Vanilla and Luster - by Vanilla Skies' Author
Vanilla Skies was sitting on a bench, waiting. For what, she didn’t really know. She guessed it would be for something interesting to happen - because she was bored, really bored.
She sighed and slumped down the park-bench watching the ponies go about their daily business. It was interesting to watch for a while, but it wouldn’t amuse her forever. She snorted and crossed her hooves. Days off weren’t fun. They all told her to go out more, but they really, really weren’t fun.
She watched the ponies go by, a bit grim-faced, until, by chance, she saw a dim-grey pegasus mare trot up to her and plop down unceremoniously.
“Hello! Why the long face?” She grinned teasingly.
Vanilla Skies just sat there and gave here a stink-eye. “Mind yer own business.”
The grey mare rolled her eyes, her steel-blue curls bouncing up and down with her every move. “Well, that’s not very nice.” She smirked. “My name’s Luster Lock.”
Vanilla sighed. “Vanilla Skies.”
Luster Lock grinned. “Nice to meet you, Vanilla.”
Vanilla nodded, looking out over the park again. Luster Lock hummed, thoughtfully. “So, Vanilla… what are you doing here, so alone, on this day?”
Vanilla looked at her. “I’m on my day off,” she said, emotionless. “I don’t know what to do with that time.”
Luster nodded and thought for another moment. “You know, when I have too much time on my hooves, I practice my lockpicking skills.” She pulled out a bobby pin and a screwdriver. “I’m a locksmith.”
Vanilla snorted. “So you basically don’t ever do anything besides your job?” She sighed and looked forward. “I work for the weather factory… making scheduals, supervising shifts, stuff.”
Luster nodded and lifted an eyebrow. “So, you were responsible for the thunderstorm last night?”
Vanilla frowned. “What, no! That’s not even my field…”
But Luster laughed. “Just messin’ with ya, Van - can I call you Van? - cool!”
Vanilla sighed. “You haven’t even told me what you were doing here.”
“Me? Pfsht,” Luster rolled her eyes and huffed. “I was just walking by until I saw you moping around.” She poked Vanilla in her side. “Moping around isn’t good for you.”
Vanilla frowned and swatted Luster’s hoof away. “Get off of me…” she said, silently, but didn’t object any more. Luster smiled.
“So, Luster,” Vanilla continued. “You still haven’t told me what exactly it was before you decided to… cheer me up a little.”
Luster gasped. “Oh, yeah! I was going to teach you how to have fun beside your job.”
Vanilla frowned. “And you’re the one to teach me that?”
“Of course! Did you know I once travelled with a mare that was the defenition of ‘fun’?” she said, smiling.
“Who?” Vanilla said, deciding to humor her.
“Why, the Great and Powerful Trixie, of course!” she said, making great moves in her hoof. “She loved performing. And after she saw my absolute awesome lockpicking skills, she immediately hired me!”
Vanilla nodded, not really believing it. “Do go on.”
“Well, so here we were, travelling together. We had loads of free time - time that I had to spend by myself, though, because she was always busy with preparing her next show.’
Vanilla nodded. “So?”
She grinned. “So, I started to lockpick!”
Vanilla groaned. “You know that’s illegal, right?”
She shook her head. “No, trespassing is. Just picking a lock isn’t. It was my job, after all! So I made locks that only I could break and could easily teach to Trixie how to break. And so, we travelled and travelled - until she became too Great and Powerful and had to send me away.”
She closed her eyes and put her hoof over her heart. “I regret it, but I’m okay with it.”
Vanilla smiled and rolled her eyes. “You still haven’t told me how to improve my spare time.”
Luster Lock stared a bit in front of her, into nothing. “Oh, right… there’s supposed to be a punchline… uuh…” She thought for a bit and shook her head. “What do you like most? And then, do that!”
Vanilla narrowed her eyes. “Seriously?”
Luster grinned, sheepishly. “No… this is like that old riddle… Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
Vanilla frowned. “I have no idea.”
Luster laughed. “Exactly!”
She looked at the sky. “Ooh, look at the time. I gotta go. Bye!”
She stood up and flew off, leaving Vanilla to just stare after her.
