HazMat Contest Review #2: Eternal Chaos on the Spotless Draconequus · 11:17am Sep 27th, 2015
Eternal Chaos on the Spotless Draconequus, by thewoolymammoth
This was another story that didn't place, although we were quite happy with how anachronistic it was, and tried to be. It's about Fluttershy and Discord having difficulties in their relationship and then wiping their memories, repeatedly, of each other in order to be happy. It doesn't work, since they keep on meeting again and again and repeating the process over and over.
The problem we (the judges) had with this one was first and foremost the romance. Whilst we enjoyed the idea of wiping one's memories, the story gives absolutely no indication of Fluttershy and Discord ever enjoying their relationship. They're only ever shown in a bad way. Discord is only ever jealous, Fluttershy is only ever hurt and upset, and we never get to see them actually be a good couple. It was quite an informed romance in that regard: we got told they were in a relationship, but were never given the chance to see it and agree that it was a great romance.
That kind of spoiled the story for me. Both the characters want to be in a relationship, but for seemingly no reason. Since I can't quite wrap my head around their motivations, it made rooting for them much tougher.
The final nail in the coffin was when one of the judges brought up that it was (according to him, since I never saw the movie) more or less the same story as Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind. Whilst I was unable to confirm this outside of some brief research, we didn't really like the story being a copy-paste of another. From that point on, we moved onto different stories to try to place.
Which is a shame, because I didn't think the story was all that bad. The way the story told things out of order (or as far as I could tell, since their memories were often scrambled anyway) was pretty confusing and created a mystery for me to discover. The writing was decent too. Maybe it could have had more flair to it, but it was certainly passable. I don't remember anything jumping out at me.
Luna's involvement was also pretty neat, and definitely added to the sinister mystery.
It's certainly not a bad story in my opinion, but there's too much that bugs me, from the absence of positivity in the romance to copying the story from the movie it's based of very closely for me to appreciate it as much as I want to.
Thanks. I pretty much agree with you. It was fun to write but I myself was not entirely happy with the execution then I got side tracked by other things. The memories are meant to be in reverse, so it starts with the break up and moves on to happier times between the two, and maybe I should have included more happier times rather than focusing on the break up. Thank you for the crit and I will certainly take it into consideration when writing the next story.
Looking forward to the next contest!
3423797 I'm hoping to launch it near the beginning of October. It'll be quite different from this one, and quite possibly more challenging, but in different areas.