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Clarke Otterton
Group Contributor
TDilemma
After rediscovering an old gift from Spike, Rarity finds herself in a real pickle over her feelings for him. Can her friends, both from Ponyville and from further afield, help her come to terms with being in love with a dragon?
Locomotion · 18k words  ·  93  10 · 5.1k views

SUMMARY
This story begins with Ponyville's resident fashion pony preparing for a business trip to Canterlot. But before she leaves, Rarity realizes that she may indeed have feelings for Spike. As she tries to come to terms with her feelings, Spike finds himself having to deal with emotions of his own.

A story of one of the best known ships in the show, "Dilemma" is an interesting perspective on what issues might arise with that relationship. The way in which the characters overcome the dilemma that gives this story its name provides a glimpse into the fickle nature of love and offers some poignant moments for the reader.

LANGUAGE - 8/10
Style: The author's style is consistent throughout and displays good command of language. The flow between sentences is fine, although the author uses appositives frequently especially during the exposition which tends to slow the pacing down. This is not a significant issue, but it along with passive voicing does hurt the effectiveness of the action scene in chapter 5; short, clear sentences with active verbs are more appropriate and can even be included in the other scenes to increase the variety and keep the reader engaged.

Mechanics: Little to no issues in mechanics. The sentences are well structured, follow established grammar rules, and clearly communicate the ideas of the story. The author plays it safe.

Mood and Tone: The author does a lot of telling instead of showing to describe the mood; dialogue tags and character thoughts are the primary means for this. The scenes in the later chapters are better, and the interactions between Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders are the best examples of conveying mood and tone through dialogue; it is difficult, though, to pick up on the same subtleties in the polite and formal tone Rarity and the ponies she interacts with use.

SETTING - 7/10
The setting is the same here as for the show around season 4, although the author adds a few extra details such as names for the railways (more on this in the references section). There are some instances where, because this is fan-fiction, details of the setting can be developed indirectly or simply implied to be understood by the reader; it is best to only bring out details of the established setting where they are important to the story. An example is where the author describes Twilight's ascension to an alicorn princess; this detail has no impact on the story and is thus unnecessary.

CHARACTERS - 7/10
The characterization is good and inline with the show canon. However, I feel the switch in Rarity that occurs in chapter 1, and which serves as the inciting incident for her character development, is a bit to abrupt; considering there is no canonical establishment of Rarity reciprocating Spike's feelings towards her up to this point in the show, it would have been a nice touch to see this feeling grow rather than be simply stated before moving onto the next conflict of making a relationship work. The rest of Rarity's development is good, albeit repetitive, and her actions in chapter 5 show great resolve.

Spike's characterization is an interesting blend of maturity and immaturity. The fact is that we know Spike as having a long term crush on Rarity yet being too shy to take action (at least, direct action) towards realizing his love. The speed at which he moves past this, though, and even begins to take direct action to date another pony is hard to believe for his character. However, the decline of his character following his escapades and subsequent redemption is well done.

I like the characterization of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, especially Apple Bloom's conversation with Spike, which is a nice presentation of her honesty. Scootaloo is presented somewhat harsher than in the show, but her actions serve to drive the plot to it's climax. The other background characters, especially the ponies Rarity interacts with, are generic primarily as evident in voicing.

PLOT/THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT - 6/10
The first several chapters of this story move slowly, due in part to the repetition of the conflict by Rarity's thoughts and spoken dialogue; the subplot for Spike has better pacing and the build-up the climax is effective. The fact that the notion Rarity holds that prevents her from fully committing to resolving her conflict is completely imaginary, as her interactions with others prove, dismisses the realism of the tension; it would be interesting to see her resolve her internal conflict in spite of the external issue.

Thematically, this story captures the messy nature of love well, especially how miscommunication and perception can drive a character to deal with difficult emotions. The different ways in which rejection is handled, by both parties, is nice to see in this story.

REFERENCES
I finally get to use this section in a review! Throughout the story the author references the names of railway lines and stations, following the show convention of alluding to real life things and incorporating them with clever puns. The author does that, and explains the references with notes at the end of the chapters. However, the trains are such a minor element in the plot that I wonder why the author put so much effort into them; I am also not a UK resident, so the reference has little significance to me. I would either elevate the importance of the trains, or draw less attention to making a reference solely for the purpose of doing so.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I enjoyed reading this story; the dilemma it presents is relatable. It's neat to see what Spike's love life would look like, and Rarity is, of course, Rarity as always.

There is not much I didn't like about this story; it plays a lot of things safe and, to that end, it does not stand out to me as much more than a well-written story. The plot and characterization are good, but not extraordinary, and the language leaves some to be desired. (Again, personal preference here - I read a lot).

Overall, Satisfactory story. 7/10

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