It's a lesson that every agent is taught at the Odd Squad Academy: how do you interrogate a unicorn?
Sure, they know how to handle unicorns from Far-Far-nia. But how about a unicorn from a rather...different world? One that proves to be more trouble than any other unicorn agents have faced before? One that flies into a rage if you so much as spill one speck of dirt on her hoof? One that manages to drive her interrogator to the breaking point?
A story in the Normalcy is Magic collection, a collection of crossover stories that are connected with Odd Squad.
Chapters (4)
Meh
This was a very interesting idea, but the delivery falls a little flat. The first half reads like the end of a longer story. We're informed that Olive hates unicorns, and we're informed that there's history behind this, and we're informed of a bunch of things, far more than we're shown those things. Then the second kind of goes off the rails and becomes fairly random. The story has a random tag, sure, and it definitely belongs there, but there are enough moments where I didn't know what to expect even in the next paragraph beyond "ok, this is happening" that it started to get a bit dull. Like listening to stream of consciousness rambling. Competently written rambling, but yeah...could have done with a little more cohesion towards the end.
And the ending didn't feel very convincing. You spend several chapters informing us how much she hates unicorns, and then BAM no more, and she likes them so much that she uses a wish to go to Equestria, trite statement about friendship, the end. For that sort of complete turnaround to happen, it needed to be demonstrated with a clever twist, or a daring adventure that changes hearts and minds, or at least some sort of emotionally charged event happening to the protagonist. Instead you went with "apply magic orb, poof, the end." It's unsatisfying.
It's not a bad story, but I feel like the idea was a lot better than the delivery. The entire story is setting us up to expect that this world's unicorns are crazy. But then we meet one and he's nice and trusting and helpful, and he gives out a wish because he has such faith in the quality and moral character of a human who hates unicorns. Ok, that's all well and good for a certain sort of story, but that's not the sort of unicorn this story sets us up to expect. If that's what unicorns are like, all wise and majestic and kind...then how did the first half of the story where unicorns drive people crazy even come to be?
I'm not necessarily expecting an epic here, but I went into this excited to see a new thing, but by halfway I was pushing through to see a punchline that never arrived.
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This story originally started out as something fun and silly (hence the Random tag) before I decided to make it take a bit of a more serious turn, which, I'll admit, is where the trouble lies. Guess my brain got too addled with mashing two different ideas (the episode "How to Interrogate a Unicorn" but with an Equestrian unicorn, and Olive's seething hatred of unicorns so what if she meets an Equestrian unicorn?) and it didn't blend together very well. To be honest, maybe I'll make a sort of spinoff story where I can flesh out the latter plot a little bit more (it's an interesting plot to me), and remake this one with the more fun and silly plot.
The aim with all of my Odd Squad crossover stories is to establish the world to those who have either never heard of the show, or have heard of it but don't watch it. Which, I'll admit, I do kinda suck at, especially in regards to this story, because it sounds like I didn't establish much of the Odd Squad elements very well.
But I digress. Thank you for the lengthy criticism, it's much appreciated! I'm not overly used to crossover stories just yet, but hopefully I can get the hang of it a little better in time.
Nice story.
not familiar with odd squad but this is really endearing