Attack of the Bronies by SapphireRose87 will be the next story I will be reviewing today. And what a title it is! I am rather curious to see how this story develops and how it would link Equestria and the bronies in the human world. Let’s see…

As per usual, you have been warned of the spoilers that will inevitably come. Beware!

Summary

Princess Twilight and her friends travel to Earth to solve a friendship problem involving internet trolling. Interplanetary travel ensues to help the Mane Six teach three human characters the dangers of internet trolling.

Content/Plot Analysis

The story begins from the perspective of Princess Twilight sitting in her throne room commenting on how uneventful her day has been. A minor observation from me personally, but I believe that Princess Twilight would be more occupied in ruling Equestria than what the story seems to suggest. I would think that the act of running Equestria would make Twilight busy, or at least that’s what the canon show would suggest in the case of Princesses Celestia’s and Luna’s rule. It is unconvincing to me that Princess Twilight would be playing around with her hooves in the throne room and waiting for her day court to be over with instead of filling in paperwork with the aid of her assistant or something, for instance. Of course, this would be fair if Princess Twilight had already delegated her tasks to her advisors in court, though there is no mention about this in the story.

Anyways, moving on, a guard notifies Twilight that her cutie mark is glowing, which garners this response from Twilight –

"Huh?" I looked down at my cutie mark to see that it was definitely glowing alright. "Wow, the map hasn't lit up for a friendship problem in years! It stopped calling me for that ever since I became ruler of Equestria! But wait, who's going to take my place when I'm out solving this problem? I know! I guess I'll ask to ask Princess Celestia to be my stand-in while I'm gone. Although I don't know if she'll do this favor for me since she's gone into retirement."

This dialogue seems to be an incredibly convenient way for the story’s plot to be driven forward. Clearly, the author wishes to explain how Twilight’s absence as ruler of Equestria would be filled in by another character. However, by allowing this to be explained in the same piece of dialogue with her initial observation on how the friendship map hadn’t called her for years, this comes off to be rather forced in the context of the story. I would expect that she would be drawn to her enthusiasm and surprise derived from her initial observation for a greater instance, rather than jumping after to how she realizes that she needs another character to act as a stand-in for her.

I believe that this could be resolved if the story splits up the dialogue for each of these individual observations so that the pacing of the story would be more regulated, and to make the chain of events in the story more logical. A longer conversation between Twilight and her guard would help.

Princess Twilight then rushes to the Friendship Map, where her friends were all dutifully waiting for her. Mind you, the fact that her friends were all waiting for her at the table is fairly justified to me, since Princess Twilight had to travel all the way from Canterlot while the rest could simply waltz in from their respective regions or suburbs in Ponyville.

As their cutie marks drifted around the map without congregating at any specific spot, the Mane Six were shown to be evidently puzzled by this fact. Conveniently, Princess Celestia appears immediately without much context to provide an explanation for this development of the story.

Everypony else just shook their heads. "I think I have a solution for this problem my little ponies." I heard Princess Celestia say.

While I understand how Princess Celestia could provide some explanation for this development in the story, the suddenness in which she appeared here was jarring. I believe that the entrance of Princess Celestia could be better foreshadowed in the story, perhaps by looking into how she entered the room, or the familiarity of her voice, rather than explicitly stating that the voice was hers. Due to the style in which the story introduces Celestia, it came off as sudden and convenient to the plot, which makes the overall scene less convincing in actuality.

Celestia then discusses how this Friendship Map is also somehow connected to another planet (Earth) thanks to Star Swirl the Bearded. In this part of the story, there is a curious inconsistency here. Princess Celestia refers to the planet from which they hail from to be “Equis” while Princess Twilight refers to it as “Equus”. Further down in the story, Pinkie also refers to this as “Equis”.

In any case, the Mane Six has a problem. How are they supposed to travel from “Equis” or “Equus” to Earth? Twilight recommends the usage of the mirror portal, though there would be another obvious problem. As there are human forms of the rest of the Mane Six in Canterlot High School, wouldn’t this cause a clash of realities after they transit through the portal?

Certainly, the mirror portal would not be the way to solve this problem, as the story has other plans –

Suddenly, there was a huge gust of wind that came out of nowhere.

