Main Reviews #12: Of Age (spoiler alert) · 3:33pm Mar 12th, 2015
I’ve never actually read a proper Sparity before, so I’m treading new waters here. I suppose it’s because when I entered the fandom during season two, it already seemed cliche as hell. The second reason I never bought into it is because I’m not one for interspecies shipping; it always comes off as creepy or fetishy (I’m sure there’s a better word for that but whatever). Now, do not confuse this with me thinking interracial pairing is a bad thing; it quite clearly happens in the show between unicorn and pegasus, unicorn and alicorn. But when you cross the actual species barrier… I just can’t buy into it. There’s something hardwired into my brain about characters being shipped together that, more than likely, should not be able to produce offspring. That same issue is where my dislike of same-sex shipping comes from as well. Think whatever you like about me for that; it doesn’t mean I’m intolerant of it in fiction or real life—I have lots of lovely friends who are so oriented—rather, it means simply that I myself will never write about it.
But, hell, this is Equestria, where ponies raise the sun and Chimeras prowl the exploding fire pits, where magic governs all and ponies are powerless without it. Who’s to really say the rules of reproduction are the same as in our world? And really, love is love—if you can make it believable.
Is this love believable? More importantly, enough to break the barrier of species? Find out my view of Of Age below.
Author: Paleowriter
Synopsis:
When Rarity writes to Princess Celestia inquiring after how dragons age, she gets a plea for help in reply. A war is brewing, and Princess Celestia thinks Rarity's the one to stop it. Now, still completely uncertain what her feelings for Spike are or if they're even plausible, she's off to meet with his distant relatives to negotiate a truce between the dragons and the sea serpents before the world gets caught up in their destructive clash.
Length: 83,206 words over 16 chapters, averaging 5,200 words per chapter
Status: Complete
Review: We begin with Rarity being curious about how Spike is growing as a dragon. They’ve been spending a fair amount of time together lately, and she’s unsure of her feelings toward him… which of course means she’s questioning herself on a pretty deep level. I love the way that Paleo played with Rarity’s emotions throughout this passage as she struggled to put her request for information into words.
Wait, what? There’s a war coming? And Rarity’s the only one who can venture forth to mediate negotiations? Have to say this felt super-contrived, the way that it was brought up: Celestia responds to her letter calling her away to Canterlot because apparently some Sea Serpents have requested Rarity’s presence among them. Hmmm. Some rather strong raising of the eyebrow from me there. I mean, how come Celestia did not send for Rarity in the first place if she was so important? She can’t have known that Rarity would send a random and convenient letter inquiring about dragon maturity. Honestly, this plot point felt incredibly forced. I think it would have gone better if Rarity had been just thinking about sending a letter, and then received one before she could send her own. She could have then taken the initiative that I know she has to ask while they were there… even if the story dictated her questions would not be answered. I wasn’t too overly fond of Celestia here, either; she interrupts Rarity on multiple occasions and gives her no answer to her own queries before sending her on this diplomatic mission out of nowhere.
Welp, how does one turn down the request of an Equestria Princess, anyway? Off she goes to make negotiations… until Spike and the CMC blunder along and join her. I do so love the little scamps and their adventurous ways… and Peewee makes a short but effective appearance in the few following chapters. Nice. We get the start of some minor conflict that clearly heralds a much larger threat to the country, some arguing, bickering , angst, and then… oh. Oh my. The royal escort never arrived. Um. What do? Trundling off through the Everfree Forest by one’s lonesome is scary enough at the best of times, but when one of the CMC goes missing, the tension continues to build. To quote this particular passage upon reaching the meeting place (with her escort uncomfortably, conspicuously absent), Rarity was “caught between a diamond and a crystallized rock wall.”
Something I thought was really cool through these first few chapters was the way that Paleo really got inside Rarity’s head. Her thought processes, how she worries about her appearance even when it’s least appropriate (Rarity picked up her right front hoof, grimacing at it. Covered in mud and filth already. Why didn't I think to bring my boots?), but what I liked most of all was how she was genuinely worried for her foolhardy sister, the other pair of troublemaking knuckleheads, and the little dragon that she was still uncertain of—so much so that she considered blowing her vital royal mission just to ensure their safety.
