Reviewing the Lunaverse: Part 5 (Stories 15, 20, 25, Webisode 5, Movie/Tie-In 3) · 5:47pm Nov 7th, 2012
And so we come to the last set of stories in this little project…for now, that is. Let us begin, shall we?
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Webisode 5: Greengrass’s Night
Written By: Grass&Clouds2
SYNOPSIS:
During a particularly boring session of the Night Court, Greengrass and his secretary, Notary, get involved in a bit of political maneuvering and scheming. And that’s all I care to mention.
REVIEW:
“Greengrass’ Night” is a full-on villain episode, as well as the first time Greengrass really appears in the flesh. Not only that, but this also introduces Fischer and Puissance, two characters slated to play villain roles in future seasons, and much like Greengrass are also as dry as wheat toast and just as bland. But hey, they can at least be redeemed down the line. Greengrass…well, let’s look at the story itself.
The problem I have with this one is the way Greengrass’ manipulation skills are presented. In a bit that’s actually kind of clever, his special talent is gardening…and he applies the same skills he uses to clear out weeds to find weaknesses in others and exploit them. Of course, you don’t need me telling you that, since the story keeps revealing what he’s doing before he does it. If Greengrass tries to bluff, the narration will tell you that he’s bluffing, why he’s bluffing, what kind of bluffing techniques he’s using, and so forth. “Show vs. Tell” is something that doesn’t horribly bug me like it does others, but when you’re trying to sell a character like this, you shouldn’t spend your time telling us that he’s awesome. We have to actually see that for ourselves. And when you spoil the joke before it’s even had a chance to get told, we’re not going to laugh.
As for the rest, we get to see more of the Night Court, and frankly I’ve seen plenty with just this one. The story itself is a very basic political intrigue story, only with characters I don’t give a damn about and stakes that don’t matter. Greengrass himself is an amazingly flat pony outside of his special talent, and his plan to unseat Luna and take control of Equestria is so…generic and lifeless a goal that I can’t really stand reading about him at all.
OVERALL RATING: Meh/Okay
This one is borderline simply because there are people who like Greengrass, and thus would love this story. If you do, more power to you. As for me, I would be celebrating his defeat during the Gala were G&C2 not already doing another story with him and others plotting to keep him in for the long term. This is definitely one I recommend skipping unless you just can’t get enough of the Duke.
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Story 15: Tales of Ponyville
Written By: RainbowDoubleDash
SYNOPSIS:
During a typical day in Ponyville, Rainbow Dash, Raindrops and the rest of the weather team decide not to clear a storm coming in from the Everfree Forest. The incoming rain thus affects the daily activities of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, whether for good or for woe…
REVIEW:
“Tales of Ponyville” consists of six chapters, each focusing on a different pony, and an epilogue detailing their meet-up in Trixie’s Residence. The first four stories intertwine with each other at various points, while the last two are mostly on their own until the end. Of course, this means that scenes are subverted based on point of view, character interpret things differently, and other wacky hijinks ensue. It also incorporates bits and pieces of various episodes that couldn’t be converted into full stories, such as Cheerilee giving the Cutie Mark lecture from “Cutie Mark Chronicles” (only this time stopping the events that lead to the creation of the CMC), and Rarity reenacting a twisted version of the opening to “Green Isn’t Your Color.” Even the ending has shades of “Look Before You Sleep” mixed in.
The first four chapters represent a fairly cohesive whole. Raindrops gets some much-needed character development, with her chapter finally showing her actually being happy and carefree for once. Up to this point, she was basically a power-inverted Rainbow Dash with anger issues, but this is what really made her click as a character for me.
Trixie’s story is a lot more depressing, as she takes Raindrops’ sudden mood swing as a sign that she’s been replaced by an imposter and attacks her. This in turn leads to a rather depressing reveal about just how much Trixie sucks at friendship, as well as some affirmation of just how much her new friends care about her. Outside of reminding me that LNLD exists, it’s good.
Cheerilee’s tale starts with what amounts to an almost complete rehash of the lecture from “Cutie Mark Chronicles,” only with the teacher doing her job and countering the bullies. But the real kicker is Cheerilee thinking that Trixie knows nothing about sex, walks in on her and Raindrops at an inopportune time, and proceeds to give the most overly-detailed lecture of anything clop related you could imagine.
Lyra’s story is pretty much the weakest. The first half is fairly good, with Lyra being a lazy ass and the great white-vs-brown eggs debate. But the second half is almost entirely cribbed from Cheerilee’s chapter, and there just doesn’t feel like a whole lot is being presented.
