I just finished the fic up to where it is, and have lots to say. I will start with good things:
Made me giggle many times. I want an RSS feed and am annoyed that one doesn’t seem to be available.
I like a number of your original characters and see no glaring flaws in your interpretations of the canons.
I applaud your choice of protagonist species and you do a nice job of making it a continuing handicap that the protagonist has to work around.
Your pacing is good in the sense that (with exceptions to be described below) I was not typically tempted to skim past any parts because of drag or mismanaged suspense.
I will carry on with critiques, noting that none of them stopped me from reading the entire thing and wanting more:
The musical interludes were cute once and annoying ever after. I stopped reading them. (If Missy were using them to study cartoon physics, instead of just to… occupy a couple screenfuls of text on each occasion by randomly singing sometimes… in a written medium… I would be much less annoyed, perhaps even charmed.) The chess games are even worse; perhaps that’s only because I don’t care about chess, but even so that limits the audience sharply for those passages.
I’m puzzled by the way the fic handles gender identity. If I were writing about a male human who’d been turned into a female cow, even if I handwaved discomfort with being a cow, I’d write the character as trans—narration would refer to him as “he”, trusted friends of said character would be asked to do the same, it would be a reasonably high priority to get sex-changed as soon as that became an available thing (perhaps on some pretense). And I also definitely wouldn’t have the character go by Missy. You’re handling that differently—which is one thing when it’s just Missy. Star Chaser is treated the same way, with some limited interest in being changed back but with female pronouns in the narration and so on. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say about gender/the sex change magic/these characters/etc.
The romance rings false throughout. I like your Cheerilee just fine, you write her as a lesbian just fine, I just don’t see her and Missy being interested in each other the way you’re telling me they are. To say nothing of the bizarreness of a formerly human protagonist being attracted to ponies with no further ado and being interested in conducting a relationship with one while shaped like a cow. The story purpose served (giving a personal cast to the save-the-world goal) seems like it would be handled okay if you just gave Missy one or two convincing friends, instead of pawns/antagonists/assistants/set dressing.
You write things out of chronological order by dropping into the pluperfect (“I had taken a clever precaution earlier”; “I’d already thought of that”; “I’d given my enormous offscreen staff that task the previous week”, etc.). You do this conspicuously and very often. This ruins real peril (maybe she’ll just pull another pluperfect solution out of her rear), makes it harder to understand complex series of gambits (wait she did what when?), and puts a lot of emphasis on some of her less plausible memories/resources/allies that you’d do better to tuck into corners. Having her work through problems forwards is also important for the aims of a rationalist fanfic: you can follow the thought process as it goes. The pluperfect cheats at that.
You’re doing a lot of “bringing Earth science to Equestria” and also a lot of “doing the generalized scientific method to magic”. They’re in tension, worldbuilding-wise; be careful.
You are juggling a lot of stuff, and you’re not putting it into tidy, episodic plot arcs, either. Science! Politics! Training up the assistants in rationality! Magic! Travel! Tacked-on romance! Cameos for canon favorites! Greek deities! Other “game pieces” who you won’t put out of their misery by letting them find out Missy was human too but who keep running around in the background! Jail time! Engineering! Diplomacy! Pop culture references! Collecting new friends! Extortion! Dueling! Archaeology! Spontaneous musical theater! Chess! Dependents of the lovedrunk and puppy variety! It’s very busy, you’re resisting wrapping up any of the plots you open, and it’s dizzying. Perhaps this is an element of realism you care about; but it’s in tension with the (Watsonian) realism of “there are only so many hours in a day and memories in a head for Missy to be doing all of this” and the (Doylist) realism of “I can only juggle so much content in a single story”.
@gender identity and pursuing relationship in cow form: Beware of the typical mind fallacy. Different people don’t put the same importance on the same parts of their identity, and more specifically there is a fair bunch in the rationalist/transhuman cluster—me included—who regard sexual orientation, gender, and species as no more significant than eye colour or taste in icecream. This also seems to correlate pretty strongly with polegamy, which Missy also were ok enough with.
@jugeling lots of stuff: thats my favorite part of it! Don’t stop!
The musical interludes were cute once and annoying ever after. I stopped reading them.
I can see that. I started using them in imitation of other Chessverse stories, but I may have started going overboard.
The chess games are even worse; perhaps that’s only because I don’t care about chess, but even so that limits the audience sharply for those passages.
I tried using as much banter and kibitzing during the games as I could, to try to keep the reader both interested and with a good idea of what was going on. I’m probably going to end up deciding it was a mostly-failed experiment, and not go into quite so much detail of a particular game in the future, unless there’s an actual pressing plot-point depending on the actual details.
I’m puzzled by the way the fic handles gender identity.
Star Chaser is treated the same way, with some limited interest in being changed back but with female pronouns in the narration and so on. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say about gender/the sex change magic/these characters/etc.
