A Dream of Fate Review
By: Deathpony45

Story: A Dream of Fate
Author: Pheonix12

Commentary

Okay first official review for the group and I'm super excited about this review and this story. It was a good story that I really enjoyed to read so I'm glad this fun story is going to be my first review.

Execution/Presentation

Point of View

So this story is from the viewpoint of Twilight Sparkle but it's mainly told in a third person viewpoint. The main point of view in this story is a reflection through a time in Twilights life which was very consistently kept throughout the story it never strays from Twilight. Not much improvement here though some of the verbiage is rather narrow not really moving much passed "looked into," when describing Twilights actions into the story and since it is a big point there is some diversifying that could really help with the descriptions in the story but other than that POV was pretty solid in this story.

Overall Style

Much of the setting in this story was implied assuming that the reader knew Ponyville and the places Twilight was going background description was lacking and focused more on the interactions in the story which it very much should have done.

The two main figures in this story were Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia and both were written rather in character though Celestia particularly seemed very aloof to Twilights distress in the story which does seem a bit off for her though it works for well for the plot it doesn't quite seem right for her.

Twilight on the other hand is characterized beautifully, acting much like she would during any sort of experiment excited at the prospect of creating something yet when the ramifications of her actions become clear to her she becomes desperate for a solution and, like any sane pony, once she realizes that there's nothing she can do no matter what and after witnessing everything the spell makes her witness she becomes apathetic towards everything. Though her final actions do seem a bit extreme when confronted with the reality of everything she has been through it is clear she believes it is the only choice, and one can see how she draw that conclusion. So though Celestia was a bit off the depiction of Twilight's descent is truly beautifully characterized.

Flow

The story was very fast paced and written in only a few thousand words. While this isn't necessarily bad the story could have easily been extended and certain situations could have been more developed to give the story a better overall flow. There was a certain scene and I'm going to have to go ahead and put this here but SPOILERS BELOW:

During the second act of the story there is a scene where Rainbow Dash dies in an accident that Twilight had seen due to her future sight spell. The scene is only vaguely described and very quickly introduced and over and includes a quick stop by the other four from the gang at Twilight's house. This scene was very short and almost felt like a missed opportunity a more in depth explanation of the event of Dash's death followed by an actual scene at Twilights house other than just two or three paragraphs saying that it happened would've vastly improved the narrative and given even more visible weight to Twilight that the reader could see develop to assist in showing the mares downward spiral.

END SPOILERS.

Mood

Intended Mood

What I got from this story is that the writer intended for the mood to be very grim a walk through a very dark time in Twilights life several dark events occurring leading to the mares decline into apathy, and this mood was portrayed quite well. The tone at the beginning of the story was, as usual for Twi, energetic and hopeful.

Though it did have an almost distracting amount of foreshadowing including lots of stuff along the lines of "what a mistake that was," type of deals really trying to cram the somberness down the readers throat early on. The story will quickly go downhill and that's plain to see so these lines seem to distract from the original mood the story should've had at the beginning.

Now the rest of the story does well to develop a somber tone describing several examples throughout brief moments typically very close in succession and then there's a big timeskip in events that implies and skips a lot of development for Twilight that could've been nice. Maybe the timeskip should've been shorter or there should've been a few moments in between either way there seems to be an obvious break during those points during which a lot happens to Twilight. But the overall somber tone was well developed throughout the story and very clear that that was the point.

Grammar

Now I'm not the best at looking for grammar problems in stories as grammar is not my fortê, but I was pretty lucky with this story. There weren't any glaring issues in grammar that distracted me from the overall prose and only a few minor issues here and there nothing major and definitely nothing distracting. Giving this story a solid B in the grammar department. (P.S. Thank you for having good grammar!)

