FimFiction Link - Short ID: 269073/becoming-them
Published: May '15
Becoming Them is a 10,2k word horror story in the "... Them" series, depicting an Equestria that has fallen to a zombie plague.
In this story, a scared and almost hopeless Scootaloo traverses the land alongside a hammer wielding Iron Will, who lately has been having issues living up to his name.
PaulAsaran said he felt this was one of his weakest efforts, and I can kinda see where he's coming from. I'm not sure how to pinpoint what's the biggest issue here. The pacing felt fine. Scoots and Iron Will make continuous progress, but once you're done and you think about what they actually accomplished, it's kind of odd it took ten thousand words to get there.
However, the story really does a good job at selling Scoots and Iron Will's inner turmoil. They both feel so done with everything and keep going mostly out of inertia. Like they have to, even though neither knows why.
This builds up to Scoot's change of outlook near the end. I liked that moment quite a bit. I would've liked the moment where she finally flies to have been better built up. Yeah, we know she can't, but I feel the moment could've had more impact had there been more scenes of her failing to fly and that costing them greatly.
Nevertheless, while this may not be the best entry in this series, it's certainly a very enjoyable one.