A Pop Star, a Princess, and a Prisoner by Raptormon132
Dark Drama Romance Slice of Life Tragedy
130,500 words total

Technical: 5/20 - The technical aspects — spelling, grammar, punctuation, consistency, tags.

I'll start with the postive, spelling is good. In the chapters that I read, I didn't find any notable spelling errors. Punctuation wasn't too bad, nothing egregious, mostly just the occasional misplaced or missing comma.

Unfortunately, everything else was bad. Numerous grammatical and word choice errors, random tense shifts, badly handled time/perspective shifts, inconsistent use of accent and vernacular, and tag cancer.

Drama, Romance, Slice of Life, and Tragedy do not go together. Slide of Life in particular conflicts with everything else on that list. As a general rule, any time you have more than two genre tags, you're doing it wrong, and that is clearly the case here.

Normally, I'd include quotes showing the problems I noted, but that would get unwieldy far too fast, since easily half of the paragraphs contain at least one, often several, serious errors of grammar, word choice, tense, and so on. Errors abound. Worse, they're not consistent. As one of many examples, a particular word used multiple times in a paragraph will be used correctly in one sentence, then incorrectly replaced with a homophone just a sentence or two later, and back and forth like this.

Consistency in other areas also needs a good deal of work. Applejack's accent, for example, seems to come and go at random, and often doesn't fit with her accent from the show.

Canon Characterization: 5/20 - Handling of canon main and secondary characters, and alternate character interpretations.

Characterization here varies between flat but consistent with the show, to wildly inconsistent, to outright nonsensical. Overall, the characters are more shallow than anything, often reduced to stereotypes or caricatures, and eventually start acting entirely out of character. The reason for that becomes painfully obvious when evaluating OCs, as we'll see more of below. The longer it goes on, the worse the characterizations get.

The author also does this weird thing with infantilizing Spike. It's not as blatant as many other characterization problems, but it's a pretty consistent annoyance.

Other Characterization: 0/20 - Handling of OCs, canon background characters, and crossover characters (-5% each for cliché alicorn, red-and-black, OP, or Mary Sue).

With OC and background pony characterization, major cracks start to form. I'll just quote some of the rather extensive description of the character:

“So what can you tell us about this pony?” Spike held up the front page of the latest copy of the Equestria Telegram.
Applejack cleared her throat. “Well, before y'all came here from Canterlot, Abacus used ta live in this here town."
Rarity took over. “He was one of Ponyville’s most loved and well respected residents. Abacus used to live in wondrous Fillydelphia growing up, before moving to little old Ponyville with his lovely wife, Tiger Lily. He worked as an accountant and tax agent for many residents and local businesses in town. He also helped out others with their taxes. He helped me with the business fund of my boutique.”
“He helped managed all the money me and my family made from sales from our farm.” Applejack said.
“I was friends with his wife, Tiger Lily.” Fluttershy said. "She used to own the local flower shop in town, before her business partners, Rose, Daisy, and Lily Valley took over the business. She was so caring and kind like Abacus. She would sometimes help me take care of animals at my cottage. She and Abacus organised a successful fund raiser to save the local veterinary clinic from closing down one time.”
“He was even so cool to improve the funding of the local weather control management.” Rainbow Dash took to the air in triumph. “I ended up getting an awesome raise from it.”
Pinkie Pie bounced in. “And he helped out accounting Sugarcube Corner profits. Abacus and Tiger Lily were so great to have at parties.”
“Speaking of parties." Rarity said. "At one party, Tiger Lily gave the good news to everypony at the party, including Abacus himself.”
“What news was that?” Twilight asked.
“Well. The news she gave was that she was going to have a baby.”
Pinkie Pie bounced with excitement. “OH-OH! I remember that one. Everypony was so happy. Abacus was the happiest-ist one of them all. So much that he was crying.”
“He sure did, sugarcube.” Applejack smiled. “It must’ve been the happiest moment of his life. Knowing he was gonna be a dad.”
Twilight widened her eyes. “Gosh. You guys make it sound like they were the perfect couple.”
“They sure were, Twilight.” Applejack sighed, switching back to a sad, sorrowed tune. “But…that was...until that one night.”

Ignoring the constant grammatical errors, the problems here should be obvious. Even before we meet the character, he's set up — in an extremely unsubtle manner — as a full-out Marty Stu. And not just that, but that passage puts him square into the role of a Sympathetic Sue and Purity Sue without the slightest trace of irony.

