Story Reviews » Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLXXV – Extended · 7:55pm January 9th
Welcome to the first review blog of 2025! Once again I have to keep the intro short because I’m running close to FIMFiction’s max character limit for blogs. Let’s get this show on the road before I have to start cutting words for space. To the reviews!
Stories for This Week:
Clean Up by ThatplantthatIhate
It's Not A Dream If It's Real by JWR
Moving on: Silver Spoon's story by Hollyfern
White Out by the dobermans
Lazy River by Estee
My Little Investigations: Marehunter by Metool Bard
Rekindled Embers: Mercury's Journal by applezombi
Phase Two by Sephora
Survival Against All Odds by Thesupernile
That New Magic: The Origin of Love by Hope
(The wind that pushes destiny) by xXRED1234
A Drink Between Friends by KorenCZ11
In His Image by daOtterGuy
Interesting Times by Rambling Writer
Losing Her Marbles by Jhoira
Ponyfinder: The Lost Flowers by David Silver
The Princess of Friendship... With Benefits? by Spyder27
A Riddle or Twelve by Idsertian
Times Have Changed by Maddiepink5
You Can't Eat Gold by QueenMoriarty
Total Word Count: 400,215
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 7
Worth It: 7
Needs Work: 5
None: 0
Clean Up
3,801 Words
By ThatplantthatIhate
Alternate Title: A Mess of Tape
Another cleanup has begun. Sometimes Pinkie wishes there were no cleanups.
This story follows Pinkie as she watches a valiant balloon die during an afterparty cleanup and thinks about another balloon, one that used to be her companion. You might think that sounds like a perfectly silly Pinkie Pie idea. You might be right, but this is by no means a happy story.
It is, in essence, a deep dive into why parties are so important to Pinkie. Not because they’re fun, and only partially because they make ponies smile. No, the real reason is that hosting parties is the only way for Pinkie to prove her worth, to be valuable, to be appreciated. When the party is over, what possible reason could anypony have to notice she even exists? This is a story about Pinkie’s foalhood and how a child raised in a world she’s not meant for struggles with acceptance and self-appreciation. It’s heavy, but it ends on a high note, reminding us that Pinkie has found her solace through her friends in Ponyville and, more importantly, the Cakes.
As of writing, this is the first and only story by ThatplantthatIhate, but man, what a start it is. This is every bit as good a Pinkie Pie origin story as one could hope for. Emotional, at times tense, it’s a delightful bit of appreciation for everyone’s favorite party pony. I dearly hope this author has more in store for us.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
It's Not A Dream If It's Real
1,000 Words
By JWR
Sweetie Belle can't stop thinking about what she saw when Luna visited her dreams and what that encounter means about herself. Fortunately, she has a big sister ready to hear her out.
Set immediately after For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils, this is a quick slice-of-life in which Sweetie fears for her own morality. Or, to put it another way, she realizes she did a Bad and thinks this makes her a bad pony. Rarity proves her Big Sister credentials by knowing just what to say.
My only issue with this story is how it ends, which is very abrupt. Much of it is nicely paced and serves well save for that. I think JWR would have been better served by starting the story from the moment the sisters get to the Carousel Boutique, which would have allowed more wordspace to smooth out the conclusion.
Despite that, this was a pleasant little slice-of-life. Give it a go if you want to spend a minute or two watching Sweetie giving heavier consideration to her past actions.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Moving on: Silver Spoon's story
32,977 Words
By Hollyfern
The Rich family has moved to Manehattan, which means Silver Spoon is left friendless. Cheerilee, noticing the filly’s depression, tries to play Friendship and asks the CMC to spend time with her. One in particular is willing to give the filly a second chance.
I was looking for a story starring Silver Spoon, and hey, this one’s outright called Silver Spoon’s story! Figured I might as well give it a go.
As you undoubtedly expect, this is a Silver Spoon redemption arc. It follows Silver gradually making up and becoming friends with each of the CMC plus Twist and eventually joining the Crusaders proper. Note that this was written waaaaay back in 2012, so old school canon applies.
This is another one of those stories in which the plot is better than the writing for it. Hollyfern has some genuinely good ideas for how to go about Silver Spoon’s redemption, and appears to be trying to paint the CMC, Twist, and Silver as being part of some next-gen Mane Six by linking them to specific Elements. I suspect Silver would end up as Magic since she’s never directly stated as having something. As for the sixth, it’s possible that it will eventually be Diamond Tiara. I also like how Diamond herself is handled. She’s still a bully and mean, but it’s heavily implied that she’s like this because of something that happened to her before, indicating a nuanced approach.
I even like the ending; it left things off without direct confirmation of Diamond’s fate, implying that she might have changed yet also leaving room in there for that not to be the case. It was an excellent way to make the ending satisfying while also opening up the potential for a sequel (which does exist but was never completed).
The problem is that the writing leaves something to be desired. The dialogue occasionally comes out forced or unrealistic. I sometimes questioned if Hollyfern wasn’t sure how to continue conversations and just threw something out in the hopes of keeping things moving. The narrative has a tendency to repeat the same concepts several times within the same scene or chapter as if Hollyfern thought we’d forget if the point wasn’t hammered into our skulls. Descriptions are often direct and telly, tending to deaden the impact of what is often meant to be an emotional moment. Alternatively, Hollyfern sometimes overdoes the emotional scenes, turning some of them melodramatic.
There are also a handful of plot inconsistencies that suggest Hollyfern may not have known where the story was going at the start and began retconning a few chapters in. The biggest example by far is how early on Silver comes to believe that Diamond Tiara saw her only as a tool and they never should have been friends to begin with. This is painted as her newfound relationship with the CMC opening her eyes to how toxic her relationship with Diamond was. A few chapters later this entire concept is thrown away in favor of Diamond and Silver being True, True Friends who understood one another on a deep, emotional level and there needs to be some resolution between them to save their friendship. The latter ends up being the story’s main plot thread while the former is forgotten as if it never came up to begin with.
Oh, and Hollyfern likes writing thick accents. Both Apple Bloom and Twist have theirs written out, and in the case of the latter it can get difficult to understand. If you’re the kind of person who hates written-out accents, this will be triggering.
So yeah, a decent story hidden under some struggling writing. It’s a pity Hollyfern left the site in 2015, I feel like some polishing in the writing style would have led to some great future material. As with so many stories, the ideas are there, it just needs the presentation.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
White Out
4,395 Words
By the dobermans
The time has come for all good foals to go back to school. Celestia has chosen Featherweight to join her personal school, the Gymnasium for High-Flying Pegasi. The curriculum lasts ten years. His mother, Leadweight, is through the roof. Featherweight, on the other hoof…
I can’t say with any confidence what this one is really about. The story has many different interconnecting layers, but deciphering a single overarching purpose to it all isn’t easy in the least.
Celestia is the main perspective focus, though it shifts from time to time. Exactly what her intentions are remain muddled, but there’s something distinctly unsettling about her behavior. There are times when she seems lost in the past and can’t focus. There’s a side-story about angel food cake. The way she treats Featherweight could be anywhere between saccharine overwhelming mothering to… Well, some people have theorized that she’s secretly a pedophile, and I can see where they’re coming from. There’s also this bit of charlatanry involving Featherweight’s mother, Leadweight, with Celestia acting kind and generous and making nice until the end when she acts like Leadweight never existed.
Then there’s this strange counterpoint. Celestia claims she’s already had some “one-on-one” time with Featherweight as a personal student. But later when Leadweight asks about his curriculum and how it works, her response is “I don’t know, I’m trusting the faculty to know what they’re doing”. That is not the answer of someone who is running a school and taking on personal students from it. Something is going on.
Leadweight herself is something of a nervous wreck. There are plenty of stories in which characters act anxious because Celestia is coming, but in most of those said characters relax after a few moments of the old Celestia charm and charisma. Leadweight is not one of those characters. She is ceaselessly anxious and tripping over herself. It can be a little annoying at times, but is itself something that seems to be a clue for… whatever is going on. It’s impossible to say if she’s really in on what Celestia is doing – assuming Celestia is doing anything in the first place – or just desperate to get her son out of the poverty she’s stuck in. It could be both, I suppose.
Then there’s Featherweight. He doesn’t want to go to the Gymnasium. He doesn’t want to be with Celestia. His behavior is strange, perhaps unpredictable. His language is off, but there are moments when he reveals that he is lucid, which leaves all the more uncertainty. Featherweight’s blatant fear and cryptic language really shoots the underlying creepiness of the story into high gear.
So what’s happening? I just don’t know. Maybe Celestia’s talk of once “avoiding all sugar” as a foal, the reference to angel food cake, the way she left lip gloss on his muzzle, and Featherweight’s behavior are all warning signs of pedophilia. But given the lack of a Dark tag, I’m not convinced that is the case. I feel like it’s something else. What that something else is however, I couldn’t say.
This one is apparently highly controversial, earning almost as much hate as it has praise. For my part, I lean towards liking it, though I can’t help thinking it may be a little too obtuse. It’s clearly a complicated piece and the dobermans has clarified that there is an underlying point, but refuses to acknowledge what said point is. If you’re interested in stories that require you to do a lot of thinking and maybe go through a couple re-reads, this is definitely the one for you. If you want a story’s meaning to be handed to you on a silver platter, steer clear.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Lazy River
10,717 Words
Estee failed to provide cover art.
Of the Triptych Continuum
Shiva isn’t over. No matter what Big Mac or anypony else might say. Applejack can still hear their voices in the earth, and she refuses to leave the Acres until those voices are quieted. Which is why she finds it so terribly frustrating that Pinkie Pie is trying to convince her to leave, even if only for an hour. But Pinkie made a promise, and Applejack’s not about to make her best friend a liar. It’s just an hour. Then she’ll get back to hearing their voices…
The great Estee strikes again. Here we find filly Applejack just after her parents’ deaths and filly Pinkie’s desperate, last-ditch effort to pull her only friend out of the mental slide she’s going down. Yes, I said “only” friend.
