Para's Old Lengthy And In-Depth Fanfiction Reviews
To Thaw My Cold Heart
Previous Chapter[4:25:47 AM] Kalash93: I ain't drunk enough for this stupidity.
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fuck you kalash
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fuck you for leaving me to face this monstrosity all by myself
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Hello, my fellow critics.
Grammar Nazis.
Dicks.
Niggas.
I wrote several introductions to this and deleted them because none of them really captured the sheer scale of how awful this particular story is. Ultimately, this review is 10,000 words long and took me almost 12 full hours of writing to complete.
It's very hard to pin down just what is so insipid about this particular story, even for an experienced fanfiction-spelunker like me. Oh, there's undeniably something! But it's far more complex than the average crapfic, simply by reason of having such a multifaceted and diverse range of failure on a fully global level, and also by the fact that, like the homo-bashing Mystquestria, it managed to stay both unnoticed and reasonably well-liked for so long. It's accumulated almost 450 likes (as of this writing) and only 70 downvotes, despite being--
Yes, I'm going to say it.
This is the single worst MLP: FIM fanfiction I've ever read.
I'm not even exaggerating. I have gone through hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of fanfics on this site since joining, and I have never read one as awful as this. I'm really sorry for all the hyperbole, but I truly cannot get over how immeasurably bad it is. It's amazingly bad. Silent Protectors and Nope Just Ponies don't even hold a candle to this level of what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking.
Alright, that's all well and good. But you still don't believe me. So let me show you some proof.
I'm sure that by now you have seen To Thaw My Cold Heart in the feature box once or twice. You have probably seen that the author appears to be kind of almost capable of normal spelling and grammar to some degree. Most likely you are now saying "Surely it can't be that bad".
Well fuck you. It is that bad.
Just having a poorly written story doesn't make it a bad fic. There are lots of poorly written stories that are fun to read--just look at about 90% of the coherent clop on this website. It sucks! But we don't care, because it's clop, and what matters is whether it's sexy or not. This story, by the way, promises clop later on. Way later on. God forbid. Anyway, no, just being a bland or generic writer doesn't cause one to make something this horrible. Neither does being a troll. This is a special kind of bad where the story fails fractally. When I say that, I mean that no matter how closely you look at it, you will never find something that it does not fail at.
And now I'm going to make an attempt to show you as many of those fractals as I possibly can, so that no one can ever fucking disagree with me about it.
Let's-a-go.
This is honest to god torture and you probably like watching it.
I think the reason I skipped it over early on might be the cover art. It's generic HiE cover art: completely unrelated to pony at all, so bland and harmless that I hardly bothered looking in the first place. It's just some dragon sitting in a cave, looking like the cover of a young adult novel. But it hides great horrors, ladies and gentlebeards.
Here's the summary:
What else is there to say? I'm a human. I'm in equestria. There's not much else to reveal, to be honest.
Well, there is, actually. But why should I really tell you? That job is already left to the six mares who've come to be my 'friend', so I don't really need more people invading my privacy.
I swear. Quite often actually, to the point where it's become a common thing in my life. You know what else has been a common thing in my life? The 'conservative' assholes who jeer at me since they can't accept me into their society, because I'm 'A hairless ape.'
'
There will be some slight bashing on certain characters due to the altered personalities that I gave them. The best romances are the ones that have fights, in my opinion.
This will eventually become a clopfic, but that's in the distant future.
Somewhat inspired by Terran34's Tales Of The Oppressed.
Cover image shamefully used from Lifefantasyx (Mabinogi: Ice dragon pet.)
Zheck ze artist out! he/she draws gud shit.
Already you're starting to understand, I hope. No?
I guess I should start with the... No fuck that, I'm just going to do the list thing again because it's easier. And I'm going to limit it to all I can think of after reading the summary exactly once, because if I read it again, it would take longer.
--Normally, one says "What else is there to say?" when there is nothing else to say, not as an introduction to everything else.
--Normally, one does not introduce oneself to a complete stranger with "What else is there to say?", either.
--"What else is there to say? I'm a human. I'm in equestria." reminds me so very strongly of "We all know the story, guy goes to a costume party, gets transported to Equestria..." and other such failed lampshades.
--Equestria should be capitalized.
--"There's not much else to reveal, to be honest. Well, there is, actually. But why should I really tell you?" I'll deal with this in a sec.
--" the six mares who've come to be my 'friend'," One frequently occurring characteristic of this story is grammatical confusion and awkward phrases of this sort.
--"The 'conservative' assholes who jeer at me since they can't accept me into their society, because I'm 'A hairless ape.'" Will deal with this godawful shit in a second, particularly in relation to him saying he swears constantly.
--But, "'conservative' assholes"
--And, "'A hairless ape.'"
--There will be some slight bashing on certain characters due to the altered personalities that I gave them. This was added after people complained.
--"This will eventually become a clopfic, but that's in the distant future."
--"Zheck ze artist out!"
--the random period in the middle of nowhere
Good god! Read all that over again, remembering as you do that this was featured on and off for a week and 450 people liked it. Have you done that? Good.
Now let's address some more complex issues in the summary (yes, we're hardly even at the gates of hell).