And if that's not bad enough, we have this:

Lawful Eye, a detective and lawyer from the city of Fillydelphia, known for her observant and analytical mind

Lawful Eye is a borderline Fixer Sue, the only character who actually considered the protagonist to be innocent and bothered to do anything about it, and is single-hoofedly responsible for demonstrating his innocence. And just to reinforce this characterization, nearly every time this character appears or interacts with somepony different, someone (typically Lawful Eye herself) has to restate this description of her as a "detective and lawyer", occasionally with added superlatives.

Now, at this juncture, I should say that accusing a character of being a "Mary Sue/Marty Stu" is something that is badly overdone in casual discussion, and all too often not justified. In this cause, however, it clearly applies. One of the best descriptions I've seen of a Mary Sue/Marty Stu is that it is a character that the world bends around, the narrative exists to serve the character, rather than the character serving the narrative. That becomes increasingly obvious as the story goes on, with canon characters badly warped and OOC to pander to the author's need for everyone to know how awesome and attention-worthy their OC is. Every scene involving Abacus and the Mane 6 demonstrates this tendency.

Abacus is a sub-trope of this, the Sympathic Sue, a Mary Sue/Marty Stu character who has bad thing happen to them, often very bad things, through no fault of their own. This is done for the sole and entire purpose of having the audience feel sorry for them, to elicit sympathy and sadness and a desire to see the wrongs righted. When pushed to extremes, these crass attempts at manipulating emotions evolve from merely being overwrought and maudlin, and edge well into Narm territory. Not only is Abacus, the world's most wonderful friend and father, railroaded for a non-existent crime, he's subjected to two years of brutal prison torture and rape, and he's punished for getting any kind of sympathy from any visitors. And if that's not enough, he has an aging mother who dies of cancer while he's in prison; a scene which is explicitly depicted, with even less subtlety and more ham-hoofed attempt at emotional manipulation.

The Purity Sue aspect of the character stars to break later on, though it never fully shatters. Abacus is forced to defend himself, physically, from various exaggerated villain ponies, and goes into a towering angst about doing so. A highly unrealistic towering angst at that; which serves to reinforce the Purity Sue characterization that could otherwise have been broken by his use of violence in self-defense (the author is ambiguous on the validity of this).

Lawful Eye partly breaks out of the Fixer Sue model later on, when she is "forced" to arrest Abacus on false charges trumped up by the corrupt Canterlot police force. However, this is not a result of improved character development on the author's part, but rather the effect of a greater Sue warping the character of a lesser Sue to serve the perpetuation of the greater Sueness. It's a strange sight to say the least.

World: 0/20 - Handling of show canon or alternate universe worldbuilding.

This is where the story really breaks. This is not even remotely the Equestria from the show. First, some minor issues: electricity and other forms of modern technology are referenced, in fact the impetus for Abacus' imprisonment is his wife and unborn foal dying in a house fire started by a faulty electrical wire. I'm not seeing an Alternate Universe tag here, so that makes no sense whatsoever. Further, we get this gem:

Twilight palmed her forehead with her hoof

Ignoring the lack of the Anthro tag, this still doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, since hooves don't have palms, they have "frogs" (look it up). But those are minor. Things really start to go off the rails when describing how Abacus' tragic backstory is handled, to wit:

Most of the prisoners sent to Hoofstrong Prison Centre were innocent like Abacus. The guards of Hoofstrong Prison Center abused them in all the forms you can think of.

No. Absolutely not. There is nothing about this that is consistent in any way with how the Equestria we know and love is depicted in any canon or semi-canon (eg. comics) source. This is what happens in a totalitarian police state or oppressive dictatorship, not in the enlightened monarchy we are all so familiar with.

And just to add insult to injury, the Mane 6 are fully convinced of Abacus' innocence, despite his having been convicted in a court of law, without any chance of appeal, apparently; which means either the courts are hopelessly corrupt, or the Mane 6 are hopelessly naive bordering on stupid.

Worse, the author is well aware of this, and has attempted to justify taking this tack in the comments:

It's suppose to reference the American justice system.

It's a political issues-fic, which deliberately ignores and destroys canon characterization for the purposes of making a ham-hooved real-world political statement that has nothing whatsoever to do with the show.

This is never a good idea, and is the root cause of nearly all the non-technical problems with the story.

And it keeps going downhill from there. Not one of them appear to have made any effort to redress this wrong, that was left to some random OC.

