Title:           Mad Science Critique by Little Guy
Author:          -IceMan-
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/cahWaPk2
First Edit:      Thursday 26th of March 2015 11:15:21 PM CDT
Last Edit:       Thursday 26th of March 2015 11:15:21 PM CDT

This story was interesting. I can see the potential in it, and I can see the potential in you as a writer, but we’ve got a couple extremely large problems that are pretty much going to eclipse everything else in this review. I’ll start with the premise; it isn’t the biggest problem, but there is a flaw. How is it that Anon has cultivated a fascination with alternate universes, and the ways to get there, without being at least in some way prepared to see some truly bizarre things? I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been fazed by plopping down in Equestria, but for him to completely spurn everything about it seems weird to me. At the very least, he would want to take notes or something, I would imagine. It’s perfectly fine that he’s cynical and bitter, but the extent to which he is seems out of place, given the love of exploration and discovery that his endeavor suggests about his character.
 
However, it is that character that gives me such a huge gripe, and it’s bleeding into the story aspects as well. You’ve given Anon genius-level intelligence, which is fine. However, what you have not done is adjust the rest of his personality to fit with that intelligence. It’s like you took a regular person and turned the intelligence up to eleven, changing no other aspects. He builds an interdimensional portal (and I’ve got some words about that later), but doesn’t think to secure the lever as he steps into it. He lands in Equestria and immediately starts yelping about up quarks and the age of the universe, but doesn’t even think about the implications of the new universe for his safety. If I were in his position, and with his intelligence, you know what I’d do?
 
Spend the first few hours in a catatonic stupor of intense thought and anxiety, worrying about things like airborne bacteria that are new to me, soil and water toxicity, ambient radiation for when I eventually have to remove the suit, and how that universe’s laws of physics could cause my very body to fall apart without warning. Among other things I haven't thought of, I'm sure.
 
What you have done here, in a nutshell, is tried to write for a character who is smarter than you, and that’s an incredibly dangerous thing to do, because it means the instant you forget or, worse, get wrong, even the smallest detail that that character would notice, they become inconsistent. No matter how well you explain their logic, or how accurate the schematics are on his inventions, he will always come across as this weird, sometimes-on-sometimes-off genius. I cite line 92 in chapter one, where Anon mentions the five stages of grief, and then the fact that there are different camps of psychological thought about them, which is enough to make his counselor say he hasn’t “had someone to talk to about the news in my field who really understands it for a few years.” That sentence is parsed really weirdly, by the way; it would be better as “had someone to talk to in a few years, who really understands the news in my field.” But I digress. The reason I use that line is because it’s an incredibly basic, psychology 101 kind of observation for Anon to make, and the counselor treats it like he’s finally found some kind of colleague. The disparity between the counselor’s reaction and the quality of the inducement points to limited knowledge in that field, and an attempt to pass it off as genius.
 
Let me get to the interdimensional portal, now. The entire thing is dubious as hell. How did he get the authorization to build this thing? Where did he get the radioactive materials, and why is he allowed to play with them in the university basement? He’s irradiating the whole city. How is such a complex machine activated with a single switch? How is he getting the particles at a high enough speed that hitting them with 300 million volts (and I think you mean amps, by the way) is enough to tear a hole in spacetime? How does he stabilize that hole once it’s been made? How is he even targeting the particles with his electron rays? And, last, but certainly not least, how is he fitting all of this in a basement? And then, on line 158 of chapter one, you say he built it in six months. Uh-huh.
 
Anon’s faulty character really starts to hurt the story once he gets to Equestria. Throughout, I got this unshakable sense that the entire story was on rails; that is, that you had your goal in mind for Anon, and you weren’t about to let unforeseen details throw you off. The first major example I have is line 269, of chapter one, where you state that Anon is stuck there. He has absolutely no basis for that conclusion; Twilight tried teleporting him once, before he had even made it clear where he was trying to go. Before he had even learned about magic, and the extent of its potency. Before he had found out how technologically backwater Equestria is. For all he knew, he could have moseyed on into the forest and blundered into a portal that was even better than his handmade one. It seemed like you just needed a way to deliver that sense of finality to the reader, and didn’t have the patience to reach it organically.
 
