Review ~ "Spectrum of Lightning" by Seriff Pilcrow and AdmiralKew - My Little Reviews & Feedback

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Cyonix

Group Contributor

Cyonix #1 · Sep 20th, 2019 · 3 · ·

Hello, friends! Hope you're all doing well! I see that I’ve been promoted to Contributor status on the group this week, not really sure what that does though

Anyway, here’s the story we’re gonna be looking at today!

TSpectrum of Lightning

Dive into the secret past of Twilight Velvet—mother of the Princess of Friendship—as she embarks on her first guns-blazing adventure with the Whip-Cracking Crusader. Volume 1 of Daring Did: Tales of an Adventurer's Companion

Seriff Pilcrow · 119k words · 270 3 · 5.3k views

I happen to know that this one is Seriff’s pride and joy It's still incomplete, but it's already boasting sixty thousand words, which I have read all of. It also has a previous review done by Nano.

So, just a heads up, I usually try to limit the content that I bring up in these reviews in the interest of keeping the thing short. In today’s review I’ve tried as much as possible to bring up specific examples to illustrate my point, and I’ve spent quite a lot more time on each issue.

In other words, this is a very long review.

But that's enough prefacing. On to the review!

Review

SPOILER WARNING! If you don’t like being spoiled please go read the story first. It’s a pretty good read.

Spectrum of Lightning is a…

Well, I think I'll just let the story description handle this part for me this time.

Have you ever kept a secret from somepony?
How about an entirely different life?
Twilight Velvet has definitely been less than honest with her family and friends, but now, so many years later, somepony stumbles upon the truth. Adventures long done, friendships that have withered to the barest of sparks—what will resurface as Twilight's true life is uncovered?
Daring Did: Tales of an Adventurer's Companion is a fanfiction series that aims to breathe new life into a once popular headcanon: that Twilight Velvet—Twilight Sparkle's mother—was directly involved with Daring Do and her adventures. Travel with Daring Do and Twilight Velvet across Equestria and beyond as the discover treasures of old, battle dangerous foes, and unearth the knowledge the world’s past has to offer. Drawing inspiration from real-world archeology, locales, and cultures; auxiliary MLP material like the IDW comics and G.M. Berrow chapter books; and standard action-adventure fare like Uncharted and Indiana Jones, Daring Did combines all of these elements into a witty, yet deep narrative that captures a spirit of exploration and exhilaration.

…that.

So yes! This is a classic Daring Do story, as classic as it gets. Wild chases, treasure hunting, ancient ruins; you name it.

I actually fairly enjoyed this story! I can tell that Seriff and AdmiralKew (I’m gonna call them SP & AK from now) put lots of work into this. The characterisations of Velvet and Daring in particular are really well done. Velvet’s an energetic, confident pony and Daring is clearly experienced, almost feeling like the straight mare next to Velvet’s crazy personality. And they play off each other pretty well!

Relatedly, dialogue’s a really strong point in this story. SP & AK (or whichever one of them handles the dialogue) managed to write dialogue that's witty and also emotional when it needs to be, and the result is lots of fun to read.

“I'm surprised you can carry my weight,” commented Velvet. "Didn't you tell me you weren't a good flyer back in the train?"
“Well, they”—Daring stretched—“say fat is less dense than muscle.”
“And Daring's head is the densest of all,” Velvet shot back.

Of course, this being an action story, most of the action scenes here are also pretty well-written, when they come up. They flow pretty well, and they have a good sense of rhythm to them as well. SP & AK’s action sequences in this story are frequently intense, and I can really see what Seriff meant when he told me that the action scenes are one of the main draws of the story.

Though… there were a few issues I had with the story that popped out while I was reading through it. And, of course, this being a Cyo review, these issues are gonna take at least a thousand words to describe.

But let’s start from the start, ya?

Oh — and, if you still haven’t left from the spoiler warning up top, this is your last chance to go give the story a read. Things are gonna get pretty specific from now on.

Everypony okay? Well, let’s get to it!

So, the starting of this story actually feels like it’s weakest part. To illustrate what I mean, here’s the general gist of how it goes.

The story begins with a little teaser from Daring’s adventure in Chapter One, but the actual story starts in Chapter Two, on a scene of Twilight having some... trouble with her mom, Twilight Velvet, with Spike as a spectator.

The aura surrounding the lighter disappeared. It tumbled through the air and hit the book, setting it ablaze.
“Wha—” Twilight's eyes widened in horror. “Noooooooo!” Twilight shouted. Her hooves flailed at the burning book, trying to put the smokeless fire out, but it was too late. The book had burned to nothing in just a few seconds. Meanwhile, Velvet, who hadn't moved from her initial position all the while, snatched the lighter with her magic just before it hit the floor and closed the cap.
“H-how could you? That's one of the only books that survived my fight with Tirek! Why are you always like this–“

The book’s fine, by the way

Anyway, after this Spike finds Velvet’s journal in her room, as I said in the summary. And that’s when the real story starts...ish. There’s another teaser from somewhere halfway through the journal, so the actual, main plot doesn’t start until Chapter 3. Six thousand words in. In other words, enough words to fit a whole story in. That’s a lot of words.

