Gentlemen, behold!
I have returned, and assuming that interest in these threads continues, I will henceforth be resuming my review series, though I am altering my approach slightly. I will explain below.
>What the hell is this?!?
These threads first began as a mostly humorous response to a certain obnoxious British poster who shall remain nameless. Way back in the bygone days of 2018, this individual attempted to shill a fanfiction he'd written by starting not one but two threads about it. The response to his opus was almost universally negative, and unfortunately he was not the sort of person who handled criticism well. The resultant shitflinging war would become known in the annals of /mlpol/ history as Glimmergate II.
This unnamed individual's intense autism eventually became so repellent that I took it upon myself to go through his work line by line and tell him, quite explicitly, everything that was wrong with it. This turned out to be a much larger project than I'd envisioned, and it ultimately took several months to complete. Due to the author's fixation with Starlight Glimmer, which formed the center of the controversy, I adopted Glim Glam as a moniker.
I started the project under the assumption that it was just a bit of funposting that would run its course and then end. As far as literary criticism went, I was mostly just blowing smoke out of my ass and having a giggle; I assumed that sooner or later the drama would die down and my tripfagging would get annoying. As such, the original plan was to finish what I had to say about Silver Star Apple and the Search for More Money, Love, The Meaning of Life, and Magical Cards, and then let "Glim Glam" drift quietly off into the sunset as long as I'm spilling my guts here I might as well come clean: I was also the guy who was tripfagging as King Battlebrit.
However, for whatever reason, people formed an impression that I actually had some idea of what the fuck I was talking about when it came to books, and so I received several requests from various Anons to review more fimfiction stories. After doing a couple of these, I realized I enjoyed reviewing stories, and also that as a writer I was learning a surprising amount from these authors mistakes, and thus Glim Glam's Infinite Ham-Slam was born.
My previous reviews are listed below, in reverse chronological order:
Neo-Equestrian Obstetrics
by Kassaz
>>>/mlpol/348497 →
I.D.: That Indestructible Something
by Chatoyance
>>>/mlpol/342944 →
Our Girl Scootaloo
By Cozy Mark IV
>>>/mlpol/331344 →
Rainmetall (included in the Our Girl Scootaloo thread, post # indicates start point)
By /mlpol/'s very own Mexican Anon
>>>/mlpol/338993 →
The Best Night Ever
By Capn_Chryssalid
>>>/mlpol/327793 →
Fallout: Equestria
By kkat
>>>/mlpol/284789 →
The Sun & The Rose
By soulpillar
>>>/mlpol/269307 →
Friendship is Optimal (included in the Past Sins thread, post # indicates start point)
By Iceman
>>>/mlpol/266598 →
Past Sins
By Pen Stroke
>>>/mlpol/248482 →
Would it Matter if I Was?
By GaPJaxie
>>>/mlpol/202151 →
The Original Silver Star Threads:
(these threads are pretty chaotic and I don't begin "reviewing" until midway through, but they're an entertaining read if you have the patience to comb through them)
>>>/mlpol/165646 →
>>>/mlpol/166716 →
>No, seriously, what the hell is this?!?
To my eternal surprise, these threads have not only continued to generate interest here, but I've also had a couple of odd people from outside the site wander in and ask me to review things. A couple of anons have said that my comments on a few stories might be of value to the MLP fan community at large, and have suggested that I reformat them to make them a little more...palatable.
Again, when I first began this project, I assumed these were mostly just shitposts being written on a site that few people bothered to visit, and as such I had no compunctions about peppering them with vulgarity and slurs because really, if you can't use the internet to anonymously hurl epithets at a complete stranger, then what is it even for?. With a couple of exceptions, most of the stories I've reviewed are well-known, well-loved stories written by horse-famous authors. As such, I feel like I've mostly been punching up, and I make absolutely no apology for any comments I've made about how god-awful most of this dreck actually is when you examine it closely.
However, in a slightly broader scope, asking someone from the more genteel quarters of the fandom to comb through page after page of me calling Pen Stroke a faggot may be a rather tall order, particularly if they are unfamiliar with the way imageboards work. So, I have decided to make the following changes to my approach:
1. These threads will still be done in the same read-and-react format to which you are all accustomed, and in general not much is going to change. However, I am going to make a conscious effort to make my commentary a smad less obscene no promises, but I do intend to try, and I am also going to try to get through individual stories more quickly (especially the long ones).
2. I will also be hosting an off-site blog (currently in development, link will be posted when it's ready) containing truncated reviews of select stories, reformatted to be more accessible to the broader MLP fandom and fanfiction community. Reviews posted to this blog will be formatted like normal articles, and will be a summation of my thoughts on the fics being discussed, rather than a long, meandering read-through, and will contain 20% fewer gay jokes and ethnic slurs. Updates will be posted as the project progresses.
Now then, with all of that out of the way...
Current Story:
Exchange
by getmeouttahere
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/169217/exchange
requested by that anon who keeps bugging me about it
/mlpol/ - My Little Politics
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150 replies and 113 files omitted.
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>>371063
>A polite cough from Rarity interrupts the alicorn sisters’ conversation. Both turn their attention toward the fashionista and the rest of the ponies do the same.
LUS again. Not only is Rarity's being a fashionista a well-established fact, but it's not even remotely relevant to anything that's going on in this scene. Also, the entire second sentence is awkwardly written. Try this:
>Everyone turns their attention to her.
Anyway, Rarity suggests that they use gems to amplify the Princesses' magic in lieu of the airship. Luna initially shoots this down, as the OP spell they are trying to cast would require far stronger gems than anything they have on hand. Also, they would already need to be infused with high-level magic.
Well, in yet another improbable coincidence, Anon reminds them that they do, in fact, have several such gems: the gems he was using earlier to sap Twilight's magic are both high-quality and infused with high-level magic. Moreover, they have 25 of these, and only 7 are required to fire off a blast equal in magnitude to what the ship could produce. So, they can afford to hit the Harbinger at least three times, with two blasts being sufficient to disable it.
Anyway, the conversation goes on for a long, long while; honestly large chunks of this section could probably be cut. The basic gist of it is that they are planning to use the gems to amplify the magic somehow, when Twilight suddenly shows up again. She mocks them briefly, and then begins firing torpedoes at them. The torpedoes track the movement of the ship, and are designed to sap the remaining power from the engines, which you may or may not remember are only functioning at 50% power now. Twilight's target is now the Dawn Star itself, because apparently the Dark Star told her that if she destroys that ship, it will somehow convince Anon that he actually does want to sex her vagina.
Meanwhile, Luna apologizes to Anon for her earlier indifference to his situation:
> “We... we dearly apologize for what has happened in regards to our behavior. Our focus was on the safety and stability of Equestria, but that does not excuse what we’ve done. Truly, t’was no way for us to treat one who will become our future brother-in-law, and we shall need to make it up to the both of thee later.”
So, it looks like Luna is fully on their side now.
>The fashionista steps back, her nervousness visible in the motion.
This sentence is bad and you should feel bad.
>A blue hoof reaches out and taps your tuxedo jacket.
>“Try not to ruin this, as we are certain it will be needed again in time, Brother.”
Oh yeah, I forgot that Anon is still wearing his tuxedo from the wedding. In my defense, it's not quite as memorable a detail as the milk carton on Celestia's horn.
Anyway, the plan now is to something something whatever with the gems. For some reason they need Rarity's help, and Rainbow Dash takes off while carrying her. Rarity seems to be no less confused than I am about whatever they are planning to do, which doesn't exactly bode well. Meanwhile, Celestia flies off to go deal with the torpedoes I guess. I have to be honest, I'm beginning to lose track of exactly wtf is going on in this scene.
So...Big Mac and Anon argue for awhile about how much power the engines can take, or lose, or be charged to, or something. Then, Big Mac runs off to futz with the engines, and Anon goes back to dealing with the controls. Pinkie offers him some words of encouragement, which seem to buoy his spirits somewhat.
>Come to think of it... she’s right. With the other ponies gone, you’re down to the original crew you had when this crazy journey first started. Well, that plus an extra filly or two, but who’s counting, right?
Yeah, I have to be honest here as well: I have also lost track of where everyone is in physical space. I think Celestia is off blasting torpedoes, Rarity and Dash are off doing...something...Fluttershy is...somewhere....Luna is doing something with the gems I think, and the CMC I think are just standing around with Anon and Pinkie at the controls. I think. Fuck, this is getting a little confusing.
Anyway, Anon takes a moment to wax nostalgic about all of his fond memories of his time aboard this ship. Seems like kind of an inappropriate thing to be doing in the middle of a battle, but whatevs. The implication here seems to be that the ship is about to be destroyed.
>You look over to Celestia. She pants for breath during a lull between casting spells and your eyes meet hers.
Oh, wait. It seems I got it slightly wrong: Celestia is not flying around blasting torpedoes, she's just blasting at them while standing on the deck.
Protip: if you've got a lot of characters in a scene, try to keep their positions relatively simple, otherwise it starts to get confusing.
>You pick up the hyperactive Element of Laughter from where she’s leaning against your console and gently place her next to Applejack, who’s waiting near the entrance to the bridge. The farmpony shares an exasperated but sympathetic smile with you before you make your way back to Cel at the flight controls.
Case in point: between the LUS names the author keeps using and the fact that there are like 20 goddamn characters in this scene to keep track of, the author should really be trying to keep unnecessary position changes to a minimum. Also, this scene goes on way too long and contains a lot of extraneous banter and gags that, while amusing, just add to the confusion. If I were editing this, I'd probably suggest that this section be pared down considerably or rewritten.
Anyway, Big Mac overclocks the engines, but the ship holds together. They evade the torpedoes, and then the Harbinger appears in front of them and starts firing ghosts again. Anon decides it's now or never, and he yells for Celestia to do her whatever the fuck thing with the magic and gems. They take their shot, but tl;dr Twilight teleports away in time and they miss. The chapter ends here.
>A polite cough from Rarity interrupts the alicorn sisters’ conversation. Both turn their attention toward the fashionista and the rest of the ponies do the same.
LUS again. Not only is Rarity's being a fashionista a well-established fact, but it's not even remotely relevant to anything that's going on in this scene. Also, the entire second sentence is awkwardly written. Try this:
>Everyone turns their attention to her.
Anyway, Rarity suggests that they use gems to amplify the Princesses' magic in lieu of the airship. Luna initially shoots this down, as the OP spell they are trying to cast would require far stronger gems than anything they have on hand. Also, they would already need to be infused with high-level magic.
Well, in yet another improbable coincidence, Anon reminds them that they do, in fact, have several such gems: the gems he was using earlier to sap Twilight's magic are both high-quality and infused with high-level magic. Moreover, they have 25 of these, and only 7 are required to fire off a blast equal in magnitude to what the ship could produce. So, they can afford to hit the Harbinger at least three times, with two blasts being sufficient to disable it.
Anyway, the conversation goes on for a long, long while; honestly large chunks of this section could probably be cut. The basic gist of it is that they are planning to use the gems to amplify the magic somehow, when Twilight suddenly shows up again. She mocks them briefly, and then begins firing torpedoes at them. The torpedoes track the movement of the ship, and are designed to sap the remaining power from the engines, which you may or may not remember are only functioning at 50% power now. Twilight's target is now the Dawn Star itself, because apparently the Dark Star told her that if she destroys that ship, it will somehow convince Anon that he actually does want to sex her vagina.
