Wednesday 9 September 2015

Ponyfic Roundup 73: The Lonely C and the Sky

I realised, after reading three stories this week, that their authors' names all began with C – so I sought out three more fics which also fitted the bill. (Gah, AmEng influence is so strong on the net these days that I'm starting to pause when writing "fitted" in that context. Grr.) I'm not sure it made any significant difference to the overall quality, since all these fics were already on my RiL list – but it gave me something to write here, and that's the main thing.

Applejack Anonymous by Clavier
Fluttershy Sits Down With Lyra For a Day by Church
Wyrmlysan by Chris
But I Don't Want To Not Die by Cerulean Fantasy
What We Wanted to Do by Cold in Gardez
A Night In The Life of the Imaginitive Gamer by CogWing

Applejack Anonymous by Clavier
Applejack and Mane Six
Romance/Comedy; 37k words; Feb–Mar 2013; Teen
Ponyville has its secrets. Chief amongst them is that nearly everypony is in love with Applejack.
An odd beast, this. The first half concentrates on the comedy and is a good deal of fun, as long as you can suspend your disbelief quite heavily regarding several important plot points. (Also, why would ponies have an instinct to pursue fleeing prey?) The occasional insight, too, like when Twilight explains why being the Magic-Bearer is different. Later, though, it turns into a fairly standard shipfic involving AJ and [spoiler], which I found less interesting and, frankly, a bit of a slog to finish. A moderate three. ★★★

Fluttershy Sits Down With Lyra For a Day by Church
Fluttershy and Lyra (you don't say)
Comedy/Random; 3k words; Nov–Dec 2012; Teen
what do you think the title says?
One of those fics where the narrator is a character. Also, one of those fics relying on sexual innuendo for much of its comedy. In neither case does Church quite hit the mark, and the innuendo in particular gets old fast as it's so repetitive, mostly involving Fluttershy's flank. Lyra makes a "hands" reference. The ending is idiotic – and if you're going to do that, it needs to be funnier than it is here. Despite its shortness, this fic outstays its welcome and I can't really recommend it. Only even gets a two for the Flock of Seagulls reference early on. ★★

Wyrmlysan by Chris
Luna
Tragedy; 3k words; Mar 2014; Teen
After the fall of Discord but before the rise of Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna hunts a dragon.
Ah, here we have one of those stories where I'm not clever enough to understand it properly; if you read Beowulf in the original for fun, you'll propably be ecstatic. The sprinkling of Equuo-Saxon (my term; don't blame Chris!) words adds texture, but I also feel those words distract from the actual story. Maybe that was deliberate. Important to bear in mind when this tale is set; parts of it might be considered foreshadowing... Some impressive misdirection and a memorable ending. I can't quite give this a four as I didn't enjoy it enough, but this little epic is certainly worthwhile. ★★★

But I Don't Want To Not Die by Cerulean Fantasy
Twilight, Celestia and Luna
Sad/Slice of Life; 2k words; Dec 2014; Everyone
When Luna arrives in an ending nightmare, she finds a distraught Twilight who won't say what the nightmare had been. Concerned, Luna alerts Celestia.
Twilight is unhappy about the idea of outliving her friends and is given some advice by the older alicorn sisters. There's not really much more to it than that, and the ending is overly tidy and doesn't really resolve anything. Inoffensive but forgettable. ★★

What We Wanted to Do by Cold in Gardez
CMC
Comedy; 5k words; Dec 2014; Teen (Sex)
Apple Bloom delivers a sincere apology to the people of Ponyville.
I'm wary of anything with both a CMC tag and a Sex one, but CiG isn't any old author. It took me a little while to get into this – until I saw how it was being structured – but from then on it was an increasing amount of fun. There's no real mystery as to what's happening, but there doesn't need to be; we're just along for the ride during another of the CMC's patent slow-motion trainwrecks. Might not quite hold up if you think about it at all hard. So don't. ★★★★

A Night In The Life of the Imaginitive Gamer by CogWing
Celestia and Luna
Random; 1k words; Mar 2014; Everyone
Luna starts her nights with pwning n00bs, but quickly moves on to coming up with her own ideas!
Having a typo in the title of a fic doesn't give me high expectations, and in spite of its +26/-1 thumbscore this story doesn't deliver. This is Gamer Luna (I will not use the W-word) and... well, that's about it, really. Cute if you really like that Luna, otherwise meh. I saw the end coming a mile off, and you probably will too. ★★
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14 comments:

  1. Present Perfect9 September 2015 at 13:36

    I demand you do 25 more posts like this, for each letter of the alphabet.

