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A very nice fic with a wonderful in depth characterisation of both protagonists. Kudos.
My only quibble would be the end which felt somewhat rushed and contrived to me (from the scene where Rarity has a brainwave seeing the old portrait, and even before: how would Harshwinney guess the painting would inspire Rarity?). I don't understand the point of Rainbow Dash barging into the story and getting away as fast. But aside of that, great job, another one that makes me realise how crippled I am w/r to the majority here.
My only quibble would be the end which felt somewhat rushed and contrived to me (from the scene where Rarity has a brainwave seeing the old portrait, and even before: how would Harshwinney guess the painting would inspire Rarity?). I don't understand the point of Rainbow Dash barging into the story and getting away as fast. But aside of that, great job, another one that makes me realise how crippled I am w/r to the majority here.
Most of this was lost on me, and I felt like I was missing the joke. Turns out I was, since I had no idea until I got to the comments that it was a crossover-thingie (and no, I didn't click the link in the text, nor would I have understood it if I had). So I'm not convinced the story stood on its own two feet. Then again, I'm clearly not the intended audience.
By the way, I did get a folder for this event created in the FIMFiction Writeoff group. Add your story there if you've edited and published it!
(If you're not able to add your story, make sure you're a member of the Fimfiction Writeoff group, and bug me so I can make you a group contributor. We had to lock down submissions a while back because we were getting spammed with story additions that weren't written for the Writeoff prompts.)
(If you're not able to add your story, make sure you're a member of the Fimfiction Writeoff group, and bug me so I can make you a group contributor. We had to lock down submissions a while back because we were getting spammed with story additions that weren't written for the Writeoff prompts.)
Okay, that's a BIG grab for plot and explanation here. So yeah, points for reach, but the execution needs some work. The overall idea is actually pretty cool, with a fairly concrete explanation for some of Equestrian lore. However, a lot more goes missing. As others pointed out, a lot of the technical details simply don't work. The timeline is all wrong, as either ponies like Granny Smith must be mind-wiped, or it doesn't make sense.
As Bugle points out, H.G. Wells is also a horrible choice. I mean, sure, slight "The Time Machine" vibes from the scene itself, but beyond that, he's just "some english bloke" and not THE H.G. Wells. Better to just have unknown dude there.
The story also feels a bit fractured. The first bit, with Twilight and Celestia talking, flows rather naturally, and for a good portion of the story. The flashback bit is almost another story entirely, and feels forced into the framing. It might be better to pick one settings or the other, and not try to mash the two.
All that said, I still think it's a fun idea, and with a fair bit of work to polish up the middle bits (especially lining up timelines coherently) it could be a lot stronger. Decent, but as only one of two scifi entries on my slate, I have to say it falls somewhere short of Slingshot.
As Bugle points out, H.G. Wells is also a horrible choice. I mean, sure, slight "The Time Machine" vibes from the scene itself, but beyond that, he's just "some english bloke" and not THE H.G. Wells. Better to just have unknown dude there.
The story also feels a bit fractured. The first bit, with Twilight and Celestia talking, flows rather naturally, and for a good portion of the story. The flashback bit is almost another story entirely, and feels forced into the framing. It might be better to pick one settings or the other, and not try to mash the two.
All that said, I still think it's a fun idea, and with a fair bit of work to polish up the middle bits (especially lining up timelines coherently) it could be a lot stronger. Decent, but as only one of two scifi entries on my slate, I have to say it falls somewhere short of Slingshot.
This was scrumptious. Living in a family where almost everyone teaches/has taught, it couldn’t not tug on my heartstrings. Top of my slate, beats Slingshot.
When I read this and Slingshot I can't help but being dwarved. Those are so much better than anything I will ever be able to write…
Kudos once again!
When I read this and Slingshot I can't help but being dwarved. Those are so much better than anything I will ever be able to write…
Kudos once again!
>>Monokeras
I felt the same way for a really long time, and it led to me aping or mimicking other popular stories and authors in an attempt to catch some of their mojo. My writing was worse for it.
Take it from me, comparing yourself is not healthy. Strike out and do your own thing; keep soaking up the feedback and the criticism; hone your skills, but don't get yourself down because you don't think you'll ever measure up to someone else.
When I read this and Slingshot I can't help but being dwarved. Those are so much better than anything I will ever be able to write…
I felt the same way for a really long time, and it led to me aping or mimicking other popular stories and authors in an attempt to catch some of their mojo. My writing was worse for it.
Take it from me, comparing yourself is not healthy. Strike out and do your own thing; keep soaking up the feedback and the criticism; hone your skills, but don't get yourself down because you don't think you'll ever measure up to someone else.
There's only one real flaw with this story. >>horizon says it quite well, but he failed to outright state the problem: This story needs a sex joke at the end. Somewhere between Luna returning to Celestia and Luna offering to bake a lemon chiffon pie, there is a missing sex joke. That's it. I'd elaborate why, but it's already been said better than I could.
Anyways, I seriously enjoyed both types of comedy here. Just don't forget that even if Luna's heart grew three sizes that day, she still didn't get any sex.
>>Bad Horse I believe it's meant to be transitional. (?) The problem is that romantic love doesn't exactly make lust disappear. A similar story might have the main character continue interjecting a small number of sex jokes even during the part when being pulled fully under sway of romanticism. After the dinner with the Apple family, Luna makes the sensible decision to not make sex jokes. In the similar-yet-different hypothetical story, what would happen is that after the scene of full-on common-folk homespun-ness, sexual comedy would come back in full force only to be defeated by romanticism. Then the return, where the protagonist demonstrates the change by baking a pie. But this is not a story where romantic love defeats lust. They are not in opposition here, as this is not a story where one force defeats the other. The story merely transitions from one style of comedy to another. Hence the need for a sex joke at the denouncement. (See?)
Anyways, I seriously enjoyed both types of comedy here. Just don't forget that even if Luna's heart grew three sizes that day, she still didn't get any sex.
>>Bad Horse I believe it's meant to be transitional. (?) The problem is that romantic love doesn't exactly make lust disappear. A similar story might have the main character continue interjecting a small number of sex jokes even during the part when being pulled fully under sway of romanticism. After the dinner with the Apple family, Luna makes the sensible decision to not make sex jokes. In the similar-yet-different hypothetical story, what would happen is that after the scene of full-on common-folk homespun-ness, sexual comedy would come back in full force only to be defeated by romanticism. Then the return, where the protagonist demonstrates the change by baking a pie. But this is not a story where romantic love defeats lust. They are not in opposition here, as this is not a story where one force defeats the other. The story merely transitions from one style of comedy to another. Hence the need for a sex joke at the denouncement. (See?)
Alright, I can't afford the time this week to do reviews of the finalists, but I want to at least call out some good writing with a quick rundown of my top five-plus-one. I'm also going to turn this into a bit of a predictions post, based on the review feedback so far.
From the top:
Slingshot – This is not the most solidly written story this round — as basically everyone notes, it's got some rough blocks of exposition and early technobabble — but it's extremely ambitious (hard pony sci-fi!), and despite that headwind it feels like it sticks a tricky landing both emotionally and technically, with mind-blowing ideas. I suspect that as a sci-fi fan I'm overlooking its flaws, but I don't care, because I loved reading it too much.
Where I think it'll place: It's getting gobs of medal buzz, but I'll call it for silver; see below.
(edit: I feel like I should note that I did NOT put this at the top because I think my story was this round's best, but as camouflage because, as my past voting record shows, I'm the sort of reader who would normally disproportionately like it. -h)
Solitude for the Modern Businessmare — In any just universe, I wouldn't have to choose between sweet, lush Harshwhinny crackshipping and hard sci-fi for the top of my slate. Why couldn't you have submitted these in different rounds? :raritydespair: This digs deep into both of its characters at fresh and surprising angles with authentic details; Rarity's dilemma is marvelous, its solution feels natural, and I will even spot you the ridiculous headcanon of Harshwhinny as the master of unlocking because all the weirdness just coheres so well.
Where I think it'll place: Fourth, dragged down by the more-objective opinions of the mass ofpoopyheads readers who can't accept this little slice of beautiful insanity as an OTP; the review feedback has been generally positive but more subdued.
