Time for story three on my list of ‘almost all dark stories’ week. The Pinkamena Chronicles. by Perfectly Insane

Tags. Tags are a useful tool to figure out what you will be reading. Incidentally, I don’t often look at them before starting to read a story. I actually took this story on after seeing it in Azure’s request folder and realizing that with all the warning tags it would not be his thing. In all honesty, the things that drew me to it were the warning tags as I rarely see stories with so many of those. So, since I am bringing up tags, how are these relevant to this review? This story is one of the better examples of mystery I have seen as the number one most common sentence I kept saying while reading it was as follows; “ok, what the hell am I reading?” I actually ended up writing two starts to this review before actually reading the full story.

Version after Chapter 1;

I have a soft spot for David Cage and the games from Quantic Dream. While they are more movies than games, I will say they are at least, to some extent, competently written. I am even willing to defend Beyond: Two Souls, but this does not mean that you should use it as a template for how to write a coherent story.

Version after Chapter 2;

Welcome to Bizarro Equestria, where literally everything is the same as Equestria except that Pinkie is a homicidal nut case and the rest of the main six are a bunch of raging thunder cunts with the tact of an INT- personality type.

Warning: This review contains spoilers for important plot details. If you don’t want to be spoiled, here are the ratings I give it, {Pacing: 8/10, Mystery: 10/10, Writing: 7/10, Concept: 8/10, Total Score; 33/40 or 8.25}. I can’t say I have the desire to read it again, but it is a solid story that was enjoyable to read

This story was a roller-coaster of emotions and confusion, and guess what, that’s a good thing. It is probably one of the better mystery stories I have read as it slowly unravels and puts more and more pieces into place. This story is really something you need to read blind to get the full experience as the mysteries and questions that get raised tend to get answered and it feels really good when you read it and are able to figure out the answers to the things that are brought up before the story gives the answers. It was a really hard story to put down when I wasn’t raging at certain parts. One of the best parts comes in relation to voices in Pinkie’s head and her exhaustion. It was really nice to see that the voices were smart enough to understand that when someone is exhausted they become emotionally unstable and unable to think clearly, making them a prime target for manipulation and subjugation. Finally, It is the mark of a good author to be able to bring up something in an early chapter that would become relevant at the end. It was pleasantly shocked to see that the author more than likely had the entire story planned out from the start.

Now on to the criticisms. First off, something happened to the writing at about chapter 6. Up unto that point, the writing seemed to be on point with few noticeable errors, but starting when the length of the chapters nosedived, the errors either became more apparent or there were simply more of them. I don’t know if the author lost their editor or they were trying to start making deadlines but the number of errors really detracted from my experience here. And since we are on the topic of chapters after 5, we get to witness as Pinkie becomes the edgemaster supreme. I mean seriously, it was fairly alright for the first few chapters, but as the story goes on, Pinkie starts to sound less like a real individual with likes, dislikes, and opinions and more like a teenager going through puberty with all the ‘Woe is me. Nothing matters. You will never understand me’ talk she was doing. I was honestly getting a poor taste in my mouth with how much I just wanted to reach into the story and start wringing her neck and yell at her that ‘Your life isn’t that bad, all you’ve had happen to you is some bad dreams. Grow up’. Additionally, why does the chapter ‘Character Change Explanation’ exist? This is not how you are supposed to construct the story, especially a mystery. I went back and read through the chapter and all it serves to do is kill some of the mystery. WHY DOES THIS CHAPTER EXIST!!

Question. Why in the seven layers of fuck, did the evil, murder, spirit thing telling Pinkie that it was the cause of all the shit hitting the fan for her psychologically NOT result in Pinkie taking a trip directly to Celestia to report this? We literally read that Pinkie, while trusting of the voice in her head, doesn’t want to tell the ghost things because she doesn’t want the ghost to know that she is suspicious of her. And I don’t know about you, but if someone told me they tried to hypnotize me to make me their slave but it failed but when the opportunity came to try again they did just that, I have a strong feeling I wouldn’t be inviting them over to any Sunday morning pot lucks. We hear Pinkie telling the spirit that:

“I was already capable of being like this long before we actually met. You didn’t even start speaking to me until recently, so, you had no real effect on my life. The only thing those ‘dreams’ did was give me the option to give in, and I simply took it. So no, I’m not mad at you.”

