Paul's Monday Reviews IX · 9:02pm Apr 20th, 2015
I dunno about you guys, but I rather liked Bloom and Gloom. Way better than Sweetie's dream episode, although it still doesn't quite match Sleepless in Ponyville for me.
But I'm not here to review episodes, now am I? On to the stories! We've got a bit of a mixed bag today, and one of my commentaries spawned a lengthy debate between me and one of the authors via PM. It was rather interesting; most people don't bother to defend themselves so thoroughly. For doing so and sticking to it, I applaud Never2muchpinkie.
Alas, I didn't change my review for the story.
Stories for This Week:
"Princes Is Wincest," It Said by cleverpun
Her Final Flight by palaikai
The Perfect Day by Majin Syeekoh
The Crystal Emperor by Ekhidna
How a Pie became a Cake by Never2muchpinkie
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Not Bad: 2
None: 1
"Princest Is Wincest," It Said
cleverpun provided no cover art. Point and laugh.
I was uncertain going into this one – it would either be very interesting or very stupid, and my suspicions were leaning towards the latter. ”Princest is Wincest,” It Said involves Luna discovering a bit of graffiti and, in an effort to understand its meaning, asking her sister about it.
What might have been a bit of silliness ended up being a serious discussion on the intent and purpose of sexual fantasies. After Luna’s initial disgust towards the topic, Celstia tells her of her own experiences with the public’s ‘fascination’ with her image. Celestia’s ultimate conclusion is that the erotic fantasies of the citizens cannot be stopped, nor should be; in a sense, it might even be considered flattering.
It’s curious that, after seeing so much clop and pointless sexuality throughout all mediums, someone has come along to explain why such behavior is harmless. It’s also good to note that Celestia, never decrying the fantasies, actually keeps a lot of the stories written about her for the purpose of ‘a good laugh.’ This lines up fairly well with my image of her, and Luna’s overall response (and eventual surrender to inevitability) also fit well with her character.
Then there’s be bonus chapter/epilogue, in which Luna decides to follow up the discussion with a little… ‘experimentation.’ For those who like the ‘playful Luna’ image, it was just about perfect.
My only issue with the entire story was in some of the descriptions. Now, don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of the story had excellent descriptions. I particularly liked the way cleverpun described Celestia’s response to Luna in the second chapter as a military conflict for control of her facial expression. Yet there were a few points that seemed a touch overdone.
Specifically, the opening descriptions felt expositiony, and cleverpun spent a lot of time describing the room that the primary conversation takes place in. I’ve got nothing against describing a setting, but considering I forgot 90% of the room’s description about a paragraph after reading it, I think he may have devoted more attention to it than was necessary. All I can recall at the moment is that it was blue (Why did that detail stick with me? I haven’t a clue.) and there was a huge window. The issue didn’t hurt the story much, though.
For tackling an interesting and little-addressed subject, being excellently written and having a great depiction of Celestia and Luna, this story ranks fairly high for me.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
My eyes, they bleed!
Every time I see this, I will say it, again and again and again and again: use double spaces between paragraphs, people!
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, Her Final Flight. To say the concept is passé is like saying Rainbow Dash is a fast flyer. The story is, generally speaking, the immortal Twilight visiting an elderly Scootaloo to take in her last moments. That’s right, it’s a “downsides to immortality” story. Pardon me while I groan.
Despite the commonality of the premise, palaikai wins some points for creativity. Specifically, the story suggests that Twilight, while immortal, is going through something very similar to the natural aging process. Eventually she’ll share Celestia’s apparent eternal youth, but as her body undergoes the slow and tedious biological changes, she outwardly seems to be aging like everypony else, and even feels like it, complete with a bit of senility. I found this to be an intriguing variation of the alicornication process, and I readily approve.
Beyond that, though, I’m afraid Her Final Flight is nothing we haven’t all seen before a trillion times in one way or another. It even drags along the “Scootaloo will never fly” trope to blend with the “all my friends are dead” misery. As such, I was generally unenthusiastic about the story from start to finish. It simply couldn’t catch my interest. That’s not to say it’s a bad concept, it just feels overdone.
There were some stylistic issues, too. A few of the sentences felt long and complicated, LUS occasionally reared its ugly head (but not often), and the near-continuous exposition left the whole thing bland.
