A Soldier's Memoirs Saga: Everfree · 8:30am Mar 16th, 2015
Warning: The following is a review of a story and contains some spoilers.
Well, it's been a while since I've done one of these. Everfree, where Dusk Quill puts his gun-slinging ponies through some horror elements. Everfree features Fleethoof tagging along with a different group as he explores the mansion from Resident Evil one. This is apparently based on another fanwork called "Story of the Blanks", but I haven't heard of that one. Certainly a departure from his previous works. Given that he was setting up the changelings in the previous story, I thought that this would be the continuation of that conflict.
Plot
Pretty straightforward. Squad of soldiers finds creepy mansion during a mission, and get lost inside it, discover some dark stuff, then escape. The story breaks its protagonists up and it's their separate PoVs that really extend the fic. The actual sequence of events wouldn't be that long. Truth be told, we could have done without some of the PoV shifts. Echo's seemed to go nowhere until the rest of her team found her.
Characters - I've already commented on Fleethoof and Midnight Dasher from previous installments. The meat of this story's character aspect would be the rest of Ghost Team; the team Dasher belongs to.
Now, I'm no expert in horror, but I maintain that any horror story should establish the reader on the side of the protagonists. It's only when the reader cares for these potential victims that tension can be created. I'm not horrified at all if the story features a gang of douchebags being murdered while I cheer for the monster. Everfree succeeds in putting me in the right side of the horror equation. When the first of them gets taken out, I did feel a genuine concern for the rest of them.
The thing about Ghost Team, however, was that they needed an extra story of their own, or at least a couple more chapters dedicated to them before they get put through the grinder. The depth is lacking so to speak. Midnight Dasher essentially carries Ghost Team in terms of garnering sympathy. I'm not concerned for these ponies due to their individual characterization. I care for them because they're Dasher's comrades, and I don't want her too broken up. The story tries to compensate by adding characterizations posthumously; they find one of their comrades dead and the discoverer goes "he/she was so and so" or "he/she was about to get married" (which is a death sentence in horror and war fics by the way), but that's not enough.
The bad guys...they're mindless beasts for the most part. There's a few sections dedicated to back story, and you have your creepy village in the creepy wood. They do the job, and they've got some interesting variety, although with some weird quirks. There's an invisible chameleon thing that can only be seen through its reflections. Of course, for some reason, it chose to inhabit the part of the mansion that's full of mirrors. Maybe it was just really vain.
Setting
Right let's get these out of the way...
Ghost Team had rifles and pistols with them in the mansion, too bad nopony GOT A SHOTGUN.
Midnight Dasher was almost a Midnight Sandwich, good thing she's THE MASTER OF UNLOCKING.
Setting's pretty solid. Atmosphere's got the creepy vibe going strong. With each installment, Dusk Quill adds more and more to his growing world. It's nice to see that he's got some interest in the magical/supernatural aspect of Equestria as he does the technological/industrial one and he blends both aspects well in the Everfree Mansion. I'm a sucker for the creepy village in the middle of nowhere angle too.
Then, there's the time magic thing that happens. I'm not that much of a fan of time travel as it's so easy to vastly over-complicate any story with it. It's reined in for this story, however, so it creates more intrigue than headaches. The use of still time helps atmosphere too.
Point of View
This is where the story gets a bit wonky. Point of view doesn't just shift as the narrative checks on the separated members of the team, it moves from the mind of one pony to another within the same scene.
Midnight turned back to her companion. “So what’s our plan then?”
“I say we barricade the doors, hunker down here, and wait for the sun to come up. The pilots will worry when they don’t see our flares and start sweeps over this part of the forest more frequently. Then we get their attention and get the hell out of here. If we’re lucky, maybe the sunlight will even make those zombies melt or something.”
It was a sound plan. She couldn’t find any flaws with it. But despite the logic he made, Midnight felt compelled to disagree with him. Fleethoof was just looking out for their survival, and she had to help her teammates if they were still out there. But going back outside would be a death sentence, and she knew it.
“I say we check the rest of this place out,” she said in rebuttal, doing her best to ignore the look Fleethoof gave her. “If we’re gonna be here for a while, we’re gonna need some supplies. Maybe some of the others have found their way here too, and we can regroup with them.”
Fleethoof stared at the bat pony like she was mentally ill for a while. Did she really want to keep investigating the creepy, potentially haunted mansion in the middle of a killer forest with cursed ponies out for their blood?
