TSombra's Midnight Star

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Dark
• Mystery

For three thousand years he waited, mourning the loss of his mate. But now he found her but she doesn't remember what they had. Luckily Sombra has a spell to fix it.

• Violence
• Gore
• Death
• Profanity
• Alt. Universe
• Twilight
• OC
• Main 6
• King Sombra

Twilighted Rose · 146k words  ·  170  18 · 6.6k views

Opening Thoughts

Before I discovered MLP, I played an obscene amount of Wizard101. It was (and still is) an MMO intended for a younger crowd. It’s easy to learn, relatively quick to master, and makes use of a gratuitous amount of microtransactions.

It also has the perfect combination of a captivating world (kinda like Harry Potter, with schools of magic and such) and the opportunity to create and roleplay as a self-insert character. My character was named Sam Dragontalon, and I studied with the school of fire, and I thought I was so cool.

I tell you all of this because, way back in the day, Wizard101 was the very first time I wrote fanfiction. Some of my friends at school played, and I had some friends through the game. I hand wrote several chapters of “we are the chosen ones and we’re so so so awesome”-style self-insert fanfic starring a handful of my buddies. I shared it with them. We roleplayed as the very self-indulgent versions of ourselves from the fanfic. The ultimate recursive bliss.

It was… not good. The fanfic, that is. Even now, not having actually read a word of it in over a decade, I can say with complete confidence that it was not good. I was also using it as a way to get to spend way too much time with my middle school crush, so. Take from that what you will.

However! As bad as the final product was, I had a lot of fun writing it. I never intended to share it with the internet - only the friends I had written about. It was silly, pure wish-fulfillment, and not intended to stand up against any legitimate literature. At the time I actually was working on a story I took extremely seriously (though I’m sure the quality was about the same), so I can’t emphasize enough how much of a goofy romp this was. Pantsed to hell and back. Trope-y and sarcastic and just a blowout of everything I wouldn’t allow myself in my real story.

We here on fimfic have gotten to a point where our good stories are genuinely brilliant. Real works of art. We have review groups like this to dig into the artistic merit of fanfiction. I’ve read pieces on here that have brought me to tears, things that I’ve considered personally de-ponifying simply to show to my friends who aren’t a part of our community. And that’s all great. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. But I think, in the process of coming together and getting so good, we’ve forgotten our roots.

Fanfiction used to be outrageous.

Whether that was a product of the past or just a result of some of our ages when we first got into fanfic, we’ve all read and written some stuff that’s just pure, uncut stupid. And not in a bad way! In a really, really fun way! In a way that isn’t overly serious or caught up in reviews and accolades, and is only ever trying to be wish-fulfilling, epic, witty, and weird. In a way that gathers a crowd of loyal readers who shout wordlessly in the comments in a giant party.

I can’t review this story the same way I’ve reviewed others, because it’s absolutely the most traditional kind of fanfic. It’s not written for the reason books are written, or movies, or short stories. It’s written purely for fun. To build an audience of like-minded folks who hang on every update and laugh with it, not at it. It is a story that weaves an entire universe (and I mean an entire universe) just to make Sombra into the good guy, and to have him fall for the modern girl next door. It is a story that, despite its grandeur, gets caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day living. It is a story that wants to be everything at once. It is a story that appeals to the people who remember that early era of fanfiction, or perhaps are still living in it.

So, for the duration of this review, I’m going to try to inhabit that person. The person who wants to see Sombra fall for them in the most dramatic - and yet, most self-insert-y - way possible. Because, honestly, that’s who this story is written for.

I also want to note that this story is, as of yet, unfinished. I will be reviewing all published chapters at the time of submission (The Meeting through Void, about 92k words). As always, if you’d like to read my spoiler-free thoughts, skip down to the bottom of this review.

Without further ado, allow me to rundown this brand new world for you:

Plot/Concept

Long long ago, before the universe was formed, before the planet came to be, before Equestria was founded, and certainly before Twilight was born, there lived three creatures: Harmony, Discord, and Void. 

Harmony is likely an obvious creature. She is reason and order personified. She is also creation - the only one of the three who can make things from nothing.

Discord we know. He is the embodiment of chaos and chance. He does not have powers of creation, only change - he may do anything to the matter and energy which Harmony puts into the world.

And, lastly, we have Void. Void is the emptiness, the absence of anything… the reset button of the universe. Void is deletion. Void only removes.

These three lived alone for a negative eternity, all the time before the universe began. Then, like any good set of Gods, they decided to create life. Harmony took on this burden, of course - neither of the others could. She took a piece of her soul and created not only the first life, but the first Alicorn: Sombra.

