Sunspot
Sunspot
I shouldn't say she deserved it,
but Peridot deserved it.
Complaining about taxes
as if I'm not scrambling
to keep every pony in Myinnkyun alive
on a beltstrap budget!
I'd laugh at how she was killed
by the natives that she isn't
paying the garrison to repel,
if that didn't also mean
we're all downright fecked.
The Mooken have been watching
from just beyond the firelight
since we cleared the sands,
but now they're on the move.
Controlling the kelpies
to kill us from within,
and stealing spears as links
for sympathetic spellcasting,
to ruin our fighting force
before the invasion.
An island full of minotaur shamans,
and what magic have we got?
A captain ten years out of shape;
whatever crazy black-magic powers
Shooting Star never talks about;
and that useless drunkard Spotlight,
who no more fought off that Mooken
than I swam here from Equestria.
(I'd have him in a cell
for deserting his post
if his sire wasn't the mayor.)
With some reinforcements
perhaps we could wait it out,
but I didn't act fast enough.
I had hoped that
killing the kelpie in the harbor
would prevent her from calling
more of her kind
for the Mooken to control,
but since they're already
sinking inbound ships,
it's clear:
we've only got one chance.
Press-gang every able-bodied pony,
march into the jungle,
and slaughter the Mooken
before they can slaughter us.
First thing in the morning,
it's time.
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First!
Just kidding, Horizon.
6421754
As punishment for your transgressions against the Gods of Pony Internet, I sentence you to three Hail Lunas, two Our Heartbutts, and reread the Catechism of Cake. :V
(Also maybe to enter and/or signal-boost the contest to solve the mystery, and compete for some of the cash and prizes!
)
In all seriousness, having read both this and the Writeoff version, this is an unexpectedly haunting tale and it really kinda sticks with you after it's done. I have no brilliant insights as yet as to the truth of the whodunit, and I fear my sleuthing skills are dull at best, but whatever the outcome of your contest I very much enjoyed the core piece.
6421808
MY HEARTBUTT
MINE
I thought I was good at solving mysteries... Then this story happened.
6422162
Unless no ships were ever sunk at all and Dawn Patrol has just been scaring them off with tales of plague. Question still stands as to what the hell Adagio was doing he night of Peridot's death.
AARGH PERIDOT DROWNS IN THE DAYTIME
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
NOTE: Deleted 6422162 due to a significant unintentional spoiler. I sent him the comment text and encouraged that it be reposted after the contest is over.
It was the comment that started with:
I'm happy to field basic questions (and wild speculation) here, especially if you're not planning on entering the contest, but once you start drilling down into the clues and assembling logical conclusions, I want to make sure that contest entrants aren't piggybacking off of others' work. If you're not entering the contest, and you're impatient to know how close your deductions are, then PM me with your guess and I'll give you a ballpark yes/no.
(Contestants are on the honor system not to team up and abuse this.)
6422111
If not, track the story and you'll see the answer in the winning contest entry!
If you sit down and assemble a list of what you know and whose stories contradict, I think things will start to come together.
6422294
Or, given the Writeoff almost-prompt that originally inspired this, perhaps it's "Poor Little Bottercup."
6422388
ALIENS
6422730
I'll try opening each chapter next to each other and cross check when I get the time...
Incidentally, I've always enjoyed the name "Nightmare" for bat ponies.
6422730
I'm not saying it was bat ponies
But
It was bat ponies
6422722
The problem with this is that now you've quasi-confirmed to me that Skywriter's biggest sleuth is on the right track.
Or is it? Maybe you think the spoiler was something else. Maybe you cackled to yourself at how completely off he was, but thought that maybe you should delete it just in case, or just to be sure that other incidental information wasn't leaked.
It was a hell of an idea he came up with to be sure. I still can't tell what possibly inspired him to think what he did, but the more I consider it the more impossibly correct it seems to be.
6423157
I TOLD YOU ALL IT WAS ALIENS
BUT DID YOU BELIEVE ME?
NOOOoooOOOooo!
Why hasn't anyone pointed out the obvious?! Everything we know is a lie!!
It's a peninsula, not an island.
Well, fantastic poetry, loved the change in aesthetics to reflect the different characters. It's maddening how alive the scenery becomes, just by the strength of their monologues.
