Read it Later story count: 96 (-5)
Words read this week: 17,420
I told you I'd get that RiL figure back below 100 again, didn't I? Anyway, we're back in the usual format this week, with four shortish ponyfics on the slate. Having a larger and better screen on my new phone has made it more enjoyable to read on, which I hope will mean I can slightly increase the word count sometimes. I won't stop reviewing 1k-word specials, but there may be a few more slightly longer stories in the mix from now on. Here are this week's four, all E-rated as it happens:
The Night the Carousel Boutique Burned by Appleloosan Psychiatrist
Dinkin’ Donuts by Pascoite
Sun in an Empty Room by mushroompone
Stony Hearts by Broadway Sweetie Belle
★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 1
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
The Night the Carousel Boutique Burned by Appleloosan Psychiatrist
Twilight, Rarity, OCs, Changelings and Opalescence
G4; Dark/Sad; 5k words; Apr 2013; Everyone
Twilight awakes to find her friend's home ablaze. When Twilight sees the Boutique surrounded by the Royal Guard, though, she realizes that there's more at work than she thought.
This story is set during a changeling panic in Ponyville, with witch-hunts spreading across Equestria. This comes right home to Twilight as her friend's home burns, and naturally she rushes over to try to help. Captain Gladburr of the Royal Guard is on hoof – an unusual thing in itself for a simple house fire, even when the potential victim is so famous. It seems someone has planted the story that Rarity is a changeling, hence the official interest. Twi is of course more interested in stopping Rarity burning to death (Opal is only in the fic for a one-paragraph escape, by the way) and not yet being an alicorn her powers are tested. There's a twist which probably quite a few will see coming, and another one at the very end which I at least did not. It's a shame the story suffers from a number of fairly basic technical errors, mismatched tenses and so on, and there's the dreaded "single tear" at one point too. Frankly anyone with much experience of changeling fics isn't likely to be startled by this, but if it were a bit more smoothly written it could still have been a pretty good yarn. As it is, it falls just that little bit short. ★★
Dinkin’ Donuts by Pascoite
Dinky, Derpy, Pinkie Pie, Pony Joe and Other
G4; Slice of Life; 6k words; Dec 2015; Everyone
Dinky Hooves goes out with the perfect plan for Derpy’s Hearth’s Warming gift. She has only to make the perfect pastry present a reality. And along the way, she’ll find an even better one.
I am now kicking myself for leaving this utterly charming fic for so long. Everyone kept telling me it was great, I finally read it... and lo! It was so. This is that rarest of things on Fimfiction, an actual children's story, though it really is for all ages. Young Dinky is trying to find a more manageable way for her mum to get the taste of coffee and donut on her mail rounds. She visits a number of likely characters, picking up a larger... let's say "entourage" as she goes, with each new pony (okay, they're not all ponies...) bringing a new angle. That's fun enough, but the writing here is utterly beguiling. Though all in prose, it's full of alliteration and rhyme and, well, you'll have the phrase "a skip, a stop, a hop-frog trot" in your mind for a long while. For me this is a classic children's Pony story, up there with In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep (PR 20). It's in a different genre from Lucky Dreams' tale, but both are truly, truly lovely. If you know someone who's left reading Dinkin’ Donuts as long as I did, tell them from me to get on with it. ★★★★★
Sun in an Empty Room by mushroompone
Zipp, Sunny, Twilight and Rainbow Dash
G4/G5; Slice of Life; 3k words; Dec 2021; Everyone
Zipp packs up her now-obsolete flight lab.
Written in the wake of the G5 film and before any of Make Your Mark or Tell Your Tale came out, Sun in an Empty Room tells a story that gives Zipp some depth she didn't really have in the movie. As she's packing up in the old airship station, Sunny arrives and the two mares talk about the newly magical Equestria, their feelings and the future. The second half of the story shows us the other side of the stained glass window, as it were, with a much-post-S9 Twilight revealing her own worries about the future to Rainbow Dash. My favourite thing about Sun in an Empty Room is the character writing, which is spot on throughout. The dialogue is satisfying, and there's a nice angle on Sunny's phantom alicorn appendages. The thing that holds me back from raving about the fic is that it feels like two separate stories stuck together, with the G5 characters effectively absent from the G4-set second half. I was disappointed that Zipp and Sunny just... disappeared. I agree with Falkenlied (spoilers!) on that aspect. Still excellently written and very much worth reading, but though still a high three that's a level below what I'd have awarded it if the two halves had felt more connected. ★★★
Stony Hearts by Broadway Sweetie Belle
Pinkie Pie, Other, Pie Sisters and Maud Pie
G4; Romance/Comedy/Random; 4k words; May 2015; Everyone
Pinkie Pie has a new boyfriend, and she brings him over to meet her family.
