Paul's Thursday Reviews CCXCVI · 9:22pm May 26th, 2022
I’ve been wanting to release another Bulletproof Heart short (let’s be real, here) medium story. Sunset at Little Longhorn was originally meant to be the first chapter of Book 2, so I thought I’d continue that trend with Chapter 2. But then I realized I could kill two plot elements with one story by holding off on those events and placing them after the events of Chapter 4. So I abandoned that idea and started on Chapter 3 as a story instead. I got so far in the work only to realize that it, too, would benefit greatly from being set after Chapter 4. Well then, might as well do Chapter 4!
Then I get a ways into Chapter 4 and realize, oh, wait, a certain critical element of Chapter 4 doesn’t make any sense whatsoever if Chapter 2 hasn’t already happened.
So now I’m back to trying to recreate Chapter 2. Except when I originally wrote Chapter 2, it was one of the very few chapters not designed from the start to act as a standalone story, which means I need to completely rebuild it so that it can be worth reading on its own.
Rarity, I love you, but could you stop being so wishy-washy for a moment? Please? What if I sweetened the pot by offering to get you a traveling companion a story or two from now?
Anyways, let’s get to the reviews, shall we?
Stories for This Week:
The Struggles of Running a Book Store by arcanica_scripta
The Trouble With Truffles by Golden Skies
Redder Than Apples by TheEveryDaySparkle
One Week Later by cerealkiller78
Towards the Sunrise by Pearple Prose
Total Word Count: 99,389
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 0
Worth It: 4
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
The Struggles of Running a Book Store
90,529 Words
arcanica_scripta failed to provide cover art.
Page Turner owns a bookstore in Ponyville. She’s also secretly the famous and mysterious horror writer Arcanica Transciptia Hoofcraft, although not a soul besides her publishers is aware of this. Arcanica’s peaceful life is about to be turned upside down, first because of the arrival of one Twilight Sparkle into town, and second because there have been hints that the stories she made entirely from her own imagination might not be mere works of fiction.
Let’s be blunt: this is a self-insert. This isn’t obvious at the start, but is gradually more so as Arcanica develops superpowers and becomes pivotal in all the canon events of Season 1 and The Return of Harmony. From that angle, this story is wholly uninteresting. Have you read a story in which some random OC gets inserted into the Mane 6’s business and unnecessarily winds up being a seventh element bearer? Yes. Yes, you have. arcanica_scripta brings nothing new to this concept and it all earns a giant yawn.
However...
The injection of Lovecraftian elements into the story gives it extra life. Granted, many people have done this to varying degrees of success. What makes this one so different is how the Cthulhu mythos is incorporated. As many of you will know, the vast majority of stories featuring eldritch, cosmic abominations depict them as evil or, at the very least, highly destructive by mere existence. arcanica_scripta changes the game by making these beings not inherently bad for ponykind. Heck, some of them are even outright helpful.
I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a story with Lovecraftian elements that portrayed those elements in this way. The author even thinks to incorporate that into the story, making it such that Celestia has been persecuting the Heralds (i.e., the ponies chosen to act as intermediaries for the Elder Beings) based on misunderstandings and a presumption that they are naturally evil. These elements were, without a doubt, my favorite part of the story. Which is great as they make up the core of Arcanica’s character.
I think the biggest problem with the story is how the author struggled to both explore Arcanica’s previously unknown connection with the Void and force her into various in-show events as though the two have any need to be together. I’ve seen plenty of stories work to incorporate the show’s events, but this felt unnecessary. Arcanica discovering her role as Herald while trying to keep it hidden from the Mane 6 and Celestia? That’s interesting enough all by itself. This story could have been a hundred times better if the author had focused on that and made the events of the show mere background seasoning.
In addition, there’s the writing. Don’t get me wrong, arcanica_scripta does a generally okay job. It’s their vocabulary that comes as a struggle. It’s common to find the same word or phrase used multiple times in the same paragraph or even the same sentence because the author couldn’t come up with another way to say the same thing. It’s eye-catching and annoying. They get better at it over time, such that by the end of the story such repetition is (mostly) a thing of the past, but it’s prominent for a while.
