TThe Bounty Hunter's Journey: The Prench Connection

• MLP: FiM
• EaW
• Adventure

Jean De Basse and Paddy Rose continue their journey after narrowly escaping Stalliongard's clutches they find themselves in Haukland with little options to complete their new mission: the assassination of Paddy's father Rockfeller.

• Violence
• Alt. Universe
• OC
• Griffons

Jean De Basse - Woolie · 13k words  ·  27  0 · 557 views

The bounty hunter Jean De Basse has joined forces with the runaway Paddy "Rose" Rockfeller, breaking his contract with General Petroleum. Their new mission? The assassination of Paddy's father, the wealthy oil magnate Rockfeller with the promise that Paddy would use her connections to wipe away Jean's debt.

Join Jean and Paddy once more as they embark on their second journey, a dangerous adventure from Haukland to Equestria by any means necessary. With General Petroleum's thugs and other bounty hunters on hot their heels, the pair has found themselves to be unlikely allies in an impossible mission.

But all they have to do now is just make it back to Equestria in one piece...

Oops, sorry for the radio silence from me! Some issues popped up in my personal life that (unsurprisingly) killed a lot of my motivation for, well, anything in general. Summer is coming to an end, quarantine is still boring, so let’s spice things up a bit by taking another peek into the Equestria at War universe!

Plot and Setting

Today, I’m once again dipping my toe into the EaW universe! The Bounty Hunter’s Journey: The Prench Connection (henceforth shortened to The Prench Connection) details the journey of the titular bounty hunter, Jean De Basse, and Paddy Rockfeller as they make their way back to Equestria while being pursued by some very dangerous people. It is a sequel to another story (The Escape from Azkaban, specifically), so I admit that I may be missing some context, along with what other nuances the EaW universe has.

The Prench Connection starts off with a bang, or perhaps more accurately, the aftermath of a bang It, along with the banter with the prostitute and Paddy about Jean’s debt, which eases the reader into the setting of Haukland before jumping straight into action-packed scenes inter-cut with scenes from the story’s main antagonist.

I quite enjoyed it! The pacing, in my opinion, felt just right save for one specific scene, where Jean is tempted to get a drink. While it did play into a heart-to-heart conversation between him and Paddy later on, it felt slightly shoe-horned in in the face of all the action in the story beats before and after it. Granted, I’m unsure as to whether Jean is a pre-established character in the EaW canon and his alcoholism is written into his basic characteristics or if the author created Jean and wrote him into the canon, which could affect whether the scene had to be put in to nod at the character’s roots or not.

Regardless, it was only one of two hiccups I had, the other being the very blatant sequel-bait closer to the end of the story. Both of them can be relatively overlooked, and the rest of the story goes smoothly! All in all, a quick and dirty action fic that hits quite a few good beats along the way!

Section rating: 8.5/10

Character Exploration

While not as in-depth as a character study, there are moments throughout the story that hint at parts of Jean and Paddy’s characters that aren’t directly stated. Since The Prench Connection is more action-focused, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room to insert character aside from witty character lines or decisions that a character makes. Various moments show that Jean is a smooth-talking, quick-thinking mercenary, one that struggles with his own wants and dreams, while Paddy is a level-headed mare with a big goal to achieve and personal limits she must remain aware of.

All in all, the amount characterization present in The Prench Connection is sufficient enough to get the audience invested, but not explored too much as to take away from the action focus of the story. It’s a delicate balance that was (almost) struck!

Section rating: 8/10

Grammar, Formatting, and Consistency

I admit, I must nitpick: it’s chère, not chere As a Canadian who went through 12 years of French immersion classes, I appreciate the interjections of French, but it ruffled my feathers the wrong way to keep seeing chere and not chère! The only time where it doesn’t have the « accent grave » on the e is when you’re referring to a male, in which case chère becomes cher, but since most of the characters Jean uses this term of endearment for are female, it should be chère.

…Yay, French grammar!

The only other thing that made the story feel a bit iffy to me was Jean’s speech mannerisms, namely that he uses some French phrases, but also has a bit of a country twang to it. Those two styles clashed a lot when I was reading it, so much so that I wanted to read Jean having a more stereotypical smooth-talking foreign merc, but the country accent kept popping up and I struggled to form a definitive voice for him. Having grown up listening to a lot of French people in class who are also fluent in English with only a bit of an accent, this (along with the chère/chere thing) brought me out of the immersive experience because it just feels so inconsistent. An example is here, right at the start of the story:

"Chere, I do not see why ya are complainin’! Ya complained that I was takin’ too long, now ya are complainin’ I am leavin’ too soon...ya are breakin’ my heart," Jean lamented with a coy grin. "Why don't ya let me do some...contractin’ work pro bono?"

Admittedly, that might just be how my brain works! Other readers might not have had such an issue, to which I say to them, good job!

Grammar: 9/10
Formatting: 10/10
Consistency: 8/10
Section rating: 9/10

My Little Nitpicks

It’s getting hot in here
I wonder if they could track down that mare later to pay her…

“The Vineyard job trick”
That was just falling with style! Karaimovich going over? More falling!

Cargo
I was not expecting refugees, I was expecting explosive materials, to be honest

Just one drink
I’m with Paddy here. Really, Jean? Now of all times?

September
September is here, in more ways than one Anyone else getting some Slenderman vibes from him? No? Just me? Alright then…

Final Thoughts

A quick but action-packed entry in Jean de Basse and Paddy’s story that’ll be sure to satisfy adventure readers who might not be keen on committing to a 100+k-long story!

Doing something a little new with my scores! I’ve decided to make them weighted so the grammar/formatting/consistency section is not on equal footing with the plot and character sections, since most stories don’t put a huge emphasis on the grammar being super important! To find out the exact formula I use, here it is:

(plot * 0.4) + (character * 0.4) + ( (grammar + formatting + consistency)/3 * 0.2)

Final score: 8.4/10

Hey hey! I really appreciate the review! Was aiming for a cajun accent with Jean, but since I don't know French well I'll easily differ to your expertise on it!

8.4 is more than appreciated! Glad you enjoyed it! Here's some art from the upcoming sequel!

Overall, thank you again!

(EDIT 1: One quick note, the first story The Escape from Stalliongrad was renamed back in June due to confusion with the title.)

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Ah, cajun's out of my element then! I know the native French accent and a teeny bit of the Quebecois accent, but anywhere else in the world? I'm a bit lost :P

About the prequel's name change, I recommend changing it in the description of The Prench Connection then! It still says Azkaban there!