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PaulAsaran


Technical Writer from the U.S.A.'s Deep South. Writes horsewords and reviews. New reviews posted every other Thursday! Writing Motto: "Go Big or Go Home!"

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Jul
20th
2017

Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXI · 9:59pm Jul 20th, 2017

It's that time again, folks! I was going to do a plug for this blog, but alas, I haven't finished that which I aim to plug. I'm not about to point at something and say "This is awesome!" when I haven't seen the ending yet, y'know?

Going to keep it short today. I'm in the middle of back-to-back-to-back weeks of workaholic levels of reading in order to keep up with these blogs, which is leaving me precious little time to do my own writing. I need to save every writing opportunity I have. But the good news is that I've got a reading vacation week coming up right before my birthday in August, so I'll be able to catch up on lost time then, and right after I aim to go back to my normal reading levels.

Enough chit-chat, let's do some reviews! We've got a mixed bag with this set, folks.

Stories for This Week:

You Are Normal Too. by Never2muchpinkie
Apotheosis by Daetrin
Swooty Bell Adventures by Protopony350
Indigo Hooves by xjuggernaughtx
The Color of Dreams by Donnys Boy
Stitch by adcoon
Total Word Count: 196,632

Rating System

Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 2
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 0
None: 1


So, here’s my thought process: How a Pie Became a Cake was decent in concept but poor in delivery. But I’m the type of naïve fool who believes in the idea that authors can improve over time. I figured maybe this one would be better, in spite of the fact that the author made the grave error of punctuating the title. Well…

In You Are Normal Too., we find single mother Derpy struggling to make ends meet and having fooled herself into thinking she’s happy with the way things are. An age-indeterminate Dinky knows better and, after learning that her father was the king of all assholes, decides to make things better for her. Her solution? Get Dr. Hooves to ask Derpy out on a date!

The story is decent enough in premise, especially with the ongoing battle of self esteem Derpy faces throughout. In ways, Derpy’s character is nicely played out. She has mental scars from her foalhood that go a bit deeper than just being bullied for having weird eyes, and those scars haunt her more and more as the story moves on. A nice aspect is that, while Derpy’s eye problem is one part of her old troubles, it’s not even close to the most important. Derpy is, by far and large, the single most interesting aspect of this story.

But problems abound. There’s the needlessly dense writing style, which takes extrapolation to its most dire extremes. For every action you see, you can expect multiple paragraphs detailing the importance of those actions, and then you can expect the details of such actions and their importance to be repeated to you in a later scene or chapter again. And again. And again. And again. Because clearly, you’re not smart enough to get it the first time.

This stems from Never2muchpinkie’s core issue: a seemingly desperate need to force the emotion out of every scene. With this in mind, we get constant explanations of how characters feel, why they feel that why, the potential implications of those feelings, how they are physically reacting to those feelings, and dialogue THAT USES ALL CAPS BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS TO SCREAM ABOUT THINGS ANY TIME THEY’RE EVEN MILDLY UPSET.

And then there’s the tears. Sweet Celestia, the tears! Got dumped? Cry. Got bullied? Cry. Got into a fight? Cry. Told your deepest, darkest secret? Cry. Stubbed your toe in the shower? Cry. Burned some pancakes? Cry. Hugged somepony? Cry. Sun’s shining and the skies are blue? Cry.

You think I’m exaggerating. Not by near as much as you expect.

Never2muchpinkie, you’re trying too hard. You don’t get readers to feel emotion by shoving it down their throats at every available opportunity. Pace it out. Save the waterworks for the moments that actually deserve it. Don’t tell us every tiny thing the characters are thinking with every bit of dialogue that goes by. You’ve got to learn to do things in moderation. And for pity’s sake, don’t use all caps to emphasize anything that isn’t meant to be someone shrieking at the top of their lungs (and even then I wouldn’t do it, because written out screams and shouts look amateur at best).

