Luster Lock vs. Bristle - Winner: Luster Lock (by Vote)
Luster Lock vs. Bristle - by Luster Lock's Author
Plug. Pins. More pins. Springs. Hull. Actuator. Body, square and black. Another spring. Shackle.
Body, square and gray. Just a simple ward lock, this one. Somepony was begging to get robbed. Spring and shackle.
Latch and lever, case and collar, disc and dial. A nice, round body, even if it was black. Shackle.
Pre-made pin-tumbler. Body square and black, but shrouded. Shack—
There came a pounding at the door.
The mare looked up from her work station and across the showroom. There was a shadow past the metal grill on the front door’s window. “Read the sign,” she called.
A moment passed soundlessly but for the gentle whirring of the ceiling fan, and the mare turned back to her desk.
The pounding came again.
The mare sighed, dropping the tools from her dim gray feathers. Off her stool, she stomped across the showroom floor and unlatched, unbolted, unlocked, and all around unsecured the door. She cracked it open, and a little chain was all that obstructed her view of the saddlebag-clad stallion outside. The dying sunlight showed her a brown earth pony, short mane with just a hint of waviness, youthful but mature, so incredibly—
She slammed the door shut, undid the chain, and ripped it open once again. “Hello,” she purred, leaning on the doorframe.
The stallion leapt back a step, eyes wide. “Er, hello.”
“What can I do for you?” The mare smirked, bringing a wing up to bounce her steel blue curls. “Interested in a love lock? It’d make a perfect gift for your wiiii…”—no change in the stallion’s expression—“…fffillyfrieee…”—nothing—“…eeescorrrr—”
A little colt—practically the stallion in miniature but for an added pair of wings—peeked around the stallion’s hooves, and the mare’s eyes shot down to him.
“Baby mama?” she tried.
“S-separated,” said the stallion, looking off. He coughed into his hoof, then met the mare’s eyes again. “Sorry to bother you so late, miss. We were at an art shop and we lost track—” He gave a little yelp, rubbing his hind leg where his son had smacked him. “I lost track of the time. But we need a locksmith.”
“Art, huh?” The mare’s smirk was shifting to become a grin, and she moved out of the doorway. “Come on in, big guy.” Her eyes drifted down past the stallion again. “And little guy.”
“It’s ‘Bristle’,” said the stallion as he walked into the store.
The colt followed slowly, staring at the mare all the while, until a brown hoof scooped him up.
“And my little fella here,” continued Bristle, ruffling his son’s mane with a free hoof, “is Swatch.”
Eyes focused despite the deteriorating state of his hair, Swatch nodded to the mare.
She giggled. Looking back up to the stallion, she said, “Luster Lock. Cool to meet you both.” Luster swept a hoof about the dimly lit showroom. “Welcome to Lock’s Locks: After Hours Edition.”
The showroom windows were doing little for the shop, so it fell to a pair of wall-mounted lanterns to breathe some life into the black tile, the white walls, the cold metal shelves, the locks and latches, hinges, catches. The lanterns were not up to the job.
Luster made her way over towards her work nook, and the boys followed. She said, “What brings you to a place like this on what I’m sure was an otherwise fine evening?”
A flittering buzz filled the air, and Bristle and Luster turned to see Swatch flying up onto his father’s back. He undid the clasp on a saddlebag there, drawing out a wooden box decorated with little doors and lots of brass. He held it up for Luster, who grabbed it with a wing.
“We got that lock box at a toy store earlier,” said Bristle, “but it turns out a couple of the parts don’t work right. Key doesn’t fit its lock, the bolt doesn’t want to move, and such.” He ran his hoof through his mane, eyes looking tired. “The store wouldn’t give us a refund, though, so we need—” Feathers.
Luster retracted her free wing from Bristle’s lips and set the lock box down on her workbench. “Have a look around the store, I guess.” In an instant, most of her primaries were wrapped around the handle of one tool or another. “This won’t take long.”
She set about it with a passion, and a storm of scratching and creaking and clacking and squeaking rose up. Swatch stared on at Luster, wide eyed.
Bristle chuckled, turning back to the front of the room. He wandered, reading little labels that were trying their very best to tell him what all of the tiny variations between each lock actually meant. Coming around a particularly large display of doorknobs, Bristle found a section of wall decorated very differently from the rest of the shop, so much so that he stopped in his tracks.