Carrot Top’s chapter gets a good start with a less-jerky Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy going to the spa. Everything’s funny and cheerful and all that. And then Rarity happens. Let me put it this way: RDD took her way too far. Excusing my usual chorus of complaints about Rarity and Rainbow Dash being assholes, Fluttershy being useless, and Carrot Top being the paragon of virtue that must put those no-good ponies in their place, the fact is that I didn’t find the joke funny in the slightest.
Ditzy’s chapter closes off the story with her playing therapist to the whole town while on her route. Her trying to get Sparkler to talk to her dad again was heartwarming, and I loved her trying (and failing) to help the mayor overcome Rainbow Dash’s lazy screw-up. That being said, it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the story, and actually feels like it could have been its own entry. In fact, it might have actually worked better that way in some respects.
OVERAL RATING: Good/Excellent
Were it not for Lyra’s weak chapter and Rarity’s behavior in Carrot Top’s story, this would have been a full-on Excellent. As it stands, however, this is still one of the best stories in the Lunaverse, and well worth your time.
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Story 20: Symphony for the Moon and Sun
Written By: Grass&Clouds2
SYNOPSIS:
After one foiled scheme too many, Greengrass realizes that Octavia is working as a mole for Trixie, and decides to dispose of her in the most terrible way imaginable. He arranges for her to play the dreaded “Symphony for the Moon and Sun,” a piece that is not only incredibly difficult to perform, but is also missing the original ending. Every attempt to perform the piece has ended with Luna destroying the offending player’s career, and Octavia will be no different…unless Lyra can help her discover the true heart behind the notes…
REVIEW:
“Symphony for the Moon and Sun” is the conclusion to Octavia’s arc, continuing from the events of “A Canterlot Morning” and finally providing some closure to “Musicians and Dreamers.” Unfortunately, this also means that Lyra is the only main character to appear, while Octavia, Fancy Pants, Fleur, Greengrass, and Blueblood round up the rest of the roles. Octavia’s character is still great, and I loved seeing her working with Lyra on a more positive note again. The solution to the symphony’s mysterious ending is also brilliant, as well as providing a bit of grounding regarding just how we are supposed to view Corona. (How we actually look at her is another matter…)
Unfortunately, Greengrass continues to be a hindrance for me. I had to read through his scheme twice just to figure out how it worked, and even then I could poke a hole or three in his logic with no difficulty. Blueblood is even dumber, and his role honestly feels tacked-on and unnecessary. That’s the other thing that holds this story back: it feels like it drags towards the end. Granted, it’s nowhere near as bad as “Carrot Top Season,” but G&C2 is still trying to do a lot here, and it kind of muddles things quite a bit.
Lastly, there are a series of bonus chapters interspersed throughout, detailing other failed attempts to perform the symphony and just how these ponies screwed things up. The whole point (as G&C2 so kindly spells out in the comments) is to set up a trend for what won’t win Luna over. They’re fun little pieces, but not totally necessary to getting the most of the actual story. Considering how long this one is, you could probably skip past them if you’re in a hurry.
OVERALL RATING: Good
This is a definite step up from “A Canterlot Morning,” and provides a nice bit of closure to Octavia’s character. Outside of pacing issues and my continued contempt for Greengrass, this is a solid story.
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Story 25: Foalish Misadventures
Written By: Grass&Clouds2
SYNOPSIS:
The day before a fair, Zecora steals a bottle of booze from Trixie, which is just as quickly recovered. At first, everything seems fine…but the day after the fair, the adults start behaving more and more ridiculous, insisting on partying all the time. It’s up to the town’s plucky foal population to save the day!
REVIEW:
“Foalish Misadventures” is your basic “Adults suck, kids save the day, adults are bastards and screw the kids out of victory” story. In fact, the foals working off each other is probably the best part of the story. The story very gradually builds up through their eyes, going from having a blast at the new, carefree Ponyville to realizing just how much they’d lose without the adults doing their jobs and behaving responsibly. While using Dinky as the focal character doesn’t work quite as well here as it did in “Family Matters,” the story is still told fairly well.
The problem, though, is that the story is your basic “Adults suck, kids save the day, adults are bastards and screw the kids out of victory” story. Making adults utterly useless is one of the most aggravating things you can do in anything, spell or no. And this ties into the other major sticking point: the moral and ending. Having a message about why we can’t party all day is fine, but FM takes a sledgehammer approach to the moral, slamming it in our faces over and over until we finally get it. The ending was also a major disappointment in how it refused to do anything outside of the story’s conventions, instead tacking on a strictly formula ending about Trixie stealing all the credit and the town plotting to defraud Equestria’s government to pay for repairs.
Also, it has Zecora in it. She exists solely to set up the plot and for a single joke. Not only is she not funny, but she still keeps to her utterly flat and generically evil character from LNLD.
