Paul's Thursday Reviews XXI · 11:53pm Dec 24th, 2015
A Merry Christmas to all you bronies out there! Can't talk much this time, got some celebrations to get to, but I would be remiss if I missed my review set for the week.
Stories for This Week:
This Holiday is Going to be Perfect by Obselescence
The Wonderbolt and The Dressmaker by SuperPinkBrony12
Simple Fate, Tough Acceptance, Blessed Conclusion. by Ashardu (Requested by Twilight is the BEST)
Bait Them by Dash The Stampede (Re-Read)
Broken by Arad (Sequel to Stardust)
Total Word Count: 33,344
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 0
Not Bad: 2
None: 2
*I always resize the images to 450 pxls in width. It usually helps this blog look decent. Leave it to a mod to screw that up.
Consider me amused.
In This Holiday is Going to be Perfect, Obsolescence takes the ever-loved story of The Grinch and applies it to Chrysalis and her hive. Just prior to their annual hibernation, Chrysalis detects a ‘cheernado’ rising from the town of Ponyville (which is apparently not too far from her hive). Confused by this phenomenon, she asks a prisoner about it only to learn of Hearths Warming Eve. She has no idea what a hearth is, knows that ‘eve’ has something to do with time, and war-ming?
A-ha! The ponies are planning to invade!
And so, to stop this invasion, protect her hive and prove her evil, Chrysalis decides that they will steal all the weaponry from Ponyville, right down to the last action figure! Of course, she has to participate in such delicious wickedness personally, and thus disguises herself as the ponies’ chief weaponsmith, Santa Claws.
This was a great parody, from beginning to end. Obselescence manages to follow the classic Grinch tale in a way that isn’t a blatant retelling, but still maintains a lot of the charm. Instead of Dr. Seuss’s wacky wordplay, we are given silly biological variants of the changelings: hatred glands, disgust sacks, and (my personal favorite) dorsal spiracles and cardiomegaly. It’s just as silly as you’d expect.
Just as amusing is Chrysalis’s consistent determination to be evil, even when she doesn’t understand exactly why her actions make her so. It’s also hard to tell whether her behavior and views regarding ponies is due to a legitimate misunderstanding of the flesh sacks and their odd culture, or incompetence. Given the manner of some of her helpers, I’m beginning to think it’s both. Either way, it entertained.
If you’re okay with Chrysalis being irredeemably clueless and/or just want a bit of silliness with your holidays, try this. It’s bound to make you smile.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Romance has always been one of my ‘things,’ and The Wonderbolt and The Dressmaker offers a pairing I wasn’t accustomed to seeing. Combine that with the story earning a little popularity, and I figure it would be worth a shot.
Unfortunately, it appears that SuperPinkBrony is either very new to writing or hasn’t received the kind of criticism and assistance necessary to improve. The date of publication and the age of their first stories strongly suggests the latter, which is a shame.
To begin with, the opening of the story makes absolutely no sense. Soarin is depicted as a tailchaser who cares about little save being ‘manly,’ and when Fleetfoot and Misty Fly tease him over his love of apple pie he somehow comes to the absurd conclusion that his manliness is in question. His solution to this is to perform an insane stunt in front of them (well, insane by the author’s viewpoint, at least), because this will… uh… prove his manliness? And stop the teasing? I guess. Nevermind that mares can perform stunts too, and that his captain is a mare, but that doesn’t matter, because being able to perform stunts equates to manliness!
Except his suit somehow gets ripped up while performing this stunt, and the oh-so manly Soarin is scared to death that Spitfire will find out and get pissed because a Wonderbolt’s flightsuit is important. 
And so Soarin flies off to see Rarity to get his suit patched up by somepony who won’t let Spitfire in on his misdeed. Somehow, after a very bland and unimaginative conversation, he gets his suit repaired and spends the next week thinking about only Rarity. Oh, and Soarin’s also spectacularly dumb; after Rarity refuses payment, and Soarin insists he wants to pay, she easily convinces him to accept a favor from her as payment.
He completely misses the issue. I’m afraid the author missed it, too.
And somehow, after Rarity did nothing save fix his suit for free and uttered not one word about his qualities or even asked him any personal questions, Soarin come to the conclusion, quote, “And she seemed to truly admire him, for all the right reasons.” I’m guessing that, in Soarin’s mind, “all the right reasons” means she may have unintentionally glanced at his flank or something when the reader couldn’t see it, because she certainly didn’t do or say anything to lead to this conclusion that we can see.
I could go on, but there’s no point. This story is nothing short of amateur. The plot makes no sense, the characters are uninteresting slats of cardboard, there’s no narrative creativity, the dialogue is generic – oh, and Rarity actually says “Well, gosh.” Rarity. The flow of the story is a confusing mess, there’s no character development whatsoever, and the plot has more holes than the entirety of Interstate 10.
And this is an author with close to two years of writing experience at the time the story was published. SuperPinkBrony21, for your sake, please look for editors and pre-readers, and start joining some major contests. This is not where I’d expect a writer with your experience to be.
