Featherweight is a simple stallion that runs a simple newspaper company for Ponyville. Yet somehow, he's managed to catch the eyes of the fairest mare of them all. It almost seems too good to be true...
Entry for Cozy Glow Short Story Contest
Selected Prompts:
They’d set her free. They’d told her she deserved another chance. She didn’t know what being reformed meant, though, in a world where the heroes crushed the wrong-doers with overwhelming force.
Cozy’s got a secret! Whether or not it’s hers is for her to know and you to find out.
Edited by SirReal
Chapters (1)
That got dark and kinda sad suddenly. Better than in stone, I suppose. But dang, would of liked to see her around Chrysalis and Tirek too. In any case, that was a good fic, time jumping from another character’s perspective.
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I'm relieved that you enjoyed it!
Yeah, that would've been an interesting scenario to play out. Though, I'd imagine her being unresponsive to them given that her forced reformation would make her abhorrent of them.
What Twilight and her friends who agreed with this did to Cozy Glow was sickening and absolutely abhorrent and Featherwaight is utterly pathetic in this story. Twilight essentially gave up on her after some months while her parents were clearly unfit to raise her in any shape. Even Tirek and Chrysalis's families had more actual love for them then Cozy's parents did for her. It is quite obvious from their previous interactions that they wanted a doll that they could mold to their liking rather then an actual daughter.
What did Twilight expect here? That Cozy would suddenly make a complete 180 and change her personality? Discord never changed his no matter how much he reformed yet he's still alowed to walk free and unbrainwashed. And for that matter didn't he destroy all the reformation spells? Is the mare that almost did the same thing to a bunch of ponies the only one who could see how messed up and cowardly this is?
It was due to friendship, not Celestia's rule that Twilight and her friends prevailed in the past.
Ironic that probably one of the lessons they are taught is to accept someone for who they are. I think they should know the truth and not learn the kind of hypocracy that is probably being taught to them.
If they consider themselves her true friend then they would try to help her.
Oh, God he wants to make foals with her. Considering her mental state that would essentially be rape...
And now he has accepted that he'd get a doll that would serve his needs rather then a true lover. This is not love, this is just some guy trying to satiate his own selfish desires using a brainwashed girl, who considering was brainwashed when she was but a child may still, in a way be considered a child. But I guess it wont last too long considering that her parents didn't seem too keen of Featherwaight. One word from them and Cozy would have no choice but to end their relationship.
Overall this was a pretty well-written story. I'd replace the romance tag with a horror one though.
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I wanted to create an undertone of possessiveness in Featherweight where despite how flowery his description of Cozy was, he would use possessive words that would define Cozy as his personal trophy (his precious) that he could keep to himself. I don't think I successfully managed it for the most part, but I do think the message got across in the ending.
The excuse that I was trying to make for Twilight is that she went through numerous heads and tails to move Cozy away from thinking of friendship as power. I didn't bother to go into details (mainly because I was scared of going over 10k), but she dedicated a lot of her time and even sought aid from her friends to persuade Cozy to re-evaluate herself. In this story, nothing worked out and Twilight was pushed under time constraints due to Cozy's parents.
So in a way, Twilight relapsed to a Twilight Moment and tried an easier solution.
You think so? Initially, I put the romance tag in as a trick because as you have already discovered, their romance is built under a facade. If it's not appropriate for me to do that, then perhaps I'll just remove the romance. I don't think my story garners enough terror to garner the horror tag.
Also, I'm glad this story fascinated you.
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I feel like you did a good enough job with that. One of the things that disgusted me about him.
Still, even Discord relapsed multiple times. I don't think that Twilight should have given up on her so easily or at the very least she should have tried to spin the whole "friendship is power" thing to something more positive. Discord still loves his chaos, after all. In the context of this story it seemed that Twilight wanted to change Cozy Glow's personality and mould her into something that she wanted instead of reforming her like how Fluttershy did with Discord. Sadly she succeeded.
