Vertigo Reviews: Fallen, Best Hell Ever, Hey, Sunshine. Help Me with This Crossword., Can I Fly?, The Creation of My Little Pony, and The Legion's Rest Incident · 7:33pm Aug 16th, 2019
Let's review some more stories.
I read this story while listening to Johnny Cash. Ironically, once I finished, a Tim McGraw concert began at nearby fairgrounds and all I could hear was far inferior country music as I tried to review it. Lucky for me, as I write this now, day two of Tim McGraw's so-called musical theatre hasn't begun. I digress, it's about time we go over this bad boy.
Story #1: Fallen by The Drunken Sailor – I Fell Into A Burning Ring of Fire
I approach romance/sad stories with extreme trepidation. Partly because I loathe the former and because the latter is often more manipulative than genuinely saddening. It's one reason I cannot stand Marley and Me. “Isn't it sad how the family's dog is dying? You should be sad. The dog is dying. Really, be sad.”
A good emotional story builds upon the sadness to make the characters stronger. A film like Marley and Me buries the dog beneath the tree to close out the life of the dog and ends. I guess I shouldn't have expected more given the nature of the book, but I wouldn't mind more to my story than just that.
My point is that when it comes to FiMFiction, I find many sad stories don't exactly strike the appropriate chord with me. They're often superficial it downright manipulative. It's also why I don't review them because I'm not exactly the right person to give feedback on what I see as poorly handled emotion in stories. So with that said: Fallen is a story that… definitely handles its topics and themes in a way that's both pretty good and a bit on the aggressively flimsy side.
Rome's Fallen
Centered on an original character named Strawberry, Fallen tells the story of Rainbow Dash crashing into the field of Strawberry's farm where she subsequently develops amnesia.
You could very easily pass this story as the My Little Pony fanfiction equivalent to the movie Brightburn, something I initially did before remembering the romance and sad tags. Rather, we see Strawberry take care of Rainbow to recover from her injuries. From there, a romance blossoms—something I’ll get into a bit.
Conceptually: Fallen is really solid. An isolated farmer helps an injured person who’s suffering from amnesia. A lot of potential for emotional strife, friendship, and more. For the first half of the story, it does get to play with those elements. The friendship between Rainbow and Strawberry blossoms and their bond grows, the two get to know each other and the tenderness of Strawberry stole my heart at times.
However, given that it’s only one chapter long, it also has to try and condense a lot into what’s ultimately 11,437 words. Although that at first glance seemed like enough to have everything work, it isn’t. By the time the second half of the story rolled around, the story’s pace began to pick up and it only kept picking up. Soon, events that could’ve been a chapter in their own right started coming and going faster than I would’ve liked. What started as a friendship quickly developed into a full blown relationship—something that blindsided me far more than I would’ve liked.
Although their relationship as a whole is believable enough thanks to the writing being strong enough, I found myself wanting to pull on the story’s emergency brake so there’d some breathing room. Trying to take in a rapidly developing relationship, only to see character’s say that it isn’t right, plus the internal strife of a deceased parent, is way, way too much. In simpler terms: Fallen should’ve been a multi-chaptered story rather than a one-shot. Its story, while I think it’s well written thanks to the writer being talented, is fine. Its pacing however is too fast for its own good.
On a slightly more bittersweet note though, allow me to give praise to the ending. It did get me a bit misty eyed.
Moving on though, let’s discuss something far more positive. I found the characters to be the strongest part of the story. Generally, I find that original characters in fanfiction are less-than stellar. There are exceptions, but most tend to feel either half baked or edgier than Kylo Ren’s red and black Alicorn OC.
In the case of Strawberry, I found her to be endearing and rather adorable—if a bit on the mundane side of a cutesy character who felt like the loner version of Applejack. Her personality was charming enough that it could fit in the show, which I always like in an OC, though her attachment to Rainbow felt like it jumped a bit quicker than it should have. I chalk this up to the story’s conclusion rushing at me like an angry bull.
