Harmonists Contest Reviews #5

Today I deliver the review for the only AppleDash entry To Be A Stallion

Well, I do kind of wish I had more positive stuff to say about this story. I guess I don't have that much negative stuff to say either though, so it's not all bad. Still, there's stuff that's missing from this story.

In this story, we have our Rainbow Dash tease Applejack until they end up having a playful little fight in the mud. Whilst the characters are doing their thing, I would have liked a little more dialogue than is given. It's not bad: like I said, everyone is in character, but the situation evolves a bit quickly.

I would have loved to see Zev take his time and maybe explore what the pair are thinking a lot more, and build the following parts up. I'll explain my point more as I go on.

Next, they fight, and have a little wrestling match to see which one of them is the 'stallion' (ie, the pony on top). This, I think is one of the bits that's paced a lot better, but I didn't feel that on it's own it was able to justify the conclusion: they realize that they've just been fighting to be the stallion and accept that they like each other.

I guess my main problem with this is two-fold: one, the attraction didn't seem to stem logically from both of them wanting to be the stallion. I don't think it was made adequately clear how that tied into their romantic feelings. Second, I think it needed a lot more build-up. The romatic finale is only as good as the events leading up to it, and on it's own, the mud-wrestle and a few odd lines of teasing didn't fit the bill.

The ending is nice, and I have nothing really outstanding to say about it. If the rest of the story hadn't fallen quite as flat, I think it would have been a nice conclusion.

So, really, the elements are all there, but it didn't create as much impact as it needed to really be memorable. Nothing was really done wrong, but not enough was really done right, either, I'm afraid.