Overall, The Struggles of Running a Book Store is a story with a curious premise but a delivery that feels shallow. Had the author focused more on exploring this re-imagining of Lovecraftian concepts and less on tired self-insert tropes we could have had a great piece of fiction. As is, it’s merely “okay”.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
The Trouble With Truffles
4,202 Words
By Golden Skies
Applejack’s greatest secret is a fondness for truffles, particularly a buttery truffle pasta dish she learned from Gustave le Grand. She can’t let anypony know that she likes such a frou-frou dish, though. Imagine the teasing from Rainbow, or the exuberance of Rarity. To keep her secret, she gathers the truffles herself in White Tail Woods once a month. Today is a day like any other in that regard… until she bumps into Fluttershy on the way out. Her animal-loving friend is very curious as to why she’s secreting a pig into the woods…
This could have gone in one of two ways. Either Fluttershy could completely misconstrue AJ’s intentions and then engage her in a ridiculous conversation where every sentence is carefully, unrealistically crafted to cause as much disconnect as possible, or the story could be approached from a more realistic but still endearing direction that might actually turn out to be original. Naturally, Golden Skies chose the first option. Most authors do, so it’s not surprising. Only disappointing.
That’s not to say the story is bad, mind you. Golden Skies’ prose is decent, if a little direct at times, and I could see this being an episode from the show had Hasbro ever bothered to address the whole “pony diet” topic. Much of the story revolves around Fluttershy doing exactly what she needs to do to come to the wrong conclusions, and it ends in a nonsensical conversation in which neither pony is permitted by the author to talk directly about what the real problem is, thus magnifying the chaos. It’s dumb, but I know a lot of people find this kind of thing hilarious. Given the story’s upvote ratio, it’s safe to say I’m in the minority here.
This is decent, it’s just not my kind of story. The only part I could point to as ‘bad’ would be the opening that gets all explainy about AJ’s situation rather than revealing it to us through AJ’s actions and words, and even that’s only a very brief part before we get to the ‘good stuff’. Once we’re past it, the rest is generally smooth sailing.
You will probably get a lot more out of it than I did, so don’t let me stop you.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Redder Than Apples
1,000 Words
By TheEveryDaySparkle
Sequel to Crystal
This extremely brief “story” continues this series’ theme of each of the Mane 6 (plus Chrysalis) revealing something personal to some unknown, anonymous stranger who is inexplicably more trustworthy than their best friends. In this case, it’s Applejack revealing that she’s a bat pony.
This was by far the most interesting concept TheEveryDaySparkle has thrown out there. All the rest of the stories had ideas that are pretty easy to come to. While I’ve seen “immortal Applejack” before, I’ve not seen it done like this. It’s a pity all TheEveryDaySparkle is interested in is idea splattery, i.e. telling us “here’s a thought” and then doing absolutely nothing with it. It would be interesting to see them try to write an actual story out of this, even acknowledging that they have alien views of what a “story” is.
There are a few awkward, unanswered questions. For example, the story claims that Granny Smith was granted a wish to be with her love forever, and thus has immortality, which she apparently passed on to her progeny. The obvious question: where is said lover? Also, Applejack notes that she and Big Mac are aware of the situation, but she hopes Apple Bloom never finds out. Why? It’s not a tragedy. Granted, she might have been referring to the literal war the Apples had with the Pears that caused a lot of deaths, but again, why should that be some big secret?
Okay, so we’ve gotten through all the Mane 6 at this point, each of whom is keeping a “big” secret from each other but not from random strangers who have the guts to directly ask. I won’t be the least surprised if the last story in this series reveals that Faust was the stranger all along and she was using her powers to compel them to talk about things she, whom I presume is the god of this AU, already knows. Only time will tell.
Still, this was the only one that caught me off guard with its overall premise. It’s also the one that comes with the fewest unintended consequences compared to the others, with the probable exception of Twilight’s. For that I see it as a cut above the others.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Hidden Goddess — Worth It
Royalty Forgotten — Worth It
One and All — Worth It
Chaos;Pink — Worth It
Crystal — Worth It
One Week Later
1,653 Words
cerealkiller78 failed to provide cover art.
Requested by cerealkiller78
(Unofficial) Sequel to Anon-a-Miss
It’s been a week since the events of Dainn’s Anon-A-Miss in which Sunset survived a murder attempt by Gilda and her gang of cronies and severed all ties with her former friends. Sunset looks out her window and is both startled and frustrated to discover a homeless Gilda trying to sleep on a street bench. In the dead of winter. If only Sunset hadn’t become such a model citizen…
This story is very direct. Gilda got kicked out of her house by her mercurial mother and can’t find a place to stay for the night, Sunset finds her, Sunset uses the Power of Friendship to make a connection, the end. On the surface, there’s nothing particularly bad about the story… except perhaps the grammar issues.
