Hello again, everyone! I guess nobody bothered to take me up on my challenge for reviews, but that’s okay. I’m still doing this, so the group is not dead at all! For what it’s worth, I will issue my challenge again! Let’s get some reviews out, people!

Anyhoo, today I will be putting a rather interesting story on the chopping block. Head below for the review!

Alright, let’s dive right in!

Shooting for Friendship is, in a nutshell, the story of how Sunset Shimmer and the EqG Mane 5 pick up airsoft as a hobby.

First of all, I have some experience with this subject. Ever since I was twelve years old, I would always have big airsoft fights around my neighborhood with the other kids. Not only was it a blast, it also taught skills useful for things like hunting, survival, etc. More recently, I’ve started going to a local airsoft field to play more serious people in the sport. I get my butt handed to me every time, but hey, it’s a lot of fun!

The author, despite having never played airsoft according to his author’s notes, actually has a pretty realistic grasp on how things really are. There are a few inconsistencies and untrue things, such as nobody ever fails to call their hits (it happens far too often in real life), but that’s a personal nitpick of mine and doesn’t detract from the story as a whole.

Here’s a quick synopsis. This story has a nice quirky plot line. The opening scene shows Pinkie geeking out over a cheesy Schwarzenegger film, complete with a garage full of used airsoft guns that she just picked up for a bargain. The girls get curious, and before long, they have a little impromptu game on the Canterlot High school grounds after hours. While this raised some alarms in my head, the next chapter put them to rest when the girls receive punishment for bringing objects that resemble firearms onto school grounds. Sunset comes to the rescue with an abandoned construction site that she then converts to a game field that I would kill to have to myself. Another game there and they all get into the game more. After doing some research and having a sleepover, Rainbow’s big mouth gets them into a game with another airsoft team from the school, the Diamond Dogs. After a hard-fought game, they emerge victorious, thus ending the first arc.

While I do intend to read further into this fic, I stopped there to review because I feel that I had observed plenty to get a good idea of it and be able to cast my judgements. Anyway, here are my thoughts.

Overall, it’s a very fun story and really does immerse you into the story. However, it does have a few holes that I noticed.

Rarity touches guns.

Rarity.

Touches.

Guns.

I know, I know, that sounds like I’m calling her a liberal nutcase wuss, but bear with me for a second and think about it. Rarity is pretty much the most feminine, pretty-girl character I’ve ever seen. The fact that she just seems to jump into a sport that involves guns and exertion and getting dirty and all these masculine things so willingly just doesn’t feel right to me. Same with Fluttershy, for that matter. I mean, it could most definitely happen, but it happens so easily here that it makes me raise my eyebrows.

The second thing that catches me is how easily Sunset and company overcome the Diamond Dog team. In my experience, airsoft takes a lot of practice to be good at. Not to mention that it takes a lot of money to have good equipment. Sure, those guns that the girls have could be decent, but there is no way they would have that much experience based off of playing a few video games and researching strategy on the internet. I think that those Diamond Dogs would have whipped them, even if the girls had better guns than them.

Even through those issues, I still enjoyed the story and they didn’t hurt my immersion into the fic much.

Here is where I put my observations on the technical aspects.

In terms of grammar, you could use a little practice. Granted, your general word choice and punctuation are good, but you often misuse words such as your/you’re and there/their/they’re. work on that one issue some and you should be good to go.

Your prose is very good, in my opinion. You balance your piece nicely with the showing and telling, and you give good descriptions and flesh out the world well without being heavy handed or relying on purple prose.

You dialogue is excellent, mostly. When characters spoke, you did a good job of writing their voices in through word choices and sentence flow. I could actually hear them talking in my head, and that is always a great thing. However, one thing that hangs it up is your use of phonetics on Applejack’s dialogue. This is a trap that many fimfic authors fall into when writing for our favorite farm pony; relying too heavily on misspelling her words to try to show her accent. (i.e. Using ‘Ah’ in place of ‘I’). It does nothing but jar the reader and interrupt the immersion to the story. We know she drawls, we don’t have to have it shoved in our faces.

All in all, not too bad of a job with your style. It was plenty good to get this story off the ground, for sure.

I’m letting this review get long, so I’ll try to be shorter here. In terms of character development, you’ve done a fantastic job with the entire cast. Sunset is still dealing with the fallout from the original Equestria Girls, and the fact that you had her most at-odds with Applejack was a good choice. Her internal struggles to become part of the group, to not be seen as a recovering supervillain prone to relapse, to be comfortable without the use of magic after so long with it, it all makes this story have much more depth than I was expecting. Of course, depth is a good thing, and I must give you props for reminding us that we are still dealing with the canon events of MLP. Also, the fact that Fluttershy is a great shot is a believably unexpected twist. I love what you’ve done with the characters here. Great job, keep it up!

The point of view is squarely on Sunset, and that is where it works best. This is her story of becoming a part of the group, with some fun airsoft adventures.

You pacing was… well it was good in some ways and bad in others. The way the scenes themselves were paced was good. They moved along naturally and felt right when read. However, the way the scenes came together to create the story was a bit rushed. As I mentioned before, the girls just seemed too enthusiastic about the whole thing. I feel that some plot elements were not addressed enough as a result of the story moving a bit too quickly.

In short, your structure was good, but it had a few flaws.

This story does have a fairly original premise, though not entirely. I’ve seen other fics where the ponies have a massive paintball war, and plenty of post-EqG fics that deal with Sunset trying to fit in after her villainous rampage, but never the two combined. It’s an interesting twist on two ideas that have been both done some and done to death, respectively.

All in all, Shooting for Friendship is a fun, exciting story of creating friendships. Though not without its flaws, it still has a lot of charm and is definitely a story worth checking out. Heck, it might even get you into airsoft if you let it!

Here’s my final verdict, on an index of the five above categories rated out of twenty, adding up to a score out of one hundred.

Plot: Though not perfect, it is far from complete swiss cheese. 14/20
Mechanics: Again not perfect, but it has no fatal errors. 15/20
Character Development: Stellar. Despite a few hiccups, it was this fic’s best side.18/20
Structure: Good use of viewpoint and formatting, though pacing was more iffy. 14/20
Originality: Combines two done ideas into an interesting new blend. Nice! 15/20

Thanks to you, Verbose Mode, for submitting your story to our group. I hope you found this review fair and helpful!

See you guys at the next one. Jack_mahoff out.

Sounds like an interesting read, I'll admit that I took a look at this while it was on the front page at one point. If you recommend it, I might give it a shot

Also, yay for reviews Although, I do have to ask how I can submit a story if I want to get a review for one of mine?

4470091 You'll have to wait a while, unfortunately. We open our submissions folder when we finally get through all the fics inside, and we still have nearly 50 left to go! Don't worry though, I will try to keep them coming.

4470111

No problem, man. Just wanted to know

4469978
Hey, before you question Rarity playing with guns or engaging in violence, don't forget who was the source of the very first non-magical violent act in the entire series.

4470166
4470124
A kick does not equal using a gun. She strikes me as the type that would absolutely hate the principle of guns based on how they are generally a more masculine thing... ah, what's the use? It was a little snag I felt while reading, and I stand by my perceptions. Either way, it's still a good fic

4557306 I'll have to check it out sometime.

CORRECTION: Apparently I've read it all, and completely forgotten about it.