EChaos Theory; or, the Very Bad Breakfast

• MLP: FiM
• Comedy
• Random

Twilight Sparkle invited Rarity and Rainbow Dash to brunch. Then the laws of reality ceased to be. It wasn't really the best time for a lecture, but Twilight was determined to make her point anyway.

• Twilight
• Rainbow Dash
• Rarity

Silent Whisper · 1.9k words  ·  117  4 · 1.5k views

Look alive, sunshine, because we’ve got another review coming your way. But this ain’t your average review. Today I’m going to be attempting to implement a scoreless review with this story. What does that mean? Well, it just means that for this review there will not be a scoring portion.

There were a couple reasons I wanted to try this out. First off, I’ve never liked giving numbers to things like stories because it feels like I’m giving it some sort of fake value. Second, a lot of the time I don’t feel like the scores line up exactly with what I’m saying about the story. A good example is when I reviewed Seer’s Recollections of a Nightmare, where Cy pointed out a ‘discrepancy’ between what I said and what I scored it. 

So we’re going to give it a whirl. To compensate for the lack of scores, I’m going to need to be quite explicit with the claims I make on this story to clearly convey my thoughts and opinions. So let’s hit it and see how this goes. Let’s dive in to Silent Whisper’s Chaos Theory; or, the Very Bad Breakfast.

The story is a oneshot, so it has a self-contained plotline that pretty much functions in and ofitself. The plot in question here is that Twilight is experimenting with chaos magic while having a picnic breakfast with Rarity and Rainbow Dash. 

The story itself is filled with fun little quirks and features that describe the true extent of chaos that Twilight has caused as an experiment. Quite a bit of it is centered around breakfast foodstuffs, which is acceptable given the story’s setting.

Plotwise, not much really ends up happening. Yet it still makes sense and works. Twilight, true to nature, spends most of the story attempting to deliver a lecture on the possible benefits of experimenting with chaos magic while Rainbow desperately attempts to control the situation.

Despite being simple and short, the plot of Chaos Theory is incredibly entertaining. Its sideways jokes and subtle fourth-wall breaks made me smile and chuckle, and the light hearted tone of the story kept it an enjoyable read. 

This story highlights how plot execution can still be done in something like a one-shot. The story remains engaging and makes me want to keep reading, without seeming like it should be a part of something bigger, or without feeling like nothing happens or it moves too quickly; problems that are typically more common in one-shot stories.

Overall, I don’t think I have any major complaints about plot aspects. The execution was well done and kept me engaged throughout the story, and there was no point where I felt bored or confused. I suppose that it’s advantageous that the story is just under 2,000 words, because while the spontaneous and crazy events are entertaining, I don’t know if I could take a story that just goes on like this for, say, 5,000 words. So the pacing is practically perfect! 

The two central characters at play in this story are Rainbow and Twilight. Rarity is also present in the story but doesn’t really play a prominent role, which I found to be interesting. Twilight seems to be very much in character as her nerdy self, as she maintains a positive and excited attitude in the face of everything that’s going on around her.

Rainbow Dash’s characterization is interesting, in that she kind of just takes all of this in stride while engaging Twilight in a debate about the practical applications of chaos magic. The sort of dry reaction is very entertaining to me, but it makes me wonder how long this has been going on for her to not have any real reaction to some of the craziness that goes on around her.

And honestly? I think Rarity had, like, the most interesting character arc despite everything involving ehr happening in the background. I was very invested in her little teabag empire. Read the story to find out more about that.

But her inclusion in this background role makes me wonder, though, why not include the rest of the main six? This would allow some more dynamic characterizations and would perhaps solve the problem I posed earlier of nobody really having that expected reaction to everything that’s going on.
It’s most definitely excusable, but since everything else is so solid, I can’t help but wonder if including more characters would have allowed for a greater range of reactions. However, the current dynamic between Rainbow and Twilight works fine as is.

Having Rainbow be the voice of reason is also an interesting character choice, but she’s justified quite well here with a bit of arrogance as her thoughts about everything turn towards her own future. Well done, Rainbow. But hey, at least she’s concerned about the fate of Equestria overall too.

Still, I suppose my biggest thing with her characterization is that she takes things very calmly and matter-of-factly, instead of thinking things are ‘cool’ or ‘not cool’ or something along those lines. For the comedic nature of this story it does work, but I don’t know, this feels like a reaction I’d expect out of someone like Applejack. But I digress.

There were a few suggestions that I can make for specific incidents, but as a whole the piece is well-written. The chapter title irks me though, because it’s neither in title case nor written as a complete sentence. Pls fix.

I suppose if we wanted to take this analysis to a technical level, we could make the case that quite a bit of the story is dialogue followed by a series of actions involving that character. Which is fine for this story, but should the author want to, they could perhaps take time to describe something like the setting a bit more. But character thoughts do work to break up the lines of dialogue, so this isn’t a sticking point at all.

I think that one shot stories sometimes fall into a sort of a dichotomy. Either they're too long, and it feels like the story needs more room to breathe, or it feels far too short and I don’t have enough information to work with.

This story finds a very nice balance in between these two extremes, with enough silliness to keep the reader involved, but not so much randomness that it becomes a pain to read through. The descriptions and results of Twilight’s spell are entertaining and very silly, and they don’t come off as terribly cringey or feel forced at all. Which is great!

Since there won’t be a scoring component, let me synthesize. The plot is pretty much a perfect length and doesn’t feel like it drags on or moves too fast. The comedy is heartwarming and absurd, which fits in quite well for the theme of the story.

The characters are memorable and function quite well, although I do wonder if the author would benefit from including more. Mostly they act as expected and are well developed and distinct from each other.

There were no major prose problems that hindered my experience of this story. So in conclusion, a very solid and very comedic piece that serves its purpose quite well. It’s length and execution make for a simple, easy to digest, but still enjoyable story.

So, how’s my writing? I’m still experimenting with this whole no scores thing, so any feedback is greatly appreciated. We’re going to try this approach out on a longer fic next time when we tackle Djclarke3’s An Heroic Story. See you then.

Deuces.

If you want a light, fluffy, comedic piece that isn’t too long but still enjoyable, I would definitely recommend this story. 

Great work! It takes skill in my mind to execute a silly story correctly, as there’s a lot of aspects to consider when doing so. I think you’ve balanced all the factors really well and executed it brilliantly, making a story that’s quite memorable. Again, great work!

I do have my reading notes for your fic, if you would like to see them let me know. If you do want a score, DM me and I'll let you know.