I just felt as though cerealkiller78 oversimplified things. Here we have Gilda, a spiteful and mean young woman who just a week ago grievously injured, tied up, and left Sunset for dead in an out-of-the-way location where nobody would find her. And somehow I’m expected to believe that in one very brief conversation and a single hug, Gilda breaks down? Or that Sunset is willing to trust her not to do something similar again? Yeah, not buying it.
There are many ways the author could have approached this. Showing us the whole week for Gilda, building up to this moment, would have made her reaction not feel out of place. Showing us the entire night she stayed at Sunset’s would have given extra room for drama, self-reflection, and character growth. I’m sure there are plenty of other paths this circumstance allows that would be an improvement over a short conversation that neither builds up to nor offers any reward for its main event.
A nice idea, cerealkiller78, but it needs a bit more development before it can properly shine.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Towards the Sunrise
2,005 Words
By Pearple Prose
Princess Luna. Not a princess anymore. She’s abandoned her role in Equestria. It feels like the best thing that’s ever happened to her.
This was a very brief and somewhat atmospheric short in which Luna, convinced that her sister’s method of leadership is inherently wrong and tired of Celestia’s blatant manipulations and scheming, abandons the throne entirely. It is interspersed with flashbacks of her last conversation with Celestia and followed up by a “consequences” epilogue in which we learn what Celestia ultimately chose to do in response.
The story is moody and interesting, but over as quickly as it starts. It leaves behind a lot of questions, but I didn’t mind that. I do kinda-sorta wish it could have been bigger, but am pleased with what we got nonetheless. My only concern is that I don’t think it has a lot of staying power.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Tenebrae — Pretty Good
The City That Breathes — Pretty Good
Gods-In-Law — Worth It
The Tree on Top of the Hill — Worth It
Stories for Next Week:
Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale by Chessie
One of Us by bkc56
Mission of Mercy by Trick Question
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Oof, that's a conundrum and a half, juggling the order of former Bulletproof Heart Book 2 chapters, having to backpedal and reconstruct due to issues caused by natural shuffling. My condolences, buddy.
4 Worth It and 1 Needs Work this week, ouch. The Trouble With Truffles is the only one here I've read, around when it was new, and I apparently liked it (this was in my rating-only days, and I gave it a Decent), but I can't remember a thing about it. I trust my rating, but it's not enough to compel a reread for a fic I've already rated when there's plenty others I haven't, though, so that'll do me.
And I see you're finally slated to wrap up that 1.5-million word Starlight Over Detroit fic for next week. Anyone who can juggle a fic on their reading schedule for the months that one took deserves respect, fair play. And yes, I've seen your blog post on how you organise all this. Doesn't stop it from being mighty impressive.
Starlight next week Stalight next week STARLIGHT NEXT WEEK
I imagine it'll satisfying to cross another behemoth off your list, too.
Can you tell I'm excited?
And man, I hear you with the plot organization. Personally I find one of the most frustrating aspects of storytelling to be organizing all the ideas and plot elements in a way that flows well and is actually cohesive for your audience. It's like, in my head I've got ideas, and they make sense to me, but when I try to create an actual story outline it's like I've dumped all the plot elements out of my brain and into a giant pile of puzzle pieces. Now I have to finagle them into a picture that actually looks like something decent, and there isn't even a reference picture to follow, cause I made the puzzle myself.
It's usually worth it though. Best of luck!
Starlight Over Detroit? Holy carp, dude!
Looking forward to that review!
Oh BTW, I've finally started The Silver Standard and I'm absolutely loving it. I blame you for not telling me how good it was before now... oh, wait. I guess that's on me, then.
Regarding Bulletproof Heart: Oof, that's a dilemma and a half. Your poor outline! What did it do to deserve that?
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Glad to see you’re enjoying The Silver Standard! Is it weird of me that every time I see another person fall in love with the fic I consider it a personal win?
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Not at all! I can see how you think it ought to be appreciated more. It's damn fine writing and storytelling. I generally avoid stories involving the CMC and other colts and fillies because almost all of the ones I've read are uninteresting at best, and outright appalling at worst. But the past couple of nights, I've stayed up late with The Silver Standard because "just one more chapter" is a perfectly reasonable excuse to need an extra cup of coffee in the morning. Really, that's the highest praise I can think of for any story.
