Report Card! · 7:48pm Feb 22nd, 2015
Twenty stories! Yes, 20 published! This is a tally of all my stories (and Vermy's too, having edited them all myself) as a graded score of up to downvotes, and my thoughts on them. Yes, this is long, pointless drivel to most of you, but I want to have a nostalgia item for later, looking back at a two and a half years of writing ponyfics. Hopefully I can figure out the funny little bar graphics things. Never was too good with making things pretty, so without futher ado, have the report card for Vermillion and Sage (February, 2015). Format is upvotes/downvotes, grade, and notes. If the percent score is undefined, I leave two dashes. That's to assume it hasn't had enough ratings to really merit an A+ score.
Stories by 'red Sage:
Winter's Sunrise: 6/0 (A+) (--)
I wrote this story while sick off my rump, and feeling melancholy. Plugged myself into the new Nightwish single that came out and forced myself to write. It's very loosely based off of Nox Pacis, in that Willow is one of the random characters that Twilight sees in that sunrise that she wishes to remember. Honestly, what touches me the most about it is that I think I finally figured out what my college writing teacher was trying to tell me about short stories all along. It's not what you say in a story, it's what you leave for the reader to infer. Didn't hit with the same force as the first story, but that's fine. It was a personal victory, not a publicity stunt.
Clarity of Conscience: 5/0 (A+) (--)
The second installment of duct tape stuff. I'm afraid I know so little about the personality of Vinyl (a polar opposite of mine) that I'm surprised people would ever think her enjoyable when crafted by my mind. Octavia is a bit closer, and yet I seem to still be working on it. Like its predecessor, this story is completely made up as I go along. And I owe people chapters...folks actually stuck around to read this.
FoE: The Long Road Home: 27/13 (D+) (67.5%)
I don't mind the grade here. Honest. This story got more rating attention in the first two days of any other story I've put up save for Nox Pacis. And I expected it to garner hate. There are so many horrible FoE stories out there, written by people who are just bandwagoning. The second you throw the tag 'human' on it, and 'self-insert' in the description, now you've pissed off all the FoE reader types. So what can I say? It's a serious satire. I want to prove that most folks who write a self-insert don't do it right, and same goes for most of the people who write FoE. I'm not doing a cheap job either. This took a year and a half of planning to set up, and there are four other folks working with me on it, mostly to add character feedback and do edits. One is a genuine grammar nazi, and will make me sit in calls with him while he sifts through it line by line, mincing everything. I fully expect this story to keep me busy for two or three more years, if not even longer. Rest assured it is planned out, and I know how it ends (and most of the goop inbetween), but that doesn't stop it from taking a massive amount of time to write and edit, let alone construct music for. This story is soaking up all my custom music, about twenty pieces at the time of this blog. I wish I could just post them already.
Forests of the Everfree: 10/0 (A+) (--)
Well, it was comedy, so folks liked it. Really, all this story ever ever amounted to a 15 minute challenge by my buddies Tavor and Swift after a bad day playing Heroes of Newerth (a MOBA game like LoL). So thus...I pour my bad day into it. Ta-da!
Lurking in the Dark: 4/0 (A+) (--)
The votes are so slim on this that I barely think it deserves a grade. This story comes from asking my followers in a blog post if I should talk about almost walking into a mountain lion the night before. That was an experience Page and I will be talking about for the rest of our lives, I promise you. We learned a lot about ourselves, and each other in those few minutes. I rarely ever feel emotion strongly, so to feel such an intense, raw, primal fear was something I treasured (after getting away) so much that I had to enshrine it in a story.
Nox Pacis: 82/2 (A+) (97.62%)
This story is a special case of my writing. I'm not sure I can ever mimic the effects I wrote under to produce it ever again. My grandfather had just died (no I'm the emotional type, but it was the first time a close member of my family had passed, so it was unique), and I was very tired. I'd spent about twelve hours on an engineering project, and was oh so very braindead. After finishing three of the four pages, and realizing it was 11 at night, I made a strong cup of coffee to get me through that last page. As it so turned out, what looked like a lot of work took about fifteen minutes, and I was left with no desire to sleep coupled with absolutely no brain power left over. So, I grabbed a favorite youtube track, put it on repeat, and wrote. When it was finished, I put it up, and went to sleep. Next morning over coffee, I opened up fimfiction and almost spat out my drink. I'd hit some thirty odd notifications, and people were telling me how much they loved the brain-vomit I'd put up for them. I'm not one to question success, but it always kind of makes me chuckle to think the story I put the least conscious thought into is one of my most successful. There is probably a lesson here, something along the line of 'Snow Goons are bad news.'
Call Me 'Buck': 42/2 (A) (95.45%)
Oh geez. This story. After spending too much time in the super-extra-very-salty facebook group Semper Filly (military bronies) asking for Buck Norris jokes, I picked the few best ones out and made this. I've always wanted to recycle the other fifty into a sequel, but never quite got around to it.
