Paul's Thursday Reviews LI · 10:20pm Oct 13th, 2016
Well crud. Between editing/pre-reading for people, dealing with files that refuse to save properly, being demotivated because of that last one, visiting relatives and anything else I'm forgetting, I haven't done much writing this week. I am disappointed with myself. I've finished my editing responsibilities for now, so maybe I can churn something out over the coming weekend. I hope so, because for the next two weeks I'll be working 11-hour days so I can take that little vacation without actually losing any pay – I only have to lose one day of full time hours to be in the red for the month, and want to avoid that as much as possible.
Things are looking up, though. Fallout 4 is losing it's grip on my feeble mind. The longer I go without, the more the urge to write eats away at me, so I imagine this won't be going on for much longer. I'm still debating on what short story I should write, though...
Anyway, enough of that lameness. Reviews!
Stories for This Week:
Burning Day Brethren by Cerulean Voice (Re-Read)
Handmade by Grand_Moff_Pony (Patreon Accelerated Review!)
Freeze Frame by ToixStory (Re-Read)
First Date by Harmony Charmer (Re-Read)
It's Been a While by VashTheStampede (Recommended by CoffeeMinion)
Legality Abnormality by alexmagnet (Re-Read)
Total Word Count: 210,797
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 4
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
Burning Day Brethren
4,078 Words
By Cerulean Voice
Re-Read
Well, this was interesting. The first time I read this was as a favor, and I was curious to see how the story would stand up to the test of time.
In Burning Day Brethren, Cerulean combines three fandoms into one: MLP, Harry Potter and Pokémon. Now, unlike a great many people I’ve known over the years, I have absolutely zero interest in Pokémon and tend to ignore it whenever it comes up for any reason. But I am a Harry Potter fan (or rather, a Hermione Granger fan), so that puts things 2-of-3 in this story’s favor. But in this instance, we’re not focusing on the more famous and well known of the characters from each franchise.
Instead, we have three phoenixes meeting for the first time: Philomina, Fawkes and the legendary Pokémon Ho-oh. In this universe, when a phoenix gathers too many memories for its mind to safely cope with, it dies and enters the ‘Unbecoming,’ the land between life and death, where a sacred bath will cleanse their minds of unwanted memories before they make their decision to go back or ‘move on.’ Usually, it is a lonely experience, but this time they have company in one another.
I think your individual enjoyment of this story depends largely upon individual expectations. There’s really not much of a purpose behind this story except to have three phoenixes meet. If you’re cool with that, then you’ll enjoy this. If you’re looking for more substance, you’ll likely be disappointed. Of course, if you just want to see your favorite birds chatting, this is your story.
Cerulean gains points for giving each phoenix a distinct personality, aided significantly by their individual backstories. Even more appropriate is how you don’t really need to know those backstories to ‘get’ each character. One of the biggest challenges of any crossover is winning over the people who know nothing about the source material, and I think the author did that wonderfully here.
If I had to point out any one major flaw, it would be that the story begins with an information dump. As I’ve often said, there are far better ways than exposition to teach us the lessons of a given world. Cerulean utilizes exposition frequently for this story, but it only gets overdone in the opening bit, so I suppose it’s not that big a deal.
Although I would have preferred the story to have a bit more ‘purpose’, I enjoyed this. I suppose it works well as a starter for the sequel, although I’m reasonably sure said sequel wasn’t intended at the time of this story’s writing. For what it is, though, I am pleased.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Handmade
3,098 Words
By Grand_Moff_Pony
Patreon Accelerated Review
GMP is a friend of mine, and we’ve helped one another out a few times in the past. He’s also the only one who ever takes advantage of my PARs. In this instance, we have a story about a toy that’s come to life… but not.
