"Do unicorns dream, Twilight?"
That's what David had to ask as he stood in his room, his feet bare on the carpet (which was feeling extra fuzzy to him at the moment), his hand resting on the top of the rectangular black monitor of his computer, heavily believing it to be warm. He stared out his window, his neck and back as straight as a tie, arms relaxed with a tingling sensation going through his toes, or so he thought. The day was bright outside, almost too bright for the indoors, and he could only make out the thick green foliage of the oaks in the great outdoors. He could look directly into the reflecting sunlight and make out the edges of his darkened windowpane without much effort. The words he spoke flew out of his mouth without much thought, announcing them to the only other being in existence as if every single thread of his consciousness was immediately translated to language.
"Of course they do, David," Twilight answered back. "Magic and rainbows and apple-wood tables. That's what every unicorn dreams about."
David absent-mindedly rubbed Twilight's back, his hand going through the fine hairs that were her pearly white coat. He liked the feeling of her silky soft strands on the tips of his fingers, and enjoyed how the ends of the lengths tickled and itched underneath his nails, or that's what he liked to believe. He kept his gaze on the infinite meadow before him, expanding outward in gentle rolling hills, stretching out as far as the eye could see with knee-height grass calmly dancing in the wind, motioning air that for somewhat reason David couldn't identify on his cheeks. The singular elm that stood towering above him gave him a nice shade through its umbrella of leaves, the strong tall trunk trailing upwards with patterns and grooves in its bark. He felt nice and cool underneath the behemoths shadow, sheltered from the harsh summer weather when the air was dry and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
Twilight in her graceful, heavenly glow bent her head down to David from her horse's level above and looked straight at him with her shining black eyes, her long golden mane out of her face and letting go to the merciful breeze surrounding them in a safe circle. Her spiraling, pure white horn jutted out of the center of her forehead, pointing proudly towards the sky, the tip as sharp as a spear, gleaming by some invisible power. The distance of her muzzle reached far down her face, her nostrils as large as big marbles, her mouth closed but keeping elegance despite her animal appearance. "What do Humans dream about?" she asked curiously.
"Well, uh," David began, pivoting on the spot, looking around and trying to avoid Twilight's eyes. "They dream about all sorts of stuff, like money, and power, and love..."
David spotted a thief dressed in a black shirt and grey sweatpants fleeing from a convenience store behind them, a balaclava keeping the culprit's identity, a pistol in one hand and a peach-coloured bag of goods in the other. He sprinted away from the scene, the yellow and red-striped roof boarder of the store glowing harshly in the sunlight, the actual items inside the store hidden to David's eyes. There was an old lady on the sidewalk, staring at the scene of the crime with her jaw agape, hunched over in an old lady dress that reached down to her ankles and covered up her unsightly wrinkly legs. Pink slippers covered her feet and she peered through her half-moon glasses with aged eyes that matched her wrinkled face and neck.
Suddenly, the thief ran up to the lady and pointed the gun at her in a threatening manner. She froze, her mouth in an open scream while her arms were thrown up and the cane in her possession went flying behind her in a humorous, cartoon-like manner. It landed on top of a triad of metal trash cans against a building, sending the garbage inside all over a business man in a blue suit walking on the nearby sidewalk. Several sound effects from a cartoon were added for additional effect, followed by a corny laugh track being played in the background. The old lady was stuck on the back of her heels with her balance unnaturally leaned backwards, and she somehow still stood. Then, the thief thrust the gun into the lady's face and David panicked.
"Whoa whoa whoa, we don't need to see that right now," David told Twilight, turning in the other direction, using his left hand to cover her vision while making the right direct where the front of Twilight's head was facing, lightly pushing on her neck so that she would turn her head where he wanted it.
"Is that really the thing you chose to show me?" she asked aloud, not particularly affected by the previous scene one bit.
David watched as the sun sank into the horizon, lighting the sky ablaze in a beautiful mixture of vermilion and stark red. The change in light cast over the entire meadow, and suddenly all the grass turned into tall wheat stalks, ripe for the harvest. He rolled his eyes. "Ah, why do you care? You're just a computer program."
The lights turned off with a deafening clack, and when they turned back on David found himself in a barely lit run-down hallway, the paint of the concrete walls peeling, the corners of the floor stained with a dried brown substance, scrapes all over the tiled stone, his sneakers and jeans illuminated by the blue light that shone through the open, steel doors at the end of the hall two dozen feet away. He stared at the light as it was reflected all around him by every surface, no light bulbs to be seen above, the luminescence burning his eyes, or so he told himself, even though he didn't feel any pain or discomfort.
