On my quest to leave no M-Rated story behind in the General folder of the Reviewers' Mansion, next up is:

[Adult story embed hidden]

Reviewing this story has been my most challenging yet, for reasons that are difficult to articulate. Dogs in the Attic is by Muggony, a name I've seen for years around FimFiction and on Discord, and I've had a handful of interactions. So when this assignment came across my proverbial desk, I scanned the rest of their writing library to see what else of theirs I had read. I am remiss to say that I've read nothing by them prior to this. That, coupled with Horror not being my first go-to genre to read, made this a couple of firsts.

That said, I suppose here is as good a place as any to mention the genre tags:

Gore Violence Death Profanity Horror Thriller Comedy

If that combination seems confusing to you, rest assured, you're not alone. 'Confused' was one of the enumerable sensations I experienced whilst reading this, (which I had to do three times.)

Applejack and Winona are listed as characters, though Winona is by far the protagonist. Applejack has about as much time in this story as the rest of the immediate Apple family, to wit, Big Mac, Apple Bloom, and Granny Smith. An OC or Other character tag wouldn't go amiss, as the other characters have more collective time than any canon characters.

But as for the story itself... It's really hard to describe.

The TL;DR of it is:
Winona's POV, hears something in the attic, goes up to investigate, and finds some stray dogs (and a duck) squatting in the attic. They rope her into a dark ritual to summon a cosmic horror (or else threaten to kill her). Winona escapes by jumping out the window and the dogs summon the demon.

Applejack barely makes herself relevant to the story when she and Big Mac investigate the noises of impending Armageddon. They get attacked by an abyssal horror and some kind of grenade analogue blows up the house killing (presumably) everyone. And that's where the story ends.

I should note that it's marked incomplete, so this review is based on what is available as of this date. By the looks of it, all the writing for the existing six chapters was done between Nov 2019, and Jan 2020, and I don't see any indication that it will be continued.

My first time through, the genre tags had me uneasy as to what to possibly expect. The short summery was unhelpful.

Applejack finds dogs in her attic. It's as cute as it sounds.

This is a lie.
Or at least, it's only briefly true.
Or rather, it's incredibly subjective. And that's a big theme for the entire story. If you think it sound cute, there are parts where it is. Not many, but they're there. If it doesn't sound cute, then you'd be right about that. It's tagged as both Horror and Comedy. The horror elements are pretty obvious, and there are a few moments that could be, on their own, funny.

But in the same vein, as funny as the banter between the space marines at the beginning of Aliens is, I wouldn't qualify that movie as a comedy, either. But like everything else, such things are subjective. Watching it now, I find myself more amused with the campy nature of the movie more than being genuinely frightened.

But if we're going to play the 'subjectivity' card, then we have to look at the art through the lens of the artist. To give you an idea of how one can conflate Comedy and Horror, and the other way round, I present as Exhibit A, this blog post.

So now that we have some idea of the head space this is coming from, let's dive in. The long description reads:

A group of renegade dogs decide to take refuge in Applejack's attic. It's cute at first until they reveal their plans to be sinister. In a strange twist, it's her most oddball fight for the farm yet.

This is significantly more accurate to the actual course of the story, (if you replace oddball with 'gory'), but more on that later.

Nervous from tags, I open the first chapter, and immediately I see <I> <I> red formatted text for the chapter number in roman numerals for the chapter number, but two of them that look like eyes. (a theme for the rest of the chapters on review, but at first glance it's just off-putting. If there's a pattern to them beyond that, it escaped me.

The story opens with the Apple family speaking with their accents written out which is another pet peeve a lot of readers have. We know what she sounds like. But if you really feel rocked by the urge to remind us, just add:
," she said with a southern drawl.

The last four paragraphs offer some setup, but otherwise the entire first chapter is skippable. The second chapter is where the story actually starts.

Winona the cowardly dog hears a noise in the attic and goes upstairs to investigate. She meets a cast of characters and talks to them (as a dog) in a way that feels like watching a Disney movie. And there's a period of time where I'm not sure if the Horror tag is a fake-out, or maybe Winona died and she's conversing with ghosts, (which would have been a neat twist).

