Reclusive and antisocial penny-pincher Trixie doesn't care much for Hearth's Warming Eve. A trio of ancient villains appear in her dreams to show her visions of winter celebrations past, present, and future, reminding her of the season's meaning.
Faithful (but not too faithful) retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Very, very AU. Originally written and published on fanfiction.net a year ago with the intent to bring it here the following holiday season. Mild language may push the limit of the E rating.
Chapters (6)
Hello. I found your story in a comment on Friendship Is Dragons, and you seemed to want an honest review, so here's my honest opinion:
This chapter is pretty bland, pony-wise, at the beginning.
Oh, it gets a bit better as time goes on, but the first two-thirds or so just feels like I'm reading the original, except everyone's wearing full-body pony suits. There's almost no reason to keep reading, for the average reader. [^1] I think people don't recommend it because it's just so bland that they don't get to the end, and even then, it still feels like basically the Dickensian story, so they feel like they can just read the original instead.
The writing, mechanically speaking, is well above average, but because of the previous point, I don't exactly know if I can praise it just yet: I'm unsure of whether you wrote it mechanically well, or if Chuck did.
All that said, I still gave it a track, because everypony knows the interesting parts of the original were the ghosts, so we'll see how creative you get there.
Also, Tartarus (or Tartaurus[^2]) is a place in Pony canon that is essentially Hell, so why not use it if you're willing to use Celestia as God?
[1]: I'm abnormal in that I'll read something I've started even if it bores me, because it may get better as it goes on.
[2]: That spelling showed up because of the word taurus, meaning bull.
6752913 I thank you for your time, and for the assurance that I'll continue to get your time. I should say that it's not as faithful to the original text as you seem to think. This chapter in particular is guilty of hitting nearly every conversational beat that the first scene in the book did, but the actual content of the writing is vastly different. Vastly. It really is just me out there. So, thank you.
And you're quite right that the ghosts are the fun part. You won't be disappointed. And honestly, use of Tartarus never occurred to me. The MLP Tartarus was always depicted as a prison, not a hell, and even if it was, telling someone to go to Tartarus just doesn't have any punch.
Much better dynamic, here in Chapter 2!
It now feels like a pony story; the fursuits are gone!
There was a single error that I noticed
This is a run-on sentence, and that "while" is not supposed to be there.
feels a bit better, but the whole rehashing the house's state thing seems unnecessary to me.
Great job! Have a like... and a recommendation.
6760774 Why, thank you! So... the second chapter feels like a pony story but the first doesn't? Fascinating. What do you suppose the difference is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0I-ctYX7Y
The Scrooge McDuck version you are looking for?