Threshold by mushroompone

The author pulling a Silent Hill 3, where the protagonist was having a bad experience in their head and is then pulled back into the real world was an interesting little choice. I enjoyed it. Either the author played the game and is having a pseudo take on Silent Hill 3 or it was just coincidence, either way it makes me happy. What makes me even happier is that this story puts the characters though a level of mental torment… insanity… crazy, let’s call it crazy, which really has you questioning if anyone or anything is actually there/happening. For anyone thinking about reading this story get ready for a long haul. If you have read any of the Silent Ponyvilles than this has a similar feel with how it takes its time answering questions. AND THE ENDING TO PART 1! I LOVE IT! [continued in the spoilers section]

The first criticism I would have would be the transition from dream realm to real world could have been handled better. This might just be a personal gripe and not a fault with the story but I was having a bit of a difficult time imagining just where things were happening. We go from a gas station to the desert with no real indication of where we were in the first place and what the surroundings are like. The second criticism I have would be that the plot seems to drag a bit and doesn’t progress very fast. While I mentioned this as a positive it is also a negative. This is the type of story you will enjoy if you already like stories that ask a question and spent thousands of words dancing around the subject. If you aren’t already a fan of this kind of story then this isn’t the one that will sell you on the concept. My final criticism is the characterization that happens. I don’t see why this story could not have been made using all OC’s. As it stands, there isn’t a canon character that comes across as they should have. I realize this was done to show how the unnatural happenings are effecting the characters, but I can’t really see much of what personality traits are left of the canon cast. If this would have been written using only OC’s this wouldn’t be an issue seeing as I and other readers wouldn’t have a reference to compare the actions of the characters to.

This next part is going to contain major spoilers so hover over it at your own risk:

I’m a big gamer –as you might have been able to tell from the Silent Hill analogies- so the time traveling stuff for me was very reminiscent of Steins Gate. And let me tell you, that is a good thing. While I made the Silent Hill analogies, Steins Gate is the more apt comparison, I just didn’t want to give away the plot twist the story seems to be based on. Well now that I think about it Donnie Darko would also be an apt comparison seeing as rainbow is trying to modify past conditions to lead to a different futures outcome. One thing that was nice was the buildup that happened showing how time was getting screwy. It was interesting to see rainbow going from reasonable to jumpy over the course of a few hours while the town puts on its best act in an attempt to become a new twilight zone episode. While I enjoyed how it took until the end of part two for Rarity to accept the Call to Adventure this dragging pace can work against this story as it sometimes has a habit of taking the readers away from the main plot to delve into side issues. While these side issues might be relevant in future chapters at the moment they don’t seem to serve much of a purpose (Rarities Boyfriend and the missing waitress). Speaking of the call to adventure, seeing as this story is being told in parts, its called threshold, and so far has almost perfectly followed the hero’s journey I either figured out exactly how this story is going to go or the author accidentally started to write a story the exact way someone would if they wanted to make it the hero’s journey.

Final score:

Characterization: 3/10, only Rainbow Dash seems to be relatively true to character but even then it tends to slip when the plot demands it. [This score would have been a 7-9/10 if they were OCs or characters we just don't know all too well. By using main cast characters that can easily be referenced to how they should act I need to examine them as "is this Rarity" and "is this Rainbow Dash".]

Plot: 8/10, while the story is told from the eyes of a pony losing their mind, and as such large portions tend to read a bit off and create a bit of confusion, they ultimately serve to show the reader just how bonkers what is going on is.

Concept implementation: ?/10, this is something that has a major uncertainty for the story as even the smallest mistake on the authors part can sink how well the concept has been done so far. While the true score con only be given to this kind of story at the end as one need to consider ALL chapters, I can give this a tentative 9/10 for the time as it is being done quite well so far. Hopefully this continues into future chapters.

Writing: 9/10, this story has two proofreaders and it shows, there were few mistakes I could catch and for the most part it was well written to convey what the author wanted.

Conclusion: 29/40 or 7.25/10

6706770
Thank you so much for this thoughtful review!! I will have to dive deeper into the characterization issues you've mentioned-- I think perhaps some expansion on previous chapters will help this. In my own mind, Rarity and Rainbow are acting on their elements: Rainbow's driving force is her loyalty to Rarity, and Rarity's driving force is her generosity... Particularly to those who clearly do not deserve it (Nightwhisper).

If this isn't clear to the audience, however, all these grand ideas don't mean much!! I will DEFINITELY be doig some re-working of old chapters to better reflect these angles of characterization. That is a very valuable criticism!!

Thank you once again! I hope you're having, have had, or will have a lovely holiday

6706779
They aren't that bad. As I said in the review they are well written, the thing is that I can't seem to figure out just what parts of the personalities are left in the characters. I can see some things about Rainbow that have stayed true to form but she seems to desperately want to hide what she's doing. This is fine but as I remember, in the show Rainbow has a tendency to be very blunt, straightforward, and as many in the fandom point out, her and Applejack have the opposite elements. I could conceive of her being hesitant to tell Rarity shit was about to hit some fans but I would personally handle it by having her say she can't/won't say just yet but have her body and face scream otherwise. Rarity, on the other hand, is the worst offender in this regard. Where is the headstrong fashionista that is willing to stand up for what she wants? Where is the pony who is willing to take some punishment but will never roll over? Rarity in this story feels more like Fluttershy with how meek, passive, and unwilling to engage in conflict she is acting.

My suggestion for helping to keep a character feeling like who they are is to make a duplicate document and run a find-replace on a character name and replacing it with either a different name in the show if you feel it sounds too similar to a different character or just make up a different name and do a read through. These methods require you to distance yourself from the story and forget who you are writing about. If you do this you should be able to either say "hey, this doesn't sound like this character this sounds like this other one" or "Hey, this sounds an awful lot like this other character, I should use them instead". If you can say these then you have a character this is in character, if you can't, work needs to be done to establish that this is indeed that character. It might help to look at more than one character trait per character. I might be misinterpreting or you just might not have written it down, but Rainbow and Rarity are more than their elements. Examine every little quirk, strength, weakness, and value someone has and keep those in mind at all times, or keep a character/story bible to compare things to and ask yourself just how this exact individual would act, not how you want them to, but how they WOULD. If you want a specific reaction, change the conditions of the scenario to make that reaction happen