Read it Later story count: 90 (+1)
Words read this week: 30,956
All But Two by Caisius
Rivers of Babylon by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Silver String of Love by foxmaster
The Monster We Made by Corah Il Cappo
Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Bootlegs by TheDriderPony
★: 2 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
All But Two by Caisius
Applejack and Apple Bloom
G4; Sad/Slice of Life; 3k words; Apr 2013; Everyone
At some point, everypony has to face the truth, no matter how much it hurts to do so. For Applejack, it's the fact that not everypony had been at the reunion that day. All but two had been there. All but two.
From that shortdesc I was expecting a fairly straightforward "missing their parents" story, and it is mostly that. There is though an appealing note of the conflict between that sadness and the strength they've gained from dealing with it. This made it to EQD at the time, and it's well enough written, though possibly because of "The Perfect Pear" – and possibly also just the passage of time – the fic doesn't seem particularly special now. It hits the right notes of heartwarmingness and family bonds, but it does so very predictably. This story has a personal dimension for the author, mentioned in its end A/N, though that doesn't affect my rating of it here. Also, Aviators, one of my favourite fandom (well, ex-fandom now) musicians was inspired to write "Heaven Knows" by this story. ★★
Rivers of Babylon by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Mane Six
G4 AU; [no genre tag]; 7k words; Mar 2014; Teen (Gore)
Trapped on the wrong side of the portal in the Breezie homeland, Twilight and her friends must take a journey inward to return home.
That description (the longdesc is the same) certainly caught my eye, and it is indeed interesting. It's one of those stories where the magical thing – in this case, a path under a tree – takes ponies where they need to go rather than necessarily where they want to go. The [Gore] tag is cautious and arguably unnecessary, but I can see why it's there. Each of the Manes encounters something different, for example Twilight finds a world where she's the only princess Equestria has ever had. It's a nice look inside the Manes'... souls, perhaps, for want of a better word? The story does have just the occasional clunky line ("We've always been at war with East Haysia", really now?) but it's mostly fairly smooth reading. I did find the ending disappointingly underwhelming, albeit well in character. A solid three, on balance. ★★★
Silver String of Love by foxmaster
Lyra, Bon-Bon, OC and Other
G4 EqG; Romance; 8k words; Feb–Aug 2018; Everyone
this is a love story about my oc and Lyra
Despite that unpromising shortdesc this fic starts off okay, and I like the idea that Equestria Girls Lyra is bullied for being obsessed with ponies. There are some fun flashes, such as Silver Spoon and Button Mash being an item, but the story itself seems increasingly written as a way to make the self-insert OC heroic. This inevitably includes predictable romantic notes, but it reaches absurd levels near the end of the story, where a barely introduced family background results in a feat that belongs in a very different style of cartoon. Also, although not too bad earlier on, after a while the small technical errors in capitalisation and punctuation become absolutely epidemic. We're talking things like not capitalising "I", spaces after opening quotes, and commas ending dialogue lines without said-tags virtually every time. There is also absolutely no way this should be rated E, as although not explicitly gory there is a constant theme of quite serious violence being inflicted on students. "Minor violence" in the longdesc is just misleading. This would probably be a lowish two if it weren't so tiring to read. As it is, I find it impossible to justify more than a one. ★
The Monster We Made by Corah Il Cappo
Twilight, Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Mane Six
G4; Dark/Sad/Tragedy; 11k words; Apr–Oct 2013; Teen
We trained her. We taught her. We raised her to godhood. She brought us down to earth.
It doesn't exactly endear a story to a reviewer when the A/N at the end of the very first chapter reads "Yes, it sucks. No, I don't care." I read this right through nevertheless. It's in the general "Twilight gets corrupted by power" genre, though with a distinctive structure in which roughly the same events are repeatedly told in 1,000-word (mostly) chapters by multiple ponies. But there's absolutely brutal violence (Twi outright murdering Celestia isn't the half of it) and only quite bare bones of a justification as to why Twilight would go down this path in the first place. Without even an [AU] tag, I simply can't reconcile this Twilight with the one from the show. This author has had a long Fimfiction career, so The Monster We Made may well not reflect their current output. But I can't give this story anything but a "not recommended" rating. ★
Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Bootlegs by TheDriderPony
Celestia, Nightmare Moon and Mane Six
G4; Comedy; 2k words; Jul 2019; Everyone
Nightmare Moon is weakened. All it'll take is one final blast of Harmony to purify her. Unfortunately, there's a few too many Elements on hand, most of which are... less than helpful.
A one-joke comedy, but one which doesn't outstay its welcome and so is actually amusing. Twilight is trying to defeat Nightmare Moon, but the iffy Elements she's summoned from another dimension are... less than ideal. The Element of Harm Only, for example. Or the Element of Armory. You get the idea. It's incredibly stupid but funny with it. One joke that will completely miss unless you're familiar with a specific American advert series, but otherwise it's pretty universal. ★★★
Not the greatest of weeks to give you after the delay, but these things happen. I shall be returning to the usual Wednesday publication date next week. With that in mind, I've decided to keep my word count pretty low this time. There'll still be the usual five fics to consider, though, and they will be as follows:
Wrong Turn by saarni
Reflection by Moproblems Moharmoney
Fixer-Upper by hoofbeatsoftime
Spike Destroys (Creates) Everything by Surry
The Wealth of the World by very trustworthy rodent
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