As soon as I read this the only thing I could think of was “I think the fuck not you trick ass bitch”. Was I the only one that realized that these lines have no right to be in this story as they are? So let’s break this down piece by piece on why the information in that EXACT CHAPTER calls bullshit on that.

The whole ‘capable of being X’ is an argument that I hate because everyone is capable of doing everything. The only determining factor is the drive and push to follow through. In the chapter, the spirit admits having tried to bond to her right before the sonic rainboom, after which she was driven into the deepest recesses of Pinkie’s brain, destined to remain a mute aspect of Pinkie’s subconscious. She LITERALLY ADMITS that until Pinkie had the birthday fiasco, there were literally zero negative emotions for it to have fed on. I.e. Pinkie would have never become the monster that she did unless the spirit brought that on. Both of them even admit to having eidetic memories, so how in the actual fuck did Pinkie, I don’t know, NOT realize that this WHOLE thing was the spirits fault. With how logical Pinkie became as a result of becoming a monster, how did she not figure out that even if we concede the potential for Pinkie to have become a mass murderer, the potential was a mere candle, that the spirit then proceeded to; spray an aerosol can at, towards a barrel of petrol, next to a forest in the middle of a drought, causing the next big California wildfire.

If you think I’m just looking too deep into this and that Pinkie could have just not thought about that, I would like to remind you of something. Up unto this point, Pinkie had displayed the ability to use logic and reason through things to the point that she was being compared to Twilight. I am an INTP personality type and I was able to figure this out instantly, so Pinkie being portrayed as logical and NOT seeing this utterly confounds me.

Finally, was the darkness. I will admit, I read this story after reading Fake Smiles, and the quality of darkness between these two stories is night and day. I really regret reading Fake Smiles before this because it had totally tainted my perception of the stories from the author. Where Fake Smiles was a story where I felt like these were real characters with real issues and the darkness was entirely relatable, this one read very much like “baby’s first dark story”. The characters are not really relatable, especially Pinkie. How am I supposed to relate to an individual who went crazy due to homicidal, eugenic, alien ghosts, who decided to take up murder as a hobby because ‘why not’. The reason I said ‘baby’s first dark story’ is because it has elements people associate with dark stories, but they were not implemented in a way that makes it feel dark. There’s gore, but it’s closer to torture porn rather than gore for the purpose of developing a character, plot, or theme. The main character is not all there in the head, but not in a way that someone can relate to or really understand. The world is against the main character, but this was due to the main character bringing this on themselves rather than the world being uncaring and not full of sunshine and rainbows. Simply put, the dark themes and concepts felt added to simply have dark concepts and themes rather than included to SERVE the story or BE the story {read as adding jalapenos to a regular cheeseburger compared to either making jalapeno poppers or adding them to guacamole to make it spicy and add some kick (or if you want a more direct comparison, using the jalapenos to make an aioli or incorporating them into the burger meat itself to infuse the meat with some heat).} AND OH SWEET GOD THAT LAST CHAPTER. I have a DEEP seeded hatred for Sues and I actually had to force my way through the last half of the chapter. Where the preceding events painted high tension stakes, once Pinkie basically goes super saiyan, I lost all of my interest in the story since tension was just yeeted of the top of Everest.

Final scores;

Pacing: 8/10, this was well paced for a mystery story. The only issue I have comes from the ending of the final chapter where everything starts happening at light speed with little to no lead up, particularly in regards to there being no hinting that fusion was a thing and the changelings, a thing that seemed to be a side issue, ending up being an actual center piece of the story and cause the story to end on a cliff hanger with no promise of a sequel to answer all of the ‘how/why the fuck’ questions that get raised in the chapter.

Mystery: 10/10, this was a well-written mystery story that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout most of it and really made it hard to put down

Writing: 7/10, the actual hell happened once the chapters started to get shorter? There weren’t that many errors up until then but suddenly they all start popping out of the woodwork.

