A new month means a new FF150, and with the world a pretty grey and dismal place in certain ways right now, some colourful small horses are always welcome. As always, new folks are always welcome -- if you're a member of this group. you are automatically eligible! Anyway, this time we have an interesting-looking prompt from Impossible Numbers. A reminder for those who need it:

Here are the full rules.

There is also an optional challenge this time, suggested by Impossible Numbers. This will not be considered in the judging, it's purely for fun. Here it is:

Please remember that Fimfiction story rules apply for FF150, which means you are not allowed to use copyrighted song lyrics unless they are from MLP itself. Also worth noting that while songfics are allowed, script format is not. Of course, this is an optional challenge anyway, so use it or not as you prefer.

Remember, there is no prize, as such, for this contest -- but if you win, you will be able to choose the prompt for the next contest. You'll also get a mention on the group's front page. Few things last, that's all I know, but this guff carries on through the ages.

Prompt: "A Song I Remember" (selected by last month's winner, Impossible Numbers)
Rating: E or T
Word limit: 150
Closing date: Saturday 21st November 2020, 11:59 pm UK time (world clock)

Please reply to this post with your entry. This makes it easier for me to keep track. Please do not leave feedback until after the closing date.

Entries are now open! Have fun!

7363903
A song? After the collection of rhymes I made for that story about an egotistical A-hole, I don't want to place the effort into making another series of rhymes.

*sigh* Well, better ask the brain. Perhaps it could think up of something befitting for the prompt. Our brains, after all, are connected to our ancestors. Perhaps there's a song engraved in the subconscious part of my brain (you know, like how the 'Na-na na-na boo-boo' seems to be a preestablished taunt for kids).

Well, Brain, watcha got?

................of course you would think that.

"I... I can't do it."

"Oh fer Pete's Sake!"

*BANG*

The entire classroom flinches from Applejack slamming the door open. The students watch as the mare stomps her way over to the stand.

"Alright fallers," Applejack yells, "listen up! Cause I'm only gonna say this once."

Applejack glares at the assortment of young stallions, drakes, keythongs, and bulls.

"You put yourself in,
Then pull yourself out,
Push on back in,
And keep going all about.
Yer doin' The Hokey Pokey as they moan and shout.
And that's roughly what it's all about."

Applejack marches back to the door where Twilight stands, mouth agape to what the mare just said.

"Done," Applejack huffs to the incredulity-state Twilight.

"I can't believe you butchered an innocent song just to teach adolescent boys sexual education."

"That ain't nothin'," Applejack brushes her action aside, "You should see what ah can do with Red Ridin' Hood."

7363903 

Oh, fellow ponies, heed my word
Before your brain becomes disturbed
Tentabus named Muse is on the loose
By hearing a song, you’re in its noose

I have already succumbed to this effect
But you can still escape its magical dialect
Ponies don’t sing, we never did
If you hear a song you’re in its grid

The songs are memes, they propagate
They hijack your brain to variate
You’re not a victim, you’re the cause
By singing you become its jaws

If this threat is not contained
A delirium for ponykind will be ordained
Ponies will randomly burst into a song
Without suspecting something’s wrong

It’s too late for me, I’ve heard too much
But you can still escape its clutch
Run away if you hear a pony sing
Or else Muse will catch you in its string

This letter is the last act of my occupation
Before forcing myself into self-isolation
Don’t look for me ever
Yours Clover the Clever

Edit: 08 - I Have an Urge to Sing You a Song ·

7363903

“Oh Belle, Belle, Belle of the Ball,

“The Beauty of Friends, the Envy of All:

“Won’t you dance, Oh Belle of the Ball?

“Oh, won’t you be my Muse?”

---

The first song Sweetie Belle remembered hearing was Rarity’s lullaby. Read from a fairy-tale book, illustrated: moonlit balcony, handsome prince, princess beside him.

Sweetie thought she meant: “Want this fairy-tale romance?”

Hence growing up, Sweetie looked for princes.

She also watched Rarity’s dressmaking life, close. Noticed her princes come and go, whereas friends stayed. All-loving Rarity loved her too from cradle to adulthood.

Inspired, Sweetie gave as good as she got. Admired Rarity. Together, they became the Belles of every Ball.

Sweetie reconsidered.

Gave up princes. Believed Rarity had meant: “Beauty, inspiration, generosity: won’t you show me yours, my love?”

One emotional gala, quietly confessed all this to Rarity.

Whereupon Rarity laughed. “Well now, that moral works much better! Bravo!”

7363903
I barely had any clue what to do with this one, so feel free to slap me if you hate it. Like, really hard.

Anyway, I present Gold

Applejack was in the music room of Canterlot High, looking over a page of lyrics.

Breathing in, she let it out slowly as she picked up an acoustic, and starting to strum it, she started to sing.

