Ponyfic Roundup 517

Read it Later story count: 93 (nc)

Words read this week: 28,101

Not a great deal going on around here since I last posted a Roundup, other than having three days of snow on the ground last week. This is really unusual for November in these parts – I didn't see lying snow in daylight once last winter, though that's unusual in the other direction. Mind you, since it's still autumn I haven't seen it this winter either yet. :P Anyway, here are today's five stories. One mid-length tale and a quartet of shortfics:

Of Love, Snow and Shadows by Feather Book
Ragamuffin Fights a Giant Rat by EileenSaysHi
Forgotten by milesprower06
TRIBUTE [sic] by Lamms
The Offspring by Flutterpriest

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

Of Love, Snow and Shadows by Feather Book
Luna and Sombra
G4; Romance; 4k words; Dec 2017; Everyone

Sombra struggles with the meaning of Hearth's Warming. Luna is determined to show it to him.

A slightly early seasonal fic to start us off today. Written for a Lunbra¹ shipping contest, and unsurprisingly set after Sombra has been reformed. (This story was rendered AU by S9, of course.) It's a cute little thing, too. Although the opening isn't as smooth as it might be, it's worth persevering as things do fall into place. Luna showing Sombra some of the meaning of the season, and him not instantly moving from evil to perfect helps a lot in making it feel warm but believable. I rather enjoyed his well-meaning grumpiness. (Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd use about Sombra!) Although not absolutely necessary, it will help a lot to have read Sombra's comic-canon origin story (in his FIENDship is Magic issue) since otherwise one name won't have the impact it should. A solid three. ★★★
¹ Anyone got a better name for it? I'm drawing a blank.

Ragamuffin Fights a Giant Rat by EileenSaysHi
Other [Ragamuffin]
G4 EqG; Romance/Comedy/Random; 2k words; Sep 2024; Teen (Violence)

Everyone's favorite questionably-accented cruise staffer gets in a brawl with a dog-sized rodent. A love story.

If you managed to stay awake long enough while watching Spring Breakdown, you'll doubtless recall the apparent homage to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins that was Ragamuffin. Well, here he behaves like the utter idiot he doubtless is and gets a suitable reward. The story is about as stupid as Rags himself, but given EileenSaysHi is so good at EqG fics it doesn't devolve into an unreadable mess. One commenter mentions Asmongold several times, and as I had no bloody clue who that was until I looked him up I may have missed some of the funnies here. So three stars may or may not be reasonable, but then I may or may not be reasonable also. ★★★

Forgotten by milesprower06
Sunny, Izzy, Hitch, Pipp and Zipp
G5; Mystery/Sad/Slice of Life; 21k words; Sep–Oct 2021; Everyone

Eager for more answers about Equestria's ancient history, Sunny Starscout uses one of her dad's maps to venture into a long-untouched forest in search of the past.

Note that publication date: you can ignore anything from Make Your Mark or Tell Your Tale here. Sunny is her very appealing G5 film self, and her friends are similarly drawn. It'll be fairly obvious quite quickly exactly where Sunny is and what she's discovered, but the mystery aspect is not the main reason to read this fic. Enjoying some time with the movie-style G5 Manes is. The story was written on the fly, and that would have shown in a few places even if the (slightly irritating) A/Ns after every chapter hadn't made it so clear. A few too many speech tag capitalisation errors, but otherwise unobtrusively written. Considering this was written a matter of weeks after the film appeared, it's not at all a bad read. Be prepared for a few feels. ★★★

TRIBUTE [sic] by Lamms Rainbow Dash, Discord and OC
G4; Comedy/Random; 0.4k words; Feb 2012; Teen

[no shortdesc]

This 428-word fic (yes, you read that right) is a ponification of the Tenacious D track "Tribute". That's pretty much all it is, and a lot of the lyrics are reproduced practically word for word. It's repurposed (slightly) to be about the best FIC in the world. Yes, FIC. No idea why the all caps. Admittedly I don't know the original song beyond a quick skim of its lyrics and a listen on YouTube, which probably didn't help, but sadly I found this fic bland, uninteresting and lacking in any real originality. The longdesc reads, in its entirety, "The greatest FIC in the history of ever". No wonder it didn't have a shortdesc. What could you say? ★

The Offspring by Flutterpriest
Flurry Heart, Shining Armor and Cadance
G4; Comedy; 1k words; Feb 2024; Teen (Sex)

Flurry comes out as asexual to her parents. This leaves one important question. How will she birth a new ruler? Shining has the answer. It's bad.

Given this non-entry for the Shining Armor is a Terrible Dad contest is an openly stupid comedy by a writer who doesn't lack for imagination when it comes to such fics, I have to assume the title's similarity to a certain band who went far (kid) is deliberate. Flurry comes out to her parents as asexual, but this causes issues as to where, well, issue will come from to continue the royal line. In spite of my general distaste for sex comedies (or not, in Flurry's case) I was quite enjoying this until it took a real turn for the gross a fair way through. Yes, that shortdesc is related. That knocks a star off for me, since the writing itself is good and fun. I also have to name and shame "pegasai", a plural which I haven't seen for about a decade and didn't really want to see again, even if I suspect it was clearly used deliberately to get people's backs up. ;) ★★

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Next week it'll be the final part of my look at the Thousand Word Contest III's medal-winning fics. This one, of course, will deal with the five Gold Medallists! I've discovered quite a few stories I've really enjoyed in this series, but none of them have quite got to the fabled five-star status. Last time lucky? We shall see! The fics will be:

Our Creation Myth by AltruistArtist
Artificial Sunlight by gloamish
Equestrian Family Values by daOtterGuy
Squatters, Right? by GrangeDisplay
Rainbow Dash Reads the Manual by Bandy