Change of Pace Contest Reviews · 12:00am Feb 18th, 2021
Hey I'm only... 3 months late with these? Go me!
I know that most of you have likely tried to erase 2020 from your memories, and therefore you may not recall that there was a competition last year called Change of Pace, arranged and presided by the mighty HapHazred. The goal of the contest was about writing a fic which emulates the pacing of an MLP episode with a defined three-act structure.
The competition concluded in December and you can see the results at the above link, but as part of it, I elected to review each fic so that I could better arrange my feelings when it came to judging. Since not everyone got feedback from the contest results, I decided to publish my reviews here, and then failed to do so for 3 months because I'm really just the worst.
One thing I will say about the contest judging is that I was quite surprised at the range of opinion on display. I'd expected agreement to be pretty unanimous, but that was in no way the case - there were things I didn't care for that other judges liked, and things I thought were great that only received mild approval from others. This was, it turned out, all part of HapHazred's plan, to assemble a team of judges with a wide range of disparate opinions so that the entries had a real gauntlet to pass. It was a fun time, I'd like to do it again some time.
Anyway, to the reviews! We were given a reading list by HapHazred, but in an attempt to avoid possibly being biased by the ordering, I selected my reading order randomly. The reviews are in that order.
PaulAsaran is up first with an immediate curveball, as this fic is a sequel to Bulletproof Heart which I haven't read. I'm going to assume that it isn't necessary for me to have read the original in order to judge this fic.
Also Paul is a way more experienced reviewer than me, so it isn't nervewracking at all to be critiquing his fic. No paranoia here, nuh uh.
So anyway, I don't know anything about the original story, but according to the description this fic's an anthro alternate universe western, which sounds fun. For some reason there's always this argument that comes up in Fimfiction groups which goes something like "Why do people write anthro, is it just for porn?", as if they can't possibly think of any other reason why someone would want to make ponies anthropomorphic. Guys, anthro ponies are just a cool aesthetic, you know? You get the familiarity of humanoid interactions combined with the magical setting of Equestria. It's a style thing, and it's really cool.
Anyway, I don't really know westerns all that well, but I've always had kind of a soft spot for the frontier life. In concept at least. I understand the allure. I should probably go and watch some westerns to see what I'm missing out on.
The fic focuses on a stallion named Code Red, who inherited the Sheriff's job from someone far more qualified and ready for the position than him. He's essentially a Sheriff in title only and has no real experience or authority - which was fine until two problems showed up in town on the same day. Isn't that always the way? Always happens in my job too. As soon as a massive problem lands on you, another one shows up at the same time.
Anyway, problem one is an unknown pony who decided to stand on a roof and shoot up everyone who comes near, and problem two is Gilda, a fearsome gunslinger and all-round scary griffon who brought a bunch of goons into town. Oh, and problem three, protecting the villagers who aren't all that keen on letting problems one and two continue, which would be easy if not for problem four, namely that Code Red is a regular dude who's never taken a life and isn't overly keen on losing his.
I didn't expect that I'd like this, but I have to confess that I really did. I liked the ragtag band of villagers coming together to defend the town. I liked Mr Gold, a man who made me realize I've been missing the potential of Diamond Dogs as a species for years, and I liked all the tantalizing references to stuff which presumably happens in the original, making it feel like a much larger world than the slice we see here. Code Red as a character feels a little bland, but I think that's intentional. He's just a guy, not some larger-than-life hero, and the way he handles the situation feels very genuine.
Oh, and the gunner on the roof is Fluttershy, I guess.
Pacing-wise, it feels pretty good , but it doesn't actually meet the rules of the contest, which require three breaks - this only has two. The first break (ie. the teaser) is good, introducing the main chararacter, both of the story's challenges, and hooking the reader in nicely. The second break comes as the action starts to heat up, leading into the epic shootout. I guess I'd probably put the third break when Fluttershy shows up with her big gun.
[Adult story embed hidden]
I'm not usually a fan of dark fics, but dayum, if they're all this good I may have to re-evaluate that policy, because I loved this one. I thought this was bloody excellent.
The fic is narrated by Rainbow Dash, except she sounds far more articulate than the Dashie we know, which seems initially like a stylistic choice but by the end of the story is somewhat justifiable when you find out what actually happened. The story cleverly dovetails away from the series at the point of "Read It And Weep", where we find that instead of Dash making a cushy three day recovery in a hospital, she instead never recovers.