“What just happened?” she said to herself, but she found that her foul mood was gone. Maybe she should talk to ponies a bit more, she decided and stood up and left the park. Maybe she should visit some friends, see if they would do something nice with her.
Supercell - by Luster Lock's Author
It was a dark and stormy night, flying in the face of any concept of scheduling. Either Manehattan’s weather ponies were playing hooky, or it was that plus the maritime wild zone a few dozen miles off the coast was acting up again. And Vanilla Skies was lucky enough to be responsible for both.
Which wasn’t to say that she oversaw pony resources, per se, and neither was she one of the veteran weather-busters on retainer for situations as dire as the storm heading towards the city late that afternoon, with the lighting and the hail and the not-quite-tornadoes and all the rest of the sensational schlock better suited to a copper dreadful. No, Vanilla was merely the dusk-dawn shift change coordinator—the might-as-well-be-lone steward of those most woeful times to which all Tartarus seemed honorbound to gravitate.
The day pegasi were good, sensible, hard-working sorts, and the night pegasi their polar opposites—the dawn shift change at least tended to be manageable. But dusk? The day pegasi were tired and the night pegasi were useless even when they weren’t absent. And for that particular shift change, it also happened that one veteran weather-buster had just the week previously celebrated his retirement, while the other was the recent victim of a crippling bout of hypochondriasis.
Thusly, it had fallen to Vanilla, as it so often did, to pick up the slack and push others to do the same. But there was one miraculous fact of the antiquated Manehattan weather division that worked in her favor: the shape of its funding.
Not a day in, and Luster Lock’s latest attempt at a vacation was already looking pretty cruddy.
Why had she decided on Manehattan? It was a big, active place, yeah, but was the point of leaving Hoofington for… a bigger, more active version of Hoofington? Cities were just cities, at least when earth ponies had made them. But there she was. At least the skyscrapers were cool. Big.
‘Active’ didn’t really apply, though, or not right then. Luster half cantered, half danced right down the middle of a lamplit street, with no carriages in her way or pedestrians on the sidewalks telling her to stop. Where was everypony? Thinking back, the reason Luster had settled on Manehattan was probably that it couldn’t be uneventful. But lo and behold…
Was it the storm? In the middle of executing a perfect cartwheel—balancing with her wings was probably cheating, but whatever—she looked up to the sky. Dim and gray, like her coat. Dreary. Little bit rainy, which felt nice. Looked pretty windy up above, where the buildings stopped. And the thunder was kind of exhilerating.
It looked… bad? Luster wasn’t a pro at weather stuff. Give her some tools and Ol’ Downy and Mr. Tickle could crack a safe or pop a padlock like lifelong felons—her wings alone had earned her a stint in escape artistry, even—but they never could handle themselves so well in the air. Pro or not, though, the storm wasn’t the worst she’d ever seen, she didn’t think. Didn’t seem like enough to bring a place like Manehattan to a halt or anything. So…
Luster cut the prancing and eyed the surrounding buildings. The alleyways. If it wasn’t the storm, had she just gotten off the train in a bad neighborhood? Now that she’d thought of it, that storefront off to the left was definitely boarded up, and there were an awful lot of cracked windows around. And—and was that a shad—
“Hey!” called a voice from above.
“Wagh!” Luster jumped out of her skin. Or onto her back, more like.
Four hooves smacked down onto the pavement. “You okay?”
Getting back up, Luster got an eyeful of a crazily orange-and-yellow mare who stood out sharply from the dark street. “Long as you’re not gonna try to rob me,” said Luster, “I’m perfectly fine.” The mare’s cute little messenger bag and short, pretty—if a bit naturally windswept—mane definitely didn’t make her look like a thug, but you never know.
“What?” The mare shook her head. “No, I’m wondering if you aim to help.”
Luster quirked an eyebrow. “With what?”
The mare gave Luster a look like Luster had just punched her in the gut and asked what was wrong. She pointed up.
Luster tracked the hoof up to the swirling clouds above. “Oh, right. You don’t have ponies for that?”
“Not tonight we don’t,” said the mare. “Not enough of them.” She opened up her messenger bag and drew out a piece of paper, shielding it from the rain with a wing. “If you sign this and I confirm that you helped out, you’ll get a flat fifty bits when the storm’s over. Of course, the Manehattan Weather Cooperative won’t be liable for any injuries, though it shouldn’t be that dangerous once we’ve got enough wings in the air. Interested?”