"What's going on?" Rarity shrieked.

"I don't-" I started to say. I didn't even get to finish my sentence when Rainbow Dash got sucked into the black dot on the friendship map first, then Applejack, then Rarity, then Fluttershy, of course, Pinkie Pie jumped into it as if she were doing a cannonball in a swimming pool. Last but not least, I got sucked into it. I didn't know if Princess Celestia got sucked into it next, I hoped she didn't.

Well, I might say that I was surprised by this. However, to be fair, the Friendship Map in the castle is semi-sentient in nature, and I wouldn’t been surprised that it would allocate transport for the Mane Six to the friendship problem.

The story is now told from the perspective of one of the human characters Daniel, who proceeds to explain how “[his] favorite thing to do on those websites is to create endless arguments with people...[and troll them online.]”

I wished that the story would explore this trait of Daniel by showing rather than telling. By stating Daniel’s opinions of his actions online explicitly rather than showing how he would proceed to do so, the story presents a character who is hard to relate with. It is clearer to see a character who does what he would think and say he would be doing, rather than the character simply monologuing. His opinions of his own actions became overstated, which undeniably weakened the readers’ interest into the story.

More interestingly, Daniel is shown to be a member of the brony fandom as well, who had just convinced his sister to watch the show. In fact, there is a portion of the story that is devoted to show how he has introduced his sister to the fanfiction and the fandom in general. This is later linked to how his sister managed to determine that he was trolling other individuals on the internet, which will have repercussions for the future.

This brings up a point actually. The story constantly switches between the perspective of Daniel and Princess Twilight, which becomes increasingly forced as the story carries on. While I understand the need to switch between the perspectives of characters in the story to show their personal characteristic traits and thoughts, the number of times the story has shifted the perspective of the piece is jarring. I would be inclined to believe that the story would be smoother if the author regulates and trims down the amount of these switches.

On one hand, switching between perspectives would dilute the immersion and the development of the characterization of Princess Twilight and Daniel. On another, it would help the reader to empathize with the thoughts and opinions of the character the story is being explored from. A balance is necessary to help build up the characterizations of these more fruitfully and in moderation.

The story then switches back to Princess Twilight’s perspective. She and her friends land up in a library of books, which has a book on human anatomy to enable the rest of the Mane Six to comprehend the basics of how to be human. I’m fairly surprised that the map wouldn’t bring them closer to the point of conflict, but it seems that the map was trying to show human anatomy to the Mane Six before bringing them to the conflict.

While I can reason out that a book on human anatomy would be available in a well-equipped library, what I found harder to believe was how the mere interaction with a computer by Twilight was able to teleport them into the exact location of interest. I’m not sure how a computer would be able to bring them there, unless it was Equestrian magic at play that is channeled via the portal. I am puzzled by this, and this appears to be a matter of convenience to bring the Mane Six in a transitionary manner into the human realm.

Granted, I believe that the author wishes to avoid dealing with how the Mane Six would have to acclimate to the new anatomy after they have been transported to the human world and the friendship problem simultaneously. This would explain why the Mane Six were brought to this library first before being conveniently transported to the location of the friendship problem.

However, I believe that the first jump into the library was not necessary. It may have been tricky to work on both pointers in the same scene, but it is harder to be convinced that the Mane Six would be able undergo a two-step process to transit into the friendship problem. Moreover, I posit that it would be easier to explain that the Mane Six actually came from Equestria from the perspective of Daniel and the gang, since the confusion from the Mane Six would be more than apparent to them. It would best prove to them that they were genuine.

Shockingly, after the Mane Six were brought to the friendship problem, they were morphed back into their pony forms. Again, this would disregard that explanation above; in how they would need to know how is it like to be a human. This was hence why they were given the book on human anatomy to look over.

In any case, the story introduces Princess Twilight to Daniel and his sister after they have popped out of their computer, or rather the other way around, as Daniel, being a brony, is aware of their names and their personalities. The piece then explains how Daniel and his sister knew of them via the show on DVD, and why they are brought to Earth.

Here comes the “friendship problem” in the story, which revolves around cyberbullying with an interesting chain of reasoning.

