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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Yay, a new chapter! With some cute, and some funny, and some... not cute or funny at all...
Also, for those of you who might have seen the early release of the season finale (And for all of you from the near future), I've got a somewhat spoilerific post about it here.
This was very unusual, yet very right for things. A whisper has a way of delivering a very accurate question through armor anyone has put up.
But this chapter was enjoyable, and very much more for the building of characters and their, well fallout for actions.
Whisper is going to have a heart attack.
That entire scene with Sickle... That was heavy. I knew I liked her for a reason. I really like the way you write your characters.
7633095 You're a bit late to complain on that. We've seen behind Sickle's mask a dozen times now. Plus, Sickle has always struck me as being someone that's really hurting emotionally. I think Whisper reminds her of someone and explains why they weren't killed on sight.
Plus we have that whole Sickle pregnancy thing.
I've been keeping an eye on her, she's an interesting character. Don't worry, she'll probably never stop being a bitch for more than a few moments at a time.
7633095 who says shes reformed? She has baggage, sure, but shes also heavily drugged
Umm, Dusty, arn't we supposed to b taking it easy?
aaaw...now more waiting...and none of the stories im tracking have updated in a while...I be sad...
......wow. that. That snagged my heart and wrenched it sideways. Just take my word for it phoenix, that was one of the best damn chapters I've ever had the pleasure of reading, no. Being apart of. I don't want sickle to leave. Or if she really does, I want her to come back. Guns ablazing, mouth cursing, and tail High for every pony to see.
Sickle may be a bitch at times, but she's OUR bitch, and she's a keeper.
This was a nice chapter, more world building with the bounties being brought up, and more characters building with the relationship between whisper and star. And sickle, never forget about that crazy bitch. I'm so happy that you showed just how much she cares for whisper and the others, without it being out of character for our homicidal friend. So all in all, good chap!
7634042
You know, she reminds me of Krieg from Borderlands, only less fucked up and with more chance of healing from bloody raider bullshit. And she at least can voice up her problems... sometimes... and control her body.... again, sometimes. Remembering her from first chapters, I'll say she's getting better.
I'm finally starting to sympathize with Sickle. What the heck.
( Also, this story is my biggest reason for visiting this site right now, by the way. )
A job? Damn, they never got around to weapons training. Well, maybe Dusty can give some advice during the real thing.
No rest for the wicked, huh?
Ok! I had a bunch of hours away from my computer this week and needed some fanfics to fill the time. Picked up this one, and 2 days later I'm caught up. I'd say you've earned yourself another follower.
I quite like the little lovebugs, and Whisper is adorable. Rest of the gang is fun, story is fun. I'm... not very good at talking about stories. Whatever, I approve of all dat shit you've written.
Minor concern of how long it's going to be considering it's up to 220k already, but eh, I'm down for some long-term FoE reading again
Wow, I just started reading today and I couldn't put this down, the characters here are so damn interesting! Looking forward to more!
Sickle Theory Incoming:
Sickle grew up in a "farming village" where she lived a boring life of farming, hiding from raiders, and over time became discontent with that lifestyle and started bulking up. Seen as weird by most of the village she was friendless until she met and fell in love with a stallion, I'll call him Hammer. While not a very imposing figure, he was smart and knew how to handle a rifle; they hit it off quickly and within a year headed out to create a new mercenary group. They traveled for 5 years, having fun, had sex, killed stuff, got caps, and burned through many other mercs whom they had brought on. Then out of the blue, Hammer and the few other mercs decide to kill Sickle and appear to do so, and bury her in a shallow grave. (Hammer had found a new mare and named Nail who was easier to control and had found out from a unicorn doctor that Sickle was pregnant.) Sickle wakes up bloodied and beaten, and left to die and effectively snaps. Fights with only her hooves to some healing potions, charges a raider den, for drugs and booze, kills a few then it dawns on her she could use them. Convinces the easily swayed raiders to help her take down Hammer. She "leads" to the group for years slowly becoming less sane and losing her baby in the process and eventually finds Hammer and his group. In a rare moment of clarity she holds off on the assault and waits until Hammer and Nail go to have sex in their tent. The raiders swarm the other 6 mercs and Sickle jumps the two making love in the tent. She then proceeds to gut Nail after crippling Hammer before slowly killing him as well. Which only further scares the other raiders. Years go by and she ends up walking in on Whisper and Starlight.