So yeah. Slow start.

Luckily for us, the story starts really picking up after this. The main plot begins with only Velvet, in her hotel room in Vanhoover. The first image (and I’m not talking about the actual image in the fic here, though that’s applicable as well) we’re presented with shows her tinkering with a television set in the room, hijacking its communication capabilities to try and contact her fiance.

And I honestly really like how this introduces Velvet to us, because think about what you what you’ve learned about her through just that short description. She’s great with technology and magic, and she’s kinda reckless or at least not afraid of breaking stuff that’s not hers. She’s in a relationship with Night Light, and is committed enough to him that she’d put in so much work into trying to contact him. She’s also away from home, probably for an extended period of time.

Unfortunately for SP & AK, their story is one with a lot of technology and technical information; a lot of exposition is necessary to get this information across. Sometimes, it’s done pretty well, as in the example above. Other times, it’s pretty heavy-handed in the delivery — though it’s not excessive to the point of being immersion-breaking. Be prepared for the occasional exposition dump, though.

I’ll skip forward a bit to the first action scene in the main plot. At this point, after having found a notebook belonging to a certain golden pegasus with a whip and a pith hat, Velvet’s pursued on her train by an unknown group of ponies. There’s a pretty long sequence where Velvet gets chased by the gun- and grenade-wielding ponies in the train. A little too long, actually, it does start to drag a little.

That's a little trend I noticed, actually. If I had any critique for the action sequences in this story, it would be that they sometimes are a little too long. For example, the first action sequence on the train stretches across two chapters and has six distinct fights in it, three before Daring arrives and three after. It does feel like it could have accomplished the same goals with fewer, and more intense, fights. The desert chase sequence in Chapter 9 is split into two parts, with each part being pretty long on their own. The problem here really is that awkward middle part: it definitely makes the sequence feel slower than it has to be.

And that's… more or less Act One!

Most of what I want to say is demonstrated in the first act. I do have some additional notes for the story as a whole, though, and these are pretty important.

First, I should address the Spike subplot. Nano made a point of bringing this up in his review, but I think I have a slightly different perspective on the issue from him.

For those who didn't catch it, this whole story is recorded in Velvet's journal, and Spike is reading it in the present day. Soon after starting the story, though, it starts to feel like the two plots are totally unrelated. What results is a sort of weird confusion as to what the point of having the Spike subplot really is — though I guess SP & AK should have some plans for the thing. I do have some more specific comments, down there in the feedback section.

The more important point that I wanted to bring up is the problem of the strength of the motivations of the protagonists, and how they compare to the antagonists’. The Story Goal of the duo is made pretty clear from the start: find the Spectrum. But the reason why they’re looking for this artifact is never actually explained in a convincing way. Velvet, in particular, has little to no motivation to continue helping Daring to the extent that she is prior to Chapter 10. By the time she figures out why they’re looking for the thing she’s already killed a lot more ponies than she should be comfortable with without knowing exactly why.

Going on to Chapter 10, Daring does offer a cursory explanation as to why they’re going after this artifact about a quarter of the way through the chapter. The explanation is brief, if not wholly unconvincing compared to the magnitude of the duo’s actions. Daring mentions something about helping a country with its crop problems, but honestly it’s not really delivered with enough conviction to make me believe that she actually considers it very important.

All this is just exacerbated by the weirdly sympathetic spin SP & AK decided to give the antagonists in certain scenes. An example which springs to mind is when Daring and Velvet have to storm an airship to get one of the pieces of an artifact that their looking for. There’s this scene near the start of Chapter 13 where two mercenaries, a griffon and a pony, are talking. The griffon, Grigory, talks to the pony about asking a pony out on a date, and the pony’s giving Grigory a pep talk. This is followed immediately by Daring and Velvet pretty much murdering the two in cold blood.

Another example: in Chapter 9, there’s a chase sequence where the antagonists try to steal that same fragment that I was talking about in the previous point. Near the end of the chapter, this happens:

“Do you realize how many of my colts you've killed?!” Through the angry growling, a crack in Volt's voice betrayed a tinge of sadness. “Do you even care?! You think I don't know how my ‘lackeys’ feel?!”
Daring received another beating.
“This is for Ironsides!”
Smack!
“This is for Birdshot!”
Smack!
“And this is for Miles!”

Volt is one of the villains, if you haven’t read the story

Reading all these moments is just… why? I mean, is it just me? Am I overly sensitive? Am I the only one who sympathises with the antagonists more than our heroes here? Because I certainly didn’t see any comments sharing my sentiments on the story, which feels odd knowing how much it affected my enjoyment of the story… .

