Paul's Thursday Reviews V · 8:31pm Sep 3rd, 2015
Good news! I finally got off my lazy butt, stopped fleeing from dinosaurs and starting writing more Vinyl-related goodness. So yes, those of you actually bothering to read Order of Shadows, I will be updating this weekend.
That's really all I've got today. Not been a very active week, really. Unless you count watching a brontosaurus kicking the crap out of a carnataur 'active.' It was, at least, interesting to me. Bastard had already eaten me twice by that point.
Stories for This Week:
Over a Cardboard Sea by SPark
Intern by GaPJaxie
The Motion of the Stars by Carabas (Requested by Danger Beans)
Why by OfTheIronwilled (Re-Read)
Magical Mystery Couture by punzil504 (Prequel to Smile, Smile, Smile)
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 2
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Not Bad: 1
None: 0
What is that phrase people like to use for stories like this? Oh, right: “Headcanon accepted.”
SPark’s Over a Cardboard Sea was written as a means of explaining what Luna spent the last thousand years doing while on the moon. The answer? Being at war with herself. We get to watch as Luna forgets everything in her mourning, only to struggle to rediscover it and battle her inner demon. Then she finally wins, she remembers the pain of her actions, and the cycle starts again. It is a story befitting the nature of Luna (at least, as I see it) and I can’t help but approve.
I want to be nitpicky. I want to find some way to criticize the prose, the dialogue, the style. I can’t. In addition to being an interesting story, it’s also very well written.
What else can I say? Other than that you need to read this story.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
This was an interesting piece, to say the least. Intern depicts a world 2,000 years after the events of the show in which Equestria has become a shining beacon of democracy and Twilight Sparkle has been relegated to middle management in a major corporation… and is fine with that. When the pony Ant Mill encounters Twilight and realizes who she is, she feels obligated to confront the princess about her role in Equestria.
In a way, this is a significant think piece about where Equestria could go and the consequences of progress. Twilight is perfectly fine with how Equestria has turned out, whereas I think she made some pretty serious mistakes (the biggest being to let Equestria turn into a democracy). But ignoring my political views and Twilight’s ultimate decisions, the story still does what (I think) it set out to do, and did a great job of it. I do lament that we have been given no idea about the current fate of the other princesses and assorted immortals, but I understand that such information wasn’t pertinent to the story. So I let it slide.
There’s really only one thing that bugs me, and that’s Ant Mill. The story’s description left me with the impression that she would be profoundly affected by her meeting with Twilight, but we really don’t get to see that. She got her five minutes to chat with the princess, then left. I would have loved to have known what happened to her afterwards.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. The story does feel like it’s aimed entirely at Twilight rather than her, after all. Even so, I just feel like the story’s missing a key piece.
Regardless, I enjoyed the story overall. Now I just have to wait for the inevitable fan-made sequel in which society collapses due to its own corruption (because democracy) and Twilight’s forced to take the reins again.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
The Motion of the Stars
By Carabas
Requested by Danger Beans
The imagination can be a terrible thing, and the effective writer knows how to take full advantage of it. When I see this done, and done well, I am always impressed. Carabas’ story The Motion of the Stars is an atmospheric piece that uses the reader’s own imagination to render an image of horror that at times left me ill. Not from blood and gore, but from the growing despair of a beloved world ripped apart by war.
The Motion of the Stars follows Rarity and Sweetie Belle, the lone survivors of the last battle at Canterlot. Fifteen years have passed since the world shattered, and with all the princesses dead the sun and moon hang idle together. Rarity, though crippled and feeble, is determined to get the celestial bodies moving again, and so proposes to her grown little sister a trip to the ruins of Canterlot to collect more books for her research.
