Author: Colour Coded Chaos
Description: Twilight Sparkle cannot sleep. She can't tell the others why, because they might disown her. Or worse, they might try to help...The L Words (New Part 5!)
Additional Tags: Twilight's nightmares all came true
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[Adventure][Sad][Dark]
Author: Colour Coded Chaos
Additional Tags: Twilight's nightmares all came true
Labels: Adventure, Applejack, Author: Colour Coded Chaos, Celestia, Fanfiction, Incomplete, OC Ponies, Sad, Star-4, Story, Twilight SparkleShare This!
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50 comments:
Poor Twi
ReplyDeleteaww, why do I keep reading sad pony stories?
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna have to read this. It sounds good. I wonder what the reason is.
ReplyDeleteStill, I want to know why there is so many sad stories popping up.
The Holiday Blues have grasped us in its cold embrace....
ReplyDeleteIf I see one more chapter starting with "the sun" I'm going to scream.
ReplyDeleteL words... love? lesbian? No shipping tag though...
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's lollilpop?
Maybe I should just read it...
Apart from Applejack being ridiculously close to violence I quite enjoyed this so far.
ReplyDelete@pmcollectorboy
ReplyDeleteI can but agree :/
It's a problem I see with a lot of fanfics. I'm still grappling with the art of the narrative hook myself because it's so easy to start with a well thought out descriptive scene builder. But it seems like more people don't even try anymore.
ReplyDelete@Spitfired
ReplyDeleteEpic Scott Pilgrim reference.
Needs grimdark tag.
ReplyDeletePretty dark tone, although kind of difficult to follow.
ReplyDeleteYou also spelt sweetie Belle wrong and used 'aforementioned' about 4 times (three times too many)
ReplyDelete....disturbing.....
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the first three chapters feature betrayal of a central pony by nearly all her friends, as well as this pony being systematically tortured (and already being in considerably anguish beforehand), I do not think [sad] is quite enough. I do usually not go for the [grimdark], but will probably finish this, if only (one can hope) to see certain ponies be brought to account. However, nothing in this story leads me to believe that permanent damage is not being done to central characters, leaving them as shattered as their relationships with other well known ponies. If this is what [grimdark] is about, I do not expect that I will ever read anymore, once this story is done.
ReplyDelete(On the plus side, Derpy plays an important and uplifting role)
@Niels Olof
ReplyDeleteYou raise an excellent point, one which was also raised by the pre-readers. I'll tell you what I told them; this isn't actually about Twilight getting tortured. You may note that the fic is unfinished; much of it will centre on Twilight and the other Elements healing, much more so than it will on Twilight being hurt. Stick around; as people are so fond of telling LGBT teens at the moment, it gets better.
@aJonathan
ReplyDeleteDid I? Can't find it. I definitely did not. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
The L word... Thought "hey twilight must be in love because she is the title pic! DO WANT". Then I read the three chapters that were posted... >.>;
ReplyDelete*Is speechless*
ReplyDelete@Spitfired
ReplyDeleteto be fair, I've seen fics before that involved a character dealing with being homosexual without it being a shipping fic.
This is interesting. I was a bit worried that this fic will be too grimdark for my tastes, but a comment from the author to someone else saying that the fic will be more about healing that Twilight being tortured has given me enough hope to see this one through.
ReplyDeleteI do have one minor complaint, though, and that's that the fic feels like it's the sequel to something. Why are the mane 6 so unpleasant to each other? What was that about AJ and Dash breaking up? And what about Dinky about Apple Bloom being a couple? It's a bit off-putting, but I'll manage.
One question though: what's the "L word" that the title refers to?
Apparently the author is writing a series of stories in the same universe. This one ties into "Witch of the Westmareland" which was nowhere near this kind of subject matter. I am not sure I like the idea of stories with such differing tones being linked. It it kind of disingenuous to the readers to give a light hearted adventure ship and a dark toned torture fic.
ReplyDeleteFor instance. I will not read this type of subject matter. Therefor I will not read this fic. Therefor I will not read "Witch of the Westmareland", which I have had in my bookmarks for a bit now waiting for me to get around to it.
I like MLP for the characters above all else. This type of story is essentially 100% character rape. It destroys everything I like about the characters, canon and fanon, and no quality of writing or intriguing plot excuses it.
