Well, back to the ol' grind I suppose. Been taking a long break from doing my own reviews since my head has been garbled with educational formulas and biological explanations on the human body. Now since majority of it is over, I think I can attempt to review without losing myself?

Oh wait, that's the title of the story.

Mom's Spaghetti?

Warning, I only focused on certain topics within this review because those were the heavy-hitters, meaning that they were the most important topics that I wanted to touch on.

Let's jump right into it, shall we?

1. Writing

Why the low rating? Well, here's how we're going to divide this story's problems up:

1.1. Style

Style happens to be a very key factor in setting up mood. Sometimes the style can be too bland, where it bores the reader and overall effects the story. Other times the style can evoke a very overloaded tension that can swing readers right out of the story. Lose Yourself tends to follow the overloaded side of writing, where it goes for a very dramatic feel, but unfortunately it flops by how jumbled it is.

Now, before you tell me that the jumbled mess is real-time Dash being in an utter confused state, tell me this:

I took in a deep breath, feeling shaky and unstable. Smoke. My eyes stung as I squinted to block out the intensity of the flames. This wasn’t happening. No. I’m hallucinating. This isn’t real.

Bright red was all I could see. From fire and light; my god, the lights, they’re flashing everywhere. Ringing. Blaring sirens pelted my ears with an onslaught of high pitched ringing. Ring, ring. I swear my ears were bleeding.

The bold section is my doing, not the writer's, but damn this is really jumbled and awkward. The reason being is because you went from lights to ringing in a terrible transition. Just stick with "Blaring sirens pelted my ears…" and remove all the ringing nonsense. You're trying too hard to immerse the reader.

Not to mention that the perspective switches really quickly right in the first section without any discretion. It was, as if, they wanted to keep thoughts separate from action, but failed to keep that from happening. Something to note: keep one tense only. I learned that the hard way, so you will too (italics will highlight tense changes).

Another one:

Where was she?

I wandered over to the curb, dodging a few chaotic medical workers. Everything was supposed to be okay. Twilight didn’t know what she was doing. Who the hell let her drive a car anyways? Me?

Oh wait.

It’s too cold.

No jokes, folks. This is the real deal. So we get Rainbow Dash's fantastic non-responsive question after Sunset Shimmer football tackles Twilight Sparkle for no reason (guess this was supposed to be a creative comforting tool but came out as a comedic burst of "wat?"), and go right into this great bit of exposition of more confusion. Note the sudden shift from A in bold to B in italics. Don't do this. There's no logic here, and even if you were trying to show that Rainbow Dash is so distraught that she can't handle herself, you should probably do that when she's actually distraught. You know, when she sees the "she" that you cleverly identified—oh wait, you didn't. Probably should not do that either. Identify our victim ahead of time. Clearly Rainbow Dash knows, but not telling the reader what she knows makes it all the better?

Right…

1.2. Formatting

But that was before they started shouting about a defibrillator or something...

My hands crossed each other and wrapped around my waist.

I’m leaning beside Pinkie, a mug of hot chocolate warming my palms as controlled flames flickered before me.

Creativity cannot be measured through non-formatting. Use formatting. Please.

Also, since I wasn't able to fit this into the style section, don't go on a tangent with your sentences. Simply go for shorter bursts when they're extremely basic, like changing the highlighted bold section to, "I wrapped my arms tightly around my waist."

Why would this work better than what you have? Because it doesn't give me this weird visual of her self-hugging her body with only her hands.

Another one:

But…

But, but, but.

Where was she?

This is one of the only times that I will say that the formatting in this section is not of my own doing. The author italicized the buts here without giving any context as to why they're there. What does the purpose of spamming but here in italics serve? Is there a deeper meaning that I don't understand?

Not sure, the author should probably add some context here.

1.3 Forget I Said Anything — Saidisms?

Now, before you get your pants in a wad, let me explain what I mean by this. So, everyone knows what a dialogue tag is, but let me add some more background information just in case you don't know. Dialogue tags are those words that basically give context as to who is speaking within the story. Now, saidisms in a more formal context means that an author uses a specific dialogue tag called "said" way too much and ultimately relies on the word without any variation. Here, we get the curious case of the lack of any dialogue tags, which causes confusion all over the place.

For example:

“Rarity called me, sobbing. Somethin’ ‘bout a car wreck or… o-or whatever. What the hell’s going on?”

“It’s too cold for you here.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Dash?”

Rarity called AppleJack, who was identified in the last part of the exposition, so that's fine. But who the hell is "It's too cold for you here"? We have to assume it's either Pinkie Pie as a ghost or Pinkie Pie echoing in Rainbow Dash's mind. Or, scratch those two and say it's Rainbow Dash saying it in her mind because she remembered Pinkie Pie and—

You know, if you're going to try and write dramatic and creative scenes like this, you're going to have to start by formatting those creative parts, or by adding specific tags to allow us to follow where you're going with your content. I don't understand majority of the content because it is all over the place.

