After Equestria gets invaded, only Canterlot remains standing, for now. Behind a magic shield, starving and continuously bombarded, the mane six have one last happy moment before it's all over, courtesy of Pinkie Pie.
Chapters (2)
BrightDawn
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Fekin hoomuns mayn
Holy sh*t that's dark... I love it
Mah Feels...
Uhm... I have no context for anything that's going on.
I could literally shove any fictional property ever written into this... story fragment... by just changing the place and character names and it'd make no difference.
This isn't a story.
8396963
It's not about the context. It's about the way the characters deal with the situation
8397002 Yeah, but we're dealing with a story in which we have no real idea what's going on or what brought it about or how anything led to this conclusion. There's no way to feel for anything.
8397015
We don't know it because the characters don't know it.
I'm not sure why the ratings on this are so poor. Yes, it's short and it's dark, but the writing is fluid, the characterization is spot-on, and it's quite poignant. Bravo.
8397260
Thanks!
Welp, time for my good deed of the week. Queue the overview!
Let's start with the tags: Teen, Gore, Dark, Drama, AU, Sad, Tragedy. These tell me that this is going to be a depressing, disgusting story of blood, violence, and death. Not my cup of tea, but judging by the comments, I shouldn't be too worried. As for the description... Uh... huh?
No, seriously, huh? These six girls are the heroes of Equestria. They fight and fight and fight until it's over, and if they haven't won, they get ready to continue the fight. If they're just giving up... what the hell's going on? Judging by the comments, we won't know what broke their spirits, but it's probably something horrible. I swear. Really. Without showing it.
But, that's casting judgement before starting: Let's get to the actual story itself.
Why the hell did you put the ellipses on the wrong side of the space? How did that even happen?
Welp, time to ask the question: are the invaders Humans? If so... What the hell's going on?! Artillery isn't used nearly as much as in WW2, WW1, or even the wars before that. It's, at most, a softening blow before the actual invasion, and considering that these things supposedly, "Destroyed every town village and hamlet in Equestria", artillery was the only thing used... which is a grand waste, as well as ineffective.
Also, if these are humans, where the hell is the human tag? Also, Humans? What the hell's going on? Context, please!
Ah, yes, as everyone knows, when the going gets tough, the tough... give in and lose their core values. Wait, what? No. That's... that's not how this works.
Uh... huh? That's what a binder is for, or a stack of papers, or even a board with tacks in it, not a book! Seriously, this is illogical. What the hell's goin' on? Writer, stop going "it's some nebulous outside force that we don't now..." When it's clearly known! You're the narrator, the third person omniscient, USE YOUR WORDS TO EXPLAIN!
Ah, yes, I too often ask questions of great importance out loud, facing the destruction of my homeland, as if talking to someone. You didn't need to include this. We already see she's trying to figure it out, as you've shown through description. Putting this in is akin to treating your audience like idiots.
Alright, hang on... she saw this? So we know what the threat is. You have intelligence on it, but you, the narrator, have decided "Y'know what? I'm not gonna tell the audience what it is, let's leave it in suspense." despite it having the opposite effect.
Also, really? "dragged out of the rubble and executed"? If there's a villain, they're absolutely insane. If it's a human, he's not from this Earth, at which point you'd have to explain who the hell is doing this. If he's from this earth, he must be some serial killer, except, no , he's not that either, as he commands a military force capable of defeating the power of the sun.
And then... the note... "Hey, one last party..." yeah, that's really friggin' defeatist! Seriously, this is Pinkie Pie we're talkin' about, the one pony that would have high morale. She's basically said, "I've accepted death, might as well have a last moment of fun!"
Alright, chapter 1, and here's what I got: Humans are cruel but strong, because they are of course superior to magic but with the moral fiber of a shark sniffing blood, while Ponies have basically been xenocided, and the mane 6, the most influential heroes, have basically given up to die.
Explanation/reasoning? Nope, none. Quite annoying.
Question: Why did you even bother splitting up the chapters? There's literally no point to splitting it up, as it adds nothing and forces the reader to click another button, as well as making it seem like you couldn't write a 1k word chapter.
Yeah... fun fact: People don't actually make jokes that are real. The more real the joke, the less people make fun of it. For example, if you're talkin' to a person without a leg and arguing you wouldn't say, "You don't have a leg to stand on!" not even in jest unless the two of you were too close.
To put it simply: You don't joke about something in the present that's bad, only looking back.
Ah, yes... "Hey, you're starving to death. HAHAHA" gets me every time... except, no. It doesn't.
The next few pieces of dialogue show something to me: You don't know how to write dialogue. You put periods where commas are supposed to go, and that's one of the first rules of grammar.
JESUS CHRIST! Mass suicide?! That's... going a bit far... not unjustified, but... Jesus christ, man, you kinda jumped the shark there, and having Fluttershy say it is even worse!
And then the story ends with ritualistic suicide via said punch...
