Read it Later story count: 92 (+1)
Words read this week: 30,845
There seem to be a fair number of new writers on Fimfiction, and as far as I can tell they're generally actual real people rather than AI bots. I'm very pleased – even if some of the fics display the usual signs of inexperienced authors, they may go on to great things; new blood is always welcome. Anyway, given the edition number of this Roundup, I couldn't resist the obvious theme. Every one of the seven stories covered this week contains the word "Four" in its title.
Four Truths by Decaf
Four To The Floor by Cardinal Dan Productions
Four Little Words by chillbook1
All Four Love by Scribbley Wibbley
Four Friends Play A Board Game by GeodesicDragon
Four Dresses of Love by elmago02
Four of One by Divide
★: 1 | ★★: 4 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Four Truths by Decaf
Celestia and Discord
G4; Drama; 5k words; Nov 2020; Teen (Death)
Celestia challenges Discord to The Game of Four Truths, with the fate of Equestria at stake.
A fairly strong start this week, with an intriguing battle of wits and characters apparently set during Discord's first rule. Discord, inevitably, cannot resist a challenge he finds interesting, and so the stage is set for the game. Not all the truths are especially startling, but some of them are. I'm not sure how big the stakes are in reality (Discord, especially at this point, probably has the power to do much what he likes) and I'm not totally sold on a late twist. But I like the ending, which brings in a third character and a little extra conflict. A top-end three, then. ★★★
Four To The Floor by Cardinal Dan Productions
Twilight, Starlight and Spike
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 3k words; Aug 2016; Teen
When Twilight Sparkle prepares to turn in for the night, she is approached by an intoxicated Starlight Glimmer, who has something to get off her chest.
...which is that she loves Twilight, or at least says she does. Rather than turning into a silly comedy, this is a portrayal of a messy, awkward scene in which the two mares work out where they actually stand. Points for not taking the obvious path. I don't like one thing Starlight does to Twilight, and there's the odd strange stylistic choice – asking somepony if they think you're pretty doesn't strike me as lewd, and putting "The End" before the epilogue is weird. The ending turns things around quite nicely, but I don't think I'm really the target audience here. If you're into drunken professions of love, maybe add a star. ★★
Four Little Words by chillbook1
Twilight and Sunset Shimmer
G4 EqG; Romance/Slice of Life; 4k words; Feb 2017; Teen
Sunset has something she needs to tell Twilight...
It probably won't take you long to work out what the title refers to, but that's not really the point. It's hard to go into details without major spoilers, but this offers a twist on the usual cute SunLight shipfic, and one that's both relatable and suitable for its setting. Indeed, things are in some ways more interesting after the twist, although I have mixed feelings about a second twist near the end, which feels maybe a little bit of a cop-out. Nevertheless, I appreciate the decision to do something different, so a solid three, and at this length the fic is certainly worth a read. ★★★
All Four Love by Scribbley Wibbley
Trixie, Lyra, Octavia, Scootaloo and OCs
G4; Romance/Comedy; 9k words; Dec 2012; Everyone
An OC love story featuring four OCs
Each of the four canon characters ends up with one of the four OCs, all of which are the author's, a relation's or two friends'. Not a promising start, but avoiding the obvious Mane Six romances is something I appreciate. There are some fun moments, such as Trixie's caravan being wired to produce fireworks when someone says her name. Sadly most of it's not a very enjoyable read, being chocka with very long paragraphs including stuff like "Vinyl Scratch or as she is known on stage DJ Pon-3" or "I had to get rid of it [a guitar] for material reasons". Since I don't know the OCs, familiarity can't overcome the limitations of the writing. This reads like an inexperienced author who hadn't yet learnt not to throw everything at the wall. Not a total disaster, but not a fic I can recommend. ★
Four Friends Play A Board Game by GeodesicDragon
Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity and Spike
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Aug 2012; Everyone
Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, and a board game. What could go wrong?