Or line 221 in the same chapter, where someone randomly suggests removing his hat, unwittingly saving his life. That’s a very specific coincidence. Same thing on line 27, chapter three, where the garden pony just happens to have the sulfur he needs because of an anomalous bit of bad luck. Or line 192, chapter seven, where Twilight just so happens to have a disembodied unicorn horn lying around. Or how Anon goes completely unscathed from his machine’s failure, in chapter ten, despite standing right next to it. I’m pointing all of these out because I want to impress upon you that letting your plot advance, or, in your case, be streamlined, through coincidences is a very lazy way of writing, because it damages all sense of depth to the world and the plot. Why should I worry about how Anon is going to accomplish his goal if steps toward it just wind up happening for him? Why should I fear for him if he’s already survived an interdimensional portal explosion with no burns, cuts, bruises, or irradiation?
 
Not only do the plot elements seem to be predetermined, but so too does Anon’s development as a character. In chapter two, 107-109, you have him make his first epiphany after a single bit of snark from Twilight. Two and a half chapters of him being a giant asshole, addressed and forgotten in three lines. It’s the first step toward him being more pleasant, but you’re taking it far too quickly. That weird speed is echoed much more intensely in his promise of sincerity to Twilight, right at the end of chapter four. He almost seems sociopathic as he’s extolling his loathing for everyone, his skill at keeping the façade, and the ease with which he manipulates people for his own ends, but then he turns the whole thing around as soon as Twilight mentions that she’s concerned for him.
 
Maybe these problems with Anon’s character wouldn’t appear so bad if he were more relatable. He isn’t, though. You were on the right track in giving him a tragic past to humanize him, but you went too far. Both parents dead at a young age, and bullying? Where’s the contrast? Where’s the positivity? People don’t usually have pasts that are entire, endless black streaks, so it actually makes him seem even more fantastic. A human past would help this character, but his is not a human past, it’s the past of a Mary Sue. It is the past of a character specifically designed to cull as much pity as possible, a past to justify an outrageous transformation. He doesn’t seem realistic, is what I’m saying. What that means is that, when he’s being a bastard to the ponies, I’m not feeling pity or even understanding for him and his unfortunate emotional situation; I’m thinking that Applejack should just haul off and split his skull already. He states his motivations for trying to be a nicer person, but those moments are few and far-between, and broken up by examples of him slipping in that goal, so it’s very easy to forget that his drive toward self-improvement is genuine. More insight into how he thinks on a day-to-day, or moment-to-moment, basis would help this issue.
 
One more small point on Anon, and then I’ll switch to something else. Nowhere in the story do you state that he has an eidetic memory, so I find it very strange that he is able to build these complex machines without any guidelines, especially his interdimensional portal.
 
The story itself is structured in a way that I find somewhat tiresome after a while. It’s got a very heavy “assemble the pieces” vibe to it. First, he’s gathering the components of his fireworks, then he has a small interlude to collect pieces for his flying machine, both in the foreground to his quest to accrue the pieces of his portal.
 
As soon as one component is done, it’s off to get the next one, and there’s not enough deviation from that method for me. That sense, in addition to the very directed feeling I got from all the stuff I mentioned earlier, gives the story an incredibly inorganic, too-orderly feel to it, to the point where it stops imitating real life. The reason that isn't ideal is because a story that doesn’t have some parallels with life as we know it will be very difficult to get anything meaningful from.
 
Weirdly, though, the story did not go too fast for me. On the contrary, on chapter nine, I stepped back and realized that it was dragging for me. Nothing specific about that chapter, that’s just when it occurred to me. Anon’s goal of getting home is so distant, and the steps toward achieving it so indirect, that I never really got a sense of forward motion until he was actually putting the components of his portal together. His emotional development is better, but it’s secondary to his goal of returning home, so it only helps but a small amount. I will say, though, the underlying structure of his character arc is really solid. The execution needs improvement, but I appreciate that you have him take a non-linear track.
 
And those are the foundational problems. Now, it’s time for me to get a bit more specific. I’ll do it chapter by chapter.
 
Chapter one. The four scenes that you lead with are somewhat too short for how you use them later. These are the formative parts of his life, but you cover them in 123 lines; it seems like you’re just trying to give us some snapshots of his youth, not show us the deeply personal motivations for his completely screwed up mentality. When his parents die, you speed through the reveal, treating it more like exposition than tragedy. You need to slow those scenes down and really let the emotion come through; it’ll pay dividends later. You try this, kind of, on line 55, but it just seems cliché and overdone. I’ve mentioned this in previous critiques: you’ve got yourself the fallacy of imitative form there. Rain during a sad moment, sunshine during a happy moment, and so on. A properly emotional moment shouldn't need help from the weather or the scenery; the feelings should come from the character(s).
 
