Jeremy's New Years Reviews! · 4:16pm Dec 31st, 2015
Since I won't be able to say it tomorrow: a happy new years to everyone! May next year be better – or at least less crappy – than the last!
I suppose now would make for a great time to note a small change I'll be making to my future review scheduling. I've decided that I'm going to alternate between six reviews and five reviews a week. Every other week I'll be doing two re-reads instead of one. This might not sound like much of a change, but it'll increase the rate at which I empty out my re-read queue by 50%, and the faster I get rid of that, the faster I can focus that extra slot on other things, such as whittling down my RiL or review requests. These changes won't take place until February, as I already have the next two months scheduled.
In other news, as of now I am no longer ahead of schedule with my reviews. As such, there may be a week or two in the near future where I'll be forced to skip a week due to high wordcounts. Rest assured I will provide warning if that is about to happen.
I'd go into the stats for my reviews for the year, but I think I'm going to wait on that until my coming Sunday post, when I can get it all done in one big go. In the meantime, I should note that it strikes me as highly amusing that the first review of the day comes now, in a time that's meant to be merry. Fate has a twisted sense of humor, no?
Stories for This Week:
Cheerilee's Garden by Unahim
The Secret Life of Doors, A Locked Up Story by Noble Thought
All's Right with the World by Dusty Tome (Requested by Dusty Tome)
I Am Not the Actor by cleverpun (Re-Read)
I Prefer Show Tunes by Harmony Charmer (Completed Story)
Total Word Count: 165,546
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 2
Not Bad: 1
None: 0
At long last, I finally get the chance to read the last major horror story of the FIMFiction fan mythos. Given its reputation right alongside stories like Silent Ponyville, Cupcakes and Rainbow Factory, I admit I wasn’t expecting much. At best, it would be a well-written gore fest.
Which, go figure, is exactly what it turned out to be. But let us not confuse ‘well-written’ with ‘good story.’
The first thing that really needs to be addressed is the obvious and obligatory: Cheerilee herself. Now, if horrors have a reputation for being bad stories, there are fundamental reasons for it. The most dominant reason is that many authors are incapable of providing a true mental image of horror, and so they instead rely upon unbelievable, contrived or outright stupid things that are forced into the stories as excuses for why things happen. The events of this story and Cheerilee’s reaction to it all is a perfect example.
For those of you unawares, the premise of Cheerilee’s Garden goes like this: Cheerilee’s students are stupid. They include the CMC, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Snips and Snails, and they are all so phenomenally dumb that after months of work she has failed to get them to learn anything whatsoever. Here’s the first forced element of the story, since there’s no evidence of this level of stupidity in the foals at all. …maybe Snails. After months of dealing with this, Cheerilee snaps and concludes that they are ‘weeds’ that must be removed to preserve the intellectual and moral integrity of Ponyville’s youth.
And now we get to the second forced element of the story: overnight, Cheerilee goes from a well-meaning, innocent teacher to a psychopathic hemophiliac with enough sadistic criminal genius to outsmart even Twilight Sparkle. It’s such a huge leap of logic that it crosses the boundaries of believability and struts right through the infertile fields of "what the fuck am I reading?"
To be clear: I’m not complaining that Cheerilee snapped and turned evil. I’m complaining that she snapped and became really good at being evil. Going insane does not make you hyper intelligent, it just makes you insane. And yes, Cheerilee does show vast intellect, because she ends up building, by herself, massive and extremely complex devices designed to torture and kill, some of them in a highly automated fashion, with nopony able to notice.
The good news is that this is a horror story, and this kind of ridiculousness is more or less expected from the genre. The average horror writer appears to have a blatant inability to create horror stories that make sense. Those who can unfortunately tend to go unnoticed, leaving the rest to achieve fame through sheer spectacle. And that, my friends, is precisely what Cheerilee’s Garden is: 100% gorey spectacle.