On the positive side, the story was grammatically excellent and – not accounting for a few longer sentences – easy to read. Aside from the very first major transition, the story flowed well and characters, while not particularly interesting, were readily identifiable.
The gist of my opinion for this story: palaikai has the potential ability to write a solid story, but there’s nothing particularly interesting about this one. But practice makes perfect, and with a bit of work and some healthy criticism we might see some nice stories from this author. Later.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
When I first saw the description for this story, it made me think “This will be a comedy.” Then I checked the tags and it suggested anything but. So I dove in, curious as to exactly what would happen. The general premise – what if Chrysalis won? – is bland, but Majin Syeekoh redeems the story with some slightly different approaches.
For one, Chrysalis actually kills Twilight at the first opportunity. Another curious aspect is that he portrays Chrysalis as extremely immature, to the point that she’s easily riled just by being called a child by Celestia. This was a very different interpretation of Chrysalis from what I’m accustomed to and, in the sense that it’s a new direction, I approve.
I should also add that this entire story leaves me with a sick feeling in my gut. I’ve often voiced my love and respect for Celestia and Luna, as well as the general horror I feel when they lose and Equestria falls. The thing is, these events have to be told correctly to get that feeling. The Perfect Day pulled that off in spades – I am still genuinely sickened by the memory of Celestia admitting defeat and agreeing to subject her ponies to slavery. So, simply put, I feel the story is well written just based on this.
But…
I hated Chrysalis. Now, this is a bit of an oddity, because I actually really like Chrysalis from a general standpoint. But this interpretation of her? Disgusting. It’s not because she was written poorly – her character was very well defined – nor does it have to do with the fact that she won in the first place. It was entirely in her immature way of handling things: she’s just doomed an entire race to slavery, beaten Luna to within an inch of her life and outplayed Celestia at her best game, rendering one of the most noble and respectable characters in the series to a reluctant, shamed attendant. Does she feel guilty about all this? No, and that would be fine if that was where it ended.
But killing Twilight – snuffing out the life of a single pony – has her sobbing in her bed like she’s a monster. What, the separation of families so that they can be fed upon wasn’t horrifying enough? Imprisoning Cadance in the mines – and then sending Twilight’s body down there for her to find – doesn’t touch her heart? There are so many things she’s done, most of them far more horrifying than the quick and merciful death she gave Twilight, and she’s sobbing like a newborn child over that alone. She’s a hypocritical, immature child of a queen, and that makes her victory all the more heinous.
Now… the good news is that this gives Chrysalis a lot of character and makes her a great villain to hate.
The bad news is that it’s so strongly invoked my ire that it hurt the entire story in my eyes. Changelings are a touchy subject for me (much like Starlight Glimmer’s probably going to be in time), and my emotions tend to run high when they pop up. This by no means makes Majin Syeekoh’s story worse – in fact I recommend it – but it severely injures my personal enjoyment of the story. Everything he undoubtedly wanted me to focus on was lost by my disgust of Chrysalis’s character in the face of my already solid despair and sickness from the sight of her victory, and that’s the only reason it doesn’t rank higher in my bookshelves.
Bookshelf: Worth It
How did I find this story? I honestly can’t recall. Perhaps it was recommended to me? In any case, I thought the premise looked interesting, so I gave it a shot.
Ouch.
Poor sentence structure. Incorrect verb tenses. Comma splices. Run-on sentences. Poor flashback formatting. No sense of plot flow. This story has a wide range of amateur mistakes, far too many to make the story enjoyable regardless of what said story is about. For the record, it’s just about Spike – Emperor Spike – going for a walk in his capital city and reflecting on his role in the kingdom. The general idea? Not bad.
But oh Goddess, the methodology!
Ekhidna wants us to believe that the Mane 6, all princesses, Shining Armor and Discord had to literally commit suicide to defeat a Wendigo invasion. You read that right, the ice spirits who were so easily defeated by just the sensation of peace and harmony have somehow become immune to everything that ever hurt them and now are so powerful that all these characters have to sacrifice their own lives to stop them. If Ekhidna had taken the time to explain how the Wendigoes have become so preposterously powerful, I might have bought it, but he didn’t, so I don’t.