The following scene, where Terrance is bullying Anon, is far too edgy. This might be bias on my part, but death threats in high school seem a little extreme. Even if that is just me being unexposed, what Terrance says to him when he has him on the ground is not realistic. People don’t typically list off the reasons they hate someone when they’re hurting them. That’s Batman villain stuff; that’s exposition. You could have found a more elegant way to point out how far above everyone Anon was, and leave Terrance to just be a dumb bully.
 
On line 183, Anon shouts that the portal works after yanking the rat out. I’m not seeing that the rat being unharmed proves anything. He has no way to know that the portal actually worked; it could have just been an insubstantial circle of light. And besides, he only tried it once. A proper scientist would have done multiple tests before concluding that it works.
 
When Anon lands in Equestria, I think it’s weird that his first impulse is to ask the ponies the charge of an up quark. He may not have any friends, but I find it hard to believe that he would be so naïve about people’s intelligence as to expect a stranger to know something like that. I mean, one of the things he loves to bring up is how stupid everyone is; why would he think Equestria is any different? Besides, how would the ponies' answer tell him which universe he's in?
 
On line 301, and in other places, you use the term “Technicolor.” That’s a trademark name, and should be capitalized.
 
On line 317, Anon turns from furious to dispassionate oddly quickly. Then, when he walks through Ponyville, you’ve got no mention of the other ponies reacting to him.
 
On line 380, you have him ponder getting a hotel, despite that he has no idea whether something like that exists in that universe.
 
On line 448, he states that he’s been dragged away from his family, friends, and everything else. I thought he didn’t have friends. Also, why would Twilight decide to bring him to a party, only literal hours after he fell out of a portal from another reality? Shouldn’t she be worried about whether he’s dangerous, or want to stay home with him and learn more about what he is?
 
Chapter two. On line 79, he gets butthurt that the pony offers him copper ingots, after just saying that any spare copper is acceptable. It’s like Anon to be condescending and mean, but not like him to be unclear in a request.
 
I think Anon is weirdly compassionate on line 211. Since when does he care about helping other people? Shouldn’t he just yell at them for being stupid, or rebuke them for asking for help, or just ignore them?
 
Chapter three. On line 66, he uses friction to start a fire, neglecting that Twilight is around to do it for him. On line 147, he returns to the pyre, after having said that he was going to watch it.
 
Chapter four. Why should Anon, a logical being, decide to chase after the diamond dogs instead of digging a little more? He doesn’t want to dig more holes, but surely that would be better than risking his health in a venture to get gems back for someone he doesn’t even care that much about.
 
Chapter five. On line 120, you have all three thousand shells on the table. That is one big table.
 
I think line 160 is one of the laziest lines you have. You have an entire world of magic to explore and play with alongside your science, but instead of coming up with some kind of rudimentary set of rules (hell, you could have extrapolated some stuff right out of the show), you just call it all unexplained. Magic is like Equestria’s equivalent of our science, but instead of trying to put form and ration to it, you just supplant it with pre-industrial revolution science, and call it an accepted anomaly. What that indicates about your story is that you're not really thinking in terms of magic, or even an alternate form of physics; you're taking illogic and playing with how it doesn't work in our world. That kind of stuff should be relegated to Anon's mind, whenever he's talking in his head, not to the actual story. In a story that emphasizes the fundamental forces of reality, it's a lot better to let the Equestrian magic have a life of its own, because it adds more depth to the world, and also helps underscore how actually different it is from Earth. Right now, the differences seem mostly superficial.
 
On line 226, he says he has nothing better to do but go with Twilight to Canterlot, but can’t he be working on schematics for his portal home? You know, that device he won’t stop worrying about, and is finally a step closer to being able to build?
 
I think the song scene is very out of place. It comes from seemingly nowhere, and I’m not seeing why Applejack and Rainbow would want that from him. Like, as a way to humiliate him, there are more direct ways to go about it. Plus, Anon didn’t have all that much to drink, so his immediate willingness to get up and perform in front of everyone seems out of character, especially considering how much it would make sense for him to ingratiate himself with the princesses. He has no way to know his stunt would be well-received, so I would think he would want to do his best to not rock that metaphorical boat.
 
Chapter six. Lines 48-51 are a little too pessimistic, I think, given how baseless they are. If it were Anon saying these things to someone else, it’d be okay, but it’s just you, the author, speaking through him. I dunno, seems kind of pointless. Then, on lines 269-288, you’ve got more imitative form with the rain on the sad revelation.
 
