Sometimes she's called Sparkler, sometimes Amethyst, but she's rarely had a turn in the spotlight ("Slice of Life" excepted). This week, I'm looking at five stories that place Amy (or Sparks. Whatever) front and centre, and between them they cover quite a bit of ground. Also, I'm trying desperately to keep my RiL list under 500, and unless I start reading a bit more quickly it's not going to happen. :S
Your horns are Touching by Azure Blackstone
Second Best by Discorded SheepcityUSA
The Perfect Setup by Timaeus
The Pineapple by Mane O War
Pick a feather by Windigo
★: 2 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Your horns are Touching by Azure Blackstone
Amethyst Star and OC
Comedy/Romance; 2k words; Jun 2014; Teen
Their eyes met in the octarine glow and something more than magic sparked that day...Written for the Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder Contest, this is a story that grew on me as I read. It's very silly, to the extent that there are narrative comments like "ERROR 34, CANNOT PROCESS", and I find mention of octarine distracting outside a Discworld context. It even mentions plots. However, it made me laugh, something a lot of [Comedy]-tagged fics don't. Especially the tablecloth scene. Dash it all, I'm going to give it a three for managing that. ★★★
Second Best by Discorded SheepcityUSA
Amethyst Star and Twilight
Slice of Life; 2k words; Jun 2013; Everyone
Twilight has an interesting conversation with Sparkler when she finds her sitting on a park bench all by herself, looking very depressed. To Twilight's dismay, SHE'S the reason Sparkler is so upset.Written after "Slice of Life", this fic explores Amethyst's feelings at being supplanted by Twilight as Ponyville's number one organiser. It's a nice idea, but the execution is very wordy, making it a little duller than it ought to have been. The sweetness that is here would probably have shown better had the fic been edited down by a couple of hundred words. Also: what a fantastic username! :D ★★
The Perfect Setup by Timaeus
Amethyst Star, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Other [Mayor Mare and Blossomforth]
Romance/Slice of Life; 24k words; Jul 2016; Everyone
Amethyst Star used to be Ponyville's top organizer. Though when the failures pile up, she starts to doubt what she thought her special talent was. Nothing a bit of matchmaking between a couple of love-struck ponies can't fix.Another post-"Slice of Life" tale, this excellent fic sees Amethyst attempt to set up AJ and Dash on a date, so they can act on the feelings they clearly have from the start of the tale. Her best friend Blossomforth plays a nice supporting role, while Amy's employer, the Mayor, also has a good scene. It's generally very well written, with a nicely varied vocabulary, though perhaps "show, don't tell" is carried too far once or twice. Despite the AJ/RD subplot, this is mostly a story about Amethyst Star, and a very satisfying one at that. ★★★★
The Pineapple by Mane O War
Amethyst Star and Other
Adventure/Comedy; 2k words; May 2014; Everyone
Sparkler goes to trade something for a pineapple. That's all that happens, right? Right?The main setting here is the Traders Exchange at Rainbow Falls. This fic, narrated by Amethyst herself, is potentially silly fun, but is so disjointed as to read poorly. There are also several clumsy meta references ("My Little Human: Companionship is Witchcraft", anybody?) and I dislike the brief characterisation of Derpy. Plus points? Well, it does have Carrot Top being addressed as "Auntie Top" by Amy and Dinky. ★
Pick a feather by Windigo
Amethyst Star, Noteworthy and Other
Romance/Slice of Life; 3k words; Jun 2014; Teen (Sex)
A story about how a popular pegasus would finally find his match with the perfect unicorn.We follow the story of mailstallion Special Delivery, at first in terms of his misadventures on the job and then – after he's been injured by a lightning strike – in terms of his attraction to Amethyst. It's that second section which does for this story: SD asks Amethyst, "Do you have any bedrooms?" when he's barely met her, and they discuss a dinner date only after a night of passion. Add a fair amount of tense shifting and an absurdly short (102-word!) final chapter and I can't really recommend this. ★
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: a brief return to the good ol' mixed bag.
Once I saw "Amethyst", I knew Perfect Setup had to be in here. :3
ReplyDeleteWhat I can't work out is why it has a (relatively) large number of downvotes: +84/-7 seems a little harsh by Fimfiction standards for a story that you'd think was quite hard to actively dislike.
DeleteOne more reason why the alicornification of Twilight Sparkle was a loss for the fandom: it robbed me of the ability to write a trollfic about Twilight and Amethyst wherein both are invariably referred to in the narration as "the lavender unicorn."
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the first time I've ever seen someone give a sensible and reasoned argument for not writing a trollfic. I am impressed!
DeleteIt just means you have to up the ante:
DeleteTwilight and Amethyst are hanging out, the narrative continually describes them both as "the lavender unicorn" and Twilight gets REALLY MAD at the constant mistake, because she is an alicorn, darnit, and of course Amethyst can't hear it because she's not an alicorn. Shenanigans ensue.