TDon't Lose Your Head...

• MLP: FiM
• Comedy
• Drama
• Mystery

After picking up a cute little outfit for Irisa from Rarity's shop you make your way home to discover that your maid might still have a few untold secrets up her hooves.

• Alt. Universe
• Second Person
• Applejack
• Rarity
• Trixie
• OC
• Filthy Rich

Robipony · 24k words  ·  77  4 · 1.3k views

Summary: After picking up a cute little outfit for Irisa from Rarity's shop you make your way home to discover that your maid might still have a few untold secrets up her hooves.

A mystery centered around Nightmare night featuring one of Robipony’s Monster ponies? Sounds pretty intriguing to me. Let us see what surprises might lay in store for us. I will be honest here, this story is overall average. That is both good and bad for different reasons, which I will get into below.

6/10

The heart of this story centers around YOU and your maid Irisa having a good time on Nightmare night that turns upside down when the twins there are “supposedly” murdered. You get tasked with figuring out “who done it” in a frame of a traditional mystery, you investigate everyone there, even your maid to try to piece the puzzle together. However, the results aren’t exactly what you had thought and you realize more strangeness is becoming rather normal these days.

Let’s talk about genre. Mystery I find is all about the element of surprise, and suspense. It’s that dramatic build-up that keeps the story flowing. This story tries to follow that standard approach but fails in it’s execution. Which I’ll get more into in execution.

However, as it stands this story knows what it wants to do, does it, and then ends. It leaves me feeling unsatisfied. I do realize there will be stories that just don’t always hit the mark, but I’ve read Robipony before and I know he has way better stories than this. It feels like a let down. Now, on the more positive side, the characters are all well in character and even though I read the prequel, you don’t have to read it to understand what’s going on here.

5.5/10

This story is average in its writing. There are some phrases that could be reworked to flow better, and the pacing feels a bit off. However I didn’t find many spelling errors, nor grammar errors within the piece.

7/10

YOU: You are a character. This character’s personality is defined by the narrator who you are. You are telling this story, but you are also the main character in all these stories. I hope that makes sense, because of this unique characterization it is hard for me to score this character. However, he is very self conscious of himself, and is always trying to help others, especially the monster mares, and stallions that he meets along his path.

Irisa: Skittish, shy, and withdrawn. She will do anything to please her Master, you. She wishes that YOU would be more to her than just a friend, but she never tries to push or force herself upon you, and only wants the relationship between you two to grow. She is very selfless and would gladly put herself in harm’s way to help you however she can.

Everyone else: Everyone else gets enough characterization that they feel like themselves but none of them are really in for long enough for me to go through every single one. Good job.

6/10

The originality here is decent overall. I don’t think there are many “monster mare” type stories on Fimfiction. I know for a fact, Robipony would love to see more of them. However, for what this is, it’s a standard run of the mill mystery. I’ll give it a pass if you really like mystery stories and monster  mares.

Execution: Now here is where it gets complicated. Like I said this story follows all the beats of “How to write a mystery” However the part I feel is missing is the suspense of a mystery. Someone supposedly dies, and YOU are tasked with finding the killer. Of course, this proceeds in you questioning all the suspects at the party. And you figuring out bits and pieces from each one, but ultimately you don’t get the answers you thought you would and the reveal is quite disappointing. I honestly saw it coming. I knew when there wasn’t a death tag on the story, that the death was just a ploy. Figuring out what was actually going on, is figured out by the little blurbs at the end of the story and deciphering their meaning. It took me a bit to figure that part out, but even if you don’t get that, it’s obvious by the title “Don’t lose your head” as to what you are dealing with. Overall, I come out of this disappointed and wishing there was more suspense and intrigue to this “classic murder mystery”

5/10

Overall thoughts and Feedback:
This story felt very average all around. It’s not a badly written story nor do I feel it's a good story. It lies somewhere in the middle, and it does have interesting elements but sadly this story just fell flat for me as a reader. I wanted to invest myself more, really feel for what the characters were going through, but what there was, felt rushed at times, and even sometimes I felt there needed to be more pauses between the scenes.

Final Score: 6+5.5+7+6+5.5=30/50
6/10

Headpat worthy:

Boop worthy:

Needs work: Yes.

Chapter 1: In this chapter we are re-instructed to our main character or YOU as this continues the tradition of being written in second person and your relationship with Irisa. Things are going well, and you want to surprise her with a new maid outfit. 

