The Draconequus with the Dragon Tattoo

TThe Draconequus with the Dragon Tattoo

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Adventure
• Drama
• Mystery

Ten years ago Applejack disappeared without a trace. Now Fluttershy must find out why, but will that be possible when she's thrown together with a pierced, tattooed, reality-bending draconequus who's just recently escaped being trapped in stone?

• Alt. Universe
• Crossover
• Fluttershy
• Applejack
• Angel
• Discord
• Other

A M Shark · 79k words  ·  178  6 · 4.2k views

Intro;

I return, and as always, my returns are the herald for ill stories of disturbing content. Today, we look at a story that is a sort of Russian Sleep Experiment/Apple Sleep Experiment sort of deal, i.e., a story that borrows themes and ideas but changes things up enough to feel fresh. This one is rather odd in that, well, it is based on a book/movie based on another book whose title translates to “Men Who Hate Women”. Yeah, the source material in not subtle in its depiction of males as a group being horrible shitbags that engage in misogyny to the same degree that the KKK engage in racism.

All that being said, this story thankfully veers away from that to instead tell an AU story where Discord and Fluttershy solve the mystery of Applejacks disappearance and Discord is actually reformed in a way that actually works. And in the process, uncover that a pony is doing their best to impersonate Ted Bundy.

As a major positive, this story does the Discord reformation FAR better than the cannon episode did, and I actually like this. For those of you who don’t know, getting me to say a villain losing or being reformed was a good thing are sentences that I almost never say. However, the transition from Discord being… well, Discord, to him actually not being an A-tier ass-hat felt natural/earned, and the dynamic after this is also a far cry better in my opinion than what we got in the actual show.

To be frank, this is probably the only story I can name that does the reformation of Discord any justice. Granted, I don’t go out of my way to read stories involving reformed Discord for previously named reasons, but still, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the pacing and development of Discord going from his usual self to actually caring about Fluttershy feels right.

And secondly, this story followed the story of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo faithfully without just being a shot for shot remake. While a criticism can be levied that it doesn’t do enough to differentiate from the source material as it hits all the major plot points without much variance, the in-between of these points, the chemistry with characters, basically the fact that it is its own story besides hitting these points makes up for this in my opinion.

Now for the negitives. First off we have the writing.

It was late in the afternoon in Canterlot and the Princesses Celestia and Luna were walking through the Canterlot gardens.

Here would be the correction I would make.

The sun was well on its way to setting as Princess Celestia and Luna made their way through the castle gardens.

The correction I made here was not in an effort to try to fancy it up, I wrote it this way because I want to make it look as good as possible and not make another reviewer cringe, but primarily it was to eliminate the double ‘Canterlot’. The issue is that by repeating Canterlot in the same sentence, it doesn’t read well. There are several other ways to reword this one sentence that also work, so I would just recommend that the author find an editor to look through this story to clean up the wording as this was just an example.

My full opinions of the writing is that it is the authors first story and it shows. The writing, while understandable, is unrefined. Most sentences simply serve to move things forward and lack the skill of more experienced writers to really paint a scene and draw me in, hooking me on every word. With time and practice this improves, and again, this is the authors first story, so they very well may have improved since writing this story.

Now for the second major issue I found with the writing, the presentation of ideas.

When free Discord had the ability to warp reality as he chose and this coupled with the fact that he had viewed Equestria and its inhabitants as nothing more than toys put there for his entertainment had been a dangerous combination.

When free, Discord had the ability to warp reality as he chose, and this coupled with the fact that he had viewed Equestria and its inhabitants as nothing more than toys put there for his entertainment , had been made for a dangerous combination.

This is a consistent problem I kept finding throughout the story. There would be sentences that had two or more thoughts or natural breaks that just wouldn’t have a comma. That, or an idea/ideas that would normally be put in one sentence would be broken up. It was very weird for me when I was reading because I would have to pause when I thought that a break point was reached or when I ran into a period and read the sentence or it and the next again to make sure that it was indeed an oddly constructed thought. This gets less and less prevalent as the story goes on, but it still pops up.

Again, I want to reiterate, how this story is written is not horrid, I understand everything that is happening, it’s just that how it is now is a bit of a slog to get through due to the issues in construction.

Final scores;

Writing: 6/10, As I stated in my criticisms section, while not bad, the writing definitely needs work. There were an abundance of construction issues related to idea cohesion and formation when it came to commas and periods, and the writing was not nearly elegant enough for me to be more lenient with these issues.

Pacing: 8/10, This is well paced with a good sense of progression. My only criticism is that the first half goes has a more relaxed pacing that ramps up insanely fast in the second half, and the windigos were used for plot reasons then immediately abandoned once they served their purpose of justifying and instigating story progression, so it comes across as superfluous.

Characters: 9/10, These are very well done with everyone being mostly true to their canon characters. My issue comes more from the fact that it followed so closely to the OG story. The issue is, to follow the story, two characters needed to be repurposed to not be in character. They are still well written and work up unto this point, but unless you are familiar with the book this is based on, the reveal will feel strange.

Crossover Accuracy: 9/10, As I said earlier, this was true to form to the OG and did will to change up the material. I personally would have liked to see just that little bit more originality with adapting this story to make it stand apart from the first one. Something like a Last of Us (The Road) or an Apple Sleep Experiment rather than a Gnomeo & Juliet

Atmosphere: 7/10, For me, this was mostly a function of the writing and the matter that the tone feels mishandled as it goes from bordering on a slice of life to a full on murder fest in the span of a few chapters. The author does a good job at setting the scene for a lot of the story, but they needed more skill to really draw me in as the descriptions lacked that emotional oomph I want to read in a good story. It sould also be noted that this story is in two distinct parts if you examine the tone, which caused a good deal of surprise when I reached that section.

