Read it Later story count: 95 (+1)
Words read this week: 6,000
Cult of Personality by Cold in Gardez
Shoot for the Stars by SnowShine
The Thing About Chess by Odd_Sarge
Luna Luna Luna Luna by Botched Lobotomy
Cloaked Fate by Lunaria
Hierarchy of Needs by AugieDog
★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Pewter Medal, Comedy
Cult of Personality by Cold in Gardez
Starlight and Mane Six
G4; Comedy; 1k words; Jul 2024; Everyone
Starlight Glimmer doesn't think of herself as a cultist, anymore. Thanks to her new-found friends, that part of her life is in the past. But, all things considered, she was a damn good cult leader. It'd be a shame to let that experience go to waste.
The Mane Seven, as they now effectively are, have just celebrated consigning another dangerous cult to the Friendship Dungeon. There is one question, though: why exactly does Starlight's picture hang on their wall? It turns out her unique experience of cults and cultishness has quite the effect. Looking at the wolrd of cults through Glimmy's eyes provides a fun little story, one well suited to Starlight's personality. I saw the ending coming, but it's still amusing. A top-end three. ★★★
Pewter Medal, Comedy
Shoot for the Stars by SnowShine
Trixie, Starlight and Other
G4; Romance/Comedy; 1k words; Jul 2024; Teen
In an act of pure love, Trixie shoots her and Starlight to the stars. Unfortunately, that's not possible.
Clearly inspired by that Guardians of Harmony toy (as referenced in the cover art here), this mini-romcom begins at a party. A party with drinks.A party with a lot of drinks. As such, when Trixie has the idea of letting Starlight see where her name comes from by riding a firework, Glimmy isn't inclined to demur. I was grinning widely at that point, expecting something completely wild -- but in the end this fic didn't really land for me, despite some nice character work. Part of this is personal taste -- I'm not a huge fan of drunk comedy for the most part -- but also the back half felt a bit predictable. Needs a proofread, too. ★★
Pewter Medal, Comedy
The Thing About Chess by Odd_Sarge
Blueblood, Celestia and Luna
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jul 2024; Everyone
Blueblood wants to beat Celestia at her own game. Unfortunately for him, that requires the ability to think.
Oh goody, you may be thinking. Yet another Celestia chessmaster fic. But, as its feature paragraph notes, the joy here is in the subtler humour and what happens between black and white. True, Blueblood here is an idiot, but Celestia's feelings about him come through well. There are some lovely lines -- "it was a versatile sense of candor" early on is perfect in context, and the shortdesc itself is brutally funny. I suppose you could say this can feel a little lightweight, but then its light touch is more of an asset. Another solid three from me. ★★★
Pewter Medal, Experimental
Luna Luna Luna Luna by Botched Lobotomy
Luna
G4; "Experimental" (see below); 1k words; Jul 2024; unrated (see below)
Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna Luna
Yes, that is the description the author gives. This fic is the only one here that is not up as a story on Fimfiction. It was, but the site mods there took it down on the grounds that repeating the word Luna over and over was not a story. The contest judges allowed it to maintain its entry as a blog post. I quite strongly disagree with this decision -- I think it fundamentally changes the character of the event if the challenge of remaining within site story rules isn't a hard limit, and I don't like it even for Experimental entries. However, I also think the site mods were a bit unfair, as this is rather more than just writing out "Luna" a thousand times. Structure matters. Formatting matters. Spacing matters. Punctuation matters. Everything matters. There's certainly a story here in the sense that it tells a tale. It's extremely clever, but it's also extremely tough going to work out what's going on. I think I got parts of it, but a long way from all. It was much too difficult for me, and in the end that meant I didn't actually enjoy reading it all that much. Put that and my reservations about the judging together and I can't really justify more than a moderate two-star rating -- but even more than usual, that's a reelection of my personal experience, not an attempt at an objective measure of quality. if you love this kind of thing, I suspect you will absolutely adore Luna Luna Luna Luna. I could even see some people giving it their equivalent of a five. Just not me. ★★
Pewter Medal, Experimental
Cloaked Fate by Lunaria
Starlight and Other
G4; Drama/Horror/Mystery; 1k words; Jul 2024; Teen
Starlight grapples with the weight of the truth. The sparkling rays of the morning sun reflects off of the canopy of the crystal castle.