There was a loud, bassy boom that caused the floor to rumble, and David looked over his shoulder behind him. The other end of the hall widened out to accommodate his computer desk with the computer sitting beneath it near the legs and the screen on top with the keyboard, mouse and mousepad. It sat the same distance away as the exit, the leather office chair that he usually sat on missing, the monitor on with a bright blue background. The power indicator glowed green with the disk-notifier above it streaming a steady bloody red, staring right into him. He could hear the buzzing hum of the light from his distance, like a dying elongated bulb in some kind of warehouse facility, and he was suddenly very, very annoyed.
The sound of a ticking clock echoed through the corridor. Each second struck the foundation of the hallway, shaking it, causing old crusted pieces of the ceiling to dribble down in tiny amounts. David gazed back at the open doors, his mouth a fine line. He swallowed, and the seconds passed. The glows from both sides of the passage met in the middle at David's feet, where the darkness was the greatest and where it slowly crawled up his figure from the bottom of the heels of his sneakers until it reached the tip of his chin, where the illumination splattered all over his face and defeated the shadows eating up at him.
It sounded like something big, something huge, was approaching him. The steps got more intense and demanding and David felt the temperature in the air continuously rise. His body refused to sweat, and he kept a steady eye on both sides of the hall, trying to keep his vision focused from all the chaotic movement around him. He didn't budge from the tremors, even if the world around him was rocked to the beat of the coming monster, his center of balance solid from a straight-legged stance. He took his time, deliberating on his choices, staring at the doors and the computer for equal moments of time. He didn't panic. He willed himself in control, but he could not stop the rumble of the earthquakes beneath his feet, nor could he halt the crumbling foundation of the hallway.
When his eyes met the monitor of his computer for the thirteenth time they stayed there, staring, his mind wondering if anything new was going to appear out of that screen. He almost expected it to happen. Unlike the doors, David actually knew that something was behind the blue inside the glass, something inside the computer. He kept his breathing steady as the shaking raised to a peak, swearing that he saw movement behind the monitor. In the background of blue, he was absolutely certain that he saw the outline of a pony's head trot up to the monitor and looked straight at him at an angle, its horn jutting out slight from their forehead.
He blinked.
"...Don't let it stop! With the wind on your heels,"
"Don't let it drop. Unless it's somebody else,"
"Just let it rock! Take a trip down memory lane,"
"And remember what you have to do..."
David groaned, his eyes heavy with thoughts puttering on the first gear, reflexively reaching out to the stand right near the head of his bed and grabbing the vibrating device on it. His waking fingers fumbled around with it until it found a button on the side near the top, and he pressed it. The electronic beeped once, the deep-voiced man stopped singing and silence reigned.
His eyelids creaked open, and his view was blurry for the first few moments, misty until the morning light across the room burned through a fresh new layer on his retina, something that he didn't feel that suddenly but opened the world around him. He noticed the sensation of lying on his side, his thoughts a mess with the tiny workers in his head scrambling about in an attempt to get his memories in order. He stared at his wooden cabinet a few feet away from him with the posters above it, his mouth slightly ajar with some dried spittle trailing out the corner down his chin, the surface of his tongue tasting like death. He smacked his lips once, twice, then sniffed through his nose, removing the lodged nuggets stuck in his personal mine and loading it into the back of his throat for the moment.
He turned onto his back, and the sound of early birds chirping through his open window focused in on his eardrums. He could feel his body waking up, slowly warming to sensation and filling his brain with the senses he needed to function for that day. He grunted, scratched the base of his back and curved his torso, creating a gap between himself and the mattress below. With practiced aim, he cleared his throat, tilted over to the left side of the bed and spit into a tiny plastic garbage can filled with opened candy wrappers, used tissues and dried mucus. The singular, thin ocean blue blanket that he had was kicked to the end of the bed, an action that occurred during the middle of the night without his control. He sighed, took another moment to gather himself, and sat up.
He was looking across his abode. His skinny, hairy legs stuck underneath him to the end of the covers, where his pale feet pointed up, his toenails long overdue for a trim. He swiveled his heels left and right, testing the motor action, then brought his attention to the light pouring into the room. The shadows of moving tree branches swaying in the wind cast over sections of the angled sun in his room, and he could smell a faint wetness from the outside air: Scarcely applied dew on the tips of the blades of grass. The monitor of his computer sat on the glass of his desk, off, the screen black with evidence of dust sitting on the surface through the scrutiny of the morning sun's rays. The green power light of the computer faded on and off, indicating its current energy status. David gave a thoughtful look towards his most prized possession, wiping the sleep out of his eyes as his head tilted back, trying to hold on to the fleeting memories of his waking dream as it slipped through his grasp.