One of many cool worldbuilding moments arrives in chapter four. Though never named in the show, and given the fanon name of Steven Magnet, Rarity encounters this peculiar creature for the first time since the show’s pilot. Sweetie, of course, has decided to stick around, having followed Rarity through the forest in secret. As a result, both sisters are formally introduced to Duke Stef’an Ma’gnette of Sea Serpentia (a rather elaborate name, huh? Matches his flamboyant personality) who then proceeds to take them to—holy crap, they’re under attack! Lots of action in these scenes.
But what happened to those Royal Guards that were supposed to meet and escort Rarity to the ocean? Their disappearance is supposed to be a foreboding thing, but they should have at least made some kind of appearance. Even just one straggler?
Even as early as from this part of the story, Spike’s feelings continue to grow stronger for Rarity—not so much in the romantic department, more like a compelling desire to rescue her and keep her safe. These are the first real signs of what begins to happen up ahead… but we’ll get there.
Let us not neglect the other characters, though. By now of course, the rest of the Mane Six have organised a search and rescue party. Everypony is done very well to remain in character, although I found I had a bit of a problem with how Rainbow was presented. She just seemed to be taking the whole situation the least seriously of everyone. Even Pinkie—who became one of my faves on his whole ride, despite her low amount of spotlight—was more about the mission than making wisecracks.
Back to world-building: Sea Serpentia was described in great detail without feeling over the top. I got a great picture of the rocky Meeting Isles where negotiations were to take place, the way the ocean sprayed up against the outer walls on the surface, the large circular pool in the middle, and the glittering subterranean caves where Rarity’s room was. I did particularly like the little aside during Rarity’s inspection of the place where she found divots in her room. Divots where gems had previously rested. I remember thinking there that perhaps the Sea Serpents insisted on only Rarity’s presence because previous guests had thieved from their guest chambers, however I was both glad and bemused to be proven wrong a short while later. What really stole the show for me here, in spite of the lovely imagery, was the way that Sweetie Belle figured out Rarity’s counter-crush on Spike, and teased her mercilessly for it exactly like one would expect a human child to tease their elder sibling. It was hilarious, the first section in the story that really lightened the mood, and let me tell you, the mood needed lightening at that stage.
But there’s something rather large and important to the plot missing here—no, wait, there they are! A day early, too. Oh dear. This might be a problem. Calm down, Rara. Don’t freak out. They’re just a small envoy of…
Dragons. Large, intimidating, multicoloured dragons. The plot thickens and thickens like milk churned for hours on end, until at last the paddle is completely stuck and won’t churn no more. Paleo makes incredible use of what I like to call “plausible canon” (that is to say, this very likely could have happened, even if it more than likely didn’t) at this point on multiple levels, and I found myself being sucked in further and further with every chapter. I didn’t stop noticing errors though, but I’ll cover those later.
Back on the mainland, Twilight and the others have encountered the growing threat face to face, and fended off their attackers—which aren’t, surprisingly, dragons—on a couple of occasions. Everypony and the CMC have decided that they need to stick together and just find Rarity and Sweetie Belle, even if the grownups are rather miffed at the disobedient youngsters despite the fact that they saved their lives…
So, like, where did those Royal Guards go? If the Mane Six and the CMC can defend themselves from an attack against three times the number of marauders, why could properly trained—I would hope so anyway—military forces not also hold their own?
