Ponyfic Roundup 499: Nearly There Edition

Read it Later story count: 94 (-2)

Words read this week: 31,379

Well, it's been a long journey, but it's nearly at an end reached its next milestone. Next week, I will be hitting my 500th edition of Ponyfic Roundup, and you can bet I have something lined up for that. That's for a little later, though. First, it's time to look at today's five, all of which have (at least in their titles) some sense of almost, nearly, not quite and so on. Here they are:

Almost Famous by sporksalasagna
This Nearly Was Mine by BillyColt
Not Quite a Mare by Sky Melody
On the Edge by Roxxi
Filthy Rich Gets Divorced! (Almost) by deadpansnarker

★: 1 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Almost Famous by sporksalasagna
Moondancer, Minuette, Lyra, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 2k words; May 2020; Everyone

When a group of Canterlot unicorns visits Ponyville, a celebrity sighting sparks a surprising conversation.

The celebrity is, unsurprisingly, one of the Bearers, specifically Rainbow Dash. But here's the thing: Moondancer doesn't recognise her and – until she's nudged about Dash being one of Twilight's friends – doesn't realise she's an Element. As the A/N says, there's a mismatch in canon between the vast achievements of the Mane Six and how they're often not treated as celebrities at all. A nice setup, and the author plays around with this amusingly at times. Rainbow's reaction to Spike's reception is a good example. It just never really gets out of second gear as far as comedy goes. This was sporksalasagna's only published fic – a bit of a shame, as they showed some promise, but this debut is merely mildly amusing. ★★

This Nearly Was Mine by BillyColt
Other [Frederic Horseshoepin], Octavia and Vinyl Scratch
G4; Romance/Sad/Slice of Life; 13k words; Dec 2011–Aug 2012; Everyone

Professional Pianist Pines

Frederic is a classical pianist, and a good one too. He keeps his feelings rather buttoned up, but this becomes increasingly hard when he realises how he feels about Octavia. The thing is, Octavia is involved with Vinyl, and that brings jealousy he doesn't quite know how to deal with – though the matter of their sexuality isn't really explored. Later, there's a scene at Vinyl's club that brings hints of "I am Octavia", especially the extended animated version I link to – though this fic came first. Frederic's buttoned-up emotions are well portrayed, and though the use of musical terms for chapter headings is mildly clichéd it doesn't get in the way of the story. It's quite well written, bar one jarring (but short) head-hop late on, and as far as I can tell the musical stuff is accurate. This is very slice-of-lifey, and (if I may shamelessly misuse musical terminology) many scenes end somewhat diminuendo. Relatively little happens in terms of character development, but this gets a three for me for its atmosphere. ★★★

Not Quite a Mare by Sky Melody
Celestia and Luna
G4; Slice of Life; 3k words; Dec 2015; Everyone

Celestia has decided she is no longer a filly, and is instead a mare who is too old for childish games, but as time goes on, she realises that it may not have been as good of an idea as she first thought...

Rather a long, er, shortdesc for a short fic. It's one of those simple tales where said shortdesc pretty much tells the story. You have to allow the existence of the sisters' parents as much like any others, but that's not a huge problem. Celestia clashes with Luna over telling her younger sister that she (Tia) will no longer play games as she's a mare, will drink tea instead of juice, and so on. With a bit more care over the writing and a boost in cuteness, this could have been quite adorable. As it is, it's disappointingly subdued, with nothing remotely surprising happening and an ending you can see coming from space. A two, but not by a great deal. ★★

On the Edge by Roxxi
Rainbow Dash
G4; Sad; 12k words; Jun–Jul 2012; Everyone

When you feel pushed to your edge, sometimes the only option left is to jump.

If published today, I suspect this fic would have the [Suicide/Self-Harm] warning tag and consequently a Teen rating. (It should have one anyway for a late scene when a drunk pony asks if Dash is a prostitute...) The story opens with Rainbow at a literal cliff edge, on the point of ending it all. We then get a series of flashbacks giving some insight into why she feels so hopeless. The key event is one she'd genuinely find shattering, but the story doesn't convince when it comes to showing us the background. A scene in a hospital involving Dash and her spouse Soarin is unbelievable – at least, unless the staff are completely useless. We also get several shoe-horned "20%" mentions and sudden, barely plot-relevant reveals like Applejack having a poly relationship. Shipping plays an unreasonably significant part all round, actually – talking of which, at one point one major character casually tells another that they "had [their] marriage annulled" in another city a month ago but hadn't had time to mention it. Sheesh. The unevenness of the fic probably wasn't helped by the fact that (as an end-chapter A/N says) the author lost internet during the process when someone they knew drunk-drove through their telephone poles...! This kind of brink-of-suicide fic needs fine judgement to write well, and sadly this story doesn't really display that. It's not impossibly bad, but given the subject matter it needed to do a lot better. Top-end one only, I'm afraid. ★

Filthy Rich Gets Divorced! (Almost) by deadpansnarker
Other [Filthy Rich and Spoiled Rich] and Diamond Tiara
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 2k words; Dec 2016; Everyone

For Filthy Rich, at long, long last, the end is neigh.He's finally ready to cast off the shackles of confinement, remove the bridle of repression, and run as far away from his captor Spoiled Rich as fast as his four legs will carry him.Well, almost.

Another short fic with a lengthy shortdesc. Filthy is about to sign the document that will get him out of his marriage to Spoiled Rich. Will he do it, or will something stop him? He wonders why he's delaying and settles upon his daughter's welfare. Diamond Tiara of course had everything she wanted, but when she had started to behave like his wife... well, that did give him pause for thought. I really enjoyed the opening to this fic, laughing out loud a couple of times (fortunately not on the train!) but it loses a bit of oomph later and becomes just a little wordy. I was waiting for a zinger at the end, and when that never came I did feel rather underwhelmed. As such, an upper two-star rating, I think. ★★

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Have you noticed what's missing down here yet? I'll bet you have! And yes, that's deliberate: I have a particular theme in mind for PR 500 and I want it to be a surprise. As such, for this week only I won't be telling you just yet which stories I'm going to be looking at next time. Okay, there's a clue in that last sentence – it's not going to be a single-fic Spotlight edition – but that's all you're getting today. See you on the 31st!