You'll note that the number of fics on my RiL list is just beginning to creep up again. I shall do my level best to do something about that, though it may just take the form of having another clear-out! The long-term target I mentioned ages ago of eventually having the list steady at around 100 stories remains unchanged. And no, I haven't yet decided what to do when the Pony Life fics start coming in! Anyway, another three today:
The Changeling Queen by Wanderer D
Birthday Cards by Roundabout Recluse
Dear Princess Celestia, by Shakespearicles
★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
The Changeling Queen by Wanderer D
Twilight and Chrysalis
Dark/Horror; 5k words; Aug 2012; Teen
Chrysalis has to choose a successor.A little tale from the days when "A Canterlot Wedding" was all we knew about changelings. As you may guess from the character tags, the chosen one is none other than Twilight, and Chrysalis takes her through just what that means. In truth, there isn't much more than that to the story, so how you feel about it will largely depend on whether you like the premise. Other stories have done "Twilight becomes changeling ruler" more memorably, not least Eakin's side story to their own Hard Reset, called The Reign of Queen Twilight Sparkle. This one is both less ambitious and (much) less pitch-black, but allowing for its age and some mildly iffy dialogue at times, I feel it holds up reasonably well. A top-end two, I think. ★★
Birthday Cards by Roundabout Recluse
Twilight and Rarity
Slice of Life; 2k words; Aug 2019; Everyone
Buying Spike a card should be simple.The problem is that Twilight can't quite work out which category she should be looking in. Happily, Rarity is there to give her some advice. This is a simple, old-fashioned FiM story, and that works well for the subject matter. I enjoyed the dialogue between the two ponies, as well as Twilight's worries and indecision. I also identified with the annoyance of card shops' obsession with micro-classifying most of their cards, something that irritates me in real-world shops too – "to my second cousin's neighbour's cat", that sort of thing. The only real quibble I have is that the ending is rather boring, even allowing that this is SoL. This is the author's only fic; on this evidence I hope they will write more. ★★★
Dear Princess Celestia, by Shakespearicles
Twilight, Celestia and Spike
Sad; 3k words; Oct 2019; Teen (Death)
Princess Twilight Sparkle writes letters to her former mentor. Her friend Spike would rather she didn't.Not having reviewed anything by one of the most popular ponyfic writers seemed silly, though a lot of their stories are stuff I would never read, so I had to search a bit for this one. Anyway, this story (whose title does indeed end with a comma) is set after the end of the show, as Twilight writes letters to Celestia about the passage of time, enduring the deaths of her friends – and, at times, things that happened in the past. It's unavoidable to mention that there's a (T-rated) thread of TwiLestia running through this story, so be aware of that. I found it a bit uncomfortable, even allowing for Twi's frame of mind in the fic. The letters also occasionally resort to
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include InsertAuthorHere's Keeping Your Hooves On The Ground.
I'll never understand why writers think crossing out words is a good idea, except in the specific instance the letter/journal writer didn't care if anyone saw the original version. It shows a severe lack of actual thought about what you're writing.
ReplyDeleteAnd to that last one, the tags kind of ruin the surprise. I hate when I have to put a tag on one of my stories that does so, and I wish those "trigger tags" could be spoilered so that only people who have a real need to avoind certain ones can bother to check.
I wish those "trigger tags" could be spoilered
DeleteThat's a good idea. Perhaps it could be done with optional filters, like those Derpibooru uses.
the tags kind of ruin the surprise
Oddly enough, they didn't for me. I assumed the tag in question referred to...
(spoiler space)
the death of Twilight's friends.
Now that I think about it, there was a story I read way back in 2011 or early 2012, where Twilight wrote one of her letters to Celestia and had Spike send it off by fire, but it just went into the sky, because it turned out Twilight was writing it at Celestia's graveside.
DeleteI left a comment for the author to pose the question of what interesting things might happen if she got a reply. I could think of several intriguing possibilities as to how she could. Maybe the magic gives her one last opportunity to say good-bye, maybe it allows communication beyond the grave so that they can keep doing so, maybe Celestia asks her help to bring her back from the dead, maybe something is posing as Celestia in order to find a way into this world... I could even see it as one of those stories where multiple endings are written out.
This is now your assignment, should you choose to accept it. (Which of course you won't, since you still have your sanity.)
since you still have your sanity
DeleteThat is debatable!
I mean, I wrote the thing in 2 hours, so I guess if you're comparing it to Hard Reset—which is like, 90k-100k words altogether—and its side story which I'm not familiar with... I can take that as a compliment?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to explain why the Hard Reset side story is relevant without spoilers. I don't expect everyone would think about it that way. I didn't know you'd written your fic in two hours, though. I'm quite impressed knowing that.
Delete