Paul's Monday Reviews XV · 6:25pm Jun 8th, 2015
This was a difficult week for reading, and it also holds the record for the most number of words read in a week for these reviews. Even stretching the reading period to encompass an extra two days, I was still reading around 24,000 words a day. While I don't mind doing a lot of reading, it does make it tricky to keep up with my schedule. With this in mind, I've decided that from now on if any reading set for a week exceeds 200,000 words then my reviews will come out on Tuesday instead of Monday for that week, just to give myself a little extra time.
Also, a question about blog tags. Does anyone think it would be beneficial of me to include the story names as tags for the review blogs? I'm already using the author names, but I don't know if it really serves any purpose to use the entire story names as well. How many people are going to use this?
Today we have a mix of the great, the meh and the groan-inducing. The highlight of this set comes at the end with a story that is both startlingly good and undeservedly downvoted. I feel for the author; I'm fairly sure that the majority of the story's downvotes come from trigger-happy HiE haters who didn't even give the story a chance. Being a victim of this phenomenon myself, it is only more appalling to me to see something so good brought so low.
Stories for This Week:
A Blooming Diamond: Even Diamonds Can be Broken by QuanarX
Ghost of a Rose by Noble Thought
Something Sweet to Bite by Knackerman (request)
Moonlight Palaver by Carabas
I.D. – That Indestructible Something by Chatoyance
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 0
Not Bad: 2
None: 1
Holy cow, people. This story is amazing in all the wrong ways. I can’t even give a proper summary of it because the story is all over the place and makes no sense whatsoever. For example:
Diamond Tiara randomly stops bullying Apple Bloom and reveals that she’s been a blank flank all along.
Scootaloo quits the CMC out of the blue and with no buildup whatsoever. It’s her only appearance in the entire story.
Babs Seed teams up with Silver Spoon to get revenge on Diamond Tiara and the Crusaders for no apparent reason.
And if you can still take the story seriously after all of that, here’s a killer for ya: Granny Smith dies and Applejack’s response is to literally, intentionally imitate Rarity’s “Worst. Possible. THING!” line from the show, all while being completely serious about her anguish.
There’s so much wrong in all of this and I’ve barely grazed the surface of what this story has to offer. So let’s stop the story and get into formatting, which is grossly inconsistent. I’ve harped on people before about not double-spacing, but I’m willing to acknowledge it’s a personal taste. What I’m sure everyone will agree with is that randomly alternating between double spacing and single spacing for no discernible reason is a very bad thing.
At the same time, QuanarX has a weird tendency to alternate between actual stage direction – as if this were the script of a play – and narrative voice. Take a look at this nonsense, which I’ve kept formatted exactly as it is in the story, typos and all:
"PUT THAT DAMN BOTTLE DOWN!" , Applejack yelled from the other room.
Big Mac then threw all the bottles in the trash, not wanting to find out what would happen if he didn't.
]After Applejack runs the water, and Applebloom takes her bath
"Hey sis, ah'm gonna go see if my friends will come!" , Applebloom said as she began to walk out.
How many things can you find wrong with just this small section?
The dialogue is as forced as it can be, every single line of it is accompanied by a saidism, and there are whole paragraphs of pure dialogue running in excess of 200 words. Somehow I’m supposed to be made emotional by this, particularly after it happens for five paragraphs in a row.
Frankly, I don’t have time to continue going over the things that are wrong with this story. I think the examples I’ve listed above are more than enough. I wish I could say something, anything positive about this, but there’s just too much wrong to focus on.
Bookshelf: None
When this story first came out a lot of people were singing its praises and Noble Thought asked me directly to read it right then. Like the stingy, stick-to-the-schedule old fart that I am, I stuck to my guns and refused to touch it until it reached the top of my RiL. Nowadays I would have made it a requested story. Alas, bad timing. Yet I’ve read it now, and am glad to have done so.
Ghost of a Rose is almost exactly what it sounds like… almost. It stars Roseluck who, after a lot of confusion and uncertainty in the first couple chapters, comes to the horrid understanding that she’s dead and stuck in a Ponyville-like limbo waiting to move on. Her memories of who she is and all the events of her life are fragmented and missing and it feels horrible.
Then comes Pinkie Pie – and I’ll let you think on the implications of her arrival in Limbo for yourself. Point is, Pinkie encourages Rose to seek out her lost memories, scattered throughout the eerie other-Ponyville in the form of roses, to ensure that she doesn’t fade away as an empty husk. Thus, Ghost of a Rose is really about Rose’s life; we see who she was, where she lived and, ultimately, how she died.