Here is my first complaint: if Rarity and Sweetie want to try and figure out how to revive the sky via intense studying from the libraries of Canterlot, why are they living near the skeletal Ponyville landscape? If Rarity’s health is as bad as it seems to be, why take such a journey over and over again? Fact is, the why is obvious: Carabas needed them to travel so we could see our favorite, familiar sights in a state of post-apocalyptic destruction. It makes sense there, but from a plot standpoint it’s rather forced.
Even so, my complaint holds no water against the results. Seeing Rarity’s flashbacks, knowing the fate of her friends and getting that first taste of the totality of Equestria’s annihilation is a gut-wrenching experience. Then you realize that this is only the beginning, for they still have to get to Canterlot.
There are many things in this story that left me feeling empty. It’s no secret that I harbor a deep love for the royal sisters, so just the thought of them being defeated and/or killed leaves me squirming. So when I read about the imprint… that was truly the height of despair in my mind. I found myself wondering who it was and imagining the moment leading up to such a thing.
Therein lies the beauty of this story: it makes no attempt to clarify everything. We don’t know what happened to any of our beloved characters, not really. We have faint images, frail memories, little hints and clues, but nothing concrete. All we know is that everything and everypony we ever loved is gone. Rarity’s heartbreak at reliving the horrors of this great war is tangible, leaving me with an almost desperate desire to know and not know in equal measure. No less interesting is the character of Sweetie Belle, who has grown to be dependable and loving, but also cautious and paranoid. For good reason.
I think my only big complaint with this overall story may be considered subjective, and that is the nature of the war itself. There are many stories taking place after Equestria’s fall, and they always frustrate me. Here, I am left with the impression that the princesses did nothing throughout the war but lead from the safety of Canterlot itself. Even the Elements of Harmony apparently had no place in the conflict, as shown by the fact that some of them fled Ponyville while others remained behind to fight. Whatever happened to the Rainbow Power that is so incredibly strong it can outmatch the strength of everypony in Equestria, Discord and all four princesses combined? Heck, just sending one princess out to a single conflict would, in theory, have had a phenomenal impact on the direction of the war.
How could this ‘Alliance’ have driven itself so far into Equestria when Equestria has such great power at its disposal? There is no explanation for this, which forces me to think of the princesses as inexplicably incompetent. I know I’ve complained about Celestia being incompetent in the past, but we’re talking about a monarch-now-diarch who ruled a nation for 1000 years. Am I really expected to believe she never had to lead in wartime before? And that’s to say nothing for Luna, who is generally regarded as a fighter in the first place, and I can’t imagine even Cadance and Twilight sitting on the sidelines.
In short, the defeat of Equestria needs to happen in a fashion that makes sense, and Carabas has given us nothing to manage that. This forces me to think of the entire thing as horribly contrived, which annoys me to no end.
Despite that, if you ignore the elephant in the room this story is beyond effective. The emotions are powerful, the dread tangible, the writing solid. For being so well done in the overall, I have no choice in my rating. I recommend this to anyone who needs a solid example of pacing, atmosphere and emotional impact.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Why
By OfTheIronwilled
Re-Read
Previous Rating: Pretty Good
I’m pretty sure this is the very first OfTheIronwilled story I ever read. At the time, I was impressed, so when I was looking through my story collection in the Schedule and saw that I still had no review for it, I decided to remedy that. Why has a very unusual premise: what if Rarity and Lightning Dust were childhood friends?
The story’s age is apparent. Odd sentence structure, the occasional typo, a bit more info than is needed. One of the strangest elements of the story is the flashback formatting. Simply put, everything that happened in the past is written normally, while things happening in the present are written in italics. This isn’t necessarily wrong or bad, it’s just the complete opposite of what is common and thus takes some time to understand. The story starts and you think you’re in a flashback, but then the real flashback hits and— Wait, what just happened?
But again, it’s not wrong... just different.
Questionable formatting and odd phrasing aside, this is still a solid story. We get to find out what Lightning is doing after the events of Wonderbolt Academy and, most importantly, we find out exactly why she pushes herself so hard. The link between Rarity and Lightning is well-made, their strained friendship creating all sorts of problems until one of them finally says what is necessary. Although I’m typically not fond of rapidly alternating between flashbacks and the present, OfTheIronwilled used them with great effectiveness.