There's one problem with this story: It's not a story. It's, at best, the bad end to a much longer story. The character motivations aren't explained, the plot is undefined at best and purposely vague at worst, the characters are only tangentially related to their show counterparts, and it all smells of "I just wanted to write the suicide of the mane 6 without justifying it."
I can see why people are downvoting it, though not to the level it's getting. Other than the dialogue, the grammar's decent, albiet a bit... annoying at times, and the plot is just an exploration of a theme. Honestly, this would be a story I just ignore, if not for downvotes and me trying to find out why.
BrightDawn, you need desperately to look at the front cover again. The tags do not fit the story. It's dark, sure, but there's no gore, nor Drama. The Tragedy and Sad tags, while appropriate, don't fit either, as the story didn't develop the world or the characters to the point that I felt attached to them.
However, this isn't a bad story, just... unimportant. Not worth the effort of reading, as it doesn't provide much. I'd advise going away from "Mature Dark" stories and maybe try writing an adventure, or a longer story. You might find some fun or success there.
Hope this helped, if you have any questions/clarifications, feel free to reply or pm me.
8397279
So, the goal here was to take humans, with all our dark history (genocide, war,...) and turn them into a Lovecraftian horror for the ponies. And you do not win against Lovecraftian horrors, otherwise they're no longer Lovecraftian horrors. So what do you do? Piss your pants? Fill yourself with impotent rage? No, you bow out gracefully. Cato the Younger for example is a personal hero of mine, and his end wasn't that rosy. Sometimes good just doesn't triumph.
The villains aren't as outlandish as you think. Humans have genocided their own kind before. It's hard to conceive what we'll be willing to do to other sapient species, given the right Nazism 2,0 or Communism 2,0 brainwashing us. But fundamentally, it doesn't matter. Lovecraftian horror is supposed to have some degree of mystery. The more a personality you give to a villain, the more they stop feeling like an unstoppable force of nature crashing against you. And considering we are humans, mystery is only maintained by giving the reader what little information the characters would have about an invading genocidal army. They came here to shoot first and ask questions later, and they had no questions to ask. They didn't come here as diplomats or to give the characters exposition about why and how human society got so fucked up. Also, the vagueness is supposed to make the reader think. Is this really my species? What could drive my species back into genocide? Why do we have these tendencies? Could I be driven to take part in these acts?
Finally, the characters all had been through a lot. I tried to make a point of it. Of course Twilight would give up part of her orderliness in a city under siege, running out of everything, including paper. Her order is a quirk, not a fullblown mental illness, she still has her priorities. You'd be mumbling to yourself as well after all that has happened. And they turned to gallows' humor for the same reason humans do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows_humor
8397399
That's not possible, though. Humans are rational creatures at their cores, albiet with our own biases. Lovecraftian horrors are not logical, they're the antithesis to human thought and construction. You didn't make a lovecraftian horror, you made an invading army with the morals of a demon with twice as much power, while still being human.
As for the humans being horrorifying monsters... you're correct. We have been and will continue to be so until a time comes that we surpass this, but, and here's the thing... Justification. Try justifying an invasion and genocide today to a westernized nation with the military capability of doing what you described. 90% of those are democracies, and other humans would put a stop to any invasion as reason dictates when atrocities are committed. Unless this is UN action, of course, which is impossible.
As for the vagueness, I know it's purposeful. I know the intention behind it. It fails in that regard, not through the fault of the story. Go to the groups "Humans are Superior" or any of its subsidiaries. You'll see people unironically calling out that Humans should commit genocide against ponies if they show up.
As for the character's... You're forcing us to assume, and that's not something readers should be required to do. Show us what they went through, and we'd understand. Show us the torture, the murder, the blood and reactions, not just, "Yeah, this happened, and they reacted, but this is just the after effects."
Also, paper running out? That's highly doubtful, even after a two month siege.
8397451
We far from always maintain that rational core. The 250 million victims of democide of the 20th century speak to that. A dictatorship is a lumbering, unfeeling leviathan. Perhaps an individual human can't make a Lovecraftian horror, but put us together in a society, and that changes. How is being sent to Auschwitz or a gulag not at least metaphorically similar to being swallowed by a giant monster?
Let's say China does this. A) Start WWIII B) Let some aliens get slaughtered. Pretty obvious choice don't you think? Or Iran even. A) Get bogged down in another conflict in the Middle East B) Let some aliens get slaughtered. Again, not that hard to see why other countries would sit by and watch. Military force also isn't an absolute. Who says this was done by a modern army? I could easily see even a Napoleonic era army doing this, as long as the ponies are vulnerable to gunpowder, while the attackers aren't vulnerable to magic.
Finally, leaving the horror to the imagination of the reader had multiple purposes. It would have been tiresome, describing all the things that gave value to the mane six, besides each other, getting eviscerated one by one. Horror also tends to work better when it exploits the readers own imagination against him. The final toast was specifically designed to make the reader think about all that's lost. But finally, believe it or not, this was meant as a triumph of the mane six. Not a physical one, but one of spirit. Living well is the best revenge, and by having that last happy moment, they got said revenge.
