"Okay. Finding a date."
Twilight was at the table, having just retrieved all of the books the books on love which she had just put away a few hours before. She flipped through one, calling out her findings to Spike, who was nearby with a pen and parchment.
"Okay, well, evidently, it's easier for some ponies to get dates than for others. It also appears that a "date" can be anything from a longtime friend to a pony you saw five seconds ago and thought looked attractive. It also appears that it's generally considered more proper for the stallion to ask the mare out, but due to the increasing number of non-traditional gender roles, this kind of old-fashioned chivalry does not hold true anymore."
She turned around. "Did you get all of that, Spike?" she asked her assistant, who was scribbling furiously. He made no reply.
"Spike?" Still no reply.
"Spike! What are you writing?" Twilight snatched away the paper, to find that it mostly contained drawings of Rarity and a few hearts containing SP + RA.
"Fine, I'll just do this myself," Twilight grumbled.
About an hour later, Twilight was ready to go. her hair was combed, Her pelt brushed, and she had even tried putting on a little makeup. The latter hadn't worked out very well, but she still looked presentable.
"Spike, I'm heading out!" she called. "I'm off to find a date!"
"You really think it'll be that easy?" Spike asked skeptically.
"Sure! There's a formula to it: I'm going to go around Ponyville, find somepony who I find attractive and whose company I enjoy, strike up a conversation with them, find out if they have plans for Hearts and Hooves Day, and, if not, I'll ask them to go with me! I know love is complicated, but there are hundreds of ponies here in Ponyville! There is no way I can come back here without having found a date!"
-ONE GILLIGAN CUT LATER-
"Well, I haven't found a date," Twilight moaned, looking rather worse for wear. "I don't get it! What did I do wrong?"
"I dunno," said Spike. "What'd you do?"
"I did everything according to the script! I found somepony, talked to them, asked them out . . . but they turned out to be jerks, or I said something wrong, or they were in a relationship, or they had just goen through a messy breakup, or- GRRRRR!"
She kicked a pile of books. Then her librarian's instinct kicked in and she restacked them.
"Heck, I even tried hooking up with mares! I met Lyra and Bon-bon, and they said it was socially acceptable these days, and I said, 'Why not?' Well, it turns out I'm even worse with mares than I am with stallions!"
"Relax, Twilight!" said Spike "You've got lots of time before the actual gala! You're taking this too seriously."
He leaned one arm against the bookshelf and continued, "I mean, when I asked Rarity out earlier, I messed up, but did that stop me? Nope. She's gonna be mine! These things just take a little while." He then lost his balance and fell on the floor.
Twilgiht considered telling Spike the ugly truth about him and Rarity, but was distracted by her own problems. She flipped through her books, trying to think of a better solution.
"I've got it!" she exclaimed suddenly.
"You're gonna let things go at their own rate and relax?" asked Spike hopefully.
"No, silly, I'm going to create a compatibility formula, plug my personality into it, and use it to find my perfect match! It's flawless!"
Spike simply facepalmed.
Several hours, three pens, and two runs to the paper shop by Spike, Twilight had found her solution.
"Okay, so the introversion percentage should either be about equal or one should be double the other, plus an equal sarcasm factor and reverse ratios of optimism vs. cynicality (is that a word?) plus . . ."
Spike had given up trying to understand the psychological mathematics a while ago, but Twilight's tone of voice made it sound like she had actually figured something out.
"Why! This is just wonderful! I can just go up to a pony, talk to them, judge their numbers, plug it in, and see if we're compatible! It's brilliant!"
She got to her feet. "Spike! I'm going out again!" She headed out the door, only to return a few moments later. "Whoops! Forgot the papers!" She levitated the clipboard and dashed away.
The Doctor was at a cafe nabbing a cup of coffee when a purple unicorn sidled up next to him. He'd seen her around town before somewhere- her name was Sparkly or something. She was famous in this time period, wasn't she? She'd done something important, but he couldn't recall what. She was pretty, in a nerdy sort of way, he supposed. But she looked rather odd, especially because she was carrying around a clipboard and quill.
"Hi!" she said suddenly. "I'm Twilight."
He took a sip of his coffee, then replied, "I'm Doctor Whooves."
