Story description:

A short tale about a mare who finds her way through it all. Along the way, she might even find that elusive thing that many search for.

Review story synopsis: Gloryhorn goes through the motions of living life in college. She found love and we get to witness the pair's relationship bloom, crumble, and reignite. During the story, her friends support her shenanigans although we only get tiny snippets of their bonds. After a falling out with her marefriend over a brief mentioning of her parents, Glory learns to take it slow and start all over to eventually marry Umbana and introduce her to a new family where she can feel less alone.

Ok, now for the nitty gritty of this fic-ditty. The—

Characters N/A & here's why...

We got OCs in this story. I am guilty of writing stories with OCs but this is someone else's OCs that are apparently in a fic series? I believe? That means we, the reader, basically stumbled upon the middle of a show without any clue what's going on. Let me reiterate. Reading this was like tuning into Game of Thrones mid series without any prior knowledge of... anything. I was confused. There was an iffy feeling I had going in. Let's start with our protagonist,

Gloryhorn. She's a college student out partying, very sarcastic and has a bit of an attitude. Glory swore often and progressively became an active protagonist. An active protagonist will cause events in the story to unfold, a passive one has stuff thrown at them to overcome. She felt a bit stale due to the shortness of the fic. I wanted to relate to the character and understand her as a person/pony but unfortunately, besides the romantic plot of falling in love with Umbana, I was left with questions about who she was.

Umbana. There was an interesting thing going with her when she was introduced— the rhyming. Imagine a snarky, somewhat distant, love interest who happens to be a Zebra, showing their affection in unexplored ways a creature with a different culture can. We unfortunately got half of that. If this fic were longer, I'm sure a good author such as yourself could've implemented something like that. She needed more of a reason to just up and leave Glory. The parental drama was a good conflict in the story but this fic made it seem as if that one incident was all it took. I understand there was this unspoken distance in their friendship as if they were on the verge of splitting up, however, I had very little time reading about them to fully grasp this initially.

Friends/Glory's parents. A lot of potential was missed. That's the tragedy of such a short story. I really liked Infernous. He brought this energy at the beginning of the story, sort of hyper in a way. He took care of Glory during her hangover where she felt ill. The action of showing instead of telling could've been used more throughout the story. It's much more fun as a reader to piece together plot elements. Raspy was a side character well accquianted with Glory. He has very few lines, some regard her being a clientele but there was nothing of note with him. Glory's parents appear at the very end and it's what the story was mainly leading to. We're told Umbana is lonely and by herself, possibly needing a family that cares about her. So, I must talk about—

Plot/writing/prose N/A & here's why...

Plot in depth. There were few characters other than Glory and Umbana, meaning, the story was about their relationship falling apart because of mentioning her family. Why? The story doesn't explain. I assume it's because Umbana is a Zebra and Glory is a regular mare? The reason I think this is about species... it's because Umbana stopped rhyming and in fanon, Zebras are stigmatized. They aren't exactly pals with pony-kin (I don't read the comics. Remember Zecora’s introduction episode?). So, yeahh, the main conflict was Umbana and Glory's strained relationship because her parents were mentioned. These lines here:

"-who do they even think they're fooling?" Umbana continued. "It's so obvious, like why don't they just come right out and say it. What? Who's going to care."

"Uhhh..." I tried to come up with something clever but could only think of the first thing that came to mind. "Their parents?"

That is all we get of this hinted at tension. There was a focus on Glory wanting to fill the hole in her heart with sleeping around and drowning in tons of school work but again, this fic is super short so before we personally read her experiences without anyone to turn to, a time jump happens taking place years later. It was super cute seeing how the couple befriended one another again, going out to get coffee and breakfast over the course of many months. I like the slowed pace and if it was anything that didn't need to be rushed, it was this. For the eleventh time... a story like this can't be so short. I wanted to get to know them because before you know it, bam, Glory proposes to her marefriend after a short scene of jewelry shopping. And that's where the fic ends. Sort of. The story ends on a high note where Glory and her wife introduces her parents. I, personally, felt this needed to end on a cliffhanger; uncertain whether or not their future would need work or not. It would've felt contrived and overdone, yes, but it would've left a stronger impact. We would assume Glory has nice parents but cliffhangers are needed in some cases.

Writing. A few grammar mistakes here and there but it wasn't too distracting from the overall reading. I think, maybe, the characters needed a longer time to speak or pause their sentences to sound a little more natural. Dialogue was used a lot less than I've expected. It's in the first person POV. The protagonist talks a lot more than the characters of course because we understand their thoughts, but Glory usually talked about what's happening between her interactions. Here's an example:

We ate, and talked of times long past of names and faces set adrift by time.

She spoke briefly of the future, I spoke of nothing. To be lost in those deep eyes and curve of her figure was enough.

We don't hear these conversations. It's because the fic is short, yes, but this is another instance of how much more words this needed.

Prose. I quite liked your narration and way with words. Glory's descriptions on how she feels about the love of her life were done beautifully. There were passing mentions of the scenery and I like how we, the reader, instantly image a bustling city or park filled with green and nature.

So, my—

Overall enjoyment N/A & here's why...

hmm, did I laugh... cry... feel scared? I felt a little bad for Glory because breakups are devastating. I felt glad she managed to fix things with Umbana but feeling good felt... strange. There happened to be a few moments where the reader would've felt concerned or worried during Glory's period of woe but it's brief. This needed at least another chapter or two. I loved their relationship and the short time spent with these characters feels a little upsetting. They might be part of a separate series or something but as a self contained piece, it missed the mark. Mostly because of the length.

I know I chewed this story badly in regards to the size not doing the writing justice, however, this isn't a bad story. No-no-no. I enjoyed Glory and Umbana’s relationship and the message of mending a relationship to make a brighter future. That was all adorable and the characters were great. Well done. Here's a cookie 🍪

Score: none. this is a test review but I think this story is good. Would've got a 10/15 (70%) if it had been

7801652
Nice and well-written take!

7801655
thank you, kind porcupine