”Starshine, and moonlight, a light in the night... Watching, from this place, they shine so bright.

“Hundreds, ‘pon hundreds, I only know... That the star that’s right here, has a heart made of gold...”

“Mom’s old song?” A voice asked.

Applejack looked up to see Big Mac in the doorway, a sad smile on his face. He was there to pick her and Applebloom up.

Applejack sheepishly grinned in return. “Heh, yeah... Thought I could try learning it.”

Big Mac gave a hum of thought before closing the door and stepping all the way in, sitting on a seat near her.

“I miss her too.” He finally said, wrapping an arm around Applejack.

7363903

Six ex-students sat around their table at Sugarcube Corner.

Four years. Six diplomas. One graduation.

Two destinations.

Five were staying in Ponyville. One had a letter of acceptance to the Royal Officer's Academy.

None of them had spoken for half an hour. Every time one of them opened their mouth, the words faded away before being uttered. They had been inseparable for years - saved the world together.

Now they would be separated again.

Gallus opened his beak again to try and say something - but SIlverstream cut him off. Not to speak, but to raise her voice in a Seaquestrian hymn.

"Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, by and by?
Is a better home awaiting
In the sky, in the sky?"

Her voice died away again to uneasy, morose silence.

"Depends," Gallus finally asked with a wry smile. "Will all of you be there waiting for me?"

I've gotta say, this prompt was really fun to work on. I've dabbled with songwriting as a low-key hobby in the past (I find it's like inventing your own puzzle and solving it as you go), so it was kinda novel to finally flex that muscle of mine in public, y'know what I mean?

I don't expect to win—especially after glancing at my competition (great work so far, everybody!)—but either way, thanks for the opportunity, Numbers!

Anyway, enough of me rambling. On with the show!

Twilight wrapped the frightened young dragon in a warm embrace. Recalling a lullaby her mother had sung to her in her own times of midnight distress, she began to softly sing:

"I know the world gets scary,
still it spins around the same.
There's cause for feeling wary,
don't feel urged to take the blame,

but even so,
I'll let you know

that though skies above may seem dreary,
and you might feel quite world-weary,
just remember that I'll be by your side."

Before she could continue, Twilight was interrupted by the sound of snoring. The alicorn looked down to find Spike fast asleep, a content smile upon his face. The sight elicited a smile of her own.

"Good night, Spike," she whispered, nuzzling the side of the dragon's head. "See you in the morning."

With that, she closed her own eyes and rejoined him in the realm of dreams.

7363903
I believe this satisfies the medium challenge by technicality.

"Ohmygoodness!" Pinkie blurted. "A waterfall! Look, Applejack, a waterfall! Wowsers! I'mgonnajumpinraceyouthere!"

"Pinkie, what're you on about..." The next step revealed through a gap between the heavy trunks surrounding them, not far off the trail, a cascade of purple-blue. Its shush-shush reached out to her ears only then, as it must have with Pinkie, who was sprinting towards it.

The roiling shapes terrified her. Adrenaline surged; her ears rang and her barrel lurched and all she could see was Pinkie charging headlong and leaping towards the --

"Cannonball!"

"PINKIE!"

The moment Pinkie touched the water

the liquid spurted out around her, wrapping her limbs and barrel and neck

Bow-bow-bow!

pulling her in, swallowing her

Bow-bow-bow!

with a horrified shriek she was forever

"Wheee!" Pinkie splashed into the pool below with a cheer and beamed up. "What's that, Applejack?"

"Nothing can stop..." She shook her head, quivering, disoriented. "...What?"

Understanding this one properly may require knowledge of the '80s movie. Unfortunately, there isn't space available to convert the cerebral terror to a more visceral experience for the reader.

7363903

A Song For Cocklebur

---

Cocklebur Note was the luckiest and the unluckiest pony in Equestria. After years of practice, she wrote a song so sweet it could almost make you forget to breathe.

After two local ponies asphyxiated, the village council ordered her to give up music forever.

One night, she vanished.

She awoke in a castle's highest tower, secret prisoner of a blonde pegasus prince, who desired fame as a songwriter. After three months, she wrote a song for him.

I shine like the sun, I fly like a bird,
I travel all over the world.

My feathers are bright, I gleam in the light
My power can grant nearly any desire.

In all of the city, my home is the first
and the last touched by light of the sun and the moon.

Gold thieves broke into the tower, freeing Cocklebur. Years later, the Singing Bandit finished making the prince a pauper.

Author's Notes

1. I think every proper riddle has at least one proper answer.

2. I wrote all or practically all of this story by October 31st. Thereafter just I sat on it for a while. So any accidental similarities after that point are at worst just ambient cliche unoriginality, with no particular person at fault. Sorry about that.

