Paul's Thursday Reviews CCXLVII · 9:22pm Apr 22nd, 2021
I was going to write a C&C blog this past week. It was going to involve Queen Chrysalis and Equestria Girls. It’s an idea that’s been in my head for years but I struggled to find a way to handle it, entirely because it was originally intended as a sequel to What is Missing, What is Lost. It would have been an indirect sequel, in that it was set in the same AU and took place later chronologically, but the events within would only be peripherally related to its predecessor. Figuring out how to make that work was something of a nightmare.
The C&C blogs are usually where my stories go to die, meaning once I’ve written the blog there is very little chance I’ll ever actually write the story. It’s me giving up long-held ideas in favor or working on more important projects. While writing this last one, I got halfway through it when I had some epiphanies.
The first epiphany is that this Chrysalis story doesn’t have to be related to WiMWiL. It can exist as its own separate story/AU.
The second eiphany is that the story doesn’t have to be some giant piece of long running action/drama/adventure. It can work well as a medium-length story (read: 10,000 - 20,000 words).
And the last epiphany: this Chrysalis story would actually make more sense as a shorter story. Making it an epic is not only unnecessary; it would be a lesser story for it.
I immediately abandoned the C&C and started writing. Before I knew it, I had 1,500 words down. I’m very interested in this one, and I may shift it to being a top priority, because I really like the idea. Hopefully I can have this one finished and ready to go next month.
Alright, enough rambling. Let’s get to the reviews!
Stories for This Week:
Stories in Stone, Luna's Royal Guard. by TDR
Life in Phoenix Roost by Boldish42
Clusterbuck to City Hall by Caddy Finz
Wawindaji by The Albinocorn
Total Word Count: 697,953
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 2
Worth It: 2
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
Stories in Stone, Luna's Royal Guard.
628,784 Words
By TDR
“It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you, because I don't turn ponies into stone.”
This quote from Discord ignites a spark of curiosity in Twilight. She’s always known about the stone garden at the castle, but surely Discord was an exception and not the rule, right? Her investigation leads to some hard truths, none more hard than the discovery of Nightmare Moon’s five personal guards.
That’s a ridiculously uninformative summary compared to what this story is actually about, but if I want to actually write a review then I can’t spend forever on a summary. The gist is that Nightmare Moon had five “generals” who were loyal to her over her sister, they were cast in stone after her banishment, and now she questions if they should be set free. Twilight is given a special item that allows her to view the distant past as it happened from the perspectives of these five ponies and Luna. The story, then, is that of these ponies: who they are, where they came from, and their close relationship with Luna in the last years before her banishment.
When the story began, things looked bad. TDR’s grammar was nonexistent and the plot irreverently disregarded important key elements of Equestria’s history without explanation. With more than half million words to go through, I was starting to fear for my sanity. I could list the huge number of things TDR was doing wrong throughout the first half of this story in terms of general writing, but it would be a ridiculously long list and I don’t have that kind of time.
The good news is that TDR learned as the story went on, and by the end of it the vast majority of the problems were gone entirely. With the last few chapters, you’d be forgiven for having forgotten that the first half was such a mess. Although I’m not sure TDR ever managed to not spell soldier as “solider”, and that part where he kept calling provinces “providences” had me wanting to tear my hair out. I get the impression they abused the spellchecker.
In other good news, TDR claims to have begun editing the story to match up with their current writing level. I find that dubious, as some of the early chapters are marked as edited and… yeah, still trash in terms of grammar and general literacy. If you plan to read this, you’d best be prepared to tolerate some absolutely crummy writing for a hundred thousand words.
There’s also the frustration of the anime/video game-esque combat. The characters are constantly battling more and more powerful foes, which would be fine if that didn’t entail them developing superpowers and surviving what should have killed them ten times over. Before too long we’ve got characters being thrown through brick walls, stabbed, having their faces shot off, limbs removed, and so on, and they all bounce back with a few new scars and a grin. If you like your action over-the-top ridiculous, I suppose this will do it for you. It got old for me by about halfway through the story, and I stopped being alarmed or worried or thrilled by anything well before then despite the constant escalation.
