*incomprehensible babbling betwixt bouts of screaming*
It's hard growing up as Unicorn when your family is made up entirely of Dragons, Little Ember is feeling more and more as time goes on that she will never be able to fit in, but when she gets a hold of a copy of the spell Twilight used to Ascend, she will do anything in her power to fly with her clan.
Thing is, becoming an alicorn tends to be a big deal, and the Princesses are certainly going to take notice and action.
Written for the Rage Reviews "F*** THIS PROMPT!" Contest 6
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LOL LOVE IT hope to read more soon
6521762
Thanks! While writing this I decided that I actually liked Little Ember as a character, so I might write more for her in the future... but I'm just as likely to write for some other characters as well, since I'm not perfectly happy that her situation requires entangling canon characters like it does... you might notice I distanced myself from the canon by having it take place a couple decades in the future. Realizing that would mean Spike is just about the right age to talk to her about her problems was a happy accident as a result of my decision.
6521930 okay good to know thqnk you for letting me know
My only complaint is that it's entirely too short.
6522075
Thanks! I actually only had a week to write it for the contest, and if it weren't for that deadline I would have been inclined to keep writing... and writing... and writing... and it might never have made it onto FIMFiction.
I'm already drumming up ideas for a sequel of sorts... but given classes it might be a while before that becomes a reality.
This is probably just my personal taste, but the first line feels kinda forced with the description of Little Ember's appearance:
Optional comma would have made this sound better to me, but I suppose it is just my opinion.
Maybe I'm just weird, but the name Amber, for a male, caught my attention. I have only ever heard that as a female's name. Perhaps it's important? It'd be cool if this was some sort of tip off, but I sorely doubt it... Just wanted a personal record for this; you can ignore this part if you like, author.
I get that the place and the thing the mother is holding are proper nouns, but I question why lair is capitalized here. Same thing with
.
Enough about all that, let's talk content. I found it interesting, for sure. The only thing cliche-ish I could really point out from chapter 1 would be that a person that clearly is not part of the group they were raised by (probably in this case) going to go live among its real people. Of course, I do like that someone from the raising group is doing the teaching. I normally don't see that, and that's all operating under the assumption that that is where this is going.
I enjoyed much of the indirect characterization found it watching the daily actions of Little Ember, such as the noting of the new folk in The Caldera. Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I'll read the rest, although, perhaps not all in one sitting.
6524204
Thanks for the short review, I am certainly open to criticism(Helps me improve and all that!) I will admit that the description of her appearance was kind of hashed on there last minute as I realized that in like the... penultimate chapter, that there was nothing at all beyond her posturing and with her appearance being... a plot point at that juncture, I felt it needed some reference before hand and with the deadline for the contest fast approaching I couldn't quite find a great place to put it.
While I have used the name Amber for female characters before, I was trying to find a name that felt sufficiently dragon and looked to the show for examples... where the two that stood out to me in memory were Gargle and Crackle... I decided to go with a precious stone instead, and Amber was one of the first that came to mind.(Others were Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl... Don't know how they got there.
)
In regards to the capitalization of Lair and Hoard, I wanted to convey the feeling that in the dragon mindset, these were veeery important to them without being too Anvilicious with it. I suppose I succeeded in the subtlety department. The same type of thing goes on in later chapters, and I might have missed a few spots or been a tad inconsistent, but after the judging is over for the contest I'll be sure to go back and try and fix any errors I can find along those lines.
I will apologize now, the entire prompt that gave rise to this is pretty darn cliche...
I'm glad you enjoyed it though! And look forward to comments on future chapters too if you are so inclined.
While I can't claim to know what style Little Ember (hereafter LE) is learning Equestrian at this point, I find the idea that she is using phrases as opposed to the Esperanto/Esperantian style of building sentences via words slightly less believable. Here are the lines in reference:
Note the missing, implied words. When I was in Spanish 1 class in highschool, I didn't mind dropping the subject pronouns, but many of my classmates had an extremely hard time of letting go of them, and I would assume a new student to a language would want to keep things as by the books as possible. Of course, it is possible that the dragon language here uses similar phrases, or that Amber simply wanted to teach her through phrases, but I have to say that, at least the latter, isn't very likely. Words are the building blocks of languages, not phrases (but the Deez Nutz and His Name is John Cena memes do make me question that sometimes). I am, admittedly, being a nitpicker, but, hey, somebody's gotta do it, right?
However, I, as a linguistics enthusiast love that you include the idea of words not translating (real world example: English to Spanish: Do you have a pistol?----> ¿Tienes (or Tenéis for a plural you or y'all) una pistola?-----> (Literal translation) You have a pistol? Note the missing "do".) Just the idea that you have to add words which you have no meaning for in your native tongue can be confusing. I will note that the fact that it seems the Equestrian language uses more words than the dragon one, it could make sense that LE would want to exclude certain words, or talk in phrases their native language speaks (real world example: ESL (English second language) learners in Mexico often want to ask "How many years do you have?" as opposed to "How old are you?" because of the literal translation of the words that we use to ask that question. English is strange in that we ask for the age as opposed to the years had.).
Other aspects I liked is the number connections in the last paragraph, those being 18 and 6, which should be fairly easy for the reader to identify (adulthood and number of elements of harmony). I especially love the diction. The words are descriptive, but not purple. That's an important part of it for me. While I find purple talk in 3rd person stories acceptable, but not always preferable, in 1st person narratives, it almost always creates a detachment between the reader and the narrator. They have to be believable, and so far, LE is relatable enough for me. Growing up in an extremely rural area, I often didn't feel much like the other kids at all. My mannerisms were different, as well as my home culture, but they were (almost) always welcoming and warm to me, and I could blend in with their culture, and even enjoyed it, despite not being like them. My parents were suburbanites and halfway city slickers. They way they raised me to act, despite my hometown's general actions brought up some disparity. But I turned out alright, I think.
Anyway, sorry for digressing. I tend to ramble on sometimes. Back to the story, I also enjoyed more of the indirect characterization here, which paints a much clearer image of what kind of person LE is, how she learns, etc. I also feel like the more direct description of dragon culture, while not necessarily optimal, was the best choice to get it across in a short amount of words. Trying to paint us an image of it without being told would have been hard given the amount of words in these fic, so good call on that. However, if were forced to rewrite it, you should try to give us those details by allowing us to observe them rather than directly stating it. Let your readers think a little, I say.
Also, show detail note, while you mentioned ponies call Saddle Arabia by that particular name, however, it is worth mentioning that the creatures that inhabit Saddle Arabia are actually horses, as seen here. It'd have been nice if that note would have been made, but perhaps LE and Amber weren't aware of this fact or simply ignorant of the distinction.
I enjoyed this chapter. I'll be reading 3 sometime in the future. Hasta entonces.
6536046
In regards to all the stuff on language, I'm glad you appreciated the bit of effort I put in, the way I figured was that LE was learning the words to form sentences... but since the language she started with used those implied words, she has to remind herself to include them when forming sentences... and Amber is a picky teacher with a pretty firm grasp on the language.
I think if I had had more time I would have certainly tried to show the dragon culture bit... hmm... I'm actually getting ideas...
I actually called it Saddle Arabia because I remember reading it from another fic(can't recall off the top of my head), the fact that it actually showed up in the show with horses is news to me and interesting.
Continuation?
Iwould love to read more of this. I enjoyed it. Thumbs up!