What Do Pegasi Even Like?

In an effort to mend the bonds of friendship between the three races, Pipp Petals sets up an interracial meet-and-greet in Zephyr Heights with the assistance of her new friend Sunny Starscout. An earth pony and a pegasus from two entirely different walks of life find out that they've got a lot more to talk about than they would've thought...

My entry for the Generation 5 Bingo Contest! (A judge's choice winner!)

Chapters (1)

Comments ( 5 )

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PLAYBRONY

PLAYBRONY #1 · Jan 9th, 2022 · 1 · ·

Sunny’s speech made me cry, that last line hit so hard T-T very good job!!!

Ghost Mike

Ghost Mike #2 · Jan 9th, 2022 · 3 · ·

Like most Bingo entires, the strain to incorporate all assigned elements leaves visible structural scars on the story. What surprised me was how they were far less present – up until the final scene basically had alicorns (only present in one earlier scene) and windigoes (otherwise totally absent) foregrounded, this story was really good.

To that point, the intro scene with Sunny and Pipp did its purpose it setting up the story, and the focus was thereafter confined to Sweets and Dazzle. That material all worked – even when I wouldn't have thoughts of Sweets as barely any older than twenty-four (she seems too senior at Canterlogic for that), I bought it. The details through the various scenes, her passion, Dazzle being sincere in branching out yet still having an inclination towards gathering news, even the café owner being quite welcoming once he learnt what was going on… the whole thing was warm and fuzzy, while keeping the writing and author largely invisible, allowing the story and character to simply speak for itself.

…Then the final scene comes along and, while partially playing off of earlier elements, it's simply far too distant from what came before to not take the reader out of the story. Even aside from the indigoes and alicorn element, Zipp's sudden intrusion, the revelation she'll be taking over soon, that Sunny will be in a position of leadership herself, the awkward "Princess Sunny!" chanting, the insert shot of Dazzle and Sweets to try and tie together the two elements… the author's hand, or the bingo cards, are basically shoved in the reader's face, screaming "gotta include these!" It honestly wouldn't seem so bad it it wasn't formed of such standard, rote elements after a much fresher story and use of characters. It's enough alone to knock the story down from Really Good to Pretty Good, going by my tiering system.

Still, even Pretty Good is admirable for a G5 story, especially when so many of them are rote, openly embrace problematic elements from the source material, or have to work with them even though they don't want to. And considering how many Bingo entries get dragged way down by the mishmash of their assigned elements' compatibility, that this only stumbled at the finish line, and was doing really well to that point, is an achievement unto itself. Well done!

ArDee

ArDee #3 · Jan 9th, 2022 · 2 · ·

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Thanks for the deep and thoughtful comment! I'll freely admit that the latter part of this story was written quicker than the beginning, and that the end definitely has its weaknesses because of that (most evidently, as you pointed out, a struggle with shifting focus, tone, and structure away from Dazzle and Sweets sorta awkwardly), but I'm happy to know that it doesn't detract from the enjoyability too much!
As to how it held together so well up until the end -- the prompt itself isn't really super out-there until you look at the last two things, haha. The art reflects the inspiration like a mirror here, I suppose.
I would've made more of an effort to shift focus gradually, but I've been primarily an M-rated writer up until a few months ago aside from years of academic papers, so I'm rather rusty on the nuances of scene transitions that don't involve...'stuff.'