This sets Dashie on a significantly different life path. Denied flight, she becomes despondent and also well-read. When Fluttershy meets an untimely death, she does what any good friend would do - creates a machine to bring her corpse back to life.
Then, everything goes horribly right.
I'm not spoiling what happens in this one, it's too good for that. It's Rainbow Dash's narration that does it for me, I think. We all know that bad things tend to happen when you play with death, but the matter-of-fact way in which she tells her story effectively numbs you to the sheer horror that's unfolding until it hits you when you're not expecting it. I love that. This one was my top pick of the contest.
Freglz steps in with a timely pick-me-up after the necromantic horror of the last entry. Let's see if a fuzzy romance can warm my heart.
This fic takes place a little after the end of the show but before the future timeskip, so everypony is settling into life under Twilight's new rule, and we see that Rainbow didn't waste any time in making the moves on AJ. Nonetheless, they've only just embarked on their relationship, so we get to see the pair trying to do a romance at each other.
Dash invites Applejack to a fancy ceremony where Lyra and Bon Bon are renewing their vows, which I guess is a thing people do? I don't really understand why. I thought the whole point of a wedding was that it's meant to be a recognition of a permanent union between two people... does it wear out or something? Isn't a renewal an admission that the marriage isn't really succeeding? I dunno, I don't get it.
There's there's enough foreshadowing in the first chapter to make it clear that Dashie is going to propose to AJ at the ceremony, and the rest of the fic is slice-of-lifey stuff as they prepare for it. AJ isn't all that keen on the ceremony for various reasons and spends most of it being a grumpy pants. At the end, Rainbow does finally propose to AJ and she sort of accepts I think. I do like the detail of the ring given to AJ, which contains a cloudwalking enchantment so that the pair can live together.
To be honest, I didn't really buy the romance between AJ and Dashie in this fic. It feels like they aren't actually in love with each other but are trying to convince themselves that they are. Although maybe that was the point.
And hot on the heels of Appledash is... more Appledash. Well, kind of. Actually this one is more about Rarity.
This one takes place after the future timeskip of The Last Problem, and I have to say it's actually pretty neat to see people now using that time period as a setting and giving us some middle-aged Mane Six shenanigans.
In this fic, Rarity kisses Applejack in a moment of divorce-induced weakness, which makes Dash mad because you ain't supposed to do that to somepony else's wife even if they are the best Mane Six. However, Dashie is too classy to bust in and deck someone who's going through a rough time, so she gives Rarity a chance to explain.
I found this one a bit slow going at first - the story opens after all of the action has happened, leaving me to catch up with what's going on. Once I got it, however, I quite liked this. Rarity's romantic woes are rather sad and it's really nice to see how Dash has grown over the years - even after all this time, she never stopped being the Element of Loyalty, and now she's got the wisdom to back it up.
I've often lamented that we never got much of the School of Friendship as a setting in the show. I adore boarding school stories - in my youth, I devoured Enid Blyton's Malory Towers and St. Clares tales, even though these were considered "girls" stories at that time. I didn't care.
I just... really love the idea of a place that is simultaneously your school and your home. I don't know why. A place where you're no longer bound to your family and have to forge your own identity in a place where everyone else is trying to do the same. I think it's one of the things that gave Harry Potter its appeal too, and I would wager that I'm far from alone in feeling this way.
The show did gave us a few tasters of the boarding school life - things like showing the Young Six's dorms, or threatening to prevent them from going home for the holidays - but such things were few and far between and I would have loved to see more.
Anyway, this story tries to fill that gap for me, as we follow a young hippogriff named Mistwake who has just started at the School of Friendship, and her troubles with a pegasus roommate - Autumn Brook - who she can't really seem to connect with. I do actually have some experience of that. In my first year at university, I was rooming with a German fellow named Jens - and that's as much as I can tell you about him, because we almost never spoke or interacted that year. It was really awkward sleeping in the same room with someone you didn't talk to. I wasn't, like, being deliberately rude or anything - I was just really shy and new at that time and didn't really know what to do. Nor did he, I guess.
