I'm older than your average brony, but then I've always enjoyed cartoons. I'm an experienced reviewer, EqD pre-reader, and occasional author.
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In a moment of anger, Twilight says something rash, which is precisely the wrong thing to do with Discord. And now she can't speak, just as one of her most treasured friendships burgeons into something more.
She can figure this out.
An entry in Monochromatic's Interwoven ColoursColors event.
Thanks to Themaskedferret for pre-reading help.
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Now THAT was freaking awesome.
Oopsie.
What a splendid tale! I really enjoyed your take on the prompt and the struggle that Twilight had to go through in order to communicate and the trust the two built up - and color codes, literal color does! It was just perfect. I kept thinking back to things I've read about selective mutes and comparing it to the situation you presented here, which was both similar and different.
and yet they still doubt uncle discord
omg this was REALLY cool
i hope for some kind of sequel or next chapter with everything explained
i think what discord meant with ' then everythings over'
he just meant then his spell would be over
so yeah i really really liked this fic
one thing that just bothered me is the 'fluttercord' bit
haha but hey that not a prob ^^ everyone ships their own stuff ^^ i just wouldve enjoyed this WAY more without fluttercord or with another ship for Discord
8197211 can only agree
poor Discord
wonder if he'll ever be completely accepted by the others hmm
i mean for who he is
and not judging him for his humor or stuff like that
they accept pinkie with all her crazyness
but Discord is just the mean guy hmmmm
I really enjoyed this, for the most part!
I do, however, think the conceit could have been handled a little better.
By having Discord be so ominous and then completely bail, it really made me, the reader, know nothing catastrophic would happen, but it understandably makes Twilight completely uncertain. Discord could have been a bit less vague, while still keeping Twilight in the dark, so that he doesn't look like the total bastard that he appears to be to the characters in the story.
I could even envision a version of this where Discord explains himself earnestly to Fluttershy, and although she doesn't know the details, she trusts Discord enough to take some of the cruelty out of the whole thing.
Honestly, it would make the "lesson" he taught Twilight all the more poignant. Without making it sound like she'd fucking DIE, just convinced her that she couldn't speak, it would be all the more powerful that he never did anything to limit her speech at all.
His skewed sense of morality and near boundless chaotic magic would have put enough teeth behind the deception, without needing to make Twilight fear for her life. In fact, I'm not the writer but, in my interpretation of this Twilight, she would have told Rarity she loved her WEEKS sooner if Discord hadn't done his thing. They had to reach the point that Twilight literally loved Rarity more than life itself... which is romantic I guess, but it's also just fucked up.
Sooo yeah. Well written, and great ideas, but I really think the starting conceit could have been handled much better. Doing it any way other than throwing Discord under the bus, basically. At least in my opinion.
8237026
Well, the point was that Discord was trying to gently urge Twilight on, and then she went and pissed him off, so he lashed out at her and stormed off. He still hasn't returned, and he's got plausible deniability that he didn't know Twilight would interpret him that way. The voices she heard from him on two occasions may well have been more of a monitor he placed on her to enforce compliance than him actively watching her. Maybe Twilight would have told Rarity at some point and maybe not. She'd already noted easing into dating so slowly that there wasn't a demarcation between the before and after, and she enjoys that comfort level where she can be passive. That's how she behaved the whole time anyway—she only took the initiative when she had to.
I'll definitely cop to this being one of those stories that doesn't work well if you can't accept the premise. I find a lot of stories with darker elements are like that, and I can usually take much darker interpretations of Discord, when he's given the motivation. I mean, I can see where you're coming from, and I can see how readers might feel that way, but I don't have that kind of dissonance with it. Now, the setup is the part I struggled the most with, so it's the most likely part where it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. So fair point there, but I did pass it through a couple of experienced pre-readers first.
I enjoyed this story very much! Twilight and Rarity were very much in character, the premise was very creative, and Discord and his curse were good too, I've always liked Discord a bit more on the evil side than his current canon self.
I'd say my only criticism is just wondering why she wouldn't have tried charades or drawing before color language, or mix the three together, but quite honestly it doesn't really bother me or make the story worse, in my opinion. I'm completely willing to let that slide because you've written this so dang well.