A few seconds passed.
"Ah hell," David murmured, getting out of bed.
Good Luck!
wow
That dream sequence did a good job of seeming like a dream. It was surreal but realistic at the same time, which is what dreams are like.
Good luck! And the amount of people who would see it when it's announced on EQD... *Shudder*
"her nostrils as large as big as marbles-"
Fix dat yo.
6145185
I don't see it in the document. This is what I see:
Maybe she dreams of electric sheep in this form.
hum a interesting chapter.
I am starting to wonder if David will ever get to meat twi in real life?
Er.. okay. So that, hm.
I'm sorry, I don't like saying this, but this chapter was just, well... extremely skippable to me. :| I mean, nothing of value was gained, plot-wise, other than an excessively abstract dream sequence. So yeah, nothing of value here. >_>;
I mean, yay exercising descriptiveness and all, but.. I found myself skimming through the chapter looking for the relevant stuff only to find it only arrives with the last line. Pacing is one thing, but this was entirely filler..
6145330 Double facehoof gives you wiiiiings
So, fun stuff. We quickly realized it was a dream, but starting out all meta like that made the detection slower. Well done I guess?
I especially enjoyed how clinically you described his awakening process, in much the same manner as we would describe a computer's boot sequence.
6145330 probably not electric sheep. Maybe electric ponies? Possibly hairless apes...
Keep going! ;)
6145344
I have to agree. I did the same thing.
So, haven't read this yet, but from the description I'm getting a different feel from it. The deception alone make this sound like some dark, poltergeist, excursuses type ordeal. Seeing as there's no dark and mature tag, I'm go on a whelm and say its safe to read.
6145814 so far its the safest of safe.
I've been checking in on this one occasionally, and I feel the urge to comment at last.
I regret that it's not overwhelming praise.
While there's times to be descriptive and thorough with your prose, this chapter felt unnecessarily full of thick prose that bogged down the read. I found myself having to spend more time focusing around the descriptors than paying attention to the plot of the chapter.
In this case, there's more description than plot advancement, and I feel like it's somewhat out of place in the continuity of the fic. You could trim down the prose, make this one small scene on a larger chapter, and still have the benefit of a dream scene. Just drop a lot of the adjectives and such. Choice sections like this one:
- can be trimmed down to a lot less words and still impart just as much wisdom and information for us. We don't particularly need to know what exactly David's trash was, nor the fact that his blanket was kicked out of his control. Being excessively specific is good for crime reports, not so much for this particular fanfiction.
I get what you were going for here, and it had its interesting bits.. (Twilight's appearance, color-wise and stylistically was pretty cool, and I can get behind human expectations altering the physical reality of someone's canon character. That's a neat little bit of meta work.) ...but I feel you executed it incorrectly, or at least, misguidedly.
I'm still keeping an eye on this, but I think it would benefit from less purple prose.
You're your own editor? Wow! I thought I was only one who edited their own stories without any help. This is good, by the way.
6146022
6145650
6145344
Thank you for the feedback, guys. I gotta sit on this one...
This was pretty interesting. And I like how he imagines Twilight. Should be good if he actually meets her later on.
6145262 Did you fix it at least?
6146267
I had nothing to fix. I didn't see it broken.
I'm sorry but... was there a point to this chapter? I mean don't get me wrong, it's nice and descriptive and surreal and all but... why is it here? It doesn't even really give us that big a look into David's mind or anything since it's common for peoples' dreams to be surreal and meandering. It doesn't really reveal character, it doesn't expand the world, and it doesn't move the plot forward at all... and it's a tenant of writing that every moment of your prose should do one of those three things.
I'm sorry, but people say that the point only comes around with the last line, but I don't even see how the last line has a point. I'm not even sure what the "question" that Twilight supposedly asked you're referring to. There was no big mind blowing question in this chapter or the last that I can recall. The only question in this chapter was when he showed the mugging and she said "this was what you decided to show me?" And frankly that's not a big deal since, well... it was a dream. I'm not sure what it could be referring to in real life that would make him go "ah hell." It's not like that can signify anything in real life, like, say, Twilight getting onto the internet and seeing the scope of human violence since a) she isn't capable of that, and b) she's been asleep.
