A better Cinch story than mine!

Everyone go check out "Agitate the System" if you haven't already! It's a great little one-shot that is much better than my story at making Cinch seem sympathetic, which was my original goal with my story before I got sidetracked and shifted the focus. So in a way that story is what I failed to do, instead making "She's Awful", which lived up to its name, making everyone who read it like Cinch even less.

In related news, the work on the sequel to "She's Awful" is in full swing after a period of writer's block. It's not gonna be much longer than the original, and the narrative structure will be a bit less coherent, AND there's gonna be no Equestria (which makes my initial wait for the season 5 finale pointless, but I came up with the plotline for this after that aired)... But I hope you'll enjoy it for what it is (will be) regardless! To give you all a little spoiler, the sequel will be called "Infected with your magic", which you'll recognize as another direct quote from the movie.

Comments

[Fernin]

So in a way that story is what I failed to do, instead making "She's Awful", which lived up to its name, making everyone who read it like Cinch even less.

0_o Are you kidding?
I thought Cinch was absolutely lovely in your story. I found her much more interesting and relatable with your story's "Cinch's actions are due to her (entirely reasonable) worldview" than with the other story's "Cinch's actions are due to feeling trapped in unreasonable circumstances (the circular logic of Crystal Prep's success)."

Any day of the week, I'll take a villain who is the hero of her own story over a villain who seems to think she's a victim of circumstances.

That isn't to say that "Agitate the System" is a bad story that people shouldn't read. It just wasn't to my taste, while yours was.

[Superbowl]

3685148 Well the thing is, a victim of circumstances makes for a more sympathetic villain for a lot of people, and that story's Cinch was very well presented as at least a partial victim - besides, that instance of circular logic is something that I'm entirely on board with and kinda tried to convey in my story as well with Cinch's justifications. In my case people can read it and likely feel irritated with Cinch for being wrong (and she clearly gets a few things objectively wrong, mostly about Equestria and magic), and in the case of that story people might feel sympathy for her situation. Besides, she's much more human in that story, I felt. In mine she's kinda robotic most of the time, comparatively.

Now that I think about it, funnily enough, in my sequel Cinch'll be decidedly less reasonable AND perceive herself as a bit more of a victim, in a way. At least it can probably be seen that way. Hopefully you'll still like her in it when I'm done with it and start publishing chapters!