Ponyfic Roundup 547: Serious Edition

Read it Later story count: 92 (+4)

Words read this week: 24,863

Thanks to Blogger being a bit of a pain, Ponyfic Roundup is slightly late this week. For once it's not my own fault, at least! Anyway, as I noted last month, I once had an edition of PR wherein all the fics had the word "silly" (or variations thereof) in their titles. That being so, I thought, why not have an edition from the other end of the spectrum? And here we are!

Potions Are Serious Business by Rough_Draft
Twilight Sparkle Marries a Book (Seriously, Twilight?!) by ThePinkedWonder
Are. You. SERIOUS?!?!?! by SomeGenericPonyNameHere
Serious about Silly by Grey Faerie
Apples Are Serious Business by housedoc

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

Potions Are Serious Business by Rough_Draft
Twilight, Fluttershy, Spike and Zecora
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 6k words; Feb 2013; Everyone

Hearts and Hooves Day is drawing near, and Twilight is determined to figure out this whole "love" business.

Quite a fun example of those earlyish-fandom stories in which Twi hasn't quite come to terms with social life. She naturally looks to her books, but also to the Everfree Forest, wherein lives Zecora. A refreshing aspect to this TwiShy tale is that the pairing isn't kept from the principals until near the end by often convoluted means. That gives it a slightly different texture to so many shipfics. Both Twilight and Fluttershy convince as their S3-era selves. It's not going to shake any earths, but this is a cute and pleasant read that can be enjoyed beyond TwiShy devotees. ★★★

Twilight Sparkle Marries a Book (Seriously, Twilight?!) by ThePinkedWonder
Twilight, Discord, Starlight and Mane Six
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 3k words; Dec 2019; Everyone

Twilight Sparkle pops the question. Discord can't believe WHAT she popped the question to.

Set in late S5, this is definitely not a serious story in tone! When Twilight asks "Booky" to marry her and he (apparently) accepts, she's utterly thrilled. Even Discord, though, finds it too silly for words. We get Starlight (evil version) popping into existence and being oddly sympathetic. We get Discord being accused of jealousy. We get the narrator as a fairly chatty fellow who comments on the story as it's going along. We have what I think is the only appearance of the word "booksexual" in ponyfic. So quite a few good ingredients here, but it doesn't quite gel. The story has a touch of [Random] disease in that the silliness can get in the way of an actual story, and it's not quite absurd enough to do without one. ★★

Are. You. SERIOUS?!?!?! by SomeGenericPonyNameHere
Discord, Fluttershy and OCs
G4; Comedy; 2k words; Jan 2018; Everyone

Discord meets an unfamiliar pony. Regrets have been made.

It turns out that this is a tourist – apparently a species little known in Ponyville, despite "Putting Your Hoof Down". There's an opportunity here for some The Colour of Magic-style fun, but while I wouldn't expect Pratchettian quality here, I was hoping for some sharp barbs at tourism from Discord. He does sound quite convincing a couple of times, but not always – and I don't think the several sudden tense shifts are intended as a picture of chaos. The conversation with the tourist is surprisingly ordinary, allowing for Discord. ★★

Serious about Silly by Grey Faerie
OCs, Discord and Mane Six
G4; Comedy; 12k words; Feb 2014–Apr 2016; Everyone

Pinkie's friends learn what she meant about being serious about parties.

Crisis hits when Pinkie Pie gets ill just before an important party (though, of course, all parties are important to Pinkie). Her friends rally round, but not always in the most expected ways. Decent setup then, and the PinkieCord shipping is certainly a change from the usual pairings even back then! A pity the execution is so lacking, though. Characters come and go without any real reason for their presence – including Grey Faerie, though I'll give points for the self-insert not taking over the story. A couple of other OCs are forgettable to the extent I had to check back to remember who they were. The canon characters are sometimes only marginally recognisable as their show selves. The fic is full of technical issues, mostly minor but very numerous. It does have the odd flash of genuine fun, such as a sick Pinkie singing a terrible song but meta-ly consoling herself that its being "original and poorly done" avoids copyright problems (for the fic). But they're very few and far between and the main story feels thrown together most of the time. A top-end one only, I'm afraid. ★

Apples Are Serious Business by housedoc
Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rarity
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 2k words; Jul 2014; Teen

Applejack is teaching Pinkie how to make apple pies. Pinkie's apples are from a questionable source. Drama ensues.

And so we end as we began, with serious business. One thing that's often forgotten these days is that, in the early years of G4, it was Applejack who was canonically Ponyville's best baker. Pinkie herself says so at one point in S1. The trouble is that Pinkie here has bought apples that are, dun dun dun, not from Sweet Apple Acres. Cue AJ going a bit on the wild side. The argument about "MMOs", "magically modified organisms", has quite some potential, but sadly the satire doesn't hit as the plot moves on too fast. There's an apparent minor nod to Cupcakes that I could happily have done without, and the ending is clunky. That's lampshaded by Pinkie, which is a cute touch, but it's still clunky. ★★

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Next time, I'll be in Spotlight mode again, since it's been a few weeks since I've looked at a longer story. This is one I got recommended by an algorithm, so we'll see how it goes. The basic setup is given as "What if Sunset Shimmer hadn't gone through the mirror?" I'd never heard of the story before, despite its 39k views, but MagnetBolt wrote the highly enjoyable The Doom that Came to Tambelon (PR 211) which I think is cause for optimism.

The Witch of the Everfree by MagnetBolt