Meanwhile, Luna apologizes to Anon for her earlier indifference to his situation:
> “We... we dearly apologize for what has happened in regards to our behavior. Our focus was on the safety and stability of Equestria, but that does not excuse what we’ve done. Truly, t’was no way for us to treat one who will become our future brother-in-law, and we shall need to make it up to the both of thee later.”
So, it looks like Luna is fully on their side now.
>The fashionista steps back, her nervousness visible in the motion.
This sentence is bad and you should feel bad.
>A blue hoof reaches out and taps your tuxedo jacket.
>“Try not to ruin this, as we are certain it will be needed again in time, Brother.”
Oh yeah, I forgot that Anon is still wearing his tuxedo from the wedding. In my defense, it's not quite as memorable a detail as the milk carton on Celestia's horn.
Anyway, the plan now is to something something whatever with the gems. For some reason they need Rarity's help, and Rainbow Dash takes off while carrying her. Rarity seems to be no less confused than I am about whatever they are planning to do, which doesn't exactly bode well. Meanwhile, Celestia flies off to go deal with the torpedoes I guess. I have to be honest, I'm beginning to lose track of exactly wtf is going on in this scene.
So...Big Mac and Anon argue for awhile about how much power the engines can take, or lose, or be charged to, or something. Then, Big Mac runs off to futz with the engines, and Anon goes back to dealing with the controls. Pinkie offers him some words of encouragement, which seem to buoy his spirits somewhat.
>Come to think of it... she’s right. With the other ponies gone, you’re down to the original crew you had when this crazy journey first started. Well, that plus an extra filly or two, but who’s counting, right?
Yeah, I have to be honest here as well: I have also lost track of where everyone is in physical space. I think Celestia is off blasting torpedoes, Rarity and Dash are off doing...something...Fluttershy is...somewhere....Luna is doing something with the gems I think, and the CMC I think are just standing around with Anon and Pinkie at the controls. I think. Fuck, this is getting a little confusing.
Anyway, Anon takes a moment to wax nostalgic about all of his fond memories of his time aboard this ship. Seems like kind of an inappropriate thing to be doing in the middle of a battle, but whatevs. The implication here seems to be that the ship is about to be destroyed.
>You look over to Celestia. She pants for breath during a lull between casting spells and your eyes meet hers.
Oh, wait. It seems I got it slightly wrong: Celestia is not flying around blasting torpedoes, she's just blasting at them while standing on the deck.
Protip: if you've got a lot of characters in a scene, try to keep their positions relatively simple, otherwise it starts to get confusing.
>You pick up the hyperactive Element of Laughter from where she’s leaning against your console and gently place her next to Applejack, who’s waiting near the entrance to the bridge. The farmpony shares an exasperated but sympathetic smile with you before you make your way back to Cel at the flight controls.
Case in point: between the LUS names the author keeps using and the fact that there are like 20 goddamn characters in this scene to keep track of, the author should really be trying to keep unnecessary position changes to a minimum. Also, this scene goes on way too long and contains a lot of extraneous banter and gags that, while amusing, just add to the confusion. If I were editing this, I'd probably suggest that this section be pared down considerably or rewritten.
Anyway, Big Mac overclocks the engines, but the ship holds together. They evade the torpedoes, and then the Harbinger appears in front of them and starts firing ghosts again. Anon decides it's now or never, and he yells for Celestia to do her whatever the fuck thing with the magic and gems. They take their shot, but tl;dr Twilight teleports away in time and they miss. The chapter ends here.
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>>371064
25 - White Wings
>The Princess of the Night paces about the deck of the ERA Salt Lick, formerly unit B-2 of the Concordia’s ill-fated escort fleet, and one of the two ships of said fleet still airborne. Under her orders, it hovers at a standstill a respectable distance away from the action unfolding in the vast skies above Canterlot Fields. The captain of the vessel nervously waits beside the Princess as he watches the battle between the Dawn Star and Harbinger unfold along with her.
Wait, why is Luna on this other ship all of a sudden? I thought she was helping to set up the gems so they could do that blast or whatever. See, this is exactly what I was just talking about: if my attention were not being constantly yanked around every which way by Fluttershy running off to cower in the cargo hold, or Rainbow Dash flying off with Rarity, or the CMC bouncing around while occasionally making pointless interjections like "wow" or "that's cool", or Pinkie and AJ playing musical chairs on deck and making small talk, important details like this would be much easier to keep track of.
Anyway, whatever; Luna's on some other ship now, I guess. Also, for some reason, Fluttershy is with her.
>“Nay,” she replies, not even bothering to turn to face him. “And also, effective immediately, this ship’s name is now the Nightshade. We shall need to have a talk with the pony responsible for naming these vessels during commissioning. Based on the examples seen so far, we are not impressed.”
Just what this story needed: more names for things.
ANYWAY, Flutters and Luna yak back and forth a bit. It seems that Luna is aware of "Mistress Notfluutershai's" real identity, which causes the margarine-yellow airborne miniature horse to have one of her trademark conniption fits. The rest of this is basically just the last scene of the previous chapter, except seen from Luna's point of view: Celestia fires on the ship, it teleports out of the way before the blast hits. Also, I forgot to mention this, but the errant blast hits Canterlot Castle and destroys Luna's observatory, much to her dismay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSUy2JIvUOI
There is a page break, and we return to Anon. He and Celestia are discussing their next move. Then, Luna's projection shows up and bitches them out about destroying her favorite observatory.
>“Hey! Is this thing on?!” A ghostly Rainbow Dash appears as well, twirling in the air with confidence. “Hey Anon, hey Princess! We made it and the SS Awesomeness is ready to go!”
>“That’s not the ship’s name...” you hear a voice mumble from somewhere behind her.
I guess that's what Dash and Rarity were up to in the previous chapter, I'm not sure if that was actually clarified or not. The last chapter was pretty much all over the place, and I had trouble keeping track of a lot of the details.
So, it looks like the plan is for Luna and (for some reason) Fluttershy to take command of one of the two remaining airships from Luna's fleet, while RD and Rarity take the other. I'm still not sure what exactly Anon has in mind, but I'm sure we'll find out shortly.
>“You ready?”
>She smiles softly. “Whether it be climbing a waterfall, or galloping across an endless snowfield, or flying through the sky, I trust and treasure you without hesitation and without fear. That, in itself, is a part of the joy I feel when we ride together, be it you upon my back or with the both of us here.”
A simple 'yes' would have sufficed, woman.
Anyway, Anon and Celestia have a tender moment, and then Anon orders Big Mac to fire up the engines and away they go. The Harbinger teleports in, and after some brief maneuvering Anon gets the ship in position and they fire as before. The Harbinger once again manages to teleport away before being hit, and this time Luna's airship is in the path of the beam.
However, it seems that this is all part of Anon's 10,000D chess game. Luna uses one of the leftover gems 25/7=3, with a remainder of 4; math is fun to catch the beam. When the Harbinger reappears, Luna destroys its shield by redirecting the spell.
The crowd on the deck of the Dawn Star even now, I don't think I 100% remember who exactly this includes erupts into a cheer, but this is premature as they still need to hit the Harbinger one more time. Twilight's voice crackles over the intercom, or whatever they have:
>“S-So... that was your plan...
>To redirect the attack using s-spare gems...
>Very clever, Anon. I should’ve... expected as much from you.
>But I know how many... you used to drain my magic at the wedding...
>And it won’t work... a second time...”
Never underestimate an autist's ability to count things.
Anyway, they pull the exact same stunt again, but this time Twilight is wise to their shenanigans and reacts accordingly. She teleports, Celestia fires, she teleports before it hits, Luna catches the beam, fires it at the place where Twilight reappears, but Twilight teleports again before it can hit. Before she does, however, she fires on Luna's ship and disables it. However, since this is their last shot anyway this hardly matters.
And in any case, Anon is now playing 10,000,000D chess. The beam rips through the place where Twilight teleported away the second time, but this time it goes hurtling toward the other ship, where Rarity is waiting with another gem. However, Rarity does not seem to have understood Anon's convoluted plan a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly sympathize, and she begins to pout and fret while the beam bears down on her. In the end, however, she manages to catch the beam with the gem.
Unfortunately, though, this is about as far as her luck goes. When Twilight's ship rematerializes in front of her, she immediately loses her shit again and the blast goes flying off in some random direction. Twilight, meanwhile, manages to blast the helium frame of her ship, and now Rarity is out of the game.
And so ends Anon's career as a 10,000,000,000D chessmaster, it would seem.
25 - White Wings
>The Princess of the Night paces about the deck of the ERA Salt Lick, formerly unit B-2 of the Concordia’s ill-fated escort fleet, and one of the two ships of said fleet still airborne. Under her orders, it hovers at a standstill a respectable distance away from the action unfolding in the vast skies above Canterlot Fields. The captain of the vessel nervously waits beside the Princess as he watches the battle between the Dawn Star and Harbinger unfold along with her.
Wait, why is Luna on this other ship all of a sudden? I thought she was helping to set up the gems so they could do that blast or whatever. See, this is exactly what I was just talking about: if my attention were not being constantly yanked around every which way by Fluttershy running off to cower in the cargo hold, or Rainbow Dash flying off with Rarity, or the CMC bouncing around while occasionally making pointless interjections like "wow" or "that's cool", or Pinkie and AJ playing musical chairs on deck and making small talk, important details like this would be much easier to keep track of.
Anyway, whatever; Luna's on some other ship now, I guess. Also, for some reason, Fluttershy is with her.
>“Nay,” she replies, not even bothering to turn to face him. “And also, effective immediately, this ship’s name is now the Nightshade. We shall need to have a talk with the pony responsible for naming these vessels during commissioning. Based on the examples seen so far, we are not impressed.”
Just what this story needed: more names for things.
ANYWAY, Flutters and Luna yak back and forth a bit. It seems that Luna is aware of "Mistress Notfluutershai's" real identity, which causes the margarine-yellow airborne miniature horse to have one of her trademark conniption fits. The rest of this is basically just the last scene of the previous chapter, except seen from Luna's point of view: Celestia fires on the ship, it teleports out of the way before the blast hits. Also, I forgot to mention this, but the errant blast hits Canterlot Castle and destroys Luna's observatory, much to her dismay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSUy2JIvUOI
There is a page break, and we return to Anon. He and Celestia are discussing their next move. Then, Luna's projection shows up and bitches them out about destroying her favorite observatory.
>“Hey! Is this thing on?!” A ghostly Rainbow Dash appears as well, twirling in the air with confidence. “Hey Anon, hey Princess! We made it and the SS Awesomeness is ready to go!”
>“That’s not the ship’s name...” you hear a voice mumble from somewhere behind her.
I guess that's what Dash and Rarity were up to in the previous chapter, I'm not sure if that was actually clarified or not. The last chapter was pretty much all over the place, and I had trouble keeping track of a lot of the details.
So, it looks like the plan is for Luna and (for some reason) Fluttershy to take command of one of the two remaining airships from Luna's fleet, while RD and Rarity take the other. I'm still not sure what exactly Anon has in mind, but I'm sure we'll find out shortly.
>“You ready?”
>She smiles softly. “Whether it be climbing a waterfall, or galloping across an endless snowfield, or flying through the sky, I trust and treasure you without hesitation and without fear. That, in itself, is a part of the joy I feel when we ride together, be it you upon my back or with the both of us here.”
A simple 'yes' would have sufficed, woman.
