TThe Fourth Siren

• Equestria Girls
• Slice of Life

The Dazzlings turn Twilight into a siren, but there's a HUGE backfire.

• Violence
• Alt. Universe
• Twilight
• Dazzlings
• Main 7 (EqG)

Northguard · 4k words  ·  45  7 · 3k views

Hello! Today I will be reviewing Indigo Lightning Strike’s “The Fourth Siren”. I would recommend you read their story beforehand as there will be a bit of spoil material ahead. Oh, and this is an EQG story so there will be no ponies! 

Warning: This story has mild violence and blood.

Overview

In an alternate universe, the Dazzlings turn Twilight Sparkle into a siren before the battle of the bands takes place. 

My Thoughts

The Fourth Siren is on hiatus and has fairly short chapters (675 words on average) so there isn’t a whole lot I can review on here. 

The story’s idea is pretty interesting. It is still at the beginning of the plot, where Twilight is just getting used to becoming a siren and the main 7 is really confused as to what the Dazzlings have done. When I read this, I can see it being a canon EQG special, save for a few things of course, because of the way the characters interact between each other and the magical aspect to it. 

Characterization

Characterization of the sirens and the main 7 is pretty good and fairly accurate to their canon selves. I love it when the Dazzlings show up because you can see all that charm and traits that make them so unique. The main 7 aren’t really the main focal point of the story, but whenever they are, they certainly know how to lighten things up in the story.  Although, I do have a gripe with Twilight’s characterization. 

She changes so quickly after getting the pendant on her, I think it would be better if she put up more of a fight and you could see her magic struggle with that of the siren’s. I could understand the sudden change if it was from any other character aside from Twilight (or Sunset) since she has Equestrian alicorn magic in her and what not. Even though she’s a siren now, she’s characterized as a bit of a pushover. If she’s not being one, she’s characterized as a very aggressive or mean version of a siren. I’ll talk more about this in Critiques.

Critiques 

First off, the chapters are too short for a story like this, it could really benefit from some longer descriptions and some exposition. The pacing is also too fast, and the short chapters really don’t help in that regard. Because of the pacing and short chapters, I feel a bit cut off from the story and can’t soak myself into it, you know? A viable way to solve that could be merging the chapters together into fewer chapters. 

The grammar and spelling is a bit off in some places, it isn’t to the point that it’s impossible to read without getting confused but it is a bit bothersome. 

A little nitpick of mine, but there are some… I’ll call them stage directions throughout the story and a few onomatopoeias that are unnecessary. (ex. *sigh*, SPLASH)

Coming back to Twilight and her almost seamless transformation into a siren, it feels very off and has me wanting more from it. 

An example would be in chapter 5, Lunch break, there is a scene involving Twilight that was… unwarrantedly violent and extremely uncharacteristic of Twilight and any background character seen on the show:

Twilight asks for directions from a character named Sandalwood. He then tells her to go “out the exit and to never come back” and so Twilight decides to beat him up till he’s bloody. She keeps doing so till he gives up and tells her the directions and she just… walks away. She realizes what she did was wrong but her siren self tells her it was justified and keeps walking.  

It happened and ended so quickly that you're sorta put in a state of “what just happened”. I know that Twilight is becoming more mean and assertive like a siren, but I’ve never seen the Dazzlings become violent like that in any way. The Dazzlings aren’t physically aggressive but rather manipulative via their charm and magic, something that this Twilight isn’t in this story. 

Final Thoughts

Aside from the critiques, this story is pretty interesting and has a lot of potential. I liked this story and would love it if the author could polish it a bit more because I think it could really benefit from it. When or if this story is completed, I wouldn’t read it again but I would probably recommend it to someone if they’re into this sort of story.

The uncharacteristic Twilight was on purpose as she's initially a little too confused to really grasp what she's doing and I intend to rewrite this story before I continue it because the pacing and spelling errors has begun to annoy me as well.

Other than that. Thanks for the feedback, it's really appreciated