Within the walls of Stable Eighty Eight, a new kind of war has been fought. A kind of war the likes of which have never been seen within the magical land of Equestria. A class war.
Whats that? Dooms first anthro review? Could that mean... Yes that is right folks REVIEW TIME!
I must admit that I was rather entertained by the thought of an anthro FO:E story, but seeing how strongly this is smelling of social commentary... No pardon, I have to speak freely about how I feel about this, how this are force feeding social commentary down my throat with class, gender and "coloured faction" (the last one hopefully being a bad joke since, firstly, you can get more kinds of coloured ponies than you can get coloured flowers. And secondly that the ponies clearly stand united as one strong nation, one unified "race", one single genome. A ponies coat is like a humans hair, and unless Stable-tec suddenly became very very interested in blue eyes and yellow mane can I really not see how that could be any issue). Social commentary can be fun at times, can even be what there makes some certain stories work, but the rule of "show, don't tell" is really important to remember.
In my eyes does this "chapter zero", (my advice to the writer would be to change it to "prologue" which are more commonly used) try way way way too hard. It is clear that there are a lot to tell since this isn't the setting of Pip and company, something that are said clearly in the Author's Note, but each thing at their time and place. I would ask the author to think back on both Fo3 and NV, remember how the player got thrown into the land with a quick quick intro that told about the world situation and that was that, if the player wanted to know more about the world would he have to explore the world and play on. Do something a bit the same here, hint at things, paint a picture to set your story in, don't make people feel like they are reading up from a history book. One way to lighten this story and give it a bit more room is to tell the story trough the eyes of a character. How are the story showing that the stable are ruled by a stallion and shows that this stable are more "manly? Have the Overstallion speak over the PA system, and have a "weak" character, such as a filly, look seek comfort at a stronger character, such as her father. Jump a bit between character interaction and disposition, one segment character interaction reflecting some of the deeper themes of the story, then some disposition that quickly comes with needed data, apply, rinse, repeat.
I do know that this maybe sound a bit harsh, but what can I say, Rome was not built on one day, nor sugar coated words. I do hope that the writer will see this not as a slaughter of his work, but instead as the blueprint to mark 2.0 that will shine a bit more than this did.
As a little last note, if you are going to make an anthro story, please show that the story are with anthro ponies. I do know that this are the intro, but this could just as well have been elves, ocelots or for that matter regular non magical ponies that could have taken up the roles in your story without any change for what we have now.
Nitpickery: "ByTallestbrony" You are lacking a space here. "Stable EightyEight sought to change this." You are lacking a space in the name here. "The three hundred were divided into three categories" For the rest of the story do you use the expression "class" instead, so I would make an edit there if I were you. You do know that you could have boiled all of this "The Equestrian nation lived in a female-centric lifestyle. It wasn’t that females had more rights than males; or that they were vastly more numerous. Females simply held more positions of power out of sheer luck. The leader of the Wonderbolts, female. The leaders of the Ministries, females" down to one single world more or less right? Gynecocracy, or matriarchy for that matter. There are no real reason to explain such things when there are so simple words that cover it all.
5646315 Huh, a review. I've never really had on of these before. I'm not sure if I'm suppose to respond... but whatevs. Down the list I go!
The colored factions was a reference to Fallout New Vegas.
I called it chapter zero because I thought I was being smart. It's the chapter before the story begins, and like you said, most stories just put prologue. I guess it didn't work...
Oddly enough, I also love exploratory stories as well! But I decided to change it up a bit differently for this. This story doesn't follow the guideline of Fo3 or NV, but it's made up of those two worlds. I feel that if you're reading this you know how those began. I didn't want to waste time getting into the nitty gritty of those details. It simply didn't seem appealing to me.
As for the eyes of the character part, it is going to be first person throughout the rest. As stated before, this chapter was basically the prologue.
Thank you for the nit picking, I'll fix those right away!
And lastly; I could have boiled that last part down into one easy made sentence, but that would be quick and too direct. I wanted to drive home the mentality of how the Stable creators viewed the world. That way, it would make more sense as to why they did what they did.
Thanks for the review! I really appreciate you taking the time to look over my work and give an honest opinion about it! If it wouldn't be too much to ask, could I interest you into looking into my other works?
What a start. Good job TB! I have a feeling this is going to have large amounts of clop. Keep up the good work!