I'm just... entirely flummoxed by the ending of this chapter. What's the "ah hell" moment? Seriously. I admit to skimming the chapter when I realized that it really didn't have anything to do with moving the plot forward and I also admit to being really sleepy and not entirely coherent at the moment, but I seriously can't tell what David has to say "Ah hell" about. Nothing has happened. He went to sleep, had an odd dream (par for the course with dreams) and woke up.
I'm sorry if I left my tact at the door on this comment, but I honestly don't understand what the purpose of this chapter is. You've got a great story going, but this installment feels superfluous.
6146335
Hey, Dusty! Thanks for the feedback! I remember seeing your very detailed comments on EqD stories all the way back when! That was what, four years ago? Goodness...
Anyways, by the looks of things, I've made a mistake with this chapter. A part of posting this was the urge to post something for the story, but the other part was pacing and progression. I don't want the story to move too quickly. I have certain stages that I need David to reach but I need to take my time with this so the plot doesn't feel like it's in overdrive. I'm not justifying my actions. This chapter was average at best and mediocre at worst, but only now I'm seeing that.
I did have a goal in mind besides properly pacing my story when I wrote this chapter, however. First and foremost was building more on David's perspective of Twilight, what he thinks Twilight's expectations of him are, what he still believes her to be, and his fright in a situation that's tugging on him little by little. Really, his "Aw, hell," line is something you need to decide for yourself. Think about how he answered Twilight's question of "What do Humans dream of?" and what happened immediately after. Consider the hallway scene, where he was stuck in the middle of two sources of intrigue but otherwise had nowhere else to go. Of course, if I have to explain this to you after the fact, then I've done something horribly, horribly wrong in my writing. I apologize.
The last line about Twilight's question was just a throw-away line. It wasn't supposed to really mean anything. Oops.
It says things if I leave my readers in a confused and frustrated state after a chapter, and how I've failed as a writer. But, I'm not going to remove this chapter, nor will I re-write it. Instead I will double my efforts to make the next chapter the best one to come. I have a plan, and with this chapter out of the way I can execute it easier.
Thank you for your time and patience.
6146102 I edit my own stories while I'm writing them.
I'm glad to see an update, but I kind of agree with a few other people, 6145344 for example, that this chapter feels way too pointless. It was well written, don't get me wrong, but it felt like I was suddenly reading an entirely different story.
If this was leading up to something, then you really should have added that onto the end of this chapter and simply made it longer. As it stands, this chapter really doesn't do very well by itself.
I agree with the other two with the Nostalgia Critic reference, only it being like a TIMING joke, this just seems a little out of nowhere and confused me at what was real or not.
I can't really say anything good about this chapter because I'm unsure whenever he's seeing the future or it's simply all in his head, I'm more of a practical person who only likes dream sequences whenever they are like the Luna ones that actually offer a new setting... and I actually found myself disappointed that Twilight hadn't in fact managed to use more of the computer how she likes.
I'll give a proper comment next chapter, I'm simply showing my personal wishes this one.
6146022 Gotta agree with you here. There was absolutely no point in describing every little detail about waking up; we've all done it, so it doesn't really warrant description unless there is something unusual happening. It's as if the author just made a list of everything that could possibly describe a scene, then went down it without using any kind of transition sentences.
In regards to the dream sequence
Never dumb down your own story. What are you thinking!? Remember one simple rule: your audience is always smarter than you are. And we've likely read a lot more than you have.
In regards to the scene itself, I fail to see what the "purpose" was. You've put in so many descriptive terms (wordswordswordsandmorewords) that I was lost. I must have gone back and reread it three times, but I still can't figure out what you're trying to tell us through the dream sequence. It doesn't seem to have any particular reason for existing beyond, maybe, to tell us that Twilight was running out of time? Or that David feels responsible? That's my best guess.
This is one example of a lack of transition sequences. He was just standing in an "infinite meadow," but now he's in a city? Where's the transition?
No. It really doesn't. I'm not going to sugarcoat this; this chapter was bad and you know it. Otherwise, why would you be defending yourself? You've made several mistakes, such as the confusing dream sequence, over-use of imagery, and just the lack of any real meat to read. There are many words here, but no story.
I don't really see how this chapter exhibits pacing. In fact, because it seems to be just a whole bunch of verbiage with no real content. It feels more like this is the beginning of a chapter (i.e. a character has a dream, then wakes up to start the plot), but it was cut short for some reason.
Well, LUNA.COM is gonna have a lot of disk maintenance to do, I guess!
