AN: This was written one day before the one-year anniversary of the first chapter, for reasons which will become clear.
– – –
Star Swirl sighed. Clover was locked in the bathroom, sobbing loudly, and the noise was disturbing the thaumoluminescent otherworms' proscribed resting period. This had been going on all day, ever since she sat down at her workspace right after breakfast. She had picked up a book, read for a few minutes, then suddenly gasped, twitched, and rushed into the adjacent bathroom as little wet hiccups and sniffles began to escape from her throat.
It was now late at night, and while the cries had intermittently quieted and slowed over the course of the day, they would always come back with a vengeance.
“Clover,” Star Swirl said, knocking on the door, “It's been twelve hours. I'm sort of impressed. But we've lost a work day, and you must be very hungry in there. Would you please come out and talk about—whatever it is?”
He knocked for a few seconds more before the door unlocked with a sharp click, and swung open. Clover emerged, her cloak wrapped tightly around her, hood up over her head, her eyes red and puffy, her muzzle streaked with tear-lines. She sniffed, rubbed her muzzle with a fetlock, and sluggishly walked back to her workspace, where she plopped down into her chair and drooped over the desk.
“I knew you could do it,” Star Swirl said, walking up behind her. “So what's this all about then?”
Clover pointed a hoof over to the corner. There, on the wall beside her desk, was a large diagram covered in little green arrows pointing up. At the bottom right corner of the diagram was a lone red arrow pointing down.
“I had two hundred and twenty to zero,” Clover said, her voice muffled by her forelegs. “Or two hundred and nineteen. I'm not sure which came first, the red one or the last green one. Now it's ruined. That red one is never going away.”
Star Swirl nodded. “So what's this supposed to mean, exactly?”
“It means that somepony doesn't like me,” Clover sobbed, burying her head in her forelegs. “That's a count of how ponies report their impressions of me. I had a perfect record, and now it's ruined. It's magical and completely anonymous. I can't ask them why. I don't know who it was and I don't get any reason, I only know that sompony out there hates me.”
Star Swirl blinked. “You keep a magical running tally of whether or not ponies like you?”
Clover nodded.
“That's weird, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Stop and think about that for a second. I, Star Swirl the Bearded, am telling you, Clover, that you're doing something weird. What does that tell you?”
“I'm pretty sure that means I'm acting like a normal pony.”
“...I can see why you'd think that. But no. Look,” Star Swirl put a hoof on Clover's shoulder and turned her to face him. “You need to stop worrying what ponies think of you. What's the big deal? Ponies hate me all over the world!”
“Maybe you need to start caring!” Clover snapped. “You could stand to have a little more empathy in you, you know! Yes, I care about ponies! I'm nice! I'm kind! I'm friendly! I like being liked!” She sniffed, and wiped her muzzle. “And it had to happen today,” she mumbled bitterly. “Have you seen the date?”
Star Swirl glanced at the calendar Clover had hung up on the wall, one of those with poor-quality reproductions of old works of art showing landscapes and rainbows and kittens in baskets. “July 13th?” he said. “What's special about that?”
“You know what happens tomorrow?” Clover asked. Star Swirl stared blankly. She sighed. “Tomorrow is my birthday, Star Swirl.”
“So, what, you'd rather have gotten hate mail on your birthday?” Star Swirl asked.
“What? No!” Clover said. “But if it had been tomorrow, or the next day, or any later time...” Clover sighed. “Then I would have gone a full year without anyone disliking me. I was going to celebrate. I was counting down the days. And now this has gone and spoiled it.”
They were silent for a moment.
“...Why would anyone hate me, Star Swirl?” Clover said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “What did I do wrong? I try so hard to be likeable. Am I not doing enough? Am I doing it completely wrong?”
“Listen, Clover,” Star Swirl said, his voice softer than usual. “The world is full of ponies who will dislike you for no good reason, who won't give you a chance, who'll judge you as soon as look at you. Maybe they saw your manecut, and decided they didn't want to be your friend. Maybe they heard your Whinnysor accent, and decided they couldn't bear to have a conversation with you. Maybe their marefriend left them that morning, and they were in a rotten mood and looking to take it out on somepony else. Who knows? But asking yourself why, and wondering if it says something about you, is a fool's game. If they don't want to like you, that's their loss.”
“What's wrong with my manecut?” Clover asked.
“You're missing the point, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Look... the only way to go through life without anyone ever disliking you, is to be utterly bland and uncontroversial. Then, you're only going to be ignored. The price of never being disliked, Clover, is never being liked either. Is that what you want your life to be, just so you'll know that when you die nopony will have a nicer day because of it?”
“...No,” Clover said. “But I have plenty of friends, Star Swirl. I'm not a cardboard cutout...” Her eyes widened. “Unless I actually am. Oh Celestia, am I actually a horribly boring character?” Her voice was suddenly sharp and pleading, but she froze when she saw the disapproving look in his eyes. “Alright, fine. Let's say, for the sake of argument that I'm not. I've always had plenty of friends, but no enemies, until right now. What went wrong, Star Swirl?”
