It was supposed to be a routine goodwill trip to Saddle Arabia, but now the ponies of Bronco Company have found themselves framed for burning a town to the ground, and a full blown war isn't far behind...
This story is absolutely incredible- and when I see it's 12 chapters in with less than 100 views, that's downright discouraging.
In every conceivable way, you're a far superior writer compared to me. Your mastery of prose and characterization, but most importantly of all, your ability to write compelling plotlines and keep a good grasp of pacing without sacrificing anything else... It's wonderful. This is an extraordinarily well-written story, and for it to have received so little attention... Like I said, it's discouraging. If an expert writer such as yourself is getting so little attention, it's a worrisome sign for a novice who knows they're not nearly as good.
I do have a single question, I guess, after all of that. The mercenary group had plenty of pegasi in addition to griffons and hippogriffs. Why did they send in griffons and hippogriffs for slaughtering the civilians? For fighting the Broncos, no witnesses were supposed to be left, so it makes sense. But witnesses among the Saddle Arabian citizens were supposed to be let go as part of the plan, and given they're not trained soldiers, I would have thought that limiting the attackers to pegasi could have served the plan better without being too much of a risk. Although I assume there's something obvious I'm missing, given the attention to detail you've paid throughout the story.
11815307 Wow, that was a whole heap of praise! Thank you so much!
It's funny (not in a 'ha ha!' way) to me to hear you (or really anyone) describe me as being a "far superior writer" and all of that, since I've come across SO many stories on this site that make ME feel like a hack who has no business posting stories to this site at all '^.^
I bet you're a lot better than you think you are ;) So please do keep writing!
To answer your question: It was an issue of numbers and size-desparity. Of the races in Hawkwood's band, pegasi were both the smallest in stature when compared to horses and the least numerous in his crew; they'd never have been able to enough damage to Gallopoli on their own. And he really did need to use them most often to ambush the ponies, since an ACTUAL member of the REC would have been likely to recognize an imposter and not let their guard down.
Meanwhile, the common horse would have seen a uniform FIRST, and maybe even not have recalled much in the wake of barely escaping death beyond that the attacker at least LOOKED like they were an Equestrian.
Bitter Creek’s plan doesn't really require much of anything he's behind to stand up to scrutiny in the long term. He's counting on knee-jerk reactions to atrocities first and foremost.
That's the narrative answer anyway. The meta-answer is that I thought it wouldn't be as believable that an all-pony merc company would be willing to be part of a plan to frame their homeland for war-crimes :/ So I went with: "the survivors were traumatized enough that, by the time they reached anyhorse they could tell about the attack, they'd convinced themselves that the creatures wearing 'pony armor' had obviously all been ponies" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm banking on readers being willing to suspend at least THAT much belief for my benefit, heh :P
As to the low reader count? I think that has more to do with the tags than quality: this story isn't linked to any canon characters. It's not affiliated with the larger cross-over sub-fandoms either. This isn't going to be a story that shows up in the search results when visitors to the site are looking to find a piece about a character or setting they like. So there's really nothing to bring any reader attention to this story. Heck, I'd love to hear how YOU stumbled across it if you weren't already following my other stuff!
The truth is: REC isn't going to get a lot of views. No matter how well-written it may or may not be :P And that's okay! I put more stock in the comments people leave than the numbers at the top anyway. Like yours, for example! (Thanks AGAIN, btw!)
Your story has a show character and "Sex" in the tags; you'll get plenty of hits ;P lol! (I think there's a "changelings" character tag available too, fyi)
Thanks for the praise/reassurance for my story. I really wasn't expecting it, so thanks. (Also, thanks for reminding me about the 'changelings' tag- when I finish chapter two, I'll try to remember to add it).
Also, your explanation as to how the pegasi in the mercenary group were used does make sense. I hadn't realized that the pegasi were the least numerous of the species in Hawkwood's band. Not to mention, the fact they could better help with the ambush against the Equestrian soldiers does make sense when you explain it. The meta-answer also makes sense- although I've read enough stories including rival pony nations other than Equestria, or where pony minorities were loyal to the griffon/whatever majority, that I would have believed it. Ranging from older classics such as This Platinum Crown where an early chapter shows Blueblood with a non-Equestrian pony loyal to a griffon prince who Blueblood is visiting, to more modern Tryptych-verse stories featuring ponies from the griffon nation loyal to it. Maybe that's just me, though, and you perhaps pre-empted the skepticism of other readers who would have felt differently.
As for how I stumbled across your fic: Right after one of the updates, it was on the front page under the list for stories that had recently updated. I was browsing that list, thought it looked interesting, clicked on it to check it out, and then when I finally got around to checking back to that tab to read it, found that I loved it.