“Are these the ‘love locks’ you mentioned?” he called back. Padlocks were arranged haphazardly, their open shackles hanging off of a chain link fence that had been brought in.
“That depends,” came the reply. “Do they only come in what a sensible pony would call ‘colors’?”
They did, Bristle observed. Not an outward hint of black, white, or anything in between. They came in all shapes, too—but mostly hearts, though there was a great deal of variation even there. “What are they for, exactly? I’ve never heard of them.”
“They’re a symbol,” said Luster over the still-present noise of her work. “A couple gets one, maybe writes their names on it, then they put it up someplace—usually on a bridge, but not always—lock it, and throw away the key.”
“That’s cute.” Bristle hefted one love lock designed to look like a smiling sun, with a crescent moon for a shackle. “They sell well?”
“Ha!”
Now there was a bitter sound if Bristle had ever heard one. He turned back, saying, “What?”
The sounds of tinkering slowed. “I’ll tell you why you’ve never heard of them, Bristle: I’m having an amazing time trying to get them to be legal here.”
Bristle raised an eyebrow. “What, do they count as vandalism?”
“Yep,” said Luster, “and I did sell a few when I first started making ‘em, but as luck would have it, unbreakable love isn’t much of a match for a good set of bolt cutters. Or threats of a lawsuit.”
Bristle snickered and looked to the fence again. He leaned down to a group of simple, solid color hearts.
“But hey.” The little noises picked up their pace again. “Do you like—”
“You didn’t use primer.”
There was a tinny snap. And then Luster cleared her throat. And then came a bit of quiet but fervent whistling.
Bristle trotted back over to Luster and his son just as the former was dropping what looked like half of a thin screwdriver into a garbage bin. “Everything okay?”
Luster turned to him with a cheery smile, saying, “Yep.” She held the lock box aloft on a now tool-free wing, and Bristle’s brow raised. “I replaced a faulty spring in the pin-tumbler, cleared the rust off the slide bolt and its plate, oiled the hinges, and shined all the brass. Plus I sanded down the edges and corners a bit—they seemed kind of sharp.”
Swatch found the box dropping into his little hooves, and a gleeful grin tore across his features.
“Wow,” said Bristle with a dangling jaw. He reached into a saddlebag. “How much do I owe you?”
Luster waved a wing, a bright expression on her shaking head. “Nothing. We’ll call it even for next time.”
Bristle’s hoof paused. “Next time?”
“When you buy me dinner.”
The hoof retreated from the saddlebag, running its way once more through Bristle’s mane.
Bristle vs. Luster Lock - by Bristle's Author
It was five minutes to midnight by her best guess, but in all honesty it could’ve been four. She couldn’t stop thinking about pastries, and it was messing up her count.
The mask’s fabric itched as it brushed over her feathers, and stretching it out between her wingtips only made the amulet knock up against her collarbone. Ratty old thing--the mask was, at least. The amulet was new, its charm so fresh she could feel the rumble of dozing magic vibrating through her ribs. Miss Radium of Trottingham had bought it that morning, from a stallion who’d never asked for her name nor given his own. It would be worth the expense come night’s end. All of this would be worth it once the count in her head ran down.
Two hundred and seventy. Four and a half minutes. She thought about taking flight, but the mask dug into her pinions before her wings could spread far enough. Why had she even brought the stupid thing along? Nobody was awake to see her. No wandering eyes wondered who’d be out at this hour. The night guard wouldn’t start his shift for another two hundred and sixty seconds, and the only things he’d find after she’d gone were an open door, an empty safe, and a perfect, intricate, exquisite silver lock swinging from its latch.
Two-forty-five. Keep the count. Focus. The lock was her father’s design, but he wasn’t here to see it guarding gaudy jewelry that’d be out of season before any real ones had passed. She knew all its thumbturns and tumblers like the hairs in her fetlocks, but she wasn’t here to let some pension-fund prick leave it to rust and rot away. She had the master keys strung on a ring inside her soon-to-be-filled saddlebags, and that was why the owner of 342 Millennium Avenue was going to regret deeming her pride and joy unworthy of the price he’d been contracted to pay for it. The Hoofington constable refused to come to Canterlot and chase after her client himself, and the guards here would’ve gone on about lawyers and civil suits and six months in court for a settlement outside of it. They would’ve taken his side and blown her off. They would’ve just wasted her time.
