Just some guy, riding out his time.
(Written for the Balloon Pony Holiday Contest)
At long last, after many centuries of neglect, ponies are celebrating the tradition of Krampus Night again.
It's a night when the Krampus, friend to all children, brings treats and toys for all the sweet boys and girls of Equestria.
And the naughty ones? Well, the toys have to come from somewhere...
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Personally, I've always kind of thought that the Cutey Mark Crusaders were - at least counting disobedience, property destruction, reckless endangerment, and worrying other ponies - about the naughtiest children around. Ah, the things you can get away with when you're portrayed as cute, happy, funny, cartoons!
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Who knows, maybe next year the Krampus will make good on his promise: anything can happen, to any pony.
Oh not the Krampus.
Time for a serious review.
This story...sigh...this story...
Was absolutely amazing! I really like
her maneyour writing style, and I will most definitely be reading more stories by you. Now let me start off by saying what fabulous characterization. DiamondTwitTierra and SilverScrubSpoon seemed really in character, enough to be show worthy! Honestly. And the pacing was wonderful. It didn't drag on, nor did it speed up, more like a peaceful walk: It may be a bit long, but I savored every bit. You have this sort of unique spark to your writing that really enhanced the story for me. Congrats, you earned yourself a like and a follower.woooww i really got into this story, i love it so much
the fact that diamond and silver are enjoying themselves, are they? so yeah, maybe if you could add more? i want to see what comes next
+1 fav :3
You know, I feel like I should be adding this somewhere.
This is 100% approved by arcum42.
Of course, I like Krampus and I liked the Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon characterizations, so this is no surprise.
--arcum42
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WOAH! That really means something!
Oh no, wait... who are you and why should I care about your approval?
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Pacing was something I dreaded for this story, because I wrote it in TeXMaker first to get a word count. That also meant I could see how long the damn thing was if printed on A4 paper. The phrase "Does this scene make my butt look big?" came to mind quite a bit. So thanks for the compliment.
As for any 'spark' in my writing, that's just because it was written fast. The four big scenes of the play, abduction, meeting, and realisation were all there at the concept stage. Actually writing it wasn't bogged down by overthinking it, for the most part. But again, there's a lot of subtle stuff in there that might account for what you experienced.
For example, Tobias is named after the old reindeer from the second Niko movie, whose character arc consists of feeling alone and pretending to like it to realising he shouldn't be making a little boy think he's better off alone as well. The beets vs turnips is a bit of history: turnips were what was initially used for lanterns during Halloween, not pumpkins. Beets are a source of crystal sugar that grows in temperate climates, as opposed to sugarcane which grows in tropical climates. Why was there a sugar famine? Because the pony homeland was frozen, and Equestria's climate wouldn't support sugarcane. The remark was initiially expanded upon, but I cut it for brevity's sake. Suffice to say Discord's reign over ponies wasn't all bad, or even that evil. Just chaotic, according to this interpretation.
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They are enjoying the company, sure, and maybe a tiny sliver of magic to calm them down in their predicament. It's a new experience, after all, and one that was originally supposed to be just that: a new experience. It could have been a lot worse: they could have been dropped with a kid who breaks his toys on purpose. They're with an amateur toymaker because someone like that respects the work that's gone into it, and is likely to be more careful with them.
The reason the story's not longer is because the contest this was written for had a word count limit of 5k words, with 6k being the absolute upper limit. On my word count it clocked in at 5750-ish words, on this site's count it's nearly 6k.
This would do quite nicely as an expanded story later, and honestly- it feels like it's got at least another chapter's worth in it as a piece of writing.
At this line, I knew it would be an amazing story to the end. The only major issue I have with it is the unavoidable one: It ends too soon. Please consider expanding it after the contest is over.
In particular, this is an excellent portrayal of reformed Discord. Chaotic-good with an extra dose of chaos,
just the way I like it. Especially this line:A Discord line if I've ever seen one, that is.
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I'll consider it, if only because I just saw Niko 2 the other day from start to finish and... man, how are those movies not more popular with bronies? I swear, MLP outright copied stuff from the first, while the second one copies stuff from MLP as a vengeance, only better.
I also just realised that I may have accidentally made it a crossover by having Tobias' mom be the flying one and not his dad. I swear I didn't know Niko got a sister in the sequel, that's not her. The idea was Tobias' dad is from Niko's extended family, and his mom is a blood relative to one of the Flying Forces.
