Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCIV · 9:09pm Jul 28th, 2022
No reviews next week, folks! Y’all know the drill by now.
Things are finally going back to normal for me. Although I still have a cough, I tested negative for the blight this past Monday, and yesterday I finally learned what was wrong with my A/C. Turns out it was something painfully simple, I could have fixed it myself in five minutes had I known about it. But now I do, and I got some good tips regarding ensuring it doesn’t happen again, so everything is groovy.
In the meantime, I’d like to introduce y’all to Unreal Press, a podcast by our very own leeroy_gIBZ. I’ll admit, I didn’t know anything about this until a little while ago, but I was asked to help facilitate a meeting between the host and another of our authors, JawJoe. You young whippersnappers with your Gamestation360’s and Twitterbooks may not recall ol’ Joe. I’d highly recommend you check out some of his works, particularly Rainbow Dash: Re-Animator (it’s way better than the name suggests), Queen of Queens, and Monsters. Lately Joe does more original fiction, having released two books and currently working on a third.
Over at Unreal Press, leeroy_glBZ interviews Joe regarding his first original fiction, Seven-Point Star. The interview ends up being a fascinating discussion regarding the value and purpose of magic systems beyond the obvious, using traditional plot tropes for deeper purpose, and how an atheist had a spiritual moment through writing. Those who like to study the art of writing beyond mere putting words to page will get a lot out of the interview. I personally am very tempted to go through more of Unreal Press’s videos to see what other gems might be found.
Alright, enough plugging from me. You’re here for some fresh reviews!
PS - My apologies to NumberFifth. There was a review they requested that was supposed to have come out this week, but alas, the story was taken down before I could get to it. I’m sure Numbers already knows this, but still.
Stories for This Week:
Ribbons by themoontonite
Apple Scratch : A summer at the Farm by Mariacheat-Brony
Minor Details! by Tchernobog
Total Word Count: 100,651
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 0
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
Ribbons
1,578 Words
By themoontonite
There’s nothing so anxious as wanting to make that particular phone call to that particular mare who made you and can very easily break you.
This was a curious one. The story comes in three parts, each showing Coco Pommel in a different stage of her relationship with Rarity. It starts with her pining and unable to bring herself to so much as contact Rarity for fear of her own feelings and ends with the simple bliss of being in a relationship. Then there’s that middle scene, which is somewhere between in both mood and time.
I liked the imagery and mood of the first scene. Referring to a phone’s receiver as a live grenade has a certain visceral effect. And the final scene will be a big win for all the hopeless romantics out there. Yet it’s that middle scene that most fascinates me, because I’m not quite sure what themoontonight was trying to convey through it. Talks of the expectation of bitterness and funerals suggests Coco is preparing for the worst, yet the light tone and the playfulness of both mares suggests a casual acceptance of the situation. I legit don’t know what the author was trying to do there, but I liked it regardless.
A touch of sweetness peppered with anxiety and spiced by a writing style that is vivid without turning purple. And so short! Give it a shot and smile at our cute little marshmallow ponies.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Apple Scratch : A summer at the Farm
75,927 Words
By Mariacheat-Brony
Sequel to An Apple Scratch toward the World.
Vinyl Scratch is Applejack’s adopted sister, and they recently went to Canterlot so that Vinyl could be lead musician for the Royal Wedding. You know the drill; changeling invasion, hot fashionistas and cellists, all sorts of crazy stuff. Recently, Princess Celestia has decided the Council of Harmony – what we would know as the Mane Six – need a vacation, and so arranges for Twilight & Co. to stay a few weeks at Sweet Apple Acres.
Yeah, I gotta admit that the only reason I decided to give this a go was because of my weakness for this little trope:
Anyway, the story is straightforward. Twilight and her friends go to stay a few weeks at the Acres, and while there Applejack courts Rarity and Vinyl courts Octavia (who in this world takes AJ’s role among the Mane Six). There’s some exploration of Vinyl’s past and how she came to live on the farm, but mostly it’s about silly romance.