She wasn’t wasting time. She was doing something about it. She was making things fair.
Two-hundred-ten. Thirty seconds until the switch. Beyond the cast-iron fence ringing the estate, she could see the stallion on duty rolling his shoulders and scratching behind his ears. In moments, he’d leave his post and go home for the night, and three minutes after that his replacement would take it up himself. Both guards enjoyed a few minutes between shifts to talk in private, and neither cared much for their employer’s insistence on constant vigilance. She’d heard the household’s head groundskeeper complain about them two days ago, when she’d trimmed the back hedges in Tiptop’s clothes while Tiptop herself thought she had the day off.
One-ninety-nine. The guard’s sigh carried all the way to the fence. It had taken her half an hour to convince Tiptop she worked for the maintenance crew too. Somepony had surely seen her fumble with her clippers, or spend too much time staring at the building’s back door. That Lower Quarter warlock probably had friends all over the city, cursing amulets with security countercharms and stalking anypony fool enough to buy one. She didn’t know anything about the house’s interior. She didn’t even know where to find the safe once she got inside it.
One-ninety-one, and they didn’t know her either, nor would she give them any way of finding her out. She’d dyed her mane, changed her name, used every trick of subtlety and subterfuge Trixie’s magic shows had taught her. She’d leave no hoofprints behind tonight, no calling card, no message to even explain why she had to do this. There would be no trail of crumbs leading out of the city, snaking into a one-room locksmith shop in Hoofington, showering onto the floors and lingering in the cracks between the boards. This would be easy. This was the right thing to do.
One-eighty flat. The guard was leaving. The count hadn’t stopped, and she was thinking about pastries again.
Time to go.
With her gloved hoof inside it, the mask looked more like a fungus growing out of her sole. Splotches of green and silver shone through the pitch she’d smeared over it, enough to gleam in the full moonlight that forced her to hide behind one of the fence’s stone pillars. When she grabbed the mask’s fringe in her teeth, the stretched-out eye sockets almost looked sad, like they wished they could see what she used to see through them. She’d been sentimental bringing it, that was all. Thieves were supposed to have masks, and the Radium Maiden had only ever worn the one. She didn’t have to bother with it this late at night. She’d probably just throw it away once she finished.
One-seventy.
There was room in her saddlebag, though.
One-sixty-eight.
She couldn’t just leave it out here.
One-sixty-six.
Somepony would find it.
One-sixty-four.
Somepony would follow the crumbs.
At one-sixty-flat and with the mask halfway back in her bag, Luster Lock heard somepony clear their throat. She bit her tongue so she wouldn’t scream, and stuck out a hoof so she could catch the mask again. When the stallion standing in the street made no motion towards her, she narrowed her eyes and did her best to make them look darker than her mask.
“You didn’t see anything,” she told him. One-fifty-two. “Just walk away. This isn’t your business.”
The stallion shrugged, and as he shifted she saw a bit more of him: dark coat and mane, but both brown instead of pure black, she thought. Bulky plastic canisters hung on either side of his withers, and each of his forehooves bore some kind of tool: a flat-headed broom curled into the crook of his right hoof, and what looked like a dustpan strapped to his left.
“Can’t argue with that,” he said. “What didn’t I see, though?”
“Are you deaf?” she growled. One-forty-four. She didn’t have time for this. “I said go.”
“Because the way I see it,” he went on anyway, “320 scoops up every technomagical gadget he can find, and 353’s over there a veritable diamond mine.” The stallion tilted his chin first to the left and then to the right as he spoke, and once his gaze settled back on the house behind the fence, he shrugged again. “Not much to 342 here but the garden, and even that’s seen better days. That’s just what I see, though. Snobby rich folks with their snobby rich stuff.”
“I don’t remember asking you what you think you see,” she informed him. “And for your information, this is personal.”
He cocked his head again. “I thought it wasn’t my business.”
“I thought I told you to go away!”
Luster cringed as the shuttered windows of 342 repeated her shout back at her. One-twenty-nine. Not that it mattered much now. “You work for Lord Zirconio, don’t you?” she asked the stallion, only for the sake of hearing him say it. “He must have kno… did he send you to stop me?”
