Paul's Monday Reviews II · 10:42pm Mar 2nd, 2015
Round II of my weekly quintet of reviews is a go! Let's see what we can pull from my RiL this time, shall we? This week's lineup:
Making My Mark by Tramper
Luna's Foalsitting Business by Inkscape
Stand Ready by JMac
Know When to Quit by Konseiga
Any Cost by Anonymoose
Continue on down for the reviews!
I’ve never been much for crossovers. It’s not that they’re poorly written (they usually are), or that their stories are crap (often the case), it’s just that I typically don’t know the material (which I didn’t here). In this case, I came out of the story with a bit of a ‘meh’ feeling. I felt like this existed just to act as a ‘what if?’ thread starter than an actual story. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won’t say specifically what this is a crossover for. The reveal at the end is the entire point of the story, after all (and don’t look at the story’s comments if you don’t want to know ahead of time).
However, I will say that I didn’t particularly care for the story’s premise. Apple Bloom not having her cutie mark when everyone else does is about as basic as it gets, and most of the story focuses on her misery regarding this situation. Also prevalent is her determination to fix this apparent crime against her existence, as well as her bland disinterest in matters such as personal survival or making intelligent decisions – at least until her survival is put directly on the line.
Not that any of these topics are particularly bad, it’s just that they didn’t seem to lead anywhere; everything in this story exists for the sake of the big reveal at the end. There’s no character development and no plot material that hasn’t been explored before in far better ways. There were plenty of clues to suggest things regarding Granny Smith, but aside from that the entire story felt gimmicky.
All of this is further troubled by a large number of mistakes and weird sentence structure. A simple example:
Instead, she simply followed Pinkie Pie, whatever she was doing here and the steps of the hydra echoed from behind them.
Now how many times did you have to read that before it made sense? Imagine how confused it will leave you when you find it imbedded in a story in the middle of an action scene. Strange sentences like this litter the entire story and did it no favors. Add to that some downright horrendous flashback use and you’ll find me very disappointed.
Making My Mark is a story that may appeal to a certain demographic, but generally speaking I just wasn’t impressed. It’s a real shame, because I know from experience that Tramper can make some high quality material.
This was painful to read. I mean it, downright painful. Terrible formatting, no sense of plot whatsoever, characters behaving irrationally (even for the CMC), a large number of lines determined to state the obvious, and an opening flashback you don’t even know is a flashback until it jumps to the present (jarringly). This entire story feels like a crackfic – and I am already known to dislike crackfics in general. Worse, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intended to be one.
Simply put, this story opens with the questionable premise of the CMC being dumped in Luna’s lap by the Mane 6 and is about how the princess is incapable of handling them. Is the premise new? No. Is it handled well? No. Was the writer trying to? I hope not. The CMC behave a thousand times more recklessly than they ever did in the show (to the point of shooting ice arrows at one another and Luna) and Luna herself tries to corral them all on her own in the style of a true amateur. She displays no authority, not to the Mane 6, the CMC or her own guards.
And when she does show authority, her behavior makes no sense. She resorts to the Royal Canterlot Voice (which I strongly discourage in all situations) to frighten the fillies into behaving only to turn right around two seconds later and apologize for frightening them, even going so far as to say she wasn’t angry when it’s absolutely obvious she was. It’s like her emotions and intentions change at the flip of a switch.
There are few stories I won’t bother adding to my bookshelves, but they do exist.
This story had a good premise, but just didn’t manage the delivery.
Stand Ready focuses on the thestral Brick Wall, who is regarded by Luna as ‘her most loyal citizen.’ A trainer for the night guard, the story goes on to show how this soldier dedicated his life to a princess he never met, only to miss the night of her return to Equestria due to a career-ending carriage accident. The story then goes on to show Luna trying to find a way to honor a most esteemed veteran who happens to dislike being in the spotlight.
Brick Wall had the potential to be a very interesting character. His selfless manner, gruff disposition and quickly established history all indicate a pony that would be worth knowing. Unfortunately, JMac’s style makes the story fly by so quickly that there’s no time to indulge in the potential. Luna herself appears in the story with no fanfare whatsoever, her presence coming and going so fast it seems more like a footnote than an important moment in Brick’s life.
This is the big issue with Stand Ready: there’s no sense of flow whatsoever. The opening held such great promise, and I was willing to accept the large time jump in the second section, but after that it’s like we’re flying through the story. It almost feels like JMac wrote the story just to show an old, handicapped stallion beat down a snobby officer in two hits, because that scene took the longest and was the most interesting in the whole story. As soon as that was done, so was the story, or so it seemed with how quickly the rest of the scenes raced by. There was nothing resembling a climax and the conclusion felt weak at best. If there was meant to be any kind of emotion evoked by Brick’s honorary inclusion in Luna’s guard, I sure didn’t feel it.
This was a real shame. Stand Ready has a premise that could make for an incredible life story tale, but what we got was a rushed attempt. If I have anything to suggest to JMac, it’s to slow down. A lot.
