Thoughts on From the Depths (May Contain Spoilers, Spiders, or Nuts)

From the Depths is a bit of an odd duck. So far as I can tell, it's supposed to be horror, just the same as its predecessor could rightfully claim. I'd like to like this story for its horror like I do Into the Depths, but given how it's gone so far, it doesn't look like that's going to work out. That isn't to say that the story is totally without merit, but I'll get to that later.

First, I'll say this: I like the slice-of-life bits in chapter one. The characters feel right, the effects the first story had on them are at least mostly covered, and the wording builds up a nice sense of dread for what ought to come.

It's what comes after that's the problem.

If you've read the original Into the Depths (and if you haven't, what the hay is wrong with you? Go fix that now. I'll wait, because below, there be spoilers. Also minor spoilers for From the Depths), you know who the most likely antagonist is — it's not as if it's made subtle. This is the first issue. The fact that we know who the antagonist is, what he looks like, and a general sense of his motives, taken together, just doesn't make for good supernatural horror. The problem, I think, is that he's too unreal as an antagonist. So long as the antagonist is behind the curtain of near-anonymity, it works wonderfully, as in the first half of Into the Depths, but as soon as the curtain falls, the game is over. Incidentally, this is also why I feel the second half of Into the Depths doesn't work nearly as well.

For examples, I give you "A Fleeting Light in the Darkness," the first half of Into the Depths, and the movie 1408.

The second issue I see is with the antagonist's credibility. Celestia sort of blew his shit at the end of Into the Depths — not permanently, or without consequence, but still, it damages his credibility in his area of expertise — that being, being an all-powerful horror antagonist. It's not a game-ender, but it doesn't help. There's little to suggest he's gotten any more powerful since, either.

The third issue is that the "scares" simply aren't scary, or at least, not the way they're presented. Some simply aren't really scary to begin with, either due to their generic qualities or just failure to scare — the bit with the soup bowl pony comes to mind — but others, I think, weren't quite well-followed up on, like the statue, bat, and cage. Feral monsters with ten-inch teeth are something this fic has in spades, and they're not getting any scarier without context. They're dangerous, unnatural and shouldn't happen, sure, but without context, they fall flat. The buildups are there to get you tense, but when the scare finally comes, it's without context or terror. The Abominable Spider-Princess of Chapter Three, I'm looking at you.
A fourth issue is the choice of protagonist: Twilight. It's not so much that she's the main character as that she's pretty much the only main character. It makes sense to have the underdog as the protagonist in horror, sure, but I just feel like it isn't working as it should. It's partially a question of power and partially one of experience, and on both counts, Celestia of the original has her beat — and she was still terrified. I think that's a major part of why the original worked so well. Here, I think it's not helping Tirek's cred that he's managed to let Twilight go nearly unimpeded so far, only hampered by a few mindless beasts. The other part, I think, was the sympathetic supporting cast, which made it much more likely that any given character could die. With only one real viewpoint character so far, it's unlikely that Twilight will meet any truly credible threats

Related to my second point, I think that having Discord as her travelling companion, even if only occasionally or temporarily, would go a ways to help repair Tirek's diminished villain cred. It can't fix it all on its own — he has to earn that — but I think that seeing Discord, god of chaos, eldritch abomination, scared and expressing it in his own indirect way, would go a long way to help. He's clearly afraid of the antagonist in some way — though given what we've seen so far, it's hard to imagine why.

For my witness, I call spider-Cadence to the stand.

All that said, it does have some interesting bits. Shining's going to investigate what's going on in the overworld, so to speak, and with the third chapter's introduction of Luna's notes and the writing in the mirror, we have a mystery sub-plot — which of these is guiding Twilight correctly? Is either of them telling her the truth? Of course, this is horror, so most likely, the one she's listening to is the wrong one, but still, I love me some mystery.

Perhaps it'll get better. Perhaps these things are already being addressed. Either way, I think I'll follow for the mystery, if not the horror. In any case, it's incredibly unlikely that Pen Stroke is both reading this and willing to take advice from someone who's written so little of anything, let alone horror (not that he necessarily should), but maybe someone will find this interesting or in some way useful.

This concludes this em-dash-abusing rant. Thank you for your time, and I'd like to hear questions, discussion, or thoughts in the comments.