Anyway, Anon and Celestia have a tender moment, and then Anon orders Big Mac to fire up the engines and away they go. The Harbinger teleports in, and after some brief maneuvering Anon gets the ship in position and they fire as before. The Harbinger once again manages to teleport away before being hit, and this time Luna's airship is in the path of the beam.
However, it seems that this is all part of Anon's 10,000D chess game. Luna uses one of the leftover gems 25/7=3, with a remainder of 4; math is fun to catch the beam. When the Harbinger reappears, Luna destroys its shield by redirecting the spell.
The crowd on the deck of the Dawn Star even now, I don't think I 100% remember who exactly this includes erupts into a cheer, but this is premature as they still need to hit the Harbinger one more time. Twilight's voice crackles over the intercom, or whatever they have:
>“S-So... that was your plan...
>To redirect the attack using s-spare gems...
>Very clever, Anon. I should’ve... expected as much from you.
>But I know how many... you used to drain my magic at the wedding...
>And it won’t work... a second time...”
Never underestimate an autist's ability to count things.
Anyway, they pull the exact same stunt again, but this time Twilight is wise to their shenanigans and reacts accordingly. She teleports, Celestia fires, she teleports before it hits, Luna catches the beam, fires it at the place where Twilight reappears, but Twilight teleports again before it can hit. Before she does, however, she fires on Luna's ship and disables it. However, since this is their last shot anyway this hardly matters.
And in any case, Anon is now playing 10,000,000D chess. The beam rips through the place where Twilight teleported away the second time, but this time it goes hurtling toward the other ship, where Rarity is waiting with another gem. However, Rarity does not seem to have understood Anon's convoluted plan a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly sympathize, and she begins to pout and fret while the beam bears down on her. In the end, however, she manages to catch the beam with the gem.
Unfortunately, though, this is about as far as her luck goes. When Twilight's ship rematerializes in front of her, she immediately loses her shit again and the blast goes flying off in some random direction. Twilight, meanwhile, manages to blast the helium frame of her ship, and now Rarity is out of the game.
And so ends Anon's career as a 10,000,000,000D chessmaster, it would seem.
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>>371065
...or perhaps not.
Twilight predictably begins to crow her victory, but it seems that all along, Anon was actually playing chess in a number of dimensions that not even Twilight's autistic ass can count to. Here is a quick rundown:
The blast spell requires 7 gemstones to amplify it to the level it needs to be at in order to effectively damage the Harbinger. Anon has 25 gemstones. 25/7 is 3. This means he has 4 left over to redirect the spell. Twilight, being an autist, is fully aware of the exact number of gems that the Anon has in its pocketses. However, in this case, Anon managed to use her autism against her.
Since they have two ships to use for the redirect spells and only four gems, one would logically expect Anon to give two gems each to Rarity and Luna. Twilight, for whom logic is basically a religion, made this assumption without even considering any alternatives. However, essentially on a whim, Anon decided to keep one gem for himself, giving two to Luna and one to Rarity.
Now, with their last laser blast flying off into the wild blue yonder, Anon cranks the engines up as high as they will go and begins pursuit. He somehow manages to get the engines up to 130% power, and is able to dodge whatever crazy bullshit Twilight fires at him. Meanwhile, he orders everyone except Celestia to head for the lifeboat. I'm not sure what a lifeboat on an airship would be exactly; I'm assuming it's just a smaller airship.
Anyway, he is able to intercept the laser beam, which for some reason travels slower than the ship, and at this point Celestia uses the last remaining gem to capture it. She immediately redirects it at the Harbinger, which is directly behind them now, and it hits the magical dome thing dead on. And just like that, Twilight has been hoisted by her own petard with some generous assistance from the author's bullshit physics, of course.
Given the author's propensity for perfectly-timed coincidences, the airship's engines hold together until the blast hits the Harbinger, and not a second longer. With some kind of explosion or something imminent, the lifeboat now detaches, carrying AJ and Pinkie Pie and Big Mac and Scootaloo and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Chef and Ms. Crabtree and the 1991 Denver Broncos away to safety. Also, if anyone is interested, it seems the lifeboat is some sort of glider.
Anyway, Anon climbs on Celestia's back, and the two of them fly away just in time to see their favorite airship crash and kerplode into the fields below. The moment is bittersweet for Anon, because Celestia and emotions and so forth, but at least they destroyed the Harbinger...right?
>Well, it’s still in a million pieces, but those pieces stubbornly refuse to fall. Instead, they slowly orbit around a small sphere of darkness that ominously hovers in the section of sky where it was torn apart. It’s like looking at a galaxy with stone fragments in place of stars and a massive, visible black hole forming its center. The shrieking pony spirits circle around it, their attention focused on nothing else.
Well, fuck.
So, just when everyone thought this ridiculously convoluted boss battle was finally over, Twilight's autism rears its ugly head yet again. The structural resonance magical hoopajigger thingy that opens a portal to the evil dimension of the Dark Star, which Celestia had assumed would be destroyed along with the Harbinger, is still going. It seems that Twilight is now keeping it alive by channeling her own personal magic into it. Or, it's feeding off of her; I'm not sure which. Actually, it looks like she might be unconscious or something.
At any rate, here's the short version: the Dark Star, which as it turns out was underneath Equus Island the entire time, was actually the source of the repulsion spell that prevents alicorns from setting foot on the island. As such, with a portal to the Dark Star now opened, Celestia can't get near enough for them to rescue Twilight. It feels like Twilight shouldn't logically be able to get close to it either, but we'll put a pin in that for now. I'm assuming it has something to do with her personal magic being used as a power source, but who knows.
Anon tells Celestia that he will go get her, since the spell won't affect him. There is some perfunctory back and forth, where Celestia is all like 'noooo aAnon u cant go iz too dnagerous' and Anon is all liek 'no prncess cleest i must go bcuz reasons.' And then, Anon jumps off, and uses the floating stones orbiting the crystal-portal-thing as stepping stones until he reaches Twilight.
Anyway, he picks up the near-unconscious Twilight and gets her away from the thing. Twilight, meanwhile, explains that she has been feeding her personal magic into the ship, and that is how she managed to do all those teleportation moves. She also apologizes, but seeing as how she's in a near-comatose state from having her magic drained, it's hard to gage how sincere she actually is.
With Twilight unconscious, the crystal is no longer able to draw power from her (I think), and the whole thing begins to lose altitude. Anon, in keeping with the rest of his behavior throughout this story, just assumes that Celestia will probably catch him when he falls, so he decides to just stay where he is.
At this point, he notices the crystal that was sitting next to Twilight. He is compelled to pick it up, and it immediately begins feeding him visions. It shows him a path home, back to Earth and his family and whatnot, but he manages to fend off the last temptation of the Broodwich, because:
A) he's been dealing with this thing long enough to know that everything it tells you is bullshit, and
B) he's now hopelessly addicted to horse poon, and has no desire to go home and see his family anymore.
So, he chucks the fragment through the portal, thus sealing it away in the Dark Star's cavern. The portal closes, the last pieces of the ship begin to fall, and Celestia swoops in to catch Anon and Twiggles.
...or perhaps not.
Twilight predictably begins to crow her victory, but it seems that all along, Anon was actually playing chess in a number of dimensions that not even Twilight's autistic ass can count to. Here is a quick rundown:
The blast spell requires 7 gemstones to amplify it to the level it needs to be at in order to effectively damage the Harbinger. Anon has 25 gemstones. 25/7 is 3. This means he has 4 left over to redirect the spell. Twilight, being an autist, is fully aware of the exact number of gems that the Anon has in its pocketses. However, in this case, Anon managed to use her autism against her.
Since they have two ships to use for the redirect spells and only four gems, one would logically expect Anon to give two gems each to Rarity and Luna. Twilight, for whom logic is basically a religion, made this assumption without even considering any alternatives. However, essentially on a whim, Anon decided to keep one gem for himself, giving two to Luna and one to Rarity.
Now, with their last laser blast flying off into the wild blue yonder, Anon cranks the engines up as high as they will go and begins pursuit. He somehow manages to get the engines up to 130% power, and is able to dodge whatever crazy bullshit Twilight fires at him. Meanwhile, he orders everyone except Celestia to head for the lifeboat. I'm not sure what a lifeboat on an airship would be exactly; I'm assuming it's just a smaller airship.
Anyway, he is able to intercept the laser beam, which for some reason travels slower than the ship, and at this point Celestia uses the last remaining gem to capture it. She immediately redirects it at the Harbinger, which is directly behind them now, and it hits the magical dome thing dead on. And just like that, Twilight has been hoisted by her own petard with some generous assistance from the author's bullshit physics, of course.
Given the author's propensity for perfectly-timed coincidences, the airship's engines hold together until the blast hits the Harbinger, and not a second longer. With some kind of explosion or something imminent, the lifeboat now detaches, carrying AJ and Pinkie Pie and Big Mac and Scootaloo and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Chef and Ms. Crabtree and the 1991 Denver Broncos away to safety. Also, if anyone is interested, it seems the lifeboat is some sort of glider.
Anyway, Anon climbs on Celestia's back, and the two of them fly away just in time to see their favorite airship crash and kerplode into the fields below. The moment is bittersweet for Anon, because Celestia and emotions and so forth, but at least they destroyed the Harbinger...right?
>Well, it’s still in a million pieces, but those pieces stubbornly refuse to fall. Instead, they slowly orbit around a small sphere of darkness that ominously hovers in the section of sky where it was torn apart. It’s like looking at a galaxy with stone fragments in place of stars and a massive, visible black hole forming its center. The shrieking pony spirits circle around it, their attention focused on nothing else.
Well, fuck.
So, just when everyone thought this ridiculously convoluted boss battle was finally over, Twilight's autism rears its ugly head yet again. The structural resonance magical hoopajigger thingy that opens a portal to the evil dimension of the Dark Star, which Celestia had assumed would be destroyed along with the Harbinger, is still going. It seems that Twilight is now keeping it alive by channeling her own personal magic into it. Or, it's feeding off of her; I'm not sure which. Actually, it looks like she might be unconscious or something.
At any rate, here's the short version: the Dark Star, which as it turns out was underneath Equus Island the entire time, was actually the source of the repulsion spell that prevents alicorns from setting foot on the island. As such, with a portal to the Dark Star now opened, Celestia can't get near enough for them to rescue Twilight. It feels like Twilight shouldn't logically be able to get close to it either, but we'll put a pin in that for now. I'm assuming it has something to do with her personal magic being used as a power source, but who knows.
Anon tells Celestia that he will go get her, since the spell won't affect him. There is some perfunctory back and forth, where Celestia is all like 'noooo aAnon u cant go iz too dnagerous' and Anon is all liek 'no prncess cleest i must go bcuz reasons.' And then, Anon jumps off, and uses the floating stones orbiting the crystal-portal-thing as stepping stones until he reaches Twilight.
Anyway, he picks up the near-unconscious Twilight and gets her away from the thing. Twilight, meanwhile, explains that she has been feeding her personal magic into the ship, and that is how she managed to do all those teleportation moves. She also apologizes, but seeing as how she's in a near-comatose state from having her magic drained, it's hard to gage how sincere she actually is.
With Twilight unconscious, the crystal is no longer able to draw power from her (I think), and the whole thing begins to lose altitude. Anon, in keeping with the rest of his behavior throughout this story, just assumes that Celestia will probably catch him when he falls, so he decides to just stay where he is.
At this point, he notices the crystal that was sitting next to Twilight. He is compelled to pick it up, and it immediately begins feeding him visions. It shows him a path home, back to Earth and his family and whatnot, but he manages to fend off the last temptation of the Broodwich, because:
A) he's been dealing with this thing long enough to know that everything it tells you is bullshit, and
B) he's now hopelessly addicted to horse poon, and has no desire to go home and see his family anymore.