Of course, Mariacheat-Brony couldn’t let that be all. There’s also some needless and ridiculous moments, such as Spoiled Rich being a royal bitch to Vinyl, a random timberwolf attack that exists solely to make Vinyl look like a badass, a pointless aside about some lawyer trying to use expendable goons to bully AJ and Vinyl for no apparent reason, and one bar room brawl. I’m pretty sure the author was trying to use these to ‘spice up’ the story beyond being just a romance, but frankly, they’re doing it wrong. With the exception of Spoiled Rich, none of these events matter in regards to the larger story, and then Spoiled’s part is woefully exaggerated.
“Exaggeration” seems to be Mariacheat-Brony’s primary weakness. That and repetitiveness. If someone is mean, then they have to be full-blown, cartoonish, mustache-twirling, “look at me I’m an asshole!” mean. They’re caricatures, and the author seems incapable of anything more reasonable.
Then there’s other repeated offenses. For example, the author loves to throw in supposedly funny or perhaps dramatic moments where a character is saying something and gets nonsensically misinterpreted. Like how Vinyl Scratch tries to joke to Octavia about how she’s “fallen in love with someone”, and Octavia gets all huffy and mad because she somehow fails to realize Vinyl’s talking about her. Repeat similar scenes with various characters over various subjects (not all romantic in nature) eight or nine times throughout the entire story. It was amusing the first time or two, but then I started suspecting the size of the author’s playbook.
Then there’s the writing. I looked past it for the first story, decided to put up with it for the second, but after three stories with zero improvement my patience has run out. There are so many issues with the writing that I have to wonder if the author bothered to edit at all. Characters switch pronouns on a dime, words are missing or appear extra, sometimes the author uses one word and you wonder what the heck they meant. Some of the lines can’t even be accurately called sentences. And that’s all just the grammar; don’t get me started on more complex topics like Show vs. Tell, atmosphere, scene setting, and so on.
To be fair, I’m starting to suspect that Mariacheat-Brony is not a native English speaker. Some of the mistakes I’m seeing seem to point in that direction. If that’s the case then I shouldn’t be too hard on them over it, though I will be hard in regards to how I’m not seeing any improvement on the matter despite being three stories in. Of course, those three stories were all released in a period of two years, which makes me question if improving their writing is even a factor.
This story had the OTP and OctaStratch going for it, but even those popular ships can’t save it in my eyes. Maybe if I were seeing some development on the part of the writer in terms of both the actual writing and the storytelling, but that’s not been the case so far and I’m no longer inclined to keep going. A pity, I had such high hopes for this series when I first started reading it.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Tales of Apple Scratch: The Lieutenant Cloud Kicker — Pretty Good
An Apple Scratch toward the World. — Worth It
Minor Details!
23,146 Words
By Tchernobog
Alternative Title: Do Not Bucking Touch This for the Love of the Princesses!
Princess Twilight and Applejack just got engaged! But before they have a chance to even inform their friends, Twilight receives a summons from Celestia. She’s been asked to investigate a recently uncovered artifact of Starswirl’s. Applejack decides to go with her. This proves to have been a good idea, because Twi probably would go crazy trying to figure out how to escape a time loop.
This was highly entertaining. With that summary, you’d be forgiven for expecting this to be a Hard Reset kind of story where Twilight and Applejack steadily go nuts trying to figure out how to solve the time loop. On the contrary, this is a story about Twilight and Applejack, told entirely from the latter’s perspective. It’s a story about trust, respect, and understanding.
Also, food fights between diplomatic dignitaries. The humor in this was pretty good, too.
