The opening day at Silver Frames’s art gallery is quiet, and disastrously empty. That suits Crackle Cosette just fine. She’s got her eye on one particular painting, and she’s not planning on buying it. But that’s it, there’s nothing else to see here.
2nd place winner of Bean's Writing Group's 'New Blood' Contest!
This will eventually become part of AdmiralSakai's Extended Cut, but right now it stands alone.
Is this really the finished story? It's just that after all of this, changelings don't deserve what they got in Canon.
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This is just a snapshot, not the whole picture. Eventually there will be more.
oh i love this! in love with the narration and worldbuilding. even as just one part of whats presumably a bigger story this is great
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That is great news.
That was an excellent read. A wonderful dive into changeling lore and history, and it certainly makes me interested to see more of where this story takes place in your narrative.
I can certainly see how you did so well in the contest
Greetings. Your reading has been completed and can be found below. I hope you enjoy.
Well, here's my ruthless feedback, I guess.
Mild punctuation issues. Look up hyphens vs. en dashes vs. em dashes: basically, you want hyphens for connecting words together and em dashes for almost everything else. (You can imitate em dashes with two hyphens like -- if you don't want to do Alt+0151 on numpad.)
For dialogue punctuation:
“If the dialogue is just one sentence,” RDT said, “using a comma after the dialogue tag is fine.”
“But this example has two sentences,” RDT said. “In this case, the punctuation mark after ‘said’ should be a period.”
(Yes, I have been reduced to nitpicking obscure punctuation for my “ruthless” feedback.)
Descriptions feel a tiny bit same-y after a while (so many adjectives, and it’s just all very direct as opposed to a clever metaphor or something), though writing style is something that each author should decide for themselves.
The “motherly Chrysalis” angle is a common one that was (supposedly) well-explored during the heyday of the changelings. That said, you do kind of put your own spin on it, and Chrysalis is very much in character for the whole story.
It’s interesting how the first flashback is triggered by a totally separate painting. Seems a bit disjointed, though it could be some nice setup for something down the line.
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Alright. All good points, thanks.
Edit: did a thorough pass-through to fix all the hyphenation and punctuation errors, I think I got them all.
And last, 'motherly Chrysalis' has definitely been done to death, but since she's an undead horror, so are her tropes.
I must admit to being a little disappointed, coming into this expecting Ib-style art gallery horror.
But what it turned out to be was sufficiently intriguing that I had completely forgotten about that until after I was done reading.
It's really a dramatic swerve going into the first flashback scene, shifting the tone for what kind of story this is, steadily building until the moment when you realize exactly what's happening.
I really have to commend the worldbuilding especially, there's so much worked into such a short span, from major backstory features to small aspects of changeling culture.
I'm quite curious what might be planned outside this--especially where Amore might be concerned, a character who so rarely gets used--but I have to say this is a complete and quite satisfying story by itself.
Shouldn't the dragon's saying be "sic semper furibus" though? I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be dative.
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Oh dang, I haven't thought of Ib in ages. Yeah, this isn't that kind of story at all, sorry. Glad you still enjoyed it!
As for the Latin... I don't know Latin. Evidently neither does this dragon, but his use of the nominative isn't the only mistake he makes in that sentence.
...and now all I can think of is a Life of Brian-esque grammar lesson between Golden Dream and the dragon before it inevitably incinerates her.
You can has review!
An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!
Hello! Have a review, and an upvote come to that. Apologies for the lateness: partly Covid's fault, partly mine. I liked the world-building, which reminded me of a certain character's FIENDship comic.
Here's your New Blood Contest feedback!
This story was well-received by most other judges. Seeing as how I am not them, and you asked for Ruthless feedback, be prepared for some absolutely unforgiving criticism - starting with this example:
"Frames's" shouldn't have that extra 's'.
Anyway, good story.
...
No, seriously, that's all I got. This was my favourite story in the contest and ranks as one of my favourites on the whole site! I have no notes!
Okay, not no notes. Aside from the pitiful grammatical error above, the best part of this story in my opinion is the evocative language. It manages to call so much imagery and emotion to mind without crossing the line into purple melodrama.
Here, one of my favourite passages:
I'll have more of this, please - in an IV bag is fine.
I do honestly wish I had more to say, but this would otherwise be a thousand-word gushfest. On the other hand, this whole review was almost "you're a better writer than me, carry on" - so be thankful you're getting this much!
On that subject, I am thankful that you participated in our little contest and wrote this brilliant story, and I hope to see much, much more from you in the future.
PS: I see the word count has gone down from 4444 words. Is that a result of recent edits?
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I was on the fence about Frames' vs Frames's; Silver Frames is the pony's name, making it a proper noun, like Ross/Ross's. Also, the total wordcount is actually eight or so higher than when I submitted it. Hyphenated-phrases count as a single word on this site, and after RDT's ruthless comment, I fixed them all. That freed up some space, so I added the topmost sentence that was left on the cutting room floor.
If you've got the time, I'd highly recommend checking out Extended Cut. I started as the editor, but moved up to coauthor pretty quick. There's a lot more of this style of writing over with the Admiral. Heck, if you're burnt on retellings of the show's premier, Stare Master - Extended Cut is a pretty good jumping-in point. It worked out for Ghost Mike, at least.
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On Frames' vs Frames's, I was unaware there were competing literary styles that said both were correct. Of course, I say the former is correct, so please disregard those dilettantes at Chicago.
Anyway, I'd love to get into the EC series eventually, but take a look at my Read Later list - and despair. Ah well, what's one more to the pile? And these EC stories aren't even that long. If they're all half as good as this story, they'll be well worth the time.