This is a story deeply rooted in the lore of Triptych. The good news is that if you've practiced your reading comprehension skills then you’ll figure out the core of this story: how earth ponies have the ability to ‘listen’ to the earth and the magic of other earth ponies. The story is also rooted heavily in earth pony funeral customs, particularly the idea that the dead’s voices will still echo through the earth for a time and the family of the deceased will spend at least some time, known as the shiva, listening to those final echoes. This only lasts for a few days – less than a week – but Applejack insists she can still hear her parents.
Estee claims this can be read without any knowledge of the continuum in which it is set. This is… debatable. There are a lot of references to things that you couldn’t possibly understand even with Grade-A reading comprehension skills, references to certain villains or taboos that will get no explanation. As long as you pay attention, you can understand the parts that are important to the main plot of this story, and in many ways Lazy River accentuates and expands upon what Triptych has given us. But there will be tertiary subjects newcomers won’t understand, so they need to be ready to roll with those.
Despite such an issue, this is everything I’ve come to expect from a Triptych story. It’s a painful tale of recovery and moving on, up to and including risking the loss of a friendship if it means saving the soon-to-be-lost friend from themselves. Moreover, it maintains a firm grasp of its roots, making sure we understand Pinkie’s side of things and how this entire situation is just as painful for her. And yet, in the end, a friendship is preserved… and perhaps even hardened.
Another solid Triptych tale. As always, I look forward to the next one.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Triptych — WHYRTY?
Donuts Not Of This World — WHYRTY?
Blessing — Pretty Good
Twilight's Escort Service — Pretty Good
Pony Go Boom — Pretty Good
My Little Investigations: Marehunter
167,133 Words
By Metool Bard
Sequel to My Little Investigations: The Gemstone Godfather
It’s the Grand Galloping Gala all over again, but at least this time Twilight is reasonably sure there will be no shenanigans. She should have known better. Now someone has attempted to assassinate Prince Blueblood and also thrown a heavily battered Derpy out a window. All signs indicate that Mare-Do-Well was present, and may even be the culprit. Except there may also be… a Mare-Do-Well impersonator?
It’s been a long time since I read a My Little Investigations tale. For those of you unaware, this series involves characters solving mysteries, always with the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well involved. Each story was headed by a different character, in order: Spitfire, Octavia, and Amethyst Star. For the finale, we add Twilight as an investigator while also having the previous three return for their own roles. Apparently Metool Bard thought the best way to conclude the series was by simply having more than one mystery going at the same time.
Thus the tory is divided into four parts:
- Spitfire, Rainbow Dash, Blaze and Misty Fly go to the Griffon Kingdom to seek out Kierra, a professor who helped in the creation of Mare-Do-Well, and also to investigate Mare-Do-Well’s deposed and incarcerated creator, Gypsy Moth. There they meet their rivals from Spitfire’s story, the Proud Pride, and find themselves involved in a murder mystery.
- Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, Rarity and Fluttershy go to Manehattan to inquire about a threat in the area, leading to encounters with Sapphire Shores, Babs Seed, and the local police. When Sapphire Shores and Sweetie Belle are attacked by a mysterious figure, they take it upon themselves to find the culprit.
- Amethyst Star, Derpy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie head to the Japan-esque Mewlin Mountains, ruled by the Neko Shogunate, to look for clues regarding this Mare-Do-Well imposter. There they are re-introduced to the great dragon Kohryu and his attendants (based on traditional Chinese astronomy) and look into the murder of a Diamond Dog who wasn’t anywhere near where he was supposed to be.
- Twilight and Spike, accompanied by Celestia’s assistant Kibitz and Shining Armor, remain in Canterlot to investigate the attempted assassination of Blueblood, which leads to encounters with Photo Finish, Coco Pommel, an imprisoned tengu, and of course the royal siblings. She also seeks to determine if there really is a Mare-Do-Well imposter.
I’ll just make a note that this is the first and only story in the series to feature an actual murder, as opposed to implied threats of or attempts at such. In this the stakes are already a lot higher than they were in the previous stories. The individual mysteries are complex such that it’s easy to forget that these are all supposed to be somehow tied to the main mystery of the Mare-Do-Well imposter. Also, Metool Bard constantly jumps from mystery to mystery, not letting a single one hold center stage for very long. While this worked wonders for moving things at a decent clip and not letting any one topic grow boring, it comes with the caveat of making the individual mysteries a lot harder to follow. It doesn’t help that all of them are making copious references to events in the previous stories; if you’re like me and haven’t read them in a while, you may be struggling to recall things. Even so, the mysteries are generally more competent than they have been, with far fewer issues than were so heavily present in past ones. In this particular regard Metool Bard definitely improved.
Alas, there are still problems. At this stage in the author’s career they still didn’t understand that commas and ellipses are not interchangeable (although this is an old complaint and I’ve been assured that they’ve learned their lesson). There’s also a few instances of strange, nonsensical behavior. The worst of these comes in Octavia’s story when she makes a point that… does nothing. It doesn’t change the game, it’s not a big reveal, and doesn’t help the investigation in any way. And yet the person she’s talking to – a police detective, no less – reacts as if what she’s just heard is a jaw-dropping game changer (her monocle even pops off her face!). Reactions like this are quite typical, and while they’re often fine they sometimes come off as overblown. I swear Metool Bard was getting their dramatic reactions straight from a Phoenix Wright game.
That reminds me: The author drops character quotes like they’re going out of style. Which they had, might I add. I can’t recall if this was a common trend in the other stories of this series as well, I just know it is neither amusing nor nostalgic, it’s just annoying and lazy. I understand wanting to call back to certain elements of the show, but there are better ways to do it. For example, Metool Bard at one point has Pinkie recite her entire “put a key in a box and then bury the box” routine from... I can’t actually recall the episode. It was an iconic Pinkie Pie moment though, so I really get why someone would want to call back to it. Yet just repeating it word-for-word isn’t the way to do it. Far better would be for Pinkie to do an entirely different routine with the same gimmick.
Also, I wish Metool Bard would stop ending the individual chapters with Super Dramatic Quotes!™ They were usually counter effective; more eye rolling than anything.
Also also, sometimes the investigation methods get ridiculously roundabout. For example, in one scene Octavia is interrogating Sapphire Shores’ bodyguard when it is revealed that he has pertinent evidence on his person. Octavia decides she needs to see this… later? As in she’s going to go somewhere else to interrogate somepony else on an entirely different topic and only then return to talk to this same guy again about this evidence that she’s already acknowledged is important. As opposed to, I dunno, saving everyone time and doing it right now while she’s right in front of him? What’s the logic here, except perhaps as an excuse to cut to a different mystery and not linger on this one too long?
But the single biggest problem is the indecisive narrative. The narration can’t decide whether it’s speaking to the reader or reacting to the ongoing situation. Is this an interview in which the characters are retelling the stories, or is this real-time first-person narration? If it’s the former, then there is zero reason for the character to react to what they’re talking about as though they’re happening in real time. If it’s the latter, then the perspective character shouldn’t be talking to the reader at all. This was bad but generally tolerable in the prior stories with only one perspective, but with four of them it becomes egregiously pronounced. This one issue pervades the entire story and was my single biggest gripe, consistently pulling me out of any immersion I may have had.
Yet for all these flaws, there were still a number of positives and signs of improvements. Again, the mysteries themselves were a step up from the prior ones with higher stakes, real consequences, and logic that isn’t occasionally absurd (random maps taped to the ceilings of ventilation ducts notwithstanding). The narrative was a big downside, and keeping up might be difficult for those who struggle with holding mental puzzle pieces, but still; big improvements were made. I’m glad I got this far and finally got to see how it all plays out.
Whelp, finally done with these. I suppose now I can finally take a look at some of Metool Bard’s more recent projects.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Truth Hurts — Pretty Good
My Little Investigations: Wonderbolts Under Fire — Pretty Good
My Little Investigations: The Silent Dirge — Worth It
My Little Investigations: The Gemstone Godfather — Worth It
Rekindled Embers: Mercury's Journal
13,733 Words
By applezombi
Sequel to Rekindled Embers
Mercury Shine is a newly minted member of the order of the Knights Radiant. Her first mission: to journey to the Free Zebra Republic town of Jubilation and use her powers of healing to bring the Holy Equestrian Diarchy’s goodwill to the heathens. As one might expect, things go tail-side-up in short order.
This is a story written for Pride Month and heavily focused on sexual transitions. I bring this up first only for the sake of those who would inevitably be triggered by such topics: This is not the story for you. Or maybe it is if you’re actually looking to get triggered, in which case have at it I suppose.
Anywho, this journal-style tale follows Mercury Shine and her struggles with heathenism in Jubilation. Despite the label, it is only a sequel to Rekindled Embers in that it is set in the same AU, with no direct connection to the events of the original epic. Clearly, it’s set prior to those events. It opens with things already having gone tits up in the form of Mercury’s transport to Jubilation being (pathetically) easily captured by pirates and Mercury’s frustrating crush on the pirate captain. Once she gets to Jubilation she begins wandering the town talking to the locals in an attempt to endear herself – and by extension the Holy Equestrian Diarchy – to them, only to find herself gradually enjoying their heathen culture. This is unfortunate when you’ve got fanatical superiors breathing down your neck looking for any sign of wrongthink.
The setting of Rekindled Embers is ideal for a story about self-discovery. From that angle this works wonderfully. My only complaint is that it’s a bit on-the-nose with its messaging, but given it’s a Pride Month story I suppose that’s to be expected; activism has a tendency to prefer sledgehammers. Ignoring this one aspect, I’d say applezombi handled the subject matter well. It’s difficult not to feel for Mercury when you see how every facet of her old life has been keeping her down without her even realizing it, or to quietly encourage her to embrace that freedom she’s witnessing for the first time and longs for so much.
I have two favorite elements. The first is the depiction of Luna. A pivotal part of the story involves Mercury traveling with a caravan of bat ponies and learning about their personal religion, which of course is all about the Moon Diarch. Except they refer to her as the Many-Faced One, whose nature changes constantly with the phases of the moon and who can be any gender or race at any time. Not only is this a great concept to tie Luna to her namesake charge, it’s perfect for translating her as a matron deity of the Trans identity. Now that it’s been brought to my attention I am genuinely surprised I haven’t seen it more often.
