Ponyfic Roundup 239: Spotlight on Allegrezza

Apologies for the late appearance of this PR. Being my brilliant self, I'd forgotten to press "Publish" so this article was sitting there in draft form when it was supposed to go out!

Something a bit different today: my first Spotlight edition in quite a while, and we're going back, back to the early days of the fandom. In particular, to the early days of one of its most popular (and now sort of semi-canonised but not) ships: Vinyl and Otavia.

Read it Later story count: 270 (+1)

Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

Allegrezza by Gravekeeper
Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Lyra, Bon Bon, OC, Celestia and and Nightmare Moon
Romance/Comedy/Slice of Life; 48k words; Nov 2011–Feb 2012; Everyone

Vinyl and Octavia have some adventures.

Vinyl thinks Octavia is a stuck-up snob. Octavia thinks Vinyl is an uncouth slob. You can see where this is going, can't you? And indeed, there's very little startling about the way the two rapidly come together. In all honesty, there's little to detain the reader there, which is a problem in a story that exists to make them a couple. On the plus side, the author (once known as Avensis Astari, it seems) does make the characters fairly interesting. Lyra's appearance as an antagonist makes a change, there are some nice bits of humour, and for such an old story there's only a tiny "Lyra likes humans!" reference. Still, too many things just conveniently happen, and (as the author acknowledges in a preface) the fic really shows its age today. This is interesting from a historical point of view, but there are plenty of better ScratchTavia stories. Oh, and Scotch is whisky. No E. Ever. ★★

For those who don't mind spoilers, follow me past the break for some more detailed thoughts on aspects of this story.

Let's start with the shipping, since that's what the fic is about. It's all too damn predictable. There was barely a chapter where I was actually surprised, and even when I was – Vinyl's hospice concerts in memory of her late brother – it still came across as both overly convenient and overly mawkish. The fact that they ended up in bed (apparently) quite early on was annoying, too. While I'm at it, this should certainly have been rated Teen, as there's a fair bit of innuendo.

As I mentioned above, the fic does show its age. This isn't all bad: for one thing, there's a pleasantly unashamed and uncomplicated approach to horse puns: use 'em hard and use 'em often. We need more of stuff like "Cheerileeos" cereal. Things are oddly inconsistent, though: sometimes they're forced, as in the bizarre replacement of "grapevine" with "apple branch" early on. At other times there's no pun at all: if you're going to change Jack Daniels to Buck Daniels, you can surely do better than simply calling whiskies Jura and Glenmorangie.

I think the author is British, though at times an American editor's influence seems to make itself felt. For example, hooves are "shod with trainers" (a word I've never heard an American use) yet occasionally you do see US spelling and grammar. The writing itself isn't too intrusive, though there are several persistent mistakes, notably "have/had went" and "prolithic". There are even blatant references to Doctor Who and Douglas Adams – among the latter a rather unsuccessful aside about a civilisation of cheese mites.

I did like some of the little bits of world-building, and again you probably wouldn't see those now that canon has filled so many gaps. One that stood out was the way a unicorn's aura can change colour to reflect that of a pony she's got on her mind. The "self-dressing" garments near the end were also an interesting concept. Set against that, we have wingboners (thankfully briefly), lumbering pop culture references ("ice cream and ice cream accessories") and a dreadful overuse of "trademark", as in "her trademark shades".

And yes, the colour of Vinyl's eyes is nearly as much of a thing in the early chapters here as it was in the fandom of the day. Still, the fillyfooling (another old-fandom word, really) remains the main point of the story. Lyra and Bon Bon being married (well, "married" as Celestia rather oddly doesn't really approve) is nothing new, but they spark off each other fairly well. Octavia v Lyra is more fun – though, as with a few other things here, their mood swings aren't always really justified by events.

I will admit to laughing at two ponies called "Champagne Supernova" and "Morning Glory", but then I'm a bit of a Britpop fan. (It's also a possible G1 reference.) Whenever that happened, though, shortly afterwards I'd be cringing a little at the in-universe use of "brony" or "waifu", Vinyl's bizarre middle name (Jennifer?) or "I'm reading it for the plot". I'd been led to expect a really awful story and I didn't get that – but it did feel a bit too much like one where the author had just thrown everything at the wall, not really minding whether or not it stuck.

Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: Newcomers Edition! I'll be looking at six stories by those who've joined Fimfiction (or at least published their first story) since the start of 2017. Okay, they're not that new. :P