Wednesday 9 December 2020

Ponyfic Roundup 323

Read it Later story count: 176 (nc) 

One of those weeks when there's not a lot for me to say up here. Hearth's Warming moves ever closer, and as ever I suddenly find that I'm running out of time to complete my shopping. (Obviously harder than usual this year as so much is dependent on Royal Mail et al.) I have three stories to cover this week, and here they are. Let's go.

Worshiping At The Altar Of Knowledge by TCC56
Crash Course by Kimono Rabies Pronger
Kill Your Heroes by pokefreak13

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

Worshiping At The Altar Of Knowledge by TCC56
Twilight, Celestia and Luna
Comedy/Slice of Life; 5k words; Oct 2019; Everyone

When Princess Twilight Sparkle hears rumors of a dark cult centered around worship of her, she asks her mentor for advice. The answers are not what she expected.

"Worshiping" is the American spelling, and for some reason it looks much odder to me than the likes of "center" or "furor" do. Anyway: Twilight is realising that, once you've been seen as basically divine for long enough, quite a few ponies are going to start a cult devoted to you. Being Twi, she frets about it and heads out to Silver Shoals to ask Celestia. Luna's also there, which may be helpful or may not. This is a fun story, with some notably entertaining dialogue exchanges. What holds it back slightly is its uneven tone – as the author acknowledges in the chapter endnotes, chapter two heads in a more serious direction before the final part veers back towards fun. It's still an enjoyable read, and one particular character's observation that something is "so you" (meaning Twilight) amused me greatly. I think it could have been a great short story with that wobbly tone kept on a steadier path, though. ★★★

Crash Course by Kimono Rabies Pronger
Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Mane Six, Nurse Redheart and CMCs
Drama/Slice of Life; 8k words; Jan 2016; Everyone

Somepony crashes into Applejack's barn in the middle of the night. Applejack becomes horrified once she sees who it is.

Now there's a username! The "somepony" in the description is clearly and unsurprisingly revealed to be Rainbow Dash. As she lies in a hospital bed, Applejack tries to coax out of her what's going on. Eventually she does so, with help (possibly) from her friends and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I like the AJ/RD friendshipping here, especially a rather startling but also rather Apple way of giving a home truth to Rainbow. Nice to see Redheart get a reasonable showing, too. The main problem is that this was (by the author's own admission) their first ever fic, and it really does read like it. Much too wordy, for a start: this could and should have been half the length. It also has the usual quota of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, as well as Applejack calling Dash "sugarcube" about once every three sentences. A low-end two is all I can justify, sadly. ★★

Kill Your Heroes by pokefreak13
OCs, King Sombra and Crystal Ponies
Dark/Sad/Alternate Universe; 4k words; Apr 2014; Teen

Fire Cracker tries to live through slavory in the Crystal Empire.

Nine chapters, none of them over 700 words; if you're going to do that, you need a really good reason for it. This story sadly doesn't have it, which means it just feels frantic and choppy. That's a pity, as the setup is an interesting one: the story is set during King Sombra's evil reign over the Crystal Empire, and is told from the point of view of his unwilling subjects. That's a very rare setting, to the extent that I don't think I've ever read such a fic before. (The [AU] tag confuses me, as Sombra's reign is canon; the S5 finale version would indeed be [AU] but doesn't seem to be what we're dealing with here.) The aforementioned choppiness, together with some poor writing choices (one pony is named Chief Furry...) and a pretty poor ending make it an uninvolving read overall, something that didn't have to have been the case given the details we get of just how horrible Sombra's rule was. ★
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include Pascoite's Ambergris. Yes, two Pascoite fics in three weeks, but he's waited more than long enough for this particular story to be covered.

6 comments:

  1. WAIT

    How the HELL do you spell "furor" then?

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    Replies
    1. Agreed. I'm guessing "furour," though I've never seen it spelled that way personally.

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    2. Broadly speaking, "furore" is the UK spelling, "furor" is the US spelling. The former is sometimes pronounced closer to the original Italian derivation as "furor-ee", and I think there are subtle differences in meaning too (for instance, "furor" can be used in the sense of a "frenzy of activity" as well as in the sense of "widespread outrage"), so it's not quite a mere matter of cosmetics, but the two are roughly similar, at least according to the dictionaries I've checked.

      "Worshiping" is correct US spelling, but speaking for myself, it definitely looks weird to a Brit (like it should be pronounced "wor-shipe-ing").

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    3. Wait, hold on. That should be "furor-ay" in the original Italian pronunciation. My mistake.

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    4. "When the Moon hits your eye
      Like a big pizza pie
      That's furore."

      Like that. "Fyoo-roar-eh" -- three syllables.

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    5. Oh weird. I feel like "furore" should be a totally different word, I never knew there was a cross-Atlantic difference on the spelling. :O

      Speaking personally, I prefer "worshipping" myself. Same with "travelling".

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