Vertigo Reviews: The Lost Sun · 5:02pm Apr 13th, 2019
Hello, dear reader. I wanna try something a bit different today—reviewing a lengthy multi-chapter story. This has been one of many, many things I've wanted to do for a while. So today, I'm going to do it with a story known as The Lost Sun by Daughter Of Chaos.
Now, I've only reason the first chapter to this fic. With future parts, I intend on reviewing more than one chapter. But for this part, I want to focus on the first chapter and the basic concept to the story; the overarching narrative and structure that eases the reader into it all. This story has a very unpopular premise that right of the bat isn't what I'd call something a first time author should use to begin writing with.
A story with an Alicorn OC
Alicorn OCs can be done—Bad Dragon's “I Ain't Your Sacrifice” put a very clever twist on the concept. However, that's the thing: it was a twist on the concept. With this story, the author is facing an uphill battle. To go down the traditional route with the story is to require them to really subvert expectations and bring the reader a very compelling character with flaws, nuance, and personality. Nearly every time with these stories, none of those things are met. What’s instead given is Mary Sue/Gary Stu; a character who's flawless and can never do any wrong. Many of these characters also come from first time writers who are taking their first steps into writing.
I can't say for certain if Daughter of Chaos is a first time writer or if she's written on other websites. But this is her first story on FiMFiction and as such is a testament to her ability as a writer to those on this site. This is, ultimately, where she begins and it will be a measurement to where most get their opinion on her as a Fanfiction author. With The Lost Sun, and after a little over a year of being up, it'd seem that most reception was lukewarm at best. 21 upvotes to 17 downvotes. Better than most stories that feature an Alicorn OC. So, let's not waste anymore time and get onto the story itself.
A pony Alicorn Hybrid helps the mane six save Pony-Ville, Twilight takes the mysterious new ally to the Royal sisters to meet him, but only to find out the truth about his past that will affect his future and everything he has ever known.
The misspelling of “Ponyville” is something that’s common place in this story. There are many, many grammatical errors in the first chapter alone, but I’ll get to that later. For now, as a premise, this story is nothing revolutionary. It’s a standard “lost Alicorn” story, only the Alicorn in this case is a hybrid. Something that is in of itself a trope, but let's move in. The description here doesn't quite do the story justice.
The story starts off with Celestia and a foal named Athena, who's said to be Celestia's granddaughter. After the Moon has been lowered and the Sun had risen, Athena wants to hear a story. Being a good grandmother, Celestia agrees to tell her one. At least, that's what I think happens. Given this story's structure begins with Celestia not in the fray, it raises several questions as to how she knows these details. It's a question that I'll let slide given suspension of disbelief, but it's an issue I have with certain stories centered on a character recounting events. If they aren't there, it's typically best to explain how they know of these. Unless the events aren't real.
Now, one thing I'll note before we move on is this opening has a dire case of purple prose. Normally, that isn't an issue for me. I believe purple prose can be an extraordinary great thing for setting tone and atmosphere. If you can pull it off, you should absolutely use it when its necessary.
It was a quiet night in Equestria and all were fast asleep shunning the moon until the next Sunrise that was led by their Queen. Her name was Celestia, she was full of wisdom, grace that has grown by living for centuries. She was an Alicorn, which were known to live forever and never age when they reach a certain age. However to become an Alicorn a pony is tested and proven by doing a worthy princess deed that is not given but revealed by their mentors once they pass their noble quest. A worthy deed is made when a great change takes place in Equestria, if it's based off something good they receive a mighty pair of wings and crown with a title that will be their full purpose as they play their part in the world.
This right here is the opening paragraph to the story. Grammatical errors aside, it’s not exactly the ideal way to open in story. For starters, we’re informed that Celestia is now a queen and not merely a princess. I’m going to assume that this is explained later in the story, but it’s a detail that I find to be rather odd to drop on us like it’s a piece of candy. We’ve know Celestia to be a princess for the entirety of the show’s existence. What suddenly made her a queen? Did she finally get the required amount of XP to unlock the Queen talent? What of Luna? Is she still a princess or did she too get that talent? Or did she perhaps opt for the Senator talent?
One last thing I’ll mention here is that after the opening paragraph, we get quite a bit of flowery prose to describe events that should take, on their own, maybe two or three paragraphs. Instead, it takes a total of 24. Now, not all of these are 6 sentences long and consist of an array of adjectives that would made the likes of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen blush, but their length to describe certain actions—such as the sun rising—made me roll my eyes.