And, despite what Harmony lost in creating him, Sombra was wonderful.

So enamored with Sombra were the three Gods that they created a whole world just for him. But he was lonely - as all first beings are - and so Harmony took another piece of her soul and made a second Alicorn. This time, knowing that she only had so much soul to give, Harmony used a much smaller piece. This Alicorn - the Secondborn - would be less powerful than Sombra, but would still be beautiful and strong and very much alive. Still, though, Harmony was weakened. She lost her powers of omnipotence. She was now barely any stronger than her first creation.

The Secondborn wasn’t happy with this arrangement. Despite being given life, power, and a mate (Sombra), she wanted more. She stole a piece of Discord, and went mad for her trouble. She stole a piece of Void, and her madness deepened.

But Harmony didn’t know about any of this. Her powers depleted, she was now living on Earth with her son, Sombra. She found a way to create life without splitting off more pieces of her soul: Alicorns, yes, but also pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies. Society began to form. A utopia built itself around her.

And then…

The Secondborn, unsatisfied with her lot in life, driven mad by the clashing powers within her, began killing. She kickstarted a race war (Alicorns above all others) and instigated a culture of violence in which the world has steeped for many, many years. Long enough that those alive today do not remember the world before.

It is in this time - an unspecified past from the world of the show, an unspecified future from these bloody beginnings - that we meet Midnight Star. She is a unicorn, considered expendable by the ruling Alicorn class, but useful. She is a working class girl, using her magic to serve Alicorns in their studies and conquests. She also lives in Harmonia, a capital city overseen by the fallen Harmony herself.

We meet Midnight as she is being effectively “fired” from her current post - it seems that Harmony herself has stepped in to transfer Midnight from working under the Alicorn scholar A’stavera to a yet-unknown new Alicorn. I bet you can guess who.

From here, the story of Sombra and Midnight follows a semi-predictable path. The two meet, separated by status, and slowly learn to like one another. Then love one another. Obstacles cross their path: the sociopolitical tensions of a world which would punish them for loving one another, their respective blood-soaked pasts, and even the constant threat of Sombra’s all-powerful "ex", the Secondborn. We get to explore this entirely new world with its entirely unfamiliar characters, creatures, and rules of magic. It is a fantasy story with a romantic throughline.

…oh. And all of this happens inside a flashback.

Yes, the actual selling point for this story is that Midnight Star is actually Twilight Sparkle’s past life, and that the Sombra takeover we remember from the show was actually a misguided attempt by Sombra to recapture his long-lost mate. There’s a complicated explanation as to how all that went down involving clones, but the details aren’t important here. Conceptually, it's absolutely brilliant. That's a showstopper as far as I'm concerned.

If you think that’s a lot, rest assured there’s a lot more to it. This story is also a takeoff on Anastasia, borrowing heavily from Wicked in a subplot about the royal sisters and their fury with Sombra for not fixing the broken world with his immense power. 

There's a million subplots. Midnight's tension with her mom. Twilight's tension with Cadance. Discord showing us his true self from the beginning of time. Sombra's obsession with mangos. The catlike attributes of Alicorns. The anthropomorphic race of lion-birds (??) known as Kinku that consider contractions blasphemous. The other cities which seem unaffected by the violence in Harmonia. Void's mysterious plot to… I don't know what, exactly. Midnight Star's hidden powers. The missing ponies in the present day, which we may eventually return to when this flashback of hundreds of thousands of words has come to an end.

In a lot of ways, this story is… kind of too much. Some of these elements befit a period romance filled with distant longing, some are more suited to a teenage fling with popular-kid tension, and a good bit of it is genuinely apocalyptic and all-consuming. In the same chapter, we will confront the violent horrors of a centuries-old race war, view a musical number ripped from a Disney movie, peer into an alternate universe for the sake of an off-handed joke, and then snap back to reality as Sombra (reminder: a Jesus-esque son of God in this AU) scolds his mother (reminder: Harmony, the all-powerful being at the center of the universe) for eating his mangos in an over-the-top display of childlike bratiness.

There’s a great scene in the movie Funny Farm that I think just so perfectly captures how I feel about… all of this. Funny Farm is a comedy movie about a dude who uproots his wife to a farm in the middle of nowhere in order to complete his novel. The whole movie is about him frantically trying to finish this masterpiece of literature while he and his wife (cityfolk by birth and by nature) struggle to survive in the styx. All of this culminates in a scene where, for their anniversary, the husband presents his wife with a first draft of his novel.

The wife reads.

The husband stares at her, barely able to sit still.

This takes hours.

