On first reading presentperfect's My Little Dashie parody. · 3:52pm Feb 3rd, 2013
A certain character mentioned recently that I lived ‘in a glass house of incomprehensible neologisms and metaphors cobbled together from intentionally obscure references and bullshit’; as I am generally biased against the willingly illiterate, have an obscure, unhyperlinked reference to a short-lived poet from the nineteenth century.
presentperfect’s My Full-Sized Goddess Horse: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene till I heard present speak out loud and bold
If My Little Stashie is There Will Be Blood, presentperfect’s My Full-Sized Goddess Horse is Mean Girls.
That is to say, really, that it is a cinematic masterpiece even in spite of its lack of such grandiose claims to scale.
The story is mostly a caricaturisation of the already-caricatural protagonist rather than on a deconstruction of the story’s mawkish soul, and so cannot claim the same amount of depth, but allow me to say now that this isn’t because of some deficiency in writing. Where Stashie basically humanises and develops the protagonist—a bit like Sorcanon develops Anon in Thousand Son in Equestria, really, built beautifully from its early absurdities—it is immediately apparent that Goddess Horse has no such intention: the protagonist’s engourdissment du coeur¹ is immediately relevant, and it fills the narration bursting to the seams. This goes beyond mere numbness, mind; it is that old comedy trope of the delusive narration and accurate dialogue, and I’m not going to ascribe to it the higher notion of a realistic depiction of mental illness.
This is because the story never forgets itself: it is a comedy, yes, and while comedy may strike deeper than all else the object of satire is fundamentally superficial and the humour in the protagonist's interaction. The melancholy narration is parodied without remorse and the prose’s hilarity is by it thoroughly accentuated, but the story is made fun of in the way one might have his story made fun of if he had consented to it.
Of parodies, in other words, it is essentially Weird Al; in Headline News the Crash Test Dummies’ mumbling and deep tessitura is happily exaggerated, replete with squeaks and bloops, and the stories are parodied with headline trivialities, but they don’t strike at the song’s concept. They parody the tone, yes, but it is a fundamentally affectionate sort of parody; it is specifically stated, in fact, that MLD itself does exist in the story’s universe, setting it wholly away from any direct criticism of the original in the same way BaroqueNexus’ The Pony in My Pocket (which I
have never readquit on after the first ellipsis) can’t exactly make fun of the show even if it tried.Though it is somewhat lacking in penetration², My Full-Sized Goddess Horse is a fundamentally entertaining, messageless tale with impeccably-crafted prose. The sheer lack of self-awareness on the narrator’s part is so perfectly offset by the dialogue that the author’s playful (hit me with a dick if I use this word again) genius happily rears its face and gives you a particularly cheeky grin.
In short, it makes no pretensions and its pervasive opinion does not degrade it in the slightest.
I’d say certainly worth reading; after all, what do you have to lose but a laugh?
3rd February 2013
Yishun, Singapore¹ Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to say that oh my god you don’t even know every time I don’t know what to write I just type ‘l’engourdissement’ out of nowhere and I feel such a deep depression that I can’t use it but this is the day so if you don’t like it va fucking chier because my only regret is that I can’t use the definite article.
² The literary kind, you sick, sick person.
As an only tangentially-related side-note, I’ve realised—looking over a letter of Richard Dawkins’—that the little stylistic illiteracies some of the British share are absolutely identical with that of a great deal of the Indians’. It’s amazing what colonialism has done to the development of the English language; if I read Dear Muslima without a byline, I’d genuinely confuse the blatant lack of circumspection and utilisation of onamatopoeia and ellipses with that of a Hindu nationalist’s writing from Delhi.
I read it in an Indian accent anyway, mind you.
MFSGH now on my to-read list.
Oh, Dear Muslima, I heard about that letter but I never actually read the whole—
...
Oh Dawkins, you blithering scrote.
...this is why you never get out of the boat. Not even for mangoes.
Oh you remind me that I'm so very terribly fond of abusing the ellipses. I'm trying to stop. I really am.