I have to confess something at this point. I read this entire story beginning to end without ever realizing that Mistwake is female. It was only when my fellow judges corrected me during discussion that I went back and realized they were correct. HapHazred said he almost made the same mistake, so this is definitely a story problem - although, since Mistwake's gender doesn't matter to the plot it's not really an issue for the fic. I just thought that was quite amusing and maybe suggests inadequate description in the story.
Aaaanyway, back to the fic - so Mistwake eventually confronts her pegasus roommate and they have a bit of a fight, and also it turns out Fluttershy is a vampire. Yeah, this is actually a horror story? I think? In all honesty, I'm actually more interested in Mistwake's difficulties with her roommate and I kinda feel like the Fluttershy vampire plot distracts from that. They feel like two separate stories competing for time instead of the cohesive whole that they're meant to be.
Mistwake eventually forms a bond with Autumn after saving her life, which I always like to see, but I never really got a good feel for their friendship after that. I think it might be because the story is very tell-y and I never felt like I was actually seeing their friendship develop.
More horror! It's that time of year don't you know. There's a house - on a hill - where several dozen unicorns seem to have mysteriously vanished recently, so it's up to the Mane Six to investigate. Turns out that one of the founders of Ponyville was a bit racist and also into the whole necromancy thing, and he's gone and bound his spirit to the house, because if you're gonna have a phylactery, why not go big, right?
I did actually once knew a guy who had a problem like this. Not that he was into necromancy or anything - in fact it wasn't really his fault at all, he was just in a really bad place at the wrong time and suffered a terrible curse as a result. Every full moon, he mysteriously disappeared, and at the same time a large building appeared at the end of the street, where there hadn't been one before. When we went inside to look for him, we discovered the awful truth: the whole house was filled with cardboard boxes, some stacked almost to the ceiling. Our friend, it turned out, was a werehouse.
Anyway, the Mane Six have varying levels of enthusiasm about entering what might be a spooky house, but Rainbow makes the decision for them by busting the door open and subsequently getting them all trapped inside. From there the house does evil things to split them up and turn them on each other.
The action is good and I like the details that get revealed throughout the story - rather than leaving everything a spooky mystery, the motivations of the villain and the dark magic driving the events do actually make logical sense, which makes the stakes a lot more tangible and real to me. It's not just spooks - everything is happening for a clear purpose and it made it feel a lot more tense than it otherwise would.
What lets the story down a bit for me is the characterization of the Mane Six, which didn't quite feel right to me. They seemed a bit colder and snippier with each other than I would expect. Also, I do wonder why the story description just straight up tells you what's going on with the house. I wouldn't have minded figuring that out along with the Mane Six.
[Unpublished stories cannot be embedded]
Hey let's get an asexual to judge a porn fic that's a great idea
In this fic, Rarity invites Ember over for an unusual request: she wants to let her husband Spike impregnate Ember while she watches. Because she's into that.
For me the standout in this fic is Ember, who plays the audience surrogate perfectly - since, like me, she doesn't have a clue why Rarity would want such a thing or what cuckolding is. Her naivete really sells the situation and moves things along nicely, and it's just really cute too - Ember's actually always wanted to mate with Spike but didn't pursue it out of respect for his marriage. It's totally in character for her as a dragon who respects the values of ponykind. The fact that the arrangement benefits all three of them is really kind of sweet.
Anyway, after it's all settled, they go and do a sex at each other for a bit, while Rarity watches. Ember even manages to get into the kinky spirit with a bit of speciesism aimed at Rarity. It's cute, I swear. One thing I quite like is that the story takes the time to explore Ember's draconic perspective on sexuality - in the Dragon Lands, mating is more of a biological imperative and there isn't much romance, so it's kind of like a first time experience for her.
[Adult story embed hidden]
This fic starts out with a good hook - a unicorn looks into a mirror to find, to their surprise, a changeling staring back.
It then, however, rather suddenly drops this premise to focus on some OC slice-of-life stuff instead. I'm not sure why. I'm kind of interested in the mirror changeling thing, but they don't return to it for a while.
Green Pastures, the unicorn in question, is so disturbed by the mirror changeling that he hides in his bed the whole day, missing work - which doesn't really make much sense to me, since if you fear that there's a monster in the house, surely you'd want to get out of there? It also seems pretty obvious that Green must be the changeling since that's how reflections work, but he doesn't seem to consider this possibility. Denial, I guess.