So, he chucks the fragment through the portal, thus sealing it away in the Dark Star's cavern. The portal closes, the last pieces of the ship begin to fall, and Celestia swoops in to catch Anon and Twiggles.
File (): 352C63CC32756AE3B330711062882003-689614.png (673.5 KB, 687x886, 6867914.png)
>>371066
26 - Reunion
The battle is over. On the ground, royal guards are busy cleaning up the debris from the airships and assessing damage to fields and so forth. Anon has some minor wounds and is being treated in a private medical tent.
Twilight is in the same tent, still unconscious. Celestia and Anon are in there yakking about Doritos™ brand corn chips, when she comes to and immediately starts apologizing:
>“You were right... you were right about everything all along... and I was too stupid to see it. I thought that maybe I’d found something, or learned something that you hadn’t... and I wanted to prove to you that... that... I could be an amazing princess just like you, just as much as I wanted to prove it to myself!”
"So, uh, yeah, remember that time I blew up Equestria's entire navy and tried to commit regicide against two Princesses because I was neurotic from not getting laid? Yeah, sorry about that; that whole thing was my bad."
However, she's not quite done yet:
>“But I was wrong about that, too. I... I thought I knew what love was. I read so much about it... talked to ponies about it... asked my parents and brother about it... but I never understood it until I saw the two of you at the wedding. When... when you fought through the pain of the Geas to reach him, even when you knew it would be impossible... I... I knew, right then, that I’d never have him. And it hurt so much, Princess... it hurt so much, and I didn’t know what to do!”
As I've said in other reviews, problems in stories tend to cascade and cause additional problems. In this case, the problem I mentioned during the wedding scene (Celestia attempts to sacrifice herself to stop Twilight when it ought to be Anon doing it) cascades downward and causes Twilight to learn the wrong lesson.
If the author had handled this segment correctly, here is how it would have gone:
>Twilight has Anon backed into a corner, where he either marries her or she enslaves him
>either way he has to marry her, either way he loses Celestia
>his only choice is submission or death
>Anon chooses death
>Twilight says "no stop doing that u wil die"
>Anon says "duh bitch that's the point"
>Anon has now turned the tables on Twilight and backed her into a corner
>either she lets him go or he dies
>either way she loses him
>if she kills him, she at least has the satisfaction of knowing that Celestia doesn't get to be with him either
>if she lets him go, she at gets the satisfaction knowing that Anon will be happy, even if it means sacrificing her own happiness and surrendering to her rival
>since this isn't a Greek tragedy, she makes the right choice and lets him go
>lesson learned: loving someone often means putting their happiness above your own
However, since the author fucked up bigly at a crucial juncture, here is how things actually turned out:
>Twilight has Anon backed into a corner, where he either marries her or she enslaves him
>either way he has to marry her, either way he loses Celestia
>he has no agency, he is just a helpless toy being fought over by two horny lunatics
>Celestia chooses to intervene by placing herself in mortal danger
>Twilight says "no stop doing that prnses u wil die"
>Celestia says "Toilght it is bcuz luv"
>Twilight now has a choice, but is not backed into a corner
>she can either kill her rival and take Anon as her prize, or back off and let Celestia have him
>Celestia fucked her over pretty royally, so she actually has very little incentive to do the first thing
>but since this isn't a grimdark fic she chooses the second thing and lets Celestia have Anon
>lesson learned: the green monkey dick belongs to whichever mare is more fanatically devoted to it
Anyway, whatever; Twilight apologizes and Celestia forgives her, because this is Equestria and that's just how things work around here. It seems like Celestia ought to have a few things to apologize for herself, but she unsurprisingly elects to just gloss over all of it:
>“Twilight... there’s no undoing it. The past is the past, and you must live with the consequences of the choices you’ve made, which is a lesson that I must remind myself of day after day. I understand that it was the Shard’s influence that directed you to do some of these things, but that does not absolve you of the responsibility. You’ve made many mistakes, and hurt many others as you’ve followed this path, and this is, and will remain, the truth.”
"So, uh, yeah, remember that time I shoved an ascension orb down your throat and then just bailed on the whole kingdom? Yeah, me neither."
Anyway, to cut a long story short, they decide to just blame the whole thing on the Dark Star and sweep the rest of it under the rug, so all's relatively well that ends relatively well, I guess. Also, Celestia informs Twilight that, although she is still technically an all-powerful alicorn, she used up most of her magic during the airship fight and is now demoted back to regular unicorn status, although it seems she gets to keep her wings. Her magic will eventually replenish itself, but it will take hundreds of years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLI5_Jt2HH0
>“But... but... m-my... my magic is everything! It’s who I am! It’s my special talent! What... what am I going to do without it?! I... I can’t function without it! I’ve never eaten with my hooves, or written with my mouth, or—”
Wait a minute; scratch that. It actually looks like she's now at a level below where she was previously. If I'm reading this correctly, she now has no magic at all, and is basically just a mudpony with wings and a horn.
Naturally, she starts hyperventilating about all of this, because Twilight is basically an overachieving Asian girl, and nothing terrifies an overachieving Asian girl more than the prospect of being average. Eventually, Celestia decides she's heard enough and tells her to stfu.
26 - Reunion
The battle is over. On the ground, royal guards are busy cleaning up the debris from the airships and assessing damage to fields and so forth. Anon has some minor wounds and is being treated in a private medical tent.
Twilight is in the same tent, still unconscious. Celestia and Anon are in there yakking about Doritos™ brand corn chips, when she comes to and immediately starts apologizing:
>“You were right... you were right about everything all along... and I was too stupid to see it. I thought that maybe I’d found something, or learned something that you hadn’t... and I wanted to prove to you that... that... I could be an amazing princess just like you, just as much as I wanted to prove it to myself!”
"So, uh, yeah, remember that time I blew up Equestria's entire navy and tried to commit regicide against two Princesses because I was neurotic from not getting laid? Yeah, sorry about that; that whole thing was my bad."
However, she's not quite done yet:
>“But I was wrong about that, too. I... I thought I knew what love was. I read so much about it... talked to ponies about it... asked my parents and brother about it... but I never understood it until I saw the two of you at the wedding. When... when you fought through the pain of the Geas to reach him, even when you knew it would be impossible... I... I knew, right then, that I’d never have him. And it hurt so much, Princess... it hurt so much, and I didn’t know what to do!”
As I've said in other reviews, problems in stories tend to cascade and cause additional problems. In this case, the problem I mentioned during the wedding scene (Celestia attempts to sacrifice herself to stop Twilight when it ought to be Anon doing it) cascades downward and causes Twilight to learn the wrong lesson.
If the author had handled this segment correctly, here is how it would have gone:
>Twilight has Anon backed into a corner, where he either marries her or she enslaves him
>either way he has to marry her, either way he loses Celestia
>his only choice is submission or death
>Anon chooses death
>Twilight says "no stop doing that u wil die"
>Anon says "duh bitch that's the point"
>Anon has now turned the tables on Twilight and backed her into a corner
>either she lets him go or he dies
>either way she loses him
>if she kills him, she at least has the satisfaction of knowing that Celestia doesn't get to be with him either
>if she lets him go, she at gets the satisfaction knowing that Anon will be happy, even if it means sacrificing her own happiness and surrendering to her rival
>since this isn't a Greek tragedy, she makes the right choice and lets him go
>lesson learned: loving someone often means putting their happiness above your own
However, since the author fucked up bigly at a crucial juncture, here is how things actually turned out:
>Twilight has Anon backed into a corner, where he either marries her or she enslaves him
>either way he has to marry her, either way he loses Celestia
>he has no agency, he is just a helpless toy being fought over by two horny lunatics
>Celestia chooses to intervene by placing herself in mortal danger
>Twilight says "no stop doing that prnses u wil die"
>Celestia says "Toilght it is bcuz luv"
>Twilight now has a choice, but is not backed into a corner
>she can either kill her rival and take Anon as her prize, or back off and let Celestia have him
>Celestia fucked her over pretty royally, so she actually has very little incentive to do the first thing
>but since this isn't a grimdark fic she chooses the second thing and lets Celestia have Anon
>lesson learned: the green monkey dick belongs to whichever mare is more fanatically devoted to it
Anyway, whatever; Twilight apologizes and Celestia forgives her, because this is Equestria and that's just how things work around here. It seems like Celestia ought to have a few things to apologize for herself, but she unsurprisingly elects to just gloss over all of it:
>“Twilight... there’s no undoing it. The past is the past, and you must live with the consequences of the choices you’ve made, which is a lesson that I must remind myself of day after day. I understand that it was the Shard’s influence that directed you to do some of these things, but that does not absolve you of the responsibility. You’ve made many mistakes, and hurt many others as you’ve followed this path, and this is, and will remain, the truth.”
"So, uh, yeah, remember that time I shoved an ascension orb down your throat and then just bailed on the whole kingdom? Yeah, me neither."
Anyway, to cut a long story short, they decide to just blame the whole thing on the Dark Star and sweep the rest of it under the rug, so all's relatively well that ends relatively well, I guess. Also, Celestia informs Twilight that, although she is still technically an all-powerful alicorn, she used up most of her magic during the airship fight and is now demoted back to regular unicorn status, although it seems she gets to keep her wings. Her magic will eventually replenish itself, but it will take hundreds of years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLI5_Jt2HH0
>“But... but... m-my... my magic is everything! It’s who I am! It’s my special talent! What... what am I going to do without it?! I... I can’t function without it! I’ve never eaten with my hooves, or written with my mouth, or—”
Wait a minute; scratch that. It actually looks like she's now at a level below where she was previously. If I'm reading this correctly, she now has no magic at all, and is basically just a mudpony with wings and a horn.
Naturally, she starts hyperventilating about all of this, because Twilight is basically an overachieving Asian girl, and nothing terrifies an overachieving Asian girl more than the prospect of being average. Eventually, Celestia decides she's heard enough and tells her to stfu.
File (): B527A14C1B07845CE84415A2F8297C16-272235.jpg (265.9 KB, 1920x1080, 6887590.jpg)
>>371076
>“But I’ve lost everything! I’ve lost Anon! I’ve lost my friends! I’ve lost my magic! And I’ve lost you, Teacher! How am I supposed to go on like this?! It... it would be better if I just...”
>“ENOUGH!”
>You cover your ears as Celestia unexpectedly uses the Canterlot Voice. Poor Twilight cowers under the sheets, wide-eyed and trembling, as if she’d never heard her raise her voice in such a way before.
>“You do many ponies a great disservice to say such a thing. Do you honestly believe that you’re the first to ever experience such hardship? Do you believe you’re the first to ever feel hopeless and abandoned? Do you believe you’re the first to ever wish that tomorrow’s sunrise would never come?!”
Yeah, you just keep on being a cunt there, Sunbutt. You're clearly 100% blameless in all of this.
Seriously though, to her credit, Celestia does eventually get around to making a real apology:
>“Twilight... this is all my fault. I was so selfish. I so much wanted to escape the burdens I bear, that I thrust you into not only a role I knew you weren’t prepared for, but into Eternity itself, without fully explaining what it meant and what the consequences would be. Even if I knew that it was what you thought you wanted, we should’ve discussed it together, and if you still felt that way, I should’ve stayed with you to guide you through it. I’m... I’m so sorry, my student... what I’ve done is inexcusable. I’ve failed you in nearly every way imaginable. I’ll fully understand if you don’t want to be my student any longer, and I can in no way blame you if that’s what you choose, or even if you wish to hate me for what I’ve done, but I sincerely hope that—”
>“I forgive you, Celestia.”
