The Mayor loses a local election by a landslide. What has happened to make the ponies of Ponyville distrust her so much? Why is the new Mayor so well liked? The now ex-Mayor drowns her sorrows in the local Tavern and meets a friend who doesn't seem to care who she is or what she was, she just wants to have a good time.
When she wakes up the following morning however, she will find that things around Ponyville are far worse than she could have possibly imagined.
Written using the prompt, "Mysterious creatures are attacking Ponyville."
Chapters (1)
Good stuff. It's in need of an editorial pass to fix the few misspellings and typos, but overall it was technically solid, and a good story to boot. Plus, I dug the feel of The Puppet Masters the... thingies evoked.
This was great, and the recurring image I had was actually the brain slugs from Futurama...
This was a well-written story. The narration was a little intrusive at times, (your description of Pinkie Pie's office could've been better) but this piece was mostly fantastic in that regard. There was one other problem: Pinkie Pie and "Emily" spoke in pretty formal tones; I don't think they talk like that in the show. Still, this story was very creative! I'm glad I read it.
I'm not so sure about the name Emily, but seriously, what the hell would her name be. I do like that you said her mane's always been that color; I've often thought the same thing myself.
I love how the creature just kind of slips in there the first time, so you don't even notice it. Cleverly done! Bizarrely enough, in the same room as me is playing a Star Trek episode with similar creatures.
I love that the resistance is not based around elimination of the creatures per se, but the elimination of their effects. So very pony, and the only reason I would accept the 'boss' for who she is.
I kind of thought that's what the voices were.
So awesome to see the Mayor in an active role like this. Really, that's what I love the most, I think. This could use some polishing, of course, maybe even some expansion and a little work on Pinkie's dialogue, but it's now only the second fic in this writeoff that I truly enjoyed, and my new favorite. You wrote this for me, didn't you? :D DIDN'T YOU? You shouldn't have! You're too kind, I love it!
Holy mother of Celestia, I've got it back! Hello Write-Off fic, I've missed you.
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Well, presentperfect, I had to get you a perfect present didn't I? xD
As for the name 'Emily' I'm going to be completely honest, in the fic 'The Back Room' the Mayor appears in it for a very small scene and Rarity calls her Emily, or she says something like "Please, call me Emily." and from that moment on, that's the only name I can think of using for her.
Yes indeed, this needs a thorough polishing, but what can you expect when I only had three days to write it? (I abandoned my original idea half way through xD) I'm going to make sure I make this as good as I can because Mayor is best pony and she deserves more fics centred around her.
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With Pinkie, I can understand your issue with her speech, but in this I've got her in her 'serious mode', she's more level headed, focused and speaks rather frankly. I've always pegged the Mayor as a rather formal pony though, so that's why I've got her as she is. I'm glad you enjoyed it, because I certainly had fun writing it.
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I actually thought of the brain slugs from Futurama when I was writing it xD
The idea for the "mysterious creatures attacking Ponyville" just randomly popped into my head after coming up with the plot. Originally, the mysterious creature was going to be the New Mayor herself, but I made it so she conjured these creatures to control people into voting for her instead.
As I said above, this was a rather rushed piece (I submitted it mere minutes before the deadline... o_o) so I'm going to give it another look over and clean it up a little.
Thanks for the comments, I had fun doing this competition, even if I didn't win :D
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Oh snap, I'm glad you replied to this. I just went through all 24 pages of writeoff fics and totally missed this one. D:
Basing fanon on fanon is one thing... I just don't feel like "Emily" is a very pony name. I mean, her last name, if you will, is "Mare". There's got to be some kind of pony pun or something that you can come up with to give her a ponier name. I'm a big stickler for pony names. That's seriously about the only thing wrong with this, though. Still one of the best fics in the writeoff, in my sadly unimportant opinion.
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Weird thing is, as much as I love the Mayor, I despise calling her "Mayor Mare"
Why? For me, it reduces her to a side characters whose entire existance is to serve as a pun, no better than Hugh Jelly. Yes, Hugh Jelly is the greatest name anypony could have ever conceived, but I'm never going to use that name in serious fiction. In the Same way, using the purely pun based Mayor Mare (lol they sound the same, get it? ¬¬) just grinds my gears. That's why I've never used the name Derpy in any of my fics (I'm fine now that they used it in the show because it legitimises it, but before it was just a pun name)
I feel that calling her Mayor Mare lessens her as a character. This is probably just me being crazy, but I don't want her to descend to that level.
Trust me, I tried coming up with new names, but I don't like *insert adjectives here* names... I feel that it makes the Friendship is Magic universe to deterministic. She was called Rainbow Dash and she's fast. She was called Fluttershy and she's shy. She was called Pinkie Pie and she bloody loves pastries AND the colour pink. Are cutie marks always the same since birth? Is it just there waiting to be discovered? Could you have a badass mercenary called Big Guns, but whose special talent was embroidery? Is this universe just one big Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?
Do ponies have any free will at all?
...
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That's actually a really nice question, something that fanfic is good for exploring. I've seen fics where, when they get their cutie marks, ponies will change their names to something more befitting their talents. I've tried (and so far failed) to suggest that the names are ordained at birth by mystics who can see the possible futures of a foal, and thus suggest a name fitting what they might be.
At the end of the day though, we have to deal with the fact that canon is canon. Of course, I'm approaching this conversation from the perspective of a pre-reader who'd really like to see this story up on EQD, but what you do is largely up to you. At least you didn't try to change her name to Emily Whistlethorpe or something. :V When canon gets in your way, just start digging around it and it'll come loose.
execllent job it good to see the mayor have a spot in the spotlight
Bizarre as all get out but good stuff as always Earl *tips hat*