Hello. I do things every now and then. Also, ponies.
Twilight, being an inquisitive pony, wants to find out what the source of Equestria's happiness is. The answer is not quite so pretty.
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A crossover of Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas".
Thought I might as well publish this, feedback is greatly appreciated.
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One does not simply
Trot away from Canterlot
Hey, I know you! From somewhere...
I'll read this soon!
It's pretty good. My main objection is that it's too simple-- you just take the skeleton of the other story and past MLP over it. I wish I could have seen a lot more details about how this situation came into being, the inner thinking of Celestia, and so on.
I also was expecting the creature to-- ah-- not be a pony. That might play off of the whole 'Conversion Bureau' mythos and relay how Equestrian prejudice against humans, dragons, griffons, zebras, and other non-pony species underlies their feelings. It also might mean Twilight's feelings would be more complex (as a pony, she'd naturally feel less empathy for non-ponies). That's not "criticism" at all, though-- just more of an observation. Take it for whatever you will.
Oh hey! I did something on this book not too (sorry REALLY) long ago.
I'ma check this out.
*edit* nice and a bit short. Nothing here nor there.
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511406 I think you're probably right; looking back over it, it IS pretty skimpy in terms of character and detail. Thanks for pointing that out.
What.
The.
BUCK!!!!!
No, wait, let me get this straight: Celestia created a world of happiness by condensing all of its suffering into one point?
I'm the first to comment on this in a looooooooooong time
Hmm. The thing about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is that it doesn't have any characters. So this should be interesting.
It's under the labyrinth? Huh. Considering how little ponies apparently know of Discord despite his prominent placement, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out that it were out in the open and nopony noticed for some reason or another. Celestia must actually be ashamed of this one.
Well what was the point of all the fortification then?
Okay, come on. She would have heard and/or felt that before she saw it.
Okay, now that is some good imagery there.
Oh grife she talks. Grife grife grife.
I was hoping she'd be better than I would.
...
And Twilight lets the door close on her? I... I mean, yeah, backing away is a pretty visceral reaction at that point, I can see myself doing the same thing, I just...
Yeah. This much I could reasonably expect from Twilight... though I wonder whether she told anyone she was leaving, and how they reacted. She certainly can't have just left Spike behind. But... grife. I can't help thinking that the right thing to do would be to get that filly out of there.
(Interesting thought: is the substitution of "trot" for "walk" a necessary or fitting one? According to PonyTalk "walk" has appeared in pony dialogue referring to ponies several times, including notably in Sonic Rainboom- "only pegasus ponies can walk on clouds"- and Putting Your Hoof Down- "um, politely walk around him?"... and frankly I'd say Twilight probably galloped and/or teleported away from Canterlot, after that encounter.
)
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Alright, so I shall address these point by point: (And before we begin, I could probably answer most of your concerns by saying that I didn't think this through very well; I wrote the whole thing in about an hour.)
TBH, the secrecy is most likely to keep those who don't know about it from stumbling in accidentally.
The fortification is definitely overkill. I probably could've gotten by without it, since the secrecy should have been enough.
True, but I did mention that she stepped in something soft and squishy... I just didn't say what it was.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! I am just a little curious, as I don't know if anyone picked up on it, but I intended for the little filly to be Screwball. Did that come across clearly enough?
I wish I had done a bit more thorough job when describing why the filly had to suffer for Equestria's prosperity; I was trying to create a moral dilemma for the readers, and maybe I did, but I can't help but think that there's more I could've done with this. Ah well, I'm glad you find it to be interesting. As for what Twi did between writing the letter and leaving, I think it's safe to assume she'd let her friends know. They probably were surprised and would try to convince her to stay.
Now that I think about it, that would've been an excellent vehicle for developing the conflict... Darn you, hindsight!
Lastly, thank you so much for your comment! I love getting such feedback and this is a marvelous example.
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Nope, didn't get the sense that it was Screwball at all. Building on that could have been really interesting, though, especially if you made her thematic connection to Discord an explicit one- maybe introduce the idea that because her origins are directly opposed to the harmony that keeps Equestria running, anything that helps her might by necessity harm others... but anyway, in general, yes, elaborating on the mechanism by which her suffering like this enables the prosperity of Equestria in general (or, you know, discussing it AT ALL) would have been a big help if you were setting out to create a moral dilemma. And yeah, Twilight's discussion of this with her friends, requiring each of them to weigh their current lives and how comfortable they are with what they've built for themselves in Ponyville against this one terrible thing that continuing in those lives would implicitly condone, would also help build on that. I mean, Twilight is a scholar. She can live pretty much anywhere there's civilization with the same viability she does now. And Rainbow Dash is probably in a similar situation with her weather work. But Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and especially Applejack are more tied to their current location, and would presumably have to consider the consequences more before they would be able to commit to leaving (though I do imagine that Pinkie and Fluttershy would likely end up siding with Twilight on this, or even get more serious about refusing to accept the situation- I don't know about the other two).
Basically... yeah, this could be a whole lot more interesting with another hour or so of thought put into the original premise and how it relates to these characters in particular. But there are still some good parts in this version, and the idea is an intriguing one.
...
This made very little sense. How does torturing one filly preserve Equestria's happiness? Like, seriously, why is this not explained? Is Twilight supposed to automatically know this? This is unreasonable.
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Sorry.
Yeah, that is definitely a problem. I just never really fixed it up.