This story stems from a very silly yet somehow brilliant idea: that Pinkie Pie really meant it when she was sweet-talking the statue of King Grover in "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone". And so, naturally, she brings him home to meet her folks... I was hoping for something to match up to the premise, but in fact what we have here is a surprisingly standard "Pinkie's traditional parents don't approve of unusual matches for her" story that only rarely makes use of Grover's... unusual situation. Pinkie's sisters don't quite convince in their characterisation, with Marble oddly talkative and Limestone surprisingly tender. (To be fair to the author, this was published before "Hearthbreakers" aired, but that characterisation still feels odd nowadays.) A terrible pun at the end, but even that can't really stop the fic from feeling like a bit of a missed opportunity. ★★
Next time, I hope that stories reviewed will include Blueshift's random comedy It Ain't Easy Being Pinkie.
Dinkin' Donuts making the rounds, getting the love it deserves, you love to see it. :D
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that last one would have been released before Marble and Limestone had canon names, let alone personalities, yeah?
It's just lovely. That pretty much sums it up.
DeleteThey did have canon names (those appeared in the Pinkie chapter book in 2013) but fair point about personalities. I've made a small edit to the review to acknowledge that, though it doesn't change the star rating.
Wow, I have completely forgotten about the books at this point. c.c;
DeleteA cumulative word count of the stories reviewed therein? Now ain't that a handy feature! Wonder where such an ingenious idea came from…
ReplyDelete[This is just banter, if anyone doesn't spot that; I took the notion from PaulAsaran's reviews and have seen other Ponyfic reviewers doing it. It's a common feature!]
And yep, always nice to see the love for Dinkin' Donuts. On the note of it being a fantastic children's story, I've been thinking of doing a themed week of just stories of that variety. Problem is, with using Pascoite's masterpiece for my Jinglemas week to kick off the new year, the only one I've currently got is The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale, a classic for sure, but one fic does not a review week make. Must just keep an eye out for more! Though the fic In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep has certainly leapt onto my list off your mention of it here!
It's been a while since I read the Pinkie Pie chapter book, but perhaps the author based the depiction of Pinkie's sisters here on that, or at least derived it from there. I certainly remember Marble very much not being the quiet self the show would depict her as, though her and Limestone were kinda interchangeable too.
Oh, I've also read mushroompone's Sun in an Empty Room, back when I read most G5 one shots I saw that didn't look like utter trash. Being from an experienced author, it is competent for sure, though even apart from my heavy dislike of the G4 connection, the fic would have been stronger for sure with that third better connected, if not outright removed. I rated the fic Decent myself, and I don't know if that change would have altered the rating, but it would for sure have been a strong Decent.
And a Blueshift fic next week, eh? I'll stay tuned for that!
The Lazy Dragon of Dragondale, eh? I hope you have as much fun with Georg's fic as I did. (Five stars in PR 200. That was a good week, as Cold in Gardez's All the Mortal Remains also got top marks.) And yes, I heartily recommend In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep -- and, really, anything LD wrote from that point onwards. His most recent fic, The Starlit Promise, also got a five from me.
DeleteFunny to see this get reviewed three times recently after all these years. This might be the most fun I've had writing a story, and Neighrator Pony et al. did a superlative job on the reading of it. Glad it put you in your happy place.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your last 9 reviews of my stories have gone 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5 stars. You must not break this pattern, or dire things could result! (Unfortunately, the only story I know to be on your RIL, or at least was on it at some point, is one I'd hope would rate better than 3.)
DeleteRagnarok has been on the list for a while, so that will probably be the next of your stories I get to. Also The Wrong Side of Tomorrow -- yes, in a major shock, Logan adds a fic featuring Dash and Scoots...
DeleteSorry, I don't know offhand know how to do links, so I'll just reference numbers.
DeleteBased on your comment back in roundup 190, I thought "How Lily Longsocks Spent Hearth's Warming Eve on the Moon" was in your RIL, and that was the only remaining story I "knew" to be.
As for "The Wrong Side of Tomorrow," you already reviewed it in roundup 99 and did indeed give it 3 stars.
"Ragnarok" is akin to "Dinkin' Donuts" in that both have gotten very enjoyable readings. DeftFunk did a great job of it.
Not that it's necessary, but links on here use standard HTML a href format.
DeleteI have to hold my hands up and admit I'd entirely forgotten reading The Wrong Side of Tomorrow. As for ...Lily Longsocks, I do have that waiting, but it's in a "Hearth's Warming fics" subgroup I'd set up last year so I missed it on first pass.