The moonlight caught the stallion’s eyes as he glanced towards 342 again: hazel streaked with dappled beige, like cedarwood bark caught between sundown and dusk. “Is that who lives there?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “Hmm. He always struck me as more of a duke.” His lips twitched, and for a moment the shadows almost made it look like a smile. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m no guardspony, for him or anyone else.”
One-eighteen. She wasn’t convinced. “Then who are you?”
Now he was smiling. “Call me curious.”
And now she was gritting her teeth. “You ever hear what they say about curiosity?”
“No, but I’ve heard what they say about cats with nine lives.” He sounded pretty proud of that little quip, apparently enough to prop his broom under his shoulder and stick out a hoof in greeting. His mane was definitely brown, now that she could see it properly, but grown out enough to look a bit unkempt. If he’d bothered to style it, it might have looked handsome. “My name’s Bristle. I’m a street sweeper.”
“You don’t look much like a street sweeper,” she muttered.
One-oh-eight. “You don’t look much like a thief.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped, stalking forward a few steps before her mind could catch up with her body or her tongue. “You don’t know who or what I am.”
Bristle gestured with his hoof before letting it drop. “You did say I didn’t see anything.”
One hundred flat. “Why are you even still here?” At least she’d managed to stop herself before she got within hoof’s reach of him. “You’re not a guard, you’re not gonna do anything, so just shut up and leave me alone!”
“Are you a thief when you’re alone?”
“I am not a thief,” she said through her teeth.
Instead of arguing, Bristle nodded as if in agreement. “Exactly. You don’t look like one.”
Ninety-five. If this was what going mad felt like, Luster felt a powerful sympathy for the mentally disturbed. “What are you even talking about? What d’you mean, I don’t look like a thief?”
“You look bored,” Bristle said.
“I… what?”
“That’s why I was curious.” With a sigh, Bristle braced his forehoof against the base of his broom and leaned into it. “You look bored. Young mare, good-looking, out in the dead of night with her wings out and her hooves tapping every time she talks. The way I don’t see it, you’re looking for something new.”
Eighty-three. Luster fluttered her wings, and forced herself to keep still as she answered him. “I… it’s personal, all right? This is between me and Zirconio, and I don’t particularly care what you have to say about it.”
“Is he the one you’re bored with?” Bristle asked, because of course that wasn’t enough for him.
“No, I…”
It was never enough for anybody, was it?
“You know what? Yes. I am bored with him. In fact, I’m tired of him.” She was inches from his nose now, and couldn’t remember when she’d gotten that close. “I’m tired of ponies like him who think they own everything they can get their greedy hooves on, I’m tired of letting ponies like him walk all over me while no one does anything to stop them, and I’m tired of sitting around yesterday and tomorrow and every day after that waiting for the same thing to happen the same way again and again and again. And most of all, I’m tired of you acting all high and mighty and trying to tell me what I should think about it!”
Bristle shrugged again, and a terrifying urge to slap him shuddered through her forelegs. “I don’t have anything to think about it.”
“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, don’t patronize me,” she snarled. “The only reason you even looked at me tonight is because you want to play the hero for some poor little girl who can’t possibly know what she’s getting herself into. So don’t stand there smirking at me like you know the last thing about why I’m doing this, when I’m the one who’s out fifteen thousand bits and you’re a moondamned street sweeper who won’t see that much money for the rest of his moondamned life!”
Her breath returned a moment after she fell silent, then left her again just as quickly. Her face burned, and ducking out of the moonlight did little to hide it. “Stars, I-I…” she mumbled. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said… that was out of line.”
Once again, though, Bristle surprised her. “I’ve heard worse,” he said through a rough chuckle. He sounded ten years older than he looked, but not the slightest bit weary or depressed about it. “And you got me half-right. Odds are, I won’t have that much money saved up for a good long while. But I did have it once. And I do know why you’re doing this.”
Another shock followed the first: Luster’s eyes stung as she squeezed them shut, and all of a sudden Bristle knew better than to speak over her. “It’s not fair,” she murmured. “He just robbed me, after four months slaving over his stupid commission. Just up and walked off with it because he knew it’d cost me more to sue him than it would him to pay me what I’m owed. He had the gall to say I should be honored to even work for him, right there in my shop, with his pig-faced brat of a kid standing right by his side and spraying donut crumbs all over the…”
When she looked up, she couldn’t understand why the street sweeper hadn’t left. She’d lost her count again. Pastries were all she could think about. “How do you live like this? How do you do the same thing day after day, and never get any respect for it? How do you not just… snap?”