Total Score: 39/50 or 7.8/10, Overall, I really liked this story. It is a decently faithful adaptation of what it is based on and does enough to distinguish itself that it has an air of freshness. I would have just liked to see more done with expanding/switching things from the original. The writing and eloquence are just things that either require an editor or more experience/skill.

7343553
You forgot the link below the story

7343553
First off, thanks so much for the review. I thought this story got booted from the group a long time ago due to no one being interested in reviewing it so getting your link came as a pleasant surprise.

This one is rather odd in that, well, it is based on a book/movie based on another book whose title translates to “Men Who Hate Women”. Yeah, the source material in not subtle in its depiction of males as a group being horrible shitbags that engage in misogyny to the same degree that the KKK engage in racism.

*Snickers* I know it probably sounds like a weird choice of source material, but for some odd reason the bit where Discord was at Fluttershy's place in Keep Calm and Flutter On just made me think of Blomkvist and Salander in the cabin together and from there the idea just took on a life of its own.

All that being said, this story thankfully veers away from that to instead tell an AU story where Discord and Fluttershy solve the mystery of Applejacks disappearance and Discord is actually reformed in a way that actually works. And in the process, uncover that a pony is doing their best to impersonate Ted Bundy.

Yeah, to be fair Stieg Larsson's original novels are a pretty mixed bag in my opinion. While they had some interesting ideas and I felt there was a good story buried in there, they also had a bunch of elements and content I didn't like. Which is why I mostly cherry-picked some of the elements I did like rather than trying to follow the book point for point.

As a major positive, this story does the Discord reformation FAR better than the cannon episode did, and I actually like this. For those of you who don’t know, getting me to say a villain losing or being reformed was a good thing are sentences that I almost never say. However, the transition from Discord being… well, Discord, to him actually not being an A-tier ass-hat felt natural/earned, and the dynamic after this is also a far cry better in my opinion than what we got in the actual show.

To be frank, this is probably the only story I can name that does the reformation of Discord any justice. Granted, I don’t go out of my way to read stories involving reformed Discord for previously named reasons, but still, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the pacing and development of Discord going from his usual self to actually caring about Fluttershy feels right.

Why, thank you. As much as I like Fluttercord, I'm not a fan of when people try to go the "Poor misunderstood Discord, he's not really that bad"-route. *Laughs scornfully* Oh yes, folks! He is that bad!
And the fact that he does start out that bad is actually what makes his eventual turn around more satisfying in my opinion.
Hearing you felt his reformation worked brought a smile to my face, because it meant I was successful on that front.

My full opinions of the writing is that it is the authors first story and it shows.

*Chuckles* Guilty as charged. And I'll be the first to admit my early chapters in this story aren't that great. I was pretty eager to have Fluttershy and Discord start working on the mystery, and in my efforts to get them together I threw out some pretty sloppy chapters. Plus, at the time I was doing all the editing, such as it was, myself. It wasn't until the last two or three chapters that I acquired an editor who has since been working with me on the two sequels, and I believe he's made a world of difference.

Again, I want to reiterate, how this story is written is not horrid, I understand everything that is happening, it’s just that how it is now is a bit of a slog to get through due to the issues in construction.

Good to know. Incidentally, I'm thinking about going back and giving this story a bit of rewrite in terms of polishing it up, etc. but given how the story ended, I want to wrap up its two sequels first.

Writing: 6/10, As I stated in my criticisms section, while not bad, the writing definitely needs work. There were an abundance of construction issues related to idea cohesion and formation when it came to commas and periods, and the writing was not nearly elegant enough for me to be more lenient with these issues.

*Nods and cracks knuckles* It's probably time I dig out the old grammar books and re-educate myself.

Pacing: 8/10, This is well paced with a good sense of progression. My only criticism is that the first half goes has a more relaxed pacing that ramps up insanely fast in the second half, and the windigos were used for plot reasons then immediately abandoned once they served their purpose of justifying and instigating story progression, so it comes across as superfluous.

Uh, regarding the windigos ... without giving too much away, they (or a variant of them) actually do come into play in the next two books.

Characters: 9/10, These are very well done with everyone being mostly true to their canon characters. My issue comes more from the fact that it followed so closely to the OG story. The issue is, to follow the story, two characters needed to be repurposed to not be in character. They are still well written and work up unto this point, but unless you are familiar with the book this is based on, the reveal will feel strange.

Sorry, I don't quite follow what you're saying here. Are you referring to the killers in the original novel vs. who I chose to make the killers in this version?

Crossover Accuracy: 9/10, As I said earlier, this was true to form to the OG and did will to change up the material. I personally would have liked to see just that little bit more originality with adapting this story to make it stand apart from the first one. Something like a Last of Us (The Road) or an Apple Sleep Experiment rather than a Gnomeo & Juliet

Hmm, as far as originality goes, my adaptions of the novel's sequels arguably play a lot faster and looser with their source material than this one did. And I also have an editor for those if you want to see how my writing may have progressed since then.

Total Score: 39/50 or 7.8/10, Overall, I really liked this story. It is a decently faithful adaptation of what it is based on and does enough to distinguish itself that it has an air of freshness. I would have just liked to see more done with expanding/switching things from the original. The writing and eloquence are just things that either require an editor or more experience/skill.

Once again, thanks so much for the review. I agree there's definitely room for improvement, but all in all not a bad score for a first story I originally predicted might go down like the Titanic. *Chuckles*

Oh, and feel free to read and review the sequels if you'd care to compare them with this story.