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TenthSpeedWriter

By TenthSpeedWriter
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TenthSpeedWriter C-Mark Crusader

TenthSpeedWriter

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Hey, y'all.

I'm gonna be upfront here: I came to this forum looking to gather support for a game project I'm planning out. 'Course, it's never a bad idea to get to know folks in the fandom community, and making friends ain't never a bad idea, so... Howdy!

Lemme see if I can get enough of an intro out here to justify having three posts.

Firstly, I'm a Civil Engineering major at the University of Alabama, and pleased to say that the MLP fandom has even manifested down here. I enjoy poetry (reading and writing alike), over-the-top series Sci-Fi novels, and video games, among many other things. I'm not as much a roleplayer these days as I was in high school, but I still enjoy the occasional bit of fan fiction or collaborative writing.

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TenthSpeedWriter C-Mark Crusader

TenthSpeedWriter

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I would one day like to earn licensure as an engineer and either research or apply environmental impact mitigation methods. I believe that the first step toward cutting down our footprint on this earth is trimming down it to the land we sit on, and it ain't crazy to dream that it might happen in this lifetime.

At this very moment, I am listening to

, although I would say my musical taste includes everything from Folk and Grunge to Electronica, and Prog. Rock, with a special love for honest Country. (Not a fan of some of what pours out of Nashville these days, though.)

I sincerely believed that my friends were trolling me when they said I should sit down and watch a cartoon series about My Little Pony, but the very next day, they had the TV room of our dormitory packed full showing the first few episodes. I think Friendship is Magic stands out among today's cartoons, simply because there is an obvious vein of intellectualism in its writing. It doesn't condescend the readers with kitsch plots overused tropes, and it includes something appealing to both children and adults alike; there have been few series of this quality since the early 90's, and I think I would be quite alright with letting my own children watch it one day.

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TenthSpeedWriter C-Mark Crusader

TenthSpeedWriter

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And, ah... just for the sake of self-characterization, I suppose, I recently wrote a scathing literary review of that oh-so notorious piece, Cupcakes. It ain't nearly as nasty as that little ball of horror, but I s'pose it says something about how I think, that I'd put so much thought into something so awful, just out of literary curiosity.

As much as people gushed about how disturbing it was, I expected a little more... quality, I guess. I'm all but spoiled on more subtle Lovecraftian terror and the reader-reflective style of Southern Gothic grotesques. Fault on me maybe for expecting that much from the Interwebs, but Cupcakes read like the screenplay of a bad 80's horror film. There was no way to empathize with either of the characters, and I found it more nauseating than genuinely creepy. I felt that author could have made a much more insidious piece with far less gory details and more emphasis on... well, heck. I'm gonna tack on that review another spoiler, if anyone really cares to read what I had to say about it.

SQUICK WARNING!

I do reference the piece itself, albeit indirectly. Sometimes, it's best not to even let the imagination wonder.

This is just textbook gore with a preface. The story holds no psychological horror value for the reader, and thus, fails at what it sincerely tries to do.

The lack of a transition between Pinky Pie's canon personality and that presented here shatters the necessity continuity of character. The reader disassociates shortly after Rainbow Dash's waking. The scene should be stretched out much farther, and the nature of her reasons and mental state revealed to the reader in sequence. It would also have allowed time to reinforce the reader's attachment to both Pinky Pie's innocence and Rainbow Dash's freedom of self -- a sympathetic trait that, I will say, the author wisely built upon in the first paragraphs.

Those two things, in fact, are what would make this story truly disturbing (and enjoyable, for the psychologically masochistic among us), and should be focused on. Pinky Pie is innocent; the slip of her apparent character into the Hannibal-esque state that we discover she is in should be gradual relative to the unfolding of the story, and should painfully snag the reader's attention at each turn. There is already an uncomfortable return to the carefree Pinky Pie we know at the end of the story, and it would be much more effective if that gradual decent were more clearly emphasized.

Further, Rainbow Dash's freedom and the ways in which it is taken from her ought to be made very prominent. She begins the story entirely in her element: she is free, flying, and completely overjoyed; she is in total control of her situation, catching herself effortlessly as she flies toward the ground, and playing with the idea of even keeping her promise to Pinky Pie. Her freedom of body is revoked almost immediately upon her waking, but there is still room there for the injection of hope. The reader cannot maintain a real connection with her once her fate is made obvious by casual deduction of the genre and its tropes. No-one wants to invest emotionally in a character who they are essentially watching be butchered alive. Instead, there should be hope that Rainbow Dash can escape; there should be hope that Pinky Pie, not yet fully revealed to be as mad as she is, will sympathize and set her free; failing that there should be hope that she can break free from her restraints by her own will and strength; at the last, there should at least the vain hope of the destitute: the dying dreams of flying again, of having control of herself again. Ultimately, that hope should be dashed with the tearing away of her wings, which should itself be a more succinct event with significant impact. The following mental breakdown due to mixed hopelessness, drugging, and blood loss should be interspersed through the gory bits (or slapped right over them).

The idea should be to get the reader to sink with the proverbial ship, not to disgust them with the piece itself.

... Also, how do you cannibalize someone into a cupcake, anyway? Seems like that would just be nasty.

Also, since I don't think I said it explicitly, I'm a fella...

BUT. If you read all that in Applejack's voice, you get a cookie.

(If you figured right anyhow and read it in Big Mac's voice, you get two cookies.)

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MyLittlePonyTales Alicorn

MyLittlePonyTales

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Hey!

If you didn't already, please take a moment to check out the rules section, just so that you're up to speed! :RDash:

A good place to meet Bronies is in the Chat.

How did you hear about Canterlot?

Also, the perfect place for you is probably the Developers and Projects section of our board! If you PM Manestream, I'll bet she can get you set up in 10 seconds flat!

Welcome to Canterlot!

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