Slowly, Luster approached and began looking the form over. Fifty bits was a nice chunk of spending money, and it would probably be more fun than just heading to her hotel. Weather, though…
“Miss,” said the mare, “I hate to rush you into a decision, but it’s rather urgent that I go and find willing pegasi. If you accept, you’re not bound to do any work—you just won’t get paid if you don’t.” With her free wing, she drew a pen out of the bag’s side pocket. “If you’re unsure, you can sign now and then think about it while I get back to my job.”
Luster bit her lip, but nodded and took the pen in her own wing. She signed her evening away with a nice little flourish.
The mare smiled. “Thank you…” She looked down. “Miss Lock. We’ll be meeting in about twenty minutes above Dame Harmony.” Form tucked firmly back into her bag, the mare held out a hoof. “I’m MWC Overseer Vanilla Skies. If you do wind up contributing, we’ll notice, so just come find me after the storm for your pay.”
Luster shook the offered hoof, saying, “Can do.”
“Alright,” said Vanilla, taking to the air, “I’m off to find others.”
“Good luck,” said Luster.
They smiled to one another, and Vanilla flew off.
Luster watched the bright speck of a mare disappear over a rooftop, and her eyes lingered on the sky. She felt her smile die.
The air there was congested with… well, cumuli congesti. They were swirling and pouring, no doubt, but they weren’t yet cumulonimbi, so it was about as safe a spot to talk as they were all going to get.
“Alright!” called Vanilla. The other pegasi—about thirty-five of them in all, counting the MWC weather ponies—cut their side conversations and turned to her. “First, a quick thank you. I know not all of you are residents, and Manehattan appreciates your assistance, paid or no.” That brought smiles to some of their faces, where before there’d mostly been worry. Vanilla made sure to dial up her own smile as she continued, “With that in mind, some of you need to be informed of our general process.
“Manehattan has a sophisticated lightning protection system, grounded rods and charge negation charms on most every building—we’ve got all the time in the world to handle the basic storms, even if the potential for hail could become an issue. Our big worry is the possibility of a tornado. You see any mesocyclones forming in the cumulonimbi, you dissipate them. You see a supercell going full force, you block the wind shear, kick down through the anvil, cool the air around any striations in the base and collapse the updrafts—whatever you’re capable of doing. After that, we clear up the simpler thunderstorms. Any questions on technique?”
The roughly two dozen pegasi Vanilla had approached to volunteer, she’d approached because they’d seemed capable at a glance. Big wings, slim enough frames, good balance. It looked to have paid off: nopony’s eyes had glazed over during her speech, and there were no questions, but for a single exception. “Yes, Miss Lock?”
Miss Lock lowered her hoof, saying, “Um, yeah…” There was some definite tension in her hover, and not any good sort. “What do we do if we don’t know what any of that means?”
The encroaching thunderclouds had the decency to balk, refraining from any dramatics, but a far less modest gust whistled by.
“I…” said Vanilla. “I suppose you should just follow somepony else and try to do what they do.” Hopefully Miss Lock just didn’t know technical terms. Either way, Vanilla needed all the wings she could get, and it was doubtful one pony could make things very much worse… Though, that sounded dangerously like an open challenge to fate. “Better come with me, in fact.”
Miss Lock nodded, and her movements were a bit surer.
Vanilla looked over the group at large. “Any other questions?” No hooves. “Okay, everypony. If you’re a volunteer, speak with an MWC officer”—she motioned to the ponies at the group’s center, and they hovered higher—“to be put on a sub-team and given further priorities. We all do this right and you’ll have your pay in time to enjoy the sunset.”
Chattering began once more as the ponies organized themselves. Peals of thunder rang out all the while—seemed the storm had decided it was time for drama.
Wow!
Luster had been up in a storm or two before she’d won her padlock cutie mark—even a ground-born pegasus always gets to thinking they might be destined to go get struck by lightning—but they didn’t even begin to compare. Not to a full-on, ice-cold, bare-ankled, absolutely massive, wilderness-spawned monstrosity of a real storm.
And she’d thought the thunder from before was exhilerating.