OVERALL RATING: Okay
If you love Dinky or the other foals, then this would probably rate higher for you. Me? There were a few funny parts throughout, but the story sticks to such a tired plot that I could only just barely enjoy it at times.
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Movies & Tie-Ins 3: Raindrops of Clan Drops, Barbarian Queen
Written By: Fizzy Orange
SYNOPSIS:
Raindrops dreams that she’s a barbarian hero. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
REVIEW:
As you can probably guess just from the title, this is a very silly story. Raindrops enacts every single Conan the Barbarian trope imaginable, from slaughtering lizard people by the truckload to taking on an evil rival, all in the name of saving a prince from an evil enchantress. The best part, though, is just how ridiculously straight the premise gets played. There are very few obvious jokes, and yet so much of the story is hilarious simply because of the raw audacity of Raindrops slaying her way into an enemy fortress. And of course, the ending is hilarious, as well as pretty much the only time the Raindrops tumblr will ever get a mention.
OVERALL RATING: Good
Even if you don’t care for the Lunaverse, this is a really fun story. There are pretty much no connections to the rest of the AU, so it could be jumped into without any difficulty.
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And I’m done. I’m free. I can breathe again!
…Until someone else finishes their entries…
I’ve just damned myself, haven’t I?
Small correction: Trixie didn't knowingly 'steal' the credit. She genuinely thinks it was all her and her friends, on the basis that she's too drunk to remember any of it, but she did 'wake up' back at the magic circle and so figures that she was the one who fixed everything. And it's not like anyone's going to listen to someone like Diamond Tiara claiming that she really did help save everything.
This actually seemed like one of his more simple schemes to me. He arranges things to look like Octy promised to play the Symphony; whether she cancels on Luna (which is Not Done) or plays the piece (which apparently Can't Be Done), she's screwed. When Lyra gets involved, he just has it look like she's helping Octy, so that if Octy botches the piece the blame falls on both Octy and Lyra. It's a 2-sentence scheme. :-)
Blueblood, what I was going for was that he was smart but didn't have enough information. His plan likely would have worked to do what he wanted (stop Octy from playing) if not for Fleur and the other participants that he didn't know were involved.
I honestly wanted to punch Luna hard by the end of Symphony for the Moon and the Sun. She came off more as a spoiled brat who ruined the careers of a lot of good ponies who wanted to give tribute to her. And instead of either banning the playing of it or explaining why she wanted it played a certain way, she kept it around and unfinished like some cruel game.
482207: With the exception of the first guy, and Sweet Song (who got off easy anyway), everyone who tried it knew what the risks were. They all knowingly chose to gamble that they alone could play the piece. It's their own fault that they then suffered the (all but explicitly laid out) consequences when they couldn't do it.
(As for the first guy, he got it wrong during a party specifically to celebrate Luna; it'd be like going to someone's birthday and giving them a gift that made them break out in hives.)
482210 Then why didn't Luna DO something about it? Why didn't she say not to play the piece or explain what the problem was? She came off as spoiled, petty, petulant and a royal jerk.
Time to get writing those crossovers and crack fics I keep mentioning, then.
482217: Even if the piece could be played just by following some instructions (which I doubt), it still couldn't be as good as a performance where the artist actually understood Celestia and Luna and incorporated that knowledge into their performances.
As for why it wasn't taken out of circulation, I would say that she wanted to hear it correctly done. She's an artist after all. And it's not like she concealed the risks; by the third pony we saw, everyone knew that failing the piece would result in the end of the musician's career. It wasn't some kind of surprise.
482222 Still on Luna. She could see what her own disapproval did. Some of them were jerks, but I bet dollars to donuts the majority wanted to honor Luna. And she spits in their faces and dooms their careers and lives.
She came across as petulant and vindictive at best here.
482222,482217
The way I saw it is that the first performance (that is, the one a century after Corona's defeat) and Sweet Song's version (which she was tricked into performing) were the only ones that could be considered truly innocent. After that, the piece became something of a challenge for a while, gradually morphing into something to be feared and dreaded because nothing could satisfy Luna. They knew the risks, but did it anyway. Granted, she really needed to step in at some point, but that ties into something else I noticed (and was probably pointed out in the story or comments).
Almost all of the endings (at least from the ones who actually tried) show Luna as a champion, a hero, the only pony who could defeat that awful Corona and save them all. Such is the whole nature of the "Corona Myth" Luna promoted to try and separate pre-insanity Celestia and the Tyrant Sun. Of course, just reading LNLD shows that the reality was considerably different (and indeed, that story's brought up as the key that lets Octavia discover what the music really means). But she couldn't tell anypony how she really felt because that would be exposing herself too much, and back then, a ruler could not be expected to behave in such a manner. (Just look at canon Luna and her ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE.) By the time of the present, she still can't do anything like that without looking weak in front of her backstabbing court, and even if she could, nopony would believe the truth anymore. Heck, Lyra barely believes that Luna tried to save Celestia, and she was right there when it happened.
