Title: Side A: The Guard
Author: DaOtterGuy
Amount read: All
Genre Tags: MLP: FiM, Sex, Profanity, Romance, Comedy, Drama, Alt. Universe
Verdict: Reject, 5.5/10

As far as me reading this as a normal person goes; I really love this fic. It’s sweet, innocent fun in its purest form. I had several smiles form over my face. Sure, it isn’t true to real life or largely encapsulating over those deep sublime feelings found in other fics, but it’s not trying to be that either. It is here to put a smile on your face and it does a damn good job of it. Looking at this from the view of someone just coming in to read this fic, it is a ball of energy that really just makes you feel happy, and that’s what I sincerely appreciate. I’ve never quite found a fic like this, but it’s optimism and purification of all these really intricate emotions and feelings just permeates a sense of energy. I really appreciate that about this fic and I would love to see more of this.

Except….

Oh no! The fun police!

Reviewer Milo
Okay Milo, you’ve had your fun, but come on. Attaboy, get back in your cage. I’ll give you a treat later if you behave.

Okay, while Milo is…. Right. Glares at cage.

The fic isn’t without its flaws. I think one of the biggest flaws is the suspended disbelief required of the audience. A lot of things just happen, or have happened that are very unfitting for the story that is trying to be told. The story is cartoony in nature, with a lot of things adding to that, its humorous, but not overly fitting for a romance. It takes away from what should essentially be the primary focus of the story; the romance. Could you imagine the looney tunes attempting to be serious? Even the romance is super hammed up. It’s innocent, and sweet, but also quite jarring. This leads on to another flaw, the relationship Flash had with other ponies was hard to grasp. The story had a very, particular preset universe where information became available at a pretty reasonable rate, but it was hard to see or justify why certain elements had come to fruition. I can see that Shining’s relationship with Flash is quite close and intimate, but it’s not really justified as Flash seems capable of independence despite himself. These relationships he has with other characters makes sense… but they just seem difficult to justify, and feel almost artificial in a way.
This is also reflected in the dialogue, it’s fun, light, and cartoony, but in doing so, fails to reflect the importance and effect of their relationship. I guess what I am trying to say is there is such thing as over acting, and the exaggeration is just a little too much.

“You’re WHAT?!” Shining said incredulously.

I’ve noticed this a lot in your fic, you tend to say “and sweated while smiling nervously.”, or “ Flash grinned sheepishly.”, or “The stallion asked impassively.”. Whew… that’s a lot of adverbs. That was just in one section of one of your chapters. This is the whole show and tell thing, instead of using adverbs, show him smiling nervously. Show him asking in an impassive manner, show him being sheepish.

“What was what?” Flash tilted his head in confusion.

This is also a problem I see a lot. We can see his confused, he tilted his head. You don’t need to tell us it was in confusion, we can infer that. Audience hand holding is a super common pitfall, everyone has done it and it just takes practice practice practice to try to stop yourself from doing that. But if you do, you’ll never go back, and you’ll even notice the difference in how your prose sounds. If you’re scared that your message may not get across then try to use two points of action. For example:

“‘What was what?’ Flash tilted his head in confusion”
To
“‘What was what?’ Flash tilted his head and furrowed his brow”

In this instance, I would feel like head tilting would be enough but it’s up to you.

I will also say that your characterisation kind of jumps around the place a fair bit. Sure they will stick to the overall personality you’ve set for them, but sometimes you will have this awkward lunge out of character at the expense of either a joke or a humorous situation. This jarring break can often make the joke fall flat or really take you out of the story.  

One last thing is the pacing, it is very… quick in a sense. Not so much in prose but more so in the plot. They don’t really get much time to talk or engage, it’s all implied or not written, but I wanna hear that. They have brief moments, but we don’t get to see enough complexity or depth in their relationship. It makes it hard to see a justification for there being a relationship. Trust me, I love these two and reader Milo and I can agree that there was much smiling to be had reading this, it just needed to have a bit more reason for investment.

All in all, this fic was sweet and cute and fun, but lacked complexity and realism in a way that did inevitably affect the overall outcome of the story. Minor writing habits leaked throughout the story which also brought it down. However, the story was energetic and fun, this was the clear intent right from the start and showed, it honestly brought a smile to my face despite those flaws. Unfortunately, I will have to reject, but knowing that you have a lot of potential for romances that would melt mountain trolls!

-Milo