Tips

So tips for improvement. A lot of them are scattered throughout the review but I'll give them a quick overhaul down here. There are several scenes that seem underdeveloped and could've been very good scenes had they been expanded upon. Grammar diversification would've helped a great deal with the interest and description in the story. And finally the big flow interruption between Twi in Ponyville and at her parents house could've been filled in and drastically
Improved the story greatly.

Rating:

And now the moment you've all been waiting for my official rating for this story. And that rating is {insert drumroll here}

I RECOMMEND THIS STORY!

It was a fun read filled with interesting situations and a very well written, yet gloomy, Twilight. Overall successful with its intended mood and a fun read for those in the mood for a bit of a downer story. So go on read this thing it's pretty good.

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Thanks for taking you time to review the story. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This story is currently what I believe to be one of my best which is why I submitted it to this group for review.

...some of the verbiage is rather narrow not really moving much passed "looked into," when describing Twilights actions...

You're not the first one to point this out. Really I had though about changing it but then I relased... Twilight in the nerrator and at the point she's telling the story she's kinda emotionally dead so I don't think she'd care to narrate with style... which also is a decent narrative explanation to the style and omission of anything deemed 'unimportant' such as what was skipped by or glossed over. Very seldom did I let any actually emotion show though, mostly was regret or anger at the situation what little came though.

Next time if I manage to catch the folder when open I'll post up my first ever story, maybe you'll be the one to review it also.

Oh and on a completely unrelated to the actual review part of your review. You didn't name the thread in accordance to the groups naming rules... [Review/Commentary]Tittle{Tag} *Rating* So really this thread should be called [Review] A Dream of Fate {Dark} *RECOMMEND* ...just saying.

For the opinion of one of the tougher reviewers...

The writing was enjoyable, if a bit dull. It is possible to present a sociopathic character (the direction Twilight was headed in the end) in a way that's still engaging. In fact, it can be some of the most disturbing stuff you'll see.

But, my bigger issue is actually with the central conflict. The idea that you can't fight fate. Not on that premise alone, that would be ridiculous. But rather, we're never shown any reason why not. I had a similar problem with another well-reviewed fic in the group: Magic Can't Make Foals. The argument that something in the nature of magic or reality itself opposes the protagonist's wishes is fine, but it's a very weak antagonistic force if we don't know why or how. In both this story and that one, These Things Are Because They Just Are.

For comparison, let's look at a couple Doctor Who episodes. In both Fires of Pompeii and Waters of Mars (I just realized that parallel. Why did you ever leave us, Russell T Davies?), the Doctor encounters fixed points in time — moments of such momentous consequence that even a Time Lord dare not change them. In Fires, the Doctor realizes that saving the city of Pompeii would doom the rest of humanity to conquest by the pyrovilians. In Waters, the Doctor attempts to intervene regardless, and very nearly derails humanity from reaching the stars.

Of course, there's always the trope origin, Oedipus Rex. But even there, we see consequences. In attempting to avert their son's fate, Laius and Jocasta only manage to set him on the course to fulfilling it.

I just think this really need to play out a bit longer, and fill in more. Show Twilight trying to change things, rather than just taking Celestia at her word, only to cause even more terrible things in the attempt. And then she tries to fix those, causing even more problems. Then she can go after Celestia, once Celestia confronts her on all the damage she's done.

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You're probably right in most of those accounts. Though I do feel like I accomplished what I set out to do in the story. I know not everyone will like how I did things but I personally like it and most.

Also looking back on my own story I see some interesting plot lines and subtext that I didn't even mean to put in that somehow are there...Like how the concept of fighting fate seems to be the main conflict though in actually it's not Twilight trying to fight it. Fate give Twilight the tools to save Rainbow's life and the life of many others and then Celestia prevented Twilight from doing so. Thus Celestia was the one who fought against the machinations of fate causing the train of consequences which lead to what we see in the end of the story. Though Twi probably gets some of the blame for listening to her mentor and teacher on that subject... probably in some alt-timeline she didn't listen and everything turned out fine.

Really for a story that literally came to me in a dream it turned out pretty good.