings better than the curators at the Canterlot Metropolitan Art Gallery. They’ll know the answers for sure. And if they don’t, they’ll take expert care of the painting until we can figure out what to do.” She paused. “Maybe they’ll even display it.”
Twilight sucked up the last of her frappuccino and compressed the cup until it was a microscopic ball of carbonized ash.
A crowd of thirty two soaking wet, sore, unhappy little ponies passed them by, grumbling and mumbling and spitting curses.
“My art’s gonna be in a museum,” Starlight said to herself, beaming.
Well, they do say one has to suffer for their art. Or more than one in Glimmy's case.
This is also another entry that lacks an ending that really rounds up the whole story. Nevertheless, I found myself enjoying this one quite a lot. Starlight was charming the whole way through, and I was amused by Twilight's shock.
I still find it disquieting that we'll never know the fate of those new ponies in the pocket universe, but sacrifices must be made for the greater good.
Overall, though. Upper placement for sure. Well done.
This is also another entry that lacks an ending that really rounds up the whole story. Nevertheless, I found myself enjoying this one quite a lot. Starlight was charming the whole way through, and I was amused by Twilight's shock.
I still find it disquieting that we'll never know the fate of those new ponies in the pocket universe, but sacrifices must be made for the greater good.
Overall, though. Upper placement for sure. Well done.
I’ll be upfront and say this is one of the ones I least enjoyed, though I initially found it difficult to put into words exactly why. The writing is mostly sound on a technical level, and barring two instances I’ll get to later, there weren’t any glaring mistakes, per se. It might sound odd, and this is just my opinion, but trying to make your characterization of Starlight more rounded seems to be detrimental to the kind of comedy you’re going for, especially when confined to such a small word count. I hope I can do a decent job explaining my reasoning for this.
After my first read through, I initially thought it might be a Starlight bash fic even though I’m 100% positive it isn’t. Her logic for putting the painting in the museum makes enough sense, but her attitude towards it makes it seem like she cares more about her reputation than the ponies she may have hurt. I understand you were trying to play this for comedy—which is exactly what you should do—but it fell short because you didn’t fully embrace the absurdity of the situation. For example, it would have been better to give Twilight and Starlight completely opposite attitudes from the beginning, such as by having Twilight only care about the ponies while Starlight only cares about getting her art into a museum with no concern at all for those she trapped. Or you could go even further and have neither one care about the ponies and spend more time arguing with each other about artistic merit. Instead, Starlight is shown to care just enough about the ponies to make her apparent lackadaisical attitude towards them feel more like the actions of a caricature one might see in a bash fic (which isn’t helped by the sentence: “So, I found a few willing and consenting friends--” she shot the frozen crowd a withering glare). Looking at the word count, I think this could just be the result of you having to trim and compress quite a bit, and might not be what appears in your average writing.
The ending is also sudden, which seems to be a common side-effect of the word limit for most of these stories. That’s not to say the ending is bad; I actually think the last line is a good one to end on. However, the preceding paragraphs don’t feel at all like they’re leading to an ending, which gives the impression of dropping off a cliff before driving the last couple feet to the finish. Again, I think this is the result of the word limitation, so I’m fairly confident this isn’t a normal problem in your writing.
As for the two instances I mentioned above: The first one was Starlight throwing her “arms” around Twilight, which is a simple mistake with a simple fix. The second was the inconsistency with how the 3D ponies were frozen. At first, they were locked in place by magic, unable to move their jaws. Later, they can speak, but are holding their poses? Later again, they’re back to being locked in place before Starlight unfreezes them. Nothing too major.
There were things I did like about this story. I like the happy little repetition, and I really like the overall concept. Starlight accidentally makes living copies of ponies and traps them in a pocket dimension because she wanted her lines to be straight. It’s wonderfully absurd, which is right up my alley. I just don’t think the absurdity is given the treatment it deserves.
After my first read through, I initially thought it might be a Starlight bash fic even though I’m 100% positive it isn’t. Her logic for putting the painting in the museum makes enough sense, but her attitude towards it makes it seem like she cares more about her reputation than the ponies she may have hurt. I understand you were trying to play this for comedy—which is exactly what you should do—but it fell short because you didn’t fully embrace the absurdity of the situation. For example, it would have been better to give Twilight and Starlight completely opposite attitudes from the beginning, such as by having Twilight only care about the ponies while Starlight only cares about getting her art into a museum with no concern at all for those she trapped. Or you could go even further and have neither one care about the ponies and spend more time arguing with each other about artistic merit. Instead, Starlight is shown to care just enough about the ponies to make her apparent lackadaisical attitude towards them feel more like the actions of a caricature one might see in a bash fic (which isn’t helped by the sentence: “So, I found a few willing and consenting friends--” she shot the frozen crowd a withering glare). Looking at the word count, I think this could just be the result of you having to trim and compress quite a bit, and might not be what appears in your average writing.
