The Pegasi Take Canterlot
By Alkonium

Reviewed by Asilin

So…been a while since I’ve done one of these. Been busy with work and personal writing projects (here’s to trying to get published this year, yeah!), but figured it’s time for a break and bit of crack reading.

And a Doctor Who crossover is just my brand of crack.

And hey! It’s even named after a recent episode! Definitely my brand of crack!

Or…not my brand of crack. This is not a known Doctor, either pre- or post- from what I can tell. And not just because the Doctor is now apparently female.

Which brings up a question: is it still a crossover if the major reference point no longer exists? Because, for all intents and purposes, this is an OC.

But I’ll get into that a bit more later.

The story itself starts with the Doctor parting from a Companion and regenerating. I rather enjoyed the fact that it was a half mundane way to go (generally speaking. I don’t know many people who would call “death by time machine explosion” mundane, but this is the Doctor we speak of.)

Anyway, the Doctor lands, finds she’s regenerated, and meets Star Swirl the Bearded. It’s not spoiler, because it’s in the cover art. So there.

I like the fact that the Doctor turns to the Princesses to try to prove her identity, but was moderately disappointed in how easy it was for her to prove her identity. Frankly, having jumped so far in the past, why would they know her at this point? Particularly when she’s no longer male? This would have been a brilliant point to have the Doctor begin to come into her own as she tries to prove her identity (or not) and succeeds (or not). It’s the first major challenge she’s going to face, and it’s just…small. I don’t know if that’s a Classic vs. New difference, but NuWho has a declaration moment. A moment where the Doctor comes into his own and declares himself.

We never get it in here.

Anyway, Doctor explores herself (and explains herself) more and off we go to discover some disappearances and the mysterious statues that have been showing up in Canterlot.

I’ll be honest, by this point, I was bored. So to just summarize: Weeping Pegasi (Angels) are taking people, end up taking Star Swirl, the Doctor sacrifices herself and takes a homing beacon, allowing the TARDIS to follow. There’s no big confrontation, no major “fuck we’re stuck” moment; just poof, we went back in time, and I’m going to force my paradox hating machine to create a paradox to destroy the bad guys, and happy end!

Feels like something Moffat would write (and, to clarify, that’s not a compliment from me).

I’m just going into the review proper now.

Let’s start with the good: it’s a solid plot. The pacing is decent; it’s easy to follow along; and even if you’ve never watched the show, you can pick up on the important bits. All in all, just on that, it’s a great beginning.

I even kind of enjoyed the idea of the Doctor being female.

But here’s the issue, just on that: the characterization is lacking. And not just on the Doctor. The princesses are just there to confirm the Doctor’s identity and give her instruction later on. Frankly, I couldn’t tell the difference between either sister in their bit of dialogue.

For a guy who’s supposed to be the most brilliant magical mind in this setting, Star Swirl doesn’t do a lot of hypothesizing or guessing. He’s just kind of hanging out.

And the Doctor…honestly, I thought she was supposed to be Ten. While you have the inquisitiveness and drive of the Doctor, and even the rambling, each Doctor has their own quirks. Their own twists that make them feel individual. Nine had the bouncing, grinning hyper optimism with the hair trigger temper. Ten was a show-off, know-it-all who tried desperately to stay pacific despite being pushed to violence. Eleven was manic. Twelve is cold.

What makes your Doctor different? And “female” isn’t the right answer.

At no point does the Doctor show little quirks, little bobbles that identify her (fuck, a catchphrase would’ve been a start). At no point does she get pushed to her limit and have to challenge what she thinks she thinks is right.

Which brings us to another central point: there’s no conflict.

Yes, yes, the Pegasi are taking people off the street. So? There was no investment here. The princesses were all like

Since you're here, perhaps there is something you could help us with. There has been a rash of disappearances, and our guards have been unable to find anything

That is not the word of a worried monarch. There’s no rush, no reason to personally care beyond a curiosity point. And with the lack of characterization, even Star Swirl’s disappearance did nothing to up the conflict point.

Ultimately, this may be a POV issue, though.

Why does the Doctor have a Companion? Because he’s jaded. He’s admitted as much. He’s seen it all. And seeing it through another person’s eyes rejuvenates him.

Honestly, she’s too wrapped up in her own personal issue of changing and impersonal curiosity to necessarily care about the crisis.

Whereas Star Swirl, now, he could be investigating them himself. And have noticed the movement. And watched people around him disappear. He’s right in the middle of it! Yet, he ignores the Pegasi and dismisses them. So why should anybody care about them as a major thing?

