Note:

Let me start off by apologizing for the delay. The sudden event of becoming unemployed, as irrelevant as that may be to the review, has caused this review and other story reviews I claimed to be delayed.

Title: Sonata's Big Duel by Darthvalgaav
Verdict: Reject (6.5/10)

Reason:

While I feel I must reject it at this time, I was overall entertained with this piece. I whole-heartedly believe that Yu-Gi-Oh fans will find something to enjoy with its duel choreography. The battle seems to be presented clearly, and while I can't fault it for not going into detail to the nth degree so that non-fans can understand what is going on (something that would clearly bog down the narrative), I can appreciate the attention to detail that goes into making the duel feel real.

As a non-fan, I can't grade on the accuracy of the duel. So I won't bother. Instead, I examined the emotional impact on the characters as that scene played out. Unfortunately, I can't say that there is much emotion that I could hold onto for much of its duration. It isn't until the duel was over that I could see some of the its ramifications.

So while I surmise that the duel itself was executed well, I feel that there was a sacrifice for some potential build up in tension, some concessions they might need to make in order to succeed, and possibly even Sunset's stakes in the duel's outcome. It seemed to me Sunset and her friends could avoid the risk of sending Sonata back home entirely by dealing with her, as they dealt with villains in EqG in the past. Additionally, I presently see the duel as a means to an end, rather than as something that inherently strengthens their cause. In other words, in what ways do the duels allow them to resolve their issues that other ways don't, and what does the dueling tell us about them as individuals?

Other considerations to take into account were how dueling monsters felt shoehorned into the narrative for me. The way it was introduced, through a dialogue tag of passing individuals, made the setup of the previous scene feel misleading. This is hard for me to isolate why it makes me feel the way I do; I suppose the narrative introduced one filter (how I saw the world) and then created an overlay that didn't interweave the two dynamics of this world together in a way that I saw fit.

I do have some minor improvements to flow that we might consider as well:

“Finally,” said Adagio as she brought her hands together and began to rub them together. There was also a grin on her face as she slid off the table, landing on her feet as she did. “About time I moved up from washing tables and taking loser’s money.” As she said this, several of the other employees turned to shot her nasty looks.

“Actually Ms. Adagio,” said the day manager after clearing her throat. “I have already eliminated you as a possible candidate.”

First bold point can be changed to:

rubbed her hands together

Which would reduce some wordage and avoid repetition.

Second bold point can be changed to active voice to match the voice of the previous suggestion, as they are in the same paragraph. It would also read more naturally if it was something like:

She slid off the table with a grin on her face

The final bold point doesn't need both a said and a beat. We can just go with a beat as follows:

"Actually," the day manager cleared her throat, "I have already eliminated you as a possible candidate, Ms. Adagio."

There are a number of things that I must commend about this narrative. The setup for Sonata's problem is natural and elicits an emotional connection from the reader, the characterizations felt like they were on point, and the pacing and flow were well executed in keeping me engaged.

Overall, I had a nice time with it. I hope that I provided helpful insight in this review.

While I am sad to see this story being rejected, I am glad you enjoyed it. I wanted to go for something other the it being the good guy vs the bad guy type thing so I hope that shined throughout.

As for why the duel even happened, well it's a Yugioh thing. Duels are how they solve everything. Plus there was that bit with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

However, I do agree that Sunset could have had more at stake, but keeping Sonata out of Equestria and not having her bother her bothering the human seven were the best I could come up with. It was far easier to show Sonatas reasons as well as her longing to go home.

I'm not sure how well I conveyed this, but I only had in mind thoughts of how we might go about improving an already good narrative. There's a couple of things I drew upon from the YuGiOh universe when reviewing this.

One question I raised was what dueling meant to the characters on an intrinsic level, beyond using it to solve their problems. I think later series in the franchise don't answer that question as well as the original did, so I'll use that as an example.

For Yugi, it was continuing his Grandfather's legacy and his gateway for getting closer to him. For Joey, it helped him to create a bond with his friends that ultimately led to his development as an individual.

The other item I took into consideration was the circumstance of how dueling was introduced into their universe. It immediately presented it as an aspect of the world, and it was done so in a way that wasn't in passing.

As for Sunset's stakes.. hm. It's not a bad reason to prevent her from going back to Equestria. I was just thinking: "If Sunset doesn't duel Sonata, then Sonata can't go back anyways."

Hm... Is there perhaps some narrative plot device we could implement to create a set of circumstances that would force her into a duel? Something that would be natural looking. Say, didn't Twilight had some sort of ability to either talk to the monsters or make them seem real? Did that ever come into play, and if not, could that somehow be used? I think I could hash things out with you in a bit more detail if you wanted to make edits or if we wanted to theory craft other possible scenarios. I'm sure there's a lot of exciting things we can do.

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Well after the original series, dueling did become sort of the norm for the world to the point where schools were set up to teach dueling and its a way of life. That was something I wanted to do for this.

As for Sunset's stakes, remember that Sonata said that she would just keep coming back to bother her and her friends. Rather than do a montaige scene with Sonata reappearing over and over again, I believe Sunset would be smart either to just bite this in the head earily enough. Plus, she did say in the story that she was afraid that she didn't know the magical blast would have effected Sonata or if there was a way for her to gain her powers back. With regards to Twilight's monsters, well that is somewhat in play with her being curious as to why none of the others are getting the same thing and will come more into play with the next story which is 85 percent done.

I could always use a second opinion so if you don't mind looking at it...