Paul's Thursday Reviews XLIV · 11:18pm Aug 18th, 2016
And we're back with more reviewy goodness! Didja miss me? Yeah, I know, it's just not the same without Paul around.
I was going to take the time to make this blog be about a new experiment I've ben planning, but alas, I have some things happening right now and I just can't spare all the time necessary. No worries, I'll bring it up on Sunday! For now, let's get to the good part.
Stories for This Week:
Ave Sonata by Majin Syeekoh
Burning Man Brony: Fear and Loathing of Equestria by Bad Horse (Requested by yamgoth)
I Want to Take the Wings off, but I Can't by JawJoe (Re-Read)
Awaken, Scootaloo by xjuggernaughtx (Re-Read)
Major and Minor by Lady Froey (Prequel to Music to His Ears)
Total Word Count: 75,277
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 4
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
Ave Sonata
1,049 Words
By Majin Syeekoh
I don’t read a lot of fics starring the Sirens. I’ll have to remedy that at some point.
In this extremely brief story, we watch the Sirens on a typical outing sometime after their defeat in Rainbow Rocks. From this we discover that Sonata’s mind is, for lack of a better term, broken, and without a constant influx of negative energy she’s steadily deteriorating to the mentality of a child. Aria, in the meantime, maintains her cold indifference, which may itself be indicative of something wrong in her head. Only Adagio remains normal, and her heart is breaking from the sight of what is happening to her fellow Sirens.
This story offers a lot in the realm of headcanon. One can interpret the events in a great many ways, as well as what is to come. What starts off as a cute little story about a carefree girl rapidly turns into a depressing image of failure and its consequences, without necessarily clarifying what those consequences will be. Are the Sirens all going to mentally collapse without their gems? Will Adagio manage to produce some terrible scheme of revenge? Will Aria become something even worse than what she was (now there’s an idea I can play with)?
But with all those possibilities comes the problem I had with the story. It goes by so quickly that at the end I was left with a sense of “Wait, that’s it?” Simply put, this story feels incomplete, like there was some element that should have been there but just… isn’t.
Perhaps that’s part of the point. It could be that Majin Syeekoh left this unknown missing element out to reflect upon how something is now missing from the lives of the Sirens. If so, I’d be impressed. Alas, there’s no indication one way or another, so I can’t legitimately credit the author with such an intention.
And so I’m left with the sensation that this story is good.... but could be better.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Burning Man Brony: Fear and Loathing of Equestria
9,568 Words
By Bad Horse
Requested by yamgoth
I had expectations for this one. What I got laughed in vicious mockery of those expectations and took me on a ride in an entirely different direction.
yamgoth sporadically contacts with interesting snippets, and frankly, I feel guilty for not taking the time to properly get to know the guy. I was surprised when he contacted me a few weeks ago with a review request, but thoroughly pleased when said request was for a story written by Bad Horse. It later shocked me when I found that I have not read or reviewed a single story by this author, whose name I have seen all over the place and generally accredited as one knowledgeable in the fine art of writing stuff down that isn’t crap. So thank you, yamgoth, for resolving this issue.
Burning Man Brony is an unorthodox story that centers on a brony who is, for lack of a better description, trying to clear his head. For this purpose, he chooses to attend an event known as Burning Man, a real world festival that takes place in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Rather than embrace the festival and its frolickers, however, the protagonist spends the entire first chapter silently ridiculing the scenes with a steady stream of bitterness, cynicism and vitriol. Taken from the character’s perspective, the event appears as little more than a scene of idiots, social justice warriors and anarchy.
Then he wanders off alone and gets caught in a sandstorm, where begins the real meat of the story. High on shrooms and seeking to find some kind of inner peace, he begins to hallucinate, and through those hallucinations he meets – who else? – Discord and the Mane 6. It is here that we come to understand that the vicious criticisms of the past chapter may have nothing to do with the festival.
There are many potential ways to interpret this story, and it’s hard to guess which is intended and which is not. On the surface, it seems to be about one man’s self-loathing and his search for meaning, hindered by his unwillingness to believe in any solutions presented. His unpleasant demeanor is all-encompassing, to such a degree that even the characters from his favorite TV show do nothing but offend him, and so he responds in kind. It makes you wonder what happened that was so bad he could willingly reject all happiness. Make no mistake, this is not a story with a happy ending.
