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An Alicorn Too Much.
“...And therefore, we decree the immediate expulsion and banishment of any alicorn in the Unified Equestrian Kingdom.”
Princess Celestia stared at the letter floating in front of her.
“Hmm.” She stared at the guard standing at her side. “This seems quite unfortunate”.
The door of her room exploded. “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS FOOLISHNESS, CELESTIA!” Luna entered the room, levitating a similar paper. “WHAT KIND OF CONSPIRACY IS THIS?”
“Calm down, Luna. I’m sure this is some kind of mistake. You know how Parliament can be sometimes. Ahem, Captain Goldspear, do you know what’s the motive of this…um, unexpected decision of the Chamber of Nobles?”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness, I don’t know”.
Luna groaned. “The Royal Guard, as useful as always. Where is your other captain, the pegasus mare? At least she was competent enough...”
Celestia glared at her sister. “Luna, be nice. And Captain Cadance was sent on an important mission of my personal orders.” She glanced at Goldspear with a smile. “I apologise for my sister; these are indeed stressful moments for us. Tell the staff we’ll be leaving, it’s seem we have a sudden appointment with the Chamber of Nobles.”
Luna sighed. “Damn those fools, why did we have to accept their primitive form of democracy? Ah, I miss the days when we could claim unopposed the title of benevolent tyrants of ponykind…”
“Oh, Come on, dear Sister, I bet this may probe fun after all.”
“...According to subsection three hundred forty-five of the fourth section in five thousand four hundred twenty-three law; taking into consideration the precedents established in…”
Princess Luna groaned and hit her face against their table. Celestia rolled her eyes.
“... any alicorn in the Unified Equestrian Kingdom.”
Chancellor Sharp Cookie set down the document and stared at the princesses with a smug smile. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t see what needs to be clarified here. This decree is self-explanatory enough; we, as the most prominent group of ponies, chosen as representatives of Equestria, had decided that in consideration of their obscure nature, powers and intentions, we would be much safer without alicorns in our lands.”
An old unicorn shouted at them. “HA! BUSTED! DON’T PRETEND LIKE IT WASN’T YOUR PLAN TO TAKE OVER EQUESTRIA AND PROCLAIM YOURSELF A LIVING GOD, CELESTIA!”
“Of course those aren’t my intentions, Lord Heritage...”
“Speak for yourself,” Luna mumbled.
Celestia scowled at her, then smiled at the representatives again.
“My little ponies, I understand your need to protect yourself, but I think you are forgetting that according to the Letter of Rights for Ponykind, we have a right to a fair trial before being exiled from our beloved nation.”
Sharp Cookie smiled. “One would think, right?” He smirked “The truth is that the aforementioned letter specifically establishes rights for pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies, but it doesn’t say a single thing about alicorns. Neither do the Amended Rights for Griffons and Mules, nor any other law or statute. To what the law concerns, alicorns have no legal rights as citizens of Equestria, and what’s more, we barely know anything about your actual biology to even affirm that they are actually related to ponies, besides your superficial appearance; and there are more than a few among us that are sceptical of what is your real agenda.”
Another pony shouted from the crowd, “THEY MAY BE ALIENS OR MONSTERS! MAYBE THEY WANT TO PUT THEIR EGGS IN OUR BELLIES AND BREED AN ARMY OF ALICORNS! THE HORROR!”
Celestia was left without speech. She fought for words and settled for a facehoof. “This is preposterous! Neither Luna nor I have ‘obscure’ intentions, and our biology isn’t actually that different from-” Her eyes started to glow in a white light “Oh horseapples…”
Luna approached her brow furrowed. “What it is happening, Sister?”
The light brightened with even more intensity.
The ponies in the chamber trembled and cowered under their seats.
A crystal heart surrounded in a pink light appeared at the top of the chamber. The heart slowly descended to the center of the room and then exploded in a flash of light and colour. When the ponies finally raised their eyes again, they found instead a very confused pink alicorn.
Luna gasped. “Is that Captain Cadance?”
Cadance looked at the princesses “Celestia? Luna? Wha... what happened...? Wha...? Where I am?”
One of the representatives stood and raised a trembling foreleg. “THEY REPRODUCE BY MITOSIS! WE’RE GONNA BE FLOODED IN ALICORNS! RUN! RUN!”