Bonitatem Doce Me — Previously reviewed. Neither I nor anyone else seems to have any critiques on this; publish immediately. It drifted down my slate only because I make a point of rewarding stories that succeed despite taking risks; it's hard to write something that is both outrageous and solid, and both of my top picks pressed that button hard for me.
Where I think it'll place: Gold medal. There's more medal buzz about Slingshot, but everyone agrees on the quality of the execution here, and I think it will score higher on Slingshot-topped slates than Sllingshot (with its occasional lukewarm reception) will score on Bonitatem-topped slates.
The Stratospheric Council — This feels repetitive in the pegasi's uncompromising power games, but is carried by strong characterization and details, and uplifted by a natural turn to the great princess scene and then a tonally and narratively perfect ending. Daring worldbuilding; could have made a play for my top spots with a tightened-up (or more varied) middle.
Where I think it'll place: Given the ambivalent-but-positive response, let's say around 6th place.
Fire in the Promised Land — It feels unfair of me to unfavorably compare this to The Instruments Of Our Surrender, but the two felt so similar that I wasn't able to read through this without mentally comparing them beat-for-beat. I'm really trying to be objective about ignoring that, because I don't think stories from outside this Writeoff round should affect my scoring. What should: This is strong writing with vividly realized history, and even though it feels more like a moment in time than a story arc, its images are stuck in my brain. My biggest hesitation is that I'm having a lot of trouble squaring it with the canon depiction of Platinum as one of the villains of Hearth's Warming, fomenting divisions after they migrated to Equestria which had to be patched by Clover et.al., and I'm not finding any signs of an AU; I keep having my expectations of Platinum blithely broken, which I think is the root of the reviewer complaints about her being too liberal.
Where I think it'll place: The feedback on this one (aside from the Platinum complaints) is oddly elusive in its vague positivity, so it's hard to gauge the audience, but I suspect that I am undervaluing it relative to the average reader. So I'll say it's going to pull a bronze.
The Concubine or How Luna Got Her Groove Back — Previously reviewed, but the more I thought about this story, the less the tonal shift bothered me; it ended up drifting upward toward my Top Contenders, barely edging out Opal, Gemstones etc.
Where I think it'll place: Feedback is all over the place, which means that voting is probably also all over the place, which suggests a mid-range score: 7th and Most Controversial.
From the top:
Slingshot – This is not the most solidly written story this round — as basically everyone notes, it's got some rough blocks of exposition and early technobabble — but it's extremely ambitious (hard pony sci-fi!), and despite that headwind it feels like it sticks a tricky landing both emotionally and technically, with mind-blowing ideas. I suspect that as a sci-fi fan I'm overlooking its flaws, but I don't care, because I loved reading it too much.
Where I think it'll place: It's getting gobs of medal buzz, but I'll call it for silver; see below.
(edit: I feel like I should note that I did NOT put this at the top because I think my story was this round's best, but as camouflage because, as my past voting record shows, I'm the sort of reader who would normally disproportionately like it. -h)
Solitude for the Modern Businessmare — In any just universe, I wouldn't have to choose between sweet, lush Harshwhinny crackshipping and hard sci-fi for the top of my slate. Why couldn't you have submitted these in different rounds? :raritydespair: This digs deep into both of its characters at fresh and surprising angles with authentic details; Rarity's dilemma is marvelous, its solution feels natural, and I will even spot you the ridiculous headcanon of Harshwhinny as the master of unlocking because all the weirdness just coheres so well.
Where I think it'll place: Fourth, dragged down by the more-objective opinions of the mass of
Bonitatem Doce Me — Previously reviewed. Neither I nor anyone else seems to have any critiques on this; publish immediately. It drifted down my slate only because I make a point of rewarding stories that succeed despite taking risks; it's hard to write something that is both outrageous and solid, and both of my top picks pressed that button hard for me.
Where I think it'll place: Gold medal. There's more medal buzz about Slingshot, but everyone agrees on the quality of the execution here, and I think it will score higher on Slingshot-topped slates than Sllingshot (with its occasional lukewarm reception) will score on Bonitatem-topped slates.
The Stratospheric Council — This feels repetitive in the pegasi's uncompromising power games, but is carried by strong characterization and details, and uplifted by a natural turn to the great princess scene and then a tonally and narratively perfect ending. Daring worldbuilding; could have made a play for my top spots with a tightened-up (or more varied) middle.
Where I think it'll place: Given the ambivalent-but-positive response, let's say around 6th place.
Fire in the Promised Land — It feels unfair of me to unfavorably compare this to The Instruments Of Our Surrender, but the two felt so similar that I wasn't able to read through this without mentally comparing them beat-for-beat. I'm really trying to be objective about ignoring that, because I don't think stories from outside this Writeoff round should affect my scoring. What should: This is strong writing with vividly realized history, and even though it feels more like a moment in time than a story arc, its images are stuck in my brain. My biggest hesitation is that I'm having a lot of trouble squaring it with the canon depiction of Platinum as one of the villains of Hearth's Warming, fomenting divisions after they migrated to Equestria which had to be patched by Clover et.al., and I'm not finding any signs of an AU; I keep having my expectations of Platinum blithely broken, which I think is the root of the reviewer complaints about her being too liberal.
Where I think it'll place: The feedback on this one (aside from the Platinum complaints) is oddly elusive in its vague positivity, so it's hard to gauge the audience, but I suspect that I am undervaluing it relative to the average reader. So I'll say it's going to pull a bronze.
The Concubine or How Luna Got Her Groove Back — Previously reviewed, but the more I thought about this story, the less the tonal shift bothered me; it ended up drifting upward toward my Top Contenders, barely edging out Opal, Gemstones etc.
Where I think it'll place: Feedback is all over the place, which means that voting is probably also all over the place, which suggests a mid-range score: 7th and Most Controversial.
I'll start by saying there's an interesting story to be told here, but I feel it wasn't told very well in this case. First off, the lead in is very, very slow. Glacial even. We don't get to the hook until around 1/3 of the way through, when the "beware the sun and moon" thing is finally translated. Now, it was a pretty awesome moment/hook, but it came far too late.
The next problem is, as others pointed out, the back and forth scene changes really slow down the pace and disrupt things, without serving any real purpose. Twilight's conversation isn't a thread that's weaving in with the historical stuff, and she remains ignorant to the end. You could literally cut out all of the "teatime" scene with Twilight, and it'd still be the same story.
Lastly, after the hook, the story goes almost no where. We get the shock of "Celestia destroyed entire races!" and then at the end, we learn nothing more about it, except, maybe, she did it to protect. There are far, far too many words here for such a simple reveal.
In summary, I think you've got a really cool concept here, and the shock value of the reveal is great fun. But it needs more than that one punch to make the story work end to end.
The next problem is, as others pointed out, the back and forth scene changes really slow down the pace and disrupt things, without serving any real purpose. Twilight's conversation isn't a thread that's weaving in with the historical stuff, and she remains ignorant to the end. You could literally cut out all of the "teatime" scene with Twilight, and it'd still be the same story.
Lastly, after the hook, the story goes almost no where. We get the shock of "Celestia destroyed entire races!" and then at the end, we learn nothing more about it, except, maybe, she did it to protect. There are far, far too many words here for such a simple reveal.
In summary, I think you've got a really cool concept here, and the shock value of the reveal is great fun. But it needs more than that one punch to make the story work end to end.
So, one of my standard-issue complaints is often "this story doesn't really go anywhere" and this one fits that description as well. However, it absolutely works in this case! I started reading, and immediately fell in love with the characters, as it's hard not to love an overly cute griffon cub and a loving brother.
The basic premise, of getting your mark without remembering it... that's pretty powerful as well. This actually leads to my only real complaint for the story though, and that's that I feel the ending was a bit weak. I wanted to see some much strong "discovery" of its meaning to tie the story together. Love/Loyalty for even your adopted (scrapbooked) family is nice and all, but that's not a discovery. The whole story clearly showed he loved his family and they loved him. By leaving the "reveal" to the end, it actually feels like it cheapens that to me.
Overall though, I was smiling nearly the entire time I was reading, so this is still a winner in my book. I'm reminded strongly of the movie Boyhood, which also "went nowhere" but was none-the-less a poignant slice of life and coming of age story. Here though, you've done it in a fashion that is uniquely and wonderfully "pony."
