Has everyone here read Wild, Sweet, and Cool by Kwakerjack?

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Too many of the stories on FiMFiction are endless epics. Sometimes, that makes sense as the only way a story could go. Oftimes, it just makes the entire thing plod. It's been frustrating to me to see stories update again and again without ever coming near to resolving their plots. I'm more impressed with an author if they write two 50,000 word stories than if they write one 100,000 word story.

The title says it all. If you've never heard of glurge, here is the TvTropes page. The story of which I speak uses cheap emotional tricks. It has a legitimately interesting viewpoint, but that's not where it gets its emotional impact from. Is this really the story we want everyone to see at the top of the Top Rated list?

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As I work on Gleaming Chains, I keep coming back to the loose ends I laid out for myself to tie up. Of all the faults I may have as a writer, giving myself enough rope isn't one of them. I've got enough loose rope for a rope bridge. I've also got enough rope to... I keep tying the past and the present together. Thematic awareness flows sluggish through my veins.

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I just got a message saying I had 200 new notifications to look at. Fortunately, it appears to have been wrong.

The count at the top of the page was 2. The actual number of new notifications was 1. I'm a little confused, really.

EDIT: Just got another (single) notification, spawning a message saying I had a hundred of the things.

It's certainly a chapter-like object. Yes, it is distinctly chapterish. I am not sure if it is the actual first chapter of Gleaming Chains.

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The heatwave ended some time ago, but I have only just returned to Gleaming Chains. I was afraid to return. Last time I worked on it, I was so delirious with heat and insomnia that I thought my name was Princess Celestia, and I had to spend a sleep period knitting together my thoughts from the chaos that overtook them. It was an oddly conscious and rather effortful process. There was a lot of detritus.

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Why did you do that to me? That wasn't in the script!

I hate being without air-conditioning sometimes.

Oh well, I-wait, there's really no silver lining here. Agh. It's too hot to write.

Why did you do that to Nightmare? That wasn't in the script!

I hate being a discovery writer sometimes.

Oh well, I needed a way to involve Discord in the story. This will do!

Despair is the sensation of having nothing you can do.

It can be as grandiose as watching a kingdom fall. It can be as banal as an argument with a friend. It can be as fast as seeing the Elements charged against you. It can be as slow as a thousand years on the moon. Whether one despairs over a large thing or a small one, whether one feels despair for a moment or an eon, it is above all else the sensation that one has become powerless to undo a defeat.

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