“Nothing went wrong,” Star Swirl said. “You just ran up against the math, that's all. Look... If you have something worth saying, and absolutely nopony objects, or disagrees, or just plain doesn't get it for whatever reason or for no reason at all, that just means that not enough ponies have heard you yet, and that you need to be louder.”
“That...” Clover thought for a second. “That actually makes sense, sort of.”
“Feeling better now?”
Clover nodded.
“That's the spirit,” Star Swirl said, patting her on the back. “Hah! They always told me that using rigorous logic and a general disdain for public opinion was a terrible way to cheer somepony up, but I knew it would work eventually.”
Clover chuckled softly, her lips curling into a smile.
“That's more like it,” Star Swirl said. “Now go out there and keep on doing your thing until everyone knows who you are. I don't want you to stop until there are enough people who hate you that they can form a club. In fact, keep at it until somepony tries to kill you! And then keep going! Just, you know, with some protective enchantments in place.”
“Okay, this doesn't sound like such a great idea anymore.”
If it's any comfort, I think this is the longest a story with more than 100 up votes has ever gone without getting a down-vote. That has to count for something? Besides which, this is still the best of the best! tell you what, I'll reread it right now and have a good laugh.
*Grins* downvotes are a part of life. glad to hear Clover's learning to cope at least.
It has to be Satan Hitler The Dark Sorcerer wielding the Staff of Pure Evil, in his Fortress of Dead Puppies and Kittens in the land of Burning Orphans and Screaming Souls in the Demonic Pits of Space Tartarus. With his henchmen Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus.
4688976 4689024 4689130
Thanks, guys I always knew it was only a question of time, I guess. I kind of figured I would be more heartbroken when it finally happened than I am, so... I guess I'm not quite THAT thin-skinned.
Apparently Clover is, though
4689790 Uhm, you now have 3 downvotes...
*watches as you commit seppuku*
Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have told him.
4690095
I dunno what this is about anymore -_- were they all just reluctant to go first or something?
ETA: But, 11 new likes and 5 new watchers, which is actually very good.
4689790 Take it all in stride brah You can deal and you can recover. Write you clover pony... and remember this occasion.
And while i'm here I mineaswell ask. Would you mind if i conduct a Cinema/Cinemare Sins review of this story. I feel like it would be hilarious.
4690133
By all means
Let me be clear; This was wonderful.
The closest style of writing I can compare this to is that of Literary God Terry Pratchett. It flows smoothly, and doesn't force the reader to understand the humor, rather simply letting the humor "be." You laugh at some parts, but also at the same time, you don't have to laugh. You know it's funny without having to vocalize it. Like Pratchett's work, the humor reaches, in a sense, transcendent levels where you don't need to laugh to know its funny.
It reads like a Slice of Life, but one that is more akin to real life than any other story, even if it does take place in a fantasy realm of ponies. And to that effect, when I read it, not once did I ever think I was reading about ponies. Because, as I read, it did not matter. They were Star Swirl and Clover, and that was all they ever were, or needed to be, equine or not.
Sir/Ma'am/Cosmic Non-gender, I love this story, and hope you understand and/or appreciate the praise I'm trying to shove down your throat.
4690156
Thank you very much
4690120 Oh don't be upset, I have about 5 billion dislikes on my stories.
Mostly from people whose stories I've gone "The Critic" all over.
I take it as a sign that The Plan is working perfectly.
232 out of 235 readers surveyed would upvote The education of Clover the Clever. But what about the other 3 readers?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZMkBHI0uR0Take 2:
Awe poor Clover
Take my like little Clover pony!
So meta! This chapter reminds me of a few of Skywriter's stories actually.
Tis a silly reason to write a commemrative chapter.
...
Now I wish I hadn't up-voted before, just so I could do it now
To be honest, of all the stories that I love to read I haven't met a person who could match my idea of clover and starswirl so perfectly. Always know weather you think so or not I appreciate your working and slowly but surely everyone who has written a story that has kept my interest makes a place in my own personal leather back book that ive made. So one day I can read these stories to my kids if I ever have them.
IClearSkies
USA, SSG (Ret.)
Military Police
4691149
Wow, really? Thanks Skywriter is the kind of guy that makes me go "I'll never be half as good as this guy."
4691073
*Clover hugs your like tightly*
4691621
Wow. Thanks man *brohoof*
I agree with the others and have thoroughly enjoyed reading each chapter as you released them one by one... Thanks for the hard work! Oh, and is today your actual birthday? In that case, congratulations!
4689799
Let me put it this way, the British find many similarities between these two institutions:
The Nazi POW camp Colditz castle:
encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSaZrxFGyB9YbBmK1eDe1IaBSuCTPwNnWbk9auK41PcD0_1offK
And the holiday resort chain Butlins:
static.uk.groupon-content.net/79/92/1314695099279.jpg
4689790
On the one hand, holy shit, I didn't even notice you went this long without a down vote
On the other hand, you're using established characters with no known characteristics in a comedic adventure fic that appears to gave been heavily inspired by Doctor Who and various other popular works, but with the skill required to separate inspiration from writing.