Luster did her best to follow after Vanilla—hooves down the better flyer—as they punched through banks of clouds and out into the open air. Only to dive right back in, towards whatever the biggest cloud in sight was. Luster dutifully kicked and flapped and corkscrewed whatever bit of heavy fluff that Vanilla pointed her towards.
It was around the sixth trip back to the clear sky above the storm that Luster was beginning to feel the burn in her wings. She looked over to Vanilla, wet with what had to just be rainwater—the mare looked like she hadn’t used up an ounce of energy yet. Vanilla’s head snapped suddenly off to the side, and the break was apparently over.
“These have all just been cumulonimbi,” she called, her voice carrying to Luster over the rushing wind in her wake. “Stormclouds. But that”—she pointed a hoof forwards—“is a supercell! It’s a stormcloud, a cyclone, and a lot of other things all rolled into one. We have to focus on it, or there’s a chance it’ll form a tornado.”
Luster looked ahead, at an utter mountain of a cloud. Bigger than a pegasus apartment complex. It had a wide, fluffy-looking base that curved up and in, and then mushroomed back out again—the top looked almost like it was reaching towards them as they closed the distance.
“How?” yelled Luster.
Vanilla didn’t answer for a moment, but then said, “Nopony else is on it yet, so we don’t have many options. The wind shear—the wind coming at it—is what makes the air inside spin, but the two of us alone can’t stop that.” Another beat of wind and wing flaps, and then Vanilla turned her head back to Luster. Her brows were knitted and her eyes unsure. “Two pegasi can cool air around the base to keep it from getting sucked upwards, but it’s dangerous. Are you up for trying that, Miss Lock?”
Dangerous? Luster wasn’t afraid, but… “Is that the only thing that’ll do any good?”
Vanilla frowned, saying, “If I’m being frank, I’ll say that we’d have more options if you were a stronger flyer. Creating opposing air currents, for example.” She shook her head. “No, it’s our best option for making a difference together. Even a foal can cool air.”
That was true—it was one of the few pegasus tricks Luster had ever managed to grasp, apart from cloud-walking. Just a matter of sucking heat into your feathers. “Let’s do it, then,” she said, and they turned forward again.
They were coming up on the supercell’s bottom, and Vanilla led Luster down below it. Fat raindrops buffeted them, to the point that Luster was having trouble seeing even the brightly colored mare in front of her—until lightning flashed from elsewhere on the cloud, highlighting Vanilla, the eerily flat bottom of the supercell, and a little bunch of clouds sticking out of one spot. It was to there that they were apparently flying.
“Is this dangerous because of the lightning?” yelled Luster.
“No,” said Vanilla. “The updrafts.”
They reached the cloud-blob, and Luster could feel what Vanilla meant; the air around was getting pulled towards it, up into the supercell. It was… pretty strong, actually. The burning in Luster’s wings flared up as she fought back.
Vanilla came to a halt, saying, “Alright. You cool the air, get it to be low pressure, and that’ll weaken the updraft. Meanwhile, I’ll be in the cloud, ready to rip the channel apart when that happens. Then we’ll move to the next one. Ready?”
Luster grunted, “Ready.”
And Vanilla took off, tearing a hole into the supercell’s bottom that quickly filled itself back up. Luster took a deep breath and focused on her wings. Thinking them cold, thinking them empty. Thinking just how warm the air was. And… there.
The clouds were pressing in on Vanilla. Heavy on her wings, making it hard to hover, and thick in her ears. But she couldn’t have missed it when the roaring, spiraling wind nearby started dying down to a relative whisper. Miss Lock had had it in her, it seemed.
Vanilla burst forward and into the weak updraft—still enough to send a less experienced pegasus tumbling and spiraling upwards, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She tore into the wind of the channel, flapping hard downwards, in a reverse spiral. It didn’t take, and the channel’s currents just picked up again.
She flew up and tried again, moving hard and fast against the current, and this attempt bore fruit; the current was weak enough by the time she reached the bottom that the updraft collapsed, thickening the clouds of the channel and killing the last of the spin.
Flying down and out through the base of the supercell, Vanilla took a breath and reoriented herself. She spotted Miss Lock and headed over. “Good work,” she said over the rain.
