Paul's Thursday Reviews XIX · 8:07pm Dec 10th, 2015
So yeah, I just sat here for ten minutes wondering what I'd say for this week's batch of reviews.
I got nothin.'
Oh! Except that: for those who have been waiting, the next Order of Shadows chapter releases tomorrow. Almost a full week late, but that's mostly because I wanted to give my pre-readers time to make any comments they may have... if any.
Stories for This Week:
A Very Merry Chrysalis by dungeonguy88
Underneath the Sky by Swift Winds
'Til Sunday Do Us Part by BlazzingInferno (Requested by BlazzingInferno)
Silent Ponyville 2 by SamRose (Re-Read)
For Sonnets and Harmony by The Wizard of Words (Completed Story)
Total Word Count: 231,951
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 2
Worth It: 0
Not Bad: 2
None: 1
I’m not very fond of the ChrysalisXCelestia pairing. What do you even call that? Celesalis?
...I kinda like that name, actually.
Anyway, given my view of the characters, I tend to not consider this to be a realistic pairing. Despite this, I look upon this story and smile.
A Very Merry Chrysalis is set on a Hearth’s Warming Eve in which Celestia insists upon touring Canterlot with, quote, “her changeling” in hopes of endearing her to the populace. To account for the obvious unlikelihood of this circumstance, this story is set in a 'verse where the changeling race has pulled up stakes and moved to the Crystal Empire, where they have been welcomed by Cadance and the Crystal Heart can easily sustain all of them. Chrysalis herself, however, is permanently banned from the Empire due to her past actions, and so she is staying instead as a guest in Canterlot Castle… where she’s begun a rather interesting personal relationship with Princess Celestia.
Provided you can accept all of this as true, I doubt you’ll have any problem enjoying this story. Granted, it may have helped to have read the prequel story Advanced Lessons, which I have not.
dungeonguy88 takes Chrysalis and gives her the character of a difficult, grumpy, sarcastic and manipulative creature who carefully considers her every action, but despite all that isn’t so bad once you get to know her. This makes her exceedingly fun to watch as she struggles to understand the value of the Hearth’s Warming celebrations. The best part by far comes when she is forced (to use the term broadly) into spending time with a very curious colt and his relentless questions and works as hard as she possibly can to not enjoy the experience.
It is only in the last chapter that the relationship between Celestia and Chrysalis is fully revealed to us. It makes for an a cute and amusing chapter, and those of you who enjoy a little comedic romance – and some delightfully blunt Princess Luna lines; I’m gonna remember “constant carnal canoodling” for a while – will be delighted.
Ignoring the blatant improbability of the pairing, the only major problem this story has is that the writer’s grammar could use a touch up, especially when it comes to comma usage.
Other than that? I am pleased. I intend to explore the rest of this little universe, just to see if it is all as fun as this story makes it out to be.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Let me tell you how not to write a romance: tell everything. This story is an exemplary example of that. It is as bare bones basic can be. The summary? Luna creates the aurora borealis over all of Equestria, Rainbow loves Twilight, Rainbow brings Twilight to a mountaintop to watch lights, Twilight loves Rainbow. And with that, I have given you exactly as much emotion as this story managed to pull off in all its 1,299 words.
In fact, let’s get the full effect of this story’s descriptive prowess by looking at how the author displays Rainbow’s view of Twilight:
Dash lit the candle inside the lantern. The warm glow reflected on her eyes and off her pelt, and also lit Twilight's coat. Dash exhaled sharply as she saw Twilight in the golden light. She was utterly beautiful.
Yes, ‘utterly beautiful’ is all we need to display the vast power and strength of Rainbow’s emotions. Apparently.
As you’ve probably figured out by now, this did absolutely nothing for me. Swift Winds needs to learn how to show us things. I won’t even get into the weak dialogue, strange character behavior and complete lack of subtlety. I wish I could provide some kind of positive statement to balance things out, but there’s just too much nnnope to permit it.
Bookshelf: None
'Til Sunday Do Us Part
By BlazzingInferno
Requested by BlazzingInferno
I’ve never been outright for or against the Sparity idea. I’ve read some strong stories relating the concept, and they do make a pleasant if predictable dynamic. ’Till Sunday Do Us Part attempts it in a way I’ve not seen before, and for that alone I was interested.