1. "There's not much else to reveal, to be honest. Well, there is, actually. But why should I really tell you?" -- I probably wouldn't even have consciously noticed this if Aryame hadn't pointed it out, because it's so subtle, but the author does this constantly. He says something, contradicts it, contradicts it again, and then contradicts it again. It's a constant theme where everything actively contradicts itself, even in terms of the basic logic that the story is running on to get its points across to the reader.
In particular, OP seems to want to portray his character as withdrawn and conflicted, which is fine... but he's doing it by having him tell the reader very personal things and then saying "but I'm not going to talk to you, reader, because I like my privacy". At one point later on (and I'll point this out to you) he mentions how he wouldn't be a pedophile or anything, not even with little foals, and then like 2 paragraphs later he refuses to talk about how ponies defeated an ice dragon because it's private or something. What?
What even?
Literally, my reaction to this person would be "did you take your medication today and where is your caretaker?"
I hope to get across to you just how pervasive this contradiction thing is. It isn't just limited to this instance, oh no. In fact, I'm going to address another instance of it right now.
2. "I swear. Quite often actually, to the point where it's become a common thing in my life. You know what else has been a common thing in my life? The 'conservative' assholes who jeer at me since they can't accept me into their society, because I'm 'A hairless ape.'" -- Alright, the full absurdity of this requires a bit of knowledge from later in the fic itself, but you should be able to tell how hypocritical he is from this sentence alone. He swears quite often and it's become a common thing in his life -- in a world where no one else swears and it's probably considered rude and stuff. One other thing that has become common is people hating his guts.
Derr.
I mean, they're fictional, but even within the world of the story, it is established that ponies find his swearing embarrassing and offensive. OP seems to think this makes him sound cool and jaded, but no. No, it makes him sound like an asshole. I can see why people would think him a douche based on the fact that he swears at them just because he doesn't care.
But it goes further than that if you look into the story. This guy really is a massive asshole. Not on par with that guy from Nope Just Ponies in terms of sociopathy, but still a stupid, annoying, obnoxious little shit who does stupid, annoying, obnoxious little shit things that the author thinks are cool but which actually aren't cool, they're just fucking stupid. He's the kind of douchebag that you'd kick him out of the party after 15 minutes because he's so obnoxious.
First chapter: Still Living, I Guess · 30th Aug 2014
These are the first three lines of the chapter.
I don't really know what else to say.
I became the unwilling host of the Elder dragon.
A big one too.
I have to give Aryame credit for pointing out what was wrong with that particular sequence and why it was so... off. I would have just chalked it up to the uncanny valley effect of something that looks like writing, but is actually fecal matter smeared in vaguely letter-like patterns.
If you're wondering, it's that line 2 references the Elder dragon, while line 3 implies that either there are more than one of the Elder dragons or the protagonist is a really fat host for the Elder dragon. It's one of those fractal things I talked about--it contradicts itself on literally every possible level, even a grammatical one, and even in its own opening hook.
My new theory is that FIMFiction does not actually read the words of stories. Users simply vote on the ideas and make up the rest in their heads, because they are so atsumitc that they can't read a story if it's not about them or their OC.
And I almost forgot.
That Elder Dragon shit.
I have no concrete idea what an Elder Dragon really is, even after reading the story.
A couple of people asked this question as well. This was the author's answer:
Either you have no knowledge of the words 'elder' or 'dragon' or you are just plain idiotic for forgetting that 'elder' just means old (hence the term: "respect your elders"
Now, in reality, OP just stole the Elder Dragon thing from Skyrim. Look it up, seriously. And generally, an elder is not someone who's old, but someone who's wise and greatly respected--both of which are typically associated with age, hence the term: respect your fucking elders. There is a big difference between these two things. Respect your fucking elders. Respect your fucking elders. Respect your fucking elders. Respect your fucking elders. Respect your fucking elders.
(This is also the very first of many, many instances you will soon witness of OP being a complete asshole to people for no apparent reason. Just like his character! Like father, like son. Remember your fucking manners. Remember your fucking manners. Remember your fucking manners. Remember your fucking manners. Remember your fucking manners. Remember your fucking manners.)
Ever since the attack on ponyville. Living conditions have gotten worse. Well, for me to be specific. Everyone despises me, they see me as some monster, and that was before the elder dragon attacked. Insults here, insults there, the most common one being referring me to a diamond dog, I don't even know what a fucking diamond dog is, let alone figure out why they would compare me to them, despite me not having a single inch of diamond on me.
What do I say to this?
Let's see. I'll just try rambling because... I don't know. It's as good as anything.
Ponyville should be capitalized (again, that's the second time). Period between that and Living should be a comma, and you obviously didn't hit the wrong key because you also took the extra effort to capitalize the word Living. It doesn't even tell, much less show; we only know that living conditions are worse or were worse or something. It switches tenses mid-sentence. Also, while this rambling is connected to the story, the story's rambling is just completely asinine drivel about nothing. We know you don't have a single inch of diamond on you! Nobody's going to take that literally unless they're retarded! Maybe you would I don't know Also Elder dragon is capitalized in the previous praagraph and not here. Why? Why do you do this? And commas are not periods, you should not use them like this, unless you're deliberately going for a rambling effect, like this, it looks stupid otherwise, like when you used it, because you don't know what the fuck you're doing.
I live alone, well, almost alone.
