• Member Since 6th Nov, 2012
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ArgonMatrix


I've never seen a place that's quite like this. Everything is turned around; this crazy world is upside down.

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Nov
12th
2014

Fresh Off the Presses: Reviewing the "New Stories" Box · 11:42am Nov 12th, 2014

Howdy, y’all.

If you’ve been on the site for long enough, you’ve no doubt seen many different people who like to do reviews. It’s a natural and essential part of a writing website like this, I think, as it helps authors become better authors. And if nothing else, reviewing is a pretty fun thing to do, and it allows you to read more diversely than you otherwise might. Plus, pretty much anyone can do it.

Emphasis on the pretty much.

I’ve never been very good at voicing my opinions. A lot of the time while reading stories, I find myself analyzing things on a critical level (as the mind of an editor is wont to do, I guess), but I never really make those criticisms known because they always come out strangely when I try to. But, damn it, I want to help people become better authors, and I want to review things just for the sake of it, so here I am. I hope this’ll be a good growing experience for both me and you.

As for how I want to find stories to review, I wanna try something kinda different. You’ll see a lot of reviewers finding stories that pique their interest and reviewing those—then they’ll have a vague idea of what they’re getting into. Some people like to review stories in the featured box in the hopes that they’ll find something of quality that got popular on its merits, and usually they find at least a few good ones. Then there are the review groups, where the nature of stories is more random, but reviewers can at least cherrypick stories that look interesting to them.

None of these styles really suit me, I think. I want something wild, unpredictable, and entirely unfiltered. Stories with no feedback—positive or negative—and ones that I might not look twice at otherwise. I want to go into no-man’s land and just run naked across a minefield.

So here’s the plan: at a completely arbitrary time, I’ll take the five newest stories posted to the site and review those. Tags don’t matter, descriptions don’t matter, titles don’t matter, ratings don’t matter—nothing matters except the first five. The only filter I’ll really be using is the Mature filter, so no Mature stories will be reviewed here. Just ain’t my thang.

Well, let’s rock.



The Sun and Stars: Lightning Round by JKinsley
Similar to The Sun and The Stars: A Twilestia Prompt Collab, this is a collection of short stories by various authors.

The key difference? We all get the same prompt and we have an hour to write. See more of the rules here. Want to contribute? Join the Skype chat group!

Chapter titles are that week's prompt; each author is listed and linked above their entry.

By its blurb: Popping my reviewing cherry with a collection of stories, eh? Can’t say I expected that. As far as the concept goes, I’ve never been into shipping period, and Twilestia strikes me as particularly odd, but I’ll give it a shot.

Apparently this week’s prompt was “Dentist.” I haven’t the faintest clue what to expect. Maybe something about Twilight and Celestia comforting each other after their wisdom teeth are pulled. Seems like the most obvious angle.

In the aftermath: Huh. Colour me impressed.

All of the stories are satisfactory in the technical department, and the shipping is actually barely there in most of them. And only one of them used the wisdom teeth angle. I quite enjoyed the collection overall—it just felt like a series of good friendship moments between Twilight and Celestia (and Twilight and Spike in one of them.)

They’re all very short though, as should be expected with a format like this. So if you’re looking for a real Twilestia story to happen, you’ll have to look elsewhere. These are just feel-good scenes that will likely leave a smile on your face even if you find the ship a little squicky.

Verdict: Y’arr, this ain’t a ship ye need to be sailin’ to enjoy the high seas. Jus’ take a swig o’ brandy an’ feel good ‘bout this one.

…Pirates are fun.

Favourite line:

“Just a quick check-up, to make sure my teeth looked nice for...but when I got home I examined my teeth myself and I thought I saw some yellowing on my molars, so I went to a dentist here in the city, but after she was finished my teeth still didn’t look right, so I teleported to the Crystal Empire and saw Cadance’s dentist, then I went saw one in Manehattan, then Fillydelphia, then Hollow Shades…”

(Spoken by Twilight)


A New World, A New Stage by tdnpony
Alice Maximilion and Jonathan Trace are two childhood friends from two very different backgrounds. Jonathan, born into a long line of police officers is striving to be the best he can be at his job. While Alice, born into a long line of Phantom Thieves, continues her family legacy as the mysterious Phantom Thief Fox.