Also, given that the setting was really given no further description beyond the presence of Star Swirl, I was half expecting this to be in the present and Star Swirl got sent back in time with his modern day magical knowledge in order to become “the Bearded”. And come up with the solution to save the Doctor.

Instead we get a complete non-confrontational timey-wimey copout.

And all of this is without going into the fact that every. Single. Bit. Of dialogue was tagged with a saidism. The Doctor explains, replies, comments, mutters, asks, calls, clarifies…; it’s madness. A lot of my distaste for the story originated with the fact that we have all of these tags. It’s okay to let actions tag your dialogue. It’s even okay to let two people just talk back and forth for a bit without any tags or action at all! But once you start using all of the saidisms, it becomes noticeable. And then it’s a distraction to your story. And since nearly every paragraph was dialogue, that meant we had a lot of repeat structure which is another killer for prose. We need variety in sentence length and structure because it keeps our voice from becoming repetitive and droning. It changes the pace. It changes the tone. It makes things more noticeable.

See what I did there? You paid more attention at the end, didn’t you?

All in all, it’s got a solid base, but the mechanics need quite a bit of work.

Honestly, I’d restructure the story to focus on Star Swirl (don’t get me wrong; I love the Doctor, but he/she makes for a boring narrator because of his/her jadedness and experience) to give more tension and drive the conflict. Give him and the Doctor more time to play off one another before whisking him away; give them personalities and quirks that play well off one another. Then we’d be more invested when he’s lost, wandering in a time that he’s uncertain off.

If that seems too much, then I’d definitely look at your prose. Just by altering your narrative to rely more on action tags than dialogue tags would tighten it and help with the flow.

For example:

"Good. I made it out in one piece. Wings are gone, but I'm definitely not bleeding. I must have regenerated. Now, let's see. Maya blue coat, periwinkle mane, looks like a streak of blue in there too, horn. Yes! I'm a unicorn again," the Doctor surmised, adding "Wait, something's wrong with my voice. Tell me I didn't regenerate into a colt. No, I can't be a colt, I'm too tall, which means..." the Doctor started to form a theory, confirming it with a shuffle of the hind legs. "I'm a mare? Yes! I'm a mare! This is new, and exciting. I've never been a mare before.”

"Are you alright, miss?" the Doctor heard. She turned around to see a bearded unicorn stallion dressed in flowing blue robes behind her.

The Doctor paused a moment, not being used to being referred to as 'miss'. “Yes, just give me a minute. Or two. Or fifteen hours," she answered.
Then, realizing she didn't know who the stallion was, she inquired about his identity.

“I am Star Swirl the Bearded. And who exactly are you?” the stallion introduced himself.

The Doctor's ears perked up almost immediately at the name. Excitedly, she answered, “I'm the Doctor, but that's not important right now. You're Star Swirl the Bearded! I love your work, huge fan.”

“Oh great. She’s one of them,” Star Swirl muttered sarcastically. Out of concern for the strange mare, he then asked, “What happened to you?”

Having trouble coming up with a believable explanation, the Doctor simply said, “It’s a long story.”

Pointing to the TARDIS, Star Swirl asked, “Did you teleport all that with you?”

Blinking, and then quickly looking back at it, the Doctor answered, “I suppose I did,” with a slight shrug.

"I think I should take you to get your horn checked out, Doctor," Star Swirl responded, extending a hoof for the Doctor to take.

Notice how you end up with a lot of pauses to a conversation that would be going rapidly otherwise when you read it out loud? Now reworked:

"Good. I made it out in one piece. Wings are gone, but I'm definitely not bleeding. I must have regenerated. Now, let's see. Maya blue coat, periwinkle mane, looks like a streak of blue in there too, horn. Yes! I'm a unicorn again!” The Doctor paused. "Wait, something's wrong with my voice. Tell me I didn't regenerate into a colt. No, I can't be a colt, I'm too tall, which means...I'm a mare?" A quick shuffle of the hind legs confirmed it. "Yes! I'm a mare! This is new, and exciting. I've never been a mare before.”

"Are you alright, miss?"

She turned around to see a bearded unicorn stallion dressed in flowing blue robes behind her. The Doctor paused a moment, not being used to being referred to as 'miss'. “Yes, just give me a minute. Or two. Or fifteen hours.” Then, realizing she didn't know who the stallion was, she inquired about his identity. [As a note, this last sentence should really be in dialogue as “But you are?” or “Who are you?” or some other]

“I am Star Swirl the Bearded. And who exactly are you?”

The Doctor's ears perked up almost immediately at the name. “I'm the Doctor, but that's not important right now. You're Star Swirl the Bearded! I love your work, huge fan.”