There was an attempt to generate emotion in the reader, but it defined ‘forced.’ The grammatical and stylistic issues were so heavy that I couldn’t feel anything but annoyance. Somehow, I am meant to be intensely emotional over the fact that some reporter wants to take a picture of Spike for his birthday. Sorry, but no.
So the story is poorly written, the concept is ill-conceived, the emotions were non-existent. I want to provide some kind of silver lining, I really do, but this is one of those tales that is hard to be positive about. Maybe if Ekhidna got some proper proofreaders, learned to explain things a little better and received a lot more constructive criticism then we might see something worthwhile, but as it stands this story doesn’t belong on any of my bookshelves.
Bookshelf: None
To date, I’ve only read one story that bothered to relate why Pinkie lives at Sugarcube Corner and left the rock farm. Seeing the brief popularity of How a Pie became a Cake, I figured it would be interesting to explore the concept again. The story ended up being extremely straightforward: 8-year-old Pinkie wanders into Ponyville and, seeing Sugarcube Corner on the verge of bankruptcy, decides to act as a one-pony advertisement. Her work instantly saves the confectionary and, in thanks, the Cakes give Pinkie a place to stay.
Now, let me start off by noting that the idea behind this story is a good one. Much of the things that happen are perfectly suitable and I can find no fault with the vast majority. That being said, the conclusion of the opening chapter failed big time. Never2muchpinkie expects me to believe that in the space of just a few short hours, Pinkie went from being a total stranger to the Cakes’ adoptive, beloved daughter. If they had simply taken her in and grown to love her, I'd have bought it. One does not fall in love with a kid on first sight; it’s something that takes months of supervision and appreciation. Even a few weeks would have been acceptable, but no, it’s just “Hello Pinkie, I love you,” and they mean it with all their sugary, fantasy, storybook hearts.
It’s like love at first sight shipping, only with parenting and no less cringeworthy.
Now, that one hideous misstep aside, the rest of the story went rather smoothly. The second chapter was blatantly pointless save to be as sickeningly cute as possible (not necessarily a bad thing), but the third chapter introduced Maud, who comes to make sure her kid sister is being properly cared for by the Cakes. I liked Never2muchpinkie’s interpretation of a younger Maud Pie: she’s still stoic and deadpan in delivery, but hasn’t quite mastered her emotions. Some might complain that she’s OoC, but I don’t think so. It really felt to me like we were looking at a younger, slightly more emotional Maud. The resolution was nice, too.
Still, How a Pie became a Cake is loaded with errors. Grammatically it’s pretty good, but there are a ton of stylistic mistakes that made it impossible to properly get into the story. For one, formatting: it starts off nice, but then chapter 2 comes along and ohGoddesswalloftextmyeyestheyBLEEEEEED! DoublespacesDoublespacesDoublespaces! How many time do I have to repeat this? The dialogue was forced and unemotional, due to both a lack of flow and the use of monologues (the biggest no-no of all dialogue). Telly lines popped up at all the worst possible places, killing any attempt at immersion. A combination of these issues led to the story feeling faster than it really was.
I was going to jump the story for having an eight-year-old leave home entirely on her own to survive, but I then recalled that Applejack did precisely the same thing at a (presumed) similar age, as did Cheese Sandwich, so I’ll let that one go. It still felt really odd not to get some indication of what Pinkie’s parents thought about this decision, though.
Never2muchpinkie insists that this story is one of their ‘lesser’ works, so I’ve added another one of their stories to my RiL in hopes of confirmation. In the meantime, How a Pie became a Cake feels… amateur. Generally good ideas, unpleasant delivery. I really hope to see some improvement in You are normal too..
Also, Never2muchpinkie needs to learn the proper formatting for story titles.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
Stories for Next Week
Off The Edge Of The Map by Daetrin
The Adventures of Sweetie_Belle.jpg by Dash the Stampede
Young Eyes by Lapis-Lazuli and Inky J
Everypony Cuddles, Sometimes by shortskirtsandexplosions
All of It, for Her by Pav Feira
Thank you for your thoughtful review and recommending it in spite of how much ire it invoked in you. Or because. I don't know. Your review raised an interesting point, though, at least in my mind: What makes someone a monster is a matter of perspective.