“You mean, how am I not bored?” They both nodded; her first, and him more slowly in response. “Way I see it, the sun doesn’t get bored rising. And I doubt it gets tired of setting.”
In the spare moment Bristle left between sentences, Luster straightened up and wiped her eyes. “You can’t possibly like street-sweeping that much.”
She expected a shrug, so much so that she almost didn’t noticed when one didn’t come. “I don’t get tired of it,” Bristle said. “I keep the city clean. I get to work with my hooves. I can look back when the sun gets up and see everything I accomplished while it was asleep. And when I can, I make sure the sun rises on me too.”
For the first time, Luster really looked at the mark on Bristle’s flank. At a glance, she’d seen a broom to match the one in his hoof, but the hairs in his mark’s brush looked too soft, and the handle suited for more delicate work.
“There’s a big difference between being tired and being bored. And like I said, you look bored.” With a grunt, Bristle wedged his broom between his shoulders and the dustbins on his back, and lifted a hoof in salute as he backed away. “But like I also said, I didn’t see anything. You have a good night now.”
Luster watched him go, and didn’t look back at the fence until the streetlamps in the distance grew too dim to see him by. The other night guard hadn’t appeared yet. The count was still going. She could find it again.
And once she did, she’d never lose it again. Once she did, she’d follow it for the rest of her life.
By the time the count ended, she’d reached the next block in search of a trash can. She could at least make Bristle’s job easier and get rid of the amulet herself. As for the mask, she figured she’d kept it. It itched too much to throw away, and now that she looked at it, the paint was wearing off.
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LUSTER LOCK AUTHOR VOTE
This one is tough. I like both these stories. In the end, I went with the one that had better characterization so far as I was concerned.
OBS HAS A HEART OF CUSTARD
Luster Lock's Author Vote
Tough choice, but the way Luster Lock interacted with Bristle and Swatch was adorable, and I liked the idea of a Love Lock. Amusing, and worth developing.
Bristle's Author
Like they said, this was close. But not so close I seriously considered both after reading them. I loved Luster in her own story, but the part of Bristle could've been played by anyone. There wasn't really any characterization for him. Plus I love the idea of Luster as a cat burglar with a thing for locks just as much as I loved her flirting.
Props for that, Luster's author. You made an awesome character. Wish I could say I really wanted to you make it to the next round, but Bristle was a rough first opponent.
Luster Lock's Author
Christ. Bristle's author's entry has such excellent atmosphere and characterization, at least to start, and before I got much further into it I thought I might have to give it my vote. As it went on, though, I found the prose to be markedly confusing in parts, so much so that I was stuck on the same few paragraphs for a good five or ten minutes. And when Bristle shows up, it's like the story changes fundamentally—the atmosphere disappears for the most part, the motivations and energy from the first half seem to evaporate. Strangely, it also felt to me like Bristle's author's Bristle wasn't getting across what was in the compendium apart from his appearance and profession. Or maybe just the impression of the character that the compendium had given me? I'm not entirely sure, since there are a lot of blank spots in it.
Luster Lock's author's entry was more consistent (and more thoroughly edited), and even though the scenario it presents isn't as inherently interesting to me, I felt like it was a smoother and more enjoyable read.
Luster Lock's author
I have to give it to Luster here for an approach I just think works more. The cat burglar thing is more dramatic, perhaps, and I like the ambition of it, but I had a harder time picturing the setting and scenery with the prose here than I did in the shop, and the shop setting allowed the author there to make use of Luster's talent and introduce an interesting concept in the form of the love locks. Plus, it was just kind of sweet how they interacted there.
Bristle seemed kind of a basic character in both entries, but I still think there was more to him in Luster's entry, what with his kid and allusions to a recent separation. Not sure what was in his profile that got him interpretted in one story as a sweeper and the other as an artist, but hey, whatever.
Good effort on both sides, but I think there's a clear winner here.
LUSTER LOCK AUTHOR
I'll be honest, I loved that simple scene where they both chat while the kid's around and she keeps hitting on Bristle... hard. Like, yeah, she wants him. Not to put down the other entry, of course. There is some appeal to the thief thing, definitely, but I feel it told me less of both characters, and checking Bristol's character sheet, I think the kid's important to at least have around for a better characterization.