Bookshelf: None
I’m going to come out looking like an asshole for this one.
Apparently, Ashardu wrote this at the request of a friend, and it ended up being an extremely emotional and personal project, requiring two whole months in an effort to make it “just right.” The author even goes so far as to call it his/her “masterpiece.” It pains me that I have to give an honest review. I don’t like lowering the boom on people like this.
In this tale, Cheerilee suffers serious injury while trying to save Scootaloo from falling off a cliff. Somehow this ends up triggering a formerly benign cancer she’d unwittingly had all her life, turning it fatal; she now has three days to live. Big Mac promptly takes it upon himself to make those days as good as can be.
There are so many issues with this story, it would be impossible to identify them all in one review. Just to name a few...
Consistently bad word choices:
We diagnosticated her
Phrases and sentences that mean nothing:
she halted her sentence as she began to remember what happened back then, but resulted futile.
Use of bold caps to express emotion, usually with excessive exclamation marks:
"That doesn't relate to this Big Mac, and YOU KNOW IT!!!"
Narration that repeats dialog information:
"Hold on, Scootaloo!" she said, determined to rescue her student, "I'm coming down!".
Frequent use of LUS:
The red stallion, went into a big hug for the purple mare, ignoring any kind of presence in the room.
Poor grammar throughout:
"Let him stay," said the doctor as he gave a approval stare at the other nurse, "He just witnessed a friend waking up from a coma, can't you let a pony have a nice break?", the words pierced the nurse's heart and she lowered her head, apologizing from the noise she just caused.
That’s just the icing on the cake, people. Let’s start the story with sad music to make sure the readers understand the emotions that the author is desperately trying to force out of them. Add the entire play of Romeo and Juliet in a link. And when Cheerilee finally informs her students that she can’t teach them anymore, let’s include a link to some more sad music to really grind down on the readers that this is a sad moment, because the narrative just can’t do it.
Throw in some needless extra formatting at what are apparently meant to be key scenes – they aren’t. Need some out of character moments? Plenty of those. Want characters to perform some nonsensical behavior? Yep, that’s there too.
Doctor Specter’s closing remark after telling Big Mac that Cheerilee is going to die in three days:
Well, I have to get back to work, those patients aren't gonna save themselves!
I digress. My point is, even though the subject matter could have made for a strong story, the presentation is so irredeemably amateur that the whole thing needs to be reworked from the ground up. Kudos to the author for trying to put forward his/her emotions about something so personal in a story, but good intentions are not enough. I’m sorry, Ashardu, but you didn’t get it right.
Bookshelf: None
Bait Them
Dash the Stampede provided no cover art. Point and laugh.
Re-Read
As many of you may know, a while back I worked with the inimitable RainbowBob to expand his story Feed Them into a series, which resulted in four new stories by yours truly. The project is currently on hiatus, but we left the door open for anyone who wanted to to add their own stories to the series – with the caveat that Bob and I alone can decide if such stories are canon to the AU.
Bait Them is the first story to answer this call. Taking place in Cloudsdale during the city’s collapse, it follows the crippled pegasus Cirrus Strider as she struggles to escape the hordes and reunite with an earth pony friend. I ultimately named the story canonical, as it does not interfere with the established or planned material at all.
Even so, there are issues. The first is the odd premise; basically, while flying in a large carriage out of the city, a bunch of the passengers get it in their heads to throw Cirrus out of the carriage as bait for the creatures below. Dash the Stampede tried to depict this as a panicked mob making illogical decisions, but their manner just doesn’t fit that stereotype. The way they spoke, behaved, and even justified their actions felt forced at best.
Then there’s the narrative constantly referring to the shambling horde as “Them,” with the capital T, over and over again. It’s one thing to dance around the term ‘zombie’ (one of RainbowBob’s specific demands is that they are never referred to as such in-story), it’s another to shove the franchise’s title in the reader’s face over and over again as if they can’t understand the situation otherwise.
Then there’s the sheer violence of the fic. The important aspect of the Them AU is that the zombies aren’t as terrifying as the ponies themselves. While this is somewhat supported by Cirrus being thrown out of the carriage, it is hindered by the continuous and copious violence and blood of the fight that soon follows. It felt as though Dash the Stampede wanted to make his readers squirm through excessive gore rather than the mental trauma traditional to the series.
Then there’s the odd physical circumstances. Cirrus is shown regularly and easily defeating the zombies. In one scene, she does nothing more than run past a line of them with a blunt metal instrument, decapitating them along the way… only to later be incapable of pulling her wing out of the hooves of one, which proves so strong it literally rips her wing off. So are these things feeble or are they powerhouses?
In summation, even though I can accept this story as canonical to the Them AU, I find it wanting in many ways. If you’re more interested in the blood and guts aspect of zombie stories, then this one might be for you. If you’re looking for something more psychological in nature, I suggest you look elsewhere.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
After the general awesomeness that is Arad’s Stardust, I was eager to see what the sequels hold. Unfortunately the main sequel, Mente Materia, has yet to be completed, and so I’ve devoted my attention to the side stories of the universe Arad has crafted. This begins with the sequel/side story Broken, which deals with Twilight’s mental recovery after the horrors she encountered on Earth.
