At the bottom of Stable 10, the great generator that has kept its residents alive for centuries is beginning to fail. As solutions are sought within, one pegasus sets her sights on the very ponies who built - and possibly sabotaged - her home.
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Oof...kept them alive for now, but the tin cans aren't gonna be happy when they figure out she really isn't Enclave. Wonder if they'll be talking their way out, or sneaking...fighting would be bad.
Charming. It could be your ass she has to patch up someday, yanno?
I'm sure it's fine.
There we go! I almost mentioned it last chapter, but I was wondering when those rads would come into play. The sudden charisma Aurora showed seems a bit much out of the blue; if possible, you might consider going back and making mention of Buck Boarding or something during her preparations to exit the Stable. Set it up as a foreshadowing or Chekhov's gun, so that this moment here doesn't come out of left field so hard? Previously we've been led to believe that Aurora isn't very people-oriented, so this play is a bit of a stretch, especially with her radsoaked state. Minor concern, but worth noting. It strikes me more as something Ginger would do, buuuuut....
The Darling line and Ginger's reaction are pure gold and if you change that I will never forgive you.
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;) Duly noted! I tend to agree, I didn't spend nearly enough time justifying her sudden change of character and did a furtive preload of backstory to give it a lazy writer's push. When I start revising, I want to spend a little more time - maybe one more chapter - inside Stable 10 before she leaves so readers can get a broader sense of a day in her life. That includes the pulp films that influence some of her perceptions as well as a better picture of how the generator should be operating on a normal day, and what she actually *does* with it. Complete missed opportunity there and worth a rewrite.
Who?
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The radio host. I believe she referred to herself a bit earlier in the dialogue.
Damn, that scene at the end is... I have no words. I really love your story, been binging it for the last two hours
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Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it! :)
Hold up, I thought Mr Cake died? Did... did she remarry?
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They both died. Did I goof a detail somewhere earlier?
Another solid chapter. First off, I continue to adore Teak's story. It reminds me of that book Things Fall Apart, where what was once held as important, like getting piercings, seems insignificant compared to the problems that come along later. Kinda like:
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I saw a few issues. Firstly, I think Aurora comes off way too smoothly for someone who's dying of radiation poisoning. It comes out of absolutely nowhere. She can't walk, she's got the world's worst headache, and there are gaps in her memory... but she's mentally present enough to smoothly lie through her teeth? Over and over Aurora has been shown to be awkward at handling new things, and now, when she's at a new low, she suddenly takes up the slack. Where was this smooth talking the first two times she encountered Cider? Why hasn't she talked herself out of more problems? Why didn't Roach or Cider make this move or something like it? Cider points out the trouble it got them in later, but I don't think that'd stop her from making a play like that to save their lives. Plus, she's been shown to know her way around a conversation before, and as a salespony, it makes more sense than Aurora, a mechanic who, by her own description of herself, avoided difficult conversations by taking alternate hallways in the Stable.
The idea that came to mind was to still have Aurora pull this off is to have her be quoting someone else, and thereby borrowing someone else's lie. A good way to explain this could be the radio serial she's mentioned to be inspired by. Maybe the protagonist of that show was in a similar situation - trying to lie his way into a zebra compound or something - and uses the same excuse. Then, when it works the same way, she and everyone else can be surprised, and you can have a fun "how did Buck Barding escape in the story?" "He grappled onto a pony vertiberd for extraction" "okay well that's obviously not an option so we need to figure this out" moment, or something similar to it. Just a suggestion, but you get the idea.
I think this is glaring enough that it needs to be fixed. You could also establish a precedent of Aurora having her smooth-talking moments - getting herself and Roach out of the first encounter with Cider would be a good place, I think. You could also add a scene or two in the Stable to show this. It'd be reasonable that Aurora is off her groove in a new environment, and then doesn't reclaim the confidence to pull something like this until she really needs to. Maybe that fits better with the parts of the story I haven't read yet, I don't know.
Going back to Cider, I found it strange that a pony who initially was traveling with just a few other people in a caravan ended up being the co-owner of the company. Stranger still, this same company is now shown to be important enough that it gets mentioned on the news. It seems like he was retroactively bestowed importance. This pony, apparently the co-owner of F&F, was traveling so lightly protected and burdened. At the same time, Raiders are towing quarter-mile-long caravans around. There's an imbalance there.
Continuing in the spirit of actually offering possible solutions to a problem I point out, though, I have a couple of suggestions. The first is to describe Cider's caravan as longer, larger, more protected, or some combination of those, showing that he moves a lot of material and is important. The second is to have one of his traveling companions (or himself) mention that he is traveling lighter or less well-protected for whatever reason.
One last nitpick, the explanation of the changeling hive getting bombed is not shown to us, not even through character dialogue. It's just got its own paragraph, which just tells what happened. I think it'd be better communicated via conversation or even omitted, leaving the mystery of the hive's grisly fate at Redheart's "I'm sorry about your hive." Then it could be explored better some other time.
Of course, you could think of your own solutions to the above, or not change them at all. - I don't want to come off as imposing with all these suggestions! I cannot emphasize enough that I think this story is of very high quality. I just think those things are worth a revisit.
Aside from those problems, this is a great intro for the Steel Rangers! Their paranoia, their military superiority, their prejudice, it's all shown strongly and cleanly here. At the same time, they're painted more as more complex than that, too. They're protecting the town - maybe for their own selfish reasons, but they still are protecting it - and it doesn't seem like the ponies there hate them. That is, besides Redheart, but it seems like she's treated poorer than most. Our new tin friend even shows a crack in his armor around that colt. I immediately like the knight, too. His dynamic with the main cast is very interesting.
I also love love love how badly they're hurting from radiation. It both reinforces it as a danger in the world and really emphasizes how much Roach shouldn't be using his magic around his companions. Now, next time Roach needs to use his magic or radiation is a threat in general, we'll know exactly what's at stake. No getting off easy from radiation poisoning by slurping down some Radaway here, it's discount chemo for a few days.
Yay, Redheart! Another connection to the Equestria from before. I love to see it.
Good work, good plot developments. Excited to see where it goes next.