At Long Last · 10:26pm Feb 12th, 2015
Two reviews incoming! I finally finished Background Pony earlier this week and am ready to give my thoughts on it. I had enough time to also read Equestria from Dust, so I'll be adding a review of that in the process. I also read a third story that I could have reviewed along with them, but I figured it wasn't fair to place an unknown author alongside two titans of MLP fandom, so I've decided to hold off on it until next week.
While I'm here, I might as well point out that my time has suddenly become very tight in certain aspects. I've had a lot of people come to me in the past month asking me to pre-read/edit their material, and I've been doing that so much lately that I just don't have time to brainstorm my own stories that are coming soon. I have to wonder at what point it was decided that my opinion matters. There are so many Cerulean Voices and SpaceCommies and Praks out there, and you people wanna come to me? Well, whatever floats your boat...
But what I'm really getting at here is that I won't be accepting any more editing/reviewing jobs for the time being. For one, I need to finish what I've started, and for another, I really need to get back to my TvE planning.
Okay, on to the reviews!
So. 432,000 words of Background Pony. That’s a lot of Lyra.
There were some things that I enjoyed about the story, and other things I didn’t. Let’s tackle the ‘didn’t’s first, shall we?
The very first thing that comes to mind is the choice of voice. This is actually a common issue I have with ‘journal’ style stories. I’ve nothing against this style of story per se, but there is a common mistake that most people choose to overlook: one does not write a journal like this. With the possible exception of those with photographic memories, you will never find anyone who writes detailed dialogue – indeed, entire conversations – in their journals. It just doesn’t happen. You also won’t read them retracing their exact steps in a lengthy story. This is not how or why people write journals, and every time I see a story pretending to be a journal in this way I just shake my head. But, as I said, this is something most people don’t notice or care about, and once I got past the opening lines of each chapter it was easy to forget that little hump.
Lyra’s dialogue really annoyed me at first. I don’t care where you go or who you are, nobody talks like that. Thinks it while daydreaming? Sure. Writes it down? Fine. But to just stand there and spend five minutes orating philosophical babblings? Yeah, you can’t convince me there are people out there who do this. Maybe going back and forth in a conversation, that I’ll believe, but Lyra monologues, and if there’s anything that makes any dialogue – regardless of topic – unrealistic, it’s monologue. It would be different if she were giving a speech in a formal setting, and I’d even be willing to accept it in casual conversation in the right situations, but Lyra does it almost every chapter, often repeatedly, and it’s just too much to be realistic. When Pinkie kept interrupting Lyra mid-monologue over and over again in the chapter Green is the New Pink, I actually delighted in Lyra’s frustration. It felt like a little moment of revenge.
The third issue is the style of writing. Now, I’ll be honest: when I first saw SS&E’s prose I was very pleased. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like the kind of detail and expression the story offers. It’s solid, good, evocative writing, like chocolate covered strawberries, not the boring and tasteless cardboard that passes for elite literature these days. That being said, I’ve come to believe that each style has its place, and SS&E lays it on a bit too thick. Some scenes need great, evocative prose to really set the moment on fire. Others do not. Sadly, SS&E tends to not recognize that, at times, less means more. Certain scenes – the first time Lyra lucidly crosses the barriers of the firmaments, for example – were incredibly vivid moments that take your breath away. Then there are others were you can’t help skimming the paragraph because you already figured out everything it has to say by the first sentence, but the narration won’t move on. This issue was more or less endemic to the entire story, which is a real shame.
Now, the fourth issue is subjective, so feel free to ignore it, but the philosophizing itself was a bit of an issue for me. Now, I’m not above a bit of philosophy. Far from it: I believe stories should have a theme, and the deeper the theme the better the story. But with Background Pony, it was just too heavy. Up to the very end, it felt like every single chapter existed purely so that SS&E could pontificate on the deeper meanings of the topic of the day. Don’t get me wrong, the story was advanced, and sometimes beautifully, but it always happened amidst a slew of unnecessary thought processes and supposedly intellectual back-and-forth.
I don’t consider myself a particularly deep reader, and as such this became a problem for me. My memories tend to focus on the material and productive: what did Lyra do in this chapter that advanced or detracted from her situation? You throw a bunch of philosophy at me in a thick wall and I might think on it for a few minutes, but 2,000 words later I’ll have forgotten all of it to focus on what’s now happening. It is the curious state of my own reading ability that I can remember tons and tons of events from the story, but if you asked me to recite a single philosophical lesson from any one of the chapters and I’ll respond with a blank stare.