Alternative titles:
Gore, And Everything That Entrails
Twelve Creative Ways to Murder Ponies
The Fine Art of Extracting More Blood from a Pony Than it is Physically Possible for a Pony to Have
All of this is to say that if you’re looking for some kind of cerebral, intelligent horror, look elsewhere. But if you want blood, guts and gore without any semblance of plot or purpose, here you go. Cheerilee starts by murdering all her students behind the scenes of a theatre play. Afterwords, in a pseudo-sequel, Twist gets suspicious and gives Twilight some evidence of the misdeed. this leads Cheerilee to come to the outrageous leap of logic that all of the Mane 6 are responsible for the mental decline of the foals. Especially Twilight, on the basis that she came from Canterlot and ‘big city education is shit.’ With this outlook, how long before she decides to kill the princesses?
Then we get to something truly contrived: Cheerilee just so happens to know of an ancient Nightmare Moon fortification – not the Castle of The Royal Pony Sisters, because that would have actually made sense – that blocks all forms of magic completely within its walls and can only be opened via a single magical keystone that she just so happens to possess. Bonus contrivance points: it’s filled with a vast assortment of lethal traps, torture devices, a maze design complete with moving walls and a complicated series of interior controls that Cheerilee just so happens to have perfectly memorized.
How convenient.
And so Cheerilee proceeds to murder all of our favorite ponies in ways that are excruciatingly detailed and – dare I admit it – somewhat creative. The Everfree Beetles disturbed me the most at first reading, but the folding table is the one that sticks with me the most, probably because the descriptive imagery for it was the best in my opinion. Unahim pulls no punches here, making sure we see every wound, listen to every desperate plea and feel each drop of blood.
And this is part of the problem for me. I’ve always found that true horrors – the ones that really leave an impact and never leave you – are those you have to imagine for yourself. The folding table? I’ll have forgotten it by this time tomorrow.
The single strongest scene that ever stuck with me in a horror story came from George R.R. Martin’s Sandkings. In the story, a woman close to the protagonist is thrown down a flight of steps and locked in a cellar. We then get to listen as she screams and begs for mercy. We don’t see what happens to her down there, we are only given the sounds. That scene stuck with me for weeks.
And that’s the big difference. No matter how capable an author’s descriptive prowess, their words will never compare to the sheer terror my own imagination can produce.This makes every story that goes through the effort to detail the pain and agony of the characters fall short for me. Oh, sure, the events are horrifying, but I promise you, my brain can make it seem so much worse.
But if you’re not like me, and just the sight of blood, guts and slow, excruciating death is enough for you, then you might get something out of this. That is, of course, assuming you don’t read stories for the plot. If you do, look elsewhere, because you won’t be finding it here.
I do have one positive note to add to all of this: I liked the ending, particularly right after the trial. It’s the only part in the entire thing that actually bothers with being a story, and it manages to unexpectedly incorporate a few things from earlier in the tale that gives something resembling an actual plotline. It’s too little and far too late to save the story – considering it takes up about 10% of the story, whereas the other 90% is mindless slaughter for the sake of it – but it’s something.
Ultimately, your enjoyment of this story will depend on three things. One: do you care at all about an intelligent plot? Two: Are you more terrified of mindless and blatantly unrealistic gore, or do your fears lie in something more cerebral? Three: can you tolerate nonstop pain?
Oh, and there's a fourth one: do you really care, or are you just looking for splatterporn?
Personally, I consider the whole thing cheap. I compare it to such infamous horror movies as House of 1000 Corpses, Hostel, and Wrong Turn. That is to say, horror for the lowest common denominator. Give them the blood and they’ll say it’s good while asking “please sir, can I have some more?” And that will be given, eagerly, happily, while the rest of us look on with disdain.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
Well, this was interesting. In more ways than one.
As a general rule, I avoid reviewing clop. I don’t even read it all that much, but even on the rare instances when I do I never review it. The Secret Life of Doors, A Locked Up Story slipped through the cracks because I was under the impression that there was a story hidden under all the sex. And, to my admitted pleasure, that ended up being true.
But the story is still about ⅔ to ¾ clop. For what it’s worth, it’s very detailed and well-written clop, with a particularly strong attention to pony anatomy. Even so, I skimmed those parts because – let’s face it – it’s not like the concept changes from story to story. Sex is sex, and I wasn’t interested in it in this instance. What parts of the sex scenes I did read were strong, and had I been reading this story with that in mind I have no doubt I’d have been satisfied, but that’s not why I’m here.
