Shadow Wars Story Verse · 7:48pm Mar 20th, 2016
I've been asked by Jordan179 to give my opinion on his Magnum Opus - the Shadow Wars Story Verse.
If, despite the author's best efforts you have somehow dodged any knowledge of his work, here is the short synopsis as provided by author himself:
The machinations of the Cosmic Concepts have shaped the history of the Ponies for ten thousand years. But now their mistakes have cracked the Cosmos, and the Shadows seep through to claim our own Universe for their dark and predatory purposes. If they can gain a bridgehead on Equestria's Earth, this will be but the first step in a war of extermination against our continuum, a war which will end in the destruction of all life in our own Universe.
Can Celestia lead the defense of the Earth and save, not only her little Ponies, but all Earthlife, from utter annihilation? Can Luna be redeemed from the Shadows and return to her former greatness? Will Discord prove a powerful ally, or betray them all to damnation? Can a new generation of powerful beings aid them enough to bring victory? Or will the Earth die, drained of its vitality by the sinister Shadows?
List of stories in the Shadow Wars universe further down the page.
The story spans thousands of years of headcanon history in more than two dozen (mostly unfinished) fics, that you can read right here, on fimfiction.
I admit that I did not read the whole of half a million words worth of is fiction, I am nonetheless more than willing to give my rather uneducated and biased opinion here, as based on few fics that I've read, couple that I've skimmed and several that I've read descriptions of and try to give some comparison to other big verses that I've dipped my toes in.
So, here are my thoughts on the thing:
First of all, the organization of material is complex. Winnningverse and Fo:E arose both from single fanfic in a tree-like structure, while the Dashverse just progresses linearly from one fanfic and keeps the focus on the same characters.
Occasionally that makes fandom slightly inconsistent as various authors make mistakes with timelines and places, but those are generally easy to get into - you read that one central fic, however long it may be, and whichever other fic you read you have a good feel as to how it stands within the fandom.
For SWSV it is the other way around - the chronology is stated clearly, but there is no singular central fic - instead there is a multitude of works that are all in progress at the same time and cannot be really fully understood in their own right. This has left me totally intimidated as to where to start, since getting into ancient history of a completely headcanon-verse is a large investment and hardly very interesting, whereas starting with the events happening at the time of the show leaves me with the feeling that I have no clue what is going on, since I keep stumbling over concepts and ideas that are not explained within the fic.
This is not necessarily bad, but it definitely places a barrier towards new readers.
The style of the stories is.... well, it's not to my liking. While there is clearly a massive research into the canon material, there is surprisingly little respect for the feel and characterizations of original show. Everything is over-discussed, heavy and, simply put, not fun at all. The overuse of Capital Letters further aggravates the problem, because to me it reads like those are Very Important Words whereas I often fail to see their Oh-So-Great Significance.
It is really contrasted against the already mentioned Fallout Equestria, where despite is a strong sadistic twist that Equestrian Wasteland gives to the characters, they are still easily recognized as ponies we all like. Here they bear the same name and same (or similar) environment, yet are somehow nothing like the lovable bundles of cute we see on the show.
Among other author's biases that include some sort of weird prudish attitude towards casual sex that I cannot for the life of me comprehend, some sort of horrid complex towards Winningverse really stands out. Whole chapters and paragraphs, if not whole fics, seem to be delegated to nothing but sudden and unexplained Cloud Kicker hatred, which would be hilarious were it not so unexpectedly vitriolic when put in the mouths of little colourful ponies.
The final nail in the coffin of the style of the whole of the cycle is the overabundance of dialogue and thoughts.
Author tends to tell, not show, and moreover, to tell from a position of ultimate authority, where most of the already overabundant dialogue is in fact a lecture from one character to the other.
For example, the cursory reading of the first seven chapters of the “Post Traumatic” contains no action, but at least five lecture-dialogues.
The latter problem is further exacerbated by the fact that author keeps bolstering his argument with the self-provided black-and-white straw men, pulling completely headcanon precedents and problems out of nowhere with no previous set-up that I can see, with a singular purpose of unambiguously and unequivocally supporting his preferred side of discussion. This makes the story about as interesting as a game of soccer with only one team in the field.
The whole thing reads more like a philosophical essay than fiction, and not in a good sense of discussing complex problems, but rather because you quickly realize that the whole fic is merely a set-up to convince the reader of some of author’s a priori position. What is even worse, it reads like a philosophical essay by the infamous (or famous, if you're one of those guys) Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, whom I hate with a fiery passion and wish to punch in the face, due to abundance of simplified and barely appropriate concepts from natural sciences shoehorned into the story with little rhyme or reason.
On a better side, it can be seen that author is familiar not only with the canon but also with the fanon material, making good use of it for his stories, as well as for references, that, while somehow fail to be witty, are clever nonetheless.
As to the substance of the stories, it is very hard to critique, since I am yet to find any.
The fics I’ve read so far are one of two types:
The first type of fics seems to be the short depictions of some scenes that seem to show off one of the author’s headcanon ideas about the ponies or history, which is about as plot-driven and full of action as a slightly fluffed-up Wikipedia article.