Welp, I guess that's that then.
>Twilight smiles. “I forgive you. Even if it wasn’t done for the right reasons, you... you let me live my dream, at least for a little while. You say I don’t understand what it means, and that’s probably true, but I’ve thought about it a lot and... and it’s what I want. I still want to be like you, and it’s not your fault that I botched it all up...”
Also worth noting is that Twilight and Celestia's teacher/student relationship hasn't actually been dealt with all that much in this story. This is another one of those situations I've pointed out before, where the author assumes he can take a shortcut and just rely on the reader's familiarity with the source material to fill in some gaps.
The main issue here is that the conflict the author established for the story wasn't between Celestia and Twilight, it was between Anon and Twilight. The conflict being presented here, ie Twilight wanting to impress or even outshine a pony she had looked up to as a mentor before being betrayed by her, could have worked well as a subplot. However, it only makes sense if you already know these characters and their background. If your knowledge of these two characters came solely from this text, this whole thing between Celestia and Twilight right now would feel a little tacked-on.
Anyway, they keep on yakking. Twilight is now confused by something else Celestia said: that she would understand if Twilight no longer wanted to be her student. However, since she no longer has magic, Twilight is no longer qualified to be her student anyway, right?
>Celestia shakes her head. “One of the many mistakes I’ve made was focusing your studies on only magic. There’s still so much I can teach you... so much I want to teach you. I want you to become the best pony you can possibly be. Trust me, should you so choose, there are many more lessons that await you. I can teach you to speak to the earth. I can teach you how to properly use those wings of yours, and... when I believe you’re prepared, I have a special assignment reserved for you at some point in the future.”
"So uh, yeah, you remember how I used to be teaching you advanced spells about, like, using the Elements of Harmony and moving the sun and moon, and shit like that? Uh yeah, that's all over now. Your new curriculum will consist of gardening classes and basic flight. Oh, and if you do a good job with that stuff, I've got a 'special' class that I can enroll you in later."
Lol. The only thing the overachieving Asian schoolgirl fears more than the prospect of being average: the prospect of being handed a consolation prize because your teacher feels sorry for you.
Anyway, whatevsky. Celestia is back on the throne, Twilight has her participation trophy, the status quo has been restored, and all is right with the world. The only loose end that still needs tying up is Twilight's fractured relationship with her friends.
Right on cue, the five of them enter the medical tent. Twilight is all liek "me sry," her friends are all liek "das ok we frgiv u." Then, they all have a tearful reunion, Pinkie Pie doles out cupcakes, and everyone hugs. Celestia stands at the edge of the scene, watching their friendshippy antics with a warm smile. Anon comes up and scritches her ears seductively, and the scene fades out.
There is a page break, and the scene fades in on Luna, who is not having anywhere near as much fun. She is going over all of the expense reports for all of the damages caused by this ridiculous debacle.
>Still, she nods with a satisfied smile at the night sky and the newly risen moon. Her mane and tail, restored to their former cosmic glory now that her magic has recovered, are nearly indistinguishable now from the sky itself as she trots back toward the field camp and the light of the great bonfire burning there.
Uh, I have a question. Luna depleted her magic enough to revert back to her pre-ascension form, as did Celestia when Twilight blasted her. Twilight has also depleted her alicorn magic and is now basically a magical cripple. It has been established that it takes hundreds of years for an alicorn to get back to full power once this stage of magic-depletion has been reached. Why was Luna able to recover in only a few hours?
>“But I’ve lost everything! I’ve lost Anon! I’ve lost my friends! I’ve lost my magic! And I’ve lost you, Teacher! How am I supposed to go on like this?! It... it would be better if I just...”
>“ENOUGH!”
>You cover your ears as Celestia unexpectedly uses the Canterlot Voice. Poor Twilight cowers under the sheets, wide-eyed and trembling, as if she’d never heard her raise her voice in such a way before.
>“You do many ponies a great disservice to say such a thing. Do you honestly believe that you’re the first to ever experience such hardship? Do you believe you’re the first to ever feel hopeless and abandoned? Do you believe you’re the first to ever wish that tomorrow’s sunrise would never come?!”
Yeah, you just keep on being a cunt there, Sunbutt. You're clearly 100% blameless in all of this.
Seriously though, to her credit, Celestia does eventually get around to making a real apology:
>“Twilight... this is all my fault. I was so selfish. I so much wanted to escape the burdens I bear, that I thrust you into not only a role I knew you weren’t prepared for, but into Eternity itself, without fully explaining what it meant and what the consequences would be. Even if I knew that it was what you thought you wanted, we should’ve discussed it together, and if you still felt that way, I should’ve stayed with you to guide you through it. I’m... I’m so sorry, my student... what I’ve done is inexcusable. I’ve failed you in nearly every way imaginable. I’ll fully understand if you don’t want to be my student any longer, and I can in no way blame you if that’s what you choose, or even if you wish to hate me for what I’ve done, but I sincerely hope that—”
>“I forgive you, Celestia.”
Welp, I guess that's that then.
>Twilight smiles. “I forgive you. Even if it wasn’t done for the right reasons, you... you let me live my dream, at least for a little while. You say I don’t understand what it means, and that’s probably true, but I’ve thought about it a lot and... and it’s what I want. I still want to be like you, and it’s not your fault that I botched it all up...”
Also worth noting is that Twilight and Celestia's teacher/student relationship hasn't actually been dealt with all that much in this story. This is another one of those situations I've pointed out before, where the author assumes he can take a shortcut and just rely on the reader's familiarity with the source material to fill in some gaps.
The main issue here is that the conflict the author established for the story wasn't between Celestia and Twilight, it was between Anon and Twilight. The conflict being presented here, ie Twilight wanting to impress or even outshine a pony she had looked up to as a mentor before being betrayed by her, could have worked well as a subplot. However, it only makes sense if you already know these characters and their background. If your knowledge of these two characters came solely from this text, this whole thing between Celestia and Twilight right now would feel a little tacked-on.
Anyway, they keep on yakking. Twilight is now confused by something else Celestia said: that she would understand if Twilight no longer wanted to be her student. However, since she no longer has magic, Twilight is no longer qualified to be her student anyway, right?
>Celestia shakes her head. “One of the many mistakes I’ve made was focusing your studies on only magic. There’s still so much I can teach you... so much I want to teach you. I want you to become the best pony you can possibly be. Trust me, should you so choose, there are many more lessons that await you. I can teach you to speak to the earth. I can teach you how to properly use those wings of yours, and... when I believe you’re prepared, I have a special assignment reserved for you at some point in the future.”
"So uh, yeah, you remember how I used to be teaching you advanced spells about, like, using the Elements of Harmony and moving the sun and moon, and shit like that? Uh yeah, that's all over now. Your new curriculum will consist of gardening classes and basic flight. Oh, and if you do a good job with that stuff, I've got a 'special' class that I can enroll you in later."
Lol. The only thing the overachieving Asian schoolgirl fears more than the prospect of being average: the prospect of being handed a consolation prize because your teacher feels sorry for you.
Anyway, whatevsky. Celestia is back on the throne, Twilight has her participation trophy, the status quo has been restored, and all is right with the world. The only loose end that still needs tying up is Twilight's fractured relationship with her friends.
Right on cue, the five of them enter the medical tent. Twilight is all liek "me sry," her friends are all liek "das ok we frgiv u." Then, they all have a tearful reunion, Pinkie Pie doles out cupcakes, and everyone hugs. Celestia stands at the edge of the scene, watching their friendshippy antics with a warm smile. Anon comes up and scritches her ears seductively, and the scene fades out.
There is a page break, and the scene fades in on Luna, who is not having anywhere near as much fun. She is going over all of the expense reports for all of the damages caused by this ridiculous debacle.
>Still, she nods with a satisfied smile at the night sky and the newly risen moon. Her mane and tail, restored to their former cosmic glory now that her magic has recovered, are nearly indistinguishable now from the sky itself as she trots back toward the field camp and the light of the great bonfire burning there.
Uh, I have a question. Luna depleted her magic enough to revert back to her pre-ascension form, as did Celestia when Twilight blasted her. Twilight has also depleted her alicorn magic and is now basically a magical cripple. It has been established that it takes hundreds of years for an alicorn to get back to full power once this stage of magic-depletion has been reached. Why was Luna able to recover in only a few hours?
File (): BC05D7F911715727BCFA82E8CA68FB67-883931.png (863.2 KB, 1597x2333, 6883009.png)
>>371077
Anyway, poor, grumpy, long-suffering ol' Luna is seated at her desk in a makeshift tent-office, doing all of the Princess work that the other two Princesses are too busy apologizing to each other to help out with. Then, suddenly, Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie invites Luna to attend the bonfire party that everyone else is enjoying while she sits in her tent doing all of their work for them. Luna, however, seems cheered by her presence, and says she'll be there. As Pinkie is on her way out, she calls her back and offers this cryptic remark:
>“There will come a time, not now, but in the future, when the six of thee shall stand before the Grand Gate together. When that time comes, please remember that if thou needst guidance, thou need only dream, and we will be there.”
I can't quite tell what the author is getting at here, but it sounds like he's setting up a potential sequel. Maybe all six of them are going to end up becoming alicorns? Now there's a scary thought.
Anyway, Luna decides to lighten up and have some fun for a change; the kingdom can probably survive without her managing things for a few hours. Actually, from what I've seen it probably can't, but at this point I wouldn't blame her if she gave exactly zero fucks about it. So, she heads out to the party. Everyone is romping around the bonfire and having a gay ol' time, and Luna stands off to the side, watching them for a bit. Suddenly she hears a strange voice, and turns to see an astral-projected miniature Discord floating in the air near her shoulder.
For a moment she is concerned that he might have escaped, but he assures her that he is still safely entombed in stone back in the garden. They yak for a bit, and it is gradually revealed that Discord was the one who originally summoned Anon into Equestria:
>“I must say, though... I never expected Cotton Candy Head would end up falling head over hooves with that odd creature I pulled across dimensions during my last little romp across Equestria. Well, I guess the two of you always struck me as oddballs when it came to dating, but it certainly was a delightful little cream filling to round out this chaos-filled cake!”
As an aside, this is a perfect example of why you shouldn't use ambiguous descriptions or nicknames in place of your characters' proper names. "Cotton Candy Head" would suggest that he is talking about Pinkie Pie, but from context he seems to mean Celestia. However, it's been implied (though not explicitly stated) that Pinkie also likes Anon, so...this could be interpreted a number of different ways. What makes this even more confusing is that "Cotton Candy Head" might actually be a proper name in this setting, like Jim or Joe. Also, you could probably argue that just about any of these characters have manes that resemble cotton candy, so......yeah. Protip: there's nothing wrong with giving your characters nicknames or getting a little shitposty and silly with your writing (when appropriate), but you still want to avoid unnecessary ambiguity; make sure we know who you're talking about. If there's even the slightest doubt, it's better to just use the character's name.