6146287 Looks like I misread it. 4 times.
I suspect the reality of Twilight's appearance is going to come as a bit of a disappointment to David, when/if he finally learns what she actually looks like.
An amusingly accurate portrayal of anyone who would even unironically use "cyberspace" as a word today, never mind a decade or two in the future from now.
I feel like this chapter has some form of meaning, but there's not enough clues to get from one point to another. Also, I see what you mean about pacing, but even though it isn't rushed, there was no clear progression to the story either. You can't just halt the progression of a story without reason. You could, however, slow it down with small side parts that link back to the main story. Unless this chapter's descriptiveness only has meaning after the insight of future chapters, it equals to nada when no explanation is given. On the bright side however, the dream sequence was pretty close to the actual thing.
DO NOT LISTEN TO HER LIES!
This is all CelestAI's doing. She is trying to cross into other universes!
Thank god OP's PC is so shitty, that it can't simulate the entirety of Twilight's brain, otherwise we would all have been doomed to an eternity as ponies by now.
You've been warned.
6146403
Wow. It's been a while since I was last on EqD... actually I can pinpoint exactly when the last time I was on EqD was. It was October 12, 2013. I remember because it was the day that Pokemon X and Y came out and I remember the banner was celebrating it that day. I forget what it finally was that made me decide to stop going to the site, though.
Anyway, I don't mean to be disparaging or discouraging, but yeah. This chapter could probably have been dropped. Believe me, I understand the desire to not want to move too fast. Frankly, that's a good desire to have. There are far too many stories that move at a breakneck pace and never allow you time to absorb anything. Honestly, that's almost the norm, really. That said, a story can also move too slow, and while this story doesn't seem to be doing that, this chapter is what we call "padding" or "filler." Fluff, meant to fill out a story, but in practice doing nothing but bringing the forward motion to a screeching halt. It's admittedly a tough balance to strike, and I can understand the worry that you were moving too fast. Adding padding or filler is not the way to go about fixing that though (not that I think it was in particularly desperate need of fixing, by the way. I thought the pacing was fine).
In retrospect, I can sorta see the attempt at character expansion in regards to David's perspective of Twilight. Still, I'm not sure a dream was the proper choice. A better choice probably would have been some sort of introspective moment during the day. At least then we can count on the narrator to be somewhat reliable, as opposed to the unreliable environment of a dream. Whatever the case, the intent seems to have been lost in translation
The last line is really what puzzled me. It's what immediately precedes the mysterious "ah hell," which was the only point that seemed to drive the plot forward at all, and yet apparently the "ah hell" was up for interpretation as well.
I wouldn't say you've "failed as a writer." That's a bit extreme. Certainly I think this chapter was a misstep. One might say it was "a failing" but other than this one chapter, the story has been very engaging and interesting up to this point. And it's not like this is something you can't come back from. So yeah, buck up and keep at it, man. You're doing well overall, this chapter was just a bump in the road.
The way you describe David is a lot like me, down to the scrawny, hairy legs and tow nails that need trimming. He also seems to have interests that I have. O_O you're stalking me, aren't you. Then changing his name and setting this into the future! I KNEW IT! Or maybe it's just a large coincidence. Meh, then it's not funny...
Oh, Hal no!
6160632
My big question is do androids dream?
I hope it does not end in Pony human romance, unless the human becomes a pony.
6145330 I think the appropriate question would be:
Do digital unicorns dream of android sheep?
Wait... weren't his blankets red or something? Because now they're blue.
6145330
For some reason the button for me to post videos is missing. Oh well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HvkZtEVAdg
So, he's dreaming, and he's imagining meeting a tall, graceful unicorn who looks like this:
38.media.tumblr.com/2c73c9525f140169259afae8d97773b5/tumblr_mvg6h4J3u21sk3mx3o3_500.gif
Now it is inevitable that Purplesmart will magic her way out of his computer, and they will meet, and she will end up saying:
pre09.deviantart.net/4cd1/th/pre/i/2014/090/8/f/vector__twilight_sparkle_31_by_estories-d72ioif.png
"Hey! I'm down here!"
David, you see, is expecting someone taller. And that's always comedy gold.
6496739 Then he has a nightmare and gets this instead
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/1/16/S2e15_neigh.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/320?cb=20150910204403
No more toking before going to sleep, David.
6496739 Gif one dude, I remember that movie as a child. Best movie I'd ever seen for a while, really hits the feels. Got shit for it, since I was a ten year-old boy at the time, but I really didn't care.
6506686 Note the Rarity-esque cutie mark.
6570618
What movie is it from ?