WORDS MEAN THINGS
When you say you lived alone, you cannot then say "Well, almost alone" in literally the same sentence. First of all, it's incorrect English, and second of all, "alone" means "nobody else", and "almost alone" means "somebody else but not many somebodies comparative to a larger number of somebodies". Ergo it is by definition a contradictory statement and you just used it in the same sentence!
I was kindly taken in by a yellow flying horse when I got here. That reminds me... How the fuck did I get here again? Oh and before you forget, my name is Raijin, as in Rye-Jin phonetically, not Ray-jin, because that sounds like a sad excuse of a mixture of an American name and a Japanese name.
Alright.
Number one.
That's one other fail fractal about this story: it has no focus. It cannot stay on the same topic for more than one and a half grammatically incorrect Engrishy sentences. It is like a child with ADHD and atsimu and nothing to do and a television remote and a big flat screen TV. There is no focus. It goes from "I stayed with a flying hoers... How did I get here again cuz I forgot the most traumatic event of my life? Also fuck yall niggas I got swag and hey wanna see my penis? It's almost an inch long."
But I'm pretty sure you didn't even notice any of that because you were busy gawking at the protagonist's name, weren't you.
Oh and before you forget, my name is Raijin, as in Rye-Jin phonetically, not Ray-jin, because that sounds like a sad excuse of a mixture of an American name and a Japanese name.
Raijin, as in Rye-Jin phonetically, not Ray-jin, because that sounds like a sad excuse of a mixture of an American name and a Japanese name.
Raijin, as in Rye-Jin phonetically, not Ray-jin
I expect you knew this story was going to be bad, but this is probably the point at which you begin to realize, slowly, that it really is the worst FIM story ever written. And if not, let me enlighten you as to how this author story is not only terminally unimaginative, but also terminally stupid: OP stole his protagonist's name from Mortal Kombat. (sort of cuz it's Raiden but I don't play MK so fuck you and also japan people talk funny so it's still raijin)
Yeah. That Japanese video game where you beat the shit out of people for no reason other than to beat the shit out of them. Now, if you ever play it again, you can do so with the knowledge that one of its characters is the namesake for an angsty, whiny little douchebag with a potty mouth from a horrifically bad My Little Pony fanfic.
Not that there's anything wrong with lifting names you like. I do it all the time. But usually it's a good idea to not give Japanese names to American character and stuff, you know? Furthermore, OP seems aware that this is kind of a no-no, so he tries to lampshade it by blaming us for "mispronouncing" it and making it sound like... what it actually is, I guess.
So Ricin RAIJIN gets a job at Sweet Apple Acres, as per every fucking HiE ever. He works there... bucking apples. Okay then. 
Maybe he has steel-toed boots?
When I say he gets a job, by the way, he gets a job. That's it. There's almost no other information given. He gets a job, he likes Big Mac because he doesn't annoy him with questions about hoomans, AJ is annoying, BUT he just keeps his mouth shut and works because he's grateful to have work, or he used to be--I can't tell because the story keeps switching between past and present tenses. At this point it starts to become clear that... You know what, I'm going to just cheat a little and borrow his totally not-moonspeak nickname from later on in this chapter because it's easier than typing all that.
At this point it starts to become clear that RAI is a victim.
One of those chronic victim characters who's held down by life.
He's a Gary Stu of the angsty kind, the kind that justifies itself by opposing imagined oppression in the story. He's just so nice, but everyone hates him because they're evil bigots and stuff. But even worse, we haven't even seen any oppression, and all we're even told is "everybody hates me and I can't get a job waah". The whole tone of the story, and especially the lines about keeping his mouth shut, are just so fucking passive-aggressive and whiny that... Oh god damn it it's too early for me to be drinking. not anymore lol
I'll dissect the hatred he's shown later. For now, we get this bizarre line out of nowhere, with no real context other than him rambling about how pretty the 8 year old Apple Bloom is:
I'm not going to be a pedophile, even if it's with young, talking foals.
Well, they sure are attractive, but not even with them, god damn it!
Keep in mind that we haven't had any dialogue yet, no actual scenes, just this expository poop. I'm not even a tenth of the way into the 2200 word chapter. It's that fucking bad, okay? But I'll pick up the pace.
Other than that. There were 4 other mares that I'd met over the course of my stay. They were white,pink,purple and cyan, the cyan one having a fucking rainbow for hair. If I was gonna stay here indefinitely, I might as well acquaint myself with them.
The purple one asked me and the others to come to a Café to properly greet myself and them, to which I agreed to. Hey. If I'm getting free food for just introducing myself, I'm fucking taking it, because I've had enough of anything that's related to apples and flowers.
And so, we greeted ourselves.
What... Excuse me?
Alright, it's list time.
--You used the actual number 4
--put,spaces,after,your,fucking,commas
--Who the fuck still calls Dash cyan in 2014?
--You are talking about staying here indefinitely, but you literally have not oh fuck I'll just give it a thing.
You are talking about staying here indefinitely, but you literally have not even explained, shown, or hinted at how you got to Equestria! All you've told us is that everyone hates you, you buck apples like a hoers, you won't go pedo even for foals, and you got some dragon stuck in your head. At least give us some hint at how... Raijin... god how I hate that name... got here, or give us a reason why you can't give a hint. Having him randomly spout "Hmm how did I get here again?" in the middle of something else doesn't count.
