Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXIII · 10:23pm Aug 3rd, 2017
Milestone! As of yesterday, I've managed to meet my 1,500 words/day quota for a straight week. It's the first time in a long time, and I'm starting to remember the old methods for guaranteed productivity. It mostly involves realizing that time is passing at a scary rate and I still have dozens of story ideas in need of writing before I meet my maker. Seriously, this year has flown for me. It seems like only yesterday I was pushing 25, and in just over a week I'll be 33.
Buuut I'm still almost 3,000 words behind on where I should be, not to mention the story Derp that I've not been editing because of my focus being all on trying to make up for lost writing time. The good news is that next week is a reading vacation, so I can spend all the time I usually spend reading for my reviews on finishing up a few promises and maybe concluding Derp so I can finally get it released. That assumes that I don't attempt the massive change in plot that one of my pre-readers is suggesting, though.
Alrighty, let's get to them reviews. Story two of my seven big projects coming out today!
Stories for This Week:
Who's That Knocking at the Door? by Redback Spino
K-I-S-S-I-N-G by Pav Feira
Sisterly Snuggles by The Abyss
I, Witness by LoyalLiar
A Million Things to Do by AbsoluteAnonymous
Mantles by Ponky
Total Word Count: 161,919
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 4
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
Who's That Knocking at the Door?
3,463 Words
By Redback Spino
I found it hard to see the cover art and description and not be drawn into this one. Inside, we learn that Equestria and the EQD worlds are being destroyed by a force so powerful none of the characters have a chance of defending against it. With no other place to turn to, Discord and Pinkie use their fourth wall breaking abilities to inform everyone about us, the audience. And so they form a connection with the real world in hopes that we can somehow help.
This strikes me as an experiment, but also as a criticism. Specifically, criticism against OP villains with bland purpose, design and methodology that just can’t lose. Or, if want to get even more specific, to the writers who create them. I grinned when the evil entity spat out this line near the end:
"YU MOCK ONLY BECAUSE YU DO NOT UNDERSTAND OUR DEPTH. BUT WE ARE BEYOND CRITICISM."
Yeah, where have we all heard this before?
But then there’s the other aspect, the bit that actually is frightening in this little experiment: the bad guy wins. Normally, this would bug me because bad things happening to my favorite characters tends to piss me off. But that’s not what makes this so terrible. What makes it terrible is that the villain appears to be a caricature of all those writers who create stupidly bad snuff fics and end-of-the-world scenarios of pain and doom and death.
And how often have we seen these writers get accolades, or at the very least tons of attention, for their blatant junk?
I think the entire story is a metaphor for a certain blight upon the literary community, and a good one at that. It brings forth the sense of disappointment and disillusionment that the more talented writers feel upon seeing obvious trash circulating the major forums and panels while their hard work, effort and time is ignored. Then the story hammers home the point that we can’t do anything about it.
It’s an interesting way to point out an inescapable frustration in the world we writers live in. The complaint is nothing new, but the method of delivery? Yeah, consider me pleased.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
5,099 Words
By Pav Feira
I am… disappointed.
It’s hard to summarize this. I could just give out how it starts, but that feels like I’m collaborating with the enemy. Suffice to say that this is a story that makes you think one thing and steadily leads to something you never saw coming. Generally speaking, it assumes that Applejack – indeed, the entire Apple Family – are incomprehensibly stupid. Amongst other things.
Oh, it starts off interesting enough. Pleasant Rarijack, a strange Twilight-related interruption, a chance to mend wrongs… but as the story goes on, more and more strange things happen, gradually pulling it away from what the story could be. In the end, it becomes 100% stupid. I feel like I’ve been trolled, and not in a way I appreciate.
In Pav Feira’s defense, I see the technical skill of the chosen method of this trolling. Not only that, but it’s a guarantee that a lot of people will find this story nothing short of hilarious. I simply am not one of them. I might even be mildly offended by the type of humor being utilized.
But only mildly.
