Cracked
By SuperKnight

Reviewed by Rinnaul

That cover image looks like something from the SCP Foundation. I don’t know what it is about it, but somehow it’s just creepy. This one was short, but hard to really get a good handle on. I’ve re-read it three or four times now, I think.

Fic read and review written to the sounds of T.M. Revolution, because setting a proper mood is for less interesting people.

It’s tagged Romance, Tragedy, Sad, Dark, and Slice of Life. Barring some major changes in later chapters, Slice of Life seems accurate, but Sad and Dark have only shown up in the first chapter, and then only mildly. The second chapter has Comedy on top of the Slice of Life and vague Sad. But it’s still a work in progress, so maybe the tags haven’t come into play fully yet. If you’re interested in the life and trials of a colt with a tragic disability, this looks to be off to a good start.

The line “The tick-tock of the clock” just makes me think of Eve 6.

The prose can get a little overwrought in places - metaphors are going on a little too long, and it’s a little too prone to waxing poetic. It’s first-person, so it gives the impression our protagonist is a bit of a whiner. I’m not sure if that’s the intended characterization, but it’s what I get from him.

And the references to drums make me think of John Simm. Or Akumokagetsu.

Some odd phrasing in places. Like this. Even though I had a reason to not turn around, I grow the urge to look at 'it.' - This reads very awkwardly, and I suspect there’s a typo in there.

The story’s been keeping me curious, wondering why he’s in the hospital, but by the time Weaver starts referring to “it” repeatedly, I’m starting to guess.

Weaver taking his frustrations out on the doctor and going on about their different definitions of “nice” further my impression he’s angsty.

Second chapter - Things meander a little bit too much, both here and in the first one, even considering it’s just his inner monologue for the most part.

and the smell of something fresh fills my nostrils - I don’t associate “fresh” with a clinic. I expect the smell of antiseptics. Might make it a bit clearer if the intent is to show that she uses an air freshener to avoid that smell or something.

When we first met this new colt, I was expecting the bog-standard bully who’d torment our protagonist over his disability. I was pleasantly mistaken. A natural-solar-movement conspiracy theorist who fights the matriarchy. That’s hilarious, and is one of the things that really make me wonder if the tags are appropriate.

Why does he insist on taking the pills without water, anyway?

Still curious as to how this happened.

And still can’t shake the impression that this is an unfortunate but otherwise livable situation, but Weaver just insists on being miserable constantly.

Consistently first-person from Dream Weaver’s perspective. No problems with it beyond Weaver’s own personal melodrama.

The story was descriptive enough to get a good impression of the environments, but didn’t linger too long on any one thing, barring the hospital room in the first chapter. It was so focused on the details of the room that I initially thought the entire story would take place in that hospital room, and would focus on the protagonist struggling to deal with the isolation and boredom of it, rather like The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Long and descriptive, but a smooth read. The only interruptions I had in it were due to my frustrations with Weaver’s character.

As I said, I originally expected a dark psychological piece dealing with isolation and boredom, based on the description and first chapter. By the time I finished reading the second, I instead saw it as a sorta-dark, sorta-sad slice of life story following a colt as he dealt with a new disability.

I may be premature in saying this, as we’re only two chapters in, but you might consider changing the tags to better reflect the tone of the story. Either way, there’s also a sharp contrast between the mood of the first chapter and the mood of the second. You might try to bring those more into balance.

Score: B+

There are a handful of small grammatical errors, like neglecting to capitalize the “I” in “I’m”, but nothing to really distract me. Here are a few others I caught on a re-read:

- "So that's why your in my room?" - you’re.
- Taking on matriarchy - should probably be “…taking on the matriarchy…”
- serious this is, she could - should be two sentences, with a question mark in place of the comma
- Whoever this is, has - better as “…is, he has…”
- Several places, a minor thing: most people don’t bother with an apostrophe after “kinda” or “gonna”.

As you might have guessed, I found Dream Weaver a pretty unlikable protagonist. You might scale back his complaining a little. Ignore this if that was intentional. I also never got a clear idea of his age, beyond vaguely “teen-ish”.

If you want to highlight the disability, I’d suggest including scenes where Weaver tries to use magic out of habit, and it doesn’t work. This would go well with the prior note to make him more sympathetic. Though I also got the impression that it wasn’t that he couldn’t use magic at all anymore, just that it was uncontrolled. You might clarify that.

Tone was inconsistent, and not what I expected from the description and tags. See my comments in the “Mood” section for more detail.

The pacing could be improved. I don’t expect a rapid-fire story when the topic is introspection and coping with a tragedy, but at times the scenes just felt like they were meandering through the descriptions without any real aim.

Recommended

But, like another review I did, not under this genre. I actually look forward to seeing more of it as a slice-of-life story rather than a dark one. Weaver has met some interesting characters so far, and the flaws in the story aren’t enough to keep me from wanting to see where his life goes next, or learning more about what happened to him and what will become of him.