ESeven of Cups, or, How Derpy Got her Groove Back

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

Derpy drowns her sorrows after getting some bad career news... but when one door closes, another opens.

• Derpy

The Cloptimist · 4.2k words  ·  50  1 · 762 views

Seven of Cups by The Cloptimist is a story that when I first saw it, I was actually fairly intrigued. The blurb was short and concise; building a scene that in my mind to fantasise on the many possibilities, though there is one possibility I believe to be the direction the story will be pointing towards. Well, I guess I have to read to find out whether my convictions are right...

Before I begin, I must warn you, the reader! This review discusses the content in a detailed manner. Do not read further if you do not intend to spoil it for yourself!

Summary

Derpy heads to the bar to drink copiously to numb her feelings of sadness causing general mayhem in the bar, thanks to her unruly behaviour. A pony by the name of Sandy Breeze watching by the side subconsciously decided to step forth to calm her down. Despite Sandy’s awkward introduction to Derpy, Derpy actually smiled in acceptance to an invitation for an honest conversation about her life of constant failures and mistakes, causing her to hop from one career to another seemingly indefinitely. And through this conversation, Derpy might find that even as a door closes, her new job could be found in the most unlikely of places.

Content/Plot Analysis

Right, let’s delve into the content. As this is a fairly short story, I can afford to dive into the content in more depth and in chronological order. Let’s begin!

The story opens with Derpy causing some sort of ruckus in the bar as she continues drinking to get her mind off her personal feelings from the perspective of Sandy Breeze. The author continues to elaborate on this by contrasting how quiet she was normally when she came with the rest of her colleagues for a drink. I can certainly tell that Derpy was evidently upset over something, as implied by her rowdy demeanour in the bar that attracted everyone’s attention, though I would like to comment that the introduction of the story could be sharper to show how mentally scarred Derpy is in the face of the situation she is placed in. In my opinion, I felt that the start could have had a stronger bite to it and I attribute this to the level of strength in her actions depicted in the story. I believe that her actions could have been more aggressive to show how mentally upset she is at the time. This would not only kick the story off on a more apt note, but help bring out the moral of the story at the end. Word choice and greater development in this aspect would play a pivotal role in shaping this up to portray the scene in a vivid and impactful way. Pacing plays a role here too, as I felt that the start could have a greater tempo for the reader to be inspired to continue, especially considering Derpy’s actions.

I must say that the author has done a great job to show her sorrow from the perspective of Sandy using the rule of three as a nice linguistic device to deepen the impact. Short, sharp sentences strongly set the contrast in an excellent manner, as quoted below:

But tonight's different. Tonight, she's sad. Tonight, she came in alone. Tonight, she sat herself straight down at the bar, and ordered a drink. Then another. And then another.

Next, after numerous failed attempts by the bartender to calm Derpy down and cut out her unruly behaviour, Sandy instinctively stepped forth to willingly defuse the situation. Despite the sudden introduction of Sandy, Derpy does not seem to note it to be one of concern but instead carries on with some level of decorum and restraint. I am somewhat surprised by this sudden development; I would expect that Derpy would at least have some conflict with herself when considering whether to speak freely about herself with Sandy. This is because her actions seem to point towards that of hostility, especially considering her interaction with the bartender. Granted, her mental state may not be very sound during this time, but the change in attitude felt convenient to me, and I wished that there was some level of foreshadowing to show why Derpy acted in such a way, perhaps more subtly. I understand that this may be tricky to execute, though I think little hints here and there would help convince the reader of this development.

Then, the conversation kicks off on the subject of Sandy’s career, to which Derpy finds extremely fascinating, though when Sandy asks Derpy of her own work, she flatly replies that she was retrenched. And then she rambles on and on about her experience, which is very relatable to me. In fact, this part was executed aptly; the author shows the difficulty Sandy has in understanding Derpy’s mentality and attitude from the conversation and Derpy’s experiences when it came to the constant cycle of retrenchment and reemployment. In addition, the conversation does provide persuasive ideas to show how Derpy ended up in various scenes throughout the main show which I enjoyed, as they tied into the context fittingly. The dialogue between the two certainly helped convey this, though the author could tie in greater nuance into the tone by inserting body language and facial expression into play to make this more exceptional.

