P.O.N.Y: Police Operative and Nonpareil Youths
By GodSaveTheKings

Reviewed by Rinnaul

Oh god I got one of the long ones again.

Why do I hate myself?

Well, I know the answer to that, but this is hardly the place to discuss my self-image.

Today’s entry presents me with a dilemma. Several, actually. The biggest one is that I am, right off the bat, rather inclined to hate it. Why is that, you ask? Well, again, lots of reasons. Just keep reading.

Quick Recommendation: Effectively an original work containing many MLP references, this is best enjoyed without the show in mind at all. Even then, it has many flaws.

Oh, where to begin… One would normally say “at the beginning”, but in this case, we’re going to start slightly before — the opening Author Note.

The following story is a re-imagining of the events of the show, and is technically not a fanfiction, for the actual connection to the base product is quite limited. If you want to read a story about the actual characters from the show, this wasn't made for you, and you will not enjoy it. You might as well just leave now without reading onward, for this story will serve no further purpose. The story was made to depict an alternate variation of the show, and will not change in any way from its stated premise.

If you do actually plan to read this, understand what it is before beginning. This story contains content that some may find extremely offensive or unlikable, so be warned. Of course, some may find it perfectly fine, but this story was specifically made contain unpleasant material, as was its purpose.

First, the confrontational tone is pretty off-putting, and leaves me inclined to dislike the story regardless of the content. It’s like those directors who respond to criticism by declaring that their movies aren’t made for critics.

The writing is a bit purple, and there are places where it becomes awkward in its attempts to shoehorn in just a bit more description or meandering rumination. But more noticeable is the fact that we’re clearly on Earth — Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are mentioned specifically. And then, we get to the names.

Twilight Sparkle is not in this story. A human girl named Tara Sullivan, who acts rather like Twilight, is here instead.

First, I’m gonna throw out a small complaint that can sometimes have a big impact on the enjoyment of a humanized story: Don’t name humanized or “real world” characters after their voice actors. It just feels weird. We already kind of know the person whose name you’re using, so it can feel like you’re literally writing the story about said VA. Now, the fact that Twilight was voices by Tara Strong and you named her human counterpart Tara Sullivan may be entirely coincidental… but similar things come up often enough that I doubt it.

Oh, right. Pretty much none of the rest of the mane six appear, either.

There is no Applejack. There is a country girl named Victoria Black, though. Although she’s actually an undercover operative named Anna-Jean Balle, and as AJ was voice by Ashleigh Ball, this is number two on the VA names gimmick.

There is no Fluttershy. There’s a shy animal lover named Fiona instead.

Rainbow Dash isn’t here, but her counterpart is often called “Dash” as a nickname… Though our short-tempered sporty one’s real name is Rebecca Dawson. Also, she’s characterized as an absolute bitch. If I was guessing who this character was based on, without being told her name, I’d actually assume it was Sunset Shimmer from when she was still evil.

There is a Pinkie, but it’s spelled Pinky, and her last name is Patrikson rather than Pie. Also she’s a drug addict, and that’s why she acts the way she does.

Finally, Rarity’s counterpart is one Rachel Germain (number three on our VA names).

Oh yeah, and Spike’s there, but he’s human too, and they spell it Spyke for some reason. And he dies in the first chapter, so it’s hardly relevant, anyway.

By this point, this is sounding barely pony-related — like the opening chapters of a Five Score story. And I can’t help but be reminded of another review I did.

But after all of those exceptions, what do you have left? They’re not ponies. They’re not in a setting we recognize. The main character isn’t from the show. The ideals the show puts forth are totally absent. And the characters only vaguely resemble the ones we know.

Once you take all of those things out, the only things keeping this from being original real-world fiction are names and skin colors.

And here we are, with a story that went that one step further and removed the technicolor cast and gave them normal human names. At this point, is this a My Little Pony fanfiction, or is it an original work that happens to include references to MLP?

And yes, that is a problem.

See, one of my big things is characterization. It’s important to me that the cast behave in a manner that befits their depiction on the show (and sometimes comics when they’re not being too over the top). In this case, Fluttershy is being a bit too afraid of Twilight. But while that would be wrong for Fluttershy, this isn’t Fluttershy, it’s Fiona. Can I talk about character at all beyond just liking or disliking one in particular, or finding them believable?

They’re too much OCs to be the originals, but too obviously based on the originals for me to see them as OCs.