The basic premise, of getting your mark without remembering it... that's pretty powerful as well. This actually leads to my only real complaint for the story though, and that's that I feel the ending was a bit weak. I wanted to see some much strong "discovery" of its meaning to tie the story together. Love/Loyalty for even your adopted (scrapbooked) family is nice and all, but that's not a discovery. The whole story clearly showed he loved his family and they loved him. By leaving the "reveal" to the end, it actually feels like it cheapens that to me.
Overall though, I was smiling nearly the entire time I was reading, so this is still a winner in my book. I'm reminded strongly of the movie Boyhood, which also "went nowhere" but was none-the-less a poignant slice of life and coming of age story. Here though, you've done it in a fashion that is uniquely and wonderfully "pony."
Oh, my. Is Skywriter in this round? No, Skywriter is not in this round. I don't recall seeing this much precision and creativity in conveying what a character was feeling from anyone else. Every paragraph is beautiful and specific. This is going to be my #1 pick. And it is a story, though not one I can summarize now at 2 in the morning. In fact, I wish the author would explain why this is a story, because I know it is, but I can't say why. Nothing significant has changed--we might be shipping Harshity or Rarewhinny now, though I'd say that's unclear--but I don't feel like the ship is the focus. I don't think "find romance and your life will feel fulfilling again" is the best reading.
Nitpick: "Back at the atelier above Canterlot boutique,"--I assumed Ms Harsh had left. Being told several paragraphs later, after Rarity had been doing things one wouldn't do while a guest was visiting, it was jarring to be informed that she had been there earlier in the scene.
Also, the Rainbow Dash scene is a little rough. And there are a couple of sentences with a missing word or two.
Nitpick: "Back at the atelier above Canterlot boutique,"--I assumed Ms Harsh had left. Being told several paragraphs later, after Rarity had been doing things one wouldn't do while a guest was visiting, it was jarring to be informed that she had been there earlier in the scene.
Also, the Rainbow Dash scene is a little rough. And there are a couple of sentences with a missing word or two.
A quick note to the author:
I hadn't read this story in time to record the podcast, so I'm sorry you won't get to hear me praise this the way I have praised some other stories this round. I would just like you to know that this is absolutely on par with Solitude for me, and quite possibly my new favourite to win—this was an absolute delight to read, and let's just say I am very glad that I keep a whole box of tissues on my desk. Thank you!
—Quill
I hadn't read this story in time to record the podcast, so I'm sorry you won't get to hear me praise this the way I have praised some other stories this round. I would just like you to know that this is absolutely on par with Solitude for me, and quite possibly my new favourite to win—this was an absolute delight to read, and let's just say I am very glad that I keep a whole box of tissues on my desk. Thank you!
—Quill
Post by
QuillScratch
, deleted
>>Cold in Gardez >>Xepher
Oh I love you two so much right now.
This story was written as satire of sadfics, everything I hate about the genre, why they work anyway, and how they tend to do critically well in spite of it.
I took literally the most retread, worst, most boring initial concept I could think of with only one rule in mind: "Make it sadder".
There's enough of a framing device and background, linear plot to justify the progression, but not enough that you're punished for skipping an entire pony you don't care about.
The fact that this is now the best I've ever performed in a Writeoff is... something I'm going to need to go and reflect on.
Oh I love you two so much right now.
This story was written as satire of sadfics, everything I hate about the genre, why they work anyway, and how they tend to do critically well in spite of it.
I took literally the most retread, worst, most boring initial concept I could think of with only one rule in mind: "Make it sadder".
There's enough of a framing device and background, linear plot to justify the progression, but not enough that you're punished for skipping an entire pony you don't care about.
The fact that this is now the best I've ever performed in a Writeoff is... something I'm going to need to go and reflect on.
Poor Butler, having to work for Spoiled & Filthy.
But compared to his poor soul of a brother, he is no doubt living the high life. I hear Mr. Archer is a royal pain.
But compared to his poor soul of a brother, he is no doubt living the high life. I hear Mr. Archer is a royal pain.
I totally missed this Writeoff but I checked in to see the results and skim some finalists.
This is gold. Seriously, it's engrossing and perfect.
Please go put this on FimFiction so I can fave it.
This is gold. Seriously, it's engrossing and perfect.
Please go put this on FimFiction so I can fave it.
I'd agree in dropping H.G. Wells - make him an acquaintance of some kind of our scientist here. Make the scientist the source of inspiration.
The other bit is I'd say the timeline here is troublesome. I get /why/ 120 years, but if Luna has been gone only 40 years - well, if ponies have the lifespan and such of normal horses, it works. Otherwise it's troublesome. Especially when you factor Discord in.
My suggestion? Use time-lengthening. Once the veil is repaired, Equestria runs faster - 200 years with Luna being gone a century is adequately long enough. Or just have her leave in 1815; I mean you're going steampunk-ey anyhow, so having her depart 80 years earlier fixes the problems as well.
Lastly, curious - You have her quoting Neil Gaiman. Is she snaring earth books from the modern era?
The other bit is I'd say the timeline here is troublesome. I get /why/ 120 years, but if Luna has been gone only 40 years - well, if ponies have the lifespan and such of normal horses, it works. Otherwise it's troublesome. Especially when you factor Discord in.
My suggestion? Use time-lengthening. Once the veil is repaired, Equestria runs faster - 200 years with Luna being gone a century is adequately long enough. Or just have her leave in 1815; I mean you're going steampunk-ey anyhow, so having her depart 80 years earlier fixes the problems as well.
Lastly, curious - You have her quoting Neil Gaiman. Is she snaring earth books from the modern era?
>>horizon
I couldn't be happier to be wrong about Solitude's medal chances, and I couldn't be happier to be right about Bonitatem's placement. Great jobs, Posh and Fahrenheit! Very well-deserved gold and silvers.
I'm also grateful that despite its flaws, everyone mostly enjoyed Slingshot. I'm still stunned at how it fell together so quickly.
Slingshot - The Retrospective
The direct inspiration for this story was my Hugo Awards reading; I've been going through the novels for my ballot, and had recently finished Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. That story is hard SF about some force blowing up the moon, and humanity's scramble to assemble a space colony on short notice that will allow the human race to survive in orbit for 5000 years before returning to the ruined Earth's surface. So of course I had a whimsy about writing pony hard SF about surviving some sort of existential astronomical threat -- except pretty much any apocalypse scenario you can name can be foiled by the canonical ability of alicorns to move the sun and moon, not to mention that that ability breaks physics so hard you guys. So I quickly realized that the answer wasn't to dance around the cheap OP-ness of celestial manipulation, but to invent a disaster so extreme that it was the only solution. Hence the ring shockwave from the galactic core (which is, er, sort of scientifically indefensible as space explosions are spherical), and the need to flee it using the violation of physics as a free energy source for gravitational acceleration. Various story elements slotted themselves into place as I wrote it: Luna going crazy from the screams of the stars, the use of stars for initial momentum and the trajectory change, the pseudoscience of unicornium (gah, still hate that name) and the higher-dimensional handwave of the free energy, the cosmic billiards of sacrificing the moon to obtain a chunk of sun, etc. The extrapolation of various characters into the future was relatively easy from there, though I'm kind of proud of my Alicorn of Communication.
I intended the first scene as an Immortality Angst head-fake, with it being apparently obvious that Celestia was dying along with the sun getting really weak, until suddenly the actual sun rises and what the hell horizon, and then the weird clues that they were happy suddenly seem meaningful, and I get to spend the rest of the story backfilling context. (The scene with Twilight and Spike, by contrast, was intended as actual Immortality Angst, as an ironic echo, and I'm surprised nobody commented on that.) I intended the opening as deliberately buzzword-happy, as my fastest way of setting expectations and establishing that This Is Science Fiction in a Writeoff context, but that seems to have backfired some; I'll tone it way down.
The science here is a combination of Actual Math and vague hoofwaving, though I'm trying in editing to steer it toward more of the former. Our nearest galaxy actually is 2.5 million light-years away, and I heavily abused the Relativistic Starship Calculator for my numbers; time dilation actually would make for a 2000-year trip if they were able to accelerate/decelerate at 0.01 G the whole way.
