• Member Since 28th Aug, 2011
  • offline last seen 1 hour ago

Cold in Gardez


Stories about ponies are stories about people.

E

Fluttershy's kindness to all creatures is legendary in Ponyville. When a freak storm blows in from the Everfree Forest, however, she and her friends discover the limits of compassion, and the dangers of living with your heart wide open to the world.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 68 )

Heartbroken Mama Fluttershy leaves bloodstains on my soul and MANILY TEARS upon my face. :fluttercry:

Aw. Such an adorable story. I love it.

#4 · Oct 11th, 2011 · · ·

Shale? But I thought Shale didn't like birds or pretty much anything that flies...
+5 internets if you get the reference.

#5 · Oct 12th, 2011 · · ·

Really well done story. You know how to write without over-writing, which is probably the number-one mistake people make. Your adjectives are snappy and you use the, like a spice, not a sauce. And again, I will say, you really know these characters and you can write dialogue for them as convincing (if not MORE convincing) than the show. The part where Twi and Spike are shocked someone wants a book was HILARIOUS. I eagerly await more stories, and I will plug your stories to my friends.

Are there any other fanfic writers out there that you would recommend? Most are garbage, and I don't really know how to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Also, are you really in Gardez?

#6 · Oct 12th, 2011 · · ·

Really well done story. You know how to write without over-writing, which is probably the number-one mistake people make. Your adjectives are snappy and you use them like a spice, not a sauce. And again, I will say, you really know these characters and you can write dialogue for them as convincing (if not MORE convincing) than the show. The part where Twi and Spike are shocked someone wants a book was HILARIOUS. I eagerly await more stories, and I will plug your stories to my friends.

Are there any other fanfic writers out there that you would recommend? Most are garbage, and I don't really know how to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Also, are you really in Gardez?

#7 · Oct 12th, 2011 · · ·

Whoops sorry for double post!:derpytongue2:

12006

Thank you for the kind words. I recommend nearly anything by Somber, in particular his story Simply Rarity, which is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read. I am a big fan of Fallout: Equestria, and I would be remiss if I didn't include my favorite comedy writer, Friendly Uncle.

I am no longer in Gardez. However, when I was there, I was very cold.

I really liked this one. It was short and simple and had a very touching ending. I can see Fluttershy doing this in the show, though I doubt the writers of FIM would do anything that heartbreaking. Anyway, very nice.

Well, this is depressing. Why must so many of the best ponyfics be soul destroying?

I posted here before under the name Ryan. This story is a great sad little slice-of-life with some unexpected humor. Faved and recommended. Thanks for the recommendations of writers. Friendly Uncle's Creature that Came to Ponyville has inspired me to write horror/cute-comedy. What a combination!

This was nice. I expected something horrible, like Gargoyles eating their parents or something. I thought it would've been neat if they actually passed Shale's parents in the castle, but didn't notice it because they were doing the whole statue thing.

I thought this was pretty neat anyway. Extremely well written, although the last segment in the blizzard seemed kind of empty. Poor 'Shy... :fluttercry: I liked all of it, though! I love your stories. :heart:

As much as I am proud of all my stories, this one is honestly probably the weakest, alongside Maiden Flight. At least Maiden Flight had the excuse of being my first fanfic.

Ah well. Still not a bad story, I think.

Twilight: OMG You Want To Read! :twilightsmile:
Spike: AWWWWW YEAHHHHHH!!! :moustache:

Really cute Flutter story. She's the perfect kind of clingy. :yay:

The "Slice of life" tag sums this up perfectly. Congratulation on a well written story. Have some Pinkie Pie: :pinkiesmile: .

That was very sweet. I really enjoyed how you built up the realization that Shale was going to leave.

Aww..

Does anypony have some tape and glue? I have to fix up the the pieces of my heart...:raritycry:

It's the hardest part in every parent's life. Sorry Shy, but he had to go.

They may not say much, but take Shale's last stare as "good bye and thank you." :pinkiesad2:

Awesome. Just. Awesome.

Although...my grammar freak side exploded after reading "interfering with her flying not at all."

Other than that, awesome.

I had read this one a while before I signed on with FimFiction, and I'm glad to be able to come back to this to rate it properly. I can't say that gargoyles mesh with my headcanon, but that's just a subjective call--overall, this is very well-written. Solid four stars.

