Millennial Heartstrings

by The Apologetic Pony

In Deepest Of Forbidden Archives

Twilight has something to say about all this.

Author's Note:

I hope you enjoy the sequel.

Comments

[Simon_oSullivan]

Simon o'Sullivan here, working on my way to get this review done for you. My faithful Beard will help me with this task.

By only reading the first chapter I noticed that, when I checked a previous review you got, few changes were made following it. During first person narration I understand the use of ellipses, though I'm not a fan of them outside of actual dialogues. What really called my attention were those brackets there that, though it's true that they're correctly used here, could be replaced by commas, which you're quite fond of.

Comma overuse is usually the opposite of the problem I usually see. There are instances where commas are wrongly used. Here's an example.

cocked my head and looked up, into her queerly sorrowful gaze.

That comma there isn't necessary.

With its narrow minded view of sophistication, but to an objective layman, was closer to a rampant elitism and, hats. Often silly; occasionally garish, hats.

This is the greater clusterfuck of comma use. Turn the semicolon into a comma, and delete the two commas before "hats".

Now, as much as I like Garfield's comics, where he has the voice and knowledge of a man who's lived a long life, a venerable sage, if you might, it's hard to find comfort in seeing Philomena speaking like that. But only because of the obscure word we find every now and then, but also because it's odd to picture how she speaks about her doubts revealed by the Sun or things like that.

I had been explicitly (fore)warned

That part looks weird to me. I would rephrase it to avoid that half of a word between brackets. Maybe something like: "Ever since the first of my youths, I had been explicitly warned about blahblahblah yaggidish maggisidh." You get the idea.

My Beard gets moody when it sees comments in the middle of the story, such as the joke Philomena makes about time killer/healer, which doesn't add anything to the story aside from showing Philomena won't be able to earn a living as a stand up comedian (though the idea of having a bird telling jokes in a comedy club sounds hilarious)

and thus unmolested

My dirty mind strikes again! This is correct, I guess, but I would've gone with "undisturbed" for the reasons I made this joke.

Plus, ponies never looked up.

They must have the filthiest of ceilings if they don't see how many cobwebs and monstrous dirt they have there.

I needed to leave. Right now.

This is another greater problem in the story. If you're writing a story in the past (or telling past events) you have to remember the rules if indirect speech. Now becomes then, this becomes that and so on. These mistakes make the story confusing when time applies and, while I enjoy some timey-wimey stuff, I’d rather only see those in Doctor Who crossovers.

the building a warehouse.

Something's missing here, maybe the "of" between "building" and "a".

There are also some walls of text that sometimes cover the screen almost completely. Do your best to try to split them into smaller paragraphs.

The last point I should mention is the story. Or, in this case, the lack thereof. I’ve read the first three chapters, but there doesn’t seen to be any kind of... adventure, so to speak. The adventure tag is used for stories about... well, adventures. Travels, action... Imagine a story about a great war: ninjas fighting pirates. While the long lost ninjirates (a cultural mix of ninjas and pirates) try their best to find a relic that shows that ninjas and pirates were once allies, and those were the origin of the ninjirates. Have one ninjirate as the main character (or a group, if you want) and send them on an epic quest fighting against enemies like orc leprechauns and pixie trolls. THAT is an adventure. Probably the delirium of a madman as well, but you didn’t ask for a sane reviewer.

What I’m trying to say here is that there’s not much of a story here. Sure, things happen, but they don’t seem to be like a story. They’re just chapters, pieces of information here and there, but nothing else. Sure, Philomena gets her ass kicked in one part, but that’s pretty much it. While I’m not expecting Philomena to turn a fierce army of Diamond Dogs to ash with a fireball torrent, I expect dialogues and... well, events of some sort taking place. I mean, we have the ageless Philomena; she would be able to tell her version of moments like Luna’s banishment, the fight against Discord or even Sombra. There’s a lot to tell, considering that you have an unlimited amount of nothing official save for what Celestia told us. Other than that, there aren’t witnesses. Philomena could’ve been one, and using her point of view, could’ve shown the real tragedies behind the events. This is just a lot of exposition and barely touching most of the events mentioned, which I’m afraid it doesn’t qualify as a story to me, and would make certain readers lose interest, as there’s no such thing as a story taking place.

Okay, these three chapters were enough to get me with enough bases to work on a review and things to improve.

-Comma overuse, sometimes misplaced where they shouldn't be and vice versa (though in much lesser degree). Read the segments out loud and notice if the pauses sound natural and, if they do, leave the comma or remove it accordingly. You also use them for subordinate clauses, which you seem to be a fan of. Not a bad thing, though.

-Tense "shift". Not as using verbs in present or past, but the idea that the narrator seems to be change from telling a story that happened a long time ago to telling it as it happens. The comments like the "OW" when she's thrown against the floor don't help you either. Fix those and/or remove them.

-I've seen people using double space because they were used to writing using typewriters, but I'm afraid this is not the case, for they fall randomly and not always in the beginning of a sentence in the middle of a paragraph.

Other than that, I don't see that much of an issue. It's slightly purply, but not enough for me to throw you a brick to the head, and we're talking about a bird who doesn't give a back flipping damn about time because she has unlimited regenerations. She's like the Doctor, but without the alien invasions.

That is all we have to say for now. Good luck and keep improving.

Simon o’Sullivan and Beard, WRITE’s Manly Reviewers of Manly Fics

[The Apologetic Pony]

2990479
Yup, I'd have to agree with all those, too, many, commas, included. Admittedly, I'm not sure when (if ever) I'll fix them for this particular story, it was more of an experiment than anything. Though I'm going to fix the flaws you've pointed out for the sequel I'm currently writing at the very least. I hope you don't consider that a waste of your efforts. Of course, thanks for the helpful review!

[The Apologetic Pony]

4085985
Thank you so much for all of your kind comments! I squealed in delight once I realised you'd read the entire thing in a single day, haha. It's a real rarity for someone to enjoy my writing as much as you have, and I'm glad the eight months I put into this thing was worth something, other than simple self indulgence. If you're so inclined, let me know what you think of the sequel too, I'd certainly appreciate it.

[The Amateur]

4086431 It would be my pleasure.