Hoofwavey things that I am sciencing more in my edits:
- To get Shard close enough for a constant 0.01G acceleration (which is to say, a constant 0.02G acceleration half the time when Shard is in front of Equestria), the tidal forces on the planet would be cranked up by a factor of over 1000x -- high tides would go from five feet high to a towering mile-high wall of water. :twilightoops: So in the revised story, they are also freezing the oceans solid before they start their trip, which also gives me a convenient excuse to explain Discord's absence (he volunteered, and sacrificed himself in the process of channeling that much energy).
- Slingshotting around Alphys, sadly, makes no mathematical sense; by the time they get there, they're already going fast enough that the speed boost of the gravity assist is infinitesemal, and the trajectory change requires either A) that they slow down so dramatically that the wave overtakes them, or B) that they get so close that the G-forces wrack the planet into dust. So I'm going to let the initial boost from their sun and the ongoing assist carry the title. The trajectory change is easy enough to accomplish simply by having Shard pull them sideways instead of forward for a while.
- I can't come up with a plausible enough reason to have a ring-wave from the galactic core disaster, so it's just a 3-d shockwave now made up of cosmic rays moving at 0.9c, and the solution is no longer dodging it but simply going faster than it. It only takes a decade or two, at those accelerations, to reach 0.9c, so accelerating straight away from the galactic core until they're at that speed, and then continuing to accelerate from there in any outward direction, will keep them alive. By the time the shockwave reaches Hope's galaxy, it should be survivable, because it deteriorates with the cube of distance (giving them a reduction in magnitude of about 10^6 of the energy delivered). And even if not, due to the time-dilation differences, they've bought themselves thousands upon thousands of years to work out another escape route.
- Actual travel at such massive fractions of the speed of light is ridiculously deadly, which fortunately Equestrian mages are uniquely suited to deal with (setting up a particle deflector shield in front of their path which teleports stray matter behind the planet before they hit it).
I'm also trying to make the science friendlier, including seeing if I can deliver it as a lecture/speech rather than exposition, though I don't know how much it's desirable to tone it down given the genre. In hard SF, showing your work (the science porn) is more or less the point.
A few specific responses:
>>billymorph
I'm expanding the section with Luna and bringing it more into present-time narrative from its current place as backdrop, which hopefully should help the "nothing happens" effect some, and I'll try to nudge it into a more active story in general.
>>Bad Horse
The absurd specificity wasn't meant to refer to the distance to Canterlot Castle as a whole, but as the actual distance she teleported in between her old location and her new location on Celestia's balcony. I've clarified this as best I can in my edits, but I intended it as a point of characterization of Twilight, who I think really would calculate it down to such a ludicrous number of significant digits.
And yes, the gravity assist is free energy; that's the only way to accelerate to such massive fractions of c. Given that I'm working with canon insisting that they can do it, I'm trying to handwave it and work with it.
>>FanOfMostEverything
Good eye, as the first to mention the hinted true identity of Hope.
>>Xepher
I'm definitely considering an epilogue with a clearer resolution of the meeting-the-aliens-or-not plotline. Maybe a message left for future generations on the Moon? Finding a Pioneer plaque or something? I'm not quite sure yet of the balance I'd want to strike with that.
Anyway, congratulations everyone on another good Writeoff round, and see you in a few weeks. ^.^
I couldn't be happier to be wrong about Solitude's medal chances, and I couldn't be happier to be right about Bonitatem's placement. Great jobs, Posh and Fahrenheit! Very well-deserved gold and silvers.
I'm also grateful that despite its flaws, everyone mostly enjoyed Slingshot. I'm still stunned at how it fell together so quickly.
Slingshot - The Retrospective
The direct inspiration for this story was my Hugo Awards reading; I've been going through the novels for my ballot, and had recently finished Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. That story is hard SF about some force blowing up the moon, and humanity's scramble to assemble a space colony on short notice that will allow the human race to survive in orbit for 5000 years before returning to the ruined Earth's surface. So of course I had a whimsy about writing pony hard SF about surviving some sort of existential astronomical threat -- except pretty much any apocalypse scenario you can name can be foiled by the canonical ability of alicorns to move the sun and moon, not to mention that that ability breaks physics so hard you guys. So I quickly realized that the answer wasn't to dance around the cheap OP-ness of celestial manipulation, but to invent a disaster so extreme that it was the only solution. Hence the ring shockwave from the galactic core (which is, er, sort of scientifically indefensible as space explosions are spherical), and the need to flee it using the violation of physics as a free energy source for gravitational acceleration. Various story elements slotted themselves into place as I wrote it: Luna going crazy from the screams of the stars, the use of stars for initial momentum and the trajectory change, the pseudoscience of unicornium (gah, still hate that name) and the higher-dimensional handwave of the free energy, the cosmic billiards of sacrificing the moon to obtain a chunk of sun, etc. The extrapolation of various characters into the future was relatively easy from there, though I'm kind of proud of my Alicorn of Communication.
I intended the first scene as an Immortality Angst head-fake, with it being apparently obvious that Celestia was dying along with the sun getting really weak, until suddenly the actual sun rises and what the hell horizon, and then the weird clues that they were happy suddenly seem meaningful, and I get to spend the rest of the story backfilling context. (The scene with Twilight and Spike, by contrast, was intended as actual Immortality Angst, as an ironic echo, and I'm surprised nobody commented on that.) I intended the opening as deliberately buzzword-happy, as my fastest way of setting expectations and establishing that This Is Science Fiction in a Writeoff context, but that seems to have backfired some; I'll tone it way down.
The science here is a combination of Actual Math and vague hoofwaving, though I'm trying in editing to steer it toward more of the former. Our nearest galaxy actually is 2.5 million light-years away, and I heavily abused the Relativistic Starship Calculator for my numbers; time dilation actually would make for a 2000-year trip if they were able to accelerate/decelerate at 0.01 G the whole way.
Hoofwavey things that I am sciencing more in my edits:
- To get Shard close enough for a constant 0.01G acceleration (which is to say, a constant 0.02G acceleration half the time when Shard is in front of Equestria), the tidal forces on the planet would be cranked up by a factor of over 1000x -- high tides would go from five feet high to a towering mile-high wall of water. :twilightoops: So in the revised story, they are also freezing the oceans solid before they start their trip, which also gives me a convenient excuse to explain Discord's absence (he volunteered, and sacrificed himself in the process of channeling that much energy).
- Slingshotting around Alphys, sadly, makes no mathematical sense; by the time they get there, they're already going fast enough that the speed boost of the gravity assist is infinitesemal, and the trajectory change requires either A) that they slow down so dramatically that the wave overtakes them, or B) that they get so close that the G-forces wrack the planet into dust. So I'm going to let the initial boost from their sun and the ongoing assist carry the title. The trajectory change is easy enough to accomplish simply by having Shard pull them sideways instead of forward for a while.
- I can't come up with a plausible enough reason to have a ring-wave from the galactic core disaster, so it's just a 3-d shockwave now made up of cosmic rays moving at 0.9c, and the solution is no longer dodging it but simply going faster than it. It only takes a decade or two, at those accelerations, to reach 0.9c, so accelerating straight away from the galactic core until they're at that speed, and then continuing to accelerate from there in any outward direction, will keep them alive. By the time the shockwave reaches Hope's galaxy, it should be survivable, because it deteriorates with the cube of distance (giving them a reduction in magnitude of about 10^6 of the energy delivered). And even if not, due to the time-dilation differences, they've bought themselves thousands upon thousands of years to work out another escape route.
- Actual travel at such massive fractions of the speed of light is ridiculously deadly, which fortunately Equestrian mages are uniquely suited to deal with (setting up a particle deflector shield in front of their path which teleports stray matter behind the planet before they hit it).
I'm also trying to make the science friendlier, including seeing if I can deliver it as a lecture/speech rather than exposition, though I don't know how much it's desirable to tone it down given the genre. In hard SF, showing your work (the science porn) is more or less the point.
A few specific responses:
>>billymorph
I'm expanding the section with Luna and bringing it more into present-time narrative from its current place as backdrop, which hopefully should help the "nothing happens" effect some, and I'll try to nudge it into a more active story in general.
>>Bad Horse
The absurd specificity wasn't meant to refer to the distance to Canterlot Castle as a whole, but as the actual distance she teleported in between her old location and her new location on Celestia's balcony. I've clarified this as best I can in my edits, but I intended it as a point of characterization of Twilight, who I think really would calculate it down to such a ludicrous number of significant digits.
