My Issues with Twilight's Dollhouse · 4:49pm Nov 22nd, 2014
I read Kaidan's Twilight's Dollhouse all the way through awhile back even though I wasn't enjoying it along the way. I regret not quitting midway, but even more then that, that it did not redeem itself in any fashion by the end. I know it takes a lot of time and love to make these stories but it was missing a lot of key elements to make it much better. I hate to be the person who brings the critique although it seems to be popular despite my humble opinion. 
This really failed in how it was presented. Kaidan has done stories in the past where he handled first person perspectives MUCH better than this (Puppet to Her Fame, Dash of Humanity) and he never portrayed Twilight in a very convincing way here. There were brief moments where he handled her shock and grief well but then he quickly shifted her to being calculated, cold, and sociopathic in just another paragraph later. One moment she's grieving the next she's taking pleasure in taking people by force. She's suffering and supposed to be sympathetic and the next moment she's making others suffer. She's a master criminal and then a powerful child w/o any kind of rationality and yelling at Celestia. There's NO consistency in how he was portraying her character. It's a mess and nothing in it feels like he captured Twilight well as a character from cannon or made her even sympathetic. We may have hung in there to see how the story played out and what happens to the characters but we weren't rooting for Twilight or feeling sympathy to her plight. She was just a poor main character. Her view of immortality just seems completely childish and illogical. 
He did a great job with Lyra as the one key main character to focus on and support, but he also didn't resolve what happens to her at the end (I guess we have to read the sequel to find that out?). Big Mac too was sympathetic and well done but also equally victimized. The fact that they were forced into this friendship and experiencing stockholm syndrome was a bit easily overlooked. They may have had the best emotional scenes but they were few and far between to carry this ENTIRE story.
The rest of the characters just felt underwhelming. The rebellion turning on the Twilight supporters (Lyra) was a slightly interesting note but he really didn't bring any other themes other then those who were captured could be just as cold and manipulative as Twi could be. The dolls did take the backseat once Twi was running around to avoid capture by Luna.
Applejack's death was brutal (and somewhat of a much needed surprise) but was a key moment that wasn't reflected on much after. Sure he explored how Twilight regretted it and continued to drastically slide from tormented to a tormenter who would use black magic after that, but there was little grief from her death. Just remorse for her plans coming apart, which was going to happen because there weren't any realistic thoughts that this plan could WORK. Once it became perfectly clear that the dolls weren't going to cooperate and she was eventually going to get discovered it really struck home how hollow a premise this was. Sure Twi was insane but she was also underwritten as were may of the elements, The fact that he wrote the police as so cartoony and ignoring that ALL THESE PONIES WERE DISAPPEARING but was yet another difficult poison to swallow. It just became a pretty cartoony caper for her to pull off and NO ONE was investigating all that was happening until Luna came in? RIDICULOUS.... 
If there were any themes we were supposed to get from this story i just don't know what they were. Tragedy only works if you're feeling it for the characters, If anything it seemed like Twilight was trying to portray how a sociopath would view friendship and immortality (as something they would ultimately control even as it inflicted all kinds of harm and pain on other ponies). Having Cadence die can't cause a sociopathic pov and certainly doesn't justify anything Twi does throughout the fic!! Even the Secret life of Rarity showed how a sociopath can be written WELL, explain how this switch in behavior occurred, and still be sympathetic in what happens to them. You understand why this character has gone downhill so far. There's nothing repentant in here in Twi or worth noting as she's a hollow shell of a character by the end.... 
I loved Puppet to Her Fame and Dash of Humanity as they were GREAT stories. They had likeable characters that I enjoyed getting to know. They were interesting stories with great surprises, good dialogue, and even when they were dark (Puppet) they were captivating because you rooted for the main characters and they were believable. This just failed to capture the same storytelling i saw in both of those wonderful stories and nothing in here really came as a massive surprise as it was all predictable and sprawled out (how many times can tea be the weapon?). I really tried to hang in there and hope for a big payoff in the end but this just fell short all along the way and into the epilogue as well. I'm just mystified why this fic remains so popular...are there that few good Twi grimdarks that this gets a free pass? 
I certainly hope Kaidan continues to write (I'm VERY glad he came back after a hiatus and an apology) as i KNOW he can make great fimfiction when all the right elements are there. I'll still treasure the other stories he wrote which I enjoyed much more and that are still among my favorites. 
Nice review! :O