The underlying story is fine, but I feel the shift between silly and serious is too stark to make this work as written. The characters act in over-the-top ways that makes the comedy seem a little forced. There's a lot of CAPS LOCK here, when a little subtlety would go a long way.
This is true even when the intent is to make the story seem silly. Without having subdued, rational, in-character moments be the norm, the CAPS LOCK and ovipositor references don't stand out. Horror frequently makes this mistake too: if the enemy can do anything at all, there's no suspense because the author isn't playing by the rules.
Try pulling back a little on the crazy and make the in-between spaces more realistic, and it will seem zanier when antics actually happen.
This is true even when the intent is to make the story seem silly. Without having subdued, rational, in-character moments be the norm, the CAPS LOCK and ovipositor references don't stand out. Horror frequently makes this mistake too: if the enemy can do anything at all, there's no suspense because the author isn't playing by the rules.
Try pulling back a little on the crazy and make the in-between spaces more realistic, and it will seem zanier when antics actually happen.
This was pretty funny, but it doesn’t conclude. It just stops. Granted, you ran out of words, but fitting a full story in the word limit is part of the challenge of a minific contest. I’d love to see this finished, but as is, there’s just not enough here.
Dagnabbit, this smacked face-first into the word count, and the CAPS LOCK is a bit overplayed, and there are some little quibbles that I can't let go of. (E.g., it's Smart Cookie, not Sharp Cookie... and is this saying Cadance is like1000+ years old by the time of the show?)
But there are great moments of comedy in here. I love it that the door doesn't open; it EXPLODES! I love it that the council FREAKS OUT about ALICORN MITOSIS! Maybe it's personal preference talking... I mean, the OTT-ridiculous tone here is very much the kind of thing that I enjoy... but this delivers just enough of the goods to persuade me that there's underlying comedic potential. Also, while I don't think the ending quite succeeded at bringing things to a controlled halt, I can see how it tried, and I'll give it some credit for almost sticking that landing.
Tier: Almost There
But there are great moments of comedy in here. I love it that the door doesn't open; it EXPLODES! I love it that the council FREAKS OUT about ALICORN MITOSIS! Maybe it's personal preference talking... I mean, the OTT-ridiculous tone here is very much the kind of thing that I enjoy... but this delivers just enough of the goods to persuade me that there's underlying comedic potential. Also, while I don't think the ending quite succeeded at bringing things to a controlled halt, I can see how it tried, and I'll give it some credit for almost sticking that landing.
Tier: Almost There
I like quite the idea here, and absurd overreactions work quite well generally. That said, I think you will need to rework the story a bit before you can publish it. Aside from what the others already said, here are a couple of suggestions from me. You will need to add some temporal context so that we understand when it is happening, and I think you have to either start with the absurdity earlier to blow the readers away or you need a very somber beginning as to have a continuous escalation. As it is now I think it suffers a bit from a weak start.
There were undoubtedly a couple of very funny moments there, and at the end you were finding your rhythm, which then succumbed to the brutal rule of the word-count.
A shining core that needs some polish and cutting to make it a gem.
There were undoubtedly a couple of very funny moments there, and at the end you were finding your rhythm, which then succumbed to the brutal rule of the word-count.
A shining core that needs some polish and cutting to make it a gem.
I'll just say it, since I'm not sure whether the other commenters got it and didn't find it worth commenting on, or whether they missed it (as I did on my first read): this is about Cadance's ascension. The clues here are kinda easy to miss. She's "Corporal" Cadance in the first scene where we never see her or hear her described, and while that's all headcanon, I guess the implication is that anypony who can be a "Corporal" isn't an alicorn.
And then, in the second scene, there's a bright white light in Celestia's eyes, and:
We've seen an alicorn ascension, in the Season 3 closer, and this looks nothing like Twilight's. She didn't come out confused. She did something herself to earn it (rather than the implication here with Cadance that Celestia's magic surged and did something to her, like maybe teleportation or something). Twilight's ascension also happened on another plane rather than right in front of everypony, and she returned to basically the same place she started. So I didn't know what to make of this until I read it a lot closer, and even when I realized what you were going for it still felt dubious.