Since the point where Star Chaser got an actual name, I’m trying to write her as ‘trying to do the right thing’ - which, at the moment, means she’s working with problems that have somewhat higher priority than her gender. If Celestia happens to pass by, Star will be entirely willing to give her Missy’s letter of recommendation and ask to be male again. I’m not aiming for this to be so much about the unimportance of gender, but of how important existential risks are compared to everything else.
The fic is written from first-person perspective, from Missy’s point of view. At the moment, she sees Star Chaser as female, so those are the pronouns she’s using to refer to her.
The romance rings false throughout.
This has, in fact, been in my road map for a while—and I hit hard on this point, on almost a metafictional level, in the latest chapter. I hope it passes your muster for dealing with the whole issue in an interesting and entertaining way.
You write things out of chronological order by dropping into the pluperfect (“I had taken a clever precaution earlier”; “I’d already thought of that”; “I’d given my enormous offscreen staff that task the previous week”, etc.). You do this conspicuously and very often. This ruins real peril (maybe she’ll just pull another pluperfect solution out of her rear), makes it harder to understand complex series of gambits (wait she did what when?), and puts a lot of emphasis on some of her less plausible memories/resources/allies that you’d do better to tuck into corners. Having her work through problems forwards is also important for the aims of a rationalist fanfic: you can follow the thought process as it goes. The pluperfect cheats at that.
This is something I hadn’t even realized I was doing so much—thank you for bringing it to my attention. I’ll try working on improving at this, though I may not always succeed as well as I should.
You’re doing a lot of “bringing Earth science to Equestria” and also a lot of “doing the generalized scientific method to magic”. They’re in tension, worldbuilding-wise; be careful.
I’m in regular communication with some of the major authors of the setting, in which various aspects of the worldbuilding are hammered out. Eg, if someone wants there to be a magical mineral with certain properties, I’ll point out, “but if you mix it with this, then kaboom”. A few hard limits have been placed—nobody’s going to be building any nukes (or equivalents), though MOABs are a possibility.
You are juggling a lot of stuff, and you’re not putting it into tidy, episodic plot arcs, either. Science! Politics! Training up the assistants in rationality! Magic! Travel! Tacked-on romance! Cameos for canon favorites! Greek deities! Other “game pieces” who you won’t put out of their misery by letting them find out Missy was human too but who keep running around in the background! Jail time! Engineering! Diplomacy! Pop culture references! Collecting new friends! Extortion! Dueling! Archaeology! Spontaneous musical theater! Chess! Dependents of the lovedrunk and puppy variety! It’s very busy, you’re resisting wrapping up any of the plots you open, and it’s dizzying. Perhaps this is an element of realism you care about; but it’s in tension with the (Watsonian) realism of “there are only so many hours in a day and memories in a head for Missy to be doing all of this” and the (Doylist) realism of “I can only juggle so much content in a single story”.
Given what I know about my writing from other instances—I do seem to have a greater tendency to open up new plot ideas than to tie them off neatly. If it helps, I do have a roadmap of where I plan on taking the overall story, with various highlights and items I want to hit on the way. (How many words I spend getting to any particular point is, however, an open question.)
I’m halfway through writing today’s chapter—and I chuckled aloud when I read your critique points, as this chapter is addressing at least two and a half of them. I’ll write a more thorough reply once I finish writing and posting it.
I just finished the fic up to where it is, and have lots to say. I will start with good things:
Made me giggle many times. I want an RSS feed and am annoyed that one doesn’t seem to be available.
I like a number of your original characters and see no glaring flaws in your interpretations of the canons.
I applaud your choice of protagonist species and you do a nice job of making it a continuing handicap that the protagonist has to work around.
Your pacing is good in the sense that (with exceptions to be described below) I was not typically tempted to skim past any parts because of drag or mismanaged suspense.
I will carry on with critiques, noting that none of them stopped me from reading the entire thing and wanting more:
The musical interludes were cute once and annoying ever after. I stopped reading them. (If Missy were using them to study cartoon physics, instead of just to… occupy a couple screenfuls of text on each occasion by randomly singing sometimes… in a written medium… I would be much less annoyed, perhaps even charmed.) The chess games are even worse; perhaps that’s only because I don’t care about chess, but even so that limits the audience sharply for those passages.
I’m puzzled by the way the fic handles gender identity. If I were writing about a male human who’d been turned into a female cow, even if I handwaved discomfort with being a cow, I’d write the character as trans—narration would refer to him as “he”, trusted friends of said character would be asked to do the same, it would be a reasonably high priority to get sex-changed as soon as that became an available thing (perhaps on some pretense). And I also definitely wouldn’t have the character go by Missy. You’re handling that differently—which is one thing when it’s just Missy. Star Chaser is treated the same way, with some limited interest in being changed back but with female pronouns in the narration and so on. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say about gender/the sex change magic/these characters/etc.