How will the two friends, one unaware of the other's secret, fare when a forgotten God appears and takes them and a majority of their world to a new world?

Rated Teen just to be safe

By its blurb: I may be completely wrong about this, but aren’t all these A New World stories Pokémon crossovers or something? I’ve never read one, so I’m not too sure, but it certainly rings a bell. If that’s the case, though, I couldn’t tell from the description.

There’s no Human tag, so I’m left to assume that these blatantly human-named characters are actually animals (Pokémon?) of some kind. One of them seems to be a fox. I dunno. Something about this one raises a red flag for me. We’ll see, though.

In the aftermath: So I was right about the Pokémon thing, but I was wrong about Alice and Jonathan—they are, in fact, humans. Fair enough, I guess.

The key problem with this story is one that I imagine a lot of crossover stories suffer from: it’s not very self-contained. In fact, I’d go as far to say that I enjoyed this far more on its Pokémon merits than its MLP ones. That’s all well and good if you know about Pokémon beforehand, but I would’ve been totally lost otherwise.

Beyond that, the writing is fairly amateurish. It’s tolerable, but there are a lot of punctuation errors, different speakers in the same paragraph, and some grammatical and formatting issues. Far and away the biggest issue, though, is the balance of show vs. tell. Take a look:

“Okay, this is not as easy as I hoped,” Jonathan groaned. He had tried to help one of the Ponyta-like creatures, but he ended up getting kicked down an alleyway, since it seems that they could not understand him at all. Fortunately, being a Riolu now his body was notably sturdier than his human body, so while it had hurt, nothing was broken. With that in mind, he tried to calm down the Pokemon, and fortunately, that was met with better results, as he found that he could understand them now. Currently, he was sitting on the roof of one of the buildings, watching the Ponyta things below, while several Pokemon were still in the streets (he idly noticed some of them seemed to be deliberately chasing the Ponyta things). Sighing slightly, he was just about to lie back down, when he noticed something down in the alleyways, or rather, someone down in the alleyway. “Is that…?” he blinked, before jumping down into the alley. True enough, what he found was a very familiar Combusken. “Heat?”

Most of the story consists of paragraphs about that long, and most are equally telly. It ruins the story’s pacing, especially in the second chapter. The parenthetical asides don’t help matters.

If you can get past all that, though, the story itself is fairly intriguing—mostly for its characters. Both Alice and Jonathan are wonderfully nuanced, and the pony OCs seem to be pretty good too for what little we’ve seen of them so far. It’s a shame that such interesting characters are buried under subpar writing, but them’s the brakes.

Also, just a nitpick here, but how does Jonathan not notice that his longtime best friend and the thief he’s been in pursuit of for so long have the same voice? As far as I can tell, there’s no effort to disguising it. I dunno.

Verdict: Feels more like it belongs on a Pokémon fanfiction site as a MLP crossover right now. But if you can stomach amateurish writing and are knowledgeable about Pokémon, this one might be your cup of tea.

Favourite line:

“Combusken, bus?” Heat asked.


Not Expecting Much by NateTheGreat1
After a fallout occurs between Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo, they stop talking, and fall into depression. Dash enlists the help of Twilight Sparkle for advice on rekindling their friendship. But can it be saved?

By its blurb: I find the premise hard to believe—Scootaloo seems unlikely to give up her friendship with Dash over almost anything. I’d love to learn what that “almost” is, though, so please show me, author.

If I’m being honest, though, I’m Not Expecting Much from this one.