Her obsession with sex comes from her trying to find a better time than her time with Hammer. Thus she screws everything that breathes to try and end his only remaining hold over her. Additionally while being an addict and alcoholic, she actually did dream of having foals so the mere fact she physically can't drives her further to drink. (Her foal with Hammer which died, has a similar case to that of a rape victim trying to choose over rather or not to have the baby) (Just in her case she never got that opportunity to actually choose)
She doesn't want to hurt the group, but also fears them hurting her emotionally. Which is why she has a loner mentality aside from her thirst for sex and war. Starlight reminds Sickle of her deceased mother who died while she still was at the village. She too was an optimist who was somewhat awkward. Thus Sickle's opinion of Starlight is more of a internal struggle over rather or "not" she loves her "too dumb" to survive mother.
Picked this up a week ago or so, and finally got caught up, so I thought I'd give my two bits on the story.
Up until the last three or four chapters, this story has in my mind been in the "solidly good" category, and since then become something I feel I'm going to love continuing to read.
The writing is seemingly well proof-read, the characters are diverse and interesting, and most notably, it's got a very good pacing. Every chapter feels like it's making significant progress to the story, without anything feeling too rushed, and does it in bite-sized chapter sizes as well!
I particularly like your style of world and character building through the use of small, individually insignificant interactions that are easy to digest, which over time add up to a deeper understanding and later payoff, as opposed to heavy exposition scenes that often have a tendency to drag on and on, making it feel like finding The Book of Lore in a game, rather than following a gripping story. Horizons noticeably uses the latter, for example (I like the fic, but I can't deny it definitely has its flaws).
And yeah, the payoffs have been pretty great so far. Going through the hive was an intense read, for the emotional heaviness of it, as opposed to the "dungeon-esque" approach I feel a lot of FoE-stories go for (though admittedly, those are a lot more actoon-focused, so it's not all that strange). The last two chapters in particular have been great in that respect as well. Lots of calm, cosy Whisper/Starlight scenes (I gasped in delight when I realized there'd be a spa chapter), and then what followed from that (finally~).
If I had to bring up something that bothers me with the story at the moment (and it is just a tiny bit), it is the fact that Whisper's companions so readily go along on her changeling quest. To me it feels a bit like they shrugged and said "I've got nothing better to do". Now that I think about it, that's pretty much what Sickle did. Guess she doesn't count for this point~. Still, it gave me kind of a sense that they went along with it just because Whisper's the main character (I'm exaggerating, of course, it's not that simple). Of course, this changes as they continue on their journey as they learn more and grow closed to each other (tihi), and I can't say anything about the possibly upcoming trip to Baltimare.
Now I can't think of anything more to say at the moment, and I've been reading for five hours straight, so I'm gonna catch some sleep now^^
Thanks so much for the story so far. It'd been a delight to read. Looking forward to the next one!
P.S: Oh, and imagine how glad I relieved I got when I saw that this keeps updating, and pretty quickly too, judging by the releases of the last few chapters!
7645858
Thank you! I love getting feedback like this, especially when someone takes their time to respond in so much detail. It makes me happy! I'm glad you're enjoying the story, and I hope you continue to enjoy the rest of it!
Heh, I can understand that, especially since there's a lot of truth to it. As you noted, that's pretty much exactly what Sickle did (Well... it's more like 90-95% of the reason. The rest is more complicated, not to mention reliant on things that have only very vaguely been hinted at so far...).
Dusty went along with it because, despite the show of gruffness, he's a bit of a sucker for a sob story, especially if it's a mare in distress (Such as Silverline and Quicksilver). He was pretty upset with the deception, but Whisper breaking down in tears kinda hit a weak spot. Plus, he considers himself a leader responsible for the ponies under him, and who would do right by them, so once he had decided she was still part of the team, he wanted to help. He's also got a bit of the wandering merc/loner thing going on (Though less loner these days), which I suppose is kind of the paid version of "I've got nothing better to do."
