Paul's Thursday Reviews LIX · 11:52pm Jan 5th, 2017
"Paul? Where have you been? It's like you don't love us anymore! 
"
I assure you, that is not the case. I simply decided that, since I probably wasn't going to get much done anyway over the holidays and it's become abundantly clear I need a break... I took one. No writing for roughly two weeks so far, and I probably won't resume until this weekend. It hasn't been easy, but I've resisted the urge on the theory that the longer I go without, the more drive I'll have when I get back.
I've not been reading much either, but that's because I made sure to get ahead of my reading schedule by over a week so I could take that break guilt-free. Except now I'm back and this was already scheduled as one of those previously mentioned 'workaholic' weeks where I read over 60k words a day.
Speaking of which, I need to get this year's first set of reviews posted pronto so I can finish the last 40k words I need to read today. I'll try to do a proper New Years blog Sunday. For now, reviews!
Stories for This Week:
The Sisters Doo by Ponky
Emoticon by Viking ZX
What Lies Beyond the Dance by Erisn
A Good Girl Never... by Crystal Moose
Enter the Dragon by Kudzuhaiku
Total Word Count: 144,154
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 2
Worth It: 2
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
The Sisters Doo
116,988 Words
By Ponky
I don’t read enough Daring Do. So when I saw a story that ran on the premise of Daring and Derpy (Ditzy in this story) being sisters, how could I ignore it? The concept worked so well in my head. In hindsight, the idea is obvious, but at the same time it felt so novel. Sometimes an idea is so easy it slips right under everyone’s radar.
In The Sisters Doo, we discover that not only are Daring and Ditzy siblings, but that Ditzy was an active participant in all the adventures as Daring’s partner. Alas, the two had a falling out during one of their journeys and haven’t said a word to one another in eight years. Until now: Daring’s run out of material for her books and wants to go on another ‘quest’! Ditzy… isn’t enthusiastic.
To be fair, the story is actually much more complex than that little blurb. We’ve got the truth about Dinky’s father, the kidnapping of the Cake twins, the discovery of multiple alicorns, a smidgen of the history of Celestia and Luna, and the truth behind Tartarus. Underlying all of this is the constant theme of family and, above all else, sisterhood. In this aspect, the story truly shines: the character growth of Ditzy, Daring and Rainbow Dash is worth getting into. Daring in particular is a hard pony to understand, at one moment honest and thoughtful and the next selfish and cruel.
The pacing is fast; you never get bored watching this adventure. Chases with foalnappers, a journey across oceans, emotion-driven races, puzzle solving and dealing with furious alicorns, it never really lets up. I quite enjoyed the speed of the story and consider it one of the highlights.
Ah, but there are issues, some strange. I think the part that most bothered me was in the first half of the story when we go on these weird tangents of Twilight and Pinkie going to Wonderland (in a sense) with no concrete conclusion or the CMC being there just for being there, complete with a needless Scootaloo-centric sideline of her wanting to impress Rainbow. The entire time I read these bits, I couldn’t help but ask why we’re reading this stuff. Granted, these things did throw a few elements into the mix that mattered at the end of the story, but it’s a very unsatisfying, convoluted and shaky methodology employed.
On the plus side, it’s clear that there’s an entire universe at play here, and it’s possible that other stories combine with this one to make a whole. If that’s the case, great! But if it is the case, I don’t see why we have to have so much information at the beginning of the story that doesn’t actually belong in the story. If there’s a whole story centered around it, then we don’t need to see how/why Twilight and Pinkie went through the mirror; that’s what the other story would be for. The author should have stuck to the main characters of this one to avoid confusion and that lingering sense of dissatisfaction.
Despite this and a few other issues, the story is fun, fast and possesses great character growth. Once you get fast the opening stumbles, it really starts to shine. The message is heartfelt, the characters interesting, the worldbuilding decent. While the writing isn’t exactly amazing, it does well enough to hold my attention. All in all, this definitely worth reading and I am glad I gave it a chance. I assure you, I will be reading its partner story.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Emoticon
10,199 Words
By Viking ZX
Sequel to Old Habits
Ah, another Doctor Who crossover.
Shoot me.
I’ve been keeping up with all these little side stories to the Dusk Guard because I like the characters and want to learn more about them. Thus far, Old Habits, The Definition of Strength, and Carry On have all done an exemplary job of that. Emoticon, unfortunately, goes in an entirely different direction.
Focusing on Captain Song this time, the story starts with him trying to figure out what to do with his off day. That gets sidetracked when a familiar hourglass-flanked ‘doctor’ shows up to get him caught in a mini-adventure involving an emotion-eating sprite.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen a few Doctor Who episodes, and I liked them, even if I don’t get the huge phenomenon surrounding the show’s existence. But honestly, this regular desire by people to use the character in their stories is just plain annoying, even if it can be justified by the very nature of his existence. It would be different if these frequent appearances actually had a purpose beyond fan-wanking and contrived salvation, but they almost never do. And in this case?