In the aftermath: We start things off with this:

Evenings in Equestria are typically a thing of beauty, with the cool breeze, and the sun setting on the horizon, creating a lovely shade of pink in the surrounding sky. Ponyville is always graced with the smell of apples and nectar in the summer time. On this particular evening, Rainbow Dash was laying against a fence post just outside of Sweet Apple Acres. She was clutching a mug in her right hoof, filled with hard cider; her favorite. But she had over-indulged this evening, befuddling her, and making her look rather tipsy.

Because, y’know, Dash is always drinking cider. Even when it’s not in season. She’s clearly a raging alcoholic.

Honestly, this story is just too short to get invested in. The conflict is lame and unbelievable, the characters are shadows of themselves (Dash and Scootaloo are way too mopey, and Twilight is more annoyed than concerned about the whole thing), and everything is built up and resolved with such little importance that it feels like even the author didn’t care. This could’ve been a legitimate story if the author had put in the effort, but it just isn’t there.

It especially falls apart in the second chapter when Dash voluntarily blows off her cloudbusting job (Element of Loyalty, ladies and gentlemen) and just goes to get breakfast instead. She gets non-alcoholic cider, a pancake, and some bacon before walking off to find Twilight and—

Wait.

The smell of bacon filled the air. She took in a whiff, and exhaled, delighted by the intoxicating aroma of pork.


Look Piggington in the eye and tell her what you did, little miss.

This isn’t even getting into the mechanical issues, which the story has in spades. All in all, not one I’m dying to read again.

Verdict:

"I don't think that was exactly the right thing to say." Twilight broke in again. "You have to remember that Scootaloo has some emotional problems, so she probably just took it too literally."

That should give you an idea.

Favourite line:

"Didn't I just use this organization layout 2 weeks ago?" Twilight said to herself.


Friendship is Magic in a Parallel Universe by PassionateAboutPonies
One mare bands together with five others to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, and learns a valuable lesson in the process. We all know the story, but what if it was different? What if the Mane 6 weren't the ponies that we know and love today? What if they were replaced by the OC's of various female brony analysts? What would the beloved tale that began it all be like, in a parallel universe...?
Featuring the OC's of: LethalAuroraMage, Eliyora, HeartSongPony, ILoveKimPossibleAlot, Ink Rose, and PoetessMLP.

By its blurb: Eh, could be fun. Not really getting my hopes up.

But I swear if the ponies’ names in this are the same as the reviewers’, I’m ducking out right away. A pony named ILoveKimPossibleAlot? No and thank you.

In the aftermath: So far this is basically just the first two scenes from the show with Aurora Ignite in place of Twilight Sparkle, but with a few crucial difference. For one, the legend at the start is rewritten to feel fresh, but it comes off as much too on-the-nose to be an old mare’s tale. After that we’re treated to a brick of text that tells us—not shows, tells—all about Aurora and Spike: what they look like, how they met, what Aurora’s past is, what her cutie mark and talent are (inspiration is her talent), and everything else that the show didn’t tell us right off the bat.

My biggest qualm, though, is that there’s hardly any of the nuance in these characters. Even Spike seems blander than in the show. I mean, the author even took out the part where he gets flustered over the spelling of “precipice” in Twilight’s letter to Celestia! How can you do that to me him?!

It got a little bit better towards the end of the chapter, and I could see this evolving into something neat once the other OCs get involved, but it’s a very slim chance. The author needs to balance show and tell as well as character moments and plot progression. It’s just too stale right now.

Verdict: Halfway through I was itching to go back and watch the pilot episode. Do that instead of reading this one.

Favourite line:

"Which one?" yelled back a purple and green baby dragon from downstairs. "We have Studies of Cobras and Classical Music, How Doth Music Soothe the Savage Viper?, Serpents and Songs, How to Charm Your…"


Iron Mare by AidanofVT
They say that necessity is the mother of invention; when Twilight Sparkle is faced with dire necessity, she creates the mother of all inventions. But is it what Equestria really needs, or will Sparkle's creations cause more harm than good? Find out, as Twilight Sparkle builds herself into... Iron Mare.