Thank you for the lovely story!
8260025
Discord did specifically forbid charades, and Twilight never tried drawing because she probably thought it was a little too direct. It's not really that she'd been trying to find a loophole, more that she'd been thinking about how to defeat the curse. The loophole she did find was completely by accident.
Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This story was absolutely beautiful. The emotions felt so powerful and raw, beautiful and desperately tragic at the same time. Twilight's little trick was very creative, but that Rarity could understand it was so perfectly in character I'm surprised it's not canon.
Thank you so much for sharing!
That was a nice story. The color conversations were very clever.
this was lovely. More people need to read this :)
I actually liked your story. It was a classic example of a good writer's first attempt at romance. It falls into a lot of the pits that first-time romance writers succumb to, and it's got the general bare-bones structure of a love story. You have the conflict, the emotional build-up, the emotional resolution, and even threw in an epilogue in the form of bookending your framing device (the letter to Twilight's mom). The structure is all there, and I think with a bit more experience to inform the way a romance story should hang on those bones is all you need to be a really great romance writer.
Romance is a funny genre, because people get really caught up in the ROMANCE of it. The word "romance" is one of those really hard to define terms, because it means a lot of things to a lot of people. What it boils down to, as far as I've been able to discern, is fantasy and wish-fulfillment. Romance is simply a hyper-idealized representation of a thing's beauty. Most specifically in the case of romantic literature, love is the hyper-idealized subject. But huge set pieces, grand gestures, and emotional catharsis are just the broadest strokes of the genre. They're the popcorn-selling training wheels of the craft. The perfect form of love's expression can be sex, or a hug, or maybe a cookie bouquet on a rainy day.
Romance is a vast and open sea of a genre, and if I can offer a bit of advice, it's that love should be weird. At least a LITTLE weird. The way I love someone might be different from the way you love them, and just because the first time I said "I love you" was as we were both vomiting into a trash can at the county fair, doesn't mean it's not as beautiful as an orgasm of flowers and champagne.
I legitimately look forward to you growing in this genre. I know it's scary stepping out of your comfort zone and trying something that plays against your strengths, but it was a great first bite at the apple.
This wasn't written by Monochromatic, was it? The name at the top is different.
I dont know who you are, but that doesn't really matter. That was beautiful.
Well done, well done indeed.
I have decided we must refer to this as The Cadence Maneuver, a la The Picard Maneuver.
8331876
I can't say I understand much of what you wrote, particularly with the musings about romance. I was expecting to hear what you look for in a romance and why you didn't find that here, but it's more philosophical, and I couldn't figure out any conclusions. But I will note that this is far from my first time writing a romance. It's actually my 15th one, depending on whether I count minifics and full expansions of them separately, and a few of them are considered quite good. I will cop to being out of touch with what shipfic aficionados look for, as it's not a genre I seek out to read or discuss; I come at it from more of a literary angle than a pop culture one, i.e., I prefer something that's constructed as a story first and happens to have romance in it over a story constructed around the romance, if that makes sense, but then I suspect you do as well.
Here it is over a year later and I still tear up during the confession. Don't know how many times I have read this but it's still good.
Back again, still good, surprised no one else has made any more comments.
10521692
Fewer people around these days, and not many comment anymore either.
How did I miss this one for so long?!?! Beautifully written, wonderful imagery, and Twilight looking for loopholes is always welcome
.
I'm trying to articulate why I find this story so satisfying, but words are hard...the time skips work very well to convey the growth and change without getting bogged down in "telling", the thread trick was brilliant!, showing us both Twilight's ingenuity and Rarity's depth of understanding of color and of Twilight (wow, that's an awkward sentence...but the point stands). Then Twilight's epiphany when she had only 3 left and no way to undo the truth that threads were now speech was heartwrenching.
Thank you for writing this and sharing with us!
11303516
Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Of the Mane 6 ships, Rarilight is probably my favorite.
Given all the bullshit Discord pulls both before and after he betrays them to Tirek,I don't think he has any ground to stand on being angry.
Ignoring that, very cute story.