3. A few hours before the Nov. 21st deadline, I made minor edits for formatting, and to this Author's Note.

7363903

Good Night

When Rarity was young, her daddy tucked her into bed every evening and sang good night to her. She never sang along, but she smiled.

She stopped calling him Daddy as she grew older. She got self-conscious, stopped smiling. At some point he stopped singing.

Now Sweetie Belle is young, and their father sings the same song to her. On her infrequent visits home, Rarity sits downstairs with her mother and hears him singing, sounding further away than he actually is. She tries to remember the last time her father sang good night to her. Doesn’t.

One night in the future will become the last night that he’ll sing to Sweetie Belle. Rarity likely won’t be present, won’t know the last time has happened until it’s already over.

So she tries to memorise his singing voice now. She can’t smile; for her, the last time already happened. Still, she tries.

Author Notes:
I wrote this as an actual song! Listen to it on youtube!

The Song I Remember

Vinyl came to Ponyville
Where she had lived before
Went to Octy's house
Knocked upon her door

Then she sang a love song
To the one that she adored:

"You are the song I remember
All throughout the years
Through my struggles and my triumphs
All my happiness and tears
And if you like what you're hearing
It could be sweeter yet
Would you like to make your solo
A duet?"

Octy stared in silence
While ponies gathered 'round
She looked into her deepest heart
And this is what she found:

Though Vinyl was a wild one
She fit just like a glove
And Octy knew she needed
The melody of love

"You are the song I remember"
That's what Octy said
As she held beloved Vinyl
And so many tears were shed
"And we should stay here together
Make life sweeter yet
You complete my purest solo
in duet!"

7363903

Here is my entry for November. I am quite proud of this one. It is one of those stories that just come to you when you find inspiration; you have pictures, words and a scene in your head and just start writing. I firmly believe that those are always the best stories, the ones that are spontaneously written in the moment of inspiration and are presented as is. Those stories are filled with the most life.

This flashfic is also a partial ponification of something, inspired by the association the prompt brought up in me and a certain YouTube video I watched in the hopes to trigger inspiration. It worked and the result is a tiny part of a bigger pony story that is inspired by a certain piece of non-pony media. Let's see if you can guess what I took inspiration from, although, there is one author here who will likely find this familiar:
.
.

Sweetie Belle stared at the massive, menacing tree in the distance, from tear-filled eyes. "D-Does it still sing?" She turned around at her companion. "I-It used to sing, didn't it?" Sweetie Belle choked.
He looked at her from empty, shocked eyes. "Yes. Before it died." He turned away, unable to look at her any longer.
Sweetie Belle gasped. The tears began to flow down her face. "But..... But..... I-It's the song I remember. The only thing that's left..... Will I never hear it again?"
As no answer came from her companion, she turned back at the tree, frantic and in agony. Her eyes sought a sign of hope, but there was none. Only dead, brown leaves rustling in the wind.
"Y-You weren't supposed to kill it..... I-It was the Tree of Life. Now everything will fall apart....."
A sob left her throat. The wind carried it to the fallen warden.

.
.
My entry for this month is also very much open for interpretation. Even I don't fully know what led up to this moment, only the basics, so feel free to theorize what the scenario is and what exactly happened here.

Just under 53 hours remaining, folks!

7375243

Did you forget to update the front page? It still says that the next contest will start on November 1st.

7375306
Yes, I did! Thanks for the reminder. Silly me.

11 entries, 10 eligible. Only 12 hours to go.

We've had a pretty good turnout this year in general, haven't we?

7376441
Yes, I'm very pleased. I can remember when we were down to between four and six on a regular basis. I did wonder how long this thing would remain viable. Quite a while, it now appears!

Ten hours to go!

7376441

I am just about to start reading the entries for this month, so, which one is the ineligible entry? I hope mine isn't seen as such, yes, it is inspired by something non-pony that I ponified, but the scenario is an original pony scenario and requires no knowledge of anything else other than Sweetie Belle's identity.

7376645

Mine. I won the last one, so the rules say my entry can't win this one.

7376647

Oh, yes, I forgot that detail, yesterday got a little stressful. Nevermind.

7363919 7363961 7364209 7364601 7365175 7369890 7370094 7370927 7373516 7373754 7374592

Okay all, once again I'm a little late with this, but just over an hour ago entries are now closed! We've crept into double figures once again for the submission count, which is great. Also great is that once again we have newcomer representation.

As ever, I'll read these submissions and mull over my decision for a few days, then announce the winner in this thread.

Feedback is now open!

7363919

Our brains, after all, are connected to our ancestors.

I know what this references. When I read this line, I was hoping you would ponify that game in your entry, because I am dreaming of a full ponification of it for a few years now. Which you sadly didn't, but at least I am not the only one who thought of this game when hearing the prompt.

