Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXV · 8:05pm Oct 27th, 2022
It’s that time of year again, and this weekend I’ll be headed to my cousin’s house for our annual Halloween get-together. I’m always really appreciative of her for doing this with me, as she (and by extension, her family) are the only ones in my extended family who will share in my love for the horror genre. Most of them avoid it like the plague (although my dad has a soft spot for Stephen King movies). Last year we watched Crimson Peak, which was an all-around great movie beyond just “horror” and one I highly recommend.
This year we’re going to watch the original 1978 Halloween, because my cousin’s husband (cousin-in-law?) has been mentioning a desire to see if for years now but always got overruled. It will also serve as a nice refresher before I watch the new trilogy on my own. But after that? I don’t know. This is going to be a weekend-long thing, so we’ll need something to do beyond just watching Halloween.
I plan on giving them choices for a second movie. Right now my thoughts are on The Conjuring, the 2019 Child’s Play (which I thought was pretty good despite being so drastically different from the original), and Repo! The Genetic Opera. I considered adding Hereditary to the list, but I honestly think it would be too much for my dear cousin.
I like to play games with them when I can. A couple years ago we played through Layers of Fear, which proved an all-around good time. We ended up finding a hidden room I was unaware of and which is only available on Halloween night, which was a ton of fun. What I’d really like to do, though, is either A) replay Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, which was one of the first things we did when we started these Halloween gatherings and is still one of my favorite horror games of all time, or B) introduce them to Mad Father, which was exceedingly creepy and has the advantage of being very short. Well, no, what I most want to do is play Alien: Isolation with them, but I don’t think we could get through that in a single weekend. It would be different if we didn’t have to wait for their kids to go to bed.
Heh. Speaking of kids, we’re probably going to finally introduce my “niece” to The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’m kind of excited, because she’s finally realized that Halloween is when “Uncle Jeremy” is coming to visit with spooky stuff, and she wants in. My cousins have concluded this finally makes her mature enough to see certain kid-oriented material without being traumatized. Kid even told me at a birthday party recently that I can’t scare her. Oh-ho-ho, if she only knew. Alas, I must hold back – she’s only ten, after all – but the possibility that there’s finally someone in the next generation willing to participate in the spookfest pleases me greatly.
I’m kind of hoping to introduce her to Hocus Pocus. I mean, come on, it’s Hocus Pocus. Plus I painted a decorative board with outlines of the Sanderson Sisters and the line “I smell children.” as a gift for the family this year, so there’s incentive.
Okay, this is getting long. Let’s move to the reviews, shall we? A pity I haven’t been reading much in the way of horror these days.
Stories for This Week:
The Rariad by Tundara
Boast Busters - Extended Cut by AdmiralSakai
Total Word Count: 203,150
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 0
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
The Rariad
137,248 Words
By Tundara
Sequel to Myths and Birthrights
In order to save her friends and Equestria from a dead alicorn’s vengeful spirit, a forcefully ascended Rarity sacrificed her life.
In order to save a filly she’d come to love and protect a town full of innocents, Trixie sacrificed her life.
Now the two find themselves in Tartarus. The former, tormented by the nature of her demise, is stuck in a mental fugue, lost to all around her. The latter is fiercely determined to escape Tartarus, and she’ll be damned (possibly literally) if she leaves Rarity behind.
Some of you see that intro and are thinking “Wait, Trixie has to save Rarity? Then why is it called The Rariad?” And that’s a perfectly fair question to ask at the start of the story when it seems like Trixie is going to be the main character. In truth they share an equal spotlight. In the first part, Trixie takes the lead. In the second, Rarity does. Afterwards, they tend to share the limelight, the POV shifting from one to the other somewhat regularly.
As to why it’s called “The Rariad” specifically… I guess it sounded better than the “Trixiad?” At the very least it’s clearly intended to be thematic to Homer’s The Iliad. Not just in title, either. Myths and Birthrights was steeped in Greek mythology, complete with ponified Greek gods like Zeus and Hades and culminating in a battle against an actual titan. The Rariad, however, is a much more direct and compact story as it strictly focuses on the events surrounding Rarity and Trixie instead of jumping across two dozen different characters in a wild scramble. Needless to say, this is a huge improvement.