And, as you mentioned before, yes, the monologuing is bad here. It’s another way to crush the emotional impact of a scene, and you’ve got it all over the place. Heck, there’s a section in the three part ‘finale’ with a monologue over 900 words long , and I didn’t feel anything out of it. It doesn’t help that said monologue does nothing except recount everything the audience just spent 80,000 words reading about.

Which brings me to another point: the dialogue. It felt, for lack of better terminology, plastic and fake. At no point in the story did any character speak in a way that people actually speak to one another. It was all covered in lengthy declarations, needless explanations, frustrating repeats of previously established knowledge, and canned lines that felt as though they’d been ripped from the script of a soap opera.

A conversation is a fluid thing. People interrupt one another, pause to think, ask questions with the expectation of receiving answers, so on and so forth. We don’t live in a world where everyone waits politely for someone else to finish a lengthy speech before deciding to put their two cents in. I’m sure somebody out there is making the counterargument that the story takes place in Equestria, but that’s no excuse for writing something that the Earth-dwelling, very much real human audience can’t relate to.

Couple that with the character of Dinky, whose age is impossible to pin down. Sometimes she’s childishly silly and cute, other times she’s a mature adult. Somehow this is a pony who doesn’t understand the ‘big pony’ subjects, and yet is perfectly capable of discussing sex, psychological trauma, and the need for self respect. Her mental maturity is all over the spectrum, changing wildly from scene to scene with no rhyme or reason. There’s an attempt in one chapter to wave this away as her being mature for her age but being a kid when she can, but that just doesn’t fly with how things are handled. If Dinky’s supposed to be a mature pony, don’t give us mental clues from her perspective suggesting she’s a silly, ignorant child. You can’t change a character’s personality whenever it suits the current needs of the story.

The next issue is entirely subjective, so feel free to ignore it: the finale. It involved the princesses. Why does it involve the princesses? Twilight I can understand; I imagine officiating at weddings is something she’d do on occasion, even if it’s typically Mayor Mare’s role. But the others? It felt as if they were being thrown in offhand as a cheap gimmick, forcing Derpy’s wedding to be something bigger than it needed to be. They have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with this story, so why bring them in now?

Derpy had her happy ending, and she got it on her own in a normal fashion. By throwing royalty in there, all you’ve really done is detracted from her personal victory. This is a story about normal, everyday ponies, and it should have remained that way.

To be honest, this is a story I struggled with. A dense and overly extrapolative writing style, weak dialogue, questionable plot decisions, nonstop and abusively overdone attempts at emotion, and enough tears to fill the Atlantic. Derpy herself may have been interesting as a character, but in every other aspect I was not just unimpressed, I was downright frustrated.

Bookshelf: None


Apotheosis

46,300 Words
By Daetrin

Off the Edge of the Map is another one of those stories I read back when I wasn’t shortlisting sequels, and so it took me an eternity to get here. Which is a shame, because the person who recommended this series to me actually recommended Apotheosis, which I declined to read at the time in favor of its predecessor. Geez, but it takes ages to get through my RiL…

Anyway, in Apotheosis, Luna and Twilight are sent by Celestia to the dragon lands to act as diplomats. When they get there, however, the dragon king Scar tricks them into entering a magical chamber that teleports them to a strange world unlike any either of them have ever known. Now Luna and Twilight must figure out how to get back to their own world… even as Luna battles with her own sense of failure.

While this story is framed as an adventure, its real focus is Luna’s psychological healing with Twilight as an impromptu therapist. That part of the equation is neither new or unusual, but Daetrin worked it well enough, I suppose. Fans of either Depressed Luna or Naive Twilight will delight in their characterizations as Luna constantly rips herself apart and Twilight maintains a ceaseless optimism (to the point of nearly being annoying about it). These interpretations are well known, and Daetrin plays them off one another nicely in the overall.

