Hello, I am your WRITE reviewer. It's my pleasure to go through your story, pick up on themes, tones, and any and all thingies of literary import I bring to attention. Mostly I'll focus on the more abstract concepts of writing, only bringing grammatical flaws to attention if they happen to be excessive and overbearing. I'm very casual in this process, but hopefully thorough to your satisfaction in picking out the good, the bad, and the interesting qualities that make up this story. Any questions you have about the coming review I'll be happy to adress, either by pm or reply comment.
First impression - the title page shows attention and effort. The descrption is written at a good standard.
This story starts off, well, it starts off pretty friggin cheery, right? Yeah. It opens, not with expositional narrative but a strong and sudden character action, whichtoo few stories use. As such, this opening is powerful, grabbing, without presenting a overwrought tour-guide to the story by means of boring, passive telling. Everything we need to know came from the description, and the story proper establishes the icky bits. Even the imagery applied, particularily the broken mirror, is tastefully done and establishes the tone of the story.
To expand on this, the fact that DT and SS (don't write it shorthand in the story, there was one instance of this) are worried enough about street-safety to go to a pseudo-enemy for help? Establishes background/world tone. A back alley mugging (attempted, anyway)? Again, establishes tone. Clearly, our happy little anthro freaks are not all that happy.
SPEAKING of anthro - this is a tag I see applied (most often to clop, 'cause reasons: ['cause boobs]) and it's rare to see it applied in a truly literary sense. Indeed, I often wonder if it have ever merited it's own tag. It's like having 'Vampire' as a genre on the shelf of my local bookstore. (It's between Fantasy and Self-Help ) That Unraveling does make effective use of anthro as tag is promising and rewarding. Indeed, the opening image with the shard-blade, ridiculous to imagine with ponies without a heap of writing to establish disbelief in advance, is more disturbing and unsettling for the...familiarity that arms and hands and fingers bear for us.
The recurring mentions of Sweetie Belle piqued my interest quite early, and the fact that they are recurring suggests that not only is the concept of not being rude for her important, but quite important.
The selective memory is confusing, but not in a bad way. Many times when I say a story is confusing, it's because of poor writing; the inability of the story to act as medium in conveying the writer's imagination to readers. Here, rather, I am confused because I am captivated, like I would be at the start of a mystery. It goads one to keep reading, it will be revealed in time, and for now implies at the full extent of the psychological damage done to Scootaloo.
The fact that she quite calmly decides that they want to taste her tongue-blood really reinforces that impression; that sort of insane perspective in which, after following largely normal rational and reasoning, the individual still misses obvious errors in judgement or ends up on disturbing notions entirely, as we see here.
Everything herein suggests a moral scope ranging from gray to black. At 'best' we get a tepid, 'normal' Scootaloo who is at least not entirely likely to murder you, and at worst we get a considerably more murder-happy Scootaloo. For the nature of the story, it's a good thing. A lot of amateur writers aiming for angsty darkness in a story lay it on far too heavy and thick, which makes the whole thing ridiculous to read, completely debasing any semblance of reader investment or disbelief.
The fact that you do have a visible spectrum works in your favour. At the moment (if I take some poetic liscence to have fun with the concept) it ranges from wet concrete gray to sodden ashy (good colours for a dark fic)
Speaking of colours though, it's interesting that you choice to use that for her in-head little chats. I'm assuming that the orange is 'normal' Scoots (at least, that Scoots which still mistakenly believes herself to hold with the notions and values which we associate with the canon Scoots, and any decent ordinary person normally), with the others being aspects of herself, like a multi-personality split with overtures of schizophrenic episodes.
I'd like to point out again we see the gray-black spectrum nicely here as well. In a different story, we'd see various aspects being 'good' and 'bad' Here, however, RED seems murder happy (bad), but GREEN seems apathetic rather than repentant, even going so far as to decide against murdering the two girls due to purely technical, non-moral reasons. [It's wrong, GREEN decides, because she'd get caught, not because it's wrong] Purple seems ambiguous, but none too distraught over the whole thing, and so is also rather suspect.
