Present Perfect vs. Silent Ponyville · 9:01pm Sep 25th, 2015
The note said, “Re-read and review Silent Ponyville”.
A classic of horror ponyfiction, crossing over with not just Silent Hill but Cupcakes, Slenderman, and a whole load of other popular creepy stuff, SamRose (aka Jake Heritagu)’s Silent Ponyville was actually one of the very first fics I ever listened to. (The reading I used this time, by Nimbus Productions, is, I’m pretty sure, not the one I first heard, but it was good and got a fire lit under my butt to correct the channel name on my spreadsheet. :B Scream warning for chapters 2 and 3! There's another by ShadowOfCygnus, and a really elaborate production from GutiuSerenade. And here's one by Nightfire5150! And one by Sparrow9642. Another by Plagen Shiki.) So it may come as no surprise that I wondered just why I had upvoted the story oh-so long ago. Not to mention I had already read, reviewed and faved its sequel-in-name-only, Too Shy for a Rainbow.
Just what was it about this piece that apparently captured my imagination? I was going to make you all wait until Halloween to find out, but I don't want to have to hold onto this review and the one for Scare Master, so everybody wins! :D
I don't really know anything about the Silent Hill games other than "survival horror", "Pyramid Head" and "Might actually be thinking of Resident Evil". So when it comes to the specific imagery used in this piece, I'm at a loss for finding parallels to the games. And that's just fine! The imagery is actually pretty good, atmospheric and creepy, setting "Silent Ponyville" up as a place that you definitely don't want to spend a lot of time in.
It would better if it weren't so obviously crossed over with a video game.
The plot starts out with Pinkie Pie going to Twilight for help with a series of nightmares that have been causing her a lot of distress. Needless to say, this is season one and Luna's not an option (to give you some indication of just how old this story is, not only is it one of the first hundred stories published on Fimfiction, the site was in beta at the time), so Twilight casts a spell of some sort or another. The end result is Pinkie ending up in a ruined library, all by herself, with nopony else in sight. All she finds is a bag, a lantern, a radio phonograph, and a couple other bits. It's obviously an inventory. This piece is very video gamey.
And as Pinkie moves about Silent Ponyville, slowly putting together the pieces of a mystery of her own creation, I was never able to really shake that sense of "this is a video game". The radio phonograph lets off static when she gets near hostile monsters, which is a really cool effect in the reading, but more a footnote in the text. The monsters never hear the static, though, only the sounds she makes. Said monsters come in a number of identical, reduplicated forms. She finds important items like keys that turn into dust when she uses them. She solves puzzles with various other important items. She finds a healing potion. It's all kind of silly.
Speaking of silly things, two of the horrors she faces are the Slenderpony and the version of herself from Cupcakes. Asking for originality from a crossover might be pushing things, but the usual caveats apply. Slender Pony is almost used well, because most of the horror from his presence is derived from her reactions to him; that's how you sell a monster as scary. But when his first appearance involves him chasing her down a corridor into a dead-end and then leaving a gift-wrapped box behind, well, it's hard not to think that Pinkie might be out of her mind a little, and he's not so bad after all. Cupcakes-amina is at least a threat, but all the cliches are there, from the number system to the coat-of-many-ponies. It's been done.
The fact is, the more I think about this story, the more I have to accept that it just doesn't work. The atmosphere is about the only thing I can't come up with a caveat for. I mean, the best part of the story is the way the mystery plays out, with memories doling out clues in a very natural progression... Except that the actual answer to the mystery isn't really something I wanted to read a story about. Using a video game as the setting to explore a character's psyche is a good way to go about writing an insertive crossover, but the psyche revealed to us is both cliche and not canonically Pinkie Pie. Cupcakes and the Slenderpony are used because they echo imagery of the memories Pinkie has repressed, but they're still Cupcakes and the Slenderpony.
And that doesn't even touch the stuff that's just plain bad. The writing is chock full of close repetitions, with words and phrases often being used multiple times in consecutive sentences. Punctuation-based typos abound, along with its/it's confusion. There are POV shifts, which is terrible, since barely any of this story is not focused on Pinkie. There's a lot of telling and explaining. It's not very fun to read.
