What my dark half is telling me
By Eskerata
Reviewed by Rinnaul

From the Top
Let's just get this out of the way - I suspect the title is a reference to "What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me", and I keep wanting to call this fic What My Darker Half Is Telling Me to maintain the song's rhythm.

But I'm not holding triggering my OCD against you.

As we begin the story proper, Applejack's had a bad day. Applebloom getting herself hurt, short on cash, dragging a cart through the mud with a too-tight strap... And then Pinkie tries to help, only to achieve Twilight levels of epic failure and somehow manage to break AJ's cart completely.

While these events are believable things for AJ to deal with, and do serve to give her solid (if not truly justified) grounds for her actions later, the presentation could have been smoother. The analogies used sometimes interrupt the flow, and the events don't follow a natural progression. Rather than going from bad to worse, or from a crisis to the final straw, or even in chronological order, we mix them up.

Applejack, tired of Pinkie's antics, gives her a royal telling-off with a solid smack thrown in for good measure, and Pinkie runs off to cry it out in her room. Meanwhile, AJ realizes she's gone too far, but puts going after Pinkie aside in favor of cleaning up the mess she made.

I won't call Applejack's behavior out of character, though getting physical would be too extreme for her canon depiction. The key point is I can believe it, and chalk her otherwise non-violent characterization up to "you can't do that on a kids' show." However, despite convincing me that violence and a slight anger problem are believable flaws for Applejack, the scene still comes across as excessive on first read. If the problems she was dealing with had stressed their point a bit further, it likely would better support her actions.

And now we get to the meat of the story - Pinkie's inner conversation with Pinkamena. Pinkamena has a distinct voice from Pinkie, perhaps too distinct - it feels as if two separate characters are involved here, rather than two sides of a single one. The conversation itself was interesting - I was reminded, more than anything, of Scrooge talking to the ghosts in A Christmas Carol.

At first, I thought Pinkamena wasn't making any particularly strong points, and a few things she said I outright disagreed with. However, as their time together continued, the purpose of the scene became clearer - this wasn't about Pinkamena arguing her case. This was about Pinkie reminding herself of who she was, and continuing to be Laughter even if things didn't work out.

Finally, Pinkie awakes, and Applejack is there looking to apologize. While Applejack's apology doesn't come off as particularly convincing, likely due to how little attention it's given, her mere presence there disproves one of Pinkamena's claims, and furthers the impression that the entire conversation was simply a reminder that Pinkamena's path was the wrong path, and meant to encourage Pinkie to remain on her own.

We wrap up with a few wonderfully spot-on Pinkie lines (I think "Maybe four, I dunno." and especially "I found half of it." are two of the best moments in the entire story), and a Pinkie that all-around feels more true to her character than she did earlier in the story. After that we get a nice friendship moment and a bit more musing on what Pinkamena means to Pinkie before the Exeunt.

Mood
The tag says “Sad” and the folder says “Dark”, but beyond the possibilities that Pinkamena suggests during their conversation, neither really defines the story as a whole. That said, it sets itself up to be an introspective character piece, and then proves itself to be exactly that. Shifts in tone supported the shifts in Pinkie’s emotional state, and the only place it was really lacking was in the opening, where the choppy narrative and lack of build-up weakened Applejack’s role.

Grammar
Nothing that can really be blamed on the author distracted me from the story. There were some places where new lines were begun mid-sentence, but those are generally the result of an inattentive copy-and-paste, and very easy to fix.

Style
As I suggested in the read-through, analogies are used just a bit too often at times, and some characters lack a strong voice. Early on, the prose is a bit choppy, and places where the mood could escalate were missed due to a lack of proper flow. However, by the time we got to Pinkamena, the story found it’s footing and everything came together and stayed at a good level right to the end.

Final Verdict
4 out of 5.

Nice review! Looks like we got another sad reviewer?

2694779 Dark, actually. The fic was tagged "Sad" but in the "Dark" folder, so I wasn't sure which one to go with. Changing it to both, I suppose Dark.

lol gotcha, nice first review, looking forward to seeing more

Wow. That was an insightful review. This was my first go-round as a fimfic writer, so yeah, there were bound to be a few bumps in the road. I'll have to print this review and go over the story later. (Writers never really stop learning how to write, after all.)
All in all, I'd say you were fair and balanced with my story. I'm very glad that you liked it, in spite of it's occasional hiccups. (I was hoping someone would comment of Pinkie's line "I found half of it." Hee.)
Thank you very much for taking the time to review my story. I hope I can entertain you again.