This story presumably takes place a few years beyond the current show, with Spike being big enough now to look most ponies in the eye easily. He’s still Rarity’s eager little helper, though he’s kept his ongoing crush a little less obvious. One day, Rarity receives an invitation to join the Blue Pony Club, the single most elite group of ponies in Equestria outside of royalty. But there’s a catch: the members have to be married. Still woefully single, but not willing to let the chance of a lifetime slip her by, Rarity hatches a typically self-centered plan: marry Spike for only the duration of the weekend. Spike, fully aware of the facts, readily agrees.
Then the trick comes: Twilight is the only pony available on such short notice to marry them, and she doesn’t like the idea one bit. She ultimately relents, but not before arranging a scheme of her own on the unwitting, unprepared ‘couple.’
All in all, this was great. I mean it, I enjoyed everything about this story. Rarity and Spike rapidly come to recognize both the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, and what starts as a weekend of scamming turns into a whole week of coming to terms with their actions. There were moments that were cute and cuddly, moments filled with very real frustration, and a few days of legitimate anger. All of it was well-played and planned by the author, even if the issues were somewhat typical.
Certain things did strike me as odd. For instance, while the reactions of most of their friends were understandable – and Applejack’s downright laudable – Fluttershy threw me for a loop by asking extremely personal and invasive questions that didn’t fit her at all. Even granting her interest in animal social behaviors and potentially biology, it just didn’t seem like things she’d be comfortable asking two of her close friends.
Also, Twilight’s prank on the two of them – as well as her guilt afterwards – had me grinning. The first part had me proud of her, the second part amused and exasperated. Both felt delightfully appropriate.
If you’re into Sparity at all, or just want an amusing romantic comedy, give this a go. It was certainly worth my time.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Silent Ponyville 2
By SamRose
Re-Read
Fluttershy lovers beware, your favorite adorable yellow pony is about to undergo some brutality.
Taking place an undefined time after the original, Silent Ponyville 2 begins in exactly the same way: Fluttershy is having terrible nightmares and seeks out Twilight for answers. Twilight’s solution is the same Mind Delve spell she used on Pinkie. The big difference is that, this time, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are going in with her.
A few things have to be accepted right off the bat. For starters, Rainbow and Fluttershy are in a serious romantic relationship in this story. Apparently there’s a story in between the two Silent Ponyvilles that explains how this happened, but it’s not at all necessary so long as you can accept the fact. The other thing is that Pinkie randomly shows up and, by great coincidence, learns of what’s going on in time to volunteer to join in. While this is obviously contrived, at the same time it is Pinkie Pie – she’s done weirder things canonically.
Silent Ponyville 2 handles a few things differently from its predecessor, which results in both improvements and whole new mistakes. For starters, most of the things in the story is original – custom plot, custom monsters, custom solutions. Well, aside from the nurses, but given their popularity in the Silent Hill games I can’t fault SamRose for including them. Fluttershy’s situation is wholly different from Pinkie’s in a very good way, and is no less heartbreaking for it. Her position is also more interesting on the whole, for while Pinkie could reasonably defend herself, Fluttershy is a dainty flower with no effective means of self defense at all. If I approve of anything in this story, it's that SamRose portrayed this difference faithfully.
Buuut…
There’s still that sense of ‘game’ to the story. The plot direction feels heavily episodic – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but does lend to the illusion of watching someone play a game rather than entering a living, breathing world. A few old mistakes come back, like the finding of inventory items and unrealistic boons (Health Drinks again), and oftentimes Fluttershy does things because of ‘feelings saying it’s important’ than any real logic. Watching a nurse walk in a pattern over and over again certainly didn’t help matters.
The biggest issue of all, however, is that the writing from one story to the next hasn’t improved at all. It’s amateur at best, grammatically offensive at worst, and all of it is murder to immersion. We get the full gamut: repeating words over and over again, awkward sentences that don’t say what they’re meant to, descriptive saidisms that regurgitate everything in the dialogue; comma splices that defy logic; and enough tell to choke a Pyramid Head. We’ve also got thoughts indicated with single quotes, making it very easy to confuse what’s being said with what’s not, and the writing out of laughter and other sounds (one of my major pet peeves). Just like in the first story, if you’re the type who can’t take terrible writing, you won’t make it past the first few paragraphs. The writing is just flat-out bad, and there were times even I asked myself why I was putting up with it again.
