Para's Old Lengthy And In-Depth Fanfiction Reviews

Okay, normally, I don't review stories in-depth.

And guys, I don't say it very often, but I really love getting comments. I love knowing that I've affected someone with my writing enough for them to say something to me about it. Sometimes people don't like my stories or comments, and that's okay too—I just want to know what people have to say. Though I can be pretty weird to my commentors sometimes, I value even the most unpleasant input more than silence. Comments show me that I made you think, or laugh, or cry, or get angry, or roll your eyes, or do something. And knowing that makes me really, really happy.

But once in a while, I'll get comments like this.

I get suspicious when people say a generic, unspecific compliment and then ask for a favor in the same line, especially when they try to act casual by putting "Hey..." in front of it, like they only thought of it after writing their generic praise and it wasn't the actual point of the comment.

So I took a look at this guy's story. Then I took a look at the comments.

And I notice that a number of the reviewers have either mentioned being asked to read the story by the author, or else have implied that they aren't even interested in the genre, which (after some detective work) led me to find that this guy has been asking various authors to check out his story via the comments section. In fact, I have a cap of Armalite summing it up pretty well.

Ace goes onto stories and userpages, posts a vapid comment that amounts to "I like your stories generally" or some comment about something that's visible on the summary page, but never actually mentions anything related to the stories he claims to like. Then he asks people to read his stories. I even saw the exact same comment that was on my page posted on MythrilMoth's page as well, without any changes whatsoever.

I really, really, really don't like people who do that.

So now, Ace has inserted his little dick into a hornet's nest. I did read his fic, and it sucks. This the first chapter is every Counterstrike fanboy cliche rolled into a single poorly written story with an incomprehensibly AU plot, bad English, stilted dialogue, and lazy narration.

This is the summary:

Scootaloo has a great life; two loving mothers who are also her idols, and the best friends a pony could ask for.  However, when Luna appears in one of her nightmares with an opportunity, Scootaloo makes a choice that will place her at the highest ranks of a new flight team, and that will ultimately put her in conflict with Equestria itself.

This is a sequel to The Order by Bad_Seed_72 and sequel to My Mother is a Wonderbolt One and Two by Blueball-Blitz.  Reading them first is highly recommended. This story will involve other MLP characters from their own stories, but Scoots will be the center of it. Un-tagged characters include:  Rumble, Flash Sentry, Luna, Celestia, Thunderlane, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Spitfire.

FIrst of all, fuck Flash Sentry. Second of all, the bastardization of something written by Bad_Seed_72 is reason enough to rape this story again and again: Bad is an amazing writer, and I'm reasonably certain she didn't approve this "sequel".

Third of all, I have to make a huge distinction between the first chapter and the rest of the story—the first chapter is completely unrelated to the rest of the story, despite being the longest and most bizarrely bad of all the chapters. The first one is about fighter planes, and the rest is about 8 year old Scootaloo making goo goo eyes at Rumble and whining about how her mom abandoned her and other domestic shit.

It's as if two different stories got mashed together, like two globs of feces being mashed together, and they mixed and became homogenous.

Let's look at the first chapter. I'll give you a sample of the horror to start with; like a love tap before the real beating.

Steel Wing then launched a missile at Scootaloo who quickly evaded it and ordered,  “All NLR fighters, the Equestrian fighters are hostile!  Repeat: the fighters are hostile, fire at will!”  Scoots then launched a missile and shot down one of the fighters.  “Protect our new civilians at all costs.”

That’s when all tartarus broke loose; every fighter in the area began fighting at each other, and the Shadowbolts were doing better than the rest.  In just 10 minutes, enemy fighters were being shot down by the Shadowbolts; Dread Wing score 6, Diamond Eye 4, Blackwing 8, Star Scream 11, and Scootaloo 21.  But even with all of the losses, the Equestrian fighters were endless.  The enemy kept out maneuvering the other pilots and taking them down.

“No matter how many we shoot down, they’re still taking a whole lot of our own pilots,”  Diamond Eye said.

Yeah.

On to the review.

As I said earlier, in slightly different language, the story chapter suffers from Counterstrike Fanboy Syndrome.