Herein lies my biggest issue with Background Pony. SS&E clearly understands that the best way to ingrain a theme into someone is to make that lesson intrinsic to the story itself. The problem is, he writes each individual chapter in this way rather than letting a dominant theme – or perhaps a few dominant themes – run through the entire story. As such, it’s easy to neglect each lesson as the reader hops from chapter to chapter, and the story as a whole comes to feel as if it can’t focus on a theme, which only makes it harder to recollect the wide range of topics already covered.
This is either poorly planned, of outright brilliant. Why? Because the entire story centers around a character whose very existence is forgotten by those around her as they move on to other things. The themes of the chapters? They’re stuck with the exact same curse: they jump in your face and say “Hey, listen to my lesson!” only to fade into obscurity as soon as you’ve scrolled away. So if SS&E actually planned it? Damn brilliant.
But I seriously doubt it.
Okay, bad stuff covered. Don’t think I’m missing anything. How about some good stuff? And oh, there was some good stuff.
In terms of pure creativity, Background Pony succeeds above and beyond your average story. It conjures up a vast new concept of Equestria’s creation and history that achieves its own place as a beautifully bittersweet beginning of a world of total harmony held together by a hidden misery, all of it starting with a song. The entire story weaves together a delightful symmetry that fits seamlessly into canon – at least, at the time of the story’s writing. If I had anything to complain about, it’s that I didn’t think of it first, because there’s now no way anyone can come up with something even remotely similar without someone else decrying it as ripping off this irreplaceable concept. For the origin story alone, I bow to SS&E’s imagination.
Now, what about the story itself? All in all, I enjoyed it. Thoroughly. There were moments that made me smile, moments that made me laugh (and that is a real rarity), and yes, at times I cried. Each chapter is a story unto itself, and each of those stories is something worth reading on its own. Frankly, I think SS&E would have been better served to write each chapter as its own story and link them as a series instead of one big book. I won’t bother to go into the details, partially to avoid spoilers but more because there’s far too many to cover in just one summary.
Yet the thing that makes me most happy is the connectivity; although each chapter has its own primary topic and could theoretically stand alone, every chapter also adds to Lyra’s journey. Sometimes it’s in a small way – a little realization that spurs her ever onward, or maybe an event that forces her to make a tough decision she’s been holding back on for two or three chapters. Other times, it’s huge and makes you completely rethink her situation. Then, suddenly, the ending comes and forces you to remember things. You realize that it was all important, it’s all linked, and these individual journeys and discoveries are having a huge impact. Everything was tied together at the end: it’s the kind of thing I love to see in any story.
All in all, Background Pony is a powerful and evocative story. It has its pitfalls, true, and there are enough of them to keep me from dropping it in my Favorites, but in terms of creativity and character growth this is a shining gem that everyone can and should learn from. We’ve got writers all over this site who can go on and on about presentation and grammar and style who are rightly praised, but when it comes to plot development, intricate webs of event linking and making every situation matter, I find this site poorly underrepresenting. Background Pony is here to show us how that is done, and woe be unto those who ignore it.
This one… well, this one is hard to review. The hype has been so strong for it; everyone’s acting like it’s the most engrossing and amazing read. It almost makes me feel as if there’s something wrong with me if I don’t agree.
And that’s the thing: I don’t.
Don’t get me wrong, Equestria from Dust is a good story and certainly deserves a high spot on my bookshelves. But did it shatter my mind and show me what true brilliance is? Not really. Maybe it's because I'm still being influenced by Background Pony. Perhaps it's wrong of me to put them side-by-side. For better or for worse, that's what I did.
For those of you living under a rock, Equestria from Dust is an origin story in which we get to watch firsthand as Celestia shapes the world of Equestria; she shapes the very stone, creates the sun and moon, brings forth life and even creates from dust her very own sister. Where did Celestia come from? Well, as is appropriate for any good creation story, there’s always a few questions that are never answered. But it is this question that at first seems swept under a rug until the big challenge arises in the form of Discord, who is himself an unintentional creation of Celestia. Discord challenges Celestia’s self-identity and purpose, and in defeating him she comes to a certain sense of peace and self-awareness… even if the actual answer to the question is, again, never answered.