Also, you seem to be jamming all these elements into a story that doesn't need them. They hate him, he has a dragon in his head, the mares want to fuck him, he gets raped or whatever that shit in the other chapter was. I don't know, and I honestly don't think the people who upvoted it knew either. They just saw the human tag and the sex tag and popped their cumulative 2 inch erection and history was made.
Even Mystquestria had a clearer plot than this.
3. What on god's green earth does "And so, we greeted ourselves" mean?
Just when everyone started to bear with my presence, in comes a fucking dragon out of nowhere to, and I quote 'Bring Equestria to an ice age' .
In comes an epic battle, yada-yada, and then they defeat him. I'll tell you about that later, because I'm not really ready to spill my memories to complete strangers.
Do you see what I mean about contradiction? He talks about how he had an erection jammed in his head... No, wait. Fuck. He talks about how he had a dragon jammed in his head, assures us he wouldn't fuck kids, not even foals, how everyone hates him and his feelings on the matter, how you pronounce his name, how he met his only friends--but wait, this is too much! Generic anime battle #47375734754375 must be redacted.
Did he defeat the guy by lighting him on fire with a fart or something? That would have been a cool twist.
Did the mane six defeat him by having an orgy with him? That would have been a hot twist.
Did he spend the entire time scratching his butt and masturbating while he hid in the cellar? No one cares.
Did he do some tragic stupid shit that got someone killed or hurt? ...No, doesn't look like it.
It looks like the author just wanted to avoid having to write extra words.
Not saying he did, but that's what it'd look like to someone glancing through the first chapter without any knowledge of the rest.
Now, to be fair, there is a dragon battle flashback later in the story--in chapter 5, to be specific (lol spoilers... not that it really spoils much because there's no plot...). If you've read the original and are already formulating your response about how he actually does show it later on, please see my note toward the end regarding chapter 5 (since I didn't have anywhere near enough space in this thing to review that part).
Back to chapter one.
I meet two other mares during the battle, Celestia and Luna, who I preferred to call 'Sunbutt' and 'Moonbutt' from the tattoos on their asses.
First of all, stop changing tenses holy shit!
Second, this is a nice highlight of one of the story's most gaping flaws: the characters in this story do not follow any sort of consistent logic, both in-universe and in terms of the actual universe itself.
Consider that the character (fuck calling him "Rai", he's just "the character") has been kicked around and shunned by his peers ever since he arrived. He can barely find work and he is treated with suspicion, and he is in an alien environment where he is almost entirely dependent on these suspicious creatures for food, medicine, shelter, protection, etc, at least for now and as far as we know (and depending on which side of the "I lived alone/almost alone" dichotomy you choose to assume is correct)
Now he is presented with the arrival of two immortal beings who are, generally, pretty calm and neutral about shit (at least, Celestia is). It can be assumed that they will judge him not for his external appearance as many have done, but for his internal merits; for what he has to offer, for his positive traits, for the things he has yet to do and show. They could grant him a new lease on life, redefine how ponies view him. In this situation, it would be logical to approach them as a calm gentleman, yes? With politeness, with manners, with humbleness, with humility.
But no he calls them Sunbutt and Moonbutt because the author read an HiE where the protagonist does that and it was cool and he wanted his character to do that too!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!
Do you think I'm judging too harshly on one event? I'm not. The protagonist constantly (you'll see more of it) substitutes an attitude of "I'm too cool to give a shit about anything lol" for any sort of genuine logical behavior. It seems to be because the author thinks that kind of behavior is "cool" and "jaded", not because he's intended to be an annoying ignoramus for comic effect.
Also, "sunbutt" and "moonbutt" are not funny. They have never been funny. Please, writers, stop putting them in stupid stories and using them like they're actually funny. If you use those words in your story you're a stupid and you should drown yourself I guess? Burn a small high-pitched dog for Lord Satan.
They told me that in order to make sure that the elder dragon could be of no threat, they had to seal it away forever. In comes me, the most hated person in ponyville, to be the host of the other most hated being in ponyville.
A flash of light later, and now I'm a host to an ice dragon.
None of this has been shown.
I've been doing this for like 6 hours (14?). I have no idea what's going on.
Also, it should be noted at this point that somebody in the comments asked why he had to be the host for the ice dragon and why the Elements couldn't just something something something. You know, like they usually do. The author did not answer and I believe he deleted the comments and blocked the person who pointed out this gaping plot hole.
I won't spend too much time trying to decipher his mindset beyond "That looks pretty I like it it goes in my fic now". Also he stole the ice dragon pic from a board game apparently... or something. I don't even know. It's in the comments somewhere. I don't care that much.
And then I'm stuck in the castle of Canterlot to be 'observed if thy sealing worked.' I got to be a part of the 'Royal guard', which sounds cool, but that ended pretty badly, and I honestly don't wanna talk about it. At all.
There's that consistency again! "Hey, one time this thing happened to me and it looks pretty okay amirite, but I'm not gonna tell you about it cuz it sucked". Now obviously OP is trying to set up some kind of drama for later, but it's just done so lazily and without regard for how it fits in with anything else (even the stuff in the same sentence) that it looks more like he just didn't feel like writing that part, either. You know, it just occurred to me that all the stuff he's zooming by in the first part of the story would make a better story than what it actually turns out to be ("a guy and some mares in a hot tub, also dragons sometimes lawl").