The first thing to note about this is the positive nature of… well, everything. Every single memory, and we go through a lot, is a happy one. Rose’s life was very pleasant and you will smile quite a bit from watching everything from her romance with a certain mail carrier (not who you’re probably thinking) to the joys of motherhood. While I enjoyed watching all of it, one thing kept bugging me; where is the reality?
All we see, ever and ever, are good things. It’s like Rose never had a bad memory. In that sense it all felt a little too storybook for my tastes. That didn’t change my pleasure in the happy memories at all, but it was always in the back of my mind. At the same time, I feel that might have been the point; Rose needed color and pleasure and happiness in her existence, and her lost memories had taken it away. Maybe the only memories she lost were the happy ones. Sadly, we have no way of knowing for sure.
One thing kept me constantly happy, though; the worldbuilding. Noble Thought’s way of looking at and building a culture around pony life and magic was fascinating to behold, from Roseluck’s wedding to the curious oddities of her pregnancy. Noble Thought even managed to incorporate the estrus cycle into regular pony culture in a way that wasn’t blatant clop but a curious sense of normalcy – something which outright impresses me. The story combined delightful imagery with an imaginative incorporation of magic, all in ways that I don’t think I’ve seen before.
Other than the unrealistically constant surge of happy feelings, there were a few stumbling blocks to me, but not many. For example, Noble Thought makes it abundantly clear that ponies in this AU age like humans do, but then her foal Raspberry is capable of speaking complete sentences by the age of only six months, which human children certainly can’t do (if my niece is any clear indicator). There’s some room for argument here, given that Pound and Pumpkin Cake were able to say individual words within a few months, so maybe foals learn to talk faster than humans, but it’s all headcanon. It just struck me as odd, that’s all.
In terms of the writing, it’s mostly solid, although there were a few times were repetitive word choices kept catching my immersion. This didn’t happen often, however, and it’s really the only thing I could readily identify as wrong with Noble Thought’s prose. If that’s all there is, consider me happy.
In the end, I enjoyed the story. It was a pleasant exploration of Roseluck’s existence in the universe as Noble Thought has conceived it, and just learning more about general pony culture was fascinating in its own right. And yes, the final chapter did make me shed a lone, manly tear for Mirror.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
After my overwhelmingly negative review of Knackerman’s My Little Doubt, he asked me to give him another shot with the story Something Sweet to Bite. I decided to do so, seeing as of how I tend to like horror stories in general. I was also very curious, as the premise behind the story runs similarly to the premise behind my own short story Sweet to Eat; that is to say, the truth behind the legend of Nightmare Night and delivering candy to the statue of Nightmare Moon.
Something Sweet to Bite tells of how the CMC inadvertently recreate the Candy Mare, a filly from the age of the Great Winter who was tortured by a mad confectionist whose experiments turned her into a pony-eating monstrosity of living candy. That’s really all there is to it.
Some things I really liked about this story, and other things… not so much. It’s abundantly clear to me that Knackerman and I disagree on what makes a story scary. He seems to think that intense amounts of gore is the key to gripping a person’s heart. Whenever any character died, I couldn’t help but think I was watching some silly horror movie where each person hold about fifty gallons of blood and some can still think witty thoughts as they die in hellish agony (“Thanks, daddy?” Really?). In truth, there was only one part in the entire story that actually filled me with dread, and that was when Fluttershy flew over Ponyville to discover what had happened there in a ‘big picture’ sort of way.
Some of the material could have been terrifying. That opening scene with Applejack and Apple Bloom (and here I note that Knackerman has an unfortunate habit of spelling the name “Applebloom”) had a lot of potential but somehow got lost in translation.
One problem Knackerman has is exposition. He uses it a lot, and it often completely kills the scene. The perfect example of this is when The Candy Mare shows up at a dance party downtown and proceeds to devour Pip in front of everypony present. This might have been a worthwhile moment if Knackerman hadn’t decided to take this opportunity to interrupt the scene with a 145-word paragraph about the nature of crowd behavior.
So much for being afraid.