And yes, the gravity assist is free energy; that's the only way to accelerate to such massive fractions of c. Given that I'm working with canon insisting that they can do it, I'm trying to handwave it and work with it.
>>FanOfMostEverything
Good eye, as the first to mention the hinted true identity of Hope.
>>Xepher
I'm definitely considering an epilogue with a clearer resolution of the meeting-the-aliens-or-not plotline. Maybe a message left for future generations on the Moon? Finding a Pioneer plaque or something? I'm not quite sure yet of the balance I'd want to strike with that.
Anyway, congratulations everyone on another good Writeoff round, and see you in a few weeks. ^.^
He Come to Town
Well, I made the finals and beat the other Nintendo crossover. That’s sort of a win. ;P
In all seriousness, I wrote this specifically to counterbalance the wave of doom and gloom I feared the prompt would bring, to end a more personal era and do it in a lighthearted manner. Also, I’ve been sitting on the idea almost since “Flutter Brutter” aired and this was the perfect opportunity to flesh it out. I added the Derpibooru link* to the start since, as was noted at the start of this round, not everyone’s up to date, and even those who are may not have noticed the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.
*For the record, I only realized the accidental pun there after submitting the story
The key problem is clear: I couldn’t decide how serious the story was supposed to be, and tonal inconsistency dragged it down as a result. Kind of ironic given my intentions going in, but I thought too much about it as I wrote it, which denatured the comedy as I explored the scenario with a more serious eye. It’s all well and good to consider the toll adventuring takes on one’s home life, but it blends poorly with getting chased by angry chickens. At least, it does here. I’m going to need to decide which direction I should take it in.
Another issue that I hadn’t noticed until the reviews started coming in is Brave Heart’s passivity and lack of agency. As I noted in my dummy review, that’s actually par for the course with Link, but that doesn’t make it good storytelling. Besides, short stories and video games are very different media, and what works in one doesn’t automatically work in the other. No, I’m going to need to give the ostensible protagonist of the story a bit more say in it.
On a related note, there’s Button Mash. Or, more accurately, there isn’t. Next Generation may use him as a rhetorical weapon, but he never actually shows up in the story. I considered a scene where the Crusaders speak with him during recess one day before they apologize to Brave, but scrapped it for fear that moving the narrative focus away from Brave Heart might prove disruptive. Somehow, a scene between father and son never occurred to me during the writing period. Definitely something I”ll need to include in the Fimfiction version.
In all, I definitely could’ve written better, but I didn’t really see how until I got a bunch of eyes on it. The Writeoff did its job, and now I can do mine. Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Congratulations to the medalists, and here's to next time. ^^
Well, I made the finals and beat the other Nintendo crossover. That’s sort of a win. ;P
In all seriousness, I wrote this specifically to counterbalance the wave of doom and gloom I feared the prompt would bring, to end a more personal era and do it in a lighthearted manner. Also, I’ve been sitting on the idea almost since “Flutter Brutter” aired and this was the perfect opportunity to flesh it out. I added the Derpibooru link* to the start since, as was noted at the start of this round, not everyone’s up to date, and even those who are may not have noticed the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.
*For the record, I only realized the accidental pun there after submitting the story
The key problem is clear: I couldn’t decide how serious the story was supposed to be, and tonal inconsistency dragged it down as a result. Kind of ironic given my intentions going in, but I thought too much about it as I wrote it, which denatured the comedy as I explored the scenario with a more serious eye. It’s all well and good to consider the toll adventuring takes on one’s home life, but it blends poorly with getting chased by angry chickens. At least, it does here. I’m going to need to decide which direction I should take it in.
Another issue that I hadn’t noticed until the reviews started coming in is Brave Heart’s passivity and lack of agency. As I noted in my dummy review, that’s actually par for the course with Link, but that doesn’t make it good storytelling. Besides, short stories and video games are very different media, and what works in one doesn’t automatically work in the other. No, I’m going to need to give the ostensible protagonist of the story a bit more say in it.
On a related note, there’s Button Mash. Or, more accurately, there isn’t. Next Generation may use him as a rhetorical weapon, but he never actually shows up in the story. I considered a scene where the Crusaders speak with him during recess one day before they apologize to Brave, but scrapped it for fear that moving the narrative focus away from Brave Heart might prove disruptive. Somehow, a scene between father and son never occurred to me during the writing period. Definitely something I”ll need to include in the Fimfiction version.
In all, I definitely could’ve written better, but I didn’t really see how until I got a bunch of eyes on it. The Writeoff did its job, and now I can do mine. Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Congratulations to the medalists, and here's to next time. ^^
>>horizon Slingshot was second on my slate, but I fully expected it to take the gold. I'm as surprised that it didn't as I am that Bonnie did.
I want to write a post on that, speaking of, but I'm still kind of floored, so give me a few hours to gather my thoughts. For now, two things.
One, let me publicly apologize to Zoey for "literally breaking [her] heart into multiple peices [sic]"
And two, let me shamelessly self promote! I posted the story with some minor edits and alterations to FIMfiction (just editing and formatting stuff, along with a slightly reworded line or two here and there), so if you wanna take a look, leave a comment, plug it to your friends and neighbors and clergy, then by all means do so. Here's the link.
I want to write a post on that, speaking of, but I'm still kind of floored, so give me a few hours to gather my thoughts. For now, two things.
One, let me publicly apologize to Zoey for "literally breaking [her] heart into multiple peices [sic]"
And two, let me shamelessly self promote! I posted the story with some minor edits and alterations to FIMfiction (just editing and formatting stuff, along with a slightly reworded line or two here and there), so if you wanna take a look, leave a comment, plug it to your friends and neighbors and clergy, then by all means do so. Here's the link.
>>MrNumbers
I'm glad to hear this was a satire.
I'm conflicted now, though. As a satire I'm fine with it doing well in the rankings -- however, we both know that's not why it did well. It did well because plenty of people were fine with it on its merits as a sadfic.
That's what has me down today.
I'm glad to hear this was a satire.
I'm conflicted now, though. As a satire I'm fine with it doing well in the rankings -- however, we both know that's not why it did well. It did well because plenty of people were fine with it on its merits as a sadfic.
That's what has me down today.
>>MrNumbers I'll be honest with you; I read it as a straight sadfic and didn't care for it. I abstained from voting when I saw how well it was doing with everyone else, though.
But I think I can appreciate it more as satire now that I know.
But I think I can appreciate it more as satire now that I know.
OK!
Now that I've got a free weekend, I can finally write the story I came up with when the prompt dropped two weeks ago! Better Nate than lever, as they say. :)
Mike
Now that I've got a free weekend, I can finally write the story I came up with when the prompt dropped two weeks ago! Better Nate than lever, as they say. :)
Mike
>>horizon
A few comment-things:
1. Put Discord into hibernation or something rather than killing him. Like 'The strain of holding the oceans frozen for 2000 years has him in sympathetic stasis' or something.
2. I have no idea if it's even viable - but the idea that the signals Luna gets aren't even intentional but one of our 'Hi, universe!" signals we went out would be an interesting take on it; thus, humanity saves Equestria completely by accident.
3. If it's intentional, it feels a lot like that Nicolas Cage Knowing movie, especially with Luna repeating number strings.
4. Definitely agree you want to add in a 'Here's what happened' ending for humanity. I am partial to them going the Stargate-Ancients route if you go more 'They saved them on purpose', and thus no Earth they find messages left for Ponykind to pick up their legacy.
...And you can totally then create Pony SG-1. Wait 100 years for Celestia & Luna to wake up. Twilight is Daniel Jackson, Luna Teal'c, Celestia O'Neill, and Cadance Carter. Flurry can be the base commander or something!
A few comment-things:
1. Put Discord into hibernation or something rather than killing him. Like 'The strain of holding the oceans frozen for 2000 years has him in sympathetic stasis' or something.
2. I have no idea if it's even viable - but the idea that the signals Luna gets aren't even intentional but one of our 'Hi, universe!" signals we went out would be an interesting take on it; thus, humanity saves Equestria completely by accident.
3. If it's intentional, it feels a lot like that Nicolas Cage Knowing movie, especially with Luna repeating number strings.
4. Definitely agree you want to add in a 'Here's what happened' ending for humanity. I am partial to them going the Stargate-Ancients route if you go more 'They saved them on purpose', and thus no Earth they find messages left for Ponykind to pick up their legacy.