The second part that I liked was this near-end scene in which Mercury prays desperately to every entity she can think of – her Saints, the sisters, even the Many-Faced One for some sort of sign. Naturally she receives no answer. I don’t know if this was the intention on applezombi’s part, but it almost felt as if this was the sign she needed. After all, if her thoughts were really so offensive to any being genuinely watching from above, would it not make that fact known? It felt as if the moment was a statement made in silence, and I rather like that idea.
Overall, I liked this one. As much as I was hoping for an expansion involving the characters I’d come to love in the main story, applezombi did an excellent job doing something different with the setting. The fact that it can be enjoyed without any knowledge of its predecessor is a nice touch, although doing so requires you accept certain facts at face value. However, it must be acknowledged that this is written with a specific audience in mind, and if you aren’t part of that audience then results may wildly vary.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Rekindled Embers — WHYRTY?
Uh… Oooookay?
This was a strange one. Clearly meant to be a horror, it wound up being mostly confusing. Apparently Pinkie has gone totally gray and is spending all her time staring at the wall. It’s implied that something is taking her over and we’re just witnessing the first.
There are a number of issues. For starters, Sephora’s structure is repetitive, using the same “Oh, how mysterious > it makes everyone nervous” theming over and over again, and beats the “this is not regular Pinkie behavior” angle like a dead horse.
It’s also inconsistent. For example, at the start of the story we learn that Pinkie has been talking about knives on top of her usual things, a point clearly made for the purpose of being spooky and weird and getting a rise out of the reader. But only a few paragraphs later it’s declared that in fact Pinkie has been utterly silent for a whole month and done nothing whatsoever save stare at a corner. But then it’s stated that Pinkie spoke to Gummy, and Princess Luna overheard it and this terrified her. But then suddenly Pinkie is moving again and she walks past Luna…
Wait wait wait. If Luna overheard Pinkie talking, clearly she must not have been completely mute for the past month. Or, what, did Luna just stand outside Sugarcube Corner for a whole month, doing nothing but monitoring Pinkie the whole time? Or are we meant to understand that Pinkie’s dialogue was set after the month-long silence? If that’s the case, why did you write about the month-long staring contest with a wall after the dialogue Luna is reacting to?
For that matter, what is Luna even doing in Ponyville? There’s no explanation for this, she’s just randomly there, listening in on Pinkie Pie from outside the building. Which must have extremely thin walls for a place that is A) a thriving business and B) houses the most hyperactive pony in Equestria PLUS a pair of twin foals known for their rambunctiousness. Speaking of, where are the Cakes? You’d think they’d have something to say about their live-in employee sitting there for a month being creepy and scaring away all the customers.
Why did Pinkie tell Gummy that she’s “starting with you” only to leave and do absolutely nothing to him, instead starting with Twilight? If you intended the absence of information to indicate that something did happen, you’re doing it wrong. There needs to be a clear transition, either by the wording or a visible line break, to clarify that time has passed and something happened.
Also, Luna hears Pinkie declare it’s time for phase two. And somehow, just learning there is a phase two automatically makes everything “worse than she thought”. Why? How? There’s no logic to this conclusion. Just because something advances to a second phase doesn’t automatically mean things are about to get worse. You need to give us more than that, author! Show (or, if worse comes to worst, explain) why Luna overhearing “phase two” makes things worse.
Luna begins panicking. Why? Because her magic couldn’t touch Pinkie? Okay, fine, but what else happens? As soon as Luna panics, she disappears from the story. Shouldn’t she, I don’t know, go warn Celestia that something is happening? Or hell, follow Pinkie to see what she’s up to, and maybe then try to help Twilight? But no, she just disappears into thin air.
There’s being vague, and then there’s this. Sephora, you can’t just say “it was creepy” and expect it to be so. Characters don’t disappear into the void between moments. And even if what is happening to your characters has no basis in reality, there’s still such a thing as logical progression. The way you wrote the first two-thirds of the story makes it feel like time has no meaning.
Stop being so vague and show us what’s going on as it happens. How are the other characters reacting? “...her appearance … only deepened the mystery and stirred deep concern among other ponies…” isn’t good enough. Pinkie Pie has friends. Family. Ponies who care about her wellbeing. Show Rainbow Dash trying to get through to her, or Fluttershy being unnerved by Pinkie’s language, or the Cakes trying to resolve the issue and save their business. Let us directly witness how Pinkie’s behavior is affecting everypony (and gator) close to her. That’s how you make these events compelling, not this airy, distant, non-specific observation. Reveal how Luna came to be involved, how she’s investigating the situation, and why she happens to be eavesdropping at the exact moment Pinkie breaks her (what I’m now going to assume is a) month-long silence.
There are ways to be vague, a time and a place. The entire story is not it. Good luck with the next try, author.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Survival Against All Odds
21,875 Words
By Thesupernile
Requested by Thesupernile
All Isabel wanted to do was go on a day hike with her friends. Then they get lost. Then some strange lightning event happens. And now they’re in a completely new location in the bodies of something resembling ponies. It’s okay. It’s okay. They can do this. Just find civilization and take it from there…
This one follows six human friends who find themselves turned into ponies and have to survive in the wilderness. Why did they get turned into ponies? It’s never explained. Which is surprisingly common for HiE or similar such tales, isn’t it?
Isabel is our main protagonist. She’s been hiking and camping her entire life. She’s not a wilderness survival expert, but she’s the closest the group has to one. Unfortunately, Isabel is not a natural leader, and her good advice is often overruled by her friends. The story sets them in the middle of the Equestrian wilderness starting on a beach. Apparently they aren’t far from Ponyville but, as non-natives, have no idea of this fact. Rather than staying put, they decide to go hunting for civilization, which naturally results in them going deeper and deeper into the wilds.
To be clear, this is not a happy story. When Thesupernile says it’s a survival piece, they mean it. Isabel and her friends are in serious trouble, were not even remotely prepared for such a journey, and not all of them will survive to the end. The author is going for brutal realism here, and in that aspect they succeeded marvelously. If you’re looking for a happy ending, you’ll have to settle for bittersweet.
Unfortunately, this is one of those “great concept, poor execution” tales. Genuinely, the story is solid, but the writing of it leaves a lot to be desired. The narrative is extremely repetitive, telly, and has a terrible habit of stating the painfully obvious. Author, your readers are not idiots. They know what an ambulance is, they get the general concept, you don’t have to tell us (multiple times) that without it ponies would die. You’re not creating some sort of tense atmosphere, you’re just being annoying.
Add onto that strange sentence structure, incorrect (or absent) use of punctuation, unexpected and temporary shifts in narrative voice, and so much more. Some of it is bad grammar, but there’s also plenty where the grammar is fine but the sentence is just ungainly.
Then there’s a few logical/character oddities. Take for example Twilight Sparkle. In one moment she’s described as being mostly interested in the technology the survivors left behind when they disappeared and has only a peripheral interest in the survivors themselves. But then, not five minutes later, suddenly the survivors are everything and oh, Celestia, please let them be safe! Which is it, author?
Or there’s Swirling Gale, the guard who discovers the wreckage where the humans first showed up in Equestria and the SOS they left behind. Obviously, her first priority is to report it to her immediate superior, right? Uh, no, apparently not. Instead she goes directly to Princess Celestia. Because somehow this is supposed to be faster than going up the proper chain of command, which for some reason isn’t stationed near her patrol route? If this is close to Ponyville, wouldn’t it be faster to go to Princess Twilight instead of all the way back to Canterlot?
The Royal Guard have been searching for these survivors for a month, and they’re only a couple days behind. Oh, wait, suddenly the search took many months. Again, make up your mind, author.
Also, why is it so hard to catch up to these ponies? The search and rescue team is composed of pegasi, and exactly zero of the survivors are flying. The survivors are also following the beach, and then a river. What do you mean, the marks being left on trees are confusing and hardly helpful? They’re following the water!
The issue of how long it took to track the survivors can be alleviated in one simple way: consistent time awareness. The passage of time is largely ignored here. How long was it between when the survivors started their journey and Swirling Gale found the SOS? We have no idea. The fact that they spent a month (or multiple months, again this is inconsistently stated) hunting for the survivors suggests it was a long time. Yet the SOS is still written on the beach and hasn’t been completely eroded by the tide (a point which is brought up in-story), so in reality it couldn’t have been longer than the last low tide. If you don’t believe me, you clearly have never visited a beach and drawn in the sand. Thesupernile needs to keep a better eye on their claims and the implications they lead to.
Aside from the quirky, Telly writing, this seems to be Thesupernile’s #1 issue: an inability to maintain a chain of cause and effect. The timeline is wonky, and events that should have done one thing end up doing something else entirely. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the entire story is a confusing mess. There’s a clear logical progression geared towards the hazards of wilderness survival, and that primary element is told very well. But the devil is in the details, and it’s in those details that Thesupernile is floundering.
Overall, this one didn’t stick the landing for a variety of reasons. Even so, I see promise in this author, because there’s a good story hidden under all the blemishes. If Thesupernile can work to polish off all those rough edges we may get some solid material down the line.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
That New Magic: The Origin of Love
7,923 Words
By Hope
Requested by Hope
Mi Amore Cadenza only wants to belong and not feel like a freak in normal society. That is difficult to do on many levels, but then there is Shining Armor. She doesn’t deserve him, so she’ll have to make sure not to mess this up.
When this began I was under the impression that Cadance was trans, but at one point she outright denies it. It’s possible she was lying in an effort to avoid a confrontation, but there are times when it feels like Cadance herself doesn’t know what she is. To be certain, she was born male, and she’s not happy about it, regularly wearing clothes and avoiding flights so that nobody can see her ‘wrong bits’. But at the same time, I get the impression that it’s not the matter of “male” vs “female” that bothers her.
