Paul's Thursday Reviews CCLXXX · 9:07pm Jan 13th, 2022
No reviews next week, folks. I’m on break.
Y’know, I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now. I’m averaging some 1,500 words written every day this week, which is a huge improvement for me lately. Some days it was hard just to start, but I can’t deny it feels good to see the numbers at the end. I know I could be doing a lot more, but 2021 was my worst year so far in terms of writing productivity so I’ll take it, and happily. Perhaps this two-year-long writing slump of mine is on the mend.
Granted, I’ve said that before. But as long as I can keep up this sudden bout of willpower…
Not much else going on lately. Still wasting my time with video games. I’m coming to appreciate more and more just how much money I’m saving by forcing myself to complete all Achievements in my games before moving on to another or even buying more. Yesterday I finally 100%-ed Final Fantasy XV, which took something along the lines of six months. It felt like quite the achievement. It also means that I’m going to start playing Total War: Three Kingdoms soon. That’s… going to take a while.
But probably not as long as Civilization VI, which I’ve been at for a little over a month now. 300+ achievements. 300+ achievements.
My wallet thanks me.
How about some reviews?
Stories for This Week:
Empress Rarity's 250th Birthday by Lord-Commander
Colder Weather by Merc the Jerk
Total Word Count: 150,775
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
Empress Rarity's 250th Birthday
113,195 Words
By Lord-Commander
Prequel to Princess Twilight Sparkle's 505th Birthday
It’s finally the day! Empress Rarity’s birthday, the day she becomes a quarter-century old. Her Seneschal, Merry Sapphire, is determined to make it the greatest birthday bash the Crystal Empire has ever witnessed. It’s a daunting task requiring weeks of careful micromanagement over her (sometimes incompetent) staff, but she’ll make it work. There’s only one problem, a problem that nopony bothered to inform Merry of until just now:
Empress Rarity hates her birthday.
When this started, I thought that little summary was all this was going to be about. I should have known better. Before it’s over we’ll have political intrigue, a souring of diplomatic relations, evil machinations, alicorns getting outed, and at least one magical battle against an ancient foe. Lord-Commander follows in Autumnschild’s footsteps by making what could have been a story with a singular point into a sweeping range of important topics.
The story serves two purposes. The first is lorebuilding, working to help us understand the state of the Crystal Empire and its relationship with Equestria at this point in time. The second is to chronicle the collapse of relations between those two nations and, more harrowing, the end of the lifelong friendship between Empress Rarity and Princess Twilight Sparkle. This second one is helped immensely by Twilight’s and Cadance’s terrible past decisions which have allowed politicians to make Equestria’s decisions for them. At least Rarity was intelligent enough to maintain her power.
Then there’s Celestia and Luna, who inexplicably decided to left Equestria without so much as a “Hey, girls, can you take over for a while?” letter. Lord-Commander is making a strong effort to justify their horrible, selfish decision in this regard, but I still remember how they let Equestria burn in Princess Twilight Sparkle's 505th Birthday up to the very last second when they could have easily solved the problem practically at the beginning. To add to the pile, this story is strongly hinting that Luna and Rarity were close prior to the princesses’ disappearance, possibly romantically, which means Luna abandoned Rarity out of the blue, without explanation or even a hug goodbye.
Again, Lord-Commander is trying to rectify these grievous sins, largely by having Luna as a prominent character so we can get some of her side of things. Unfortunately, PT 505 has ruined that, making all of it seem like an act in order to not have a confrontation. The best I can do in this regard is think of ER 250 as taking place in a similar but slightly different AU from PT 505, one in which Celestia and Luna cared enough to at least attempted to smoothen the transition of their departure and didn’t outright abandon their responsibilities and relationships for entirely selfish reasons that nearly ripped the world apart.
In this author’s defense, they were stuck with what they had to work with. If I had read this story first, none of these issues would have come up, because the exact nature of Celestia’s and Luna’s disappearance is never brought up. And I did enjoy Luna’s presence in the story. Immensely.
In fact, I enjoyed this story a lot. There’s so much going on but all those things are related to one another. Nothing felt superfluous or unnecessary. There were no pointless tangents about singing songs that achieve nothing or talking to a Trixipedia and generally goofing off while the known and imminent threat is fast approaching. Lord-Commander treats the situation seriously from beginning to end, even when the specifics are a little (or a lot) goofy. Why does Empress Rarity hate her birthday? What’s wrong with her health? Why are Equestrian/Imperial relations rapidly collapsing? How is Luna going to save her estranged friend? The topics that matter are the topics that get the most attention, and I greatly appreciated that.
Let’s not forget our main villain of the piece: Blueblood. This guy is interesting from beginning to end, not least because he achieves everything he’s after. It is heavily implied that this is the same Blueblood who acted like an ass in the show, but never directly stated. Why is he over 250 years old? You’ll never find out, but there are hints to him being something unnatural. My first thought was that he’s a vampire, but I can see alternative explanations like him being a windigo or perhaps a lich. Whatever the case, he’s a villain you’ll love to hate.
There is a bit of frustrating writer shenanigans going on, though. For example, we see a lot of the issues between Equestria and the Empire, most of which are obvious misconceptions and manipulations caused by ponies not acting in good faith. The entire time this is happening, one thought kept coming to mind: just ask Twilight directly. There was no reason to think that a direct conversation between Twilight and Rarity wouldn’t have clarified all these obvious issues. But when Twilight arrives at the Empire, does she go straight to Rarity? Heck, no, she’s got to waste time talking to a bunch of bureaucrats who want to sway her opinion, and Rarity isn’t even informed of Twilight’s arrival!