So what of the story that takes place between the teasing and moans? It’s certainly there, and it makes for a decent little sideline. We get to see how Twilight and Rainbow Dash came to recognize their love for one another. It’s not half as romantic as you’d expect. On the contrary, it felt very real; a moment of weakness driven by desperation, denial and wanton drunkenness. And I don’t mean the kind of drunk that leads to random sex in bathroom stalls. Granted, a bathroom stall was involved, but it was anything but sexy.
Therein lies what I really liked about this story. We are given two mares with strong sex drives, which drives the clop as one might expect, but we are also given a relationship that feels like more than just an excuse to have two mares going at it like rabbits. As we all know, most clop stories are based around ludicrous ideas and general stupidity just to provide a half-assed excuse for wild horse sex. This, however, felt like something that might actually happen between two individuals. To me, that elevates this story to something a little higher in the literary chain.
Of course, there’s also the base premise, which is that Twilight accidentally locks herself in the bathroom. To escape, she casts a “Come to Life” spell on the keyhole, intending to talk it into unlocking for her, which in turn leads to her getting herself off because reasons. It’s silly, and the catch at the end had me grinning. While it is indeed that ‘silly excuse for sex’ thing I just complained about, it was done in a way that felt so in-character that I’m willing to forgive. And since the rest of the story focused on realism, I soon forgot all about the silliness of the opening chapter.
On the other hand, it can be argued that the latter three chapters deviated entirely from the story’s advertised intent. Take that how you will.
So yeah, this one got through the cracks of my ‘no clop’ rule, but it’s strong enough in all aspects that I don’t mind at all.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
All's Right With The World
By Dusty Tome in collaboration with FanOfMostEverything
Requested by Dusty Tome
One of the lessons to be learned for writers is that ambition doesn’t necessarily equate to greatness. All’s Right With The World is a very ambitious project. When I found it is being made in collaboration with someone generally regarded as capable, my expectations rose.
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way, shall we? The very first thing that needs to be noted is that this story is humanized. The races have been redefined into seraphim, oreads and magi, and Equestria does not exist. So if you’re looking for something familiar and even remotely MLP, stop reading and look elsewhere, because this won’t be for you.
There, that’s done. Now, let’s look into what this story is about. There’s no short way to sum up the world and its background without gross oversimplification, but as basic as I can be; Celestia and Luna are literal goddesses who have self-imprisoned themselves in crystal in order to keep the doors to Tartarus closed, while their mother (Faust, who else?) lives within fighting to keep the evil hordes from approaching the doors. After a millennium of this, Luna is freed and ends up with supermage and prosthetics expert Twilight Sparkle, setting them off on an adventure to find others like her who can stop the great evil from escaping the ever-weakening doors of Tartarus.
Like I said, it’s a gross oversimplification, but you get the gist.
The good news is that the story is indeed extremely ambitious. Dusty Tome has crafted an entirely new world that seems to be a merging of magic and some semblance of steampunk (but without the steam?). The potential for exploration and discovery is vast, and one can only hope the authors will make full use of it. There’s also great creativity in the redefinition of the world, its background and the immortals that run it. All the characters you know are there, but re-imagined in ways both interesting and unexpected.
This is a double-edged sword, however. As it turns out, everything we know and love about My Little Pony doesn’t exist, and that includes the characters. Just as an example, Twilight is no longer a book smart and socially inept figure, but a violent and eternally angry young woman with little respect for authority. Gone are the established and loved personalities that we know, replaced by actors with a few close similarities but, generally speaking, whole new personalities. Don’t even try to recognize characters like Spike or Princess Luna; the only similarities they have are their names and general closeness to Twilight.
The differences are so vast that the authors might as well have changed all the names and attempted publication as original fiction, because that’s what this is. If you’re okay with that, great, but if not then you’ll find this a tough pill to swallow.
And now we get to the real issues of this story. The plot development and character behavior gives me a distinct anime or Japanese video game vibe. This was all but confirmed when a brief extra scene showed King Scoddri – Discord – sneezing when the main characters on an airship far away started speaking ill of him (a common Japanese concept). Unfortunately, the influences appear to have been the bad ones.
