Picture of a street corner in the heart of Manehattan on a sweltering summer afternoon. On the road is a carriage, emblazoned with the image of a blue unicorn magician, flashing a condescending smirk to all passers-by. This image is of Trixie Lulamoon, also known as “The Great and Powerful Trixie,” one of a certain breed of unicorn magician who excels in flashy, grandiose effects and equally flashy, grandiose exaggerations of her own capabilities. Today, her show will end as it usually does, with only a few being impressed by her ostentatious display and her over-sized ego, the rest dismissing her as a show-off, but what awaits her afterward will be the challenge of a lifetime...
Chapters (1)
Downvotes already? That's uncalled for. I thought it was pretty good.
Woah. I . . . I don't have words.
Woah. Mind-screw.
O.O
*slow applaud*
Well done.
I hate it when authors end their stories like this. They think they're being mysterious and emotionally deep, but in reality, they're just being confusing. That's probably where the downvotes are coming from.
ANYONE SKIMMING THE COMMENTS - THIS IS A GREAT STORY! READ IT!
All right, that out of the way: I enjoyed this fic immensely! Even the ending - reminded me of a Masters of Horror episode! Excellent idea, and all of it offered succinctly and concisely - thank you.
Goodness, there appears to be a lot of negative attention out tonight. To quote Trixie, "seems we have a bunch of neigh-sayers in the audience!" Trust me Tzelael, you've written a really cool story! BRAVO! Obviously SOME ponies have no taste.
Well done! You get a gold star and my thumb!
It'd be nice if we could at least get a straight answer on the results. Is she dead?, sitting in a delusional state in a warehouse with the inside of her mind for company?, or ?
1453684
I don't think there's anything that indicates that Trixie is not a talented magician. The canon only suggests that she is boastful and pretentious, it says nothing about whether her skills are less or more than another stage magician. No unicorn in their right mind would take on an ursa minor, let alone an ursa major. Twilight is probably an order or two of magnitude in potential above an average unicorn and is the element of magic. Also, I think your sentence is somehow off grammatically:
"Trixie seems to be based largely off of the old Vaudeville magicians;
andillusionists such as David Copperfield are in a completely separate set."It might be morbid, but if this were my story, either the other unicorn would have stopped and let her face ridicule for not succeeding or let her die/suffer for it. Might even have worked in some kind of afterlife/resurrection business too. I don't know as I understand the significance here, if any, of the other pony having a cut on her neck. Is the other pony or the audience real? I think I'll go as far as to propose that the auburn-maned pony is Coppermane herself.
Wow... Just... Wow.
Alright, I never anticipated this kind of response from this story. Given my track record, I expected all of 5 people to read it, and maybe 2 people to comment on it and point out a typo.
I'm going to do my best to try and address the points brought up here. I'm not defending nor defaming my creation, nor am I attempting to invalidate your opinions, I'm just trying to provide some explanation for what I did here.
First, this story was something of an... Experiment. I was going for a The Twilight Zone kind of feel and it seems I managed to accomplish that to some degree, in which the story was short, self-contained (in that it only has this story to go with the familiar elements, like Trixie and Equestria) story that didn't require several months to fully explain what was going on, unlike my other two stories, The Starlit and Stolen Fire. The reason this isn't a full-blown crossover though is that, well, The Twilight Zone is just an anthology of horror and sci-fi stories, and the only way that it would be a real crossover is if Rod Serling was actually narrating it (which admittedly would make this really awesome) or if I included a visit from Mr. Death, or one of the established characters in the show, but I feel like it might've been either unclear or come off as farcical.
Concerning the fact that the story ends ambiguously, this was again a matter of emulating a style. 1453673, Twilight Zone episodes ended in such an unclear manner and leaving it up to your imagination what goes on afterward. Although there, we had a narration from the helpful Rod Serling to tell us what was going on. I didn't include the narration (save in the synopsis) since I felt like it might seem clunky and give way too much exposition, though I'm starting to feel like I need to include one at the end.
1453684 I fully admit that I don't know a whole lot about stage magicians aside from what I've seen from TV and movies, though I do know about them being a close-knit group and, I'm not sure if this was clear or not, but I wanted to get across that Trixie WAS a charlatan and wasn't actually in the business. As you said, the core of her "Character" (what of it there is) is that she's a "one-dimensional, showboating liar and bully that bites off more than she can handle" to get attention. Hell, I might've even been generous in giving her a redeeming quality in her being strong-willed and willing to risk everything for glory.
1454169 I think I should put the closing narration in there. It's funny, I actually thought it was too obvious when I wrote it.
Also, she's arrogant and boastful, and, this is something I'm hoping was clear in the story, she's a very poor showman. She brags about things she can't actually prove, and when people doubt what she says, she attacks her audience. Magical power or not, she's a bad performer. Whether or not Michael Bay or Uwe Bohl have a big reserve of money to use flashy explosions and special effects, they're still poor storytellers (like one could argue that I am).
Now, I have to thank you all for your feedback, even if it was negative feedback. Frankly, I wish I had this for my other stories. Those of you who like my work, and even those of you who don't, I encourage you to take a look at them and comment, whether or not you like them. Again, to everyone else who commented, thanks for the feedback!
Ok, 1454760 mentioned canon... first off, someone give me a suitable explanation and definition of just what IS "canon", and I will be able to give you plenty of reasons why I dislike said canon.
When I search stories here, (or any other fanfiction site for that matter) what I look for is something from the imagination of the writer that grabs my attention and provides me with entertainment.
This story did just that.
I also saw in the comments a couple times about not being urealistic concerning stage magicians or whatnot. To be perfectly honest, I doubt that 99% of the readers would notice. I would not have had it not been pointed out. And, frankly, I don't really care. As I said, if it entertains me, that is what matters to me.