Being left for dead in Trottingham was a major disappointment for the little changeling prince, this is true. Being adopted by a paddle-happy pony wizard, this ‘Star Swirl the Bearded,’ was also a bit of a downer at first. But Stasis still manages to appreciate the savory side of things.
Unfortunately, not all pastel prey are as soft and as chewy as they may appear. Stasis has seen the golden soldiers and their goddess’ wrath, and if he can’t keep his true nature a secret, he may see them yet again.
And of course, not all changelings see fraternizing with prey in the same light….
Cover art commissioned from Raikoh-illust
Chapters (17)
Unicorn... With massive beard?
... Well then.
Wow.
You. Are. Amazing. At getting into the head of a young Changeling prince. Every thought and action was right on to how I imagine a Changeling of his stature and "inheritance" (by which I mean his blood which makes him immortal) would do in this kind of position.
Just. Wow.
You can bet I'll soon be putting this in as a strongly recommended fic in a blog post of mine.
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lol Thank you very much; I can hardly ask for a more generous comment than that. And if the post is on your fimfiction.net page, I'll be sure to take a look at it.
Color me interested...
I agree entirely with Zephyrus, there are too few good changeling fics out there and this is a veritable masterpiece. Good show, sir, good show indeed!
I read Zephyrus's blog post and I agree, this is interesting. I can't wait to read more!
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Now with that off my chest, I can say that this has so far been a rather rivetting read. Never thought a Changling could be such an adorable devil in a sense, and with such fun similes. The bed being a colt-consuming marshmellow is a favorite. Pairing such a character with a old magical smart-arse just breeds fun exchanges between the two. I'll be keeping an eye on this for sure.
This is pretty damn good.
This is good, seems very promising
Sleeping in a wizard's home, in the form of a changeling.
Nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan
...
why are there not more readers for this story?
Touch ALL THE STUFF
This is a wonderful story, you do an excellent job of putting us into the mind of a slightly disturbed precocious child. Just excellent.
The three "M"s of power, otherwise known as "MMM." Fitting. So very fitting!
Hey, is there a specific timeline for this? Like, olden times since Swirl is here, or is he somehow extremely long lived?
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I believe Star Swirl's age will be addressed in chapter five (which will hopefully be done in the next few days). A decent amount of world-building and the like occurs in chapter five as well. But yes, there is a rough timeline; as I currently envision it, Prodigy takes place over seventeen hundred years prior to the events of the show. I apologize that the story doesn't make that initially clear; I had initially wanted to make Trottingham as it would appear in the far past, but the show itself includes: royal guard armor and weaponry that would have looked normal on an ancient Grecian hoplite. A city that looks like it came from the western US in the 1800's or so. Scrolls. Hardcover books. Airships. A city that looks like perhaps early 1900's New York. Nobility that would have fit into Victorian England. A hydroelectric dam.
Frankly, I wasn't sure what old-timey Equestria would look like, so I did essentially what the writers of the show did: that is, whatever's convenient. I cut out all the modern technology, but left the culture (at least of Equestria) relatively akin to what it is in the show. No way in heck I was writing a book all in thee's and thou's and whatnot. (Sorry, Luna.)
And there is very much a reason why I set the book so far in the past: If I have the time, I would like to write a sequel(s) to this book once it's finished, and that requires the story to begin in ye-olden days of yore.
Hope that answers your question? (If I had a prize for 'first question asked,' I would give it to you.)
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Yes. Thanks for the clarification.
Hm. Being turned old is worse than being turned into food and eaten? Ah, the priorities of youth!~
It's little bits like this that make me go from merely liking this story to absolutely loving it...
I'd recognize the Pack Rat's Code anywhere. Heh heh heh...
I really love where this is going, and that whole scene with the book was fantastic.
What the flying fuck!? This story is excellent! To think if I didn't decide to pick some updated story today at random I wouldn't have discovered this gem.
This is a travesty!
you make reading sound so amazing..
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Sable Tails approves this message.
Stasis is such a little brat, and I love it. The only thing that makes me wary, whenever I see an update, is how the tragedy tag is going to play out.
Either way I'll enjoy the ride.
Well, I was going to run away and frolic somewhere else on FiMFiction, but that author's note... (A statement slightly more true than it should be, sadly)
Unfortunately, when I do decide to comment on a story it's rarely because I have any useful criticism or advice to give. Instead, I merely describe how wonderful I think the story is and how there should be more of it. And today, like a terribly cheesy Valentine's day card, I shall describe to you your story's many virtues inarticulately and verbosely.
Okay, villain protagonist. The rest of FiMFiction still seems to be catching up to the idea with respect to changelings (Is Without a Hive the only other major one?), but I don't blame them. A good villain protagonist is very difficult; he or she must have nasty tendencies but cannot alienate the audience. You have pretty much nailed Stasis, particularly with his thoughts and imaginings (hasn't every kid wanted something like Stasisgrad?). In fact, I mentally have Stasis listed as a "good kid" even though there is absolutely no supporting evidence for such an assertion. He's a complete turd, and demonstrates it with nearly every interaction he has with other characters. But I just cannot dislike him. I'm certain this human tendency is why we have cats as "pets".
Excellent world building and exposition. It feels casual while being different. There are very few stories (that I've read) that deal with Star Swirl's time period as if it were like modern Equestria, and I rather like it. I'm also quite sure that the idea of changeling "Fathers" is unique; I'm more certain here because I read WAY too many changeling fics. And because you write really damn well, almost all of your exposition is neatly tucked inside relevant plot details instead of hideous fatty exposition tumors. Or maybe there are exposition tumors, but I didn't care when I read through them.
I guess as a final point I should reiterate: you write extremely well. In the same way that most people can ride bicycles but cannot fathom how super motocross works (just go with the metaphor), when I read this story I see what you've done but have difficulty figuring out how you've done it. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead (seriously, how do they survive long enough to get good?!), but your talent is fantastic.
