Ponyfic Roundup 426

Read it Later story count: 102 (+10)
Words read this week: 65,569

After my request for story recommendations the other day, it should be no surprise that my RiL list has grown a little since last time. Nothing to worry about, of course. This week, despite catching up with His Dark Materials (I'm past that scene at the river now), I have had a bit more reading time than usual. You can see the result in my "words read" count above! Don't go expecting this to be the norm, but I think my hope of reading a few more mid-length fics than hitherto is realistic. Here are today's four:

Sunshine and Reindeer by Casketbase77
The Light-Bringer by Bad_Seed_72
Pegasus Device by AuroraDawn
Ponies in SPAAAAAACE! by Ninjadeadbeard

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Sunshine and Reindeer by Casketbase77
Deer, Rainbow Dash [sort of] and Scootaloo [also sort of]
G4/G5; Slice of Life; 2k words; Oct 2021; Everyone

Reinbow Deer is a carefree caribou, but a junior herdmate of hers is toubled. Something about a vivid dream, a dark blue alicorn, and one weird word: "reincarnation."

Part of the Snippet Series this author has written with Str8aura, this is a cute and imaginative little piece. It's inspired to some extent by Lost, but fortunately you don't need to have seen that as I haven't! Anyway: Reinbow Deer and Caraboo (aka "Boots") are doing reindeer things in the snowy north, pretty much on top of where the Crystal Empire once stood. The story is set as magic returns to Equestria (ie during the G5 movie) but that's cleverly kept in the background. Instead we get some nice touches of world-building such as the "Luna Clause" legend, and the fawns' story of festive toys being made by breezies on the Equator... not to mention some deeper implications as the shortdesc suggests. It's bizarre reading "For Faust's sake" in a 2021 fic, but that's the only thing that irritated me. Otherwise, the best word I can think of for this is "charming", and that's meant as a compliment. A high three. ★★★

The Light-Bringer by Bad_Seed_72
Discord and OCs
G4; Dark/Tragedy; 3k words; Aug 2013; Teen

Discord is no mere trickster spirit, or simply an embodiment of Chaos. In the beginning, he wasn't even evil. A Discord origin story.

The author says this is "a metaphysical piece written in under an hour as a thought exercise" and that it's partly based on Babylonian creation myth, so I was unsure whether I'd get it. In truth, I'm not sure I fully did. We start off at the very beginning, before Discord even exists, and we end with him imprisoned in stone – even though "Keep Calm and Flutter On" had aired by the time the fic was published; I don't think it harms it. It's clearly an impressive feat of world creation-building, all the more so for being a speedwrite, but the metaphysical stuff didn't really click for me. Note that the story ends on an image, which doesn't show up with an offline downloaded EPUB. From the Fimfiction comments this clearly wowed some people, but quite often I found it more confusing than elightening, hence my rating of a top-end two. Those cleverer and/or more spiritually aware than I may have a better time. ★★

Pegasus Device by AuroraDawn
Twilight, Luna, Mane Six, Mane Seven (EqG), Other
G4 AU; Dark; 51k words; Dec 2012; Teen (Gore)

In the sequel to Rainbow Factory, can two foals survive the secrets of the Corporation?

I read Rainbow Factory years ago (PR 72) and found it flawed but not as bad as I'd expected. This sequel is a rather better fic, perhaps helped by the reduction in rating from [Mature] to [Teen] and thus the limits on how much gore can be on show. Set twenty years later, this story sees Cloudsdale Weather Corporation continuing to "process" flight-test-failing foals to extract colour from their dying bodies. Two foals escape and attempt to break out of the Factory; meanwhile there's tension at staff level. There's the odd hangover from older days, such as the occasional use of "plot" and a bit of LUS, but mostly this is a smoother and more engaging read than its predecessor, albeit handicapped a bit by pre-existing character names like "Hide Atmosphere". It's just a shame that the last section is disappointing: you suddenly get foals doing adult-level philosophising and badly dated computer references, while Celestia is Idiot Balled in the epilogue. Although I've no idea whether this is true, the ending also reads as though it was hastily rewritten late on to allow for sequels. With a more convincing ending this would have been a solid three. As it is, it just scrapes over the line. ★★★

Ponies in SPAAAAAACE! by Ninjadeadbeard
OC and Self-Insert
G4/G4 EqG; Comedy/Random/Sci-Fi; 10k words; Apr 2022; Everyone

To boldly go where one mare very famously has already gone before. But willingly, this time!

A sad background to this one: the author died of cancer late last year. PresentPerfect did an author spotlight so I chose... a fic she¹ didn't review. I have in fact reviewed one of his fics before (Sunset Shimmer is Dating WHO?!, PR 351) but didn't give it a great score because I wasn't keen on its Fluttershy. Ponies in SPAAAAAACE!, however, has no such issues. In fact, it's great fun throughout, and less out-there than [Random] fics can be. The Twilights (pony and human versions) discover that Sunset Shimmer developed a spaceship in the past (as you do) and after various shenanigans and some help (maybe) from Luna set off to reach the Moon. This story has just the right blend of incredibly silly comedy and enough of a scientific grounding to convince that the author did his research. (I mean, when did you last see a [Sci-Fi] ponyfic in which Rainbow Dash was warned not to bash into stuff while weightless for fear of throwing the rocket off course?) There's a hilarious cameo from Pharynx, who's hardly the most common of backup characters, and also Derpy being just wonderfully Derpy later on. Recommended. ★★★★
¹ Read her blog

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Next time, I hope that stories reviewed will include PhycoKrusk's Sombra-tastic comedy Anypony for Doomsday?