Rainbow Dash on the other hand is handled well. Although she has amnesia, her key traits still exist, like wanting to get up and move around despite having fallen to the Earth faster than the Stock Market on Black Thursday. Her brash personality may have been downplayed a bit more than it should have, but I fully concede that as someone who generally downplays every characteristic, trait, and aspect of canonical characters, this could just be me overstepping boundaries on what should and shouldn’t be played up. Especially if the character has amnesia.
Now for the negative part. The aforementioned relationship. It works in the sense that both Strawberry and Rainbow have genuine chemistry—in my eyes anyway. I’m a far cry from someone who understands romance stories. There are plenty of cutesy moments where a full-blown story could work perfectly. The rapid development of it however hinders this as there’s a sense that 5 or so chapters have been condensed into one. As such, it’s too much to take in and this charming relationship becomes something that’s thrust upon the reader.
I don’t mean to constantly take every positive down with a negative, but this part was the core issue of this story’s pacing going into overdrive. If a story is going to have a relationship blossom, I think it’s a key requirement that the story take a bit of time to have it develop in a way that’s believable. A relationship—in my eyes—doesn’t blossom 1-2-3. Maybe 1-2-3-4-5, but not 1-2-3. That’s like someone going crazy, which Hollywood has absolutely butchered into making people think someone like Ted Bundy is made in a fortnight. My advice here would be to take the time to craft a realistic relationship that the reader can get emotionally invested in, especially when you want an emotionally crippling ending.
Grammatically speaking, Fallen is a seriously mixed bag. When I reviewed one of the author’s previous stories—Child of the Sky—I noted that the story was prone to serious run-on sentences. This, unfortunately, applies here too. While I gave Child of the Sky a pass, I won’t do the same here as this story is longer and I don’t want to seem like I’m being biased towards one author when the same may hold true to another in the future and as such, be criticized. It also doesn’t help that I didn’t like this story as much as Child of the Sky.
Run-on sentences aren’t a pet peeve of mine like, say, tense swaps, though they can make reading a story feel very awkward. In the case of Fallen, they plague upwards of 90% of the story’s sentences. Maybe more, maybe a teensy bit less. I can’t say for certain, but I think the best way to describe how bad it can get is encapsulated with this paragraph.
Was it magic? It must have been, but this was a far tier higher than the flashes and tricks of any unicorn, no, this was something greater and a deep welcoming warm washed over me I could not help but smile and feel joy at the sight.
While the entire story doesn’t suffer from sentences as lengthy and as that one, I think it gives an idea as to how awkward it can be to read at times. This is made all the more frustrating given how well written I found it to be at its heart. What should be a nice, emotional tale of a farmer nursing an injured pegasus back to health becomes a jumbled mess of several sentences being strung together into one sentence by numerous commas. I normally try to refrain from doing this, but here’s my personal take on that part.
Was it magic? It must have been, though this was a far tier higher than the flashes and tricks of any unicorn I'd ever seen. No, this was something greater. Just by looking at it, I felt a deep welcoming warm wash over me. I couldn't help but smile and feel immense joy.
That’s merely my personal take and I’m certain someone else could do a better job. While I could harp onto other parts of the story for their really clunky structured sentences, I’m not here to try and shame the author for what they’ve said is a fault of theirs. I suggest trying to find someone to assist them w/ fixing the sentence run-ons as it can greatly improve the reading experience.
Moving on from that, the story’s overall spelling is mostly good. There are, however, some typos. Normally, I’d put them into this review, though I don’t want to pad my reviews out with them anymore. I’ll leave it up to the author if they want me to post a comment pointing them out (plus I didn’t keep notes of them all because foresight isn’t my specialty; sue me). There are also no tense swaps, which is a massive plus.
In the end, Fallen is a fine story at its heart. The writing is good. However, the run-on sentences and the story's rushed second half makes it so much less than it very easily could be. With such a solid setup and charming writing style, everything should have been great. Instead, it's merely solid with a side of very noticeable and pestilent issues.
Final Score: C
If you're like me, then you love a good comedy. Be it a nonsensical crackfic where Twilight is turned into a firetruck or a less ridiculous one, such as Carl Johnson being sent to Equestria.
Okay, so my examples aren't very different in style. My point is that you and I are: FiMFiction is home to many comedic stories. More than I could've ever asked for in fact. That brings us to our second story: the number one rated story on this website. Let's take a gander at it.
