R4 (Reactions, Reviews, Reference, Redirection) #0076 · 6:32pm Mar 14th, 2015
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Here are five possibly edited old reviews:
Trouble Meets Disaster by GentlemanJ
Untangling the Knot by GentlemanJ
Lazy Summer Days by GentlemanJ
Return to the Gala by GentlemanJ
Happily Ever After by GentlemanJ
Trouble Meets Disaster by GentlemanJ
[story link] [my original review]
First off, no more text-lisp for Apple Bloom. Hooray! Anyway, rest of this story is okay. Wandering a bit more into cliche time, but it also involves the Cutie Mark Crusaders doing something adorable because of a misunderstanding, so that was fun. Rest of it is wandering a bit more into cliche, but still well written enough that I don’t mind. If this was the second, or even third story with a grim-faced, heart-of-gold, scarred and highly competent lone wanderer protagonist I’d run across, I’d be calling it a really good story. Since it’s like the 728th story with that type of protagonist I’m calling it decent to above-average. A great story can lift up a cliche by putting a new spin on things. This story doesn’t manage that, but the author manages to avoid using cliche as a crutch. So it’s kind of in the middle of the two extremes. Still continuing the series though, so guess that’s a recommendation?
Untangling the Knot by GentlemanJ
[story link] [my original review]
More of the same. Enough to keep me interested, but not enough to get me immersed. Wish there was more worldbuilding stuff on display. The well-written clichés continue, but the cool stuff about the alternate world of humanized MLP isn’t getting any focus at all. Almost as if those pieces were simply there as hand-wave explanations for keeping some of the MLP elements. Which I kind of figured, but I was hoping the author would expand on them anyway. I’d love to see where the whole rune-harness wings/flight thing could be used for. But no, Rainbow Dash flies because her character in the show is always hanging out on clouds and zipping around. A bit disappointing, but again not enough to stop me from reading the next one. I’m liking the characters enough that I’m curious as to what happens next.
Lazy Summer Days by GentlemanJ
[story link] [my original review]
So, apparently all the events of the show happened, but nobody talks about them? I suspect this is another sign of poor worldbuilding. I still like the characters, but the seams are starting to show. This one is a series of slice of life shorts that are pretty good. Just is starting to feel even more like this would have been much better as original fiction with so much of the show either ignored or used as simple background scenery.
Return to the Gala by GentlemanJ
[story link] [my original review]
Okay, this one is pretty good. Fun look at what could happen at the second time the girls go to the Grand Galloping Gala a few years after the first. Rainbow Dash and Spitfire getting drunk together is hilarious. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Princess Luna trying to befriend animals goes topsy-turvy. All good fun. Still confused as to how much of the events in MLP happened in this particular variant. They talk about Discord as if they had met him, yet one off-hand comment in this story seems to indicate that the return of Nightmare Moon was just a big prank of the Princesses? Doesn’t really matter, none of it impacts the events of the story except the fact that this is the second Gala the girls have been to. The relationship between Rarity and Graves could have used a bit more build-up, but I suspect that is just my own preferences for drawn-out slice-of-life romances popping up. It has certainly been building and foreshadowed plenty in the previous stories, and word-count wise this would be the halfway point of a full length novel.
Happily Ever After by GentlemanJ
[story link] [my original review]
The writing is still a bit rough, but improved from what was in the first of these stories. The author is certainly getting practice. The quality of these has been pretty good with this one and the immediately previous one. Actually got a bit of emotional reaction out of me near the end. Not the very end, but when I realized what was coming up and anticipating the finale. Even though the plot is a bit cliche, but then again, if you are still with this series at this point the cliche isn’t going to scare you off.
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