It would have been fine, if the story had rolled with it and decided to engage with the duo’s inner conflicts about their actions; in fact, there’s a brief moment after Velvet’s first kill in Chapter 4 where the traces of something like this can be seen. It’s never followed up on, though. The more I read the story the more this began to bother me, especially on repeat readings. The brazen, confident attitudes of the two leads went from being really enjoyable to feeling, well... childish? Ignorant? Evil?

Whatever it is, it definitely didn’t sit very well with me.

Scores

Grammar and Use of Language
Good grammar with few errors or typos. Though I found myself sometimes a little confused about who's speaking, as SP & AK have this habit of putting dialogue in a different paragraph from actions. It gets confusing sometimes when they don’t say who’s speaking.

Sweat trickled from her hooves. The door was only a few yards away.
Just a little further…
The door jostled. Muffled shouting leaked through it.
“Damn it! They're at the other side!”
Without a second thought, Velvet got up and threw open the door to one of the bathroom. Maybe she could hide here and wait for the goons in the car to leave.

Otherwise, the writing is pretty well done, and doesn’t really get in the way of reading much at all. :)

8.5/10

Characters and Characterisation
Characterisation of the main duo here is really good, with dialogue that feels great, especially in the interaction between the main two. It’s not just witty dialogue as well, as there are plenty of emotional moments that give the characters a great amount of depth as well. I do have to deduct a few points for the motivation issue I brought up earlier, though.

7/10

Action Sequences
In spite of everything I said about the long action scenes above, they’re actually really great! SP & AK have a pretty good idea of how to pace action scenes, and they’re varied enough across the whole story that they constantly feel fresh and intense. Some specific sequences still last a little longer than they’re welcome, though.

8/10

In summary...

Spectrum of Lightning is a pretty great action-adventure fic. Like action scenes, exploration, ancient artifacts, or Indiana Jones in general? You’ll like this one. It’s full of energy, witty characters, and great action sequences. A little rough around the edges, maybe, but it’s definitely one of the better action-adventure fics I’ve read in a while!

FINAL SCORE: 8/10

Feedback for SP & AK

So, I raised a few issues in the review. As promised, here’s some elaboration on those things. Hopefully this helps a little.

First, I mentioned the slow scenes and sequences in the story, like at the beginning, or in the action sequences. Mostly, this can be resolved by making sure that every event or scene you put in the story has a purpose, or at least fits the story. Let’s look at the train action sequence. There are six “fights” that I saw in the action sequence, like I said.

First, there are the three “fights” with only Velvet: one with the Cloaked Mare, one where she’s trapped in the toilet, and the last where she teleports away to the sleeping car. From what I can tell, each is mostly to demonstrate her magical powers and her fighting ability. Which is… fair enough. But why take three fights to convey this information?

Next, what changes after the three fights? Well, Velvet is captured at the start of the first fight, and is captured again at the end. So nothing really changes, in terms of the plot.

Okay, let’s look at the second part. After Daring arrives, there’s another three fights: first with Wild Card and the gang holding Velvet prisoner, second with the unicorn mare wielding the knife, and last with Birdshot. Purpose of these fights? From what I see it’s to show us Daring’s fighting style and capabilities, but actually we’ve already seen Daring fight in Chapter 1. Plotwise, it’s to rescue Velvet from the mercenaries.

You might notice from my summary that these six fights are not actually accomplishing much. So why have such a long sequence anyway, especially when it’s so close to the start of the main story? Not every fight scene has to be long and intense just for the sake of being long and intense, if its intensity hasn’t been earned.

Next, the Spike subplot. For the moment, it’s completely separate from the main plot, and it’s not quite connected, even by theme. The main plot is more or less pure action-adventure, while the Spike subplot is more character-centric. I don’t really have a lot to say about this one, other than to watch out for whether the Spike story ends up fitting with the main plot, when you decide to connect them.

Lastly, the most important issue, at least in my view; the protagonists’ motivations. I’ve already detailed my problems with this above, so I’ll talk a bit about how to address this.

First, and most obviously, the duo must have a strong reason to pursue their mission. We need to see how much they believe in this reason, because their desire to complete this mission is going to be the driving force behind the entire story. In other words, more time should be spent explaining why the two are looking for the Spectrum. And the more drastic the actions they take to do this, the stronger you need the reason to be.

Secondly, you also need to keep an eye on the sympathy that you’re evoking for the antagonists as well. Looking at Volt, from that quote in Chapter 9, she feels like she has a much stronger reason for fighting than the protagonist duo. Considering the almost paper-thin motivation of the duo, I started rooting for the villains instead, which is dangerous and certainly not what you want to happen in this sort of story.

Lastly, you’ll want to actually address this in the story. The duo should have some sort of inner conflict from killing so many ponies; it’d be inhuman to be otherwise. Having them reconcile their actions with their morality, and reaffirm their belief in their mission, would go a long way toward addressing this problem.

Whew! This one was a really tough one! I spent a heck of a lot of time on this, and I do hope it helps! As always, if there’s anything that you disagree with, want more explanation on or just don’t understand, please leave a reply on this thread. Until next time, have a good week!