Now I'm going to attempt a viewer rain dance, because about all this story needs is more viewers and more chapters!
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Ha! 'Inarticulately' my arse, and someone who can make two chapters of 'Stasis went to school, made trouble, got in trouble, and read a book' into a 22,000+ word epic can hardly criticize someone else for verbosity. Anyway, this little review delighted me so much that I'm going to respond to it with some verbosity of my own.
I am extremely fond of a good villain protagonist story, meaning one in which the protagonist is portrayed sympathetically without making his actions appear somehow justified. (For example, one in which the author shows sympathy for Nightmare Moon as she slaughters her subjects and tries to murder her sister but then shows no sympathy for her victims is not, generally, a good story. One in which Celestia is actually evil and Nightmare Moon tries to stop her without causing collateral damage is fine, but then, Nightmare Moon is no longer really a villain, is she?)
I suspect the reason you have trouble disliking Stasis despite his turdiness is because, first, he's just a child. Anyone who hates a six or possibly seven year child is himself a turd. Second, while there are definitely serious moments in the story, there are plenty of comedic ones as well. It's much harder to dislike a funny jerk, even if he is still a jerk. And finally, hopefully you and everyone else who reads this story will feel empathy for Stasis, even if you don't always (or rarely ever) approve of his actions. It is perfectly possible to care about someone as a person while still strongly objecting to the things they do.
I personally do not recall ever wanting to own my own brutal totalitarian state as a child, but then, I always was a strange one.
I'm very happy that someone, at least, appreciates my world-building. I was really concerned, when I first decided to publish this story (of which I had written about the first three chapters at the time), that I would be seeing many comments along the lines of 'this is not what Equestria would have looked like years ago and this is not how Star Swirl would have acted like and ect. ect. ect., you stupid person!' I'm quite pleased that, thus far at least, that has not been the case.
'Fathers' came about because, although certain insect species have queens, none that I know of have kings. The males are, as I understand it, relatively plentiful and individually unimportant. The idea of doing otherwise both fit into my story and just seemed cool.
I don't generally feel the inclination to just 'dump' exposition onto my readers, because that would be boring. Much as Stasis, I don't like boring things. There have been a few times, however, where I had to cut out large parts that I found revealed more of the future direction of the story than I thought wise. Hopefully most of my readers have already caught onto the fact that this is not a simple 'Stasis went to Trottingham, Stasis found he liked it there, Stasis stayed and lived happily ever after the end' kind of story; I have quite a bit of crap planned for the little guy, and I want the reader to get that impression without actually knowing what that crap is yet.
Of course, I'm very pleased that you think my writing is good. I put quite a lot of work into it - I think I've done at least four passes over every chapter thus far, and the difference in quality between my first draft and the final product is almost always a large one - and I'm glad to see that it's paying off. I would like to be a professional author some day, and having some natural talent in my chosen field is, as always, a plus.
Again, I appreciate your taking the time to critique my story, even if your critique didn't involve any actual criticism. Having no hope of ever making any actual monetary profit from this story, I'm pretty much running on mixture of my own love for the story, my desire to improve as a writer, and the energy of my readers. Thank you for your generous contribution to Sable Tails' pool of reader enthusiasm. (I would respond to each comment individually like this, but alas, I don't think anyone wants to wade through (eventually) hundreds of variations of 'thanks for taking the time to comment on my story' lol.)
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Ah, but you see, it was 22,000 words that never called attention to their length by outliving their welcome. The devil's in the details, and you provide a great many imaginative ones. This goes hand-in-hand with the world building, which is interesting enough on its own. Also, I actually tend to leave even longer comments than that previous one, so perhaps my initial claim of verbosity was premature.
As a "quick" side note, I've recently read/been reading two books that seem to provide two examples of excellent world building that go about it in entirely different ways: Hyperion by Dan Simmons and Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (yeah, I'm on a sci-fi kick). Hyperion builds its world through demonstration: the plot is constructed in such a way that, although it seems impossible at first, we get a direct look at every major component of Hyperion's universe through a character's first hand experience. In fact, at the end of the first book I realized that it is secretly 75% exposition that's been cleverly hidden in a twisted version of the Canterbury tales, with characterization and real plot taking up the rest of the space. But it's okay; Hyperion was meant to be more about its universe than any individual character.
Book of the New Sun is entirely the opposite. There is only one point of view character (a rare first person epic) and we already know something about the ending in the first chapter. It is difficult to describe exactly how it is written, but basically it makes no attempt to explain what to us seems odd to us but is normal for the inhabitants of the setting. I should emphasize that nearly every paragraph contains at least once sentence you will have to think about to figure out what it really means. It is set some indeterminate (but immense) about of time in the future. There are no explanations given, but sufficient details are provided to (mostly) figure out what is going on if you're really paying attention (drink coffee before reading). In this way the story slowly reveals an incredibly detailed and complex setting without ever detracting from the story's plot and characterization. Among the details you must figure out yourself: the moon was terraformed, the sun is being consumed by a black hole, the "destriers" are NOT horses, they don't understand genetics, and they have an incomplete understanding of relativity. The main character also believes in magic (which, so far, doesn't exist) and has a somewhat medieval view of the world.
I nearly lost where I was going with this (beyond recommending both of them as examples and good reads, which I realize I didn't do until now), but I must mention that so far I actually think your world building is one of the strongest points of the story so far. You're utilizing Stasis as a means of describing your version of changelings through his thoughts and, through his ignorance, your version of pony culture and society without ever calling undue attention to it. That's what I consider talent.
Also, I now remember that there actually IS one type of insect that has kings: termites. <Wikipedia/google visit> They're bigger than other termites and live as long as the queen does (>20 years). It looks like the only eusocial insect where the males are more than disposable (interestingly, workers are a mix of male and female individuals and can replace the primary "royalty" if one dies, unlike bees or ants where reproductive individuals are specially prepared at/before birth).