Anyway, the fic continues to hint at strange behavior with Green as he is eventually consoled by his partner, and they go out for a romantic picnic together, and whoa okay this suddenly became a porn fic too
Green starts literally feeling the love from his boyfriend, and ends up biting him unconscious by accident, because he's totally a changeling. Disturbed at this discovery, he resolves to seek help from Twilight, who - in a pleasingly nostalgic turn of events - is her old unicorn librarian self, because this fic turns out to be set during season 3. Ahh, I miss those days. The fic captures that early season style quite well and makes me wonder if it actually was written during S3.
Twilight is none too happy about having to deal with changelings again following the Siege of Canterlot, but she grudgingly agrees to hear Greeny out, which is nice of her. That girl's got a good future, I can feel it. She signs him up for some experiments, and... well, that's kind of it actually. We never do find out what turned him into a changeling, and the rest of the fic is about him learning to live with it, which I like except for the fact that the fic is nearly over by then.
I'm have a soft spot for self-inserty OC fics, of which this has all the hallmarks, and it definitely tickled my wish-fulfillmenty side in the right places. As a story, however, I didn't feel there was a whole lot to it.
A building inspector from the EAA (the Equestrian Architectural Association - not to be confused with the EEA) comes to do a safety inspection on the School of Friendship, which Twilight is extremely nervous about - and before the teaser's even up, we're thrown for a loop as it turns out that it's not in fact Twilight at all, but the Tree of Harmony's avatar. Color me interested.
Continuing our theme of disembodied spirits taking over buildings, it turns out that the Tree has become a bit spiritually entangled with the school due to its shenanigans over the past few years. This gives it a significant investment in making sure that the inspection goes well. Unfortunately, this ain't the kind of story where things go well, particularly when the Young Six all randomly show up to offer their assistance.
Making the Tree of Harmony the main character is a fantastic idea, and I love her neuroses and insecurities in this fic - but if I'm honest, she doesn't really feel like the Tree that we know. The fic explains this as the Tree adopting elements of her personality from Twilight, but I didn't really feel able to identify her as the Tree that we know from the show, and it felt a little jarring. Maybe it's just me. Still hilarious though. Well-written farcical comedies never fail to tickle me, and there are lots of great callbacks and references to catch. If I have a complaint, it's that it feels a little too on the random side at times.
Next up, a fic about second-best pony to test my impartiality. I'm sure "Maud Slam" is a pun on something but I'm just not getting it, probably because I'm all uncultured and stuff.
In this fic, Maud enters a poetry competition at a swanky cafe, but finds that she is going up against her old school friend and rival Elegy Mixer, who is a bit of an elitist and doesn't think that non-literary ponies should be involved in literary matters.
Honestly, I would come down on Maud's side no matter what, but the fic does a great job of making me hate the crap out of Elegy anyway.
Elegy takes Maud aside and tries to discourage her in that mean passive-aggressive way where you pretend you're just helping them, and Maud eventually ends up changing her submitted poem to something else. This confused me as it was already established that you aren't allowed to change your submission, which nobody seems to acknowledge until the end.
Anyway, as I expected, Elegy wins first place and Maud comes second, but wins the moral victory because everyone liked her poem more and Elegy is a big smelly gloaty pants who everyone hates, so good. Also the twist ending is that a magic raven actually saved the day, because poetry.
I am, as you've probably guessed, not really a poetic sort myself, but I enjoyed this story lots - easily one of the smoothest reads in the contest with nice imagery that made me want bagels and coffee, and a good exploration of Maud's vulnerable side, which I always enjoy seeing. Elegy in particular just instantly oozes that antagonistic air so familiar from the show - not an evil person or an outright villain, just a pony who could clearly benefit from some friendship lessons. I'd never thought about who might make a good nemesis for Maud before, but Elegy absolutely nails this role.
Our final entry takes us to Hope Hollow, aka that place the Mane Six went to in Rainbow Roadtrip.
I didn't really think much of Rainbow Roadtrip myself when I first saw it - it felt rather more cutesy and less challenging than I generally expect from G4. It's grown on me since then. I do like some of the characters and the music is lovely.