“Oh great. She’s one of them,” Star Swirl muttered sarcastically. Concern, though, overrode his annoyance: “What happened to you?”
Having trouble coming up with a believable explanation, the Doctor simply said, “It’s a long story.”

Star Swirl pointed to the TARDIS. “Did you teleport all that with you?”

“I suppose I did,” The Doctor shrugged.

"I think I should take you to get your horn checked out, Doctor." Star Swirl extended a hoof for the Doctor to take.

Rewriting it in this way not only tightens it (went from 315 words to 297) but also picks up the pace. The Doctor is often frantic coming out of a regeneration and understandably so! If we’re following from her POV, then we should feel that frantic time through her.

Seriously, if you don’t change anything else, that would be the one area I would insist on.

Overall, as much as it may seem I ragged on it, I do think it’s a decent little story. The idea is there, but there’s a number of technical issues that could use a bit of work to make this really shine. But that work is really more advanced work, so the story gets an

Enjoyable

Good for what it is, but not something I’m coming back to.

3976347 Thank you for the review. With regards to the saidisms, I've gotten a lot of conflicting information about that sort of thing, so I'm unsure of whether to use them or not, or whether I'm using them too much or too little.

3976394

When writing dialogue, there are two extremes to avoid: tagging everything vs. talking heads.

Talking heads is where you have two characters (or more!) going back and forth with absolutely no tagging. This is hard to follow because you're requiring the reader to remember who said what first to know who's speaking when. When this goes on for too long, your readers forget who's talking and now they're confused.

Tagging too much creates the opposite problem: you're treating your reader like an idiot. You may not mean to, but you're effectively stating that a reader cannot identify who's doing what via action or pattern.

So you have to balance it. In longer conversations you can go a few lines without any tagging, but you should drop in fidgets or small actions once in a while to remind us of the speaking order. If there's more than two people, you have to tag whenever there's a break in the pattern: so if A and B are going at it for a few lines, C's line has to be tagged to reintroduce them to the pattern. But if you're going A, B, C, you can drop the tags for a couple rounds if you don't change who's speaking. Distinctive dialogue patterns can count as tagging as well.

But also with that, the easiest thing for a reader to ignore in tagging is "said". We pay attention to the rest of the saidisms, because that's different and indicates and importance. So when you start using the thesaurus to replace said, readers are now paying attention to your writing and not your story.

So tagging is good. Tag with actions when you can. Drop it when you can rely on pattern. And default to "said" (or asked if it's a question) if you absolutely have to have a dialogue tag.

A few blog posts that might help:

http://malcolm-wood.com/Saidisms.html

http://jobourne.blogspot.com/2010/02/when-to-use-saidisms.html

http://www.writersbeat.com/showthread.php?t=16297

http://www.scribophile.com/academy/he-said-she-said-dialog-tags-and-using-them-effectively

This is no slight against the author or the story, but I have no idea why people like Dr. Who so much.

3976718
Can't really give reason to why I like something other then the fact that I really like something.
All the reason I need.

3976747

BECAUSE OF REASONS!

3976752 Best reason of all.

3976718

I enjoy it because it tends to be fun, have interesting characters and scenarios, and has tended towards an optimistic view of the world despite some of the turns the plot takes.

In short, I like it because it's a fairy tale.

There's also a reason why I've really disliked the last few seasons in regards to those reasons...

3976718
It's a creative, long-running series with a lot of action and adventure, as well as its share of scares and comedy, while still being family-friendly. Perhaps more importantly, it's endlessly optimistic, a bright spot in the otherwise-generally-bleak landscape of science fiction.

I like to think of it as the British counterpart of Star Trek. The two are rather similar in tone, though Doctor Who is usually darker psychologically, while Star Trek is more accepting of violence.

He is impulsive, idealistic, ready to risk his life for a worthy cause. He hates tyranny and oppression and anything that is anti-life. He never gives in and he never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him.

The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly.

In fact, to put it simply, the Doctor is a hero.
— Terrance Dicks

It’s hard to talk about the importance of an imaginary hero. But heroes are important. Heroes tell us something about ourselves. History books tell us who we used to be, documentaries tell us who we are now, but heroes tell us who we want to be. And a lot of our heroes depress me. But, you know, when they made this particular hero up, they didn’t give him a gun—they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or a warship or an X-Wing fighter, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help. And they didn’t give him a superpower or pointy ears or a heat ray. They gave him an extra heart. They gave him two hearts, and that’s an extraordinary thing. There will never come a time when we don’t need a hero like the Doctor.
—Steven Moffat

Tonight's show is about a man... who's not really a man. He's a Doctor, but he's not really a doctor, like Dr. Phil, but AWESOME! Most people in the United States of America have not heard of him. He's just like me in that regard! One thing is consistent though and this is why the show is so beloved by geeks and nerds... It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism. And if there is any hope for any of us in that giant explosion in which we inhabit, surely that's it, intellect and romance triumphs over brute force and cynicism.
— Craig Ferguson

3976799
3976848

Everything I see when I tried to watch the show was just hammy. The special effects, the fans, the characters, the story, and most importantly what the fuck was so threatening about that thing with a plunger for a dick?