And, when the last page closes, the wife bursts into tears. Not because the book made her sad. Not out of any reaction to the artistry contained in those pages. But because the book is such a profound mess - because her entire life was turned upside down for this - that she cannot contain herself.

“It’s all these flashbacks! I never know when anything is taking place. In the first twenty pages alone, I counted three flash-backs, one flash-forward, and I think on page eight you have a flash-sideways!” she wails through tears of frustration.

That’s maybe a tad dramatic. But this scene echoed in my head through the whole fic.

It's jarring, in a word. 

In more words, this is a story that is indulgent to the point of dissonance. Each of these pieces on their own would be a fun lens through which to view Twibra (or whatever you’d like to call the permutation that is Midnight x Sombra). I could see it as the bratty emo kid falling for the sarcastic bookworm, as the quiet yearning between noble and servant, as the explosive passion found at the center of a dystopian hellscape… but not all of those things at once. Given the concept - a love that transcends life and perpetuates through reincarnation - this story could actually do all of those things separately! It really, truly could! But, instead, it blends it all together into a confusing puddle.

I think a lot of this has to do with characterization, and a lot of it has to do with the voice the author has adopted for this work. I want to save these analyses for their respective sections, and so will try to remain focused on the plot itself as I offer this advice: settle on a tone and stick with it. I really think this is a case of trying to have your cake and eat it too - all of these approaches are fun to imagine and fun to write, and I can understand feeling pulled in multiple directions. But it’s simply too much to take in.

Early on in the story, I would have compared it most closely to a Disney movie. It has that grand-scale fantasy, the story of soulmates at the center, and a thread of humor that follows the story to keep it from dipping into territory that is too relentlessly grim. I think it works wonderfully for the story you’re trying to tell, and it was when the story veered from this tone that I felt the most smacked around.

One other thing that bugged me rather consistently was this looming question of… why?

I hope by now I’ve made it clear that this world is very different from the world of the show. While the present day initially seems familiar, we continually turn up more and more evidence that it is not. That it is built from fundamentally different parts, that the characters we thought we knew are false (Discord is an old, wise God, Celestia is a cold-blooded murderer, Sombra is now and always was a Prince of Goodness, etc). The more I learned, the more I found myself wondering why these changes were made.

Sombra is good. I suppose I can accept this, as it does make the romance easier to finagle, but it also really takes the teeth out of what makes Twibra interesting. Why turn this toxic prince-and-princess-of-darkness pairing into a standard Disney royal matchup?

Sombra is also an Alicorn. Which… I guess makes sense for the world, but when you consider the world is entirely invented by the author, it’s hard to see why this change was made. Why not craft the world to match what we already know?

Celestia… well, it’s very clear to me that Celestia is meant to be Glinda. Specifically Glinda from Wicked (we even have a quibble over her name - Celestia was known as Celdestria in the past, similar to the way Glinda was previously known as Galinda). But why? To make the song work? 

(Yes - an entire song from Wicked is copy and pasted into the fic.)

What about Midnight Star? She’s Sombra’s lover from the past… but we already know who Sombra loved in the past: Radiant Hope. She had already existed for about five years when the first chapter was posted. Why not use her? Why invent a new OC?

Why have so many Alicorns in the past when you’re forced to shunt them off to an island in the present?

Why have Discord’s true form be a straight-up dragon?

Why make the sociopolitical tensions so in-your-face, gratuitously, grotesquely violent if you force the leads to ignore it every day?

Why invent this mysterious ex and place so much narrative weight on her if we only see her for a chapter?

Why remove the concept of cutie marks from the past entirely??

I don’t want to be overly judgemental, particularly since the fic remains unfinished. I would hope that each of these pieces would return at some point, and that I would see some proof that these things are the way they are for a reason. So I suppose, as my last piece of advice on plot, I would implore the author to consider these pieces carefully. As fun as it is to invent new parts of this world, it does become overwhelming to your readers, especially if these things have no real point.

In the end, I’m torn on this. It’s undeniably interesting. Each piece is interesting on its own, but few of them actually work together to support a whole story. It’s a mess, but a mess that was fun to pick through. There are many points in my notes where I actually rejoiced at finding another piece of the puzzle and slotting it together, or successfully guessing where the narrative might take us next - that’s an awesome feeling, and a sign of good writing!

But… for every lightbulb moment, there was at least one moment of utter confusion. Points where I felt like I wanted to quit due to frustration. Points where my notes were outright angry at the material because it seemed to be fighting me and itself at the same time.

I think that’s all I can say on plot without dragging other things into it. The plot is everything at once, all stacked on top of itself. It’s confusing and violent and at times it seems to tease me for not keeping up with what is going on. But… in those moments when I do manage to keep up, some really brilliant creativity shines through.