Anyway, you know that story you wrote when you were 13 where you spent 10 pages describing the protagonist's super-awesome ArmaHeavy Industries FU-3758A Model 69 sniper rifle with a top-mounted Interrotech laser-guided Jewhunter scope with 100x magnification and optional night vision and light-bending modes that could spit out belt-fed .834955432mm caliber rounds at a rate of up to 10,000 rounds per second through a special ten foot barrel with a DthPRcMe, Ltd., ultra-silencer on the end so that when the hostile target was effectively dispatched and neutralized (cuz that sounds more army than just getting his head blown off) no one would hear it and his brains just exploded out of his head like a watermelon getting crushed by a falling Oprah Winfrey...?

That's Counterstrike Fanboy Syndrome.

If you got bored of reading all that shit (I don't blame you) it's a fixation with inserting terms, acronyms, and military-sounding jargon into stories in places where they're either completely inappropriate, or else are appropriate but used in a way that means the reader will have to google every other word if they're not familiar with what an M60A1 RISE/Passive is. More than that, it's actually very similar to namedropping, where someone offhandedly mentions their close association with an important person or place or thing, with the expectation that people will then be awed by it. In this case, the CS fanboy wants to show off how much he knows about the military, and maybe have some people ask him what this or that means so he can then explain it to them in a long-winded, spergy essay, and feel important and knowledgeable.

It's a way of affirming that they are indeed part of the culture, despite not being in the military and being too retarded to ever be in it when they finally graduate community college. They're very comparable to the 2000s phenomenon of white people trying to act like black gangstas and spouting gang terminology all over the place.

Granted, it's not nearly as bad in this story chapter as it could be, but it's still pretty bad. I'm going to skim the story chapter and just make a list of some of the instances of Ace abusing military words and designations to sound cool. This is not even all of them.

July 16, 2001

NLR territory, 5 miles from the Equestrian border.

      (note: "NLR" is never defined within the story chapter, but I am assuming it means "New Lunar Republic"...)

squadrons of NLR Su-35 fighters

      (note: this is a fucking lazy way of showing what the plane looks like without describing it)

the legendary Shadowbolts in their Su-47s

      (note: see last note)

mare’s voice said through the com of her Su-47 exo-suit

      (note: what was the reason for mentioning it was on her exo-suit?)

The rest of the pilots responded by turning on their IFF signals

      (note: "IFF signal" is never defined or explained)

She then contacted the V-22 Ospreys picking up pony immigrants.  “All Ospreys, how’s the pickup?”

      (note: these are not even mentioned to be aircraft. Also, Ospreys are American, and the SU35 was designed in Soviet-era Russia...)

Radar is picking up 17 dozen bogies coming from the Equestrian border

      (note: I don't think they even call them bogies anymore, do they? Either way this sounds more like a video ga—Oh wait.)

Steel Wing’s weapons went active.

      (note: "went active" is yet more military jargon that doesn't need to be here)

“Do you think there’s an AWACS nearby?”  Dread Wing asked.

      (note: "AWACS" is used repeatedly in the chapter, yet is never defined or explained)

//////////****//////////

1 mile from the conflict zone.

      (note: that reminds me, you'll see more of this guy's bizarre fixation with exact distances and figures later)

“It’s been hard enough trying to get there with rundown F-16 exo-suits

      (note: stop fucking namedropping advanced techno shit like you know anything about it)

And... I can't go on. I'm less than halfway through the first chapter and I'm already sick of that shit.

A note about Equestria's cultural jargon: a lot of people try to just transplant earth stuff into Equestria. So you have a city named Canterlot and a train system called the Friendship Express, and a plane called the SAU-745 AV Jet Aircraft. Doesn't fucking work, does it? Ponies have a different culture than ours—they adore innocent, clunky things. The Elements of Harmony aren't the "6 Faceted Unity-Based Defensive Security Network (6FUBDSN, AKA EoH)", they're "the Elements of Harmony". Don't try to do similar stuff unless you're trying to A) parody something or B) create a completely different, much more streamlined modernistic Equestria, in which case I would recommend not having characters named Scootaloo, either. Call her "Poultron Unit B-2 (Colors: Orange, violet; cutie mark not included).

It doesn't even matter what you're trying to create, really—if you're not trying to worldbuild a technological utopian version of Equestria, don't fucking namedrop technological crap. I'm also writing an AU story focusing on an advanced, militaristic Equestria. One of the differences between it and this is that despite them having modernesque technology, there aren't any pointless acronyms or overuse of military jargon just for the sake of having them. A pony holding a bolt-action rifle based on a combination of the Springfield and K98 rifles is described as having a "rifle". A pony with a submachine gun based on the Gustav M/45 and MP40 submachine guns is described as having "a machine gun" slung over his shoulder, because that's what people are going to think of it as anyway. They fight to forcibly instill harmony around the world, rather than to dominate it; there are no "Deathwing" groups or "Shadow Soldiers" or any of that GI Joe shit.

