Five Minutes To Midnight: Feature Box Review #04 · 3:55am Oct 2nd, 2014
Another week, another set of reviews. Alongside some of the past week's events (and for me, witnessing a little drama here and there), the authors continue to plod ahead, writing their stories without a care. There's some that are good, some that are bad, and some that are "ohgodwhy" levels of abysmal, but if one thing's for sure, all of them are horsewords. Let's have a look at (yesterday's) state of the box, shall we?
Another week, another seven new stories to sift through. Not that I'm terribly surprised, of course. Let's see what the damage is; right now, I can see:
· Skyrim x MLP crossover, because we obviously don't have enough of those.
· Random? Check. "Comedy"? Check. Humans involved? Check. Sense made? Big ol' "X", there...
· Apparently Twilich is now officially a thing.
· I... think the title is a fairly accurate indication of what goes on, here.
· Luna on the moon. Except it's our moon. With astronauts coming to visit. What fun...
· The box's obligatory dose of clop.
· Oh look, the box's second obligatory dose of clop.
First glance indicate that there's really not much to the box this time around, guys. But at least we got a couple that seem decent on first glance. Who knows, maybe this week's box review will be full of sunshine and rainbows... Or I could be completely talking out my ass here, but, whatever. Let's get down to the reviews.
#7: Ancient Power
by TheBigLebowski
After Twilight's return from Equestria's mountain, her newfound wisdom inspires another alicorn, who has been troubled for centuries with unanswered questions, decides to make a pilgrimage of her own.
Skyrim: MLP Crossover
Alright, well, it's a crossover with Skyrim, apparently. And it bears the "Sad" tag as well. And it has Luna. I can see we're already off we're a great start. According to the author notes (and the conspicuous little blurb on the story page itself), this is a sequel to Elder Knowledge. Most of the time, I don't bother reading the prior story's material for a review, and I don't plan on breaking that trend now; we'll see how the story stands on its own merits.
Honestly... I was actually pleasantly surprised. It's not bad. Hell, it's pretty good. The prose and description is deep enough without being too vague or too purple-y, Luna seemed in-character, and -- while I'll admit that I'm not all that familiar with Skyrim or the Elder Scrolls series in general -- the dragon himself (don't know how to spell the name, too lazy to check) also comes about as a sage-like and interesting being. Though, that's not to say I didn't have a few gripes with it, of course... As good as the talking and themes are, that's really all there is to it. Just talking. It does have the nice effect of being quite introspective, but, maybe I'm just not a fan of the overly-simple premises like this. And I can see this was tagged AU, which is good, since I'd have to rag on several discontinuations with canon and such -- at one point, it was mentioned that after the Royal Sisters defeated Discord, it was 1000 years until Luna became Nightmare Moon for the first time (thus implying that another millennium passed afterwards until her return), and if you know about the show, then you'd know that's a load of shit. That, and a number of other nits. But, hey, alternate universe. At the end of the day, it's a good story, and it's definitely a big step up from the usual featured and crossover shit. That at least counts for something.
#6: Just Roll With It
by sunnypack
Imagine my surprise when I see a winged unicorn in my kitchen that claims she's my mother.
Imagine her surprise when I threw my coffee mug at her.
Imagine my Dad's surprise when I was banished to the end of Time.
Okay, the last part didn't happen, Tempora is actually really nice, but you get what I mean.
Just roll with it, I guess?
Set in an Alternate Universe where nothing of canon makes much sense.
Aaaaaaaand we just took another nosedive in quality, already. Another AU story, only this time, it comes complete with "comedy". Thanks for getting my hopes up, Feature Box. Very sweet of you. Anyway, this really doesn't look like anything special, but--
Holy guacamole, Popular Stories! I can die happy now. Thank you everyone!!!
>thinking the popular box is a feat to be proud of
It's nowhere near difficult to accomplish, unless your story is either complete trash, offensive as fuck, or isn't a dumb clop or comedy. It's one thing to treat the Feature box as an epic feat, but the popular box? That's not a good sign. Why? Because it usually indicates that the author isn't used to handling "popularity", and instead of simply being humble about it, they decide to paste it on the front of their story just to entice people to read it. It serves no purpose.