Guess I'll have to wait ten days for the conclusion =/
6423008
That's one of the parts:
That confuses me. I thought the Nocturnes were the batponies. I'm not entirely certain who or what these Nightmares are supposed to be. But then I missed that these were dreams entirely when I read it in the Writeoff, too...
Mike
6423719
Oh, don't worry, you're not the only one who didn't realize they were dreams the first time through.
Frankly, I didn't figure out a super-important piece of the puzzle until reading it this time.
6423008 6423719
I'm just going to give a Word Of God answer on this one, because they're headcanon names and I don't want the distinctions to be unclear:
For purposes of this story,
• Nocturne is the term for ponies physically altered by some form of Lunar magic, of all three tribes. "Batponies" are Nocturne pegasi. Not all Nocturne in this story are pegasus Nocturne; that may or may not be relevant to the mystery(s).
• Night Guard are a special division of the Equestrian Royal Guard composed of Nocturne. Shooting Star is a Night Guard, and the only one in town.
• Nightmares are simply ponies (or other beings…) that have received special training in dream infiltration. They're sort of Lunar secret agents. It's a job description, not a racial description.
There are several places in the text that should exposit that (with greater or lesser clarity), but for contest purposes I'm happy to set that straight.
I reviewed this story!
My review can be found here.
6424075
My train of thought:
Was heading along the path of Nocturnes being night pegasi and Nightmares being night unicorns, but reading Horizon's "clearing up" comments, I'm glad this information isn't necessary for the conclusion I've reached. Now I can be much more certain that my conclusions are entirely erroneous, and I can get on with writing my entry without having to worry about it winning.
Mike
6424405
You could make an entry that's so amazingly "incorrect" that it sways Horizon to your way of thinking, and that would make your story become the most correct!
Nearly 1500* words of case study later and I haven't come to any conclusions I didn't extricate from my readings last night.
Meh, the case study was fun to draw up.
Though I haven't analyzed yet! So who knows what I might find!
Also, I'm trying to restrain myself from wasting hours attempting to translate the Mooken words based on the information from the Writeoff thread. I put a bit of time into it last night and the research got scary fast.
EDIT: I failed to restrain myself. 6424954
EDIT: EDIT: *It's not nearly any more**
EDIT: EDIT: EDIT: **coughs more like nearly 2000 coughs
6421808
I hear they're doing the final editing pass on the Litany of Checklists and the new psalms. Should be in next year's hymnals.
In less theological matters, I'm definitely going to have to think about this one. I may need to draw up a flowchart, or at least a dramatis personae...
This was by and far my favorite entry in the Writeoff.
This was beautiful.
I sadly dont think I have the mental fortitude to solve this wonderful mystery.
A dream of a dream of what might have been
As much as I'd like to take a shot at writing the last chapter, there is no way in hell I'd be able to write one good enough to be the solution/ending.
This is just awesome. It's a mystery!
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGH-
What the @#$% happened to my neutral mood you sadistic #$%^?!
Favourited, tracking, adding to best-of-the-best folder. Only partially out of spite.
I've now read this through three times. Time to try and turn my notes into a definitive whodunit, or at least an improvisation that's easy on the eyes
Solution:
Littlemoth did it because Peridot tread on her Nikes.
6424578
But that would then invalidate:
The entire core concept of my entry, causing it, I assume, to swirl away like "The Mouse's Tale" in Alice in Wonderland. It'll be an interesting experiment, at any rate.
Mike
6423571 6425300
Thank you! I'm glad to hear it's leaving such an impact.
6425070
I just wanted to say, this really means something extra given your initial reaction in the Writeoff. That's high praise, that I was able to write something that didn't catch you originally and then stuck in your craw and kept gnawing at you from the inside until you found yourself giving it such high regard. So thank you for opening yourself up to the experience!
6425417
You might do better than you think! I've gotten four entries now, which use four different narrators and identify three different individuals as the primary culprit ... I'm not judging your deduction based on whether you come up with the "correct" answer in my head or not, I'm judging based on how well the explanation you come up with fits with the facts. What I want readers to do is to go as far into understanding the story as analysis will get them, and then follow their instincts from there to wherever the contradictions thin out the most. Some of the clues were left deliberately vague in order to encourage exactly that.