You don't have to switch tags just because I'd do that. Gotta say though, it kinda did garner that horror from me (even if its because I'm probably thinking too hard on it).
You wrote the sheer wrongness of this situation very well.
Beautifully written, but deep and dark. Still, this will turn out to be a fantastic read, my friend! Keep this up!
Started to see a lot of these kinds of stories so I knew this one was only a matter of time.
So what does this mean for the character's future?:
Because it honestly feels like the character is in fact repulsed by Featherweight, and that repulsion is what is shown to weaken her conditioning.
I'd hate to be around for the fallout, even if Cozy hasn't made a habit of being outright violent in the past.
I mean it works in theory, but unless you already have that view of the character, it's kind of jarring to see.
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Which does beg the question why they were allowed to decide anything regarding her.
Given the fact they presumably suspended the characters parental rights once before (or else failed to inform them) when Cozy was sent to Tartarus, it doesn't really make any sense that their guardianship would be restored now.
Especially after the character turned out to be such a "dire threat" in spite of, or more likely (judging by this story) because of their parenting, that the Princesses felt compiled to lock her away in Tartarus without any chance for parole, or attempt to turn her around before hand.
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I mean the character already shows some interest in genuine friendship way back in Marks For Effort, when she risks her reputation to bail the CMC out of trouble, despite the fact it doesn't directly benefit her plans in the slightest.
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There was a scene I had planned in the outline where there would be a time skip where Featherweight and Cozy raised their foals and Cozy became ill on her deathbed. It was going to be a scene where the reformed Cozy request to pass away as her true self. I gotta tell you when imagining Cozy finally being able to speak her true mind minutes before her death, it's not a pretty sight. Maybe I'll do the sequel if this story ever gains any traction.
Fair point. Since the canon story never explores Cozy's backstory, I had to fill in my own headcanon. Yet, I didn't want to insert too many influences in Cozy (or at all) as to deviate Cozy's character from the canon. I wanted to retain how people viewed her from the main show and keep her headstrong to her personal ideals from it.
And I'm glad I'm the first to do this. Honestly, I thought of this idea after reading Geekcat's story, "Blank".
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Now that I would read that for sure.
Fare enough, although I do think that by having her parents being there at all, there's a resulting take away from seeing how they treat her (which is most definitely something a lot of people today would balk at).
It's also very hard to get anyone to agree on Cozy's characterization in general, with a lot of different takes on the character. She's proberbly more diversely represented than anyone else in the fandom, with a whole host of interpretations on what she's like as a person, and why she does what she does.
Although a reform spell is a pretty big excuse for any possible resulting displays of OOC behavior.
This was utterly fascinating... and utterly horrifying. Not in a modern "jump-scare" sense... But in the subtle wrongness of a Victorian dreadful or a Lovecraft short... I really do like it. I actually felt the need to wash my hands after reading it.
In that sense, I think the Romance tag is a real gut-punch. The Horror tag would warn people, and we wouldn't want that ...
.
Any way you choose to tag it, it's a wonderful, awful tale that really screws with the reader's brain.
I would LOVE to see the fallout of Cozy breaking her programming... Twilight seems to deeply regret it, under her excuses, and I think Starlight would be completely disgusted to learn of Featherweight's choice, and that might force a confrontation...
If this story is any indication, I doubt a happy ending is in your plans, but oooh... The POSSIBILITIES!
I have a whole story outline in my head.
Dystopian magic, Starlight and Twilight having a massive fight, and Cozy Glow going utterly berzerk...
Ahh.
Pity I can't write worth a flying f- er, Pegasus.
.
Other than that, the only criticism I have is there are a few sentences that seem to be missing a word. Probably formatting or somesuch.
All in all? i'd happily recommend it to Great C'thulu next time I visit Rlyeh. Bloody travel restrictions.
All those missing dialogue pronouns and other words make this story kinda hard to read. An interesting concept, though... But
Fuck this
The most wrong story ever.
God I got chills at the end.
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Actually, I think be in stone is better.