8397553
Oh, metaphorically, maybe, but that's not the case. As we don't see this "great government conspiracy" or the "masked horrors", we're just meant to infer and, at least for me, that's lacking. I'm aware its basically personal taste, but to me, it's akin to telling the reader, "Hey, I was too lazy to actually make something horrifying so... uh... make something up yourself." I'm aware that's a rather simplistic form, and can credit you in the use of "Unknown horror", but for me it just didn't hit the right spot.
Ignoring the fact that this new untouched land would have the eyes of the world upon it, as well as having super powers check each other from capitalizing on it, as well as the fact that war is far more expensive and less productive than trade agreements.... but I assume you want us to assume that it's some dictatorship of monstrous proportions, with the Morales of a soggy biscuit. As for the argument that they aren't affected by magic.... No. Considering we've seen DayBreaker literally summon fire, and Twilight lift a ursa minor, I'm pretty sure dropping earth on people would work. And if it's a Victorian army, I'm afraid that doesn't hold up. The Pegasi can just electrocute them from the clouds, and considering the military ideas were akin to "Get in a square and march", any number of AoE magic can murder them.
Though I will credit you for the whole "not get bogged down", though I'll point out that if you had elongated the story and made it more than >1k per chapter, you could do so. Also, this was supposed to be triumphant? I don't find death triumphant, I find dead the lose state.
Look, I'll say this again, thought it might not be a good story, this isn't a bad story, but it just rubbed me the wrong way. I can't sympathize with either side, and it's just a snippet of a much larger story.
8398067
I’m guessing it rubbed you and a lot of other people the wrong way because of philosophical reasons. There are multiple ideas I worked into this story and most of them are far from mainstream. First of all, that the universe sometimes decides to chew on you for no apparent reason. Hardly an idea people can debate, though a very frustrating thing to read or think about.
Second, related to the first, that Lovecraftian horrors are all around us. Something doesn’t have to be infinite to appear infinite. It just has to be sufficiently larger and stronger than you. War, dictatorship, old age, disease,… all these things could squash you in a way that isn’t too dissimilar to the way a Lovecraftian horror would. Why create monsters when monsters already exist in our world?
Thirdly, that death, pain and failure are inevitable for any mortal. You can avoid your final meeting with the former, and your regular appointments with the two latter for a while, for a while, but they will have their due.
Fourthly, the Stoic idea that death, pain and failure don’t stop you from being happy or good person. As Marcus Aurelius said “Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.” Believe it or not, the show has at least dipped a toe in this pool. Why giggle at the ghosties in real life? Because they’ll disappear like in the show? No, because you won’t live in misery as they rip your face off. Obviously the show didn’t take it to the extreme I’ve taken it, because otherwise angry parents would have lynched anyone that had anything to do with it, but it’s still something to think about.
Finally, that there’s someone can be a badass, without winning or even coming away from the affair with his life. Read this when you have the time. I’d highly recommend it.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/cato_minor*.html
Ibali likhulu! Ndiyithandile ukuphuhliswa komlingiswa kunye nendlela oguqukayo phakathi kweendawo! Ingcaciso yakho yandivuyisa kwaye ndiyathemba ukuba wenza kakuhle! Qinisekisa ukuba awuyibeki i-sauce kwindawo yokuhlamba!
Short, sweet, and to the point. I like a good short story, and this is one.
I caught in the above horiffic walls of text that you're a fan of Lovecraft, and I can definitely see the inspiration here, though it strays a bit from the classic horror theme. I recall a fair few of his stories where the "protagonist", so to speak, ends up taking his own life in response to the horrors that afflict him in some form or another.
Though I may have no context to go off of, as your critic readily pointed out, it's not at all necessary for a short story to be good and fluid. It felt real, and at the same time mysterious. It left a lot to the imagination while giving out enough to not be entirely vague.
There were a few minor grammatical errors and the like, but nothing that really broke my immersion. Nontheless, a little proofreading can go a long way.
I believe that the best way to proofread a story is to let it sit for a little while, and allow yourself to get out of the writing mood, so to speak, then come back to it another day and read it through a few times. You may find that there are some mistakes that you didn't initially notice when you return, grammatical or plotwise.
Another good method is to physically write out your story (or physically write it to begin with, then type it later). It's not ideal for evaluating the plot, but even the smallest of grammatical errors will stick out a mile high when you're focusing on every word you need to copy.
All in all, I'd say this work is deserving of a like.
I don't know why so many dislikes! I give it a like bc it was good! Some ppl just dont like dark stories I guess.
8755505
Hmm. I did want to go straight for the jugular immediately. This was meant as a story about accepting defeat and I can see how it could be unsatisfying to not know how that defeat came about.