I wonder, are there more My Little Dashie parodies or more sequels?
Keats?
789247
Probably a billion.
Ding ding ding.
You compared me to Weird Al. <3 Thank you.
Good lord an' sweet little apples. You are Lester Bangs, reincarnated.
Never said that was a BAD thing, mind you...
How is Keats obscure? You're trying to make me cry, aren't you? You're trying to make me cry. Well, it won't work.
My Little Scootaloo (by DontWannaKnow) was the only Dashie clone/parody/sequel I've ever enjoyed. Even My Little Stashie seemed to cling to close to the text, with things happening because that is how the original went. I really wish people would stop, and move on to more fertile fields.
789469
I know! He threw me with the "obscure" bit.
789469
789840
Well, I certainly don't know who he is.
792342
I was on an Academic League team throughout high school. It was my job to know every poem, every ode, and every thing about the poets who wrote them.
This fandom, more than any other I've ever seen, just thrives on creating fan works, to the point that we have entire subgenres set up for fan works based on particular fan works. And this started very early on, with the unofficial sequels to Cupcakes, and the parodies of Cupcakes, and the happy-ending remakes of Cupcakes, and the one and only good thing to ever come out of Cupcakes. And then there's the spinoffs to Fallout Equestria, which I think at this point has more Expanded Universe stories than Star Wars, and the Past Sins spinoffs (sigh) and now we've reached the point where the My Little Dashie formula is getting a workout of its own. I guess it's not surprising, since the premise is so basic and cheaply heart-tugging, and pretty much anyone can insert their favorite pony and their own first world problems into the MLD template and spit out a fic in record time.
And I've avoided them like the plague, but Goddess Horse is a lovely exception. Doesn't try to mock the original, just takes the formula and does something terribly clever with it. The Weird Al comparison is apt.
Is that supposed to be an insult? Intentionally obscure references and incomprehensible neologisms are half the reason I enjoy your stuff. It's even more fun when I don't get the references, because hey, new thing to learn!
Which makes the Keats thing even more amusing, because I was all "Well, holy pants, what kind of poet would Amit consider obscure? This is probably some guy who wrote two verses on a bar napkin in 1870 and then instantly died, and only five people have read his work since, and four of them are dead and the other is Amit. No one will ever be able to solve thi...wait a second, that's just Keats."
793055
It went hand-in-hand with me being a 'rape apologist'.
To be honest, I really have no clue about English poetry.
I should probably have gone with the hesitant flight of the blackened parodist - from his mind hatred's went, yet still there is that aged despair.
To be fair, that would just be unfair.
(You literally won't be able to find what I'm parodying there, so I'll be a bit less Socratic about it: that's from the 1970 Le Bouquet noir by Jean Bourdeillette, French ambassador to Isreal from 1959 to 1965 whose only biography is her stub of a German Wikipedia article. The only copy of Le Bouquet noir I know of exists in a single library in Australia which I have never been to and the excerpt I got my parody from has disappeared from the internet.)
793113
Ugh. That's just unfair. I've had that accusation thrown at me too (on the grounds that writing about rape is the same thing as condoning it) and it was one of the few internet insults that actually irritated me (not all that much, mind you, but enough.)
We all have our blind spots. Ask me about math or music theory sometime and bask in the ignorance.
Now there's some obscurity! Your reputation remains intact.
This bit about the only known copy sitting in a specific library conjures up images of a Very Important Mcguffin Book, the type which can be found in pretty much every adventure story. Only one copy remains in the world! Sinister forces will stop at nothing to discover the arcane secrets of the former French ambassador to Israel!
I'm sure in real life the book sits anonymously on a shelf among hundreds of other volumes, and not on a pedestal with an unearthly light glowing from it. But maybe that's so no one suspects its true power.
793359
Pfft. You had to write a thousand pages of foal rape politics. I just had to oppose the politically-motivated redefinition of words to become an enemy of all females everywhere.