When Abacus finally gets out into town, he's repeatedly attacked by the townspeople, who then try to claim Abacus attacked them. And if that's not bad enough, Ponyville police officers are portrayed as the stereotypical brutal "pigs", and called such in the story by the Mane Six. They stage an attack on Abacus by several townsfolk, then try to arrest Abacus claiming that he assaulted the townsfolk. When Lawful Eye, herself a detective, and a member of the Royal Guard try to intervene and prevent the arrest, the author throws in some gibberish about the federal government forcing them to arrest Abacus. Then Twilight announces that Princess Celestia cannot do anything about it, since she doesn't care about anything involving just one pony, despite everything we've seen in the show demonstrating exactly the opposite. At this point, the story simply gets painful to read it goes off the rails so hard. and progressively worsens as it continues, descending well into the depths of Narm in the process, peaking with Abacus' escape from custody and threatened suicide.

Story: 0/20 - Concept, coherence, internal consistency, story structure, pacing, flow.

The concept is inconsistent with the setting and show canon, and not even internally consistent. It is filled with clichés, like the weather report that opens the story; and there are numerous instances where unnecessary exposition or detail break the story pacing and flow.

To make it even clumsier, the author inserts what appear to be flashbacks almost at random, without any sort of buildup, and only indicating that they are flashbacks by putting them in all-italics. Later flashbacks are handled less clumsily, but not all of them, the author alternates between actually structuring the flashbacks, and resorting to the italicized version.

The story is also rife with That Makes Me Feel Angry, characters or the narrator explaining feelings rather than having the characters act them out, demonstrate their feelings with their body language and tone and language. Nope, much easier to just tell you that Spike feels uncomfortable with a stranger in the library (why? it's hardly like that's unusual) or that Twilight worries about making a good impression with a random stranger.

I've mentioned earlier that the story is filled with cliches, but it's worse than that. The story is also extensively repetitious, with most of the chapters following the same or similar pattern, with similar structure and progression, essentially repeating the same basic scene over and over with little variation. Abacus is abused by townsfolk, Abacus is rescued by gushing Mane Six and Cutie Mark Crusaders, a series of melodramatic and narm-filled flashbacks, and then again in the next chapter. And when it's not Abacus being abused, it's Scootaloo, with the author throwing extended Scootabuse scenes in for good measure.

And if that's not bad enough, there's an entire subplot involving Sapphire Shores that feels entirely tacked-on and out of place. I'm assuming there's a better reason for her to be there than the "distraction" engineered by Twilight and Co. (as explicitly stated in exposition); but I was unable to continue reading far enough to find out for sure. Regardless of whether it connects or not, it's still poorly managed.

One other thing I should mention, is that later on, the author begins embedding Youtube videos in the story. This is always a bad idea just on its own; but in this case it's made worse by the author insisting in an author's note that they should be taken as examples of Sapphire Shores' performance, despite not being in any way related to the character or to MLP (they're actually ripped from the old Gerry Anderson Terrahawks 1980's sci-fi program).

Note that this chapter has a video linking to a song that Sapphire Shores sings in the story, even though she doesn't sing them and it's unknown what songs she sings in the series, and that it is from somewhere else. So no copyright intended.

Very, very bad idea. Horribly immersion-breaking, and possibly a violation of some copyright somewhere.

Total Score: 10/100 for a score of 10%

Conclusion - Final thoughts and recommendations.

A preachy issues-fic that throws the world, characters, and consistency under the bus in order to make a sledge-hammer subtle point about real-world society and politics, populated by Marty Stu and Mary Sue OC characters, one of which it repeatedly demands that we identify with and feel sorry for. The author takes every single opportunity to attempt to hammer home the "Sad", regardless of its appropriateness to the development of the characters or flow of the story.

All this is compounded with persistently bad grammar and numerous other technical issues; as well as an inconsistency that is indicative of nothing other than sheer laziness. If the author hadn't sounded so earnest and self-congratulatory in their comments and author's notes, I would have take this for an overworked trollfic/crackfic. There is absolutely nothing I can see here to recommend this story.

I only managed to make it through 19 chapters for the purposes of this review, but that was sufficient for the purpose here. These reviews are supposed to remain relatively objective and deal primarily with the nuts and bolts of the story; but I have to say that it is rare that I've read a story so persistently awful. The author also submitted the story to Rage Reviews, and a more comprehensive review for that context is currently in progress.

5877417
I just read your review. And I have to say that it was both harsh and very sloppy (not including your thoughts on spelling, grammar, punctuation, consistency).

This is a blunt review of your blunt review of my story.