In effect? Scootaloo is outnumbered and surrounded in her own mind by various darker aspects of hereself. We get unsettling references to Sweetie Belle, who so far is entirely absent, and who's involvement is likely to prompt further degradation (or a sizeable internal conflict in Scoots that will trigger the same effect anyway), and our leading little lady is taking to murder like junkies take to heroin.
Overview of the story - Very positive. Writing technique and understanding shows. There's none of the oft-encountered exposition dumps, rather the story begins with the present moment Scootaloo is in who, (quite naturally) has no particular need to go and summarise events for the readers' benefit. Rather, her thoughts, actions, dialogue and locale all work in conjunction to colour in the background details without ever needing you the narrator to call it to attention. Use of the anthro tag is relevant and contributes to the image and tone of the story. While there are questions, the story leaves one feeling confident that it is well aware of these, and that they are to answered in good time (not with aforementioned exposition dump)
As for the Gollemesque self-forum discussion she's got going on...the colour format does come across as somewhat...unrefined. That said, I wouldn't consider changing it essential, as it does do it's function neatly. Some would disagree, but it is better to have readily colour-coded speakers than having every single line try to shoehorn in a descriptor precise enough to convey which specific Scootaspect is saying what. Another option is to attribute everything but the 'normal' to personified objects or caricatures just like we see in the infamous ((and awesome)) episode Party Of One, with various sentiments going to inanimate objects. {as an aside, the manner in which that scene in the episode shows both Pinkie's perspective of the conversation and the reality of her puppeteering the whole thing is part of what lends it its impressive qualities of disturbing...y...ness.} The 'normal' Scoots could variously debate, reason, and argue with such objects as her knife, her reflection in the broken mirror (utilized in Lesson Zero, ((and totally copied by Return of The King), any object or concept would suffice; you certainly have the capacity as a writer to make it work, and work well, though it would take some small effort to make this change viable and good.
Negatives? There's not a whole lot of them. Quite few I could bring to mind, even (sorry to dissapoint). I had reservations about this fic (being dark and gore and all), but it's won me over quite neatly. I could dig into the techncalities a little more nit-picky than I have.
'DT and SS' - just don't. Don't abbreviate in narrative. Dialogue is more lax on this point, but absolutely not in narrative.
There is a slight tendency in the wording to repeat itself unnecssarily. For instance:
running one hand slowly over the blade as her muscle memory helped her rather effortlessly navigate the roads back home practically on autopilot
Since we're already told of muscle memory and effortless navigation, the 'practically on autopilot' mention serves only as emphasis. The sentence works entirely fine without that addition. At the very least, a comma or even a semi-colon (treacherous things) should pace out the wordflow there, hyst after 'home' so that it reads smoother.
Again, we see it here:
She'd actually recently learned to make the trek by board, scooter, bike, and on hoof blindfolded, she knew the roads, the sounds, every bump and crack of the roads.
An understandable run-on, I'd expect this to be "...blindfolded. She knew..." The second half also mentions roads twice needlessly. "She knew the sounds, every bump and crack of the roads OR She knew the roads, the sounds, every bump and crack." both work perfectly well. Like I said, these are rather nit-picky and small things to call to attention, and nothing to worry about.
One thing I would like to call some attention to is the way in which some paragraphs seem to be past tense, while other's are present tense. Typically a third person story of this nature is obligated to the past tense. It is unusual to see them both used here, and I'd have to call that an error (but not a particularily worrisome one)
What more can I say? This is well written. It doesn't bombard the reader with chaff or fluff. It establishes its own tone and images without the need for a narrative that steps on the toes of character development and character action. Good technique and standards are constant, and while there is some ambiguity about the choice of coloured correspondence, it isn't a critical issue. The tone itself adheres nicely to the Dark tag without trying too hard (and so undermining itself) Hell, it's a failed mugger she kills, so there isn't even a pretense virtue to cling to. Her various aspects are at best neutral and unfettered going right down to viciously enthusiastic, and even Scoots 'normal' displays some very worrying behaviours and tendencies.
And this is just the first chapter. In short, a promising start.
If you would like me to continue with reviews chapter by chapter, please let me know and I'll be happy to oblige you. Such reviews won't be so long as this, as a lot of the things I've gone through are once-off affairs, and will focus more singularily on characters and plot developments.