Things happen in a flash, and the characters roll with it every time. This is blatantly apparent in chapter three. First, we have Twilight discovering that her mage markings have grown, leading her to an extreme overreaction of screaming. So, now that we’ve established that this is a big deal for her, what’s her next reaction? “Meh, I’m going back to sleep.” In that instant, all my expectations crashed down, for I now know that the characters aren’t going to behave rationally.
Things get worse when she wakes up and finds a nude Princess Luna in her kitchen and acts like it’s no big deal. It’s only an immortal goddess who has been encased in crystal for the past 1,000 years, nothing special about that. Even Spike walks in and immediately starts making breakfast like this kind of thing happens every day. In short, the characters’ behavior goes beyond unrealistic. With stuff like this going on, I imagine that Dusty Tome would respond to a naked Zeus in his/her kitchen, boiling up some coffee with a lightning bolt, as a boring event.
Then we get to the anime-style OPing of characters. Twilight, Pinkie and Rarity (the latter of whom Twilight just met) end up seeing Luna and Scoddri fighting unholy demons of Tartarus. Their reaction? “Alright, fine, let’s get this over with,” and they promptly wipe the floor with some hellspawn. Later in the story, a flight of somewhere around a hundred dragons show up. No big deal, just jump in swords ablaze (literally), with Twilight able to use her brand new magic wings as if she’s been flying all her life. Big whoop.
So much for instilling any sense of dread or worry in this story, much less a concern for the characters.
And this brings me to the plot holes. Right before the said slaughter of dragons, we got to see our heroes getting cornered by an army of shadows led by Applejacka lone assassin, and somehow this threat is able to severely injure these on-and-off-again godlike beings. So… are they overpowered warriors or not? I think the authors need to make up their minds, especially when one of the creators of the world is involved. It’s the equivalent of having Goku able to move so fast you literally can’t see his motions as he dodges lasers, only to later have him so slow it takes a dozen tries to find that one second opening in a giant monster’s otherwise impenetrable defenses (and yes, that happened, I remember because it insulted my intelligence).
Other plot holes abound, such as when Twilight vows that she’ll go wherever Luna goes, only to turn around the next morning and curse the goddess and renounce her. Add on to that one of the oldest and outright stupidest arguments ever made in any story, but which is preposterously common in anime and video games: “It doesn’t involve me.” Naw, it isn’t important to you personally, not at all. I mean, sure, the world’s going to end, which means you and everything you’ve ever cared about is going to die or be enslaved or something equally terrible, but who cares? Not your problem, right?
I hate that statement, regardless of who says it or the circumstances leading to it. It’s like screaming to the heavens “This character is an idiot!” and expecting the readers to think it’s gritty and interesting.
Last but not least, we have the nonexistent pacing. Things happen extremely quickly with no attempt to indicate the flow of time or prepare the settings – once again, a very anime/video game-y move. As an example, let’s go back to when Twilight, Luna, Pinkie and Rarity get to the Doors of Tartarus to find King Scoddri fighting the shadow demons. The immediate response is to help, without preamble or a hint that there’s a legitimate threat around. Okay, fine; the situation’s dire and they need to act. I can buy that.
Then, the (pathetically easy) fight ends and Luna declares she’s got to talk with Scoddri, shooing the others. Twilight goes to the roof, sits down… and boom, there’s Luna, wanting to talk. Twilight, after having spent only a few hours with this goddess and with no relationship-building moments between them whatsoever, has had a massive change of heart, undoing a lifetime of hatred aimed at Luna and her sister. Then, after a not very touching heart-to-heart (did I mention the dialogue is tragically weak at times, especially with the monologuing?), they go down to see the king, who reveals that, sure enough, Luna didn’t talk to him like she just said she was going to do.
I’m not even going to get into Rainbow’s ‘tragic’ and tragically written backstory.
In summation: full relationships form within the span of a few minutes and without adequate reason, there’s no transitioning whatsoever, characters react to life-changing or shocking moments like they are absolutely nothing, and the authors seem to outright forget the things they just claimed were going to happen in favor of something else entirely. Throw in a few strained attempts at humor at highly inappropriate times – something even Twilight makes note of – and you have me thoroughly displeased. (Luna being literally scared out of her skirt? Seriously?)
