For five hundred years the statue maker has served her sentence. Her crime dabbling in the darkest of necromantic magic. Now finally an agent of judgement and death, a creature far worse than she herself has come, to carry out final judgement on her. She couldn't be more happy. He however has other plans and carries out a sick act of mercy on her. She though that he was the one that would killed her, he had promised him mercy, but as the years pass another comes with that same promise. Will a SMILE agent, be any more just than the Phantom himself or will she bear her horrid curse of all eternity. Gorgon pony contest entry. And yes this is to be considered cannon for Order of Eclipse for the two of you people that might actually give half a monkey's dessert.
Other in universe stories
Open my Present First It's a Mommy
Order of Eclipse
Guess I should give credit where credit is do Art is by HerrEsel.
Unfortunately you put this story in the wrong folder as the one you put it in was for the everyone rating. Don't worry Ill go ahead and move it to the proper folder.
8062898 Merci beaucoup it was late and I forgot that I actually rated this one T
8063522 Don't worry it is fine. I really wish I could read these stories but I have to wait until May before I can.
Before I read this, what is the Dark tag for ?
And how bad does it get ?
8064066 Not very it's got some painful stuff, but I do hold myself to a standard, if you can read Revelations you can read anything I write.
8063775 May is close at hand now and the other ones that I've read are great just a few more weeks, I hope mine lives up to your expectations.
For the good: Nice to see a story based on greek mythology, very well detailed in the scenery descriptions, a bit of world building is always nice and I could actually sympathize with the villainess!
For the bad: Given the fact that you seem to speak another language some of these issues aren't actually too bad in retrospect so I can understand them, grammar could use a bit of work, a couple spelling errors and the big one for me... when the characters are being described it's great, when the characters actually talk, react and respond to each other they seem a bit... uninterested.
Overall a good story, 7/10
8111857 thank you for your critique, but I don't think you can call Bon Bon a villainess she's just an overly idealistic idiot.
8112691 I meant our protagonist, the gorgony. She seems a bit evil to me, killing explorers seems a bit rude lol.
8113022 True but
So the explorers that were turned to statues either did the same thing Lot's wife did or they attacked her assuming her a monster.
8113948 I concede that's a good point!
8114063 Thanks I do try and cover my bases. Though with a moral relativism reading you could still say she's a villainess through the use of black magic that not even the Phantom would dare think to use.
Alright. So, right out of the gate, I would like to let it be known that I absolutely adore mythological creatures and although I’m a little werewolf-crazed right now, Medusa has been one of my favorite monsters ever since Clash of the Titans was a thing. In short, there’s a non-insignificant part of me that really wanted to like this story based on its Gorgony premise alone.
Ultimately, I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t impressed. I think you've got a solid starting point that you could eventually build into a pretty great story, but as it is it didn't leave much of an impact.
Firstly, I really need to mention the grammar. Your grammar is bad, consistently bad to an extent that made me almost forget about the story part way through and spend more time combing through it for grammar mistakes and typos than paying attention. I don’t want to make too much of a fuss over the grammar because I think it’s a comparatively concrete topic that just about anyone can perfect if they put the time into it, but it’s distracting enough that I need to mention it. In particular, the long description, short description, and opening paragraph all have either sloppy grammar or typos in the first sentence or two, which might be the worst possible places to have those kinds of mistakes. I would strongly urge you to either spend a lot more time learning proper grammar or to try and find an editor who can help you out.
Secondly, your descriptions often sounded clunky, choppy or overly wordy. I'm going to analyze a couple paragraphs and see if I can give you an idea of how you might be able to make things a little smoother.
Let's start with these two:
Firstly, you used the word "Began" three times in two sentences, which is both repetitive and also more passive than you could make it. This passage is also quite stilted and choppy and I think it would be easier to read if you made more of an effort to cut out superfluous words and chain clauses together. Here's an example of how I might change these two paragraphs:
I would probably word things even more differently, but I feel like the version I suggest conveys similar images without changing the wording too much, but in a more concise, fluid and forceful manner.
Here's another one:
Again, pretty choppy and lots of passive verbs you could replace. Here's how I might edit this one:
All of those suggestions were of course just suggestions and I would encourage you to play with them a little and find something that suits you. As I mentioned, I think the important things are to make the sentences connect more smoothly, cut out unnecessary words and maybe try to use active voice more than passive. If you would like a few more examples, just let me know.
Everything I've mentioned so far has mostly been technical in nature, more focused on the presentation of the story than its content, so let's talk about the content.
On paper, I think you have a pretty solid basis for a story. As far as I can tell, it basically boils down to a mother turning to desperate means to save her child that end up backfiring and turning her into a monster. Then, she accidentally kills her husband and lives as an outcast for a few hundred years until she ends up forcibly recruited into an order of monstrous peacekeepers where she is eventually slain. It's quite deserving of the tragedy tag and I think it could definitely make for a compelling story. However, I'd like to talk about the reasons for which, for me at least, it ultimately wasn't.
Basically, you're cramming a whole bunch of stuff into a short story and that means that the characters don't have a lot of depth to them. The Gorgony barely has any distinct personality and I think that's mostly because you never took the time to establish her as a character. I first saw her during a big crisis, which I didn't care much about because I had no idea who this mare was, then I see her again five hundred years during another crisis which I still don't care about because I still barely know who this person is, then I saw her get really angry because a person who'd never been seen or mentioned was killed and then I saw her rush into battle, where I didn't really care that she died because I still barely knew a thing about her other than that she became a Gorgony.
This, in my opinion, was the story's biggest flaw. It's supposed to be a tragedy, which might be the genre that most requires making the reader care about your character so that their downfall is a powerful moment, but you didn't take the time to develop her to the point where I could actually care about her. As far as I can tell, you skip right past what could have been some of the best opportunities to give her some depth: you could have shown her struggling with her monstrous nature and immortality and making what must have been a very difficult decision to seclude herself, or you could have shown her adjusting to being part of this Order she was dragged into and gradually taking comfort in the realization that she's doing some good or something like that. I guess I might also add that I would have liked to see more background on the Order, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's given more attention in the main story and not put up too much of a fuss over it.
Ultimately, I think you have a solid foundation and a couple really good scenes but a lot of gaps that need to be filled in. You could show more of her life before she became a Gorgony, more of her life as a Gorgony or maybe more of her life as a member of the Order, but I really feel like she needs something more than what you gave her. You've got an intriguing world built up and what seems like a multitude of interesting possibilities, but what you've shown here does not, in my opinion, do them justice.
Anyway, I hope that was helpful. I'm trying not to sound too negative, but if there's anything you'd like me to clarify or anything you'd like to contest, feel free to ask.
8161960 Ouch! Brutally honest and appreciated.
I like this, too bad there's no sequel.