Which brings me to the endings. I wondered aloud what the point was, until I finally realized: they're an homage to the game. Fallout: Equestria was not this video gamey. The fact is, multiple endings don't make sense, especially with the "unlock requirements", without the reader having some influence on the narrative, i.e. a CYOA. As they are, they just seem like afterthoughts of a writer who couldn't decide what to do. I'm going to go through them one by one.
The first ending is called "Game Over" and is what would happen if Pinkie died during the 'game'. Okay, that makes enough sense, but of course we get a "If you die in your dreams, you die in real life" thing, and that's silly.
Ending 2 is "It's time to get baking", when Pinkie succumbs to the attacks from evil Cupcakes Pinkie. This actually ends up being a fairly decent ending, given the horror present in what happens... Except then it turns the entire story in a Cupcakes prequel.
Ending 3 is "It's a twist". I'll say, the twist is actually really good. It doesn't make sense in the context of the story, because the story didn't happen the way the unlock says it had to, but it's at least a decent ending. That said, it drives home the gameyness of the piece as all the others do; plus, it's the only place where he's called "Slender Mane", and that inconsistency just irritates me.
Number four, "The UFO", is a direct homage to Silent Hill the game; I've seen this one. It's the comedy ending, and it's even got a comic that unfortunately is a little too stupid to enjoy. As a direct homage, it works, but again, in the context of the story, it doesn't make sense, and that stuff never happened. It's just weird trying to reconcile these with the story.
The "real" ending is the next one. It's the longest of them all, and also the most satisfying (as it should be), bringing the story's events to closure in a serious, heartfelt way. That doesn't make it great, but it is at least a happy ending after a fashion.
That leaves us with two more. "Sam" irritates me, because it shows us the author and his proofreader as ponies, interacting with Pinkie. And it's really not because of the author-inserts, but because of the insinuation that this story was proofread. Brad failed us. (Also, this ending contains the only mention of Pyramid Head; I have to wonder if it's a good thing he never showed up in the body of the story.)
Lastly is the newest ending, posted just last month as I write this, "Pachinko". And I think, out of all of them, the content and timing of that ending sells the "author didn't know what to do" premise, for all that I honestly believe the author set out to have multiple endings in the first place. It's a goofy piece of Kojima fanboy angst, reacting to Konami's decision to scrap their video games department. It works as parody in its own right, but it wants to stand alone and can't outside the context of the main story. I just don't know why this decision was made. (Sadly, the author's proofreading ability has not improved over four years.)
In the end, there's little offensive about Silent Ponyville, if you don't mind a lot of gore. It's just another dark crossover story that doesn't fit the show at all, and falls down in the execution. There are far too many of those, if you ask me.
2/5
It's just kind of okay.
This interests me, because I have Silent Pony on my re-read list as well. It'll be a month or two before it finally pops up in my reviews. I recall reading all three of them – and I will again – but I remember the overall writing style being more scary than the story itself. I predict a low rating on all counts.
It also interests me because I aim to do my own Silent Hill themed story soon.
Gutiuserenade is actually doing a full-cast radio play reading of this over October.
I think I have my Halloween based Fic-A-Minute this year.
Silent Ponyville is what got me into reading fanfiction regularly again. I saw an update and thought what the hell. I like spooky crap. At the time, I wasn't dissapointed.
Now that I've been exposed to a myriad of fic, most of which can be considered good writing, I'm wanting to give Silent Ponyville a reread. I want to see if my opinions of the fic will change any from the ones I had back in 2012.
Judging by what PP's saying, I might have a similar reaction, but then again, I'm still very much into spooky shit, so I might not be as negative.
It'll prolly be better than watching the second Silent Hill movie again.
Watch there be a Kojima ending at Silent Ponyville 3.
Oh. PP. Ever read any of the spinoffs like Silent Ponyville: Reunion or Silence of Ponyville?
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Indubitably Ponified beat him to the punch! :B (God, I just hope the screaming isn't as loud. c.c Although it was pretty amazing, no lie.)
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Like I said, I read Too Shy for a Rainbow, which appears to be related to SP only by virtue of contributing to its sequels. That's about as far as I have interest to go.
