• Member Since 3rd Sep, 2011
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PresentPerfect


Fanfiction masochist. :B She/they https://ko-fi.com/presentperfect

More Blog Posts2550

  • Saturday
    Twilight the 没用

    Yesterday, a fellow named SoothingBell asked if they could translate Twilight the Useless to Chinese, and no way was I gonna say no. :D

    And they turned it around in 24 hours, amazing!

    https://fimtale.com/t/64723

    4 comments · 129 views
  • 1 week
    Idle musing

    so-called because that's what led me to the realization

    What is so compelling about the idea of "warrior woman runs afoul of a wizard and is flung centuries into the future" that I made it happen twice?

    ...And with slightly more musing, I also realize, in a roundabout way, it was with the same wizard. >_> Huh.

    Read More

    7 comments · 163 views
  • 1 week
    Fic recs, March 20th!

    Posting a day earlier than usual because the next reading is a long one!

    H: 1 R: 2 C: 1 V: 1 N: 3

    Read More

    6 comments · 188 views
  • 2 weeks
    Fic recs, March 14th!

    Lotus Moon has done a reading of Fleety's What's Philomena's Name?!

    Hey, help out Regidar, he's looking for experimental fics! Self-promotion allowed!

    Read More

    5 comments · 234 views
  • 2 weeks
    Fic recs, March 8th: Top Ten of 2023!

    Whaaaaat, two review blogs in a row?

    Well hell yes, because I have done much better with the top ten this year and I am inordinately pleased with myself! :3 here's the explanation of the setup, for all that it has never adequately explained what's going on to like, literally anyone:

    Read More

    19 comments · 271 views
Dec
30th
2019

Present Perfect vs. Hard Reset · 2:03pm Dec 30th, 2019

We come to my final fic review of 2019: Eakin's Hard Reset. I said I was gonna read it right after Bronycon, and then I didn't because I'm bad at things. Also, I was still working through Morning, Noon and Night. Also also, when I did start reading it, my smartphone stopped working properly, so shit's been fucked is what I'm trying to say. :|

And why did I not read it sooner, vaunted classic that it is and all? Honestly, I thought it was a 100k word epic. It's not, it's under 40k, hence my attempt to rush quickly into it.

So, let's amend some errors and take a look into what made this story so well-beloved, shall we? I'm going to discuss the plot without spoiler tags, because it's been seven years and I figure I'm the last one to read this. :P (And to think, I could have waited until halfway through next year and listened to this instead, thanks to Crafty Arts.)


The premise for this story is somewhat simple. Twilight fucks up a spell (yes!), specifically one created by Star Swirl the Bearded to view alternate timelines, and ends up trapped in a time loop that resets whenever she dies. Compounding problems is a changeling attack on Canterlot that, unless she figures out how to stop it, will destroy Equestria and reset the loop five hours after it starts. Cue some crazy, crazy shit as Twilight discovers her limitations by testing the hell out of herself and everything around her.

I want to start my analysis by mentioning that this story is dark. It manages to be generally show-tone when it comes to most character-related things, but the changelings are out for blood, and we see them frequently killing ponies rather than just capturing them, in an attempt to cow the others into submission. The alternate ending is even darker, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's not the darkness that I object to, necessarily, but the changelings themselves. I mean, them attacking ponies comes off as not really fitting with what they need (ignoring season two debates over just what, exactly, Chrysalis hoped to achieve with the first invasion). It's more that… Well, this is an old story (published December 2012 on Fimfiction), but we'd just kind of just done changelings. Why go immediately back to them for a world-ending scenario? It struck me as surprisingly unoriginal.

I mean, I went into this fic knowing that the time loop reset whenever Twilight died, so I figured she'd be succumbing to comedic deaths, or accidents, just constantly getting herself into trouble as she tries to figure a way out of it. Not being savaged by a changeling and having her neck broken. Again, when Twilight's not busy dying or killing changelings, the story is pretty show-tone, but let's not mince words here. This is basically my only substantive complaint, overall.