Then there’s the inconsistent descriptions, which also feel anime/video game-esque in nature. For example, there’s one scene where a supposedly gargantuan dragon shows up, as big as a building and making all other dragons look puny. It’s regarded as a legitimate, terrifying threat. Then another dragon comes along that is supposedly equal in size a few chapters later, but it fits inside a building. Then another dragon of supposedly equal size comes along another few chapters later and it’s so comparatively small our main character can jump to reach its face and it is legitimately threatened by normal ponies. It’s some sort of scale creep, where things that were supposed to be indescribably monstrous get retconned into something less remarkable in a bid to make whatever comes next seem worse, and it fails every time because no, author, I didn’t forget how you described the last one.
TDR’s dialogue also needs work. There are many instances where they attempt to get everything done via talking heads. It works in some later scenes, mostly because those scenes deal only in our six protagonists. But every other time it is used with characters who aren’t said protagonists, it fails dramatically. I quickly became confused regarding who among these rarely-seen characters with no identifiable voice identity was speaking a given line. Far worse are the monologues (some of which are stolen at least partially from famous movies, which I did not appreciate) where a character speaks for paragraphs on end without any narrative interruption and we’re somehow supposed to garner some sense of their emotional state through all of it. Which is, of course, impossible.
I suppose these are more subjective complaints, but the irregular addition of songs and cultural references annoyed the heck out of me, typically ruining the mood rather than helping it. TDR was trying to go for something epic, but that always fails when the author tries to interpret scenes like we’re watching a movie rather than reading a book. Bleu singing about war at the start of the climactic battle didn’t make me feel anything except annoyance.
Now, you’re probably thinking at this point: “Wow, Paul, you must have really hated this story.” On the contrary, I merely wanted to get the negatives out of the way first. There are absolutely things that TDR did well.
For starters, that complaint about complete rewrites of history having no explanation? It turns out they do, we just don’t get to see them until the story’s halfway over. Issues like “How can Ponyville have existed a thousand years ago when it was founded by Granny Smith’s father?” eventually are given a legitimate excuse. This went a long way in making me more comfortable with this revised history, although I won’t blame anyone who quits because they see something so blatantly wrong and aren’t patient enough to wait 200,000 words for the answer.
Then again, we never got an answer to “If hatching dragon eggs is the standard requirement for getting into Celestia’s school, why isn’t canon Canterlot depicted as being filled with young dragons?” So not all problems get an answer. But enough of them do that it greatly eased my annoyance.
There is, of course, the worldbuilding. Such as the idea that there are gods for every major race, but only so many per race, and every time a god dies a new one is born to take its place, thereby maintaining a specific count. How every race has a unique culture, such as the Zebra’s horrifying custom of murdering foals who may be gods to prevent there being any Zebra gods at all. The way the gods have eternal youth and great power but decidedly squishy, vulnerable bodies was a nice touch. Throw in some magic lore, wholly unexpected races we never see in canon (like half-dragons), and some brief awareness of governing bodies. This is one area that TDR excelled.
Yet perhaps the best part about the story is the characters. Jer’rahd, Rhede (I kept thinking it was pronounced “reed” until a zebra used it in rhyme as “red”), Bleu, Starfall, Velkorn, and Luna all make for interesting protagonists from start to finish. The characters interacted well together, had complex and interesting backstories, and had delightfully detailed quirks and habits that let them stand out from each other.
I loved watching Velkorn and Rhede interact. His habit of bedding as many mares as he can get his hooves on coupled with her frustration that he refuses to put his hooves on her is a light summary of what we see between them. Their dynamic was always fun to watch, their character and relationship growth ceaselessly endearing.
By the same token, Jer’rahd’s and Rhede’s relationship as adopted brothers and former enemies allowed for some fun dynamics. At times it’s hard to tell if they love one another or merely tolerate their individual annoyances – which, as anyone with siblings can likely tell you, is not unusual.
