Two Mares Are Better Than One
By theboyconnor

Reviewed by Rinnaul

I bring upon you news of disaster. I made corn dogs but was out of mustard.

So, this review thing.

So, Trixie’s in the forest sulking, when Discord shows up and claims to be trying to get rid of a box full of chaos magic. Trixie begs until he gives it to her, then she opens it and out steps her discorded doppelganger.

Which raises an important question. What would discorded Trixie even be like? I want to see a fic about that. Like, one with a plot I can understand and that isn’t just clone sex.

Oh, by the way, that’s mostly what this is about. Trixie asks Discord for the box, is given it, and then has sex with her discorded self. After that, things get a little confusing. She and the clone are suddenly in a small, dark room talking to Discord. And then they try to escape, only for Trixie to find herself in what’s apparently Discord’s stomach. After she takes the natural way out, Discord bids her farewell and calmly leaves, and then Trixie is in a Pony version of Twin Peaks.

As you might gather, this story is a little bit incoherent. Not as much as another story I recently reviewed, but still a pretty severe issue. In fact, much like that story, I’m struggling to find positives to highlight, here. I try to be balanced, but let’s be honest, the plot borders on nonsensical while trying to pass itself off as surreal.

Trixie’s character was rather hamfisted, showing us the typical post-defeat Trixie. She’s crying in the forest in what’s really just a cheap bid for reader sympathy, but then leaps at the chance to get revenge. For his part, having Discord deliver a Pandora’s Box is a bit predictable as far as story setups go, but not so common as to feel overdone, yet. It’s his actions after the conversation in the dark room that quit making sense. Though it was a severe change in tone, the dark room talk could have set up a temptation plot. Instead, nothing said there really made any sense, and it launched her into an out-of-nowhere “preying upon your spirit” angle.

The clop scene took up all of two paragraphs, was thoroughly rushed, and did nothing to evoke an emotion (yes, “arousal” counts as an emotion for purposes of this discussion—this didn’t even pull that off).

Finally, grammar was poor throughout. The most frequent problems were missing apostrophes and comma splices.

I seem to be writing this for so many short fics: Take. Your. Time. Especially when it comes to romance or clop. When you blast through events like this, nobody has time to connect to any of those events or the characters involved in them. Remember, you don’t have pictures for the reader to focus on, only the words. Drawing them in, making them connect; those are vital.

You’re all over the place, plot-wise. Sad and defeated Trixie. Pandora’s box of chaos magic. Clone sex. Breaking the spirit (which you never really got into). Vore. I’m sure there’s a name for a fetish about being passed through a body as waste, but I have no idea what it would be. And then Twin Peaks. Either focus the story on just one element, or else lengthen it to cover everything.

Try to find something new to do with your characters. You came close with Discord, but Trixie was thoroughly by-the-book aside from the fic being Mature.

Proofreading is key.

This is the lowest-rated clopfic in our list for a reason (“The DASHing Story” doesn’t count, as it wasn’t submitted by the author). The characters are the blandest, most straightforward takes on them possible; the plot barely makes sense, and the clop was amateurish at best.

Needs Work.

Now I want to see a story set in S4 (so, before Discord really got the whole friendship thing, but after he was freed) where Discord, as a prank, tempts a former antagonist (Trixie, most likely, but Gilda or Lightning Dust could work, too) into returning to their old ways.

Trixie getting sexual revenge after one of her defeats has been done, though. It’s mature, so I can’t link it, but have a look at “Mouthing Off” by Bronystories, though be warned: Rape occurs, and this fic doesn’t pull any of that “but then she liked it” bullshit. It’s a horribly traumatic experience for the victim (which I why I enjoyed it, of course). Oh yeah. Foalcon and mild watersports warnings, too.

(Addendum: Upon rereading it after looking it up for this review, I'm realizing that the writing is actually pretty awful in "Mouthing Off". The rape angle is really the only reason to read it, and then only if you're like me and enjoy character torture.)

To be fair, I wrote this during a bout of powerful hallucinations and psychosis. Thanks for taking it seriously though.