Of course, the real draw is the worldbuilding. But whereas the prior story focused on exploring the lands beyond Equestria, Apotheosis explores a land metaphorical and mythological, complete with its own demonic entities, locales and gods from Luna’s distant past. In a sense, it’s much more an exploration of Luna than of a world, as the two are intrinsically linked from beginning to end.

It’s clear that Daetrin learned some lessons from Off the Edge of the Map, splitting the story into more approachable sections, using scene breaks for noticeable purposes, and making a much more focused attempt on growing the characters. The latter was a particularly big problem for the original, to such a degree that the main characters in that story hardly seemed to have grown at all in spite of the author’s clear intention otherwise.

But where the effort is there, the delivery of that character growth is still not quite where it could be. Conversations and potentially character growing moments still pass by quickly in favor of describing the world and activities surrounding them, at the cost of impact. Daetrin all but ignores the big moments that should have the biggest emotional effect– the Nightmare Moon cameo, Twilight’s near-death experience and subsequent revival, the confession before Ouroboros just to name a few. Where these moments should have lingered and been given great weight, instead the author blows past.

Compare this to the fight against the Hungry Wind, which was given paragraph after paragraph of lengthy details so that readers couldn’t miss a single floating rock. If Daetrin had offered that level of attention to Luna declaring her love for Twilight, we’d have had a very different story on our hands. As it stands, the entire romance subplot felt subdued to the point of seeming dishonest, as if the whole concept was thrown in as an afterthought. Truthfully, it’s hard to detect if Twilight has any real feelings for Luna even at the end.

What we have here is a story with a lot of great aspects on the one side and a lot of negative aspects on the other. Overall, I think they just about balance one another out. Read it if you’re into a lot of worldbuilding and adventure, but skip it if you’re here for the romance or a plot that’s more than skin deep.

Oh, and there’s no need to read Off the Edge of the Map. This one stands entirely on its own.

Bookshelf: Worth It


WhatisthisIdon’teven—

There can be no description for this story. It is stupid. It is mocking. It is intentionally, outrageously, over the top bad. It is so intentionally, outrageously over the top bad that it circles around to kick itself in the shins, circles around again to mend the wound, circles around a third time to stab itself in the back, and finally just makes the world explode.

And I have barely touched upon the random nonsense that is this story.

It is a massive understatement that this is not my kind of story, and it lasts long enough to easily overstay its welcome. That said, I know there are plenty of people out there who will read this shameless basket of nuclear absurdity and die laughing from beginning to end.

By all means, have at it. I’m going to go explore more mature territory.

Bookshelf: Crackfics


Indigo Hooves

3,842 Words
By xjuggernaughtx
Recommended by cleverpun

Oooh, cleverpun has recognized my weakness, and that weakness is the Weird. Indigo Hooves tells the story of a guilt-ridden mechanic who chose to abandon his old life and work with an Equestrian Frankenstein in a desperate bid to bring his dead wife back to the land of the living. For the most part, this story is everything you’d expect it to be given that description. I’d go so far as to call it downright predictable.

Then you get that ending, and everything changes.

This story excels in terms of atmosphere and a general creepiness. Even the ending, which one can argue is happy, has a certain disturbing nature to it. I am reminded, in a good way, of Gary Kilworth’s 1987 short story Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands (and if anyone reading this knows that story, I’ve probably spoiled the ending for you. Sorry).

If you want to read a story that blends a bit of the well known with something totally unexpected, give this a go.

Bookshelf: Pretty Good


Rainbow Dash has gone somewhere, a place where she can no longer remember who she is or where she came from. But she’s not alone; there’s this annoyingly energetic girl with pink hair that greets her every day. A girl who insists they are friends, for some weird reason. Together, they explore a lifeless world of drudgery, a world that they clearly don’t belong in.