I had written the fic from the viewpoint of Chrysalis being a tragic hero—ensuring the continuing prosperity of her hive at the cost of committing a crime she found morally reprehensible. I mean, the slavery, the subjugation... that's pretty much all in a day's work for being a changeling. You know that as well as I do. But murder? No one kills anyone in the My Little Pony universe. Especially not when they're a viable food source with a family.
Of course, that's a completely alien mindset to anyone who values freedom and the belief that one should be able to choose their own course in life, not to just serve as cattle. Sure, she had done horrible things from a human perspective, but ponies are pretty much on the level of cattle to a changeling. When she saw that picture of Twilight's family after killing her and taking over Canterlot, it was the first time she was forced to accept that at least that pony had ponies who cared about her and wanted to see her succeed in life and she had flushed that down the drain. She doesn't really care about the other ponies because she doesn't know them and she's learned all her life that ponies are food.
Just some personal observation on my own fic. Thanks again for the review!
You aren't the first to comment on the description imbalance in the story. When I looked back at all the writing I had done, the way descriptions are used was the main thing I focused on for “Princest Is Wincest,” It Said. When I first started writing, I tended to use long swaths of dialogue and not much else. I've been trying to adjust the balance of that, and this story was in many ways an experiment in avoiding that. That's probably why it ended up at the opposite extreme. I got too caught up in breaking up the dialogue, and it ended up putting excessive focus on some very trivial things (like Celestia's muffin and Luna's juice). It's one of those things that is honed by experience, so hopefully one day I'll find a good balance (I'm posting a story soon that may or may not do that, actually).
Still, glad the story was enjoyable despite that. Thanks for the review
3001707
That seems like an inherently strange assumption. As we all know, changelings feed on love. As such, you would expect them to know a lot about love – who wouldn't research the thing that grants them sustenance when that thing is in extremely short supply? We can't assume that changelings themselves are incapable of love in some fashion, or else why would the concept of Twilight's family losing a loved one hold any weight at all in Chrysalis's mind, much less enough to reduce her to a sobbing mess? And, finally, if there's enough of an understanding of love for all of that, how is it even remotely possible that she wouldn't understand instinctually that her breaking up of pony families is a hideous, horrible thing?
I say, good sir, your reviews seem to be leaking!
3001947
I know! Damn plumber won't show up until next week at least.
3001978
Aw, it's gone. :B That was surreal.
3001905 I mean, yes. It's not an exact analogy. After all, despite how much we know about mating and breeding cattle, cows can't talk to us, nor can we talk back to the cattle.
I guess the best comparison to how I would presume changelings(and Chrysalis especially) view ponies and their love would be something akin to how people that have been enslaved or systematically murdered over the course of history without the enslavers/executors batting an eye despite their victims ostensibly being people and holy shit that got dark I can understand why changelings terrify you.
3002032
Oh, you haven't even touched it.
When I first saw Celestia trapped in that pod, I didn't believe it was merely a cell to keep her contained. On the contrary, the first thing I thought when I saw that was "holy shit she's trying to turn Celestia into a changeling and brainwash her into an obedient slave!" This is still my headcanon, reflected in their attempt to do the exact same thing to her in my Reddux the Tyrant story – in which we get to see a few ponies halfway through the transformation process.
So, to recap, changelings are abominations that take sentient beings and keep them as a food source, without care at all for the physical or emotional state of said sentient beings save what is necessary to remain useful as chattel; they can disguise themselves perfectly in order to walk up and imitate the pony you love most; they grow stronger through your love, which they manipulate in cold, calculating fashion. Add to all of that the capacity for brainwashing in multiple ways as per my headcanon, to such a degree that both body and mind are substantially and irreparably altered.
Fucking.
Terrifying.
3002144 Yeah, it is terrifying.
They're operating on a completely different moral ideal than ponies/humans operate on. What's terrifying to us is just another day in the life of a changeling. And that's what makes them truly scary, I think. That that's normal for them.
3002241
Or at least it could be perfectly normal for them. My headcanon history makes that a product of their situation more than anything, and even then half of them don't necessarily like it (someday I'm going to get to writing that changeling story).
And I still find the 'normal for them' argument difficult to accept given Chrysalis's reaction. Of course, she could just be a bleeding heart by her own race's standards.