“Thanks,” said Miss Lock. Vanilla noted the other mare’s light panting, and the way the rain hissed and sizzled against her steaming wings. “So, um. More of that?”
Vanilla nodded. She scanned the base, spotting at least two more striations, and asked, “Think you can handle it?”
Miss Lock took a deep, closed-eyed breath and tried visibly to relax her hover. She opened her eyes again, her look not quite resolute, but much better than worried. “Sure thing.”
Good enough.
They made their way to the next striation, Vanilla making sure to charge the air with every flap of her wings. If she was going to wake up in a hospital tomorrow, it wouldn’t be because of anything as amateur as lightning.
At their destination, Vanilla spared one more glance towards her comparatively haggard companion.
“Good luck,” they said at once.
They both smiled, and Vanilla flew up into the roiling cloudstuff.
A few moments in, she settled on a spot to wait, and that damnable fluff set about muffling all her senses again. It condensed on her coat, her body heat the only thing keeping it from freezing, and that heat was getting sapped all the while.
Vanilla’s head jerked back, and she sneezed. And now it was in her nose and mouth! Smelling of ozone and tasting of gobby nothing. Her ears were a lost cause by that point, the cl—
Her ears twitched forward. Was that… a shout? Or was it just more of the same wind, rushing p—
That was definitely a shout!
This wasn’t good. It had to be Miss Lock in there, and the volume of the wind’s movement meant she hadn’t cut its speed down much, if at all. Vanilla couldn’t go down and do that herself—it would take time, and every moment the other mare was left spinning out of control was another chance for her to go unconscious, and if that happened… there was every possibility she could be flung from the mesocyclone, free to fall to the ground.
Vanilla revved up her wings. The only option was to power right through the channel before the current could get a hold on her, and either spot or hear Miss Lock on her way through the thinner cloud there. Then do it again, but grabbing Miss Lock as she went.
She shot forward, pumping with all her strength, ears on alert for any more shouts.
She failed to swerve out of the way when from out of the haze came the shocked face of Miss Lock.
Vanilla’s groans rung out from the other side of the cloud, and Luster let out a long, satisfying breath. “You okay, Vanilla?” she asked, turning.
Vanilla raised her head, eyes all but spinning, and asked, “What happened?”
Luster chuckled. “You smacked your head right into mine right after I escaped that updraft.” She turned back to the nearly clear skies, and the sunset over the bay. Tangerine and royal purple reflected by skyscrapers and glassy, lapping waves. She wished she were a better painter. “You fell unconscious,” she continued airily, “and I brought you to your weather friends, and a medical guy looked you over and said you just needed some rest.”
Groaning some more, Vanilla sat up. “How’d you manage to get out?”
Luster shrugged, saying, “Mostly luck, I guess. And probably a bit of escapology experience.” The wind in the updraft had started to feel an awful lot like chains once Luster’d been panicking hard enough. Instinct had definitely kicked in a little. She turned to Vanilla once again. “Again, though, you okay?”
Vanilla nodded, and she gave her wings a little flap. “I think so.” She flapped in earnest, rising up from the cloud and moving out towards the sunset. She turned her body, flying easily upside down, like she was reclining.
For the first time, Luster noticed what looked like a little sunset cutie mark on Vanilla’s flank. And the mare’s whole body was like a few extra shades of orange and yellow melding into the real sunset’s colorful display.
“Yes, Miss Lock,” said Vanilla, a happy sigh in her voice, “I’m perfectly fine.”
Luster put on her best grin. “Does that mean I can get my bits now?”
The winner is Vanilla Skies' Author
I will repeat a comment I've made in the previous round: the authors seems to do better with their opponents' OC than their own! Are authors getting bored of their own OCs?
Vanilla Skies' Author somehow does very little with Vanill Skies here. She could almost be anypony.
On the up side, the author's treatment of Luster Lock is hilarious and she comes up with a few really funny lines such as:
Talk about a double entendre!
A final note the story was fun and enjoyable to read, although the ending was really far too abrupt.
Luster Lock's Author Really delved quite deeply into Vanilla Skies, but her Luster Lock could almost be any random pegasus (yes, she was "randomly chosen" by Vanilla Skies) asked to volunteer for the local weather brigade. The story had much more of a linear structure, with some decent world building re the work of a pegasus weather brigade. however, the characters never really connected in any significant emotional sense, and I feel they still parted strangers.
