Before we began, children, there's something I want to talk about.

Getting this review out was hard; I've never had so many mixed opinions about a story before. Matter of fact, I spent so long trying to write the review, that the author started complaining that I might be ignoring him. He even posted a thread about it.

I legitimately feel bad for not getting this out sooner because I had no idea he was referring to me in that thread. But guys, seriously, if I, or another member of the group, am taking too long to process your review, drop a PM before you go an complain. Dropping a PM might actually motivate us to move faster, knowing that the author wants criticism right away. Posting in the thread to make a complaint without PMing your critic first shows that you might not be willing to cooperate with his/her opinion to the fullest. And after the author found out that I was his critic, he never PMed me, so I had no idea this was sitting in my review folder at the time. I decided to PM JMac myself, and turns out he is willing to cooperate. He might of just felt a tad impatient is all.

There are several reasons why I don't release reviews on a normal basis. 1) I run my own critic group, which is offline for editing. 2) I'm trying to improve on my writing and creative skills so I've been reading books more than fanfiction. 3) I have a job washing dishes now. 4) These reviews I do use an editing process that takes a couple of hours to put together. 5) I have fourteen other stories in my To be Reviewed folder. 6) I'm working on many stories right now, all of which I'm taking time to make them look as fancy as possible. 7) I have to workout so I can have that perfect summer body. 8) I need free time to do whatever once in a while. 9) Turns out (and I'm not lying, I even called toll free) my computer has over 39,000 viruses on it. It's surprising how well it's held together. All these viruses make it hard to get into websites like Deviant Art, so if I want to post a screen-shot of something, I have to figure out another way, because that's where I post the pictures I edit. I don't know any website that allows you to post pictures privately. 10) I just got Dark Souls II and it's really fucking hard.

My original intention for this review was to use my talent in editing to make a bunch of short, funny comics to go along with the style. I decided to instead use that for stories that go over 10 or 15K, which will be in the next fic I'm reviewing. Here's something I put together a month back:

I decided to keeps jokes to a minimum and do something a little more serious this time. Some of the content I use in my other reviews won't be here, for the sake of timewise.

*As I'm finishing the final edits, it's four in the morning where I'm at and I plan on releasing it right after.

Good Fortune began life, very literally, as an accident. His inauspicious beginning doesn't slow this extraordinary foal down at all.

“Pensive, Dear? Are you sure you checked the batteries in the thaumometer?”

Careful Measure had been Dr. Pensive Daydreamer’s lab assistant longer than she had been his wife. She had found that, with alarming frequency, her attention to detail could be a matter of life and death. Under her watchful eye “energetic disassembly incidents” had fallen to nearly zero, and no pony had been maimed or worse in Pensive’s laboratory.

*What I say here might sound harsh and I have no intention to offend.

Don't do this. It's lazy and unimaginative. One of my personal pet peeves in fanfiction are stories that began with dialogue, because it's like saying, "Your Lack of Thought is showing." Some fanfics that began with dialogue pieces can be excellently well executed, because the author will put a lot of thought into how to began the story. Putting in little or no thought typically results on leaving a bad impression. O'Henry actually did something like this; in one of his short stories he writes a single sentence as the narrator and then he immediately interrupts the story as he, the author, speaking.

It was a day in March
Never, never begin a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It is unimaginative, flat, dry, and likely to consist of mere wind. But in this instance it is allowable. For the following paragraph, which should have inaugurated the narrative, is too wildly extravagant and preposterous to be flaunted in the face of the reader without preparation.
Sarah was crying over her bill of fare.

~Springtime Á La Carte

Lack of Thought can actually be deceived into something greater though. In Stephen King's book ON WRITING, King talks about his writing process. He revealed that he doesn't exactly spend his time plotting. The ideas he gets for the books he writes are based off what-if scenarios. Whenever he has an idea to add in the novel, he tries to fit it in whatever way he can. Did you now the original ending to Misery would of had Annie Wilkes kill Paul Sheldon, feed his remains to her pig, and use his skin as a cover for Misery Returns? But Stephen King doesn't focus on "storytelling logic," he focuses on realism and the character drives, so instead we got an ending where Paul Sheldon escapes with his life; the only reason why we've got this ending is because of the character himself.

My point being: The motives of these characters in this story are clear, and I applaud; but the characters themselves aren't well executed. Methinks, and don't take this harshly, some of the character names were kind of cringy. The characters had clear motives but they were all poorly executed with the way they're designed and the blaspheme (sorry for the rude interpretation) that comes out of their mouth. These characters alone make it hard to scan through the story. If I had to choose a character I disliked the most, it would be the kid. Everytime he spoke he was all like, "Whoa, look at me, I'm a kid and I like to have fun, but towards the end of the story my dialogue becomes cheesy and awkward, but you won't notice that because I'm an alicorn and ALL alicorns talk like that -- and we're greater than everyone and stuff!" At the beginning of the story, he just acts like a kid, straight up. At the end, his character becomes how Titanium Dragon described the story: Fluff. He's this awkward quadrupedal that is meant to be the most likable character in the story but can easily be seen through if you look hard enough.

