Troubled Griffs and Simple Solutions by Cara will be the next story I will reviewing today. With the Young Six in the story’s cover art, there is no doubt in my mind that this story is going to be involving Gallus. But what is troubling him? What is that simple solution? Let’s find out…

TTroubled Griffs and Simple Solutions

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Slice of Life

Gallus has a secret. It's totally not eating away at him and he's totally in control. Maybe Trixie has some guidance counselor wisdom?

• Trixie
• Gallus

Esalen · 1.6k words  ·  64  9 · 1.2k views

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

Summary

Gallus has a problem. He loves all his friends, simultaneously.

Summoning his courage, he attempts to seek the counsel of the Great and Powerful Trixie. Counselors are supposed to help in these circumstances, right?

Content/Plot Analysis

This is a particularly character-centric story. The plot is driven primarily from the fear of discrimination derived from Gallus’ awareness of his polyamory to the rest of the Young Six. Throughout the piece, the author emphasizes how deep-seated that fear of being different, or abnormal in a derogatory sense, was in Gallus throughout the story.

The author takes much advantage of inserting Gallus’ thoughts into the story, and throughout the conversation. Especially pleasing was the subtilty of these emotions of fear and remorse of rejection. By showing these thoughts and the body language of Gallus, the story paints a relatable view of such a character who is evidently aware of the difference of his attitude relative to societal norms.

For instance, the initial hesitation from Gallus notes how afraid he was of seeking help, or being rejected. His conflicting thoughts played well into the scene, to develop that apprehension within that bred into doubt in his actions without.

Moreover, Trixie’s characterization was well-handled. Her mannerisms and speech patterns rang true to her, even if she was being serious at various instances during the conversation. It was a convincing take on how she would act as a counselor pony in the School of Friendship, with bouts of guidance and advice sprinkled with her own experiences. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trixie took a few pages from Starlight’s book, however, which would explain some of the similarities in how the guidance and counselling was conducted in the school. Or maybe there is some kind of rule book…

More interesting to me was how Trixie was able to give some form of advice on this topic of polyamory to Gallus. I’m personally not sure if she has the experience in this area, and I was wondering whether she would have a greater challenge in conveying the message she hoped to bring out. Then again, I do believe that, sometimes, it just takes a listening ear to help.

Although, that does bring something else up. Being ostracized in the past, it was clear to me that Trixie would be able to give good advice on why “normalcy is a crowd-sourced fantasy”, which I wholeheartedly agree in the real world we live in. As she was rejected by Twilight and her friends in the past, I see similarities between how she had felt then and Gallus now. In that sense, it was most ideal for Gallus to see Trixie as his guidance counselor.

However, I wished that the story would have gone into a greater depth into why Gallus feels this way. The emotions from Gallus does show that he was almost perpetually fearful of being rejected until Trixie calmed him down, and they were genuine. However, I was hoping to see where this innate sense of fear was being driven from; societal pressure, personal opinions about society, or past rejections?

Granted, I posit that Gallus might not have wanted to explicitly say why he would feel this way, and share his past experiences with Trixie without being enquired.

On the other hand, I felt that the overall guidance session with Trixie would have been more believable if Trixie did ask Gallus why he thought that he was so different from the so-called ideal of society. Because of how fast this conversation seemed to breeze through in the story, I felt that this would help to explore and explain how Gallus would be more relieved after the guidance session. Should Gallus be freer and more open to pour his heart out, I think that he would feel better more quickly, which would justify the somewhat swift recovery.

Additionally, the speed of the session was actually quite fast, which meant that the atmosphere of tension and the emotions did not have sufficient time to develop. While Gallus’ thoughts helped to include a few moments of pause in between the conversation, I felt that these breaks were too short to inspire the emotional aspect of the scene in question. I wished that there was a greater internalization of these thoughts, perhaps by inserting a few reflective moments of silence by Gallus to show that depth of the atmosphere.

These longer pauses could help to show the conflict between what Gallus initially believed and the information relayed by Trixie during the guidance session. I’m certain that there would be some level of hesitation to buy into Trixie’s personal views, even if she was the guidance counselor. It takes time for these ideas to be fostered and accepted in one’s mind, after all.

Language

I could not find many technical errors of much salience in this short tale, though –

She grinned. “Lets just say our headmare, vice headmare, and myself are pretty close and leave it at that.”

She grinned. “Let’s just say our headmare, vice headmare, and myself are pretty close and leave it at that.”

Stance

This is a reflective piece that looks into the perspective of a troubled griffon believing that it is wrong to be different from what society deems normal. I enjoyed this piece with its authentic emotions that certainly rang through from the author’s personal experiences and own feelings. What I would recommend, however, is to allow the characters greater leeway to build that atmosphere and that depth of these emotions.

Content/Plot: 6.5/10
Flow/Communication: 5.8/10
Language/Readability: 7.8/10
Overall: 6.7/10

<For archive purposes: 6.7/10>

Cool, thanks! Reading this I have an idea for edits I could add if I felt like it to make it longer and more real.