[Adult story embed hidden]

I read: Completed at 59k words, 29 chapters
I rate: 6/10
I recommend: Read if you like HiE

Now this is one of these stories that really gave Ol’ Leroy some particularly mixed feelings. On one hand, this a charming HiE story exploring a little-seen part of the MLP universe that has noir gangsters by the dozen to boot. On the other hand, the tone is more inconsistent than my sex life and the writing a heck of a lot more graphic to boot.

Our basic plot here is that this guy (let’s call him Basil because he doesn’t have a canon name) is stuck working a dead end job until, one day, he gets a message to drop everything he’s doing, leave his old life forever, and go to Equestria and live out the rest of the days as the Great and Powerful Trixie. Yes, really.

So what does Basil do? He blocks the nutjob who sent him the message and moves on with his day. No, not really. He gladly accepts, gets transformed (somehow) into Trixie and gets apparated into Manehattan, Equestria, where he is forced to work as a thief for the local mafia until he runs into the actual Trixie and proceeds to get arrested.

That brings me to the first of a few gripes. What the heck kind of genre is this supposed to be? The tags say SoL but I’ve never met anyone who “normal day” include robbing banks and putting on magic shows. (but the tags also forget to tag half the main characters so take that with a pinch of salt) I’d personally gauge it closer to Adventure or possibly Drama but even then the plot isn’t thematically cohesive. Basil never follows up on how he got turned into Trixie, for instance. Really, he just blunders through the story and stuff sort of happens around him. There isn’t a major conflict or driving force here and nothing really gets that emotional either - even when things like grievous injury and arrests suggest that they should be.

Next would be one particular scene - in chapter 2, where Basil turns into Trixie. It is graphic. It singlehandedly earns the story it's Mature tag. However, it doesn’t actually add anything to the story and that level of explicit, nearly erotic, detail is never revisisted again - it could’ve been cut or toned down and the story could’ve then been given a Teen rating instead. It was off-putting to read and it felt utterly out of place in an otherwise fairly optimistic and lighthearted kind of story.

Plot: 2/5. Things happen, sure. They’re just not always particularly exciting or well paced. 
Characters: 3/5. Basil/Trixie is a tolerable lead, if a bit bland at times, while the supporting cast has a few good moments.
Style: 4/5. The writing I have no complaints about, apart from what I’ve already brought up. The narrative flows wells and the balance between show and tell is good.
Execution: 3/5. For what it is, it is an alright HiE story.
Overall Rating: 12/20 = 6/10

To David Silver: What I’d recommend going forward is to keep an eye on the tone and theme of your stories. Clearly, you’re a competent writer; I mean, you worked on Ponyfinder. However, here there isn’t really anything that is particularly cohesive. It honestly feels like this story is confused as to what it actually wants to be - a mob drama, an isekai adventure, a low-fantasy SoL - and mashing the aforementioned elements together doesn’t particularly make for a together read. Also, if you haven’t already, I’d recommend that you have a look at the Hitchhiker’s Guide series; the protagonist there is also an average Joe who is roped along on various adventures to fantastical places and it might give you some ideas if you ever write something like this again.

For something like this: Why am I Pinkie Pie?! also has an anon taking the form of an extant pony and having adventures and is, in my humble opinion, a contender for the best fic on this whole site.

As always, thanks for writing. If you liked this review, please check out more of my work here?

7035949
The theme of this story is the thing you didn't mention, not even once. Identity. The protag has no name, and he spends most of the story finding one, and when he finally makes one for himself, forged of his own deeds and taking control of his life, it becomes one of his most precious things.

You didn't even mention it.

Everything else, window dressing. Our main character suffers through body horror and pain, romance they aren't ready for but don't entirely dislike, and the struggle to find a proper place for themselves that isn't a life of crime.

You don't mention any of that.

You bring up Trixie, but make it sound like Trixie got him thrown in jail, instead of that being a tense moment of identity clash that led towards further forging of the protagonist's self of identity, and the stripping of the name 'Trixie' from him.

The other pony, Not-Vinyl Scratch, and her entire part in the story, apparently not even worth mentioning either.

