Read it Later story count: 94 (+4)
Words read this week: 35,752
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
★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 5 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Discord Message by False Door
Discord, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Mane Six
G4; Comedy; 9k words; May 2023; Teen (Gore)
Twilight unveils an enchanted bulletin board in Ponyville just before leaving on a long trip. She gets back to find that Discord has hijacked the board as a prank and the town is now inundated in disinformation and conspiracy theories.
A satire on social media, which opens very promisingly. The corrupted board's mixture of absurd "science" such as saying birds don't exist and potentially dangerous crap such as Celestia abducting and eating foals, is well judged and instantly recognisable to anyone who's ever used Twitter etc. The story does labour the point a bit once we get to Twilight trying to cure the Mane Six, as even though I can see her spouting off at length about the problems it does start to feel like a thinly disguised Voice of the Author tract on occasion. Fortunately there's still fun to be had, such as Rainbow's insistence that the Moon is cubed. Worth a read, especially if you've rolled your own eyes at conspiracy theorists online. ★★★
Secret Admirer by Hotel_Chicken
Cadance and OC
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jul 2021; Teen (Profanity)
A little filly asks Cadence for an autograph. Simple, right? Then why is she upset?
A silly filly story indeed. Cadence¹ hardly ever gets asked for autographs, so she's delighted – but more and more frustrated as the foal repeatedly insists, "It's wrong." While she's ever more annoyed internally (hence the [Profanity] tag) she keeps her regal outward demeanour. This is basically a one-joke fic, but that joke is quite amusing and the reveal made me laugh. So it gets a three. ★★★
¹ Spelt that way, which at one point made me think that was a clue! (It's not.)
Naval Gazing by Pascoite
CMCs, Twilight and OCs
G4; Adventure/Comedy; 7k words; Jan 2016; Everyone
The Cutie Mark Crusaders find themselves as accidental stowaways on a pirate ship. All they want is some food, drink, and a fair price on their heads. Maybe the pirates should call in reinforcements.
It was Talk Like a Pirate Day recently, so this seemed appropriate. A fun romp with the CMC and some increasingly annoyed pirates who despite their initially quite brutal approach find themselves more and more unable to cope with the Crusaders' unique brand of logic. This is based on a Writeoff fic from 2014, and though brushed up for Fimfiction publication it's still a not entirely smooth ride here and there. An only mildly funny running joke is pushed a little too hard, for example, and a famous show line feels a bit shoe-horned in. Not one of Pascoite's very best, but still an entertaining short read. A good, solid three. ★★★
The Sweet Spot by Piccolo Sky
CMCs and Tempest
G4; Drama; 16k words; Dec 2017; Everyone
The Cutie Mark Crusaders receive their most unusual, and potentially challenging, case yet: Fizzlepop Berrytwist.
Since the Mane Six are out of town on friendship business, Twilight tasks the CMC with helping... Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Yes, she's a blank flank, and all she seems to be talented in is a variety of ways of crushing her enemies.¹ What's a terrifying broken-horned mare to do? The fic takes a while to get to the main action – though broadly show-tone, it's not really show-paced – but I do like what Fizzlepop's talent turns out to be. The Crusaders themselves occasionally come across more like their S6 (Troubleshoes-era) selves than the ponies who in-story are said to have helped 150 "clients", but their willingness (after slight initial hesitation) to help anypony is as heartening as always. ★★★
¹ Though... why shouldn't she have got a cutie mark in that?
Pegasus of Raphinae by Mica
Scootaloo, Lofty and Holliday
G4; Drama/Slice of Life; 2k words; Jun 2021; Everyone
I am Scootaloo. My ancestor was Princess Raphinae, the founder of the island kingdom of flightless pegasi.
You don't get many fics featuring Scootaloo's aunts – and even fewer featuring them before "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" and all that entailed. You may start by thinking it's all a bit childishly written, but there's a fair reason for that. Scootaloo is reasonably appealing and engaging, and once we get to the second half of the story I definitely got a good sense of how much she prefers her aunts to her parents. I'm not absolutely keen on the inclusion of a real-world bird strongly associated with a specific part of the world, but it's not a deal-breaker. If you find this a little downbeat, especially when bullying by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon is alluded to, then remember: this isn't AU, so things will get better for Scoots. Two/three boundary, but slips into the higher category through its sympathy for Scootaloo. ★★★
Five fics, five three-star ratings! Back to Wednesday next week, when I'll be looking at the first half of the New Blood Contest prizewinners! The word count won't be that high overall, but hopefully the interest levels will be. Twelve stories were recognised, so I'll cover six in the first instalment. That will be the four Honourable Mention fics and two of the four Bonus Prize fics. To be precise:
The Champion by GrangeDisplay
Starry Nights Over Knossos by sirenc0re
Secret Garden by Discombobulated Soul
The Ponyville Files by LastToTheParty
Sisters' Moon by WaywardSon
Blood and Glamour by Mindscape
I (apparently) thought the running gag in Naval Gazing was funny! :B Love the pentuple three-star hat-trick!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I've ever had five ratings the same on one post before! It was kind of exciting. :P
DeleteAll the mono-rating averages this week! And only two weeks after I had the same (and with the same rating, once we convert between our scales). What a time to be alive, eh?
ReplyDeleteAnd I've read the last two fics too! We're about the same on The Sweet Spot: it's show-like while being rather slow for the amount of content it contains, and there's a few plot and character oddities, but it works quite well. Meanwhile I liked Pegasus of Raphinae (one I have the review of stockpiled for the future) a lot more than you, to the point of it being a three/four boundary one. The story-within-the-story's meta commentary just really had me enraptured, and I never found the jump back in time in the show's canon to when DT/SS were bullies an issue either (do a lot of folks not like fics written after they were reformed set before when they were terrible? Shrug). Make of that what you will.
And of the New Blood entries next week, I've read two of them (Ponyville Files and Sisters' Moon), so I'll look forward to seeing what you have to say there. Though on your low word count note, the cumulative from those six stories is 26K. Certainly lower than the last few weeks, but still higher than your average up to recently. It's enough for me, anyway!
I do wonder whether I was determined not to overdo my liking for a Scootafic and so was maybe slightly harsh. Three for me for sure, but on another day I might have pushed it a bit higher in that band.
DeleteI've read "The Sweet Spot," and I commented about it when Mike reviewed it recently, so I won't belabor that, just to say I liked the idea of it but found that it was essentially the same story told 2 or 3 times. Middle of the road seems appropriate.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems appropriate for my story, too. Another one I've discussed elsewhere, so I'll also just say that I talked about it a bit when Chris reviewed it. I obviously did like the running joke, but I'll cop to the rest being a somewhat weak plot constructed around some pre-made jokes. More importantly, you've stuck to the 3-4-5 star repeating progression, so you must read a 4-star one next! You have no choice! (Unless you've already read all my good ones...)
You are right! I'd better make sure I don't review any of your truly stellar fics, then.
DeleteMind you, I think I startled Mike a bit recently when I was reviewing films on another blog and gave Beauty and the Beast a high four rather than a five. So anything could happen!