Concept: 8/10, the idea of an evil, homicidal race of alien ghosts that can possess ponies was a nice one, I just wish that the last half of the last chapter would have maintained the dark tone that was being established as the first half of the last chapter looked to have gotten a hold of what a story should be when it means to be dark, and that Pinkie would have started to reason through some things as she seemed to now be able to do.

Total Score; 33/40 or 8.25/10, overall this was a good chapter. I just wish the ending and use of darkness would have been handled better and allowed for there to be more of a lead up for what happened and for the dark themes to inform the path of the story rather than as an addition to make the story dark.

[I would also like to point out, Sombra is not even close to a good strategist with the whole ‘let’s invade Ponyville’ plan. Let’s see, abandoned town, in striking distance of the capital, with superb resource potential, and to top it off, it has the ideal infrastructure to be converted into a forward operating base. This not only reeks of a trap but as one so obvious that a child could see through it. I would also like to say for the final chapter, no, no way in hell would those rats have been in that good of condition after that long. Not only would they have been reduced to nothing more than bone, but there would not have been a scent. Also, the entire last chapter made every ounce of biologist in me cringe at the inaccuracies I read.]

This was actually a better review for the story than I was expecting.

You were right in terms of this being my first story, It was my first ever story. I like to believe my other stories are improved because of how bad this one was, in comparison. As for the degradation in quality of the chapters?

Tbh. It’s just because I was rushing the chapters. At the time, I felt I had to meet deadlines I made up for myself, which was also likely the reasons the characters and character development was very inconsistent. Though I somewhat like to believe the last chapters was better.

I do intend to make a sequel to it, and now that I know how to pace myself, It’ll hopefully be better and more consistent. I intend to to use this reference more or less as a guide, though I’m sure most issues i can fix myself.

Thanks again for reviewing.

(Btw, I don’t have an editor. I write and edit all my stuff myself, hence why i always ask people to tell me if they spot issues in the author notes.)

6815542
8.25 and you don't recomment?

6815896 Yeah, that confused me a little also.

6815974 6815896
The recommended folder for me has more or less been my 'If I find the time I'll come back to read these again' folder. The last chapter just killed my desire to re-read the story. I would do the same thing for a story that would have gotten a similar or higher score if it tried to use biology or realism for massive portions of it and just failed to the point that blood vessels started to rupture for me. But for the sake of consistency, since I have always recommended a story if it got above a 7, I will move it to the Recommended folder.

6816138
Democracy, hurray! Schattendrache is a big softy sometimes...

6816138
Thank you, I highly appreciate that.

Also, I apologize for the lack of realism in the last chapter. I did not realize some people took that so seriously.

6816145
Oh, I always raise a stink about that in my reviews, it just a part of my personality as I go to EXTREME lengths when I write stories or edit them to weed out any inaccuracies and unrealistic events, as Azure and other people I edit for can attest. I never dock points for lack of realism, I just point out because it is a personal gripe I have with things due to my love of realism. That Is why I brought up that I would normally never recommend a story with a frankly unforgivable amount of logical, biological, and scientific inaccuracies despite its rating due to the bloodlust the story would give me as I read it. For an example of how much realism matters to me, in a story I rose a stink about the biological inaccuracies of LITERALLY FOUR FLIPPING SENTENCES THAT MENT NOTHING IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS! That is how important realism is to me. Only four insignificant sentences were enough to set me off. And here it is: (from this review)

[Personal issue (not counted in the score, just me griping): chapter four; no, that is not how biology. The whole examination he had of his body was nice, but there were so many biological inaccuracies. Being a biologist, it hurt me to read it. For one, unless this dude had the worst kidneys in the world, that suddenly became perfect at filtering blood, stones would not be forming. Two, unless this dude had <5% body fat, his body wouldn't be on death's door due to not eating that day. Additionally, unless his hair now grows at about 0.1 meters a day, and his nails at a similar rate, they wouldn't have grown as much as they did, especially with his body going into starvation mode. There are more issues, but I don't think anyone wants me to write an entire ten page cited paper here on why literally three sentences are incorrect in terms of biological accuracy.