The Prereaders · 4:16am Jun 7th, 2012
There are a number of people without whom The Immortal Game would not be the story it is today or would not be a story at all. This story earns me a certain amount of praise from its readers; I can say honestly that these people deserve it just as much as I do. In order of appearance, here they are:
Vimbert is the alpha and omega. I first came to him asking for a review on /fic/, and he has since taught me everything from simple stuff like grammar (Okay, so I still have trouble here) to more complicated things like motivation and attitude. He’s the reason Luna doesn’t romance an OC name Mr Wood in chapter four, the reason Rarity doesn’t turn invisible, and the reason that god-awful club scene isn’t four times longer than it is now.
What else can I say about Vimbert other than skill and experience make him very, very good at what he does? (And I mean both pre-reading and writing) He catches more errors in one pass than I do in five; he can get to the heart of what makes a scene bad in a couple sentences where others take a couple paragraphs.
Shivirani is patient. I mean, really patient. I’m not exactly easy to work with, and I can’t imagine correcting the exact same capitalization error for the fiftieth time presents me as an astute pupil. She’s the reason I no longer hang quotes on the end of continuous dialogue paragraphs, the reason Nihilus doesn’t possess things like jesus (or multiple Nihiluses), and she’s also marrying one of my best friends. Congratulations, you two. Sorry about the lack of our D&D campaign lately.
Riesz became a pre-reader after several weeks of in-depth analyses in the comments section on EqD followed an email full of error corrections. I got the bright idea that hey, these would be more useful before the chapter is released, and here we are. He has since analyzed and assimilated the review techniques of every other person who has ever reviewed one of my stories. He’s like a pre-reading machine developed in a Swedish government lab somewhere (In fact, I have long suspected he does not have to sleep).
Riesz likes to find the parts of my writing so bad that he shouldn’t have to explain what’s wrong, highlight them, and write “Meh.” Sentences, paragraphs—I dread the day when he highlights an entire chapter (Though chapter twenty certainly came close, I’m sure).
Ambion is like the Chuck Norris of descriptive prose. So many of TIG’s best metaphors, and most beautiful writing, came from his mind that it’s starting to embarrass me. See, I’m not good at setting scenes, or establishing mood, or coming up with metaphors (All of these things, by the way, are sort of important). Ambion is. This makes him invaluable.
Also, it takes a lot of balls to highlight someone else’s writing and say “this would sound better”, especially since sometimes they’re going to disagree with you. Ambion has those balls.
Midnight Shadow is similar to Vimbert in that they’re both more famous and deeply rooted in the Brony fanfiction community than I am. I may have elicited a slight squeal when he first told me he liked my story and offered his expertise. I can say it’s a real pleasure working with someone who enjoys fanfiction so much (Twenty six stories! That’s like, a hundred stories!) and that I plan to use my connections to the EqD staff to get the story about my OC alicorn named Raven published.
I mean, um, Midnight is also a huge part of the team.
I'll be going back over and linking this at the end of every chapter tonight, might take awhile.
Wow what a team, they all sound like special people.
The A (esthetic B) Team
"I plan to use my connections to the EqD staff to get the story about my alicorn OC named Raven published."
Now the rest of the fandom will get to see this masterpiece.
Well, Titan and Terra are OC alicorns and they are awesome. You could write a prequel featuring them and I think it would be the first decent Alicorn fic.
"and that I plan to use my connections to the EqD staff to get the story about my OC alicorn named Raven published."
I'd read it. Totally.
Well that's a lot pre-readers.
Meh,
I'll be here for as long as I'm needed, and you write something interesting.
And while the need for sleep can be discussed, an internet connection on the other hand makes things a lot easier.
all hail the prereaders!
t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT4vXSFINBkmKdqUCZb4ie2d71y66AtLBSnNLQtk_nsP9hmT632lLNnSvSczQ (sorry, couldn't find a pic without Britannia in it that wasn't incredibly huge)
Damnit, B, you've gone and made me all flattered and sappy.
time to return the favour, with interest. Brace yourself, you cur! You thought you could outflatter me? Have at you!
So: AestheticB. Yeah, Here's a guy who holds down a job, actually has a life (I roam the interwebs, wild and free) and WILL write huge and meaty chapters with the sort of unstoppable steadiness usually only seen in plate tectonics.
It is an absolute and relaxing pleasure to just sit back and literally watch the literature appear, word by word. This dude has had to delete more vast swathes of writing than most of my stories are long in their entirety at the whimsical and wanton cruelty of us prereaders, and then he just gets back in the fight and does it again, but even better. Anybody who wants to bash him for taking time with TIG 20's gotta get through me first, because you bastards weren't there. You didn't see this shit go down. It's no exaggeration when I say about 40% of the orignal chapter got nuked into oblivion, and there isn't a scene or paragraph that hasn't been torn to bloody shreds and recombobulated in the fallout of that. Seriously, this chapter's sporting some crazy awesome mutations from what it was.
B's a trooper.
Like, one of those skeletal Koopa Troopas. Kind of dry, possibly dusty and certainly blunt, but badass and entirely immune to the fireballs.
I lost a lot of lives as mario to those guys.
He's preread stuff for me for no other reason than the fact that he's great and I'm the self centred dick who bombs him with links to my latest flights of fancy that I totally pretend i'm not. He takes onboard and considers everything before dismissing anything out of hand (which, if you'd seen some of the shit I comment, is commendable) and has been the focus of plenty of heavy fire as we prereaders connive to find ever more interesting and convuluted ways to abuse him.
Seriously though, he's usually there toiling away after the last of us has caved in. It's not just an distinct pleasure, its a bit of an honour working with this guy.
As for OC alicorns with extremely (if not THE eponymously cliche name).... Well this is the dude who proved to me that Godmodding OC alicorns (all things I despise on principle) can somehow work, and be spectacular. I've not seen any other OC alicorns that were ever good, ever ((except spiderses
)) and he's put out not one, not two, but Five.
Yeah. You got served B! Take It! Uhnn!
.... wait... I think I'm going about this wrong...
The TL;DR version of this comment: This is what prereading for AestheticB feels like
totally not my ego right now
When Ponies Make War appeared in my review queue on Ponychan, I believe I thought "Oh dear sweet crispy Christ, a warfic with OC alicorns. I will eat this for breakfast." However, despite doing stupid things like shipping Luna with some random pony who never mattered again, having Nihlus try to kill rather than enslave the other Elements, and eventually writing me into the story, I was impressed by the execution behind all of it.
It has been a joy to see this story grow and for it to get the attention it so richly deserves.
I thought, when I first heard the idea pitched, that it sounded... hard to do. "Be careful," I said to AB, "you want to overturn the entire world, bring in two uber-powerful OC's and cast this pastel wonderland into something entirely different? MADNESS! FLEE! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
And I promptly forgot about it.
And then he started writing it, and I found it. And it got better and better. OC Alicorns are terrible, and it's AestheticB's story that is the exception that proves that. Totally believable, amazing how the existing show world fits so neatly into this alternate envisioning, and an engaging story which looks deeply into all the characters you know and love.