The bulk of the chapter introduces all the OC dogs (and a duck) and their unique quirks. A little ride on the exposition train we find out what they're trying to do. It turns out they are trying to do a ritual to summon a world-ending demon. Which is """funny""" because they're dogs. And Winona is going to help them or else they'll kill her.

Chapter 3 greets us with more red text, and then it leads into the ritual. Now, one could simply say that "He spoke in unintelligible words" in prose, rather than actually typing out all of it like your cat walked across the keyboard. Again, if it's actual Latin or something, it's lost on the reader and it's just a chore to slog through. After a scuffle, Winona escapes and jumps through the attic's glass window.

The Author's Note at the beginning of chapter 4 reads:

In case you're wondering why I wrote this, it's because I wanted to write something cute for a change. :)

And I'm starting to suspect that this is some kind of advanced troll fic. This suspicion is only strengthened as I read the rest of the chapter with more nonsense words, and they're in red text, making me mentally check out of the rest of the chapter as "they do the thing".

Chapter 5 time-lapses to Winona outside in pain from the fall and from broken glass injuries for 800 words. Then the roof explodes.

Chapter 6 happen in parallels with 5, with the perspective being that of a pony in a MLP fanfic. The noises of Armageddon are coming from the attic, Applejack and Big Mac go to investigate. They get attacked by some kind of eldritch horror.

Then the black orb that had been in the monster's hand fell to the floor and exploded. Splinters of floorboard and bits of drywall coated the two ponies as they were flung backward, the screams of Applebloom being cut off by the rambunctious sound.

And then the story ends.

leeroy_gIBZ also did a review. And honestly they said exactly how I felt about it so I'll just quote them here:

Now I really must beg the question here as to why this is a fanfic in the first place. Much of it, such as the large number of OCs and new tartarus-related villain, feels like a total non-sequitur in universe and this does at least give me the suspicion that Muggony may have originally planned this as a separate piece of fiction.

I went into this story not knowing what at all to expect. After the first reading I felt lost, like I must have missed something or skipped a chapter. The second reading just confirmed everything I felt the first time through. And I read it a third time in to the process of actively reviewing it.

Technical Writing: 5/10
The technical writing is fine, when applied. (Good spelling, grammar, and punctuation.) But as mentioned above there are a lot of places where it isn't. And being intentional doesn't excuse you from writing out onomatope and assaulting my eyes with a wall of red text.

Characterization: 8/10
Dialogue: 6/10
I haven't read much Winona, but this story does a good job of giving her a voice, even if she feels a bit OOC from what little we've seen from canon, but that's forgivable, even if it's southern accent written out. The other characters have a voice and personality to them that were fairly identifiable in a conversation where speaker tags were lacking, although it did get a bit chaotic.

Story Overall: ?/10
Walking away from this, I still feel like I have no idea what I just read. Maybe this is one of those rare instances of an artist not being understood in their lifetime, much like Lovecraft. As of this review it has 19 upvotes, so somebody likes it. leeroy_gIBZ is likely among them, as they recieved it a good deal better than I did.

As I said at the beginning, there is so much about this story that's hard to articulate. Reading it felt like a not-good acid trip, and I can't in good conscience recommend it, unless you're looking for something well off the MLP fanfic beaten path.

The bottom line is, I don't know who this story is for. But it wasn't for me.

For review purposes: 4.45/10

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I should clarify for the sake of maintaining some ego that my writing style has evolved since this story and that even I'm not that big a fan of it. If I even knew that you were reading this story, I would have been like, "Dude, no. Look at my newer stuff instead. That's the stuff I actually care about."

