Review #57 - Causality, Tantabus Communication Protocol, Doubts of Silence · 5:21am Feb 18th, 2017
Today, today I have three stories, two of them sequels... enjoy:
Causality by Abalidoth
Tantabus Communication Protocol by Rambling Writer
Doubts of Silence by The Engineer Pony
As always, I will put my down recommendations, but I truly hope that you to make the choice on whether to read a fic or not yourself.
Causality by Abalidoth
(Romance, Slice of Life)
Twilight Sparkle devises a new experiment to test Pinkie's Pinkie Sense. But when the experiment takes an unexpected turn, Twilight must try to understand her feelings for Pinkie and unravel the secrets of Pinkie Sense.
Review
Twilight asks Pinkie Pie for her help with an experiment to determine what the limits of her Pinkie Sense are. To do so, Twilight has assigned each Sense to a letter, using this system, Pinkie Pie gets a message from Twilight asking her out. So they do. After a certain mishap, Pinkie leaves town. Pinkie does eventually come back. That is the most I can go into it without major spoilers.
This one is very much a romance/ slice of life story, though there is a substantial amount of comedy mixed in there as well. Pinkie Pie in this one is mostly accurate to my personal version of her, (meaning more random/ troll and less silly than the show version), except for why she leaves. Sure, Pinkie has been known to overreact a bit, but I just cannot see her doing that. Twilight seems to be... odd... my mind is drawing a blank on how to describe her, but if you have any ideas I will be glad to add them. This one is easy to remember, not only because of the quality of writing, but also because it has so many thematic ideas... I'll list a couple in the Personal Thoughts.
I believe the greatest weakness of this one is how hidden all the meanings are. You either have to "scuba-dive" a bunch, or read it more than once to even catch half of them. And oddly enough, this alone is a testament to the writing prowess of the author, but it can make it feel empty if you don't pay attention to what you're reading.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
Personal Thoughts: Here are some of the thematic ideas I found: Love, Friendship, Forgiveness, Self-depreciation, Fate, Luck, and Trust. These are only a few of the ones found within this fic.
Tantabus Communication Protocol - Rambling Writer
This is a sequel to Aunthood Issues, which I reviewed here.
(Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life)
Pop-cultural investigative reporter Coranto has heard some pretty out-there excuses for rumors. Some were even true. But when castle gossip says Luna has had a baby, and she claims she's created an entity to patrol dreams called the Tantabus, Coranto knows she's smelling a load of hogwash. The idea is absurd. Patently. Never one to let the truth hide, Coranto decides she will get to the bottom of these rumors, and nothing will dissuade her. Not anything Luna says. Not even the Tantabus itself taking an interest in her crusade. ...Wait...
Review
The Tantabus visits a reporter's dream to prove that it exists. After a large amount of comedy and all the pop culture, it works. This is literally all it is.
This one is pure comedy, I don't think there was a single moment where I was not smiling in some way, shape, or form... mostly on the inside. Anyway, the Tantabus is quite like a stereotype 16-year-old-ish/ teenage girl, meaning into pop culture, is very sassy, and has an odd sense of humor. The reporter in this one is, I don't know, like a reporter? Not the annoying kind of reporter, but the kind you see as a main-ish character in a TV show. What is weird, and also a little annoying about this one is that it's almost like one big story, but cut up into smaller parts. This makes it a little hard to find a theme within only one of them because it's more of a story arch, where the there are common themes instead of individual ones. So, yeah... if you don't understand what I'm saying, please inform me.
How is it that I cannot find a weakness worth mentioning? Oh well, I'll go with the piece of a larger puzzle thing I mentioned above.
Recommendation: Recommended, but you need to read the previous fics.
Personal Thoughts: This is a great third part... and it totally leaves room for a fourth. I also love the use of pop culture in the dialogue.
Doubts of Silence by The Engineer Pony
This is a sequel to Sounds of Lunacy, which I reviewed here.
(Comedy, Random, Slice of Life)
Celestia's latest prank against her sister was a resounding success. But now Luna has sworn revenge, and she will stop at nothing to get back at Celestia. For her part, Celestia is confident that nothing Luna has planned can possibly get to her. Well, perhaps one thing.
Review
After a proclamation from Luna that she will have her revenge for the prank Celestia pulled on her, Celestia takes many measures to avoid getting counter pranked all day. But a quick reminder from Twilight informs Celestia of one precaution she hasn't taken.
This one is both a comedy, and a slice of life fic, but with not much randomness in it. Celestia in this one reacts quite like how I imagine she would react to such a threat from Luna, especially considering Luna's enthusiasm about pranks. She takes all the precautions, and even deprives herself of sleep to make sure Luna doesn't get a chance to prank her. Luna definitely fits into my version of her, which is a prankster that actually thinks out the prank, rather than, say, Rainbow Dash in "28 Pranks Later," and a bigger troll than Celestia. This one is sadly empty in terms of literary devices, being that it was made more for comedy and had to sacrifice some other things to do so.
Greatest weakness? Let's go with kinda empty. Not empty in comedy, it has that, but empty in nearly everything else... not to say it does not have quality writing, it does.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you read the prequel.
Personal Thoughs: So, you know how they say the sequel is never as good as the original? This is an example of that.
This is how to write a review.
Notice they don't give the entire plot or spoilers to the story in their review...
4428465
I am seriously NOT attempting to be rude or anything, but are you able to write a better description of the plot without spoiling it?
4428505 yes. Once I'm home we'll go over it.
Should be written like this:
People need to see how you rate a story so 7.15/10 means bullshit. 3/5 for story and grammar (etc.) puts the story into perspective.
your recommendation shouldn't be yes/no. There have to be levels that are preset by you that offer a variety of options that you can tell people that have various tastes in stories compared to yours.
Personal thoughts are meaningless: that's what the review is entirely about; Your personal thoughts!
Keep it short, simple, to the point, and don't tell a single thing about the story that isn't in the description of the tale.
Questions?
4428781
Yes, I do indeed have a question... how would this fit into my newer method? You are using the older one as an example, but such example is irrelevant to the new version.
4428824
It's a good thing you don't write; you're not very creative/adaptive. Yes, that's sarcasm.
Take away the scoring system and you have...
da-da-da-dum...
It's magical! A review with no spoilers and it's in your new format and it makes the story informative to the readers!
Once again, I've edited it so it's grammatically correct and your personal opinion at the end is meaningless because that's what the review is for.
You should have an editor to preread your reviews because, like a story, it's reflective of yourself and your opinions on other peoples' efforts and you don't want backlash for when you review a story.
4429007
I shall take this under consideration as one of the possible mutations to my design.
I know it's meant to be sarcasm, but I can't help but take these words seriously, as they ring with truth.