The Dresden Fillies: False Masks
By:
psychicscubadiver
Almost a year has gone by for Harry Dresden since he left Equestria. Then he receives a strange letter from Twilight. He's glad to return, but dark rumors have spread since his first visit. A sequel to The Dresden Fillies: Strange Friends.
Rated:
Fiction T - English - Adventure/Humor - Twilight Sparkle, H. Dresden - Chapters: 25 - Words: 195,913 - Reviews:
412 - Favs: 495 - Follows: 420 - Updated: May 22, 2014 - Published: Mar 3, 2012 - Status: Complete - id: 7893489
Impressions before reading:
The sequel to Strange Friends. Featuring Dresden as a pony, a dark conspiracy involving an ancient evil, and a darker and more complex plot. Not that Strange Friends was all sunshine and rainbows, but it was a straightforward adventurous romp fitting the single-episode/book styles of both series.
Also, it just occurred to me that I've never done a full binge-read of this fic. It's one that I read mostly in installments as they came out. I remember being kind of exhausted as the story went on, but my experience with weekly manga updates suggest that'll be less of a problem with a single binge-read.
Review:
Ah, that's some good shit.
First off, False Masks is far better written on a technical level compared to Strange Friends. There's the usual complement of typoes, but for the most part the writing flows smoothly and there aren't the problems with passive voice or awkward sentences that I run into so often.
Second, I mentioned in the Impressions blurb that the plot for this story is a great deal more complex, and I like that. Instead of just running up and punching a single bad guy in the face, Dresden and company have to face a shadowy organization, and then a shadowy organization
within a shadowy organization. And yet, despite that, when this is revealed it doesn't come off as contrived, because psychicscubadiver makes it a point to foreshadow this with a great deal of "right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing" chicanery.
This complexity also allows for a much larger cast, and more character moments for them. I especially like the heavier use of Princesses Celestia and Luna - Luna with her cold fury, take-charge attitude, and still-smoldering guilt, and Celestia showing some remarkably similar qualities to Harry Dresden himself. He even hints at interesting backstory for them. Oh, and also? They get to be
awesome. Celestia gets two fight scenes with fucking He Who Walks Behind and gives a very good accounting for herself, while Luna bails them out when Big Bad Bookmark makes his move.
The Mane Six, too, are written well - with one notable exception. psychicscubadiver leans just a
little too much into the lolrandom, reality-breaking, reference-spewing school of Pinkie Pie characterization at times. There's one specific shoutout that bugged me the most, but now I can't remember it. Anyway, besides good characterization, we also get some nice action scenes with them, notably Twilight rampaging through the Order Triune's base and Rarity being a badass. I
love it when fics give her that treatment. It's even got some canon support, considering she kicks a manticore in the face in the second episode and gets just as physical with the Changelings as Applejack and Rainbow Dash during A Canterlot Wedding.
And then there's Dresden. The story takes place after the sixth book, so by now Dresden has a melted hand and a fallen angel in his head messing with things. So he's subtly more angry and prone to flying off the handle during this story, which fits so much. Also, he brings Bob the Skull with him, and Bob is an excellent source of much-needed comedy.
Though the cast is, naturally, heavy on OCs, four background ponies get significant roles. Colgate
1 is, as fanon usually dictates, Ponyville's local dentist - except she's actually Romana, an Order Triune member, which gives her two of her fanon names in one story. Lyra, too, is her usual fanon self: excitable, and very interested in humans
2, though in this case to the point of being an outright conspiracy theorist. Bon-Bon
3, a.k.a. Sweetie Drops, is, per usual fanon, Lyra's roommate and romantic partner
4 - and another Order Triune member, though one easier to coax into helping out Dresden. And finally, we have Doctor Whooves
5. Who, in this story, is actually the Doctor (it varies from depiction to depiction). It's also more than just a cheap shoutout; the Doctor gives Dresden a much-needed pep talk near the climax, and it would not have worked had it not been the actual Doctor.
Wrapping things up, our bad guys, the Order Triune and Bookmark. Both are solid villains, in that you completely feel for Dresden when he wants to stomp both in the ground. The Order Triune is
annoying. They're exactly the kind of misguided, blinkered zealots made to piss people off. And yet... you feel sorry for them when Bookmark uses over a hundred of them as fuel for a demon summoning. Bookmark isn't annoying; he's
disgusting, the exact kind of monster that you don't feel sorry for with the brutal punishment he's given. Nor his ultimate fate as food for some sort of dragon creature that will probably become relevant in the third story, Great Power.
But that'll have to wait.
Verdict: Hell yeah I'm keeping it.
- Official name Minuette. Hourglass Cutie Mark, hence a Doctor Who-inspired name. More on that later. Colgate name and dentist thing come mostly from her manestyle, AFAIK.
- That comes from some very human-like poses she's been seen taking, namely sitting upright on her butt on a bench in one episode. Lyre Cutie Mark, hence her name.
- Candy cutie marks, and many, many VA's. Often pegged as a secret agent or changeling until the 100th episode canonized the former.
- Also very common - seriously, this is one of the most common pairings int he fandom.
- Brown color scheme, hourglass cutie mark, wears a tie and ascot, passing resemblance to David Tennant - yeah, this was inevitable.
