What Worked Last Universe

by Mockingbirb

To Get Started On The Rest Of Your Life

A few months later...

"Hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am a sex addict.

"I had to go a long way to find them, but earlier this week, I apologized to two more people who I had wronged. I think I really cleared up some misunderstandings. I hope it'll help. I can't make everything all better, but I tried to do what I could."

With one hand, Indie Twilight tossed her sobriety chip up and caught it.

***

Indie Twilight carried some wildflowers in her hand, as she walked along the path. She stopped at an upright stone tablet.

"Shiny," Twilight said, "A lot of things have happened these last few months. I escaped from Crystal Prep. Your old friend Cadance helped me transfer into Canterlot High. I don't know what she said to Abacus Cinch, or what she did. But she stopped Cinch from changing my school records to say I was a bad person."

Twilight bent down to lay the flowers on top of the stone. "Even though my physics research is still going well, I haven't tried to publish. I haven't used it to try to win worldwide scientific fame. I used it to help me find something better. Friends who, each in their own way, are nearly as wonderful as you. Can you believe it?"

Twilight knelt, putting her arms around the gravestone. "I know if you were here, you would be so happy. And by the way...you know what this is."

She set an unmarked poker chip on the gravestone. "I just got my three month chip. I thought you might like to have my old one."

Tears dripped onto the stone. "Wherever you are," Twilight said, "I hope you have friends as good as I am so blessed to have. Because I know you deserve them, BBBFF."

She stood up, and walked into the rest of her life.

Comments

[The Voice in the Water]

That was deeply sad, yet strangely beautiful.

I was kinda hoping that Indie Twi had somehow patched things up with her Sunset, but from the sound of it, she didn't. Still, at least she's starting to heal.

[PixelatedPerson]

That was sad, pretty sad yet uplifting ending great job.

[PixelatedPerson]

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Agreed, it was really sad.

[fanreader999999]

Well. That happened.

[Mockingbirb]

I just fixed two spelling discrepancies. How not exciting.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Some good drama on display. Twilights do have a tendency to obsess over displacement activity to ignore everything missing from their lives, don't they? Magic, science, Sunset...

You could use a bit more variety in the text during dialogue. There's a lot of "X said Y" paragraphs in here. Mixing it up with gestures, moving about the room, physical reactions to other speaker, and so forth would help break up the repetition. I'm also very surprised that Indielight actually stuck around... though given how her device works, she'd probably end up in another Sunset's apartment. Yeah, sticking around makes sense.

As I said, good stuff, and a very reasonable divergence point that was quite well foreshadowed in hindsight. Best of luck in the judging.

[Mockingbirb]

A comment from FoME! With constructive stuff in it! (which I guess is usual for FoME.)

I wonder how many times I'll (re)edit this story now, even before the contest entry close. (Answer: more than once, counting what I've done already.)

[Kris Overstreet]

This story would have been better if you had put the material explaining IndyTwi's actions after the main transgression and formatted it so we see actual scenes from her life, instead of just telling about it. Doing that gives the story a stronger initial hook and then allows for some building action before the main conflict is resolved.

Solid grammar and word choice; well done.

[SirNotAppearingInThisFic]

It's not really an issue, but you could use the [hr] tag or center your *** for scene breaks. Hypothetically, the tag plays nicer with all screen sizes, but I don't think it's an issue with just three asterisks anyways.

Twilight had one secret hobby. (Well, two if you didn't count collecting pictures [...]

I think this is an error, as it appears to say that 1 - 1 = 2.

---

I went in having already glanced at FoME's comment; I didn't really think about it when I got to the Twilights' conversation in the story, then – halfway through – I started to think that the problem with too many "X said Y" lines was actually more the fact that the story just used the dialogue, and little else, to deliver humor and the plot for about half of the first chapter. I still kind of think that, but then I saw “[...] Sunset agreed. Sunset said, [...]” with only a line break in between them—and no duplicate Sunsets. Even as inconsequential as it may be, I think – at this point – it's definitely worth looking into as a problem.

---

“Or sometimes, Trollestia.”

"That's a lot of cake."

“What the derp?”

More of a personal gripe here: I tend to do a double take at moments like these, when it seems odd that the characters would so casually make so many of the jokes that we do in the fandom.

---

They both know about alternate dimension Twilights.

Kind of the perfect sentiment to be found in this story, what with the three Twilights presently involved containing only one unexpected visitor.

And whenever Twi herself was the best at something, getting the highest score on a test or pulling off some more unusual achievement, it made many of her classmates resent her rather than admire her.

Sigh. It's sad 'cause it's true.

This was an interesting story. In a good way. I think there's definitely a lot more that could be said and/or shown in this story/'verse (I know, 15k word limit for the contest anyway), not that it detracts from what we have.

