The Legacy Will Endure

TThe Legacy Will Endure

• Equestria Girls
• Dark
• Horror
• Mystery

Sci-Twi learns the horrifying true purpose of the Friendship Games.

• Alt. Universe
• Principal Cinch
• Sci-Twi
• Shadowbolts (EqG)

mayorlight · 3.7k words  ·  28  0 · 2.2k views

And now back to your regularly scheduled darkness. Today we examine the wonderful world of pseudo-crossovers, where the story is the resulting amalgamation of several ideas from several sources. Without delving too far into spoilers, the story hybridizes X-Files, Suspiria (Italian film about a cult/dance group doing some occult), and Cold Air (Lovecraft, so instant 10/10 for this fan-fic, best story ever, read it now). In this story, Twilight wakes up after having too much fun and getting black-out drunk, so no memories of the last 24 hours. From there, it’s a decent into school conspiracies, eugenics, and Lovecraft’s fear of the immortality brought about from… standard home air conditioning.

In terms of the good, this story does a good job handling the mystery. While a good mystery in my eyes requires several thousand more words, or to just have a slower pace, take Rat’s In The Walls as a good example, this does provide an interesting premise that kept me hooked through the whole thing. Another thing this does well is it’s pacing for the length of story it is. The first half is relegated to setting up that things are a bit off while the second half is the mystery unfurling to show a glimpse of what is behind the curtain. And speaking of behind the curtain, this is one thing I sort of loved about this story, it doesn’t actually explain what was going on. The author did clarify what was happening in the comments to a degree, but seeing as that is not part of the story, it doesn’t count. This is something I would like to see more stories do, even though it drives me up a wall due to my personality, as the lack of clarification lets you fill in the blanks and come to a conclusion that you would find the most horrifying.

For what I found to be lacking, well, as I said before, this is REALLY short for a proper mystery story. By the time we even know there is a good and proper mystery, we are already starting the part of the story where the mystery is starting to be revealed. I would have loved for there to have been a little more lead up and suspense before things started to go tits up. Secondly, I would say that the writing is on the more tell-y side.

Twilight Sparkle awoke to the buzzing of her morning alarm. Groggily, she blinked up at the ceiling. She had not slept well at all. Probing about her night table, she found her smartphone and silenced it. She was so very tempted to go back to sleep, but her well-ingrained Crystal Prep Academy discipline dictated otherwise.

The partially open eyes of Twilight Sparkle blinked languidly at the ceiling as the buzzing of her morning alarm filled the room. After several seconds of inaction, a half alive groan emanated from between the high schooler’s lips, followed by an arm emerging from beneath the sheets of the bed to begin inelegantly slapping around the night table in search of the blaring smartphone. When it was finally found and the room was returned to blissful silence, Twilight’s eyelids closed once again, and the teenager sifted around to get into a more comfortable position. Unfortunately, her well-ingrained Crystal Prep Academy discipline prevented her from doing anything to make up for her less than optimal rest.

While reading, each sentence felt functional rather than like an exciting description of events/people. Which leads me into the second issue, the pace. While the pace is good going scene to scene, the overall pace is lacking. We go from a standard set up to the introduction of the mystery to the resolution of the mystery a little too fast. If scenes would have been drawn out just a little bit more, describing things to make it feel more real, that would have definitely improved this story in my eyes.

Final scores;

Writing: 7/10, As I said, the main issue is the lack of description. Overall, there didn’t seem to be any egregious errors when it comes to the construction of it, it just feels sort of bland to read.

Pacing: 7/10, This has a lot to do with the writing being used here. The lack of description really increases the pace of the story and sort of detracts from the possible intrigue that could have been produced should the audience been given the chance to sit and fester with the implications of each new addition.

Characters: 9/10, These are well done characters, well, character as Twilight is the only one that we get enough time with to get a good read on. My only critique here would be that Twilight doesn’t seem hesitant or warry enough at the end when the mystery is being revealed so it feels kind of off

Mystery Quality: 7/10, Again, this comes down to the pacing. The conceptual mystery is really great, but the problem is that the ‘whoa, there is come nonsense going on’ happens only to then be explained a few hundred words later. I just feel there should have been a little more lead up and examination of what is going on.

Darkness: 8/10, This is a little weird. This is less of a definitive score and more to do with implication. The darkness here is really good as it is almost entirely implied, so it is entirely up to the reader. Your mileage may vary on how dark this is as what you think is going on. The only solution would be to clarify the goings on more, but that may reduce the quality of the mystery, so I would suggest keeping

Total Score: 38/50 or 7.6/10

7430706
Thank you very much for reviewing my story. I do greatly appreciate all of your insights. I'm glad that the implied horror worked.

I have considered writing a sequel focusing on a different character to further clarify the goings-on, but as you mentioned, it might reduce the quality of the mystery, thus making it less scary.