Wednesday 28 August 2019

Ponyfic Roundup 263

Read it Later story count: 239 (+6)

After making a largish dent in my RiL list count last week, I've filled a good part of it in again this week! Curse you, ponyfic authors, why must you keep on writing stories I want to read? Oh well, at least I'm still down from the week before. Another three-fic edition this time. This one consists of:

An Old World for Fluttershy by Fairy Tail
Colts Will Be Colts by Trick Question
Multi-Factor Authentication by Estee

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0

An Old World for Fluttershy by Fairy Tail
Fluttershy and Discord
Dark/Sad; 3k words; May 2013; Everyone
With centuries of memories haunting Fluttershy, she's forced to call in a favor from an old friend.
Interesting to see a fic about these two from an era when their most recent shared episode was still "Keep Calm and Flutter On". However, the setup involves (the untagged) Twilight, who is unable to cope with ruling alone and asks Fluttershy to join her as an alicorn princess. As the description above suggests, she eventually finds it unbearable once her friends are gone, and decides only Discord can give her peace. No romance here, so don't expect shippery. The ending is a little predictable and pedestrian given the potential of the plot, and there are a few irritating tropes ("single tear", for example) but it has its moments. ★★

Colts Will Be Colts by Trick Question
Scootaloo, CMCs, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and Other
Comedy/Drama/Slice of Life; 3k words; Jan 2016; Everyone
A little colt is afraid of everypony except Scootaloo, but what makes her so special?
It's Sassy Shrimp's first day at school, and when the not-fully-reformed Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon poke fun at him, Scootaloo does her thing and steps in to defend him. Turns out Sassy finds fillies scary... but likes Scootaloo because he thinks she's a colt. Scoot wonders how to break the news to Sassy. This takes a light-hearted route rather than delving deeply into gender roles and the origins of Sassy's worries, but judged on those terms it's a pretty darn solid read, with some nicely natural world-building along the way. ★★★

Multi-Factor Authentication by Estee
Celestia, Luna and OC
Comedy/Slice of Life; 5k words; Aug 2015; Everyone
Celestia wants to get into her throne room. A kindergartener wants her to prove she's actually Celestia first.
This one is part of Estee's vast Triptych Continuum, which I confess I've never really got into, but I was reassured by the comment that it could be read as a standalone fic. It's mostly taken up with some very amusing back-and-forth between Celestia and Nexima, who has a child's ability to be both entirely straightforward and extremely awkward. Despite the "standalone" comment, I did feel I was missing a few things around the edges by not being a TC aficionado – a few of the names (including Nexima's) seem strange, and there's a mystery about Celestia's mother whose clear significance was lost on me. Still, the stuff about how to spot changelings was great. ★★★

Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include Raugos's Saboteurs.

3 comments:

  1. Regarding "Colts Will Be Colts", the little boy's name is Sassy Shrimp, not Saddles. Also you might want to fix "but likes Scootaloo because -he- thinks she's a colt."

    One of the funniest parts of the story is when Sweetie admits she thought Scootaloo was a colt too, when they first met.

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    1. This will teach me to write these up when I'm tired! "Sassy Saddles" (a show canon mare, no less) is certainly one of the stupider errors I've made.

      Anyway, thanks. I'll fix the entry when I'm back home on the PC.

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