...But Duct Tape is Silver: 105/4 (A) (96.33%)
My rule for any story is to have some idea of what I'm trying to say before I say it. I broke all the rules here. What started as a Christmas gift for a friend got more chapters as a bid for attention (shameful, but it WORKED). Easily my most over-the-top idea ever, which despite all my sarcastic hints, was not based on any problems with my roommates. The only borrowed scene from my life was dumping water on another person in the shower, and that fight was between my little brother and I. Somehow it got featured...somehow. Three hours of my life I was on the front page, and the attention-whorse in me loved every second of it. Also, this story contains NO CLOP and NO SHIPPING. Despite everyone insisting to the contrary, no, I don't ship Vinyl and Octavia. They are roomates. That's it. Nothing more. There is no sex. You heard me: none. That being said, I got a huge kick out of looking up the references to the page link, and found out that someone got to it by searching the query 'tape+mouth' on fimfic. Tehehehehe....
However Far Away: 11/2 (B) (84.62)
This was a gift for a friend who has inspired me to write time and time again when I need to get back up and keep trucking along. He's been kind of an idol to me in the fan-fiction world, so I wrote this to tell him I was thinking of him while his girlfriend was far away. Irony is, I live a mere 1500 miles away from my fiance now, so I feel it too, bro.
Wasted Honor: 10/0 (A+) (--)
There are extensive author's notes at the end of this story, so I'd suggest reading those if you really want to know a lot about it. Suffice to say, I'm very proud of this work, and poured a lot of time, heart, and spirit into it. By the end, I felt like Shadow Wing is an adopted son of mine. I hate watching him suffer, but know he needs to. I shake my head at the stupid things he does, and watch as he learns lessons the hard way.
A Prayer Answered: 22/0 (A+) (--)
Sometime around the point I started writing this story, I got really pissed of at seeing 3-4 clopfics in the featured box, and compared them to my work, which received many orders of magnitude less in the way of attention. Out of curiosity, I went and read a few, only to find that no, they were not well written, and they only got the attention on the grounds of being porn, nothing more. I was furious at this; despite hours of work and editing for everything I did, someone else would get ahead by taking a few minutes to drip lust onto a page. So thus 'A Prayer Answered' was born, out of the hate for everything that is a clopfic. I toyed with the idea of tagging it mature for sex and just seeing who went to it, but in the end gave it the rating it deserved.
The Ledger: 9/1 (A-) (90%)
I wanted to learn how to write horror. I did a very mediocre job. It's still labeled as unfinished because I want to pile one or two more chapters into it come halloween, but that's it. Funny thing? That cover art is my daily prayer book with tea candles, and cranberry juice poured all over the snow on my back deck.
Iron and Echoes: 5/0 (A+) (--)
I'm afraid that this little story is probably dead. Vermy and I have had a really hard time staying in touch, and getting a common time to sit down and collab simply hasn't happened.
In Time, This Too Shall Pass: 9/0 (A+) (--)
Born out of a project for a college writing class, I decided it needed to be a story. This was the first time I really tried to channel music into my writing, both in the aspect of listening to it while writing, and adding my own song to the story in a link.
Not that Kind of Attention: 21/0 (A+) (--)
Just for kicks. I didn't want to do my homework. Story of not giving a flying feather about school followed. It kind of fed off of 'Calvin and Hobbs,' except that I'm pretty sure Spaceman Spiff isn't a pony daydream.
Just Making Sure: 5/0 (A+) (--)
Melancholia from the walk home away from my then-girlfriend (now-fiance). It made a story, and then I had more than one on my profile. Yay!
Again, this story has a massive author's notes section, which you should read if you want to know more about the story. In other news, the grapic novel/comic version of this story is happening (been forever in the waiting), and I finally get to help select specific dialogue for it! I still can't believe that this is happening, but I will not disagree with any of it.
Stories by Vermillion:
Luna Nos Custodit: 13/4 (C) (76.47%)
Vermy has a good thing going here, and a real story to follow. I just hope it keeps going.
Let me Show you the World: 45/1 (A+) (97.83%)
Editing this was a chore. I let Vermy keep several of his phrases that he wanted, then went and changed them later without him knowing so the grammar would actually work. And they story struck a hit. First thing we've ever put in the popular box.
Life has a Volume Knob: 13/5 (C-) (72.22%)
This was the story I met Vermy over, hanging out on FOBEQ when he asked for an editor. I complied, and found a kindred spirit (even if we have wildly different methodologies). I doubt this will ever get finished, but I keep it as a fond reminder.
So, as it stands, most of those stories seem to be in the green, or getting there. I'll take it as a good sign.
Sum total, not including Vermy's works, I have a wordcount of 222,759 so far. Also under the wing are one popular box visit, one feature, but still no EQD feature (unless you count that FoE:TLRH is in the monthly FoE chapter update post). Here's to more, for however long I can find motivation, inspiration, and time. Hope you all have enjoyed, and that you'll continue to do so.
-Sage
