Ponyfic Roundup 266

Read it Later story count: 238 (+2)

After a couple of weeks of feghoots, it's back to normal today with a small selection of stories culled from my Read it Later list. Though as you can see if your eyes have strayed to the line in bold above, I've also added a few fics to the queue and ended up with more there than I began with. Such are the trials of the ponyfic enthusiast. Just three reviews this time, and they're of:

Behind the Scenes by Bad Horse
Those Who Live Forever by Moose Mage
Moonstruck by Sharkrags

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

Behind the Scenes by Bad Horse
Mane Six, Spike and Discord
Comedy/Random; 1k words; Jun 2012; Teen

Filming My Little Pony: Season 3, Spike has problems with his actors - and the producer from Hell.

Let's be frank here: this is a period piece of a fic, and not just because of its subject matter. It's one of Bad Horse's earliest stories, and that rather shows. There's some mild amusement to be had from the contrast between the ponies and the characters they play, and some may also find it funny to see cute pastel ponies swearing, but both those things are far from fresh these days. There's even a use of "plot" and an obvious nod to Derpygate to date the story still further, while the ending is disappointingly dull, too. Despite a couple of clever lines, I didn't smile much, let alone laugh. If you want a "the ponies are really actors" story, I'd suggest GaPJaxie's Dressing Room series (the first of which is reviewed in PR 91). ★

Those Who Live Forever by Moose Mage
OCs and Celestia
Sad/Slice of Life; 5k words; Jan 2015; Everyone

A mother brings her daughter to Canterlot, for enrollment in Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.

April, the filly in question, is remarkably talented, as we see early on when she effortlessly rearranges a hotel room to her liking. For slightly contrived-feeling reasons, there's only one place available in this year's entry to the School, and her mother Dolores has to fight to get the rules bent to allow April a chance. However, an event nopony could have foreseen sends things on a very different path – one we know from canon. In effect, we're following the other leg from the point where events branched. What happens to April is tragic and unfair, even though she does eventually find happiness, of a sort. It's an intriguing and rather heartbreaking story – though I'm not fully convinced Celestia would behave as she does late on. If you're wondering about the unponyish names, they're deliberate: here's the author's explanation. I'm not entirely sure it works for ponyfic, but it'll be a very YMMV thing. ★★★

Moonstruck by Sharkrags
Luna [and OC]
Human/Second Person; 3k words; Jun 2015; Everyone

She looked bored, lying up there in the crescent moon with only clouds and ice-white stars for company. Someone on the ground called hello.

The author openly states that this is "Luna fluff, because [they] got the itch baaaad." You probably already know from that whether it's for you. I, who like rather than adore Luna, needed something more. I got some, most notably a nice line in whimsical fantasy (fantasy by Equestrian standards, I mean). However, Luna doesn't always sound like herself, and there's precisely no explanation for what a random human is doing there. That's you, by the way, hence the [Second Person] tag – though actually the story is written in a rather odd version of 2p, told in past tense and with a great deal of third-person description as well. Some will love the lightly weird fluffiness here: I found it mildly irritating. ★★

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Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include Posh's ...But It Often Rhymes.