Story #2: Best Hell Ever by Rambling Writer – Highway to Hell Reference Goes Here
Truth be told: I've been meaning to review this story for quite a bit. However, I've been cautious to do so because, if I'm to be completely honest, I'm one of maybe 5 people who didn't like this story. It simply didn't tickle my funny bone whatsoever. However, my personal views of the story aren't why I review things. If I did that, I'm sure I'd have a reputation on par with someone like Armond White. No, I review things to (normally) be positive and give what I believe to be useful feedback in order to help people improve as writers. While I doubt there's anything I can offer the author of this story in the way of advice (my style of comedy is vastly different), I still want to take a gander at it. So, let's go to the best Hell ever.
Hell's Bells Reference Goes Here
Best Hell Ever centers on Twilight Sparkle, who’s in Hell. It’s here that she's sentenced to arrange Hell's library. Naturally, she loves this and Hell's management is greatly confused.
Setup wise, Best Hell Ever makes great use of Twilight's obsessive nature. The writing is also very sharp and doesn't generally deviate into the territory that one would see in a crackfic where the narration is breaking the fourth wall every other sentence. However, I find that the joke of the story is one that we out its welcome rather quickly. To amend this, the author has some of the story focus on the bewilderment of the demons. Those moments are, in my opinion, the best in the story. They're extremely funny to say the least—more so in hindsight.
On the flip side: I found one certain joke in the story, which broke the fourth wall via narration, to be seriously out of place. Had this come earlier, it may have felt less irksome due to it being out of the way. As it stands: it succumbs to feeling too far out of left field in story that played it “straight” for its entirety.
One other issue I had was the ending. While not bad, I can't help but have found it a bit too… mundane. Given the story's clever nature, I would've preferred a less typical and expected resolution. As it is: Best Hell Ever doesn't end poorly, but it definitely doesn't carry the same level of finesse the rest of it has.
Character wise, Best Hell Ever us really good. It plays with the personality of Twilight very well, using her obsessive nature to great effect. The demons are also greatly amusing, though I feel they're underused. Maybe it's just me, but I feel the story would have benefited from them being a teensy biore prominent.
Grammatically: the story's great. I didn't notice any typos, which leads me to believe that Hell's editor is exceptional at their job.
Overall: while I personally didn't like Best Hell Ever, I recommend giving it a look if you haven't read it. Simply put: it isn’t a story that I think is for me. In spite of that, I will concede to me that there is a good reason it's gotten so much praise as a piece of writing. It tells an adequate story that’s worthwhile as opposed to treating its premise as nothing more than a throwaway joke. That alone is something I think a few too many stories on FiMFiction end up doing (I myself am guilty of this a thousand fold). As such, rather than sit here and screech about how this story didn’t make me laugh, I’ll instead give props to the author for taking a silly premise and making something worthwhile out of it. Good job.
Final Score: B
I have experienced many glorious things in my life. I have felt love, excitement, joy, anticipation, eating chocolate, drinking chocolate milk, and getting stung by a hornet. That said, there’s nothing quite like reading a story that seems to he driven by pure silliness.
Although I always try to keep a neutral mindset when going into any story, this one I must confess was one that I went into with significantly higher hopes than most others. For what reason, I’m not sure. Perhaps it was the description. Perhaps it was the title. Perhaps I was just excited to read something that involved a crossword puzzle. Whatever the case, let’s get to the review so I can give my thoughts, because I have many to give.
Story #3: Hey, Sunshine. Help Me with This Crossword. by GravityDefyingCoffeeMug – Sunnyside Up
I can’t recall how long it’s been since I first planned on reviewing this story. Better late than never I guess.
Quoth The Coffee Mug Nevermore
Centered on Bon-Bon/Sweetie Drops, who’s watching over Pharynx as he recovers from an ambush in the hospital and struggling with a crossword puzzle, Hey, Sunshine is a story that by and large frustrated me. It’s tagged as a comedy, but feels largely humorless up until the end. Until that point, it feels more like a pure slice of life story that can’t quite reach the comedic heights it wants to achieve.