The central point of the story is that Trixie and Rarity have died, entered the Underworld, and are now trying to get back. Theirs is hardly a direct route, as it involves exploring Tartarus (and making friends with a former foe, to my surprise), terrifying social games in the courts of Hell with the Devil himself, and political games amongst the Greek gods of Gaea. Yes, it was weird to me too that the Devil, or at least an approximation of him, is present in a story otherwise thematically focused on Greek mythology. But then two personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins already made big appearances in the previous story, and I guess they had to come from somewhere.
Each portion of the story – Tartarus, Hell, and Gaea – are treated in different ways, from what the girls have to do to escape to how the narrative is written. This shined the best in Gaea, where the narration often shifts into a certain “old world” format that I’m sure is inspired directly from The Iliad. Going by the author’s notes, I suspect Tundara did a ton of research in an effort to get this just right – both in terms of literary style and the depictions of the gods. To some, it will come off as weird and maybe even a bit overdone, but for the rest of us it will be a fascinating shift. The story is also thick with worldbuilding, talking about all sorts of things we’ll never see directly but which give life to all three locations.
The end result is a delightful adventure filled with endless danger and more than a little dread. Rarity and Trixie will meet a lot of side characters, make many friends, and fight alongside them. Many of those friends will die, but many won’t. Trixie will become a Champion, a hero of Gaea and respected mage. Rarity will become the patron deity of a city, wed the Father of Lies (no, seriously), and duel none other than Ares himself. There’s a lot going on here, and it never stops being interesting.
There are a few issues, the most notable being the time jumps. I believe Rarity and Trixie spend five years on this journey. Or four, it’s hard to say. It’s a big shock when two of those years are completely skipped without so much as a summary. It’s just “Hey, last chapter they were in Tartarus, now let’s start the next one two years later in Hell”. Is it jarring? Absolutely.
To be fair, that was the worst instance. And I have to give credit to the author for revealing the events of those two years in a gradual way that doesn’t rely on any exposition at all. Also, a big reveal comes near the end of the story that kinda halfway-sorta justifies it. But the thing that gets revealed is… hideous. It means that something happened to Rarity, something foul, yet you’d never know it because at no point does she react to it. When we see Rarity after the two-year jump, she acts perfectly normal, or as normal as one can while trapped as the trophy wife of Satan himself. You’d think there’d be some sort of behavioral quirk, some recurring tick that would make it clear that something is wrong, but Tundara never gives us that. Oh, there is some foreshadowing, but it’s not the kind that would be able to clue you in to this particular kind of problem.
So, to answer the author’s Note near the end, yes, the big reveal seemed to come out of nowhere. Being unable to look through doors does not prepare a reader for this! I’m willing to accept the whole divinity explanation offered as a potential solution, but barely.
Still, if you’re willing to let that slide, then you’ll find a fascinating adventure waiting for you. It does occasionally reference the events of Myths and Birthrights, but for the most part the story is capable of standing alone provided you can roll with a few things (like Celestia being in a relationship with Zeus). I think my biggest disappointment is the knowledge that there won’t be anymore stories from this AU, at least not after this point. Which is a shame, because I’d have liked to have explored it further.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Tiger Bloom — WHYRTY?
Myths and Birthrights — WHYRTY?
The Longest Night — Pretty Good
Boast Busters - Extended Cut
65,902 Words
By AdmiralSakai and Serketry
Sequel to Griffon The Brush-Off - Extended Cut
And so we continue with AdmiralSakai’s and Serketry’s EC series. As a reminder, this is a series that tries to cast the various episodes of the show into longer, more ‘realistic’ takes that often have only threadbare thematic resemblances to the episodes they are based on yet still have all the high points of the events. In this one we find Twilight still doing intense research into the ancient Lunar Rebellion, hunting for artifacts in the ever-dangerous Everfree with the help of a team of researchers and Royal Guard. Alas, somepony has been stealing their research materials.
When we left off, Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash had traveled to a griffon city with Gilda in an attempt to Ocean’s Eleven a particularly frustrating noble. Now they get back to Ponyville only to find that the thefts have gotten worse, possibly due to the presence of ghosts in the Everfree. Oh, and a pony named Trixie is putting on shows in town.
As is the MO of these stories, the authors abandon the overarching theme of Boast Busters – i.e. actions speak louder than words – in favor of continuing the mysterious underlying conflict where Twilight & Co. work to deal with the seemingly endless issues that the Everfree throws at their expedition. Trixie is still a critical part of this story, though. Indeed, she’s the critical part. In the show, Trixie was just a street performer who got wrongly treated as the bad guy for literally doing her job. But this time? This time Trixie’s doing all sorts of shady stuff.