Knackerman does this a lot. Lots of needless explaining, pointless extra information or sometimes just going for a little too long in the descriptions. Aside from these things often killing the mood, sometimes his writing of individual ponies’ deaths leaves nothing to the imagination. We might get a clear image of the gorefest, but some people (like me) are more terrified of the potential implications conjured in our minds than being spoon-fed the exacting means of a character’s demise. This is exactly why Fluttershy’s flight over Ponyville filled me with dread; I could take the time to imagine all the things that happened, and what I saw was horrifying.
However, I also acknowledge that different people are rendered afraid of different things. Some people find excessive gore and visceral descriptions to be exactly what they need to get a tingle down their spines.
Another aspect to discuss: the flashbacks. There were three or four scenes where we actually get to see how the Candy Mare was created, and these flashbacks were done entirely in the form of talking heads. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and 90% of the time it was pretty clear who was talking. Giving two of the characters accents helped a lot in this regard. Yet at the same time, some of the conversations felt ham-fisted. There were too many time where ponies said things that ponies just wouldn’t say normally under the circumstances. At times like these, it felt like Knackerman forced certain words into the ponies' mouths in order to give a clearer image of events. It was, for the most part, unnecessary. It also hindered the immersion, which is unfortunate as those scenes had a lot of potential.
But the thing that really killed this story for me is the terrible decisions made by the ponies. It is interesting that, after criticizing Diamond Tiara in Sweet to Eat as making stupid decisions, his characters go and do exactly that. Once again, I felt like I was being forced to watch a just-for-laughs B-rate horror movie as the characters not only dropped the stupid ball a time or two but actively did things that didn’t make sense. Just for example, Twilight already knew from the very beginning that the only individual to have ever defeated the Candy Mare was princess Luna, but when she decides to seek out a pony of authority (ignoring herself, apparently) who is the first pony she turns to? Mayor Mare? What the heck is she supposed to do in a situation like this?
What makes this especially bad is that Knackerman acknowledged in the story that contacting Luna should have been her first decision. That moment of admission made the B-movie feel worse because it all but confirmed that he was forcing Twilight to do something she wouldn’t in order to make the story go in a specific direction. The open-ended but entirely predictable ending – staying determinedly true to common horror story formulas for that extra cringe – didn’t help matters.
When I read horror stories, I read them because I want to be scared, not because I was to see a bunch of blood and gore and guts. Knackerman wrote a specific kind of horror, one that sadly doesn’t do much for me. It could have been something much more than it is, but the sheer number of flaws and devotion to brutality ruined the appeal (so to speak). If your idea of a scary story comes in the form of buckets of blood and characters making really bad decisions, then you’ll love this. If you want something more cerebral, look elsewhere.
Edit: I now know that the B-movie feel is exactly what Knackerman was going for in this story. I wish I had known that earlier, I would have approached this review entirely differently. With this knowledge in hand, I would suggest ignoring my point on the characters' stupid decisions – such things are obligatory in these kinds of stories. However, it does impress upon me the fact that you have to be expecting a certain kind of story in order to enjoy this one.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
I’ll admit it, when this story started I immediately had my doubts. When I saw that some of the world’s great leaders were supposed to join together in a mere fifteen minutes, I scoffed. Then, after Carabas somehow managed to pull that off in a believable fashion, I watched the conversation amongst said leaders and thought that none of them were approaching the situation with even a remote level of appropriateness.
Yet somehow, it worked.
The premise of Moonlight Palaver is that, when Celestia disappears and is replaced by Nightmare Moon in Elements of Harmony, several of the world’s leaders rapidly gather to discuss the situation and what to do about it. They start off conversational, which is part of what bugged me initially – especially how they talked about the coming end of the world like it was just another thing on their ‘to do’ list – but once all the players were in position things got really interesting.
It’s a little known fact that I love politics and political schemes in stories. Movies like Frank Pierson’s Conspiracy and Roger Donaldson’s Thirteen Days fascinate me. This story provided plenty of that, with the leaders bickering over whether to save Equestria or conquer it, whether to rescue Celestia or leave her wherever she’s been sent, and the international ramifications of all included. Of course, none of this would be possible without some serious worldbuilding, and Carabas delivers that in spades. Several new nations are conjured up out of nowhere, complete with some revelations on their governance, the nature of their leaders, the relationships and policies and goals, all in a surprisingly small package.