Luster Lock's Author
This was hard. In my opinion, Bristle's author's entry was written better, and it had great atmosphere. Certainly had a better concept. But the first entry just had better characterization all around, and that's really what this contest is about. Great job to both authors, because this was a very difficult decision.
Luster Lock's author
Both stories seemed pretty equal to me, but I think Luster Lock's author did a better job of characterizing both characters.
Bristle's author
This one is fucking heartbreaking. The fact that I'm not voting for the humorous opening of Lock's entry is a tragedy. But the dynamic of the countdown, the fact that this very bold use of Lock was done by the other author, and the way this one had a stronger aspect of change to the ending, makes me choose this one.
Bristle's author
The second story gives both characters so much more... well, character! It's engaging and interesting. In the first story, by comparison, Bristle feels like a non-entity, while his son just feels useless.
Bristle's Author
God, this is hard. So very hard. I liked both, for very different reasons. Luster's starts out very strong. Very humorous. But you really lose your steam in the close. Especially ignoring the buildup with the 'You didn't use primer.' line. That was a great line. But you did nothing with it! Ugh, so sad. On the other side, Bristle's start is pretty poor. You kind of lose yourself in your own wordplay. But then when you start playing with both characters, it's very, very good. Both sides also kind of utilize their opponent a bit weakly, but Bristle's side does a better job overall. Generally speaking, I liked Luster's better, but I think Bristle's deserves the win, by juuust a bit. Mostly for better use of the opponent. Good game, both of you. I won't lie, I might utilize some expy's of these in my own work. I really want to see more.
Luster Lock's Author
This was a close one, but I think I have to give it to the first entry by virtue of its methodology. It told its story solely through the characters' interactions, and that seems the more natural--and enjoyable--way to do things. The latter's prose is bogged down with a lot of exposition, exposition which, to me, wasn't as interesting compared with the narrative happening in the present. It also, interestingly, made better use of what was on the character sheet by including Bristle's son as an actual player in the story. Again, it was a close call, but I do have to give it to the first entry.
Luster Lock's Author Vote
I think both were very well written and both had some good points, but I enjoyed the first story more.
Bristle's Author
Luster Lock's author
Luster Lock's Author
Damnit this was tough, but I chose the one that was more familiar to me in reference to the OC characterization sheets. Bristle's author took a huge leap by making Luster Lock a thief when it doesn't say she is in the compendium, but it works. Problem was I was a bit confused at the beginning and I felt the ending was somewhat unsatisfactory, while Luster Lock, with Bristle's subtle, but still interesting characterization and the fleshing out of Bristle's son made a very good story.
Quite the tight race here! :O
BRISTLE’S AUTHOR
Luster Lock vs. Bristle
Liked: That section where she’s trying to figure out what his marital status is. That was great!
Disliked: I was confused by Bristle's line about primer. In fact, I'm not even sure he said it.
Bristle vs. Luster Lock
Liked: Fantastic first sentence! I mean, everything’s well written, but there’s nothing like getting off on the right foot.
Disliked: I’m honestly having a hard time coming up with something.
6020838 Indeed. The only one out of all the entries I've read and judged so far.
Now for my vote.
Luster Lock's Author
Both stories seemed to have left out key actions at a certain point to indicate a change in their respective narrative, so I would find myself confused as to why the characters were exchanging dialogue when nothing indicated they had acknowledged each others' presence. Both stories also did a good job working with both characters, and told a coherent narrative that kept me engaged to the very end. Finally, both stories are well-edited with only a small handful of errors strewn throughout.
In the end, my vote comes down to character preference, and in my eyes Luster Lock has more potential moving forward in the contest. Not that Bristle isn't interesting, of course, because he very much is. My decision was about as tight as the voting for this match up has been so far.
Massive props to both authors.
Luster Lock's Author
A very close call. Both stories are great in different ways, and it ultimately came down to gut instinct for me. If I had to put my decision into words, I'd say I think the first story did the characters better justice than the second.
Bristle's Author
After I finished the first one, my thought was, "Man, am I about to vote for a story that ends with romance? Is this my life?" Thankfully, the second story was pretty good.
