Arcane Shadow
By Florarena Crimsonflame
By Dragonborne Fox

Reviewed by Rinnaul

A non-Dark review being done by special request. Crossover with the Epic Battle Fantasy series of browser-based parody Role-Playing Games ({1} {2} {3} {4}).

The pacing and tone are erratic, and the plot drifts in and out of focus constantly, but if you’re a fan of Epic Battle Fantasy and random comedy, and don’t mind super-powerful OCs, graphic tentacle rape, and a few scenes of extreme gore, you might give this a look.

Our heroes are in a cave, looking for something or other, as RPG heroes are wont to do. We get some lengthy descriptions of each character that are actually kind of hard to understand if you’re not familiar with the games - for example, the thief/swordsman Matt uses “Bushido”, but the story gives no indication that this isn’t Japan’s traditional warrior’s code, but actually a style of mystic sword techniques. Granted, readers familiar with Eastern RPG tropes will probably make the assumption, but it’s still a good thing to include.

A few on the story’s consistent quirks arise here, as well - primarily, a tendency to directly address the reader in the narrative with rhetorical questions or lines like “believe it or not”. While this can be effective in a work of parody or first-person writing, it’s distracting otherwise.

Inserting her backstory here isn’t particularly relevant to the story - none of them are - and it’s a massive interruption to your flow, which is very weak in these early parts. A good deal of this could be compressed and made into an easier read by just describing them as what they are. Basically, bring up the details as you need them, instead of trying to lay out your characters this way.

I suspect you are or were a roleplayer. I’ve learned that many roleplayers, particularly those who play online via chat rooms, develop this habit of opening with long character descriptions. It’s necessary in RPs so other players know what they’re responding to, but in creative writing it’s actually a bad way of handling things.

Avoid references that go outside the scope of your crossover, such as “like they were Team Rocket” in this case. You never know who won’t get the reference. This is a constant distraction in the story, as well as making reference to real-world places or things.

Throughout the story, dialogue is very choppy and stilted. Characters have little to differentiate their voices from one another, and generally come off as sounding like NPCs in a role-playing game. For example, Dash’s line “many monsters lurk about” is probably something she would only say when playing at being Daring Do.

The first fight scene happens here, with two more in short order, and we go on to average about one “random battle” per chapter, excluding the ones that are clearly comedic or focusing on one character’s thoughts. Unfortunately, each battle suffers from the same problem - they’re very rushed, with little description. Instead, they read like a list of RPG attack spells. It tempts the reader to just skim them.

Another quirk of this story is the inclusion of random swearing in the narrative, saying things like “monsters attacked from out of fucking nowhere.” Just like directly addressing the reader, this only works in parody or first-person. Otherwise, it’s a severe immersion-breaker.

Also, I generally advise against having a “guest” character completely and totally overshadow the main cast like this. Rather than highlighting the strengths of the new character, it feels like you’re just trying to declare them superior to our usual heroes.

The second chapter is full of more stilted, unnatural dialogue, and a lot of exposition. The pace was so rapid and forced that I felt like I was playing D&D with a railroading GM. Everything Cadance said was designed to advance the plot, while Shining Armor skipped the pleasantries and just teleported them where they needed to go next.

Character and weapon descriptions can become excessive, particularly when you go to extremes to avoid simply defining something. Rather than describing all the details of the Valkyrie without outright stating anything, you would have been perfectly fine in just calling it a huge tank. You’re not writing from the POV of a pony, and your readers will understand better.

Please, please, never just outright say “Let’s skip time” in the narrative. Just end the scene and start the new one. Trust your readers to infer that time has passed while they weren’t looking.

Anna and Lance’s banter is kind of funny, though, even if the entire scenario with them previously was strange and out of nowhere.

Either name your background characters, or else find a different way to attribute their dialogue. A conversation between “Guard A” and “Guard B” as if those were actually their names is, again, the sort of thing belongs in a Random/Comedy parody.