Hey also...
I've never heard of any branch of any government agency or military allowing its members to refer to the chief of their executive branch by a childish, retarded nickname on a regular basis. In fact I believe there's a direct and explicit prohibition against soldiers insulting the commander-in-chief (at least, in the US military, because the prez is, like, the boss of the entire army n like the green berets n the nukes n the f15s n sheeit, and also in most militaries soldiers are expected to remain politically neutral while serving).
I imagine all this would be so in the Royal Guard, seeing as "Royal Guard" implies that they exist primarily to protect the Royalty, and thus watching over the safety of Celestia and Luna would be held as the most important and serious element of their code. Imagine if a Secret Service agent started calling Obama "Blackface" due to... well, you know, his black face. Now do you see what I mean?
This guy is a stupid, irrational asshole. He lives in a stupid, irrational universe.
And oh dear god here comes this part.
I have to say though, its not all bad. I'm pretty much a Jinchūriki like in the show: Naruto. And boy, did I love that show. Maybe someday I could transform into something that's similar to tailed beast mode, though that's gonna be set somewhere in the very distant future, as my relations with the Elder Dragon are still quite rocky.
I honestly think this is one of the most cringeworthy points in the entire story. I can't even pin down what part of it makes it so incredibly awful.
Maybe it's the overall wording of it. The wording is so vulgar and presumptuous. It's not even a comparison to a similar concept or subject in order to paint a picture; it's more like a thinly veiled, smug-ish statement of "yeah, I'm pretty much exactly this thing that I like to watch on TV, except not because I'm also creative and original."
Or maybe it's the fact that this part bizarrely jumps out of the narrative and becomes meta without ever leaving the character's narration. It's one of the strangest things I've ever seen in writing because it seems perfectly normal for this particular story; it's not at all out of place, and yet my brain knows there's something wrong with it.
It makes me wonder if the author was so desperate to become his Mary Sue that he momentarily forgot he wasn't actually in the story and just started typing his own thoughts instead of his character's: "Oh boy I love Naruto one day I'm gonna turn into a giant Japanese thingamjigger in the distant future... Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be this guy that I made up... Awh, but hitting backspace would be so much work... Ugh... better just leave it. Nobody will notice. Naruto is awesome. Unghghh ohhhh goddddd I love Naruto soooo much..."
On the other hand, I do have to give it credit for at least acknowledging, in a roundabout way, its origins, and the fact that it is not really a story. This guy is trying to make an anime, not a piece of written entertainment. Think about it: everything here, every single element of this story, would not in any way be out of place in an anime. Raijin (or whatever his name is) is referred to mostly as "Rai", and both are moonspeak names. His narration--when it isn't undifferentiatably bland--sounds exactly like the dialogue in a 4kids animu dub. Even the beginning seems more like the recap for an episode halfway through an animu season than a story.
Also, "something that's similar to tailed beast mode"?
What are you even trying to say?
In fact this whole paragraph makes no sense at all, even subtracting the completely random and narratively unwarranted Narutard sperging. "Rai" seems to be predicting his own future-- "Maybe someday I could transform into something that's similar to tailed beast mode, though that's gonna be set somewhere in the very distant future". What? My brain can't parse that...
Normally at this point I would be wrapping up the review up and explaining the fundamental reason why the story sucks, but that's the big thing that makes this one so bad. There isn't just one consistent thing, nor are there lots of little things that crop up. There are huge, gaping plot holes everywhere, stupid dialogue out the ass, awful narutardation, the sheer failure to even logic in this universe, the fact that the main character is a douchebag--
What's happening is that with each successive line, more and more huge problems crop up. But the introductions don't eventually taper off once the author's writing style has shown itself in all capacities, nor do the existing ones fail to reappear. What makes this story so bad is the constant and consistent introduction of continually reoccurring failures. It's like if you had one sample of The Annoying Orange talking for 5 hours, and then you doubled it after 20 seconds and had it continue for the entire 5 hours, and then you doubled that for the entire 5 hours too, and on and on, and on, and on, and on.
And on.
...
...
...
...
And on.
It would be one thing if it was all obvious, but it's just subtle enough that 1) people like it, and 2) it generates a discomfiting sort of uncanny valley feeling because this story is so bad and yet it's so hard to sum up why without typing thousands of words.
But, everything comes with a price. Remember when I mentioned that the horses/ponies of ponyville hated me for being different? Now they had two people two hate, in the same body. Everything just got progressively worse and worse the longer I lived.
And so, we're now in present time. Every day I receive death threats from the same people I meet in the streets every day, some even consider trying to beat me up, to no avail of course.
At this point the grammatical errors and awkward writing are not even worth mentioning compared to the fact that, for no apparent reason, Equestria is suddenly a land of hate-filled thugs. There is not even an attempt to explain why they hate him other than "Ponies don't like diamond dogs and hairless apes".
If you're going to change the general atmosphere of the universe that much, you might as well have them, oh, I don't know, march around in parades wearing Nazi-like uniforms and send changelings to death camps for the glory of a Greater Unified Equine Nation as per the orders of Princess Celestia. At least it would establish that there's a definite and extreme disconnect between the canon version of Equestria and what we're seeing in the story, even if an in-depth explanation of the disconnect isn't given yet. Also that would kinda make a pretty good story.