Finally, let’s discuss the ending. It is interesting! The message is clear, yet not explicit, and it really brought out the reflective mind in me. It is a motivative conclusion to the reader to show how even at one’s lowest point, there will always be a rainbow coming ahead; hence never give in into the temptation to give up, for that is the simplest thing one could do.

Before I end off this section, I would like to say that while the story does portray fascinating insights into Derpy’s life and her experiences throughout her life, the story had a lot of untapped potential to link in the emotive part into the story, to allow the reader to feel for Derpy and her experiences more intensely. I think that the story was driven by the narration from the perspective of Sandy and I posit that a balance between the narration and the scene the story wishes to convey during each scene could be better. With a clearer and more vivid glance into the world around them, the reactions to each other and even going into the minute details of facial expression, I think that the reader would be more attached to the overall scene. It also slows the pace down to give the reader down to consider and internalise the struggle that Derpy has faced throughout her life, which is an added benefit to me. I think one way to go about this is to sprinkle these between dialogue and see how the story flows from there.

Flow

Moving forward, let’s discuss about the flow of the story, which is generally cogent throughout, though I have a slight nitpick –

"And that's what I was doing, until yesterday. The, uh, storm... the big storm? That was kind of my fault."

Time passes. The background noise of the bar, the low murmur of conversation, seems to get gradually louder. More ponies start to pull up stools at the bar, and I start to wonder if I should say something, but then she looks up at me again.

I felt that the link between the two paragraphs quoted above is slightly abrupt, in my view. The introduction of the first sentence in the second paragraph is perhaps slightly off in this circumstance. I think that the author could show the awkwardness that lingered in the air between the two, giving the author an opportunity to showcase and elaborate the uncomfortable silence resultant from that dialogue more explicitly at the start of the paragraph as the focal idea, rather than relegating it to the next sentence. Maybe the author could consider integrating that into the second sentence of the paragraph to shape it up more plainly so that the link could be clearer for a more seamless read.

Next, I would like to discuss about the following excerpt.

"Listen, miss," he says. Loudly. Sternly. He already knows she's not going to fight him. "You're always welcome in here, you know that. But I'm gonna need you to calm down. Do you want me to call you a chariot, get you home safe?"

This is a unique way to show the high degree of authority the bartender (he) was portrayed to have in the story. The usage of single word sentences as bolded above caught my attention here. I can see that the author wants to show that the bartender is trying his absolute best to be in a position of authority and command with the emphasis of how loud and stern his voice is conveyed to be in the story when the author executes this in this manner. However, I wonder whether this has affected the pacing of the story, as the flow was somewhat disrupted here as there is no indication of the tempo of the story to change as indicated. I was thinking about intertwining the adverbs into the first sentence so that the flow would be smoother, though I realise that the impact from those words are diluted slightly. Perhaps, the author could show how loud or how stern the bartender is at the time to maintain the impact and the flow, albeit at a lower tempo. Food for thought!

Language

Language errors are quite scarce. Now, let’s check out some of the recommendations that I would like to proffer to the author in the appropriate sub-sections.

Spelling

One eye looking right at me, the other somwehere over my shoulder.

One eye looking right at me, the other somewhere over my shoulder.

Punctuation

"It... suits you?", I blurt out, stupidly, and she tilts her head to look at me.

"What happened?", I say, and I immediately wince at my own insensitivity, but she either didn't notice or didn't care.

I notice that the author has a tendency to include an additional comma after the quotation marks even though there is already a question mark input prior, such as in the above quoted text, which is not necessary. The author can freely remove the commas in question to improve the formatting of the text.

Stance

This is a delightful read, though I wished that more could have gone into building up the scene as they were having their conversation to strike the reader in a greater, more heart-warming and uplifting way. Please check out my individual comments above for a more detail, though you are more than welcome to talk about your story with me.

Content/Plot: 6.5/10
Flow/Communication: 7.3/10
Language/Readability: 7/10
Overall: 6.9/10

Aw! Thank you for the considered review! I'm glad you enjoyed it overall.