WARNING: THIS STORY HAS BEEN DEEMED AN OLD SHAME. IT DOES NOT REFLECT THE AUTHOR'S CURRENT WORK, AND IN FACT SUCKS ASS. FOR PRESERVATION PURPOSES IT WILL REMAIN.
Skye Silver, Background pony extraordinaire whose name you didn't know until now, has a bad day. That makes everything he does afterwards okay.
Fun fact: the first draft of this story used actual guns. I replaced them with cartoon violence because I didn't want another Modernity, but i kept in a bazooka. Why? Because bazookas are over the top cartoon violence. ESRB has taught me well.
An entry in Shrink Laureate's G5 Bingo Contest. Bicyclette, I'm coming for you next! Happy new year 2003!
Chapters (1)
What's Modernity?
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one of my worst stories
Cozy’s Glowpinions vibes from Skye’s sardonic sportscast narration.
A descendant of your old Plone OC no doubt.
...Rainbow Dash’s sports career. Ba Dum Tiss. Or it’s a pop culture reference that foreshadows Skye Silver’s character arc. Let’s read on.
Maybe instead of Falling Down, he should be reading the synopsis for American Psycho.
Curious case of Reality Ensues with the “you’re fired” scene. The opening monologue isn’t so funny when you know it’ll have actual consequences. Then again, the boss seems satirically narcissistic and drunk on authority. Is “Cynical Funhouse Reality Lite” a genre? If it is, a lot of your fics fit it.
Skye’s fiery, Holden Caulfield-esque rant made me check the fic’s upload date. Nearly a week before the discussion topic on protagonists whose opinions aren’t necessarily endorsed by the author. If I’d read this fic in time, you bet your bottom Bit I’d have given it a nod.
Good artistic decision to skip over the murder scene. The reader expects a straightforward narration of it happening, so there’s a hazy dissociative thrill going from the Lemony Snicket filibuster about “making your main character an asshole” to a smash cut of the news coverage.
Should’ve packed a poncho, Patrick.
Tension climbs after this first kill, especially since the bingo card promises the Villain is Not Redeemed. It also promises Sparkle Chaser though, and we’re yet to see that character pop in. Eyes and ears open.
The conversation in the coffee shop has Joker 2019 vibes. One nutcase’s outburst getting interpreted as a statement so both his life and society’s structure start fracturing. It’s admittedly pretty dark for the story’s MLP paintjob, but the mess of content warning tags are there for a reason. If this ends with Skye dancing on a car during a riot, I called it here and now.
I was gonna make a snide “Mares born after 1993” comment, but the McWings scene makes it clear that every bystander is vapid and braindead in this story. I’m sure it’s all somewhat filtered through Skye’s increasing mania, but to be fair Zephyr Heights was established as a vacuously myopic Always On That Damn Phone pastiche of modern First World Countries. Princess Pipp is the public’s state-mandated role model. Nuff said.
I bucking called it. Joker Pegasus!
The parade of endlessly forgiving Canterlogic victims is some hellish absurdism. Sanity has degraded all the way to the third act Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Then we’re pulled back from the brink by the long awaited entrance of Sparkle Chaser. He's reminder to the reader and the Skye that at one point this story had a link to something structured and rational. The climax looms…
If we’re following the Falling Down roadmap, this is the moment of “I’m the bad guy? How’d that happen; I did everything I was supposed to." Pretty impressive retooling of an iconic gut punch for a new millennium context.
Holy shit. Holy bucking shit. The unredeemed villain is society itself! All the kudos for packaging that tired old statement into an unpredictable Bingo card prompt of background characters and disparate plot points.
If I may contribute one more pop culture reference, it’s my favorite quote from my favorite movie by my favorite horror movie director:
Skye really yearned for that padded cell, didn't he? Though if my interpretation of the italicized outro is correct, he eventually gave up and joined the insane majority by returning to his desk job. His journey was a circle, and nopony learned anything, except maybe the reader.
I worry if I praise this fic too much, I’ll have the same mental effect on you that Anonymous 07/01/18(Sun)12:50 No.12414900 had on Skye Silver. But I wager that penning this story was more of a catharsis. An ugly but ultimately healthy purge of bile. Much like throwing up.
When it comes reattempting the same fic premise over and over until it feels right, I hope this one felt right. Or at the very least a step in the right direction using Modernity and School Days as platforms. I empathize with creative frustration, friendo; how many Hurt/Comfort stories have I churned out to psych myself up for Choose a Direction and Run? A bucking lot, that’s for sure.
I’m stumped trying to think of a good ending to this essay. Invoking the fic’s title two paragraphs ago was a rhetorical lighting strike I can’t top. I guess since this story ends with Skye back at his old job, it totally fits in the canon of the upcoming Gen 5 show. Fingers crossed he has a spotlight episode so I can think of this fic the entire time I’m watching it.
8/10 all the way.
That concludes my review of Throwing Up. If you liked this and want to see more, please drop a like, follow, and check the comments of pretty much any other Str8aura fic. This has been Casketbase77, signing off until next time.
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ive never watched Joker, nor do i ever plan to. But for what its worth, ill accept the praise, because the fanbase for that movie is just the fanbase for Falling Down, Fight Club, Midsommar, The Wall, and a whole slew of others on a larger scale. As for the slew of copycats line, really i was thinking of Spree, especially with 4chan leading to the narrator's fame, but i guess thats not the most popular of modern movies, now is it?
i actually DID include the murder originally, as a much more straightlaced pastiche of American Psycho. Maybe it was too on the nose even for me, but more likely i dropped it because i couldnt think of a good speech for him to make.
I guess at the end of the day, through all my sardonicism and metaphors, all my messages about society, the real takeaway from this is we gotta finish Glowpinions man. I wrote my chapter the day you got that idea. It's been two years now.