I've tried reading this through a few times and I still can't make sense of it. not in a gripping suspenseful mystery, but in a frustratign "no seriously, what is going on? I'm not following any of this"
ReplyDeleteit is all melancholy and terrible but I would really like to have some context.
it seems to me that you are withholding too much context. even if you want it to be mysterious, you still have to explain things or the story is incomprehensible.
but then again I'm probably just too stupid to understand what is happening.
Its pretty good, got me on the edge of my seat and Ill be reading further installments. I do have a few complaints though.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all.....dont use smilies in your writing. A :D face has no place in a work of prose.
Second of all, and its been mentioned in this thread, Im not really digging the linking of this story to the authors other stories. Im not a fan of shipping, and I dont want to see shipping referances creeping into a non-shipping story. Not to mention that its annoying to read a story and feel obligated to read a previous one in order to fully understand some of the characters attitudes and motives, particularily, again, when the previous story is a shipping story and you dont care for those. Please, lets keep shipping in the shipping fics.
And thirdly....well, this is a minor complaint and just my own personal opinion, but from the synopsis I was expecting more focus to be on Twilight having to open up to her friends and her friends rallying around her to help her heal.... instead we have Twilight being kidnapped and her friends under a spell and Ditzy and Spike are going to go on a rescue mission?? Thats a LOT to work with and I think the story would be stronger if you had simply focused on the nightmares, Twilights problem, and slowly revealing her traumatic backstory. I started to be less enthralled by the story when she was captured.
@Cassie Truman
ReplyDeleteYou can't be serious?
It doesn't matter if the story is ABOUT Twilight being tortured.
If Twilight IS tortured IN THE STORY, explicit, implied, emotional, physical, or magical, the story deserves a warning tag as a disclaimer.
Arguing against that is completely stupid.
Adventure and Sad tags alone, for most experienced readers imply a PG-13 at worst story. The content in this story easily demands a R rating ("Light Grimdark" if not straight up "Grimdark" tag.)
I mean I have seen so many stories that have really tame and non-traumatic content get slapped with a grimdark tag.
The fact that this doesn't have one just shows how completely worthless the tagging system is.
And I am disappointed in the pre-readers for letting you convince them otherwise.
@Colour Coded Chaos
ReplyDeleteMay I say that never befoore have Ii benn instilled with such a feeling of dread as when I read your story. Explaining all of Twilight's suffering and how her friends reacted diifferently added such a familiar feeling and such detail that thee story really hit home. I hope you decide to update soon so I can get some closure as to what has happened to Twilight and why her friends acted the way they did.
Overall 4.5/5
Grammer 4/5
Story 5/5
Description 5/5
Characterization 5/5
I'm impressed.
stay away from this. if your just reading this (because the page takes you to bottom) this is not jut sad...this is flat out grimdark.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read a lot of 'Grimdark' but thus far this story certainly appears lean heavily enough in that direction. The scenes describing Twilight's torture would merit changing the tags appropriately.
ReplyDeleteThat said as someone who normally avoids Grimdark simply because it feels so tonally inappropriate to the show, this is a very good story. The author has done a fine job of winding up the suspense and leaving me asking a lot of questions as a reader.
@DPV111
ReplyDeleteI actually said I was fine with a grimdark tag, just that I wanted people to read this and not immediately discard it because it has a tag. If you will rule out a work of fiction from a single word, then frankly you're not the sort of person who should be reading it.
That was my argument. I will happily forward you the email to prove it. If you're a user on FiMFiction, please send me a PM with your email on it.
Also there's a Nigerian gentleman who wants me to tell you that you've come into some money of late...
@Heavybull
ReplyDeleteCharming.
@Adam Crocker
ReplyDeleteSweet Christ, someone who finally bloody gets it! Oh, I could kiss you, anonymous collection of pixels and data!
@Cassie Truman
ReplyDeleteHey! That's anonymous collection pixels and data actualized by an anonymous collection of nerve bundles and brain chemistry. ;-)
Like a few others said, I am having a bit of difficulty following this story completely. It is a bit confusing, especially lacking a back story so far.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, however, the concept is rather interesting, and the story is definitely suspenseful, so I'm rather anxious to see what happens in the forthcoming chapters.