Starfall had her own curious element here, always feeling like the odd one out to me, yet in a good way. Of the five “Generals”, she’s the only one that lacks any sort of deep, personal, private connection with the others. TDR is good enough at character growth to recognize this and make it a subtle aspect of her character that never goes away, though it can be subdued a lot of the time. Her struggle to be a single mother and a wartime general at the same time is a pivotal and ever-worrying aspect of her character growth.
Let us not forget Bleu, the dragon who is constantly trying to get Jer-rahd laid, refuses to stop making passes at Rhede, and who has her own tragic history that we get to watch directly unfold. TDR did a wonderful job of giving her a comic relief role without making her annoying, neglecting her personal character growth, or giving her some significant challenges of her own.
Add onto all of this Luna, who is eternally at odds with her sister regarding how best to protect the citizens of Equestria from a startlingly large number of races that seem to look at them as nothing more than prey to be conquered and used as consumable chattel. This is in many ways the driving force of the story, depicting a Celestia determined to maintain a pacifistic stance and achieve peace at any cost and Luna recognizing that her sister’s methods of foreign relations are tragically flawed.
It’s a nice dynamic that TDR created with the plot here. At the beginning of the story, Luna is consistently correct in the best methods for protecting Equestria. She recognizes that the other races know Celestia will never punish them for their infractions against Equestria, so they keep attacking and looking for weaknesses. Luna understands that so long as Equestria refuses to be proactive and make a clear, firm statement that this behavior won’t be tolerated it’ll happen again and again until eventually someone like the dragons succeeds in their conquest. Luna’s stance against her sister made perfect sense, which gave her the “good guy” role of the ongoing conflict and gave us all reason to root for her.
Then she attacks the dragon capital and shit gets real. We get to watch as the hero of the hour, the pony who was ready and willing to teach Celestia what true leadership is, take things too far. Then comes the genocide. The rebellion. The unethical research. The cult. The depiction of Luna’s fall to Nightmare Moon is fully realized and extremely effective. Seeing her Generals finally realize that things are getting out of hoof and having to decide between their loyalty to a friend and the fate of a world. It’s heavy stuff.
Even then, we’re still not done. Remember, all of this is being viewed by a present-day Twilight Sparkle through a scrying spell. Twilight has been asked to help present-day Luna decide whether her old Generals and best friends, who betrayed her when she was at the height of her power, should remain in stone forever. We have to watch Twilight’s reaction to these events and see her get others involved in the discovery. This comes with its own bits of character growth, none as significant as what we see in the past but certainly worthy of attention. Of particular interest is Spike, who feels the ongoing research is having a negative effect on his sibling and openly opposes it. Considering how frequently Spike is neglected in stories of this sort, I greatly appreciate the role he was given. The only negative aspect of this portion of the story is that the entire subplot for why Twilight was viewing the past in the first place is never resolved, instead used as a trolly tease to try and get us to read the sequel.
I could keep going, but this review has gone on long enough. Stories in Stone has a lot of positives going for it, but also a number of negatives. The plot is generally solid, but issues abound, especially in the first half of the story. The fighting in particular stops being interesting after so long as you’ve figured out TDR’s methods pretty quickly, but in terms of character and relationship growth I have nothing but praise, and the overarching theme of a hero falling into villainy is well-explored.
All that being said, I don’t think I’ll be continuing to the sequel. I have no reason to expect it to be anything new and I don’t want to make another ~440,000 word investment of my time at this stage.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Life in Phoenix Roost
10,567 Words
By Boldish42
Queens Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle lead interesting lives as leaders of their hive, Phoenix Roost. But you probably know all about that. One might be curious to know what life is like for the creatures that aren’t at the top of the food chain. Like, say, the children.
Set in law abiding pony’s Hive AU, this is a short anthology, told in chronological order, following the various misadventures of a class of changeling children at Phoenix Roost, mostly told by the creatures that encounter them. It starts with a story of Tank the Tortoise visiting the class and being a good-natured, fun friend for the children. We then get to watch visiting sphinxian Rasua as she sits in on the class and learns some mind-breaking things about Phoenix Roost’s history. There’s also the antics of one child who decides field trips are boring, a little griffon looking for new friends, and a wannabe archaeologist that finds a new playmate.
