Paul's Thursday Reviews XLI · 10:24pm Jul 21st, 2016
Okay, how many of you noticed it? Not many, I bet.
Last week while updating my schedule, I took stock of my current list of requests and realized that they were getting drastically out of hand. With how piled up they'd become, it was looking like the most recent requesters would be waiting along the lines of five to six months for a review! That, I feel, is unacceptable. My solution?
I promptly scheduled two weeks worth of blogs with nothing but requests. I have all but emptied my request list in this way and vastly sped up the rate at which a number of requests will be showing up. Those reviews won't be coming along until mid-September, but that's still much, much faster than they would have come up.
Oh, which reminds me: as of right now, my schedule is fully booked right up until September 22. That means that if anyone new requests a story from me now, they can expect it to not show up in the blog until at least October.
I'm thinking about making every other week after that review binge devoted to re-reads, since I would really like to empty that queue to make room for other things, like my steadily growing RiL.
But enough of all of that. Reviews!
Stories for This Week:
The Diary of Morning and Dusk by Lynked
There's Something In The Woods by HoofBitingActionOverload (Recommended by AugieDog)
Shattered Harmony The Corruption of Twilight by NightmareTRXY32 (Requested by NightmareTRXY32)
Downfall by BronyWriter (Re-Read)
These Flowers Never Bloom by Cerulean Voice (Re-Read)
Killer of Six by Opium4TmassS (Completed Story)
Total Word Count: 58,369
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 2
None: 1
The Diary of Morning and Dusk
7,059 Words
By Lynked
Y’know, when the description specified “Twilight isn’t feeling well,” this is not what I expected.
In this story, Twilight friends have gathered in a local park with a stolen diary belonging to Twilight herself, which they are preparing to read simply because they can’t figure out what is wrong with her. As they proceed to go through the diary’s contents, we follow along and witness a gradual descent into what appears to be downright madness. But, as it turns out, Twilight’s problem is not unknown to all of them.
This story does a number of things, including making an attempt to identify a psychosis for Twilight given the things we know from the show. When I analyze the evidence that exists – particularly evidence not in the story – it suddenly dawns upon me that it’s not that big a jump. I am pleased by the fact that this story picked a mental disorder for Twilight that works in more ways than it doesn’t.
The writing is decent overall. The author does have an unfortunate habit of utilizing LUS, and I noticed a handful of awkward sentence structures (many of which being the result of the former). At the same time, the character voices are great. It’s weird, but even as Twilight descended farther into her mental collapse, I could still hear everything in the diary from her own voice. I don’t know if that’s a case of excellent character writing or me just being so used to it, but it made me happy.
And then there’s the ending. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, as it too builds upon what the show has already given us. All in all, I thoroughly approve.
For taking an unexpected direction with Twilight while not blatantly defying the show, I am pleased with this. Some of the decisions and dialogue could have been better, but for the most part? Solid work.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
There's Something In The Woods
2,412 Words
By HoofBitingActionOverload
Recommended by AugieDog
This was a treat. It’s also nothing like whatever you’re probably expecting… unless you actually bother to check the tags, and even then it’s questionable.
In this story, we learn that when Rarity was a filly, she met a witch living alone in the Everfree Forest. Ever since, Rarity has gone in secret once a month to visit the mysterious pony who fascinated her so. Today she’s an adult, but she’s still visiting the witch… only this time her visit is going to go a bit differently.
It’s hard to say anything about this story without providing spoilers. It does a lot of things differently, starting with the character of Rarity. We all know her as the prim and proper fashionista, and that hasn’t changed. Yet how many think of how Rarity might have been as a filly and equate her youth to rambunctious, adventuring, a little wild and with a flare for danger? Here we get to watch as the Pony Everypony Should Know reflects on her youth and the beloved nature of a foal’s imagination.
This story is a great many things in its very few words. There’s a bit of adorableness in the thought of little Rarity’s adventures, a sense of danger in her solo journey into the Everfree, and even a touch of heartwarming friendship as she finally does something she’s long needed to do. I enjoyed every moment of this story. My only regret is that we couldn’t have gotten a chance to actually see her as a filly in the witch’s company, because that could have been golden.
To be clear: the only reason I didn’t Round Robin this one is because I want a few gems to be in my main blog.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Shattered Harmony The Corruption of Twilight
12,470 Words
By NightmareTRXY32
Requested by NightmareTRXY32
When I saw the title of this story, my doubts surfaced. As soon as I first read the description for it, I knew exactly what I was getting into.
It is apparent to me that NightmareTRXY32 is both very new to writing and also decently prolific, having churned out ten short stories in six months. Most people I know are lucky if they can produce a chapter per month, and this guy’s churning out roughly 3,000 words weekly. Not bad, so says I.
But it’s also apparent that NightmareTRXY32 has a long way to go.