Haba w-what? Featured?! My word! Yep, definitely writing another chapter as a thank you! I'm speechless (but not wordless, better get cracking!).
And sure enough, you treat the Feature Box as a feat as well, right in successive order. Yeah. That's totally something that people like to see you do. At least he isn't quite as "precise" enough to put the date and such, too. And the story's marked as incomplete, so... there will probably be another chapter sometime, won't there? Jeez...
Alright, on to the story. It's pretty much just a dry, random series of events. Not as random as the story I reviewed last week, mind you, but it's clearly written with very little sense to be had in mind. I was bored through the first chapter and pretty much just breezed through it, due in part to the short length and the fairly undescriptive nature of the story. It comes across as very telly, and not showy; there's just all kinds of "stuff" happening. The human MC is boring and typical, the "dad" comes off as creepy when he's not boring either, and the pony involved (who is, I shit you not, named "Tempora") is pretty much just the Fausticorn. The latter two being in some kind of sudden-as-fuck relationship springing up, as well. The pacing is completely out of whack, and any fleeting moments of meaningfulness or emotion are thrown out in seconds. And then there was THIS that I saw...
“My name’s Harmony”, I offered giving her a weak smile.
Because everyone wants to name their special little snowflake "Harmony", right?
And speaking of the pacing and emotion earlier, I honestly can't tell what this story is trying to even be. It wants to be comedy, then it wants to be sad, then it wants to be cute, then it goes back to being ridiculous, and then it decides to stick with the cute act. This kind of bipolar narration was jarring and painful for me to read. Doesn't help that the Dad character turns out to be an insensitive prick, and the protag is just a whiny teenager still nursing his mother's loss. Boo-freakin-hoo. With rushed-as-fuck writing such as this, I'm amazed I even stayed past the second chapter, because I could hardly keep up with all the stuff that was going on. It keeps explaining what happens, but it doesn't make us care. In fact, that all seems to be totally dropped by the fourth chapter, and is never mentioned again. In fact, basic characterization itself seems forgotten. Nope, just "cute" antics with a human MC and young version of Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and even Discord. While it does marginally improve as it goes on, it doesn't really save it from getting anything better than a "mediocre" grade from me. It's just a poorly-written tale all around, and very indicative of one where the writer is penning the story by the seat of his or her own pants. While good writers can conceal this for the most part, it's made pretty obvious in this one.
#5: Abracadaver
by Obselescence
All Twilight had to do was finish Starswirl the Bearded's final spell. She didn't have to become undead, seal her soul in the Elements of Harmony, or enlist her friends in an effort to fix everything... but you have to play the hand you're dealt.
Even if it's rotting off.
Oh look, a fic by Obsy. Those are always nice for a laugh, usually. Looking at it with but a glance, the premise seems simple enough; being "undead" is something that's not exactly new, nor are parodies of Magical Mystery Cure, but I'd say it was pulled off rather well here. It's labelled as a dark comedy, and that's pretty much exactly what it is; a somewhat-dark, but morbidly-hilarious story that doesn't get too grim, and while it borders on ridiculous, it's still quite entertaining. Yeah, who'dve thought, a Feature Box "comedy" story that actually entertained me. Then again, I'm a fan of dark humor, so I guess it works out fine.
As far as technicality goes, it's written well. The prose is tight, the characters are -- while we do see some hidden depths -- pretty true to themselves, and there's plenty of clever wit and wordplay melded in with the story itself. Very little of the humor feels forced. The only minor qualms I have are few, with one being the revelation near the ending, and the other being the rather... "basic" setup of the story. It felt like, in essence, all that really happened was that Twilight ended up becoming a zombie lich, and then she systematically goes to see her friends, one after the other, and then effortlessly convince them to help her. Step A complete, move to Step B, and so forth. It feels very simple and, dare I say, even uninteresting, but that problem is mercifully solved with the clever writing that's actually quite for read. So, no, I didn't actually get bored, even though I felt like I should have been. Overly-complex plots don't really work for comedies anyway, unless it turned out to become a horrendously contrived series of events; simple is usually best, and that's what works here. And hey, at the end of the day, it still turned out better than Magical Mystery Cure.
