• Member Since 25th Aug, 2015
  • offline last seen 3 hours ago

AleaJactaEst


That one guy who is creatively bankrupt, but thinks he's hot shit

E

Antenna is an infiltrator on an important mission, one which could decide the course of the changelings for decades to come. She must not fail.


Take a look into the Kaleidoscope.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 20 )

I suppose something happened to your computer and now there are 12 copies of said story. You could have put the other blue tags on the story description. Just saying.

9967754
They're all from different authors.

This one makes me saddest because you recently posted an extremely complimentary post on one of my stories, and I think this is the first one of your stories that I've ever commented on, and it has to be this. And I remember you posted it because I really like your screenname.

You know what, I'll leave it at that.

Aquaman #4 · Dec 1st, 2019 · · 11 ·

9967861
Ooh, you’re back!

9967867
Uh, serious post time dude: posting literally the exact same thing over and over again - say, the same YouTube video - is spam. The reason why I'm going through all this trouble of posting the idea in different ways is because of confidence that it shouldn't count as spam, no more so than the flood of Kaleidoscope stories, in any event.

Basically, you want to trail me in my responses with ones of your own, fine, that's your prerogative and right. But you might want to switch up the videos you post, at least. The site mods and admins do take spam seriously - something I learned the hard way.

Honest attempt at friendly advice here.

Aquaman #6 · Dec 1st, 2019 · · 12 ·

9967879
Thank you for your advice, friend.

9967756
Lemme go check real quick...
*Clicks Browse*


My God...

The time this story spends in Antenna’s head is great. In the opening, it does a good job of weaving together exposition, changeling worldbuilding, and Antenna’s characterization. At the end, it helps convey what’s running through her head every moment and the tension she feels.

Plot-wise, I really struggled. I’m still not clear on how the hivemind works and why the spell was necessary. I kind of wish the story had just presented Antenna’s package as a McGuffin — she’s got something important, but she’s being chased by someone with The Spell, and that’s all you need to know.

Lastly, the story’s spycraft details were fun. It makes sense that changelings would go through a bunch of forms while trying to exfiltrate, since that’d make it so much harder to track them.

9969441
Thank you for the feedback!:twilightsmile:

Plot-wise, I really struggled. I’m still not clear on how the hivemind works and why the spell was necessary. I kind of wish the story had just presented Antenna’s package as a McGuffin — she’s got something important, but she’s being chased by someone with The Spell, and that’s all you need to know.

Yea, I'll have to admit, the actual plot, or what passes for it, isn't... that good. I noticed it too, but only towards the tail end of the contest time, basically a couple hours before it was over, so didn't exactly have the time to try and figure something out. That being said, I think I did manage to pinpoint why it is the way it is, so hopefully it'll be helpful to me in the future.


I think it was a combination of two things. First being, me going into it with a laundry list of items to use - I may not be one of those people who decided to use up the entirety of everything in the picture, but I did grab a bunch of stuff. What's of interest specifically, is the book. What I intended with calling the package a "letter", was to convey that it's a specific size, and is rectangular, and is soft (so conclusion: some kind of paperback), which is vague to the point of obscurity, now that I look back at it. So, I ended up being both overly specific (where, as you said, just some undefined McGuffin would've worked fine) and overly vague :rainbowhuh:

Anyhow, the idea was something along the lines of what kind of paperback would the captured changeling care to try and ship out to the Hive? A journal, obviously! :twilightsmile: And in hindsight, it feels kinda really dumb as well, since I intend Her in this story to be overly-competent, but a recently-caught changeling (even if they were hand-picked by the Hive for the mission) getting their hooves on something so important is kinda... ehhhh. Then again, it could be spun into the journal being a special-made fake, but that's like 300 IQ games at that point, but also the ending then doesn't make sense, and that ending was where the story started and okay, I'll stop now.


The second part, is that I had a very specific character in mind, and so I just defaulted to a setting that makes sense at the surface, and then kinda just forced a bunch of stuff to try and fit it together into something cohesive, and... yea.


As for the Hive, actually, the ideas behind it were fairly simplistic and I guess I just failed to communicate them properly.

Each changeling is individual, just like a pony, but all their thoughts and feelings are shared across the hivemind and recorded by the relevant changelings, as well as in the subconcious of the Queen, hence the sentiment of it being more or less impossible for a deserter/traitor to exist without the Hive being aware of it at least in some capacity.

They all obey the Queen practically unconditionally if she commands. In lieu of actual orders from the Queen, or when those are phrased as "suggestions" (as mentioned in the story) instead of orders, Hive as the collective holds the final say.

As far as the changelings themselves are aware, forcibly cutting one of them off from the hivemind is impossible - or at least, there certainly hasn't been a case of that happening, ever before. Even with a changeling trying to do it themselves, it was met with little sucess before, if mostly due to how alien the feeling resulting from it was, rather than it being impossible.