Unfortunately, I fear Arad stumbled with this one. While the ideas are certainly good, the story suffers from rapid pacing; there’s practically no introduction, the scenes bounce from one issue to another without preamble, and the conclusion feels forced. I almost felt like I was reading an extra chapter in Stardust rather than an individual story.
In Stardust, Arad took the time to introduce us to each new character, gradually revealing their interests, their flaws and their motivations. With Broken the characters are the Mane 6, and they don’t get anywhere near the same treatment. While I acknowledge that we are all very aware of who they are, this does not make it okay to brush past their parts of the story. The best we get is when Twilight goes to Rarity to ask a favor, giving us a tiny insight into Rarity’s thoughts. Everyone else? Flies making the occasional pass to give a hint of dialogue or two.
The point in this story that best highlights the issues this brings is at the end, when Fluttershy proves the most determined and helpful of the Mane 6 in helping Twilight face her situation. It’s something that could have been a huge moment for Fluttershy, but because we never got to see her in any fashion other than a line or two, we don’t get to see the emotional impact on her, her character development, or really anything that led to her determined front with Twilight. The result: a sense that the entire scene was hamfisted and dull.
This permeates the entire story.
Broken could have been an emotional powerhouse. Instead, it’s a bridge designed with speed and practicality in mind; it gets you to the next step, but it doesn’t make the journey all that attractive.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
Stories for Next Week:
Cheerilee's Garden by Unahim
The Secret Life of Doors, A Locked Up Story by Noble Thought
All's Right with the World by Dusty Tome (Requested by Dusty Tome)
I Am Not the Actor by cleverpun (Re-Read)
I Prefer Show Tunes by Harmony Charmer (Completed Story)
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
Paul's Thursday Reviews XI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIX
Paul's Thursday Reviews XX
Want me to review your story? Send me a request! Check my profile page for rules.
Enjoy the holiday!
Man, there's something about hospital or disease-related dramas that bring out the worst in writers. :/ Some of the most atrocious stories I've ever read on this site involve ponies dying.
3641123 You too—you're up next week!
Seriously, though, this is probably one of the most fair review blogs out there. Of course I don't always agree on every story, but Paul does discuss more concrete things about what bothered him in a story than most reviewers will. And he's up front about what's an actual problem versus a personal peeve. So even when I don't agree, I still think it's a fair evaluation of his viewpoint and contains plenty of insights the author can use.
3641126
Flipside of that is also true. Some of the most moving stories have involved death or facing it.
I blame TV for the other part.
3641151
It is. I read it every week. It's one of the highlights of my week that I look forward to.
Thank you, Paul.
And I'm sorry.
3641292
But those usually aren't medicine-related, I've found. Like, Alabaster comes to mind as an exception, but it's the only one I can come up with, and I can think of at least three that were bad.
obviously, this is science :V
TWO stories in the 'None' category?? Two at Not Bad? On Christmas no less. This didn't go too (to?) well for you did it?
I'm honestly not that surprised that Broken didn't do too (to?) well with you. I thought it might get a 'Worth It', but that might be me being biased. It's most certainly not his best work.
Anyway; thanks for doing all these reviews. Your honest opinion is appreciated.
3641151
3641296
3641480
You guys...
It's good to know. Really. The best Christmas gift is knowing my efforts here are appreciated. A Merry Christmas to all of you.
3641126
And to you too, PP.
Oof. Rough reading week! Well, at least I know you've got one you liked in the indefinite future.
And those are some promising names coming up.
Merry Christmas, and happy holiday-related activities!
3641770
It continues to amuse me that, through pure random happenstance, Cheerilee's Garden lined up in my RiL list just right to end up being reviewed during the holidays. New Year's Eve, in fact. Go fig.
And a Merry Christmas to you too!
What does "None" mean?
3641341 What about Simple Fate, Tough Acceptance, Blessed Conclusion. Yes he said that he wasn't into it, but did say at the beginning that this is his personal opinion, and so I think that the story is one of those like it or not like it stories.
Kinda like the Snowdrop video, it keeps hammering that we should feel sorry for her by her constant misfortune after another. "She's blind, she has no friends, she has no confidence". But despite it I like the video including many others.
3650652
The ratings and their meanings are on my user page, but to speed things up:
3650666 Even the story has more up votes? I check it has 37 up votes and only 7 down votes. So wouldn't that mean its in the good category?
3650652
Haven't read that one yet. :B
3650837 Well personally I think its good including others that read it.
3650733
You're talking about public opinion. Public opinion means precisely nothing to me. I am not the casual reader who will like anything, nor am I a tool who will plug any story with a high rating. I am a critic, and my standards are high. My reviews are written for people who care about writing beyond the subject of a story. How a story is written, how the characters behave, the plot development, the realism, the purpose, it all matters, not some green number in the top corner of the description.
It's my job to analyze a story's strengths and weaknesses and report my findings. This story? It's lacking in almost every conceivable way.