TBroken Promise

• MLP: FiM
• Drama

Down on her luck, Lightning Dust has no alternatives but to ask Rainbow Dash for help, will Rainbow Dash forgive her or will this lead down a dark path for our heroine?

• Violence
• Rainbow Dash
• Gilda
• Lightning Dust
• Shadowbolts

Nailah · 16k words  ·  40  4 · 786 views

Broken Promises

by Nailah

Summary:

After leaving the Wonderbolts Academy, Lightning Dust was never the same. Bitter, scorn, and down trot, she ventured her way through Equestria only for doors to be slammed in her face repeatedly, when no one else will help, she turns to the last pony she'd ever expect to forgive her for her transgressions, will Rainbow Dash forgive her, or will it lead down a dark part for our heroine?

Initial Thoughts:
Huh. Another Lightning Dust story. Now, this one I knew about before I decided to read it, since Nailah had asked me to help with some pre-reading back when all she had was the speedwrite version. So, when I saw this one come around, I figured it would be cool to pick it up, and see how far along the story had come. And, besides growing tenfold in length, how far has it come along?

As of present, October the 6th, in the Year of Our Princesses Two-Thousand and Twenty, there are a total of four chapters published, so this will only be my impressions of the first twelve-thousand or so words of this story.

My Reaction:
The story opens on Lightning Dust, looking a lot worse for wear since she got dumped from the Wonderbolt Academy. This story seems to be set in between Season 5 and 8, judging by Gilda and Dash being on good terms (Okay, really good terms, but Romance was in the tags, so that’s not too surprising), and so LD hasn’t formed her Washouts yet, and might not ever depending on how this story develops. She returns to Ponyville in order to apologize to Dash, and make some sort of amends, as she’s essentially homeless and destitute by this point, her reputation preceding her in ways she doesn’t enjoy.

Here, two things stood out for me. Lightning Dust, as a character, is very well done in the story. She’s gruff and moody, as she was always a bit of a hothead with an attitude, but she’s been tempered by her past failure and the fallout from almost killing the Elements of Harmony with her stunts back in the Academy. She’s broken, but looking to pick the pieces up. She’s sympathetic, but not innocent. It’s a good dynamic.

Second, however, is my main issue with the story. The grammar and pacing of this story are its greatest detractors. This story lacked an actual editor, according to the author’s notes in the story description, and it shows. Speedwrites are all essentially first drafts, so they can be forgiven a lot of little mistakes, but since this is a full-length story, grammar is far more important. Misspellings, missed punctuation, tense shifts, and lack of clarity with the use of pronouns creates an obstacle for readers to understand the story itself at times. And that’s tragic, because LD’s story is an interesting one. Regrettably, these problems hinder the story’s readability which makes it difficult to allow the quality of the ideas of the piece to stand out.

Pacing is also a problem at times. Events whip by at an extreme pace in this story, to the point where even scene transitions are hard to notice, as the characters jump from one scene to another rapidly. For example, Lightning Dust who was beginning her journey in one town seemed to reach Ponyville within seconds. This is made more jarring by the extreme lack of detail and descriptions to the scenery, which can leave the reader wondering where they are now, and what’s going on far too often for my liking.

Now, what I really didn’t expect, and what ends up driving much of the story and character interaction is what happens next. Namely… Rainbow Dash does not forgive Lightning Dust. In fact, she and Gilda threaten her with physical violence if she doesn’t take off right then and there. In terms of a plot twist, that’s right up there. In terms of in-character behavior… it’s a lot more suspect. I can see this as a necessity for the story to happen, but Lightning Dust is too sympathetically written for it to make sense from Dash’s perspective, especially since this is after she forgave Gilda. That point is even brought up later, but she doesn’t seem to realize the inherent hypocrisy she’s displaying.

This drives Lightning Dust to accept an offer from a spooky, shadowy organization operating out of the Everfree: The Shadowbolts, led by a stallion named Thunder, and their… founder? The character of Lumina gives off a lot of Nightmare Moon vibes, but nothing definite is known about either of them. The Shadowbolts are extremely mysterious, and they don’t seem inclined to tell Lightning Dust much about them without her proving her loyalty.

Now, if like me, you’ve seen the first episode of “Friendship is Magic”, you’re probably confused. Weren’t the Shadowbolts a made-up hallucination by Nightmare Moon? Well, that’s partly why I’m still interested, invested even, in continuing to read this story. The author has set up this intriguing little mystery, and dumped an emotionally damaged mare into the center of it all. I can’t guess, precisely, as to what’s going on, even with some advanced knowledge of the plot.

Reviewing this story is very hard. Sure, there are glaring grammatical mistakes and errors all throughout that make reading the story a bit tedious at times, but the strength of Lightning Dust’s characterization, and an intriguing plot involving a mysterious organization, spooky villains, and even some question about the main character’s sanity keeps me thinking about the story once I’ve put it down.

