TResistance is futile...

• MLP: FiM
• EaW
• Dark
• Drama
• Tragedy

Resistance can take many forms. Sometimes it's blazing guns, sometimes it's piling bodies, but above all it's who you are.

• Death
• Violence
• Profanity
• OC

Aydan Zamora · 8.6k words  ·  14  10 · 722 views

Today, we’re going to be doing another plunge into the genre that is Equestria at War with Resistance is futile… by Aydan Zamoa. Now, I feel that I need to get something out of the way here: Equestria at War just bores me. It does not appeal to me as a genre and stories that talk about the politics or strategies of war just make me sigh, UNLESS they’re done well.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that this was an exception. I honestly found myself bored by this story and just did not find it appealing whatsoever, but hang with me and I’ll explain why. Let’s hit it.

The story focuses around two characters: lawyer Sunshine Happiness and accused traitor Cinder Scholars.

Now I will say most of my major problems do end up residing with the plotline. First of all, the story as a whole comes off as very edgy and has the marks of a brand new writer: war story, heavy and dark themes, OC’s. This of course is not a bad thing, because my first story was largely the same. But, the story seems determined to be as dark and as hopeless as possible, unfortunately leading to it becoming unnecessarily edgy and dark. And trust me, I listen to My Chemical Romance and I thought this was edgy!

Jokes aside, I think that the author wanted to tackle a dark and depressing story right out of the box, which is admirable. However, I think this type of story is best done with some experience under the belt, else it falls short like this one did.

Let’s circle around now. The long description of this story is way too long. It talks about the current situation of Equestria and works to set up the scene, but these are all things that need to be done in the story, not in the description. Further, nothing in the description is really necessary to know in the core of the story, rendering it all just an extra mini-essay about something that doesn’t really matter in the end. The description is to tell us what the story is about, not to tell a part of the story itself.

Next point: there’s an interesting term my friend told me about called Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy. Read more about it here, but TVTropes defines this as

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy occurs when a conflict exists that simply lacks any reason for the audience to care about how it is resolved. This crops up where the setting is extremely but meaninglessly Darker and Edgier, or all sides are Evil vs. Evil or, at least, far enough gone that any difference is a Distinction Without a Difference. Even if the heroes are not only heroic because the authors say we are, sometimes shows with sympathetic heroes have this trope happen because the heroes lack any agency — anything good happens? It'll be jerked away.

In other words, there is nothing really at stake. It might seem like there is, but ultimately if you're presented with a choice between supporting one of two equally horrible groups or hoping for one of two equally despairing outcomes, that's not really a choice at all. The outcome's going to be awful either way, so who cares who wins?

This basically means that while every story needs conflict, this conflict needs to be meaningful. The audience should care about the conflict and want a side to win. However, in the case of darkness-induced audience apathy, the conflict of a story is inconsequential to the audience. In the case of this story, I was bored by the conflict because it is very clearly spelled that neither side will walk away a victor here.

This point is constantly hammered in: Cinder is constantly referred to as “already dead” and Sunshine outlining how with the current state of the Equestrian government it doesn’t even matter if he confesses or pleads innocent because hey, he’s screwed anyways!

That makes me say, “Okay, well if nobody’s going to win, why should I be invested in this conflict?” And the story really doesn’t make a counteroffer for me. Which sucks.

Because in the context of this story the events are inconsequential, really. Cinder is screwed either way and no matter what he says the outcome will be the same. I’d recommend the author try and redefine this motivation somehow, and play less into the edgy themes and more into other aspects. Give me a reason to get excited! Make me want to read more! Because right now I kind of had to force myself to keep reading, which is never a good thing in any story.

Finally, I’m on the fence about the twists at the end. The first one about the tunnel was well-executed enough, but the second one felt a bit… too much deus ex machina. But maybe that’s just me. 

There were two characters in this story, and honestly? I didn’t like either of them. They were fairly well-developed and their motivations are defined, sure, but the author has gone to extremes to make both of these characters as cynical as physically possible. And that leads to boring interactions.

The entire time, both Sunshine and Cinder seem to try and one-up the other in a level of cynicism. And again, I think I can chalk this up to a new, possibly young author, because I used to be a cynic myself before realizing that was a stupid way of thinking.

But back to the story. This adds another layer to the overall edge of the story as both characters constantly ram in the points of ‘hey you’re screwed and nothing’s going to change that!’ and it just leads to boring interactions.

Now granted there are some nice twists towards the end regarding the characters, but again, I can’t fully appreciate it because I just get the feeling none of this mattered. To use the story’s own ending line,

After all, it turned out, he was nothing.

Which is appropriate because he is nothing. The twists all lead up to about three paragraphs where Sunshine maybe, possibly, has a change of heart. But… this change of heart is overshadowed by the fact of, you guessed it, “hey, you’re screwed anyways!” So all of the development that could have been brilliant falls flat, because it didn’t matter in the end one bit. 

And I’ll further that by saying the story ends before character development really goes anywhere. I can see this happening in a story of maybe 1,500 words, but of a story with 8,000? It feels like there should be room for more than three paragraphs of one character’s development in there. But there isn’t. Which, again, sucks. 