It’s an adorable anthology. Tank’s story was easily my favorite, but the rest didn’t disappoint. If you wanted, you could simply describe this as “children doing childish things”.
About the only catch in all this is that the story is part of the Hives AU, and you’ll likely be lost if you don’t have at least a basic understanding of it; why Twilight and Rainbow are changeling queens, how Phoenix Roost came to be, what the hex Sphinxes are (to say nothing of their culture), and so on. You might be able to get by as long as you only care about watching kids at play, but looking any deeper into it will almost certainly leave you confused.
Still, as one who has read the entirety of the AU, I was pleased. Its audience may be limited, but the story is still entertaining.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Clusterbuck to City Hall
47,599 Words
By Caddy Finz
When Mayor Mare decides not to run for office for another term, Vinyl Scratch tries to convince Octavia to run. Octavia isn’t all that interested… until she discovers local businesspony Filthy Rich is currently running unopposed. She’s not about to let some dirty, stinking Equblican be mayor of her town!
Yes, that is indeed a horrible ponification of the Republican Party. “Equemocrat” for Democrats isn’t any better. In an early chapter, Vinyl Scratch complains directly to the narrator; the narrator directly responds. With those statements, I have told you everything you need to know about this story. But it wouldn’t be much of a review if I left it at that, so…
The best serious summary I can think of for this story goes as such: Octavia, Vinyl, Caramel, and the Mane 6 regularly demonstrate an unapologetic eagerness to act as political criminals, but get away with it because they’re on the “correct” side. Filthy Rich isn’t so lucky.
But if we want to be non-serious – which, really, nothing about this story is serious – then it’s a bunch of goofy antics involving a political fight for the Ponyville mayoral seat. How goofy is it? Goofy enough that I’d say Caddy Finz made it a point to depict every character sans Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash in the most offensive way possible in relation to their in-show characters. This includes Octavia as a drunk party animal, Rarity as a gleefully backstabbing whore, Twilight abusing her political position to sway elections and get her friends out of being arrested, Spike as an unapologetic pervert, and so on. There’s drugs, sex, vulgarity, and enough cringe-inducing 80’s slang to make the 80’s jealous.
I’m not saying that any of this is bad. I’m just saying you need to go in prepared for it. If you don’t come into this one with the right mindset, it can be jarring and maybe even uncomfortable.
This is, for all intents and purposes, a borderline crackfic (and maybe parody?) about ponies getting away with outright crimes in order to defeat a political opponent who, up until a sudden change in the climax, doesn’t actually do anything to warrant their dirty tactics. Which is probably about as normal for politics in Equestria as it is in any other reality, really. Of course, since Octavia & co. are the “good guys”, they can be criminals and get away with it, the story making no bones that they are meant to be the heroes of the tale. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me if the author, who seems to think waking up covered in empty beer bottles is a good thing, actually believes that.
It’s all a bit too nonsensical for my tastes, but I am well aware that “taste” is subjective. I’m sure there are plenty of people who will think it’s hilarious, what with its regular movie and video game references, consistent mockery of politics, and ever-present irreverence to its source material. As such, I’m more than willing to put it on the middle ground.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Wawindaji
11,003 Words
By The Albinocorn
Zecora’s family is that special kind. You know the sort: they spend their days looking ‘normal’ and their nights hunting supernatural evils like vampires and whatnot. Or “bad juju” as these things are referenced in her family. This wouldn’t be so bad if Zecora hadn’t suddenly discovered her girlfriend of the last few months is a werewolf.
First off, a werewolf? That threw me entirely off guard. I was thinking maybe Sunset had to occasionally let her inner demon out in order to control it. That Albinocorn decided to go in a supernatural direction threw me for a loop.
Once I got over my surprise and incredulity, I found a decent if somewhat traditional “hunter loves hunted” story type. We go through all the motions of discovery, reaction, and solution with a pleasant middle of romantic, fluffy (pun not intended) relationship growth. Couple that with some decent action bits, solid writing all around, and some one-sided familial drama to round things off. I have nothing to complain about.