Not an outstanding piece, but definitely worth the read. The ending, I thought, arrived rather abruptly, and, in your keeping the story short and focused, it seemed like some interstitial elements were missing. I felt you portrayed the characters quite well for what they were doing, and, critiques aside, "there were some definite feels going on."

Feels, indeed.

I don't know why you're down on this piece - not bad at all.

Sus

From the description, and Twilight's reactions, I was expecting Fluttershy would eventually catch Shale doing something, you know, monstrous.
When it turned out that the life of gargoyles, Shale included, is simply tragic and lonely, however, I was the exact opposite of disappointed. :twilightsmile:
Even if it's not as epic as The Glass Blower, it's still a very good story. I'm certain every parent would be deeply touched.
"Stories about ponies are stories about people.", indeed...

Also, *dorfgasm!* at the descriptions of gargoyle diet...

“It’s some kind of weird cat…” she trailed off, searching for the right word. “Thing!”

My first thought was Chiyo-chichi (Chiyo-daddy) from Azumanga Daiho. Now that would have been a weird crossover.

Just making my way slowly up through your previous writings...

Like you said, it isn't your strongest story but it's certainly not bad. One thing I got out of this was a sense of Fluttershy and how she must have to deal with a lot of issues with the creatures she cares for, most especially their deaths. Assuming their lifespans would be similar to the human world, she'd probably experience sorrow for the loss of each one, and yet she still cares for them as if they were her children. It's somewhat of a microcosm of Celestia's experience with ponies she cares for through the ages.

24035 DarkSad resonates. I'm pretty sure the world has a tendency to behave in a DarkSad manner.

1937540 What makes you think that the gargoyle's life is tragic? That seems an extremely strange assumption to make, to me.

Anyway. Good story. Not sure how old it actually is, but the narration is a bit weak in places while the description and emotion carries rather well. I very much like that it's not the ending your average reader might expect, although Twilight's question at the end kinda blew me away, and not in the positive sense. I know the show goes out of it's was to gloss over such mundane things as parents, but to ask the question that way felt unnecessarily harsh on the philosophy behind the characters.

I thought this was a good story, though. Much better than The Glass Blower.

-Scott

Fine!

So this has been on my mind most of the day and it's time to expunge the culmination of those thoughts before bed. I've long wondered what most people saw in The Glass Blower that I didn't, but since it could be as simple as simple taste, it was aimless pondering rather than anything more serious. Now, having read this, I felt the need to make it more serious.

Bottom line is empathy versus sympathy. Sure, I can empathize with TGB, but I can sympathize with Fluttershy. The outcome matters to me in a way that kept me engaged, whereas TGB was being a bit of a muppet. Rarity, too, was being a muppet. Neither muppet got what they wanted and I'm hard pressed to care either way. But here, Fluttershy's struggle against herself actually sparked my cold, dead heart into some semblance of warmth.

I will take lower quality prose and a good story over a more generic but well written one every day of the week. This will be going in my favorites box as of now.

-Scott

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Ahh, now that is how you write a sad fic. :) And here I was worried that it would turn into a misguided nature vs. nurture treatise.

104264
Absolutely. I was afraid that this was going to get grimdark, perhaps with the gargoyle killing one of the cast, but instead it turns out to hit the emotional note that I wish A Friend in Deed or Keep Calm and Flutter On had hit. I like this story more than most of your comedies, but there's no accounting for taste, is there?

2543567
My main problem with The Glass-Blower is that the Rarity in that story is clearly not the Rarity we know and love from the show. One is an ice queen, an unattainable object of desire for the titular foolish dreamer, and the other is a three-dimensional character with hopes, dreams, flaws, insecurities, and what have you. I know this discrepancy can be explained away by the matter of perspective and someone viewing Rarity from the outside, but it still doesn't sit right with me because Rarity is a social climber trying to become something like the pony we saw in TCB.

Proper Care, by contrast, has everyone acting spot-on to how they are in the show. If the actual show had a Fluttershy episode like this, I would respect the creative team a lot more than I do now. Then again, the mood would clash pretty badly with that of the other episodes, wouldn't it?