Alley, Daniel’s sister, believes that

"Creating endless arguments with someone and throwing your weight around just because you can doesn't make you look good at all. It hurts people's feelings and can be very harmful to them. Ever heard of cyberbullying? Do you realize that trolling is one foot towards bullying? If you become a bully like that, you can go to jail for it. How would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot?"

But Daniel believes that starting “endless arguments with someone” is harmless because he will never see them in person, along with his friends Mark and Clucky.

If I were to disregard the logic in Alley’s or Daniel’s reasoning for a moment, I’m perplexed by how “creating endless arguments” would be congruent to trolling online. Clearly, there is a few breaks in either parties’ reasoning here. It is obvious that the story wishes to look into how trolling or “creating endless arguments” would be detrimental in the viewpoint of society, as the Mane Six would quickly show as they are going to solve this friendship problem, but I wished that Alley had a better argument against trolling or cyberbullying so that Daniel would be dismissive of Alley’s reasoning.

Moving on, there is a section of the story that shows how this flawed reasoning by the threesome had come back to hurt them via a forum post instigated by Alley on trolls. I personally don’t understand why the story had to include this other than to make the threesome feel guilty of their actions even prior to when the Mane Six were supposed to solve their friendship problem. Wouldn’t this make the Mane Six redundant in the first place, as they would realize and regret the errors of their ways?

Anyways, when Twilight was reintroduced back into the story via her perspective, the story brings her back into her human form, along with the rest of the Mane Six, most conveniently. But more importantly, the ensuing argument between Daniel and Alley on Alley’s actions quickly made it clear that the Mane Six had found their friendship problem.

Incredibly oddly, as “[Mark and Clucky] are bound to go pervert central…[when they see a group of girls in the room]”, Princess Twilight recommends that the “threesome should be tied up and taught a lesson” on friendship.

At this point, if I was not scratching my head in abject disbelief, I would be now. Other than to contain them physically, how would rope assist them in teaching the threesome a friendship problem, or even help with their mentality?

Ignoring the awkward scene during which Mark and Clucky were in utter disbelief to meet the humanified Mane Six, even more concerning was the fact that Mark and Clucky did not resist Alley’s and Twilight’s attempt to tie them up without explaining to them what was going to happen. I was stunned; the only thing Mark and Clucky did to resist was to complain about it. Unless there was a lot of trust fostered between the individuals of the threesome, I would think that they would at least scramble out of being tied up against their free will, almost out of the blue.

But Twilight did not have a plan on how to go about solving this friendship problem after tying them up. Hence, I remain adamant that tying the three of them up together does not help to solve the friendship problem, at least until “a gust of wind” brought all of them to Equestria, which is where they would solve this friendship problem. Was tying them up with a piece of rope a cue for the Tree of Harmony or the friendship map to teleport them back to Equestria, or a forced plot convenience?

Alright, here comes the part of the story that would show how the Mane Six were going to tackle the friendship problem in Equestria. The Mane Six were going to set up “endless arguments” between each other, and force the threesome to witness the proceedings under Twilight’s supervision as they toured Ponyville.

The most salient point I would like to bring up here is how “creating endless arguments” online in forums is different from “creating endless arguments” over in person, or in pony, in this case.

The reason to why individuals “create endless arguments” online is because of the internet’s anonymity, and people troll others because they simply derive a sense of warped satisfaction from the other party’s suffering and anger. It is hence difficult to see the congruence or even similarity between these two, as the “endless arguments” instigated by Twilight was actually derived from an act of physical wrongdoing.

In all of the four instances shown, the “endless arguments” started from a rude or inconsiderate act that spiraled into a worsening relationship between the two parties, which results in them being not willing to see the other party due to their disagreements. This would of course mean that the two parties would not “see each other for a while” as they would inevitably drift apart socially.

This is unlike the Internet, where the chances of you meeting that person online would be next to zero. Being unable to physically interact via body language and more, it is less apparent to Daniel that what they are doing is wrong in the first place.

Another point I would like to bring up is how Starlight uses a kite to send messages to Trixie, as stated in the first scenario of “endless arguing”. Granted, Starlight does like kites, but is sending message via kites a viable option? The kite must be blown in the correct wind direction to its recipient to be able to reach its intended audience.