This was very different, in a very good way. Written long before the reformation of Discord, it follows a familiar path in an unfamiliar way. It’s frustrating that it’s one of those stories where you can’t describe much in a review, because if you describe pretty much anything you’re spoiling a lot. At best, I can state that it’s a fascinating look at Rainbow and Pinkie. One could develop some philosophy out of the story as well, such as the nature of our world and what humanity might really be in comparison to Equestria… or any fantasy world, for that matter.

This one is well written, at times fun, and more than a little thought provoking. I am very happy I read it. I just wish I could say more without giving away the big points of the story.

Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?


Stitch

36,035 Words
By adcoon
Sequel to Fillystata

Taking place several months before the events of Fillystata, Stitch follows Sweetie Belle as she and the rest of her classmates go on a week-long school field trip to the quiet town of Dappleshore. While there, she uncovers a local secret about a trio of fillies: Daffodil, Mandrake Meadows, and Midnight Spindle. As she digs deeper, she soon becomes embedded within a horror story of ghosts, dark magic and witchcraft.

The story doesn’t start out as anything that I expected, but it satisfies nonetheless. Told through a combination of Sweetie’s present activities, flashbacks and diary entries, Stitch brings to life the disturbing beginnings of the witch who comes to be known as Fillystata. Let it be known that this isn’t a story for the lighthearted, touching upon such a variety of topics as murder, torture, sexuality, sadism and necrophilia. And yes, those of you who have read Fillystata, it does end where you’re thinking.

Is it necessary to read the original story first? Well… no. There might be a short scene or two that confuses you, but not enough to detract from the overall story. At least, that’s how I feel. If anything, all this does is paint a bigger picture of the events in Fillystata, although one particular event (and it’s a big one) gets spoiled by the story.

Stitch is nothing short of a creepfest. But unlike so many lesser horrors that exist in this fandom (which is to say every famous one you’ve ever heard of), it doesn’t survive on torture porn and impossible quantities of blood. No, this one makes its mark with exceptional atmosphere, solid writing, a steadily building climax, and delivering upon its terrible topics from a tasteful direction.

If you want to see creepy done right, you can’t go wrong with Stitch. It is unquestionably superior to its predecessor.

Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?


Liked these reviews? Check out some others:

Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXVI
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXVII
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXVIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXIX
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXX
You Are Here
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXII
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXIII
Paul's thursday Reviews LXXXIV
New Groups, The Barcast, and Hurricanes (Oh, and Reviews)
Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXV

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Comments ( 11 )
PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

>complain about story being too weird

>express weakness for weird stories

you be trippin

Well, it wasn't anything less than I expected. I was more prepared for it this time around. My friend pointed out the over-presence of crying when I last read it with him, and I see it could be repetitive, so I've seen some of the flaws in the story and saw most of it coming.About the only thing I have to complain about in the review was

in spite of the fact that the author made the grave error of punctuating the title.

I didn't even realize I had done that, but even so it's one of those things I wouldn't even take notice of, just like when you reviewed my first story and complained about not having the first letter of every word in the title capitalized. (Actually, I don't think you complained, but mentioned that your friends brought up they wouldn't read it because of that alone) It's more the 'grave' bit that got me, like I'm worse than a rapist for a wayward period. I have a better grasp on your reviewing style, so it's not like it was an unexpected denomination, but it's one of those things that makes a legitimate complaint just feel overbearing.

As for the other princesses I could see it as an issue if they became a focus of things, but they didn't. Besides saying a few words as the officiator the other 3 princesses barely got a word in(past the chapter where they appeared). What you pointed out as a flaw was Twilight's intention: she brought them there to make things bigger and more important than it would need to be. She wouldn't do it for every wedding, but for someone like Derpy who had gone through a lot of heartache and self-doubt and nearly committed suicide she wanted to make Derpy's big day the biggest it could be. For her, the difference between "I got married" and "I got married in the presence of royalty" would be huge, and would be a boon for her emotions in the days to come.