2604051 Actually, I sort of disagree. That rendition of Rarity is actually fairly close in many ways; we're just seeing her acting without an apparent social network to keep her balanced. I draw your attention to the end of Sweet and Elite, where Rarity doesn't actually tell Twilight what happened. As far as we can tell as the viewer, she wrote the letter to Celestia in isolation, segregating herself away from her closest friends while she admits to her faults. Sure, it may be nothing but a mechanic to facilitate Celestia finding her, but it's consistent with her character throughout the rest of S1–2.

2604156
It did occur to me after I first read this story that this could be a Rarity who never knew any of her friends and thus has no reason to control her worst instincts. I think one of the worrying things I noticed is that Rarity keeps on egging the glass-blower on even though she should have known better after that clock with the power to stop time freaked her out. Is it in character for Rarity to be unable to notice a pattern like that? Also, bringing up Sweet and Elite is a good point, but there's a difference between trying to have it both ways with her friends and her social climbing, then not having the heart to be honest about one thing leading to another, versus coldly manipulating a lovestruck sap into getting free gifts.

This is a rare story that I would like better were it not a pony fic. It's an excellent fairy tale that doesn't really need to involve ponies at all.

2604186 And that's probably the best point of all. The Proper care and Feeding of Monsters would work perfectly well as an independent fiction, whereas I seem to recall mentioning at the time that The Glass Blower needed to be either all-OC or non-pony to work even half as well.

Take the references out and good fiction is good fiction regardless.

This was a very nice, well paced and carefully built story. I specially liked the parenting analogies, they were dealt with grace and subtlety. The character interactions were great all around, specially Twilight and Fluttershy.

It seemed a bit random and choppy to me, but it was very heartwarming regardless.

I have just checked and done the math. This is the one thousand three hundred thirty seventh story on the sight.

3002470

I suppose that's possible. Even though it's numbered 1345, I know several of the early stories don't actually exist -- they're just system fillers.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the stories before mine got deleted, however, thus knocking mine down in the rankings a bit.

Well, now I can see why that guy that wrote the guide to writing included your story in the sad section; this truly tugged at the heart strings. This makes me want to call my mother right now and tell her that I love her.

~ Curious Writer

2604186

For the record, the Rarity did not take the glassblower's gifts. They rest upon his mantle, if I remember correctly.

3480526

That is mostly correct. The perfect mirror was destroyed, of course, and the armillary sphere was confiscated by the palace. The glass hummingbird and leopard comb, however, went back home with the glass blower.

You'll find references to both the hummingbird and the comb in some of my other stories, usually as lost artifacts. Off the top of my head, the hummingbird pops up in The Lantern, The Wind Thief and Salvation, while the comb only appears in The Wind Thief (oddly enough, in the ruins of a boutique in Ponyville).

I love it, short and sweet.

With the 'sad' tag and the description, I kind of expected terrible things to happen, but I'm glad it went the way it did.

I think this story would make for a good episode.

3480552
A hummingbird in Salvation? I can't find it anywhere :applejackunsure:

What a wonderful story! Sooooo saaaad, poor fluttershy :( :fluttercry:


you are so good at Portraying the characters personality's in the story. I really feel like they acted just as if it were the actual tv show! such a great job! please please make more! :twilightsmile:


ps: this should be an episode in season 4

You know, I can't help but picture Fluttershy in trouble in the Everfree Forest, maybe from a Manticore or something else to hungry to listen to her, only for Shale to burst out of the woods and save her.

4016552 Never take the power of kindness for granite! When you are kind to others, they shale surely be kind to you! :yay:

oo
oo #46 · Apr 7th, 2014 · · ·

I love the way you exploit Rarity's inherent evil.

I have to admit, I was expecting more of a tragedy from this story. Not least because I always assume the worst when I see the "sad" tag. Kinda got a little disappointed when everything amounted to "the gargoyle goes away like he was supposed to do at the beginning of the story, but now it's sad because Yellow Quiet got too close to him." Still, the moral was sweet and... maybe a little relatable. So I can't fault the story on not delivering something it never set out to. Your narratives still have that intrinsic Gardez charm to them and that made the story an enjoyable read regardless.

Two pluses.

I cried my heart out...

This fic was amazing, especially the end of it. This deserves a full-on reading, with sound effects and everything!

Fluttershy has such a gentle, tender, loving heart. It's unbearable in the best way.

Pretty awesome story.

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