But kudos where it’s due: the story is pretty good. Fluttershy’s situation is appropriately terrifying and her manner of dealing with it equally so. Even with the poor writing style, it’s hard not to sympathize when you see the things she’s been repressing from her memories. It is, for the most part, a decent representation of her character with a dark history to overcome.
I did have a few issues with it, of course.
Pinkie’s and Rainbow’s roles in the story felt insignificant. While Rainbow’s place in the tale is somewhat justified, Pinkie seemed to be there just to be there, like the author felt some obligation to include her since she starred in the original. Then there was the ‘true ending’ that showed Fluttershy dealing with at least one problem in a way that seems to be there just for laughs. Maybe that’s okay – it did make Pinkie roll on the floor with laughter – but it also felt a lot like bad fanservice.
For the Silent Hill purists out there, the nature of the monsters and threats may be a problem. The monsters are very direct representations of the real-world things tormenting Fluttershy, whereas the threats in Silent Hill games (as I recognize them) tend to be more symbolic and thoughtful. Personally, I don’t hold this against SamRose because I am aware of how difficult it can be to design such things, but again, purists of the series may find fault in the decisions.
All in all, I think I need to reverse my previous view of this story; it is better than the original. The whole thing feels stronger and more carefully thought out, and Fluttershy’s natural timidity and weakness make her a far better protagonist. If the writing wasn’t a horrendous mess, this story would be much higher in my rating system.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
For Sonnets and Harmony
By The Wizard of Words
Completed Story
When I first learned of this story, I was admittedly frustrated; it appeared and became popular shortly after I myself conceived a potential Octavicorn fic. I felt as though my golden opportunity to do something old with somepony new – to make something at least somewhat original – had been robbed from me, and I was decidedly bitter. Watching this story was a no-brainer, as I simply had to see the competition, even if only to know what not to do in order to avoid looking like a copycat.
On a related note, I don’t actually blame The Wizard of Words in any way; it’s not like he knew he was trampling upon my fertile ground. And, since this came out ages before I finally got around to reading it, I can assure you that my frustration has long since faded and I was able to approach this with a largely unbiased mind… or at least as unbiased as can be reasonably expected.
All of that being known, this story wasn’t at all what I anticipated. To put it simply, Octavia wakes up one morning to find that, for no reason she can discern, she has miraculously been turned into an alicorn. There were no warnings, no predictions, not even a physical ailment prior to the change. She went to bed an earth pony and woke an alicorn, and that’s all there is to it. Filled with (perhaps exaggerated) alarm and fear, she is brought to Canterlot Castle by her suitemate Vinyl to ask the princesses for assistance. The story then follows Octavia as she tries to learn what this transformation means to her.
There’s one thing that needs to be stated right off the bat: if you don’t like the concept of Twilicorn, you won’t like this. It’s the one thing that was on my mind while reading this story; why did Octavia ascend and what is her purpose as an alicorn going to be? No answers are ever given to these questions. In fact, they are barely even brought up past the first chapter. So if you think making Twilight into an alicorn was in poor taste – because her purpose is unclear, because it seems like she didn’t deserve it, because it ruined her character, whatever your personal reasons are – then you will find this equally bad. But if you’re perfectly okay with Twilicorn, then you’ll probably be fine with Octavicorn too.
I really wanted an answer to that question. Not having one, even at the end, left the entire story feeling weak, perhaps even pointless. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Wizard of Words made a large number of questionable decisions in this story. The very first: he let the audience decide the direction. At the end of most chapters, he set up a poll question, the results of which determined what Octavia would do next. This was a dangerous path to take, and the author fully acknowledged it, because the vast majority of readers have no concept of plot direction or storytelling. They know that they like this character the most, so that’s the path they’ll vote towards. To The Wizard of Words’ credit, the questions were limited in a way to be minimally intrusive, and the content afterwards made good use of each decision. It proved a daring move and it mostly ended up just right. For that alone, I am impressed.
But in many other ways, I’m sorry to say I was disappointed.
Let’s begin with the writing. It was greatly amusing to me when Octavia once commented with grave disdain Vinyl’s poor sentence structure, bad grammar and improper verb tense. Why? Because The Wizard of Words makes all the same mistakes – continuously. There words missing, many verbs is in the wrong tense, sometime letters are skiped, and a great many instances of: “ ‘I don’t know what you mean, Luna,” she said to Luna with clear confusion in her eyes.” Add in a nonstop use of LUS, really awkward phrases (what the heck does “...falling to the earth felt like a more forgiving surface.” mean?), and highly repetitive saidisms. Put simply, the narrative is a grammatical and stylistic mess.