Let me just take this opportunity to say that I strongly disapprove of cover art that has nothing to do with the material of a story.
Okay, so that’s off my chest. Know When to Quit lives up to its dark tag by having Rainbow Dash caught and tied up by a pair of mafia hitponies. The ponies want Applejack so that she can repay her debts to their crime family, but since AJ’s up and disappeared they’ve managed to nab RD. The entire story revolves around them threatening to kill her if she can’t – or doesn’t – tell them were Applejack is. Unlike a lot of stories pretending to be rough, this one carries through a bit by actually having RD grievously hurt by her captors.
I kinda like darker stories; I’ve never felt that the pretty, sunshine-and-rainbows world the show gives us is the full picture. This is mostly because I’m something of a realist and don’t think such a happy world can exist (my own writing reflects this quite a lot). This story met the general penchant for darkness I enjoy without really going overboard: financial responsibilities, crime families, bloody results. The only real problem I have with it is that the characters are too laid back about the situation at the end of the story. After all that happened – and knowing what could have happened – Applejack’s and Rainbow’s behavior feels so unconcerned that it smacks of OOC.
I can understand if this is a crapsack world where everything is shit in the first place and so blood, guts and near-death situations is the norm. Unfortunately, we’re not given enough information to make this connection, so the characters’ behavior just doesn’t fit.
All that being said, the story achieves its primary purpose: to show that Rainbow would have Applejack’s back, even under threat of death and torture. It’s basically a display of loyalty. That, Konseiga did well. The story was generally well-written, too, with few mistakes, and it also did a good job with the flashback. I’m not fond of flashbacks – period – but lately I’ve seen a lot of them done with horrible formatting, flow and/or transitions, so seeing one actually done right is a nice change of pace.
If you just enjoy reading something short and dark, go ahead and give this a try. Just be ready for an anticlimactic ending.
This story achieved a lot in so few words. The concept is as blatantly obvious as one can get; Shining died protecting Cadance from an assassination attempt, and she can’t take the loss. The story shows her rapid downward spiral, to the point of abandoning her role as Empress of the Crystal Empire and returning to Canterlot to mope. She seeks out Twilight, who has been cast in stone for a thousand years as punishment for trying to bring Rainbow Dash back from the dead (an entirely unexpected twist I readily approve of) and, when Twilight refuses, finally goes to Queen Chrysalis in hopes that a changeling alternative will be enough to stave off her pain.
There are some good things and bad things about this story. It uses exposition in a way that is appropriate and not at all problematic. Though very short, it manages to achieve exactly what it’s after, but this comes with the caveat that the emotions feel weak; there’s simply no time to take in Cadance’s pain in each scene. As such, you have to go into it with the right mindset or you might not feel much of anything, except to simply say “Oh, that sucks.”
My one big issue with the story is purely headcanon; I seriously doubt either Cadance or Twilight would fall so hard over something like this. Twilight’s been known to do some dumb, overemotional acts in the past, but to try and raise a friend back from the dead? Nope, don’t see her trying that one. Ditto for Cadance, although I will acknowledge that we haven’t seen enough of her to really say for certain.
If you don’t like the ‘immortality sucks’ trope or sad stories, avoid this one. Otherwise, give it a go. At just over 1,000 words, it’s pretty good for the time invested.
Stories for Next Week
The Seventh Element by adoptpetz
My Domestic Equestria by Pascoite
Hello, Sedna by shortskirtsandexplosions
Surface Deep by TheSlorg
Pointless by Dark Avenger
Ugh. Is it Monday again, already? Too soon. But any way, good reviews, as usual. But if you're going to keep doing these en mass, you might want to consider some kind of rating system. Present Perfect's is a good example. I don't have one because I only review stories that I already like. Just a thought. See you Thursday.
2844445
I've considered it. I've been thinking about using my own bookshelves as the marker; where they land in my bookshelves (if they land in my bookshelves) would be the rating. I may need to create a couple more, though, because as it stands I only have four, and that just doesn't feel like enough.
2844465
Whatever you say,
Present PerfectAsaran.BTW, I was looking over your formatting of the reviews. Dude. These must be a pain in the ass to make. I tip my hat to you.
2844767
It's not that bad. Takes time, sure, but certainly not difficult. Even so, the formatting is one reason I'm limiting myself strictly to five a week. Did you notice that the pictures are linked, as well? I also go through the trouble of reducing the size of the images so they don't look friggen huge.
Also, I realized that if you count not being placed in a bookshelf at all as a rating, then I actually have five. I can live with that number.
That was an interesting mix of stories. I wasn't interested in the first two, and the mafia one seemed a little too bloody for me, but I did read the Cadence one. I gotta agree with you that if you don't go into it with the right mindset, it falls pretty flat, since that's what happened to me. I guess I've gotten too used to longer chapters in the stuff I read, since this one just felt unfinished in comparison. The Twilight thing came out of nowhere for me, and seemed extreme for the crime committed.
2844802
That'd be a good way to do it. Top Shelf=5/5, Bottom Shelf=1/5, not shelved=it sucks!