3252914 Thank you so much for taking the time for the review. More importantly, thank you for getting a bit nit-picky. I should have noticed those errors, and a few were less forgetting basic grammar rules and more my having lost train of thought and simply making silly slips. As such, I am beyond happy to know they are there. I'm going in and trying to fix the mistakes, as well as try to see where I've redone a few I'm sure I made in the other chapters. If I could get a review at the least on the other two chapters thus far, it would be a great personal relief. I hate making silly mistakes I don't know about because once they happen, the mind tends to overlook them in the future. Not a practice I want to begin. Also, I have a dreadful habit of attempting to crowd, or rush, a story. I'm not the best with patience, so I'm having to temper myself a lot. Again, if you wouldn't mind looking them over when you get the time, I would be extremely delighted.
3253005 Thank you so much. Take your time, please. I understand you're likely busy. Patience is something I need to learn for my stories if nothing else, so don't feel like you need to rush. I'll still be here, and so will Scootaloo.
3263514 I'm trying to work past my cobwebs. I guess burning through three chapters in three days plus school is just taking its toll. I'll have the next chapter up ASAP
3267750 So much as I truly love those, all of them, this was actually not inspired directly by any of them. Also, I like how you think. I hope you enjoy the next chapter. Assuming I can ever get started on the blasted thing...
3267776 Loyal readers? Of one of my stories? But as for the reason, I'm stuck with writer's block, as well as sort of waiting with a bit of a nervous tick on the review of my latest chapter. I feel I forced a lot of it, and that much of it leaves too much unanswered, more than I meant. I need to get that off my mind before I can focus on moving on from it. After all, the next chapter kind of needs to leap off from the last. If I get half-way through the next chapter, to find that my last is as full of holes as I fear, then I have to: 1) Fix my last chapter, likely rewrite most of it, possibly double the length to make things work out. 2) Take what I've fixed and make sure that my next chapter isn't screwed for them, and fix what is.
This chapter reads faster than the first two despite being just as long, but this is something natural now that the story is largely established. The fact that Scoot's is an unreliable Protagonist (her perspective of 'reality' doesn't exactly line up with what we can presume is 'real') intensifies and highlights the fuck'd-uppery endemic to Unraveling. Not only Scoot's self-harm, but the whole basement hobby too has been revealed to Sweetie, who takes it in surprsingly good stride (considering).
I noticed Scoots is going more the sadist with each kill; the first was almost predatory, the second was a quick execution, this...was torture. Straight up torture. Vicious and cruel. Whether the facsimilie of it being her is an enduring hallucination or something else...we're not to know, yet.
The introduction of Rarity was quick and to the point. She reinforces the tone of a darker verse than the canon we know, particular with mention of the past she'd rather not call up, and the spells from it.
I am confused by Sweetie Belle. She reacts more or less normally to the first revelation, but takes to clean-up with surprising diligence for what we see of it. It suggests quite a loyalty to Scoots and, to my suspicions, something else.
We also see that our mystery mare is in fact plural. This, and my other inklings lead me to suspect...things...
As for the chapter, it builds on and intensifies the established premise: Scootaloo the Friendly Neighbourhood evisceration-fiend. Grammar is again done spot on.
"Did you get cold or something, dear?"
Scootaloo blushed a bit, but quickly pulled her mind from where it was as she remembered she was wearing an undershirt.
This is an easily missed moment, and possibly the last trace-vestige of light and warmth left to this steadily descending story. Sanity is collapsing, pretense is collapsing, madness and death run rampant. I suppose we must see just how far the rabbit hole goes, hmm? If there's any redemption to be had for anyone, the oppurtunity's last thread is slipping away.
While my reviewer self finds little to fault, indede much to note and nod approvingly at, my not-reviwer self is a little distraught...which, to look at from a review perspective, is something of a compliment considering the nature of the story.
Hello, I am your WRITE reviewer. It's my pleasure to go through your story, pick up on themes, tones, and any and all thingies of literary import I bring to attention. Mostly I'll focus on the more abstract concepts of writing, only bringing grammatical flaws to attention if they happen to be excessive and overbearing. I'm very casual in this process, but hopefully thorough to your satisfaction in picking out the good, the bad, and the interesting qualities that make up this story. Any questions you have about the coming review I'll be happy to adress, either by pm or reply comment.