Celestia smiles softly as her horn began to glow, creating a yellow aura that flowed down to the filly. Gently the magic carried the toddler all the way up to her back so she can better view for their special moment together that they share every morning, watching the sunrise. The two watched as Luna lowered the moon to end the beautiful night so Celestia can raise the orange circle of fire to start a new day again for her subjects to begin their daily activities.
"Are you ready?"
The filly quickly nods excited to see the sunrise with her. The white mare smiles softly by the young ones enthusiasm to her job that she has done for years, at least now she has a reason to enjoy with her granddaughter who was full of wonder. Her horn glows yellow and slowly the circle began to rise that soon gave the world its wonderful colors again by its radiant light that soared in the sky with her magic.
The young fillies eyes widen with amazement by the magic of the giant circle of light that made the world so colorful and alive. After it was over Celestia begins to go back inside the castle doors, her ears perked up by small yawns coming from the filly who was exhausted after waking up so early in the morning.
The white mare uses her magic to levitate the sleepy filly to her crib so she could rest her tiny eyes. Once she was covered by the blanket Celesta slowly tip toes away from the crib to escape the room so she can begin her daily paper signing but was soon caught by a small voice.
Here’s an example of the sun rising and the story’s egregious tense swapping. I’ll get to the latter part later.
First, allow me to be positive. I do love flowery prose when starting off a story or scene. In my eyes, it’s a nice way to ease the reader into a world that you want to feel fantastical. For this story however, we experience paragraph after paragraph of detail for myopic things that, after a while, begin to bog down a story that needs absolutely zero help in the way of feeling like it takes way too long to get going. Celestia’s raising the sun and she has her granddaughter with her to experience it. Then she wants a story told to her. If the opening were being told from Athena’s perspective, I would love the flowery prose so we could see how magical the sun being raised is to her. But it seems like we don’t have a definitive character that we’re following. Not even when we get to the actual story itself.
To end this little rant off, my advice to the author—and to other authors—would be to more conservative when using flowery prose excessively. I find it at best to be tiring and infuriating at worst. Unless you're writing a horror story and really want to give a raw description a la Silent Hill or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I'd suggest keeping it to a minimum if possible. This story didn't honest to God didn’t need as much flowery prose to start off.
Anyways, the story Celestia recounts begins with a bug bear attack. This is where the story begins to go off the rails. While the opening scene is flawed on multiple levels, this part is—to put it bluntly—terrible on all levels. I hate putting it like that as I find it to be meaner than I generally like being when writing these reviews, but the way the “real” story (as I will be calling it from here on out) starts off is about as poor as one can get without trying to deliberately be awful.
As Celestia continues to tell the story it fades to the past to where it began on the day the barers of the elements were faced with danger at Pony-vile. It was a hideous bear like creature but with a brightly-colored fur like a bee, along with bug shaped wings, and four extra limbs of an insect that were twisted with thorns. The monster was powerful, angry, causing full destruction to the small town full of terrified ponies that watched helplessly from the safety of their homes as Twilight and her friends face the large monster.
"Come on girls we need to get this Bugbear away from the village!", encouraged Twilight to her friends.
"Easy for you to say this thing is huge!" yelled Rainbowdash irritated.
The pregnant blue mare was not going to lose against a giant bear that looked like a bug. She was great with foal that was due any day now, her anger was mostly focused on the monster who could hurt her unborn baby with its massive strength. Tired by the massive flying she created a storm cloud above the monster that could instantly eat her for lunch as a meal with a small dessert to go with it.
Here are the first four paragraphs to the real story. For starters, we’re informed that this is in fact a story that is being told by Celestia in a way that makes me question exactly what we skipped over. One has to ask if she’s telling Athena the entire story to Friendship is Magic or if she told her what Twilight Sparkle and her friends did prior to this attack; if they were having lunch together, playing a game, or planning the party that we’re informed is happening by the end of the chapter.