Plus, half of the judging is just whether you can write something cool. (That's why we're all here!) And I've read at least one story of yours that I liked, so I think you've got it in you.
6424859
I know you've already submitted your entry [1], but speaking as a more general response to authors considering solving it: yes, that's probably a good strategy. It took me about two days of plotting to piece this together myself, back before I wrote the first word.
--
[1] It should be noted that both you, and other entrants, are allowed to revise and resubmit, right up until the deadline. Useful if you wake up one morning and suddenly an overlooked clue smacks you in the face.
6432966
This is more likely to happen if you just tell me who did it like I keep asking.
6433003
I TOLD YOU IT WAS okay enough of that gag already
6433304
Werewolves?
6433309
Yes. A secret mysterious third faction working in secret on devious tasks. Turning into wolves, stealth-editing comments to confuse horizon, things like that.
6433345
Yeah, not that we would ever have had some kind of weird misunderstanding or anything and chose to cover it up instead of reveal our mistakes, thereby exposing us as mere humans, and also when you edited it you forgot to leave in the parent post tag.
But also that didn't happen.
It was the aliens.
6433396
Of course not. That would be silly of us. Obviously the parent post tag is there now, just as it has been all along.
6432954
In THAT case...
I shall begin work at once! I hope I can do this justice.
Also I find it incredibly flattering that you've read my work.6435840
I don't think that's a fair assessment of poetry in general. Poetry is just another writerly dialect like prose or song. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but, if literary history is anything to go by, it's a very capable method of storytelling.
6439284 cough Shakespeare cough
Horizon, I know just enough to know you're brilliant. That, and a dozen other brilliant authors here in your comments told me so.
I am not, as they say, a clever pony. While I have some idea of the "truth" in these dreams, I also see too many outcomes to make myself certain of any. I could try to judge, but as a judge, I'd demand far greater evidence than has been presented.
Yes, I know that's your point with this contest, but... it's not for me. If I wanted to work at solving problems, I'd be doing my damn job right now, not reading ponyfic.
So... can't wait to see what "truth" is revealed in a week(ish) here. But I'm far, far too lazy to try to prove my own case!
6439802
No worries. Thanks for reading! It's been great seeing the proposed solutions roll in.
6440536
I wrote a story once that was nothing but about dreams and dreamscapes. The challenge was as you said, to make things feel weird and abstract but yet familiar.
I did so without the use of poetry but by use of other technical tricks. Namely, everything outside of the dreams have zero descriptions whatsoever (it was dialogue ONLY) and everything in the dreams were descriptions ONLY with zero dialogue. The dichotomy made each section one after the other feel more distinct and created oddness in the reading.
I still would never stoop to POETRY though.
Pfah. Poetry. Yuck.
*vomits stanzas*
There once was a pony from Poland
Who had a great penchant for poem
He made sure they rhymed
and kept metered time
and whatever fuck it poetry sucks MYEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhh
My problem with poetry isn't that I don't enjoy it, I do. My problem is that it's an inherently musical art. It's meant to be heard, recited in the proper cadence and inflection that demands knowing it before hand. Poetry was devised to aid in memory and to ease reception, the written words are for the poet, for dissection afterwards, not for the recipient. Something is lost, is missing when it is being read, when I don't know how to read it.
6444188
That's a legitimate argument, but I think there's another to be made in the other direction. How do you communicate this chapter's presentation and subtext in non-textual form? How does spoken poetry handle sight rhymes and slant rhymes and deliberate homonym ambiguities and other purely visual artifacts?
I don't think poetry's a purely visual form; it certainly overlaps (and has largely, in the modern era, been subsumed by) song lyrics. But neither do I think it's an auditory form. I think it's their fragile and misshapen and beautiful offspring, and its beauty is in that tension of opposites.
6448303
By disagreeing with
the assertion that
'sight rhymes' or
slant rhymes are
poetic.
Is that poetry? No. That's me breaking the sentence just to prove a point. I won't argue that those types of rhymes are or are not actually 'rhymes' or poetic because it's pointless. But I file those in the same place I do 4'33".
You want to call that poetry? Fine. But I won't. It offers me nothing and I get nothing.
6448303
You'll see soon.