Not helping matters is that its pacing is very static. The story weaves between dialogue exchanges between Sweetie Drops and Pharynx and a paragraph of narration that I think wants to be funny, but feels way too flat and bland to really amount to anything more than padding. The best way to describe it is a cutaway gag in Family Guy without the fast paced absurdity that that show has going for it (even if its quality in writing nowadays is questionable in the eyes of most).
As a whole, Hey, Sunshine is—as a slice of life story—more or less how I’d describe many of my grievances with the genre. It’s understandable why there are a lot who like them and I haven’t the faintest issue with that. I’m not here to take away one’s enjoyment of those types of stories. However, as a comedy, I can’t quite understand where that aspect comes into play. For almost the entire story, I was left staring at my laptop screen wondering when the funny was going to come and when I was going to laugh. It doesn’t help that both the title and description really gave me the impression this would be something funny. The sting of anticipation is a painful one.
The ending to the story is—as stated before—the one area where that got a laugh out of me. I attribute this to the very fast delivery of it and the fact that there was no narration to pad out what I think should’ve been an otherwise fast paced, quick witted story. To use Family Guy again, the points of narration reminds me of Peter Griffin explaining the joke. While this story doesn’t explain it, it does slow down the story and elaborate upon details that I feel shouldn’t have been in it. It’s tedious to read about details that don’t impact the story whatsoever.
If the story succeeds anywhere, it’s in the character department. The portrayal of both Sweetie Drops and Pharynx is very good. Sweetie Drops is appropriately dry and deadpan and Pharynx is, well, Pharynx. This is where the hints at a good story shine through, but the shifts between dialogue and narration hinder worthwhile interaction between the two.
Grammatically: the story’s fine. I didn’t notice any typos. Good job, GDCM.
Generally speaking: I like GravityDefyingCoffeeMug’s work. However, this one I can’t say I enjoyed at all. It felt flat, bland, and just downright dull. I freely admit that this could be on my having been a bit more hopeful for this story than normal. If that's the case, maybe I'll give this story another go in the future. That said: if you think this story will appeal to you, don’t met my review stop you from reading it.
As a personal addendum: I think it would’ve worked with more character interaction and less narration. This is especially true if you have two characters isolated in a room together.
Final Score: D+
Cuteness and stories on FiMFIction goes hand in hand like Michael Bay and sensory overload. It’s a fact of life. Then again, so do X-rated stories and FiMFiction. I digress however, this story falls into the category of cuteness.
Story #4: Can I Fly? by Evowizard25 – I Want To Fly Like An Eagle
At first glance, Can I Fly? Is very unremarkable. It presents itself as a simple slice of life story between Princess Celestia and a young Twilight Sparkle. The issue I’ve always had with slice of life stories is that they’re very limited in what they do. Generally, you want to add just enough flavor to where it doesn’t deviate from being slice of life into the territory of a straight comedy or drama. However, once you get into it: Can I Fly? manages to break the mold and capture the heart and fluff of its cute premise with the casual nature of a slice of life story.
No, You Can’t Fly
A simple tale of teacher and student, Can I Fly? centers on Celestia and Twilight, the latter of who wishes to know one simple thing: if she can fly like a pegasus. From there, the two discuss the nature of unicorns flying through the use of their own magic. It’s nothing too special on the surface. What does make it special is the extremely cute interactions between Celestia and Twilight. Although I’m not often one to praise the cutesiness factor of a story, I must concede here that the level of adorableness is off the charts. The San Andreas Fault of Cute finally awoke with this story and it lived up to the hype of being The Big One.
Now in the past, I’ve said that I’m not too fond of fluff fics as I think they’re very shallow and superficial. This still holds true and I will admit that there does come a point where this story does begin to wear thin towards the end. However, I’ll give credit to the author for having a bit of comedy to help it along, along with a genuine sense of heart in the form of a teacher and student bonding. That helps immensely with what I think is a genre that otherwise doesn’t have much to it other than cutesiness.
Character wise, I don’t think I can say much more that I didn’t say in the past two paragraphs. Twilight’s portrayal is extremely good; a terrific balance of innocence and a genuine sense of wanting to learn. Something I don’t often see with many fluff fics that involve a child character. I commend the author for managing to do something like this without it coming across as feeling too forced in the way of diabetically cute.