This story is absolutely incredible- and when I see it's 12 chapters in with less than 100 views, that's downright discouraging.
In every conceivable way, you're a far superior writer compared to me. Your mastery of prose and characterization, but most importantly of all, your ability to write compelling plotlines and keep a good grasp of pacing without sacrificing anything else... It's wonderful. This is an extraordinarily well-written story, and for it to have received so little attention... Like I said, it's discouraging. If an expert writer such as yourself is getting so little attention, it's a worrisome sign for a novice who knows they're not nearly as good.
I do have a single question, I guess, after all of that. The mercenary group had plenty of pegasi in addition to griffons and hippogriffs. Why did they send in griffons and hippogriffs for slaughtering the civilians? For fighting the Broncos, no witnesses were supposed to be left, so it makes sense. But witnesses among the Saddle Arabian citizens were supposed to be let go as part of the plan, and given they're not trained soldiers, I would have thought that limiting the attackers to pegasi could have served the plan better without being too much of a risk. Although I assume there's something obvious I'm missing, given the attention to detail you've paid throughout the story.
11815307
Wow, that was a whole heap of praise! Thank you so much!
It's funny (not in a 'ha ha!' way) to me to hear you (or really anyone) describe me as being a "far superior writer" and all of that, since I've come across SO many stories on this site that make ME feel like a hack who has no business posting stories to this site at all '^.^
I bet you're a lot better than you think you are ;) So please do keep writing!
To answer your question: It was an issue of numbers and size-desparity. Of the races in Hawkwood's band, pegasi were both the smallest in stature when compared to horses and the least numerous in his crew; they'd never have been able to enough damage to Gallopoli on their own. And he really did need to use them most often to ambush the ponies, since an ACTUAL member of the REC would have been likely to recognize an imposter and not let their guard down.
Meanwhile, the common horse would have seen a uniform FIRST, and maybe even not have recalled much in the wake of barely escaping death beyond that the attacker at least LOOKED like they were an Equestrian.
Bitter Creek’s plan doesn't really require much of anything he's behind to stand up to scrutiny in the long term. He's counting on knee-jerk reactions to atrocities first and foremost.
That's the narrative answer anyway. The meta-answer is that I thought it wouldn't be as believable that an all-pony merc company would be willing to be part of a plan to frame their homeland for war-crimes :/ So I went with: "the survivors were traumatized enough that, by the time they reached anyhorse they could tell about the attack, they'd convinced themselves that the creatures wearing 'pony armor' had obviously all been ponies" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm banking on readers being willing to suspend at least THAT much belief for my benefit, heh :P
As to the low reader count? I think that has more to do with the tags than quality: this story isn't linked to any canon characters. It's not affiliated with the larger cross-over sub-fandoms either. This isn't going to be a story that shows up in the search results when visitors to the site are looking to find a piece about a character or setting they like. So there's really nothing to bring any reader attention to this story. Heck, I'd love to hear how YOU stumbled across it if you weren't already following my other stuff!
The truth is: REC isn't going to get a lot of views. No matter how well-written it may or may not be :P And that's okay! I put more stock in the comments people leave than the numbers at the top anyway. Like yours, for example! (Thanks AGAIN, btw!)
Your story has a show character and "Sex" in the tags; you'll get plenty of hits ;P lol! (I think there's a "changelings" character tag available too, fyi)
Thanks for the praise/reassurance for my story. I really wasn't expecting it, so thanks. (Also, thanks for reminding me about the 'changelings' tag- when I finish chapter two, I'll try to remember to add it).
Also, your explanation as to how the pegasi in the mercenary group were used does make sense. I hadn't realized that the pegasi were the least numerous of the species in Hawkwood's band. Not to mention, the fact they could better help with the ambush against the Equestrian soldiers does make sense when you explain it. The meta-answer also makes sense- although I've read enough stories including rival pony nations other than Equestria, or where pony minorities were loyal to the griffon/whatever majority, that I would have believed it. Ranging from older classics such as This Platinum Crown where an early chapter shows Blueblood with a non-Equestrian pony loyal to a griffon prince who Blueblood is visiting, to more modern Tryptych-verse stories featuring ponies from the griffon nation loyal to it. Maybe that's just me, though, and you perhaps pre-empted the skepticism of other readers who would have felt differently.
As for how I stumbled across your fic: Right after one of the updates, it was on the front page under the list for stories that had recently updated. I was browsing that list, thought it looked interesting, clicked on it to check it out, and then when I finally got around to checking back to that tab to read it, found that I loved it.