First impression - the title page shows attention and effort. The descrption is written at a good standard.
This story starts off, well, it starts off pretty friggin cheery, right? Yeah. It opens, not with expositional narrative but a strong and sudden character action, whichtoo few stories use. As such, this opening is powerful, grabbing, without presenting a overwrought tour-guide to the story by means of boring, passive telling. Everything we need to know came from the description, and the story proper establishes the icky bits. Even the imagery applied, particularily the broken mirror, is tastefully done and establishes the tone of the story.
To expand on this, the fact that DT and SS (don't write it shorthand in the story, there was one instance of this) are worried enough about street-safety to go to a pseudo-enemy for help? Establishes background/world tone. A back alley mugging (attempted, anyway)? Again, establishes tone. Clearly, our happy little anthro freaks are not all that happy.
SPEAKING of anthro - this is a tag I see applied (most often to clop, 'cause reasons: ['cause boobs]) and it's rare to see it applied in a truly literary sense. Indeed, I often wonder if it have ever merited it's own tag. It's like having 'Vampire' as a genre on the shelf of my local bookstore. (It's between Fantasy and Self-Help ) That Unraveling does make effective use of anthro as tag is promising and rewarding. Indeed, the opening image with the shard-blade, ridiculous to imagine with ponies without a heap of writing to establish disbelief in advance, is more disturbing and unsettling for the...familiarity that arms and hands and fingers bear for us.
The recurring mentions of Sweetie Belle piqued my interest quite early, and the fact that they are recurring suggests that not only is the concept of not being rude for her important, but quite important.
The selective memory is confusing, but not in a bad way. Many times when I say a story is confusing, it's because of poor writing; the inability of the story to act as medium in conveying the writer's imagination to readers. Here, rather, I am confused because I am captivated, like I would be at the start of a mystery. It goads one to keep reading, it will be revealed in time, and for now implies at the full extent of the psychological damage done to Scootaloo.
The fact that she quite calmly decides that they want to taste her tongue-blood really reinforces that impression; that sort of insane perspective in which, after following largely normal rational and reasoning, the individual still misses obvious errors in judgement or ends up on disturbing notions entirely, as we see here.
Everything herein suggests a moral scope ranging from gray to black. At 'best' we get a tepid, 'normal' Scootaloo who is at least not entirely likely to murder you, and at worst we get a considerably more murder-happy Scootaloo. For the nature of the story, it's a good thing. A lot of amateur writers aiming for angsty darkness in a story lay it on far too heavy and thick, which makes the whole thing ridiculous to read, completely debasing any semblance of reader investment or disbelief.
The fact that you do have a visible spectrum works in your favour. At the moment (if I take some poetic liscence to have fun with the concept) it ranges from wet concrete gray to sodden ashy (good colours for a dark fic)
Speaking of colours though, it's interesting that you choice to use that for her in-head little chats. I'm assuming that the orange is 'normal' Scoots (at least, that Scoots which still mistakenly believes herself to hold with the notions and values which we associate with the canon Scoots, and any decent ordinary person normally), with the others being aspects of herself, like a multi-personality split with overtures of schizophrenic episodes.
I'd like to point out again we see the gray-black spectrum nicely here as well. In a different story, we'd see various aspects being 'good' and 'bad' Here, however, RED seems murder happy (bad), but GREEN seems apathetic rather than repentant, even going so far as to decide against murdering the two girls due to purely technical, non-moral reasons. [It's wrong, GREEN decides, because she'd get caught, not because it's wrong] Purple seems ambiguous, but none too distraught over the whole thing, and so is also rather suspect.
In effect? Scootaloo is outnumbered and surrounded in her own mind by various darker aspects of hereself. We get unsettling references to Sweetie Belle, who so far is entirely absent, and who's involvement is likely to prompt further degradation (or a sizeable internal conflict in Scoots that will trigger the same effect anyway), and our leading little lady is taking to murder like junkies take to heroin.