Celestia on the other hand I had a minor gripe with. Her inner narration at times felt a bit too self aware at times. She often makes reference to how “cute” Twilight is and it felt like a laugh track on a show like The Big Bang Theory. Although I’m sure this wasn’t the intended purpose, it became a bit irksome. Nevertheless, she’s the source of the comedic moments that help carry the story through what would otherwise feel a bit on the shallow side.
Grammatically: I didn’t notice any errors. It’s perfectly acceptable. Nice job, author!
Overall: Can I Fly? is a cute, innocent, story—though it does get to feel a teensy bit too slice of lifey at times. Those times are easy to overlook however thanks to its adorable interaction between Celestia and Twilight, which melted my cold, dead heart like the make believe polar ice caps on the Venusian surface. I commend you, Evowizard.
Final Score: A-
In my 23 years of living, I’ve had many thoughts and questions to the mysteries of the universe. A few examples include:
What’s the meaning of life?
Why are spiders so terrifying?
Who exactly was phone?
One I never asked, however, was how My Little Pony was created. Lucky for me, this story is here to answer that question for me. Thanks, BradyBunch.
Story #5: The Creation of My Little Pony by BradyBunch – And Then There Was Pony!
Oh me oh my, this story was something else. I’m not gonna waste time, let’s dive in.
Book of Celestia Chapter 1, Verse 1
Plot wise, this story is how I envision Young Frankenstein as told by a Generation Z Brony. A mad scientist creates My Little Pony with his assistant, Igor. Someone resurrect Gene Wilder, I want him to read this story. It is worth noting that this story doesn’t explicitly include any ponies beyond references to them. It is, through and through, strictly focused on the nameless scientist and Igor. This is easily for the better however.
A story so voracious for insanity, The Creation of My Little Pony is never dull. At the worst, it stops to let you take a single breath for something else so audaciously silly in its writing that it’d be a good argument for crackfic regulation. Although Igor’s dialogue is, at times, repetitive, there’s an obscenely glorious level of energy within the dialogue that I seldom see in stories on this website. It’s been some time since I laughed while reading a story like this.
If I were judging this story as art, I’d say that the characters are really weak. The mad scientist and Igor are both not that well fleshed out. However, I’m not here to judge this story along the lines of such great authors like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dan Brown Alan Moore. As it stands: The Creation of My Little Pony handles them well enough to where they’re very funny and play off of each other in a manner that fits the story’s cartoonish nature perfectly. Though as I stated before: I think that Igor is a teensy bit repetitive in what he says. Towards the end, his dialogue is primarily going “No!” and asking, “Why?” This did begin to irk me since I would’ve liked him to add a bit more to the story instead of acting as more of a device to have our totally-not-Frankenstein character explain the next part of what My Little Pony will be.
That isn’t to say that Igor himself was a bad or annoying; he was fine and acceptable for a story like this. However, I think if you’re going to have two characters that almost exclusively bounce off of each other for the entire story, it helps to have them both contribute to keep it going. In this case, Igor was more the gear that helped advance rather than someone assisting to move said gear. That said, I can very easily look past this given how funny the story is.
Grammatically speaking, the story is almost impeccable. Its gloriously silly dialogue is beyond funny, though I did notice two errors.
“Especially in the 90s. The 90s were such a lawless wasteland. It was like the 80s ate the 70s and threw it up again. Super Soakers, Pizza Bagels, and Power Rangers dominated a kid's lifestyle back then. Not to mention that habit everyone has nowadays of bringing up McDonald's handheld video games and saying “Only 90s kids remember these.” Oh, what a cruel world. I love it!”
The italicized part should be apostrophes. If I’m wrong on this, please correct me, but to my the best of my understanding, you don’t use quotation marks within quotation marks.
“But here's the clincher! This is a legitimately good, creative show...for a reboot! Reboots are the way to go nowadays! What's the point of new ideas when you can just use the same stories that worked before? Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, DC and Marvel, Jurassic Park, Halloween, Saw, Ghostbusters-”
The hyphen at the end should be an em-dash.