...And you can totally then create Pony SG-1. Wait 100 years for Celestia & Luna to wake up. Twilight is Daniel Jackson, Luna Teal'c, Celestia O'Neill, and Cadance Carter. Flurry can be the base commander or something!
Alright, I think I've calmed down sufficiently to formulate a coherent response to the, uh. Medal. Thing.
Like I said in my first post, I've been out of the game for a while. Not just the fandom, but the game of writing in general. I left, and when I came back, the great wheel of FIMfiction had continued spinning quite well without me, and my own literary muscles (such as they are) had atrophied terribly. I entered the writeoff with two goals in mind: To get my name back out there (because, astonishingly, vanishing for two years is not the best way to maintain your readership), and to help shake off my rust.
I wasn't expecting to make it past the preliminaries with my entry. I wasn't expecting to make it in the top ten of the final round, and I certainly was not expecting to just flat-out earn the gold, especially given the competition (both Solitude and Slingshot are more accomplished stories than Bonnie, I feel). But waking up this morning and seeing Bonnie in the top spot was just... the best thing to wake up to, short of finding out that a bacon tree sprouted in my yard overnight.
I'm glad and gratified that it struck a chord with so many. Thank you for your praise and for your feedback. I've learned a lot from reading the other entries, from reading the critiques people posted to them, and from the ones people posted to my own, and I'm really looking forward to participating in this group more in the future.
Like I said in my first post, I've been out of the game for a while. Not just the fandom, but the game of writing in general. I left, and when I came back, the great wheel of FIMfiction had continued spinning quite well without me, and my own literary muscles (such as they are) had atrophied terribly. I entered the writeoff with two goals in mind: To get my name back out there (because, astonishingly, vanishing for two years is not the best way to maintain your readership), and to help shake off my rust.
I wasn't expecting to make it past the preliminaries with my entry. I wasn't expecting to make it in the top ten of the final round, and I certainly was not expecting to just flat-out earn the gold, especially given the competition (both Solitude and Slingshot are more accomplished stories than Bonnie, I feel). But waking up this morning and seeing Bonnie in the top spot was just... the best thing to wake up to, short of finding out that a bacon tree sprouted in my yard overnight.
I'm glad and gratified that it struck a chord with so many. Thank you for your praise and for your feedback. I've learned a lot from reading the other entries, from reading the critiques people posted to them, and from the ones people posted to my own, and I'm really looking forward to participating in this group more in the future.
>>MrNumbers
Honestly, if I had known that, this story would have been knocked down to near the bottom of my ballot. As satire, this story fails miserably. Even though I know that it's supposed to be satire, I still can't see it. When I read this story, all I see is a standard sadfic.
It takes more than just writing a sadfic ironically to make it satire. You need to write a story that is sad, but has an at least somewhat clear "this is stupid" message. If you wanted to do that, I would have recommended making the story about Luna instead walking through the Ponyville cemetery, remembering the lives and deaths of every single pony you can think of. It would be sad, but it would also be a bit ridiculous, and it would have a clear "everyone dies, so stop making such a big deal about it" message.
This story was written as satire of sadfics, everything I hate about the genre, why they work anyway, and how they tend to do critically well in spite of it.
Honestly, if I had known that, this story would have been knocked down to near the bottom of my ballot. As satire, this story fails miserably. Even though I know that it's supposed to be satire, I still can't see it. When I read this story, all I see is a standard sadfic.
It takes more than just writing a sadfic ironically to make it satire. You need to write a story that is sad, but has an at least somewhat clear "this is stupid" message. If you wanted to do that, I would have recommended making the story about Luna instead walking through the Ponyville cemetery, remembering the lives and deaths of every single pony you can think of. It would be sad, but it would also be a bit ridiculous, and it would have a clear "everyone dies, so stop making such a big deal about it" message.
Fire In The Promised Land is mine, as you now know. It is a brand-new opening chapter that goes with my stalled fic Twinkle Twinkle, Speaker to Dragons, which I hope will give me enough of a push to work my way through it. There are a couple of points I was hoping to pass along to readers, so let me Tell for a second here:
1) Peridot is the mare of the family, a ruling unicorn of a royal house, and is very used to giving orders, even to her husband. No worry about Women's Lib in this era.
2) Peridot is undergoing several changes: Fat to skinny, peaceful to violent, having a complete family to only having a husband and an illegitimate grandfoal on the way. Each change is chipping away a little bit of her, and turning her into a far different mare than she was originally. All of the ponies in the exodus are going through similar changes, including Princess Platinum, who went a little crazy with the loss of her father.
3) Obsidian has almost *zero* lines because he’s subservient to his wife and that’s his general nature, quiet and strong. This helps keep the focus on Peridot.
4) Twinkle Twinkle is weird, because she has damage to the amygdala in her brain (birth defect), causing a complete and total lack of fear as well as some other odd behaviors. This is only gently touched on, as it is not important in the first chapter of the story. It is later (note the clip I have below).
Let me address a few concerns:
I’m not a Steven Universe fan, so I really didn’t know how calling her Peridot was much like calling your fic’s magic school student Harry, or your vampire character Edward. I’ll consider changing the name, but I may not. I like it.
>>Xepher
>>Posh
Peridot being a Progressive. Um. Not really. Desperate measures for desperate times. When she does the oatmeal scene, she’s clutching to any family she can, after having lost two out of three of her foals. And she’s certainly not giving up her position.
>>Monokeras
Yes, it deserves an expansion. I’m working on it :)
>>FrontSevens
I’m working on the infodump, seeing how much of it can be pushed back to later without losing the reader. In a way I have to do quite a bit of dumping to set up the story, particularly with the dragon attack. In the story, Chapters 2-End will be in Twinkle’s POV exclusively.
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Bad Horse
Here we go into Egalitarianism again. Think of it as genetic capture. Willowbark is carrying in her womb one of only two surviving gene samples from her family. At the end of the chapter, she’s the *only* link to continuing their House (that Peridot can know for certain). Quickly counting down the list of things she is *not* doing that a Dark Ages feudal lord/lady might do in that situation: Remove Willowbark from her family and force her into theirs, either by lying about a wedding or simple decree. Order Willowbark’s family to sacrifice their own food/grazing in order to keep her healthy. Declare the child to be a member of the House without acknowledging the legitimacy of the mother.
In the end, she is doing the honorable thing regardless of tradition because she still has her honor, even though everything else is being taken from her. In the following chapters, her rather strange child will also confound dragonkind with these strange ideas and contrary behavior.
The nearest wagon where she could hide was too far for her to reach before the dragon would land, and it obviously could catch her no matter where she ran, so Twinkle Twinkle remained exactly where she was sitting, watching her last minutes with deliberate intent.
She had never been eaten by a dragon. It most likely would hurt, but it was not anything she could prevent. There was always the possibility of using a spell to suicide, but as they had started on their trip away from the frozen wasteland their home had become, Twinkle's mother was very insistent about that being the absolute last resort only when all other options had been eliminated. As the dragon opened its mouth, Twinkle Twinkle remained stationary, taking her last moment to study the dragon's teeth and throat structure. It reminded her of a lizard, except for the long, sharp teeth where most lizards had a lesser denture, more of a bony jaw with rough edges. There were actually three types of dragon teeth, which she really did not expect, and since the light was dim, she lit her horn up to get a better look.
"What are you doing?" The dragon pulled its head back, closed its mouth with a snap, and gave Twinkle Twinkle a nasty look, which was really saying something since the dragon's head was several times the size of the young pony, and there was a lot of space for nasty on that face. "Why aren't you running around screaming like the rest of them?"
"It wouldn't help," explained Twinkle. "You're much larger and faster than I am."
"Of course it wouldn't help!" snorted the dragon. "Do it anyway. Go on. I'll give you a head start."
"Why?" It was Twinkle's favorite word, and since she did not think she was going to use it much more, she saw no reason not to use it now.
"Because I can't eat you if you keep looking at me. Now go on. Run." The dragon snorted, and little wisps of flame crisped the dry grass at her hooves.
"That makes no sense at all," said Twinkle. "I don't want you to eat me, so logically I should stay here and keep looking at you."
1) Peridot is the mare of the family, a ruling unicorn of a royal house, and is very used to giving orders, even to her husband. No worry about Women's Lib in this era.