Chapters Seven through Nine are the main reason I’ve done commentary this far into the story, because there are some things here I felt it necessary to address. In Chapter Seven, we learn that Natalie was raped and impregnated by a tentacle monster called a Beholder, and then had the monster child aborted. I don’t know if the author invented this outright, or if it’s something from one of the games that I never played. Either way, it’s a sudden and severe shift in the mood, and unfortunately, the style of the story really is not suited for treating this sort of subject seriously. While Natalie is clearly traumatized by these events (she suffers night terrors and panics at the mention of beholders or rape), the story retains its usual light and flippant style, addressing the reader directly, using quirky turns of phrase, and swearing unnecessarily. This all combines to give the impression that, while the character places a lot of weight on the subject, the story does not. It’s a major clash between tones.

In Chapter Eight, we have a lot of random comedy, including Rainbow Dash pursuing Lance for some reason. Eventually, she catches him, and, while events occur off-camera, the reactions of Anna and Twilight heavily imply that she’s raping him, except this time, the story plays it for laughs. Even after we reveal that it was a fake-out and she’s just pranking him, there’s still a massive clash in tone between this chapter and the previous. Even setting up that joke was inappropriate after the events of Chapter Seven.

Continuing with Chapter Nine, we open into yet another random battle, and language like “willy-nilly” is being used to describe severe injuries like pegasi wings being broken, another clash between story and narrative tone. More importantly, the subject of Natalie’s rape returns, and this time it’s clearly being treated as traumatic again. A complete 180 from the previous chapter, which was a complete 180 from the one before it.

I’m tempted to go into a lengthy discussion of when and how “rape as comedy” can work, but I think this has gone on long enough already. I’ll make a blog post on it soon and come back to link it later.

Point of view remained third-person throughout, following numerous characters as needed. It varied somewhat on being omniscient versus limited, at times showing character thoughts and at times leaving them hidden. Consistent enough that it didn’t distract me.

Style was a weak point for the story. Very few things were described in detail - I think the most detail given to any one place was describing the dying torches in the griffon dungeons. The fight scenes, despite how frequent they were, described very little of the action, instead preferring to have the characters repeatedly use their special skills by name (“Natalie cast Fire at them all” or “Lance fired off six Sniper Shots”)

Flow suffered in three respects: First, a frequently too-rapid pace. Second, random cursing in the narrative that distracts the reader. Third, the jarring clashes between the tone presented by characters and events versus the tone presented by the narration.

Mood is very difficult to place, because the story seemed to be split evenly between two opposing moods. At times we have characters suffering trauma, severe injuries, nightmares, and sacrifices. And in those parts, the story seems to be aiming at being an epic adventure with some dark tones. At other times, we have things like a character stating ”Fuck logic, I’ll turn into a bird.” and then becoming a phoenix. And then the aim seems to instead be a random comedy.

If I’m going to guess, I’d say the epic adventure was the overall intent, but with comedic elements like you frequently find in manga or anime (or the Epic Battle Fantasy series itself). Instead, I got the impression of that forcibly meshed with a complete work of random parody. It’s hard to make suggestions for improvement without knowing which one the author truly intended.

Score: C

There were a handful of grammar mistakes which appeared consistently, the most common ones being:
- Capitalization after a quote: now." Said
- Passive voice: Canterlot is where we'll end up at

And while it’s not technically a grammar mistake, there were many, many instances of improper word usage. The most common was “caterwauled” being used as a synonym for “yelled”, when it actually means “a howling or wailing noise, such as that made by a cat”. Also deserving of mention is “backside” being used to refer to someone’s back, when it actually refers to the buttocks. Yes, in one scene, you gave Katie butt-wings. Just for the record.

Decide which tone you want your story to have and stick to it. If you want to change the tone up sometimes, make sure it’s done in a manner that’s appropriate and flows well from one to the next.

Use your fight scenes to raise tension and advance the plot. Don’t just toss them in to keep the action going. It actually interrupts the flow and slows things down. Also, spend some time describing the battles. Don’t just say “the mage cast fire”, describe her swinging her staff and sending a ball of flame flying from it, or pointing it at the monsters and launching an explosive blast towards them. Hearing the names over and over just makes it repetitive.

Don’t curse in the narration or address the reader directly except in two cases: (1) A story written from a first-person perspective; or (2) A work of outright parody that isn’t intended to be taken seriously.

It’s good to expand your vocabulary, but always check to be certain that the word you’re using means what you think it means. Never rely on a thesaurus alone - double-check against a dictionary. Also, don’t be afraid to fall back on the simpler words. “She said” are some of the most invisible words you can write. Readers will accept the attribution and move on. Trying too hard to change that up (barring simple descriptive words such as “shouted” or “whined”) draws attention to how repetitive the language is.