But it does fascinate. Beneath the scathing insults and lack of empathy, we find a character filled with both wit and interesting insights. The writing of this story is exemplary, never falling out of the character’s foul mood but always maintaining a bit of literary whimsy and creativity. It’s an unusual combination that keeps the story going from beginning to end, even as you start questioning what a lot of the opening scenes have to do with My Little Pony (and I did ask that question).
Another question that has to be asked is the legitimacy of everything that happens in the sandstorm. It appears for the most part that the protagonist is having a lengthy hallucination. But there’s just enough credibility in certain aspects of it, most notably Pinkie’s, to make you wonder if something potentially magical really was happening. Aside from applying no small amount of mystery to the entire endeavor, it really hammers home the mental state of the protagonist.
It’s difficult to say whether this story is straightforward or far deeper than my feeble mind can take in. But it is most certainly a journey of self-discovery, and it’s a journey I quite enjoyed. Unorthodox, vividly descriptive, slow, at times concerning, it’s less about the brony and more about the man. Those of you looking for something less cerebral and more happy may want to steer clear, but the rest of you may be in for a treat. A self-loathing, bitter, mean-spirited treat, but a treat nonetheless.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
I Want to Take the Wings off, but I Can't
22,614 Words
By JawJoe
Re-Read
At one point early in my reviewing ‘career’ (or whatever you call what I’ve got going here), JawJoe asked me to review every story he’d ever written at the time. This one slipped through the cracks by virtue of having not existed at the time of the request. This one is also different from most of the others in that I acted as a pre-reader and spent no small amount of time reading, re-reading and debating with him over the often minor nuances that he tends to agonize over for weeks. So yeah, when it first came out, I’d read it enough times that I just slapped a rating on it.
I Want to Take the Wings off, but I Can’t (am I the only one who thinks that title is capitalized incorrectly?) is essentially a reaction piece to the Season 3 finale that lays down all of JawJoe’s feelings regarding Twilight’s ascension. Simply put: they aren’t positive. In the story, Twilight suffers from a severe identity crisis, coming to loathe everything about her new form – especially her wings. As her mental anguish steadily grows, her sense of sanity and calm erodes, but even then we can see that something is forcing her down this path. It is something incontrovertible and undefeatable, but damn it, she’s going to try anyway.
Let’s just start off with the big element that is JawJoe’s writing. It’s something that some will love, some will hate, and the majority of you probably won’t care one way or another about. Having known JJ for a while now, I know that he prefers to think of things in purely logical terms, believing that the removal of emotion from an equation purifies it. This philosophy extends to his writing style, albeit perhaps in a subconscious way. The result is that JJ almost never reveals a character’s emotional state in the narrative. Instead, we are expected to grasp everything by context. What they’re saying, the timing of when it is said, and body language.
Some might see this as a powerful tool, a means of defying common storytelling rules and still evoking all the emotional energy and power of a scene. Indeed, I’ve seen stories pull it off, and pull it off well. However, JawJoe’s writing style cuts into this potential success by feeling stiff, rigid and formal. It’s not something easy to explain, but I believe it safe to say that the energy is lost in translation.
However, this is something I know JJ is aware of, and he has taken great strides in more recent stories to fight it. I am interested to see his ongoing attempt at original fiction (which I am also slated to pre-read) to see if there’s any improvement in this vein.
So what of the story itself? In a way, it works wonderfully. It portrays a character forced down a single path by the pull of fate, unable to change directions no matter how much she screams, claws, pleads and begs. Twilight’s gradual descent into madness is legitimately harrowing, especially when one takes in the psychological aspect of it. JawJoe did an excellent job showcasing his views through a metaphorical lens.
The best example of this is the unwitting nature of Twilight’s friends. As her situation turns more and more bleak, she turns to others for help. Yet no matter what she says, they all brush it off. When she confesses to having suicidal thoughts to Rainbow, Rainbow appears to completely miss what was just said, as if deaf to reality even when it’s being shoved in her face. This is similar to JawJoe’s own feelings towards the ongoing disaster (as he views it) of the MLP series, with him desperately trying to make everyone aware of what’s wrong and being outright discounted or ignored.
It is this aspect of JJ’s writings that I am always the most impressed with. He has a way of putting his views and interests into a story, hidden such that you wouldn’t recognize it if you didn’t know the background, but still firmly there. And unlike a lot of writers, who have bits of themselves added into stories usually at a subconscious level, JawJoe’s inputs are entirely intentional. This is an uncommon example of self insertion done right, conveying one’s own feelings without being directly obvious as to that purpose.
Even so, the story has its issues. Aside from the writing style I’ve already mentioned, I think the story’s biggest flaw is its grinding speed. It trudges along at a snail’s pace, with no discernible hook. It relies on a reader’s own curiosity to keep them interested, rather than offering some way to pull them in. I fear that the average reader will be bored and stop reading after a few scenes.
Still, I find no good reason to lower this story’s status in my ratings. While struggling with the overall writing style, it is evocative enough in content to make up for it at times, especially the end. It is a solid psychological piece and a thoughtful demonstration of the cruelty of destiny. It doesn’t hold a candle to Monsters (which you should read), but on its own it is quite the story.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Awaken, Scootaloo
6,536 Words
By xjuggernaughtx
Re-Read
This story has changed since last I read it. Fortunately, that change is for the better. In fact, it directly addresses my only complaint from the last reading.
One might also title this story as “Yet Another Scootalove Fic,” because that’s what it is. On the positive side, Scoots is my favorite of the CMC and I’m not opposed to Scootalove stories, having even written one myself. At the same time, it is another story of a variety that most of us have seen dozens of times, and this one doesn’t add anything new to the mix. The premise is basic: Scootaloo is having a bad dream about being ground-bound, and Princess Luna comes to help her recognize the dream’s purpose, as well as the reason she can’t fly.
So, the story wins zero points in concept. What makes it better than the others? Delivery.
This story might take familiar routes, but it does it in a capable manner. Scootaloo and Luna are both well-defined individuals, and the emotional logic at play behind the story is stronger than your average Scootafic. There’s a lot more to this story than making a sad chicken happy, as it takes the time to really address the nature of both dreams and flying without the characters immediately resolving everything. The education of Scootaloo’s mind, utilizing real world examples and highly repeatable concepts, felt a lot more realistic than usual, and for this I am pleased.
Then there’s the ending, which is what really makes this more than your average Scootalove fic. It shows, once again, that this isn’t just about making Scoots happy, but about improving her as an individual. The conclusion isn’t a parade to make a filly smile, but a demonstration of victory against oneself. This is an element I don’t often see in stories in general, much less Scootafics, and it really cemented the tale.
So, Awaken, Scootaloo is just another Scootalove story, but at the same time, it’s not just another Scootalove story. What it lacks in concept and overall style is greatly makes up for in impact and thoughtfulness. While I wouldn’t elevate it to the highest bookshelf, I am nonetheless pleased to have read it again.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Major and Minor
35,515 Words
By Lady Froey
Prequel to Music to His Ears
Let me preface this with a confession: I cannot be unbiased towards this story. I will try my best to be objective, as always, but I guarantee nothing.
Lady Froey’s Music to His Ears was an interesting and generally endearing story about Vinyl Scratch’s transition of self identity and sexuality. Major and Minor has very little to do with that, though; instead, this is a story about a high school-aged Vinyl watching her mother’s slow and excruciating fight against cancer. Along the way, she meets her future best friend Derpy and picks up a number of character aspects that appeared in the following story.
First, the downside. It may be that I missed this in Music to His Ears, but the writing style of this story left a lot to be desired. Events pass by at a steady pace of ‘this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened,’ with no real end to that monotony. It’s even worse when it comes to the dialogue, which gets minimal narrative assistance and is expected to drive our emotions on what is said alone. The dialogue itself was, I feel, the worst part, being very formal in manner and delivery regardless of the current events. It put a severe damper on every scene. Add to this the author’s unfortunate tendency to jump perspectives at the drop of a hat without any attempt at transitioning, and you have some writing that leaves a lot to be desired.
But where the writing felt sub-par to me, the story did its job well. From Vinyl’s struggle to accept and help her mother through her treatments, her befriending the orphan Derpy, and the inevitable conclusion, I was intensely interested.