3/5

Pacing/Length

This is the part where I honestly have very little to say.

For the most part, this fic is very competently constructed. Reveals come along at a good clip. I can tell that the author had a good sense of what would be happening next (in other words, none of this is improvised). There isn’t a lot that I could describe as “filler” - something is always happening. It may be important to the larger plot, it may contribute to the romance, or it may simply give you a laugh. Whatever the point, I never once found myself thinking “what is the point of this [scene/chapter/arc]” - and that’s brilliant! That’s how you write a page-turner!!

There are, however, two things that have bothered either me or the audience at large. And, while I want to be forgiving, they are actually really important to the story as a whole!

The first comes early, after Midnight and Sombra have met and Harmony has set in motion her plot to get them together (I know… we’ll talk more later). It’s important to remember that, despite the effort put into the world surrounding them, this fic is primarily about the relationship between Sombra and Midnight. That’s what all of this is about. But, unfortunately, we sort of… miss it?

Don't get me wrong - there’s a ton of relationship development in this story. The author is great at coming up with conflicts to fight through, both internal and external to the characters and to their relationship. I do have a very good sense for how their relationship works. But that moment where it goes from begrudging to accepting is glossed over in a rapidfire bonding montage.

And that’s an important moment! I felt so frustrated that this bonding was done largely “offscreen”. I have to give some points for including a series of moments/vignettes about these two interacting (where I suppose the author could have simply inserted a “three months later” or whatever and skipped it all entirely), but I still found myself feeling like I had missed something.

The other is something that both I and the rest of the audience have found frustrating:

When is this flashback going to end?

You see, all of this stuff from the past is happening inside Twilight’s mind. Sombra kidnapped her and cast a spell on her that would allow her to relive her life as Midnight Star, thus bringing back his lost love. It’s a brilliant concept, and it has an absolutely chilling consequence of Twilight possibly being at war with her own mind and memories, but uh… 92k words in and she’s still dreaming.

It’s starting to feel like the true story was always about Midnight, and that this whole bit about Twilight is… maybe a sequel at best? 

I understand why it’s unfolding the way it is. The world of the past is very different, and the author wants to give us everything we need to understand what will happen once Twilight wakes up. I honestly don’t know what the right answer is - but it is starting to feel like there’s a chance we’ll never get the Twibra that the story promised us when it began.

All in all, though, these issues are just as much plot as they are pacing. This is an exceedingly complicated story. I can totally understand why the author chose to structure things this way (which is more than I can say for a lot of fics out there with the same issues). And, all things considered, it isn’t a huge deal. The impact on the overall quality is pretty minimal.

3/5

Characterization

Um.

I’m… not going to beat around the bush.

I hate these characters.

Points for consistency. They are consistently hateable throughout the story, rarely straying from their course of being obtuse, selfish, and loud.

But oh my god. I hate them all.

I understand how they got like this. It’s an unfortunate and inevitable consequence of the plot being at least three different stories stacked on top of one another and thrown into a blender. The characters are essentially all playing themselves and at least two warped, “other” versions of themselves to fit these competing storylines.

And I could maybe cope with that. If it wasn’t for the parts that seem to win out.

Let’s start with Sombra. He’s our touchstone. We know him in FiM. His introduction is pretty good, and very much in line with the version of him we know: he sings the entirety of In the Dark of the Night from Anastasia (I know, I promise we’ll talk later) and parades out into the snow to capture Twilight. It is at this point that we find out that the Sombra we know is not the Sombra, but a clone designed to escape the prison the real Sombra is trapped in (hence his lack of wings in the show - the clone is a weaker, unicorn version of the real Sombra. He's a nerfed Sombra. Nerfbra, if you will).

When he has Twilight in his clutches, he has this great menacing, smothering sort of love that completely overtakes her. He feels huge. He feels imposing. He feels a bit like King Kong, I guess - having fallen for a creature far beneath him, and yet so unaware of the power that Twilight senses in him, and fears. This works, it really does! It’s a great way to allow this relationship to play out. I was swept along with it.

But then we go to the past. And everything falls apart.

Here, Sombra is whiny and bratty. He lives with his mother, who he frequently snaps at. He is cranky 97% of the time - and not the way an all-powerful being is cranky, the way a rich 12-year-old boy is cranky. He rejects offers of help, sings songs from the Lion King to express his feelings, and has a profound case of  “it’s not a phase, mom!” He throws a fit when his ex hits on him at his birthday party (yes - that’s an actual scene in this fic!!). It is wretched and exhausting to watch him behave this way - but it gets worse.

