Words read this week: 36,057
It's May now, everycreature! Season of greenery, sunshine (sometimes) and at least later on, hay fever. What relevance this has to this blog is debatable at best. If you're going to Griffish Isles in a couple of weeks then that will probably be among this month's highlights, but since I'm not it isn't. What is relevant is that I've recently had several fics recommended to me, which is one reason the RiL count has increased. I'll be reading some of those before adding any more, though, so that count isn't going to go back to three figures!
Losing a Rhyme by Original Username
Cozy Glow: FIENDship is Magic by RainbowDoubleDash
New... Friends? by OneLonelyPickle
The Tumultuous Tribulations of Time Turner. by midnighttowboy
Prince Blueblood VS Big Macintosh by MontyCS
★: 1 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 1
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Losing a Rhyme by Original Username
CMC and Zecora
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 1k words; Nov 2014; Everyone
The CMC make a startling discovery about the reason behind Zecora's rhyming... and then promptly move on and get back to crusading.
The Crusaders venture into the Everfree Forest and have an encounter with Poison Joke. Luckily for them, Zecora is around and takes them in to clean them up. While there, she lets them in on a secret. That's about the size of it for this fic. For most of its length it's a simple, fairly entertaining CMC romp – but the reason Zecora provides for the rhyming thing seems too out of character for her. ★★
Cozy Glow: FIENDship is Magic by RainbowDoubleDash
Cozy Glow and Tirek
G4; Drama/Sad; 21k words; Apr 2020; Everyone
Tirek and Cozy Glow meet for the first time. This looks like the start of a beautiful FIENDship.
As the title suggests, this fic is intended to be a "villain backstory" piece like IDW's FIENDship is Magic comic series. In this it succeeds admirably. Using chess as a running theme, the story gives a convincing explanation for Cozy's early life – the central story is set during the S4 finale, though there are plenty of flashbacks to earlier times, including vital insight into filly!Cozy's family life. Given that S4 setting, it's inevitable that Tirek is the other principal, and RainbowDoubleDash provides a fascinating take on his character too – including having he and Cozy interact in ways I'd never have thought of. I think it does help to have at least a basic knowledge of chess, as there are a lot of "Cozy moved her bishop to e5 to repel the attack"-type lines. They really work in context, but if you have no idea at all what a rook is or what check means, it might not help. Very slightly too many minor technical errors (incorrect speech tag capitalisation, you're/your confusion, that kind of thing) but they're quite scattered and in any case are utterly overwhelmed by the fantastic characterisation and the brilliant originality of the whole setup. Present Perfect loved this. Ghost Mike loved this. And guess what, I love this too. ★★★★★
NB: Although CG:FiM stands perfectly well alone, it is apparently the first in a planned cycle of seven stories – but since the fifth hasn't been updated for almost two years now, I have to be sceptical we'll ever see the series finished.
New... Friends? by OneLonelyPickle
Mane Six, Sunny, Izzy and Pipp
G4/G5 (sort of; see below); Drama/Sad/Tragedy; 3k words; Feb 2021; Everyone
There goes the franchise... err, neighborhood.
This was possibly the first ever "G5" fic. Quotes because it was based entirely on those bedsheets that we saw before even the smallest actual trailer had arrived. This means that the characters of Sunny, Izzy and Pipp (who don't even have their names here) were a blank slate. The author springboards off the negativity in parts of the fandom at the time and makes the new arrivals in Ponyville exhibit the kind of clunking caricatures of wokeness that you see on social media. I'm not entirely sure why. Sample dialogue: "Did y'all just ASSUME we was mares?" To be honest, this running joke quickly outstays its already limited welcome. Plus in 2024, now we know for better or worse what G5 actually turned out to be, the story has no real purpose beyond, I suppose, "first!" bragging rights. You can give it a miss unless you're really curious. ★
The Tumultuous Tribulations of Time Turner. by midnighttowboy
Doctor Whooves and Derpy
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 3k words; Oct 2012; Everyone
Time Turner is a clockmaker, one of the best, but a certain rumor seems to take over his whole life.
You can probably guess what that rumour is, and you'd be right! Time Turner becomes increasingly irritated by the refusal of ponies to let it drop, until eventually Derpy comes up with – as you'd maybe expect – another angle to look at it from. There's a silly but fun coda to the piece, too. It's a slight story and doesn't do anything new, but it might work decently as a tea-break fic. ★★
Prince Blueblood VS Big Macintosh by MontyCS
Big Mac, Blueblood, Applejack and Rarity
G4; Adventure/Comedy; 7k words; Oct 2022; Everyone
Big Mac takes on Prince Blueblood to defend Applejack and Rarity's honor.
Set in the wake of the S1 finale, this story sees Blueblood refuse to apologise for the way he treated Rarity (especially) and the others at the Grand Galloping Gala. Instead, he feels his honour has been impugned and challenges Big Mac to a jousting duel. It's a fun setup, and Mac is both determined and likeable as he should be. Unfortunately Blueblood's utter lack of redeeming features (calling others "peasants", etc) makes him quite one-dimensional. Even though that's canon-compliant for the episode in question, it's a real shame he wasn't given a little depth as the IDW comics managed. As this stands, a top-end two. ★★
A somewhat unbalanced collection of ratings, but it happens. There'll be another five short stories on the slate next week. These will be:
Does a cyborg have a soul? by GrayOnBlue
Movements of Fire and Shadow by Inquisitor M
The 2,000 Year Friendship by DaeCat
Angel Crashes a Wedding by Prak
Velvet Quill & Sunny Skies by Sledge115
Welp, that "G5" fic does certainly sound like one of the fictions of all time :v
ReplyDeleteI think it goes in the "you had to be there" column, really.
DeleteStoked to see RainbowDoubleDash's origin story fic for Cozy get the highest rating! Being honest I'd forgotten so much of it revolved around a chess game, so captivating were the characters and the emotional arc escalating through the game. It surely must be the best chessfic I've read then too, a genre as dubious as Cozy is as a character. Making it twice the miracle!
ReplyDeleteShame on the ratings otherwise, but hey, least the five-star fic was over half the cumulative word count! Same thing happened for me this week, funnily enough (a fic with slightly more than half the words that week getting the top rating while the others are a few rungs below), though even there the others weren't as rough as for you here. Shows how one fantastic fic can make a week, though!
Don't recognise anything from next week, though Sledge115 writes quality time and time again, so I'm sure that fic will excel. And… Inquisitor M? Never anyone I interacted with, he left before my time, but you can bet I've seen his legacy comments all over, both on Fimfic and here.
Lad has… well, let's just say he has high standards. :D
I did hesitate slightly before awarding it a five, partly because the little technical errors, though not that numerous, were surprising and annoying in a story otherwise written so well. (Of course, anyone experiencing it in audio would miss them.)
DeleteInteracting with Inquisitor M was... an experience. He was surprisingly generous to me about We Who With Songs Beguile, though, so there's that.
Oh wow, a rare 5-star, in the wild! :D Too bad I already read that one, or I would be rushing to add it to lists somewhere!
ReplyDeleteClearly, I did 'cynical doomsaying about G5' better. :V
You certainly did. Though this one was inspired by bedsheets.
DeleteYep, got that one on my read-it-sooner list!
ReplyDeleteThe chess angle is what might put off some people, I think, as it's not something you can skim over. But I was delighted with the actual story and the character interactions between Cozy and Tirek.
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