So I expend some time playing BF3 online(last day of XBL gold) and while at it(technically camping for sniper kills) I started to think about the stuff I read recently, and of course I started to think about Nicknack and SaddlesoapOpera latest works and I think that this has some worth of mentioning.
Well, I always believed that Saddlesoap Opera really did know how to manage and how to tell a story correctly, some elements introduced to the storytelling reinforces his works, but these elements work as its best when applied to Dark/Action themes, by reading both
The Nightmare After Nightmare Night and
Surprise, Surprise I can see that his place doesn't belong to these genders, in other words it can be said that he knows how to create and develop a setting with dramatic elements, but when Comedy and Normal settings presents he doesn't output correctly. I'm glad to see that he does touch other genders and other approaches, but is sad to see some of his latest works as a demonstration of the lack of versatility that he currently has.
After reading his latest fics I decided not to follow on
The Nightmare After Nightmare Night because is not as entertaining and not as well executed as other fics that has pop out recently(like
To Fix You).
And then there is Nicknack, what surprises me about him is his style of storytelling, unlike Saddlesoap Opera he do stay in what he knows best, and what he really knows is how to make the different details of each character shine through a story, and here is where his strongest point relays,
Characterization.
Each character on each of his fics have a certain part of humanity (humanity in the sense that they don't follow stereotypical approaches but rather authentic human reactions), this humanity and level of characterization makes them more interesting as this characterization is an integral part of each fic; if we consider for example the events from HoG and the background that is given to their characters is pretty clear that the build-up for subsequent chapters will create a stronger reaction, making the characters more and more appealing through the entire story while making them go through very well planted situations we find some of the best storytelling experiences we can find.
This makes me think about two things, Saddlesoap Opera knows about his area and he is a perfect example of "what if" a certain author decides to take other routes, and Nicknack knows how to make correct characterizations, one thing that catches my attention about both characters is how they make their characters and how they tackle their respective characterization, Nicknack has an upper hand to this as he knows how to work with minimal characters(Gilda) and he knows how to appropriately characterize them, this also applies to the OCs that he works with. With Saddlesoap Opera things are a little bit more complicated, he knows how to make good characterizations for OCs(Derpy in this case) but he doesn't know how to characterize characters with existing characteristics like Rarity or Pinkie Pie, which makes me wonder about characterization for these characters, and that is something I like to see correctly applied (Gravekeeper and BronyCray are really close with Pinkie's characterization).
To make matters worst,
Cupcakes ends up being the best characterization there is for Pinkie Pie, not factual but is practically true counting the Pinkie centric fics I read thus far, and that is where my thinking train stops.
Also:
I demand those Pinkie and Pinkamina humanized versions for me.
And this(rather she, included in the thinking train) is my favourite image from all the ones I have seen thus far:
I just simply love that expression.
(
*Goes back to BF3, needed to get that out before camping some more*)
