TAway

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Slice of Life

A unicorn with an unwanted special magical talent isolates herself on a remote hillside, away from other ponies, for their sake and hers.

• Death
• Celestia
• Luna
• OC

The Cloptimist · 8.2k words  ·  110  4 · 1.6k views

Hey gang! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve found a review fic that this all of the right notes for me, but I’m happy to report that I’ve found another one. The Cloptomist’s Away is the first place entry for the Self-Isolation contest and also is featured on Equestria Daily, and it’s not that hard to see why.

This piece, as I said, hit all the right buttons. It’s emotional appeal is heavy and great, but it's balanced by some light humor mixed in with a truly brilliant and relatable protagonist. It is a bit on the dark side, but the ending of this story is absolutely brilliant and incredibly uplifting. I can not wait to dive in and unpack this, so let’s hit it. 

Spoilers ahead, read at your own risk!

The story follows an unnamed unicorn who we learn has isolated herself from the rest of society. She lives on a little hill by herself and finds herself missing her father, her friends, and her old life. But we find that she’s isolating herself because she has the uncanny ability to see how ponies die. And it’s not something she can just turn off, either: whenever she looks at a pony, all she sees is death.

The creativity here behind the ‘why isolation?’ aspect is stunning and brilliant. The concept may have been done before, but the execution here is so patient and so amazing that I’m more than willing to overlook it. 

The descriptions employed here to detail not only the MC’s visions but the scenery as well just adds even more to the story. Better yet, it keeps the reader invested. Because while it normally is distracting and poor form to insert strange, rambly descriptions about things like books, here it works out so well because the character is almost always revealing details about herself.

And the loneliness is so inherent in every corner of this work that you can’t really get far without encountering just a twinge of sadness, or a hint of loneliness and a vying for companionship. This attention to detail and craftsmanship is just truly remarkable, and the emotions at play are so darned strong.

There’s so much packed into this story. There’s sadness, nostalgia, anger, but above all, there’s hope. And that’s honestly what sold this one for me. The ending is absolutely brilliant, and sure, maybe I could have seen it coming, but it left me with a smile on my face. Because everything has been building up to this dark, gloomy world of loneliness, so in a desperate attempt for companionship, the main character makes a call for help. And she’s answered. 

I won’t spoil it further, but it’s truly an amazing ending for an already great story. Props to the author!  

It’s a bold move to use an unnamed character, but it works out fairly well here. I’m not exactly sure why the author elected to go this route, but the first-person narration style plays off of this well. The story takes the form of the main character sort of rambling to themselves, leaving the reader with their train of thought.

Normally I might make a note about it, but here I want to point out that it works well. Because this story is about isolation, and the ramblings of the main character are just because she has nobody else to talk to. And this little plot point weaves its way into the story, and this again sells it for me.

I did have a bit of a question with Luna: in particular this part

...And then she's gone, and a strange voice whispers through my head.

....c̶͕̊̈̇͊̅ō̴̯͐̆́̅̐́n̸̢̰̖̭̞̲͍̿̓̅̓n̴̡͉͗̎̈́͆̚͠͝ͅe̸͚̰̳̖̯̻̰͆̋c̶̛͔̘̥̬͚͓̗̎̓̈́̈̿t̸̖̱̹̞̯̣́̀͌̀̄̿̌ĭ̶̖̗̖̗̥̦̒̿̈́͘̚o̷̮̝̻̩̻̺̹̎̋̓̇̉n̷͔͙̲͍̮̋̉͘͜ ̴̢̩̏̄ͅľ̴͇̜̩͖͆̃̑̒õ̸̞̹̜̭̭͌s̴̜͙͌̕t̶̨͕͉́̈́̓͝ͅ.....

...I wake up.

The scene occurs as Luna tries to reach out to the main character through dreams, but I’m at a loss what ‘connection error’ entails. It feels a bit out of place, almost implying something along the lines of ‘simulation Equestria.’ I don’t know, this part felt jarring to me.

Celestia herself was strong, but I can’t help but wonder if she felt a little uncomposed and out of character. Which, I suppose, is justified in the story, but I’m not completely convinced. To me it felt like a ruler as wise and powerful as her would be able to keep her composure a little bit better than she does, but this is a really miniscule thing that didn’t distract from the story at all.

The prose, as I said before, was strong. The biggest thing for me was that there were some questionable tenses that felt like they should have been past tense. For example, this line

Some mailpony, carelessly flying far overhead (taking a shortcut over the hills or something, maybe?) drops a newspaper one time.

Feels like it’s in present tense, where the ‘drops’ should maybe be ‘dropped.’ Beyond that there were quite a few very long sentences that could probably be cut up a little bit better to help with readability, but this could also be read as the rambling nature of one’s inner thoughts, so it’s excusable.

But should the author want me to point these out, I’ll gladly do so. 

Overall, this story blew me away and it’s earned a spot on my shelf. The emotional appeal, prompt integration, and overall execution was spot on throughout the story. Even its more questionable areas can be justified as more aspects of the story and that just makes it even more unique. I would highly recommend this read to anyone who hasn’t read it yet, as it’s a brilliantly done heartwarmer that really does remind that if you’re ever feeling lonely, someone out there can help you.

That’s about all from me. Next up is TheLegendaryBilChiper’s Potato Dog… or whichever story comes first in that series. I may have to go ask. But see you then! 

Read it. It’s a well rounded piece that tugs on the heartstrings, but leaves you with a great ending and an aspect of hope that really makes you happy for the main character.

Amazing work! I don’t have much else to add, but I really must congratulate you for the success! This fic most certainly deserves it. Very well done! 

Your story was a bit short, so I didn’t take many notes, but if you’d like me to do a line-by-line of some of the prose, let me know! 

Plot: 9
Characterization: 8
Prose: 8
Average: 8.33

Nice job :D

7246738
:)

Well, gosh, thank you so much for the thoughtful review, I'm really glad you liked it!

It's also very good to know that people recognise the rambling narration as a stylistic choice to show the protagonist's state of mind, rather than just me needing an editor. That being said, I was always unhappy with the jumbled tenses for that sentence you flagged about the newspaper, so I'll try to tighten that up a bit.

[spoilers ahead]

Luna's spell breaking up and culminating in a barely-intelligible "Connection lost" was meant to be a little joke, based on the movie's own joke about the crystal ball spell being like a bad video call. I don't know about anypony else's lockdown experience, but for me... well, failing to teleconference into remote meetings from a rural area over a flaky Internet connection has been a pretty consistent feature, so I wanted to make a nod to it.

With Celestia... I totally get what you mean, but my favourite Celestia is always the Celestia who's slightly daffy. I like the ziplining, smiley-pancake-baking, occasionally wildly inappropriate Princess who nonetheless still cares deeply for all her subjects. Right from the start, I had it in my mind that she'd have prepared some sort of calm, gently regal entrance, trying not to scare the narrator despite her massive curiosity about what she'd see, only to blurt out the question she'd rehearsed not asking. I also made myself laugh imagining her concerned facial expression reacting to the protagonist slapping herself in disbelief, and decided that "playful" was the way to go.

But enough out of me. This is one of the best (in all senses of the word) reviews I've ever had, so thank you again! It's never been a particularly popular story (with the combined weight of publicity from this, the EQD feature, and winning the contest, it looks like Away is finally going to crack 300 readers), but it's one of my favourites among the things I've written - and it really means a lot to see others enjoy it too.