And verbose in a bad way. The style of the story is rambling, using descriptions that are nothing short of excessive. Sometimes the same thing is described multiple times, as if the author was determined to show it in every possible light to minimize all confusion. This isn’t limited to the narrative; the dialogue is lengthy, complicated and not very realistic. I frequently found myself skimming paragraphs trying to get to the valuable parts.
Speaking of skimming, the author attempts to implant in most chapters a song or two, and then goes through pained efforts to describe the songs in Octavia’s view. On the one hand, The Wizard of Words does a great job describing the music and even manages to show some impressive knowledge for the subject. Some of the songs are delightfully detailed and I was, at first, impressed.
Yet it doesn’t work every time. For example, the author utilized the Transiberian Orchestra’s epic rendition of Tubular Bells, but does so in such a lengthy, verbose and detailed way that I grew confused. What part of the song was being described? Why did the description for a ten second part stretch into 500 or so words? By the time it was done, the image I was seeing wasn’t at all like the music I’d heard, and the effect was thus ruined. So, even though I applaud the effort and note that some of the attempts worked wonderfully, the author didn’t hit the songs properly every time. I also found fault in the author’s determination to signify the end of the song in-story with a big, ugly, immersion-destroying proclamation, which was never needed as the narrative itself made said ending perfectly clear.
Now let us add character behavior to the mix. For the most part, the author handled every character very well. Every now and then, however, something glaringly wrong would happen in defiance of all we’d seen so far. For example, Octavia is shown constantly to be a measured pony, taking everything with a cool – if not exactly calm – head. Then Discord shows up and all her patience and reservation disappear in a whirlwind of violence with no purpose or origin. It’s as if, for about two chapters, Octavia disappeared and was replaced by a raging she-demon. And I should note that Discord did absolutely nothing to warrant this reaction; he appeared before her and introduced himself, that’s it.
Issues like this were infrequent, but when they did appear they were glaring.
Also glaring, at least to me, is the author’s failure to maintain continuity. Mostly these were small issues, but there was one big exception: the Mane 6. Octavia meets all of them in an early chapter, specifically when Twilight convinces her to go to a Pinkie party. It’s made abundantly clear that all of Twilight’s friends are going to be present. So why is it that, several chapters later, Octavia has abruptly forgotten both Applejack’s name and appearance? And at the end of the story, when all of them are present before Octavia, does she not remember any of them in even the most remote way?
Discord was also a glaring issue in this sense. By this point he’s not only been reformed, but Tirek has already been defeated. So yeah, you’re going to have a very hard time convincing me that his reformation isn’t public knowledge. And yet, for reasons unknown, Octavia is completely oblivious to his new role as one of the good guys.
Then we have a curious decision on the author’s part: this story is not labeled as a crossover, but that’s exactly what it features. It’s only one chapter, and I won’t spoil what it’s crossed with, but it’s a very real surprise that I’m not sure was needed. It almost felt like the decision was made just because the author thought it would be cool. I’m not sure how to feel about it – the chapter itself wasn’t bad, but I also think the whole thing could have been handled within the bounds of Equestria and not suffered at all.
Then we return to my original complaint: what is the purpose of this story? What is Octavia’s purpose? I mean, really, the most she does is make a bunch of flashy lights whenever music is played and make ponies feel a little better about themselves. It’s all wrapped up in a bunch of flash and pizzazz and good feelings, but that’s all there is to it. There’s nothing practical, no indications of leadership or purpose, and no suggestion that Octavia’s ascension has anything to do with anything except making a better orchestra.
So what was the point of her ascension? Are we meant to believe that it happened for no reason? The story brushes the subject aside like so much dust in need of ignoring when it is unquestionably the single biggest hole in the piece.