Either summarize events that you need to gloss over, or just skip them and let the reader figure that out. Instead of saying “let’s skip ahead”, just start the next scene with “A few days later…”

Avoid infodumps - you don’t need to exposit a character’s entire appearance, backstory, personality, and powers all in one go. This isn’t a roleplay, and there are no character sheets. Drop in tidbits here and there as you go. If we keep learning new things about a character, it keeps them interesting.

Work on character voice. Try to make each character’s language sound distinct and true to them alone.

Have consequences. Don’t let your characters heal up perfectly from everything that happens. Don’t always bring the dead ones back to life. Especially don’t let them win without the bad guys getting a hit in. When you do these things, you destroy any tension your story had, because we know that nothing truly bad is ever going to happen.

Be careful with references to thing in the real world, or outside the universe of the story. Both can break immersion easily, and some readers might miss the references and get lost on that part of the story.

Be especially careful with how you handle sensitive topics such as rape. Rape can be played for trauma (somebadauthor does it well in “Legend of the Sapphire Cave”), and rape can be played for comedy (Ask Princess Molestia on tumblr was an excellent example of that), but no story can handle doing both at once, and doing either requires some delicate work on the author’s part.

Keep your number of characters in check. By the end, the party consisted of nearly twenty characters, most of whom did little to nothing. There were maybe eight active characters (Katie, Blake, Natalie, Matt, Lance, Anna, Twilight, and Gilda), and honestly, even that is pushing it.

Finally, restrain your original characters. Don’t let them completely outshine the canon cast of either side (or worse, both sides) of the crossover. If you make them too amazing, the story just becomes about how totally awesome your RP character is, and that’s about as interesting as having someone tell you about “this crazy dream I had last night.” It’s fine that they’re powerful, but balance that out with flaws - and a “tragic” backstory plus some scar tissue doesn’t add up to a flawed character.

As an example of the above, there are a pair of OC unicorns in one of my unpublished stories: Midnight and Stargazer. Midnight is at least as magically-gifted as Sunset Shimmer was, and approaches Twilight’s level of power; but thanks to a bad bargain he made in his youth, the majority of his power is sealed away. Now he can only perform spells that directly relate to his special talent, though he did get a magic eye out of the deal - which came with restrictions of it’s own. Stargazer is actually even stronger when it comes to raw power, but he suffers from an inability to focus his magic and a magical aura that is out of harmony with his body’s natural aura. He can only perform simple spells, and he can’t maintain them for more than a few seconds without painful backlash - the longer the spell lasts, the more he gets hurt. The characters are interesting (or so I believe - I may be biased) because they come with built-in conflicts. Each one has severe handicaps to work around if they want to accomplish anything.

Needs Work.

There are some good ideas here, but there are also issues that need addressed. You clearly don’t have many problems with spelling or grammar, save the two or three things I pointed out as consistent errors, and there are times where the story does manage to be funny or touching. But the problems it does have are some big ones, and they’re at the core of the story.

There was one little coding error

[spoilers](she suffers night terrors and panics at the mention of beholders or rape)

In case you haven't noticed that... I shall move the story and update the review counter!

Lot's of good tips to help the writer!

Wasn't this story also being reviewed by a 2nd reviewer?

2878842
I was reading this and being impressed by the thoroughness and depth of the review, in particular the tips (a hugely important part of any good review), then I got distracted by the shout-out. Well, thank you!

2878881
Saw it as soon as I posted it.

And yeah, tut895 is supposed to go over it as well.

2878927
It's one of the rare examples I know of where the rape both isn't the entire focus of the story (such as rapefics that just read like particularly depraved clop), and feels appropriate to the tone and plot of the story. I use it as a good example (of darkfic, of torture, of emotional trauma...) surprisingly often.

2878990 Ok thanks, I'll keep an eye out for his review over it as well!

2878990

2878842 Hmmm...

I might...no, DEFINITELY need to do some polishing. But hey, we all need to do some polishing at some point in time, right?

Might as well start bringing in some helpers, cause I will need it. ^_^

Now I just need to wait and see what Tut895 says when he/she/it gets around to it. :3