Anyway, for a guy who is supposedly trapped in stone, Discord seems to have a surprising amount of autonomy. Being able to astral-project around the world in order to observe it, but not interact with it, seems reasonable enough, but bringing someone from another dimension to Equestria seems like a pretty high-level trick that a person whose magic is sealed ought not to be able to perform. This actually brings us to yet another bit of ambiguity:
>that odd creature I pulled across dimensions during my last little romp across Equestria
What I think this means is that the last time Discord was free, which for this story's timeline would be the S2 premiere, Discord managed to either pull Anon directly into Equestria, or at least set in motion some kind of spell that would accomplish that, before the M6 turned him back into stone.
This probably makes sense enough, but again: the author is relying heavily on the reader being familiar with events that took place outside the story he's telling. If you treat this story purely as its own self-contained universe, this explanation doesn't work, because to my recollection the text has never alluded to Discord ever getting free. From what the author has told us, we know that Discord was originally a pony named Clover, who used to be friends with Celosia and Lulu, but was transformed by an Ascension Orb into a twisted god of chaos. There was a fight, and his two former friends/siblings, now called Celestia and Luna, trapped him in stone. Thus, unless the reader fills in the blanks with S2-era lore, the natural assumption would be that Discord somehow managed to bring Anon into Equestria while he was imprisoned in stone with his magic sealed. This sounds like something he should not logically be able to do.
Remember: even though fanfiction is technically a derivative of a preexisting work, it's still a good idea to treat your story as its own self-contained, self-supporting universe. If an event that took place in S2 is an important part of your storyline, the essential details need to be in your story somewhere.
Anyway, while it's not entirely clear what Discord hoped to achieve by dragging some random dipshit into Equestria, it's a satisfactory enough explanation of Anon's origins. Discord is the God of Chaos, and he just does shit like this; far be it from me to imply that "for the lulz" isn't a perfectly valid justification for nearly any act.
Aaaaand...that's really about it. Luna is irritated by the havoc Discord has caused, but she seems accustomed to his antics. He jokingly asks her if she would like him to pick her up a green fuccboi of her own the next time he escapes. She says thanks but no thanks, and he makes his exit.
End of chapter, and end of story. All we have left is a brief epilogue, which I will cover in the next post.
Anyway, poor, grumpy, long-suffering ol' Luna is seated at her desk in a makeshift tent-office, doing all of the Princess work that the other two Princesses are too busy apologizing to each other to help out with. Then, suddenly, Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie invites Luna to attend the bonfire party that everyone else is enjoying while she sits in her tent doing all of their work for them. Luna, however, seems cheered by her presence, and says she'll be there. As Pinkie is on her way out, she calls her back and offers this cryptic remark:
>“There will come a time, not now, but in the future, when the six of thee shall stand before the Grand Gate together. When that time comes, please remember that if thou needst guidance, thou need only dream, and we will be there.”
I can't quite tell what the author is getting at here, but it sounds like he's setting up a potential sequel. Maybe all six of them are going to end up becoming alicorns? Now there's a scary thought.
Anyway, Luna decides to lighten up and have some fun for a change; the kingdom can probably survive without her managing things for a few hours. Actually, from what I've seen it probably can't, but at this point I wouldn't blame her if she gave exactly zero fucks about it. So, she heads out to the party. Everyone is romping around the bonfire and having a gay ol' time, and Luna stands off to the side, watching them for a bit. Suddenly she hears a strange voice, and turns to see an astral-projected miniature Discord floating in the air near her shoulder.
For a moment she is concerned that he might have escaped, but he assures her that he is still safely entombed in stone back in the garden. They yak for a bit, and it is gradually revealed that Discord was the one who originally summoned Anon into Equestria:
>“I must say, though... I never expected Cotton Candy Head would end up falling head over hooves with that odd creature I pulled across dimensions during my last little romp across Equestria. Well, I guess the two of you always struck me as oddballs when it came to dating, but it certainly was a delightful little cream filling to round out this chaos-filled cake!”
As an aside, this is a perfect example of why you shouldn't use ambiguous descriptions or nicknames in place of your characters' proper names. "Cotton Candy Head" would suggest that he is talking about Pinkie Pie, but from context he seems to mean Celestia. However, it's been implied (though not explicitly stated) that Pinkie also likes Anon, so...this could be interpreted a number of different ways. What makes this even more confusing is that "Cotton Candy Head" might actually be a proper name in this setting, like Jim or Joe. Also, you could probably argue that just about any of these characters have manes that resemble cotton candy, so......yeah. Protip: there's nothing wrong with giving your characters nicknames or getting a little shitposty and silly with your writing (when appropriate), but you still want to avoid unnecessary ambiguity; make sure we know who you're talking about. If there's even the slightest doubt, it's better to just use the character's name.
Anyway, for a guy who is supposedly trapped in stone, Discord seems to have a surprising amount of autonomy. Being able to astral-project around the world in order to observe it, but not interact with it, seems reasonable enough, but bringing someone from another dimension to Equestria seems like a pretty high-level trick that a person whose magic is sealed ought not to be able to perform. This actually brings us to yet another bit of ambiguity:
>that odd creature I pulled across dimensions during my last little romp across Equestria
What I think this means is that the last time Discord was free, which for this story's timeline would be the S2 premiere, Discord managed to either pull Anon directly into Equestria, or at least set in motion some kind of spell that would accomplish that, before the M6 turned him back into stone.
This probably makes sense enough, but again: the author is relying heavily on the reader being familiar with events that took place outside the story he's telling. If you treat this story purely as its own self-contained universe, this explanation doesn't work, because to my recollection the text has never alluded to Discord ever getting free. From what the author has told us, we know that Discord was originally a pony named Clover, who used to be friends with Celosia and Lulu, but was transformed by an Ascension Orb into a twisted god of chaos. There was a fight, and his two former friends/siblings, now called Celestia and Luna, trapped him in stone. Thus, unless the reader fills in the blanks with S2-era lore, the natural assumption would be that Discord somehow managed to bring Anon into Equestria while he was imprisoned in stone with his magic sealed. This sounds like something he should not logically be able to do.
Remember: even though fanfiction is technically a derivative of a preexisting work, it's still a good idea to treat your story as its own self-contained, self-supporting universe. If an event that took place in S2 is an important part of your storyline, the essential details need to be in your story somewhere.
Anyway, while it's not entirely clear what Discord hoped to achieve by dragging some random dipshit into Equestria, it's a satisfactory enough explanation of Anon's origins. Discord is the God of Chaos, and he just does shit like this; far be it from me to imply that "for the lulz" isn't a perfectly valid justification for nearly any act.
Aaaaand...that's really about it. Luna is irritated by the havoc Discord has caused, but she seems accustomed to his antics. He jokingly asks her if she would like him to pick her up a green fuccboi of her own the next time he escapes. She says thanks but no thanks, and he makes his exit.
End of chapter, and end of story. All we have left is a brief epilogue, which I will cover in the next post.
>>371079
>it sounds like he's setting up a potential sequel. Maybe all six of them are going to end up becoming alicorns? Now there's a scary thought.
Sounds like a valid theory that could have happened in official media.(I think, at least, as this is a sort of alternate timeline to the ending of S3) And the author may have wanted to make a sequel based on that idea.
>it sounds like he's setting up a potential sequel. Maybe all six of them are going to end up becoming alicorns? Now there's a scary thought.
Sounds like a valid theory that could have happened in official media.(I think, at least, as this is a sort of alternate timeline to the ending of S3) And the author may have wanted to make a sequel based on that idea.
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>>371079
Epilogue
So, it's now four years later, and it looks like Anon has risen to become Fuhrer, enslaver of all Equestria:
>The sounds of your boots on the metal walkway are unmistakable in and of themselves, but the additional sound of worried trotting that echoes just behind them leaves little doubt in the minds of the ponies working in the berths as to who just arrived. The newer workers set down their tools in preparation to bow, but their older coworkers just shake their heads, instead waving to you. You smile and wave back, knowing most of them by name at this point.
Wait, scratch that; it looks like Anon is just a regular old run-of-the-mill Prince. It appears that Pyre, the pegasus guard who was in charge of watching him when he was at the Castle briefly, is now the captain of his personal guard. Anon is making some last-minute inspections of his new airship, the Dawn Star III (Dawn Star II was apparently destroyed in an airship race with Big Mac).
He takes the controls and the ship departs. The scene ends in a page break.
Anon flies to the south of Equestria and waits, passing the time by reading a Daring Do novel. A short time later Twilight appears; they seem to be on good terms now. They yak back and forth a bit and get caught up. It seems that Twilight has been guiding her friends through the Trials of Equus; they all have Ascension Orbs now. This appears to be what Luna was alluding to in the previous chapter. However, so far none of them have made the decision to actually ascend; the whole thing seems to have been sort of an elaborate team-building exercise.
>“I’m happy for you, Twilight. I really am. And I guess you must be relieved to finally have your full magic back after everything that’s happened. I can’t imagine the feeling, but it must be something else.”
Also, for Twilight, the excursion had a practical purpose: she now has her full-blown alicorn magic back.
>Strangely, her ears fold back and she steps away from you, her eyes cast downward.
>“Actually, I... that’s... that’s one of the reasons I’m here. I haven’t restored my magic. I... I don’t think I ever really intended to from the start.”
Whoops, looks like I spoke too soon.
>Her horn glows with an unsteady aura. Over the years, she’s regained the use of a bit of her magic, but when you last saw her she could do no more than simple telekinesis to lift very small objects.
Okay, here we go. It seems that meditating upon her experiences as an insane, horny dictator has humbled her a bit. I guess she's content with being a magic retard now, like Rarity.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that all six of them underwent the trials, but after everything that happened, they're a little cautious about actually ascending to godhood, which is probably just as well. The canon version of Equestria has enough damned alicorns running around; no sense filling this one up with them, too. Twilight still has her Orb, and since she's decided not to use it, she offers it to Anon. Sort of a "sorry I almost brainwashed you and imprisoned you in my rape dungeon" day gift. Thoughtful of her, really.
So now, as the end result of a rather complicated chain of events, Anon once again has the option to become immortal. Anon sits back and contemplates eternity as he waits for Celestia's fat ass to arrive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWKOuBXy1LA
Page break. Celestia arrives, and the two of them have their date. They fly to a secluded place in the mountains, and Anon goes for a horsie-ride the regular kind, not the wakka-chicka wokka-chicka kind. As they are riding around having a beautiful romantic moment together, Anon makes the decision to swallow the alicorn orb. He becomes the Highlander, and together they ride off, towards a bright and eternal future of debauched horsefuckery.
Roll closing credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibUjjcwY4w
----------------------------------------
The story technically ends here, but it looks like the author added some supplemental bonus chapters. There is a five-part story called A Day in Winter, followed by another five-part series of one-off vignettes. I might check these out at some point, but I have a feeling they're just going to be short little slice-of-life type things that won't require much analysis. If there is anything worth commenting on, I will come back and add it to this thread. For our purposes, though, this feels like a pretty good stopping point.
I will be back shortly with some final thoughts on this piece.
Epilogue
So, it's now four years later, and it looks like Anon has risen to become Fuhrer, enslaver of all Equestria:
>The sounds of your boots on the metal walkway are unmistakable in and of themselves, but the additional sound of worried trotting that echoes just behind them leaves little doubt in the minds of the ponies working in the berths as to who just arrived. The newer workers set down their tools in preparation to bow, but their older coworkers just shake their heads, instead waving to you. You smile and wave back, knowing most of them by name at this point.
Wait, scratch that; it looks like Anon is just a regular old run-of-the-mill Prince. It appears that Pyre, the pegasus guard who was in charge of watching him when he was at the Castle briefly, is now the captain of his personal guard. Anon is making some last-minute inspections of his new airship, the Dawn Star III (Dawn Star II was apparently destroyed in an airship race with Big Mac).