Many people have referred to this story as ‘deep’ and complex, but it didn’t feel that way to me. I understand why so many people think so, and I honestly prefer this kind of suggestive thought provoking to Background Pony's in-your-face philosophizing. Even so, to me this was less a philosophical journey than it was a study of Celestia as an individual. Her growth throughout the story is palpable, from her innocent beginning trying to comprehend and improve the world around her, to her aloofness when life begins spreading across the globe for the first time, to her anxiety and hesitation as her nightmares plague her through the ages, right down to her love of all that she has created. Watching Celestia grow as a character was both interesting and well done for its subtle suggestion. I wholeheartedly approve.
Now, I notice a lot of people praised the story for its 'worldbuilding.' Now, if we're talking literally, then I have to agree. Watching Celestia build the world of Equestria, seeing her and Luna create the first forest and run with herd of wild caribou and create the first ponies, it was all wonderful. But if they meant fantasy worldbuilding – society, infrastructure, races, cultures, etc. – then no, I disagree. Sure, a pony civilization did come to be, but we know next to nothing about said civilization. Naming two towns and mentioning that there were wars prior to Celestia's and Luna's rule do not an epic worldbuilder make. In Soundslikeponies' defense, I don't think that was the goal anyway.
And now would be the moment where I add that one or two scenes felt just a little melodramatic. For example, there was one scene where Celestia breaks down before Luna and claims that she’s bearing so much weight from the millenniums… and I was caught thinking “why?” Does she not like that she created the world? Was she not happy travelling the globe making forests and deserts with Luna and taking in the pure act of creation she seemed to love so much at the time? I have trouble accepting that a nightmare once every millennia or ten put that much of a burden on her shoulders. In fact, at that point she’d only been ruling for two centuries, and apparently there hadn’t been a single war in all that time. So what, exactly, has been weighing her down so much?
Yeah, moments like that left me scratching my head.
The writing took some getting used to. For one, it’s all written in the present tense, which was pretty new to me. I kept thinking I was seeing mistakes when it was really just a very different style. I don’t know what possessed Soundslikeponies to write this way, and while I’m not sure I liked it, I certainly can’t say it was a bad decision.
There were a lot of mistakes, though. Legitimate ones: words missing, confusing sentences, improper word tenses, things of that nature. The most egregious issues (to me) were the overuse of needless saidisms and occasional telly lines. They were frequent enough to be almost continuously noticed and ended up being something of a distraction. I’m okay with a mistake or two here or there, but I think a pre-reader would have been apropos. If it’s frequent enough that even I notice it, it needs to be fixed.
Despite everything, I have to acknowledge that Equestria from Dust is a solid piece of creationist fanfiction. The plot on the whole is excellent, the character growth was well-thought out and certainly one of the story’s more complex elements, and everything really came together nicely by the end. Even the unanswered questions felt appropriately placed. The scenes were vivid, the creationist theory was different from the usual fanfare, and the worldbuilding – and by that I mean the literal worldbuilding – was a delight to read. Without a doubt, Soundslikeponies crafted a great story that belongs in a high place on my bookshelf.
Just not in the Favorites section.
Stories To Be Reviewed Next:
Love is Blind by FallenLaughter
Pegasus Mating Dance by PhiliChez
Pinkie Watches Paint Dry by AbsoluteAnonymous
Perks by Donraj
Forbidden Melodies by Regocomics
Making My Mark by Tramper
Update Schedule
Frequency: Friday, February 13
Reddux the Tyrant: February 14 or 15
The Gentle Nights: Audience of One: Saturday, February 21
Stats
Total Word Count: 1,112,00 (+7,000) over 24 stories
Follower Rank: 448th (+5)
Overall Ratings Average: 94.80% (+0.08%)
Highest-Rated Story (Not Counting Stories at 100%): The Gentle Nights @ 99.07% (11 Weeks)
Story with the Most Votes: Tyrant @ 1872/50 (11 Weeks)
Story with the Fewest Votes:
Peach Fuzz @ 21/1 (4 Weeks)
Sweet to Eat: Tales of Nightmare Night @ 21/1 (1 Week)
Longest Story: Trixie vs. Equestria @ 144,000
Damn brilliant reviews if I don't say so myself.