The biggest problem Yet another problem with To Thaw My Cold Heart is that it has so many conflicting ideas of what its Equestria even is. From all indications, the author is trying to say that this is the same place we saw on the Friendship is Magic show. He seems to want to depict a darker undercurrent to it, which is fine--but he does this by stating that "the ponies are all violent bigots, except my friends because my friends are cool." There is absolutely no worldbuilding process engaged here to explain how a seemingly peaceful society could become so violent when, even at their worst, they've been depicted as hiding from things that scare them and being bigots due to fear of change and things they're not familiar with, not hatred for that which is different.
We're expected to accept that the show is nice until they come in contact with this particular character, who, for reasons apparently not his own fault, suddenly elicits the mistrust and hatred of an otherwise extremely peaceful (if mildly xenophobic at times until proof to the contrary is given) race. The story states (does not portray; there is no portrayal because it does nothing but make vague statements in a vacuum) that ponies have even more reason to hate him once bla bla this dragon thing happens--which is really not in line at all with the show.
Canon ponies don't seem to look for excuses to justify an existing dislike of other races. They're a very peaceful and friendly (again, if twitchy due to being a prey species with a dislike of change) race in every canon portrayal so far. Rather, all canon instances so far of ponies being xenophobic have been reactionary attitudes based on things that frighten them. They don't try to fight or drive out that which they fear; they run from it and hide from it and generally behave like a prey species actually would.
Now, it's fine to play with that (Solitary Locust and Splinterwood both deal with opposing elements of the xenophobia topic), but if you're going to do that, you have to at least nest it into a somewhat coherent universe. This universe here, as I have spent the last 7,000 words or something showing you, is utterly incoherent. It makes no logical sense at all.
I'm not even good friends with any of them except from Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity and Applebloom. That was because I actually depended on them. Rarity made me clothes, Applejack lets me have something to do for the entire day, Fluttershy gives me a home, and Applebloom for... moral support I guess.
I don't really get on with Twilight, she tries to make me do lessons on magic, which I despise doing. If I wanted to go to magic school, I would rather watch Harry Potter than spend an entire day with her. Then there's Pinkie, the one who's always hyped for something. I don't know what it is about her, but I'm keeping my distance.
Finally, Rainbow Dash take the prize of being the biggest asshole I've ever met (I said flankhole because she'd be more pissed, and she was), she's just like the people I meet on the streets, that is, if I'm the one to start the argument. She was the least friendly when I met her, and she still is even after a year. If she decides to act all nice all of a sudden to me because I do something good for once, she can go fuck herself.
Before we jump deeper still into this man's tsundere goatse, I just want to point out one other thing. And it's not how stupid and incoherent the writing is, or how it doesn't actually say anything. No. It's how this guy is literally saying that the only living things willing to waste time on him are not even really his friends, except for the ones who give him things that he needs. I get that OP is going for some kind of reverse-tsundere thing here... I think... but my god, how much more ungrateful can you get?
He isn't endearingly withdrawn or awkward or jaded or cool or awesome or badass or any of the shit I'm sure he was probably intended to be. He's just a douche. This guy has been bitching for the entire chapter so far about how nobody likes him, and then when somebody does express a desire to be around him (for some reason I can't fathom), he says "Well we're not really friends and I don't want to be around you because you're boring". Remember, yet again, what I said about this story constantly contradicting everything it says at every possible opportunity?
He hates Dash most of all, though. I'll get back to that shortly.
Basically they take him to a spa and he's pissed about it because... reasons... plot stuff... you moron how dare you demand a more coherent plot... and they sit in shit mud and do some stuff and talk and words words words. And in the process of going there, he of course gets stared at with haaaaate even though he's pretty much done absolutely nothing to earn it and has been hanging around Ponyville for quite some time, and see my earlier rant if you want more proof that this is a contrived plot thing and nothing more.
And then we get this line.
I'd gotten pretty used to ponies giving me stares of disgust, it was one of the reasons that made me into the cold (emphasis on the cold) bastard that I am.
This is one of those times when I would normally just say "I'm sure whatever you're thinking is at least as awful as what I am". But I want to make it absolutely clear that the "emphasis on the cold" part was not added by me. It was in the original, with that exact formatting, just like that.
Literally there are no words that can sufficiently describe the feelings this single line induces in me. You should look it over until you have taken in the full majesty of its edgy fail. I was reminded of the basters line from Nope Just Ponies, but this is far, far worse because reading it doesn't even offer the distinct psychological advantage of making me laugh so hard I fall and crack my skull, ending my suffering.
It's just stupid. It's unfunny and painful. And somehow it doesn't even begin to sum up why this fic is so bad. No single thing can. Think about that.
Let's get away from this place of evil and move on to the next layer of Hell: the tsundere romance.
I want you to read this sequence, which is the first four lines of dialogue in the entire story, and remember, as you do, that this story has 450+ upvotes and was featured several times. Keep that in mind. Keep it in fucking mind.
"Maybe this spa can finally help you relax Rai." Twilight said.
"Let's send a male into a spa with 7 mares, good choice." Rainbow Bitch said.
"Yeah, well fuck you too Dash." I retorted.