Twilight Sparkly scribbled something down on her clipboard. "Mmm-hmm . . . So, how are you today?"
"I'm fine," he said uncertainly. "I've certainly had worse days."
She looked at him, tilted her head, then wrote down a few more things. "Well, thank you, but I don't think your numbers are working right."
And with that, she got up and walked away.
The Doctor simply shrugged and took another sip. He'd seen stranger things.
This. Isn't. Working! Twilight told herself as she trotted down the street. You haven't found anyone even close to your number range! Hurry up, Twilight, think! Did you do the calculations wrong?
She glanced at her work. I carried the two right, I got both coefficients, the sine ratio is fine, oh! I put pi times delta, instead of phi times delta! Was that it? Wait, no, that's a phi all right-
She hit something and was suddenly knocked off her feet, her papers flying everywhere.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there. Are you all right?" said a kind voice.
Twilight found herself being helped to her feet by gray earth pony she'd never seen before. "I'm- fine," she said slowly, snatching her papers magically before they blew away.
"I'm so sorry," the earth pony said. "I should have been looking out more!"
"No, no, it's my fault," said Twilight. "I had my eyes on my papers, I was the one who should have been looking out more."
"Nonetheless, please accept my sincerest apologies," said the earth pony. "I'm Octavia, by the way."
Will romance blossom between Twilight and Octavia? Could this be Twilight's future "date"? Or will it all go horribly, horribly wrong? Find out next tomorrow on MLP: Love is Horribly, Horribly Confusing!
Octavia eh? But she already has Vinyl, right guys?
I love this story.
Although, I have no idea if cynicality is a word.
Twitavia, huh? Eh, I've heard weirder.
Constructive criticism you want, constructive criticism you shall have.
Firstly: Your chapters are criminally short. You're barely averaging 1k words per, the bare minimum requirement for the site. Not enough happens, or things happens too quickly, to make these chapters really have an impact; it makes it feel like you're rushing through the fic, and that would be a real shame, because it's a good plot concept and I'd hate to see it wasted by being poorly handled. Take your time and do more than the bare minimum.
Secondly: Your writing style is humorous, but too flippant for my tastes. Dial back the randomness and get in Twilight's head more. It's HER fic, let us know what SHE'S thinking, rather than telling us what YOU think WE'RE supposed to think about her. Breaking the 4th wall is fine, once in a while, for Pinkie Pie, but it should never happen in your narration, as with your repeatedly reminding the audience that Twilight doesn't understand irony.
(Speaking of which, to quote Bender from Futurama, "That's not ironic, that's just coincidental." It's a common misconception in pop culture that tweaks the nerves of grammar nerds and English majors like myself. For reference, irony is in fact defined as "The use of words expressing something other than their literal intention.")
Thirdly, your Celestia voice in her letter to Twilight irked me. She doesn't need to remind Twilight that H&H Day is in ten days, I'm sure Twilight knows that perfectly well for herself, let HER tell us how soon it is. Furthermore in a formal invitation like that Celestia would - and SHOULD - have expressed merely that invitees are expected to bring dates and leave it at that, rather than calling attention to the fact that they will not be allowed to attend otherwise. It's rude for Celestia to point it out and we can come to that conclusion ourselves anyway.
Finally, stop opening chapters with variations on "It was a normal day in Ponyville." It is the worst, most horribly cliché opening line ever to have existed and one of the most common offenders of the old "Show, don't tell" idiom.
As you can see, most of these criticisms are from a technical and stylistic standpoint. Your grasp of the characters is largely spot on and you have a good framework of an idea. I'd mostly just like to see more detail and less hurrying on to the next plot point.
Hope that gives you some thoughts to work with, and happy writing.
-CG
... cynicality (is that a word?)
No, but "cynicism" sure is!
Also, as the chapter title is roughly in line with my previous comment, I shall roughly follow through with my stated course of action, that being to sort-of-but-not-quite die of laughter.
That word count.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Fibonacci.jpg/220px-Fibonacci.jpg
I'm liking where this is going
I prefer OctaScratch shipping but this could be good.
It will go wrong. I mean, Twilight is already halfway to lesson zero's level of stress, so she's bound to make things awkward.
Also, OctaScratch fanboys will cause a riot over that particular pairing.