In regards to the revelation I spoke of, well... actually, it didn't really bother me as much as I thought it did. And it wasn't even really a problem to begin with. Basically, since spoilers mean nothing in these reviews (why else are you even reading them?), all princesses turn out to be lichs, which explains why they are immortal, because they are undead. I guess. And also that since she was being made a princess, she was meant to be a lich all along. Then after having a new body being made, she returns to her friend, whereupon they explain away the happenings to them, and the story just quietly ends. I suppose my only problem with it was that it seemed kinda sudden, compared to the first 5k words or so; it drops the metaphorical bomb and peaces out in fairly short order. Not that there's anything too wrong with that, of course; it does what it needs to do, and doesn't overstay its welcome. It's still a welcome addition to the niche grouping of dark comedies, and it might be one of the best stories I've read all month. What a way to kick off October, huh?
I could go on, but, let's face it. There's no sense in beating this horse any longer. Gotta wait until it's dead first, you dope.
#4: Commander Hurricane Fucks Every Mare In Cloudsdale
by Cloud Hop
Rainbow Dash performs a double rainboom, and it releases so much awesome that it spontaneously summons Commander Hurricane into modern Cloudsdale.
Commander Hurricane then proceeds to fuck every mare in Cloudsdale.
Rated Mature because Hurricane's cock is too awesome for lesser ratings.
Oh, god. I traded in the good dark comedy for dumbfuck "comedy"? If god is a frilly white horse, let her (or him) stomp me down into there dirt where I stand. In fact, why even bother? I know that this story is either, A: gonna be a randumb shitfest, B: trying too hard to be funny in any way, or C: ...I don't even know. It's just... Why do I even bother? I'm looking at the story, and...
...Actually, wait. Hold up. What's this I see? Praise? Universal praise for the story, despite the rather discomforting number of downvotes? It's not exactly a new concept to me, but it does leave one to wonder. Looking at the story now, it's-- alright, let's cut the bullshit, I still didn't like it. But... I can't say it's bad, either. It's just not my kind of "thing", if you will; any comedy that uses sex as a means to exploit jokes is on my personal shitlist, because I do not find humor and enjoyment in that. It's not badly-written. Cloud Top is actually a pretty decent writer, and a lot of his work shows that. Why he would ever want to make such a shameless and bombastic parody as this, I'll never know. But, hey, that's how it rolls, I suppose. At the very least, there ARE a few things I can give this story credit for, apart from being well-written. Like the fic I reviewed before, there are plenty of jokes and wit weaved into the passages, though of a more raunchy nature than a darkly humorous one. There was one clever gimmick near the end that caught me by surprise, and when the author explained it, I was fairly impressed by the idea. So, props for that, I suppose. (Just watch, I bet someone's gonna steal it now.)
I suppose it's "good" from an objective point of view, but coming from someone that dislikes clop as comedy in general, it's not my thing. I suppose if you enjoy parodies and/or clop, then this might tickle your fancy. If you're expecting anything serious... well, come on, does the fucking title suggest anything serious going on? I didn't think so.
Princess Luna has found herself on a very different moon after some strange force interfered with her banishment. She doesn't know what the metal objects that keep orbiting and sometimes landing there are, but she wants to find out. Meanwhile, Neil Armstrong believes that being the first man on the moon will be the crowning achievement of his life. Hoo boy, is he ever in for a surprise.