And considering that said myth has basically left the entire country hiding from the noontime sun, cursing gold, and is scheduled to bite Luna in the ass hard, having an impossible-to-perform symphony is the least of the problems Luna herself set up.
I honeslty think she should've just said, "No more performing this piece," if it hurt her that much. Would've spared a lot of wrecked lives.
Well, apparently there are more Lunaverse stories I haven't read than ones I have, so, you know, standard comment about getting to them eventually.
“Tales of Ponyville” was excellent in my opinion, I didn't really even mind Rarity too much. I am eagerly waiting for the memory transfer spell setup to eventually get more usage, and if that usage is L'verse Trixie full on frenching M'verse Twilight completely out of nowhere, so much the better.
482237
That, plus in many ways Luna is still the same sad and lonely soul who almost sold herself to evil just because her subjects didn't seem to love or appreciate her.
She didn't want someone to get the music right just because she told them how it was supposed to end; she wanted someone to get it right in a way that proved them capable of actually understanding who she is. Not a conquering hero or so utterly despondent that she was driven to near suicidal depression, but as pony who had to make an impossible choice between family & duty, and so now has to live with the burden of that choice for every day of her immortal life.
Anyway, as to the rest of the fic...
Pretty much my one and only compliant, and something that still boggles me a bit since it didn't have to be that way as both Raindrops and/or Cheerilee were discussed accompanying her during the development phase. Instead we just get another 38k words or so about how Lyra and Octavia have this special bond. Between this and certain ideas for future appearances, it is starting to feel a little like Lyra is better friends with Octavia than the other Elements of Harmony, and while I love the character G&C2 created with L!Octavia, I hate the fact that all hear appearances are so Lyra centric.
Worse still though is that Lyra can't even be called a proper main character in this story; she's really more of a plot device that exists only to encourage Octavia and facilitate the cellist solving all how own problems. Nowhere does this become more apparent than in the penultimate climax where Octavia has to rescue herself from a kidnapping (even if thoughts of Lyra are what enable her to do it), while the real Lyra literally sits on her ass the whole time because of some promise that seemingly exists for no other reason than to further reduce Lyra's already minimal influence on the story's plot.
Hmm... rambled just a bit longer there than I intended.
No bones about it. I loved pretty much the whole story, but it utterly botches and fails the ending so hard it hurts. Nothing close to CTS level, but it's still seriously screwed up.
And yeah, Zecora was pretty flat, and really more plot device than character, since her original goals are never even really hinted at, and having her stumble into a patch of Poison Joke is little more than an excuse to allow the foals capture her for the requisite info dump. Then to top it all off she escapes not because Apple Bloom makes any mistakes while guarding her, no, it's the supposedly highly trained royal guard themselves who bungle the job.
I still think Rarity would have gone over better with you if I had some easy way of putting a laugh track to my fics...
To be fair, though, we the readers only catch the highlights. Most of the obscenity happens offscreen.
Honestly... I'm still conflicted on this universe... or at least what little I've heard and read. And one comment here helps identify a source of the conflict...
Zecora's lack of development. To RDD, I still say continue your stories, but... Greengrass gets some development, some view into how he works, and Zecora is left as a blind follower to an insane Celestia/Corona?
I mean, I understand wanting to restore natural order, but that still hasn't provided much for her character I mean, in this 'verse, Spike was HER assistant, and he got turned into a rampaging beast. There's a fic of Spike running away, meeting Twilight, yet nothing has been done, that I've seen, and AGAIN I know relatively little, to develop her past blind servitude.
Whilst canon Zecora was a medecine maker whom would stop to even restore a chipped tooth for Applebloom, L!Zecora is just... so jarringly different. There's no indication of care for Spike, no regrets for what Corona attempted to do, something about hurting and threatening the lives of foals, or... much at all. Sure, Greengrass is the current arc's villain, but I, personally, would like to see Zecora get some development.
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Zecora being a villain bugs me tremendously as well, which was part of the reason why I didn't like her appearance in "Foalish Misadventures." There are a few ideas being bounced around to try to fix that plot point, but they won't be coming true for a while at least. And she'd be a lot more interesting to look at than Greengrass.
485527
We have a raging sun goddess and her servant running around, and the biggest concern is the selfish machinations of one pony. I'm sure it will be fixed... eventually... but some part of me lacks patience for these things.
Again, agreed. Again, not given much aside from a desire to restore the natural order...