So, let’s make that three lessons. Not only is ambition not necessarily a guarantee of success, but anime and video games aren’t always the best sources of inspiration. Full Metal Alchemist this is not. It feels more like some low budget magical girl and/or harem anime. The third lesson? Solid grammar does not a solid story make.
My advice to both authors is to slow down and really think about this story from the characters’ perspectives. I felt like the story was gunning more for awesome fight scenes (which the lack of proper descriptions fails to achieve) and worldbuilding than anything. The transitioning, rapid relationship development and unclear strength levels of the characters are choking this story to death. Again, slow down and take time to develop your characters in a way that makes sense.
I Am Not the Actor
By cleverpun
Re-Read
I first read this story well over a year ago, and I was eager to see how I might interpret it with fresh eyes and a lot more experience in writing. It turns out, my interpretation is indeed altered.
I Am Not the Actor takes the tired-before-it-was-ever-tried concept of “What if Twilight accidentally sent the real Pinkie into the Mirror Pool?” cleverpun approaches the topic with an eye for the behavior of the clones in the show, and it is very effective. The clone comes to the conclusion that she passed the paint test, so she’s the real Pinkie now, and that means she’s good at everything Pinkie is. Unfortunately, she’s actually terrible at everything Pinkie is good at. Worse, she doesn’t even recognize this fact.
This was an interesting and clever decision on the author’s part, and fits well with what we know about the clones. Somehow, the clone knows about basic things in life – eating, drinking, speaking, she can even read – and yet is completely clueless about other ponies. It’s like she is literally a baby in an adult’s body, not understanding emotions, patterns of behavior, or the world around her. As such, she makes numerous serious mistakes, but with nopony willing to explain things to her adequately, she doesn’t know that she’s doing anything wrong.
On the other side of the equation, we have the response from her friends and the townsponies. All of them believe Pinkie Pie is dead, and dealing with a clone trying and failing to pretend to be her frays on all their nerves. To their great credit, both Fluttershy and (especially) Rainbow Dash go out of their way to try to make her feel welcome, whereas Applejack and Rarity struggle at once with trying to help and trying to avoid the major parts of the issue. It comes as no surprise that Fluttershy, Rarity and AJ are the most level-headed and clear-thinking of the group, and I feel cleverpun played to their characters well.
Twilight is the biggest issue. She is appropriately torn by the fact that she essentially killed one of her best friends, and her efforts to right the wrong are nothing short of disastrous. On the one hand, I found Twilight’s behavior to be a bit off-kilter from what I would have anticipated, but on the other, she’s been known to react in extreme and downright dumb ways to big issues (Smarty Pants, anyone?). After much consideration, I realize that both the path cleverpun took and the path Twilight should have took are equally likely given her quirks, so I can’t really blame the author for taking the route that would provide the most drama.
Then we have the ending. Despite everything, it still feels more than a little rushed. Just whenever the cracks have turned into holes and things are about to get really interesting, the solution drops into everypony’s lap. Oh, well, that’s over. Carry on, then. In cleverpun’s defense, they made the most out of the decision, giving a conclusion that is at least somewhat satisfying despite the mistake. Even so, it seems to me like there was a lot of potential blown.
There were a few other mistakes made in the story, and they were made worse by cleverpun’s blatant attempts to ‘ease’ out of them with one liners. For example, you’d expect the first pony everypony would want to contact right away in search of a proper solution would be Celestia, right? Wrong. Celestia isn’t so much as mentioned until more than halfway through the story, when Applejack and Rarity finally discuss the possibility. While Celestia ultimately becomes one part of the solution, it still felt as though Celestia was brought up then only to appease the ongoing criticisms.
A bigger example is Spike. For all intents and purposes, he does not exist in this story. Apparently, cleverpun ignored him outright due to an irrational hatred of the little guy. This is not an excuse to take the character who would have been the strongest, best support for Twilight out of the picture as if he never existed. When Twilight was getting sagely advice or words of comfort from the likes of ponies like Applejack, she should have been getting it from her trusty assistant. The fact that he received an off-hand mention from Rarity near the end as a means to shut the critics up is downright insulting – even worse than if his name had never arisen at all.
But pointless vehemence will be pointless, and authors are subject to the whims of their own fancy. For better or for worse.
In the end, my opinion of this story has improved by a large margin. The characters and their emotions felt real. The direction of the story was noticeably forced – namely in characters like Twilight missing some very real and obvious potential solutions – but this isn’t so negative since the chosen path is plausible given Twilight’s character. The characterization of the clone was solid given what we know and the ending, while not living up to the story’s potential, achieved exactly what the author was going for.
Bookshelf: Worth It
I Prefer Show Tunes
By Harmony Charmer
Completed Story
To a degree, I feel sorry for Harmony Charmer. Here she is, trying to make a legitimately good story to start Diamond Tiara on her road to redemption, and the show beats her to it while she’s in the process of writing. Talk about frustrating.
This is a not-directly-linked-sequel to the story Hidden Voices, in which Sweetie wins a talent contest against Diamond Tiara and learns to get over her stage fright – thanks in part to her coltfriend Button Mash’s actions. Continuing the ‘verse, I Prefer Show Tunes explores the relationship between Sweetie and Diamond Tiara by pitting them against one another for the role of Princess Luna in an upcoming school musical.
For the most part, I enjoyed the story. It made a solid attempt to paint Diamond Tiara as not just a bully, but a pony with a purpose to her actions. There’s a bit of silliness involved, which is fine since it fits Harmony Charmer’s style well, and she still does a decent job of portraying the CMC and their longtime rivals, Diamond and Silver. I was a little disturbed at first by this image of Sweetie being the leader of the CMC, but upon reflection I realized that this wasn’t the case. In many episodes we see two of the CMC begrudgingly going along with what a third says because they want to be good friends, and when Apple Bloom and Scootaloo get fed up with Sweetie’s ‘diva’ antics I felt this theory confirmed. As such, I am pleased.
But those antics are one thing I didn’t care for. Or, to be more precise, I didn’t like how we are told that they happened rather than getting to see them firsthand. Rather than show us how the play is affecting Sweetie Belle while she competes and practices with Diamond, Harmony Charmer has the CMC, Button and Silver complain about it after the fact. This struck me as weak writing at best; at worst, it makes them appear unsupportive and selfish, since we can’t tell if their complaints are legitimate or exaggerated.
And then there’s the big reveal. The CMC and Button go to Diamond’s house at the end of the story and get her to confess to… well, everything. It seemed awkward to me, how Diamond was suddenly so willing to open up and reveal her secrets to her arch-enemies like that. All this time we have secrecy and frustration. Having DT spill her guts in a long run of exposition-y dialogue felt like a rushed conclusion.
How Harmony Charmer could have fixed this, I can’t say, and as such I’m not convinced my own complaint is valid. Regardless, it put a damper on my appreciation of the story. The author had to do something, and I get the feeling this isn’t the something she wanted to do. Darned Hasbro, giving us awesome episodes to screw up our headcanons, amiright? With this in mind, I’m willing to be forgiving.
I Prefer Show Tunes isn’t an amazing masterpiece of literature, but it was definitely worth the time invested.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Stories for Next Week:
The Roles We Play by RaylanKrios
First Meeting by Terrasora
Hearth Swarming Eve by horizon
Edited Details by ILurvTrixie (Re-Read)
The Dusk Guard: Beyond the Borderlands by Viking ZX (Sequel to The Dusk Guard: Rise)
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
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
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIX
Paul's Thursday Reviews XX
Paul's Thursday Reviews XXI
Want me to review your story? Send me a request! Check my profile page for rules.
A very well done series of reviews today, Paul. I laughed at the alternate titles for Cheerilee's Garden.
Cheerilee's Garden? Next, you'll be reading Sweet Apple Massacre. :B Why do this to yourself, man? That's my job! D:
3653833
I thought about coming up with more, but figured my point had been made.
3654215
I'd be remiss if I didn't read the classics, including the horror ones, at some point or another. Don't worry, I have no interest in stealing your job from you. I'd just heard so much I had to give it a go. You know what that's like, right?