I do like Luna's attitudes here, and (without the caps-lock, which is to textual outrage what autotune is to music) you could have a good thing going with the councillors. I think clarifying the Cadance thing and bringing it closer in line with canon (or lampshading where you're departing from it) will help, and thinking about the tone you're trying to set (see previous reviews) will carry you a fair way toward the rest. I also broadly agree with the other comments' assessments.
Tier: Needs Work
And then, in the second scene, there's a bright white light in Celestia's eyes, and:
The light brightened with even more intensity.
The ponies in the chamber trembled and cowered under their seats.
A crystal heart surrounded in a pink light appeared at the top of the chamber. The heart slowly descended to the center of the room and then exploded in a flash of light and colour. When the ponies finally raised their eyes again, they found instead a very confused pink alicorn.
Luna gasped. “Is that Captain Cadance?”
Cadance looked at the princesses “Celestia? Luna? Wha... what happened...? Wha...? Where I am?”
We've seen an alicorn ascension, in the Season 3 closer, and this looks nothing like Twilight's. She didn't come out confused. She did something herself to earn it (rather than the implication here with Cadance that Celestia's magic surged and did something to her, like maybe teleportation or something). Twilight's ascension also happened on another plane rather than right in front of everypony, and she returned to basically the same place she started. So I didn't know what to make of this until I read it a lot closer, and even when I realized what you were going for it still felt dubious.
I do like Luna's attitudes here, and (without the caps-lock, which is to textual outrage what autotune is to music) you could have a good thing going with the councillors. I think clarifying the Cadance thing and bringing it closer in line with canon (or lampshading where you're departing from it) will help, and thinking about the tone you're trying to set (see previous reviews) will carry you a fair way toward the rest. I also broadly agree with the other comments' assessments.
Tier: Needs Work
Well, thank you very much all of you for your comments! It may be a silly thing but this is my first story ever publicly published in english, so I’m happy as hell just with having feedback and knowing that some people had fun with it. I’m gonna try to take your suggestions in consideration and edit this story so I can also have my first FiMFiction story published. :D
I have to say that I couldn’t have done it without the huge help of Pascoite who endured proofreading my first draft with it’s multiple punctuation and grammar mistakes.
Funny thing; I left the title for last moment, (I won’t repeat that mistake) and for that I didn’t notice that I had made a mistake with it, it was supposed to be “One alicorn too much” *facepalm*
Now, answering the comments:
>>Trick_Question I will take this to heart! Apart of editing the caps-locks trying to make the humour more balanced will be my main objective.
>>FanOfMostEverything I’m gonna take this in consideration, especially since other people seems to agree with this, though I don’t know exactly what to do with it.
To be honest, I didn’t thought that the story needed more after the punchline. I did thought that the story may have need more in the middle, but I don’t know if it’s important what happens after the punchline. The plot simplified is this: the nobleponies are scared of alicorns powers so they try to ban them, the princesses go to the nobleponies to try to calm and assure them that there is nothing to fear; then they fail because the event coincides with Cadence ascension and the consequently sudden appearance of a new alicorn: chaos happens. I think that the story has a resolution: the failure of the princesses.
Evidently, though, I do need to edit this to make that resolution more evident or the story more aligned with it, or otherwise people wouldn’t be commenting about the sudden ending.
>>CoffeeMinion. I had some problems with the chancellor's name. I knew the original was Smart Cookie, (and the chancellor was Puddinghead), I wanted to give him a name similar to that so people could notice that the story happened a while ago, but not the same because I didn’t think it was so long ago. Maybe I just kept him nameless and put another hint for the time.
Through, now that I think about, if Luna it’s there, that means that Cadence has to be more than a 1000 years long, I’ve read stories with that headcanon so I don’t have a problem with that.
>>Orbiting_kettle Apart from what already answered to the others, I will see what I can do with the beginning.
>>horizon Well, besides being a “corporal”, it’s directly say that she is a pegasus;
That was the tricky part, I wanted to do certain subtle foreshadowing that leaded to Cadance ascension later but without being too noticeable so people didn’t immediately realized that Cadence would play an important paper. I don’t know if I can do much with that part.
I did though that the ascension part was a little confusing, but I couldn’t make it more clear with the time given, that indeed was my failure.