It’s rather like my dislike for Twilight Sparkle: Night Shift. That’s a perfectly workable story that befits its massive popularity… so long as you don’t mind that everyone is frequently out of character. I might even like it if the mane six weren’t involved, and instead it starred characters that were explicitly original to the author.

But back to this story.

"What?! Is it laugh like a laugh dog?! Like a laugh pet?! Hahahaha!"

...laugh pet? I don’t even understand this. But besides that, writing out “hahaha” as laughter doesn’t really work all that often. It’s generally best used when the character isn’t necessarily laughing, such as a forced or sarcastic laugh.

"Oh, it's funny alright! (laugh) In fact, it may (laugh) be the funniest thing (laugh) I ever heard!

Inserting it that way really isn’t any better.

Also, the rest of that scene becomes rather confusing in hindsight, once we find out the truth about AJ Tori later in the chapter.

Another issue here. While the story seems to be third limited following Tara, none of Tori’s emotions are indicated via action. They’re always told. She doesn’t ball her fists up or grab Tara with a quivering arm, she just “point(s) angrily”, when the story doesn’t say outright “Tori's embarrassment was slowly turning into anger”.

"Fiona…" thought Tori aloud, thinking of the aforementioned girl that Tara was looking for. "Isn't she that girl with the really long pink hair…"

"Yes…"

"…and always wears a hoodie…"

"Yes…"

"…and she has a lot major social problems?"

This is a pretty heavy-handed way of forcing in a description, and it leads into a gag that really only works in a visual medium.

I’m pretty sure Fiona is even more socially awkward than Fluttershy ever was, and this once again highlights the issues with this almost-them-but-not-quite thing. One of the strengths of fanfiction is that the readers are, by and large, are already familiar with the characters. However, while this saves the author time and effort in establishing said characters, it means the characters carry certain expectations of behavior, as well. Characters who don’t act in a manner the reader expects break immersion and take the reader out of the story.

Twilight would never mock Applejack for giving a nickname to a memento of her parents. Maybe Tara would, but because Tara is so obviously based on Twilight, we expect her to be Twilight, and the behavior feels out of character.

Fluttershy isn’t so socially incapable that she’s this guarded around her friends. Maybe Fiona is, but… Rainbow Dash is brusque and sometimes rude, but well-meaning. Maybe Rebecca-Dash is a verbally abusive bitch, but… And so on.

On that note, “out of character” aside, this take on Rainbow Dash is about as unlikable as possible. She’s a condescending, aggressive, insulting bitch, and she has more in common with Gilda or Sunset before their reformations than with Dash on the show, even at her worst.

Does making Pinkie Pie a cocaine user accomplish anything beyond making this story’s world a slightly more terrible place?

And Dash keeps talking about the sheeple like a teenager who just watched Fight Club for the first time and took the wrong message from it. Author, are you honestly trying to make people hate her?

Okay, and then the assault.

I’m going to go ahead and ignore how this was done for now and instead question the girls’ reaction to it. Tara running in a blind panic makes sense. But her having a casual conversation with Dash in the middle of it all? They’re too calm — just saying that Dash was “too panicked to slow her erratic speech” doesn’t help much when the rest of the scene doesn’t support that assertion.

and she had the knowledge that

You’re better off just saying “she knew”. The awkward phrasing doesn’t add anything. Plus, this is another example of your drifting POV.

Why is Fiona acting like hiding in a closet was shameful? A small army just invaded their campus and started slaughtering people. She’s the single most rational character in this whole thing so far. How did she do enough damage with a book to draw blood, anyway?

Why are they arguing about the car? Why not just escape as a group?

And to be honest, I cringe a bit every time I see the name “Spyke”.

Also, Spyke’s death. Seriously, it was so sudden and with so little fanfare, after almost zero story presence, that it really felt like the author just hated him and wanted an excuse to kill him off.

Don’t we find out AJ is some kind of secret agent or something? Why is Pinkie a better shot than her just from playing with her dad’s gun? I mean, I know it’s a trope in this fandom that Pinkie always has epic ranks in whatever skill the narrative needs at any given point, but either make it a total joke or give a bit more explanation than that.

Thanks for bringing up Tara’s gunshot wound again. It should be a bigger deal than it is.

But, I've been training as a government agent since I was five.

And Pinkie’s still the better shot. But still, seriously? She’s basically American Natasha Romanova? After a certain point, these sort of reveals just get silly.

"That sounds like the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life," Dash groaned. "There is no chance in hell that you are that special.