The second seem to be a series of monologues and lectures united by some chronological order, underlined, again, by author’s own headcanon ideas that seem to solely exist to illustrate or emotionally support his points, be they about the facts of the headcanon of the verse or some sort of moral agenda.
In the four or five fics I’ve made a valiant attempt to read, none actually had any plot, and first ten chapters of “Post Traumatic” only started to have anything resembling maybe a conflict. I guess I’ll never find out, because I could not finish the fic even by skipping half a chapter at a time.
The only bright light in this grayness and blandness are the ideas author keeps pulling out of his hat here and there. There are some rather smart and creative ideas, and I wish they’d be actually used to drive the plot, instead of just being mentioned once and forgotten.
I, personally, abhor the use of technobabble in magical verses, since it is annoying and silly and most of the time comes from people with only cursory understanding of the subject, when the author is not trying to do in the wizard and use scientific-y ten-dollar words, the ideas on culture, society and some other finer points of his verse are definitely unusual and worthwhile.
In short, this confirms my conclusion that I have had of the author - I enjoy arguing with him a lot, and I am following his blog with great interest, but I would not read his fiction, nor recommend it. His writing ability is much better suited to writing essays and opinion-pieces that would be, and in fact are, thought-provoking and lead to great discussions, than to writing fiction.
Finally, I would like to illustrate all of the above points, by reviewing one of the stories that I think is the very showcase of all the problems with all of the cycle - “A Robust Solution".
It starts with a discussion of Prisoner's Dilemma. By Fluttershy, of all ponies. Half first chapter is entirely and completely wasted on trivial mathematical...trivia that while seems to be loading Chekov’s argument for later, is really unnecessary and weird coming from Flutters.The only purpose it really serves, seems to be to provide a smooth segway into several paragraphs of Cloud Kicker bashing by Rarity, which is even more jarring than mathematical trivia from Fluttershy.
And that is it. That is the first chapter out of three. Author has heard something about a field of knowledge known as "mathematics", hates Cloud Kicker, and really wants to share both facts with us by medium of beloved characters, that is the only takeaway here.
The second character continues the weirdness parade with Fluttershy contemplating suicide over having a one-night stand.
I guess it is somewhat valid, even though I wish the previous chapter was spent setting those facts up. Casually mentioned are the things like suicide culture of "honor blades" among pegasi, the fact that ponies can "taste" love(?) (or maybe that Fluttershy is a changeling, I'm really unclear on this stuff) and few other things that were weird and surprising for me, perhaps because I've not read the ten-thousand-fic history of this verse. Generally at least those are interesting bits of verse trivia, that, I hope are used further or previously, because even if I would not put it that way, those are some original thoughts very much worth exploring.
The main canvas of the story is a heavy and realistic problem of Fluttershy feeling worthless because the stallion she met has used her and left her without second thought. That's fair enough, it is a valid, real problem.
The feelings are discussed rather well, even if a bit heavy-handed, emotions are shown, and all in all this is a good chapter, objectively speaking.
The third chapter is, essentially, a lecture. It began by giving me hope that an author will step on his biases and give a decent discussions on how different people, or as the case may be, ponies, look for different things in relationship, with some looking for a one-night-stand, while others look for a long-term partners and how lying and miscommunication makes things messy and hurtful.
No such luck. Instead we get a clumsy attempt to tie-in this thing with the Prisoners Dilemma and K- and r- strategies in reproduction, that try to tell us that, somehow, having casual sex between consenting adults without intention of long-term commitment is morally unequivocally wrong and "Nasty". Or at least that's my understanding of it.
The whole thing in fact left me with a feeling of being cheated. I went in for a pony fanfic, but what I got instead was a blatant attempt at pushing authors personal views on the audience via pseudointellectiual rhetoric and construction of straw men, less subtle than even the Chronicles of Narnia.
There is no plot, no action, no discussion. The only thing this fic is, is merely a two-chapter set-up for a confused and boring lecture that leaves an aftertaste akin to that of watching an Abstinence Only educational video.
And insofar as I've been able to ascertain, most of the fics that belong to this cycle are following in the exact same vein.
Minor point -- SWSV Fluttershy's half-Changeling. That's why she can taste Love.
3817586 aha, ok, that... that makes no sense really, but yeah, I assumed it was a reference to her changeling-ness somehow.
3817589
Her half-Changeling nature was something I deduced from her possession of the same power as Chrysalis -- a hypnotic Stare. Fluttershy, in vanilla canon, is a mind controller, which has never been explained in the main series.
Once you start looking at Fluttershy as half Changeling Royal caste, a lot of Fluttershy's abilities and behaviors make sense. In particular, the fact that she's formed what amounts to a little Hive of higher animals around herself, and her intense charisma, which works even when she doesn't want it to.
3817606 ...if you say so, sure.
3817606
It's just a good example how you cannot read this fic in its own right - the whole bit about Fluttershy being able to taste love makes no sense unless you know she is a "half-Changeling".