Something like that.

why the spell was necessary.

Could you please clarify? I'm not 100% certain what you're referring to in this case tbh (are you talking about the Changeling Revealing spell, or a spell to cut a changeling off from the hivemind?).


Anyhow, thank you again! :twilightsmile:
The rapid-fire disguise changing just made perfect sense to me and was one of the points I was most clear on myself, so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it.

9970064

>why the spell was necessary.
Could you please clarify? I'm not 100% certain what you're referring to in this case tbh (are you talking about the Changeling Revealing spell, or a spell to cut a changeling off from the hivemind?).

D’oh, I meant to say “why the letter was necessary.” :derpyderp1: My sense was if the changeling agent is free enough to write a letter (or a whole journal), why couldn’t she just communicate her report directly to the hivemind? But that goes back to me misunderstanding how the hivemind works, it looks like.

9970260
Oh! I see. Well, it all really comes back to the whole "missing changelings" thing - she physically can't report over the hivemind after having gotten caught, because she's now cut off from it, just like the previously mentioned two are, so she has to resort to more mundane methods.

I believe it's probably similar to what I commented on the draft, but I enjoyed a lot of aspects. In particular, all the transformation parts, as well as the explanations for how the hive mind works and their discussions on what action to take. I also really enjoyed how the antagonist "Her" is built up, though we don't get a reveal of who. I'd really like to see this expanded more.

9975000
Thank you for your thoughts, and the comment!

That being said, if I do expand upon this at some point, it probably won't be a direct continuation, tbh. The entire story sprang up from that last line, more or less, so this particular snippet feels very much finished and self-contained to me, if somewhat flawed.

Interesting. Certainly a creative route to take, and a captivating scenario. I also liked the bits about transforming into various forms to keep incognito, as well as the sense of time ticking. Just a couple grammar errors, but nothing major.

I also was confused regarding the plot. I think maybe the cuts between the main action, her thoughts, and the past could've been a little cleaner and tied together, because at points I wasn't exactly sure how they all related. For example, I assumed quickly that the She/Her was referring to Celestia, but then Antenna collides with this figure at the end of the story (I think?) and they don't end up playing as significant of a role as expected. Same with Antenna's opinions on Chrysalis and Chrysalis's backstory, which was explored but not brought up later. It also took me a while to grasp what exactly the time was ticking down to. Other than that, if I had to give a couple suggestions, it would be to heighten the suspense, up the stakes. Make things maybe just a little less expository.

9987609
Thank you for the feedback!

The plot is probably the one part I really regret, as I mentioned already in another comment, and if I had the chance, I think I would rehaul it almost entirely. It all vaguely makes sense - if you squint at it - but the moment you start picking at it, it starts falling apart. And the whole Chrysalis thing, yea... it was basically just used to set the background, and that's it. Whoops.

That being said, the intention behind Her - and by extension, the part about suspense, I guess - are, at the least, semi-intentional? What I mean is, this story started entirely from the last line - it was slightly different at the start, but regardless. It was supposed to have that wham line effect. From there, it more or less came to me naturally to write it with climbing tension at the start, then a slow descent with everything going just perfect, and then WHAM! And then pull the curtains there, that's the last we're hearing from Antenna.

And as for Her, she was to be very much the mystery mare that she seems to have come out as (mystery in the sense that no one started shouting the name immediately, lol), basically just this vague threat a meeting with which is a death sentence of a kind.

Oh, I should've probably mentioned it in previous comments, too, but Death of the Author and bla-bla-bla obviously applies, and when I give justification to something, I by no means am trying to ignore or brush away the problems - I just like talking about myself :twilightsheepish:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

This was really gripping, but I'm unfortunately at a complete loss to figure out the end. Who did she meet? What's the significance of this scene? This feels like an end of chapter rather than end of story. :/

(Also, you've got a "sharpy" in there.)

10199146

sharpy

:facehoof: how did I even...

As for the ending, that's supposed to be the "Her" from earlier in the text.

There may have been an idea behind how abrupt ending is - that the viewpoint character isn't Antenna, but rather someone observing through the hivemind - so yes, indeed, the end of a chapter, Antenna's chapter, rather than the end of the story.

Or maybe it's just a rush job caused by me not thinking it through enough - so far as I recall, the whole escape sequence was written in the last couple of hours before the posting deadline, even if I have been toying with ideas on how to do it for a couple days beforehand.

Thank you for the comment!

p.s. having read through the comments again, it does seem like I did intend that, soooo, hooray for self-absorbed ranting, I suppose?:rainbowlaugh:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

10200151
Oh. Huh. I think a last-minute rush may have negatively impacted the ending. :B

10200157
Oh, for sure. I could - already have, in fact - rant on and on about all the things I would change in a far-off, hypothetical scenario where I'm actually not lazy - but for now, unfortunately, it remains as it is.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

10200170
Can't say I don't know that feeling! :V

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