The second thing is the grammar. It was about this time when I was reading that this issue began to really settle in for me. I can’t say if it was the way that Ponyville was misspelled or how Rainbow Dash’s name was merged into one mess of a word, but it hit me like a locomotive. I can tolerate bad spelling to a certain degree, there are plenty of stories that I enjoy in spite of the poor grammar, but this story really does itself no favors by having so many bizarre mistakes. The worst of them in these four paragraphs is, in my opinion, the start of the fourth one. Specifically, this:
The pregnant blue mare was not going to lose against a giant bear that looked like a bug. She was great with foal that was due any day now, her anger was mostly focused on the monster who could hurt her unborn baby with its massive strength.
We’re informed here that Rainbow Dash is pregnant. This is in of itself a very big detail to drop on the reader in the middle of what is meant to be an action sequence. The immediate reaction I think one should have is why in the world Rainbow is risking the life of her unborn child and her own by fighting a creature as powerful as the bug bear. It’s bad enough that the mere act of doing such quick maneuvers could kill the child—the the umbilical cord potentially wrapping around the child, but as the scene goes on, Rainbow is shown to be uncharacteristically rude. Here are the next seven paragraphs to showcase it:
A yellow Pegasus who was flying right next to her noticed her poor friends frustration that she tried to comfort her by placing her gentle hoof on her shoulder.
"Um maybe we should try to be nice to it and maybe it will stop", Rainbowdash glared at the yellow mare in complete annoyance by her suggestion that kindness would get the Bugbear to leave their town.
"Quiet Fluttershy and help me!", her yell caused Fluttershy to go completely silent leaving her in almost tears.
A southern earth pony with a hat looked up and noticed her friend was crying silently to herself by Rainbow's rude outburst, she moves her hat slightly back against her head to show respect to her parents before her as she takes a deep breath.
"Now Rainbow there is no reason to yell she is just trying to find a better way to solve this." says Applejack trying to calm down the tempered blue mare who was at the brink of losing it completely.
After giving Rainbowdash a pep talk, instead of having a mature understanding she received a nasty glare from the Pegasus who was filled with so much rage that she turns red and explodes like a volcano that was erupting blasts of anger and frustration to the sky.
"I AM CALM!", her shouting was so unsettling that it causes the BugBear to attack at the mares with its claws.
Now in all fairness, Fluttershy’s suggestion is really stupid given that this story takes place after the episode Slice of Life. This is proven since Starlight Glimmer is a key character in this story, so unless Fluttershy has a short-term memory, there’s no reason that she should believe the bug bear would stop its attack if they were to treat it “nicely”. Nevertheless, while Rainbow can be more arrogant and harsh than the other characters—her own characteristics being in line with those of a competitive athlete—the way its conveyed is more in line with someone who sees Rainbow Dash as a reckless egotist; one who’s not learned anything over the course of the show. This also goes for Fluttershy too. Both characters are reduced to the bare bones examples of who they are at their core: the hotheaded athletic one and the kindhearted motherly one.
Stripping characters down to who they are at their core is something I can understand if you’re writing a story that’s meant to be an alternate universe story. Lucky for this story, this is an AU story, so the show’s universe is the author’s oyster. However, rather than use this opening chapter to show us who these characters will be in this story, we instead get the characters as they are in the show, only stripped down to their most basic forms.
Twilight is smart and a princess.
Rainbow is as I’ve said: a hothead and apparently pregnant.
Fluttershy is kind and quiet.
Pinkie is energetic.
Applejack is southern and honest.
And so on and so forth. There’s no real reason for this and while I’d make an assumption, I don’t want to linger on this part since we’ve got a fair bit of the chapter left to discuss.
Our heroes continue to fight the bug bear for a few more paragraphs—three to be exact. In this time, we’re informed that the creature could "snatch one of them up to devour their tiny pony bodies full of fresh flesh, blood, and organs.” Not long after, Fluttershy is struck by the creature and it seems that all hope is lost. All told, the fight between the mane six and the bug bear isn’t very long and there’s more bickering between them than actual fighting.
However, it’s at this point that a savior comes to the rescue.
"Stay away from her!", a four legged dragon appeared in front of the timid Pegasus that was trying to protect her from the hideous monster that planned on having them all for a midnight snack.
The dragon was shaped like a pony but almost Luna's height but slightly taller. His coat was white like snow but with a grey misty color mixed together to create a unique appearance. Fluttershy watched him as he fought against the monster, as she continued to look at him she could see that his two front hooves had three claws like a dragon that evenly matched his coat. However his tail was red and scaly like a dragon but it had a little fluffy black tail at the end, his cutie-mark was a giant half-carved moon with three triangles around the outside with a star in the middle on the moon.