But anyway, additional chapters... the obvious line of thinking is to have Tobias come to Ponyville, and/or the CMC turn into balloons because, as 5437782 rightly pointed out, they have some marks on the naughty list, too. Not to mention Diamond has a pool of her own. I'd have to make it Nightmare Night, though, to give Luna and Discord an excuse to show up.
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Terrible tot to toy has so many options besides inflatables.
After all, a "naughty" should be poetic justice. Also, for all that the CMC are unholy terrors at times, they're 1) not generally malicious about it and 2) Generally make amends for their disasters. Plus 3) Discord is an honorary CMC member (see the comics) and loves the little scamps.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon really are the queens of the naughty list in Ponyville. Now, if ~some~ little filly or foal decided to do something rotten before Hearth's Warming Eve and didn't get forgiven/thought they got away with it...well, it's Krampus night!
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I'd prefer to keep it balloon-themed, since, you know, it was written for a balloon pony contest after all. And the idea that it's 'punishment' for being bad is a pony invention, not the Krampus', I thought that was clear. I also haven't read the comics; they're not available here.
I'll see what comes up. Happy holidays!
ooh i see, well i still like it anyway. and yeah, it still good that they have been picked by a nice boy who takes care of his toys. who knows what could be worse? xD
(and sorry, i'm new to this and i don't really know how to reply xDD)
5460113
No worries, glad you like it.
Also, the way you reply is: look at a post that you want to reply to, then hover the mouse over the right top corner. There's two buttons there: one that looks like a dustbin, and one that looks like >>. The dustbin is the delete button, and only visible to the author of the story. If it's your own comment you're replying to, there's a button shaped like a pencil, that allows you to edit a post. The >> one is the reply button, that's the one you want. If you click that, you get a number in the comment box where you normally type a response, and that's the number that refers to a previous comment. You can click and then type out a response, or even click, then type, then click a different comment and you'll get different numbers that allow you to reply to several posts with one of your own (very handy to avoid looking like you're inflating the comments for heat). But while you're typing the comment itself, it just looks like >>(number), you don't see the post you're replying to until after you preview or post it. Keep in mind that clicking the same comment multiple times just adds the same comment to it several times, you don't want that. Hope that clears it up.
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ooh i see, thanks so much
Oho!
That was something interesting indeed! Employing Discord for your causes is a bold move, but one that works out, in the overall swing of things. People seem to want more of this, and I agree, now it's over, if you'd like to expand, feel absolutely free to. That was great :D
I loved the transformation itself, the idea of their insides melting away to create the air inside and the way the magic slowly reduced them to plastic was well-done, especially the deflation part, the possibility that emptying the air would mean emptying the remnants of their bodies makes this out to have a really fridge-horror-esqe feel to it.
You also employed a tradition that I'm not familiar with, so it adds a sense of freshness to the topic/focus :V It was interesting trying to find the references though I'm the worst to look for those kinds of things >.>
I'll let you know how you did soon ;D
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Yay!
To be perfectly honest, the comment that people want more of this doesn't mean much compared to my other works. It's a good sign, yes, but I take it with a grain of salt. As for references, gosh, which ones haven't I mentioned yet?
The sugar beet tradition in these parts of Europe, and especially here in Belgium, was started by Napoleon, an emperor whom history has represented wrongly for a long time (he was actually taller). In Equestria, it was started by Discord, an evil sovereign whom history had all but forgotten.
The Pact of Givers is something that happened here in Belgium: we have three saints that are celebrated regionally and nationally: Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Saint Martin. Sometime in the nineties, there was a symbolic agreement between the three to not interfere with each other's holidays, so no Christmas decorations until a certain time after the Saint Nicholas celebrations. Here, it seems the Krampus and Nightmare Moon need to come to a similar arrangement.
As for the references to the Niko films... you'd have to see the movies to understand. Suffice to say that those films are both on my faves list, and that when they show children in danger, it's real and genuine danger, even fetish fuel-y at one point. Ribbon bondage, man *shudders*
I may expand on this one day, but I'd edit it first to distribute the weight of all the scenes more evenly. Also, I have a more solid idea for an Inflata-Belle sequel first, crossing over with yet another fic people wanted a sequel of. It's Snail's Pace, and while the fic itself is about psychological issues, there's a throwaway line at the end that should give you a good hint about why it'd cross over with Inflata-belle.
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I was hoping someone would spot that. Mission accomplished