Hello, everypony! I'm back — hope you're all doing well!

If all goes well I won't be taking any hiatus for the foreseeable future, so expect my usual weekly update schedule. 

Anyway! That's enough rambling, here's today's story:

TDream Date

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Comedy
• Slice of Life

You are a unicorn stallion, who serves as a teacher in Canterlot's Magical Academy. As your students celebrate Nightmare Night, some of them try to perform a ritual and in an effort to clean up their mess you accidentally summon a succubus.

• Sex
• Second Person
• Alt. Universe
• Twilight
• OC
• Other
• Cadance
• Moondancer

Robipony · 11k words  ·  396  12 · 6k views

I've been seeing promotions for the Monster Mares group popping up here and there, let's see how good one of those stories are

A quick summary…

We begin with you (yes, you — this is a second-person perspective story) dismissing a class of children from lessons at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. It's the day before Nightmare Night, and the students are all eager to get going. 

After convincing a characteristically studious Twilight to go out and enjoy the holidays with her friends, you promptly head out yourself and… go straight to the library for some lesson prep. 

It seems like you're not one for taking your own advice. 

This is the introduction of the story. It's increasingly clear that you — okay, that's going to be confusing later, let's call him… Corn. It's increasingly clear that Corn has some unmet needs in the romance department, despite finding success in his professional life as a professor. 

Following this, a series of incidents results in Corn accidentally summoning a demon with a summoning ritual. 

Luckily, it turns out that the demon is pretty friendly. She's Silken Soul, a succubus who feeds on dream energy by inducing strong emotions in ponies through dreams. After a little walk to Corn's house, she asks what he'd like to dream, and he replies that he wants to have a dream where he's on a Nightmare Night date with someone. 

I'm sure you can figure out where the story goes from here. Suffice to say, the two agree to go on a date again soon. 

Some thoughts

This is a pretty simple story, if you couldn't tell from the quick summary. It's truly Slice of Life: there's not much in the way of a concrete structure, nor any obvious conflict. In Dream Date, Robipony presents us with just a nice little wish-fulfillment story, with a cute couple coming out the end — not that there's anything particularly wrong about a simple story!

First impressions: not bad! 

This story is fundamentally sound. The writing is solid with not too many grammar errors, the characters are charming enough to be engaging and fun to read, and the story is lovely and cute. So yeah, wherever I go with this review, keep in mind that there’s no major things in the story that are outright wrong, and that I did enjoy reading this.

As for things that weren’t quite perfect, a lot of how the story gets engagement is through exposition dumps. It still is pretty easy to read, don’t get me wrong, but I get the feeling that a lot of things about the characters, and their situations, come out purely through segments of exposition. This contributes to the tell-y feel that this story has to it.

Also — though a story like this doesn’t seem to need a solid plot, per se — the story events feel like they’ve no direction to them, and some could probably have been shortened or cut entirely without affecting anything. As a result the story does seem pretty slow and directionless at times, and my interest in it did wane a little in the middle. Luckily it’s a relatively short story, so this problem isn’t that pronounced.

Scores

Writing and Use of Language: 7/10

So, grammar’s alright, nothing that really interferes with the reading to a severe degree. Although, there are a few errors sprinkled here and there, especially with regards to dialogue punctuation. Some clarification at the bottom of this post.

I noticed also that there’s not much of environment description in the story. It’s not that big a problem, as I guess this story doesn’t need that much world-building. Though I did find myself struggling to put myself into the story world at times. Remember also that sound and smell are important aspects of the environment that are often left out.

Character and Characterisation: 8/10

Well done on this part. It’s clear to see both Corn and Silken Soul’s characters the moment they appear in the scene, and Corn’s more subdued personality makes a nice contrast with Soul’s. Though, as I said above, a lot of the character details are revealed through exposition, where it doesn’t feel warranted. More on this in Feedback.

Plot Direction and Story Structure: 7/10

So like I said, a story like this does seem to work without a concrete plot structure, based on the strength of the characters alone. That said, there could definitely have been a little more direction to the story events. Or at least, some of the scenes could have been more useful, I think. 

Actually this section is mostly because Azure’s made it a rule to have at least three of these mini-sections before the final score

Final Score: 7.5/10

Nice, simple story. This one feels like something you’d read on the bus or something, just a light, easy read. There are definitely a few things that could be improved, but overall, nicely done! I enjoyed it

Feedback

So, a few things I raised above probably need some clarification. Let’s go in order, starting with the exposition dumping.