We learned about Sky Bolt’s PTSD. We learned about Sabra’s crisis of purpose. We learned about Nova’s new direction in life. For Captain Steel? We get a pointless mini-romp that largely focuses on him meeting and being confused by the Doctor. What are we learning here? What’s the big revelation or personal growth for Steel? I fail to see any. The story just… is. Compared to what the others gave us, that’s disappointing. The captain was already one of the least interesting members of his team, and Viking ZX dismissed a solid opportunity to fix that. Oh, there seems to be a little something in there about trying new things or doing the unexpected, but it feels shallow compared to what I know this writer is capable of.
Sorry, Viking ZX, but this one does nothing for me. I came here to learn more about your characters, not watch an overhyped, overused character prance around Canterlot with a sonic screwdriver (let’s see how many followers I lose over that statement!). I won’t be giving this story a negative rating, though, because A) it is well written, as I’ve come to expect, and B) I know a lot of readers out there are going to go gaga and love it based purely on the fact that the Doctor appears in it, regardless of context. But in light of how it delivers nothing at all to the Dusk Guard universe and characters, I can’t in good conscience rate it positively either.
Bookshelf: Worth It
What Lies Beyond the Dance
7,559 Words
By Erisn
Requested by Erisn
While engaged in their epic duel for the past and future of Equestria, Starlight and Twilight end up traveling ‘beyond’ the timestream where time does not exist. There, they discover that Celestia, Discord and Chrysalis are omnipotent gods that constantly create and recreate the world and bet souls on the results. That sums this story up in a nutshell.
My reaction to the three gods and their games came out mixed. For one, I can easily comprehend their interpretation of the situation; when you’re an all-powerful immortal, the concerns of beings whose existence makes up a literal blink of your own is of no consequence. My reaction became far more visceral when I learned that Celestia submitted her own sister – a god like them – to brainwashing and eternal imprisonment in Equestria because Luna had the decency to be offended by their behavior. It’s one thing to manipulate the lives of ants – relatively speaking – but another to do it to your equals. Despite all the blatant evil at work here, this revelation was the one and only thing that stoked my ire.
This story is interesting at the very least, but also utterly predictable for the majority. The writing is okay, but issues arise when the gods are reverted to talking heads for some 1,000 words with very little means of determining who is saying what. Even personality is no aid since all three (except perhaps Discord) are blatantly, intentionally OOC. There’s also some ironic issues with continuity, such as when Discord declares that he never imagined a mere pony could break through the walls of time only to later remind his fellow gods that he warned them a pony might do so ages ago.
Despite these issues, I enjoyed the story, particularly since it cast a curious light on Starlight’s plans in the series, albeit in an indirect way. It brings up potential consequences and ideas for how Starlight (the clear protagonist at the end) might undo the evil that is ongoing. It’s clear that success is possible given what is seen, so the possibilities for the future of this universe are great. the question now is whether or not that universe will ever expand.
Bookshelf: Worth It
A Good Girl Never...
6,987 Words
By Crystal Moose
Re-Read
All the girls have eyes on a stallion or two, and on one sleepover, the subject has come up with no small eagerness among most of the participants. There’s just one problem: Applejack doesn’t have her eye on anypony. At all.
Now how could that be?
This is an admittedly emotional story about a filly who looks at things a little bit differently from the others. This might not be so bad if her parents weren’t old fashioned. Led to believe that there’s something wrong with her, Applejack grows up trying to be a ‘good girl’ by the standards of the family. When push comes to shove, however, she comes to learn just how far her parents’ convictions go.
The first thing you have to accept about this story: Crystal Moose wrote the vast majority of it from Applejack’s perspective… complete with accent. That’s right, there’s tons of funny pony talk ya’ll gotta deal with to get through this, complete with ‘mah’ and all the things you civilized, upright, normal-sounding folk ain’t gonna approve of none. Bun’cha yanks. If having to wade through the accent is a problem for you, you might as well move on.
In Crystal Moose’s defense, I felt the accent was lightly done enough to be readily understandable, but I also know there are some out there who freak out at the tiniest hint of a written accent, so it bears mentioning.
Beyond that, the story on the whole is pretty good, effectively showing the ups and downs of Applejack’s life and why it is her’ views’ are kept secret from her friends. I can see some people becoming infuriated by the events, especially considering the general audience of FIMFiction. The story is tragic and effectively written for that purpose.
However...
I think the entire setting has to be ‘accepted’ from the get-go. This is a bit of headcanon getting in the way, so make of it what you will, but all the signs I’ve ever read point to Equestria being a strongly liberal nation, at times to a fault. Add to that the fact that it appears there’s a much larger number of mares than stallions, which I would think invites the acceptance of marexmare relationships (what that means for stallionxstallion relations is an entirely different can of worms). From this perspective, I find it hard to fathom an Equestria where this kind of scene could realistically play out, and that bugged me from beginning to end.
