Review: Coalsmoke's Cutie Mark. by: De Writer

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Another semi-dark comedy about the life of Grumpy Goat. This time, he meets a mare trapped between the legacy of her former husband, and the abuses of her current one.

Story: Okay, there are two ways the story matters, both in what is happening in it, and how it’s written. Generally these blend together rather well, here, going to have to tackle them separately. The story itself is pretty decent. While far from perfect, most of the issues or high-points are things for other sections of the review. It’s a short little one shot, so mot much more to say without spoilers.

The how it’s told/written, that is where issues start creeping up. The story does a very very large amount of telling not showing. Simply having the character narrate things, tell us about how this is that, or saying they did this, rather then showing. It overall has a rather rushed feel to it. Very condensed, trying to get the story told as fast as possible and sticking to the bare bones facts.

Not that there aren’t still gems. Grumpy’s nightmare, while taking a much darker turn the even the rest of the story has had, was well done in terms of showing the emotion, and setting the scene well, at feeling natural and pulling us into the scene.

Characters: This is part of a larger ‘verse, just one story of several and shares characters with that ‘verse, not just Grumpy Goat. Which is fine, and personally I love set ups like that, it gives far more chance to explore the world and the characters. So most of the establishment for the characters beyond Coalsmoke and her husband were already done in their own stories.

That said, with the exception of Grumpy and the Litch King, it was hard to get to knew the characters, to really connect to them. Mostly because of the telling not showing. We are told things about the characters, but the story doesn’t take the time to show them, to just let things build or sink in. What we saw was fairly good, it simply went by to fast, or was to distanced by the lack of really experiencing the events to connect to.

That said, the scenes of Grumpy and the Litch King simply talking, bonding, those are ones that did work. While yeah like the rest they could serve with being expanded on and slowed down, those scenes felt far more natural and you could actually feel the emotion in them. Helped by those two having the most fleshed out feel to them.

Engagement: Moderate. While what was going on was interesting, and I did want to see how things would work out. The quick pace, the feeling like it’s just rushing from scene to scene, getting the facts out quickly and moving on. It made it hard to really connect to the story. But wanting to see where it did end still made it easy to keep going. Just hard to get lost in it.

Ponyness: And here we come to a debatable point. Or more precisely a YMMV point. The Equestria that we see in the story comes of much darker then what we see in the show. And yet, there are still some small touches, some overall feel to it that foes make sense. This is dealing with the fringes of pony society, not the core of it that we see in the show. While it is darker, and doesn’t quite feel like how I picture Equestria, it isn’t so far off that I can call it wrong either. It’s simply a different take on it. One that does work in it’s own way.

That said, while this issue was there for the last Grumpy Goat tale as well, there are some points here that push it a bit further away from my personal idea of Equestria, but also one bit that I really appreciated and did serve to make the point of what this is. Looking at the fringes, at those ponies… and others… that are simply to small, or to unnoticed to not slip through the cracks. Not pony society as a whole. The story making clear that the anti-goat mob that had been harassing Grumpy was indeed a fringe group that even other ponies looked down on. Not a sign of common sentiment.

So yes while it’s not exactly my preferred take on Equestria, it is nonetheless a very interesting one that does explore a section of pony society that might exist and that we simply don’t see much of.

Overall: Fair. While the base story has promise, and is an interesting exploration of the world from an angle we don’t see much. The telly nature of it. The rushed feel, the lack of spending time to show things, to let us get to know the characters. It makes the story hard to really get into. What this feels like more then anything, is a first of second draft of what, with a bit more work and fleshing out, could be a truly great story. It simply needs to slow down, take time to allow the setting to be explored, to show things rather then simply telling us they happened. To expand on what it already has.