Dinky is supposed to be around 10-12 years old. I guess I didn't handle it very well, but because of her mother's flaws and neediness the role of parent and child is occasionally swapped between them, even though it shouldn't be that way. When things are okay Dinky acts like the child she is, but when her mother is down in the dumps and can't handle things(and doesn't/refuses to go to her few friends for help) she has to put her childishness aside for the time being and be the mature one to maintain order. It seemed like a real-life scenario: when a parent puts too much pressure or burdens on a young child they can grow up before their time. So while Derpy has a genuine love for her child, and does the best she can with what she has, she can unintentionally burden her child with things beyond her age group.

I think I took it down now, but I had the same feeling about Derpy's speech during the wedding, so I made an authors note asking my readers about the rehashing of things and whether I should change Derpy's words, and I got like 5-6 comments telling me to leave her speech as it was, so I did. Although I get how it can be annoying for some.

I'm just gonna leave things alone now. I already had a feeling I wasn't the author for you during your first review, but I chanced a second one and it turned out not much different. Even so, thanks for taking the time to read it anyway, even if it wasn't to your liking. :pinkiehappy:

4607675
There's weird, where everything is batshit crazy and makes no since and stupid.

Then there's The Weird, where things are mysterious, questions aren't always answered, and everything feels spooky, unorthodox and dark.

Weird stories can be written by anyone with a keyboard. Stories belonging to The Weird require skill and the ability to think outside the box. The former can be stupid. The latter must not be.

4607679

I didn't even realize I had done that, but even so it's one of those things I wouldn't even take notice of, just like when you reviewed my first story and complained about not having the first letter of every word in the title capitalized. (Actually, I don't think you complained, but mentioned that your friends brought up they wouldn't read it because of that alone)[sic]

Actually, punctuating a title is another error that is guaranteed to make some readers automatically ignore the story. It's an instant sign to a lot of people, including myself. Titles should only have punctuation if there's a direct quote involved, and it's exceedingly rare a writer can pull that off.

As for the other princesses I could see it as an issue if they became a focus of things, but they didn't.

The fact that they make an appearance in this story for any length of time beyond a cameo is automatically too much. The fact that Celestia equated Derpy's situation to her own amplified the problem. I gather you're going to disagree with me no matter what, but this isn't a story involving pretty princesses and big name characters, and as such the princesses do not belong in it. Period. By throwing them into the wedding, you've made Derpy's happiness cheap. You're essentially telling the audience "Yeah, I guess they'll be okay, but Derpy couldn't actually achieve happiness if royalty didn't show up, because only the presence of a princess can make a pony truly happy. Sorry, Derpy, all your struggles mean nothing without at least one pony princess around to acknowledge it."

No, that's not what you intended.

But that's the message it delivers.

Dinky is supposed to be around 10-12 years old.

Seriously? Her 'kiddie' moments came out as her being more around the age of 5 or 6 to me, whereas her 'adult' moments placed her in my mind at around 14 or 15. Pretty sure the law of averages doesn't make that alright, but really, I could have simply been vastly misinterpreting.

Anyway, don't feel too bad. I'm sure that with time and practice you'll improve. It's my hope to get people to get better with my critique, not give up.

My review of Indigo Hooves also noted that it covers a very well-traveled theme. My main issue was that the characterization was perhaps a bit too abrupt, and I'm not sure the ending made up for it.

My initial reaction to the ending was confusion (both logistical and emotional). In retrospect, perhaps this was intentional. Like you said, it has this odd mix of happiness and disturbing surrealism that make it hard to interpret. Is it good? Is it bad? We can't say for sure, and that's the sort of vagary I like from a story.

if you want more weird/dark/possibly esoteric stuff, then the only other fic that comes to mind would be Twilight, Revised. It was one of the earlier fanfics I read though, so I don't know how well it has aged.

4613166
Curious. I'll throw it into my requests list for the heck of it and see what I get.

I semi-recently wrote a couple of scenes of a crossover fic between pony and Titanic, in one of the scenes I briefly used all caps in an effort to show the huge emotion, and I would love to get a second opinion on if I did it well or not.