3002264 Well, she is young and incredibly immature.
I know my own moral code wasn't completely solidified at her maturity level.
In reading your review at first I felt it came off as a little scathing, but then I had to give myself a mental kick and take a step back to look at the bigger picture. Instead of being defensive I should take what I can from the review.
That said, I do have a few things I want to bring up.
You said Pinkie "instantly" saves the shop. Considering your own problem with my speedy relationship forming that sounds misleading, like it was a 5 minute thing. You do mention "a few hours" later in the review, but it still doesn't reflect the time properly.
In regards to chapter 2, in the PM we had you said that you didn't think the cuteness was overdone, but in your actual review that seems to be what you're insinuating, despite the "not that that's a bad thing" addendum right after.
What's a telly line? I just tried a google search and didn't see something that seemed relevant in the first few results, so I have no idea what that means.
What do you mean by proper formatting in the story title?
"Lesser" works isn't quite an accurate term. I said that, compared to some of my other stories, this one isn't as fleshed out in character development. Considering that it has more than double the views of my other popular stories I wouldn't say it's "lesser" than them.
And lastly there's a difference of opinion for readability. I find double spacing annoying personally, as it just means you have to spend more time scrolling down every few paragraphs, so that's annoying to me. The reason chapter 1 is double spaced is that after it got popular I was trying to get it on Equestria Daily, and that was a suggestion in their editor's omnibus. That was before the other two chapters.
You brought up that I didn't mention what Pinkie's parents thought of her moving out, and I think that's reaching as a complaint. Across four seasons of MLP have parents played ANY significant role. Almost all of them only pop up in flashbacks, all nonspeaking, but Twilight's parents made a grand second appearance at her coronation.
Secondly, the role of family advocate basically went to Maud. She was worried about Pinkie, and came to make sure she was doing okay where she was. In regards to "left to survive completely on her own" that's inaccurate. Excitable Pinkie wanted to branch out into the world to spread joy. Had she been unable to get a place to sleep for the night she likely would have taken the train back home if they were still running, or on a park bench as she was about to do, and head out again the next day to continue on. It's not like foals aren't left alone all the time. Just look at the CMC. How often do they have adult supervision?
Other than that there's not much else to say. Beyond what's above, while a little harsh, I'd say you captured the story pretty well. The other day I was trying to come up with some things to extend the first chapter, and couldn't really come up with anything to make there feel like more of a sense of time has passed, other than using tons of *** or ; in the part where Pinkie is now in the bakery when they have their customers,
Honestly, though, I think that would look ugly, as it's just a list of actions. I have to think some more. While I don't agree with everything you said I appreciate the feedback, and for striving to help make me a better writer, because looking back, it could use some improvement.
3002965
As I've said before, I'm a harsh critic. I don't believe sugarcoating what I feel is wrong with a story helps the author, so I don't do it. Tough love, baby. You are of course free to ignore all of my criticisms; I may be an arrogant elitist, but even I'm aware that 'good writing' is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure you can find plenty of other reviewers who will give you five gold stars for the story. Like they say, you can't please everyone.
We're talking about a business. They don't deal in hours, they deal in quarters and years. Going from 'closing tomorrow' to 'perfectly fine' in less than a business day is 'instantaneous' from the perspective of a business owner. I didn't misrepresent the situation at all.
Better to look up "Show Don't Tell" or "Show vs. Tell." It's the difference between telling the reader something and letting them experience it for themselves; the latter is almost always the better choice. For your story, I'll just use one example (because I don't have time for more):
"She smiled dreamily as she recalled how joyous it had made her parents and sisters."
That right there? Telly.
"Pinkie suddenly stopped moving, a cookie an inch from her mouth."
That's showing. Much better. The reader can see this in their heads and have an idea of Pinkie's emotional state. In the other one, you're just telling us, so there's more work on our part to get an image, which takes away from the immersion and, consequently, the emotion.
Your version:
"How a Pie became a Cake"
"You are normal too."
