I Will Always Wait For You by Deep
Small-town Charm by Cold in Gardez
Would Bang by Aragon
The Carrot Dog Fight by xjuggernaughtx
Atic Atac by Ceffyl Dwr
★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 0
I Will Always Wait For You by Deep
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo
Sad/Tragedy; 2k words; Jul 2014; Teen
Years after Scootaloo goes missing, Rainbow Dash comes to the place where they first became sisters and remembers what caused her little sister's disappearance.This fic consists of Rainbow's sad thoughts and not a great deal else; as is evident from fairly early on, she feels Scoots' disappearance is her (RD's) fault. There's not much substance to this, but apart from a few questionable word choices there's not much to complain about either. I'm giving it three stars as I'm such a Scootafan, but it may well only rank as a two for many. ★★★
Small-town Charm by Cold in Gardez
Spike and Mane Six
Comedy/Slice of Life; 4k words; Jan 2014; Everyone
Twilight has seen some odd things in Ponyville.It's a CiG story, so it's good. What, you want more? Okay: first, it actually does something with the Star Spiders from "Castle Mane-ia". Second, its world-building is very nice. Third, the dialogue is often golden. Fourth, the prose itself is enjoyable (little things like the "bright sting" of coffee on tongue). The ending may not be to all tastes, but I liked it. There's nothing breathtaking here; it's simply a good storyteller telling a good story – and that's worth something, surely? ★★★★
Would Bang by Aragon
Big Mac, Cheerilee and Others
Comedy/Equestria Girls/Romance; 5k words; Feb 2016; Teen
When you need some advice with the ladies, you can always turn to your bros. Bros got your back, bro. A bromantic comedy.I feel rather alone here: everyone who's read this seems to love it so much they want to set up home with it, but not me. Okay, it's not the sort of fic I'd usually read anyway, trope subversion or no trope subversion, but several other reviews were so positive I thought I'd give it a go. I liked it, which is an achievement in itself for a story like this. Some parts are really funny (Principal Celestia is perfect) and it's both well written and cleverly constructed, but it's largely a "raises a smile" fic rather than a "roll around on the floor for hours hyperventilating" fic. Mind you, I don't find Ferris Bueller's Day Off more than moderately amusing either, so what do I know? The author's "making of" blogpost is worth reading, though. ★★★
The Carrot Dog Fight by xjuggernaughtx
Spike and OCs
Slice of Life; 4k words; Jan 2014; Everyone
Spike just wants to eat his delicious carrot dog, but Manehattan's birds have other ideas.You know that moment during the "Generosity" song where a red jay swipes Spike's carrot dog? Here we see the aftermath – and it's borderline grim, if truth be told. We're not quite talking Watership Down levels of violence, but it's not all fun in the avian world by any means, and the main antagonist actually seems a tiny bit more restrained than his species might suggest. The bird characters are well drawn in both behaviour and dialogue, though, which is what makes this fic work. It's oddly moving, too – late on, one moment had me desperately hoping that... well, spoilers. I'm not sure about the tag for this; I'd probably say it was [Slice of Life]/[Adventure] rather than pure SoL, but knighty is still firm (and still wrong) in his belief that you can't have that combination. You even get the odd joke, and it's always nice when writers appreciate that not only comedies can have jokes! Anyway, I've gone on for too long. This is an interesting short story, and people who write bird-POV short stories are awesome by definition anyway. ★★★★
Atic Atac by Ceffyl Dwr
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle [tagged separately]
Comedy/Slice of Life; 4k words; Nov 2015; Everyone
Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo decide to gain their cutie marks in exploring, and debunking, urban legends. Or maybe it was just an excuse to find time for some girl talk.This author's name (which should be Ceffyl Dŵr, but apparently Fimfiction can't do W-circumflexes) is Welsh for water horse. This isn't a seapony tale, though, but a (pre cutie-marks) CMC story. A good one, too, which nicely blends comedy and feels, and even subverts a couple of the fandom's most treasured/annoying tropes along the way. If you've played the classic British 8-bit game after which the fic is named, you'll spot a few fun references, but you don't need them to enjoy the story. High in the three-star bracket, this. ★★★
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: Logan reads a story he keeps looking at, thinking about and then putting down again. But this time it's happening!
Well, that' s a pleasant surprise. When you didn't care for the violence in The New Crop, I wondered if The Carrot Dog Fight would turn you off, as well. I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteAnd believe me, I'd love to tag that thing as a Slice of Adventure, but I can't.
That story's response was pretty confusing to me. So many people read it as a comedy, but I don't think it feels like that at all, despite it having a few jokey moments. I few people have told me that it's just so Goodfeathers feeling that they can't help it. I suppose that makes sense, but I just don't see the persistent humor in a story that violent.
I think my reference to Watership Down is the key here. Although that's sometimes very violent, it's animal violence and so firmly rooted in fantasy. I don't think I'd enjoy the same story with human protagonists. In humanless Equestria, ponies are human analogues, so perhaps The New Crop affected me more like a human story than a talking-animal one. The Carrot Dog Fight isn't about ponies, so that problem goes away.
DeleteThe genre restriction really is silly. If you wrote something along the lines of "Somepony to Watch Over Me", you could post it as one story for the SoL and a sequel for the Adv, and that would be fine. If you posted the two parts as one, it wouldn't.
It didn't read like a comedy to me, certainly. Maybe the "animal protagonists" thing kicks in again for some people, because we tend to associate them with Looney Tunes and the like. Again, just letting my mind ramble.
Would you believe me if I told you that the blog post for how I wrote "Would Bang" is almost more popular with reviewers than the story itself? Everybody seems to think it's... Well, worth reading, in your words. I kind of wonder why.
ReplyDeleteStill, I really like that story, so glad you liked it. And yeah, Celestia is by far the best thing of the story -- I love pretty much everything in that fic with a passion, but even if the main characters weren't so damn entertaining, I'd have written it just to include Celestia.
I find that very easy to believe. It's worth reading because it's a whole load of fun. I love that sort of rambly post; if I had the ability, I'd write a lot more of them myself.
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