Now, to Spike: we all know that Rarity can have a flair for the dramatic, but apparently Spike has spent enough time with her so as to pick up this particular mannerism. During a campfire one night, he takes his chance to rant about some wounds to his pride from the past and the far more recent past. While I normally roll my eyes and scoff at characters getting up in arms about things they cannot control, considering what events have played out so far… angsty Spike felt perfectly natural and justified in venting his completely valid frustrations to everyone. It’s really not often I can say that about a whingeing character having a blahdideblah woe-is-me moment, but Spike was absolutely right. He’s tired of being treated like a baby, he’s sick of ponies not considering him a real dragon, but insisting he’s not a pony as well, that he can’t even make as impressive a fire as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo’s improvised Molotov cocktail in a pinch… I mean, no wonder the guy continues to have an identity crisis. What the hell is he, anyway, if not a pony and not a dragon (or at least, a "real" one)? I have to admit I really felt for the guy, and the characters barely taking him seriously annoyed me. Luckily, the CMC of all ponies came to him with some quite touching and tactful moral support. Good job, fillies.
Oh yeah, we should be looking at the dragons. That just nabbed Rarity and almost killed Sweetie and Stef’an. Yeah, those guys who imprisoned Rarity to use as bait to barter for the return of that which they believe the Sea Serpents owe them, according to a two-thousand-year-old scroll of agreement between their species that has newly been unearthed. Yeah, those dragons. Jerks. All things considered—at least until their leader made a real dick move—the dragons were far more civil during the negotiations themselves than I would have expected. It was rather nice to see at least some of them treating Rarity with respect, while she tried reasoning for a suitable outcome on both species’ behalfs.
Rarity absolutely shined in this story. She’s never been anywhere near my favourite pony, so it was great to finally read a story that handled her character so well. She was flippant when appropriate, respectful at other times, held her composure and head high as the situation called for it, and lost her temper only on rare occasions. Constantly trying to keep both herself and Sweetie looking good for her audience was a thing too; in true Rarity fashion, she would make light of a situation by thinking about how awful she must look at the time. Which is, by the way, a regular thing. It really keeps her character grounded and true to herself.
There’s something I haven’t discussed yet, I’m sure of it… Something very import—oh, that’s right. Way back in chapter two, Celestia gave Twilight the assignment of studying some centuries-old astronomical projections, to follow the movement of some comet fragments or some such. As is typical of life (fanfic in this case), before Twilight could ever get very far into this research, Spike had gone missing, and she’d shunted it aside in favour of finding her friends. Yet she’d ignored it until after Rarity was already swiped by the dragons, believing it to be not quite as important. Well, for sure, finding your friends is important, but so is predicting a freaking meteor shower (not comets that burnt out centuries earlier, as it turns out, but asteroid fragments that still posed a valid threat even now) that’s due to hit Equestria in the next... oh, two days!
So what do the agreement between dragons and serpents, Rarity being kidnapped, Spike’s angst over said event, the mysterious new offensive force amassing power, astronomical projections, and the confused feelings between dragon and pony all have to do with each other?
An epic. Fucking. Tale. That’s what.
Maaaaan. All this from Rarity’s simple question to Celestia about dragon maturation. Welp, who better to learn about such things from than the dragons themselves? In a moment that Donkey from Shrek would be proud of, Rara manages to compliment her way into the heart of her (female) guard, striking up conversations of how difficult males can be. It’s such a Rarity thing to do, great flatterer that she is, and we come to learn from it that not all dragons are actually vicious monsters. While still on orders to guard Rarity, the dragon—Moxie, a soon-to-be mother—shows that when two creatures have a lot in common, friendship and respect can stem from the shared delights and grievances that transcend the boundaries of specie.
Oh, and Spike also gets kidnapped and dumped into a makeshift hoard. Turns out his egg was over two thousand years old when he was hatched, and because of this, he can accelerate his growth to whatever it would have been if he had been born right away. Combine this with the fact that—according to Moxie—dragons never stop growing until death, and you can see why they want Spike to become the rampaging self he once did in Secret of My Excess. Except… that episode was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the size he could have reached.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch back with the other Mane Six, trouble is a-brewin’. In a remarkable twist, Princess Luna spills a rather dark secret to the gang before urging them to keep it in mind, especially Spike. The way that Paleo connected Spike and Luna here was interesting, so much so that I wondered why I haven’t seen that situation in particular before in other stories. Luna takes Rainbow and Pinkie away to help her, while Twilight and Applejack prepare for the upcoming and inevitable battle. Fluttershy stays to look after the injured Stef’an and Sweetie, as well as the CMC. While at first Apple Bloom and Scootaloo want to join the fighting—Cutie Mark Crusader Warriors, yay!—Sweetie Belle shoots them down in a rare but appreciated moment of maturity. The battlefield is, after all, no place for foals.