Of course this story has no theme, because you did not care for it, or you did not see it. Which was it? Which did I fail so badly to portray?

7035977
I don’t now about him, but I liked the story since the start. Remember the steps and hoof? that was at a times confusing by the many changes of PoV, but, I still liked.

7036160
Always nice to hear. This one had only one perspective, so that problem wasn't coming up.

7035977
Why is your first reaction to go on the attack when someone doesn't see what you were going for, rather than reflect on if you actually wrote it in a way that would serve to convey that theme? I wrote a story for someone and offered to do an epilogue for them. When I asked them what they thought of the story, their take on the most important aspect of the story was not in line with what I was going for. I didn't get up in arms because I recognise that I wrote the story in a way that kept that from being clear. It was my fault that the misinterpretation occurred. Perhaps the way you wrote it was not good enough to get this point across. Movies like The Incredibles, the first Bourne movie, and basically everything on this list make this theme so central that it is nigh imposable to come away from them not noticing this theme. Videogames like SOMA, Pneuma: Breath of Life, and the last two mainline Uncharted games also do this.

7036806
I reviewed the story looking for that. Identity comes up for the first 6 chapters, and I got tired looking since no one else was really caring about that, hence my asking. He has not replied. There is nothing I can really draw from this review as is. I either failed to portray the theme, or the theme was uninteresting.

7037206
Silver, if the theme were uninteresting, I'm sure Leroy would have mentioned it. The problem here is just that he didn't see a clear theme in your story, which is hardly his fault seeing as he's actually read the whole story. And I don't think discounting everything he's said in this review just because he missed your intended central theme is very fair, given that there's still some valuable insights to be had here.

And I know you might be proud of your story, but there's no need to get so aggressive in response to his critique of it. We're all friends here.

7037918
I have asked which the case was several times. No one has answered. Did he miss it, or was it uninteresting. It is strange that everyone but him has replied so far, and only to my 'scathing attacks'.

The central thing his review says is that the whole thing is boring and disjointed, which hinges on which the case is. Was the theme boring, or missed? That is literally the only question. He speaks of things 'just happening' as if they do not tie back to any purpose, just occuring to pad out the word count.

7035949
You are welcome to reply at any time. Others seem beholden to attempt to do so on your behalf.

7037983
Right then. Mate, I don't discuss everything in my reviews - read any of my other reviews and I might notice that. I discuss that which stood out most prominently to me and why it did so. So no, I didn't mention not!Vinyl or all of not!Trixie's adventures. I mention what I felt were the most significant and the most memorable to me. Personally, I disliked not!Vinyl as a character and thought that a lot of the plot could've moved along without her, albeit at a slower pace. And as for not!Trixie's adventures, I did not bring them all up because these reviews actually follow a specific format and I don't want to spend 8k words on one of them. Admittedly, I could have phrased the Trixie showdown and the jail chapters better and stressed that they were separate events - I'll give you that.

However, I really did not see a theme here - even "Identity". The story has no identity, which is the issue I focused on in the review. Because not!Trixie is searching for hers, she does a lot of stuff. But none of this stuff is cohesive - it honestly read like a mishmash of different genres and the combination thereof was not, in my opinion, successful. Granted tackling such a theme is difficult, however I cannot truthfully state that I did noticed it in my readings of your story. And, mate, I care for a good Bildungsroman or quest of personal identity as much as the next bloke - maybe even more, considering that's a major theme in my own original fiction. I just did not see that here. Maybe that's because not!Trixie isn't a particularly strong character and, without some underlying commonality like a recognizable lead, the story actually has little tying it together in terms of ethos, moral, or even theme.

Furthermore, mate, I don't watch these threads everyday and I have other stuff to do in my besides bicker of forum posts. I was planning to write a rebuttle eventually, yes, but pinging me over is one damn good way to ensure I won't be going into writing it in a good mood. Besides, reviews are subjective - I make no secret of mine being anything but. If you're unhappy with the quality of my work, cool. This cost you nothing to request and it cost me nothing to produce but my own time and effort. Feel free to request a different reviewer in future and let us wash our hands of this.