While the other students and teachers rushed to leave academy grounds for the festivities, you proceeded to make your way toward the library. As much fun as the holiday was, Nightmare Night wasn't as much fun when you were alone. Unfortunately you habit of putting your students first had resulted in you keeping to yourself, making you a lonely stallion without a special somepony of your own. Even though you were in your mid twenties and not bad looking, there didn't seem to be very many mares who were actually interested in trying to learn more about you.

"I did when I was younger. Back then I was naive, believing that the stallions that I... participated with shared my feelings and desires." Soul answered, "However in the end, I learned that all my relationships with them were hollow. They wanted me only for the pleasure I could give them, not because they cared for me. Eventually I grew tired of it and decided to keep my body to myself and to just give my dream host's the images they wanted, so that I could feed and leave."

Now, to be sure, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having exposition dumps in your story. In these two particular examples, though, I’m getting the feeling that they don’t quite fit.

The first one is… sure. It’s the beginning of the story, and it’s a second-person perspective. There’s gonna be exposition somewhere. Still, I think that this one is a little bit excessive. Is it really necessary to spend a paragraph talking about Corn’s current situation when the entirety of the intro already alludes to it?

What I’m trying to say, in my usual rambly, winding way, is that exposition should actually present new information that’s important to the story. Before launching into it, give a thought to whether the info has already been presented elsewhere.

The second one feels a little more wrong to me. Here, it’s character exploration through exposition — Soul launches into an explanation of her past in response to Corn’s asking whether she uh, “participates” (in the story’s words) in her summoners’ dreams.

Thing is, it’s still written in a way that feels like narration exposition. That’s not what’s happening — it’s a character speaking. A character has their own unique voice when speaking, and also tend not to reveal stuff about themselves in such a clinical way and so easily.

I guess an easy way of explaining what I think is wrong with this bit is that it feels like exposition, even though it shouldn’t. One, because it’s a character speaking, and two, because it’s important information to that character. Think about whether this sort of thing could be phrased in a better way — maybe not revealing everything about Soul’s circumstances as she tries to keep her guard up, or something. She’s already had unpleasant experiences with her summoners before, after all.

Next: I brought up the directionlessness of the scenes. Again, I realise that this being a SoL, and also a second-person story, plot structure and character arcs are basically non-existent. Still, I was kinda disappointed when half the story turned out to be spent on random scenes that don’t really go anywhere — like the apple-bobbing scene, for instance. It feels like it was just put in as a scene because there had to be a scene at the Nightmare Night carnival.

Instead of going through the scenes purposelessly, it might be better to have one or more focuses (foci?) for the scenes. They don’t have to be strong focuses, but they should be there. They could be things like, exploring how exactly Soul feels about Corn, or finding out more about Soul. I’m leaving out finding out about Corn here because it’s a second-person story.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the punctuation errors a little. People get quite confused with dialogue punctuation, so here’s a quick list for you, with examples from your story:

1a. Dialogue tag at the end of dialogue (full stop)
Wrong:
"Yes, my friend and I would like to participate." You replied.
Correct:
"Yes, my friend and I would like to participate," you replied.

1b. Dialogue tag at the end of dialogue (not full stop)
Wrong:
"So why are most of these ponies' faces so fuzzy?" You asked.
Correct:
"So why are most of these ponies' faces so fuzzy?" you asked.

2. Dialogue tag in the middle
Wrong:
"I'm… confused," you interjected, "so you're saying the succubi don't have sex when they feed on ponies."
Correct:
"I'm… confused," you interjected. "So you're saying the succubi don't have sex when they feed on ponies."

Correct:
"Well, the only way I can leave here is if I feed," Silken Soul grumbled, "so I guess you're going to have to do."

To clarify this, the first example is the same as: “I’m… confused, so you’re saying the succubi don’t have sex when they feed on ponies,” you interjected.

When it should be: “I’m… confused. So you’re saying the succubi don’t have sex when they feed on ponies,” you interjected.

The second is: “Well, the only way I can leave here is if I feed, so I guess you’re going to have to do,” Silken Soul grumbled. This one’s correct.

And that’s all! Sorry for being a little late today, I kinda forgot I had to upload this Hope you find this helpful either way, Robipony!

7111147 Yes, thank you very much for the review. Admittedly, I was just trying to create a Nightmare Night themed story so I thought it was all connected... But that's just me.

I suppose I could see where those two things but have been a bit expositiony, I will try to see if I can fix them.

If I were to address these issues would you be willing to make another review?

7112070

Admittedly, I was just trying to create a Nightmare Night themed story so I thought it was all connected...

Hehe, I suppose so! Though if I reviewed everything with the perspective of someone writing for fun I wouldn't have much to say at all

As for another review... probably not, though I could give you a shorter rundown of my thoughts if you'd like