Get this: his name is "Good Fortune."

I want to take a moment to apologize; I'm aware of how harsh I'm being in this review. I'm just doing my best to help out. Like I said, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this story. It's plot and building is what keep me going, but the characters and the pacing is excruciating (sorry for the choice of words as well). Every time a scene transition comes up, we get met with this:

“No, Pensive. I’m going to have a baby! Right now!”

#
“You’re doing fine, Mrs. Measure,” said the doctor. “One more push and the foal will drop.”

I-it's awkward... it's unnecessary. To the author, I'll have you know that you can skip a scene without having to use a scene transition. The time shifts variously in the Harry Potter novels and you'll sometimes note that it happens in the very next paragraph. It could be April in one paragraph but the next could be May. Only rarely there will be a scene transition, and when there is, there will be a big space between paragraphs; it's well played out. Here, putting one space, a hashtag, and then the following paragraph, continuously, makes it... EH.

But my biggest pet peeve... the ending. There's not really that much to spoil here for what I'm about to say. In the end, Goodie gets confronted by Royal Guards, who bring him and his parents up to the Canterlot Castle so they can meet Princess Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and Cadence -- boy do I have a lot to say.

Celestia stepped back and Cadance stepped forward. “First, let me commend you all on your bond as a family. Your love is very strong, and there’s nothing, good or bad, that you couldn’t overcome if you face it together.

Shut up Cadence.

Sorry, that wasn't part of the review, I just felt that Cadence had a Meg moment.

“Oh, readers root for a good sidekick, and they want him to get his own comic someday. Besides, there isn’t going to be a new Captain Equestria. Not in my headcanon. He didn’t die in the griffon war, he was frozen, and the Superb Serum kept him alive, so he’s coming back! I plan to write fanfiction about it someday.”

J-just take a long, good look, at that paragraph.

This kid is two years old, and already he know about fanfiction.

And he admits this in front of his peers and overlords.

Take a long good look.

Think about it.

Long. Good. Look.

Think. About. It.

This is what I meant about his dialogue getting awkward towards the end. It's not just this paragraph alone, but he sounds like a goddamn genius when he talks. He's only two years old, yet because he's an alicorn he's suddenly smarter and wiser than those around him. I understand his ability to fly and use magic, but knowledge and wisdom are things to learn, moreover. I understand his parents are smart, but this kid can probably build a portal to a second dimension if he wanted to. And his wisdom is explained, but it's bark and no talk.

*I'll make a note here that the dialogue in the story isn't as awkward as I interpret it to be, I guess it's because of the character itself and how he's basically Ted Kaczynski that I thought of it as that.

“Alicorns can… see things, Daddy.”

Pensive took a moment to absorb this. “The future? Alicorns can see the future?!”

“Not exactly. What we see is more like… potentials. It’s like your experiments, Daddy. A particle fires off one of those teeny-tiny light bits…”

Anyway, maybe the photon goes to the left, and maybe it goes to the right. Pretend one way makes something good happen and the other way is bad. Alicorns see which way is good and which way is bad. Not all the possibilities, but we see the extremes. The greater the difference the clearer it is. The more important the outcome the clearer it is. And things are very clear if the alicorn really cares about what they are looking at. But we can’t see how to make the best outcomes happen, we don’t know anything about the path to the outcome

*Out of everything I've said in this review, I expect the following paragraph will be the dumbest thing I've said so far. I decided to leave it in because I believe I'm still making a point even if it's hard to understand. And I'll note that I only talk about potential in the paragraph, but I'm mostly directing it at that paragraph and the various things it points out.