Whoa, Octavia paired with someone besides Vinyl Scratch?
*puts on fire-retardant suit*
Personally, I detest Octavia/Vinyl Scratch shipping. Two characters that have never even been in the same episode together? Really? Just no thanks.
So far, shaping up to be an amusing story. Little bit too much of Twilight, and I would like to see other characters play larger parts (I was really hoping for the Doctor to do more).
OCTASPARKLE! genius...
1028286
Pretty much what this guy said. It's good, but for god's sakes, don't rush it!
1028150 DON'T RUIN THE MOMENT!!!!
I approve of this pairing.
1028286
Wow. Lots of criticism, but most of it was true. In response, I say:
1) I know my writing isn't that great; I hope to improve by writing more. With luck, chapters should grow longer as I proceed.
2) This isn't just going to be Twilight's story; I'm going to focus on other characters, so I don't want to get too deep with any one character.. Also, while I'm not trying to make an actual episode, I'm trying to do it in a TV-style, so there's less emphasis on inner feelings.
Of course, fourth-wall breaking does kind of ruin that feeling, but I put it in because I thought it would increase the humor. When writing comedy, I prefer to be pretty flippant.
Also, I think most people would accept my definition of irony for most cases.
3) It doesn't seem to flippant to me. And not making it explicitly clear that a date is required might lead Twilight to just come alone, like she probably would have done if she'd gone to high school.
4) I can see how can get annoying, but I have stopped using it after chapter 2, so hopefully it's not too bad.
I want to like this. I really do.
Problem is, I can't.
See, when it comes to writing fanfiction for any given show, book, movie, video game, or whatever, the most important thing to remember is to avoid the cliche trap. Akane chasing Ranma with a mallet, any version of Bumblebee or Hot Shot kissing Optimus Prime's ass at every turn, Ron Weasley declaring everything under the sun to be "wicked!", J. Jonah Jameson screaming "PICTURES! PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN!", these things are all examples of memes that turn into cliches, and insinuate themselves into fanfiction with such alarming regularity that it becomes easy to tell when a writer, new to the series or new to fanfiction in general, is trying to show off how impressive his or her knowledge of the material is, even when the "knowledge" seems to consist entirely of overplayed memes and fanfic cliches.
And what you've got here is one hell of a massive mess of cliches. By the second chapter, it's honestly so bad as to render the rest of the story unreadable. And it just kept getting worse as I plowed through the rest. It's even worse when you get around to aping fanon memes, like Lyra. Under different circumstances, THAT might have been cute, even funny, but with this mangled mess of memes and flanderization? It's just cumbersome and unpalatable.
The story idea itself is solid. You've just killed it dead by burying it under several tons of horse manure.
1028286 Obviously you've never heard of Trollestia which reminds me "Do you like bananas?"
Twilight and Octavia god i hope not !
I don't get it why not make twilight go out with a stallion?
cuz that would be much better.
Im telling you fluttershy has a crush on Big Mac.
OctaviLight? I'm in! xD
Uhhh, Octavia. Words cannot describe how irritated I feel when a pony who doesn't even have a speaking role and is only around for a couple seconds gets such a large amount of attention. It truly annoys me to the core but I digress.dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Twilight_Sparkle.png
OMC!!!! Twilight x Octavia!?!? AT LONG LAST!!! MY DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE!!!!
"then lsot his" "The Docotr shrugged"
Noticed a few small typos, though nothing major.
Octavia! This is gonna be sweet.
1030875 Hmmmm...Twilight and Octavia huh? Shit....count me in and if not well then her with any one *cough, Spike, cough*would work as well
an Octy and twily cross.... hmmm this will certainly be interesting
VinylTavi disapproves and wants your head on a platter. But this is in the FlutterDash section, so hopefully, things go he RainbowShy route.
I despise the lack of Vinyl I've seen so far.
Also, CMC Scootaloo requests that ScootaBloom take over the world, and you help them.
That is all, my little pony.
Reminds me of the whole "Brad Incident" following the premier of EG.
It's just someone's own take on shipping. Nothing to judge on.
3132328 sorry I don't agree with ScootaBloom. I prefer FeatherBloom and/or Rumble and Scootaloo