Alright, rambling over, cheer leading outfit off. Oh, and that was an awesome reply to a middling comment. Intriguingly, while nothing of monetary value is gained or lost on FiMFiction, we are doing a good job of trading emotions around here with words. There's a little changeling in--
Okay, time to eat something and sleep before I get worse.
something tells me Star is knows more than he letting on or at least putting 2 and 2 together
Thank you for the story.
I am looking forward to see what happens next.
And chapter six is done! Sorry it took so long; other issues and responsibilities got in the way, and my initial plan of publishing a chapter a week just isn't going to work unless the chapters are quite short (by my standards) or quite bad (by my standards). Anyway, hope you enjoy it; I'm shooting to get the next chapter out in about two or three weeks, but we'll see what happens.
P.S. I'm away for a little while, and Discord is reformed, and Twilight is...an alicorn? Whoa. Don't know what to think about that yet.
P.P.S. 'Liquid pride' is now officially a part of my lexicon. Maybe Celestia will give you a pair of wings next, Shining; you deserve it.
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Delightful chapter as expected! The moment he stepped out the door and Starswirl's line followed him was so touching.
I can also relate to Starswirl reading the story. I also have younger people who question everything as I read to them
Though they aren't as well educated sounding as Stasis.
You are a bucking genius.
Was there ever a pun that was clever? If not, I think this should be amongst those that came the closest.
More comments for the comment god! (...It sounded better in my head.)
So uh, coming back and finishing off the season must have been a surprise. Not going to get into it, but I don't think anyone really knows how to feel about that last bit.
As for the chapter? I don't have many words pertaining to veneration left to use, but it is excellent. Leaving it at that might be cruel, so I'll elaborate somewhat. I'm really liking how you're revealing Stasis's past in terms of method and pacing. You aren't revealing too much too soon and bogging us down, but you aren't leaving us waiting for the important details either. It is, of course, becoming less of a wonder as to why Stasis interacts with others the way he does: he's never known or expected anything different. It would be very boring if Stasis figured out exactly why he is starting to prefer life with ponies. I hate "preemptive" epiphanies with a passion, so continue taking your time with Stasis, siuer. And the character development is delicious... taking more time never hurts these things in my opinion.
Haha, wait, I think I tried to give advice about writing again. Please ignore my apparent presumptuousness.
Also in a completely-but-not-totally unrelated note, I had the word quisling stuck in my head earlier last week and could not remember what story I had read that used the word (Hyperion, it turns out). Then I read it here and somehow felt clever for knowing it so immediately.
Also, cool way to introduce Killings, introducing the word out of properly identifying context and then using it again later in better contexts. Now we have even more ways that this story can go tragic!
Now, I don't believe in cover art as necessary... but I feel like it would help you get more views (something this story deserves so very much that it borders on injustice). I also feel silly for bringing it up because I have absolutely nothing to offer on the visual arts front (I don't think I'm legally allowed to draw in the state of Florida anymore), but I was wondering if you had any plans...?
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The story starts when Stasis is first exposed to the 'world of the ponies,' so to speak, but ultimately I don't think you can understand who he is or why he does what he does unless you understand where he's coming from. The pull of the two cultures on him is ultimately a major part of the story. However, it would be pretty boring if I had started the tale when he was born and proceeded from there; hence the liberal use of...'internal monologuing,' I guess it could be called? His thoughts and memories of the past. And it would be both boring and nonsensical for him to suddenly start thinking about everything related to his family and culture, from top to bottom; that would be roughly the equivalent of that most-favorite of amateur literary devices, looking into the mirror and observing your own physical appearance. Most people know what they look like and don't need to remind themselves of it; similarly, Stasis only thinks about his past as it's relevant to what is happening in the present. Hence the more natural, slow-paced world-building.
I think it is probably much more interesting to read a story about Stasis than it is to read an exposition from me on what I think of him, but I will say that I have tried to make him a product of both nature and nurture. His family environment, the way others have treated him in the past, and the expectations they have for him and he has for himself have all worked to shape who he is; beyond that, however, he is also as unique an individual as I could make him to be. I enjoy writing him in part because I can't think of any character I've ever read that is quite like him, although those better read than I might be able to point someone out.
I think 'epiphanies' can often be an author's trick to try to get their character to behave in a way in which they frankly shouldn't. One example: "Oh no, I'm actually a terrible jerk! I should love and tolerate more!" In reality, I think most people would resist acknowledging their own jerkiness unless dire circumstances (such as friendlessness and isolation) force them to. Even then, an 'epiphany' is only the first step; just because you realize that you should be different from what you are doesn't mean you automatically change. In Stasis' case...well, what I was trying to achieve in the last scene in "Inflection" is to show the sort of internal tug-of-war that often takes place when we make big decisions. Stasis' decision to stay with the ponies is at least as much an emotional one as it is an intellectual one; he doesn't tally up the pro's and con's and of leaving and decide which is greater, he fights a battle within himself between a whole host of different feelings and desires, some of which pull him back towards his family, and some of which pull him back towards Trottingham. As much as possible, I tried to give the impression that there was no one thing that swayed him to turn back, and that not every motivation was a good and wholesome one; if I failed in that, then it was a failure of execution, not of intent.
I'm very glad that you find my character development 'delicious.' That's an almost-creepy description, but no more so than Star Swirl's 'luscious' beard, I suppose. Frankly, I think the story stands or falls on the strength of its characters and character development; take away Stasis and my small army of OC's, and you're pretty much just left with mediocre world-building and acceptable technical skill. (I won't even mention plot; the plot in this story has been kicking my tail. I hate you, plot.)
I was frankly baffled that not a single member of my immediate family had any idea what 'quisling' meant. I don't consider myself a juggernaut of thesaurical might, but still; I didn't think it was that obscure a word. Anyway, I'm happy that I finally came up with a pun that people like; normally I'm not much into that kind of wordplay (sorry, WordPlay), but the show seemed to kind of demand it.