This is a problem for all the characters in the story, but Sombra’s selfishness goes beyond his treatment of his mother. You see, Sombra quite literally resides in a tower at the heart of the only kingdom in the land where ponies are regularly torn apart and eaten in the town square. Taking that at face value, we are suddenly forced to realize that not only is Sombra a brat, he’s also allowing this all to happen. So he can hide in his tower and eat mangos.

It would be one thing if the story actually confronted this and made it a point of contention between Midnight (a member of the race that is murdered and cannibalized literally every day in excruciating detail), but it it is literally never spoken of. It would be one thing if we knew Sombra couldn’t take on the other Alicorns due to dwindling magic or old age or some other thing, however ham-fisted, but we watch him systematically slaughter Alicorns multiple times. 

So we have to deal with this. We have to deal with the fact that our protagonist, a character around which the entire universe has been warped to make him appear good, simply allows this injustice to occur on a daily basis. We have to sit here, knowing that Sombra could put a stop to this any time, and instead chooses to sit in his tower and kick his little hoovsies when his mom eats his mangos (I’m sorry for the repetition, I just really want you to understand the emphasis on the fucking mangos), or when his little slave talks back to him.

Which brings us to Midnight Star.

Midnight Star is… well. She is. She certainly exists.

Midnight Star is a unicorn, and thus risks her life by going out her door every day. She is young. She is simple. And, by god, is she annoying.

Midnight Star is, just like Sombra, the most selfish pony on the face of the Earth. In that way, I suppose they deserve each other. Though she has a brush with death when hungry, bloodthirsty Alicorns descend upon her in her first chapter, she quickly bounces back. She complains that her mom - I must emphasize, also a unicorn and therefore also a member of the oppressed class in this nightmarish city - didn’t make her pancakes. She complains about bringing a refugee’s suitcase inside because it’s kind of heavy. She treats the danger she faces in the streets with the same weight as an ostentatious palace - and not because she’s disgusted with the absurd wealth the ruling class has managed to obtain while she can still barely survive. Because she thinks it’s ugly. This is, apparently, a sin tantamount to cannibalism.

On top of this, Midnight Star occasionally adopts a Southern accent (one which I still don’t understand the origins of) so that she can utter the same phrase - “wait just a cotton pickin’ minute” - anytime something confuses her. She thinks she’s funny, but she is woefully not. She thinks she’s clever, and she is demonstrably not. She speaks like a GIR-avatar-haver from a 2010 forum thread about sparkledog fursonas. 

I could write similar diatribes about everyone in this story. How Cadance is singularly obsessed with getting Twilight and Flash to date, despite the backdrop of a dozen missing Crystal ponies. How Harmony, an actual God, is unbothered by the rivers of blood which flow through her capital city and would rather play matchmaker for her son. Pinkie’s absurd behavior (everything that comes out of her mouth is profanity-laden sexual innuendo). Twilight’s characterization is a nightmare from top to bottom…

Honestly, the only character I can stand is Pierre, a Kinku who really feels like he belongs in this distant past. But, even then, he plays a very stereotypical role as “wise old sage”. He isn't hateable - likeable, even - but his character is still a bit flat.

To top it all off, the relationship between Sombra and Midnight… well, it isn’t just bad. It honestly is a little bit gross. This might just be my read on the situation, but their relationship reads much more like a father-daughter thing than anything remotely romantic. Later in the story, Sombra has dropped a lot of his more aggravating habits and become an almost unshakable godlike figure. He speaks slowly, gives Midnight nicknames in ancient tongues, and just generally gives off the vibes of someone like Gandalf or Dumbledore, though with a dark twist.

Midnight, on the other hand, maintains her youthful innocence and teenage angst. She is impatient, rude, sarcastic, and seems only to exist to annoy the hell out of Sombra. It doesn’t ring true as romance to me, but rather that interpretation of romance you often find in early fanfiction.

I don’t find myself rooting for any of them. Not Sombra, not Midnight, not their relationship. I’m not invested in the world of the past since I know it will all turn out okay (it is the past, after all). I have trouble squaring any of the canon characters with the canon selves - the mane six, Cadance, Luna, Celestia, Discord, Sombra, etc. - and so don’t really care about them either. 

Like I said. Points for consistency. It’s also more than likely that my own view of these characters is just that: my own view. The author has legions of fans hanging on their every word, excited by the romance, and laughing along at every joke. I just don’t find myself enjoying any of it.

1/5

Writing Style and Quality

Hoo, boy.

So… following the precedent I set in the previous section, I want to start by being blunt: the way this is written is not working for me. And, in parts, it’s not working at all.