5595816 There will (at first), but that won't be the focus of the story.
5595826 I figured that much. Welp, great start and happy writing!
Awesome, there's not many Anthro versions of these.
Whats that? Dooms first anthro review? Could that mean... Yes that is right folks REVIEW TIME!
I must admit that I was rather entertained by the thought of an anthro FO:E story, but seeing how strongly this is smelling of social commentary... No pardon, I have to speak freely about how I feel about this, how this are force feeding social commentary down my throat with class, gender and "coloured faction" (the last one hopefully being a bad joke since, firstly, you can get more kinds of coloured ponies than you can get coloured flowers. And secondly that the ponies clearly stand united as one strong nation, one unified "race", one single genome. A ponies coat is like a humans hair, and unless Stable-tec suddenly became very very interested in blue eyes and yellow mane can I really not see how that could be any issue). Social commentary can be fun at times, can even be what there makes some certain stories work, but the rule of "show, don't tell" is really important to remember.
In my eyes does this "chapter zero", (my advice to the writer would be to change it to "prologue" which are more commonly used) try way way way too hard. It is clear that there are a lot to tell since this isn't the setting of Pip and company, something that are said clearly in the Author's Note, but each thing at their time and place. I would ask the author to think back on both Fo3 and NV, remember how the player got thrown into the land with a quick quick intro that told about the world situation and that was that, if the player wanted to know more about the world would he have to explore the world and play on. Do something a bit the same here, hint at things, paint a picture to set your story in, don't make people feel like they are reading up from a history book.
One way to lighten this story and give it a bit more room is to tell the story trough the eyes of a character. How are the story showing that the stable are ruled by a stallion and shows that this stable are more "manly? Have the Overstallion speak over the PA system, and have a "weak" character, such as a filly, look seek comfort at a stronger character, such as her father. Jump a bit between character interaction and disposition, one segment character interaction reflecting some of the deeper themes of the story, then some disposition that quickly comes with needed data, apply, rinse, repeat.
I do know that this maybe sound a bit harsh, but what can I say, Rome was not built on one day, nor sugar coated words. I do hope that the writer will see this not as a slaughter of his work, but instead as the blueprint to mark 2.0 that will shine a bit more than this did.
As a little last note, if you are going to make an anthro story, please show that the story are with anthro ponies. I do know that this are the intro, but this could just as well have been elves, ocelots or for that matter regular non magical ponies that could have taken up the roles in your story without any change for what we have now.
Nitpickery:
"ByTallestbrony" You are lacking a space here.
"Stable EightyEight sought to change this." You are lacking a space in the name here.
"The three hundred were divided into three categories" For the rest of the story do you use the expression "class" instead, so I would make an edit there if I were you.
You do know that you could have boiled all of this "The Equestrian nation lived in a female-centric lifestyle. It wasn’t that females had more rights than males; or that they were vastly more numerous. Females simply held more positions of power out of sheer luck. The leader of the Wonderbolts, female. The leaders of the Ministries, females" down to one single world more or less right? Gynecocracy, or matriarchy for that matter. There are no real reason to explain such things when there are so simple words that cover it all.
5646315 Huh, a review. I've never really had on of these before. I'm not sure if I'm suppose to respond... but whatevs. Down the list I go!
The colored factions was a reference to Fallout New Vegas.
I called it chapter zero because I thought I was being smart. It's the chapter before the story begins, and like you said, most stories just put prologue. I guess it didn't work...
Oddly enough, I also love exploratory stories as well! But I decided to change it up a bit differently for this. This story doesn't follow the guideline of Fo3 or NV, but it's made up of those two worlds. I feel that if you're reading this you know how those began. I didn't want to waste time getting into the nitty gritty of those details. It simply didn't seem appealing to me.
As for the eyes of the character part, it is going to be first person throughout the rest. As stated before, this chapter was basically the prologue.
Thank you for the nit picking, I'll fix those right away!
And lastly; I could have boiled that last part down into one easy made sentence, but that would be quick and too direct. I wanted to drive home the mentality of how the Stable creators viewed the world. That way, it would make more sense as to why they did what they did.
Thanks for the review! I really appreciate you taking the time to look over my work and give an honest opinion about it! If it wouldn't be too much to ask, could I interest you into looking into my other works?
Brony on!
Yes! Finally, a real reason for clop to be implemented!