*Adds Sweet Apple Massacre to RiL*
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I can't actually remember if it's worse than CG or not, for the record. :B
3654418
Well it's going into my RiL, which is the big list. It'll take me over a year – maybe two – to actually get to it. By then I'll have forgotten all about Cheerilee's Garden.
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I don't do New Years Resolutions. I know I'll forget about them in a couple weeks.
Happy New year, Paul! May your next year be filled with stories of epicness.
Never could get into any written horror stories, myself. I like happy things. While I won't put aside reading a horror story, it'd better be more... or less gory. I have a tendency to feel too much of what I read. I think I'd pick up world-horror rather than personal horror, where it's something the whole world is dealing with. Zombie apocalypse, etc. Something the characters can fight against. Even if they lose, they fought and had a chance. I suppose that's what I'm looking for. Stories where the characters are more than just vehicles for suffering or carnage. Agency, that's it. When characters have agency and a chance, I like it.
Also, when the plot isn't so filled with holes that I couldn't use it to separate gravel from pebbles.
Anywho... Glad to see you enjoyed the story tucked into the sex. I have to say that the story was the most fun to come up with, and the research into pony anatomy. That was fun, too, and I learned a lot... and not just about sexual organs, but about legs, tails, necks, backs, and also bird wings and plumage.
Toodles!
It is always interesting to have new reviews of my old work; while the problems mentioned are familiar, the perspective given to them is new. Let me address your issues one at a time, with the obvious caveat that I may not agree with my own reasoning from 3 years ago
To start, the ending was rushed, but at the same time, it wasn't unplanned. I had a map of the story in my head from the moment it began, but the actual act of writing it was something I went through quickly. The story was starting to wear on me emotionally and I wanted it to end. I did also change the original ending slightly; the readers guessed it quickly and that made me feel like it was too obvious.
I still think the content of the ending is defensible: I didn't and don't want such a heavy emotional piece to be devoid of hope. But I agree that the pacing of it could have been handled better. It also removes agency from the characters; perhaps having Twilight snap out of it and actively look for a real solution (rather than deus ex machina-ing one) would have been a more digestible development. It also would have softened Twilight's character arc, giving her some characterization besides self-destruction and guilt.
I also don't consider my hatred of Spike to be "irrational". True, I dislike him as a character, but that dislike has concrete, objective reasoning behind it. Spike is an emotionally immature, shallow character. He is written and portrayed inconsistently in the show, in his world views, capability, and understanding of complex situations (among other things). He is a difficult character to fit into most stories because he clashes with the rest of the cast in such major ways and lacks consistent characterization. At the time, I felt his inclusion in the story would only clog up the narrative.
Looking back on it now, however, simply excluding him wasn't the way to handle it. He should have been included in the story solely to illustrate his ineptitude. One of the earliest scenes could have been him trying and failing to console Twilight; it would've made for some good character drama and excused his lack of impact in a more natural way (though it could have made Twilight even more unlikable by having her interact badly with him, I don't consider that a negative).
You're also correct that mentioning Celestia is also one of those things which I only added to deflect criticism. I still think the reasoning was adequate--given everyone's reactions in Lesson Zero, I think being afraid of Celestia is a legitimate reaction. Again, the execution of that idea was what caused problems. I had the characters bluntly tell it to the audience, instead of showing it to them, as with Spike. Unlike him, finding a way to integrate her into the story more naturally is not so simple.
Ultimately, I think this story's problems stem from lack of author experience and lack of concrete planning. It had good ideas, and there were some powerful moments in it, but it had a lot of big-picture flaws. If nothing else, hopefully its foibles serve as a reminder of the importance of story planning and showing over telling.
Thanks for the review
Though my defensive rambling may say otherwise, I definitely agree with your summation; the emotion is the story's strongest point, but it is let down by pacing and plotting.
Your username is PaulAsaran, but these are Jeremy's reviews? Everything I know is coming crashing down around my ears!
In seriousness, good to read these in-depth critiques, as usual. It'll be interesting seeing what you think of HSwE. (I'm also finishing off those revisions to the last chapter that I said a year ago I was going to have to do, and I'll try to remember to drop you a line when they're finished.)