Both stories were well written, but In the end, the reason I gave the win to Vanilla Skies' author is the deeper engagement between the characters and more effective use of the opponent's OC.
Luster Lock's Author
Better written dialogue, better overall setup of the story, better and more detailed exploration of the characters. Luster Lock's author knocked this one right out of the park.
Luster Lock
It's not even a contest. I'm sorry, Vanilla, it was a valiant effort but this one wasn't even close.
Reasoning:
Vanilla's story is random. You can tell from the opening paragraph the author had no clue what to write about. The story is disjointed and the theme is... I hate to sound so blunt but... well it's child-like. Vanilla herself seems petulant. It feels at times that English is a second language to the author, given the way certain phrases are used.
Had Vanilla competed against someone in the previous rounds and maybe beat them, the feedback here might have been very useful for the author to take into account. As it is, the easy passes from before probably worked against the author this time.
Luster's story on the other hand, while similar in a bit of randomness on how Vanilla met Luster is focused on the character's skills. There's a clear objective on the story beyond dealing with being bored, the characters are looked into much more deeply and interact in-character with one another and a resolution that makes use of both character's skills.
All in all, a superior piece in all respects.
6160639
I calls 'em likes I reads 'em. If you want to discuss it by PM I'm very open to doing so. In a civilized fashion. Mr. Moderator.
Luster Lock's Author
I'm going to be trying pretty hard not to be too blunt in this comment, and I apologize in advance if I fail at that.
First off, I'll say that Vanilla's author's entry needs some TLC. It's (I believe) one of the shortest entries we've had in the contest, but it still manages to have many more hard errors than Luster's author's entry, despite that being probably three or four times as long. There's some typos here (like "schedual" and "defenition") that I can't imagine a spell-checker wasn't screaming at Vanilla's author to fix. On top of that, there's hyphen misuse, erroneous formatting, punctuation and dialogue tag problems, phrase misuse—the works. Not to mention an awful lot of unnecessary repetition, at least towards the start.
Add to that the fact that Vanilla's entry has possibly the most nothing plot in the contest thus far. It's another of those conversation stories, but the frame of the conversation… is practically nonexistent. I'm fine (to some degree) with characters running into one another as strangers to get a plot moving, but when the plot is nothing more complex than that they have a talk because at least one of them has nothing better to do? It smacks of a lack of ideas. And granted, that's the great challenge of this contest—coming up with interesting ideas to introduce two likely unrelated characters—but here, it just wasn't a challenge Vanilla's author could overcome, it seems to me.
Characterization in the entry was better, but still somewhat flawed. Luster seemed a lot like she was trying to be Luster's author's round one or two version of her, but it was a little too superficial for me. She seemed to be stuck on an endless loop of grin –> smirk –> smile –> grin. Plus the teasing seemed to rely a little too much on telling in the narration ("She grinned teasingly") or just the fact that Luster hadn't stopped grinning yet; the dialogue itself felt sort of bland or average to me. Easy grabs at being teasing, via stock phrases and such—'easy-teasy', I'm going to call it. In regards to Vanilla's Vanilla, there's less to say, sadly. I don't feel that I got much of a sense of who she is, because her character in this little slice of her life only seemed to be based around the core concept of "I'm bored and irritable today, temporarily".
Lastly, I'll say I don't really fault it the sudden ending. It played into what there was of the plot—Luster suddenly appears and disappears, and this is a surprising and strange thing for Vanilla. I just wish there were more to the story than what there was, in general.
Luster's author's entry, on the other hand, I liked a lot.
I like the little evolution I'm seeing in the structure of Luster's author's entries, round to round. They seem to be getting more and more into the characters' heads, and turning into more action-oriented slices of life. In particular, I feel like the change from focusing on one character's perspective last round to an alternating perspective this round was a considerable boon—seems the author took the criticism about not having Luster's side of the story in stride.
On that note, I was pleased by the characterization, especially how the narration differed so markedly in tone and word choice between the two perspectives. I do miss the flirty Luster from round one, but getting a picture of a more vulnerable version of her here was interesting to me in its own right.