Really interesting to see another perspective on some big name fics. I think I only got through one chapter of Background Pony before I straight up quit on it. I remember liking From Dust, however, even if it started getting a little too melodramatic towards the end.
Wow. Looks like I made my request right under the wire!
I really liked From Dust, but I think that I was definitely a lot more taken with it when I first read it than I am now. Especially after I read The God Empress of Ponykind by iowaforever, which is basically the same thing, but with a Sci-Fi twist.
I don't have much to say about Background Pony; I'm glad I read it. But I wouldn't read it again.
Good luck with the brainstorming! From what you've told me, you have quite a bit of work ahead of you!
Without getting too spoiler-ish...
For me, Lyra's matchmaking sacrifice so Ambrosia and Morning Dew could be happy, rescuing Snips from his abusive father, and the heart-wrenching scene where she has to indirectly tell her father that she loves him because he doesn't remember her were the biggest standout scenes. And Granite Shuffle, too.
And now maybe I'll be inspired to finish Background Pony... maybe. Still the review was nice and I might check out Equestria from Dust in the future. Also your critique on the journal style of story telling is really insightful. I don't normally write in that style, but it is something that I will certainly watch out for if I chose to write something like that. Though I suppose it's like the letters to Celestia or other ponies I've had my characters write, I have to make sure the letter is in the character's voice, but not exactly their voice either. I.E. We write differently than we talk, but a crass person will manage to be crass in how they write.
I imagine the letters that Twilight dictates to Spike tend to have the dragon paraphrasing or adjusting in little way so it is not done word for word. Which is like in a journal you won't write full conversations but if you quote someone else you are likely going to paraphrase due to not having a perfect memory.
I wasn't sure what to think about BP...
While I would say it's a fantastic read, and one that most people -should- fight through, that's the problem... Fighting through to the end...
Exactly as you put it, the philosophical ramblings were so long-winded that I did actually skip entire sections of it at one point because once Lyra gets on a tangent, she doesn't let it go until every single avenue of thought has been explored...
Which struck a chord with me especially since that's much like my own thought process... Once I'm stuck on something, I can't let it go until I've thought about each potential outcome... And that's why I felt it harder to finish than any other story I've read, since I could relate to Lyra with such finality that it hurt to finally finish the story...
Moving on (before I ramble too much)...
From Dust isn't actually a story I've read, put on the RiL list, or even heard about until now... Mainly because of my complete disinterest in the subject... I don't like the idea of Celestia being the all-powerful creator of everything because that just makes the rest of her character fall completely flat with any situation she's put in to...
"Oh, there's a war on? That's nice... I can just make more of you if I have to..."
"Oh, there's a demon? That's nice... I'll just erase his entire existence..."
"Oh, there goes my sister? That's nice... I can always just make another one..."
And that is the exact reason why I can't stand stories exploring omnipotence (Whether characters with, or gaining the power)... Because every problem can be solved by either destroying the problem, or creating them in the exact way you want...
2791562
For shame. I feel a lot of people are missing out when they fail to get very far. The story really grows on you as you go along.
2791969
Yes, lots of work... and no time to do it!
2792065
Those were indeed highly emotional moments, although the Snips chapter bothered me a little. I find it interesting that, no matter where you go in what medium, bad behavior is always explained the same way. Even so, I was glad when it ended well; glad something in the overall story did so.
2792104
The reason the journal issue stands out to me is that almost everyone who tries it makes the exact same mistakes and nobody calls them on it. It's gotten just a little annoying, but if you try to make the argument to the writers they'll just tell you "everyone else does it." Thing is, a powerful story can be written in the proper way using the journal format, I've seen it done. Heck, most of the very last chapter of Background Pony does it, and well.
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That's one of the things about Background Pony: yes, some people think like that, but you won't find anyone who talks like that. Man, Lyra's dialogue was annoying. And there were most certainly times when I wish the narrative would just move on.
As to Equestria from Dust, it's not quite like that. Yes, Celestia makes everything, but she's really just stumbling along. She has no concept of consequence at first; half the time Luna's telling her that what's she's doing is dangerous and Celestia just doesn't understand why. She makes animals without including predators and is surprised when overpopulation causes problems. She makes ponies on a whim and is shocked when they decide to fight amongst one another and wage war. And even though she could wipe away everything and start anew (as Discord points out), the thought never even crosses her mind to actually harm one of her own creations in any way. Again, as Discord points out, Celestia decides what is 'good' without even realizing it.
