The Hat Man Reviews: "Obsession" · 4:25am Mar 22nd, 2017

Recently, I got a request from Unclever Hans to be a pre-reader for his story in light of my occasional reviews.

While I turned them down in that respect, I did agree to write a review of their story, "Obsession," mostly out of morbid curiosity. It has the distinction of being the first M-rated fic I've reviewed on this blog and an ultra-rare Human-In-Equestria story. Many of you may already be familiar with my disdain for HiE stories, but I decided in good faith to give this story a shot, in particular because Hans seemed eager for some feedback to make their story better.

So, let's dive into...

"Obsession" by Unclever Hans

Still here? Okay, short version: I didn't care for it.

Want the long version? Then strap yourself in.

Here's the description:

Description
Pegasister Margaret Beerli dreams of the "Canterlot Wedding" scenario, but Twilight Sparkle never rescues Cadenza. Does Margaret ever stop the changeling queen, or does she just embarrass herself?

Yes, the description starts with the word "Description" in all bold lettering.

Beyond that, the description is pretty good: it's short, to the point, and adequately describes the story.

To add a bit more detail, the story focuses on a girl named Margaret who repeatedly finds herself in the wedding scene at the end of the 2-parter "A Canterlot Wedding," apparently as part of a dream sequence given to her by Princess Luna, with the intention of taking down Chrysalis better than she was in the actual episode. Specifically, with guns!

Now, here's the weird thing... this story is, in every single way, a comedy. Here are the tags:

Gore | Alternate | Universe | Dark | Human | Random

Notice something? No Comedy tags. This troubles me because this story never really attempts to be anything but a dark comedy. Unless it's not supposed to be funny, in which case... yikes.

This question of genre is actually pretty relevant, but before I get back into that, let's discuss the story itself.

I think we can split it up into three parts: the introduction, the first chapter, and all the other chapters. The introduction, in its entirety, reads thusly:

Once, in the southern port city of Wilmington, there lived two inseparable twins from Ticino. One was named Martis, a child of Mars, and the other was comely Margherita Maria—better known among close friends as "Margaret."
Come March of 2016, Margaret had found herself a victim of mundanity. Whether practicing for first chair flute, whether working on her game for junior varsity tennis, whether studying for College Board examinations, or whether trolling Mexican migrants by speaking Italian, every day of her freshman year of high school kept her busy. Finding respite wherever she could, since school had ruined literature, she turned to animation.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic had been on Margaret's radar for years, but it was not until the previous Christmas that Margaret had finally watched the show for herself. Put simply, the ponies had her hooked; their adventures, their slice of life exploits, and the magic of their friendship had enchanted her. Her love for the show was so great that she had binged it, just as she once binged her favorite novels.
Eventually, however, the next semester started, and Margaret had returned to her grind. It was not until Margaret’s spring break that she would once again return to the land of Equestria...

There are numerous rules for starting any story, but chief among them is "Have a great opening to capture readers' interest." This... is not a great example. Allow me to break down some problems:

Once, in the southern port city of Wilmington, there lived two inseparable twins from Ticino. One was named Martis, a child of Mars,

-First off, what the fk does that mean?! (And rest assured... Martis has appearances in the story, and there is nothing about him being a secret Martian.)
-Next, there's something about this "lemony narrator" style that doesn't jive well with the rest of the story. It feels pretentious to me and, if it doesn't to you, well... the rest of the story doesn't quite have the same feel.
-And then there's this:

Whether practicing for first chair flute, whether working on her game for junior varsity tennis, whether studying for College Board examinations, or whether trolling Mexican migrants by speaking Italian,

Welp, there goes any chance of sympathizing with Margaret.

Now, after this, in the first chapter, Margaret has a dream about being in "A Canterlot Wedding" and its titular wedding scene wherein she and her brother witness Chrysalis revealing herself (not that way) without Twilight and Cadance returning from the crystal caves. This first chapter involves Celestia getting fking beheaded followed by Margaret and her brother likewise meeting violent deaths at the hooves of Chrysalis. Again, it's all a dream.

The next chapter introduces the idea of Princess Luna entering Margaret's dream to discuss this rather unfavorable scenario and planning how they can change it.

From that point forward, the series establishes itself as a dark comedy: Margaret keeps trying again and again to beat Chrysalis and achieve a more favorable outcome. Each chapter shows how she fails miserably. It's very much in what I like to call the "Wile E. Coyote" style of humor. In other words, you know the Coyote isn't going to catch the Roadrunner, but the fun is in watching how he fails... and, similarly, Margaret isn't going to kill Chrysalis, but the fun is in watching how she fails.

In all fairness... that's not a bad concept. And some parts of the story after that actually are a little funny. I also greatly appreciate that it's a deconstruction of the trope of "Human in Equestria" fics where the humans solve everything with guns; again, that's not a bad concept!

But there are a few problems:
1) It's not labelled as a "Comedy," so the expectations for the story aren't right.
2) Because it's not labeled as a comedy, the opening just feels pretentious, which is a huge turnoff. If I'd known it was trying to be funny, it might have been more palatable.
3) By far the biggest problem: by the time you get to the rest of the chapters in this Wile E. Coyote plot, you realize one inescapable fact - it's not funny.

The problem isn't within the antics, but rather that the later chapters rely on references and they are not very obvious. In one chapter, Margaret brings in someone named "Wild Bill" Okazaki... and I don't know who that is. Another features Anthony C and Tommy Oliver, two old-school brony commentators, who I do know, but it took me a bit of time to remember them, and the fic takes no time to help readers who may not be that knowledgeable. Another mentions Janice Compton and another time she enlists the aid of Armand Farrokhzad. Again, who the fk are they?!

Between me constantly asking that last question, the uncomfortable anti-feminist jokes, and Luna's weird gun fetish (seriously, why does "gun fetish Luna" keep coming up in fics I review?!), the experience of reading this story became increasingly grating.

I forget who said it, but I recall someone stating that you can forgive bad drama or bad horror or things like that because they can be entertaining in their own right... but there is just nothing worse than bad comedy, nothing so galling as to watch or read something that you know is supposed to make you laugh and failing. That's the real problem with this story: it's a comedy that doesn't identify itself as one and then fails to be funny. All it manages to be is confusing.

Still, I am trying to be constructive and some compliments are due:
-The story is written well on a technical level. I couldn't find any errors, and the prose flows easily and without any awkwardness.
-As I said, some parts of the story are actually pretty funny. Hans posted what I thought was one of the funnier scenes in a blog post, if you want to read it.
-Lastly, as I said, the idea behind the story is a decent one. If it actually managed to be less confusing and just be, well, funny, then it could potentially be a really good read.

My point is that Unclever Hans may have written a bad story, but I don't think they're a bad author. The story has had obvious effort applied to it and from reading the blog posts, I can tell that they are introspective enough to realize some of their errors. What I would advise Hans to do is simple and good advice for any struggling writer: keep trying and keep improving.

Anyone should. Goodness knows I will.