Oh, but I haven’t spoken of the romance yet! Y’know, the entire point of the story? What’s with that?
Uh, well… honestly I’m not the best person to talk to about romance. Not only am I not a very romantic guy myself, but I don’t go far out of my way to read very many of them. As such, I do heavily scrutinise the vast majority of ships, because without a proper build-up, it just comes off as unbelievable. But this one… The entire story, there’s been this underlying feeling of creeping realisation. As we know, Spike has been infatuated by Rarity from day one, so his determination to save her and protect her over the fic’s course we get quite easily. Where the idea of Sparity usually falls flat for me is in the way that Rarity’s feelings are handled. She’s always stressed in the show that she and Spike are “just good friends” in the sense that Big Mac and Cheerilee are “just good friends,” and while she does treat him with a great deal of respect and more than a little affection, she’s never been shown to actively desire him (unless you count the scenes in Spike’s imagination during Dog and Pony Show). Ergo, though it may be an often-teased ship in the show and even the comics, that friend barrier has always stood in the way. An author has to be extremely careful about how they handle Rarity’s feelings, as opposed to the way Spike’s feelings are pretty clear-cut. The question is, did Paleo manage to push this through well enough without making it feel forced?
I can safely say: Yes.
There was a lot—and I mean a lot—of soul-searching on Rarity’s behalf every time she was in the spotlight. There isn’t a single time during her scenes where she doesn’t think about Spike, even if not all of those times are in regards to how she thinks(?) she feels about him. The whole basis of Of Age was of course Rarity’s desire for answers in regards to Spike’s maturity, and though it turned out to be this grand adventure, the romance aspect was still very much prevalent everywhere. Even in battle scenes, whether Spike or Rarity was there, each always had the other in mind.
Everything that happened to Rarity made her think differently about herself, made her slowly come to realise how she truly felt about Spike. Her letter to Celestia; her visit to Canterlot; her trek through the Everfree; her trip to the Meeting Isles; her imprisonment in the dragon compound and subsequent bonding with Moxie; the moment they were reunited only to be taken apart again; the moment she saved his life; the moment she sacrificed her own; finally, the moment she was revived by Twilight. All of it. She had plenty of time to mull over her feelings, different situations of varying tension to think and consider, and in the end she followed her heart to its desired end.
Did I mention there was tonnes of action? Aw yeah. The pacing never felt too fast or too slow, except for probably the start of chapter three to the end of chapter four—not a whole bunch really happened there. But in every chapter there was a new fight, a new revelation, a new confrontation… every chapter had something to offer that progressed the story. The action only intensified as we neared the end, and the final 22k words (four chapters) were just too damn epic. Even the second-last chapter (before the epilogue), the resolution, didn’t feel like a waste of time or too slowed down. It was genuinely nice for the characters to have their wind-down time and moments of triumph. My favourite part was guessing the way the lone outstanding conflict was resolved. It was a byproduct of something just incredible—if a little Deus-Ex-Machina-ey (that’s a word now)—and served to neatly tie off the story. It has a satisfying ending on most levels.
Alas, not every story can be perfect, and despite all I’ve said above, Of Age does suffer from quite a few recurring technical, grammatical, and style issues, most of which were encountered right from chapter one.