Had I looked back to the mares, I would realise that they had tinges of red in their cheeks, probably from the comment that I made.
"G-great, now we have a r-rapist." Dash meekly replied.
Never mind the fact that the author calls his future love interest "Rainbow Bitch" as her very first dialogue tag, which strikes me as not only immature but somehow bizarrely misogynistic by virtue of stupidity as well. Never mind that this story has a completely random rape joke in it that the author seemed to find appropriate for the situation--No, forget that. This is literally a "I-it's not like I like you or anything... b-baka..." situation, except that OP thinks "r-rapist" is a socially acceptable and humorous substitute for "b-baka" outside of hentai.
So when she's screaming that you're a rapist and she's going to call the police, remember that she's really just saying you're stupid and she's never going to fall in love with you...
...cuz it's not like she likes you or anything... *b-baka*...
Oh, and it gets better. Do you remember how he said he's not a pedophile even for foals or whatever the wording was? Look at the part after what I quoted if you have it open later (you know, to express your love and stuff). Basically he explains sex to Applebloom out of nowhere by telling her that her parents "rutted" and "fucked" to make her. I can't go into detail because I'm literally running out of room to type here.
You know what, I'm done dissecting this blow by blow. I can't take any more, and I won't have time to sum it all up if I keep going.
Basically in the rest of the chapter he calls Dash a tranny, receives "subtle amounts of hate" from the masseuses, gets randomly called "disgusting" for absolutely no reason (I can feel the fucking love), shows off his bare, heavily muscled chest to the mares, who all gawk over how fucking hot he is and swoon and blush and giggle and stuff, and says this:
No-one has ever seen me in my underwear apart from my family.
Whatever you're thinking is probably a good response for this, btw.
Do you know what the funny thing is? I had to stop reaming this in-depth halfway through chapter 1. Only halfway through.
I literally do not have enough room to finish reviewing the first chapter of this story because there are so many things wrong with it. Most of the really ugly parts are ones that casual readers (by which I mean casuals) won't immediately notice--but that's no excuse for this fic having a 450something:80something ratio. Even if you can't see the truly awful parts, you should still know better than to give validation to something this obviously bad.
The protagonist is completely unlikable. He is an utter douche bag who does nothing but spout "cool"/"jaded" phrases, curse gratuitously and complain about the fact that everyone hates him. But ignoring the complete failure of this story to lay down a basic groundwork of logical rules by which to operate, it is actually completely reasonable that everyone would hate him.
His idea of a normal conversation is to tell his "friends", one of whom he mentally labels "Bitch", to go get fucked. He does this in front of an 8 year old that he may or may not have sexual feelings for, and then when she questions what "fuck" means, he explains with more vulgar language how she was conceived. He insults the heads of state in a land that is putting up with him despite disliking him, then wonders why he got kicked out of the royal guard or whatever happened. His idea of "friends" is "people who give me free stuff". He freely admits that he starts arguments in the street, and acts like a dick to pretty much everybody--most of his dialogue is actually him being a complete douche for absolutely no reason at all--but neither he nor the author seems to see this as a potential cause for him being disliked.
The story makes no sense at all and frequently rapes itself. We don't know why the character is where he is, why we should care, or what the plot actually is beyond this guy making an idiot of himself in front of Rainbow Dash and being hated by everyone "for no reason". Most of the potentially interesting points in the story, like the defeat of the dragon and his time as a royal guard, have already been glossed over in the first couple of paragraphs so we can get to the boring tsundere "romance". There's that weird shit about the Elder Dragon--which, at the end of chapter 1, I don't know what the hell this thing even is and why I should care, and it hasn't been relevant at all. All we have is a bunch of mares in a sauna with a naked guy.
And it doesn't get better. Chapter 2 is just Chapter 1 Part II: Dash X Human In Sauna. Chapter 3 is mostly just this doofus getting shit thrown at him by Angel while talking about Dash. At the end, he talks to the dragon in his head--by which I mean he snarks at it and doesn't show any sign of discomfort at having a second mind shoved into his own. He ends the conversation with the incredibly badassly sarcastic "Love you too". All his other lines of talking to the dragon are just snarky crap.
Chapter 4 is him turning into a dragon-thing and showing absolutely no emotional investment in the situation whatsoever. It has nothing to do with ponies in any way, shape, or form. Chapter 5 is the potentially incredibly interesting dragon battle that was glossed over early on. It also has nothing to do with ponies, even though they show up. To highlight how how this story genuinely manages to fail exponentially and fractally, the transition to the battle is headed with this:
*Insert harp playing flashback here.*
What does that even?
Please note that I'm not just nitpicking one little bit of the chapter I didn't like. Every single line of every single chapter is easily as bad as what I reviewed. However, I have, like, other stuff to do besides spelunk further inside of this story, and also I am actually, for the first time in my life, approaching the character limit for a blog post. I don't have the space or the time to dissect it more. I have transcended my own ability to review.
I do want to spend a moment discussing the author's apparent decision to pull his story from the site, owing to the "criticism" leveled against it--by which I mean a few people pointing out plot holes. When he didn't get the hugboxing he wanted, he then put it on hiatus and put this passive-aggressive spiel as his new summary:
6/09/2014
This story will be in an indefinite hiatus on fimfiction and will be continued over in fanfiction.com under my pen name, which is the same as the one here in fimfiction.