The story is set in an AU that is mostly the same with canon but changes Cadance’s backstory in significant ways. Instead of being raised in a rural village and fighting a witch, she is born and raised in Canterlot. Her family is well aware of their ancient history and are constantly awaiting the day that the Crystal Empire will return. This is a serious problem, because Cadance plans to undergo a transition that will render her the last of her line, and thus end any hopes of there being a future ruler of the Crystal Empire.
Meanwhile, we have the brunt of the story: Shining Armor constantly inviting to Cadance to various events in hopes of gaining attention. This leads to her joining his O&O friends group, which in turn allows her to experience escapism and belonging for the first time. Of course filly Twilight is present, though this appears to predate any foalsitting (assuming Cadance ever foalsits in this AU at all).
Eventually we get to the big climax of the story: Cadance’s ascension. How did she ascend? Why? No idea. No, seriously, even Cadance has no idea what happened. One minute she’s having an emotional breakdown after a bad conversation with her mother, the next she’s sitting on a cloud of stars with Luna there to welcome her to the fold. Yes, Luna, who is still banished. She makes no attempt whatsoever to explain how or why this is. At any rate, Cadance’s ascension makes it so that she can morph her body into any form she wants at any time, thereby making her as literally genderfluid as one can imagine. Luna implies that all the plumbing works too, so there goes the whole “no more heirs to the Crystal Empire” problem.
This story started off strong. Hope does a decent job showcasing Cadance’s ongoing battle with her own image, sense of self-worth, and need to belong. Her interactions with Shining Armor are easily the best part. The problem comes when Cadance has a conversation with her mother. It felt… muted. Here Cadance is, hearing how her mother doesn’t want her to transition and believes that the Crystal Empire is a lost cause because of her, and her reaction felt strangely calm. It’s not supposed to be, I get that, what with the whole ‘fly off and try to outrace the self’ thing going on. Yet the whole conversation is so brief and Cadance’s emotions during it so understated that I didn’t realize Cadance was supposed to be reacting emotionally at all until after said conversation was over. And then Cadance is an alicorn because, uh… she flew really, really high, I guess?
Well, at least future Princess Twilight will have good company in the “didn’t earn it” criticisms.
In other words, I really feel like Hope dropped the ball with that ending. All that time was spent revealing Cadance’s situation and how she feels, lots of attention paid to certain little details. If Hope can do all that with the buildup, why couldn’t they do it with the climax where it matters the most? The moment where you tie everything together is not the time to get stingy with your words!
And that’s the big thing, I now realize: it doesn’t tie everything together. Cadance sees images of her father playing with her as a foal. Okay, how does that tie into what’s going on right now? No, saying “father wanted a son to produce heirs” isn’t enough. This is supposed to be the moment where all the events of Cadance’s life come together to accentuate the point of her ascension, to really hammer home how she’s earned her place, but it never feels like that’s been achieved because we’ve missed pretty much all of Cadance’s life, to say nothing of the defining moments. Even if this did tie everything in Cadance’s life together, it has no impact because we, as the reader, never got to see any of it. It’s a big moment for a big story, but it’s attached to a small one.
As I said, the first half – maybe first two-thirds? – of the story is great. Solid work all around. It just sort of putters out at the end.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
(The wind that pushes destiny)
12,832 22,160 Words 
By xXRED1234
Requested by xXRED1234
Lendary has issues. For starters, she’s a zebra, and as everyone knows, zebras are the only race in the world with zero magic. To make matters worse, Lendary has no cutie mark despite being in college. But that’s okay. She’s weathered the abuse, and soon she’ll prove that cutie marks are nothing but shackles to be overcome.
Let me just start off with a suggestion: If you’re going to nearly double your story’s size after requesting a review, it might be a good idea to let the reviewer know you did that so he can make appropriate changes to his painfully organized and prepared review schedule. This thing completely screwed me over when I finally got to it; the timing was all sorts of bad for a variety of reasons.
Anyway, this story focuses on blank-flank Lendary, who has trained herself to appear as a stoney, emotionless husk of a zebra as a means of self-defense against the constant ridicule she’s received all her life. She’s devoted herself to proving that you don’t need a cutie mark to forge your destiny and get ahead in life (I’m getting Olden World flashbacks already), which gets completely overturned when she finally gets one in alchemy during her first year finals.
The story is essentially about Lendary’s life, from her childhood to early graduation to being a top researcher and then a special forces operative. Much of it revolves around her utter hatred for cutie marks, although at some point there’s also a big battle against suicidal depression owing to her early career being dependent upon the very thing she hates. I found it especially curious that Lendary was generally bad at alchemy and study in general, but the instant she got her cutie mark she became a pro (and hated it). It’s an interesting interpretation of how cutie marks work, presumably inspired by what happens in The Cutie Pox.
Eventually we get to the point where we learn the ultimate point of this story: a prologue to a bigger story (which Red is currently writing) in which Lendary, her coworker Morcly, and Tempest Shadow (curiously named “Fizliepop” instead of “Fizzlepop” – maybe that’s how her name came out in Spanish?) go on an adventure in the Everfree Forest. Oh, forgot to mention that most of this story is set before the events of the show, though it eventually becomes concurrent with the events up to the return of the Crystal Empire.
The first thing to note is that Red’s first language is Spanish and the entire story had to be translated. Is it a good translation? Considering Red appears to have handled that aspect entirely on their own, it’s not bad. Not great, but way better than you might expect. There are certainly some odd turns of phrase that don’t quite mean what the author intended, but it’s close enough to get the idea. Sentence structure gets awkward on occasion, but as long as the language barrier is kept in mind I don’t feel as though it’s a big deal.
That being said, there were still some quirks. For example, when Lendary gets her cutie mark? It’s a bubbling cauldron. But wait a minute...
This is what zebra cutie marks look like, right? At least, that’s what I thought, but then I did some digging and found that Gen5 zebras appear to have pony-style cutie marks. So is Red basing Lendary’s cutie mark on Gen5 despite this being set in Gen4? Is there evidence that some zebras in Gen4 also have pony-style cutie marks? I am confused.
Also, why is the title in parenthesis? I have no idea. And why are there so many instances of dialogue being put in the middle of the long paragraphs with no proper indication that anyone is actually saying anything? It almost feels like Red is intending to use the quotation marks for an entirely different purpose than dialogue. Maybe thoughts? But if that’s the case, they should be writing those thoughts in a different format so we can understand that’s what they are.
Also, images. Red, stop using the images. They aren’t helping you. The ones at the very end are fine because they aren’t interrupting the story in any way, but all these landscape shots in the middle of the story have to go. They’re not doing anything but distracting the audience from your words, which is what they should be focusing on.
And then there are the fights. Which are stupid. Red openly admits that they stole the general manner of the fight scenes from anime. I will always, always insist that if you are trying to write a serious story, making your fight scenes overdramatic, over-the-top anime-esque brawls is the wrong thing to do. The moment you see someone take a blow that should have killed them and watch them laugh it off, it becomes impossible to take anything that is happening seriously. This is fine if the reader isn’t meant to take things seriously, but given how the rest of the story is written?
You’re shooting yourself in the foot here, Red.
This isn’t an anime, it’s not a video game, and you didn’t write the vast majority of it as if it were. Your fight scenes are completely out of sync with the tone and style of the rest of the story. If you want the story to come off as realistic – and you clearly do, given how most of it is written – then your fight scenes should also be realistic. It’s fine if you want Lendary to be a badass. Hell, I love badass female characters. But you can write Lendary as a badass without resorting to this silliness. Making your fights nonsensically epic doesn’t do you any favors when they take up only 1/10th of what is a largely un-epic tale.
Oh, and a tip for the future: If you’re going to state specific numbers, always spell out the numbers if they’re less than eleven. Really that’s more of a technical writing thing, but I do believe it looks/reads better that way regardless of medium.
Also, next time seriously consider breaking the story up into chapters. There’s no need for this thing to be one gigantic piece as you’ve currently made it. If anything, a 22k single-chapter story is going to scare potential readers away.
There’s also the pacing issue. Some scenes are given great attention, such as Lendary’s Finals Exam and how she met Morcly, but most of the attention to detail falls on the fight scenes. Everything else is skimmed, as though Red couldn’t wait to get past them and get to the Epic Battulz!!1!!!! Red, I get you may find the slower parts tedious? But you really should try to give them the same kind of attention to detail. Don’t skim Lendary’s suicide attempt, this is a critical moment! Or what about the infiltration of the museum in the minotaur lands? That could have been a tense, fun sequence and you flew by it! Or what about when they all went to the Frozen North and entered that glacier? That could have been an excellent opportunity to show Lendary and Morcly working together and building their relationship, and you just skip it? You’ve already shown an interest in going in-depth for the fight scenes, don’t let that interest wane just because nopony’s throwing a punch.
I see potential in this story’s overarching concept, that being a bitter and hard-headed zebra fighting to prove that natural talent isn’t necessary to find success in life. There’s plenty of good potential for worldbuilding, and it would be interesting to see how Tempest Shadow plays into this and still winds up working for the Storm King (I didn’t notice an AU tag, so…). There are a lot of technical and stylistic issues holding it back, but for someone who admits to having never written before? I’d say this is a strong start. The potential is there, it just needs to be honed. A concrete stylistic focus, better comprehension of the setting (namely which MLP generation we’re dealing with), and better attention to when to go big or slow down are all areas that need attention. But with time and practice, I do believe Red could give us some gems down the line. My primary suggestion: stop working on this epic and focus on shorter stories until you’ve refined your craft.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
A Drink Between Friends
14,317 Words
By KorenCZ11
Of the Bright Future Continuity
As the eldest of the Apple Clan’s next generation, Whiskey has always prided himself on being the lone kid at the adults table. Now that he's twenty-one at last, there's one last thing he'd like to be permitted: to go with his father to the bar on Boy's Night. Fin is willing... under certain conditions.
The Bright Future continuity is an AU of Koren's in which Twilight used her natural genius to reverse-engineer technology from the human world and lead Equestria into a new age of hyper-fast urban development, with all the pros and cons related. The result is that Ponyville went from a tiny rural community to a metropolis of over ten million citizens within a mere two decades. Most of the stories involve the middle-aged Mane Six and the drama they face involving their children.
