xjuggernaughtx's Top Down Reviews #9 - Keeping Your Hooves On The Ground · 9:48pm Sep 16th, 2015
It’s been a bit of a struggle trying to keep up with this. I’ve been quite busy lately, so I’ve started a few of these, only to find that the story has dropped significantly in rank. I should just continue the review, I guess, but it just feels weird when the story is now ranked in the hundreds somewhere.
Anyway, on to this one. It was a struggle in and of itself.
Spoiler free summary
Keeping Your Hooves On The Ground is a not-very-funny comedy with a decent plot and okay characterizations. However, it’s severely hampered by quite a few mechanical problems.
Plot and Characterization
The CMC are eating lunch with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and are curious to know what happened when Dash found out that Fluttershy fell to earth. Nothing wrong with that setup. It’s a nice idea for a story. Rainbow and Fluttershy trade going back and forth about the story for a bit, then the story cuts away to a flashback. As it progresses, we stay mostly in the past with a few jumps back to present for commentary. The story is eventually told and ponies get on with their day.
If that synopsis is somewhat underwhelming, well, it’s because the story is just kinda pedestrian. Fluttershy falls and makes friends with the critters. Rainbow Dash goes after her, but she’s scared of the ground because she’s heard horror stories about it. She finds Fluttershy and then finds out the ground isn’t full of horrible monsters. Then they go home. That’s pretty much it.
The hook here is supposed to be the funny, and unfortunately, don’t really find it to be all that amusing. I’m going to go into it more in the Technical Things section.
Characterizations here are fine in a broad sense, though I think Rainbow fairs a little better than Fluttershy. The only real issue that I have is once again technical. Overall, I don’t really have a whole lot of problem with the basic plot or characterization. They serve, but don’t blow me out of the water. It’s the details that are problematic.
Technical Things
Okay, this might be long.
This story edges over the line in lots of categories. It’s a little too telly. It’s got enough “yellow pegasus” to trigger my Lavender Unicorn Syndrome alarm. It has several instances of strange word choice. But its biggest problem is that it’s just not very funny. It’s cute. They are not the same thing.
Let me break this down because it’s one of those things that people seem to have a hard time with. Laughter is a reaction against what the mind finds ridiculous. This is often paired with humor, but doesn’t have to be. People laugh at the horrific, the sad, the unexplainable. People laugh at funerals. They laugh when the tenth thing has gone wrong with their day. People laugh for all kinds of reasons that don’t have to do with things actually being funny.
The problem comes in tagging your story as a comedy when it’s really just cute. That cute thing might make you laugh, but that doesn’t often translate over. If you want to test it, go watch a cute puppy video on YouTube, then find someone and describe it to them. It’ll probably sound something like this:
“And then the puppy tried to get up on the cushion, but then it fell over and kicked its legs! Kicked its little feet in the air!”
or
“But then the puppy couldn’t figure the weird noise out, so it tilted its head! Then it tilted it the other way!”
Not funny, but seeing the viedo would probably make your smile or laugh. It’s ridiculous looking, and your mind reacts to that. But it’s not comedy. When I see something advertised as comedy, I expect to see humor in it. I don’t have to think that the humor works, but I like to at least see the attempt there. This story has one or two things in it that might work as comedy with some polish, but mostly it’s just Fluttershy and Rainbow being cute. That doesn’t fly with me.
Putting that aside, this story just has too many little things that bother me. Take this, for example:
The yellow Pegasus snapped to attention as she heard Dash approach. With a hop, skip and a jump, she leaped over to the door, grabbed the bag from her waiting friend, and dropped it off on the dining table. The fillies sniffed the air in anticipation, their bellies rumbling from all their hard work today.
“Alright, girls!” Fluttershy said. The three Crusaders immediately dropped their cleaning tools and turned to the provider of sustenance. “I think we’ve all worked hard enough for today. Come on over and we can have a nice, quiet-”
(The CMC attack the lunch bag directly after this.)
In the space of two paragraphs, we have a “yellow Pegasus” reference, with pegasus capitalized as it is throughout the story, two rather forced feeling direct references to the show (bolded), and the CMC reacting inside of Fluttershy’s paragraph. That’s a lot of issues for so few words.
It’s one of my great pet peeves when people take things directly from the show. A winking reference is one thing. There are ways to do it that feel like clever additions. However, why would Fluttershy be taking a hop, skip, and a jump across the room? Any reason other than just working the reference to Pinkie’s song from Dragonshy? I can’t think of one. The “CMC Ruin Fluttershy’s Hope For A Nice, Quiet Something” is more forgivable, but since it comes so closely after the other show reference, it rankles.
Telling is also a pervasive issue with this story:
The three fillies were stunned quiet, while Dash shrank back in her chair in embarrassment. Even Fluttershy felt more than a little ashamed at what she had just blurted out, fearing that the Crusaders would burst out laughing any second. Instead, however, Scootaloo turned to Dash in puzzlement. “Wh-What does she mean, ‘scared?’ You’re not afraid of anything, right?”