By its blurb: What Twilight stands to gain from becoming a superhero is beyond me, especially when she can already fly and use magic—both things which already equate her to Iron Man, in a way. But if nothing else, it gives us an easy excuse to make a few Twilight Starkle or Tony Spark jokes.

In the aftermath: I seem to be running into a pretty common theme in all these stories: the characterizations of canon characters are all very weak, but the OCs are actually quite decent. Before I delve into this story proper, I’m gonna step up on my soapbox and make a point here.

We’re writing fan fiction—derivative work based on settings and characters that other people have created. I’ve always had a firm belief that characters are the most important element to any story, and that applies doubly so for fan fiction. You have to nail the characters’ personalities as best you can, otherwise there’s no point in making it fan fiction to begin with. Feel free to make as many interesting original characters as you like, but it should be your first priority to perfect the voices of the canon characters. Without it, your story loses a lot of merit and it also loses my interest.

Now that that’s out of the way, Twilight Sparkle is Tony Stark. Seriously, she feels so much more like Tony than herself—sometimes she even seems more jaded and cocky than him, if that were possible. She seems to accept her situation far too quickly, her vocabulary is very snarky and sharp, and there’s not one word in the first chapter about her worrying about her friends or getting back to Ponyville or whether Equestria’s okay or anything. It’s very non-Twilight, which is a huge problem given that she’s the protagonist.

I also have some issues with this story on a logistical level. Why make weapons and armor out of an alloy of gold? I don’t care how strong Twilight’s formula has made it—gold is a soft metal. Surely an alloy of iron or titanium would work better. And why does Twilight’s suit have to be bipedal? The reason given for it in the story is flimsy at best, and it comes off as just an excuse to make her look more like Iron Man than an actual pony. And finally, why on earth would you put the armor’s power source smack in the middle of it where anyone can see it and aim to destroy it? Tony Stark didn’t have a choice, but Twilight definitely did. She’s smarter than that.

At the very least, the writing is mechanically competent, and the original characters are actually pretty fun. I particularly like the antagonists: the feldspar dogs. Diamond dogs are a fairly underutilized race in fan fiction, and it’s cool to see them like this. Plus, the bits of the story where Twilight’s real character does shine through are quite good. If the whole story had been like that, I might’ve even tracked this one.

Verdict: If the name Tony Sparkle appeals to you, dive right in.

Favourite line:

Twilight raised an eyebrow and gave an 'ain't it impressive' nod.


That didn’t turn out nearly as badly as I expected. I daresay it was kinda fun! If y’all liked this, lemme know if you wanna see it happen again. I’d like to become more active in blog posts and such, and this seems like a decent way to do it.

Or else tell me to stuff it and go back to chugging away at my own stories. Try to word it more kindly than that, though. I’m sensitive.

Keep on keeping on,
—Argon

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Comments ( 6 )

That was surprisingly entertaining :)
I just might give your approach a try actually... clicking on stories where I go 'meh' after reading half the title. Could be fun.

Yes please, more of it. Next time in Discord's voice :b
Never mind, just love 'Draconequus' guide to immortality'.
/ramble

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Oh, you poor fool. Reviewing the featured box is one thing, but the newest fics? D: Godspeed.

These are great reviews! And I'm happy to see that this wasn't another Feature box review blog. I think that dead horse has been beaten enough.

I tried to pick out a few stories from my "read-it-later" section since I have almost a thousand in there. @_@

It didn't work out unfortunately, but maybe if I limit the number to three-five it might work out better. :D

Cool! I've been thinking about doing new stories, but never had the courage to dive in. Good luck keeping it going. You'll be added to the big master review list.

I think I'll follow you if you'll do more of these; there's already one of your stories on my shortlist of absolute favorites, so it's not much of a jump I guess.
That said, I quite agree with 2589765. You're a braver man than I am, Gunga Din!

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