Ponyfic Roundup 227: Miraculous Ladybug

I asked my Twitter readers to recommend me a cartoon series I could watch during the MLP break, with the condition that it should be PG-rated or lower. I got an absolute flood of replies, but two stood out: Gravity Falls (which I'll get to) and Miraculous Ladybug. The latter is a bit more anime-magical-girl than I was really looking for, and I'm not a huge fan of the high school romance aspect, but it's fun and colourful and has ridiculous storylines involving Wi-Fi and evil butterflies and pigeons, so I'm on board.

Read it Later story count: 290 (-4)

Four fics for you this week, which is reasonable going. I seem to have collected several stories this time which at least some others are likely to rate higher than me. Still, I've always scored on my enjoyment in PR, so please bear that in mind as you read my ramblings. Today's quartet:

A FLEet|ng LIght |n thE DArknEsS by Flashgen
Lost and Never Found by Oroboro
Thou Goddess by horizon
A Sleeping Rose by Admiral Biscuit

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

A FLEet|ng LIght |n thE DArknEsS by Flashgen
Mane Six and Spike
Horror; 8k words; Dec 2012; Teen

Ponyville was deserted, and only this journal remains as a record of what occurred.

I'll confess that I put off reading this fic for a while as "Lovecraftian" isn't the automatic win for me it seems to be for some. However, I rather regret that now, as it turns out to be an interesting entry in the "less is more" genre. We're told straight away that Twilight is the apparent writer of the journal, yet after a while you realise that some things don't quite fit where they should. There's a real and growing unease, and I was genuinely disconcerted by the end, especially once I'd noticed the main textual gimmick. Flashgen left a little too much unexplained for my liking, though that's a very YMMV thing. There are clues, but in some cases I found it impossible to tell what they were clues to. Repeated mentions of "police" also jar, later S8 canon notwithstanding; I chose to see it as deliberate incongruity. There are two sequels, so perhaps those may shed a little more – aha – light on things. As a standalone, a top-end three for me, but those who enjoy being left little the wiser might well rate it higher. ★★★

Lost and Never Found by Oroboro
Twilight and OC
Drama; 4k words; Aug 2015; Everyone

Helping a lost filly find her way home should have been a walk in the park for Princess Twilight Sparkle, but this time things turned out to be a bit stranger than she was expecting.

For one thing, there seem, to be fewer people around than she'd expect. But still, she sympathises with Melon Ball (the filly), who has been unable to show her mum her cutie mark. Turns out there's a reason for this – it's not anything especially novel, but it worked for me, and I enjoyed Twi's interactions with the filly. After that, though, Twilight behaves in a way that I find it quite difficult to credit her doing. Especially not by the time this fic was written, halfway through S5. The ending brings closure, of a sort, but my overriding impression was: this is the wrong pony. And I don't mean the OC. If you can accept what Twi does to help Melon Ball, you may find this more to your liking than I did. ★★

Thou Goddess by horizon
Luna and Other
Romance/Drama; 5k words; Mar 2014; Everyone

Scansion wakes up to find beautiful poems he doesn't remember writing. Is the lonely goddess of the night reaching out to him in the only way she can, or is he chasing shadows?

Last week I said that Cold in Gardez "doesn't really do bad ponyfics", and much the same applies to horizon. This is a remarkable fic, full of poetry – not merely in the wonderful actual poems – and with an actual story that twists and turns far more than it has any right to in five thousand words without lurching. It's quite beautifully written, the OC feels alive, the ending is absolutely right. It is, quite simply, dazzling. Unfortunately, some of the poetry and surrounding prose was just too difficult for me. At one point, there's a single-line paragraph: "Her response was a ghazal." The significance is explained in the next para, but a standalone line like that loses some of its power if you don't feel the impact there and then. I had to go and look it up, and that wasn't the only time; this inevitably broke the flow just a little. I still greatly enjoyed this fic, but I suspect poetry buffs will adore it – so if that's you, then by all means add that extra star. ★★★★

A Sleeping Rose by Admiral Biscuit
Roseluck and OC
Slice of Life/Human; 6k words; Jul 2014; Teen

After a day of work in Rose's flowerbeds, Sam winds up spending the night.

Sam is the human in question, who has wound up in Equestria for largely unexplored reasons and discovered that hands offer an advantage in certain jobs. What's great about this story is that it takes the tired old (even in 2014) human-in-Equestria setup and does something with it that isn't all about battles and Elements and derring-do, but which nevertheless could not possibly be written about humans on Earth. Admiral Biscuit writes a lot of Slice of Life (okay, writes a lot full stop) and this is a particularly satisfying example of the genre. Sam isn't that interesting a character, but that may be what made it work for me – because rather than constantly watching Sam, you notice all the little bits of world-building. I expect one or two of those have been contradicted in the show by now, but that doesn't matter. There are apparently several sequels to this, but A Sleeping Rose stands on its own. ★★★★

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Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include DannyJ's When Suddenly a Manticore.