As an aside, I feel obligated to point out that the timing of Sunset’s transformation into a werewolf is very suspicious. I mean, as far as I can tell it happened at right around the same time that Zecora’s family arrived in town. Which makes sense, because the entire reason they moved to Canterlot was because Zecora’s grandmother, apparently a living bad vibes detector, sensed something supernatural going down there. We’re led to assume this is because of the werewolf that created Sunset.
Except it’s also noted, subtly and never mentioned again, that both events also happened immediately after the Battle of the Bands – which no doubt created plenty of “bad vibes” for a “living bad vibes detector” to pick up on. And I can’t help but notice Zecora’s father’s constant insistence that supernatural beasts are evil by nature and must always be put down without exception. Or Zecora’s mother being conveniently unavailable to go “hunting” at the same time as when Sunset Shimmer happens to be suffering from “sleep deprivation”.
I won’t throw out any absolutes, but something feels fishy here. All I’m sayin’.
At any rate, this was a very enjoyable romantic thriller about a supernatural hunter falling in love with a supernatural entity, and the pitfalls that brings. I’d love to see more of Zecora in this kind of role.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Long Road to Friendship — WHYRTY?
Firebird Dahlia — Pretty Good
Sunset of Time — Worth It
Stories for Next Week:
Men and Monsters: Metempsychosis. by Perfectly Insane
Silent Love - Part One by Sagami
Questions & K.K.! by Azure129
Names by Razor Blade the Unicron
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When people tell you to keep politics out of ponyfic, this is what they really mean.
Not gonna lie, I blushed a little while reading this 😅 I confess, Clusterbuck was honestly my least favorite and arguably my worst one.
I will happily take the criticism and I hope that you may consider my other stories which are a little less foul 
in the past, I thought about a sequel but when I quit drinking (my apologies, I no longer joke about that as I was trying to make light of a problem I had) I quickly realized that it best to just let let this one go. Thanks so much for your review and I hope to keep improving my work.
5504387
Perhaps I will read more of your work. As a general rule, I always have past-read authors on a list so I can maybe get back to them someday. Alas, right now that list is ~700 authors long, so I make no guarantees.
Also: glad to hear you beat your drinking problem!
Yeah, I remember reading Stories In Stone a while back. Obviously I thought the premise was interesting (gosh, I wonder why...), but there was just something... well, childish is a bit of a strong word, but not really mature about the story either, that undercut the gravitas I always thought the subject deserved. The knowledge that it's being revised is new to me, though, and encouraging. I might take another look at it in the future if that's the case.
5504794
I think I know what you mean. It's hard to explain, but there's a certain starry-eyed "youth" to the story in terms of how it's presented. I doubt the revisions will help in that regard, as it seems to be more about fixing the copious grammatical/literary errors than anything fundamental in plot/presentation. I could be wrong about that though.
5504295
Or at least put some more effort into making your political party names sound better, good God! These ones sound more like prescription drugs than anything else- "ask your doctor about Equemocrat today".
Or, better yet, just leave them be. There's nothing particulary un-horse-like about the concepts of democracy and republicanism, and it's not like the changes made leave any doubt about what the parties are supposed to correspond to.
5504794
5504808
To be fair SiS was my first BIG story so i had to work on how i was going to write things out on the fly. Most of SiS was just my brain throwing a bunch of stuff together and it some how worked for the most part.
Personally i don't think i hit a stride until book 3 Lost Empire. But a lot of what I learned I've put forth into my newest work, though I can't help making references to SiS in my new stuff. You don't write a series for 7 years and drop it completely.
I am redoing the series very very very slowly as in I've only got the first chapter done and it might be one of those tasks i never complete due to still having 4 1/2 seasons on my current project as well as 2 other smaller side stories going.
5504738
Thanks so much. I'm actually in the process of giving up smoking too! Not easy but what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. I wish you luck getting through those 700+ authors! My cluster whatever story was intended to be an off the wall screwball fest anywho 😂
5505019
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5505234
okay.... right...i foget how things go in fanfiction sometimes.
'I" don't write a series for 7 years then drop it completely.
5505325
In my defense, I at least found a good place to end it and hadn't started any new story arcs to forever be unfinished.