Princess Luna on the moon. Because... why not, apparently? That seems to be the core premise of this. Because why not. Granted, even though the story is still in-progress and it is a rather well-written story thus far, there are just some things that feel... off, to me. But what? Pretty much most of the detail and description is almost perfect; I caught some errors here and there, but nothing that hampered me. It was an okay story overall. In fact, the concept of a human meeting the astronauts of Apollo 11 in a fairly serious fashion is a neat one to begin with. It's been done before, but at least the idea hasn't completely worn out. (Not yet, anyway. Give it time.) It was pretty interesting to see them interacting the way they did, and Luna seemed relatively in-character, though I think her Ye Olde English mayeth have been butcherede in places. Though, they seemed to yammer on and talk quite a lot, and I'm not sure that would be the most "fitting" option, given the situation for the humans having encountered what is essentially alien life...
...Ah, yeah, now I figured out what one of the things bugging me was. Explaining.
People that write scenes with humans talking to ponies pretty much seem to go nuts with this. The pony is curious and asks them all kinds of things about Earth/humans in general, and the humans are more than happen to generously exposition it in plenty of detail. Now, there's nothing actually wrong with that, since these two completely different races would obviously have some questions for the other side (in most cases), but authors seem to just love to take the exposition and fucking run to the high hills with it. It's not a huge problem in THIS story, granted, but it still stuck out enough to me to be noticeable. At least Luna provided her own side of explanations as well, for a change... but, yeah, human explaining human stuff in great detail. Seen it before, heard it before, and it ain't as good as before. But, it's just one strike, right? Exposition can't ruin a story like this, right? I suppose it can't, but it does make it feel like a needless infodump. Not to mention, the situation of NASA scientists somehow connecting the dots in record time that it was probably the Tsar Bomba event that had something to do with Luna's arrival feels rather... contrived. Plenty of things do right now, but it's apparently still in-progress, so I'll reserve any judgement for now. As it stands, it's pretty decent, but nothing I'd call a masterpiece. Not yet, anyway.
#2: Friendship Lesson #101: Heated Situations
by Alcatraz
Shawn Sinclair was your average, run-of-the-mill citizen assigned to the Equestrian mission from Earth. He is assigned by Celestia and Luna to study, learn, and live under the metaphorical wing of Equestria's newest and youngest princess, Twilight Sparkle. Under the thin veneer of a trip to the beach, Twilight's true intentions are to see how well the two species can get along in the heat of the moment.
Oh, hey, lookit. A human x pony clopfic. Where were you last week? I missed my quota for clop-bashing because of you. Oh, and before I dig into this story at all, lemme just point out something from the description real quick:
A/N: Written as a commission for Anonymous
Full cover art is NSFW, PM me for full picture.
Triggers: Deepthroat and anal.
Written as a commission
I think that alone sums up what I think the problem will end up being.
I'll just say it up front: This is no different from the several hundred or so other clopfics you see get featured now and then. Those things are a goddamn dime a dozen. It still escapes me why people would want to commissions in the first place, because I can honestly find far better uses to put any amount of money towards. But, no, apparently some people NEED to have these stories made FOR them; and a not-so-surprising number of said people have more than enough scratch to burn at the stake, all in the name of a good wank. Kind of sad, really.
But, that's a rant for another day. Right now, there's a story to haze. Without even sugarcoating it, this story is pretty bad. Why? Well, let's just break it down. The intro starts us off with Twilight and some random human average-whoever-the-fuck-he-even-is joe named Shawn, and then we get hit over the head with some bullshit exposition about humans and ponies just now starting to come together because they live on planets light-years upon light-years apart from each other. There's just as much bullshit in the backstory itself, as it handwaves the whole ramification of FTL travel inadequately and feels... unnecessary. This is supposed to be a clopfic, so when the fuck did it turn into an episode of Star Trek? It's really cute when a story like this just tries so hard to explain itself, and then completely forgets it by the end. Seriously, all of this is explained in the first few paragraphs, and then dropped like a stone just so we can watch these two smear suntan lotion over the other and promptly fuck. After that, the story's over. That's it. Hope you weren't actually expecting anything different from the typical fapfare, guys...