I don’t think there’s much else I can say about this story without repeating myself. It’s an unrelentingly silly riot. In the way of comedy stories I’ve read on this site, it’s one of the most obscenely fun and goofy. Unless you enjoy your comedy being a bit more grounded in reality or dry in nature, I seriously recommend reading this story. Just finish reading this blog first kthx.
Final Score: A++
I read The Legion’s Rest Incident a few months back as I was going to review it then. However, between life getting in the way, my lack of willpower to review, and my other project, I simply never bothered reviewing it. However, that may be for the better since after rereading it, I like it considerably more. The less said about how I felt about it initially, the better.
Story #6: The Legion's Rest Incident by Visiden Visidane – Me Oh My What Have We Here?
When I first saw this story’s title, my immediate thought was a location in World of Warcraft—specifically Vashj’ir. To say I was confused would be an understatement. Thankfully, the author wasn’t going to induce nightmarish/Lovecraftian imagery of large spans of the ocean that descend far past where light reaches. No, instead it has to do with caves, where light doesn't reach!
Misty, Bloody Mountain Delver
Our story is told through a journal format, taking place over a period of eight days, plus one that’s “not given”. Accompanying this is a foreword and an afterword. In total, these chapters/entries range from anywhere between 61 words and 424 words for a story that’s 2,715 words long. As for the plot: it tells an interesting story that reminds me a lot of a traditional found footage film. A necropolis known as Legion’s Rest is investigated since a group of ponies went in and barricaded themselves.
A simplistic approach that actually intrigued me when I first saw the description. Coupled with my love for journal-formatted stories and The Legion’s Rest Incident had everything going for it. However, when I first read this, I found the story to be aggressively sluggish and bland. After a second reading, however, I found it to be, well, none of that. It’s a briskly paced horror tale that and has an eerie enough atmosphere that it made me invested in what it told.
On the flipside, the story isn’t exactly breaking new ground. While I’m of the opinion that a story doesn’t need to be original in order to be good, I do think that a story like this one could benefit from a bit of originality to help made it feel less mundane. The Legion’s Rest Incident is, at its core, a “professionals go into a cave to rescue someone/people, encounter monster, chomp chomp dead” story. The first film to come to mind when I read this was The Pyramid, If you aren’t familiar with that film, it came out in 2014 and centered on a team that discovers a pyramid buried beneath the sands of Egypt. They go to explore it, only to discover it was the tomb that held the Egyptian God Anubis.
To say that the film was poorly received would be an understatement. The film was critically mauled and rightfully so, but this isn’t a review of that film. The feeling I get from this story is very similar to the one I get from The Pyramid however. A team of professionals in a location that isolates them from any sort of help and a spooky, unknown force picks them off. Sure, this story is leaps, bounds, and galactic jumps better than The Pyramid, but that sense of been there, done that is prevalent and it looms over the story like a rain cloud. I don’t mean to sound harsh as familiarity isn’t an inherently bad thing. However, a bit more of a spin on this type of story would’ve helped to give it a much needed identity of its own.
If there’s anything that didn’t age well as a whole, it’s the characters. Given the story’s short length and its journal format, the character’s are very static and not exactly the most fleshed out. This isn’t an issue in of itself since the real player is the isolated horror that the entries create, though I don’t think it would’ve hurt if we’d gotten a bit more to the deadmeat/characters themselves.
Grammatically: I didn't notice any errors. Though since it’s told in a journal format, one can always blame typos on the writer having made the error.
The Legion’s Rest Incident is a case of a story that I hated at first and grew to really like. It’s eerie, tense, and simplistic in its spooky nature. However, at the same time, I think that its lack of originality does limit the appeal of it. If you’re at all familiar with a film or story where a group of people get lost in the forest, a cave, the woods, or any other sort of location where the concept of “hope” is being lucky enough to die first, then you may not get much enjoyment out of this story. It is, at the end of the day, a very mundane story. If you’re a fan of those types of stories or unfamiliar with them, then give this story a go. It’s short and handled well.
Final Score: B
And thus ends another batch of reviews. It’s almost sobering to have done this. I hope you all enjoyed it and to the authors: I hope the reviews were helpful. Until next time: I hope you all have nothing but wonderful days.
Glad to see you back in the game.
You got it.