I didn't really mean for Killings to be a mystery; I initially introduced them in "M is for Knowledge" as "[Mother's] biggest, strongest warriors." Quislings are not at all common; that's why, in a family of hundreds, there is only one Killing specifically associated with quislings.
I hate to give any more clue to the ending than I have to, but I should make it clear that the definition of tragedy under which Prodigy falls is closest to the classical one: "a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal." Obviously Stasis is not a man and this is not a play, but I just wanted to make clear that this is not a sad or horror fic where something terrible happens to the character out of the blue and the reader is left with the feeling, "Well...that sucks." At least, that's not what I'm going for. This story is about Stasis, his personal development, and his relationships to the individuals and groups around him. The tragedy element will flow from that just as much as the comedy does. (Also, again, this book is meant as the first in a series; ye need not abandon all hope, ye who read here.)
And finally, as to the cover art...I once tried my hand at sketching, and I don't think it's bragging for me to say that I had a bit of a knack for it. However, I found that it took quite a while for me to do a realistic sketch of, say, my hand, a bell, or a deer's head. Then I went online and saw many of my favorite artists saying that it took them 30+ hours to do my favorite works of visual art.
Now, I know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in 30+ hours I can do ten thousand, so that was the end of my sketching career. I do happen to be close to a number of excellent artists, but unfortunately they're either a: despising of all things fantasy and fun in general (I'm looking at you, Grandpa), or b: all-around recalcitrant and heel-dragging when it comes to reading my most-excellent story (you know who you are). So instead I'm forced to nag my beloved sister until she remembers to ask her friend, who is also an artist and neither recalcitrant nor fun-hating, to perhaps make me a bit of custom art as a cover for my story. Of course, if any of you, dear readers, feel inspired to make a little something for my story, I would at the least post it somewhere around here with credit to you (I can only have one picture as my cover art, alas, although I may also choose another one for my profile picture). What I don't want to do is pick some random thing off the internet and use that; I don't want to plagiarize, and frankly I feel like this story deserves at least a little unique art, even if it's not exactly world-class.
(Looking at this comment: this is why I don't try to write short stories anymore.)
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Ack! I'm afraid I didn't make myself very clear. I completely approve of the way you're handling this story right now, it's just that I decided to use vague negative examples to express my approval. I got into epiphanies partially because it's such a bloody annoyance when a character gains +20 naval gazing and realizes all of their wrongdoings before we can have any fun in watching the dominoes tumble first. It is equally annoying when a character is bathed in character development juices and they hardly find more than the "e" needed to spell empathy, but that is an understandably rarer problem. (And wow, I did it again!)
So yeah. I'm in that awkward situation of wanting to talk but having no criticism to give, so it either becomes fawning or vague criticism of other people's work that I really should give to them directly.
Rewinding my memory a little, I, um, caught something about a series in there. This made me very happy, as well as hearing your working definition of tragedy being the classical one. Not that I had concerns about your direction (seriously, not sarcastically, if you somehow were unclear), but when you start laying out potential plot points I start mentally construing them into some sort of shape, usually delectably nasty ones (law of conservation of detail, perhaps). And what's wrong with using gustatory language to describe aspects of stories?
As for Killings... well, I guess I should have remembered that...
Anyways, any cover will probably do for the sake of getting more people to read this gem, but it's nice to know that someone might help you out there. Again, I feel silly for bringing it up when I have no ability to rectify it, but I was curious. On the plus side, people seem to discover stories after they've being going a while. The specific example I can think of is A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, which had a paltry ~200 views upon completion (>100k words) and now has almost 1200, although I'm not totally sure what happened. Yeah, yeah, I know I need to lay off the changeling stories...
It's a very good thing that we aren't using carrier pigeons for delivering comments around here, otherwise we'd have to start breeding gryphons to carry these things around.
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I do greatly appreciate constructive criticism, especially given by people who are both knowledgeable and objective. (It's not particularly useful to me for people to say, "Oh, I didn't like your story because there's violence at the beginning.") However, that doesn't mean that I object to fawning either. Fawning's good. I like fawning.
Every short story I ever tried to write ended up either as a novellete or a novella, and were still too short to tell the story I was trying to tell. I currently have four books planned in this little series, with ideas for one or two more that could wrap things up, but whether I'll manage to write all that before I either die of old age or the show invalidates all my ideas, I don't know. As long as I finish Prodigy and its sequel, that may be enough.
Besides the lack of picture, I think this story is somewhat disadvantaged in the view department since it neither involves the main characters of the show (except for Celestia, although some may object to my depiction of her thus far), nor, as several people have pointed out to me, is it very 'cartoony.' If I had chosen to do another "Twilight messes up a spell and goofy things happen" story, I suspect it would have been more popular, faster. I'm doing the best I can with the concept I have, but it may take a while for readership to build up steam. I think that once I've finished Prodigy, I'll try submitting it to Equestria Daily, and we'll see what happens then.
People have said before that my texts are more akin to small books than, well, texts. So as long as things stay relatively on-topic, I don't care how long the comments are. (Small-comment people are more than welcome too, though. Not everyone likes the sound of their own typing as much as I do.) If someone wants to talk to me about the state of politics in America or whatever, though, send me a PM instead.
I am not too much into giving detailed comments or constructive criticism.
I cannot say why like your story exactly (except may be for being 99% OC - that is huuuge plus for me) - I simply like it and I am grateful to you for sharing it.
P.S.: I hope you are not going to make it tragedy for the sake of tragedy and there will be some good in the end.
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I appreciate your feedback, paul, and I'm glad you like the story. I personally like to read any well-done character, either OC or not, but as much as like FiM, I think I'm probably much better at doing OC's than I would be at doing characters from the show. You can expect to see a few more characters from the show at some point, but it will probably be ones that are less well-developed and so give me more creative license.