Moving on to characters.

2. Characterization

Here I am, marking you low on the totem pole for the most confusing and forced Twilight Sparkle characterization I have ever seen.

Let's start with her out of character reasoning as to why she drove the car.

“Twilight, why are you driving?”

I stood out in front of the mess of confetti and stickers that was Pinkie’s home, tapping a foot against the pavement as I held the phone to my ear. I heard a car door slam in the background before she spoke.

“Dash, these things are easy to use. Permit shermit, those things are useless. I can take my dad’s car for a spin to play around, and take Pinkie home at the same time. Multitasking!”

I snorted.

“Since when do you ‘play around’ with things?”

Her voice’s tone instantly switched to ‘all-mighty nerd’ as I heard the engine rumble.

“Since I discovered a fascinating new mechanism that could advance our automotive technology by decades, revolutionize this era, and take us into the future of transportation! I just need to test-drive it first, heh.”

“Well… okay Twilight, go science. But don’t go screwing things up."

Yo, author, there's this thing called staying in character. You failed to do that the second Twilight started talking.

What is that first line that she mutters?

"Dash, these things are easy to use."

Since when are things easy for her? I know she's a teen, but shit, unless she acted like this in those Equestria Girls spinoffs, I highly doubt she would label something so carelessly as "easy".

But let's move onto the rest of the sentence. Maybe there's something I like here.

"Permit, shermit—"

Nope.

That literally is something that does not sound Twilight-esque. And I'm not poking at any vampires for that term. Did you just force Twilight to take on the guilty role without even thinking about how Rainbow Dash-like it sounded? Holy.

"I can take my dad’s car for a spin to play around, and take Pinkie home at the same time. Multitasking!”

Wait. Then how did Sunset Shimmer, Fluttershy, and Rarity get involved in the whole scene? Are we to assume that these folks were in the other car, if there was any? Shit, this accident could be just Twilight running into a tree going fifty. There's no context telling me how this happened.

Also, knowing Twilight's ability to multi-task, I say that would pretty close to impossible. Slim chance though, so I'll just tilt my head at the dialogue for now.

“Since when do you ‘play around’ with things?”

Just to comment on this, but Rainbow Dash, reword your question, you sly pegasus.

“Since I discovered a fascinating new mechanism that could advance our automotive technology by decades, revolutionize this era, and take us into the future of transportation! I just need to test-drive it first, heh.”

Never knew it took that long to say "Bullshit".

What "new mechanism" did you invent that could advance technology by decades? Why isn't Rainbow Dash questioning her friend here? This is not believable whatsoever.

I mean, the response seems like one of those Rainbow Dash "uh-huhs" that she says what she doesn't understand what Twilight is saying.

In addition to this random excuse, notice the sudden shift in voice between the two Twilights here. Which one is the changeling? Or could they be both changelings? That's too rapid of a mood/voice switch for someone like Twilight.

Now, the good news is that I liked the minor characterizations of some of the background—I mean, not-so-crucial characters like Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy. Even if they do seem out of place and forced, their lines are spot on. I guess that's because their lines did little to no impact other than Fluttershy getting an impact to her face. Hopefully it was a good hook, Dash, so the reader can stay hooked on this story until the end.
The rest is just hard to judge on, because I still have a hard time understanding their roles in the story. I guess the whole focus is on Rainbow Dash having a breakdown every second she thinks of the weather and of Pinkie Pie.

3. Overall Concept

Tell me that a car accident isn't a cliché event (in both fanfiction and original). Now it may be true that the author did expand on it just slightly, hence the extra points, but unless you make this part of an entire story, I can't really buy into it. I mean, I didn't even feel sad when this story was happening, because the lack of context, the lack of quality writing in the beginning, and the lack of proper characterization clouded my view of this story.

Oh, and author, it might be wise to add a tragedy tag. A death like this isn't primarily sad.

4. Final Thoughts

Before you tell me, "Soaring, you forgot a section!42141!@$!@%!", let me explain why I didn't go over grammar.

Considering that the whole thing was a mess from the start, I can't really comment on grammar, since I already did comment on it. If the writing is too hard to understand, then there's definitely more than just a grammar error or two. The style effected the grammar, and things like em-dashes are personal preference at this point. The story's grammar, when it was not confusing that is, was actually spotless. As long as the author didn't ramble and try to force more words within a sentence (like the one I focused on in the formatting section), the story flowed just fine with proper English. I hope that clears that up.

Now considering the story as a whole, I would not be able to recommend this story. Even in its current state, it does not go above and beyond a very cliché concept other than showing the aftermath that tends to read as a overly dramatic piece that ends nearly in two deaths instead of one. With the added unfortunate events of its extremely forced characterization of Twilight, confusing writing style, and jumbled formatting, this story tanks its way into the "not recommended" category of our fine handy-dandy rating system.