And then there's Starlight. She's... kind of a little inexperienced, even naive at times, which can lead to her not knowing what to do when things get heavy. In those cases, she tends to look to the others around her, and "I guess I'll do what they're doing?" is really pretty close to "I've got nothing better to do". But really, even though she was pretty pissed at first, she did realize fairly quickly that Whisper was still Whisper. It took a little bit to convince her that Whisper really was her friend, but once there, she'd do whatever it took to help her friend.
7634042
(Slow reply is slow! Sorry)
I just wanted to say that I really love your description of Sickle
And don't worry, I'm sure there'll be plenty more of everyone's favorite bitch.
7634354
I'll count that as a success!
7635187
Hehe... "You see those guys shooting at us? Shoot them with your bullets. Also, try not to get shot, that's a bad strategy. Plus, it's gruesome. Good luck!"
7636373
I hear you on the concern about length. I keep looking at that slowly increasing counter, wondering "What the hell did I get myself into?"
And the really scary thing is, I have no idea how long it's going to get to. I mean, I know exactly where the plot is going and where it's going to end, and how far through it I am, but I appear to have serious difficulty translating that into actual word-count. If I had to make a guess... I'd say around 350-400k, though it might run a little longer than that.
7650701 NO WORRIES ya been busy ^^
Moar ....also yummy sickle pies
Will we just receive random chapters every once in a while or is there like a scheduled you have for releasing them?
7657667
There's no firm schedule, especially since my class work might take up time I could otherwise spend writing, but I'm hoping to keep up a relatively steady pace of one chapter every other week. The next chapter is currently on track for that, though it depends on how the tweaks I've worked on turn out (The first draft had some issues my editor and I wanted to fix up first).
7657815
I see what you mean I was just wondering if you had like a suspected scheduled you kept. Like what you just told me you try and get one every other week. All I really wanted to know is an estimated guess to know how long it takes you to write a single chapter and get it edited, and what you just told me just answered my question. I thank you for giving me a rough estimate. I also feel the pain with keeping up with class work. I wish you well on your class work and keeping caught up.
Finally got around to read this chapter and dayuum! I take ANY chance of Sickle getting reformed! It's like Discord and Steelhooves all over again.
"Something working again"? Don't tell me Sic is preggers and now she has a change of heart at the same time!?
Strenuous activity does that, yea
Ummmmm... when both participants are female when the act is fullfilled, I'm fairly sure there's no risk whatsoever of that
Nooo, go parkour all over the place with your marefriend! You know you wanna!
It's called "sightseeing". You should know that, Wisper.
Ohgods, can't breathe
Hehe. There's the Dusty we all know and love.
I kinda figured a much. He's not the type to get strong-armed into anything.
Well, not for any purpose you want to think of, anyway
Only "most of last night"? Oh my~!
Hee. Excellent reply, Starlight.
Introspective Sickle? Wow, those must've been some really good painkillers
Ohboy. From introspective to rapey in two seconds. There's our Sickle
Ah. Ow. Yeah, she kinda lacks social skills. Like, completely
Ow. I guess that guy didnt think of her the same way, then. She's been hurt...
"Hell no. You snore loud enough to wake all the devils in Tartarus!"
Protecting a caravan?
Wow. That was... wow. I kind of expected character development for Sickle, but this was... well. Very Sickle, that's for sure.
7669733
Whisper said "still working". She was referring to Sickle's pupils still being wonky, indicating she still had drugs in her system, even if it wasn't the buck.
7728985
Ooh, back-to-back replies, cool
I know I've probably said it before, but I always love seeing your comments pop up. There's always a lot of good comments in there, and it gives a good sense of what worked. Plus you seem to pick up details really well
7730691
I've probably said this before too, but, I know what kind of feedback I'd like to get when I write
Is it bad that the end immediately made me think of the "we've got to cook." Meme?
