• Member Since 1st Feb, 2012
  • offline last seen Oct 22nd, 2016

Aquillo


Scootaloo is the bestest and greatest crusader. Sweetie Belle is nothing but a dog's chew toy--one of the squeaky ones--given life, and Apple Bloom just sucks.

More Blog Posts57

  • 532 weeks
    A Public Service Anouncment and some Forthcoming Things

    I honestly didn't expect to write this blogpost.

    No, seriously. I tried to get on a day ago only to be rebuffed by my lack of accurate password knowledge. Given that I'd also changed the email to gibberish, I thought it was pretty damn certain I wouldn't be able to get back on here. Many tears were cried as I shrugged and went back to bickering at people about their sloppily metered poetry.

    Read More

    3 comments · 749 views
  • 542 weeks
    [no title]

    Hello



    I have words to speak with you



    Most of them are Boo

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    4 comments · 732 views
  • 553 weeks
    On Forcing a Story

    I’ve been reading through a lot of articles/advice on writing recently, and one recurring piece has stood out to me: that writers have a duty to finish their stories once started.

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    3 comments · 693 views
  • 553 weeks
    Reading Suggestion: Two Weird Non-Story Stories By The Same Author

    Yes, I recommend stories occasionally, shut up.

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    8 comments · 760 views
  • 557 weeks
    I have figured out how to win at Fimfiction

    Fallout Equestria was released a few minutes later -- and is, in fact, the feed update. And then after that, Harpflank & Sweets updated. It has been a good day.

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    6 comments · 621 views
Aug
16th
2013

Reading Suggestion: Two Weird Non-Story Stories By The Same Author · 2:10am Aug 16th, 2013

Yes, I recommend stories occasionally, shut up.

I plucked THIS IS A STORY from the front page a week ago because it looked interesting. No, seriously. I'd exhausted /mlp/'s pastebin archives and had returned to occasionally lurking the fimfiction front page in the hopes of something interesting to read; this was one of the few that got me to both click on it and then keep reading after the first paragraph.

Mainly because it was weird.

THIS IS A STORY is one of those stories which is actually about telling stories. Except it isn't. It's actually one of those metafictional, post-modernist works of fiction told always with a sneer. Except it isn't that either. Because for around two thousand five hundred words, RCW99 tells the entire thing completely straight faced.

Let's talk about what the story is surface wise: it's a collection of lengthy drabbles about a stallion's life. He's not always the same stallion and neither is it always the same life. Instead, we get snapshots taken of a moment, all completely separate and dangling in the ether. There is no overlying narrative or theme or shared characters or setting. There is simply a stallion and an event -- which pretty much forms its own theme.

It's weird, but it's the good type of weird. Most of the snapshots are about the little parts where life could be exciting and then it turns out you shouldn't have got your hopes up. A sort of shared, "Oh well". Falling in and out of sleep is also a noticeable pattern: I could be a high falutin' ass and say this is clearly referential to how we all walk through life in a sort of sleep, but I don't really think that's what's going on here. I think they just form nice bookends.

It was good. I gave it the thumbs and marked it as read later, because it's weird and I couldn't quite figure out if I wanted to read more of it. Today, I checked back in, saw two updates, read them, felt the weird and then decided to see if RCW99 had anything else to offer in terms of weirdness.

Turns out, the answer is yes.

A Day in the Life of Average Statistic is pretty similiar to THIS IS A STORY. Both have the meta flavour when you take a bite into them; both are competently written (I'd quibble over certain semicolon choices being better as colons, but I do this with most authors). Both offer unusual things inside their synopses that make you go "Really? About that? Seems... Mundane" and then proceed to deliver. Straight faced. For a considerable period of time past when a joke would end.

I never want to play RCW99 at poker, I can tell you that much.

I think I like A Day better, though. It's about twice the length and the main source of conflict is between what the reader expects and what they're reading, but I like it. Really like it. Like, it's in the Celestia class of mane's I like. This is a good story and the primary reason behind this blog post.