Even if the pegasus ponies were able to control the wind direction of the day following their routine schedules, there still exists a chance that the kite would be trapped on another object on its journey. And even if it was able to avoid any of these obstacles on its way to Trixie, how was Trixie able to bring the kite down from the sky when it reaches overhead?

I do see the validity in Rainbow Dash’s point on how this was a silly method of transmitting information throughout Equestria, but slashing Starlight’s kite with a knife to send a message to her that this is silly is clearly wrong. It is hence different from simply stating your opinion, albeit very rudely, such as on the Internet.

After witnessing how the four “endless arguments” ended, the threesome finally snapped and agreed to turn over a new leaf. I believe it was more of a sense of guilt that resulted in them throwing in the towel, but I would wonder what would have happened if they were insensitive to all these? Debatably, these “endless arguments” are not exactly translatable to what the threesome had done, or had experienced in the past, as discussed earlier.

Before I wrap this section up, I have one more thing to talk about: characterization. Most of the characters in the story, including that of the main characters, did not have sufficient time to build up their character and their personality traits. It is more crucial for the original human characters that this would be done, but due to the style in which the story is regaled, this is built up weakly.

Most of the characters in the story are stated to have a specific trait, rather than showing it. The story, or one of the characters, namely Daniel, narrates the other character’s personalities that they are of this specific trait. The problem about simply stating their traits plainly would be that the extent and the degree of these traits are not known beyond what the reader imagines them to be. Rather than stating that they like to “start endless arguments”, for instance, show how a particular instance of trolling went in the story, and show how inconsiderate, rude or mean they were online.

Indeed, due to the fast-paced setting, the story leaves little room available to build up these characters, to show their emotions, thoughts and actions more convincingly. I would recommend that the author should develop more on the character’s feelings and show them, rather than telling the reader that they felt this way. It would sharpen the characterization and regulate the pacing of the story more fluidly and naturally.

Language

Language errors were fairly common throughout the story, though most of them were punctuational in nature. Here are some examples –

"Hey Twilight," said Applejack. "We came here as quickly as we possibly could. It seems like we got here a lot faster than you." She chuckled

"Hey Twilight," said Applejack. "We came here as quickly as we possibly could. It seems like we got here a lot faster than you." She chuckled(.)

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I beg to differ that anything could be stranger than you Pinkie. You're the very definition of the word strange. It's impossible for anypony to stranger than you"

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes(.) "Yeah, I beg to differ that anything could be stranger than you Pinkie. You're the very definition of the word strange. It's impossible for anypony to stranger than you(.)"

“…Who's to say we can't use that as a means to communicate with real live people too?"

“…Who's to say we can't use that as a means to communicate with real life people too?"

One more thing – I found the author constantly listing the names of the Mane Six in the story, such as in the example below –

It wasn't until we heard cheers from Princess Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash that the argument stopped.

I am of the opinion that this is not necessary. This listing of the characters’ names makes the sentence convoluted and hard to read. This could be simply be shorted to the “Twilight and her friends”, for instance.

Stance

I’m horribly baffled by this story. Most regrettably, the story’s logic and content were an enigma. Being forced, most of the story’s plot did not succeed in building any meaningful development. I struggled understanding most, if not all of the story as I was reading it.

Undeniably, this story has much work to go. I believe that the author wishes to explore the pain and guilt of cyberbullying on either party, though this story is misguided in its path to do so.

Granted, I believe that the author has potential in writing and is definitely apt at writing, though the author should look into the relation of how cyberbullying would relate specifically into the world of Equestria, as I personally struggle to see the link between the two. Additionally, the author should consider the development of the story’s characters more organically rather than merely stating their individual traits.

Therefore, in this circumstance, I do not see any meaning in giving a quantifiable score.

<For archive purposes: 0/10>

....okay.

7482819
So the story is that bad that you can't score it? Not to mention you said the same thing about another story and you gave him at least a 1.3 on it. I find that very hard to believe that a story is bad that you cannot rate it! I'm reporting you to the admin. If you can not give and reasonable review or a score you should not be reviewing anything!

7483203
Sapphire,

I understand the amount of effort that you, your editor and your pre-reader have gone into this piece, and I definitely appreciate that. It is not easy to write, complete and publish a piece of fanfiction online. The entire process is definitely not a joke.