Or, to put it another way - if you like OC's, then you're going to love me. I've got about I-don't-even-know-how-many OC's planned for the sequels, whenever I get that far. And I hate to give away anything more about my plans than I have to, but since so many people are worried about it, I'll try to make things even clearer: the tragedy tag applies to Prodigy alone, and if you stick with me through the sequels, I don't think that you'll be disappointed in that regard. In fact, if Prodigy were a stand-alone book, I'd change the ending and keep it just as a comedy. Too many tragedies I've read were books that seemed to think that ending poorly made it 'high-brow' or something, and 'high-brow' is not, I think, a description that will ever be associated with any of my stories. Unfortunately, this story must be a tragedy if the sequel is to make any sense, and as much as I love Prodigy, the major intent of the book is to lay the groundwork for everything that comes after it. (Sort of like how The Hobbit was a stand-alone book that still laid the groundwork for Lord of the Rings.) Or, to say it again: if you want a story where nothing bad ever happens, then look elsewhere. Bad things must happen for characters to grow, and with as much character development as I've got planned for this story - both for Stasis and others - a whole lot of bad things have got to happen. But while it will never be a happily-ever-after story, it will, eventually, end on a high-note. I only tagged this first book as a tragedy because technically it is, and I didn't want to be disingenuous - I don't want anyone to think that this is all going to be a happy-go-lucky funfest and then feel cheated later.
Anyway, again, thanks for the comment, and I'm grateful for your gratefulness. I don't think that I could keep up the effort to write this story if it weren't for the encouragement of readers such as a yourself.
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I like stories with well done characters too. It does not mean that I do not like non-OC stories, it also does not mean that I like OC because they are OC. And of course number of OCs involved is not a quality indicator. I personally think that good story should not have more than two main characters or there will be bunch of flat characters and no protagonist at all. The reason I love OC stories is simple - after you finished your first hundred of stories featuring mane6 - you start appreciate new characters. Also it is true that that OC is harder to catch and make believable, it is true that here are a lot of crappy OC stories like 'oh-my-god-i-am-alicorn-and-everypony-loves-me". But it is also true that there are true gems in OC stories - like this or this or this etc. They are rare and I appreciate every new one I stumble upon. It is shame that there is so small attention to them, comparing to usual 'Oh, -insert-you-preferred-mane6-here- is gay, and other mane6 too, and they are shipped together, wow!'.
But I think that if this fandom survive another few years - OC stories like yours will become more and more popular among older fans.
I'm late! I'm late!
I almost forgot to comment after reading! For some odd reason, April Fool's day made me remember.
Alright, let's see... cover art! Excellent, my lord, the readership should flow endlessly henceforth! Or at least make it more likely some of the hopefully appreciative magpies around here give it a try.
I also actually have a critique this time! It's just a little one. Jack is amusing, but I felt like he might have taken up too many of the precious 8785 words in the chapter without being quite as entertaining as I wanted him to be. Of course, it also looks like you're establishing him as a new character we'll being seeing some more of, which is what makes my critique so petite. As character establishment goes, it works very well.
Ugh, even my attempts at criticism end up self-cancelling in the end with this story.
So, continuing with unrelenting praise, I really can't wait to see what percolates out of the events set in motion here. A dramatic on-stage reveal? Dealing in the shadows? Abduction? Nit is a very interesting character; you gave him impressive depth in just a single scene! Ah, so many things to go wrong now. If I talk about it any more I'm just going to get more impatient, so I'll restrain myself.
Maybe you should submit some 1000 word working titles as placeholders, because after humans banning the changeling scourge is next...
Though even on other days, this mod's pants are very itchy, so it still might be a good idea.
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I was doing okay for the first twenty-four hours, but after forty-eight had passed, I thought, "Dear Celestia above, if even Mani has abandoned me, who, then, will help me through this cold, hard world of commentless readers?" I had already resigned myself to posting these chapters forever in the face of a vacuum, or else dedicating a portion of my writing-time to bludgeoning random internet passers-by into leaving me some small memento before prancing off into the digital hinterlands.
Anyway, all is forgiven. There is a little story behind that picture - my sister's friend proved too overextended to be able to produce a work of art in time for the publishing of this chapter, so my sister herself actually sketched the characters in that picture. I figured that it would be difficult to see without colors, so I resolved to color it in myself. I spent a good little while doing so before, so, proud of my work and being the good little boy that I am, I showed it to my mother for approval.
Now, my mother has not said anything truly critical about any work of art that I've ever done since the time, as a wee babe, I connected a green crayon to a white paper and she promptly called it a 'grasshopper' and framed it on the wall. That should give you some context for what it means when she said that my coloring was, and I quote, "Better than nothing." (That's what I promptly titled my creation: 'Better than nothing.') She even said that like it was as much a praise as could possibly be squeezed out of her for so hideous a creation. Furthermore, she then promptly sat down and, taking a photocopy of the original work, promptly colored it herself, apparently out of a fervent desire not to see her beloved son forever stain his honor by posting such a sub-par work online. She even went back again later to another photocopy and gave it a new background and an even better coloration, producing the work that you see above.
Anyway, I say all that just to point out that my dreams of being a professional colorist are now forever crushed, and also that the above picture will most likely be replaced when my sister's friend, who has access to much more advanced tools than crayons and markers, finally gets a chance to produce a work of her own.
As to the story itself, I, too, thought that Jack's soliloquy went on a bit longer than was strictly necessary, given that he is neither a major character in the story, nor does his dialogue (monologue?) really advance the plot in any significant way; but then again, he was fun to write, he is fun to read (or so I was repeatedly told), and so I was convinced that laziness is often a virtue and decided to just leave him in. You can think of it this way: you can have 8700+ words with Jack, or you can have 8700- words without him. At worst, he adds a little bit of unnecessary fluff to the story. (I am actually a bit more concerned about the library part; I feel it as fluffy as the part about Jack without the saving grace of being as funny. Of course, the parts that I think are hilarious and that I spent weeks or months planning are never mentioned by my readers, and the lines that I threw in during the third draft are always what give people the giggles. Whateves. If I create an interesting story, whether it be by accident or design I guess doesn't really matter.)