The plot, too, I have no complaints about. Almost passable as a full story outside of this contest, but for the fact that the characters—particularly the character of Luster—felt like they were the basis of the plot rather than the other way around. I really want that Evergreen vs. Fillygree feeling from last round again.
I'm going to laugh if Luster's author gets much further in the contest without Trixie even being named—all of his or her opponents so far have made reference to that aspect of Luster's background, and here, Luster's author finally touched on it, but he or she still didn't bring up Trixie specifically. I'm starting to wonder if this might be another one of those traps (like Minié's racism), because I feel like Luster's round one and two opponents' references to Trixie have been to their detriment, because they were just that—references. Bare little links between Luster and Trixie that wouldn't have worked outside the scope of this contest, because they would probably have confused a reader. In fact, that's one thing I'll say that Vanilla's author's entry has going for it: He or she stuck with the reference to Trixie long enough to explain it and give it grounding there in the story rather than relying on Luster's character sheet to back it up (though whether any mention of Trixie had to be present to make the story work is another question). If you're going to bring in something from a character's sheet, that's the kind of thing I feel like you've got to do for it to work.
That factors into one of the problems I had with Luster's author's entry, actually. Up until this round, I feel like Luster's author was very good at not putting weight on any incorporated aspects of the sheets unless there was a point to doing so—we would get things like Heather's fluency in German and Luster's use of her wings as hand stand-ins, but the former was made to matter to the story and the latter was relegated to an inoffensive character quirk. They worked for those reasons. Here, though, Luster's author makes a very small reference to Luster's background as an escape artist and then bases a part of the climax on it, and retroactively, even. That was probably the weakest part of the entry, for me, and I wouldn't have expected it from the way Luster's author's other entries have gone. I know he or she has it in him or her not to do it again.
Apart from that, my complaints on Luster's author's story are pretty minimal. As usual, it was a well-edited piece (lines still felt a bit weird to me, here and there, but I didn't mind much). It was a very solid entry.
Edit: 6160571
I'm not actually seeing a double entendre there. Mind clarifying for me?
Luster Lock's author
This one is a done deal, no contest.
This is gonna be said a ton more times: the main reasons here are 1) the yawning difference in writing skills, and 2) the fact that Vanilla's story just doesn't say anything.
There is one interesting thing to say about Vanilla's entry, though...
Luster Lock is a character who has shown us some great personality in her stories, effectively growing beyond her character sheet as we go! Vanilla's rendition of her is clearly building off of the snarky and outgoing version that came out while Lock was trying to build an anti-monster device and then getting socked in the muzzle for stepping over the line. Mind you, I don't think it worked here, but I'm now interested in seeing if other characters will show that dynamic.
6160781
Luster Lock increasingly abbreviates Vanilla Skies' name. Apply the same process to Luster Lock's name.
6160972
A.) That's pretty convoluted, and I'm having trouble seeing that as being what the author intended.
B.) After Luster's author's round one entry, I actually took that to be the joke of her name anyway. That she was a "luster".
Luster Lock's author
Reason: Longer length allows more of the characters to be shown and explored, as well as LL's superior language skills helping it along.
Luster Lock's Author
This one wasn't even close.
Also
I found this line highly amusing. Vanilla Skies went and mangled the spelling of 'schedule' in their entry, and the first line of Luster Lock's entry italicizes the correct spelling? Man, that's one harsh coincidence. Good show!
Luster's Lock's Author.
Just a better written story tbh.
Luster Lock's Author
As others have said, it's really no contest. Sheer effort alone would be enough to sway the vote on this one, but what's more, the latter story was simply more substantial in not only word count, but inventiveness. I've little more to add than to second D's analysis: I think Vanilla Skies' author was cheated by the lack of competition. Luck of the draw, I guess.
Luster Lock's author
Does anything really need to be said here? Vanilla's story simply didn't make sense, and the author somehow managed to get Luster Lock―a character who has an entire encyclopedia entry and four stories dedicated to them―out-of-character. Based on the nonsensical story, the amount of errors, and the length, I have a feeling that this was cranked out at the last possible second.
On the flip side, Luster's was wonderfully written. It was funny, it was tense, and had a great hook. Lovely use of both characters.
The choice is clear. The choice... is Luster.
(And to think I voted against her first round!)