The title and the cover art should be all you need to get the gist of the story. Twilight decides she can probably reform Sombra, and as such she is corrupted into being evil through black magic. That’s it, really. The plot is obvious, but worse than that, it has absolutely zero consistency. It would take ages for me to identify everything wrong with it, so I’ll start with a perfect example for how the entire story plays out. Brace yourselves. Events, roughly in order as the story presents them:
Twilight is dating Rainbow Dash.
But Twilight has fallen in love with King Sombra.
King Sombra is only using Twilight.
But King Sombra loves Twilight.
Rainbow Dash loves Twilight.
Twilight is only using King Sombra.
Twilight loves King Sombra. They consummate their love. (Time passed: two chapters)
Rainbow hates Sombra, but he got Twi pregnant, so she tolerates him.
Sombra is only using Twilight.
Rainbow likes Sombra enough to let him screw her, getting pregnant in the process.
Sombra loves Twilight.
Rainbow hates Sombra.
Twilight is only using Sombra.
Sombra is only using Twilight.
The end. Oh, and Rainbow isn’t pregnant after all.
Yes, allegiances switch around that much, without any reason, fanfare, or even an attempt at an explanation. It just is, and you will either be thoroughly confused or put in a state on continuous, dull disbelief by the completely pointless nature of everything that’s happening. I’m just talking about the ‘romance’ part, folks; every other aspect of the story is as nonsensical as this.
Add to this that everything – every scene, every fight, every discussion – is rapidly summarized through 100% tell. There is no ‘show’ in this story. Let’s just take an example right out of the story itself. This is the scene where corrupted Twilight, with her black-and-red-armored ally Rainbow, meets with Celestia and Luna for the first time to discuss terms and try to stop the coming war.
As Twilight watched everyone, she was secretly keeping an eye on Celestia. After some more dialogue was exchanged everyone broke for the rest of the day. It was determined that there'd be war after all. Something that Celestia, and surprisingly Rainbow Dash, did not want. There was only one Princess that wouldnt live to see the next day.
You read that right; the entire discussion – including all deliberations, potentially emotional outbursts, and dramatic arguments – has been summed up in four sentences. Now imagine every single scene written in the same way.
And then there’s the out-of-body exposition. NightmareTRXY32 seems incapable of focusing on a perspective and shifts to that of different characters at the drop of a hat, often within the same paragraph. It’s an effort at exposition that is far too God-like, telling the reader everything whether it makes sense to bring it up or not. A perfect example is this paragraph, which starts out from Chrysalis’s view:
There had been moments since then that she could turn back into the pony she once was, but those moments were becoming harder to do. IT was almost as if the spell had been written to prevent her from doing such. To prevent what Starswirl had done to her to ever see the light of day. She was still a queen and she still had her subjects to look after. But little did the changeling queen know, or anypony else realize, was that Sombra wasnt really dead. And that he was hatching a plan to take all of Equestria out from under Celestia's nose. And that the plan involved her prize student. If he could bring Twilight under his sway with the offer of marriage and reformation, he could get close to Celestia and eliminate her without breaking a sweat.
This is a big no-no. Shifting perspectives requires transitioning, preparation, and actually completing the purpose behind being in said character’s perspective. Instead, the author throws perspective around like the kid that brought a water hose to a water balloon fight; it’s everywhere and on everything.
Throw in some odd descriptions and bad dialogue-related decisions:
"ARE YOU ACCUSIN MY SISTER OR ONE OF HER FRIENDS OF BEING ONE OF THOSE THINGS?!?," She raised her voice a bit as she spoke.
First off: never use all-caps unless you actually want to advertise your amateurity. Second: multiple punctuation marks is bad 99 times out of 100, and that lone time is only with interrobangs. Third: your all caps just indicated that the character is screaming, but your narrative descriptor is “raised her voice a bit,” which makes it sound like a mild thing. Make up your mind.
These sorts of issues litter the entire story and are not limited to dialogue. There are plenty of moments where all caps, excessive punctuation and conflicting descriptions show up in the narrative.
Alright, NightmareTRXY32, here’s the gist. You need to slow down and actually write what is happening step by step instead of skimming over the events. Your methods of letting everything fly by makes it uninteresting and, perhaps worse, logic-defying. You also need to slow down and check your facts; you contradict yourself with every other paragraph, turning the plot into an unintelligible mess that can’t possibly be taken seriously. And if you are going to emphasize things do it less frequently and with italics, not upper case.
Next, take a moment to apply some logic to your writing. No reasonable individual will buy Twilight going from Equestria’s salvation to its destruction that quickly, even with some evil-inducing book. Your version is the real-world equivalent of Hitler approaching Mother Theresa and saying “Hey, wanna kill all the Jews?” and Mother Theresa saying “You know what? Sure, that sounds like fun.” Nobody’s going to buy it. If you want to be taken seriously, slow down, write out the scenes and give your characters time to grow into their roles. Just saying “it happens” is no way to write a compelling narrative.
Last but not least, take time to read from some of the greater works on the sight. Look at what others are doing. It surprises some people, but reading is a major aspect in learning to be a good writer. Take note of what they’re doing… and what they aren’t. I myself have very little grammatical knowledge beyond the basics; I learned everything I know from the fact that I used to read through books like most kids go through candy. I’m sure there are a lot of writers out there who will back me up on this.
To be frank, I couldn’t possibly recommend this story. At the same time, I’m not going to begrudge someone who is clearly very interesting in being a writer. Keep trying, NightmareTRXY32; these things take time.
Bookshelf: None
Downfall
5,395 Words
By BronyWriter
Re-Read
My, how things change. I first read this story during the Halloween season a couple years ago, and at the time it impressed me. Given that creepy stories are one of my ‘things’, I was eager to see how my perspective had changed. As I am with most of these re-reads.
In Downfall, Twilight Sparkle is driven by curiosity. She finds herself wondering what drives a pony to commit murder and, just as important, what it must feel like to do so. To give herself a funnel for these emotions, she begins writing unsent letters to Celestia describing her feelings on the matter.
On the one hand, this story is an interesting display of a descent into madness and murder. On the other, it feels formulaic and simple compared to a lot of the stories I’ve read. The writing itself isn’t bad and my pet peeve of journals not reading like journals doesn’t come up here, both of which are boons for the author.
The big downside, however, is that Twilight is unrecognizable. As a character and individual, she doesn’t sound anything like Twilight. Yes, I know, she’s going mad, so she shouldn’t sound like herself. But the difference is blatant from the very beginning of the story, and is such that it doesn’t feel like an intentional element. Instead, I get the impression that it’s an oversight of the author, as if little effort was made to deliver Twilight’s signature voice.
This provides a huge problem for the overall story, for its primary draw is clearly that it’s Twilight Sparkle who is doing this. The disconnect between character and voice hurts the intended consequence of the story severely.
Then we have the emotional issue. Given that the entire story is written as a journal, I think BronyWriter could have expended more effort in the emotional aspect of the writing. Painting letters that have been blurred by tears red is not a good indicator of emotion. Paying more attention to word choice, creative punctuation and a close attention to meaning and impact would have done this story wonders. I’ll grant that there could be an argument for “Twilight’s losing it” in defense of this, but again, the nature of the issue didn’t give it the feel of an intentional problem.
All in all, my view of this story is a bit less than it once was. It’s a nice concept that could have been legitimately creepy. A couple of years ago, I thought it was. Today? Eh… I’ve read better.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
These Flowers Never Bloom
16,271 Words
By Cerulean Voice
Re-Read
When Cerulean voice was visiting me a few weeks ago, he discovered that I had These Flowers Never Bloom on my schedule for reviewing soon. I think the idea intimidated him. After all, I’d read his story before and been not just a little critical. Of course he wanted me to keep in mind that it was his first story on FIMfiction and he’d improved a lot as an author since then.
He didn’t have to remind me, but I would be remiss if I left the story alone without a proper review, so here it goes!
These Flowers Never Bloom was apparently inspired by a rock album that even the author acknowledges as obscure. The story itself is, essentially, about the creation of Equestria in general. In it, a goddess known as Dimiourgia (originally Faust, as I recall, but the mods liked to throw conniption fits over the use of the name back then) created the world and all that lived in it. She then made two ponies, Rose and Ilias, and tasked them with the creation and protection of new life in the world. From this equine Adam and Eve sprung forth the bloodline of every pony that lives, with Celestia as their prized daughter.
The first thing I note about this story is that it moves at an incredible pace, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a positive way. Granted, some people will disagree and state that the pacing is perfect. Even so, the majority of the story is told in a constant narrative tone of extrapolation, which gives the majority of it a ‘sit back and watch from a distance’ feel. I might have been okay with things if they’d remained that way, resembling a proper biblical retelling of events. However, as the story goes on the narrative style gradually shifts into something more personal, which conflicts with the mythical nature of it.
I think the worst part in all of this is CV’s determined efforts to squeeze in direct lyrics from the album as… chapter headers? Subheaders? Something not very related to ongoing events? Whatever they are, their complete disconnect from the main story coupled with how they come from seemingly nowhere makes them feel forced most times, once again emphasizing that taking outside sources and applying the directly to our fanfiction isn’t always the best course of action.
In spite of these and a few other issues that crop up throughout the story, I have to acknowledge that These Flowers Never Bloom is an impressive first attempt. The worldbuilding is pretty good, the concepts behind the story solid, the conflict effective. Sadly, the characters aren’t strong, but this is mostly due to the ‘in the background’ nature of the writing style.
Despite its faults, I actually find my appreciation of this story having improved. Maybe it’s the knowledge of how far CV has come as a writer since we first met. Perhaps I’m simply seeing past the flaws and recognizing the good underlying the bad. Whatever the case may be, I am glad to have revisited this universe, and I find myself genuinely curious for the eventual re-read of its sequel.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Killer of Six
14,763 Words
By Opium4TmassS
Completed Story
The concept given in the description, coupled with the cover art, left me thoroughly intrigued. The story itself ended up as nothing like what I had hoped, but that’s alright, because what I got was still quite interesting.
Killer of Six is set in a grimdark future Equestria filled with industry, grit and corruption. Twilight Sparkle is, once again, Celestia’s prized student, but her job in this universe is to be a ‘hunter,’ finding and killing ‘artificial’ ponies as Celestia commands. Twilight is a good, cold-blooded student, so when her mentor sends her orders to find and kill five artificial mares throughout the city of Canterlot, she begins without question or hesitation.
This story is dark and dystopian at their best. Opium4TmassS conjures up a world of industry and ‘progress,’ complete with all the smog, overcrowded factories and social morass that comes with it. A combination of grunge, future technology and capable worldbuilding through example gives us an all-around fascinating new world to examine and interpret as we see fit. If the author did anything right in this story, it’s in setting the scene.
But beyond that, there are a great number of problems.
First, the story is both direct and confusing. Twilight goes around killing all her traditional friends, which is as straightforward as it gets. She’s supposed to be a stone-cold killer, but with every death she feels more and more miserable and guilty. As it turns out, there is a reason for this. The problem is, Twilight doesn’t bother to address the problem – she just lets the emotions wash over her then says “Alright, I’m fine, let’s move on.” Perhaps this was an intentional element on the author’s part, a way of showcasing to the reader the strangeness of the situation, but I still feel like the story could have given us a bit more study of the situation rather than just moving from point to point robotically. (And yes, I am very aware of the irony of that statement.)
Another issue that pops up is the conclusion. We are given an explanation regarding Twilight’s orders, but beyond that? The picture isn’t at all clear. Oh, sure, we know what Celestia has been doing and why, but there’s an apparent bigger picture that is only described halfway, leaving huge blanks. There’s so much more that we should have been given, and instead I’m left thoroughly unsatisfied because all the important things make zero sense. In the end, all I could really say was “What the heck just happened?”
Which leads to another point: why can’t Celestia use magic? Why do we never see Luna use magic? Why does Twilight spend this entire story using a gun with her hooves? She utilizes her magic one time in the entire story, and it’s somehow indicated to be hard. No explanation is given beyond “Technology is more efficient.” This was most apparent to me when Twilight fought Rarity; the thing that made Rarity such a threat would have been absolutely worthless if Twilight had just used a little magic.
And yet Twilight is still an alicorn (something that isn’t made clear at all until chapter 4). Something is off here. If magic is somehow not an option, we need to be given a reason for that, otherwise there’s not a single MLP fan who will buy it.
Last but not least, we have the problem that I know will be a deal-breaker for a large number of people: grammar. This story is a grammatical mess. Finding a single sentence that was correctly written is a significant challenge, and it distracts from the get go. Not only does it distract, it leads to the brutal strangling of all emotion, especially in the dialogue. There were scenes that probably were meant to be powerful but fell flat – Fluttershy’s in particular is a victim of this issue.
I’m tempted to believe that the author is not a native-English speaker. The manner of the storytelling doesn’t flow in a familiar way. Having worked with ESL students and read stories of a foreign nature, I’ve come to learn that different cultures present stories in very different ways. Because this story is presented so incredibly differently, especially in the odd dialogue, it makes me wonder if we aren’t dealing with a writer from a very different culture than my own.
Despite all its flaws, Killer of Six still has the benefit of a fascinating and fully realized grimdark world. The story may have been odd, the plot confusing, the characters off, the backstory underdeveloped, but when all is said and done, I think I’m glad to have read it for the atmosphere alone. It evokes some interesting imagery, especially in an MLP setting. Perhaps in the future I may read a story with a similar arrangement. I’ll be glad for it.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
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Want me to review your story? Send me a request! Check my profile page for rules.
Hey!
Btw, thanks for three more stories on MY read later list...
Geez.
Great reviews as always, and I noticed that schedule thing. I was bout to ask then you posted this.
I keep learning about all kinds of interesting things that people write. E.g., the "corruption" genre, represented twice in these reviews. I suppose I've read stories before where a character goes mad or turns evil, but I didn't realize it was as much of a thing. There's even a group for it.
-___-
Thank you very much for the review.
4111360 Im still pist about the review mine got. i keep going back it and others ive done lately and adding to them, because to me, nothing i do is ever fucking good enough. All the crap i had to endure in real life transferred over to here.
I still say thanks for tearing my story apart....