And when they finally do meet face-to-face for a private conversation – which happens to be the climactic moment of the entire story – neither of them talk like real people. They’re cagey. They’re indirect. When an important question is asked, neither of them state the exact truth. They don’t talk like people. I wouldn’t even say they talk like politicians. They talk exactly in the way Lord-Commander decided they had to in order to not resolve the problems before them. Not because it makes any sense, but because the author wanted a dramatic ending that would serve as sequel bait.
It was, at best, supremely annoying. This is what I waited this entire story for, the moment you’ve been building up to? For shame, author. If there’s anything I don’t approve of, it’s heavy-handed manipulation of an established character’s behavior just to make something happen. Even worse, it was all unnecessary. The ending we got to wasn’t dependent upon this unnatural, nonsensical conversation.
But ignoring that one flop, everything else about this story was great. I loved the characters, I was invested in the scenario, and the endless mystery keeps it all intriguing. I was really looking forward to the sequel, at least until I found it was never finished (for shame, Lord-Commander, for shame).
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Colder Weather
37,580 Words
By Merc the Jerk
Sequel to Diamond in the Rough
Queen Chrysalis has taken over Equestria, successfully replacing Celestia without anyone being aware. Except, that is, the Mane Six. Rarity and Spike have been in hiding for weeks, but when they learn about a secret weapon design stolen from the Queen’s people they decide to nab it for themselves.
This one is set in an AU where Equestria has been completely redefined as a world of both Earth and Equestria, where famous historical figures of real life (like Nobunaga) still existed alongside Equestrian legends like Celestia and Luna. Even stranger is that the vast majority of our beloved MLP characters have been given more “human-ish” names, such as Twila for Twilight or Shylene for Fluttershy. Curiously, Rarity and Spike are the exceptions to this rule.
At this point in the AU our protagonists have split up to go on separate jobs or to simply hide from government observation as best they can. Spike, who takes on the role of high tech information broker, is contacted by someone claiming to have some weapon specifications stolen from Chrysalis’s followers. He invites Rarity to go with him on what he expects to be an easy retrieval job. As you no doubt have gathered from the cover art, it proves not so easy.
For those of you wondering, yes, this is a Sparity tale. The good news is that Spike’s an adult in this one, so that bit of uncomfortableness is not an issue. That being said, this is one of those romances where you have to accept that the love exists rather than looking for the reasons behind it. Even Rarity openly admits that she doesn’t know why she loves Spike. If that bothers you… Well, perhaps this isn’t the story for you.
On the other hand, this is a (mostly) realistic look at two people in a suitably dramatic life-or-death situation. They’re in the icy mountains during winter, they’ve got armed and ruthless changelings in hot pursuit, and they are both at least somewhat injured. Things get hairy quickly, and I applaud Merc the Jerk for not pulling any punches here. It’s made all the more serious by how Spike has always been the “guy in the chair”, having never been involved directly in these kinds of situations before.
All that said, there are certainly a few moments of ‘Hollywood logic’. Take for example how Spike has a broken arm, a hole going all the way through his upper leg, and significant blunt force trauma to his back. Yet somehow none of this impedes him in even the slightest when it comes time for him and Rarity to, *ahem*, “demonstrate” their love for one another. By story’s end you’d be forgiven for having forgotten that his arm was ever broken. I’m still not convinced the author didn’t forget.
Speaking of “demonstrating” their relationship, there’s a scene where they end up fighting the cold by sharing their warmth. While nude. Which, you know, isn’t wholly unbelievable. It’s a way to more efficiently share body heat in a deadly cold situation. It’s just that they and the author apparently neglected the part where you then put the warmth-conserving clothes you took off over the both of you in order to better preserve that shared body heat. Without that, I seriously question how these two survived the night.
So there’s definitely some nonsense going on. I get the impression Merc the Jerk cared more about making a scene than making things realistic. You know. Hollywood logic. You’ll have to be willing to look past such things.
If you can, you may enjoy yourself. The action scenes are interesting, the stakes high, and who would ever say no to Rarity being a badass? So shut off that brain, dive in, and try not to take it too seriously.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Diktat — Pretty Good
Fool's Gold — Pretty Good
The Laughing Shadow — Pretty Good
Big Red — Worth It
Stories for Next Week:
Crisis of Infinite Twilights by defender2222
Useless by Rated Ponystar
Stare Master - Extended Cut by AdmiralSakai
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Damn, only 2 stories this time? I guess all that hard work paid off and you can take it easy now.
I wish I had more time for video games. Only thing I'm looking forward to is Elden Ring, but I doubt I'll have the time to actually play it.
5627368
Oh, no. Not in the least. I'm reading as much as ever before, and in the past couple weeks it's even been significantly more than usual. But nearly all of that reading involves big stories that take several weeks to get through. They're eating up and tacking on to all my normal reading time, which doesn't leave me as much room for smaller stories. Thus, fewer stories per blog.
5627405
Welp.
Good luck with that.
Bingo. Heist stuff I really just wanted to make some fun Hollywood popcorn with.
Thanks for the review, amigo
When you get a chance, do you think you could read "What a Strange Little Colt"? I'd love to see your take on it.
5629036
Already scheduled! I believe the review is set to release some time in March.