He takes the controls and the ship departs. The scene ends in a page break.
Anon flies to the south of Equestria and waits, passing the time by reading a Daring Do novel. A short time later Twilight appears; they seem to be on good terms now. They yak back and forth a bit and get caught up. It seems that Twilight has been guiding her friends through the Trials of Equus; they all have Ascension Orbs now. This appears to be what Luna was alluding to in the previous chapter. However, so far none of them have made the decision to actually ascend; the whole thing seems to have been sort of an elaborate team-building exercise.
>“I’m happy for you, Twilight. I really am. And I guess you must be relieved to finally have your full magic back after everything that’s happened. I can’t imagine the feeling, but it must be something else.”
Also, for Twilight, the excursion had a practical purpose: she now has her full-blown alicorn magic back.
>Strangely, her ears fold back and she steps away from you, her eyes cast downward.
>“Actually, I... that’s... that’s one of the reasons I’m here. I haven’t restored my magic. I... I don’t think I ever really intended to from the start.”
Whoops, looks like I spoke too soon.
>Her horn glows with an unsteady aura. Over the years, she’s regained the use of a bit of her magic, but when you last saw her she could do no more than simple telekinesis to lift very small objects.
Okay, here we go. It seems that meditating upon her experiences as an insane, horny dictator has humbled her a bit. I guess she's content with being a magic retard now, like Rarity.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that all six of them underwent the trials, but after everything that happened, they're a little cautious about actually ascending to godhood, which is probably just as well. The canon version of Equestria has enough damned alicorns running around; no sense filling this one up with them, too. Twilight still has her Orb, and since she's decided not to use it, she offers it to Anon. Sort of a "sorry I almost brainwashed you and imprisoned you in my rape dungeon" day gift. Thoughtful of her, really.
So now, as the end result of a rather complicated chain of events, Anon once again has the option to become immortal. Anon sits back and contemplates eternity as he waits for Celestia's fat ass to arrive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWKOuBXy1LA
Page break. Celestia arrives, and the two of them have their date. They fly to a secluded place in the mountains, and Anon goes for a horsie-ride the regular kind, not the wakka-chicka wokka-chicka kind. As they are riding around having a beautiful romantic moment together, Anon makes the decision to swallow the alicorn orb. He becomes the Highlander, and together they ride off, towards a bright and eternal future of debauched horsefuckery.
Roll closing credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibUjjcwY4w
----------------------------------------
The story technically ends here, but it looks like the author added some supplemental bonus chapters. There is a five-part story called A Day in Winter, followed by another five-part series of one-off vignettes. I might check these out at some point, but I have a feeling they're just going to be short little slice-of-life type things that won't require much analysis. If there is anything worth commenting on, I will come back and add it to this thread. For our purposes, though, this feels like a pretty good stopping point.
I will be back shortly with some final thoughts on this piece.
>>371077
I feel like Celestia apoligizing to Twi here indicates that either the author realized or knew that Celestia could have, mitigated some of the issues that occurred if she'd only talked to Twi about this.
While that is good, I think that if you deliberately have Celestia not talk to Twi about this, you should present a reason for why, at least implied.
If the reasoning for why Celestia didn't talk to Twilight about this was because she actually saw her as a rival and potential threat for Anon's no-nos, then I feel like a lot of my issues would be fixed.
But now it just feels like, she didn't do it either cause... idk at all actually, or that she was jealous but she later never reveal that in her apology.
I feel like Celestia apoligizing to Twi here indicates that either the author realized or knew that Celestia could have, mitigated some of the issues that occurred if she'd only talked to Twi about this.
While that is good, I think that if you deliberately have Celestia not talk to Twi about this, you should present a reason for why, at least implied.
If the reasoning for why Celestia didn't talk to Twilight about this was because she actually saw her as a rival and potential threat for Anon's no-nos, then I feel like a lot of my issues would be fixed.
But now it just feels like, she didn't do it either cause... idk at all actually, or that she was jealous but she later never reveal that in her apology.
File (): BBA24AEB0700E90D502F073E145F53A8-266409.png (260.2 KB, 1500x1500, 6831253.png)
>>371094
Final Thoughts
When gaging the overall quality of a story, I try to take several things into account: what was the author trying to accomplish, how well did he accomplish it, how well-executed is the story on a technical level? How well was it plotted? How well-rendered are the characters? Do we like the characters we're supposed to like? Do we hate the characters we're supposed to hate? Does it make sense, is it too long, is it too short? Does the author tend to veer off into unnecessary tangents and sideplots? Is the dialog natural? And so forth and so on. I use these metrics to assess the quality of the work on an objective level. I also try to take the author's skill level into account. In the case of immensely famous, popular stories, I will try to also assess the objective quality of the work relative to its popularity.
In addition to all of this, there is also a subjective dimension: how much did I, personally, enjoy reading the story? While I try not to let my personal tastes color my reviews too much, sometimes it's unavoidable. A person is naturally going to be more forgiving of a story's faults if it's at least entertaining to them, and far less forgiving if it isn't. However, you can still objectively assess the quality of something even if it isn't quite to your tastes. Stories about monster battles and flying skateboard races, for instance, are not really my personal cup of tea, but there is still a right way and a wrong way to go about writing one.
With all of that in mind, I think I can honestly say that Exchange is by a wide margin the best of the stories that I've reviewed so far. On an objective level, it has quite a bit going for it: it's well-plotted and reasonably well-paced. There are a few parts that drag, but for the most part the story moves at a reasonable clip. There aren't any deviations, unnecessary side-plots, unnecessary scenes, or extraneous characters like we've seen in most of the other stories we've looked at.
In terms of the author's skill level, I would say that getmeouttahere is a good greentext writer and a passable fiction writer, but also a talented storyteller. His actual prose is nothing to write home about: many passages in this story are awkwardly worded relative to its length, this one might actually contain the most instances of "this sentence is bad and you should feel bad" of all my reviews so far, the use of second-person narration was a bad idea, some of his dialogue is a little cringe though the cringe level is probably acceptable by brony standards, and the "romantic moments" tend to be overly sappy. However, these deficiencies in execution are counterbalanced by a considerably greater skill level in terms of design.
As far as planning a story goes, ie building a plot, determining which events should happen and when, which characters should be in the story, what should be left out, and so on, this guy is a grand master compared to some of the others we've looked at. Pen Stroke, for instance, probably writes better prose than this guy; however, Past Sins was about 50,000 words longer than it needed to be, and in terms of plot and pacing it was all over the fucking place. This work is leaner and far better constructed. I'm not sure if getmeouttahere accomplished this through planning or if he just happens to have a knack for it, but either way, it's a good skill to have and it earns him a lot of points in my book. I've said before that writing (ie mechanics, execution) and storytelling (ie, building a complete, satisfying, moving story) are two different skills, and if you're going to develop only one of them, storytelling is the better skill to have.
In terms of what the author set out to accomplish, I don't think he was particularly trying to make great art; he set out to make a fun, shitposty Anon story, and in that regard he delivered. This is a lighthearted action-adventure-fantasy-romance story, where a reader (and possibly author) self-insert character gets isekaied into Equestria because reasons, and ends up banging his waifu. It does not take itself especially seriously, nor should it have. Nevertheless, the author still managed to build a solid, believable world and populate it with convincing characters. In fact, he manages to do a far better job in this regard than other authors we've read who were attempting far more ambitious and serious projects.
For instance, one thing I think this author did exceptionally well, that I haven't gone into too deeply yet, is worldbuilding. Imo this story is a good example of what good fanfiction can do: it takes the existing canon and expands on its lore in a way that is both believable and consistent with the established universe. This author doesn't get super-elaborate with his mythology: most of what's in here is just built on top of lore that was already in the show. There isn't a massive bestiary of new creatures or detailed maps of far off continents (other than Equus island, I guess). However, what he comes up with is clever, interesting, and most importantly feels genuine. Combining the characters of Clover the Clever and Discord, and giving he, Celestia and Luna a prior relationship and a backstory that tied into the silly adventure story he was telling, I thought was a neat idea. I also liked his take on the origins of Equestria, as well as the pre-history period that is hinted at but not explained in detail, with the Progenitors and all that. If they wanted to, other authors could potentially take this lore and expand upon it in works of their own, and that's really the whole point of writing fanfiction: taking a fictional universe that already exists, and building on it in ways that inspire other people to do the same.
Final Thoughts
When gaging the overall quality of a story, I try to take several things into account: what was the author trying to accomplish, how well did he accomplish it, how well-executed is the story on a technical level? How well was it plotted? How well-rendered are the characters? Do we like the characters we're supposed to like? Do we hate the characters we're supposed to hate? Does it make sense, is it too long, is it too short? Does the author tend to veer off into unnecessary tangents and sideplots? Is the dialog natural? And so forth and so on. I use these metrics to assess the quality of the work on an objective level. I also try to take the author's skill level into account. In the case of immensely famous, popular stories, I will try to also assess the objective quality of the work relative to its popularity.
In addition to all of this, there is also a subjective dimension: how much did I, personally, enjoy reading the story? While I try not to let my personal tastes color my reviews too much, sometimes it's unavoidable. A person is naturally going to be more forgiving of a story's faults if it's at least entertaining to them, and far less forgiving if it isn't. However, you can still objectively assess the quality of something even if it isn't quite to your tastes. Stories about monster battles and flying skateboard races, for instance, are not really my personal cup of tea, but there is still a right way and a wrong way to go about writing one.
With all of that in mind, I think I can honestly say that Exchange is by a wide margin the best of the stories that I've reviewed so far. On an objective level, it has quite a bit going for it: it's well-plotted and reasonably well-paced. There are a few parts that drag, but for the most part the story moves at a reasonable clip. There aren't any deviations, unnecessary side-plots, unnecessary scenes, or extraneous characters like we've seen in most of the other stories we've looked at.
In terms of the author's skill level, I would say that getmeouttahere is a good greentext writer and a passable fiction writer, but also a talented storyteller. His actual prose is nothing to write home about: many passages in this story are awkwardly worded relative to its length, this one might actually contain the most instances of "this sentence is bad and you should feel bad" of all my reviews so far, the use of second-person narration was a bad idea, some of his dialogue is a little cringe though the cringe level is probably acceptable by brony standards, and the "romantic moments" tend to be overly sappy. However, these deficiencies in execution are counterbalanced by a considerably greater skill level in terms of design.
As far as planning a story goes, ie building a plot, determining which events should happen and when, which characters should be in the story, what should be left out, and so on, this guy is a grand master compared to some of the others we've looked at. Pen Stroke, for instance, probably writes better prose than this guy; however, Past Sins was about 50,000 words longer than it needed to be, and in terms of plot and pacing it was all over the fucking place. This work is leaner and far better constructed. I'm not sure if getmeouttahere accomplished this through planning or if he just happens to have a knack for it, but either way, it's a good skill to have and it earns him a lot of points in my book. I've said before that writing (ie mechanics, execution) and storytelling (ie, building a complete, satisfying, moving story) are two different skills, and if you're going to develop only one of them, storytelling is the better skill to have.
In terms of what the author set out to accomplish, I don't think he was particularly trying to make great art; he set out to make a fun, shitposty Anon story, and in that regard he delivered. This is a lighthearted action-adventure-fantasy-romance story, where a reader (and possibly author) self-insert character gets isekaied into Equestria because reasons, and ends up banging his waifu. It does not take itself especially seriously, nor should it have. Nevertheless, the author still managed to build a solid, believable world and populate it with convincing characters. In fact, he manages to do a far better job in this regard than other authors we've read who were attempting far more ambitious and serious projects.