It’s here that we get our introduction to the Alicorn OC, a pony-dragon hybrid named Toren. We don’t learn this for quite a few paragraphs, but I’d prefer to use his real name. Anyways, Toren here is about as big of a Gary Stu as one can get without having him immediately romance the entire mane six as he beat the bug bear using Thanos as a baseball bat.
Appearance wise, Toren isn’t exactly out of the norm for an Alicorn that’s trying to deviate from simply being another pony. He’s a dragon, which means that he’s much cooler than your average OC, and he’s taller than the main cast. However, saying that he’s “almost Luna’s height but slightly taller” is one of the strangest sentences in this entire story. Quite contradictory and I don’t know if that’s a remnant from an earlier draft of this story or if it’s simply awkward wording.
To the credit of the author, Toren’s coat coloring is at least something… different. In my experiences with Alicorn OCs. It’s a mixture of white and grey, which is different from the typical red and black of the edgiest edgelord OCs and other dark colors. One can argue that grey falls into the line of “edgy”, but I’ll let it slide. For now anyways.
On the downside: the more draconian aspects to his appearance are unbelievably silly. Claws, a red, scaly tail that itself ends with a “little fluffy black tail”. This all feels really tacked on to a character that was originally intended to be a normal pony. Perhaps it was as I originally said and the author wanted to deviate from being another generic Alicorn OC, so they added on the dragon aspect. Personally, I think Toren would’ve functioned better as a normal pony.
The final thing I’ll note is his cutie mark. A “giant half-carved moon with three triangles around the outside with a star in the middle of the moon”. Royalty is a big part of Toren’s backstory and we’ll get into that as the story progresses, but I’m sure that based on that description alone, one can already guess several cliches that’ll be a part of it.
Moving out however, we get to see how Toren’s seen in the eyes of some of our characters. Starting with Fluttershy.
Fluttershy blushed by his massive strength, his bravery, but his eyes made her heart skip a beat by his gentle glance that gave her protection from the threat of the monster. He continued to help her and her injured friends by breathing fire at it giving it a distraction before he pounced on the large bear-bug, he climbed up its back and bites down hard on its left ear so it back away from the mares as they stare flabbergasted on what was happening.
I’ll be honest and say that I wanted to burst out laughing at this part, but the fact it’s played straight made me too annoyed to do so. Subtlety isn’t exactly the author’s strong suit when it comes to how the main cast reaction to the implied “charm” of Toren. In fact, it kind of feels like it’s played up as a parody. If this was the intention, then I commend the author for being self-aware, knowing that their creation is a part of a trope that generally leads to a womanizing edgelord. This, however, isn’t the case since Toren immediately becomes a savior.
The bear-bug grabs the stranger and roars at his face but only to be roared back, each showing their fangs in anger and pure rage, and finally without knowing his horn began to glow a bright yellow aura of magic that strikes directly at the beast, turning it into a teddy bear.
To quickly be positive, I want to say that I genuinely like this scene. It could’ve been pretty funny and been a rather amusing showcasing of Toren’s power. Rather than having him vanquish the bug bear by blowing it into a thousand bloody chunks or some other gory display, he turns it into a teddy bear. He even gives it to a foal afterwards. This, as a whole, is a nice change pace from the typical Alicorn OC introduction. Him being super charming to the main cast—specifically Fluttershy—is annoying, but I’ll overlook it since his actions are more in line with an actual hero rather than a vigilante.
Now, with that said, I’ll also criticize this moment. Given that the story is so ludicrously fast paced and we get no time to breathe thanks to no real showing of much beyond how charming Toren is and the main cast bickering like they’re arguing over a game of Bingo in a retirement home, this scene has most of its potential comedic value lost. I will concede that I still chuckled at the overall outcome since I wasn’t expecting it by a long shot, but how funny it could have been versus how funny it is is definitely nowhere near the same.
What’s more is that Toren being the savior could’ve been easily done in a silly way by having him turn to Twilight and say something to the effect of, “You know, bug bears are weak to toy magic.” This would have been pretty funny and immediately given a bit of life to Toren, rather than making him come across as being Fabio in Alicorn form.
Now then, after that single sentence—which is the extent of Toren fighting the bug bear—we get a needlessly lengthy segment where he asks the townsfolk are okay. Most of the descriptives tell us how heroic and great Toren is. The worst one is after he turns the bug bear into a teddy bear.