A Drink Between Friends feels in many ways like a sort of anthological summation of things. Despite it opening with Fin agreeing (with conditions) to bring his son Whiskey to the bar for Boy's Night, there is no single main protagonist. Instead we get to act as a fly on the wall while Fin (husband of Applejack), Soren, Cheese Sandwich, Big McIntosh, and Discord complain about the problems involving their (or in the case of Fin, everyone else's) progeny.
I have mixed feelings with this one. One of the major issues is that there's a lot of familial information being thrown around – namely, who is related to who and their past history. Koren does what he can to make things clear, but this often demands expositiony paragraphs that, in my opinion, get in the way of the regular flow of the story. Contrasting this is how much information is relayed through the stallions' conversations, which I enjoyed far more. I have trouble faulting Koren on this; when you're juggling the families of the Mane Six, many of whom had way more than just one kid and all of whom have their own quirks and interests, you can't simply expect the readers to follow along. Explanations thus become inevitable.
If you read the Bright Future stories close together, this may not be too much of a problem. But if you're like me and only reading one every few months with a bunch of other material in between, keeping track of who's who from story to story becomes all but impossible. As such, I feel like this (and the other stories in this AU) would be best enjoyed by most readers when read as a whole rather than piece-by-piece.
As for the story itself, it's interesting but of questionable theming. Much of the story is these six stallions complaining into their drinks and the smokey atmosphere about the more shitty aspects of life. The ending, however, seems to want us to believe that the real point of the story is a side-effect of Friendship is Magic: Problems are easier to handle with good company. Which is fine as a theme. I just question if it was properly supported by the story as a whole. It really feels like Koren was much more interested in expanding the lore and the individual characters' backgrounds than anything else.
In Koren's defense, those backgrounds are interesting. Discord strongly hints at his origins as an infamous-yet-unnamed historic figure. Cheese's son being a scamming scoundrel trying to move far enough away that he and Pinkie can't keep him in check – or save the day when he'll inevitably need it. The uncertain future of Soren's incredibly talented but unprepared son and his wife's helicopter parenting methods. The things Fin the police detective has seen in the city and still has to cope with. There's lots to unpack here for every stallion.
I enjoyed this one on the whole, yet I question its reach. Those already familiar with the Bright Future AU will absolutely want to give it a go. I might also recommend it to people who are interested in seeing Koren's interpretation of Future Equestria, with all the worldbuilding that implies. It's a well-written piece, but it's also something of an isolated one.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Like Mother, Like Daughter — WHYRTY?
Ghosting — Pretty Good
Grounded — Pretty Good
AND THEN! — Pretty Good
Sometimes They Call Me Super — Pretty Good
In His Image
3,405 Words
By daOtterGuy
Filoplume is being ravaged by disease. The only cure may come from the Flame of the creator of the pegasi, hated Prometheus. Flash Magnus and his fleet are determined to try, even knowing the dangers.
Well. That was… Ow.
This AU story follows the idea that the pegasi were created by a god named Prometheus who, in the tradition of the gods of old earth, used clay and clouds to do so before filling them with his immortal flame to give them life. But when Prometheus decided that the pegasi were still too weak and tried to craft an ‘ultimate lifeform’ to ensure their superiority, the pegasi rose up in rebellion, fearing that this new change would make them inequine. Now an incurable disease is spreading, and the pegasi want to use Promethues’s Flame to deal with it. To do that, they have to first get to the god’s prison, and then? Then they have to get him to agree to help.
You ever wonder what it might mean to be made from clay? Imagine, if you can, that a god has decided that your design isn’t good enough and, while you are still alive and aware, decides to make some changes. Now imagine that this god is only willing to help save your people if you agree to those changes.
That’s what daOtterGuy is giving us here, and it is not pretty.
This will be disturbing to the right audience, suiting its horror tag. Aside from that, it’s the opening piece of a major new worldbuilding arc of horror stories centered around the Pillars of Equestria, and I am so there. I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Crumbs — Pretty Good
Interesting Times
8,964 Words
By Rambling Writer
Alternate Title: Killer Scope Creep Marathon
Historian Inky Quill has decided to write a novel comparing Equestria 1,000 years ago to Equestria now, which she should be able to release just before the 1,000th Summer Sun Celebration. This would be a lot easier if the modern status quo would stop being yesterday's status quo.
Oh, but this is entertaining! Written as Inky Quill's personal journal, it follows her frustrating struggle to write a history book in a time period where "history" is constantly being rewritten. Set over five years and the course of the entire show, poor Inky is constantly finding her book's scope and focus getting overturned by ongoing events, be it the return of Nightmare Moon or a rather boring invasion by a Storm King. Yes, I said "boring"; once you've lived through so many national disasters in a couple years, the next one doesn't have much of an impact anymore.
There are a ton of fun elements to this. My favorite is the Rated E swears that litter the entire story, but there are plenty more. Inky's reaction to getting an interview with THE Princess Celestia, her excitement that Twilight Motherbucking Sparkle is a fan of her books, or the irony of her gradually being less surprised about getting interviews with famous ponies over time (mildly surprised she went with Rockhoof over Starswirl). The story eventually winds up as a cautionary tale against letting your projects – and your ambition – get the better of you and knowing when to draw a line in the sand.
Hoo-boy, can I relate!
I think my only real criticism isn't even for the story itself; I happen to be of the belief that if you lived through a historical event you should on no account be permitted to write a historical book about it (or documentary or anything similar, for that matter). Clearly, Inky Quill is breaking that rule. But again, that's got nothing to do with thoroughly enjoying this.
Think of this as commentary on the show from one who lived through its events. It's amusing, witty, and offers plenty of winks and nudges for the well-aware audience. It's just fun all-around. Give it a go. Maybe feel sorry for Inky's career, and never stop smiling.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Black Between the Stars — WHYRTY?
Hinterlands — WHYRTY?
Brittle — Pretty Good
Before Dark — Pretty Good
Not a Word — Pretty Good
Losing Her Marbles
3,366 Words
By Jhoira
Marble Pie has tried very hard to follow the ways of the traditional Stone Family. The problem with this is that she has an insatiable curiosity for new things, and nothing attracts her attention more than new ponies. You see, Marble has a habit of rapidly developing crushes. Yet as impatient as she is for romance, she will always be on her best behavior and never deviate, determined to wait until the Pairing Stone decides who— What in Celestia’s name is that exotic creature?
I have a lot of mixed feelings with this one. I love seeing stories about Marble due to how few of them I’ve actually read, and of course I won’t say no to some Marble shipping. This story serves as the opening of a three-part series pairing Marble with Autumn Blaze, and that sounds like a pairing worth exploring.
The problem is that the story’s writing is… not investing. The narrative style constantly feels off, it sometimes shifts between third and first person for no reason, more than a few sentences are run-ons, and it’s clear that Jhoira has no idea what commas are for. Worse, the entire story is exposition devoted to describing Marble’s frustrations with her lack of a romantic life and how her devotion to waiting on the stupid Pairing Stone to make a damn decision already has led to her characteristic timidity. The same points are reiterated again and again and again throughout, and nothing is done for the duration. It’s less a story and more an introduction for the sequel.
This is a pity, because the ideas Jhoira has here are legit good ones. We’ve got an explanation for the Pairing Stone and why it exists, a look into the culture of the local town, and a great overview of who Marble is as a character in this setting. Conceptually, Jhoira has all the ingredients for a strong character piece. If only they could figure out how to write in a compelling manner! I’d even be willing to accept the story’s introductory, “nothing happens” nature if Jhoira could have capitalized on the inherent strengths of the concept and the promise of a coming, never-before seen ship. Yet they failed to capitalize on the opportunity, and that can be blamed 100% on the poor writing style.
I intend to read the sequel because I am very much interested in seeing where this unique ship is going, but the poor writing style prevents me from placing this on my high bookshelves. The good news is that Jhoira is still writing today and this story is over five years old; that’s a lot of time for improvement, so maybe in a future I’ll find that they’ve made great progress.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
One Last Time — Incomplete
Ponyfinder: The Lost Flowers
58,076 Words
By David Silver
Rose, Lily, and Daisy are off on an adventure. Well, sorta; they’re really just roaming a little further than usual to find a special flower they’re hoping will sell well at their shop. But then, inexplicably, they find themselves wooshed off to the world of Ponyfinder!
The horror. The horror.
Or not. The story follows everyone's favorite flower mares (casually ignores the Wallflower glowering in the corner) as they find themselves in Prisma, land of the Flutterponies. Rather than bemoan being shunted off to a whole new world with no explanation whatsoever, the trio quickly set to finding their place in Prisma, confident that eventually a certain Book Horse will notice their absence and investigate. After all, Twilight & co. have been in the Ponyfinder world before and came back safely, so it’s only a matter of time.
In case you’re wondering, yes, this does mean there are other stories in David Silver’s library in which FiM characters visited the Ponyfinder world. The good news is that you don’t need to have read any of them to get the gist of what’s going on here, as the story is almost universally focused on Rose, Lily and Daisy learning about this new world entirely on their own. Eventually Twilight & Spike (plus a couple OCs) do show up to hint at a lot of things having gone down in the past, but it’s only for a couple chapters in the end. It’ll be fine provided you can roll with it.
Despite this tag, this is not really an adventure. The Flower Trio don’t “do” adventures. They never leave the Flutterpony town of Prisma and don’t have any villains to face or fights to win. Instead they befriend the locals with their weird Equestrian ways and learn their own magic as druids. It’s really more slice-of-life than anything.
They are ridiculously lucky to have wound up in Prisma. The Flutterponies, who are basically bug-ponies of varying types like butterflies, dragonflies, wasps, etc. are universally friendly, excitable, and helpful. In some ways they’re like children with their cheerful natures, although they are perfectly capable of being serious when the need arises.
The only prominent OC is Tree Whisper, a unicorn in training to be a druid whom the mayor/head druid assigns as the Flower Trio’s watchdog, liaison, and all-around foalsitter. Her interactions as their friend and fellow druid-in-training makes up the single largest aspect of the story outside of the druid training itself. Moreover, she provides much of the comprehension of the Ponyfinder world for both the Trio and the audience.
