• Member Since 6th Mar, 2012
  • offline last seen Sep 21st, 2015

charyoshi


E
Source

Twilight is given the responsibility of studying an artifact from Panacea Bo, an ancient unicorn doctor said to be able to cure any disease. When Twilight learns that Applejack is stuck sick in bed, Pinkie Pie assists Twilight in giving it a field test.

My attempt at The Iron Author contest at Everfree Northwest. Participants had to write up to 2000(ish) words in 2 hours using 4 prompts, and authors had to use 3 of the 4 prompts in their story.

Minor spoilers below

The prompts were:
Setting: The canterlot vaults
Theme: Laughter is the best medicine
Object: An artifact
Character Type: A princess

Big thanks to Horizon for editing!

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 7 )

I remember talking to some of the contest judges, and if I recall correctly, only a couple of us used the "laughter is the best medicine" prompt. I think yours and mine might be the only ones.

That said, I think you did a pretty good job here, especially if you were sans laptop in that time limit. The descriptions really keep things lively and varied, though a couple of bits do feel like they were dragged out longer than need be. Your characterizations are great though.

I haven't read the edited version yet, so I'm curious to see what changes you made to increase the length so much. Onward!

Well, now that I've read both versions, I have to say I think you overdid it with the length on this one. Don't get me wrong, some of the scenes you added (like spike sweeping in the intro) are absolutely beautiful to read, and paint a crystal clear picture in my mind's eye... but then nothing ever relates back to spike or his sense of pride that's established there. I still feel the chase scene drags on just a little bit too long for what is essentially no change in position as well. Also, "Panacea's Mirth" kinda gives the game away early on, at least for anyone that knows what those words mean, and as it's pinkie involved as well, it's hard to feel that twilight's fears about the relic being dangerous are at all reasonable.

Once in AJ's room, it feels like several things repeat now as well. For example. Twilight gasps "Ancient relic... don't know effects..." from the doorway. Then, several paragraphs later, she's still in the doorway, and is still out of breath saying almost the same thing, "Ancient relic.. cures disease..." Seems like some edits may have copied rather than moved some bits.

The epilogue, with pinkie snagging the thing to rush after rarity is a nice addition, and there's several other bits you extended or added which really help clarify and intensify the story. Overall though, I feel the shorter version had more of a punch to it, and ideally would've loved to see something between the two, adding and fixing some key things, but not extending it quite so much.

Anyway, great job, regardless of my small quibbles. It was a fun read, and well executed premise. And on a selfish note, it shows me that I definitely had to fight, even for third place where I ended up. Seeing how narrow the margin must've been makes me feel lucky that I got even that.

3087484
I had never really put much thought into how irrelevant some things were. I suppose you're right in hindsight, Spike wasn't really that necessary and despite Twilight's bookworm tendencies, she probably could have caught her breath sooner.:ajsleepy:

Only going off the top of my head and not rereading it with this prospective in mind, I think that the chase scene wasn't too bad. May I ask what exactly you mean by no change in position? I've got a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to traveling from place to place, I always try to make the journey part of the destination. I'm sure i have tons of exposition problems that I don't even know about but I'll be damned if traveling exposition is one of them!:rainbowdetermined2:

As for the name being too revealing, eh sort of. I think it's just revealing enough; it follows enough tropes that you can fairly immediately figure out what's going on but as the story progresses it gives at least some plausibility to the answer not being the obvious one. The show itself does that a lot so I'm actually a little proud of that bit.:twilightsmile: While we're on the topic of spoilers and such, just wanted to tell someone eventually that the P in Panacea P Bo stands for Plassi.:yay:

I can see the shorter version having a bit more of a punch, but it also made less sense and was a bit more jumpy. I think you're right in that a medium between the edited version and what I originally wrote would probably be better, but I'm calling this story finished. :pinkiesmile:

You probably had to fight for your place, but unfortunately you didn't have to worry about any competition from me.:ajsleepy: I'm still not sure what happened, but I have reason to believe that when I emailed the story, it sent exactly at the time I emailed it, it sent 3 hours later than when i first sent it and that it never sent at all. Whatever happened, nobody got my story and it was never actually judged or in the contest. I was the little entry that wasn't.:raritydespair: I was sad at first, but I decided to polish my story up and give it glory in its own right.

Finally, I'm glad you liked it and thanks for commenting! It was getting lonely in here!:pinkiehappy:

3092638 In the chase, I mean that for all the struggle described, the end result is that pinkie left in first position, and she arrives in first position. Twilight doesn't catch her, the relic doesn't change hooves, and in the end Pinkie uses it before Twilight can stop her. That makes the entire chase more or less irrelevant to the plot, since it could be replaced completely with "Pinkie ran out the door before Twilight could stop her..." and then cut to the next scene as Twilight comes gasping in the doorway of the bedroom and sees events already in progress. I'm not saying cut it quite THAT short, but rather... just show that twilight made an effort, but since pinkie doesn't obey physics, it was to no avail.

As to the name... Heheh... I actually figured it was some form of "Placebo" even in the short version. I love wordplay and etymology though, so I'm not sure how many would actually have gotten that second bit. I completely understand and agree that it's fun to have names like that, and they do fit the genre. I mean, the moon princess is named Luna in this universe after all. :trollestia: I think it only becomes an issue for single-focus stories like this however. As a side gag or whatnot, and especially in a longer tale, you can put in sly winks like that. For something short though... and when the reader does "get it" ahead of time, then it removes any remaining hint of suspense from things like Twilight's (otherwise quite reasonable) concern.

Yeah, I don't blame you for not wanting to revise further. At some point, you just have to let it go and move on to the next project. Both versions are still something to be proud of. I remember from the judging that someone's story didn't get into the entries somehow, and I'm sorry to hear that was you. As I said before, I really did like what you did here, and pacing issues aside, the prose was really elegant and entertaining.

3754034

Excuse me? *reads* Well how about that. :derpyderp1: I never actually put any thought into where she was from or her mannerisms. It must be a name that held on through the old days! :derpytongue2:

3754392
She's my friend's OC from 2011 or 2012. I just ended up writing her into a few stories.

Login or register to comment