In the author's own words this is a "silly one-shot" and that's fair enough. When I say the board game in question is Monopoly (never actually named, even ponified) you can probably guess what happens. That's right: the ponies grumble and fight and fall out over rules, cheating, Free Parking, you name it. Nobody would call this a deep or complex fic, but it wasn't written to be so. A tea-break fic that should raise a smile or two. ★★
Four Dresses of Love by elmago02
Rarity and Sunset Shimmer
G4 EqG; Romance/Slice of Life; 4k words; Aug 2017; Teen
Inspiration comes from the fondest memories.
Written for a Sunset shipping contest, this story is slightly more of a conventional shipfic than Four Little Words, but the unusual pairing and the focus on Rarity's dressmaking give it a pleasantly different flavour. There's some good dialogue between the two principal ponies and the ending, if a little predictable, is warming. The fic does fall down a bit technically, with a lot of tense mismatching and some odd word choices that fit with the Colombian writer not being a native English speaker ("how it looks like", for example). It passes the time well enough if you're in the mood, though; a highish two. ★★
Four of One by Divide
Mane Six and Other
G4; Sad/Tragedy/Human; 5k words; May 2013; Teen
In a lonely white, padded cell, a broken previous-human experiences the continued downward spiral that having multiple personalities inflicts upon the self.Given this author's iffy history on Fimfiction, I'm not sure whether there's an autobiographical element here, especially given the late appearance of the name "Divide" in the fic itself. Still, I decided to review this anyway and quite a trip it was. The apparently human (or at least formerly human...) narrator doesn't reveal much about why they're there; their relationship to the ponies is also unclear – though they certainly don't adore them by any means. In truth, although I was intrigued I ended up a bit lost, even wondering at one point whether the narrator had somehow ended up inside a TV showing FiM. Given the author's history and my confusion, I don't think I can rate this above a two. ★★
A rather mixed week this time. By no means a disaster, though! I'll be away on holiday for a bit pretty soon, so there'll be a one-week gap in my review schedule. To tide you over, I'm going to give you all a Spotlight review of a longer fic before I depart. This fic, to be precise:
The Party Hasn't Ended by butterscotchsundae
Wow, I can't imagine a mod posting on a user's page to inform the site what's going on with them like that anymore.
ReplyDeleteSad how a random themed pick like this is prone to low-quality results. :(
I don't think it's too bad overall for a basically random selection. The actual RNG themed weeks tended to get barely anything above a mid-two.
DeleteYou know, relative to most randomly-themed picks or the like, this average isn't too bad. Nothing above 3 stars, but having two there, and one of them being quite high at that, isn't nothing. And at least you got some quirky and offbeat fics from this, as opposed to the usual amalgamation of poorly-written/smutty stuff from the random generator assortment weeks you've done in the past. I might even read Four Truths!
ReplyDeleteAs for next week, neat to get the spotlight back, but your chosen subject does look like a very typical novel-length Mane 6 romance pairing (and PinkieDash at that, a pairing far more popular in the early days of the fandom), the kind that hit strong views because of the number of people reading fics back then. I'll wait and see what you have to say about it, but likely to be a hard pass unless it's a ★★★★ for moi.
Indeed, it could have been a lot worse, and if I were in the target audience for that drunkfic there could easily have been three threes this week.
DeleteThis probably isn't going to make you any more optimistic, but The Party Hasn't Ended wasn't new when it was posted to Fimfiction. As far as I can tell, the first chapter at least was posted to EqD in February 2011. I don't know how much (if at all) it was edited between EqD and Fimf versions, admittedly.
I'm curious how you made your selections. Anything containing "four" that was already on your RiL? Or did you search FiMFic for "four" and pick some things that caught your eye?
ReplyDeleteThe latter. The site's somewhat clunky search facility is a big reason all the fics contain the word four -- searching for the numeral just brought me a whole bunch of sequels to fics I hadn't read.
Delete