Being sisters, Pipp and Zipp have a bond with one another that can often be found between siblings, sharing experiences that strengthen their sisterhood. One of those experiences is simply by exchanging text messages, a private way of connecting on a personal level. Someone like Zipp, who's known her younger sister for so long, would likely know her sister through and through.
Using only the text messages to tell this story, we'll see just how well Zipp knows her sister when something appears off with her.
Made for 'The Twilight Files Contest' and the 'Hot Pony Summer Contest'. ...pretty ingenuitive, aren't I? The latter wanted a story about G5 and the prior wanted a story written in a document format (such as a transcript or a letter). Going off of that knowledge...
*READERS MIGHT NEED TO ADJUST THE FORMATTING IN ORDER TO ENJOY THIS STORY!*
You can adjust some of the formatting from within the chapter, found on the top-right, above the chapter's title.
Pony&Wolf Productions also did an audio read of this story on Youtube if you're interested.
First!
This is an amazing story which shows through texts that even though Zipp and Pipp are very different they are still sisters and they love each other!
Amazing story :)
At first I was gonna give you a like because of the sheer amount of work writing in this format must have took, but then I saw your author's notes and knew I must give you a Derpy
Now THIS is a format I have to try!
So, first of all what is the ideal format to adjust to in order to better read this fic for those who are thrown off by it?
Second, very well done. This feels almost like it could be an episode of "Tell Your Tale".
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It varies depending on the device you're using, but a screen with a wide width tends to work best.
I also find that adjusting the formatting to a large font size works. 0.9 messes up many things and 1.0 works if you ignore Pipp's second text. I found no issues with 1.1 and higher, but it still could vary on what you use.
Nice, I really like this! When I found out it was an imposter I had to go back up and reread part of it to see when it happened! I'd love to read more, this really is the perfect format for Pipp.
This reads pretty darn well. I was wondering why she suddenly seemed ok with that nickname. Plus, it reminds me of other silly sisters over text.
Great Story, Amereep.
I've always enjoyed stories with "gimmick" formatting. It's a breath of fresh air in the form of an experimental writing style. Sort of like a Game Jam, but with fiction.
One small mistake that I found:
Saying Pipp & Zipp are "royal pegasi sisters" is the same as saying that Celestia and Luna are "royal alicorns sisters," or that Rarity & Sweetie Belle are "unicorns sisters," or that Applejack and Apple Bloom are "earth ponies sisters." You get my point.
Good show overall.
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You gotta keep in mind that Earth, Pegasi, & Unicorns were all against each other not too long ago and are now just getting over a... century long?... hatred for one another. They developed their own culture during that time, and while there's no sign that suggests it, there could be a royal ruler for the Unicorns and/or Earth ponies as well.
Even if that wasn't the case, Celestia and Luna reigned over pony races that pretty much coexist since Equestria was formed. I have a hard time believing that Unicorns and Earth ponies of G5 would accept the idea of allowing a Pegasus to reign over them without some form of backlash that suggest that they don't follow Pegasi monarchs. Granted that it was a pegasus who typed the message, but she could very well be repeating what she was told, giving a small glimpse into the interviewer's opinion on Pegasi.
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Technically this format is against the rules (#10 in the list of things not to write: "chat format stories"). I'm not going to report it, but be aware that it likely got through on auto-approval. If your stories are still manually approved by the mods it'll probably get rejected.
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Gems like these make me lament that rule. This story was excellent, and more than earned its formatting.
Nicely done!
I wrote a story with elements of texting, although I just used a fake text generator app and inserted the images--on the plus side, as long as they display, I don't have to worry about a user's screen format. On the down side, if the site hosting them stops, a good chunk of the story vanishes. (Also, for a story based entirely on texts, it wouldn't work, since FimFic's word counter wouldn't recognize it.)
Interestingly, very recently somebody won a prize (I think it was a Hugo award) with a short story that was nothing but text messages between two characters who had never met each other before.
It's a challenge to get a cohesive story out of just text messages, so well done! And I appreciate you sticking to the format for the author's notes, too
Not bad.
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That's happened to me a few times, so I have the files saved somewhere in case that ever happens. The cutie mark icon, for example, are files I have saved in my sta.sh over on my DeviantArt account. I'm sure you could also use the Drive in a Google account to do this trick too.
Thank you, but I think this kind of concept of telling a story is something many can imitate and even outdo this tale in more clever ways. As I said in my notes, I'm an old fashioned guy that still uses a 10-year-old flip phone. Others have an advantage over me as they're more familiar with modern phones, so they might know something I don't. I've already developed one style and expanded it with this story, but I recently discovered that a third individual could also be in this layout of left and right alignment (the added icons would also make it easier for readers to follow which would've made it difficult if I stuck with the first style), so it gives a little bit more freedom and possible ways of making a cohesive story.
Now if you want to talk about a challenge, then telling a story through a style akin to the silent movie aspect would be very difficult. Gotta keep an accurate frame size with all of the images, be concerned with the loading of the page, and of course, you would need to make an original story out of the clips of the show (unless you put in some editing or animating into it). I managed to make a flashfic of such a concept once, and it's pretty cheesy, but I'll be amazed if someone manages to pull a cohesive 1k word story under this kind of format.