This part gets some very special mention. On lines 119-125, you have Anon finally reveal to Twilight what makes him such an ass. This is an emotional climax for him. This is the point in the story where the troubled protagonist finally learns to trust in the kindness of someone else, and you just skim over it like it’s unwanted exposition. Where’s the emotion? Where’s the wrenching feeling of cosmic irony that he should share these painful things, not with another human, but with an alien that he doesn’t consider to be a friend? Where’s the pain of dredging it all up again, the embarrassment that he, a logical creature, should feel such strong emotions? Where’s the discomfort at telling her these secrets, or the loathing for her causing him to do so? Where’s the suspicion that she’s just going to wind up using this information against him? So much potential for exploring his psyche, but instead, it’s the shortest five lines in the entire story.
 
Chapter nine. On line 351, he questions the magic of friendship; shouldn’t he have heard about it already, in his reading? It’s not exactly a small aspect of the magic of that world.
 
Chapter ten. I took note of it on line 8, but you’ve got these elsewhere: overly-elaborate similes. You can tone them down, because all they do is expand uselessly on what is a very apparent comparison.
 
On lines 213-214, you sorely need a transition. You do this elsewhere also, but I’m bringing it up here because, in being so close to the climax of this story, a lack of transition is amplified. It’s kind of like a stutter in your story, and when the tension is as it is when you’re close to the climax, that stutter is particularly jarring.
 
Chapter eleven. Your simile on line 125 gets special mention because it’s extremely overwrought, more so than your others. Tacking a child onto any kind of rhetorical language is just a cheap grab at emotion, and it’s completely meaningless.
 
It seems rather arbitrary that Discord should withhold information about the magical generator from Anon. He seems, in that moment, to want Anon to remain in Equestria, but later, he expresses a desire for the generator. So, which is it? Is he trying to trick Anon with his story about the ancient evil? If so, how come Anon doesn’t notice it? Once he does find out what Discord wants, everyone just kind of forgets that, if Discord had had his way from the outset, Anon would be floundering for ideas.
 
Chapter twelve. First of all, the formatting in this chapter is messed up. You’re cutting off lines and starting them on new lines. It’s weird. I think that the CMC semaphore scene is not very well integrated into the story. It seems like it comes out of nowhere, and doesn’t really help the story. Anon has already realized that being nice is a good thing by this point, and his little philosophical japes with the fillies haven’t apparently affected him.
 
On line 163, he says that the university would be closed, but how does he know that? It’s in an alternative universe. It might be daytime when he shows up there. Or the university might never close. He doesn’t know.
 
Chapter thirteen. I think it’s very questionable that Twilight should be so willfully unhelpful to Anon’s plight. Yes, he might not take her advice, but it’s not in her character to withhold vital information like that. Then, when she apologizes, why the hell does Anon choose then to say he was wrong? He was completely right in this instance, and he should know it. Twilight should know it too. Finally, on line 104, you say he summons the princesses. How did he do that? In the past, they’ve always come to him.
 
Whew, almost done. Just a couple points on style, then the overview. I noticed a couple instances of you repeating how inconsistent Equestria is, and I found it a little annoying. You don’t need to keep hammering on that world’s lack of logic. Also, you have ponies handing Anon things a lot, despite that they don’t have hands.
 
Some of your explanations of the engineering or science behind things got kind of tiresome or overlong. It’s nice to have details on things like that, but you don’t have to do the step-by-step on everything. It almost seemed like you were showing off in a few parts, like when he was building the radio or doing the stoichiometry with the CMC. Don't take all of it out; in fact, I'd say you should leave the majority of it in. But some of it can be toned down.
 
So, overall, it’s an interesting premise that’s overshadowed by a pair of glaring errors. The story feels like it’s on rails with its coincidence plot points, and Anon’s character is inconsistent and unrealistic with his off-and-on intelligence and extremely dark past. You need to adjust his past and either tone down his intelligence or pay closer attention to his behavior, to avoid having him act out-of-character. The pacing for his emotional development can be evened out a little, but keeping the staccato rhythm might not be bad, if the former problems are solved. As I said, I really dig that you have him fail at his attempts to be nice; that's a single point of humanity for him. There’s definitely potential in here, and finding it, once you’ve cleaned up the two large problems, shouldn’t be that difficult. Your troubles are consolidated, which is good.