While the story does have a fair share of technical errors, it left me wanting even a little bit more. A mixed-bag, to be sure.

Grammar:
5/10

The grammar in this story is basically all over the place. Punctuation suffers in one or two places, with missing or misplaced periods and suchlike. Run-on sentences appear every so often. And there are many, many tense shifts and misspellings throughout. Worst of all would be the misuse – or in this case, absence of use – of pronouns. Several times I’d be reading, and I’d lose track of a whole section because there’s three “shes” in the scene, and not enough detail and focus is given to differentiate them at times.

Lightning Dust could tell this wasn’t going the way she had hoped. She let out a heavy sigh, and her lips curled downwards., and she pouted in front of her.

“You know, why don’t you try actually telling me the truth. I may actually listen then,” Rainbow Dash retorted, with a slight rise of her eyebrows. She huffed, and gritted her teeth.

He gestured to a door with a number on it. She nodded to him, and opened the door as she walked in. The room was a standard size, not so large that she felt tiny, but also cozy enough she wasn’t cramped like a sardine. She trotted in, and touched her hoof to the bed. The blankets felt soft, but firm. She looked back to Thunder, and just like that he was gone, her to the quiet serenity of her own thoughts. As she stood there in front of her bed, in her new home, the only thought on her mind now was where do I go from here?

There are also far too many instances of repetition, both in lines and with individual words in the narration and dialogue. It’s not enough to be completely unreadable, but it does get in the way, causing drag and confusion, which hurts the story overall.

Story:
7/10

This is quite early in the story’s run, so I’m seriously considering an asterisk here, as future updates may change how I look at this category again. The story itself takes a unique look at the whole “Lightning Dust Redemption” plot arc, and it really does seem to be aiming for some sort of big payoff, down the road. But… while I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt, there are a lot of problems. The pacing in this story is lightning quick, but at the expense of giving any of the characters or plot points narrative weight. There’s simply not enough description of what things look like or what’s going on, and the story greatly suffers from “Telling, not Showing” in its narration.

Characters:
7/10

The three leads of the story – Rainbow Dash, Gilda, and Lightning Dust – are all in-character, and fit their narrative niches nicely. They do what you’d expect them to do, and even sound like their show-counterparts, to a certain extent. Dash has made the roughest transition, seemingly forgetting one of her core character developments, while gaining a massive increase to her vocabulary. She’s far, far too mistrusting and unforgiving in this story, to where it feels forced, and she uses words that honestly would sound more in-line with Twilight Sparkle’s nerdy vocabulary. Unfortunately, due to the fast pacing of the piece, the characterisation of the characters is affected. There is an insufficient amount of development to aid in the characterisation.

Final Word and Rating

5+7+7 = 17/30 = 63/100%

Broken Promises is a worthwhile, if troubled work. The story is crafted with care and attention to detail, but its technical and pacing issues hold back an otherwise fine tale of adventure and redemption.
To the author: I would seriously consider getting an editor, or at least a backup editor (since I know you said in your long description that yours is busy). There are a lot of grammatical mistakes, to the point of distraction. As I said, more editing and more pre-reading would help, as would doing so in the Fimfiction editor, since some of the odd formatting mistakes I noticed could only be the result of Fimfic throwing a fit over a line of code, or not recognizing a paragraph break. If you’d like, I wouldn’t mind helping with edits as well.

Second, I would suggest re-watching a few of the old episodes, to try and find the characters’ voices again. While there are lots of good bits in here, some of their dialogue just doesn’t fit. There are some words Rainbow Dash should not know how to say, mostly those around three or more syllables. Another, secondary issue with characters is how often the viewpoint changes between them. This is extremely jarring, but can be fixed by picking one character per scene, and telling the scene entirely from their perspective, third-person close. Reading everyone’s thoughts, all the time, makes it confusing as to who we’re following.

Finally, “Show, Don’t Tell”. I know, this is simultaneously the best and worst advice ever, but it’s true. Too often, Lightning Dust or Gilda or RD will directly state their feelings and reflections through narration, and it comes across as a bit slow and clunky at times. There are times when “Telling” is necessary, but right now, what you could do is slash almost 50% of the narration, and lose nothing. Transfer big stuff, like Lightning’s thoughts, into smaller chunks or into dialogue. Allow the characters’ actions to drive home what they’re feeling. Trust your characters to deliver what is necessary to the readers.

I welcome any response or comments you may have.

7347904
Thank you for the review Ninja. Yes, I realize it does have a lot of issues, and I'll see what I can do.
I appreciate the time you took into this, and hope that I don't end up disappointing you.