Read it Later story count: 173 (-3)
Herewith the penultimate pre-Hearth's Warming edition of PR. As I've mentioned, there won't be a Roundup on the 30th, and instead I'll be using the extra week to read a longfic for Spotlighting in early January. I hope. Which fic will it be? You'll find out next time! Today, though, I have these three to look at:
Ambergris by Pascoite
Routine Company by Monochromatic
Suddenly, potatoes by Techy
★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 1
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
Adagio, Sunset and Aria
Equestria Girls/Drama; 12k words; Oct 2016; Teen
Sunset Shimmer weathered the storm. She returned from the darkest depths, and now she has good friends. People like her. If I haven't sunk too far myself… maybe she'll help me. Then I can help Sonata and Aria. Please, Sunset.
If I recall correctly, this is among Pascoite's own favourites of the ponyfics he's written. It's a gritty story, about Adagio Dazzle (who narrates), set in a part of Canterlot far removed from the bright CHS world we see in the films, so don't expect everything to be sunshine and rainbows here. This is a darker, harder-edged take on redemption, told without the sugar coating that Equestria can provide. It's also a tale that wouldn't work in our own world, despite often feeling like a human inner-city one, since Adagio's history as a siren is highly relevant – and going back long before Rainbow Rocks. Her language and its metaphors, certainly. As mentioned in the description, Sonata and Aria haven't had it easy since their powers disappeared either, and both their situations feel believable and concerning. But I feel this is in some ways Sunset's fic. I don't say that to take anything away from Adagio, but bearing in mind Sunset's own past it was her journey that stuck with me most at the end. On the face of it she's a secondary character to Adagio, but it's Sunset who gives both Adagio and the story their grounding. Ambergris perhaps doesn't feel all that Pony in the Equestrian sense, but it does feel very Equestria Girls, if that makes any sense. More to the point, for the second time in the last few weeks, a skilful author has made me really care about EqG characters I would normally think little of or about. Adagio has been central both times, which is interesting, but regardless this is a remarkable story. ★★★★★
As an aside, ambergris is mentioned in passing in the story as being illegal to
trade. That is indeed so in the US and Australia, but it's not the case in most of the world. You can quite legally buy ambergris on eBay here in the UK, for example. (I haven't and won't. But you can.)
Routine Company by Monochromatic
Twilight and Rarity
Romance/Slice of Life; 2k words; May 2016; Teen
One of this author's many RariTwi fics, and it's really nothing more than cute fluff. It's good cute fluff, though, so that doesn't matter. The characters play off each other very nicely, and they come across effectively as two fairly long-standing marefriends who are still very much into each other. There are a few nice hints of how Rarity has helped make Twi more confident, and at one point there's even a bonus shiptease of another pair. Strongly recommended to RariTwi shippers, gently recommended to those who just want something nice to curl up with for a few minutes. ★★★After a long day working, Twilight realizes her marefriend hasn't come over to bother her at all, and honestly, that's even more distracting than the actual act of distracting her.
Suddenly, potatoes by Techy
Discord, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Celestia
Comedy/Random; 1k words; Jan 2015; Everyone
Discord has this thought, and (being Discord) decides to make it happen. Hilarity ensues, as TV listings used to say. This was an interesting one – at first I felt it was falling into the common [Random] trap of just being a selection of disjointed scenelets the author found amusing at the time. It never got really coherent, and the writing quality is pretty uneven, but the ending did help to tie things together a little bit better. Don't expect too much, but there is a (very silly) story in here, and one that does live up to its title. This might have been a one-star fic, but the last few paragraphs bumped it up a notch. ★★What would happen if potatoes suddenly showed up in random places?
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup, stories reviewed should include Say Goodbye to the Hollandaise: A Hearths War(ming) Tail by WishyWish
:D
ReplyDeleteYes, this is my favorite of my own stories. As it says in PP's review of it, I loved the idea, but I was afraid I couldn't do it justice. There are lots of stories I've written that, while I still think they're good, didn't turn out as good as I hoped they'd be. A few did, and this is one I'm really happy did, because it needed to be to win over people who really have no interest in EqG or Dazzlings stories. I agree Sunset is a key character here, but she doesn't change over the course of the story. It's certainly implied she had a big change, but it's done by the time the story starts. She had a very similar experience to Adagio's arc, though, so it says as much about her triumph as it does Adagio's.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it sees like it's been a while since you added anything to your 5-star bookshelf on FiMFic. Do you not maintain that anymore?
DeleteI meant my comment about Sunset's journey in the context of thinking, "It's remarkable how far she's come."
DeleteAnd I am horribly behind on my Fimfiction admin, thanks largely to 2020 being 2020, but it *is* still on the list.
Delete