You say that Abacus Sum is a Mary Sue/Marty Stu. You overlooked that this is how the Main 6, and others in town saw him. And you also didn't read it well, because if you did, you would've known one vital thing about Abacus Sum. And that is he is mildly autistic. Lawful Eye states it in Chapter 4 (Part 1). The characteristics of autistic people is that they can be so good at what they do, that they seem perfect. Abacus was a accountant and tax agent, and his mild autism made him focused on it so much, that he became very good at it.
Then you said he was a "Purity Sue", because of him using violence to defend himself. You didn't see that he was psychologically damaged, and that it's one of the characteristics of someone who was wrongfully sent to prison.
And then the "Sympathic Sue" thing. He was betrayed, and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, and suffered greatly whilst inside. What did you expect?

Then you said Lawful Eye was a "Fixer Sue", who had to do this on her own. Again, you didn't read the story thoroughly, nor did you read the entire story from start to finish (which I'll get to that later). She did not do it all on her own. She had help from others to get Abacus out of prison. And when "she is "forced" to arrest Abacus on false charges trumped up by the corrupt Canterlot police force." Miscalculated again. It was 2 members of Cloadsdale police. And they threaten to arrest him with a federal court order. It was to show how variable even Lawful Eye could be. Everyone has a variable side.

Then there's the issue with the songs I put in that Sapphire Shores sings, and how its horribly immersion-breaking, and possibly a violation of some copyright somewhere. It's non-prophet fan fiction. So who cares?

When Abacus finally gets out into town, he's repeatedly attacked by the townspeople, who then try to claim Abacus attacked them. And if that's not bad enough, Ponyville police officers are portrayed as the stereotypical brutal "pigs", and called such in the story by the Mane Six. They stage an attack on Abacus by several townsfolk, then try to arrest Abacus claiming that he assaulted the townsfolk. When Lawful Eye, herself a detective, and a member of the Royal Guard try to intervene and prevent the arrest, the author throws in some gibberish about the federal government forcing them to arrest Abacus. Then Twilight announces that Princess Celestia cannot do anything about it, since she doesn't care about anything involving just one pony, despite everything we've seen in the show demonstrating exactly the opposite. At this point, the story simply gets painful to read it goes off the rails so hard. and progressively worsens as it continues, descending well into the depths of Narm in the process, peaking with Abacus' escape from custody and threatened suicide.

You don't see that this is example of mob mentality towards someone who was (wrongly) convicted and sent to prison. When people are scared, or angry, it can cause them to jump to conclusions. And this can result for that someone to contemplate suicide.
"Ponyville police officers"? Once again you didn't read it well. Ponyville doesn't have a police force. Those "Pigs" you mentioned were from Cloudsdale, as I mentioned. And the investigation force that put Abacus away were from Canterlot.
Your thoughts on Twilight saying that "Princess Celestia cannot do anything about it, since she doesn't care about anything involving just one pony, despite everything we've seen in the show demonstrating exactly the opposite."
There's a bigger picture of it that you didn't see or were aware of. It was out of Twilight's determination to solve the problem on her own, without relying on the princess, thinking that Celestia was to be called for only in a great emergency. Plus, Spike was being the word of wisdom of suggesting Princess Celestia's help. And they were going to ask for Celestia's help anyway.

You really should have read the entire story before reviewing it. You said that you only read it until chapter 19. And you say it's a bad story? By being lazy, and not reading it entirely, you missed out on vital things revealed to explain many things that would've possibly changed your thoughts on the story. I hate to be horrible to you, but your review of my story just showed how ignorant, short-sighted, and sloppy you are. There are so many things you missed, didn't understand, and got wrong. You really should've read the entire story more thoroughly, and finished it, because chapters 20 - 24 and Aftermath/Authors Speech has very vital things to the plot. If you would've done that, you would've understood more about it. But you just wanted to do it fast. Now because of you, my story is going to be hated by so many, after all that heart and soul I put into this story.

As Celestia said in A Canterlot Wedding: "You have a lot to think about."

As I understand, Rage Reviews is reviewing it too. Well, I at least hope (unlike you) that they read through it from start to finish, and that they're far more thorough in understanding the characters, and the plot, no matter how badly they criticize it.

You say that Abacus Sum is a Mary Sue/Marty Stu

And the things that you wrote make him SO much more of a Stu it's like you're checking off boxes.
If you want to see a mild autistic with superabilities that is not utterly a Marty Stu, read "Speed of Dark".

As to everything else - yeah, none of that actually makes anything BC said any more valid. You still throw canon under the bus in a huge way, its still nonesensical in terms of plot abd also apparently pacing, because putting " vital" things in Authors Speech is just plain silly.
If you want a huge reveal at the end that changes EVERYTHING ( which, Im sure you dont have), you have to have some forshadowing.