This story is unoriginal, I get it, it was my first fic and it soon got out of control, gaining praise and hatred like crazy. I just couldn't handle it. So go ahead and flame on my story if you like, It's not like every other critic has done that before.
I'll probably return to this someday, and add the new chapters that it missed out on over in fanfiction.com, but, I don't think that I can handle even seeing the comments section without my self-esteem breaking down quickly.
Critics can hurt people deep, man. So yeah, I guess you win, you selfish bastards. For those who actually tried to help me with my story by pointing out the grammar mistakes I made, I thank you for your help.
I'm sorry to the others who actually liked this story, I really am. But for now, I'm going to focus on my other story in fimfiction, and that is 'The Bear And The Mare'.
I, knowing the truth, will repost a few of the selfish bastards' comments.
*Looks at tags* "Huh, a sad romance slice of life with a human, not the most common combination-" *Sees that it's marked mature for sex and the character tags are the Main Six and two foals* "This can either go badly... or really badly. Either way I'm out."
A character perfect in every way doesn't suddenly stop being perfect if someone decides to hate him. "OH no people hate me for no reason" is not a character flaw. It's, at best, a flaw of everyone else and a worst a poor attempt to draw sympathy for your character. And from what I've seen, the character being an ass is reason enough for the hate, except that when it's made clear that we're supposed to root for the jerk is when it becomes a problem. Because the only thing more sue-ish than someone everyone else hates for no reason, is someone everyone loves for no reason. He is a Gary stu. An anti-hero one perhaps, but he is still one.
It might be helpful to understand that treating your critics like they're necessarily stupid is a good way to draw a lot of negative attention to a story in a hurry.
Now we are going to look at some examples of OP's behavior in the comments using his own words as a reference:
So what of I make a story not likened to your tastes, sue me.
Either you have no knowledge of the words 'elder' or 'dragon' or you are just plain idiotic
It's 1st person, you moron.
Nobody likes getting flamed, but even if you feel someone is being rude to you, that doesn't mean you have a right to be rude back. I mean, you totally can be a dick, but generally, you'll be considered a lot cooler if you respond to criticism without slinging childish insults like "fuck you" and "moron" and so on.
Alright... This is pretty much where the line ends on this journey of fuck, at least for me. I'll leave a link or three at the bottom if you want to have an adventure of your own. Hey, it would be pretty cool to see a review of the other chapters. I encourage you to learn from this review. Before I leave you to your own devices, I just want to talk about one more thing: originality.
Nothing is original. We know that. But that's not an excuse for blatantly copying other things over and over and over. This clusterfuck came about--I guarantee it--because somebody saw a series of badly written stories in the feature box, ones that pandered to the lowest common denominator, and said "that story would be better if it had my character in it and it was about what I like". It's the backbone of fanfiction, of course, but when you have inspiration that's already stupid and derivative, so too will be your own end product, unless you have real talent at reinventing shit (and you do not. Trust me).
A fanfiction directly inspired by Twilight or Michael Bay's Tran$former$ series is simply not going to be on the same level as one inspired by, say, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
In that same vein, if you're inspired by the same schlock that everyone else is doing, then your output will more likely than not also be... well, schlock. This is schlock. LoHAV was schlock. Your Human And You is schlock. Chess Game of the Gods was schlock. This whole fad of people getting turned into Pokemon is schlock on a scale nearly exceeding the LoHAV thing (and I'd be most grateful if you lovely people would review one or two of those stories if you get some time 
).
Most Human In Equestria is actually schlock, because the authors either A) use the character as an avatar for their own fantasies, B) shoehorn humans into the story because they have some weird psychological aversion to writing stories that don't contain them, no matter how badly it retards the story itself, or C) all of the above.
That's not to say that HiE is inherently bad. Some authors do it well because they understand how to tell a story with the elements that HiE involves. But it's a very, very difficult thing to do without the end result being lark's vomit, and almost all of the people who try to do it are not even close to competent for the attempt they're making. Here is my personal advice, if you've read this far: write a story about ponies. This show is about ponies. Leave the human fics as an occasional treat. Like chocolate, except more fleshy and kinda reddish and pink and oh god is that a bone
However... I do want to say that the average HiE author is not bad, just inexperienced. This is why we're nice unless the author is a jerk or the story is just so awful there's no saving the neighborhood from the black hole OP creates every time he types. With time, we get talented authors who write very good stories... that are unfortunately ignored a lot of the time because god who wants to read an emotionally engaging and intelligent story when they can read about Megatron fucking Celestia. Such is the world of fanfiction.
But either way, your HiE story will never be as bad as this one. Take comfort in that, okay? No matter how bad it is, no matter what flames you get, always remember that something worse exists. I said it at the top, but I'll say it again: this is the worst FIM story I have ever read. It fails on every single level. There is no redeeming factor to take into account.
Reviewing it was nothing short of torture.
Give me hugs and love. I deserve them.
And tell Regidar I'll suck his dick in hell.
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In einem kurzen Weilchen, meine Herren, sehen wir uns ohnehin alle wieder! Das ist das Los aller Menschen!
> To Thaw My Cold Heart < Baleeted
> Blog post by the author < It was written before this review was posted, just fyi.