So here we have great pacing, fantastic worldbuilding, strong characters (I liked the Tyrant in particular), and political turmoil. This story was fun all around.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
I.D. - That Indestructible Something was recommended by a friend who usually doesn’t steer me wrong. The story takes the Human in Equestria trope and flips it on its head, becoming instead a Pony on Earth story. But even then, this story has a rather unique concept. It follows the tale of Gregoria Samson, a out-of-luck New York native who wakes up to find herself transformed into an MLP earth pony. What makes this even weirder is that nobody else recognizes her transformation; to her family and everyone she meets, she is still human. In her quest to find answers and live her life, Gregoria manages to reveal the truth to her old friend and MLP fanatic, Rachel.
I’m going to be blunt: the fact that this story has a mere 72% rating – complete with almost 150 downvotes – is a crime against literature. If you are one of the individuals who downvoted this story, you have forfeited any value your opinion about stories ever may have held. This story is original, interesting, emotional, tragic and hopeful.
Were there flaws? Yes, but they were minor and mostly subjective. The story is brimming with ‘big picture’ ideas and philosophical implications. Having an extremely negative view of the human condition (and a few lamentable political statements seeded throughout, one of my only complaints that I try not to hold against the author), it is also an interesting look at how ponies and humans differ so completely in their natures. It is almost frightening to think that human aspects of those transformed like Gregoria are quickly replaced by a pony mentality, yet this also provided a window into the alien and selfless nature of Equestrian ponies. And not just ponies; we also get to see diamond dogs, griffons, changelings, a dragon, and even transformations of other fandoms like Lord of the Rings. All have their personalities shifted as a result. It is alarming, but also fascinating to watch.
The only major issue I have is a logical one and, still, largely subjective. It’s the same issue I take with all stories regarding big, top-secret organizations hidden from public knowledge: it is not possible to have an organization of more than a few dozen individuals and not have the public aware of it. Human beings just aren’t trustworthy enough for that, and in a story devoted to the evil, traitorous nature of humanity you’d think that would be an issue. Still, it worked for what the story needed, and I’m certainly guilty of writing about large secret organizations (Archons, anyone?), so I won’t let it bother me too much.
I can’t say too much about the story without spoiling things, which is annoying because there’s really a lot to praise here. From Gregoria’s legitimate response to suddenly being turned into a non-realistic pony (unlike every other transformation story out there where the characters roll with it after five seconds) to the situations that arise as a result, I praise Chatoyance for trying to be realistic in as many ways as possible. I also praise the direction of the story; it starts off with the obvious “What happened and how are we going to fix it?”, moves on to “Okay, I’m stuck like this, let’s just try to get by.” and finally, about ¾ through the story, takes a sudden and very dark turn that ratchets up the story’s intensity to 250%. I.D. - That Indestructible Something covers a lot of ground in its ~100,000 words and does so effectively.
Shame on you, FIMFiction. This story deserves a lot more credit and a much higher rating. I know it’s too much to ask and is never going to happen, but you people need to stop judging a story by its labels and start looking beyond the cover art. Chatoyance has crafted a gem of tragedy, hope and conjecture that you all should be looking to as an example.
Bookshelf Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Stories for Next Week:
Out of the Nest by Warren Hutch
Romance Novels are Bad! by Manes
Modern Vernacular by GoG ToXiC (Request)
Ladies Don't Freak Out by paleowriter
Sugar, Cubed by BlazzingInferno
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
Paul's Monday Reviews VI
Paul's Monday Reviews VII
Paul's Monday Reviews VIII
Paul's Monday Reviews IX
Paul's Monday Reviews X
Paul's Monday Reviews XI
Paul's Monday Reviews XII
Paul's Monday Reviews XIII
Paul's Tuesday Reviews I – "I'm Not Dead" Edition
Paul's Monday Reviews XIV
Not saying I agree, but there's also drama/shit-stirring reasons behind people wanting to downvote Chatoyance stories. I think there was some big blowup about the Conversion Bureau.
If I might provide a rebuttal.
It's funny you compare "Something Sweet to Bite" to a B-horror movie, because that's exactly what it aspires to be. Not all horror is intended to grip you with terror, some is purely meant to entertain, and that is precisely what I set out to do with this story. I'm sorry if that intention was somewhat unclear, though I thought the aforementioned buckets of blood and florid dialogue would provide some clue. So in that regard you're actually complimenting the story, even if you don't view it as a compliment yourself. The fact that the victims live long enough to still have semi-lucid thoughts on their own demise is a bonus purely for the readers.