[Mockingbirb]

If you want to read something with completely fresh eyes, perhaps you shouldn't read any comment first? SirNotAppearingInThisFic, your point about it is still worth my thinking about, though.

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After the princess left, SciTwi said, "Well. That was a thing."

"That was SO MUCH a thing," Sunset agreed.

Sunset said, "There is one more thing I really want to know. Or maybe I shouldn't ask. What did Indie whisper in your ear?"

SciTwi smirked. "That's a secret. But do you really want to know?"

I went and checked this one myself just now. I really did intend for Sunset to make two relatively independent remarks in a row. So at this point the issue becomes, how can or should I let Sunset make two relatively independent remarks in a row without triggering some people's proofreading reflexes?

On the one hobby vs. two hobbies arithmetic issue, you are logically correct. But isn't it interesting that so few people seem to notice that? I have a theory about it. Anyway, I've just changed to a somewhat similar phrasing that makes more logical sense.

You also said some other nice things that also seem sincere, and I thank you for paying attention to the story and being very constructive. Maybe I might have more to say later.

***

[SirNotAppearingInThisFic]

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I'll just pass over those assumptions about fresh eyes.
The hobby math is good. I know it's just a little detail, but that makes it easy to miss fix.

RE: dialogue. I can't speak for everyone's styles, and the answer honestly changes depending on how developed the story already is and what you want. What I'd do in this situation is take advantage of character actions. In this specific case, a sigh, or a shrug, or shake of her head or something—whatever fits your plan as the author. You could then merge the two lines and probably drop one, if not both, of the dialogue attribution tags. (If we're obeying the one-character-per-paragraph rule for dialogue, you can easily strongly imply who's paragraph it is by stating some of their actions instead of using "X said" tags.)

Strictly speaking, you could just drop "Sunset said" and merge them into the same paragraph, one line on either side of "Sunset agreed". I don't think you'd lose any clarity for doing that.

In the general case, if you aren't simply looking to patch up a scene after you've written it – or heavens forbid that you're willing to rewrite it I am very guilty of this sometimes – you can reshuffle, remove, or repurpose lines of dialogue; you could plan for larger actions or interruptions that will take the space between such independent statements; or characters could be added, removed, or swapped out if that makes things easier, just to name a few things. Ideally, any changes you make are going to help the story in other ways as well, such as making the characters seem more natural or giving something clarification.

"How to write" is a topic this comment is headed for that is probably far better covered by others, so I'll leave it here and see if I've managed to satisfactorily answer your question.

[Mockingbirb]

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"How to write" is a topic this comment is headed for that probably far better covered by others, so I'll leave it here and see if I've managed to satisfactorily answer your question.

There is no one on this earth who can give a complete and fully satisfactory answer to that question.

[AlexTFish]

Well. That was quite a fic. First seems like it's going to be a sci-fi sex comedy, then rapidly turns dramatic. I had been wondering when Twilight was going to introduce one of the Sunsets to another, given the contest; I got caught rather by surprise by all the Twilights turning up, though in retrospect it makes much more sense for Indie Twilight to get her lessons from other versions of herself Spent longer than I'd expected discussing different names for Twilights, but I did love the severe awkwardness that Sunset had through that whole discussion. And it's kinda fun how Indie Twilight never actually found out that Sunset and PT are ponies

I think it worked to have the first half just dispassionate narration, and then the second half just one big dialogue. I wasn't struck by too many "said"s or anything like that. I did find Sunset's first lines in the morning rather confusing, though... I guess it was meant to be showing she's just worked out Indie Twilight isn't who she thought, and she's offering her help? Maybe?

Very interesting story, anyway, with some fascinating ideas (and some rather out-of-fandom references). But for all that the criticisms in the comments may well be valid, I think it'll stick with me for quite a while. Thanks for the fic!

[Mockingbirb]

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I want to thank everyone who commented, especially during the period before the contest closed to new entries, which I assume is when contest entries should no longer be edited.

I read all of your comments and thought about them (in many cases, multiple times.) Your comments were all helpful in their own ways, whether they were cheerleading, general feedback, specific feedback, or very specific suggestions for this story or for my writing in general. Some general comments and some specific suggestions are things I can't immediately apply, but I can learn in different ways from all of them.

Thanks again!

P.S. Some comments below here include spoilers, so please read the story before reading the comments, unless you like spoilers.

[PixelatedPerson]

10511631
Excellent to hear.

[PresentPerfect]

This went nowhere I expected. :O Wow!

[bdoubleowo]

Shining Armor's dead in this universe??? How? :(

[ScisetShimmerEvan]

Damn, while this ending was sad I enjoyed this story. Gave me vibes to movies I've seen with time traveling and alternate dimensions.

[Starlight Nova]

The non-consensual tag is...complicated.

What do you mean by that?