Thoug, I did re-watch Twilight ascension: Twilight disappears inside the library and then appears outside; she becomes an alicorn after appearing outside the library (not in the other plane) and she is confused (she discover in that moment that she had become an alicorn). Then the sequence about the floating pink cutie-mark was copied exactly from Twilight ascension.
The only thing different from the Twi experience is that she appeared a short distance from it’s original point, and Cadance did a long distance, but I thought that all the other similarities would be enough that people could figure that a so rare magic event didn’t have to be exactly the same
This was incredible fun for me to write, and I’m really happy that some of you found funny enough, it was my greater motive; thank you very much everyone!.
PD: I also now know that you don't have to publish a story as "anonymous", what a shame.
I have to say that I couldn’t have done it without the huge help of Pascoite who endured proofreading my first draft with it’s multiple punctuation and grammar mistakes.
Funny thing; I left the title for last moment, (I won’t repeat that mistake) and for that I didn’t notice that I had made a mistake with it, it was supposed to be “One alicorn too much” *facepalm*
Now, answering the comments:
>>Trick_Question I will take this to heart! Apart of editing the caps-locks trying to make the humour more balanced will be my main objective.
>>FanOfMostEverything I’m gonna take this in consideration, especially since other people seems to agree with this, though I don’t know exactly what to do with it.
To be honest, I didn’t thought that the story needed more after the punchline. I did thought that the story may have need more in the middle, but I don’t know if it’s important what happens after the punchline. The plot simplified is this: the nobleponies are scared of alicorns powers so they try to ban them, the princesses go to the nobleponies to try to calm and assure them that there is nothing to fear; then they fail because the event coincides with Cadence ascension and the consequently sudden appearance of a new alicorn: chaos happens. I think that the story has a resolution: the failure of the princesses.
Evidently, though, I do need to edit this to make that resolution more evident or the story more aligned with it, or otherwise people wouldn’t be commenting about the sudden ending.
>>CoffeeMinion. I had some problems with the chancellor's name. I knew the original was Smart Cookie, (and the chancellor was Puddinghead), I wanted to give him a name similar to that so people could notice that the story happened a while ago, but not the same because I didn’t think it was so long ago. Maybe I just kept him nameless and put another hint for the time.
Through, now that I think about, if Luna it’s there, that means that Cadence has to be more than a 1000 years long, I’ve read stories with that headcanon so I don’t have a problem with that.
>>Orbiting_kettle Apart from what already answered to the others, I will see what I can do with the beginning.
>>horizon Well, besides being a “corporal”, it’s directly say that she is a pegasus;
Where is your other captain, the pegasus mare?
That was the tricky part, I wanted to do certain subtle foreshadowing that leaded to Cadance ascension later but without being too noticeable so people didn’t immediately realized that Cadence would play an important paper. I don’t know if I can do much with that part.
I did though that the ascension part was a little confusing, but I couldn’t make it more clear with the time given, that indeed was my failure.
Thoug, I did re-watch Twilight ascension: Twilight disappears inside the library and then appears outside; she becomes an alicorn after appearing outside the library (not in the other plane) and she is confused (she discover in that moment that she had become an alicorn). Then the sequence about the floating pink cutie-mark was copied exactly from Twilight ascension.
The only thing different from the Twi experience is that she appeared a short distance from it’s original point, and Cadance did a long distance, but I thought that all the other similarities would be enough that people could figure that a so rare magic event didn’t have to be exactly the same
This was incredible fun for me to write, and I’m really happy that some of you found funny enough, it was my greater motive; thank you very much everyone!.
PD: I also now know that you don't have to publish a story as "anonymous", what a shame.
Since the author has admitted to it on his own, yeah, I helped with this one. I did a bunch of proofreading, which might not have been too effective, depending on how much of it got rewritten anyway. The caps lock is the kind of thing that has bothered me less and less over the years, as long as it's not all over the place. But the two main points I left comments on in the Gdoc are the ones most people seem to be making here: I thought many readers would find the ending a bit confusing, and that many would find it ends without making a point or completing a story arc.
But considering it's a first-time entrant, it's a solid effort and a good place to start building from.
But considering it's a first-time entrant, it's a solid effort and a good place to start building from.