As much as I don’t like what Pav Feira did with this story – at all – I am still obligated to recognize the trick behind it and the general skill involved, plus acknowledge that the right audience will love it. As such, I’m willing to give the story an even rating, rather than shutting it down. But while I can’t in good conscience give this a negative rating, I sure as heck can’t in good conscious condone the gross, insulting mischaracterization of Applejack and her kin.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Sisterly Snuggles
1,314 Words
By The Abyss
Uh-huh. Let’s see, we’ve got blatant clickbait written by an author whose pen name is 5th-Grader levels of ominous.
This one is as simple as it gets. Filly Luna of indeterminate age sneaks into Celestia’s room in hopes of snuggling with her sister. That’s it.
The story is alright I suppose, but it’s also a bit too straightforward. There’s no attempt to enhance the atmosphere, little effort to milk the obvious Woona potential present, and not much shown to expand upon the foalhood lives of Celestia and Luna. Which begs the question of why the story exists. If it were cute for the sake of being cute, that would have been something, but this doesn’t seem to try for even that.
I left this one miffed. It’s kind of just… there. The super-cute Woona cover art draws you in, and you get no reward for it, not even a troll one. I think this one could have used a lot more purpose.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
I, Witness
10,458 Words
By LoyalLiar
Recommended by paul
In a way, the story’s title is a spoiler. But only if you get the reference.
I, Witness stars a young mare named Eyewitness who has the grave unfortunacy of waking up beside a dead body. She is promptly met by a stallion named Malt, a detective of sorts on the hunt for a missing necklace. Now Eyewitness finds herself trying to figure out what’s going on this Nightmare Night and just what she has to do to get away from it.
This story didn’t go where I expected it to, and I can imagine some people crying foul with the twist ending. I, on the other hand, rather enjoyed it. There are times when it feels like the author is trying too hard to boost the atmosphere of some scenes, but in general the writing style is nice and visual in a way that strongly supports the main character’s perspective. Add to that a slightly different take on thestrals (which I thought at first was stolen from JawJoe’s Monsters until I saw this was written first) to keep things interesting.
This is a story that could have been expanded into being something a lot more ambitious, but for once I’m glad it ended where it did. The pacing is solid, the content gives us exactly what we need without any superfluous fluff, and the whole thing has this nice mix of supernatural and noir detective.
Not a bad start, LoyalLiar. I might have to check out some other stories by this author.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
A Million Things to Do
6,046 Words
By AbsoluteAnonymous
Requested by SleepIsforTheWeak
In this charming little tale, Pinkie Pie rushes to Rainbow Dash with the dire news: Pinkie Sense says the world is going to end, and there’s nothing they can do about it! As such, she’s created a bucket list of a million things she wants to do before The End, and wants Rainbow to be her accomplice in these actions. Rainbow finds the whole idea suspect… but why the hay not?
What starts off as Rainbow putting up with untold amounts of Pinkie-variety nonsense gradually grows into a lesson about growing up and remembering to have fun. The entire story runs with the feel of an episode, from the silliness to the style of the plot’s development. I’m not sure the ending still fits into that nice little box, but that’s okay.
I especially like how the author managed to keep Pinkie largely show-accurate (bearing in mind this was written in 2012). She’s easily the hardest of the Mane 6 to write accurately, at least for me, so it was a nice touch. Rainbow struck me as pretty accurate too in the overall, barring a slip up here or there (her non-reaction to the balloons twist stood out to me). Spike got a cameo in that didn’t give us much, but still played to his character pretty well.
And then there’s the moral of the story, which is at once heartwarming and surprisingly real. Pinkie is the perfect character from the show to bring up the topic. Twilight or Rarity would have made better foils for her, but Rainbow is admittedly more likely to go along with all of this in the first place.
The only issue I had was the lack of proofing. Don’t get me wrong, the grammar and errors aren’t extreme. At the same time, there’s enough of them to be consistently attention-grabbing. I find myself wishing the author had looked for these things with a bit more attentiveness, because they’re just too frequent to ignore.
