• Member Since 19th Jan, 2015
  • offline last seen Nov 8th, 2018

Shrike


If you have hands and a word processor, you can write, and should.

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This will be a collection of short stories I'll be writing between drafts of The Grey Arbiter, where Anon and Applebloom brush up on their detective skills. They take place before the events of the aforementioned story (I guess that makes them prequels?).
I omitted most of the other tags that go with The Grey Arbiter (i.e. Dark, Human, Romance), as these will be purely lighthearted (and comedic, hopefully), where human Anon is not a plot device.

Chapters (3)
Comments ( 3 )

This is the background the first story needed, else the first case doesn't have the emotional weight behind it. Good job, we looking at Applebloom getting a detective cutie mark eventually?

5549878 As it happens, I agree that perhaps the first quarter of the first chapter should have been more Apple-family centred (it could probably also do with a rewrite. I really fucking hate how it flails around like a fish out of water in the first 3,000 or so words). Perhaps I could write a proper prequel.

To your question:
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Maybe. Like Chekov's gun, if I wrote about Applebloom getting a detective cutie mark at any length, I'd be almost obligated to work it into Grey Arbiter proper. Sure, it might work, but it runs the risk of looking artificial, half-assed and shoehorned, like I'd duct-taped it to the manuscript after the fact.

Then again, like symbolism, if the opportunity is there, and I think it'll enrich the story, in it goes.

I hope there were enough commas in that last sentence.

Now that I've caught up in the main story I can totally see why you decided to do slice of life silly stuff on the side. I can quickly tell the main work is going to be too Noir to be enjoyed, and as shown here there is a lot of life and fluff available in the setting.

It's a bit of a whiplash though if Apple Bloom is only really mentioned here and not in the main work past chapter one, seeing as this is the prequel. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you are making the Apples amazing in this story and seeing them put on a bus (or a train in this case) for the rest of the main one makes me kinda sad.

That said, I kinda feel the cutie mark crusaders should be more active in this work. They ARE her best friends, or is Apple Bloom obsessed enough with Anon to not hang out with them as much anymore?

“Y'all must like someone. Who?”

“You're the detective.” I said. “You tell me.”

Those final words became my worst mistake that week.

Heh, now that's a great cliff hanger. Looking forward to more.

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