His mighty large wings stretched out in full length so he could hover above the ground to catch the toy, he chuckles at it but to be interrupted by cheers from down below him showing gratitude for his selfless deed. He flies down and sees a young little filly looking at him, while hiding by her mother nervous, he gives her the toy gently to her with a small smile on his face showing her he was friendly.
This paragraph is so transparent in how it wants the reader to see Toren as the greatest guy ever that it made me physically cringe. Having him change the bug bear into a teddy bear on its own made me see that Toren is, despite his appearance, more merciful than malicious. Some can argue that he ended the life of the bug bear by making it a teddy bear, but his way of doing so was certainly less terrifying than outright murdering it in the middle of Ponyville. Telling us how awesome and great he is in the following paragraph doesn’t make me think he’s a great guy, it makes me think that the author is telling us how much better their OC is than the show’s actual cast. That’s terrible writing. If you want us to like your OC, have them grow alongside the established characters; make them flawed and likable. Toren, in my eyes, had an introduction that was decent compared to most Alicorn OCs. His actions were significantly better than most. You make them worse by actively telling me how good they were rather than having him continue those good deeds through his actions.
Now then, Toren goes around asking ponies if he needs help. This is the first time in the entire story we remain fixated on a single character—though I guess one can argue that the opening was focused on Celestia. I feel that the fixation on her and then Athena as the sun rises implied neither was the key character. I digress though. There’s a pretty amusing exchange that Toren has with a mare who’s trapped beneath some debris
To improve his abilities he began to lift them up to see if anypony was trapped underneath the heavy piles of destroyed wagons of supplies. A moan is heard from the distance, he gets closer to it to allow himself to quickly save the pony who was trapped.
"Hello is anypony there? Speak of you're injured"
"I'm hurt very much hurt", says a mare who was buried under two broken wagons.
Not wasting anytime he rapidly uses his magic to lift the wagons to grab her with his red dragon tail so she wouldn't be crushed by the broken pieces of wood.
"I'm so sorry are you hurt??", the mare rolls her eyes and glares at him.
"Who me? No not at all I was just resting there. What do you think?! Obviously I'm hurt! Ow!", her yell caused the stallion to grow awkwardly silent.
The stallion puts her down gently with his tail so he wouldn't cause the mare more pain and irritation.
Twilight goes to her aid and heals her with her magic, and just to be sure she uses a spell to see inside her stomach to make sure that her and the baby were both fully healed with no complications.
This moment, while very far from being something that could be considered “good”, did get me to chuckle a bit. It’s another example of something that I didn’t expect out of the story; its subversive nature actually made me think that somewhere in this story, it may have either been something better at one point or if the author tried to write an Alicorn OC story that was to subvert the trope of the all great and all power OC who’s better than the main cast in every way, shape, and form. If this was their original intent or simply their intent, then I’ll give them credit for this moment and the teddy bear moment. Both show that they had an idea that might have worked if they’d tried to make the story not feel like it was being played straight.
After this, it’s revealed that mare was in fact Rainbow Dash and I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know this until re-reading the chapter so I could get these excerpts. While the personality of the mare in the dialogue matches the way Rainbow acted at the start of the story, the fact no sort of descriptor is given to tell us that it’s her is irksome. Especially since we now have our main character that we’re supposed to be focused on. This would have been better if either we’d been focusing on Toren from the get-go or if he asked Rainbow for her name when he saw her so we wouldn’t simply know her as “the mare” for as long as we did. I will concede however that this may very well just be me. Understandably, most people can identify characters faster than I can when it comes to the way they speak in stories.
With Rainbow back into the fray and her injuries—both to her and the baby—fixed, Twilight now talks to Toren. This leads to a very strange exchange between the two.
"I've never seen an Alicorn like before let alone a different race. Maybe Celestia can help and who knows she'll say when she meets you! THIS IS SO EXCITING!!"
He stretches out his wings and looks at them "Really? Huh? so that's what I'm called? Aw bummer and I was hoping I was going to a pretty princess", he winks at her.