In other words, it's kind of the easiest thing to not get down votes with.
I mean, it still takes skill, but the thing to remember is that people downvote for character(along the list of characters who have had this happen is cadance, shining, and more recently flash), genre tag(slice-of-life, tragedy, sad, dark, human), not having enough references, having too many references, writing characters they love poorly(I mostly see this with Pinkie, but that has more to do with no one writing her correctly), referencing memes, not referencing memes, editing to fit with a recent episode, etc.
whether you have one downvote has nothing to do with quality, it has everything to do with random chance. Hell, I saw someone who gave a downvote to a story with no downvotes, and left a comment basically saying he left it because there were no down votes. People == dumb && People == crazy
whether you have more than 1/5 your upvotes in downvotes does(I'm tempted to take some samples and come up with a rough set of rules for what up/down votes represents a truly good story, but that instinctively feels right- if more than one in six of your readers took the time to down vote you, there's probably something wrong) tend to accurately portray quality.
The only way to know you'll stay above the 1/5 threshold is to write a moderate quality second person clop fic staring spike, or pander hard and fast to the most popular ship of the day- just make sure you finish it before the whims change, or you'll sink like a stone.
4691936
Not me, no, but if you look at the story page you'll see that I uploaded the first chapter of Clover (which was the first thing I ever published on this site) one year ago today
Come on in, everypony, and have some cake
4692122
Ahhh, good old-fashioned British comedy
4692442
Yeah, that's all probably true. One of the things I've learned in my time here is just how weird readers are
I've basically come to the conclusion that except in certain extreme cases, downvotes actually mean absolutely nothing. And that, as Star Swirl says, if you don't have any that just means your story isn't being seen by the numbers it deserves.
4692442 Here lets rationalize it like this, Rule Of the Internet number 34.5 If there are no downvotes, downvotes will be created. This is to ensure that rule 34.4 stays intact (Everystory must have a downvote)
4692756
Legit rule is legit
No exceptions
And then there were 3.
Metafic is always good for a grin. :)
If it helps, I'd up vote twice if I could. This story make my brain happy, and a happy brain means dopamine, and lots of dopamine equals happy void hydras.
4708170
There is nothing worse than unhappy void hydras.
4691821 Hold on, a good percentage of the school either believes that she's crazy or possessed by star swirl. Not to mention that there are some ponies who are bound to be jealous of her situation. If she really does keep track of how many ponies like her and dislike her, wouldn't those register as dislikes?"
Non-Canon Sin Count: 1
4715258
I don't know whether to laugh or weep over the broken remains of my story...
I suspect you're going to have a field day with the next chapter though. "Sudden genre shift between chapters! DING! Suddenly genre shift within a single chapter! DING! Wait... another one? DING! DING! ...DING!"
4715294 lol yea Literary Sins'll do that to ya. I'm thinking about starting a group or seperate account,not unlike Fimfiction Drama
Hey man it's your count not mine
4715294 lol yea Literary Sins'll do that to ya. I'm thinking about starting a group or separate account,not unlike Fimfiction Drama
Hey man it's your count not mine
Gonna drop my two cents since I have only just recently hit ten downvotes on my fic while nearing three hundred upvotes. Its not even six months yet.
Roll with it, its actually surprising this story doesn't have more downvotes (no this is not meant to be mean) and its a point of pride that your likes so heavily outnumber your dislikes, but I always viewed dislikes as a point of maturity for the story. Its grown complex enough that its now divisive, which is always a good thing. Its only ever a bad thing if they grossly outnumber the likes, in which case yeah, you're doing something wrong.
I'm actually going to be celebrating getting my tenth dislike (its a human story, the fact it went that long with single digit dislikes and hundreds of likes was nothing short of mind-boggling given how this community works) as soon as I get four more likes to complete the dichotomy, haven't decided how yet, but I imagine rewarding the readers with maps will be a nice gift.
4715231 Are you sure you wouldn't want to invert the neutrino flow instead?
4715977
I would say I'm gonna go check your fic out, but, oh, it's over 200k words and I'm already reading a 200k+ fic that'll keep me occupied for probably another week if not longer :S and very long stories give me pause in general. Still, I will try to fit it in, no promises for when.
4718393 Don't worry about it man, I was only using it as an example why you shouldn't fret over dislikes as much as you should embrace them.
4690362 This story has had it's sins pointed out. Congrats! I humbly ask that you, Daedelean, please add this story to this group Literary/Fiction Sins
Haha, brilliant! A good message with an amusing punchline, made all the funnier by its commemoration.
Funny, but no.
Look, nobody is universally liked.
Heh.
4703014
And then there were 6.
4691010 video is dead, upvoting anyways.
8080005
Try again. I updated the vid.
Making a chapter cause of your first dislike made me curious to see how many there was. And years later there is only 14. That's still really good.