I’ve mentioned a few times that the author makes use of musical numbers in this fic. These are ripped right from movies and musicals (including Anastasia, The Lion King, Wicked, and Cats) with some minor changes made to work with the plot. Or some minor changes to the plot made to work with the song. Or both.

I don’t want to waste space on quoting an entire musical number here, but you can get a good idea of how these tend to play out by looking at the second chapter. I shouldn’t have to say that this is not the sort of thing that would appear in a typical novel, and with good reason - songs are long, repetitive, and primarily an aural medium. A song doesn’t become a poem just because it’s been typed out. Moreso, poems can’t just be slapped into otherwise typical prose as a shortcut to creating meaning and emotion, or to drive the plot forward using someone else’s words. There’s just nothing about it that works - especially when a musical number is started by an immersion-shattering directive to google the song and play it while you read.

Another rampant issue is the constant POV-switching. And I mean constant.

I could handle a different POV each chapter. I could even handle a swap midway through a chapter if the story truly demanded it. I would mostly prefer that a story like this be told in third person, but I understand wanting to get in the heads of your characters. I could forgive a blend of first person Twilight and first person Midnight, since they are blending narratively. I could even deal with occasional dips into Sombra’s perspective as he peers into others’ thoughts and dreams. It isn’t what I would do, but I could understand the choice to do so.

Sombra’s Midnight Star switches POV somewhere between… I’d say three and five times in an average chapter (3k words). In some cases, even more. And not at scene changes - no, no, we often leap back and forth between Sombra and Midnight’s heads over the course of a single conversation. For mere paragraphs at a time. Each of these changes is noted by a left-justified header like this one:

ΩSombraΩ

It, again, is jarring. It isn’t helped by the constant flash-backs and flash-forwards and flash-sideways. This combination of issues turns the story, at times, into an incomprehensible mish-mash of… stuff. Like I said, something is always happening, but it isn’t always easy to parse out exactly what that thing is.

The last thing that bugs me is the, um… style of narration. It goes back to the wish-fulfill-iness and the character issues with Midnight Star, or at least it echoes these problems. It is a style that, if your fandom past is anything like mine, you will likely find very familiar. It’s a style that I have written about in other reviews to some extent, as well.

I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s a combination of overly-casual, overly-friendly, overly-snarky, and utterly disconnected from the actual material of the story at all:

Imagine that sewage and a rotting carcass had a baby. that is what it smells like. But Sombra was used to it by now.

SOMBRA! *squeee* I did a little happy dance, trotting like the fan-filly I knew I was.

“What were you singing?” Blueberry asked, tilting her head to the side. Before I could utter a word Harmony chirped, “It’s called ‘Be Prepared,’ and it’s a piece from a picture show in another dimension called ‘The Lion King.’”

“’Tis, but it is, my child,” Harmony said, suddenly using a goofy accent. “For what is a mare who talketh backwards? A senseless mare who did not heed her elder’s warning.”

“Sleeping? Don’tchu have a bed of yer own?” I tilted my head to the side, inwardly pleased at my accent.

"I is confusion."

It’s not that I can't understand it. It’s not that it’s bland and utilitarian, what I believe to be the cardinal sin of prose. It’s just… not working. I don’t know if it’s my upbringing (I was so steeped in this particular internet culture when I was 10-12, so maybe that’s why it reads as immature to me) or if it’s something more inherent to this type of writing…

I think my main issue is that I just can’t take it seriously, because it seems that the author can’t even take it seriously. It’s another thing working against the fic in practically every chapter.

That said… lots of people seem to be enjoying it. Perhaps I’m jaded, perhaps I’m just too far from that part of my life. However, to use a period-accurate phrase, it nearly made me ragequit more times than I can count.

2/5

Je Ne Sias Quoi

This fic is a mess.

It is all over the place. It can’t decide if it’s a kid’s cartoon, a teen’s dystopian novel, or your mom’s favorite period romance. It bounces wildly from tone to tone, fundamentally breaks all the canon characters, and crafts protagonists so annoying that I wished horrible things might befall them, if only for a wake-up call.

But by god if I didn’t have a good time reading it.

Not in a MST3K kind of way, where I just loved to hate it. I did love to hate it - but I also just loved it. I had odd moments of reverence for brilliant bits of worldbuilding, for the courage it takes to put multiple musical numbers into a written story, for the sheer effort it takes to invent a world of this magnitude and to keep up with it like this!

I cannot overemphasize how well the author keeps track of all these disparate things. For all the craziness, never did I find a plothole or continuity error, and I was looking for one. This is their only fic, and it’s clear that their mind is with this fic at all times. They release fairly regular updates of a decent word count, repeatedly return to early chapters to edit and iterate, and actually know where this story is headed. There’s a plan. And, from what it looks like, a detailed one.