I can understand Toren not knowing what the name of his race is if it’s explained that he’s been in hiding for millenia. While that may be shaky in the foundation, it can work if he’d been a recluse; shut off from society and without contact to the outside world. Perhaps his knowledge of Alicorns was minimal or he merely forgot. However, there’s one major problem. It’s not explained in the opening chapter. Such a detail is glossed over in favor of this:
Soon after his roast towards Twilight her friends laughed by his clever response towards her excitement, leaving her alone covering her face with her wing to hide the scarlet red dots. He looks down to the side in discomfort by his sore body, he uses his wings to hide his bruises near his belly be the monsters strong grip.
For starters: that really doesn’t strike me as a “roast”. But if it is in the eyes of someone else, I don’t quite like being told that it was one. Generally, when telling a joke, explaining it kills it. Not helping matters is being told that it was a “clever response”. Having the main cast laugh is fine, I can see it being something they’d laugh at. The rest of it however is something I’d advise any aspiring author to avoid doing at all costs. Treat lines like that as you would jumping into a pool of radioactive waste. It’s really bad and won’t do you any favors.
Anyways, with our heroes now all together and the bug bear now in the possession of a nameless character, it’s time for the plot to get kicked back into gear. Namely, with a visit from Princess Cadence, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart and a welcome party not having been prepared thanks to Ponyville’s magnetic field having drawn a giant monster to it. This causes Twilight to panic and results in yet another very odd line involving Toren.
"Easy Twi. Look tell ya what we'll go to your castle and get things ready while you and ah..", he smiles and bows to the farm mare.
"Toren. At your service m'lady", the mares blush by his charm.
This is more of a personal thing thanks to my time on the internet having made me associate “m’lady” with a neckbeard that tips their fedora. So, place this criticism firmly on me. That said, this line really made it hard for me to take Toren seriously. Granted, prior to this, he was still an Alicorn OC who had charmed every character like his Charisma was at 100. But here, having him bow, give his name, say “m’lady”, and then get told that the mares blushed because of his charm made for a quadfecta of unbearableness.
With his name finally established, our heroes rush back off to the castle to prepare for the party. This is where the story peaks, its tone and writing feeling more comfortable and at times stronger. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Starlight, and Spike all go ahead and decorate the castle. There’s some dialogue and not really too much else, save for one sentence after a scene transition that made me chuckle.
After a song number about cleaning and preparation the castle was shining with glee.
I actually liked this. It was unexpected. Not much else, I just wanted to make note of it.
Now then, after the paragraph with that line, we learn that Spike in this story doesn’t have wings, but is fifteen and has the maturity of a fully grown stallion. This makes me wonder how old the rest of the cast is, but it’s not stated and I can’t say I’m shocked.
The final few paragraphs to this story feel very much like filler and could’ve been cut out and used to start off the second chapter, but I will concede the final two are quite adorable.
Rarity yells at Pinkie "Pinkie! Get back here!"
At this point all Pinkie could do was laugh and run away from the mare so she would have a chance to live and create more parties in the future.
And thus that ends the first chapter to The Lost Sun. For a story that’s rated M—something I had made an unspoken rule to not do—this story is extremely safe. I know not every M rated story needs to start off being grisly or extremely sexual in nature, but it’s surprising how little explicit material there is here, save for this one line.
The mares dodged its massive claws that held sharp talons that could tear them in half if it got close enough for it to snatch one of them up to devour their tiny pony bodies full of fresh flesh, blood, and organs.
This is during the fight with the bug bear and since it’s the only thing I saw that didn’t strike me as E-rated material, it’s really out of place. Nevertheless, I’m aware of where this story goes in later chapters. So, let’s jump into the actual review of this chapter (later blogs will be written in the same format as an FYI).
As a story, this is a very poor start. Simply put: it doesn’t set up the actual story. We’re introduced to Toren, but we don’t learn about him and we don’t have an idea s to how this story will play out. Instead, we only learn that this story is being told by Celestia and that Shining Armor, Cadence, and Flurry Heart are coming to visit. I must say that if I were reading this story when it was originally put up, I’d be really uninterested to continue. Not learning anything about where the story will go and not being clued in on what the actual plot will be—save for a vague long description that isn’t built upon or even hinted at in the actual story—is remarkably bad storytelling.
This chapter should have had simply started with the bug bear attack; the entire part with Celestia and Athena being cut out and the middle part of the chapter having centered on Twilight and Toren talking. While his backstory might’ve been edgy or red-and-black Alicorn territory, being left in the dark on what the story would be about isn’t how you get a reader’s attention. Especially when the overall tone of the chapter contrasts with what your story is categorized as: a Romantic-Dramedy.
