Review #4: Sunny at Midnight - Draxonos135 · 2:14pm Jan 3rd, 2020
I read: Complete at 1.3k words, 1 chapter
I rate: 6/10
I recommend: Read if you like Sunny Flare or Midnight Sparkle
Have you ever been an eldritch entity haunting a fairly unassuming teenager who falls in love with one of said teenager’s friends after watching them sleep? No? Me neither. Yeah, nope. Totally never happened with me. Seriously. I did not fall in love until she woke up and even then it when nowhere for obvious reasons that boil down to psychiatric therapy.
But as you may have guessed, that’s the plot of today’s story and the topic of today’s review. Everyone’s second favourite nefarious pony-related alter ego, Midnight Sparkle, gets the hots for Sunny Flare after watching her do an impersonation of her ala that book nobody read where that actually happened. And watching her sleep for a while because, honestly after you’ve tried to destroy the world, nothing really seems creepy anymore. After a few moments of introspection, a letter, and a date at the witching hour, Sunny actually reciprocates.
Right then. Hopefully intentional villain creepiness notwithstanding, that does raise a few questions. Firstly, why is everyone trying to deport Sunny from the sleepover at the start of the story? I haven’t read the books, because frankly nobody reads the books because those cost money and require effort, but if this happened, it really is not explained here - and if it didn’t, why include it at all? Secondly, the actual nature of what Midnight Sparkle is becomes somewhat confusing - if she can interact with objects, why is she sitting around doing nothing? Obviously she isn’t actually leashed to Sci-Twi if she can randomly travel across town to deliver a letter so why have her spectate the slumber party at all then? Why not simply have her tell Sci-Twi about her new fondness for this random side character and have her be the middleman instead?
And that brings me to characters. Ignoring the plot hole orbiting her, Midnight Sparkle is actually pretty fun. We, as readers, see her internal monologue here and it is clear that, while fairly crafty and amoral, Midnight is also quite naive when it comes to human interaction and is easily flustered - this makes for a nice contrast as well as a few comedic moments. Sunny is likewise enjoyable and her choice to stick with Midnight and not die, while somewhat coercive to say the least, is in character for her. The implication that this actually turns out well is what saves this from being uncomfortably non-consensual for an otherwise lighthearted story.
The writing style itself is nothing to write to your crush about but it gets the job done and manages to be both sincere and comedic. Because I’m philosophical by nature and unemployed by law the following lines stood out to me:
"When you destroy a clock, do you destroy time itself? When you erase a word in a blackboard, do you erase the word's existence?" Midnight shrugged and shook her head. "I'm a part of Twilight: unless she herself dies, I'm never going away."
Plot: 2/5. Despite the multiple plot holes, the story is paced well and the premise is fairly original.
Characters: 3/5. Midnight is amusing and she and Sunny both get off one or two genuinely charming lines each. I can’t help but point out that the romance feels shallow though and possibly unintentionally so with the way the conclusion is phrased.
Style: 3/5. The writing here is workable but unremarkable and definitely somewhat lacking in description.
Execution: 4/5. I wasn’t knocked out my socks here but, looking past the somewhat faulty logic required to make the ship sail, the story is relatively original and entertaining.
Overall Rating: 12/20 = 6/10
To Draxonos135: Thank you for being the first to agree to me reviewing one of your stories, I do appreciate it and it makes a fine change from reviewing random stuff that gets submitted to a reviewer group. In terms of improving the story, I would say to firstly to give Sunny a larger part and expand more on her own reactions and thoughts about Midnight past just those shown in the conclusion. I’d also clear up the plotholes - while the first can simply be cut in exchange for something like more description on the slumber party, the second probably needs some more thorough tweaking. I’d say either to clarify on why Midnight is so incapable or unwilling to interact with Sunny early on or have Sci-Twi act as an intermediary between the two by carrying the letter and whatnot; that might also be a good opportunity to expand on their characters if you’re in the mood to take this 1.3k word comedic shipfic that seriously.
For something like this: Rarity's a Sociopath. Conveniently, my story and ensuing sequel also ship poor Sunny with a fairly nefarious protagonist.
As always, thanks for reading. If you would your story reviewed, please DM me. If you wouldn’t like your story reviewed, please tell somebody who would.