But I digress, and I'm coming dangerously close to being a hypocrite here.

Let's get to the actual story chapter 1.

Spoilers (fuck you): Apparently the first chapter is supposed to be a look into the future. Yes, it was all a nightmare/prophetic future dream Scootaloo had while Flash Sentry was cleaning a latrine out. No, I am not kidding. I'll fuck this real quick anyway.

Basically what happens is the ponies from Equestria are all leaving. Millions of them are migrating into the "newly founded" (All newly founded nations have the most advanced air force planes and the most advanced natives to fly them, obviously) New Lunar Rectum like bacteria into an open head wound. Scootaloo and "Blackwing", "Diamond Eye", "Star Scream", and "Dread Wing"—yes, those seriously are the names of his OCs, I am not even shitting you—are supposed to watch them get picked up by Ospreys for some reason even though they're in the Lunar Rectum now.

But then, the EVIL equestrians come after them because the nobles don't want to lose all their money (again, not shitting you here). In fact, I'll even show you the astounding logic used to explain why Equestria would not want millions of its own people to leave and join another nation, never to return.

Star Scream flew closer to Dread Wing and answered,  “It would be extremely bad for the noble’s economy.”  Dread Wing was even more confused till Star Scream explained it,  “They are half of Equestria's population, so they would be losing all that money when these ponies left.”

Do you see now?

"Don't let them go, because then they can't buy our... Oh wait, we're rich aristocratic nobles with vast inherited fortunes. We have tons of money already if we pulled out of the stock market before it crashed, which it already has because of the panic of millions of ponies leaving and can't be recovered anyway. And with the economy so fucked up, the value of the Equestrian bit will inflate, then deflate, and we will be left richer than ever. Not to mention that we have a new  neighbor to trade with and increase our profits, assuming they're not communists. Maybe we'll just move there too. I hear it's nice there this time of year."

And then, they have a horrible little fight sequence that is basically the first two paragraphs of what I quoted at the beginning. That is the entire battle. They look for some... thing... to blow up, and somewhere in this clusterfuck, Flash Sentry's eeeevil Equestrian commanding officer orders him to fire on poor innocent civilians that the brave NLR people are trying to save because the author likes the NLR. Oh Christ, this is going to be one of those stories where all the characters the author likes are on one side and are smart, beautiful, and kind, and all the characters he dislikes will be on the other side and will be uncharacteristically mean and stupid and greedy. Next, we'll watch Celestia and Blueblood burn down an orphanage! But don't worry, Scoota-Sue will stop them.

The twist that occurs after this is so boringly written it might as well... something. Basically Flash Sentry gets his orders to kill people, protests, is told to stfu, calls the NLR guys, and then blows up the guys he trained and flew with for (apparently) twelve years. This is yet more proof that Flash Sentry is the antichrist, but the author seems to think it shows he has a good heart.

Then, I don't know. They do some stuff and Scootaloo wakes up and it was all a dream, but apparently that dream was about the future, and then a couple of chapters of Scootaloo making paper mache cutouts with Rumble and giggling and the author trying to rip off bats (I guess), and then I just don't give a shit so fuck you. I'm not touching that garbage see way below

July 16, 2001

NLR territory, 5 miles from the Equestrian border.

This is meant to be typed across the bottom of the screen, right? That was fine in Black Hawk Down; not so much in a My Little Pony fanfiction.

It was a bright sunny day

Fuck you seriously. Stories should only only open with phrases like that if the writer is parodying bad fics. This doesn't seem like a parody—it's just a bad fic.

millions of ponies were migrating from Equestria to the newly founded nation next to it

This lack of information makes a little more sense seeing as it's a prophetic dream, but it's still like having 8 dicks rammed down my throat at once.

Also, that reminds me:

In the sky were squadrons of NLR Su-35 fighters

The irony of this being that SU35s are a Soviet invention. So, since the author is obsessively intent on making all of this stuff so specifically relevant to earth (see: list of acronyms and terms), the NLR is analogous to either a repressive communist dictatorship or a homophobic clusterfuck full of drunken skinheads that used to be a repressive communist dictatorship.