When writing a story in third-person-limited—or 3PL from here on—you take an outside view of what is apparent to one central character. You can write and comment about all the things that character sees and hears around them, but that’s it. You cannot, for example, see what another person sees unless you have the same line of sight, and you certainly cannot switch viewpoints and get inside another’s head to hear their thoughts. That’s tripping into the realm of third-person-omniscient—or 3PO from here on—and is not generally interchangeable in stories. At times throughout the story—including chapter one—the viewpoint switches back and forth between 3PL and 3PO, as if to make it easier on the author to give us the gist of what’s happening without having to go into more detail. The problem with this is that not only can it be incredibly jarring to find yourself suddenly in another character’s head, but it comes across as a way for the author to just spoon-feed their audience information. It’s telly, lazy, and is a poor way to take story shortcuts when not executed properly. Switching character viewpoints between scenes is perfectly fine, but when you’re making the mistake of “head-hopping” between characters in a scene when you weren’t in the previous scene or don’t in the one after it, it really feels like the audience is being cheated out of mystery and intrigue. Sometimes it’s better to not know what’s going on in the other characters’ minds. This article is a good guide on how and when to use the 3PO PoV. Study it.
Another big gripe I had with the story is one my regular followers are probably accustomed to seeing me bitch about in most of my longer reviews: excessive use of said bookisms (or saidisms) and redundant dialogue tags. Yes, this fic is prevalent and unapologetic about the frequency of their usage. Look, there is absolutely no reason why about 95% of your dialogue needs a tag to tell us who is speaking, nor is there a reason for said tags to use words like “apologised,” “cautioned,” “pointed out,” “gasped,” etc. Not only were many of them used excessively and redundantly, there were frequent times when the tag itself was not even a tag, but an action (gasped, laughed, coughed etc). Actions are not tags; they can be done while before or after speaking, but not during. Also pay attention to the special characters. If a piece of speech ends with an exclamation mark, odds are we already know they’re shouting, or yelling, or at least speaking in a raised voice. There’s no need at all to add an “he shouted,” “he yelled,” “she exclaimed” on the end of all of them. Likewise, the question mark usually makes it pretty clear that a character has asked a question; in the majority of cases, adding “he asked,” or “she asked” adds exactly nothing to the weight of your dialogue. In fact, it takes away from its strength. Thirdly, the most redundant dialogue tag in the world is “apologis(z)ed.” An apology containing “sorry” does not then need an “(s)he apologised” as a dialogue tag on the end of it. No. Yuck. Sorry tells us enough. Seriously though, the amount of times I saw “asked” was rather staggering.
In slightly lower frequency we have telly sections, largely in part to delving into a character’s head to affirm things we already knew or suspected. Your audience is not stupid; let them figure things out for themselves. Another minor—though frequent—offender was the Dread Pirate ALLCAPS, who loves to steal my immersion away with his HUGE, OBNOXIOUS CHARACTERS! He and his first mate, Interrobang?! The Insane?!, can just waste away in a dungeon for all I care. Neither are good for your style, and the sooner you kick them both to the kerb, the better your writing life will be. Fortunately, there is a simple style choice you can use, that’s easier on the eyes and far less offensive, who won’t demand your attention but feels far more streamline: Italica di Roma, the First Pope of Emphasis. Accept him into your life; you will feel a great weight lifted from your shoulders and never look back.
While the story’s execution, structure, and mechanics did get better as it went on, a clear product of time and experience, there are still a couple of small things to talk about. Small, but not insignificant, is Applejack and Apple Bloom’s accents. At first they were a touch overdone, but I was glad to see Paleo pull the emphasis on silly words a bit and have them feel that little more natural as the fic progressed (he never did stop AJ from calling Twilight “Twah’light” though. Urgh…). Next is the slight smattering of LUS, although it never cropped up more than three or four times per chapter, so the average reader probably won’t care too much about it. Finally, there were infrequent grammar issues, like hyphen/dash confusion, commas and periods on the outside of closing quotes, comma splices and superfluous commas as well as some other things that really weren’t a huge deal-breaker for me, but I still felt compelled to point out. Hey, it’s what you do when you’re an editor.
All in all, though I had many immersion-breaking grievances along the way, I am very pleased to have read this story finally, and can now finally click it off my read later list after 18 months of it sitting there, mewling at me for attention like a starved zombie kitten, and onto my favourites shelf where it truly belongs. While far from perfect, it was ambitious and adventurous, and it even managed to take a shipping pair I’ve always been skeptical of and make me a believer. Good job, Paleowriter.