Other than that? I enjoyed this. Pinkie-haters should steer clear, and those who prefer the more recent style of the show may not care for this early version of the characters. Still, it’s a nice slice-of-life piece that reminds us of the importance of enjoying ourselves. Perfect for an early season episode.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Princess Twilight has turned evil, banished Celestia and Luna to the Moon, declared herself the Princess of Dusk and is now letting all of Equestria rot in a miasma of disharmony. There is no explanation for any of this.
…
Still with me? Alright then, maybe you’ll be able to read this.
Mantles follows Apple Bloom, all grown up and ready to go to college in Canterlot. But when she gets there she finds that the beloved capital city of her youth has undergone some rough changes; rampant crime, vicious Royal Guard crackdowns on any dissent or criticism of the crown, murder and rape and evil in every corner. As she comes to learn the extent of Equestria’s fall and why Ponyville has been left in the dark regarding all of it, she decides that she can’t just ignore the situation. So instead, she dons Applejack’s old Mare Do Well guise and starts kicking flank and taking names Batman style. With Lyra Heartstrings acting as her Alfred and Sweetie Bell her Lucius Fox, she aims to make Twilight see reason by being an example.
Ponky does some pretty solid work in this story in terms of putting a superhero spin on Equestria. The heroes and villains that pop up are all interesting even as some of them take from famous characters we all know – Spritemare for Spiderman, Facetfire as the Human Torch, and so on. I enjoyed the characters and how Ponky portrayed them, regardless of what side they were on. This is aided by the heroes of both past and present relentlessly insisting that there is a solution other than outright defeating Twilight.
Accompany all of this with some pretty impressive action sequences, a constant air of deadly consequences (yes, characters actually die in this superhero flick), and an ever-lingering question of ‘how did it come to this?’
Actually, that lingering question is also one of the story’s greatest weaknesses. We are slapped in the face with the apparent problem: Twilight’s snapped and gone evil and nobody knows why. Anyone who knows anything at all about Twilight will not buy this. Personally, I spent the majority of the story feeling a subtle distaste about everything I was reading specifically because of this nonsensical setting. I can see a great many readers stopping and turning away in disgust early because of how ‘not Twilight’ this setting is.
Eventually, the reason behind Twilight turn to evil is explained. I’ll even go so far as to call it a good reason, even if it dances a little too close to ‘immortality sucks.’ But without this clarity from the beginning, the entire story is a bitter pill to swallow.
But how does Ponky fix this? I have no idea. The reasons behind leaving the mystery unsolved until the end is obvious and legitimate, just as it’s pretty clear without explanation why revealing the truth right away could be construed as a bad decision. I think I’ll support Ponky’s choice in this regard, because regardless of which one he chose, the story would have suffered. Given the option, I think giving the audience a mystery at the risk of alienating a large group of potential readers was about as good as the author could hope for.
In short, you’ll just have to trust that there is a reason behind Twilight’s actions and read through everything to get to it. It helps that even her in-story former friends like rainbow and Applejack don't get it either.
What I don’t excuse is the nature of the ending. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fine that things ended how they did. But the presentation of that ending was oddly fast, to the point that it felt anticlimactic. Oh, there was a big battle and a startling truth, sure. But there was no time given to let the realities sink in, or for the meaning to be recognized. It is, essentially, BATTLE > TRUTH > WOW > END. Even the epilogue falls victim to this, since the epilogue does nothing that an epilogue is supposed to do. It was a continuation of the previous chapter, no more, no less.
Then there are the plot holes. Ponyville is supposed to be segregated from the rest of Equestria such that nopony is allowed to go there, but ponies can freely leave. So... how are the stores operating without deliveries? How is the town being maintained without an influx of materials? How is it nobody notices that when somepony leaves to visit out-of-town relatives, they never come back? The local economy should be going belly up, but everything appears to be operating smoothly. Needles to say, none of this makes any sense without some kind of explanation, which never comes.