This is where my bias issue comes in. Claret Rondeau’s struggle and ultimate acceptance of her condition hit me hard, reminding me of an old friend known as Whisperwings who went from discovery to grave in as few as three months. And Vinyl’s eventual discovery of her left a severe afterimage of my mother walking in on my grandmother’s ‘looks-like-she’s-sleeping’ form. Both had a major effect on my interpretation of this story, and it is for that reason that I forfeit any right to judge it based on the plot. I was hit hard – even acknowledging the weakness of the writing, I had (and still have) tears threatening to break free.
I apologize to everyone, especially Lady Froey, for holding back. I encourage all of you to read the story and make your own conclusions. I’m simply not the person to judge this. For how it affected me, however, I will give it a high place on my bookshelves. Just know that my interpretation is my own, and cannot be compared to what you may get from it given my personal background.
...I miss Adi. And my grandparents. Right now, I miss them a lot.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XXXV
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Paul's Thursday Reviews XXXVIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XXXIX
Paul's Thursday Reviews XL
Paul's Thursday Reviews XLI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XLII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XLIII
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Sorry if I made you cry, though, that's what I was going for when writing it.
Anyways, thank you for reviewing my fic, not many people often comment on my writing style/form to be honest. Would it be okay if I forward this review to my blog? I will be sure to link back to this blog and your user page.
4157228
By all means, go ahead. Honestly, I wish I could have given a better review.
I remember writing this story. The initial 200 words were supposed to be the entire style of the story, a carefree girl going about her carefree day.
And then I stalled after those two hundred words. And then a truly evil idea came across me.
You see, after Rainbow Rocks came out, everyone fell in love with Sonata Dusk... or at least a facsimile of Sonata Dusk who loved tacos and appeared to be mentally challenged. So I took that observation and threw it back in their faces. The final 800 words were informed by that goal.
Aria was intended to show her own signs of deterioration, which you picked up. Adagio was upset because that's how someone would react if someone they knew were as...challenged as the fandom portrayed Sonata at the time. And yes, it does meditate on failure because it's just like there's so many directions you could go with these characters and you guys are focusing on fucking tacos!?
This story is basically a giant metatextual middle finger to what I perceived as a character worth exploring seemingly reduced to a single character trait. It was never intended as more than such and I'm honestly shocked it picked up as much steam as it did.
Hey, I've actually read two of these!
First, one I haven't, so I can't supply my own opinion on it, but just by the majority of people I've heard comment on it, the JawJoe fic came across as a complain-ey fixfic that grasped at low emotional fruit and attempted to foist headcanon as vastly superior to the show where there's no objective way to really call either one superior. I don't know if that's a fair appraisal or not, and just because more voices than not seem to say so, that doesn't make them right. You're just the first I've seen make this impassioned an argument for it.
I was the one who approved juggernaut's story for EqD after a round of giving him some feedback, but since you're a little vague about exactly what you had a problem with on the previous draft, I can't claim to be the one who got it cleared up. My assessment of it is pretty close to yours, that it's a story which tells an eminently common plot, but stands out by doing so exceptionally well.
Then there's Lady Froey's story. I know what it's like to identify strongly with a scenario, and it can be hard to divorce that from a story. It's hard to know what about the story caused your emotional response and how much you supplied on your own, which isn't attributable to the author. While I wouldn't include this story, it's the same kind of thing you can see when you come across a blatantly emotionally manipulative fic where people are lining up to leave comments about how great the feels are. It's really inspiring people to have a significant emotional response, but it's not really the story's doing. Maybe the reader's being fooled, maybe they just find the concept itself incredibly resonant... whatever.
In short, if you want to tease out the story's merits, you have to try figuring out how much the story evoked that response because of something the author did and how much the story got you to pour in your own investment and didn't really earn it.
I did like this story, but I'll echo your complaints that the sentence-to-sentence narrative lacked passion, and it engages in "perspective ping pong," not just with which character holds the perspective, but what kind of perspective it uses. It can also get repetitive, the mother's death seemed coincidentally timed for maximum effect, and the expected-yet-out-of-nowhere adoption is basically Alien Shipping Syndrome. I'd call it a good story with interesting characters and a somewhat unusual premise, but that loses its power in the delivery.
I've only written the sirens once. Well, not even all of them. Just Sonata. If it'll catch your eye, maybe I should do more.