The theme's sharp and not one often touched in ponyfic: it deals with how we tell stories about excited and complicated events happening to brighten up our lives. So far, so THIS IS A STORY, so why do I like this one better? There's another theme attached onto it, though, that twists it away from being the same message to something a bit more raw.

It's a theme about how we want to do exciting things, but don't. About how we don't risk asking the girl out from fear of looking stupid, or how we feel askance after a stumble in a crowd though no one cares at all. It's about how people want to explore the distant universe or exotic locations without ever really knowing their own backyards. There's adventure -- the breaking of the mundane -- all around us, but we never really grasp it.

This resonated with me: I'm the sort of person who walks down the street looking into other people's houses and then gets that feeling of ice dropped inside when I realise I'll never stand there, that out of every path the future holds, not a single one of them involves me standing inside that house. And yet it could if I was brave enough -- or mad enough -- to run over and break down the window, to spit in fate's face and then take the slap without flinching. The entirety of A Day is that feeling magnified and repeated endlessly. It's the story of one stallion's ordinary day and how he continually fails to make it extraordinary.

It is a good story. It is a story that I would be glad if you could read and maybe comment on 'cause I am too lazy to. But mainly, I think you should read it because my happy befuddlement over the weirdness needs spreading.

Thanks and you

THIS IS A STORY
A Day in the Life of Average Statistic


Additional: Please (Please?) leave opinions about whether I should refrain from doing this kinda shizz in the future. I'm always curious over whether or not I'm abusing the bizarre people power of the Post Blog Entry button, and would be grateful if knowing if my mouth's best served shut.

Report Aquillo · 760 views ·
Comments ( 8 )

But my reading list already so full... :fluttercry:

But sure, I'll check them out. And yes, feel free to do more of this. I appreciate getting recommendations from competent writers. It's hard to find all the good stories on my own.

1288368

I appreciate getting recommendations from competent writers.

O-okay then. I'll stop :fluttershbad:

Kidding. Thanks for the compliment <3

I actually think you've done this before, with Sharaloth and his stories The Archer and the Smith andThe Heart Thief. I would take that to mean there is a precedent set, allowing you to do this (though now that I check, I can't find the post).

I'm going to do the same thing I did last time, which is to favorite and read them both.

Also, ever played Mirror's Edge?

1288875

Yeah, recommended Heart Thief a while back. Good story.

And favouriting the story without reading it? Say wha?

I haven't played Mirror's Edge, no. I've watched a few minutes of a let's play in order to get the gist of it, decided it wasn't really my thing and got Dishonored in the steam summer sale instead.

Why you ask?

1290762 Faving is how I keep track of stories, even ones I haven't read yet. If I don't like it, I can quietly remove it from the list; if I do like it, I slap a green thumb on and keep an eye on it. On most stories, I read the first chapter or so before faving, but an Aquillo bump lets it go straight through.

It's all rather arbitrary, but I've never seen a "Guide to using Fimfic," so I'm using the system that has developed as I go along. I dunno, I'm open to suggestions to increase organization and efficiency, but that's what I do right now.

Ooh, Dishonored. That looks cool. I need to grab it next time it goes on sale.

As to Mirror's Edge, you mention video games you like every once in a while, and I've been enjoying it since I got it from Humble Bundle. Not much of a story, but great gameplay.

1292188

I use the read later tag myself to keep track of stories that I'm interested in, but don't feel have earned a favourite just yet. It doesn't disturb the author + stores it inside fimfiction's memory so I don't have to remember.

Dishonored is similar to what you said in the last sentence: a really predictable story combined with great gameplay, a believable steampunk esque world and some really clever levels.

Mirror's edge is going on the wishlist, then :twilightsmile:

1293097 Ooh, read later. That's... that's where I put things that look cool but that I'm unsure of, so I'll check them later. It's at... 1089 now...

I do try to avoid favoriting before reading in most cases, for the reasons you stated, but when they come recommended by authors I like... well, all bets are off.

Also, if one liked the Portal series, I think that one would enjoy Mirror's Edge. It's very physics and observation based, just like the former.

1293097 Also, if you do PC gaming, you can grab Mirror's Edge from the Humble Bundle for real cheap right now.

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