Despite my earlier animosity towards her, I find myself agreeing with Dash 100% in this case. They raided and massacred an entire school just to take out a single 18-year-old secret agent? Seriously. An attack like that would be the new 9/11. The organization behind it wouldn’t be the target of this forcibly-acronymed little secret club. Public outcry would have them the target of the entire government and military, with international support.

The news came as relatively shocking.

Don’t use weakening adverbs to dull down your narrative. There are a few cases where that works, but only really when the POV character or narrative voice is being deliberately blasé for either comedic or dramatic effect. Also, the phrase is “came as a shock”, not shocking.

None of them had combat experience, and they all panicked during the shooting. None of them saw how any rational person would ever choose to perform such an operation.

Those are some good points. Yeah, the flexibility of thought that younger people have is really no substitute for the training, experience, self-discipline, and knowledge that come with age.

And oh, the floating POV in this next segment…

I mean, Pinky, you get a chance to do that crazy gun shit."

Pinky hadn't really considered it, but she supposed it did give her a chance to improve her gunmanship.

That’s not really the strongest motivator.

"And Rachel, you can avenge Spyke's death by kicking his killers' teeth in." Rachel thought about it. Avenging Spyke's death seemed like a good reason to gain revenge.

Tired of putting spoilers on that one. You’ve all looked by now, anyway. Also, “to avenge” means “to take revenge”. Rarity Rachel’s reason is “to avenge Spyke by avenging Spyke”, and the two barely had any screen time together to convince us she’d care enough for that.

"Fiona, you got to do it. After all, you won't let the whole world down now, would you?" continued Dash, gaining more confidence in her decision.

And I thought Pinkie’s rationalization was flimsy.

"No way. You people are all insane. You're just going to give up your lives and go fight bad guys with zero experience. You'll get slaughtered. Besides, I have a life to live. I have my future planned out already. And I am not sacrificing it to go play superhero."

Congratulations, not-Twilight. You’re rational.

"Why do you think the cops never showed up to the college?" AJ asked. Tara pasued, never having truly thought about it before.

"Um…" Tara could not think of an explanation.

"It's cause the footage was jacked. The attackers have seen us together, they know we are associated," Anna-Jean forcefully told Tara. "Now you're a target, and your family's a target."

Or nevermind. Thanks a lot, diabolus ex machina.

"Please Sombra, we're terrorists," Discord said

The fact that the villains share their names with the show’s villains is actually the strongest link to the source material thus far. Not that anybody ever calls themselves terrorists. Nor can I buy Discord being anyone’s underling, rather than an ultimate wild card like the Joker, or Padain Fain of The Wheel of Time.

"Hey, Spark, why don't you mind your own fucking business for once, huh?" Dash said. Tara was puzzled.

"Spark?" Tara questioned.

"Yeah," said Dash, shrugging. "That's my new nickname for you. Came up with it last night. I'm quite proud of it."

"But, why Spark?" asked Tara.

"Simple. You remind of lightning. Really loud and annoying." said Dash simply, ignoring the glare she was receiving.

"That doesn't even make sense,"

And I’m on Twilight’s side this time. That was painfully forced and makes no sense.

And shooting at them to motivate them to keep running the day after they were in the middle of a school shooting. Never mind that Training From Hell doesn’t actually work, or that human bodies do simply have physical limitations, it’s just a good thing that PTSD doesn’t exist in fiction.

At approximately 6:15 AM, Rachel's legs finally gave up on her. She collapsed to the ground, unable to move. Her head was spinning, and she was unable to see anything clearly. She was fairly certain that she was going to vomit. Her legs had gone numb, and pain rushed in and out of her chest with every breath. She thought she was going to die, as she felt herself being hoisted off the ground by an unknown person. Suddenly she was tossed in the air, and landed in the pool in the center of the track. Instinct kicked in, and she grabbed on to the side of the pool, holding herself above the cold water. She gasped for a breath, and looked up at the laughing rainbow-haired girl who had unkindly tossed her in the pool.

Where to begin… Okay, first up, 50 laps on a regulation track is about 12 miles. As I said, the body simply has limits. Eventually, the less-athletic girls (Tara, Fiona, and Rachel) are just going to collapse and be unable to move anymore, no matter what AJ does to them — and it will be long before the three-hour mark. My wife and her oldest brother are both track runners, and said brother is also a marine. They recently ran a 15-mile course, and her time was 3:27:22.8, with him just ahead (due to hanging back to keep pace with her). The fastest runners took about an hour and a half to two hours, so about twelve miles per hour. For reference, Usain Bolt set the world record when he hit 27.78 MPH in a 100-meter. Three hours should be closer to Dash’s time than Rachel’s.