4157332
Huh, that's not an aspect I was anticipating, but now that you've pointed it out it makes perfect sense. I agree completely with your interpretation, though, and if ever I do write a story staring the Sirens (that's a big if), I'm reasonably sure I'd do my best to avoid the common tropes. Then again, avoiding the common is one of my MOs, so...
Isn't it weird how the stories we don't expect to do so well end up being praised?
4157732
While that's not how I choose to interpret JJ's story, I can understand where a lot of those people are coming from, especially if they happen to know him personally. JawJoe does have some incredibly strong opinions and a proven penchant for refusing to so much as indulge in the possibility that other opinions might actually be valid. He claims that if anyone can point out a legitimate reason for his opinions to be wrong then he would change them, except that convincing him his logic is flawed is downright impossible. And since he argues with an air of complete confidence with a disturbing lack of emotional input, his viewpoints are often categorized as arrogant and condescending.
All of which are perfectly reasonable interpretations. I believe, from having spoken to him quite frequently, that he's not the ass people consider him to be. He just doesn't know how to present himself in a positive light. I attribute this largely to his views regarding emotion having no place in debate.
Wings is definitely a statement piece, that I can't deny. But because I chose not to look at it as such, I think I found it far more enjoyable than the average reader. But it's by no means a fixfic, as that would imply things actually got 'fixed' by the fic. On the contrary, one of the major points behind the fic is that the problem can't be fixed – which, one can argue, could be the author's admission that his complaints amount to nothing. Altogether, it strikes me as much more cerebral than the typical reaction fic due to its highly indirect nature of addressing JawJoe's complaints – discussions of fate aside, that is.
For Awaken, Scootaloo, I think – emphasis on think – that my first reading all that time ago found that the transitioning from Luna being there to her helping Scootaloo was too fast, like there was no time given to grasp the situation or the characters' motives. I noticed this time that it seems the initial interaction between the two was longer prior to the flight lesson.
You see my issue with Lady Froey's piece precisely. It's been a few weeks since I wrote that review, so I can look back with a clearer head. Honestly? I believe that without my personal background I wouldn't have been hit anywhere near as hard, and I place that entirely on the writing style. I think that, all things being even, you and I would have come to much the same conclusion.
It's not so much that the Sirens themselves catch my eye. Honestly, I'm largely indifferent to their existence. Sonata's the only one that ever catches my attention, and that's almost entirely due to her design (of which I highly approve). That said, I am aware and have seen in a few instances how they can be used to great effect (Violet CLM's Death and the Dazzlings comes to mind) and wouldn't be opposed to seeing more stories about them. Of course, the big catch to this is that any story going into my RiL now will be stuck there for possibly more than a year unless it is requested, recommended, or voted into going to the top of the list by my patrons.
4157816
I've only had one interaction with JawJoe before, and while I do feel like I was talking to a wall about one aspect, it wasn't what I'd call antagonistic, adversarial, or anything else negative. It did seem to match your "I'll change my opinion if you show me evidence against it" assessment, with the added aspect of "but I'll discount all the evidence you show me," but it was about a minor enough thing that it didn't leave me with a bad impression of him. I do still consider that kind of thing to be a type of fixfic. Some are "this is what should have happened instead," but this is more like "if it has to happen this way, this is how the characters should react to it." So it's less repairing a perceived break and more forcing the universe to acknowledge it as broken.
Aside from some mechanical fixes, what I remember advising juggernaut to change about "Awaken, Scootaloo" was about how Scootaloo's situation resolved at the end. Luna quickly went from seemingly hoping Scootaloo would be able to find some middle ground with her aunt to not flinching when Scootaloo was ready to cast her as a villain. The aunt didn't come across as malicious, maybe just uninterested at worst and someone who was actually trying, but just didn't know how to relate to Scootaloo, at best. So it convicted the aunt without ever putting her on trial. Plus Luna then quickly advocated having Dash adopt Scootaloo, who then sprung it on poor Dash as rather much of a surprise. "Hey, Dash! Luna wants me to live with you, so it looks like you're now responsible for raising a child!" Jugs addressed all that when he made his revisions, and I was happy with the result.
"...a means of defying common storytelling rules and still evoking all the emotional energy and power of a scene."
Isn't that just show versus tell? You know, embracing common storytelling rules rather than defying them?