TAnon-a-Miss

• Equestria Girls
• Dark
• Mystery
• Sad

The infamous holiday special, retold in an entirely new way.

• Violence
• Gore
• Profanity
• Rainbow Dash
• Main 6
• CMCs
• Sunset Shimmer
• Dazzlings

The Blue EM2 · 14k words  ·  81  25 · 4.4k views

I read: Completed at 14,042 words, 10 chapters
I rate: 5/10
I recommend: Skip unless you really want to see another take on Anon-a-Miss or are invested in TheBlueEM2’s series.

One of my favourite philosophers is Baudrilliard. And yes, this is actually relevant. The dude’s main idea is that every time something becomes more abstracted from its source material, it gets worse and harder to understand. That’s not to say that this story is bad, however. But, it isn’t Anon-a-Miss, the comic, and it definitely isn’t Dainn’s take on said comic either. Rather, it needs a good edit and maybe for the trains to be toned down a little.

Hang around the fandom long enough and you learn the story via osmosis, basically. Sunset Shimmer gets framed for slander and the fate of Christmas hangs in the balance as she tries valiantly to clear her name and repair her friendships before it's too late and everyone hates her for good. 

And that happens here, except that both the Main 7 and the CMC are on her side from the beginning. That means that we are in need of a new antagonist - the best part of the story comes in as our collective crew of protagonists/train-lovers attempt to discern the identity of said antagonist.

If you read the story tags, you’ll figure out by the process of elimination exactly who the antagonists are. And that’s when TheBlueEM2 drops the proverbial ball. While the Dazzlings make a decent threat on their own as magical song vampire fish people, their motives and methods don’t make sense at all. They frame Sunset to destroy her reputation as revenge for the Battle of the Bands fiasco. However, they’re shown later in the story to be perfectly capable of using magic and also shooting people with guns. Why then, I ask, do they go to the trouble of cyber-bullying Sunset if they’re willing and able to just kill her?

Because the plot demands it, that’s why. That’s actually the reason why a lot of stuff here happens. Chase sequence in a train? Because the plot demands it. Sting operation? Because the plot demands it. It feels contrived and the mystery here is far more satisfying than the conclusion.

Furthermore, the later chapters are in a need of a good edit. There are multiple spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and just poor wording in general. Furthermore, links to thematically-appropriate carols are not properly embedded and nothing breaks emersion like a string of random letters and numbers halfway through an emotionally-charged paragraph.

Plot: 3/5. Good mystery until the reveal.
Characters: 3/5. Rarity stands out but the others don’t.
Style: 2/5. Hard to read in parts.
Execution: 2/5. Poorly paced, lacks the “punch” of the original.
Overall Rating: 10/20 = 5/10

 To TheBlueEM2: My advice is firstly to go through and edit the later chapters just as you have done with the first ones. I’d also recommend that you rework the villains - the Dazzlings can work here, but don’t let them pull weapons/magic out of their asses then and have their whole plan blown out the water. Furthermore, try and be consistent with the genre. It segways between comedy and drama and between mystery and action - none of it really feels that coherent to me and, honestly, I would not have read past the chase scene chapter if I wasn’t obliged to for the review.

For something like this: 
Dainn’s Anon-a-Miss. Read it. 10/10.

As always, if you like this review, why not check out more of my work here?

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