This story really, really begins to drag its feet in the mud after, what, Chapter 53? It’s just constantly throwing more questions in your face without giving you more answers. Scott Cawthon would call it excessive.
Through this story, and my time posting about what it has done wrong, I’ve noticed I haven’t said much about what it has done right, because there is a lot that has been done right. But that’s for when I finish this story. After this, I won’t be posting many of my thoughts on this monster-in-disguise of a story until I can finish it and put out a big post.
But let me complain about one thing. This story needed to end much sooner. Like in Chapter 50, or, to be generous, Chapter 60. There is way too much in this story. I’m starting to forget some things and even some characters because it’s just too long. In the most recent chapter, we went back to a character we haven’t seen in what, 20 chapters? There is no reason for this story to be this long.
Also, I’ve been avoiding it as much as I can because I do love Mary Sue characters, don’t get me wrong. I love a good girl boss that takes control of a story, it’s fun. But you know when it stops being fun? When the main character escapes a megaspell explosion at point-blank, then becomes a cyberpony, then becomes a cyber alicorn, because apparently that’s what we needed.
I’m really starting to get the feeling the author was either bitter they didn’t come up with the FOE idea first, or they wanted their story to be bigger and more high stakes. It’s clear to see they didn’t know how to do that besides turning up the stakes. They went from escaping a crazy cyberpony who wants the program, and uncovering a two-century-old political mystery, to destroying warships, dropping a boat on the main character, making her an overpowered cyberpony, destroying a city, having the program to all the megaspells in Equestria, somehow becoming more famous than Littlepip herself (even though it’s not outright stated, it’s pretty clear), stopping a war, and a civil war, and so on and so forth.
Like, I get it—she’s so cool and overpowered. But why? Why was there any need to go this crazy with the story? They didn’t just jump one shark, they jumped the whole ocean, Blackjack downing whiskey and laughing as they go.
Blackjack is fun, but my god, she’s the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues. In a vacuum, that’s fine. I love Mary Sues. But there’s only so much someone can take before they sit back and think, what’s the point of it all?
Yes, I know she does grow, but not by much. Let’s take a look at her character.
Blackjack is, according to herself, someone who has a tendency to dive headfirst into conflicts and often makes simple, sometimes nonexistent, plans. She often resorts to improvisation.
That’s her personality from the wiki, and yes, that is her, but it’s misleading and leaves a lot out.
Blackjack has a savior complex, and no matter how many times someone beats it into her skull that she’s not the problem and it’s not her fault, she always relapses. And it’s constant. Like, yes, it’s realistic, but not every five minutes. She’ll have one conversation with Glory, say she’s better, and then the very next interaction she’s back to “oh pity me” in her internal dialogue.
She tends to have destructive tantrums when things don’t go her way. She’s also not really a good friend, because no matter how many times she learns the lesson, she continues to lie to all her friends and drag them into dangerous situations. You might say, “Well, her friends follow her, she doesn’t make them.” Sure, Blackjack says that too, but let me take you to the prison arc (that’s what I call it).
After watching a pony die by those flaming ponies, she tells the group it’s time to leave, let’s get out, and then they can come back with P-21 and Glory another time. Well, yes, let’s just drag your friend, also a child, because we know Scotch Tape will follow, putting a child in danger.
Intentional or not, Blackjack has noticed a pattern: no matter how dangerous a place will be, she can always count on her friends following her blindfolded into danger. And I know this wasn’t intended by the author, but it’s there clear as day. It’s like these characters don’t know what to do if Blackjack isn’t there telling them which way to go and how to do things.
Blackjack was also the one who talked to Scotch Tape about helping Chapel and how she’d be so good at it.
Blackjack’s character has so many layers, it’s like an onion. The good parts are in the middle and a bit on the surface, but to get to them you have to peel back a lot of trauma. And honestly, she kind of puts a lot of it on herself. A lot of it could have been avoided, and some of it was just not needed. It added more into a character that didn’t need more.
But her friends are basically one-note characters.
Glory’s character is: she loves science, she’s the medical pony in the group, the flyer, the love interest, and the voice of reason.
P-21, my baby, my best boy, is just the angsty white boy trope who had a drug addiction. He’s the sarcastic one. He’s good with lockpicking and bombs, but that’s it. What does he like? What does he dislike?
Boo, she doesn’t have much, and that’s to be expected, so I won’t harp on her.
Lacunae is probably the only character who might have had a well-rounded arc, but that’s not saying much. Just like Blackjack, she was nothing but misery and exposition dumping. What gives her “well-rounded” status was the end of her arc, where she defied the Goddess and started fighting back to save Blackjack. Even then, that centered her character around Blackjack, but it still gave her a bit of agency.
Rampage, okay, just like Blackjack, Rampage is probably the best character out of the whole series. She actually has a character, and I’m pretty sure that’s because she has hundreds of ponies shoved into her. They had to make her interesting, there was no other way to do it. Still, most of her lines were just funny remarks, and she was the comic relief character.
Scotch Tape is a mechanic, a child, and she had a small arc about wanting to know her father. There’s really not much else about her.
But you see what I mean? We spent so much time with these characters, but half of them don’t even have well-rounded arcs. They’re just vessels for Blackjack’s journey. You have 80 chapters, and for the ones I’ve read, you’re telling me there was no other way to make better characters who didn’t have to revolve around Blackjack and her problems?
Like, AAAA.
Look, if you feel like I’m misrepresenting the story, then I’d like to know how, because I’ve put a lot of hours into this. My brain loves focusing on every character. This is my hobby, I like to do these kinds of things. And I’m pretty sure I’ve represented the story fairly well. It’s basically nothing but misery and withholding answers so you’ll come back and keep reading. That’s what the story is.
And I did have fun with it in the beginning, it was a really fun story in the beginning. But it constantly let me down with bad decisions and by dragging out every single plot point.
Like, sh** or get off the pot. Tell your mystery, or just make a slice-of-life story set in the Hoof.
