Last year, Rainbow Dash crushed the competition to become the Equestrian World Ping Pong Champion. Can she defend her title again at this year's Equestrian World Ping Pong Championship Tournament? Or will a new champion be crowned at the end of the final showdown? Will anypony ever explain how they manage to hold paddles when they have no hands?!
This is the sequel to my first story, Ping Pong Just Got 20% Cooler. My fans asked for it, and I finally got around to making it, so enjoy!
Chapters (1)
Bad ass! You know for a fact I'll be tracking
Pah, I never liked Ping Pong anyways..
On the other hand.. I scored not only against a champion but against Rainbow Dash! Top that, world! dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Spitfire_lazy.png
About the story itself.
I never thought of making sport-based fictions. Now that I see one (yes, I have read the first part) I guess that there is a reason why those aren't that often seen. Making the sport, especially an event itself, interesting seems to be a big problem due to the nature of high-quality sports. The event itself is mostly entertaining due to the incredible skills of international pros, surprising with the ability to deal with seemingly lost situations and win them against all bets. However, the ability of an author can become a curse here. Why should it be so awesome that she defended an indefensible attack when even coins can transform randomly into confetti?
I think it is nessecary to build a strong fundament for those scenes.
If you watch a couple of sport-newspapers, also on the internet, you can see that sport has also another big point: the sportsman himself.
Let's face it. Millions of people are watching the olympics every fourth year of their life, yet they don't have a clue about the techniques of the disciplines. They simply cheer for the representants of their country, because they feel connected to them.I think this is where you can extent your style and the quality of this serie.
If we recap, 80% you wrote were about the matches themselves. Do I cheer for Pinkie or Rainbow? Shall Rainbow really lose against a unknown mare? The other 20% are those, which I would like to see in the 40 to 50% corner. At the end of part one we saw Derpy training hard to make it in this tournament, and after hearing something about the valuable points of Dash, she really makes it and we get to know why she wants to do so. She wants to get respect. Hey, that's good! But why didn't I saw more of her? Giving me as a reader the chance to feel connected with the sportmans makes the matches themselves way more interesting, even if the technique is not beyond imagination. Also, it's easier to develop the plot with 40% than with 20%. With that, I mean that it's really hard to make something happen, while all the characters are bussy playing ping pong. The fact that this mysterious pony is Derpy Hooves really is as plain as the nose on your face. No offense.
At the beginning, there was just this feeling if Rainbow can stand a opponent that developed a counter-attack to her signature move. And then, at the end, we saw in a plot-twist that Derpy did that for being resprected, what she wasn't the most of her life-time. Wow, how great for her to have archieved that! But huh, somehow I wish that I had known something about this problem before it got revealed after the match. Why not making a 'sportspony vs. sportspony' a 'dreamhunter who wants to archieve a personal dream by hard vs. archievement hunter who wants to win all the time'? IMHO, the second thing could be far more interesting.
So yea, I'm not saying that it was bad or not entertaining, but I think that a sportstale should have a bigger focus on the individual sportsman himself than on broadcasting the event.
(Also, I clearly was the best and only lost because the referee is a wimp.)
Also, this:
Dunno if it's my lack of knowledge when it comes to rules, but.. shouldn't that be a 1 - 1?
So far.
--Chaodiurn
1738750
Dang it, I knew there was something off about that story. The point board... It's always the... Wait...
That's so brilliantly devious...
1738750 Later I'll go back and edit this, try and add a little more character to it, pardon the pun. But this.... This is what I love to see; a nice lengthy review that throws the good and the bad into the same bowl. I take what you have said into consideration and will take appropriate measures when I have the time, caffeine, and boredom.
1738750 Also, it wasn't like I was trying to hide the "Derpy's the Mystery Mare" thing, I mean come on, do I look that stupid? I could have made it a possibility of who knows how many ponies, but that was for the characters to be stunned by, not the readers. This was comedy, not mystery.
Maybe I should try a mystery story later on.
Not sure, if..
1741618
pessimistic
1741637
realistic
1741653
optimistic
You got a point there. Of course you didn't try to hide Derpy from us, I know that. It's just the thing, that there was nothing besides that to care about. And since all my focus was 'forced' on this, it almost seemed a little tiny bit.. boring. (NO, not the entire story!( And NO, that wasn't meant harsh!))
I'm glad that you care about my advices/thoughts/whatever and I'm looking forward to see how your style is developing in your next stories.