In the end, For Sonnets and Harmony strikes me as a story that aims high, only to bump the controls and end up shoot directly into the ground. It’s not that the story is bad, it’s that it doesn’t do anything. Even Octavia’s final song for the story – meant to be a prideful and epic showing of purpose and achievement – fell flat specifically because the tale lacks purpose or achievement, and what epicness is present is limited strictly to the author’s descriptive capacity for music. If anything, For Sonnets and Harmony feels like a lot of wasted potential.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
Stories for Next Week:
Friendly Correspondence by Pascoite
Twilight Sparkle Makes a Cup of Tea by GhostofHeraclitus
A Sparkle In The Guard's Eye by vangard1994 (Requested by Twilight is the BEST)
Silent Ponyville 3 by SamRose (Re-read)
Suitors by Jay-The-Brony (Completed Story)
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
Paul's Thursday Reviews IX
Paul's Thursday Reviews X
Paul's Thursday Reviews XI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVIII
Want me to review your story? Send me a request! Check my profile page for rules.
Hrm, I never finished Sonnets and Harmony. I think I had a couple chapters left and I just put it down and stopped reading. I really liked the original concept (I was on an Octavia binge thanks to Exit Through Canterlot) but it kinda flopped after the part where she stayed on the farm with whatsername.
Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you liked the story
I agree Fluttershy's part is a tad odd. If the story jumped to her perspective shortly after that scene, she probably would've been in tears over going full-on biologist on her friends. You're actually the first person to comment on that
Not gonna lie, I skipped right to SP2 on this one. Silent Ponyville was always a guilty pleasure of mine, and your review was pretty spot on. I'm almost afraid to go back and reread them. Many of the older fics here really show their age. Even Fallout Equestria had some rusty nails between the boards when I went back to that one.
Whew, you done saved me from a quarter of a Fallout: Equestria on that last one! :D Thanks!
3608372
I make it a point not to quit a story once I've started it, primarily for the sake of a more complete and thorough review. there are times when I regret that decision, though...
3608501
It really stood out to me. It's amazing some of the things I see that the general public seems to not even notice. I don't know if that makes me picky or just more observant.
3608513
I don't think age has anything to do with the Silent Ponyville series. Frankly, if I didn't feel the obsessive need to clear out my re-read list I wouldn't have gone back to it. I'm reading all three in a row just for the sake of getting them out of the way.
3609175
My (kinda-sorta) pleasure!
3609335
Only 314 Fallout Equestrias to go! :V
3609335
Usually it's when I stopped reading it due to whatever circumstances and then when I tried to start reading again I just couldn't do it.
Well, gotta say I was hoping for better, but opinions are opinions for a reason. Guess better luck next time.
Thanks for the review. I replied in my stories comment section, but I figured I'd mention it here as well. And I know the pairing isn't for everyone, but I'm glad to see that my writing holds up well enough to lend some charm to it.
3609730 For me it's a struggle to finish it, although I very rarely give up on a fic (and that's usually because the writing is unreadable). The chapter with Random Crossover Time (which I won't spoiler, but is totally left-field and pointless) just about destroyed it for me. Plus everything the review says.
I feel bad for the author; eir username is quite the claim to live up to.
3609335
It's personal preference too: some readers were angry at Applejack for her initial reaction, or angry at Twilight for her little stunt. Most people just found one reason or another to laugh, thankfully
A prequel is a story that's set before another one but written after the one it's set before. It's a portmanteau of 'preceding/previous' and 'sequel', a 'sequel' that looks at the past of the thing it's following.
What you're talking about is just the previous story in the series, since Advanced Lessons was written first.
But I may be nitpicking.
3633627
Eh, I'm indifferent. I mean, I would call Book II of No Heroes the prequel of Book III. So yeah, I may have used the word prequel incorrectly. In my defense... wait, not, that's not really a good argument. NVM.
But I will point out that I typically don't check publication dates for such things.
5654619
Alas, no. There was supposed to be one final trilogy in my larger No Heroes franchise that would have focused on a changeling civil war with Equestria being forced to intervene. Towards the end of the series that is written, Luna offered to make Octavia her apprentice. But the NH Octavia is so good at... pretty much anything she sets her mind to that Twilight Sparkle would begin to feel threatened. This would lead to a one-sided rivalry throughout the trilogy. At the end of it, Celestia and Luna would cast a spell intended to turn Twilight into an alicorn (which never happened in the NH series), but because of shenanigans in the combat-riddled target zone they'd end up hitting Octavia with it instead.
I'm vastly oversimplifying the whole thing with that summary. If you want the much bigger run down, I'd suggest reading my Concepts & Creations blogs here, here, and here to get the full trilogy in short form. Only the last one directly relates to Octavicorn, but the other two help clarify the circumstances a little.