The story doesn't explore omnipotence at all. The Celestia of Equestria from Dust isn't all-seeing, or all-present, and she can't change the nature of existence on a whim. She is limited by certain, unspoken rules; for example, she can't fly without wings (but she can create wings for herself), continuous use of magic drains her (but she can recover fairly quickly), and she can create things like wind and weather but her control of it is very limited. It's the curious thing of Equestria from Dust: Celestia didn't create the world, she was born into it. Somehow, inexplicably, she came into existence in a barren, flat, dead world. She might have crafted everything that the world was to become, but the world in and of itself is not her creation. It's interesting that the conceived world exists because of a creator who isn't all powerful and certainly not all-knowing.
2792928 Well that's exciting to hear, thanks for not spoiling the end I am now even more inspired to eventually finish Background Pony.
2794601
You should. Really. The creation theory it has is awesome in a horrid kind of way, the individual stories are compelling (once you know how to read the narrative style) and the emotions are often running high.
Finally got to this, now that I'm nearly through my three thousand something notifications...
Ehhh... try "thirty minutes orating philosophical babblings" and you've got my Social Studies teacher's and my lunch break covered.
Equestria From Dust has been on my RL list for forever and a half, as has Background Pony... it seems that they're good stories, so maybe one day I'll get to them.
Ah! This review managed to slip under my radar for some time. I suppose better late than never to respond to it. I will start off by saying I enjoyed it and agree with it.
Precisely what I was going for. The fic was inspired by a single cutscene in an old original xbox game called Phantom Dust (now being remade), and the rather ambitious idea I wanted to tackle was "if a god who created the world were some demi-human such as Celestia is, would god look for meaning in his/her creation the same way man does?" Celestia is initially driven to do all she does through boredom and loneliness: rather simple motivations that drive many people to create.
Unfortunately I went pretty much the entire fic without any editor or prereader. Most of what you see in it are published first drafts. I'd had several different editors bail on me or become flakey about editing things within a reasonable time just before and as I began to write it. Not to mention the first chapter is literally a first, rough draft. When I showed it to two EqD pre-readers for editing, one only had 4 comments to make, and the other shot down 3 of the first editor's comments and told me to ignore them with nothing to comment on of his own.
Mechanically and story-planning wise I've improved massively since writing that fic. I'm curious how some of the reviews I've gotten of it would differ if I wrote it now. I suppose I'll find out when I finish the fic I'm working on now.
Part of why I did it was "why do I need past tense if the story literally starts at the beginning of time?"
The main reason I did it was the entire fic was an exercise in going waaaaay outside my comfort zone with something new. Up until that point I had only written shipping fics. Writing in the present tense was new to me, too.
I tried to illustrate how tired Celestia grew with being a ruler. It may not have come across very effectively. I tried to do a lot of new things with inference and subtlety in this fic that I didn't have very much experience with as a writer.
But the idea was this: Think about it. Celestia had been as free as imaginable for millennia up until this point. Becoming a ruler was in some ways a type of bondage. She no longer roamed freely through her world. She had responsibilities and obligations now. Everything she had done up until that point had been mostly carefree, and between her loss of freedom and the fact that she hadn't for a long time created anything new, she was becoming depressed--only she wasn't really able to show it.
My biggest regret was how I handled the chapters between Celestia becoming ruler and Discord showing up. The other was giving Celestia and Luna's students so much character but then the role I had planned for them eventually fell through (I realized it wouldn't really work) as I neared the end.
Man, I'm googling myself and finding old reviews of my fics I never read and it's really motivating me to finish what I'm currently working on to see what people say.
3660027
Wow, I never thought I'd get a response to this! I mean, this is from way back when I first started writing reviews.
Looks like I have The Devil's Trick in my RiL. No telling when I'll get to it, but it does mean you have another review coming from me... eventually. And since I actually bother to inform people that I reviewed their material now, maybe you'll see it much sooner.
Idea! Check Singularity Dream's master review list. This guy keeps track of reviews from a wide variety of sources. If your stories have been reviewed, he almost certainly has it listed, unless the review was very recent.
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That's actually where I found your review. Which is funny since I had checked it long before now, but I guess I read the three to the left and forgot to scroll over to yours.