And Ospreys, btw, are American. What gives?

rogue Equestrian fighters might try to take back their former ponies

What, do they have pony magnets on the bottom?

“And that’s the reason we’re still defending these ponies.”  Scootaloo said.  She then contacted the V-22 Ospreys picking up pony immigrants.  “All Ospreys, how’s the pickup?”

“Everything is ok captain,”  one of the Ospreys answered,  “We’re picking up the young and the weak as you ordered.”

Remember what I said about Scoota-Sue saving burning orphans?

2 miles away from the immigrants

Specifying things like the exact distance they flew. It really adds to my experience of this story.

Here's one of the other things about this author: he likes to specify things in numbers. Here, have a look at this autism:

5 miles from the Equestrian border

In just 10 minutes, enemy fighters were being shot down by the Shadowbolts; Dread Wing score 6, Diamond Eye 4, Blackwing 8, Star Scream 11, and Scootaloo 21

Fuck that shit I'm not going to go find another—

Age's of Flash and Scoots.

Scootaloo's age 2001: 18

Scootaloo's age 1989:  6

Flash Sentry's age 2001: 27

Flash Sentry's age 1989: 15

Ahhh fuck

fuckkk

now I know how vivian felt when she was doing the annotations for the sonichu audiobooks

its like my soul is on fire

“And that’s the reason we’re still defending these ponies.”  Scootaloo said.  She then contacted the V-22 Ospreys picking up pony immigrants.  “All Ospreys, how’s the pickup?”

“Everything is ok captain,”  one of the Ospreys answered,  “We’re picking up the young and the weak as you ordered.”

Scoots smiled but then noticed that one of them was behind and asked.  “Osprey 84, you’re falling behind. Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, engine 2 is slowing down for some reason,”  the pilot responded.  “Hey, number 2, what’s wrong?”

“The dang propeller got loose somehow, and now it’s not going fast as it should,”  the pegasus in engine 2 of the Osprey responded.

Scootaloo heard this and proposed, “84, I think you need to head back to the capital for maintenance.”

Before the pilot could answer, the pegasus in engine 2 answered,  “Negative, captain. If I can fly faster then engine 1, I may be able to get it equal again.”

Scootaloo thought for a moment.  "Alright engine 2, but if you get any further problems, turn back immediately."

“Roger that, captain.”

"Lol my propeller fell off captain!"

"Go and getted a plane fixed!"

"No I am good! Can fly speedy!"

"Okay stay! Or go back after stay!"

Okay, fuck this shit.

It sucks. That's my final verdict. I'm exactly one chapter in, and I already want to kill myself. If I were a fluffy pony (god forbid), I would be in the wan die loop by now, though I also wouldn't be smart enough to read so that's irrelevant.

The worst part is that this is not even the actual story. The actual story is some slice of life shit about Scootaloo being in love with Rumble and some other garbage, and apparently she's going to grow up and do all this. It's just that, fuck, I don't want to review all that. The author just told us what's going to happen anyway, so who fucking gives a shit?

Actually you know what, I'll review it anyway because I have some free time today.

*long, heavy sigh*

Well, it's a fine day to die.

Chapter One: A River’s lullaby.

Yeah, I puked too.

Warning!  This is the part of the story where you need to read the "My Mother is a Wonderbolt One and Two" by Blueball-Blitz and the story "The Order" by Bad_Seed_72.  If you don't then this will make no sense, these stories are in my favorites for you to read.

This disclaimer is actually the reason why I'm bothering to review past the first chapter. I fucking adore Bad Seed's writing, and Blueball Blitz is pretty good, too. If I did a sequel to one of their stories, I'd have links up to your ears. But this dick person didn't even bother to link to the stories he was sequeling, just said "Look thru muh favs lawl". That's fucking rude, boss.

Anyway...

Scootaloo wakes up from a dream. But it's not the dream that was the entire focus of the first chapter! What is this shit? She's dreaming about her mom, and crying hysterically, and then Spitfire (who is Scootaloo's new mom now) is like "your mom loved you" but in a really strange, stilted way that activates my uncanny valley senses, and then Scootaloo is just like "Thanks mom2" and everything's great.

Actually, let me show you how the whole shiznit goes down, because you need to see it to believe how autistic this conversation is.