And don't say "deduced". You didn't "deduce" it, you thought that up, added that to your particular headcanon.
Saying that you "deduced" it implies that this is somehow a reasonable, and in fact inevitable conclusion from the facts of the show, whereas there is not even close to enough support for your idea in canon to make this strong a statement.
There is a difference between "does not contradict" and "can be deduced".
3817617
I make it very obvious that Fluttershy has an important secret she hasn't told Rarity, through foreshadowing. Fluttershy has to have tasted something strange about Nosey's emotions, because in SWSV continuity she is an amatovore. No way to get around this without telling even more, given that I'm telling the story from Rarity's POV.
Fluttershy didn't contemplate suicide "because she had a one-night stand," nor even because she lost her virginity that way, though she's not happy about either of these things. She contemplated suicide because she thought that this meant that she was unloveable.
The key piece of information Rarity provides her, that Fluttershy didn't know, was that Nosey was operating on different premises from her, using a different strategy in the iterated courtship game, such that there was no way that Fluttershy could have won anything more than not giving it up to Nosey. There was no way to win his love, which is what she wanted.
The Game Theory is highly relevant for two reasons. The first is that my Fluttershy is not an airheaded yellow-and-pink cutie-pie, she's a naturalist -- meaning that she seriously studies animal behavior. She doesn't understand Pony behavior very well, but she can grasp it by analogy with bird courtship strategies.
The second is that keeping Game Theory in mind is how, in the future, Fluttershy will unite the Changelings under her as the High Queen Kindness; and Rarity found a first international and then interstellar trading empire. So yes, this is a rather important moment, and discovery, for both of them.
If you think I hate the idea of anything other than strict marital monogamy, you're really looking at the wrong character here. My Fluttershy develops into a polyamorous bisexual, and she never gets married. (Rather, she mostly pals around with Discord and has numerous spawn by him over the many millennia of their mutual Love in these Incarnations -- and it's an open relationship on both their sides).
Fluttershy never becomes keen on downright promiscuity, though, because she's far too private a Pony, and cares too much for real emotional connections, for that. Plus, she got burned by it the first time, and doesn't ever want to be in that situation again.
As for their distaste for Cloud Kicker, this is a timeline in which Cloud Kicker was never able to successfully seduce Fluttershy, but still has her obsession with her. Cloud Kicker's constant leering at Fluttershy creeps the hell out of Fluttershy. And as for Rarity's distaste for Cloud Kicker, that's in the WINNINGVERSE canon. (My explanation for it in the SWSV is that Rarity, with her pattern-sensing Talent, intuitively notices something very wrong with the Shadow-Vice-ridden Cloud Kicker).
3817636
My point still stands. It was a huge WTF? moment, and the fact that it is unexplained in previous fics makes it even worse. Just use generic words like "felt something was wrong" or similar ones, then, until you can properly set it up in a way that makes sense.
Don't care. I mean, not even remotely.
As the reader of this fic I come in with certain expectation of what Fluttershy is like, which I get from canon show. If "your Fluttershy" is different - please work to set it up and explain it, dont just bloody spring it on me as a fact.
Granted, if you set it up in your previous fics, I rescind my argument somewhat, but it still counts it as a sin.
And either way, I'd rather read about Hasbro's and Faust's Fluttershy than your ones, since I, as the new reader, am primarily fan of the show, rather than specifically your fanon of it.
I never said that. I said that you seem to have problem with casual sex.
Don't care. Bashing another character from another fic without good reason, by embodiments of Kindness and Generosity is sinfull as all fuck. And there is no good literary reason to bring it in this fic.
No it is not. Rarity actually made a few semi-serious passes at CK before getting on with Applejack in Winningverse.
Just to sum it up - it's cool that you have your own interpretations of characters. I'm not into that stuff, but it's a question of taste, and I'm sure that there are people that will like them. And you are absolutely within your right as an author to set up your variations on canon ponies and their relationships with background ponies, as long as you don't get into "Character in Name Only" territory.
BUT FOR G-D's SAKE SET IT UP BEFOREHAND.
Perhaps it stems from the fact that I did not read it in chronological order, and there are prequels that set things up nicely, but you really, really need to bring in the context and illustrate studd with actions and actual situations. Don't go in and tell me all that shit without any warning, just assuming that through the act of magical telepathy I will somehow know all your convoluted little head-canons.
If you want to bash CK so much - set up a situation where I can see why it's appropriate, don't just out of the blue get character say how much they hate the girl. If you want Fluttershy to be an experimental psychology nerd half-changeling mind-controler for reasons that I cannot begin to fathom, at least have courtesy to explain this shit to me before it is relevant to the plot. And not by just telling it either, but by showing it. Through character actions.
Show, don't tell, and show well in advance, otherwise it is confusing and annoying.
Ugh.
I'm sorry, it sort of came out way more vitriolic and harsh than I intended. But it really pisses me the fuck off to see so much potential and effort wasted entirely through foregoing the basics of literature.