Read it Later story count: 97 (-2)
Words read this week: 10,000
Something I've noticed: my EPUB reader program does not seem to respect Fimfiction spoiler cuts, so I see everything that is in the long descriptions whether the author wants me to or not. I try not to spoil myself, but...! Anyway, more Thousand Words Contest II prize-winners this time. This week I'll be considering ten of the fifteen that garnered a Judge's Prize. Here's the list:
Cart Before the Horse by The Red Parade
Long Way Forward by Not That Anon
A Foal's Errand by ScarredVirtue
One on One by Muramasa
Trixie Bombs by danatron1
Hyperesthesia by gapty
Outsmarted! by 6-D Pegasus
Breakfast for Dinner by The Red Parade
Daybreak Will Set Us Free by Pascoite
The Enlightenment of Sonata Dusk by Mockingbirb
★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 6 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Cart Before the Horse by The Red Parade
Applejack, Roseluck, Daisy, Lily and Flower Ponies [tagged too]
G4; Dark/Drama/Sad; 1k words; Jul 2023; Teen
Something's wrong with the flower ponies...
This fic has a content warning in its longdesc, but it's spoiler-cut for good reason so only read it if you feel the need. The story itself is a look at a darker depth behind the cheery, sunny Ponyville of canon. The tale of the Flower Ponies' broken cart and its consequences is well written and (as a result) quite affecting, especially in a genuinely upsetting repeated line Rose utters. I'm less sure about whether a story of this gravity really works in such a small space, and (personal view, which not all will share) I dislike the final paragraph as it's a trope that I'm decidedly unkeen on. Hence only a high two from me; that said, this will be a three for many who don't share my discomfort. ★★
Long Way Forward by Not That Anon
Celestia and Luna
G4; Drama/Sad; 1k words; Jul 2023; Everyone
When the future becomes the past and the present is long gone, Luna goes for a walk. At least the tea is nice.
Set in the far future, long after even "The Last Problem", this is a haunting little thing with many more questions than answers. Celestia and Luna's relationship is nicely shown, with some excellent hints about what's happened and how long everything now takes. It's perhaps slightly too subtle for its own good at times, and both chess and tea are mildly clichéd for these ponies, but it hangs in the memory. Quite an easy three. ★★★
A Foal's Errand by ScarredVirtue
Zecora and OC
G4; Slice of Life; 1k words; Aug 2023; Everyone
Zecora tells fables to three CMC - Of one zebra colt from her past memory...
"Zecora tells a story" fics are somewhat high-risk endeavours, largely because they require extended passages of poetry that can go all too badly wrong. This fic, happily, avoids that trap. The lines scan as well as rhyme, and the story they tell is both quite interesting and suitably backstoryish. Just one or two slightly forced word choices, but balanced by a couple of nice (also rhyming) intermissions. This is apparently ScarredVirtue's first real attempt at creative writing. Not the last, I hope. ★★★
One on One by Muramasa
Rainbow Dash and Other
G4 EqG; Slice of Life; 1k words; Jun 2023; Everyone
Rainbow Dash takes a penalty kick.
We're in a very specific moment here, from the perspective of the Shadowbolts goalkeeper hoping to save Rainbow's potentially tournament-winning penalty. Her thoughts are fairly verbose, which is a nice contrast to how Dash tends to be represented.¹ You can perhaps argue that this is too much of a snapshot and not enough of a story, but my own view is that it works best as just that: a snapshot. It's traditional for us Europeans reading football fics to smile at Americanisms ("regulation" for "normal time", etc) but the few here didn't bother me. The fic leaves many questions unanswered, perhaps slightly too many, but it doesn't outstay its welcome. A low three, I think. ★★★
¹ Though of course Rainbow's internal voice is often written quite differently.
Trixie Bombs by danatron1
Trixie, Starlight, Twilight and Celestia
G4; Comedy; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen
Trixie is invited to dinner with Celestia. She accidentally brings high explosives.
A change of pace now with a silly Trixie comedy. Told from her POV, which allows lines like "Everyone found me lovable, Starlight was just the only one to admit it". This is really quite a funny piece, though best placed in S6 before Trixie had settled down somewhat. It feels like it's just slightly lacking in confidence to really go the out-and-out silliness route, and the last line isn't amazing, but it's an amusing enough few minutes' read for a lowish three. ★★★
Hyperesthesia by gapty
Twilight and Sci-Twi
G4 EqG; Dark/Horror; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen (Suicide/Self-Harm)
After learning about the Rainbooms’ previous adventures, Sci-Twi steals Sunset’s journal to write an urgent message.
Mood whiplash again here, as we're moving to a horror story. Another fic with a content warning in the longdesc, though here it doesn't say much more than the public warning tag does. Sci-Twi tells Twilight about a case when all her senses were agonisingly heightened (the "hyperesthesia" of the title) and what it led her to do after some months. I've never felt this myself,¹ but it resolves itself in a truly brutal last paragraph. My main criticism is that a thousand words doesn't feel enough for a proper build-up to that whammy ending and its various Fridge Horrific implications. Still makes a three, though, as it did hit me hard. ★★★
¹ I had extreme skin sensitivity for a while when I had shingles, but that's the limit.
Outsmarted! by 6-D Pegasus
Twilight and Starlight
G4; Comedy/Random; 1k words; Jul 2023; Everyone
Twilight must capture the wanted criminal Starlight Glimmer, but will her preparations be enough?