Yet there are a lot of questions opened up by this story. For example, if Lightning is originally from Ponyville, why didn’t she and Rainbow meet as foals? Why did Hoops and his buddies, who we can all say for sure are from Cloudsdale, spend time in Ponyville? That one in particular felt contrived; OfTheIronwilled could have used any Ponyville native aged down to take on the role, or even an OC, but instead he went and used an established bully and ignored the fact that said bully lives in an entirely different town.
And let’s not forget how Rarity never mentioned Lightning to any of her friends in the past. Did something happen between them to briefly end their relationship? Is that why Rarity had absolutely nothing to say to her during the events of Wonderbolt Academy? Yet they must have maintained some level of friendship, considering Lightning just popped by for a visit and Rarity doesn’t seem to mind at all.
With the exception of Hoops, none of these questions reflect negatively on the story. At least, not to me. If anything, they leave open the prospect of a sequel or prequel that could more effectively explain the nature of their relationship. I do think the story would have been stronger if the author had spent more time developing it, though.
Looking at the story now after having developed myself, I feel the need to take the rating down a peg. This is largely due to the odd formatting and overall writing style, which didn’t catch my eye in the past. Even so, I still think of this as a worthwhile story and look forward to re-reading the rest of OfTheIronwilled’s collection.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Magical Mystery Couture
By Punzil504
Prequel to Smile, Smile, Smile
This is a review produced out of sheer curiosity. Upon realizing that Smile, Smile, Smile was written in a universe where Rarity had cast the spell in Magical Mystery Cure instead of Twilight, I simply had to read the story to see how that went. In this version of events, Rarity just so happened to be visiting Twilight when Starswirl’s book arrived, and out of curiosity she read the spell before Twilight had a chance to.
Aside from altering who got to use the book and retain her cutie mark, Punzil also changed who got what cutie marks. This proved a bit of a problem in the overall, though. The problems that each of the Mane 6 faced in the episode were quite believable, but in this story some of the problems felt forced, as did the solutions. For instance, Applejack gets Twilight’s cutie mark, but there is no indication whatsoever that she’s having a problem with this. When Rarity brings Twilight to the Golden Oaks Library to snap her out of it, there is in fact nothing bad happening (save a fashion crisis), and Twilight does absolutely nothing but somehow regains her cutie mark?
Yeah, a lot of this story felt forced or, worse, contrived. Throw in a small army of needless show references. I swear, every time I see someone use Rarity’s “worst possible thing!” line, I die a little inside, to say nothing of Dash’s “20% cooler” line. Then we can add some pointless tangents, such as half a chapter devoted to a talent show that serves almost no purpose for the story, or a couple needless Discord cameos (although his characterization was decent).
On the positive side, I know that this is one of Punzil’s oldest works. As such, I’m looking forward to reading something far more recent to see if the author has improved any. As for this story, I’m sorry to say that regardless of whether you liked Magical Mystery Cure or not (and I did), it’s not an improvement.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
Stories for Next Week:
Arthurian—The Black King by Wellspring
The Dusk Guard: Rise by Viking ZX
Coming Home by Dash the Stampede (Requested by Dash the Stampede)
You Got Me by Tramper (Re-Read)
Goodbye, Boneless by scoots2 (Prequel to Good Morning, Beautiful)
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
Paul's Monday Reviews XVIII
Paul's tuesday Reviews II – "Where did the Time Go?" Edition
Paul's Monday Reviews XIX
Paul's Monday Reviews XX
Paul's Monday Reviews XXI – "Final" Edition
Paul's Thursday Reviews The Ist!
