Author: Colour Paletta
Description: What would the life of a pony be if he or she had grown up without ever earning their cutie mark? Can it ever be too late to get one?Blank Flank Chapter 1
Additional Tags: Artist, Friendship, Loneliness, Taboo, Blank Flank
19 comments:
Not bad, I wondered why the lettering got a bit bigger in the middle, also the written dialoge looked funny as well. Beside that, nice set for a story, I'm looking forward to this one.
ReplyDeleteUltra D'aaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwww at the picture
ReplyDeleteI love the concept, I love the character, I love the interaction. The only annoying thing is the formatting.
ReplyDeleteAt first, this fic looked to be well written. But on the second page, the formatting of the speech is a MAJOR turnoff.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, take the following line, italics obviously already stripped out.
_Who is it? – the colt yelled through the door.
should read as
"Who is it?" the colt yelled through the door.
Italics generally are reserved for putting emphasis on particular words, or thoughts. Properly used speech marks negates the need for a dash to distinguish the end of the speech and the line as it follows on.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI agree. I am a huge fan of good typography, and it can be a great turnoff if a story is formatted as bad.
Gah, what they said. Italics are good for things other than indicating when someone speaks. We use quotation marks for that. And underscore-dash? Wha-?
ReplyDeleteTry not to change the font size in the middle of a document unless you mean to or have something to indicate (and even then, don't change the entire font size arbitrarily and permanently). Most people use one font size the entire document.
I'm going to come back to this, so expect a more detailed post later. Sorry to be a Negative Nancy-boy.
Typography stuff, as said above.
ReplyDeletePlus, it's feeling a little marty stu-ish. Just a bit. I mean, I understand that it's hard to have an MLP fic without the mane cast, but...
Skimmed over most of it so if im off on details,meh, but--
ReplyDeleteFor being a mixed zebra/pony who thinks he's being fursicted for not having a CM alot of freakin ponies sure do go out of their way to be nice to him. Again, I get that I'm suppose to feel bad for him and all, but really he seems like more a self imposed shut-in. Or atleast thats the vibe i got from the first couple of pages I bothered to fully read...
The gardener that Fluttershy met at the Gala didn't have a cutie mark, and neither did the mule in whichever episode it was that had the mule in it. (I think it was 'Applebuck Season'?) I don't remember if the buffalo in 'Over A Barrel' did or not, though.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the mane character seemed like a bizzaro Gary Stu.
ReplyDeleteI like the premise, but as mentioned before by many, the formatting is atrocious. Spoken text needs to be "in quotation marks".
ReplyDeleteSelf-insert... ehhhh. I'll give it a chance, though!
Ok, so I'm reading this annnnd ... typography aside, it needs work. He evidently knows who Pinkie Pie is, so you can tell us it's Pinkie waving him down. If you want to act like the reader doesn't watch the show, that's fine. The first action, describe, then have Color-pony say her name. I thought it odd that he was talking to a pony he didn't know only to have him say her name later. And the narrator never did. You can specify their names, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThe conversation with Twilight had some run-on sentences. Might want to go through and clean those up a tad. I try to limit things to either a single or -- at most -- double comma per sentence. Or you can use dashes for certain things. If you've got four commas, think about splitting the sentence in half.
As someone said above, I'm not getting the whole 'blank flank prejudice' that I thought this would have. Maybe that was a mistake on my part. Everyone is so far very nice and just curious. A little TOO nice, in some cases. This seems more like a case of crippling social anxiety rather than a fear of being ostracized because of a disability. He seems to have segregated himself rather than having been segregated. Maybe that's the story? Anyway ...
While reading, I noticed a lot of Portuguese Anons opening the document. Is the author a non-Native English speaker? If so, it's very well done for that. Work on that typography, though. Ouch. As for the story, I guess? I mean, it's smacking (though hasn't quite taken the leap into) of Gary-stu so be careful of that. And maybe try to show where you're going with this because other than the main guy's own fear crippling his life, I don't see anything to indicate WHY he'd be afraid like that. Maybe the prejudice is more common or obvious in a larger city like Fillydelphia or something. If so, show us. Or at least tell us, through an internal dialogue.
Don't stop, obviously, just work out some kinks and this could be good stuff.
Yeah... What everyone else said. Feels very Gary Stu-ish. Mostly due to the mane cast getting overly nosey. Yes, they have their reasons, but I can't help but feel that they really have no business stomping into this guy's personal life and dragging him out, no matter their intentions. Perhaps if you slowed it down a(several) notch(es), it might be more believable. Remember, a Gary Stu is mostly defined not by his characteristics, but how others act around him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if he's already known around town, why doesn't anyone(anypony :P) notice that his "cutie mark" keeps changing?
"One more thing," the anoynymous commenter noted. "You really ought to use proper typography. Failing to do so negatively impacts the the reading experience."
you forgot the story tag, Sethisto
ReplyDeleteDon't have time to read right now, but since my OC is a grown Blank Flank, I'm very interested. I'd love to see how we interpreted the 'problem' differently. My OC Whiteeyes can't hold onto a job (marked ponies take them), has trouble supporting herself as a result. She also has low self-esteem and feels like she's a burden to her friends.
ReplyDeleteInteresting premise;shows promise
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see this continued. Odd techniques aside, including self insertion, it seems like a touching epic just waiting to burst forth. It's kinda sad to think that this story has ended before it could really begin. If you've become disheartened by your mistakes, or simply given up, why not give it another go? I think it'd be worth it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is why did Applejack offered him a job on the farm when he is a UNICORN
ReplyDeleteI like it its got promise
ReplyDelete