Anyway this time Starlight, Trixie, and Sunburst get to go to the town instead. This should make things more interesting. But it doesn't, because this fic makes absolutely no sense.
I seriously had a real hard time following what's supposed to be going on in this story. There's some trade dispute going on between Ponyville and Hope Hollow but it's never really established why or what caused it. Starlight and co are there to solve a friendship problem which is somehow related to the trade dispute, even though friendship problems are usually Cutie Map missions, which this isn't, and when they get there, they're not solving a friendship problem at all, but suddenly doing a crime investigation instead.
Also there are also some missing children, except that happened 15 years ago, except they also want to solve that crime right now. Also Mayor Mare is the one who sent Starlight and co there, even though Starlight said it was a friendship problem, and also Mayor Mare was involved in the missing children case 15 years ago and apparently used to be the Mayor of Hope Hollow but then moved to Ponyville, except she's also in Hope Hollow right now even though she's the one who sent Starlight there on her behalf. Either this story is drunk, or I am.
There is also something very confusing going on with a camera that Starlight brings with them - in the first chapter it's just a random camera she brings with her, but in the second chapter, it's somehow a clue to the missing children case, which doesn't make any sense. I think some of the story might actually be missing here?
Anyway, it turns out that there's an infamous camera-themed kidnapper named Reeltime who is apparently the guy who did it, which they all just kind of figure out because somehow, they all happen to know who he is. Also it turns out that the missing ponies are all trapped in some kind of negative photo-world, which I quite liked the look of, although it is never explained what this world is or how it exists. I've just got no idea what's going on. It feels like there could be a good mystery story in here, but the fic is a mess.
Hey! Thanks for the review on "Spreading Kindness." I'm just curious, why do you think that you missed out on Mistwake being a female? Since the story is from her perspective, it doesn't make sense for her to go into her own appearance. At the very least, I don't think about my own appearance and gender on a daily basis. I felt that I left plenty of clues. When she talks about her home life, she refers to herself as her parents' "obedient daughter." Furthermore, she has a female roommate, Silverstream is the assistant for her dorms, and Gallus referring to his side of the dorms as "the boys' side" should imply that Mistwake is staying in the girls' dorm.
I tend to use hints and situations to clue the reader to a character's physical appearance, so I'm a little surprised it didn't work out this time.
5456078
I'm not really sure how I missed it - I was pretty surprised when I found out! I agree that from a first person perspective there's no reason for her to mention her gender, and honestly it doesn't really matter to the story. I just didn't pick up on any of the hints. I overlooked the part where she was referred to as a daughter and I didn't realize that there was any gender segregation in the dorms, and I guess I just defaulted to assuming she was a male hippogriff.
I think that's how Germans roll (but then, the only foreign roommate I had was from Iraq. He was into ASG, Counter Strike, and Mysterious Cities of Gold (which I watched as a kid).
5456082
I see. I also wanted to ask about the "horror" aspect. I'm a fan of "Carmilla," an 1872 novella that predates Bram Stoker's infamous Dracula. I won't go into an in-depth summary of the story, but the short of it is that while the protagonist Laura grows a budding friendship with Carmilla, a mysterious young woman who is found in a carriage crash, mysterious deaths start to occur around the town. It culminates in the now-classic reveal, that the mysterious young woman who never talked about her past is actually a vampire.
I wanted to emulate how the story pulls off its slow burn: Something very clearly wrong is happening, but it is developing just under the surface of the relationship between the two leading women. My hope is that the "two separate stories" feeling is born from the cognitive dissonance of 150 years, and not my own inability to emulate the novella. If I wasn't able to produce any sense of tension stewing just below the surface, please let me know.
It makes me really happy to hear you liked THE MODERN PROMETHEUS. I'm glad Dashie's narration worked for you, I had a lot of fun writing it!
Thanks for the review! I guess I misunderstood the rules, because I thought the contest called for three separate scenes, not three breaks. Oh, well, the important thing is that I released a story, which is becoming a rare thing these days.
Hoo boy, that's a mood.
Thank you for the review, I'm glad that my intro got just the reaction I was hoping from.
As for the characterization, as far as I know from the show, the canon Tree is usually the one in control, which was sadly the exact opposite of what I needed.
5456125
I mean, it's rare to see a fic where "a million ponies put to death" is the good ending