2) Peridot is undergoing several changes: Fat to skinny, peaceful to violent, having a complete family to only having a husband and an illegitimate grandfoal on the way. Each change is chipping away a little bit of her, and turning her into a far different mare than she was originally. All of the ponies in the exodus are going through similar changes, including Princess Platinum, who went a little crazy with the loss of her father.
3) Obsidian has almost *zero* lines because he’s subservient to his wife and that’s his general nature, quiet and strong. This helps keep the focus on Peridot.
4) Twinkle Twinkle is weird, because she has damage to the amygdala in her brain (birth defect), causing a complete and total lack of fear as well as some other odd behaviors. This is only gently touched on, as it is not important in the first chapter of the story. It is later (note the clip I have below).
Let me address a few concerns:
I’m not a Steven Universe fan, so I really didn’t know how calling her Peridot was much like calling your fic’s magic school student Harry, or your vampire character Edward. I’ll consider changing the name, but I may not. I like it.
>>Xepher
>>Posh
Peridot being a Progressive. Um. Not really. Desperate measures for desperate times. When she does the oatmeal scene, she’s clutching to any family she can, after having lost two out of three of her foals. And she’s certainly not giving up her position.
>>Monokeras
Yes, it deserves an expansion. I’m working on it :)
>>FrontSevens
I’m working on the infodump, seeing how much of it can be pushed back to later without losing the reader. In a way I have to do quite a bit of dumping to set up the story, particularly with the dragon attack. In the story, Chapters 2-End will be in Twinkle’s POV exclusively.
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Bad Horse
Here we go into Egalitarianism again. Think of it as genetic capture. Willowbark is carrying in her womb one of only two surviving gene samples from her family. At the end of the chapter, she’s the *only* link to continuing their House (that Peridot can know for certain). Quickly counting down the list of things she is *not* doing that a Dark Ages feudal lord/lady might do in that situation: Remove Willowbark from her family and force her into theirs, either by lying about a wedding or simple decree. Order Willowbark’s family to sacrifice their own food/grazing in order to keep her healthy. Declare the child to be a member of the House without acknowledging the legitimacy of the mother.
In the end, she is doing the honorable thing regardless of tradition because she still has her honor, even though everything else is being taken from her. In the following chapters, her rather strange child will also confound dragonkind with these strange ideas and contrary behavior.
The nearest wagon where she could hide was too far for her to reach before the dragon would land, and it obviously could catch her no matter where she ran, so Twinkle Twinkle remained exactly where she was sitting, watching her last minutes with deliberate intent.
She had never been eaten by a dragon. It most likely would hurt, but it was not anything she could prevent. There was always the possibility of using a spell to suicide, but as they had started on their trip away from the frozen wasteland their home had become, Twinkle's mother was very insistent about that being the absolute last resort only when all other options had been eliminated. As the dragon opened its mouth, Twinkle Twinkle remained stationary, taking her last moment to study the dragon's teeth and throat structure. It reminded her of a lizard, except for the long, sharp teeth where most lizards had a lesser denture, more of a bony jaw with rough edges. There were actually three types of dragon teeth, which she really did not expect, and since the light was dim, she lit her horn up to get a better look.
"What are you doing?" The dragon pulled its head back, closed its mouth with a snap, and gave Twinkle Twinkle a nasty look, which was really saying something since the dragon's head was several times the size of the young pony, and there was a lot of space for nasty on that face. "Why aren't you running around screaming like the rest of them?"
"It wouldn't help," explained Twinkle. "You're much larger and faster than I am."
"Of course it wouldn't help!" snorted the dragon. "Do it anyway. Go on. I'll give you a head start."
"Why?" It was Twinkle's favorite word, and since she did not think she was going to use it much more, she saw no reason not to use it now.
"Because I can't eat you if you keep looking at me. Now go on. Run." The dragon snorted, and little wisps of flame crisped the dry grass at her hooves.
"That makes no sense at all," said Twinkle. "I don't want you to eat me, so logically I should stay here and keep looking at you."
>>FanOfMostEverything
Nintendo would like me to remind you that it didn't actually make Pokémon GO.
Yes, I know how the relation between Nintendo and Pokémon works. I'm just trying to make a joke here.
Well, I made the finals and beat the other Nintendo crossover. That’s sort of a win. ;P
Nintendo would like me to remind you that it didn't actually make Pokémon GO.
>>The_Letter_J
I liken it to Cabin in the Woods. It's satire of a standard horror movie, because it works as a standard horror movie.
This is meant to work on its own as a standard sadfic because if it didn't, I would be mocking as an outsider, as someone who didn't understand the genre well enough to ape it. When I write it like this, I prove that's not the case, which is why I got a comment like this from you before the reveal:
So where's the parody?
The parody is in how ridiculously over the top it is.
To paraphrase a discussion I had with Chuck Finley when submitting this: First all the Elements died, sure. AND Rainbow died young AND Rarity killed herself for her art AND Discord died. AND Twilight died, what a twist. AND Pinkie had dementia AND she couldn't have kids AND her last words were missing Dash but forgetting she was dead AND Applejack is the last one AND she's dying too AND so is the tree of harmony AND Celestia is crippled by mourning AND Tyrant Celestia overtones AND Luna is sad AND harmony magic is dying too.
The plot arc is inconsequential and only hints at a larger, more interesting story. There is no character arc because Luna is only really a framing device. I was blatantly emotionally manipulative. There is no moral, no deeper message or meaning -- Death of the Author if you want to make it about regrets though. Everything, everything I hate about the sad-tag genre portrayed here absolutely straight.
I really don't know how much more I could do to this to make the pastiche more obvious without making it less subtle. Subtlety was important to me because, well, to draw this back to Cold In Gardez's last comment:
That was my objective, and I think I accomplished it nicely.
I liken it to Cabin in the Woods. It's satire of a standard horror movie, because it works as a standard horror movie.
This is meant to work on its own as a standard sadfic because if it didn't, I would be mocking as an outsider, as someone who didn't understand the genre well enough to ape it. When I write it like this, I prove that's not the case, which is why I got a comment like this from you before the reveal:
and it exceeded my expectations for a genre that I long ago grew tired of.
So where's the parody?
The parody is in how ridiculously over the top it is.
To paraphrase a discussion I had with Chuck Finley when submitting this: First all the Elements died, sure. AND Rainbow died young AND Rarity killed herself for her art AND Discord died. AND Twilight died, what a twist. AND Pinkie had dementia AND she couldn't have kids AND her last words were missing Dash but forgetting she was dead AND Applejack is the last one AND she's dying too AND so is the tree of harmony AND Celestia is crippled by mourning AND Tyrant Celestia overtones AND Luna is sad AND harmony magic is dying too.
The plot arc is inconsequential and only hints at a larger, more interesting story. There is no character arc because Luna is only really a framing device. I was blatantly emotionally manipulative. There is no moral, no deeper message or meaning -- Death of the Author if you want to make it about regrets though. Everything, everything I hate about the sad-tag genre portrayed here absolutely straight.
I really don't know how much more I could do to this to make the pastiche more obvious without making it less subtle. Subtlety was important to me because, well, to draw this back to Cold In Gardez's last comment:
I'm conflicted now, though. As a satire I'm fine with it doing well in the rankings -- however, we both know that's not why it did well. It did well because plenty of people were fine with it on its merits as a sadfic.
That was my objective, and I think I accomplished it nicely.
Hey, folks. I know it's been a while since we've done one of these, but the irreplaceable Quill Scratch and I recorded an episode of Radio Writeoff. Was about half my reasoning for doing it because Roger said he'd change our name color in the Discord chat? Yes, but that's not important. What is important is that we recorded it and you can listen to it right here.
Quill has a nice voice and a nice microphone, whereas I had to take a walk around my neighborhood with my phone since I can't record in my house. Gonna try and get that fixed for next episode, but for now, please be comforted by the crunches and pops of nature. Or something.
Quill has a nice voice and a nice microphone, whereas I had to take a walk around my neighborhood with my phone since I can't record in my house. Gonna try and get that fixed for next episode, but for now, please be comforted by the crunches and pops of nature. Or something.
I'd like to say thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed Solitude for the Modern Businessmare. I've read all of your comments, and I will carefully consider each of your suggestions as I push this through editing.