5723306
Before anything else: This is all subjective, so take it or leave it.

Is your story meant to be taken seriously?

Then you did not use all-caps correctly, in that you used all-caps at all.

There are very, very few and specific moments where I'll approve of all-caps use. Maybe a sign on the wall is in all-caps itself. Maybe the character is reading a newspaper headline that is in all-caps. But in virtually every instance it is unacceptable, be it in narrative or especially in dialogue.

There are other, perfectly legitimate means. My personal preference is italics. Literally everyone gets that italics are used for emphasis, and they can convey emphasis in multiple forms depending upon use. Is your character shouting? Throw on an exclamation mark. Is your character screaming? Put the dialogue in italics with the exclamation mark. Want to indicate that the speaker heavily emphasized one word in a sentence? Put it in italics. It's a surprisingly versatile tool that doesn't look ridiculous at a glance.

If you're using italics for something else – say, for example, to convey thoughts – then you can even reverse it by making the emphasized word not be in italics like the rest of the sentence.

Using bold is also an acceptable way to do things. I don't consider it as effective for emphasis, but if you want to suggest a weight to the words, it does fine.

Or... if you really want to? You can mix things up a bit with the punctuation. Okay, so it might not be... entirely, shall we say, grammatically correct? But hey if a character is speaking fast there's no better way to showcase it than this I mean you need to make it clear that the words are coming fast and loose and maybe there's a reason behind that because holy crap a bad thing is about to happen if we don't get this done now so get your flank in gear!

And if worse comes to worst? You can always use the narrative to help readers grasp the intended emotions behind the dialogue.

Point is, there are so many tools available to you as a writer that I can't think of any reason that all-caps would be necessary, particularly in dialogue. I've never seen an instance of it that I was 100% okay with, and those that didn't completely ruin the mood were those written in stories with a significant dosage of silliness in their overarching style, so I wasn't supposed to take everything seriously anyway.

Again, this is all subjective. There are people out there, especially those who aren't devotees to the art of writing (read: the vast majority of your readers), who don't give Discord's left eyeball about your use of all-caps. As far as the general populace goes, you're probably fine.

But if you come to me and ask if you used all caps well or not, my answer will always by default be: no, you did not, because you used all-caps in the first place. I don't need to see examples to know this is going to be my answer. You could still show me examples, and I might in turn suggest alternative ways to do things, but I won't tell you your use of all-caps is fine.

5723317
I'll take this under advisement.

I should note that this is the only time I used that in the fic thus far, and the only time I planned on using it. The scene in question has Rainbow Dash having a sudden explosive burst of absolute grief on board the S.S. Carpathia, after a well meaning rescuer tells her how lucky she is having survived. In my story, the M6 are not magically exempt from the crushing realities of Titanic, there isn't some last minute deux ex machina or happily ever after. When I set out to write this I was asking myself how they, and by extension, how would I react if I had been there 111 years ago. And I knew that having "friendship save the day" would not do the story justice.

The story comes to me in fits and starts so is pretty piecemeal at this time.

5723321
I can see why you'd think this is a good place to use all-caps. If they've never been shown before, then suddenly using them now could theoretically be an effective way to really showcase Rainbow's emotional state. If I'd been reading the story for review, I likely wouldn't have said anything or, at the very least, not made much of a fuss over it.

I would still argue that the job could have been done just as effectively, if not much better, with accompanying narration, appropriate punctuation, and effective dialogue.

...

Still, you're reasoning/timing is a lot better than what I usually see. So again, I wouldn't have harped on it.

57233
If you have the time (and no pressure whatsoever if not) I'd be happy to share this and a couple other dabbles I've done.

5723332
Alas, not this time. If only because real-life stuff ATM is taking up more time than usual. Maybe another time.

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