Silliness aside, this was a tough choice. I thought the first story had a more natural flow to it and transitioned much smoother. However, I thought the second story did more interesting things with the characters and made them feel like actual characters (Bristle seemed pretty replaceable in the first one). So after some thought, I did give a slight edge to Bristle's author.
Bristle's Author
Just thought it did a better job showing both characters. I liked the first one a little more as a story, but Bristle was kinda bland there. Got much more a feel for both characters in the second one. Close call though.
Bristle's Author
But it was a tough choice. Unlike the last, where there was a clear difference in quality, here the two fics were both really engaging, and really well-written.
Luster Luck's Author
Good scene-building, and excellent characterization. I could picture the shop perfectly in my mind. I mentally dinged off a point for "the mare smirked"; I personally hate that
dialogue tag.* Oh well, moving on! It was cute and fluffy, although there were parts that didn't feel quite 'pony.' Still, a very enjoyable read, and it was a difficult decision to choose the other story over this one.Bristle's Author
Both the characters and the setting were very good.
A heist fic? There aren't enough of those on this site.
The other thing I like the best about this is that it feels like we're coming in to the middle of the story, and it leaves me wanting more. You didn't waste time with a buildup or a clear resolution, yet it didn't feel unfinished, either.
This one also felt at times like it wasn't quite pony . . . just some of the character actions, I guess.
Props for "moondamned."
Overall, it was a very tough choice between these two, and I would like to see either of them continued. Regardless of the winner and loser, the OCs were interesting and engaging in both stories. Perhaps once the contest is finished, the two authors could collab on a story with these characters--I'd really like to see that.
*alright, it's not a dialogue tag. I still don't like it when I see it in fics (but that's just my personal opinion).
6026459 *Blinks*
They used that as a dialogue tag?
That's… not a dialogue tag. Or do you just mean you hate the word "smirked"? Because I smirk a lot.
Luster Lock's author
These as the two best entries I've read so far, and it's a shame only one can advance. The second story starts somewhat slowly, but it really hits its stride once Bristle shows up. I like how it dealt with some pretty heavy issues and we got to see the characters' views on those issues. The first entry, however, had better pacing, stronger characterization, and slightly better writing. If it had been the first chapter of a longer story, I would definitely read the rest.
Luster Lock's Author
Another really tight decision. Both had great characterizations and were well-written. It's pretty obvious both authors put a lot of effort into these stories.
But honestly, I feel like Luster's story had a tighter characterization. These versions of Bristle and Luster Lock felt a lot more like what was on the characterization sheet. I also liked how it showed the relationship Bristle had with his son (though I think more could have been added to that). True, it's more predictable than Bristle's story, but I felt more for the characters in Luster's story.
Bristle's story was clever in how they meet (street sweeping and night espionage) and had a nice setup, but I couldn't get into it as much. One of the main reasons is that the characters' dialogue just didn't feel like it flowed as naturally as Luster's story. In Bristle's story, it's practically a call and response form of talking. In Luster's story, they interrupt or talk over each other at various points, giving the talking a more natural feel. It's a small detail, but it adds volumes to the stories' atmosphere.
Bristle's author.
The second story did a better job of exploring the inner lives of both characters, and as a result both were made much more believable as individuals.
BRISTLE'S AUTHOR
Neither story lacks for style or an intriguing opening, but the first one does feel like it's missing something I can only call "weight", for lack of a better term. There's interaction between two interesting characters, but seemingly nothing done to take real advantage of their respective interesting qualities, or to set up any kind of palpable narrative. The second story not only fleshes out both characters within the framework of what feels like a true story in its own right, but gives them enough agency to have a noticeable effect on each other. Luster Lock comes off as more dynamic in Bristle's author's story, Bristle has a much more active role in facilitating that change, and both of them have enough chemistry to make it all fit together nicely. I can see why this is a close race, but for me there's really no contest for my vote.
Bristle's Author
Better exploration of the characters, more character interaction, more interesting setup. Luster Lock's Author did okay, but couldn't compare ot the competition.
Vote looks close this time. I'm still rooting for you, Luster Lock.
6042683
And I for Bristle. Especially since his profile does specifically mention that he had to drop out of art school and take a job as a street sweeper in order to provide for his son. I'm surprised the first story didn't really touch on that, since it seemed like a fairly critical component of his character.
Luster Lock's Author
She is amazing. That is all.