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Linkedy Link: Of Flies and Spiders by wYvern

First Impressions

Glitter was banished from her hive because she's different: instead of feeding on love, she feeds on anger, fear, and sadness. Ponies are easily fooled and more easily manipulated. Staying undetected and sustaining her dietary needs, she goes through life bringing misery to those around her. All changes though when he turns up, tearing down walls built throughout a lifetime.

The premise is interesting right off the bat, which is always good. I would have highlighted the 'Different changeling' aspect a bit more, since that seems to be the driving point of the story from the first look.

'Glitter is a changeling, but she's different.

Instead of feeding on love, she feeds on...'

^That sort of shtick.

As for the tags... they suit the synopsis very well. Aside from romance, maybe? Sounds like it'd be a bit hard to slam a romance in the middle of a dark tragedy, when the only bit we get about one from the synopsis is "When he turns up, tearing down walls..."
Does that sound like a romance to you? Maybe he works in demolitions.

The only other thing I could think of when first looking at this fic was; "I like the synopsis, and everything seems to make sense. If anything is going to be the thing I don't like, it's that title!"

To be fair, I never liked the 'Of ... and ...' style of titles, because they were used so much. Same applies here.
(Also, small point about the picture: it looks like it says 'Flies of and Spiders' because of the way the font is placed. I would also say you could've drawn/commissioned/'found' a neat pic of a changeling or something to further illustrate what's in the fic, but I think it works fine otherwise.)

Plot

I really like the first scene. It's great. You get straight into the action of what the synopsis implies. The MC is also instantly unlikeable, for things like this:

Pathetic creature.

Which may be a good thing, depending how the story plays out.

So far 'dark' is ticked off... if the story keeps going this way...

...well, I might have enjoyed it a bit more. The rest of the story is quite light, aside from RIGHT at the end, and even with it... so I don't think the tag applies to the story as a hole. Still, nice intro, it hooked me in.

The story continues with the introduction of a kick to... what I presume is the back of the head? It's pretty mean.

But weirdly enough, what ISN'T mean is the character that dealt it.
The major issue I had with this story was it's second main character, who calls himself Brown. He's... one-dimensional. Anything that he can say which sounds nice, he'll say, even to what would appear to be to the detriment of him. He doesn't really do anything else in the story aside from kick a mare, which almost seems out-of-place from how he's so eager to get to know and... to be honest, hit on this mare who appeared to be threatening his daughter not that long ago.

And the main character... she doesn't even prod holes in it! Or not very big ones, anyway. Instead, she becomes rather quickly 'taken' with him.

I wonder… wait, am I feeling sorry?

This seems strange to me. I assume that the only explanation was that it was done to shorten word count, as adding a 'romance' that starts like this should take a bit longer.

The idea behind the story is that the changeling feeds on hate... so, if the changeling started to feel sorry, it'd die pretty quick. Seeing as all that Brown's done is act nice to his kid and say pleasant things to her, you'd feel that she would have died before this story... don't like, all of equestrians act nice?
Also, it's canon that this character is, paraphrasing, "Very attractive", so she would have had at least a couple of nice words thrown her way. I feel like, given the way she acts in the mid-to end of this story, she shouldn't have been around to start it.

Mechanics

Grammar: Superb. No issues here.

Dialogue: The interior monologue is, again, very nice. Give total props to it, from my understanding, throughout the whole fic. To be honest, I'm a fan of pretty much everyone but Brown, who is very predictable.

Worldbuilding: There is actually this one point that I really liked in the mid-area, which was a piece of interior dialogue from the main character:

The foal nods and starts sobbing. A little misfit. That’s what you get for being different: Laughing, pointing. Beatings. Exile.

I think that's all we need to know. Very concise, very nice way of leaving questions about the lore surrounding this changeling.

Pacing: This was another area where the intro excelled, but in the mid-to late of the fic... a bit slow in patches. There were certain areas which we didn't need to be shown, such as the bit in the hospital wherein she tries to tell the parent about their child. This could have been told a lot quicker, and we'd still get the idea.

By that point, I also had issues with predictability, in that I knew that she was never going to tell the parent... because it was mean, and we had a scene before where basically the same thing happened... it got to easy to understand where the story was going.

Impact: I feel like I know what the author was going for in terms of impact, and seeing comments from people who liked the story, they seem to confirm it, but... it didn't work for me at all.

I already knew that was how it was going to happen. The constant "I'm supposed to be mean but I'm not anymore!"-ins just spoilt it, really.