    Since you started with C, you may pursue them in any order you wish. Hop to it, now! :V

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Logan9 September 2015 at 18:52

      Actually, I may well do this again. It just won't be next week. No hopping. :P

      Delete
    2. Logan9 September 2015 at 18:54

      Also, it'd need to be more than 25: what about authors whose usernames don't start with letters?

      Delete
  2. xjuggernaughtx9 September 2015 at 15:57

    Hold up. You're doing alphabetical reviews now?

    *checks name*

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Also, Wyrmlysan is one of my very favorite pony fics. I loved that one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Logan9 September 2015 at 18:54

      I started with C. That doesn't mean the next letter won't be X! (Although, let's face it, it probably won't.)

      Yes, I can see why people would love it. I just don't have the right sort of brain, I think.

      Delete
  3. Sailor Sedna10 September 2015 at 00:15

    Why can't people realize Twilight's not gonna outlive her friends....? -____-

    Megan McCarthy and Lauren Faust confirmed that, and the fact that people still do stuff like that irks me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Logan10 September 2015 at 01:01

      Lauren Faust isn't really relevant any more to new Pony -- she never intended for there to be more than two alicorns, but it still happened. Meghan McCarthy's comment is probably more significant, though I doubt it matters much anyway as MLP is never going to feature the death of one of the main characters. It's just not that type of show.

      Delete
    2. Sailor Sedna10 September 2015 at 15:15

      I agree, and once again I think it's an example of how people look too deep sometimes and end up ruining things for themselves. The fanbase just baffles me sometimes...

      I dunno if you were able to read or respond to what I posted earlier somewhere else, so I'll post it again my thoughts on the fanbase sometimes.


      I will also say (though this is kinda unrealted) sometimes I've seen fans review epsiodes and it's like they praise and/or criticize every episode (where characters are introduced, funny phrases and such), and it kinda sometimes makes me question if the show is as good as anyone says it is (ever heard of what happened with Canterlot Wedding? I did my own thoughts here, and if you look at the comments of the pictures, that's where I found ideas of Twilight "renouncing her friends fics" that I don't think would work, and how I think fans think too deeply sometimes; I'll post them in the second link here:
      http://comments.deviantart.com/1/311418243/3830764816
      http://comments.deviantart.com/1/311418243/3145464538)

      See what I'm talking about?

      Delete
  4. Chris10 September 2015 at 02:13

    Hey, thanks for the review of Wyrmysan! I never read Beowulf in the original for fun, but my first copy of it had the original and the English translation printed on opposite pages along with a pronunciation guide and copious footnotes, so that you could compare the texts directly. I had a lot of fun sounding out the original, and seeing what connections I could make between the Old English words and their contemporary equivalents, if any. I was a strange tween, to say the least.

    Anyway, you're far from the first person to tell me that I went overboard with the titles and "Equuo-Saxon" (what a great, silly word for it, by the way!), and while it's clear to me with the benefit of hindsight that my editor was right and they're collectively too much, I'm rather fond of them, personally. I think I remember PP (or maybe someone else, it was a while ago) specifically mentioning that I didn't need to have included fægeorcanstan because I used the English "fate stone" later in the same scene, and in my head I was screaming, "but -eorcanstan conveys a totally different sense of the nature of the object than 'stone' alone does!"

    ...Which probably three people would even have picked up on. So, yeah, distracting is probably the right word for it. Regardless, thanks again for the review!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Logan11 September 2015 at 17:01

      You're welcome! I remember reading Beowulf at school when I was about 13, but that was just English (Rosemary Sutcliff's version) and I got no further. Oddly enough, though, I think I've seen the word(-ending?) "eorcanstan" somewhere before. Possibly on a label at the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition at Birmingham Museum (as that's only about 20 miles from me), but I wouldn't swear to it.

      Delete
    2. Chris11 September 2015 at 22:41

      The most likely place to have heard "eorcanstan" (besides in some place-names or in a museum, anyway) is in the modern-Anglicized form Tolkien used in The Hobbit: Arkenstone.

      ...What, you didn't seriously think I would pass any chance to work in a Middle-Earth reference, did you?

      Delete
    3. InquisitorM11 September 2015 at 23:27

      I have simply never read Beowulf.

      So there.

      Delete
  5. Sailor Sedna12 September 2015 at 23:10

    I have good news, season 5 is back :D

    ReplyDelete

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