If you're curious about how the story came to be, basically: I wanted to write an advance shitpost dedicated to the Evil Dead franchise (hence the genre tags), but I also didn't want to be pulling my hair out while I was writing it. So, I went in dry. There was no planning, and not once did I stop to think about the scene. I came up with the story as I was writing it. While I don't think it's good, it was still amusing to write. I get that the comedy isn't for everybody, but I had a blast coming up with the banter between characters. For me, the joke wasn't, "Oh, because they're dogs!" but it was the way that they interacted with each other. Them being dogs was just the tip of the iceberg. The only "Oh, it's funny because they're dogs" moment was, "Oh, it's funny because their leader is a duck." Despite how absurd the story is, there were a lot of creative decisions put into it to make it come off as a high-effort shitpost. And that's all I wanted it to be.

Even though the story is an unfocused mess, I'm still proud of it because it's godfather most of my modern style. I had to develop new techniques while writing this story, and I inadvertently learned more about writing from it. For example, during the chapter in which Applejack finds the dogs in her attic™ and gets attacked, I had it in mind to limit myself to three sentences per paragraph to prevent the scene from ever feeling bloated. It was the first time that I went, "Okay, how am I going to present this scene?" Of course, there are many other ways to improve it, but I've adopted this mindset into my writing ever since.

Still, I should at least thank you for going through the effort of reading through this story... especially three times in a row. I can't say that I learned much from this review because I was already in agreeance with most of what you've said, but I always appreciate a reviewer who shows that they're dedicated to helping out the writer and not just trying to post their next review. Thanks a bunch!

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You're welcome.

Nice review. I like the way you write essays. Thoughts:

But if we're going to play the 'subjectivity' card, then we have to look at the art through the lens of the artist.

I reject the notion that art must necessarily be viewed this way. When people read "Lord of the Rings" and made connections between PTSD and World War 1 with what happened to Frodo and the Hobbits, it added a dimension to the story by placing both the story and its author in historical context. To deny deconstruction when analyzing a work treats all artistic expression as if it were some sort of unchanging gospel and that doesn't sit well with me at all. It's a reverse form of solipsism where the only mind that exists is the author and it does not reflect the human condition which is driven by external forces and conditioning.

JRR Tolkien may not have intended his horrifying experience in the trenches to influence his writing of LOTR, in his words, but we the readers have every right to come to our own conclusions or critical analysis would be very boring.

The story opens with the Apple family speaking with their accents written out which is another pet peeve a lot of readers have. We know what she sounds like. But if you really feel rocked by the urge to remind us, just add:
," she said with a southern drawl.

I guess I'm going to piss people off until the end of time with this because I completely disagree. Writing out the accents is a form of spoonfeeding the reader and it really breaks up the otherwise banal structure of dialogue > said tag > period by immediately cluing in the reader to who's talking. Maybe that's not a convincing argument to the haters who insist they don't need my help imagining what the Apple Family sounds like but it's my justification and I'm sticking to it. Open wide, Fimfiction!

That said, if the author is baffling the reader for any reason on account of the presentation of the prose, that is on the author for writing badly. Accents are nice but don't overdue them is my advice.

The bulk of the chapter introduces all the OC dogs (and a duck) and their unique quirks. A little ride on the exposition train we find out what they're trying to do. It turns out they are trying to do a ritual to summon a world-ending demon. Which is """funny""" because they're dogs. And Winona is going to help them or else they'll kill her.

It's true you don't expect man's best friend to summon Cthulu. Then again, no one saw calamity coming from an Austrian painter either.

Chapter 5 time-lapses to Winona outside in pain from the fall and from broken glass injuries for 800 words. Then the roof explodes.

For real, I'm glad you read this and not me. Reading about people in pain is tough. Reading about animals in pain just hurts my soul.

Then the black orb that had been in the monster's hand fell to the floor and exploded. Splinters of floorboard and bits of drywall coated the two ponies as they were flung backward, the screams of Applebloom being cut off by the rambunctious sound.

And then the story ends.

I had a Russian fella ask me to edit for him years back on a fic of his which was also MLP horror. For reasons I can't explain, I took him up on the offer and read it. Setting aside the english being questionable, it had this exact same feeling I'm getting from your recounting of DiTA — a fixation on the mechanics of storytelling over making sense, the fetishization of certain story elements and an indifferent, even ironic, detachment the universe has towards those suffering. I'm almost wondering if ending stories like this isn't just a convention of the horror genre. People who don't read clopfiction are often amused by the fact that most stories end up with two or more characters having sex. That's not a defense of this work that I haven't read, just my gut reaction.