Anyway, for your actual entry, I have a thing for the occasional sexual joke with innuendos, so I had to laugh here. It's also funny seeing Twilight failing with giving sexual education at her school, it rather fits her to be awkward about that.

7363961

Origin story of why ponies are a singing society? A nice idea. I hope this isn't true, it would be sad if ponies weren't singing voluntarily, but it's a very creative idea.

7364209

Like with many of your stories, I need more than one read and a good amount of thinking to understand what's going on. And I am not good at the thinking part right now, so I can't say much about this story other than it being about how Sweetie Belle understood the moral of that story Rarity was reading to her, but that is also what I love about your stories, they require to do a lot of thinking and to use one's brain.
There should be more stories like this.

7365175

This hit me hard. Silverstream singing a sad song, I read this part with her voice in my head and she is good at this, her voice fits to sad singing. Another reason why Silverstream is best Student Six member. The end made it even stronger, Gallus referring to it that he might die in a battle as a member of the royal guard, revealing another reason why they are all so sad at the very end. This is excellent.

7369890

This was beautiful. There is not much story here, but the song is the shining centerpiece of this flashfic. Writing a song is hard, it's nothing I can do, so I am amazed by it how well-done this self-composed lullaby is. I almost wish that would be sung for me at night.

7370094

I have no idea what the lyrics reference or where they are from, but I recognize the feeling of discovering a great place in nature here and that feeling was delivered nicely through Pinkie Pie's enthusiasm.

7370927

She wrote a song that asphyxiates ponies by them stopping to breathe when they listen to its beauty? Sounds more like a weapon than a song. And she can do a ton of other things by writing songs, too, if I interpret this correctly and she wrote a song to make gold thieves break into the castle so she can flee.
Weaponized songs, very creative idea. I love this.

7373516

I feel melancholic reading this. The second flashfic this month that makes me wish to be a foal again. I can relate to Rarity when she misses her fillyhood days.
The only thing that feels off is the mention of Rarity having stopped to call him "Daddy". Why would she stop with that? I understand what you were going for with this, but even adults refer to their parents somehow and I don't think it's too unheard of that even an adult still calls their father "daddy".

7373754

A beautiful entry. You are only the second one who took the Hard challenge and yours is even better than the first one. The only issue I have with it is that it seems OOC for Vinyl Scratch to sing a cheesy, romantic love song like that (I would more expect her to create a cool dubstep track or anything of that sort when making a love confession), but the song she sings is beautiful. I will listen to this on YouTube, as well, after writing this feedback so that the song won't affect my judgement. But I think this is my favourite entry this month.

And done. Shorter feedback today because I am not feeling 100% well, but I wanted to finally give feedback again this month.

7376772

I have no idea what the lyrics reference or where they are from, but I recognize the feeling of discovering a great place in nature here and that feeling was delivered nicely through Pinkie Pie's enthusiasm.

As in my author's note, it was a bit of a gamble relying on nominally G1 material. I, myself, know from it only three things: Applejack is a silly pony, Rainbow Dash always dresses in style, and nothing can stop the Smooze (youtube link). Don't look now, but it gets stopped.

I am glad that the setting at least came through as well as it did -- this story "working", I think, relies heavily on setting the idyllic natural setting against the (past-life?) demons in Applejack's head.

7376772
Thank you for the review! And I agree that the song I wrote is not the correct genre for either Vinyl or Octy. I considered choosing some other ponies to be main characters, but I couldn't think of any other music-themed pairings. Plus I've always been a fan of Vinyl/Octy, and I liked the tune too much to just discard it. So hey, idk, maybe it's just the narrator who's singing it that way, and the in-universe tune was completely different =P

7376772

Bad Dragon

Origin story of why ponies are a singing society?

Indeed.

I hope this isn't true

Oh, don't worry, this is only true in the fantasy world within a dream. The reality is much worse.

7364601
Wait... Was mine the only one with a downvote?

Okay, ouch... I mean, I probably deserve it for some random stupid thing I did, but still, ouch.

7376897

We sometimes get random downvotes (here and on other parts of the site), and I've rarely ever seen one explained. If the downvoter can't be bothered to explain what their problem is (and thus reveal whether it's insightful, an opinion you can't do anything about, or just the stupid and petty move of some species of Internet dumbass), the problem might as well not exist. So I'd say dismiss it.

It's not as if downvoting was ever a substitute for intelligent discussion. I make it a rule never to do it at all, even if something legitimately pisses me off. What's the point? It's just spite. It's honestly better to explain the problem helpfully, or more often than not just back off and keep away from it.

7376772
Oh good, I'm glad the melancholia came across! Thanks for the review :)

even adults refer to their parents somehow and I don't think it's too unheard of that even an adult still calls their father "daddy".