That said, I was also a little confused (maybe?) about the "Twilight is gay" subplot that shows up halfway through the story. I mean, the way it's handled is good; we get a poignant scene in one loop where Twilight decides to come out to her parents, and she winds herself up with a lot of angst and anxiety before finding out that she could really trust those she loves. (Also, it leads to some really fun TwiLuna stuff, mostly used for comedic relief but nevertheless pleasing to a shipper.) It also comes into play with some of her fears once she's out of the loop and dealing poorly with what's happened. But on the whole, its place in the story felt very unrelated to what was happening. If Twilight had just decided to bed Princess Luna on a whim in the middle of a loop, I'd not have questioned it once. Maybe it's simply a case of conflicting headcanons, of assuming that homosexuality is not an issue in Equestria. I'm sure it's useful for anyone trying to come out themselves.

My other small qualm — and then we're done, I promise — is a cameo by Cloud Kicker in the final actual chapter. I don't know if this is a Winningverse reference (I mean, I've yet to read any of the stories), but I suspect it is, and it cheapens what is distinctly not a cheap story otherwise.

So let's talk about what does work, beyond just "everything else".

Because it's basically everything? The story is told first-person from Twilight's perspective, and her character and voice are just flawless. This is of course the old, extremely snarky Twilight from seasons one and two (thanks to Loganberry's season one rewatch blogs for making me realize how much she did actually change over the years), but she needed to be written strongly in order to carry the story, which she absolutely does. Thinking back over it and realizing how much she changes just in the story's events is striking right now; I mean, snark aside, she starts off fairly innocently, just that perfect mixture of the two from the early seasons of the show. By the end, she's become a hardened killer with PTSD from all the shit she's been through over countless time loops.

I want to talk about that last bit just a little. One of the best things this story does is not end when the main problem ends. We get closure in the penultimate chapter, then the finale starts off with "Happily ever after, I guess", but the story continues. It's the longest chapter in the piece because it's all about aftermath. Despite what I said earlier about the changelings being an unoriginal threat, the transformation they undergo when hit with the Elements of Harmony is exceedingly original, even in the context of post-S6's reformed changelings. And having to sit down and deal with an Equestria who's suddenly got this second class of new ponies, and Twilight being caught up in it and finding she can't let go of all these things that happened only to her makes for a really intense denouement.

Giving us the chance to see what she's gone through and then show her trying to deal with it — and deal with it poorly! — really communicates just what PTSD is. Just Twilight freaking out because she no longer knows exactly what's going to happen at any given moment after being used to it for so long was powerful. You see so many stories where a character is already suffering from it, and just like in real life, the hard-hearted may be inclined to say, "Just get over it already!" Here, we see that's not so easy, not when she's seen just about everyone she cares about die numerous times, died countless times herself, and had to make hard decisions about who to let live and die herself. That kind of trauma affects a person, let alone a pony, it changes them, and it makes getting back to a normal life exceedingly difficult.

Which is not to say this story is all grim and gritty seriousness. I mean, look at the cover art: Twilight killing changelings with a baseball bat, wearing sparkly earrings and a cute black dress? That actually happened. The buildup to it was bonkers, and the scene itself was raw awesome, not to mention some much-needed catharsis for Twilight. She refers to the shockwave of magical energy that ends the loop if she doesn't die first as "The Wall of Horrible Shiny Death". We learn she went through a goth phase as a teenager. :V Granted, one of my absolute favorite scenes involves a pithy one-liner before Twilight annihilates Queen Chrysalis, but she'd been through a lot by that point, it's hard to blame her.

Now that I have summed up the good parts as "basically all the writing", I'm not sure that talking about the pacing is going to add anything, but let's do it anyway? I could see a lesser author really trying to walk us through everything, day by day, instead of knowing when summing things up as "five loops later" is more useful and powerful. We get to see Twilight grow, too; she takes entire loops to study magic, not to mention learn how things will play out if she does X instead of Y. Take when she goes after Luna's help the first time; she's stopped by four changeling guards, fights them, and is ultimately killed. The story plays on the idea that Twilight is an extremely powerful magic user, but not a fighter, at least at first. A few loops later, and she's memorized the guards' attack patterns so well that she can basically walk through them before blasting them apart. Scenes like that are considerably more effective than trying to relate every detail of a character learning how to defeat a predictable enemy.

