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| "Why do I look like a squirrel?" |
Kicking Back by Loganberry
Cloud Kicker and OC
Comedy/Slice of Life; 2K words; Jul 2014; Teen
Cloud Kicker has reached the end of her tether. Hassled wherever she goes by ponies who insist on seeing her as the town trollop, in reality she simply wants to make friends and have a nice, fun time. Hoping to get Ponyville to see her as the mare she really is, Cloud Kicker hires one of Manehattan's foremost image consultants.
This is not a Winningverse story. That's kind of the point.
Rather bizarrely, as things stand Kicking Back is easily my least successful story in terms of total views in its first few days, but easily my most successful story in terms of its views:upvotes ratio. I have absolutely no idea what to make of that, but I'd guess that general searchers ignore it because of the lack of Mane Six/CMC/Princesses/Boulder, but those who actually want a Cloud Kicker story with a difference enjoy it.
And because it is my story and this is my blog, I will end by shamelessly plugging it once again: please give Kicking Back a shot! Thank you!
Advertising your own work on a blog? And... *gasp of shock!* on your OWN blog at that?! What is the world coming to? *Mutter mumble* never happened in my day *gripe sulk* who'd do a thing like that? *Pout whinge* No shame, some people. ;)
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding, I shall now witness the story with my own eyes, and not someone elses. Let's see... *Click!*
Well! I can honestly say I enjoyed that a heck of a lot. I didn't know (or perhaps remember) that Cloud Kicker had gained that reputation, but the little story description helped where that was concerned. I think even without that, it would have become obvious anyway as the story progressed. And it was a wonderfully cheeky story at times, with some of the double meanings and hints. Especially the bit that ended with “Is that even legal?” So it was certainly amusing right the way through, (particularly that magnificently badly judged poster!) and the thought that Buck didn't even know what water is summed his character up perfectly. I know how he feels - champagne is soooo last century.
(I noticed the "pin dropping" bit too, not surprisingly. Life as a pin is a terrible thing.)
If I'm right, the twinkly eyes that Buck appeared to have were presumabely left as a bit of a mystery? I don't remember them being mentioned again after the bit where Cloud Kicker pondered about only magic users having those kind of eyes. All very mysterious. One things for sure though, I don't blame him for getting out of that house fast once it was obvious the poster was... umm, ill-judged.
Poor Cloud Kicker. I'm sure she'll figure things out eventually but for now, I suspect Buck won't be getting another call! :o All in all, a really good bit of fun and it was just what I needed right now.
(One thing I did wonder though was the line "I do understand that this may not be easy for you, if you wouldn’t mind elaborate a little on exactly what your problems are...?" While reading that, it made me stop and I had to re-read it a couple of times, because the words "mind" and "elaborate" seemed as if they needed a comma. But I'm guessing that it isn't supposed to, in fact. Just me being a doofus as usual.)
Thank you! Well... Cloud Kicker's, er, reputation comes mostly from a series of stories by Chengar Qordoth (and, later, some other people too), the most famous of which is "The Life and Times of a Winning Pony". (The universe the stories is known as the Winningverse for that reason.) In those, CK is indeed interested in fun... but the sort of fun I couldn't talk about on UKoE, if you get my meaning. :P
DeleteSince there are hardly any *non* Winningverse CK stories around, I thought it would be fun to write one in which she complained about her image, since in *my* universe that reputation *isn't* true!
The twinkly eyes thing was a throwaway line, yes. The idea is that PR consultants etc can (in their own minds!) "do magic" of their own. It would probably have been better if I'd mentioned it again somewhere, though.
And thank you for the last bit! I did slip up there: it should be "elaborating", not "elaborate". I've edited the story now. :)
Oops: that should be Chengar Qordath.
DeleteAh, I see. I did notice the mentions of Chengar in some of the comments, so that explains it all. And I can guess what kind of "fun" that implies too... I think *personally* I'd prefer a universe where she was more like in *your* story, to be honest. Still, I'm glad it's possible for there to be different universes for these stories and different ways of interpreting a character. :)
DeleteOh clever! I hadn't thought of that but yes, PR consultants do seem to have that image, for better or worse, of thinking they can work magic on any situation. So that works very nicely.
Ah, well I wasn't sure if that "elaborate" part was just me reading it wrong, but in that case I'm glad I could help.
If you wanted, and it's no trouble either way, I'd be happy to copy/paste an edited version of this little review over to FimFiction? Seeing as it seems a better place to put things like that now. :)
Aw, well, if you wanted to put something like that up on your FimFiction blog, then that would be very nice of you, thank you! :) There's absolutely no *need* to do that, though. Just if you feel like it.
DeleteAs for the other point... as you may have already discovered, FimFiction is *very* open in terms of what it accepts. There are three ratings (Everyone, Teen and Mature) and also Sex and Gore subtags. Until you're a bit more sure of your ground, I'd probably advise giving Mature-rated stories and anything with a subtag a miss.
Here's a nice place to start -- it's a group that only accepts Everyone-rated stories:
http://www.fimfiction.net/group/198979/the-rated-everyone-stories-group
Okay, well I've edited my little review down a bit and copied it over to the FimFiction story. Hopefully that'll have worked out okay. :)
DeleteAh yes, I certainly noticed there was a vast range of different genres and subjects there. I've taken your advice and set it so it doesn't show mature stories, although a few still seem to be showing up which listed "gore." But at least I can avoid those easily enough. And thank you very much for that link - I like the look of that group so I've made sure to join it!
Yeah, some Teen-rated stories are subtagged Gore. It doesn't necessarily mean it's full of horrendous detail -- it may just mean that the ponies do something a bit more violent than they'd do in the show, eg actually kill a monster. I've even seen stories subtagged Gore because there was a hospital scene or something. It's another thing you just have to get a feel for.
DeleteNot *all* Mature-rated stories are bad. "Fallout: Equestria" is an obvious example. It's only about 90% of them that are terrible clopfics. :P
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ReplyDeleteDeleted the last one because I *have* now made an account on FimFiction. Not that I'm likely to be writing any short stories to go on there, by any means, but I did notice that it isn't possible to do an upvote unless you have an account. And it might be nice to put reviews on there, of course. Consider yourself followed. ;)
ReplyDeleteSo I see! And thank you! :) Do feel free to drop me a PM on the site if you like; the PM system works pretty well. I tend to leave myself logged in permanently, so I'll show up as "Online" even in the middle of the night -- but when I'm not on holiday, I'm usually there at some point every day.
DeleteAnd thank you for following back! I'm still finding my way around the site, which I'll get the hang of eventually. Just that with any new place, it takes a little while to figure out where things are. But I think I'm starting to figure it out now. :) Sure, I'll try the PM system out at some point soon then, to see how it all works!
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ReplyDeleteI have actually read quite a few of the stories you've featured here (currently in the middle of A Stitch in Time, which is excellent). Glad you enjoyed Princess Celestia Hates Tea - the sequel is a must-read as well! It puts the original story in a rather different light.
Great; thank you! I take it you mean "A Short Story by Twilight Sparkle"? It's on my Read Later list, though Skywriter isn't exactly someone who needs the publicity, so I'll probably give priority to lesser-known fics for a while. I will get round to it eventually, though!
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