This isn’t at all what I was anticipating, but the material is so good as to more than make up for it. Twilight and Applejack are delightfully characterized, the whole situation is handled in a way that is endearingly show-like, and the whole thing is a lot of fun. Also, I figured out the whole point behind the artifact midway through chapter 2, and I greatly approve – both of it and how Tchernobog put more than enough clues in that you can easily figure it out if you just think about it a bit.
A delightful slice-of-life comedy. If you have somehow failed to read it so far, then by all means do so.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Felt Heart — WHYRTY?
Mood Wings — WHYRTY?
Stories for Next Week:
The Trial of Princess Celestia by Mani-Roar
The Archetypist by Cold in Gardez
Heteropaternal Superfecundation by Thornquill
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Minor Details is excellent, as is that meme :V
I don't know whether it's a good thing or not that you keep reviewing stories that have been on my backlog for a while, and give them glowing recommendations, thus making me feel guiltier about not getting to them. Minor Details marks yet another one! Especially as I do love me a good, grounded relationship of Twilight and Applejack that manages to have an organic story conflict while keeping them in character. Given Loganberry has also stated it to have zingy dialogue, which is always a plus, there's another story shifted up the queue a good bit.
Oh, glad you're feeling better of course too.
Haven't read any of these. As to an author maybe being a non-native speaker... I've made that mistake before. There are certain tells, like consistently using the wrong preposition for the situation (prepositions are one of the harder parts to keep straight in learning any language) or coming up with phrasings that just sound bizarre. I thought I'd seen enough of those really strange phrasings in a particular story to conclude that about the author (the writing was otherwise good enough so as not to make me think it was just a poor writer who didn't know how to phrase things well, period), and so told him it was a good effort for someone branching into a non-native language. Turns out that wasn't the case at all. Only time I've been wrong about that.
Yay for no more covid! And working AC!
Oooooh, I have a nickname. I like it.
And yeah, my bad. I should have paid more attention to the Pony Fiction Archive's planned shutdown. Everything on there was supposed to have been transferred to AO3 by now, but no luck so far. I just hope it's not gone forever.
It was an older fic (pre-S1 finale, pre-FiMfic) that I originally found through a glowing review on Chris's old blog. Wanted to give it some more spotlight, but now it might never get the chance. Oh well. Thanks for being willing to read it anyway.
I've never heard that particular Simong & Garfunkel song before, but now that I have, I can recognize the reference to it in that song Ponky wrote for SS&E forever ago. Funny how all this obscure stuff loops back around.
I now feel very obligated to read Minor Details, but the biggest reason would be that cover art. Look at it. They're each wearing earrings with the other's cutie mark. That is the most sickeningly sweet thing I have seen in some time.
Really happy you liked Minor Details!, I think it's great too. Mind you, I note that Tchernobog currently has a 100% WHYRTY? hit rate after three of your reviews, and that's impressive enough on its own. Looking forward to your thoughts on The Archetypist in particular from the next selection, when it's up.
Man, it has been a long time since I last thought about the Apple Scratch series.
Also, if I may defend the cartoonishly evil villains in said fic, I think the last few years have proven that such people exist and that there are people who do stupid, evil things for no apparent reason other than for the sake of being evil
5675832
Sometimes I do worry about that. I mean, on the one hand, if someone's a non-native speaker then we should account for that. On the other hand, what if they're not and they bad write just?
5675842
*Addresses the adorable nature of wearing matching earrings.*
*Fails to notice adorable marshmallow ponies being adorable.*
...
I do get your point, though.
5675854
I noticed that too once I finished up the review. I'll have to be more aggressive about reading Tchernobog's material.
5675971
Whether they exist or not isn't the point. It's a question of how every bad guy in the AppleScratch series is like that. I mean, come on, give us some variety.
5676000
Fair.
Sad to have it stated out loud, but I confessed that all the flaws you've mentioned are there!
I hope I made better efforts in the stories that I have worked after Summer at the farm (it's the oldest story i have on this site after all), even if I didn't have the drive to sadly finish them yet.....
Thanks for the review any way!