5878818
The last chapter of the story is "Aftermath/Authors Speech". It's a combo title that tell what happened to certain characters (including Abacus) and places, and then followed by a speech to spread awareness of what the story represents afterwards. The last chapter is titled "Aftermath/Authors Speech" for a reason.

And how does my story "throw canon under the bus in a huge way"? It's set during season 3. It's has memories of seasons 1, 2, and 3. And it's blended in to fill the gap into season 4, from Twilight becoming an alicorn princess, to Sweetie Belle not knowing about Sapphire Shores. Why do you think Twilight's not an alicorn yet? Why do you think Scootaloo has her scooter back after the episode, "Sleepless in Ponyville"? Why do you think I had Sweetie Belle absent until the day after Sapphire Shores visits Ponyville? Hmm? How does it still throw canon away if it ties to all these things?

5878850
I think Batwing (pardon my familiarity) has made a rather good case as to how this thing is jarring when compared to canon show.

The last chapter of the story is "Aftermath/Authors Speech". It's a combo title that tell what happened to certain characters (including Abacus) and places, and then followed by a speech to spread awareness of what the story represents afterwards. The last chapter is titled "Aftermath/Authors Speech" for a reason.

Dude. If you have to explain what your story meant for readers to understand it, then, almost by definition, your story did not do its job.

5878859
Well, I don't think you understand. It's not just that chapter that's vital.
He read it until chapter 19. But there are 6 more chapters (with chapter 20 being spit into 5 parts, with kind of makes 10 chapters) after that, with "Aftermath/Authors Speech" being the very last one.

5878868
Hey, if you want I can make a Rage-Review-style thrashing of your story and explain how, why and where it fails in more details.

5878886
Okay. sure. Just as long as you've read and analysed everything of the story from start to finish carefully. Leave no stone unturned, no plot unchecked.

And if there's anything you don't understand about in the story, please don't hesitate to ask?

BTW I should tell you off the record that this story of mine as a bit of a small cult/fandom behind it. And has a side story, The Flaming Trash Bag (which involves the character, Lock Down). And I'm planing to write 2 other stories. One of Abacus's recovery, and the other of Abacus's suffering in prison (which I'll be starting soon, and will be marked as a prison rape fic, and will be quite dark).

5878886

Sounds like fun. Just FYI, I'm still working on a much more detailed review for Rage Reviews. It will probably be another couple weeks out.

5878902

BTW I should tell you off the record that this story of mine as a bit of a small cult/fandom behind it.

Which says absolutely nothing about how good it is. It was not necessary to read the entire thing to see just how badly it broke canon, both for the world and for the characters; how sloppy the writing is; how uneven the pacing is; and how both OCs end up being some flavour of Mary Sue. There is no way that reading any more of the story is going to make those glaring flaws go away, so there was no need to do so for this review. However, I will be doing so for the Rage Review.

As for what I "got wrong", I didn't. Your writing is so sloppy and confusing that you can't even keep track of your own characterizations and descriptions. For example, you refer to Lawful Eye both as a "freelance" detective early on, yet later refer to her as an official member of a police force. You can't have it both ways. If you can't keep track of your own story, you can't expect anyone else to puzzle it out for you.

Any comment in the direction of "by the way my story is popular" immediately raises red flags for me.

5879036
Oh. I would not want to step on your toes then.
Unless you maybe want to co-author the review?

5879101

I might be up for that. My schedule is a bit iffy, but I'm usually available on weekends during the day.

5879129
Allright, awesome!
I'll read the thing and jot down some notes, so ping me whenever you want me to join in.
I'm usually online almost 24/7 and I'm available on skype and discord as well as fimfiction.

Okay, I just finished reading the entire story.

Had I bothered to read it all the way through, I would very likely have subtracted nearly all of the remaining point, leaving it at 1/00, and that only because of the overall lack of spelling errors. The final quarter of the story turned this from merely awful, to an outright travesty; as the author plumbed new and greater depths with each subsequent chapter (the few that were not predominantly filter), and then capped it off with a rather condescending lecture. But I'm saving my comments that part for the Rage review, where they are more appropriate.

5879036
I did refer Lawful Eye as a freelance detective, yes. But she is still classed as a police pony, and she had connections with officials, including the investigation force from Sydneigh, who also had connections with secret services in Trottingham. Freelance detective is another term for "Private Eye detective", and they do seek aid from police services. Everyone else who have read it could have figured it out, and keep track of that.

5879975

Aside from the fact that that's utter and complete nonsense. It doesn't work that way in the real world, and it certainly isn't anything like that in the way you describe it in the story.