Handmade isn’t a ponified version of Toy Story. It’s more akin to, say, The Velveteen Rabbit (and I bet you whippersnappers have no idea what I’m referring to). It centers around the creation of a Pinkie plush, except that in this case, the Pinkie plush is aware of itself. It feels pain, warmth and cold, thinks for itself, has dreams and longings. But it’s still just a plush, forced to live its existence forever in one place, unless someone comes along to interact with it. Naturally, Plushie lives for moments like those.
While I wouldn’t call this story creative or unique, it certainly delivers on its premise. I could hear Pinkie’s voice in my head as she reflected on her existence, the way the world interacted with her, and why the chaotic and confusing things were happening. It gives a quiet appreciation of the character, taking its time to let you get to know the plush’s views and personality. For those of you with more vivid imaginations, this can be a real treat. It takes a certain skill to make someone care for something that can’t speak or even move, but GMP pulled it off.
I’ve never had a plush. The closest thing I have to compare this to is my figurine of Odin Sphere’s Gwendolyn, one of the only fan items I’ve ever been pleased to acquire. This story makes me feel guilty that all she does is stand on a shelf looking pretty. As such, I am glad to see that our dear Plushie has found an owner who will do more for her.
This story is well written, effectively paced, and entirely endearing, and I’m glad to have read it.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Freeze Frame
191,213 Words
By ToixStory
Re-read
Freeze Frame was one of the first major stories I read. Well, major in terms of word count. I’m still annoyed that the author cancelled the sequel, which I really wanted to read. But now, after so many years, it’s time to see if the story holds up to my new standards.
Taking place roughly 30 years after the events of the show (but only accounting for up to the Season 2 finale), Freeze Frame focuses on the pegasus Minty Flower, a small town pony hoping to make it big as a reporter in the city of Fillydelphia. Sadly, she finds herself hired on as a photographer instead and paired with infamous reporter Grapevine Lulamoon, who is on a personal quest to ruin the career and life of Fillydelphia’s corrupt Mayor Pullmare.
Rather than being one big story, Freeze Frame covers six different ‘episodes,’ each a story of its own that tackles entirely different topics while building off the ones before. The result is a gradual evolution of Minty’s character, taking her from bumbling sidekick to, by the end of the story, standing tall on her own abilities.
This has its advantages, most notably a clear and effective story direction that makes everything easy to follow without sacrificing emotional impact or character development. It also gives the events great pacing, letting us flow from one story to the next seamlessly. It does, however, mean that events play out in an entirely sequential manner, and the constant streaming of highly unlikely events surrounding just this one pony makes it all seem a touch unrealistic. I don’t particularly mind that issue, though.
The characters are a shining aspect of this story, with each having his or her own background and quirks. From the donkey Joya, who has all the skills of Rarity but none of the pomp, to the excitable Starshine and her tendency to go overboard, each character adds an extra flavor to the tale. My favorite is still Marshmallow Blueblood, who proves with every single appearance that she’s the most interesting, intelligent, useful and grounded character in the story. Seriously, that mare is awesome in so many ways.
Still, the story has its fair share of problems. The most notable is, in fact, a flaw in the episodic nature of it. It’s hard to put a finger on the technology level of Equestria in this story, as it seems to jump around from episode to episode to fit the ongoing requirements. Through most of the story, our characters are riding around in steam-driven cars and pony-drawn carts; then we get to the last episode and a couple of inventors have made the Equestrian equivalent of a Chevrolet Impala convertible – or ‘Great Red Shark’ as Minty likes to call it – and are driving all over the San Palomino, which somehow has a modern, paved roadway. This kind of thing is compounded by the early image of Fillydelphia having the technological appearance of, say, the late industrial revolution but having completely modern suburbs complete with supermarkets and chain stores.
You want to enjoy this story? Try not to think too hard on it.
Another thing I find questionable is the blatant swiping of concepts from popular, modern stories. The last episode takes elements from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (this is where the Great Red Shark comes in), and another pulls scenes and ideas from The Warriors. Having not seen the source material myself, I cannot say how much has been taken from these sources or even if I know everything from which ToixStory took ‘inspiration.’ It could be just a scene that is disturbingly similar, or maybe the entire story is taken directly from the source material, I have no idea.
