Hello, hello everyone! I’m back, and on time this time

Today’s story is an EqG-based story, I think only the second one I’ve ever reviewed.

THome Again

• MLP: FiM
• Equestria Girls
• Adventure
• Comedy
• Drama

Sunset just wanted to fix the portal to Equestria, not cause the apocalypse. Again.

• Luna
• Trixie
• Discord
• Main 6
• Main 7 (EqG)

Ninjadeadbeard · 60k words  ·  153  4 · 2.4k views

It’s also a sequel to a previous story, Midnight at the Crystal Library. Though, as the long description says, knowledge of the first story isn’t strictly needed to enjoy this one, and the events in the first story are only referenced in the beginning of this one.

...and yeah, I did read both stories What did I think of them?

Well, that’s what I’m here to talk about. Let’s get into it!

Home Again follows Sci-Twi from the EqG world as she attempts to confront Midnight Sparkle (y’know, the demon Twi from the Friendship Games), who still lives in her mind. That’s… it, really. The main plot of this story isn’t one that’s that complicated.

Of course, describing this story purely based on its main plot doesn’t come close to doing it justice. What truly gives this story its charm, at least for me, is its innumerable subplots and tiny side-character interactions that happen along the entire way.

Luna smiled, then turned back to Pinkie. “You have performed admirably, Pinkie. Before I take my leave, I shall deliver your payment.”

Celestia watched as Luna summoned a scroll of paper with a pop of magic. The Princess of Night motioned to Pinkie with one hoof, and the party planner pony bowed low to her and Celestia both.

“Then,” Luna spoke in the Royal Canterlot Voice, though at a far lower register than usual, “By the power invested in Us as the Princess of Night, Diarch of Equestria, we name thee Pinkamena, Daughter of the House of Pie, a noble of the court, and grant thee the title of Princess.”

“Luna!” Celestia snapped, “You can’t just make Pinkie a Princess!”

And really, ‘charming’ is the best way I’d think to describe this story. It’s marked as [Adventure] and [Drama], but really, reading this story feels like reading a Slice of Life story — focusing not so much on the characters interacting with the world, but more the characters interacting with each other.

It also helps that Ninjadeadbeard has managed to write each character with lots of unique personality, on top of making each one feel perfectly characterised to fit with their appearances in the show. Or shows, I guess, since it’s an EqG story?

The one criticism I might have would be that this story probably has a few too many side characters and loose ends to tie up. This fic stars Sci-Twi, Sunset, Starlight, Princess Twi, Luna, Discord, Midnight Sparkle, Trixie, and Human Rarity, Dash and AJ pop in somewhere near the middle. And of course, there are the Dazzlings. All this is great and all, but there’s so many characters to go into that the main plot ends up not being one that’s very deep.

...but honestly, I wouldn’t go so far as to call that an error. For me, this story was 100% a Slice of Life story. It reads more like piles of little character moments and interactions all stacked up together to form a bigger story, than a grand adventure with massive stakes or a tense drama. 

Just to prove the point, the Midnight Sparkle main plot is really only addressed (directly or indirectly) in Ch 1 - 4 and Ch 7. The main story more or less resolves in the middle of Chapter 7, with the whole of Chapter 8 and the Epilogue serving as the traditional Resolution. In any other story this lack of focus would cause serious boredom and ending fatigue — yet for this story it’s just business as usual.

All in all, this story feels like one of those little family restaurants — might not be as fancy as more professional restaurants, but the people are so friendly that you can’t help but enjoy yourself.

...I’m saying that this story has lots of awesome characters but not much focus on the plot, which still ends up being enjoyable. I don’t know if that came through with the comparison

Character and Characterisation: 10/10
Surprised at the perfect score? Yeah, I can’t really find fault in this section. The characterisation of everyone here is really what makes the story shine. The important characters are thoroughly explored, and the side characters are thoroughly enjoyable. Awesome job on this!

Grammar and Use of Language: 10/10
I really need to find a new component. This section’s like, free ten points if your grammar’s good

Anyway, no grammar mistakes that I noticed. Ninjadeadbeard’s narration style is light, fun and fits the way I read the story perfectly. They seem very comfortable with the language, in short.

Plot and Story Structure: 8/10?
I… don’t really know how to grade this. On the one hand, there’s definitely some serious structure issues here if I’m taking this as a conventional story. On the other, I don’t really think it really matters? ...I’ll just leave it as this, with a warning that this score in particular is absolutely arbitrary.

Overall… I really, really enjoyed reading this! It might have something to do with SoL and character-driven stories being my favourite kind of stories, but whatever. Objectiveness is overrated anyway.

This story gets a solid 9/10 from me. If you’re looking for a fun, feel-good story where the show characters interact in enjoyable ways, this story is definitely for you. If you’re looking for one with a solid, coherent plot, or that’ll really pull you in with suspense… this one’s not the one for you.

I have… no feedback for this one, really. I always find it difficult to critique heavily character-focused stories, especially ones where the characters are written so well. So… good job! You’ve cut down my usual review length by like, half

Hope someone finds this useful despite the brevity. Have a great week ahead!

And -- to Ninja -- if there's anything specific you'd like me to give you some feedback on, please feel free to ask! Cuz it feels a little weird not having much to say here

Wow, I... Thank you!

I guess the only specific feedback I’d like, would be on how to tighten the story structure for future reference, and what was your favorite part/character/arc?

7060597
Glad you liked the review!

Tightening up the plot structure from what it currently is isn't very difficult. Like I said in the review, the main story is only really brought up in a few chapters. In fact, after the problem is introduced it's resolved almost entirely in the span one a single chapter, Ch 7. This is the same for lots of the other conflicts that you bring up, like Discord's trouble with friendship, Sunset's trouble with Discord, things like that.

Conventional story structure has things happen in three basic parts: introduction, rising action and payoff. It's like this for plots, characters, lots of things. The main problem with your story, at least according to this criteria, is that the plot and subplots lack the rising action. For example, Midnight Sparkle goes from evil to accepting of friendship in the span of a single scene in Chapter 7.

Also, normally stories try to have the subplots' climaxes happen as close as possible to the main plot's climax, so that the impact is maximised. Your 'Discord/Sunset' subplot climaxes and is fully resolved like, a whole chapter before the main plot climax begins. Your first story was much better in this regard, if I remember correctly.

Though again, this is all looking at the story through the rubric of the conventional story structure, which is not strictly needed to tel a good story

As for my favourite part... I really liked the part with Sci-Twi redeeming Midnight, of course, but other than that I also liked Trixie's interaction with her human counterpart. It was pretty sweet

7062393
I’ll try to keep all that in mind for when I get to writing the next one. Thank you so much again for the review! If you couldn’t tell by the view count, or the comments, I really don’t get to talk nitty-gritty about my stories very often. So I truly appreciate that!

7062393
Oh! Two more questions, and I’ll leave you alone forever!

Do you think I should change the tags for the story?

And, since you said that you read the prequel, could I just get a snapshot of your feelings on Midnight at the Crystal Library? I’m afraid I’m very needy, and that story also didn’t do so well in the view or comment department.

7062460
Changing the tags would be... I dunno, marking it Slice of Life seems like it would be inaccurate too. It's alright like this, I think

I enjoyed reading Midnight too! Most of my comments from the review can also be applied to Midnight. Actually, now that I think about it, it also felt a little more structured than Home Again.

7062963
Yeah, it probably was... though like you said, is that always a bad thing?

Thank you again for the wonderful review, and I hope you get a kick out of my other stuff, if you're looking for some non-review reading.

7063189
Hehe, I might make my way slowly through your other stories, when I have time. Have a follow in the meantime!