The ending is also sudden, which seems to be a common side-effect of the word limit for most of these stories. That’s not to say the ending is bad; I actually think the last line is a good one to end on. However, the preceding paragraphs don’t feel at all like they’re leading to an ending, which gives the impression of dropping off a cliff before driving the last couple feet to the finish. Again, I think this is the result of the word limitation, so I’m fairly confident this isn’t a normal problem in your writing.
As for the two instances I mentioned above: The first one was Starlight throwing her “arms” around Twilight, which is a simple mistake with a simple fix. The second was the inconsistency with how the 3D ponies were frozen. At first, they were locked in place by magic, unable to move their jaws. Later, they can speak, but are holding their poses? Later again, they’re back to being locked in place before Starlight unfreezes them. Nothing too major.
There were things I did like about this story. I like the happy little repetition, and I really like the overall concept. Starlight accidentally makes living copies of ponies and traps them in a pocket dimension because she wanted her lines to be straight. It’s wonderfully absurd, which is right up my alley. I just don’t think the absurdity is given the treatment it deserves.
This was fun! Me likey. I only wanted to bring up one thing, which is the reveal.
So, we don't really get anchored into Starlight's or Twilight's perspective in this story, and for something slice-of-lifey and comedy-y like this, that's not that important. Comedies are omniscient all the time. But the narrator shouldn't be figuring stuff out moments before our two leads do.
When Twilight approaches the painting, we essentially hunker down into her perspective, and when the painting is revealed to be screaming, she says "no harm, no foul". Wait, wh—Twilight! It's screaming! Much harm, many foul!
And then there's a second reveal in the next paragraph, when Twilight catches up, but we've already heard that it's screaming. Why is she second in line?
Here's the thing: The line "The canvas was also screaming very quietly." as its own separate paragraph, is the perfect reveal. Shit's funny. The moment that line is read is the moment Twilight should be leaping backwards.
And sorry to harp on this, but that joke is the fulcrum of the whole story. I'd argue it's as important as the opening, for a story like this.
THAT'S ALL FROM ME HOPE I'M HELPFUL GOOD LUCK IN THE CONTEST
Twilight took a closer look at the painting. The crowd of stylized friends and neighbors marched in perfect lock-step, driving spears through Discord’s paint-splotch heart.
The canvas was also screaming very quietly.
“Well, no harm, no foul,” Twilight said with a shrug. “Congratulations Starlight! I don’t know how the painter’s guild will react to being made redundant, but if they survived the invention of the camera, I’m sure they’ll survive you.” Twilight turned around, took a long, gratifying sip of her ultra-refined-sugar-and-a-little-bit-of-coffee drink, readjusted her bag on her shoulder, stopped, frowned, and turned around. “Wait.”
She marched back over to the painting and put her ear to the canvas. Sure enough, she heard a tiny, high-pitched chorus of screams coming from the canvas.
Twilight leapt back.
So, we don't really get anchored into Starlight's or Twilight's perspective in this story, and for something slice-of-lifey and comedy-y like this, that's not that important. Comedies are omniscient all the time. But the narrator shouldn't be figuring stuff out moments before our two leads do.
When Twilight approaches the painting, we essentially hunker down into her perspective, and when the painting is revealed to be screaming, she says "no harm, no foul". Wait, wh—Twilight! It's screaming! Much harm, many foul!
And then there's a second reveal in the next paragraph, when Twilight catches up, but we've already heard that it's screaming. Why is she second in line?
Here's the thing: The line "The canvas was also screaming very quietly." as its own separate paragraph, is the perfect reveal. Shit's funny. The moment that line is read is the moment Twilight should be leaping backwards.
And sorry to harp on this, but that joke is the fulcrum of the whole story. I'd argue it's as important as the opening, for a story like this.
THAT'S ALL FROM ME HOPE I'M HELPFUL GOOD LUCK IN THE CONTEST
I love when Starlight unintentionally commits war crimes and/or grievous affronts to life as we know it, so full credit for premise and execution. As someone who struggles with basic artistic actions like straight lines and rudimentary shapes myself, I completely sympathize with her desires and would absolutely abuse magic to get the job done if I could.
Good comedy between Twilight Glimmer and Starlight Sparkle (that's a joke for Ember) and a solid entry all around. Now excuse me while I learn to make a frapp at 3 AM.
Good comedy between Twilight Glimmer and Starlight Sparkle (that's a joke for Ember) and a solid entry all around. Now excuse me while I learn to make a frapp at 3 AM.
>>Miller Minus You're always helpful, buddy! Nothing but love :) Thank you for your critique.