As to the dialogue seeming 'forced' in the flashbacks, I don't really understand what you mean there. It was a time a thousand years ago and in situations very different from any shown on the show. How could you know what a pony would and wouldn't say in those circumstances? I understand that you would prefer, perhaps, a more subtle approach. It's just nothing about this story was ever intended to be subtle. If you have a specific example though, send me a PM so that I might have a clearer picture of what you mean.
Now, to the criticism that you seemed to take the most umbrage with, that of the 'mistakes' made by the cast. While it's true there are many, most are made in stressful situations. How does this differ from your Diamonds poor decisions in your story? Options. Diamond had many options to escape the entity that was plaguing her, but she kept making the ones that would best serve the story, that would best increase tension, and best lead to the inevitable and obvious conclusion. What were Twilight's options? Contact the Princesses and hope they arrived in time to deal with the imminent crisis, or try to clear the streets using the much closer authorities so that no crisis could arise to begin with. (baring in mind that this story predates Twilight being an authority figure herself.) If you think it's a stupid decision to try and save as many ponies as possible, well that may be how it plays out, but from a logical standpoint it's the perfect decision for Twilight to make. Indeed, given Twilight's character, it was almost the only decision she could make in those circumstances. In the end her only mistake was not finding a way of convincing everypony else of the danger more swiftly. Though I'm not sure we can hold against her the underestimating of the Candymare. She was only passingly similar to how she was presented in the old fairy tales.
(And no, even if she had contacted Luna things would've played out the same. The Candymare as she exists in this story is different from the one that was put down by Luna, though I suppose you'd only know that if you read the sequel.)
As to Applebloom,. I also spell it Big Macintosh. Considering these stories are set in alternate realities anyways, I don't see that it makes much of a difference so long as you know who the characters are supposed to be.
I am very glad you enjoyed Fluttershy's scene. It was an exercise in that most beloved trope of B-movies, the drawn out suspense that goes unpaid. Makes you feel a little silly for worrying, even though there are very good reasons to worry. Like Applejack's demise it was written separately from the larger story to increase it's impact. I suppose you could say she's the only one who makes a 'smart' decision in the story, which is to just fly away as far and fast as possible. Sadly she's the only character who's personality would make such a decision possible.
I am rather sorry that you didn't enjoy the story more, and that you found so many of its merits detrimental. More than anything I'm saddened you don't find my particular brand of horror more entertaining, but as we've both noted, we can't please everyone all of the time. I'll leave you to the more 'cerebral' horror as you put it as, honestly, I find the subject as dry as dust. However, that doesn't mean our readers can't find enjoyment in what we both have to offer.
Thanks for the review of Chatoyance's story. I checked it out when it was featured on EQD and I gave it a miss based partially on the up/down vote ratio, and partly on the clunky description. I can see from Chatoyance's other works that there is a dedicated bunch of downvoters probably aimed more at the author than the individual stories. With that in mind, the ratio for this story is pretty good. I save it to my kindle and will bump it up to the top ten of my to-read list.
Thanked you on Moonlight Palaver's page for the review. I suppose there's no harm in doing here as well. Glad the political bastardry and worldbuilding were to your tastes, and that you felt the rocky beginning panned out.
Very glad to see you liked Ghost of a Rose as well. Noble Thought deserves more acclaim. Dude's a wordsmith of damned fine calibre.
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Downvoting over drama is just another pointless reason. The story is good, and that's what matters to me. I could hate an author's guts, but I'd still give them a great review if their story deserves it.
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Ah, I did not know you were actually striving for B-movie silliness. I approached the story thinking you were trying to write a legitimate horror rather than some silly monster movie, and reviewed as such. Had I known that you were going for B-movie material I would have had a very different – and more positive – view of things. I'll be adding an amendment after reading this response to reflect that.
I can give you one example of the forced dialogue right now, from memory: "What are you doing with those knives?!" It has nothing to do with the time or the events and everything to do with how the mind works. When a person is coming at you with knives after your daughter has disappeared into thin air, your response isn't going to be to say exactly what you're seeing so that some unknown audience can be aware of what you're seeing. Even a simple "What are you doing?" would have been superior. By this point it was already abundantly clear that the confectionist was up to something, you didn't need to force the father to provide that extra image – especially considering how we learn the fate of the father later on.
When trying to make silly slash fics, stupid decisions made by otherwise intelligent individuals is all part of the recipe. As such, my complaints regarding the poor decisions made by all involved no longer hold any weight.