It’s a mess, but it is made with so much unmitigated love and passion.

And, as the greatest compliment I can personally bestow, I’m invested. I know I’ll be keeping up with it, even if I rage at it nearly every chapter. It's part of the entertainment. I want these characters to be better, goddammit, and I've actually already gotten some returns on that!! Sombra has really grown into himself, and is inhabiting a voice that is much more… I don't know, exactly. It's working, though, and I want to stick with it.

I could never accuse it of being boring. I’ve read fics on here that have bored me - fics that are an absolute slog, that feature bland characters and bland storytelling and simply have nothing to pull me forward.

This is not that.

This is everything. It has everything in it. It isn’t boring for even a second (except the very long conversation about snoring in the first chapter). There is a new reveal around each corner, a new surprise waiting in each chapter, a sarcastic joke buried in each paragraph. Even when I hated it, I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t stop talking about it. Ask my fellow reviewers! They've been anxiously awaiting this for a long time now! And, every time they wanted to know more, I told them the same thing: go read it.

Against all odds, this is a fic that is more than the sum of its parts. Perhaps it's the nostalgia it brings me to read something so reminiscent of my early days in fanfiction spaces, perhaps it's the constant happening that drives each chapter, perhaps it's my desire to watch the slowest of slow burns at long last catch its first spark… I don't really know. But there's something here. I haven't regretted a word I've read so far, and I will be sticking with it from now on.

4 / 5

Final Thoughts

A fiction that hearkens back to the good old days of endless wish fulfillment and utter silliness, with gratuitous author's notes breaking into the text and a certain brand of snark that I haven't seen in many years. Despite it all, though, a rich world lies beyond the somewhat shaky exterior, and a story worth reading is slowly finding its footing. It's a story that asks you to suspend your disbelief at every turn, but a story that is undeniably fun because of it.

Final: 2.6/5

To the author: I want you to know that you have some incredible raw talent when it comes to writing things that are interesting, fun, and just plain good. I know I had some criticisms for your work, but I want to say to directly to you that you absolutely must keep writing. It's not often that I come across a piece that evokes so many emotions in me, and that has me so invested. I may have found your characters frustrating, but the mere fact that I had the energy to be frustrated by them is a good thing - it means I believe in the world of the story enough to be angry with it. Not everyone can do that.

Please keep working on this. And please keep writing. I promise, you'll see some chapter-by-chapter comments from me very soon :)

7705687
So, is the story flat out using lyrics from non-MLP songs? Maybe I'm not getting what you mean. If it is though, then the story needs to go to the site mods, because it's a site rule.

7705720
I understand your concern, but the lyrics are edited to fit the story and integrated into the text. I did link an example in the body of the review. It really isn't of concern on a copyright basis - very very clearly falls into the category of "parody" due to the changes made.

7705726
Thank you for the advice. Hopefully Midnight and I can fix some of these errors on our part and bring more life into the characters.

7705726
Thank you so much for the review. It has given me a lot to think about. I also wanted say that this my first and only story that I have ever written and published. So the main reason why I wrote this story is to develop my writing style. I have been writing this story for about three years give or take. And I know I know that everyone wants the past to be finished. It will I’m planning on finishing it up by January of this year. I just have a few more plot points to get through. When Twilight wakes up it’s going to be in the same story.I’m not going to write a sequel. I do have some nick pick on what you perceive as the plot but I can fix it in my story so there’s no more confusion. (Fyi Anteras is not nor will she ever be Sombra’s mate or ex. ) Now is there anything i could do to make this story better? I am open to suggestions. Thank you again for the review.

7705865
Hi!! Thank you so much for your response - so often I write these reviews and they just sit here, existing quietly.

First off, I absolutely see your effort and your improvement. The story, even just over the part I've finished reading, has *really* come into itself. I can see the work you've put into it, both on and off the page. I'm ecstatic that I got to join in.. not early I guess, since you've been working for three years! But before it's been completed. I'm excited that I get to join you on this journey, if you'll have me. I also want to commend you for being so open-minded and accepting to advice - not everyone can do that. Being willing to listen to criticism, decide what is helpful and want isn't, and put it all to use? That already puts you leagues ahead of others who are at similar points in their writing journey. Whatever else you do, hold onto that.

This review serves partly as advice for you and partly as a recommendation to readers. I think it's important that potential readers know that Twibra is wayyy in the future of this fic. At the same time, I understand and support your decision to take your time with this flashback. I can see both sides, but I'll always default to the position of the artist. You know your story the best.