I guess the last thing I want to talk about is the alternate ending, except I think I don't want to go into detail. I left a comment on it describing what I thought a super-dark ending for this story was, and how I was wrong. I mean, she's casually murdering Spike to make a potion, which means she's had to do it enough times now that it doesn't bother her. That is horror. And it all comes about because she's completely lost any hope that she can save, well, anything. This ending isn't just about trying to see how dark the story can go; it reinforces a theme. Twilight was able to conquer all those challenges thrown at her, die again and again, and commit some rather heinous acts because she had hope that it would eventually end with everyone being safe. And it did. And then this story spawned something that I never realized was such a classic trope before. But we'll save that discussion for later.

In front-loading this review with the negatives, I kind of convinced myself that I wasn't as overjoyed with story as I felt I should be, considering all the press and hype it got at the RCL Bronycon panel, nevermind how many people have praised it over the years. But condensing the good stuff down into its own section, I realize just how good those parts of the story are, and how much they overshadow the bad stuff. Eakin is an extremely good writer, and he's only gotten better over the years, but he started off at a laudable point. This is a good story, and all that praise is worth it because he knew how to craft something, how to make it work, and how to use it to show a concept that might otherwise be hard to grasp.

5/5

A rip-roaring classic that laid the ground for a lot of greatness to follow.

I look forward to reading the sequels. :) Next time, though, I'll be getting into the other story I said I'd read right after Bronycon: The Best Night Ever.

Comments ( 23 )

In regards to the 'summing up' instead of trying to tell every detail, there is that one thing I'll always remember. "Well, that didn't work." Absolutely iconic. Especially since Spike says that line in the show - while he and Twilight are fighting Starlight through time loops.

I absolutely adored this story, for all the reasons you said. It was a pitch perfect blend of comedy, action, dark, angst, and yet, hope. I agree that the Twilight being gay thing just sort of... popped out of nowhere, and didn't do much for the story overall, but I never felt it ruined the momentum for me. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the story that started the whole, "Unspeakably perverted sexual act involving a weather vane" thing.

If you get time, check out the two sequels. I say "two" because we don't talk about the dark clopfic AU one. They were also very good, if not just a bit... convoluted. Seriously, shit gets pretty wacky pretty damn quick. What I remember most about them was the ending of the final story was so well written and emotional. It gave me such massive fucking feels. Like, to the point that when I met Eakin at Bronycon that year, once I found out it was him, I blurted out, "You son of a bitch! You almost made me cry!"

I think out of all the stories on the RCL panel, this was the one I most wanted to win (I haven't read much TEL, or a few other contenders). I think a big part of that is that it was one of the first longer pony stories I read, and parts still feel so clear in my mind. I remember the bit with the dress and the earrings, the weather vane, the dark ending...

I love this story, basically. And I'm glad you had so many nice things to say about it :pinkiehappy:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

5177329

Also, I'm pretty sure this is the story that started the whole, "Unspeakably perverted sexual act involving a weather vane" thing.

...That's a thing? c.c;

I really adored Hard Reset. I liked the sequels as well, but the first one stands above in how...well, hard it hits. It's one of my all time fave pieces of ponyfic, and one of the better stories I've read in general.

Oh, and if you want a glorious hot take on it in fic form, make sure to hit up Horizon's Hard Reset 2: Reset Harder!

The alternate ending is even darker, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

You wait till you get to Eakin's alternate sequel to A Stitch in Time -- I mean The Reign of Queen Twilight Sparkle, the M-rated one. Now that is dark. It makes the alternate ending to Hard Reset itself look quite pleasant. I'm not sure I've ever been able to read all the way through it. :fluttershysad:

5177329 Hey, weather vanes are awesome. They're not for everypony, though. Check with your doctor first, to see if weather vanes are right for you.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

5177372
Something to look forward to! :O

5177334

It is absolutely a thing. I've seen it referenced in at least three other fics. Off the top of my head, I think Sharing the Night does it, but it's definitely not the only one.

5177327

Hearing those words out of context still freaks me out, to this day.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

5177388
Wow. c.c What a thing to become a thing.

5177329
Yep, the sequels are extremely worth it as well... they're two of the very rare time-loop stories that manage to stay consistent (or just coherent, for that matter).

It gave me such massive fucking feels.