On an unrelated note:
"You are as if a child described a pony with the loosest terms"
"And you look like a pony if somepony just couldn't shut up and kept spewing out extra details because we just have to know every little detail, even the parts I didn't even know existed."
This got a good chuckle out of me, and I consider it a crime that I saw nobody pointing it out, so that’s one problem fixed. There’s also a great moment where the Trio mock their own habit of fainting at the slightest thing.
On the other hand, did you notice the typo and repetition? I sure did. David Silver has an issue with these. The most prominent problem is how words sometimes go missing. You still know what David Silver meant, but that doesn’t stop the issue from being noticeable. Rather bad for immersion, that. Perhaps the single biggest issue with the whole story is its unpolished nature, both in the typos and in certain moments of off/awkward/poor word choices and phrases. It’s not enough to ruin the story, but the more proofing-minded readers may turn up their noses.
Ultimately, this is little more than a meandering slice-of-life in which three familiar ponies get to explore and immerse themselves (and, by extension, the audience) in a new culture. There’s no big theme or purpose beyond that, nor is there really a single overarching plot thread. It’s just Rose, Lily, and Daisy doing things as they come up, blowing time until Twilight comes by to bring them home. There will be no explanation whatsoever for how they got there in the first place; indeed, the entire topic is forgotten as if nopony’s worried about the potential of it happening again to somepony else. Clearly, David Silver expects you to just roll with it for this one, much like the Flower Trio do for the entirety of the story.
Ignoring how opposed I am to everyone’s complete lack of care for random rifts between dimensions transporting ponies to new, potentially dangerous worlds, I enjoyed this one. It’s a laid back, worry-free story with no high stakes or drama. If you’re looking for a story to relax with and nothing else, this wouldn’t be a bad choice. It won’t be bad for the worldbuilders either.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Ponyfinder: Kind Blades and Cruel Divinities — Worth It
The Text Argues With the Text — Worth It
Gazing to the Ocean of the Sky — Needs Work
The Princess of Friendship... With Benefits?
3,988 Words
By Spyder27
Celestia has asked Princess Twilight to do a presentation of friendship and its merits to the nobility of Canterlot. Should be easy, right? She just made one critical error: she used Rainbow Dash as her test audience. Rainbow being Rainbow, she enters the Q&A part of the presentation with a curveball: why doesn’t Twilight talk about friendship with benefits? Twilight would be thrilled to include such information in her presentation… as soon as she figures out what the term even means.
This is exactly what you expect: Twilight, having no idea what “friendship with benefits” means, goes around asking all her friends to teach her. The story is direct and the writing a bit telly, and the story revolves around characters saying exactly the wrong things to avoid clarifying what is really going on, which is one of my least favorite comedic methods. Buuut as long as you’re just here for the awkward situation you should have some fun with it. Because let’s face it, Twilight being oblivious never gets old.
Quick and dirty in that “nothing really happens” sort of way. If that’s what rocks your boat, grab an oar.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Dazzle for President — Pretty Good
Lingering Touch — Worth It
A Riddle or Twelve
27,108 Words
By Idsertian
It’s Applejack’s birthday this coming weekend, but something weird’s going on. Rainbow Dash usually tries to figure out what AJ wants for her birthday, but this year she’s been largely quiet on the matter. Then Rainbow throws a curveball with a new challenge: she’s arranged a game of riddles for her marefriend, and all their friends are involved. Applejack plays along, unaware that there’s a certain theme going on with all of this…
Where this one is going is patently obvious from very early on, so I don’t consider it spoilers to point out that this is all an elaborate plan on Rainbow’s part to propose marriage to AJ. It’s kind of a surprise Applejack didn’t figure that out after the second day, but there’s a decent enough explanation for that near the end. This is one case where the journey is more important than the destination, although the destination is itself quite nice. I love that Rainbow sought to get all her friends involved in the game of riddles, both because of how important they are to the pair in general and because she knew that she couldn’t do this right by herself.
As the cover art implies, this is set in Future Equestria, though whether it’s before or after the final episode is unclear. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. It was nice to see someone use this time period as the setting for the story, I don’t see that too often (although I still can’t stand Hasbro’s lazy older RD design). I think the one and only point in the entire story that bugs me is the claim that Applejack met Rainbow after Twilight, which is clearly disproven by Celestia in… I think it was Celestial Advice? But meh, it’s one little niggle and I’m fairly sure most readers won’t even notice.
At any rate, this is as solid an AppleDash story as one could hope for. Well-voiced characters, great puzzles, with continuous romantic theming plus a cameo or two, all placed in one of the fandom’s less utilized settings. It may not be the OTP, but it’ll do.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
A Second Chance in Summer — Pretty Good
Times Have Changed
2,192 Words
By Maddiepink5
Celestia believes that Luna is in love with a certain smart purple pony, yet Luna refuses to act on her feelings. Why? Because she is completely unaware of a big change in the world that came about during her absence.
The gist is that Luna is gay and that was considered offensively inappropriate in her time, and she never realized that homosexuality is considered perfectly normal in modern times. I have mixed feelings. On the subjective side of things (so feel free to dismiss this point entirely), I’ve never once believed that homosexuality was ever anything but wholly acceptable in pony society, modern or ancient. Much more pertinent to the story in general is this idea that Celestia intentionally went about making homosexuality acceptable in Equestria through centuries of manipulation of the public just so that Luna wouldn’t have to worry about that kind of thing when she returned, up to and including marrying a mare she didn’t love so as to serve as a leading example.
It’s a mixture of sweet and disturbing. Clearly, if Celestia wants something to happen, it will happen. This is made all the more concerning when we see Luna going to see Celestia because she was summoned, and acting as though she is subservient to her elder sister in every possible way. I’ll grant that Maddiepink5 probably just meant this to come off as a Big Sister/Little Sister relationship thing, but for me it felt a lot more like a ‘Luna feels inferior and Celestia does nothing to dissuade her of that idea’ thing.
I’m probably reading too much into it. Odds are Maddiepink5 just wanted this to be a sweet sibling binding moment in which Celestia reveals something nice she did for her little sister. If that’s how most people take it, they’ll get no complaints from me. I don’t even feel like the story is bad. On the contrary, I feel like most of my issues with it are subjective and not as big a deal as they seem in my head. So if you want to try a little sister bonding story, don’t let me stop you.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Line Up! — Pretty Good
You Can't Eat Gold
2,892 Words
By QueenMoriarty
Alternative Title: Unicorns are a Problem
A common class assignment is to write an essay about a given pony tribe’s achievements, and today they’re writing about unicorns. One pegasus filly realizes that everypony will be writing about the adventures of, say, Starswirl the Bearded or Clover the Clever. She wants to do something original! Her topic of choice: the development of the market economy. She’s so proud of it, she’s decided to read the essay to Princess Celestia herself, right there in the Day Court!
I am genuinely surprised that Celestia didn’t respond to this with good humor. I mean, I get that you don’t want to laugh outright at a little filly who worked so hard on something, but this whole thing is hilarious. Odd, then, that Celestia instead reacted with a sort of bemused shock. You would think that a pony who has her own school and trains students privately would know that the best thing to do in this scenario is be encouraging while pointing the filly in a more accurate direction, but she’s like a deer in the headlights here.
Ignoring that, I couldn’t stop grinning. Silver Glow’s silly little essay paints unicorns as stoopid and generally the cause of all the world’s problems. She talks about how earth ponies can eat rocks but find gold nasty. My favorite part, however, was her terms for the different races’ style of doing business:
- Unicorns: Marketing
- Earth Ponies: Competitive Marketing
- Pegasi: Extortion
Oh, I laughed at that one. I laughed good.
This was great. Even better because for a brief moment I thought this was a genuine research paper on the history of Equestrian Economics. Yes, it’s silly in the extreme, but if we were to put this in a setting of, say, Season 1 FiM, would you really be able to say it doesn’t fit?
I am entertained. Give this a go if you want to see a childish interpretation of how currency came to be a thing.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Baby Pictures — Pretty Good
This Isn't War — Pretty Good
Marriage — Pretty Good
Bonus Review: Axtara - Magic and Mischief
468 Pages
By Max Florschutz
Published 2024
Life in Elancier is better than ever! Axtara’s bank is booming, she’s best friends with a princess, and the locals are finally starting to accept a dragon for a neighbor. But the kingdom’s new financial windfall brings with it attention from the outside world, and not all of it is of the good kind.
The original Axtara was a fun little story in which the dragoness Axtara moved to the small kingdom of Elnacier to open its first bank, in the process uncovering a longstanding plot to rob the kingdom of its riches. This second book stems from the direct consequences of the first; the kingdom has money again, and with that money comes the attention of con men looking to steal from these rubes living on the edge of civilization. Axtara is in the exact best position to take note and do something about it.
But con men aren’t the only thing Axtara and her best friend Princess Mia have to deal with. There’s also attacks from the zombie-like Fell. Mia’s father earned his crown partially by ridding the kingdom of their ilk, but now it seems they’re back, and that means he can’t focus as much attention on these con-artists as they’d like. All of that is before Axtara and Mia discover the magical orb in the ruins on the other side of the mountains.
You know, the single most unexpected thing about this story is that I kept thinking Axtara’s brother Ryax would play a more prominent role. I even went into the story thinking that the yellow dragon in the cover art was him until the story proved me wrong. Maybe we’ll see more of him (and his apprentice) in the next book, which I have on the highest (relative) authority is in development. I’d love to learn more about the magical systems of this world, which got what might be considered a crash course here, and even then only at the end.
Max loves his mysteries, and this story is no exception. He also has a great love for foreshadowing, and this story may be the most explicit in that regard yet. It’s possible that every single chapter had some sort of clue as to what’s really going on in the background. I figured it out long before our heroines, and there was more than one time where I was thinking “Come on, you almost had it!” as Axtara would barely misinterpret the clue currently staring her in the face. This is by no means a bad thing. There are some mysteries where the fun is not knowing until the characters do, and there are others where the fun is seeing how long it takes for the characters to catch up to the reader. Clearly, Max intended this as the latter.