8.5/10
I call this statement into question.
Of Age bothered me quite a bit initially, particularly because I didn't feel like any of the characters were taking the situation seriously enough, but as I grew accustomed to the writing style and the situation built, it rapidly got better. I'd say your review is pretty solid.
I'll have to put this in my read later list if you've given it such good praises. I've been craving a really good Sparity without the need to sift through the drek.
I gotta say, I've been highly entertained signing on to read your chapter reviews every day this week. As soon as I read the first one and realized that you were intending on giving line edits for the entire thing, my sympathy went out to you. I'm fully aware (as you discovered) of how riddled my fanfics are with grammatical errors, as well as the excessive use of CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on basically everything. (Which is what interrobangs are at their heart, after all--the addiction to exclamation points.)
My philosophy with fanfic is always that it's "writing I don't have to edit or think about", so all my fic is basically first draft nonsense with limited, if any, editing. As such, I applaud you for going through it with a fine-toothed comb! And if you were at all concerned about offending me, don't be. Part of me has often thought in these past two years that maybe I should go back through Of Age and give it a proper sprucing up/editing job, but I haven't for one simple reason: I had to swear off fanfiction. I've got an actual real-world writing career building, and fanfic was taking up too much of my energy. As it was back then, the only time I allowed myself to devote to fanfiction was simply producing first-draft, "throw it up on the page and see what sticks" stuff, anyway. So thank you for reading what stuck!
I am so pleased that you found aspects of this story that you enjoyed, despite its messiness. Getting into Rarity's head was a massive challenge for me. We're very different personalities, so I'm tickled that you think I did a nice job portraying her inner thoughts. And I'm thrilled that you liked Moxie! She is probably my favorite OC I've ever created for any fandom. The entire premise for this story actually came from imagining Rarity locked in a dragon cell and talking to her guard. So it was Moxie who really kick-started this whole thing. (Well, that and the epic art that I borrowed as a cover image.)
I had a ton of fun imagining sea serpent and dragon cultures, too. World building isn't something I do a lot in my novels for publication. It was a blast getting to play with it here. And I also greatly enjoyed writing all the action. I'm not a romance writer, by any stretch of the imagination. My go-to genre is adventure. I knew if I was to write a serious romance, I would need to frame it in an action/adventure context. Also, I can't stand it when people write Rarity as just having feelings for Spike out of the blue, or having her talked into it by others, or having her interest in him be sparked by something purely physical. Blech. My ultimate goal with Of Age was to show a nuanced romance. I wanted to bring Rarity to her heart's conclusions in a natural way, and in a way that an adventure story could assist in revealing. It was definitely a challenge, but with the general approval I've gotten for it, I'm fairly proud of what I achieved.
Anyway, thank you again for taking the time to review every single chapter, and for writing this wonderful summary and review! It's loads of fun to see the reactions of new readers, especially readers like yourself who clearly have good taste. (...I say this noticing that you've added my story to your Tier One category. *tips wine glass your way*)
I think it's great that you take the time to help authors with their work, and I hope you don't get blasted too much for it. Taking criticism and learning from it is all part of growing as a writer. Thank you for offering your advice about my writing. I'm honored to have earned a positive review!
-paleowriter
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Now I'm even more impressed. That you can actually do that astounds me.
Ah, so you have a real writing career you're looking to launch? That explains a few things. I tend to forget that many fanfic writers use this as practice for the big game, since I have no desire to become a professional writer myself but do this for fun. I wish you luck in your endeavours, even if you don't write anything else here. Thanks again for the story, and glad you liked my review and commentaries.
Um, wow. That's quite a review!
Onto my read it later list it goes.
It's downright eerie that you post this while I'm in the midst of posting my own sparity story
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So, no pressure?
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Pressure, yes, although not nearly as much as if was still writing it! All that's left to do is post the remaining chapters and let readers react.
Sometimes, I look at these reviews and I get nervous that one day, I will see in my notifactions "Cerelulean voice" and fear tha he has decided to review it. Then I will smile beause that would be awesome