This brings back found childhood memories. I loved that movie where she fought the pirates.
But don’t worry Pippi. Most memes only have a lifetime of a few months. Just be patient and sit it out.
This caught me off guard. In hindsight the hints were very obvious, like Pipp always posting an emote at the end of her sentences which suddenly stopped. Or her not reacting when Zipp purposly called her Pippi.
While reading this story for the first time I didn’t notice any of this, because it never occurred to me that this wasn’t Pipp. This is basically the best kind of twist: One you don’t see coming but then when you go back with the knowledge of hindsight you notice all the obvious hints you didn’t pay attention too.
I like to imagine the interviewers original plan was to simply steal Pipp’s phone, expecting to find some indiscriminating evidence that the Pegasi are planning to take over Maretime Bay or something like that. When he/she didn’t find anything he/she tried to goad Zipp into revealing their sinister plan by pretending to be Pipp.
Overall a pretty stupid plan, but hey a Q-Anon guy once stormed a pizzeria with a gun to free some children sex-slaves imprisoned in the basement only to realize that there was no basement. :ajbemused So the interviewer being just that stupid is absolutely in the realm of possibility. Of course, that stupidity will most likely result in a meeting with Hitch followed by jail time.
Based on what`The thief never showed any intimate knowledge of Zipp during their short conversation. Sure he/she knew about her mother being the queen, but that is common knowledge.
That’s actually pretty sweet. I think Zipp is a bit unfair, putting the blame on her sister. Who could’ve honestly expected the interviewer having a hidden agenda?
Aww siblings.
I think Sprout is equally biased against Unicorns and Pegasi. If a Pegasus had walked into town instead of Izzy he probably would’ve reacted the same way. Including running away in fear. But yeah, Sprout is an idiot and probably would've give himself away almost immediately.
Then again, in the video game he acted surprisingly smart in his attempts to stir up racial tension.
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A short but nonetheless fun story with a neat twist, I didn’t saw coming. And having this whole story be Pipp and Zipp texting each other gave it an unique touch I really liked. The only thing I felt that could’ve been done better, was having the imposter actually use some intimate knowledge like Zipp claimed.
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I consider it as a tight hug or concerned scolding. Pipp is a casual idol, one that's open to ideas and enjoys ponies that approach her. She seems to lack a forethought of how things can go wrong, flaws that Zipp is likely concerned about for her sister's wellbeing.
There was...
...but I guess I could've presented a few more in some way. Throwing Zipp off by addressing her fatigue kinda helps...
...and it would've sold it if I had them say 'Moonlight Flight', but the only place that I could've brought it up was when Pipp was trying to wake up Zipp.
'Moonlight Flight' seems like a loaded term that needed some explaining as to why she was flying in the moonlight, but for a story that was trying to be sneaky and misleading for the twist, giving exposition (especially from a sister that's familiar with Zipp's habits) seemed too blunt.
That's pretty funny, coming from someone who linked to 'The Twilight Files Contest.'
Then I think you're doing fine.
Can't wait to read this for the contest, and looking forward to the unique format you have in your story!
hehe love the nickname
perfect Zipp response
it's so dang Pipp to end all her texts with an emoji
oh wow, i haven't heard that name in a very long time!
hehehe PIpp holding Zipp's need to rise to her royal expectations above her for something petty, love it
dang this is a sudden vibe shift! i wonder what's going on with Pipp here. and if i were Zipp i would be annoyed by this! hate flaking
huh, she could have done that without making Zipp leave her precious bed! very suspicious...
hehe, like Twilight's letters to Celestia, except Zipp is no Twilight and Haven is no Celestia
yeah, that sounds very off from Pipp...
ooh, and nothing about being annoyed by that name! i'm guessing Queen Haven has Pipp's phone now?
hehe this is fun
aww, this is adorable!
aww, Pipp's responses reducing down to single emoji at the end was a nice mirror of Zipp's first emoji-only message. this was short and sweet and a very fun read, based on the solid core of the contrasting sisterly relationship between Zipp and Pipp, which this fic just captured so well.
and i just loved the format, especially since one of the things i was hoping to see with this contets was just how inventive people could get with their fic formats. i'm sure it must have taken a long time to figure out how to get it to work with fimfiction's bbcode, and the detail down to the timestamps was just so great! thank you so much for writing!
Somehow I missed this one. I like your dynamic between them, and the plot has a surprising amount of twists for a text conversation. Cool stuff.
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Well, this is a first. I've had my story read once before a long time ago, but this one's being told in more broader aspect than just a one-go take and a still image.
The beginning was a bit wobbly, a few emojis were jumped over, but she maintained a stable rythme shortly after. The text message sounds was a nice touch, though I think someone was having an issue with it as the sound was absent during moments where a character had more to say, but had to break it into more than one text. This kind of issue makes me think that they wouldn't be up for the idea of taking further advantage of the setup by posting the text messages in the traditional style as well.
I would've touch upon a few more areas (like some pauses or adding a clock sound between 9:53am and 10:29am), but they did a decent job regardless (but somebody should alert them that they have the wrong title card for the video). Thanks for sharing.
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Be sure to comment on the video, I'm not the reader, but glad you enjoyed it 😁
This was really well done, not just in terms of formatting, but also in making the format matter. :)