Paul's Thursday Reviews II
Paul's Thursday Reviews III
Paul's Thursday Reviews IV
Paul's Belated Thursday Reviews I
Oh wow. I am absolutely delighted that you liked Over a Cardboard Sea that much. I feel like it's the one story of mine that could possibly be called actual literature, and not just fun fluff. So it is always very nice when somebody liked it.
I'll now wear 'Made the writer of Twilight's Inferno feel ill with horror and despair' and 'Achieved a Why Haven't You Read These Yet? rating in spite of annoying the reviewer to no end' as badges of honour.
In all seriousness, thank you very much for the review and kind thoughts on Motion. Visceral emotional reactions were a large part of what I was hoping to elicit in response to the story, and it's immensely gratifying to know that I've succeeded there.
To address your main complaints, I'll admit to the first being a plot contrivance so that the Equestrian wasteland could be put on show. If I had to handwave a few reasons after the fact, their home near the ruins of Ponyville would have been established after the last siege of Canterlot, which the few remaining Equestrians would have flocked to immediately post-war and which would have seen a lot of desperate, vicious goings-on. Somewhere out of the way, before Rarity's condition worsened and before she got serious about her research, would have seemed ideal at the time. But since that's something I'm only flinging together now, I can't fairly cling to it as a justification, so it's a fair complaint.
As for the second, the overall gist of the Great War was meant to fall within the unclarified category of things, with only small hints and details about it cropping up in the text. I've got a more-or-less solid idea about how it started and what went down (involving some of the worldbuilding featured in Moonlight Palaver and its sequel), but felt that only details appropriate to Rarity's perspective and reminisces should be included. The exact details of what the princesses were doing and how the Alliance might be striving to counteract them wouldn't be greatly relevant to her by the time of the story, and could have risked coming off as info-dumping if included. There was all manner of Princess-delivered haunch-kicking going on during the war, and impressions otherwise would be incorrect ... but again, I can't complain about that, since I'm the one deliberately doling out incomplete details.
Perhaps wee asides in Rarity's train of thought like, "If only Celestia had been less shy about the collateral cost of wielding the sun's might," or "If only Cadance had stayed safe in the Crystal Empire so she could have come to tip the scales at Canterlot," could have counteracted the impression of a contrived Equestrian defeat ... but what's published is published, and I'm happy that it's managed to rank highly in your favour in spite of those problems.
It's like Christmas came early!
And Twilight is totally not anti-democracy. She's just a practical leader who, as of the time of the show, is objectively better than everypony else.
For far future princess activities, I believe Princess Luna is doing bedsheet commercials. Princess Cadance, obviously, is still head of the diamond ring cartel and valentine's day industries. Princess Celestia... Hmm.... I'm going to say daytime talk show. Or maybe she's starring in either soap operas, or having fun doing absurd historical fiction cable shows.
I know exactly how you feel! The week before I moved, I started replaying Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; it was not the best decision I could have made.
The first time I read Over a cardboard sea, I didn't really understand it, but the second time, I got the gist of it. I thought it was pretty good. Motion of the Stars is one of the stories that I am imminently proud to have been a part of. And GaPJaxie's (shorter) stories tend to make me think so hard that my brain hurts. I think it was Modern Medicine which really did me in the last time. That damn thing kept itself stuck in my head for a week straight.
You have no idea how happy I am that you do these reviews sometimes... I've had some of the best reading sessions of my life with some of these stories. Motions of the Stars had me literally shaking in my seat, it was an awesome experience.
3367452
I never meant to imply Twilight is anti-democracy. My comments are because I am anti-democracy, and I think Twilight made a mistake moving the country in that direction. That didn't reflect in my overall rating of the story, though.
And before anyone asks, I prefer republics.
3369127
In truth, I still haven't escaped the pull of the game. every time I think I'm ready to stop for a while, I gain a level and get some new ambitious idea based on the things I've just unlocked. Progress! ...or not, depending on what you're paying attention to.
3371612
Speak for yourself, I just beat the water temple last night.