Overview of the story - Very positive. Writing technique and understanding shows. There's none of the oft-encountered exposition dumps, rather the story begins with the present moment Scootaloo is in who, (quite naturally) has no particular need to go and summarise events for the readers' benefit. Rather, her thoughts, actions, dialogue and locale all work in conjunction to colour in the background details without ever needing you the narrator to call it to attention. Use of the anthro tag is relevant and contributes to the image and tone of the story. While there are questions, the story leaves one feeling confident that it is well aware of these, and that they are to answered in good time (not with aforementioned exposition dump)
As for the Gollemesque self-forum discussion she's got going on...the colour format does come across as somewhat...unrefined. That said, I wouldn't consider changing it essential, as it does do it's function neatly. Some would disagree, but it is better to have readily colour-coded speakers than having every single line try to shoehorn in a descriptor precise enough to convey which specific Scootaspect is saying what. Another option is to attribute everything but the 'normal' to personified objects or caricatures just like we see in the infamous ((and awesome)) episode Party Of One, with various sentiments going to inanimate objects. {as an aside, the manner in which that scene in the episode shows both Pinkie's perspective of the conversation and the reality of her puppeteering the whole thing is part of what lends it its impressive qualities of disturbing...y...ness.} The 'normal' Scoots could variously debate, reason, and argue with such objects as her knife, her reflection in the broken mirror (utilized in Lesson Zero, ((and totally copied by Return of The King), any object or concept would suffice; you certainly have the capacity as a writer to make it work, and work well, though it would take some small effort to make this change viable and good.
Negatives? There's not a whole lot of them. Quite few I could bring to mind, even (sorry to dissapoint). I had reservations about this fic (being dark and gore and all), but it's won me over quite neatly. I could dig into the techncalities a little more nit-picky than I have.
'DT and SS' - just don't. Don't abbreviate in narrative. Dialogue is more lax on this point, but absolutely not in narrative.
There is a slight tendency in the wording to repeat itself unnecssarily. For instance:
Since we're already told of muscle memory and effortless navigation, the 'practically on autopilot' mention serves only as emphasis. The sentence works entirely fine without that addition. At the very least, a comma or even a semi-colon (treacherous things) should pace out the wordflow there, hyst after 'home' so that it reads smoother.
Again, we see it here:
An understandable run-on, I'd expect this to be "...blindfolded. She knew..." The second half also mentions roads twice needlessly. "She knew the sounds, every bump and crack of the roads OR She knew the roads, the sounds, every bump and crack." both work perfectly well. Like I said, these are rather nit-picky and small things to call to attention, and nothing to worry about.
One thing I would like to call some attention to is the way in which some paragraphs seem to be past tense, while other's are present tense. Typically a third person story of this nature is obligated to the past tense. It is unusual to see them both used here, and I'd have to call that an error (but not a particularily worrisome one)
What more can I say? This is well written. It doesn't bombard the reader with chaff or fluff. It establishes its own tone and images without the need for a narrative that steps on the toes of character development and character action. Good technique and standards are constant, and while there is some ambiguity about the choice of coloured correspondence, it isn't a critical issue. The tone itself adheres nicely to the Dark tag without trying too hard (and so undermining itself) Hell, it's a failed mugger she kills, so there isn't even a pretense virtue to cling to. Her various aspects are at best neutral and unfettered going right down to viciously enthusiastic, and even Scoots 'normal' displays some very worrying behaviours and tendencies.
And this is just the first chapter.
In short, a promising start.
If you would like me to continue with reviews chapter by chapter, please let me know and I'll be happy to oblige you. Such reviews won't be so long as this, as a lot of the things I've gone through are once-off affairs, and will focus more singularily on characters and plot developments.
3252914 Thank you so much for taking the time for the review. More importantly, thank you for getting a bit nit-picky. I should have noticed those errors, and a few were less forgetting basic grammar rules and more my having lost train of thought and simply making silly slips. As such, I am beyond happy to know they are there. I'm going in and trying to fix the mistakes, as well as try to see where I've redone a few I'm sure I made in the other chapters. If I could get a review at the least on the other two chapters thus far, it would be a great personal relief. I hate making silly mistakes I don't know about because once they happen, the mind tends to overlook them in the future. Not a practice I want to begin. Also, I have a dreadful habit of attempting to crowd, or rush, a story. I'm not the best with patience, so I'm having to temper myself a lot. Again, if you wouldn't mind looking them over when you get the time, I would be extremely delighted.