Oh boy! Oh joy! What is this job I hear?
is that amber bitches death near?
or is it something quite more qeer?
That, was a pretty intense weird momment at the end, but one that made me feel sorry for sickle.
Sickle is so beyond messed up she can't even be a pony anymore, I just want to give her a hug. Granted she'd probably kill me afterwards but I can try right?
A metaphor is without like or as, this is what's called a simile. I don't think this falls i to either.
9533518
A simile is a type of metaphor.
In this case, Whisper is comparing "jumping into a deep pit" (And giving warning about doing so) to Starlight's prospective choice as to their relationship. Whisper is basically saying they're both big plunges with potentially scary results, and asking for a bit of a heads up before Starlight makes any big decision.
Starlight's slightly confused "thanks?" is because she didn't quite get it, either.
I know that I am gonna say something rather heretical that properly will get me thrown on a bonfire... But I am actually not a fan of the sex happening in the last chapter.
Sickle and Dusty lives up to the shipname Sicky since it felt like rape going on. Yes he was active, yes he repeated it the morning after, but unless I am totally wrong did he not consent one bit to be ridden like that, his stallionhood questioned in a pretty normal tactic of sexual assults towards males (what... you don't like it, ain't you man enough? What do you mean you don't want me to grope me, ain't you a proper man). Dusty seemed like a broken stallion in the start of this chapter, and no matter how active he was did it start out as forced penetration, and him mounting her in the morning smells of an attempt to gain some lost honour. Now I could be totally wrong, you are the author and know what the characters thought at the moment, but from my angle did it sure not seem fully consensual.
Now Whisper and Starlight... I like the couple, but sex was perhaps a tad too early, since it felt like it was because of Dazzles treatment instead of them actually wanting to doing it. Call me old fassioned, but I like a relationship to start with... ohh I don't know a dinner and a kiss instead of 2+ hours of fucking around. Call me grumpy, but while the scene was sweet did it leave a sour aftertaste since it didn't feel too genuine but instead like it was all Dazzles work, and they are cute, so would hate for their growing relationship to be based on the most frustated lesbian massuse in the wastland trying to get some tail.
10560143
It might surprise you, but... I agree on both of those, because that's basically what I was going for.
The first one, in particular, is right on. Sickle is... not exactly healthy when it comes to sex and relationships. There is reason why she ended up going raider for so long, and a lot of that is still there. I wouldn't say Dusty is broken, he's just really not happy with how things went, because she did go too far. His views are, honestly, kind of complicated on the subject. Short version is, he kinda sees this as progress for her. She wasn't intending to hurt him for her own gratification. In fact, she thought she was actually helping him. She doesn't quite get how these other people feel or think (Which is also what leads to the later events between Sickle and Whisper; Sickle though she was being nice). It's still wrong, but... progress?
The stuff you mention about Starlight and Whisper was also something I was keeping in mind, and it's why Whisper was so gentle and careful when talking about it later. She recognizes that Dazzle got Starlight way worked up and things jumped ahead faster than Starlight would otherwise have tried, so it's a precarious situation. And at least part of the reason I did it was because I wanted to show that going straight to sex isn't the final step in forming a relationship like so many stories make it, and there can be a lot of work that follows afterwards (Sometimes even because of the sex). And sometimes sex is a fun thing that doesn't have super-deep romantic meanings. It's all kinda complicated. Even more complicated because Whisper is highly experienced (And trained!) in how relationships work, while Starlight... is not. She's inexperienced and often idealistic, so Whisper is a bit concerned. Maybe even more concerned than usual, because Whisper also recognizes that she is, herself, a bit emotionally compromised at the moment, and may have difficulty sorting out what feels right from her training versus what feels right from her own desires.
I'm thinking this pragmatism is probably killing the moment.
So wait what kind of pony or changeling is born when they transform back to their original form?
Nice bit with Sickle if an awkward landing.
God, Sickle is really growing on me. I hated her at first, but at this point she's become probably the most interesting character to me. She has a good heart somewhere in there, but is too hurt to show it. I can't wait to learn more about her backstory.