"Does not have AU tag for a good reason, you'll see," we're told in the longdesc. What follows is an ever-escalating duel between the principals, which proceeds from really quite sensible arguments to become more and more outlandish. I enjoyed that, but the problem the fic had (at least for me) was that I was fairly sure from the very start what was going on – and so it was to prove. Hence the top-end two, though this doesn't mean it was a boring read, just more predictable than I'd have liked. ★★
Breakfast for Dinner by The Red Parade
Applejack, Apple Bloom, Big Mac, Granny Smith and Other
G4; Comedy/Random; 1k words; Jul 2023; Teen
The Apple Family has breakfast, but for dinner.
Yes, two of TRP's fics in the one Roundup – but what else to do when someone gets three Judge's Prizes? (The third fic will be reviewed in two weeks.) Anyway, a random comedy here, which as we all know is a genre that can go horribly wrong very quickly. Happily, TRP's fic does not. It's silly, it's bizarre, it's occasionally foul-mouthed, but most of all it's funny. Entertaining stuff despite a last line that (for me) didn't quite hit the bullseye, and so a top-end three. ★★★
Daybreak Will Set Us Free by Pascoite
Luna, Celestia and Daybreaker
G4; Drama; 1k words; Jul 2023; Everyone
It is finally time for Luna to set everything straight between her sisters. All of them.
Fair warning: the formatting here really matters, so be cautious if reading offline. This is reasonable for an Experimental-category fic, even if cyan-on-white is very hard to read in light mode. It nearly works on my phone, but one important section¹ gets garbled that way so I did need to read on-site in the end. It's an impressive piece, making coloured text work and doing things with formatting I didn't realise Fimfiction supported. The fact that the colouring actually enhances the characterisation is quite something. Sorry, Pascoite, you're still stuck in the dreaded 3-4-5 loop as (although I did go back and forth a little²) it being both technically impressive and an attention-holding story gains this a four. ★★★★
¹ Without spoiling: the bit straight after "We are better".
² Partly the phone display issues, partly how "thousand words" this really is. In the end I decided Experimental and the relevant contest rule (the Fimfiction counter is all that matters) justified the second. The first, while mildly irritating, wasn't enough to push such an intriguing fic back below the line.
The Enlightenment of Sonata Dusk by Mockingbirb
Sonata, Wallflower, Sci-Twi, Juniper and Twilight
G4 EqG; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen (Sex)
Sometimes, noticing even the smallest detail can change a person's life.
This last one is... strange. We see a succession of vignettes of CHS-world life, ranging from Fluttershy making out with a tree to a decidedly odd exchange about the Whinny Nam war and television. I'm fairly sure there's supposed to be something connecting all of them, but sadly Sonata ends the fic more enlightened than I did. I mean, I enjoyed the pieces, but I'm not really sure how they fit into a single jigsaw. Mockingbirb noticeably avoids direct answers in the Fimfiction comments, and I have to be honest: I don't entirely understand this fic. My top-end two rating reflects that, not its objective quality. ★★
I'm going to pause the Thousand Words reviews for a week now, just to break things up a bit. Fear not, they will be back in a fortnight! Next time, though, there'll be a more traditional Roundup with five fics in the spotlight (though not a Spotlight). Here are the stories I've chosen:
The Return of Sunset by Ninjadeadbeard
What it Means to Rule by Boltstrike58
Chances of Fire by yodajax10 (review requested by author)
The Empress and the Goose-Girl by Shaslan
Twilight Seeks Help by TheOtakuX
wow, ten fics! :D thousand word contest gets those numbers up, don't it?
ReplyDeleteThe fic numbers, absolutely. Not so much the word count! That will be considerably higher next week.
DeleteHere I was prepared to make a point, and when I checked, the evidence didn't support it...
ReplyDeleteI got the impression that this batch rated lower yet were higher ranked in the contest results, but it turns out that it's exactly the same, except there's one extra fic here that rated 2 stars. So yes, it's lower, but barely, and arguably no different. I was going to say we all have that moment where we look at contest results and agree on some entries and wildly disagree on others, and at least on an individual basis, you did like the honorable mentions better in a few categories than the judges' prizes, but when you're down in the thick of the batch like this, there's a fair amount of noise, too.
As to my entry here...
Yes, the cyan doesn't look great in light mode, and I normally use light mode myself, but I wanted a color that would still feel representative of Celestia, and pink just didn't show up at all. I felt it was the best choice for the situation. It's not super-easy to read, but doesn't hinder it much. I was also worried that people reading it on a phone would have the formatting messed up, which I voiced in the comments, and the only person to reply about that specifically said it looked fine on his phone. When I finally looked at it on mine, it's fine there, too (iPhone 7s). So you're the first person who's said it didn't work on their phone, but it didn't surprise me to learn that was the case for at least one reader, and likely more, since you don't have a unique phone.
Man, this means my next one you read will have to clear the 5-star mark. That's a tall order, considering the next one up will probably be another of these 1000-word entries. Though that one is a Fluttershy story, so maybe it'll pander to you just enough...
The phone thing may be down to my having poor eyesight and so using a fairly large font (22 point) on my book reader app. I was actually quite impressed that only the one part was affected at all.
Delete