Read it Later story count: 90 (nc)
Words read this week: 34,034
Room by AstralMouse
Shadow Unto Crystal by enne
Coco Powder by PaulAsaran
A Strange Tea Party Indeed by Aray
Waffles by Ninjadeadbeard
★: 1 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Room by AstralMouse
Rarity
G4; Horror; 7k words; Dec 2020; Teen
Rarity wakes up in her bedroom, and it's big. Very big.
Told in the first person, this is a Rarity-POV story in which she tries to find her way out of said bedroom. When all you have to go on is a sunbeam, and when you have to blindfold yourself to avoid impossible dazzle, that isn't easy. Lots of solidly characterised introspection from Rarity, not least thoughts about who or what has caused this curse: Discord, dark magic, the Tantabus, what? Eventually she finds that she isn't the first pony to have gone through this... but that her experience is worse than before, and that the one after's will be worse again. Hard to say more without spoilers, but I found this nicely creepy, and with a pretty "oof" ending as well.There are some interesting thoughts in the Fimfiction comments, and I agree with a couple that the curse doesn't have that obvious a motivation – though those comments also feature a rather tedious extended argument which I recommend you skip. The story itself is a good read, though; an upper-end three. ★★★
Shadow Unto Crystal by enne
Twilight and Sombra
G4; Romance/Dark; 3k words; Nov 2012; Mature (Sex, Non-con)
It has always been this way. Be happy. Know His love.
Normally I'd run a mile from the [Non-con] tag, but this fic is a very different animal from the kinds of repellent (to me, anyway) clopfics that tend to use it. Here, we're apparently in a post-Sombra-victory universe (though there's no [AU] tag) and a sleepy Twilight muses contentedly on Sombra's touch... and more. As the story goes on, we discover just how the King does this, and it's not fun. The author also adds interest by giving just a few hints of the backstory to all this. The fic does earn its [Mature] tag, but even though there is some explicit sex the M rating is probably more justified by the sheer hideous darkness of what we're seeing. I find this too uncomfortable to rate it enormously highly, but giving a [Non-con] fic an above-average rating (which is what a three is) would have been almost unthinkable to me before I read this, and that says something in itself. ★★★
Coco Powder by PaulAsaran
Lightning Dust and Coco Pommel
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 19k words; Mar 2022; Everyone
Lightning Dust has everything ready to get the Washouts started. Everything, that is, except flight suits.
So naturally, she ends up in Manehattan at Rarity for You. Lightning's memories of Rarity herself are not especially happy, but Coco seems so sweet and soft that Dust renames her "Powdered Sugar" in her head. Well, mostly in her head. What follows is a really smooth, entertaining read about a rare pairing – though that word is only partially accurate, as while there is romance here there's considerably more friendshipping. What makes this fic for me is the characterisation: Coco gets some welcome depth, Lightning some welcome vulnerability – and while Rarity's mix of hard and soft is canonical enough, it's used well here. One slightly weird-for-2022 moment involving stiffened wings, but it doesn't harm the story. Paul doesn't consider this of the standard of some of his other works, and maybe that's true, but I still had a very good time with it – and I suspect fans of either principal (though not just them) will as well. ★★★★
A Strange Tea Party Indeed by Aray
Mane Six
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 1k words; Apr 2017; Everyone
Twilight and friends have a tea party on top of the castle, discussing things that have happened recently
The only fic by this author is as strange as the tea party. It's certainly incident-packed for a short fic, not least in Applejack saying she "found out the other day that Filthy Rich wants to kill [her] and take over the farm". This is the kind of "what the hay?" moment that could lead to a hilarious madcap comedy, but sadly it doesn't, with the randomness overdone and the laughs undercooked. (Out of nowhere, we learn that Starlight is keeping guard for clowns...) Fluttershy is given a nasty character that I didn't care for at all. The author says, "I know the characters are OOC, but that's intentional" – but doesn't do so until the end A/N; I'm not generally a fan of that. This has a certain potential, but it doesn't realise it at all. ★
Waffles by Ninjadeadbeard
Twilight and Pinkie Pie
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 4k words; Dec 2020; Teen
Pinkie Pie serves Twilight waffles. Twilight is suspicious.
Why suspicious? Because Pinkie told Twilight just recently that her favourite breakfast food was pancakes.¹ For a while I didn't really see where this was going, guessing that perhaps that "clone?" moment from "The Saddle Row Review" might play a part. In fact, the solution is cleverer and more fun, although I have to stay very vague here, more than once too. Can you do that? Can you spoil a fic twice? Well, yes. I won't, but in this case I could. And that's all you're getting, other than for me to say that this is fun (not hilarious, but consistently fun) and smooth reading and just an all-round entertaining way to spend a few minutes. A top-end three. ★★★
¹ American ideas of what to eat at breakfast are strange either way...
I hope to be starting on the New Blood Contest prizewinners in a fortnight, but there'll be one more standard edition of Ponyfic Roundup first. Here's the slate:
Discord Message by False Door
Secret Admirer by Hotel_Chicken
Naval Gazing by Pascoite
The Sweet Spot by Piccolo Sky
Pegasus of Raphinae by Mica
Hey, not just two fics I've read, but one I pre-read!
ReplyDeleteCoco Powder's an interesting one, and I say that as someone who is pretty neutral on the two lead ponies and certainly wouldn't have considered them together. It certainly puts its 19K to good use, with a fully-detailed story woven around "The Washouts", and certainly one of my preferred takes on Lightning, keeping her grumpy self but making her sympathetic at the same time. Ditto for the characterisation of Coco and Rarity, twists and turns (it uses the "skipping over scenes from the episode" trick for some really effective scene transitions), and what it reveals about both featured ponies. It was a blast to pitch in on.
Also, I wan't aware Paul didn't consider it at the standard of his other works – possibly that's off him trying to finish it in time for a contest at the time that he missed, so some early rushing didn't even pay off? Hard to say: a lot of his works are fics I don't read (lot of early horror, horror-adjacent or M-rated fics, plus EqG romances or anthro fics), but among the FiM character pieces of his I have read (many fluffy but still deep), I dug it quite a lot.
Otherwise, it's been long enough since I read Waffles for my Ninjadeadbeard tribute (over half a year! Time does fly…), that I don't even remember either twist, let alone both, just that it had two. But I'll concur, it's a rather different and uncharacteristic comedy, and all the better for it.
Also… two fics that are Dark or Horror in one week? Back for more, eh, changeling? We've been through this song-and-dance; return Logan and scat! :P
Also, I wan't aware Paul didn't consider it at the standard of his other works
DeleteIt's mentioned in the A/N at the end of the epilogue. He also says he had a lot of fun writing it, though.
Back for more, eh, changeling?
You just wait until I do an all-grimdark edition! ;)
(Though you'll be waiting a very, very long time...)
Okay, smart guy, when do you eat waffles? :P
ReplyDeleteIn the afternoon. They're sweet pastries. The Belgians have this right; outside touristy areas waffles often aren't even sold in the mornings.
Deletesad :c
DeleteI've seen a full English breakfast... looks weird to my American eyes.
ReplyDeleteSimply out of curiosity, which aspects of it? Presumably not the bacon and eggs. Black pudding, maybe? Or possibly the baked beans -- though British/Irish baked beans are savoury haricot beans with a tomato base -- no molasses -- so they aren't sweet, which might make a difference. Hash browns aren't traditional, but they work so well that we've been happy to adopt them.
DeleteThe baked beans, yes. Also grilled tomatoes and mushrooms. They seem more suited to a lunch or dinner plate than breakfast to me. I've never tried black pudding.
Delete