You somehow get invited to Trixie’s performance, despite having no initial interest in it, you decide this will be good for both you and Irisa. You take Irisa to Rarity’s to pick out a costume, but Rarity accidentally pokes one of Irisa’s many eyes and now might know the secret, and Irisa won’t tell you why this is bad, only that it is bad and they will show up.

There’s a lot to pick up on in this chapter, first off this is a continuation of https://www.fimfiction.net/story/436357/all-eyes-on-you Granted there is one in between story, as all of Robipony’s stories are connected through this manner, a series if you will. Now granted while this does connect back to the original, you don’t need to read the original to understand what’s going on in this one, and that’s something that is either hit or miss with things like this, so I’m glad to see Robipony is not falling into this.

Secondly, the 2nd person writing always feels like you are in the story, and that’s something I find interesting about these kinds of stories, as I never really understood the point of second person, but reading these have opened up my eyes to the possibilities. Get it to open up your eyes because Irisa?

Lastly, the plot thread of this chapter are fairly simple but as the chapter goes on, there’s something building in the background, something that Irisa knows and You don’t. And the element of mystery is intriguing. I have my suspicions to what it might be, but I will have to read more before making any judgement on how the element of suspense is handled.

Will there be consequences for Rarity finding out what Irisa is?
What will happen to Irisa if they show up?
Will Irisa be able to go to the Trixie’s performance without fear?
All of these questions are what keep the reader interested, and as a reviewer, I find the more questions you can ask, means the more the story has potential, as even I don’t fully know what might happen next.

Chapter 2: Writing/Grammar:  To make matters worse he's reputation stained our family name, his greed and deceit knowing no bounds.

Correction: To make matters worse, his reputation stained our family name, his greed and deceit knowing no bounds.

Chapter 2 feels more like a standard average kind of progression of the plot. They go to the party and things happen while they are there, but the way that it flows, feels very slow and even sluggish. I can get the overall theme that Robipony is trying to build suspense but there are a few spots I think could have been tweaked a little better. 

Heck, the scene of YOU in the bathroom could have actually lingered a bit longer than it did, but this is the exception. The scene with Spoiled Milk definitely overstayed it’s welcome. A quick response to this would have sufficed just fine. You don’t need to overstate something like this, we all know Spoiled Milk is bad news.

Again, none of this writing is bad, it’s just sorta mediocre. As in  the fact that the writing does it’s job in moving the plot without feeling repetitive or stale, and yet there’s this surprise element especially in a good mystery story that I just feel isn’t here.

Chapter 3: This chapter follows the lines of an investigation and it treats it with respect. You take the time to ask everyone at the party where they were right before the unfortunate death of the twins. Everyone is a suspect, even your own maid could have been responsible. Now as much as this plays respect to having You go through each and every character and questioning them, I’m a bit disappointed that’s all it is. This felt like a really good chance to add more suspense and mystery to the death of the twins.

Ever played the game clue? No? Okay, so basically when something bad happens like a death, the police would show up to investigate the crime scene. Of course no one can get into Mr. Rich’s house right now, but expecting YOU, who is just a journalist, to actually figure out who the killer is, is a bit of a “move the plot” kind of thing. I’m sure that YOU during your travels have experience in this, but HOW do they know this? Especially since YOU like to spend most of your time traveling around or in your manor with your maid. It just feels out of place they’d expect YOU to solve this mystery. But of course YOU handle it, because you are used to far stranger circumstances.

Chapter 4: There is a lot that goes on in this chapter from finding out what happened and what caused it, and surprisingly enough I wasn’t surprised by the outcome. I’m not gonna spoil it because I feel you should read it for yourself, but if you don’t have hints from the previous chapters as to what it might be, then go back and look for clues. 

However, this chapter itself was a drag. I wanted to be invested in what was going on, what would happen, but the more I read the more it kept going over similar beats to the previous chapters, and the overall pacing felt very flat. It was not really the enticing, exciting, suspenseful ending I thought it would be, but for what it does do, it does it okay. 

Characters are okay.
Writing is decent. There are some things in here related to pacing that I would change in order to hasten the suspense of the mystery elements, and a few odd grammar issues but never enough to be distracting.

At the end of the day, this story knows what it wants to do, and does it. It’s strange that I don’t have more to say, ,considering there’s a lot that happens in this chapter but none of it really feels noteworthy enough for me to spoil. So give it a read, see for yourself what the possibilities might be.