Scene starts with Dasher's PoV, but it shifts to Fleethoof's, later shifting to Dasher's again. This is a frequent occurrence in the story. The narration doesn't seem to care who's PoV we're supposed to be following for the scene and simply dips into their minds whenever it feels like it.
Style
It's in Everfree that some of Dusk Quill's habits really start to become noticeable. The ponies of this saga may be grim and armed, but that doesn't mean they don't believe in giving, and boy do they give. In fact, they turn a great many actions into gifts, resulting in extra words slowly, but surely, piling on.
The officer gave a terse nod, and glanced at a roster.
Starlight gave a sharp salute, then turned on his hooves and marched back out of the tent.
“It’s Fleethoof, not Fleety…” Fleethoof gave a choking gasp for breath. “Midnight… you’re suffocating me…”
Fleethoof gave a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes.
Starlight gave a brisk nod.
Nodded tersely. Sharply saluted, then turned on his hooves, and marched back out of the tent. Gasped for breath. Shook his head and rolled his eyes. Nodded briskly. All shorter and retain all the meaning. Being wordy isn't always bad, so long as each word actually contributes something.
And then there's this.
Across the table, Midnight Dasher was snickering silently to herself, her shoulders rising and falling with the subtle laughter.
Across the table, Midnight Dasher's shoulders rose and fell with subtle laughter.
Or
Across the table, Midnight Dasher snickered silently.
Midnight practically fell out of her seat, she had been taken by such surprise.
Don't need bolded part.
His speech actually did make Eclipse feel a little better. With the faintest trace of a smile, she nodded and replied, “Okay.”
Don't need bolded part.
Fleethoof put a bullet through a pony’s skull and felt his heart sink when he saw the slide of his gun lock back. He was completely out of bullets.
Don't need bolded part.
Action and context are often enough to get a point across. It's gotten to the point that I suspect Dusk Quill doesn't trust such things to convey the information he wants to so he makes sure that they carry an extra descriptive sentence with them to help the reader out. The result is that the narrative says something, then immediately says it again to make sure you get it. You could probably slash a tenth of this story by removing all these doublings.
The self-reactions
I don't know why, but the ponies in this story seem to be easily amused by their own actions. They smirk at their own successes, laugh out loud because they found a key, and chuckle over their own sarcasm. It's a bit bizzare, kind of like providing a laugh track for your own jokes.
Shipping
Yeah, this gets its own section. I like Fleethoof and Midnight Dasher as a couple, but the shipping between them is relentless. She greets him with a tight hug, snuggles into him while they're waiting, calls him "Fleety", snaps a picture of him likely for a keepsake, nuzzles him, and keeps up banter even though he's being tight-lipped. All while in the middle of a search-and-rescue mission. Meanwhile, her teammates, apparently all morbidly polite despite a few ribbings, never call out this behavior while they're supposed to be there on a professional capacity. I'm no soldier, but having a loud conversation and snapping pictures doesn't seem to be a good idea while combing through a forest known for being dangerous.
Midnight Dasher is so determined for some slap and tickle, that she keeps it up despite witnessing horrific traumatizing events, going so far as to set up a date for the Grand Galloping Gala barely an hour or so after watching several friends get slaughtered, and watching one of them rise up as an undead abomination. That is one hell of an iron will and an inferno of a libido. It seems nothing short of the end of the world will stop Dasher from getting herself some fine Fleethoof. Perhaps not even then.
Overall
I liked Everfree despite it being the oddity in the series so far. I like the action bits, the set up, the atmosphere, and the straightforward execution without too much artsy stuff. As is often the case as a series extends, the habits become more noticeable, sometimes even grating. Dusk Quill writes well, but he needs to trust his readers some more. We don't need extra sentences to know what just happened, and we don't need that many shipping scenes to establish that these two have chemistry. I still recommend the series if you can get past the whole ponies with guns bit. They need more love; from the the author and readers.
For some reason I thought this was another rage review. However, after giving this post a quick skim. I have decided to read this saga and now that I've found the first book of the saga, I now have something else to read on Fimfic, rather than searching for an hour for something to read on Fimfic.
I do thank you for bringing this up to your followers, Visiden.
This was a good story. The next one is good too. Don't expect them to really be related to each other though.
In that case, you'd probably like Story of the Blanks too, if this is indeed based on it. I've seen lots of fanfics homage or sometimes just blatantly steal the concept of Blanks, and many of them are terrible, but I remember quite enjoying the original game back when I first played it. I'm not sure how closely this fic mirrors the game, but I'd recommend checking it out if you can find it anywhere. It's pretty short.