I accept it's not unheard of. I also think it's very common for adults to stop referring to their father as "daddy" as they grow up because they think it's childish for whatever reason (me, for an example) and Rarity calls him "Father" in Sisterhooves Social. So I guess I was using it as an demonstration of the fact she grew up and got self conscious, and in the rest of the text he's just father. I can accept I didn't do a great job with the words I had of putting that particular little facet across, though.

7376772

It's tempting to say, "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" but I'm starting to wonder if the "feature" really is a "bug". I always feel concern when people say they struggle to understand what I'm saying. It feels like I'm not communicating properly. And it happens so awfully often, too.

Although part of the problem is cramming so much into 150 words. Or trying to cram so much. I edit a lot just to meet the word count.

7376868

I see. Now that makes more sense. Not only do I barely know G1 (although, if I had been in a better condition when writing this feedback, the lyrics could have easily made me draw the connection and I heard about the Smooze from G1), I also read the sentence below the flashfic as "of an '80s movie" rather than "of the '80s movie", so the thought of G1 didn't even come up. I guess if I had read the correct word, I would have seen the reference.
So, with that in mind, the flashfic theorizes that Applejack is the same Applejack from G1? A theory I haven't heard the first time, and probably not the last time either, but it makes little sense, unless it assumes that Applejack is, like, a several thousand years old which is rather doubtful. Assuming that ancestral, inherited memories are buried deep in her brain makes more sense and that G1 and G4 technically share the same universe, while being several thousand years apart, is not completely impossible.

7376878

Actually, Octavia would likely sing a song like that. While it's not exactly her genre, the fact she is into classical compositions implies that she has a bit of a romantic sense, so she could come up with a song like that and sing it in front of Vinyl's window.
While Vinyl Scratch wouldn't make a song like this, because that's not her style, but being moved by Octavia's love confession, it could be that she goes for the compromise of singing the same lyrics in return as part of her response, since it would only happen one time as an exception and that for an important reason. Or you could change the end and have Vinyl respond in her typical fashion with ordinary words, the song would still be in the story then, so that would work, too.
That's an easy fix for your problem, just let Octavia and Vinyl Scratch switch roles and the story suddenly makes a lot more sense.

7376888

So, I get to choose between ponies only singing because of the lovefoal of a brainwash spell and a virus or ponies only singing because they've always been changeling slaves and the changelings created a happy, perfect world for them inside their minds to eliminate all the risk of some of them fleeing.
Nice. A decision between frying pan and fire. I am glad that neither of this have any implication of a possibility of being true.

7376936

I accept it's not unheard of. I also think it's very common for adults to stop referring to their father as "daddy" as they grow up because they think it's childish for whatever reason (me, for an example) and Rarity calls him "Father" in Sisterhooves Social.

I suppose it differs between families. I wasn't 100% well yesterday when I wrote that feedback, as I said at the bottom, so maybe that has affected my understanding of the flashfic. And I lack personal experience with daddies, since there's never been one around.
I also remember Rarity's way of referring to her dad.
I guess I really overlooked a few important aspects there when reading your flashfic, so just dismiss what I said.

7376938

This is going to be a lengthy response and will get slightly off-topic regarding the theme of flashfics, but it serves well to explain something about your concerns:

