Reviewer: That one RationalCritic
Author: TheMajorTechie
Story: Luna and Sunset Shimmer Fix the Dreamscape with Shamwow and Flex Tape!
Amount read: ALL
Verdict: 3/10 Reject
Date: 31 December 2018

ShamFlexWowTape (An unofficial abbreviation for the story, this reviewer is not going to continuously type out the full name) is comical. For a few laughs it manages quite well, and it certainly doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Considering that the story is about fixing the MLP Dreamscape, ShamFlexWowTape does have a lot of imagination. However, despite its shock factor and comical premise, the story doesn’t amount to much in the end. And, indeed as well, review wise the story could have benefitted from not including the bonus chapter.
Starting off with the main chapter, the story begins strong. Already in the Dreamscape we get a comical introduction on Luna breaking the Dreamscape, and though we don’t have much information on how this exactly happened we can infer upon it (likely the orgasmic power of FlexTape). Following this we are introduced to the second main character Sunset Shimmer. The explanation for her presence:
“How did Sunset get into Luna's bedroom? We'll probably never know”.
Right away this quote helps set the tone of the story early on. The tone being spontaneous, outrageous, and full of mystery. This reviewer doesn’t want to mislead the author when he states this, the description of the tone wasn’t meant to put the story down. In fact, this reviewer wants to make it clear that the tone is a positive aspect to the story. Not every story needs to have a well thought out premise, or some serious groundbreaking, world changing (though breaking the Dreamscape would be world changing), story-worthy problem. ShamFlexWowTape initially is drawing to the reader because of its light-heartedness, and easy reading attitude.
Unfortunately, all is not well in the story. The story suffers from pacing issues early on between the bunker scene and the Captain Luna Moon scene, and these issues makes it very difficult for the reader to make sense of what is going on. No matter how outrageous the plot, the reader still needs to be grounded in some element of the story. A sense of reliability is needed so that the reader can effectively follow what ever is put down on the page. A story doesn’t need to be realistic or grounded in any fact at all in order to give the reader a sense of reliability, it just needs to follow logical argument paths.
The characters in the story come up with some pretty out of the box (makeshift) plans to fix the Dreamscape, and while Luna establishes early on that in the Dreamscape (or what is left of it) anything is possible, there are still some inconsistencies. For example, how Luna failed to use the ShamWow strip the first time, and then how she managed to build a whole boat out of it.
This reviewer doesn’t want to keep rambling on the smaller details, so he’ll keep the next point short. The references are comical in the beginning, however, by the end of the story they become tiresome.
All in all, the story fits its description well, and that isn’t a put down. It is entertaining to read, and certainly a story one would not easily forget.