The technical writing is fine, when applied. (Good spelling, grammar, and punctuation.) But as mentioned above there are a lot of places where it isn't. And being intentional doesn't excuse you from writing out onomatope and assaulting my eyes with a wall of red text.

I'm glad you gave me hell for the onomotopoeia crap when I wrote Permissive Passion. I swear I'll never do it again. It's exactly as you say; gimmicky, obnoxious and immersion-breaking.

Completely aside from this thought, why do so many writers seem to revel in fourth-wall-breaking irony? Does the author just see themselves as being better than their work? Bro, you wrote it! You took time out of your day to write something so you can't act like you're above it. You're a nerd who writes fanfiction — stop being a smuglord and own it.

The bottom line is, I don't know who this story is for. But it wasn't for me.

I did a spot of reviewing at one point in my time on fimfiction and just stopped doing it. It's brutal reading in a genre you don't understand.

Bad review or not, I still think that this line is hilarious.

“Why can’t ya’ll get somedoggy else to do it?”

“We did have someone in mind…” Sweet Thing dripped sadly.

“Oh…” Spot muttered. “Red Rover… Red Rover…”

Winona raised a brow. “What happened to Red Rover?”

Sweet Thing placed a comforting paw onto Spot’s shoulder, giving Winona tearful eyes and sniffed. “Red Rover got ran over.”

Let it be said, everyone in the room shared a collective saddness.

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I reject the notion that art must necessarily be viewed this way.

I think what he was trying to say in that quote is that in order analyze the story without coming off as bias, it'd be good to try and understand the writer's perspective. Obviously, there was a different way he could have worded it, but look at it this way: he's reading a story that's for a very specific audience and trying to review it for what it is when he isn't that audience would be extremely difficult. So it helps to at least understand the type of person that the author is and understand why they write the way that they do. It's not removing subjectivity altogether, but instead trying to put aside that bias to look at the story from the writer's perspective.

It's funny you brought up Lord of the Rings, though. I just started reading that series. I'm really enjoying it!

...I'm barley on chapter two. ;~;

I guess I'm going to piss people off until the end of time with this because I completely disagree. Writing out the accents is a form of spoonfeeding the reader and it really breaks up the otherwise banal structure of dialogue > said tag > period by immediately cluing in the reader to who's talking. Maybe that's not a convincing argument to the haters who insist they don't need my help imagining what the Apple Family sounds like but it's my justification and I'm sticking to it. Open wide, Fimfiction!

I completely agree. If we want to get on the topic of "subjective," this would be a fine example of that. I've heard plenty of times, "Show, don't tell." There are some cases where you can only tell the audience what kind of accent a character has, and usually it doesn't matter enough to explain. However, it's not fair to completely throw phonetics out the window. There's a notable difference between how a person sounds and how they pronounce certain words. There is some justification in this argument in that it's very easy to write a stereotypical accent, but really it depends on how well the writer handles it. If their dialogue is thick with phonetics and harder to decipher than The Da Vinci Code, then lighten up. Clarity is your most reliable friend.

For real, I'm glad you read this and not me. Reading about people in pain is tough. Reading about animals in pain just hurts my soul.

I'll defend this, even though I don't like this story much myself, lmao.

(A) It takes place in the MLP universe, where all of the characters are animals of some kind. (B) The dogs are personified and trying to reclaim the world for themselves. If this was an actual novel with real people, then I wouldn't be arguing this point.

Completely aside from this thought, why do so many writers seem to revel in fourth-wall-breaking irony? Does the author just see themselves as being better than their work? Bro, you wrote it! You took time out of your day to write something so you can't act like you're above it. You're a nerd who writes fanfiction — stop being a smuglord and own it.

At the time I thought it'd be a cool stylistic choice to integrate the red text, but still...

"Oof"
-50 Ego