3252988
Sure thing, I'll get the next chapter's review ready for you within a day or so.
3253005 Thank you so much. Take your time, please. I understand you're likely busy. Patience is something I need to learn for my stories if nothing else, so don't feel like you need to rush. I'll still be here, and so will Scootaloo.
This story is awesome keep up the good work.
3260083 Thank you. I'm hoping to have the next chapter out within the week.
Awesome
I honestly want to know where this goes, and I rarely find an awesome grimdark that I fully enjoy! Feed the dark creatures.
3263514 I'm trying to work past my cobwebs. I guess burning through three chapters in three days plus school is just taking its toll. I'll have the next chapter up ASAP
Pinkamena, more than likely.
Lil Miss Rarity, possibly.
Broken Loyalty, possibly.
Sadistic Scootaloo, definatley.
I like this. I like this a lot.
3267750 So much as I truly love those, all of them, this was actually not inspired directly by any of them. Also, I like how you think. I hope you enjoy the next chapter. Assuming I can ever get started on the blasted thing...
3267763
I own a magnifying glass, you know.
Start off with the 'mysterious voices', discussing Scoot. Maybe see if you can get Sweetie to join in? That would be a lovely twist.
Now, if it's a matter of you're too busy, just do it when you have time. I'm sure the loyal readers can wait.
3267776 Loyal readers? Of one of my stories? But as for the reason, I'm stuck with writer's block, as well as sort of waiting with a bit of a nervous tick on the review of my latest chapter. I feel I forced a lot of it, and that much of it leaves too much unanswered, more than I meant. I need to get that off my mind before I can focus on moving on from it. After all, the next chapter kind of needs to leap off from the last. If I get half-way through the next chapter, to find that my last is as full of holes as I fear, then I have to:
1) Fix my last chapter, likely rewrite most of it, possibly double the length to make things work out.
2) Take what I've fixed and make sure that my next chapter isn't screwed for them, and fix what is.
3267807
I see. That is troubling.
Wish I could help, but I can't. To do so would require us to meet in person, which is, more than likely, impossible.
Shame really. I'd have liked to meet you.
3267913 Agreed. Ah well. Onward to Stuff and Things
Review chapter 3 -
This chapter reads faster than the first two despite being just as long, but this is something natural now that the story is largely established. The fact that Scoot's is an unreliable Protagonist (her perspective of 'reality' doesn't exactly line up with what we can presume is 'real') intensifies and highlights the fuck'd-uppery endemic to Unraveling. Not only Scoot's self-harm, but the whole basement hobby too has been revealed to Sweetie, who takes it in surprsingly good stride (considering).
I noticed Scoots is going more the sadist with each kill; the first was almost predatory, the second was a quick execution, this...was torture. Straight up torture. Vicious and cruel. Whether the facsimilie of it being her is an enduring hallucination or something else...we're not to know, yet.
The introduction of Rarity was quick and to the point. She reinforces the tone of a darker verse than the canon we know, particular with mention of the past she'd rather not call up, and the spells from it.
I am confused by Sweetie Belle. She reacts more or less normally to the first revelation, but takes to clean-up with surprising diligence for what we see of it. It suggests quite a loyalty to Scoots and, to my suspicions, something else.
We also see that our mystery mare is in fact plural. This, and my other inklings lead me to suspect...things...
As for the chapter, it builds on and intensifies the established premise: Scootaloo the Friendly Neighbourhood evisceration-fiend. Grammar is again done spot on.
This is an easily missed moment, and possibly the last trace-vestige of light and warmth left to this steadily descending story. Sanity is collapsing, pretense is collapsing, madness and death run rampant. I suppose we must see just how far the rabbit hole goes, hmm? If there's any redemption to be had for anyone, the oppurtunity's last thread is slipping away.
While my reviewer self finds little to fault, indede much to note and nod approvingly at, my not-reviwer self is a little distraught...which, to look at from a review perspective, is something of a compliment considering the nature of the story.
Oh my... I think I know who our mysterious mare is, but we'll see. Onto the next~
oh I think I’m getting this story now or maybe not, but I do wonder who that mysterious mare is, hmmm