I am the Knackerman. Most of my writing deals with horror, suspense, and tragedy. And yes, there will be gore.
This story is an adaptation of a story by, and dedication to, the late Ray Bradbury. May he live forever in our hearts.
(NOTE: I take no credit for this story nor the bulk of the writing of it. It is an adaptation, not an original story)
When the Carnival rolls into Ponyville Big Mac sets out to sell the family wares. While he's there, he comes across a sideshow that may just change his life forever. And the lives of everypony in Ponyville.
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....wow....
btw. I liked how you not only captured the speech patterns of everypony (except you miss Big Macintosh's "E-Yup") but you also told the story as if you were one of the ponies sitting around every night watching. Great job with that!
That was terrifying.
I think that I'll have to re-read this to fully understand all of the dialogues, but a good story otherwise. Keep up the good work!
As a stupidly big fan of "The October Country" I felt driven to read this.
You captured the style well, got the vocabulary down and polished your prose to perfection. It's a vision of technical skill and a worthy homage.
The problem is the story itself does not lend itself to use in My Little Pony, least of all with these characters. I might buy Big Mac full of seething resentment for others, as an extreme. But a cruel AJ makes no logical sense. Hateful Braeburn makes even less sense. The psychotic break is jarring because it is scripted, not emerging organically from the natural personalities of the characters.
On the whole, well-written, a fitting tribute. But the character selections feel hollow and pointless. You could literally insert any other pony in there and, with all the personality manipulation required, they would fit in the exact same way. Not to mention: poor Pinchy.
I Stay Away - Alice In Chains
Brilliantly dark. Bravo.
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Oh, but I loved poor Pinchy! That's the whole reason for that character choice! So innocent, so sad.
As to your point about plugging any other pony into the roles of Big Mac, Braeburn, and AJ, I'll admit that I was debating with the choice of Braeburn. He's only in one episode and we know so little about the guy. But in the end I went with the idea that this is Big Mac, his sister, and his cousin after a few long years of living with each other in less than ideal circumstances. (note I did not include the character of Applebloom in this at all, though Granny smith is still around.)
Part of what I loved about the original story is there are all these emotions that are clearly boiling away beneath the surface that you only get the barest, and YES jarring, glimpse of before the cause leads shockingly to the effect! This is an element of Bradbury's own writing style, and one I had sought to emulate. I'm sorry if it makes the characterization seem a little off, but if it helps, this is not quiet the AJ and Big Mac from the show. There are frustrations and rivalries here that don't exist in that utopia of yesteryear.
Personally, I thought it worked.
711003
Agree to disagree, as they say. I cannot see it because the seething hate just doesn't feel present and real to me. Least of all in Applejack. She seems the type to tell a pony off long before she gets herself murdered and chopped up into a formaldehyde stew. And Braeburn seems a little too busy glad-hoofing and filling up Little Strongheart to hang around Sweet Apple Acres like a creeper to torment his cousin.
711765
This is a much easier story to take if you think of it as a play being put on by the apple family as a kind of ghost story for the rest of ponyville. Otherwise I totally agree that the constant dichotomy between the canon characters and their personalities and relationships in this story are just too extreme to be able to get the full impact of the darkness of this tale.
Actually now I want to see a second epiloguish chapter where AppleJack is wrapping up the play and asking her friends what they thought of it.
Pinkie Pie thinks it's awesome how spooky and chilling the story was, Rainbow Dash is white as a sheet but denies any and all fear... of everything, ever... never in her life having ever been scared. yeah.
Fluttershy has outright fainted, Rarity is fanning her to give her air, looking rather green herself and comments on how convincingly the element of honesty is able to play a role so obviously untrue to her, to which AJ comments that its not her story, so she's just relaying the story as truthfully as posisble, Twilight is enamored with how lifelike the prop for the jar is and asks if she could take it back home to study it, but AJ says "sorry Twi. I'd like to, but it's kind of a... family heirloom."
At which point she winks at them and holds a hoof to her lips to shush them and hauls her cart back off to the apple farm, leaving everyone else staring and looking sick.
Except for rainbowdash, she's fainted on top of fluttershy.
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That's a really cool idea! I like it a lot. Would you mind if I included it, perhaps, later down the line?
2476641
Sure thing. Heck, I'm half tempted to write it myself, since it could probably be done in less than 1000 words. I think keeping it shorter actually improves the impact in my head.
That was ugly and horrible and gut-wrenching and I loved every minute of it.
Ray Bradbury?
6845274 Yes, of The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes. A prolific and fantastic writer of fiction and one of my favorite authors.
Oooooookay. Not quite sure I could follow that, only at the end there when he killed his sister and stuffed her in the jar or parts of her anyways.
6845339 Oh! Gotcha, yeah I can see that.