mordane stronghoof review as of chapter 40

so just starting things out being super brutal id give this story a 2-3.5/10 as a whole without its milestones for now im currently on the last 3 chapters and this story from start to finish just astounds me with how it can basically be a gold nugget surrounded by dogshit, il just get it outta the way this story has many flaws but the goods parts about it somehow turn it from some trash you read for dumb fun or toss to the side after the first 3 chapters not even remembering its name after the days over to something that with a lite rewrite could stand to be as equally good, creative, or fun to read as legendary stories such as bad mondays or prey and the lamb or i know not everyone will agree, diaries of a madman , however i mean no disrespect toward the author as unlike many stories he actually gets somewhat better as chapters fly by it has so many flaws it makes me groan but the underlying skeleton of the story just pulls me in dragging me across each chapter wanting more building into a crescendo that makes me think its easy a 8/10 or even a 9.5/10

the flaws are many but its more like some minor things overall that somewhat Lessing as time goes on (before we start apparently its technically a crossover with morrowind ??? or so i heard really weird and as far as i know never mentioned kinda weird not bad) some of the major things are how dynamically weird the pacing is like it goes from what a 20k stories pace should be to a 500,000k+ story ALMOST as sudden as a car crash when major plot points happen, a related problem that flares up in my mind after reading most of it is how not even 1/3 in the story and i could tell how he wrote the story, which is to write a scenario of mordane interacting with or doing something interesting and then after the fact sewing them together like a kid smashing together legos although about half way through the story rough he is basically self exile outside of equestria (in a rather cringey way thats everyones done but at lest he stuck to his guns) once outside he does a little soul searching and wanders around basically doing side quests until he gets sold to slavery after that the quality of the story jumped up but was equally confusing makes me wonder if he just copy and pasted stuff from morrowind because of the arena and slavery thing along with the more syrim ish ness nature that permeates the story from now on ( i aint complaining its a good read)

another problem is the love life and trauma aspect of the story, ya boy mardane has like 3 girlfriends kind of and like another 3 who wanna bone him, if i remember correctly starchaser? his first died in a vary "i don't care" way like he establishes him and her hitting it off very quick and then what almost killed the story was when they mind linked for stupid plot reasons he basically blabs about him being secretly a alicorn and a human almost immediately ( i also don't know why he went to a bar i think and then after hearing a couple of rogues talk about needing a unicorn just goes " guess il join some merc as they go treasure hunting to the dangerous forest because .............grofit?) and then because the old tried and true " beat up henchman so the boss is angry and then he confronts you and kills someone you know and taunts you over it like a villain talking about how your too weak manically " < looking at many fanfictions over the years this is fairly common] and because of course the guy kills his first love because cliché after that he has a fling with scootaloo that's really outta left field and boringly sounds like it waas ripped outta of a well written clopfic, after that anymare thats plot significant feels like they have a isekai crush on mardane some come to mind trixie, swirl the slave owner and princess platnium descendent and maybe kind of hinted at twilight, and luna and maybe as a joke pinkie

the only bad part about how he handled trauma was how he seemed to overblow everything like how when he went to confront his demons so to speak he has a main love interest back when he was a human basically introduced, story and death in the same chapter along with heavy emphasize on star chaser as some deep scar from a mare he briefly encountered when he was 10yo the way it as resolved was kind of pathetic and should of been cut as it pretty much didn't have any weigh with at best background characters as his demons with him magically just "changing to push forward never look back" almost in a single paragraph it felt with multiple chapters of him getting the same lesson from various characters without realizing it making him moving on seem like a hollow character growth trick to make the new mentor of the week seem memorable i still think it would of been better to have him be torn up about boulder, stalker, and the ponies he let die during the seige on lunas fortress or even the pointless 50 ponies that died during the holy shit wtf going on diamond dog part where you just yeet 50 ponies outta know where and make a stupid grudge from lyra becuase he killed lyra and also sweetie almost died

small note is how characters seem to go from me being able to understand them to a gibbering pile of shit whenever they grand stand or soapbox their philosophy on others

========================================================================================================================

now i know i basically ranted on about how bad the story is but let met tell you the good parts of the story are basically a diamond in the rough one in a million miracle of goodness for once in a blue fucking moon a character has a secret and doesn't slyly hint then info dump to any character who justs askes nicely a bit rough on the execution but after starchaser its actually doesn't get reveal but is hinted at until about 1/3 into the story and then the vast majority of the cast doesn't find out till almost 30+ chapters in roughly bravo for not blowing your load early on top of that just because he's a alicorn doesn't mean hes a immortal demi god he actually is fairly weak but gets stronger and doesn't jump in power lv actually realistically climbs the latter so to speak and isn't just a hunk of a pony all mares drool at and while i think star chaser is a rather poor female character to morn about the execution of him grieving over her is actually well portrayed and still mention her every once and a while as a personal demon he must confront one day

on top about mardane i think having him as a pony conflict with his nataure as a human wasd potrayted well and a well needed breath of fresh air compared to near all mlp ocs turned pony where they just drop everthing from their past and jump onto being a pony, even more is that he isnt some edgy alicorn of death or black and red or some overy cringey color scheme and his personality is fairly genuine compared to a human not edge lord xX cracking jokes and beating the shit outta eveyone

another great thing i liked was how while annoying at times most of the normal cast cast actually stay mostly in character although rainbow dash and apple jack are rarely mentioned and the grim portrayal of ponyville after the diamond dog attack is done amazing well on top of that he even show how they cope and even has spike be a real g and while not fixing everything in a paragraph does in my opinion organically portray how the cannon cast would move on from this and its ripples are felt across the story it doesnt end at the end of the chapter on top of that the fairly well done dynamic and personality of celestia and luna and the civil war fairly good although by the point I'm reading she isn't goddess celestia so that portion of the story is fairly well done

another thing is the grammar and the flow while theirs a half dozen times in the story where the author forgot to put a word or two in or used the wrong word that shattered my immersion it was overall a fairly passable story grammar wise and the only way i could see someone complain about it is if they are a grammar nazi and while the pacing is trash the flow of the words in the story is so really good and hide the pacing problem that had to be pointed out to me before i could see it and even then it wasn't a big deal just a small nit pick a weird one to tack on though is while i could care less about this "war magic" (stupid name and concept) it did help give some characters some more indivuality and uniqueness

now i may have ripped into it a bit but even i couldn't explain all the problems i had with it after 300k+ story or even all the good i still think its crazy how a story with this much flaws and rocky start could still be one of the best fimfiction story to date easily a 9/10