I hope this review didn't come off as antagonistic, but put it this way, I told my fellow reviewers that if I tried to point out things that I liked, it would come off as nitpicking just to give the author a pat on the back.

I really hope this helps the author grow as a writer, and I hope that, as always, that everyone has a wonderful day!

Thank you for reading this #Review!

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To clarify any misunderstanding.

Not Recommended is an actual rating. Need's Work is reserved for stories that do, well need work.

Not Recommended is for stories that are written well enough... but that the silliness or... awkwardness of the story is just... bad. This will usually fall in the category of Cruelty. If you don't know, that's where the authors whole purpose is to make you suffer for reading it. Though sometimes, it will fall in place because the story, despite best efforts, just wasn't... good.

Either way, we have this because there are some stories out there that are meant to make us pull our hairs out.

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To those who downvoted this review, may you please comment as to why? Leaving a red thumb only tells me so much.

5351024 I doubt you'll get any answers. Downvoters aren't likely to want to out themselves.

That said (and having not voted one way or another), I don't think this was a good review. A lot what you focused on disliking doesn't really constitute widely agreed upon flaws of fiction writing, but rather is just personal subjective opinion and taste. For example, the instances in which choppy sentences, jumbled thoughts, and unclearly attributed dialogue were used came across to me as deliberated choices on the part of the author, and as valid and effective ways of reflecting the confusion and stress of these kinds of situations. Complaining about Twilight's characterization is also offputting, because there's nothing here that feels contradictory in its essence to canon Twilight, especially in the human world where we have a pretty tenuous baseline for gauging her behavior and dynamic with her friends - the problem seems to have been basically just, "it's not my headcanon", rather than a real, objective, source material contradiction problem.

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Complaining about Twilight's characterization is also offputting, because there's nothing here that feels contradictory in its essence to canon Twilight, especially in the human world where we have a pretty tenuous baseline for gauging her behavior and dynamic with her friends

I know she's a teen, but shit, unless she acted like this in those Equestria Girls spinoffs, I highly doubt she would label something so carelessly as "easy".

I offered the possibility of that being the case. But just because my opinion is different as to how the character is viewed, doesn't mean it is the golden standard. Yet again, the review is based on the opinion of who claimed it. If you would like, you could request for another reviewer to review this story, but I think that should be on the author's behalf.

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I told my fellow reviewers that if I tried to point out things that I liked, it would come off as nitpicking just to give the author a pat on the back.

Unless it was a one-line "I liked this by the way," I doubt it would come off as nitpicking. Constructive criticism is important, but giving praise where it's due is still crucial to a review. Encouraging good qualities to turn into even better ones can just as easily improve stories.

5351165
True. I guess I should have re-written it as "I had a hard time finding good qualities for the fic". I did point out that they had spot on characterizations of Fluttershy, Rarity and AJ, but I was unsure about the others (except Twilight in my eyes).

For those who are wondering, on this forum post, I am announcing that I will be leaving my station as an admin + reviewer once my last review is posted.

I will be reviewing Titanium Dragon's Mistletrapped. After that, all is well that ends well. Apparently I do not know enough canon compared to the lot who are more active with the show.

I think it will be for the best so those who are more active and qualified for this position can get that opportunity.

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5351179 Just my two cents before you bow out, if I were to receive a review like this (and I very well might once the inbox opens up) I would actually find it quite useful once I came out of shock... You didn't care for it, that's clear, but you pointed out exactly what needs to be done to improve the piece; you clearly and explicitly outlined the faults you found with it, gave specific examples, and commented on how the author might make improvements. That is IMO the kind of feedback a writer is seeking when they ask for a review. With this tabbed I imagine one could comb through their work and address the issues brought up with ease.

5351726 Yeah, that's what I try to do with every review. I have an on-going that I do the same to, but I haven't been able to keep up. I might revive that one sooner or later, since the author has asked me to. And besides, the story is good, so why not?

But for new reviews, I think I'll do Mistletrapped and take a break instead. Many people think I'm just having a lapse and will get over it but eh... haven't watched the show and haven't been really interested in it in a long time. We'll see.

5351179 Oh, I hope I didn't pressure you into leaving. Do what you feel is necessary. I can see how knowing show canon is important, so I don't blame you. I wish you well.

5351921
Nah, you didn't pressure me. I'm just flustered that something that I like doing, like writing for the fandom, is hard to do when I'm so disconnected from show canon. Most of the things that I write now are pretty close to outdated canon, so having me in as someone who only knows old canon isn't very good. Fans keep up with new content.

And someone who reviews should be up-to-date on new canon.

5352079 Okay. I still wish you well!