I have to assume that, had I reviewed this when I first read it, I'd have given it a 3. I don't recall being wowed by it, but it was probably the atmosphere that led me to the upvote. Or maybe just the fact that I hadn't seen this kind of setup repeated over and over and over.
I think the reason I loved it so much on my first reading was that I hadn't even heard of Cupcakes yet. So when I saw the horrible things like filly Pinkie having to eat... well, you know, it shocked the hell out of me. Heh, actually, and this is kinda embarrassing, the first time I finally read CUpcakes... I thought it was ripping off Silent Ponyville.
That all said, I still think it's a really good story. It was literally the first pony fiction I ever read. In fact, it was the first piece of fan fiction I ever read, period. Up to that point, I ignored all fan fiction due to the preconceived notions we all had at some point. But then I saw it update on Equestria Daily and said, "Pinkie Pie... goes to Silent Hill. This can only end in awesomeness." I didn't like the sequels, mainly because they relied far too heavily on the FlutterDash ship. Like, if you don't like that ship, you literally can't get behind the main crux of the story.
You know, I really enjoyed those the first time around.
I have noticed that my capability to enjoy things often far outreaches their actual merits. I put what should have been there, if that makes sense? I enjoy the little good parts so much that unless it's just godawful the bad things kind of fade in my memory.
But at the same point... I wonder how much they would hold up to my earlier fascination now.
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Having heard some of the new production, trust me when I tell you that Guti's production quality beat's IP's into the ground. With Mjolnir. Covered in spikes. I listened to IP's reading of Silent Ponyville too back in my salad days and I thought it was wonderful, but having been in the audio production thing for a while now ... there are some issues that make me like it a lot less now (Firebolt himself being one of them).
This is one of the earliest fics I read, from the days before I came to Fimfiction. I'm not sure I liked it that much even then; I might not have read it if I didn't adore Silent Hill 2 too much. Needless to say, this story is nowhere near as subtle and well thought-out as that game.
Finally got some time and reread the first chapter and immediately noticed the repetition. Like, so many tears were shed in those first two paragraphs. Twilight consulted her books and looked through the pages. These, and quite a few things like descriptions not being strong enough and an instance where a bit of tell could've been cut out cuz Pinkie mentions the specific incident later on knocked me outta my immersion multiple times. When I first read it, I actually recall not being bothered by these kind if things whatsoever. Immersion was kept (hell, I don't even think I knew what immersion was back then) and I wanted to read more. Like, boy fuckin' howdy, eh? It makes me wonder if I'd be happier not knowing as much about writing as I did back then, innocently gallivanting about in a dreary, depressing, fictional environment and accepting it purely as such. I will agree that the writing isn't as strong, but it does compensate with atmosphere. And I do like me some atmosphere in horror.
I guess I'll continue reading when I have time. One moment I want to get to is when Pinkie runs into Gummy. I recall having chills and tearing up a bit. Heh. Wonder if I'll be affected the same way. I'm hoping so.
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You guys gotta be kidding me. We were all drawn into fanfiction because of Silent Ponyville. Damn. Just damn. I wonder how many other bronies got drawn in now.
Also, Jake. You should make a spookier version of your theory of Lesbian Fart Babies now, for Silent Ponyville becons it. Like, I guess you have to scare one mare so senseless with impeding Slender faceless doom that she queefs so violently that her egg causes nuclear fission and creates an energy being of extra-dimensional dimension cracking, resulting in another Slendering Slenderson, except made with dark matter or dark energy or whatever same difference.
The other mare is there to cushion the impact of this newly birthed energy being shot out of the birth canal at a speed of a bajillionteen seconds per minute with her soft, cuddly body.
Slendermare is not only there to scare the shit out of a couple of lesponies, but to question what in the fucking goddamn hell she did to take part in the creation of a true abomination.
Lesbian Fart Babies create energy beings of spooky with a few added variables. Nature is fascinating.
PS Jake you is ams dicks for shoving this idea in my impressionable young mind. Truly, the best brony role model of this brony generation, you are XD
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It took me a couple of minutes, but I realized I had somewhat compared Lesbian Fart Babies to the CERN Hadron Collider 0.o
Damn I'm bad.
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wtf @_@
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This is what happens when you try to make someone's awful ideas better, but unintentionally make them even worse