Fidanity (fih-DAN-uh-tee); noun, singular; the unique emotion experienced when one approaches someone that they are close to with a topic they believe or hope will be agreed upon, with the concern that if not, one or both parties may feel betrayed.
Etym., Latin fid, from fidei, meaning belonging to trust or faith, + an, from anxi(us), meaning anxious, + ity, anglicized Latin suffix meaning state of. Literally "The state of trust's unease"
Synonyms: fear, doubt, anxiety
Antonyms: confidence, certainty, serenity
(This story works as a stand-alone, but is also part of a larger continuity of stories. For a full explanation of how it fits in with those stories, click here.)
Chapters (1)
This doesn't seem to be complete to me.
Your description blows, mate. You need more than just a definition as that tells us nothing about the story itself. The description is a chance to hook your reader and get them invested in the story.
5071566
At least it's not "Rainbow Dash flies east."
5071566 It tells you what I think is important about the story, which happens not to be the narrative thread of it. I also view the description as something the reader can reflect on after reading the story. Sorry you don't care for it, but I won't be changing it based on that advice.
5071547 This narrative thread is complete. I assume you meant that the ending seemed abrupt, which was intentional; once the tension broke, the story was over. My apologies if that doesn't strike you as appropriate.
5071586 i put those stories off for so long because of the description, but once i got into the plot...it was amazing
5071587 So random definitions is more important than the narrative?
5071608
*nods*
I was making a point along those lines, yeah.
And the writing is literally all over the place.
5071621 personally, i was intrigued by the description, and read the story.
(I may have been slightly influenced due to the fact that i'm a sucker for changeling fics [i mean, just look at my profile])
5071647 Okay, that comment was pretty funny, thanks. There's a deliberate style to the spacing, in case there was any doubt. Heh.
5071651 There are always exceptions, but as a general rule you kinda want your description to actually tell a little about the story and what the reader can expect.
Some people say too much, or in this case it only hints about the story.
5071666 You do want to be careful about that since it did lead to a couple cases of "Where the fuck did rest of the line go?" which was mainly due to how fim fiction handles word wrapping.
5071685 Hmm. I hope it didn't display differently because of monitor resolution differences... I was a bit worried about that.
had a couple of cases of it popping over to the otherside
5071749 Okay. I'm going to try to make the worst offenders a little less likely to do that, and then I'm going to stick an author's note at the top warning readers of the potential issue. I've contacted Xaq about it as well. Thanks.
5071766 No problem
5071586
Oh man, that series is basically the very definition of TL;DR for me.
Or rather, TL;WR (Won't read)
Or actually, TL;ANGTFT (Ain't nobody got time for that)
5071566
To be honest, I think this description is, in a sorta-meta sense, the best one possible; this whole scene is basically the very embodiment of the essence of that word. What better way to describe something that is the exact meaning of a word than the simplest definition of that word?
It may not be very accessible or engaging, but it's still perfect in its own way.
To echo what I said on Steam for posterity's sake, I quite enjoyed this. You did a great job of capturing the internal tension and nervousness that come from dealing with someone as inscrutable as Celestia on a regular basis.
6830722 It sorta reminded me of the changeling but honestly... should Cadence be so nervous about this? She's had way more time to talk things out with her. And not just about changelings. She's way more familiar with her... so why is she treated like a citizen?
6840191
To borrow a phrase from Gaiman and Pratchett, I imagine dealing with Celestia is a bit like playing a card game in a pitch-black room with a dealer who won't explain the rules and who smiles all the time. Long-term exposure to that kind of inscrutability can play merry havoc on most people. Just look at Twilight.
6840269 That's a theory I consider to be bollocks and to be honest? Uninteresting. Most of all though... she has no reason to do this.
5075651 Finally, someone else who couldn't make it through Cryptically Significant Foreign Story Name ("Single seemingly-mundane descriptive sentence that hints at a deeper meaning")! It's especially sad for me, since I'm a very fast reader and have a lot of patience for slow-paced stories normally... but after 20 chapters or so I still had no idea what was really going on and no room in my head to track all the significant glances and gestures and implications and what-not, and I figured the other few million words were going to be the same way. And, well, ain't nobody got time for that!
Despite having talked about this in detail over the weekend, I was feeling a great deal of tension throughout the story. I think that was ratcheted up by the contrast between Cadence's significant rapport with Celestia--which provides a couple different levels of intimacy to support the fidanity--and the fact that it's still not enough to read what's going to happen. Great work.
Oh, and the Author's Note specifies most settings, but it's missing column width. It took a while for me to realize that's why things where running over the line.
7393876 Ah, thanks for catching that! Updating...
Also, really glad to hear you enjoyed the story despite my spoiling so much of it at BronyCon. It was an experimental work, to be sure, but I ended up loving how it came out, despite the many, many hitches with people actually reading it >.<
Fascinating story! This way of portraying branching thoughts throughout a conversation was very clever, and it didn't feel gimmicky in the slightest – one of my fears going in.
My only real issue is that her decision – the large paragraph towards the end – wasn't portrayed that way. Would have been the perfect point to show her rationalizing, and it feels like a huge missed opportunity.
7402228 Glad you enjoyed it! As far as the end, that's a totally valid criticism, yeah. I originally tried it in the branching style, but it ended up being a massive cluster of branching thoughts, to the point that it was hard to track. Still, part of me regrets swapping over to this style, even though it builds a bit of suspense.
7081840 I saw that thing and got archive panic. Tried the abridged version, couldn't really figure out what was going on.
7425777 When it came along, the abridged version just cemented my firm decision to never read the full thing.
I really loved the formatting in this. It really made the anxiety that much more palpable to have it arranged so artfully.
10561227
Aww, thanks! Some folks really hated it, but I wanted to experiment with something new - kind of like a comic-book style of formatting to give more meaning.
10561241
I think my only quibble with this was that it took a bit to realize who our narrator was. That had nothing to do with the formatting, though. It more than likely was due to the minimal description (which is understandable) or just that the name-drop took a while.
10561250
Yeah, that was intentional. It's meant to build up suspense and keep the reader paying close attention, but it might have been a bad call.
10561254
I think it made some sense, but that there could have always been a couple of extras to reinforce the narrator from the start. I just find that stories in the first person are more helpful that way, as both a reader and a writer.
Oh lord. Maybe its just my cellphone but the formatting for Cadence's internal commentary just staggers all over the place and is actively painful to read.