This fic isn't quite as experimentally experimental as Luna Luna Luna Luna, but it does use some non-standard formatting, so it's best to read it in a computer browser. It also most definitely repays two readings, done in different ways. Can't say more because spoilers! The Horror aspect is fairly muted, but it is there. I like the gimmick here, which is quite clever, and Starlight is a good choice as protagonist. Possibly not quite as smooth as it could be in its secondary story (again, vagueness to avoid spoilers) but a nicely turned little fic that's well worthy of a three. ★★★
Pewter Medal, Experimental
Hierarchy of Needs by AugieDog
Discord
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jul 2024; Everyone
Does Discord want? Does Discord need? He likes to think that he doesn't, but then he likes to think a lot of things. All of them at the same time, usually...
It's perhaps unsurprising that the Experimental category would see some use of Discord. This story has a very Discord-y Discord indeed , which is its delight. There is wordplay and whimsy and wonder and weirdness, sometimes simultaneously. AugieDog skilfully avoids going wildly over the top, instead keeping us on a ride that sweeps and swells like the sea without crashing on the rocks. The best praise I can offer here is that I completely accept this as Discord's thought process, or at least that slightly toned down to make it an actually readable story. My favourite fic this week. ★★★★
Alternating contest and other stories is letting me keep some variety here, so I'll keep on with that. Next week's fics will be as follows:
One Night in Saddle Arabia by A Wise Pony
"It Is All Hell" by It Is All Hell [sic] (reviewed at author's request)
Cake Story by Blueshift
White Noise by Ninjadeadbeard
Somepony to Fall On by hoofbeatsoftime
Hm, the honorable mentions seemed to do better as a group, but then these are the more divisive genres this week. None of these are ones I've read.
ReplyDeleteYep, it doesn't surprise me especially, given the genres.
Deleteoh, is that what all those Botched Lobotomy blogs were about? c_c that was definitely a choice
ReplyDelete:p
DeleteHah! Thank you for your thoughts on Luna Luna Luna Luna. It's definitely my most experimental fic (so far!) and I'm not totally sure whether I'd consider it a success myself. I love the interpretations people have of it, though!
ReplyDeleteAs for the ruling on contest validity - these were worries I had, too. On the one hand, I do like that the site rules mean that there are some rules that even experimental entries have to follow - on the other, those site rules can be a little abitrary. The "no script-format stories" rule, for instance, is something of an outdated and reductive limiter on form. Not to mention, LLLL didn't actually break any site rules, and was taken down anyway. (Not that I have any bias on that matter, of course.)
But still - even if the experimental category is more open-ended with respect to blog-post-stories next year, I imagine I'll try to publish as a story - it's just a better, more accessible format.
(Ps, you're two for two on not vibing with my most experimental fics - if youre at all interested, might I suggest trying one of the more traditional ones? Basically any of them but these two.)
Honestly, Luna Luna Luna Luna held my interest all the way through, which isn't true of many of the stories in this contest.
Delete@Botched Lobotomy Thank you very much for going to the trouble of providing such an interesting comment! And yes, I'm definitely interested in reading more fics by you. Can't give a specific timeframe, but watch this space!
DeleteWait, that Luna one had a story!?
ReplyDelete*reads the comments on it*
" The line of upper-bound and lower-bound Lunas feels like frolicking to me..." ~ Bandy
:P
a dream makes sense. At the time I thought it was a... song? Or at least the narrative voice started singing to me.
now I see the moons.
At the time I saw the family tree bit, but I just thought Luna was creating more Lunas.