This paragraph alone contradicts a lot from the show. It might not sound like it, but listen. Seeing potential in an individual is implied by the person's demonstration. It doesn't take much for a person to see the potential someone holds. Looking into their eyes isn't enough. You'd have to examine the way they move, the way they handle certain situations, the way they interact with people, their personality; (*The following is where I believe is the dumbest thing I've written) so in the show, the author basically explains that when Twilight Sparkle turned her parents into potted plants, hatched a dragons egg, and went berserk-crazy on a magic rampage, Princess Celestia chose her as a pupil because she looked into here eyes? Everything else she ignored? You're telling me that when Starlight Glimmer successfully manipulated time and outsmarted Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle chose Starlight as a pupil because she looked into her eyes? Shouldn't potential be demonstrated first? If so, Twilight would have known Starlight Glimmer's potential the moment they had met. (*The following is more direct than the previous) I like to think that an alicorn thinks just the same as any pony. They're not higher beings that deserve to be praised because they have advanced knowledge. Alicornism is just a really powerful version of the average pony. The only difference is their abilities. Having two wings and a horn doesn't make them wiser. The tallest horse is the steadiest horse, and that's why they're so tall, thus that's why they're great. They're the ones who hold the power, thus potential has to be earned. Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer prepared for years, so they earned their way in. But there's the thing, even as an alicorn, Twilight Sparkle can't see the path of an individual. She's just a normal pony of higher capabilities. She's not truly special.

Eitheir way, the ending isn't all too bright either.

“Dad! Stay back!”

A potted plant fell from a window sill, and landed where Pensive would have been had he not been warned.

“Goodie, how did you know that was going to happen.”

“I just had a feeling, Dad.”

*Note: at the end of the story, he's note an alicorn anymore.

Total: 5/10 (Recommended)
*I don't know, I just don't know; I wanted to give this story a rating of 4*, but for some reason 6* was jumping into my mind. I took some time to realize that there's actually something worthwhile about this story. While this isn't the new Shakespearean play, this is something worth reading. Me, I wouldn't read it again. This story is good for a one-time-only deal. But aye, if you read the story, you'll find something interesting about it.

Feel Better About Your Own Work Rating:
In a way, this has something to do with the story.

AND NOW A WORD FROM ME TO, THE AUTHOR...

I'm sorry this wasn't like my other reviews. I must of went through seven drafts before I declared this one the final draft. I decided to skip suggestions this time and instead give the author a small bit of advice.

TO THE AUTHOR: I know you can make good characters. I've read one of your stories. Character names are your best attribute (and they're some of the best I've seen [other than Sergeant Brick wall]). And unlike this story, your others are gloriously fun. I understand that you had certain exceptions because of the Most Dangerous Game contest, but sometimes focusing more on bad content then making that content look good makes the story hard to read. That very first sentence immediately made me lose attention. But I gave it a chance because the story's not at all terrible.

What I have to say to you is spoken, but its advice I advise you take: Know your content. Just because there's a contest that tells you "Oh, you have to do this to win," it doesn't mean write a fanfic with a bunch of holes and lukewarm characters. I know you could have done something better and possibly have gotten a higher place. It's not the idea of an alicorn OC that makes it hard to follow, but the content itself.

Do you know which story of yours I'd read? "They're Not Touching You!" is the story I read. And while I certainly didn't enjoy it, there was a funness in there this story lacked. I see talent somewhere in you.

Apparently you haven't written anything since December of 2014. I recommend you write something completely from scratch. No Quizzical Greystone, something from scratch. If you do that, I'll read it and give my opinion to the fullest. You might even prove that you do have that talent I see in you. I expect the story to have a creative nucleus. Something extraordinary to you, but completely new.

I feel like doing just that is rewarding enough.

Now if you excuse me, I plan on reading your story Quizzical.

I know this is different from my usual content, but I'll get back on track eventually. My review for Norris's story needs a little time to process, so I'll be releasing other reviews as I work on that one.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's five in the goddamn morning, and my pillow is singing Sweet Dreams.

That raise we've discussed is pending as we speak.

Shut up Cadence.

I second this sentiment. When she first showed up, I was a huge fan of Cadance. Anymore, I'm hard-pressed to remember why. I think maybe cause This Day was a good song and she's pretty? That's really all I have.

“Oh, readers root for a good sidekick, and they want him to get his own comic someday. Besides, there isn’t going to be a new Captain Equestria. Not in my headcanon. He didn’t die in the griffon war, he was frozen, and the Superb Serum kept him alive, so he’s coming back! I plan to write fanfiction about it someday.”

...and he's two? Shit, my kid is just turning three and still asks for dinner with "Hungry, wanna eat. We eat?" and tells us he wants to watch Thomas And Friends: King Of The Railway by handing us the remote and saying "Remo-contrower. Watch Thomas an Steven? Yes, watch Thomas an Steven."

No one likes Captain America.

Downvoted 30 times.

5358529
5358758

No one likes Captain America.

Downvoted 30 times.

I'm with Rinnaul on this one.

For the record, Captain America is among my favorites. I will give you flack on this, rest assured, it will happen.

My review for Norris's story needs a little time to process, so I'll be releasing other reviews as I work on that one.

Well! I never!

5358758 Cadance is hottest pony.

Even if she is slightly annoying.

5358790 C'mon, we were just messin' around, honest Mister!

5358817 Hey, this means yours is special!