Oh, but this is a commission, folks. Someone either WANTED it to be this way, or the author just didn't care enough to make it interesting. I can see this was a commission, and I'm not saying that authors shouldn't be charging for special requests and such, but the result of this one in particular is just... bland. That's the problem with commissions. If the writer is not enthused about it beyond the incentive for cash, then it does not amount to a good story. That's why I say that writers should be free to write what they WANT to write, not be explicitly instructed to write something. I can get behind the means of supporting an author via Patreon or something, but direct payment and direct INSTRUCTION on what the customer wants seems pretty hampering to the creative process. Perhaps there are some authors that can manage to pull this off effectively, but right now, my confidence is not inspired. This is just boring as all get-out, and it's just another bottom-of-the-barrel clopfic in the end. Nothing more, and nothing less.
#1: A Twilight Tale
by The Story Man
Heads up for this story: The "anon" is female. Lesbian story with Twilight.
You and Twilight have been friends for a very long time now, every since both of you discovered your passion for learning. You joke about the same thing, learn about the same things, and best of all you both share a room to help maximize the efficiency of your study sessions.
Still, not everything is flash cards and textbooks inside of your dorm. Twilight and you are friends after all, so you like to have fun when you can.
But say the AC for your building was under repairs during a heatwave?
Well, what could distract two young ladies from their studies?
Ah, yet another clopfic. At the very least, this one is written slightly better. It is a second-person fic though, and as is the common problem with second-person, it's a little hard to be immersed in it. Though unlike a lot of such fics, the "you" is actually female, this time. I suppose that's a welcome-ish change, although it doesn't make the content any less dull. Granted, this is written a bit more competently, and it actually does take some care in getting to know the characters, but it's still just clop at the core of it all. A bit more wholesome, but nothing I'd recommend. In fact, it reads an awful like any other second-person humanized clop, except this time around with lesbianism. You'd think that'd appeal a little more to me, being a woman and all (and questioningly bisexual), but like I said before, clop is just not something I'm inclined to read. If it was a longer, more dedicated erotica with stronger narrative elements and a compelling story, then yeah, I'd probably like it.
There's not a lot I can say about this, really. It was sort of cute to see the interaction, but it felt a little dry, really. It basically can be boiled down to "innocent enough studying, it gets hot because the AC fails, MC takes off her shit, Twi gets flustered, kisses her, they both get close, they fuck, the end." Pretty straightforward, and it escalated rather quickly, but, hey. A lot of these kind of fics do. To its credit, I can say that it's not horrible, but it's no masterpiece. It's... okay, for a clopfic. Felt somewhat sterile in some parts, but it does well enough that it didn't make me want to hurl. Hey, at least that counts for something, I guess. If you're a regular consumer of clop, very much unlike me, then you'll probably enjoy it just fine. Me, I'd just pass it over, as there's just nothing too interesting going on here. It handles itself well, given what it has to work with, but it is still held back by the writing perspective, the "genre", and the general lack of action.
And so ends another slew of stories. This was posted a day late because my computer crashed yesterday while writing these, and while losing what I had (along with with losing access to a computer, period) for quite some time was disheartening, I wasn't exactly planning on pussying out of reviewing. And I didn't feel like grabbing a different batch of stories, so... there you go. Deal with it. And while you are dealing with it, you can look forward to next week's tales of woe. This week wasn't all that bad, but I suspect the next week isn't going to be much better. And who knows, we might even have another round of drama to bear.
This is now a gif that will be seeing much use, trust me.
~Blinkie
Looking over my reviews again, I noticed that there were a crippling lack of puns.
Bit of a shame I was dead tired.
~Blinkie
2500787
Your computer died when reviewing stories too? Jesus Christ, it's like you're my clone or something. Except you managed to pull through and finish the job. I just grew disheartened and cried in a corner. ;-;
2500787
A crippling lack of puns, you say?
Well, that's pretty
lame.
2500820
2500787
I just realized you two are long lost twins.
Don't you mean Two Minutes To Midnight?
I only just found out about this review yesterday, but I had to ask: Aren't half my stories shameless, bombastic parodies that employ innuendo with reckless abandon? I'm flattered that you think I'm a decent writer, but really, my stories tend to flip flop between serious stuff and complete madness.