During a lunch date with Diamond Tiara, an older Silver Spoon ponders the meaning of her cutie mark and where she is in life.
One-shot fic.
Submitting to NaPoWriMoJuly2013 mini event for Fimfiction.net - NaPoWriMo
Chapters (2)
- Member Since 28th Jun, 2012
- offline last seen Nov 28th, 2020
Revenant Wings
"The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face." - William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair. Admin of LGBT, somewhat obsessed with Crash Bandicoot.
Revenant Wings
Joined 28th Jun, 2012 ·
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Wonderful setup. And who knows? There may be hope even for Diamond Tiara somewhere along the way, if not necessarily this way.
Faved, upthumbed, et cetera.
Sadly, it looks as if Diamond Tiara's purpose in life is to be a pretty but ultimately useless decoration. Nice to look at but unlike a spoon which can serve food, the world can do without it and her.
I enjoyed dis very much!
And it has also been put into the Good Grammar Directory!
Unfortunately, the setup creates the following problem:
A Cutie Mark is a mark of destiny, of what the pony's good at, and what they like doing. They don't appear at random, unless you're sick with Cutie Pox. So, what exactly did Silver Spoon do that got her the mark? She can't not know. The only thing that could happen is her starting to doubt it; but for her to have one, she has to have already found her passion, her calling. Getting a Cutie Mark and then going about trying to find out what it means isn't the way things happen.
So, unless the fic breaks with this logic, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon must have a useful, enjoyable talent.
2813704
If I were to expand it, Silver Spoon probably would have said something innocent or kind regarding the money, and her cutie mark is actually a sugar spoon to represent a sweeter nature, hence her motioning to the sugar spoon in reference to the cutie mark. However, Diamond Tiara's negative influence has not been good for reinforcing the cutie mark.
My only problem with this is that you have an inconsistency. When the pendant is first mentioned, Silver Spoon says it was a gift from her mother. Then next time it is stated that Sweetie Belle gave it to her. Did Silver simply lie the first time, or did you forget?
Anyway, this was a good story and I grant you a like.
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Lie. Note the slight hesitation as denoted by an ellipsis. I've edited the second time to make it slightly clearer.
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No, D.T.'s purpose is to be a bully and help to develop the story in multiple episodes of the cartoon series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She is an antagonist to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a group of fillies dedicated to finding their cutie marks through marvelous misadventures.
you know it would have been nice to include the remembrance of her cutie mark as a glimmer of hope in the real ending that would motivate her...just my opinion
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I sort of used the pendant as that, but I suppose that little flashback would be a bit more effective...
You should definitely write a sequel.
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Glad you like it, though. 
I had no idea of what to do for a sequel, much less how to go about it.
It appears that it has already been said, albeit in a different manner, however I would say if you were to go off the second ending, a dramatic realization of what she was meant to do, she was meant to do, to help others, to give them a place to let their talent upon the world! She could start out by looking for ponies with unusual cutie marks, ones with almost no job openings in the area. Where we can follow her not only on her adventures of starting the businesses and building relationships with the ponies she is helping, but also what is happening to Diamond Tiara after daddy's money dries up or cuts or off or something.
Saw your forum. I figured I would try to help. There are problems on the technical side that you might catch with another read through:
Silver Spoon walked along the streets of Canterlot with a parasol resting up against her shoulder as she walked.
-We already know she is walking, so it makes the sentence too clunky.
Her friend was already there, a pink mare with a purple and white mane, still wearing one of the old tiaras she used to wear to Cheerilee’s class so long ago, neatly polished and shining brightly in the sun.
This is a rather clunky passage. Think about reorganizing it. Such as:
Her friend, a pink mare with a purple and white mane, was already sitting at a table. Even after all these years, she still wore one of her tiaras, just like the days in Cheerilee’s class. The tiara was well polished, and shined brightly in the sun.
I won’t bore you going through the whole story. Hopefully those suggestions can help you look for most passages like that. Or don’t bother, since you seem to be doing fine for yourself.
This is a characterization that I really like for Silver Spoon (and Diamond Tiara when she’s not the antagonist.) On the surface, their cutie marks appear to imply they are simply going to be little princesses their whole life. Digging deeper, however, you can theorize that both Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara will be artists. Silver might end up being a metal worker and silversmith, and Diamond Tiara might create jewelry. They simply assume their cutie marks make them worthless.
I think a mix of the first and second ending might be good. Perhaps Silver Spoon goes to sleep, and then the flashback takes place, though the flashback should be fleshed out a little. Perhaps the father’s cutie mark are a pair of fork and knife, and he ran a soup kitchen, funded by his other endeavors.
Silver Spoon hasn’t gained any redeeming qualities, I’m afraid. That’s not to say she is unsympathetic. I certainly feel sad for her, because she doesn’t know what to do with the rest of her life. But she hasn’t gained any redeeming qualities. She hasn’t done anything that makes us think, “You know, she’s not that bad.” Even if she was just a follower of Diamond Tiara’s, she still made the choice, and she still tormented the others.
