Z Reviews: Applied Starlight · 12:51am Nov 23rd, 2014
This time's review will be of Applied Starlight, authored by Unknownlight, reviewed by me, TheifofZ. If you like this review, check my blog for other reviews, or follow this link to go to the post containing the mission statement and a list of all the stories I've reviewed so far.
Laying down the ground work for how I intend to do this; First I'll cover the story idea, and writing style and quality of the story. Next, I'll look at the actual story itself, including character motivation, action (if the story has any), and the general plot. Finally, I'll throw down my egotistical and opinionated rating, declaring exactly how good, or bad, I thought this was. And yes, I will do my best to avoid spoilers for the plot IF POSSIBLE. If the spoiled events are integral to the story, I'll throw down spoiler warnings instead, and ask that you proceed with caution. Always remember, folks. This is all opinion. Disagree with me? Think I'm dead wrong, or spot on? Argue about it in the comments if you want. It's cool. Noone has a truly humble opinion, after all, but make sure you read the review first. And now that that's out of the way, here we go!
Applied Starlight is... Well, wow. It's a humdinger of a story for my first review, and no mistake. Word of God has it that the entire story is a puzzle wrapped up in an enigma, padded with confusion, and in the small synopsis, it's described as "A loving tribute to pretentious, incomprehensible mind screws." And he's right. The story idea posits that, due to specific events that may or may not even have happened, a specific pony is cast into an infinite void that is perfectly malleable to the pony's desires, and then explores what happens after that. The who is quickly discovered, but the why and how are part of the overall bigger mystery that you, dear readers, were invited to solve. It's actually a really fun idea, but some foreknowledge of pre-existing MLP franchise merchandise actually helps discover the intended answer. So that was, honestly, mildly frustrating. On the other hand, you can say "Screw the intended answer, I like my version better". The whole thing is open to interpretation, so go for it, I say.
As for the writing style, it's fairly crisp and detailed, with many references to various forms of physics, psychology, and a few dashes of mythology for good measure. Important ideas are scattered about, and sometimes the writing shifts style completely, though, muddying the waters alittle. When I was first reading this, it bugged me no end, but ... Spoilers here: This is an important thing to take note of. The plot of the story can drag alittle, but it's done well, as the whole story has to literally be built from the ground up, and as more and more clues are added, the entire thing takes on a strange momentum of its own.
The story actually follows (very minor spoiler); Twilight Sparkle as she builds her own reality from the ground up after a specific set of events caused her to begin existing outside the one she previously inhabited. The exact how, and why, are major spoilers, so you should read the story if you're interested. The first several chapters alternate between following her trial and error method of discovering how to Reality properly, and flashbacks detailing the slow but inevitable build up of events that caused the occurrence that drives the plot. The entire thing is done cryptically, with an odd, subtle wrongness lingering over many of the events that Twilight causes in her Alternate world, and occasionally the things that Twilight does are in direct opposition to what she intends to do. Eventually, the wrongness becomes noticeable to Twilight, too, and that's when the plot really starts to get moving. While the clues scattered throughout the story hint at the reason for all this, very little is done that even the most genre savvy reader can build upon, and the ideas are implemented very creatively. Eventually everything comes to a head, Twilight confronts the cause of everything, and a conclusion is reached, but the ending is possibly one of the vaguest and unsatisfying endings I've read... Because the real ending is solving the mysteries that cloud the plot like mayflies. The Author has, since the end of the story, posted several answers that complete the story and resolve the biggest, and then all the rest, of them. And while I really enjoyed the way that the story cannot reach a conclusion without input from beyond the fourth wall, I'm not sure it's something that could be done again without a very angry outcry.
The characterization was actually really well done, with the real characters very much acting as they should, and much of Twilight's thoughts, desires, and actions match closely with her drive in the show, while the faux characters that Twilight tries to recreate from nothing are all wrong, clearly twisted and distorted to match something else... Which is, of course, intended.
Not much else I can say about that, really, without digging into a specific character which will both spoil the entire thing, and ruin most of the story, too.
Overall, I give the story about an 8 and a half mustaches out of 10, and 4 out of 5 mind screws. 
Any opinions or major points you'd like to make go in the comments below. Advice, Major Corrections, story suggestions, and fan mail can be PM'd to me. ... if I ever get fans. HAH! 
Final note: Yes, I'm going to be harsh. The story was a fun idea, and was well implemented, and it's a favourite of mine for a reason. That being said, if I'm reviewing for all of you, I'm going to look for flaws too.
Thank you for the review!
I might possibly be a little bit biased, but I think you're a good reviewer and this is a great start! I might recommend putting a blank line between paragraphs (I just think it looks better) and maybe you could have bolded headers for each section (Story, Writing, Characterization, etc.) to help organize the review.
I think I mentioned this before somewhere in the comments, but I probably wouldn't have written Applied Starlight they way I did (with an utterly unsatisfying ending), had I known that people would actually read the darn thing.
I had no stories, no followers, no one knew who I was, and I just started posting bulk collections of chapters (of my pre-completed story) to my empty profile to see what would happen. Somehow people found it, and I still don't know how!
...Actually, that might not be right. I'm honestly not sure what I would've written had I known people would read the story. I mean, I say that I have a "lust for attention", but in reality I think I have much less of one than most people on this site. I mean, a few years ago I made an incredibly dumb Smash Bros. webcomic called BS Comics, and that's received something absurd like 10,000 comments. I think that might have satiated my need for attention for quite a while. After that I ended up writing stuff like Applied Starlight, a story I originally wrote just as a method of entertaining myself. So maybe I would've written it the same way after all.
Or maybe I'm contradicting myself. I said I probably have less of a "need for attention" than most people here, and yet all I'm doing is talking about myself. It's like some bloated egoist talking about how humble they are. Okay! Let's try talking about you!
I really like this line.
Well, this comment ended up a bit rambly. Anyway, thanks again for the review, and good luck with these blogs! As for a fic recommendation, I'll go with...eh...ah! Pinkie Pie is Dead. That's an amusing one, and it's going to really difficult to review without spoiling.
2611100 Well, I did say, if I can avoid it, I'll try not to spoil things. And some of the stories I'll review aren't anywhere near the point where spoilers are a thing. But I also did say, if there are spoilers all over, then I'll just throw down a spoiler warning and let everyone know that they need to proceed with caution. So that's a thing.
But hey, thanks for the advice. I'll go ahead and edit the blank lines in, but since these aren't professional or anything, it's really me ranting on about random stories. All that ramble, though.
This, at least, isn't going to be an issue. I'm going to make it a constant point to remind everyone that I am nowhere near humble about this. These are my feelings and opinions, and telling them to other people is automatically the opposite of humble. Especially on an open, anonymous forum like the interwebs. And I'll take a note that after my random Recent Update selection, I have to review Pinkie Pie is Dead, as per request.