For instance, one thing I think this author did exceptionally well, that I haven't gone into too deeply yet, is worldbuilding. Imo this story is a good example of what good fanfiction can do: it takes the existing canon and expands on its lore in a way that is both believable and consistent with the established universe. This author doesn't get super-elaborate with his mythology: most of what's in here is just built on top of lore that was already in the show. There isn't a massive bestiary of new creatures or detailed maps of far off continents (other than Equus island, I guess). However, what he comes up with is clever, interesting, and most importantly feels genuine. Combining the characters of Clover the Clever and Discord, and giving he, Celestia and Luna a prior relationship and a backstory that tied into the silly adventure story he was telling, I thought was a neat idea. I also liked his take on the origins of Equestria, as well as the pre-history period that is hinted at but not explained in detail, with the Progenitors and all that. If they wanted to, other authors could potentially take this lore and expand upon it in works of their own, and that's really the whole point of writing fanfiction: taking a fictional universe that already exists, and building on it in ways that inspire other people to do the same.
File (): DABEF2B64BEAAE788EE166C92C0E4212-482156.png (470.9 KB, 1667x1250, 6584750.png)
>>371096
The other area in which I felt this author was particularly strong was characterization. I've already gone over this pretty extensively so I won't dwell on it too much here, but the concept is much the same as what I was saying about worldbuilding: it takes the simple portrayals of these characters that exist already, and expands them into more complete personalities. One of the story's deficient points, which I and others have mentioned, is that Celestia behaves very irresponsibly in this story, and it's difficult to root for her. While this is a valid criticism, I will also say that, while I didn't always like Celestia in this story, I did like the author's interpretation of the character.
The all-powerful, wise and knowing Sun Princess suddenly deciding to abandon her duties and run off to pursue her crush seems like an implausible portrayal of Celestia's character. However, as her backstory is revealed, we see another dimension of her character, and it starts to make sense. Celestia began life as an ordinary pony, who out of a desire to bring peace between the warring pony tribes acquired god powers and took on the rule of Equestria. She takes her responsibilities seriously, and yet there's a whole side of her life that she never really got to explore. When Anon comes along and stirs a quivering in her nethers, she finally gives in to a childish, romantic impulse. It doesn't necessarily mean that her actions in the story are all justified or that the reader should agree with her choices, but it does humanize poninize, whatever her and make her sympathetic.
The same is true for the other characters; most of them, anyway. Twilight and Luna were both very well-rendered, and as far as side characters went, I enjoyed Fluttershy as the erotic fanfiction author and Pinkie Pie as the matchmaker with ADD. However, considering the wide palette of characters the author chose to include in the story, many of them were underutilized to the point where I question the decision to include them at all. Bringing AJ, Big Mac and Apple Bloom on board the Dawn Star was a good choice, as otherwise the story would have been too centered on Anon and Celestia. However, once these three were brought in, they didn't really do very much. Big Mac had a minor role as the airship's mechanic, but Apple Bloom did very little beyond occasionally making jokes or observations to lighten the mood. Applejack, as is unfortunately often the case, was basically relegated to a background pony role. And once the other M6 characters were on board the ship as well, it began to feel like there were far too many actors onstage.
With all that said, there are still some major issues I had with this story. The most prominent is the issue with the wedding scene, where Celestia offered her life in sacrifice rather than Anon. I've already gone over this in detail and I don't feel like typing it all out again, but I would like to stress that this greatly detracted from the quality of an otherwise solid story.
Some of my other gripes include:
>Balios
This character came out of absolutely nowhere, and the minor role he played in the world's backstory could just as easily have been played by Discord/Clover the Clever. Balios did not need to exist.
>The Orbs
This is one area where the author needed to think things through a lot better than he did. The way things are set up, anyone willing to brave the Road of Trials can acquire one of these things and ascend to godhood, multiple times over if they so desire, without needing any other qualifications. Not only does this seem illogical, it actually detracts from the significance of alicornhood and immortality.
Case in point: Celestia is immortal, yet loves Anon, who is mortal. It is possible for Anon to use his orb to become immortal, yet at a crucial junction in the story he has to decide if he should give it away to Celestia in order to save the world. This ought to be a momentous choice for him, and the author tries to make it into one, but the reader understands that technically there's nothing at stake, so it becomes rather stupid. If Anon decides later that he still wants to be immortal, all he has to do is just go through the dumb Trials again.
Ditto for Twilight, actually: she chooses to give her orb to Anon rather than use it herself. Ideally, this should be a deeply symbolic gesture: she is choosing to atone for trying to separate Anon and Celestia by giving him the means to be with her forever. In doing so, she gives up her own chance at regaining her powers, indicating that she has finally learned the lesson about selfless love that she would have learned earlier, if the author hadn't fucked that part up as well. However, as it stands, this gesture has absolutely no punch. She's not really giving up anything; just like Anon or literally anyone else, if she ever decides she wants another Ascension Orb, she can just go get one, or have one of her friends give her theirs, or whatever.
>the Road of Trials
I've gone over this pretty extensively too; this whole part of the story just plain lacked zazz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho5Pt4pPKsg
Anyway...I think that's about all I've got for this. If I think of anything else I'll come back and add it, but for now I think this covers everything I wanted to cover. Getmeouttahere: congratulations. You are the closest thing to a heterosexual author ever to have graced the pages of Glim Glam's Eternal Zazzmatazzmic Jim Jam, and for that, I salute you. Very nice work.
And that's all for now, kids. As ever, I will probably take a few weeks to decompress and work on some other oddball projects I have going, and then we will be back. Up next: something short that Sven wanted me to review; I will have to go back and see what it was exactly. Then, after that, join us for:
FoE: Project Horizons
Until next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsM_VmN6ytk
The other area in which I felt this author was particularly strong was characterization. I've already gone over this pretty extensively so I won't dwell on it too much here, but the concept is much the same as what I was saying about worldbuilding: it takes the simple portrayals of these characters that exist already, and expands them into more complete personalities. One of the story's deficient points, which I and others have mentioned, is that Celestia behaves very irresponsibly in this story, and it's difficult to root for her. While this is a valid criticism, I will also say that, while I didn't always like Celestia in this story, I did like the author's interpretation of the character.
The all-powerful, wise and knowing Sun Princess suddenly deciding to abandon her duties and run off to pursue her crush seems like an implausible portrayal of Celestia's character. However, as her backstory is revealed, we see another dimension of her character, and it starts to make sense. Celestia began life as an ordinary pony, who out of a desire to bring peace between the warring pony tribes acquired god powers and took on the rule of Equestria. She takes her responsibilities seriously, and yet there's a whole side of her life that she never really got to explore. When Anon comes along and stirs a quivering in her nethers, she finally gives in to a childish, romantic impulse. It doesn't necessarily mean that her actions in the story are all justified or that the reader should agree with her choices, but it does humanize poninize, whatever her and make her sympathetic.
The same is true for the other characters; most of them, anyway. Twilight and Luna were both very well-rendered, and as far as side characters went, I enjoyed Fluttershy as the erotic fanfiction author and Pinkie Pie as the matchmaker with ADD. However, considering the wide palette of characters the author chose to include in the story, many of them were underutilized to the point where I question the decision to include them at all. Bringing AJ, Big Mac and Apple Bloom on board the Dawn Star was a good choice, as otherwise the story would have been too centered on Anon and Celestia. However, once these three were brought in, they didn't really do very much. Big Mac had a minor role as the airship's mechanic, but Apple Bloom did very little beyond occasionally making jokes or observations to lighten the mood. Applejack, as is unfortunately often the case, was basically relegated to a background pony role. And once the other M6 characters were on board the ship as well, it began to feel like there were far too many actors onstage.
With all that said, there are still some major issues I had with this story. The most prominent is the issue with the wedding scene, where Celestia offered her life in sacrifice rather than Anon. I've already gone over this in detail and I don't feel like typing it all out again, but I would like to stress that this greatly detracted from the quality of an otherwise solid story.
Some of my other gripes include:
>Balios
This character came out of absolutely nowhere, and the minor role he played in the world's backstory could just as easily have been played by Discord/Clover the Clever. Balios did not need to exist.
>The Orbs
This is one area where the author needed to think things through a lot better than he did. The way things are set up, anyone willing to brave the Road of Trials can acquire one of these things and ascend to godhood, multiple times over if they so desire, without needing any other qualifications. Not only does this seem illogical, it actually detracts from the significance of alicornhood and immortality.
Case in point: Celestia is immortal, yet loves Anon, who is mortal. It is possible for Anon to use his orb to become immortal, yet at a crucial junction in the story he has to decide if he should give it away to Celestia in order to save the world. This ought to be a momentous choice for him, and the author tries to make it into one, but the reader understands that technically there's nothing at stake, so it becomes rather stupid. If Anon decides later that he still wants to be immortal, all he has to do is just go through the dumb Trials again.
Ditto for Twilight, actually: she chooses to give her orb to Anon rather than use it herself. Ideally, this should be a deeply symbolic gesture: she is choosing to atone for trying to separate Anon and Celestia by giving him the means to be with her forever. In doing so, she gives up her own chance at regaining her powers, indicating that she has finally learned the lesson about selfless love that she would have learned earlier, if the author hadn't fucked that part up as well. However, as it stands, this gesture has absolutely no punch. She's not really giving up anything; just like Anon or literally anyone else, if she ever decides she wants another Ascension Orb, she can just go get one, or have one of her friends give her theirs, or whatever.
>the Road of Trials
I've gone over this pretty extensively too; this whole part of the story just plain lacked zazz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho5Pt4pPKsg
Anyway...I think that's about all I've got for this. If I think of anything else I'll come back and add it, but for now I think this covers everything I wanted to cover. Getmeouttahere: congratulations. You are the closest thing to a heterosexual author ever to have graced the pages of Glim Glam's Eternal Zazzmatazzmic Jim Jam, and for that, I salute you. Very nice work.
And that's all for now, kids. As ever, I will probably take a few weeks to decompress and work on some other oddball projects I have going, and then we will be back. Up next: something short that Sven wanted me to review; I will have to go back and see what it was exactly. Then, after that, join us for:
FoE: Project Horizons
Until next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsM_VmN6ytk
>>371097
Are you going to make a post here mentioning when you start the next story? Or will we have to comb through the catalogue to find the new thread?
Are you going to make a post here mentioning when you start the next story? Or will we have to comb through the catalogue to find the new thread?
File (): 31BF603AC929791D4777A8DB749697A0-238383.png (232.8 KB, 2800x1990, 1734355.png)
>>371097
A mostly non-homo fanfic author in GlimGlam's review?!
My how times are a changing.
Thanks for reviewing it's always a blast reading along and more importantly your reviews and quips.
A mostly non-homo fanfic author in GlimGlam's review?!
My how times are a changing.
Thanks for reviewing it's always a blast reading along and more importantly your reviews and quips.
>>371096
when i firt saw that pic i thought it was ANON in DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE before using his arm and getting it muscular inside Celestia... LOL
when i firt saw that pic i thought it was ANON in DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE before using his arm and getting it muscular inside Celestia... LOL
File (): 711E692081B49624DF5E5A71D1614111-466361.png (455.4 KB, 1464x769, 215-2154269_tree-hugger.png)
Bump.
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