No, it's definitely a feature in your case. Your stories aren't difficult to understand, they are just requiring more thoughts being put into them because your writing style is more complex and you don't always explain everything that happens in your stories. Which is a good thing.
As a very dedicated and active TV foal for several decades who has seen pretty much every show and movie that aired on all the channels I had access to, ever since I was old enough to watch TV, I noticed the development that TV shows and movies became simpler with the decades. I can't tell if the same goes for books and videogames, I have far less knowledge there, but movies and TV shows changed. And that not for the better.
In the 80s and 90s, they implied a lot of deeper stuff about the plot and the characters, only gave hints for it, and let the audience figure it out themselves by doing thoughts on what they saw. They encouraged the audience to think about what they just watched.
In more recent TV shows, pretty much everything that came after 2000, but I think that development already began at the end of the 90s, TV shows and movies became more simple. They suddenly explained every tiny detail, leaving no room for thoughts and serving everything on a silver platter to the audience. While suddenly also being full of plotholes, something not existent in old shows and movies, but that's a different problem entirely. Shows and movies that required the audience to figure out aspects of the plot by themselves suddenly became rare and more of a niche. I can't give a specific example anymore, my memory fails me there, but I know that I had countless "Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious!" moments when a character in a modern TV show or movie pointed something out in their dialogue that I could easily see by myself without getting pushed towards it.
A problem that I think got worse with time, although, I stopped watching modern TV shows more and more since 2009 and since the middle of 2013, have stopped watching them entirely, with TWD as the only exception (and that only because of zombies), and only watch MLP: FiM and fan-made content for it anymore.
And that unfortunate development in TV shows and movies is one of the initial reasons why I got drawn to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, when I started watching it regularly in January 2012, it doesn't have that habit of chewing everything for the audience before it's being fed to them. There is a lot of stuff in MLP: FiM that only becomes apparent if you look a bit deeper and do some thoughts about it. And that's a sign of quality that the show refuses to explain everything, not a flaw, cause it's more engaging that way. It is one of the rare exceptions that I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Why this development of TV shows and movies getting simpler took place is something I am not sure about. And whether the collective, worldwide TV audience has gotten more stupid less attentive and TV shows and movies adapted to this not to lose their watchers or if the shows and movies got simpler first, because script writers begun to care less, and that affected the audience into growing used to the lower standard, is something I can't tell. But it's a development I realized has taken place, a few years before I found MLP: FiM, and it's jarring.
I have long since stopped caring about this, as I have found my meaning with MLP: FiM almost nine years ago now, and that is all I need, but sharing this here hopefully helps to see you where I'm coming from when I say that it's a good thing, not a bad thing, that your style of writing requires thinking by the audience in order to fully understand your stories.
Simply put, your writing encourages the reader to figure out certain plot aspects by themselves, instead of having it conveniently explained to them, like nearly all writing for at least TV shows and movies was back in the days before the modern age wiped that out. Your writing is of a higher, intellectual standard. And that's purely a good thing. If you hear it a lot that your stories are hard to understand, then this is merely because today's audience has gotten used to the new standard of stories that explain them everything and that don't require them to think anymore and they have a difficult time when they are suddenly expected to do deeper thinking by themselves to fully understand a story.
They aren't used to this anymore, since virtually everything today conveniently serves the plot to them, so when they see a story that's different, they perceive the lack of explanation as a flaw and complain. While, if they would use their brains more and put some thoughts into what they see or read, they would realize that the plot actually does make sense and isn't inconsistent or contradictory at all, and that they simply overlooked implied details. But that's hard for them to do, so something more complex that requires thinking is easily seen as a bad or flawed story by them. I see My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's perception in the audience suffering a lot from that and so do your stories.
But that shouldn't discourage you. Like I said, it doesn't mean your stories are flawed, today's audience is just not used to this style of writing anymore. Keep writing like that. A raise in standard is always good and people can learn. And they should. Maybe your style of writing will help to increase the overall standard again one day.

Edit: Saying all that made me feel like an old grandfather telling his grandfoals about past times before their birth. Do I feel old all of a sudden.....

7376767
We have multiple new entrants this month, so I think it's reasonable to ask for a clarification on something.

One thing I don't see explicitly and directly stated in the rules at https://www.fimfiction.net/group/212112/flashfic/thread/308419/flashfic-150-rules-and-qa is, is there an exact deadline by which everyone should have submitted mandatory feedback on each story?

7376878
I know multiple real life people, some of whom are good at music, and in my experience some people are able and willing to write and play in multiple genres of music when they want to. So I completely reject your 'this pony could not possibly use this style of music' criticism of your own story.

7377135
Interesting thoughts. But that leads to another idea: Suppose that Vinyl is singing something that's more Octy's style, specifically because she's singing it to Octy? She's trying to demonstrate that she understands Octy as a person, and that she's willing to grow and change for the sake of the relationship. This actually leads to a whole expanded fanfic idea where the two of them previously broke up in part because Vinyl kept blasting wubs all the time and Octy was annoyed and Vinyl was inconsiderate about it, so when Vinyl decides to make amends she deliberately sings something outside her usual style, to show that she's sorry.

And presumably that would eventually inspire Octy to attempt to write a dubstep tune for Vinyl. I assume she would do a bad job, but Vinyl would love it all the same. =P

Anyway, as for why I didn't just switch the roles in the original fic, I guess I just figured that Vinyl is more bold and outspoken than Octy. So I just assumed that Vinyl would be the one making the surprise appearance and proposing romance out of the blue. But I could see a story where Octy takes that role, if she felt sufficiently motivated to overcome her usual sense of decorum and reservation. (At least, that's how I imagine her.)

7377144
Aw, thanks! =)

I have a history of self-criticism, so it's really nice to hear that. =)

7377137 You want the truth? You can't handle the truth.

Oh, and the Changelings only made everypony sleep. It was Luna who created the dream to connect them.

7376938

I guess I have a special qualification to respond to this: it seems I naturally tend to be a rather harsh judge of 150 word flash fics! So harsh that I am wondering if I should drop out of this contest because the work of giving sufficient quantities of meaningful, sincere feedback while not hurting people's feelings seems like a challenging knife's edge to walk.

So I looked back at my uncensored extremely harsh notes from my prior reading(s), about what I really thought.

Impossible Numbers

Somehow that four-word question in
' Sweetie thought she meant: "Want this fairy-tale romance?" '
struck me as a bit too curt when I first read it. I guess it's a clash of styles within the story.

