Z Reviews: My Little Crusade

This time's review will be of My Little Crusade, authored by Inquisitor Awesome, 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.
As always, here's how I'll be doing 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.

Huh. This makes for an interesting change of pace, Equestria on Earth, as it were. The timing makes it both especially important and intriguing. I remember learning about the crusades, after all... decades of violent bloodshed in the name of faith. Terrible times, really, full of disharmony and hatred. So of course, the general idea of the story is that, for various reasons, during Discord's reign, Celestia "kills" Discord to end everything, only for the death of the force of entropy to cause the end of the world, sending the survivors to earth, circa ~1400 AD. Right in the middle of the crusades, both in time and location. It's an interesting idea, and I'm reasonably certain it hasn't been done before in this setting. (Hey, show me the stories to prove me wrong and I'll change this.) ... The story itself is executed fairly well, but the author struggles with coherent and cohesive writing. The grammar is, as I was warned, often all over the place, but so is the spelling and sentence structure. Often, ideas are garbled by unnecessary words or phrases, and I felt as if I were earning a cryptography degree deciphering some of the points.
The story itself is an interesting tale of diplomacy, deceit, distrust, and war, as the newly arrived Equestrians must deal with their first encounters with the race known as "Man", as well as a growing threat of the Discorded army that managed to travel with them to the new land. As well, the problems the humans bring with them form another looming cloud on the horizon, especially those issues of religion and religious differences and the war caused by them. Sadly, the characters do a poor job of carrying the story, as they often seem flat. Rarely do they seem alive, especially because the author is often telling us how they feel. Occasionally saying that a character is mad isn't a bad thing, but the saying "show, don't tell" exists for a reason. An audience will feel more connection from a character if that character acts like they have feelings, rather than merely saying "I'm very very angry." over and over again. The drama and suspense that can build with the obvious, easily available distrust and xenophobia in such a setting were, unfortunately, often cut short to an awkward Problem->Resolve->New Problem framework for the rather wooden interactions to b draped over, and those usually felt fluffed out with excess descriptions about minor details. The action scenes also suffer from the awkward pacing and strange convolutions of sentence structure, often jerking wildly about without enough concrete detail. I felt like several scenes were from the Blair Witch Project, rather than from a written story. And that isn't meant as a compliment; Found Footage style horror movies have a lot to answer for in my opinion.

Overall... I give this story 5 out of 10 moustaches, and 3 out of 5 Deities.

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: ... The whole idea that God makes humans overpowered against the Equestrians bugs the heck out of me, it really does. On the other hand, Faith Magic is a known thing, and the time of the crusades was one of the most intensely faithful periods in human history. Also complaints about how diplomats are usually received and so on compared to what was shown, notes about starvation, and a few other quips were generally skipped over. Artistic license is excusable, within limits.