I think the ten-paragraph rant citing the American-supported linguistic genocide of the Bengalis and the current, mostly-successful attempt where I live to render extinct my native creole language and the nonstandard fangyans of Chinese (with similarly high-minded reasons) as reasons as to why politicised language is a horrible thing shut the man up, though.
I think the moral of the story is never to play the Oppression Olympics with an Asian.
(i'm sorry, that was just a whole bunch of 'there are people dying if you care enough for the living' sympathy-fishing crap i threw into that for no good reason)
The funny thing is that it's a monograph in a library in Australia, and not on any public lists in France. I mean, there's obscure and then there's très obscur.
793385
The only thing you need to apologize for is reminding me of that song. But I can forgive you since at least it wasn't I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.
I would be lying if I said I've never used that same tactic to win an argument. Being an immigrant of Hispanic descent at a time when a large portion of the American people have decided that Hispanic immigrants are responsible for all the nation's ills has its advanta...actually, no it doesn't. Aside from being a contender at the aforementioned Oppression Olympics (held this year in beautiful Pyongyang.)
To be fair, I was playing this card against a guy who accused me of being ignorant and unconsciously racist because of my "suburban white privilege." I'm not sure how the fellow saying this reached that conclusion, but he did place a particularly venomous emphasis on the word "white," the kind a reasonable person might use when saying "puppy torturer." This was made even more absurd by the fact that he had all the right features to be an Aryan poster boy.
So I felt I was in my rights to inform him of some of the bullshit Latinos have put up with in this country and then beat him about the head and shoulders with liberal guilt until he apologized.
For you and for me and the entire human ra- Dammit, Amit, now it's running through my head!
Urgh, why can't I favorite blog posts like I can stories? Deviant Art lets you do that now, you know. Fimfiction admins, get on that.
But seriously, it's always amusing to see people use highbrow language to evaluate, let's be honest, not at all highbrow entertainment. Honestly, I'm kind of jealous at how well-read you come off as being here. I'm trying to think of how to make myself a decent critic, but other than practicing I've got nothing. Any thoughts?
945520
I say what I think. The style is quite probably more a commentary than an actual review, and that's very much a consequence of the aforementioned; I really do write like this all the time, and I'd suggest one find his own style rather than trying to be something else's.
In any case, I suppose I can offer one solid piece of information: the things that are left unsaid make jokes funny. Breaking the masquerade you've set up to give them will end only in tears. If you start off saying 'as we all know, the British are all gay', it's a bit jarring to be faced with 'of course they're not' unless it leads up to something greater or is segued from with extreme grace. I can provide examples, if you'd like.
(It appears deeply serendipitous for me that you've asked for advice right after I've written a post on why I rarely give it; since I'm now in the business of telling people what to do, how on earth did you find me?
)
946065 Um, I forget, actually. I think I somehow found this entry after I read the story it's based on, but the step linking the two of those eludes me.
This is kind of a good point. A lot of the critics I like seem like they've reached a level of cynicism that I doubt I can bring myself to emulate. I like enjoying things, and the only reason I'm interested in finding fault in things at all is so I can learn from other people's mistakes when it comes to my own creative endeavors.
I read that blog entry just now, and even though some of your analogies confused me (what was that thing about Frank Miller with eagle wings about?
), I get what you're saying.
That said, I would appreciate more examples, since I've figured out that's how I learn best.
946286
Well, to properly restate: I generally hold a line of thought when I get into it, no matter how absurd it is. Very often there's this tendency to go on like 'no seriously though' and so on and so forth, but this works only in very limited circumstances.
Again, you've got to find your own style. These commentaries are really just narratives based on stories, and that's why I write so few of them. It's not because the stories are bad or good that I write stories on them; it's because they're inspiring. If you want to be a critic but you generally don't find flaws in a work, I'm not sure that might be the best thing to do.
All that matters is that you tell the truth and make people who read you happy.
(I'm sorry I know I said I'd give you examples but now that push's come to shove I can't actually think any up.
)