Hello, all! I’m back from my little break last week. I was sick for almost the whole of last week, didn’t really have enough focus to sit down and write out a whole review.

Anyway, here’s today’s story!

TI'm sorry, Twilight

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Horror
• Tragedy

Spike is changing, and I don't know what to do. I want to help him, but I don't exactly know what's wrong... and what's more, I think I might be the one that needs help soon...

• Gore
• Death
• Alt. Universe
• Twilight
• Spike
• Main 6

the7Saviors · 17k words  ·  191  11 · 4.2k views

Hmm, a Horror story. I’ll admit, the Horror genre is one of those that I’m least familiar with. Not only that, but… well, I don’t quite know if this would qualify as a Lovecraftian Horror, but it definitely has some Lovecraftian qualities to it. I’ll do my best, though!

Reading this story is incredibly creepy.

It's late at night, almost morning by my guess, and even now as I rise from the small desk in my room and snuff out the candle I'd been using to read by, I can still feel the weight of those eyes on my back.

My ears twitch as I listen to the sound of Spike's slow and steady breathing, and I try to find solace in that, but I can no longer ignore that hideous unseen gaze. It seeps into every pore and makes my skin crawl.

I get very little sleep that night, just like the last few nights before.

This story is, like I said above, a Horror story. It follows Twilight in her dealings with an eldritch creature which is never named in the story. The story starts with an innocent enough interaction between she and Spike, and ends on an absolutely horrifying few chapters which I won’t spoil here. Suffice to say, though, I actually kinda enjoyed reading this one!

The whole story has a very heavy atmosphere of dread, and enough tension to have carried me through the whole experience when I was reading it for the first time. The build up to the final few chapters was especially well done — seeing Twilight’s rapidly deteriorating psyche and her descent into paranoia was really unsettling.

Of course, though, no story’s perfect, and this one is far from that. Aside from the final few chapters, the rest of the story is written in a way that’s hardly very engaging. 

This is a technical issue — I’ve already spoken at length about my thoughts on long paragraphs before in a previous review. I won’t go too much into detail about it again, but suffice to say that a similar problem pops up in this story here and there.

No, something is very wrong with this picture, and I aim to find out what it is. I ask Spike if he wants me to talk to Luna about the dream, but again, he tells me not to worry about it. He tells me once more that it's just a really weird dream and that he'll stop having it eventually. It's clear that he doesn't even believe what he's saying, but I still find myself struck by how guarded he's suddenly become. Still, I try to ignore the hurt and focus on helping Spike with his problem, whatever it may be. I leave the matter be for the moment as I join Spike in making breakfast, but his accusation continues to sit like a heavy stone in the back of my mind. The rest of the morning goes by without any more problems, but I silently dwell on Spike's words for the rest of the day and well into the following night.

Now, I’ve briefly skimmed through some of the7Saviors’ other stories, and this issue doesn’t show up quite to the extent that it does in this story. I suspect this style of writing might be intentional — maybe as a way to make Twi feel even more isolated? Or maybe it’s just a habit when writing these types of horror stories? Whatever the case though, it just feels jumbled and messy for me, and slows down that delicious build-up that this story depends on.

That’s not the only technical issue — there’re many instances of the story over-expositing at times where it’s really not necessary.

I frown at Rarity's dismissive response, not at all happy with the way she's treating the situation. After some deliberation, I'd decided to talk to a couple of my friends about what's been going on between Spike and I. I wanted to get some additional input before I sent a letter to Luna about Spike's dreams, and was hoping they could give some insight into any other options or solutions I'd missed. Given who the subject of the issue was, the first pony I came to was Rarity. She may not care for Spike in the same way he does for her, but she's almost as fond of the little drake as I am.

With that in mind, I left Spike back at the library and made my way over to Carousel Boutique to talk with Rarity. Despite how busy she was, the mare was more than willing to listen to what I had to say and I certainly had plenty to say. Her reply, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired.

This makes the unengaging narration issue that I was talking about earlier worse. The result is a very slow, and admittedly pretty boring start to an otherwise pretty well-written story.

On a less technical side, the characters all feel somewhat stilted and two-dimensional. Again, probably just a symptom of the genre, but it sometimes feels like these characters are just acting out the plot. The biggest offender is probably Twilight herself — her thoughts and behaviour don’t really show much emotion other than general fear and paranoia.

I suppose that’s enough of an overview. I’ll get to the scores!

Grammar and Use of Language: 7/10
First off, props for not having tense errors in a present tense story. I notice that lots of people struggle with writing consistently in present tense, especially when there’s also past perfect and past tense sentences being used here and there.

Still, there are a few typos here and there, and there’s some issues with the dialogue punctuation as well. You don’t always have to end a dialogue tag with a comma!

The part where this component loses the most marks is really the “use of language” part, though, due to the points I raised above. It’s especially applicable to the first few chapters, where the narration is the most unfocused; the later chapters tighten up in this aspect.

Atmosphere and Horror: 10/10
This being a Horror story, the heavy atmosphere is absolutely essential, and this story has that in spades. In fact, it’s the thing that the story does the best, with deliciously creepy glimpses at the eldritch being that Twilight is dealing with appearing sporadically throughout the story, and the wonderfully executed reveal of the monster itself. No complaints from mem on this front, really.

Characterisation: 6.5/10
This is admittedly a pretty minor issue for this type of story, where the main focus is on the things happening to the protagonist rather than on the characters themselves. I did want to give this a mention, though, as the characters — especially Twilight — feel somewhat emotionless in their behaviour. As a result, I didn’t really feel myself able to connect well enough to them to really appreciate the story to the full degree. I think some more thought given to the interactions and Twilight’s behaviour would go a long way toward making the characters more… sympathetic, I suppose.

Though again, not the main focus for a story like this.

Overall Score: 8/10
Overall, this story is well-written — it’s only hampered by a somewhat weak opening to an otherwise incredibly horrifying… Horror. If that’s your cup of tea, you’ll probably find this one pretty good. If, on the other hand, you’re not interested in reading creepypastas, then you’ll probably want to steer clear of this one.

Honestly, I’m finding myself at a loss for accurately grading this one. I guess this sort of Horror is really not my expertise, huh? So fair warning, the scores are sort of arbitrary.

Have a good week ahead, everyone!

7073706
I actually read this a few nights ago. I’m kind of a sucker for lovecraftian stuff.

7073716
I have a few stories like this one you should check out in that case if you haven't already—in particular The Terror Below Hayseed Manor. This review does hit some fair points and I believe that story may suffer from a few of the same ones, perhaps a bit more so given that I tried to emulate Lovecraft's style quite a bit.

7073720
Yeah, Lovecraft's style is sorta easy to overdo. Heck, I can hardly stand reading any of his stuff, always feels like I'm reading something written like, hundreds of years ago

7073726
Well to each their own I suppose. I happen to be a huge fan of Lovecraft and his gothic style of writing, but that's just me.