The story is yet again filled with charming characters, this time complete with a theme centered around species swapping. I don’t know whether to roll my eyes or grin that Axtara has “a face that makes boys melt” (to quote Mia) and an “overly inflated human backside” (to quote Axtara). Her and Mia’s struggle as one another’s species might be a common trope, but Max spices it up by making them not immediately able to understand their own bodies, as these things usually go. Meanwhile we’ve got great interactions with the townsfolk, such as the ever-charming Wilfor, young Davor getting a much-needed lesson on not treating women as objects, or Mia’s ever-selfish sister Abi. My all-time favorite moment though was when Axtrara and Mia broke into horror-filled, panicked fleeing at the dreaded approach of a dragon-obsessed, barely-able-to-talk little(-r) sister.
This was yet another fun entry from Max and a much appreciated return to the kingdom of Elnacier. It’s charming, filled with fun characters, has a very well-crafted mystery, and features prose that is a delight as always. I dare say I enjoyed this one more than its predecessor.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Recent Review Map:
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLXX - Extended
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLXXI - Extended
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLXXII - Extended
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLXXIII – CoffeeMinion Edition
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLXXIV – Extended
You Are Here
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
The Archive
(Hint: use Ctrl+F to search for stories or authors!)
Da Rules!
(Follow this link to learn how I schedule these blogs, rules for requests, and more!)
Other Reviewers:
abrony-mouse
Ghost Mike
Louder Yay!
PresentPerfect
TCC56
Reading Progress:
Mortal Coil
98.42% (465,061 / 472,593)
The Maretian
4.47% (21,453 / 479,824)
Blogs Completed Through:
20-MAR-2025
(Blogs are currently scheduled up to this date. Any requests made as of this blog will have to wait until at least after this date.
Need some editing done? Working on a story and not sure how it’s shaping up? I’m now doing editing and critique commissions! Check here for more information and PM me if interested.
Huh? I find this belief puzzling.
It was a good read. Always liked your review style.
I have no stories that are complete so it will be a while before I see them on your blogs!!!
I've read White Out, and I certainly found it interesting enough to admire. I'm not personally a huge fan of how far the dobermans goes in flat-out refusing to explain, but I acknowledge I'm only one reader and others appreciate that kind of approach. The only other one this time I've read is You Can't Eat Gold, which I found pretty amusing. Of the others, probably In His Image interests me the most, though I do note your "Ow" warning!
5825332
As do I. Apart from anything else, it would mean that only babies and toddlers could write books about the Covid pandemic!
Thanks for reviewing!!! I was not expecting WHYRTY i can't lie, but im super happy you enjoyed the fic ^^
As for writing more, I only really write when im set on an idea, so short storys won't be often. BUT, I am currently working on a Pinkie Pie long fic that i hope people will enjoy. Will be a bit before i start posting chapters, but you can expect that in the upcoming months :3
Thank you sm for the kind words
Ah, I absolutely enjoyed what the dobermans did with White Out. It might be an atypical story for fimfiction, but it hit my cravings.
And lo, is that Viking ZX in the bonus review? Great for him!
Ooh, a WHYRTH? from an author's debut? Will have to give that one a look! Ditto for You Can't Eat Gold, that sounds like a chortle.
And I've read Interesting Times too, I'm guessing when it first came out. The hook of Inky Quill's attempts to write a history book and plot events from the continuing to render it out-of-date and require a redo before publication is a corker, and Rambling is just the sort of writer to pull it off.
And Max's Axtara sequel too, neato. Always love to see that.
I'm sorry paul 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏, I'm really sorry, it never crossed my mind to tell you that I increased the number of words. This was because I wanted to participate in the non-pony story contest, and when it was over I put everything else I wanted to write.
It is very true that at the time of the frozen lands and the infiltration of the museum I should have written more, I also thought about it and I had several ideas for that, but when I saw the one that was going over 20,000 words I got a little scared.
As you say in that story, it's just a prequel, and I thought the lendary story wouldn't be so flashy to overload it with more content.
This is a croossover, from mlp and jjk so I thought people would want to see the main characters from those series.
I really appreciate your review, I feel I can improve thanks to you. I plan to do another one now of tempest, but as I said in your blog I want to finish that crossover.
I will try to improve on what you said, although I'm not sure how I will do the fights, since they are from anime and they won't be very realistic. 🤔
Anyway, I'll try to do the best I can.
Again, thank you very much for your review and I apologize for not letting you know that I extended it.
Thanks for the review Paul! Glad you enjoyed Axtara's second outing so much, and I loved reading your thoughts on it!
She's a dragon. All human backsides are overly inflated.
Thanks so much for the review and more importantly the feedback.
I think I was partially aware of the time issues you mentioned when I was rereading the story a little while ago but having them pointed out is very helpful and lets me see a lot more clearly why these were issues. I'll make sure I keep this in mind when I write my next story (maybe keeping a note or something at the bottom of the page while writing will help?). With the many months thing, I see exactly what I did wrong there. I got caught up in trying to tell a description and didn't notice that it completely broke the chronology during my review process. (I've gone and fixed it now because it was only one sentence).
The rest I was more surprised about, but the more I think about it the more I see what you mean. When you mentioned the repetitive writing style you were completely right when you suggested that I might have been trying to create a tense atmosphere but I can quite easily see (now it's been pointed out) that it's overly descriptive and doesn't have to be stated. I guess to improve on this I'll need to focus on writing descriptions that are more subtle?
With regards to the logic/character writing flaws, I think the intention for Twilight was for it to be (at that point) more of a concern of wanting to see them back alive so she could find out more about the objects, though looking though it now, I can see that that point wasn't conveyed at all. Next time I'll have to pay better attention to things like this. With Swirling Gale, I'm assuming that whole reporting to a superior scene should have just been with another character and I shouldn't have even put Celestia in it at all. I think the intention was that the patrol area was a little further away from Ponyville than it came off as (and they just walked a long way) but that's an entirely different issue.
I was assuming that the search and rescue team was moving at a speed roughly equivalent to the survivors but just a little bit faster due to being less malnourished. My implication was that they wouldn't be able to see the survivors from the air due to the tree cover, but I guess that depends on the tree density (which I don't describe in that sense) and whether they could see a smoke from their fires (which also isn't mentioned at all).
The SOS was supposed to have been found very shortly after the survivors arrived but trying to decide where the survivors had gone (plus getting clearance to start the investigation) had taken a few days (which is where the time delay between the survivors and the rescuers is supposed to come from). I couldn't quite see exactly what I did wrong to lead away from this conclusion (or perhaps the absence of leading to it) so I'll definitely need to do a bigger review at some point.
I'm very surprised that you seemed to find a lot of grammar and sentence structure errors. Awkward sentences I can see, but I couldn't really see the punctuation and grammar errors you were referring to. I'm guessing that means I need to do a review of my punctuation and grammar rules for complex sentences at some point as well. I'll add it to the list.
Sorry if I rambled a bit here but I'm very thankful for the review and keen to make improvements for my next story. This was my first full story so I wasn't expecting a great review but hopefully I can make improvements going forwards to become a better writer down the line.
Anyway, thank you so much for the feedback, it was very helpful.
Thank you for the thoughtful analysis of these flowery words. A part of me thinks I would be well-served by making an outline before I start writing wildly whatever my mind trips across.
5825350
This all reminds me that I really need to start a habit of taking notes when I read. I went through your story months ago, which means that all the little details are gone. If I actually kept notes I might have been able to point out specific spots for grammar issues and the like.
At any rate, I'm glad you're taking the review so positively and I look forward to seeing improvements in the future!
5825332 5825335
Exactly! When they're old enough to do so and all the classified documentation has been de-classified – and in the extremely off chance they were raised without biases – they can look at the topic in a balanced, reasonable way that doesn't jump immediately to either "The guv'ment was tryin' ta put us in concentration camps!" or "These barbarians don't trust our beloved, all-knowing and ever-benevolent government!"
Thanks for the fair and thoughtful review! I'll link you in the story description
5825335
Yeah, White Out might be an... acquired taste. Definitely for a limited audience.
Also, In His Image has a very curious storytelling style. I wouldn't call it minimalist, but something about it felt quirky to me. I'd probably be able to articulate it better if I hadn't read it months ago.
5825339 5825337
Honestly, I feel like the Axtara review should have been longer. It probably would have been, but I was really butting against that 100,000-character limit (which I still broke; had to get rid of the "Stories for Next Time section to make the whole fit).
5825345
It should have been a longer review, there was definitely more I could have said. Alas, FIMFiction's character limit foiled that.
"White Out" is the only one I read, and I appreciated how unsettling it was. Death of the author and all, it's easy to interpret the story in two very different ways, and while it can be a difficult prospect to have it unclear which one was intended, this one hit the sweet spot for me where it worked, even if that wasn't the author's aim. What really sold it for me was Leadweight's characterization. I found her very lifelike.
I think a lot of the negative reactions to the story come down to either that ambiguity on its own merits or the possible negative interpretation. I've hit this myself when writing a story in which Celestia makes a decision that isn't very moral but she feels like it's the lesser of two evils. But a lot of readers went in with the assumption that Celestia is inherently good, so by having her make the decision she did, I clearly think her decision was moral, even though she clearly reacts in-story as if she knows it isn't. Then based on the comments I got, they conclude "no way would Celestia do that" or "the author thinks this is virtuous, and I can't abide that." It's a weird sticking point where readers can usually be imaginative and follow things but oddly get bound up in that.
5825343
Eh, I'm too laid back to hold a grudge. Just please keep it in mind for the future, no?
So you mean this is going to be a genuine crossover, not a thematic one? Curious. I know exactly nothing about Jujutsu Kaisen, but maybe I can fix that in the coming months.
I had forgotten that this was actually intended as part of a crossover with an anime. That certainly explains how stupid the fights can get (which I don't mean as a negative, it's just that when you really stop to think about what anime fights are like, they are pretty silly). Had I recalled that I might not have been so harsh about your fights. I'll keep it in mind for when I read the proper crossover later. I think when I watch the show in the coming weeks and see what the fights are like in it I may have a better way to judge whatever you do next.