Next, the numb legs, etc. Pushing herself that hard, after no preparation at all, is going to leave her with severe shin splints. She’s going to have trouble walking, never mind training, for the next few days. And then getting thrown in the pool — between the extreme muscle fatigue and instant cramping, someone had better get her out of there quick before she drowns.

And that’s not even going into all the other things that can happen to you when you do hard running.

Now, I’m not going to deny that inflicting those things on Rarity of all people would be hilarious, and you’d even get some niche fetish material in there. Don’t believe me? I bet you could get on 4chan right now and find at least one thread of “women in pain shitting themselves”.

Not that you should look for that.

...but I think you’re intending this to be a bit more serious.

When Rachel had collapsed, Dash had decided to get payback for their earlier disagreement. It only seemed reasonable to her. Rachel needed to understand not to insult the most talented, athletic, charming, and just plain awesome member of their little dysfunctional team. Or at least, that was how Dash understood things.

It’s hard to be more telly than outright explaining character motivation in narrative after their actions.

Her second purpose was more for semantics. She knew well enough what happened when white clothing got wet, so she kept her arms right up against her breasts, so as not to expose herself to her peers.

Semantics is the study of the meaning of language. I think you’re looking for “modesty”, or “propriety”, or “decency”.

After reviewing the situation, AJ knew she was stuck with half-soldiers.

You are giving them far too much credit.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM

I think this line speaks for itself.

And… I’m skimming anymore, and nothing is really holding my interest. I’m pretty sure any readers who aren’t hooked by now are already going to have dropped it, so I think I’ll do the same.

There are a lot of problems here, both in presentation and concept.

As far as presentation goes, misused phrases and misused words are both common problems, but the most egregious one is the ever-shifting point of view. A story will generally stick to one POV, though one style, Third-Person Multiple, allows for many. A Limited POV tends to stick to a single character, while an Omniscient POV gives equal treatment to all characters while having a strong narrative voice independent of the characters. This story could almost be Omniscient POV, but the narrative voice is very weak. Also, it follows Tara more than anyone, with Tori and Dash being distant seconds.

It could also nearly be Third Person Multiple, but it switches too often and makes use of far too many secondary characters. What you have here is just head-hopping.

There are also a few places where lines just don’t make sense, and I’m not sure what caused those, but they tend to be in Tara’s dialogue.

On the concept end of things, the biggest issue is the characterization. The characters straddle an awkward line by being the AU alternates of the canon characters. They’re original characters, but their origins are so clear we have preconceived notions about how they should behave. A lot of the time, they do things that would be jarringly out of character for the canon version.

However, there’s also a loss of the suspension of disbelief in things like the extreme training that just doesn’t work for their physical state, questionable actions taken by the characters, and ignoring the psychological consequences of events.

PTSD can be a strong element in stories. Seriously, just check out Chengar Qordath’s My Little Denarians, or Eakin’s Hard Reset (the chapter “Closure” is all about Twilight dealing with the stresses of her adventure).

Really, read those even if you aren’t interested in the PTSD angle. They would both easily land a “Masterwork” here.

Finally, this is only barely pony-related. I’m honestly surprised it passed moderation for that reason.

Have an editor go through and look for misused words and phrases.

Minimize the number of viewpoints you have to write from. At the very least, don’t use more than one in a single scene.

Research hard training regimens used by athletes and the military, and the consequences of PTSD, and reconsider the scenes where those things ought to be approached.

Consider either bringing the characters closer to their canon counterparts, or abandoning the pretense that this is ponyfic and just rewriting it as an original fiction.

Honestly, it feels like the whole thing could do with an all-around overhaul. I get the impression it was written unplanned, and developed as you went. Another go at it could produce a much tighter and more egnaging story.

I was, for a while, tempted to give this no verdict at all. I was going to declare that, as this really wasn’t ponyfic at all, we ought not rate it, as reviewing ponyfic is our job here.

But there’s enough of a connection that it’s justified, if only barely, and more importantly, I feel it would earn the same rating if reviewed as original fiction as well:

Needs Work.

4735544 Spike abuse? Fuck this story.

4735565
It's not so much Spike abuse as it is "Spike gets one scene of fawning over Rarity, speaks three lines, and then is unceremoniously shot in the head and forgotten."