I also didn't especially like the three-Belle song start of

"Oh Belle, Belle, Belle of the Ball,

You could have picked a more interesting word than two of the Belles, and saved by one on your word count. But that's just how I felt during one reading.

Gave up princes.

Somehow I felt that I would have liked this better if it was different. Perhaps "Gave up on princes." Or something I haven't thought of yet. Sorry, this is very subjective.

The story is good overall, but I feel it suffers somewhat in spots from the word count fight.

I'm also not really sure what princes have to do with muses. Is every prince an artist? Or is this just vague choice of a word ("muse") that's not quite fitting? I hold you responsible for the decisions of whoever writes children's books in your story's world!

[LATER ADDITION: Calling a lovely woman "muse" when one's relationship to her is nothing like the actual muse-artist relationship is just the kind of sloppiness that some people write and some others like, though.]
[EVEN LATER EDIT: Yeah, yeah, when they do that, it's a fossilized metaphor. A fuzzy, sloppy fossilized metaphor! ]

Sorry, your story isn't actually sh*te. I liked it, by the way.

The real problems are:

1. Different people have very different tastes and perspectives, so generally, a good story can't please everyone.

In the non-fimfiction.net world, we generally deal with this by letting audiences be segmented into different groups. The story that pleases a reader of Ellery Queen is very different from the story that pleases a watcher of "Scooby Doo," even though they are both "mysteries."

In your story's case, the story pleases some people more, at the cost of someone finding it hard to understand.

2. Yes, your story suffers somewhat from the 150 word count limit. Overcoming the perils of that limit is really hard, and I don't think any of our stories here have fully accomplished that. Different stories have suffered from that limit in very different ways, though.

[NOTE: I made multiple relatively small edits to this comment in the first hour after posting: that includes typo fixes, repair of double-pasting from original document(s), and at least one big clarification.]

7377139

I'm at something of a disadvantage in that I don't actually watch all that many movies and TV shows, so I couldn't spot such trends. I mean, I don't like certain trends such as the sudden explosion of remakes in films and video games this past decade, and it sounds plausible that stories would lose a lot of their challenge and become simpler and more thoughtless/mindless when the imperative is more on "sell merchandise" than "tell a story for its own sake". But I'm in no position myself to make any bold claims without some kind of experience or dataset to draw on, myself.

The weird thing is it doesn't sound like a complaint (most of the time). Like, I've spoken to people who admitted they felt they didn't get something, but who still really enjoyed the story. In one sense, that's a good thing, because I like to think a story can be liked on different levels. It's like references: you don't have to get it to enjoy it for its own sake, but you enjoy a bonus if you do get it.

And when it comes to character psychology, a big part of my personal belief is that people are so complicated that there's a lot going on under the surface we don't know about.

But I live in a near-permanent worry I'm not making myself clear when I should be. I don't want to patronize people by beating them over the head with something when they can figure it out for themselves, yet neither do I want people to come away from a story feeling it was incomprehensible to them.

Like a lot of things in life, it's a balancing act done blind.

7377160

I've read harsher.

150-word stories are a total nightmare to write for. The curt language is simple: I write the story I want to write which naturally conveys my points as I want to convey them... and then find I'm 20% over the limit. Cue at least an hour of grumpily cutting and resisting the urge to cut at the same time.

That said, the "Belle" repetitiveness was mostly to give it a cutesy song feel rather than "I couldn't think of anything to put there".

And the muse thing is simple: Rarity, therefore (artistic or otherwise) inspiration theme (note she was the Element of Inspiration before it was changed to Generosity), beauty theme, beauty and art, art including literary art (such as fairy tales) and songs (note Sweetie Belle is a singer), hence muse/source of inspiration.

"Muse" sounded poetic and flattering as it calls someone an inspiration, also tied the (artistic) inspirational element of the idealistic fairy tale romance between princesses and princes, idealistic fairy tale princes as an unrealistic yet tempting ideal (note that Rarity canonically fell in love with a prince, and a "prince" if Trenderhoof counts as an overidealized romantic male), the reality is reliable inspiration comes from other more real and reliable quarters i.e. friends and loved ones such as from the love between Sweetie Belle and Rarity, hence love (romantic, also playing on the "overidealized view of reality" sense of "romantic") versus love (platonic) and muse (fictional source of inspiration) versus real people (real source of inspiration), fiction (fairy-tale princes, muses) versus reality (Rarity, friends), reality being that Sweetie Belle rejects looking for "romantic" ideal i.e. princes and became inspired by and then "gave as good as she got" with Rarity...

...thus connecting all those elements on multiple levels with the core Rarity-Sweetie Belle relationship as a uniting theme.

Now you see why 150-word counts are such a bugger to me?

7376772
7377160

Whoops! Where are my manners? Thank you both for the reviews. You've been most helpful.