I’d be willing to spot the author any one of these, but three in the same paragraph? That’s excessive.
A large part of my dissatisfaction with this story is just that there are a million tiny problems. The kind that feel like an editor ought to have pointed out on a first pass.
The top half of Fluttershy’s door was still open by the time Rainbow Dash arrived, a paper bag shoved tightly in her mouth. Scootaloo’s scooter was still safely nestled away outside the cottage, telling the mare that the Crusaders were still working. Smiling, the cyan pony poked her head inside.
Inside the cottage, Fluttershy and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were hard at work. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were wiping down one of the tables with rags dripping with furniture polish, Scootaloo was dusting the back curtains, and Fluttershy was cleaning up the mess from her animals’ latest meal. Even Dash was amazed at how wonderful the place looked. One could hardly tell that a storm had ravaged the cottage only a few days prior.
Look at how many times “was” and “were” are used there. It makes for a very repetitive feel. It’s a problem throughout.
Unlike Scoot, Apple Bloom was decent enough to swallow the contents of her mouth before continuing the line of inquiry. “Wha’ in the hay does that mean?”
This phrasing is awkward. “Was decent enough” feels weird, as does “the contents of her mouth.”
The animals, once utterly terrified by the rainbow explosion overhead, now seemed as calm as a gentle breeze in Fluttershy’s presence. Even the yellow Pegasus was seeming more relaxed than ever in their presence; she had even barely noticed that her cutie mark had appeared. In just a short amount of time, she had both discovered her special talent and found a place where she could truly belong.
You know, just a relaxing day. All I did was get my cutie mark and find my true calling in life. Now I’m stranded far away from everything that I know, but an entirely new life might await me. It’s all good though. I’m very relaxed.
Not that I don’t think Fluttershy could be calm about things, but don’t add in stuff about how she just found her true calling in life. That’s an exciting thing. I know very few people that have just discovered their passion in life and celebrated by kicking back with some light reading.
Occasionally, phrasing gets a little silly:
Fluttershy’s smile vanished as she stared at the fluffy puff of frozen water crystals.
C’mon, man. Just say ‘cloud.’ Unless the whole story is full of twisting, poetic language, it’s off-putting to jump to phrases like that.
Dash sighed. “Well, there was an opening for a weather pony around here, so that’s why I moved to Ponyville. And then I ran into Fluttershy, and that’s that.” She really did not want to explain to the three fillies about dropping out of Flight School, or the whole mess with Gilda, or how she moved to Ponyville only because she knew Fluttershy was already there and needed to get away to practice for the Wonderbolts. Stories like that were for big ponies.
Then why are you bringing it up? What does that add?
I have a million other examples, but I think that will probably illustrate what I’m talking about. No one of these things is horrible, but together they sink the ship. I will say that this story is definitely at its best when dialogue is occurring. The prose is often lacking, but much of the speech is nice.
Are You The Intended Audience
Lots of people like cute and fluffy. I certainly don’t mind it. So if you’re in the mood for it, and you’re fairly forgiving about mechanics, this might serve you. Just don’t go in looking for comedy, because there isn’t a lot here. The characters are largely fine. The plot is decent. It’s just served up in a way that I don’t care for. I struggled to finish this one.
I give it:
One PresentPerfect
On the first day of ficmas, my true love gave to me...
Sorry... it was the first thing that popped into my head. It's interesting reading your reviews, xjuggernaughtx. In particular the telling. That's something I have trouble finding a comfortable mix of tell/show, still, and its interesting to see what others view as too much, too little of either.
3397569 I'm not as militant as some people are about telling. I'm cool with it in lot of circumstances. However, this story has it in a lot of places where an more evocative phrase immediately came to mind and wouldn't hamper the flow of things. There are times when telling is great. Short paragraph that catches the reader up to current event? Great place for telling. I don't need to be in that moment. I just need the data. Action-packed chase scene? Some telling might be in order. I want to keep things moving along. I don't want to get bogged down in lots of detail, so a mix of show vs. tell might be in order. Just a standard paragraph with light dialogue? I'm not really seeing the need for a lot of telling there.
I don't know if you remember, but insert author here was at your BABSCon party. However given that he has severe confidence and self-esteem issues, I don't believe I'll be telling him about this review.
haha fuck I forgot I was part of this :V
3397650 Yeah, I remember him being there. Seems like a nice guy.
But this was his second story, back from 2012. I'm pretty sure he's improved by now. My second story certainly wouldn't hold up to my standards today. If anything, I think this story needs an editor. The plot and characterization are serviceable, if somewhat vanilla. That's the important part. The rest could get cleaned up with a strong editor. It would be much worse for this story if it just had a plot that didn't work.
3397679 You are, and now you are also part of Noble Thoughts Ficmas song. It's like a PresentPerfect celebration 'round here!