If I was thinking a bit less about analysing the story, though, and was more 'drifting through the tale in front of me', I feel like it would have worked better. Therefore, I'd say my experience is not going to be the same experience of everyone, and I'd sort of hope that too, since I didn't enjoy it much.

Conclusion

Romance should be pretty slow, when introducing two characters who never knew each other before.
Tragedy should be a twist which nobody expects until the last moment, when all the pieces fall together.
(I would recommend changing at least one of the tags: romance maybe? It doesn't really get 'super romantic' until the end)
Both of these things said, I believe that many people have enjoyed this fic, and if many more read it, they'll probably like it too. Everything else in it is strong, and that skeleton does hold up the story if you don't look too far into it.

If the author wants to (I know it was a while since they wrote it) and has a passion for this story, I would recommend lengthening it out. This could be really golden if it's all done at the right pace.

Scores:

Plot: Very easy to understand where it's going, perhaps... too easy. But it does what it says on the tin. 9/20

Mechanics: Occasionally trails a bit, but actual grammar/dialogue is strong. 17/20

Characterisation: Brown is a bit meh, but... let's forget that. Why does the main character change over so quickly? It seems unnatural. Kid is done well, and before she gets all lovey-dovey, the main character is very strong, too. 10/20

Originality: I haven't seen the changeling-feeding-on-the-opposite before, and if it has been done before, it must be kind of rare. Like I said, the premise is pretty cool. 15/20

Impact: For some people, this will be a lot higher. With more chapters and subtlety, we could see these two tags develop more naturally, and therefore, make it much more impactful. I could definitely see this score in the high teens (18-19) for the emotional impact if this was executed in the right way. 4/20

Final Score: 55/100

*Needs work*

(Do you have a different opinion than me? Why is that? Please don't hesitate to comment in the thread. Only one reviewer reviews each story, so if you enjoyed it/disliked it for reasons, this is the way to show it!)

Stealing my template for reviewing, huh?

5636827 it's the same template I used a year ago. It's orderly.
Probably got it off you then, too.

5636778 I don't even remember adding this to the group back when I published it, so this is a pleasant surprise. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the story, but if you had, this might have had less things to tell me, so thank you for the detailed review.

The story was written for a writeoff contest, over the course of a weekend, with an 8k word limitation. During judging, some people were extremely taken by it, while others did not like it at all. Most of the negative feedback came down to Brown being handed the idiot ball and the romance part feeling like alien brainworms. I knew getting rid of the romance part hitting too quickly, I'd have to stretch it out... but I thought that would make Brown's idiot ball even bigger: it would've made keeping her company even less natural. The degree to which some liked the story as it was made keep the story close to its original length, and accept the risk of losing some readers along the way.

The idea behind the story is that the changeling feeds on hate... so, if the changeling started to feel sorry, it'd die pretty quick. Seeing as all that Brown's done is act nice to his kid and say pleasant things to her, you'd feel that she would have died before this story... don't like, all of equestrians act nice?

Also, it's canon that this character is, paraphrasing, "Very attractive", so she would have had at least a couple of nice words thrown her way. I feel like, given the way she acts in the mid-to end of this story, she shouldn't have been around to start it.

I guess this is a fair point to address: It's a very un-pony setting, in that I had a place in mind in which one could stay a face among many and not have too much attention directed to oneself if one did not seek it. In short, closer to our world. That's probably a fundamental flaw of all of my writing on this site.

I also wanted to paint the "not feeling sorry" part as something unnatural, kept up by A) thinking she's something fundamentally different (hence the Spider/Fly comparison), and B) mainly learning about the world around her and interpresonal relationships through television, which helps her keep "ponies behaving nicely" mostly sepparate from her own reality -- making the ponies around her not behave nicely by being manipulative reinforces this rift.

Barrier A doesn't quite fall until the very last scene but B does: The part which you quoted in the worldbuilding section was something I didn't actually introduce to reveal backstory, but to highlight how the protagonist identifies with the filly. Although she's far too bitter to acknowledge it at the time, the "acting nice to his kid" part from Brown is something she'd thought was a TV fantasy, as well as something she'd wished for herself at some point in time, which tears down barrier B and makes her subconciously drawn towards Brown.

Anyway, that's what I tried to convey. I don't know if it's clever to comment on the intention of a piece as the author -- a story should speak for itself -- but maybe it's interesting to see exactly what it is that I failed to achieve.

This could be really golden if it's all done at the right pace.

Thank you. This gives me hope for my writing. I won't be doing a rewrite of the story, though. If I ever get around to writing more pony fiction, I'd rather write something new.