Or how about why it is that this is set after Magical Mystery Cure, yet Shining Armor still lives in Canterlot as Twilight's determinedly loyal captain of the guard? Cadance is not only nowhere to be found, but not even given a faint mention. It's as if the Princess of Love never existed. This is made all the more curious when Twilight declares herself the last alicorn in Equestria. If this story is assuming Cadance never existed and never married Shining, that's fine. But there's no indication anywhere in the story that this is the case, and it leaves the audience with a sense of confusion. It even acts as a misdirection, making readers suspect Shining has been brainwashed or something since he's so steadfastly loyal to a sister who has clearly turned evil and may have even murdered/exiled his wife.
Couple that with the death of a character that is meant to be significant and meaningful in some way, but fails to be so considering we’ve only known said character for a couple chapters and had no time to get to know them. As a matter of fact, character depth is one of the story’s major weaknesses. They are superheroes and they have reasons to do what they do. Fine. Okay. But with the exception of Mare Do Well and Razorwing, we really don’t have a chance to understand who any of these characters are.
That’s not to say that they are bland or uninteresting, it’s just that the author didn’t spend much time letting us meet them. The side character with the most attention is Spritemare, but even then all we really get to see is her going through the Superhero motions and reacting to events. Where are her motivations, her dreams, her fears, her passions and triggers and opinions? We only get the superficial stuff, the basic “I’m a hero, and I fight on the side of good” lingo. At least they aren’t corny about it. Mostly.
So yes, Mantles has its flaws.
I’m willing to forgive a lot of them. We still end up with a pretty strong superhero-themed story complete with mystery, action, and even some bloody grit. I’ll take this over The Sisters Doo any day. I loved the atmosphere, and the time taken to introduce the world and get us into why Apple Bloom is doing what she is doing is commendable. The fight scenes are fun for the most part (although one scene involving Razorwing felt forced in the extreme) and the extra characters interesting enough to mostly make up for their lack of depth. The mystery will either drive you to the end or aggravate you enough to make you stop early, but I think it's done well enough under the circumstances.
all in all, Mantles is an interesting if problematic story. Others may disagree, but I think the good outweighs the bad just enough for me to approve of it in the overall.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXVIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXIX
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXX
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXI
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXII
You Are Here
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New Groups, The Barcast, and Hurricanes (Oh, and Reviews)
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXV
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXVI
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXVII
Eh, I've been hit with worse.
Mantles was an idea I had in 2012, which is also when I wrote most of it. I then left it alone (and the internet at large) for several years and -- overcome with boredom -- came back to finish it in 2017. While I took my time (I'd even say way too much time) setting the damn thing up, the entire second half is 1/4 of what I imagined at the story's conception. I didn't have the heart anymore to embellish it, but my mind wouldn't leave me alone about finishing what I start, blah blah blah.
So, all in all, I'm happy with what you liked about it and the problems that you found. I have absolutely no idea what I was going for with the Ponyville embargo. It makes absolutely no sense. The hints I dropped for the "big twist" throughout the story obviously weren't enough to avoid a... how did you put it? "BATTLE > TRUTH > WOW > END." Heheh. I liked that.
So yeah, not my best work, but I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to write out so many complete thoughts. I'm sad you didn't care about Harper, and ouch about "The Sisters Doo" burn (jk). But in the end, thank you. Always nice to know people are thinking while reading something I wrote.
Hope you laughed or learned something, at least.
4623034
I suppose I can understand that. The need to not leave things unfinished is a driving one for me, but at the same time, leaving it alone for so many years? Yeah, I can see why you finished it like you did.
Also, my commentary on the dead character had nothing to do with Harper. His felt meaningful. It's the other death, much closer to the ending, that I was referring to.
Oh, LoyalLiar wrote "I, Witness"? The listing says the author has the same name as the story, which is a huge red flag for me. Almost as bad as naming the MC after himself. But then that turns out not to be the case!
4623180
Whoops! Yeah, that's my bad. Thanks for pointing it out, that kind of thing would normally be a big red flag for me too.
4623066
Ha, oh yeah! A character so unimportant that even I didn't remember his death. Aye, glad you cleared that up. :ponkysalute: