Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXVII · 10:01pm Nov 17th, 2022
My cousin Drew got married. I believe he’s my… second cousin? Maybe third. Weddings are interesting events, largely because of all the people who show up. You know a lot of these people are related to you, but in a family as big as my mom’s it’s very easy to lose track of who is who. Honestly, I didn’t recognize hardly anyone. Many of them I’m sure I’ve never even met. Heck, I barely know Drew, and he lived right down the road from me for my entire childhood. That’s what being an introverted, indoors-y kid does to you, I guess.
So I get to the wedding, I’m meeting people, we’re all having a good time. It’s a fairly quiet event, low-scale, low-budget, but very nice. You could tell they made the most of what they had. During the ceremony I spot a young woman who I swear was the only one wearing glasses in the entire building. She’s keeping a close watch on this two/three year old kid who is so ginger I had to question if her hair wasn’t dyed (my mother confirmed it’s legit). The woman was, with apologies to the bride, the most attractive person in the building.
But you have to be careful. It’s a wedding. For all I know she’s one of those cousins I’ve never met. And she’s got a kid, so y’know, might not have a chance in the first place. I start asking questions. Easy to hide my intentions; I don’t know four-fifths of the people here, and my parents/aunts are already feeding me info whether I ask or not (my eternal thanks to them for helping me connect/reconnect with people).
Oh, she’s the bride’s sister. Sweet. And that kid is one of the bridesmaids’, she’s just watching her for the ceremony. That’s cool. I mean, it wouldn’t matter if the kid was hers or not, but at least this puts her more in the “single” direction. I decided that, when the time for dancing comes, I'm going to ask for one.
One problem: I came here with my parents and aunt, they’re my ride home, and they decide to leave before the dancing actually starts. I go home with my opportunity lost.
Why do I bring this up? It’s not because I want people to feel sorry for me or lament my eternally single status. I bring it all up because I’m not bothered by it. I wasn’t bothered by it while it was happening. I realize now that if I really cared about getting a dance with her, I would have handled this very differently. I’d have spoken to her before the dancing. I’d have let my parents leave and found an alternative ride home. Hell, I could have learned her name. I didn’t do any of those things. Dad said “I’m ready to go”, Mom agreed, and I shrugged and went with them.
I don’t have any point in all of this. I’ve considered all the things I could be leading to, but in the end all it really comes down to is an interesting anecdote. Maybe it says something about me. Maybe there’s a larger reason behind why I felt like sharing the incident. I don’t know. I just needed something to talk about this morning, and hey, I went to a wedding. Why not talk about it?
Oh, wait, no! I’ve just found the meaning:
All girls look better when wearing glasses.
That’s it. Your Paulism for the year.
Let’s get to the reviews.
Stories for This Week:
Gloom by Sonicsuns
Favorable Alignment by Ice Star
Constellations by Monochromatic
Striking the Right Chord by Noble Thought
Administrative Angel by horizon
Αλεκτρονα by darf
Total Word Count: 393,762
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 2
Pretty Good: 3
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
Hitch has good taste. And because he has good taste, he’s very interested in the poet and singer at Bridlewood’s Crystal Tea Room. Interested enough to try and ask her out to a dance that’ll be happening soon over are Maretime Bay. Getting her attention is not going to be easy, though.
In this one we find out why Gloomy Sonnet is always so… well, gloomy. So yeah, the story’s not romantic at all. Which is kind of a shame and makes the story description and tags feel deceptive.
Even so, I’m glad someone decided to try and give this most fascinating of Gen5 characters a bit of backstory, something that makes her personality beyond mere “it’s what my cutie mark is telling me”. And the background on offer is quite damning for pretty much everypony in Bridlewood other than Gloomy herself. The story isn’t bad, but neither does it do anything great with its overarching premise.
“Why is Gloomy so gloomy?”
“Here’s your answer. Okay, story done, no more questions.”
“But we have so many questions!”
“No questions!”
Boo. There’s so much more Sonicsuns could have done with this concept, but instead it just… sort of… ends. Don’t get me wrong, the ending felt fine, but it also felt like the end of a chapter as opposed to a story. You could write a novel with a start like this, and the fact that it’s left here feels like a literary crime.
Oh well, I’m glad I got to read a story starring this mare, who caught my attention in the movie much like Octavia once did.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Favorable Alignment
359,717 Words
By Ice Star
Sequel to Divine Move
Thanks to Celestia’s trademark incompetence, Sombra is now immortal. It’s nothing more than a fantastic stroke of luck, as his second greatest goal has been achieved. Of course, said goal was only being done so that Sombra could begin work on his true and ultimate goal: his romantic pursuit of Luna. The fact that the world might be about to end is just a bonus.
I once wrote in a past review that Trixie was perhaps the only character capable of making Narcissus blush. At last, I find undeniable proof that she has been outdone. I am very fond of that aspect of Ice Star’s Sombra.
Anyway, the last story in Ice Star’s “Sombra’s Odyssey” focuses on two major elements. First, Sombra’s absolute devotion to Luna over everything else – except maybe himself. Watching the ever-confident, self-absorbed, snarky Sombra tiptoeing around in ceaseless anxiety because of a mare was oddly adorable. The story is just as much about Sombra and his affection for Luna as it is about Luna and her (initially) incomprehensible attraction to Sombra. Their budding relationship was just the right thing to serve as a cap to this overarching story.
The second major topic is the aforementioned end of the world. Essentially, there was a villain who appeared when Luna was practically a toddler who is responsible for wiping out the alicorn master race, and now he’s let everypony know he plans to come back to perform a second cleansing in the near future. Once this comes out, Luna decides to head out on her own to stop him, without bothering to inform her dear sister (or anyone at all for that matter) of what she plans to do. Sombra, being smarter than the average demon, catches her in the act and joins her for his own reasons both obvious and not.
There are a handful of issues. For starters, Ice Star has this frustrating habit of having his characters do a range of things completely unrelated to the purpose of their task. This story is not an exception. To be fair, it’s reeled in a lot for this story. But when a few chapters exist only to completely sideline the goal in favor of Sombra and Luna practice-fighting, messing around with lost foals and building sandcastles, you would be forgiven for wondering what it has to do with the story.
Speaking of foals, this one is a simple reminder that Sombra and Luna aren’t necessarily the “nicest” protagonists. With Sombra this goes without saying. But then we have this child who is trapped on an uninhabited island all on his own (I’ll skip over the whole “how he got there” bit save that it’s kind of nonsensical and I question why Ice Star included him at all). Luna and Sombra have a perfectly good airship and civilization is only a couple day’s flight away. So they… just… leave this innocent child… on the island? No joke, they really do leave him there, with the narrative making a flippant comment about how he may someday become industrious enough to make a raft and sail his way to the mainland. I can see this from Sombra, but coming from Luna it was more than a little surprising.
Yet that kind of complements one of the underlying points of the story: Sombra and Luna aren’t what others would identify as “good ponies”. Looking back at it, I think I can see why they left the kid to his own devices. I mean, he never asked for help and he doesn’t seem bothered about the whole “living alone on an island” thing. Heck, he seems downright carefree. Sombra’s not inclined to care regardless, and Luna may have seen how happy and self-sustaining the colt was and figured he didn’t need her help. That or they’re both immortals who don’t really see the need to preserve one insignificant mayfly. Ice Star leaves it ambiguous.
Going back to “issues”, Ice Star still has an unfortunately dense writing style. Characters can linger on in their thoughts for thousands of words, going on for so long that it’s easy to neglect exactly what they were doing a chapter ago and why they started down this psychological rabbit hole to begin with. Assuming the reason was ever obvious which, given Ice Star’s writing style, is in question. Like all Ice Star’s stories, you need to avoid distractions and pay attention to every word, because it’s easy to sort of lose yourself in the words and suddenly realize you missed the last two paragraphs and what were we talking about again?
A good example comes during a fight near the end of the story. At least, it’s supposed to be a fight. One minute our protagonist has leapt into the air, ready to deal a potential fatal blow to a mighty enemy! Then… uh, we’re going to spend the next 2,000 words thinking about things? Then we finally, finally, get to that blow actually landing.
So yeah, if you’re looking for the fights in this story to read like fights, you may be horribly disappointed.
In summary, Ice Star’s storytelling methods and writing style is wildly long-winded, albeit in the least “wild” way possible. His characters are ceaselessly interesting, but you’d best be prepared to comb through a lot of information to enjoy them, much of which you may not understand the relevance of.
Yet there are certainly some good elements to balance out the issues. Ice Star’s character work is still fascinating. The most interesting element to me is how this story really helps to peel back the layers of Sombra at last. He’s an enigma, so much so that he actively goes around introducing himself as “Sombra the Enigma”. Every story so far has made him frustratingly difficult to comprehend, even when they were from his perspective. But for the first time we have Luna here to study him, and through her suddenly who and what Sombra is becomes startlingly clear. It’s like we finally have the proper lens to unblur the image and grasp Sombra’s character in full. I don’t know why this was so hard in the past or why this story makes it so much easier, but I’m very happy to see it.
And of course, Sombra himself is always fun to watch. Especially when he rips into someone with his sass and sarcasm. Truly, he is a master. There were a handful of times where I burst into laughter because of a zinger of his. Luna was no slouch herself, though Sombra stole the show almost every time. And since Luna is Best Pony, that’s saying something.
Speaking of Best Pony (because there are, unironically, two), my metaphorical pony ears perked when Luna noted that in all her years she’s only met two creatures of notable interest. Sombra is, of course, one of them. The other? Rarity. As soon as I saw that I had to wonder, because neither Luna nor Sombra are ones to throw around such statements idly. It suggests there’s a story behind the claim, and I for one would like to see it.
Then there’s the whole issue with Twilight and Celestia. Now, it’s always been a given that Celestia and Sombra don’t like one another, and they’ve always had no small number of choice negative descriptors for each other. But it is only with this story that we fully grasp just how poorly Celestia is capable of understanding Sombra, and since she taught Twilight everything she knows… But then this touches upon Luna too. In one chapter we see Celestia and Twilight communicating via letters. Celestia remarks upon her views of her sister, and it was disturbing. No, really, the way Celestia constantly puts her down with her condescension is horrible, but even worse is that she genuinely seems to believe that her poor view of her little sister is coming from a palace of love. It’s kind of sickening.
It gets worse. In a later scene Cadance goes to visit a psychiatrist who was educated and practices outside of Equestria. The scene reveals that in Celestia’s domain being a loner or introvert is genuinely viewed as immoral and corrupt! Suddenly, everything Sombra has ever said about Celestia has fallen into stark clarity. I mean, we always knew he believed everything he said, but to have it all revealed as a universal truth was a bit of a shocker.
And I love it, because it really speaks to Ice Star’s ability to think outside the box and turn what we know of the show into something resembling an actual culture, one with views and ideas alien to our own.
I could go on, but I should probably start winding this review down. There’s a whole lot you could discuss with this story, from the characters to the presentation to the worldbuilding. It’s just too much for any one review. What I can say to wrap things up is that this is a complex story with complex characters, and there’s a metric ton of pre-existing background material. Thankfully you don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of the AU to understand this story, but you’d best be prepared to roll with a few things. I think the sheer density of the prose and constant overlapping of ideas both relevant and not to whatever is happening in the moment may scare away casual readers. But if you can push through that, you may be able to enjoy the snark, narcissism, and genuine quirkiness of the protagonists as they go on their own selfish little adventure.
Honestly? I think this is the best of the bunch. Despite my earlier claims of the writing style, this one is the easiest to follow by far and has a clear – if not always directly trodden – plot path. The characters are ceaselessly endearing, the underlying philosophy is much easier to grasp, and the main character is finally starting to open up as something the reader can comprehend. I’d say it was all worth it in the end.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Autophobia — Pretty Good
Divine Move — Worth It
All That Lingers — Worth It
Defining Features — Worth It
The Encore of Clover the Clever — Worth It
Constellations
7,350 Words
By Monochromatic
Sequel to The Enchanted Kingdom
Everyone’s going to bed, the better to be ready for their meeting with Princess Cadance tomorrow. Everyone, that is, except Twilight and Rarity. The latter’s playful teasing takes a sharp turn, however, when her scars are put in the limelight.
A “sequel”? Eh, not really, but that’s how Mono labeled it, so it’s what I did too. This story is set in one of the early chapters of The Enchanted Kingdom, but it’s also in a humanized AU of the franchise. At first I questioned this decision, but once we get to the discussion of clothes and how they can be used to conceal certain scars, it made a little more sense. Granted, pony Rarity had a cloak, but when you compare that to the fact that ponies don’t normally wear clothes and humans do… I dunno, it just seemed relevant to the decision to me. Or maybe Mono just felt like writing humans for a change. Who knows?
Anyway, this is a sweet story in which Twilight helps Rarity face her own little torments, namely her feeling that the scars have ruined her attractiveness. How? By identifying constellations within them. It might sound weird, but once you see it in context you’ll find it works magnificently. Although Twilight is very lucky she didn’t use a permanent marker.
Fans of The Enchanted Library and its sequel will absolutely get something out of this. It’s short, sweet, and features the delightful characterizations Mono always brings to the two protagonists. Those who don’t know the series may get something out of it, but that will depend heavily upon their ability to roll with all the things being mentioned they don’t understand.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Enchanted Library — WHYRTY?
The Enchanted Kingdom — WHYRTY?
Our Illusion — WHYRTY?
The Masquerade — Pretty Good
The Art of the Blade — Pretty Good
Striking the Right Chord
12,704 Words
By Noble Thought
Sequel to The Last Vacation
All Sonata wanted to do was create music and have fun. But now she can’t do either of those things, and all her sisters ever do is scream at each other over who is to blame. Desperate to escape their spite for just one day, she goes for a walk…
Yeouch, this was a painful read at the start. We are introduced to a Sonata who is suffering for a wide variety of reasons, all of it under the abuse of her siblings. Then she meets Flash Sentry, who has some understandable anger aimed her way. Fortunately, Flash is a good guy, and when he starts to get a picture of Sonata’s pain he decides to be kind. It’s the start of a friendship that may be good for both of them, but will absolutely be good for her.
I really like this interpretation of Sonata, in an ironic sort of way. If she seems awkward and silly at times, it’s because she’s had no need to be self-reliant and responsible. Her sisters dominate everything in her life, to such a degree that the very idea of getting what she wants both tantalizes and terrifies her. It’s like there’s this mental block that keeps her from being independent out of fear, and only Flash’s direct, physical intervention gives her mind the time it needs to overcome it.
At one point, Flash declares “Listening to you hurts.” He was absolutely right.
The story has a tragic feel to it at the start, but by the end there’s a delightful sense of recovery and hope. Sonata is a hurt woman – a term I use strictly in consideration to her age – but she’s found a path to recovery. My only serious regret at this point is that this is as much of that recovery as we’ll likely ever see. I would have loved to watch her grow from this frightened, dependent child to an independent woman free of her sisters’ toxic influence. With Noble Thought’s thoughtful (pun not intended) prose and style, it could have been a real gem.
For those of you wondering, no, this isn’t a romance and it’s not shipping these two, although the seeds for potential are at least present.
What we have here is a touching and evocative piece that does everything it needs to do in the short time it gives us. Even better, it can be read, understood, and appreciated without any knowledge whatsoever of its predecessor. I don’t think I’ve ever read a story that treated Sonata’s potential as a character so well.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Last Vacation — WHYRTY?
Ghost of a Rose — Pretty Good
The Secret Life of Doors, A Locked Up Story — Pretty Good
There is Another Sky — Pretty Good
Mother of the Moon — Needs Work
Administrative Angel
6,710 Words
By horizon
Principal Celestia always dreamed of being an angel. Exactly how she dreamed of it has changed as she grew older, but the statement remained true to some degree. But dreams are just that, and sometimes they have to be ripped apart. Celestia chose long ago to stop believing in such things. And then Sunset Shimmer turns into a demon…
I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one. All I knew was that it was immensely popular and had been praised to high heaven. For me and my cynical view of public opinion, that didn’t bode well. But it did stoke the flames of curiosity, and I know horizon can be a great writer when he puts his mind to it.
What we got was a quiet story, told in a halting series of snippets that relay the events of Principal’s Celestia’s life, her perspective on angels, and how her perspective of them has haunted her. It’s a complicated mixture of self-recrimination, mistakes made and hopes crushed. Yet for how much Celestia struggles, there is that lingering hope, one that dangles like a thread at the conclusion of the piece, letting us know that maybe our not-so-immortal Principal may finally be back on the right track.
…on an unrelated and amused note, I can’t help but wonder how hard it is to maintain that dye job.
There are a great many things to enjoy about this one. It knows when to be direct and when to be vague, which makes the writing feel delightfully nuanced. There was one element of the story that always struck me as odd and maybe a problem, but then the end of Chapter 3 comes along and no, it’s not a problem, it’s a twist. I think that was the moment when I decided I really liked it.
The end result is a story about forgiveness, communication, and self-identity. I was surprised to find myself getting a little emotional towards certain scenes at the end. I might have been skeptical going in, but horizon knocked it out of the park. My only complaint is that I have to point to this as an example that sometimes, on rare occasions when the moon turns blue and the typically ground-bound swine discover their wings, the general consensus gets it right.
Well done, Mr. Not-A-Changeling. Well done, indeed.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Hearth Swarming Eve — WHYRTY?
The Iridescent Iron Rat — WHYRTY?
The Last Dreams of Pony Island — WHYRTY?
Social Lubricant — Pretty Good
The Kindest Silence — Pretty Good
Αλεκτρονα
5,281 Words
By darf
Requested by NumberFifth
Alternative Title: The Morning Eclectic
Twilight Sparkle awakens early one morning to no breakfast and, far worse, no coffee. Bumbling about in her need for that heavenly pick-me-up, she heads outside on a quest for caffeine.
There’s dense writing, and then there’s this. It’s not purple prose, it’s something else entirely, crafted to be as complicated and verbose as possible. But this isn’t some rank amateur who thinks that being nonsensically verbose is a veritable vein of voracious value (may I be verbose). Rather, this one is intentionally, even playfully crafted. A challenge for the audience to understand the story with as few glances at a thesaurus as possible? Maybe. Or perhaps darth was merely challenging themselves.
It’s even more playful when you discover that the dialogue – somewhat hidden by means of not including quotation marks – reads in a perfectly normal, sensible manner.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that a lot of what you see is in error. You’d also be ‘failing the test’, so to speak. They are not errors; they are word games made intentionally to make you stop and do a double take, and they mean exactly what darth intended. Is that a homophone? No, it is clever wordplay. I am impressed, because to make something like this work to its fullest extent there can be no errors. I can’t speak for others, but I didn’t see any.
Okay, so the story’s writing is complicated in the extreme. But what of the story?
It’s hardly complicated, which in itself is a nod to the whole point of the story. There’s an intentional irony here: Twilight goes to town to get some coffee, has a couple conversations, and commits a serious faux pas – or a couple, depending on your perspective – then heads home to hide so as to not think about how royally she just screwed up. She has a lot of questions, needs a checklist, forgot her money, lied to two ponies and was brutally, almost cruelly honest to another. Moral of the story: don’t talk to Twilight Sparkle before she’s had her fifth cup of bitter.
Again, it’s wholly uncomplicated, but that’s also sort of why it works. I halfway expected the verbose and potentially confusing nature of the narrative to start winding down into normalcy after Twilight got her coffee, a means of saying that “this is how Twilight’s mind works when barely awake and uncaffeinated”, but no, it just kept going.
Did I enjoy it? A lot. A whole lot. As a writer, as a reader, as a purveyor of words, I thought it was a ton of fun. I’m especially pleased that I understood it all without checking any of darf’s offered aid blogs.
Will you enjoy it? Ehh…
This one definitely serves a niche audience. The masses may recoil. As mentioned, darf does provide a trio of blogposts intended to help the confused and intimidated understand what’s going on in the story, but the fact that these blogs exist at all may be enough to scare your average Pony Joe away. If you really want to dive into this one, be prepared to slow down and think about every word on display, because they are not arbitrary and you will have to consider everything being given to you through word choice, punctuation, and the lack thereof.
Complicated yet endearing. I’m more than happy to give it a good grade, but it definitely needs an asterisk.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good*
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Stories for Next Week:
My Little Arkham by ADHD365
Timberwolves: Guardians of the Everfree by Keystone Gray
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This is true.
oh damn, I missed that Administrative Angel was in today's list! :O that's one of those stories that makes me cry just thinking about it, it's so good!
Nice! also
I think that maybe if that girl didn't make you want to go up so much that you want to ask her out maybe she wasn't the right one so there. Sure you could have, but you didn't and well... there are a lot of fish in the sea.
Glad you enjoyed the darf fic. I found it utterly delightful, but I can't entirely fault all the people calling it bloated and unnecessarily magniloquent. It's certainly got a narrow scope of appeal. But if you're within that scope, damn if it isn't so very tasty.
Fun factoid: Αλεκτρονα is the Greek goddess of sunrises.
Wow, another experience of yours that feels eerily similar to mine. Not the specific incident of circumstances not giving you the window to dance with this lady, but the not being bothered by it aspect. Also very much single here, and rarely bothered by it or my near-zero desire to do any chasing even when I see someone I'm smitten by. Why'd I share this? Dunno, just felt like doing so.
I read Gloom a couple months back, and had a similar reaction of it being a neat take on Gloomy Sonnet (now officially named Onyx) while having a non-ending and not following up on all the pressing questions it raises. Worth a look, but rather ultimately frustrating.
There is a lovely little thing called recurring respiratory infections (also, finals week, but we don't talk about that) which kept me from answering this sooner. I just generally don't imagine I have anything especially interesting to say when I'm absolutely filled with Nyquil and around three other controlled cold medicines. First of all, I'd like to say: congrats! You managed to get to my favorite story I've ever written, and as you can tell, it's still on the really delayed revision queue. Uh, the unfortunate funny slew of health issues and the academic backlog hasn't been helping with getting to that. Anyway, lemme get through this, cause holy shit, this is a story that was written when I was seventeen and I am now twenty-three. That should honestly be illegal.
This opening had me stifling a laugh when I first read it because the deadpan delivery of it really sums up his mindset.
Damn, well now that's high praise.
Oh, we're reaching flattery already? Clearly, I'm doing something right.
I'm assuming you're referring to why she's not on exceptionally hostile terms with him in the earliest chapters, even after the awkwardness is smoothed out. It isn't stated outright, since I tried to show it indirectly because too much exposition over organic interactions can be argh, but she initially finds him pleasant around purely because of a similar temperament and because he's as asocial as she is. I'm not sure if this wasn't communicated well enough because of my writing ability at the time or if it is because of something else, but I have legitimately made friends before -- the kind that end up being really damn good friends -- by deliberately approaching the type of people who want to be in the room the least or who hate me precisely because I know they won't bother me and ended up bonding because of that.
So, aside from justifications I know are given at some point in the story, one thing I've always had with Luna is that every peek into her mind shows that she has autistic thinking -- no, not in the sense that she is literally stated to be autistic but that she is preoccupied with inner experiences and unknowingly forms plans and reactions in a self-centered way( if you use the most literal sense of the word) as a result of social disability and solitary tendencies. She isn't a narcissist in any sense of the word, nor is Luna antisocial, but her degree of asociality and apparent inability to socially assimilate even if she put everything into it is similar to Sombra's self-obsession.
Kinda wanna use this phrase at some point.
...Am I the only one who likes a little icing on my story cakes? Or, y'know, a decent amount? One thing I can't stand in writing is stories (generally those on the larger scale, or are a series of some sort) that don't indulge a bit in breaks or smaller subplots at some point, and just let you get to know the characters as people -- or uh, ponies -- and the world. If stories are escapism, then let me have something to escape to, dammit. Save-the-world stories are especially guilty of this because they so often fail to present where the world in 'a world worth saving' is, and on the somewhat less apocalyptic side, the romance genre both on-site and off lacks a lot of examples where we are presented with the characters just spending time together, or apart in healthy ways. I've always really liked Bookplayer's romance blogs, and one of the ones that I have learned a lot from is the one that points out that in person and in prose, if you can't see two folks being able to have dinner together or just hang out then there is a major relationship issue there if there is any chance for a relationship to be found at all. That shit ain't healthy. I don't ever want anyone to read my stories and say that they can't see the characters who are in love watching a movie together, they're gonna watch a movie, dammit! (And squabble about what kind they want and who gets to hog the bowl.) I have a pathological need to know exactly what kind of terrible jokes fictional couples can be written to have, which one (if any) snores, how their hobbies might integrate, what their feelings on tarantulas are, and any number of completely unasked-for things.
Huh, while I absolutely agree with the first sentence, this is definitely an example where my writing at the time didn't convey what I want -- I'll refer to what you say later in the review about the genuinely foreign feeling to the world and its cultures. In the show, various adults leave the CMC (and similarly-aged characters) in incredibly precarious situations, sometimes those that can seem immediately dangerous. Here, a tiny underaged equine is being left on an island [1] where there is shelter, ample food supplies, plenty of space [2], clean water, a favorable climate, no predators, and while in good spirits -- he exhibits no evidence of neglect, abuse, depression, or so on. Horses, even magical child horses, aren't exactly going to be as helpless or dependent as a human would in these situations, and they're much more closely integrated to nature
he also has wings and flying horses are obviously gonna be able to gofast that would make things like "left in the woods/miles away from a town/in this big ol' prairie" and similar statements far less horrifying if there isn't any evidence of danger present.[1] It shows up in another story AND I SOMEHOW MIGHT NOT HAVE BROUGHT ENOUGH CONTEXT FORWARD FOR IT AND I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT KIND OF OVERSIGHT SLIPPED PAST EVERYONE IF IT'S TRUE and it's very much intended that he stay on the island, though clearly communicating it as his newfound home and why are somewhat lost in the reading experience you had, I think?
[2] Luna and Sombra reference the island taking a few hours to walk entirely from end to end at some point if memory serves; it's been a while since I re-read this story. For reference, that would make the island somewhere in the same ballpark as Maui -- yes, I've had someone in Hawaii tell me how long it takes to traverse it from end to end on foot -- but this island lacks any apparent dangers like volcanoes, the terrain isn't as hostile, and a horse's walking speed is around 4 mph, so it's probably smaller.
Correct on all points. This will be very helpful in the revision.
I can't tell if I'm avoiding talking down to readers or what. Is 'show, don't tell' no longer hip with the kids?
This is a certified Ice Star moment and an intended part of my writing.
1) Imagine what it's like in my head, Paul, if I told you that this element is a toned-down, cleaned-up, less tangent-fueled taste of what being in my brain is like. Minus the hyperphantasia.
2) If characters don't have a sort of 'terrain' to their different psyches in first-person narratives, it's just wrong, man.
I don't hide that I'm not an action writer by most people's measure of what counts as one.
1) I do believe that I spy a perfect bit for a blurb in there.
2) This is where I pout about how that is what makes it fun.
What can I say? I'm a sucker for giving the foreshadowing some foreshadowing of its own.
My brother in (entity of choice here), he is literally insane.
Now, this is a level of enthusiasm I hadn't expected but very much appreciate.
The flattery increases.
If I ever get around to it. There is sorta-kinda-absolutely a lot in front of that one.
Fun fact: the specific background for this observation is that I took inspiration from the way I've seen many parents talk about their own children, only I've toned it down considerably.
Fun fact number two: the inspiration behind this aside from the behavior of the ponies from some of the earliest episodes (pre-Ponyville Twilight, Zecora, pre-banishment Luna lore, Luna post-banishment, Moondancer, Fluttershy, and others) and how they conflate the behavior with being either a threat or a pariah is real-life horse behavior, and how those things could translate to sapient parallel species with histories and varying nations and cultures.
Also, you're giving me heaps of blurb material for the dead tree versions, Paul. This is all your doing.
You are among a small number of people who have told me this. I've gained long-term readers who started reading Favorable Alignment and then went back to read the rest, and gave varying (though not especially detailed) accounts of how that was for them. However, I've yet to see anyone recommend it.
I'm not entirely sure what does it, but aside from this also going in the heaps of things that could be blurb material, there is something about this particular sentence I'm especially fond of.
Me too!
The flattery, the flattery is just a whole heap of making me proud that something I wrote in high school was able to secure this much praise. I can only hope a more smoothed-out, final, and fit-for-print version will earn the same level of appreciation, if not more.
I have a sneaking suspicion you've reviewed considerably more by me.
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Oh, come now. Let's be real, you probably had plenty interesting to say. In a nonsensical, "what drugs are you on and where can I get some" kind of way.
I wasn't aiming to be Sombra-esque in this, I was just trying to amuse. Now that you mention it though, I do see the resemblance.
Reading a lot into a single word there, but I suppose that was kinda-sorta the point. Anyway, your explanation here goes into her willingness to tolerate Sombra in the early days, but not to your first point, i.e. her lack of hostility to him on their first meeting. Doesn't address that at all, really. But since you brought it up, my own view towards this was that Luna is infinitely less belligerent and bigoted than Celestia in regards to things she doesn't understand and at the time had no personal reason to hate Sombra aside from Celestia's say-so. And since Luna is already established as having little reason to trust Celestia's word, I assumed Luna was giving Sombra the benefit of the doubt.
Your argument is sound. Your in-story solution is not. Luna and Sombra spend months stuck on an airship together. Months. That's plenty of time for them to develop their relationship and show they have all that potential you're looking for. And yes, you did that. But then they finally reach their destination and they're just... gonna... goof off? I mean, sure, trying to paint a sweet beach scene is nice and all, but at the very least there could have been some justification for why they can.
On the airship they literally had nothing else to do but be together. They couldn't perform their mission because they were still in transit. Once on the island they had no blatantly obvious excuse for being sidetracked. Were they waiting on a spell to charge? Did the stars have to align in just the right way before they could find what they needed? Had they been searching the island for weeks without any progress and desperately needed a break? No, none of these things, they just started procrastinating because, apparently, the end of the world can wait.
You want to show your characters "living" together? That's fine. But if you don't want people to call you out for wasting time, at least show that your characters have a reason to delay the main adventure other than "because I want to."
A few examples? I'm not recalling any specific moments where the CMC were intentionally left in a potentially hazardous situation by the adults. I recall more than enough times when they got themselves into such scenarios, but not any in which the adults were at fault in this regard. But there's plenty of episodes for me to neglect.
That being said, I'm willing to accept it as a case of cultural insanity and move on.
I never said that ambiguity was a bad thing.
As in, this is never going to be addressed and readers should learn to live with it. Which is fine. Everyone has their own writing style and they all come with bumps.
I think you meant to say "The flattery has been doubled!"
A pity. Given how many stories are in this AU, I halfway expected and hoped for the story to already be out there somewhere and I'd just missed it. Oh well.
Actually, I would perhaps like to go back to any Sombra-related stories, as now that I have such a better grasp of him through Luna I might be able to better grasp his behavior in them and, in turn, better comprehend the stories themselves. But that will have to wait, as I'd rather let you do the whole "rewrite" thing first.
True, but as a rule I limit that section to only five stories, which I choose mostly randomly but try to include the higher-rated ones. If I listed all the stories I've read by a given author then these blogs could potentially be much longer thanks solely to story lists. According to my archives, I've reviewed 13 of your stories. The worst case (so to speak) is Trick Question, who is currently up to 21 reviews. I'm sure you can see how that could get out of hand quickly.
If people want to see everything I've done, there's a link to the archive spreadsheet on my user page. I update it after every blog.
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I FUCKING FORGOT ABOUT REPLYING TO THIS BECAUSE I GOT A CONCUSSION AND SHIT HAPPENED BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THIS WHEN I LINKED THE REVIEW TO SOMEONE HOLY SHIT HERE IS MY SUPER LATE REPLY
I didn't. I just slept a lot. Sorry to disappoint.
The snark demon spreads his snark in mysterious ways.
That's kinda the point. Hopefully when I manage to get around to the revamp I can make this clearer without being overly telly.
I will definitely take that last part into consideration with the revamp because apparently, I can be too showy when I need to be a bit telly.
You've actually been the only person to point out this but I trust it
and honestly should bring you on as editor for the revamped version because Lord knows I will be needing one.Do you happen to have a discord?I really wish I hadn't gotten that concussion in January. Off the top of my head, it's worth mentioning that Equestria shows culturally similar behavior that goes back to previous centuries where kids appear free to roam the whole community and surrounding area until it's suppertime or sundown. That stays prevalent even in the later seasons. While that's not an instance of the adults directly taking action, it is an example of inaction that we see on a cultural scale and only seems to let up slightly in cities like Manehattan. Ponies have different expectations for youth and what a normal routine looks like for them than we do.
I've had people do that before. It pisses me off.
I'm so fucking glad that someone finally gets it.
Damn missed opportunity.
Believe me when I say that I have a lot that's currently in progress, projected, and lying around already, published or not.
I desperately want to do them, but I need to bring on a consistent editor and get some other stories that still need their TLC out of the way, and with how busy my life is, the whole thing feels like an impossible balancing act. Lately, I've been trying more than normal to be productive and get shit done. These stories mean a lot to me, both the ones already up and to come.
Considering I have to keep the timeline of 100+ stories updated in my group? Yes. Yes I do.
I'm glad you left that comment on Administrative Angel about your review, because despite you mentioning elsewhere you'd enjoyed it, somehow I completely missed that you'd reviewed it. Belated thanks for the high praise!
One question:
So what was the odd story element which caught your eye that the end of Chapter 3 suddenly explained? I'm kind of drawing a blank.
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You should have asked me this ten months ago! I might known for sure then.
My best guess, and without going into spoiler territories, can be summed up in one word: Dreams.
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Feel free to be spoilerriffic here - that's what the tags are for ;)
The reason I ask is that Luna's dialogue in the dream definitely sticks out as a bit odd in a few ways, but by the time you get there you've basically already reached the twist. You phrased it to imply that there was something earlier, and I'm racking my brain trying to figure out if I'd hinted at anything going on earlier. Was it maybe something in the earlier dream sequence, or tagging the mountain as "Canter Peak" or something? Though if you don't remember, it's just going to have to be one of those mysteries.
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I definitely don't remember beyond the fact that it involved Luna in some way, but the obvious twist for which you feel free to add spoilers (which in my opinion don't actually help because, c'mon, who doesn't automatically look?) is likely the thing in and of itself. Yes, you provided hints, but I somehow failed to follow them such that it did surprise me when it was finally thrown in my face. I recognized the hints after the fact, but only after. Which I suppose was my utter failure as a reader that time around.