Part of me wants to cut ToixStory some slack. The events do work wonderfully for the overall story, and I’m sure we’ve all taken at least a little from other sources at one point or another. But these events lacked any subtlety at all, at times even throwing the fact that the scenes are being taken from other sources into the reader’s face – and that didn’t sit well for me. I feel that it’s okay to borrow from what others have done before, but I also feel that it’s important to at least try to distance your work from that source enough to not make it feel like outright theft, and these events walked brazenly over that line.
On a more subjective note, I didn’t care for the steady removal of major characters. Grapevine, herself a solidly interesting individual, starts off as one of the main stars of this story, only to gradually fade until she’s more or less gone from the story by episode five. Many of the characters suffer from this to some degree or another, which struck me as a real shame. I can’t consider this to be a big deal for everyone, however, because I recognize what ToixStory is doing: this is a story about Minty Flower, and as she starts to strike out on her own she’s going to become independent of the characters who carried her along from the start. The gradual fading of characters like Grapevine, then, is both to be expected and accepted.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
But in the entire story, there’s really only one place that ToixStory truly screwed up, and that is in the defeat of the villain in Episode 2. Here we have a monstrous pony who is willing to commit every misdeed in the book, including torture and mass murder, with a grin on her face and her brother as one of the victims. And how is she defeated?
She sees her face in the mirror.
I’m sorry, but you will never convince me that people like this can be defeated through the sudden arrival of a conscience. It is, in a word, bullshit. But I won’t dwell on it too much.
Freeze Frame is one of those stories that does a number of things well, but has enough questionable decisions and mistakes to keep it from rising above the rest. While I loved the characters and the pacing was excellent, the number of downsides end up balancing them out. That said, I’d be happy to read more. I’d like to see the sequel de-cancel-ified, even if only to see more of Marshmallow being awesome.
Bookshelf: Worth It
First Date
5,710 Words
By Harmony Charmer
Re-Read
I haven’t seen the well-known Button Mash fan videos, but it’s hard for anyone to not be familiar with the guy. I rather like him; he reminds me of a more extreme version of myself as a kid. In this story – the first in a small series of SweetieMash tales – Button has decided that he needs to do the single most important of heroic feats: get the princess. To this end, he departs to ask Sweetie Belle out on a date.
There’s only one word to describe this story, and that’s ‘cute.’ SweetieMash fans and shippers in general are bound to get a kick out of this one as Button stumbles through asking his princess out, enjoying their first date together and defending her against her tormentors, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Harmony Charmer ups the ante a bit by making it clear that Diamond has eyes for the gaming nerd as well, which makes their ‘final confrontation’ all the better.
There are a few catches, none of them serious. I think the part that annoyed me most was that Harmony Charmer makes no attempt to ponify the games Button plays. Mario, Zelda, pretty much all the major names mentioned in the story are kept to reality, which plants a big hole in the story’s believability, especially since there’s no explanation behind this aspect of it.
But ignoring that odd issue (and a few painful typos), I had nothing but fun with this one. Button’s floundering was entertaining and only made his ‘heroic’ moment more worthwhile, and while I honestly don’t see Sweetie getting with somepony like him, the shipper in me had far too much fun to care. This entertained me just as much as the last time, and I’m happy to keep it right where it’s always been.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
It's Been a While
2,629 Words
VashTheStampede provided no cover art.
Recommended by CoffeeMinion
Upon reading this story, I came away from it with a miffed feeling. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. So before writing this review, I left my computer and did a few things, biding my time to really think on the issue. Sitting down now, I think I’ve got it figured out.