Much of the story keeps things mysterious, showing that Trixie’s actions are suspicious but never outright making her a villain. Trixie is also shown to be exceptionally talented at deception, constantly leaving everypony in town guessing and pulling fantastic feats that have even the brilliant Twilight Sparkle stumped to the point of fury. I think watching Trixie work her magic – often without actually using magic – was my favorite part of this story. It’s always nice to see her as a capable magician. And while she still clearly has an ego, it’s narrowed down to a more realistic slant. I mean, yes, she still speaks in Third Person, but if I’m reading things properly then I think she’s only doing it when trying to maintain her stage persona amongst potential customers.
She’s not wholly inconsiderate, either. In one of her more interesting moments, she goes out of her way to get the Cutie Mark Crusaders out of harm’s way, entertaining them as a distraction and even going so far as to reveal the secret behind one of her tricks to earn their trust and get them to listen to her. In yet another scene she outright attacks something she thinks is threatening a foal, not hesitating for even a second to do so. Maybe Trixie has a soft spot for children, but whatever the case may be she’s definitely got her good traits that the adults around her tend to overlook.
There are a variety of other highlights, such as Spike taking charge when he needs to yet still occasionally showing his vulnerable side, or Rarity’s surprisingly varied and high-quality magical abilities in regards to her work, or Pinkie’s ability to think outside the box during disaster situations, or Rainbow’s regularly doing double duty for no other reason than to give Twilight a hoof, or (and perhaps especially) Fluttershy spending most of the story offscreen because she out several days alone in the Everfree actively tracking down a friggen’ Ursa like a boss.
Yeah, the Ursa’s there. AdmiralSakai and Serketry take a lot of liberties with how these stories play out (such as abandoning Pinkie Sense entirely, the barbarians), but even they knew they couldn’t write Boast Busters without the Ursa. I doff my hat to them for when it finally made its arrival; the two-chapter scene in which it rampages was very effectively done and easily the most exciting this series has managed to be since the Nightmare herself paid a visit in the first story. I especially appreciate that, technically, how the Ursa was dealt with is the same, but the specifics of it was more complicated and called for the work of a large number of ponies rather than just Twilight. Refreshingly, that included all the Mane 6 and Spike. Since “Twilight Sparkle is a magical prodigy but afraid to show it” has been abandoned completely as the primary element of the story, it only made sense that the solution would be a group effort.
Also, I still greatly enjoy how much consideration Spike gets from these authors.
About the only thing that struck me as odd was Twilight, who for much of the first third or so of the story adamantly denied that there was anything wrong in the first place. I mean, everypony’s telling her “something is off and we need to address it”, and she constantly shoots them down with the same kind of arguments you’d expect to see in a B-movie corporate executive looking to protect company assets regardless of the cost. When she does finally come around, it felt… out of place, for lack of a better way to put it. I mean, what, was she just playing devil’s advocate all that time? And then we get her antagonistic behavior towards Trixie in the latter half of the story, which seems to come out of nowhere.
Going on my storytelling instincts, I think the authors were trying to paint Twilight early on as a “voice of reason”, i.e. agreeing with her companions’ assessments yet wanting to be absolutely sure before acting on their knee-jerk reactions. Which, y’know, is not unreasonable. But at the same time I feel there was an error in translation, if you will, regarding how Twilight actually felt and what she was saying, which made her about-face halfway through the story feel jarring. As such, I think those scenes would have benefitted from some clarification that Twilight was less saying “your ideas are dumb and I won’t entertain them” and more “we need to do this the right way or we’ll make an even bigger mess”.
Yet again, AdmiralSakai and Serketry have come up with a story that deviates so far from its origin material yet does a great job just being a story. Aside from the quirkiness of Twilight’s behavior, I enjoyed pretty much every moment. All the major characters get a moment to shine, and some of the less critical ones still have their little opportunities, sometimes even when not present. I am, as usual, very pleased and looking forward to when the next one gets done. I think I may have enjoyed this one the most compared to its three predecessors. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll have to settle for some other entry in AdmiralSakai’s library.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read these Yet?
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Friendship Is Magic - Extended Cut — WHYRTY?