It's totally possible that I screwed up some elements of the plot! I didn't write it - I just read it. But I really appreciate your response to this criticism. Fiction is a two-way street: the writer and the reader must meet each other halfway. I should expect to put in some amount of effort to understand the story, but so should the author put in effort to make the story understandable. For as many moving parts as your story has, it is actually remarkably understandable! But, as complex as your story is, it's also likely that some things will fall through the cracks when people are reading. I know *you* know what's going on - that is very clear to me, and how you keep track of it all I have no idea! - but sometimes a reader will miss something.

I have two tidbits for this: one, simplify where you can. Consider each new piece's contribution to the story you want to tell before you include it. You'll have to trust your gut on this! There are many different kinds of "important" in a story, and different elements might hold different types of importance.

Two, consider the narrative rule of threes. This rule states that, when utilizing a new element, it should actually come up a total of three times: once to introduce, once to remind, and once to use. Let's use an old key as an example - our character can first find it and put it in their pocket, then drop it, then finally use it to open a discarded box. This makes it feel less like things appear out of thin air.

I think the whole bit about cutie marks is a good example of this happening in your story: we can't see the characters, so the first time we *learn* that the ponies of the past don't have cutie marks is *also* when Midnight receives one - that's an information overload! Had you found a way to introduce this concept earlier, then given us a reminder along the way, Midnight receiving her mark would have felt as important as it was.

Making the story "better" is a very very subjective thing, so I really want to try not to throw out suggestions that way. What I would say is, while I admire your commitment to going back and editing old chapters, set your sights ahead. Keep your energy on the future of this story, rather that constantly iterating on the past. I understand why you're doing it (I would love to go back and redo everything I wrote three years ago!), but it also takes time and energy away from improving your creativity, your new ideas, and your future as a writer. There's only so much you can learn by looking back.

If there's anything else you'd like to talk about, I'm there. I love talking about writing - mine and others' - and I'd be more than happy to talk about specific things. I think it's important for an author to identify their own weak points and put those forward to others for feedback. If you do some reflection and identify areas that you'd like to improve, I'd be more than happy to chat with you about them wherever you're most comfortable.

Thank you again for engaging with this review. I want to just say one more time how much fun I had reading your story, and how much I look forward to returning to everything you've written more recently. Thank you for your time, your effort, and your passion. You're doing something that is wonderful and hard - harder than most people understand - and I want you to know that I see you, your skill, and your excitement.

You're awesome. Your story is awesome. I'm so glad I got to be a part of it in this small way.

7705856
I was wondering what your fimfic handle was!! I'm assuming you're Gboyd, right?

It's so awesome that the two of you have made this something to work on together. I love a good collaboration like that - it's been a long time since I was a part of one, and honestly this story made me miss it!

I gave a detailed response to Twilighted Rose's comment above. Just know that it applies to you as well: you're awesome, and your work is awesome! I'm so glad it's out there, and that I got to read it!!

7705886
I would love to talk more about my story with you! Also I have heard most of the advice you have given me and recently ignored it on a recent chapter and now slightly written myself in a corner lol. I have a dead discord if you want to hit me up. Also the only reason I have kept up with the story was because I have a best friend ( who’s also an author) that I have told my story and word building ideas over and over again. And she had helped me kept with the continuity. I have so much to talk to you about and I would love to continue to hear what you think.

7705887
Sorry I am not. There are two editors, my handle is in grey under Gboyd’s. It might be hard to see.

7705889
That's the best!!! Have writing friends there to help is the best motivator ever.

I will absolutely hit you up, but it's going to be maybe two weeks - I'm traveling and will be very heavily booked, so everything's going on do not disturb for a while haha

If you don't mind waiting around, let's chat in July (maybe the sixth?)! You can always leave a message in my fimfic inbox for me to get back to later, or DM me on discord (I'm Mushroom #0062). I can't say when I'll be available available during that time, but I might be able to send you a message here and there!

7705890
Oh, duh!! Sorry, I've got bad eyes - couldn't see the grey-on-grey with my current theme. Gboyd is also a credited editor on the story.

Either way, you all rule! Go team!!

7705887
They are two different people. Silverstone28001 is a recent addition to my team and only helped me with the last three chapters since the chapter “The Date”. Gboyd has been with me since I started publishing on fimfiction. I first published Sombra’s Midnight Star on Ao3 three years ago all by myself with the advice from my best friend. I didn’t have anyone collab until the last published three chapters. And I’ll definitely hit you up later! My handle on discord Midnight Star #4190. Talk you on July 6th!

So I have over a thousand people reading my story?! People like my story?!