It’s Been a While tells of Berry Punch, a ‘professional alcohol connoisseur’ living with/freeloading off of her sister, Cheerilee. We learn that Berry is a single mother, and a surprisingly good one considering her love of the bottle. We also find out just where her daughter came from, which involves a Canterlot party, a Royal Guard and lots of booze from Celestia’s private stock. So the question comes to mind: what happened to the father?
Technically speaking, there is nothing wrong with this story: good grammar, solid formatting, consistent style. But stories don’t get by on their ‘technical’ aspects alone; there’s an underlying emotional requirement, and it is here that VashTheStampede stumbles. Simply put, It’s Been a While is too condensed, too fast and too direct to achieve the emotional goal it sets upon itself.
There are some readers out there who can see “the dog died” and will shed a tear. I am not one of those readers. Emotion requires a lot of things: proper setting, mood development, pacing and, above all else, character attachment. This story fails to achieve nearly any of them.
Who is Berry Punch and Ruby Pinch, other than a couple side characters that only a very few MLP fans strongly care about? This isn’t Derpy or Octavia or even Golden Harvest, and there isn’t much in the way of a mass following or appreciation of Berry Punch beyond amusement at her potential drunken antics (unless there’s some big Berry subculture fanbase I’m entirely unaware of). VashTheStampede tells us of the things that happened, but without taking the time to really help us get to know Berry or her royal guard, where’s the attachment? It’s just not there. Heck, we don’t even learn the guy’s name.
The result is a story that comes out as “this happened, then this happened, then this happened” in a rapidfire stream of events that give us no time to take it in, much less feel overwhelmed emotionally. I think that, in order to achieve the results the author intended in the wordcount we have, this story should have been handled in a very different way, perhaps with only a single scene. Two at most.
As the sad aspect is obviously meant to be the main draw, I am unimpressed. Since there are no other factors present to draw attention to it, I’m afraid this story doesn’t hold my interest.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Legality Abnormality
4,068 Words
By alexmagnet
Re-Read
If there’s one thing every fanfic writer knows, it’s that immortality is bad. Today, however, we are going to be visiting a very different definition of that concept.
In Legality Abnormality, Twilight is gathering books at the Royal Canterlot Library when she comes upon Insane Edicts: A Legal History of Equestria. Twilight being Twilight, she promptly jumps in. What she finds are snippets of history in which her mentor made some questionable legal decisions, questionable enough that even Twilight finds the whole thing a bit over the top.
Cake ventriloquism, moon madness, baked goods shortages and other shenanigans abound. The cause of these brief bouts of insanity are never confirmed by the story – although near-fatal boredom is strongly suggested in one. For my part, I just take it as ‘living forever will eventually drive anyone to temporary bouts of looniness.’
Regardless of the why, this was an entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable little read. There’s not much to it other than being made to make you smile, but in that effort I think it works wonderfully. Now if only there was a sequel to indicate the aftermath.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
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Hey, I've read one of these! "Legality Abnormality" was fun and funny, but what bugged me most is how incredibly stupid Celestia is at the end. She's managed to outmaneuver the government this long, and when Twilight comes up with a copy of the book, Celestia doesn't do anything to destroy it. She throws it in some random direction, then doesn't follow up and make sure it met its end. Of course someone else is going to find it, and she is the biggest idiot among all idiots to leave it at that.
The Velveteen Rabbit! I had that book as a little kid! :D
...I remember it made me feel sad. And I would read it with my bunny plush named Erika. Maybe that's why. XD
Thanks for the review, Paul! I'm glad you enjoyed the story.
You and Fallout are having a falling out?
Not even one plushie? No obviously-sewn-but-strangely-lifelike eyes staring down at you from a shelf, silently judging your every action?
"Cake ventriloquism" accurately sums up why I found Legality Abnormality so absurdly funny. 4254483 is absolutely right about the ending, though. I think it would've been perfectly entertaining to watch modern day Celestia scorched-earth-destory the book, the shelf it was on, the books it was next to, any latent memory of its existence within a five mile radius, etc.