It ends just as Silver Spoon is on the cusp of either doing something, or failing to be strong enough. I’m not sure if you were implying in the original ending that Silver Spoon was going to kill herself because she thinks of herself as “worthless.”
Really, there isn’t much to judge. It’s such a short story, with very little going on. Silver Spoon is sympathetic, but there’s nothing left to her.
Very well-done, and one of the saddest fics that I've read. Good job.
I liked both endings, though I can see why you went with the first one.
I've not read this yet (I'm about to), but please space it. You need spaces between paragraphs and such - basically, wherever a new line begins that is not the continuation of the previous.
Hi there! Scribblestick the Chill here on behalf of WRITE to review your story. Let's dive right in, shall we?
I see a lot of potential in this story. I think you've chosen a great conflict for Silver Spoon to face, one that I can see naturally evolving from what we've seen of her as a filly. I like a lot of what you're doing with the characters, and though the fates you chose for the CMC are cliche, I didn't find them distracting, since Sweetie Belle was the only one that really mattered to the story, and she only came up in passing.
I think the execution of this concept was a tad lackluster, though, and I'll try to explain why.
The first thing I'll talk about is something I've decided to call "walls of dialogue." Basically, you have large sections of the story that are nothing but dialogue between Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara. Dialogue is certainly important, but it needs to be balanced with narration and description. I noticed several paragraphs that didn't have so much as an indication of who was speaking, and even though there were only two characters, I still found myself getting lost from time to time.
The reason narration and description are so important has to do with the principle of show vs. tell. If you're not familiar with the phrase, it essentially means you need to show the reader the character, not just tell him/her things about the character. For example, in "Friendship is Magic," AJ doesn't have to say "I'm a hard-working, friendly, family-loving farm pony." Her actions and words along with the setting show us all that. The more you can do that in your writing (that is, let the reader infer through details who a character is), the more engaging it will be.
In this story, Silver Spoon tells DT about her internal struggle to figure out who she is. I'm not saying she shouldn't; after all, this is a conversation between old friends. There were a few times, though, when I felt she was over-explaining herself, and that a little description might work better. For example:
Rather than have her say this upfront, you might take this opportunity to show us the contrast between DT and SS. For example, you could have DT laugh off SS's previous sentence (somehting like "Oh, please. Who needs that when you're rich?") and describe SS's reaction (SS bit her lip and looked down at her sandwich, which still lay untouched on her plate.) Descriptions like these help the reader see (rather than be told) that these friends have very different views on the subject while showing us that SS is genuinely bothered that she doesn't know what her mark means.
This will also help you avoid sounding preachy, as in this paragraph:
One other thing I wanted to talk about with this paragraph is the conflict. SS's turmoil was caused by her uncertainty about what she should be doing with her life, but when she starts yelling at DT, it seemed more like she was trying to get DT to see things her way rather than figure out her own life. It was a tad confusing for me.
Besides being a bit preachy, Silver Spoon's anger seems rushed, almost as if it comes out of nowhere. I can see what you're going for, but I think you should slow it down a bit. I do like how this leads to DT's line about how she may be daddy's princess, but at least she knows it, showing that as selfish as DT is, even she knows what she wants in life, whereas SS does not (one of my favorite lines in the story, actually). But I think the way this argument plays out distracts from the conflict that seemed to be building.
This line seems cliche. If you want SS to feel defeated by her situation (and that's the feeling I got), I think it would be better for her to just walk off.
You asked about which ending I thought was more effective, so I'll talk about that now. The first ending (non-bleak) seemed a little abrupt to me, possibly because the build-up got muddled. I liked elements from the second (bleak), but I didn't think SS's suicide was quite believable, again because of the muddled build-up. To me, the second was more effective because I was able to make a stronger emotional connection with Silver Spoon. I liked the flashback and note because of the insight they gave to who Silver Spoon could have been.
All that said, I did find the story interesting enough, if only because I really like what you were going for. With a bit of polish, this could probably be one of my favorite stories on Fimfic.
A couple minor details:
I know this is a nitpick, but when I think of pony parasols, I think something along the lines of Rarity's umbrella at the beginning of "Return of Harmony." I don't think your way is a problem, but I found the image a little odd.
This sentence felt a bit long to me. You might consider putting the waiters' actions in a separate sentence.
Well, I hope you found this review helpful. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me or the folks over at WRITE.
~Scribblestick, WRITE's notoriously friendly reviewer
Uhh, people? What?
3081330
Fixed. Thank you for pointing that out.
Well the original ending kina soured it for me, what little I read.
but this Chapter is a good one!
Though it hurts to see DT so callus towards her one and only friend.
Diamond's cutie mark represents leadership, perhaps Silver's as RW said is a sugar spoon.
I kinda like this ending better....