TThe Ghost Of Ponyville

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Adventure
• Horror

Strange occurrences have been happening in the old manor just outside of town. When a certain cyan pegasus and purple alicorn decide to find out what exactly is going on, they discover something that was a bit more than they bargained for.

• Twilight
• Rainbow Dash
• Pinkie
• OC

RCharge · 11k words · 615 views

The old Hatfield Manor just outside of Ponyville has fallen into disrepair. Nopony has gone into the house for years. Rumors began to circulate that it may be haunted.

Determined to figure out what’s going on, Twilight and Rainbow decided to enter the house to explore the occurrences. A certain pink earth pony opted to come along for the ride.

Opening remarks

The Ghost of Ponyville by RCharge is a dark horror adventure starring Twilight Sparkle alongside Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. The concept sounds interesting and I do love horror as a genre, so I am looking forward to seeing what this author has written.  

Note: To properly review this story, I will need to discuss specific plot points. These spoilers will be covered by black bars.

Technical

No errors found. Full marks. 

10/10

Character

The main character is Twilight Sparkle with support from Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. All three characters are similar to their canon counterparts at a surface level. They’re the most accessible and simplistic versions of themselves, which is alright if a bit bland. 

One thing of note, though, is that Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are much more dismissive of Twilight to the point of condescending in this. They feel almost mean spirited in how they don’t listen to Twilight despite also experiencing strange occurrences in the house. This contributes to a feeling of offness towards their characters.  

The zebra villain is okay. They definitely seem like a typical show villain with no massive character traits aside from what is necessary. One major plus though is that the rhyming dialogue is on point. There were a few stretches to make the structure work, but overall was very decent. 

To conclude, the characters are acceptable for what is needed in the story. 

5/10

Concept

Nothing conceptual about this story seems to match. The setup seems to paint a scooby doo-esque type plot, but instead tries for a traditional ambiguous horror. The writing tonally feels more appropriate for a comedic slice of life, which doesn’t vibe with the latter half of the plot. 

Every piece of the story doesn’t feel like it fits with the other parts. The overall execution is a mish mash of disparate elements that never really comes together. 

The core idea has a lot of promise, but the overall execution feels incohesive. 

2/10

Vibe

There are a lot of structural problems with this story. The biggest aggressor is the pacing, which feels incredibly slow. The entire first chapter feels unnecessary and the following chapters could be cut in half without losing too much of the core plot. There’s some setup with the villain in the first chapter, but most of doesn’t feel like it ties into the rest of the story, which can be easily replaced by a quick introduction before Twilight enters the mansion. 

The tone of this story feels wrong. The plot seems to be trying to be a standard horror, but the feel of the writing comes off as a comedic slice of life. The timing, dialogue, and overly verbose text leans more to a casual feel which undermines the latter half of the plot. This would work better either cutting down the festival parts or steering the story more in the direction of a scooby doo-like horror.

Another big issue is Twilight herself, specifically her monologuing. These do not add to the story. They come off as a very out of character moment for her and tend to bump the reader out of the plot. A lot of this would be better suited as either internal thoughts or just descriptions. 

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash also feel largely unnecessary to the plot. They don’t contribute much to the overall progression of the story and feel tacked on. If the story required having a second character, Spike would have been a better fit as his characterization would bounce better against Twilight’s in this setting.

The ending also comes off as just very confusing. It doesn’t blend well with the overall tone of the story and comes off as frustratingly vague. By the end, I really didn’t understand what was happening, what the zebra had to do with any of this, and how Twilight became possessed or even why.

Overall, this story just feels like a mishmash of disparate parts that just doesn’t quite come together.

0/10

Closing Thoughts

The Ghost of Ponyville by RCharge suffers from an over bloat of words and disparate elements that confuse the overall pacing of the story. Though, the core concept is excellent, the execution could use some work.  

4.25/10

Personal Score

I didn’t really enjoy this story. I found it far longer than it should have been, and it just didn’t grip me at any point. The tonal oddities and strange pacing also made it really hard for me to immerse myself in the plot. There’s some interesting ideas present, but for me personally, it just didn’t click. 

1/10