5825359
Don't worry, the feedback in the review is the main thing. I'll probably try reading through the story again at some point and, when I do, hopefully, I'll see what you mean. Thanks for the feedback again and I'll make sure to keep it in mind as I write my next project
5825363
Much appreciated!
5825370
Taking the Technical Writer approach of "assume the readers are simpletons", I just figured that the majority of the downvotes were from people assuming the most negative meaning by default and not really thinking about it much. Which I can't really blame them for; the story does give off that air.
5825339
I was already so nervous about this review i dont know of i can handle another XD (i was totally not refreshing fimfic every 20 minutes)
In all seriousness review or not, if you end up reading I just hope you enjoy!
5825376
Well, for better or for worse, it'll be a while: I have a personal rule that I can't publish a review of a fic if it's only been published for less than a month or another ponyfic reviewer covered it less than a month ago. So this here bars the fic from a January appearance for me. And as my irregular reviews typically works out to one roundup a month these days, earliest you'd see this would be late February.
In all honestly, while there's a fair amount of genres and story types Paul's into that I'm not, we do tend to overlap a decent bit on character probing one-shots like these. And he did sell me on it too. So I don't think you've much to worry about, my friend.
5825379
Honestly, even if it ends up not being to your taste, ill just be happy to hear what you say! Im just here to share my story ideas and improve as a writer
5825366
Hahaha, it's wild that there is a character limit! Thank you very much all the same, and I'll continue work on Axtara - Armies and Accounting!
Funny that you should mention the Phoenix Wright-esque reactions. That was actually a big inspiration behind this series (in case it wasn't obvious). In fact, I still use the games as a template whenever I write mysteries. If you've seen my fanfiction based on The Loud House, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I'll be the first to admit that while I'm proud of quite a few set pieces in Marehunter, your points about it being all over the place are quite valid. Especially since the threads connecting each of the mysteries aren't as straightforward as I would've liked. I am glad that you felt the mysteries themselves were more coherent this time around. It's not always easy to write something like this when you're stuck in the viewpoint of characters who haven't figured everything out yet. And getting lost in the weeds with world-building tangents doesn't usually help.
Oh hey, thanks for the review, man. Glad you enjoyed. I haven't been active around here (or actively writing) in some time, but I do keep an eye on my notifications, so this was a pleasant surprise. I do remember getting a ton of praise, from both readers and the contest judges alike, for this one, but I'll be damned if I can figure out exactly what I got right, and how.
I only have a couple of other stories I consider "good" in my bibliography (if you can use that term for us fanfiction writers). One of them (Revelational Contest) written for yet another AppleDash contest, and the other (Voices in the Nightmare Night) I consider a bit to be my "baby," though it definitely went, er... places I didn't expect, when writing it. The rest are either just silly fics, unfinished, or outright bad, so I'm kinda terrified of you reading those, lol.
Still, I appreciate the review and the kind words. Definitely a cool thing to kick off the new year with. Almost makes me want to dip my toe back into writing again, if my free time wasn't being utterly dominated by some very enjoyable vidya garmez at the moment.
Thanks for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed The Princess of Friendship... With Benefits? even if it included a comedic trope you don't favor. It was more so a crack fic I wrote one night, so it's understandable why it would be reviewed as such. Regardless, I'm glad you liked the awkward situations! Thanks again for the review!
I'm sure it's improved a bit but I've not put any actual effort into improving it. So proceed at your own risk :D
It's especially funny because the sequel was actually written before that one, so really that was a prequel.
I think I may have been accidentally nerd-sniped and/or triggered by the original statement. I think it is a silly idea, given the experiences and work I have done in other communities.
5825362
If the assumption that people without biases or the ability to manage them don't exist now, "later" guarantees nothing, even for "old" news. Methods to dig into matters, or minds that are willing to, without freely indulging one's biases already exist, even if they aren't rewarded as much as those that do presently.
Besides, such a decree (loosely, that nobody should record and package present history for posterity) would either suggest excluding information from first-person accounts or suggests the risk of suffering exactly the same failures from such accounts. Timely recording of events from these sources should make for the easiest preservation of the most details to sort through, whereas delaying efforts to preserve them would benefit those who would destroy evidence.
The content of accurate communication should be able to stand easily on its own, and does not derive any amount of correctness arbitrarily from the relative time of which it was written. This is analogous to how my claims here should have some (probably measurable) amount of accuracy, while the message derives no additional validity from who I am while making them.
Thanks for the review!
I've kind of been dreading reading this because, while I did write and publish the piece, it was for me more than anything. Isolated is the right way to describe it because that's how I'd been feeling when I wrote it. Hadn't seen my good friends in over a year, I'd recently moved to a different part of japan, and I missed the days where I could go to a bar with them and just hang out. Instead, I just played to my thinly veiled cartoon horse themed schizophrenia.
Mostly, this was written to get some ideas straight in my head. Soarin's part of the story had actually already been partly written, but I was stuck on it and needed a way around it to move forward. This gave me a way to think about it and the wider world I've set up for the AU, while also taking a break without totally getting away from the story entirely. It did me a lot of good to write it, but I can't say it makes for much of a good read if you're not in my head. And you might be, since you, too, are a cartoon horse on the internet, but I've also met you in person so that falls flat.
Anyways, I'm glad you found it interesting, and I hope you enjoy the next one too.
5825447
Yeesh, people are making a lot of bread out of that throwaway statement. I'd try to clarify and contextualize my meaning, but it's not like I was trying to make some grand statement about the nature of historians and recordkeeping. Instead I'll settle for the added disclaimer that I am well aware the subject is far more nuanced than the statement comes off as, and I never intended to even imply that prompt recordkeeping for posterity is a fallacious practice (I was surprised you jumped to such a conclusion, but it's my own fault for making such a generalized statement in the first place).
Right so, if you're continuing the Pillars Horror Anthology, few notes as more of a heads up on its oddities more than leeway considerations:
- The OG (In His Image) was written during a Speedwrite with themes of using unusual writing themes and techniques (I took nonlinear, rivalry, and horror, the latter of which is my wheelhouse anyways)
- Because of that, the rest of the anthology is written similarly quirky sort of as a Writing challenge to myself
- In this spirit, A Greek Tragedy in Three Parts is THE weirdest one as it is written even more strangely and different from the rest in the series
- Finally, and I feel that I don't need to explain this to you, there are certain thematic elements that are explained/paid off in the last two stories of the anthology (Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and Order of the Black Sun), so if they seem random, I promise they aren't
- Additionally, If you give me a critique on Death Becomes Her that amounts to be "not Egyptian enough" I WILL post a frowny face in your comments section
5825478
So what you're saying is it was a filler piece for your own psychological wellbeing? I can dig it.
5825495
This fills my throbbing heart with warmth. It may also be dripping blood all over my quilt, but that's beside the point. Lemme put that down before it gets on the keyboard.
I shall definitely be reading more. Heck, the entire reason I read In His Image was so that I could have sequels that, by the default nature of my methods, would automatically go into my schedule. I.e., I was specifically looking for a series of yours to go through. The fact that it's a horror series helped a lot.
5825498
It is definitely one of my best series even if its one of my weirdest.
If you like horror my library is pretty good for that. 75% or more of it is that (even though I STARTED as a romance author which is a wild beginning point in all of this)
Bury It and Equestrian Family Values are good one shot quickies (though the latter has DRAMA attached to it)
For longer running, Redacted which is SCP related, the first of which is finished, the sequel almost (Have 8/31 chapters to finish to complete publishing)
That being said, glad youre enjoying the pillars anthology, Im pretty overall happy with that series and proud that I managed to stick to the weird writing format
5825499
As a general rule and excepting requests, I try to have only one story per author in my schedules so as to not have one author hogging all the slots. Still, I'll keep it in mind once I've finished the Pillars Anthology; horror is definitely a favorite genre of mine.
What a coincidence, romance is my other favorite genre!
Weird. Apparently, according to fimfic, I've READ White Out before. But I don't even recall doing so. I scanned some of the story while reading your review and it seems an odd challenge? It vaguely reminds me of an old fic I wrote that tried to be smartly vague.
As I'm trying to get back into reading fanfiction while also having a meticulous approach for selecting what to read, I think I'll add that to my list, if only to see how it pans out.
5825494
I don't think it came across as an alarming and deeply held position (as worded) so much as I think I and perhaps the others question if you had realized the scope of the statement. On a site such as Fimfiction, I would expect to find at least a few people with experiences more closely related to the matter of written records, after all.
Anyways, I typed out that comment and then realized I had basically been baited (unwittingly, sure) out of the darkness and reconsidered if I should finish posting it. In the end, I figured I'd let the honest words loose and may we both have a chance to learn from the experience, especially if anything went poorly. I can see why you would hold a perspective similar to what you stated, even if I personally think you're "barking up the wrong tree", so to speak, even for a quick fix.
A suggestion that ido for the next review is this story:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/34029/best-young-flyer
5825718
It definitely won't be in my next blog, because these things are planned months in advance. Still, I haven't read a bookplayer story in a good while, so I think I'll add this to my reserve spreadsheet and see if I can't get to it eventually.
5825720
Wow, Paula saran replied me, what a honour!.
And yes, I really suggest you the story
I would be honoured if you some day reviewed my first real story, where I learned how to write on the fly while creating a story that felt ambitious about the two royal sisters, Luna and Celestia.
Currently crapping my pants at how large I plan my current release story to be (around 1 million words), but I am hoping to find myself through it and improve.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/552080/to-chase-the-shadows-of-redemption
Always liked checking out your reviews. Cheers.
5826493
So is this a proper request, or a "get to it when you get to it" kind of thing? Sorry, but I've got to be semantic about this lest I fill my very limited request schedule with things that aren't actually requests, and I didn't see the Magic Word.
5826583
You know what, sure, I'll make a proper request. Why not.
Cheers.
5826604
Then consider it done! I've currently got it set for April 2026, but that may change if I need to adjust the schedule to make different stories fit.