I'm afraid I can't comment much about my plans for the story without giving spoilers (duh) but I will say that merging more-serious content that moves the plot along with content that's primarily there just to be funny is a bit difficult. When I began this story I only had an idea of the ending of the story and none for the middle, so I feel that the beginning was maybe a bit sluggish plot-wise. Now that, after much effort, I have a much clearer idea for the ending and some for the middle, I feel that the plot may be advancing too quickly in places. Oh, well. This is fanfiction, so I guess it's not the end of the world if I make some of mistakes along the way. Hopefully I'll get my technique down before I reach the sequel, which I feel will be an awesome story if I don't muck-up the execution.
Also, I have absolutely no idea what the last two sentences of your comment mean, lol. What are humans banning? Are they banning a changeling scourge? Changeling scourges sound cool; human bans, less so. Also, 'mod' is short for 'moderator,' right? Are you a moderator? And why are your pants itchy? Is that even something that I want to know?
These are the questions that haunt me now.
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I am of on all the times unaccountable good English when speaking on the April Fool's.
I was very tired at the time, but really that was terrible. And humorous. I appear to have accidentally created a "Why do the vampires in Twilight Sparkle?" sentence... But for posterity, it shall remain confuddled.
The story of the picture? Ouch. Strangely, while imagining the encounter I pictured [the nebulous form of the author] as the same young child whose accidental grasshopper was taken away and framed, only this time returning in pursuit of praise for a work of intention. This made me very amused for some reason. As for the drawing itself, it looks quite good at smaller resolutions. The luscious beard of Starswirl (ugh, you're right, typing that felt wrong) is very well done, but that brown pony in the background is staring into my soul and demanding to know why it suffers so. I kid... sort of. I still say the mere presence of a picture is the most important part, so long as it doesn't look like pony creator or MS paint were involved. But if an improved version is coming, well, I can't wait to see it.
Ironically, I may have just remembered Jack simply because his scene was more memorable than the librarian's. After all, I read it the day it was posted but waited until yesterday to comment.
Now, I don't know if the quality of your work is actually due to some secret ultra-guru editor you conspire with or not, but don't be that worried about making mistakes. "Mistakes" in fiction is an especially arbitrary concept anyways, because the choice of creating any particular scene excludes the creation of certain others, as does the method of execution of that scene come at the expense of other possibilities. So unless you just skip whole-sale over some necessary information and interactions for us to understand what you do write, there aren't really any true mistakes. Maybe it won't be as good as you thought it could be, but it certainly won't be bad.
If you've had enough of that corniness (although I really did think about that quite a bit; I do have a few story ideas but I'm paralyzed by the fact I can't tell ALL of the potential stories the ideas could produce... shows you how mature my story telling abilities are), I'll end with a fic recommendation (why should you do all the work?): Mendacity by Dromicosuchus. I see it isn't in your favorites list but it probably should be because it might be the most imaginative story on the site right now. Yeah, it involves changelings, but the sheer inventiveness of the story is astounding. And Aldrovanda the Kelpie is a deuteragonist I think you'll appreciate.
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(Hmm...methinks I should have made this into a blog post or something instead. Oh, well.)
"Ultra-guru editor?" Ha! I just about have to waterboard the proofreaders I've got now in order to get anything more than "It was good." (No, seriously, they're great, just not experienced storytellers.) I'm just waiting for some poor sap to get on here and leave a bunch of insightful criticisms of my story so that I can browbeat him into proofreading new chapters.
Probably the best reviewer of pony fiction that I've seen is One Man's Pony Ramblings, and one of the things I've noticed is his focus on grammar and mechanics when critiquing stories. I think that the reason for that is, in his quest to be objective, grammar and mechanics are one of the few things that one can 'objectively' critique in a story. So much else of it is up to the personal taste of the reader. Still, while storytelling may be more of an art than a science, some stories are clearly better written than others, and I hope to improve my plotting and pacing (among everything else) as I go along.
I think I understand what you mean about having an overabundance of story ideas. I, too, often have ideas for pony fanfiction, but unless I can work it into my current story series somehow, I just have to accept that it's probably not ever going to get done. By the time I'm done with Stasis, I suspect I'll be more than ready to do my own original work. If you think about it, the greatest works of literature generally take far, far more time to write than the junk you often see on library shelves (The Lord of the Rings took much of Tolkien's life, if you count all the preparatory work on The Silmarillion and the like, and I think that George R. R. Martin has been working on on A Song of Ice and Fire for about as long as I've been alive) (did you think that I was going to reference Shakespeare or Dickens? lol no.) A writer only has so much time, so if you want to make something truly epic, you've got to pick your ideas carefully. Of course, none of my ideas are ever less than a trilogy long; if you're into short stories, maybe you can get more of your ideas down onto hard drive in less time.
"Deuteragonist?" I like that word. Thanks. Anyway, I haven't actually read all that much pony fiction - I find it very hard to read things that are poorly written or is just a lame story, which includes most things in bookstores these days, it seems - so I always appreciate it when someone recommends something good and saves me the trouble of searching for the diamond in the rough. A much-less-quick-than-I-originally-planned review of my favorites *Minor Spoiler Alert* - I liked Past Sins, but it didn't blow me away or anything. I thought that little Nix was kind of boring, and big Nix's solution to her problems was way too quick and easy. Night's Favorite Child is pretty awesome, but I worry if the story is ever actually going to get finished. Also, I haven't seen enough of Nightmare Moon to decide if I like her characterization or not. She started off with a strong evil edge, potentially killing off Twilight's parents and all, but then the author seems to just make her into a essentially-good-but-misunderstood ruler. That's okay, I guess, but not my favorite characterization.