There were quite a few prose things I found. First of all, the author often forgets to add periods to “Mr.” and is missing punctuation in a few places. I pointed out the ones I found out in my notes and recommend the author find an editor to catch the rest.

Next, tense consistency felt all over the place. The majority of the story is written past, but there are entire parts including the ending that randomly jump to present. I’d recommend the author choose one tense and stick with it for consistency.

On the subject of consistency, titles were all over the place as well. The phrase ‘god empress’ for example was written as ‘God-Empress’ and ‘God empress.’ 

So yeah. There wasn’t anything too major, but there were enough punctuation and consistency mistakes that I felt the need to point them out here.

To sum things up, this story really didn’t do it for me. It felt over-the-top edgy and needlessly gritty, and the sense of hopelessness that was beaten over my head just dulled me to any direction the story tried to go to.

Fans of Equestria at War may appreciate this story more than I did, but personally this wasn’t something I’d consider to be in my wheelhouse. It just kind of made me say ‘meh.’ It was written coherently enough and there was for sure a plot there, but I think what the story tries to do works against it to drag itself down. 

Fans of political stories or Equestria at War stories may like this one.

If my assumptions are correct and you are a new writer, don’t get discouraged! I mean what I say here very sincerely and want to give you pointers to improve and better yourself, because we all had to start somewhere!

I’d recommend that you try and turn down some of the edginess of this story and try to find a better conflict. A story really doesn’t function when everyone is cynical and the main theme is undermined by “nothing matters.” Give us a reason to support a side, or a reason to hate another. Make us cheer for someone, make us support one character and have us want them to win, whether they do or not!

Don’t give up hope and I’m sure you’ll get there someday. 

I do have my reading notes for your fic, if you would like to see them let me know.

Plot: 3
Characterization: 3
Prose: 5

Average: 3.67

OKay I've spent three hours writing you a reply carefully explaining what I thought about your review, and reasons why I thought what I thought and then I lost it because libre office is a fucking shitfucked shitty shithole of a program. I'm not gonna ever have the time to rewrite it so here is the heavily condensed version, if you have any questions about it, feel free to ask them either here or in dms

1. Thanks for the review
2. You were admittedly biased, and it showed, you probably should have refused the review and give it somone else. ( I know I chose you, but we could have talked it through)
3. The story was not edgy, in any sense of the word I know of.
4. The story had a conflict just not the kind you were expecting.
5. The characters were not both evil, and though they were quite similar, that had a purpose you didn't recognise. (Because you didn't know what the conflict was.
6. The long description was awful, and I can only blame myself for that
7. I'm sorry I drgged you through this review you were clearly not enjoying it.
8. I'm sorry for the typos but this shitty browser I'm using doesn't have spellcheck, and I'm not gonna copy it into a libre office document because that caused the problems in the first place.

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Let me be clear: I do NOT go into stories with the intent to tear them down .I don't believe in that. My opinion was formulated after I read the story rather than before. My gripes with the Equestria at War genre may affect my reading in some way, but I'm not yet going to deny stories just because they're about war.

Now, I do believe this story was edgy. I've asked around and the people I've confronted have also agreed that it comes off as a little edgy. When I say edgy, I mean that the story makes a great effort be intricate and complicated. However, it tries too hard to come off as complex and intricate, meaning that it kind of falls flat.

I'm not disputing that your story had conflict. My point is there was no meaningful conflict. The driving force of the story is rendered almost useless because as both characters point out, it doesn't matter. Maybe you did have purpose for your characters, but whatever purpose you had was not clear in the story, which means I didn't understand it. Whatever this 'purpose' is, it isn't clear to the audience. That means that if you want the audience to really understand the conflict or the characters it needs to be explained.

Again, don't be blaming yourself for mistakes. We all live and we all learn. Are you a newish author? If so, remember if you want a second opinion you're more than welcome to. Don't be discouraged, and know that while I didn't like this story I don't hate it. With some adjustments I can see this being a very inticing read. I can't tell you how to write your story, but I can make some suggestions. Wether or not you want to accept these suggestions is up to you.

Hope this helps.

When I say edgy, I mean that the story makes a great effort be intricate and complicated. However, it tries too hard to come off as complex and intricate, meaning that it kind of falls flat.

That's not the definition of edgy I know of. Regardless, I'm really not sure what I did to make this story complex. It was about as simple as they come. It had two characters one location, one plot in the timespan of 30 minutes? Not even? Nothing happened, (on the physical level) and that was on purpose. On the personal level it was almost as simple, it had one and only one simple question it sought to ask and answer and ultimately it did. At least I think it did. Maybe I'm wrong.

My point is there was no meaningful conflict.

Meaningfull can be a number of things. Did the characters change anything in the world around them? No, they didn't because as you pointed out I went to great length to show that's impossible. Did they, themselves change? I think they did, and that is what the story was about. Two conflicting moral worldview clashing, one leaving the ring triumphant, the other destroyed.