Not sure if this is what you mean, but One note does not make a harmony. Yeah. Wow-moment that stuck with me for all these years since I read the trilogy.

The sequels are also excellent - I'll be happily awaiting your thoughts on those!

I'm going to also recommend The Reign of Queen Twilight Sparkle--probably one you should read between A Stitch in Time and You Can Fight Fate. While you won't miss much in avoiding it (which you may be inclined to given how dark it is), I think it adds a lot to the coda chapter of Fate.

The Best Night Ever is also one of my favorite fandom classics, so I'll be looking forward to that.

First physical book of ponyfic I bought was the Hard Reset trilogy. I need to go back and read it again.

5177388
Yeah, I gave it a nod in The Luna Cypher.

5177431

No, it was, "Well... that worked."

5177454

That's probably the one I was thinking of, actually. I read so much TwiLuna fic I get them crossed.

I adore Hard Reset, I like A Stitch in Time, and The Reign of Queen Twilight Sparkle has its merits. But.

I really, really disliked You Can Fight Fate. This is, I think, somewhat of an unpopular opinion, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it when you get around to reading.

P.S.: I founded The Time Loop Trilogy group here on Fimfiction! Small world, eh?

Now you are ready to descend into the madness that is Loops. Millions of words by dozens of authors with a similar premise and many many MANY more characters all in time loops.

My other small qualm — and then we're done, I promise — is a cameo by Cloud Kicker in the final actual chapter. I don't know if this is a Winningverse reference (I mean, I've yet to read any of the stories), but I suspect it is, and it cheapens what is distinctly not a cheap story otherwise.

This being a reference is more obvious in the sequels, although it's not exactly a crossover? It's a very similar take on the character, which is clearly intended as an homage, but it doesn't tie into the Winningverse continuity since that would be very inconvenient to the story that the Time Loops Trilogy is trying to tell. At least this reference is less cringe-y than The Irony of Applejack's take.

Next time, though, I'll be getting into the other story I said I'd read right after Bronycon: The Best Night Ever.

As much as I enjoy Hard Reset, which is a lot, Imo The Best Night Ever is by far the superior time looping novel.

5177480
That instantly brought back a measure of the relief/closure I felt reading that ending. I was sorting through scenes in my head trying not to confuse it with other stories and your quote sliced through it all. I'm not even sure of this now, but if I remember reading a blog post a while back regarding another possible sequel to it, my brain shut down immediately like

No you aren't. She's already been through enough. Let her rest, she earned it.

And I don't even know if it was finished, and wouldn't read it anyway. Yeah I know, lighten up dude it's just a story. Well, that's true, but I would still feel like I was digging up her grave.

Maybe it's because I didn't read this until many years after it's publication, but I just don't get the big deal. The only time loop story that did time loops right, in my opinion, is The Best Night Ever by CapnChryssalid, and that's because, well, the time loop had a point to it? Hard Reset just inflicts the situation on Twilight because that sounds like a cool way to make her do things like hit changelings with a baseball bat in a dress. The character voice didn't strike me as season 1 snarky Twilight either, more like the memetic, lol random kind of snarky everyone thought she was. Add in the whole TwiLuna angle that just swung in from nowhere and suddenly it's not about changelings and saving the world, it's a coming out of the closet story but the story didn't know that until it happened. The whole conceit of "What if Twilight but bad things and then PTSD?" just... didn't grab me at all.

It just feels like the whole thing floated along on what a lot of early fics did, shock value with a sprinkling of novelty. It's a very early fandom kind of story, in a nutshell.

After "Hard Reset" I've tried "A Stitch in Time" and quickly got bored. It is not a bad story, but It cannot really stand up to "Hard Reset".

What did impress me was "Hard Reset 2: Reset Harder". It's by Horizon, so I expected it to be good, and it still blew me away. It is incredibly clever in how it lays out the ground rules early on and then sets up time loop shenanigans that all clearly follow from the ground the rules, yet you totally don't see coming. And then it uses those shenanigans to set up some truly awesome character moments.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

5184826
too bad it'll never be finished :B

5184828
I don't even care. The parts already written are worth it even without an ending.

But Horizon claims he's working on new HR2 chapters right now

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