After getting a look at the three chapters posted, I gotta say I'm intruiged. It's painful and twisted to see our favorite ponies essentially getting tortured in so many ways. I don't think it's just Twilight getting tortured. All of them I think are going through some kind of fallout from this. But hopefully they'll somehow pull through in the end. +1 on the grimdark tag; there's enough freaky stuff going on here as it is. Thumbs up to the author and looking forward to the next chapters.
ReplyDeleteI like the descriptiveness and where the story is going, but I have a hard time letting myself accept that Applejack and Rarity would just cart Twilight away like that without ever giving her a chance to explain herself. It feels like there needed to be something more to explain their actions beyond what we saw. As it is, it feels like they've been given a bit of an idiot ball to carry for that scene.
ReplyDeleteIf they were manipulated into it, I feel like we need more indication of that.
@Cassie Truman
ReplyDeleteWhat?
"I actually said I was fine with a grimdark tag, just that I wanted people to read this and not immediately discard it because it has a tag."
No, you said:
"You raise an excellent point, one which was also raised by the pre-readers. I'll tell you what I told them; this isn't actually about Twilight getting tortured."
I can only respond to and infer your intentions from things you write.
"Also there's a Nigerian gentleman who wants me to tell you that you've come into some money of late..."
What is this I don'r even...
Look. I understand where you are coming from. You crafted a story that you put a lot of effort into, and you want people to base their judgments on the story's merits, not the tags on the front page.
But understand that to many of us, these tags are not a "single word" but an indicator (the ONLY one we have until authors start putting proper content disclaimers on their stories as a sadly small few already do) of the type of experience we are in for.
Think of which creates the most negativity:
1: A reader who dislikes certain content sees said content tag and rejects the story outright without giving what could otherwise be a great story a chance.
or
2: A reader who dislikes certain content and reads a story that does not indicate said content, yet comes across this content unexpectedly.
I understand that not all grimdark is the same, just like not all shipping, crossover, and HiE is the same. But if you want to avoid the stigma of the tag it's your responsibility to put the pertinent information in the description to allow discriminating readers to make a more educated decision.
I don't like your story. You don't have to like or respect that. But please understand that this advice is given without any personal bias.
Anyone who reads this story signed up for what the Adventure and Sad tags promised, nothing more. If you don't want the story judged on the Grimdark tag, remove the content that warrants the tag. This story not having a Grimdark tag is inconsiderate and unprofessional, regardless of any motivation or reasoning on your part.
@CityFlyer502
ReplyDelete"I don't think it's just Twilight getting tortured. All of them I think are going through some kind of fallout from this."
@CityFlyer502
"...but I have a hard time letting myself accept that Applejack and Rarity would just cart Twilight away like that without ever giving her a chance to explain herself."
Which really makes me wonder if there's something more going on her than just the obvious consequences of Twilight being carted away and a weird spell being cast on the rest of the Mane Six. When the story opened Fluttershy was already heffed up on energy drinks trying to help hedge hodges with a mysterious illness, and Applejack and Dash had seemingly broken off a relationship (which ties into an earlier story of the author's). Maybe I'm just reading too much into those details, but those seem like cases of Chekhov's gun to me.
I read this and found it intriguing and enjoyable, although it certainly strikes me as "grimdark". I'll freely admit, however, that I might have passed on it under such a label, so I personally will not complain that it was lacking one.
ReplyDeleteTwilight's probably my favorite character and I'm a sucker for stories that frame her as having a somewhat fragile psychological make-up. I think the show has done a good job of suggesting that she has to work at holding it together sometimes, and that there were likely times other than the instance where she turned her parents into potted plants or went all "Lesson Zero" where she lost it. Certainly nothing so dark and drastic as in this story, but then I don't mind fans exploring the extremes that the show would never go into itself.
I will agree that there were a few points where the writing tripped me up and I had to backtrack to understand what had just happened. However, I was always able to work it out, so I was never completely lost, just jarred out of things a bit.
I liked many of the touches. Twilight's cataloging of her injuries as "scientific observations" was in character, sad, and informative all at the same time. I hope that the journal is brought up again when her friends regain their memories and seek to find out what is really going on. I also like the use of Pinkie and Derpy as two other characters with their own issues trying to deal with what has happened. Derpy obviously has a history with Twilight and this villain, which will be interesting to learn.
The villain herself is extraordinarily twisted for use with ponies. I'm more than a bit nervous about where things may go with her. However, I'm quite curious to read more of the story.
Looking forward to an update.