The last bit of criticism I’ll give the chapter is this: it’s paced way, way too quickly. The fight with the bug bear has no weight to it and its defeat is laughably quick. I could let the latter part pass if it had been used to tell some sort of silly, innocuous joke, but playing it straight makes the story feel like it has no sense of gravitas. Everything is safe and fluffy. Where’s the drama? Where’s the sense of danger? If Toren can swoop in and turn the big, scary monster to a teddy bear and Twilight can save Rainbow Dash’s unborn child from being killed (which I’ll get into in a moment), why should I be worried for the heroes? Everything will work out in the end if this chapter is meant to be my introduction into the story. If that’s what the author was aiming for, then I feel that the Drama tag isn’t necessary. Generally with a story like that, I expect something much more compelling and serious. Not quite what this story is at its core.
Now as for the characters… this is where the story seriously fumbles the ball. For starters: Rainbow Dash being pregnant and yet going to fight the bug bear is one of the most jaw-dropping things I’ve read in a story. That level of recklessness is truly astronomical and I had to take a break after reading it. I get that Rainbow can be callous and that her personality is definitely more reckless than the other characters, but to fight a monster that you describe as being capable of them apart is another plane of existence in the way of recklessness. It shows that Rainbow has no regard for the life of her child and while one can argue that she values the lives of those who live in Ponyville over her own child, that should be elaborated upon after the fight with either Twilight or Toren asking what she was thinking and having Rainbow explain. Leaving it out of the story in favor of some light banter makes Rainbow seem like she doesn’t care she’s carrying a child.
Moving on however, the rest of the main cast aren’t really noteworthy. While not exactly good, they weren’t offensively awful. Fluttershy’s suggestion to be nice to the bug bear was really stupid and unless explicitly stated that the events of season five didn’t occur, I’m assuming that the AU tag that this story sports merely applies to the existence of Toren and what his backstory is. Maybe I’m wrong, but not trying to explain what’s different in this universe in your opening chapter generally makes me assume the tag is there so characters can merely be written as the writer so wishes rather than conforming to the established personalities.
Now on a brighter note: I must say that I found Toren to be better than I expected him to be. As far as introductions go for Alicorn OCs go, Toren’s was significantly better than most. He was more personable than most, not bringing about an air of edginess that I typically see and while the main cast was swooning over him like they were middle-aged single mothers and he was Christian Grey, he at least felt more… natural. I appreciated him not blasting apart the bug bear and I appreciated him at least feeling a bit more like an actual character.
Now with that said: it’s clear as day that he’s written to be better than the main cast and be the all-mighty savior for the characters as the story goes on. In many ways, he’s written as Superman without kryptonite. Whether or not that weakness comes up later, I don’t know, but his actions speak volumes to what he’s intended to be. So while I liked him more than I initially expected, that doesn’t mean him as a character is good. Rather, if I’m to be brutally honest about it: I’d say that Toren isn’t a good character. While he isn’t awful based on this chapter alone, he’s definitely nowhere near passable. His personality allows him to function, but the writing that comes with him drags him down. That’s a serious problem.
When writing characters like Alicorns, I find that the first thing one should do with them is find ways to make them be vulnerable. When your characters are all-powerful beings that can do as much as they can, not having them be vulnerable takes urgency out of a story. Toren here had no problem saving the day. That’s fine given that this was an introduction and while it was sudden and out of nowhere, I’ll assume that this’ll be explained later in the story.
However, not having Toren really get to fight the bug bear so we could see that while he may be an Alicorn, he can still be hurt in a fight, is a massive downside to Toren as a character and this story as a whole.
Moving on though, I want to mention something very important. With my reviews, I always try my best to be as friendly as I can. At the same time, I try to be as brutally honest as I can be. But in the case of this story, I must admit it was really tempting to forego my rule of not reaming into the author for how bad the grammar is. It was something that I ended up venting about and getting extremely worked up over because the constant tense swapping was giving me a headache and the numerous grammatical errors had me stop reading several times because I had to figure out what the author was trying to say. To it simply: this story has some of the worst spelling and punctuation I've ever seen not just on this site, but in my entire life.
