On the border of Customer Disservice II

Number of 'Check Out All The Things You're Missing On Facebook!' Email notifications I've received since June 1st: several dozen.

Number of company attempts to contact me about resolving the login issues which started on June 1st: zero.

"The only specialists in revenge in this world are writers." -- David Gerrold.

Comments

[A British Gentleman]

Perhaps a story? You could sub out Facebook for a library subscription service? Or something. Could be cool, anyway.

[Ripple]

And this is why I gave up Facebook.

[Estee]

Because Putting This Here Is Essentially Hiding It:

I'm going to try and work on a new Triptych chapter together. And one of the biggest hassles in writing that particular story are the chapter titles. I try to make sure every one has some relationship (even if it's a distant or symbolic one) to what's happening in the chapter itself -- but as several people have noticed, they're all art terms. And if I don't have something in mind going in, I have to conduct an exhaustive search through glossaries until something suitable comes along.

(There's a further complication to this: some potential chapter titles are on hold. Earth Tones was set aside for a long time, and there's another art term which will only appear near the end of the story.)

So, after some research and thought, the following term will be the title of the next chapter.

De Stijl

Why? A few reasons. (And they have to be put behind spoiler tags for those who haven't read that far, or at all.)

First, from the Wikipedia entry.

Proponents of De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors.

So by this point in the story, a number of the moral grey shades have abruptly darkened. To a large degree, the ambivalence is out. The conflict between sides, at least for the moment, is about to get a little more basic. We're going to have a short interlude of 'We need to do this,' and that means simplification is the order of the day. You could say we're back to primary colors.

There's also some vertical and horizontal composition going on, just because of where everypony is. At this point, the environment is staring to settle into layers: this group is below, another is above, and everypony's goal is somewhere else in the structure. Everything is in the same frame -- but those composition aspects are mobile.

Also:

The "plastic vision" of De Stijl artists, also called Neo-Plasticism, saw itself as reaching beyond the changing appearance of natural things to bring an audience into intimate contact with an immutable core of reality, a reality that was not so much a visible fact as an underlying spiritual vision.

To a degree, that's setting something up for later. But we've already done a lot with the changing appearance of natural things...

And finally, from the MoMA glossary:

The movement was a direct response to the chaotic and destructive events of World War I, and its members believed that developing a new artistic style represented a means of rebuilding and creating a harmonic order.

And what's been happening in the cells? There's been a lot of tearing down over the last few chapters, and we've already seen the first pieces of reconstruction -- along with hints of where things could go in the future. But as this section starts, the Bearers are back together, and some form of healing has begun. They still have the current crisis to deal with -- but to some degree, a harmonic order has been rebuilt. Given the changes of previous chapters, they might have even added something new to that creation.

It seemed to fit.

ETA: So because the typical coin has two sides, I'm guessing this comment downvote comes from someone who believes blogs are only for discussing personal misfortune, and will be unfollowing me accordingly.

You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't get out of the game.

[badninja]

At this point it may be better to create a “new” account with a new e-mail address and just change over all of your games to the new account. Your problem has fallen through the cracks or your account has been hacked and stolen.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

4887426
Already been done
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/226228/customer-disservice

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

& Now for Something Completely Different
A LONG time ago, you were wondering what to give a friend to read to introduce them to MLP. IMO, your stuff is ideal, but out for obvious reasons. So:
Not too long (Fallout Equestria is out)
Finished (there goes This Platinum Crown & Xenophilia)
Not too dark (Secret Life of Rarity)
Not too weird (Petriculture & the whole Truth In Meanings series)
No porn (Well, there goes the Trixieverse & Fall of Equestria series)
No EQ Girls
No Self Inserts (mostly on quality grounds)
Nothing too peripheral (Mortem, the Last Necromancer is excellent but only mentions Celestia 2-3 times & is otherwise generic)
That doesn't leave much. But...
The New Crop https://www.fimfiction.net/stories?q=the+new+crop
MLP meets Rocky (or maybe Fight Club, although I never saw that & can't say for sure)
The Incredibly Embarrassing Parents of Rainbow Dash
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/69196/the-incredibly-embarrassing-parents-of-rainbow-dash
Nongraphic lesbianism (about the level of a network sitcom. Modern Families, for instance)
Part of the Winnerverse, but you needn't have read any of the others to understand this
Unwell https://www.fimfiction.net/stories?q=unwell
Twilight has ACMS (Abstract Cutie Mark Syndrome = Pony Asperger's)
Nongraphic lesbianism.
Hero of the Day https://www.fimfiction.net/story/334655/hero-of-the-day
A different point of view on some of the events in Friendship Is Magic * NOT* AU

If you don't mind crossovers
My Little Balladeer https://www.fimfiction.net/stories?q=my+little+balladeer&order=relevance
MLP crossover with John the Balladeer
For Queen and Country https://www.fimfiction.net/story/64146/for-queen-and-country
Bond. James Bond. In EQ.
History Repeats https://www.fimfiction.net/stories?q=history+repeats
When The Smooze reappears, Luna sends Dash over the rainbow to get EQ's greatest hero -Megan Williams.
After all, she beat The Smooze once, surely she can do it again. 2 small problems.
1) An older Megan is suffering PTSD & is in no shape to handle a crisis
2) The Smooze was beaten by the Flutter Ponies & there ain't none no more .
OOPS!
IMO, best G1 crossover

[Claw in Cursive]

History Repeatshttps://www.fimfiction.net/stories?q=history+repeats
When The Smooze reappears, Luna sends Dash over the rainbow to get EQ's greatest hero -Megan Williams.
After all, she beat The Smooze once, surely she can do it again. 2 small problems.
1) An older Megan is suffering PTSD & is in no shape to handle a crisis
2) The Smooze was beaten by the Flutter Ponies & there ain't none no more .
OOPS!
IMO, best G1 crossover

Ye gods, YES. If I had an MLP Fanfic Hall of Fame, this would be a first-ballot entry. It's the best inter-generational pony story I know of. It made me laugh; it made me cry; it made me feel, deep in my bones, everything the ponies (and Megan) endured.

BTW, it's SaddlesoapOpera's story, as there's a few other stories here by the same name.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

4887441

one of the biggest hassles in writing that particular story are the chapter titles

.
Yeah, Asprin used to have roughly the same problem in his Myth series. He once said that it sometimes took him longer to write those little quips at the start of the chapter than it did to write the chapter.

[Justy]

Someone on Facebook used a photo they took of me while I was on duty (without my knowledge) for a fake profile which they then used to promote a certain rather controversial political subject. A friend brought it to my attention and I contacted Facebook. Apparently it was okay because the picture was freely available on the Internet (it wasn't, and that's NOT how privacy laws work regardless.)