I've been stretched rather thin lately, but when I saw the writing period fell over the weekend I'd set aside to study for the GRE, I figured this might be a good way to blow off some steam in between practice sections. I've wanted to write a Rarity piece for a while now, and her tone of narration was exactly the sort of relief I needed from the oppressive sterility of academic writing.
I put off reading any of the reviews until after the final results rolled out, so the ranking came as a bit of a pleasant surprise. I'm quite glad so many readers were able to enjoy it, because I haven't had this much fun with a Writeoff entry in a long time.
Congratulations to Posh and horizon for their excellently-written pieces, to the other finalists for making it into the second round, and to everyone for managing to write something they were able to share with the crowd.
I've been stretched rather thin lately, but when I saw the writing period fell over the weekend I'd set aside to study for the GRE, I figured this might be a good way to blow off some steam in between practice sections. I've wanted to write a Rarity piece for a while now, and her tone of narration was exactly the sort of relief I needed from the oppressive sterility of academic writing.
I put off reading any of the reviews until after the final results rolled out, so the ranking came as a bit of a pleasant surprise. I'm quite glad so many readers were able to enjoy it, because I haven't had this much fun with a Writeoff entry in a long time.
Congratulations to Posh and horizon for their excellently-written pieces, to the other finalists for making it into the second round, and to everyone for managing to write something they were able to share with the crowd.
>>Fahrenheit Please do; I want to advertise this on my blog to the three or four followers I have who bother to read my blogs. I loved Solitude.
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
>>FrontSevens
>>The_Letter_J
>>Broman
>>horizon
>>Morning Sun
And one full week later, I finally look at this again. I never even finished my slate, but now it turns out I was one spot away from the finals. The story definitely doesn't deserve it, not as it is.
I don't even know if reply notifications are a thing on this site, but I figured I'd post here anyway to talk about this a bit. Morning Sun has it pretty much spot-on, though to be honest I had some future, non-canon catastrophe in mind that took Celestia and Luna out of the picture. Funny how the plunder vines fit the bill perfectly.
Like everyone guessed, I ran out of time hard. The deadline for me was 6 AM, and I was up all night trying to write. I was too tired to focus the whole time, though, so I spent most of my time procrastinating. I made sure the opening was polished, but I looked up at the clock just as I was finishing the flood thing and noticed it was 5:50.
The original idea was to parallel the show pilot even more with character scenes in the forest, but I simply did not leave myself time for that. Instead I tried to imply that they had had those adventures and become friends along the way, but it was a pretty pathetic effort. I don't think any of you guys picked up that the gems were the Elements themselves, except maybe Morning Sun.
My transitions were pretty bad, mostly because I didn't make any revision passes before submitting. If I had a full week or two and the requisite motivation to write every day, this would have been a much larger and better story.
I mentioned in Discord that I've had this story half-plotted out for a year now, and was kinda just waiting for the right prompt. Well, the prompt came and I wasn't ready for it. I only had two or three of the characters fleshed out and none of them had names, but I'm much better at making up characters on the fly than in outlining, so I wasn't worried.
The bigger problem is that most of what I had planned already wasn't really going to show up in this first part anyway, because I intended this to be a larger story. Maybe someday I'll try it again, but it'll probably be a complete overhaul.
Incidentally, this idea started out as "What would MLP be like if it was made for boys instead of girls?" Like I said, none of the boyish stuff made it into this entry, but it's there in the world. Pester me if you want to read that story.
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
>>FrontSevens
>>The_Letter_J
>>Broman
>>horizon
>>Morning Sun
And one full week later, I finally look at this again. I never even finished my slate, but now it turns out I was one spot away from the finals. The story definitely doesn't deserve it, not as it is.
I don't even know if reply notifications are a thing on this site, but I figured I'd post here anyway to talk about this a bit. Morning Sun has it pretty much spot-on, though to be honest I had some future, non-canon catastrophe in mind that took Celestia and Luna out of the picture. Funny how the plunder vines fit the bill perfectly.
Like everyone guessed, I ran out of time hard. The deadline for me was 6 AM, and I was up all night trying to write. I was too tired to focus the whole time, though, so I spent most of my time procrastinating. I made sure the opening was polished, but I looked up at the clock just as I was finishing the flood thing and noticed it was 5:50.
The original idea was to parallel the show pilot even more with character scenes in the forest, but I simply did not leave myself time for that. Instead I tried to imply that they had had those adventures and become friends along the way, but it was a pretty pathetic effort. I don't think any of you guys picked up that the gems were the Elements themselves, except maybe Morning Sun.
My transitions were pretty bad, mostly because I didn't make any revision passes before submitting. If I had a full week or two and the requisite motivation to write every day, this would have been a much larger and better story.
I mentioned in Discord that I've had this story half-plotted out for a year now, and was kinda just waiting for the right prompt. Well, the prompt came and I wasn't ready for it. I only had two or three of the characters fleshed out and none of them had names, but I'm much better at making up characters on the fly than in outlining, so I wasn't worried.
The bigger problem is that most of what I had planned already wasn't really going to show up in this first part anyway, because I intended this to be a larger story. Maybe someday I'll try it again, but it'll probably be a complete overhaul.
Incidentally, this idea started out as "What would MLP be like if it was made for boys instead of girls?" Like I said, none of the boyish stuff made it into this entry, but it's there in the world. Pester me if you want to read that story.
>>MrNumbers
I realize that you might not see this comment, but I didn't have time to reply until now.
Perhaps it does say something about the entire sadfic genre that all of that still seems entirely reasonable to me. Part of the problem might be that you set this far enough in the future that we expect them all to be dead. That makes AJ's part more interesting and improves the straight interpretation of the story, but doesn't help your satire. And death is practically tragic by definition, so it's not exactly unexpected that the stories of how these ponies died would be sad. There was practically no other way for this story to go.
Basically, A Modest Proposal doesn't work in a world where canabalism is commonplace.
I realize that you might not see this comment, but I didn't have time to reply until now.
So where's the parody?
The parody is in how ridiculously over the top it is.
To paraphrase a discussion I had with Chuck Finley when submitting this: First all the Elements died, sure. AND Rainbow died young AND Rarity killed herself for her art AND Discord died. AND Twilight died, what a twist. AND Pinkie had dementia AND she couldn't have kids AND her last words were missing Dash but forgetting she was dead AND Applejack is the last one AND she's dying too AND so is the tree of harmony AND Celestia is crippled by mourning AND Tyrant Celestia overtones AND Luna is sad AND harmony magic is dying too.
Perhaps it does say something about the entire sadfic genre that all of that still seems entirely reasonable to me. Part of the problem might be that you set this far enough in the future that we expect them all to be dead. That makes AJ's part more interesting and improves the straight interpretation of the story, but doesn't help your satire. And death is practically tragic by definition, so it's not exactly unexpected that the stories of how these ponies died would be sad. There was practically no other way for this story to go.
Basically, A Modest Proposal doesn't work in a world where canabalism is commonplace.
>>Monokeras
Mono, I've been meaning to talk about this story some more for a while now, but haven't had the time until now.
Basically, I think that this story is actually a lot better than the results show. It's just not the type of story that will do well in a writeoff.
Now, I haven't read a lot of dark fics, but I have read a few. Those stories usually aren't great, and definitely aren't enjoyable for me, but they do have an audience. And this story is one of the best of those.
I think that with a few changes, this story could be perfectly fit for publication on fimfiction. It won't hit the featurebox, but there will be people who like it.
While I didn't rank this story very highly on my ballot, I do think that it was pretty good in its own way. Good job, Mono. Really.
Mono, I've been meaning to talk about this story some more for a while now, but haven't had the time until now.
Basically, I think that this story is actually a lot better than the results show. It's just not the type of story that will do well in a writeoff.
Now, I haven't read a lot of dark fics, but I have read a few. Those stories usually aren't great, and definitely aren't enjoyable for me, but they do have an audience. And this story is one of the best of those.
I think that with a few changes, this story could be perfectly fit for publication on fimfiction. It won't hit the featurebox, but there will be people who like it.
While I didn't rank this story very highly on my ballot, I do think that it was pretty good in its own way. Good job, Mono. Really.
Hi guys; I don't know how many people are still checking this thread, but I revised and expanded Bonnie and submitted it to EqD. Here's a link if anyone wants to see the new version.
Thank you again for all of your help and your kind words. :)
Thank you again for all of your help and your kind words. :)