But, once I’d calmed down, I realized something. I don't know if the author has some sort of disability or issue that hinders their grasp on the English language. Generally, when I criticize a story's grammar, I judge it based on how well the author structured their sentences, the capitalized, punctuation, syntax, and so on. However, I make a few exceptions.
For starters, if the author's native language isn't English, I will give a bit of leniency.
The second is if the author suffered a brain injury due to an accident or medical issue. I knew someone who had this very issue and as such, I made it a point to not have this part alter the story's score anywhere near the level it normally would.
The third and final is if, to put it as lightly as possible, the author is mentally disabled. Should the author indeed be disabled, I make it a point to once again not have it affect the score anywhere near its normal level, only here I have it do so even less.
In all three cases, I always make it a point to suggest an editor if the author didn't opt for one. In the case of this story: I must admit I was quick to assume the author was outright stupid—if I'm to put it lightly. My reasoning being that this story's grammar is among the absolute worst I've ever seen in not just a story on this website, but anywhere in my entire life.
To give an example of this story's grammar that made me want to give up on the story and out right not bother with the rest of it is to be asked to pick a toy from a toy store as a 5 year old child. Only it can be anything you so desire. The sheer level of grammatical and punctuation errors is unfathomable and the number of times the tenses switch is unbelievable. Sentences run on like they're fleeing from Michael Myers, location names are misspelled (Pony-vile instead of Ponyville), and character names are misspelled (Rainbowdash instead of Rainbow Dash).
It's all surreal.
Now, again, maybe the author has a disability of some sort or had an accident that's left them disabled. If this is the case, then I understand. I'd still recommend an editor go back and polish the story as the story is extremely difficult to read since most of the initial chapter is very sloppy. First impressions matter a lot in writing. If your story doesn't grab a reader's attention, it's unlikely that any amount of, “it gets better X chapters in!” will sway them to return to your story.
This story’s first impression on me is about as bad as you can get without being offensive in a racially, religious, or political way. It’s a fundamentally bad first impression and it pains me to no end to type that since it’s about as harsh as I’d ever allow myself to be when reviewing something. But to sugar coat a story like this is to make it seem as though this is acceptable when writing a story that you want to share. You can’t improve if you tell someone that stories like this are okay and you’re going a good job. Making grammatical errors like this without having the foresight to understand how people will react to them is a terrible decision. Writing your original character to be everything that the main cast to a show or game is, only better, is a capital offense in the realm of fanfiction.
All of that, plus much more, The Lost Sun does and then some; it’s everything you could feasibly do wrong when writing fanfiction.
Overall: the initial impression based on the descriptions and first chapter to The Lost Sun is an example of how not to give a first impression. This story is a wreck; one that truly embodies the worst of FiMFiction and can't shake the awful court jesters that make up its Alicorn OC crowd. It simply doesn't function on any if the basic levels a story should and its a shame since given the author's passion for the story, it seems they see this as their everything. To me, that makes this story all the worse. Not as a story, but because it bites having to say that this apparent passion project isn't good. Now whether or not it does get any better as it goes on is another story and we’ll be finding out soon enough.
Chapter 1's Final Score: F
Nevertheless, I'll keep on reading and will be doing another two or so blogs on this story. So with that said: I hope this was helpful—whether or not you're Daughter Of Chaos. Thanks for reading and keep writing everyone.
You poor sad soul... Seriously, you're thinking of doing more to this?
I bet reading that story I made about the Mane Six meeting an alicorn OC was pretty soothing to your mind, right?
5043946
Funny, I frequently thought about mentioning it. Why I didn't, I can't say. I guess I wanted to just use my own words. I'll likely reference it in the next part.
But to answer your question: it was remarkable how accurate it was. I like it even more in fact.
I know I’m late to say this, but how are there so little comments? As someone who has seen some of the audio drama that was based on this story—and was deleted some time after—I think this is a quality review!
5410254
I'm glad you think so. I was experimenting with the style a bit. Glad it resonated with you so much; I always wonder if I could ever write another review on here. Maybe some day in the future.
5410971
Well, if you do plan on continuing it, I’d be hyped to see it.
Besides, the story may be deleted here on Fimfiction, but it’s still available on Fimfetch.
5410977
It'll depend entirely on how much free time I have. I operate my own little blog and have a lot of things I'd love to cover over there. If I do continue this though, I'll try to keep it in the same style I had going on here.
Thanks for reading by the way. Means a lot.
5411720
No problem. I always love a good rant-review.