7377168

That said, the "Belle" repetitiveness was mostly to give it a cutesy song feel rather than "I couldn't think of anything to put there".

Yes, it's a perfectly plausible and reasonable thing to do. But is it the best possible choice to make in a story with a 150 word limit? As you know, Impossible, tiny word quota flashfics are partly different from other writing.

I started replying to your reply to me about my comment about the good and bad aspects of that one word chice, "muse," but:

1. Debating one reader's reaction to a story can easily get kind of silly.
2. Before I saw that you'd posted your reply, I edited my comment to talk some more about that.

7376772

I know what this references. When I read this line, I was hoping you would ponify that game in your entry, because I am dreaming of a full ponification of it for a few years now. Which you sadly didn't, but at least I am not the only one who thought of this game when hearing the prompt.

When I heard the prompt, it did struck a cord, but I couldn't place it on what though. I decided to go with the story I wrote because it was an idea I thought of years ago and that it had a royalty free song in it.

But you're not alone, kupo. I was trying to imply the 'id' of our minds when typing those words, to be honest; however, I was also thinking of that game when forming the line along with another game that's quite comparable as it involves an assassin with a creed and a machine that allows him to dive into his ancestors' lives.

I have a thing for the occasional sexual joke with innuendos

I find sexual jokes too easily created and often fail at being executed properly, so I try to make them gems when I attempt them.

7376772

...the song is the shining centerpiece of this flashfic. Writing a song is hard, it's nothing I can do, so I am amazed by it how well-done this self-composed lullaby is. I almost wish that would be sung for me at night.

Thanks for the high praise! The melody had been in my head for almost a year by now, but I never could find good lyrics to go along with it—that is, until this prompt came along. (Thanks again, Numbers!)

As for what that melody actually is... I'm still too shy to broadcast my voice and I don't own any note-based instruments, so, uh... I'll get back to you on that one.
:P

7376935
Still, I can’t help but feel a bit glossed over.

Every other story, somebody has something to say about, while mine is just so simple, nobody’s saying anything either way about it.(Unless FlutterCheer missed it when reviewing stories.)

7377142
I don't see anyone getting back to you, so I'll comment: giving feedback is completely optional, and is under no particular timetable (though discussion rarely runs past the end of the month).

7364601

7377339
You're complaining that no one seems to be saying anything about your story because it's "too simple?" Ok, now you asked for it.

I'm going to pull up my notes from my "naturally tend to be a rather harsh judge of 150 word flash fics! So harsh that I am wondering if I should drop out of this contest because the work of giving sufficient quantities of meaningful, sincere feedback while not hurting people's feelings seems like a challenging knife's edge to walk...uncensored extremely harsh notes from my prior reading(s), about what I really thought."

About Frazzle2Dazzle's story

There's one thing in this story that causes me a bit of nonimpartial feeling: the fact that someone in this event has written and published a story 'about Gold,' when I had already written but not published a story about gold for this contest! I'd merely sat on my story for almost two weeks in case I might want to make changes to it.

There's another thing too, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Anyway, about Frazzle2Dazzle's story...

I started out thinking, the song is ok? I think it suffers a bit from the equivalent of rhyming moon, June, and spoon, which is to say, rhymes that are perhaps overused and not in themselves unusually creative wordfinding choices. (I might say something like that about a line in my own story, too. We both rhymed light and bright. There, I just impaired my own chances in this contest, by suggesting our stories were less than ideal in the same way. See how your story is awkward for me in ways that are not really your fault?

[Some notes censored that aren't really about your story at all, but about art and truth, and incidentally would not reflect poorly on your story in any way.]

Some points in favor of this story:

The idea is good.

The prose (description and dialog) are handled well.

The writer has completely failed to succumb to the temptation to mangle their prose or poetry to fit it into 150 words, and pretend that the mangling means they're writing sophisticated avant-garde poetry. Bravo!

Good use of commas to show how the song is sung.

So I have to call this story a success.

You might think that your story is "so simple, nobody’s saying anything either way about it." But you completely dodged so many opportunities to get a 150 word flashfic wrong. One of the many things you did right is, you didn't stuff more story into 150 words than would fit.

Also, a minor proofreading note:

"I miss her too.” He finally said, wrapping an arm around Applejack."

should be

"I miss her too,” he finally said, wrapping an arm around Applejack."

But that isn't really the most important thing about the story, is it?

7378064
Huh... I don’t think anyone’s ever been this toxicly positive to me before. Nice breath of fresh air, actually.

To be honest, it’s a personal preference to have people either hate or love my works and be vocal about it. After all, the worst thing they can do is ignore it, and that hurts most of all.

Thanks for reviewing my story! I now have validation for my existence!

Also, thanks for the correction at the end. Capitalization after a sentence spoken by a character is confusing.