This review does not seek to offend you or speak disparagingly of you, but to offer a potential way forward that we can improve.

What do you seek to obtain from a review? To me, I personally believe that the recommendations and feedback in the review are more important than a simple score. I hope that any review would seek to improve or discuss what is written on my end or yours. This is my main goal here.

If you are of the opinion that you wish to see a score, I can provide a score for this story if you insist.

Please reply; let's discuss and talk it out.

7483243
Everything was fine up until the end of it. I fail to see how the story was hard to understand. Because I worked with an editor and a pre-reader on it and they didn't have a hard time understanding the story. That's where I feel insulted by it. The fact that you were so triggered by the story's grammar baffles me too. The grammar wasn't as bad as you say it is and that's a big insult to my editor especially!

7483259
Sapphire,

I understand your ire in this regard. Editors and pre-readers are absolutely important to fixing the minute technicalities of the story. However, they are not infallible in picking out mistakes. Similarly, this is merely my personal opinion of the story; other reviewers may be of a different opinion from me.

7483279
Well like I said everything was fine until the end. Yeah, you're right it's only your opinion on the story. But I'm mostly upset for my editor and pre-reader on the story. I'm going to say this as a warning now, be prepared for some possible upset comments from them as well. I might be able to get past it after I cool down. I'm not sure about them though. Besides, that's the only story I have so far besides my The Ghost of Cozy Glow story that's doing somewhat bad on the ratings. The Ghost of Cozy Glow story is getting a rewrite. Honestly, I do think that showing the story from the key players in the story's point of view is actually a good thing. I'm not sure if I'll go back and rewrite this one just yet though.

7483290
In any case, thanks for reaching out. I am prepared to listen and discuss the story with you, if you wish to, and I'm more than glad that you came.

I agree with that actually. In my review, I did agree with you that "showing the story from the key players in the story's point of view is actually a good thing" honestly. However, I found that switching between Princess Twilight and Daniel throughout the entire story was not helpful to build their characters fruitfully as it kept diluting the development of each character.

7483323
Cool, if I do go back and rewrite it, the story would probably be longer than two chapters. It was meant to be a short story. Usually, if I put a lot of detail and devolvement in the story it might be five chapters or more. I'll give it some thought. Right now I'm kind of busy writing other stories at the moment.

7483331
That sounds fantastic. If you require any help, I would be pleased to assist you in editing your story.

7483342
Cool, just PM me, and we can talk. Right now, I'm in the process of writing several Rough Drafts for my different stories a couple of them I want to wait to publish for a bit.

Here's the blog with all of the Rough Drafts to the stories I'm working on now.

7482819

I would think that the act of running Equestria would make Twilight busy, or at least that’s what the canon show would suggest in the case of Princesses Celestia’s and Luna’s rule. It is unconvincing to me that Princess Twilight would be playing around with her hooves in the throne room and waiting for her day court to be over with instead of filling in paperwork with the aid of her assistant or something, for instance.

When were Celestia and Luna ever busy? From what we could gather in the show, they didn't really do much of anything. Luna's duties basically amounted to protecting ponies in their dreams. As for Celestia, she really do much of anything at all. So, yeah, I could buy that Twilight wouldn't be doing much of anything.

This dialogue seems to be an incredibly convenient way for the story’s plot to be driven forward.

My problem with this dialogue is that it's a blatant contradiction of the show's canon. The Tree of Harmony was destroyed. Therefore, the cutie map is no longer tied to the Elements. Thus, it would not be operational anymore.

7484121

My problem with this dialogue is that it's a blatant contradiction of the show's canon. The Tree of Harmony was destroyed. Therefore, the cutie map is no longer tied to the Elements. Thus, it would not be operational anymore.

100% headcanon.

7484121
Additionally, I believe that in "Royal Trouble", it is implied that Princesses Luna and Celestia were overworked.

7484170 No, that was canon. It was blatantly shown.
7484171 I believe you mean "A Royal Problem" and I do agree.

7484183
Oh yeah, I confused it with that Runescape quest "Royal Trouble". Playing RS for the last 14 years has really affected me!