3976967

It's supposed to be hammy. That's part of the thing.

And the plunger thing is a Dalek. Despite their less than formidable appearance, they are the scourge of the universe. They are the Time Lords' greatest enemy.

3976974 and clogged toilets.

3976987

It's the BBC. They've never had a great budget.

3976997 Yet the show has been running for how long?

3977004

50 years. You thinking they're going to upgrade known designs? Ain't happening.

3977040

That's a weak excuse for a lack of effort. If they didn't want to upgrade known designs then they wouldn't have moved to color.

3977077

Um...do you mean going to color as a show or making the Dalek colored? Something that only showed up in one episode because it was so reviled by the fan base?

3976967
Well, those things are called Daleks. And they're essentially little squid creatures that ride around in those casings, which amount to small flying tanks.

Here's a Dalek with the case open, revealing the kaled mutant inside.

They were created by the mad kaled geneticist Davros to be the ultimate life form, because he thought that would make him akin to a god. He had a simple approach to demonstrating the superiority of his creation: he made them inherently xenophobic and violent. Driven by an all-consuming hatred of all things non-Dalek, they've made the extinction of all other life their mission. They're pretty good at it, too. Four Daleks were able to easily outclass an army of one million Cybermen (think the Borg), and even one is considered a threat to all life sharing a planet with it. Towards the end of the 10th Doctor's run, the Daleks created a device that would break down subatomic bonds in an ever-expanding wave, and due to the place they wanted to set it off, it would have broken dimensional barriers and turned not only that universe, but every possible universe into a cloud of particles, leaving Daleks the only life in all of existence.

(Though arguably beings like the Beast from "The Satan Pit" or The Great Intelligence could have survived, but those can maintain a non-physical existence)

And thanks to the ridiculously durable armor shells, teleportation and time travel technology, and their ability to clone themselves an entire army from just one Dalek, they always some back, no matter what the Doctor does to get rid of them.

3977091 holy fuck its cathlulu.

Also the show effects.

3976347

Or…not my brand of crack. This is not a known Doctor, either pre- or post- from what I can tell. And not just because the Doctor is now apparently female.
Which brings up a question: is it still a crossover if the major reference point no longer exists? Because, for all intents and purposes, this is an OC.

In my defence, it is common in Doctor Who fanworks (though more fan films and audios than fics and comics) to create an original incarnation rather than use an existing one, as it allows for a greater degree of freedom with characterization.

3978824

I'm more familiar with the fanfic realm. But in any case, I still stand by my statement. Your pre-regeneration Doctor did not seemed based on a known Doctor, and your post-regeneration Doctor definitely wasn't.

So beyond being in a TARDIS (which is a class of ship, not a particular one--the Doctor calls her "the" because it's his, and the rest were retired even before he stole this one), how do we know that this is the Doctor? You tell us she is, but this is an original creation.

Further, it's based on an in-show (MLP) reference.

It adds up to not really being a crossover with another program, but more towards expanding the lore of the focal show through an OC.

Which isn't an issue, I was more throwing it out there in part to get you to think about your character a but more. If she's original, then you should feel free to expand her personality more and not tie her to phrasing that other sources have used. If she's supposed to be a female form of a known Doctor, then you need to characterize her that way.

Think about why you chose the character this way and expand on it.

3978824
The way I see it, coming from someone who likes Doctor Who quite a bit (Including some of the classics/originals/whatever people call them.), All the Doctors have kept traits from the previous doctors. That was the beauty of the difference of Chris Eccleston and David Tennant was that David kept some traits that Chris had. While keeping his new and unique style there was the vibe that held on from one doctor to the next. When looking through the story, I didn't feel that. I just felt as if a new person came out of the blue with only a said background. It was difficult to connect because there was nothing really familiar to latch on to. Because of that, fans of Doctor Who would not have a strong attachment to the story. Immersion is disrupted to the feel.

I would digest this review to help write the next story with more direction to the series. Though enjoyable, we need something familiar to link us with the new doctor, something that counteracts yet blends with all the new unique traits that can be made.