The romance rings false throughout. I like your Cheerilee just fine, you write her as a lesbian just fine, I just don’t see her and Missy being interested in each other the way you’re telling me they are. To say nothing of the bizarreness of a formerly human protagonist being attracted to ponies with no further ado and being interested in conducting a relationship with one while shaped like a cow. The story purpose served (giving a personal cast to the save-the-world goal) seems like it would be handled okay if you just gave Missy one or two convincing friends, instead of pawns/antagonists/assistants/set dressing.
You write things out of chronological order by dropping into the pluperfect (“I had taken a clever precaution earlier”; “I’d already thought of that”; “I’d given my enormous offscreen staff that task the previous week”, etc.). You do this conspicuously and very often. This ruins real peril (maybe she’ll just pull another pluperfect solution out of her rear), makes it harder to understand complex series of gambits (wait she did what when?), and puts a lot of emphasis on some of her less plausible memories/resources/allies that you’d do better to tuck into corners. Having her work through problems forwards is also important for the aims of a rationalist fanfic: you can follow the thought process as it goes. The pluperfect cheats at that.
You’re doing a lot of “bringing Earth science to Equestria” and also a lot of “doing the generalized scientific method to magic”. They’re in tension, worldbuilding-wise; be careful.
You are juggling a lot of stuff, and you’re not putting it into tidy, episodic plot arcs, either. Science! Politics! Training up the assistants in rationality! Magic! Travel! Tacked-on romance! Cameos for canon favorites! Greek deities! Other “game pieces” who you won’t put out of their misery by letting them find out Missy was human too but who keep running around in the background! Jail time! Engineering! Diplomacy! Pop culture references! Collecting new friends! Extortion! Dueling! Archaeology! Spontaneous musical theater! Chess! Dependents of the lovedrunk and puppy variety! It’s very busy, you’re resisting wrapping up any of the plots you open, and it’s dizzying. Perhaps this is an element of realism you care about; but it’s in tension with the (Watsonian) realism of “there are only so many hours in a day and memories in a head for Missy to be doing all of this” and the (Doylist) realism of “I can only juggle so much content in a single story”.
@gender identity and pursuing relationship in cow form: Beware of the typical mind fallacy. Different people don’t put the same importance on the same parts of their identity, and more specifically there is a fair bunch in the rationalist/transhuman cluster—me included—who regard sexual orientation, gender, and species as no more significant than eye colour or taste in icecream. This also seems to correlate pretty strongly with polegamy, which Missy also were ok enough with.
@jugeling lots of stuff: thats my favorite part of it! Don’t stop!
And I thank you kindly for them.
I can see that. I started using them in imitation of other Chessverse stories, but I may have started going overboard.
I tried using as much banter and kibitzing during the games as I could, to try to keep the reader both interested and with a good idea of what was going on. I’m probably going to end up deciding it was a mostly-failed experiment, and not go into quite so much detail of a particular game in the future, unless there’s an actual pressing plot-point depending on the actual details.
Since the point where Star Chaser got an actual name, I’m trying to write her as ‘trying to do the right thing’ - which, at the moment, means she’s working with problems that have somewhat higher priority than her gender. If Celestia happens to pass by, Star will be entirely willing to give her Missy’s letter of recommendation and ask to be male again. I’m not aiming for this to be so much about the unimportance of gender, but of how important existential risks are compared to everything else.
The fic is written from first-person perspective, from Missy’s point of view. At the moment, she sees Star Chaser as female, so those are the pronouns she’s using to refer to her.
This has, in fact, been in my road map for a while—and I hit hard on this point, on almost a metafictional level, in the latest chapter. I hope it passes your muster for dealing with the whole issue in an interesting and entertaining way.
This is something I hadn’t even realized I was doing so much—thank you for bringing it to my attention. I’ll try working on improving at this, though I may not always succeed as well as I should.
I’m in regular communication with some of the major authors of the setting, in which various aspects of the worldbuilding are hammered out. Eg, if someone wants there to be a magical mineral with certain properties, I’ll point out, “but if you mix it with this, then kaboom”. A few hard limits have been placed—nobody’s going to be building any nukes (or equivalents), though MOABs are a possibility.
Given what I know about my writing from other instances—I do seem to have a greater tendency to open up new plot ideas than to tie them off neatly. If it helps, I do have a roadmap of where I plan on taking the overall story, with various highlights and items I want to hit on the way. (How many words I spend getting to any particular point is, however, an open question.)
Regarding the chess games, it would help if you added illustrative pictures.
And, yes, by Jove, avoid the Chris Carter Effect.
As for Missy, her tacked on romance and lack of emotion… you promised you’d explain that eventually, so I’ll be waiting.
I’m halfway through writing today’s chapter—and I chuckled aloud when I read your critique points, as this chapter is addressing at least two and a half of them. I’ll write a more thorough reply once I finish writing and posting it.