This is what I took issue with in your review. You expected one thing I wanted to write about something else, and then you complained I didn't give what you wanted. Technically you're completely right, but I feel you are blaming the fork for not being good at letting you eat soup. If I felt that you understood my conflict, and then explained why it didn't matter than I could either accept or argue with your opinion. But right now I feel we are at an impasse.

This is also ultimately the reason I felt your biases got the better of you. You had a bias (the world is boring) and then you ended up with the same opinion about my story (that it was boring) Of course this is hardly a definitive proof but when you add the fact that you didn't bother to think what the reason could be that I wanted to make so sure that neither of the characters could change to world around them, or why I made them both so cynical.

You just took the most straitforward exlanation of the events (that I have no idea what I'm doing) and then you just ran with it. This could have had several explanation. Maybe you are a bad reviewer (which I think is untrue so I dissmissed it) maybe you half assed the review (but you wrote a lot so that's also unlikely) and then I was left with the third explanation, which was my assesment about your bias. Maybe I'm wrong, obviously I couldn't have thought of all the possible explanations but out of the ones I did think this seemed the most likely.

Maybe you did have purpose for your characters, but whatever purpose you had was not clear in the story, which means I didn't understand it.

This of course could have been true, but my pre readers and all the people who wrote comments about it seemed to get it, (except one but he probably didn't read it) and none of those people have stories in the RCL so I highly doubt they've had a better literary understanding than you. Making me think that you had other reasons to not understand the purpose of the story. I think that was your bias, but yet again I don't know.

You could say that the like-dislike bar indicates that there were a lot of people who didn't understand the story, but between my profile pic, the badly chosen cover art, the title which was ultra cliche without reading the second half in the chapter title, and the aweful long description people had more than one reason to just leave a dislike and go on to greener pastures. One of the commenters probably did just that. However anyone who left a like had to read the story because at first glance there was very little to like about it. Which is all my fault of course, but it doesn't make the story fundamentally worse.

So I am a novice author I want to get better, I want to take any advice, and I think there are things I could use from your review (like your advices on grammar) but if you don't critique the story I intended to write, I'm not sure how am I supposed to make it better.

P. S. Also as a personal note, please don't imply assumptions about my moral character based the on the characters I write in a story. That's just bad manners. My characters were cynics, and you may have been a cynic, but I'm not.

and none of those people have stories in the RCL so I highly doubt they've had a better literary understanding than you.

I'm going to stop you right there. I abhor this level of thinking, that I must be a highly intelligent or brilliant person because of my position in a fanfiction website, based on a story a collection of individuals that I've never met thought was okay. Don't assume that I'm a genius, I'm not and this is a hill I'll die on.

If you feel I'm attacking you, I'm not. I was in your position a long time ago and I see many of the same mistakes that I made. I want to help you out and point them out. But as you say, we are at an impasse. I've laid out my points and you've countered them. I've given my explanation and you've refuted it.

You bring up the point of commentators mostly understanding the story. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. I won't judge. But know that when I review, I aim to dissect a story and boil it down to brass tacks. I could have just as easily given this a casual read and said 'meh.' But when I get down into discussions of the plotline I find the story falls apart.

You say one ideology leaves the ring triumphant. Which one, then? In what sense did it leave 'triumphant?' Because in my reading, both characters leave defeated.

You say I'm blaming a fork for not being able to eat soup. I am not. I am not trying to take your story and throw it into a framework of "This is how you tell a story." I'm not asking this story to be something it's not like you're saying I am. I'm taking it for what it is and saying what it could do better. I'm appalled and insulted you'd think I'd do anything else.

You keep saying I don't understand your conflict. Then what is your conflict? I still don't have an answer in this run-around conversation we've been having.

You go into ratings and comments. These things in my mind don't matter. Perhaps they do to you, but I've learned to move away from statistics and I hope you one day do the same.

If you feel I've insulted you by implying you're a cynic then I apologize. If you still feel I'm attacking you I apologize: I have a massive headache and I take my reviews very seriously. I don't like it when people tell me either I was too biased, 'half-assed' my review, or just am a 'bad reviewer,' and yes, I take offense to that.

If you don't like what I said, fine then. You're more than welcome to get a second opinion.

And if you want me to critique the story you intend to write then sure, I can do so, if I knew what story you're trying to tell.

But as it stands I don't feel this conversation is going anywhere. You seem genuinely defensive of your story and seem to want to discount what I've said because of my apparent bias. I don't know if you'll listen but I'll give you one last piece of advice. Take it as you well. Distance is necessary to improve as a writer. Constantly rereading your own story without putting time in between will not lead to improvement. If you are constantly exposing yourself to your work then you will not be able to view it with fresh eyes.

I guarantee that if you took any author in the world and showed them their older works, they would be critical of them: they would point out weaknesses and flaws and moan about how they should have done things differently. So my advice to you is that you take a break and come back to what you've written and come back to my review. If you still feel I'm wrong then so be it.

I wish you all the best on your future endeavors.

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My @ did not work but see above.

Thank you for your time Red but I really feel we are talking in two different languages here. I feel you either misconstrue or misunderstand anything I say, and I don't think it's worth my time trying to explain anything to you when there is such a fundamental barrier between us.