"I hate muffins! A Derpy short story"
"Pony-pet playdate campout"
Correct titles:
"How a Pie Became a Cake"
"You Are Normal Too"
"I Hate Muffins! A Derpy Short Story"
"Pony-Pet Playdate Campout"
"Lesser" is a perfectly valid term. I don't care how many views and thumbs-up a story has, because I don't trust the masses to be able to distinguish between literature and bathroom graffiti. If the character development and flow are not as good as it is in other stories, then it's a 'lesser' story regardless of popularity. My most popular story, Tyrant, has 11,000+ views and nearly 2,000 upvotes, but that's only because it appeals to a mass audience; in terms of subject matter, style and characters, it is most certainly one of my lesser works. The fact that everyone noticed a story doesn't make that story better. Some really popular stories are certifiably horrible.
Your EqD statement is basically you admitting to having no interest in your stories being 'high quality.' I've had my strong disagreements with EqD's standards in the past, but they are still a name associated with high quality stories. If you had to make adjustments for their acceptance, perhaps you should pause to consider why.
There a reason the vast majority of writers double-space. Having to scroll a little more is a tiny thing compared to being able to read the story without getting lost every time you have to look away from the screen. Double spacing also grants the user much more control over the flow of the story and prevents everything from seeming to happen at a mile a minute. Lastly, readers with poor eyesight for computers will skip your story entirely rather than go through the literal pain of trying to keep focused on so many lines blending together in an endless stream of letters.
As to you going back, my strongest advice to you right now is don't. Don't change a thing. Instead, move forward, write new material. I have always firmly believed that the road to improvement isn't in going back and agonizing over what's been done, but moving forward with the lessons learned. Some people disagree with me on this point, of course, and that's fine. I just think the practice of writing new material is better than spending hours picking apart old stories that aren't grabbing as many people's attention anymore.
3003237 Why should every title have every first letter capitalized? That's the sort of thing that I think would fly under most people's radar's.
About show don't tell, I realized what you meant later on. If you had included a little dash I wouldn't have gotten confused. "Tell-y lines." Given I don't think telly is a real word(unless as slang for TV) you should have been a little more clear. You also didn't pick the best example. When using a scene from the show (Pinkie's first party) going into detail about it seems unnecessary. I suppose that's making a presumption that someone going into the story has seen the episode, so there should be a literal image in their heads already.
As for your statement, I didn't admit to anything. If you want to take my words as "I don't care about having high quality" than be my guest. My point was that, just like with you and your critique, I shouldn't just modify everything simply to please you. High standards doesn't necessarily mean that yours are good. I learned that the hard way. I took my Scootaloo story, (about 60000 words) printed it out(as it's easier to spot things on paper than on a computer) read through the whole thing, marking every mistake, than going back and imputting everything, taking about 15 hours in total, and finally submitting it to EQD and it still got rejected, which was a real disappointment after all the time invested. Basically, I was trying too hard to impress someone else, when I should have been doing it for my own benefit. It has nothing to do with not caring about the quality of my stories, so I'd appreciate it if you could leave your assumptions out of this.
Your critique got me thinking, and that's never a bad thing. I'll take the compliments that you gave and look at the area's you believe need improvement to see if I can patch them up. I don't think I should just ignore my older works as new followers who go through my channel may have the same kind of thoughts you do which turn them off. Being a writer is a work in progress. It took me a few stories before I learned proper writer form in regards to capitalization after a quote. ("Hi," said Pinkie, instead of "Hi." Said Pinkie ) I also don't think I should just exclusively focus on my older works. It's all about moderation, a little at a time. I enjoy reading my own stories, so it's not painful to go back to them.
3004066 I just wanted to say that I really respect you for how well you take critique. To many writers don't like to be told that they're wrong. Which is the very reason why I almost never comment on a story, even if I like it. I haven't read your stuff yet, but I'll keep you in mind. Life is busy and the new chapters in my favourites are piling up and I already have an extensive RIL, so we'll see.
3004066
Because it's part of proper grammar.
Nouns (man, bus book), Adjectives (angry, lovely, small), verbs (run, eat, sleep), adverbs (slowly, quickly, quietly), pronouns (he, she, it) and Subordinating conjunctions (as, because, that) should all be capitalized in titles.
Articles (a, an, the), Coordinating Conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, etc.), and prepositions that are fewer than five letters (on, at, to, from, by, etc.) are not capitalized in titles.
If you are in doubt, following the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual's general rule is a good idea:
Do that, and you should be fine.