@Adam Crocker
ReplyDeleteIf it's Chekhov's gun, it's more than a little clumsy by being so out of place. Frankly I was more disturbed by this behavior by them than by the behavior of the villain, because it seemed badly out of character for them to jump to that kind of action.
Right now it just seems like a flimsy justification to get Twilight where the writer wants her to be, and that feels extremely cheap. And the movement of the story hinges on this uncharacteristically brutal and thoughtless intervention. Without more than everypony being a bit stressed and Twilight revealing that she has some kind of problem she doesn't want to talk about to lead up to this, to justify it, it's going to keep tearing at me through the story.
I actually like grimdark stories a lot. I felt that the first chapter had a lot of potential and want to like this story, but as it is it reminds me of 'Frigid winds and burning hearts' with it's pointless melodrama and throwing dead colts at Celestia's feet near the end.
Twilight was basically betrayed by two of her closest friends. I just can't accept that without some reason behind it, and it's not the kind of reason I can wait several chapters for.
I lied, three times.
ReplyDelete@Pyrite
ReplyDeleteAs the villain seems to have been expecting Twilight, gloating about how she couldn't be kept from her, I was working on the assumption that she had a direct hand in manipulating things to bring Twilight to her doorstep, rather than it being any type of coincidence. Plus, since this villain has mind altering powers, it just seemed the most likely explanation for any rash actions on the other characters hands (hooves). So I'm willing to wait and see at this point.
I guess I feel that if they were being manipulated it would have made a better story for it to have been softer, for Twilight's friends to confront her reasonably and actually convince her to seek help. If the story is really about their frienship healing afterwards, I think that would have made a much better catalyst for it as it required Twilight to trust her friends, rather than just be assaulted.
ReplyDeleteAnd it would have been far more stomache-dropping when the sanitarium actually turns out to be a bad place.
I was gonna read it, but then Twilight torture came up in the comments. Torture is one of the few things I won't read about, I just can't do it. Sure, mutilation I can handle, but inflicting pain as a means to gather information/fulfill a sadistic desire is a big no-no for me. Sowwy :3
ReplyDeleteThat said, if its torture for a different reason than stated above, I'll probably read it.
It's very much not for a different reason. And narrowing it down further, they aren't asking Twilight any questions.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't torture, but plot problems that stopped me from going further with the story.
ReplyDeleteI can live with damaged Twilight; [Grimdark][Sad] fictions are entitled to some liberties in their setups. But that her friends don't wait by her to regain consciousness, was jaw-dropping. That Spike forgets he can contact Celestia, even though the following weeks are obviously desperate, becomes too ridiculous for me to take the story's emotions seriously.
For [Adventure], there has to be a sensible plot. For [Sad], getting Twilight into such a bad situation has minimal value. I feel the story sacrifices a lot to be [GrimDark].
I have but one question for the author... Why?
ReplyDeleteI read Cupcakes, didn't blink an eye at it.
I read Sweet Apple Massacre, no sell.
I read this, I'm disturbed beyond words.
Chapter 4, although you only implied it, makes it painfully clear that Twilight Sparkle was repeatedly molested/raped by a Satanic Cult in the past, and now her friends just handed her right back to them. The fuck is wrong with you?
I'm intrigued by the opening of the story and all these confrontational comments. ^_^
ReplyDeleteLet's see how badly EQD's Grimdark Identification System derped this time!
@Chaos Knux
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why I stopped reading after less than 2 chapters.
It was pretty obvious the author has something they needed to get out of their system and that it was going to get worse before "it gets better".
@DPV111
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was really downhill after Chapter 1. Too much idiot ball. "HURR DURR U'RE AN ADDICT TWI, BACK TO UNCLE TOUCHY'S NAKED PUZZLE BASEMENT FOR YOU!"
♫Uncle Touchy's Naked Puzzle Basement!♫
♫You won't wear a shirt and you'll cry!♫
patton oswalt reference for teh win
I find the butthurt the author expresses on the FimFiction page for the story now to be hilarious.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as a grimdark author, you need to accept that just as you have a right to write what you want, others have a right to not have to read it.
I really wish this thing could live up to the promise of it's first chapter, but at this point I'm giving up on it. The worst thing is, I could see how this could have been done right with just a little more thought and effort. The author clearly has some talent, but as long as this is the response to criticism I don't see improvement in the future.