Luster Lock's Author
Not the best Luster Lock story so far, but still a clear winner here. Some things were pretty shaky (cartwheels at the beginning, lack of prominence from Luster), but others were really impressive. My gosh, the thought that went into that weather handling.
I want to read more from this author. This is the sort of thing I live for.
I don't have much to say about the first entry, beside that it's more at fault for losing than the second one is for winning.
Luster Lock's Author.
Gripping, engaging and satisfying.
Luster Lock's Author
After six tough calls in the other brackets this round, it's kind of a breath of fresh air to have an easier decision to make. No offense meant to Vanilla's author, of course, but you really need to work on a lot. Storytelling, dialogue, showing vs. telling, and that's not even to mention the issues at a mechanical level. It was a nice effort, and I will say that I enjoyed Vanilla as a character, but Luster Lock's author clearly had the better story.
Not to say it was flawless, though.
I wouldn't say this was Luster's strongest showing, but it was gripping nevertheless. Far and away the best thing about it was the description involved in the storm itself—you could feel the power, the terror, the absolute monstrosity behind that supercell. I really appreciated that. As far as the characters go, I liked the interactions between Vanilla and Luster well enough. I wish their meeting had been less contrived, though. Also, I know the story is supposed to focus on these two, but weren't there thirty-some other pegasi in that storm? It felt a bit off that we didn't see much of any of them—even if they were just flying around elsewhere. I can let it slide, though, because it's plausible in the chaos of the storm that the others just weren't noticed.
My biggest issue is that Luster Lock herself didn't really get to shine. Her personality was there, but you would never know she was a locksmith from her actions in this story. Aside from a bit of narration and a quick line about "escapology," her talent is never really mentioned—and it has no bearing on the plot, really. I'm not saying Luster necessarily could've been replaced by any other weak flier, but I just didn't feel her character shine through as much as I would've hoped.
Regardless, you told a good story, and you deserve the win here. Can't wait to see what you bring to Round 4!
Luster Lock's Author
Luster Lock's Author
Neither story was particularly strong, though Luster Lock's story gets my vote for the better writing. Although Luster Lock's story is well written and has a number of good points, including all of the weather talk (plus, Luster's line "What do we do if we don’t know what any of that means?"), I didn't really get a sense of either character's personality throughout the piece. The characters felt very generic, and it sort of felt like a story could have been about any weather pony and pegasus tourist. Some of the best stories this round have really dug into the psyche of the characters to show what makes them tick, and I feel like that was something this story failed to do.
LUSTER LOCK’S AUTHOR
Vanilla and Luster
Liked: The Alice in Wonderland reference was cute.
Disliked: Starting off with a bored character is never a good idea.
Supercell
Liked: The names of Luster’s wings. XD There’s a lot of funny bits in the first half.
Disliked: I suppose it stretches disbelief somewhat that all the weather pegasi are gone at that moment.
Luster Lock's Author
Vanilla Skies
Overall, the story felt kind of bland, and it felt like you fell into the same trap which many of the round 1 and 2 entries: it felt like you spent more time with your opponent's character than your own. Mind you, I can't claim that I didn't do the same in my own entries.
Luster Lock
The opening line . . . hard not to downvote on general principle. Don't get me wrong, I've used it before, but only when I'm staring at a blinking cursor and can't figure out how to start, and then I type that, and it's gone after the first draft. On the other hand (hoof?), you won me back with 'copper dreadful.' Also, naming her wings was a nice touch. Without bothering to google myself, it felt like you spent some time researching meteorology (or are naturally an expert), and included just enough to make me understand what you were talking about where it mattered, while not talking down to your audience. That's often a tough line to walk, and it came off very well in your piece. I also liked the bit about pegasi cooling air--it strikes me that just recently I read another story where it was assumed that pegasus magic could subtly alter air currents, and it felt so natural in your story that I started to actually wonder if it had happened in canon and I'd somehow missed it.
I would have liked to find a reason to downvote your entry, since you beat me in the last round. But I couldn't (aside from the opening line, that is). In this one, you brought back the charm I felt in your first entry.
6170685
Funny you should say that, 'cause yesterday an appointment customer showed up for an oil change and that's when I discovered that both guys who worked back in the shop were on lunch.