Feeling Pinkie Keen - Extended Cut — Pretty Good
Stare Master - Extended Cut — Pretty Good
Griffon The Brush-Off - Extended Cut — Pretty Good
Stories for Next Week:
The Guard of a Different Stripe by Rego
A Woman Worth Saving by Undome Tinwe
Sealed With a Kiss by Midday Shine
The Laughter I Choose to Be by Trick Question
Paint The Moon Red by AuroraDawn
Fluttershy's Night Out by Bad Horse
Winter Storm by Snake Staff
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Wow, ever since I saw one of my stories finally got the top rating again, I've been going absolutely bonkers waiting for the review to drop.
More than anything, I'm glad you liked our portrayal of Trixie. She was a very fun character to write, and while Serketry seemed to have a slightly better grasp on her than I do, we just overall never had any difficulty at all figuring out how she'd respond to different situations (and usually cause as much trouble as possible doing so).
This was also something that I enjoyed greatly- coming up with tricks that would be both impressive in a world where literal magic is commonplace, and doable without said literal magic. Trixie is not by any means a stupid mare, but very early on I decided she doesn't have anywhere remotely near the level of book-smarts that Twilight does.
I thought so as well... which is why I've decided that's enough 'monster of the week' stories for the time being and will be putting together the next one with a greater focus on drama and much less military action. It wouldn't do to get too formulaic.
Once again, you've pretty much exactly figured out the intent. It's always a difficult balancing act to communicate these things clearly, but also not belabor the obvious or get too "telly". The one thing I will add is that Twilight specifically goes after Trixie in the end because, after giving her the benefit of the doubt so many times, she's particularly angry that Trixie betrayed her trust. So maybe it would've helped to add some specific verbalization of that in her big accusation speech in the end. But, again, I worried that doing so would come across as unrealistically explanatory.
Awesome. Glad you enjoyed Boast Busters.
We thought it was only fitting for the future Princess of Friendship to leverage her ability to organize and unite the whole town against the Ursa. Twilight's no slouch when it comes to magic, but we wanted to emphasize something besides her raw magical output. Don't worry, though, we'll see that soon.
Unfortunately, that sorta folded back into the problem you pointed out,
The story starts with the expedition's morale at the absolute breaking point. Twilight hires Trixie, and suddenly morale improves. Twilight was willing to give Trixie the benefit of the doubt, until the showmare nearly killed Rainbow Dash in her rigged duel. That was the turning point. Make of that what you will.
Editor's edit:
Don't forget Applejack in full plate taking on the Ursa in a delaying action, and walking off a building collapsing onto her.
Anyway, you've hit the vaunted honor of your reviews outpacing our writing schedule. Our next EC, One Bad Apple, is in full production, and the next two, Last Flight of the Bellerophon and Swarm of the Century, are coming along nicely as well. Still, I'd like you personally thank you for sticking with us since the beginning.
I mean, there are a few more, aren't there? Perhaps not specifically expanding on The Rariad, but at least connected to the whole Myths and Birthrights universe.
I say all this as someone who hasn't read anything in the AU, only someone who spends more time reading story descriptions and plunging the depths of this site than actually reading stories themselves, so take it with a grain of salt and all that.
Anyway, in terms of shorter single pieces, there's still The Pacification of Crystal Valley, The Apple and the Fox, and A Dream of Pride and Envy.
For remaining epics, there's still Velvet Sparkle and the Queen in Stone.
There's also The Castle Canterlot, a canon (I think) piece by Tundara's editor.
Plus, there's the side story Anthologiae, which may be worth looking at. It's marked incomplete, but each individual story seems to be self-contained, so up to you if you want to tackle it or not.
Oh hey, my request batch is starting next week.
Thanks for reviews, see you then.
Along the lines of "working magic without working magic," it may be a little difficult to track down on the writeoff website (and may have been taken down entirely by now, if Mike's gotten it published somewhere), but AugieDog wrote a charming little minific where a magical fairy is enthralled by a human magician's sleight of hand because it's so new to her. It was a great idea, and I can see it working well here, too.
Wow! An instance where I've read both of these!
Having read a ton of Greek Mythology in high school, I was already predisposed towards The Rariad (even though I never got around to fully reading The Illiad). I especially found the last few chapters a delight to read, as it follows the writing style of the epic, yet somewhat abridged, retelling of battles. Tundara really did his homework for that.
I've skimmed over the Extended Cut series but read through Boast Busters because, well, Trixie. And I really liked it. I'm considering going back and fully reading the rest.