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I simply cannot stop gushing about the brilliance of the story and the author whenever I think about it, and indeed once I wrote like 5000 characters in Chinese (equivalent of about 2500 English words) praising the fic in a rather cringe-worthy manner. It only got more personal after I spent over a year translating the whole thing into Chinese and doing some kind of extra-proofreading in the meantime. You get the gist of it: I'm really, really obsessed with The Silver Standard, perhaps slightly more so than what is considered to be healthy.
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Okay... perhaps second highest praise!
It's better to have obsessions than to be boring.
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I love the whole 'develop the plot' element of storytelling... when it's fresh. One of my greatest issues comes from changing things up when it's already done. Chapter 2 has, for all intents and purposes, already been written. I could release it right now. But it wouldn't be good. There's not even a conflict, because the chapter was intended to serve as a bridge to other things and set up some important events later down the line. If I'm going to release a short story, I want it to stand on its own merits, not just hold people over until the next big thing.
I've conceived of what the conflict will be. I know what's going to happen, if not the details. It'll require adding new characters and completely reshaping the nature of the story. That means rewriting it almost entirely from scratch. That's the problem, though; I hate retreading old ground. It makes me less enthusiastic. Same problem I face with the reworking of Guppy Love.
Sometimes I think I'm wasting my time. After all, I should be working on the originalfictionication of BPH instead of expanding the pony version. Of course, that comes with the exact same caveats, so...
Oh, well. I'm creating something. I can content myself with that for now.
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Yeah, The Silver Standard is indeed quite good. Glad to hear someone else has discovered it thanks to my attention. It's the kind of story you wish could gain some real acclaim outside the fandom, but know it never will because, let's face it, the original fiction world looks upon fanfiction with disdain.
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It really is that good, isn’t it? Like iisaw, I too was frequently bitten by the “just one more chapter” bug when I binged it in a well and change nearly two years ago (when I return to it for a fun reread, I intend to do so at a more leisurely pace). Any fic that can do that has got the goods, and all the more merit for being a foals-centric story, which are always dicier to do in a way that holds an adult’s interest.
It’s a weird fic to call ‘underrated’, because just about every who’s read it loves it… and yet, even its 7.8K views is not nearly enough relative to its quality, even for a fic that was published from April 2015-April 2018 (many people holding off on trying it until it was done, I’m guessing, by which point the fandom size was well reduced).
Enjoy the rest of it! And ha, “better to have obsessions than to be boring”, I’ll have to remember that one.
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Unless the original material is out of copyright or the author has permission. Lookin' at you, Wicked, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and every tie-in novel or comic ever written.
I forget who has the tagline "It's fanfiction all the way down." in their profile, but they really have the right of it.
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Instead of "underrated" maybe "a hidden gem?" I put it on my list because it came highly recommended from people whose judgement I respected, and I avoided actually reading it for so long for several reasons which I suspect might apply to a lot of other people. There are the ones you mentioned, and then there's the additional handicap of being about the sidekick to a second-tier villain. Supernatural Big Bads are great fun, but rat turds in the Stew of Life usually aren't. The saying, "It depends on how you do it," has never been more applicable. If it finishes as strong as it has been all along, it'll certainly get a place among my five-star favorites.
Yesss....looking forward to the Starlight Over Detrot review.
I haven't read the truffle one (or any of them, for that matter), but it does strike me as an easy trap to fall into, one I probably have myself. You get an idea for a misunderstanding between two characters and a method for it to plausibly come up, but then you end up shoehorning them into the situation to make it work. I agree it does work in a show-tone sense. I mean, how many episodes have a conflict that amounts to "this could have all been headed off if pony X has simply done Y back at the beginning, which they should have known to do." But there are definitely some of my own stories that I think end up being staged in this way.
>Restructuring story for rewrites of standalone books
I feel this. I feel this in my bones. Chapter 2, 4 and 5 have all become almost wholly different books in the process of turning Star Overhead into a series. And I'm only half way through book 5, and that's turning out to be a much longer one than anticipated. More than once, I've already gotten stuck with it thinking, 'Oh no, what do I do next?' It's so different from what it originally was, I can't even look back at the original for help on how to get to the next event.
I'm terrified of book 6 as well because that whole thing has changed entirely too. The vague little outline I wrote ages ago is already sinking to the bottom.