Provided this doesn’t bug you though, I see no reason not to recommend this story. It’s well written (accent notwithstanding) and definitely worth getting into.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Enter the Dragon
2,421 Words
By Kudzuhaiku
Sequel to Trixie Lulamoon and the Horrendous Hypothesis
Well, not so much a sequel as a spinoff story, but whatever.
In this very short story, Twilight and Spike have been given a dragon egg after a band of treasure hunters killed an entire family of dragons for their hoard. Spike and Twilight contemplate what to do with the egg while sharing a little heart-to-heart. That’s it. Story’s over. You can go home now.
I’m all for stories that expand upon the relationship of Twilight and Spike. This one makes an attempt, and I applaud that. The emotions between the two characters are strong enough in context to feel appropriate and might even make you feel a little something, provided you’re really into them.
But therein lies the problem: Enter the Dragon skips all the tedious setup, character building and scene preparation in favor of jumping right into the ‘good stuff.’ With no time to grasp the situation or the implications of it, the emotional impact feels… hollow. The end result is that this feels less like a compelling story and more like a “Oh, and before you read the real sequel, here’s a bridge to explain why there’s a new dragon around.”
Which, of course, is exactly what this is.
It doesn’t help that the story is both telly and explain-y in one heavy dose.
Overall, this did very little for me. Yeah, it tried to give some heavy TwilightxSpike friendshipping, but only the bare basics of that, which have appeared in practically every SpikexTwilight friendshipping/sibling/parent-son story ever conceived. Sorry, Kudzu, but you’ll need more than that to get my interest.
…
I’m still gonna be reading Princess Twilight’s School for Fantastic Foals when it’s finished.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
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aka "Paul LIX fanfics" :V
Just a quick note about The Sisters Doo: there really were other fics that went with it. The Twilight and Pinkie thing is a set up for the sequel/spin-off, and the CMC thing was supposed to be its own story, but the author never wrote it (ShortSkirtsAndExplosions ended up writing that story, I think, but I don't know how that went). Still, I agree that it took a little too much precedence in the original story and feel like awkward hooks put there for the sake of setting up a sequel.
I can completely understand this. I remember when almost every story I tried to read had at least a reference to, if not some sort of interference from, the Doctor and it just grew on my nerves. The same thing happened with Pinkie's 4th wall breaking and Lyra's human/hands obsession.
I never really understood this mindset. Hearts and Hooves Day showed us that there are plenty of stallions, they just don't appear as often(tho the show has gotten much better at this.), most likely because it was just easier on the art team to reuse the same stock background characters of which they had more females than males due to the target audience.
Of course I might be biased on this...
Ok, I am biased on this.
Hey hey, you finally found one that you didn't like! And it was because of ... The Doctor?
Well, to each their own.
However, I think you let your distaste for the character pull you enough out of the story that you did indeed miss the development with Steel, which he flat out discusses with Dawn in the opening. He's worried that while he's a decent uncle and a great soldier, he'll make a lousy parent, in part because of all the skills that make him a good soldier. Cut to the end, where he solves a problem The Doctor can't solve precisely by confronting his exact worry and overcoming it and exercising the care and trust a parent does. The Doctor only presents the problem—Steel is the one who solves it. EDIT: Steel also initially makes things worse by falling back on that exact soldier skillset, it being exactly the wrong recourse for the situation.
That said, I can understand your distaste for fan element of something you're not a fan of (though it should be pointed out that this is fanfiction) pulling you away from it, as a few other readers were likewise very opposed to the idea of the Doctor showing up at all. But is it worth pointing out that there is a very clear "Character has this dilemma, character confronts dilemma, character overcomes, and character learns something" arc to the story. After all, it wouldn't be a good whovian crossover if it didn't have that little arc of growth. It sounds like your dislike for the Doctor was enough that you completely sidestepped the main plot, however, in the urge to get through things.
EDIT: I am not trying to change your opinion of the Doctor's inclusion, or jockeying for a better rating. Your rating is your rating, that's fine. I simply wanted to clear up a bit of a misconception on something that you missed, since it is an important part of Steel's character arc.
4371337
In truth, I'm glad you spoke up, because I figured the lesson was there and I'd just missed it.
But I still think the presence of the Doctor hurt the story overall. The major draw of this story should be Steel and the continuation of the Dusk Guard universe. Yet the Doctor himself, even while not the central character, becomes the central draw of the story by default and thus invites misinterpretations like my own. People who see this story will always think "Doctor Whooves!" before "Dusk Guard" even starts whispering in the back of their minds, unless they just don't know who the Doctor is (and really, what rock on what cold, dark planet are they living on for that to happen?).
The Doctor is, at best, a giant distraction from what is supposed to be the important part of this story. I might think differently if the Dusk Guard series was rife with crossover material as a major feature, but it's not.
Happy new year Paul! *throws confetti*
Great job with the reviews as always!
P.S. Glad to see that you finally took that break!