At the risk of bringing up the whole debate again of who did what wrong in Boast Busters, I'm inclined to say that Trixie didn't do herself any favors by coming off as such a jerk.
5694845
We lifted Trixie's eye twitch straight from the episode. (Only clip on the booru I could find). That does not look like a particularly stable mare. So we leaned into it. As big as her ego is, there's a muted tragedy to her character, now. Nothing new, I know, but still.
Also, yes,
if you've got the timeour other works are well worth the read.Thank you for the comprehensive review!
One of the things that has become most engrained in me during my time writing fan-fiction is just how important second and third drafts are in writing a novel to be able to put down the frameworks for those big reveals so they don't come out of left field. The only other option is to have an exceptionally clear vision and to avoid deviating from it. My more seat-of-the-pants approach doesn't really provide that level of clarity. Or, I'll worry and back-track or only put in the thinnest hints of something. That was more what happened with Rariad.
You put a lot of time and care into your reviews. Thank you again.
5694828
I am filled with naught but shame that I somehow neglected Best Farm Pony from my praise, because she absolutely deserved it.
5694835
You know what annoys me? When people don't directly link their stories together in an AU so that potential readers can know they're interconnected.
5694843
ORLY? I might have to take a look at that sometime, if I can ever locate it.
5694940
Ah, found it. It was taken down from the writeoff site so he could publish it here.
5695021
And it was quite good! Thanks for sharing.
5695021
Hey, this is the exact card trick we used! Weird! Cool little short story, though, thanks for finding this.
I first saw Myths and Birthrights when it was in your "in progress" tab and I found it intriguing. I started going through it (and The Longest Night) but because I read at a glacial pace your review had come out long before I was finished. As someone who grew up on the stories of classical mythology and went to school to study ancient cultures, a story based on Greek myth was deeply enticing, and it quickly struck me how grand of a story it was trying to be, how sprawling and unique it wanted to be.
Then by the time I got to the end, I kinda...profoundly disliked it.
There's quite a lot that I could expound upon in that regard, but suffice to say, I had far from high hopes going into The Rariad. Perhaps I shouldn't even have bothered reading it, but I suppose I was expecting the author to make it up to Rarity after doing her dirty in the main story. It was slightly better by default as a result of being significantly shorter and less of a clusterfuck of plot threads, but that's not a very high bar. It still felt like a bloated, unfocused mess, unable to decide what it wanted to be and bogged down by an unchecked hunger for worldbuilding. It's been my personal observation in a lot of writing from the past couple decades, especially in fanfiction, that authors tend to really go ham on the details of the setting they're establishing, but while that's certainly a good thing to do it doesn't mean much if the actual story taking place in that setting doesn't come together in the end.
The greatest criticism that I have for The Rariad, though, is regarding the decision to write parts of it in an "epic" style. While I genuinely applaud the author's dedication to this, I do think these sections are well-done as a replication of Homer's poems et al, I cannot overstate how jarring it is going back and forth between those and the parts that are written in the author's natural prose. In my opinion, if they were going to bother with that at all, they should have gone all in and written the whole thing like an epic--it would flow better, and it would make more sense, considering the point ostensibly is that this is the story being told by the Muses at the end of Myths and Birthrights, of course they'd perform the whole thing as an epic. (Relatedly, I also think it would've been better if the story had started in Gaea with Rarity and Trixie's arrival and then had a flashback explaining how they got there, that way it could have better mirrored The Odyssey.)
I desperately wish there were more positive things I could say about this story and series because I can tell that a great deal of effort was put into it. I was glad that Trixie got to come back, she was one of the most well-written characters in the previous story and her presence had been sorely missed in the back half. The setting presents a lot of interesting interpretations on pony society and history. I appreciate the classics stuff. I really liked the climactic confrontation between Rarity and Ares because it offered something that this series was sorely lacking in the form of creative approaches to power levels--Ares could have effortlessly crushed Rarity, but by fighting in an artful enough manner she created beauty in battle, and that made her strong enough to be an equal match to him. I liked the ending to The Rariad a lot more than the ending to Myths and Birthrights because it actually felt like some cathartic conclusion for characters we care about.
Unfortunately, however, I ultimately felt that every standout detail was followed by at least two aspects that were ill-conceived, and I just can't think about it without contemplating all the missed opportunities. No matter how good a setting may be, I can't bring myself to care about it if the story and characters can't hold it up.