Good luck with your own rewrite though. I did eventually find a way forward, now I just have to sit down long enough to write it without getting sucked back into yugioh.
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And I feel this. Video games are both the bane and lifeblood of my existence right now.
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Seeing it always frustrates me. It's like, I know the scene could be written realistically and still be made funny with the right tweaks, but that's not easy, so nobody takes that route. The worst part is that I can't even blame them for doing it, because who wants to bother with that noise?
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Yeah, definitely hell. I just achieved my goal in elden ring, only to fall victim to my dear old friend in the form of Master Duel. Trading one time sink for another, except this one is my own personal league of legends, and just when I think I'm out they drag me right back in.
What have you been playing lately?
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Still on my achievement hunt. Games include:
Soul Calibur VI, 63% done. It's getting to the point I can't ignore the multiplayer achievements anymore. I don't mind; it's one of the few games I enjoy enough to maybe go after goals beyond the achievements. I've heard the MP scene is kinda dead, though, which means the only people still playing will probably be good.
X3 Terran Conflict, 6% done. Which is frustrating, because I've been playing it the longest. A space sim, it takes a long time to do anything, much less get achievements.
Total War: Three Kingdoms, 33%. This is actually my second run through it, as I paused last time at 1/3 complete on account of how long it'll take. I really want to get some of the multiplayer achievements now, but I can't find anybody willing to play an MP campaign with me. I hate to think that I might have to cheat to get it.
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Ah, good ol FG achievements. Ive never attempted to 100% anything but Bloodborne and Elden Ring, but I'm not sure I'd be interested in trying, tbh.
Space sims are the worst. Not enough of a stock trader to enjoy EVE, but smuggling in Star Sector and cheating factions out of their cash absorbed me for a solid three or four weeks a while back. Pair that with the Cowboy Bebop OST and I was pretty content.
Then I tried to do the story mission, lost immediately and decided to not do that anymore. Lost all my ships, already scammed two factions and got caught, and basically had to start over on worse terms than a new game. It is pain.
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I don't play space-based games too often. It's just not a favorite genre. Some of them are fun, but very few can hold my attention for long. In the case of X3, it's a 100% open world, no-specific-end-goal game where you succeed either by trading, fighting, or completing random missions, although trading is the intended priority. The problem is that all the good stuff is priced exorbitantly; just repairing a little damage to your ship can be enough to put you below where you started. Building a factory station of some sort is ludicrously expensive. I get the feeling that once you get there the game becomes a lot easier, but the time and work required to get there...
I've been doing great with the whole achievement hunting thing. I've 100%'ed 31 games so far, some of which took a lot of time and motivation. *coughFinalFantasyXVhack* A few games I take in stages just because of how long I know they'll take, particularly turn-based strategy games (like Total War). But the real goal and reasoning behind it all is simply to try and play the games I have instead of buying new ones. Achievement hunting forces me to enjoy, or at least fully experience, what I've got.
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I suppose that's a good way to go about playing games, though, I can't honestly say I'm gamer enough for it myself. I bought the humble covid pack, just for the price of hollow knight, tried it, then decided I wasn't up for it. I don't even know what else was in the pack and I also haven't opened or installed most of those games. I suppose, if I ever found myself wanting for something to do I could try it out, but I have enough hobbies a the moment.
Thank you for your honest review of my story The Trouble with Truffles. It's true that I sort of went the 'cheap' route of avoiding any sort of actual heart-to-heart, but this was for two reasons:
1.) The goal of the story, as you noted, was for me to have it take the artistic license of being similar to an episode from the show, not entirely impossible, but still ultimately engineered to serve as a focus of comedy.
2.) Keep it brief and to the point of a nice comedic read. I have written more deep conversations in the past with my writing, but I've never found it to be something that I particularly enjoyed writing (nor was too good at!), so I decided to keep it sweet and to the point.
All of that being said, I'm glad that even if it wasn't necessarily what you were hoping for that it was still something that you and others could enjoy to at least some extent. Ultimately, I'm just glad that the first story I had written in years was received well at all. Your review and the feedback I have received have both made me want to write more, so you'll be sure to hear more from me in the future!
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I don't know if there is necessarily anything wrong with this sort of approach, it ultimately depends on the genre and the type of story for which one is aiming. For a longer piece, the suspension of disbelief can start falling apart quickly, especially for something more dramatic. Although as PaulAsaran pointed out, this can all just come down to the personal preference of the reader, which is certainly fine.