R4 (Reactions, Reviews, Reference, Redirection) #0080

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Here are five possibly edited old reviews:
A World Without Rainbows - Act I: The First Breach by uberPhoenix
A World Without Rainbows - Act II: The Twilight Hour by uberPhoenix
Rainbow Dash, Please Describe Red by x Silver Tongue x
As Celestia Is My Witness by adcoon
Wyrmlysan by Chris

A World Without Rainbows - Act I: The First Breach by uberPhoenix
[story link] [my original review]

Started slow, but by the end I really wanted to know what happened next. This story has a interesting take on the alternate worlds scenario. Not going to spoil it, but when it gets to the details of Twilight Sparkle’s switch it was neat. Also thought Pinkie Pie was handled well. In the other world where things are not so idyllic, Pinkie Pie is not the enthusiastically bouncy party pony she is in the show. Yet the author manages to keep the off-kilter oddness of her intact with her reaction to all the alternate timeline weirdness. This story isn’t perfect, some of the characters are a tad rough, Applejack gets angry too abruptly for plot reasons for one. I would have switched Applejack and Rarity’s roles in the plot myself. I think it would have worked a lot better that way. That is a really minor nitpick though. Going to read the next part of the story and already I’m disappointed that the third part isn’t complete yet so I’ll have to wait for it if part two is as good.

A World Without Rainbows - Act II: The Twilight Hour by uberPhoenix
[story link] [my original review]

The Doctor Whooves bits are a little jarring. Well, really jarring actually. If you don’t like Dr Who references in your pony fan fiction you will not like this one. Also seems to be a older Twilight Sparkle from the future gallivanting around that is more of a distraction than anything. This one is similar to the first one in that is starts a bit slow, but at the end I wanted to know what happens next. The author just needs more practice with pacing at the beginning of a story I guess. In a bigger sense I think it is a sign that I’ve run into something else that would have worked better as a single long story. This and the previous story are very obviously a single narrative instead of two separate-but-related stories. This is a cautionary tale, along with Journey Of Graves and Project Horizons, about the problems of not outlining the full story before starting.

Firts half of the review, but covers my feelings mostly.

Rainbow Dash, Please Describe Red by x Silver Tongue x
[story link] [my original review]

Eh, technical stuff got in the way of my reading enjoyment for this one. Poor wording, wrong words, missing puncuation. Not a lot of it, but enough that I wanted to make it the first thing you read in this review-ish thing here. Really it was minor stuff, but the writing isn’t good enough to immerse me enough to ignore it. Also a semi-contradiction at one point. Rainbow Dash has been at the hospital enough that the question/response part between Twilight Sparkle and Nurse Redheart is basically a vaudeville act, yet they’ve never done a basic color exam? Even though that it seems to be a part of the basic physical check-up they seem to do every time Rainbow Dash comes in after crashing into something. The story also stops right when it gets to what I would consider the good part. The whole joke is Rainbow Dash, with rainbow of colors in her mane and tail, is colorblind. I would have loved to get more reactions to it. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash talking about it. Or maybe even just more physical tests of strength/speed/whatever before getting to the eye stuff. See how awesome Rainbow Dash is before getting to the joke. Also, and this occurred to me later, color blindness would be a horrible condition in the MLP world. Picture watching the show where everything is barely different shades of grey. You wouldn’t be able to tell most of the ponies apart from each other!

I didn't realize this was incomplete when I read it. So this doesn't cover anything after the first chapter.

As Celestia Is My Witness by adcoon
[story link] [my original review]

This was a very fun one. I was actually reminded of a semi-old movie (Bruce Almighty, looked it up and it’s a decade old at this point) where god gives Jim Carrey all his powers and divine mantle. One of the troubles that came with the job was dealing with everyone’s prayers, and the sheer volume of them was overwhelming. Liked the bit of worldbuilding in the idea that the sun and the moon have personalities, or at least that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna perceived that they did after so long looking after them. That they might be projecting such things onto them, like some people might anthropomorphize their cars after years of driving. This story is a reminder not to take a god’s name in vain, because if they can hear it they won’t be very happy about the trivial stuff. Another interesting detail is how the prayers to Celestia (and Luna) are received. It’s not just hearing them, but it gets formatted as if there is a secretary taking a message and passing on a third-person perspective summary along to the alicorn. Invisible divine secretary.

Wyrmlysan by Chris
[story link] [my original review]

Quite good. Not as good as To Make A Spark, but this one has some interesting stuff in it. I do like the prophecy is shown on several levels. Not just how it ends, but how the dragon is so obviously interpreting it in a fairly off-kilter fashion. There is nothing in the prophecy about the dragon in the egg becoming a king after all.

Tiny piece of the review. I really enjoyed this one, especially the early scene when Princess Luna is approaching the dragon.

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If you are an author who wants a more detailed review of a story I've covered feel free to message me. My reviews tend to be fairly light, mostly just reactions to a story right after reading it. I am happy to give a more careful read and reply to anyone who wants more precision and/or feedback. It might take a while, as more precision means I need to actually think about things instead of just doing stream of consciousness typing.