One thing I was wondering, just out of curiosity: it seems apparent that Equestria is doomed, or at least Canterlot and Ponyville. This leads me to wonder: did Fluttershy survive these events? I note that she unintentionally got a piece of... well, them on her lips, but I suspect that's not enough for her to succumb like the others did. If the Candy Mare really did wipe out everything then that suggests Fluttershy's doomed anyway.
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You should, it deserves at least a chance. I just hope people share my interpretation after this.
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Noble Thought does deserve more acclaim. And you're welcome for the review; the story came highly recommended and now I know it was for good reason.
Thank you for the review, Paul. And, actually the last is correct, but also the first in some ways. Unfortunately, with both Mirror and Rose being largely unaware of the malady or the transient state of memories in that place, Rose's choice to let go of all the happy memories--the ones that hurt the most on remembering she was... well--was the reason she kept running away. Eventually, in the dark place, she would have lost all memory of everything, or kept only the painful memories of losing her mother in childhood and become a shade.
Well, that kinda got out of hand... let me try again.
Because neither Rose nor Pinkie were aware of what was happening, I felt it would have been cheating to outright tell the reader that all that was left was painful, sorrowful, or, well, at least a balance to the positivism in everything else, and would have dragged the story out of its tracks to show it in any meaningful way that would have left an impact on the reader. Not to mention cliched as all get out. Her mother dead was as dark and cliched as I was willing to take it for the story. (Though it is possible I just needed to think about it a little more.)
Also, glad you enjoyed the world-building. Most of it was an on-the fly sort of thing, built around equine ideas at the core and the heart of what an earth pony does and is with regards to their magic. Applejack has a slightly different take on it in another story of mine - which I'm not going to request that you review, but if you're curious enough to peek, it's Under a Tree. (That's the title, not where it is
)
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As to the other, I get what attention I do and I'm happy for it. If I don't garner as much as I would have hoped, then the idea or the story in front of it was not something that really touched on the pulse-point of the fandom. But I write what I enjoy writing.
In general, that's positive things, because my life has been generally positive and happy. Write what you know, eh? Or, at the very least, cut your teeth on what you know, then expand. S'what I'm trying to do, I suppose.
*Sees story listed next*
*giggles madly*
1.) My record remains impeccable. 2.) I'm shocked to see that Order of Shadows has a whopping twelve downvotes already. (Even though I know I shouldn't be, especially considering what I'm about to go into) and 3.) Long story short: Chatoyance was one of the authors during the earlier days of fimfiction who had the misfortune to be targeted by a massive hatestorm. But unlike a lot of the other authors who went through these storms like Device Heretic and darf, Chatoyance decided to stick around. Personally, I'm glad she did.
I saw I.D.'s wildly strewn approval ratio and saw that it was also on Equestria Daily and figured that some shit was up, so I read it. And not only was it a damn good story, but also a story that could not possibly have the same kind of impact outside the context of fanfiction. So yeah. I.D. for the win.
Gah, more stuff to read. Ghost of a Rose and Midnight Palaver both sound like my type of story.
I had read Injector Doe awhile back, closer when it came out. I got to that point where it took a turn down intensity lane and had to put it down. It was too much for me at the back then, but maybe I'll pick it up and finish it sometime.
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Ah, I see what you mean on 'forcing' at that point. At that point, the wording was chosen more because there is nothing but dialogue and I wanted to make sure there was no misconceptions about what was happening. I suppose you could argue I was a little too brusque with that particular line of dialogue, in hindsight, but I considered that part of the story a bit of pantomime.
As to Fluttershy's fate, well... I could tell you, but it's one of the major hooks that leads into Something Sweet to Bite Too. That along with where was Rainbow Dash, what actually happens to Luna, and how does Celestia deal with an entire population of a town disappearing just like what happened all those thousands of years ago? I will tell you that your thinking on Fluttershy's fate isn't too off the mark, but the story was always intended to have a sequel.
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Now that I know what kind of story you were gunning for, I think I'll add the sequel to my RiL. This time I'm treating it like any other story, though, so it's going to be waiting for me to read everything ahead of it this time. I'll probably appreciate it more now that I know how I'm supposed to be viewing it.
Yeah, I'll agree with you on that story I wrote. It was just the first time writing a fanfiction and I was a bit low on ideas. I've been working ideas in my private/spare time and am probably going to come with an entirely different story soon that has nothing to do with any of my current uploads.
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If you're feeling confident, you can send me a review request once you have the new story up and I can give you another review. I'm always interested in seeing if people can improve, and am happy to praise those who can.