Scootaloo shot up from her bed, sweating head to hooves.  She looked around and saw that she was in her room.  She then looked down on her covers and mumbled, “Why did you leave me?”

Scootaloo’s door opened and a yellow mare with a fiery mane trotted in with a worried look on her face.  She trotted to Scoots bed and looked at her. “What is it, sweetie? Is something wrong?”

Scoots took a moment before she tentatively answered, “It was just another dream… of her.”

Spitfire wore a frown and put her hoof on her adopted daughter’s shoulder,  “It’s alright sweetie.  It was just a dream,”

“I don’t understand!”  Scoots screamed, pushing Spitfires hoof off her shoulder.  “Why am I remembering that memory of HER!”

Spitfire put her hooves around Scoots, hugging her while stroking the little filly’s mane and whispered to her,  “Scoots... I don’t know why you’re remembering the memory of your real mother, but I know from your description that your mother loved you very much.”

Scoots finally smiled and hugged her adopted mother back.  “Thanks mom. I really needed you here.”

Yeah.

That's the whole thing. There's one line before the quoted part and two after, and then the scene ends.

Then we have... oh god.

Scootaloo's dream where Luna watches her mom abandon her or some shit.

It wouldn't be that bad, just soulless, except that the obnoxious author thought it would be a good idea to put a Youtube link and the lyrics to River Lullaby or some shit in the middle of it, apparently sung by Scootaloo's mother. Oh god, oh my god this is so... ugh. I can't even describe the way this makes me feel, but I think it's similar to having my tits deflated with a pickaxe.

Scoots was crying out for her mother, when she quickly came back and leaned over her daughter, beginning to sing as tears flowed down her face.

[hebrewtube shiznit, not gonna repost cuz fuck you]

“Hush now my baby

Be still now, don't cry,

sleep like you're rocked by the stream.

Sleep and remember, my lullaby,

I'll be with y

Yeah, it's bad. And it goes on. He put the entire lyrics to the song in there, I just stopped quoting them pretty fast because it got too retarded.

So Luna tells Scootaloo that her mom loved her, and oh, by the way, has she ever heard of the Shadowbolts? Because that's her real reason for being there in Scootaloo's dreams, apparently—not the fact that one of her subjects was having a nightmare, but the fact that she wants to ask an 8 year old to join a team of fighter plane pilots in the future.

And Scootaloo, despite being explicitly told that Dash would choose the wonderbolts and not like her anymore, takes exactly one line to say "I accept" after this, with (as shown in the rest of the story) no emotional investment or character development whatsoever depicted.

In the third chapter, we get the author's idea of cute puppy love, which just comes off as autis naive and virgintastic. Apparently, Rumble is going to be Scootaloo's love interest.

Also, Cheerilee basically teaches her children that Luna's republic is better. This is not unexpected, given that the author wants to portray all those characters he likes as good guys and all the ones he doesn't as bad guys, and he has made two sides to conveniently separate them into. Cheerilee gives a rather retarded dissertation about the Lunar Republic and the Treaty of Stalliongrad and a bunch of other SNCA, and we get a picture of Luna's flag that the author stole from deviantart and didn't credit the creator of.

Fortunately, I am here, so I can tell you that this was made by lonewolf3878 of deviantart.com.

“Why are we learning about this?”  Diamond Tiara said with a bored expression.  “They’re just a bunch of ponies a long time ago that didn’t even last long.”

It's pretty funny because Tiara is supposed to be a callous, uncaring bitch, and yet she's pretty correct. Also, isn't it convenient how they're learning about the Lunar Republic right after Scootaloo got an invitation to be a Shadowbolt? This is like a saturday morning cartoon, except not remotely entertaining ever at all.

“Scootaloo and Rumble sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G.”

Yeah. I'll let that speak for itself.

I haven't even touched half the things that are wrong with the second and third chapters, and I honestly don't want to. Every time I look back, there's more illogical caca to be confused by. I'm not even going to review chapters 4 and 5, because—I can't. I don't have the patience, and my body can only take so much super-rape.

But I want to leave you with this.

It's the author's note from chapter 3.

Very important meta information.

Are you ready?

Author's Note:

Rainbow Dash and Cheerilee age's.

Rainbow Dash's age: 18

Cheerilee's age: 22

Yeah.

Somehow, that sums up the story better than I ever could.

Excuse me while I kill myself.