The Immortal Game rocks. I would have paid to read that book. The villains were great, the action was pretty consistently entertaining, and overall the dark, action-heavy story was very much in line with the kind of stories that I like to read - and that I want to write. My biggest quibble is that it could be a bit too action-heavy at times - I would have liked to see a bit more characterization going on. Still, I adore the author's characterization and portrayal of Titan, and the scene where Terra pretends to be bonding with Flutteryshy and then most definitely does not bond with Flutteryshy was just freakin' awesome. I so expected that scene to be another sappy, unrealistic oh-I-was-evil-and-now-I-see-the-error-of-my-ways-cry-sob-cry borefest, and the sudden turnaround literally made me stop, walk around and think about its awesomeness for a while, and then come back and read it again.
Anyway, that's all the pony fanfiction that comes to mind right now. Of course, anything by Absolute Anonymous is excellent, but not really my preferred kind of stories. Outside of fanfiction, I like The Lord of the Rings (duh); Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space universe (I've found his non-gothic space opera to be much less interesting); and Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn trilogy, Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained duology, and the Void trilogy, which don't have the greatest characterization or even plot in my opinion, but the concepts are so bold and epic and insane that I read it just for that (invasions of the spirits of the dead across a stellar civilization? A hyper-militaristic space-faring civilization, trapped forever in an unbreakable prison, now accidentally set free? A god-like psychic, set to rescue the universe from an unsatiable void?). But of course, my favorite series is A Song of Ice and Fire, also known nowadays by its televised pseudonym, A Game of Thrones. Of all the stories listed here, it's the only one with consistently good (in this case, awesome) characterization. Seriously, is it so hard to write an epic, outlandish story and also write well-rounded, interesting characters? Do I have to delve into the nauseatingly-boring world of high-brow literature and the classics in order to get a character that's more than a tool to show me the author's world-building or advance the plot? (Seriously, I love you Shakespeare, but reading your stuff straight is like chugging my dad's homemade vegetable juice. I just can't do it.)
Anyway, maybe that gives you some idea of the kind of stuff of I like, and the kind of stuff I want to write. Right now I'm reading Fallout Equestria (the first few chapters haven't blown me away, mostly because it's much easier to overlook the unbelievability of Joe Schmoe blowing up hordes of mindless and mindlessly evil enemies straight out of the vault in a video game than it is in a book, and also because the main character seems to have only marginally more characterization thus far than she/he did in the video game, but maybe things will improve as I go along.) However, I'll definitely give Mendacity a look. If you're looking for imaginativeness (as opposed to, say, sticking to the source material), I guarantee you that things get better in my story series as the books move along. Prodigy just sort of eases you into the things to come.
P.S. Thinking about the kinds of books I like, I have no idea how I ended up writing Prodigy as a comedy. I didn't even plan it that way - I just started writing the book, and little Stasis just made it a comedy somehow. Weird.
Correction: As I was thinking of other things, it suddenly occurred to me that the life-goddess's name in The Immortal Game is, in fact, Terra, not Gaia as I had previously written. Too many fanfics with similar concepts and similar names, I'm afraid.
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Ah, I didn't mean that I have a lot of ideas. No, that would be great. I actually only have very few ideas that I think are clever, and even those few paralyze me with indecision.
Oh, and that still could be a blog. Hell, it wouldn't need significant reformatting either.
Let's see... all listed titles noted and placed into memory. I've had enough people recommend Revelation Space to me that I have a copy of it. Still haven't read it, but now I guess that's my next target (though my planned next, The Left Hand of Darkness, is shorter...). I may try to regurgitate some of my favorites in the future, but for now I'm already procrastinating as it is.
I see you place great emphasis on characters and characterization, which I'm going to use to try and make a point about mistakes in writing. I've read up to book 4 (only a little ways into it though) of A Song of Ice and Fire, and that's my personal best example of fundamentally flawed but fundamentally excellent literature. It is because the characterization is so well done that the (in my opinion) pacing and plot mistakes can be overlooked.
Without spoiling things for people (and don't spoil books 4&5 for me!), a significant portion of the plot(s) occurs as if by dice roll. Who wins a battle? Who gets murdered? Who gets murdered completely out of the blue? Who escapes from impossible situations? I dunno, it just sort of happens. While it leads to a lot of unexpected twists, many times events occur seemingly without dramatic consideration. This is especially noticeable when comparing mainland events to Daenerys's subplot, which doesn't have this problem (and probably has the opposite problem). A lot of good characters and their potential interactions/subplots are snuffed out for what appears to be the goal of seeming realistic.
But because the characters are so compelling, it's easy for me to overlook the plot problems (and, at least on the first read, it makes the books quite exciting). For other people, my opinion of the plot's structure probably seems silly. I just don't have a problem with narratives following narrative conventions rather than the conventions of reality; there's a reason we don't simply recite from history books when we want to tell stories. I think there are several places in ASoIaF where the plot could have been equally unpredictable but ultimately more satisfying without using the literary equivalent of "The roof caves in, your party dies." After all, when you have 50+ characters each interacting with a quarter of the total cast, there are many ways to let their paths clash.
Although to be fair, more of the events in the story are character driven than not. Perhaps, due to the scope of the work, Martin was trying to avoid a jigsaw puzzle feeling about the events of the plot? Eh, I don't think many people on this planet will ever have to worry about dealing with so many characters... or ever want to. Martin's noble experiment continues, but we shall see how it finishes.
Uh, getting back to my point, a lot of things are forgivable with good characterization and you appear to be one of the best around this site when it comes to that.
Oh, and procrastination accomplished.
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I seem to recall that The Left Hand of Darkness was written by Ursula Le Guin. While she gets points for the cool title, I read a little bit of some of her other stories, and was not a fan. It seemed like her sci-fi (I think her stuff counts as sci-fi) focused on social aspects, which I generally find unpalatable. One story in particular seemed solely to serve as a showcase for her concept of a new nuclear family, one with two males and two females, which I found absurd barring some huge shift in fundamental human psychology (and probably biology). Of course, tastes differ, so maybe you'll have better luck.
Since we're on the subject of books, I also seem to recall you mentioning Hyperion in an earlier post. A very strange book. It's episodic nature introduced me to a number of interesting ideas, but unfortunately that same nature made it difficult for the story(ies) to have any lasting impact on me. All I remember are the weird ideas; the characters were given too brief a glance to be really memorable, I think.
I don't really recall any significant problems with ASoIaF's plotting or pacing, but I was so engrossed with the story at the time that it's certainly possible that I missed some things. (When the next book comes out, I'll probably read the whole series over again, so maybe I'll spot the issues then.) I know that a lot of people feel like static.tumblr.com/ewftoaf/uRwlplk55/tumblr_lnoegd33u61qzctjlo1_500.png , but nothing felt overly random or un-empathetic to me. Certainly not more so than the 'realistic' nature of the series would require. The wolves in particular are used as a device to give warning to the reader that stuff's about to go down. As for the first major character to perish, considering that he was one of the least-morally challenged of the major players, I thought that his demise was somewhat timely. The story almost certainly would have been very different had he not died, and probably not for the better; also, since he was so good already, there was frankly less room for him to improve, in my opinion. In fact, there has not been a death of a major character of which I really disapproved (and the way in which main characters die is almost always in a suitably memorable fashion), with the possible exception of the latest cliffhanger death. If that particular major character has, in fact, died, then I just want Mr. Martin to know that he's old and fat and should just lay down his pen and take up competitive bingo instead. But that's just my opinion.
When I first really tried to write my own original series, I couldn't get started, grew frustrated, and decided to instead work on this idea for a MLP fanfiction that I couldn't get out of my head. I think now that one of the big problems I was having was that I had just finished reading ASoIaF and so was trying to write a story with an enormous cast, complex world, and interesting plot. While I made progress on the world-building (and still struggle with my plots), I think that the major problem was my focus on so many characters at once. While Prodigy may have a good number of OC's, it is still, fundamentally, about Stasis. All my future stories will most likely focus on primarily on one or two central characters, per the norm. While Mr. Martin's ability to weave a story with so many central characters is astounding and fun to read, I don't think that it would be wise or possible for me to emulate him. That's just one little trial-and-error discovery about my own writing style that I've made in my nascent writing career.
I appreciate that you appreciate my characterization. World-building is a fun little pastime, and plotting is sometimes fun and sometimes just a pain, but I really do like my characters. I care a lot about all of them, those I've written and those I've planned, the heroes and the villains, the good and the bad and the both. It just bothers me, then, when I read a book or watch a movie and it becomes clear to me that the writer(s) just didn't care about their characters at all. I mean, if you're going to spend a quarter of a billion dollars to make a movie, is it really so much to spend a quarter of a million dollars to pay some poor fellow (such as myself) to invent characters that people might actually care about? Villains especially get dissed a lot. I'll be honest, I didn't care one whit for Luke Skywalker, but Luke's daddy was awesome (prequels don't count). Who can forget the Agents from The Matrix (not the sequels)? And of course: the Terminator. One of my favorites. Are interesting villains really so hard to do?
...Anyway. I guess that I'm going to find out.
P.S. Oh, and Ser Gregor Clegane, The Mountain that Rides? One of the few through-and-through villains of ASoIaF? Hardly a major character, yet Mr. Martin still manages to still make him pseudo-realistic and memorable. (Absent the gigantism, there really are men such as Gregor Clegane in the world, which is probably one of the most disturbing aspect of his characterization, in my opinion. It would take a very skilled author indeed to make a cackling evil genius seem truly frightening, given the relative dearth of cackling evil geniuses to be feared these days, but raping, murdering, brutal men are all too easy to believe in, at least for me.)
There will never be a chapter so big that I cannot write it. This is my solemn vow.
Damn you Star Swirl, you're like an old professor (actually, he is an old professor, kinda). Just keep talking, and talking, and talking.... Goodness.
If you wrote a story about Star Swirl's life and announced it, I'd read it. This is the first story I've read where he was an interesting character.
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Thank you; I have no idea how other authors have portrayed him, so I had to make everything up from scratch. For all intents and purposes, this chapter is a story about Star Swirl's life; it's essentially a novella in its own right. A little editing, and it could be published on its own. However, while we may see more detours into other character's histories in the future, this story is primarily about Stasis and I have no intention of writing any other stories at this point. I intend for Prodigy and its sequels to have many, many interesting characters of various stripes with interesting lives, not just Star Swirl.
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+1 to previous comments - I really like Star Swirl's story
And thanks for the update :)
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Thanks! It was definitely an experiment for me. Being a new writer, everything's an experiment, I suppose...but writing Star Swirl's biography from his point of view in a conversation was definitely something new and fun. Also, lots of world-building, which I increasingly find that I enjoy.
Work's a bit crazy right now, but I already have quite a bit of work done on the next chapter. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it up and post it fairly soon.
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Work's a bit crazy right now, but I already have quite a bit of work done on the next chapter. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it up and post it fairly soon.
Wow, that was...really good. I'm not sure what I liked the best; that you managed to make this proto-Equestria just seem so real and plausible or that you fleshed out Star Swirl's story so damn well, making me think "man look at all those ups and downs and loop-de-loops in his life!". And Stasis's character! He's such a...kid! I'm not sure how to describe it, but few people manage to just get a kid right. I would always get the impression that "this kid is too grown up, oh right that's because the author is writing this", but here I just never get torn out of my immersion like that, he acts well and truly in a way I would expect a kid to. It's a subtle thing that you have managed to capture.
Good friggin' job, man, I am loving your story.